Archive for the ‘freedom’ Tag
Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo is the account of the enterprising quest for freedom by Ellen and William Craft. They left slavery in the south, became celebrities in the north and ultimately found freedom in England.
What sets their story apart is the manner in which they executed their getaway: Ellen dressed as a man accompanied by her slave, William, traveled by train and boat to free states. It helped that she was fair-skinned and her disguise allowed her to appear sickly; thus in need of William’s assistance.
Woo sets the scene for their daring escape by describing the lives they left behind, including patrimonies and their roles: Ellen as the property of wealthy landowners and William in bondage as a cabinet maker. Their fear of being caught is palpable, yet with each receding mile, glimmers of hope surface.
Once in the north, first Philadelphia and later Boston, they are revered and celebrated for their bold exodus. Here, however, is where the narrative loses steam. Woo mentions abolitionist after abolitionist, from Frederick Douglass to William Wells Bell, among numerous others. She also names the many individuals who harbored the Crafts. Despite their assistance, the threat of being caught and returned to the South never diminishes.
Realizing they’ll always be at risk, they continue their journey northward to Canada and finally, Halifax, where they board a ship bound for England.
Woo’s research is extensive and the Crafts’ story is an important one. However, there’s an abundance of unnecessary detail.
Master Slave Husband Wife
Three-and-a-half Bookmarks
Simon & Schuster, 2023
420 pages, includes Notes on Sources, Notes and Index
Although Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Underground Railroad, is about slavery in the pre-Civil War era, it remains timely. Timely in the unfortunate way that malice and marginalization still exist.
The narrative follows Cora, a slave on a Georgia cotton plantation. She’s ostracized by the other slaves and hated in particular by the plantation owner, Terrance Randall, who embodies cruelty. Cora was abandoned by her mother who escaped years earlier.
Following a brutal beating, Cora agrees to flee with Caesar, an educated slave. Whitehead’s railroad is the real thing, complete with underground tracks, conductors and station masters.
Randall hires Ridgeway, a tenacious slave catcher, whose only blemish on his otherwise perfect record of returning slaves to their owners is Cora’s mother. Whitehead’s descriptions of the brutality, fear and first taste of freedom are gripping. They hold the reader throughout as Cora moves in her new world. Nonetheless, the horrors of what await her if caught cast long shadows.
Cora and Caesar arrive in South Carolina where they find paying jobs. Eventually, complacency, missteps, and a relentless Ridgeway force Cora back to the railroad. Her journey takes her to North Carolina and, later, Indiana where she encounters kindness, fear, deceit and Ridgeway.
Whitehead begins each section with an advertisement posted by a slaveholder offering a reward for the return of his property: runaway girls. The novel is often harrowing, but rousing. It’s also disappointing to consider that American society hasn’t necessarily progressed as much as we’d like to believe.
The Underground Railroad
Four Bookmarks
Doubleday, 2016
306 pages
The Blue Page Special 