Episode 221 is the first of a three part series for Black History Month dealing with Harriett Tubman - some of her ideas, philosophy, and earlier years.
Episode 221 is the first of a three part series for Black History Month dealing with Harriett Tubman - some of her ideas, philosophy, and earlier years.
Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 221 - Rescue Missions - This is the first of another three part series for Black History month is over - now earlier I devoted three episodes to the great Frederick Douglas, and now want to give several episodes to one of the many great African-American women of the 19th century. At first, I thought about Phyllis Wheatley - like Poe she was also a poet, and had an interesting story - but Wheatley lived closer to the time of George Washington than Edgar Allan Poe. Also much of what we know about Wheatley is sketchy at best - I later thought about Aretha Franklin - but she definitely lived many years after Edgar Allan Poe. But to make a long story short, I finally decided on Harriet Tubman - an African American woman who made an incredible contribution to human rights.
Tubman was born Araminta or "Minty" Ross to enslaved parents, Harriet ("Rit") Green and Ben Ross. Rit was enslaved by Mary Pattison Brodess (and later her son Edward). Ben was enslaved by Anthony Thompson, who became Mary Brodess's second husband, and who ran a large plantation near the Blackwater River in the Madison area of Dorchester County, Maryland.
As with many enslaved people in the United States, neither the exact year nor place of Tubman's birth is known. Tubman reported the year of her birth as 1825, while her death certificate lists 1815 and her gravestone lists 1820. Historian Kate Larson's 2004 biography of Tubman records the year as 1822, based on a midwife payment and several other historical documents, including her runaway advertisement. Based on Larson's work, more recent biographies have accepted March 1822 as the most likely timing of Tubman's birth. So dates that have been offered as the date of her birth vary from 1815 - 1822, making her a contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe. It’s believe that Harriet Tubman and Edgar Allan Poe lived in Baltimore at the same time, but I don’t know of any documentation that says that actually met. But I digress …
Tubman's maternal grandmother, Modesty, arrived in the U.S. on a slave ship from Africa; no information is available about her other ancestors. As a child, Tubman was told that she seemed like an Ashanti person because of her character traits, though no evidence has been found to confirm or deny this lineage. Her mother, Rit (who may have had a white father), was a cook for her white owners (and I always feel strange saying that another person OWNED another individual.) .[14] Her father, Ben, was a skilled woodsman who managed the timber work on Thompson's plantation. They married around 1808 and, according to court records, had nine children together: Linah, Mariah Ritty, Soph, Robert, Minty (Harriet), Ben, Rachel, Henry, and Moses.
Rit - now remember he was the father - struggled to keep Harriet’s family together as slavery threatened to tear it apart because the master, Edward Brodess sold three of Harriett’s young sisters (Linah, Mariah Ritty, and Soph), separating them from the family forever. When a trader from Georgia approached Brodess about buying Rit's youngest son, Moses, Harriet hid him for a month, aided by other enslaved people and freedmen in the community. Finally, Brodess came toward the slave quarters to seize the child, where Rit told them, "You are after my son; but the first man that comes into my house, I will split his head open.” Brodess backed away and abandoned the sale. Tubman's biographers agree that stories told about this event within the family influenced Harriet’s belief in the possibilities of resistance.
Tubman's mother was assigned to "the big house” - in other words, the home of the plantation owner - and had very little time to be with her own family; consequently, as a child Tubman took care of a younger brother and baby. When Harriett was five or six years old, Brodess hired her out as a nursemaid to a woman named "Miss Susan". Tubman was ordered to care for the baby and rock the cradle as it slept; When the baby woke up and cried, Tubman was whipped. She later recounted a particular day when she was lashed five times before breakfast. She carried the scars for the rest of her life. She found ways to resist, such as running away for five days,
wearing layers of clothing as protection against beatings, and even fighting back.
