Freedom and Slavery Theme Analysis

At-mun, the young prince, was tall and powerfully built, though he had seen no more than fifteen summers. He carried his head high and his eyes flashed. Ath-mun, the twelve year old princess, smiled shyly at her tribespeople, then turned to whisper in her father’s ear. She leaned against him, hoping to hide the deformed leg that—but for her father’s love—would have caused her to have been drowned as an infant. Only the sacrifice of the imperfect to the God of Life could assure protection for the perfect. But the chief had gone against his tribal code and sacrificed his favorite dog to keep his infant daughter and thus far the God of Life had wreaked no vengeance on him. The At-mun-shi were as pagan as all the tribes in Africa, but they were peaceable and they were, as well, intense in their love of freedom.

The sun, though it had dropped far down the sky, still had the heat of day and the forest blazed and quivered with its beams. Blossoms of brilliant hue were twice as beautiful as they found their reflections in the water. All along the way the land cried out the new year’s growth. Reds, yellows, greens were still pals with spring, but under the sun’s powerful rays they would soon intensify to the fullness of summer’s coloring. More and more as the afternoon wore on, they passed places where the land had been subdued. Furrows had been made in it by tribesmen preparing it for tillage, and stone encampments instead of rude huts could be seen on the hilltops.

At-mun was hailed by the auctioneer and his chains were removed. For the first time in more than four months he could walk freely, yet not freely. He had been given a pair of trousers to wear before coming off the ship and he found them even more restrictive than chains. The people on the wharf shouted with laughter at the curious way the black youth walked. At-mun mounted the block. Above him, gulls were dipping and soaring, coming to rest in the tall masts of the White Falcon, filling the air with their raucous cries. At-mun kept his eyes on them.

“Mr. Copeland!” Celia exclaimed, her horror making her suddenly formal. “Thee knows we are against slavery.”

Caleb sighed. “Yes, and yet when I saw him standing there and I knew we needed someone to help in the house, and I knew he would have a Christian home with kindly treatment and an opportunity to cultivate his mind, I could not help buying him. But I bought him outright, wife. I did not bid on him.”

Celia smiled. “He looks a fine strong boy and you will give him his freedom.”

“Yes, in time,” Caleb agreed, a trifle reluctantly. “Though in his untamed state it would not be well to give it him too soon.”

“You think he would not know how to use it?”

“He is part animal now. What would he do but run wild?”

Amos knew many a slave who had been freed, given his article of manumission by a grateful master in return for years of faithful service, and given the tools of a trade so he might set himself up and be on the way to a self-respecting life. But Amos had deep within him the inheritance of the At-mun-shi, of looking up to someone older and wiser as a protector. The white man, in the person of Caleb Copeland, had become such a protector to Amos. Amos looked to him with reverence and loyalty. He did not want his life to be apart from Caleb’s in any way. As the working member of the Copeland family, Amos had his own dignity. Apart, he would endure the separateness he knew many of his African friends endured because of their lack of status in the white man’s world.

Celia had not wanted it to be so. She and Roxanna had wept at the thought of parting with their possessions and their faithful friend. But there were debts to be paid and Amos had comforted them with his assurance of a right outcome for them all. He had not dwelt for half his lifetime in a Christian household without absorbing trust and confidence.

He took the candle from Mrs. Richardson’s outstretched hand and the plate of food she had ready for him, then he went across the grass to the hut that was Mr. Richardson’s workshop and would be Amos’ home all the years of his servitude. From the house, Ichabod Richardson and his wife heard the slave singing to himself long after he had blown out his candle to save the precious tallow.

Mrs. Richardson tilted her head to listen. “If you had a slave for no other reason than their singing, I often think it would be worth it,” she said. “And yet, so long as they’re not free their songs are like those of birds in a cage.”

“He’ll have his freedom in time, but not until he’s paid me well for the price I paid for him.”

“Perhaps he thought he was white until he looked in the mirror.”

