The Life of Harriet Tubman

by Anne Schraff

  The Tubmans never saw each other again. In spite of the breakup of her marriage, Harriet Tubman continued to use her husband’s last name.

  Harriet Tubman now committed herself even more wholeheartedly to the cause of fugitive slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act in the 1850 Compromise made Tubman’s cause even more dangerous. Runaway slaves could be captured in the North and returned to their owners in the South even before the passage of this law, but now federal officials had the right and duty to return runaway slaves to their owners. Anyone interfering with this activity was subject to heavy penalties.

  Tubman and the other conductors on the Underground Railroad now had more to do than merely get their charges over the Mason-Dixon line into freedom. Slaves were no longer safe even after they reached the North. With bounties on their heads, they could be seized at any time and dragged back to slavery in chains.

  The only true safety now lay even farther north, in Canada.

  Chapter 5

  LET MY PEOPLE GO

  In 1851, Harriet Tubman visited Canada for the first time. Because she would be bringing escaping slaves there, she had to survey the terrain and discover what problems they might encounter. Entering Canada would require the fugitives to cross the bridge suspended over Niagara Falls. It would be a frightening experience for these people to hear the roar of the falls and walk through the spray of the crashing water.

  Tubman began to work out every detail of the journey. In each small town north of Maryland, she arranged for safe houses. In the Cooper house in Camden, New Jersey, she would conceal her charges in a small, bunk-lined room above the kitchen. In Odessa, Delaware, they would stay in a loft under a pitched roof in a Quaker meetinghouse. All this Tubman took pains to remember. She did not—could not—write anything down.

  Tubman often described a vision she had as a young girl. The vision almost haunted her with its frequency. She saw a line dividing freedom from slavery. On the northern side stood people stretching out their hands in welcome, bidding Tubman to come forward, calling her “Moses.”1 She kept that vision in her mind as she planned her rescues.

  Tubman had a fine memory, and she would later recount the details of her many trips south to rescue slaves. But the only written record of her activities is contained in William Still’s records.

  Still recorded six of Tubman’s groups of runaways and mentioned others in fragmentary ways. His first entry mentioning Tubman as a conductor is dated December 29, 1854. Tubman had brought six men and one woman to freedom. During the long walk, Tubman and one of the men had worn the shoes off their feet. Still’s notes describe a twenty-year-old named John who had fled a master he called “a hard man.” Twenty-eight-year-old Benjamin had escaped a “very devilish” mistress. Twenty-two-year-old Jane called her master, Rash Jones, “the worst man in the country.” The others had similar stories of being worked hard and treated, as thirty-five-year-old Robert recalled, like a “dumb brute.”2

  Tubman always varied her route. She wanted to confuse any slave catchers who might be on her trail. Sometimes she used the mountains and sometimes she followed the trail from Cambridge, Maryland, over the Choptank River bridges to the towns in Delaware.

  It was not easy to elude the bloodhounds that were often sent to find runaway slaves. The owners of the bloodhounds charged $5 a day for hunting the trails. The dogs trained for hunting slaves were valuable. A pack of ten bloodhounds was sold in Columbia, South Carolina, for $1,540. These dogs could take a three-day-old scent and track it down, and they were said to be swifter than greyhounds when they were on the run.3 The slave catchers earned bounties ranging from several hundred dollars to many thousands for a valuable slave.

  When Tubman went south to contact slaves who wanted to flee, she would softly sing verses from spirituals as she moved along the plantation boundaries. The hymn “Go Down Moses,” which was heard in the South during the mid-1800s, had a special connection with Tubman’s exploits.4 Some of the lyrics are:

  “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land;

