Are There Individuals Alive Today with One or More Parents Born as a Slave?

In order to look at one aspect of the question, How far is slavery behind us?, I undertook a thought experiment: Are there individuals alive today with one or more parents born as a slave?

First, to be specific, I am referring to the American form of institutionalized slavery that was outlawed by the 13th Amendment (1865) and not modern and illegal forms of slavery or even institutionalized slavery in other countries such as Brazil which did not end until 1888.

So, to rephrase the question: is there someone alive today who had at least one parent who was born in the United States in 1865 or before and who was legally a slave?

My strategy to answer this question played out as follows.

#1. How many living African-Americans are there who are old enough that they could have been the children of slaves?
#1a. At the time when the individuals identified in question #1 were born, how many African-Americans were living who were born into slavery and what were their ages?
#2. For the population identified in question #1, how many of those would have been born to parents who were slaves?

Note: I have put several days of effort into hunting down answers to these questions. The initial question intrigued me enough to undertake a stubborn investigation, a lot of number hunting and crunching.

Question #1.

#1. How many living African-Americans are there who are old enough that they could have been the children of slaves? 

This first step back is well-documented and bears a degree of specificity. Although there are urban legends of people living to very old ages, surviving to over 100 is a rare phenomenon, currently describing about 1 in every 5,800 Americans.

Table #A, presented in the appendix, provides the number of African-Americans by age, year-by-year, for those who were over eighty years old in the year 2014.

For those 90 and over, I grouped this information by sets of five years. From the ages of those in Table #A, we can say,

Number of living African-Americans by birth years.

Born 1914 or before, 9,057. Time passed since the 13th Amendment: 49 years or fewer.
Born 1915 to 1919, 38,924. Time passed since the 13th Amendment: 50 to 54 years.
Born 1920 to 1924, 132,761. Time passed since the 13th Amendment: 55 to 59 years.

Question 1a. At the time when the individuals identified in question #1 were born, how many African-Americans were living who were born into slavery and what were their ages?

This is less precise for two reasons. First, the censuses from a century ago were somewhat quirky, categorizing individuals not by exact age, but by clumps of ages. In the 1910 census, respondents were grouped by each five years of age from under five up until 100 years old. Those 100 and older were lumped together. (The 1 in 3670 frequency reported for those over 100 is probably an exaggeration).

Second, as is noted in the census abstract, people were not always exact about their ages. Compared to today, it was more likely back then that people did not know their birth year. Furthermore, the census-takers did not necessarily speak to each individual, but typically to a member of a household or representative of an institution who provided the ages of the elderly occupants. The census abstract noted that people frequently rounded their ages to the nearest ten, e.g., someone who was 59 was deemed 60. Thus, there were 35.7% fewer individuals in the 55 to 59 category than in the 50 to 54 category. However, the next drop down to 60 to 64, only lost 11.0%.

Perhaps in response to this, the 1920 census categories were broader, covering ten years of age with the change of the decade in the middle. The relevant figures for those born under slavery for the 1920 census would be those 55 to 64 years old, and those 65 years and older (the latter, at that time, lumped into a single category).

To some extent, these categories do not hinder answering the questions the main question I am asking. How many of the African-Americans in the 1910 and 1920 censuses were born as slaves?

In 1910, a total of 9,827,763 individuals in the United States were identified as Negro. Of these, 1,402,227 were born in 1865 or earlier or 1 in 7. For males, the total was 748,036 and for females, 654,691. The median age was just over twenty-one.

In 1920, a total of 10,463,131 individuals in the United States were identified as Negro. Of these, 762,811 were born in 1865 or earlier or 1 in 13.7. (Could this sharp drop-off have been because of the influenza epidemic of 1918-9?) For males, the total was 415,171 and for females, 347,640.

But: Did being an African-American in pre-13th Amendment United States mean being a slave? According to the 1860 Census figures, at the time of the Civil War, counting both North and South, 89.0% of those termed black or mulatto were slaves - 91.9% of those in the South. The 89% probably underestimates the numbers. No slaves are listed in the majority of Northern states, however, any runaway slave in the North was still officially a slave.

#2. For the population identified in question #1, how many of those would have been born to parents who were slaves?

To answer question #2, we get to the more difficult-to-determine matter of "at what age do people have children?" There are three determinants that go into answering this question: fertility of the mother, fertility of the father, and cultural factors. As a general rule, women have children before age 45. The defining reason is biology with fertility quickly dropping off.

