The year is 1849.
Imagine, if you can, that you have been enslaved your entire life. You have never experienced freedom. You are a young black woman in a society where that makes you the most powerless of the powerless. Petite, just five feet tall, disabled from a head injury you received when you were just a kid, you are perhaps the least probable hero in all of American history.
And yet, there’s something in you, yearning to breathe free, that even a lifetime of enslavement couldn’t quench.
You’ve heard of freedom, in whispers late at night when no overseer could hear. You’ve heard about a journey to the North where slavery is illegal, and where you can become free if only you can get there. But the journey is long, and though there are some helpers along the way, there are also many who would happily hunt, capture, and return you to enslavement for a reward.
So you set off. In the dead of night, you set off. It’s deep winter, and even in coastal Maryland, it’s cold. Bitter cold, but the cold and the dark of winter are your allies. The cold and the dark keep others in doors, while you walk countless miles through wilderness, following the light of the north star.
. . .
For more, listen to the Podcast episode and check out my book, History Stories for Everyone, where I dive deeper into this and some of history’s other most fascinating and relatable human stories:
