Research Paper On Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester County, Maryland sometime between 1819 and 1822.(5) Her birth name is actually Araminta Harriet Ross, and her nickname was “Minty”(1). Later, she adopted the name Harriet after her mother. Born a slave, Tubman had a hard childhood. She mostly worked in the field until her owner sold her out to make more money. Her new owner, known as “Miss Susan”, put her to work as a house slave. She wasn’t good at this because she had never done any housework before, or even seen the inside of a proper house. Consequently, “Miss Susan” gave Tubman back to her old owner and she began to work in the field again. (13) In her early teens, Tubman received an injury that would affect her for the rest of her life. When her master
was trying to punish a fellow slave, Tubman tried to stop him and help the other slave escape. (13) Unfortunately, Tubman’s owner threw a two pound weight at her head and it hit her.
This blow caused Tubman to have medical problems including narcolepsy (1), and hallucinations which she believed to be a gift from God. Tubman also believed that her hair, which had never been brushed, might have saved her life after her blow to the head. (11) In 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, an Elizabeth City slave who, most likely, escaped through the Underground Railroad. (5 & 16) Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849, along with her two brothers, who turned back because of second thoughts. To aid her in her escape to the free state of Pennsylvania, Tubman used the Underground Railroad. (1) She found out about the Underground Railroad when one day, while she was working in the field, a Quaker governor handed her a “ticket” to the Underground Railroad. This “ticket” told her where to go if or when she escaped. (13) So, Tubman escaped and traveled 90 miles to Pennsylvania, traveling mostly by night, and trying not to draw attention to herself.
Escaping slavery was very dangerous, especially across the Mason-Dixon Line; luckily, Tubman made it across without any trouble. Her escape would be the beginning of her involvement in The Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad was, surprisingly, neither a railroad, nor underground, but consisted of groups of people who helped guide escaped slaves to freedom.
It was called The Underground Railroad because of its peculiar ways and also because it was very secretive and they used railroad terms to describe what they did. For example, the stops along the way were called “stations”, the routes were called “lines”, people who helped the fugitives were called “conductors”, and the slaves they helped were called “freight”. The Underground Railroad had to be very secretive because of the patrol system, which was a system in which officers were hired to check traveling slaves for permits. These permits indicated whether or not the slave was sent somewhere by their master. Despite this system, many slaves escaped to freedom because of The Underground Railroad. (7) After Tubman escaped she began to become involved in The Underground Railroad, which helped her escape also. In 1850, a year after Tubman’s escape, Tubman carried out her first rescue. After her master’s death in 1849, Tubman’s niece, along with her children, was set to be sold south. So Harriet, a fugitive, set off to Maryland to save her niece and family. This rescue would mark the beginning of Tubman’s involvement in The Underground Railroad. After the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, Tubman moved the endpoint of the Underground Railroad to Canada because slavery was eradicated there and the people who escaped would be
safer. Tubman associated many abolitionists during her time with the Underground Railroad. For example, she met John Brown and helped him plan his raid on Harper’s Ferry. Harriet Tubman conducted her last rescue mission in 1861. During her work with the Underground Railroad, Tubman was said to have helped at least 300 people escape from slavery, never losing a fugitive. The end of this fight of freedom would lead to another battleground for Tubman, the Civil War.