What Was Harriet Tubman's Greatest Achievement

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What Was Harriet Tubman’s Greatest Achievement? Harriet Tubman achieved many wonderful things during her life. She freed slaves from the grip of the South and led them to Canada where they could find freedom and peace (Doc B). She was a nurse to the volunteer soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th who were injured during their assault on Fort Wagner (Doc D). Harriet Tubman was also a caregiver to the sick, elderly, and orphaned in the 48 years between the end of the Civil War and her death (Doc E). Out of all of these achievements, her greatest, and the most risky, was freeing slaves from the grip of the South. If it were not for her, many slaves would not have found their way to freedom in Canada. Harriet Tubman looked out for others and would put them first. She risked her life so that other fugitive slaves would be able to finally be free of slavery. Harriet faced danger in not only the South, where slaves were more prevalent, but in the North as well because of the Fugitive Slave Act. The Fugitive Slave Act “passed by Congress in 1850 required Northerners to turn in escaped slaves.” This Act made it much more difficult for slaves to travel to the North without getting caught and returned back to the South, so the slaves needed an escort like Harriet Tubman to help …show more content…
She traveled a long way, mostly on foot, multiple times so that the slaves could go to Canada with an escort. If it were not for Harriet Tubman and her efforts, many of the slaves that were freed would still have been forced to work for nothing. As she said, “…there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other (BE).” Harriet Tubman worked tremendously hard to ensure that other slaves would have liberty instead of dying because of slavery. Although Harriet Tubman had many wonderful achievements during her lifetime, helping numerous slaves escape was her