Harriet Tubman:The First Woman to Lead a U.S. Military Raid #blackhistory #history #facts #fyp #film

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]She stood 5 ft tall, could not read, could not write, and had a price on her head. But Harriet Tubman did what no [music] one dared. She went back. Born into bondage in Maryland, she was just 12 when an overseer shattered her skull with a 2-lb iron weight. The injury left her with headaches for life, seizures, sudden sleeps, and visions she would later trust with her life. In 1849, she learned she was to be sold, separated from everyone she loved.

[00:00:30]>> [music] >> So she ran, alone, through swamp and forest, 90 mi to Pennsylvania, to freedom. She could have stayed, should have stayed. [music] She didn't. Over the next 10 years, Harriet Tubman made 13 return trips into slave territory.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> She led roughly 70 people to freedom, guided dozens more, brothers, >> [music] >> parents, children she carried drugged and disguised as luggage. She traveled by night, slept by day, carried a pistol for protection and [music] for promise.

[00:01:01]She would not let anyone turn back, not even at gunpoint. They called her Moses.

[00:01:07]Then came 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act.

[00:01:11]Now nowhere in the north was safe.

[00:01:13]>> [music] >> Slave catchers could drag freedom seekers back in chains.

[00:01:17]So Tubman did what she always did.

[00:01:19][music] She adapted. She extended the railroad 200 mi further to Canada, where British law said slavery was finished.

[00:01:27]When Civil War came, she served as nurse, cook, spy.

[00:01:32]But in June 1863, Harriet Tubman became something else entirely. She planned and led the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina.

[00:01:42]Three gunboats, hundreds of troops, her intelligence, her route, [music] her night.

[00:01:48]Over 700 enslaved people liberated in a single operation, the first woman in American history to lead a military expedition.

[00:01:55]>> [music] >> After the war, she fought again for women's right to vote alongside Susan B.

[00:02:00]Anthony, alongside Frederick Douglass.

[00:02:03]She built a home for elderly African-Americans in Auburn, New York, cared for others until her own strength failed. And when she died in 1913, she was around 90 years old. Though no one recorded the exact year she was today, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical [music] Park preserves the Maryland Marsh Land she once navigated in darkness. The same paths, the same rivers, the same stars she used to guide people north.

[00:02:30]5 ft tall, [music] unwanted, unstoppable.

[00:02:35]She never lost a passenger. [music] She never lost herself.

[00:02:40]Thank you for watching. If you found this story meaningful, please consider liking this video and subscribing for more history >> [music] >> that deserves to be remembered.

[00:02:49]Leave a comment.