The breathtaking courage of Harriet Tubman - Janell Hobson

1,855,369 views ・ 2018-07-24

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:06
Escaping slavery;
0
6579
1437
00:08
risking everything to save her family;
1
8016
2033
00:10
leading a military raid;
2
10049
1817
00:11
championing the cause of women’s suffrage;
3
11866
2517
00:14
these are just a handful of the accomplishments
4
14383
2282
00:16
of one of America’s most courageous heroes.
5
16665
2645
00:19
Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland,
6
19310
4511
00:23
in the early 1820s.
7
23821
1498
00:25
Born into chattel slavery, Araminta, or Minty, was the fifth of nine children.
8
25319
5155
00:30
Two of Minty’s older sisters were sold to a chain gang.
9
30474
3443
00:33
Even as a small child,
10
33917
1450
00:35
Minty was hired out to different owners,
11
35367
1952
00:37
who subjected her to whippings and punishment.
12
37319
2678
00:39
Young Minty’s life changed forever on an errand to a neighborhood store.
13
39997
3701
00:43
There, an overseer threw a two-pound weight at a fugitive enslaved person,
14
43698
4301
00:47
missed, and struck Minty instead.
15
47999
2634
00:50
Her injury caused her to experience sleeping spells,
16
50633
2753
00:53
which we know of today as narcolepsy,
17
53386
2322
00:55
for the rest of her life.
18
55708
1677
00:57
Minty’s owner tried to sell her,
19
57385
1919
00:59
but there were no buyers for an enslaved person who fell into sleeping spells.
20
59304
4040
01:03
She was instead put to work with her father, Ben Ross,
21
63344
2960
01:06
who taught her how to lumber.
22
66304
2034
01:08
Lumbering increased Minty’s physical strength
23
68338
2534
01:10
and put her in touch with free black sailors who shipped the wood to the North.
24
70872
4509
01:15
From them, Minty learned about the secret communications
25
75381
2944
01:18
that occurred along trade routes,
26
78325
1781
01:20
information that would prove invaluable later in her life.
27
80106
3952
01:24
In this mixed atmosphere of free and enslaved blacks working side by side,
28
84058
4670
01:28
Minty met John Tubman, a free black man she married in 1844.
29
88728
4593
01:33
After marriage, she renamed herself Harriet, after her mother.
30
93321
4532
01:37
Harriet Tubman’s owner died in 1849.
31
97853
2639
01:40
When his widow planned to sell off her enslaved human beings,
32
100492
3351
01:43
Harriet feared she would be sold away from everyone she loved.
33
103843
3451
01:47
She had heard of an “underground railroad,"
34
107294
2087
01:49
a secret network of safe houses,
35
109381
2208
01:51
boat captains,
36
111589
1159
01:52
and wagon drivers
37
112748
1298
01:54
willing to harbor fugitive enslaved people on their way north.
38
114046
4194
01:58
So Tubman fled with two of her brothers, Ben and Harry.
39
118240
3218
02:01
They eventually turned back, fearing they were lost.
40
121458
3273
02:04
But in one of her sleeping spells,
41
124731
1658
02:06
Harriet dreamed that she could fly like a bird.
42
126389
3038
02:09
Looking down below, she saw the path to liberation.
43
129427
3781
02:13
And in the autumn of 1849, she set out on her own,
44
133208
4105
02:17
following the North Star to Pennsylvania, and to freedom.
45
137313
3775
02:21
Tubman returned to the South 13 times to free her niece,
46
141088
4265
02:25
brothers,
47
145353
827
02:26
parents,
48
146180
863
02:27
and many others.
49
147043
1608
02:28
She earned the nickname Black Moses
50
148651
2150
02:30
and worked diligently with fellow abolitionists
51
150801
2672
02:33
to help enslaved people escape,
52
153473
2195
02:35
first to the North, and later to Canada.
53
155668
3033
02:38
Harriet Tubman worked as a Union army nurse,
54
158701
2685
02:41
scout,
55
161386
780
02:42
and spy during the Civil War.
56
162166
1877
02:44
In 1863, she became the first woman in United States history
57
164043
4332
02:48
to plan and lead a military raid,
58
168375
2563
02:50
liberating nearly 700 enslaved persons in South Carolina.
59
170938
4174
02:55
After the war, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
60
175112
4238
02:59
legally abolished slavery,
61
179350
1893
03:01
while the 14th expanded citizenship
62
181243
2238
03:03
and the 15th gave voting rights to formerly enslaved black men.
63
183481
4224
03:07
But she was undaunted, and she persisted.
64
187705
2827
03:10
She raised funds for formerly enslaved persons
65
190532
2954
03:13
and helped build schools and a hospital on their behalf.
66
193486
3682
03:17
In 1888, Tubman became more active in the fight for women’s right to vote.
67
197168
4972
03:22
In 1896, she appeared at the founding convention
68
202140
3303
03:25
of the National Association of Colored Women in Washington D.C.
69
205443
4071
03:29
and later at a woman’s suffrage meeting in Rochester, New York.
70
209514
3869
03:33
There she told the audience:
71
213383
1730
03:35
“I was a conductor on the Underground Railroad,
72
215113
3143
03:38
and I can say what many others cannot.
73
218256
2761
03:41
I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
74
221017
4349
03:45
As her fame grew,
75
225366
1765
03:47
various friends and allies helped her in the fight
76
227131
2911
03:50
to collect a veteran’s pension for her service in the Union Army.
77
230042
3562
03:53
In 1899, she was finally granted $20 a month.
78
233604
4700
03:58
In a fitting twist of fate,
79
238304
1692
03:59
the United States Treasury announced in 2016
80
239996
2924
04:02
that Tubman’s image will appear on a redesigned twenty dollar bill.
81
242920
4431
04:07
Harriet Tubman died on March 10, 1913.
82
247351
4348
04:11
Even on her deathbed at age 91,
83
251699
2404
04:14
she kept the freedom of her people in mind.
84
254103
2673
04:16
Her final words were:
85
256776
1713
04:18
"I go away to prepare a place for you.”
86
258489
3946
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7