Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913) Benedict Gombocz

Synopsis

Harriet Tubman was an American bondwoman who evaded slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the Civil War.

Born in Maryland around 1820, Tubman successfully fled the South in 1849.

She returned numerous times to rescue both family members and non-relatives from the plantation system.

Tubman additionally led hundreds of slaves to freedom in the North as the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, an

elegant secret system of safe houses organized for said purpose.

Early Life

Early Life Harriet Tubman was born to enslaved parents in Dorchester County,

Maryland; her birth name was Araminta Harriet Ross.

Mary Pattison Brodess owned Tubman’s mother, Harriet “Rit” Green.

Anthony Thompson (who would marry Brodess) owned Tubman’s

father, Ben Ross.

Araminta, whose nickname was “Minty”, was one of nine children

born to Rit and Ben between 1808-1832.

The exact year of Araminta’s birth is not known, but it most likely was

between 1820-1825.

Minty’s early life was full of poverty.

One of Mary Brodess’ children, Edward, sold three of her sisters to

distant plantations, which severed the family.

When a trader from Georgia tried to buy Rit’s youngest son, Moses,

Rit effectively prevented the further splitting of her family, setting for

her daughter a good example.

Dorchester County (green)

Early Life (cont.)

Physical violence was a common part of everyday life for Tubman and her family.

The violence Tubman dealt with early in life caused enduring physical injuries.

Harriet later remembered a specific day when she was whipped five times before breakfast.

She lived with the wounds for the rest of her life.

The most severe injury happened when Tubman was an adolescent.

Sent to a dry-goods store for supplies, she met a slave who had left the fields without permission.

The man’s supervisor requested that Tubman help confine the runaway.

When Harriet did not comply, the supervisor threw a two-pound weight that hit her in the head.

Tubman suffered seizures, severe headaches, and narcoleptic incidents for the rest of her life.

She also underwent strong dream states, which she described as religious experiences.

Early Life (cont.)

Early Life (cont.) For Tubman and her family, the line between freedom and slavery was

obscure.

Harriet Tubman’s father, Ben, was 45 when he was freed from slavery, as specified in the will of a former owner.

Ben nevertheless had few choices but to continue working as a lumber estimator and foreman for his former owners.

Although similar manumission conditions applied to Rit and her children, the individuals who owned the family chose not to liberate them.

Despite his free status, Ben had little power to defy their decision.

Almost half of the African American population on the eastern shore of Maryland had been freed by the time Harriet was an adult.

It was not uncommon for a family to include both free and enslaved people, as Tubman’s immediate family did.

Harriet married a free black man named John Tubman in 1844.

Little is known about John Tubman or his marriage to Harriet.

Any children Harriet and John might have had would have been deemed as slaves, as the mother’s status determined that of any offspring.

Around the time she and John were married, Araminta changed her name to Harriet, probably in honor of her mother.

John Tubman

Escape from Slavery and Abolitionism

Escape from Slavery and Abolitionism In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery, and fled to Philadelphia.

Tubman made the decision to escape after her owner fell ill and died the same year.

She feared that her family would be further separated, and feared for her own fate as a sickly slave of low economic value.

She originally left Maryland with two of her brothers, Ben and Henry, on September 17, 1849.

A notice published in the Cambridge Democrat offered a $300 reward for the capture of Harriet, Harry, and Ben.

Once they had left, Tubman’s brothers had misgivings about escaping and ended up returning to the plantation.

But Harriet had no plans to remain in captivity.

Seeing her brothers safely home, Harriet soon left alone for Pennsylvania.

Tubman took advantage of the system known as the Underground Railroad to travel almost 90 miles to Philadelphia.

She crossed into the free state of Pennsylvania with a feeling of respite and amazement of being in the North; she would later recall: “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.”

Important places in Harriet Tubman’s life

Cambridge Democrat $300 notice for Harriet, Harry, and Ben

Underground Railroad in the nineteenth-century

Escape from Slavery and Abolitionism (cont.)

Escape from Slavery and Abolitionism

(cont.) Instead of remaining in the safety of the North, Tubman made it her duty to rescue her

family and others still living in slavery.

