Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad

“The uncertainty and uneasiness filled the cabin again. More and more slaves were disappearing. Edward Brodas, the master, was selling them off. Each time the trader came to Maryland, came to Cambridge, the Master sold another group of slaves. Nowadays it seemed as though he was raising slaves just to sell them. Breeding them, just like the farmers bred cows or sheep.”

Slaves on the Brodas plantation live in fear of being sold to a different property, which would separate them from their friends and family members, and probably subject them to more brutal conditions. Petry’s use of the word “disappearing” underlines how slaves would not be able to know where exactly their neighbors were going or maintain contact with them once they left the plantation.

“Slaves everywhere knew what happened in Washington, Boston, New York, Norfolk, Baltimore, if it dealt with the subject of slavery. They knew it sometimes before the masters heard about it. The close communication, the rapid exchange of information among the slaves, troubled and disturbed the masters.”

Although slaves often have restricted mobility, they manage to maintain word of mouth connections with each other to spread news from the North and discuss how it would affect them. Being unable to limit and monitor this spread of information “disturbed” the masters since it makes it more difficult to control their slaves and prevent them from running away.

“On the way to Ben’s cabin the slaves moved so quietly, so stealthily, that they might have been part of the night itself. As they edged through the quarter, there was not even the soft sound of a bare foot on the hard-packed earth, not even the sound of breathing, not a cough, or a sneeze, nothing to indicate that a slave had left his own cabin and was paying a visit to another cabin.”

Communication between slaves is restricted even within the same plantation. Petry describes how the slaves on the Brodas plantation wait for the cover of night to sneak into another cabin for conversation. To avoid detection and punishment, they must be as silent as possible. This quotation demonstrates the strict ban on free communication and the constant fear that informs slaves’ day-to-day actions.

“She felt like the muskrats, one moment she had seen them diving and swimming in the river, and then suddenly click! they were caught fast in the trap. She remembered that some of them had fought to free themselves, tearing fur and flesh to get free.”

When Harriet is a young child, she does slave labor for a local couple close to the Brodas plantation. After she recovers from a serious illness, she is no longer permitted to work outside and instead must help the woman with her weaving. Harriet loathes indoor work and feels especially trapped when laboring indoors. This quotation compares Harriet to the muskrats the man catches in his traps and hints that Harriet will also make sacrifices to gain freedom for herself like these persecuted animals.

“The sharpness in his voice told her that he was thinking about the chain gang too, and remembering their little ones, just about the size of Minty, who had gone away like that. One minute they had been carrying water to the field hands, and the next minute they were in a lot with the other slaves that had been sold, sort of thrown in for good measure, and then—gone—gone with the chain gang.”

Harriet’s family is constantly fearful that they will be separated when the plantation owner decides to sell some of them to the “chain gang.” Petry creates these conversations between Ben and Old Rit to demonstrate the fear they experience and the traumatic memories they have of losing some of their children in this way. Ben and Old Rit are protective of Harriet and try to think of ways to keep her with them despite having little say about their lives or hers.

“Even so, sometimes she went sound asleep, to be awakened by the wailing of the baby. She was whipped so often that the back of her neck was covered with scars crisscrossed with scars, so deep that they would be visible for the rest of her life.”

Petry details the extent of Tubman’s abuse at the hands of her bosses. Despite her young age, Tubman is expected to care for a baby night and day and endures whippings when the baby cries. This quotation reminds the reader of the brutal conditions Tubman and other enslaved people endured, even as children.

“Harriet was puzzled by this story. She kept thinking about it. Was there a road that ran under the ground? Was that how Tice Davids had escaped from his master? If Tice could find it, could other people too? People in the border states, who had been sheltering runaway slaves, helped further the mystery of the underground road.

Before Harriet runs away, she does not know about the existence of the “Underground Railroad” and is unaware of the network of safe houses and abolitionists who will help her on her way. Instead, she has only heard rumors of a literal underground road that slaves use to escape. Petry helps the reader understand Tubman’s mindset and the unique challenge of making crucial and risky decisions based on hearsay and rumors that travel from plantation to plantation. This quotation is also significant as it is the first time Harriet ever learns of the Underground Railroad; by the end of the book, she has confirmed her place as one of its most famous conductors.

