Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and death.

Although the work of helping people self-emancipate continues, abolitionists increasingly begin to focus on outlawing slavery entirely. People have many different ideas about how to make this happen. Harriet attends anti-slavery meetings to testify about her own experiences and argue against those who think that the solution to slavery is to send all Black people to Africa. Harriet is viewed as an inspirational figure in the North. In the South, she is viewed as “deluded” and “weak-minded” (137). The South begins to talk of secession.

Harriet’s mother, Rit, complains of the cold in Canada, and Harriet buys a house for herself and her parents in Auburn, New York, using the contribution of supporters from all over New England. She hears that a man named Charles Nalle was arrested in Troy, New York, as a freedom seeker and is being sent back to Virginia. Harriet hurries to the courthouse. She tells some children to gather people by going out on the street and shouting, “Fire!” A friend of Charles’s addresses the crowd that is soon all around the courthouse, explaining what is happening to Charles. People begin shouting that they will buy his freedom; they take up a collection and soon raise over $1,000.