Since the child of a slave who was born 105 years ago would have had to have had a parent of at least 45 years of age, it is much more likely that that parent was male. This is reflected in the fact that, although there is a drop-off in fertility as men grow older, men can continue to father babies through middle age and, on occasion, into old age. In nations where men have multiple and young wives, the average age for male parenting is in the late forties.

To address the question at hand, it is not necessary to assess to what degree men are fertile in their fifties and beyond, but rather, what percent of African-American men do have children at an older age. Although, I can not find the numbers for the early twentieth century, these figures have been tracked for the last several decades.

Surprisingly, the rates for black males ages 50 and older becoming fathers have not changed since 1980. In comparison to white males, black males are much more likely to be older parents: three times more likely for fifty years and older, twice as likely for 45 to 49.

Rates of fatherhood by age, black males per 1000 men (2015 study, CDC, Table 17)

             1980      2013
35 to 39     62.0      69.2
40 to 44     31.2      36.1
45 to 49     13.6      15.5
50 to 54      5.9       6.0
55 plus       1.1       1.0

In this study, all of those 55 and older are counted in a single pool, i.e., the rate of a 55 year-old black man fathering a baby is mixed with that of a 90-year-old. Although I would have been preferred to have had more categories, the average figure will suffice for this analysis.


Combining the Numbers.

The combined figures are easiest to calculate for those who were born between 1915 and 1919. Here the numbers of individuals and fathering rates are specific.

Born 1915 to 1919 and still living: 38,924. Number of these likely to have had a father who was 50 to 54 years at the time of their births: 230 individuals. (89% slaves: 205 individuals). An additional 43 African-Americans (38 from slaves) would have had a male parent aged 55 years or older.

If we assume all of those born 1914 and before who are still living were born in period comprising 1910 to 1914 (an assumption which will slightly lower the number born to slave parents), we have 9057 individuals. Of those, 123 were born to male parents of 45 to 49, 53 to male parents 50 to 54, and 10 to male parents 55 and older. This totals 166 more who were likely born to slaves (89% of the total).

For the 132,761 living who were born between 1920 to 1924, the parent would have needed to be at least 55. Although it greatly underestimates the totals, taking the average rate of male parenting for those 55 and over, this would add another 146 to the figures (129 born to slaves).

Together these total 538 living African Americans with a male parent born in slavery.

A number of strained assumptions have gone into this analysis, the chief unknown being the rate of children being born to older fathers in the early twentieth century. (Although large families were common a hundred years ago with the youngest often being born to parents in their forties.) Also, there is the matter of whether those born to older fathers would be equally likely to live as long as others. These and other considerations could pare down the final totals, but the cumulative effect would unlikely to greatly lower the number. I will offer a seat-of-the-pants estimation of 538 plus or minus 200.

A final note should be made regarding exceptionality. Although a person living to 110 or more is extremely rare, as is a man fathering a child in his seventies and older, those very few exceptions would likely add several to the numbers. Interestingly, the oldest woman in the world is an African-American. Susannah Mushatt Jones was born in Alabama in 1899. Her mother and father were 32 and 25 at the time of her birth, respectively, and born just after slavery had ended.

Appendix.

Table A. Number of African-Americans in the United States of a particular age, U.S. Census estimate, year 2014.

80    112,825
81    105,210
82      94,601
83      85,286
84      81,362
85      70,692
86      63,666
87      57,144
88      50,522
89      44,300
90      37,159
91      31,426
92      25,877
93      20,902
94      17,397
95      12,495
96        9,762
97        7,165
98        5,409
99        4,093
100+     9,057


Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. His latest mystery, Never Kill A Friend, is available from Ransom Note Press. His epic poem, Two Mistakes, recently won second place in the Margaret Reid/Tom Howard Poetry Competition. He can be contacted at mdhillortiz@gmail.com.

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Ten Myths About Slavery, Part Two

Ten Myths About Slavery

During my research to write the poem, Two Mistakes (previously described here), I learned much about the American institution of slavery that existed from the colonial times until the Thirteenth Amendment (1865). As I processed a lot of information, I wished that I could have had much of it distilled and in one place. Here it is, a continuation of myths about slavery.

The Ten Myths.


