Merlyn's Musings~: A Tale of a True Goddess, Amazon & Heroine

For my final project for the “Goddesses, Amazons & Heroines” in my online course at Grey School of Wizardy, I am choosing a local and national hero.

Harriet Tubman

I believe that she WAS all of these things when you hear her story.

She was born Araminta Harriet Ross 1820- and lived till 1913. Her life’s events wove in an out of American history during a very progressive and tumultuous time.

She was born a slave in Maryland and was hired out and beaten by those masters. Her family was separated from each other by slavery.

Once she was hit in the head with a heavy metal weight. She was left bleeding and unconscious for 2 days without medical care and the resulting head wound gave her seizures, headaches and powerful spiritual visions for years. She believed that the visions came from God.

She then escaped slavery and fled to Philadelphia but then was courageous enough to GO BACK and forth saving relatives, one by one. Imagine that. After escaping being raised in terrible, harsh environments, that she was brave enough to go back to it and try to rescue other people from it!

She eventually married a free man, and she went by her middle name “Harriet”. He was “manumitted” and given his freedom, but she was still a slave. This meant that any children born to them would be SLAVES because their mother still was! Many called her “Moses” for she brought so many out of slavery. She was a “wanted” woman.

In 1857 it was the hay day of the Erie Canal here locally. Much travel was done on the canal and she used a combination of boats, walking and carriages to rescue as many people as she could. After the “Fugitive Slave Law” was enacted, she took people as far away as Canada.

When the Civil War broke out, Harriet then became a cook and nurse at first…
but then came to her true gifts as an ARMED SCOUT and SPY.

She was the first woman to be given this post to, and she lead 700 slaves out as an armed leader. This lady knew her calling, and it didn’t take long for her to be an important cog in the war.

She also was very involved in the Sufragette Movement in the late 1800’s.

Ladies....here is our "Sister Suffragette!"

"Votes for Women!!"

Harriet Tubman, had a house given to her in Auburn, NY by William Seward (at that time, he was Senator of NYS, later he became Secretary of State.

And an aside, The Seward House is also in Auburn, and he was friends with Abraham Lincoln who also spent time in Auburn.) While it was “against the law” at the time, Seward sold to Tubman that house for a modest sum”. Great leaders of our time, recognized this woman as an equal even tho’ all odds were against her. She was awarded a monthly pension by Congress!

Harriet Tubman, should’ve by all the impediments given her in life (being a poor black female born in slavery and abused and physically impaired by it) could’ve remained in that way of life, being beaten down by it.

Instead, she took up arms and stealth and by wits and courage became a most ferocious protector and deliverer of those who were bound by it. She was punished for being who she was. She balked the system. She fought with what she had. She was rewarded in so many ways.

I honor Harriet Tubman as one of the truly documented “Goddess, Amazon & Heroine” of our land and folklore.

As a musician and storycologist, I love bringing stories forward, with either tale or music. Melodies that I have in my repertoire, "Suwannee River", "Poor Wayfaring Stranger", "Bring 'lil' water, Sylvie", "Amazing Grace" and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" all support this tale.

It's a tale that needs to be sung....and I like to sing.
Her life was quite a song.