biographies of harriet tubman

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Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman has been known by many names—Araminta, Moses, conductor, daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt. All encompass the intersecting identities and experiences that Harriet Tubman encompassed over her lifespan. In March 2022, on the bicentennial of her birth, we look beyond these names to capture not only Harriet Tubman the icon, but Harriet the woman, and Harriet’s legacy of care, activism and bravery that influenced Black women across time.

Objects related to Harriet’s life highlight her impact on her contemporaries—such as the shawl gifted to her by Queen Victoria to acknowledge her international impact. Personal objects like her hymnal reveal her domestic life as a wife and mother, and the devout religious beliefs that inspired her to “conduct” hundreds of African Americans to freedom from bondage.

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In the years after her death in 1913, Harriet became a feminist icon for Black women’s organizations, and Black women artists including Betye Sarr, Alison Saar, Bisa Butler, Faith Ringgold and Elizabeth Catlett saw in Harriet the inspiration for the courage and creativity to document the struggle for equality as Black and as women. A pioneer in what it means to be regarded as an icon, Harriet Tubman served as a physical manifestation of liberation for many. On the bicentennial of her birth, this dynamic woman of many trades continues to be revered as an American hero and a symbol of freedom.

Carte-de-visite portrait of Harriet Tubman, 1868–69. Photograph by Benjamin F. Powelson.

Best known as the enslaved woman who brought emancipation to anyone who crossed her path, the legacy of Harriet Tubman’s lifework has inspired countless people across generations and geographic locations. Tubman was born into chattel slavery as Araminta “Minty” Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland, around 1822. Tubman was put into labor at an early age, and by the age of ten, she was hired out as a woodcutter, pest trapper and field worker. She preferred these jobs over domestic tasks in the “big house” under the scrutiny of her white mistress. Tubman’s strength of character was visible at this early stage. At age twelve, her intervention in a violent exchange between an overseer and a fugitive slave left her with substantial injuries.

After being struck on the head with a large iron weight, Tubman began suffering from severe headaches and a chronic sleep disorder called narcolepsy. In addition to her sudden attacks of sleep, she also experienced vivid religious dreams and hallucinations throughout her life. This injury left her anything but impaired. 

In her final years on the plantation before escaping, Tubman became a familiar figure in the fields. A primed field hand, she was described as a “small, muscular woman” standing at 4’11”, yet carrying half cords of wood like any other man in the fields. She was often seen with her skirt looped around her waist and a vividly colored bandanna tied around her head.

In Harriet Tubman I Helped Hundreds to Freedom , 1946–47; printed 1989. Created by Elizabeth Catlett. 2017.21.7

In Harriet Tubman I Helped Hundreds to Freedom

This 1946–47 linocut expresses the major themes that connect the large body of work Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) produced during her lifetime: race and feminism.  Her medium of choice changed from sculpture to printmaking after moving to Mexico to join the leftist art collective, the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP). Catlett’s artistry and politics inspired her linocuts featuring prominent Black people and themes. Much of the work she produced during her time in Mexico reflected the radical, worker-centered activism of the TGP and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

This linocut of Harriet Tubman from the series " The Black Woman (formerly the Negro Woman) " reveals Catlett’s desire to explore these major issues through the lens of Black women. We see Tubman in the simple attire that reflects the homespun clothing of enslaved women and the Black women sharecroppers of the 1940s, which collapses the historical narrative to show how long Black women have struggled against oppression. Tubman’s sinewy arm points towards freedom for the hundreds of Black people who come behind her, pointing to her strength and the weariness of the labor of this long journey.

God’s time [Emancipation] is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free. Harriet Tubman to Ednah Dow Cheney New York City, ca. 1859

During this period, the dream of freedom had spread across antebellum plantations and Tubman’s visions were no different. First, her father was set free when she was about eighteen, and then she also learned that the last will of her previous owner manumitted Tubman’s family. However, her new owner refused to acknowledge this and Tubman’s mother, Tubman herself and her siblings remained in bondage.

Her desire for freedom only grew over the years, particularly after marrying John Tubman, a freedman. The threat of her family’s separation and her difficult marriage forced Tubman to take action. On September 17, 1849, Tubman and her two brothers set out to escape the plantation, heading north. Her brothers soon turned back, and Tubman completed her journey alone with the help of the Underground Railroad on the nearly hundred-mile journey to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But her dreams of flying over corn and cotton, the North Star beckoning, did not end with her finding liberty.

Between 1850 and 1860, Tubman made over a dozen journeys across the Mason-Dixon line, guiding family and friends from slavery to freedom. During this time, her captaincy earned her the nickname “Moses," after the religious leader. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress created a more dangerous journey for any enslaved person traveling northbound. With the government compelling northern law enforcement to now capture free Black Americans, Tubman’s strategies as a conductor became more militant and she began carrying a firearm for protection.

I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger. Harriet Tubman Suffrage Convention, New York, 1896

Golden Legacy Illustrated History Magazine: The Saga of Harriet Tubman, "The Moses of Her People," Vol. 2, 1967. Published by Fitzgerald Publishing Co. 2019.22.12

The Saga of Harriet Tubman, "The Moses of Her People"

The Golden Legacy Illustrated History Magazine is a graphic novel series published by Bertram A. Fitzgerald. These graphic novels were produced between 1966 and 1976 to “ implant pride and self-esteem in black youth while dispelling myths in others. ” “We believe this can be accomplished through our visual presentation of worldwide achievements in an effortless and enjoyable manner with a magazine which can be widely distributed.”

This issue about Harriet Tubman was written by Joan Bacchus Maynard , an artist, community organizer and preservationist who was a member of the grassroots organization to save Weeksville, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, founded by free African Americans. Tubman is depicted on the cover as a fierce and courageous figure, and the danger of her work as conductor is palpable in the rifle she carries to protect herself and those she leads to freedom.

Through her friendship with fellow abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, Tubman created her own network within the Underground Railroad. After a decade as a conductor, Tubman was called to action when the American Civil War began in 1861. She proved herself resourceful as a nurse, and she treated Union soldiers and fugitive African Americans alike using the medicinal value of native plants, a skill she learned as a young, enslaved woman working in the woods. After just two years of service, Harriet was tasked with moving behind enemy lines to gather intelligence from a web of informants. First a nurse, laundress and cook, now a spy and scout, Harriet Tubman also became the first woman in US history to lead a military expedition when she led Black troops in the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina in 1863.

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 to Sarah Bradford Harriet, The Moses of Her People (1886)

Despite her renown and her heroism, Tubman was only paid $200 for the entirety of her service—less than half of what her white male counterparts received monthly. Additional compensation from the government came several decades later in the form of a pension as the widow of Nelson Davis, a Black union soldier she married after the war rather than for her own service. After the introduction of a bill by a Republican congressmember to grant Tubman a pension, President William McKinley later signed a bill granting Tubman a pension for her role as an Army nurse. Financial issues throughout the remainder of her life did not stop Tubman from lending her service to anyone in need. In 1896, on the land adjacent to her home, Harriet’s open-door policy flowered into the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged and Indigent Colored People, where she spent her remaining years until her death in 1913. This home, located in Auburn, New York, a city about an hour outside of Syracuse and near Seneca Falls—the recognized birthplace of American feminism and women’s rights—became a site of pilgrimage for African Americans.

Angela Tate, Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture gives a deeper look into objects related to Harriet Tubman's life.

Postcard for the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged

Pinback button for the Harriet Tubman Home

Brick from the Harriet Tubman Home

The NMAAHC bridges the connection between emancipation and modern-day freedom struggles in the collection of Harriet Tubman’s personal effects. In 2009, Charles L. Blockson, a historian and expert on the Underground Railroad, donated to the Museum a collection of items relating to Harriet Tubman’s life and legacy that were collected and given to him by Tubman’s descendants. Items such as a fork and knife from the Tubman household demystify and ground Tubman, giving her a sense of personhood.

Knife and fork from the Tubman household, 1870s.

Apron owned by Harriet Tubman, 1870–1913.

Handkerchief owned by Harriet Tubman, 1870s–1913.

The legacy of Harriet Tubman holds multitudes. Myths and legends about her acts of valor on the Underground Railroad have inspired artists to retrace her courage and skill in works of art. Tubman’s name readily evokes the image of strength (as seen in the christening of a cargo ship named after her in World War II ) and the complexities of being a Black woman—a pillar of courage to the public and a place of refuge for one’s family, friends and community.

Gospel Hymns No. 2 , 1876. Personal hymnal of Harriet Tubman. 2009.50.25

Harriet Tubman was a hero and icon during her lifetime and afterwards. Objects in the Museum's collection tell the story of her life at home with family and the accolades she received from the public. Her personal piety formed the basis of her pursuit of freedom and to go back and conduct others to freedom. Tubman’s small 8 x 5 inch hymnal is inscribed with the names of its two owners: Harriet Tubman and her great-niece Eva Northup. Though Tubman never learned to read, her spiritual beliefs were strengthened by the hymns and spirituals associated with African American uplift and freedom. Tubman’s favorite hymn was “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a hymn associated with the hidden messages between conductors on the Underground Railroad and the bondspeople traveling through it. The importance of this hymn to Tubman’s legacy is present in Alison Saar’s sculpture titled after the song.

Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial, 2007. Created by Alison Saar. 2011.63

Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial

Alison Saar (b. 1956), is a Los Angeles-based sculptor and mixed media artist who focuses on women and the African diaspora. This sculpture is titled after a Negro spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which expresses a longing for a return to heaven. But it could also be a song of liberation, where the lyrics held coded messages that told of when Underground Railroad conductors like Harriet Tubman would arrive to assist in stealing away to freedom. This is a small-scale version of Saar’s 13 feet tall monument to Harriet Tubman that stands in Harriet Tubman Memorial Plaza, in south Harlem at St. Nicholas Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard at West 122nd Street. Saar depicts Tubman "not as the conductor of the Underground Railroad, but as the train itself, an unstoppable locomotive.” Tubman’s forward motion tears up the roots of slavery. The skirt of her dress holds chains, knives, glass bottles and the faces of those she led to freedom.

Interview with Alison Saar, the artist who created "Swing Low: A Memorial to Harriet Tubman" at West 122nd Street, St. Nicholas Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

Photograph album owned by Emily Howland showing the last page featuring a photograph of Harriet Tubman.

In 2017, the common image of Harriet Tubman—that of an elderly woman in a white shawl—was forever changed with the discovery of a never-before-seen photograph of Tubman from the late 1860s at the back of a photo album owned by Emily Howland. Howland was a philanthropist, suffragist and educator who was also active in abolitionist circles. In 2017, her photo album was acquired jointly by the NMAAHC and the Library of Congress. Of the nearly fifty photographs of abolitionists, educators and statesmen included in the albums pages, there was the newly discovered photograph of Harriet Tubman. The carte-de-visite portrait of Harriet Tubman was taken in Auburn, New York, when Tubman was in her mid-forties. This image of Tubman at the height of her powers is especially interesting when noting how stylish she appears to be. She drapes her ruffled arm gracefully across a chair and the other rests on her checked skirt and she appears solemn yet assured.

I Go To Prepare A Place For You , 2021. Created by Bisa Butler. 2021.38

I Go To Prepare A Place For You

Bisa Butler, an artist who uses textiles and quilting to share stories of African American history and culture, used Benjamin Powelson's portrait of Tubman from the Howland Album to recreate her vibrancy and strength. The quilt’s symbolism displays Tubman's need to conceal herself, her personality, and to express her religious beliefs. According to Butler , the sunflower motif is intended to “acknowledge Harriet Tubman’s reliance (and that of many people escaping slavery) on the North Star to help point the way towards freedom. The sun is also a star, and the sunflower symbolizes that guiding light. The sunflower is known as a spiritual and devotional flower because they follow the sun as it moves from East to West in the sky. The sunflowers appear to worship the sun and I use that to indicate Tubman’s devout faith.”

Portraits of Harriet Tubman in the NMAAHC collection document her as a woman, as a wife and mother, and as a caretaker. Observing these images of Tubman at different stages of her life provides further context for her story and legacy. These images give the famed Underground Railroad conductor a more tangible connection to the significant role of Black women’s activism and highlights the way images shape how we remember important Black women.

Harriet Tubman, 1871–76; printed later. Photograph by Harvey B. Lindsley.

Postcard of Harriet Tubman, Nelson Davis, and daughter Gertie, ca. 1887; printed later. Photograph by William Haight Cheney.

Albumen print of Harriet Tubman, ca. 1908; printed ca. 1920. Photograph by Tarby Studios.

Photographic postcard of Harriet Tubman, 1911–12; printed 1917–30.

The NMAAHC shares the story of Harriet Tubman through its collections relating to her life, her activism, her strength and her community. The materials here provide a second glance at what we think we know and celebrate about Tubman on the 200th anniversary of her birth.

