Harriet Tubman And The Underground Railroad

Around 1820, Arminta Minty Ross was born into a slave family and was one of 8 children. When she was around five or six, she was put to work as a house servant. As she grew to be 12-13, she started working in the field with everyone else. At this point, she had become very independent. She would suffer the rest of her life due to an event that happened soon after she started working in the fields. A slave owner was very angry at a slave and was going to hurt him. Instead of being a bystander, Arminta (Harriet) blocked the doorway to protect her fellow field worker. This caused the overseer to be even more furious. The overseer then threw a two-pound weight, and it ended up hitting Arminta in the head. She never recovered from

Harriet Tubman was among the greatest fighters for justice in her time and was an inspiration to others to fight for what they believe in, but she along with many others who fight experienced it themselves. When she was younger, “She knew that her brothers and sisters, her father and mother, and all the other people who lived in the quarter, men, women and children, were slaves. At the same time, someone had taught her where to look for the North Star, the star that stayed constant, not rising in the east and setting in the west as the other stars appeared to do; and told her that anyone walking toward the North could use that star as a guide. She knew about fear, too. Sometimes at night, or during the day, she heard the furious galloping of horses, not just one horse, several horses, thud of the hoofbeats along the road, jingle of harness. She saw the grown folks freeze into stillness, not moving, scarcely breathing, while they listened. She could not remember who first told her that those furious hoofbeats meant the patrollers were going past, in pursuit of a runaway. Only the slaves said patterollers, whispering the word” (Petry). Living with her family as a slave, she learned all the things she needed to know to do her job in the future as the conductor of the Underground Railroad, she learned about the North star, and she learned about how you should not get caught by the patrollers. Perturbed by the thought of the fate of her family and her future, she escaped to Philadelphia but “Rather than remaining in the safety of the North, Tubman made it her mission to rescue her family and others living in slavery via the Underground Railroad” (Biography.com editors). She made it her mission to save others and take

. . Every time I saw a White man I was afraid of being carried away. I had two sisters carried away in a chain gang—one of them left two children. We were always uneasy... I think slavery is the next thing to hell." (Lerone Bennett Jr. 2005). At some point in time Araminta Ross name was changed to the same name as her mother Harriet. She was sold to James Cook to weave. The weaving often made her cough and sneeze. She would get severe coughs and fevers. Like many slaves, Harriet was often whipped. One day she stole a lump of sugar from Miss Susan, in fear of getting whipped she ran away for four days. However, when she returned home she was whipped severely. She learned a great lesson from this experience; she should put on layers of clothes so it wouldn’t hurt as much when she was being whipped.

Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman was a poor slave girl who ran away from her plantation at the age of 28. Throughout the course of her life many people and many things challenged her. Each situation she was faced with tested either her mental or physical strength, usually both. She persevered through all of her trials stronger and wiser, and was willing to always help others through their own. Not one to instigate unless extremely necessary, Harriet was known for her quick thinking and her reactions to each ordeal she was faced with. She responded to them with a sharp mind, and strong faith in deliverance through the Lord.

     Harriet Tubman was really named Araminta Ross, but she later adopted her mother’s first name. She was one of eleven children of Harriet Greene and Benjamin Ross. She was five when she worked on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was first a maid, and a children’s nurse before she started working as a field hand when she was twelve. While she was thirteen, her master hit her head with a heavy weight. The hit put permanent

Harriet Ross Tubman was an African American who escaped slavery and then showed runaway slaves the way to freedom in the North for longer than a decade before the American Civil War. During the war she was as a scout, spy, and nurse for the United States Army. After that

"Oppressed slaves should flee and take Liberty Line to freedom." The Underground Railroad began in the 1780s while Harriet Tubman was born six decades later in antebellum America. The Underground Railroad was successful in its quest to free slaves; it even made the South pass two acts in a vain attempt to stop its tracks. Then, Harriet Tubman, an African-American with an incredulous conviction to lead her people to the light, joins the Underground Railroad’s cause becoming one of the leading conductors in the railroad. The Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman aided in bringing down slavery and together, they put the wood in the fires leading up to the Civil War. The greatest causes of the Civil War were the Underground Railroad

