Brittney Head, Owen Bullard, & Helen Riddle Famous American Women EDEC 3334/EDMG 3334 Social Studies

Methods April 7, 2014

Harriet Tubman (1819-1913) Born in 1819 Araminta Ross, was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland. At the age of six she was old enough to be considered able to work, and was lent to a couple who put her to work weaving. At the age of eleven she started wearing a bright cotton bandana around her head indicating she was no longer a child. She also no longer would be known by her basket name, Araminta, she would now be called Harriet, after her mother. In 1844 at the age of 25 Harriet married John Tubman. John Tubman was a free African American that did not share in Harriets dream. Harriet knew since she was a slave that there was a chance that she could be sold and split apart from her husband. Harriets dream was to travel north where she would be free and did not have to worry about her marriage being split up by the slave trade. Harriet Tubman had four phases of her life, her live as a slave, as an abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad, as a Civil War soldier nurse, spy and scout, and as a social reformer and charitable citizen. Harriets childhood as a slave was a harsh one, and that was the main cause for her fight. In 1849 Harriet was given a piece of paper by a white abolitionist neighbor with two names, and told her 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. At her next destination she was given directions to safe houses and names of people who would help her cross the Mason-Dixon line. A freeborn black Pennsylvanian man by the name of William Still who could read and write used these talents to interview runaway slaves and record their names and stories in a book. The book was published in 1872 under the title The Underground Railroad and describes many of Harriets efforts. With the assistance of Still, and other members of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society Harriet learned about the workings of the Underground Railroad.

In 1850 Harriet was made an official conductor of the Underground Railroad. This meant that she knew all the routes to free territory and she had to take an oath of silence so the secrets of the Underground Railroad would be kept secret. Around this time the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The act stipulated 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 apprehended and turned in to the authorities for deportation back to the rightful owner down south. The Underground Railroad tightened security, it created a code to make things more secret. It also sent the escaping slaves into Canada instead of the North of the United States. By December of 1860 Harriets career in the Railroad was ending. Her last rescue was a trip to Maryland, bringing seven people to Canada. In the ten years she worked as a conductor on the Railroad Harriet managed to rescue over 300 people. She had made 19 trips and never lost a passenger on the way. For her safety her friends took her to Canada. In 1861 she returned to the United States. The Civil War had begun and Harriet 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. Harriet nursed the sick and wounded back to health. Harriet worked as a scout for Colonel James Montgomery during the summer of 1863, she put together a group of spies who kept Montgomery informed about slaves who might want to join the Union army. Most famously she led the Combahee River expedition, under the command of Montgomery, helping to blow up Southern supply lines and free hundreds of slaves. After the Civil War Harriet worked to establish schools for freedmen in South Caroline, though she never learned to read or write she appreciated the value of education for the future of freedom.

Harriet welcomed several young children into her home and raised them as if they were her own. She also provided shelter and support for a number of aged, impoverished slaves. Harriet worked with Sarah Hopkins Bradford to publish Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. This helped Harriet to finance her own living and her support of others. Harriet also worked with her friend Susan B. Anthony on woman suffrage and toured to speak about her experiences as Moses. In 1908 Harriet opened a home for aged and poor African Americans called the John Brown Home for Aged and Indigent Color People. Harriet Tubman died of pneumonia on March 10, 1913.

References Harriet Tubman. (2014). Retrieved March 31, 2014, from http://www.harriet-tubman.org/ Harriet Tubman |America's library - library of congress. (2014). Retrieved March 31, 2014, from http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/tubman/aa_tubman_subj.html Harriet Tubman Biography. (2014). Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.biography.com/people/harriet-tubman-9511430 Harriet Tubman Office 8/16/2011 News release http://www.governor.maryland.gov/pressreleases/110816.asp Historical Maryland Proclamations March 10, 1990 July 15, 1998. (2014). Retrieved April 02, 2014, from http://harriettubman.com/ The life of Harriet Tubman. (2014). Retrieved April 03, 2014, from http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/life.htm