Celebrate Harrit Tubman (1822-1913) on the Anniversary of her first attempt to reach freedom on September 17, 1849. Araminta Ross born into slavery around 1820 on plantation in Dorchester County, MD. As a child she was beaten and suffered a traumatic head injury when an overseer threw a heavy weight that hit her in the head
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, only to return to Maryland a dozen times to rescue some seventy friends and family members from bondage. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided them to freedom. Tubman (or “Moses“, as she was called) travelled by night and in extreme secrecy, and later said she “never lost a passenger”.[5] After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide escapees farther north into British North America (Canada), and helped newly freed people find work. Tubman met John Brown in 1858 and helped him plan and recruit supporters for his 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.
When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. For her guidance of the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people, she is widely credited as the first woman to lead an armed military operation in the United States. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement until illness overtook her, and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. She became an icon of courage and freedom.
Celebrate her history at the Button Farm Harriet Tubman Day on September 14th from noon to 3:00 pm.