Town Hall Meeting

Hello, am Harriett Tubman. I was born between 1820 and 1822 in Dorchester county Maryland. I was born into a family of slaves. I had 8 brothers and sisters whom I was separated from early on in my life due to slavery.

I began my fight for justice against slavery when I was just twelve years old. I witnessed a slave owner about to throw a brick at a fugitive slave and tried to intervene. The weight ended up striking me. The weight broke my skull. They carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting. I had no bed, no place to lie down on at all, and they laid me on the seat of the loom, and I stayed there all day and the next. This incident left me emotionally and physically scarred. For the rest of my life I struggled with narcolepsy, where I would randomly fall asleep in the middle of doing things. 

In 1849 I escaped from slavery to Philadelphia Pennsylvania by the underground railroad. Shortly after I myself became a conductor on the railroad. Making around 13 trips from Maryland to the South and back, I was able to free around 70 slaves. My anti slavery efforts were rooted by my strong connection to God. I believe that slavery is an evil created by man. During my time as the underground railroad conductor, there was a $40,000 reward if I was captured or killed. 

The fugitive slave act made the underground railroad a more challenging feat. The fugitive slave act required that fugitive slaves must be returned to their owners even if they were in a free state. After the fugitive slave act was put in place, I moved further North to Canada, and operated at night. 

During the civil war, I had a role in the Union army as a scout, spy, nurse, and confidante of generals. I was the first African American woman to serve in the military. I learned about confederate troop placement and supply lines from the enslaved population in the South. I dispensed my own herbal remedies to soldiers to prevent them from dying from infection. 

After the war ended I moved to New York. I married a union soldier, and we adopted a daughter. I began raising funds for women’s suffrage. I also opened a nursing home for African Americans in New York.