Hariet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

By the 18th century the south increasingly needed slaves to carry on their way of life. The plantation required a large number of simple, repetitive tasks; for or such tasks to be successfully completed all ages and sexes were used save only the infants and extremely ill or elderly. (Moore, 58). In the south, two major types of crops, among many others, could be sold for mo

The Underground Railroad maintained numerous conductors through its many years of exsistance. The reputed leader of the railroad was Levi Coffin of Cincinnati. Harriet Tubman, who fled from Maryland to her freedoms, was the first passenger, conductor and agent of the Underground Railroad (Dumond, 360). Many would argue that she was the originator of the Underground railroad, though many slaves had escaped even before her birth, she began the first well organized route to freedom. One other conductor was John P. Parker who was born a slave, bought his freedom around age 19, moved north and married, and then came back to help others escape (Rappaport, 22). The most famous of the fugitive were Josiah Henson, the original of “Uncle Tom” and Fredrick Douglass, abolitionist and reformer (Dumond, 360). Laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which ordered all citizens of the U.S to assist in returning slaves so Canada became the safest place of freedom (Cayton, 322). Moreover, the act also stated that those who did not turn in runaways could be fined or put in jail and the slave was either shot, whipped, or sold to the deep south, where they would probably die anyway (McDonough, 56).

ney and that required the help that slavery provided; these were toacco and cotton. Cotton was to be picked, cleaned and de-seeded in order to make ready for spinning into cloth for clothing. Tobacco was to be harvested to smoke and treat illnesses. (McDonough, 26). Without a great number of slaves, the owners of such big planations would not be able to mass produce the crops needed to maintain their income, thus the economy of the south would soon crumble. The social stucture of the southern states was, undoubted, one-sided; the elite society consisted of planters, and learned professions, the middle class were small planters, merchants and lesser professionals, the lower class was dived first into yeomen and artisans and then laborers and servants, and the “peasants” were the slaves (Moore, 129)

Harriet Tubman was born in 1821 on a plantation in Maryland to slaves Harriet Ross , commonly called “Old Rit” and Ben Ross. Ben and Harriet lived in the slave quarters, log cabins with dirt floors and no window put aside for slaves; they were owned by a man named Mr. Brodas. As a youth, young Tubman was called by the nickname of “Minty”; at age six she was hired out to a weaver named Mrs. Cook and her husband. She was then hired out, this time to a woman named Miss Susan. At the young age of seven, she was expected that she take care of Miss Susan’s baby and if the baby cried, she was whipped. After stealing sugar, running and hiding out in a pigpen for five days, Minty was returned to her master (McDonough, 3-18).

Late one day in 1834, while Mr. Brodas’ slaves worked with other slaves to harvest the plantation’s corn, the overseer and Harriet both witnessed a man trying to escape. The overseer kept in close persute with whip in hand and t

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