Myth #1. At the time of the establishment of the United States, slavery existed in the Southern states while the Northern states were free.
Myth #2. If a slave escaped from the Southern states to the Northern states, that slave was free.
Myth #3. Slaveowners who chose to, could grant their slaves their freedom.
Myth #4. Slaves were luxury items: few households in the South had slaves.
Myth #5. Many slaveowners treated their slaves as family.
Myth #6. Being a slave was no worse off than a peon during the Industrial Revolution.
Myth #7. Only blacks were slaves.
Myth #8. Pre-Civil War America was a stalemate between the slave states and the free states.
Myth #9. What the Dred Scott decision said.
Myth #10. Slavery is far behind us.

 Myth #1 and 2 were discussed in the previous post.

Myth #3. Slaveowners who chose to, could grant their slaves their freedom.

The institution of slavery outlawed civility, generosity and decency. Manumission was the legal term for freeing a slave. A small percentage of slaves lived in the right time and place to be eligible for manumission. The free black population made up 13.7% of the total black population in 1830 and 11% in 1860. The South treated the free black population as a nuisance and a threat. To limit its growth, rules forbidding manumission became more common during the nineteenth century and after awhile only Virginia allowed unrestricted manumission. Even then Virginia required that the freed slaves move out of state within a year. Most Southern states passed laws to effectively prevent manumission. Typical is the case of South Carolina. In 1820, South Carolina passed a law stating that individual slaves could be freed only through a legislative act. This led to some odd arrangements. Some slaveowners who still wanted to free their slaves responded by transferring ownership of slaves to freed blacks. Alabama allowed manumission as part of wills. Again, the freed slave had one year to get out of the state.

The decennial censuses counted how many slaves were freed during the most recent year. During the year 1850, one out of 2181 slaves were given freedom.

Furthermore, it should be noted that granting a slave freedom after a lifetime of service was sometimes used as a way of dumping property and relinquishing ties after a slave became too old to be useful.

Myth #4. Slaves were luxury items: few households in the South had slaves.

Although slaves became increasingly costly to purchase over time, a better analogy than luxury item would be a major investment. Those who try to diminish how many slaveowners were in the South tend to do so by counting overall population. Households were large and slave ownership was not spread out to each individual member of the house.

On the extreme end, in 1850, 70.3% of Georgian families owned slaves. In South Carolina, the figure was 48.4% and, on the lower end, Maryland had 18.3%.

Myth #5. Many slaveowners treated their slaves as family.

The institution of slavery became an evermore accumulating set of onerous rules that outlawed generosity. In every Southern state it was illegal to teach a slave to read. The physical punishment of slaves was not optional, it was often required by law. Even for those slaves who were well-treated, they could be sold if their owners met financial emergency or ruin. The families of slaves would be divided. No slaveowners treated their families this way.

Did some slaveowners treat their slaves like befriended servants? This speaks to one of the greatest cruelties of slavery. The owner had the right to decide whether to work their slave to death or act within reason. They could decide whether to treat their property as human or animal.

On the other hand, it is true that many slaveholders felt a bond for their possessions. In advertisements to help track runaway slaves, the owners often describe a sense of woundedness, seemingly surprised that their slaves abandoned them.

Source: David Brion Davis, The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. (Page 194), Alfred Knopf.

Myth #6. Being a slave was no worse off than a peon during the Industrial Revolution.

This could be treated as a partial truth. There was certainly some overlap between the worst a worker in the Industrial Revolution could be treated and the best a slave could be treated. It might even be argued that England was willing to abolish chattel slavery because it had developed a new form. There are several lines of argument which point to slavery being the worse of the two.

First, this issue was addressed by ex-slaves. While visiting England, Frederick Douglass was asked to support the movements seeking expanded rights and better treatment of industrial workers. While he did acknowledge the oft-times horridness of the conditions, he also bridled at this being equal to or worse than chattel slavery. He had seen both.

Secondly, for the United States at least, there was enough of a shortage of labor that the Industrial Revolution did not result in quite as cruel conditions as those in Britain.

Thirdly, in cases of areas where slavery was abolished, such as the British colonies in the 1830s, the former slaveowners were hard-pressed to get the workers to produce as much. They needed total slave control in order to work labor under such harsh conditions.

And lastly, of course, this is where individuals such as Douglass were offended by the comparisons. There was a huge difference in that slavery meant being owned, being cruelly punished, being sold at any time, and having your family sold.

Source: Frederick Douglass Confronts the World in David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation, Alfred Knopf, 2014.

 Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. His latest mystery, Never Kill A Friend, is available from Ransom Note Press. His epic poem, Two Mistakes, recently won second place in the Margaret Reid/Tom Howard Poetry Competition. He can be contacted at mdhillortiz@gmail.com.

