It was a more conventional day off last Tuesday after a little lay off. I found it hard to get up and going at first but once I had my jeans and my oldest rainers on and was out in the sunshine all was fine. Unsually, I had a coffee near the beginning of my walk rather than near the end as it was quite late by the time I got out. I also had lunch out and through the rest of the day I read most of the slave story (see quotes below) I became aware of through the Magnus Magnusson book and worked on the latest issue of In Writing. In the evening we watched two episodes of Show Trial on BBC iplayer.
Quotations
A judge says to a woman
Margaret Douglass, stand up. You are guilty of one of the vilest crimes that ever disgraced society; and the jury have found you so. You have taught a slave girl to read in the Bible. No enlightened society can exist where such offences go unpunished. (Craft, William; Craft, Ellen. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: African American Slave History (Annotated) p 28. Kindle Edition.)
This was the first act of great and disinterested kindness we had ever received from a white person. (Craft, William; Craft, Ellen. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: African American Slave History (Annotated) p 61. Kindle Edition.)
It is very sad to see Gardiner Spring quoted as declaring from the pulpit that, "if by one prayer he could liberate every slave in the world he would not dare to offer it." (Craft, William; Craft, Ellen. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: African American Slave History (Annotated) p 68. Kindle Edition.)
Craft seems on safer ground when he quotes the Old Testament thus
In the 23rd chapter of Deuteronomy, 15th and 16th verses, it is thus written:—"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is es- caped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."
"Hide the outcast. Bewray not him that wandereth. Let mine outcasts dwell with thee. Be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler." (Isa. xvi. 3, 4.)
(Craft, William; Craft, Ellen. Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: African American Slave History (Annotated) p. 71. Kindle Edition.
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