Harriet Tubman Escapes (1849)

Mon Sep 17, 1849

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On this day in 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. She made more than dozen missions to rescue upwards of seventy enslaved people, including family and friends, using the resistance network known as the “Underground Railroad”.

During the American Civil War, Tubman served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In later years, she was an activist in the struggle for women’s suffrage. She was friends with both John Brown and Frederick Douglass, and enjoyed renown for her heroism while still alive.

In 1911, two years before she died, Tubman attended a meeting of the suffrage club in Geneva, New York, where a white woman asked her: “Do you really believe that women should vote?” Tubman reportedly replied, “I suffered enough to believe it.”

Tubman died of pneumonia on March 10th, 1913 in Auburn, New York, at approximately 92 years old.