They’re comfortable telling you Harriet Tubman freed people.
They’re not comfortable telling you she also bought land, built assets, and ran operations that would put many modern founders to shame.
Her genius extended far beyond the version they hand you in school.
Between rescue missions, Harriet was quietly acquiring property in Auburn, New York — first about seven acres for roughly 1,200 dollars in 1859
Then roughly 25 more acres at auction in 1896 while living on a 20-dollar monthly pension.
Add it up and she controlled over 30 acres, plus buildings, in an era when most Black women couldn’t legally vote, let alone hold land at that scale.
Here’s what almost no one tells you about her:
✔️ Harriet negotiated her labor even while enslaved.
At one point, she struck a deal with her enslaver to “hire herself out” — paying a fixed amount for her time so she could keep what she earned above that, effectively creating a primitive profit-share inside bondage.
✔️ She used her wartime skills like a revenue engine.
During the Civil War, she served as a scout, nurse, and spy for the Union — including helping lead the Combahee River Raid that freed more than 700 enslaved people in a single night — and then spent years fighting for the pension and pay she was owed.
✔️ She turned her home into a mini ecosystem.
After the war, she ran a boarding house, took in elders and formerly enslaved people, sold goods (including home-brewed drinks and food), spoke publicly, and later founded the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on her land — converting property into long-term, mission-aligned infrastructure.
That’s not just courage. That’s operations, negotiation, and asset strategy.
Here’s what they don’t teach you about building a network: it’s not about connections. It’s about trust.
Harriet built a network where the people she personally led weren’t lost, under a bounty, across multiple states — and then leveraged that same trust to build income streams and assets in freedom.
Welcome to Day 18 of Deleted History: Black women they prayed you’d never learn about.
If you’re a Black woman expert, Harriet’s blueprint is clear:
Be legendary for your results, then use that reputation to negotiate better terms, build multiple streams, and acquire assets that carry your name long after the applause stops.
I’m Ashley Kirkwood — over $11M in sales, two-time Inc. 5000 CEO, and in the 2% of Black women-owned businesses with full-time W‑2 employees and millions in annual revenue. I’m obsessed with getting more Black women into that number.
Get on the waitlist for Black Women Sell Live 2026 — the only event using century-old sales history to teach modern Black women entrepreneurs how to scale profitably without losing their joy. We only have 1,000 seats and already have over 1,600 women on the waitlist, so your best shot at actually being in the room is to get on that list now: https://lnkd.in/gNc6R-Pg.