“The slaveholders lived in dread because the most faithful house slave might at any moment become another Nat, attacking the master, in the dead of night, with no warning.”

Violent insurrections led by abolitionists such as Vesey and Turner increased the tension between slave owners and slaves. Slave owners were fearful of violent retaliation from their slaves, and their feelings of insecurity prompted southern states to pass even stricter laws that further oppressed enslaved people.

“Harriet moved in front of the doorway, stood there, blocking it. The overseer, startled by this sudden obstructing body, planted squarely in the doorway, turned away from the door, picked up a two-pound weight from the counter, and hurled it at the fleeing slave. The weight missed the slave. It struck Harriet in the forehead, leaving a great open gash there.”

Harriet shows unusual courage and resolve as a youth on the Brodas plantation. Concerned for another slave who leaves the corn husking event, she intervenes and suffers at the hands of the overseer. Significantly, this tragedy does not prevent Tubman from helping others in the future or weaken her resolve to risk her own safety to rescue slaves.

“Once again she toyed with the idea of running away. Somehow the urgency was gone. Old Rit and Ben were here on the plantation. So were her brothers and sisters. All of them had joyously accepted the announcement that nothing was to be changed. But who could be certain?”

This quotation demonstrates how important familial bonds are to Harriet. While she longs for freedom and stability, her main priority is to remain close to her family. While she considers running away for a long time, Harriet does not do so until she knows she will soon be sold and separated from her family anyway.

“The knowledge that she was still a slave bothered her more and more. If she were sold, she would be separated from John. She truly loved him.”

Harriet’s impending marriage prompts her to again consider how she could possibly obtain freedom. Her love for her husband, John, makes her more anxious about the prospect of being sold and transported further south. These concerns motivate Harriet to further investigate her two choices for freedom: manumission or running away.

“He shouted at her, ‘You take off and I’ll tell the master. I’ll tell the master right quick.’ She stared at him, shocked, thinking he couldn’t, he wouldn’t. If he told the master she was missing, she would be caught before she got off the plantation.”

Harriet is devastated to learn that her husband does not support her desire to run away and does not want to leave with her. She feels that John takes his freedom for granted because he was born free and that he cannot relate to how desperate she feels and her fears for the future.

“Not one of them was willing to take a small risk in order to be free. It had all seemed so perfect, so simple, to have her brothers go with her, sharing the dangers of the trip together, just as a family should. Now if she ever went North, she would have to go alone.”

Harriet suffers further disappointment when her brothers turn back on their initial attempt to run away and force her to return too. While Harriet wants to maintain her family ties and feels more secure in running away with others, their unwillingness to go does not deter her from her plan.

“When that old chariot comes, I’m going to leave you, I’m bound for the promised land, friends I’m going to leave you.”

When Harriet learns that she will be sold to the slave trader that night, she has little time to make plans or say goodbye to her family. She feels it is too risky to visit the Big House to speak with her sister, so instead, Harriet sings a spiritual song with a coded message to let everyone know that she is “bound for the promised land” of the North.

“She had been rowed for miles up the Choptank River by a man she had never seen before. She had been concealed in a haycock, and had, at one point, spent a week hidden in a potato hole in a cabin which belonged to a family of free Negroes. She had been hidden in the attic of the home of a Quaker. She had been befriended by stout German farmers […].”

Petry describes the ordeals Harriet faced throughout her journey north, and the help she received from sympathetic strangers who were part of the Underground Railroad. Harriet, whose whole life had been confined to just a few properties in Dorchester County, found it “amazing” that some white people would be willing to help runaway slaves.

“People convicted of harbouring slaves could be imprisoned or fined so heavily that they would lose everything they owned. As for the runaways, they might be shot out of hand, or whipped and sold to the deep South, where they would die anyway. It was this that had created the undercurrent of fear.”

