The True Story of Vanilla by Ann Richards

Edmond was born in August, 1829 on the Bellier-Beaumont sugar plantation on Reunion, a small island in the Indian Ocean. His mother, Melise and his father Pamphile were both slaves owned by Elvire Bellier-Beaumont. In 1834, when Edmond was around five years old he was sent to live with Elvire's brother, Ferreol Bellier-Beaumont who was a widower without any children. 

Ferreol's plantation was typical of most plantations with a large main house and small huts for the slaves. The houses of the slaves had no beds so they slept on the dirt floor. On the plantation the slaves planted sugarcane, and then cut and bundled the canes during harvesting. The work was hard in the hot sun and many slaves, wishing to be free and return to their home countries where they were taken from, escaped, rowing across the sea to Madagascar, Africa or Comoros. But for Edmond, life was different: he lived in the main house with Ferreol.

Ferreol Bellier-Beaumont was known on Reunion as a botanist who enjoyed studying rare plants. As  Ferrreol walked about the plantation and his garden, Edmond watched him and learned from Ferreol about the various plants. Edmond was an intelligent child and became very interested in botany like his master, Ferreol. 

Ferreol was interested in starting a new industry on Reunion - the producing of vanilla. Competition from Cuba and Europe meant that it was no longer profitable to grow sugarcane on Reunion. Ferreol did produce a small amount of cane for local needs but he also grew other produce including pumpkins, bananas and pineapples. 

At this time, vanilla was grown only in Mexico, making it a rare and expensive spice. Botanists from France and Belgium had discovered that the Melipona bee pollinated the vanilla flower. However, they too were not able to get their vanilla plants to produce the vanilla pods. Ferreol had explained to Edmond how he pollinated his pumpkin plants by hand. Since the flowers open early, this had to be done before 10 AM in the morning. He would find the male and female flowers and touch the female stigma to the male anther in what was known as "the marriage". In a few days, small buds would appear beneath the female flowers. Edmond repeated this process himself in Ferreol's pumpkin field to see if he could replicate Ferreol's work. He was successful. 

However, Ferreol like other botanists were frustrated by their lack of success in being able to able to pollinate the vanilla plant. His experiment using wasps from the fig tree didn't work either. So Edmond set out to help his master by intensively studying the different species of plants in Ferreol's garden. For each type of plant in Ferreol's garden, Edmond looked at the blossoms of each, located the male and female part of each flower and pollinated them by pressing these two parts together. When this was successful, Edmond knew that he understood how to find the male and female parts and how to hand pollinate them. The result was that Ferreol's garden produced pumpkins, squash, peppers and other produce. Edmond just had to look inside the vanilla orchid flower to find those parts. Carefully examining the orchid using a bamboo twig, Edmond located the sticky anther and "With the tip of the bamboo twig, he guided the anther to the female part of the plant, called th estigma, and pressed the two parts together. He had successfully hand pollinated the vanilla orchid! Edmond was twelve-years-old.

When Edmond saw that the plant had begun to bud the next day, he repeated the process on the remaining vanilla flower. A few days later when Ferreol was walking through the garden with Edmond and he saw the green vanilla pods forming underneath the wilted flowers he was stunned. Edmond explained what he had done. As new flowers opened, Edmond showed Ferreol the process for hand pollinating the vanilla orchid flowers.

Soon Ferreol's friends and the villagers and plantation owners came to see the vanilla buds but they were in disbelief that a slave could do this.Ferreol wrote letters documenting what Edmond had done because he wanted him to receive the recognition for his disocvery. These letters were sent to the French Chambers of Agriculture, scientific journals and even to Reunion's newspaper. He named what Edmond had done, "Edmond's gesture" or le gest d'Edmond. Edmond demonstrated his technique to the various plantation owners. Despite Ferreol's efforts to get Edmond the recognition he deserved it would take many years and much effort.

Discussion

The True Story of Vanilla is a fascinating account of how one young boy, a slave on a plantation on a small island in the Indian Ocean made an important discovery that had an impact both on his own country and the world. That person was Edmond Albius.

Richards presents Edmond's story while offering readers  background information on many topics relevant to his discovery. The history of Reunion, the pollination of flowers, the discovery of xocolatl, an early form of chocolate by the Aztecs and of tlilxochitl by Montezuma when he conquered the Aztecs, the history of slavery in Reunion and elsewhere, and vanilla production in Mexico. There is a short discussion about growing a vanilla plant but no information on where to buy one! 

Richards has included a section, "In The Pod" within each chapter, that offers readers interesting facts about the vanilla plant. For example, "Each vanilla bean is different, with a unique flavor, aroma and color," is one of many facts presented in these sections which can be found through the book. In The Pod provides information about the vanilla flower, pod and bean, the vanilla scent, vanilla's use in food, health benefits of vanilla, its use in cosmetics and how vanilla is produced today. 

Edmond eventually gained his freedom as a result of the abolishing of slavery in the French colonies in 1848. He was now allowed to have a last name and he chose Albius, "...from the Latin albus/albin, meaning 'white' -- like the vanilla flower." After leaving the Bellier-Beaumont plantation, Edmond wanted to find work as a ship's cook but this was not to happen. Instead he worked as a laborer and eventually was convicted of theft and sentenced to five years  of hard labor. He was freed after three years, due to the persistent efforts of Ferreol who continued also to advocate for Edmond to receive recognition for his pollination of the vanilla plant. This too was proving to be difficult because another botanist, a colleague of Ferreol's, Michel Claude Richard claimed to have discovered the method of how to hand=pollinate the vanilla orchid. Eventually Edmond was recognized as the discoverer of how to hand pollinate the vanilla orchid.

