M. E.

Literature 4th

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman has played a major role in our history by leading about 300 slaves during the 1840s to freedom. Before her years of being a hero to many, she was just a normal girl born into slavery. Her name was Araminta Ross and she was born 1 of 11 around the years of 1819-1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland. At the age of 10, she faced many harsh conditions and had to overcome the hardships of being a female African slave. At the age of twenty-five, she married a free African American named John Tubman. One day, her white neighbor gave her a piece of paper that  would soon lead her way to freedom. The paper showed a route to Pennsylvania where she would soon find a man named William Still. This man was the cause of all her heroic actions. Here, she found out about the workings of the UGRR (underground railroad). Soon after freeing herself though, she returned to Maryland to resettle her family to St. Catherine’s Ontario around 1851. This spot was where most of her freed slaves came before heading anywhere in the north.  Now Harriet Tubman was, to me, one of the world’s most strongest women. She was even called the Moses of the freed blacks.

Slaves who re-thought their action of escaping would be shot by Harriet herself, but she also believed God aided all of her efforts. Now freeing 300 slaves was no easy thing to do. She faced being caught because she herself was a fugitive slave. There were bounties offered to those who found the slaves she freed. She herself even had reward money of  $10,00 to anyone who captured her. She had to be on constant watch out for not only herself, but for her slaves as well.