Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman's road to freedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul09jwM9F98

Images:
1. Harriet Tubman circa 1868-1869
2. Harriet Tubman 'When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything
3. Harriet Tubman in a photograph dating from around 1860-75.

1. Background from {[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html]}
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep.

Around 1844 she married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife. Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.

Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her "forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."

By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.

Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."

Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured.

During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913."

2. PBS facts
10 Interesting Facts about Harriet Tubman:

1. Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross. She would later adopt the name "Harriet" after her mother: Harriet Ross. The surname Tubman comes from her first husband, John Tubman, who she married in 1844.

2. Harriet was born a slave and raised on Maryland's Eastern Shore where the lines between slavery and freedom were often blurred. It was not unusual for families in this area to include both free and enslaved members. Harriet's own husband, John Tubman was a free black man. Her status, however, remained unchanged until she fled to Pennsylvania – a free state – in 1849. Her husband did not make the journey and ultimately re-married after Harriet's departure.

3. Harriet would return to Maryland many times over the next decade to rescue both family and non-famly members from the bondages of slavery.

4. Harriet earned the nickname "Moses" after the prophet Moses in the Bible who led his people to freedom. In all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

5. Tubman's work was a constant threat to her own freedom and safety. Slave holders placed a bounty for her capture and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was an ever-present danger, imposing severe punishments on any person who assisted the escape of a slave.

6. Harriet wore many hats: She was an active proponent of women's suffrage and worked alongside women such as side Susan B. Anthony. During the civil war, Harriet also worked for the Union Army as a cook, a nurse and even a spy.

7. Harriet was acquainted with leading abolitionists of the day, including John Brown who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry.

8. Harriet had one daughter, Gertie, whom she and her second husband (Nelson Davis) adopted after the Civil war.

9. Harriet suffered life-long headaches, seizures and had vivid dreams as a result of a traumatic head injury she suffered as a teenager while trying to stand up for a fellow field hand. These same symptoms gave her powerful visions that she ascribed to God and helped guide her on many trips to the North while leading others to freedom.

10. Just before Harriet's death in 1913 she told friends and family, "I go to prepare a place for you." She was buried with military honors in Fort Hill Cemetery in New York.

BONUS FACT: In 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that the countenance of Harriet Tubman will appear on a new $20 bill.

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Great post Stephen. Thank you.

The Underground Railroad (Documentary)
The 'Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early-to-mid 19th century, and used by African American slaves to escape into free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists, both black and white, free and enslaved, who aided the fugitives.Various other routes led to Mexico or overseas. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until shortly after the American Revolution. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad was formed in the early 1800s, and reached its height between 1850 and 1860. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad".

British North America (present-day Canada), where slavery was prohibited, was a popular destination, as its long border gave many points of access. Most former slaves settled in Ontario. More than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the network during its 20-year peak period,[6] although U.S. Census figures account for only 6,000. Numerous fugitives' stories are documented in the 1872 book The Underground Railroad Records by William Still, an abolitionist who then headed the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee.
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era was an active participant in the struggle for women's suffrage.
Born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave and hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. She was a devout Christian and experienced strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God.
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into British North America, and helped newly freed slaves find work.
When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom. On April 20, 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department announced a plan for Tubman to replace Andrew Jackson as the portrait gracing the $20 bill."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGDEDZqi_uI

Images
1. Harriet Tubman circa 1913
2. Harriet Tubman colorized photograph dating from around 1860-75 - original in Library of Congress
3. Harriet Tubman and William Still helped the Underground Railroad function
4. Harriet Tubman closeup

Biographies:
1. womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-tubman
2.

