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

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"Her last visit to Maryland was made after this, in December,
1860; and in spite of the agitated condition of the country, and
the greater watchfulness of the slave-holders, she brought away
seven fugitives, one of them an infant, which must be drugged with
opium to keep it from crying on the way, and so revealing the
hiding-place of the party."

In the spring of 1860, Harriet Tubman was requested by Mr. Gerrit
Smith to go to Boston to attend a large Anti-Slavery meeting. On
her way, she stopped at Troy to visit a cousin, and while there
the colored people were one day startled with the intelligence
that a fugitive slave, by the name of Charles Nalle, had been
followed by his master (who was his younger brother, and not one
grain whiter than he), and that he was already in the hands of the
officers, and was to be taken back to the South. The instant
Harriet heard the news, she started for the office of the United
States Commissioner, scattering the tidings as she went. An
excited crowd was gathered about the office, through which Harriet
forced her way, and rushed up stairs to the door of the room where
the fugitive was detained. A wagon was already waiting before the
door to carry off the man, but the crowd was even then so great,
and in such a state of excitement, that the officers did not dare
to bring the man down. On the opposite side of the street stood
the colored people, watching the window where they could see
Harriet's sun-bonnet, and feeling assured that so long as she
stood there, the fugitive was still in the office. Time passed on,
and he did not appear. "They've taken him out another way, depend
upon that," said some of the colored people. "No," replied others,
"there stands 'Moses' yet, and as long as she is there, he is
safe." Harriet, now seeing the necessity for a tremendous effort
for his rescue, sent out some little boys to cry _fire_. The bells
rang, the crowd increased, till the whole street was a dense mass
of people. Again and again the officers came out to try and clear
the stairs, and make a way to take their captive down; others were
driven down, but Harriet stood her ground, her head bent and her
arms folded. "Come, old woman, you must get out of this," said one
of the officers; "I must have the way cleared; if you can't get
down alone, some one will help you." Harriet, still putting on a
greater appearance of decrepitude, twitched away from him, and
kept her place. Offers were made to buy Charles from his master,
who at first agreed to take twelve hundred dollars for him; but
when this was subscribed, he immediately raised the price to
fifteen hundred. The crowd grew more excited. A gentleman raised a
window and called out, "Two hundred dollars for his rescue, but
not one cent to his master!" This was responded to by a roar of
satisfaction from the crowd below. At length the officers
appeared, and announced to the crowd, that if they would open a
lane to the wagon, they would promise to bring the man down the
front way.

The lane was opened, and the man was brought out--a tall,
handsome, intelligent _white_ man, with his wrists manacled
together, walking between the U.S. Marshal and another officer,
and behind him his brother and his master, so like him that one
could hardly be told from the other. The moment they appeared,
Harriet roused from her stooping posture, threw up a window, and
cried to her friends: "Here he comes--take him!" and then darted
down the stairs like a wild-cat. She seized one officer and pulled
him down, then another, and tore him away from the man; and
keeping her arms about the slave, she cried to her friends: "Drag
us out! Drag him to the river! Drown him! but don't let them have
him!" They were knocked down together, and while down, she tore
off her sun-bonnet and tied it on the head of the fugitive. When
he rose, only his head could be seen, and amid the surging mass of
people the slave was no longer recognized, while the master
appeared like the slave. Again and again they were knocked down,
the poor slave utterly helpless, with his manacled wrists,
streaming with blood. Harriet's outer clothes were torn from her,
and even her stout shoes were pulled from her feet, yet she never
relinquished her hold of the man, till she had dragged him to the
river, where he was tumbled into a boat, Harriet following in a
ferry-boat to the other side. But the telegraph was ahead of them,
and as soon as they landed he was seized and hurried from her
sight. After a time, some school children came hurrying along, and
to her anxious inquiries they answered, "He is up in that house,
in the third story." Harriet rushed up to the place. Some men were
attempting to make their way up the stairs. The officers were
firing down, and two men were lying on the stairs, who had been
shot. Over their bodies our heroine rushed, and with the help of
others burst open the door of the room, and dragged out the
fugitive, whom Harriet carried down stairs in her arms. A
gentleman who was riding by with a fine horse, stopped to ask what
the disturbance meant; and on hearing the story, his sympathies
seemed to be thoroughly aroused; he sprang from his wagon, calling
out, "That is a blood-horse, drive him till he drops." The poor
man was hurried in; some of his friends jumped in after him, and
drove at the most rapid rate to Schenectady.

