Harriet Tubman Research Paper

For my Biography project i picked a American women who inspires me, Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman is well known for leading slaves to freedom through the underground rail road. Harriet was a strong, self less woman and her past still inspires people today, so much that in April 2016 the U.S. Treasury Department announced that Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the center of a new $20 bill.

Harriet Tubman, birth name Araminta Harriet Ross, was born in Maryland Dorchester county around 1820-1825. She was born into slavery and started working the fields at age twelve. Her family, mother, father and nine siblings, and herself were owned by Anthony Thompson. Early in Harriet’s life her three sisters were sold to distant

Keesiah’s husband, a free black man named John Bowley, made the winning bid for his family in an auction in Baltimore. Harriet then helped Keesiah’s family to freedom in the North, This is what earned her the nickname “Moses”. Harriet was able to guide her parents, siblings and about sixty others to freedom. Tubman’s husband, John, married a new wife and wanted to stay in Maryland. The way of escaping slavery changed in 1850, with the passage of the “fugitive law”. This law meant that slaves that had escaped could be captured in the north and be brought back to slavery. In response to the law, Harriet re-routed the underground rail road to Canada, where it was illegal to own slaves. Harriet lived mostly on the border in Canada but continued to come to Maryland twice a year to continue to help free slaves. April 1858 Tubman met John Brown, who advocated the use of violence to destroy slavery. Tubman shared Brown’s goals and tolerated his methods. She helped aid John’s raid on Harpers Fairy. Harriet fighting for Civil Rights and also supporting women’s rights made her a target for a lot of people but she was never caught or turned

In 1859, Senator William H. Seward sold Harriet a small piece of land in Auburn, New York where Tubman’s family and friends would have a safe haven. In 1869 she married a Civil War veteran, Nelson Davis and in 1874 they adopted a baby girl named Gertie. In 1903 Tubman donated part of her land to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Auburn. The Harriet Tubman home for the aged, opened on 1908. As Harriet aged, her head injuries from her past became more painful and disruptive. She had surgery done at Boston’s Massachusetts general Hospital to alleviate her pain and the “Buzzing” she experienced everyday. Tubman eventually went on the rest at the old age home named in her honor. Beside her family and friends, Harriet Tubman died of Pneumonia in 1913. When she died, she was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.  My