Harriet Tubman
Chapter One
Born into Bondage
AT THE TURN of the nineteenth century, the Eastern Shore of Maryland
was in many ways a world apart - the rich, rolling fields
semicircling Chesapeake Bay, abutting Delaware to the east and
grazing Pennsylvania to the north. Fields dappled with sun and lush
with grain were crisscrossed by dozens of waterways throughout the
peninsula, joining rivers flowing from marshes out to the beckoning
salt water. Waterfowl and wildlife were abundant, offering hunters
as rich a harvest as that gathered by those who cultivated the land.
The Eastern Shore was separated from its sister slave counties by
the oyster beds that spread underneath the water to Maryland's
other, western, shore, where the bustling ports of Annapolis and
Baltimore dominated the regional economy.
Beaver traders ... read full excerpt from Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom ebook
