A Childhood in Maryland
In this narrative series, Jacob Lawrence introduces us to Harriet Tubman in this painting depicting a group of slave children playing leaping and tumbling games. Harriet is one of these children playing in Dorchester County, Maryland, seemingly carefree as children often are.
The First Sting of Slavery
When Harriet was about fifteen years old, she received her first beating when she was struck on her head with an iron bar by an overseer on the plantation. In this painting Harriet is viewed as she is lying on the ground unconscious as the overseer retreats. A black snake slithers toward Harriet, symbolically conveying evil and wickedness, representative of plantation life.
Water Girl To Field Hands
As Harriet grew older, she became a very strong woman with large massive arms and hands. Her daily tasks consisted of cutting wood, plowing fields and hauling logs. She was about five feet tall, stocky and very strong.
Shrieks of Flogged Women
In this horror scene at night, Lawrence paints a shadowy vision of slave women being whipped. This abstract painting seemingly captures the loud screams and shrieks of these tortured souls as the overseer, whip in hand and sleeves rolled up, goes about his evening duties. The women’s hands are vividly painted as they beg for mercy.
Auctioned
In this painting, Harriet is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Having been frequently whipped and poorly fed, as well as having incurred head injuries when struck with that iron bar, Harriet’s master sold her. Mr. Lawrence creates a very interesting perspective with this work because we view the auction through the eyes of the slave being sold as she watches men with whips and chains waiting to bid on her human flesh. I found myself returning often to this painting to gain a clearer insight into the cruelties of the slavery system and the despair of the individual participants.
Northern Star
Three paintings in this narrative series involve the dramatic northern escapes to freedom against the vivid background of the night sky and the North Star to be used as the guiding light. In the first instance, Harriet is viewed as breaking from the chains of slavery with her hands extended upward towards the North Star as if to pull herself to freedom. She carries a few belongings in a red traveling case and her eyes are wide open, casting fearful glances over her shoulder. The symbolic black snake lurks nearby as she starts on her long, lonely journey. She is between the ages of twenty and twenty-five and Mr. Lawrence paints her in a white robe to express the “purity of her mission”.
The second painting lacks any human figure. Rather, the scene is a wooded landscape on a clear night with many stars in the skies, and a flesh-toned hand lays across the evening sky as if to signal the direction in which Harriet is to travel. The caption beneath the landscape offers a $500 reward for Harriett’s capture and the wording describes Harriet as a piece of property rather than as a human being.
“$500 Reward! Runaway from subscriber on Thursday night, the 4th inst., from the neighborhood of Cambridge, my negro girl, Harriet, sometimes called Minty. Is dark chestnut color, rather stout build, but bright and handsome. Speaks rather deep and has a scar over the left temple. She wore a brown plaid shawl.
I will give the above reward captured outside the county, and $300 if captured inside the county, in either case to be lodged in the Cambridge, Maryland jail.
(signed) George Carter Broadacres, near Cambridge, Maryland September 24th, 1849”
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In the third Northern Star painting, Harriett’s figure bends forward in her stride to freedom, guided once again by the bright starlight. Her white robe moves across the wooded landscape, enshrouded by the hills and valleys. She travels by night and hides by day, sleeping behind trees or crouched in swamp areas to avoid recapture.
The Underground Railroad
In the North, Harriet was overjoyed that she could now keep all of her earnings, and she diligently saved these monies so that she could return South and rescue other slaves. Accordingly, her first trip South was in 1850 to rescue her sister and her sister’s two children in Baltimore. Each night, Harriet would conduct these people North, climbing the mountains, wading the rivers, threading the forests, many times carrying the babies. In panel 15 of her series, Harriet is painted in her white robe against the dark sky leading three people towards freedom. Over a course of several years, Harriet made nineteen such journeys and escorted over three hundred people to safety.
Harriet’s rescue efforts became very widely known. She was very clever with disguises and went undetected as she moved from plantation to plantation. The plantation owners wished to capture her and to burn her at the stake. Panels 18 and 19 of Lawrence’s series deal with the constant search for Tubman and the $40,000 bounty that was placed on her head because she was so bold, daring and elusive.
In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, which forced the return of slaves found North of the Mason and Dixon line. Subsequently, the Underground Railroad extended its network of escape routes into Canada. Panel 20 illustrates Harriet and two of her charges trudging through the northern snow. Canada became a haven for fugitive slaves between 1850 and 1865.
Anti-Slavery Lecturer
Between 1851 and 1857, St. Catherines in Canada became home for Harriet Tubman. One of the northernmost stops on the Underground Railroad was Rochester, New York, and it was here that Harriet would work closely with Frederick Douglass. Tubman soon began to attend abolitionist meetings and it was there that she became an excellent speaker, relating the evils of slavery and the suffering of her people as only a person of Harriet’s experience could. Her speeches brought tears to the eyes and sorrow to the hearts of her listeners when she spoke. Panel 21 displays eager listeners clutching at the rail, wide-eyed and seemingly hanging on Harriet’s every word.
Union Nurse
When the Civil War broke out, Harriet was asked by Governor Andrews of Massachusetts to volunteer to serve the Union forces. Initially she assisted the negro slaves who had fled into the Union lines. However, shortly thereafter she became invaluable as an intelligence gatherer as she organized spy and scouting missions. From the captive slaves she learned troop positions, which hastened the Southern defeat.
Harriet was also a hard working nurse during the Civil War. Utilizing her knowledge of herbs and roots, she was able to allay fevers, small pox and dysentery. Through her efforts, the lives of many Union soldiers were saved.
Rest In Peace
After the war was over, Harriet went to live at her home in Auburn, New York where she lived well into her nineties. In 1869, she married Nelson Davis, a private in a black southern volunteer army. She supported herself through domestic work, farming and donations. She lived to attend the funeral of her abolitionist friends Wendell Phillips in 1883 and Frederick Douglass a few years later.
Harriet remained very active despite her old head injury received from that cruel overseer. She died on March 10, 1913 and was buried with military honors. A memorial service was held on June 12, 1914, and thousands of people came to pay their respects to a great humanitarian and heroine. Outside the county courthouse a memorial tablet was erected in Auburn.
Jacob Lawrence paints Panel 31 in a very reflective mood as he reflects on Tubman’s many trips to rescue the slaves as they were guided by the bright stars against the dark, blue sky. Frederick Douglass, in a letter he once wrote to Tubman, speaks of these stars and sky:
“The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day -you in the night. I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scared and foot-sore bound men and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt ‘God Bless You!’ has been your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and to your heroism. Excepting John Brown — of sacred memory — I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.”
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Douglass’s words will echo forever.