Original Research Essay #2

We may never know the real Harriet Tubman

Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, January 2012

From U.S. History in Context

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We may never know the real Harriet Tubman

During the 150th anniversary celebrations of the American Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is fitting to focus attention on the life of Harriet Tubman, New Yorker by choice, self-liberated former slave, religious evangelical Underground Railroad conductor, and Civil War scout and nurse. However, we may never know who the real Harriet Tubman was. There is even debate over her signature achievement as a conductor on the Underground Railroad leading enslaved Africans to freedom in the North and Canada. The number of trips she made to the South is not well documented and estimates range between seven and nineteen, although fourteen is probably the more accurate figure. Similarly, there is disagreement about the number of people she rescued on these trips, from sixty to almost four hundred. (2) The highly regarded Black Abolitionist Papers credit Tubman with "at least nine during the 1850s to lead some 180 slaves to freedom ..." (3)

Tubman's star as a major historical actor has risen and fallen in the past 150 years. (4) In 1994, the heavily maligned National Council for History proposed U.S. History standards, overwhelmingly rejected by a vote of the U.S. Senate, that included six references to Harriet Tubman but none for Paul Revere, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, or the Wright blothers. (5) However, in 2006, when Atlantic magazine asked a panel of ten eminent historians to identify the 100 most influential figures in American history, Harriet Tubman did not make a list that included ten other women, four white abolitionists, and eight African Americans. On this list, Bell ranked as the 24th most influential American, the Wright brothers 23rd, and Thomas Edison 9th. (6)

One reason we may never know who the real Harriet Tubman was is because her life has been reconstructed based on limited historical evidence to make what are essentially political points. I find it is useful to compare her tale to accounts of the life of Malcolm X. There is Ossie Davis' noble Black Prince, (7) the changeling portrayed by Alex Haley in Malcolm's "autobiography," (8) Spike Lee and Denzel Washington's much cooler and composed movie version, (9) and the Malcolm buried beneath a mountain of information in Manning Marable's definitive and encyclopedic biography. (10) Similarly, Harriet Tubman has been depicted in messianic terms as the Moses of her people and the Black Joan of Arc, portrayed as the noble Queen of the Underground Railroad, described using military parlance as General Tubman, and been presented as a much simpler and maternal Mother Tubman or Aunt Harriet. (11)

One of the most power iterations of Harriet Tubman is a painting by Jacob Lawrence with a youthful looking, strong, upright, and barefoot Harriet wearing a red blouse and white skirt while holding a pistol in her hand as she pushes and leads a band of fugitive slaves to freedom. (12) Surviving photographs provide us with very different images Tubman. One photograph historian Kale Clifford Larson dates to 1887 or 1888 (other accounts differ), show her with a group of African Americans, three children, two adult males, and an elderly woman. (13) Tubman, to the far left in the picture, is hunched over, her shoulders facing inward. She holds a washing bowl in front of her and wears a long simple dress and a round-brimmed hat. This is certainly not the ferocious heroine portrayed by Lawrence.

There also survive a posed headshot of Tubman and at least five full-length portraits, two standing, and three sitting, as well as a widely-circulated woodcut from the first edition of the Sarah Bradford biography. Tubman portrayed as a Civil War scout carrying a rifle. (14) One of the full-length portraits shows Tubman dressed in plain but formal dress with a neck scarf. This picture probably was intended as a publicity shot for books. The most intriguing photograph, circa 1895, shows Tubman wearing a headscarf and looking much more like a veteran of the anti-slavery campaigns and the Civil War. (15) As with Malcolm X, with so many possible variations, it is impossible to tell which image is the real Harriet.

Despite these variations, Tubman has become a legendary figure in elementary school classrooms and in children's literature. Like Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Betsy-Ross, and Davy Crockett, her life is deeply woven into the myths we tell school children about the history of American society. Tubman stands as the personification of the ability of people to persevere against difficulties and injustices. She is probably the subject of more children's books than any African American historical figure except perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr. The Brooklyn Public Library lists twenty-eight biographies of Tubman in its juvenile collection. (16) At the same time her story has been sanitized, blemishes have been removed, radicalism has been deemphasized, like in the stories of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Frederick Douglass, to make them more appropriate as American heroes.

