My governess Miss Abel says that I should keep a diary to improve my writing. I’ve never kept a diary before. I know that they’re for writing about interesting things that happen to you, but my life isn’t that interesting. I’m 11 and I live on a plantation in Charlottesville, Virginia with my mother, father and baby sister Martha.
I’m busy everyday. I must wake up at 7 every morning to have breakfast with the family, and then I work on my needlework and practice the piano until lunch. After lunch I study arithmetic and literature with Miss Abel and I don’t get tea until 4. I shouldn’t complain though; my schedule would be a vacation for the slaves that work on the plantation.
Rose is a slave. Her job is to be my companion. She’s been doing her job and keeping me company for as long as I remember. She sits through classes with me, watches me do my needlework and piano, and stays at the table while I have my tea. Whenever I need anything Rose gets it. Rose and I are very close. I tell her everything and she is the only person who listens. She’s with me all day so we’re talking all the time. Rose is my slave but she’s also my best friend.
If Father found out that I was even friendly to Rose though, he’d be furious. He’s always told us to be strict with the slaves and make sure they understand who’s boss. Father is the master of the plantation and all of the slaves working on it. He treats them more like dogs instead of humans, which I don’t think is right. Father whips and hits the slaves. I hate it. A few weeks ago, William, who works in the fields, came in the morning late because he had a twisted ankle and couldn’t walk as fast as the others. Father was in a bad mood that day so he was especially angry with William. William got three lashes on the back just for being ten minutes late. I’d seen Father punish his slaves before but that wasn’t fair. William was one of the hardest workers; his ankle was only twisted because he had fallen down building our new shed. I’d never interfered with Father and the slaves before, but William didn’t deserve to be whipped for being late. Without thinking, I said, “Father, that’s enough,” and touched his shoulder as Father raised his arm to whip William for the fourth time. Father jerked to me with a sudden movement and hit my arm with the handle of the whip, hard. I jumped back in shock. Father had never hit me before. My arm hurt and there was a big bruise where he’d hit it. Father barked at William, “Get to work!” and stormed away, and he never mentioned the moment to me again.
My father is a good man, he’s just got a short temper. We live in a big house next to the plantation with my mother and Martha. The house slaves live in the basement of our house and the field slaves live in a shack closer to the field. Father strongly believes in slavery, but I don’t know how I feel. They do a lot of work for us and they work really hard, but I’m sure they don’t like being bossed around like animals. And it’s just skin color. Who decided that people with darker skin were of less value than people with lighter skin?

Lately, I have heard from my friends from other plantations that slaves have been escaping and going missing. Slaves are organizing dates to escape in groups. I’ve been extra strict to keep my slaves in line. I hardly let my slaves go farther than the general store and I hesitate to leave them alone. I have to assert that slacking is not appropriate here. If my slaves were to try to escape, I would whip them to smack some sense into them. Unloyal slaves have no place on my land.
I am fearful that Lucy and my slave Rose are getting to be close. When they were young, they used to play together but I am concerned that they still remain friends.

There has been talk in the local newspapers about a movement to try to abolish slavery, which is ridiculous. Someone needs to put a stop to all of this, because we need slaves to keep our lives running smoothly. I suppose that it will pass over in time, though.

Anyhow, Edith and I went out to lunch with the Arlingtons and while Edith gossiped with Mrs. Arlington, Charlie Arlington and I talked about business. He just had a new shipment of slaves delivered to replace the ones that had run away the previous week. He's pretty furious that his slave family has escaped.

I don’t understand why the master is being so strict lately. Waking up at sunrise to cook for everyone is hard. I’m so sleepy in the morning I can barely concentrate. Poor Rose is so young, and with such little sleep, how can she grow? Rose, so loving and beautiful, but she has to work hard day and night. She shouldn’t have to do that. I didn’t want her to be born, it would be so unfair to her. But the master kept insisting, saying I needed to have a baby so they could keep their plantation populated. He didn’t even let me rest while I was pregnant, and I had to work until I was having my baby. And he had poor little Rose was working by the time she was 3. It’s not fair that we get treated this way, and something should be done about it. Just because our skin is darker doesn’t mean that our hearts are. We are just like them and I don’t understand how they got the power. We would never have been in this situation if those slave traders never captured my parents.

