• Harriet Tubman was born 1820 in Dorchester county, Maryland USA. Her family were from Africa and were brought over as slave to work the cotton fields.
• Her family lived in a hut in the forest with no furniture and had to sleep on the floor huddled together to keep warm.
• At age 6 her job was to carry out water buckets to the fields so the other slaves could drink.
• When she was old enough, she was sent out to work the cotton fields with her family.
• One day someone ran an escaped from the cotton field. The slave master ordered her to chase after him but she did not, which angered the master and he threw a rock a her head, this cause blackouts and dizzy spells.
• Harriet finally decided to try and escape, so one early morning she wrapped up some food in a small shawl and ran into the forest.
• She head north to Pennsylvania where there was no slavery.
• While travelling thorough the forest she remembered what her father taught her about moss growing on the north side of the trees.
• She had to move quietly and fast to avoid the slave catchers.
• After weeks of travelling through the forest, she made to the border of Pennsylvania where she felt happiness that she was free.
• Less than a year after her freedom, she returned to free her family.
• There was a network of people who helped runaways and this was called the underground rail road. The runaways were called passenger and the people helping were called conductors.
• They travelled at night to avoid the slave catchers and after many weeks they made it to freedom.   
• Harriet knew it was her mission to try and free as many slaves as possible. She returned many times using the underground rail road to free a further 70 slaves. 

Harriet Tubman