Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman

“All that night and all the next day Harriet hid in the pigpen, afraid of the sow, but more afraid of Miss Sarah. When the pigs slept, she scraped the trough for food. When they woke, she rolled back to her straw bed.”

Because adult pigs can be very dangerous—even to an adult person—Harriet has a justified fear of the sow. Sterling stresses Harriet’s terror of Miss Sarah by making it clear that Harriet would rather take her chances with the sow than be found by Sarah. The image of seven-year-old Harriet sneaking from her hiding place in the straw to eat bits of slop left behind by pigs emphasizes her hunger and the deplorable circumstances of her life as an enslaved child. This moment lays the groundwork for Harriet’s Resilience and Bravery in the Face of Oppression, showing her ability to endure dehumanizing conditions with quiet determination.

“That’s the North Star, child. The best star there is. But you mustn’t be thinking about that now—not yet.”

Ben’s assertion that the north star is “[t]he best star there is” underscores the symbolic function of the north star as a representation of hope and freedom. When he tells young Harriet that it is not time to be thinking about the star “yet,” he foreshadows her eventual self-emancipation to the North.

“Something inside me won’t let me smile at the Mistress. When she talks to me I feel all hard inside, like I swallowed a stone.”

The organic image of Harriet feeling as if she “swallowed a stone” conveys the physicality of the oppression she feels. Sterling portrays Harriet’s emotions as particular to her, however, contrasting Harriet’s defiant spirit with the more compliant nature of her sister Mary Ann. This helps portray Harriet’s resilience and bravery in the face of oppression as something that arises from her own inner nature.

“But slave children grew up quickly in Maryland in the 1820’s. The weak who dropped exhausted in the fields were comforted with the overseer’s lash and the threat of sale to the cotton planters.”

Sterling’s use of the word “comforted” is verbal irony: The lash and threats of being sold south are in no way comforting. This irony highlights the difference between the way enslaved children are treated and the way children should be treated. A distressed child should be comforted and cared for lovingly—not physically and emotionally abused. The brutality described here sets the emotional tone for the reader and underscores the historical urgency behind Harriet’s later work on the Underground Railroad.

“Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,

And why not every man?”

Harriet’s song exemplifies the spirituals used to spread messages of liberation theology among enslaved peoples and give them a source of hope. The allusion is to Daniel, a Biblical figure who is punished by his Babylonian oppressors for staying faithful to the Hebrew God by being thrown into a lion’s den. Daniel is delivered from certain death by God’s intervention, and the song asks why “every man”—including enslaved Black people—should not expect the same salvation from oppression.

“Despite her plain appearance, there was a magnetic quality about Harriet.”

As a feminist seeking to inspire young female readers, Sterling stresses that Harriet’s looks are not what matter most about her: It is her inner qualities that attract people. This characterization also serves to set Harriet apart from others and show that, even in her teen years, there is something special about Harriet that other people recognize. Portraying Harriet as unique helps bolster the text’s arguments about The Impact of Individual Actions on Broader Societal Changes.

“While still a slave in form, she was in spirit a human being and a free woman.”

Sterling makes a claim that Harriet experiences significant changes as a result of her experience with the overseer’s assault and her near brush with death. Although Sterling’s phasing is problematic—an enslaved person is always, in spirit and in every other way, a “human being”—what she seeks to convey is a profound change in Harriet’s understanding of herself following this incident. This time in Harriet’s life is a turning point for her, making it inevitable that she will, at some point, attempt to self-emancipate. The quote illustrates the transformation of Harriet’s internal identity, emphasizing that freedom begins as a state of mind before it becomes a physical reality.

“The railroad goes through Camden now, thee knows.”

The Quaker woman’s coded language refers, on the surface, to an ordinary, physical railroad. Her real intention is to allude to the Underground Railroad to make sure that Harriet understands that she is trying to pass on information about self-emancipation. The way that the two women speak to one another—obliquely rather than directly, even though they are completely alone—conveys the extreme danger of passing on such information to someone untrustworthy.

“Most wonderful of all was the bed, a great four-poster, fully three feet from the polished floor.”

When Harriet wakes up at Ezekiel Hunn’s house, she is amazed at the beauty and comfort of the bedroom. The bed is “[m]ost wonderful of all” because not only has Harriet been in desperate need of sleep after her stressful journey, but as an enslaved person, she has also never slept in a bed of this type before in her life. The bed becomes a symbol of the life that Harriet is trying to obtain for herself—one where she can have equal access to the kinds of things that the white people of her time take for granted.

“In the blackness of the night, she climbed fences, waded streams, and sloshed through bogs. Every few yards she forced herself to crawl back through the underbrush and find the highway, to make sure that she was still heading north.”

Sterling’s list of Harriet’s actions, along with diction like “crawled” and the image of Harriet making her way through brush on hands and knees, stresses the physical effort and discomfort of Harriet’s journey. This contributes to the characterization of Harriet as determined and strong, supporting the text’s theme of resilience and bravery in the face of oppression.

“In Harriet’s dreams there had been beautiful ladies with their arms outstretched to greet her as she crossed the line to freedom. Now, standing in the sunlight, breathing the free air, she was alone.”

The anticlimactic image of Harriet standing alone, with no one to help her celebrate her great achievement, conveys one of the great sacrifices that enslaved people had to make in order to self-emancipate: the loss of community. The juxtaposition of emotionally uplifting language like “beautiful ladies,” “arms outstretched,” “sunlight,” and “free air” with the final realization that “she [i]s alone” emphasizes how conflicted Harriet feels in this moment.

“On Sundays, still a stranger in a strange land, she headed for the highway to spend happy hours tramping through the fields and the forest.”

