Harriet Tubman

1. Harriet Tubman By Tutu, Fay and Udoka

2. Information on Harriet Tubman • Slave Name: Harriet Tubman • Real Name: Araminta Ross • Born: January 29th 1820 • Place of birth: Dorchester County, Maryland • Died: March 10th 1913 • Age of death: 94 (died in Auburn, New York.) • How did she die?: Pneumonia • Who was she?: An African American slave • What did she do?: She helped build the underground railroad and was a very big part of the underground railroad as she helped save over 400 slaves! • When did she escape?: 1849

3. 1819 Birth- Araminta Ross (Harriet Tubman) was born into slavery in 1819 or 1820, in Dorchester County, Maryland. Given the names of her two parents, both held in slavery, she was of purely African ancestry. She was raised under harsh conditions, and subjected to whippings even as a small child. She slept as close to the fire as possible on cold nights and sometimes stuck her toes into the smouldering ashes to avoid frostbite. Cornmeal was her main source of nutrition and occasionally meat of some kind as her family had the privilege to hunt and fish. Most of her early childhood was spent with her grandmother who was too old for slave labour. At age six, Araminta was old enough to be considered able to work. She did not work in the fields though. Edward Brodas, her master, lent her to a couple who first put her to work weaving she was beaten a lot. When she slacked off at this job the couple gave her the job of checking muskrat traps. Araminta caught the measles while doing this work. The couple thought she was useless and took her back to Brodas. When she got well, she was taken to a woman to be her housekeeper and baby-sitter. Araminta was whipped whilst working at this job and was sent back to Brodas after eating one of the woman's sugar cubes. When she turned eleven, she started wearing a bright bandana around her head indicating she was no longer a child. People no longer called her, Araminta, but called her Harriet (slave name) –named after her mother. At the age of 12 Harriet Ross was seriously injured by a blow to the head, done by a white overseer for not wanting to help in tying up a man who had tried escape.

4. 1844 Marriage- In 1844 at the age of 25, she married John Tubman, a free African American who did not share her dream. Since she was a slave, she knew there could be a chance that she could be sold and her marriage would be split apart. Harriet dreamed of travelling north. There, she would be free and would not have to worry about having her marriage split up by the slave trade. But, John did not want her to go north. He said he was fine where he was and that there was no reason for moving north. She said she would go by herself. He told her that if she ran off he would tell her master. She did not believe him until she saw his face and then she knew he meant it. Her goal to achieve freedom was too large for her to give up though. So in 1849 she left her husband and escaped to Philadelphia.

5. 1849 Escape- Harriet was given a piece of paper by a white abolitionist neighbour, and told how to find the first house on her path to freedom. At the first house she was put into a wagon, covered with a sack, and driven to her next destination. And even gave her directions to safe houses and names of people who would help her cross the Mason-Dixon line. She then hitched a ride with a woman and her husband who were passing by. They were abolitionists as well. They took her to Philadelphia. Here, Harriet got a job where she saved her pay to help free slaves. She also met William Still. Still was one of the Underground Railroad's busiest station masters. With the assistance of Still and other members of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, she learned about the workings of the Underground Railroad . In 1850, Harriet helped her first slaves escape to the North. She sent a message to her sister's oldest son that said for her sister and family to board a fishing boat in Cambridge. This boat would sail up the Chesapeake Bay where they would meet Harriet in Bodkin's Point. When they got to Bodkin's Point, Harriet guided them from safe house to safe house in Pennsylvania (a free state) until they reached Philadelphia.

6. 1850 Conductor- In September, Harriet was made an official conductor. This meant that she knew all the routes to free territory and she had to take an oath of silence so the secret of the Underground Railroad would be kept secret. She also made a second trip to the South to rescue her brother James and other friends. They were already in the process of running away so Harriet helped them across a river and to the home of Thomas Garret. He was the most famous Underground Stationmaster.Around this time the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act had passed. It said that it was illegal for any citizen to assist an escaped slave and demanded that if an escaped slave was sighted, he or she should be turned in to the authorities for deportation back to the "rightful" owner down south. Any United States Marshall who refused to return a runaway slave would pay a hefty penalty of $1,000. So the Underground Railroad had a lot of security. They created a code to make things more secret, also they sent the escaping slaves into Canada instead of the North of the U.S.