This is the story Harriet told to the writer. By some persons it
seemed too wonderful for belief, and an attempt was made to
corroborate it. Rev. Henry Fowler, who was at the time at
Saratoga, kindly volunteered to go to Troy and ascertain the
facts. His report was, that he had had a long interview with Mr.
Townsend, who acted during the trial as counsel for the slave,
that he had given him a "rich narration," which he would write out
the next week for this little book. But before he was to begin his
generous labor, and while engaged in some kind efforts for the
prisoners at Auburn, he was stricken down by the heat of the sun,
and was for a long time debarred from labor.

This good man died not long after and the promised narration was
never written, but a statement by Mr. Townsend was sent me, which
I copy here:

_Statements made by Martin I. Townsend, Esq., of Troy, who was
counsel for the fugitive, Charles Nalle._

Nalle is an octoroon; his wife has the same infusion of Caucasian
blood. She was the daughter of her master, and had, with her
sister, been bred by him in his family, as his own child. When the
father died, both of these daughters were married and had large
families of children. Under the highly Christian national laws of
"Old Virginny," these children were the slaves of their
grandfather. The old man died, leaving a will, whereby he
manumitted his daughters and their children, and provided for the
purchase of the freedom of their husbands. The manumission of the
children and grandchildren took effect; but the estate was
insufficient to purchase the husbands of his daughters, and the
fathers of his grandchildren. The manumitted, by another
Christian, "conservative," and "national" provision of law, were
forced to leave the State, while the slave husbands remained in
slavery. Nalle, and his brother-in-law, were allowed for a while
to visit their families outside Virginia about once a year, but
were at length ordered to provide themselves with new wives, as
they would be allowed to visit their former ones no more. It was
after this that Nalle and his brother-in-law started for the land
of freedom, guided by the steady light of the north star. Thank
God, neither family now need fear any earthly master or the bay of
the blood-hound dogging their fugitive steps.

Nalle returned to Troy with his family about July, 1860, and
resided with them there for more than seven years. They are all
now residents of the city of Washington, D.C. Nalle and his family
are persons of refined manners, and of the highest respectability.
Several of his children are red-haired, and a stranger would
discover no trace of African blood in their complexions or
features. It was the head of this family whom H.F. Averill
proposed to doom to returnless exile and life-long slavery.

When Nalle was brought from Commissioner Beach's office into the
street, Harriet Tubman, who had been standing with the excited
crowd, rushed amongst the foremost to Nalle, and running one of
her arms around his manacled arm, held on to him without ever
loosening her hold through the more than half-hour's struggle to
Judge Gould's office, and from Judge Gould's office to the dock,
where Nalle's liberation was accomplished. In the _meelee_ she was
repeatedly beaten over the head with policemen's clubs, but she
never for a moment released her hold, but cheered Nalle and his
friends with her voice, and struggled with the officers until they
were literally worn out with their exertions, and Nalle was
separated from them.

True, she had strong and earnest helpers in her struggle, some of
whom had white faces as well as human hearts, and are now in
Heaven. But she exposed herself to the fury of the sympathizers
with slavery, without fear, and suffered their blows without
flinching. Harriet crossed the river with the crowd, in the ferry-boat,
and when the men who led the assault upon the door of Judge
Stewart's office were stricken down, Harriet and a number of other
colored women rushed over their bodies, brought Nalle out, and
putting him in the first wagon passing, started him for the West.

A lively team, driven by a colored man, was immediately sent on to
relieve the other, and Nalle was seen about Troy no more until he
returned a free man by purchase from his master. Harriet also
disappeared, and the crowd dispersed. How she came to be in Troy
that day, is entirely unknown to our citizens; and where she hid
herself after the rescue, is equally a mystery. But her struggle
was in the sight of a thousand, perhaps of five thousand
spectators.