Browse Objects in the NMAAHC Collection Relating to Harriet Tubman

Written by Angela Tate, Curator of Women’s History, and Romya-Jenevieve Jerry, Annie Bell Shepherd Curatorial Intern in African American Women’s History Published on March 4, 2022

https://www.militarytimes.com/military-honor/black-military-history/2018/02/07/general-tubman-female-abolitionist-was-also-a-secret-military-weapon/

http://www.harriet-tubman.org/

https://nmaahc.si.edu/about/news/album-previously-unknown-photo-young-harriet-tubman-go-public-view-first-time

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/combahee-ferry-raid

Share Your Story 

Because of Harriet, we understand there is always a path forward. Because of Harriet, we are empowered to be bold and confident against all odds. As you reflect on Tubman’s life and legacy, share who you are because of Harriet on social media using #HiddenHerstory.

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Harriet Tubman

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 20, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

Harriet Tubman was an escaped enslaved woman who became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War, all while carrying a bounty on her head. But she was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women’s suffrage supporter. Tubman is one of the most recognized icons in American history and her legacy has inspired countless people from every race and background.

When Was Harriet Tubman Born?

Harriet Tubman was born around 1820 on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her parents, Harriet (“Rit”) Green and Benjamin Ross, named her Araminta Ross and called her “Minty.”

Rit worked as a cook in the plantation’s “big house,” and Benjamin was a timber worker. Araminta later changed her first name to Harriet in honor of her mother.

Harriet had eight brothers and sisters, but the realities of slavery eventually forced many of them apart, despite Rit’s attempts to keep the family together. When Harriet was five years old, she was rented out as a nursemaid where she was whipped when the baby cried, leaving her with permanent emotional and physical scars.

Around age seven Harriet was rented out to a planter to set muskrat traps and was later rented out as a field hand. She later said she preferred physical plantation work to indoor domestic chores.

A Good Deed Gone Bad

Harriet’s desire for justice became apparent at age 12 when she spotted an overseer about to throw a heavy weight at a fugitive. Harriet stepped between the enslaved person and the overseer—the weight struck her head.

She later said about the incident, “The weight broke my skull … They carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting. I had no bed, no place to lie down on at all, and they laid me on the seat of the loom, and I stayed there all day and the next.”

Harriet’s good deed left her with headaches and narcolepsy the rest of her life, causing her to fall into a deep sleep at random. She also started having vivid dreams and hallucinations which she often claimed were religious visions (she was a staunch Christian). Her infirmity made her unattractive to potential slave buyers and renters.

Escape from Slavery

In 1840, Harriet’s father was set free and Harriet learned that Rit’s owner’s last will had set Rit and her children, including Harriet, free. But Rit’s new owner refused to recognize the will and kept Rit, Harriet and the rest of her children in bondage.

Around 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a free Black man, and changed her last name from Ross to Tubman. The marriage was not good, and the knowledge that two of her brothers—Ben and Henry—were about to be sold provoked Harriet to plan an escape.

Harriet Tubman: Underground Railroad

On September 17, 1849, Harriet, Ben and Henry escaped their Maryland plantation. The brothers, however, changed their minds and went back. With the help of the Underground Railroad , Harriet persevered and traveled 90 miles north to Pennsylvania and freedom.

Tubman found work as a housekeeper in Philadelphia, but she wasn’t satisfied living free on her own—she wanted freedom for her loved ones and friends, too.

She soon returned to the south to lead her niece and her niece’s children to Philadelphia via the Underground Railroad. At one point, she tried to bring her husband John north, but he’d remarried and chose to stay in Maryland with his new wife.

Fugitive Slave Act

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed fugitive and freed workers in the north to be captured and enslaved. This made Harriet’s role as an Underground Railroad conductor much harder and forced her to lead enslaved people further north to Canada, traveling at night, usually in the spring or fall when the days were shorter.

She carried a gun for both her own protection and to “encourage” her charges who might be having second thoughts. She often drugged babies and young children to prevent slave catchers from hearing their cries.

Over the next 10 years, Harriet befriended other abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass , Thomas Garrett and Martha Coffin Wright, and established her own Underground Railroad network. It’s widely reported she emancipated 300 enslaved people; however, those numbers may have been estimated and exaggerated by her biographer Sarah Bradford, since Harriet herself claimed the numbers were much lower.

Nevertheless, it’s believed Harriet personally led at least 70 enslaved people to freedom, including her elderly parents, and instructed dozens of others on how to escape on their own. She claimed, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

Harriet Tubman's Civil War Service

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Harriet found new ways to fight slavery. She was recruited to assist fugitive enslaved people at Fort Monroe and worked as a nurse, cook and laundress. Harriet used her knowledge of herbal medicines to help treat sick soldiers and fugitive enslaved people.

In 1863, Harriet became head of an espionage and scout network for the Union Army. She provided crucial intelligence to Union commanders about Confederate Army supply routes and troops and helped liberate enslaved people to form Black Union regiments.

Though just over five feet tall, she was a force to be reckoned with, although it took over three decades for the government to recognize her military contributions and award her financially.

Harriet Tubman’s Later Years

After the Civil War, Harriet settled with family and friends on land she owned in Auburn, New York . She married former enslaved man and Civil War veteran Nelson Davis in 1869 (her husband John had died 1867) and they adopted a little girl named Gertie a few years later.

Harriet had an open-door policy for anyone in need. She supported her philanthropy efforts by selling her home-grown produce, raising pigs and accepting donations and loans from friends. She remained illiterate yet toured parts of the northeast speaking on behalf of the women’s suffrage movement and worked with noted suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony .

In 1896, Harriet purchased land adjacent to her home and opened the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People. The head injury she suffered in her youth continued to plague her and she endured brain surgery to help relieve her symptoms. But her health continued to deteriorate and eventually forced her to move into her namesake rest home in 1911.

Pneumonia took Harriet Tubman’s life on March 10, 1913, but her legacy lives on. Schools and museums bear her name and her story has been revisited in books, movies and documentaries.

Harriet Tubman: $20 Bill

Tubman even had a World War II Liberty ship named after her, the SS Harriet Tubman.

In 2016, the United States Treasury announced that Harriet’s image will replace that of former President and slaveowner Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (who served under President Trump) later announced the new bill would be delayed until at least 2026. In January 2021, President Biden's administration announced it would speed up the design process to mint the bills honoring Tubman's legacy.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Watch acclaimed Black History documentaries on HISTORY Vault.

Early Life. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

General Tubman: Female Abolitionist was Also a Secret Military Weapon. Military Times.

Harriet Tubman Biography. Biography.

Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Residence, and Thompson AME Zion Church. National Park Service.

Harriet Tubman Myths and Facts. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman Portrait of An American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson, Ph.D.

Harriet Tubman. National Park Service .

Harriet Tubman. National Women’s History Museum.

Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad. National Park Service.

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Harriet Tubman

Known as the “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor" of the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military. 

Tubman’s exact birth date is unknown, but estimates place it between 1820 and 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland. Born Araminta Ross, the daughter of Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross, Tubman had eight siblings. By age five, Tubman’s owners rented her out to neighbors as a domestic servant. Early signs of her resistance to slavery and its abuses came at age twelve when she intervened to keep her master from beating an enslaved man who tried to escape. She was hit in the head with a two-pound weight, leaving her with a lifetime of severe headaches and narcolepsy.

Although slaves were not legally allowed to marry, Tubman entered a marital union with John Tubman, a free black man, in 1844. She took his name and dubbed herself Harriet.

Contrary to legend, Tubman did not create the Underground Railroad; it was established in the late eighteenth century by black and white abolitionists. Tubman likely benefitted from this network of escape routes and safe houses in 1849, when she and two brothers escaped north. Her husband refused to join her, and by 1851 he had married a free black woman. Tubman returned to the South several times and helped dozens of people escape. Her success led slaveowners to post a $40,000 reward for her capture or death.

Tubman was never caught and never lost a “passenger.” She participated in other antislavery efforts, including supporting John Brown in his failed 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry, Virginia arsenal.

Through the Underground Railroad, Tubman learned the towns and transportation routes characterizing the South – information that made her important to Union military commanders during the Civil War. As a Union spy and scout, Tubman often transformed herself into an aging woman. The she would wander the streets under Confederate control and learning from the enslaved population about Confederate troop placements and supply lines. Tubman helped many of these individuals find food, shelter, and even jobs in the North. She also became a respected guerrilla operative. As a nurse, Tubman dispensed herbal remedies to black and white soldiers dying from infection and disease.

After the war, Tubman raised funds to aid freedmen, joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in their quest for women’s suffrage, cared for her aging parents, and worked with white writer Sarah Bradford on her autobiography as a potential source of income. She married a Union soldier Nelson Davis, also born into slavery, who was more than twenty years her junior. Residing in Auburn, New York, she cared for the elderly in her home and in 1874, the Davises adopted a daughter. After an extensive campaign for a military pension, she was finally awarded $8 per month in 1895 as Davis’s widow (he died in 1888) and $20 in 1899 for her service. In 1896, she established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on land near her home. Tubman died in 1913 and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.

Edited by Debra Michals, Ph.D.

• The original version of this article was excerpted from “Clandestine Women: The Untold Stories of Women in Espionage” Exhibition, Annandale, Virginia: NWHM, 2002.
• Clinton, Catherine. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom . New York: Time Warner Book Company, 2004.
• Horton, Lois E. Harriet Tubman and the Fight for Freedom: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013.
• Maxwell, Louise P. "Tubman, Harriet." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History . Ed. Colin A. Palmer. 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. 2210-2212. U.S. History in Context . Accessed April 2, 2015.
• "Tubman, Harriet." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences . Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 8. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 464-465. U.S. History in Context . Accessed April 22, 2015.
• PHOTO: Library of Congress

MLA - Michals, Debra.  "Harriet Tubman."  National Women's History Museum.  National Women's History Museum, 2015.  Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra.  "Harriet Tubman."  National Women's History Museum.  2015.  www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-tubman. 

Harriet Tubman, National Women’s History Museum

National Geographic

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/harriet-tubman.html

http://www.nps.gov/hatu/index.htm

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/tubman/

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/harriet/support1.html

http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/ny1.htm

Bradford, Sarah, H. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman . Auburn: W.J. Moses, Printer, 1869. (Available online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/bradford/bradford.html )

McGovern, Ann. Wanted Dead or Alive: The True Story of Harriet Tubman . Scholastic Paperbacks, 1991. [for ages 4-8]

McMullan, Kate. The Story of Harriet Tubman: Conductor of the Underground Railroad . New York: Parachute Press, 1991. [for ages 9-12]

Petry, Ann. Harriet Tubman: Conductor of the Underground Railroad . Harper, 1996. [for ages 9-12]

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Harriet Tubman

"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." - Harriet Tubman

Perhaps one of the best known personalities of the Civil War, Harriet Tubman was born into slavery as Araminta Ross, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, sometime in 1820 or 1821. As a child, Tubman was “hired out” to various masters who proved to be particularly cruel and abusive to her. As a result of a head injury caused by one of these men, she suffered from seizures and “visions” for the rest of her life, which she believed were sent from God.

In 1840, Tubman’s father was freed as a result of a stipulation in his master’s will, but continued to work for his former owner’s family. Although Tubman, her mother, and her siblings were also supposed to be freed, the law was ignored and they remained enslaved. Tubman married a free black in 1844, and changed her first name from Araminta to Harriet.

In 1849, Tubman became seriously ill with complications from her head injury, and her owner decided to sell her, but could not find a buyer. After her owner’s sudden death, the family began selling off all of the slaves. Not wanting to have her family separated, Tubman was determined to escape. A first attempt, in which Tubman was accompanied by her brothers, was aborted when they had second thoughts. Tubman decided to try again on her own, and she escaped via the Underground Railroad into Pennsylvania.

Tubman settled in Philadelphia and was able to support herself doing odd jobs. But in 1850, word came that her niece and her two children were to be sold. Tubman was determined to help, and went back to Maryland. With the assistance of her brother-in-law, Tubman was able to bring her niece and the two children back safely to Philadelphia. This was the first of many trips that Tubman would make to lead family members and others to freedom. On one expedition, Tubman contacted her husband in the hopes that he would follow her to Pennsylvania, but he had remarried and preferred to remain in Maryland.

Over the course of 11 years, Tubman rescued over 70 slaves from Maryland, and assisted 50 or 60 others in making their way to Canada. During this time, her reputation in the abolitionist community grew, and she became acquainted with Frederick Douglass and John Brown . She also moved her base of operations to Auburn, New York, closer to the Canadian border. Tubman conducted her last rescue mission in November 1861, as the Civil War enveloped the nation.

Tubman offered her services to the Union Army, and in early 1862, she went to South Carolina to provide badly needed nursing care for black soldiers and newly liberated slaves. Working with General David Hunter, Tubman also began spying and scouting missions behind Confederate lines. In June of 1863, she accompanied Colonel James Montgomery in an assault on several plantations along the Combahee River, rescuing more than 700 slaves. Her deed was celebrated in the press and she became even more famous.

