Araminta.

Minty.

Harriet.

Moses.

Through several names, Harriet Tubman’s self-worth and desire for freedom never changed.

“I don't think Harriet needed anybody to protect her to be honest. I think if anything, she was the one doing the protecting,” said Harriet Tubman Home Property Manager Paul Gordon Carter. “She was quite strong-willed and tenacious and very courageous to do what she needed to do.”

Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland. She successfully escaped to the North in the late 1840s to become a free woman.

But her freedom alone wasn't enough.

“She is the only one that we know of who actually becoming free, made the decision to go back into the jaws of slavery and to free those who were also enslaved,” Carter said.

She made the daring journey nearly 13 times over a 12-year period.

“She freed approximately 50 to 70 people by way of the Underground Railroad. Some of the earlier books have higher numbers. That's mainly because the new biographies deal with only documented cases,” Carter said.

That trek wasn't an easy one.

"When they started, it was about 150 miles from Cambridge to Philadelphia,” Carter said.

But then the Fugitive Slave Law passed, allowing the capture and return of runaways and penalizing those who helped.

“The journey was extended because she now has to take them out of the country. She ends up taking them to a little place in Ontario, Canada,” Carter said.

It was St. Catherines. There, Harriet opened a small boarding house for runaways including members of her family.

By the late 1850s, Harriet settled in Auburn.

But settling certainly didn't mean the journey was over. Harriet's link to the abolitionist movement carried right on to the battlefield.

She was a civilian scout, spy and cook for the Union Army.

Plus, she was the only woman to lead any troop into battle during the Civil War.

“The most noted mission was called the Combay River Raid, the Combay River Raid. That's when she led Colonel James Montgomery and his colored troops across the Combay River in South Carolina,” Carter said.

"They went along the river destroying supply houses and Confederate munition depots and in the process of doing that, they were able to set free approximately 7 to 800 people,” he added.

Tubman was perfect to lead because she could maneuver through marshes, woods and navigate using the sky and nature — skills passed down by her father — along with medicine from other ancestors.

"She was able to take different kinds of herbs and roots and things and mix them with a little, some say with a little alcohol every now and then and give it to the troops and they would heal,” Carter said.

After assisting troops in South Carolina, Tubman returned to Auburn, purchasing more land and opening a home for the aging.

"I don't think they'll ever be another Harriet Tubman. She was unique in her own right. She was one who was willing to give up her life and everything that she had for the benefit of other people,” Carter said.