March 15th 1846

I am a lucky one. With only three babies to care for and housework to do, I am a lucky one. I don’t really have a name, my master mostly calls me Catherine. I am not sure if this is my real name or simply something the master came up for me. From what I have heard from Mack, I had many siblings, more than the fingers on one hand. I had only been a baby when the rest of my family was auctioned off. Mack and my mother were the only other slaves at that auction who had been bought by my current master. My mother died when I was old enough to do housework, In childbirth, the mistress told me. She didn’t tell me whether or not the baby had survived. I assumed not since the only black baby toddling around here is my own. Mack and I are not sure how old we are, just that mack is older than me. Mack is my husband. Thankfully I managed to get pregnant within the first 3 months of our marriage, and avoided being sold to one of masters white friends. The babies name is Lewis and is nearly old enough to start working in the fields. I am terrified of the day that he will start working in the fields with his father. I have seen what the sun alone does to Mack. Not to mention the disease, and punishment for not doing things quite right. I hope I never live to see the day that poor little Lewis has to go through that. I have to go now, the sun is starting to rise and if I don’t get started on breakfast soon I will get another whipping from the master.



March 22th 1846

I have never understood why any of the slaves bother trying to escape. It always seemed like a lost cause, it always seemed like we would all either die here, or at the hands of another white man. We would never be free. We would allays be slaves. Yet something happened yesterday that caused me to rethink this a little. Last night, I spilled sweet tea on the masters favorite coat when I went to refill his glass, resulting in another whipping. That’s not what really hurt though. Sure the lashings hurt, they always hurt, but what was so different about last night was that Lewis watched the whole thing. For the first time in my short miserable life, I wished I was different. I wished I had been born white instead of black, that I had married a white man, that Lewis had never been forced to watch his own mother beaten to an inch of her life. Now I think how stupid that was. Nothing can ever change who we are. We can never be free, this will always be my, no....our, life. Until the day we die Mack, Lewis, and I will always be slaves.


April 4th 1846
tomorrow is Lewis first day in the field. Something bad is going to happen, I can feel it Like the stifling humidity before a storm. My little Lewis is going to work alongside his father. I just know his sweet, playful, demeanor will be sucked out of him by the deadly heat.



April 5th 1846

I can still hear him. The anguished screams of my little baby boy. Even now, into the darkness of night they are still whipping him. When Mack returned to the slave quarters the look on his face was all I needed to know what had happened. I started sobbing, begging him to tell me how many pounds of cotton below the limit Lewis had fallen. When I finally calmed down enough for him to tell me he whispered the number and I started crying again. 57. 57 pounds below the limit. That meant 57 lashes from the whip.


April 26th 1846

Every night, Lewis returns to the slave quarters, exhausted and burnt from the sun. his hands are a mangled mess. Every night we wrap them in cloth from my apron. Every day he has to pull off the cloth to pick, and the gashes are reopened. Mack says that soon his hands will heal, and the skin will grow back tougher than before. But how? How can his hands possibly heal when they only continue to be damaged beyond repair? Mack told me something yesterday. Something deadly. He told me he had found a way out. That friends of his had heard of an escape route nicknamed 'the underground railroad'. An escape away from the plantation. I haven’t told him whether I want to leave or not yet. He told me he wouldn’t leave without me, so it is okay if I say no. I still can't decide. I have lived here, and worked here, my whole life. What if we get caught? I could be killed, or worse, Lewis could be killed. In any case we aren’t even sure where this supposed 'railroad' is. We wouldn’t make it 5 miles.



May 3rd 1846

I'm pregnant. I know it. I haven’t told Mack or Lewis this yet. I don’t want to be pregnant. I don’t want to have to bring a child into this world, just to have him tortured and hated for what he is. Which is why I have decided to leave with Mack on the underground railroad. We still don’t know anything about it, and Lewis doesn’t even know it exists. In the morning I will tell Mack. Then together we will tell Lewis. After that, Mack will spend a little extra time finding out more about it. Hopefully, we will be free before I have to tell Mack and Lewis about the baby. I know the dangers that await us, and I know it will be hard, but we have to do it. We have to escape.



June 7th 1846

June 19th. that is the day it will all change. That is the day that we will escape. Mack spoke to a man at church today about the railroad. He said he could get us out on June 19th. When the moon is at its highest point in the sky we are to sneak through the cotton plantation to the other side. Once there, we will meet a man. We wernt told his name or what he looks like, just that we are to meet him there. From then on, he will take us to his house. We are not sure what will happen after that. Apparently, the less we know, the best.


June 19th 1846

Tonight is the night. In just a few minutes we will be streaking across the cotton field. Just being outside this late, would surely enact a harsh punishment. I don’t want to think of what may happen if we get caught. I cant afford to think like that. If anything, Lewis should at least escape. Even if it means the death of me, Mack, and the baby. I still haven’t told them about our little extra family member. I know I will have to soon. Hopefully we will escape before I start showing. Surly it wont take longer than two months to escape... right?



August 2nd 1846

Wrong. It has been two months and we have only just passed the state border. From our conductors calculations, we have at least three more states before we are free. I don’t really know how much that is, but it sounds like a lot. I will have to tell the boys very soon. A little baby bump has already worked it's way just above my belly button. It isn't noticeable under my dress but its there. A constant reminder of the curse I have implanted on this poor soul by bearing it as my child. I thought that not having to work a kitchen would allow me more time to write in this journal. I was wrong. What we are doing is so dangerous that we have to take longer, more exhausting, routes. The constant risk of being caught has kept all of us on our toes.


August 5th 1846

Mack is dead. The soldiers caught us by surprise, our guard was down and We didn’t hear the hooves until it was too late. We tried to run, but were no match for the speed of the horses. They quickly surrounded us, and demanded we return with them and be relinquished to our master. The guns they held were trained on us all at once, we had to give in. Mack leaned a little closer to me and whispered, “run.” Before hurling himself into the nearest soldier. His shoulder made contact with the man before they both fell behind the horse, giving them momentary shelter from the cascade of bullets. I didn’t stick around to see the rest, grabbing Lewis”s hand I sprinted off into the woods. The rest, is a blur of trees and bushes whipping past as we ran for our life. I am not sure what happened to our conductor. That doesn’t really matter to me right now. Mack is gone. I can feel it. There is no way he could have survived that. I have to be strong though. I have to be strong for Lewis, he needs me now. He needs his mother.


January 4th 1847

We are so close. A mere hour away from freedom. We didn’t realize that their would be a group of soldiers camping on the path we were using. I know what I have to do. I know what I have to do to protect my son. It is the only way. We can never make it around. The campsite is so large that we would never be able to navigate our way back. I have to do it. I have it all planned out now. I will give Lewis this journal and tell him to wait until he sees the soldiers heading away from their posts, then run as fast as he can to the other side of the camp. Thankfully the site is longer than it is wide, so he shouldn’t have to run for long. I will then light a small fire a little away from the camp. Just close enough for them to notice it. Then I will start throwing the rocks I collected earlier today, at the back of soldier heads. After that I'll continue to light more fires in the forest. Hopefully all this ruckus will distract them from the small boy sprinting through their camp. If I live I will write more entries. If I die, then this would be my last.