Harriet Tubman as a Magical, Mercurial Figure: An Astrological Analysis of the Combahee River Raid

by Thea Anderson

When Harriet Tubman was a teenager, she conjured her god to kill an evil man. The ordeal began when an overseer struck her with a metal weight, and she nearly died.

For weeks afterward, Harriet lay listless in the big house without the attention of a doctor. When Edward Bodress of Maryland looked upon Harriet, he did not see an injured girl. He saw an idle laborer. Inefficiency. Dollars lost. In due time, strange men arrived. They named their price. She would be sold further south to a chain gang, guaranteeing a dismal fate for the enslaved. Harriet prayed that god would change Edward’s heart. But as time passed, her sale became an inevitability. She decided to change her prayer. If the god of Abraham wouldn’t change Edward’s mind, she prayed, “Kill him, Lord, and take him out of de way so he won’t do no more mischief.” It worked. “Next ting I heard ole master was dead … and he died just as he had lived, a wicked bad man.”(1)

Harriet Tubman Is Mercury Manifest

All conjure doctors are magicians and all magicians belong to Mercury, god of travelers, diviners, merchants, and thieves. Harriet was all of these.

In life and lore, Harriet Tubman is manifest-Mercury. She embodies all that is swift and cunning, the trickster, conjurer, and interpreter of sky messages. A flock of birds dispersed in the horizon and she knew a catcher was on her tail. She’d turn to the group of freedom seekers and give the order. Lie and wait. Crawl through the mud. Stay quiet beneath the floorboards. Ride innocently in the rail car dressed as a freeman. Who else can disguise themselves as well as Mercury? Who can read the parting of a crowd and know to conceal their “wanted” face with a squawking hen?

She was known by her epithets: Mama Moses, after the prime magician himself; also Minty to family; General Tubman to John Brown and those who fought and died for the cause. She made a name for herself on both sides of the war as she crossed into enemy territory to deliver hundreds of enslaved people to freedom.

I’s hopin’ and prayin’ all de time I meets up with dat Harriet Tubman woman. She de culled woman what takes slaves to Canada. She allies travels de underground railroad, day calls it, travels at night and hides out in de day. She sho sneaks dem out de South and I thinks she’s de brave woman.(2)

Harriet knew the pathways to freedom by sight and feel. She crawled over forest and waded through black rivers. No matter how treacherous the journey, she kept her eye to the North Star — the gleaming tip of Ursa Minor that lit the way to freedom. Polaris is the anchor around which the rest of the sky rotates, as it never rises and sets. It has been used for centuries as a guiding torch, and it lit the way in utter, choking darkness.

She would have chosen death rather than be enslaved again. And yet, after making her way to the North, for over a decade she returned to plantations of the South to liberate others. She forged the Underground Railroad (UGRR), soliciting the kindness of Quakers and encoding secret messages in the patterns of a quilt. She used trickery, divination, and cunning to rescue her people. Her tools and cleverness made her successful; her boldness made her the most wanted woman in the land. She was known to carry a pistol, unafraid to use it, and would turn to the trembling faces, under the dark Moon, in the cover of thick forest, and advise, “You pray to your god, and I’ll pray to mine.” She is best seen as chthonic Mercury who guides souls through the Underworld.

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It took me a long time to see the magic in Harriet Tubman. In grade school, I never thought to ask how this one woman alone freed so many others. Our culture today requires that stories be evidenced, so that they can be taught. That has its place. But, as I’ve come to learn through astrology, magic, and ritual, there are other ways to know something. Reality can be embodied, performed, and orated across generations through the tradition of storytelling. It becomes a truth that is whole because it is lived. This is the way my ancestors learned of the world, through recitation. And it’s the way Harriet told her people that she was headed to Canada the night before her own initial escape from the Bodress estate. She encoded her announcement in song.

I think astrological analysis can restore the magic to where it belongs. I want Harriet to speak through the lineage, through her works, and to imbue the lore with life again. Although we don’t have birth data for Harriet, as we wouldn’t have for most Black people born in bondage, we can look to the astrology of her greatest working — a surprise attack in which she led the Union army.

Harriet provided key intelligence to Colonel James Montgomery, proving herself an invaluable asset and spy. She learned the ways of the trails early from her father, who labored at the riverboats in the southeastern seaboard. There was a secret artery of knowledge all along the rivers of Maryland and beyond. The information traveled via the network of Black mariners, and what began to form was a spoken, reconstructed map. Harriet listened. The labyrinth of the plantation landscape was drawn up early and thus lived inside of her. It was tactical, but it was also divine knowledge. It prepared her for one of her greatest achievements, which took place on the Combahee River, also called the River Jordan, known in the Bible as the door to freedom.

