Harriet Tubman
Essay Preview: Harriet Tubman
Report this essay
The Biography of Harriet Tubman
Harriet Ross Tubman was born in 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland. She had the childhood of a slave: much work, little schooling, and severe punishment. In 1848 she escaped. As a free woman she began to devise practical ways of helping other slaves escape. Over the following 10 years she made about 20 trips from the north into the south and rescued more than three hundred slaves. Her reputation spread rapidly and she won the admiration of leading abolitionists. Eventually a reward of $40,000 was posted for her capture. Harriet Tubman was a main character in the Underground railroad. She used her home to help the slaves trying to escaped. Thats why they wanted her for bail. She was never caught though.
Tubman met and aided John Brown in recruiting soldiers for his raid on Harpers Ferry. One of her major disappointments was the failure of the raid , and she is said to have regarded Brown as the true emancipator of her people, not Lincoln. In 1860 she began to canvass the nation, appearing at anti-slavery meetings and speaking on womens rights. Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War she was forced to leave for Canada, but she returned to the U.S. and served the Union as a nurse, soldier and spy. In the end she helped Brown a lot, no matter who took the credit. She was a good spy because she knew the terrain very well from the underground railroad.
I would recommend this book to a friend because its very interesting to see how she helped with the freeing of slaves and the part that she had in history. To me she was an honorable and brave woman