She also preferred leaving on Saturday, knowing that no notices about runaways would appear in the newspaper until Monday (since there was no paper on Sunday.) For one, she usually operated in winter, when longer nights allowed her to cover more ground. Over the years, Tubman developed certain extra strategies for keeping her pursuers at arm’s length.
She also mailed coded letters and sent along messengers.
She would, for example, sing certain songs, or mimic an owl, to signify when it was time to escape or when it was too dangerous to come out of hiding. And she knew how to communicate-and gather intelligence-without being caught. She knew which authorities were susceptible to bribes. Tubman knew the Maryland landscape inside and out, generally following the North Star or rivers that snaked north. Like her fellow conductors, Tubman cultivated a network of collaborators, including so-called “stationmasters,” who stashed her charges in barns and other safe houses along the way. In about 13 trips back to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where she had been brutally mistreated as an enslaved child, Tubman rescued some 70 people, mostly family and friends. The luckiest, however, followed so-called “conductors,” such as Harriet Tubman, who, after escaping slavery in 1849, devoted herself fully to the Underground Railroad. Assistance could be as slight as clandestine tips, passed by word of mouth, on how to get away and who to trust. No matter how courageous or clever, few enslaved people threw off their shackles without at least some outside help.
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