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Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land

February 10, 2004
Kate Clifford Larson writer, historian

Historian Kate Clifford Larson discusses her new book, Bound for the Promised Land, which draws on a trove of new documents and sources as well as extensive genealogical research and reveals Harriet Tubman as a complex woman who was brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom.

Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history, a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. And yet in the nine decades since her death, next to nothing has been written about this extraordinary woman aside from juvenile biographies. The truth about Harriet Tubman has become lost inside a legend woven of racial and gender stereotypes.

From Tubman's brutal treatment while enslaved on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, to her exploits on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, to her lifelong pursuit of civil and humanitarian rights for African Americans, Tubman's accomplishments represent true American heroism.

WGBH
Boston Athenaeum
Image of The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln
Author: Kate Clifford Larson
Publisher: Basic Books (2008)
Binding: Hardcover, 288 pages
Image of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero
Author: Kate Clifford Larson
Publisher: One World/Ballantine (2004)
Binding: Paperback, 432 pages