HARRIET TUBMAN SEPTEMBER 17-1849
Murphy Browne © September 17, 2020
HARRIET TUBMAN SEPTEMBER 17-1849
On September 17, 1849, Harriet Tubman and two of her brothers, Ben and Henry, fled to freedom from a plantation in Maryland, USA. Harriet Tubman whose story has been told in numerous books written for adults and children is one of the most well-known names in African American history. Her name is also well-known in African Canadian history as Ontario, Canada was her ultimate destination following her escape from enslavement in the USA. On September 17, 1849 when Tubman and her brothers fled, the enslavement of Africans in Canada had been abolished for 15 years (August 1, 1834.) Tubman made Canada her permanent home for several years following the 1850 passing of the “Fugitive Slave Act.” On September 18, 1850, “The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850” was passed by the United States Congress and required that any enslaved African in the USA who was captured after fleeing, be returned to their “owners,” even if they were in a “free state” in the USA. Abolitionists nicknamed the “Fugitive Slave Act” the "Bloodhound Bill," because of the dogs that were used to track down enslaved Africans who fled their enslavement.
Harriet Ross Tubman, born Araminta Ross, was born on the plantation of Edward Brodess in Maryland, the child of an enslaved African couple. Her mother, Harriet Green was “owned” by Mary Pattison Brodess and her father, Ben Ross was “owned” by Anthony Thomson. The law at that time meant that Araminta and her siblings were the “property” of Mary Pattison Brodess. When Mary Pattison Brodess died, her son Edward Brodess, inherited Harriet Green and her children. In 1844 Araminta married a free African American man, John Tubman but she remained the “property” of Edward Brodess. On March 7, 1849, Edward Brodess, died leaving an estate that was deeply in debt and three of Araminta’s sisters (Linah, Soph and Mariah Ritty) were sold. Realising the very real danger that they might be next on the auction block, Araminta, Ben and Henry fled six months later, on September 17, 1849. The newspaper “The Cambridge Democrat” published a $300 reward for the return of Harriet and her two brothers. Harriet travelled 90 miles to Pennsylvania, a free state, using the secret codes of the Underground Railroad. In December 1850, Araminta, using her new name, Harriet Tubman, returned to Maryland to guide her niece, Kessiah and Kessiah’s two children to freedom. A few months later she returned to Baltimore and helped her youngest brother Moses to escape. In 1851, Harriet Tubman returned for her husband John Tubman who refused to leave because by then he had remarried. Tubman lived in St. Catharines, Ontario, from 1851, making Canada her home and the base of her rescue operations. She rescued her parents and other family members, taking them to St. Catharines where they would be safe from slave catchers. In 1860 she made her final foray into the USA to rescue her remaining sister Rachel, but she was too late. On that final trip Tubman rescued Stephen and Maria Ennals, their 3 children including a 3-month-old infant and another unnamed couple. Tubman returned to the USA in 1861, at the beginning of the American Civil War where she worked as a cook, as a spy, a scout and a nurse.
Tubman helped to recruit formerly enslaved African American men to fight in the army during the Civil War. In 1863 Tubman became the first woman to lead an assault during the Civil War in the Combahee River Raid where more than 750 enslaved Africans were freed. 1865, when the Civil War ended, Tubman returned to the USA permanently, making her home in Auburn, New York.
Despite the work that Tubman did during the Civil War, she was never paid by the government. She served as an agent of the Union Army, as a nurse and in various other positions which entitled her to a pension but the government reneged on that agreement. As an African American veteran she was further insulted during a train ride to New York in 1869, when the conductor demanded that she move from her seat into the baggage car. She refused to move and presented the government-issued papers that entitled her to ride in the car. The conductor swore at her and tried to remove her, when she resisted he called two other passengers for help. During the struggle she was physically assaulted, her arm was broken and she was thrown into the baggage car.
Harriet Tubman never received her well-earned pension, but she continued her advocacy and activism and in1898 she became involved in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1903 she donated her home to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church in Auburn to be converted into a home for the “aged and indigent colored people.” Harriet Tubman, abolitionist and famous conductor on the Underground Railroad who risked her life for her own freedom and the freedom of hundreds of enslaved Africans, transitioned to the ancestral realm on March 10, 1913 at 93 years old. She was buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York. Her memory is honoured by the Thompson AME Zion Church with an annual pilgrimage to her gravesite.
Murphy Browne © September 17, 2020
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