With the end of the war, Tubman returned to Auburn, NY and married a Civil War veteran. Although her service in the Union Army was much publicized, she had great difficulty in getting a pension from the government, but was eventually awarded a nurse’s pension in the 1880s. She did not stay idle in her later years, taking on the cause of women’s suffrage with the same determination she had shown for abolition.

Tubman established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on a property adjacent to her own. After undergoing brain surgery to try to alleviate the symptoms from the head injury that had plagued her since childhood, and being essentially penniless, Tubman was forced to move into the home herself in 1911. She died there on March 10, 1913, surrounded by family and friends. She was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."  ~Harriet  Tubman

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Harriet Tubman

Character, Courage and Commitment

As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman made several trips into slave-holding states, leading dozens of individuals to freedom in the North. During the Civil War, she further risked her life and safety to work first as a nurse and then as a spy for the Union Army. Afterwards, she became an outspoken advocate for African American and women's rights, insisting that all be afforded dignity, treated with respect and granted equality.

Araminta Ross was born in Dorchester County, Maryland in or around 1822 on Anthony Thompson's plantation. Araminta grew up to be known as Harriet Tubman. By 1840, Harriet, her mother and several siblings had been relocated from a plantation in Bucktown back to Thompson's farm.

The young girl would grow up to become one of the most celebrated figures of her time. Her legacy of steadfast courage and commitment to justice would endure more than 100 years after her death.

Today, no trace of Tubman's birthplace remains. Though, a historical marker notes the location.

Cambridge, Maryland. Dorchester County. Site of Harriet Tubman's birth

Tubman worked as a field hand for many years -following the oxen loading and unloading wood and carrying heavy burdens -all along developing great strength and determination.Later, she was hired out to perform housework and child care where the plantation mistress proved capricious and cruel, employing frequent beatings for the most minor of offenses.

The Bucktown Village store still stands in Bucktown, Maryland. It was here that 12-year-old slave Araminta Ross was shopping with the plantation cook when an overseer entered, pursuing an escaped slave. The overseer ordered Araminta to assist with tying the man up, which she refused to do. As the escaping slave bolted for the door, the overseer swept up a two-pound scale weight up from the counter and threw it after him. The weight missed its mark, hitting Araminta instead. The blow knocked her unconscious.

It was not her first experience with the violence of slavery, but it would have the most lasting effect as she suffered from severe headaches for the rest of her life.

Bucktown Village Store historic site, Cambridge, Maryland.

Araminta married a free black named John Tubman in 1844, taking his last name. She changed her first name, adopting her mother's name, becoming Harriet. In 1849, worried that she and the other slaves on the plantation where she lived were going to be sold, Tubman decided to run away. Her husband refused to go with her, so she set out with her two brothers. Her brothers turned back, but Tubman persevered to freedom, settling in Philadelphia.

Tubman could not be happy in freedom knowing that her relatives and friends remained enslaved. She made the dangerous decision to return to Maryland to secure their freedom as well.

Linchester Mill was the hub of Underground Railroad activity in the area. Whites and blacks, free and enslaved, had regular contact here at the general store or the post office. Free and enslaved African Americans worked side-by-side, providing a constant flow of information and support to freedom seekers. Quakers and free blacks who lived near the mill secretly helped fleeing slaves pass through the area.

The mill dam created a spot to cross Hunting Creek. Such crossing points helped freedom seekers avoid unwanted attention.

Linchester Mill historic site, Preston, Maryland.

Harriet Tubman’s parents were active in the Underground Railroad, and she most likely made her first escape from their home near Choptank Landing.

On Christmas Day 1854, Tubman led her three brothers to freedom from nearby Poplar Neck. Robert, Ben and Henry, as well as several others, hid in a corn crib until dark, when they could begin their journey north.

At nightfall, Harriet safely led them on their journey towards freedom, traveling through Delaware, Pennsylvania, and across upstate New York to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.

Choptank River, Preston, Maryland, near site of Tubman's parents' home.

The forests, marshes, and waterways that characterized Tubman's home territory are largely unchanged from the time that she made her home in Dorchester County.

Knowledge of the terrain was vital to survival while hiding and trying to flee. Tubman and others had to successfully navigate the land and waterways, trap and forage for food, and hide from their pursuers. Understanding the tides, knowing how to find food and fresh water, and following the North Star were all skills that later proved vital as she guided her charges north along the Underground Railroad to freedom.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Cambridge, Maryland

As part of the Underground Railroad network, Tubman successfully employed a variety of escape and evasion methods to help aid fleeing slaves. Disguise was a favorite. If it was announced that a group of male slaves had bolted from a plantation, she dressed the fugitives as women for the trip north.

On another occasion, Tubman came dangerously close to being identified during a stopover at a train depot. To confuse her pursuers, she quickly purchased a ticket for the southbound train, correctly believing, that as it turned out, few would expect an “outlaw” of her notoriety to venture further into Dixie in such a public manner. For one of her more brazen missions, she convinced a light-skinned fugitive to pose as a white master transporting a group of slaves to a town further up the road.

For all the recriminations directed at her by displeased plantation owners throughout the South, Tubman was never caught and never lost a “passenger.”

Moving “passengers” along the Underground Railroad, Tubman became very familiar with the different towns and transportation routes characterizing the South. This information proved extremely valuable to Federal military commanders after the Civil War began in 1861.

Poorly drawn and outdated maps, coupled with soldiers who had little knowledge of the United States beyond their own village, made individuals like Tubman vitally important to the Union war effort. Utilizing the extensive knowledge of the South she had obtained while working for the Underground Railroad, Tubman was able to provide accurate intelligence data to Northern troops.

Tubman also served as a spy, seeking and delivering intelligence from behind enemy lines. At the war's conclusion, she was granted a military pension of $20 per month, the first African American woman to receive one.

After the war, Tubman retired to a piece of land on the outskirts of Auburn, New York where she lived surrounded by family. She cared for her parents and other relatives, becoming a stalwart of the community. She was famous in her own lifetime for her accomplishments, was sought after as a speaker, and collaborated on a biography of her life story.

Tubman died in 1913 and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.

Tubman's legacy lives on in the hearts and spirit of every American. She has been honored with monuments and statues, schools bear her name, and thousands of Americans daily travel along Harriet Tubman roads, streets, and avenues.

Harriet Tubman Elementary School, Washington, DC.

Tubman has been honored on a United States postage stamp.

She has been celebrated as an enduring Civil Rights icon by contemporary artists and activists.

In April 2016, the US Treasury announced that she would become the first American woman pictured on currency in over 100 years.

Soon, Tubman will take her place in history on the new twenty dollar bill.

Harriet Tubman: Timeline of Her Life, Underground Rail Service and Activism

In addition to freeing slaves, Tubman was also a Civil War spy, nurse and supporter of women's suffrage.

Wanting to bring an end to slavery, Tubman also coordinated with abolitionists. During the Civil War , she became a nurse and a spy for the Union. And despite her ongoing financial struggles, she continued to fight for equality and justice by speaking out against prejudice and advocating women's suffrage. It's clear Tubman led a momentous life that made the world a better place.

c. 1822: Tubman is born as Araminta "Minty" Ross in Maryland's Dorchester County

Her parents, Ben Ross and Harriet "Rit" Green, are both enslaved, meaning Ross had the same status at birth.

Though her birthdate has often been listed as around 1820, a record from March 1822 lists that a midwife had been paid for tending to Green, which suggests the birth may have taken place in February or March of that year.

c. 1828: Tubman is about five or six years old when her enslavers hire her out to tend to an infant. She is whipped for any perceived mistakes.

c. 1829: Around the age of seven, Tubman is again hired out. Her duties include walking into wet marshes to check muskrat traps. She becomes ill with measles and returns to her mother to recover.

c. 1834-36: An overseer throws a two-pound weight at another slave but hits Tubman's head. She barely survives the devastating injury and experiences headaches for the remainder of her life. It's possible this injury led to her suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy , which could explain her visions and sleeping spells.

c. 1835: Tubman works as a field hand, which she prefers to inside tasks.

c. 1830s: Two of Tubman's older sisters are sold and transported out of Maryland.

1840: Tubman's father is freed from slavery.

1844: She weds John Tubman, a free Black man, though her status as a slave means the union is not legally recognized. Upon marriage, Tubman adopts her mother's name of Harriet.

March 7, 1849: Tubman's owner dies, which makes her fear being sold.

September 17, 1849: Tubman heads north with two of her brothers to escape slavery. However, the men become nervous and convince their sister to return.

October 1849: Tubman runs away

She follows the North Star and makes it to Philadelphia. As Pennsylvania is a free state, she has escaped enslavement.

September 18, 1850: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 passes. It requires all parts of the United States, even states that had outlawed slavery, to participate in the return of runaway slaves.

December 1850: Tubman helps rescue a niece and her niece's children after learning they are supposed to be sold at auction.

1851: Tubman tries to bring her husband north, but he decides to remain with his second wife, a free Black woman. Tubman instead guides another group to Canada, where they will be outside the reach of the Fugitive Slave Act.

December 1854: Tubman helps a group that includes three of her brothers travel to Canada.

READ MORE: How Harriet Tubman and William Still Helped the Underground Railroad

June 1857: Tubman brings her parents from Maryland to Canada

Her father is in danger because he has been helping the Underground Railroad.

April 1858: In Canada, Tubman meets abolitionist John Brown . She learns of his plans to spark a slave rebellion in the United States and agrees to gather recruits for the cause.

October 16, 1859: Brown's raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry in Virginia (now West Virginia) takes place. Tubman does not participate, perhaps due to illness.

1859: Tubman purchases a property in Auburn, New York, from antislavery politician William H. Seward . Having been unhappy in Canada, her parents join Tubman there.

April 27, 1860: In Troy, New York, Tubman helps former slave Charles Nalle elude the U.S. marshals who intend to return him to his enslaver.

December 1860: Tubman makes her last trip on the Underground Railroad

1862: Following the start of the Civil War, Tubman joins Union troops in South Carolina. She becomes a nurse, while also running a wash house and working as a cook to earn money.

c. 1863: Tubman serves as a spy for the Union

She coordinates with former slaves from the area to gather information about the opposing Confederate forces.

READ MORE: Harriet Tubman's Service as a Union Spy

June 1-2, 1863: Tubman leads an armed raid up the Combahee River raid in South Carolina. The mission destroys Confederate supplies and frees more than 700 enslaved people. Tubman is the first woman to head a military expedition in the United States.

July 1863: After the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, whose soldiers were African American volunteers, suffers devastating losses during a bloody battle at Fort Wagner, Tubman helps bury the dead and aids survivors.

June 1864: Tubman is granted a furlough and goes to Auburn to visit her parents.

1865: Tubman nurses Black soldiers at Fort Monroe in Virginia. After the Civil War ends, she visits Washington, D.C., and informs the surgeon general that Black soldiers are experiencing harsh conditions in military hospitals.

READ MORE: Inside Harriet Tubman's Life of Service After the Underground Railroad

July 1865: Tubman asks Seward, who is secretary of state, to help her receive payment for her work during the war. She is not successful, due in part to the turmoil of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination and Seward's ongoing recovery from stab wounds suffering during an assassination attempt.

October 1865: Tubman is traveling home by train when a conductor orders her, using a racial slur , to go to a different car. She defends her rights but is forcibly removed.

December 1868: Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman , a biography by Sarah Bradford is published (though the official publication date is listed as 1869). The book has multiple inaccuracies but sales raise approximately $1,200 for a financially struggling Tubman.

March 18, 1869: Tubman weds Nelson Davis, a 25-year-old former slave and Civil War veteran.

1873: Tubman is robbed by men who trick her into believing they could provide her with Confederate gold.

1874: Tubman and her husband adopt a daughter, whom they name Gertie Davis.

June 1886: Tubman buys 25 acres of land next to her home in Auburn to create a nursing home for Black Americans.

October 1886: A revised Tubman biography, Harriet, the Moses of Her People , is published.

October 18, 1888: Tubman's husband dies after suffering from tuberculosis.

1890s: Tubman becomes more involved in the movement for women's suffrage.

June 1890: Tubman applies for a pension as a Civil War widow.

October 16, 1895 : Tubman is approved for a war widow pension of $8 a month .

July 1896: Tubman speaks at the founding conference of the National Association of Colored Women.

November 1896: Tubman is introduced by Susan B. Anthony at a suffrage convention in Rochester, New York.

1897: Queen Victoria sends Tubman a shawl and a medal in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee. The queen also invites Tubman to visit England to celebrate her birthday, but Tubman's straitened finances make this an impossibility.

Late 1890s: Tubman undergoes brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in an attempt to alleviate her painful headaches.

1899: Congress raises Tubman's pension to $20 per month, but the increase is for her services as a nurse instead of her military work.

June 23, 1908: Tubman attends the opening ceremony for the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. It will be operated by AME Zion Church, which has taken over the deed to the property.

May 19, 1911: An ailing Tubman becomes a resident of the Harriet Tubman Home. Supporters raise funds to finance her care.

