Top 10 facts about Harriet Tubman

Top 10 facts about Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist who was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, all while carrying a bounty on her head. After the abolishment of slavery, she continued to fight for equality and suffrage for African American women.

Tubman is one of the most recognized icons in American history, and her legacy has inspired countless people from every race and background. Her fighting spiriting, bravery and selfless acts serves as a reminder that our beginning does not determine our future, but our choices determine what our future and legacy will be.

Here are the top 10 facts about Harriet Tubman;

1. The modern day “Moses”

Harriet Tubman historical marker – Flickr

Just like Moses in the Bible, Harriet helped her people escape from slavery and into the promised land of freedom and prosperity. For a period of roughly 10 years, she made 19 trips and guided over 300 slaves to freedom using the Underground Railway.

In December 1850, Tubman executed her first mission, the rescue of her niece Kessiah Jolley Bowley and Bowley’s two children, James Alfred and infant Araminta. From hence forth, she slowly guided dozens of other enslaved people to freedom. She never lost a passenger during her rescue missions.

2. Did God really speaking to her?

Young Harriet Tubman – Flickr

When she was about 12 years old, she suffered a severe head injury when an overseer threw a two-pound (1 kg) metal weight at another enslaved person who was attempting to flee. The weight struck Tubman instead, which she said: “broke my skull”.

After this incident, Tubman began experiencing visions and vivid dreams, which she interpreted as revelations from God. These spiritual experiences strengthened her faith in God. Thomas Garrett once said of her, “I never met with any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken direct to her soul.”

3. You do what you must for the greater good of all

Harriet Tubman’s pistol – Pin interest

Harriet carried a small pistol with her on her rescue missions, mostly for protection from slave catchers and their dogs, but also to “encourage” weak-hearted runaways from turning back and risking the safety of the rest of the group. Tubman told the tale of one man who insisted he was going to go back to the plantation when morale got low among a group of fugitive slaves. She pointed the gun at his head and said, “You go on or die. Several days later, he was with the group as they entered Canada.

She also often drugged babies and young children to prevent slave catchers from hearing their cries.

4. Tubman had the healing touch

Cranesbill – Wikipedia

In 1862, Tubman traveled to Beaufort, South Carolina, to be a nurse on South Carolina’s Sea Island. By 1865, she was appointed matron of a hospital at Fort Monroe in Virginia, where she cared for sick and wounded Black soldiers.

Tubman used home remedies learned from her mother, boiling cranesbill and lily roots to make a bitter-tasting brew to treat malignant fever, smallpox, and other infectious diseases. Despite rendered assistance to men with smallpox, she did not contract the disease herself.

Harriet Tubman received neither pay nor pension as a nurse during the Civil War.

5. Such a rear opportunity of women during her time

Montgomery’s Raids on the Combahee River Plantations – Wikipedia

On June 1 and 2, 1863, Harriet Tubman made history by being the first woman in American history to lead a military assault. On the morning of June 2, 1863, Tubman guided three steamboats around Confederate mines in the waters leading to the shore.

When the steamboats sounded their whistles, slaves throughout the area understood that they were being liberated. Tubman watched as slaves stampeded toward the boats. More than 750 slaves were rescued in the Combahee River Raid.

For two more years, Tubman worked for the Union forces, tending to newly liberated slaves, scouting into Confederate territory, and nursing wounded soldiers in Virginia.

6. A “prophet” is not accepted in her hometown

Harriet Tubman, 1911 – Wikipedia

Despite her contributions to the war effort, Tubman received only $200 for her service in the military and did not begin to get a pension until the 1890s and that was for her husband’s military service, not her own. She has difficulties in obtaining a government pension because of her unofficial status in the military that caused great difficulty in documenting her service.

In 1874, Representatives Clinton D. MacDougall of New York and Gerry W. Hazelton of Wisconsin introduced a bill providing that Tubman be paid “the sum of $2,000 for services rendered by her to the Union Army as scout, nurse, and spy”. The bill was defeated in the Senate. In February 1899, the Congress approved a compromise amount of $20 per month, the $8 from her widow’s pension plus $12 for her service as a nurse, but did not acknowledge her as a scout and spy.

In 2003, Congress approved a payment of US$11,750 of additional pension to compensate for the perceived deficiency of the payments made during her life. The funds were directed to the maintenance of her relevant historical sites.

7. An inspiration for Rosa Parkes

Rosa Parks sitting in the Front of the bus in which she refused to go to the back of the bus – Flickr

In 1869 while on a train ride to New York, the conductor told Harriet to move from a half-price section into the baggage car. She refused, showing the government-issued papers that entitled her to ride there. However, the train conductor did not acknowledge her documentations and used forced to move her from her seat.

The conductor summoned two other passengers to grab and drug Tubman, who was resisting by clutching at the rails, to the baggage car. As these events transpired, other white passengers cursed Tubman and shouted for the conductor to kick her off the train. From this incident Tubman inquired several injuries including a broken arm.

Tubman’s act of defiance became a historical symbol, later cited when Rosa Parks refused to move from a bus seat in 1955.

8. What is true beauty?

Harriet Tubman, 1895 – Wikipedia

Harriet Tubman is the definition of true beauty through her heroic actions as an abolitionist and activist, promoting racial and gender equality, yet today we are willing to mark her older portrait as ‘not glamorous enough’ to feature on a $20 bill.

The Obama administration in 2016 proposed to depict Turban as the new face of the $20 bill, replacing former American President and slaveholder, Andrew Jackson. The proposal was blocked during the Trump administration, but has been resurrected again in the Biden administration.

There has been push back due to Tubman’s physical appearance with an alternative photograph, purporting to show a ‘younger Tubman’ even began circulating on social media, although this image was not actually her.

This shows how contemporary beliefs and gender stereotypes continue to affect popular perceptions of women in history.

9. Tubman did not invent the Underground Railway

Map of Underground Railroad routes to modern day Canada – Wikipedia

The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War.

Contrary to legend, Tubman did not create the Underground Railway however she greatly benefited from this network of escape routes and safe houses in 1849, when she and two of her brothers escaped north. She also used the network during her rescue missions.

Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor for the Underground Railroad.

10. The undeniable strength of this woman

Bite Impression on Civil War Bullet – Flickr

In the late 1890s, Tubman underwent brain surgery at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital because she was unable to sleep because of pains and “buzzing” in her head. During the surgery, Harriet did not receive anesthesia and reportedly chose instead to bite down on a bullet, as she had seen Civil War soldiers do when their limbs were amputated.

The surgery in her words entailed, “sawed open my skull, and raised it up, and now it feels more comfortable”.