Why Did Harriet Tubman Escape Slavery

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How did Harriet Tubman escape slavery and how did she earned the name "Moses". Harriet Tudman was born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, approximately 1821. At age five, she went to work as a house slave. Seven years later, she was put out for field work. At age 12, Harriet sustained an injury that would afflict her for the duration of her life. By holding her ground in a doorway, she shielded a fellow field hand from an angry master, who then hurled a two-pound weight. Missing its intended target, the weight struck Tubman on her head. She never completely recovered from the blow, whose effects subjected her to episodes resembling narcolepsy. In 1844 Harriet married a free man named John Tubman and lived with him in a state of semi-slavery. Her status changed with the death of her master in 1847 and his son's death in 1849. Fearing that she was to be sold and sent south, Tubman decided to run away. With the help of the sympathetic white woman, Harriet made her way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, using the North Star as a nightly guide. There she secured herself into employment so that she wouldn't get sold, and though that she started to save parts of her earnings …show more content…
Another perilous trip to the South led to the rescue of her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went for her husband, but he had remarried. In his stead, she located more liberty-seeking slaves and took them to the North. She also rescued her parents. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman "never lost a passenger". After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into British North America, and helped newly freed slaves find work. But because she never lost a passenger she gained the name called