Chapter 20

Elizabeth sat on the edge of her bed and watched the wet nurse bathe her newborn son with a damp cloth. Since her arrival at the Caldwell’s’ plantation, she experienced the treatment due a woman of her stature. It felt wonderful. Although she had always held a kind regard towards the servants of her uncle’s estate, her treatment of them was even kinder now.

The workers of the Caldwell’s’ plantation were free and could walk away whenever they desired to do so. This was not the case for the majority of the darkies who resided in colonial America. Some were brought over the waters to become slaves and others were born as slaves, but slaves they were and slaves they would remain.

Elizabeth thought about the freedom granted the Indians by King George when he passed a law making it illegal to hold Indians in slavery and wondered if such a law would ever come about for the darkies as well. She remembered the slaves she left behind with that horri