Rebel EPB by Beverly Jenkins

Author:Beverly Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

Drake helped gardener Frank Poole dig out a stand of old hackberry trees that Julianna wanted to replace with magnolias. She’d hired the thirty-year-old Frank a few months ago through the Freedmen’s Bureau. She wanted to help the freedmen get started on their new lives, and a job was a good place to begin. Drake and his brothers were of the same mind. The laborers working for him were formerly enslaved, as were the women working as housekeepers at Archer’s hotel. Rai had a small army of freedmen working in his warehouses, and on his ships and docks.

Drake knew nothing about Frank’s past but learned a bit as they worked and he talked about his ongoing search for his mother. Over sandwiches Little Reba brought out for lunch, Frank told Drake more. “I was sold away when I was five but have been looking for her since the day after Freedom. Searched all over Mississippi where I believe I was born, but no one had ever heard of her or her master.”

“Why do you think you were born there?”

“Old woman on my last place said people there told her that’s where I’m from, but I could’ve been born anywhere, so I’ll keep looking.”

Judging by the number of advertisements and letters in some of the Black newspapers, there was a flood of people seeking sold-away family members just in the New Orleans area. Multiply that by the estimated three million held in slavery across the South before Freedom, and Drake suspected there were thousands upon thousands wanting to reestablish ties to their kin.

“Are you going to stay in New Orleans?”

“Just until the end of summer. I’m going up to Baton Rouge next. If I don’t find her there, I may head to Texas. My wife says she’s going to leave me if I make her move again. We’ve been going from place to place since Freedom, so I understand her complaining, but I have to find my mother. She’s expecting me to. Otherwise why’d she crop my ear this way if not so she can recognize me?” He turned his head and Drake saw the shortened lobe of his left ear. He wondered how common the practice had been. Hester Vachon, wife of Rai’s best friend, Galen Vachon, was born into slavery. Her mother severed the tip of Hester’s little finger at birth in case she was sold away and needed to be found. What other methods had slave parents used in the hopes of finding their children again, was a question he couldn’t answer. He did know how fortunate he and his brothers were to have been born free. He couldn’t imagine the heartache he’d be suffering had he been sold away from his parents. “If there’s anything my family can do to assist you, please let us know.”

Frank nodded. They finished their lunch and went back to work.

At the end of the day, Frank left for home and Drake went into the house to wash up. As he cut through the kitchen he was surprised to find Valinda stirring a pot on the stove.

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