Before there was D'Jango, there was Harriet Tubman, a 5'2 pint-sized powerhouse also known as the "Conductor" for the Underground Railroad. Harriett Tubman, born Araminta Harriet Ross in 1820 was no stranger to slavery, she was born into it. When she was just a young girl she had a bad accident that caused a head injury. She was hit with a heavy piece of metal after a slave master tried to throw the metal at another slave and hit her instead. Because of this she suffered from seizures, headaches and narcoleptic attacks throughout her life. She lived during a time when women didn't play much of a role, they just cooked and cleaned. Harriet did her fair share of the required duties but she had a bigger role in mind, she wanted to be free.
Around 1844, she got married to a free Black man, John Tubman and soon changed her name from Araminta to Harriet. Not much is known about him or their union but the marriage was complicated due to her slave status. A man named Edward Brodess inherited many slaves and Harriet was one of them. When her father was freed in 1840 at age 45, it was discovered that other slaves were also to be freed once they reached age 45 but her owner, Brodess, did not honor that. In 1849, she became ill and was no longer of good use as a slave so he tried to sell her but couldn't find a buyer. Harriet became very angry at him for the unjust hold he had on her relatives and began to pray for him asking God to change his ways, "I prayed all night long for my master... till the first of March; and all the time he was bringing people to look at me, and trying to sell me." When it appeared there was a buyer for her she prayed again, only this time her prayer was different, "I changed my prayer... First of March I began to pray, 'Oh Lord, if you ain't never going to change that man's heart, kill him, Lord, and take him out of the way." A week later Edward Brodess died.
When her owner died, Harriet was sure her family would be separated and she didn't want to see that happen. Brodess' widow was already making arrangements to sell the slaves but Harriet was not going to let those people determine her fate, she then decided to to break free saying "There was one of two things I had a right to... liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other" and on September 17, 1849 Harriet Tubman and her brothers Harry and Ben escaped from slavery. Tubman's two brothers began having second thoughts and went back, she returned with them but stayed only for a little while then she escaped again along the Underground Railroad, this time without them. Guided by the North Star, Tubman traveled at night trying to avoid slave catchers who wanted to get their hands on a reward put out for fugitive slaves. The moment she crossed over into Pennsylvania she felt a sense of relief and gratitude, later saying "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."
Soon after Tubman was safe and sound in Philadelphia she began thinking about her family back in Maryland, she didn't like the idea of being free without them and wanted to go back to rescue them, so she started working odd jobs and saving up her money. In December 1850 she received word that her niece Keesiah was going to be sold so she had no choice but to return to the place where she was enslaved. She went to Baltimore and her brother-in-law Tom Tubman hid her there until the time of her niece’s sale. Keesiah's husband, who was a free Black man, made the winning bid to buy her and while he pretended to make arrangements to pay, Keesiah and her children escaped to a nearby safe house. At night fall Keesiah's husband sailed his family away in a canoe to meet up with her aunt Harriet, and from there she took them to Philadelphia. Tubman made another trip back to help free more slaves and she soon became known as "Moses," a prophet from the Book of Exodus who led the Hebrews to freedom from Egypt.
In 1851, she attempted to take her husband John Tubman with her but she learned he had remarried and was happy where he was. She thought to go and break up his happy home but soon realized it wasn't worth it. In all, Harriet Tubman made about 13 trips over the course of 11 years, having successfully rescued 70 slaves including her brothers, their wives and some of their children. Her masterplan consisted of traveling during the winter months when the nights were cold and long, she knew people stayed inside their homes then so it was likely her crew wouldn't be seen. She also made sure escaping slaves would leave on Saturday nights since newspapers didn't print runaway notices until Monday morning. Her plan ran so smooth she even left specific instructions for 50-60 other slaves who later escaped to the north without her.
As if helping slaves escape along the Underground Railroad wasn't dangerous enough, Tubman later became a Civil War spy for the Union Army in order to help free all slaves, risking getting hanged if ever caught. She helped Colonel James Montgomery plan a raid to free slaves from plantations along the Combahee River in South Carolina and on June 1, 1863 Harriet along with hundreds of male soldiers set out to do just that. They freed about 750 slaves- men, women, children and babies.
After running for her life and the life of others, Harriet spent her remaining years taking care of her family, including her elderly parents and other people who were in need in Auburn. On March 18, 1869 she got remarried to a Civil War veteran whom she had taken in and fallen in love with, Nelson Davis, he was 22 years younger than she was. They spent the next 20 years together and in 1874 adopted a baby girl named Gertie. In 1903, she donated some real estate she owned to a church where she'd become very active and turned it into the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, which officially opened in June 1908.
The headaches from her childhood head trauma never stopped bothering her, she had a lot of sleepless nights so she decided to have brain surgery. She didn't want anesthesia, instead opting to bite down on a bullet like she had seen Civil War soldiers do during amputation. In 1911, Tubman's body became so frail she had to be admitted into the rest home which was honored in her name and two years later in 1913 she died from pneumonia. Surrounded by family and friends, just before she died she told them "I go to prepare a place for you," something she had done for others all her life. Harriet Tubman.. Trailblazer and history maker. Dare to be brave!
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