On asking Harriet particularly, as to the age of her mother, she
answered, "Well, I'll tell you, Missus. Twenty-three years ago, in
Maryland, I paid a lawyer five dollars to look up the will of my
mother's first master. He looked back sixty years, and said it was
time to give up. I told him to go back furder. He went back sixty-five
years, and there he found the will--giving the girl Ritty to
his grand-daughter (Mary Patterson), to serve her and her
offspring till she was forty-five years of age." This grand-daughter
died soon after, unmarried; and as there was no provision
for Ritty, in case of her death, she was actually emancipated at
that time. But no one informed her of the fact, and she and her
dear children remained in bondage till emancipated by the courage
and determination of this heroic daughter and sister. The old
woman must then, it seems, be ninety-eight years of age,[F] and
the old man has probably numbered as many years. And yet these old
people, living out beyond the toll-gate, on the South Street road,
Auburn, come in every Sunday--more than a mile--to the Central
Church. To be sure, deep slumbers settle down upon them as soon as
they are seated, which continue undisturbed till the congregation
is dismissed; but they have done their best, and who can doubt
that they receive a blessing. Immediately after this they go to
class-meeting at the Methodist Church. Then they wait for a third
service, and after that start out home again.

[Footnote F: This was written in the year '68, and the old people
both lived several years after that time.]

Harriet supposes that the whole family were actually free, and
were kept wrongfully in a state of slavery all those long years;
but she simply states the fact, without any mourning or lamenting
over the wrong and the misery of it all, accepting it as the will
of God, and, therefore, not to be rebelled against.

This woman, of whom you have been reading, is now old and feeble,
suffering from the effects of her life of unusual labor and
hardship, as well as from repeated injuries; but she is still at
work for her people. For many years, even long before the war, her
little home has been the refuge of the hunted and the homeless,
for whom she had provided; and I have seen as many as eight or ten
dependents upon her care at one time living there.

It has always been a hospital, but she feels the need of a large
one, and only prays to see this, "her last work," completed ere
she goes hence.

Without claiming any of my dear old Harriet's prophetic vision, I
seem to see a future day when the wrongs of earth will be righted,
and justice, long delayed, will assert itself. I seem to see that
our poor Harriet has passed within "one of dem gates," and has
received the welcome, "Come, thou blessed of my Father; for I was
hungry and you gave me meat, I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me,
sick and in prison and you visited me."

And when she asks, "Lord, when did I do all this?" He answers:

"Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these, _my
brethren_, you did it unto me."

And as she stands in her modest way just within the celestial
gate, I seem to see a kind hand laid upon her dark head, and to
hear a gentle voice saying in her ear, "Friend, come up higher!"

SOME ADDITIONAL INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF "HARRIET."

The story of this remarkable black woman has been attracting
renewed interest of late, and I have often been asked to publish
another edition of the book, and to add some interesting and
amusing incidents which I have related to my friends.

Harriet is very old and feeble now; she does not know how old, but
probably between eighty and ninety. Her years of toil and
adventure have told upon her, and she may not last much longer. If
she does, she will still need help which she would never ask for
herself, but which this little book may give her; when she dies,
it may aid in putting up a fitting monument to her memory, which
should always be "kept green."

As time goes on, the horrors of the days of slavery are by many
forgotten, and the children who have been born since the War of
the Rebellion know of that fearful straggle, and of the causes
that led to it, only as a tradition of long ago.

Even in the city where Harriet has so long lived her quiet and
unobtrusive life, it is not an uncommon thing to meet a young
person who has never even heard her name.

Those who know the principal facts of her eventful history may be
interested to read these few added incidents, which she has
related to me from time to time.

A year or two ago, as I was staying at the summer home of my
brother, Professor Hopkins, on Owasco Lake, Harriet came up to see
us; it was after lunch, and my brother ordered a table to be set
for her on the broad shaded piazza and waited on her himself,
bringing her cups of tea and other good things, as if it were a
pleasure and an honor to serve her.

There is a quiet dignity about Harriet that makes her superior or
indifferent to all surrounding circumstances; whether seated at
the hospitable board of Gerrit Smith or any other white gentleman,
as she often was, or sent to the kitchen, where the white
domestics refused to eat with a "nigger," it was all the same to
Harriet; she was never elated, or humiliated; she took everything
as it came, making no comments or complaints.