I had a nightmare about my parents again. About how they came to America. My poor parents were forced onto a boat, chained together in pairs, and stuffed on the deck. Just lying there against one another in endless rows of slaves...There was no room for them to move or exercise. I’m so glad they didn’t die like many of the others from diseases, injury, or even from committing suicide. And not to mention the whipping they got, I can’t even imagine. But when they finally reached American they were brought to slave yards where they were allowed to bathe and eat to regain weight lost during the journey. Thank goodness for that. Rose doesn’t deserve this, I don’t deserve this, and they most certainly didn’t deserve this either.

I heard something interesting today. Something about some underground railroads. I didn’t know whether it was true or not when I first heard about them, but I think that I am convinced. Apparently it is used as a sort of route that slaves took to run away from their masters. I wonder if I could escape that way too. I mean if all the slaves did it in the past, why can’t I? Poor Rose was forced into this life that she doesn’t deserve. We could escape. I’m going to see if I can find out anymore...

The blood from the chicken’s headless neck stained my dress, and the screams of the chil’ren echoed in my ears as I chased him down.

Mama was preparing a chicken supper for Master, and it was my job to take care of the slaughtering and feather-plucking.

Chicken killing sure ain’t a pleasant job, but it’s a job that needs doing all the same. Can’t be helped.

Normally Martin, Mama’s scrap boy who cleaned the kitchen and took care of the dishwashing, was in charge of slaughtering.

But Lucy was away visiting friends up north, so Mama gave Martin the afternoon off, a rare occurrence around the plantation.

“Why’d I need the likes of that boy hanging around when I have my daughter right here.”

She preferred me working with her in the kitchen, she says it ain’t right for me to be kissing Lucy’s feet all the time like I’m some kind of puppy.

“But Mama, Lucy is right nice to me. She gives me all her old pretty dresses. I have the best dresses of any black girl here. Besides, Master don’t dare whip me because he knows I’m Lucy’s.”

A small trip of the tongue, a misspeaking of words. Mama frowned, her brown lips curving downwards across her entire face, and an intense look of sadness overcome her like a raincloud.

“Master don’t whip his puppies, don’t lay a fat finger on his pets. But black babies, he drown them in the river like unwanted kittens.”

My heart swelled with sorrow. She was referring to Jessica’s baby. Jessica was a girl of nineteen, too young to take care of little babies. But Jessica wanted her freedom, and Master promised her freedom on the day she birthed her fifteenth baby, a promise infused with sickening irony. She’d sell fifteen of her own fleshes into slavery to free her own self.

The sun’s heat pricked the air and sewed beads of sweat onto my forehead. The slave auction terrified me, just the thought of being sold in chains, the rushed and throttled voice of the auctioneer reciting prices and phrases that advertised a human’s flesh.


“Great arms, she has, can work like an ox! Don’t each much neither, a great deal. A splendid steal! Buy her and make your money back in half a year guaranteed!”

Jessica’s poor babe had to endure the cruelty, and he wasn’t three years old.

I blocked from my mind the gruesome picture of Jessica’s baby, startled and wobbly, hearing himself called by shrieked numbers, sold to the highest bidder, separated from his mother who gladly sold his skin in exchange for a sampling of freedom.

“Girl, get that chicken in here right now! I swear you move slower than church elders.”

Mama’s pious commands jerked me back to life. I lifted my bleached brown hand to my brow and wiped the sweat away.

The chicken had stopped his fleeing, and lay defeated in a puddle of his own mess.

I grabbed him by his backside, took him over to the kitchen’s wooden steps chalked with splinters, and started the long and boring process of plucking, dumping his muddied feathers into the scrap barrel.

“Hurry on now, hurry on now,”

Mama’s furious-laden demands song a hymn in my ears while the sun beat the earth with heated anger, and the crying black eyes of Jessica’s baby glared at me from deep within the tucked-away trove of my memories.

I have noticed that my slave Imani and her daughter Rose are very close. They often talk to each other, and I'm worried that they will try to plan something. Imani has always shown signs of not liking slavery. Rose has been alright, but Imani might try to convince her to leave. Maybe Lucy can talk to Rose. I know they are still a little close since they played together when they were young. I hate to think that my daughter is talking to a slave as if they are her equal, but maybe this can come in handy.

