Freedom Crossing

“The visitor from North Carolina must be someone important for Bert to be so polite.”

Laura is unaccustomed to people treating enslaved people with the respect and kindness Bert and Joel show to Martin. As such, it comes as even more of a surprise when Laura sees Martin for the first time and realizes why he is there.

“For several days after that, she hadn’t played with Joel. Then he had come to her house with a small, jet-black kitten as a peace offering […] Joel had been so kind to her and they were even better friends than before.”

Laura and Joel’s friendship from years ago is put to the test in Freedom Crossing. Though the two of them butt heads in the beginning of the book, neither of them can forget the bond they had as children. Eventually, Laura’s sense of justice and Joel’s ability to make amends reconnect the friends.

“Aunt Ruth thought it was more important and fitting for her to learn to sew a fine seam and practice her music lessons, for if she stayed in Virginia, she would marry the son of a wealthy planter and would always have slaves to do the work of the house.”

Before Laura moved away, she was much more independent when it came to cooking and cleaning. In her time away, Laura learned to rely more on enslaved people to take care of her. This change becomes a frequent subject of ridicule as Joel and Bert find her incapability absurd. This passage also demonstrates a challenge for women of the time period. Her aunt and uncle’s definition of femininity (proper apparel and traditional feminine arts such as sewing and music) contrasts with what’s expected of a woman in the north (expertise with domestic chores). While it’s important for Laura to prove that she’s not incapable of basic tasks, she has traded one stereotype of femininity for another.

“But tales of masters who beat slaves were rarely true, [Laura] reminded herself. Uncle Jim said those tales were made up to get sympathy.”

Laura, who has lived in the South for four years, shares the view that slavery isn’t bad. She believes that since her aunt and uncle are kind to enslaved people, then all slaveowners must be kind as well. What she realizes over the course of the book is that slavery inherently dehumanizes the enslaved person, regardless of whether the masters are kind. This quote reveals Laura’s feelings toward slavery at the beginning of the book, before she has a change of heart.

“No doubt they thought it was none of [Laura’s] affair. They’d started hiding fugitives long before she came back, and they didn’t care a fig for her opinion as long as she agreed not to tell on them.”

Laura learns shortly after voicing her own opinion that Joel and Bert are going to hide Martin whether she approves of it or not. She realizes that her brother and friend have been a part of the Underground Railroad for a long time, and her objections won’t do much to change that. For Laura, it’s difficult to see the alliance between Joel and Bert that has grown in her absence; it is one of many things that have changed since she’s been away.

“She looked down at Martin, already half-asleep, and felt a pang of sympathy for him. He was good-humored and patient—and brave.”

After much debate, Laura finally starts to see Martin the same way Joel and Bert see him. Though she is still unwilling to sacrifice her room for him, some of her initial coldness toward him is beginning to thaw. Her own hard-heartedness, that Joel addresses in this chapter, starts to soften.

“Once he had been her best friend […] but now they were miles apart—farther even than when she had been living in Virginia!”

The impact that Laura and Joel’s polarized views on slavery has on their friendship is a glimpse into how relationships were destroyed during the American Civil War. Laura’s stubbornness in defending slave owners and Joel’s determination to seek justice for enslaved people represent the main conflict of the war. Just like the issue tears Laura and Joel’s once-healthy friendship apart, so were families divided during the Civil War.

“Her little brother was gone forever. It wouldn’t be long before he would be shaving, though he was only thirteen. Already he was broader in the shoulders and taller than she was.”

One of the many changes Laura has to accept upon her return to New York is that her little brother, Bert, has grown up in her absence. She tries to treat him the same way she did four years ago, but Bert has grown up and is capable of making more of his own decisions now. Once she begins to acknowledge Bert is no longer a child, their relationship begins to heal.

“That was always such fun, stirring the sap in the big kettles, early in the spring when the snow was still on the ground—but she wouldn’t be here for that. Long before spring she’d be back in Virginia.”

The longer Laura is back at home, the more she begins to remember parts of her life in New York that she liked. Some of them include the work that she hasn’t touched in four years living in the South, such as helping her father harvest maple syrup. At this point in the book, she is still determined to get back to Virginia, but it’s clear that she’s more torn between her two homes than she first realized.

“Lots of them don’t care whether the person they catch is a free person or a slave. They’ll ship any blacks down south and sell them like cattle.”

The title of Chapter 6, “An Educated Slave,” is ironic in that it is Laura who is educated the most in these pages. For years, she has been taught that enslaved people are treated fairly, and that most masters are kind, and even that enslaved people are better off staying at the plantations than they are being freed. Through Martin, she learns that the opposite of everything she was taught is true. She hears for the first time about the countless injustices and dangers of slavery. After hearing about slave catchers sending even freed Black people to the South, she remembers a similar situation happening at a plantation near her uncle’s and realizes that man was telling the truth about being freed and sold.

“My master sure would be surprised if he knew a white boy was offering me a book to read.”

One of the themes in the book is the importance of education and literacy. Martin’s master is afraid of Black people learning anything, so he likely assumes all white people are also afraid. However, abolitionists and activists, such as Bert, Joel, and the others in the Underground Railroad, believe in the importance of education for Black people.

