Harriet Tubman Research Paper

“FRAILITY, THOU NAME IS NOT HARRIET TUBMAN”

“Now look here. I done worked as hard as any man for twenty-four years. I made my way to freedom on my own, and now I intend to help my family. I’m not afraid of what I have to do, and I sure ain’t afraid just because I am a woman!”

Yes, shades of my ole buddy Sojourner Truth ripple though the words of my new hero, Harriet Tubman. Spoken with the verve of a true martyr for freedom, and a liberal dose of Sojourner spunk these words convinced her benefactors that her gender would not prevent her from completing the work that God had called her to do.

“Go down Moses, Way down in Egypt’s land. Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go!

While not able or allowed to read the Bible, Harriet
Eventually, she struck out on her own in the fall of 1849, on foot. On the first leg of the journey she was assisted by a kind Quaker woman she had met while working out in the fields—the woman had just stopped one day to chat with her and offered her assistance should she need it. Harriet traded the wedding quilt she had pieced together when she married John Tubman for two names along with directions of how to get to the first house where the people would take her in and instruct her on how to get to the next station on what came to be known as the Underground Railroad. The legend goes that in the year 1831, a Kentucky slave escaped his home headed for freedom in Ohio. His master tracked him to the Ohio River where he watched the slave jump in and swim across. Waiting for a boat to ferry him across, the master kept his eyes peeled on the slave, saw him scramble up the bank, and just disappear as if he had gone on some underground road. Allegedly, this account was the origin of the nickname Underground Railroad also known as the
Unfortunately, the man she loved took a new wife and that was the end of her marriage. Because of the enactment of the Fugitive slave law in 1850, it became too dangerous for escaped slaves to live in many U.S. cities, so their journey to freedom became one of 300 or more miles to Canada rather than 100 or so to Baltimore or Philadelphia. So many slaves settled in the town of St. Catharines, Ontario, that a branch of the Underground Railroad was established there called St. Catharines Refugee Slaves' Friend Society. Its primary mission was to distribute food, clothing, Bibles, and medicine to the UGRR passengers. Arriving in the deep winter, most newly emancipated slaves were poorly clothed and indigent; they were put to work chopping wood and doing odd jobs. Many died of respiratory illnesses related to the harsh weather and others were subjected to racism and prejudice that seemed worse than that back home. The free blacks who established themselves in Canada did not want to be objects of charity, but engineers of their hard won liberty. By law in Canada, they were free and could not be extradited back to the states. Most native Canadians were sympathetic--after all slavery had been abolished by Parliament in all British colonies in 1833. Canadians claimed that prejudice was not a British thing, but sprang from the immigrant