The secret underground railroads exist. I’m certain. But should I take the risk of looking for them. These railroads could lead us to freedom, but also to our doom. What should I do?

O.K. It’s decided. I am going to escape. I know it’s risky, and maybe I shouldn’t be putting Rose in such danger, but if we escape...oh it would be amazing. I’m going to sneak out late at night and find the entrance to these railroads. Then, when the night is right, I will take Rose with me. We’ll run away to the North and finally be free. I know we can do it. I believe that we are good people, so good things will happen to us. Finally, the long awaited day is going to happen. We are going to be free. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it. We are finally getting what we deserve. We have just as much rights as the white folks, and the day we run away and get the freedom we deserve, is the day we show the world that we can. We are not just doing this for ourselves, but the other slaves who are stuck are forced into labor early in the morning to late at night. We are doing this for everyone who is mistreated. We are making history.

Stars like the leftover ashes from firewood charred the sky an unsettling burnt black.

The land was like an upturned lantern, moonlight shone beneath the touches of enraged wind that roared through the plantation, shaking the roof of the shack I shared with Mama.

An unseen hole pierced the sky, inviting heavy rains to fall like overripe peaches through its crack. I cried out, terrified, wanting the sweet, fat hand of Mama.

I yearned for her comforting flesh against mine, her plump body lending appreciated heat to my bony skinniness.

Lucy had come back, and she seemed changed somewhat. Her blue eyes looked upon me with a new disgust, as if she now saw me as something less than a friend. As if she realized I wasn’t a human, but a mere pack of bones and blood that consumed and disposed, the labour of my muscles the only atonement for my petty life.

“Welcome home, Lucy,” I smiled wide at her, showing all my white teeth. I had good, strong white teeth, straight and narrow like river canals. Mama says I can never pick up the habit of chewing tabaco, lest I ruin my god-given gift of near-perfect teeth.

Lucy no more than nodded at me, her aged black servant carrying her trunk, trotting behind her.

I never thought too hard about it. A strong white girl letting an aged-weathered and life-weakened man carry her heavy trunk. Not letting, but demanding. Ordering.

On the rare instances when I accompanied Lucy on her sleep-aways, I carried my own traveling bag, not nearly as grand as Lucy’s marble white trunk with golden laches and a thick, silver lock securing her jewelry.

A flash of anger raised the fragility of my emotions. I felt like the time at the carnival, when I rode the ferris wheel with Lucy, and it had paused at the top for a minute, so that we could admire the pretty views that seemed to stretch onto the horizons of forever.

I sucked my teeth and breathed through my nose, gently lowering the intensity of my emotions. The ferris wheel slowly descended down on its track, bringing me safely back to earth.

“See, no one got hurt, Rose,” Lucy assured me, flashing her crooked teeth, yellow like her fathers’. Only Lucy didn’t chew no tabaco.

I had been scared to my shaking knees of riding on the big white wheel with its unsteady, shivering structure. But Lucy insisted I ride, she always made me do things I didn’t care to attempt. She always seemed to control me. Like I was a maid. No, like, like I was a slave.

I felt ashamed for thinking such rebellious thoughts, but under the shaking roof and icy woolen blanket, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps Mama knew more about the Black and White relationships than I. Perhaps the White people really did hate us, really did think us beneath them.

I had never met any other plantation owners, maybe there were thousands of white men just as angry and unfair as Master, whipping children and selling babies and falsely promising black women their freedom if they breed against their will.

I whinnied like a stowed away horse for Mama, but she didn’t come. Her bed was empty, and it was against the rules for slaves to leave their corridors at night.

The winds intensified, the night breathed in dry spurts as it birthed and nursed the storm.

Shiny tears slid down my ruddy cheeks, my body’s watery show of rebellion against the preference of my mind.

The cold, stale emptiness of the bed cut lines of worried dread across my face.

