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Harriet Tubman


Runaway Slave
Underground Railroad Conductor

Harriet Tubman Jigsaw puzzle
Harriet Tubman Toys


When Slavery was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War

Dissects the evangelical defense of slavery at the heart of the nineteenth century's sectional crisis. John Daly's writing uncovers the cultural and ideological bonds linking the combatants in the Civil War era and reinterprets the intellectual foundations of secession

Born: c. 1820, Dorchester County, Maryland
Died: March 10, 1913, Auburn, New York

Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland who became known as the "Moses of her people." Over the course of 10 years, and at great personal risk, she led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses where runaway slaves could stay on their journey north to freedom. She later became a leader in the abolitionist movement, and during the Civil War she was a spy with for the federal forces in South Carolina as well as a nurse.

Harriet Tubman's name at birth was Araminta Ross. She was one of 11 children of Harriet and Benjamin Ross born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland. As a child, Ross was "hired out" by her master as a nursemaid for a small baby, much like the nursemaid in the picture. Ross had to stay awake all night so that the baby wouldn't cry and wake the mother. If Ross fell asleep, the baby's mother whipped her. From a very young age, Ross was determined to gain her freedom.

I have a home
I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad
The Blackburn case was the first serious legal dispute between Canada and the United States regarding the Underground Railroad. The impassioned defense of the Blackburns by Canada's lieutenant governor set precedents for all future fugitive-slave cases

As a slave, Araminta Ross was scarred for life when she refused to help in the punishment of another young slave. A young man had gone to the store without permission, and when he returned, the Harriet Tubman Moses of the Underground Railroadoverseer wanted to whip him. He asked Ross to help but she refused. When the young man started to run away, the overseer picked up a heavy iron weight and threw it at him. He missed the young man and hit Ross instead. The weight nearly crushed her skull and left a deep scar. She was unconscious for days, and suffered from seizures for the rest of her life.

In 1844, Ross married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. She also changed her first name, taking her mother's name, Harriet. In 1849, worried that she and the other slaves on the plantation were going to be sold, Tubman decided to run away. Her husband refused to go with her, so she set out with her two brothers, and followed the North Star in the sky to guide her north to freedom. Her brothers became frightened and turned back, but she continued on and reached Philadelphia. There she found work as a household servant and saved her money so she could return to help others escape.

During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union army as a nurse, a cook, and a spy. Her experience leading slaves along the Underground Railroad was especially helpful because she knew the land well. She recruited a group of former slaves to hunt for rebel camps and report on the movement of the Confederate troops. In 1863, she went with Colonel James Montgomery and about 150 black soldiers on a gunboat raid in South Carolina. Because she had inside information from her scouts, the Union gunboats were able to surprise the Confederate rebels.

At first when the Union Army came through and burned plantations, slaves hid in the woods. But when they realized that the gunboats could take them behind Union lines to freedom, they came running from all directions, bringing as many of their belongings as they could carry. Tubman later said, "I never saw such a sight." Tubman played other roles in the war effort, including working as a nurse. Folk remedies she learned during her years living in Maryland would come in very handy.

Tubman worked as a nurse during the war, trying to heal the sick. Many people in the hospital died from dysentery, a disease associated with terrible diarrhea. Tubman was sure she could help cure the sickness if she could find some of the same roots and herbs that grew in Maryland. One night she searched the woods until she found water lilies and crane's bill (geranium). She boiled the water lily roots and the herbs and made a bitter-tasting brew that she gave to a man who was dying-and it worked! Slowly he recovered. Tubman saved many people in her lifetime. On her grave her tombstone reads "Servant of God, Well Done."

Underground Railroad

After Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery, she returned to slave-holding states many times to help other slaves escape. She led them safely to the northern free states and to Canada. It was very dangerous to be a runaway slave. There were rewards for their capture, and ads like you see here described slaves in detail. Whenever Tubman led a group of slaves to freedom, she placed herself in great danger. There was a bounty offered for her capture because she was a fugitive slave herself, and she was breaking the law in slave states by helping other slaves escape

If anyone ever wanted to change his or her mind during the journey to freedom and return, Tubman pulled out a gun and said, "You'll be free or die a slave!" Tubman knew that if anyone turned back, it would put her and the other escaping slaves in danger of discovery, capture or even death. She became so well known for leading slaves to freedom that Tubman became known as the "Moses of Her People." Many slaves dreaming of freedom sang the spiritual "Go Down Moses." Slaves hoped a savior would deliver them from slavery just as Moses had delivered the Israelites from slavery.

