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Slavery: Harriet Tubman And The Underground Railroad

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The Underground Railroad was used by an estimated one-hundred thousand fugitive slaves to help them gain their freedom from slavery (“Underground Railroad”). The Underground Railroad was a secretive organization that helped runaway slaves gain freedom in the north, thanks to many brave people, or conductors, who led trips north for thousands of slaves, and the many different ways people knew about the organization without most people ever finding out. The Underground Railroad is an organization made by freed slaves and white sympathizers who helped many slaves travel North and find freedom (“Underground Railroad”). The Underground Railroad was mostly operated at night and it provided food, directions, and shelter for slaves making their way …show more content…

Perhaps one of the most famous conductors was Harriet Tubman. Tubman was a freed slave and dedicated her life to saving and freeing other slaves (“Harriet Tubman”). Tubman entered the South where slavery was legal 19 different times and rescued about 300 men, women, and children (“Harriet Tubman”). Tubman grew up as a slave on a plantation in Dorchester, Maryland (Benson). Harriet Tubman worked as a part of a large organization called The Underground Railroad, which helped free slaves and safely move them north so they could live a free life (“Harriet Tubman”). Tubman grew up as a slave but later found out that she was technically not a slave because her mother was freed without even knowing it and continued to live through slavery as a free slave (“Harriet Tubman”). When Harriet was about thirteen, one of her fellow slaves who lived on the plantation with her tried to escape, when the master went to catch him, a young Tubman blocked him and was hit in the head with a 2 pound weight (Benson). When Tubman was hit with the weight, it left her skull permanently pressed to her brain, giving her unconscious spells throughout the rest of her life (Benson). Tubman lived in Philadelphia but later moved to Saint Catherines, Canada due to the danger of being caught and returned to slavery (“Harriet Tubman”). Harriet Tubman would show up at slave cabins in the middle of the night on a Saturday and they would leave the following morning because slave hunters are likely to be at church on Sunday mornings (Benson). Tubman used tricks to free slaves, including boarding south-bound trains to trick the slave hunters (“Harriet Tubman”). It is believed that at one time, there was a $40,000 dollar bounty out for Harriet Tubman (“Harriet Tubman”). Tubman started rescuing and freeing slaves within a year of escaping slavery herself (Benson). Harriet Tubman later joined the

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Hua 1 Edison Hua Ms. Rehling GATE English 8 13 October 2015 Contributors to the Underground Railroad In 1810 to 1850, slavery was major profit in the South. People from Africa were kidnapped and taken to work as slaves in the colonies. Life as a slave was harsh, cold, cruel, and life threatening. As a result, many people opposed slavery by creating the Underground Railroad.

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The Underground Railroad was a path that slaves took when they escaped their plantations. The Underground Railroad was formed in the late 1700s. They would use this secret route that took them north so they would not get caught by slave catchers. If they were caught by slave catchers, they would return them to their masters in the south.

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Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit meTubman spent her remaining years in Auburn, tending to her family and other people in need. She worked various jobs to support her elderly parents, and took in boarders to help pay the bills.[61] One of the people Tubman took in was a Civil War veteran named Nelson Davis.

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This was the time she had changed her name from Araminta Ross to Harriet Tubman. Harriet became ill and her owner tried to sell her, for she had no value to him anymore, but he failed. Harriet and her two brothers, Ben and Henry, escaped from slavery on September 17, 1849. A month later, a runaway notice was placed in Cambridge Democrat which offered a reward of one- hundred dollars for every slave returned. In fear of repercussions to the family, Harriet and her brothers returned to their owners.

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Despite the term used to refer to it, the Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad nor it was underground; rather, it was a network of persons devouted to help fugitive slaves on their path to freedom, especiallly to northern states and Canda. However, the given name may be appropriate as it unveils the secrecy, darkness and disguise characterizing the

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The Significance of Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s involvement in the Underground Railroad (as part of the Abolitionist Movement, 1850-1860) The Underground Railroad is not what it may appear in its most literal sense; it is in fact a symbolical term for the two hundred year long struggle to break free from slavery in the U.S. It encompasses every slave who tried to escape and every free person who helped them to do so. The origins of the railroad are hidden in obscurity yet eventually it expanded into one of the earliest Civil Rights movements in the US.

