Sunday Favorites: Florida

We’ve all heard of the northern-bound Underground Railroad, the one that transported slaves to freedom, harboring them at random stops along a track that culminated across the Canadian border. When passengers departed this proverbial train, they were free men and women. But did you know the escape route also ran south?

The main conductor, Harriet Tubman, also made numerous trips to Florida. Tubman was born into slavery in Massachusetts in 1820. In her late 20s, she dedicated the rest of her life to freeing other African Americans who were still bound by chains.

The pre-Civil War era was one of strife and unrest among northern and southern states. In 1850, in order to subdue the turmoil and keep the southern states from seceding, congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which required that all runaway slaves be returned to their owners upon capture. The law also stated that officials and citizens of states with emancipation laws still had to honor the code.

Tubman and her associates set up a network of 'safe houses' that harbored these runaways and protected them from extradition. The Florida Memory Project estimates that Tubman freed at least 300 slaves during the 1850s and 1860s.

Many of the slave owners offered rewards for the return of their "property," prompting roving bounty hunters to seek out these runaways for a profit. The real prize came from the capture of abolitionists, such as Tubman, escorting the runaways. At one point, Tubman had a $40,000 reward for her detention.

At the onset of the Civil War in 1861, Tubman was hired by the Union War Department as a nurse, cook and spy. According to the Florida Memory Project, she used her skill set to again free slaves, this time recruiting them into the Union Army.

The soldiers recruited by Tubman conducted raids and guerilla warfare against plantations along the St. Johns and St. Marys rivers. Tubman was present during some of the expeditions, always careful to report what she’d encountered to Union officers.

No job was too small for Tubman. When she wasn’t conducting spy operations, she was cooking meals for the young soldiers and dressing their wounds with herbs she’d gathered along the trail.

Tubman, a woman in a field meant for men and a formerly illiterate slave, was praised as an asset among even the most decorated officers. She was so highly regarded that she was given a federal pension upon retirement.