Famous
People
Frederick
Douglas
Fredrick Douglas
was born in February 1818. He was born
near Easton,
Maryland as well as Harriet
Tubman, who
was also born in Maryland. When he was seven years old, Frederick was
sent to Baltimore to work as a slave for the Auld family. Mrs. Auld
started to teach Frederick how to read and write, though Mr. Auld
quickly stopped her. She didn't know it was against the law to teach
slaves. But Frederick wasn't going to stop learning! Frederick hid an
old spelling book and taught himself to read it. Later,Frederick
taught other black people to read and write in Sunday school. When he
got older, Frederick disguised himself as a sailor. He boarded a
train for the first time in his life. The train took him north to New
York City-and to freedom.Frederick Douglas being an ex-slave became a
prominent, abolitionist,
publisher, and spokesman against slavery.
But his biggest accomplishment was becoming a
famous
conductor
on the Underground Railroad. On February 20, 1895, in the same month
he had been born a slave seventy-seven years earlier, Frederick
Douglas died a free man in his own home, a famous man, a
hero.
Harriet
Tubman a Famous Slave Conductor
Harriet
Tubman,
one of the most well known and successful conductors,
was born into slavery
on a Maryland plantation around 1820. She worked in the fields and
the house until 1844, when she married a free black man named John
Tubman. Mrs.Tubman ,also known as Moses of the Blacks, made nearly
nineteen trips back to the southern slave states to rescue people.
Before the Civil War she helped more than 300 slaves to freedom
without ever being caught. On one of those trips she rescued her own
family. During the Civil War she worked as a nurse, spy and, a cook
for the Union Forces.She continued working to free slaves during the
Civil War. Harriet
Tubman's
new home town of Auburn, New York was an important
"station"
on the Underground
Railroad
to Canada. Cities such as Cincinnati, Wilmington, Detroit and,
Buffalo were also on the dangerous route to escape
slavery.
The Underground
Railroad
helped start the Civil War. The publicity about people in the north
helping escaped slaves angered the Southerns. People in the
South thought of their slaves as property,and they did not like
people helping their slaves escape. Northern judges were not helpful
to Southerns trying to get back their slaves. Eventually there was a
Civil War which took place in 1861 when the Underground
Railroad
began to cease..
DREDD
SCOTT
Dredd Scott was an
escaped slave.Thanks to the Underground
Railroad,
he made it to Ohio safely but was caught there by bounty hunters who
had followed him. He had a famous trial called the Dredd Scott
Decision. It was held in 1857. The jury was to decide whether he was
person or property. Some people did not think this was fair because
the jury consisted of all white people. The court decided he was
property, and he was sent back to his original plantation where he
may have been punished further.
