Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery in 1849, then went back. Thirteen times. She guided approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad and never lost a single passenger. During the Civil War, she became the first woman in American history to lead an armed military raid. She was never captured. She suffered a traumatic head injury in childhood from her enslaver and spent the rest of her life experiencing sudden blackouts and vivid dreams, which she understood as divine guidance. She called herself Moses, and she was.
Araminta Ross was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland. As a child, she was hired out to a neighbor, and when she tried to protect another enslaved person from punishment, an overseer threw a two-pound iron weight that struck her in the head. The injury caused her to experience sudden blackouts and vivid, intense dreams for the rest of her life. She understood these experiences as visions from God.
When her enslaver died and she learned she and her brothers might be sold, she made a decision. On September 17, 1849, she walked away. She traveled mostly at night, guided by the North Star, through approximately ninety miles of Maryland to reach Philadelphia. She later said she crossed the line between slavery and freedom and felt like she was in heaven.
Then she went back. She went back thirteen times. She used the Underground Railroad network of safe houses and sympathizers, traveled by night, used coded songs and signals, and carried a revolver. She told the people she was guiding that they could not turn back. She reportedly told anyone who wanted to turn around that they could keep going or she could shoot them, because she could not let word get back to slave catchers about the routes.
She liberated approximately seventy people and never lost a single one. She was never captured, despite a reward of $40,000 offered for her. She was known among the enslaved as Moses.
During the Civil War, she worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a cook, nurse, and spy. On June 2, 1863, she guided Colonel James Montgomery and 150 Black Union soldiers in the Combahee River Raid, using intelligence she had gathered from formerly enslaved people in the area. They destroyed Confederate infrastructure and liberated over 700 enslaved people. Harriet Tubman is the first woman in American history to lead an armed military raid.
After the war, she fought for women's suffrage, founded a home for elderly Black Americans in Auburn, New York, and lived to be approximately ninety years old. The federal government never paid her the pension she was owed for her military service.
I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.Harriet Tubman
The federal government denied her a military pension for decades after the Civil War, finally awarding her a widow's pension in 1899, not for her own service, but for her late husband's. She had led an armed military raid, served as a Union spy, and liberated hundreds of people. She received $20 a month. She spent that money running a home for elderly Black people in need.
Harriet Tubman's significance is not just in what she did but in the conditions under which she did it. She was a woman. She was Black. She was enslaved. She had a disabling injury. And she dismantled a system, one person at a time, thirteen times, at risk of death on every trip.
She is also a reminder that the Underground Railroad was not a spontaneous miracle. It was organized, strategic, and dangerous work carried out by people who had everything to lose. It required intelligence gathering, route planning, code communication, and absolute psychological resolve. That is not mythology. That is operational excellence under conditions of terror.