Before she became the historic hero known as Harriet Tubman, Araminta Ross was born in early 1822 near Cambridge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Some 200 years later, she is celebrated as a global icon of freedom.
Amid harsh treatment, Tubman tried more than once to flee Dorchester County, the rural farming community where she, her parents — Harriet “Rit” Greene Ross and Ben Ross, Sr. —and eight siblings were enslaved.
In 1849, an opportunity arose.
