The Great Escape: Harriet Tubman Essay

What were the greatest achievements of Harriet Tubman? Many may think it’s just helping people escape slavery by the underground railroad, but she did more than that. The greatest achievements of Harriet Tubman were the underground railroad, being a spy, and a caregiver. In 1822 a little girl named Araminta Rose was born into slavery. Years passed when she started to do work everyday, but once she got married to John Tubman she decided to take her mother's name and that’s how she became Harriet Tubman. In 1849 after her master died Harriet made a really big decision she decided to run. That is when are her achievements were made away from slavery.

When we think of African American history we often forget about the people before the civil rights movement. The people who paved the way for future leaders. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Rosa parks are often who we think of. We forget about individuals that made a significant impact that led us to the present place we are today. Harriet Tubman's contribute to history was that she was the conductor of the Underground Railroad, which helped bring slaves to freedom. Harriet Tubman was an abolitionist and was part of the woman's suffrage move.

The Gateway to Freedom is an enticing novel that gives further knowledge of racial discrimination and the social inequality of blacks at the time of slavery and how the Underground Railroad combatted this through the different committees and activists of the time. This essay will focus on how the Underground Railroad affected family, economy and religion- the social institutions, those who operated the Underground Railroad were diverse and have different reason for following the abolitionist movement, and not all the committees are made equally.

"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 is probably the most famous “conductor” of all the Underground Railroads. Throughout a 10-year span, Tubman made more than 20 trips down to the South and lead over 300 slaves from bondage to freedom. Perhaps the most shocking fact about Tubman’s journeys back and forth from the South was that she “never lost a single passenger.”

Harriet Tubman is a woman of faith and dignity who saved many African American men and women through courage and love for God. One would ponder what would drive someone to bring upon pain and suffering to one’s self just to help others. Harriet Tubman was an African American women that took upon many roles during her time just as abolitionist, humanitarian, and a Union Spy during the American civil war. Her deeds not only saved lives during these terrible time’s but also gave other African Americans the courage to stand up for what they believe in and achieve equal rights for men in women in the world no

A strong and powerful lady said these wise words: “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”. The brave women who said these words were Harriet Tubman and she was one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad that helped slaves reach freedom. “Although not an actual railroad of steel rails, locomotives and steam engines, the Underground Railroad was real nevertheless” (encyclopedia The Civil War and African Americans 329) The term “Underground Railroad” referred to the

In 1849, Tubman set her mind of escaping to the north. On September 17, 1849, Tubman with her two brothers, Ben and Harry, left Maryland. After seeing runaway notice offering $300, Ben and Harry had reconsiderations and returned to the plantation. Tubman, with her strong will, continued to escape nearly 90 miles to Philadelphia for her freedom using the secret network known as the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was neither a rail road nor underground. The routes taken at night to were called “lines” and at places they stopped to rest were called “stationed”. “Conductors” such as Harriet Tubman and Quaker Thomas used their knowledge and luck to securely free slaves from slave states to the Free states. (Biography, 2017) As she cross the state line into Pennsylvania she recalled “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”

     The Underground Railroad, the pathway to freedom which led a numerous amount of African Americans to escape beginning as early as the 1700‘s, it still remains a mystery to many as to exactly when it started and why. (Carrasco). The Underground Railroad is known by many as one of the earliest parts of the antislavery movement. Although the system was neither underground nor a railroad, it was a huge success that will never be forgotten.

The routes of the Underground Railroad were complicated and often zigzagged to confuse slave hunters. The one problem with this was it often confused the runaway slaves also. Due to this there are obviously plenty of stories about slaves getting lost and sometimes instead of going north they would accidentally head south.

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.

The Underground Railroad is viewed as simply a series of trails that led slave to freedom. It was more than that. What were the motivations behind the creation of it? Were there political involvements? Was it developed with financial gain in mind? The Underground Railroad is another one of those subjects that gets swept under the proverbial carpet. Slavery happened everywhere, whether people want to admit it or not. The Underground Railroad was a positive and a negative thing. Most people don’t comprehend what it fully entailed or the impact that it had on all people. It is important to review the past, so we can make an attempt to not make the same mistakes. The above questions will be answered in a well rounded account of all parties involved from the abolitionists to the slaves and those who were supporters.

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

Imagine over 500 innocent people getting put into slavery and never being able to go outside and live a regular life. Harriet Tubman was victim of slavery so she knew how it was like. She was a slave in Maryland and she later escaped in 1849. She then decided she would free others too. Harriet Tubman qualifies as a hero because she freed many slaves, worked for the union army during the civil war and was brave.