A Desperate Road to Freedom

by Karleen Bradford

  Something bad happened yesterday. We were handed over to another Conductor, and he was an older man. Sort of frail. Mama fussed at him because she thought he was too old to be doing this sort of thing, but he just fussed right back at her. Said he’d been a slave himself and was helped by the Underground Railroad to escape, and he was going to keep on helping others till he dropped.

  We were going down a steep hill and next we knew, he stepped on a loose stone and fell. He tried to get up again, but he couldn’t. Mama said his leg was broke for sure. He told us to go on and told us where to go, but no way were Mama and Papa going to leave him. We didn’t know what to do, but Thomas just scooped him up and said he’d carry him. Thomas is real big, and the Conductor was pretty spare, but it still was a heavy burden. Thomas was set on it, though. Nobody can be as determined as Thomas when he puts his mind to a thing, so for the rest of the night he carried that old man on his back.

  The man was moaning with pain and after a bit he fainted, but Thomas figured out the way to go and we knew what house to look for. Soon enough we saw it. It was a white man’s house, but there was a quilt hanging over the porch railing, just like the old man said there would be. We hid in the barn while Thomas carried the Conductor up to the steps. We peeked out through the barn door, watching. I knew Mama and Papa were thinking same as me. What if it’s the wrong house? We were none of us breathing when Thomas knocked quiet on the door. It opened and a white man looked out. Seemed like he just stood there forever, looking at Thomas without saying a word, then he nodded and motioned Thomas to take the Conductor in. Soon Thomas came back out to the barn, carrying a poke full of crackers and cheese.

  Thomas told us the white man and his wife said they’d take care of the Conductor. See that he got to a doctor. There’d be another Conductor to take us on tonight, they said. The man and his wife thanked Thomas for carrying the Conductor to them. Said he was a truly good man and deserved it.

  Makes me feel good inside to know that we could give back some of the help we’ve been getting all these weeks.

  Fighting all around us. We didn’t dare move last night because we were afraid there were still soldiers in the area. Just laid real low.

  I lost track of time again. I just remember waking up sometimes, all in a sweat because I was sure I heard dogs. Once we really did. That night we didn’t run, we just stayed put in another barn. The owner of the house was a white lady.

  Our Conductor — another Negro lady now — showed us the stars last night and pointed out a bunch that look just like a drinking gourd tilted down. She said that if you draw a line from the two stars on the front of it upwards, you’ll see a really bright star. That’s the north star and that’s what we have to follow to take us north to freedom. To Canada.

  I remember Sarah always singing a song about following the drinking gourd. I used to sing along with her although I never did know what it meant. Now I know what the words were saying.

  I suppose I shouldn’t be writing that down, case somebody does catch us, but if they do I’ll bury these pages quick or mess them up so good nobody can read them. Writing things down is the only comfort I got.

  I wonder if Sarah got a chance to run and follow that star? Maybe she’s already free. In Canada. She was such a good big sister to me and I loved her so much — I want to believe she’s some place where she can be happy.

  Going through Pennsylvania. That sure is a hard word to spell, but I think I got it right. We are all too tired now even to talk.

  How much longer is this going to go on? Don’t know how much more I can take. Don’t know how much more any of us can take.

  Think it’s March now. Not sure.

  Still raining, but no more snow, thank goodness.

  We’re nearly in New York State, but we’ve got mountains to go around. I can see them in the distance. Glad we don’t have to go over them. We’ve been climbing enough hills. Our Conductor says we’ve got to follow the Hudson River Valley up to near Albany, then we turn west and follow the Mohawk Valley to a town called Rochester. She’s going to see that we get on a Canadian steamer there to carry us over to the other side of the lake, and that’s Canada.

  I don’t understand any of it. Just wish we were back in the Freedom Fortress.

  Our Conductor tells us we’re in New York State now. Finally.

