07 May 2025 6 min read Re/Marks on Power

Re/Marks on Her Mark

On this 130th anniversary of Tubman's mark-making, what has been overlooked in the archive, and what could be interpreted as nine unsophisticated marks, is most worthy of our attention and celebration.

One hundred and thirty years ago, today, Harriet Tubman added her mark to an affidavit. In Re/Marks on Power, I share her story as an annotator.

On May 7, 1895, Tubman visited Orin McCarty, her pension attorney in Auburn, NY, and affirmed the veracity of statements previously transcribed by her attorney.

The General Affidavit, below, concerned "the matter of original Pension no 449.592 of Harriet Davis/widow of Nelson Davis." McCarty wrote the testimony. And Tubman marked it. I imagine they used the same pen.

Harriet Tubman’s handwritten “X” mark added to a May 7, 1895 affidavit (from the Tubman Pension File, p. 55, National Archives).

Here's detail of "her mark," an "X."

Detail of Tubman's handwritten "X" mark.

For decades following the Civil War, Tubman and her supporters repeatedly petitioned the US government to secure recognition of—and rightful recompense for—her military services as a Union Army scout, nurse, and spy. The struggles Tubman endured to secure her pension are well-documented by biographers and historians, illustrative of systemic racial discrimination and biased documentation rules that African American Civil War veterans and their families encountered when applying for pensions.

In October of 1895, thirty years after the Civil War ended, Tubman was finally granted an $8-per-month widow's pension. Yet she continued fighting to receive her own military pension. By March 23, 1899, the final version of Tubman’s Widow’s Pension form had been reviewed and approved by officials at the Bureau of Pensions. Tubman would ultimately receive $20 a month; $8 as a widow combined with $12 for her service as a nurse.

As I show in Re/Marks on Power: How Annotation Inscribes History, Literacy, and Justice, annotations of power and patriarchy evidence the erasure of Tubman’s military service and reaffirmed her status as a widow.

Yet Tubman was also an annotator. Throughout her fight for rightful compensation, Tubman knowingly and permanently left her mark as an act of public resistance and recognition. That's a legacy of literacy that I make visible in Re/Marks on Power.

Tubman first added her mark, her handwritten X, to a Declaration for Widow’s Pension form, dated July 14, 1890.

She also marked various documents on August 13, 1891; February 1, 1892; May 28, 1892; November 28, 1892; June 16, 1894; and November 10, 1894.

As well as 130 years ago, today.

And, according to her pension file, she last marked a claim against the US government in late 1898 (the precise date appears to be unknown, though the claim would be included with other documentation in the 1899 bill that precipitated in her final approved pension).

Here's how, in Re/Marks on Power, I describe "her mark" and the significance of Tubman as an annotator:

Just as Tubman’s 1899 Widow’s Pension form was annotated and yet overlooked by prior scholarship, so, too, were the nine X inscriptions as indisputable evidence of her literacy. She was not, as many have suggested, illiterate. As we have read, she had great literacy of place, people, and mobility that nurtured her perseverance. Recently, historian Tiya Miles echoed this sentiment when writing about Tubman’s “pronounced ecological consciousness” which was “required to survive enslavement and mastermind escapes across ‘wild’ spaces.” On paper, Tubman’s marks were a social accomplishment, for every document that features her X also includes two signatures by witnesses who joined in her truth-telling and advocacy (some of these affidavits included the parenthetical and patronizing instruction, “If affiant signs by mark two persons who write sign here”). Tubman’s acts as an annotator were expressly critical, for her marks deliberately resisted the government’s disregard of her military service as she demanded a justified and secure monthly income. Her marks also evidence relentless intellectualism, for having successfully navigated treacherous land on journeys of emancipation, surely she would chart her renumeration through the procedural morass of the Bureau of Pensions. And Tubman’s marks were civic actions, written so that the constraints of bureaucracy were bent closer toward the ideals of democracy. Her marks—which she traced again and again for nearly a decade and which we should see and celebrate—were a public composition authored to contest personal and systemic injustice.

Nine X marks.

A "small corpus of wonder," as I write, evidence of Tubman's literacy and advocacy.

Her marks were an act of resistance.

Her marks were an act of recognition.

Tubman put pen and ink to paper, recursively inscribing one aspect of her esteemed legacy.

Tubman's X was an act of critical literacy that recorded a steadfast fight for justice. On this 130th anniversary of her mark-making, what has been overlooked in the archive, and what could be interpreted as nine unsophisticated marks, is most worthy of our attention and celebration.

Congrats, Dr. Fields-Black!

I'd be remiss, in writing about Harriet Tubman, to not also mention Dr. Edda Fields-Black's tremendous recognition announced a few days ago. Her book, Combee: Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History. In announcing the news, the Pulitzers described Combee as "a richly-textured and revelatory account of a slave rebellion that brought 756 enslaved people to freedom in a single day, weaving military strategy and family history with the transition from bondage to freedom."

The first plate in Combee features Tubman's c.1898 claim with "her mark" visible in the lower right corner.

Plate 1 in Edda Fields-Black's *Combee,* Tubman's c.1898 claim featuring her X mark.

Congratulations, Dr. Fields-Black!

Re/Marks on Power is Open Access

Shortly after my book was published last month, Re/Marks on Power became openly accessible thanks to MIT Press' Direct to Open (D2O) program.

You can easily access the entire book as a single PDF or download individual sections and chapters. I've long valued open knowledge, scholarship, and publishing practices. For example, my first book, Annotation, went through an open peer review process to demonstrate how readers could publicly engage with scholarship through acts of annotation (that process is featured in this brief 2021 essay, as well as a recent presentation).

I sincerely appreciate that Re/Marks on Power is open access. Open means that cost won't prohibit a reader from engaging with my work. Open also means that I'm open to feedback and critique, that it's easier for scholars—particularly those who don't study annotation or literacy education—to find, read, scrutinize, and engage with my scholarship; and I hope they do so!

Access. Read. Share. Re/Marks is open.