Author: Our team Zhang Lan
On March 10, 1913, in a nursing home in Auburn, New York, an elderly black woman who was sick quietly closed her tired eyes.
This old woman, who seems to be a very ordinary black woman, even the level of education is very low, basically belonging to the category of illiterate, and she needs to write on weekdays and needs other people to ghostwrite it. She is also not a powerful lady, and for many years she has lived on a very poor life, living on a pension of twenty dollars a month. It seems that she is an orphan old woman.
However, when the news of her death appeared in the newspapers, the nostalgia from all over the United States was overwhelming, and many black people heard the bad news on the road and cried uncontrollably on the spot. And her funeral is even more peculiar, many people came from all over the country to give her one last journey, the most special thing is that such a seemingly ordinary old woman was buried with the funeral of an American soldier. That's right, she's a warrior!
This veteran soldier is the figure who made countless Southern slave owners grit their teeth during the American Civil War era, but made the United States a national black slave gratitude, the American abolitionist activist, known as "General Tubman" Legendary Heroine: Harriet Tubman. (hereinafter referred to as Tubman)
As a black man, born in Maryland in 1822, Tubman's early fate was the epitome of the suffering of American black slaves, at that time, black slaves, in the United States, like commodities, Tubman's sisters, were sold by slave owners, and never saw each other again. And she herself, she has also endured heavy labor since she was a child, because she was born smart and hardworking, she was also used as a cash cow by her master, and even rented by her master to work elsewhere.
It was during these difficult days that the young Tubman not only ate enough tired, but also had enough of beating, but even so, one of her tempers was never beaten: warm-hearted. Even though she was extremely bitter, she often helped others, even if the unknown black slave escaped, she did not hesitate to help, when she was fifteen years old, she helped people escape, and after being discovered by the master, she actually smashed her head with a scale, leaving a lifelong scar!
Such a day is the dark portrayal of the United States, which claims to be free and equal.
Tubman, who was struggling in such darkness, was still a kind of lucky one, and at the age of twenty-nine, the owner who had been cruel suddenly fell ill and died, and Tubman, who was about to be sold as a commodity, finally found an opportunity to escape. With the help of the Underground Railroad, an organization that specialized in the rescue of black slaves at the time, she hid in a carriage covered with rubble and miraculously escaped from Maryland to Pennsylvania, where slavery was abolished. In her own words: The moment I set foot in Pennsylvania, the sun shone golden through the branches, and I felt like I was in heaven!
All those who have experienced suffering can experience this joy of freedom!
In the United States at that time, black people like Tubman, who had gained freedom, would then start a new life in a free state. But unexpectedly, Tubman made the opposite decision: a year later, she reappeared in Maryland, which brought her countless dark and terrifying memories, and even saw the wanted notice posted by Maryland about her! Yes, with the help of the "Underground Railroad" to gain freedom, she took the initiative to become a member of this organization, and from then on began to fight to the death, in order to let more people like herself, get rid of the slave life, and move towards a free life!
Since then, the legendary life of the heroine has begun, she once sneaked into the cold waters of Maryland during the harsh winter, to kill a route for the escaped black slaves. She also once went deep into the slave owner's manor alone, risked death to release the imprisoned black slaves, and even became a changeable person, her disguise makeup kung fu, can be called a must in the "underground railway", once in the same month, into an old woman, a policeman, a gentleman, an old man and more than ten other roles, just to be able to hide the sky and cross the sea, bringing out more black slaves from the slave state! This woman, who has endured hardships, with her wit and bravery, is carrying out this great cause!
In the years that followed, Tubman went deep into slave states 138 times, and as many as 700 black slaves were rescued by her own hands, not including the rescue operations she personally planned and carried out by others. And all rescue operations, as long as she participates, will be 100% successful. Even in this cruel contest, she also practiced a powerful marksmanship, often firing a hundred shots, so that many slave owners were frightened out of their problems. Once, in Tubman's absence, the "underground railroad" was surrounded by slave owners, and a black woman was in a hurry, took up a gun and pretended to be Tubman, and really frightened the slave owner's pursuers, and there was a thrilling escape.
When the Civil War broke out, in the war that decided the fate of black Americans, There was also a figure of Tubman, who became a field nurse of the government army, but also accepted a more difficult task, using the nurse as a cover to organize reconnaissance troops to go deep behind enemy lines and transmit intelligence to the government army. Tubman, who was determined to free the black slaves, took on both things, and then two years of cruel tests, but never once went wrong.
But in September 1862, the heroine, who had never panicked on the battlefield, lost her mind for the first time: her comrades read Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation for her, and from that day on, the Negro was officially liberated. Hearing this news, she actually fainted. It was the vertigo of not being able to help myself after ecstasy!
After the end of the Civil War, Tubman, who was the greatest, was treated harshly and ruthlessly by the US government, and although black people were liberated, discrimination against blacks continued, and even Tubman, as a war hero, took the train back to New York after attending the ceremony in Washington, and was rudely interrogated on the train. Her pension was long in arrears by the federal government, and was not partially paid until she was seventy years old. By the time she died at the age of ninety-one, the U.S. government still owed her pension!
However, when the heroine died in poverty, the mainstream society in the United States remembered her more and more, and there were more and more memories of her. Her head is also appearing more and more in various stamp albums, and even the US Treasury Department revealed that the newly designed twenty-dollar bill will be printed with the heroine's head. For her legendary life, this may be a different kind of commemoration, but for her poor and lonely old age, such an avatar may provoke a sigh even more.