Dear Friend,

  I’ve met a lot of folk on the train, while traveling to and from the dreaded North. During my travels, I usually attempt to accumulate slaves from slavemasters traveling towards the North. I like to play on fear. For me, the most beneficial fear ends in a transaction between me and the said slavemaster. I warn him of tricky, unfaithful slaves who undoubtedly run away the moment they step on “free” soil. I once heard another gentleman on a train warn someone, "So I tell ye, stranger, again, you had better sell, and let me take him down to Orleans. He will do you no good if you take him across Mason's and Dixon's line...I can see from the cut of his eye that he is certain to run away" (25). So I say something along similar lines. Additionally, I add a sensationalized story of how a couple of my own runaway slaves escaped, and if it can happen to the best of us (i.e. me) then it can happen to any owner. I learned my lesson and stress to them I do not want my fellow countrymen to experience the same anger, public shame, and loss of property I went through. I f I cannot persuade them to sell me their chattel, I hopefully at least they become more vigilant with them while traveling.

       However, as you know dear friend, my private thoughts go past what I say to strangers on trains. I believe women of any race should be property, too. There is much public outrage when white children are kidnapped or orphaned and sold into slavery. I have a slave who swears she is white, and has pleaded and implored me to bring her captor to justice, whom had taken her from her wealthy family one day when they lost her in a crowded market in a large Southern town. However, I will not do so.

       I am ill-at-ease by the newly-passed Fugitive Slave Act and it hampering my abilities to capitalize on slavemasters' fears and unpreparedness while traveling North. Also the story of The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery has me reeling. It's taught me to look into the eyes of those I feel to be hiding a secret on the train, instead of just listening to their rhetoric. It is easier to hide the tremble in your voice than to hide fear in your eyes.

     In assuming the mannerisms and clothing of a man, Ellen has emasculated her husband, which is even worse when you add that she is a lesser human. Once a man has lost control of his wife, he has lost his manhood. So what William has gained in (what will hopefully be temporary) freedom, he loses in manhood. 

To go through an abominable transformation....not only to impersonate a white person, but a white man, is despicable.

Slave Trade Master on a Train,
looking for traitors
before they trek through Mason-Dixon