Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman -- Legend and woman of mystery

Although the name of Harriet Tubman has often been lauded by historians and in the popular press, this legendary, almost mythical figure of the Underground Railroad remains a mystery, even to this day. Tubman's creativity at personal disguise, the mythical allure she was able to cultivate, and her wily refusal to be pinned down to any secure identity or path were all the reasons for her success in transporting so many slaves to freedom. This also makes her a difficult subject for biographers to capture in print. "Like sources of the Nile," Tubman was to say after the Civil War, "my ancestry, I am free to admit, is rather difficult of tracing," although "Harriet believed that she was born in 1825, and testified to this fact on more than one occasion" (Clinton 2). When one apprehends the full history of Tubman's life, however, her "humanity" becomes even more impressive than any symbolism assigned to her persona (Gill 2004, p.3). "Perhaps Harriet Tubman has been relegated to myth because her tireless pursuit of freedom and equality exposes our own shortcomings. If a poor Black fugitive slave woman prone to narcoleptic seizures could courageously impact so many lives, our comparative apathy is all the more disturbing" (Gill 2004, p.3). To say that Tubman should not remain a mythic figure is not a disservice, for "a deeper understanding of her life makes her no less heroic" (Gill 2004, p.3).

Tubman spoke of her uncertain ancestry with pride. She turned a shameful fact of slavery -- the fact that slaves were treated like chattel, with no records kept of their ancestry or birth, and frequently sold soon after they were weaned and never saw their parents again -- into a source of her identity. It became a testimony to her almost ghost-like nature. Her elusiveness was her strength in evading white captors after she was reborn as Moses, on the Underground Railroad. Even as a young woman, she was clever enough to disguise herself as an elderly crone, and she took on many guises, identities, and code names during her journeys (Petry 7). Her most famous appellation, of course, is Moses, because of the legendary Biblical figure's ability to lead his people to freedom, and this seems fitting given Tubman's own unshakable faith, honed from an early age, although her original slave owner was a lapsed Christian, which "meant he likely did not provide for the religious instruction of his slaves, nor allow preachers to attend to their spiritual needs" (Clinton 20). This also meant that Tubman's exposure to Christianity came through other slaves and was perhaps more pure, and less tainted by the rhetoric that the slave was bound to obey the master, as stated in the carefully controlled version of the Bible transmitted to slaves. "Her role took incredible nerve and stamina. Harriet doubtless saw her faith, rather than her own personal courage, as her only armor" and believed her faith provided protective intuition on the Underground Railroad, as her guidance system was derived from Psalm 32" (Clinton 85;92).

The birthdays of former slaves are difficult to discern, but most records point to the fact that Harriet Tubman was born in Maryland (Clinton 21). Maryland was then a leading outpost of cotton and tobacco production and farming. She was given the name of Araminta or Minta, as she was frequently known when she was young, although she later took the name of Harriet, the birth name of her mother (Gill 2004). Maryland was not considered one of the worst slave states, but the plantation where Tubman toiled in bondage was still governed by inflexible rules regarding the relationship of parents and children. Women slaves, the white owner's wife noted, were sent back into the fields only three weeks after their confinements, and one contemporary account of the period recalled a woman losing her child to a snakebite, because she was forced to bring the newborn out into the fields to harvest the new crop. Tubman, in short, was not brought up in an environment where she was taught to internalize that women were weaker than their male counterparts.

Tubman herself nearly killed when she was ten years old "Her neck bore the scars for the rest of her life" (Clinton 18). "An overseer threw an iron weight intended to hit another slave, but struck Tubman with such force that she would suffer from headaches, seizures and sleeping spells for the remainder of her life. The physical effects of this injury...temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), coincided with an awakening of the extraordinary spiritual gifts and supernatural perceptions that would prove to be major sources of Tubman's success in rescuing fugitive slaves. According to [Kate Clifford] Larson, spiritual manifestations are a common side effect of TLE. These manifestations, along with her deep Christian faith, enabled Tubman to be directed by...protective intuition in her rescue missions" (Gill 2004, p.1).

Tubman fled to the north, despite the fact this meant leaving her husband, a freed slave, and also her parents, as well as the Eastern shore, for she feared being sold further south, where conditions were even harsher (Clinton 34). Further southward, where most difficult or disobedient slaves were sent, meant death. However, even after her successful retreat she found that she suffered "the constant ache of loneliness" during her time alone (Clinton 60). "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" (Gill 2004, p. 2).

Tubman then performed what many would consider a suicidal action, she returned south to help other slaves through the same highways and human byways she had traveled in her own quest for freedom. A little known fact is that Tubman was the first African-American and the woman to become an abductor for the Underground Railroad. Abductors were different than conductors. An "abductor" rather than a "conductor" was a person whose role as one who would actually venture into the South to help rescue many slaves," which set Tubman apart from those who would merely harbor slaves (Gill 2004, p. 2).To even make it to freedom once was considered an achievement, to make the journey was many times as Tubman was able to was unfathomable.

In attempting to retrace Tubman's path, Catherine Clinton attempts to do so in her biography of Tubman, she unearths fascinating bits of evidence, like the codes used by the members of the railroad. "I send you three bales of black wool," might be written on a slip of paper presented to a friendly stationmaster on the railroad (Clinton 34). "She was certainly the lone woman" to have such a mobile and prominent part of the railroad, although many White Quaker women served as stops along the way, such as one white woman who hid slaves in her horse-driven buggy (Clinton 73). "Abductors were a highly skilled and rare breed of underground conductor...only a handful gained any degree of notoriety before Harriet Tubman came to the scene," and before that all were white men (Clinton 67).

When she resolved to "serve as an abductor for the UGRR [Underground Rail Road], her decision was groundbreaking. Her role took incredible nerve and stamina. Harriet doubtless saw her faith, rather than her own personal courage, as her only armor" (Clinton 85). Tubman boasted later on that she could "say what most conductors can't say -- I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger" (Clinton 192). One of the most significant events during Tubman's journeys was the passage the Fugitive Slave Law, which was a law that stated any runaway slave in the free states could be brought back to their original master, because slaves were supposed to be property and thus returnable. Tubman was undeterred, although this made her journey longer. She was now forced to take slaves as far away as Canada. The Fugitive Slave Laws made the divide between freedom and enslaved persons the divide between the U.S. And Canada and simply necessitated further stops on the railroad, not defeat. "Frederick Douglass made his Rochester home available to fugitives on the run" (Clinton 64).