This war our brave heroine had expected, and its result, the emancipation of the slaves. Three years before, while staying with the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet in New York, a vision came to her in the night of the emancipation of her people. Whether a dream, or one of those glimpses into the future, which sometimes seem to have been granted to her, no one can say, but the effect upon her was very remarkable.

She rose singing, "My people are free!" "My people are free!" She came down to breakfast singing the words in a sort of ecstasy. She could not eat. The dream or vision filled her whole soul, and physical needs were forgotten.

Mr. Garnet said to her: "Oh, Harriet! Harriet! You've come to torment us before the time; do cease this noise! My grandchildren may see the day of the emancipation of our people, but you and I will never see it."

"I tell you, sir, you'll see it, and you'll see it soon. My people are free! My people are free!"

When, three years later, President Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation was given forth [1863/1/1], and there was a great jubilee among the friends of the slaves, Harriet was continually asked, "'Why do you not join with the rest in their rejoicing!" "Oh," she answered, "I had my jubilee three years ago. I rejoiced all I could then; I can't rejoice no more."

EDITOR'S NOTE

The World Dream Bank has hundreds of short-term predictive dreams and visions, but only a handful spanning years, so despite the brevity of this account, it's worth posting. And it comes from Tubman, who literally lived by such intuitions: she evaded slavers and their informers for a decade.

Note her words: not "My people shall be free" but "My people are free!" For her it's the present.

SOURCE: Harriet Tubman: the Life and the Life Stories by Jean Humez, p. 258. (Primary source: Harriet, the Moses of her People, Sarah Bradford, 1886, pp 92-3).

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