Harriet: The Moses of Her People

by Harriet Tubman, Sarah Hopkins Bradford

This is the one of a kind biography as told by Harriet Tubman, written through testimonies given to Sarah Bradford. After Tubman's almost superhuman efforts in making her own escape from slavery, and then returning to the South nineteen times, and bringing away with her over three hundred fugitives, she was sent by Governor Andrew of Massachusetts to the South at the beginning of the War, to act as spy and scout for our armies, and to be employed as hospital nurse when needed.Here for four years she labored without any remuneration, and during the time she was acting as nurse, never drew but twenty days' rations from our Government. She managed to support herself, as well as to take care of the suffering soldiers.Harriet Tubman can be compared with among the bravest people in history, working with an active bounty on her head, she was wanted, Dead of Alive by slave catchers.

86 pages, Paperback

Published November 10, 2020

About the author

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1820 or 1821 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue over seventy slaves[1] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage.

As a child in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters to whom she had been hired out. Early in her life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when she was hit by a heavy metal weight thrown by an irate overseer, intending to hit another slave. The injury caused disabling seizures, headaches, powerful visionary and dream activity, and spells of hypersomnia which occurred throughout her entire life. A devout Christian, she ascribed her visions and vivid dreams to premonitions from God.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger," as she later put it at women's suffrage meetings.[2] Large rewards were offered for the capture and return of many of the people she helped escape, but no one ever knew it was Harriet Tubman who was helping them. When the far-reaching United States Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada, and helped newly freed slaves find work.

When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid on the Combahee River, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African-Americans she had helped open years earlier.

Reviews

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Araminta Ross, a. k. a. Harriet Tubman, deserves as much praise and admiration as she has gotten from the people who knew her, like Sarah Bradford. Her incredible feats of bringing thousands of desperate souls to safety is inspiring and jaw dropping. I'm glad I got to learn more about her, her bravery and skill, and her adventures in the face of danger. Harriet inspires me to be brave and to stand for what is right.

This book wasn't as difficult to read as I thought it would be. I think it's somewhere around a level 11. The stories fascinate you and make you wonder if they really did make it out safe. I loved how Sarah glorified Harriet's actions, because though they were illegal at the time, she was doing what was right and changing the lives of America's posterity.

Without Harriet's efforts and people like her, the war might not have been a victory over slavery and our lives would be very different now. I'm so glad to know that choosing to do the right makes a difference.

[Ti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The message is a 5/5, the messenger 0/5. As Tubman was not literate, this is her story as told to a white woman who uses language in the very first paragraph like "a group of merry little darkies," and, later in the book, marvels at Tubman for being "only two removes from an African savage!"

This inherent paternalism/maternalism of many Black "allies," paired with Bradford's casual anti-Blackness and white supremacist POV, makes it clear that Bradford's awe of Tubman hinges on Tubman's accomplishments existing *in spite of* Tubman's Blackness (and, therefore an assumed inferiority by Bradford), throughout Bradford's account of Tubman's life.

A worthwhile read to gain great insight on the breadth of everything Harriet Tubman was and continues to be to Black liberation, as well as to hear snatches of Tubman in her own words, but be prepared to be incensed by the delivery. At least it's short.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harriet Tubman's story is a remarkable story that should be widely told. Reading this biography by Sarah Bradford left me with mixed feelings. I'd just read Frederick Douglass' wonderfully written narrative in his own words . Harriet wasn't able to read or write so we only have her story told by others. Sarah Bradford did know her and listened to her tell her story. It is possible to see the real Harriet but Sarah Bradford as a white liberal tells the story with the racist language of her time which is uncomfortable to read.

[Donna Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had watch the movie Harriet and thought it was amazing so I knew I had to read the book. This book was so amazing. I loved the relationship that Harriet had with God. As she helped slaves to freedom via the underground railroad it was done by her complete trust in God guidance. One thing that did upset me was her work in the Army and yet never received one cent for what she did, but that's okay because God provided for all her means.

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

School read