Reader S Theatre
Harriet Tubman
Reader’s Theatre
Cast:
Harriet Tubman
John (her husband)
Friend – same person as her husband, but change costume
Narrator 1
Narrator 2
Slave Catcher – same as John and Friend, just change costume
Station Master #1, 2, 3 – same person, just add a new prop to change look
Old Rit, her mother (not a speaking part) – get a person from another group
Ben, her father (not a speaking part) – get a person from another group
All the cast: Exodus 5:1 – “Moses said to the King of Egypt – Let my people go. They have been slaves here in Egypt for long enough. Let my people go.”
Narrator 1: Harriet Tubman was born in 1827 in Maryland. Harriet was a slave, the daughter of a slave, the granddaughter of a slave. A hundred years before, the captain of a sailing vessel kidnapped her great-grandmother. Carrying her across the ocean from her African home to a crowded wharf in Baltimore, he sold her to the highest bidder. Now her children and her children’s children and their children belong to Master, as surely as did his cows and pigs. But Harriet would not remain a slave. God had other plans for her life.
Harriet: Wake up, John. Wake up! Master’s dead. They say we’ll all be sold.
John: Nonsense, you’re always imagining trouble. Master’s dead? You’ll get a new Master.
Harriet: I’m losing patience with you, John. I’m going to run away.
John: Don’t be a fool, woman. You can’t make it. Those dogs will track you down ‘fore you’re out of the country. Then it’ll go worse for you. You’re not going. As your husband, I tell you to stay. (he grabs her wrist)
(Harriet shakes herself free and without another word, leaves the cabin.)
Narrator 2: Harriet knew what she had to do. She had to run away to the north to become free. After meeting many kind Christians along the way named Quakers, who helped her, and experiencing many frightening moments where she thought she was going to get caught, Harriet made it to the free state of Pennsylvania six days later. She walked about 100 miles from Baltimore to Philadelphia. She would later tell a friend…
Harriet: I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came like gold through the trees and over the field, and I felt like I was in heaven.
Narrator 1: But Harriet wasn’t satisfied with just being free herself.
Harriet: I’m free, but there is no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I must bring my people here and build a home for them. I must go down, like Moses to Egypt, to lead my people out. As soon as there’s enough money, I plan to start.
Friend: But once you step over the line from Pennsylvania to Maryland, you’re a slave again. If they catch you, they’ll sell you to the Deep South, sure as you’re born.
Harriet: IF they catch me.
Friend: Don’t even have to do that. The rewards for runaway slaves say “dead or alive.” With a black woman on the highway or hanging around the fields, the patrollers like as not will shoot first and ask questions afterward.
Narrator 2: But Harriet was not afraid. The idea of being captured by slave hunters or slaveholders seems never to enter her mind. She was determined to free her family, friends, and any other slave who wanted to be free. By the end of her life, Harriet had make 19 trips back and forth from the south to the north and had freed over 300 slaves using the underground railroad. Here’s the story of how she freed her parents.
Narrator 1: One cold night, Harriet led her elderly parents away from the plantation by the light of the moon and stars. They walked and walked through crop fields, forests, and along the bank of the swamp. Sometimes they hear the slave catcher’s dogs bark and the hooves of a horse.
Slave Catcher: Let’s go, dogs, find me those slaves! Just wait ‘til I get my hands on those runaway slaves!
Harriet: Come on mom and dad, we must wade into the freezing swamp and wait until the dogs have gone and the danger has passed. (pause) Okay, the danger has passed. I see a farmhouse in the distance, which is part of the Underground Railroad, which is really neither a railroad nor underground. It is just a series of houses that we call stations like train stations. These houses are owned by people who we call station masters or conductors who are kind to us runaway slaves and help us escape north. Many of them are Quakers, or a group of Christians who opposed slavery for a long time. (They walk to the house)
Station Master #1: Come in quickly! You must be so cold and hungry! I’ll bring hot food to you in the secret room under the trap door in the floor. I will also give you some money and tell you haw to get to the next friend’s house.
Narrator 2: The fugitives hid in the house until the next day. That next night they went to the house they were told about. This time they knock on the door.
Station Master #2: You must be the one they call Moses! You’re Harriet Tubman!
Harriet: How could you know that? I’ve never been around these parts.
Station Master #2: Oh, my! There have been posters of you all over town for a long time! You are safe here only for a short time. Come with me to hide.
Narrator 1: That night, Harriet and her parents prepare to leave. They have changed clothes and have eaten. The station master has offered to drive them to the river in her wagon, under the potatoes, where the next station master will row them across.
Station Master #3: Good evening. I’ve been expecting you. Climb in quickly and get inside these crates. I’ll load some empty crates on top of you. When I row you to the other side, I’ll tell you how far it is to walk to the next station master’s farm.
Narrator 2: Just then they heard horse hooves and dogs barking. The slave catcher appears.
Slave Catcher: Good evening, sir. I’ve been looking for days for three runaway slaves. Have you seen them, by any chance? Two are old and one is a strong, young woman.
Station Master #3: I am so sorry to tell you, sir, that I have seen no runaways. I travel across this river often and no strangers have come by this way.
(Slave Catcher rides away)
Harriet: Mom and Dad, you are now free. You no longer have to obey any earthly Master.
All the cast: Exodus 5:1 – “Moses said to the King of Egypt – Let my people go. They have been slaves here in Egypt for long enough. Let my people go.”
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