As the observance of Black History Month is winding down in February, I would like to pay tribute to a freedom-loving African-American who was once a slave and became the “Moses” in modern U.S. history.

Her name is Harriet Tubman. Sounds familiar to you? Well, I came to know about her in 1999, while in the peak of my reading and research about notable and interesting African-Americans in the United States.

Harriet Tubman was one of the most famous women in black history of the United States. Born into slavery around 1820 on the Brodas plantation in Dorchester County, Md., Harriet was the sixth of the 11 children of Benjamin and Harriet “Old Rit” Ross. Her parents were slaves of a plantation owner, Edward Brodas.

Young Harriet served as a field hand and house servant. She ran errands for Mr. Brodas and his family. Because of her young age and inexperience at house work, she made all kinds of mistakes. Thus, she was punished all the time.

One autumn day, when Harriet was about 15, she witnessed a young slave escaping and slipping away from the field. The overseer — someone paid for to watch slaves so they work hard and not to escape — followed him in hot pursuit. Harriet ran after the two and followed them into a village store. The overseer ordered her to catch the runaway. But instead, she blocked the doorway so the runaway slave could escape. The overseer tried to prevent the runaway from escaping by hurling him a heavy weight. He missed his target and, unfortunately, hit Harriet on the forehead. Badly hit and bleeding, she lay in bed unconscious and was taken care of by her mother for months. Harriet eventually recovered, but, for the rest of her life, she suffered from terrible headaches, seizures and narcoleptic episodes. And that large scar on her forehead became a badge of courage for her.

Ben Ross, Harriet’s father, taught his daughter many things about survival skills and knowledge, such as which plant is edible and how to use the stars as a navigational system. Those skills and knowledge eventually helped Harriet a great deal, especially when she later worked as a “conductor” for the Underground Railroad and a spy for the Union troops during the Civil War.

In 1844, Harriet met and married a free black man, John Tubman.

In the fall of 1849, Harriet began her journey on the Underground Railroad, where, for weeks, she slept by day and traveled by night, even if her feet were bleeding. She hid in hay stacks, barns and attics. After traveling for 90 miles, and crossing the state line at dawn, she finally reached her freedom in Pennsylvania.

In Philadelphia, she found the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, a group of abolitionists — white and black men and women who believed that slavery should be abolished. They set up meetings to help runaway slaves and fugitives. She promised to help bring her family and other slaves to freedom and to welcome them to a new home in the North.

With the money she earned as a cook, Harriet was able to bring slaves from the South to freedom. Unfortunately, when she went back to Brodas plantation to get her husband, she found out he had married another woman. Angry and heartbroken, she gathered a handful of slaves who wanted to be free and took them North instead. That was the first of many groups of strangers she led to freedom.

Realizing that no ex-slave could be truly safe anywhere in the United States after the passage by Congress of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Harriet began to lead fugitives all the way to Canada.

In 1857, she rescued and brought her parents, Ben and Harriet “Old Rit” Ross, to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, and ultimately to Auburn, N.Y.

In 1858, Harriet spoke at an anti-slavery rally in Boston, where she discussed in detail the difficulties and hardships she experienced along the Underground Railroad.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Harriet worked as a cook, nurse, scout and spy for the Union Army. Unable to resist taking more active participation, she led a raid on the Combahee River, in South Carolina, on June 2, 1863, and freed some 750 slaves.

When Civil War ended, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment officially freeing all slaves.

Harriet’s mission didn’t stop there. Aware that women were not allowed to vote at that time, she joined a suffragist movement and became an active supporter and a respected speaker.

Harriet later collaborated to have her life story published, and she used the proceeds to pay off her mortgage and later to donate her home and some land to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church for use as a home for the sick.

Harriet Tubman died peacefully in that very rest home on March 10, 1913, in Auburn, N.Y.

Thank you, Harriet Tubman, for inspiring us to love life and freedom.

Chris A. Quilpa, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, lives in Suffolk. Email him at chris.a.quilpa@gmail.com.