Shortly after the late FAMU History Professor
James Eaton
opened the FAMU Black Archives in the mid-1970s, the family of Harriet Tubman
loaned her pistol for display in the museum. Tubman’s pistol and saber have now
returned as an exhibit on FAMU’s campus.
“The pistol was one of the items that legitimized the Black
Archives and solidified our national reputation as a repository for African
American artifacts,” Curator Murell Dawson told the Tallahassee Democrat. “Dr.
Eaton (acquired) many artifacts of slavery. But the Tubman pistol was the crown
jewel.”
Alex Brickler, IV, one of Tubman’s sixth generation descendants,
is currently a student in FAMU’s master’s degree in history program. His family
has held Tubman’s pistol and saber ever since she passed away in 1913.
Tubman, a legendary “conductor” of the Underground Railroad
and led many dozens of African Americans who lived in slavery on southern
plantations to freedom in the North. She was born in a slave in Maryland during
the 1820s and escaped in 1849 by fleeing to Pennsylvania. Tubman carried the
pistol by her side as she led bands of slaves to free states. She likely got
the saber during the Civil War from a solider or from a battlefield.
The Carrie Meek-James Eaton Southeastern Black Archives
Research Center & Museum plans to keep the Tubman exhibit until April.
