Slavery was a very brutal time for America. Some people believed that slavery was wrong. These people were called abolitionists, and they fought for the end of slavery through the 1780s and 1880s. They helped free slaves and fought for what they believed in. Some of the more famous ones were Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. They spoke for freedom and led others to the abolitionist movement. Abolitionists played a very crucial role in the ending of slavery. The Underground Railroad was one act of civil disobedience that helped start the abolitionist movement. It was a system of safe houses run by abolitionists to help free slaves. These abolitionists were called conductors and hid slaves in places like private homes, schoolhouses, and churches. The people who operated these houses were called stationmasters. …show more content…
She was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. She was born Araminta Ross, an enslaved woman, in 1820, and took on the name Harriet when she escaped a plantation with two of her brothers in 1849. A plantation was an agricultural farm that used enslaved people for labor. She later returned to the plantation to rescue family and friends several times. After her husband refused to go with her on one of her trips back to the plantation, she claimed she had a vision from God and joined the Underground Railroad. She began helping slaves escape to the northern states and Canada. She got the nickname “Moses” for helping so many enslaved people become free at great risk to her own life. Harriet Tubman led about seventy enslaved people to freedom. Her last mission was in 1860, but she didn’t stop there. She worked as a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War and fought for woman’s suffrage. She died on March 10, 1913, fifty-three years after her last mission to free slaves in 1860. Harriet Tubman’s bravery and determination made her a symbol of the fight against slavery in American