Because she was illiterate, it was illegal to teach enslaved Africans to read and write in the South, and perhaps also because of a brain injury she suffered when struck in the head in her youth, Harriet Tubman was forced to rely on others to write her story. Her chief spokesperson was Sarah H. Bradford, a white woman, who was a schoolteacher from Geneva, New York. Bradford was about the same age as Tubman. The text suggests she was in awe of her friend and neighbor's achievements, although some authors believe she was not closely connected to Tubman and was recruited to write the book. (17)

After the Civil War, Tubman was repeatedly in financial difficulty. Bradford and Tubman's supporteis saw-promotion of her story as a way for her to achieve financial security and to repay her debts. Among other things, Bradford arranged for the costs of the book's publication to be donated. (18) In the introduction to the 1869 edition of her biography of Tubman, Bradford claimed her "single object" in writing the book was to argue Tubman's case for a Civil War veterans pension, however she also wanted to ensure Tubman's place in history. (19) The biography was revised, lengthened, and reissued in 1886 as Harriet, The Moses of Her People. (20)

Larson argues that Bradford's revisions to the biography reflect changes in American culture and society from the post-Civil War era to the post-Reconstruction period. They may also reflect changes in Tubman's own life. (21) In 1856, Tubman was "wanted" in the South because of her activities on the Underground Railroad, theft of human "property," and violation of the Fugitive Slave laws. In the 1860s she served in the Union army as a nurse, cook, scout, and spy. Little, however, is known about Tubman's life in the 1870s and 1880s and what we do know suggests a series of problems including charges that she was involved in a financial scandal. Tubman experienced the death of close members of her family including her mother and husband, and between 1882 and 1884, the destruction by fire of her home. (22)

Later in life Tubman became a noted local storyteller elaborating on her own exploits and reworking her legend. In a 1890s interview, she supposedly welcomed the appellation, "Moses of Her People" claiming. "I felt like Moses. De Lord tole me to do dis. I said, 'O Lord, I can't - don't ask me - take somebody else." Den I could hear de Lord answer, It's you I want. Harriet Tubman' -jess as clar I heard him speak - an' den I'd go agen down South an' bring up my brudders and sisters'" (23)

Among other things, in the second edition, Bradford muted criticism of slavery, wrote passages in dialect, and used racist stereotypes in her descriptions of African Americans. In the preface to the 1869 edition, Bradford had no problem claiming Tubman's achievements deserved equal mention with Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale, and that she was providing a "plain and unvarnished account of some scenes and adventures in the life of a woman who, though one of earth's lowly ones, and of dark-hued skin, has shown an amount of heroism in her character rarely possessed by those of any station in life ... Well has she been called "Moses," for she has been a leader and deliverer unto hundreds of her people." (24) However, in the preface to second edition, Bradford felt compelled to justify calling Harriet "Moses" when she was a woman and had "succeeded in piloting only three or four hundred slaves from the land of bondage to the land of freedom." (25) Larson offers a well-documented criticism of Bradford's work, but it is likely that without Bradford, Harriet Tubman would have been forgotten. (26) Among other things, it was Bradford who secured endorsements of the biographies and Harriet Tubman's accomplishments from noted abolitionists and politicians including Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, and William Seward.

Tubman was barely mentioned in major contemporary accounts of the Underground Railroad, which suggests her current renown developed after the fact. In 1883, R.C. Smedley, a White physician, published History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring counties of Pennsylvania. (27) This region of Pennsylvania is southwest of Philadelphia on the Delaware River and definitely was an area where Tubman operated as a conductor. In the introduction to the 1969 Arno Press reissue of Smedley's book, series editor William L. Katz describes Smedley as the "first nonparticipant" to write about the Underground Railroad and "more concerned and aware of the selfless devotion of local whites, particularly those motivated by deep religious conviction1" than he is with black participants. (28) In a book that is over four hundred-pages long, Smedley included only three paragraphs about a "colored woman named Harriet Tubman" who was "active in helping hundreds to escape, " although he does suggest she merits comparison with Joan of Arc because of her bravery, success, and her belief that she was in constant communication with God. (29)