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Ten Myths About Slavery, Part One

Ten Myths About Slavery

In order to write my award-winning epic poem, Two Mistakes (previously described here), I researched the topic of American slavery. Some things I learned during my research surprised me. I decided to compile the information here, as it came from a variety of sources.

The Ten Myths. (Discussion begins below.)

Myth #1. At the time of the establishment of the United States, slavery existed in the Southern states while the Northern states were free.
Myth #2. If a slave escaped from the Southern states to the Northern states, that slave was free.

Myth #3. Slaveowners who chose to, could grant their slaves their freedom.
Myth #4. Slaves were luxury items: few households in the South had slaves.
Myth #5. Many slaveowners treated their slaves as family.
Myth #6. Being a slave was no worse off than a peon during the Industrial Revolution.
Myth #7. Only blacks were slaves.
Myth #8. Pre-Civil War America was a stalemate between the slave states and the free states.
Myth #9. What the Dred Scott decision said.
Myth #10. Slavery is far behind us.

A Thumbnail View of the Context.

Slavery is a worldwide scourge with long historical roots. This essay addresses American chattel slavery, the institution that existed from the time of the formation of American colonies through the foundation of the United States and on up until the 13th Amendment in 1865. "Chattel" slavery refers to the legalized form wherein humans could be bought and sold the same as any legally transferable items.

After the discovery of the New World, several European nations aggressively acquired colonies and great empires were born. To exploit this land and its vast possibilities for wealth, lots of cheap labor was needed. This labor came to include native and African slaves, the latter being abducted and transported overseas to become property. This scheme was highly profitable. The European nations harvested the riches of their landholdings.

Even from early on, many recognized this arrangement as cruel. Much of the work, such as growing and harvesting sugarcane, was dangerous and performed on land infested with tropical diseases. The mortality was high, on average the workers survived only several years. Abolition societies were formed, but for decades their success was incremental.

• In 1706, England banned slavery on its own soil.
• In 1761, Portugal abolished slavery on its own soil and in some colonies.
• In 1804, Haiti achieved independence and abolished slavery.
• From the 1810s through 1830s, Latin America abolished slavery.
• In 1834, The British Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.
• In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the New World to abolish slavery.

Myth #1. At the time of the establishment of the United States, slavery existed in the Southern states while the Northern states were free.

Fact: Of the thirteen original states, all began with institutionalized slavery. Beginning in the 1780s most Northern states undertook a gradual process of emancipation of their slaves. Often these laws took the form of freeing the children of slaves at birth while allowing the others to remain as property. In the case of New Jersey, some of these older slaves continued to live up until the time of the Civil War.

The Seven Original Northern States.

• 1780. Pennsylvania began gradual emancipation declaring children born of slaves will be free.
• 1783. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts declared slavery unconstitutional, freeing all slaves.
• 1783. New Hampshire began gradual emancipation.
• 1784. Rhode Island and Connecticut began gradual emancipation.
• 1799. New York began gradual emancipation and set complete emancipation for 1827.
• 1804. New Jersey began gradual emancipation.
• Delaware was the only state north of the Mason-Dixon line that never enacted immediate or gradual emancipation

The strategy of gradual emancipation did eventually eradicate slavery, but for most states not until after 1840. Vermont had freedom written into its constitution but did not become a state until 1791 and so was not included in the above list.

At the time of the Civil War, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware had legal slavery but did not join the confederacy. In spite of not seceding, Missouri's governor went Rambo and waged his own battle against the Union.

It should be noted that the number of slaves in the North were relatively small; even by 1790, 93% of the slaves were in the South.

• Slavery Population from the 1790 Census
• New Hampshire: 157
• Rhode Island: 958
• Connecticut: 2,648
• New York: 21,193
• New Jersey: 11,423
• Pennsylvania: 3,707
• Delaware: 8,887
• Southern states and District of Columbia: 648,651

By the time of the Civil War, slavery was almost exclusively in the South.

• Slave Population, 1860 Census
• New Jersey: 18.
• Delaware: 1,798.
• All other states north of the Mason-Dixon line: 0.
• Southern states and District of Columbia: 3,930,000

Source: Statistics of Slaves, U.S. Census Bureau

Myth #2. If a slave escaped from the Southern states to the Northern states, that slave was free.

If a slave escaped to the North, that slave was deemed a criminal, North and South. This was written into the Constitution as the "Fugitive Slave Law." It read:

No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due. (Note: the terms "slave" and "slavery" were not used in the Constitution.)