“He told me about an educated slave named Nat Turner who led an uprising against white people. Ever since that happened, plantation owners are more scared of letting their slaves learn anything.”

Margaret Goff Clark blends historical fact with historical fiction to elevate the themes of Freedom Crossing. Nat Turner, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, was a real person who led a rebellion against slaveholders in 1831.The act initiated stricter laws against enslaved people, specifically prohibiting their education. Part of keeping the system of slavery relied on the weaponization of literacy.

“What a rough lot those men seemed to be—all except the sheriff. And yet they were acting according to the law, trying to catch a runaway and return him to his master.”

Eventually, Laura begins to see that just because something is written down as law doesn’t mean that law is morally right. The law that she once firmly believed in is now causing destruction to her home and threatening Martin, who is more of a friend to Laura than she ever thought he would become.

“They’ve come in from the South, mostly, and the law says I have to cooperate with them. You know I wouldn’t come here on my own.”

The sheriff of Lewiston has a much different approach to searching for Martin than Walt and the other men do. He is reluctant and clearly feels guilty for the chaos caused in the Eastman house due to the search warrant. He chooses to obey the laws, even the unjust ones, but does it more out of a sense of duty than it being the right thing to do.

“Laura had recognized Bert’s best shoes, but she said nothing. […] But her heart warmed toward him for his generosity.”

When Martin needs new shoes for his journey, Bert does not hesitate to hand over his Sunday best. Laura is touched by his selflessness, and she starts to realize the good that he and the others involved with the Underground Railroad are doing for people like Martin.

“You haven’t done a lick of work since you came here. In case you’ve forgotten, up north we don’t have slaves to do everything for us.”

One of Bert’s biggest complaints against Laura is that she’s grown lazier since her time in the South. They were raised to do chores, but since Laura spent years being taught to let others do the work for her, she has to re-learn some of the basics her parents taught her as a child. Additionally, this attitude has only reinforced the stereotypes of femininity and stripped her of her old tomboyish nature that also included more independence.

“She remembered how he had brought her the kitten after the quarrel over the rabbit. Was this a peace offering, too?”

Laura has many strong memories of Joel Todd, but none as significant as the time he trapped a rabbit and had to kill it to put it out of its misery. The peace offering, a small kitten, was the last gift she received from him before her mom died and she moved away. Throughout the book, Laura is hopeful that parts of her old relationship with Joel are starting to resurface, so she is so excited about the package he sends to her through Harvey.

“They can watch the house, and if he puts a foot outside, they can follow him every place he goes. He doesn’t want us to stop because the slave hunters will be suspicious of everyone who talks to him.”

Initially, Joel is meant to be a much bigger part of Martin’s escape plan, but everything changes when his father is arrested for harboring a fugitive. Suddenly, Joel is trapped in his own home, and Bert and Laura must work together to outsmart the slave catchers. This gives the siblings much needed time to bond again and to rebuild the relationship that’s been strained since Laura returned to Lewiston.

“I don’t know if I changed. I’m no abolitionist, but I don’t want Walt to get Martin.”

Laura’s change of views is slow, but her actions often betray how she feels in her heart. She talks a lot about the law and how it shouldn’t be broken, but whenever Martin is in immediate danger, she protects him. These instances of acting with, instead of against, the abolitionists foreshadow Laura’s eventual character arc.

“Pa says we shouldn’t draw notice to ourselves. We can do more good working in secret.”

The Underground Railroad is made up of secrets. Throughout the book, part of the mystery is figuring out what is a coded message or who is in the Underground Railroad or who is a slave catcher. This challenge was true in real life, as well. Secrecy was the key to safely getting enslaved people to freedom; because aiding fugitives was against the law, it was not a form of activism that relied on speaking out, but on staying quiet.

“But now, because of Martin, she knew slaves were people. And it was only right that a person should have a chance to live a life of his own.”

When Laura hears about Frederick Douglass and the rights of a human, the real meaning of being an abolitionist finally sinks in for her. After spending so much time with Martin, she has changed her views on enslaved people and knows that he deserves to live his own life just as much as she does.

“Uncle Jim and Aunt Ruth and their friends seemed to think it was natural and right that blacks should be slaves. And [Laura] had accepted their attitude without questioning it!”

One of the biggest lessons Laura learns in Freedom Crossing is the importance of critical thinking. When Laura moves to Virginia, she is quick to accept everything her aunt and uncle tell her as fact, without investigating anything for herself. She believes Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an evil book full of lies—but she’s never read it. She assumes that all plantation owners are kind to enslaved people while turning a blind eye to the signs that prove otherwise. After helping Martin, Laura learns to start thinking for herself.

“A glance in the mirror showed her a mischievous face with big, excited eyes. She felt more alive than she had for years.”

Laura once dreamed of going back to live in Virginia, where she mostly filled her days with sewing and music. Now that she has had a chance to help with the Underground Railroad, she is starting to find her old sense of adventure and her kind heart again. The mirror moment is a key instance of sensory imagery because the readers, along with the protagonist, take a moment to stop and reflect on the character’s change (in this case, physically and emotionally).