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Harriet Tubman

by Mathew from Plainfield, Connecticut

"I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger"
 (http://www.undergroundrailroadsongs.com/images/harriet_tubman.jpg)
(http://www.undergroundrailroadsongs.com/images/harriet_tubman.jpg)

Harriet Tubman is a person that changed many people’s lives. Before she was married her real name was Aramanita Ross. Harriet Tubman was a slave, she then escaped and was free. She saved about 300 slaves from slavery. During the night her white friend and herself decided to run away; they ended up stopping and staying in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Harriet Tubman is a hero because in Maryland of 1850, she saved over 300 slaves by helping them escape.

Harriet Tubman was born in 1819. She was born into slavery. At the age of 6 Tubman started to work in the fields, she was raised under harsh conditions; for example she was beaten most of the time. Most of Tubman’s childhood was spent with her grandmother. When she was 11 she wore a bright yellow bandana around her head to show that she wasn’t a child anymore. At the age of 12 Harriet was seriously injured by a blow to the head; she was refusing to help punish a person who attempted to escape, but had failed.

 (http://www.itsablackthang.com/images/Art-History/paul-collins-harriet-tubman.jpg)
(http://www.itsablackthang.com/images/Art-History/paul-collins-harriet-tubman.jpg)

In 1844, when she was only 25 years old, Harriet Tubman married a man by the name of John Tubman. Harriet and John were worried because the slave trade could split them apart. She wanted to go north to get away from slavery, John did not. John knew that Harriet was going to escape slavery; she escaped in 1849. Tubman received a piece of paper which showed the first house on the way out of slavery, if she ever wanted to escape. Harriet got a job in Pennsylvania. Harriet saved enough money from working to go save more slaves from slavery. Slaves wanted to escape so badly that, a slave that Harriet knew placed himself in a box and sent himself to Philadelphia. There was a man in Philadelphia named Henry Brown, and Henry helped slaves escape. In 1850 Harriet Tubman helped her first slave escape from slavery and go north.

In 1850 Harriet Tubman became an official conductor of the Underground Railroad. Slaves went to Canada because the slaves that she had saved wanted to get further away. In 1851 Harriet went to Canada because she wanted to help the slaves get away. In 1852 she traveled back to the US. That same year Harriet worked at Cape May, New Jersey and saved enough money to go to Maryland so that she can save more slaves. Between the years of 1852-1857 Harriet made 11 trips between Canada and Maryland. In 1861 she returned to the US, to work during the Civil War as a nurse. In the summer of 1863 Tubman worked as a scout for Colonel James Montgomery, a Union Colonel. She then was married again in 1869 to a Nelson Davis; they were married for 19 years until he died. March 10, 1913 Harriet Tubman died she was around the age of 93. Harriet was buried with military rights.

 (http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/APG/001-18667~Harriet-Tubman-Posters.jpg)
(http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/APG/001-18667~Harriet-Tubman-Posters.jpg)

Harriet Tubman is a person that changed many people’s lives. Tubman helped 300 slaves escape slavery, even though she was a slave herself. As a child she wanted freedom, she wanted a better life, so she escaped. Harriet Tubman is a hero because she never stopped aiming for her goal, and she inspired people to keep succeeding.

Page created on 1/22/2009 11:10:22 AM

Last edited 1/22/2009 11:10:22 AM

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