--- title: "Unearthed Foundation, Artifacts Shed New Light on Harriet Tubman’s Early Life" date: 2023-03-10T05:30:00-05:00 author: University of Maryland canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/unearthed-foundation-artifacts-shed-new-light-on-harriet-tubmans-early-life" section: Articles --- # Unearthed Foundation, Artifacts Shed New Light on Harriet Tubman’s Early Life *March 10, 2023* — by [Rachael Grahame ’17](/author/rachael-keeney-17) > Adjunct Professor Leads the Exploration of Newly Discovered Home at Hero Abolitionist’s Birthplace *Tubman1 1920x1080 — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Maryland Department of Transportation Chief Archaeologist Julie Schablitsky, an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology, unveil information about remains of a West African spirit cache found on the former Eastern Shore farm where Harriet Tubman was born at a news conference last month. The excavation she led on the site also revealed hundreds of other artifacts (below).* A clearer picture of Harriet Tubman’s early life has emerged with the discovery, led by a University of Maryland anthropologist, of a home believed to have been occupied by an enslaved overseer on the former Cambridge, Md., farm where she was born. Julie Schablitsky, chief of cultural resources at the Maryland Department of Transportation and UMD adjunct assistant professor, and her team excavated a brick foundation from a house on private property and unearthed hundreds of artifacts. Among them was a West African spirit cache, including a glass heart-shaped bottle stopper, ceramic dish and copper alloy button, meant to protect the users from negative spirits. Gov. Wes Moore [last month](https://governor.maryland.gov/press/pages/Governor-Moore-Announces-Discovery-of-Home-at-Harriet-Tubman-Birthplace.aspx#:~:text=%E2%80%9CHarriet%20Tubman%27s%20birthplace%20is%20sacred,to%20make%20a%20better%20future.%E2%80%9D) announced the findings, which followed Schablitsky’s team’s discovery in March 2021 of what is thought to be the home site of Tubman’s father, [Ben Ross](https://today.umd.edu/harriet-tubmans-training-ground), on what is now the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Both locations were part of the Thompson Farm, where up to 40 enslaved people once lived and where the future Underground Railroad conductor and Union Army nurse and spy was born in 1822. *case full of artifacts* **Sidebar note:** The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies will hold its annual commemoration of its namesake today with “Wanted: Harriet Tubman,” a conversation with labor activist and muralist Mike Alewitz and artist and architect Nina Cooke John exploring the designs of and controversies surrounding their representations of her. Art curator and historian Adrienne L. Childs will moderate. Ernestine “Tina” Wyatt ’95, Tubman's great-great-great grandniece, will bring greetings on behalf of her descendants to the event, which will run 4-6:30 p.m. at the David C. Driskell Center. [Registration is required](https://go.umd.edu/Tubman23RSVP). In 1849, following her self-emancipation, Tubman’s “Wanted” poster announced that should she or her brothers be found, they should be lodged in “Baltimore, Easton or Cambridge jail in Maryland.” The event’s theme, “Wanted: Harriet Tubman,” consider “wanted” as a fugitive from the law and “wanted” as a contemporary legacy and symbol. Yesterday, Cooke John's monument to Tubman was unveiled in Newark, New Jersey, on the spot where a statue of Columbus once stood. In 2000, Alewitz’s “Dreams of Harriet,” a series of murals intended for placement throughout Baltimore, was decommissioned when a furor broke out because he had represented Tubman carrying a gun and refused to disarm her. **Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research) **Tags:** [Anthropology](https://today.umd.edu/topic/anthropology), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research) **Units:** [College of Behavioral and Social Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-behavioral-and-social-sciences)