Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman

This is the book that introduced the world to Harriet Tubman, the woman who became known as "Moses" for leading over seventy enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad. Written in 1869 by Sarah Bradford, who interviewed Tubman directly, it captures her voice, her faith, and her ferocious determination in vivid, unvarnished detail. We see her as a child in Maryland, brutalized by owners, left with a traumatic head wound that would give her seizures and visions throughout her life. We see her escape to Philadelphia in 1849, and then, impossibly, her return to the same hell to bring out her family, then strangers, then dozens more, traveling only by night, never losing a passenger, a price on her head that never stopped her. Bradford does not soften the horror or inflate the legend; she documents a woman of extraordinary courage who trusted in God, relied on her wits, and refused to stop until slavery was destroyed. This is the essential account of American liberation, told in the words of those who knew her best.