March 10, 1913: Tubman dies following a battle with pneumonia

March 13, 1913: Tubman is buried with military honors.

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Biography of Harriet Tubman: Freed Enslaved People, Fought for the Union

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Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–March 10, 1913) was an enslaved woman, freedom seeker, Underground Railroad conductor, North American 19th-century Black activist , spy, soldier, and nurse known for her service during the Civil War and her advocacy of civil rights and women's suffrage.

Tubman remains one of history's most inspiring African Americans and there are many children's stories about her, but those usually stress her early life, escape from enslavement, and work with the Underground Railroad. Less known are her Civil War service and her other activities in the nearly 50 years she lived after the war.

Fast Facts: Harriet Tubman

• Known For : Participation in the North American 19-century Black activist movement, Civil War work, civil rights
• Also Known As : Araminta Ross, Araminta Green, Harriet Ross, Harriet Ross Tubman, Moses
• Born : c. 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland
• Parents : Benjamin Ross, Harriet Green
• Died : March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York
• Spouses : John Tubman, Nelson Davis
• Children : Gertie
• Notable Quote : "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."

Tubman was enslaved from birth in Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1820 or 1821, on the plantation of Edward Brodas or Brodess. Her birth name was Araminta, and she was called Minty until she changed her name to Harriet—after her mother—as an early teen. Her parents, Benjamin Ross and Harriet Green were enslaved Africans who saw many of their 11 children sold into the Deep South.

At age 5, Araminta was "rented" to neighbors to do housework. She was never good at household chores and was beaten by her enslavers and "renters." She wasn't educated to read or write. She eventually was assigned to work as a field hand, which she preferred to housework. At age 15, she suffered a head injury when she blocked the path of the overseer pursuing an uncooperative enslaved person. The overseer flung a weight at the other enslaved people, hitting Tubman, who probably sustained a severe concussion. She was ill for a long time and never fully recovered.

In 1844 or 1845, Tubman married John Tubman, a free Black man. Shortly after her marriage, she hired a lawyer to investigate her legal history and discovered that her mother had been freed on a technicality upon the death of a former enslaver The lawyer advised her that a court wouldn't likely hear the case, so she dropped it. But knowing that she should have been born free led her to contemplate freedom and resent her situation.

In 1849, Tubman heard that two of her brothers were about to be sold to the Deep South, and her husband threatened to sell her, too. She tried to persuade her brothers to escape with her but left alone, making her way to Philadelphia and freedom. The next year, Tubman decided to return to Maryland to free her sister and her sister's family. Over the next 12 years, she returned 18 or 19 times, bringing more than 300 people out of enslavement.

Underground Railroad

Tubman's organizing ability was crucial to her work with the Underground Railroad, a network of opponents of enslavement that helped freedom seekers escape. Tubman was only 5 feet tall, but she was smart and strong and carried a rifle. She used it not only to intimidate pro-enslavement people but also to keep enslaved people from backing out. She told any who seemed ready to leave that "dead Negroes tell no tales" about the railroad.

When Tubman first reached Philadelphia, she was, under the law of the time, a free woman, but the passage of the  Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 made her a freedom seeker again. All citizens were obligated to aid in her recapture, so she had to operate quietly. But she soon became known throughout the North American 19th-century Black activist circles and freedmen's communities.

After the Fugitive Slave Act passed, Tubman began guiding her Underground Railroad passengers to Canada, where they could be truly free. From 1851 through 1857, she lived parts of the year in St. Catherines, Canada, and Auburn, New York, where many North American 19th-century Black activists lived.

Other Activities

In addition to her twice-yearly trips to Maryland to help freedom seekers escape, Tubman developed her oratorical skills and began speaking publicly at anti-enslavement meetings and, by the end of the decade, women's rights meetings. A price had been placed on her head—at one time it was as high as $40,000—but she was never betrayed.

Tubman freed three of her brothers in 1854, bringing them to St. Catherines. In 1857, Tubman brought her parents to freedom. They couldn't take Canada's climate, so she settled them on land she bought in Auburn with the aid of North American 19th-century Black activists. Earlier, she had returned to rescue her husband John Tubman, only to find he'd remarried and wasn't interested in leaving.

Tubman earned money as a cook and laundress, but she also received support from public figures in New England, including key North American 19th-century Black activists. She was supported by  Susan B Anthony , William H. Seward, Ralph Waldo Emerson , Horace Mann, the Alcotts, including educator Bronson Alcott and writer  Louisa May Alcott , William Still  of Philadelphia, and Thomas Garratt of Wilmington, Delaware. Some supporters used their homes as Underground Railroad stations.

In 1859, when John Brown was organizing a rebellion he believed would end enslavement, he consulted Tubman. She supported his plans at Harper's Ferry , raised funds in Canada, and recruited soldiers. She intended to help him take the armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia to supply guns to enslaved people they believed would rebel against their captivity. But she became ill and wasn't there.

Brown's raid failed and his supporters were killed or arrested. She mourned her friends' deaths and continued to hold Brown as a hero.

Tubman's trips to the South as "Moses," as she'd become known for leading her people to freedom, ended as the Southern states began to secede and the U.S. government prepared for war. Once war started, Tubman went South to assist with "contrabands," freedom seekers attached to the Union Army. The next year, the Union Army asked Tubman to organize a network of scouts and spies among Black men. She led forays to gather information and persuade enslaved people to leave their enslavers. Many joined regiments of Black soldiers.

In July 1863, Tubman led troops commanded by Col. James Montgomery in the Combahee River expedition, disrupting Southern supply lines by destroying bridges and railroads and freeing more than 750 enslaved people. Gen. Rufus Saxton, who reported the raid to Secretary of War  Edwin Stanton , said: "This is the only military command in American history wherein a woman, Black or White, led the raid and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted." Some believe Tubman was allowed to go beyond women's traditional boundaries because of her race.

Tubman, believing she was employed by the U.S. Army, spent her first paycheck on building a place where freed Black women could earn a living doing laundry for soldiers. But she wasn't paid regularly or given rations she believed she deserved. She received only $200 in three years of service, supporting herself by selling baked goods and root beer, which she made after she completed her regular duties.

After the war, Tubman never got her back military pay. When she applied for a pension—with the support of Secretary of State William Seward, Colonel T. W. Higginson, and Rufus—her application was denied. Despite her service and fame, she had no official documents to prove she had served in the war.

Freedmen Schools

After the war, Tubman established schools for freedmen in South Carolina. She never learned to read and write, but she appreciated the value of education and supported efforts to educate formerly enslaved people.

She later returned to her home in Auburn, New York, which was her base for the rest of her life. She financially supported her parents, and her brothers and their families moved to Auburn. Her first husband died in 1867 in a fight with a White man. In 1869 she married Nelson Davis, who had been enslaved in North Carolina but served as a Union Army soldier. He was often ill, probably with tuberculosis, and frequently couldn't work.

Tubman welcomed several children into her home, raising them as her own, and supported some impoverished formerly enslaved people, financing her efforts through donations and loans. In 1874, she and Davis adopted a baby girl named Gertie.

Publishing and Speaking

To finance her life and her support of others, she worked with historian Sarah Hopkins Bradford to publish "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman" in 1869. The book was initially financed by North American 19th-century Black activists, including Wendell Phillips and Gerrit Smith, the latter a supporter of John Brown and first cousin of suffragist  Elizabeth Cady Stanton . Tubman toured to speak about her experiences as "Moses."

In 1886, Bradford, with Tubman's help, wrote a full-scale biography of Tubman titled "Harriet Tubman: Moses of Her People." In the 1890s, she finally was able to collect a pension as Davis' widow: $8 a month.

Tubman also worked with Susan B. Anthony on women's suffrage. She attended women's rights conventions and spoke for the women's movement, advocating for the rights of Black women. In 1896, Tubman spoke at the first meeting of the National Association of Colored Women .

Continuing to support aged and poor African Americans, Tubman established a home on 25 acres next to her home in Auburn, raising money with help from the AME Church and a local bank. The home, which opened in 1908, initially was called the John Brown Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People but later was named for her.

She donated the home to the AME Zion Church with the proviso that it would be kept as a home for the elderly. She moved into the home in 1911 and died of pneumonia on March 10, 1913.

Tubman became an icon after her death. A World War II Liberty ship was named for her, and in 1978 she was featured on a commemorative stamp. Her home has been named a national historic landmark.

The four phases of Tubman's life—an enslaved person; a North American 19th-century Black activist and conductor on the Underground Railroad; a Civil War soldier, nurse, spy, and scout; and a social reformer—are important aspects of her dedication to service. Schools and museums bear her name and her history has been told in books, movies, and documentaries.

In April 2016, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew announced that Tubman would replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill by 2020, but the plans were delayed.

• " Timeline of the Life of Harriet Tubman ." Harriet Tubman Historical Society.
• " Harriet Tubman Biography ." Harriettubmanbiography.com.
• " Harriet Tubman: American Abolitionist ." Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• " Harriet Tubman Biography ." Biography.com.
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Biography Online

Harriet Tubman biography

Tubman was born Araminta Ross, to slave parents who lived on plantations in Maryland. Little is known about her family background and ancestry, but her maternal grandmother came to the US on a slave ship from Africa (possibly from modern-day Ghana).

Her parents Rit and Ben Ross had nine children together, but three of Harriet’s sisters were sold at an early age by their owners and she never saw them again.

Even as a young child Harriet was responsible for looking after her younger siblings because her mother was too busy working as a cook. Harriet was also hired as a nursemaid to a “Miss Susan”. She was frequently whipped by her overseers – leading to scars which would last all her life. For periods of time, she was also sent out to work for a planter – checking muskrat traps – and later farming tasks, such as ploughing and moving logs.

On one occasion, Tubman was hit in the head by a stone thrown by a slave owner. The slave owner was aiming at another slave, but the stone hit Tubman in the back of her head – cracking her skull and leading to lifelong headaches, epileptic seizures and dreams or visions. Tubman later attributed her bushy unkempt hair for reducing the impact of the stone and saving her life.

Around 1844, Harriet married John Tubman. Around this time, she adopted her mother’s maiden name, Harriet, in place of her childhood name Araminta.

In 1849, Tubman’s slave owner, Edward Brodress, died. This raised the likelihood Tubman would be sold, and the family split up. With her two brothers, Ben and Henry, she decided to escape from the large plantation in Caroline County where they lived and worked. The escape was successful, but after a few weeks, her brothers had misgivings because they wanted to return to their children; Tubman was forced to return with them.

Harriet Tubman far left, at her home in Auburn, NY. Source: Bettman/Corbis, New York Times photo archive.

However, soon after, Tubman escaped for the second time. With the help of the Underground Railroad, she took a 90-mile route northeast along the Choptank River towards Pennsylvania. The journey on foot could have taken a couple of weeks, with great care being needed to avoid slave catchers, who could gain a bounty for catching any escaped slaves. After reaching Pennsylvania, she expressed her tremendous joy.

“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.”

In Philadelphia, Tubman took on odd jobs to earn some money, but she wanted to return to Maryland to rescue the rest of her family. In her own words:

“I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welcome me to de land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all was down in de old cabin quarter, wid de ole folks, and my brudders and sisters. But to dis solemn resolution I came; I was free, and dey should be free also; I would make a home for dem in de North, and de Lord helping me, I would bring dem all dere.”

This task of retrieving slaves was made more complicated by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which heavily punished anyone helping slaves to escape – even in states which outlawed slavery.

Map of key places in Tubman’s life

However, with the aid of other abolitionist activists, such as Thomas Garrett, she made repeated trips to Maryland to rescue different members of her family. Because of her exploits, she earned the nickname “Moses” referring to the Biblical character who escaped slavery.

Reward for Harriet Tubman (using birth name – Minty)

However, her husband chose not to escape with Tubman, because in her absence he had married another woman, named Caroline. Over the next decade, Tubman helped rescue over 70 slaves, in about 13 expeditions (and offering advice to many more). She often travelled in the darker winter months, making it easier to travel incognito by night. Because of the dangers on the road, she always took a revolver with her. She was also willing to use it to threaten any escaped slave who wished to go back because she knew returning would endanger all the escapees. She was proud never to lose an escaping slave on her expeditions.

“I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say – I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” – Harriet Tubman

Given the growing racial tension and the stricter laws regarding escaped slaves, many sought to escape the US altogether, moving to Southern Ontario in Canada. Tubman took part in such travels, helping guide parties of former slaves north.

Frederick Douglass , who was a noted activist against slavery, praised Tubman for her role in helping slaves. In particular, he praised her courage and willingness to work without recognition. He said of Tubman:

“Excepting John Brown — of sacred memory — I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.”

Information from Library of Congress

A significant element of Tubman’s life was her strong religious faith. From her childhood, she had learnt aural biblical stories, and although she couldn’t read, she felt a strong faith in the presence and guidance of God. She related receiving intense visions and clear messages coming from God, and on the dangerous missions, she trusted in the direction and protection of God to succeed in her mission.

