Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman is one of the most recognized names when doing research about the Underground Railroad. She was considered to be a conductor of the Underground Railroad. She escorted over 300 slaves to freedom over a ten-year span. She made 19 trips into the south. She once proudly said to Frederick Douglas that in all of her journeys she “never lost a single passenger.” She was given the name of “Black Moses” due to her helping slaves make their exodus into freedom just as Moses had helped the Israelites make their exodus out of Egypt under Pharaoh Ramses’ enslavement of them. Harriet’s given name at birth was Araminta Ross. Many called Araminta “Minty” for short. She later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother. She was born into slavery in either 1819 or 1820. There was a not adequate record of births in those days, at least not for people of color. She was born in Maryland’s Eastern shore in Dorchester County. Her parents’ names were Benjamin Ross and Harriet Green. Both her parents were Ashanti slaves. They were from the Ashanti tribe in Africa and sold into enslavement where they were eventually auctioned off and sent to work at a plantation belonging to Edward Brodas (

This made Harriet resent her situation even more and made her want freedom passionately. It was in Philadelphia that Harriet Tubman met William Still. William Still was a stationmaster for the Underground Railroad. They had eleven children and saw many of their children sold into the Deep South. Because she was not very good at domestic skills young Harriet was often beat by her owners and those who rented her. In 1844, Harriet married a free black man by the name of John Tubman. She had blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. This made her less attractive as a slave to others who wanted her services. Still and other members of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society taught Harriet all she needed to know about the workings of the Underground Railroad. Not long after her marriage Harriet hired an attorney to investigate her own legal history. Destination after destination led her to the route of Pennsylvania. However the lawyer advised Harriet to drop it and not entertain any other thoughts about it simply because a court would unlikely not hear the case, let alone rule in her favor. Harriet preferred the fields instead of doing housework. In 1849, Harriet heard that two of her brothers were about to be sold into the Deep South.