Harriet Tubman (c.1820–1913,) born Araminta Ross, later Harriet Ross Tubman, was an American abolitionist and social reformer.
Born into slavery in Dorchester County plantation, Maryland, she worked variously as a house-cleaner, nurse, field hand, cook, and woodcutter. About 1844, she married John Tubman, a free black man. Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849.
Known as the ‘Moses of Her People,’ from her escape in 1849 until the Civil War, Tubman was active in the clandestine slave escape route, an intricate secret network of safe houses called the ‘Underground Railroad.’ She made several dangerous trips into the South and escorted over 300 fugitive slaves, including her parents, to freedom during the 1850s.
Celebrated among abolitionists, Tubman advised abolitionist John Brown before his attempt to launch the Harpers Ferry weapons raid (1859.) During the Civil War 1861–65, Tubman was a Northern spy and scout; after the war, she worked in the cause of black education in North Carolina. Tubman was denied a federal pension until 1897, when, 30 years after her service, a private bill providing for $20 monthly was passed by Congress.
Catherine Clinton wrote the popular biography Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom (2004.) In 2016, President Barack Obama’s administration announced plans to feature Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill while retaining President Andrew Jackson’s image on the back.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Harriet Tubman
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 …
—Harriet Tubman
Topics: Freedom
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
Topics: Dreams, Change
I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was two things I had a right to, liberty and death. If I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man should take me alive.
—Harriet Tubman
Topics: Death, Freedom, Dying
If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
—Harriet Tubman
We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.
—Harriet Tubman
Topics: War
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