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Harriet Tubman was born as Araminta "Minty" Ross. She was born into slavery on the plantation of Edward Brodess.
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Araminta was hired out. She was hired for the first time to a women named as "Miss Susan" as a nursemaid and later to a planter named James Cook. Both beat her.
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Araminta had a severe head injury caused by a heavy metal weight that was aimed at a runaway slave. This lead to seizures which affected her for the rest of her life. She claimed to have started having vivid dreams in which she claimed that God communicated with her.
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Harriet married a free man named John Tubman at the age of 25. He did not share her dream of moving north and threatened to tell her master if she ran away.
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Along with her brothers, Ben and Harry, Harriet escaped from the Polar Neck Plantation. Her brothers turned back but Harriet kept going despite the bounty on her return. She traveled 90 miles using the Underground Railroad to get to the free state of Pennsylvania.
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Using connections with the Underground Railroad, Harriet makes her first rescue trip. She guided her niece, Kessiah, and Kessiah's husband and two children to safety. She later returned again for her own husband, but he refused to come.
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William H. Seward, a U.S. senator and abolitionist, sold Tubman a piece of land on the outskirts of Auburn, New York for $1,200. It became her home for the rest of her life
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She took her last rescue mission in 1860 to take her sister to safety; however, she found her sister dead upon her arrival. Instead, she transported the Ennals family to safety.
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The civil war began and at first Tubman worked as a nurse and cook. She also helped General David Hunter recruit former slaves for an African American regiment. In addition to that, under command of Col. James Montgomery she served as a spy and scout.
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Harriet became the first women to lead an assault during the civil war in the Combahee River Raid where 700 slaves where set free.
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Harriet and adopted a baby girl named Gertie with her second husband, Nelson Davis
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Tubman became involved in women's suffrage. She gave speeches in Boston, New York, and Washington.
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Harriet Tubman died of pneumonia at the age of 93. She was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York