35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Super Hero HARRIET TUBMAN

Harriet Tubman

Unquestionably the best known conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman led a life dedicated to freedom. With stops in the South, the Underground Railroad operated primarily in New England and the Ohio Western Reserve, where secrecy in helping runaway slaves was essential in the pre-Civil War era.

Tubman was also the first, and possibly the last, woman to lead U.S. Army troops into battle. Working in South Carolina and other states, Tubman organized slave intelligence networks behind enemy lines and led scouting raids.

A graphic account of the battle she led appeared in the Boston Commonwealth on July 10, 1863. In glowing language, the article noted how Colonel Montgomery and his gallant band of 150 Black soldiers, under Tubman's guidance, dashed into enemy country. They destroyed millions of dollars' worth of commissary stores, cotton, and lordly dwellings, "and struck terror into the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property, without losing a man or receiving a scratch."

Despite working for four years off and on in the service of the Union Army as a nurse, spy, and scout, Tubman was never duly rewarded after the war. Yet she was never bitter. She was truly a humanitarian. A big-souled, God-intoxicated, heroic Black woman, Tubman's mission was to save others. That mission guided her to freedom and back into slave states, where she brilliantly planned and executed escapes for approximately 300 slaves.

At great personal risk, Tubman led many to freedom with an operation that she funded primarily by her work as a domestic. In doing so, Tubman inspired peers and future generations of African American women to continue the long-standing tradition of self-help and self-improvement prevalent in the Black community.

Dark-complexioned and short, Tubman had a full, broad face, and she often wore a, colorful bonnet. She developed extraordinary physical endurance and muscular strength as well as mental fortitude. She was unpretentious, practical, shrewd, and visionary. A deeply religious woman with a driven sense of purpose, she credited the Almighty and not herself for guiding her during dangerous journeys. She also had a superstitious side, believing deeply in dreams and omens that seemed to put a protective umbrella over her perilous exploits.

She was born on a slave-breeding plantation in Maryland, around 1821, one of 11 children of Harriet and Benjamin Ross. Originally named Araminta, she was renamed Harriet by her mother. In an attempt to stop a nearby runaway slave, Tubman's master threw a two-pound weight on her head as a child. The weight crushed her skull and caused her sleeping fits and headaches that plagued her all her life. After the master died, it was rumored that the slaves were to be sent to the Deep South.

Fearing the often deadly consequences of such a move south, Tubman and two of her brothers decided to escape. Fearful of what would happen if they were apprehended, her brothers turned back, but Harriet kept walking to freedom. She later returned to get three of her brothers and returned again for her mother and father. Infuriated slave masters offered a $40,000 reward for her capture, dead or alive.

Tubman once said, "There was one or two things I had right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time come for me to go, the Lord would let them take me."

For her heroic work, Tubman received many honors, including a medal from Queen Victoria of England. When she received a $20 monthly pension for her nursing services during the Civil War, she used the money to help needy, elderly freed men and women.

Tubman died in Auburn, New York, on March 10, 1913. After her death, a campaign was launched to collect funds for a monument in the town square. The monument stands in testimony to her indomitable will.

From Great African Americans.  Copyright, Publications International, Ltd.