Araminta Harriet Ross was born into a slave family sometime between 1820 and 1825 in Dorchester County, Maryland. The exact year of her birth is unknown due to being born into slavery. Her mother, Harriet Green was owned by Joseph and Mary Brodess. Her father, Ben Ross was owned by Anthony Thompson (Biography.com). Harriet and Ben met in 1803 after Joseph Brodess’s death, which caused the two plantations to merge. Araminta was the fifth child born of nine. She had four sisters, Linah, Mariah, Soph, and Rachel and four brothers, Robert, Ben, Henry, and Moses. Early on in life Araminta Harriet Ross started working. When she was 5 years old, she was hired as a babysitter. The owner was so cruel that whenever the baby cried she would whip Araminta around the neck. When Tubman was about seven years old she was hired out to collect muskrats from traps (Early). In order to do this job, she had to constantly be waist deep in water which later caused her to contract measles. Five years later at age 12, her life was changed forever. Araminta was at a grocery store where she tried to help a fugitive slave escape. Once she saw the slave run out of the store, she stood in front of the doorway to block Barrett, the owner. He then picked up a 2-pound metal weight. Instead of …show more content…
In 1858 Tubman met with John Brown to plan a raid on Harpers Ferry. Since she had known the land extremely well, she told him what she knew about the Underground Railroad area where he whished to attack. She helped recruit men for the raid and promised to aid the fugitives. Brown wanted Tubman to stand with him for the raid but illness prevented her from this. In June of 1863, Harriet Tubman became the first women to command a military raid. She had lead the raid with Colonel James Montgomery. They invaded many plantations along the Combahee River. The raid freed a total of 750