General Tubman, a Secret Military Weapon
May 23, 2018 8:10 PM Subscribe
why hasn't this been made into an action movie yet?
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:07 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:07 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Harriet Tubman, Great Badass of History
This is a great example of how women fighting gets erased from military history. Her spy work made the Combahee River raid successful, and she recruited women to the fighting. And it didn't make it into official records because her heroism made the guys look bad?
Imagine the word going out in secret to be ready to join a covert army operation and so many slaves showing up ready to fight. Amazing. I'm clueless about the civil war, so it's also striking to me how much this story was and remains a kind of primal nightmare of white racists and slaveowners: black people were in revolt, stealing plantation property, burning it down. Isn't that the fear echoed in the bullshit about dangerous black men and fear of rioting if more than two black people are together in public? The oppression of black people must close off any opportunity of uprising. It has happened. It could happen again. (To be clear, I do not support this bullshit racist logic.)
I also think about the danger Tubman personally faced traveling repeatedly from Canada into the South to help people escape. She was too much of a badass to live in comfort and safety when others needed help. She is a reminder: every person matters. Every person.
posted by medusa at 9:57 PM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]
This is a great example of how women fighting gets erased from military history. Her spy work made the Combahee River raid successful, and she recruited women to the fighting. And it didn't make it into official records because her heroism made the guys look bad?
Imagine the word going out in secret to be ready to join a covert army operation and so many slaves showing up ready to fight. Amazing. I'm clueless about the civil war, so it's also striking to me how much this story was and remains a kind of primal nightmare of white racists and slaveowners: black people were in revolt, stealing plantation property, burning it down. Isn't that the fear echoed in the bullshit about dangerous black men and fear of rioting if more than two black people are together in public? The oppression of black people must close off any opportunity of uprising. It has happened. It could happen again. (To be clear, I do not support this bullshit racist logic.)
I also think about the danger Tubman personally faced traveling repeatedly from Canada into the South to help people escape. She was too much of a badass to live in comfort and safety when others needed help. She is a reminder: every person matters. Every person.
posted by medusa at 9:57 PM on May 23, 2018 [10 favorites]
> Harriet Tubman, Great Badass of History
I can't help it; every time I read this line, I do so imagining it in the voice of either Adam Conover or Emily Axford...
But yeah, an unsung badass she was.
posted by mystyk at 4:50 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can't help it; every time I read this line, I do so imagining it in the voice of either Adam Conover or Emily Axford...
But yeah, an unsung badass she was.
posted by mystyk at 4:50 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
That bit about the $20 pension at the end makes me feel it all the more appropriate that Tubman be on the $20 bill. (But without that scoundrel Andrew Jackson. The very idea of that murderer sharing space with such a true American hero as Tubman, ugh.)
posted by BlueJae at 7:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by BlueJae at 7:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
Why do I feel that this has something to do with the final episode of Timeless? The timing seems a bit co-incidental (and I don't see a date on the article).
posted by sardonyx at 7:55 AM on May 24, 2018
posted by sardonyx at 7:55 AM on May 24, 2018
Original article was 12/14/2016 published in Civil War Times. This reprint in Military Times is dated February 7, so it's likely to be 2017.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:01 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:01 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
why hasn't this been made into an action movie yet?
It was fairly well covered in a Drunk History episode.
posted by e1c at 11:58 AM on May 24, 2018
It was fairly well covered in a Drunk History episode.
posted by e1c at 11:58 AM on May 24, 2018
To reiterate, because I never connected the dots when I was a kid, it wasn't just that she went back repeatedly to the South, from Canada or a free state, to rescue more of the enslaved.
She went repeatedly to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, risking recognition and recapture, to rescue dozens more. Cool as a cucumber, that woman, and unrecognized as the brilliant tactitian that she was (go in the winter, when few people are out at night to see you; leave on a Saturday, so that no fugitive slave notices can be published until Monday; communicate by song; et cetera, et cetera)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:13 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
She went repeatedly to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, risking recognition and recapture, to rescue dozens more. Cool as a cucumber, that woman, and unrecognized as the brilliant tactitian that she was (go in the winter, when few people are out at night to see you; leave on a Saturday, so that no fugitive slave notices can be published until Monday; communicate by song; et cetera, et cetera)
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:13 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Thanks for this post!
Tubman’s own health faltered during the summer of 1864...
Tubman's health was compromised early on: "The most severe injury occurred when Tubman was an adolescent. Sent to a dry-goods store for supplies, she encountered a slave who had left the fields without permission. The man’s overseer demanded that Tubman help restrain the runaway. When Harriet refused, the overseer threw a two-pound weight that struck her in the head. Tubman endured seizures, severe headaches and narcoleptic episodes for the rest of her life."
Despite these medical conditions, she made some 19 trips to save people, including members of her family, including her own seventy-something parents.
One of my favorite Tubman anecdotes: "By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men."
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:17 PM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Tubman’s own health faltered during the summer of 1864...
Tubman's health was compromised early on: "The most severe injury occurred when Tubman was an adolescent. Sent to a dry-goods store for supplies, she encountered a slave who had left the fields without permission. The man’s overseer demanded that Tubman help restrain the runaway. When Harriet refused, the overseer threw a two-pound weight that struck her in the head. Tubman endured seizures, severe headaches and narcoleptic episodes for the rest of her life."
Despite these medical conditions, she made some 19 trips to save people, including members of her family, including her own seventy-something parents.
One of my favorite Tubman anecdotes: "By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men."
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:17 PM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
It is really good to hear about this part of our history. Such bravery.
posted by brambleboy at 7:04 PM on May 24, 2018
posted by brambleboy at 7:04 PM on May 24, 2018
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too exciting?
posted by eustatic at 9:03 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]