Harriet Tubman, an African American woman who fought slavery and oppression. She was one of the bravest women ever born in the United States. She helped hundreds of people escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad. This was a system that helped slaves escape from the South to states where slavery was banned.
Because of her work on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was called Moses. In the Bible, Moses was the leader of the Jewish people enslaved in Egypt. He brought his people out of slavery to the promised land. Harriet Tubman died in Nineteen-Thirteen. All her life, she always tried to improve life for African Americans. From a very early age, Harriet knew how slaves suffered. Her parents were slaves. They belonged to Edward Brodas, a farmer in the middle Atlantic state of Maryland. Harriet's parents tried to protect her and their ten other children as much as they could. There was little they could do, however. Slaves were treated like animals. They could be sold at any time. Families often were separated. Slave children were not permitted to act like children. By the time Harriet was three years old, Mister Brodas ordered her to carry notes from him to other farmers. Some of these farmers lived as far as fifteen kilometers away. Harriet was punished if she stopped to rest or play.When Harriet was six years old, the Brodas family sent her to work for another family who lived near their farm. While there, Harriet was infected with the disease measles. Even though she was sick, she was forced to place and remove animal traps in an icy river. She was sent home when she became dangerously ill. Harriet's mother took very good care of her. The child survived. Then she was sent to work in the Brodas's house. Her owners never gave her enough to eat. One day she was working in the kitchen. She was looking at a piece of sugar in a silver container when Missus Brodas saw her. Harriet ran away in fear. She was caught and beaten very severely. Her owners decided that Harriet never would make a good worker in the house. She was sent to the fields. Harriet ran to the home of a white woman who had promised to help. This woman belonged to the Quakers, a religious group which hated slavery. The Quaker woman told her how to reach another home where she could hide. Harriet went from house to house that way on the Underground Railroad. Each place was a little closer to the eastern state of Pennsylvania. Now that Harriet was free, she did not forget the hundreds of other slaves back in Maryland. During the next ten years, she led a much expanded Underground Railroad.