7. 1851 Canada- Harriet's third trip was in September 1851. She went to get her husband, John, but he had remarried and did not want to leave. So she went back up North. Harriet went to Garret's house and found there were more runaways to rescue than she thought. But that didn't stop her, she took the passengers to Pennsylvania. The trip was long and cold but they did reach the safe house of Frederick Douglas. From there they carried on there journey to Canada. To get into Canada, they had to cross over Niagara Falls on a bridge which would take them into the city of St. Catherine, Ontario in Canada. In St. Catherine, blacks and whites lived together in comfortable houses and they had their own land to farm and raise crops. St. Catherine's remained her base of operations until 1857. While there she worked at various activities to save to finance her activities as a Conductor on the UGRR, and attended the Salem Chapel BME Church on Geneva Street. In the winter of 1852, Tubman was ready to return to the U.S. to help free more slaves. In the spring, she worked in Cape May and saved enough money to go to Maryland. By now, Tubman had led so many people from the South, slave's even referred to her as “Moses” as she helped people escape “the land of Egypt”. She was also known by the plantation owners for her efforts and a bounty of $40,000 was posted. The state of Maryland itself posted a $12,000 reward for her capture.

8. 1861 Civil War- Tubman returned to the U.S. From Canada. The Civil War had begun and was enlisting all men as soldiers and any women who wanted to join as cooks and nurses. Tubman enlisted into the Union army as a contraband nurse in a hospital in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Contrabands were blacks who the Union army helped to escape from the Southern compounds. Often they were half starved and sick from exposure. Harriet nursed the sick and wounded back to health but her work did not stop there. She also tried to find them work. When the army sent her to another hospital in Florida, she found white soldiers and contrabands dying. She treated her patients with medicine from roots and miraculously never caught any of the deadly diseases the wounded soldiers would carry. During the summer of 1863, Tubman worked with Colonel James Montgomery as a scout. She put together a group of spies who kept Montgomery informed about slaves who might want to join the Union army. After she and her scouts had done the groundwork, she helped Montgomery organize the Combahee River Raid. The purpose of the raid was to harass whites and rescue freed slaves. They were successful in shelling the rebel outposts and gathering almost 500 slaves. Just about all the freed slaves joined the army. While guiding a group of black soldiers in South Carolina, she met Nelson Davis, who was ten years her junior. Denied payment for her wartime service, Tubman was forced, after a bruising fight, to ride in a baggage car on her return to Auburn.

9. 1869 Second marriage- After the war, Harriet returned home to Auburn. In 1869, she married Nelson Davis and together they shared a calm, peaceful 19 year marriage until he died. Harriet was now left alone. She turned her face toward the north, and fixing her eyes on the guiding star, and committing her way unto the Lord, she started again upon her long, lonely journey. She believed that there were one or two things she had a right to, liberty or death. Tubman returned to Auburn, New York. After the war and purchased Seward's seven-acre plot in 1873 with $1,200 donated by author Sarah Bradford from sale proceeds of her book. The Tubman-Davis brick home remains today on that property. In 1891 the government gave her a military pension of $20 per month.

10. Legacy & Importance • Harriet Tubman is , and was a very powerful, brave and determined woman. She escaped from slavery with her brothers who then drove her back into slavery and so she decided, as a woman, she would do it alone. Not only did she free herself from slavery but she freed others from slavery too. Her brothers were family , but its like they didn't believe they would get away with running away from slavery with their sister so they forced her back with them.

11. She is important to history because in a way she proves that we don't need men to achieve things. As women we can be independent, stand up for our beliefs, help others and get very far. Harriet is one of the people who help women believe things like this. Things that help women build up the courage and self esteem to preserver and do what we think is right.