Establishment of the Harriet TubmanUnderground Railroad National Monument, 18763-18766 [X13-10328]

Agencies

• Executive Office of the President

[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 60 (Thursday, March 28, 2013)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 18763-18766]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: X13-10328]




                        Presidential Documents 



Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 60 / Thursday, March 28, 2013 / 
Presidential Documents

___________________________________________________________________

Title 3--
The President

[[Page 18763]]

                Proclamation 8943 of March 25, 2013

                
Establishment of the Harriet Tubman--Underground 
                Railroad National Monument

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                Harriet Tubman is an American hero. She was born 
                enslaved, liberated herself, and returned to the area 
                of her birth many times to lead family, friends, and 
                other enslaved African Americans north to freedom. 
                Harriet Tubman fought tirelessly for the Union cause, 
                for the rights of enslaved people, for the rights of 
                women, and for the rights of all. She was a leader in 
                the struggle for civil rights who was forever motivated 
                by her love of family and community and by her deep and 
                abiding faith.

                Born Araminta Ross in 1822 in Dorchester County, 
                Maryland, on the plantation where her parents were 
                enslaved, she took the name ``Harriet'' at the time she 
                married John Tubman, a free black man, around 1844. 
                Harriet Tubman lived and worked enslaved in this area 
                from her childhood until she escaped to freedom at age 
                27 in 1849. She returned to Dorchester County 
                approximately 13 times to free family, friends, and 
                other enslaved African Americans, becoming one of the 
                most prominent ``conductors'' on the Underground 
                Railroad. In 1859, she purchased a farm in Auburn, New 
                York, and established a home for her family and others, 
                which anchored the remaining years of her life. In the 
                Civil War she supported the Union forces as a scout, 
                spy, and nurse to African-American soldiers on 
                battlefields and later at Fort Monroe, Virginia. After 
                the war, she established the Harriet Tubman Home for 
                the Aged, which institutionalized a pattern of her 
                life--caring for African Americans in need.

                In 1868, the great civil rights leader Frederick 
                Douglass wrote to Harriet Tubman:

I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of 
being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been 
witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, 
whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt ``God 
bless you'' has been your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent 
stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your 
heroism.

                The ``midnight sky and the silent stars'' and the 
                Dorchester County landscape of Harriet Tubman's 
                homeland remain much as they were in her time there. If 
                she were to return to this area today, Harriet Tubman 
                would recognize it.

                It was in the flat, open fields, marsh, and thick 
                woodlands of Dorchester County that Tubman became 
                physically and spiritually strong. Many of the places 
                in which she grew up and worked still remain. Stewart's 
                Canal at the western edge of this historic area was 
                constructed over 20 years by enslaved and free African 
                Americans. This 8-mile long waterway, completed in the 
                1830s, connected Parsons Creek and Blackwater River 
                with Tobacco Stick Bay (known today as Madison Bay) and 
                opened up some of Dorchester's more remote territory 
                for timber and agricultural products to be shipped to 
                Baltimore markets. Tubman lived near here while working 
                for John T. Stewart. The canal, the waterways it opened 
                to the Chesapeake

[[Page 18764]]

                Bay, and the Blackwater River were the means of 
                conveying goods, lumber, and those seeking freedom. And 
                the small ports were places for connecting the enslaved 
                with the world outside the Eastern Shore, places on the 
                path north to freedom.

                Near the canal is the Jacob Jackson Home Site, 480 
                acres of flat farmland, woodland, and wetland that was 
                the site of one of the first safe houses along the 
                Underground Railroad. Jackson was a free black man to 
                whom Tubman appealed for assistance in 1854 in 
                attempting to retrieve her brothers and who, because he 
                was literate, would have been an important link in the 
                local communication network. The Jacob Jackson Home 
                Site has been donated to the United States.

                Further reinforcing the historical significance and 
                integrity of these sites is their proximity to other 
                important sites of Tubman's life and work. She was born 
                in the heart of this area at Peter's Neck at the end of 
                Harrisville Road, on the farm of Anthony Thompson. 
                Nearby is the farm that belonged to Edward Brodess, 
                enslaver of Tubman's mother and her children. The James 
                Cook Home Site is where Tubman was hired out as a 
                child. She remembered the harsh treatment she received 
                here, long afterward recalling that even when ill, she 
                was expected to wade into swamps throughout the cold 
                winter to haul muskrat traps. A few miles from the 
                James Cook Home Site is the Bucktown Crossroads, where 
                a slave overseer hit the 13-year-old Tubman with a 
                heavy iron as she attempted to protect a young fleeing 
                slave, resulting in an injury that affected Tubman for 
                the rest of her life. A quarter mile to the north are 
                Scotts Chapel and the associated African-American 
                graveyard. The church was founded in 1812 as a 
                Methodist congregation. Later, in the mid-19th century, 
                African Americans split off from the congregation and 
                formed Bazel Church. Across from Scotts Chapel is an 
                African-American graveyard with headstones dating to 
                1792. Bazel Church is located nearby on a 1-acre 
                clearing edged by the road and otherwise surrounded by 
                cultivated fields and forest. According to tradition, 
                this is where African Americans worshipped outdoors 
                during Tubman's time.

                The National Park Service has found this landscape in 
                Dorchester County to be nationally significant because 
                of its deep association with Tubman and the Underground 
                Railroad. It is representative of the landscape of this 
                region in the early and mid-19th century when enslavers 
                and enslaved worked the farms and forests. This is the 
                landscape where free African Americans and the enslaved 
                led a clandestine movement of people out of slavery 
                towards the North Star of freedom. These sites were 
                places where enslaved and free African Americans 
                intermingled. Moreover, these sites fostered an 
                environment that enabled free individuals to provide 
                aid and guidance to those enslaved who were seeking 
                freedom. This landscape, including the towns, roads, 
                and paths within it, and its critical waterways, was 
                the means for communication and the path to freedom. 
                The Underground Railroad was everywhere within it.

