51 pages • 1-hour read
Freedom Crossing
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Themes
Literacy and Liberation
One of the major themes in Freedom Crossing is the impact of literacy on liberation for enslaved people in the 1850s. The book examines not only the importance of enslaved people having access to education but also how writers of the time also moved white readers to join the abolitionist movement. By writing Martin as a character who can read, Margaret Goff Clark is able to better explore the different writers and activists of the time.
In the 1850s, specifically in the American South, it would have been rare to find an enslaved person who could read and write. This is why Laura is “puzzled by the way [Martin] talk[s]. He [doesn’t] sound like the slaves she had known, but almost as if he’d been to school” (14). Because he challenges her preconceptions, Martin intrigues Laura, and she is open to learning more about him and abolition. As a result, he and Bert introduce Laura to Frederick Douglass’s writings, and Joel introduces her to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Both widen her worldview and encourage her in Making Moral Choices.
Enslaved people’s lack of access to education was intentional, especially in the 1850s. About 20 years prior, in 1831, Nat Turner, an educated enslaved person, led a rebellion against enslavers that revealed the power of knowledge. Reading and writing gave enslaved people a voice and empowered them to read the voices of others who thought and felt like they did.
Not long after this rebellion, a law was passed making it illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write. This is the law Martin mentions when Laura asks him if it’s unusual that he is literate. Martin answers, “Yes, Miss, it’s unusual all right. It’s against the law to teach a black man to read” (48). Mr. Spencer, Laura’s uncle Jim, and several others were afraid of what would happen if the enslaved people learned how to read and write, so they go to great lengths to keep them uneducated.
Literature was not only a vehicle for change in Black communities. It was equally important for white people to learn more about what slavery was like, and certain books provoked real change. Joel mentions one such book that, in real life, was written by a white abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe. He tells Laura, “There’s a book that might clear things up for you—Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I have a copy you can borrow” (26). Joel and Bert both have read the book and are frequently educating themselves on the topic of abolitionism.
Laura, meanwhile, had blindly accepted whatever she’d been told without reading anything on her own. Bert scolds her, saying, “I never thought you’d let other people make up your mind for you. You ought to read it yourself and see what you think” (82). Laura originally scoffs at him, but eventually she reads pieces by abolitionists. The writer who changes her mind is Frederick Douglass and his commentary on human rights. She says, “It’s true, isn’t it? […] A person should have the rights of a human being, no matter what color he is” (119). Through the power of the written word, and her growing empathy for Martin, Laura is able to change her opinion on slavery. In the same way, many real people were positively impacted from these written works, Black and white alike.
Making Moral Choices
Margaret Goff Clark’s decision to make Laura sympathetic to plantation owners at the beginning of Freedom Crossing provides readers with a broader experience of her character arc. In addition to presenting readers with a flawed protagonist, Clark integrates elements of history and frames the story of Martin’s rescue as a morality argument. Initially, Laura’s tendency to assume all laws are moral causes her to be cold and apathetic to Martin’s cause. This flaw in her thinking—the influence of her Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jim, who raised her in her formative years—along with a lack of critical thinking give Laura’s character dimension and allow room for her to change her mind over the course of the story. Readers are not rooting for Laura at the beginning since she is adamantly for something that is clearly wrong. However, readers are slowly won over to Laura as she learns the truth about slavery and allows new information to inform her choices. By the end of the book, she learns to listen to other perspectives and think for herself. It is then that she becomes an abolitionist, and a character worth supporting.
Laura begins the book in support of plantation owners. She is deeply upset with Joel and Bert for putting their family in danger by breaking the law. She insists that they return Martin to his owner. However, even in these earliest chapters, her true empathetic nature comes through in moments. Even as she tries to kick Martin out of her house, “She glance[s] at Martin. He [is] tired. The way his knees [are] sagging, [he’ll] be on the floor in another minute” (12). Joel praises her for thinking of Martin’s needs over her own, but at the time, she doesn’t care to admit that that’s what she is doing.
