OPINION:
Christmas. Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Araminta Ross.
The exact date of birth of Araminta, who was born in Dorchester County, Maryland, remains a debate, but there’s no doubt that her parents were slaves when Araminta was born; ergo she was a slave, too.
She had several nicknames, including “Minty,” “Conductor” and “Moses.”
She also was called a “runaway,” and gave a broader and deeper meaning to the Founding Fathers’ understanding of what it meant to have faith, freedom and liberty.
It’s practically impossible to count the times she looked northward and aided others in getting there literally and figuratively, and it’s no myth that the North Star was hers and their guiding light, as she and they often traveled under the cover night.
So, on Christmas Eve 1854, she again trekked from Philadelphia, where she was safe — relatively speaking, of course — to Maryland, where her parents and three brothers were enslaved. Her brothers knew she was on her way, because she had sent word via the agents and conductors of the Underground Railroad.
Some of them were people of faith, including Quakers. Some were people of other faiths, and some simply could not be trusted.
HarrietTubmanBiography.com explains why Araminta could even risk herself, saying she “used disguises and various ruses to affect some of her escapes. Dressed as a man, an old woman, and even as a middle-class free black in silk dresses, she remained undetected by those who might enslave her again. She carried a revolver both as protection from slave catchers and to urge on freedom seekers too weary to move along. She often varied her route; some paths to freedom were by water, others overland through dangerous slaveholding territory.”
Araminta “had a trustworthy network of safe houses, from Dorchester County, Maryland, through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and Canada, where brave black and white sympathizers risked their own lives to help hide freedom seekers.
On Christmas day, 1854, she brought away her three brothers, Ben, Henry, and Robert; two years later she brought away her parents, who were at risk of arrest for aiding other runaway slaves.”
Araminta also rescued other relatives, including her parents, whom she led to Canada.
Her last rescue mission was in December 1860, and she died in 1913 in Auburn, New York, where she had bought property.
Araminta, aka Harriet Tubman, knew God’s word and, like Moses, set her people free. She took America’s Founders at their words, too.
Araminta didn’t let “climate change” or global politics stand in her way, and she didn’t let the shackles of victimization hold her back.
She rode the rails of freedom and the angels sang.
Learn her truly joyous story.
Merry Christmas!
⦁ Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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