Harriet Tubman - Let My People Go

      Called the "Moses of her people". Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in early 1820 south of Madison and Woolford in Dorchester County, Maryland on a plantation owned by Anthony Thompson.  She was the fifth child of nine born to slaves Ben and Harriet "Rit" Green Ross, who were slaves captured from the Ashanti tribe of West Africa.  She was given the name of her two parents and nicknamed "Minty", though her name was later changed to Harriet after her mother.

      At age 5, she became a house servant to Thompson's family and was sent to work in the fields at age 7.  As a child, Harriet was raised under harsh conditions and subjected to many whippings.  At age 12, she was seriously injured by a blow to the head that had been inflicted by a white overseer by blocking a doorway and refusing to assist in tying up a man who had attempted to escape.  Tubman suffered narcolepsy for the remainder of her life as a result of the head injuries she sustained.

      In 1845, at age 25, she married John Tubman, a free African American.  Four years later, on September 17th, 1849, fearing she would be sold to the South as she was still legally a slave, she made her escape.  She was given the names of two people who would assist her by a friendly white neighbor woman.  The two told her how to find the first house on her path to freedom.  She followed the North Star by night along a route to Pennsylvania and initially settled in Philadelphia where she met William Still, the Philadelphia Stationmaster of the Underground Railroad.  With the help of Still and others of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, Tubman began working for the cause. 

      "When I found I had crossed the Mason-Dixon line, I looked at my hand to see if I were the same person.  The sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields and I felt like I was in Heaven."

      In 1851, she began relocating members of her family to St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada.  North Street in St. Catherines remained her base of operations for the next 6 years.  On her next trips south back into the United States, she rescued one of her brothers and a sister, along with two nieces.  She had attempted to bring her husband back to Canada with her, but found he had taken another wife.  She left him and brought slaves with her back to Canada instead.  She worked various jobs there to finance her activities as a Conductor on the Underground Railroad and she attended the Salem Chapel BME Church on Geneva Street.

      After freeing herself from slavery, Tubman returned to Maryland to rescue the remaining members of her family.  Over 10 years, she made 19 trips to the South and she conducted a little over 300 persons in all to freedom in the North.  She was called the "Moses of her people" after Andrew Johnson, who was known as "Moses of the colored people."  Tubman devised clever techniques to help make her forays successful including leaving to rescue slaves on a Saturday night since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning...and she knew she would be back by then.  She also carried a drug to use on babies to quiet their crying which might put the fugitives in danger.  She carried a handgun as well, which she threatened the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die a slave."  In 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South.  At one time, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate.  She pulled out a book and feigned reading it; a ploy which was enough to fool the men into believing she was not Tubman.

      While running the Underground Railroad between Rochester and Syracuse in Upstate New York, Tubman found a number of sympathetic Quakers and other abolitionists...and she settled in Auburn in Cayuga County, which was also the home of U.S. Senator and former New York State Governor, William Seward.  In 1855, Tubman met with Seward and his wife, Frances.  The Sewards provided a home for one of Tubman's nieces, Margaret, after helping her to escape from Maryland.  In 1857, the Sewards provided a home for Tubman, to which she relocated her 70 year old parents from St. Catherines, Canada.  The home was later sold to Tubman for a small sum, and became her base of operations when she was not on the road aiding fugitives from slavery and speaking in support of the cause.

      Tubman worked closely with southern abolitionist John Brown and Upstate New York abolitionists Frederick Douglass, Jermain Loguen, and Gerrit Smith.  Douglass was quoted as saying, "Excepting John Brown, I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than Harriet Tubman."  "General" Tubman, as Brown called her, missed the raid on Harper's Ferry only because she was ill that day.  Brown was wounded and captured during that raid.  He was later tried and found guilty of his crimes against the South; and was hanged for "treason". 

      After the outbreak of the Civil War, Tubman served as a soldier, spy, cook and a nurse; for a time, serving at Fortress Monroe, where Jefferson Davis would later be imprisoned.  She became the first American woman ever to plan and lead a military operation; the raid at Combahee Ferry, South Carolina in early June, 1863; freeing over 750 slaves  While guiding a group of black soldiers in South Carolina, she met Nelson Davis, who was 23 years her junior.  Denied payment for her wartime service. Tubman and Davis were forced to stow away in a train's baggage car to return to Auburn.  Once back in Auburn after the close of the Civil War, she married Davis in 1869 and lived in a home they built on South Street, near her original home there.  Her first house still stands on the property and serves as a home for the Resident Manager of the Harriet Tubman House, which also remains standing on the site.

      Only 10 miles from Seneca Falls, New York, the birthplace of the Women's Rights Movement and women's suffrage, Tubman remained a center of activity in support of those causes, too.  With her home just blocks down the street, Tubman remained in contact with William and Frances Seward.  In 1908, she built a wood structure that served as her home for the aged and indigent with the monthly $20 pension she recieved for her services during the Civil War.  She worked in the home in her later years and was, herself, cared for there in the period before her death on March 10th, 1913.  Her home for the aged and indigent was cloased in 1928 and later demolished in 1944. 

      Tubman was buried in Fort Hill Cemetary in Auburn with full military honors.  On June 14th, 1914 a large bronze plaque was placed at the Cayuga County Courthouse in Auburn and a civic holiday was declared in her honor.  She has recieved many honors, including the naming of the Liberty Ship, Harriet Tubman, christened in 1944 by Eleanor Roosevelt.  Freedom Park, attributed to her memory, was opened in 1944 on North Street in Auburn, New York.  In 1995, Tubman was honored by the federal government with a commemorative postage stamp bearing her name and likeness.  On August 27th, 2003, Governor George E. Pataki signed into law a bill that established a day of commemoration to "honor true American herione - Harriet Tubman."  The law designates March 10th of each year as Harriet Tubman Day in New York State, honoring Tubman for her work with the Underground Railroad, marking the anniversary of her death in 1913 and making that day a state holiday in New York. 

      Referred to by many by a Biblical name, Tubman will always be remembered for quoting Moses with four simple words, "Let my people go."