Unlike Smedley, William Still, who published his history of the Underground Railroad in 1872, had significant personal experience in the struggle to end slavery. Still was a free black and an Underground Railroad stationmaster in Philadelphia as well as a member of Pennsylvania Anti-SJavery Society and secretary and executive director of the area's General Vigilance Committee. (30) His eight-hundred page book, The Underground Rail Road, A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, etc., Narrating the Hardships Hair-breadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in their efforts for Freedom, as related by themselves and others, or witnessed by the author; together with sketches of some of the largest stockholders, and most liberal aiders and advisers, of the road, primarily focused on Philadelphia. It is filled with anecdotes and biographical information about abolitionists and fugitive slaves, but Still only included three paragraphs on Harriet Tubman describing one incident where "Moses" arrived in Philadelphia with six "passengers." (31)

In 1898, Wilbur H. Siebert, a historian and professor at Ohio State University who was White, published what was at the time a definitive history of the Underground Railroad, The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom, Tubman is only discussed in a five-page section of the 478-page book. (32) Siebert interviewed Harriet Tubman in 1897, however according to footnotes the information on Tubman is almost entirely drawn from the second edition of the Bradford book. (33)

I think Frederick Douglass may have provided the best explanation for the difficulty in defining Harriet Tubman. In a letter to Tubman and Bradford prior to publication of the first edition of the Bradford biography, Douglass wrote:

'The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and

suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and 1 have

received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the

other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the

day - you in the night. I have had the applause of the crowd and the

satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while

the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling,

scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of

the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt "God bless you" has been

your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been

the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism.

Excepting John Brown - of sacred memory - I know of no one who has

willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved

people than you have. Much that you have done would seem improbable

to those who do not know you as I know you." (34)

While Douglass was a spokesperson for the abolitionist cause and a public figure, Tubman, by necessity, worked at night, in private, and with the most marginalized members of the community. In addition, Douglass seems to suggest her accomplishments were minimized because of who she was. Her exploits on the Underground Railroad in defiance of Southern Slave power and as a scout for the Union Army during the Civil War seemed "improbable" because she was a woman, someone of African ancestry, and for a former slave. The racism and gender bias of the period forced commentators like Bradford and Siebert to defend Tubman's personal credibility when recording accomplishments. Even John Brown, who called her "General Tubman" felt compelled to describe Harriet in masculine terms. "He [Harriet] is the most of a man naturally; that I ever met with." (35)

In the first decade of the 21st century there were a series of new Harriet Tubman biographies. By far the most intriguing is a book by Milton Sernett, Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History, that is more a commentary on the interplay between history and public memory than it is an actual biography. (36) Sernett wanted to understand why Tubman so strongly captured the American imagination in the recent past, and to do this, he had to sort out the "legend" from the "lady." (37) The book is broadly chronological with chapters on the original or core Tubman myth, the Underground Railroad, Tubman during the Civil War, her relationship with Sarah Bradford, life and death in Auburn, New York, and popularization and new myths. I agree with Sernett that nations and social movements need heroes like Tubman. The best heroes are dead ones who do not embarrass them by developing new ideas and or taking unpopular political stands.

Sernett's book draws on both recent and past efforts to understand Tubman. He praises a 1943 book by Earl Conrad, Harriet Tubman, that inaugurates modern Tubman scholarship, books by Kate Clifford Larson and Jean Humez, and a series of articles by James McGowan. (38) McGowan later co-authored a biography with William Kashatus, Harriet Tubman: A Biography. (39)

I found the Larson book to be carefully documented with reproductions of a runaway slave advertisement calling for the recapture of Harriet Tubman, known at the time as Minty, and four runaway slaves she had helped liberate. (40) According to the 1849 runaway slave ad, Tubman was 27 years old, "of a chestnut color, fine looking, and about 5 feet high." The reward was $50 if she was captured in Maryland and $100 if she had escaped to another state. Larson also debunked the legend that Southerners had placed an extraordinarily high bounty of between $12,000 and $40,000 on Harriet Tubman because of her role in the Underground Railroad. Larson could find no evidence to support claims made by Sarah Bradford. (41)

Other recent Tubman biographies include Catherine Clinton's Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom and Beverly Lowry's Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life. (42) Lowry's book is the least academic of this group. Her subtitle and opening author's note are suggestive of the problems faced by Tubman biographers. She explicitly states that in this work she has "reimagined" Tubman's life "as best as I could." (43)

