harriettubman


 * Harriet Tubman **

Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland. She had a hard childhood as a slave with lots of work and hardly any school. She married John Tubman, a free black, in 1844. She escaped in 1848 and starting thinking of ways to help other slaves get away. Over the next 10 years, she made about 20 trips from the North into the South and rescued more than 300 slaves. Her reputation spread rapidly, and she won the admiration of leading abolitionists (some of whom sheltered her passengers). Eventually a reward of $40,000 was posted for her capture.

In 1860, she began to speak around the country at anti-slavery meetings and talked about women's rights. Before the Civil War, she was forced to go to Canada, but she returned to the United States and served the Union as a nurse, soldier, and spy. She helped the army because she knew the land very well from being a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Tubman's biography was written by Sarah Bradford in 1868. Her husband, John, died two years after the war, and in 1869 she married Nelson Davis. She received many honors and tributes and helped found a home for the needy, which was later renamed the Harriet Tubman Home. She died in Auburn, New York in 1913.