Tubman made 19 trips to Maryland and helped 300 people to freedom. During these dangerous journeys she helped rescue members of her own family, including her 70-year-old parents. At one point, rewards for Tubman's capture totaled $40,000. Yet, she was never captured and never failed to deliver her "passengers" to safety. As Tubman herself said, "On my Underground Railroad I [never] run my train off [the] track [and] I never [lost] a passenger."

Source: Library of Congress

Kindle Available

Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life: A Biography

Travel with Tubman along the treacherous route of the Underground Railroad. Hear of her friendships with Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and other abolitionists.





Young Reader Title

Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman

Harriet escaped North, by the secret route called the Underground Railroad. Harriet didn't forget her people. She risked her life to lead them on the same secret, dangerous journey

  Passage to Freedom
Passage to Freedom Art Print
22 in. x 28 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted
Kindle Available
Raising freedoms child slavery
Raising Freedom's Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future After Slavery

Previously untapped documents and period photographs casts a dazzling, fresh light on the way that abolitionists, educators, missionaries, planters, politicians, and free children of color envisioned the status of African Americans after emancipation

Raiding Combahee

 In June, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, the union hatched a bold plan to raid the Combahee Ferry area in South Carolina. Under the overall command of Colonel Montgomery, several hundred black soldiers (led by white officers) would board three US Navy ships. These ships would then travel a dangerous course inland, deep into Confederate territories.

The area had been mapped out and reconnoitered by a Union spy. Because of these efforts the area was known to have an abundance of supplies and food needed for the south’s war efforts,Hasrriet Tubman along with a variety of plantations and their accompanying slaves. This spy would participate in the mission should any additional information be needed.

Travelling by night, one ship was put out of commission. Yet the other two continued on and, near dawn, combat actions began. The spy, not the type of person to sit idle as a spectator, took control of a small group and led them into battle. As cannon fire erupted from the ships and shots were fired from both sides, the Union forces created havoc and were rewarded with a stunning victory.

 A bridge was wrecked. Surprised Confederate troops were forced to flee. Several plantations and their important crops were completely destroyed. A horde of rice along with a variety farm animals were confiscated for the use of northern troops. But most important, over 700 slaves were freed, boarded and brought back to Union lines where many of them were formed into military units. Not one Union death was reported.

Just another exciting chapter in a large book of Civil War battles? Perhaps. Except that the northern spy who helped lead the Union forces was a woman. The first American woman to lead a raid during the Civil War. More, she was a black woman. A black woman and former slave named Harriet Tubman.

Tubman was less used to travelling by ship than she was by railroad – Underground Railroad. Prior to the Civil War she’d personally helped to free hundreds of black men, women and children from the grip of southern slavery. Those talents she’d used to free slaves came to use again during the war, as a spy

by Bob Maschi


Biography Channel Harriet Tubman Video

underground railroad history channel dvd History Channel DVD Movie Title
The Underground Railroad, "the first civil rights movement," was no mere act of civil disobedience. The secret network of guides, pilots, and safe-house keepers (the Railroad's "conductors") was built by runaway slaves who, over the decades, communicated their experiences through songs and secret gestures, and were supported by abolitionists (many of them former slaves) who risked their own freedom to help free the enslaved. The "passengers" risked their lives. A wealth of photos, documents, and commentary by modern historians provides the broad lines of history, but it comes alive in the individual stories of conductors and passengers, among them abolitionist and historian William Still, called the "Father of the Underground Railroad," and Henry "Box" Brown, who mailed himself to freedom in a cargo crate. They (and many others) take their place beside Harriet Tubman ("the Moses of her people") and Frederick Douglass as courageous heroes in America's first integrated social movement. The DVD also features the Biography episode on Frederick Douglass, the complete text of the Emancipation Proclamation, a biographical essay on Harriet Tubman, and other historical background pieces.
Slaves No More
Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War