1. Background from {[https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-tubman]}
Known as the “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor" of the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military.
Tubman’s exact birth date is unknown, but estimates place it between 1820 and 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland. Born Araminta Ross, the daughter of Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross, Tubman had eight siblings. By age five, Tubman’s owners rented her out to neighbors as a domestic servant. Early signs of her resistance to slavery and its abuses came at age twelve when she intervened to keep her master from beating an enslaved man who tried to escape. She was hit in the head with a two-pound weight, leaving her with a lifetime of severe headaches and narcolepsy.
Although slaves were not legally allowed to marry, Tubman entered a marital union with John Tubman, a free black man, in 1844. She took his name and dubbed herself Harriet.
Contrary to legend, Tubman did not create the Underground Railroad; it was established in the late eighteenth century by black and white abolitionists. Tubman likely benefitted from this network of escape routes and safe houses in 1849, when she and two brothers escaped north. Her husband refused to join her, and by 1851 he had married a free black woman. Tubman returned to the South several times and helped dozens of people escape. Her success led slaveowners to post a $40,000 reward for her capture or death.
Tubman was never caught and never lost a “passenger.” She participated in other antislavery efforts, including supporting John Brown in his failed 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry, Virginia arsenal.
Through the Underground Railroad, Tubman learned the towns and transportation routes characterizing the South—information that made her important to Union military commanders during the Civil War. As a Union spy and scout, Tubman often transformed herself into an aging woman. She would wander the streets under Confederate control and learn from the enslaved population about Confederate troop placements and supply lines. Tubman helped many of these individuals find food, shelter, and even jobs in the North. She also became a respected guerrilla operative. As a nurse, Tubman dispensed herbal remedies to black and white soldiers dying from infection and disease.
After the war, Tubman raised funds to aid freedmen, joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in their quest for women’s suffrage, cared for her aging parents, and worked with white writer Sarah Bradford on her autobiography as a potential source of income. She married a Union soldier Nelson Davis, also born into slavery, who was more than twenty years her junior. Residing in Auburn, New York, she cared for the elderly in her home and in 1874, the Davises adopted a daughter. After an extensive campaign for a military pension, she was finally awarded $8 per month in 1895 as Davis’s widow (he died in 1888) and $20 in 1899 for her service. In 1896, she established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on land near her home. Tubman died in 1913 and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.

2. Background from {[https://www.mylifetime.com/she-did-that/december-6-1849-harriet-tubman-escaped-from-slavery]}
December 6, 1849: Harriet Tubman Escaped From Slavery by Sari Rosenburg
On December 6, 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. Within a decade, she became the most well-known “conductor” of the infamous Underground Railroad. Aside from emerging as one of the most effective abolitionists of her day, Tubman was also instrumental in the Civil War as a secret spy and military leader. As a result, Tubman continues to inspire civil rights activists today.
Tubman was one of nine children born to enslaved parents in Maryland. Originally named Araminta Harriet Ross, her parents, who were slaves for two different owners, called her by the nickname, Minty. She endured daily degradations and violence as an enslaved person. Her three sisters were sold to a faraway plantation, but Tubman’s mother successfully resisted the sale of her youngest son. Like most other slaves, Tubman suffered from brutal beatings and physical attacks that caused her permanent damage – she had scars on her back from lashings and when at she tried to protect a fellow slave at age 13, the overseer threw a two-pound weight at her that struck her in the head. As a result, she suffered from seizures, severe headaches and narcolepsy for the rest of her life.
In 1844, she married a free black man, John Tubman. In 1849, Tubman decided to run away when she feared that she and the rest of the enslaved people on the plantation were about to be sold. With the help of a kind white woman, she followed the North Star to Philadelphia walking 90 miles by foot. After working for a year and saving money, she returned to Maryland to free her sister and her sister’s two children to freedom. Then, a year later, she returned a second time to rescue her brother and two other men. When she returned for the third time, she intended to find her husband, but he had married someone new. Upon discovering this news, she simply found other slaves that she could escort up North to freedom. In total, Tubman made 19 trips into the South and freed over 300 slaves, including her 70-year-old parents. All the while, she never lost one passenger on these treacherous trips. By 1856, slave catchers put a $40,000 bounty (the equivalent of about $1 million today) on her, yet she remained steadfast in her plan to liberate as many enslaved people as possible. Considered the “Moses of her people,” she explained, “I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”
Aside from freeing hundreds of enslaved people, Tubman played a revolutionary and crucial role during the Civil War as a spy and general. She would disguise herself as an old woman and wander around Confederate territory and speak to the enslaved population in order to get top-secret military plans for the Union army. She was also the first woman in U.S. history to plan and lead a military expedition. On the night of June 1, 1863, Tubman alongside Colonel James Montgomery guided 150 soldiers from the Second South Carolina army, an all-black Union army regiment, and white troops from Rhode Island on gunboats to carry out a liberation raid on the rice plantations along the Combahee River. As they set fire to the plantations and destroyed bridges, they liberated slaves that had been too frightened to run away to the Union army lines on their own. They liberated 750 slaves in total. Tubman also served as a nurse for the Union army during the Civil War often using herbal remedies.
After the Civil War, Tubman lived the rest of her life in Auburn, NY. She helped raise money to help the newly freed slaves, fought for women’s suffrage with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, married a man twenty years her junior, adopted a daughter, and in 1896 opened up the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. Despite her difficult life and many health ailments, Tubman lived until she was 93. Even though she died in 1913, the talk of her replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill is a current reminder of the civil rights pioneer’s enduring legacy."
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