Page:The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race (1919).djvu/22



ARRIET TUBMAN was called the Moses of her people because during the years of the Fugitive

Law, she rescued some three or four hundred slaves and led them to freedom. She was born about 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland. She worked as a nurse, as a trapper; fiield hand and wood chopper while she was a slave. She is said to have begun her labors about 1845 and to have continued until 1860. She made 19 trips into slave States at exceedingly great risks. She went into her own native town more than once, bringing away her brothers and her old parents as well as many neighbors.

John Brown nick-named her, General Tubman because of her shrewd management and great en durance. In her trips to and from the North she spent days and nights out of doors, in caves and often without food. She spent a whole night out of doors at one time in the beating snow with only a tree for protection. She waded creeks and rivers, neck high, forcing those whom she was piloting to follow her. The babies she managed by drugging them with opium. No wonder a price of $40,000 was once put upon her head.

She was an eloquent speaker, though she could neither read nor write. Her words are always forceful, her descriptions vivid.

She was once sent with an exposition during the Civil War to bring away slaves. This is her description of the slaves as they flocked to the boats :

"I nebber see such a sight." "Here you'd see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin' in it jus' as she'd taken it from de fire, young one hangin' on behind, one han roun' her forehead to hold on, 'tother han' digging' into de rice-pot, eatin' wid all its might ; hold of her dress two or three more ; down her back a bag wid a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one an' a black one; we took 'em all on board; named de white pig Beauregard, and de black pig Jeff Davis. Some times de women would come wid twins hanyin'

IT necks; 'pear-; like I nebber see so maiiv ]

wins in my. life; bags cm der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin' behin', all loaded ; pigs squealin', chickens screamin', young ones squallin'."

Her story of an incident of her childhood days is told as only Harriet Tubman could relate ex periences.

"I was only seven years old when I was sent away to take car' of a baby. I was so little dat 1 had to sit down on do flo' and hev de baby put in

my lap. An' dat baby was allus in my lap 'cept when it was asleep, or its mother was feedin' it.

"One mornin' after breakfast she had de baby, and I stood by de table waitin' till I was to take it ; just by me was a bowl of lumps of white sugar. My Missus got into a great quarrel wid her hus band ; she had an awful temper, an' she would scole an' storm, an' call him all sorts of names. Now, you know I neyer had nothing good ; no sweet, no sugar, an' dat sugar, right by me, did look so nice, an' my Missus's back turned to me while she was fightin' wid her husband, so I jes' put my fingers in de sugar bowl to take one lump, an' maybe she heard me, an' she turned an' saw me. De nex' minute she had de raw hide down ; I give one jump out of de do', an' I saw dey came after me, but I jes' flew, an' dey didn't catch me. I run, an' I run, I passed many a house, but I didn't dare to stop, for dey all knew my Missus an' dey would send me back. By an' by, when I was clar tuckered out, I come to a great big pig-pen. Dar was an' ole sow dar, an' perhaps eight or ten pigs. I was too little to climb into it, but I tumbled ober de high board, an' fell in on de ground ; I was so beat out I couldn't stir.

"An' dere, I stays from Friday till de next Chues- day, fightin' wid dose little pigs for de potato peelin's an' oder scraps dat come down in de trough. Do ole sow would push me away when I tried to git her chillen's food, an' I was awful a feard of her. By Chuesday I was so starved I knowed I'd got to go back to my Missus, I hadn't got no whar else to go, but I knowed what was comin'. So I went back."

Frederick Douglas wrote her in 1868: "The dif ference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much en couragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day you in the night. 1 have had the applause ot the crowd and the satisfaction that r 4i}flfl>|iW being approved l>y the multitudes, whilfl tlnpnnppt'.that you have done has been wit nessed by n few trembling, scarred, .and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt "God bless you" has been your only reward. The mid night sky and the silent stars have been the wit nesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism."

Harriet Tubman lived to a ripe old age and was always, even after freedom, the friend of the down trodden. Her house was always full of dependents, who were supported solely by Harriet's "Faith."