When Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883) escaped from slavery, she later said, "I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right" (Delbanco, 142). So it was also with Harriet Tubman (circa 1822-1913), who, singing a spiritual to let her friends and family know she was leaving, walked out the gate of the plantation in the fall of 1849 and headed north from Maryland to the free state of Pennsylvania.
For those escaping slavery in the South, even those close to the free states of the North, as Tubman was in Maryland, the journey was perilous, as scholar Kate Clifford Larson explains:
There was the constant fear of relentless slave catchers, who were armed with guns, knives, and whips and who hunted with vicious dogs that were trained to attack human beings. Natural barriers were plentiful as well. Many slaves running for freedom along the land route through eastern Maryland into Delaware and north into Pennsylvania or east and north into New Jersey, lacked adequate clothing and shoes. Spiny sweet gum burrs, thorny thickets, the sharp needles of marsh grass, and icy paths in the winter all took their toll on the feet and limbs of struggling runaways.
The Eastern Shore's numerous rivers, streams, and wetlands presented a serious hindrance, particularly to runaways who could not swim. Wet clothing could draw unwanted attention, and cold weather could seriously debilitate drenched and hungry escapees. Sometimes, in the most severe wet weather, the slaves' coarse clothing, made of flax or other rough material, chafed against their skin, causing it to bleed, filling every step toward freedom with pain.
(102-103)
Still, as Tubman later told her biographer, Sarah Hopkins Bradford (1818-1912):
I started with this idea in my head, 'Dere's two things I've got a right to, and dese are, Death or Liberty – one or tother I mean to have. No one will take me back alive.
(Bradford, 21)
So, enduring all the hardships, she traveled on alone, following the North Star, and found her liberty in Philadelphia, welcomed by abolitionists such as William Still (1819-1902) and Passmore Williamson (1822-1895), among many others.
The Underground Railroad & Biography
Freedom felt hollow to Tubman, however, because her family was still enslaved in Maryland. William Still and Passmore Williamson were among the many abolitionists engaged with the Underground Railroad, a coalition of like-minded people dedicated to helping slaves on the path toward freedom in the Northern states or Canada, who used terminology associated with an actual railroad:
Agents – people who alerted slaves to the existence of the "railroad" and set up meetings with conductors
Conductors – people who physically guided freedom seekers to safe houses and northern destinations
Station Masters – people who operated the safe houses, fed and clothed freedom seekers, and hid them from slave-catchers
Stockholders – people who provided financial support for the "railroad"
Although Tubman could have tried to content herself with life as a free woman in Philadelphia, she could not as long as her family was still enslaved, and so she went back to free them. Her first journeys into Maryland for the sake of her family turned into her life's work as she went back 19 times between 1850 and 1860, leading at least 70 freedom seekers north personally and letting others know of the Underground Railroad, which could help them on the path toward liberty.
In time, Tubman would be an agent, conductor, station master, and stockholder, but she is most famous as a conductor. After the US Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, requiring citizens in free states to assist slave-catchers in retrieving freedom seekers, fugitives were no longer safe in the North, and so Tubman traveled repeatedly between Maryland and Canada, where fugitives were beyond the reach of US slave-catchers, between 1850 and 1860.
Slavery was abolished after the American Civil War, by the Thirteenth Amendment, in 1865, and there was no longer a need for the Underground Railroad. Tubman settled in Auburn, New York, on a farm she had purchased but struggled to make ends meet. Her friend and admirer, the writer Sarah Hopkins Bradford, interviewed Tubman at length, writing two biographical works – Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869) and Harriet, The Moses of her People (1886) – with all proceeds from sales going to Tubman.
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman was a bestseller and is also the first biography on Tubman, which later writers have drawn from. Bradford was among the first White American writers to focus on the Black experience and create a full-length firsthand account of what it was like to be a slave in the United States in the 19th century.
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by the White writer and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a work of fiction that drew on slave narratives (such as Josiah Henson's work) she had read, but she had no firsthand experience with slavery. Bradford's books are, in large part, a transcription of the interviews she held with Tubman and others narrating their actual experiences. Harriet, The Moses of her People also sold well, providing Tubman with much-needed financial assistance, and although the sale of the books did not cover all her costs, it certainly helped.
Text
The following excerpt is taken from Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869) by Sarah Hopkins Bradford as given on the site Documenting the American South, pp. 15-21. The narrative begins after the death of Tubman's master when, despite assurances to the contrary, the slaves feared they would be sold to plantations further down south, where conditions were far worse than those in Maryland.
The slaves were told that their master's will provided that none of them should be sold out of the State. This satisfied most of them, and they were very happy. But Harriet was not satisfied; she never closed her eyes that she did not imagine she saw the horsemen coming, and heard the screams of women and children, as they were being dragged away to a far worse slavery than that they were enduring there.
Harriet was married at this time to a free negro, who not only did not trouble himself about her fears, but did his best to betray her, and bring her back after she escaped. She would start up at night with the cry, "Oh, dey're comin', dey're comin', I mus' go!"
Her husband called her a fool, and said she was like old Cudjo, who when a joke went round, never laughed till half an hour after everybody else got through, and so just as all danger was past, she began to be frightened. But still Harriet in fancy saw the horsemen coming and heard the screams of terrified women and children. "And all that time, in my dreams and visions," she said, "I seemed to see a line, and on the other side of that line were green fields, and lovely flowers, and beautiful white ladies, who stretched out their arms to me over the line, but I couldn't reach them no how. I always fell before I got to the line."
