Harriet Tubman Biography
Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross, was an African-American woman who helped rescue tons of slaves in the mid/late 1800’s. She was born in 1822, though the exact day is not known since records never kept that information. This information was never kept because Harriet was born a slave on a plantation in Maryland to her parents, Rit and Ben. All that is known about her ancestry is that her grandmother traveled to the U.S. on a slave ship coming from where Ghana is today. Harriet had eight siblings, but she never remembered three of her sisters as they were sold to a different plantation before she could remember. A brother of hers was also sold at a young age, but not so young that she didn’t remember him.
Harriet has mistreated her whole life, especially in her childhood. She was whipped a lot during her adolescence, for misbehaving or even simple misunderstanding she was whipped, leaving her scars that would last until the day she died. Once, Tubman recalled a time where she was whipped multiple times before she even ate her first meal. A time in her childhood, she was sent to go buy dry goods when a runaway slave was caught by an overseer, the overseer told Harriet to hold the slave but she refused. The overseer grabbed a weight and threw it at her head, leaving her with headaches, seizures and narcolepsy for the rest of her life. Seeing as the slaves were not giving proper health care when they were injured, this injury only got worse after she was hit. She said, “I grew up like a neglected weed – ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it.” Slavery was an awful thing, Harriet had an awful childhood, one that no person should have to endure, freedom was so far from what she had. Luckily, she realized something was wrong in her life, this realization made her save so many people who were helpless.
Harriet Tubman was a woman who became a leading figure in the abolitionist movement. To be an abolitionist means you stand against slavery and want it to end. In America the abolitionist movement was used as a way to protest that slaves should be set free and slavery should not happen anywhere in the country. After escaping slavery, she sought to rescue and help many more slaves escape by constantly traveling back and fourth bringing slaves up north where they were free. She even worked for the Union Army in the Civil War, as a nurse, spy and a cook. Even after doing all this, she dedicated the rest of her life to helping old people and people who had escaped/been released from slavery.