Sernett agrees with Frederick Douglass' assertion that Tubman's fame was initially hidden from the public because the risks involved as a conductor on the Underground Railroad required secrecy to ensure success and survival. While largely unknown to Whites prior to publication of the Bradford biography. Tubman was already known in Black communities as "Moses" because of her frequent visits to the South "always carrying away some of the oppressed." (44)

The earliest independent documentary evidence of Harriet Tubman's activities is from a brief letter written in December 1854 by Thomas Garrett. The letter was published in William Stilt's history of the Underground Railroad. (45) Garrett was an Underground Railroad stationmaster in Wilmington, Delaware on the escape route to Philadelphia. The letter was written to J. Miller McKim, the corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. The tone of the letter and the commentary provided by Still make it clear that McKim and Still were both familiar with Tubman and her work. Garrett wrote:

"We made arrangements last night, and sent away Harriet Tubman, with

six men and one woman to Allen Agnew's, to forwarded across the

country to the city. Harriet, and one of the men had worn their shoes

off their feet, and 1 gave them two dollars to help fit them

out ... " (46)

Tubman is also briefly mentioned in an 1856 book written by Benjamin Drew, who met Tubman in St. Catherines, Ontario during the previous year. (47) In 1863, Tubman was introduced to a broader northern public in a front-page featured article in the Boston abolitionist newspaper Commonwealth. (48) Written during the Civil War in defense of emancipation, this article presented Tubman in heroic terms.

In a book published in 1874, William Wells Brown, described Harriet Tubman as a frequent presence at abolitionist meetings in the decade prior to the Civil War. (49) From an article in the Liberator, we know that Harriet Tubman was a speaker at an anti-slavery rally in Framingham, Massachusetts on July 4, 1859. (50) Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who later was a White officer in command of Black troops during the Civil War, introduced Tubman at the Framingham rally. In a letter written in June 1859, he wrote:

"I have known her for some time and mentioned her in speeches once or

twice - the slaves call her Moses. She had a reward of twelve

thousand dollars offered for her in Maryland and will probably be

burned alive whenever she is caught, which she probably will be,

first or last, as she is going again." (51)

Decades later, in a book describing his contemporaries, Higginson wrote that he considered Harriet Tubman one of the most eminent figures of the age, "a black woman, who. after escaping from slavery herself, had gone back secretly eight times into the jaws of death to bring out persons she had never seen, " however, curiously, he did not mention her by name. (52)

One of the more interesting debates about Tubman concerns the nature of her religiosity and reflects the beliefs and politics of Tubman's biographers. According to Sernett, Sarah Bradford tried to fit Tubman's belief that she personally experienced divine guidance and had an active, even mystical relationship with God, into her own more traditional Protestant religious framework. (53) Earl Conrad, writing within a Marxist tradition in the 1940s, promoted Tubman as a working-class revolutionary hero. He attributed Tubman's visions to the physical injury she incurred in her youth, rather than to her religious beliefs. (54) More recently, Jean Humez situated Tubman's spirituality, visions, dream language, and belief in charms, within a syncretic slave Christianity infused with African ritual and belief. (55) I confess I did find puzzling, and perhaps I misread. Serrnett's discussion of Tubman's "psychic abilities." (56) He cites James McGowairs efforts to document these powers. While it may be true that Tubman believed she had some kind of supernatural powers because of a close connection with God, that is different from suggesting that these powers actually existed.

There is a relatively well-known quote from the Sherlock Holmes story 'Silver Blaze" that suggests sometimes the most telling evidence is the absence of evidence. (57) Scotland Yard Detective Gregory asks Holmes "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes replies: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory, puzzled, informs Holmes, "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes them answers, "That was the curious incident." The curious incidents in this case present several important questions. Why do we have so little documentary evidence about Harriet Tubman's relationship to prominent white abolitionists, particularly William Seward? How should we understand Tubman's relationships with John Brown and Frederick Douglass? What can we learn about Harriet Tubman from the one independently documented incident in her career, the April 1860 Nalle rescue in Troy, New York?

