harriet tubman mini-q what was harriet tubman's greatest ... · bible story of moses and...

Harriet Tubman Mini-Q

What Was Harriet Tubman's

Greatest Achievement?

·-,:,,.-

Overview: Harriet Tubman is one of America's better known heroes. \\'hat is not so well known is

that Harriet's story is long and has a number of chapters. This Mini-Q presents several glimpses of

the Tubman story and asks you to determine her greatest achievement

The Documents:

Document A: The Underground Railroad (maps)

Document B: Trip Log

Document C: Civil War: The Combahce River Raid

Document D: Civil War: Nursing The Ivlassachusetts 54th

Document E: Care-Giving in Upstate New York (photo)

A Mini Document Based Question {Mini-Q)

@ 2Cm The 080 Project This page may be reproduced for classroom use217

-


Hook Exercise: Harriet Tubman

Directions: The Underground Railroad (UGRR) was a network of people and safe houses. It helped slaves escape from the South and travel to Northern states and Canada. Below are a number of the code words used by participants that have been found in old letters and diaries. They use the Bible story of Moses and railroad terms to hide their true meanings.

Note: Moses is an important figure in the Bible. He was an Israelite. During this time, Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians. The Bible tells that God used Moses to liberate his people from slavery. After liberating them, he escorts them to a new land where they would be free named "New Canaan."

Part One: Match the code words with the terms that define them.

-·�---·-···-·-

Code Word

Station Masters

stations

Conductors

Cargo

·Land of Egypt

New Canaan

Moses

True meaning

1. The South

2. Safe house members who supported and hid fugitives

3. Canada

4. Escorts who journeyed with fugitives

5. Harriet Tubman's nickname

6. Safe houses (sometimes a barn or a secret room)

7. Fugitives

Part Two: Decode the sentence below by rephrasing it in your own words.

"It's a long way fiom Egypt to 1'{ew Canaan. Vv'ith the amount of cargo on board, Moses will need a string of stations and at least two or three conductors to make it through."

© 2009 The DBQ Project This page may be reproduced for classroom use 219

(

-- ----

..... . . I

Background Essay Harriet Tubman Mini-Q

What Was Harriet Tubman's Greatest Achievement?

The place was Dorchester County, Maryland. The year was 1822, or thereabouts. The event: little Araminta Ross was born into slavery. From the beginning it was clear she was tough. At five years of age, Minty Ross was hired out to do child-care. By the age of twelve she was doing field work and hauling logs. In Minty's own words, "I grew up like a neglected weed."

Despite a loving mother, these were hard years. Like so many slaves, Araminta lived with the fear that she would be separated from her family. After the Atlantic slave trade ended in 1808,

________ great �ressure was put on ____ _Maryland's Eastern Shore to provide slaves for the cotton fields in the deep South. Historians estimate that at this time 10% of young slaves in the upper South were sold away from their families. We know that at least two of Minty's sisters met this fate.

In 1844, Minty married a free black man named John Tubman. This did not alter Minty's slave status but it did lead to a name change. Taking her mother's first name, and her husband's last, Minty Ross became Harriet Tubman.

When her master died in 1849, Harriet made a life-changing decision. "I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other." Harriet decided to run.

It was about one hundred miles from Harriet's slave home near Bucktown, Maryland, to the Pennsylvania border, and another twenty miles to Philadelphia. Unable to persuade her husband to join her, Harriet took off on her own.

She never disclosed the details of her escape. We know that it was mostly on foot, mostly traveling at night, mostly sticking to north-south streams and the woods. It is remarkable that she made it.

Over the next eleven years Harriet would return to the Eastern Shore and Virginia at least

eight times to escort other fugitive slaves to freedom. Complicating her task was the Fugitive Slave Act,

known in the North as the Bloodhound Act. This act passed by Congress in 1850 required Northerners to tum in escaped slaves. Harriet nCJ\V_faced dangerJ\lorth and South.

In her trips to rescue slaves and transport them to Canada, Harriet did not work alone. She was part of a secret network known as the

Underground Railroad. The "railroad" had no rails and except for the occasional hidden basement, it had no underground. Rather it was a series of safe houses strung out along routes that extended from the slave border states to Canada. The safe houses were owned by people, white and black, who hated slavery and hated the Fugitive Slave Act.