  Tell old Pharaoh, to let my people go.”5

  It was sung by Tubman and by many of the conductors who led slaves to freedom. Word would be whispered from slave to slave that Moses was in the area ready to shepherd another party north. The words of the spirituals were understood by the slaves, but not by their masters. They were coded messages that could be safely sung without alerting the masters or overseers of escape plans. “Egypt” meant the South, and “Pharaoh” stood for the slave owners. The “Israelites” were the slaves, and “Canaan land” was Canada. The Jordan River, which was mentioned in many spirituals, including other stanzas of “Go Down Moses,” was the point of departure for the runaways.6 Sometimes the code involved singing a verse twice, followed by silence. This meant the coast was clear and the escape plan could proceed.7

  The ideal time for escaping a plantation was on a Saturday night. Often a slave would not be missed until Monday morning, when work began again. Sometimes a white person spotted Tubman as she lingered in the woods waiting for the runaway. Tubman knew just what to do. She acted like a humble slave, bowing and scraping before the white person. She did not seem like someone to be suspected of rebellious activity. The white observer would invariably leave her alone, and once again “Moses” would escape.8

  The slaves Tubman was spiriting away were often worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Their loss represented a real financial blow to the plantations. Their owners were very anxious to get them back, and they would send men north to nail posters to trees and fence posts offering rewards for the slaves’ return. Tubman had a strategy for this, too. She would hire a man to secretly follow the men putting up the posters. He would remain at a safe distance, then he would simply tear the posters down.

  Tubman was soon legendary among the slaves. Even those far from Maryland knew about her. She was an inspiration to slaves all over the South. Thomas Cole, a slave from Huntsville, Alabama, said that during his own escape he kept hoping and praying he might meet up with that “Harriet Tubman woman.”9

  A $10,000 reward was offered for the capture of Harriet Tubman. Later, the reward was increased to $40,000.10 Tubman was not concerned by this. She believed she was invincible. “The whites cannot catch us for I was born with the charm, and the Lord has given me the power,” she said.11

  Between 1851 and 1857, Tubman usually made two trips a year to the eastern shore of Maryland, one in the spring and one in the fall. She conducted her passengers north using safe houses when they were available and making do when they were not. Tubman hid her charges in drainage ditches, abandoned sheds, and barns. Once, Tubman and her group hid in a manure pile.

  Tubman made many friends, both black and white, during her Underground Railroad exploits. One of them was Thomas Garrett, a Quaker from Wilmington, Delaware, who ran a large shoe store. When fugitives came through town, he always made sure they were fitted with a new pair of shoes before they continued their journey. Garrett also hid runaway slaves in a false wall in his shoe store. Garrett and Tubman often worked together, and he held her in high esteem. “No slave who placed himself under her care was ever arrested that I have heard of,” Garrett said.12

  Tubman told Garrett, as she told all her friends, that God played a major role in her ability to rescue slaves. She said that sometimes, as she led a group of fugitives, she would hear the voice of God telling her to stop where she was. She would obey the voice and await further instructions. Garrett said that Tubman never had the slightest doubt that the voices she heard were from God and that they would lead her in the right direction. Jokingly, Garrett once asked Tubman if God had ever deceived her. She answered with a resounding “No!”13 Garrett was so impressed with Tubman’s unshakable faith and the success of all her missions that he concluded that there was indeed “something remarkable” involved.14

  Tubman told Garrett a story about leading a group of fugitives through a field on a cold day in March. She believed that God was telling her
to cross a chilly river where there was no bridge. It would be necessary to wade through the cold water. The men in the party were afraid to cross, and they hesitated to follow Tubman’s orders to wade into the water. Tubman led the way, entering the water until it reached her armpits and proceeding to walk through the river to the opposite shore. When they saw that this small woman had made it, the others followed, but they had no idea where they were going. They clambered to dry land on the opposite shore, soaking wet and trembling with the cold. All they had to lean on was Tubman and her voices from God.15

  The other side of the river looked like a thick wilderness, offering no food or shelter. Then, as they walked, they made out the form of a small cabin. As they neared the cabin, they found it was occupied by a black family, who generously took the whole group in. The family gave the fugitives food, dried their clothing, and provided shelter. Tubman had no money with which to repay the family for such kindness, so she gave them some items of her own clothing in thanks.

