“Freedom Fighter”: Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. March 1822-March 10, 1913)
I really try not to be critical, but some days it’s just tough. I wanted to think about great women who have contributed to their respective cultures and society. So, pretending to be an eighth-grade student, I Googled “great women.”
The very first source which Google search offered was entitled, “Greatest Women of All Time – Greatest Women in History.” That sounds just what I’m looking for, I thought. It was an article hosted by a popular magazine, which should have set off a red light to begin with. But realizing that this heading would be the first one any 8th grade eyes would see if they did a similar search for the quickest and easiest ideas for an essay on “Great Women,” I curiously proceeded.
In an effort to give some credibility to the article, the first nine women really were of some substance. Sappho (an ancient Greek poetess), Esther (a Hebrew peasant who became Queen), Joan of Arc (a French revolutionary heroine), Queen Elizabeth I (Queen of England), Sacajawea (a guide for Lewis and Clark), Maud Gonne (an Irish political revolutionary and social activist), Marie Curie (a scientist who discovered radioactivity), Dorothea Lange (a famous photojournalist of the Great Depression), and Eleanor Roosevelt (I presume you know who she was), followed by Billie Holiday (a famous jazz entertainer of the 1930s) at #10. Following the top ten were Mariel Hemingway at #26, Yoko Ono #29, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders at #30, Susan Sarandon at #31, Goldie Hawn #38, Joan Jett at #41, and the cartoon Jessica Rabbit #73.
Now I fully understand that any list is subject to criticism by those who feel that an important figure has been omitted. And there were justifiably “great women” on the list. But the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders?, Goldie Hawn? As great women of history? But after that I could only shake my head in disbelief. Entertaining? Probably. Famous? Sure. But great? Not so fast.
This list is true misinformation. Presenting information which is incomplete, promoting a misunderstood concept like greatness, from a very limited personal frame of reference. It is clear that the author had no real understanding of the word ‘greatness” from a historical point of view. If this is the kind of sappy information that our youngsters are exposed to, is it any wonder that our 8th graders are not excelling in their academic work, or in their lives in general? I know, I know, I’m old enough and smart enough to know better than to think a magazine article has any validity, but 8th graders aren’t!
Who are the unmentioned women who exhibited truly great personalities, demonstrating their strength of character, their positive contributions to society, their self-sacrifices, their courage, their perseverance? Here are a few that come quickly to mind:
Amelia Earhart, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Teresa, Cleopatra, Helen Keller, Maya Angelou, Anne Frank, Catherine the Great.
That’s my current rant. You get my point?
So, let me nominate a woman of true “greatness” – one of courage and self-sacrifice. One who risked her life numerous times for the benefit of others in great need; one who inspired admiration for her compassion and perseverance in the midst of suffering and persecution.
She is another notable, and regrettable, omission from the so-called list of “great women.” As a corrective, I would like to focus on her life today; because she truly, in both her character and actions demonstrated the qualities that could best be described as “great.” Her name was Harriet Tubman. Let me tell you her story.
Have you ever heard the expression, “Actions speak louder than words?”
Then one might rightly agree that for heroes and heroines that is particularly true. While others choose to sit on the sidelines and vilify from a distance (which has become a rather popular sport these days), heroes and heroines actively engage with boundaries and oppression with conviction, courage, and vision to rescue or inspire others.
Nothing could be truer than in the life of Harriet Tubman. Born into slavery, she demonstrated a strength of character, tremendous courage, and lifelong compassion fueled by an extraordinary conviction of freedom for her people.
Her maternal grandmother, Modesty, had arrived on a slave ship directly from Africa. She was born into slavery as Araminta Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland around 1822, and was nicknamed “Minty” by her family. Her mother was Harriet Green, and her father was Ben Ross. Both were enslaved by separate plantation owners near the Blackwater River of Dorchester County, Maryland. Her mother was a cook for her plantation and her father was a skilled woodsman who managed timbering on a separate plantation. Harriet was part of a large family consisting of eight siblings, though tragically, some were sold into slavery to other plantations at very early ages and separated from their family forever.
