Harriet Tubman is considered as the Moses of her own people for her courage to escape from slavery alone. But then came back many times to lead more than 300 slaves to freedom. To her own people, she was simply, the “Moses”.
She is sometimes compared to Joan of Arc for her charisma and simple faith. She led a charmed life through incredible danger.
Harriet Ross Tubman was born in the Bucktown district of Dorchester Country on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1822. One Monday night in 1849, alone and afraid from the choking grip of slavery, Harriet Tubman managed to escape to freedom. "When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven," she later recalled. "I was free - but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land."
She saved every penny she earned and later returned to Maryland in 1850 for her niece, Mary Ann. It was the beginning of her vocation on the Underground Railroad.
“I was free and they should be free,” she said. “I would make a home in the North and bring them there.” In the following years, Harriet returned to Dorchester Country many times, she did whatever it took to bring the passengers on the Underground Railroad safely to their destinations, liberating 300 slaves who were desperate for freedom.
By the time of Harriet Tubman's death in March 1913, at the age of 93, her noble humanitarian efforts were acknowledged worldwide.
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