More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of slavery in the united states
Harriet tubman and the fight for freedom recap
Slavery in American society
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Today, we woke up at around 3:30 a.m. just to go eat and then go to work in the fields. Some days, the white people who owned us, liked to be nice and weren’t as harsh to us. But then some days, if we didn’t oink the amount of cotton or tobacco that they wanted, we would get lashed. But you see the number always changed. Some days they would want 40 pounds of cotton picked but other days, they would want 140 pounds. I am getting so tired of living my life like this, other blacks say that there is really nothing we can do, nut I believe there is. A lot of us, want to escape but don’t know how we could. We are always being watched, there is never a time when we are alone. They treat us like we are animals, like we are completely different but really we …show more content…
aren’t.
The only thing that is different about us is the color of our skin, THAT’S IT. NOTHING MAJOR.
Today, we finally built up enough courage and strength to try and run away from the white people. One of my close friends, Harriet Tubman, decided that she was tired of how us slaves were getting treated. She finally escaped from her masters in 1849. We, slaves, have seen Harriet many times after she escaped. She comes back to rescue us. Ever since she escaped, she was always worried about us and always worried if we were okay and even if we were still alive. She has led hundreds/ thousands to freedom through the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman was trying to find something so we could all escape because if you know her, you know that she always puts other first. She never only thinks about her self. She puts herself in harm just to
protect us. She used the underground railroad has her advantage. The underground railroad was an elaborate secret network of safe houses organized for the purpose to free slaves. You see before Harriet escaped, Violence was apart of her daily life. The violence she went through left physical injuries, just like so many other slaves. I remember when she told me one day that she was lashed five times before breakfast and those lashes left her huge scars that she forever have to carry around with her. But she said one day, that there was an experience more severe, something that she would probably never forget. Harriet was sent to a store for supplies. When she walked into the store, she saw a slave that had left his plantation where he was working without permission. The person that was looking over the escapee demanded that she help restrain the runaway. She refused because if her masters had heard about that, they would have lashed her and beat her. When she refused the guy grabbed a two-pound weight and threw it at her and it ended up hitting her in the head. This caused her to then have seizures, really severe bad headaches, intense dream states, which she said was her religious experience. There was also a guy that I knew pretty well, by the name of Henry Brown “Box” that was so desperate to escape that he put himself in a box to be shipped off. The box that he was in shipped him from Virginia to Philadelphia, where slavery had just been banned. He was tired of the way the whites were treating him. He was married and had four children but they were eventually sold to other farms and leaders in North Carolina, which led him to wanting to escape. He was angered that the whites thought they were more superior to black people. He constantly asked himself why whites thought they could just come in their house and take his family away from him. I can totally understand how he felt because all the slaves that had family were going through it. So when he was really angered about his family being taken away from him, he was fed up. He wanted to be freed. So that’s when he came up with the plan to get shipped off. 27 hours later, the box and Henry finally arrived at Headquarters of the Philadelphia Anti- Slavery Society. Now the trip wasn’t so pleasant for him. He was kicked and moved and turned upside down. But why complain when you’re getting your freedom, right? Since Samuel Smith was successful with helping Henry escape, he later attempted to ship more enslaved people. His plan was eventually discovered and he was later arrested. They knew they had to stop because then they would blow the cover of Henry and where he was at that exact moment. Why was he arrested? Because he was helping us slaves/ blacks by freeing us. I don’t know about anyone else, but to me that sounds really dumb. Why did the blacks have to be the “slaves”? Why couldn’t it be turned around? We all often wondered how life would be if the whites were the slaves and the blacks were the leaders. We will never be able to be free, do whatever we want, see our family; and why exactly? All because whites think they are better than us, all because whites are lazy and make us do their work for them, all because they like and enjoy hitting us. We don’t do something right, we get beat. We do do something right, we get beat. We don’t pick enough cotton, we get beat. We do pick enough cotton, we get beat. We don’t work hard enough, we get beat. We do work hard enough, we get beat. It really is just a lose lose situation. Us, Blacks, would do anything to just be free and not be separated from our family and not be segregated because of our race.
Throughout much of my life I was a slave to the white man. I was, however, luckier than most. I was able to become a freeman, and have since dedicated my life to the abolition of slavery and oppression in this country. This oppression lives on because of the hypocritical nature in which this country's founding fathers, including you, outlined their independence. Many times throughout your most patriotic document, The Declaration of Independence, you contradict yourself and the ideas that are presented. It appears that the ideals you present are only for those with a white skin such as yours. All other people, for example the American Negro, are not even considered people in your white wigged world. We are only property to be bought and sold accordingly, with no regard for our families, friends, or personal beliefs. These are aspects of life that you and I both fought for, but are reserved only for you.
The Civil War lasted for four years, three weeks, and six days. The Civil War caused a numerous amount of good and bad things. Along with the union coming out victorious, slavery was abolished, territorial integrity was gained, the reconstruction era began, and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Although, many people were involved in the process leading up to the civil war. Abolitionists played a huge role in the progression in civil rights. They fought for the freedom of slaves and the ceasing of slave trade from Africa. There were many activists involved in this movement, including Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. These two women abolitionists are two of the most dynamic woman and well known abolitionists. Although Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth have many similarities, they have certain aspects that allow them to differ from each other. Despite their slight differences, Tubman and Truth were seemingly the most efficient and effective in their duties as abolitionists.
