At the bank of the roaring river, Homer grabs Ada's hand and they jump, surfacing far downstream. They make their way to the bank, but not before Homer hits his head on the riverbed. On the bank of the river, Homer and Ada sleep before considering what to do next. They remember what Two Shoes, so named because he wore Mr. Crumb's castoff shoes did. His son Desmond, had been sold off, leaving his wife, Sally, devastated. In hope of getting Desmond back, Two Shoes had revealed where another slave, Wilson, had run away to. But Mr. Crumb did not buy back Desmond as he promised, and Wilson was found and whipped.
Hearing Stokes dogs, Homer pulls Ada deeper into the swamp. However, Homer soon finds himself sinking deep into the mud in a sinkhole. With Ada's help he gets free, only to find a huge snake wrapped around his leg. As the snake is about to strike, an arrow kills it. A strange man with hickory brown skin and hair in long ropes descends from the trees to claim his arrow and also to stop Ada's questions. They hear Stokes nearby with his dogs, striking fear into Ada. Before she can run off, the man tears a strip off of Ada's dress wrapping it around an arrow with something sticky. From the treetops he sends a flaming arrow into the dry leaves below, igniting a fire in the swamp.
Homer and Ada follow the man, whose name is Suleman deeper into the swamp. After a complicated journey that involves trudging through the swamp for a day, travelling in a boat carved from a tree, passing through a secret door hidden in the brush, spending the night in a secret tree hideout they continue on. During their journey to Freewater, Suleman tells Homer and Ada that he ran away three times from the plantation, each time losing a finger as punishment. Suleman's work is to know about the various plantations and to steal what they need from them. He leads Homer and Ada to a spot where they meet people disguised as brush, covered in leaves and mud. They are David, Ibra and Daria. The group then climbs into the trees to walk across a rope bridge in the canopy and into Freewater, a village of escaped slaves.
Meanwhile at Southerland Plantation, eleven-year-old Nora has discovered that Homer's mother, Rose has been caught and brutally whipped by Stoke's brother-in-laws. Nora is the youngest daughter of Master Crumb, owner of Southerland. When Nora was born, her father believed her to be unwell. She was born with a large red strawberry birthmark on the left side of her face. Her father once showed Nora a picture of an octopus, telling her the birthmark was like the octopus, "...with the oval shaped octopus head marked her temple, and from it sprang eight curving marks. Two that stretched to her left eyebrow, another three that unwound along her cheekbone, and another three that traveled down her jawline." Because her parents thought she was sickly, Homer's mother Rose was forced to wean him and become Nora's wet nurse. Soon Nora spent much of her time with Rose who was given a room off the kitchen. Nora was taught by a tutor and spent her days in the kitchen with Rose, reading. Being abandoned in this way, Nora refused to speak.
With only a month before Nora's older sister, Violet's wedding, the whipping of Rose is a disaster. For Anna, a slave in the house, the disappearance of Homer and Ada, and the whipping of Rose causes much trouble. Anna was considered a peculiar girl. She had been sold many times, often not lasting more than a year in a house. Anna's mother had cut her on the arm, making a sort of arm scar that seemed to Anna to be a hint to run North. Anna was determined to escape and find her mother, and Homer and Ada's escape, and the suffering of Rose, moves her to begin planning both her escape and her revenge.
Nora too begins planning. Overhearing her sister Violet complaining about her being at her wedding, Nora runs to find Rose, only to discover she is seriously injured from the whipping. It is a sight that makes her ill.
Meanwhile, in Freewater, Homer and Ada meet some of the inhabitants of the emancipated community. There is Sanzi who lives with her mother Mrs. Light, who escaped years ago and her older sister Juna. Sanzi was born in Freeland, has never known slavery and wants to be like Suleman. She carries around a bow and a quiver of arrows and is often in trouble. Her father David patrols the borders of Freewater. Billy who ran away with his father Ibra, is fourteen-years-old. Billy stutters and is afraid of many things. He is certain the slave catcher who hunted him and his father is still out there waiting. He loves to work with wood and has crafted a wooden bracelet for Juna, whom he has a crush on. There is Ferdinand, Sanzi's rival who escaped from a ditch digging gang. He managed to steal the overseer's knife and it is his prized possession.
Homer and Ada spend the next three weeks adjusting to life in Freewater. But Homer is determined to help his mother and Anna escape Southerland. He is forced to act when he uncovers the betrayal of Two Shoes. His plan to return to Southerland is discovered by his new friends, Sanzi, Ferdinand, Billy, and Juna and they insist on coming with him, as does Ada. They set out, hoping to arrive during the busyness of Violet's wedding.
Meanwhile, Anna and Nora both begin to develop their own plans to leave Southerland. But Violet's wedding becomes a special day for Homer, Ada, Rose, Anna and Nora and a day that Violet and Southerland won't easily forget.
Discussion
Amina Luqman-Dawson has crafted an enjoyable and interesting story with her debut novel, Freewater. In Freewater, Luqman-Dawson creates a story inspired by the maroon communities living in the Great Dismal Swamp which was located in southeastern Virginia and the northeastern part of North Carolina prior to the Civil War. It had been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for centuries before the coming of the maroons, who were enslaved people who had freed themselves by escaping the plantations they worked on.
