Harriet, The Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford

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At one time he writes to his son from St. Catherine's, Canada:

"I came on here the day after you left Rochester. I am succeeding
to all appearance beyond my expectations. Harriet Tubman _hooked
on her whole team at once_. He (Harriet) is the most of a man
naturally that I ever met with. There is abundant material here
and of the right quality." She suggested the 4th of July to him as
the time to begin operations. And Mr. Sanborn adds: "It was about
the 4th of July, as Harriet, the African sybil, had suggested,
that Brown first showed himself in the counties of Washington and
Jefferson, on opposite sides of the lordly Potomac."

I find among her papers, many of which are defaced by being
carried about with her for years, portions of these letters
addressed to myself, by persons at the South, and speaking of the
valuable assistance Harriet was rendering our soldiers in the
hospital, and our armies in the field. At this time her manner of
life, as related by herself, was this:

"Well, missus, I'd go to de hospital, I would, early eb'ry
mornin'. I'd get a big chunk of ice, I would, and put it in a
basin, and fill it with water; den I'd take a sponge and begin.
Fust man I'd come to, I'd thrash away de flies, and dey'd rise,
dey would, like bees roun' a hive. Den I'd begin to bathe der
wounds, an' by de time I'd bathed off three or four, de fire and
heat would have melted de ice and made de water warm, an' it would
be as red as clar blood. Den I'd go an' git more ice, I would, an'
by de time I got to de nex' ones, de flies would be roun' de fust
ones black an' thick as eber." In this way she worked, day after
day, till late at night; then she went home to her little cabin,
and made about fifty pies, a great quantity of ginger-bread, and
two casks of root beer. These she would hire some contraband to
sell for her through the camps, and thus she would provide her
support for another day; for this woman never received pay or
pension, and never drew for herself but twenty days' rations
during the four years of her labors. At one time she was called
away from Hilton Head, by one of our officers, to come to
Fernandina, where the men were "dying off like sheep," from
dysentery. Harriet had acquired quite a reputation for her skill
in curing this disease, by a medicine which she prepared from
roots which grew near the waters which gave the disease. Here she
found thousands of sick soldiers and contrabands, and immediately
gave up her time and attention to them. At another time, we find
her nursing those who were down by hundreds with small-pox and
malignant fevers. She had never had these diseases, but she seems
to have no more fear of death in one form than another. "De Lord
would take keer of her till her time came, an' den she was ready
to go."

When our armies and gun-boats first appeared in any part of the
South, many of the poor negroes were as much afraid of "de Yankee
Buckra" as of their own masters. It was almost impossible to win
their confidence, or to get information from them. But to Harriet
they would tell anything; and so it became quite important that
she should accompany expeditions going up the rivers, or into
unexplored parts of the country, to control and get information
from those whom they took with them as guides.

General Hunter asked her at one time if she would go with several
gun-boats up the Combahee River, the object of the expedition
being to take up the torpedoes placed by the rebels in the river,
to destroy railroads and bridges, and to cut off supplies from the
rebel troops. She said she would go if Colonel Montgomery was to
be appointed commander of the expedition. Colonel Montgomery was
one of John Brown's men, and was well known to Harriet.
Accordingly, Colonel Montgomery was appointed to the command, and
Harriet, with several men under her, the principal of whom was J.
Plowden, whose pass I have, accompanied the expedition. Harriet
describes in the most graphic manner the appearance of the
plantations as they passed up the river; the frightened negroes
leaving their work and taking to the woods, at sight of the gun-boats;
then coming to peer out like startled deer, and scudding
away like the wind at the sound of the steam-whistle. "Well," said
one old negro, "Mas'r said de Yankees had horns and tails, but I
nebber beliebed it till now." But the word was passed along by the
mysterious telegraphic communication existing among these simple
people, that these were "Lincoln's gun-boats come to set them
free." In vain, then, the drivers used their whips in their
efforts to hurry the poor creatures back to their quarters; they
all turned and ran for the gun-boats. They came down every road,
across every field, just as they had left their work and their
cabins; women with children clinging around their necks, hanging
to their dresses, running behind, all making at full speed for
"Lincoln's gun-boats." Eight hundred poor wretches at one time
crowded the banks, with their hands extended toward their
deliverers, and they were all taken off upon the gun-boats, and
carried down to Beaufort.