Harriet Tubman’s success in freeing hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad is recognized throughout the world. As an escaped slave herself, she still traveled to the southern states many times to free other slaves. A normal fugitive slave would not put themselves in danger and risk imprisonment, but Harriet

Background Information Harriet Tubman was a second generation slave born in the 1820s in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was born a slave. Her birth name was Aramita Ross, her nicknames were Minty, Moses, and Moses Of Her People. She was one of eleven children in her family. Her parents were Harriet Green, nicknamed “Old Rit” and Benjamin Ross. They were believed to be full blooded African Americans, Ashanti West African war people. Harriet’s owner, Edward Brodas, was a plantation owner and often rented Harriet out to neighboring families. At age 7 she was sent to take care of a baby, she tried to eat a sugar cube, but got caught, she ran and hid. After a few days hunger got the best of

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Dorchester County Maryland in 1820. She was called Araminta Harriet Ross she was one of the 11 children of Benjamin and Harriet Green Ross. At the age of twelve Harriet Tubman was instructed to tie up a fellow slave for a whipping. Harriet Tubman refused to tie up the slave and in Harriet’s masters rage he threw a two pound weight at Harriet’s head. Harriet Tubman was in a coma for weeks and there was a dent in her forehead for the rest of her life. This resulted in headaches and episodes of narcolepsy all throughout her life. Harriet Tubman’s mother was freed from slavery by a previous owner which in result also made Harriet free. Harriet Tubman was advised not to go to court because of how long ago the freeing of her mother was. Harriet Tubman married John Tubman a free black man who lived near the Brodas Planation on which Harriet lived in 1844. Even though she was married to a free man she still was a slave

At first, In my research I couldn’t find any evidence on which exact day harriet was born but i could find that she was born around 1820’s near Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, near the town of Cambridge (graceproducts.com). Harriet was given the name Araminta Ross later that year she had taken on her mother's name of Harriet. When she had turned six she had been taken ten miles to live with James Cook. His wife who was a weaver was to teach her the trade of weaving. Cook had her work on the trapline to help catch wild animals. He had to work the lines while she was ill with the measles, and catching cold from wading in the water in the condition, she grew very sick. 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; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me. --Harriet Tubman (graceproducts.com).

(Harriet Tubman was originally born Araminta Ross and then later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, Tubman ran away in fear that she, along with many other slaves on the plantation were going to be sold off. Harriet Tubman left on foot. Luckily, Tubman was given some assistance from a white woman, and was able to set off on her journey to freedom. Tubman used the North Star in order to find her direction during the night, slowly inching her way to Pennsylvania. Once Tubman had reached Pennsylvania, she found a job and began to save her money. The following year after arriving to Philadelphia, Tubman returned to Maryland and to lead her family to freedom. Among the people she took was her sister and her sister’s two children. Tubman was able to make the same dangerous trips months later back to the South to rescue her brother and two other men that her brother knew. On Tubman’s third return to the South to rescue her husband, she found that he had found another wife. Undeterred by her husband’s actions, she rescued other slaves wanting freedom and lead them Northward.

Along the way, there were those who decided at some point along the journey that the cost of freedom was too high. The fear of the flight to freedom became too great. They would rather turn back to the plantation life of slavery. Well, somebody should have told them about our ancestor Tubman. As one of the original conductors of the Underground Railroad, the passage on her train was a one-way ticket. No stop overs and no return tickets.

The escaping African-America slaves were known as passengers or cargo. The people involved with helping the slaves were known as conductors and these people were generally members of the free black community (including former slaves like Harriet Tubman who helped +-300 slaves to escape), Northern abolitionists, philanthropists (people who seek to promote welfare of others, especially by generous donation of money to good causes) and church leaders. The conductors helped the slaves to move from one place of safety to the next. The slaves would be moved from "safe house" to "safe house", known as stations until they could live in places of freedom which did not allow slavery. The people who ran the safe houses were known as station masters,

Slavery has always been an anomaly, although abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman did much to ameliorate, and later, abolish slavery. Harriet was a strong and courageous woman and a well-known conductor of the Underground Railroads, around the 1850s. Harriet Tubman personal experiences throughout her life have shaped her to become the stout-hearted woman who helped many slaves escape to freedom, by using the Underground Railroad—a network of secret routes.