-Cameron Spiller
An image of Harriet Tubman and other Underground Railroad seeks project constellations in my mind of the nights where they would escape from being enslaved. Looking around the plantations here in Alabama, imaging the millions of enslave Africans, not yet seen as Americans, hoeing the cotton fields that lay adjacent to highway 80.
There must've been a storm a couple nights or the night before that caused the puddles of water that remain on the field. So many puddles of water! Pools of puddles! Accompanying the pools of water are trees, long, skinny, naked trees which I presume were used by escapees to hide from supervisors of the plantations seeking to return them to captivity. Awaiting their return would maybe be lynches, whips, hot irons, or whatever the supervisor saw suit to be used for punishment toward the attempted escapers of the horrid reality of slavery.
I'm imagining the revitalizing rhetoric of the song that so many negroes relate to the passage of enslaved Africans of the south to freedom in the north; "Wade in the water, wade in the water children. Wade in the water. God's gonna trouble the water." The water was their safe haven. It masked their scent from the bloodthirsty dogs that knew their scent which were sent out to retrieve them.
The water had power, it proved that it would protect them. But they also knew it could get them caught if they fought against it and made too much noise. The water had power and the escapees became familiar with the water. The water symbolized the hope for the enslaved escapees. Without the water, any chance of being free was only a dream.
An image of Harriet Tubman and other Underground Railroad seeks project constellations in my mind of the nights where they would escape from being enslaved. Looking around the plantations here in Alabama, imaging the millions of enslave Africans, not yet seen as Americans, hoeing the cotton fields that lay adjacent to highway 80.
There must've been a storm a couple nights or the night before that caused the puddles of water that remain on the field. So many puddles of water! Pools of puddles! Accompanying the pools of water are trees, long, skinny, naked trees which I presume were used by escapees to hide from supervisors of the plantations seeking to return them to captivity. Awaiting their return would maybe be lynches, whips, hot irons, or whatever the supervisor saw suit to be used for punishment toward the attempted escapers of the horrid reality of slavery.
I'm imagining the revitalizing rhetoric of the song that so many negroes relate to the passage of enslaved Africans of the south to freedom in the north; "Wade in the water, wade in the water children. Wade in the water. God's gonna trouble the water." The water was their safe haven. It masked their scent from the bloodthirsty dogs that knew their scent which were sent out to retrieve them.
The water had power, it proved that it would protect them. But they also knew it could get them caught if they fought against it and made too much noise. The water had power and the escapees became familiar with the water. The water symbolized the hope for the enslaved escapees. Without the water, any chance of being free was only a dream.