Harriet Tubman Conducts 13 Missions on Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland in September 1849 and then returned south at least 13 times between 1849 and 1860, personally guiding approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad network. She operated under a $40,000 bounty (dead or alive) and never lost a passenger. Tubman used the network of free Black families, sympathetic whites, and safe houses stretching from Maryland's Eastern Shore through Philadelphia to the North. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she led freedom-seekers all the way to Canada. She later served as a Union Army scout and spy during the Civil War.