Freedom Bound (19 page)

Gladness filled her heart at the thought of returning to
the Upper Country. But no signs of joy brightened the faces
of her fellow passengers. They were leaving forever the land
of their birth. Their hearts were in the Carolinas. All that
awaited them in the unknown country to the north were
forests to be cleared, homes to be built, and the certainty of
hardship for the rest of their lives.

Charlotte felt queasy. It wasn't seasickness, although she
intended for a time to pretend it was. She didn't want to
alarm Nick, who would probably treat her like an invalid
and make her lie down half the day. Already she was aware
every minute of the new life she held within her. Before this
voyage ended, she would share her news with Nick. Together
they would choose a name for a girl, a name for a boy.

The wording of the Deed of Manumission setting Phoebe free is
adapted from a 1798 Deed of Manumission displayed in the Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina. It reads as follows:

State of South Carolina

To all to whom these Presents shall come to be seen or made known,
I Christopher Rogers of Charleston in the State aforesaid send Greeting. Know ye that I the said Christopher Rogers for and in consideration of the sum of one hundred Pounds Sterling to me in hand well
and truly paid at or before the Sealing and Delivery of these Presents
and for divers other good causes and considerations me thereunto
especially moving, have manumitted, enfranchised and set free, and
do by these Presents manumit, enfranchise and set free a certain
mulatto man named Jehu Jones of and from all manner of bondage
and Slavery whatsoever. To have and to hold such manumission and
freedom unto the said Mulatto Man Jehu Jones for ever.

In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and Seal the
twenty second day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand
seven hundred and ninety-eight.

My thanks to Tony Youmans, Director, Old Exchange Building,
Charleston, South Carolina, and to Jennifer Scheetz, Archivist with
the Charleston Museum, for giving generously of their time to answer
my questions and to direct me to other research sources that I would
not have discovered without their help; to Frank Rupert UE, descendant of Loyalists who lived through the siege of Fort Ninety-Six and
the subsequent flight to Charleston (and who offered me the loan of
his extensive personal library on this subject); to my son John Baxter
and his wife Anne Haberl for their patience and good humour in
sacrificing their vacation in order to push my wheelchair over the
brick sidewalks and cobbled street of Old Charleston after an unlucky
accident came close to scuppering my research plans; and to my
grandson Thomas Baxter for technical assistance. My thanks also to
my daughter Alison Baxter Lean for her invaluable criticism; to my
friends Susan Evans Shaw, Barbara Ledger, Trudi Down, Alexandra
Gall, Linda Helson and Debbie Welland of the Creative Writing
Group, University Women's Club (Hamilton Branch), for their helpful critique of the opening chapters. And finally to Ronald B. Hatch,
my publisher, for wanting this book and for always finding a way to
be both exacting and encouraging as it developed through various
drafts, and to Erinna Gilkison for her insightful editorial comments
and practical suggestions.

I have always been a storyteller. When I was
about six years old, my mother would set me
in a big comfortable chair with my younger
brother to entertain him with stories, which
I made up as I went along. My ambition as
a teenager was to become a journalist. My
hometown newspaper, the
Hamilton Spectator
, paid me on a freelance basis for my
stories. This was more to my liking than
babysitting, and it paid about the same. On enrolling in “English
Language and Literature” at the University of Toronto, I still thought
of myself as a future journalist. But love of literature got the better of
me, and eventually I became a high school English teacher. Always
interested in history, I saw a need for young adult novels that would
present the story of our country from a Canadian point of view. I
wrote
The Way Lies North
, followed by
Broken Trail
, in the hope of
helping to meet this need.
Freedom Bound
completes the trilogy dealing with Charlotte and other Loyalist young people, some white,
some black and some native, during the American Revolution.

If you would like to contact me, my email address is
[email protected]
. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may
have. My website is
www.jeanraebaxter.ca.
My Facebook page is
http://www.facebook.com/JeanRaeBaxterBooks
.