Born Araminta Ross sometime in the early 1820’s, Tubman was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and activist. Born into slavery, she eventually escaped in the fall of 1849, only to return of her own free will to rescue her family. Thereafter, she continued to head back into southern lands to rescue groups of slaves and lead them north. All in all, she made roughly thirteen missions thereto and rescued approximately seventy slaves. When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. She was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, when she guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 750 slaves in South Carolina. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents, and became active in the women’s suffrage movement in that state until illness overtook her in 1913.

“I had reasoned it out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other … I freed thousands of slaves, and I could have freed thousands more, if they had but known they were slaves … Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars and to change the world.” ~ Harriet Tubman

 

Filed under: In LOVE with Humanity by Scaughdt