Harriet Tubman was a black American who was born into slavery at the Maryland Plantation. Although her exact birth date is not known, she was likely born from 1820 to 1822. She was indispensable in the international fight against slavery, fought in the war alongside the Union Army, promoted women’s rights in America and set up a home for the elderly. The conditions she was forced to live and toil in hardened her skin, strengthened her bones and helped her see the true nature of segregation in her country. She is, one of the most important who contributed to the abolition of slavery and altered the tides of history as we now know it. 

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There are multiple characteristics present in my notable (and many others). Harriet Tubman, from an extremely young age, knew that she was opposed to the terrible treatment against her people. Her mind was set in stone, and she fought with every ounce of her strength for what she thought was right. A notable is someone who will stop at nothing to correct a problem in their community, or society itself. With only a few attributes and the will to face danger, they have the power to change millions of people’s views. 

Take Martin Luther King, for example. King lived in a time of racial discrimination and his people were treated like animals, forced to attend separate schools and were denied a job because of the colour of their skin. But with the bravery to stand up against all odds, King changed the world and the perspectives of almost all of America. Much like this, Harriet Tubman changed the world (Although her effects on society were less prestigious as Martin Luther King), by fighting for what she thought was right and never backing down from danger. 

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The first trait that helped Harriet succeed in life was perseverance. This was thanks to the unjust actions that were directed against her people. After she learned the discrimination in her country, slavery became something unacceptable in her eyes. This fueled a life-long anger against slavery, and encouraged her to fight against the wrongs in her society. This is the main characteristic that my notable person possesses. The next trait that Harriet used to her fullest extent, was courage. This, along with some differing (but still similar) characteristics such as empathy and integrity, helped ensure that she would succeed in her multiple daring missions against slavery. She knew what was happening to the slaves, because she had lived with them for almost three decades and stopped at nothing to restore slave rights in America. This, in my opinion, are the traits that helped Harriet Tubman succeed. 

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From a very young age, Harriet’s views on slavery were set in stone. She witnessed the horrors of man firsthand and saw her people being beaten ruthlessly and forced to labour. Even Harriet, a small child, was not free from those actions. When she was twelve, she was struck in the forehead with a heavy, two-pound lead weight. Although she made a quick recovery, the results from this incident caused a lifetime of headaches and pains. This was one of the many hardships that Harriet faced that changed her view on the world. On a general view, her many years in slavery also did the same. 

My notable person faced multiple challenges and hurdles that she had to overcome. Not only did she escape from slavery at the approximate age of twenty-nine, but made nineteen missions over ten years in order to help rescue other slaves trapped in the Maryland Slave Plantation. After this, when the Civil War arrived on her doorstep, she joined the Union Army, because she saw it as a way to step closer to the abolition of slavery. There, she was paid meagerly for her contributions, but worked her way up from a maid and nurse to a scout. Eventually, Harriet became the first black American women to lead an assault in all of U.S history, bringing the Union Army to another victory at the Combahee Ferry Raid. This success resulted in the liberation of over seven hundred slaves.

 

After the Civil War came to an end, Harriet Tubman continued to help recently freed slaves after the president legally declared, in the thirteenth amendment of the U.S constitution, that slavery was to be abolished in America. She sold home-grown produce in her garden and received money from her neighbors. In 1888, Tubman became more active in the fight for women’s suffrage. Eight years later, she attended the founding convention of the National Association of Coloured Women in Washington D.C, and later at a women’s suffrage meeting. There, she made one of her most famous quotes: “I was a conductor at the underground railroad, and I can say what many others cannot. I never ran my train of its tracks and I never lost passenger.” 

As her fame grew around the country, Harriet and her friends helped her receive a veteran’s pension for her contributions she made to the war effort, which were not recognized during her time fighting with the Union Army. After her second husband died, Harriet was allowed twenty dollars a month in 1899 as a widow’s and veteran’s pension. In 2016, the United States treasury ironically announced that her image would appear on a twenty-dollar bill. Harriet Tubman died on the tenth of March, 1913, extremely poor, but well known and respected for her contributions. But even on the death bed, she kept the freedom of her people in mind. Her final words were, ‘I go away to prepare a place for you’, a direct quote from the Bible. 

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The last moments in her life are a perfect example of the selflessness of Harriet and why she is one of the most notable and influential people in the history of our world. Even though she died penniless, she still stood by her ambitions and beliefs to make the world a better place. Linking back to why she is notable, this quote shows her devotion to fighting against unjust laws or actions in her nation. Not only that, but it shows that she is not afraid of death, because she knows that she has contributed to society, and has nothing else to lose. This is what makes her a true notable. Many people have the strength or persuasiveness to change the world, but it is their resilience that makes a difference in their life. You don’t have to be much different to anyone, or have to be exceptionally good at something – you just have to have the daring to do what you feel is right, something that was utilized perfectly by Harriet Tubman. 

