103 Facts About Harriet Tubman

In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland to rescue her family soon after.

Harriet Tubman travelled by night and in extreme secrecy, and later said she "never lost a passenger".

Harriet Tubman met John Brown in 1858, and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.

Harriet Tubman was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and was admitted to a home for elderly African Americans, which she had helped establish years earlier.

Harriet Tubman is commonly viewed as an icon of courage and freedom.

Harriet Tubman reported the year of her birth as 1825, while her death certificate lists 1815 and her gravestone lists 1820.

Harriet Tubman's mother, Rit, was a cook for the Brodess family.

Harriet Tubman's father, Ben, was a skilled woodsman who managed the timber work on Thompson's plantation.

Harriet Tubman's biographers agree that stories told about this event within the family influenced her belief in the possibilities of resistance.

Harriet Tubman's mother was assigned to "the big house" and had scarce time for her own family; consequently, as a child Harriet Tubman took care of a younger brother and baby, as was typical in large families.

Harriet Tubman was ordered to care for the baby and rock the cradle as it slept; when the baby woke up and cried, Harriet Tubman was whipped.

Harriet Tubman later recounted a particular day when she was lashed five times before breakfast.

Harriet Tubman carried the scars for the rest of her life.

Harriet Tubman found ways to resist, such as running away for five days, wearing layers of clothing as protection against beatings, and fighting back.

Also in her childhood, Harriet Tubman was sent to work for a planter named James Cook.

Harriet Tubman had to check his muskrat traps in nearby marshes, even after contracting measles.

Harriet Tubman became so ill that Cook sent her back to Brodess, where her mother nursed her back to health.

Harriet Tubman spoke later of her acute childhood homesickness, comparing herself to "the boy on the Swanee River", an allusion to Stephen Foster's song "Old Folks at Home".

Harriet Tubman began having seizures and would seemingly fall unconscious, although she claimed to be aware of her surroundings while appearing to be asleep.

Harriet Tubman rejected the teachings of white preachers who urged enslaved people to be passive and obedient victims to those who trafficked and enslaved them; instead she found guidance in the Old Testament tales of deliverance.

Harriet Tubman's father continued working as a timber estimator and foreman for the Thompson family.

Later in the 1840s, Harriet Tubman paid a white attorney five dollars to investigate the legal status of her mother, Rit.

Harriet Tubman adopted her mother's name, possibly as part of a religious conversion, or to honor another relative.

In 1849, Harriet Tubman became ill again, which diminished her value to slave traders.

Angry at him for trying to sell her and for continuing to enslave her relatives, Harriet Tubman began to pray for God to make Brodess change his ways.

Harriet Tubman refused to wait for the Brodess family to decide her fate, despite her husband's efforts to dissuade her.

Harriet Tubman later said that "there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other".

Harriet Tubman had been hired out to Anthony Thompson, who owned a large plantation in an area called Poplar Neck in neighboring Caroline County; it is likely her brothers labored for Thompson as well.

Harriet Tubman had to travel by night, guided by the North Star and trying to avoid slave catchers eager to collect rewards for fugitive slaves.

The particulars of her first journey are unknown; because other escapees from slavery used the routes, Harriet Tubman did not discuss them until later in life.

Harriet Tubman crossed into Pennsylvania with a feeling of relief and awe, and recalled the experience years later:.

In December 1850, Harriet Tubman was warned that her niece Kessiah and Kessiah's children would soon be sold in Cambridge, Maryland.

Harriet Tubman went to Baltimore, where her brother-in-law Tom Harriet Tubman hid her until the sale.

When night fell, Bowley sailed the family on a log canoe 60 miles to Baltimore, where they met with Harriet Tubman, who brought the family to Philadelphia.

In late 1851, Harriet Tubman returned to Dorchester County for the first time since her escape, this time to find her husband John.

Harriet Tubman sent word that he should join her, but he insisted that he was happy where he was.

Douglass and Harriet Tubman admired one another greatly as they both struggled against slavery.

Harriet Tubman's father purchased her mother from Eliza Brodess in 1855, but even when they were both free, the area was hostile.

In 1857, Harriet Tubman received word that her father was at risk of arrest for harboring a group of eight people escaping slavery.

Harriet Tubman led her parents north to St Catharines, Canada, where a community of formerly enslaved people, including other relatives and friends of Tubman, had gathered.

Harriet Tubman usually worked during winter, when long nights and cold weather minimized the chance of being seen.

Harriet Tubman would start the escapes on Saturday evenings, since newspapers would not print runaway notices until Monday morning.

Harriet Tubman once disguised herself with a bonnet and carried two live chickens to give the appearance of running errands.

Harriet Tubman was known to be illiterate, and the man ignored her.

Harriet Tubman stayed with Sam Green, a free black minister living in East New Market, Maryland; she hid near her parents' home at Poplar Neck.

Harriet Tubman's faith was another important resource as she ventured repeatedly into Maryland.

Harriet Tubman spoke of "consulting with God", and trusted that He would keep her safe.

Harriet Tubman used spirituals as coded messages, warning fellow travelers of danger or to signal a clear path.

Harriet Tubman sang versions of "Go Down Moses" and changed the lyrics to indicate that it was either safe or too dangerous to proceed.

Harriet Tubman carried a revolver as protection from slave catchers and their dogs.

Harriet Tubman threatened to shoot anyone who tried to turn back since that would risk the safety of the remaining group, as well as anyone who helped them on the way.

Harriet Tubman spoke of one man who insisted he was going to go back to the plantation.

Harriet Tubman believed that after he began the first battle, the enslaved would rise up and carry out a rebellion across the slave states.