This Constitutional decree was written into several federal laws, most notably The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. In the former, anyone who hindered the capture and repatriation of a slave could be fined $500. In the latter, Northern law enforcers were required to assist in the tracking and capturing of runaway slaves or else be fined or jailed. This extended to any citizen who could be deputized on the spot as a part of a posse (or if they refused, jailed). The word of slave-catchers was sufficient to legally identify the fugitive.

In part, because these laws were so severe, they were generally not followed in the North. The 1850 Act became a prime catalyst of the Civil War. However, whether because of geography and the difficulties of getting to the North, or whether due to the Fugitive Slave Acts and the ongoing fugitive status once the slave arrived, the North harbored few escaped slaves.

In the year 1850, one out of 3,165 slaves escaped their masters. In 1860, this number was down to 1 in 5000. Source.

The escaped slave, Frederick Douglass, became the foremost 19th century anti-slavery orator. In spite of having written and spoken about the horrors of his years of captivity, as his fame grew, he had to meet with his owner and arrange his own purchase to prevent capture and re-enslavement.

Coming up:

Myth #3. Slaveowners who chose to, could grant their slaves their freedom.
Myth #4. Slaves were luxury items: few households in the South had slaves.
Myth #5. Many slaveowners treated their slaves as family.
Myth #6. Being a slave was no worse off than a peon during the Industrial Revolution.
Myth #7. Only blacks were slaves.
Myth #8. Pre-Civil War America was a stalemate between the slave states and the free states.
Myth #9. What the Dred Scott decision said.
Myth #10. Slavery is far behind us.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. His latest mystery, Never Kill A Friend, is available from Ransom Note Press. His epic poem, Two Mistakes, recently won second place in the Margaret Reid/Tom Howard Poetry Competition. He can be contacted at mdhillortiz@gmail.com.

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Two Mistakes - the unused prologue.

No Apologias.

As described in yesterday's post, Two Mistakes is an epic narrative poem, an update of Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. It is metered, traditional verse, intended as the equivalent of a musical, albeit, without music. It won second place in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Competition.

Here is the press release. 
Here is the poem.

I wrote a prologue/apologia for this piece which I did not include as part of the finished work. In submitting metered verse, I have received rejection notices suggesting I should forgo rhyming. The editors state it is juvenile and have specifically recommended that I write non-rhyming verse, chiding me as though my choice were accidental or else that I could do nothing but rhyme.

So I wrote this prologue/apologia as an introduction. It has a different and less stringent rhyme structure while maintaining the same anapestic rhythm with four feet. It was intended to declare my intent for this work: "This Error of Comedies, freshened, domestic, / Is a poem for the age of the musical stage."

I dropped this. Never explain or apologize.

Prologue and Apologia

With their most sacred sneers all the cravenly brave
Seek to plunder the poet in corpus and name.
His bones have been tumbled so often you'd think
That by now they'd invest in a crank for his grave.

But a rose is a rose and a spade is a spade,
The first graces a tomb while the other exhumes.
Like a grave-robbing thief, I pass time with the ghouls.
I have learned all their rules, I know how this game's played.

So I spirit his carcass and spirit to Hades
With a psychopomp's purpose, or else merely pompous.
The bard disembodied, by God, is more bawdy.
He arrives at Elysium mashing the ladies,

Then, encountering Falstaff, they flag down a whore.
I snatch up his bones: dented anvil and humerus.
He abandoned a parchment, its stories displayed
In arrays of tattoos on the skin he once wore.

I start rolling his bones under threat of the snake eyes
Peeking out from their lair, a dark hole in the earth.
Raising toasts with a cider from Eden's lost garden,
I stare down the serpent with pinched half-awake eyes.

This Error of Comedies, freshened, domestic,
Is a poem for the age of the musical stage.
It keeps beat with four feet much like Rogers-Astaire -
If not as majestic, at least anapestic.

Mea culpa et culpa et maxima -gulp-
Must be something I et to inspire such regret.
With a fire in my belly and pasty eye jelly
I am powdering bones as I consecrate pulp.

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Two Mistakes - The Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Award Winning Poem

 Two Mistakes: A Non-Musical Musical.

My epic, narrative (warning: very long) poem, Two Mistakes took second place prize in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Competition. I believe it is among my best works.

Here is the press release. 
Here is the poem.


The idea for this came to me after reading A Comedy of Errors. I couldn't help but feel Shakespeare missed the better themes inside the story.