Harriet’s young childhood years were typical of most girls working on a plantation. Initially caring for her siblings, later she served as a nursemaid to a local woman, enduring frequent whippings if the baby cried too often or too loudly, carrying the scars the rest of her life. As she grew older, she labored wading through the marshes to check muskrat traps and helped by driving the oxen plowing the fields and hauling logs in the forest.
When she was an adult, an overseer carelessly threw a heavy weight at another slave but hit Tubman instead, which she said broke her skull. She was unconscious for 2 days during that time without any medical care. After that time, she suffered severe headaches and seizures, often falling asleep, suggestive of a form of epilepsy or narcolepsy.
She also began having vivid dreams and visions which she interpreted as inspirations from God. She had been told the stories of the Bible by her mother and found hope in the stories of the Old Testament of the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt. She remained deeply religious throughout her entire life and often credited those beliefs to her strong activism in freeing bound slaves and pursuing women’s rights.
Around 1844 she married John Tubman, who was a free black man, though she remained regarded as a slave. At that time, along the eastern coast of Maryland, nearly half of the black individuals were regarded as free and consisted of mixed families of both free and enslaved persons. Near the time of her marriage, she changed her name from Arminta to Harriet, thought to be a way of honoring her mother.
In 1849, her slave owner, Edward Brodess, died, and the plantation estate was left to his widow who began the process of selling off the plantation’s assets, including selling the slaves to other plantations. Fearing that she would be separated from her family, Harriet planned to escape. She is quoted as saying, “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.”
She escaped to freedom in 1849 using the “underground railroad,” a network of secret routes and safe houses. It is thought that she may have first escaped into the care of a local Quaker community her first night, and then moved up along the Choptank River into Delaware and Pennsylvania, a journey of nearly 90 miles, which would take between 5 days to 3 weeks to journey by foot. However, she knew the area well and would hide during the day and only journey at nighttime to avoid the slave catchers. At one point in time, she had a price of nearly $100, about $3,500 in today’s equivalents, for her capture and return to slavery. Finally arriving in Pennsylvania, she would exclaim years later, “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.”
But to complicate matters, the United States Congress, in 1850, passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced law enforcement officials to assist in the capture of escaped slaves, even in states that had outlawed slavery. For that reason, many escaping slaves attempted to escape even further north into Canada where slavery had been completely abolished.
In 1851, she returned to Dorchester County to locate her husband, John, but discovered that he had remarried. Frustrated and disappointed, she found and assisted other enslaved blacks in the area to escape with her on her way to back to Philadelphia. Inspired by her religious convictions, she now had a new purpose in life, helping others escape the suffering of their bondage. She later served as a “conductor” who led approximately 13 rescue missions to the South and rescued approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, to freedom in the North and even Canada, earning her the nickname “Moses.”
The nickname was apt, was it not? A single person, humble and common, chosen by God to lead His people out of the bondage of slavery from the rich and powerful of another race. Violently chased by those of hatred and oppression, fleeing from impending peril between the upstretched waves of uncertainty and fear at great risk to their lives, they followed one led by God to a promised land of freedom. Her name was “Moses.”
Though illiterate her entire life, Harriet was clever as a fox. It’s interesting to read of the ingenuity that Harriet Tubman used in her efforts to rescue enslaved blacks. It is said that she nearly always traveled at night, and often in the winter to take benefit of the long winter nights to minimize being seen. She would try to begin the escapes on a Saturday since newspapers would not publish run-away notices until Monday mornings. She often disguised herself as a man, or as a servant carrying out an errand. In addition, she would often use her religious faith as a code for communicating her intentions with the blacks to be rescued, adapting negro spirituals and changing their lyrics to convey safety or danger for the planned escape. Some have stated that she carried a revolver to protect her from slave catchers and their dogs, but she apparently never used it. During her 8 years of assisting enslaved blacks, neither Tubman nor any of her fugitives were ever captured.