“ I had reasoned this out in my mind, 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.”~Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman sacrificed her life and freedom as well. She organized the Underground Railroad, and freed hundreds of slaves. As if the journey wasn’t difficult enough,stated by the book, Who Was Harriet Tubman, “But the trip was even more dangerous after 1850. That was because the Fugitive Slave Law had been passed.”(pg.56) The Fugitive Slave Law meant that runaway slaves who made it to the free states had to be sent back to their masters. People were allowed to beat the slaves and sell them back into the South too. Even though the situation was tough, Harriet Tubman never gave up on what she thought was
While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.
For more than two hundred years, a certain group of people lived in misery; conditions so inhumane that the only simile that can compare to such, would be the image of a caged animal dying to live, yet whose live is perished by the awful chains that dragged him back into a dark world of torture and misfortune. Yes, I am referring to African Americans, whose beautiful heritage, one which is full of cultural beauty and extraordinary people, was stained by the privilege given to white men at one point in the history of the United States. Though slavery has been “abolished” for quite some years; or perhaps it is the ideal driven to us by our modern society and the lines that make up our constitution, there is a new kind of slavery. One which in
Civil rights activist, Harriet Tubman once said, “Always remember, you have within you the strength the patiences, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” (Tubman). Harriet Tubman had the courage to save hundreds of propel through the underground railroad. She had faith in her beliefs, and knew that even though she was risking jail time, she was doing the right thing. Civil disobedience is is when people are trying to bring attention to a law. They break that law knowing that they might go to jail, but to them it is worth it. Harriet Tubman’s involvement in Civil Disobedience was done to influences she chose to participate in Civil Disobedience to protest slavery, and she did achieve success using the controversial method of standing up for what she strongly believes to be right.
“I freed thousands of slaves, and could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.” (History.com) This Harriet Tubman quote is a great representation of the kind of person she was. Harriet Tubman was a great woman, not only did she escape slavery; she went back several times to save more people. She conducted the Underground Railroad and did great things that have changed our history in one of its darkest times in our history. Being a slave was not easy but that didn’t stop her.
demanded her voice to be heard. Because she believed every person had a right to be free, Harriet Tubman risked her life to save others.
Harriet Tubman is most known for conducting the Underground Railroad,but was that all she achieved?Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester country,Maryland.The year was about 1822.Harriet was born into slavery.Harriet was a runaway slave herself.She wanted liberty for others and herself.What was Harriet Tubman’s greatest achievement?Harriet Tubman did important work for example being a nurse during the civil war,conducting the Underground Railroad,and being a caregiver,but her greatest achievement was conducting the Underground Railroad.
Harriet Tubman was a selfless woman, who devoted her life to save others. Many other slaves from the South escaped to freedom in the North like Tubman. Many of these people stayed where they were free, frightened to go anywhere near the South again. However, that was not Tubman, she was different. She wanted everyone to have the feeling of freedom that she had newly discovered. Harriet was known “to bring people of her race from bondage to liberty,” (S Bradford et al 1869). Harriet Tubman was known as a hero to lots of people during the Civil War.
Since the beginning of slavery in the America, Africans have been deemed inferior to the whites whom exploited the Atlantic slave trade. Africans were exported and shipped in droves to the Americas for the sole purpose of enriching the lives of other races with slave labor. These Africans were sold like livestock and forced into a life of servitude once they became the “property” of others. As the United States expanded westward, the desire to cultivate new land increased the need for more slaves. The treatment of slaves was dependent upon the region because different crops required differing needs for cultivation. Slaves in the Cotton South, concluded traveler Frederick Law Olmsted, worked “much harder and more unremittingly” than those in the tobacco regions.1 Since the birth of America and throughout its expansion, African Americans have been fighting an uphill battle to achieve freedom and some semblance of equality. While African Americans were confronted with their inferior status during the domestic slave trade, when performing their tasks, and even after they were set free, they still made great strides in their quest for equality during the nineteenth century.
Harriet Tubman is probably the most famous “conductor” of all the Underground Railroads. Throughout a 10-year span, Tubman made more than 20 trips down to the South and lead over 300 slaves from bondage to freedom. Perhaps the most shocking fact about Tubman’s journeys back and forth from the South was that she “never lost a single passenger.”
Harriet Ross Tubman was an African American who escaped slavery and then showed runaway slaves the way to freedom in the North for longer than a decade before the American Civil War. During the war she was as a scout, spy, and nurse for the United States Army. After that she kept working for rights for blacks and women.
She also feels that Harriet Tubman is a prime example of a strong African American woman. In this biography, author, Catherine Clinton gives an accurate take regarding the conditions for slaves in Eastern Shore, Maryland. Her description of the conditions empower readers to construe how Harriet Tubman more than likely lived in her early years. This is a fascinating, elegantly composed early account that will equip readers with a realistic insight around the life of an African American saint. There are many good points throughout this biography. The authors’ point about Harriet Tubman being brave is confirmed by evidence in which she detailed. Case in point, voyaging on numerous occasions from the South toward the North by way of the Underground Railroad was considered exceptionally strong evidence of bravery. This biography furthered confirmed my positive view of Harriet Tubman. It also provided me with new insight of the struggles that Harriet Tubman encountered. For instance, I was able to learn that her original name was Arminata Ross and she was forced to change her name to Harriet in order to maintain a false
“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more, if only they had known they were slaves.” Harriet Tubman was a woman known for her important role during the time that led up to the Civil War. She was a woman of incredible strength, courage, and determination. And while Harriet Tubman is credited for giving the slaves an option as to what way they shall spend the rest of their life, the sad truth lies within the quote above. While many people like to believe that slavery was a horrendous act that happened only with small minded people from the south many years ago, that isn’t the case in all honesty. In fact, the idea of slavery was highly debated about and troubled more minds than many are led to believe. While there are