Petry explains how the Fugitive Slave Act impacts the activities of the Underground Railroad and its “conductors.” While the network remains active, people aiding the slaves are afraid of being caught by the authorities and facing fines or prison sentences. Enslaved people are also in more danger, as now they can be captured and reenslaved by slave hunters, even once they are in free states.

“It was now a well-known way. She recognized every creek and cove and inlet, every neck of land, every hiding place, every curve in the roads, every potential source of danger, every potential source of safety.”

Once Harriet completes a few missions, she has expert knowledge of the safest route from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Her experience in the landscape helps Harriet guide people efficiently without becoming lost or running into trouble.

“Along the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in Dorchester County, in Caroline County, the masters kept hearing whispers about the man named Moses, who was running off slaves. At first they did not believe in his existence. The stories about him were fantastic, unbelievable. Yet they watched for him. They offered rewards for his capture.”

Tubman’s heroism is quickly related in stories that spread far beyond her old plantation. In addition to showing the impact Tubman’s actions are having on rescuing and uplifting enslaved people, it also shows that while slaves’ verbal storytelling and communication networks are substantial, they manage to keep important details private from slaveholders. These men only know that some of their slaves are successfully escaping but do not understand who this “Moses” is and wrongly assume he is a man.

“Even on this trip, she suddenly fell asleep in the woods. The runaways, ragged, dirty, hungry, cold, did not steal the gun as they might have, and set off by themselves, or turn back. They sat on the ground near her and waited patiently until she awakened. They had come to trust her implicitly, totally.”

While Tubman leads many successful missions, they are not without their challenges. Her head injury’s worst symptom causes her to abruptly fall asleep without warning. This quotation reminds the reader of the many problems that could arise due to Tubman’s injury, which are avoided due to her leadership skills and the trust her companions place in her.

“But the other—the little running figure reproduced on the flimsy paper was that of a woman. The reward for her capture was twelve thousand dollars. The poster described her. It said she was dark, short, of a muscular build, with a deep voice, and that she had a scar on her left temple, scars on the back of her neck. Her name was Harriet Tubman. Sometimes she was called Moses.”

As Tubman’s work continues, the authorities in Maryland learn more about her missions and put out a reward for anyone who can catch her and deliver her to them. Their $12,000 reward (hundreds of thousands of dollars in today’s money) is much more than the few hundred or thousand dollars a slave catcher would earn for capturing a fugitive slave. This high price shows how much damage Tubman is inflicting on slaveholders and their desperation to catch her.

“It wouldn’t be safe for them to live in the United States. The Fugitive Slave Act was still in force, though there were few people in the North who would willingly betray a fugitive. Yet it was a risky thing to do.”

After Harriet rescues her parents, she debates helping them settle in Canada or the US. While they would be safe in Canada from the Fugitive Slave Act, the cold conditions there are very difficult for Old Rit and Ben to cope with. Despite the risks, Harriet decides to purchase a home for her parents in Auburn, New York. 

“Then she started talking, telling about the trips she had made back into the slave country, how she carefully selected the slaves that would go north with her, how they traveled mostly on foot, wading through rivers, hiding in haystacks, barns. […] This firsthand information about the Underground Railroad, by a woman who had served as one of its conductors, thrilled that first audience before whom she spoke. They stood on their feet and cheered and clapped when she finished.”

By the 1850s, Harriet begins to earn money and galvanize abolitionists with her engaging talks about her work as a conductor. Petry conveys Tubman as an authentic and vivid storyteller who is hugely popular with her audiences.

“People started coming toward the boats, coming down the paths, through the meadows, for on each side of the river there were rice fields and slaves working in them. They kept coming, with bundles on their heads, children riding on their mothers’ shoulders, all of them ragged, dirty, the children naked.

Tubman is able to continue her life’s purpose of helping enslaved people during her years of service in the Union forces. In this quotation, the author describes how Tubman and Colonel James Montgomery helped over 700 slaves escape their plantations during their mission up the Combahee River.