Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad

Harriet feels that she is not making enough of a contribution to the cause of freedom. She continues to do paid public speaking and appreciates her audiences’ support but rejects their advice to not travel south again. Instead, she feels a renewed desire to free more people from slavery. She also ponders how the “whole question of slavery” (213) would be resolved as tension escalates between the North and the South. Many people in the northern states resist the implementation of the Fugitive Slave Act, making it largely ineffective, which further angers pro-slavery southerners. Harriet finds that it is difficult to jail abolitionists or runaways in some places in the North due to widespread opposition to the law.

In 1860, Harriet is in Troy, New York, when she sees an agitated crowd of people fighting. The mob is arguing over Charles Nalle, a runaway slave who has been arrested and is on his way to the courthouse for his hearing. Harriet notices a small boy and tells him to run into the street and yell, “Fire!” She edges closer to Nalle and tells the crowd to resist police efforts to take him away. She knocks over a policeman and grabs Nalle away; the crowd blocks the police from following her.