17 Things You Didn't Know About Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman began resisting slavery from an early age. When she was only a child, Tubman was hired out by her owner to be night nurse to a local infant. She was forced to stay awake all night and whipped if the child woke up during the night. She understood the difficulties of life as an enslaved person and began her quest for justice.

At age 12, she put herself between a fugitive enslaved person and the person's overseer and was struck in the head by a weight, which led to a permanent injury. 

One of nine children, Tubman was born Araminta Ross around 1820.

She married freed enslaved person John Tubman in 1844 and took his last name. She also began using her mother's first name of Harriet at some point, though the timeline is unclear.

By 1849, Tubman's owner had died, and it was clear that her family would be broken up and sold off. On September 17, Harriet and two of her brothers escaped. Once a notice was published offering a reward to anyone who could capture and return the trio, Harriet's brothers decided to return in fear to the plantation.

She traveled on alone using the Underground Railroad. She went about 90 miles on foot, making it to Philadelphia and freedom. Her husband did not travel with her, and both remarried later.

When the Civil War started in 1861, Tubman continued helping fugitive enslaved people and worked as a nurse, cook, and laundress. In 1862, she moved to Port Royal, SC, to assist the growing displaced population of former enslaved people. By 1863, she also led a network of spies and passed intelligence onto Union forces.

It was during the early part of the war that she wasn't sure if President Lincoln was an ally to her cause. Tubman reportedly criticized Lincoln for being too slow to embrace Black emancipation and she disliked the Union army's unequal treatment of Black soldiers. Tubman later changed her tune on Lincoln and expressed regret she didn't meet him.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 brought enormous risk to both escaping enslaved people and those abetting them - even in free states - because it allowed enslaved people in the North to be captured and returned to slavery.

But Harriet went back to Maryland (and all of her escapes took place there) despite the danger. She first went to help her niece and her family, and then made many other trips back and forth. Later, she tried to recover her husband, but he had remarried. 

Because of the Fugitive Slave Act, as well as her growing notoriety, Tubman's work helping enslaved people escape the North was incredibly dangerous. She used disguises, subterfuge, props, and a gun to aid her. On one mission helping enslaved people escape, she carried live chickens to make her look like she was running errands as a domestic enslaved person in order to go unnoticed in a town. 

If props didn't work, there was always the pistol she carried to protect herself and others from slave catchers and to threaten enslaved people who got cold feet about escaping. During the Civil War, she also used a sharpshooter's rifle.