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HARRIET TUBMAN AND THE UNDERGOUND RAILROAD Harriet Tubman was a black American who helped many slaves escape to freedom. She lived from 1820 to 1813. Tubman became the most famous leader of the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a bunch of routes that slaves used to escape to the free states. Some of these states were Ohio, Indiana, and Philadelphia. Some routes led into Canada.
The way the Underground Railroad received it? s name was not from being underground or from being a railroad, but from the quick, secret way slaves were taken from one place to another. The people that worked the railroad used railroad terms as code words. Places slaves would stay at during the day were called stations, and the people that helped were called conductors. The railroad was not a formal organization. The people who helped pay for the food and clothing were the slaves and whites that didn?
t believe in slavery. The Underground Railroad showed how determined the blacks were to be free, and how many whites wanted to end slavery. The operation of the railroad was one of many major conflicts that led our country into the Civil War. Harriet was born a slave in Bucktown, Maryland near Cambridge. Her real name was Araminta Ross, but when she was young, people began to call her by her mothers name. Her father taught her valuable knowledge about the woods, which was used to free the slaves.
When she was thirteen, she saw a slave being beaten and tried to stop the owner. The owner hit her over the head with a 2 -pound weight. For the rest of her life she suffered black outs. Harriet married a freed slave in 1844. In 1849 Harriet escaped from slavery.
Without her husband she went to Philadelphia through the Underground Railroad. In 1850, congress passed the fugitive slave act, a law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves. During that time Tubman returned 18 times to Maryland and helped more than 3, 000 slaves escape. Tubman was never caught and never lost a slave on any of her 18 rescue trips.
Harriet carried a gun and threatened to kill any slave that wanted to turn back. At one time the rewards on her head was over 40, 000 dollars. Tubman also worked during the Civil War as a scout, nurse, and a spy for the Union Army in South Carolina. During one campaign for the military, Tubman helped free more than 750 slaves. After the war Harriet raised money for black schools in Auburn.
She also started a home for the elderly and needy blacks. It was called the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn.
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Research essay sample on Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad
