Can I See Your I.D.? by Chris Barton & Paul Hoppe

Author:Chris Barton & Paul Hoppe [Barton, Chris & Hoppe, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780803733107
Amazon: 0803733100
Publisher: Dial Books
Published: 2011-04-13T18:30:00+00:00

SLAVE OWNER?

ELLEN CRAFT

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1848

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

At twenty-two, you cannot read or write.

A week ago in Macon, Georgia, before this plan came into the heads of you and your husband and consumed you like fever, that did not matter. Of course you couldn’t read or write, Ellen—no matter how lightskinned, you were a slave. Anyone who taught you to put pen to paper or make out the words on a page would have been breaking the law. Ellen Craft could not read or write, and that was that. The same went for your William.

But here near the wharf in Charleston, your illiteracy is another matter entirely. What is expected of you could not be more different than it was a week ago. In the eyes of those around you, you are not a seamstress or a slave. You are not even a Negro, not even a woman at all.

You are “Mr. Johnson”—a Southern gentleman. Which is to say, a white Southern gentleman. And a white Southern gentleman who cannot read or write would stick out like a field slave who cannot find the opening of a cotton sack.

Needless to say, you and your accompanying “slave”—William—do not wish to stick out. At least, not in that way. That’s why the plan the two of you cooked up includes a thorough disguise. Along with your trousers, top hat, green spectacles, and handkerchief tied beneath your apparently aching jaw, you’re sporting a sling for your poor, rheumatic writing arm.

Such a young man, and in such sad shape—not much more than an invalid, really. How fortunate that William is here to attend to you, to assist you on your thousand-mile journey to seek help for your rheumatism from your physician uncle in Philadelphia, a city that just happens to be located in the free state of Pennsylvania.

Your masquerade has held up this past day and a half, from Macon to Savannah by train, and then by steamboat to Charleston. Now you just need to get your steamer tickets for the Charleston-to-Philadelphia leg, and you’ll be out of the South—and out of slavery—for good.

But there is a hitch in your plan: Now that winter is here, you learn, the steamboat doesn’t run that direct route. You’ll need to follow a patchwork path by steamer and rail. Fine—you wouldn’t have gotten this far if you weren’t able to adapt. You hand over the fare, and the ticket man hands over the tickets.

Situations such as this pose one particular danger, but you wouldn’t have put your right arm in this sling if the thought hadn’t already occurred to you: Where along the way might you be expected to sign your name?

And the answer is: Here.

Now.

You pay your one-dollar duty on your piece of human property, but now you need to sign the registry stating that you are taking your slave to the North. Indicating your weakened arm, you ask the customs officer if he would be so kind as to sign your name for you. He reacts as if he’s been burned.

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