Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero

Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson

What do we really know about the woman who will soon grace the twenty-dollar bill?  Sadly, we really don’t know much at all.  One of the many heartbreaking consequences of slavery is not only the fact that human beings spent their entire lives in bondage, but that history tells us almost nothing about these people.  As the author so crudely (yet accurately) tells us, slaves were basically treated like horses.  No records of birth nor death in many instances.  Individuals were loaned out when others needed them and/or finances were particularly tough for an owner, and thought was rarely given to splitting up families.  Just like horses or other livestock.

So it shouldn’t really be surprising that Harriet Tubman’s life has been passed down as more myth than accurate history.  We simply don’t know many details.  The author is very forthright in these matters.  She takes meticulous care in explaining to the reader that one must do a lot of speculating when writing about such a person as Harriet Tubman.  In fact, one could argue that she is forced to “fill many of the pages” with what we <I>do</I> know around slavery in order to get a more accurate picture.  There were times when I forgot I was reading a book about Harriet Tubman and thought that I was reading about the institution of slavery as it existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  None of this really bothered me, however, other than the fact that such a travesty in any country’s history is always difficult to stomach.  I have a hard time reading books about oppressed people.  It’s so hard for me to comprehend how cruel people can be to one another.

So Tubman’s life probably mirrors many other lives of slaves.  Her early life has her constantly being “loaned out” to temporary masters.  Some are kinder than others, but the cruel ones are particularly ruthless. At one point, a “master” gets angry at a particular slave and throws an anvil at him. He misses, yet manages to hit Tubman instead and severely wound her.  She survives, yet harbors the wound for her entire life.  I mention this because Tubman believes she has an epiphany after the accident, goes into trances from time to time, and is convinced that God has chosen her to help redeem her people and help end slavery.  Whether this revelation was truly divine, a result of an overactive imagination, or the consequence of a nasty head wound is debatable.  Whatever the case, history now tells us that, celestial or accidental, this incident turned out to be a great thing.

The remarkable thing about Tubman is that once she escapes, she elects not to run further away, yet run <I>back</I> and rescue more and more slaves.  This is obviously incredibly perilous. She never seems apprehensive, seems completely in control, and has incredible wits to manage such escapades with daring brilliance.  She knows God will keep her safe.  The book is filled with such dramatic escape tales, and if a movie is ever made about her, you can bet that some of these adventures would take up the bulk of the film.  Again, when you don’t know much history, such dramatic events tend to stand out.

At the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, Tubman continues to work strongly for the cause, aiding the Union army however possible.  The book doesn’t really dwell too much on this area of her life, probably because much simply isn’t known.  We then briefly read about her post Civil War days as she continues to be an activist – campaigning for universal suffrage.  The book is also intertwined with many famous figures of U.S. History including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and John Brown.  All of these individuals Tubman works with in some capacity during her lifelong plight.

The biggest weakness of the book is that the author feels compelled to list every single individual by name that happens to be related to any of the incidents that occur in Tubman’s life.  Example: If Tubman hides in a particular “safe house” during one of her escapes, the author will proceed to tell us the name of every individual that resided at the particular house, along with (what seemed like) an intense lengthy genealogy.  This wouldn’t be a bad idea if such individuals had a more major role in the story, but when we never visit the particular safe house again, we wonder “what’s the point??”.  My advice is to skip over most of the names and not try to catalog them in your brain as you read.  Otherwise, your brain will soon become overloaded.

Overall a very good, powerful, necessary read.  One really wishes, however, that we could know so much more about this true heroine.