Born: March 12, 1822 (approximately)
Died: March 10, 1913
Why, there is more free blood in the little finger of … Harriet Tubman, than could be wrung from the watery veins of all the oppressed or oppressing whites in the land. (Applause.) The Liberator, Boston, August 10, 1860
The quote above is from a speech by Ezra Haywood (1829-1893) a white man who was an abolitionist and supporter of women’s suffrage. This was the first newspaper mention of Tubman I could find. She led a remarkable life: Born a slave, Tubman escaped and helped many other enslaved people find their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad and served as a nurse and scout during the Civil War.
A rather extraordinary meeting took place on October 22, 1865, at the African M.E. Church in Brooklyn before “an immense congregation fully half consisting of whites,” according to an article in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on October 23, 1865. This was a little more than two years after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the nation’s slaves. The article read …
Mrs. Tubman is a colored lady, of 35 or 40 years of age; she appeared before those present with a wounded hand in a bandage, which wound she stated was caused by maltreatment received at the hands of a conductor on the Camden and Amboy railroad, on her trip from Philadelphia to New York a few days since. Her words were in the peculiar plantation dialect and at times were not intelligible to the white portion of her audience … she was born, she said, in the eastern part of the State of Maryland, and wanted it to be distinctly understood that she was not educated, nor did she receive any “broughten up;” “she came up.”
Her master was a good man, but she knew that God directed her to perform other works in this world, and so she escaped from bondage. This was nearly 14 years ago, since then she has assisted hundreds to do the same. Her narration of her sickness, previous to her escape, was filled with negro phrases and elicited shouts of laughter from the congregation, the white entering most heartily into it.
Mrs. Tubman stated that she was known as Moses, having received that name from Lloyd Garrison, and she went on to speak of her experiences in the hospitals and of the sufferings of the soldiers.
Lloyd Garrison and Issac Knapp co-founded The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, in 1831. They were white men.
Soon after Tubman described her duties as a nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, the crowd began shouting that the packed gallery of the church was collapsing …
The utmost excitement prevailed for five or ten minutes, during which women screamed, men shouted and children bawled, and few succeeded in escaping from the building. Order was at last restored, when it was discovered that the trouble originated by some person leaning against the stove pipe in one corner of the church, and a portion of the pipe gave way, causing considerable noise, which resulted in the alarm about the gallery.
Tubman “closed her remarks soon after order had been restored.”
In 1869, Sarah Hopkins Bradford published the book Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.
It is a work of thrilling interest, the biography of a most remarkable woman, one who has been denominated “Moses,” because after her own escape from the clutches of slavers, she went back several times at the risk of her life, when advertisements were posted in every direction offering $12,000 for her head, and through her efforts succeeded in leading nearly three hundred slaves to the Canaan of freedom. Richmond Weekly Palladium, Indiana, March 23, 1869
The story goes on to describe Tubman’s life …
Harriet has ten brothers and sisters; three are now living, all at the North, and all rescued from slavery by Harriet before the war except one sister. She brought away her parents in a singular manner. They were very aged and infirm, and therefore unable to walk long distances. Harriet, therefore, fitted out a singular team for their accommodation. An old horse with straw collar; a pair of old chaise wheels, with a board on the axle to sit on; another board swung with robes, fastened to the axle to rest their feet on. She got her parents, who were slaves belonging to different masters, on this rude vehicle to the railroad, put them in the cars, turned Jehu [an ancient King of Israel who was quite the horseman] herself, to the residence of the good old Quaker, Thomas Garrett, where she was furnished with money to take them all to Canada.
Garrett was an abolitionist. He lived in Wilmington, Delaware and was active in the Underground Railroad, helping hundreds of slaves escape to freedom.
In the article, Garrett states that …
[Tubman] had frequently told him that she had talked with God and he talked with her every day of her life, and she felt no fear of being arrested by her master or any other person, for she never ventured only where God sent her. Mr. Garrett states that no slave who placed himself under her care was ever arrested to his knowledge.
Later in the long story …
Her services as a nurse and scout were exceedingly valuable during the rebellion [Civil War], and it is passing strange that no pension has been allowed her from the Government as some renumeration, but she is still compelled to labor unceasingly for the support of her parents, and to pay a balance yet due for their home. In addition to this, she supports by her own labors two schools for freemen from the South, supplying them with books and clothing. It is to aid her in her noble work that this thrilling narrative has been written [by Bradford], the cost of which has been paid by subscription, so that the entire proceeds go to Harriet … Now, send along your dollar, or more if you choose, to the address of Mr. Tom Garrison, Jr., Boston, and you shall receive a copy postpaid. The book is also for sale at the Freedman’s Room’s and Studio Building, Boston.
I was unable to find any information on Garrison.
A long story about Tubman and the new book appeared in The Evening Post, Chicago, on May 8, 1869 …
Her own liberty achieved, she thenceforth employed every faculty of body and mind in the arduous work of aiding others of her oppressed people to their freedom. Nineteen times she dared the dangers and incurred the fatigues of a journey back to the State from which she had fled, in order to rescue … It is estimated that in these pilgrimages she has conducted three hundred bondmen and women to a place of safety north of the line, or in Canada … An enormous reward, variously stated at $12,000 and $40,000, was offered for the apprehension of the woman who so mysteriously relieved masters of their human possessions, but nothing could daunt her intrepidity.
The tales and heroics of Tubman crossed the ocean to England …
At Auburn, New York State, a woman named Harriet Tubman has recently been married. She is an escaped slave who, by courage and energy seldom exceeded, released many of her relatives and others from slavery making frequent raids into the slave territories and conducting the fugitives hundreds of miles through hostile country. Afterwards, during the rebellion, she acted as a scout to the Union armies, and became proverbial for bravery, tact, and usefulness. Manchester Evening News, England, May 22, 1869
Tubman (born Araminta Ross) had married John Tubman, a free Black man, in 1844. John Tubman met a violent end …
On Monday last … a white man named Robert Vincent shot a colored man named John Tubman, killing him instantly. He never stopped to see the effect of his shot, but drove directly home … The Coroner’s jury rendered a verdict of murder, but no attempt was made to arrest him, and it’s not probable that any ever will be. The cause of the murder was a dispute between the two men as to the ownership of some ashes. Delaware Tribune, Wilmington, October 17, 1867
Vincent was eventually arrested but was pronounced innocent by an all-white jury.
Tubman married Nelson Davis in 1869. He was an escaped slave who fought for the Union in the Civil War. The couple (Davis was at least 20 years younger than Tubman) adopted a girl, Gertie, in 1874, and lived and worked (they had a farm and brick business) in Audubon, New York.
Davis died in 1888 and Tubman …
Harriet Tubman Davis, an ex-slave, known as “The Moses of Her People,” and regarded as one of the most remarkable women of the age, died Monday night at the Harriet Tubman Home for Indigent Aged Negroes, at Auburn, N.Y. As nearly as she could tell she was 98 years of age. Rutland Daily Herald, Vermont, March 29, 1913
Click here to read more about Tubman.
From Unknown To Famous 