William Seward was probably the most prominent political abolitionist in the United States during the 1850s. As a Senator from New York State, he was an outspoken critic of the 1850 Fugitive Slave law and he was one of the leading candidates for the Republican Party's Presidential nomination in 1860. Larson believes the connection between Tubman and Seward developed out of a previous contact Tubman had with Auburn, New York abolitionist Martha Coffin Wright. (58) Wright's sister, Lucretia Coffin Mott was a supporter of Underground Railroad activities in the Philadelphia region where Tubman operated. Wright's husband was Seward's lav. partner. Originally, Seward and his wife Frances helped Tubman and the Underground Railroad hiding fugitive slaves in their home.

In 1858 Seward became Tubman's benefactor. In open violation of the Fugitive Slave Act and the 1857 Dred Scott decision, Seward sold property to Tubman on the outskirts of Auburn for use by her family. (59) He required only a minimal down payment and charged a low quarterly fee for the principal and interest. When Tubman, always pressed for money, was unable to cover her expenses, Seward paid her property taxes and insurance. (60) During the Civil War, Seward helped Tubman secure a position as a nurse in a hospital for wounded Black Civil War veterans. (61) Later, he supported her effort to secure a military pension. When Seward died, much of Tubman's debt to his estate was forgiven. (62)

Yet despite this long term and seemingly significant partnership, Seward biographies and papers do not mention his relationship to or support of Tubman. All evidence for a connection between Seward and Tubman come from Tubman biographers, primarily Franklin Sanborn's brief article about Tubman published in 1863, and Bradford. (63) Other than these sources, Larson cites only one reference to the mortgage arrangement she located in the Seward Papers at Harvard University. (64) I suspect the relationship, which made it possible for Tubman to do her work, have some economic security. and fulfill family obligations, was much more important to Tubman, a formerly enslaved, non-literate, impoverished, largely unknown, African American woman, than it was to Seward.

While Seward hardly acknowledged a relationship with Tubman, John Brown probably exaggerated his connection to her and other radical black abolitionists in order to establish his credibility as he recruited for the Harpers Ferry raid. According to a letter written by Brown in April 1858, he met with Tubman in Canada where he enlisted her support for the raid, asking her to recruit runaway slaves and free blacks for the enterprise. (65) From the enthusiasm expressed in his letter, Brown was clearly impressed with Tubman and believed her participation would ensure the success of his plan. In the Bradford biographies, Tubman claimed to have had a vision of Brown before she met him and that she did not fully understand the vision until after the events at Harpers Ferry. (66) In Earl Conrad's biography of Tubman, Conrad claims she was scheduled to participate in the raid but could not because of illness. (67)

I think it is telling that no one from among Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Jermain Loguen, who introduced Tubman to Brown in St. Catharines, participated in the Harpers Ferry raid. (68) Douglass, who had a longer and deeper relationship with Brown than Tubman, decided not to join Brown because he felt the venture could not succeed. (69) We do not know why Tubman was not there, but I suspect she was never completely on board with Brown's plan. Harriet Tubman worked at night and alone, and whatever her feelings for Brown or the Harpers Ferry raid, she was unlikely to enlist in someone else's operation.

Frederick Douglass was a prolific writer and frequent orator, yet leaves behind almost no suggestion of a relationship with Harriet Tubman besides the 1868 endorsement of the Bradford biography. He did not mention Tubman or a relationship with her in any of the editions of his memoirs. Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings includes the 1868 letter and mentions a January 1858 letter from Douglass to the Ladies "Irish Anti-Slavery Association where he referred to an unnamed" coloured woman, who escaped from slavery eight years ago."who" has made several returns at great risk, and has brought out since obtaining her freedom fifty others from the house of bondage. She has been spending a short time with us since the holidays. She possesses great courage and shrewdness, and may yet render even more important service to the Cause," (70) However, in this letter Douglass did not mention Tubman by name. The Frederick Douglass Papers in the Library of Congress' Manuscript Division, contain over seven thousand items relating to Douglass' life as "an escaped slave, abolitionist, editor, orator, and public servant. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895. The collection consists of correspondence, speeches and articles by Douglass and his contemporaries, a draft of his autobiography, financial and legal papers, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous items," (71) There is correspondence between Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Horace Greeley, and Grover Cleveland, but there are no references in the collection to Harriet Tubman.

