Welcome to "Bound For The Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero."
Please enjoy this website. It is filled with photos and newly discovered information on Harriet Tubman and her life long struggle for freedom, equality, justice, and self determination. Here you will sample some of her Underground Railroad success stories, family pain and sorrow, her life in slavery and freedom, and personal triumphs. In never-before-seen detail, you will discover the real life story behind this most remarkable American woman, Harriet Tubman.
Click on the tabs above and to the left ("Tubman Chronology", "Underground Railroad", "Freedom Seekers", etc.) to learn more about Tubman, her family, and her many accomplishments.
Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history -- a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. And yet in the nine decades since her death, next to nothing has been written about this extraordinary woman aside from juvenile biographies. The truth about Harriet Tubman has become lost inside a legend woven of racial and gender stereotypes. Now at last, in this long overdue biography, Harriet Tubman receives the powerful, intimate, and meticulously detailed life she deserves.
Drawing on a trove of new documents and sources as well as extensive genealogical research, "Bound For the Promised Land" reveals Tubman as a complex woman -- brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom. The descendant of the vibrant, matrilineal Asanti people of the West African Gold Coast, Tubman was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland but refused to spend her life in bondage. While still a young woman she embarked on a perilous journey of self-liberation -- and then, having won her own freedom, she returned again and again to liberate family and friends, tapping into the Underground Railroad.
Despite her success, her celebrity, her close ties with Northern politicians and abolitionists, Tubman suffered crushing physical pain and emotional setbacks. Stripping away myths and misconceptions, "Bound" presents stunning new details about Tubman's accomplishments, personal life, and influence, including her relationship with Frederick Douglass, her involvement with John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and revelations about a young woman who may have been Tubman's daughter. Here too are Tubman's twilight years after the Civil War, when she worked for women's rights and in support of African American civil and humanitarian rights, and when racist politicians and suffragists marginalized her contributions.
Harriet Tubman, her life and her work, remains an inspiration to all who value freedom. In this fresh, new biography, we can finally appreciate Tubman as a complete human being -- an American hero, yes, but also a woman who loved, fought, suffered and sacrificed.
**Click on the tabs on the upper left hand side and at the bottom of this page for more detailed information about Tubman's life, her family, and the Underground Railroad.
Kate Clifford Larson earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of New Hampshire. Her doctoral dissertation on the life and memory of Harriet Tubman has been published as "Bound For The Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of An American Hero," by Ballantine Books/Random House. A finalist for the 2004 Lerner-Scott Dissertation Award from the Organization of American Historians for the best dissertation in Women's History, Larson is also the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and grants in support of her work on Harriet Tubman.
Dr. Larson is currently the consulting historian for the National Park Service's Harriet Tubman Special Resource Study. As a recognized expert in her field, Dr. Larson is also engaged in many other projects related to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, including:
Historian/Interpretive Writer, Underground Railroad Map Guide, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development; Teacher/Consultant, African American History and Culture Summer Institute, Teaching American History Project, Kent County, MD Public Schools (July 2005); Content advisor, Maryland Department of Education and the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture, K-12 African American Curriculum on Harriet Tubman; Consultant and Advisory Board Member, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Discovery Center, Dorchester County, MD; Board Member, Friends of the Underground Railroad; Tubman scholar, Team Tubman, National Abolition Hall of Fame, Peterboro, NY; Advisory Board Member and Content Reviewer, Underground Railroad Driving Tour “Finding a Way to Freedom”, Dorchester County, MD Dept. of Tourism and the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network; Contributor/Advisor, Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Auburn and Cayuga County, New York Project, 2004-2005;
Dr. Larson also holds a B.A. in Economics and History from Simmons College (1980); an M.B.A. from Northeastern University (1986); and an M.A. from Simmons College (1995). She is currently teaching at Simmons College.