The True Story of Vanilla is filled with so many interesting facts about this spice which is used now throughout the world in so many products and foods. But it is also a story about slavery and the prejudice that existed at this time. Edmond Albius was only twelve-years-old when he made his astonishing discovery. He was intelligent and resourceful, a quick learner who applied the techniques that Ferreol taught him. But because he was a black slave boy, he was not considered intelligent enough to have discovered this process, by the white plantation owners. And it would take twenty years before he finally received the recognition he deserved for his hand-pollination technique - one that is still used today.

The art for the book is digitally created and colourful and while the cover is quite attractive, the artwork inside is somewhat uninspiring. Although there is map of Reunion, there is no map showing Reunion's location relative to Africa and Madagascar which would allow young readers to place the island's location on a globe. And although there is a surviving daguerreotype of young Edmond Albius, it was not included in this biography about him!

Ann Richards who is a Jamaican Canadian from Brampton, Ontario, has included a Timeline, a Glossary and a list of Resources as well as an Index. 

The True Story of Vanilla is highly recommended for readers and cooks of all ages!

Book Details:

The True Story of Vanilla by Ann Richards

Toronto: Orca Book Publishers      2025

99pp.

Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford

In Kin, author Carole Boston Weatherford tells the story of her family, descended from ancestors brought to America via the Atlantic Slave trade.

As a teenager, Weatherford was uninterested in her past, and more concerned with life in the present. She knew her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney had been enslaved but that was the extent of knowledge of her ancestry. Before Alex Haley's mini-series, "Roots" few Black people considered exploring their ancestry back to Africa. With his book and the television show that changed.

At Wye River, a plantation named Wye House includes Long Green, a village of tradespeople, sailors, sawyers and boat builders. At Long Green, enslaved people lived and loved, having both shackles and bonds that linked them. Life is hard: they sleep on bare planks with only one blanket and the food is not good.

Wye House is the jewel in the Lloyd family's crown. Its Puritan patriarch, Edward Lloyd emigrated from the British Isles to America in 1645. He eventually settled in Maryland colony, and was granted land by Lord Baltimore, Charles Calvert. Wye House states that it is an "agricultural factory" powered by hundreds of Black slaves. The house states:

"I am proof of the wealth

that America's founding families could amass

by enslaving laborers and marrying money...

I witnessed more cruelty than I care to recall

The sin of slavery haunts my every hall..."

The Lloyd's 1781 ledger contains an earliest known ancestor including the name of twenty-one-year old Isaac Copper. The ledger is a record of the Lloyd's property including cattle, farming equipment and slaves: their names, ages, occupations but also infirmities and quality. All are property, even the people.

Weatherford's great-grandpa James Henry Moaney never told her that his father (her great-great-grandfather) Phillip has been enslaved and that his father-in-law, Isaac Copper was also enslaved at Wye House but fought in the Civil War.

A litany of Lloyd's from Edward Lloyd III (who lived from 1711 to 1770) to Edward Lloyd VII (1825 to 1907) speak about life at Wye House and in the Maryland area. Edward Lloyd III is concerned about "the French corrupting enslaved people with promises of freedom" while his son Edward Lloyd IV switches sides during the Revolution. He now owns two-hundred-sixty Blacks. As the Lloyd's influence grows, Colonel Edward Lloyd V (1779 to 1834) becomes  a state senator and eventually Maryland's thirteenth governor and a U.S. Senator. A boy called Frederick listens and learns outside the schoolroom window as Lloyd's children are tutored. 

Edward Lloyd VI (1798 to 1861) owns over four hundred Blacks, worth more than twenty-eight thousand dollars. He trusts his overseers "to wield the lash and report runaways."  Unable to support so many slaves at Wye House, Lloyd moves some slaves south to Mississippi, taking them along as punishment and selling some. Edward Lloyd (1825 to 1907) sees all of his slaves freed as a result of Emancipation. In 1881, that boy called Frederick, Frederick Douglass returns to Wye House where he makes peace with the slaver Thomas who repeatedly beat him.

Frederick Douglass (1818 to 1895) was brought to Wye House by his grandmother when he was six-years-old. He lived with Captain Anthony who he learned was his father. He was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and he was enslaved. He was "a ship caulker, abolitionist, orator, and publisher of the North Star newspaper. After the Civil War, a public servant who rose to become minister of the Republic of Haiti." Frederick Douglass writes about Isaac Copper, a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Divinity, and a confirmed cripple who taught Douglass and other children how to say the Lord's prayer. It is Douglass's written account of Wye House that leads the author  to an Isaac Copper, the man she knew who leaned heavily on a cane. He was not the Isaac Copper who fought in the Civil War but likely his son. The Isaac Copper in the ledger of 1781 was likely born c.1760 or 1763. Weatherford wonders how he came to be owned by the Lloyds in a poem filled with many questions.

From this point on, the life of the children of Isaac and Nanny Copper, other slaves at Wye House are told, including some who flee as the Civil War approaches. And after freedom, it is the Coppers who work at building Black villages during the Reconstruction era, their industriousness and their determination to make a better world for their children and grandchildren.

 Discussion

Kin is author Carole Boston Weatherford's family's story, begun in Africa and told in America. It is a story mostly lost in the mists of time, with just enough hints and records to form an understanding. The setting spans the mid-1600's to the early 1900's, in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, at Wye House, the state's largest slave plantation and in the Black Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville. 

Before Alex Haley's famous "Roots" mini-series, many African Americans never considered tracing their own "roots" back to Africa. For many, their roots go back only a few generations, before the darkness of the past closes in. For Weatherford and her son, they could only trace their family back five generations. And so with what information she could glean from records, library records and historical societies, from databases of slave ships and records from Wye House, Weatherford has pieced together a story, giving voice to her ancestors who were enslaved but who, when freed after the Civil War, played an important part in the founding of several Black Reconstruction-era villages. 

