Harriet Tubman Brought to Life: Facial Re-creation & History of the Abolitionist & Union Spy

hello everyone and welcome back to royalty now today we'll be talking about one of the bravest women in American history Harriet Tubman known as the Moses of her people she escaped slavery and made it her life's mission to help rescue others we'll also bring her back to life with some Recreations at the end of the video so let's go ahead and get started [Music] around 1820 Harriet Tubman was born araminta Ross on a plantation in Dorchester County Maryland her father Ben Ross was a skilled woodworker and her mother Harriet green also called by the nickname RIT were both enslaved on separate plantations after getting married in 1808 they would have nine children together including araminta who they called minty all nine children grew up together on the same Plantation which tragically wasn't normal for enslaved families but things would change in 1825 when Edward Brodus who was the stepson of their Plantation owner claimed to legally own RIT and her children he would take them away to his own Plantation separating them from their father for the first time not long after he sold three of Harriet's sisters Lina Mariah and Soph Harriet would never see them again Harriet's mother would forever have nightmares about this and when Edward came with a traitor to sell her youngest son Moses Rich was determined not to let it happen again she hid Moses in her home and she bravely confronted Edward saying you are after my son and the first man that comes into my house I will split his head open it may have been the anger in her voice or maybe just the utter despair but Edward Brodus believed her and he abandoned the sale this moment changed young Harriet's life forever she had seen firsthand that resistance could work and it may have lit the rebellious spark in her heart [Music] now from a very early age Harriet had had to learn to care for her baby brothers when her mother was away which was most of the time and she really became their sole caregiver but when Edward Broadus noticed how motherly she was with her siblings he hired a five-year-old Harriet out as a nurse maid just a child herself she was required to fully care for a baby later in her life Harriet recalled having to stay awake all night to rock the cradle every time the baby cried Harriet would be whipped around the neck on one particular night she was lashed five times before breakfast for years she endured this and later describes this period as a time of severe neglect with the scars on her neck to prove it when she was finally considered strong enough to work in the fields she never looked back and later said that she much preferred the long hard days of physical work to the cruel and unfair Judgment of the women in the homes [Music] she began to become religious finding a strong faith in God and using it as a steadying force in her chaotic life even after these years of harsh punishment Harriet had not lost that spark of resistance when she was around 12 years old she was sent to the General Store one day to do some shopping but on her way there she caught sight of a man being chased and immediately knew that he was a runaway as his pursuers got closer Harriet purposely stood her ground getting in the way of an Irate overseer the overseer then grabbed a heavy weight from the store counter intending to hit the runaway but instead he hit Harriet directly in the head They Carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting I had no bed no place to lie down on at all and they laid me on the seat of the Loom and I stayed there all day and the next [Music] she would soon be sent back to the fields even though it would take her months to fully recover upset with her production her enslaver even tried to sell her during this time but nobody would buy her in the state that she was in after the severe head trauma sheve had frequent headaches and fits of narcolepsy she also had gained vivid dreams and hallucinations now being incredibly religious she began to interpret her Visions as signs from God Harriet would remain religious for the rest of her life and she would rely on her faith to get her through the tough times ahead the early 1840s Harriet's family had one Stroke of Luck her father Ben was set free his whole life Ben had been a skilled and diligent woodworker and in return his enslaver put in his will that at the age of 45 Ben would be given his freedom this Arrangement was called manumission and it was really common in Maryland at the time where about half of the black population was already free now Ben and his wife red were thought to be around the same age so when he turned 45 she hoped that she would be freed as well but as the months went by her hope turned into bitter disappointment the family saved enough to hire a lawyer to look into Ritz status just to make sure when the lawyer came back with his findings the family was shocked a former owner had also made Provisions for RIT to be freed at 45 and the provision extended to her children as well including Harriet there in slaver Edward Brodus in his cruelty and possibly because of Ritz Rebellion so long ago simply ignored the will even though they had a legal document stating that they should be free the family knew that suing him for Freedom would be a Herculean task there was nothing that could be done Harriet's mother and siblings were once again denied something that should have never been taken away in the first place their freedom it seems to be at this moment that Harriet decides she would not let herself