Nearby, Schablitsky soon found broken pieces of pottery that dated from the 1820s to 1840s. It was evidence that she had found the spot where a cabin belonging to Tubman’s father, Ben Ross, once stood. Growing up, Tubman didn’t always live there. She wasn’t always allowed to.
Like nearly 4 million other Black people in the U.S. at the time, Tubman’s family was enslaved. They had no freedoms or rights and were forced to do backbreaking work without pay. They were treated like property and could be bought and sold. Many enslaved families were forced to live apart.
For more than a decade, Tubman, her mother, and her siblings were forced to live and work on their enslaver’s farm. Though her father lived in the cabin 10 miles away, the family remained close.
“Her parents played a huge role in her life, even though she couldn’t always be with them,” says Kate Clifford Larson, a historian who wrote a biography about Tubman.
In 1836, Ross’s enslaver died. He left the land where the cabin was located to Ross, who was freed four years later. Though she was still enslaved, Tubman lived in the cabin from about 1839 to 1844, when she was roughly between the ages of 17 and 22. Like other enslaved people, Tubman was determined to gain her freedom. Her time living in the cabin would help her achieve that goal.