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.

The resettling of the freedmen had a startling and drastic effect on Conway's flagging spirits. The episode could not have been better timed. At the point when he was feeling most ineffectual and helpless, Conway found a means of accomplishing something concrete for the antislavery cause: he could not save four million slaves, but he could save thirty-three. More than that, the perilous journey through Baltimore must have served to assuage any lingering suspicions Conway (or anyone else) might have had about the connection between his noncombatant status and his courage.

Tubman was guided by an interior life shaped by a particular slave experience. Suffering under the lash, disabled by a near-fatal head injury, Tubman rose above horrific childhood adversity to emerge with a will of steel. Refusing to be bound by the chains of slavery or by the low expectations limiting the lives of women and African Americans, Tubman struggled against amazing odds to pursue her lifelong commitment to liberty, equal rights, justice, and self-determination.