Harriet Ross Tubman was originally named Araminta Ross. She was born around the year 1820 and died in 1913. Harriet was born into a family of eleven children who were born to the slaves, Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene, and lived on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. Harriet was put to work by the age of five, and served as a maid and children's nurse. At the age of 12 she became a field hand. Around the age of 14 her master hit her on the head with a two-pound iron weight for trying to save another slave from punishment. The assault left her with permanent neurological damage, and she experienced blackouts for the rest of her life. Harriet received no formal education. Being self-taught, she could neither read nor write. She had a hard life working endlessly, and was fed barely enough to stay alive. Harriet heard stories about other slaves who were struggling for their freedom. Nat Turner was a slave who led 75 others in a revolt.
             Harriet married a free black man named John Tubman in 1844. Her master allowed them to live together, but Harriet was still his semi-slave. Her master died in 1847, which made her status as a slave undecided. Rather than being taken in by another master, Harriet fled to the north seeking her freedom. Harriet's husband, John, remained in Maryland while she traveled north. She moved to Pennsylvania in 1849, and soon after went back to Maryland hoping to convince her husband to return to the north with her. When she arrived in Maryland, she found that John had remarried. Harriet chose not to remarry until his death. In 1869 she married an African-American war veteran by the name of Nelson Davis. He contracted tuberculosis during the Civil War. Harriet married him in order to care for him, and he died at the age of 44 in 1888.
             Harriet returned to the north where she joined the abolitionist cause. This cause was dedicated to the abolishment of slavery. She joined the Un
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