Why Is Harriet Tubman A Significant Person

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in Dorchester, Maryland in 1820, and she died March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York (“Harriet Tubman” PBS). Tubman’s first exposure to slavery was when two of her sisters were sent to plantations. In her younger years she was a slave in a few owners homes where she was beaten and abused (“Harriet Tubman” Leaders). Later in Tubman’s life, she met her husband John Tubman, who inspired her to free other slaves (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 473-479). Harriet Tubman is a significant person because she helped to free people from slavery, encouraged others through her leadership, and became a symbol of perseverance to slaves.

Harriet Tubman was passionate about helping others out of slavery and into freedom. Tubman knew

Tubman was pushed into slavery when she was young and was always rebellious trying to be freed from slavery. Once Tubman was on the run from slavery, she was quickly hunted and was on the lookout for runaway slaves. “She was on the slaveholders’ most wanted list with reportedly a steep price on her head” (Clinton, Catherine X). “Posters with a description of “Moses,” as she was called, were prominently plastered throughout the upper South until the Civil War broke out” (Clinton, Catherine X). Moses was another name that Harriet Tubman was known by; she was known by Moses because of her calming presences and her ability to help others. “After her escape from slavery in 1849, Harriet Tubman defiantly reentered the slave-holding south approximately 19 times to lead more than 300 men, women, and children, to freedom in the North and Canada” (“Harriet Tubman” Biography). After Tubman escaped from slavery, she was ready to help others feel the freedom she felt. Tubman slowly became the symbol for abolishment and the Civil

On top of being a person who fought for people’s lives and personal freedoms, Tubman was also a nurse and a spy for the Union Army (Humez, Jean M 169-171). “She also served as a spy for the Union army, her knowledge of Southern geography enabling her to slip through enemy lines with ease. She told the slaves that the North cared about their welfare, convincing them to leave the plantations and join the Union army” (“Women in the Civil War”). While being a nurse and a spy for the Union Army, Tubman quickly became a vital resource for the Union Troops. She was capable of gathering information about the Confederate Army to help the Union Army. “Less well known but equally heroic was her postwar work, managing a small subsistence farm to support a large extended family in Auburn, New York. In her later years, she created a facility for the impoverished elderly in Auburn and found both private and church funding for it” (Humez, Jean M 169-171). Following the war, Tubman helped to raise money for schools for emancipated slaves as well as helping the elderly (Humez, Jean M