The first essay traces the destruction of slavery by discussing the shift from a war for the Union to a war against slavery
The second essay examines the evolution of freedom in occupied areas of the lower and upper South.
The third essay demonstrates how the enlistment and military service of nearly 200,000 slaves hastened the transformation of the war into a struggle for universal liberty

Fugitive African Americans Fording the Rappahannock River. Rappahannock, Virginia, August 1862 Runaway slaves crossing river in covered wagons

Jay Allen Underground Railroad
Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad

Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad is the retelling of a man's recollections of his first experience helping an escaped slave. The book brings the underground railroad down to the level primary students can comprehend. This book makes for wonderful discussions regarding overcoming one's fears, going against the norm and doing what you believe to be morally correct.

Harriet Tubman with slaves she helped during Civil War
Harriet Tubman with escaped slaves on plantation


Women Civil War Video Download

Women Soldiers of the American Civil War

Video Download
More than 600 women disguised themselves as men to fight in the American Civil War. This documentary tells their stories through the women's own letters, diaries, and testimonials. 'The Forgotten Grave' also follows the lives of other women who took part in the Civil War, such as nurses, spies, and other brave heroines.
American Civil War Women
Underground Railroad
History of Colored Troops
Womens Suffrage Movement
Civil War Exhibits
Dred Scott Decision
Frederick Douglas
Kids Zone Underground Railroad
Civil War Cooking
Civil War Submarines
Watermans Song Slavery and Freedom
The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina


American Civil War Book Titles

Slavery, Secession, and Civil War
Views from the UK and Europe, 1856-1865

Contains articles written by foreign journalists living in the UK and Europe during the American Civil War, who provide an outsider's view of events. Articles were first published from 1856-1865 in British, French, and Spanish journals

Bitter Fruits Of Bondage: The Demise Of Slavery And The Collapse Of The Confederacy, 1861-1865

The process of social change initiated during the birth of Confederate nationalism undermined the social and cultural foundations of the southern way of life built on slavery, igniting class conflict that ultimately sapped white southerners of the will to go on.

Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina

From 1816 to 1836 planters of the Palmetto State tumbled from a contented and prosperous life to a world rife with economic distress, guilt over slavery, and apprehension of slave rebellion. Compelling details ofhow this reversal of fortune led the political leaders down the path to states rights doctrines

House Divided
A House Divided: The Antebellum Slavery Debates in America, 1776-1865

An excellent overview of the antebellum slavery debate and its key issues and participants. The most important abolitionist and proslavery documents written in the United States between the American Revolution and the Civil War

To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War

Thousands of former slaves flocked to southern cities in search of work, they found the demands placed on them as wage-earners disturbingly similar to those they had faced as slaves: seven-day workweeks, endless labor, and poor treatment
Kindle Available

Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America

The evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through the Revolution
Kindle Available

Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830-1860

A rich new perspective on the events leading up to the Civil War and will prove an invaluable tool for understanding the central crisis in American politics.
Kindle Available
Nothing But Freedom
Nothing but Freedom
Emancipation and Its Legacy

Insights into the relatively neglected debates over fencing laws and hunting and fishing rights in the postemancipation South, and into the solidarity of the low-country black community
Underground Railroad
Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad
Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad is the retelling of a man's recollections of his first experience helping an escaped slave. The book brings the underground railroad down to the level primary students can comprehend. This book makes for wonderful discussions regarding overcoming one's fears, going against the norm and doing what you believe to be morally correct.