This DBQ includes documents on Harriet's work with the Underground Railroad. But Harriet Tubman's life, which stretched over ninety years, was larger than this.

Examine all the documents. Consider her role as Leader of the Underground Railroad, her Civil War contributions, and her post-slavery life as a caretaker. Then decide on your answer to the question, What was Harriet Tubman's greatest achievement?

221 © 2009 The DBQ Project This page may be reproduced for classroom use

-1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

--·-·-- - - ·--------------- _________________ ,, ___ - -~--~-~--~ .,.

·, •,, ··~


Background Essay Questions

1. In what border state was Harriet Tubman born?

2. What occurred in 1808?

3. How did the expansion of cotton fields in the deep South affect young slaves on the Eastern Shore?

4. How old was Harriet when she escaped slavery?

5. Why did the Underground Railroad not stop in the United States but run all the way to Canada?

6. Use the followinng words in a sentence that demonstrates you understand the meaning.

a. Fugitive Slave Act

b. Underground Railroad


-

"I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other."

- Harriet Tubman

7. Why do you think Harriett would have preferred death if she could not havefreedom?


Document A

Source: Kate Clifford Larson, Bound for the Promised Land, Ballantine Books, New York, 2004.

Philadelphia // ( ' ,. ' PENNSYLVA�IA ._........,,_,� ......... ... ••( '

J Loogwood .-··

Harriet Tubman's southern Underground Railroad· routes to Philadelphia

/ Kennett Square •t:.: • !-• 's • •., • ,J // -.......

. :.,,.·--·-:-·-·---·-· ·---'>-·-·-·-·-·-/ Wilmington�

� , NEW CASTL; : '\..... r \ New Castle• er-....,.� I .... l' . ..

l•' .. NEW YORK

. ... •··�� ............ �?.'.'..... 1

J>�� :;·······�1 I " \�Ira {. [� ! '·...._ 1\ I

\ \ ll I ',, \. 1' ··•. ., '-·..,_ : ·· .. J _(

.,,.

'· ...... , : ..,,L . c..'..• .. lr-�=-7;·····-·-· ----:;I---·, J PENNSYLVANIA/ \ � \ / ! ···-.,, (

·�� \,. '· 0 50 100 � � Phlladel�\ -��

_.,...

'-- . . .3,.I NEW

7 ________ -:_·-;-:;:.:::::._::·-·-·-}-·-·-·-�·":�r--;' JERSEY

! I )' :... MA.RYLAND. · · ! _./.,... ; �"-, � l

i

I 't i/ I ( ·,. ry

L_ ______ � -·-·-·-·-·-· Harriet Tubman's northern Underground Railroad routes to freedom


-

I

. . --------~-= "'-r) ' - '\

~


Document B

Source: Adapted from Catherine Clinton, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2004.

Note: Records of Harriet Tubman's rescue missions are very incomplete. Trip estimates range from 8 to 19. She made most of her trips in and around December when the nights were long and fewer people were out. Typically, Harriet did not venture onto plantations but met fugitives at a prearranged place. When possible, "abductions" began on Saturday nights since slaves generally had a rest day Sundays and would not be missed until Monday morning.

Harriet Tubman's Rescue Missions

Date End Point Cargo

Dec. 1850 Philadelphia (?) Niece Kizzy and 2 children

Spring 1851 Philadelphia (?) One brother plus two men (?)

Fall 1851 Canada West (Ontario) 11 fugitives including brother

Fall 1852 --� Numbers Unknow

Fall 1853 9 fugitives

Dec. 1854 3 of Harriet's brothers

Summer 1857 Harriet's mother and father*

Dec.1860

Probable trip -

Niagara Falls area

St. Catherines, Canada

St. Catherines, Canada

St. Catherines, Canada 7 fugitives (IIT's last rescue)**

*Parents were in danger because of sheltering fugitive slaves.

"Most famous escape with drugged babies to prevent crying.

