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- Marie Buchanon is partially based on a real person, but is mostly inspired by the men and women who helped Harriet in Philadelphia. Screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard has worked on the script with Lemmons for the film.
thecinemaholic.com › harriet-marie-buchanon-real-personHarriet: Is Marie Buchanon Based on an Actual Freeborn Woman?
Nov 17, 2023 · Marie Buchanon is partially based on a real person, but is mostly inspired by the men and women who helped Harriet in Philadelphia. Screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard has worked on the script with Lemmons for the film.
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Oct 29, 2019 · Marie might not have been real, but the man who introduces the two women was. William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), a free black man born to former slave parents, was a real abolitionist who was part...
- Lia Beck
- Tubman’s Early Life as Araminta “Minty” Ross
- Tubman’s “Spells”
- Harriet’s Escape
- Gideon Brodess
- William Still
- Marie Buchanon
- “Moses”
- Bigger Long
- The Fugitive Slave Act
- The Combahee River Raid
Just as in the movie, Tubman (played here by Cynthia Erivo) grew up on a farm in Dorchester County, Maryland, where she was born Araminta “Minty” Ross. Though the movie may leave the impression that she only took on the name Harriet Tubman when she reached freedom, she seems to have taken it when she was married, taking Harriet from her mother, Har...
In the movie’s first scene, Tubman experiences one of her “spells,” which often cause her to lose consciousness and seem to give her visions of nearby dangers or events to come. (In an interview with Slate, Lemmons described the “spells” as Tubman’s “Spidey sense.”) As in the movie, Tubman believed that the visions she experienced were messages fro...
In the movie, as in real life, Harriet’s journey to freedom is kicked into high gear upon the death of her master, Edward Brodess. Brodess’ son Gideon (played in the movie by Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Joe Alwyn) had caught Minty praying for the death of his father after he refused to set her free. Tight on cash and unnerved by her seemingly prophet...
Though the Brodesses did have a son, his name was Jonathan, and little is known about him. As those facts suggest, just about everything in the movie that involves this character and his dogged, years-long pursuit of Tubman, up to and including a final standoff in the woods, was invented for the movie.
One of the first people Harriet meets in Philadelphia is the black abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor William Still. He helps her get settled in the city and eventually inducts Harriet as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Just as in the movie, William Still really did keep meticulous records of all the people who managed to esca...
The character of Marie Buchanon—a free black woman and successful business owner who takes Tubman in and teaches her how to live as a free woman—is invented for the movie. However, that’s not to say someone like Buchanon couldn’t have existed.
In the movie, Harriet’s first trip back south comes a year after her escape, and it’s to rescue her husband, John. Though he was a free man, his freedom as a black man in the South was exceptionally restricted by the whims of white people, as evidenced by the fact that Edward Brodess could keep him from seeing his wife. But upon returning to Dorche...
Upon noticing the escape of Harriet’s brothers, the vengeful Gideon hires Bigger Long, a slave catcher who is rumored to be the best in the area. To his (and my) surprise, Long is a black man. There’s no evidence that the Brodesses hired a slave catcher, but according to a few historians whom I reached out to, it’s not entirely impossible that such...
In the movie, Harriet manages several rescue missions, and her reputation as a conductor on the Underground Railroad is well established by the time that the Fugitive Slave Act passes. In reality, the law—which not only made it legal for runaways to be captured and returned to the South but effectively conscripted bystanders into aiding the capture...
At the very end of the movie, we see Harriet two years into the Civil War, giving a speech to a battalion of black soldiers in a prelude to the Combahee River Raid, where she led a group of 150 soldiers in an expedition to destroy Confederate supply lines and rescue about 750 fugitive slaves. In a postscript, we’re told that not only was she the fi...
- Rachelle Hampton
Nov 1, 2019 · While it may be disappointing to see that the heroic Marie Buchanon isn’t a real person, in a way, that's only half true. Her inclusion in Harriet serves as a representation of all...
- Ariana Brockington
William Still and Marie Buchanan were real people. Still was an Underground Railroad agent and Buchanan a boarding house owner whom Still sent freedom seekers. However, Buchanan's real...
In Harriet, Janelle Monáe plays Marie Buchanan, the freeborn owner of a Philadelphia boarding house who befriends the title character, teaching her how to dress and act like a free woman. Like...
Aug 27, 2019 · The premise raises many questions: What was the real nature of their relationship? Was each man “gay,” or something else? And why do Americans seem fixated on making Buchanan our first gay ...
