Overview
Risking capture and death at every turn, Harriet Tubman led more slaves to freedom than anyone else in American history.Born into slavery on a Maryland plantation in 1820, Tubman first attempted to escape from bondage at the age of seven but was caught, savagely beaten, and put to work as a field laborer. Twenty years later, she finally made her way to the free North, where she began her career as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, an informal network of northerners who helped runaway slaves. Between 1850 and 1860, she returned to the South again and again to guide more than 300 blacks, incuding her parents, to freedom.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Tubman went to South Carolina to assist the Union army. As a nurse, she helped care for thousands of newly freed slaves; as a spy, she made deep inroads into enemy territory; as a commando, she led a series of devastating raids on Confederate positions. After the war ended, she continued to serve those in need, offering food and shelter to the homeless. In her final years, she helped build a home for old and impoverished blacks in her adopted town of Auburn, New York.
Popularly known as "the Moses of her people," Tubman was motivated by her sense of justice and duty rather than a desire for personal gain or glory. "I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have," the abolitionist Frederick Douglass told her. "The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witness of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism."
Describes the life of the energetic abolitionist, including her origins as a slave in Maryland, her role as a "conductor" for the Underground Railroad, her service to the Union during the Civil War, and her role in establishing an old-age home for Afro-Americans.