A Runaway Slave on the Underground Railroad Essay

The combust here is terrible. Sticky, thick heat that sticks to your skin and clothes and makes it ticklish to breathe. The mosquitoes entirely make it worse. They dupet even wait for shadowf alin concert to serve come reveal of the closet anymore, tho buzz nearly all day and rack us out in the cotton field. Ive got welts from their bites all up and down my arms and legs, and Im afraid it wont be long in the beginning on that points a yellowness fever epidemic. As you fill in, itll be the babies that go first if that happens, poor modest things. Clara retributory had her fourth last month, and Ether had her third just this week.thithers no rest for them, though. No, they had to be up and in those fields again the very next day after giving birth, carrying their subatomic babies with them. You know we befool to work from dawn to dusk, with only a compact break to eat in the middle of the day. The overseers are always nonice us, always so quick to strike out at us with the whip if they suppose were slacking off or not working hard enough or fast enough. We stick around so hot and tired and thirsty in those cotton fields, provided in that respects little in the way of relief except for a barrel of water with a ladle we all suck up to treat from.I wish I was one of the dramatics knuckle downs, then I could be out of this heat and sun beating down on my back. The house slaves are treated a lot better than we are. They fascinate to raise the dusterned children and cook the meals and do the laundry, and become al just about a part of the family. Oh, those white children love their baleful nannies But I assumption Im not smart enough or passably enough to be kept in the house. Ive got an separatewise botch up on the way, my second. I hope this one lives. Ive determined to get out of here. I cant go on care this. I hear there are quite a little who will benefactor.Youre lucky, auntie, that you had a kind master who gave you your freedom, and that you found a good musical composition to marry and read you up jointure where you can be free. If I find a way out of here, can I uphold with you until I find work and a place to live? Ive got to go now and get word this letter to the house slave from the stir next admittance who will mail this for me. I cant let anyone see me go, and I cant let anyone know I can read and write a letter. Thats illegal here, did you know. Slaves arent supposed to be educated. So, Ive got to sneak over there in cover of darkness.I hope to write to you again soon. Your winsome niece, Libby July 17, 1853 Charleston, South Carolina Dear Aunt Betsey, The house slave from next admittance I told you about, remember him? His name is Milton. Hes the father of my baby, but as you know, slaves arent allowed to marry here. Anyway, he tells me he knows some hatful who will help me escape. Theyre good volume, he says, white people who hate slavery. They will get me off the woodlet and to a honest house somewhere. Then the people at that house will get me to another house, and so on, all the way up to the North.Im going to tell them that I want to go to my aunt Betsey Martins house in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I hope thats all right. I hear New Bedford has a large population of us colored folks, and that we live right on with the white people there, nerve by side (McKivigan, 1999). I also hear there are good job opportunities, and that my baby can go to school with the white children. I dont know when all of this is going to get place, so I cant give you a era yet that I might be there, if this all works out and I dont get shot trying to escape, or dragged back here to be whipped nearly to death, or worse.I admit, Im scared of what might happen, but I have to try, for me and for my baby. Milton says he will follow me, as soon as he can. Your amiable niece, Libby September 23, 1853 Ashville, North Carolina Dear Aunt Betsey, Well, I did it I escape the plant ation. Three nights ago, I snuck over to Miltons farm kindred I always do. I had packed a little bundle of most of my belongings that I slung over my shoulder. It wasnt much. Just one other specify (my good one), some handkerchiefs, a hair brush, and some hard tack to eat, that was all.I knew if all went well, I wouldnt be glide path back. I wont miss that plantation at all. I have no ties there, as you know. No family, since I was sold from the plantation where my mama and papa and brothers and sisters were 5 years ago. They sold my brothers and sisters at the analogous time as me, and I have no idea where they went. I guess I should count us lucky we got to stay together until I was 13. Not many slaves are that lucky. Ive just been aliveness in a cramped cabin with 5 other slave women with no family on the plantation, and they dont care much what I do.They know I have a beau next door, and they reserve quiet about my comings and goings, as most of them have beaus of their ow n they have to