Later, when she sees just how cruel the slave catchers are, she starts to reconsider her feelings about slavery. Suddenly, she doesn’t want Martin to be taken away by these men. As she listens to them throwing furniture around, “It [is] hard for her to remember that last night she had thought it would be best for Martin to be caught and returned to his owner” (54-55). It is in that moment that she decides not to turn Martin in, and instead participates in hiding him from the slave catchers.
Once they leave, she finds out something even more disturbing. The men took out knives when searching the cellar and began stabbing every one of the potato bags: bags that Martin had mentioned hiding in just that morning. In that moment, “Laura [feels] sick. If Martin had been in one of those potato bags, she never would have forgiven herself for keeping him out of the secret room” (63). Suddenly, Laura realizes that her insistence on obeying the law—and her own selfishness—could have fatal consequences.
The more Laura learns about the abolitionist movement, the more she realizes everything she thought she knew was wrong. After hearing about Frederick Douglass, she thinks, “Have I been asleep for four years? […] She asked herself why she hadn’t thought about such things before” (119). She starts to fully change her mind as soon as Bert is arrested, and she realizes it’s up to her to get Martin to safety. She has one final moment of doubt, where she suggests they wait until her father returns, but Martin tells her his family is coming tonight. Laura thinks a moment, then says, “You’ll have to leave tonight, but you can’t go alone. You’d get lost and you’d never get to the house on the river in time. I’m going with you” (127). This moment is pivotal to her personal growth, and she fully commits to actively working to abolish slavery and help in the Underground Railroad.
Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement
Slavery and the abolitionist movement are primary themes of Freedom Crossing. The other themes in the book intersect this theme, and the plot is centered on this moment prior to the Civil War. Laura’s journey with Martin, Bert, and Joel allows readers to get a wider understanding the dangers enslaved people faced from slaveholders, slave catchers and their howling dogs, and seemingly harmless people such as Mrs. Fitch.
One key detail of this theme is that the Eastmans’ involvement in the Underground Railroad is relatively new: It began during those four years that Laura was away. Not much else is known of their involvement in activism prior to the abolitionist movement. When harsh laws were passed, such as the Fugitive Act of 1850 and white people were exposed to the issue through books such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, more white people became active abolitionists. When Laura returns to Upstate New York from Virginia, she realizes, “The southerner in the kitchen, Martin Paige, must be a fugitive slave. Pa and Bert—and Joel—must belong to the Underground Railroad” (5). The Eastmans’ commitment to the abolitionist movement endangers the family, so the stakes are high for both the enslaved people who are attempting to escape and for the white abolitionists, who face danger and legal prosecution for aiding them.
As Laura learns of the evils of slavery, so do readers. Until this moment, Laura has only heard lies about slavery that make plantation owners seem kind and just in wanting their property back. Laura must be taught that enslaved people are people too, and that the slave catchers are in the business for more selfish reasons than simply returning runaways. There was a great deal of money to be made in the business of catching fugitives. Bert tells his sister, “Look, Laura, there are hundreds of fellows making a living as slave catchers, especially since the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, and they just sit themselves down at a border town and wait until they see a black face” (47).
This is a surprise to Laura, who did not understand that slave catchers also send freed people back to plantations, making more money that way. Suddenly, Walt’s bloodhound-like persistence to find Martin makes more sense. He is driven by two things: hatred and greed.
Finally, the book explores the many ways the Underground Railroad stayed a secret all that time. The system relied on innovative hiding spaces, attention to detail, and a series of coded messages, such as the one Joel enclosed in the copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that he sent to Laura, or the phrase Bert tries to use on Mr. Tryon. He tells Laura, “I can say we have a friend visiting us who wants to catch a boat, and ask him if he can fix his jacket in a hurry. If he’s one of us, he’ll know what I mean” (83). These phrases helped members of the Underground Railroad determine who was friend and who was foe. The author expertly weaves in real, researched examples of ways abolitionists got away with smuggling fugitives to Canada into her fictional story of brave young people fighting for justice.
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