Harriet Tubman rescued slaves from the deep south and brought them to the free north… right?

It’s a subtle bit of US propaganda that that’s the impression American schoolchildren are given.

In actuality, in the prewar years, Tubman operated entirely within what later became the “northern side” in the Civil War—because the “free north” actually had several slave states of its own.

And the destination of many slaves wasn’t actually the free states at all. That’s the other bit of propaganda.

See, because the south was opposed to state’s rights (contrary to what they later claimed), southern legislators passed federal laws that required northern authorities to cooperate in hunting down and returning enslaved people to their owners.

So the only “really” safe place to go was Canada, especially to St. Catharines (right by Niagara Falls). Even Tubman herself lived in Canada for awhile.

Tubman was a badass and a hero, and I have nothing negative to say about her. My point is that the true story is that Tubman rescued slaves from the North and brought many of them to Canada, not that she rescued slaves from the backwards South and brought them to the enlightened North. Her story doesn’t reflect well on the northern US at all; her story is actually an illustration of how complicit the northern US was in protecting slavery.