Larson believes Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman may have met in 1851 when Tubman led a band of eleven fugitives through Rochester on the route to Canada. (72) Douglass mentions the "occasion" in his memoirs because it stood out for him as "the largest number I ever had at one time, and I had some difficulty in providing so many with food and shelter ..." (73) However, he did not identify Tubman as part of this group, place her in the group in his 1858 letter to the Irish Ladies, or refer to the incident in his endorsement of the Bradford biography.

Larson also speculates that Tubman and Douglass knew each other while enslaved on Maryland's Eastern Shore, however, she concedes that "little documentation exists that definitely points to any relationship between Douglass and Tubman prior to Tubman's own liberation." (74) This kind of speculation, which I feel weakens the Larson book, underscores how little we actually know about Tubman. The reality is there is little documentation of a relationship between Douglass and Tubman at any point in their lives, despite the fact that they lived about sixty miles apart in upstate New York for many years. For me, the absence of documentation points to the absence of a significant relationship.

Harriet Tubman's role in the Nalle Rescue in Troy, New York on April 28, 1860 is documented by independent sources, but the sources tell different stories. Not surprisingly, Sarah Bradford, claiming she is presenting Tubman's version, places Harriet Tubman at the center of the events. (75) In the Bradford biography, it is Tubman who rushes to the "office of the United States Commissioner" following the arrest of Charles Nalle, "scattering the tidings as she went." (76) It is Harriet standinu in the window of the office wearinu a "sun-bonnet" who signals to the group gathering outside and sends boys to cry "fire" in an attempt to drew an even bigger crowd. It is Harriet who blocks the stairwell as the marshals try to move Nalle and who finally commands the crowd to drag Nalle to the river, even as the marshals open fire. (77)

Concerned that some readers would find this account "too wonderful for belief," Bradford sought independent confirmation from Martin Townsend, the lawyer for Charles Nalle, Townsend confirmed that Tubman had grabbed a manacled Nalle and held on to him during a half-an-hour's struggle and was severely beaten by police. (78) Townsend, according to Bradford, commended Tubman who "exposed herself to the fury of the sympathizers with slavery, without fear, and suffered their blows without flinching." (79)

Three contemporary newspaper accounts, however, have Tubman playing a less prominent role in the Nalle rescue. Bradford reprinted an article from the April 28, 1860 (which she misdated) Troy Whig in her appendix. (80) In the Whig version, key leadership roles are played by William Henry, "a colored man, with whom Nalle boarded," and Nalle's attorney, Martin Townsend. neither of whom are mentioned by Bradford in the text of the biographies. (81) It is Henry who whips up the crowd to intervene and help Nalle escape. Although the article describes Blacks and women in the crowd, there is no one mentioned who could have been Harriet Tubman.

The Troy Daily Times also cites Henry and Townsend for their efforts to free Nalle, and credits Henry tor arranging for Nalle's legal counsel. (82) This newspaper noted the presence of a "somewhat antiquated colored woman, who at a later period became an active spirit of the melee, and who was said to be in some way related to the prisoner. She was provided with a signal to prepare those on the outside for an attack, when the prisoner should be brought forth." Later in to the article readers learn "The most conspicuous person opposed to the legal course, was the venerable colored woman, who exclaimed. 'Give us liberty or give us death!' and by vehement gesticulations urged the rescuers on."

The New York Times coverage of "The Slave Rescue at Troy" was somewhat less comprehensive than that of either Troy newspaper. (83) It did not mention Henry, Townsend, Tubman, or the "somewhat antiquated colored woman." Milton Sernett, in his review of both primary sources and secondary accounts of the Nalle Rescue found it almost impossible to sort out what actually happened in Troy that day, partly because 'Tubman was fond of retelling, "and perhaps elaborating on, "the story of the Nalle rescue in her later years." (84)

Based on my reading of the sources and the biographies, this is the Harriet Tubman who I found. For whatever reason, illiteracy, suspicion of others born out of enslavement, serious injury incurred as a youth, or personality, Harriet Tubman was a lone wolf who operated by herself. I think this explains why she did not participate in Harpers Ferry. As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Tubman worked on the margins of society. That meant she left behind few eyewitnesses in a position to speak about her exploits and a slender paper trail.

