Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 31–35. Rosemary Sadlier
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sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Harriet had a pattern of working to earn enough money to finance travel into slave states during the summer months, followed by attempting rescues in the fall; working during the winter and rescuing in the spring. In November 1856, Harriet returned to the Bucktown area to bring another group to the north. One member of her group was Josiah Bailey who had cost his new owner $1,000 down and $1,000 to be paid later. To learn respect for his new owner, despite being a loyal worker without a behaviour problem, Josiah was flogged on the very first day of the new ownership arrangement. Consequently, Josiah decided to run, joining Bill, Peter Pennington, Eliza Nokey, and one other on board Harriet’s train. A reward of $1,500 was offered for Josiah’s return, $800 for Peter, $300 for Bill, and $1,200 for Harriet Tubman. The reward for Harriet was higher than the others because of the significant losses she had caused slave owners in the area.
By June 1859, the Society of Slaveholders decided at their nationwide convention that there should be insurance policies to protect the slaveholders against the loss of their “property” through slaves escaping. This Society also offered a reward of $40,000 (equivalent to more than half a million dollars in current dollars) for the capture of Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was one of the most wanted people in the United States because of her success in conducting people to freedom. The number of people in her party varied from a small group of three up to a group of thirty-nine. Discipline was very important to the success of the rescues. On one rescue mission, Harriet hid in the woods with her passengers and watched as her pursuers stood guard over a well-travelled road. Harriet would later say, “And how we laughed: We was de fools, and dey the wise men; but we wasn’t fools enough to go down de high road in de broad daylight.”
Harriet learned that her parents were suspected of having assisted with the escape of some “fugitive” slaves and were likely to be arrested. She had waited to rescue them because she knew that they would probably not be sold further south because they would not earn much money on the auction block now that they were so old. With money from the New York Anti-Slavery office, Harriet went to Maryland and made a horse-drawn vehicle out of the remnants of an old buggy, boards, wheels, and a harness out of straw. Her frail parents were thus able to ride all night out of the Bucktown area with some of the belongings they did not want to part with; Rit prized her feather bedtick (comforter) and Ben wanted to keep his broadaxe and other tools. In southern Delaware, Harriet was able to board a train to Wilmington, where Garrett gave Harriet enough money to buy their train passage to Canada. Harriet now had freed all of her family members except for one sister and her children.
Due to the increasing risk to Harriet because of the growing concerns between the north and south regarding slave ownership, Harriet was advised not to attempt any more rescues. Upon making themselves free, former slaves sometimes gave themselves new names in order to conceal their identities in case a bounty hunter came by. Harriet’s brothers gave themselves the name “Stewart,” perhaps after a shipbuilder in the Bucktown area, or after a reasonable overseer. Another well known “Steward” in the Rochester, New York, area may have inspired their selection of this surname. As a distinguished gentleman, Austin Steward was a prominent social and religious leader of the black community who spoke out on issues such as the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. He had worked for a time in Canada, so his name would have been recognized by members of the black community north of the border too.
Often former slaves gave themselves new names that reflected their new status as self-emancipated people. The surname “Freeman” was often assumed. Slaves would name themselves after political figures who had been supportive of anti-slavery measures, or they would assume names that seemed usual unlike the single, sometimes Biblical names they had been assigned during slavery. Someone known as “Cicero” in Virginia might have become Charles Johnson in Philadelphia and possibly John Freeman in Canada. Some gave themselves names that may have appealed to them. For example, in the 1861 census for St. Catharines, there is a black individual who calls himself Andrew Prettyman!
Blacks entering Canada as fugitives from the repressive American laws or as freedom seekers were cautioned not to tell anyone what their true identity was or to speak about where they were originally from or of the family they had left behind. This was to protect them from bounty hunters and their agents who might be searching for them within Canada. Escape stories might be passed down within families, but the fear of recapture by survivors of the Underground Railroad was very real. Some survivors kept their freedom papers, if they had been granted their freedom, just in case of a problem or an opportunity to return. Sometimes individuals took their escape stories with them to the grave. Similarly, those persons who may have provided ongoing or ad hoc assistance to the Underground Railroad also kept their information to themselves.
Harriet kidnapped the daughter of one of her brothers, or according to oral history, Harriet took an orphaned child, the eight-year-old Margaret, and boarded her with a politician in Auburn, New York, named William Seward. Harriet may have felt that she would be able to ensure a secure and prosperous childhood for Margaret, unlike the experiences that Harriet had at the same age. Some researchers wonder if this Margaret could have been a child of Harriet Tubman, since she took such an interest in her. However, the child is described as being light-skinned, and since neither Harriet nor John are described as being light, the child may or may not have had a family connection. It is possible that Harriet was impregnated by her owner or that the child was actually a niece. The African tradition was to care for the community, so it is also possible that Harriet was acquainted with the child’s mother or was asked to care for this child by another enslaved woman wanting to see the best for her.
Towards the end of 1858, Harriet moved her parents to Auburn and made her home there because of Margaret, because of the assistance of Seward — now the Governor of New York and Harriet’s strongest supporter — and because Auburn was becoming a centre for abolitionists and the women’s suffrage movement. St. Catharines may have ceased to have personal appeal to Harriet because her growing awareness of the enormity of the slave issue made her feel that a major approach in co-operation with sympathetic whites was needed in order to stop slavery and increase tolerance. Harriet may have come to realize that as important as her assistance to a small group might be, it was time to heal the problem by ending slavery. In nineteen life-risking missions, Harriet had rescued, and ensured a livelihood, for over 300 people, but there were thousands of others still suffering. Even if she spent the rest of her life conducting people to safety, she would never be able to free them all.
A movement or political reform that would end slavery had great appeal. William Seward was introduced to Harriet by Frederick Douglass. Seward was a Republican who had opposed the Fugitive Slave Act. He was close to winning a presidential election, but his stand on the John Brown issue at Harpers Ferry (a planned slave rebellion) later cost him the win. Seward was able ensure that Harriet was able to bid on the land, and some reports indicate that he loaned Harriet the money to buy property in Auburn which Harriet later repaid with the proceeds from the sale of the Sarah Bradford book, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.
During an 1860 visit to Troy, New York, to see a cousin, Harriet Tubman learned that a slave, Charles Nalle, had been followed by his owner. She postponed her travel to a scheduled anti-slavery meeting in Boston she had been told about by Thomas Gerrit and used her time to alert the community about this man who was already detained.
Over time, people who were slaves began to look like people who were not enslaved. Breeding of Africans and Europeans produced slaves who were half African and half European, who then appeared less and less African-looking as the as the interracial procreation went on. Charles Nalle was a slave who was one-eighth black, as a child of a slave who was one-quarter black and her white master. He ran from his Culpepper County, Virginia, plantation to join his wife. The agent who was sent to find him in Troy, New York, was his half brother. They had the same father, looked alike, but one was a slave and one was free. Nalle was being held in the commissioner’s office when Harriet managed to grab him while rousing the crowd outside the building, and she put Nalle onto a waiting boat. On the other side of the river, Nalle was recaptured but freed again by the crowd, and Harriet obtained a ride to safety for him on a passing wagon. Nalle later returned to Troy with money collected from the community to buy his freedom.
Harriet’s