In , author Amina Luqman-Dawson introduces middle school readers to the existence of maroon communities, runaway slave communities in remote areas. In an authorās note, she writes, āEnslaved women, men, and children found a multitude of ways big and small to resist and escape bondage. We usually learn about them escaping North or to Canada. Lesser known are those who found refuge deep in the swamps and forests of the American South and even began secret communities.ā Luqman-Dawson loosely based her fictional maroon community called Freewater on the Great Dismal Swampāat its peak it covered 1,500 square miles and stretched from Virginia to North Carolinaāand the formerly enslaved people who found refuge there.
Twelve-year-old Homer has learned to make himself āinvisibleā on the Southerland Plantation where he and his mother and 7-year-old sister Ada are enslaved. When the three of them make a run for freedom, nothing turns out as planned. Homer and Ada wait in a nearby swamp as Mama sneaks back to the plantation to bring Homerās friend Anna along with them because Homer had promised the girl he wouldnāt run without her. When Mama and Anna donāt rejoin them, the children are forced deeper into the swamp. What they discover on their journey and when they arrive in Freewater is beyond their wildest dreamsāan inhospitable jungle environment, a hidden doorway over a river, a sky bridge, and people living free in an organized community. Homer realizes that āthere was more to the world than Iād ever known.ā
Homer and Ada are embraced by the community and become friends with a complex, courageous, and emotionally wounded cast of their peers. When Homer learns of a threat to Freewater, he decides to return alone to Southerland to glean information and to bring Mama and Anna back to the maroon community. But in an unexpected, emotionally charged series of events, Homer learns that his peersānow his friends!āare loyal, brave, and committed to him and to freedom.
Well-drawn characters, numerous narrative viewpoints, and a glimpse of a little-explored window of resistance to the institution of slavery make Freewater a must read for juvenile readers. (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
About the Author
Sonya VanderVeen Feddema is a freelance writer and a member of Covenant CRC in St. Catharines, Ontario.