Harriet Tubman asked Tubman to gather former slaves then living in Southern Ontario who might be willing to join his fighting force, which she did.

Harriet Tubman aided him in this effort and with more detailed plans for the assault.

Harriet Tubman was busy during this time, giving talks to abolitionist audiences and tending to her relatives.

In early October 1859, as Brown and his men prepared to launch the attack, Harriet Tubman was ill in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Harriet Tubman's actions were seen by many abolitionists as a symbol of proud resistance, carried out by a noble martyr.

The adjacent city of Auburn was a hotbed of antislavery activism, and Harriet Tubman took the opportunity to move her parents from Canada back to the US Her farmstead became a haven for Harriet Tubman's family and friends.

Shortly after acquiring the farm, Harriet Tubman went back to Maryland and returned with an eight-year-old light-skinned black girl named Margaret, who Harriet Tubman said was her niece.

Harriet Tubman did not have the money, so the children remained enslaved.

Never one to waste a trip, Harriet Tubman gathered another group, including the Ennalls family, ready and willing to take the risks of the journey north.

In January 1862, Harriet Tubman volunteered to support the Union cause and began helping refugees in the camps, particularly in Port Royal, South Carolina.

In South Carolina, Harriet Tubman met General David Hunter, a strong supporter of abolition.

Harriet Tubman declared all of the "contrabands" in the Port Royal district free, and began gathering formerly enslaved people for a regiment of black soldiers.

Harriet Tubman condemned Lincoln's response and his general unwillingness to consider ending slavery in the US, for both moral and practical reasons:.

Harriet Tubman can do it by setting the negro free.

Harriet Tubman served as a nurse in Port Royal, preparing remedies from local plants and aiding soldiers suffering from dysentery and infectious diseases.

When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Harriet Tubman considered it a positive but incomplete step toward the goal of liberating all black people from slavery.

Harriet Tubman turned her own efforts towards more direct actions to defeat the Confederacy.

In early 1863, Harriet Tubman used her knowledge of covert travel and subterfuge to lead a band of scouts through the land around Port Royal.

Harriet Tubman's group, working under the orders of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, mapped the unfamiliar terrain and reconnoitered its inhabitants.

Harriet Tubman later worked alongside Colonel James Montgomery and provided him with intelligence that aided in the temporary capture of Jacksonville, Florida in March 1863.

Later that year, Harriet Tubman's intelligence gathering played a key role in the raid at Combahee Ferry.

Harriet Tubman guided three steamboats with black soldiers under Montgomery's command past mines on the Combahee River to assault several plantations.

Harriet Tubman went ashore to assist them onto the boats, ruining her dress in the process, and she sang lyrics from "Uncle Sam's Farm" encouraging them to "come along, come along".

Harriet Tubman later described a scene of chaos with women carrying still-steaming pots of rice, pigs squealing in bags slung over shoulders, and babies hanging around their parents' necks.

In July 1863, Harriet Tubman worked with Colonel Robert Gould Shaw at the assault on Fort Wagner, reportedly serving him his last meal.

Harriet Tubman later described the battle to historian Albert Bushnell Hart:.

Harriet Tubman had received little pay for her Union military service.

Harriet Tubman was not a regular soldier and was only occasionally compensated for her work as a spy and scout; her work as a nurse was entirely unpaid.

Harriet Tubman resisted, and he summoned additional men for help.

Harriet Tubman spent her remaining years in Auburn, tending to her family and other people in need.

One of the people Harriet Tubman took in was a farmer named Nelson Davis.

Harriet Tubman began working in Auburn as a bricklayer, and they soon fell in love.

Harriet Tubman knew white people in the South had buried valuables when Union forces threatened the region, and black men were frequently assigned to digging duties, so the claim seemed plausible to her.

Harriet Tubman borrowed money from a wealthy friend and arranged to receive the gold late one night.

Harriet Tubman was found dazed and injured; the trunk was filled with rocks.

Harriet Tubman traveled to New York, Boston and Washington, DC, to speak in favor of women's voting rights.

Harriet Tubman described her actions during and after the Civil War, and used the sacrifices of countless women throughout modern history as evidence of women's equality to men.

Harriet Tubman designated one of the farm's buildings as its primary residence and named it "John Brown Hall" to honor her late abolitionist ally.

Harriet Tubman reportedly received no anesthesia and instead bit down on a bullet, as she had seen Civil War soldiers do when their limbs were amputated.

Widely known and well-respected while she was alive, Harriet Tubman became an American icon in the years after she died.

Harriet Tubman inspired generations of African Americans struggling for equality and civil rights; she was praised by leaders across the political spectrum.

The city of Auburn has several historical sites related to Harriet Tubman, including her gravesite.

Harriet Tubman is the focus of novels by Elizabeth Cobbs, Marcy Heidish, Anne Parrish, and Bob the Drag Queen, and is a character in novels by Terry Bisson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and James McBride.

Since Harriet Tubman's life was first dramatized on television in a 1963 episode of the series The Great Adventure, she has been portrayed in TV productions such as The Good Lord Bird, Timeless, Underground, and A Woman Called Moses.

Harriet Tubman has been drawn or painted by numerous artists, including Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, William Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, and Faith Ringgold.

In 1978, Harriet Tubman became the first African-American woman honored on a US postage stamp; she appeared on a second stamp in 1995.

On November 11,2024, Harriet Tubman was posthumously commissioned as a one-star general in the Maryland National Guard in recognition of her military service during the Civil War.

Harriet Tubman hoped to become literate and write her own memoirs, but she never did.

In both volumes Harriet Tubman is hailed as a latter-day Joan of Arc.

Several highly dramatized versions of Harriet Tubman's life had been written for children, and many more came later, but Conrad wrote in an academic style.