Jack: Book One in the Trilogy, the Battle Begins

Extendin' a Helpin' Hand Part 33

The new Fugitive Slave Act passed by the United States Congress in the summer of 1850 caused much aggravation among the Northern abolitionists many of whom refused to live by the new law and who tried to convince anyone else who would listen to ignore it. It was one of the seeds sown in fertile soil that brought the Civil War a decade later.

The abolitionists insisted on freeing the slaves and refusing to return them to their owners if they escaped, which federal law required. They said it was simply wrong to return a black man or his family back to slavery after he had escaped from the cotton or sugar plantations of the south and finally made it to one of the northern free-states. The law required that any escaped slave be returned to its owner. Many northern newspaper editors advocated disobeying the new law saying it was unconstitutional but the law carried heavy fines for anyone hiding or helping an escaped slave whether the assistance given was in a slave state like South Carolina or a "free state" like Pennsylvania.

All we knew when we met Leroy in the summer of 1851, sleeping in our tree house, was that we could get in big trouble if we helped him out or hid him or found him a place to stay.

But Jack liked this new challenge and he liked Leroy right off. Leroy had a big straw hat and he was big and muscular and very dark. Said he came up from Alabama and that he was separated from his family in Charleston two years earlier when he and his sister and mom were auctioned off to different masters. When Leroy saw us he looked like a scared raccoon and he took a running leap and jumped off the tree house but Jack said to hold on that we wouldn't hurt him. So he stopped and turned around and stared at us wide-eyed.

"Hey want an apple? What's your name?"

"I'm called Leroy and I am so hungry, thank you sah, thank you!"

Leroy gobbled down the apple and then I gave him mine too.

"Where you goin' in such a hurry?" Jack said.

"I is goin' to Massachusetts so I can be a lawya and git ma famli bak sah. We waz all done solded heya in Charleston some time ago and I went with ma masta to Alabama and I ain't seen hide nor hair of ma sista or motha since. I can read and write a little so I wants to be a lawya sah. How fur is Massachusetts anyhow sah?"

"You got a long, long, long way to go Leroy and you goin' to be hunted down all the way - why don't ya let us help ya get there."

"No sah, I gotta go. If'n I stop I thinks I'll neva get goin agin and I git caught and the dogs'll git me."

"But you're safe here. Stay here for a while," I said, "until we can figure a plan. If anyone can help you out of this fix, we can. And Jack here is the best kniver in all of Charleston and I bet we can help ya find out where your sister and mother went off to."

"You can? You ain't tryin' to trick me now, is you?"

"When is the last time you ate anythin'?" said Jack.

"Well I been a'pickin' raspberries and a'findin' vegables and such in da gardens dat I seen on da way heya but I havn't had no good dinna sah, not since I left dat plantation shanty two weeks now. I been travlin' nites and sleepin' and hidin' days. I just keep a'goin' up da rivers and hidin' in da swamps where I knows people probably won't go in. People say I gotta go noth but I dunno where noth is, can you tell me? I know the sun it set way over in da west so I know noth is to my right when I face to the west at sundown sah. But I go noth but then I get lost in da woods at night and da swamps and I been a'goin' in a circle since last week I think."

"Well Leroy," Jack said, "you just stay here and we're goin' to go fetch a big pile of food for ya. So don't go anywhere. You safe here cuz this is our secret fort and no-one but me and Jeremy and one other boy knows it's here. Stay here okay? I promise we're not goin' to turn ya in but that we is goin' to help ya escape up north. Okay?"

"Yes sah, I'll stay. You seem like fine yung-uns and I trust yoose already."

"Be back in a few hours then," I said.