I have come to tell you about my life living in South Carolina. You see I grew up in the time period prior to what you northerns call the American Civil War. I never really understood the war or why it was being fought. I was only 16 when the war started and I watched all my brothers go off to fight the northerners. I stayed home and helped mama and papa work the plantation. Oh I am sorry. That is not the story I wanted to tell you. I need to get to that point. You see my name is Polly. I grew up on a plantation with 5 brothers and my parents. We owned slaves, as it was the custom to in the south.

From the time I was 7. I could not understand why my father thought it would be okay for someone to own another human being. He tried to explain it to me once. “You see Polly, these colored people are not really people. We are better than they are. We must teach them how to live and what is to be done.” He left it at that. I think I was more confused than ever after talking to my father. My brother Caleb also felt the same as I did. We often talked about what should be done to help these poor people. Caleb and I are 5 years apart. Caleb is the youngest boy and tends to spend a great deal of time with the older brothers. I think he is trying to learn how to be a man some day.

I am the youngest and spend a great deal of time with my nannys. I love them all. They are all colored women who live in the big house as they call it. Cecilia was my favorite. She was not that much older than me and spent a great deal of time helping me with things. I never asked her to help me, I tried to do everything myself. “Cecilia, please do not help me. I can do it myself.” She only smiled at me. “Well Polly, I have to help you with some things. Your father assigned me to you and you do not want him to send me back out to the cotton fields do you?” I told her I would not like that and I would allow her to help me.

Cecilia was my favorite nanny. The others did not come to spend time with me. They mostly came in and took the clothes that needed to be washed and made my bed. Chores that I would later have to do during the war. My mother and father did not seem to be around a great deal. I only saw them once a week if I was lucky. I felt that most of my love and support was coming from my nannies. My mother came by one day and asked me if I wanted a new nanny as Cecilia was now pregnant and needed to rest. I got excited for her. “No mother. I would like to keep her if that would be possible.” My mother only smiled and said “Anything for my princess.”

I was about 14 by the time Cecilia was pregnant. I had never seen a pregnant women and was curious to see what it would look like when she gave birth. Cecilia came to my room and we played like always. At this time it was not really playing. My mother was not around and I needed to know a few things. My nannies were the only ones I had that would tell me about the birds and the bees and growing up to be a woman. We spent many days talking about this. One day Venus came to my room and started talking to me about the things Cecilia and I did.

“Where is Cecilia?” I asked innocently. “She is giving birth down by the stables. She will be back in a week or so.” I gave Venus a smile and got up to run to the stables. My other nannies were already there and asked me what I thought I was doing. “I wanted to watch Cecilia give birth.” They smiled and concealed me from my father. You see, my father had forbidden me from ever going down to the colored folks houses or from interacting with them outside of our house. I had always obeyed my father but this time I could not listen. I had to see what was going on behind the stable doors.

It did not take long before we heard the baby cry. It was a boy. Once we saw my father start to walk to the house, I knew I had to leave. I waited impatiently for Cecilia to come back to my room. She did so 5 days later. She came in with a sad look in her eyes. “Cecilia, What is wrong?” She did not want to talk about it. “You can tell me. I may not understand but I will listen.” “Your father…” She could not finish the sentence. She just sat on my bed and started to cry. Her husband Abel came in and hugged her. “Abel what is going on? Please tell me.” Abel looked at me, “Your father is making us give up the baby. He is going to sell it once he has stopped breast feeding.” I could not believe it.

I left the two in my room and went looking for my father. I found him talking to Mr. Smith, a plantation owner who lived just down the road from us. “Papa, I must speak with you at once.” He looked at me “Oh hi Princess. What seems to be the problem?” “I do not want you to sell Cecilia’s baby. I think we need to let her keep him.” He just looked at me like I was crazy. “Honey you should not worry yourself with things you do not understand. A baby costs a lot to feed and I do not have the room on the plantation for a baby.” He thought I would let it go at that. “How much does breast milk cost father?” He looked at me. “How do you know all of this? You are only 10 and should not know anything about this.” ‘

I wanted to scream at him. “Papa I am 15. My birthday was last week but you were too busy again to celebrate it with me. My brothers and I are the only ones who were at my party. How could you forget about my birthday?” I started to cry. I could not control my emotions anymore. I ran away from him before he could say anything. I knew he would try to tell me something about needing to make sure the slaves were fed or something about money. I decided to go talk to my mother. She would understand.

I walked to my mother’s room and I could hear my mother talking to a man. “She will be married by the time she is 18. I will see to it.” I knew she was talking about me. “She spends too much time with the colored people. She needs to be broken by a man and know her place.” I walked away. Now I knew what I would have to do and I would need some help in order to do it. I found my brother Caleb on the plantation. He had since moved out and had a family of his own. He came back for my birthday and then left to spend time with his wife and son. “Caleb, I need your help.”

I went on to explain the plan I had hatched and how I thought it should go down. He smiled and said “Of course I will help you. Father and mother need to learn a lesson.” That night Caleb came back with our brothers Elijah and Josiah. We went to the colored folks houses with 4 wagons. Cecilia was the first to come out. Josiah talked to them “We need all of you to come out please. We are going to take you to the north and set you free.” Cecilia looked at me. “Did you plan this? All of this?” I shook my head yes and told her to grab her baby and Abel and get in the wagon.

I had been planning this for weeks. I did not tell Cecilia I knew that my father wanted to sell the baby. I did not want to worry her. I told my brothers on my birthday of my plan to take the slaves north and they agreed that we needed to do something. We all saved food, water and anything else we thought would come in handy for the trip. It was not a long trip but the boys were afraid we would get caught. I did something that they did not know about. When I went to talk to papa, I told Lawrence, my father’s main servant, to find the papers to every slave on the property. He did so and brought them to me. Now I had the papers to prove that these slaves were ours.

We loaded all the people into the wagons and started off. As we rode on our brothers John and James would join us with additional food and water. We rode for 4 weeks with the colored people in our wagons. I wrote ahead to our cousins who lived in the north. I told them to meet us in Massachusetts with new clothes for the people and more food. We found our cousins with food and water waiting. Matilda was waiting with a message for me. “Your father wrote to us that his slaves were stolen one night and you were kidnapped. Is that what you want him to think?” I just smiled.

I did not tell her that I left a note for my father that said I was being kidnapped and the slaves were being stolen by the kidnappers. I just told her this, “Sometimes, Matilda, a woman has to decide what is right and wrong in life. I chose to set 1500 slaves free today. What will you do with your life?” After that she left smiling. We let all the slaves free in Vermont 4 weeks later. As they walked away from the wagons I knew I did something great. I told every one of the colored people this “Be greater than what is expected of you! Be true to who you want to be!” My brothers all smiled as the last slaves, now free men, got off the wagons.

“Now what Polly?” Caleb asked me. I said, “Freedom.” As we all got on our horses and made our way home.