I often dreamed of being free in those days. Sometimes, late at night, I would lay down in the grass and gaze at the stars. I noticed that all of them, except one would changed their positions. My father told me that it was the North Star and that the tail of the Big Dipper pointed to it. "It's the best star there is," he said. "The North Star points the way to freedom."
Another story that kept being told that year was the one about Nat Turner. He was a slave preacher and a quite sort of man that grew up hearing about how Moses led his people out of bondage from Egypt. He believed that he was destined to lead his people to freedom in the same way. He had actually started a revolt that summer and many people died. When he was finally caught, he was executed later that year.
After that, a lot of laws were passed that prevented slaves from having separate church services and permitting us to learn to read and write. We were forbidden to sing things like "Let My People Go" and "Go Down Moses." Earlier the slave masters, overseers and traders were haunted by the ghost of Denmark Vesey. Now the ghost of Nat Turner haunted them too!