WEBVTT - The Harriet Tubman Story 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.760 Hey, everybody, we're going on tour in eighteen and where 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.320 are we going? On April four, we're going to be 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:08.600 in Boston at the Wilburg. You can get tickets at 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:11.600 the Wilber dot com, Chuck. And then on April five, 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:13.800 we're gonna be in d C at the Lincoln Theater 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:15.640 and you can get tickets for that at ticket fly 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:17.680 that's right. And then we're going to two new cities, 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.920 right yep. On May we're gonna be in St. Louis. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.080 You can get tickets on Ticketmaster. And on May twenty three, 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:26.200 we're gonna be in Cleveland and you can get tickets 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.080 there at playhouse Square dot org. And then there's one more, Chuck, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.080 that's right. We're gonna wrap it up in Denver, specifically Inglewood, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.400 Colorado at the Gothic Theater on June and possibly adding 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:38.800 a show on the twenty seven. Stay tuned for that, yep. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.400 And you can get ticks at a x S dot com. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.200 So come see us live. We'll have a good time. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:49.080 Come on out. Welcome to Stuff you should know from 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:58.560 House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.680 I'm Josh Clark and they're is Charles w Chuck Bryant, 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.160 and there's Jerry over there, and this is stuff you 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:10.480 should know in Black History month. Toda, how you doing? Man? 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.600 I'm tired? Are you? You've been burning the candles at 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.240 all three ends? Uh? I didn't know candles had three ends. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.560 And look look at it when they work as hard 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.520 as you check, they got three inns. So bright, How 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.280 are you doing? You holding up at least? I don't know. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:32.759 It's TVD I Now you see these uh see these circles. Yeah, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.080 they're a little pronounced. I wasn't gonna say anything, but 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.560 that's fine. Yeah. I guess when that circles their half moons? 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.400 Yeah there, um, well they're half moons the size of 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.600 half dollars. A lot of people say circles into their 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.640 eyes when they're not to circles. I wonder if they're 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:50.960 just seeing the rest of it, like their mind is 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.680 filling in the rest. Maybe they're all just insane seeing 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.720 something we're not maybe so well. At any rate, we're 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.280 all pulling for you. You need any super anything. Now, 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.920 Jerry's got that as you can smell. Yeah, it's kind 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:09.400 of nice. This this stage chairs. What is that? It's her? Well, 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.600 she won't talk so right, She's just she's doing sign 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:21.760 language for Ramen. I love Rahman. Don't you sure? Nothing 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:27.640 perched up like Ramen except a really great history story. 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.800 That's right, we're gonna do that today. Way to go 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.640 choosing this one, Chuck, is this was this a request 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:37.120 of yours or did just so happened it was on 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.520 the site? No, I just you know, I've been wanting 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:44.000 to cover more famous women in history, and um, obviously 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.080 during Black History months, this is a perfect time to 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.000 talk about Harriet Tubman. And this article points out and 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:57.839 I thought very astutely like her legend in her her 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:04.640 icon ship, I I kind of classic could chip Yes, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.640 uh is so great that? Um? I think sometimes a 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.959 lot of people may not even know the nitty gritty 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.040 details of her life, you know, I mean, I I know, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.040 I didn't. I I was, you know, raised in America 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.600 in the seventies and eighties as a school kid into 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.000 the mid nineties, we could even say, um, and I 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:26.560 like I knew of Harriet Tubman. I was taught to 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.400 honor and respect her for what she did as a 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.600 conductor on the underground railroad. What I didn't know is 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.480 that that was about a third of the reason why 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.680 she's famous and legendary. Yeah. I mean the school lessons 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.280 were shamefully short, because that's about all I learned was 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.960 just about the underground railroad her her role in it 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.040 to a very limited degree. Um that they taught us 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.880 that it's not her role, and that was kind of it. Yeah. 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.600 But the fact that, like I mean, there's so much 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.480 more to this woman's life. She just did so much. 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.160 She packed so much life in, whether it was by 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.400 her own accord or against her will, she just had 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.920 a very long, full life. Um. And the fact that 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.960 we know about the the life of a nineteenth mid 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:22.880 nineteenth century black woman who was born a slave in Maryland, 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.839 that we know this much about it really speaks volumes. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.800 I'm glad that there's this much out there, and it 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:29.840 seems like there's more and more being added to it 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.720 every day. Yeah, it definitely helps that. Uh. In the 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.400 eighteen sixties, there was a very famous biography written by 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:41.520 Sarah Hopkins Bradford, one of the earlier biographies in UM. 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.760 Since then, we've learned some more stuff and cleaned up 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.200 a bit of the truth from the legend. But you know, 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.680 it only got better yeah. I mean, if it's just 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.839 the stuff that is verifiable fact is still just astounding. 