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A main contribution to the abolition of slavery was the secretive Underground Railroad. Slavery was an immense issue during the Civil War in the eighteen-hundreds. It created an imaginary line between the white settlers and the black people. The majority of this matter was amongst the Southerners. The South believe that black people were inept of looking after themselves.

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As slavery had become more ramped in America, so was the idea of slave revolts. Slave owners were worried that their slaves would be apart of the revolt, resulting in loosing the slaves overnight. One woman named Harriet Tubman changed the word bravery with her actions. Harriet Tubman was born into slavery, and she had escaped when she was about thirty years old. Tubman and her two brothers, Harry and Ben had escaped on Monday, September 17, 1849.

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Harriet Tubman was nicknamed “Minty” by her parents. Harriet Tubman was originally named Araminta Ross but changed her name to Harriet Tubman shortly after she married John Tubman. Harriet Tubman suffered severe head damage has a kid because the slave owner she worked for was punishing a runaway slave by throwing a weight at the runaway slave but the slave owner missed and the weight hit Harriet Tubman in the head and caused permanent damage that affected her later in her life. She freed more than three hundred slaves through the underground railroad. In 1849 Harriet Tubman escaped to the north.

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Frederick Douglass once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress”. Douglas was an extremely important abolitionist who fought for equality rights for blacks. Slavery was a very important part of many people's lives since 1619, and it was both beneficial in some eyes, and terrible in others. Slavery was beneficial to plantation owners because it was there way of life, and that is how they made their money. It was not beneficial in many ways because, slaves were not treated like humans, but instead they were treated like property to be sold and bought and used however the owner wishes.

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5 years later her enslaver died and she was supposed to be sold, but she escaped by using the Underground Railroad. Harriet had a hundred dollar reward to whoever captured her. After vowing to return to friends and family to help them escape, she spent the next 10 years making trips to Maryland to save and rescue them. She helped 70 more people escape by simply giving them instructions. Harriet Tubman claimed to have never or lost a passenger or ran her train off the tracks.

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The Fugitive Slave Act granted plantation overseers permission to travel north to recapture and enslave freed or escaped individuals. Because of the dangers this law brought with it, Tubman began to take those she had rescued as far north as Canada for their safety. Over time, plantation owners gathered knowledge of Tubman. She was so successful with her charges that the plantation overseers placed a forty thousand dollar reward over her head, which, in modern finances, is equivalent to over one million dollars. By the time her trips to the plantations were over, Tubman had led a minimum of seventy people to freedom in the north and become the most well known “conductor” of the Underground

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One such slave was Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was One of the most well-known conductors of the Underground Railroad. She rescued over 300 slaves over the course of eleven years. Tubman was born a slave in the early 1820’s, originally named Araminta Harriet Ross until after marriage. When she was a slave, she endured the inhumanity of repeated lashings and beatings.

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Tubman conducted the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape. The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad, it was the routes out of the south. On these routes, the slaves followed Harriet Tubman at night in order to escape the horrific conditions that they were living in. In conclusion, slavery was abolished later on in life, but at this point slaves were getting more violent, determined, and confident in themselves. For example, Nat Turner was a slave who killed his master and 60 other white men.

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The Underground Railroad. A metaphor as it was, it was neither a railroad nor was it even underground. In the time where slavery became a divided issue with the status of legality in various parts of the country, the underground railroad found its beginnings through collective organized efforts from abolitionists and allies alike to help enslaved African americans to escape to territories and states where they could be free from slavery. It was a loosely-developed system that also included series of routes led by “conductors” such as Harriet Tubman, for escaping slaves, or “passengers”.

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