The Evilness Of Slavery In Elijah Of Buxton

I think Elijah of Buxton is a good book to understand the sadness and the evilness of slavery and how people who haven’t experienced slavery, such as Elijah of Buxton, who was the first free child born in buxton. In the beginning of the book, a boy named Elijah tells the readers about his normal life. He does normal things like going to school, doing chores, playing with his friend, and so on. But, what I think he is doing wrong is playing a game called “Abolitionists and Slavers.” He does not realize he was playing with an horrible thing. But later on in the book throughout his journey, he finds out that slavery was wrong.

At first, he was following his normal life. He goes to school, hates his Latin teacher, does some homework, and plays

“Abolitionists and Slavers.” This is the part he does not realize that there was still an awful thing called slavery and he was playing a game based on slavery. Since he was free and was born free, he could’ve forgotten all about slavery… that is, if Mr. Leeroy, a man and a friend of Elijah who just got his money stolen by the Preacher right after he finished working all his life earning money to buy his family out of slavery, didn't take him and secretly ask him for help. Mr. Leeroy asked Elijah if he could help him on his way to getting the money back. Elijah agreed, and so this was the part his real journey began and when Elijah really understood all about slavery.
It had just been a few days ago since Mr. Leeroy asked Elijah for help. The Preacher, who had been looking suspicious throughout the whole book, apparently shot the volunteer who went with the Preacher to free Mr. Leeroy’s family and ran away with all of Mr. Leeroy’s money to gamble. Mr. Leeroy wanted to take the money back from the Preacher he just lost, so that was the reason why he asked Elijah for help.
They make their way towards this town America, which was the place the Preacher was last.

But suddenly, something awful happened. Mr. Leeroy suddenly got a heart attack and died. Elijah was stunned. But, listening to Mr. Leeroy’s last words, he did not give up. He kept looking for the preacher. A man told him the Preacher was heading towards a little farm somewhere. Elijah followed his directions, and met his destination. He knocked out a big dog in the way, and entered in. He was really scared because he saw several figures in the dark, but when he finally got used to the dark, he realized he was looking at several slaves, the dead body of the Preacher, and a sleeping slaver. By what he was looking at, it seemed like Elijah had found out that the Preacher was murdered by some people and the money was all stolen. It was no use trying to get the money back now. But, there was something else to worry about now. Elijah found out that there were slaves in the place. Elijah and one of the slaves named Cloe started to talk to each other. She asked Elijah about how far away was Canada. Elijah told her it was about a few miles North. She also seemed surprised about Elijah’s literacy. Elijah felt a lot of sympathy for her and the slaves. Then, thoughts he never thought of came to his mind. He wanted to shoot the Slavers and try to help set them free. He realized the true meanings of Slavery. He found out that slavery was wrong and wasn’t what he thought it was like. But Cloe

rejected his idea. She said to leave and never come back. She was afraid that Elijah might get caught. So it took all Elijah’s efforts to leave and forget about helping the poor slaves. But, he asked some people to help him free the slaves. But all of them did not help him. So he started his tracks in going back, when a thought came to mind. He was at least going to save the baby of the slaves. So he raced back with Jingle Boy (horse) and went back to the plantation to take the baby. He had his final talk with Cloe and left with the baby.
This is why I think Elijah of Buxton is a good book to read when understanding the evilness of slavery. It is a book about a boy named Elijah and his journey in understanding the true meaning of slavery.