Kin  is written in verse, featuring many different voices, including several Isaac Coppers whom Weatherford believes are her ancestors: Young Isaac Copper and his wife Nanny, some of their eight children including Marena, Prissy and Polly Copper as well as sons Henry (born 1800) Isaac Copper II (born 1798), and Isaac Copper III who fought in the Civil War and became a founding father of a Black village. 

Other poems give voice to Colonel Lloyd, Daniel Lloyd son of Colonel Lloyd whose companion was Frederick Douglass, Edward Lloyd IV's wife Elizabeth Tayloe Lloyd, house servant Daphne, Chicken Sue who cares for the poultry, the servant Katy who once worked in the Great House Kitchen but now cooks for her people because she's too old. Then there are poems in the voice of  former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Francis Scott Key composer of The Star-Spangled Banner and Harriet Tubman,

Chesapeake Bay, Wye House, the Wooden Case Clock, and the ship The Rachel also lend their voices, all having no say in their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.  The Rachel laments being involved in the slave trade:

 "I am no vessel for sweet memories...

I bore thirty-seven Blacks into bondage

in the British colonies, having lost but one

Black captive enroute from Antigua

Yet my belly is full of regret..."

The ship mentions it is like the enslaved teenager, Rose who bore Captain Bruff two sons: "I had no more say in carrying cargo than Rose did in bearing those children." .

Each of these poems piece together a part of the story, from the beginnings of Wye House, the generations of the Lloyd family who enrich themselves through the slave trade and move up the social class ladder, the ships that brought the enslaved to America, the enslaved who lived, suffered and worked the plantation, those who ran away sometimes successful sometimes not, the enslaved who fought in the Civil War and who returned free men to rebuild their lives and communities. 

The poems portray life as a slave: the beatings for the slightest infractions, long hours of back-breaking work in the fields, little food, one set of clothing and shoes that once worn out meant going naked, the rape and forced pregnancy of young enslaved girls, and separation of families as children and parents are sold off sometimes for extra money, sometimes as punishment. In contrast, the life a slaveholder like the Lloyds was one of opulence, enriched by the free work of the enslaved. Many poems describe Wye House as one that included beautiful furniture "mahogany table draped in fine lace and set with English crystal, china, and silver", and expensive carriages, saddles and harnesses. The family ate delicious food  and sipped "fine wines shipped from across the ocean".  

Wye House was a house of many mirrors, of all types, that witnessed the goings on in the plantation. Those mirrors saw all the occupants of the house, including the enslaved. Weatherford notes this in several poems including "My Question For the Looking Glasses" and in "Missing Faces" The mirrors are "...forever neutral as generations dart past or pose to ponder reflections." The author also noticed that while the oil paintings, etchings and silhouettes remain as memorials to the Lloyds, there is nothing to remember the generations of enslaved who passed through the house.  In Missing Faces, Weatherford writes, "Absent are the visages of my ancestors" who "hanged the Lloyds' framed conceits," While the decor endures, Weatherford writes, "...But the faces of my kin have vanished. Erased."  And so through her poetry, Weatherford gives voice to some of those enslaved at Wye House, and allows us to see them through the artwork of Jeffery Boston Weatherford.

Carole Boston Weatherford has written a thought-provoking novel-in-verse about slavery in Maryland, at the state's largest slave plantation, imagining what life might have been like for her enslaved ancestors. It's evident from the extensive Bibliography at the back of the novel, that she has done considerable historical and genealogical research. This research, as is often the case, leads only to more questions which Weatherford expresses in her poetry.

What might have given more clarity to the genealogy of the author's family as she understands it to date,  is a cast of characters and perhaps a family tree that outlines her connection to the Coppers. From the novel's poems, Weatherford reveals that her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney was enslaved and that his son, her great-grandfather James Henry Moaney, born in 1872, seven years after the end of the Civil War (1865) was born free. His father-in-law was Isaac Copper who was enslaved at Wye House, and fought in the Civil War. For whatever reason, James Moaney never spoke about Isaac Copper being enslaved. Weatherford assumes that the practice of naming children after kin continued throughout the passing generations - a reasonable assumption given the number of Isaac Coppers in the ledgers. This is a custom common to many families.

Kin: Rooted In Hope also portrays one of the consequences of slavery: the loss of family roots that often cannot be reclaimed. Our heritage connects us to the past, to our culture, our beliefs and our identity. Knowing our past helps us to understand who we are and develop resiliency as we see how ancestors dealt with difficult life situations. For Weatherford, knowing that her ancestors were significant contributors to life for Blacks in the Reconstruction Era was likely encouraging and a source of intense pride. Despite the hardship they had endured, they built something good out of slavery and the ruins of war. They formed a sense of community and connection that continues to this day.

The beautiful artwork, done on scratch board adds considerably to the story, capturing the many emotions of various characters and embodying  the darkness of slavery. The cover art is exquisite, the purple background suggesting royalty and the title in gold, as many of the enslaved came from what was known as the Gold Coast of Africa, including many African kings. Kin: Rooted In Hope is a book that asks its readers to pause and think about those that came unwillingly before, ripped from land and home, and yet persevered, bringing a rich cultural to what would become America. 

Book Details:

Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford
New York: Atheneum Books For Young Readers     2023

202 pp.

African Town by Irene Latham & Charles Waters

It is 1859. Eighteen-year-old Kossola, which means "I do not lose my fruits anymore." is the eldest child of his father's second wife Iya. Kossola, a young Yoruba man living in the village of Bante, is enjoying market day. It is a day when people come from all over to buy goats, cows, yams, fufu, and much more. Bante is enclosed on all sides by tall walls.

