In 1849 Harriet Tubman learned that she was about to be sold, so she escaped slavery in Maryland and made it to freedom. Most people would have stayed safe up north. She went back. Over about ten years, in about thirteen separate trips, she slipped back into Maryland’s Eastern Shore and led around 70 people to freedom, including her brothers and their families, and gave instructions to dozens more. Abolitionists called her Moses. Years later, speaking at a convention in 1896, she said, “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say: I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