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The Combahee River is a snake. It is a skinny river that winds through Carolina Lowcountry, cutting through salt marshes and swamp. Gum and cypress trees lined the tidal river many years ago. Then all that majesty was cleared. By the time of the Civil War, it was leveled for watery fields of rice, otherwise known as “Carolina gold.”

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On June 2, 1863, around 3:00 a.m.,(3) Lance Newton of the Confederacy spotted two Union gunboats gliding toward him on the Combahee River. This must have been incomprehensible. The river was rigged with underwater explosives, and any number of them should have taken out the Union boats. But, by some divine assistance, the John Adams breached the Confederate stronghold at Fields Point on the northeast side of the river. At the helm was Harriet Tubman, armed with months of intel on where the river torpedoes were hidden. Harriet, and the Black mariner Samuel Hayward (most likely escaped from the Hayward plantation on the Combahee), brought 300 Union soldiers and volunteers to the gold coast to burn it down and free their people.

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The raid on Combahee Ferry was the first American military operation led by any woman. A Union newspaper summarized the glorious success of the event.

Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 300 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed into the enemy’s country, struck a bold and effective blow, destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror into the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property, without losing a man or receiving a scratch … The Colonel was followed by a speech from the black woman … For sound sense and real native eloquence, her address would do honor to any man, and it created a great sensation …(4)

In the spring months prior to the raid, at the behest of Col. Montgomery, Harriet reactivated her spy network that she’d established in her UGRR days to infiltrate the slaveholder territory in the Carolinas. This territory was controlled by dynastic estates like the Middletons, the Lowndes, and the Heywards, who established their reign on the Atlantic coast with rice and cotton, and were not going to give it up willingly.(5) After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, these planter families decided to close ranks and double down to preserve their ruling class. Within this enemy territory, enslaved Black men and women reported to Harriet incredibly valuable intel — like the location of underwater explosives, stores, costly property — in exchange for liberation.

Analysis of the Chart of the Combahee River Raid

Military Intelligence Stuns and Liberates
 (Mercury Rx conjunct Uranus in Gemini)

As we’ve said, Harriet Tubman is Mercury made manifest. Mercury’s child. In the chart of the raid, the messenger planet is in a special condition in Hellenistic astrology known as phasis, where the messenger will make “an appearance that speaks.”(6) During phasis, Mercury’s significations become hyperconcentrated and felt. Since Mercury has just stationed retrograde (June 1, 1863 at 4:03 a.m.) and is making its heliacal setting, the energy is hush-hush, subterfuge, espionage. This is a Mercury who has just stepped across the threshold into the Underworld from the topside world, and is therefore in a liminal space. This chthonic Mercury brings information in the form of code and secrets, traveling back into hell to guide souls through the treacherous Underworld. As Mercury retrogrades, the fleet-footed god separates from a square to Saturn and conjoins Uranus. Mercury’s aspects to these two planets — moving away from Saturn and toward the Promethean liberator eloquently portrays what’s at work. Harriet Tubman, using cleverness and reconnaissance, liberated hundreds of enslaved peoples. Through covert operations, a trustworthy spy ring ultimately frees the imprisoned Black families from the clutches of Saturn.

Saturn in Virgo. The enslavers. Growers of Rice and drivers of brutality. Saturn represents the structure and dynastic stronghold of legacy and power through harvest. But Saturn does not have any essential dignity in Virgo, so the power that the enslavers cling to slips through their hands after the Emancipation Proclamation is declared. They are almost so careless and overconfident that they allow the Union gunboats, through folly and error, to encroach. Mercury is at home in Gemini and in the superior position (earlier in the zodiac) in the square. As Mercury retrogrades from the square to Saturn, he positions to overcome and therefore to triumph.

Mercury is also conjunct the fixed star Betelgeuse, an auspicious star shining from the right shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter. This star grants unbridled success and strength and boosts the mission, which relies so heavily on spy intelligence, a flash of brilliance and power.

