Harriet Tubman
Civil War

Harriet Tubman
Civil War

Harriet Tubman seized her freedom from enslavement in Maryland in 1849. As a child, Tubman suffered physical abuse from her enslavers, including a severe head injury which caused lifelong health issues. Overhearing her enslaver discussing “selling her down the river,” she fled to safety, after which she began missions to bring enslaved people to freedom. Tubman embarked on 19 trips from North to South and freed over 300 people. She said, “I had a right to liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” In 1863, the Union Army authorized her to gather and oversee scouts. Tubman led a raid up South Carolina’s Combahee River with three gunships, freeing over 700 enslaved people, recruiting some to the Union Army. Afterward, military leaders heavily depended upon her but excluded her from official documents, enabling her anonymity as a spy.  To this day, Harriet Tubman remains a vital actor in not only Black struggles for freedom in the 19th Century, but also within the larger trajectory of American history.