Category: Timeline Stories

In May, Tubman buys a house and a small piece of land in Auburn, New York, from then-Senator William H. Seward (1801-1872), who will later become Secretary of State in the administration of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Tubman brings her parents to live there. Also this year: In October, John Brown leads a raid on an armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, to ignite an armed insurrection among the enslaved and their allies. The raid is unsuccessful, resulting in Brown’s arrest and eventual execution later in December.

Tubman meets with white abolitionist militant John Brown (1800-1859) in Canada at her home in St. Catharines. Having already fought in the “Bleeding Kansas” wars – violently killing pro-slavery advocates and freeing bondspeople – Brown now seeks to expand his war further south and enlist the help of “General Tubman,” as he calls her. Tubman recruits freedom seekers from Maryland, now living in Canada, to join Brown as he builds an army to attack the South and set bondspeople free.

– In the spring, Tubman rescues her parents from the Eastern Shore, after Ben Ross is implicated in the escape of a group of enslaved people called the Dover Eight and is threatened with arrest. Tubman settles them in her home in St. Catharines in Ontario, Canada. Also this year: – On March 6, the Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court decision denies African Americans’ rights to citizenship. – In October, forty-three enslaved people escape from Cambridge, Maryland, including twenty children and six infants. They follow Tubman’s instructions north.

– During the winter in Cincinnati, freedom seeker Margaret Garner (1834-1858) kills one of her four children to prevent her return to slavery in Kentucky. – On May 14, abolitionist Sydney Howard Gay describes “Captain Harriet Tubman” escaping from Dorchester County, Maryland with four men who arrive in New York City. – In October, Tubman rescues an enslaved woman named Tilly from Baltimore in a daring escape by steamship and passing as free women of color. In November, she helps liberate three men and a woman.

– In the spring, Tubman returns to the Eastern Shore to guide her sister-in-law and two nephews to Canada. – In June, Tubman’s father Ben purchases her seventy-year-old mother Rit’s freedom. – Also in June, a young, enslaved woman called Celia is arrested and tried for the murder of her sexually abusive enslaver in State of Missouri v. Celia. She is convicted and hanged for the crime by the end of the year. – During the late fall, Tubman helps two friends escape.

On Christmas day, Tubman dramatically rescues her brothers Ben, Henry, and Robert, and several friends from the Eastern Shore and leads them to Canada. The brothers choose Stewart as their new surname in freedom. Tubman’s father Ben remains in Maryland and becomes an Underground Railroad agent. Also this year: Congress signs into law the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which reverses the Missouri Compromise (1820) and turns the new territory of Kansas into a battleground between pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates called “Bleeding Kansas.”

– On March 24, Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893) becomes the first Black woman in North America to publish a newspaper, The Provincial Freeman, which caters to the free Black community that settled in Canada. The newspaper runs until 1857. – In the spring, Solomon Northup (1808-ca.1863) publishes his narrative Twelve Years a Slave. – In December, formerly enslaved abolitionist William Wells Brown (ca.1814-1884) publishes the first African American novel, Clotel; or, the President’s Daughter,  a fictional account of Thomas Jefferson’s daughter with Sally Hemings.

– Tubman spends the summer at Cape May in New Jersey, which becomes a resort for well-to-do Black abolitionists, including the Banneker House, a Black-owned hotel. Later in the fall, Tubman rescues nine freedom seekers from the Eastern Shore and guides them to Canada. Also this year: – White abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) publishes in March her international bestselling anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Tubman returns to Maryland for her husband John Tubman, only to discover he has moved on with another woman, which leaves her devastated. She continues her rescue missions, including ushering her brother, Moses, and other freedom seekers across the Niagara Falls border to Canada. She seeks shelter from Frederick and Anna Douglass in Rochester, New York, along the way. Also this year: Sojourner Truth delivers a speech at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, held on May 29, that will be immortalized years later as “Ar’n’t I a Woman?”

– On September 18, Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Law, empowering enslavers to recapture formerly enslaved fugitives who have settled in free states. – Sojourner Truth publishes her autobiography Narrative of Sojourner Truth. – In December, Tubman executes her first rescue mission: the liberation of her niece Kessiah Jolley Bowley and her two children. Her work as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad – guiding others directly or giving out instructions on the way north – will take place over the course of the decade.