She struggled to pay off the purchase of a plot of land in Auburn, New York, that soon became home to her extended family and in 1873 she fell victim to a vicious fraud that saw her swindled and robbed of more than $2,000 and physically beaten by the conmen.
Harriet tubman and the underground railroad story series#
Tubman’s lifelong charity and generosity towards her family and fellow formerly enslaved people, coupled with a series of financial reversals late in her life left her in desperate straits. In the end, Tubman received some military benefits, but only as the wife of an “official” veteran, her second husband, Nelson Davis.ĭespite her fame and achievements, Tubman died in near poverty. congressman went so far as to introduce legislation calling for Tubman to receive a $2,000 pension, but the bill was defeated. For years, Tubman repeatedly requested an official military pension, but was denied. Compounding the issue was Tubman’s clandestine work as a spy, making it difficult for the federal government to formally recognize her work. government to pay Tubman for her Civil War work.ĭespite her contributions to the war effort, Tubman received little compensation, likely earning less than $200 during the war itself. READ MORE: After the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman Led a Brazen Civil War Raid It took years for the U.S. One hundred years after Tubman’s successes in South Carolina, a recently formed Black feminist group took the name Combahee River Collective in her honor, also paying honor to Tubman’s work later in her life as a powerful advocate for women’s suffrage. The success of the raid, which had also included the brave service of African-American soldiers, increased Tubman’s fame, and she went on to work on similar missions with the famed Massachusetts 54th Infantry before spending the final years of the war tending to injured soldiers. Tubman herself never used this number, instead of estimating that she had rescued around 50 people by 1860-mostly family members.Īfter guiding Union boats along the mine-filled waters and coming ashore, Tubman and her group successfully rescued more than 700 enslaved people working on nearby plantations, while dodging bullets and artillery shells from slave owners and Confederate soldiers rushing to the scene. One of the most complicated myths about Tubman is the claim (first mentioned in a 19th-century biography) that she escorted more than 300 enslaved people to freedom over the course of 19 missions. It’s difficult to separate fact from fiction in Tubman’s life.
In late 1850, after hearing of the upcoming sale of one of her nieces, Tubman headed back down south, embarking on the first of nearly two dozen missions to help other enslaved people escape as she had. For reasons still unknown, her brothers decided to turn back, forcing Tubman to return with them.Ī few months later, Tubman set off again, this time on her own, leaving her husband and family behind as she made her way north through Delaware and Pennsylvania, stopping periodically at a series of hideouts along the Underground Railroad, before settling in Philadelphia. In September 1849, fearful that her owner was trying to sell her, Tubman and two of her brothers briefly escaped, though they didn’t make it far. Tubman herself used the Underground Railroad to escape slavery. She never recovered from the damage done to her brain and skull, suffering periodic seizures that researchers believed may have been a form of epilepsy. Tubman was given little medical care or time to recuperate before she was sent back out to work. When she was in her early teens, Tubman was badly injured when an owner, trying to stop the escape attempt of another enslaved person, threw a large weight across a room, striking Tubman in the head.