Conditions in the Great Dismal Swamp were difficult, with hot, humid weather, dense bush and vines, bears, poisonous snakes and insects. These conditions made it almost impossible to track and recapture runaway slaves. Despite the obvious hardships, life was preferable in the swamp to living the life of a slave on a plantation. The maroons built homes on higher ground in the swamp. Since they had few tools and even clothing, they often raided nearby plantations for tools, food and other goods.
In Freewater, Homer and Ada along with their mother Rose, flee Southerland plantation to a community hidden deep within the nearby swamp. However, their freedom is marred in Homer's mind because they have broken their promise to take another slave, Anna with them. This leads Rose to return to try to bring Anna, but she is recaptured and whipped. For Homer, there is no freedom until he brings his mother to Freewater.
Luqman-Dawson has crafted a diverse cast of characters, from the brave Sanzi struggling to find her place in Freewater, to Billy who stutters and is overwhelmed with the fear of being recaptured, to Homer who tries to adapt to life in the swamp while his mother is still enslaved. Then there is Mr. and Mrs Crumb and Violet Crumb who see their slaves as mere possessions, Anna a young slave girl who has been sold so many times and who has no memory of her mother, Two Shoes who repeatedly betrays others in an attempt to bring back his beloved son Desmond, and Old Joe and Miss Petunia, who are elderly, faithful slaves. Nora Crumb, the abandoned daughter of the Crumbs, realizes the truth about the slaves at Southerland.
Nora, the youngest daughter of Master Crumb, begins to comprehend the reality of slavery when she discovers Rose has been brutally whipped. Watching Rick and Ron pour salt onto Rose's wounds, makes Nora ill. Later, overhearing her father planning to recapture Homer and Ada causes her to wonder about the type of person her father is. "Nora held her breath. She'd heard talk about catching runaways all her life, and she hadn't thought too much of it. Rose, Homer, and Ada, they were different, weren't they? But something in Nora's father's words made her blood run cold. It didn't match the father who tucked her in at night." When Anna returns a book Nora left for Rose, telling Nora that her father will give Rose the lash again if he finds the book, Nora thinks, "To hear her father connected to the idea of hurting Rose turned something in Nora. Yes, Stokes was mean. He was cruel and feared. But her father? Anna's words were like a first small crack setting into a sheet of lake ice."
Nora, unlike anyone else at Southerland, has a special relationship with Rose. Born with an octopus-shaped birthmark that extends down the left side of her face, Nora is an outcast in her family. Her mother insists that Nora wear her hair down to cover the strawberry mark. Mrs. Crumb seems unconcerned about how her daughter feels about her actions and words. This leads to Nora feeling unloved and unwanted. But Rose, who nursed her as a baby, has always accepted Nora. When Rose recovers from her wounds, Nora can see that Rose is heartbroken, because she doesn't know the fate of her children, Homer and Ada. At a dress fitting, Nora is forced to sit on Rose's back by her mother who prattles on about how Nora's hair can cover her birthmark and who has no concern for Rose's evident pain. Nora can feel the scars of the whipping and seeing Rose's tears, she jumps up and runs off. Later on, Rose tells Nora how Violet also used to come to the kitchen when she was small and talk to her, but that eventually she stopped coming. Nora realizes that her sister "used to visit Rose, but she never spoke to Rose now. Never. To her, Rose didn't exist, except to cook. Nora was nothing like Viola. Was she?" Nora realizes that when her sister was younger, she saw Rose as a person and spent time with her, but as she grew up, Rose became a possession, to be used. Nora is afraid she will become like Violet and she doesn't want that to happen.
This event completely changes Nora and her view of her life. Filled with shame over what has happened to her beloved Rose, Nora starts to investigate life around Southerland. "After a lifetime of hearing the soulful songs coming from the fields, Nora ventured out to see their origin. She hid among the rows of tobacco and listened to the crack of Stokes whip and saw that the eyes of the field hands looked much like Rose's. The pain she saw frightened her and sent her running back to the house, and back to being within her mother's reach. Suddenly, the tobacco fields she'd seen in the distance every day didn't look beautiful. Nora knew they were pain-filled. Her home wasn't what she'd thought. Maybe this was why Rose had run off in the first place."
Nora clearly recognizes the way her family is treating their slaves and especially Rose, who has raised her, is not right and she sets out to try to right that wrong, first by trying to free Rose with a fake note of manumission. When that fails she decides to try to help Anna. In the end she is able to help both Rose and Anna.
Nora's transformation is symbolized by her washing away the white powder on her face that her mother forced her to wear to cover her strawberry birthmark. Nora's reality is that she has a birthmark on her face just as the reality is that slavery is evil and hurts those who are enslaved like Rose and Anna. Her transformation continues when Nora speaks for the first time, ordering Stokes to leave Anna alone. Up until this time, Nora has never spoken but now she finds her voice and uses it for good.
Freewater is not only a story about slavery but also one about personal journeys: among them, Homer's journey to free his mother Rose, Sanzi's journey to find her place in Freewater, Billy's journey to overcome his fears and have the courage to tell Juna how he feels, and Nora's journey to assert herself in Southerland and understand the evil of slavery. This is a well written, interesting novel, with realistic characters, a good story in a setting that many young readers will likely not know much about.
Book Details:
Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson
New York: Little, Brown and Company 2022
402 pp.
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