The hand of sleep covered my mouth, retiring my brain to the depths of natural unconsciousness. I slept out of fear, out of desire for escape from the storm and the absence of Mama, not out of tiredness.
All I knew was darkness had painted the sky a paler shade of black. It might have been minutes, it might have been years, from the time of the storm and restless sleep to when Mama placed her pudgy hand on my shoulder, jostling me awake.

“Mama.” A drawl whine escaped the chambers of my mouth, sounding so pitiful even in my ears.

“I’m sorry baby, I know I was gone long,” Mama told me in a soothing tone that chimed in my ears like a compilation of all the goodness of the world.

She sat on the edge of my bed, her water-crusted dress hitting my skin with the coldness of an icebox.

I put my brown hands to my face and wiped away the layers of sleep that lacquered my pupils.

I half-yawned, looked at Mama sideways, my murky eyes the color of the sky after a summer storm, begging for an explanation.

Mama sighed long and hard, sucking in air and breathing out from the bottom of her lungs.

“I’ve been making preparations, Rosemary.”

Silence. Silence so round and vivid it felt like a wedge of lard had settled between us.

Mama almost never called me Rosemary. The only time she used my full name was during church, and that was only occasionally.

“Rosemary, there’s a proper time for everything. A time to be a slave, and a time to be free. I’m old, I’ve lived the greater part of my life enchained like an animal. You’ve lived your whole childhood as a pretty pet for Lucy. It’s time for us to free ourselves, to write a new chapter in our lives. Freedom ain’t gonna stumble upon us all on its own, Rosemary. Freedom needs us to grasp it by the neck. Rosemary, it’s time for us to leave this plantation.”

Startled, salty tears glazed my eyes. Tears born more out of confusion than anything else. Where would we’d go? Who’d take two runaway blacks in?

The punishment for attempted escape was more gruesome and merciless than death itself.

“But, Mama, what’d become of us if we leave? We don’t have no place to stay, Mama, no place to go. Master’ll find us for sure, and then where’d we be? Mama, Master’s got a heavy hand for whipping, and surely he’ll catch us, sooner or later, and drag us to the whipping post!”

By now I was all hysterics, terrified and excited at once. Mama patted my back rhythmically, doing her best to calm my unsettling thoughts.

“Sshh now, go back to sleep. There’s still a few good hours of night left. I’ve arranged everything. We gonna get help, Rose, from other free blacks. And we’ll be escaping in a group, with other chil’ren just like you. It’ll all be fine. It’ll be just fine.”

I was not at all comforted. But the talk of freedom tired me, so I lay back and closed my eyes, drifting into a nightmarish sleep dotted with images of gruesome whippings.

The sound of spilled blood intertwined with shrieks sung horror-filled lullabies in my ears the rest of the night, not quieting until the first rays of morning spilled through the cracks of the shack and from the slit underneath the door.

Just before I surrendered myself to sleep, I thought I heard Mama muttering something about an underground railroad. But I must have misheard, for what could be more ludicrous and senseless than a railroad underground.

I don’t know what to think. I feel sick. This doesn’t feel real. Rose was acting strange all morning. During needlework she was quiet and jittery, and she looked nervous. When I asked her what was wrong she paused and looked around the room. She hesitated before saying in a quiet voice, “I’m only telling you this because I know I can trust you. This is important to me. You need to swear on your life that you won’t tell anyone, alright?” I nodded, and Rose took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was not anticipating what she told me.

“We’re running away,” Rose whispered. There was a gleam in her eyes.

I felt like someone had just punched me. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. “How?” I croaked.

“My mother and I are running away tonight. We’re escaping North with a group of slaves from other plantations. This is it, Lucy. We’re finally going to be free!”

I couldn’t speak. I tried to smile for Rose but tears rolled down my cheeks. Rose gave me a hug. I made a choking sound as we embraced. I’m happy for Rose; she’s my best friend and she deserves every bit of freedom. But what am I going to do without her? We’re grown up side by side and sometimes I feel like she’s my sister. And she’s done everything for me. Who’s going to accompany me now, and fetch me things when I need them? And I’m scared. I’m terrified. What if Rose gets caught? I’ve heard the stories. The punishments for an escaping slave are petrifying.

I was quiet for the rest of the day. My mind was clouded with thoughts. I am about to have dinner with the family now so I can’t speak to Rose. When will the last time I speak to her be?