And so she sat quietly eating her lunch, and talking with us.
After the lunch was over, as we sat on the piazza waiting for the
steamboat to take her back to Auburn, she said:

"I often think, Missus, of things I wish I had told you before you
wrote de book. Now, as I come up on de boat I thought of one thing
thet happened to me when I was very little.

"I was only seven years old when I was sent away to take car' of a
baby. I was so little dat I had to sit down on de flo' and hev de
baby put in my lap. An' dat baby was allus in my lap 'cept when it
was asleep, or its mother was feedin' it.

"One mornin' after breakfast she had de baby, an' I stood by de
table waitin' till I was to take it; just by me was a bowl of
lumps of white sugar. My Missus got into a great quarrel wid her
husband; she had an awful temper, an' she would scole an' storm,
an' call him all sorts of names. Now you know, Missus, I never had
nothing good; no sweet, no sugar, an' dat sugar, right by me, did
look so nice, an' my Missus's back was turned to me while she was
fightin' wid her husband, so I jes' put my fingers in de sugar
bowl to take one lump, an' maybe she heard me, an' she turned an'
saw me. De nex' minute she had de raw hide down; I give one jump
out of de do', an' I saw dey came after me, but I jes' flew, and
dey didn't catch me. I ran, an' I ran, an' I run, I passed many a
house, but I didn't dar' to stop, for dey all knew my Missus an'
dey would send me back. By an' by, when I was clar tuckered out, I
come to a great big pig-pen. Dar was an ole sow dar, an' perhaps
eight or ten little pigs. I was too little to climb into it, but I
tumbled ober de high board, an' fell in on de ground; I was so
beat out I couldn't stir.

"An' dere, Missus, I stayed from Friday till de nex' Chuesday,
fightin' wid dose little pigs for de potato peelin's an" oder
scraps dat came down in de trough. De ole sow would push me away
when I tried to git her chillen's food, an' I was awful afeard of
her. By Chuesday I was so starved I knowed I'd got to go back to
my Missus, I hadn't got no whar else to go, but I knowed what was
comin.' So I went back."

"And she gave you an awful flogging, I suppose, Harriet?"

"No, Missus, but _he_ did."

This was all that was said, but probably that flogging left some
of those scars which cover her neck and back to this day.

Think of a poor little helpless thing seven years old enduring all
this terror and suffering, and yet few people are as charitable to
the slave-holders as Harriet. "Dey don' know no better, Missus;
it's de way dey was brought up. 'Make de little nigs min' you, or
flog 'em,' was what was said to de chillen, and dey was brought up
wid de whip in der hand. Now, min' you, Missus, dat wasn't de way
on all de plantations; dere was good Marsters an' Missuses, as
I've heard tell, but I didn't happen to come across 'em."

There is frequent mention made in the Memoir of Harriet's firm and
unwavering trust in God in times of great perplexity or deadly
peril, when she often had occasion to say, "Vain is the help of
man, but in God is my help." I have never known another instance
of such implicit trust and confidence.

Very soon after the Civil War her house was turned into a
hospital, and no poor helpless creature of her race was ever
turned from her door. Indeed, all through the war, and through the
cruel reign of the fugitive slave law, her house was one of the
depots of the "Underground Railway," as that secret and unseen
mode of conveying the hunted fugitives was called, and when the
war was over she established a hospital, which for many years,
indeed till she was too ill herself to take charge of it, has been
the refuge of the sufferers of her race who had no earthly
dependence but Harriet.

Very often this woman, except for her trust in "de Lawd," had had
no idea where the next meal was to come from, but she troubled
herself no more about it than if she had been a Vanderbilt or an
Astor. "De Lawd will provide" was her motto, and He never failed
her.

One day, in passing through Auburn, I was impelled to stop over a
train, and drive out to see what were the needs of my colored
friend, and to take her some supplies.

Her little house was always neat and comfortable, and the small
parlor was nicely and rather prettily furnished. The lame, the
halt, and the blind, the bruised and crippled little children, and
one crazy woman, were all brought in to see me, and "the blind
woman" (she seemed to have no other name), a very old woman who
had been Harriet's care for eighteen years, was led into the room--an
interesting and pathetic group.

On leaving, I said to her: "If you will come out to the carriage,
Harriet, there are some provisions there for you."

