Extraordinary stories of everyday people.

She once said, “I never lost a passenger.” For Harriet Tubman that wasn’t boasting, it was a promise, one she kept while bringing dozens of enslaved people to freedom.

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta “Minty” Ross, c. 1822) grew up enslaved in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her mother was Rit Green, enslaved; her father Ben Ross was free but that didn’t change the family’s situation much. As a child she was hired out to different households, exposed early to cruelty. When she was around 11, she took on harder work.

When she was a teenager, Harriet suffered a serious head injury: an overseer threw a two-pound weight at another enslaved person, missing, and it struck her instead. She had lifelong effects: headaches, visions or vivid dreams, episodes of drowsiness. Many accounts link those symptoms with her spiritual convictions.

In 1844 she married John Tubman, a free Black man, and took his name; she also changed her first name to Harriet after her mother.

By 1849 Harriet feared being sold away, especially after the death of her enslaver, Edward Brodess. That fear pushed her to escape to Philadelphia, a free city. But escaping freedom for herself wasn’t enough, pretty soon she was guiding others back to save them too. Using safe houses, networks of abolitionists, and great courage she made repeated trips into slave states.

One of her most dangerous missions came during the Civil War. Tubman served as a nurse, a scout, and a spy for the Union. In 1863 she led the Raid on Combahee Ferry, which freed more than 700 enslaved people along the South Carolina coast. She worked with Union gunboats and military intelligence under threat of capture. That mission tested everything: her planning, her nerve, her belief that freedom was worth risking life for.

Despite never learning to read well, Harriet was far from illiterate in planning, strategy, human understanding. She relied on instincts honed by hardship, night travel, knowledge of terrain, disguise, even timing (she’d often travel on Saturdays so slave-holding laws or newspapers couldn’t catch up immediately). And she had a spiritual life that she interpreted not just as solace but as guidance: her dreams or visions she believed were messages.

Over about a decade (roughly 1850-1860), Tubman made approximately 13 missions into the South and rescued nearly 70 people, including family and friends. During the war she carried out military intelligence operations and the Combahee River Raid freed hundreds more. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, cared for aging parents, lived modestly, and continued activism, including work for women’s suffrage.

She died in 1913. Today she is remembered as a symbol of courage, persistence, moral clarity. Places in Maryland and New York preserve her history; scholars continue debating details of her early years (birth date, exact number of rescues), but her impact is undeniable.

Takeaway

Harriet Tubman’s life shows that sometimes what seems like weakness (her injury, her lack of formal education) can become sources of strength, shaping a person’s map. Her vision (literally and spiritually) forced her to observe carefully, plan meticulously, trust people, and act even when all odds said to stay quiet.

Sources & Further Reading