Harriet Tubman

By Gwendolyn Briley-Strand

Slavery, the buying and selling of human flesh, was a big business in America between the late 1600's and the 1800's. By 1835 there were over two million Black men, women, and children in America who were forced to live as the property of someone else.

They were bought and sold like animals, no consideration for family. Husbands and wives were separated; parents and children were ripped apart. Their lives were not their own.  Many slaves tried to escape their terrible fate. Some were successful in finding their way to freedom-others were not. One of the most extraordinary women who found her way to freedom was Harriet Ross Tubman. Harriet Tubman was born into slavery as Araminta Ross, around 1820 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Harriet was one of eleven children born to Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross.

Harriet Tubman had a hard childhood and youth, filled with many trials and tribulations. But all those hardships were necessary to make her the woman she needed to become. She developed extraordinary physical endurance and muscular strength, as well as mental fortitude. William Still, in his book, The Underground Railroad, describes her as "a woman of no pretension, a most ordinary specimen of humanity." Her strength, courage, faith and steadfastness are still inspiring Americans over eighty years after her death.

Pauline Hopkins, noted black author around the turn of the century, eulogized Tubman as follows: "Harriet Tubman, though one of the earth's lowliest ones, displayed an amount of heroism in her character rarely possessed by those of any station in life. Her name deserves to be handed down to posterity side by side with those of Grace Darling, Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale; not one of them has shown more courage and power of endurance in facing danger and death to relieve human suffering than this woman in her successful and heroic endeavors to reach and save all whom she might of her oppressed people."

Important Dates Harriet Tubman Timeline