In 1858, she met the radical abolitionist John Brown, who advocated violence to promote the ending of slavery. Although Tubman never promoted violence herself, she was sympathetic to the aims of John Brown and assisted him in finding willing volunteers. Brown’s raid on Harper Ferry, Virginia failed and he was executed, but Tubman praised his courage in death for trying to fight the institution of slavery.

At the outbreak of the civil war, Tubman saw a Union victory as a way to advance the cause of abolition. She served as a nurse in Port Royal, treating soldiers suffering dysentery and small pox.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation , and Tubman became more involved in the efforts of the northern forces. She offered her services as a guide for scouting trips in South Carolina – using her skills to travel undetected. She also became the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War, when she guided three steamboats to an assault on plantations on the Combahee River. The raid was a great success with around 750 slaves escaping onto steamboats; later, encouraged by Tubman, many of the liberated men went on to join the Union army – forming the first all-black corps. For her courageous efforts, she received favourable press coverage, though as a black woman she received no regular pay or pension (until 1899). During the war, she had to supplement her income by selling pies and root beer.

After the civil war, Tubman returned to Auburn where she continued to look after her family and other ex-slaves. She also remarried (Nelson Davis, 20 years her junior). They adopted a child Gertie.

Denied a pension, her financial situation was poor, but friends in the abolitionist movement helped raise funds.  An authorised biography Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman  was written by Sarah Hopkins Bradford. Over the next few years, Tubman often gave speeches on both slavery and women’s rights. She was an excellent storyteller who could capture the imagination of the audience. Kate Clifford Larson writes on Tubman:

“A great storyteller she was… She moved her audiences deeply. Plainly dressed, very short and petite, quite black-skinned, and missing front teeth… Tubman shocked her audiences with stories of slavery and the injustices of life as a black woman. Black men dominated the antislavery lecture circuit. Tubman and Sojourner Truth stood for millions of slave women whose lives were marred by emotional and physical abuse at the hands of white men.”

– Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero

Tubman also began supporting the women’s suffrage movement, supporting the work of Susan B. Anthony and others. Tubman spoke of her experiences and suffering in the war and railroad movement as proof that women were the equal of men. This brought her wider national recognition.

She donated her property to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Auburn to be converted into a home for aged and coloured people.

After becoming increasingly frail, in 1913, she died of pneumonia, surrounded by friends and family. Her last words were:

“I go to prepare a place for you.”

She was buried with semi-military honours at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Harriet Tubman has become an iconic symbol of courage and resistance to injustice, inspiring many generations of civil rights activists.

In April 2016, it was announced she would figure on the US $20 bill.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan.  “ Biography Harriet Tubman” , Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net – 12th Dec. 2016, Updated 26 June 2017

Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom

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Harriet Tubman stood just 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall; never learned to read or write; and spent her childhood and young adulthood as another person's property. She suffered most of her life from brutal headaches and seizures as the result of a beating. She never made much money in her lifetime, and lived humbly, eating food that she grew in garden.

But despite all that, Harriet Tubman became one of the most famous civilians and admired African-Americans in U.S. history. After escaping from slavery in 1849, she became a conductor on the Underground Railroad , bravely venturing back into the slave state of Maryland 13 times during the 1850s to help numerous other runaway enslaved people find their way north to freedom. During the Civil War, Tubman traveled south again to Fort Monroe to work as a spy, scout, nurse and cook for the Union Army. After the conflict, she established the first nursing home for elderly African-Americans [source: Larson ].

Tubman has grown into such an American icon that her legend sometimes obscures the person behind it. In this article, we'll look at the facts of her life and misconceptions about it, as well as how she became such an enduring symbol of freedom.

Early Life and Escape From Slavery

Harriet tubman and the underground railroad, secret agent for the union, a humble philanthropist and advocate for the elderly, after her death.

Tubman's Family & Birth

Harriet Ross Tubman was born into slavery around 1822 in Dorchester County Maryland on the Eastern Shore. The fifth of nine children of two enslaved parents, Benjamin Ross or Ben Ross and Harriet "Rit" Green. Her mother was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess and Tubman's father by Anthony Thompson. Her parents gave her the name Araminta, and called her "Minty" for short [source: Allen ].

As with most enslaved people, Tubman's existence was harsh and full of brutality. As her 1860s biographer Sarah Hopkins Bradford wrote , "Tubman was put to work at an early age as a field hand, following the oxen and loading and unloading wood — labor so grueling that she developed muscles that made her as powerful as some male laborers, despite her lack of stature. Her owners eventually converted her into a house maid, and she endured whippings from her mistress if her dusting and dish-washing was deemed inadequate."

Harriet Tubman as a Teenager

As a teenager, she suffered a fractured skull when an overseer hit her with an iron weight intended for another slave, and the injury caused her to suffer headaches and seizures for the rest of her life [source: Larson ].

In 1844, Araminta Ross married a free African-American named John Tubman . Though the marriage wouldn't last, she kept his surname and began using her mother's first name as her own, and became Harriet Tubman [source: Allen ]. Though her John was not an enslaved man, because she was the law at the time dictated that any children born to them would be enslaved people as well.

In March 1849, Tubman's legal owner Edward Brodess died, leaving behind an estate deeply in debt. Tubman, who'd already seen three of her sisters auctioned off, feared being sent off to an even crueler household. When her husband John refused to go along, she and her brothers Ben and Henry ran away together. After a few weeks, the two young men lost their nerve and forced her to return with them. But Tubman refused to give up. Instead, she slipped off again, this time alone.

She traveled by night, using the north star to guide her, and sought refuge during the day with Quaker families who were so opposed to slavery that they were willing to break Maryland law and help fugitives [source: Allen ]. She made her way through Delaware, and eventually crossed into free Pennsylvania. "There was such a glory over everything," she later recalled. "The sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven" [source: Bradford ].

But Tubman's joy at escaping slavery was muted, because her family had remained behind in servitude. "I was free, and they should be free," she later recalled thinking. She was determined to help them escape, too [source: Bradford ].

After settling in Philadelphia, she worked as a hotel cook and saved her earnings to subsidize her secret career as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, a clandestine abolitionist network that had existed since the 1820s. It was a highly dangerous mission, since "slave stealers," as the Southern states called them, faced the risk of being publicly branded and jailed — and in Tubman's case, enslaved once more. And in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which made such efforts a federal crime [source: Allen ].

That didn't stop Tubman. That same year, she slipped back into Maryland and helped her niece and her two children escape. Over the next decade, she repeated that mission a dozen more times, cautiously confining her efforts to farms that she knew on Maryland's Eastern Shore [source: Larson ].

Tubman followed elaborate procedures to maintain stealth. She wore disguises, communicated with would-be escapees through third parties, and arranged for them to meet her miles away from their cabins, to reduce the chances that they would lead pursuers to her. And if all else failed, she carried a pistol. She warned her escapees that if they tried to turn back, she would shoot them to prevent them from betraying her and the rest [sources: Allen , Quinn ].

As word got around of Tubman's successful missions, she became a sought-after speaker at abolitionist movement fundraising meetings. She also became a target of mercenary slave catchers. But their failure to apprehend her only added to her legend [source: Allen ]. Her admirers naming her "General Tubman" for her heroic deeds.

An 1849 newspaper advertisement offered $50 for Tubman's capture in Maryland and $100 for her capture outside the state. The ad described her as "of a chestnut color, fine looking, and about five feet high" [source: Larson ]. Escaping slavery became even more challenging in 1850, with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law . This law stated that any escaped enslaved people could be captured in the North and returned to enslavement.

In 1860, Tubman pulled off an even more daring feat, by thwarting federal marshals in Troy, New York, who were attempting to send a captured slave named Charles Nalle back to Virginia. Tubman disguised herself as an elderly woman and slipped into a government building. When Nalle and his captors stepped out into the street, Tubman shouted a signal from an upper-story window, and a mob of abolitionists converged on them and seized Nalle, who was spirited away to a waiting riverboat [source: Winkler ].

Sarah Hopkins Bradford's 1869 authorized biography of Tubman claimed that she had helped more than 300 enslaved people to freedom. She claimed, "I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." But according to contemporary biographer Kate Clifford Larson's research, Tubman actually led about 70 to freedom, and provided instructions that enabled another 70 or so to flee on their own.

After the Civil War broke out in 1861, Massachusetts Gov. John A. Andrew, a fervent abolitionist, contacted his friend Tubman and told her that the Union forces needed her help. He arranged transportation for Tubman to travel to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she went to work for Maj. Gen. David Hunter. Ostensibly, her mission was to help provide food and clothing to escaped enslaved people who were flocking to the Union Army's camps, but that seems to have been a cover story for her real work in gathering intelligence. With a budget of $100 in "secret service money," she recruited a small team of escaped enslaved people who were experienced riverboat pilots and knew every inch of the South Carolina coastline, and put them to work as scouts for the Union forces [sources: Winkler , Quinn ].

After President Abraham Lincoln authorized the recruiting and deployment of African-American troops in the summer of 1862, Tubman and her spies provided intelligence for the new units. In January 1863, her team's spying helped Union forces evade Confederate guards and stage a nine-day covert operation to seize needed supplies. As historian H. Donald Winkler describes it , Tubman's scouts "evolved into a kind of special-forces operation for the Black regiments," sneaking into enemy territory to gather information on their troop movements and fortifications.

In June 1863, according to Winkler, Tubman accompanied Union Col. James Montgomery and his forces up the Combahee River in the southern low country of South Carolina and helped lead a crucial raid. Tubman and her scouts sailed upriver and stealthily went ashore to talk to the enslaved who'd placed mines in the water for Confederate forces, so they could map the locations, and locate the storehouses where the enemy kept their supplies. Then she helped guide the Union craft around the deadly mines. The resulting raid not only struck a devastating blow to the Confederate forces, but also resulted in freedom for 700 enslaved people — many of whom subsequently were recruited by Tubman to serve in the Union forces.

After the Civil War ended in a Union victory in 1865, Tubman left her position and set out for the town of Auburn, New York, where she and her family had settled on property that the state's former governor, William H. Seward, had sold her on generous terms. But on the way, she got a rough reminder that the struggle to achieve freedom for African-Americans was just beginning.

According to Tubman biographers James A. McGowan and William C. Kashatus, Tubman was accosted by a train conductor, who refused to honor her soldier's pass for a train ticket. They got into an argument, and he and several passengers threw her into the baggage car, breaking her arm and three ribs. She was unable to work for months, and the woman who'd helped to defeat the Confederacy was compelled to accept handouts from neighbors and local grocers to feed her family and elderly parents [source: NPS ].

But Tubman was too tough to despair. Once she healed, she began growing vegetables and raising chickens, worked as a domestic and took in boarders. She fell in love with one of her guests, a former enslaved man and Union Army veteran named Nelson Davis , who was 22 years her junior, and the two married in 1869. In 1874, the couple adopted a baby girl named Gertie .

But Davis' ill health and some other setbacks meant that Tubman continued to struggle to make ends meet for the next several decades [source: McGowan and Kashatus ]. While the federal government wouldn't give her a pension for her wartime service as a spy, after Davis's death in 1888, she was able to collect a widow's stipend, and eventually got a pension for having worked as a nurse in the latter part of the war [source: Larson ].

Despite her own humble circumstances, Tubman was determined to keep helping others as well. In 1896, she scraped together enough money to buy a second plot of land alongside her Auburn property, where she started a home for elderly African-Americans. Seven years later, as Tubman aged, she turned the property over the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, of which she was a member, with the understanding that the church would continue to run the home. Tubman continued to live next door until her own health began to decline, at which point she became one of the residents at the home she had founded. She passed away there in 1913, at the age of 90 [sources: NPS , Larson ].

Abolitionist insurrection leader John Brown met and became friends with Tubman in the late 1850s. He was so in awe of her toughness and courage that he insisted upon using male pronouns to describe her, saying that she was "the most of a man naturally that I ever met with" [source: Allen ]. In fact, Tubman's friends included many famous people like Frederick Douglass, William Henry Seward, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Thomas Garrett, and Susan B. Anthony

After Tubman was buried with military honors in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York, her fame continued to grow. The city of Auburn commemorated her legacy with a plaque on the courthouse. During World War II, after a successful war bond drive by the National Council of Negro Women, a Liberty ship was christened the SS Harriet Tubman in her honor [source: Larson ]. She became the subject of numerous biographies and children's books, and the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged was recognized as a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Four years later, she became the first African-American woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp [source: Larson ].

Abolitionist journalist William Lloyd Garrison nicknamed Tubman "Moses," an analogy to the Biblical Moses who led the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt. But the name also fit, because the deeply religious Tubman used the title of a familiar spiritual, "Go Down, Moses," as a coded message to fugitives to stay hidden [sources: Winkler , Harriet Tubman Historical Society ].

