Harriet Tubman, Spiritual Heroine
The Dreams, Premonitions and Visions that Shaped Her Life
Harriet Tubman was born Araminta (Minty) Ross in Maryland, somewhere between 1819 and 1821, a slave owned by the Brodess family. She changed her name to Harriet (her mother's name) while still a youth. Rather than be crushed by the constant physical and sexual abuse that African slaves had to endure on a daily basis, her experiences strengthened and helped her to develop an almost unnatural courage worthy of the most battle-hardened men and a faith that guided every moment of her life.
Harriet most probably came from Ashanti stock originating from Ghana in West Africa, a matrilineal society and a proud people who successfully resisted colonialization until 1900, when they were annexed as a British Protectorate. Ashanti shamans were accustomed to spiritual travel and dream tracking, and there is no doubt that Harriet, though born in the United States, carried this powerful spiritual tool still fresh in her genes.
Trauma makes Harriet a Spiritual Heroine
When Harriet was about 12, she stepped in the path of a white owner who had hurled a two pound lead weight at a fleeing slave. It hit her in the forehead and split open her skull. Miraculously, she survived the trauma, though she was to suffer from severe headaches and unexpected sleeping fits for the rest of her life, during which she often had visions, premonitions and dreams that established her as a strong psychic force to be reckoned with. Harriet Tubman eventually became a spiritual shamanic symbol for her people, and during her days with the Underground Railroad, was known by the name of Moses.
The Underground Railroad
In 1849, following the demise of her owner Brodess whose death she regretfully prayed for the week before, and fearing to be sold to the South, she planned her escape to freedom. However, her husband John Tubman, a free man, refused to join her. She fled and eluded capture, crossing into the slave-free state of Pennsylvania. There she met William Still, a black stationmaster in Philadelphia, with whose help she brought some 300 slaves to freedom in the town of St-Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Escaping to Canada was no picnic for runaway slaves. Harriet Tubman carried a pistol and told her charges that there was no turning back -- it was either freedom or death. Harriet’s almost supernatural ability to elude slave hunters and her powerful spiritual presence, strengthened by her songs and her great storytelling ability, sustained the slaves who marched, ran, swam and hid their way to Canada. She would often have dreams in which she spiritually surveyed the landscapes that she would later cross physically in exact detail.
During one particular trek, she suddenly collapsed and fell into trance-like sleep and dreamt that there was great danger ahead if she followed her chosen path. When she awoke, she ordered the refugees to cross a nearby river that turned out to have shallows, never rising above their necks, thus removing their scent from the trail. Harriet later discovered that had she followed her original plan, they would have met a posse that was awaiting them.
John Brown and the Dream of Death
In 1858, a few days before she met the abolitionist John Brown in St-Catharines, she had a dream of a white-bearded man and two young men whose heads were struck by an angry mob. Brown had come to recruit her to carry out a planned raid of Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia for its cache of weapons. Although she agreed with Brown's desire to start a slave rebellion, her dream nevertheless haunted her. She was in New York the night of October 17, 1859 when he and his small army easily overpowered the lone sentry, but then holed themselves in the arsenal and were in turn overpowered by the U.S. Marines. Two of his sons were killed during the shootout.
Harriet Tubman felt her heart fluttering that very night and told her hostess that Captain Brown was in trouble. John Brown's dream of setting in motion the abolition of slavery through violent action became true a year later, when the Civil War broke out, but at the cost of his life and that of his two sons. Charged with treason, he rode his own coffin to his public hanging on December 2, 1859, in Charles Town, West Virginia. He was considered a martyr for many in the North.
Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation
Harriet would take part in the war as a Union spy, scout, nurse and even as a soldier against the Confederate army. Impatient with President Abraham LIncoln's dithering with emancipation of the slaves, she told him that God would not allow him to defeat the South until he did the right thing.
She had had a vision of emancipation as early as 1861, telling so to black abolitionist Henry Garrett, who believed only his grandchildren would see it. She disagreed, stating it would come soon, in their lifetime. "My people are free, my people are free!" she declared.The Emancipation Proclamation came into effect on January 1, 1863, freeing some 4 million slaves.
Death of a Spiritual Heroine
Although Harriet Tubman's vision came true, she also experienced firsthand the uphill battle that former slaves and black people would still have to suffer. She was beaten and had her arm and several ribs broken on a train she was refused boarding when she returned home after the war. She struggled with poverty for the rest of her life and did not receive an army pension until 1899, after much lobbying.
Harriet Tubman died of pneumonia in 1913 and was buried with military honors. She had once said, "Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Remember, you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." She was indeed both the dreamer and the dream.
Sources
Moss, Robert, The Secret History of Dreaming, New World Library, Novato, CA, 2009.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/johnbrown/brownaccount.html (The Life and Trial of John Brown)
Harriet Tubman
|
What do you think about this article?
More in History
Latest Articles