In 1820, in Maryland, an Africa-American girl was born into slavery (Abnett, 3); a usual occurrence at that time. What makes her outstanding however is what she later became. The girl, born as Araminta Harriet Ross, later became a humanitarian, military spy, soldier, women’s activist and abolitionist of great repute. She dedicated her lifetime to fighting slavery, and helped many slaves to escape from slavery (Elish, 9). She became synonymous was the underground railroad as it was the passage through which she guided escaped slaves to freedom. It is such fact that she is also referred to as the ‘conductor’ (Lantier, 17).
Harriet was born in Dorchester County to a slave family. Her parents, Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene, named her Araminta Ross, she was however referred to as Minty in the plantation (Nielson, 8). Her mother was owned by a white man, Edward Brodess, and worked on his plantation (Gosda, 6). Her father was owned by Brodess’ step father, Antony Thompson (Lantier, 12). She had 10 other siblings and the family lived in a small cabin with no widows (Gosda, 7). Initially, she worked on the plantation but was later sent to another family, the Cook family. She assisted Mrs. Cook to do various jobs such as tailoring, cooking, and trapping muskrats (Gosda, 8). At this time she was five years old (Nielson, 8).
The Cook family did not take good care of her. Additionally, she was subjected to poor conditions of living; sharing food with dogs and sleeping on the floor. She would later become sick, at which point the Cooks returned her to Brodess. Her mother cared for her until she was well. Mr. Brodess subsequently sent her to another home.
She arrived at the new home at the age of seven. Here she worked as a babysitter for the family’s little baby (Abnett, 5). The wife of the owner was unfriendly to her and occasionally whipped her (Nielson, 10). The whipping was bad that she later decided to wear several cloths to protect her (Clinton, 19). At some point during her stay there, she stole a sugar cube from the family’s kitchen. The owner became infuriated, beat her and returned her to Mr. Brodess. She arrived home in a bad state but her mother nursed her back to health.
In a bid to prevent the boy from escaping, the overseer took a one kilogram weight and threw it at him. The scale however missed the boy and smacked Harriet on the head. The knock made her unconscious, and she was in such state for several days. Though she later recovered, the weight had left a deep scar on her head. Additionally, the injury made her suffer from seizures for life.
After recovering from the injury, Mr. Brodess tried several times to sell her, but all the attempts were unsuccessful (Clinton, 20). She thus remained in the plantation and continued with her slave duties. The effect of the injury would later emergence when she started experiencing seizures. The seizures were sporadic and would occur any time. This frightened her family as at that time there was no cure for her condition, which contemporary writers believe it was temporal lobe epilepsy (Larson, 43).
Harriet continued to work in the plantation until 1849 when she got married to a man by the name John Tubman. At around that period, she also changed her name, taking her mother’s name hence the inception of Harriet Tubman. The marriage was however problematic due to the fact that John was a free man, but Harriet was still a slave. The main complex issue was that given her status, their children too would be slaves.
Her journey to freedom began in 1849 when she became sick. Mr. Brodess saw no use for her in her condition and made up his mind to sell her. However, given her condition, she was relatively of low value hence it was hard to find a willing buyer. Mr. Brodess later became ill and died before he could sell her (Abnett, 6). His death left his family with many debts and in order to pay them off, Mrs. Brodess began selling the family’s slaves (Larson, 75). Harriet knew then that the possibility of being sold had increased.
Rather than wait to be sold, she planned to escape from the Brodess home. Her husband tried to persuade her not to escape but she was determined to be free. She shared her plans to escape to her two brothers, and first they were open to the idea. The three escaped while on rent to another plantation. This was advantageous to them as it increased the amount of time before they were missed (Lantier, 6).
The escape was going well until the three got lost in the way. Her brothers disagreed with her on the way to go. They also got scared of being caught and desired to return to their slave masters. At this time, Mrs. Brodess had posted an advertisement at the local daily, Cambridge Democrat, offering about $ 300 for the capture of the escaped slaves (Larson, 78). It is not clear whether the three were aware of the bounty on their heads, but they eventually returned. Harriet had disagreed with her brothers about returning but they prevailed over her and forced her to return with them.