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:55.560 It kind of makes me feel like a lump and 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.719 a loser. Look, I'm not I'm not doing much with 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.599 my life. Well, we're teaching people about Harriet tubban It lea, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.760 so it counts for something, I guess. All right, so 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.400 you want to start at the beginning. Yeah, in the beginning, 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:14.000 of course, because Harriet tubman Um was born. When she 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.200 was born, there weren't great birth records for for black 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.560 people in the United States at the time, so we 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.960 don't know for sure when she was born. Um eighteen 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.560 twenty five is what she has claimed on various documents 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:31.000 later in life. But I've seen everywhere from eighteen eighty five, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.320 so somewhere in that range. Yeah, this article in how 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.320 staff Work says eighteen twenty two. I've seen that in 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.279 various places too, and that is shameful in and of itself. Yeah, 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.400 but again, like it's not like the people who were 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.360 not keeping records on slave births at the time. We're like, well, 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.359 this lady is actually going to grow up to be 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.960 one of the most legendary women in American history, so 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.120 we should probably note this. Um. The thing is is, 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.359 even though they didn't, they didn't note her birth because 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.120 they didn't realize how famous she was going to be. 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.320 She started to make a name for herself pretty early 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.200 on in life. Um. She had about five years to 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.240 kind of be raised as a child before she was 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:15.760 hired out as a basically an infant rocker. Her job 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.239 was to stay up at night and rock and infant 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.360 to make sure that the infant didn't cry. And every 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.760 time the infant cried, she would, um get a lashing 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.640 from what I understand. Yeah, and just reading through kind 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:33.720 of her early life, it seems like, um, well let 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:35.960 me couch that for one second. She was one of 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.599 nine children born in like you said, in Maryland and 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:47.000 Dorchester County unless they pronounce it Dorster Doyly Doyle County 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.599 which is along the eastern shore, to Benjamin Ross and 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.960 Harriet uh Rit Green h and her she was actually 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:59.279 born are very beautiful name, are Amanta Ross. Yeah, I 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.600 had no idea about that, did you know? And her 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.080 parents called her Minty Minty Ross, which is just a 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.000 very kind of cute nickname for a kid, it is. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:13.600 And she was actually a third generation slave in America. 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:18.720 Her grandmother on her maternal side was named Modesty, and 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.520 her family has done some research and have concluded that 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.840 Modesty was almost certainly um from the Ashanti group and 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.960 was stolen either from the Ivory Coast or Ghana and 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.200 then was taken eventually to Maryland where she was owned 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.160 by a guy named Athol Pattison. Is that right, Pattison? 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.320 I think so. The thing about that and the reason 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.720 why this guy really kind of figures into the story 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:50.240 in a cringe worthy way. Athol Pattison um who then 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.760 owned Harriet Tubman's grandmother and then mother, and then Harriet 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.680 and her siblings because they were all from the same line. 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.480 He had in his will that when when any of 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.360 them turned forty five they were free, they were what 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.640 was called manumitted. The problem is that he was dead, 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.320 so he wasn't around to enforce his will, and that 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:18.000 actually never happened. So even though on paper, legally Harriet Tubman, 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.840 all of her siblings, her mother, and her grandmother all 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.760 should have been manumitted whenever they hit age forty five, 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.000 absolutely none of them were. Yeah, and her father did 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.440 gain his freedom, but was still married to a woman 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.000 who uh did not have her freedom. Uh. And you 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.720 don't hear about this a lot in in the history 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:41.960 books where families were um divided between free and owned, um, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.920 which makes a bad situation even worse, you know. Yeah, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:46.760 And I'd like to look into that because that kind 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.600 of popped up here there and almost casually, you know, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.079 like without much explanation. So I wonder what that was like. 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.880 Was it was it just like, you know, you both 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.360 went to work and did basically the same labor, but 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.480 one of you, um was paid for it. Uh? Was 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:07.800 there like less like physical punishment or coercion? Like what 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.240 was the distinction? Yeah, I'm not really sure, um, but 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.360 like you are, you know, what I was setting up 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:19.560 was after she worked as a as a childcare baby 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.520 rocker of sorts and got whipped on the neck by 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:26.040 the woman of the house every time her baby cried, 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.800 which that's you know, that's a whole other thing. Yeah, 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.559 and again she's five at the time, five years old. Um. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.080 She went on to work on the farm later on 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.440 when she got a little older, and by all accounts, UM, 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.000 for the rest of her her working life, her you know, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.560 as a slave, was much preferred working on the farm 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.640 and basically like, I don't want to work for these 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.280 white women. Um, they're worse than the men, right, or 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.960 at least in her case. Plus also, I mean she 0:09:55.080 --> 0:10:00.000 was pretty able bodied. She supposedly was super muscular from 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.839 doing um physical labor for so many years. It was 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.320 pretty good at it. Five tall and um from what 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.920 I could tell, just as strong as could be. Right, 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:14.960 So um she the the owners of her family, um 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.360 Ethyl Pattison's daughter and son in law. They were um 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.240 kind of like Michael Fossbender's family in twelve years of 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.960 slave They were not at all wealthy plantation owners, but 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.560 they were just out of the social hierarchy at the 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:37.920 time able to afford and keep slaves. But rather, since 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.400 they didn't have a huge plantation for their slaves to 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.960 work on, they would hire them out. That's how, um 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.560 how Harry ended up like working at age five rocking babies, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.680 or she was hired out to go get muskrats out 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.840 of traps and swamps and stuff like that. Just like basically, 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.760 whatever somebody needed an extra hand for they would contact 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.120 this family and the family would hire out their slaves 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.520 just to make ends meet. Basically, Yeah, that's right, and 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.240 I think most of her brother and sisters did the 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.880 same thing from what I could tell. Uh. And you know, 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.160 she grew up working and eventually they brought her inside 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.920 his housemaid, even though she preferred to be outside. And 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.960 once again, once she was inside, she would be whipped 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.319 from the mistress of the house if her work in 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.000 her dusting and her cooking and dishwashing was not adequate 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.080 enough for her. Uh. And you know she suffered. It 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.439 was just part of daily life basically until this incident 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:38.960 as a teenager um really kind of changed things for her. Um. 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.240 She was in a store, uh, and there was a 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.400 fugitive slave that was I couldn't quite tells in the 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.280 store or just trying to get out of the store. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.920 But her overseer went to confront this fugitive slave, and Harriet, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.480 I guess got the bug of trying to help a 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.560 slave get away early on and literally got in this 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.240 man's way to let this fugitive slave get away. He 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.600 already had this weight, this iron that he was I 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.920 guess trying to swing and throw at this fugitive slave, 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.040 and he end up hitting Harriet in the head uh 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.559 and caused a really severe head injury to her. Yeah. 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.239 For the rest of her life. She had a traumatic 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.719 brain injury, because I mean, getting hit in the head 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.000 with a two pound weight, that's gonna that's bad enough. 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:25.840 But the fact that's happening in the middle of the 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.080 nineteenth century and there's basically nothing they can do for 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:33.560 you medically, that yeah, you know, they didn't exactly send 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.440 her to the best hospital in town. So she as 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.880 a result of that brain injury, it's been later diagnosed 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:45.400 that she developed narcolepsy cataplexy. UM. They called it at 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:50.160 the time sleeping sickness. But she developed this um, this 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.520 thing where she would just fall asleep out of nowhere. 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.200 No matter what she was doing, she would just fall 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:00.720 dead asleep and would stay that way for hours sometimes 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.240 and could could not be roused, Like you could not 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.920 wake her up at the time. And then during these periods, UM, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.760 she said that she would have very vivid, like religious dreams, 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:18.800 and UM, they kind of attribute her super religiousness. I 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.520 guess you would call it that that really she carried 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.320 throughout her life kind of came from these dreams. She 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:28.080 was an extremely devout religious person, and UM, a lot 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.200 of it was this idea that she was being kind 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.560 of personally guided by God through her life thanks to 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.800 those dreams, right and this UM that anarcalypse here. The 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.800 repercussions from being hit in the head like that did 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.400 not serve her well in her life as a slave either, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:50.120 as you can imagine, UM, her overseers did not. UM. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.800 They were not sympathetic to the fact that she was 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.240 injured and could not be roused. Uh you know what 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.960 I'm saying. Yeah, No, she was like recovering from her 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.120 head injury, still in They were trying to sell her 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.480 but couldn't find any buyers. And then I also is 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.000 kind of UM pointed to as one of the driving 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.640 forces for what made her escape finally when she's like, 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.160 I'm out of here. She was very worried about being 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.240 sold off and separated from her family. So she would 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.080 have rather had control of the situation and separated herself 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.880 from her family. She could come back if she needed to. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.080 So she was worried about being sold off, um, because 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.440 she just couldn't work like the others anymore. And she 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.800 took off an eighteen March eighteen forty nine for the 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.400 first time she escaped. Yeah, and she was married by 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.640 this point. In eighteen forty four, she married a freeman 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.160 named John Tubman Uh and the marriage wouldn't last long, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.840 but she did keep that name and then began, and 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.400 I'm not sure why, but began using her mother's first name, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.640 which was Harriet. So that's how she became Harriet Tubman Uh. 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.320 And her husband refused to go basically when she said, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.080 I'm getting out of here, so she got her brother's 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.920 been in her Henry to run away with her. UM. 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.120 After a couple of weeks on the lamb uh Ben 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.000 in Henry. You know, it was a scary life out 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.200 there as a fugitive slave. UM. And they said, you 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.800 know what, I'm gonna go back, and she said, uh, Well, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:22.840 she went back with them initially, but then said you 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.320 know what, I'm I'm out of here. And thence time 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.280 she went all by herself. Yeah. So the following September, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.560 September seventy nine, she left again by herself, and she um. 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.360 Basically it was a rehearsal for what she would do 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.480 later on as a conductor on the underground railroad. She 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:46.400 traveled at night. She used the North Star as a guide. UM. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.480 She stayed during the day with Quaker families who were 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.880 abolitionists that would hide her um under under the threat 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.320 of persecution and prosecution. I should say this is a 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.520 teen forty nine, so at the time the laws weren't 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.080 quite a strict but as we'll see, they definitely got stricter, 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.480 but it was still like you could, you know, go 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.240 to jail or get in trouble for housing a fugitive 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.760 slave to these people were definitely putting their next on 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.400 the line to help her, And eventually she made her 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.240 way through Delaware and into Pennsylvania, which was a free state, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.240 um and I don't know if it was ever a 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.480 slate state. I think it was probably founded as a 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.920 free state. And when she got into Pennsylvania, she compared 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.720 it to to showing up in heaven. Basically, Yeah, the 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.040 sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields, 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:32.840 and I felt like I was in heaven, is the 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.920 direct quote, which is just a wonderful, wonderful thing to say. 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.400 And like, I can't imagine the feeling after being on 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.760 her own. Her husband wouldn't come, her brothers went back 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.880 to be so brave uh to go on her own, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.600 although she did get help along the way, uh, and 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.000 to finally reach Pennsylvania. Man, It's just unbelievable. So the 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.880 thing is, though, is she apparently always said later in life, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:01.440 and a lot of this, we should say, is from 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:06.320 that biography of her um from Sarah Hopkins Bradford, which 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.399 was contemporary. It was done while she was alive in 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.919 eighteen sixty nine, so this is her telling her own story. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.080 But she said basically right out of the gate, you know, 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.240 she was glad to be in Pennsylvania, but there was 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.520 a part of her missing, like she left her family behind. 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:25.439 Her husband was still back there. She never had kids. Uh, 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.439 she never gave birth to a kid, but later on 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.840 she would adopt a kid. But she had like nieces 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.200 and nephews there, um, and she just felt like her 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:34.960 her family was back there and they needed to be 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.080 free as well. So she resolved basically from the outset 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:43.160 to get them whenever she could. And that's a good 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.600 place to take a break. I thought so too, because 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.080 it sets up her work on the underground railroad and 0:17:48.080 --> 0:18:16.880 we'll talk about that right after this, all right, Chuck, 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:21.800 So we're back eighteen forty nine, and uh, late eighteen 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.440 forty nine, Harriet Tubman has escaped and made it to Pennsylvania. Um, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:31.960 and she settled in Philadelphia. She got work as a housekeeper, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.680 a cook, and she was getting paid now for doing labor, 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.320 which was totally novel to her from what I can tell. 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.119 And what she did with this money rather than like 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.760 go buy some nice stuff or have a ham dinner 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.880 or do whatever with it, she saved it to fund 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:56.000 her trip back into the slaved states, into Maryland below 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.159 the Mason Dixon line, to retrieve her family. That's what 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.240 she did with her me. Yes, she didn't even get 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:05.040 Eagles tickets and it would, uh, and it would it 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.280 would actually basically that's the that's the basis of what 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:10.360 she did with their money for the rest of her 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.160 working life, which is to say the rest of her life. 