Way Up and Over Everything

Alice McGill's great-grandmama's mama was named Jane. She was a slave on Ol' Man Deboreaux's plantation in Georgia. They called him Ol' Man in private, but when they were working for him they were supposed to call him "master." In 1842 when Jane was sixteen, five more slaves were purchased for the plantation. A large percentage of the slave trade went through Charleston at that time, but Jane wouldn't have known that. What Jane did know was that there were five new people coming to the plantation. There were two young men and three young women. The overseer wasn't very nice to them and instead of training them, he sent them right to the fields to work very hard. The whip sometimes would pop hard during a work day. It was a very difficult life for a slave. One of the young men tried to tell her that his name was "Edet." At least that is what she thought he was trying to tell her. But then the Africans were missing and the dogs were sent out after them! Legend has it, handed down by Jane's descendants, that they mysteriously floated up into the skies, one by one under the gaze of Jane, the Ol' Man and the cruel overseer. They warned her not to tell or there would be dire consequences. "But Jane did tell. She told this story when she was a slave living in the quarters and she told it after she and her children escaped to freedom. And her children told this story too." And her great-great-granddaughter is telling it to us and I just loved it! This is a wonderful story to explore the history of slavery and the folklore that sprung up and was handed down through the generations by word of mouth.