Drinking Gourd Research Paper

Ever since I can remember, I have been working as a slave. Everyday has been a challenge. I would either be working on fields, picked cotton, or blacksmithing. If my chores were not completed a guard would take me to my owner. He would abuse me for 2 continuous hours. Somehow he found joy in abusing his slaves. On top of that you would not get food for your next meal. It is terrible here, I wanna escape so bad. All of my family except my great grandma have been killed from starvation. I want to join them, but starving is a slow, painful death. Many people have begged for the guards to shoot them, but they guards just tell them to get back to work.
Sometimes I hear people singing songs, but I do not know what they mean. When I asked my grandma,

she said that was conversation for another day. Many of the songs sounded religious or sounded like someone was trying to warn someone of something.
As soon as I turned 12, I tried to discuss the songs with my grandma again.

Finally, she explained. She said I only needed to know one; Follow the Drinking Gourd. She said “It has to meanings. The first meaning is to follow the drinking gourd, the big dipper, north to escape. Along the route of escape there are houses in which we can hide in. This brings me to the second meaning. If there is a drinking gourd in the front, it is safe to hide in. If the gourd is missing, it is not safe.”
A few weeks later, a secret meeting was held at night. The meeting was about escaping. Everyone planned to escape the next day. There was one flaw with the plan. Someone had to step out of line so a guard will leave his post to take the person to the owner giving the rest of the group a window of opportunity to escape.
At first no one stepped forward to be the sacrifice, but after a few minutes of silence, my great grandma said she will do it. I turned to her and demanded she do not talk and let someone else do it, but it was too late. She could not back down now. She claimed she had been here the longest, is almost dead, and wants to get back at the owner for doing this. As tears streamed down my face, I pleaded, “ You’re the only family I have left! I don’t wanna lose you too! Please just let someone else do

it!”
Unfortunately, my great grandma had made up her mind. She would be the sacrifice so everyone else can have an opportunity to escape. The remainder of that night I did not sleep. I could not imagine leaving the only family I had left. But soon I came to realize, it was not an option, it would become a reality.
The next day the plan began. My grandma, so gentle and frail, started hollering and refused to work. As expected, the guard left his post to go retrieve my grandma. As the guard began to drag her away, opportunity struck and we realized this could be the only chance we had at escaping. As we dashed for the fence I looked back at my grandma. Tears began to fill my eyes as I realized I would never see my grandma again. I wanted to scream for her, go to help her, but I knew that it had to be done. We began to scale the fence and when everyone was over, we sprinted for the woods. The first house had a drinking gourd so we hid there for two days. While hiding, we heard guards and bounty hunters come into the house offering a cash reward for any information regarding the missing slaves. As expected, the house owners denied knowing any knowledge about the slaves.
Shortly after we left that house we came upon another house. As we arrived we saw that a few bounty hunters had got there first, so we went around the house and onto the next one. This same pattern of going house to house continued for many months until we made it to the north.
As soon as we made it there, an overwhelming heap of joy swelled up in my chest. The only way to get rid of it was to cry. I cried for one hour for many reasons. I missed my whole family a great deal, the rest of the slaves and I had been through so much, and I was so happy to finally be in the clear. Finally, my remaining friends and I were able to start a new life where we could be looked at as equal, work wherever we please, free of hard labour and torture, free of worrying about death, free of slave owners. We were able to start a true American life.