A life-size bronze sculpture of Harriet Tubman performing labour she was made to do as a kid is located inside the visitor centre of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Site. Tubman, who was born a slave in 1822, began working at the age of 5 checking muskrat traps in the chilly Dorchester County winter waterways.
The sculpture is based on reports of Tubman’s labour, which included muskrat trapping in the Chesapeake Bay marshes while working barefoot in subzero temperatures. But, the sculpture shows her specifically seizing a muskrat by the tail—a small girl snatching an animal by herself. She was a little girl who was made to face dangers from the wild creatures and the extreme weather.
John Bailey stated, “Although shy, anxious, and quick to take alarm, [muskrats] are just as ready to strike in self-defense, and will battle to a conclusion with any attacker, large or tiny, if escape is not possible,” in a paper that appeared in the Journal of Mammalogy in August 1937. They have inflicted significant scars on the hands of trappers, the noses of dogs, and other huge opponents with their massive, keen-edged incisors, which are backed by power and quickness. The water rodents were trapped, harvested, and captured as part of Maryland’s muskrat industry. The industry was considered a valuable resource for the state throughout the 19th century and into the 20th.
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Bailey stated, “Excellent muskrat marshes are as valuable as any arable area.” The price of live muskrats is typically many times more than for skins, and there is a good demand for them to supply wetlands that have been foolishly depleted or to create new muskrat farms.
Like most other sectors that have supported Maryland’s economic growth, the muskrat industry made money off the labour of enslaved individuals at every stage of their life. According to a Maryland Department of Natural Resources article, Tubman, who was given the name Araminta by her parents Ben and Rit Ross, suffered traumatic separations from her family when she was forced to work inspecting muskrat traps on the Little Blackwater River and performing domestic work for various families.
Afterwards, she started working in Dorchester County’s timber fields alongside her father, a professional timber foreman. According to “Harriet Tubman: The Ultimate Outdoorswoman” by Angela Crenshaw, a Maryland park ranger who previously held the position of assistant manager at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park, “Young Harriet would have been one of a few, if not the only woman hauling wood and driving a team of oxen.” The visitor centre is managed jointly by the state and the National Park Service.
In the wild, Tubman discovered how to forage for food, navigate by the stars, interpret the scenery, and fortify herself against the elements. She learned how to imitate bird calls, catch animals, and use plants as both food and medicine while working in the upland woods and swampy marshes. As she escaped slavery at a Maryland plantation in 1849 and moved north to Pennsylvania, she had honed the survival skills she would need.
According to Crenshaw, “Tubman acquired the skilled naturalist abilities that allowed her lead herself and more than 70 slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad.”
For Tubman and many other African Americans, whether they were in slavery, emancipated, or free, becoming a naturalist was essential to their survival. According to “The Hidden Chesapeake: Slavery and Freedom Through Harriet Tubman’s Eyes,” a book published by the Maryland Office of Tourism, they learned to read the land and its cycles, navigate by the stars, detect the changing tides, predict the weather, and sense impending danger by watching the reactions of wildlife.
Years of toiling in the fields and marshes of the Chesapeake Bay region made Tubman familiar with its thickets, wetlands, and coves. She also became aware of the locations of cover, food, and routes to covertly meet up with family members and other enslaved persons trying to flee.
Tubman and many of others she later assisted in achieving freedom
recognised what resources the area offered to keep them safe and fed. They engaged in fishing, crab fishing, oyster tonging, muskrat trapping, and waterfowl hunting. Acorns, berries, and botanicals were generated by the area’s coastline woodlands, which Tubman treasured for food and medicine.
In the region that has come to be known as Harriet Tubman Land, archaeologists who have studied the lives of enslaved people have discovered evidence of what they ate to survive and frequently to supplement the inadequate food provided by their enslavers. The remains of fish and crab from the Choptank River, as well as those of various animals like muskrats, deer, skunks, raccoons, possums, woodpeckers, pigeons, geese, and turtles, serve as proof of this.
For Harriet Tubman, her relationship with nature and the lessons she learned about surviving when she was a slave helped her provide for, care for, and safeguard the numerous people she would lead to freedom.