The Underground Railroad Lesson Plan

Why would Ajarry have told Cora not to flee the plantation? What does this suggest about the nature of slavery?

Cora understands that Ajarry would have told her not to leave the plantation: there is nothing for her outside of the plantation. Ajarry understood—because she had been sold enough times—how Black people were perceived even away from Randall plantation. “Since the night she was kidnapped she had been appraised and reappraised, each day waking upon the pan of a new scale. Know your value and you know your place in the order. To escape the boundary of the planation was to escape the fundamental principles of your existence: impossible.” For Ajarry, there was no...