Long before it became ingrained in the cultural lexicon as America’s first “escape proof” prison, Alcatraz Island was “White Rock” to the native Ohlone tribe, due the pelican droppings that littered its surface. With the exception of occasional outings to scout for Murre eggs, they largely avoided the rocky 22-acre islet — the belief being that it was a lair of evil spirits and a portal to the next world. Foreshadowing its future use as a penitentiary, especially pernicious violators of tribal law would we be banished to the island, where they would most certainly die of exposure.
The Spanish first reached the island in the 1769, naming it “La Isla de los Alcatraces” or “Island of the Pelicans,” but assigned little importance to it. The Mexican governor eventually sold it to one Julian Workman in 1849, who, within months, had hawked for it $5000 to a new owner. The United States government sued for ownership, realizing its potential as strategic outpost in the Golden Gate strait and began devising plans for a lighthouse, and later, a fort at Alcatraz.
The island’s fort was completed in 1859 and with it came a squadron of 200 men – and Alcatraz’s first four prisoners, military offenders all. Two years later, the Department of the Pacific designated Alcatraz their official disciplinary barracks and, for the whole of the Civil War, a separate wing would be used to keep Confederate prisoners and sympathizers under lock and key – including one group of that had attempted a raid on Alcatraz with stolen schooner in March 1863 before being apprehended.
March 10, 1913 saw the death of the one of America’s most inspiring women. A civil rights leader, a freedom fighter, a risk taker and a former slave, Harriet Tubman’s life is commemorated each year on the anniversary of her death. Not only a great woman and an African American icon, Tubman is an American inspiration.
Born into slavery in 1820, Tubman escaped a stifling existence in 1849 when she ran away from the fields to save for a life with the free man she married five years earlier. Tubman traveled night and day by foot all the way to Philadelphia where she found work and set up home. After saving her money for a year, Tubman journeyed back to Maryland to pick up her sisters and escort them to freedom.
Tubman returned to the south again to pick up her brothers. When she returned once more to the South to get her husband, Tubman discovered he had become a bigamist, remarrying in her absence. Instead of bringing him north to start their life together, Tubman took the rejection in her stride, found other slaves in need of assistance and conducted their safe passage to Pennsylvania. Tubman would make a total of 19 recorded trips to the south to rescue approximately 300 slaves.
Wanted poster’s dotted the south, calling for Tubman’s capture. The reward reached a staggering $40,000, showing the impact of Tubman’s bravery. Others were inspired by her work and her determination and the Underground Railroad blossomed.
The Underground Railroad was one of the first national social networks and consisted of both former slaves and northern abolitionists. Tubman did not start the network but became the poster child for its success. Her work as a conductor (one who entered a plantation posing as a slave and encouraging and guiding others in their escape) led her into danger time and again, but it seemed nothing could stop her efforts.
Running for decades, the railroad conductors and their assistants led thousands of former slaves to freedom. Conductors acted as guides taking the former slaves from house to house (safe houses were often lit with a single candle in the front window) along well established routes. Tubman conducted both friends and family as well as total strangers to the safety of large northern cities where freed slaves could hide, find work and begin new lives.
10 years passed and Tubman retired from actively conducting slaves to working as a spokeswoman and abolitionist in the north. After all her work and a truly inspiring life, Harriet Tubman became known as a “Moses of the people,” leading folks out of drudgery and imprisonment to freedom and self determination.
During the Civil war, Tubman did not rest on her laurels but worked as a nurse, a cook and a spy for the Union Army. Her work was commemorated by civil rights leaders, American presidents and even in 1990, an act of Congress that declared March 10 Harriet Tubman Day in honor of all that she did for the progression of human rights in America.
| When Tubman met up with the escaped slaves who feared recapture, she would always tell them “you’ll live free or die.” Tubman’s words express what it was to be a true American during the violent and trying times of slavery. And whether black, white, former slave or modern American, the words still find resonance today. |
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