Background

Tubman's date of birth is unknown, although it probably occurred between 1820 and 1825. She was one of nine children born between 1808 and 1832 to enslaved parents in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her mother, Harriet "Rit" Green, was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess. Her father, Ben Ross, who was owned by Anthony Thompson.

Originally named Araminta Harriet Ross, Tubman was nicknamed "Minty" by her parents. Araminta changed her name to Harriet around the time of her marriage, possibly to honor her mother.

Tubman's early life was full of hardship. Mary Brodess' son Edward sold three of Tubman's sisters to distant plantations, severing the family. When a trader from Georgia approached Brodess about buying Rit's youngest son, Moses, Rit successfully resisted the further fracturing of her family, setting a powerful example for her young daughter.

The line between freedom and slavery was hazy for Tubman and her family. Tubman's father, Ben, was freed from slavery at the age of 45, as stipulated in the will of a previous owner. Nonetheless, Ben had few options but to continue working as a timber estimator and foreman for his former owners.

Although similar manumission stipulations applied to Rit and her children, the individuals who owned the family chose not to free them. Despite his free status, Ben had little power to challenge their decision.

Education

Harriet was never part of receiving formal education being a slave.

Career

Between 1850 and 1860, Tubman made 19 trips from the South to the North following the network known as the Underground Railroad. She guided more than 300 people, including her parents and several siblings, from slavery to freedom, earning the nickname "Moses" for her leadership.

Tubman first encountered the Underground Railroad when she used it to escape slavery herself in 1849. Following about illness and the death of her owner, Tubman decided to escape slavery in Maryland for Philadelphia. She feared that her family would be further severed and was concerned for her own fate as a sickly slave of low economic value.

Two of her brothers, Ben and Harry, accompanied her on September 17, 1849. However, after a notice was published in the Cambridge Democrat offering a $300 reward for the return of Araminta, Harry and Ben had second thoughts and returned to the plantation. Tubman had no plans to remain in bondage. Seeing her brothers safely home, she soon set off alone for Pennsylvania.

Making use of the Underground Railroad, Tubman traveled nearly 90 miles to Philadelphia. She crossed into the free state of Pennsylvania with a feeling of relief and awe, and recalled later: "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; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven."

Rather than remaining in the safety of the North, Tubman made it her mission to rescue her family and others living in slavery via the Underground Railroad. In December 1850, Tubman received a warning that her niece Kessiah was going to be sold, along with her two young children. Kessiah's husband, a free Black man named John Bowley, made the winning bid for his wife at an auction in Baltimore. Tubman then helped the entire family make the journey to Philadelphia. This was the first of many trips by Tubman.

The dynamics of escaping slavery changed in 1850, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. This law stated that escaped slaves could be captured in the North and returned to slavery, leading to the abduction of former slaves and free Black people living in the Free States. Law enforcement officials in the North were compelled to aid in the capture of slaves, regardless of their personal principles.

In response to the law, Tubman re-routed the Underground Railroad to Canada, which prohibited slavery categorically. In December 1851, Tubman guided a group of 11 fugitives northward. There is evidence to suggest that the party stopped at the home of abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.

In April 1858, Tubman was introduced to the abolitionist John Brown, who advocated the use of violence to disrupt and destroy the institution of slavery. Tubman shared Brown's goals and at least tolerated his methods. Tubman claimed to have had a prophetic vision of Brown before they met.

When Brown began recruiting supporters for an attack on slaveholders at Harper's Ferry, he turned to "General Tubman" for help. After Brown's subsequent execution, Tubman praised him as a martyr.

Tubman remained active during the Civil War. Working for the Union Army as a cook and nurse, Tubman quickly became an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina.

In early 1859, abolitionist Senator William H. Seward sold Tubman a small piece of land on the outskirts of Auburn, New York. The land in Auburn became a haven for Tubman's family and friends. Tubman spent the years following the war on this property, tending to her family and others who had taken up residence there.

