What is Real Bravery?

Harriet Jacob's slave narrative is effective in showing the hardships of slavery, but I'm not sure I can call her brave. She ran away, but left her children--knowing her old master would go buy them to try to lure her back! She claimed she ran away so that her children could be free, and eventually they were, but first they had to go through weeks in jail! I feel like a mother should never leave her children in the hands of an angry man out for revenge. It seems to me that running away and leaving her children behind was the easy way out. Of course, I have no right to criticize; being a slave would have been awful and I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing.

Most of the time when we think of bravery, we think of heroes who fight for the greater good and the people they love, but could running be as brave as fighting?  I have my own feelings about Jacob's decision to run away, as I just stated, but she did have a good reason.  The alternative--which would be to rebel against her slave owner and literally fight for her freedom--would have been pointless.  One woman like Jacobs could not have fought against her slave owner.  She would have been beaten and her children would most likely have been punished also.  She couldn't have taken her children with her either because it would have been too hard to hide herself and her children.  It was safer for them to stay behind than to be on the run.  Considering her scenario, Jacob's decision to run away by herself was probably the best decision for her children.  It wasn't necessarily lacking bravery either, because to be brave is to do things you are scared of doing.  I'm sure leaving her children behind scared Jacobs to death!  So in a way, I suppose she was brave.