Another View was recently on the road again! The crew traveled to Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, for a live show that explored the life and legacy of Civil War-era freedom fighter Harriet Tubman. Host Barbara Hamm Lee welcomed a panel of guests that included Deanna Mitchell, superintendent at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Church Creek, Maryland; Joseph Rogers, manager of partnerships & community engagement for the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, in Richmond, Virginia; and Historian Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander.

The broadcast provided a short history lesson about Tubman’s life and work ahead of the premiere of a PBS documentary about her that will air on WHRO TV on Tuesday, Oct. 4.

Tubman’s childhood was difficult as she grew up enslaved on a plantation. Deanna Mitchell noted that even as a little girl she was required to take on duties that adults would normally do. She recounted one story from historical research when Tubman had been loaned out to another slave owner and forced to care for a baby despite that fact that she was only 5 or 6 years old herself. “She was told to keep the baby quiet or you will be dealt with,” Mitchell explained. “Every time the baby cried Harriet was whipped, usually around the neck.” The same punishment was used if she placed table settings incorrectly or if dust was found in the house.

Tubman came to seek jobs outdoors as she felt she was better suited to this type of labor rather than domestic help, Mitchell said.

Historian Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander noted that abuse of enslaved children was rampant during this era. “This kind of child abuse was not usual,” she explained, recounting tales of children being sold, sex trafficked, and beaten or killed.

One incident that occurred when Tubman was 12 or 13 years old could have been an early influence on her decision later in life to help others escape their enslavement. She had been sent to a local market to buy goods when a young boy being chased by his overseer raced through the store. The overseer grabbed a two-pound weight to strike him, but Tubman stepped in the way and took the blow instead. Though she was injured and bleeding from the head, she was soon forced to return to working in the fields.

Newby-Alexander explained that Tubman married a freed black man in 1844, but four years later decided to leave to pursue the freedom of her family and others. Her husband would have been forced to sacrifice his property and his social standing, so he refused to go with her. Her two brothers did leave with her, but turned around out of fear. Tubman would later make it a practice to carry a gun, and she refused to let escapees turn back.

“If they went back, they could potentially be tortured to tell who allowed them to escape,” Newby-Alexander said.

Historians disagree on the number of slaves Tubman helped rescue, but it is thought that she returned to Maryland between 13 and 19 times and helped 300-1000 people to find freedom.

At one point, Tubman became a spy for the Union army. Though she could not read or write, she would memorize messages to report back.

She also had ties to Fort Monroe, which had become a safe haven for freedom seekers during the war.

“There were networks throughout the area and Virginia that enslaved people used to communicate where they needed to go,” Joseph Rogers told the audience. “People knew to come to freedom’s fortress at Fort Monroe, so that became one of the easiest places for people to rally.”

Tubman served in the role of Matron—or head of the nurses— at the hospital at Fort Monroe. At that point, the war had ended and the town of Hampton had been burned down, Newby-Alexander explained. It was a time of rebuilding, and Tubman treated soldiers at the institution that official records call “the colored hospital” but has locally come to be known as the contraband hospital. Western medicine was very primitive during this time.

“She knew home remedies her mother taught her that were passed down generationally,” Newby-Alexander explained. “They were light years ahead of European medicine. She helped the colored hospital really rise in terms of their medical care.”

Barbara Hamm Lee and the panel of guests encouraged listeners to take time to learn about important historical figures like Tubman. One way to do this locally, is to visit Fort Monroe.

“Our new mission is to tell these stories,” explained Rogers. “That’s what we do at Fort Monroe. You get to walk in the spaces of the people that we talked about today. You get to sit underneath the historic trees that they would have seen when they would have been here. You get to see the walls that they built that became Freedom’s Fortress.”

The PBS documentary, Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom, will further dive into Tubman’s legacy as an Underground Railroad conductor, a Civil War scout and a spy.

“We’re talking about a woman who came from very meager beginnings and became a giant,” Newby-Alexander said. “She was only 5 feet tall but she was a giant in all of her actions. She took what she was doing to try to seek freedom very seriously. She developed trades that really made her the woman that she was into her late 90s when she passed. We could not be commemorating and honoring a more special person in our history.”

Watch the Full Broadcast:

Watch Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom on WHRO TV on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 10 p.m.

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