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Harriet Tubmanand theUnderground RailroadLEVELEDLEVELEDREADERBOOK S AHarriet Tubmanand the Underground RailroadA Reading A–Z Level S Leveled BookWord Count: 1,260Written by Terr y Miller ShannonIllustrated by Tad ButlerVisit www.readinga-z.comfor thousands of books and materials.www.readinga-z.com

Harriet TubmanPhoto Credits:Front cover: courtesy of Library of Congress, National American Woman SuffrageAssociation Collection, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ppmsca-0290];title page: Mark Bialek/AP Images; page 17: Randy Duchaine/Alamyand theUnderground RailroadWritten by Terry Miller ShannonIllustrated by Tad Butlerwww.readinga-z.comHarriet Tubman and the Underground RailroadLevel S Leveled Book Learning A–ZWritten by Terry Miller ShannonIllustrated by Tad ButlerAll rights reserved.www.readinga-z.comCorrelationLEVEL SFountas & PinnellReading RecoveryDRAO3434

Table of ContentsBorn a Slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Dreams of Escape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Leading Others to Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12How She Did It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15The End of Slavery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Slaves were sold at humiliating auctions.Born a SlaveLong before Harriet Tubman was born, hergreat-grandmother was taken from her homein Africa. The kidnappers packed Harriet’sgreat-grandmother into a small wooden shipwith hundreds of other Africans and sent herto the United States. Once she arrived, shewas sold to the owner of a large farm calleda plantation. She became a slave.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level S34

Harriet’s great-grandmother was thehuman property of a man she called hermaster. All of her children and grandchildrenwere slaves, too. The slaves were forced todo hard labor and were punished cruelly attimes. They received no pay, only meagerfood and housing that was no better than thatof farm animals. Many of them were nevertaught to read and write. Slaves had nofreedom to go where they wanted, andsometimes they were not allowed to marryor raise their own children. Members ofslave families could also be sold to differentmasters, breaking up the family.Harriet TubmanHarriet was born as a slave around 1820.Like all slave children, she could not run andplay; she worked all the time. Harriet was ahard worker, but when she did not obey herowner, she was whipped cruelly. When shesaw her owner sell two of her sisters, Harrietwas terrified that she would also be sold andhave to leave her family.Harriet’s entire family was forced to work without pay.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level S56

Dreams of EscapeWhen she was a young girl, Harriet triedto help an escaping slave. The slave’s masterthrew a metal weight at her, and it struckher in the head. Harriet almost died from thewound on her forehead. For the rest of herlife, she had headaches and sleeping spellsbecause of her injury.Harriet’s life was harsh, but she haddreams. People called abolitionists, whowere against slavery, had begun to speak outagainst the injustice of owning other humanbeings. Some abolitionists helped slavesescape to northern states or to Canada, whereslavery was illegal. Harriet dreamed of livingas a free woman in the North.Slaves went to great lengths to escape tofreedom. Some shipped themselves north inboxes. One man, Henry “Box” Brown, nearlydied during his escape when the box he wasin was turned upside down for hours. Henrymade it to Philadelphia, and freedom, aftertwenty-six hours in his box.The weight left Harriet with a large scar on her head.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level SHenry “Box” Brown78

When Harriet started planning her ownescape, she wanted her husband, a free slave,to join her. He refused, mocking her forwanting to leave, and threatened to report herto her master. But Harriet was determined tobecome a free woman.One day, Harriet’s owner died. Harrietknew the slaves would be sold; it was time togo. Harriet and two of her brothers ran away,but soon after they left, the brothers gave up,forcing Harriet to return with them.The Crafts were one of many families that used clever disguisesto escape.One light-skinned slave woman, EllenCraft, disguised herself as a white manaccompanied by a slave. The slave wasactually her husband, William Craft. TheCrafts traveled by train and steamship, andreached Philadelphia on December 25, 1848.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level SIf Harriet had continued, her brothers may have been torturedinto revealing where she was going.910

Abolitionists’ help allowed Harriet to escape north.Two nights later, Harriet escaped alone.She went to the home of an abolitionistwoman who had offered help. The womanfed Harriet and let her sleep, and thenshe directed Harriet to the next safe place.When Harriet reached that house, the peoplethere directed Harriet to her next stop. Thissecret network of safe homes was called theUnderground Railroad.To escape, Harriet walked 100 miles(160 km), alone, through unknown land.She traveled at night and hid during theday. Finally, she arrived at the border ofPennsylvania, a state where slavery wasillegal. Harriet was free!Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level S11Even in the north, African-Americans were paid little.Leading Others to FreedomWhen Harriet reached freedom, she wasoverjoyed. “There was such a glory overeverything,” she said when she rememberedthat day. “The sun come like gold throughthe trees.”Harriet went to work. She cooked, washeddishes, and cleaned people’s houses. Nowthat she was free, people actually paid her towork for them. But Harriet was not contentto sit back and enjoy her freedom—she savedthe money she earned so that she could helpfree others.12

