Time For Kids: Harriet Tubman A Woman of Courage Chapter One A Woman of Courage Harriet Tubman was born a slave. But she made up her mind that she would not die a slave. With courage and determination, Tubman bravely won her own freedom -- and the freedom of hundreds of other slaves. When she died at the age of ninety-three, Harriet Tubman was a famous and respected American. The former slave risked her life many times to help other people become free. She also served her country during the Civil War as a spy and a scout. In her later years she opened her home to people in need -- asking nothing for herself in return. No one knows exactly when Harriet was born. It was probably around 1820 in Bucktown, Maryland. Slave traders had captured Harriet's grandparents in West Africa. Her parents, Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross, were born as slaves. So when Harriet and her brothers and sisters were born, they were slaves, too. Her parents named her Araminta. But people called her by her mother's name, Harriet. A Hard Life Harriet, her parents, and her ten brothers and sisters lived and worked on the Brodess plantation near Bucktown. A plantation was a large farm where slaves did all the work. Because Harriet was a slave, her childhood was much more work than play. She started to work when she was just five years old. She was hired out to a nearby plantation to care for the owner's baby. When she was six, she learned to weave and make clothes. As a young teen, she labored in the fields of corn, potatoes, and tobacco. Harriet was strong. She was very good at her jobs. But Harriet was also independent and rebellious in nature. This made her owners very angry. They would punish her with beatings. Time For Kids: Harriet Tubman A Woman of Courage . Copyright © by Gary Editors of TIME For Kids. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Harriet Tubman: A Woman of Courage by Renee Skelton, Time for Kids Editors All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.