Harriet Tubman
Written By: Sydney Blanson
Harriet Tubman was Born in 1820 at Edward Brodas plantation near Bucktown, Dorchester County, Maryland.Because of her indentured status, Harriet was denied the opportunity for education;leaving her illiterate her entire life. Slave owners did not want their slaves to know how to read or write.Harriet was the 11th child born to Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene , her given name was Araminta and she was often called "Minty" as a child. But by the time she was an adult, she was calling herself Harriet.As was the custom for many slaves, Harriet began working at an early age. When five years old, she was first sent away from home, to another plantation, checking muskrat traps in rivers. She quickly became too sick to work and was returned, malnourished and suffering from the cold exposure. Once she recovered, she was loaned out to another plantation, working as a nurse to the planter's infant child. By the age of 12, she was working as a field hand, plowing and hauling wood. At 13, while defending a fellow slave who tried to run away, her overseer struck her in the head with a two-pound weight. This resulted in recurring narcoleptic seizures, or sleeping spells, that plagued her the rest of her life.
In 1844, at about the age of 25, Harriet married John Tubman, a freeman. She gained permission to marry him from her owners and lived with him in his cabin, but she was required to continue working for her master. When Harriet told John of her dreams of one day gaining her freedom, he told her that she would never be free and, if she tried running away, he would turn her in. On one of her first return visits to Maryland, Harriet went to John's cabin in hopes of getting him to go north with her. She found that he had taken another wife. Later in 1869, she married Nelson Davis. She never had any children.
Harriet Tubman freed over 300 blacks from slavery in the South to freedom in the North. For her commendable work she herself was nicknamed "Moses."She went to Philadelphia, found work cooking, laundering and scrubbing, and saved money to finance rescue trips. She became involved with the city's large and active abolitionist (anti-slavery) organizations and with organizers of the Underground Railroad, a secret network through which slaves were helped in escaping from bondage in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.Her name quickly spread throughout the slave quarters and abolitionist societies. All this angered the Southern slaveholders, who offered $40,000 for her capture. But Harriet always evaded slave catchers and would not quit, even when her illiteracy nearly got her caught when she fell asleep under her own wanted poster.During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman served with the Union Army as a cook, laundress, nurse, scout, and spy behind Confederate lines. In 1862, she moved to Beaufort, South Carolina (when it was occupied by the Union Army), and with several missionary teachers, helped hundreds of Sea Islander slaves transition from bondage to freedom. She also undertook scouting and spying missions, identifying potential targets for the Army, such as cotton stores and ammunition storage areas.
Harriet took up the suffragist cause. In 1896, she was a delegate to the National Association of Colored Women's first annual convention. She believed the right to vote was vital to preserving their freedom. Around the turn of the century, she bought 25 acres of land near her home with money raised through benefactors and speaking engagements, and made arrangements for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to take over the Home. She had worked closely with this church since the 1850s. Through it, she had come to befriend Frederick Douglass, who had briefly published his abolitionist newspaper The North Star, there.As for her family, Harriet successfully rescued her sister in 1850, her brother in 1851, her other three brothers in 1854, and her parents in 1857. For her parents, she purchased a home in Auburn, New York, from Senator William H. Seward of New York, an advocate of hers. In the 12 years from her escape in 1849 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad became the most dominant force of abolitionism.Living past ninety, Harriet died March 10 1913 in Auburn, New York as given a full military funeral and was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery. The women of the NACW also paid the funeral costs and purchased a marble headstone. One year later, the city of Auburn commemorated her life with a memorial tablet at the front of the Cayuga County Courthouse. In 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt christened the Liberty Ship Harriet Tubman, and in 1the U.S. Postal Service honored her life with a postage stamp.
Harriet Tubman was Born in 1820 at Edward Brodas plantation near Bucktown, Dorchester County, Maryland.Because of her indentured status, Harriet was denied the opportunity for education;leaving her illiterate her entire life. Slave owners did not want their slaves to know how to read or write.Harriet was the 11th child born to Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene , her given name was Araminta and she was often called "Minty" as a child. But by the time she was an adult, she was calling herself Harriet.As was the custom for many slaves, Harriet began working at an early age. When five years old, she was first sent away from home, to another plantation, checking muskrat traps in rivers. She quickly became too sick to work and was returned, malnourished and suffering from the cold exposure. Once she recovered, she was loaned out to another plantation, working as a nurse to the planter's infant child. By the age of 12, she was working as a field hand, plowing and hauling wood. At 13, while defending a fellow slave who tried to run away, her overseer struck her in the head with a two-pound weight. This resulted in recurring narcoleptic seizures, or sleeping spells, that plagued her the rest of her life.
In 1844, at about the age of 25, Harriet married John Tubman, a freeman. She gained permission to marry him from her owners and lived with him in his cabin, but she was required to continue working for her master. When Harriet told John of her dreams of one day gaining her freedom, he told her that she would never be free and, if she tried running away, he would turn her in. On one of her first return visits to Maryland, Harriet went to John's cabin in hopes of getting him to go north with her. She found that he had taken another wife. Later in 1869, she married Nelson Davis. She never had any children.
Harriet Tubman freed over 300 blacks from slavery in the South to freedom in the North. For her commendable work she herself was nicknamed "Moses."She went to Philadelphia, found work cooking, laundering and scrubbing, and saved money to finance rescue trips. She became involved with the city's large and active abolitionist (anti-slavery) organizations and with organizers of the Underground Railroad, a secret network through which slaves were helped in escaping from bondage in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.Her name quickly spread throughout the slave quarters and abolitionist societies. All this angered the Southern slaveholders, who offered $40,000 for her capture. But Harriet always evaded slave catchers and would not quit, even when her illiteracy nearly got her caught when she fell asleep under her own wanted poster.During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman served with the Union Army as a cook, laundress, nurse, scout, and spy behind Confederate lines. In 1862, she moved to Beaufort, South Carolina (when it was occupied by the Union Army), and with several missionary teachers, helped hundreds of Sea Islander slaves transition from bondage to freedom. She also undertook scouting and spying missions, identifying potential targets for the Army, such as cotton stores and ammunition storage areas.
Harriet took up the suffragist cause. In 1896, she was a delegate to the National Association of Colored Women's first annual convention. She believed the right to vote was vital to preserving their freedom. Around the turn of the century, she bought 25 acres of land near her home with money raised through benefactors and speaking engagements, and made arrangements for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to take over the Home. She had worked closely with this church since the 1850s. Through it, she had come to befriend Frederick Douglass, who had briefly published his abolitionist newspaper The North Star, there.As for her family, Harriet successfully rescued her sister in 1850, her brother in 1851, her other three brothers in 1854, and her parents in 1857. For her parents, she purchased a home in Auburn, New York, from Senator William H. Seward of New York, an advocate of hers. In the 12 years from her escape in 1849 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad became the most dominant force of abolitionism.Living past ninety, Harriet died March 10 1913 in Auburn, New York as given a full military funeral and was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery. The women of the NACW also paid the funeral costs and purchased a marble headstone. One year later, the city of Auburn commemorated her life with a memorial tablet at the front of the Cayuga County Courthouse. In 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt christened the Liberty Ship Harriet Tubman, and in 1the U.S. Postal Service honored her life with a postage stamp.