The breathtaking courage of Harriet Tubman - Janell Hobson

1,842,502 views ・ 2018-07-24

TED-Ed


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Escaping slavery;
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risking everything to save her family;
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leading a military raid;
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championing the cause of women’s suffrage;
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these are just a handful of the accomplishments
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of one of America’s most courageous heroes.
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Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland,
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in the early 1820s.
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Born into chattel slavery, Araminta, or Minty, was the fifth of nine children.
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Two of Minty’s older sisters were sold to a chain gang.
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Even as a small child,
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Minty was hired out to different owners,
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who subjected her to whippings and punishment.
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Young Minty’s life changed forever on an errand to a neighborhood store.
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There, an overseer threw a two-pound weight at a fugitive enslaved person,
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missed, and struck Minty instead.
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Her injury caused her to experience sleeping spells,
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which we know of today as narcolepsy,
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for the rest of her life.
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Minty’s owner tried to sell her,
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but there were no buyers for an enslaved person who fell into sleeping spells.
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She was instead put to work with her father, Ben Ross,
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who taught her how to lumber.
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Lumbering increased Minty’s physical strength
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and put her in touch with free black sailors who shipped the wood to the North.
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From them, Minty learned about the secret communications
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that occurred along trade routes,
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information that would prove invaluable later in her life.
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In this mixed atmosphere of free and enslaved blacks working side by side,
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Minty met John Tubman, a free black man she married in 1844.
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After marriage, she renamed herself Harriet, after her mother.
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Harriet Tubman’s owner died in 1849.
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When his widow planned to sell off her enslaved human beings,
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Harriet feared she would be sold away from everyone she loved.
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She had heard of an “underground railroad,"
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a secret network of safe houses,
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boat captains,
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and wagon drivers
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willing to harbor fugitive enslaved people on their way north.
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So Tubman fled with two of her brothers, Ben and Harry.
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They eventually turned back, fearing they were lost.
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But in one of her sleeping spells,
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Harriet dreamed that she could fly like a bird.
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Looking down below, she saw the path to liberation.
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And in the autumn of 1849, she set out on her own,
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following the North Star to Pennsylvania, and to freedom.
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Tubman returned to the South 13 times to free her niece,
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brothers,
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parents,
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and many others.
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She earned the nickname Black Moses
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and worked diligently with fellow abolitionists
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to help enslaved people escape,
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first to the North, and later to Canada.
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Harriet Tubman worked as a Union army nurse,
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scout,
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and spy during the Civil War.
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In 1863, she became the first woman in United States history
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to plan and lead a military raid,
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liberating nearly 700 enslaved persons in South Carolina.
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After the war, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
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legally abolished slavery,
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while the 14th expanded citizenship
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and the 15th gave voting rights to formerly enslaved black men.
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But she was undaunted, and she persisted.
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She raised funds for formerly enslaved persons
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and helped build schools and a hospital on their behalf.
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In 1888, Tubman became more active in the fight for women’s right to vote.
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In 1896, she appeared at the founding convention
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of the National Association of Colored Women in Washington D.C.
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and later at a woman’s suffrage meeting in Rochester, New York.
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There she told the audience:
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“I was a conductor on the Underground Railroad,
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and I can say what many others cannot.
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I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
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As her fame grew,
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various friends and allies helped her in the fight
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to collect a veteran’s pension for her service in the Union Army.
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In 1899, she was finally granted $20 a month.
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In a fitting twist of fate,
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the United States Treasury announced in 2016
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that Tubman’s image will appear on a redesigned twenty dollar bill.
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Harriet Tubman died on March 10, 1913.
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Even on her deathbed at age 91,
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she kept the freedom of her people in mind.
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Her final words were:
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"I go away to prepare a place for you.”
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