Harriet Tubman, Resolve to rescue family (Larson, 2004)

Though Tubman was nominally free in Philadelphia, she soon learned that freedom did not ensure happiness. Liberation from slavery had its own reward, but Tubman noted that “there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free.” What set Tubman apart from thousands of other runaways was her determination to act: she quickly set upon a plan to liberate her family. She easily found work as a domestic and a cook in various hotels and private homes in Philadelphia, and later, during the summer months, at Cape May, New Jersey. She hoarded her money, planning carefully for the days ahead when she could return to the Eastern Shore to bring her family away to freedom. She kept in touch with events back home by communicating with the extensive network of sources among the free black, fugitive black, and liberal white communities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington, Delaware, and Cape May who shared information about the slave community.