Harriet Tubman and the Fight Against Slavery
Harriet Tubman was a popular hero to slaves in the mid 19th century. She gained a reputation for defiance and rebellion which was admired among many slaves.
Tubman was an American abolitionist, a humanitarian and a spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Harriet worked most of her life to help runaway slaves and started an anti-slavery abolishment movement. She was determined to be free. “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.” Harriet was a determined, defiant and bold woman. She continued to make dangerous trips to the South in order to guide fellow slaves to freedom.
Harriet’s determination went far beyond her own escape from slavery. She helped over 300 slaves escape and made over 19 trips to the South. Tubman was born in 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland, United States. She was born to enslaved parents and was originally named Araminta Harriet Ross. When she married a free black man named John Tubman, she changed her name to Harriet to honor her mother in 1844. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into British North America, and helped newly freed slaves find work.
When she was only 15, her first act of defiance was refusing to help an overseer whip a runaway slave. When Harriet refused, the overseer threw a two-pound weight that struck her in the head. The result of the impact caused seizures, severe headaches and narcoleptic episodes for the rest of her life. In 1849, Harriet and her two brothers attempted to escape and leave Maryland, but when a wanted notice appeared, her brothers returned home. After she saw that they were safe, Tubman had no plans of staying a slave. She soon set off for Pennsylvania, alone.
“When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Harriet recalls, after she crossed to the free state of Pennsylvania using the Underground Railroad network.
Tubman led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad and eventually earned the nickname “Moses” as a sign of respect for her leadership. She was extremely courageous to risk her own safety to guide other refugees to freedom. She was able to guide