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| Harriet Tubman was born a slave in 1820 or 1821 in Bucktown, Maryland, and was one of eleven children born to Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross. (She was born Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In the summer of 1849 she escaped the bonds of slavery, traveling by night through Maryland and Delaware to Philadelphia. From there she continued to New York and finally up into Canada. "I had reasoned this out in my mind," she said. There was one of two things I had a right to -- liberty or death. If I could not have one, I could have the other, for no man should take me alive. I shall fight for my liberty and when the time comes for me to go, the Lord will let them kill me."
But her freedom meant little to her when every wind from the South was charged with the plaintive cries of her oppressed brethren for deliverance. Her freedom was a mockery to her as long as she could hear the crack of the overseers whip, the clank of slave chains, and the heart-rending cries of mothers bereft of their children at the auction block. £Harriet Tubman was the greatest single conductor in the history of the Underground Railroad". An escaped slave herself, Tubman earned the nickname "Moses" for her heroic exploits in leading slaves to the promised land. Returning nineteen times to the dangerous South, Tubman led more than 300 slaves to freedom, including her own aged parents. Most of her traveling was done in cheerless solitude of night, with no protection but her cunning, no guide but the north star, and no hope of reward but the consciousness that she was "about her father's business." She became such a terror to the slaveholders of Maryland that when fugitive slave laws were passed in 1851, a reward of $40,000 was offered for her head. Despite this and other hindrances, she kept on. Rightly called "The Moses of her people," she was bold, daring, elusive and looked to God for guidance and strength. All of her trips were carefully planned and brilliantly executed through the use of the Underground Railroad, an effective method of spiriting slaves out of the South by an ever-shifting series of hiding places. The secrets of the Underground Railroad were so well kept that even today not much is known about it. Tubman was widely read about and talked about, although she herself was unable to read or write. Two of her most famous sayings were: "Lord, you have been with me through six troubles. Be with me in the seventh." And "I nebber run my train off de track and I nebber lost a passenger." She also had a wry sense of humor. By 1851 the Fugitive Slave Law was forcing conductors to lead slaves all the way to Canada. On one such trip a very frightened slave would not say a word or even look at the scenery while crossing into Canada with Tubman on a real train. But when the man realized he was on free soil, he began to sing and shout so loud that no one could shut him up. An exasperated Tubman finally cried out, "You old fool, you! You might at least have looked at Niagara Falls on the way to freedom!" Harriet Tubman was accustomed to saying to the slaves when she had led them toward freedom, "Children, if you are tired, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going." After the war, Harriet married Nelson Davis, a veteran of the Civil War, and settled in Auburn, New York. She lived in a home obtained with the help of her friend William H. Seward and lived on a $20 pension which she received for the rest of her life. Harriet Tubman came into possession of another property consisting of 26 acres of land, on which two houses stood. At the time, the property was worth $6,000, but it was burdened with a mortgage of $1,700. It was her daily prayer that this might be removed so she could bequeath it free of debt to her race to be used forever as an old folks' home. In 1906 she deeded this property to the A.M.E. Zion Connection. Throughout her life Harriet Tubman maintained an interest in the welfare of others. She raised money for schools, former slaves, destitute children and assisted the sick and the disabled. The Harriet Tubman home at 180 South Street is a national historic site and is currently managed by the Rev. Paul G. Carter. |