Kossola has been training for four years to be a soldier, preparing to be initiated  into oro, the secret society of men and highest levels of the Yoruba religion. He is marked as a soldier, to track, hunt and protect, by having his cheek marked with a knife, and his front teeth chipped so that he has a circle shaped opening. As a soldier, Kossola is to guard one of the town's eight gates. One night he hears rustling and sounds the alert for the people to hide in the woods. He later learns that an attack was thwarted.

Afterwards, Kossola learns that he will begin the oro initiation ceremony. He and the other initiates and men spend nine days outside Bante. He hasn't yet completed his initiation when his nineteenth birthday comes but Kossola is already thinking of taking a wife. The girl he's interested in is Aderonke.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, Captain Timothy Meaher, almost fifty years old, hosts a dinner aboard the Roger B. Tancey. He and his guests discuss "Congress's refusal to reopen the international slave trade" which  they believe is absolutely necessary to make their businesses profitable. Attending the dinner are Mr. Deacon, who is a New York City businessman, Mr. Ayers also a Northeasterner who makes pills, and a Louisiana farmer named Mr. Matthews. It is Matthews who suggests that slaves can be brought in illegally and he's willing to bet one hundred dollars on this. But Captain Timothy is willing to wager a thousand dollars that he can smuggle slaves into Mobile, Alabama without the authorities discovering them.

So Captain Timothy, unable to take the time to make the journey himself, hires Captain William Foster, a younger man and a Canadian to do just that. They secure a ship, the Clotilda. Foster suggests they sail to Ouidah in Dahomey, along West Africa's Slave Coast to collect their "cargo".

J.B who grew up an orphan and has worked on ships since the age of ten, learns that Captain Foster is hiring for the Clotilda and is hired on. He feels good that it will be a regular shipping job because he doesn't want to work on any slave ship. Meaher meanwhile decides he will hire a tugboat skipper, Hollingsworth to bring in his cargo so that he can hide them in the swamps before selling them off.

The Clotilda is almost five years old, made of oak and pine planks held together with iron. It knows that Foster and Meaher are lying when they tell people the ship will be carrying lumber. With all the supplies that have been loaded, the Clotilda knows there is enough for a shipload of Africans and is horrified to be part of the illegal slave trade. The eleven-man crew boards along with Foster who sneaks aboard gold and has also falsified papers indicating they are travelling to St. Thomas with lumber.

The journey is filled with troubles from the very beginning. The gold Foster has hidden in the ship causes the the compass to malfunction sending the Clotilda off course. For forty days and nights the ship endures repeated storms including a cyclone and is pursued by two Portuguese man-of-war. One of the crew, J.B. discovers he has signed onto a "slaver" and is furious. He and the other crew rebel and force Foster to offer to pay them double to continue the voyage. In Portugal, Foster bribes the American consul and the Portuguese officials to look the other way.

In Africa, King Glele sends out his warriors to hunt down prisoners to sell and sacrifice to honor their ancestors, including his recently deceased father. They attack Bante, capturing Kossola and many others and murder their king. On the march to Dahomey, Kossola meets Kupollee, another Yoruba man who is roped to him. They are taken to Glele's palace surrounded by an iron fence adorned with human skulls. Gumpa, a nephew of Glele doesn't approve of what he's doing, so Glele has him imprisoned along with the Bante captives and eventually sent to the barracoon.

All of the captives are put through a sorting process, some are left behind but most are sent to Ouidah where they will be forced onto the Clotilda, which lies in wait for them. Those to be sent to America include Kossola, Abile, Kehounco, and Kupollee. At Ouidah, the captives are poked and prodded in every way by Captain Foster and those chosen as slaves are placed in canoes to be taken aboard the Clotilda. They do not realize they are not merely prisoners but now slaves who will never see their homeland nor their families again in this life.

Discussion

African Town is a beautifully crafted novel-in-verse about a real historical event, the smuggling of one hundred ten Africans from Dahomey, now known as Benin, in 1860 to Alabama. The novel covers the events beginning in Mobile, Alabama and Bante, African in 1859 up until the death of Captain William Foster in 1901. 

Although the novel is a work of fiction, the events portrayed in the novel really happened: Timothy Meaher made a bet he could circumvent the law forbidding the bringing in of slaves to the United States from Africa. To that end, he hired William Foster to sail to Ouidah in the Clotilda under false pretenses. The Africans who ended up on the Clotilda were captured by fellow Africans and sold to Foster for transport across the Atlantic. They were then  sold to various buyers in Alabama after being hidden in the swamps surrounding Mobile. 

After the Civil War, those slaves now free, eventually came to create African Town, building their own homes, a school and businesses, demonstrating their remarkable resiliency, determination, frugality and business acumen. Amazingly, to this day the Meahers continue to be a very prominent family in Mobile, Alabama and although Timothy Meaher's great-grandson Robert Meaher admits slavery is wrong, he is appallingly quick to deflect the blame to others. 

To tell this story, Latham and Waters use fourteen different characters including the ship, Clotilda. The major characters include Kossola, Kupollee, Abile, Gumpa, Kehounco, Glele, Timothy Meaher, and William Foster. The authors used the survivors' original African names as this was what was what they requested be done for an earlier publication. They drew on a wealth of information from journals written by both Meaher and Foster and by interviews given by the survivors including Kossola.

African Town utilizes various poetry forms and styles for each of the fourteen characters, and thankfully the authors describe each type in a section at the back titled Poetry Forms/Styles. The poetry of Latham and Waters is evocative, capturing a many of the emotions one would expect from men, women and children who have been ripped away from their homes, their lives and their families. 

Many of the poems capture the sadness, fear, loneliness and confusion of the captured African men and women. One of the characters, James Dennison who was already a slave, watches as the new Africans are brought to the plantation. "When I go to sleep each night, I can hear their cries pierce the lilac skies with loneliness and pain that breaks the moon open."