Harriet made nineteen perilous tripsback to the South, ignoring her own dangerin order to become a conductor of theUnderground Railroad. She guided escapingslaves from one safe resting place to another.A “station” on the Underground Railroad wasusually an abolitionist’s home, or sometimesit was a church or another safe resting place.Some of the “stations” had secret roomsto hide the escaping slaves. Sometimes theslaves rode from place to place hidden underfalse bottoms in conductor’s carts.In 1850, the United States passed theFugitive Slave Act, which made it a law thatthe Northern states had to return any escapedslaves to their owners. Now Harriet had toconduct her passengers all the way to Canadato find freedom.Do You Know?People working in the UndergroundRailroad used code words: Freight meant escaping slaves. Stations were safe houses orother places to stay. Conductors were the peoplehelping the slaves escape. Lines were the routes northto freedom.Harriet guided escaping slaves to safe houses.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level SAfter the Fugitive Slave Act, Canada was the closest free place.1314

If Harriet saw people she thought wereslave hunters, she’d turn and go south, tomake it look as though she was not tryingto escape. She gave crying babies a drug thathelped them sleep quietly. If the escapingslaves wanted to turn back, she forced themto keep moving north to freedom. She boastedthat she never lost a passenger.Harriet often disguised herself as a man.How She Did ItMany called Harriet a “master of disguise.”Sometimes she dressed as an old woman, andsometimes she disguised herself as a man. Itis said that one day, she met one of her formerowners, and he didn’t recognize her!Harriet was clever in other ways. Shehired men to rip down wanted posters thatdescribed runaway slaves. Runaway notices,which were printed in the newspaper, weren’tput in newspapers on weekends—they hadto wait until Monday morning. Harriet beganescapes on Saturday nights in order to havea head start.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level S15Slave owners were furious, and theyoffered a reward for Harriet’s capture, dead oralive. The reward was 40,000—an enormousamount of money for those days. One day,Harriet overheard a man reading her ownwanted poster,which describedHarriet as not beingable to read. Sheimmediately pulledout a book andpretended to readit, and the man leftwithout giving hera second look.Even with the reward,no one turned Harriet in.16

The End of SlaveryOn April 12, 1861, the Civil War began.The North and South fought each other overthe right to own slaves. During the war,Harriet worked as a nurse for the North’sUnion Army. She was also a spy, scouting outthe Southern army’s weapon warehouses, andshe continued to travel into the South to leadslaves north.This is one of many memorials honoring Harriet Tubman.Harriet helped many of her own relativesout of the South. Thanks to Harriet, six ofher ten brothers and sisters escaped. On onedifficult journey, she brought her elderlyparents north to Canada.Harriet led about three hundred slavesnorth to freedom. Nothing was moreimportant to her than helping others becomefree. One famous abolitionist, John Brown,called Harriet Tubman “one of the bravestpersons on this continent.” People calledHarriet the “Moses of her people,” becauselike Moses of the Bible, she led her peopleto freedom.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level S17Harriet ledUnion soldiersto arms andammunitionstores.Do You Know?How many slaves escaped to freedom via theUnderground Railroad? No one knows.While it’s true that many reached the North andbecame free, some did not. Many escaping slaveswere discovered, captured, and returned to theirmasters. Others died while trying to flee. The exactnumber of Underground Railroad successes isunknown because secrecy was so terribly important.18

When the Civil War ended in 1865, slaverybecame illegal in the United States. Harrietremarried and lived in Auburn, New York.She sold vegetables door-to-door. Harriet wasvery poor, yet she turned her own house intoa home for needy freed people. She workedfor aid and education for freed slaves. Harrietalso fought for the right of women to vote.Harriet Tubman died March 10, 1913. Shedevoted her long life to freedom. She willalways be remembered as a true hero.Glossaryabolitionists (n.) people who fought to makeslavery illegal (p. 8)meager (adj.)very little (p. 5)mocking (v.)making fun of by imitating (p. 10)perilous (adj.)filled with danger (p. 13)plantation (n.)a large farm owned by a wealthyperson or family where the workis done by others (p. 4)UndergroundRailroad (n.)the system of houses and othersafe places that provided a wayfor slaves to escape north tofreedom (p. 11)Indexabolitionists, 8, 11, 13, 17Civil War, 18, 19Ellen and William Craft, 9Fugitive Slave Act, 14Henry “Box” Brown, 8master, 5, 7, 10, 18plantation, 4Underground Railroad, 11, 13, 14, 18The Harriet Tubman Home housed elderly freed slaves.Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Level S1920

escape, she wanted her husband, a free slave, to join her. He refused, mocking her for wanting to leave, and threatened to report her to her master. But Harriet was determined to become a free woman. One day, Harriet’s owner died. Harriet knew the slaves would be sold; it