Harriet Tubman
1820 - 1913
1820 - 1913
Born 1819. Araminta Ross Harriet Tubman was born into
slavery in 1819 or 1820, in Dorchester County, Maryland. Given the names of her
two parents, both held in slavery, she was of purely African ancestry. She was
raised under harsh conditions, and subjected to whippings even as a small
child. She slept as close to the fire as possible on cold nights and sometimes
stuck her toes into the smoldering ashes to avoid frostbite. Cornmeal was her
main source of nutrition and occasionally meat of some kind as her family had
the privilege to hunt and fish. Most of her early childhood was spent with her
grandmother who was too old for slave labor. At age six, Tubman was old enough to be
considered able to work. She did not work in the fields though. Edward Brodas,
her master, lent her to a couple who first put her to work weaving she was
beaten frequently. When she slacked off at this job the couple gave her the
duty of checking muskrat traps.
Tubman caught the measles while doing this
work. The couple thought she was incompetent and took her back to Brodas. When
she got well, she was taken in by a woman as a housekeeper and baby-sitter. Tubman
was whipped during the work here and was sent back to Brodas after eating one
of the woman's sugar cubes. At the age of 25, she married John Tubman, a free
African American who did not share her dream. Since she was a slave, she knew
there could be a chance that she could be sold and her marriage would be split
apart. Harriet dreamed of traveling north. Harriet was given a piece of paper by a white
abolitionist neighbor with two names, and told 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. And kind enough to give her
directions to safe houses and names of people who would help her cross the
Mason-Dixon Line. She then hitched a ride with a woman and her husband who were
passing by. They were abolitionists and took her to Philadelphia. Here, Harriet
got a job where she saved her pay to help free slaves. She also met William
Still. Still was one of the Underground Railroad's busiest "station
masters." In
September of the same year, Harriet was made an official "conductor"
of the UGRR. This meant that she knew all the routes to free territory and she
had to take an oath of silence so the secret of the Underground Railroad would
be kept secret. She also made a second trip to the South to rescue her brother
James and other friends. They were already in the process of running away so
Harriet aided them across a river and to the home of Thomas Garret. He was the
most famous Underground "Stationmaster" in history. Harriet's third
trip was in September 1851.
She went to get her husband, John, but he had
remarried and did not want to leave. So she went back up North. Harriet went to
Garret's house and found there were more runaways (which were referred to as
passengers) to rescue than anticipated. That did not stop her though. She gave
a baby a sedative so he would not cry and took the passengers into
Pennsylvania. The trip was long and cold but they did reach the safe house of
Frederick Douglas. He kept them until he had collected enough money to get them
to Canada. He received the money so she and her eleven passengers started the
journey to Canada. To get into Canada, they had to cross over Niagara Falls on
a handmade suspension bridge which would take them into the city of St.
Catherine. As Harriet Tubman aged, the sleeping spells and suffering from her
childhood head trauma continued to plague her. At some point in the late 1890s,
she underwent brain surgery at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. Unable
to sleep because of pains and "buzzing" in her head, she asked a
doctor if he could operate. He agreed, and in her words, "sawed open my
skull, and raised it up, and now it feels more comfortable. She had received no
anesthesia for the procedure, and reportedly chose instead to bite down on a
bullet, as she had seen Civil War soldiers do when their limbs were amputated.
By 1911, her body was so frail that she had to be admitted into the rest home
named in her honor. A New York newspaper described her as "ill and
penniless", prompting supporters to offer a new round of donations.
Surrounded by friends and family members, Harriet Tubman died of pneumonia on
March 10, 1913. Just before she died, she told those in the room: "I go to
prepare a place for you."