Mrs. Richardson shook her head. “Perhaps, but it’s more than that. There’s a yearning in him that has its roots in the land from which he came. Oh, it’ s a terrible thing we’ve done, Mr. Richardson, to bring these black people to our land and treat them as we do.”

“Their lot’s not too hard,” he remonstrated.

“Ah, but until they’re given their freedom they count no more than cattle.”

Ichabod Richardson sighed deeply. “They’re not the only ones to be thinking about freedom. Before many more years have passed we’ll be thinking about it too, and not as people but as a nation.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Richardson?”

“I mean that we’ve made others slaves readily enough but we’ll be slaves ourselves if we don’t keep watch.”

He watched swallows swooping in their flight, feeling as if he were one of them; his eyes dwelt on a tree that was a mass of white blossom.

It had been spring, too, when he had been free before […]. Yet that had been a lifetime ago; another life, perhaps, for now his life was beginning again. He was almost sixty years old and he was ready to live. He flexed his muscles; they were strong. He raised his head from the blossoming tree to the blue sky above and the thought of Moses came into his mind, of Moses who stood upon Mount Nebo seeing with his eyes the land that his feet might not tread upon.

“‘And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died.’” Amos spoke the words as reverently as if he were reading them from the open book […]. “So there’s time for Amos, too.”

Amos had no other thought than to pay the full price. He would not bargain over human flesh nor was it for him to question Mr. Bowers’ decision. When the day came that he could call for Lydia in the cart, he presented himself first to Mr. Bowers. In the presence of witnesses,—one who was a friend of Josiah Bowers, and one of the household servants who was Amos Fortune’s friend, the money was carefully counted out. Mr. Bowers set it aside, then he handed to Amos the necessary confirmation of the transaction. It was another bit of paper that Amos would treasure all the days of his life.

Celyndia came running back to them as the bird flew off across the meadow, dipping to the grass, then soaring to a bush’s height, balancing itself against the wind as it pursued some pattern of its own.

“Why’nt you go on fluttering after the flutterling, child?” Violet asked.

“’Cause he flew over that field and we can’t go there.”

“The world is yours, Celyndia,” Amos said quietly. “Don’t you remember what I told you last night? You’re as free as birds in the air.”

A smile started to part Celyndia’s full lips, but before it had its way the lips began to quiver and the large dark eyes filled with tears […]

“Let her alone, Violet,” Amos said as he patted Celyndia’s heaving shoulders, “some things are too wonderful even for a child, and freedom’s one of them.”

Violet would not trust in the back of the cart her treasured plants—the root of lilac, the japonica seedling, the lily-of-the-valley pips, her yellow tea rose. She had heard stories of people going off to live wilderness lives in the great country that had one edge on the Atlantic and reached no one knew how far. And she had been fearful until Amos read to hear from the Bible that the wilderness would blossom like the rose; then she had felt less fearful. But Violet had her own feeling about the Bible words. Though she could not read them for herself she knew that there must be a willingness in the heart of man to work with them. So she saw to it that she had with her a bit of loveliness that she might help in the blossoming of their wilderness.

The town had again been helping Lois Burdoo with firewood and foodstuffs. But no matter what help she received she never seemed to be able to rise above her wretched lot. The children went to school in tatters, and even when given new clothes they would appear the next day with them dirty and torn. They could not seem to keep from falling down or tearing themselves on briar bushes.

After years of ineffective help, the town felt that it could not bolster Lois Burdoo any longer. She was given warning that the two oldest children would be put up to Public Vendue on the thirty first day of December. Vendues were auctions at which townspeople could bid for the privilege of affording care to the indigent.

From the day Amos had begun to live in freedom, his life had been a series of curious accomplishments known in their richness and wonder only to him. Lily, Lydia, Violet, Celyndia—they stood like milestones along his way and behind them all was Ath-mun. Amos held her always in the tender loveliness of her twelve years, and because of her need to be cared for and his longing for her to be cherished, he had dedicated himself to helpless folk. It was Ath-mun who had been the fount of freedom to those others, Amos thought, as he reached back into memory for the beloved sister; he had acted for her and so he would account to her even when they met together at the Jordan.