"I nebber see such a sight," said Harriet; "we laughed, an'
laughed, an' laughed. Here you'd see a woman wid a pail on her
head, rice a smokin' in it jus' as she'd taken it from de fire,
young one hangin' on behind, one han' roun' her forehead to hold
on, 'tother han' diggin' into de rice-pot, eatin' wid all its
might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag
wid a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one an' a
black one; we took 'em all on board; named de white pig
Beauregard, and de black pig Jeff Davis. Sometimes de women would
come wid twins hangin' roun' der necks; 'pears like I nebber see
so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der
heads, and young ones taggin' behin', all loaded; pigs squealin',
chickens screamin', young ones squallin'." And so they came
pouring down to the gun-boats. When they stood on the shore, and
the small boats put out to take them off, they all wanted to get
in at once. After the boats were crowded, they would hold on to
them so that they could not leave the shore. The oarsmen would
beat them on their hands, but they would not let go; they were
afraid the gun-boats would go off and leave them, and all wanted
to make sure of one of these arks of refuge. At length Colonel
Montgomery shouted from the upper deck, above the clamor of
appealing tones, "Moses, you'll have to give em a song." Then
Harriet lifted up her voice, and sang:

"Of all the whole creation in the East or in the West,
The glorious Yankee nation is the greatest and the best.
Come along! Come along! don't be alarmed,
Uncle Sam is rich enough to give you all a farm."

At the end of every verse, the negroes in their enthusiasm would
throw up their hands and shout "Glory," and the row-boats would
take that opportunity to push off; and so at last they were all
brought on board. The masters fled; houses and barns and railroad
bridges were burned, tracks torn up, torpedoes destroyed, and the
object of the expedition was fully accomplished.

This fearless woman was often sent into the rebel lines as a spy,
and brought back valuable information as to the position of armies
and batteries; she has been in battle when the shot was falling
like hail, and the bodies of dead and wounded men were dropping
around her like leaves in autumn; but the thought of fear never
seems to have had place for a moment in her mind. She had her duty
to perform, and she expected to be taken care of till it was done.

Would that, instead of taking them in this poor way at second-hand,
my readers could hear this woman's graphic accounts of
scenes she herself witnessed, could listen to her imitations of
negro preachers in their own very peculiar dialect, her singing of
camp-meeting hymns, her account of "experience meetings," her
imitations of the dances, and the funeral ceremonies of these
simple people. "Why, der language down dar in de far South is jus'
as different from ours in Maryland as you can tink," said she.
"Dey laughed when dey heard me talk, an' I could not understand
dem, no how." She described a midnight funeral which she attended;
for the slaves, never having been allowed to bury their dead in
the day-time, continued the custom of night funerals from habit.

The corpse was laid upon the ground, and the people all sat round,
the group being lighted up by pine torches.

The old negro preacher began by giving out a hymn, which was sung
by all. "An' oh! I wish you could hear 'em sing, Missus," said
Harriet. "Der voices is so sweet, and dey can sing eberyting we
sing, an' den dey can sing a great many hymns dat we can't nebber
catch at all."

The old preacher began his sermon by pointing to the dead man, who
lay in a rude box on the ground before him.

"_Shum_? Ded-a-de-dah! _Shum, David_? Ded-a-de-dah! Now I want you
all to _flec_' for moment. Who ob all dis congregation is gwine
next to lie ded-e-de-dah? You can't go nowhere's, my frien's and
bredren, but Deff 'll fin' you. You can't dig no hole so deep an'
bury yourself dar, but God A'mighty's far-seein' eye'll fin' you,
an' Deff 'll come arter you. You can't go into that big fort
(pointing to Hilton Head), an' shut yourself up dar; dat fort dat
Sesh Buckra said the debil couldn't take, but Deff 'll fin' you
dar. All your frien's may forget you, but Deff 'll nebber forget
you. Now, my bredren, prepare to lie ded-a-de-dah!"

This was the burden of a very long sermon, after which the whole
congregation went round in a sort of solemn dance, called the
"spiritual shuffle," shaking hands with each other, and calling
each other by name as they sang:

"My sis'r Mary's boun' to go;
My sis'r Nanny's boun' to go;
My brudder Tony's boun' to go;
My brudder July's boun' to go."

This to the same tune, till every hand had been shaken by every
one of the company. When they came to Harriet, who was a stranger,
they sang:

Eberybody's boun' to go!

The body was then placed in a Government wagon, and by the light
of the pine torches, the strange, dark procession moved along,
singing a rude funeral hymn, till they reached the place of
burial.

