Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero - Hardcover

Kate Clifford Larson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345456270 ISBN 13: 9780345456274

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2003

Synopsis

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, historian Kate Clifford Larson gives Harriet Tubman the powerful, intimate, meticulously detailed life she deserves.

Drawing from a trove of new documents and sources as well extensive genealogical research, Larson 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.

Yet 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, Larson 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 Harpers Ferry, and revelations about a young woman who may have been Tubman’s daughter. Here too are Tubman’s twilight years after the war, when she worked for women’s rights and in support of her fellow blacks, and when racist politicians and suffragists marginalized her contribution.

Harriet Tubman, her life and her work, remain an inspiration to all who value freedom. Now, thanks to Larson’s breathtaking biography, we can finally appreciate Tubman as a complete human being—an American hero, yes, but also a woman who loved, suffered, and sacrificed. Bound for the Promised Land is a magnificent work of biography, history, and truth telling.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

“What a glorious book! Kate Clifford Larson’s magnificent biography of the life of the real Harriet Tubman deserves the nation’s attention. . . . With clarity, grace, and skill, Larson brilliantly captures the truly remarkable spirit of a genuine American heroine. We are all in Larson’s debt.”
—DARLENE CLARK HINE
Coauthor, A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America
The Emeline Bigelow Conland Fellow at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

“An extraordinary achievement. Heroically researched, movingly written, it transforms a legend into a flesh-and-blood human being and brings a critical era in our history vividly to life.”
—JACQUELYN D. HALL
Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“Harriet Tubman’s life as a warrior woman is elegantly captured in Kate Clifford Larson’s riveting biography. . . . Bound for the Promised Land is the story of a legendary woman we thought we knew, but Larson’s portrait is more focused, more complex, more satisfying.”
—BEVERLY GUY-SHEFTALL
Author of Gender Talk:
The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities
Professor, Women’s Studies and English and
Director, Spelman College

About the Author:

Kate Clifford Larson has spent years researching the life and times of Harriet Tubman. She earned her doctorate at the history department of the University of New Hampshire. A graduate of Simmons College and Northeastern University, Larson has won numerous academic awards and fellowships in support of her work. This is her first book. She lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0345456270
• ISBN 13: 9780345456274
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432