Famous+Americans+Bio;+Harriet+Tubman

FAMOUS AMERICANS BIO; HARRIET TUBMAN

Harriet Tubman grew up as a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland. She started out as a household servant, but by the time she was a teenager she was sent to work in the fields. While standing up for another field worker, she was hit in the head, causing an injury that would stick with her for her whole life. Around 1844, she married John Tubman, a freed blackman, and took his name. In 1849, she decided to run away, in fear of being sold like many of the other plantation slaves. She took off on foot and was helped by a friendly white woman. Following the North Star, she made her way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she worked and saved her money so she could make the trip back to Maryland the next year and get her sister and her sister's two children. Soon after, she made the trip again to get her brother and two other men. She made many of these voyages along the [|"Underground Railroad"]bringing many slaves into the free north. By the time people caught onto her schemes, there was a $40,000 reward placed on her head and she came up with clever ways to avoid being caught, like holding up a book and pretending to read because posters told people that she was illiterate. Famous abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass and John Brown, gave her credit for being one of the bravest and most determined people they had ever met. John Brown even conferred with her before launching the raid on Harper's Ferry. During the Civil War, she served the Union as a cook, a nurse, and a spy.

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