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Escape strategies

Secret code language was used to communicate among Underground Railway supporters. Letters would usually contain code language just in case the letter got intercepted. Since most slaves were illiterate instructions were given by signal songs which had hidden messages only slaves could understand. Slaves sang spiritual songs praising God every day and were part of their own culture and tradition, masters usually encouraged it. Coded songs contained words giving directions on how to escape or where to meet. They used Biblical references and analogies of Biblical people, places and stories, comparing them to their own history of slavery. For example, “being bound for the land of Canaan” for a white person could mean ready to die and go to heaven; but to a slave it meant ready to go to Canada.  Many coded songs became popular among slaves such as Steal Away, Geo on Board, Little Children, Wade in the Water, Swing Low Sweet Chariot and Follow the Drinking Gourd.

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Harriet Tu

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Fugitive Slave Act

Next to be rescued was her brother Moses. By this time the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was in effect making her work more difficult and riskier. However she thought that returning over and over again was a risk worth taking. Because of the Fugitive Slave Act, slaves had to migrate further north to Canada. Frederick Douglass who lived in Rochester, NY hosted slaves on their way to St Catharines, Ontario. At one time he had 11 fugitives under his roof.

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First trip back

After Tubman escaped she found work in Philadelphia cleaning houses and managed to save some money. Harriet heard that her niece Kessiah and her children, James and Araminta, were about to be sold. She rushed south, crossing the Mason Dixon Line to Baltimore where she hid in the house of John Bowley, Kessiah’s husband who was a free African American. Bowley placed the winning bed on Kessiah and their children who immediately fled and found shelter in a safe house belonging to a free African American family. The following night they sailed to Baltimore where they met Tubman. She guided them to Philadelphia.

Tubman took his nephew James Bowley as a protégé. She paid for his school in St Catharines and became a school teacher. After the Civil War he returned to South Carolina where he taught freed men. He was later elected to the Legislature of Reconstruction in South Carolina.

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Harriet Tubman is the most widely recognized symbol of the Underground Railroad. When she escaped on September 17, 1849, Tubman was aided by members of the Underground Railroad. To her, freedom felt empty unless she could share it with people she loved so she resolved to go back and rescue friends and family. Harriet was nicknamed “Moses” by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.  The name was used as an analogy to the biblical story of Moses who attempted to lead the Jews to the Promised Land and free them from slavery.

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Tubman collaborated with John Brown in 1858 in planning his raid on Harpers Ferry. The two met in Canada where she told him all she knew of the Underground Railroad in the East.

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Two things sustained her: the pistol at her side and her faith in God. She would not hesitate to use the pistol in self-defense, but it was also a symbol to instruct slaves, making it clear that “dead Negroes tell no tales.”

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In 1849 she fled slavery, leaving her husband and family behind in order to escape. Despite a bounty on her head, she returned to the South at least 19 times to lead her family and hundreds of other slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad.

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Harriet Tubman became famous as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad during the turbulent 1850s.

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