  April 1863

  Friday, April 3rd, 1863

  We made it to Albany. Hiding in the root cellar of a stone house on a big river called the Hudson. We’ve all had a chance to rest up a bit. White lady lives here and she brought us a dinner of fried stripers like you wouldn’t believe. We couldn’t even eat it all. Even better than catfish. Got some saved for tomorrow when we’ll be off again. Joseph stuffed himself so much I thought he’d be sick, but he’s got life back in his eyes and he even smiled at me. He’s curled up sleeping now and snoring like a happy hound dog.

  They mostly call us colored up here in the north, not Negroes. Makes no matter to me what they call us, though. I know who I am.

  All the colored folk around here are free. No slavery allowed in New York State, but we still got to hide because of something called the Fujitiv Slave Law. I’m just guessing at how to spell fujitiv. Never had any call to write that word down before.

  That law says that if anybody up here finds an escaped slave, they got to send him back south. Free colored people here got to carry their free papers with them all the time because slave catchers come up here looking for runaways and carry them back south. Sometimes they grab folks they know are free and kidnap them anyway, papers or not.

  I snuck out of the root cellar early this morning. Couldn’t stand being shut in the dark anymore and had to get out. That’s where I’m writing now. The sun is just coming up and there are swallows flitting through the air, catching flies coming up from the water. Ducks bobbing all around, too. It’s all so peaceful and quiet. I would dearly love to live somewhere like this place and not have to be afraid of anything.

  Better get back down to the root cellar now, though.

  Friday, April 10th, 1863

  We got to Rochester. Tired. We’ve been on the run all night every night to get here. Rochester is on a lake so big I can’t see the end of it. Can’t believe it’s more than two months since we left the Freedom Fortress. But, some ways, it seems more like two years.

  We’re hiding out in a free colored family’s barn. They can go anywhere they want! Thomas says that after this war, if the Northern States win it, all the colored people in the country will be free and will be able to live like that. Can’t believe it. Mama doesn’t believe it, either. She still says we got to get out of here while the getting is good.

  Saturday, April 11th, 1863

  Man who owns this place — we aren’t given their names, just in case — knows which Canadian captains are willing to take runaways over to Canada. He says that slave catchers keep watch over the harbor and check that all the colored people getting on the boats have free papers, but since the war started they’re not around so much. He says that if he keeps watch he can let us know when it’s safe for us to go.

  The man’s wife came out to the barn today with new clothes for all of us, so we’ll look respectable when we get to Canada. Well, not new, but clean. We need them. The clothes the Missionary ladies gave us at Fortress Monroe are hanging in tatters. I even got new boots that are only a little bit too big for me. I expect I will grow into them. They’ve been worn a lot, so they’re already nice and soft.

  We’re all so nervous, though, we don’t even want to talk. Just hiding here, waiting.

  Friday, April 17th, 1863

  Dark of the moon. If there’s no slave catchers on the dock tonight, the man says we’re going. His wife is a nice lady. She brought us a hot supper. She said they wouldn’t feed us on the boat and we’d best eat hearty before we set out, but my stomach was so tied up in knots I couldn’t eat a bite. I think Mama and Papa felt just about the same, but they didn’t want to hurt her feelin
gs so they forced it down. Only ones who could eat their fill were Thomas and Joseph. Thomas never refuses food and Joseph does whatever Thomas does.

  Saturday, April 18th, 1863

  We’re on the boat! I’m scrunched in a corner down below the main deck. Can’t hardly write, the boat is rolling around so much. Mama is up on the deck. She’s sick from the rolling. So are Thomas and Joseph and Papa. Doesn’t seem to bother me none, but maybe it’s just as well I didn’t eat supper.

  It was scary getting on board. The man who was hiding us carried us to the harbor and we hid in some trees while he scouted it out to make sure there weren’t any slave catchers around. It was pitch dark with no moon at all and there were only a few lights on the boats that were tied up in there, but there was a lighthouse. It shot out a great beam of light that turned around and around up at the top of it and lit everything up. Every time it did, we just shuddered back into the shadows. There was a big old iron bridge there, too, that crossed the harbor. It looked spooky when the light shone on it. The man pointed out the boat we were going to go on, then he just sort of melted into the darkness. There was a plank leading down from the side of it to the shore, but I couldn’t see anybody around. Suddenly he was back.

  “Hurry up,” he whispered to us. “Up that plank with you. Go through the door at the top and down below. Hunker down there and don’t make a sound.”

  We didn’t hardly have time to thank him. He was a free man, but if he’d been found helping slaves he would have been in a passel of trouble. Don’t think being free would help him one bit. It’s against the law to help escaped slaves, even up here in the North. Specially for colored people. Figure he’d be punished as much as we would if they caught him. He’s a right brave man. So is his wife. And so is that old man who broke his leg helping us. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back on the Railroad soon as his leg’s mended.

  Makes me think about all the people who helped us. Thomas says it takes courage to run like we did, but it takes courage for people to help us like they did, too. Even white people. Papa says white people who help slaves escape get fined a lot of money and thrown in jail! We got a powerful lot to be grateful for. Not likely we could do this without them.

  After the man left us, we snuck up the plank, quiet as we could. There weren’t any sailors around at all. Then we slid through a door that had been left open, climbed down a ladder, and hid below the deck. We stayed down there all night. This morning we heard sailors shouting and the engine started up with a roar and a clanking that near scared the wits right out of me. I just crouched there with my hands over my ears. Next thing we knew, we could feel the boat moving and we knew we were on our way. After a while a sailor came down and said we could go up on the deck if we wanted. He was a white man, but he treated us real respectful.

  Going to tuck this back down safe in my dress and go up. Want to see what it looks like up there. Want to stand out in the open in the broad daylight and feel the wind in my face. Wind of freedom, that’s what it is.

  Tomorrow we’ll be in Canada.

  Sunday, April 26th, 1863

  TORONTO, CANADA!

  We made it! We’re here, safe and sound! We were met the moment we got off the boat by the kindliest preacher I’ve ever known. He gathered us up and carried us to his home. He’s been free all his life — imagine that. His missus gave us a good hot meal, more clean almost-new clothes, and then let us sleep in soft beds with white sheets! I think I would have slept forever if Mama hadn’t woken me up the next morning. Then Reverend Parks bundled us all up in his wagon and carried us here to this big city. The biggest city in the world, I think it is, right on a huge big lake. He handed us over to a bunch of ladies from The Ladies Colored Fujitiv Association. I already knew how to spell Association. I’m still guessing at the word Fujitiv.

  Next thing we knew, we were carried to a narrow brick house on a street full of houses and stores and more exciting things than I can begin to tell of. In a part of the city called St. John’s Ward. Going to take me the rest of my life to write about what it’s like here. A Mister Blunt owns the house and he’s letting us board there. Mister Blunt says we can stay for as long as we need! He often rents to newcomers like us. Says Papa and Mama and Thomas can get work and pay him when they do. Missus Blunt and Mama are getting on fine. They’re two of a kind.

  There’s been no time for writing till now. Too many new things and too much happening! I’m almost getting used to it, but I still get scared now and then. We’ve been scared for so long, it’s not something you get shut of easily. But the folks here are so kind. There are escaped slaves like us, then there’s free colored folk like Reverend Parks who came up to Canada West from the states in the north. Seems like what we heard was true — they weren’t safe there even though they were free. A man who went to Reverend Parks’s church was snatched away from his family by a slave catcher in Ohio and sold down south even though he was a free man. Wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Guess Papa was right when he said we should come up here.

  I don’t know what Mama would have done if they had taken my papa. I know she and Papa still mourn Caleb and Daniel and Sarah, but they never talk about it. If I mention their names, they just get all quiet and I know it hurts them, so I don’t say anything more.

