Harriet Tubman
By Anja Heinzelmann
Birth and Childhood
• Born into slavery in 1819 in Maryland
• Age of 6: old enough to work: weaving,
housekeeper and baby-sitter
• whipped and beaten during work
• Age of 11: starts to work on plantations, seriously
injured by a blow to the head
Escape
• Age of 25: Harriet marries John Tubman
• 1849: Harriet escapes to Philadelphia without her
husband
• Meets William Still, the publisher of “The
Underground Railroad”, a book about runaway
slaves
The Underground
Railroad
• once a slave escapes and he finds abolitionists,
they try to transport him to freedom
• Difficulty: slaves were chased by their masters or
bounty hunters
• In 1850, Harriet helps her first slaves escape to the
North
• she is made an official “conductor” of the UGRR
and gets to know all the routes
The Fugitive Slave Act
• 1850: the Slave Act is passed: illegal for any citizen
to assist an escaped slave
• The UGRR creats codes to make things more secret
and sends the escaping slaves into Canada
Many more trips
• From 1852-1857, Tubman makes elven trips from
Maryland to Canada
• She is also known by the plantation owners, there is
a bounty of 40 000$ on her head
• 1857: most daring trip to rescue her elderly father,
she takes the train and travels in broad daylight
• Meets John Brown, a radical abolitionist, he is
overwhelmed by her intelligence and calls her “one
of the best and bravest persons on this continent.”
Civil War
• 1860: Harriet’s career in the Railroad ends, she has
rescued over 300 people on 19 trips and she has
never lost a passenger
• During the Civil: Harriet enlists into the Union army
as a “contraband” nurse in South Carolina
• In summer 1863: Tubman helps Colonel James
Montgomery as a scout, informs him about slaves,
who might want to join the Union army, they gather
almost 500 slaves
Death
• Harriet marries again, active in the support of
women’s rights
• death in 1913
• Since her death she has received many honors like
the naming of the Liberty Ship Harriet Tubman by
Eleanor Roosevelt
Sources:
Pictures (retrieved nov 2013) :
• http://www.reunionblackfamily.com/harriet-tubman-curtis-james.jpg
• http://www.planetwissen.de/alltag_gesundheit/essen/zucker/img/intro_n_zucker2_g.jpg
• http://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/sc/scm/485715lg.jpg
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ffaw_9jtag8/T0tH8Lod3I/AAAAAAAAD6E/pwDOlrLhSFM/s1600/runaway-slaves-onunderground-railroad.jpg
• http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AmTdWUEfocw/USOsJSCKdI/AAAAAAAAANw/k904Oh7PNyM/s1600/underground%2Brr%2Bmap.jpg
• http://publications.newberry.org/frontiertoheartland/archive/square_thumbnail
s/nl010148_ab1e16ecbe.jpg
• http://www.soldierstudies.org/index.php?action=webquest_1
• http://mrfultonsela.wikispaces.com/file/view/harriet_tubman_picture_grave.jpg
/140721139/355x249/harriet_tubman_picture_grave.jpg
Speech (retrieved nov. 2013):
• http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0history/hwny-tubman.html
• http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/life.htm
Thank you for listening!