Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was a second-generation slave who dedicated her life to fulfilling her cry to the slaveholders, "Let my people go!" She escaped from slavery, herself, yet returned to the South nineteen times to free over three hundred slaves.

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in 1820. She was the eleventh child of her parents, Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross. The entire family lived as slaves on the plantation of Edward Brodas, in Dorchester County, Maryland. Harriet's parents were full-blooded Africans believed to be Ashanti, a West African warrior people.

The family suffered under slavery. Two sisters were sold young and Harriet herself was rented out to neighboring families (a common practice) to wind yarn, check muskrat traps, and do housekeeping. After contracting measles and bronchitis, Harriet returned to the plantation to be nursed back to health by her mother "Old Rit." At age seven, Harriet was sent away to care for a baby. One morning, while her mistress' back was turned, Harriet reached for a lump of sugar from the bowl on the table and was seen. She later described what happened next: "'De nex' minute she had de raw hide down: I give one jump out of de do', an' I saw dey came after me, but I jes' flew and dey didn't catch me. I run, an' I run, an' I run'". After days of hiding, lack of food forced Harriet to return and she was beaten.

At age twelve, Harriet returned to the plantation to work as a field slave where she developed her physical strength and endurance. At thirteen Harriet witnessed an unsuccessful escape attempt. She was instructed to tie up the slave, who later freed himself and successfully escaped. The overseer held Harriet responsible and hit her in the head with a two-pound weight. This near fatal injury left Harriet with a permanent indentation in her forehead. Harriet suffered from narcoleptic seizures and severe headaches throughout her life as a result of this beating.

In 1844, Harriet was married to John Tubman although their marriage never produced children. In 1849, after the death of her owner, Harriet learned she was going to be forcibly separated from her family. She made a plan to escape. Her husband refused to go with her and threatened to report her to the new master. Harriet and her brothers fled the plantation. But, after a short distance, her brothers decided to return, leaving Harriet to make her way alone. She traveled at night and hid by day, her only guide the North Star. Years later Harriet recalled, "I looked at my hands to see if I was de same person now I was free. Dere was such a glory ober eberything… And I felt like I was in heaven". Her joy was short lived as she fully realized she was alone and thought of her family in slavery. Unless she tried to liberate them, she would never see them again or even know their fate.

Harriet settled in Philadelphia and worked as a cook, laundress and maid to support herself and save money for her family. She met William Still, an abolitionist, the son of an escaped slave, and a leader in the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee (also called the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society). In this city, Harriet learned of the Underground Railroad with its secret network of black and white abolitionists who utilized an elaborate series of secret tunnels, houses and roads. In 1850, when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act making it illegal to assist a runaway slave, Harriet joined the Underground Railroad. She began to lead her charges to Canada for safety.

Little documentation of Harriet's twenty excursions back to the South exists. This is because Harriet was illiterate and her trips were purposefully kept secret to increase their safety and success. Harriet believed God would aid her efforts, and she also carried a long rifle on her journeys. She did not hesitate to point it at those whose courage wavered. As William Still noted, Tubman believed that "A live runaway could do great harm by going back but a dead one could tell no secrets". Harriet's first trip back into the South was to rescue her sister and two nieces who were imprisoned in a slave pen waiting to be sold. The trip was successful.

Slaves and abolitionists began to call her "Moses" because she successfully led her people to freedom in the Promised Land. Harriet often relayed messages to slaves and fugitives encoded in hymns she would sing or bible quotes loudly delivered in her while praying. Slaveholders, feeling the effects of Moses' missions, offered a reward of $40,000 for her capture. In 1857, Harriet liberated her parents. After a winter in Canada, she settled them in Auburn, New York in a house she purchased from her friend and Senator William H. Seward (who later served as Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State). Seward's sale to Tubman was illegal at the time.

During the Civil War, Harriet was recruited by and worked for the Union Army. In 1862, she traveled to South Carolina and worked as a nurse, cook, scout and spy. As a short black woman with missing teeth and no distinctive features, Harriet wore a bandana on her head and moved unnoticed through rebel territory. Working as a scout and spy for Col. James Montgomery of the South Carolina Volunteers, Harriet identified slaves to be freed by the Union Army. In 1865, Harriet moved to Virginia to care for wounded