  Garrett and Tubman together were able to help many fugitive slaves. Garrett also helped hundreds of slaves to freedom on his own, and for this he paid heavily. He was twice arrested for aiding runaways and was fined so heavily that he had to sell everything he owned, including his shoe store. At sixty years of age, he was penniless and was forced to take any job he could find just to support himself and his family. But even then he continued to work with Tubman in the Underground Railroad. When he was arrested again, the large fine left him totally destitute. The judge told Garrett that this harsh lesson ought to teach him to never again be “helping off runaway Negroes.”16 Garrett responded by saying that the court had taken his last dollar, but he would never stop befriending the fugitives as long as one of them needed his help.17

  Nothing could stop Harriet Tubman either, not even her many close calls.

  Chapter 6

  YOU WILL BE FREE OR DIE

  One of Harriet Tubman’s many close encounters with disaster occurred as she led a group of fugitives on a wild, rainy night. She headed for the home of a black ally she had often relied on. His home was a safe house on the Underground Railroad. She wanted food and dry lodging for her wet band of runaways, so she left them huddled in the street near the cabin and rapped on the door in the usual way. Tubman used a special tapping signal that other agents of the Railroad recognized. When nobody inside the cabin responded, Tubman repeated the signal. Then a white face appeared, not the black one she had expected. The irate white man demanded to know who this black woman was—and why she was pounding on his door in the middle of the night.

  Tubman asked about the black family that used to live in this cabin, and the new white owner snapped that they were long gone. They had been driven off, he said, for “harboring” slaves.1

  When one of the safe houses along the Underground Railroad was exposed, it was abandoned quickly, but word had not reached Tubman in time. It was sometimes impossible to warn the groups of fugitives making their way through field and swamp that their safe house had been closed down. That is why Tubman had approached the house alone, ordering her charges to wait in hiding. She was never sure what she would find.

  Tubman hurried back to her little band of frightened runaways shivering in the rain. Then she closed her eyes and listened to her inner guide voice. The voice told her to take the group outside town to a little island that rose from a swamp. Tubman took them there and told them to lie down in the tall, wet grass while she prayed for deliverance. Everyone was terrified and chilled to the bone as Tubman implored heaven for help. Tubman refused to let anyone leave the island because she now believed help would find them there.

  The group had been there for several hours when a stranger came walking to the edge of the swamp. Tubman had never seen him before. He was a white man dressed like a Quaker—in dark, undecorated garb. The man began speaking as if to himself. He said that his wagon stood by his farmhouse and the horse’s harness was hanging on a nail. His horse was also in the stable. After the man said all this, he walked away.

  Harriet led the fugitives to the farmhouse, where they found everything the man had described. The wagon was well provisioned for their journey, and the group piled in to continue the journey. Tubman was not the least bit surprised by such an unusual deliverance. It did not strike her as strange or mysterious at all. She prayed and she fully expected her prayers to be answered.2

  Whenever it appeared that Tubman and her parties were close to being captured, she escaped by using her quick wits as well as the warnings she believed she received from heaven.3 Tubman sensed when danger was near. She said later that when slave catchers were in the area, her heart went “flutter, flutter.”4 Through prayers, dreams, and waking visions she was able to foresee danger, devise a strategy to escape, and remain free with those she guided.5

  It was understood that once a slave decided to run away from the plantation and join Harriet Tubman’s group, there was no turning back. The runaway was committed to remain with the group no matter what. If, in a moment of fear or weakness, a fugitive wanted to turn back and return to the plantation, Tubman would not allow it.

