Turning away the face

The 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.

What would Louis learn and what would be in the library?

Louis was taught rudimentary reading and writing and arithmetic when he was young but the life changing event in his story is gaining access to a well stocked library, where he illegally continued his education.

What sort of books would have been there, at that period of time? And what sort of lessons would he have been taught as a child?

What was the role of slave/wetnurses?

Louis’ mom is a wetnurse to the white family. What was the role of wetnurses during that time, were they even used? How were most treated. Some of her children were sold away, was she thought of as a brood mare?

What part of Africa and what were the traditions for dealing with crime?

As Louis will be solving crimes, need to figure out just what sort and, as there was no recourse (or was there?) under white man’s justice, what would have been a possible, internal replacement?