Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Freedom Train
In the autumn of 1849, a young enslaved woman named Araminta Ross — known to history as Harriet Tubman — slipped away from a plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore and walked nearly 90 miles north to freedom in Pennsylvania. It was the beginning of one of the most extraordinary lives in American history. Over the next decade, Tubman would return to the South 13 times, personally leading approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom on the Underground Railroad. She never lost a single passenger.
Born into Bondage
Tubman was born around 1822 (the exact date is uncertain — slaveholders rarely recorded the births of enslaved people) in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was one of nine children born to Harriet "Rit" Green and Ben Ross, both enslaved. Her childhood was marked by violence and suffering common to the enslaved experience. She was hired out to various owners from the age of five or six, beaten regularly, and forced to perform grueling labor.
Around the age of 12 or 13, Tubman suffered a traumatic brain injury when an overseer threw a heavy metal weight at another enslaved person and struck her instead. The blow fractured her skull and caused seizures, severe headaches, and episodes of sudden unconsciousness — likely a form of temporal lobe epilepsy — that plagued her for the rest of her life. She also experienced vivid dreams and visions that she interpreted as messages from God.
"I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other." — Harriet Tubman
Escape
In 1844, Tubman married John Tubman, a free Black man, taking his surname. The marriage was complicated by her enslaved status — their children, if any, would be enslaved under Maryland law. When rumors circulated in 1849 that she and her brothers were about to be sold to a plantation further south — a fate feared above almost all others — she decided to run.
Her brothers turned back, but Harriet pressed on alone. Using the North Star for navigation, traveling by night, and aided by a network of sympathizers — both Black and white — she made her way through Delaware to Philadelphia. She later described the moment of crossing into free territory: "When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything."
The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was not a railroad and it was not underground. It was a loose, clandestine network of routes, safe houses ("stations"), and sympathizers ("conductors") that helped enslaved people escape from the South to free states and Canada. The network was decentralized and operated on trust — participants often knew only their immediate contacts, limiting the damage if anyone was captured and interrogated.
Tubman became the Railroad's most famous conductor. Beginning in 1850, she made roughly 13 trips back to Maryland's Eastern Shore over the next decade, personally guiding enslaved people to freedom. Her methods were meticulous. She traveled in winter when longer nights provided more cover. She departed on Saturday nights, since newspapers that might publish runaway notices didn't print on Sundays, buying an extra day before pursuit could be organized.
She carried a revolver — reportedly not just for protection against slave catchers but to discourage any fugitive from turning back and potentially betraying the group. "You'll be free or die," she reportedly told wavering passengers. No one turned back.
"Moses"
Tubman became known as "Moses" — a reference to the biblical prophet who led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage. Slaveholders in Maryland posted rewards for her capture totaling an estimated $40,000 (equivalent to well over $1 million today), though they did not know her identity for much of this period.
Her rescues included her own parents (whom she brought north in 1857), her brothers, and dozens of other relatives, friends, and strangers. She used an extensive network of contacts, safe houses, and disguises. On one occasion, she avoided detection by purchasing train tickets heading south — no one suspected a Black woman traveling deeper into slave territory was actually an escaping conductor.
Tubman settled in Auburn, New York, where she established a home that became a refuge for her family and other formerly enslaved people. She was a close associate of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and other leading abolitionists. Brown called her "General Tubman" and consulted her while planning his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859.
The Civil War
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tubman offered her services to the Union Army. She served as a nurse, cook, and spy in South Carolina. In June 1863, she became the first woman to lead an armed military operation in American history when she guided Colonel James Montgomery and 150 Black soldiers of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers on the Combahee River Raid. The raid destroyed Confederate supplies and liberated more than 700 enslaved people — who were brought to Union lines on steamboats while Tubman sang songs to calm the terrified passengers.
Despite her service, Tubman was never properly compensated. She received approximately $200 in total pay over three years of service and spent decades petitioning the government for a military pension, which was finally granted in 1899 — at the rate of $20 per month.
Later Years
After the war, Tubman devoted herself to women's suffrage and charitable work. She worked alongside Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland in the suffrage movement. In 1908, she established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in Auburn — a care facility for elderly African Americans, funded partly by her meager pension and the generosity of supporters.
She died on March 10, 1913, at approximately 91 years of age, surrounded by family and friends. Her last words, reportedly, were: "I go to prepare a place for you."
Legacy
Harriet Tubman's life is a testament to the power of individual courage in the face of systemic evil. Born into a system designed to strip her of humanity, she not only freed herself but returned again and again to free others, at constant risk of capture, torture, and death. Her legacy extends far beyond the Underground Railroad — as a military leader, suffragist, and humanitarian, she embodied the principle that freedom is not a gift to be received but a right to be claimed.
In 2016, the U.S. Treasury announced that Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill — a recognition, long overdue, of her central place in the American story.
