Harriet Tubman: Spy, Veteran, and Widow

Abstract

Harriet Tubman is one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. Well known for liberating enslaved blacks while a “conductor” along the Underground Railroad, Tubman was also a humanitarian, political activist, entrepreneur, and patriot. Tubman accomplished so much and helped so many during her lifetime that she has reached folkloric status in the American memory, in part, because the facts and myths of her life have been retold in over 40 children's books. Both of the accomplishments for which she is most remembered—her heroism along the Underground Railroad and her patriotism as a spy for the Union Army—were clandestine activities. Adding to her mystique is the fact that Tubman was illiterate, and so left no handwritten records of her exploits. Some documentary evidence of one phase of her life, however, survives in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration. The two documents featured in this lesson—a...