But the poetry also captures the comfort, support and love they show one another on the journey across the ocean under unbearable conditions and throughout their lives. Helping one another was key to surviving the trip across the Atlantic in the cramped, filthy hold of the ship. Abile and Kehounco join together to support one another, "We may be only two, but dignity is easier to muster as a team. My heart settles when she grips my hand." Abile states in the poem, Sisters By Choice.

Their resilience and determination to survive, their refusal to allow the white men to take away their humanity, is especially seen in the characters of Kossola and Gumpa. In a poem, Brotherhood, Kossola states,
"...But de affection
I feel for Kupolle, Ausy,
and de other men is much
de same - a sense of brotherhood,
like we know de same secrets.
De sailors may have stripped
and chained us, left us in de hold
for weeks, but we're still breathing.
We're all warriors and survivors."

Even after the Civil War when they are free, the survivors refuse to be broken. Initially they plan to return to Bante in Africa and work hard, are frugal and save. When that plan never materializes, the group moves on to other options. They decide to "Make our own Africa". Gumpa suggests that "If we cannot escape this exile, then we are owed land to build our own community, to take our African customs and apply them in this country among ourselves." When Timothy Meaher refuses to give them land, they strategically work to buy land from him and other white people, once again working to help themselves and their children. Soon their dream of their "own Africa" comes to fruition in African Town. 

African Town is an engaging novel, that focuses not so much on the horrors of what actually happened in the last act of enslaving a group of people from Africa to America, but more on the incredible resiliency, courage and determination of the people who endured such evil. It is a remarkable testament to the character and humanity of the Clotilda survivors.

To help their readers put the story into context, Latham and Waters have included an introduction by Joycelyn M. Davis, descendent of Oluale (Charlie Lewis and Mary Lewis), a map showing the voyage of the Clotilda, a detailed Author's Note, More About the Characters (those living after 1901), a note on Africatown Today, A Selected Time Line, Glossary, Poetry Form/Styles, and various resources for further research. 

The following articles may be of interest:

American's last slave ship stole them from home: https://vk.com/@new_forwardls_ru-americas-last-slave-ship-stole-them-from-home-and-it-couldnt

Clotilda: Last American slave ship is discovered in Alabama: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/clotilda-the-last-american-slave-ship-found-in-alabama

"Last known slave ship is remarkably well preserved, researchers say": https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/us/clotilda-slaveship-africa-alabama.html

Book Details:

African Town by Irene Latham & Charles Waters
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Ltd.   
438 pp.

Secret Schools. True Stories of the Determination to Learn by Heather Camlot

In Secret Schools, the amazing determination to learn is highlight through the stories of schools held in secret. The book is divided into five sections. 

In Section 1 Cultural Connections: Protecting One's Identity schools for students living in Lithuania under Russian rule, children of Japanese migrant workers in Brazil and Indigenous workers in Ecuador are profiled. In these situations the purpose of the school was to preserve their cultural identity by teaching the children their language and heritage. 

In Section 2 Hope and Dignity: Escaping Slavery and Oppression, the role of schools in the emancipation of enslaved peoples is explored. African people kidnapped from their homes by the hundreds of thousands and enslaved in America, Jewish children and their families forced into the more than one thousand ghettos during World War II by the Nazis, and the thousands of political prisoners in South Africa's Robben Island maximum security prison jailed for opposing apartheid are the focus in this section.

In Section 3 Girl's Rights: Banding Together For Gender Equality stories of brave girls and women attending secret schools in defiance of being denied an education simply because they are female. In this section, the Flying University founded by Jadwiga Szczawinska-Dawidowa and others to educate girls in a Poland controlled by Russia, Prussia and Austria in the 1800's, Iran's Taraqqi Girls' School created in 1911 in a country where it was believed educating women was sinful, and the Golden Needle Sewing School in Herat, Afghanistan where girls were educated under the cover-up of a sewing shop to outwit the Taliban during their reign in the 1990's are featured.

Section 4 Spy Schools: Going Underground and Undercover presents secret schools whose purpose was to train government spies used to protect their countries from both external and internal threats. In this section, readers will learn about the spy school that trained agents for the Soviet Union's KGB spy agency, Camp X which was a secret spy school located on farmland in Whitby, Ontario Canada during World War II to train secret agents for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the top-secret Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL) that was formed in 1951 to train young British men in Russian language and culture so they could monitor events and communications coming out of Russia during the Cold War.

Finally, Section 5 Radical Learning: Moving in A New Direction focuses on secret schools whose function was to create change. In the 1980's covert study groups or "reading groups were organized by students for students in South Korea to further the pro-democracy movement and bring and end to military rule.In 2014, billionaire CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk set up an experimental school that used a more open way to teach students. The school known as Ad Astra had a limited number of students and eventually closed. The last secret school featured is one that helps the children of suicide bombers, essentially reversing the radical ideas they have been exposed to so they do not become the next generation of suicide bombers. The school, located in Jakarta, Indonesia is in a secret location and has only a dozen students at any one time.

Discussion

In Secret Schools, Canadian author Heather Camlot explores a wide range of very different secret schools that have existed over the last few hundred years. Each school has arisen out of a unique need, sometimes to preserve a culture that is being actively destroyed, other times to help defend a country or to protect the rights of a group such as girls who are being denied the right to learn and reach their full potential. In Secret Schools, readers learn just how far people will go to get an education, risking everything, even their lives to do so. What we take for granted in North America and Europe isn't always so in some countries.

The book is divided into five sections, each with a title page done in a different colour. Each section provides a very short overview, with at least a page-long explanation on three or four schools that fit into the category being explored. Camlot provides the historical context for each school and there are plenty of comic type illustrations by Erin Taniguchi. Secret Schools is a fascinating read that covers schools that are well known and others that readers will never have heard about.