Despite Tubman's fame and reputation, she was never financially secure. Tubman's friends and supporters were able to raise some funds to support her. One admirer, Sarah H. Bradford, wrote a biography entitled Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, with the proceeds going to Tubman and her family.

Tubman continued to give freely in spite of her economic woes. In 1903, she donated a parcel of her land to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn. The Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged opened on this site in 1908.

Achievements

• In addition to leading more than 300 enslaved people to freedom, Harriet Tubman helped ensure the final defeat of slavery in the United States by aiding the Union during the American Civil War. She served as a scout and a nurse, though she received little pay or recognition.
  
  After the death of Harriet, during a survey, she was claimed to the third famous civilian in American History. There are several schools named in honor of Harriet while there still survive Harriet Museum in Cambridge and the Harriet Home in Auburn.
  
  In April 2016, the United States Treasury Department declared that Harriet would be replacing the face of Andrew Jackson on the $20 dollar bill. This decision was taken after more than half-million voters chose her on an online poll survey.

Religion

Historian Kate Clifford Larson believes that Tubman drew from a variety of Christian denominations, including the African Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, and Catholic beliefs. Like many enslaved people, her belief system fused Christian and African beliefs.

Her belief that there was no separation between the physical and spiritual worlds was a direct result of African religious practices. Tubman literally believed that she moved between a physical existence and a spiritual experience where she sometimes flew over the land.

Politics

Harriet Tubman was the leader of the Underground Railroad. Tubman devoted her life to abolition and to helping other slaves escape bondage via the Underground Railroad. After the Civil War, she continued her activism through the women's suffrage movement until her death in 1913.

Views

Harriet Tubman once said that slavery was "the next thing to hell." She helped many transcend that hell.

Quotations: "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; the sun came like gold through trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven."

"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say - I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

"I grew up like a neglected weed, - ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented."

"I said to the Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through."

"...and I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since."

"God's time is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free."

"There are two things I’ve got a right to, and these are, Death or Liberty - one or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty, and when the time has come for me to go, the Lord will let them, kill me."

"I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were there. But I was free, and they should be free."

"I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them."

Personality

Harriet was a brave woman who saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Even though she didn't know what freedom was, she wanted a taste of it and when she actually reached safety, she did that entire she could to save her family and friends who were tied in slavery. She was never financially secure but she never held back and kept on helping others in need. She was given the name "Moses" for her leadership skills.

Physical Characteristics: Physical violence was a part of daily life for Tubman and her family. The violence she suffered early in life caused permanent physical injuries. Tubman later recounted a particular day when she was lashed five times before breakfast. She carried the scars for the rest of her life.

The most severe injury occurred when Tubman was an adolescent. Sent to a dry-goods store for supplies, she encountered a slave who had left the fields without permission. The man's overseer demanded that Tubman help restrain the runaway. When Tubman refused, the overseer threw a two-pound weight that struck her in the head. Tubman endured seizures, severe headaches, and narcoleptic episodes for the rest of her life. She also experienced intense dream states, which she classified as religious experiences.

Connections

In 1844, Harriet married a free Black man named John Tubman. At the time around half of the African American people on the eastern shore of Maryland were free, and was not unusual for a family to include both free and enslaved people.

Little is known about John or his marriage to Harriet, including whether and how long they lived together. Any children they might have had would have been considered enslaved, since the mother's status dictated that of any offspring. John declined to make the voyage on the Underground Railroad with Harriet, preferring to stay in Maryland with a new wife.

In 1869, Tubman married a Civil War veteran named Nelson Davis. In 1874, the couple adopted a baby girl named Gertie.

Father:

Ben Ross

Mother:

Harriet Green

Spouse:

Nelson Davis

ex-spouse:

John Tubman

Daughter:

Gertie

Friend:

Sarah Hopkins Bradford

Sarah Hopkins Bradford wrote a biography entitled Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, with the proceeds going to Tubman and her family.

References

• Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
  2004
• She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
  2019