Elyse+Dreiser

=Name: Ava Blackerby =  =I am a 15 year old teenage slave girl. Im the daughter of Miani and Tre Blackerby. My mother had me when she was 10 years old. My owner is Laura Blackerby and we live on a cotton plantation. My father is going to the war so its just going to be me and my mom in the firelds working. She always has good stories to tell about other slaves that escaped from their slaveholders.= = = = A page from the journal of = = = == Entry Number 1:   Dear journal,  == == Today when i was working out in the field i heard some slaves talking about a lady name Harriet Tubman., and how she died a couple months ago. They were saying how at night she would come and the next morning a few slves would be missing. I wish i could be one of those slaves that were taken by her. That night when i was laying down in bed i asked my mother to tell me about the lady i heard the slaves talking about. My mother told me that Harriet was known by different names. Some of those names were Minty, Hattie, and Moses. She was a slave civil war nurse, and a suffragette.== ==  Harriet was born in Dorchester County, Maryland 1820. She died March 10 1913 in Auburn, New York. She died of pneumonia. She had two husbands John Tubman (1844-1851). Her second husband was Nelson Davies (1869-1913). She also adopted a child named Gertie. Her parents were Harriet Greene and Ben Ross. She had four sisters and four brothers. While the american civil war was going on she was a union spy. After she escaped slavery she had thirteen missions to rescue or free seventy slaves. She helped John Brown to recruit men on a raid for Harpers furry. She struggled for womens sufferage in the post-war era. In her past life she was baten and whiped by past owners. When she was younger her slave owner threw a heavy metal weight at another slave, but he missed and hit Harriet causing her to have serious head wounds.== == Harriet started freeing slaves when she went back to Philedelphia in 1849 to rescue her family. After that she slowly started freeing more and more slaves. When the fugitive slave law past she had to start making the route to Canada. When the slaves where free she would help them get a house and a job. She worked in the American Civil war as a cook and after that she retired and returned to Auburn, New York to be with her family. She was admitted to a home for old African Americans.== == After my mother told me that i wish that i could be as brave as her and accomplish many goal. She is a true hero and i wish i could have met someone as great as that. She was a mother, wife, and a fighter. She stood up for what she believed and its too bad that she had died of pneumonia.==


==Entry Number 2: Dear Journal,  == == Today while me and mom were working in the fields she told me the story aboout Nat Turner. He was born on October 20, 1800 and died November 11, 1839. He was an American slave that led a slave rebellion. It turned out to be a slaughter to kill only whites and ended with 60 deaths. Nat learned how to read and write at a young age and was very religious. He would pray and tell stories concerning the Bible. He would get visions and interpret them from God. One of the visions he recieved, when he was 23, told him to run away. A few months later he had another one telling him to return back to his owner. Nat would preach to the other slaves and they nicknamed him "The Prophet." Sometimes his preaching would influence the white people too. He thought he was ordaned from the Great Purpose in the hands of the Almighty. On May 12, he heard a noise in the Heavens and saw a spirit appear saying a serpent was loosened and Christ laid down and that he should fight the serpent. He thought that God wanted him to slay his enemies with their own weapons. In the beginning of February, Nat thought a certain atmosphere condition would give him a sign that would tell him to attack. February 12, 1831 he was in Virginia while a solar eclipse was happening. He thought that it meant a black man's hand was reaching over the sun. He saw this as his sign to attack. He was going to attack July 4, but it had to be postponed because he fell ill. August 13, he saw another solar eclipse and on the 21st he started the rebellion. Nat took a few close slaves to start this rebellion. They were going house to house with knives, hatches, and axes freeing the slaves and killing any white people in sight. Nat killed men, women, and children, he didn't care about age or gender. The only whites not killed were poor whites because they were under the slaves and didn't look down on them. The rebellion lasted 48 hours and he was taken to court, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. November 11 was the day that he hung, and his body was flayed and he was beheaded. There were 56 slaves suspected on being in with the rebellion. 200 blacks that had nothing to do with the rebellion were killed by angry white mobs. == ==<span style="color: #00bdff; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -3px;"> Dang! I can;t believe that Nat went crazy and killed all those whites. He did deserve to get hung but i also think that the white mobs that killed a whole lot more people should have gotten the same punishment. I think that the white mobs and Nat shouldn't have killed the innocent people because they didnt have anything to do with it so they should have lived.==

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==<span style="font-size: 140%; color: #00bdff; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -3px;"><span style="font-size: 140%; color: #00bdff; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -3px;"> Entry Number 3: Dear Journal, == ==<span style="font-size: 140%; color: #00bdff; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -3px;"> This morning when I woke up I heard mom talking about how she wished we could escape on the underground railroad. When I walked in the room, I asked her to tell me to tell me all about the underground railroad. She said the underground railroad was a secret route with safe houses along the way. It was used to move slaves to the free states and Canada. Abolitionists also helped the slaves moving on the underground railroad. It was used from 1810-1850 and helped move 30,000 slaves. Most of the slaves had to go to Canada because of a new law that was passed. It was called the Fugitive Slave Law and it gave incentives if people turned in escaped slaves. In the process of escaping the slave first had to leave their slave holder. Sometimes free slaves would come to a plantation as a slave and be a conductor and take the others to the North. They would move only during the night. the fugitive had to travel 10-20 miles to reach the next stop. They had to wait on the people at the other stations to return from transporting other groups. Some of the other slaves would travel by boat or train. They would raise money to improve the appearance of the slaves to help them blend in. They would also give them money and help them find jobs and shelters to help them get started in their new life. The groups that did this would go door to door in the big parts of town like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. They would send the fugitives letters of recomendation to help get them jobs. One of the participants of the underground railroad were John Fareifeild in Ohio. He was the son of a slave holding family. Another member was Levi Coffin, a quaker who assisted 3,000 slaves. Then there was Harriet Tubman who made 19 trips to the south and saved 300 slaves. When the fugitives actually became free they didn't feel like it because they still weren't treated fairly. Even though the north was against slavery, they weren't ready to treat blacks as citizens or human beings. The north started to become racist. The north and south started to fight and it became known as the Civil War. Free blacks and slaves fought for the Union Army. Hundreds of slaves were freed to the north every year.== ==<span style="font-size: 140%; color: #00bdff; font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;"> Wow! The people that helped the slaves escape must have been really proud of tehmselves. That is good that some of the white people wasnt like the other people and they actually treated the slaves equally. I dont understand how the north can be against slavery but treat the slaves like they didnt matter. That was really cool that they actually had organizations to help the slaves stat their new lives.==

Essential Questions
== 1. How does one's understanding of slavery affect his understanding of the people and events of the 1850s and 1860s? In me learning about slavery I realized how the slaves were treated. I didn't know that they had organizations for slaves to start a new life. When I learned about what happened and I could see why the slaves reacted how they did. ==

== 2. Why would slavery ever be condoned in the United States? I think that people in the United States allowed slavery because the blacks where just a little different from them and since they were different they thought that they should be treated differently so they sold blacks and made them slaves. ==

== 4. What are some of the long-term effects of slavery that are linked to the people and events of the past?A long term effect of slavery is that your always going to have people that are prejudice, racist, or they believe in slavery. Everyone is always going to have to fight for something. Like women are going to have to fight for equal rights to men and other races are going to have to fight to be equal .==