8 HARRIET TUBMAN she could no longer defend herself from beatings When an overseer tried to harm a field worker for deserting his post Araminta blocked the overseer’s path her first act of defiance His temper raging he struck her on the head with a piece of iron Despite the head covering she wore the wounds ran deep breaking her skull She was car ried back to her owner with the message that she was no longer worth anything Her family worried she would not recover from the injury Her owner tried to sell her but no one offered to buy Her family’s prayers were eventually answered Although it took months she healed However as a result of the blow she would fall asleep suddenly sev eral times a day for the rest of her life Despite the injury Araminta grew strong She hauled flour barrels onto carts She was hired out with her father and brothers to cut and haul timber Soon she was chop ping more wood than most men She exceeded what was expected of her She gained physical stamina She grew accustomed to back-breaking work At the same time she relied on her faith to get her through the day She would need that strength of body and mind to realize her own destiny Araminta’s father’s owner died in 1836 and Ben Ross was granted his freedom several years later He stayed on the plantation though working as a timber inspec tor Araminta wanted more She wanted to run free She wanted her whole family to run free She wanted all slaves to run free
VISIONS NORTH A raminta Ross married John Tubman a free black man in 1844 She took her husband’s surname and around that time she also changed her first name to Harriet after her beloved mother The laws at that time outlawed any marriage between a slave and a free black Instead it was considered an informal arrangement The slave’s owner could completely ignore it That also meant that the slave and any of the slave’s children could be sold at whim since a child born to a slave was automat ically put into bondage However after her father gained his freedom in 1840 Tubman wanted to explore her own status She believed that her mother may have mistakenly been kept a slave after her first owner died In 1845 she hired a lawyer and he investigated the matter The lawyer and other white authorities determined that her mother Harriet Ross could have been freed when she turned for ty-five But because Tubman’s mother had been passed as property from owner to owner it was unclear whether she could still be freed Tubman nevertheless vowed to free herself To do so would involve a long dangerous journey to the North 9 CHAPTER ONE
10 HARRIET TUBMAN Tubman’s heroic acts have been memorialized through art including this twentieth-century painting by African American artist William H Johnson He emphasizes the North Star as her guiding force
VIsIoNs NoRTH 11 FREE BLACKS AND SLAVES Even before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proc lamation in 1863 which freed the slaves of the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union not all blacks in America were born into or stayed in slavery Some blacks gained their freedom after his or her owner died through the owner’s will Others were freed at a certain age like Tubman’s father Ben Ross Still others escaped to the North for their freedom There were also immigrants from the West Indies who arrived in America on their own who were never slaves The American Revolution sparked a movement to free slaves to serve in the militia The Louisi ana Purchase of 1803 brought with it thousands of free blacks whose existence came as the result of relationships between French and Spanish colonists and slaves There were more free blacks living in the South than there ever were living in the North President Lincoln’s decree to free the slaves became the Emancipation Proclamation Note the bolded words All persons held as slaves shall be free