Book Details:

Secret Schools: True Stories of the Determination to Learn by Heather Camlot
Toronto: Owlkids Books Inc.     2022
47 pp.

Stitched UP by Steve Cole

Hanh lived in a village with her parents, sisters and grandma, dreaming of someday finding a good job in fashion. That day seemed to arrive when "the Man" and "the Woman" came to their village. Smartly dressed, they told Hanh's parents they worked for a fashion company opening a new shop in Hanoi. Young girls were being trained and hired as shop assistants. They claimed this was a great opportunity for Hanh. 

The woman claimed to know Hanh's father's cousin in another province, and that his neighbour's daughter, Tuyet would be joining them. She also told Hanh's parents that if she worked for a year, they would give her parents three million dong (just over one hundred US dollars). When Hanh asked how she would continue her schooling, her father suggested she could "catch-up" when she returned after a year. Desperate for money, her parents decided to sign the contract even though her father could not read.

Two days later, Hanh left on a minibus for Hanoi. At the station in Bac Kan, Hanh and her mother met Tuyet who was very excited. Twelve girls boarded the bus that day. On the journey, Hanh and Tuyet met and talked with two other girls Ping and Chau.When they arrived in Hanoi in the middle of the night, they were quickly taken into the factory.

Now three months later, Hanh finds herself not working in a fashion shop but in a sweatshop making jeans and jackets. Along with other boys and girls, Hanh works twelve hours a day, cutting, sanding, pressing and distressing denim until her fingers bleed.

Every morning Hanh and the other girls are awoken by seventeen-year-old Yen who takes them to the factory floor. They must work for two hours before they can use the bathroom and breaks are only eight minutes, twice a day. Thirteen-year-old Tuyet works the large steam presses, Chau sews on the tags and labels, fifteen-year-old Ping "runs small electric sanders over the seams and hems and pocket edges." Hanh uses a sewing machine to embroider designs on the distressed jeans. Kim-Ly sews tiny beads and buttons onto the designs Hanh embroiders.

On this early morning, Tuyet, who has been coughing a lot lately, feels she cannot continue to work because of her asthma. In an attempt to get out of the factory, she falls into Ping who is working behind her. Tuyet claims she burned her hand on the steam press and Ping tells an angry Yen that Tuyet grabbed her sander as she fell. Tuyet is taken away for the day and doesn't reappear until well after dinner that night.

Tuyet returns, her hand wrapped in bloodied gauze, and reveals that she is being made to work in a cotton factory picking up scraps of cotton t-shirts. Tuyet's situation makes Hanh remember a line from a poem written by Ho Chi Minh, "When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out." This gives her an idea that, with the help of a charity, frees them from the sweatshop.

Discussion

Stitched UP is a short work of realistic fiction focusing in on the reality of fast fashion: that the cheap clothes we wear in North America come at a high cost to those living in the developing world making those clothes.

In Stitched Up, author Steve Cove uses the character of Hanh to reveal the way young girls are exploited and tricked into working in fast fashion sweatshops in countries like Vietnam. They are usually from poor families, desperately in need of money and whose parents may sign contracts they cannot read nor understand. There is often the promise of a good job and money that will be sent home. In reality, as in Hanh's experience, the factories are poorly maintained with many serious workplace safety and health issues where the workers usually underage and/or involved in forced labour. They are either poorly paid or not paid at all. To prevent these workers from leaving they are locked into their cramped living spaces at night.

Hanh, whose family is tricked into signing her into forced labour,  is portrayed as a courageous young girl, determined not to give up on her dream of regaining her freedom and following through with her plans to finish her schooling and have her own business. Although her initial plan doesn't quite work the way she intended, in the end with the help of a local charity that becomes aware of the illegal sweatshop, she and the other children are freed. But during her time working there, Hanh experiences hardship, dangerous working conditions and workplace threats and violence.

Stitched Up offers the message to young readers to rethink buying fast fashion because it exploits young people just like themselves, who have similar dreams for the future. Cove, in his "Why I wanted to tell this story" section at the back of the novel, offers some hard statistics on the number of children in forced labour and a few suggestions for how we can all make a difference.

Stitched Up is a short novel, with a larger font size and comic style illustrations by Oriol Vidal, making it an ideal high interest-low vocabulary offering for reluctant readers. It tackles, with a simple story and believable characters, a global issue we should all be concerned with.

Book Details:

Stitched UP by Steve Cole
Edinburgh: Barrington Stoke Ltd.   2022
122 pp

Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar & Kathleen Van Cleve

"On Saturday, May 21, 1796, Ona Judge, a twenty-two-year-old slave of President George Washington and his wife, Martha, escaped the president's Philadelphia mansion and never looked back."  Never Caught is her story.

Ona Judge's story begins sometime around 1773, in Virginia. The United States was not yet in existence, but the white people in those thirteen colonies decided they no longer wanted to be ruled by the British. So they began to rebel in various ways. At this time slavery was very much accepted throughout the colonies.

Ona's mother Betty was born in 1738 into slavery in Virginia. She was originally owned by Daniel Parke Custis, who became Martha Washington's first husband. Daniel died seven years into the marriage and some of his property (including Betty) passed onto Martha. When she remarried, to George Washington, she brought a large number of slaves to his estate. Betty was what was known as a dower slave.

Betty was an important slave to Martha Washington, a seamstress in charge of keeping the family and its slaves dressed.

1773 turned out to be a momentous year for several reasons; there was an unusual snowfall in Virginia that June and another of Martha Washington's children, her daughter Patsy died from a seizure.

Sometime 1773, Betty gave birth to a baby girl fathered by Andrew Judge, a white indentured servant from England who was one of Washington's preferred tailors. She named the baby Ona Maria Judge. She was legally owned, as property by Martha Washington. Ona would grow up in Mount Vernon, George Washington's massive estate in eastern Virginia. 