In some ways, calling her the Black Moses robs Tubman of her militancy. The biblical Moses acted as God's agent when he led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, not as a freedom fighter. Tubman not only led people to freedom, but she was willing and able to fight, as she demonstrated in Troy. On the other hand, Tubman was not the gun-toting revolutionary celebrated by Jacob Lawrence and Earl Conrad. Survival on repeated trips into the slave holding South meant she had to be more cautious and calculating than the Lawrence portrayal.

I have no idea of the extent of Tubman's physical disability and its impact on her mental functioning. Clearly she was sustained by her religious conviction and what she felt was a personal relationship with God, which was not uncommon in that era. While she identified as a Christian, it is almost certain she did not practice what would have been considered traditional Christianity in the United States at that time.

The repeated violation of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 by abolitionists in the decade before the Civil War provoked the South's virulent reaction to this perceived threat to the sanctity of slave property. It undermined the precarious balance between regions established by the United States (institution and precipitated both the Civil War and emancipation. Tubman, as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, contributed to the conditions that produced the impending crisis. Perhaps Tubman's greatest achievement. however, was her involvement in the Nalle rescue, because unlike her efforts on the Underground Railroad, it was done in the light of day and brought publicity to the cause at a particularly crucial moment.

Milton Sernett argues, and I agree, that Harriet Tubman has come to represent and personalize the Underground Railroad, in much the same way that Anne Frank represents the European Holocaust and Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks are symbols of the African American Civil Rights movement. However, as in each of these cases, the events were much larger than the individual. No one living person, no matter how great, could ever be Sarah Bradford's "Harriet Tubman. Moses of her People."

(1) Alan Singer is author of New York and Slavery: Time to Teach the Truth (Albany. NY: SUNY Press), editor of Social Science Docket, a joint publication of the New-York and New Jersey Councils for the Social Studies, and a professor of social studies education at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

(2) Milton Sernelt. Harriet Tubman: Myth. Memory, and History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 56-62.

(3) C. Peter Ripley, editor The Abolitionist Papers, Volume 5. The United Slates, 1859-65. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992, 222.

(4) Sernett, 2.

(5) Alan Singer. Social Studies for Secondary Schools. Teaching to Learn. Learning to Teach, 3rd edition. New York: Routledge, 2008, 24; Sernett. 1

(6) http://www.theathlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/12/the-top-100-influential-figtures-in-american-history/5384/#slide100, accessed Seplember 12, 2011.

(7) Ossic Davis "Eulogy for Malcolm X." February 27. 1965. http://wwwhartlord-hwp.com/archives/45a/071.html, accessed October 19, 2011.

(8) Malcolm X with Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grave, 1956.

(9) Spike Lee. Malcolm X. 1992. hup://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104797/.accessed October 19, 2011.

(10) Manning Marable. Malcolm A. A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking, 2011.

(11) Sernett, passim.

(12) http://worldclasskids.tripod.com/harietttubmanforward.jpg, accessed Seplember 10. 2011.

(13) Kate Clifford Larson, Bound for the Promised Land, Harriet Tubman. Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantinc, 2004; http://www.math.buffalo.edu/-sww/Ohistoiy/hwny-tubman.html, accessed September 10, 2011.

(14) http://www.hamettubmanbiography.com/; http://www.math.bulTalo.edu/-sww/OhistOiy/hwny-tubman.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman; http://maap.columbia.edu/content/places/harriet_tubman/images/274 MAAP_Harriet Tubman_Then_274.jpg; http://www.ahsd25.kl2.il.us/womenshistory/tubman.html; and http://daringbookforgirls.com/about-the-bookabout-the-double-daring-book-for-girls/harriet-tubman/, accessed Seplember 11, 2011. (http://en.wikipedia/org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman, accessed October 5. 2011); Sarah H Bradford. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. Auburn. NY: W. J. Moses, 1869.

(15) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman, accessed September 11. 2011).

(16) Sernett, 22; http://catalog.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/search-S62?dtubman/dtubman/%2C7%2C48%2CB/exact&FF=dtubman+harriet+1820+1913&1%2C28%2C, accessed October 19,2011.

(17) Larson, 242.

(18) Larson. 248.

