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Harriet Tubman Podcast

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman

Araminta Harriet Ross was born in Dorchester County, Maryland,  to enslaved parents Ben Ross and Harriet Green somewhere between 1820 and 1825. As her mother was a slave, Araminta (who later changed her name to Harriet at the time of her first marriage), was a slave from the start. Because of this, she never acquired a formal education, though her mother did set a powerful example for her by standing up to her owners when they intended to sell one of her sons. Young Harriet's family was destined to be split up though, for in the near future, her owner's son would sell at least three of Harriet's sisters to a faraway plantation. Harriet had other struggles as a child, too. Violence was a part of everyday life for her. Once, as she was walking in a field, she saw a runaway slave with his owner after him. She refused to help restrain the slave. A two-pound iron weight was then thrown, either directly at her or at the slave. It hit Harriet in the head, and caused her seizures, intense headaches, and narcoleptic episodes throughout the rest of her life. Another time, Harriet remembers being lashed five times before breakfast.

Harriet's family was a large one. She was one of the nine children born to Ben Ross and Harriet Green, though many of the children were split up and sold. Later in her life, in 1844, Araminta Harriet Ross married John Tubman, a free black man, and became Harriet Tubman, going by her middle name to honor her mother, and taking her husband's last name. Harriet was still a slave when she married John. It wasn't uncommon for black families to have both free and enslaved members. Harriet Tubman's marriage to John fizzled out as Harriet began making many trips to lead slaves to freedom. While she was gone, he remarried. When she came back to take him and his family to liberty, they decided they wanted to stay where they were. Harriet did not remarry herself until later in life when she married Nelson Davis in 1870. They were married for 18 years until his death.

Harriet's occupations and achievements in life are many in number. She was very active during the Civil War. As a Union spy, she helped provide the North with ways to overpower the South and restore order to the once-United States. As a war nurse, she provided badly-needed nursing care to black soldiers and newly-freed slaves. Harriet Tubman also became the first woman to command an armed military  raid when, in the June of 1863, she guided Col. James Montgomery and his 2nd South Carolina black regiment up the Combahee River to Confederate outposts to destroy stockpiles of food, cotton, and weapons and free slaves, eventually numbering those liberated to over 700. After she stopped being a war nurse, she went to Washington D.C. and practiced nursing there. Harriet was also a civil rights activist and a humanitarian during her lifetime, and did many things to help those around her. She made 19 trips on the Underground Railroad altogether, and freed more than 300 slaves, though not all of those were physically guided by her. To some, she gave directions on how to reach freedom. Harriet's first trip taking slaves to freedom was when she led her niece Kessiah and Kessiah's family to Philadelphia. She earned herself the nickname "the Moses of her people".

After the war, Harriet moved to in Auburn, N.Y.. According to http://www.harriettubmanbiography.com, she began a career as a community activist, humanitarian, and suffragist. She appeared at local and national suffrage conventions until early in the 1900s. Harriet Tubman suffered financially for the rest of her life. She was denied her military pension, but she did get widow's pension as the widow of Nelson Davis, and later on, she got her Civil War's nurse pension. Though probably not the best financial idea, she triumphed with the opening of the Harriet Tubman Home For Aged that she purchased with a mortgage. She later transferred it to African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1903. About 10 years later, on March 10th, 1913, Harriet Tubman died, leaving behind a legacy of humanitarianism and heroism.

 

Works Cited

Larson, Kate C. "Harriet Tubman Life." Harriet Tubman Biography. Lewiston High School, n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <http://www.harriettubmanbiography.com/index.html>.

"Harriet Tubman." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Feb 07 2013, 12:44 <http://www.biography.com/people/harriet-tubman-9511430>.

"manumit." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 07 Feb. 2013. <Dictionary.com <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/manumit>.

"Harriet Tubman." Women's History Month Project. Ed. Elliot R. East Buchanan Middle School, n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <http://www.east-buc.k12.ia.us/00_01/WH/wh_intro.htm>.

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