As a slave Ona lived in the two-story building called the Quarters, sleeping on the floor. There was little privacy but it was well made and had a fireplace to heat it. Ona did not attend school and 

 In 1775 George Washington became commander of the Continental Army. The relationship between the British and the American colonists had been deteriorating for some time and it soon developed into all out war. Fighting began in 1775, with Washington leading the Continental army. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was issued while battles continued in New York, New Jersey and all along the northeast coast of the thirteen colonies. Eventually, the British surrendered and war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

George Washington returned to Mount Vernon after eight and half years, hoping to enjoy his estate but it was short lived. He was invited to participate in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 which saw him return to Philadelphia as part of Virginia's delegation. In 1789 he was chosen to serve as the first president of the new United States of America and he left Mount Vernon for New York. Following him was Martha and a group of carefully chosen slaves including Ona Judge who would serve along with another slave named Moll as housemaids and personal attendants to Martha. These slaves were chosen for their devotion to the family and their fidelity. But as Ona travelled north through the city of Philadelphia and then on to New York, her experiences in these two cities would enlarge her perspective and ultimately change her life forever. What she saw and what she learned might be possible for her, would inform the most critical decision of her life: the decision to be free.

Discussion

Never Caught is the story of the remarkable Ona Maria Judge, black slave maid to Martha Washington, who had the courage and determination to escape bondage against formidable odds. Ona's life is set against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War and the beginnings of a new country that would come to be known as the United States of America. Her escape, from the most prominent American citizen,  President George Washington, happens as the abolition movement is beginning to blossom throughout the north.

Ona's story is framed by both the prominent families she was a part of and by the historical events of the time. Ona's mother Betty, was a slave in the Parke Custis family whom Margaret married into. Betty gave birth to Ona while a slave with the Washington's. Both the Parke Custis and Washington families owned a large number of slaves and slavery was deeply entrenched in their way of life. Neither family were interested in freeing slaves and considered themselves benevolent slave owners. George Washington's wealth and lifestyle was built on slavery. To help readers understand what life might  have been like for the slaves who were part of George Washington's Mount Vernon, the authors describe how slaves were treated, the attitudes of slave owners, the work they were expected to do and the living conditions they experienced. 

Never Caught also presents the major political events in the colonies just before Ona's birth and during her growing up years. It's important to understand these events, because they would directly impact Ona as she grew up and even more so in her adult life. Never Caught attempts to look at life and the political and social events of the time through Ona Judge's eyes. But it also attempts to show readers how the Washington's viewed their slaves - as property they needed to protect for their own financial interests.

Dunbar and Van Cleve believe that Ona Judge's experiences in Philadelphia and New York likely changed her profoundly. In 1789 when Ona first visited the city of Philadelphia it was the largest urban center in the newly founded United States. Even more important, its citizens were leaders in the abolition of slavery. Prominent citizens of Pennsylvania were at the forefront of the abolition movement, and broadsides (large posters plastered on walls) showed people what the slave trade really was: crammed ships filled with dead, dying and terribly suffering people. It's very likely Ona Judge saw these broadsides as they were everywhere and she often accompanied Martha Washington wherever she went during those five days in the city.

In Philadelphia, Ona was exposed to many more white and black people. At Mount Vernon most of the people where black slaves. In Philadelphia, out of a population of just forty thousand, just two hundred and seventy-three were slaves with around eighteen hundred free black men and women. In Philadelphia, Ona would have seen FREE black men and women and this alone would have had a significant impact on how she viewed the world, and her own life. Where she might have once had pride in working as a slave for the president and his wife, Ona began to realize that she should be angry.. "So much was new. So much was strange. And now she was confronted with the fact that some black people in this northern state did not think the way her family did - that it was possible to live only in the way she and her family had always lived at Mount Vernon: in bondage from birth until death....In this spirit she entered Philadelphia with a locked sense of how the world was and left Philadelphia with a sense of how it could be, even for her."

In New York, things were a bit different; Ona encountered white slaves and a wider variety of people, rich and poor. She would have noticed that the white "servants" did not need to ask permission for anything. They went about much more freely than their black counterparts. There were escaped black slaves and "Many free black men and women lived proudly and publicly, even forming their own clubs and organizations that fought for the reputation and credibility of the blacks who lived in New York City." But the Washington's had also learned a few things in New York: "....not that owning humans was inhumane...but that they needed to be even more careful about which slaves would accompany them to their new home."

When the capital of the United States was moved to Philadelphia, requiring the president and his wife and slaves to move too, the Washington's also learned about something else that would affect them: Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act. Under this act, a slave brought into the state and having lived there for six months would automatically become free. The Washington's had no intention of allowing this to happen to their slaves including Ona. Financially they could not afford to, and morally, their paternalistic attitude and belief that they were "benevolent" slave owners justified their keeping slaves. Ona herself learned that she would be given as a "wedding gift" to the Washington's granddaughter. It was this event, and what Ona herself had learned, seen and come to realize that motivated her to seek her freedom. 

Ona's decision to run away was a courageous one. She was not only a valued slave in the home of the most important man in America, but many of the resources that existed years later to help slaves seeking freedom were not yet in place. Recapture would have also meant some form of significant punishment, as she had seen the Washington's punish other slaves for much lesser things. Her escape placed Washington in a difficult situation, at risk of disobeying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which he himself had signed. Yet Ona's desire to be free was paramount. She kept her cool when confronted with those seeking to recapture her.  Ona's life was difficult for many years after but she did marry and have a family. Most importantly, although she remained a fugitive, her life was her own, to make her own choices and decisions. She passed away in 1848.

