Harriet Tubman

On this date in 1913, Araminta Ross died in Auburn, New York.

She was "one of eleven children born to her slave parents on a plantation in Maryland. While she was still a girl, an overseer threw a lead weight at her head, knocking her unconscious. She finally recovered, but the blow left a scar on her head. From that day forward, she was committed to seeking freedom for herself and her fellow slaves." [1]

Upon the death of her master, the twenty-nine-year-old Ross "decided to escape to avoid being sold. She left her family and made her way to Philadelphia, where she became active in the abolitionist movement."[2]

Ross was willing to break the law to free her fellow slaves, and she anointed with the nickname "General" during her service as a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad.[3]

"When the Civil War began, [Ross] volunteered for Union service at Fort Monroe in Virginia and was then transferred to Beaufort, South Carolina, where she helped Yankee commanders liberate slaves on Confederate plantations. She also served as a spy for the Union cause.[4]

In fact, she helped Commander John Montgomery lead the Campaign on the Combahee River that freed an estimated 500 slaves while raiding several plantations and found volunteers for John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Araminta Ross is better known as Harriet Tubman and she was given the nickname "General Tubman" by abolitionist John Brown.

After the war, Tubman was active in the women’s suffrage movement.

[1-4] Excerpted from Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Civil War by Catherine Clinton, p. 34

For further information, see the following links:
Library of Congress Concise Summary of Harriet Tubman’s life

Auburn Citizen newspaper Memorial

Harriet Tubman’s Home

Campaign on the Combahee (June 2, 1863)

African-American Odyssey exhibit at the Library of Congress provides background information on African-Americans from slavery up through the civil rights era.