Family And Other Slaves Harriet example essay topic

Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 on a large plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was the sixth of eleven children. She was born in a very small on-room log hut, that was located behind her families owners house. The hut had a dirt floor, no windows, and no furniture.

Her father, Benjamin Ross, and mother, Harriet Green, were both slaves. They were from the Ashanti ri be of West Africa. Edward Brod as, Harriet's owner, hired her out as a laborer by the age of five. The buying and selling of humans was a big deal in America between the late 1600's and the 1800's. By 1835 there were over two million black men, women, and children who were slaves. These people were bought and sold.

No one cared if husbands and wives got or if children were separated from their parents. Slaves were not treated like people. No one really cared what happened to them Harriet was beaten by her masters all the time. They saw as a wild child. One them, Harriet saw a bowl filled with lumps of sugar and decided to take one.

Harriet's mistress, Miss. Susan, saw her take it and started chasing her with a whip. Harriet ran away and hid out with the pigs. She ahd to go bak c, because she was really hungry. When she went back she got whipped over and over again. She said, 'Now you know, I never had anything good, no sweet, no sugar, and that sugar right by me did look so nice.

' By her early teens, Harriet was no longer allowed to work inside, so she was hired out as a filed hand. She work very hard and long hours out in the fields. There was no such thing as a rest for slaves. In 1835, Harriet came between her owner and a slave who was running away. The owner threw a lead weight, that weighed 2 pounds, at the runaway, but it hit Harriet instead. the hit put hir in a coma and it took months for her to recover.

She never fully recovered from the hit and after that suffered from blackouts, really bad headaches, and sleeping spells for the rest of her life. In 1844, Harriet meet a free black man named John Tubman. They got married, but Harriet was still a slave. They got to stay in his cabin at night. Harriet's owner died and she knew she was going to be sold to someone else. She was really afraid of being shipped to the deep south.

The deep south was the worse place a slave could go. it was a death sentence for any slave. Harriet always dreamed about traveling up north where she would be free and she didn't want her marriage split up by the slave trade. She talked to John about escaping, and he said he would tell on her is she did. She planned out her escape and didn't tell him about it, because he would tell on her. The only person that knew about was one of her sisters. Harriet escaped at night.

She had no money and no food. She went to the house of a white women who had once offered to help her. The woman told Harriet which house to go to next. Going from house to house, was know as the underground railroad. Harriet's trip was a success and she was a free woman. She worked as a dishwasher, a cook, and a cleaning woman.

The next year, she went back to Maryland and rescued her sisters family. After that, she made a second trip to get her brother, James, and some of her other friends. She also went back to get her husband in September 1851, but he was remarried and he didn't want to go with her. Stopping at people's houses was known as the underground railroad. Each stop was the house of someone who hated slavery and knew it was wrong. they were willing to help runaway slaves to freedom. A lantern on a hitching post meant it was a safe house.

Many slaves were afraid to knock on a white family's door and trust them. The people th the safe houses, gave slaves hot food and a place to stay for the night. Slaves had to hide in the day them, so they wouldn't get caught. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act made it against the law to help runaway slaves. bo unter hunters could go into free states and capture slaves that had ran away. Any United States Marshall who refused to return a slave, would have to pay a thousand dollars. escaping slaves started to go to Canada. In 1860 the free states were California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

The slave states were Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and virginia. The slaves were aided by thousands of conductors. with the help of 3,000 conductors over 100,000 slaves escaped to freedom. harriet Tubman was the best single conductor in the history of the underground railroad. She got the nickname 'Moses' for leading so many slaves to freedom. She returned nineteen times to the worth and helped over 300 slaves to freedom. her Underground railroad stations extended, for the most part, from Maryland through New York, Albany, Troy, and Schenectady into Canada. She worked really hard on planning everything out just right. In the summer time when slaves, the wouldn't have to worry about the cold, the trees were green, and there were lots of berries and small animals to eat.

In the winter them when slaves escaped the rivers were frozen so they could cross them by walking on the ice, and there were less slave hunters, and masters were at Christmas pa rites. When slaves started their trip to freedom with Harriet, they could not go back. When slaves were to scared to go on, Harriet would point a gun to their head and make them go. She didn't want them to go back, get caught, and tell on her.

Harriet Tubman never lost one slave. There was a huge reward out for Harriet Tubman. Southern plants offered $40,000 for her capture. No one ever caught her.

She would dress in disguise, so no one would no it was her. She would dress up as an old lady or as a man. One day, Harriet saw one of her former masters and walked away before he could recognize her. In 1858 Harriet go to meet John Brown, a leader in the movement to end slavery. He said she was one of the best and on of the bravest people in the world. he called her 'General Tubman. ' Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860.

Eleven states withdrew from the United States, because Lincoln was against slavery. In 1861, the Civil War started. Harriet became a spy for the Union Army. Then she worked in Washington DC as a government nurse. During the war she went into enemy territory and rescued more slaves. was paid only $20 a month for her service in the Union army and she had to wait thirty years to receive these checks.

In December 1865, a little bit after the war ended, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed. There was no longer slavery allowed in the United States. After the war, Harriet went to go live with her parents in Auburn, New york. In 1867, John Tubman died. Then in 1869, Harriet met a guy named, Nelson Davis. They got married in 1870.

He was a former slave and he was a soldier in the army. thy were married for 18 years until Nelson died in 1888. In Auburn, New York Harriet went form door to door selling vegetables to people. Everyone always asked her to tell about the Underground Railroad. She also helped a lot of former slaves that came to her in Auburn.

In 1896, Harriet bought land to build a home for sick and needy blacks. she didn't have enough money to build the house, so she gave it to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. In 1897, Queen victoria awarded Harriet a silver medal for being so brave. The church completed the him and it was done by 1908. Harriet got old and sick.

She died of pneumonia n March 10, 1913. She lived to be 93 years old. Harriet had a hard childhood, but that made her the brave and caring woman she was. She risked her own life over and over again to free family and other slaves. harriet spent most of her life working to make life better for other people, and she did a really good job at ti. She was a very strong woman and she didn't let anything get in her way.

Harriet Tubman opened up the eyes of white people all over America and told them why slavery was so wrong.

Bibliography

Merton Dillon, Teh Abolitionists: The growth of a dissenting Minority, pg 187 David Alder, A story of Young Harriet Tubman, pg 22 Mark Buller, Harriet Tubman: her Courageous Story, pg 45 Free states versus Slave States, The World Book of encyclopedia, pg 475-480 Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery: 1830-1860, pg 203 Sarah Bradford, Harriet Tubman: The Moses of her People, pg 56 Tim Hopkinson, Railroad to Freedom pg 142.