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Student Model: Saturation Research Paper Scholar
John Scholar
Ms. Campbell
English 2P
2 October 2011
Through Freedom’s Gate
It was 1849, the year I got my freedom. Mind you, it wasn’t given to me. The only thing Master Ed and Miss Susan ever give me was a sore whippin’, an’ I’s got scars an’ calluses all over my stocky black body to show for it (Petry 5). It weren’t many a poor Negro slave that got freedom given to him. Lord no. He had to go on out and run to catch his freedom. Run faster and farther than he ever did from master’s whip. Faster and farther than he’d ever pray he’d run agin. And that’s just what I did, that night in 1849 (Humpherville 129).
I had reasoned this out in my mind, after hearin’ those forbidden stories whispered agin and agin, quietly around the fire – stories of the slave revolt brought on by Nat Turner (Jackson 121) and of the runaways ridin’ to freedom on the Underground Railroad. I figured they was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other. No man should take Harriet Tubman alive. I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted; and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me (Sterling 60).
It was my visions and my faith in the Lord that got me through that first time, and the times after (Heidish 3050). The gash on my forehead, from the two-pound weight that nasty overseer done throw at me when I was fifteen, may have counted for somethin’after all (Jackson 12). My sleepin’ spells, when I’d black out and see my visions were a ‘cause of that gash. Mebbe it was the Lord’s way of speakin’ to me.
1849….I’d been brewin’ in my head how I’s to get out. Brewin’ an’ thinkin’ till I thought I’d bust. My brothers, Benjamin and William knew what I was schemin’ (Sterling 59). It was only at the very last minute that they changed their plannin’ to come with me. The very last minute.
“I’s bound for de Promised Land.
Friends, I’s gwine to leave you.
I’m sorry, friends, to leave you.
Farewell, oh, farewell” (Sterling 63).
My hoarse-soundin’ voice floated through the still night air softly signalin’ to the cabins in the slave quarter that this was the time, the time I’d told em’ all about. The time Harriet Tubman was finally gwine to leave them and catch the freedom train.
“Shh, William. Listen!.... That’d be Hatt. You ready?” Benjamin stuffed the last bit of ashcake and salt herring in his makeshift satchel while he waited for brother Will to answer (Heidish 96).
William stood for a piece, as if he was waitin’ for a sign from God. Finally, he grunted. “Uh ya. I’s read.”
They pulled their satchels over their shoulders and slipped silently out of their cramped cabin into the shadowless black of the moonless night. The sparklin’ stars above were the only light they had to lead their way to Freedom’s door. They reached the meetin’ place in the boneyard, between the meadow and the swamplands (132). I slipped out of the thick shelter of nearby trees and demanded, “Le’s move it! They’s no time to waste” (Heidish 12).
Silently, we ran through the cool, damp grass of the pasture til we reached the thickened stand of trees which signaled the beginning of the forest land. William was the first to break the silence, as his thoughts turned from freedom to danger. ‘Ssst! Hold on,” he whispered hoarsely. “I thinks I hears somethin’.”
Benjamin and I stopped, an’ turned to face William. We listened, specktin to hear the hoofbeats of the patroller’s horses comin’ at us from behind. We heard nothin’ but the cool breeze rattlin’ the leaves around us.
“Will” I gritted through my teeth. “We can’t be stoppin’ every minute to be listenin’ to your fool ‘maginins, Now le’s move!”
But William didn’t budge none. He stood motionless, as if frozen by the frost of an early winter.
“Will? What’s the matter with you?” Benjamin asked. William stayed frozen another moment, then rasped, “I cain’t do it, Hatt. I knows I told you different. But I just cain’t.”
I went to shake him. But Benjamin came between us. “No, hatt. S’no good. Le’s go back. We’ll try agin on Satyday.”
I shook my head defiantly and declared quietly, but with all my passion for freedom boilin’ up from my inner being, “I’m agoin on. With or without you.”
Benjamin know’d better than to fight me. My hunger for freedom was gnawin’ at me stronger than ever now, an’ it lit up a fire burnin’ in my eyes.
“Then the Lawd see you gets to Freedom’s gate safely, Hatt.”
“Thank you, kindly, Ben.”
“I’s terrible sorry, Hatt,” Will murmured, head lowered. It was plain he was feelin’ a touch ashamed but, nevertheless, was resolved to stay.
“Sawright now, Will. Don’t you think on it none. I best be on my way.”
My eyes filled to overflow’n, blurrin’ my vision-just like happens at the beginnin’ of one of my sleepin’ spells. I quickly turned before they could see the glistenin’ in my eyes and I was gone (Humphreville, 130).
Benjamin and Will scat quickly, dartin’ like dragonflies, back to the safety of their straw pallets on the earthen floor of their cabin-returnin’ to only dreams of freedom, such as we’d all dreamed of so many countless nights gone by.
That night was the beginning of my long journey on the Underground Railroad- a journey that lasted ten years after that first time I made it safely through Freedom’s gate, over sixty years ago. The Railroad was a network of houses, barns and people, mostly Quakers, German farmers and freed Negroes, that hid runaways and helped them make their way North. They were known as “stationmasters” (Petry 100). I worked as a “conductor” on the Railroad, goin’ back nineteen times to lead over three hundred of my people to the Promised Land in the North (Smith and Jeffers 41). An though I be an ol’ woman today, achin and such with rheumatism, I’d go back south today n’ do it agin if Mr. Lincoln hadn’t given my people our freedom in 1863, at the end of the Civil War (Harding 232).
Ventually, my brothers did come North with me, as did Ol’ Rit an’ Ben, my mama n’ papa, even though by then, they was well into their eighties (Smith and Jeffers 41).
I worked for the Northern army durin’ the war, as both a spy an’ a nurse, on account of I knew the Southern territory better than most of the commandin’ generals. I’s been told I was the first Negro to be allowed to join the army, and I was the only woman to fight on the battlefield. I guess I did all right. The only thing that bothered ol’ Hatt was my long skirts getting’ in the way, as we marched Southward into battle (Petty 227). Lord, sometimes I thinks I was meant to be a man ‘riginally.
This here house I lives in now, I built from money I got workin’ as a cleanin’ woman (Harding 53). I brought Ol’ Rit n’ Ben here to Auburn, New York, to live out their last years. It shore was a blassin’ from God, them livin’ their final days here in peace, knowin’ they was free at last. An’ Lord willin’, I ‘spect that is’xactly what I’m a goin’ to do here, too.
Works Cited
Harding, V. There is a River. New York: Harcourt Brace Jonavich. 1967.
Heidish, M. A Woman Called Moses. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1976.
Humpherville, F.T. Harriet Tubman, Flame of Freedom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1967
Jackon, G.F. Black Women Makers of History: A Portrait. Oakland: Jackson. 1985.
Petry, A. Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad. “New York: Crowell. 1955
Smith, Senator M.C. and H.P. Jeffers. Gallant Women.New York: McGraw-Hill. 1968.