Dozens of slaves owed their freedom to her
The records show that, over the course of her 10-year career volunteering on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made 19 separate trips into the South. Since every time she crossed the Mason-Dixon line she risked capture and being made a slave again – or even worse, since punishments for ‘runaways’ were cruel and even included death – she became a bone-fide legend. Indeed, in her day, Tubman became known as Moses after the biblical prophet who led his people to freedom.
Overall, it’s estimated that as many as 300 slaves owed their freedom to her. Notably, Tubman once told Frederick Douglass, who himself had escaped from slavery to become a prominent social reformer, that she had “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a single passenger” on her many journeys along the Underground Railroad.
At one point, Tubman turned up at the home of Douglass with a large group of escapees. He recalled: “On one occasion I had eleven fugitives at the same time under my roof, and it was necessary for them to remain with me until I could collect sufficient money to get them on to Canada. It was the largest number I ever had at any one time, and I had some difficulty in providing so many with food and shelter.”