Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People
On a cold night in the middle of winter, a weary slave ran across the field to the woods. There he met Harriet Tubman, the conductor, and the rest of her sore-footed but hopeful passengers who were ready to start the long, treacherous journey to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman, later called “Moses”, was a runaway slave who came back to her people and helped over 300 of them gain freedom. Harriet Tubman was born in Maryland to her slave parents Harriet Green and Ben Ross in 1822. Her mother worked as a cook for the Brodess family and her father was a skilled woodsman who managed the timber work on the Thompson’s plantation (Harriet Tubman par. 2). Because her mother was so busy in the kitchen, Harriet cared for her younger siblings, till she reached the age of six. When she was six, Brodess hired her out to be a nurse maid to Miss Susan. She was told to watch the baby while it slept but when the baby woke up and cried she was whipped. Her next job was to work for a planter named James Cook. She was assigned to checking the musket traps, even after she contracted measles. Sadly, she got so ill she was sent back to Brodess were her mother nursed her back to health.
When Harriet was 13 a slave tried to run away. The overseer threw a 2 pound metal weight at him but Harriet stood in the way. The weight hit her in the skull and caused her to be unconscious for days. Harriet never fully recovered and for the rest of her
