Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, about 1821. In 1844 she married John Tubman. In 1849 she escaped to Philadelphia, where she worked in a hotel. In 1850 Tubman traveled to Baltimore and to help family members escape to freedom. She helped other members of her family out of slavery in 1851. They escaped by means of the Underground Railroad, a network of secret safe-houses. In the decade before the Civil War, Tubman became one of the Underground Railroad’s most active conductors. Despite huge rewards for her capture, she made some 19 dangerous trips to the South to lead perhaps 300 slaves to freedom. During the Civil War she served as a spy for Union forces in South Carolina and as a nurse. After the war, Tubman established a home for needy African Americans and promoted the establishment of African American schools. In 1867 her husband was killed, and two years later she married Nelson Davis. Harriet Tubman died of pneumonia in 1913.
