Slaves, Slave-Masters and Slave-Catchers: The Gory details of Slavery in America

Coloured American, Colson Whitehead, has written a book “Underground Railroad,” which won Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2017. This made me eager to read the book, so I bought a copy and started to read it. It is the story of a Negro girl named Cora, a third-generation slave in the cotton plantation in the south America, Georgia, in the 19^th century, pre-Civil War times.

Cora’s grandmother was kidnapped and sold to the plantations; the whole family was sold, and she was bought for $ 226 and sold and resold many times in the next few years. Slaves of breeding age were in demand, with the hope they will squeeze out children like pups, for ‘money bred money.’ Finally, she landed in Georgia.

She took husbands three times, only to lose them all to resale, cholera and death. Of the five children she bore, all except one girl, Mabel, died. Mabel escaped from the plantation and disappeared without a trace, leaving her daughter Cora at the age of eleven, an orphan, rather a ‘stray,’ like a dog on the street.

The story is about Cora, who defends her small patch, where she grew yams and okra, like her mother, the only property she ever owned. Girls were raped, violated on their marriage night by the master, and whipped to take away any trace of rebellion. The sadist owners invented every day new ways of punishing the slaves.

A slave is the property of her master who purchased her/him. There is no escape, for even a runaway slave, when caught had to be returned to the master as per the then prevailing rules of the States. Slave catchers were turned on these runaway slaves, until they were caught.

One such slave escaped, was caught and returned to his master in the plantation Cora worked. He was doused with oil and roasted alive in the full view of the white owner and his guests and visitors, who had their supper watching the free show in the front lawn. The victim’s mouth was sewn to stifle the screams.

Another inmate Caesar, invites Cora to escape with him. They escape and reach the underground railroad, a subway system that ran throughout the South that transported runaway slaves to the north, which was free. Though imaginary, there did exist a network of secret routes and safe houses that evolved in the 19^th century America.

Their first stop takes them to South Carolina. Government owned the former slaves and rehabilitated them in decent works, provided them with medical care and communal housing. Cora and Caesar thought they had found a safe haven and stayed there for two years. She even worked as a live exhibit of a Negro slave in the Museum of Natural Wonders in S. Carolina.

Soon they found out that the government was preparing a state-solution for the problem of Negro race in America, by sterilizing the black women and using the male Negroes as subjects in their experiment to track the spread of syphilis. Moreover Ridgeway, the slave-catcher was after them and soon caught up with them at South Carolina.

In the melee of escape, Caesar got killed and she runs off to the underground station alone. Her trip brings her to North Carolina this time. Martin, the son of the station’s former operator, takes her home and hides her in the attic, where she stayed for several months.

Through a small hole in the wall, Cora watched the goings on of the nearby park. The servant of the house tells on the owner and raiders along with Ridgeway come home and take her, while her protectors were harassed and hanged. She was being taken to Georgia, via Tennessee, where a black-freed slave, Royal, notices her and with his gang attacks the slave-catcher and frees Cora.

They move to Indiana to a farm owned by a free black man, Valentine farm, and try to settle in. Soon word spread that the farm is harbouring runaway slaves and the White Indiana folks attack and burn down the farm. Many died, including Royal.

Ridgeway recaptures Cora, but insists that she shows him the underground rail station. She takes him, but kicks him down the stairs and escapes. She finds a cavern travelling West, and was given a ride by a coloured driver. There the story ends.

The book shows the reality of the brutal slave system and the travails of the slaves in the 19^th century. The author has researched well, especially by going through the narratives of the old slaves, who were still living in 1930s, when the government chronicled them.

He had taken 16 years to mull through the subject before writing it down, a story which very well could have been his own ancestors’. A sad commentary on American ideals of freedom, liberty and fraternity, the values extended only to a Whiteman, but denied to the Black.

America was founded on Christian values, but sadly these were missing in their treatment of the black man, who were also created by God in His image. They were treated as animals with no rights of their own. And the Whites felt that it was their right to own not only the land, but also enslave others, a God-given right.

The author through the words of a character in Valentine farm states that, “This nation (America) shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.” Just the opposite of what America professes.

But maybe, America is also the only nation that went to war against its own people to abolish slavery.

It is a paradox.