Frederick Douglass once wrote of Harriet Tubman:
Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day – you in the night… The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. 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.
Harriet Tubman was not only well-known to Frederick Douglass, but also to John Brown, who was an abolitionist that supported armed resistance to establish a state for freed slaves. In 1858, he developed plans for an attack on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. True to her activist leanings, Harriet Tubman assisted his efforts by recruiting other abolitionists amongst her network of resources in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. Due to illness, however, Mrs. Tubman did not participate in the actual failed attack, which ultimately led to John Brown’s trial for treason, murder, rebellion, and his eventual hanging.
In 1859, Tubman purchased a seven-acre farm in Fleming, New York, that was adjacent to Auburn, New York, a center of abolitionist activity at the time. Here, despite her poverty, she would assist other freed slaves as well as relatives in establishing their residence in the North, oftentimes opening her home to them for various periods of time.
The American Civil War broke out in 1861. Seeing a Union victory as a huge step towards emancipation, Harriet joined the Union army as a volunteer assisting in the refugee camps around Port Royal, South Carolina as a camp nurse. It has been stated that, not wanting to accept government rations, she made money by selling pies and root beer which she made in the evenings.
After the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman increased her contributions to the Union army by becoming a spy for the army engaged around the Combahee River. Her intelligence gathering for the army contributed to a huge military victory by the Union army raid upon Combahee Ferry which was led by three steamboats with black soldiers on board. The victory was able to secure the release and freedom of more than 750 formerly enslaved people. Her actions were described as “patriotism, sagacity, energy, and ability.” Later, she would also assist with the Union assault on Fort Wagner.
Despite her huge humanitarian and military contributions to the federal government, she was never fully recognized and received little financial support from the U.S. government. Because of this, she returned to her home in Auburn, New York, in a state of abject poverty. Nonetheless, she tended to her farm and assisted in other people’s needs, including other freed slaves. In 1869, she married an Auburn bricklayer, Nelson Davis, who had been a private in the 8th United States colored infantry regiment. He was 22 years younger than she, and they adopted a baby girl named Gertie in 1874. Life was not to be kind to Harriet, for in 1888, Nelson died from tuberculosis. Harriet, despite having fallen prey to swindlers, her house burning down and needing to be rebuilt, and no substantial compensation from the government for her services during the Civil War, continued to eke out a meager subsistence supported by her friends, a book contract, and neighbors. Finally, meager as it was, United States Congress finally approved a widow’s pension endowment of $20 per month but never acknowledged her services as a scout and spy.
Harriet Tubman’s courageous fight for freedom did not end with the cause for racial equality. Eventually she also became involved in the women’s suffrage movement and worked alongside the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, including Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland, traveling and giving speeches in support of equal rights for women. Because of her selfless contributions to others, and assistance to those in need, she continued to live in substantial poverty for the remainder of her life.
In 1896, Harriet purchased a 25-acre farm adjacent to her current one with the intent of developing a home for the aged and indigent colored people. After numerous financial difficulties, it was deeded over to the AME Zion Church of Auburn who then developed the facility. Eventually, in 1911, Harriet Tubman entered her own Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, described as ” ill and penniless,” ultimately dying of pneumonia on March 10th, 1913. She was honored with semi-military honors and buried at the Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.
It is difficult to over-state, though impoverished her entire life, the richness of character that flowed from Harriet Tubman’s life of service to both her people and to her nation. Words simply do not do justice in describing the personal pain and suffering she bore, the childhood oppression, the headaches and seizures, the terror of flight from capture, torture or hanging, the loss of loving husbands and family. Yet, there grew a strength of character, a “greatness,” that would transcend the suffering and loss; that would demonstrate courage in the midst of brutality, compassion for those fleeing persecution, and a righteousness that conquers injustice.
Harriet Tubman was truly, in every sense of the term, a “great woman” to be recognized and honored.