Harriet's account of her interview with an old negro she met at
Hilton Head, is amusing and interesting. He said, "I'd been yere
seventy-three years, workin' for my master widout even a dime
wages. I'd worked rain-wet sun-dry. I'd worked wid my mouf full of
dust, but could not stop to get a drink of water. I'd been
whipped, an' starved, an' I was always prayin', 'Oh! Lord, come
an' delibber us!' All dat time de birds had been flyin', an' de
rabens had been cryin', and de fish had been swimmin' in de
waters. One day I look up, an' I see a big cloud; it didn't come
up like as de clouds come out far yonder, but it 'peared to be
right ober head. Der was thunders out of dat, an' der was
lightnin's. Den I looked down on de water, an' I see, 'peared to
me a big house in de water, an' out of de big house came great big
eggs, and de good eggs went on trou' de air, an' fell into de
fort; an' de bad eggs burst before dey got dar. Den de Sesh Buckra
begin to run, an' de neber stop running till de git to de swamp,
an' de stick dar an' de die dar. Den I heard 'twas de Yankee
ship[D] firin' out de big eggs, an dey had come to set us free.
Den I praise de Lord. He come an' put he little finger in de work,
an de Sesh Buckra all go; and de birds stop flyin', and de rabens
stop cryin', an' when I go to catch a fish to eat wid my rice,
dey's no fish dar. De Lord A'mighty 'd come and frightened 'em all
out of de waters. Oh! Praise de Lord! I'd prayed seventy-three
years, an' now he's come an' we's all free."

[Footnote D: The _Wabash_.]

The following account of the subject of this memoir is cut from
the _Boston Commonwealth_ of 1863, kindly sent the writer by Mr.
Sanborn:

"It was said long ago that the true romance of America was not in
the fortunes of the Indian, where Cooper sought it, nor in New
England character, where Judd found it, nor in the social
contrasts of Virginia planters, as Thackeray imagined, but in the
story of the fugitive slaves. The observation is as true now as it
was before War, with swift, gigantic hand, sketched the vast
shadows, and dashed in the high lights in which romance loves to
lurk and flash forth. But the stage is enlarged on which these
dramas are played, the whole world now sit as spectators, and the
desperation or the magnanimity of a poor black woman has power to
shake the nation that so long was deaf to her cries. We write of
one of these heroines, of whom our slave annals are full--a woman
whose career is as extraordinary as the most famous of her sex can
show.

"Araminta Ross, now known by her married name of Tubman, with her
sounding Christian name changed to Harriet, is the grand-daughter
of a slave imported from Africa, and has not a drop of white blood
in her veins. Her parents were Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene,
both slaves, but married and faithful to each other. They still
live in old age and poverty,[E] but free, on a little property at
Auburn, N.Y., which their daughter purchased for them from Mr.
Seward, the Secretary of State. She was born, as near as she can
remember, in 1820 or in 1821, in Dorchester County, on the Eastern
shore of Maryland, and not far from the town of Cambridge. She had
ten brothers and sisters, of whom three are now living, all at the
North, and all rescued from slavery by Harriet, before the War.
She went back just as the South was preparing to secede, to bring
away a fourth, but before she could reach her, she was dead. Three
years before, she had brought away her old father and mother, at
great risk to herself.

[Footnote E: Both dead for some years.]

"When Harriet was six years old, she was taken from her mother and
carried ten miles to live with James Cook, whose wife was a
weaver, to learn the trade of weaving. While still a mere child,
Cook set her to watching his musk-rat traps, which compelled her
to wade through the water. It happened that she was once sent when
she was ill with the measles, and, taking cold from wading in the
water in this condition, she grew very sick, and her mother
persuaded her master to take her away from Cook's until she could
get well.

"Another attempt was made to teach her weaving, but she would not
learn, for she hated her mistress, and did not want to live at
home, as she would have done as a weaver, for it was the custom
then to weave the cloth for the family, or a part of it, in the
house.

"Soon after she entered her teens she was hired out as a field
hand, and it was while thus employed that she received a wound,
which nearly proved fatal, from the effects of which she still
suffers. In the fall of the year, the slaves there work in the
evening, cleaning up wheat, husking corn, etc. On this occasion,
one of the slaves of a farmer named Barrett, left his work, and
went to the village store in the evening. The overseer followed
him, and so did Harriet. When the slave was found, the overseer
swore he should be whipped, and called on Harriet, among others,
to help tie him. She refused, and as the man ran away, she placed
herself in the door to stop pursuit. The overseer caught up a
two-pound weight from the counter and threw it at the fugitive, but it
fell short and struck Harriet a stunning blow on the head. It was
long before she recovered from this, and it has left her subject
to a sort of stupor or lethargy at times; coming upon her in the
midst of conversation, or whatever she may be doing, and throwing
her into a deep slumber, from which she will presently rouse
herself, and go on with her conversation or work.