  The colored folk hereabouts can do anything they put a mind to. There’s folk who own their own stores, even a doctor. The doctor lives right near to us.

  And I’ve been going to school! Finally! Colored folk can get as much learning as they’ve a mind to in Canada. No laws against getting educated here. I do love that, but it’s mighty strange sitting in a room with other children and all of us learning. And do you know the teacher’s a white lady and us colored children are right in there with the white children. All of us learning together. I never would have believed it possible. Nobody’s going to tell me I can’t write, not ever again.

  I never realized what being a slave really meant until now. I always just thought that was the way things had to be. Thought that whippings, and being hungry all the time, and being afraid of being sold away from our families was the way we were supposed to live. Now I know that’s all one big lie. I wish I could tell everybody back home what living free is like. Wish they could live free, too. Only thing stops me from being so happy here is remembering them and knowing they’re still living so hard. Young children like Bessie — all they got to look forward to for the rest of their lives is being slaves, and all they can hope for is not to be hurt too bad or sold away. I got a whole new life now. Makes me feel bad that I am so blessed and they’re not.

  But right now I’ve got to stop. We’re going to church and pray for Daniel and Caleb and Sarah, and for the end of the war, and after that Mama’s going to Sabbath School. That’s another school that the church runs after services, for grown-up folk who want to learn to read and write. The teacher there was carried up as a slave to Kingston — that’s another big city here in Canada West — with a white family after the American War of Independence. Then she was freed by the Queen of England along with all the other slaves in Canada. Imagine that! Freed by a Queen! This surely is a special country. Teacher says some people here, like the ones she came up from the south with, are called Loyalists because they didn’t want to be Americans — they stayed loyal to England. She asked Mama if she wanted to attend Sabbath School. I was surprised to hear Mama say that she did.

  I think I’ll tell Mama about my writing. I never would have thought it, but I suspect she’ll approve.

  Later

  Showed Mama my writing. She was astounded. There’s no other word for it. Said she couldn’t believe I’d been doing that all along. First off she started fussing at me for taking such a big chance while we were still slaves, and especially while we were running, but then she sort of ran her fingers over one of the pages and got all quiet.

  “Read me a bit, Julia May,” she said, so I read what I just wrote today. She reached over to give me a hug and I could see her e
yes all shiny with tears.

  I think she’s proud of me.

  Mama and Papa and Joseph and me are sharing a room almost as big as our whole cabin back on the plantation. Thomas is sleeping in the shed in the back yard. I’m so glad we got away before he was sold off. I never did get to know Caleb and Daniel too well, but Sarah was like a second Mama to me. I wonder where they all are now, but don’t suppose I’ll ever know for sure. Makes a big hurting sadness inside me that won’t ever leave.

  Mama and Papa have a big bed behind a curtain, but they’re still downstairs talking to Missus Blunt. I’m curled up in the softest bed I’ve ever laid in. Joseph is snoring away beside me. He is snuffling in his sleep. I had to ask my teacher how to spell snuffling. Mama uses that word all the time. “Stop that snuffling and get to work now,” she’ll say. I always liked the sound of it but never knew what it would look like written down. I think it looks just as nice as it sounds — all those fat, round ffs. I most decidedly like writing letters with tails.

  It’s pretty cold here still, never mind that it is April. Be a lot warmer back in Virginia now. My old life there seems so far away! Does Miss Marissa wonder what happened to me? What would she think if she knew I was here in Canada? Free! I wonder if she would be happy for me. I bet her daddy isn’t.

  Monday, April 27th, 1863

  Back to my own school today. My teacher’s name is Miss Clarke. She’s the nicest lady I ever met. I told her about my writing and she gave me a whole new scribbler just for me! She said writing things down that happen every day, like I’ve been doing, is called keeping a journal. So that’s what I’m going to call my writing now. A journal. She even said when I use this notebook up she’ll give me another one.