Central Kansas Library System

The story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid, and follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), the author allows herself to go beyond the record...

The stories of slaves who fled the South in search of freedom are some of the most riveting in American history. The fugitives usually left at night, with little or no food or money and only the light of the North Star to guide them. Gathered here are twelve stirring stories of escape, including those of Henry "Box" Brown, Ellen and William Craft, and Harriet Tubman, along with less well known but equally compelling accounts of Mary Prince, Eliza...

Examines the events and key figures behind the formation and operation of the Underground Railroad, the secretive and illegal organization that helped American slaves escape to freedom in the northern United States and Canada.

Excerpts from diaries and letters help chronicle the events which lead to the formation of the Kansas Territory and describe how abolitionists and slaveowners tried to influence whether it would become a slave state or free.