Facts About Harriet Tubman (Top 10) – Harriet Tubman was an American Abolitionist, Political Activist and Human Rights Activist who is reputed and well known for her work in helping slaves flee their captors to freedom in the northern part of the United States during the 19th century. Harriet Tubman is regarded as a hero today for her work in helping the racially oppressed find freedom at a time when America was discriminatory against blacks or people of African descent.
Facts About Harriet Tubman (Top 10)
- #Fact 1 Her very first escape from slavery occurred in 1849 when she was 27 years of age. She escaped to Philadelphia, but returned afterwards to rescue her family.
- #Fact 2 Harriet Tubman helped free more than 300 slaves during a 10 year span which involved more than 19 trips to the Southern part of America where slavery was rampant.
- #Fact 3 Her exact date of birth is not known, but she is believed to have been born between 1820 and 1822. There is no childhood birth certificate to state exactly when she was born.
- #Fact 4 She adopted a daughter Gertie in 1874; but Gertie couldn’t hold a steady job because she suffered from tuberculosis – She died in 1888.
- #Fact 5 Harriet Tubman was Nicknamed Moses; She was given the title “Moses” as a result of her efforts, a reference to the prophet in the Book of Exodus who led the Hebrews to independence from Egypt.
- #Fact 6 She was originally born as Araminta Ross but she changed her name to Harriet, after her own mother whose name was Harriet Green.
- #Fact 7 On September 17, 1849, the day she escaped, she was followed by two of her siblings, Ben and Harry. However, after seeing a note in the Cambridge Democrat promising a $300 reward for Araminta’s return, Harry and Ben changed their minds and returned to the plantation. Araminta (Harriet) continued on.
- #Fact 8 On land near her birthplace, she founded the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in 1896. She was already a widow by then but earned received military pensions.
- #Fact 9 During the civil war, Tubman served as a nurse in Port Royal, where she prepared remedies from local plants which she used in aiding soldiers suffering from dysentery. She also rendered assistance to men with smallpox.
- #Fact 10 Harriet Tubman was buried with full military honours when she died in 1913. She was buried Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.
Harriet Tubman, who was born into slavery in 1822, survived and went on to free nearly 70 enslaved women, including relatives and friends, through the Underground Railroad, a network of antislavery revolutionaries and safe houses. She fought with the Union Army as an armed scout and spy during the American Civil War. Tubman was an activist in the women’s suffrage movement in her latter years.
Tubman was seriously wounded as a child when an overseer hurled a two-pound metal weight at another enslaved individual who tried to escape. Instead, the weight hit Tubman, who said it “broke my skull.” She was taken to her owner’s home, bleeding and unconscious, and laid on the seat of a loom for two days without medical attention. This accident greatly affected her life and it influenced her so much. Following the accident, she soon began experiencing visions and sightings that remained permanent in her life.
For most of her life, Harriet Tubman worked as a slave before she finally escaped and fought to help others in slavery also escape to freedom.
Tubman married John Tubman, a free black man, in 1844, despite the fact that slaves were not able to marry. Harriet was her new name, which she adopted from him.
Tubman did not start the Underground Railroad, contrary to popular belief; it was founded by black and white abolitionists in the late eighteenth century. When Tubman and two brothers fled to the north in 1849, they most likely took advantage of this network of escape routes and safe houses. Her husband declined to join her and married a free black woman in 1851. Tubman visited the South many times and assisted scores of people in fleeing slavery. Slaveowners put up a $40,000 reward for her arrest or death as a result of her performance.
By 1860, Tubman had made the risky trek to places where slavery was legal about 19 times, including one particularly difficult journey in which she saved her 70-year-old parents. “Except for John Brown — of holy memory — I know of no one who has gladly endured more perils and sacrifices to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman],” Frederick Douglass said of the famous heroine, who became known as “Moses.”
And John Brown, who discussed his attempts to raid Harpers Ferry with “General Tubman,” once described her as “one of the bravest people on this continent.”
Harriet Tubman volunteered for the Union as a chef, a nurse, and even a spy during the Civil War. She returned to Auburn, New York, after the war, and lived there for the rest of her life. In 1913, she passed away.
