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Slave life in the mid-1800s
Harriet Tubman and the civil rights movement
Harriet Tubman and the civil rights movement
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Recommended: Slave life in the mid-1800s
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Dorchester County on the Eastern shore of Maryland, on the plantation of Edward Brodas. Her birth name was Araminta, and she was called Minty until she changed her name to Harriet in her early teen years. The reason why she changed her name was because she wanted to be named after her mother who was also named Harriet. Her parents, Benjamin Ross and Harriet Green, were enslaved Ashanti Africans who had eleven children, and saw many of there older children get sold into the Deep South. At five years old, Araminta was "rented" to neighbors to do housework. She was never very good at household chores, and was beaten regularly by her owners and those who rented her. She eventually was assigned work as a field hand, which she preferred over household work. Although she was a small woman, she was strong, and her time working in the fields probably contributed to her strength. At age fifteen she sustained a head injury, when she purposely blocked the path of the overseer pursuing a fellow slave, and was hit by the heavy weight the overseer tried to fling at the other slave. Harriet sustained a severe concussion and was ill. She took a long time recovering from this injury, and never fully recovered. She had periodic sleeping fits. Her fits made her look less attractive when someone tried to buy her.
When the old master died, the son who inherited the slaves was able to hire Harriet out to a lumber merchant, where her work was respected and where she was allowed to keep some money she earned from extra work. In 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a free black man. The marriage was apparently not a good match, from the beginning. It was shortly after her marriage that Harriet hired a lawyer to investigate her own legal history, and discovered that her mother had been freed on a technicality on the death of a former owner. But the lawyer advised Harriet that a court would be unlikely to hear the case, so Tubman dropped it. But knowing that she should have been born free, not a slave, caused her to consider freedom and dislike her situation.
I In 1849, several events came together to encourage Harriet Tubman to take her freedom. She heard that two of her brothers were about to be sold to the Deep South.
Consequently, Harriet Tubman was born a slave into a slave family. As a slave, at five years old, Tubman was "rented" to families where she was put to work winding yarn, checking animal traps, cleaning the houses and nursing children among many more laborious tasks. When she was older, she decided she prefered to work outside of the house as opposed to laboring inside the house with domestic chores. As a teenager, she would upset her owners and often was reprimanded and sent home because of her rebellious attitude. Later on in Tubman’s life, she married a free man and also found out that her mother was freed by her owner, but her mother was never informed of her freedom. This directly affected Tubman because her mother’s freedom also meant that Tubman was b...
In 1844 she got permission from her master to marry John Tubman, a free black man. For the next five years Harriet Tubman was a semi-slave. She was still legally a slave, but her master let her live with her husband. In 1847 her master died. Followed by the death of his recipient and young son in 1849. That made Harriet’s status uncertain. In the middle of rumors that the family's slaves were being sold to clear the estate, Harriet Tubman went to the North and freedom. Her husband stayed in Maryland. In 1849 Harriet Tubman moved to Pennsylvania. She returned to Maryland two years later hoping to get her husband to come to The North with her. John Tubman had remarried by then. Harriet did not marry again until after John Tubman died.
“ I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”~Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman sacrificed her life and freedom as well. She organized the Underground Railroad, and freed hundreds of slaves. As if the journey wasn’t difficult enough,stated by the book, Who Was Harriet Tubman, “But the trip was even more dangerous after 1850. That was because the Fugitive Slave Law had been passed.”(pg.56) The Fugitive Slave Law meant that runaway slaves who made it to the free states had to be sent back to their masters. People were allowed to beat the slaves and sell them back into the South too. Even though the situation was tough, Harriet Tubman never gave up on what she thought was
Harriet was born into slavery. Although, it was not until she was the age of six that she actually realized she was a slave girl. Her life was filled with love from those who surrounded her. They were her mother who she was very fond of, her younger brother whom she considered a bright child, and her grandmother who was like a treasure to her. Harriet's father was living and worked out of state to support his family. After some years her mother passed away and left Harriet and her brother, William, to the care of her mistress. Harriet loved her new mistress and treated her as though she were her own mother. When Harriet was twelve, her mistress passed. In the will her mistress left her to her sister's daughter at the young age of five. Mr. Flint became her new master'. Mr. Flint was fond of Harriet because she was different from the other slaves. She carried herself with respect and was in fact a hard worker. Mr.
Harriet Tubman Who is a great female hero from the 1800s? Who freed herself from slavery? Who freed other people from slavery? Not Wonder Woman, but Harriet Tubman. As you will see Harriet Tubman is a hero as seen through her personal background and lifetime accomplishments.
“I freed thousands of slaves, and could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.” (History.com) This Harriet Tubman quote is a great representation of the kind of person she was. Harriet Tubman was a great woman, not only did she escape slavery; she went back several times to save more people. She conducted the Underground Railroad and did great things that have changed our history in one of its darkest times in our history. Being a slave was not easy but that didn’t stop her.
