Harriet Tubman - Read and Respond

Overseers were in charge of plantations. As a teenager, Tubman suffered a bad injury when she tried to protect another slave from an overseer. Another slave had left the fields without permission. His overseer told Tubman to help stop him from leaving, but she refused. The overseer threw a two-pound weight at the other slave. It hit Tubman’s head. As a result, for the rest of her life, she would often get bad headaches and feel dizzy and sleepy.

Question: According to the passage, Harriet Tubman often get headaches and feel dizzy because...

• She got hit in the head while trying to protect another slave

• She stopped another slave from escaping, and the slave hurt her

• She fell down while trying to run after another slave

The North Star is above the North Pole. It always points north. So, escaped slaves were able to use the North Star to guide them north to freedom. To find the North Star in the sky, you can first look for a group of stars called the Big Dipper. Some of the stars in the Big Dipper line up with the North Star. You can look from these stars to the North Star.

Question: What is the purpose of the underlined sentence in the passage above?

• To explain why the North Star is difficult to find

• To explain how the North Star is different than the Big Dipper

• To introduce the North Star by describing its location

The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad with real trains. It was a secret network, or system, of people who helped slaves escape to the North. These people were called abolitionists. They wanted to end slavery. Slaves who escaped using the Underground Railroad were called passengers. Conductors were people who went with slaves on the journey from the South to the North. They guided them to houses and businesses along the way called safe houses. It was safe for escaped slaves to hide in these places.

Question: According to the passage, a "passenger" on the Underground Railroad was...

• A person who helped slaves escape by going with them on the Underground Railroad

• A slave who escaped on the Underground Railroad

• A person who hid slaves in their home along the Underground Railroad

The first slaves were forced to come to the United States from Africa in 1619. African-Americans were enslaved in both the North and the South. There were more slaves in the South because the South had more plantations where slaves were needed. Slavery ended in the North before it did in the South. By 1804, all Northern states had voted to abolish slavery.

However, in 1850, a law called the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. This law said that people in the North had to help capture runaway slaves. These runaways were not free even if they reached the North. They could be brought back to the South to be enslaved again. So, Tubman began leading runaway slaves from the South past the northern states into Canada where they could be free.

Question: Based on the passage, runaway slaves who made it to Canada...

• Were forced to be slaves in Canada

• Became free once they reached Canada

• Then took a journey from Canada to Africa

In 1861, a war broke out between the North and the South. One of the causes of the war was a disagreement about whether to abolish slavery. The North wanted to get rid of slavery, but the South did not. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the North as a spy, cook and nurse. One time, Tubman guided soldiers in boats along a river in South Carolina. They rescued over 700 slaves. In addition to being an abolitionist, Tubman fought for women’s rights. In April 2016, the US government announced that they would put a picture of Tubman on the $20 bill.

Question: What is the meaning of the underlined word "abolish" in the passage above?

• Get rid of

• Disagree about

• Rescue

• Guide