Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. After her death in 1913, she became an icon of courage and freedom.
About Harriet Tubman in brief
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. Tubman retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement until illness overtook her, and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After her death in 1913, she became an icon of courage and freedom. She died in New York City on March 10, 1913, at the age of 89. She is buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, with her husband, Ben Ross, and her mother, Rit Ross, who was a cook for the Brodess family. Her maternal grandmother, Modesty, arrived in the US on a slave ship from Africa; no information is available about her other ancestors. As a child, Tub man was told that she seemed like an Ashanti person because of her character traits, though no evidence has been found to confirm or deny this lineage. She reported the year of her birth as 1825, while her death certificate lists 1815 and her gravestone lists 1820. She married Ben Ross in 1808; they had nine children together: Linah, Mariah Ritty, Soph, Robert, Minty, Ben, Henry, Edward and Moses.
When a trader sold Rit’s youngest son, Moses, she hid him for a month, aided by other enslaved people and freedmen in the community. At one point she confronted her owner about the sale, where the man backed away and abandoned his head open. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into British North America, and helped newly freed enslaved people to find work. She met John Brown in 1858 and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. In 1849, she escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland to rescue her family soon after. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other enslavedpeople to freedom. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people, in 1856. She also helped raise money for the U.S. Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C. and the National Museum of African American History in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1900s. She wrote a book about her experiences, “The First Lady of the Underground Railroad: A Memoir of Harriet Tubman, 1825-1913” (1913) She was married to Ben Ross from 1808 to 1859, and the couple had 9 children together.
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This page is based on the article Harriet Tubman published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
