Page 68 - Heros of the Faith - Textbook w videos short

It was another two decades before the Underground Railroad became a part of the national consciousness,
mostly because of the heroic exploits of the Underground Railroad’s most celebrated "conductor."

Black Moses Harriet Tubman was raised in slavery in eastern Maryland but escaped in 1849. When she first
reached the North, she said later, "I looked at my hands to see if I was de same person now I was free. Dere was
such a glory ober eberything, de sun came like gold through de trees and ober de fields, and I felt like I was in
heaven."

Tubman was not satisfied with her own freedom, however. She made 19 return trips to the South and helped
deliver at least 300 fellow slaves, boasting "I never lost a passenger." Her guidance of so many to freedom
earned her the nickname "Moses."

Tubman's friends and fellow abolitionists claimed that the source of her strength came from her faith in God as
deliverer and protector of the weak. "I always tole God," she said, "'I'm gwine [going] to hole stiddy on you, an'
you've got to see me through.'"

Though infuriated slaveholders posted a $40,000 reward for her capture, she was never apprehended. "I can't
die but once" became her motto, and with that philosophy she went about her mission of deliverance.

She always made her rescue attempts in winter but avoided actually going into plantations. Instead she waited
for escaping slaves (to whom she had sent messages) to meet her eight or ten miles away. Slaves would leave
plantations on Saturday nights so they wouldn't be missed until Monday morning, after the Sabbath. It would
thus often be late on Monday afternoon before their owners would discover them missing. Only then did they
post their reward signs, which men hired by Tubman would take down.

Because her rescue missions were fraught with danger, Tubman demanded strict obedience from her fugitives.
A slave who returned to his master would likely be forced to reveal information that would compromise her
mission. If a slave wanted to quit in the midst of a rescue, Tubman would hold a revolver to his head and ask
him to reconsider.

Asked whether she would actually kill a reluctant escapee, she replied, "Yes, if he was weak enough to give out,
he'd be weak enough to betray us all and all who had helped us, and do you think I'd let so many die just for one
coward man?"

She never had to shoot any slave she helped, but she did come close with one: "I told the boys to get their guns
ready, and shoot him. They'd have done it in a minute; but when he heard that, he jumped right up and went on
as well as anybody."

Tubman said she would listen carefully to the voice of God as she led slaves north, and she would only go where
she felt God was leading her. Fellow abolitionist Thomas Garrett said of her, "I never met any person of any
color who had more confidence in the voice of God."

Tubman became a friend of many of the best-known abolitionists and their sympathizers. John Brown referred
to her in his letters as "one of the best and bravest persons on this continent—General Tubman as we call her."

During the Civil War, Tubman served as a nurse, laundress, and spy with Union forces along the coast of South
Carolina. After the war, she made her home in Auburn, New York, and, despite numerous honors, spent her last

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