Numbering The Bones

The Civil War is at an end, but for thirteen-year-old Eulinda, it is no time to rejoice. Her younger brother Zeke was sold away, her older brother Neddy joined the Northern war effort,. With the help of Clara Barton, the eventual founder of the Red Cross, Eulinda must find a way to let go of the skeletons from her past.
Night Boat to Freedom
Night Boat To Freedom
Night Boat to Freedom is a wonderful story about the Underground Railroad, as told from the point of view of two "ordinary" people who made it possible. Beyond that, it is a story about dignity and courage, and a devotion to the ideal of freedom
Voice of Freedom
Voice of Freedom
A Story About Frederick Douglass

Interesting for both children and adults, this book does much to evoke the strong-minded, highly-principled person who inspired so many others


Sanctified Trial: The Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain, a Confederate Woman in East Tennessee

The Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain
Kindle Available

Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life:
A Biography

Travel with Tubman along the treacherous route of the Underground Railroad. Hear of her friendships with Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and other abolitionists.
Kindle Available
Rose O'Neale Greenhow Civil War Spy
Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy

Fearless spy for the Confederacy, glittering Washington hostess, legendary beauty and lover, Rose Greenhow risked everything for the cause she valued more than life itself

Loving Mr. Lincoln: The Personal Diaries of Mary Todd Lincoln

Chronicles life, love, and daily struggles with Abraham in their 26 years together. In frank, haunting journal entries, Mary describes the pain she felt when Abraham left her at the altar, when her sons died, and when Abraham's political career seemed to be at an end

Clara Barton
Spirit of the American Red Cross

Ready To Read - Level Three
Clara Barton was very shy and sensitive, and not always sure of herself. But her fighting spirit and desire to help others drove her to become one of the world's most famous humanitarians. Learn all about the life of the woman who formed the American Red Cross.

Day Of Tears

Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, and shifting first-person points of view, readers will travel with Emma and others through time and place, and come to understand that every decision has its consequences, and final judgment is passed down not by man, but by his maker.
Kindle Available
The Civil War
The Civil War

Introduces young readers to the harrowing true story of the American Civil War and its immediate aftermath. A surprisingly detailed battle-by-battle account of America's deadliest conflict ensues, culminating in the restoration of the Union followed by the tragic assassination of President Lincoln
Kindle Available

A Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter

Tale of a girl and her family from Boston living in Charleston, SC during the months leading up to the beginning of the Civil War by the attack on Fort Sumter. The reader senses the inhumanity of slavery through Sylvia's experiences.

Turn Homeward, Hannalee

During the closing days of the Civil War, plucky 12-year-old Hannalee Reed, sent north to work in a Yankee mill, struggles to return to the family she left behind in war-torn Georgia. "A fast-moving novel based upon an actual historical incident with a spunky heroine and fine historical detail."--School Library Journal.

My Brothers Keeper

Virginia Dickens is angry. Her father and brother Jed have left her behind while they go off to Uncle Jack's farm to help him hide his horses from Confederate raiders. It's the summer of 1863 and Pa and Jed believe 9-year-old Virginia will be out of harm's way in the sleepy little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl, Mars Bluff, South Carolina 1865

Not only is 12-year-old Patsy a slave, but she's also one of the least important slaves, since she stutters and walks with a limp. So when the war ends and she's given her freedom, Patsy is naturally curious and afraid of what her future will hold.

Numbering The Bones

The Civil War is at an end, but for thirteen-year-old Eulinda, it is no time to rejoice. Her younger brother Zeke was sold away, her older brother Neddy joined the Northern war effort,. With the help of Clara Barton, the eventual founder of the Red Cross, Eulinda must find a way to let go of the skeletons from her past.

Civil War History Documentary DVD Movie Titles

Underground Railroad DVD
Race to Freedom
The Underground Railroad

The movie took me inside the Underground Railroad and showed how people of all walks of life were involved in assisting African-Americans in helping them cross into Canada.
story of the underground railroad DVD
A Story Of the Underdround Railroad

Defiant, brave and free, the great abolitionists Thomas Garrett, William Still and Harriet Tubman, along with hundreds of lesser known and nameless opponents of slavery, formed a Corridor of Courage stretching from Maryland's eastern shore through the length of Delaware to Philadelphia and beyond -- making the Underground Railroad a real route to freedom for enslaved Americans before the Civil War.

History's Mysteries - Human Bondage
The story of Africans forcibly enslaved and shipped to America is a well-known tale; yet, it is just one tragic episode in the saga of world slavery. For nearly 6,000 years of recorded history, conquerors have imprisoned their enemies and forced them to act as laborers


Sources:
Library of Congress
SocialistCafe.com