229 © 2009 The DBQ Project This page may be reproduced for classroom use

(

Pick Up Point

Baltimore, Maryland

Dorchester County, Maryland


Probable Trip

Maryland

Caroline County, Maryland




Document C

When we went up the river in the morning, Well, they wasn't my people any more it was just about light, the fog was rising over than they was his - only we was all Negroes .... the rice fields and the people was just done They didn't know anything about me and I their breakfast and was going out to the field. didn't know what to say. I look at them about

I was in the forward boat.. .. (T)he Colonel two minutes, and then I sung to them .... blowed the whistle and stopped the boat and Come from the East, Come from the West ... a company of soldiers went ashore. About a Mong all the glorious nations, quarter of an hour after ... you could look This glorious one's the best.. .. over the rice fields, and see them (slaves) Then they throwed up their hands and coming to the boat from every direction. I begaritorejoice and shout_Cll()ry_l_.i\_!!_dthe _ __ _ ____ _ never see sucli a sight.. .. Some had ba_g_s_o_n--=rowboats would push off.their back with pigs in them; some had chickens

I kept on singing until we brought all tied by the legs, and so child squalling, aboard. We got 800 people that day, and we chickens squawking, and pigs squeeling they tore up the railroad and fired the bridge, and all came running to the gunboats .... we went up to a big house and catched two

... When they got to the shore, they'd get pigs and named the white pig Beauregard and in the rowboat, and they'd start for the gun- the black pig Jeff Davis. boat; but the others would run and hold on so

When we got back to Hilton Head in the they couldn't leave the shore .... They was morning ... , I took 100 of the men to the afraid the gunboats ( would ) go off and leave recruiting office and they enlisted in the army. them. At last the Captain looked at them and Colonel Whittle said I ought to be paid for he called me .... "Moses, come here and speak every soldier as much as a recruiting officer. a word of consolation to your people!" But laws! I never done got nothing."


(

'

Source: Emma Paddock Tel ford, in terv iew wi th Harr ie t Tubman c i rca 1905.

Note : About one year in to the Civ i l War, Harr ie t Tubman was asked by the governor of Massachuset ts to jo in Union t roops in South Carol ina. There she headed up a team of e ight b lack spies to operate behind the l ines and prov ide in te l l igence for a Union ra id to f ree s laves. The ra id was conducted on June 2, 1863. I t involved three gunboats, and b lack t roops led by a whi te of f icer , Colonel James Montgomery.

Vocabulary : Raid- A surpr ise at tack used to co l lect or s teal something

HarrietTubman Mini-Q

Document D

Source: Sarah Bradford, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, Auburn, New York, 1869.

Note: Just seven weeks after the Combahee River raid, the all-black Massachusetts 54th made their mark on history with their assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston Harbor. Harriet Tubman served as a nurse for the wounded survivors of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers. The assault on Fort Wagner was the subject of the 1989 Academy Award-winning FILM "Glory." Below is Harriet's description of her nursing experiences along with a comment from her biographer.

Harriet Tubman: "Well, Missus, I'd go the hospital, I would, every morning. I'd

get a big chunk of ice ... and put it in a basin, and fill it with

water; then I'd take a sponge and begin. First man I'd come to,

I'd thrash away the flies, and they'd rise, they would, like bees

round a hive. Then I'd begin to bathe the wounds, and by the

time I'd bathed off three or four, the fire and heat would have

melted the ice and made the water warm, and it would be as red

as clear blood. Then I'd go and get more ice ... and by the time I

got to the next ones, the flies would be round the first ones black

and thick as ever."

-- ---Biographer Sarah Bradford: In this way (Harriet) worked, day-.after__day�tilllate at night; then she went home to her little cabin, and made about fifty

pies, a great quantity of gingerbread, and two casks of root beer.

These she would hire some contraband* to sell for her through the

camps, and thus she would provide her support for anothe� day; for

this woman never received pay or pension, and never drew for herself

but twenty days' rations during the four years of her labors.

*Contraband: An escaped slave taken in behind Union lines

. 233 © 2009 The DBQ Project This page may be reproduced for classroom use

-

/" I I

· . • t


Document E

Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 1885, Group portrait o!Tubman (farleft), her second husband, Nelson Davis (seated, hat) and residents of her private home in Auburn, New York

Note: During the 48 years between the end of the Civil War and her death in 1913, much of Harriet Tubman's time was spent taking care of poor people in her home. Harriet often had six to eight people in her care. "The aged, ... the babe deserted, the epileptic, the blind, the paralyzed, ... all found shelter and welcome." -Emma Telford Memoir, 1911.


-

;'

l \