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.200 She worked her whole life to make ends meet, and 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.719 most of the time it was because she could can 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.360 she could support herself, but she was also supporting other 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.520 people as well, or trying to help other other slaves escape. Yeah. 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.560 So the underground Railroad, Um, we should probably do a 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.680 full episode on that at some point, But oh, my friend, 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.560 we did, did we? June two thousand and eleven? Well, no, wonder, 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:37.560 I don't remember that. It was a good one I 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.520 was six years ago. That was good. Well, we got 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:42.480 to bring it out for s Y s K select 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.320 for sure. In fact, maybe we should do that this month. 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:50.159 Let's do it so I do remember now. It was 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.720 a good one. It was. But the underground railroad was 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:58.400 a it was. It worked differently depending on who you are. 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.120 There was not one like growing up as a kid 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.040 always thought it was some um direct line. That was. 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.479 They always used the same path. But the underground railroad 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.199 depending on who you were as a conductor, which is 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.040 what they called them, uh, you had your own connections basically, 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.480 and and like you said earlier, sometimes they were these 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:23.560 Quaker families, but um they were always friendlies who would 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.600 help put you up and guide you from spot to 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.600 spot along the way. Um. Harriet Tubman ended up using 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.760 because she knew these um this land along the coast. 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.440 She would go the route that she knew best as 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.919 a friendly area. And they had all these ways of 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:46.080 communicating in front of their UH owners and their overseers. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.240 A lot of times through song. They would use religious 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:53.480 passages and sing things uh, sing these biblical songs that 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.159 had all these secret messages in it. And of course 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:58.920 all the while the overseers have no idea that they're 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.840 actually sending secret mets. It just a one in there. Uh. Yeah, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.040 one of them, Chuck was um there that they were 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.960 headed to Canaan, which is meaning you're heading to the 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.439 afterlife heaven, I guess. And what that actually meant in 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.879 code for the slaves who were preparing to escape was 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:19.080 that they were heading towards Canada, which was about as 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.359 free as it gets, it turns out. Yeah. Uh, she 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.480 would go Uh generally during the fall and during the 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.040 spring because the days were shorter and the weather was 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:34.000 a little more friendly. Um, she would she would leave 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.399 on a Saturday because Sunday the was a day of 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.320 rest for the owner, and they wouldn't find out until 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.119 Monday morning, and it wouldn't be posted and published till Monday. Uh, 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.600 probably not even Monday morning, you know, because it's not 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:48.080 like it was hot off the presses. It would probably 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.679 wouldn't even get until later on Monday. Right. Well, if 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.439 they only published the slave notices once a week, that 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:55.760 means that the ones that came in on Monday wouldn't 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:57.679 get published to the following Monday. So we give them 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.040 like a full week of of time to escape. Oh 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.400 did they only publish on Monday? That's what I got. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.080 Oh okay, I didn't see that, So yeah, so she 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.200 was she was a pretty sharp tack. She would also 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.680 say I'm gonna meet you here. She would pass information 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:13.960 along to the slaves who were preparing to escape that 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.359 she was going to conduct where to meet, and it 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:20.439 was um invariably several miles away from where they lived, 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:22.800 so that it would become very clear if they had 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:24.880 been followed by the time they met up with her. 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:29.080 She also kept a pistol very famously with her, not 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:32.000 not just to protect herself for the people that she 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.919 was conducting, but also to let the people she was 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.280 conducting know that if they decided they were going to 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:41.080 turn back, she was going to shoot him because she 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:44.280 just couldn't risk them giving them up and betraying the 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.040 rest of the group. So it was once you were 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.719 on on the underground railroad with Harriet Tubman, there was 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.119 no going back. You were going on until you reached 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:54.840 a free state or were captured. It was one of 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:57.800 those two. The Tubman train goes in one direction. Yes, 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:01.800 that's what that was what she put on her cards, 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:03.679 that's right, and T shirts Actually I think she had 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.800 t shirts too. All right, So she's like you said, 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:11.080 she doesn't make a trip. She makes trip after trip 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.920 after trip. Uh. There's a lot of speculation on exactly 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.200 how many people I believe in the original biography, and 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:20.719 the number you will hear a lot is three hundred. 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:24.800 But they have done some investigating since then. Uh. And 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:26.960