We never talked about my father teaching me these things. I felt that deep down inside, he knew what he was doing. He knew my spirit and that if I were to ever run away, I had to know the ways of the woods and how to go through them silently. One day when I was nineteen years old, I saw him go into the woods and quietly followed him. When he reached a clearing, I walked up behind him and touched him lightly on his arm. He almost jumped out of his skin. He told me that I walked just like an Indian, that I did not even rustle a leaf or crack a twig.
I cannot tell you how proud I was to receive those words of praise from my father. Neither of us really knew it then, but the knowledge I learned from him would help me with my future work and passion, that of leading my people to freedom. And eventually that would include even him and my mother, and some of the other members of our family.