While my great-great-grandmother waited to join her future husband in Oregon territory, the slave controversy continued. Tempers flared and conflict threatened as the numbers of those fleeing for freedom continued to climb. Laws threatened to change the landscape. The first fugitive slave law, passed in 1793, stated that no person held to service of labor in […]
Runaway Slaves
This Pastime Can Kill
Last week I found myself pacing the floor, my breathing erratic, my pulse at a gallop. I chanted beneath my breath, “No! No! No!” Lest you become alarmed, I was not in the middle of a health crisis. The heroine of the book I was reading had just said, “yes” to a man I considered […]