On July 10, when The Commonwealth publishes the article naming Harriet Tubman as leader of the operation, Mercury returns in direct motion to 26° Gemini (where it was on the day and time of the raid). On the front page of the Boston newspaper, the article explains that “The Combahee strategy was formulated by Harriet Tubman as an outcome of her penetrations of the enemy lines and her belief that the Combahee River countryside was ripe for a successful invasion.”(7) Mercury’s final pass over this degree of Gemini brings to light what she had done in secret.

Families Flee to the Gunboats
 (Venus conjunct Mars in Cancer)

The Ascendant ruler of the raid is Venus in Cancer in the 3rd house of short-distance travel and local community, in a partile (exact to the degree) conjunction with Mars. Harriet described the rescue of her people as a sight to behold, as women and children ran desperately toward the boats.

I nebber see such a sight … women would come wid twins hangin’ roun’ der necks; ‘pears like I nebber see so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin’ behin’, all loaded; pigs squealin’, chickens screamin’, young ones squallin’.(8)

Venus in Cancer is also tightly conjunct the IC (indicating home and ancestry) at 23° Cancer and so aims to provide safe haven and shelter for enslaved families. After fleeing enslavement, the swarm of families running for their lives nearly toppled the gunboats. Col. Montgomery implored Harriet to give them a song to calm the frantic crowd of refugees. And so she sang until they were brought on board and thus to safety. Venus, when in the Moon’s domicile, loves through her warm embrace and nurturing capacity.

Venus is also ruling the 6th house, which in traditional astrology is known as the place of slaves and servants. Jupiter is in the 6th house at 17° Libra. This retrograde Jupiter (delayed, slow) is very emblematic of Abraham Lincoln, who took his time in liberating those enslaved in the South. This was extremely frustrating and unwise to Harriet, who lamented his hesitation to do the right thing. She explained that “God won’t let Mister Lincoln beat the South until he does the right thing.” Once he finally did, with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, justice seemed to finally be possible. Jupiter, the greater benefic, is applying via retrograde motion to a trine to Uranus and dispensing justice (the Scales of Libra) to liberate hundreds of illegally enslaved Black families.

The Underworld Unleashed
 (Pluto in Taurus on the Ascendant)

When the Union gunboats landed at Fields Point, Pluto was rising on the horizon. It was the awakening. The Judgment card. With the planet Pluto in Taurus on the Ascendant, the portal to the Underworld cracked open. Pluto is power, obsession; in economics, it’s oligarchy. The power structure around land, agriculture, resources — even the name “Carolina gold” for rice — came to a crisis. Without a doubt, plantations were a hell. Children were born into bondage and forced into hard labor as soon as they could stand. Parents were ripped from their children. Women endured rape by their enslavers. All were beaten, tortured. It was the place where hope was extinguished and toil was a life sentence. It was not life. The point was to break a woman or a man or a child. The point was to extract every last drop of humanity for bales of cotton and soft, glowing fields of rice. And so when the Union gunboats arrived, the enslaved people took their chance, even though they may have looked at the Yankees askance. Some escapees took revenge by picking up torches and burning property, food stores, and valuable possessions like rare books, as a Confederate newspaper detailed.9

Smoke, Scorch, and Vanish
(Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius)

Just nine hours before the gunboats breached the estates at Combahee, a lunar eclipse stained the sky. Eclipses indicate great upheaval and change and are disastrous omens, particularly for kings and, in this case, enslavers. This total lunar eclipse on the North Node in Sagittarius is another strong testament to the theme of liberation and freedom. As the Union Army gathered forces under the direction of “bloodthirsty” Col. Montgomery,10 this eclipsed lunation hinted at the toppling of oppressive forces. The dragon’s head, Rahu, infused the operation with voltage and stunning power. When the eclipse became exact, the location of the raid, Colleton (Beaufort), South Carolina, had the Moon rising and the Sun setting, which are extremely powerful angles. The force of the eclipse set the stage for the plantations to soon be burned to the ground. In fact, history tells us that the operation set out on the evening of June 1, which would have been at the time of, or immediately following, the lunar eclipse.

It’s of great consequence that we revisit the Combahee River Raid led by General Tubman, because the transiting nodes are now reversed. Currently, the North Node is in Gemini and the South Node is in Sagittarius. What better way to revisit the past, particularly in the United States, than through the lens of returning to the battle for Black liberation? This nodal reversal highlights courage and a belief in the abolition cause (Sagittarius) and gives us the clarity to speak about it (Gemini). We can use this mutable axis to disrupt the old narratives and tell better stories about our history. And what we know is that Harriet Tubman used her spy efforts, careful planning, and military intel for the greater good to free nearly 800 enslaved people. She was not paid for her efforts, and although she was revered by peers like Frederick Douglass, who professed that he could not do what she did, she was not held in the esteem she should have been. Now, with the North Node in Gemini, we can rewrite the narrative and honor the magical, Mercurial figure of Harriet Tubman.