live like this forever in 1844 Harriet married a free black man named John Tubman and this is when we see she changes her name from araminta Ross to how we know it as Harriet Tubman many historians believe that her changing her first name to Harriet may have been a tribute to her mother the woman who showed her it was possible for a slave to resist nevertheless for the next five years she remained at the plantation but then in 1849 Edward Brodus died and the likelihood that Harriet's family would be forcibly separated became extremely high Edward's Widow Eliza began to break up the estate to pay for Edward's debts and Harriet realized that it was now or never there was one of two things I had to write to Liberty or death if I could not have one I would have the other on September 17 1849 Harriet and her two brothers Ben and Henry made their astonishing bid for freedom but miles from the plantation when the weight of their actions had become real two brothers had second thoughts her brother Ben had just become a father and he realized he couldn't bring himself to leave his new family against every fiber of her being Harriet returned with her brothers showing an unfathomable amount of selflessness not long after her return she escaped once again but this time she did it alone over the course of the next three weeks she traveled the harrowing 90 miles to the Mason-Dixon line using contacts she had developed on the Underground Railroad hiding in friendly houses during the day and traveling through the night using the North Star to guide her finally she reached the free state of Pennsylvania when I found I had crossed that line I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person there was such a glory over everything the sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields and I felt like I was in heaven Harriet Tubman was now a free woman she made her way to Philadelphia and began to work odd jobs but it was during these days that she described herself as feeling like a Stranger in a Strange Land in the long days alone she realized that even though she was free she could only think of her mother brothers and sisters they should be there with her they should be free and she became determined to make it a reality in 1850 some of the most nefarious legislation in U.S history was passed the Fugitive Slave Act now there was already an existing version of this act passed in 1793 which allowed for local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners but this early act at least required proof of ownership and a jury trial many Northerners abhorrent to slavery simply ignored this law but this new version of the ACT denied the escapees the right to even a trial it effectively allowed legally free blacks in the north to be captured and enslaved in the south both fugitive slave Acts were met with extreme criticism from the north thankfully many men chose the side of good and refuted the institution of slavery fully and completely some people like John Brown and Levi Coffin felt like it was their mission from God to help enslaved people escape the hellish reality of the South it was men and women like these who were now helping expand the Underground Railroad the network of free people both black and white that were helping guide slaves to freedom was now growing dramatically more and more men and women chose to help enslaved people escape and not just to the northern states but all the way to Canada but the risks were now also greater the new Fugitive Slave Act had both raised the bounty on recovered fugitives and increased the punishment for those who aided them now due to the nature of what Harriet did during this part of her life and the fact that she never wrote anything down details of this time are sometimes unclear after nearly two years as a free woman saving money from odd jobs Harriet missed her husband so she decided to travel back south to Dorchester County for the first time since her Escape her original intention had been to convince her husband to move to Philadelphia with her but when she arrived she found that he had remarried and he insisted that he was happy with his new life obviously upset Harriet was hell-bent on making a scene but before she did she realized he wasn't worth it she was still considered a runaway and she refused to let herself be noticed she would instead hear the voices of a group of slaves that had been wanting to make their escape and since she already knew the way she agreed to become their guide this would become Harriet's first trip guiding a group of her people to Freedom over the next 11 years Harriet became a conductor on the Underground Railroad and then became an organizer and a leader [Music] she would go back at least 13 times first to save her sisters and her nieces and nephews then her brothers and finally her mother and father over the years Harriet would become a master at evading capture if she didn't guide families directly she would give them special instructions in order to help them survive the journey like leave on a Saturday since newspapers don't print runaway notices until Monday mornings and leave on the longest coldest nights of winter because it means people are more likely to stay inside their warm homes instead of being out on patrol another way that Harriet reportedly communicated her instructions was through song s were used in everyday life by enslaved people a tradition brought back Generations ago from Africa now sometimes they were just motivation a way to pass the long repetitive days in the fields and sometimes they were code although