In December 1850, Tubman received a warning that her niece Kessiah, together with Kessiah’s two young children, was going to be sold.

Kessiah’s husband, a free black man named John Bowley, made the winning offer for his wife at a sale in Baltimore.

Harriet then helped the whole family make their escape to Philadelphia.

This was the first of many of Tubman’s journeys; she was given the nickname “Moses” for her leadership.

Over time, Tubman successfully guided her parents, numerous siblings, and almost 60 others to freedom.

One family member who refused to make the journey was Harriet’s husband John, who wanted to stay in Maryland with Harriet.

In 1850, the dynamics of escaping slavery changed when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed.

This law said that escaped slaves could be detained in the North and returned to slavery; former slaves and free blacks living in free states were seized.

Law enforcement officials in the North were obligated to assist in capturing former slaves, irrespective of their personal beliefs; Tubman responded to the law by re-routing the Underground Railroad to Canada, where slavery was unconditionally illegal.

Tubman led a group of eleven escapees northward in late 1851; there is proof to suggest that the team stopped at the home of abolitionist and ex-slave Frederick Douglass.

Slavery Compromise of 1850

Escape from Slavery and Abolitionism (cont.)

Escape from Slavery and Abolitionism

(cont.)

In April 1858, Tubman met the abolitionist John Brown, who

supported using violence to disrupt and abolish slavery.

Tubman shared Brown’s objectives, and at least accepted his

methods.

Tubman claimed to have had a foretelling dream of Brown before

they met.

When Brown started recruiting allies for an attack on slave-owners at

Harpers Ferry, he turned to “General Tubman” for assistance.

After Brown was executed, Tubman celebrated him as a martyr.

Harriet Tubman remained active throughout the Civil War.

Working for the Union Army as a chef and nurse, Tubman rapidly

became an equipped scout and spy.

Tubman, the first woman to lead an armed mission in the war, led

the Combahee River Raid, which freed over 700 slaves in South

Carolina.

John Brown

Raid on Harpers Ferry, October 16-18, 1859

Raid at Combahee Ferry, June 1-2, 1863

Later Life

Later Life Early in 1859, William H. Seward, an abolitionist Senator from New York who

would later serve as the 24th United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, sold Tubman a small piece of land on the city limits of Auburn, New York.

The land in Auburn became a place of sanctuary for Tubman’s family and friends.

Tubman spent the years after the Civil War on this property, and tended to her family and others who had assumed residence there.

She married a Civil War veteran named Nelson Davis in 1869; five years later, they adopted a baby girl named Gertie.

In spite of Harriet’s prominence and positive status, she was never financially safe.

Fortunately, Tubman’s peers and allies raised some funds to support her.

One devotee, Sarah H. Bradford, wrote a biography titled Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman; the proceeds went to Tubman and her family.

Harriet continued to give generously, despite her economic troubles.

In 1903, she gave a portion of her land to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Auburn; the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged opened on the same site in 1908.

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged

Later Life (cont.)

Later Life (cont.) As Tubman aged, the head injuries she suffered early in her life

worsened, and became more painful and disruptive.

She underwent brain surgery at Boston’s Massachusetts General

Hospital to ease the pains and "buzzing" she was frequently

experiencing.

Tubman was finally admitted into the rest home named after her;

alas, surrounded by friends and family members, Harriet Tubman

died of pneumonia in 1913.

Harriet Tubman, widely known and well-respected during her life,

became an icon of America in the years after her death.

A survey taken in the late twentieth-century ranked her as one of the

most renowned individuals in U.S. history before the Civil War; she

was third only to Betsy Ross and Paul Revere.

She also continues to inspire generations of Americans fighting for

civil rights with her courage and daring resistance to slavery.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Harriet Tubman’s grave

References

References http://www.biography.com/people/harriet-tubman-9511430

Other sites http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/hwny-

tubman.html (timeline of Harriet Tubman’s life)

http://www.harriethouse.org/love.htm (Harriet Tubman Home

for the Aged)