Harriet Tubman, perhaps best known for her work as a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, was a fearless crusader for the freedom of enslaved people. Over the course of a ten-year period, she made 19 trips to escort over 300 slaves to freedom. Frederick Douglass would say of Tubman, some years later, "excepting John Brown... I know of no one who was willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [her]."
Tubman, born around 1820 in Dorcester County, Maryland, resolved to escape from slavery in 1849 after hearing that she and other slaves on the plantation were to be sold. Partly with some help from a white woman, she traveled by night to Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia. Here she found work, saved money, and became involved with the abolitionist movement.
The next year, she returned to the south to facilitate the escape of her sister and her sister's two children. Soon after, she returned again to the south to rescue her brother and two other men. Soon after, she became a "conductor" with the Underground Railroad.