The abortive attempt, undertaken in late 1860, marked her last rescue mission on the Underground Railroad.įollowing her escape, Tubman joined Philadelphia's abolitionist network (above, right: Leslie Odom, Jr. Elliott, curator of American slavery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), was a source of “lingering heartbreak” for Tubman. Of her immediate family members still enslaved in the southern state, Tubman ultimately rescued all but one -Rachel Ross, who died shortly before her older sister arrived to bring her to freedom. Between 18, she returned to Maryland some 13 times, helping around 70 people -including four of her brothers, her parents and a niece-escape slavery and embark on new lives. Tubman dedicated the next decade of her life-a period chronicled in Harriet, a new biopic starring Cynthia Erivo as its eponymous heroine- to rescuing her family from bondage. I was a stranger in a strange land and my home after all, was down in Maryland because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there.” “I was free,” she recalled, “but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. The future Underground Railroad conductor’s next thoughts were of her family. There was such a glory over everything the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” As she later told biographer Sarah Bradford, after crossing the Pennsylvania state boundary line in September 1849, “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. It is very irritating and I'm amazed that no one in the 'Audible/Amazon' organization caught it.Harriet Tubman’s first act as a free woman was poignantly simple. That exception is the repeated mispronunciation of the word 'clandestine' which recurs throughout the book. The reader does very well, and I enjoyed listening to her with one notable exception. I have read her biography of Fanny Kemble as well.

But, I must say, Catherine Clinton's 'filler material' is very interesting and informative, and includes material and perspectives not available in other histories of the period. history that is pertinent to Tubman's life. To be clear, only about half the book is the actual biography of Harriet Tubman, the rest of the book is expansive filler material on slavery in general and the U. I did not know that Tubman was so fearless in her rescues and never got caught while freeing slaves through the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman's life is an inspiration and Catherine Clinton tells it very well.

Harriet tubman by catherine clinton