Escape of Harriet's Three Brothers
In 1854, Harriet Tubman received news that Eliza Brodess planned to sell her brothers over the Christmas holiday. Harriet, who could not read or write, had a friend in Philadelphia write a letter to Jacob Jackson, a free black man who lived near her brothers in Dorchester County. Fearing authorities might read her letter, Harriet included a carefully coded message to Jackson to alert her brothers of her pending arrival: “tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer, and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step aboard.”
She arrived Christmas Eve at her parents’ cabin on Dr. Thompson’s plantation at Poplar Neck in Caroline County. Robert, Ben and Henry, and several other friends joined her during that night and the following morning. They hid in a nearby corncrib, where they could wait until dark and begin their journey north. Only their father knew of their presence, because they were afraid their mother, distraught that she might never see them again, might detain them. At nightfall on Christmas Day, Harriet safely led them on their journey towards freedom, traveling through Delaware, Philadelphia and across upstate New York to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
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