PowerPoint Presentation

Harriet Tubman

1. The Underground Railroad wasA secret underground tunnel that the slaves travelled through to get to freedom.

A train that took the slaves to freedom.

An undercover network of safe houses and secret routes slaves used to get to freedom.

in order to escape to free states and Canada.

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2. A conductor on the Underground Railroad (which is the best answer?)

someone who was in charge of a train

a person who conducts (a leader, guide, director, or manager)

A free person who helped slaves escape by providing safe passageway to freedom.

During a ten-year span Harriet Tubman made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger." Tubman was born a slave in Maryland around 1820.

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Connection: Why was Harriet Tubman called the Moses of her people?

Your textbook says, Go down, Moses, way down to Egypt Land, was a line from a well-known African-American folk song about Moses leading the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt. (pg. 758)

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850(replaces fugitive slave law of 1793)Now, escaped slaves could be captured in the North and returned to slavery. This led to the capture of former slaves and free blacks living in Free States.

Now, law enforcement officials in the North had to help capture slaves, regardless of their personal beliefs.

Someone could make you help find the alleged runaway slave, otherwise you would be be breaking the law. If you knew where an alleged runaway slave was, and you did not turn him in, you could be arrested and forced to pay $1,000 (about $28,000 in present-day value).

Anyone helping a runaway slave (providing food or shelter) was breaking the law and subject to $1,000 fine.

Now, Harriet re-routed the Underground Railroad to Canada. Canada was against slavery.

(Read page 759)

How is Harriet Tubman connected to the Fugitive Slave Law?Why is she leading a band of slaves to Canada?

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She had led groups to freedom before. Why was this trip to Canada so dangerous?

She had never been to Canada beforeMoses was not going with herThe slaves could not walk at nightShe had never led a group this large before

Who was Harriet Tubman?One of 9 children. Three of her sisters were sold to distant plantations. She was only 5 foot tall.She had a disability called Epilepsy. She had seizures and severe headaches.She escaped slavery in 1849, fleeing to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.She could have remained in the safety in the North, but instead went back south and rescued her family and others living in slavery!

As a child living in Maryland, Tubman was beaten by masters to whom she was hired out. Early in her life, she suffered a severe head wound when hit by a heavy metal weight. The injury caused disabling epileptic seizures and headaches.

One day, the adolescent Tubman was sent to a dry-goods store for supplies. There, she encountered a slave owned by another family, who had left the fields without permission. His overseer, furious, demanded that she help restrain him. She refused, and as he ran away, the overseer threw a two-pound weight at him. He struck her instead, which she said "broke my skull. Bleeding and unconscious, she was returned to her owner's house and laid on the seat of a loom, where she remained without medical care for two days.

She was sent back into the fields, "with blood and sweat rolling down my face until I couldn't see. Her boss said she was "not worth a sixpence" and returned her to Brodess, who tried unsuccessfully to sell her. She began having seizures and would seemingly fall unconscious, although she claimed to be aware of her surroundings while appearing to be asleep. These episodes were alarming to her family, who were unable to wake her when she fell asleep suddenly and without warning.

The extraordinary Harriett Tubman

Thomas GarrettThomas Garrett worked as a stationmaster on the the Underground Railroad in Wilmington, Delaware.

Garret gave the runaway slaves shoes.

He sometimes provided horse-drawn carriages to help runaway slaves.

A quaker was a member of a religious group known as the Society of Friends.

Thomas Garretts house in Wilmington, Delaware(safehouse)