At one point she confronted Brodess about the sale. When a trader from Georgia approached Brodess about buying Rit's youngest son, Moses, she hid him for a month, aided by other enslaved people and freedmen in the community. Edward Brodess sold three of her daughters (Linah, Mariah Ritty, and Soph), separating them from the family forever. Rit struggled to keep her family together as slavery threatened to tear it apart. They married around 1808 and, according to court records, had nine children together: Linah, Mariah Ritty, Soph, Robert, Minty (Harriet), Ben, Rachel, Henry, and Moses. Her father, Ben, was a skilled woodsman who managed the timber work on Thompson's plantation. Her mother, Rit (who may have had a white father), was a cook for the Brodess family. As a child, Tubman was told that she seemed like an Ashanti person because of her character traits, though no evidence has been found to confirm or deny this lineage. on a slave ship from Africa no information is available about her other ancestors. Tubman's maternal grandmother, Modesty, arrived in the U.S. Based on Larson's work, more recent biographies have accepted March 1822 as the most likely timing of Tubman's birth. Historian Kate Larson's 2004 biography of Tubman records the year as 1822, based on a midwife payment and several other historical documents, including her runaway advertisement. Tubman reported the year of her birth as 1825, while her death certificate lists 1815 and her gravestone lists 1820. Īs with many enslaved people in the United States, neither the exact year nor place of Tubman's birth is known. Ben was enslaved by Anthony Thompson, who became Mary Brodess's second husband, and who ran a large plantation near the Blackwater River in the Madison area of Dorchester County, Maryland. Rit was enslaved by Mary Pattison Brodess (and later her son Edward). Tubman was born Araminta 'Minty' Ross to enslaved parents, Harriet ('Rit') Green and Ben Ross. See also: Harriet Tubman's birthplace and Harriet Tubman's family She became an icon of courage and freedom. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her, and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people. When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. Tubman met John Brown in 1858, and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide escapees farther north into British North America (Canada), and helped newly freed people find work. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or ' Moses', as she was called) 'never lost a passenger'. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other enslaved people to freedom. In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland to rescue her family soon after.

These experiences, combined with her Methodist upbringing, led her to become devoutly religious.

After her injury, Tubman began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight, intending to hit another slave, but hit her instead. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage.īorn into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by various enslavers as a child. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. After escaping slavery, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad.

March 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist.

Black man driving railroad story