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I chose this notable person because I felt that her contributions to mankind were absolutely necessary and changed the world for the better. Slavery, as we know, was legalized in America for an extremely long time, when it should have ended quickly. I think that the measures she took to do what she believed in made her the perfect person to research, and her interesting life, which was full of hardships, is full of information and topics to delve deeper into. When I first looked for a notable person at the beginning of this project, I wanted to find someone that was not overly famous or well known, but still contributed to our society equally or nearly as equally as other more well-known notables. When I stumbled across Harriet, I knew she was the right pick. Her life was full of challenges she needed to face, and her motivation to abolish slavery against her people was inspiring. Harriet is the perfect notable for this project, and has contributed hugely to the end of slavery and women’s suffrage. 

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Harriet Tubman and other notables are people who have strong personalities and a stubborn mind. Obviously, this is why they achieve so much, but everyone, no matter what race or gender, share at least some of these characteristics of a notable person. There is no doubt that in some point in your life, you have been courageous in making a scary decision, or resilient in recovering from something that has tried to stop you. In my life, I have made decisions that used characteristics that resemble that of Harriet Tubman. When I was younger, I attended Knox and enjoyed my life there. But when I reached the end of my second year, I decided to participate in the Sydney Grammar placement test, not wanting to join, but to challenge myself. Surprisingly, I did well, and I was faced with a horrible decision – to leave the school I loved, or to move to a school with so many more opportunities. Of course, I decided to leave, taking the road that I thought would be best for me, and that moment has never been regretted. This action resembles a moment in Harriet’s life, where she decided to leave in order to fight against slavery. She knew that escaping would be dangerous, but in her heart, she wanted to be free. Similarly, I knew that staying in my old school would have no risks, but in the end, I decided to leave, because I wanted to take a risk and open up more of my future. 

Another situation in my life where I had to use similar traits to Harriet Tubman and other Notables is when I first caught public transport alone. It was a late winter’s night, and it was already slightly dark. I needed to get to Redfern from my local station. It might sound simple, but up to that day, I had always travelled with my friends and family. I wasn’t sure whether I knew when to get off, but I did it in the end. It took much bravery, and I had been extremely anxious, constantly thinking, “What if I get lost?” It took a stubborn mind, not giving in to my fears despite all my worries. This is similar to many points in Harriet's life where she had to stand against her fears, like when she was to lead the raid at Combahee River, soon to become the first woman to lead an armed assault, and when she took in recently-freed slaves to safety, even though she was poor and struggled to feed herself. As you can see, we all share similar traits to notable people, but we just have a weaker aspiration to do what we know, in our hearts, is right. 

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Although Harriet and her character traits played a huge part to her success and the changes she has made to society, but luck also contributed to her achievements, both positively and negatively. As mentioned before, Harriet’s life changed forever on an errand to a neighborhood store. There, as she walked past the doorway of a building, a slave overseer threw a two-pound metal weight at a fugitive slave. Unfortunately, he missed, and the weight struck Tubman in the head. This caused her to experience sleeping spells, also known as Narcolepsy. This of course, was a horrible and unlucky moment in her life, but it was also the reason she became so devout to God. In one of these ‘dreams,’ she found herself flying in the sky, and below, she saw the road to the liberation of her people. This was a pivotal moment in her life and the steps to freedom, and would not have happened if not for those sleeping spells. In this way, you could argue that, although Narcolepsy has horrible effects on people, Harriet, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, was a beneficial to the progression of rights to enslaved black Americans. Of course, there were many other times in Harriet Tubman’s life that were influenced by luck. She was fortunate to have not been spotted while helping fugitive slaves, freeing her family and friends from the Maryland Plantation, and bringing other slaves further North. She was also lucky to have discovered the Underground Railroad, and earned her veteran's war pension towards the end of her life. Throughout all of her daring missions and adventures, Harriet could not have pulled off what she has done without the assistance of luck on her side. 

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In conclusion, Harriet Tubman truly changed the way people viewed slavery in America and helped bring together thousands of people in order to improve the rights of African-American citizens and promote woman’s suffrage. She is a person of daring, and one that will stand by what they think is best for their society no matter what they are threatened with. This is exactly what Harriet did. Although she knew that returning to the slave plantations would be dangerous, she could not let the horrors that were being directed against her people go by without protest. Her characteristics are what make her truly notable, being a courageous and loyal to her opposition against the enslavement of people in her country. Throughout her life, she has put herself in multiple situations where she has had to face some sort of predicament of hurdle, and she has done so willingly, if it accommodated her beliefs. She has consciously sacrificed what could have been a calm and laid-back lifestyle in order to help others, and that, in short, is what makes Harriet Tubman a notable person.