Harriet Tubman and the End of Slavery Essay

During the 1800s, slavery was a major problem in the U.S. The northern states wanted to abolish slavery, but the southern states wanted to maintain slavery. This eventually led to the outbreak of the Civil War. During this time, many stood up to the discrimination. Such as Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was a slave once and would be beaten and whipped by her owners (DEF). After her own freedom, Tubman helped lead many other families to freedom as well (DEF). Harriet Tubman also worked for the Union army during the Civil War even though she suffered from financial problems (DEF).
Harriet Tubman was born in Maryland in 1822 and died on March 10, 1913 (DEF). She was originally named Araminta Harriet Ross (DEF). Tubman had eight siblings, and while she was young, most of her family got separated from each other (DEF). Tubman endured a lot of physical violence in her life, and this violence caused permanent injuries (DEF). As a teenager, she suffered a hit to the head which caused "seizures, severe headaches, and narcoleptic episodes for the rest of her life" (DEF). She escaped from slavery in 1849 after the death of her owner (DEF), and what followed was a true display of bravery and doing work on behalf of others.
After escaping from slavery, Harriet Tubman was dissatisfied and vowed to help others escape from slavery as well (ABC). Using the Underground Railroad, which was a network of safe houses along the east coast, Tubman successfully brought slaves to freedom (ABC). In 1850, the passage of the Fugitive State Law made it so that any escaped slaves in free (northern) states were subject to arrest by law enforcement (DEF). To counteract this law, Tubman "re-routed the Underground railroad to Canada, which prohibited slavery".(DEF) Over a 10 year period, (1850-1860) she directly assisted 60 family and friends to freedom, and another 60-70 slaves to freedom (ABC).
When the civil war broke out in 1861, Harriet Tubman returned to the South to work for the Union army. (GHI) She believed that the outbreak of the war indicated that slavery would soon be abolished, therefore she wanted to help to quicken it's ending (GHI). During the war, she helped by "doing whatever she could to help with the war and to help the fugitive slaves that arrived at Union army camps, cooking meals and nursing soldiers and fugitives alike" (GHI). In 1863, Tubman became a spy for Colonel James Montgomery and put together a network of spies which consisted of slaves who wanted to escape and become a Union soldier (GHI). Additionally she worked as a scout for Montgomery's Combahee River Raid into South Carolina which freed nearly 500 slaves (GHI). At the end of the war, Harriet returned to Auburn and continued to be a community activist and humanitarian, and an active member of the suffrage movement(GHI). She also helped shelter the poor and the elderly on the farm in Auburn even though she herself struggled financially (GHI).