In the 1886 classic by called Harriet: The Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford, the author writes about that period in Harriet’s life:
She was engaged as child's nurse, but she soon found that she was expected to be maid of all work by day, as well as child's nurse by night. The first task that was set her was that of sweeping and
dusting a parlor. No information was vouchsafed as to the manner of going about this work, but she had often swept out the cabin, and this part of her task was successfully accomplished. Then at once
she took the dusting cloth, and wiped off tables, chairs and mantel-piece. The dust, as dust will do, when it has nowhere else to go, at once settled again, and chairs and tables were soon covered with a white coating, telling a terrible tale against Harriet, when her Mistress came in to see how the work progressed. Reproaches, and savage words, fell upon the ears of the frightened child, and she
was commanded to do the work all over again. It was done in precisely the same way, as before, with the same result. Then the whip was brought into requisition, and it was laid on with no light
hand. Five times before breakfast this process was repeated, when a new actor appeared upon the scene. Miss Emily, a sister of the Mistress, had been roused from her morning slumber by the
sound of the whip, and the screams of the child; and being of a less imperious nature than her sister, she had come in to try to set matters right.
Why do you whip the child, Susan, for not doing what she has never been taught to do ? Leave her to me a few minutes, and you will see that she will soon learn how to sweep and dust a room." Then Miss Emily instructed the child to open the windows, and sweep, then to leave the room, and set the table, while the dust settled ; and after that to return and wipe it off. There was no more
trouble of that kind. A few words might have set the matter right before ; but in those days many a poor slave suffered for the stupidity and obstinacy of a master or mistress, more stupid than themselves.
Also in her childhood, Harriett Tubman was sent to work for a planter named James Cook. She had to check his muskrat traps in nearby marshes, even after contracting measles. She became so ill that James Cook sent her back to Brodess, where her mother nursed her back to health. Brodess then hired her out again. She spoke later of her acute childhood homesickness, and as she grew older and stronger, she was assigned to field and forest work, driving oxen, plowing, and hauling logs.
Now - let me jump ahead for a little bit - later, it was generally agreed that Harriet Tubman was an extremely influential woman - and I will go into that later - and that Tubman would become literate and write her own memoirs - but she never did. Instead the author Sarah Hopkins Bradford combined some of Tubman's personal recollections, journalistic accounts, and letters Tubman's friends and supporters to create Scenes from the Life of Harriet Tubman in 1868. In 1886, Bradford released a re-written volume called Harriet, the Moses of her People. So since we don’t have a first person or primary source for Harriett Tubman’s life, the books by Bradford will have to do. There have some excellent books written about Harriett Tubman - unfortunately I can’t quote from them very much because they are not in the public domain.
Now getting back to Harriett Tubman’s life -
To quote Sarah Hopkins Bradford in Harriet: The Moses of Her People: Soon after Harriett entered her teens she was hired out as a field hand, and it was while thus employed that she received a wound, which nearly proved fatal, from the effects of which she still suffers. In the fall of the year, the slaves there work in the evening, cleaning up wheat, husking corn, etc. On this occasion, one of the slaves of a farmer named Barrett, left his work, and went to the village store
in the evening. The overseer followed him, and so did Harriet. When the slave was found, the overseer swore he should be whipped, and called on Harriet, among others, to help tie him. She refused, and as the man ran away, she placed herself in the door to stop pursuit. The overseer caught up a two-pound weight from the counter and threw it at the fugitive, but it fell short and struck Harriet a stunning blow on the head. It was long before she recovered from this, and it has left her subject to a sort of stupor or lethargy at times ; coming upon her in the midst of conversation, or whatever she may be doing, and throwing her into a deep slumber, from which she would presently rouse herself, and go on with her conversation or work.
From what I understand, at the time of the accident, Harriet was bleeding and unconscious, and was returned to her enslaver's house, laid on the seat of a loom, and she remained without medical care for two days. After this incident, Tubman began to experience extremely painful headaches, as well as seizures, although she claimed to be aware of her surroundings while appearing to be asleep. It has been suggested that her condition was epilepsy due to some kind of brain injury, but a definitive diagnosis is not possible because of a lack of contemporary medical evidence. In any case, this condition remained with her for the rest of her life.
