Harriet Tubman
March 1, 1822 – March 10, 1913
American abolitionist who escaped slavery and guided many enslaved people to freedom on the Underground Railroad. She served as a scout and spy for the Union Army.
Biography
Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, most likely in March 1822. As a child she was beaten by those who held her, and a blow to the head from a heavy weight thrown by an overseer left her with lifelong dizziness, pain and sudden bouts of sleep. She grew deeply religious and later attributed her vivid dreams and visions to God.
In 1849 she escaped to Philadelphia, then went back into Maryland again and again to lead relatives and others out of bondage. Over about thirteen trips she brought out roughly seventy people, travelling at night along the network of safe houses and sympathisers known as the Underground Railroad, and after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 she guided fugitives on to Canada. She met John Brown in 1858 and helped him plan and find recruits for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.
During the Civil War she worked for the Union Army as a cook and nurse and then as an armed scout and spy. She guided the raid at Combahee Ferry in South Carolina, which freed more than 700 enslaved people. After the war she lived in Auburn, New York, on land she had bought in 1859, cared for her elderly parents and campaigned for women's suffrage. She spent her last years in a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped found, and died there in 1913.