"After this she lived for five or six years with John Stewart,
where at first she worked in the house, but afterward 'hired her
time,' and Dr. Thompson, son of her master's guardian, 'stood for
her,' that is, was her surety for the payment of what she owed.
She employed the time thus hired in the rudest labors,--drove
oxen, carted, plowed, and did all the work of a man,--sometimes
earning money enough in a year, beyond what she paid her master,
'to buy a pair of steers,' worth forty dollars. The amount exacted
of a woman for her time was fifty or sixty dollars--of a man, one
hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars. Frequently Harriet
worked for her father, who was a timber inspector, and
superintended the cutting and hauling of great quantities of
timber for the Baltimore ship-yards. Stewart, his temporary
master, was a builder, and for the work of Ross used to receive as
much as five dollars a day sometimes, he being a superior workman.
While engaged with her father, she would cut wood, haul logs, etc.
Her usual 'stint' was half a cord of wood in a day.

"Harriet was married somewhere about 1844, to a free colored man
named John Tubman, but she had no children. For the last two years
of slavery she lived with Dr. Thompson, before mentioned, her own
master not being yet of age, and Dr. T.'s father being his
guardian, as well as the owner of her own father. In 1849 the
young man died, and the slaves were to be sold, though previously
set free by an old will. Harriet resolved not to be sold, and so,
with no knowledge of the North--having only heard of Pennsylvania
and New Jersey--she walked away one night alone. She found a
friend in a white lady, who knew her story and helped her on her
way. After many adventures, she reached Philadelphia, where she
found work and earned a small stock of money. With this money in
her purse, she traveled back to Maryland for her husband, but she
found him married to another woman, and no longer caring to live
with her. This, however, was not until two years after her escape,
for she does not seem to have reached her old home in the first
two expeditions. In December, 1850, she had visited Baltimore and
brought away her sister and two children, who had come up from
Cambridge in a boat, under charge of her sister's husband, a free
black. A few months after she had brought away her brother and two
other men, but it was not till the fall of 1851, that she found
her husband and learned of his infidelity. She did not give way to
rage or grief, but collected a party of fugitives and brought them
safely to Philadelphia. In December of the same year, she
returned, and led out a party of eleven, among them her brother
and his wife. With these she journeyed to Canada, and there spent
the winter, for this was after the enforcement of Mason's Fugitive
Slave Bill in Philadelphia and Boston, and there was no safety
except 'under the paw of the British Lion,' as she quaintly said.
But the first winter was terribly severe for these poor runaways.
They earned their bread by chopping wood in the snows of a
Canadian forest; they were frost-bitten, hungry, and naked.
Harriet was their good angel. She kept house for her brother, and
the poor creatures boarded with her. She worked for them, begged
for them, prayed for them, with the strange familiarity of
communion with God which seems natural to these people, and
carried them by the help of God through the hard winter.

"In the spring she returned to the States, and as usual earned
money by working in hotels and families as a cook. From Cape May,
in the fall of 1852, she went back once more to Maryland, and
brought away nine more fugitives.

"Up to this time she had expended chiefly her own money in these
expeditions--money which she had earned by hard work in the
drudgery of the kitchen. Never did any one more exactly fulfill
the sense of George Herbert--

"'A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine.'

"But it was not possible for such virtues long to remain hidden
from the keen eyes of the Abolitionists. She became known to
Thomas Garrett, the large-hearted Quaker of Wilmington, who has
aided the escape of three thousand fugitives; she found warm
friends in Philadelphia and New York, and wherever she went. These
gave her money, which he never spent for her own use, but laid up
for the help of her people, and especially for her journeys back
to the 'land of Egypt,' as she called her old home. By reason of
her frequent visits there, always carrying away some of the
oppressed, she got among her people the name of 'Moses,' which it
seems she still retains.

