Harriet Tubman Research Paper

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world”. Harriet Tubman is a pioneer of freedom and inspiration for all around the world today, without her determination our society would be a dramatically different place. Around the early 1820’s, Araminta Ross, known more commonly as Harriet Tubman was born to Harriet Green Ross and Benjamin Ross who were held as slaves in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was the fifth born of her nine siblings she had 4 brothers and 4 sisters. Tubman’s life started out with a lot of hardship, odds were against her. She encountered cruel, hatred people and was forced to deal with violence
from her slave ‘owners’. From the young age of just five years old, she served as a maid, nurse, and a cook.
Later on in her life, she served as a field hand and a woodcutter. Around the age of fourteen, she witnessed a young man attempting an escape to freedom while standing by, Tubman was hit with a two-pound weight on the head which caused her to suffer from a lifetime of seizures, headaches, and narcolepsy. In the year 1844, Ross married a free African American man whose name was John Tubman. In honor of her mother, Araminta Ross then changes her first name to Harriet and took her husband’s last name, Tubman. In 1849, Tubman got the news that her slave owner passed away, afraid she would be sold to the South, Tubman and two of her brothers escaped to Philadelphia. After finding a three-hundred-dollar reward that was posted for the return of the slaves, the siblings began having second thoughts and wanted to return. So, after complying with their request to return to the plantation Tubman returned however, she left once again but this time she went alone. Back on her
quest to freedom, Tubman headed to Philadelphia using secret underground railroad passageways she later said, “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Before her return, Harriet Tubman joined a ‘secret network of free blacks and whites’ sympathizers who helped runaways.
She became a conductor of the underground railroad she said, “There were one of two things I had a right to liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would take the other, for no man should take me alive. I should fight for liberty as long as my strength lasted” – Harriet Tubman. With dedication and courage, she returned back to Maryland, the place that caused her much-undeserved pain, where she led her sister, brother-in-law and their two children to freedom. That was Tubman’s first of nineteen journeys which occurred over the next decade. Harriet Tubman rescued over 300 fugitive slaves from Maryland plantation, some being her family, friends, and who else wanted to be free. She said, “I freed thousands of slaves and could’ve freed more if they had known they were slaves.” She took them to Northern states and to Canada, where they would have their freedom using the underground railroad. Her last conductor mission was in the year of 1860, where she rescued the Ennals family. To each of the slaves, she rescued she said, “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see torches in the woods, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” Harriet was given the nickname “Moses” because many believed she was the black Moses who was sent to set slaves free from the bondage of slavery, but some believe it was her
hunger for freedom, her fearless attitude and her determination for equality.