"I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive."
Harriet Tubman
“We have fought for America with all her imperfections, not so much for what she is, but for what we know she can be.”Mary McLeod Bethune education advocate | university founder
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Sarah Hopkins Bradford was a white abolitionist who was a fan of Harriet. When Harriet faced financial difficulties following the Civil War, Sarah wrote a biography to help support the aging hero. This biography is supposedly based on interviews with Harriet. However, Harriet's voice is clearly filtered through Sarah's. Sarah chose to represent Harriet's speech in writing by attempting to transcribe her dialect. She also significantly revised many of Harriet's "direct" quotes in a second edition of the biography. Because the dialect is not from Harriet's pen (and maybe not even from her mouth), we did not preserve it for her quotes.
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Cover from a 1901 reprint of the second edition of Sarah's biography of Harriet.
Library of Congress |