  Tubman kept a revolver to help convince timid souls not to go back. A slave who had been on the Underground Railroad and then returned to the plantation could be frightened or tortured into betraying Tubman’s secrets. The whole network of safe houses, agents, and white and black allies who made the Railroad possible would be put in danger. Showing her revolver to a faltering soul she would say, “You’ll be free or die.”6 In Pennsylvania, troopers were raiding the homes of whites when those known to be against slavery were suspected of aiding fugitives.7

  Tubman believed that if a fugitive was weak enough to change his mind about escaping, he would be weak enough to betray everyone who had helped him along the way. “Do you think I’d let so many die just for one coward man?” she asked.8 On one occasion a member of Tubman’s party had feet so sore and swollen that he pleaded to be left behind. Tubman turned to the other men in the party and told them to get their guns ready because this man needed to be shot rather than left behind to betray them. Tubman recalled that when the man with the sore feet heard that, he jumped right up and continued the journey with a step as good as the rest.9

  Tubman was tough when she needed to be, and it worked. She often said, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”10

  In late 1854, Harriet Tubman became troubled about the fate of her brothers back in Maryland.11 She heard rumors that right after Christmas her three brothers were going to be sold south to a rice or cotton plantation. Christmas was a rare time of feasting and relaxation for the slaves, so the deed was being postponed until after the holidays.

  When Tubman heard of the pending sale, she swung into action. When she had first fled slavery, she had tried to convince her brothers to flee with her. Her first rescue was of her sister, Mary, and her family. Now Tubman resolved to bring the three brothers at last to freedom.

  Tubman arrived at the Brodas plantation, which was still owned by Eliza Ann Brodas, on Christmas Eve and spirited her three brothers away. The four of them went to the small cabin where their parents, Benjamin and Rit, lived. Tubman and her brothers did not show themselves to their parents but instead hid in the outbuildings behind the cabin. All night they hid in sheds and in the cornstalks near the cabin. As much as Tubman longed to talk with her parents, she dared not show her face. She feared that when her brothers were found missing, the overseer would come to their parents’ cabin and question the old people about their children. Tubman wanted her parents to be able to say honestly that they had not set eyes on their daughter in a long time, nor seen their sons since they vanished from the plantation.

  The cabin where Benjamin and Rit lived was about forty miles from the Brodas plantation. Usually the old folks were visited by any of their children in the area at Christmas. But this year, because of the need for secrecy, they would pass this Christmas alone, not knowing that one of their daught
ers and three of their sons were hiding only yards away.

  One of Tubman’s brothers had a wife and a child, with a second child on the way. On Christmas Eve, the woman went into labor and was in no condition to travel. But the party had to leave by dawn, so the wife and two children were left behind. There is no record of what happened to them.

  Before dawn, according to the plan, Tubman led her three brothers, and those members of their families who were strong enough to travel by foot, on a hundred-mile journey. They arrived in Wilmington, Delaware, and were given refuge by Thomas Garrett until their passage to Canada could be arranged. Eventually they all arrived safely in Canada.

  In another daring rescue during the mid-1850s, Tubman had to venture near her master’s home to contact a slave who wanted to escape. Tubman was a master of disguise and she was especially good at appearing to be an old, frail woman with a halting gait. This time she wrapped herself in a shawl and walked bent over as though she were crippled. For good measure she brought two live chickens, which she carried by a cord around their feet. If someone who knew her appeared, she would need to cause a distraction. When she saw her master’s son approaching, she freed the startled chickens and they flew into the air squawking noisily. The young man might have recognized Tubman, but he was so startled that he never took a good look at the black woman and she hurried safely by.

  Sometimes Tubman gave groups of fugitives directions north. If they seemed capable, they went alone. In other cases, when Tubman sensed that the group was frightened or unsure, she accompanied them every step of the way to freedom.

  To finance her trips south and to get money for the destitute slaves she rescued, Tubman sought money and supplies from her white friends in various northern cities. Tubman had support in Philadelphia and Boston because strong antislavery groups existed there and they knew of the Underground Railroad. Most of the runaway slaves arrived in rags, walking on bare, bloodied feet. Often their skills were limited to plantation labor, which did not translate easily into jobs in the North. They desperately needed money to tide them over in their new home, and Tubman tried to provide as much as she could.