Harriet Tubman was a prominent leader of the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses used by African-American slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada. Tubman, who was born into slavery, escaped in 1849 and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses. She became an iconic figure of resistance to the institution of slavery in the United States.