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Freedom is there, Come with me! Slave stories
Anonymous Quote – some
historians think perhaps Harriet Tubman said this.
" Home. Home is where freedom is. The house can be ever so
nice, with a soft bed, fine food, and fire in the fireplace, but is ain’t
home if it ain’t where freedom is. I live where the fire is out,
where the bed is hard and the bread is scarce, and maybe you work and
maybe you eat and maybe you don’t….but freedom is there. Do
you want to go? I know you do. Freedom is where I’m going. Come
with me! Through swamps, through mire, past paddy roses (patrollers, slave
catchers) with blood hounds and dogs. Past danger, past even death. Freedom
is there. Come with me!"
In Their Own Words: a personal story
Henry Bibb From the anti-slavery pamphlet, 1850 Narrative
of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American slave written by
himself…
" I have often worked without half enough to eat, both
late and early, by day and by night…. Through all kinds of weather,
hot or cold, wet or dry, and without shoes frequently until the month
of December, with my bare feet on the cold frosty ground, cracked open
and bleeding as I walked. Reader, believe me when I say, that no tongue
nor pen ever has or can express the horrors of American Slavery…."
Among other good trades I learned the art of running away to perfection.
I made a regular business of it and never gave it up until I had broken
the bands of slavery, and landed myself safely in Canada where I was regarded
as a man and not as a thing.
Henry Bibb told some of his tricks for running away.
"….by this time I had become much better skilled in
running away and would….avoid detection by taking with me a bridle.
If anybody should see me in the woods and asked, "What are you doing
here, sir? You are a runaway?" I said, "No sir, I am looking
for our old mare…."
Let’s Talk About It
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Why do you think only Black people were slaves in America?
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