                Much of the landscape in Dorchester County that is 
                Harriet Tubman's homeland, including a portion of 
                Stewart's Canal, is now part of Blackwater National 
                Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge provides vital habitat for 
                migratory birds, fish, and wildlife that are components 
                of this historic landscape. Management of the Refuge by 
                the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has played an 
                important role in the protection of much of the 
                historic landscape that was formative to Harriet 
                Tubman's life and experiences. The Refuge has helped to 
                conserve the landscape since 1933 and will continue to 
                conserve, manage, and restore this diverse assemblage 
                of wetlands, uplands, and aquatic habitats that play 
                such an important role in telling the story of the 
                cultural history of the area. In the midst of this 
                landscape, the State of Maryland is developing the 
                Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park on a 17-
                acre parcel. The State of Maryland and the Federal 
                Government will work closely together in managing these 
                special places within their respective jurisdictions to 
                preserve this critically important era in American 
                history.

[[Page 18765]]

                Harriet Tubman is revered by many as a freedom seeker 
                and leader of the Underground Railroad. Although 
                Harriet Tubman is known widely, no Federal 
                commemorative site has heretofore been established in 
                her honor, despite the magnitude of her contributions 
                and her national and international stature.

                WHEREAS members of the Congress, the Governor of 
                Maryland, the City of Cambridge, and other State, 
                local, and private interests have expressed support for 
                the timely establishment of a national monument in 
                Dorchester County commemorating Harriet Tubman and the 
                Underground Railroad to protect the integrity of the 
                evocative landscape and preserve its historic features;

                WHEREAS section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 
                225, 16 U.S.C. 431) (the ``Antiquities Act''), 
                authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare 
                by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and 
                prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic 
                or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands 
                owned or controlled by the Government of the United 
                States to be national monuments, and to reserve as a 
                part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in 
                all cases shall be confined to the smallest area 
                compatible with the proper care and management of the 
                objects to be protected;

                WHEREAS it is in the public interest to preserve and 
                protect the objects of historic and scientific interest 
                associated with Harriet Tubman and the Underground 
                Railroad in Dorchester County, Maryland;

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the 
                United States of America, by the authority vested in me 
                by section 2 of the Antiquities Act, hereby proclaim, 
                set apart, and reserve as the Harriet Tubman--
                Underground Railroad National Monument (monument), the 
                objects identified above and all lands and interests in 
                lands owned or controlled by the Government of the 
                United States within the boundaries described on the 
                accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part 
                of this proclamation, for the purpose of protecting 
                those objects. These reserved Federal lands and 
                interests in lands encompass approximately 11,750 
                acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the 
                proper care and management of the objects to be 
                protected.

                All Federal lands and interests in lands within the 
                boundaries of this monument are hereby appropriated and 
                withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, 
                sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public 
                land laws, including withdrawal from location, entry, 
                and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition 
                under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal 
                leasing.

                The establishment of this monument is subject to valid 
                existing rights. Lands and interests in lands within 
                the boundaries of the monument that are not owned or 
                controlled by the United States shall be reserved as 
                part of the monument upon acquisition of ownership or 
                control by the United States.

                The Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall manage 
                the monument through the National Park Service and the 
                U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, pursuant to their 
                respective applicable legal authorities, to implement 
                the purposes of this proclamation. The National Park 
                Service shall have the general responsibility for 
                administration of the monument, including the Jacob 
                Jackson Home Site, subject to the responsibility and 
                jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to 
                administer the portions of the national monument that 
                are within the National Wildlife Refuge System. When 
                any additional lands and interests in lands are 
                hereafter acquired by the United States within the 
                monument boundaries, the Secretary shall determine 
                whether such lands will be administered as part of the 
                National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge 
                System. Hunting and fishing within the National 
                Wildlife Refuge System shall continue to be 
                administered by the U.S. Fish

[[Page 18766]]

                and Wildlife Service in accordance with the provisions 
                of the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration 
                Act and other applicable laws.

                Consistent with applicable laws, the National Park 
                Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shall 
                enter into appropriate arrangements to share resources 
                and services necessary to properly manage the monument. 
                Consistent with applicable laws, the National Park 
                Service shall offer to enter into appropriate 
                arrangements with the State of Maryland for the 
                efficient and effective cooperative management of the 
                monument and the Harriet Tubman--Underground Railroad 
                State Park.

                The Secretary shall prepare a management plan for the 
                monument, with full public involvement, within 3 years 
                of the date of this proclamation. The management plan 
                shall ensure that the monument fulfills the following 
                purposes for the benefit of present and future 
                generations: (1) to preserve the historic and 
                scientific resources identified above, (2) to 
                commemorate the life and work of Harriet Tubman, and 
                (3) to interpret the story of the Underground Railroad 
                and its significance to the region and the Nation as a 
                whole. The management plan shall set forth, among other 
                provisions, the desired relationship of the monument to 
                other related resources, programs, and organizations in 
                the region and elsewhere.

                Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke 
                any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; 
                however, the monument shall be the dominant 
                reservation.

                Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not 
                to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature 
                of the monument and not to locate or settle upon any of 
                the lands thereof.

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                twenty-fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord two 
                thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the 
                United States of America the two hundred and thirty-
                seventh.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

Billing code 3295-F3