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Linda Brent writes:

[Peter] took me in his boat, rowed out to a vessel not far distant, and hoisted me on board…They said I was to remain on board till near dawn, and then they would hide me in Snaky Swamp….About four o'clock, we were again seated in the boat, and rowed three miles to the swamp. My fear of snakes had been increased by the venomous bite I had received, and I dreaded to enter this hiding place. But I was in no situation to choose, and I gratefully accepted the best that my poor, persecuted friends could do for me. (p.115)

A small shed had been added to my grandmother's house years ago. Boards were laid across the joists at the top, and between these boards and the roof was a very small garret, never occupied by anything but rats and mice….The garret was only nine feet long and seven wide….To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the house. The air was stifling; the darkness total. A bed had been spread on the floor. I could sleep quite comfortably on one side; but the slope was so sudden that I could not turn on the other without hitting the roof. The rats and mice ran over my bed…. This continued darkness was oppressive. It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave…. (p.117)

[After seven years in her tiny and dark hiding place, she finally secured a passage to Chesapeake Bay in a boat with the help of her friends and family. The uneventful passage took her to New York where she discovers some disappointment in the last leg of her journey:]

Colored people were allowed to ride in a filthy box, behind white people, at the south but they were not required to pay for the privilege. It made me sad to find the north aped the customs of slavery. We were stowed away in a large, rough car, with windows on each side, too high for us to look without standing up. It was crowded with people, apparently of all nations. There were plenty of beds and cradles, containing screaming and kicking babies….The fumes of the whiskey and the dense tobacco smoke were sickening to my senses, and my mind was equally nauseated by the coarse jokes and ribald songs around me. (p.169)