Land was plentiful in America’s southern colonies, and land owners could become wealthy by farming it in cash crops (such as rice, depicted in this artwork) on plantations, but they needed workers - a lot of them. Most landowners turned to slavery, which gave them laborers and expedient wealth.

No one chooses to be a slave and in the 17th - 19th centuries, extreme measures were often employed to deter slave defection. Whipping, branding, maiming, forced donning of heavy iron collars (some with bells), and manacles were just a few of the techniques used. Laws prohibiting education and even swimming also kept slaves dependent on their servitude situation for survival.

Harriet Tubman (née Araminta “Minty” Ross) was born into slavery in eastern Maryland around 1821. Hers was a life of countless hardships and cruelty. At 5 or 6 years old, Minty was hired out to watch over a white woman’s baby as it slept. Whenever the baby cried, Minty would be severely whipped. As a teen, she was hit in the head with a 2-pound weight thrown by an overseer at another slave standing nearby. The blow cracked Minty’s skull, injuring her brain and causing lifelong narcolepsy and temporal lobe epilepsy.

As an adult, she changed her name to her mother’s, Harriet. In 1844, she married John Tubman, a free black man. Later that year, she escaped to freedom for fear of being sold to raise money to pay off debts following her owner’s death. Her husband did not join her. The neighboring county had a sizable Quaker community who provided refuge to runaway slaves and helped them navigate the Underground Railroad to freedom in Philadelphia.

In 1850 and for the next ten years, Tubman returned to Maryland to bring at least 70 slaves, including family members, to freedom, earning her the nickname “Moses”. Her husband had remarried and chose to stay in Maryland. Since the Fugitive Slave Act was passed that year, Tubman led her escapees by night to Canada, where she moved in 1851. In 1859, she moved to Auburn, NY.

Harriet Tubman worked for the Union Army as a scout, spy, leader, and nurse. During the Civil War, she helped free hundreds more slaves. In 1869, she married Union Army veteran Nelson Davis. Tubman never let her illiteracy keep her from making speeches for women’s suffrage rights and abolition. When asked about how many slaves she helped to freedom, she said, “I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”