February 1861
Dearest William,
I
have just reread Running a Thousand Miles
for Freedom and I have a reached a point where I must relay to you my
insights about a part of this text.
I have never spoken to you about these feelings because I know how
dreadfully upset you become concerning the issue. However, I feel as if it is now necessary for you to know a
major aspect of my fear during our escape.
When
you were not there to meet me in Havre de Grace, when I thought you had died or
been reenslaved, I was "filled with terror and confusion" (31) for
many reasons. However, I am not
sure I have thoroughly relayed to you a major reason as to why I was so
afraid. I was a slave woman
attempting to escape into the Free States. Besides a slave girl, I cannot think of a more vulnerable person
in my position. Yes, my costume
was an important contributor to my fear. I cannot imagine the repercussions for imitating a white
person, let alone a white man. It
is this contrast - black woman and white man - that is was so deeply embedded
in my terror at continuing the journey alone. It was the fact that I knew how completely different my
actual being was from the one I was pretending to be.
For
a piece in the beginning of our text, we discuss how one of the most vile
injustices of slavery is how female slaves were compelled "to submit to
the greatest indignity" (4).
As I waited for you on the platform, I could not help but focus on the
reality that without you, I was a slave woman alone. Most white men would have no qualms with putting me in my
place through sexual violence if they caught me. With every step I took, the fear of capture grew greater and
my focus on this potential punishment grew as well. From all of the stories I have heard of masters, and many
times even men who were not the masters of the slave, who violently raped their
slaves. This knowledge infused me
with terror that I would be forced to submit to the greatest indignity upon others'
realization that I was not a white male, one of the most powerful, but a female
slave, one of the least powerful.
Returning
to our escape, you describe my decision to continue on our planned journey
without you as how I "endeavor[ed] to make his way alone in the cold
hollow world as best he could" (32).
This was part of the reason why I stepped onto that boat. I was dedicated to make my way through
the world for my freedom. But it
was also out of extreme fear that I stepped onto that boat. The dozens of men, white men, who
surrounded me on that platform, some without a doubt who would have had no regrets
forcing me to submit, heightened my terror so very much that I could barely
stand. I knew that making my way
alone in the cold, hollow world would have been so bitterly difficult as a
single woman, but I knew I had to keep moving. To be captured, to be discovered, held the additional
punishment that many slave women encounter. Not only was I escaping to freedom, I was escaping from a
place where my rights as a coloured woman were null and void, even if I was
free.
So
these were my feelings during that brief moment. They are not intended to make you feel badly or to gain further
sympathies from you. I hope that
they will help you better understand the very particular place of the
combination of my gender and race in the peculiar institution.
All
of my love,
Ellen
No comments:
Post a Comment