After her injury, Tubman began experiencing visions and vivid dreams, which she interpreted as revelations from God. These spiritual experiences had a profound effect on Tubman's personality and she acquired a passionate faith in God. Although Harriett Tubman was illiterate, she was told Bible stories by her mother and likely attended a Methodist church with her family. Mystical inspiration guided her actions She rejected the teachings of white preachers who urged enslaved people to be passive and obedient victims to those who trafficked and enslaved them; instead she found guidance in the Old Testament tales of deliverance. This religious perspective informed her actions throughout her life.
Regarding her faith, the author of Harriet: The Moses of Her People, writes:
Brought up by parents possessed of strong faith in God, Tubman had never known the time, I imagine, when she did not trust Him, and cling to Him, with an all-abiding confidence. She seemed ever to feel the Divine Presence near, and she talked with God "as a man talketh with his friend." Hers was not the religion of a morning and evening prayer at stated times, but when she felt a need, she simply told God of it, and trusted Him to set the matter right.
Around 1844, she married John Tubman, a free black man. Although little is known about him or their time together, the union was complicated because of her enslaved status. The mother's status dictated that of children, and any children born to Harriet and John would be enslaved.
5 years. later, Harriett Tubman became very ill again, which diminished her value to slave traders. Edward Brodess - remember her master - was still around and tried to sell her, but could not find a buyer. Angry at him for trying to sell her and for continuing to enslave her relatives, Tubman began to pray for God to make Brodess change his ways. She said later: "I prayed all night long for my master; and all the time he was bringing people to look at me, and trying to sell me." When it appeared as though a sale was being concluded, Tubman changed her prayer: She began praying - “'Oh Lord, if you ain't never going to change that man's heart, kill him, Lord, and take him out of the way'."A week later, Brodess died, and Tubman later expressed regret for her earlier sentiments.
As in many estate settlements, Brodess's death increased the likelihood that Tubman would be sold and her family broken apart. His widow, Eliza Brodess, began working to sell the family's enslaved people.Tubman refused to wait for the Brodess family to decide her fate, despite her husband's efforts to change her mind. She later said that "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".
Sometime in October or November of 1849, Tubman managed to escape. Before leaving she sang a farewell song to hint at her intentions, which she hoped would be understood by Mary, a trusted fellow slave: "I'll meet you in the morning", she intoned, "I'm bound for the promised land.”
Harriett Tubman later said she seemed to see a line dividing the land of slavery from the land of freedom, and on the other side of that line she saw lovely white ladies waiting to welcome her, and to care for her. Already in her mind her people were the Israelites in the land of Egypt, while far away to the north somewhere, was the land of Canaan; through the clouds of darkness and fear, and fires of tribulation to that promised land ?
We don’t know the exact route that she took, but we do know that Harriett made use of the network known as the Underground Railroad. This informal system was composed of free and enslaved black people, white abolitionists, and other activists. The area where she eventually reached contained a substantial Quaker community and was probably an important first stop during her escape.
Tubman had to travel by night, guided by the North Star and trying to avoid slave catchers eager to collect rewards for fugitive slaves.[63] The "conductors" in the Underground Railroad used deceptions for protection. At an early stop, the lady of the house instructed Tubman to sweep the yard so as to seem to be working for the family. When night fell, the family hid her in a cart and took her to the next friendly house. Given her familiarity with the woods and marshes of the region, Tubman likely hid in these locales during the day. The particulars of this journey are unknown; because other escapees from slavery used the routes, Tubman did not discuss them until later in life. She crossed into Pennsylvania with a feeling of relief and awe, and recalled the experience years later:
When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.
Join Celebrate Poe for the second episode dealing with Harriet Tubman - Episode 222 - A Real Railway?
Sources include: Harriet: The Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford,
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