She turned to one of her poor dependents and said: "What did you
say to me dis mornin'? You said, 'We hadn't got nothin' to eat in
de house,' and what did I say to you? I said, 'I've got a rich
Father!'"

Nothing that comes to this remarkable woman ever surprises her.
She says very little in the way of thanks, except to the Giver of
all good. How the knowledge comes to her no one can tell, but she
seems always to know when help is coming, and she is generally on
hand to receive it, though it is never for herself she wants it,
but only for those under her care.

I must not forget to mention the Indian girls of the Fort Wrangel
School, who, having read a little notice of Harriet in the
"Evangelist," went to work, and by their daily labor raised
thirty-seven dollars which they sent to me for Harriet--and this
school has been disbanded, and these educated girls have been sent
back to their wretched homes, because our Government could not
afford to support it any longer!

Pundita Ramabai went about this time to see Harriet and they had
an interesting talk together. Here was a remarkable trio taking
hold of hands--the woman from East India, the Indian girl from the
far West, and the black woman from the Southern States only two
removes from an African savage!

Once when she came to New York, where she had not been in twenty
years, and was starting off alone to find some friends miles away
in a part of the city which she had never seen, we remonstrated
with her, telling her she would surely be lost.

"Now, Missus," she said, "don't you t'ink dis ole head dat done de
navigatin' down in Egypt can do de navigatin' up here in New
York?"

And she walked many miles, scorning a "cyar," and found all the
people she wished to see.

Harriet was known by various names among her Southern friends. One
of these was "Ole Chariot," perhaps as a rhyme to the name by
which they called her.

And so, often when she went to bring away a band of refugees, she
would sing as she walked the dark country roads by night:

"When dat ar' ole chariot comes,
Who's gwine wid me?"

And from some unseen singer would come the response:

"When dat ar' ole chariot comes,
I'se gwine wid you."

And by some wireless telegraphy known only to the initiated it
would be made known in one cabin or another where their deliverer
was waiting concealed, and when she would be ready to pilot them
on their long journey to freedom.

A Woman's Suffrage Meeting was held in Rochester a year or two
ago, and Harriet came to attend it. She generally attended every
meeting of women, on whatever subject, if possible to do so.

She was led into the church by an adopted daughter, whom she had
rescued from death when a baby, and had brought up as her own.

The church was warm and Harriet was tired, and soon after she
entered deep sleep fell upon her.

Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton were on the platform, and after
speeches had been made and business accomplished, one of these
ladies said:

"Friends, we have in the audience that wonderful woman, Harriet
Tubman, from whom we should like to hear, if she will kindly come
to the platform."

People looked around at Harriet, but Harriet was fast asleep.

"Mother! mother!" said the young girl; "they are calling for you,"
but it was some time before Harriet could be made to understand
where she was, or what was wanted of her. At length, she was led
out into the aisle and was assisted by one of these kind ladies on
to the platform.

Harriet looked around, wondering why so many white ladies were
gathered there. I think it was Miss Anthony who led her forward,
saying:

"Ladies, I am glad to present to you Harriet Tubman, 'the
conductor of the Underground Railroad.'"

"Yes, ladies," said Harriet, "I was de conductor ob de Underground
Railroad for eight years, an' I can say what mos' conductors can't
say--I nebber run my train off de track an' I nebber los' a
passenger." The audience laughed and applauded, and Harriet was
emboldened to go on and relate portions of her interesting
history, which were most kindly received by the assembled ladies.

After the passage of the iniquitous fugitive slave law, Harriet
removed all her dependents to Canada, and here John Brown and some
of his followers took refuge with her, and she was his helper and
adviser in many of his schemes. The papers of that time tell of
her helping him with his plans and of his dependence upon her
judgment. In one of his letters he says: "Harriet has hitched on,
and with all her might; she is a whole team."

For this large party added to her own family of several persons,
she worked day and night in her usual self-forgetting manner. Her
old father and mother were with her, and the mother, nearly a
hundred years old and enfeebled in mind, was querulous and
exacting, and most unreasonable in her temper, often reproaching
this faithful daughter as the Israelites did Moses of old, for
"bringing them up into the wilderness to die there of hunger."

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