Harriet Tubman (1820 – March 10, 1913)

Harriet Tubman

Biographical Details

• Born (1820 – March 10, 1913)
• Lived as a Child in Dorchester County, Maryland
• Born into slavery, beaten and harassed by masters and suffered a severe head injury involving a metal weight which caused many physical as well as mental problems including visionary experiences and seizures
• As a devout Christian Tubman ascribed her visions as revelations from God
• As a child, Harriet was often hired out to work for other slave masters oftentimes doing housework. As she grew older, she was sent to work in the fields with other slaves. These people worked in fields that produced many kinds of crops including corn, potatoes, tobacco, and cotton.
• After the war, Harriet Tubman returned to her home in Auburn, New York. Since her husband John Tubman died in 1867, she married a former slave and Union soldier, Nelson Davis in 1869.

Views on Slavery

• Tubman was an abolitionist who was herself a slave and sought for the institution to be abolished
• Tubman's vision was to give freedom to every black slave.
• Seeing how she and other slaves were so commonly mistreated, angered her.
• She wanted to see freed slaves based on her past experiences as a slave.
• She shared the dream that President Abraham Lincoln had in bringing freedom to the slaves in the South.

Tactics

• The Quakers were opposed to slavery and had connections with the Underground Railroad. Different safe houses were a part of this secret system that aided slaves in their attempt to reach the North. Free blacks and sympathetic whites would help runaway slaves find food, shelter, transportation, and guide them on their trek.
• Much of Harriet's journey was during the night when it was easier to hide from slave hunters trying to recapture any escaped slaves. The North Star was her guide in the night that gave her hope and pointed her in the direction of freedom.
• Once past Pennsylvania, Harriet joined up with William Still, an abolitionist who she worked closely with to manage the underground railroad.

Achievements

• A woman with tremendous courage, strong as a man, and cunning as a fox was Harriet Tubman. She was unable to read or write and yet Harriet made 19 journeys back to the Southern States to help free over 300 slaves
• Harriet crossed the state line of Pennsylvania. She was a free woman. In overwhelming joy she said, "I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. 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
• Harriet soon joined the abolitionists and became a conductor for the railroad. Between 1850 and 1860, she saved money to make 19 trips to the South to free about 300 slaves.
•  After years of eluding slave hunters, white slave owners posted a reward of $40,000 for her capture. With the help of her allies and well planned routes, Tubman was never captured and the reward was never collected.
• Harriet worked as a nurse, scout, and a spy for the Union and in 1863, she led a group of black soldiers under Colonel James Montgomery on a raid. Nearly 800 slaves were freed as a result.

William Lloyd Garrison (December 12, 1805 – May 24, 1879)

William Lloyd Garrison

Early Life and Education

• Life - (December 12, 1805 – May 24, 1879)
• 1806 - moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts
• 1808 - Garrison's father becomes unemployed and runs out on his family
• 1818 - At 13 Garrison works as apprentice compositor for Newburyport Herald
• After his apprenticeship, Garrison and a young editor started to create their own newspaper, the short lived Free Press, used abolitionists poets to feature in the articles
• This newspaper gave Garrison the crucial tools needed to succeed in writing the liberator that would receive national recognition and provide him with skills he will use for public speaking
• 1828 - garrison appointed editor of the National Philanthropist

Career

•  At 25 Garrison Joined anti - slavery movement
• 1826 - credited the works of Reverend John Rankin for his book Letters on Slavery, attracting Garrison to the cause
• For a brief time, he was involved in the American Colonization Society, an organisation that promoted the resettlement of free blacks to west Africa. However, southerners believed that relocation preserved the institution of slavery with a lack of free blacks in society and therefore Garrison apologised publicly for his involvement in the movement and declared it as a mistake.
•  Garrison became writer and co-editor of Genius of Universal Emancipation and based on experience, allowed Benjamin Lundy to proceed the nation making public speeches, Garrison changed the layout of the newspaper and initially sharing Lundy's views as a gradualist, Garrison changed his opinion towards the immediate and complete emancipation of slaves.
• Lundy and Garrison continued to work together, Garrison introduced the Black List which was a section of the newspaper devoted to the odious features of slavery such as kidnappings whippings etc.
•  Example was Francis Todd who was accused of illegal shipping's by Garrison and filed a suit against him and Lundy hoping for pro slavery courts to support him.
•  Garrison could not pay find placed against him and went to jail in Baltimore for 6 months when money was donated for his release, he moved from Baltimore and his work with Lundy was over
• In 1855, his eight-year alliance with Frederick Douglass disintegrated when Douglass converted to political abolitionists’ view that the document could be interpreted as being anti-slavery.

Liberator

• 1831 - Garrison returns to New England, founded a weekly anti slavery newspaper, the Liberator - known as his most iconic piece of work
• In his first publication, Garrison showed is strong and immediate Abolitionist view, he used terminology such as, " Urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present ... I will not retreat - AND I WILL BE HEARD." This shows Garrison's motives as a stringent abolitionist and immediatist
•  In 1834 it had two thousand subscribers, three-fourths of whom were blacks
• Benefactors paid to have the newspaper distributed to influential statesmen and public officials.
• Although he did not opt for physical emancipation of Slaves, his critics took the immediate emancipation of slaves very literal
• Some blamed him for advocating the immediate freeing of all black slaves
• South Blamed the Liberator for slave rebellions in north Carolina and Garrison came under fire
• He was indicted for incendiary material and $5000 reward for his capture
• 1856 - He published articles about the famous Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• 1861 - The Liberator continued to develop mass northern support and further gained more readers in England, Scotland, and Canada. It was received in state legislatures, the White House, Congress and governor's mansions.
• The last issue of the newspaper was published on 29th December 1865 where Garrison referred to his long career as a writer and editor and the Justice of the emancipation of Slavery. He stated, "The object for which the Liberator was commenced—the extermination of chattel slavery—having been gloriously consummated."
• This would imply that the Liberator was a success.