Harriet Tubman FAQ

When did harriet tubman die, how many slaves did harriet tubman save, where was harriet tubman was born, what states did harriet tubman free slaves from, did harriet tubman ever get caught, lots more information, author's note: how harriet tubman worked.

Before I took on this assignment, I knew about Harriet Tubman mostly only in the context of the Underground Railroad. It was uplifting to learn about her courageous work as a Union spy during the Civil War, and about her tireless efforts afterward to help the poor and the elderly. To me, her story really exemplifies the true greatness of America — the ordinary people who, throughout American history, have taken it upon themselves to fight against injustice and work for the good of us all.

Related Articles

• How the Underground Railroad Worked
• How the Emancipation Proclamation Worked
• John Brown's Failed Raid on Harper's Ferry Was a Major Impetus for the U.S. Civil War

More Great Links

• Library of Congress: Harriet Tubman
• Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park
• Harriet Tubman items in National Museum of African American History and Culture
• The Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged
• Harriet Tubman Historical Society
• Allen, Thomas b. "Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent: How Daring Slaves and Free Blacks Spied for the Union During the Civil War." National Geographic. 2006. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2rrxy12
• Belvedere, Matthew J. "Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin just put Harriet Tubman's role on the $20 bill in question." CNBC. Aug. 31, 2017. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://cnb.cx/2G1wmVi
• Biography. "Harriet Tubman." Biography.com. (Jan. 20, 2018) https://www.biography.com/people/harriet-tubman-9511430
• Blakemore, Erin. "Harriet Tubman Is Getting Her Own National Historical Park." Smithsonian.com. Jan. 12, 2017. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2G3ANPB
• Bradford, Sarah Hopkins. "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman." W.J. Moses, Printer. 1869. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2rs35Ql
• Broom, Scott. "Harriet Tubman descendants moved to tears by new center in her honor." WUSA9.com. March 10, 2017. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://on.wusa9.com/2G1LEJB
• Brown, DeNeen L. "Whether she's on the $20 bill or not, Harriet Tubman made men pay for underestimating her." Washington Post. Sept. 1, 2017. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://wapo.st/2rnkfi5
• Clinton, Catherine. "Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom." Little, Brown. 2004. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://bit.ly/2ro5prH
• Cox, Jeremy. "Rare Tubman photo garners unexpected $161K at auction." Delmarvanow.com. March 30, 2017. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://delmarvane.ws/2G0UQOl
• Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Harriet Tubman: American Abolitionist." Britannica.com. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://bit.ly/2rlX1ZS
• Harriet Tubman Historical Society. "Facts." Harriet-tubman.org. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://www.harriet-tubman.org/facts/
• Harriet Tubman Historical Society. "Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People." Harriet-tubman.org. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2G1CBsh
• Harriet Tubman Historical Society. "Short Biography."Harriet-tubman.org. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://www.harriet-tubman.org/short-biography/
• Harriet Tubman Historical Society. "Timeline of the Life of Harriet Tubman." Harriet-tubman.org. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://www.harriet-tubman.org/timeline/
• History.com. "Harriet Tubman." History.com. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/harriet-tubman
• Larson, Kate Clifford. "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero." One World Books. 2004. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://bit.ly/2rq700a
• Larson, Kate Clifford. "Five Myths About Harriet Tubman." Washington Post. April 22, 2016. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://wapo.st/2rtyG4k
• Larson, Kate Clifford. "Harriet Tubman Biography." Harriettubmanbiography.com. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2G2tV4I
• Larson, Kate Clifford. "Harriet Tubman's Flight to Freedom." Harriettubmanbiography.com. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2G3Igy6
• Levy, Renee Gearhart. "The Truths Behind the Myth of Harriet Tubman." Maxwell Perspective. Spring 2008. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://bit.ly/2rofVit
• Martinelli, Marissa. "The Color Purple Star Cynthia Erivo Will Play Harriet Tubman in an Upcoming Biopic." Slate. Feb. 8, 2017. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://slate.me/2FZMJ4P
• Maryris, Nina. "'Nurse, Spy, Cook: How Harriet Tubman Found Freedom Through Food." National Public Radio. April 27, 2016. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://n.pr/2roc1WR
• Masungaga, Samantha. "Harriet Tubman is the next face of the $20 bill; $5 and $10 bills will also change." Los Angeles Times. April 20, 2016. (Jan. 21,2018) http://lat.ms/2G25nZG
• McGowan, James A. and Kashatus, William C. "Harriet Tubman: A Biography." Greenwood. 2011. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://bit.ly/2rp5viL
• Michals, Debra (editor). "Harriet Tubman." National Women's History Museum. 2015. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://bit.ly/2roM1uN
• Mohsin, Saleha. "Government Proceeds With Plan to Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill." Bloomberg.com. Sept. 19, 2017. (Jan. 21, 2018) https://bloom.bg/2FYUIPo
• National Park Service. "Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Residence, and Thompson AME Zion Church." (Jan. 21, 2018) https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/ny1.htm
• Quinn, Ruth. "Harriet Tubman: Nurse, Spy, Scout." Army.mil. May 27, 2014. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2G4hpSn
• Smithsonian Institution. "1978 Black Heritage Series: Harriet Tubman Issue." Si.edu. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://s.si.edu/2FYmqMp
• Stodghill, Ron. "Harriet Tubman's Path to Freedom." New York Times. Feb. 24, 2017. (Jan. 20, 2018) http://nyti.ms/2rlVjrq
• Winkler, H. Donald. "Stealing Secrets: How a Few Daring Women Deceived Generals, Impacted Battles, and Altered the Course of the Civil War." Cumberland House. 2010. (Jan. 21, 2018) http://bit.ly/2G1edH3

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African American Heritage

Harriet Tubman (c. March 1822 - March 10, 1913)

Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland, was one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad, an abolitionist, suffragist, activist, and served in the Civil War as leader, nurse, cook, scout, and spy. Tubman was arguably the most successful individual who personally led enslaved people to freedom through her service on the Underground Railroad, and during the Civil War, she was given the moniker "Moses."

Tubman's early life was spent enslaved in the Eastern Shore region of Maryland, where she was made to do various tasks including childcare, plowing, and working on the wharf. Three of her sisters were sold and separated from the family during her childhood, but her parents, Rit and Ben Ross, continued to resist and keep the remaining family together. In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, but would return to Maryland many times to recover her family and reunite them in freedom.

During the Civil War, Tubman served in South Carolina as a nurse, cook, and spy. She also became the only woman to lead a military action during the War when she led Black troops in the Combahee River Raid on June 2, 1863. The raid involved small ships and troops who destroyed roadways, and burned plantations, and collected supplies of livestock and crops. As a result of the raid, 750 enslaved people were liberated.

Records in the National Archives relating to Harriet Tubman include documents relating to her Civil War pension claims, military service records of her husband Nelson Davis (Charles), legislation establishing and images from dedicating the Harriet Tubman and Underground Railroad National Parks, images from the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, and applications for designating places and areas for the National Register of Historic Places related to Tubman. 

Search the Catalog for records relating to Harriet Tubman   Social Networks and Archival Context - Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman, after the Civil War ( NAID 7718799 )

Underground Railroad Resources

National Park Service: What is the Underground Railroad?

The Underground Railroad Byway

Digital Public Library of America: Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery Project

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

Harriet Tubman Resources

DocsTeach: Key Figures Who Worked to End Slavery

DocsTeach: Documents relating to Harriet Tubman

Legislative Archives: Congress and Harriet Tubman's Claim for Pension

Library of Congress: Harriet Tubman Resource Guide

National Park Service: Harriet Tubman sites

US House of Representatives: The "Very Deserving Case" of Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman

c. 1822–March 10, 1913

Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave and a conductor on the Underground Railroad who made between eleven and thirteen trips to the South escorting about seventy slaves to freedom. She was known as the “Moses of her people.”

In July 1863, Harriet Tubman assisted Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Colored Infantry Regiment, in preparing for the Union assault during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner (July 18, 1863), which was commemorated in the 1989 Hollywood film “Glory.”  [Wikimedia Commons]

Famed abolitionist and conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, sometime around 1822. The fifth of Benjamin Ross and Harriet Green’s nine children, Tubman’s birth name was Araminta Ross and her nickname was Minty. Legally owned by Mary Pattison Brodess, Tubman’s mother served as a cook for the Brodess family. Tubman’s father toiled as a skilled woodsman on a nearby plantation managed by his owner Mary Brodess’ second husband, Anthony Thompson.

When Minty reached the age of five or six, her owner hired her out to James and Susan Cook, for whom she toiled as a house servant. When Minty grew older and stronger, she became more valuable as a field hand performing backbreaking work on several plantations. Tubman later recounted that overseers frequently whipped and beat her throughout her childhood for the slightest provocations.

Serious Head Injury

During her adolescence, Minty suffered a serious head injury, the effects of which followed her for the rest of her life. Trying to protect a slave who had walked away from his duties from the wrath of his pursuer, Minty found herself in the path of a heavy object hurled by the irate overseer. The misdirected projectile struck Minty’s skull, wounding her gravely. Following a prolonged convalescence, Minty suffered from severe headaches, seizures, and involuntary sleeping spells (narcolepsy) throughout her life.

Victim of Duplicity

Following Minty’s recovery, her owners hired her out to John Stewart, who operated a thriving lumber business. Stewart, who also employed Minty’s father and some of her brothers, was more lenient and generous than many people who used slaves owned by others. His generosity allowed Tubman to save some cash of her own. Using some of those funds, Minty hired a lawyer to investigate suspicions that her mother, Rit, may have been denied the freedom that her first owner’s will bequeathed her. The attorney discovered that when Rit became the property of Mark Pattison, she would remain a slave until age forty-five. By extension, her offspring would also be free when they reached the same age. Unfortunately for Rit and Minty, when Edward Brodess inherited Rit in 1810, he refused to honor the terms of the will. The discovery of Brodess’ duplicity may have steeled Minty’s resolve to free herself someday.

Marriage to John Tubman

Around the time that Minty was working for Stewart, she met and fell in love with John Tubman, a free black man who may have also worked for Stewart. In 1844, the couple “wed,” but no legal record of their union exists because Maryland law did not permit slaves to marry. At the time of her marriage, Minty changed her first name to Harriet, in honor of her mother, and she assumed Tubman’s surname. Historical accounts of their lives together are scant, but there is reason to believe that they loved each other, although their marriage produced no children.

Escaping Slavery

In 1847, Edward Brodess hired Tubman out to his stepbrother, Anthony Thompson, Jr. When Brodess died in 1849, Tubman heard rumors that his heirs might separate her family and sell them south. Fearing the worst, sometime around September 17, 1849, she fled north in search of freedom. As Tubman later related, “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.”

When Tubman walked away, she headed north toward Pennsylvania. Her ninety-mile trek, which took her through Delaware, may have taken from ten days to three weeks to complete, depending on how much help she received along the way. Like most fugitive slaves, she would have rested during the day, when the possibility of detection was the greatest, and traveled at night, using the north star to guide her way. Although Tubman left no record of who abetted her escape, she undoubtedly received food and shelter at safe-houses along her route from members of the Underground Railroad.

After safely arriving in Pennsylvania, Tubman traveled on to Philadelphia, the Home of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery. Although she was still subject to being captured and returned to her owner under provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, she was relatively safe living in obscurity among the nation’s largest population of free blacks.

Loneliness in Philadelphia

Notwithstanding the euphoria Tubman must have felt by escaping slavery, she found herself utterly alone in a city rife with discrimination and racial tension. Her husband, who was already free, had chosen not to accompany her. Although she found work and the means to sustain herself, loneliness and memories of those she left behind dampened her spirit.

The year after Tubman’s escape, the federal government added new teeth to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 , enacting an omnibus bill commonly known as the Compromise of 1850 . One provision of the new bill, particularly abhorred by abolitionists, was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 . Provisions of that act were much harsher and more unfair to suspected runaway slaves. Fugitives no longer had access to a trial by jury in state and local courts when slave owners or their agents apprehended them in Northern states. Instead, authorities brought them before federal commissioners who determined their fate. When appearing before the commissioners, alleged runaways had no right to call witnesses or testify on their own behalf. In addition, the system rewarded commissioners for ruling against suspected fugitives.

“Moses of Her People”

Despite the inherent dangers that the new legislation presented, Tubman returned to Maryland in 1850 to escort her sister and her sister’s two children to freedom. During the next decade, Tubman made repeated trips south of the Mason-Dixon Line to rescue family members, including her parents and other slaves. Some accounts estimate that she may have traveled back into harm’s way up to nineteen times, leading roughly 300 fugitive slaves to freedom. More recent research tempers those estimates to between eleven and thirteen trips escorting about seventy slaves to freedom. Historians may never know the exact numbers. Whatever they are, it is difficult to overstate the courage of a black, female, fugitive slave who repeatedly defied federal law and scorned southern authority to liberate many slaves during an age dominated by free, white, men. It is no small wonder that Tubman’s heroics earned her the sobriquet “Moses of Her People.”