sneak out to see. At Miltons farm, there were ii white men and a white woman waiting inside Miltons cabin. Milton lives on the edge of the property, near the fence, so no one from the house was likely to see the knights standing remote the cabin, and all the lanterns were blown out to make it extra dark besides. These white people were there to take me to a safe house in North Carolina. They had a horse for me, and some food in a little basket.I verbalize my good-byes to Milton as quickly as I could, and he promised to come to me as soon as I was settled. Then, I got on my horse (I was scared, as Id never ridden a horse before) and followed the white people on their horses into the woods. In two days, we came to the home of a nice investment trust keeper and his wife, and they hustled me inside, where Ive been staying in a nice, tonic, cool bedroom with a real quilt on the bed and a wash handbasin to wash my face in the morning and water to drink whenever I wan t it. The woman of the house even gave me a new dress to wear. Ive never felt so good, so clean.Im to stay here until a new group of people comes to take me to the next stop. The woman of the house here said Im now on the Underground Railroad. Thats what they call these safe houses on the way to the North (What Was the Underground Railroad? , n. d. ). The Underground Railroad. I like the sound of that. Its the Underground Railroad to freedom. Your loving niece, Libby October 6, 1853 Alexandria, Virginia Dear Aunt Betsey, I think I am getting closer to you. sensation of the children in my new safe house showed me a map of the join States and showed me where I am now and where you are.On a map, it does not bet so far away, but I fear the journey is muted many miles yet. There was such a commotion in North Carolina, you would not believe About a week after I escaped the plantation, a group of armed men came riding by dint of town, putting up signs with a drawing of me on them, an nouncing a shoo-in slave and a reward for my return. The woman of the safe house refined me up as a man, and hid me in her attic until the men had ridden with town, just in case they should come inside looking for me.They did not come in, thanks be to the Lord, but they did ask a the door if anyone had seen me. I was so afraid I would be given up for the reward, but these were good people who were protecting me. I never went outside the house, even to go to the outhouse, so there was never any accident of being seen and recognized by one of the townsfolk (I had a chamber pot for my use, and it was the job of one of the children to empty all the chamber pots each morning). I dont remember how many days I was in the North Carolina safe house.One night, though, two free black women came to get me, and we walked together into the woods. We walked and walked, sleeping during the day and walking at night when it was easier to be invisible. They told me I was lucky, that most slaves who escaped the plantations didnt have anyone to help them until they got further north. They said the Underground Railroad didnt have to a fault many operations in the South, at least not yet, and that most slaves were on their own in getting to that first stop on the Railroad (Blackett, 2002).I was lucky to have Milton, who knew the right people. These free women lived in New York state, but they were former slaves themselves, and they made it their business to help other slaves to escape to freedom like they did. They said they made many runs along the railroad to collect people, like they were doing for me. We must have walked for a week, but I lost track of the exact amount of time. Fortunately, Im not showing in my pregnancy yet, so I dont have a huge belly to carry around with me, and I can still run pretty fast when I have to.Weve been lucky in that we havent encountered those men who were looking for me, and the only thing we ever had to run from is the occasional skunk o r wild boar. I think god is looking out for me on this journey. We got to the next safe house in Alexandria in the middle of the night, just like before. This time, it was a family of Quakers who took me in. Quakers are some of the most active Christian abolitionists involved in the Railroad (Wallis, 1983). I found that I was not the only slave waiting to be taken North. There were sestet others waiting, collar men, a younger boy who was almost a man, and two women.We stayed all together in the barn, but it was a nice barn, clean and full of sweet-smelling straw for us to lay on, and we were fed three large meals a day. We didnt have to do any work. The family valued us to learn a different way of life, one where we didnt have to do all the work all the time. They wanted us to experience getting waited on. I must admit, it was other, but it felt strange in North Carolina, too. I liked it, but I think its going to take some getting used to before not doing everything myself begin s to feel anything less than strange. Your loving niece, Libby