Never Caught is well written, rich in history and details, informative, and engaging.The authors have  included a copy and transcript of the interview Ona Judge gave to the Granite Freeman in 1845 as well as an extensive list of sources in a Selected Bibliography. 

Readers may find these websites of interest:

George Washington's Mount Vernon: Ona Judge

The White House Historical Association: The Remarkable Story of Ona Judge

Book Details:

Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong & Kathleen Van Cleve
New York: Aladdin    2017
252 pp.

Unbound by Anne E. Burg

When nine-year-old Grace learns she is being sent to work in Master Allen's "Big House", she is unhappy. It will mean leaving behind Mama, her two younger brothers Thomas and Willy, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jim and his night stories and singing. Grace has light blue eyes and pale skin, different from her mama's brown eyes and dark skin.  But Grace has no choice. Her mama makes her promise 

"to always be good,
to listen to the Missus,
never talk back,
to lower my eyes...
to not speak
less spoken to first."

Her Aunt Sara tells Grace that her time in the Master's house will not be easy. She warns her that "the Missus is hateful as a toad" and that she needs to keep the promises made to her mama.

Her mama tells Uncle Jim, it's the pale skin that has led to Grace being called to the Big House. This  leads Grace to run into the swamp to visit OleGeorgeCooper, a runaway slave who is hiding "in the swamp with gators, snakes, n soul-stealing witches." OleGeorgeCooper has whip scars running across his face. Graces smears mud all over her face, arms and legs to make her skin brown, but when her mother sees her like this she chides Grace for not accepting the skin colour God gave her.

At the Big House, Grace is put to work in the kitchen with Aunt Tempie. There are three other slaves in the house: Uncle Moses, who helps Master Allen dress, drives his wagon and tends the horses, Jordan who waits on the Allens during dinner, and Anna who help Missus Allen dress and washes the clothes. Aunt Tempie warns Grace to avoid the Missus because she is "mean as a hornet...". Grace learns how to grind corn into flour, how to split a chicken and remove the bones. She learns that Jordan has runaway before and that he has a wife and a baby girl. 

As time passes, Grace longs to see her mother. She also sees how badly Anna, who does everything for the Missus, is treated. And she herself soon becomes the target of the Missus when she lets slip a few words, breaking her promise to her mother. But when Jordan runs just before the tobacco harvest, the Missus makes the suggestion that they sell Grace's family to make enough money to hire a new slave. 

Faced with being separated forever, Grace and her family decide to become runaways and flee into the Swamp. The dangers of the swamp are worth the risk of fleeing and being free.

Discussion

Unbound tells the story of a young girl and her family who work as slaves on a tobacco plantation in the southern United States. The story, told in free verse, provides young readers with what seems like a realistic portrayal of what the life of a nine-year-old child slave living on a plantation in Virginia/North Carolina would have been like. Burg does refer to some of the horrors slaves encountered, such as whippings, cruel treatment by their owners and the auctioning of slaves which often broke apart families forever. There is OleGeorgeCooper with the "ripples" across his face, Anna who gets whipped for "lingering", and Jordan who never smiles because he is not able to live with his wife and daughter. However, for the most part, the novel doesn't go into graphic detail.

Grace, who has blue eyes and light skin, is likely the daughter of Master Allen, who also has blue eyes and who views Grace as property, referring to her as "an investment". Grace isn't aware of this, as she believes she doesn't have a daddy, but her parentage is likely one of the reasons the Missus treats Grace cruelly and to break her spirit, suggests they sell Grace's family at an auction. 

Grace is a brave, strong young girl who finds she can't keep silent in the face of such oppression. When she learns about the duties the other slaves in the house have, such as serving dinner, helping Master Allen and Missus dress, Grace can't understand why the white folks are so helpless. When she learns that Master Allen intends to sell her mother and half-brothers in order to be able to afford to replace runaway slave Jordon, Grace makes the decision to run away, taking her family with her. 

Grace feels intense guilt because she broke her mother's promise to not talk back. She feels responsible for Master Allen's decision to sell her family. The Missus Allen made the suggestion as a way to "finally teach Grace who she is and where she belongs." Throughout her journey to the swamp, Grace must confront her inner turmoil. Eventually she confesses to her mother that they had to flee because she didn't keep her promises, keep her eyes down, keep her mouth shut. But her mother tells Grace that "Some folks done need a reason to hate...Hatin's a choice what's got nothin to do with you." Grace is not responsible for the evil others do. Her mother's love and forgiveness help heal Grace of her shame. 

Grace also learns that Aunt Tempie, whom she believed simply did whatever the Allens wanted,  has been intimately involved in helping runaway slaves for years. With shame, Grace realizes that she has judged Aunt Tempie the same way Missus Allen judged her.

Burg set her story in the early 1860's and Grace's fictional story is based on the real experiences of  slaves who fled to the Great Dismal Swamp to be free. The Great Dismal Swamp covered parts of southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina and was surrounded by plantations worked by slaves. Slaves like Grace and her family, who freed themselves came to be known as maroons. Life in the swamp was dangerous and hard, but the maroons were willing to endure it because they were free. The fact that slaves were willing to live in such difficult conditions, often moving deep within the swamp to avoid recapture, is a testament to the human desire to be free. In the Great Dismal Swamp, Grace finds the freedom her heart longs for.

Freedom's not jus a place
you find on a map.
Freedom's livin
with folks who love you
n havin the space
to love yourself.

Freedom's not bein afraid
To say your own thoughts
n follow your own heart,
just like the good Lord intended.

Unbound offers young readers the opportunity to learn more about slavery in America and to explore what the life of a slave was like in the early 1860's. The story told simply in free verse, sticks to the important elements of the storyline, making this a good book for middle grade readers.

Book Details:

Unbound by Anne E. Burg
New York: Scholastic Press   2016
344 pp.