'Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer' from Massive
Jul 20, 2023
In David Crownson's Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer, the titular character faces down supernatural monsters with katana blades and keen senses—slicing up vampires, going toe to toe with witches, encountering ancient beings, and, of course, slaying demons. Still, these horrors ain't so different from the inhumanity of chattel slavery. In David's story, when one of the runaways asks, "What's the difference between the white folks that whip us and the vampires that hunt us?" Harriet simply replies, "Vampires have sharper teeth." The historical fiction woven in Crownson’s work is larger than life, but so was the real Harriet Tubman. Not in stature, as she stood at only 4'11, but in spirit and resolve. Sarah H. Bradford referred to Harriet's Underground Railroad heroics as "superhuman" in her 1886 biography and while the villains that the comic character faces are fictional, they serve as analogs for the beasts in our own history that the real life Harriet Tubman stood tall to overcome.
In the fall of 1849, there were whispers in the slave quarter of Poplar Neck plantation. A rumor was growing. Harriet Tubman and two of her brothers, Ben and Harry, would soon be sold off to a chain gang headed somewhere deeper South than their Maryland stead. Harriet had already spent years thinking about the possibility of escape from the brutality of slavery. So, when the panicked, hushed tones and hearsay about her and her brothers reached her ears, Harriet's desire for freedom led her to devise a proper plan and act on it.
It's said that the farewell song she belted on the day of her departure rang throughout the slave quarter and the memory of it stayed with the others for years to come. "I'm bound for the promised land. Friends, I'm going to leave you."
On September 17, 1849, Harriet and her brothers escaped. As runaways, they would be subject to harsh punishment if they were caught. Even more, they didn't know what would be awaiting them in the North. An unknown fate is worse than known horrors for some. The thought of it struck terror in their hearts and haunted their steps. Ultimately, Ben and Harry found themselves unable to continue the dangerous journey, but Harriet refused to go back. The men said goodbye to their sister and returned to the plantation without her. And so, Harriet became a lone fugitive, guided only by hope, conviction, and the light of the North Star.
Harrriet was determined that nothing, but death, would stop her: "I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me."
She traveled alone for days, hungry and weary but pressing ever forward towards the Northern states. At last, Harriet crossed the Mason-Dixon line that marked the boundary between two worlds, one where she was in legal bondage and one where she was free.
“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person," she later said about that moment. "There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Then, her thoughts drifted back to her family, back to her community, back to the cabin quarter of Poplar Neck where her loved ones were still enslaved.
"I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom." Following this realization, Harriet resolved to lead others to the freedom she had found for herself. "I was free, and they should be free also; I would make a home for them in the North, and the Lord helping me, I would bring them all there."
In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act which compelled law enforcement and emboldened militant citizens throughout the nation to capture escapees and free Black folk alike. Despite this, Harriet would cross the Mason-Dixon line over a dozen more times between 1850 and 1860 to help her family and many others make the journey to the North utilizing a secret web of citizens willing to aid fugitive slaves in their quest for freedom. This network of contacts, allies, funders, hidden routes, and safe houses she established would become known as The Underground Railroad. During this time, Harriet became known as the "Moses" of her people, blazing a path to freedom and leaving an everlasting mark on history as the abolitionist icon we now revere.
Harrriet was invited to speak at the first meeting of the National Association of Colored Women during a Women's Rights Convention in 1896. There, she famously said, "I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say. I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." – Sherronda J. Brown,
Historian and Editor-in-Chief of Kingwood Co
Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer will arrive in comic shops on September 13, 2023. It is available for pre-order now at your local comic book shop and will retail for $4.99.
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Soon to be an original series on Disney+!
Django Unchained meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer in David Crownson's Harriet Tubman : Demon Slayer, a supernatural comic series based on the true life of the freedom fighter herself that is flavored with genre liberties in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
When slave owners can't stop the formidable ninja warrior Harriet Tubman, they call on the help of Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Demons to stop her. Harriet Tubman must lead a family of slaves to freedom while battling an army of darkness.
Soon to be an original series on Disney+!
Django Unchained meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer in David Crownson's Harriet Tubman : Demon Slayer, a supernatural comic series based on the true life of the freedom fighter herself that is flavored with genre liberties in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
When slave owners can't stop the formidable ninja warrior Harriet Tubman, they call on the help of Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Demons to stop her. Harriet Tubman must lead a family of slaves to freedom while battling an army of darkness.
Soon to be an original series on Disney+!
Django Unchained meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer in David Crownson's Harriet Tubman : Demon Slayer, a supernatural comic series based on the true life of the freedom fighter herself that is flavored with genre liberties in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
When slave owners can't stop the formidable ninja warrior Harriet Tubman, they call on the help of Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Demons to stop her. Harriet Tubman must lead a family of slaves to freedom while battling an army of darkness.
Soon to be an original series on Disney+!
Django Unchained meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer in David Crownson's Harriet Tubman : Demon Slayer, a supernatural comic series based on the true life of the freedom fighter herself that is flavored with genre liberties in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
When slave owners can't stop the formidable ninja warrior Harriet Tubman, they call on the help of Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Demons to stop her. Harriet Tubman must lead a family of slaves to freedom while battling an army of darkness.
Soon to be an original series on Disney+!
Django Unchained meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer in David Crownson's Harriet Tubman : Demon Slayer, a supernatural comic series based on the true life of the freedom fighter herself that is flavored with genre liberties in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
When slave owners can't stop the formidable ninja warrior Harriet Tubman, they call on the help of Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Demons to stop her. Harriet Tubman must lead a family of slaves to freedom while battling an army of darkness.
Django Unchained meets Buffy The Vampire Slayer in David Crownson's Harriet Tubman : Demon Slayer, a supernatural comic series based on the true life of the freedom fighter herself that is flavored with genre liberties in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
When slave owners can't stop the formidable ninja warrior Harriet Tubman, they call on the help of Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Demons to stop her. Harriet Tubman must lead a family of slaves to freedom while battling an army of darkness.
Sources:
Harriet, The Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford
"Harriet Tubman: Life, Liberty and Legacy," The National Museum of African American History and Culture
"Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad," Library of Congress Blog
"Harriet Tubman," History.com
