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Day 23 - Harriet Tubman
Mar. 23rd, 2018 12:39 amHarriet Tubman
Harriet was called Moses by William Lloyd Garrison and she sang “Go Down Moses” as a signal to escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad but she was much more as well.
Born a slave in Maryland in 1822 as Araminta Ross, she suffered much at the hands of her mistress, who farmed her out to abusive men, one who hit her in the head with a metal weight and caused her to suffer epileptic episodes and visions the rest of her life.
In 1849, Harriet escaped to Philadelphia then began returning for her family members. “I was a stranger in a strange land," she said later. "My father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were [in Maryland]. But I was free, and they should be free."
She traveled by night and secretly and helped around 70 human beings become free from slavery. She said of her work on the Underground Railroad that she never lost a passenger. When the Fugitive State law was passed, slaves were no longer safe in free states so she helped them into Canada.
Frederick Douglas said of her:
You ask for what you do not need when you call upon me for a word of commendation. I need such words from you far more than you can need them from me, especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them. The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day—you in the night. ... The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. 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 you have.
Harriet Tubman also helped John Brown recruit members for the raid on Harper’s Ferry. When the Civil War began, Tubman saw it as a chance to help end slavery. When Lincoln did not immediately free the slaves, she said:
Master Lincoln, he's a great man, and I am a poor negro; but the negro can tell master Lincoln how to save the money and the young men. He can do it by setting the negro free. Suppose that was an awful big snake down there, on the floor. He bite you. Folks all scared, because you die. You send for a doctor to cut the bite; but the snake, he rolled up there, and while the doctor doing it, he bite you again. The doctor dug out that bite; but while the doctor doing it, the snake, he spring up and bite you again; so he keep doing it, till you kill him. That's what master Lincoln ought to know.
She worked as a nurse and cook, giving up her pay because other freed slaves complained. She made pies and root beer to sell to buy her own food. She led a Union raid in South Carolina that freed 700 slaves and she continued to scout and spy for the Union after that as well. She did not receive a pension for her work until 1899 and was constantly impoverished.
Later in her life, she joined the suffrage movement and spoke at voting rights rallies in New York, Boston and Washington, citing the brave women who sacrificed as much as men for freedom.
The website run by the Harriet Tubman Historical Society has a wealth of information on Tub and the Underground Railroad.
Harriet Tubman: The Moses of her People was published in 1869 by Sarah Bradford, much of it was dictated by Tubman herself.
Catherine Clinton’s bio Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom details many little known details of Tubman’s life.
There are monuments and parks all over this land honoring this great American woman.
As a young woman
The portrait we often see of her
Harriet was called Moses by William Lloyd Garrison and she sang “Go Down Moses” as a signal to escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad but she was much more as well.
Born a slave in Maryland in 1822 as Araminta Ross, she suffered much at the hands of her mistress, who farmed her out to abusive men, one who hit her in the head with a metal weight and caused her to suffer epileptic episodes and visions the rest of her life.
In 1849, Harriet escaped to Philadelphia then began returning for her family members. “I was a stranger in a strange land," she said later. "My father, my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and friends were [in Maryland]. But I was free, and they should be free."
She traveled by night and secretly and helped around 70 human beings become free from slavery. She said of her work on the Underground Railroad that she never lost a passenger. When the Fugitive State law was passed, slaves were no longer safe in free states so she helped them into Canada.
Frederick Douglas said of her:
You ask for what you do not need when you call upon me for a word of commendation. I need such words from you far more than you can need them from me, especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them. The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day—you in the night. ... The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. 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 you have.
Harriet Tubman also helped John Brown recruit members for the raid on Harper’s Ferry. When the Civil War began, Tubman saw it as a chance to help end slavery. When Lincoln did not immediately free the slaves, she said:
Master Lincoln, he's a great man, and I am a poor negro; but the negro can tell master Lincoln how to save the money and the young men. He can do it by setting the negro free. Suppose that was an awful big snake down there, on the floor. He bite you. Folks all scared, because you die. You send for a doctor to cut the bite; but the snake, he rolled up there, and while the doctor doing it, he bite you again. The doctor dug out that bite; but while the doctor doing it, the snake, he spring up and bite you again; so he keep doing it, till you kill him. That's what master Lincoln ought to know.
She worked as a nurse and cook, giving up her pay because other freed slaves complained. She made pies and root beer to sell to buy her own food. She led a Union raid in South Carolina that freed 700 slaves and she continued to scout and spy for the Union after that as well. She did not receive a pension for her work until 1899 and was constantly impoverished.
Later in her life, she joined the suffrage movement and spoke at voting rights rallies in New York, Boston and Washington, citing the brave women who sacrificed as much as men for freedom.
The website run by the Harriet Tubman Historical Society has a wealth of information on Tub and the Underground Railroad.
Harriet Tubman: The Moses of her People was published in 1869 by Sarah Bradford, much of it was dictated by Tubman herself.
Catherine Clinton’s bio Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom details many little known details of Tubman’s life.
There are monuments and parks all over this land honoring this great American woman.
As a young woman
The portrait we often see of her