PART THREE
When Mitchell and Michelle finally arrived to the plantation in North Carolina, along with all the other Africans who had been purchased in Charleston at the slave market, they were awestruck by the sight of seeing Blacks toiling in a huge cotton field.
Once they arrived at the big white antebellum mansion where the plantation owner lived, each of the slaves were lined up in a row and carefully inspected to see where they would be assigned to on the huge plantation.
Though most would end up in the fields, they would usually pick a few to work either in the house or in upkeep of the yards.
Once again due to the mysterious power of the dream bed, Mitchell and Michelle were granted the favor of being selected to work in the house. Could it also have been because they were much fairer in complexion than all the other Blacks that arrived on the plantation with them?
Michelle was given the task of being the personal bondmaid and playmate of the master’s daughter who just happened to be around her age. This was a position that she did not relish because the master’s daughter had a split personality. One minute she could be very kind and considerate – a joy to be around and serve.
Conversely when her darker side prevailed, she was rude, ill tempered, and even cruel at times.
Once when her girlfriends were over and the dark side was in control, the master’s daughter completely degraded Michelle by calling her a little monkey and commanded her to mimic a chimpanzee to the amusement of her White friends.
Mitchell was given the responsibility of being a housecleaning and errand boy. As an errand boy, he occasionally interacted with some of the slaves who labored in the yard and fields.
The ones who toiled in the upkeep of the yards pretty much treated Mitchell in a friendly way. However, many of the ones who worked in the fields resented him for having it so easy, in their estimation, especially some of the younger slaves who were a little older than he. They teased and taunted him by calling him a name like, “massa’s boy.”
As a matter of fact, those who worked in both the house and fields were coerced and incited by many of the slave owners and their cruel overseers to begrudge and despise one another due to their differences.
Things like complexion and whether they were assigned to work in the master’s house or toil in the fields became distinctions they used to divide and control the slaves.
Both Mitchell and Michelle were quickly able to accept and adapt to the reality of plantation life without worry because they had learned from their previous experiences that they were not there to stay.
They knew that sooner or later they would be removed by Aunt Daisy’s Dramatic Dream Bed and transported to another event in history and time.
True to their anticipation, while they slept in their sleeping quarters in the master’s big house, a shaking suddenly awakened them.
To their amazement, they were no longer on the plantation in the master’s house. The woman who awakened them motioned for them to be as quiet at they could as they quickly left the old slave shack where they had awaken.
She identified herself as Harriet and this would be her third attempt to rescue and lead slaves North to freedom.
She had barely escaped capture when she brought the last slaves out to freedom. Harriet was a very cautious, commanding, and stern woman who did not take chances or tolerate insubordination or talking back from those she was leading out of bondage.
More than once she had to threaten to shoot a few who put her mission in jeopardy or attempted to go back to the bondage of the plantation and South that she had endangered her life to bring them out of. Having been taught a few basic things about Black History by both their parents and the school they attended, the twins immediately recognized this fearless and tough woman who was leading them and a few other slaves who met them at strategic places as they made their flight to freedom as Harriet Tubman.
History would forever refer to Harriet Tubman as the Black Moses due to her daring and remarkable exploits of leading many slaves North to freedom. Harriet seemed to have had a six sense, a remarkable ability to detect and elude her pursuers who would often track her and those she was leading with bloodhounds.
Mitchell and Michelle were very nervous when this great heroine of Black History led them into a river in order to escape the keen smell of the dogs that she sensed were getting closer and closer to them.
These dogs had spoiled the escape of many runaway slaves and Harriet knew the fatal consequences that awaited her if captured.
She used the North Star as her compass and memorized the natural landmarks of her route north.
There were White abolitionists and Quakers who aided them in their flight to freedom by allowing them to take temporary refuge and rest in their barns and secret chambers of their homes.
While Harriet and her followers slept in the loft of a barn as they were very close to entering into free territory, the twins were once again transported in time.
Only this time their journey took them back in time and not forward.
Battle In
The Balcony
When Mitchell and Michelle awakened from what they thought would be the loft of a barn and discovered that they were lying upon a pew in the balcony of a church, they were astounded.
Though these young time travelers were growing accustomed to the magical powers of Aunt Daisy’s Dramatic Dream Bed, every time they were transported was as remarkable and mysterious as the previous ones had been.
The year was 1786 and the place was St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The White members of the church had voted to ask the growing number of Blacks who were attending to gather in the balcony on Sunday mornings.
On this particular Sunday when Mitchell and Michelle were present, due to having been transported to this spot by the dream bed, a ruckus erupted when some of the White stewards from the bottom of the sanctuary came up to the balcony to tell the Blacks to stop being so loud in their worship and response to the preaching of the Word.
When the Blacks would not heed their demand, some of the White stewards became angry and tried to physically restrain them from worshipping the Lord, as they were accustomed to doing.
Things quickly escalated as tempers flared up on both sides of the contention to the utter amazement of Mitchell and Michelle who watched this shameful scene transpiring in the house of God due to prejudice and racism.
This incident brought tears in their eyes and a deep sadness in their hearts that such a thing could happen in the church.
After all, they reasoned that when people nowhere else could love one another and get along surely those who confessed to know Christ could. When there was no let up in the hostility, the leader of the Black contingent named Richard Allen, along with his close friend, Absalom Jones, agreed to the demands of the White stewards if they would just allow them to finish their religious observance.
“We will not disturb you no more,” Richard Allan assured them and they did not.
From that time forward, the Black worshippers of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church were forced to worship independently of their White brethren.
Mitchell and Michelle had witnessed and experienced the event that gave birth to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and formation of Black America as an independent and separate culture and entity in America.
Where their time traveling and journey in Black History would take them next, they had no way of knowing.
However, they knew that it would be an important and intriguing episode in Black History.
