National Book Award-winning author Tiya Miles delves into the history and mythology of a remarkable woman in “Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People.”
From “Night Flyer” by Tiya Miles
Delivery is an art form. Harriet Tubman must have realized this as she repeatedly fulfilled her promise to free the people. Maneuvering through woods and byways, she often assumed different identities when encountering enslavers or hired henchmen—an owner of chickens, a reader, an elderly woman with a curved spine, or a compliant servant who accepted a life in captivity. Each interaction in which Harriet convinced an enemy that she was who they believed her to be—a Black person fitting into their assigned place—was an act of performance. Delivering what an audience anticipated became a vital part of Harriet Tubman’s skill set in the late 1850s and early 1860s. During this period, she not only had to deceive slave catchers but also persuade enslaved people to trust her with their lives and antislavery donors to trust her with their funds. Tubman refined her abilities as an actor and a storyteller. Many of the accounts we now have of Tubman’s most dramatic moments were relayed by Tubman herself to eager listeners who recorded them with varying degrees of accuracy. By sharing certain details in specific ways, Tubman had multiple, sometimes competing, agendas. She aimed to inspire donations for the cause, fortify the courage of fellow freedom fighters, and express her belief that God guided her actions. In her later years, from the late 1860s through the 1880s, she also sought to raise funds to create a safe haven for those in need.
Harriet’s motives were also driven by creative and personal desires. She wanted to be the one to narrate her own story and sought recognition for her achievements, even as she credited them to God. She aimed to control the narrative that was forming about her life by the end of the 1850s and sought to be a free agent in both word and deed.
From “Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People” by Tiya Miles. Reprinted with permission from Penguin Press, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Tiya Miles.