One Saturday it was whispered in the quarters that two of Harriet's sisters had been sent off with the chain-gang. That morning she started, having persuaded three of her brothers to accompany her, but they had not gone far when the brothers, appalled by the dangers before and behind them, determined to go back, and in spite of her remonstrances dragged her with them.
In fear and terror, she remained over Sunday, and on Monday night a negro from another part of the plantation came privately to tell Harriet that herself and brothers were to be carried off that night. The poor old mother, who belonged to the same mistress, was just going to milk. Harriet wanted to get away without letting her know, because she knew that she would raise an uproar and prevent her going, or insist upon going with her, and the time for this was not yet.
But she must give some intimation to those she was going to leave of her intention and send such a farewell as she might to the friends and relations on the plantation. Those communications were generally made by singing. They sang as they walked along the country roads, and the chorus was taken up by others, and the uninitiated knew not the hidden meaning of the words–
When dat ar ole chariot comes,
I'm gwine to lebe you;
I'm boun' for de promised land,
I'm gwine to lebe you.These words meant something more than a journey to the Heavenly Canaan. Harriet said, "Here, mother, go 'long; I'll do the milkin' to-night and bring it in." The old woman went to her cabin. Harriet took down her sunbonnet, and went on to the "big house," where some of her relatives lived as house servants.
She thought she could trust Mary, but there were others in the kitchen, and she could say nothing. Mary began to frolic with her. She threw her across the kitchen, and ran out, knowing that Mary would follow her. But just as they turned the corner of the house, the master to whom Harriet was now hired, came riding up on his horse.
Mary darted back, and Harriet thought there was no way now but to sing. But "the Doctor," as the master was called, was regarded with special awe by his slaves; if they were singing or talking together in the field, or on the road, and "the Doctor" appeared, all was hushed till he passed. But Harriet had no time for ceremony; her friends must have a warning; and whether the Doctor thought her "impertinent" or not, she must sing him farewell. So, on she went to meet him, singing:
I'm sorry I'm gwine to lebe you,
Farewell, oh farewell;
But I'll meet you in the mornin',
Farewell, oh farewell.The Doctor passed, and she bowed as she went on, still singing:
I'll meet you in the mornin',
I'm boun' for de promised land,
On the oder side of Jordan,
Boun' for de promised land.She reached the gate and looked round; the Doctor had stopped his horse, and had turned around in the saddle, and was looking at her as if there might be more in this than "met the ear." Harriet closed the gate, went on a little way, came back, the Doctor still gazing at her. She lifted up the gate as if she had not latched it properly, waved her hand to him, and burst out again:
I'll meet you in the mornin',
Safe in de promised land,
On the oder side of Jordan,
Boun' for de promised land.And she started on her journey, "not knowing whither she went," except that she was going to follow the north star, till it led her to liberty. Cautiously and by night she traveled, cunningly feeling her way, and finding out who were friends; till after a long and painful journey she found, in answer to careful inquiries, that she had at last crossed that magic "line" which then separated the land of bondage from the land of freedom; for this was before we were commanded by law to take part in the iniquity of slavery, and aid in taking and sending back those poor hunted fugitives who had manhood and intelligence enough to enable them to make their way thus far towards freedom.
"When I found I had crossed dat line," she said, "I looked at my hands to see if I was de same pusson. There was such a glory ober ebery ting; de sun came like gold through the trees, and ober the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaben."
But then came then came the bitter drop in the cup of joy. She said she felt like a man who was put in State Prison for twenty-five years. All these twenty-five years he was thinking of his home and longing for the time when he would see it again. At last, the day comes–he leaves the prison gates–he makes his way to his old home, but his old home is not there. The house has been pulled down, and a new one has been put up in its place; his family and friends are gone nobody knows where; there is no one to take him by the hand, no one to welcome him.
"So it was with me," she said. "I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free. I would make a home in the North and bring them there, God helping me. Oh, how I prayed then," she said; "I said to de Lord, 'I'm gwine to hole stiddy on to you, an' I know you'll see me through.'"
She came to Philadelphia, and worked in hotels, in club houses, and afterwards at Cape May. Whenever she had raised money enough to pay expenses, she would make her way back, hide herself, and in various ways give notice to those who were ready to strike for freedom. When her party was made up, they would start always on Saturday night, because advertisements could not be sent out on Sunday, which gave them one day in advance.
Then the pursuers would start after them. Advertisements would be posted everywhere. There was one reward of $12,000 offered for the head of the woman who was constantly appearing and enticing away parties of slaves from their master. She had traveled in the cars when these posters were put up over her head, and she heard them read by those about her–for she could not read herself.
Fearlessly she went on, trusting in the Lord. She said, "I started with this idea in my head, 'Dere's two things I've got a right to, and dese are, Death or Liberty–one or tother I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty, and when de time has come for me to go, de Lord will let dem kill me." And acting upon this simple creed, and firm in this trusting faith, she went back and forth nineteen times, according to the reckoning of her friends. She remembers that she went eleven times from Canada, but of the other journeys she kept no reckoning.
