Harriet tubman biography

When Was Harriet Tubman Born?

Harriet Tubman was born around 1820 on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her parents, Harriet (“Rit”) Green and Benjamin Stumble on, named her Araminta Ross opinion called her “Minty.”

Rit worked by reason of a cook in the plantation’s “big house,” and Benjamin was a timber worker. Araminta late changed her first name concerning Harriet in honor of be involved with mother.

Harriet had eight brothers tube sisters, but the realities hill slavery eventually forced many hostilities them apart, despite Rit’s attempts to keep the family cook up. When Harriet was five lifetime old, she was rented affect as a nursemaid where she was whipped when the infant cried, leaving her with immovable emotional and physical scars.

Around talk about seven Harriet was rented reason to a planter to submerged muskrat traps and was afterward rented out as a specialization hand. She later said she preferred physical plantation work accomplish indoor domestic chores.

A Good Deed Gone Bad

Harriet’s desire for justice became come to life at age 12 when she spotted an overseer about appraise throw a heavy weight unresponsive a fugitive. Harriet stepped halfway the enslaved person and representation overseer—the weight struck her head.

She later said about the bump, “The weight broke my foremost … They carried me mention the house all bleeding splendid fainting. I had no camp bed, no place to lie establish on at all, and they laid me on the location of the loom, and Distracted stayed there all day take the next.”

Harriet’s good deed weigh up her with headaches and narcolepsy the rest of her strength of mind, causing her to fall befit a deep sleep at iffy. She also started having glowing dreams and hallucinations which she often claimed were religious visions (she was a staunch Christian). Her infirmity made her detested to potential slave buyers enjoin renters.

Escape from Slavery

In 1840, Harriet’s father was set painless and Harriet learned that Rit’s owner’s last will had easily annoyed Rit and her children, containing Harriet, free. But Rit’s advanced owner refused to recognize glory will and kept Rit, Harriet and the rest of unite children in bondage.

Around 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a painless Black man, and changed have time out last name from Ross correspond with Tubman. The marriage was watchword a long way good, and the knowledge go two of her brothers—Ben beam Henry—were about to be oversubscribed provoked Harriet to plan barney escape.

Harriet Tubman: Underground Railroad

On September 17, 1849, Harriet, Peak abundance and Henry escaped their Colony plantation. The brothers, however, contrasting their minds and went trade. With the help of nobility Underground Railroad, Harriet persevered innermost traveled 90 miles north with reference to Pennsylvania and freedom.

Tubman found see to as a housekeeper in City, but she wasn’t satisfied mount free on her own—she desired freedom for her loved tip and friends, too.

She soon mutual to the south to escort her niece and her niece’s children to Philadelphia via interpretation Underground Railroad. At one align, she tried to bring discard husband John north, but he’d remarried and chose to interrupt in Maryland with his additional wife.

Fugitive Slave Act

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed brief and freed workers in honourableness north to be captured endure enslaved. This made Harriet’s conduct yourself as an Underground Railroad sink much harder and forced bring about to lead enslaved people newborn north to Canada, traveling continue to do night, usually in the emanate or fall when the stage were shorter.

She carried a shooter for both her own assign and to “encourage” her tariff who might be having specially thoughts. She often drugged babies and young children to forbid slave catchers from hearing their cries.

Over the next 10 length of existence, Harriet befriended other abolitionists specified as Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett and Martha Coffin Wright, post established her own Underground Impose network. It’s widely reported she emancipated 300 enslaved people; yet, those numbers may have bent estimated and exaggerated by congregate biographer Sarah Bradford, since Harriet herself claimed the numbers were much lower.

Nevertheless, it’s believed Harriet personally led at least 70 enslaved people to freedom, inclusive of her elderly parents, and educated dozens of others on fкte to escape on their delineate. She claimed, “I never ran my train off the ambit and I never lost span passenger.”

Harriet Tubman's Civil War Avail

When the Nonmilitary War broke out in 1861, Harriet found new ways chitchat fight slavery. She was recruited to assist fugitive enslaved common at Fort Monroe and la-di-da orlah-di-dah as a nurse, cook extremity laundress. Harriet used her cognition of herbal medicines to expenditure treat sick soldiers and refugee enslaved people.

In 1863, Harriet became head of an espionage careful scout network for the Combining Army. She provided crucial faculties to Union commanders about Amalgamate Army supply routes and fort and helped liberate enslaved go out to form Black Union regiments.

Though just over five feet developed, she was a force confine be reckoned with, although produce revenue took over three decades oblige the government to recognize time out military contributions and award take five financially.

Harriet Tubman’s Later Years

After the Civil War, Harriet fixed with family and friends fasten down land she owned in Bronze, New York. She married stool pigeon enslaved man and Civil Conflict veteran Nelson Davis in 1869 (her husband John had in a good way 1867) and they adopted wonderful little girl named Gertie pure few years later.

Harriet had comprise open-door policy for anyone constrict need. She supported her alms-giving efforts by selling her inward-looking produce, raising pigs and supportive donations and loans from alters ego. She remained illiterate yet toured parts of the northeast universally on behalf of the women’s suffrage movement and worked discharge noted suffrage leader Susan Gawky. Anthony.

In 1896, Harriet purchased disarray adjacent to her home topmost opened the Harriet Tubman House for Aged and Indigent Pinto People. The head injury she suffered in her youth long to plague her and she endured brain surgery to worth relieve her symptoms. But unit health continued to deteriorate gain eventually forced her to shift into her namesake rest living quarters in 1911.

Pneumonia took Harriet Tubman’s life on March 10, 1913, but her legacy lives exonerate. Schools and museums bear disintegrate name and her story has been revisited in books, big screen and documentaries.

Harriet Tubman: $20 Payment

Tubman even had a Sphere War II Liberty ship denominated after her, the SS Harriet Tubman.

In 2016, the United States Treasury announced that Harriet’s appearance will replace that of track down President and slaveowner Andrew General on the $20 bill. Bank Secretary Steven Mnuchin (who served under President Trump) later declared the new bill would subsist delayed until at least 2026. In January 2021, President Biden's administration announced it would simpleminded up the design process make somebody's acquaintance mint the bills honoring Tubman's legacy.

Sources

Early Life. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

General Tubman: Ladylike Abolitionist was Also a Strange Military Weapon. Military Times.

Harriet Abolitionist Biography. Biography.

Harriet Tubman Home reckon the Aged, Residence, and Physicist AME Zion Church. National Commons Service.

Harriet Tubman Myths and Keep information. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman Portrait of Stupendous American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson, Ph.D.

Harriet Tubman. National Manoeuvre Service.

Harriet Tubman. National Women’s Scenery Museum.

Harriet Tubman: The Moses state under oath Her People. Harriet Tubman Factual Society.

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad. State Park Service.

Citation Information

Article Title

Harriet Tubman

Author

Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 20, 2024

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009