Harriet Tubman: Freed Slave, Abolitionist, and Legend

Harriet Tubman: Freed Slave, Abolitionist, and Legend

By:

Aisha Elwadie

WRAC 140 Section 006

Women In America

Dr. Meija

9 October 2006

Harriet Tubman: Freed Slave, Abolitionist, and Legend

Slavery is a situation in which someone is a servant of another person. The first Africans to be brought to North America landed in Virginia in 1619. From 1619 until 1865 around half a million slaves were brought from Africa, to create what was latter known as the "slave trade". The slave trade helped with economic growth in the newly founded colonies. At first the slaves played the role of indentured servants through signed contracts for long periods of time. The first British colonists in Carolina introduced African slavery, as it is known now, into the colony in 1670, the year the colony was founded, and slavery spread rapidly throughout the Southern colonies The slaves arrived in present day South Carolina as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony. Northerners also purchased slaves, however, they typically lived in towns and worked as artisans and assistants, sailors and longshoremen, and domestic servants. Men and women alike were slaves and sometimes even children. Women worked as either house slaves or field slaves. Those who were fortunate enough to be house slaves had better living conditions and sometimes were even educated. Field slaves in the south, however, had to work on plantations and do more physical labor. Much of their daily work consisted of planting either tobacco, rice, sugar, or cotton. However, there were a few women who did not like the treatment and decided to do something about it. Harriet Tubman, a slave, born in Maryland in 1822, wished for a better life. She fled to freedom in Canada for the purpose of escaping the cruel and hideous conditions that where placed upon her. As an escaped slave, she worked as a lumberjack, laundress, nurse, and cook until she could make enough money to work on the Underground Railroad, as a conductor. Harriet Tubman was born an unfortunate slave, escaped, and became known as the "Moses" of her people after working for the Underground Railroad.

"Harriet Tubman was born in Peter's Neck, Maryland in either late February or early March 1822" (Chism, 5). "She was born Araminta Ross to Ben and Harriet Greene Ross and was the fifth of eleven children. Her master was Edward Brodess, but she rarely ever stayed with him" (Campbell, 514). Once she reached six years of age, she was hired out to other masters. She was treated horribly and in an inhumane way. One incident involved her being beaten

on the head with a two-pound weight for refusing to help tie up a runaway slave. "While she was a young adult, she took the name of Harriet, in honor of her mother" (Chism, 47). In 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a freed slave. A few years later, Edward Brodess died and his family was left in debt. To pay off the debt, his wife decided to sell their slaves and belongings. Harriet, afraid of being sold into the Deep South, decided to take matters into her own hands. She knew that escaping had many risks; death being the most severe and most common. Harriet Tubman once said, "I had reasoned this out in my mind, 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" (qtd. in Campbell 513). Her husband, John, did not want to follow, so she left him behind and continued on her journey to freedom.

Tubman escaped in 1849 to find refuge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and she did so through the help of a group of sympathetic, abolitionist Quakers. They helped her hide from white slave masters by setting up a network. One family would drive her to the next family, who would then hide her in linens and take her to the next family, until she got to Philadelphia. After her escape, Tubman worked as a maid in order to make enough money to work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and ultimately help free her family. At the same time she decided to join a large and active abolitionist group. Soon after, she settled on the idea of joining the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was an elaborate and secret series of houses, tunnels, and roads set up by abolitionists and former slaves. The Underground Railroad had people known as "conductors" who went to the south and helped guide slaves to safety. Runaway slaves usually hid during the day and traveled at night. Some of those involved notified runaways of their stations by brightly lit candles in a window or by lanterns positioned in the front yard. By the middle of the 19th century it was estimated that over 50,000 slaves had escaped from the South using the Underground Railroad. From the day that she joined the Underground Railroad and until the Civil War, Harriet Tubman traveled to the South 19 times. In that time span she helped free about 300 slaves.

Tubman's success on the Underground Railroad was due to her intelligence, cunningness, and ruthlessness. However, the real techniques came from the well developed plans for her expeditions. She had to rely on