Harriet married John Tubman in 1844. When she married John, she thought he could buy her freedom, but he never did. (Allen 20). Harriet said that she and her husband should leave, but he refused, and once she escaped on her own, he remarried. (Allen 30...
One of the things that Harriet Tubman did to overcome slavery was by escaping persecution. Escaping slavery was always on Harriet's mind ever since she was just a young child. Harriet was born straight into bondage when she was born in 1825. Majority of Harriet's family were involved in slavery. Her mother was sent from Africa on a slave ship to America to be a slave. Harriet, whose real name was Rit, began working in hard as a house servant when she was just five. Two years later Harriet knew that she had to escape from her hard life as a slave. When Harriet was seven she ran away from her homeowner to freedom alone. It was not until a short time later that she realized that she could not make it living on her own just being seven years old. She soon ret...
Araminta Harriet Ross, formally known as Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in March of 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland (Civil War, 2014). As a child, Tubman was “hired out” to various masters who were mean and cruel to her (Civil War, 2014). She suffered a terrible head injury at the hands of one of these cruel slave masters that caused her to have seizures and “visions” for the rest of her life, which she believed were sent from God (Civil War, 2014). In 1840, Tubman’s father was granted freedom as a results of a stipulation of his master’s will, but continued to work for his former owner’s family (Civil War, 2014). Araminta and the rest of her family were supposed to be granted freedom as well, but the law was ignored and kept the rest of the family enslaved (Civil War, 2014). In 1844, Araminta married a free black man and changed her name from Araminta Ross to Harriet Tubman (Civil War, 2014). In 1849, Tubman became critically ill with complications from her head injury, which led to her owner deciding to sell her, but he could not find a buyer (Civil War, 2014). After his own sudden death, the family began selling all of their slaves (Civil War, 2014). Not wanting the rest of her family to be separated, Tubman was determined to escape (Civil War, 2014).
Harriet Tubman was born in the year 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her parents were Harriet Green and Ben Ross. She is known by the name Harriet Tubman, but her real name was Araminta Ross. She had ten brothers and sisters who helped her with her work. Her family's nickname for her, as said by Elish, was “Minta” (9). She was born into a slave family which meant one thing: she was going to have a difficult life. She was abused and beaten by hard-hearted white people even when she was little. Her most difficult injury to overcome happened when she was only thirteen. A slave started to escape, so her master picked up a brick and threw it at him. Harriet stepped in front of the brick, trying to give the slave a chance to escape, and, in doing so, was hit in the head, knocking her out. Because of this injury, she had seizures and extremely painful headaches her entire life. When she was old enough, she was rented out to the Cook family. They disregarded her as a person or as an equal, making her sleep and share food with the dogs. The Cooks did not have enough money to keep her, so they gave her back. She was then rented to a woman named Miss Susan, who beat her mercilessly with a whip over the tiniest mistake. When she got the chance, she ran away from her, but ended up almost starving. She was returned to the plantation and started to work in the fields, gathering strength. Her father, hearing about her almost ...
We know her as the “Moses” of her people; she left a remarkable history on the tracks of the Underground Railroad that will never be forgotten. Harriet Tubman born into slavery around 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland, Harriet Tubman was a nurse, spy, social reformer and a feminist during a period of economic upheaval in the United States. For people to understand the life of Harriet Tubman, they should know about her background, her life as a slave, and as a free woman.
At the age of 25 in 1884 she married a free black John Tubman and changed her name to Harriet Tubman(her full name used to be Araminta Harriet Ross). Later fearing she would be sold south she made her escape, to Canada. She still had no rights and her responsibilities were to stay safe, and try to escape.
Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was named Araminta Ross when she was born, though she changed it soon after she married Jon Tubman. She inherited his last name and changed her name to her mother’s name, Harriet. Tubman was one of 11 children in her family and they were all born into slavery. She had a very tough childhood. Her parents’ master sold three of her sisters to other plantations very distant, which devastated the entire family. Soon after, Tubman’s father was approached about selling his youngest son, but he declined the offer. This set an admirable example, which inspired Tubman.
Tubman’s intense desire for freedom can be traced back to her earliest days as a child. Born in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman never knew her birthdate. It is thought that she was born in either 1820 or 1821, however, there are no formal records stating the exact date due to the fact that slave owners did not find it necessary to document the birthdate of their property (“Harriet Tubman”). At the age of seven, Tubman was hired out to a woman named Miss Susan. Living under Miss Susan, Tubman was no stranger to whipping and other cruel punishments whenever she did not complete her job as it was demanded. Even at such a young age, Tubman knew t...
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland around 1820. By the time Tubman had reached the age of 5 or 6, she started working as a servant in her master’s household. Approximately seven years after she began working as a servant, Tubman was sent to work out in the fields. While Tubman was still a teenager, she sustained an injury that would affect her for the rest of her life. One day, Tubman stood up for another slave and blocked a doorway in order to protect them from an upset overseer. The overseer threw a weight at one of the field hands, missing them and instead hitting Tubman on the head. Tubman was never able to fully heal from the wound she sustained from the overseer. This injury caused a chroni...