Originally published in 1896 in “The New England Magazine,” this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 16 pages, describes the life and work of U.S. abolitionist Harriet Tubman (1820-1913), who, via the “underground railroad” led hundreds of slaves to safety in the North and Canada.
Sample passage:
On one occasion, she walked boldly by daylight through a village where she had lived when a slave. She pulled her sunbonnet over her face and imitated the gait of an elderly person. In the market place she bought a pair of live fowls. Turning a corner, she met a man to whom she had once been “hired out.” She twitched the string that bound the legs of the chickens, and as they struggled and screamed she bent over them, and so hid her face as she went by her master.
Once she sent her company of fugitives onward by some secret route, and started north herself on a railroad train. There were posters in the car offering $40,000 for her head. The passengers read these papers aloud, so that she learned their purport. At the next station, the dauntless woman left the car and took a train going south, feeling convinced that no one would suspect that a woman upon whose life a price was set would dare turn her face in that direction. The reward was promised by the slaveholders of the region she was accustomed to visit.
About the author:
Lillie B. Chace Wyman (1847-1929) was a social activist and author who worked to preserve the history of the abolitionist movement. Other works include “American Chivalry” and “Poverty Grass.”
Sample passage:
On one occasion, she walked boldly by daylight through a village where she had lived when a slave. She pulled her sunbonnet over her face and imitated the gait of an elderly person. In the market place she bought a pair of live fowls. Turning a corner, she met a man to whom she had once been “hired out.” She twitched the string that bound the legs of the chickens, and as they struggled and screamed she bent over them, and so hid her face as she went by her master.
Once she sent her company of fugitives onward by some secret route, and started north herself on a railroad train. There were posters in the car offering $40,000 for her head. The passengers read these papers aloud, so that she learned their purport. At the next station, the dauntless woman left the car and took a train going south, feeling convinced that no one would suspect that a woman upon whose life a price was set would dare turn her face in that direction. The reward was promised by the slaveholders of the region she was accustomed to visit.
About the author:
Lillie B. Chace Wyman (1847-1929) was a social activist and author who worked to preserve the history of the abolitionist movement. Other works include “American Chivalry” and “Poverty Grass.”