The detail of Harriet spending Sundays enjoying the outdoors is a reminder of Harriet’s earliest days, when she was young enough to be allowed to play outdoors on some Sundays instead of being forced to work. This shows that, in the free state of Pennsylvania, Harriet is able to be more herself again. The fact that it is Sunday ties Harriet’s love of nature to her religious faith—an association reinforced by the allusion “stranger in a strange land,” a biblical phrase that recurs several times in discussions of those fleeing oppression. This connection to nature and faith supports the theme of resilience and bravery in the face of oppression, showing how Harriet finds quiet strength in moments of peace.

“Not until they could see her standing on the opposite shore, shivering in the raw March air, did James and his companions follow.”

James and the other two men wait to see Harriet—a woman much smaller than themselves—cross safely before crossing themselves. This highlights Harriet’s exceptional courage and leadership abilities. It also enhances her status as a Moses figure, as she leads “her people” across a body of water, just as, in the Bible story, Moses leads the Israelites across the Red Sea. The image powerfully reinforces the impact of individual actions on broader societal changes, showing how one brave example can galvanize others.

“‘I’m aching to see Ma and Pa,’ Harriet said. ‘But it’ll go hard with them if I do.’”

Sterling, of course, has no way of knowing what words were exchanged between Harriet and William Henry in real life. Fictionalizing the narrative slightly by creating dialogue that shares characters’ thoughts and feelings adds interest to the story. Here, Harriet’s love for her parents and her longing to see them again humanize the legendary conductor, remind the reader of all that she is sacrificing, and demonstrate her common sense: Despite her wish to see Rit and Ben, she would never think of endangering them in order to satisfy her own desires.

“Now, as she headed for Bucktown, her bright eyes were hidden by the floppy brim of a sunbonnet, her broad shoulders hunched under a dusty shawl.”

This image conveys Harriet’s clever ability to disguise herself and pass unnoticed despite her notoriety. In a larger sense, it suggests the way Black Southerners of the time learn to hide their strength and intelligence from white observers in order to seem non-threatening and avoid becoming targets of violence.

“Coins clinked in the tin cashbox on the desk—pennies, nickels, quarters, dollars.”

The image of the cash box slowly filling up with money, one coin at a time, shows how much Harriet has come to mean to the self-emancipated people of Philadelphia. Each gives what they can, from the poorest offering pennies to the better-off contributing whole dollars. This shows what an impact conductors like Harriet are having on the world around them, supporting the book’s themes of The Historical Significance of the Underground Railroad and the impact of individual actions on broader societal changes.

“They had found jobs and built homes, and their children, given names like ‘Freeborn’ and ‘Liberty,’ attended school and planned to become farmers and bricklayers and poets. Now their dreams were smashed.”

The details of the children’s names and the list of their dreams stress the children’s innocence and hope. The short sentence that follows, ending with the evocative diction “smashed,” has an abrupt and final tone. The juxtaposition of these two sentences conveys how unfair this situation is for people who have already worked so hard to obtain freedom and build a stable future.

“She can hear a patroller sneeze twenty miles away.”

Sterling attributes this hyperbolic statement about Harriet to one of the enslaved people of the South who has heard the many stories about Harriet’s exploits. This exaggeration of Harriet’s abilities casts her in the role of a mythic hero, bolstering the text’s arguments about the impact of individual actions on broader societal changes and resilience and bravery in the face of oppression.

“I think slavery is the next thing to hell.”

Harriet gives an abolitionist speech before a predominantly Northern white audience who has never experienced the horrors of slavery in person. She offers her own life experiences as proof of the inhumanity of slavery and does not hesitate to speak frankly in order to convince her audience. Her ability to use such frank language before a white audience shows how much her circumstances have changed from her earlier days. It also exemplifies how Harriet uses her personal story to shape public sentiment, furthering the impact of individual actions on broader societal changes.

“‘General Tubman is a better officer than most I’ve seen,’ Brown declared.”

Sterling includes John Brown’s quote praising Harriet to illustrate how highly regarded her intellect and courage were among abolitionists. John is a legendary figure, and including his endorsement of Harriet is an appeal to ethos. The title “General” symbolizes the strategic and moral leadership that Harriet brought to the cause, even in spaces where women—especially Black women—were rarely acknowledged as leaders.

“But here palmetto trees with straight trunks and stiff tropical foliage grew down to the water’s edge, and behind them gray-green Spanish moss dripped from the branches of the shiny-leaved live oaks.”

Sterling uses vivid images to describe the natural settings that Harriet finds herself in. This adds interest to the narrative and helps characterize Harriet as a lover of nature. Here, the image of the South Carolina landscape as Harriet enters it for the first time stresses its unfamiliarity to her and the adjustments she needs to make to thrive in this new setting. The new landscape mirrors the new phase of Harriet’s life—as a scout and leader—requiring her to adapt once again in service of others.

“With her own meager savings she built a community washhouse in Beaufort where the freedwomen could earn money by doing the soldiers’ laundry.”

Sterling stresses the lengths that Harriet is willing to go to in order to be of service to the Black communities of coastal South Carolina. Despite the fact that she initially does not fit in, she extends herself to them in significant ways. Sterling uses diction like “meager” to convey how little Harriet herself has—and yet she is willing to give it up on behalf of others.

“‘Next we should try the Combahee.’ Harriet was talking to Colonel Montgomery.”

Sterling uses creative license to invent dialogue between Harriet and high-ranking officials in the Union Army. Moments like this demonstrate how highly regarded Harriet is as a leader and soldier, even in the context of the white male dominated military. The moment also reinforces the historical significance of the Underground Railroad, as Harriet’s wartime strategies extend the same logic of freedom seeking to organized military operations.