Harriet Tubman Biography

From Slavery to Freedom: Underground Railroad Conductor, Abolitionist, Women's Rights Advocate by Jone Johnson Lewis
[Harriet Tubman] tried to persuade her brothers to escape [slavery] with her, but ended up leaving alone, making her way to Philadelphia, and freedom.
Harriet Tubman
Courtesy Library of Congress
The year after Harriet Tubman's [arrival in the North, she decided to return to Maryland to free her sister and her sister's family. Over the next 12 years, she returned 18 or 19 more times, bringing a total of more than 300 slaves out of slavery.
Harriet Tubman's organizing ability was key to her success -- she had to work with supporters on the clandestine Underground Railroad, as well as get messages to the slaves, since she met them away from their plantations to avoid detection. They usually left on a Saturday evening, as the Sabbath might delay anyone noticing their absence for another day, and if anyone did note their flight, the Sabbath would certainly delay anyone from organizing an effective pursuit or publishing a reward.
Harriet Tubman was only about five feet tall, but she was smart and she was strong -- and she carried a long rifle. She used the rifle not only to intimidate pro-slavery people they might meet, but also to keep any of the slaves from backing out. She threatened any who seemed like they were about to leave, telling them that "dead Negroes tell no tales." A slave who returned from one of these trips could betray too many secrets: who had helped, what paths the flight had taken, how messages were passed.
When Harriet Tubman had first arrived in Philadelphia, she was, under the law of the time, a free woman. But the next year, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, her status changed: she became, instead, a fugitive slave, and all citizens were obligated under the law to aid in her recapture and