Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester County, Maryland in 1821. She was born into slavery and she escaped in 1849, finding safety in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She escaped on the Underground Railroad which she later became conductor of. She rescued hundreds of slaves in her lifetime as an Underground Railroad conductor.
Originally named Araminta, or "Minty," Harriet Tubman was born on the plantation of Anthony Thompson, south of Madison in Dorchester County, Maryland. Tubman was the fifth of nine children of Harriet "Rit" Green and Benjamin Ross, both slaves. The Ross's stable family life on Thompson's plantation came to an end sometime in late 1823 or early 1824 when Edward Brodess took Rit and her then five children, including Tubman, to his own farm in Bucktown, a small agricultural village ten miles to the east. Brodess often hired Tubman out to temporary masters, some who were cruel and negligent, while selling other members of her family illegally to out of state buyers, permanently fracturing her family.
Tubman was nearly killed by a blow to her head from an iron weight, thrown by an angry person at another fleeing slave, when she was working in a field. The severe injury left her suffering from headaches, seizures and sleeping spells that bothered her for the rest of her life. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, Tubman worked for John T. Stewart, a Madison merchant and shipbuilder, he brought her back to the town near where her father lived and where she had been born. About 1844 she married a free black man named John Tubman, changing her nick name from Minty to Harriet. On March 7, 1849, Edward Brodess died on his farm. Harriet was in trouble of being sold to settle Brodess's debts. In 1849 Tubman escaped by using the Underground Railroad that was functioning on the Eastern Shore. She traveled by night, using the North Star and instructions from white and black helpers, she found her way to Philadelphia. She sought work as a maid, saving money...