HARRIET TUBMAN

'Harriet Tubman' (c. 1822 – March 10, 1913), was an African-American abolitionist. As an escaped slave, she made nineteen missions to rescue 300 enslaved people to freedom in Canada using the Underground Railroad. During her lifetime, she worked as a lumberjack, laundress, nurse, and cook. As an abolitionist, she helped liberate scores of slaves, and inspired many more to do so independently. During the American Civil War, she was responsible for several roles such as intelligence gatherer, refugee organizer, raid leader, nurse, and fundraiser. Tubman was the first American woman to plan and lead a military operation. She prided herself in never losing a passenger on the underground railroad, and never being captured.

Contents

Early life

See also

References

External links

Early life

When she was a young adult, she took the name Harriet, possibly in honor of her mother or due to a religious conversion. Around 1844, she married John Tubman, a free black man. When she escaped from Maryland, he chose not to join her, but rather continued his free life in Dorchester County without her. John Tubman was killed during a roadside argument near Cambridge, Maryland in 1867.
Edward Brodes died in early March 1849, leaving behind his wife, Eliza Ann Brodess, and eight children. To pay her dead husband's mounting debts and to save her small farm from seizure, Eliza decided to sell some of the family's slaves. Fearing sale into the Deep South (this was considered a death sentence by Upper South slaves), Tubman took her emancipation into her own hands. On September 17, 1849, Tubman and two of her brothers, Ben and Henry, ran away. Overcome with apprehension and fear, they returned two or three weeks later. Harriet, however, was determined to have her freedom, so soon thereafter she fled on her own, leaving behind her aforementioned husband. On the way to freedom in Philadelphia, she was assisted by members of the Abolitionist movement, both black and white, who were instrumental in maintaining the regional branches of the Underground Railroad.
Called "Moses" by those she helped escape on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made many trips to Maryland to help family and friends escape. According to her estimates and those of her close associates, Tubman personally guided about 70 slaves to freedom in about 13 expeditions and gave instructions to approximately another 70 who found their way to freedom independently. She was never captured and, in her own words, "never lost a passenger." Her owner, Eliza Brodess, posted a 40,000 reward for her return, but no one ever knew that it was Harriet Tubman who was responsible for spiriting away so many slaves from Dorchester and Caroline counties in Maryland.
Tubman worked as a spy for the North during the American Civil War. Tubman was the first American woman to plan and lead a military operation, the raid at Combahee Ferry, in early June 1863. This raid freed over 750 slaves.
Tubman was successful in bringing away her parents and her four brothers — Ben, Robert, Henry, and Moses — but failed to rescue her sister Rachel, and Rachel's two children, Ben and Angerine. Rachel died in 1859 before Harriet could rescue her. Moses disappeared, but Robert, Ben, and Henry changed their names to John, James and William Henry Stewart, respectively, and lived the rest of their lives in the North.

See also

★ List of African-American abolitionists

★ Slave narrative

★ African American literature

★ Underground Railroad

References

★ Humez, Jean. ''Harriet Tubman: The Life and Life Stories.'' Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2003

★ Larson, Kate Clifford. ''Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero.'' New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.

★ Home, Miss Moses, E. M. Anderson, , , Higganum Hill Books, 2006, ISBN 0-9776556-0-1

★ Work uncovers site where raid freed 700 slaves

External links

★ Full text of Jailbreak Out Of History, a re-biography of Harriet Tubman, by Butch Lee

★ Full text of Harriet, The Moses of Her People, from Project Gutenberg

★ ''Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman'' fulltext

★ ''Harriet Tubman Biography Page''

★ Animated biography of on Interactive DVD

★ ''Post Civil War portrait of Harriet Tubman and family'' Note: This photograph ID {c/o author Kate Clifford Larson Ph.D.} Left to right: Harriet Tubman; Gertie Davis {Watson} (adopted daughter of Tubman} behind Tubman; Nelson Davis (husband and 8th USCT veteran); Lee Cheney {great-great-niece}; "Pop" {John} Alexander; Walter Green; Blind "Aunty" Sarah Parker; Dora Stewart {great-niece and granddaughter of Tubman's brother Robert Ross aka John Stewart). {Note: Stewart is sometimes cropped out of this photograph.}