Second Daughter
The Story of a Slave Girl
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Set during the American Revolution and based on a true story, Elizabeth Freeman, a young slave, sues for her freedom—and wins
Sheffield, Massachusetts. Six-year-old Aissa and her older sister, Elizabeth, work as slaves in the home of their owners—Master and Mistress Anna. Raised by Elizabeth after their mother died, and chafing under the yoke of bondage, Aissa is a natural-born rebel. Elizabeth, nicknamed Bett by her owners, is more accepting of her fate in spite of growing anti-slavery sentiment. She marries Josiah Freeman, a freed black man, and they have a child. Then on July 4, 1776, America achieves her dream of independence from England, and in 1780, Massachusetts drafts its own constitution, establishing a bill of rights. When Mistress Anna, angered by Aissa’s defiance, threatens her with a hot coal shovel, Bett takes the blow instead, and is severely burned. She walks out of the house, vowing never to come back—and takes her owners to court.
Second Daughter is both riveting historical fiction and rousing courtroom drama about slavery, justice, courage, and the unconquerable love between two sisters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Walter (Mississippi Challenge) treats fiction as the handmaiden of history and politics in this fact-based story, drawing from research about Mum Bett, a Massachusetts slave who successfully sued for her freedom shortly after the Revolutionary War. For a narrator Walter chooses Mum Bett's sister, whose name and life story have gone unrecorded. The author gives her the African name Aissa, which means "Second Daughter"; a self-satisfied, capricious mistress; a strong temperament; and an indomitable will to be free. Aissa charts the injustices as she watches her more accommodating older sister, Bett, serve men who spout Revolutionary rhetoric about liberty with no thought to the humans they treat as property. Bett's husband, a free man, is killed fighting in the Revolution, but the pension Bett receives is nowhere near enough to buy their child's freedom. In common with many other heroines reclaimed from oblivion, Bett is also a skilled folk healer. It's a story of perfect political rectitude, but the agenda here is stronger than the narrative--judging from the intriguing historical note at the end of the book, its lessons might have been even more clearly delivered as nonfiction. Ages 12-up.