(19) Bradford, 1869, i. 1.

(20) Sarah Bradford. Harriet Tubman. The Moses of Her People. New York: George R Loekwood and Son, 1886.

(21) Larson. 266.

(22) Larson, 257-261

(23) Semen, 12, 42.

(24) Bradford, 1869, 1.

(25) Bradford, 1886.3-4.

(26) Larson, 266-270.

(27) Robert C. Smedley. History of the Underground Railroad. 1883. Reprinted New-York: A mo Press, 1969.

(28) William L Katz, preface, Smedley. FHstory of the Underground Railroad. New York: Amo Press. 1969. np.

(29) Smedley. 250-251.

(30) Willuim Still, The Underground Rail Road, 1872. Reprinted Chicago: Johnson Publishing. 1970, v.

(31) Still, 305-306

(32) Wilbur Siebeit. The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom New York The Macmillan Company.l898, 185-189.

(33) Scrneu. 59; http://deila.dickmson.edu./theirownwords.title/0090.htm. accessed September 12, 2011.

(34) Bradford, 1869, 6-8

(35) Catherine Clinton. Harriet Tubman. The Road to Freedom, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2004. 129

(36) Sernetl.2

(37) Semen 3

(38) Earl Conrad. Harriet Tuhmwu, New York: International Publishers. 1942; Larson; Jean Humez, Harriet Tubman; The Life and the Life Stories Madison Wl: University of Wisconsin, 2003

(39) James McGowjin and William Kashatus. Harriet Tuhman: A Biography, Westport, CT Greenwood. 2011.

(40) Larson, 79. 147

(41) Larson. 344. Bradford. 1886, 33

(42) Catherine Clinton. Harriet Tubman The Road to Freedom, New York: Little Brown. 2004; Beverly Lowry. Harriet Tubman; Imagining a Life. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

(43) Lowry 1

(44) Semen. 42

(45) William Still The Underground Rail Road, 1872. Reprinted Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1970.

(46) Still, 305.

(47) Sernett. 15.

(48) Sernett, 46.

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(50) Sernett, 48.

(51) Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, editor Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 1846-1906, Boston. MA: Houghton Mifflin. 1921, 81

(52) Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Contemporaries, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1899. 227.

(53) Sernett, 135-138.

(54) Alan Wald Between Insularity and Internationalism: The Lost World of the Jewish Communist "Cultural Workers" in Jonathan Frankel. editor. America in Dark Times, Dire Decisions: Jews and Communism, Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Volume.XX. Oxford University Press. 2005: Seniett 139-140

(55) Sernett, 138.

(56) Sernett, 144-148

(57) Arthur Conan Doyle, Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894, 22.

(58) Larson, 155.

(59) Larson, 163-166

(60) Larson, 184.

(61) Larson, 229-230.

(62) Larson. 253.

(63) Bradford. 1869, 73,80-81, 112

(64) Larson, 164.

(65) Sernett, 209.

(66) Larson, 158-159; Bradford, 1886, 118-119

(67) Conrad, 126; Larson. 174.

(68) Lawson, 159.

(69) Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske Co.. 1892. Reprinted London, UK: Collier Books, 1962. 314-325.

(70) Frederick Douglass. Philip Foner, and Yuval Taylor. Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 1999, 600-601.

(71) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/doughtml/doughome.html.accessed October 24, 2011.

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(73) Douglass. 1992/1962, 266.

(74) Larson, 94

(75) Bradford, 1886. 119-124.

(76) Bradford, 1886, 120.

(77) Bradford, 1886. 121. 123.

(78) Bradford. 1886. 126-127.

(79) Bradford. 1886, 127.

(80) Bradford, 1886, 143-149.

(81) Bradford. 1886. 145.

(82) Troy Daily Times, April 28, 1860, 1.

(83) The New York Times. May I. 1860, 8.

(84) Sernett. 84.

Alan Singer (1)

Singer, Alan

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier, Inc.
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Citation Chicago

Singer, Alan. "We may never know the real Harriet Tubman." Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 36, no. 1 (2012): 64+. U.S. History in Context (accessed April 18, 2017). http://proxy.deltacollege.edu:8080/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A280967666/UHIC?u=sjdc_main&xid=f2d59953.