Harriet Tubman

Estimated around 1820, Harriet Tubman was born to slave parents on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. She began protecting others at a very young age; she was struck on her head while she was protecting another slave from punishment when she was just thirteen years old. As an adult, Tubman escaped to the North from her master and continued to come back to the south and aid others through the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman was the most effective conductor in the Underground Railroad due to her extensive knowledge about the routes and her timing of traveling mostly at night.
The terror of slavery led Harriet Tubman to escape to the North and her passion to help remove others from their circumstances. "Slavery is a system in which
It did, however, guide fugitive slaves out of the south to the North or Canada in order to gain freedom. Slaves were led along the underground railroad by people called conductors. A conductor was a free American who guided slaves from the South in order to save them from the harsh, cruel conditions of slavery. As a conductor "Harriet Tubman helped slaves elude capture by hiding them at safe houses and other secret places, known as stations on the railroad" ("Underground Railroad"). Some conductors, such as Harriet Tubman, were former slaves that escaped slavery using the underground railroad and continually returned to help others do the same. "Not long after her safe arrival in Philadelphia, Tubman began making trips to the South to help other slaves escape on the Underground Railroad" (McGuire). Although dangerous, Tubman and other conductors risked their lives everyday to help slaves. Many white Americans put a tremendous reward for Tubman's capture. She continued to help people after the war. "The importance of Tubman's work as an abolitionist was acknowledged in 2013, when President Barack Obama designated a portion of Maryland's Eastern Shore as the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, the first national monument to honor an African American woman"
"Harriet Tubman had been their 'Moses'… a woman of no pretensions, indeed, a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found among the most unfortunate-looking farm hands of the South"( Still 296). One reason Tubman excelled at guiding slaves was her knowledge of the routes of the underground railroad. She led numerous slaves to safe houses around the south. She was "well acquainted in their neighborhood, and knowing of their situation, and having confidence that they would prove true, as passengers on the Underground Railroad, engaged to pilot them within reach of Wilmington, at least to Thomas Garrett's" (Still 531). Another reason Tubman was an excellent conductor was the fact that she usually traveled at night. Harriet Tubman "was one of the most famous Underground Railroad conductors... She usually traveled at night. It was safer when it was dark and when fewer people were outside working or going from one place to another. At night, she could follow the North Star... It is estimated that she led several hundred people to freedom. It is said that she never lost a single passenger" (Underground Railroad Library). This intelligence probably saved her life and the amount of people she could have