This woman is a superhero. She escaped herself and then put herself in danger many times to help others do the same. During the Civil War, she served as a nurse and educator and spy and commanded a charge of armed men. All without any formal education herself. After the war she continued to find so many ways to help her fellow human beings that if she were anybody else, that would be the story. As it is, it all feels like an afterthought to her underground railroad and civil war work.
Selected Sources and Images
My major source for today was Kate Clifford Larson’s biography Bound for the Promised Land. The first biography of Tubman was written in 1869 by Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.
The Library of Congress has an article about spirituals and their history. The Charleston Mercury’s account of the Combahee River raid is “The Enemy’s Raid on the Banks of the Combahee.” June 4, 1863.
The first time Harriet (Minty) tried to run away she was unsuccessful. The reward notice described her as 27, chestnut color, fine looking, and 5 feet tall.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Harriet posed for this photo in 1868 or 1869. She had already helped over 75 slaves to freedom and led soldiers under her command in the war.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Harriet at some point in the 1870s
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Harriet lived her final years in poverty (much as she had for the rest of her life). This picture was taken in 1910. She died in 1913.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
[…] one series. I first covered Harriet Tubman last year in my series A Slave, But Now I’m Free, episode 4.10. But she was also a spy, officially for the Union army. Even before that, her efforts to free her […]
It’s official– the whole world now knows you have a fantastic musical talent. I still have that sheet music for ” How Can I Keep From Singing?” all those years ago. It’s too high for my comfottable range now, but J still remember the thrill.
I’m flattered you remember that!
[…] Harriet Tubman, who lost many of her older siblings in exactly this way said that for many years “she never closed her eyes that she did not imagine she saw the horsemen coming, and heard the screams of women and children, as they were dragged away.” This was not an isolated case. Children were sold without their parents nearly everywhere that slavery has existed. Indeed, some societies preferred it that way. Children were more docile and learned new languages easier. Wives were sold away from husbands and husbands away from wives, as the finances and the whims of the master shifted. In this respect, the lives of serfs were infinitely better than that of slaves, despite many other similarities. […]
[…] now, get ready for the Tubman takeover! Harriet Tubman‘s giving that twenty-dollar bill a serious upgrade. She fought against slavery and now […]
[…] covered in series 3, women who escaped slavery, you can see it. Ellen Craft, Elizabeth Keckly, and Harriet Tubman were married. Elizabeth Freeman may have been married; she certainly had a child. That leaves only […]
[…] it was like for many, and we’ll hear some of those stories like that next week when we get to Harriet Tubman. But there was one woman who managed her escape in an entirely different way. Her heart thumped, I […]