"Between 1852 and 1857, she made but two of these journeys, in
consequence partly of the increased vigilance of the slave-holders,
who had suffered so much by the loss of their property. A
great reward was offered for her capture and she several times was
on the point of being taken, but always escaped by her quick wit,
or by 'warnings' from Heaven--for it is time to notice one
singular trait in her character. She is the most shrewd and
practical person in the world, yet she is a firm believer in
omens, dreams, and warnings. She declares that before her escape
from slavery, she used to dream of flying over fields and towns,
and rivers and mountains, looking down upon them 'like a bird,'
and reaching at last a great fence, or sometimes a river, over
which she would try to fly, 'but it 'peared like I wouldn't hab de
strength, and jes as I was sinkin' down, dere would be ladies all
drest in white ober dere, and dey would put out dere arms and pull
me 'cross.' There is nothing strange in this, perhaps, but she
declares that when she came North she remembered these very places
as those she had seen in her dreams, and many of the ladies who
befriended her were those she had been helped by in her vision.

"Then she says she always knows when there is danger near her--she
does not know how, exactly, but ''pears like my heart go flutter,
flutter, and den dey may say "Peace, Peace," as much as dey likes,
_I know its gwine to be war_!' She is very firm on this point, and
ascribes to this her great impunity, in spite of the lethargy
before mentioned, which would seem likely to throw her into the
hands of her enemies. She says she inherited this power, that her
father could always predict the weather, and that he foretold the
Mexican war.

"In 1857 she made her most venturesome journey, for she brought
with her to the North her old parents, who were no longer able to
walk such distances as she must go by night. Consequently she must
hire a wagon for them, and it required all her ingenuity to get
them through Maryland and Delaware safe. She accomplished it,
however, and by the aid of her friends she brought them safe to
Canada, where they spent the winter. Her account of their
sufferings there--of her mother's complaining and her own
philosophy about it--is a lesson of trust in Providence better
than many sermons. But she decided to bring them to a more
comfortable place, and so she negotiated with Mr. Seward--then in
the Senate--for a little patch of ground. To the credit of the
Secretary of State it should be said, that he sold her the
property on very favorable terms, and gave her some time for
payment. To this house she removed her parents, and set herself to
work to pay for the purchase. It was on this errand that she first
visited Boston--we believe in the winter of 1858-59. She brought a
few letters from her friends in New York, but she could herself
neither read nor write, and she was obliged to trust to her wits
that they were delivered to the right persons. One of them, as it
happened, was to the present writer, who received it by another
hand, and called to see her at her boarding-house. It was curious
to see the caution with which she received her visitor until she
felt assured that there was no mistake. One of her means of
security was to carry with her the daguerreotypes of her friends,
and show them to each new person. If they recognized the likeness,
then it was all right.

"Pains were taken to secure her the attention to which her great
services of humanity entitled her, and she left New England with a
handsome sum of money toward the payment of her debt to Mr.
Seward. Before she left, however, she had several interviews with
Captain Brown, then in Boston. He is supposed to have communicated
his plans to her, and to have been aided by her in obtaining
recruits and money among her people. At any rate, he always spoke
of her with the greatest respect, and declared that 'General
Tubman,' as he styled her, was a better officer than most whom he
had seen, and could command an army as successfully as she had led
her small parties of fugitives.

"Her own veneration for Captain Brown has always been profound,
and since his murder, has taken the form of a religion. She had
often risked her own life for her people, and she thought nothing
of that; but that a white man, and a man so noble and strong,
should so take upon himself the burden of a despised race, she
could not understand, and she took refuge from her perplexity in
the mysteries of her fervid religion.

"Again, she laid great stress on a dream which she had just before
she met Captain Brown in Canada. She thought she was in 'a
wilderness sort of place, all full of rocks, and bushes,' when she
saw a serpent raise its head among the rocks, and as it did so, it
became the head of an old man with a long white beard, gazing at
her, 'wishful like, jes as ef he war gwine to speak to me,' and
then two other heads rose up beside him, younger than he,--and as
she stood looking at them, and wondering what they could want with
her, a great crowd of men rushed in and struck down the younger
heads, and then the head of the old man, still looking at her so
'wishful.' This dream she had again and again, and could not
interpret it; but when she met Captain Brown, shortly after,
behold, he was the very image of the head she had seen. But still
she could not make out what her dream signified, till the news
came to her of the tragedy of Harper's Ferry, and then she knew
the two other heads were his two sons. She was in New York at that
time, and on the day of the affair at Harper's Ferry she felt her
usual warning that something was wrong--she could not tell what.
Finally she told her hostess that it must be Captain Brown who was
in trouble, and that they should soon hear bad news from him. The
next day's newspaper brought tidings of what had happened.

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