Harriet Tubman: life story of the anti -aid activist

Back on the life and struggles of Harriet Tubman, a famous black anti -slavery activist.

©️Library of Congress

In 2020, in the United States, Harriet Tubman should have been the first black personality to appear on a bank note. But the new $ 20 post dressed in the face of Harriet Tubman, black anti -slavery activist, will not be released before 2028, at least, decision made by current president Donald Trump.

While 2020 is also the year of resurgence of the movement Black Lives Matter, Harriet Tubman will not replace the face of the seventh, populist president, Andrew Jackson admired by Trump. It would seem that for the American president it is perhaps too early to make the portrait of a woman appear on a ticket, which is black which is more and militant anti-disclavees. But, this is another debate. 

We then take advantage of this fact of topicality to return to the life story of Harriet Tubman and make it one of our Ancestors stories, as we like them.

Difficult youth

We were in the early 1820s, in the United States, in the county of Dorchester, Maryland. Araminta Ross has just seen the light of day, she is the sixth girl (out of nine children) from Harriet Green and Ben Ross, both slaves of Mary Pattison Brodess and her second husband Anthony Thompson in Madison. 

Family history reports that her grandmother has arrived in the country on a slave ship from Africa (perhaps from Ghana?), He is the only ancestor for whom he would be able to go up the course. 

Araminta's brothers and sisters will be quickly separated as the slave system wants, forcing the Tubman family to sell some of their children to other owners. It was at the time when his mother refused to sell one of his sons that the possibility of resisting Araminta invaded. 

From her 5 years, the girl was rented to a woman who makes her undergo a good number of ill -treatment daily, until adolescence. It was after having undergone these ranges and above all refused to obey a white man who asked him for help to retain a slave on the run that Aramita is returned to the fields. The teenager, seriously injured, remains without care and triggers temporal epilepsy attacks. It was also during this period that she was inspired by the Old Testament and more specifically of the release of Jews outside Egypt by Moses. 

Aramita married around 1844, John Tubman, a free man and decided to take the name of his mother Harriet. 

Escape to live 

Harriet Tubman will try to escape several times to emancipate himself. First in September 1849, for fear of being sold to a new owner and separated from the rest of his family. She decides to leave her husband and leave with two of her brothers. Taken remorse and very worried, his two brothers will turn around and oblige Harriet to return with them. 

The second time Harriet left alone. She will be helped by sympathizers Quakers and their escape network Clandestine railway. Historians believe that she would have left Maryland and would have crossed the Delaware before arriving in Pennsylvania. 

A long journey, perilous and risky during which she had to hide to avoid being captured by slave hunters eager for pecuniary rewards.

Tubman describes his entry into Pennsylvania:

« Quand je découvris que j'avais franchi cette ligne, je regardais mes mains pour voir si j'étais la même personne. Il y avait une telle gloire sur tout : le soleil est apparu comme l'or à travers les arbres et sur les champs, et je me sentais comme si j'étais au paradis ».

Live

Harriet Tubman, « Moïse » antiesclavagiste, retournera plusieurs fois au Maryland pour aider des enclaves à s’échapper, prenant le risque de sacrifier sa liberté. Mais alors que la loi américaine s’alourdit en 1850 avec le Fugitive Slave Act To punish the escapes all the more and force all the country's states to collaborate, Tubman decides to take all the possible risks for this time trying to release these nieces. 

A year later, she decided to find her husband who refuses to follow her again, re-married and satisfied with her situation. This trip to the County of Dochester will not be in vain since Tubman will take the opportunity to help several slaves to leave including several of these brothers. His various journeys will take her to Canada, the only safe land in North America. 

Harriet Tubman will later declare that he had enabled around 70 slaves to escape in 13 expeditions. 

A life of struggles

In the midst of a Civil War, Tubman joined a group of abolitionists and serves as a cook and nurse in the Port-Royal camps. 

In 1863 and following the proclamation of emancipation implemented by Lincoln, Tubman became the leader of a group of spies and scouts under the orders of the United States War Secretary. She will then become an advisor to the organization of raids is assaulted by the Union to release slaves. 

After the war, Tubman will continue to campaign for the rights of African-Americans but also women by fighting for obtaining the right to vote. 

In 1869, the antesclavagist published his biography of the life of Harriet Tubman and married Nelson David. Tubman died in 1913 in the hospital for elderly and sick African Americans that she founded a few years earlier. Military honors will be given him to his burial for his investment in the struggle for the release of slaves. Since 1990, every March 10, its achievements have been honored during the Harriet Tubman Day.