CHARLES GILBERT, Fleeing from Davis, a Negro Trader–Secreted under a Hotel–Up a Tree–Under a Floor–In a Thicket–On a Steamer.
[Story/chapter synopsis from William Still’s “Underground Railroad”.]
Archive for the ‘Book Source’ Category
Turning away the face
In Find Out, The Sounds of Slavery, Why'd they do that? on August 7, 2009 at 5:20 pmThe Sounds of Slavery, Shane White and Graham White
the story page xvii
On October 18, 1821, before a crowd of some seven hundred wwhites and fifteen hundred blacks, the sheriff of Princess Annd, in Somerset County Maryland, executed Jenny, a seventy year old AA woman. Seconds before Jenny was hung, “several hundreds of the colored people turned their backs to the gallows, squatted on the ground, covered their faces with their hands and uttered a simultaneous goan which, while it expressed their feelings, added not a little to the horror of the scene.
Questions. why did they turn their bacls? And what is the significaance to covering the face? Or squatting, for that matter.
Also find out why.
