Harriet Tubman
Ink and watercolor on 9″ x 12″ watercolor paper
The latest addition to the ‘She Changed the World’ Collection!
Harriet Tubman (c. 1822-1913), born a slave as Araminta Ross in Maryland, is one of the most iconic and important American citizens in the nation’s history. In 1849 she escaped slavery to Philadelphia and then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. After that, she guided her other relatives and an estimated seventy more families of slaves to freedom using the Underground Railroad network of antislavery activists and safe houses.
When the Civil War began she joined the Union Army and eventually served as an armed scout and spy. She was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated over 700 slaves. After the war she retired to the farm she purchased in New York and was active in the women’s suffrage movement.
Word continued to spread after her death and she became a figurehead of courage and freedom. Dozens of schools are named in her honor, a museum stands as a monument to her life, President Obama signed a proclamation creating the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, her statue in Boston was the first memorial to a woman on city-owned land, one of many statues of her around the country, and the twenty-dollar bill will soon bear her likeness on it.
Born a slave, freed slaves in violation of the law, served as a soldier, continued to fight for women after the war, and will be forever remembered as a hero.