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Abolitionist & Underground Conductor

The greatest "conductor" on the Underground Railroad--an organized network of way stations which helped black slaves escape from the South to the free states and as far north as Canada--was a former slave and a woman, Harriet Ross Tubman.
Believed to have been born about 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman had a childhood similar to that of most slave children--no schooling, little play, much hard work, and often severe punishment. In 1848, she succeeded in escaping from this life, leaving her husband John Tubman, who threatened to report her to their master.

Once free, she began to devise practical ways to help others slaves escape. Over the next 10 years, she made some 20 trips from the North to the South, rescuing more than 300 slaves. A price of $40,000 was set on her head.

Harriet Tubman's reputation spread rapidly. She won the admiration of leading white abolitionists, some of whom sheltered her "passengers".

One of her major disappointments was the ultimate failure of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. She had met and aided Brown in recruiting soldiers for his cause (in fact, he called her "General Tubman"), and she was always to regard him, rather than Lincoln, as the true emancipator of her people.

In 1860, Harriet Tubman began to canvass the nation, appearing a antislavery meetings and speaking on behalf of women's rights. Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, she was forced for a time to leave for Canada, but she soon returned to the United States, serving the Union cause openly and actively as nurse, soldier, spy and scout. She was particularly valuable in this latter capacity, since her work on the Railroad had made her thoroughly familiar with much of the terrain.

Two years after the end of the war, John Tubman died, and in 1869 Harriet Tubman married Nelson Davis, a war veteran. A year earlier, her biography had been written by Sarah Bradford, and the proceeds from the sales of the book were given to her to help ease her financial burden.

Despite her many honors and tributes (including a medal from Queen Victoria of England), Harriet Tubman spent her last years in poverty. She did not receive a pension until more than 30 years after the close of the Civil War. Awarded $20 a month for the remainder of her life, she used most of this money to help found a place for the aged and needy--later to be called The Harriet Tubman Home.

She died in Auburn in March 1913.