What was Harriet Tubman’s Greatest Achievement?

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” These were words spoken by none other than Harriet Tubman. When we hear this name we most likely think of the woman who freed slaves by participating in the underground railroad. Yet there is actually a lot about her that a lot of people don’t know.

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in 1822 as Araminta Ross and was put to work at the young age of five. She ran away at the age of 27 in 1849 after her master died, and even though it was a very dangerous and long way to Philadelphia, she made it to her destination without getting caught. Harriet Tubman did many things and helped a great number of people throughout her life. One of her achievements was hosting a nursery home for the elderly and sick.

In addition to this, after she escaped from slavery she decided to go back and help more people travel north to safety, putting herself at risk for the sake of others. Aside from these two important achievements, she also took part in helping during the civil war. After analyzing each role during the different times of her life, I believe that her work during the civil war was her greatest achievement.

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To begin with, Harriet Tubman did many things within her life to help people other than herself. One of these was being the owner of a nursery home, which she ran in her own house, free of pay. She opened up her home to people faced with poverty, mostly elders, and sick people. She took in “The aged, … the babe deserted, the epileptic, the blind, the paralyzed, .. all found shelter and welcome.” (Document E) This demonstrates the variety of people that she opened herself up to in order to help them.

Harriet Tubman was a very kind and caring person who put others needs before herself. In a photo from the year 1885, she is shown with some of the people that she took care of with her second husband, including an older woman, three children, and two elderlies. (Document E) She opened up her home to many people for the last 48 years of her life which shows how she never changed and was always about being kind to others.

For Harriet Tubman, most of her life was spent lending a hand to strangers who were in need, no matter the risk involved. She spent her own money taking care of these people without asking for anything in return. This proves that she did it not for herself, but for the sake of the other people. With this being said, this portion of her life was spent doing the right thing, but it is still not her greatest achievement due to the lack of risk involved in taking care of these people compared with the other risks she has faced beforehand.

On the contrary, a greater achievement that Harriet Tubman took part in was conducting the underground railroad. Harriet Tubman ran away and escaped slavery in the year 1849, as previously mentioned. Unlike most people who ran away during these times, she decided to go back and get more people to safety. Doing this she put herself at risk, but fortunately, she was never caught. Her records are very unclear and incomplete, but it is without a doubt that she made at least eight trips with fugitives by her side. Starting in December of 1850 and ending in December of 1860, Harriet Tubman made eight trips that we know of.

In one of them during the fall of 1851, she was traveling with eleven others. (Document B) This was extremely dangerous because they could most likely be noticed at any time since it was a big group of people. Harriet Tubman was an empowering person because of her brave personality. It takes not only kindness to do what she did, but an immense amount of bravery and strength, as well as knowledge. She had many different escape routes to Canada which are shown in Document A. Her journeys to travel down these escape routes were hundreds of miles, they were made longer due to the fugitive slave act.

This act forced the Northern people to turn in escaped slaves if they were found. It made it extremely risky to travel up North in addition to the South. Risking her life, and putting all these dangers aside, Harriet Tubman rescued many slaves and got most of them, if not all of them, to safety. In spite of all of this, I do believe that there is an even greater achievement in her life, which was her time spent assisting people during the Civil War.

Although these achievements were astonishing, Harriet Tubman’s greatest achievement was her part in the civil war. Not only was she a nurse, but she helped lead a raid during the civil war, as well as spied for the North. Even though Harriet Tubman risked her life while she conducted the underground railroad, she put herself in even danger by leading a military expedition. “...Tubman helped Colonel James Montgomery plan a raid to free slaves from plantations along the Combahee River in South Carolina.” (Document X) She did this in order to help free more slaves, even if it meant putting herself at risk.

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