If you lived in Plantation America, would you submit to slavery?

We would all like to think not.

So, what questions that we might honestly ask ourselves about life today might give us a slave's eye view of life when most men were owned like cattle?

If a tactical squad kicked in your front door while you were eating breakfast, would you fight to the death with a kitchen knife, put up a token struggle, or go easily?

You might say that you are not a criminal and would never face such a situation. However, every day in Baltimore an innocent person is arrested by armed goons in blue.

Do you die, do you take a face-saving beating and then do deep time, or do you go easily, hoping to talk yourself or work yourself free?

If you chose the last two, you, like most people, are more willing to wear another man's chains than to die fighting as a free man.

This is easy, would you quit school or your job, steal the principal's or boss's car, flee across state lines and try to assume a new identity?

That is the postmodern equivalent to running away from your master in early modern times.

You must keep in mind that a slave was essentially a large piece of equipment, which would be equal in value to a motorcycle or automobile. You would not be running away from injustice as we see it, but stealing, travelling without permission, crossing state lines without permission and committing fraud. These were all capital crimes. Honestly, the only type of people who ran away in Plantation America were the type of folks inclined to committing felonies, for running away even one time was the commission of at least three felonies by today's standards:

1. theft of self

2. theft of clothes

3. travelling without a permit [drivers license]

4. travelling without authorizing documents [passport]

5. assuming a false identity, entailing forgery and giving false testimony

6. sometimes theft of a horse or boat

A History of Runaway White Slaves in Plantation America: Part Two