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Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the underground railroad (Ann Petry) [English Writing]

『Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the underground railroad』
Ann Petry(American author)
Amistad(1996)


 Harriet Tubman was a woman who helped many slaves escape from the South to the North or to Canada when the U.S. had slavery. She was called "Moses".
 There are no books about her in Japan, so I can't learn about her life in Japanese. I felt that Japanese people don't know very much about the U.S.
 She was seriously injured helping an escaping slave in her youth. She developed narcolepsy as an aftereffect so would she suddenly fell asleep. However, she had a dream at that time that predicated she would escape her crisis. It was a mysterious episode.
 Some of her words are impressive.
 When she, as an underground railroad conductor, stayed at a house, she used the password "a friend with friends". It's a little bit humorous.
 Her escaping route was so difficult that several people attempted to give up and go away. Then she said "We got to go free or die." They were simple, yet strong words.
 When she escaped to the North, she was married but her husband didn't agree with her because he was free. So she escaped alone. Then she, as an underground railroad conductor, came back and asked him to go with her. To her surprise, he had married another girl. Long afterward she heard he was killed, and felt regret. It is a different side of a tough woman. She could not go with her husband, but she took the rest of her family to the North. I felt happy for her.
 Her escaping route to the North was tough with severe hardships, but the road to the South was different. She rode on the train, because fugitive slaves could not ride the Southbound train. How bold she was!
 I got a great impression that Canadians rejected the requirement of returning about fugitive slaves to the U.S. I remembered when Google disobeyed China. For the sake of real human value, we must struggle against the law on occasion. "All men are created equal", this is a sentence in the Declaration of Independence, I think this is not only for American people but for all human beings on the Earth, even in China or North Korea.
(Lang-8's friends, thank you for your cooperation!)

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