Tubman: Moses of Her People Term Paper

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Tubman said: "Lord, if you ain't never going to change dat man's heart, kill him, Lord, and take him out of de way, so he won't do no more mischief.' Next ting I heard ole master was dead; and he died just as he had lived, a wicked, bad man. Oh, den it 'peared like I would give de world full of silver and gold, if I had it, to bring dat pore soul back, I would give myself; I would give eberyting! But he was gone, I couldn't pray for him no more.'"

Time and time again, Bradford's language about other "Negros" such as a man named Joe, whom Bradford describes as "gentle" and a "valuable piece of property," as well as the friendship she evidences for other abolitionists and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, reveals her ideological bias as a well-meaning Northerner not without racial prejudices. The time the book was authored, around that of Reconstruction, is one reason that Bradford, with an eye upon her reader's sensibilities, may make such statements that she is: "quite willing to acknowledge that she [Harriet Tubman] was almost an anomaly among her people, but I have known many of her family, and so far as I can judge they all seem to be peculiarly intelligent, upright and religious people, and to have a strong feeling of family affection. There may be many among the colored race like them; certainly all should not be judged by the idle, miserable darkies who have swarmed about Washington and other cities since the War."

The book thus is also a kind of apology as well as a work of praise for African-Americans.

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There also seems to be the suggestion that Bradford wanted to write a kind of Uncle Tom's Cabin Part II, given that she notes in her introduction that it was Stowe who originally was supposed to write Tubman's story, and like the fictional melodrama, there are many exciting tales of Harriet Tubman's physical strength, her ferrying African-Americans across lakes and rivers, and at one point rescuing a man from hanging. There are also many letters from others designed to substantiate the points Bradford makes, but little historical detail about the exact mechanisms of transport, stealth, and planning in escape, which would be of more interest to a modern reader. The book is marred by Bradford's intention of justifying Tubman's saintliness and her eye upon the commercial, white readership that wanted to learn about Tubman's daring missions like an adventure story.

However, this remains an important book, not simply for its contents, which are likely to be found, in improved fashion, in newer books by less ideologically biased writers. What is important is that it shows how Tubman was perceived near the end of her life. It also provides clues at to the failure of Reconstruction, gives a partial explanation of why apparently well-meaning and respectful and respectable whites like Bradford failed to fight hard for African-American rights in the ensuing decades after the Civil War. All people were equal, but some were judged more equal than others......

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