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Embracing Harriet’s Value

On January 25, 2021, after four years of delays under the Trump administration, the freshly inaugurated Biden administration announced that it would “resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 notes.”11 The new design would replace the current image of Andrew Jackson, the nation’s 7th president, who forcibly removed First Nations’ people from their homelands, resulting in mass death, disease, and cultural loss that has gone unrepaid until today.

The Treasury Department declared, “It’s important that our money reflect the history and diversity of our country.”12

I think of how Mercurial currency is — the exchange of it. Images have power and tell a story. This is one step in the direction of ridding our collective memory of false mythologies and embracing a powerful truth.

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I pour hot black coffee and set it on my desk, because that’s what Harriet liked when she arrived to a safe house along the UGRR. By evening, the offering recedes from the rim as if a presence has sipped it. It would have been a godsend to her. The journey was long, cold, and suffocatingly dark. It doesn’t seem possible, even once, and yet she traversed this land over a dozen times, delivering more than a hundred enslaved people to freedom. Her leading the charge on the plantations at Combahee set 800 others free. I think of that as the US struggles with its shadow of racism, slavery, and oppression.

And yet, she lives. The astrology of Combahee shows us. A retrograde station, a total lunar eclipse, and the toppling of a brutal empire. Perhaps we can re-remember Harriet Tubman in her magical glory under these Sagittarius–Gemini eclipses today. The alchemy of this pair of signs manifests in taking the quickness of thought and information and speaking truth to power for liberation. We, as descendants of her legacy, are poised to do so now.

Chart Data and Sources
(in order of appearance)
Combahee River Raid, June 2, 1863; 3:00 a.m. LMT; Colleton, SC, USA (33°N02^, 80°W53^); A: biographical account, see footnote 3.
Lunar Eclipse, June 1, 1863; 6:07 p.m. LMT; Colleton, SC, USA (33°N02^, 80°W53^).

References
(All URLs accessed in March 2021)
 1. Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of her People, Citadel Press, 1961, p. 24.
 2. Federal Writers’ Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 16, Texas, Part 3, Lewis-Ryles. 1936. Manuscript/Mixed Material. p. 229: https://www.loc.gov/item/mesn163/
 3. “At Fields Point, the Confederates had placed five pickets under Lance Corporal Newton. Newton reported that at around 3:00 am on the morning of the second, he saw the gunboats slowly steaming up the river about two miles distant.” Jeff W. Grigg, The Combahee River Raid: Harriet Tubman & Lowcountry Liberation, The History Press, 2014, p. 83 [emphasis mine].
 4. The Commonwealth (Boston newspaper), Vol. 1, no. 45 (July 10, 1863): front page [emphasis mine].
 5. Catherine Clinton, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, Back Bay Books, 2005, p. 167.
 6. Personal communication with Robert Schmidt, as quoted in Demetra George, Ancient Astrology Vol. I, Rubedo, 2018, p. 286.
 7. The Commonwealth (Boston newspaper), Vol. 1, no. 45 (July 10, 1863): front page [emphasis mine].
 8. Bradford, Harriet Tubman, pp. 100–1.
 9. Yorkville Enquirer (Yorkville, SC), (June 10, 1863): “The Enemy’s Raid on the Banks of the Combahee” https://lccn.loc.gov/sn84026925
 10. Clinton, Harriet Tubman and the Road to Freedom, p. 163.
 11. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/politics/tubman-20-dollar-bill.html
 12. Ibid.

First published in: The Mountain Astrologer, Jun/Jul 2021.

Author:
Thea Anderson is a writer and astrologer and the Director of Production at CHANI. She is currently writing her first novel and is also the assistant editor at Triangle House Review. She is a student of Sam Reynolds, Austin Coppock, and has also studied with Nina Gryphon and others. As a Black woman, it is important for her to view astrology outside of the framework of white supremacy, and perhaps some healing can come of that. Contact her at: thea.astrology@gmail.com; @theaastrology on IG; @theanichelle or @theaastrology on Twitter.

© 2021 - Thea Anderson

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