Slavery and the Underground Railroad; Bound for freedom
By: Carin T. Ford
Carson Turner
The main idea of the book was how much and how hard the slaves pushed for freedom. The book was a non- fiction. My favorite part of the book was on how some of the people that owned slaves were nice to them. Some of the people were John Brow, William Lloyd, and Abraham Lincoln.
The abolitionist from Kansas was John Brown, fighting for the freedom for African Americans. He started a little war in Virginia attempting to start a slave revolt. His idea was to capture weapons from a federal armory and give them to the slave’s to start a revolt Virginia. He captured in front of the Virginia arsenal and put to death.
Another abolitionist, William Lloyd organized meetings agents’ slavery, in slave states and he tried to convince the plantation owners how slavery was wrong. He was defiantly one of the more driven people to end slavery.
Abraham Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, which eventually ended slavery. What he did was he marched with ten thousand armed troops to stop the south from succeeding from the union, his plan did work.
In the beginning of the book, the author explains how life as a slave was the worst thing that you could think of. Carin Ford wrote, “Life as a slave was torture… and to make it even worse for no pay”, I can’t event comprehend the kind of life that they had then.
One of the worst parts about slavery was the trip over to America. Not only was the trip 2-3 weeks long, but the cargo, the slaves, had almost no water and food. The slaves were packed tight on a ship that was only 20-50 feet long. A disturbing part about the slave trips that there were so many dead body’s that were thrown over that sharks followed the boats across the ocean.
Another terrible part of slavery was that the slaves were shackled under the deck where the temperature averaged a blistering 120 degrees. That was so hot that when they lied on their backs they could get 1st degree burns from the heat of the wood. The conditions were so bad that the slaves would take their little food that they got and smear it on their faces so it looked like they were dead, they would be thrown off of the boat. They thought that they had more of a chance to swim home then to survive the boat ride.
The slaves that survived the journey had even harder problems to face in America. First they were sold at auction as either domestic or plantation slaves. Some slaves got lucky and became domestic slaves. The domestic slaves were treated a lot better they had better working environment; they had more household type work. The salves that didn’t get lucky were the plantation slaves. They would work from sun up to sun down no matter what the weather was, 6 days every week. The salves would receive no pay and were poorly compensated with food and housing. Punishment for a slave misbehaving was harsh and it usually involved whipping.
Over all, I think that slavery was one of the top examples of hatred in the world. It was not fair to treat living breathing people like property. After slavery was abolished in the United States blacks still lived with segregation for some time. The book Slavery and the Underground Railroad; Bound for freedom is a good book. It really helped me understand slavery and how bad it was. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn more about slavery.