Harriet Tubman (1820–1913)
Harriet was born a slave in Maryland, USA.
As a slave, she was physically and mentally abused, eventually escaping to work as a nurse, spy and rescue worker during the Civil War.
In this period, she set up The Underground Railroad, a covert network of ‘stations’ (safe-houses) and ‘conductors’ (volunteers, many were white Quaker Christians) to help Southern slaves escape to freedom in the Northern abolitionist states, and also a Black Spy network reporting on the movements of the Southern Confederate Army.
