Related ItemsAnalysis Worksheet: Harriet Tubman Warns "Kill the Snake Before It Kills You"
Harriet Tubman Warns "Kill the Snake Before It Kills You"
Who Freed the Slaves During the Civil War?
Harriet Tubman was among the best known conductors of the Underground Railroad, a network of enslaved people, free blacks, and white sympathizers that assisted thousands of runaway slaves escape north. During the Civil War, Tubman offered her services to the Union army, first as a nurse and cook, and later as an armed scout and spy. In the allegory below, Tubman warns that the Confederacy would never be defeated unless slavery was defeated first. Tubman could not read or write, but her words were written down by Lydia Maria Child, a white abolitionist and women’s rights activist from Massachusetts. Child met Tubman in a Union camp in Hampton, Virginia where both women volunteered helping “contraband” slaves.