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Harriet Tubman is born.
Harriet Tubman was born Araminta "Minty" Ross to slave parents, Harriet Green and Ben Ross. Rit was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess (and later her son Edward), while Ben was legally owned by Mary's second husband, Anthony Thompson, who ran a large plantation near Blackwater River in Madison, Maryland. As with many slaves in the United States, neither the exact year nor place of her birth was recorded, and historians differ as to the best estimate. -
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Harriet Tubman's Life
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Harriet Tubman marries John Tubman
In 1844 at the age of 25, Tubman married John Tubman, a free African American who did not share her dream. He told her that if she ran off, he would tell her master. She did not believe him until she saw his face and then she knew he meant it. Her goal to achieve freedom was too large for her to give up though. So in 1849 she left her husband and escaped to Philadelphia in 1849. -
Harriet Tubman and her brothers escape from slavery.
Harriet was given a piece of paper by a white abolitionist neighbor with two names and told how to find the first house on her path to freedom. At the first house, she was put into a wagon, covered with a sack, and driven to her next destination. The people were kind enough to give her directions to safe houses and names of people who would help her cross the Mason-Dixon line. -
Harriet Tubman serves as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
In September of the same year, Harriet was made an official "conductor" of the UGRR. This meant that she knew all the routes to free territory and she had to take an oath of silence so the secret of the Underground Railroad would be kept secret. Around this time the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was passed. This meant that it was illegal for slaves to escape to the North to gain their freedom. If caught they would immediately be returned to the South once again. -
Harriet Tubman rescues sister, brother-in-law, and children.
In December 1850, Tubman received a warning that her niece Kessiah was going to be sold (along with her two children, six-year-old James Alfred, and baby Araminta) in Cambridge, Maryland.
Horrified at the prospect of having her family broken further apart, Tubman did something very few slaves ever did. She voluntarily returned to the land of her enslavement in order to safely bring her family to Philadelphia. Freedom meant a lot to slaves back then. -
Harriet Tubman helps her brother Moses and two others escape slavery.
The following spring, Tubman headed back into Maryland to help guide away other family members. Horrified at the prospect of having her family broken further apart, Tubman did something very few slaves ever did: she voluntarily returned to the land of her enslavement. She went to Baltimore, where her brother-in-law Tom Tubman hid her until the time of the sale. -
Harriet Tubman guides eleven slave fugitives to Canada.
Because the Fugitive Slave Law had made the northern United States more dangerous for escaped slaves, many began migrating further north to Canada. In December 1851, Tubman guided an unidentified group of eleven fugitives – possibly including the Bowleys and several others she had helped rescue earlier – northward. There is evidence to suggest that Tubman and her group stopped at the home of abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. -
Harriet Tubman meets abolitionist John Brown.
Tubman helped recruit supporters for the Harper’s Ferry attack. Brown called her “General Tubman”. In 1859 – Harper’s Ferry Raid. John Brown was executed in December. -
US Senator William Seward sells Harriet Tubman's house in Auburn, New York.
Sometime in the mid-1850s, Tubman met Seward and his wife Frances. Mrs. Seward provided a home for Tubman's favorite niece, Margaret, after Tubman helped her to escape from Maryland. In 1857, the Sewards provided a home for Tubman, to which she relocated her parents from St. Catherines. This home was later sold to her for a small sum, and became her base of operations when she was not on the road aiding fugitives from slavery, and speaking in support of the cause. -
Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead an assault during the Civil War in the Combahee River Raid where 700 slaves where set free.
Beginning of the American Civil War. Tubman worked as a cook and nurse in South Carolina and Florida. Tubman helped General David Hunter recruit former slaves for a regiment of African American soldiers. She served as a spy and scout under the command of Col. James Montgomery. -
Harriet Tubman marries Nelson Davis.
Tubman spent her remaining years in Auburn, tending to her family and other people in need. One of the people Tubman took in was a Civil War veteran named Nelson Davis. He began working in Auburn as a bricklayer, and they soon fell in love. Though he was twenty-two years younger than she was, on March 18, 1869, they were married at the Central Presbyterian Church. They spent the next twenty years together, and in 1874 they adopted a baby girl named Gertie. -
Harriet Tubman dies of Pneumonia at the age of 93.
Before she died on March 10, 1913, she gave her home for the elderly to the Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Tubman was buried with military rites in Fort Hill Cemetery, a short drive from the home. A year after her death, Auburn declared a one-day memorial to its anti-slavery hero. -
SS Harriet Tubman is launched.
The SS Harriet Tubman (Hull Number 3032) was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Harriet Tubman, an African-American freedom fighter during the American Civil War. The ship was laid down on 19 April 1944, then launched on 3 June 1944.