In brief summary, Shakespeare wrote about a pair of identical twins separated when they were very young by a violent storm at sea. One set of twins were slaves, one set were masters. One master and one slave were rescued and returned home to their native city of Ephesus. The other child and his slave were rescued by a different boat and were seemingly forever lost. The lost twins, who grew up in a free state, were unaware of their siblings. They go on a mission that takes them to the Ephesus. Mistaken identities ensue.

Shakespeare was often ahead of his time regarding themes. On other occasions he was a product of his time. It seemed to me that the question of nature versus nurture was left unexplored and that the consequences of slavery is not dealt with. I transplanted the piece, beginning it in the 1820s in Louisville, Kentucky, a city at the border of North and South. A steamboat explosion along the Ohio river separate the pairs of twins. One child and slave are rescued and taken back to their home in Kentucky, a slave state. The corresponding pair are placed in an ash tub as part of their rescue. They wash down the river to where they arrive in Troy, Indiana. There, they are raised by an abolitionist family. Twenty years later, circumstance leads the twins who were raised by abolitionists to go to Louisville where they encounter those raised by slave owners.

Although my piece retains some of the farcical nature of the original, it also undertakes a serious exploration of the nature of slavery and how the institution destroys both slave and slaveholder.

The poem is presented in metered verse. I envisioned my piece as being the book to a "non-musical" musical.

Main Characters, abbreviated for the purpose of this excerpt:

Annie and Frances. Identical twin sisters born to the Sharper family, Louisville.

Anthony and Remmy Cobb. Identical twin slaves, purchased as a birthday gift for Annie and Frances. Remmy is renamed Moses after his adoption.

Demetrius Darling, An abolitionist living in Troy, Indiana who rescues and raises Remmy and Frances.

Selections from the story.

At one year of age, the two pairs of twin are separated from each other after a steamboat explosion.

   It would never have burst were it tough as Old Hans:
   If the boiler 'd been forged from the flesh of its stoker.
   A hulk of a giant with brawn cast from bronze,
   His two hands vast as shovels, his fingers like pokers.
   But the steam pipes were brittle, their knuckles corroded.
   With a blast of hot steam a bolt ripped from a seam.
   The pressure increased and then soon overloaded.

Remmy, the slave, and Frances, both one-year-old are set inside a tub used to collect ashes and launched down the river before the steamboat finally sinks. Amidst rain and hail, they drift down the river.

   Enduring a rite that was grimly baptismal
   The two in the tub got a rude sort of christening.
...
   The river, unwilling to choose between sides,
   Sent the ark ever westward, their fates undecided.
   To the river, it mattered not whether they died.
   It remained apathetic to lands it divided;

They are rescued by Demetrius Darling, a Quaker and abolitionist. They are raised to adulthood in a free land.

In the 1840s, Demetrius loses the deed of his farm to a swindler from Louisville. Of Demetrius:

   In a wreckage of shadows, alone and alone,
   His soul crumbled to dust and then sifted through floorboards.
...
   Now, he wept at the thought he would soon lose this place,
   Shedding tears for the land where he buried his wife.

Anthony and Frances journey to Louisville to settle their father's account. Anthony goes disguised as a slave; Frances is disguised as a man.

Meanwhile, at the Sharper family estate, Annie (the twin of Frances) has mixed feelings regarding her pending arranged marriage to a pompous aristocrat. While reading Thackeray:

   Without breaking her rhythm she switched from her book
   To her grievances, "Dare and the world always yields?
   I'm just property." Anthony shot her a look.
   "To daddy, I'm merely some crop from his fields.
   To be bartered for status.

Of course, her slave Anthony is more the prisoner. As he polishes the piano:

   Each key thumped as he rubbed in a smudge of bees' wax.
   He began at the bass end, the throatier notes.
   Tensions peaked then released as he scaled whites and blacks.
   Bitter tones were relieved by their sweet antidotes.
   There were candle snuff notes that could put out a flame.
   Some delivered a shiver without a deliverance.
   There were notes for emotions that no one could name.
...
   [the] Notes were steep steps on his way to the gallows.
   Once the last key was beat, his ascension complete,
   The piano lid dropped with a jolt swift and shallow.

The stage is set. When Moses and Frances arrive, mistaken identities create a storm of problems ending in a duel and a perilous flight to freedom.

The Unused Prologue to Two Mistakes

Louisville, 1846

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

 -----------------------

Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

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