I’m confused what the purpose of this article is.
(1) Since the purpose of the Underground Railroad was established with the 1850 Supreme Court ruling, and mooted by the Civil War, I’d guess most people would presume it was active PRINCIPALLY, perhaps not realizing exclusively between 1850 and the Civil War.
(2) Up to 100,000 slaves escaped via the Underground Railroad. That’s a very significant number! I don’t think anyone expects the Underground Railroad depopulated the Southern Slave plantations!
(3) I’ve never encountered the claim that the Underground Railroad involved raids. Tubman, however, *was* involved in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, so if it’s inferred from that that raids took place, that inference is as correct as its popularity.
(4) I probably just never paid attention to any precise number of trips Tubman made, so I can’t support or refute the notion that she took 19. But so what if the number is imprecise or uncertain? Wikipedia says 13, FWIW.
(5) Define “huge” in “huge price on her head”? It’s hard to refute a subjective word like “huge.” But she did have a price on her head. I found claims of a $40,000 reward which appear to be exaggerated: In 1868, someone claimed that a $40,000 reward wouldn’t’ve seemed unreasonable; another source supposes that figure comes from tallying all the various bounties. But what’s the point of arguing how big the rewards on her head were?
Yes, of course. (I think you mean “imply,” by the way, rather than “infer.”) And really, at this point, what difference does it make? Alex Haley’s story is a total fabrication... Kwanzaa is a fabrication... Lots of things taught in schools are fabrications! It doesn’t really matter, does it?