Harriet Tubman was born in 1822 as Araminta "Minty" Ross in Dorchester County, Maryland, where her parents, Harriet "Rit" Green and Ben Ross, were enslaved by different owners. Under the law, children of African Americans inherited their legal status from their mother, so Minty and her siblings became the property of Edward Brodess of Bucktown. From the age of six, she was hired out to other planters who were often abusive and cruel, and in her teens she suffered a severe blow to the head that nearly killed her. Some years later, she worked for Dr. Anthony C. Thompson, who owned vast tracts of timber and had hired some of her siblings. Around 1844, Minty married John Tubman, a freeman, and changed her name to Harriet Tubman. After Edward Brodess died in 1849, Harriet and her siblings hoped they would be freed, but when that did not seem likely and they feared being taken and sold in the Deep South, she decided to leave. One night she escaped alone, followed the North Star, hid during the day, and eventually reached Pennsylvania, where she began making plans to rescue the family she had left behind.