Curious about my novel All Different Kinds of Free? It was inspired by the true story of Margaret Morgan, who was kidnapped in 1837, along with her free children, and sold into slavery. Her ordeal led to one of the most important yet least-known Supreme Court cases of the era, Prigg v. Pennsylvania.
The following passage, nestled about a quarter of the way into the book, was actually the first scene I wrote for it. In a way, this was my first introduction to the woman who would eventually inhabit my completed novel -- a woman who cherished her family and who understood the full price they had paid so that she could be free.
My mama’s name was Sarah and she brought me into this world on a warm October day in 1808. Her body told her to push, and all at once she knew a baby was on the way. Hours earlier, she didn’t even know she was with child.
She had collapsed in the garden, overcome by a deep, powerful ache in her back. That’s where my daddy, Old Sam, found her, slumped over her basket of sweet potatoes, weeping. He lifted her up close to his chest and carried her in to the cabin. And he thanked the Lord out loud that he had refilled their mattress with fresh straw and cornhusks just that morning. Then Sam laid his wife down on the bed and took off across the yard for Master Ashmore’s house.
“Oh Lord, Missus, my Sarah gonna die. I just know it.”
Master’s wife, Margaret Ashmore, did not hesitate. She grabbed her sewing bag and some clean towels from the linen drawer and rushed with my daddy back to the small cabin at the south end of the estate. She ducked her head into the doorway and directed Sam to fetch a kettle of water and wood for the fire. Then she knelt down beside Mama.
“What ails you, Sarah?”
“I done broke my back, I think. I finally done broke my back.”
Mrs. Ashmore quietly considered the possibility of that diagnosis. She inhaled deeply through her nose and ran her hand across the top of her head, smoothing her soft blonde hair back toward the neat round bun at the nape of her neck. It was what she did when she was thinking.
Hot tears welled up in Mama’s dark eyes and then escaped, leaving thin tracks on her dusty garden cheeks before falling to freedom on the mattress. Then a wave came over her, a surge that began at the knees, washed up through her body flush to her cheeks, and then flowed back down again. And then she knew.
“Oh my Lord, Missus, I’m gonna have a baby!”
“What? That’s nonsense, at your age. Sarah, I believe you’ve lost your mind.”
“No, no, Missus. There’s a baby comin’. There’s a baby comin’ now.”
Mama was no stranger to having babies. But she was past the age, or so she’d thought. At forty-something, this would be her twelfth pregnancy, though not one of her children had called this cabin home for long. Most had been sold to slave traders at about the age of eight and shipped out from port at Havre de Grace to plantations in the Deep South. Two were still born. One had been crushed to death working at the Ashmore mill when he was nine. He was the last of Mama’s children to be snatched away by slavery. Mama said Master Ashmore actually wept with her at the news, and two days later he gathered all his slaves at the mill and told them they were free.
Mrs. Ashmore had delivered many of Mama’s babies, and Mama had cared for the Missus through four miscarriages and one delivery of her own. She placed a hand on Mama’s belly, gently pressing and feeling all around.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” she nodded. “I’ll go tell Old Sam.”
Less than two hours later, in a rush of blood and tears, and cries and laughter, I slipped into the world. Mrs. Ashmore wrapped me up and laid me on Mama’s bosom.
“It’s a wee little girl, Sarah. She can’t be but five pounds.”
Mama smiled down at me and wondered out loud, “Oh, sweet Jesus. What’s gonna become of this tiny child?”
“I suppose you’ll have to raise this one for yourself, Sarah, if you’re able.”
Of course Mama was able, more than able, though she had given up long before on any thoughts of watching a child of hers grow up in plain sight, much less under her own care.
“What shall you name her?”
Mrs. Ashmore had never asked Mama that before. I was the first child she ever named.
“I’ll call her Margaret, after you, if that’s a’right ma’am.”
“Yes, Sarah, that’s all right with me.”
“Oh, Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.”
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