Two weeks later, Harriet escaped again, without involving her brothers. She was determined to make it to the North where slavery had been abolished. Harriet did not know the way but she had heard stories that the North Star guided slaves to the North. For fear of being captured, she had to travel at night, often without knowing which particular way to go. As a child, she had heard of the Underground Railroad, a secret underground passage that slaves used to escape to freedom. She was determined to find this passage to freedom.
The Underground Railroad turned out to be more than just an underground route. It was also a network of enslaved and free black people, religious people and white people that were opposed to slavery. These people were spread across the way up to Ontario, Canada, and through them, escaped slaves got a passage to freedom. They provided food, clothing, shelter, and transportation for the escaped slaves. Members of the network, also referred to as ‘conductors’, used to leave a burning candle in a window in the house as a sign to escaped slaves that they could stop for shelter and food (Lantier, 7).
Harriet utilized this network to escape from Maryland to Canada. A white member of the network gave her a paper with names of people that could help her. It is believed that she got a lot of help in Preston area, Caroline County owing to the presence of Quakers there (Larson, 81). At some point in her escape, she was put in a wagon, with a sack covering her. She was then transported to her subsequent destination. In Philadelphia, she met the stationmaster of the Philadelphia Underground Railroad, Mr. William Still. From him she learned the machinery of the network.
Harriet settled in Philadelphia for a while, working odd jobs to save money to assist her relocate her family. During her stay there, she got word that some of her relatives were about to be sold (Larson, 89). Harriet decided to return to Maryland to rescue them; she hid in Baltimore initially, at her brother in law’s place (Larson, 89). She however did not travel to Dorchester County, the relatives met up with her in Baltimore. From there she guided them to Philadelphia. This marked the beginning of her work as an Underground Railroad conductor.
On her second trip as a conductor, she returned to Maryland where she rescued one of her brothers and other two slaves. From then on she made several trips to Maryland to guide slaves to freedom. With every trip she made, she gained more confidence and support; it is believed that she worked with the renowned abolitionist, Thomas Garrett (Clinton, 80). Such was the extent of her exploits that William Lloyd Garrison referred to her as Moses, comparing her to the Biblical Moses, who guided the Israelites from slavery (Clinton, 85).
The Underground Railroad in Maryland comprised safe houses in East New Market, Poplar neck, and generally the Caroline County. Other notable safe houses she used were in Sand town, Willow Grove, Camden, Smyrna, New Castle, Wilmington, Philadelphia, New York, and Canada (Larson, 133). In her work as a conductor, she returned to Dorchester County twice, to rescue her husband and her aging parents.
Harriet worked as a ‘conductor’ for more than 10 years. During this period she guided around 70 slaves to freedom. She also gave directions to other slaves who escaped on their own. Her expeditions were usually in the winter, when most people stayed indoors at night. The escape journey usually began on Saturday evenings since newspapers were not printed over the weekends (Larson, 100); buying time before the runaway notices were printed.
Her work as a ‘conductor’ ended at around 1860; poetically where her journey to freedom had started, Dorchester County. When the civil war began in 1861, she joined the Union as a military scout, soldier, nurse, and spy. Her motivation to join the Union was their anti-slavery stand, thus her dedication to freeing slaves took a new turn. Her connections in the Underground Railroad and her knowledge of the terrain proved greatly valuable to the Union. Such was her value to the Union that she was given the honor to lead an armed assault, becoming the first woman to achieve such in the civil war.
Works cited
Abnett, D. Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. New York, Rosen Publishing Group
Inc., 2007. Print.
Clinton, C. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. New York, Little, Brown & Company,
2004. Print.
Elish, D. Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Milbrook Press, 1993. Print.
Gosda, R. T. Harriet Tubman. Minnesota, ABDO Publishing Company, 2002. Print.
Lantier, P. Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad. New York, Crabtree
Publishing Company, 2010. Print.
Larson, K. C. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero.
New York, Ballantine Books, 2004. Print.
Nielson, N. J. Harriet Tubman. Minnesota, Capstone Press, 2002. Print.