Relocation to Canada

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 further threatened the freedom of escaped slaves living in the North. Trumped by federal legislation, state and local laws no longer protected fugitives. Sensitive to the new dangers, Tubman began moving members of her family, and her base of operations to St. Catharines, Ontario, in 1851. As Tubman later explained, “I wouldn’t trust Uncle Sam with my people no longer, but I brought ’em clear off to Canada.” When she was not on one of her rescue missions, Tubman lived in St. Catharines until 1858.

Abolitionist Spokesperson

By the late 1850s, Tubman’s exploits had generated enough notoriety in the North to earn the respect of leading abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. As a result, she became a prominent speaker at anti-slavery rallies in New England. In 1858 or 1859, U.S. Senator William H. Seward sold Tubman a home in Auburn, New York, on affordable terms because he was a great admirer. Tubman moved back to the United States and settled there with her parents.

John Brown Supporter

At about the same time Tubman moved to the United States, she met fanatical abolitionist John Brown for the first time in Canada. She shared Brown’s hatred of slavery and endorsed his scheme to incite a slave rebellion in the South. Although Tubman did not take part in the planning of Brown’s daring raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry , Virginia, on October 16–18, 1859, she solicited support, financial and otherwise, for the notorious firebrand.

Union Nurse, Scout, and Spy

After the Civil War erupted, Tubman traveled to South Carolina where she served as a nurse for Union troops occupying the Atlantic seaboard. By 1863, her role expanded to spying and scouting for Federal troops. On June 2, 1863, Tubman accompanied three gunboats transporting a raiding party commanded by Colonel James Montgomery up the Cohambee River. Their successful mission destroyed several plantations, freed roughly 700 slaves, and bagged valuable supplies for Union forces. One month later, Tubman assisted Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Colored Infantry Regiment, in preparing for the Union assault during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner (July 18, 1863), which the 1989 Hollywood film Glory later commemorated.

Some accounts claim that Tubman was the first female to lead troops during an armed engagement during the Civil War. More recent scholarly research seems to discredit that assertion. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that Tubman aided the Union cause as a nurse, scout, and spy during the conflict. Despite her loyal service, however, Tubman received neither pay nor a pension for her wartime contributions.

Marriage to Nelson Davis

Following the Civil War, Tubman returned to her home in Auburn, New York. After learning that her husband, John Tubman, had been murdered in Maryland during the conflict, Tubman felt free to remarry. On March 18, 1869, she wed former slave Nelson Davis (aka Nelson Charles), who was at least twenty years her junior. The pair first met in South Carolina, where Nelson was serving with the 8th New York Regiment during the Civil War. Although their marriage produced no offspring, they adopted a baby girl in 1874 who they named Gertie.

Financial Struggles and Personal Tragedies

Despite Tubman’s public renown, personal and financial difficulties overshadowed much of her life after the Civil War. By 1869, her situation was so dire that a group of her supporters, including William Seward , Frederick Douglass , and Wendell Phillips, sponsored the publication of Tubman’s biography written by her friend, Sarah H. Bradford. Wealthy donors, including Gerrit Smith, underwrote the cost of publishing the work entitled Scenes in the Life Of Harriet Tubman . Proceeds from the book provided Tubman with a short-term windfall of over $1,200 but did not resolve her long-term financial and personal struggles.

In 1886, a fire destroyed Tubman’s frame house in Auburn. Bradford and other benefactors again came to Tubman’s rescue, publishing a second biography entitled Harriet Tubman, Moses of Her People . Proceeds from the book helped Tubman replace her incinerated home with a new brick structure which her husband, who was a bricklayer, helped construct.

Shortly after completion of the new home, tragedy struck again when Nelson Davis died in 1888. For the next four years, Tubman wrangled with federal authorities as she attempted to claim her entitled widow’s war pension. In 1892, the government relented and awarded her a payment of $8 per month. In the meantime, federal officials continued to deny Tubman her own pension for her service during the Civil War because War Department records were ambiguous. Eventually, Congress brokered a compromise that did not resolve the uncertainties regarding Tubman’s service but did increase her widow’s pension to $20 per month in 1899.

Tubman’s generosity exacerbated her financial problems throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century. Despite being nearly destitute—sometimes living off of the generosity of Auburn’s citizenry—Tubman dedicated her life to assisting impoverished former slaves. She also volunteered tirelessly to promote equal rights for women and people of color. Her home was often a refuge for former slaves struggling to adjust to life beyond bondage.

Harriet Tubman Home

In 1896, Tubman risked her small life savings as the down payment for a mortgage on the twenty-five-acre tract of land next to the home that she purchased at auction. With the support of donations from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and Auburn residents, Tubman erected a two-and-one-half-story, clapboard structure on the property intended to be a haven for elderly former slaves.

When she could no longer afford to pay taxes on the property, Tubman donated it to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1903, with the stipulation that she would hold a lifetime deed and that the organization would maintain the site as a home for “aged and indigent colored people.”

For the next five years, a church-appointed board of trustees oversaw further improvements to the property, including the construction of a brick infirmary named in honor of John Brown. In 1908, the facility opened as the Harriet Tubman Home. By then in her late eighties, Tubman considered the project “her last work.” The facility continued to operate for its intended use until 1918. Today the National Park Service maintains the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged as a museum dedicated to preserving the humanitarian vision of its founder.

Health Issues

As Tubman aged, the headaches and buzzing she experienced because of the head injury she sustained as a youth intensified. During the 1890s, she underwent brain surgery at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital to relieve her symptoms. Although the procedure did not eliminate her stabbing episodes, it reduced her discomfort.

Eventually, old age, coupled with a hard life, began catching up with Tubman. Following an extended hospital stay in 1911, she moved from her home to the facility next door that bore her name. During the winter of 1913, Tubman developed pneumonia. As her end approached, close friends and family gathered near her bedside. Harriet Tubman died on March 10, 1913, in the presence of her loved ones. Three days later, she was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn with military honors.

By coincidence, Rosa Parks was born the same year that Harriet Tubman died. Forty-two years later, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in the “colored section” of an overcrowded bus in Montgomery, Alabama, as required by law. Parks’ rebellion triggered a year-long boycott of the Montgomery bus system and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1956 that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional. Perhaps inspired by Tubman’s example of personal sacrifice in the pursuit of social justice, Parks’ act of defiance re-energized the crusade for equal rights for African Americans in the United States one hundred years after Tubman cemented her legacy as the “Moses of her people.”

• Written by Harry Searles

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African American Heroes

Harriet tubman, spy.

You might know her as a conductor for the Underground Railroad. She was also a spy.

Harriet Tubman cautiously watched the shore from one of three gunboats on the Combahee River. She and several hundred Union soldiers were preparing a raid to free hundreds of enslaved people from plantations in South Carolina , part of the Confederate states that were fighting against the Union during the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Enemy soldiers were hiding nearby—success was far from guaranteed.

Harriet Tubman is well known for risking her life as a “conductor” in the Underground Railroad , which led escaped enslaved people to freedom in the North. But the former enslaved woman also served as a spy for the Union during the Civil War. Tubman decided to help the Union Army because she wanted freedom for all of the people who were forced into slavery, not just the few she could help on the Underground Railroad. And she convinced many other brave African Americans to join her as spies—even at the risk of being hanged if they were caught.

A SECRET MISSION

The Civil War was a time when women were usually restricted to traditional roles like cooking and nursing. Tubman did jobs like that, but as a spy she worked side-by-side with men, says Tom Allen, author of the Nat Geo book Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent .

In one of her most dramatic and dangerous roles, Tubman helped Colonel James Montgomery plan a raid to free enslaved people from plantations along the Combahee (pronounced “KUM-bee”) River in South Carolina. Early on the morning of June 1, 1863, three gunboats carrying several hundred male soldiers along with Tubman set out on their mission.

Tubman had gathered key information from her scouts about the Confederate positions. She knew where they were hiding along the shore. She also found out where they had placed torpedoes, or barrels filled with gunpowder, in the water.

As the early morning fog lifted on some of the South’s most important rice plantations, the Union expedition hit hard. The raiders set fire to buildings and destroyed bridges so they couldn’t be used by the Confederate Army. They also freed about 750 enslaved people—men, women, children, and babies—and did not lose one soldier in the attack.

A WRITER'S QUEST

To gather the facts, Allen searched libraries and the internet, and even walked in Tubman’s footsteps. “I went on the river just south of the area where the raid took place,” he says. “You're in that kind of country she would have known, with plenty of mosquitoes and snakes, and dirt roads are still there today—so you get a feeling of what it was like.”

Allen says his most exciting moment came when a librarian led him to written accounts by people who actually saw Tubman and the raiders in action.

“She was five feet two inches (157 centimeters) tall, born a slave, had a debilitating illness, and was unable to read or write. Yet here was this tough woman who could take charge and lead men," Allen says. "I got to like her pretty quickly because of her strength and her spirit.”

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Women heroes, women's history month, the women's suffrage movement.

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Short Biography

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Date and place of birth

c.1820; Dorchester County, Maryland.

Date and place of death :

March 10, 1913; Auburn, New York.

Background:

Harriet Tubman was born a slave,  her parents named her Araminta “Minty” Ross. She changed her name in 1849 when she escaped . She adopted the name Harriet after her mother and the last name Tubman after her husband. Tubman suffered a head injury as a teenager which gave her vivid dreams and hallucinations, in addition to sleeping spells. She was deeply religious and according to her it was her religious beliefs that gave her courage rescue friends and family over and over again. She remained illiterate for her entire life.

Accomplishments :

Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad . In a decade she guided over 300 slaves to freedom; abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison thought she deserved the nickname “Moses” . She worked hard to save money to return and save more slaves. In time she built a reputation and many Underground Railroad supporters  provided her with funds and shelter to support her trips.

During the Civil War, Tubman served as a nurse, cook, laundress, spy and scout. After the Emancipation Proclamation  she returned to Auburn where she lived the rest of her life . She opened her doors to those in need. With donations and the proceeds of her vegetable garden she was able to support herself and those she helped. She raised money to open schools for African Americans and gave speeches on Women’s rights . Her dream was to built a home for the elderly and in 1908 the Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly  was inaugurated.

Watch this interesting video by Citizen and Immigration Canada about the life of Harriet Tubman:

More videos about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad >>

A biography you might be interested in reading:, benjamin franklin, americas’s genius.

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Learn more about the Compromise of 1850

African american civil rights movement, the life of frederick douglass, life and poems of phillis wheatley, abraham lincoln.

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Harriet Tubman Resources: Biographies of Harriet Tubman

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Sarah Hopkins Bradford

• Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman by Bradford, Sarah H. Call Number: L.Hist E444 .T89 First edition of the biography by Sarah Hopkins Bradford, published in Auburn, New York in 1869 by the printer W.J. Moses. Includes a list of subscribers to the publishing fund.

Sarah Hopkins Bradford, of Geneva, New York, recorded the life story of Harriet Tubman in 1868, based on interviews with Tubman, in an attempt to get her story out and improve her financial situation.  The printing was financed by Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, William H. Seward, Jr., and other friends and former anti-slavery associates.  A second revised edition was published in 1886.

• "And Who Was She Anyhow?" Sarah Hopkins Bradford, Biographer of Harriet Tubman by Pierce, Preston E. Call Number: L. Hist. PS1120.B42 Z36 2009 ISBN: 0941198340 Published by the Ontario County Historical Society in 2009, this biography traces Bradford's history as well as background information on Harriet Tubman and the creation of the first biographies. Includes references and numerous illustrations.

E-books on the Web

Digitized full-text reproductions of printed editions available through Google Books

• Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman Reproduction of the 1869 edition of Sarah Hopkins Bradford's Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.
• Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People Reproduction of the 2nd edition of Sarah Hopkins Bradford's biography of Harriet Tubman, first published in 1886, reprinted in 1897.

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Additional Titles

Earl Conrad

• Harriet Tubman by Conrad, Earl Call Number: E444.T896 Biography published in 1943.

Earl Conrad's  biography of Harriet Tubman,  the first serious attempt to reconstruct her life since Sarah Bradford's biographical sketches, was  rejected by over 30 publishers before finally being published in 1943.  It stood as the most authoritative source on Harriet Tubman for more than 60 years.

• General Harriet Tubman by Conrad, Earl Call Number: L.Hist E444.T98 C66 1990 Reprint of the 1943 book originally titled Harriet Tubman. This book does not circulate.

Setting the Record Straight

• The Truths Behind the Myth of Harriet Tubman by Renee Gearhart Levy This article appeared in the Spring 2008 print edition of Maxwell Perspective, a publication of the Maxwell School of Citizenship, Syracuse University.
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• Last Updated: May 21, 2024 2:15 PM
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Harriet Tubman

• Occupation: Nurse, Civil Rights Activist
• Born: 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland
• Died: March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York
• Best known as: A leader in the Underground Railroad

• Her nickname as a child was "Minty".
• She was a very religious woman having learned about the Bible from her mother.
• Harriet bought a house in Auburn, New York for her parents after helping them to escape from the south.
• Harriet married John Tubman in 1844. He was a free black man. She married again in 1869 to Nelson Davis.
• She usually worked the Underground Railroad in the winter months when the nights were longer and people spent more time indoors.
• There is a story that slaveholders offered a reward of $40,000 for the capture of Harriet Tubman. This is likely just a legend and not true.
• Harriet was very religious. When she led fugitives across the border she would exclaim "Glory to God and Jesus, too. One more soul is safe!"
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Harriet Tubman

Military scout and tenacious visionary: from her roots in ghana to her legacy on the eastern shore.

