Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland. As a girl she was hired out to harsh masters, and she suffered a severe head injury when an overseer threw a heavy weight at someone else; for the rest of her life she had sudden sleeping spells and vivid dreams, which she understood as messages from God. In 1849 she escaped alone to Philadelphia. Instead of staying safe, she returned to Maryland about thirteen times over the next decade and led around seventy people, including family members, to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of routes and safe houses. She never lost a passenger. Abolitionists called her Moses. During the Civil War she worked for the Union army as a nurse, scout and spy, and in 1863 she helped guide a raid on the Combahee River in South Carolina that freed more than seven hundred people. After the war she lived in Auburn, New York, cared for the poor and elderly, and supported votes for women. She died in 1913.

Faith: Raised Methodist and devoutly religious; in later life she was active in the AME Zion Church in Auburn, New York. Source: Wikipedia