| What makes it historical? |
Within the boundaries of what is now the park, Harriet Tubman (then Araminta Ross) was born in 1822. She was brought up on the farm of Edward Brodess, separated first from her father, then three of her siblings. At age six, she was rented out to another famer to trap muskrats and separated again from her family.
At thirteen, after refusing to restrain an escaped slave at the Bucktown Store, she was struck in the head by a 2-pound weight, which cracked her skull and left her with epilepsy and what she described as visions from God. That’s when she started to take action.
In the fall of 1849, the newly married and renamed Harriet Tubman escaped from the Brodess Farm and built a network among abolitionists in Philadelphia that became the Underground Railroad! From 1850 until 1860, Mrs. Tubman worked tirelessly to sneak over 70 people from slavery to freedom! During the Civil War, she recruited black soldiers into the Union Army and even led an armed raid in 1863, making her the first woman in US history to do so! At the end of her long and heroic career, she retired to Auburn, New York, where she continued her assistance to other former slaves for the rest of her life! |