LIST PRICE $28.95

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Table of Contents

About the book, about the authors.

Jean Marie Wiesen, a noted investigative author and mystery crime writer, is author of Case of the Missing Look Alikes and Case of the Mouse Trap Legend. She attended Art Center College of Design in Southern California, where she majored in Still Photography and minored in Creative Writing. The author continued polishing her writing craft under the tutelage of British author Robert Pollock.

Rita Daniels , the great-great-great grandniece of Harriet Tubman, is the President and Founder of the Harriet Tubman Learning Center (HTLC) based in Powder Springs, Georgia. She earned her Master’s Degree in Education and Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources (Cum Laude) at Trident University International. Rita’s mission is to promote the education of underserved children, so no child suffers the humiliation of illiteracy, as Harriet did.

Product Details

• Publisher: Pegasus Books (February 4, 2025)
• Length: 304 pages
• ISBN13: 9781639368136

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6 years in the making, Harriet Tubman monument to be unveiled. Here are the plans

After more than six years, the sculpture honoring the abolitionist Harriet Tubman has arrived .

On Saturday, Jun 1, 2024, at 1 p.m. the sculptor Ed Dwight depiction of Tubman will be revealed to the city of Beaufort at the Tabernacle Baptist church on Craven Street just yards away from the grave of Robert Smalls, another hero of the country.

Colorado-based Dwight’s creation of the monument shows a stoic Tubman leading a faction during the Combahee RIver Raid . The sculptor is also known for creation of the African American History Monument in Columbia.

Her history of bravery

On the night June 1, 1863, Tubman joined Col. James Montgomery on an armed steamer sailing from Beaufort, according to the book “Rebellion, Reconstruction and Redemption, 1861-1893: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 2,” written by Stephen R. Wise and fellow historian Lawrence Rowland.

The successful raid at the Combahee Ferry resulted from Tubman’s extensive local knowledge of the waters of the Lowcountry. She directed the three steamboats with Black soldiers under Montgomery’s command past mines to assault several plantations and ultimately assist in getting 750 formerly enslaved people to safety. After returning to Beaufort, slaves gathered in a Baptist church to listen to Tubman’s words of encouragement and resolve.

Here are the events for the weekend, all near the church at 901 Craven Street in historic Beaufort.

Today, May 31, 2024

6 p.m.: Author, historian and educator Edda Fields-Black will discuss her latest book entitled “COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid and Black Freedom during the Civil War.”

Saturday, June 1, 2024

1 p.m.: The unveiling of the monument and a “Taste from Harriet Tubman” that includes various food vendors

Sunday, June 2, 2024

10 a.m.: Church service worship

2 p.m.: Actress Lucinda Carr will perform her one woman show “Harriet Tubman: My Life not my Own.”

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Harriet Tubman raid to free more than 700 in South Carolina to be honored

Church to unveil sculpture on 161st anniversary of raid, by: skylar laird - may 30, 2024 7:42 pm.

A monument to Harriet Tubman, which Tabernacle Baptist Church leaders will unveil in Beaufort, South Carolina, on June 1, the anniversary of the raid in which Tubman helped free more than 700 slaves. Photo provided by the Tabernacle Baptist Church.

A historic Black church in Beaufort, South Carolina, will unveil a sculpture this weekend of Harriet Tubman on the 161st anniversary of the raid she led that freed more than 700 slaves from Lowcountry plantations.

The June 1 unveiling of the sculpture , which has been eight years in the making, will add to the long history of Tabernacle Baptist Church, where Civil War hero and South Carolina lawmaker Robert Smalls was buried in 1915.

Born enslaved on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1822, Tubman is the best-known conductor of the Underground Railroad, as she led at least 70 slaves in Maryland to freedom before the Civil War.

But her work in South Carolina during the Civil War often gets overlooked, said the Rev. Kenneth Hodges, the church’s pastor for 29 years.

The monument will be the first in the state marking her daring mission in June 1863 along the Combahee River, he told the SC Daily Gazette earlier this month.

The raid made Tubman, sometimes called the Moses of Her People, the first woman ever to lead a major military operation in the U.S., according to the Smithsonian. She remained the only African American woman to lead troops in the Civil War, according to the National Park Service .

“Harriet Tubman is a world-renowned figure, and right now, South Carolina isn’t putting any resources into the fact that she was here,” Hodges said.

In 2016, the members of Tabernacle Baptist Church decided to change that. Despite delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the church raised $600,000 for the sculpture itself, plus another $100,000 for other expenses such as landscaping.

The money, all private donations, also covered the funding for an interpretive center on church grounds nearby, where people can go to learn more about Tubman.

The church will unveil the sculpture as part of a three-day celebration of the anniversary of the Combahee River Raid. The celebration, beginning Friday, will feature speeches from experts on Tubman, as well as her great-great-great-grand niece, said Hodges, who represented that area of Beaufort and Colleton counties for 12 years in the South Carolina House.

The festival will also have food trucks, a nod to the fact that Tubman once worked in a bakery in Beaufort, Hodges said.

Tubman, who escaped slavery alone to Philadelphia in 1849, first arrived in South Carolina in 1862. Using a network of spies, the abolitionist spent the following year gathering information about the plantations lining Beaufort’s Combahee River, where thousands of slaves farmed rice, according to the National Park Service .

The night of June 1, 1863, Tubman led three steamships up the river that carried several hundred African American soldiers from the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry, a regiment consisting largely of freed men from the sea islands. Using Tubman’s knowledge of the area, they avoided explosives and navigated to strategic points.

From the river, the ships sounded their whistles, and hundreds of slaves, including children, came running to the river. Soldiers waiting in rowboats took them to the steamships, where they escaped to safety.

Infantrymen burned the plantations behind them, striking a blow to the Confederacy with the destruction of several million dollars’ worth of homes and crops, according to the National Park Service.

The 14-foot-tall sculpture will show Tubman flanked by soldiers, with people running toward them, just as the slaves ran toward the boats.

The story was so evocative, the design came easily, said sculptor Ed Dwight, who lives in Colorado.

“That was the fun part, going back in history and seeing her being commissioned by the U.S. government,” Dwight said.

Dwight finds that his sculptures, which include the African American History Monument on South Carolina’s Statehouse grounds, teach white and Black people alike about parts of history they didn’t know. Often, they walk away with more empathy than they had before, he said.

“That’s the ever-so-quiet effect of doing memorials down there” in the South, said the Black sculptor.

People might forget Tubman’s operation in South Carolina without reminders like the sculpture or the bridge over the Combahee River bearing Tubman’s name, Hodges said. In 2006, while he was a state representative, Hodges sponsored the resolution to name the bridge before its construction.

“If we didn’t put emphasis on that, that part of her life would be void,” Hodges said. “It’s going to be a big, big thing for South Carolina.”

He said Tabernacle Baptist Church, officially organized the same year as the raid, is known for its historical connections. The church itself is part of the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.

Smalls, who was a state legislator and five-term congressman along with being a Civil War hero, is buried on the church’s ground.

Born enslaved in Beaufort, Smalls hijacked a Confederate ship to steer his family to freedom and deliver the ammunition on board to the Union on May 13, 1862. Last year, legislators approved designating every May 13 as Robert Smalls Day in South Carolina. Lawmakers agreed unanimously this year to create a commission tasked with recognizing Smalls on Statehouse grounds.

The monument will be the first to memorialize an individual Black person on the capitol complex.

Tabernacle is ahead of the state, Hodges pointed out: The church already has a bust commemorating Smalls.

“Tabernacle has always been associated with history and culture,” Hodges said. “That’s just an extension of our ministry, of our service to the community.”

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Skylar Laird

Skylar Laird is a reporter for the South Carolina Daily Gazette.

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Teach your young child about Black history with these books

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They’ll learn about everyone from Harriet Tubman to Michael Jordan

It’s never too early to teach youngsters about the rich history and cultural legacy honored during  Black History Month  and all year long. This February and beyond, you can spark your child’s curiosity with  children’s books  about African Americans who have contributed to U.S. history since the country was founded. 

Black history is diverse, as are the books that tell the story of Black people’s struggles, triumphs and contributions. From determined  abolitionists  to dedicated activists and  sports superstars , the books on our list feature iconic figures who will have youngsters wanting to learn more.  

Shop this article:  “Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History,” by Vashti Harrison ,  “Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library,” by Carole Boston Weatherford  and  “Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” by Doreen Rappaport

Teaching kids about Black history

Not sure where to start when it comes to introducing kids to Black history? Or do you want to teach them about new subjects, eras and role models to expand their knowledge? Children’s books on these important topics will help kids understand the many important  aspects of Black History . You’ll find numerous books on our curated list that are sure to inspire the young readers in your life. 

Best books for young kids to learn about Black history

“The Undefeated,” by Kwame Alexander  

This award-winning book focuses on the lives of Black people in the United States and includes vital historical references to slavery and the Civil Rights movement.  The historical facts are combined with insights into the triumphs of African Americans over generations. It’s beautifully illustrated by Kadir Nelson. 

“Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History,” by Vashti Harrison

At first look, kids will love this book for its sweet illustrations. But they’ll read it time and again to be inspired by the stories of the amazing Black women who played key roles in American history. It features Sojourner Truth, Shirley Chisholm, Maya Angelou and more. It made the bestseller lists of The New York Times and USA Today. 

“I Am Harriet Tubman,” by Brad Meltzer

Illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos, this book about Harriet Tubman has a lively tone that makes it engaging for kids to read. They’ll learn about how the determined abolitionist escaped slavery and heroically fought it throughout her life. The New York Times bestseller is part of the Ordinary People Change the World series. 

“Heart and Soul: The Story of Americans and African Americans,” by Kadir Nelson

Author and illustrator Kadir Nelson captures the reality and determination of African Americans dating back to slavery. Told from the point of view of a centenarian African American woman, it’s an award-winning picture book that’s enjoyable for kids and adults to share during story time. 

“The 1619 Project: Born on the Water,” by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson  

This thoughtful book gives young readers an understanding of slavery and the lives that Black people had before being taken from Africa.  It focuses on a student researching a family tree project who learns her ancestors’ history from her grandmother’s account. It’s illustrated by Nikkolas Smith. 

“The Quickest Kid in Clarksville,” by Pat Zietlow Miller

This fascinating book will encourage kids to read as they learn valuable lessons in perseverance from the point of view of Alta, a young sprinter. They’ll also learn about track and field Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph. The inspiring book is illustrated by Frank Morrison. 

“Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library,” by Carole Boston Weatherford

Arturo Schomburg was dedicated to collecting books, music, art and other items that showcased the contributions and achievements of people who descended from Africa. His large collection is now part of the renowned Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Illustrated by Eric Velasquez, this book tells his extraordinary story. 

“Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” by Doreen Rappaport

With quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches and life-like illustrations from illustrator Bryan Collier, this is an outstanding book for teaching kids about the historic equal rights activist. It’s a biography that has earned numerous honors and recognitions for bringing Dr. King’s message and life story to children. 

“The ABCs of Black History,” by Rio Cortez

A New York Times bestseller, “The ABCs of Black History,”  is a rhyming book that attaches a concept, person, place and more to each letter of the alphabet to teach readers about Black history. The attention-grabbing illustrations are by Lauren Semmer. 

“The Story of Ruby Bridges, ” by Robert Coles

Ruby Bridges may not have felt like a social activist when she entered an all-white school at the age of 6, but her story of bravery and determination continues to inspire. This lovely children’s book, which is beautifully illustrated by George Ford, is the story of her courage. 

“Mae Among the Stars,” by Roda Ahmed

After reading “Mae Among the Stars,” kids will feel like anything is possible. That’s because this book tells the story of Mae Jemison who dreamed of being an astronaut since she was a child and went on to accomplish her goals. This easy-to-read story is packed with appealing illustrations by Stasia Burrington. 

“Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race,” by Margot Lee Shetterly

The four Black women who were instrumental in sending the first men into space were featured in a bestselling book and movie. Now kids can read about the “Hidden Figures” in this award-winning picture book. It’s an excellent choice for inspiring kids’ interest in STEM topics. It’s illustrated by Laura Freeman. 

“Who is Michael Jordan?” by Kirsten Anderson 

Young sports fans will find Michael Jordan’s story an inspiration to follow their dreams. Illustrated by Dede Putra, this biography tells about his journey that began with childhood dreams and led to the NBA. It’s part of the New York Times bestselling Who HQ series. 

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