its origin is sometimes disputed with historians saying it was written much later folklore says that Harriet used a spiritual song called Follow The Drinking Gourd to Signal a potential Escape The Drinking Gourd itself was code for the constellation that we call the Big Dipper which points to the North Star this song actually contains some of the more explicit instructions of Escape [Music] there were many different songs that are now said to have been used but most of them referenced the Bible the promised land was code for Canada the River Jordan was the Ohio River and Moses became code for the woman that was leading them to Freedom but the life of a conductor was hard and dangerous Harriet was determined to guide families to freedom but she was also forced to make hard decisions just to keep them safe she would sometimes drug babies and children just to keep them from crying she also always carried a pistol and not just for personal protection any man or woman who lost their nerve who tried to turn back was a huge liability for the whole group it wasn't infrequent that Harriet would have to threaten to shoot someone from the group who was trying to defect in many cases Harriet would disguise herself often dressing as a man or an elderly woman like other conductors of the Underground Railroad but no matter how hard the journey Harriet always made it to the other side [Music] although the exact number of escapees she guided is unknown Harriet herself reported a modest 70 escapes whereas her biography estimated 300. proudly stated that she never lost a passenger Harriet would have undoubtedly continued to work for the Underground Railroad but in 1861 the civil war broke out and she saw a real chance for change It could only happen if the union won the war she joined a group of abolitionists in Philadelphia and volunteered in the union camps as a nurse and a cook once there Harriet became quickly known for her bravery While others were too scared to treat the soldiers that had contracted smallpox Harriet did so without hesitation when she didn't contract the disease rumors began to spread around the camp that she may actually be blessed by God when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all of the slaves still held in the South Harriet knew that she could do more for the war effort in early 1863 Harriet was allowed to lead a group of Scouts through marshlands in South Carolina her years as a conductor allowed the team to avoid detection and map out the entire area providing crucial Intel for the Union Army she was soon recruited by the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for a mission that she would never forget on June 2nd 1863 Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead a successful armed assault during the Civil War when her and 150 African-American soldiers began an attack on a collection of plantations on the kumbi river they burned much needed Confederate crops and rice Mills and the soldiers were able to tell anyone working on the plantation that they were now free when it was all said and done Tubman and her men had liberated approximately 800 enslaved people from the plantations many of the men liberated that day would join the Union Army and in 1865 the union won the Civil War after nearly 20 years of fighting for the freedom of her people Harriet was now able to see the day that all of them were free finally allowing herself to settle down Harriet would buy a small farm in Auburn New York and move her parents there to live with her she would soon fall in love and marry a man named Nelson Davis and the two would adopt a daughter named Gertie for the rest of Harriet's life she would remain on her farm with her family and continue being an activist for women's rights on March 10 1913 after a long life of service to others Harriet Tubman died surrounded by her loved ones unfathomably selfless Brave and cunning she Rose to the challenge of her time and Against All Odds she led her people to the promised land so let's talk briefly about Harriet's appearance and then bring her to life we're lucky enough to have a few photographs of Harriet one of which was just discovered a few years ago this Photograph was taken around 1868 when Harriet would have been in her early 40s she's wearing nice middle class clothing and looks every bit as strong and determined as what you'd imagine it's hard to tell but it does look a little bit like the head injury she suffered at the age of 12 affected her face you can see a slight lazy eye in her right eye and a downturned lip on the same side the same can be seen on images of Tubman as she aged as well I've used the 1868 photograph for my Recreation and since we don't have any images of Tubman as a young woman I've created a young version as well as then aged her up to match her older photographs so let's see Harriet Tubman brought to life now [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you all so much for watching and we'll see you all for the next video

Channel: Royalty Now Studios

Views: 422,746

Keywords: real face of, what historical figures would look like, true face of, true faces of, real faces of historical figures, true faces of historical figures, what historical figures would look like today, royalty now, roylaty now, Harriet tubman biography, harriet tubman song, abolition, civil war, history of slavery, slavery history, slavery documentary, harriet tubman documentary, black moses, black history month, black history songs, harriet tubman real face

Id: liywkkDrlEk

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023