Harriet Tubman: Moses of the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad brought freedom to countless passengers in the years leading up to the Civil War, thanks to conductors who risked their own lives to help slaves escape and lead them to slavery. Harriet Tubman is one of the most famous conductors to have worked on the Underground Railroad, whose journeys were made even more dangerous due to the fact that she was an escaped slave herself. Tubman was nicknamed “Moses” for helping hundreds of slaves find freedom and was very proud to say to say of her time as a conductor, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger” (Harriet Tubman).

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Dorchester county Maryland to Harriet Green and Ben Ross in approximately 1822. Her name at birth

Her family never left her mind, and in December 1850, when she received word that her niece and her niece’s children were going to be sold, she returned to the south to lead them to freedom. She returned to Maryland again the following spring to rescue more family members and others desiring freedom. On a subsequent trip she attempted to return to where she had previously lived to find her husband, only to discover that he had taken another wife. Deciding that he wasn’t worth the trouble, she instead found a group of slaves who wanted to escape, and led them to freedom. Because of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, she began leading slaves to Canada where slavery was illegal, instead to the northern states where they could be recaptured and returned to slavery. While escorting fugitive slaves to Canada, she occasionally worked with Fredrick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist. When leading slaves to freedom, Tubman was known to carry a gun to defend against slave catchers but also to persuade those she was guiding to continue the trek and not turn back if they had second thoughts. Over the course of eleven years, Harriet Tubman rescued over seventy slaves in approximately thirteen journeys into slave owning territories. She also specifically instructed over fifty more on the best ways to journey to freedom. In 1858 Tubman met John brown, an abolitionist who advocated using violence to end slavery. Tubman admired his direct action, although she didn’t promote using violence herself. With knowledge of the underground networks of people who condemned slavery, Harriet was a valuable resource To John Brown. She helped him in gathering a fighting force of ex slaves and in planning his raid on Harpers Ferry, although Harriet was not present while the raid took