Even before Harriet Tubman was born she had a powerful enemy. Her enemy wasn't a person or even a country; it was the system known as slavery. It is known that at least two grandparents were captured by slave traders and brought to North America from the Slave Coast of Africa during the 18th century. Because slaves were not allowed to read and write, Tubman grew up illiterate. She left no letters or diaries that would later allow historians to piece together all the parts of her life story. But we do know that she was one of history's great heroines. With courage and determination, she escaped from slavery herself and then led more than 300 slaves to safety and freedom. When the Civil War began, she tirelessly scouted for the Union army and continued to free her people. Many of these newly freed slaves became new recruits for the Union army. Tubman rose from slavery to become one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the United States of America.
             About 40 years before the Civil War began, a slave child, Araminta. Like others born into slavery, Araminta, who later become known as Harriet Ross Tubman, was never to know her birth date. Her parents, Harriet Greene and Benjamin Ross, couldn't read or write. They didn't even know the months of the year. They simply kept track by the seasons: summer, winter, harvest time, and planting time.
             Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 on a large plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. She was the sixth of eleven children. Harriet was born in a very small one-room log hut that was located behind her families owners house. The hut had a dirt floor, no windows, and no furniture. Her father, Benjamin Ross, and mother, Harriet Green, were both slaves. They were from the Ashanti tribe of West Africa. Edward Brodas, Harriet's owner, hired her out as a laborer by the age of five.
             The buying and selling of humans was a major deal in America between the late 1600'...