Why did Tubman return to the South 13 times?

Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep.

Around 1844 she married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife. Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.

Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her "forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."

By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.

Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."

Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured.

During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.

Our Headlines and Heroes blog takes a look at Harriet Tubman as the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. Tubman and those she helped escape from slavery headed north to freedom, sometimes across the border to Canada. With the Texas origins of Juneteenth in mind, let’s also remember a lesser-known Underground Railroad that headed south from Texas to Mexico.

“Harriet Tubman,” The Sun (New York, NY), June 7, 1896, p. 5.

[Portrait of Harriet Tubman], Powelson, photographer, [1868-1869]. Prints & Photographs Division. Collection of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture.

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1849. She then returned there multiple times over the next decade, risking her life to bring others to freedom as a renowned conductor of the Underground Railroad. She was called “Moses” for her success at navigating routes, along with knowing safe houses and trustworthy people who helped those escaping from slavery to freedom. Prior to the Civil War, newspaper coverage of her successful missions was not extensive, but what is there serves to document the breadth of her successes in engineering these escapes.

Tubman was born Araminta Ross around 1822. Her earliest attempted escape was with two of her brothers, Harry and Ben, as found in an October 1849 “runaway slave” ad, where she is referred to by her early nickname, Minty.

“Three Hundred Dollars Reward,” Cambridge Democrat (Cambridge, MD), October 1849. Courtesy Bucktown Village Foundation, Cambridge, MD.

While that first attempt was unsuccessful, Tubman escaped on her own soon after. Although the ad does not reflect it, she had already adopted the first name, Harriet, perhaps in honor of her mother, Harriet Green Ross. She also had married and taken her husband John Tubman’s surname.

From December 1850 through 1860, she returned to Maryland approximately 13 times to lead 60-70 family members and other enslaved individuals to freedom, as detailed in Kate Clifford Larson’s Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero.

In October 1857, two groups of slaves escaped from the Cambridge, Maryland area. Tubman did not directly guide them, but is credited with indirectly helping them by providing detailed instructions. Forty-four men, women, and children escaped in what was described in the press as “a great stampede of slaves.”

“A Great stampede of slaves…” The Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, Ohio), November 7, 1857, p. 3.

Multiple articles about these escapes stated that fifteen individuals had fled from Samuel Pattison. The Pattison family had held Tubman and most of her family in bondage. Tubman’s connections to the area were strong.

In the late 1850s, Tubman’s speeches at antislavery and women’s rights conventions gave her a platform to tell her personal stories recounting the horrors of slavery, her escape, her efforts to rescue others, and the need to fight for freedom and equal rights. Articles about her speeches from this time are difficult to find because she was often introduced using a pseudonym to protect her from being captured and returned to slavery under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act.

“Harriet Garrison” in “The New England Convention,” The Weekly Anglo-African (New York, NY), August 6, 1859, p. 3.

“Harriet Tribbman” in “Grand A. S. Convention in Auburn, New York,” Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, Ohio), January 21, 1860, p. 2.

“Harriett Tupman” in “A Female Conductor of the Underground Railroad,” The Daily Dispatch (Richmond, VA), June 6, 1860, p. 1 (perhaps just a misspelling).

In addition, Tubman’s speeches, if written about in newspapers, were only described and briefly quoted, rather than printed in full, as other abolitionists’ speeches sometimes were. She was illiterate so no written copies of her speeches appeared to be available.

On April 27, 1860, Tubman’s rescue efforts moved from Maryland to New York, with the rescue of Charles Nalle, who had escaped slavery in Culpeper, Virginia, but was arrested in Troy, New York, where Tubman was visiting. A large mainly African American crowd freed Nalle twice and Tubman is credited in some accounts with taking the lead in his rescue. When she spoke about these events at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Boston in early June 1860, the Chicago Press and Tribune reporter responded with racist outrage at the audience’s favorable reaction to Tubman’s story of Nalle’s rescue, as well as her recounting of her trips back to the South to bring others to freedom. Antislavery publications at the time applauded Nalle’s rescue, but initially did not mention Tubman by name. Later coverage of Tubman’s role was often laudatory and dramatic.

“Our Boston Letter,” The Press and Tribune (Chicago, IL), June 8, 1860, p. 2.

“Another Trying to Down Her, She Choked into Half Unconsciousness” [Charles Nalle’s rescue], The San Francisco Call (San Francisco, CA), September 29, 1907, p. 14.

The lengthy 1907 article that accompanied the illustration in The San Francisco Call, focused on Tubman’s lifelong commitment to gaining black freedom and equality. This and several other later articles are featured in Harriet Tubman: Topics in Chronicling America, recounting her Underground Railroad days, her impressive Civil War service as a nurse, scout, and spy in the Union Army, and her post-war efforts. Certain content in these profiles may have been embellished at times, in keeping with such contemporary biographies as Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869) and Harriet, the Moses of her People (1886), both by Sarah H. Bradford, and Harriet Tubman, the Heroine in Ebony (1901), by Robert W. Taylor, financial secretary, Tuskegee Institute. These books provided some financial relief to a nearly destitute Tubman. The article, “Troubles of a Heroine,” which Taylor wrote just prior to his book’s publication, requested that checks be sent directly to Tubman for the payment of the mortgage of her property so that she could turn it into an “Old Folk’s Home.” Twelve years later, on March 10, 1913, Tubman died at the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged Negroes, Auburn, New York.

These newspaper accounts offer us valuable glimpses into the extraordinary heroism of Harriet Tubman, as well as providing examples of the wealth of primary sources available in Chronicling America.*

Discover more:

• Harriet Tubman: A Resource Guide
• Slavery in America: A Resource Guide
• Runaway! Fugitive Slave Ads in Newspapers, a Headlines and Heroes blog
• Fugitive Slave Ads: Topics in Chronicling America

* The Chronicling America historic newspapers online collection is a product of the National Digital Newspaper Program and jointly sponsored by the Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Why did Harriet Tubman return to the South?

How many times did Tubman return to the South?

When did Harriet Tubman return to the South?

Did Harriet Tubman escape to the south?