Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery in Dorchester County on Maryland's Eastern Shore around 1822, Tubman was named Araminta Ross and was often called Minty as a child. She later adopted the name Harriet. In 1849, fearing separation from her family, she escaped north. Her brothers initially went with her but turned back; Tubman continued and reached Philadelphia. The escape took her from Maryland, a slave state, to Pennsylvania, a free state, but federal law and the danger of capture meant that freedom remained precarious for Black people who had escaped slavery.

After reaching freedom, Tubman became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, a clandestine network through which people and communities helped enslaved people escape. From 1850 to 1860, she returned repeatedly to Maryland's Eastern Shore to guide relatives and friends north. The National Park Service records thirteen return trips and says that she helped more than 70 family members and friends reach freedom. Her work required planning and secrecy; the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 also increased the danger that people who escaped slavery could be seized in free states and forced back into bondage.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Tubman worked for the Union in South Carolina. The National Park Service describes her service as including nursing, scouting, intelligence work and cooking. In June 1863, she helped plan and lead an armed Union raid along the Combahee River. The operation, carried out with Union soldiers, destroyed Confederate resources and enabled more than 700 enslaved people to leave the plantations where they had been held. The raid joined her work against slavery to a direct military campaign, rather than an Underground Railroad journey.

After the war, Tubman continued to support Black communities and the campaign for women's rights and suffrage. She lived in Auburn, New York, where she cared for family and remained active in public life, including as a member of the National Association of Colored Women. Tubman died there in 1913. Her historical significance rests on work across several settings: the Underground Railroad, the Union war effort, and movements for racial equality and women's suffrage.