Harriet Tubman was an American slave who escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the American Civil War. She was born in Maryland in 1820, and successfully escaped in 1849. Then she returned many times to help both family members and non-relatives escape from slavery. She led hundreds of slaves to freedom in the North as the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, an elaborate secret network of safe houses organized for that purpose.
