Harriet Tubman's family

Tubman escaped slavery and rescued approximately 70 enslaved people, including members of her family and friends.

Their lives came together when Mary Patti son Broadness, Rita's enslave, married Anthony Thompson.

After a short period in St. Catharines in Ontario, Canada, Tubman and her parents settled in the Auburn, New York area.

Tubman made 13 trips to Maryland to bring back her brothers, parents, other family members, friends, and others.

Their enslavers were the white Brodess, Pattison, Stewart, and Thompson families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

[1] Anthony Thompson married Mary Pattison Brodess, bringing enslaved people together from their families.

Around the time of Tubman's birth, there was a conflict in the family over a house in Bucktown that Anthony Thompson built for Edward when he reached 21.

[7] Around 1785 or 1787, Benjamin Ross was born in Dorchester County, Maryland, the property of wealthy landowner Anthony Thompson,[2][8] who married Mary Pattison in 1803.

[2] Ben was a lumberman who supervised enslaved people and brought down poplar, oak, and cypress trees; he then transported them to Baltimore, where they were used to build ships.

[7][9] In the late 1830s and early 1840s, Ben and Tubman both worked on digging canals for Lewis and John T. Stewart, who were shipbuilders.

[2] In the early 1840s, Ben was emancipated and received 10 acres of land following Anthony Thompson's death, as stipulated in his will.

He also owned Poplar Neck, an area in southern Caroline County where Thompson sent free laborers and enslaved people.

[2] He continued to work as a foreman and lumber estimator[9][10] by hiring himself out within the Eastern Shore for $5 (equivalent to $164 in 2023) a day.

[2][14] He was seen as a "primary agitator", such as with the escape of the Dover Eight, which led to Ben and Rit's trip north to avoid retribution.

[10] In 1803, Mary Pattison Brodess married Anthony Thompson, who had an enslaved man named Benjamin Ross.

[16] Initially, her enslaved parents and siblings lived in Ben Ross's cabin on the Anthony Thompson farm at Peters Neck in Dorchester County, Maryland, in what is now the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

[16] Edward Brodess decided not to honor the stipulation in Pattison's will that would have freed Rit and her children at the age of 45.

[16] Ben purchased his wife's freedom from Eliza Ann Brodess for $20 (equivalent to $654 in 2023) in 1854 or 1855, and the bill of sale was recorded on June 11, 1855, at the Dorchester County Court.

Rit was not manumitted because a law of Maryland did not permit enslaved people over age 45 to be set free.

They traveled at night to a train that took them to Wilmington, Delaware, where they waited for Harriet at the home of Thomas Garrett.

After a stop in Philadelphia to meet William Still, they headed north on a train to St. Catharines in Ontario, Canada, where Tubman had her headquarters and waited for freedom seekers.

When Tubman was away on Underground Railroad trips or during the American Civil War, friends looked after her parents.

A trader later wanted to buy her youngest brother, Moses, but Rit was able to resist being separated from her son.

[10] A conductor on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made 13 return trips over ten years to lead about 70 + people north, including her parents, siblings, and friends, to freedom.

In doing so, she took the risk of becoming enslaved again or lynched if she was caught;[6] escaping slavery was even more risky after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

The end of the letter states, "Tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer and when the good ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step on board."

[3] For ten years, during multiple attempts, Tubman tried to rescue her sister, Rachel, and her children, Angerine and Ben.

[33] Tubman established herself in Auburn, New York on land that she bought from William H. Seward in early 1859, and the house was a haven for family and friends.

She also helped out family members in need, like her nephew John Henry Stewart's surviving wife Eliza and three children.

[40] Under Harriet Tubman Davis, she filed for pension benefits provided for Civil War veterans' spouses.