Harriet Tubman free essay sample

Harriet Tubman In 1822 Minty Ross was born at Dorchester County, Maryland. She was black, which meant that her childhood was based on labor; she took care of children and worked at fields and hauled logs. When she was twenty-two, she married a free black man and changed her name to Harriet Tubman. And when her master died in 1849, she decided to escape and was successful at it. She then dedicated her life to save slaves and help and bless others. In 1850, Harriet saved at least thirty-eight slaves through underground railroads in a course of ten years. When she was forty years old she saved eight hundred slaves with the help of an army. During the civil war she served as a nurse and took care of soldiers for four years. After the civil war and until her death she took in people who were in need and cared for them for forty-eight years. The things she did to help others were great accomplishments but which one was her greatest? The problem of this question is how to measure accomplishment in order to decide which one was the greatest. You can measure accomplishment by risk, time, quantity, selflessness, and willingness. Considering all these categories, I believe that helping people in need was her greatest achievement. Before we compare all her accomplishments by each category, I want to rule out when she became a nurse and helped soldiers during the civil war. Although this accomplishment was great, it did not compare to all the other accomplishments. She helped soldiers for four years but compared to her all accomplishments, this was minuscule. If the average person was called to help others, they would do it and her accomplishment didn’t really affect people because if she wasn’t a nurse, other nurses would aid the soldiers. This accomplishment was not as significant as the other accomplishments and therefore, I won’t include it when we compare her accomplishments by categories. The first category, risk, was how much Tubman risked while doing something. When she conducted the underground railroads, she had the risk of getting caught. If she got caught, she would either become a slave or die because she helped slaves escape. When she helped free eight-hundred slaves, she also had the risk of being killed. However she had the help of an army and therefore she had little risk of being endangered. When she helped people in need, she had little to no risk because all she did was taking care of people. From this, you can tell that Harriet Tubman had the most risk when she conducted the underground railroads. The second category, time, was how much time was spent on her accomplishment. When she conducted the underground railroads, her first trip was in 1850 and her last trip was in 1860, which meant that she did this for ten years. When she rescued slaves with the help of an army, it lasted a day. And when she cared for those in need, she did it for forty-eight years until she died. As you can see, Harriet Tubman spent the most time taking care of needy people. The third category, quantity, was how many people Harriet Tubman blessed. When she conducted the railroads, she saved at least thirty-eight people, which included her family. When she and the army rescued the slaves, they saved eight hundred. And when she cared for the needy people over the course of forty-eight years, she blessed countless of people. And as you can tell, Harriet Tubman blessed the most lives when she took care of others. The fourth category, selflessness, was how selfless she was when she helped others. When she conducted the underground railroads, some of the people she saved were family members and this isn’t really special. If anyone were put in this situation, they would whatever it takes in order to save their family members and so when she saved her family, it doesn’t show who selfless she was. But besides her family, she saved at least twenty-eight strangers, which showed how selfless she was. When she saved eight hundred slaves through the help of the army, it showed little selflessness because she had the army of an army. When she helped those in need, she sheltered and took care of needy people who she didn’t know for forty eight years, which shows how selflessness she was. From this, you can see that Harriet Tubman was the most selfless when we helped people in need. The last category, willingness, was if the average person would be willing to do what Harriet Tubman did. If the average person was asked to conduct the underground railroads, they would somewhat agree to it. If anyone were put into a situation where they had to rescue a family member, they would do whatever it takes to rescue them. And because of this, the average would do it, but they would only save their family members. If the average person was asked to save slaves with the help of the army, I believe they would do it because they would have an army beside them. And if the average person was asked to take care of strangers for forty-eight years, I believe that they would strongly disapprove because they would waste forty-eight years of their life to help strangers. And from this you can see that her last accomplishment was the least likely an average person would do. In conclusion, Harriet Tubman did many things to bless those in need. In this prompt, I am asked to answer which accomplishment was her greatest but the problem to this question is how to measure these accomplishments. I believe how to measure accomplishments is by categories, which are risk, time, quantity, selflessness, and willingness. And based on all these categories, I believe that her greatest accomplishment was when she cared for strangers for forty-eight years.