With nowhere else to go, Harriet Tubman’s effigy gets an extended stay on Hilton Head
Decades before trailblazing developer Charles Fraser ever stepped foot on Hilton Head Island, a different kind of trailblazer left her mark here.
Nearly every second grader in America knows her name: Harriet Tubman, one of the most well-known conductors in the Underground Railroad who led somewhere between dozens and hundreds of slaves to freedom, depending on who you ask.
Since January, the historical figure has sat enshrined in bronze at Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, the site of a Civil-War era freedman’s town where Tubman is said by some to have played a key role in creating. The 9-foot statue, titled “The Journey to Freedom,” has traveled all around the country for the past five years, including towns where Confederate statues currently stand.
For some, the statue’s current resting spot marks her symbolic return to Mitchelville over 150 years later. Originally scheduled to stay through April 30, the statue is now expected to stick around at least until the park hosts its annual Juneteenth celebration.
Despite the historical significance Tubman has to Mitchelville, historical records don’t offer much detail about her time on Hilton Head Island.
The bittersweet reason behind Harriet’s prolonged return
Like many of those who pay a visit to Hilton Head Island, Tubman’s statue will spend just a little more time here than she originally planned. The traveling effigy was originally scheduled to go to Vienna, Virginia, in May, but those plans fell through, according to sculptor Wesley Wofford.
Wofford said “The Journey to Freedom” gained popularity on social media shortly after its creation in 2019, and has been flooded with booking requests ever since. His second work centering Harriet Tubman, The Beacon of Hope, has also been on tour nonstop since it was cast three years ago. But recently, there’s been a “jarring, precipitous drop off” of requests for both statues, Wofford said, citing “the climate we’re in.”
“It’s just come to a grinding halt,” the sculptor said. Some organizations that have hosted the statues in the past have recently lost grant funding, he noted. “It’s a tough time, but I think it makes it all the more important that these types of stories are told.”
The current political climate is also what drew Hilton Head resident Tami Krivet to bring her family to Mitchelville to check out the statue Wednesday, before it was originally scheduled to leave. She expressed her frustration at nationwide directives aimed at eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion, which have affected schools, museums, libraries and more.
“They’re taking everything away,” Krivet said. “Taking books out. This is nice that it’s touring, at least.”
Tubman’s bronze effigy will remain at the park at least through Historic Mitchelville’s Juneteenth celebration, which will take place on June 14 this year. Unless somebody else rents the statue, it’ll eventually return to Wofford’s studio in North Carolina.
Mitchelville will host The Journey to Freedom longer than any other place has in the statue’s lifetime, which Wofford finds “fitting.”
“I couldn’t think of a better place for her to hang out for a little longer,” Wofford said.
Harriet Tubman was here. Why don’t we know much more?
Visitors to Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park will hear stories about Harriet Tubman and her legacy on Hilton Head Island. It’s said that she made great contributions to the town of Mitchelville, which housed hundreds of freed slaves during the Civil War. But because she appears so infrequently in written records of this area, separating historical facts from myths and legends is no easy task.
Tendaji Bailey, program manager for the exhibit and Gullah Geechee cultural consultant, said Tubman was invited to Hilton Head during the Civil War to help with the creation of Mitchelville, one of a handful of freedman’s towns in the Lowcountry. Bailey said Tubman lived in the area for about five years, and played a key role in gathering information from freed slaves and planning the Combahee River Raid.
“She comes in 1861,” Bailey begins, “and learns the waterways, is listening to information coming in, is tracking the moon cycle, is hyper aware of the tidal flows, and decides to take three steamboats from the Beaufort Wharf in downtown Beaufort through the mouth of the Combahee and up into the Combahee River. And she’s able to liberate and free folks from 12 different plantations along that river. And as she’s bringing them back, she’s lighting each plantation on fire.”
The raid resulted in the freeing of over 700 slaves. “She ends up bringing about 300 of those folks right here to Mitchelville,” Bailey said.
In addition to homes for formerly enslaved people, Bailey said Mitchelville had churches, schools, a town government and even organized trash pickup.
“This is the first place that compulsory education happens in the state of South Carolina,” said Bailey, a Gullah Geechee native of Port Royal and St. Helena Island. “The start of public school right here in Mitchelville, and Harriet Tubman was a major part of making sure that this was a successful project.”
Beaufort-based historian Stephen Wise agrees that Harriet Tubman spent time on Hilton Head Island, although she primarily lived in Beaufort. He disputes how long she spent in the area; records show she arrived in 1862 and left in 1864. He affirmed that she interviewed escaped slaves to gather information for the Union army, and did relief work in the area. But historical records don’t offer up much more detail.
“What she did on Hilton Head is hard to say,” Wise noted. “Unfortunately, she just doesn’t show up very much in the written record.”
Wise also disputes the oft-repeated claim that Mitchelville was the first freedman’s town in America, noting that other freedman’s towns existed in Kentucky and Virginia before the Union army’s occupation of Hilton Head.
Despite the dearth of documentation, more details about life in Mitchelville could be dug up in the future. Archaeologist Katie Seeber has spent years searching beneath the ground for clues of the historic community’s past.
“Those are the ways that we’re able to talk about the daily lives of folks here in Mitchelville, is by literally digging in the dirt and finding out what stories are being unearthed,” Bailey said.
This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
