A Runaway Slave on the Underground Railroad Essay

The heat here is terrible. Sticky, thick heat that sticks to your skin and clothes and makes it hard to breathe. The mosquitoes only make it worse. They don’t even wait for nightfall to come out anymore, but buzz around all day and torment us out in the cotton fields. I’ve got welts from their bites all up and down my arms and legs, and I’m afraid it won’t be long before there’s a yellow fever epidemic. As you know, it’ll be the babies that go first if that happens, poor little things. Clara just had her fourth last month, and Ether had her third just this week. There’s 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 little babies with them. You know we have to work from dawn to dusk, with only a short break to eat in the middle of the day. The overseers are always watching us, always so quick to strike out at us with the whip if they think we’re slacking off or not working hard enough or fast enough. We get so hot and tired and thirsty in those cotton fields, but there’s little in the way of relief except for a barrel of water with a ladle we all get to share from. I wish I was one of the house slaves, 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 get to raise the white children and cook the meals and do the laundry, and become almost a part of the family. Oh, those white children love their black nannies! But I guess I’m not smart enough or pretty enough to be kept in the house. I’ve got another baby on the way, my second. I hope this one lives. I’ve determined to get out of here. I can’t go on like this. I hear there are people who will help. You’re lucky, Aunt, that you had a kind master who gave you your freedom, and that you found a good man to marry and take you up North where you can be free. If I find a way out of here, can I stay with you until I find work and a place to live? I’ve got to go now and take this letter to the house slave from the farm next door who will mail this for me. I can’t let anyone see me go, and I can’t let anyone know I can read and write a letter. That’s illegal here, did you know. Slaves aren’t supposed to be educated. So, I’ve got to sneak over there in cover of darkness. I hope to write to you again soon. Your loving niece, Libby July 17, 1853 Charleston, South Carolina Dear Aunt Betsey, The house slave from next door I told you about, remember him? His name is Milton. He’s the father of my baby, but as you know, slaves aren’t allowed to marry here. Anyway, he tells me he knows some people who will help me escape. They’re good people, he says, white people who hate slavery. They will get me off the plantation and to a safe house somewhere. Then the people at that house will get me to another house, and so on, all the way up to the North. I’m going to tell them that I want to go to my aunt Betsey Martin’s house in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I hope that’s all right. I hear New Bedford has a large population of us colored folks, and that we live right along with the white people there, side 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 don’t know when all of this is going to take place, so I can’t give you a time yet that I might be there, if this all works out and I don’t get shot trying to escape, or dragged back here to be whipped nearly to death, or worse. I admit, I’m 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 loving niece, Libby September 23, 1853 Ashville, North Carolina Dear Aunt Betsey, Well, I did it! I escaped the plantation. Three nights ago, I snuck over to Milton’s farm like I always do. I had packed a little bundle of most of my belongings that I slung over my shoulder. It wasn’t much. Just one other dress (my good one), some handkerchiefs, a hair brush, and some hard tack to eat, that was all. I knew if all went well, I wouldn’t be coming back. I won’t 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 same 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. I’ve just been living in a cramped cabin with 5 other slave women with no family on the plantation, and they don’t care much what I do. They know I have a beau next door, and they keep quiet about my comings and goings, as most of them have beaus of their own they have to sneak out to see. At Milton’s farm, there were two white men and a white woman waiting inside Milton’s cabin. Milton lives on the edge of the property, near the fence, so no one from the house was likely to see the horses standing outside 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 said 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 I’d 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 store keeper and his wife, and they hustled me inside, where I’ve been staying in a nice, clean, cool bedroom with a real quilt on the bed and a wash basin to wash my face in the morning and water to drink whenever I want it. The woman of the house even gave me a new dress to wear. I’ve never felt so good, so clean. I’m to stay here until a new group of people comes to take me to the next stop. The woman of the house here said I’m now on the Underground Railroad. That’s what they call these safe houses along the way to the North (â€Å"What Was the Underground Railroad? †, n. d. ). The Underground Railroad. I like the sound of that. It’s 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. One of the children in my new safe house showed me a map of the United States and showed me where I am now and where you are. On a map, it does not look so far away, but I fear the journey is still 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 through town, putting up signs with a drawing of me on them, announcing a runaway slave and a reward for my return. The woman of the safe house dressed me up as a man, and hid me in her attic until the men had ridden through 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 chance 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 every morning). I don’t 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 didn’t have anyone to help them until they got further north. They said the Underground Railroad didn’t have too 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, I’m not showing in my pregnancy yet, so I don’t have a huge belly to carry around with me, and I can still run pretty fast when I have to. We’ve been lucky in that we haven’t encountered those men who were looking for me, and the only thing we ever had to run from is the occasional skunk or 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 six others waiting, three 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 didn’t have to do any work. The family wanted us to learn a different way of life, one where we didn’t have to do all the work all the time. They wanted us to experience getting waited on. I must admit, it was strange, but it felt strange in North Carolina, too. I liked it, but I think it’s going to take some getting used to before not doing everything myself begins to feel anything less than strange. Your loving niece, Libby