Today, I heard the most terrible thing. I overheard my Lucy and that slave Rose talking about Rose and her mother running away. I was about to enter the workroom, where Rose and Lucy were supposed to be doing needlework. I was going to ask Lucy a question about her schoolwork, when I overheard voices.They were talking about how Lucy doesn’t want Rose to leave because she will miss her but how she wants the best for Rose. I immediately pushed through the door and started yelling at Rose. Imani soon came in and told me to stop it and I rounded on her and I hit her. I knew it. I knew that this was going to happen. I can’t believe my slaves would dare to try and escape from my household.
Lucy begged me to stop and I looked at her and told her to never associate herself with slaves like Rose like this again. Later that day, I waited until Lucy went to bed to fetch Rose to punish her.

I turned to carry Rose to the whipping post for what she has done, but Imani came in and interfered.
“Please! Don’t hurt Rose, don’t hurt her please! Take me instead. It’s not her fault.” Imani begged. “She is just a child. She knows nothing. Please.”
She wanted me to take her instead and I did, fury pumping through my head. I hung her on the whipping post, forcing Rose to watch so they knew not to try anything else like this again.
I sold Imani the next day and I heavily punished Lucy for being so close with Rose. My little Lucy fraternizing with that stupid slave! How could she? How can she not see that this is not right?

Her screams and the streams of blood stained the quiet peace of the day and changed my heart forever.

It happened during dinner. Thick loaves of brown bread slathered in honey, a piece of cold chicken, cornbread and molasses.

Master came. Angry as fire, fierce as thunder. Grabbed the collar of my dress, ripped the pretty lace clean off.

“Get up!” He screamed, jerking me from the wooden bench to my feet.

The sound of my feet dragging against soil, as he dragged me from the kitchen, across the shallow and flowerless medal, to the lonesome whipping post surrounded by bitter weeds.

The sky, the color of tears, the shade of sadness.

Master forced me against the post, and splinters tugged at my arms. A small scream of surprise, of fear, spilled from between the cracks of my lips.

“Please.” A useless plea, I would not escape the gruesome fate that awaited me at the sharp end of the leather strap that would whipped the air to ribbons before it cut into my flesh.

Lucy, in the corner of my mind, tears forming curly trails down her pale cheeks. It seemed so funny, all of sudden, that the color of Lucy’s cheeks entitled her to freedom, and nothing else. Not the brains inside her skull, not the muscles beneath her skin, not the feelings within her heart. Just the color of her skin.

I closed my eyes, painfully aware of their dangerous shade of brown. My brown eyelids gave Master the right to beat me like a dog. My brown eyelids gave Whites the right to work me like an ox. My brown eyelids gave Whites the right to imprison me on their land, chaperone me at all times of day and night, deny me the right to freedom.

I closed my brown eyelids, and resigned myself to the enraged, power-laden white hand. A brown hand meant nothing against a white hand. Nothing at all.

Mama was right. She knew better than I. The world needed to change, and if it took a million united voices to accomplish that change, it would be a billion times worth it.

Before I could feel the fiery lash against my back, before pain laid a finger on me, a single, heaven-sent voice delivered me from the whip’s great evil.

Mama’s richly textured voice, like the dark layers of ganache.

“Wait! Please, please, hold on!” Her torn scream broke the path of the wind, and her voice echoed across the plantation. Several slaves stopped their harvesting to glance our way, to watch the spectacle playing out at the whipping post.

“Take me, please, I beg of you! Take me! My daughter don’t have nothing to do with escape plans. She’s a good girl, she’s as sweet as a rose! Take me, whip me, break me, but please, spare the girl, spare my child.”


Spare the girl.

I was weak. I had to look away when the lash splashed against Mama’s back, breaking the surface of her skin with just one strike.

The sun beat heat against the Earth as if condemning it for its sins. A small raven flew overhead, his wings dipping against the ocean of the sky, forming a single black teardrop against a frame of blueness.

He sold me. The master sold me. I can’t believe he split me and Rose apart. How could he do that? We were already his slaves how could he also split us up? Oh, poor Rose! Please let her be okay! Please, oh please let her get her freedom. What will become of my beautiful Rose? Please let her be okay. Please.