Harriet Tubman. 1. Harriet Tubman was named Araminta Ross when she was born around 1820 in Bucktown, Maryland.

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1 Harriet Tubman is well known for risking her life as a conductor in the Underground Railroad, which led escaped slaves to freedom in the North. But did you know that the former slave also served as a spy for the Union during the Civil War and was the first woman in American history to lead a military expedition? During a time when women were usually restricted to traditional roles like cooking and nursing, she did her share of those jobs. But she also worked side-by-side with men, says writer Tom Allen, who tells her exciting story in the National Geographic book, Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent. Tubman decided to help the Union Army because she wanted freedom for all of the people who were forced into slavery, not just the few she could help by herself. And she convinced many other brave African Americans to join her as spies, even at the risk of being hanged if they were caught. In one of her most dramatic and dangerous roles, Tubman helped Colonel James Montgomery plan a raid to free slaves from plantations along the Combahee (pronounced KUM-bee ) River in South Carolina. Early on the morning of June 1, 1863, three gunboats carrying several hundred male soldiers along with Harriet Tubman set out on their mission. Tubman had gathered key information from her scouts about the Confederate positions. She knew where they were hiding along the shore. She also found out where they had placed torpedoes, or barrels filled with gunpowder, in the water. As the early morning fog lifted on some of the South s most important rice plantations, the Union expedition hit hard. The raiders set fire to buildings and destroyed bridges, so they couldn t be used by the Confederate Army. They also freed about 750 slaves men, women, children, and babies and did not lose one soldier in the attack. Allen, who writes about this adventure and many others, got to know Tubman well through the months of research he did for the book. The historic details he shares bring Tubman and many other important figures of her time to life. To gather the facts, Allen searched libraries and the Internet, and even walked in Tubman s footsteps. I went on the river just south of the area where the raid took place, he says. You are in that kind of country she would have known, with plenty of mosquitoes and snakes, and there are still dirt roads there today so you get a feeling of what it was like. Allen says his most exciting moment came when a librarian led him to written accounts by people who actually saw Tubman and the raiders in action. She was five feet two inches (157 centimeters) tall, born a slave, had a debilitating illness, and was unable to read or write. Yet here was this tough woman who could take charge and lead men. Put all that together and you get Harriet Tubman. I got to like her pretty quickly because of her strength and her spirit, Allen says.

2 1. Harriet Tubman was named Araminta Ross when she was born around 1820 in Bucktown, Maryland. 2. Araminta changed her name to Harriet to honor her mother, and when she married John Tubman her last name changed also. 3. When Harriet was twelve years old an overseer threw an iron weight at her and struck her in the head she was standing up for another slave for the rest of her life she suffered from blackouts and headaches. 4. At the age of 30 in 1849, Harriet ran away to the North and ended up in Philadelphia she learned about a movement to abolish slavery and a group of people who were dedicated to helping slaves escape to the North these people created the Underground Railroad. 5. The Underground Raillroad wasn t an actual railroad It was a path that slaves traveled at night with the help of conductors, or people who guided them from safehouse to safehouse until they had reached the North the station masters were the people who lived at the safehouse these houses could be identified by the candles or lanterns that sat in the window. 6. Harriet made about 13 trips to the South and helped hundreds of slaves reach the safety of the North. 7. When the Civil War broke out, Harriet Tubman worked as a cook, nurse and spy for the Union Army. 8. Harriet Tubman was known as Moses after the Biblical Moses. He led his people out of Egypt and Harriet led her people out of the South and out of slavery. 9. She worked for the rights of African Americans until she died on March 10, 1913, at the age of Harriet Tubman has been honored many times since her death for her bravery and humanitarian efforts.

3 Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger." Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound iron at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep. Around 1844 she married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife. Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North. Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her short trips successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first part of the journey; leaving on a Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Would threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die." By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and pretended to read it. The ploy was enough to fool the men. Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than Harriet Tubman." And John Brown, who discussed with "General Tubman" his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, Virginia, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent." Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured. During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.

4 Frederick Douglass Antislavery Activist / Orator Born: February 1818 Died: 20 February 1895 (heart attack) Birthplace: Near Easton, Maryland Best known as: Former slave turned anti-slavery leader Name at birth: Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey Frederick Douglass was a former slave who became one of the great American antislavery leaders of the 1800s. Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland but in 1838, at age 20, he escaped to freedom in New York. A few years later he went to work for abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, travelling and speaking on behalf of Garrison's paper The Liberator. Douglass published his memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in Eloquent, smart and determined, Douglass gained fame as a speaker, began his own anti-slavery publications and became a 'conductor' on the Underground Railroad. In later years he became a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln and helped persuade Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He also was a strong supporter of women's rights. He is often described as the founder of the American civil rights movement. Extra credit: After his escape from slavery, Douglass chose his new last name from a character in the Sir Walter Scott book The Lady of the Lake... Douglass married Anna Murray, a free black woman, shortly after his escape from slavery in They had four children: Rosetta (b. 1839), Lewis (b. 1840), Frederick Jr. (b. 1842) and Charles (b. 1844). Anna Douglass died in 1882, and two years later Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white woman who had been his secretary.

5 Who Was Harriet Beecher Stowe? Harriet Beecher Stowe writer, mother, painter wrote the watershed book Uncle Tom s Cabin. The book was the best seller of its time; it humanized the plight of slavery and motivated people to work against slavery. Stowe was the seventh of eleven children of a prominent Congregational minister. Born in 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, she first attended school in Litchfield and then attended the Hartford Female Seminary, a school founded by her sister Catherine. Her father s dynamic preaching, religious energy and commitment coupled with her mother s interest in improving herself educationally, had a profound impact on Stowe and her siblings. Her father imbued a strong sense of social responsibility in his children and believed his family would play a valuable role in shaping the young United States. Stowe moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she met her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of theology at Lane Theological Seminary. While in Ohio, Stowe became heavily exposed to the abolitionist movement, which would later help her in writing her famous antislavery novel, Uncle Tom s Cabin. The story was first serialized in an abolitionist newspaper, The National Era, and then published as a book in In addition to Uncle Tom s Cabin, Stowe wrote poems, travel books, biographical sketches, children s books, adult novels, and non-fiction books and articles on a wide range of subjects including homemaking and religion. In total, she wrote over thirty books, many of them best sellers. She raised children and managed a household with her husband, Calvin, who was, for the times, very supportive of his wife and her career. Stowe helped to support her family financially with her writing. She died in 1896 at the age of 85 at her home in Hartford, CT. Personal asides: In addition to her career as a writer, Stowe had several hobbies and interests, including painting and gardening. Many of her paintings, mostly flowers and landscapes, are on display in her Hartford home at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. She also enjoyed traveling and playing the piano, and had several pets, including a pug dog.