| SHE WAS A HELL OF A WOMAN...... |
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| She was a hell of a woman... |
2/12/2008 2:47:59 AM |
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| Message: |
She
show the fortitude for country, family and selflessness that has left
the children of today and I would like to thank her for her courage in
alowing us to enjoy the freedoms that we now enjoy..thank you also for
you controbutions..
Jackie
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta
Ross, c. 1820 – 10 March 1913) was an African-American abolitionist,
humanitarian, and Union spy during the U.S. Civil War. After escaping
from captivity, she made thirteen missions to rescue over three hundred
slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known
as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men
for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for
women's suffrage.
Born into slavery in Dorchester County,
Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various owners as a
child. Early in her life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an
irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight at her, intending to hit
another slave. The injury caused disabling seizures, headaches, and
powerful visionary and dream activity, and spells of hypersomnia which
occurred throughout her entire life. A devout Christian, she ascribed
her visions and vivid dreams to premonitions from God.
In 1849,
Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland
to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought
relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of
other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy,
Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". Heavy
rewards were offered for many of the people she helped bring away, but
no one ever knew it was Harriet Tubman who was helping them. When a
far-reaching United States Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she
helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped
newly-freed slaves find work.
When the American Civil War began,
Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then
as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition
in the war, she guided the raid on the Combahee River, which liberated
more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the
family home 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
she had helped open years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became
an icon of American courage and freedom. |
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| Posted: 2/27/2008 at 06:56 | Read 211 times | 3 comments | Leave Comment |
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