Gabrielle Sammartino
Mr. Fiorini 11-1 English
Price of a Child – Narrative Poem

The Price of Freedom is Vigilance
Opportunity knocks, so I decide on leaving Proctor and his plantation behind, letting it seep to the corners of my mind and slowly settle down as being a part of the past.
Realization sets in; I have left my baby boy Bennie with the wife of my slave owner, I begin praying he won’t be sold off as a result of my actions.
The empowering thought of leaving the slanted South, where they strive on the institution of slavery, and navigating north where the white man will pay a slave to speak in public reaches my head and spins around and around to the point where everything has become a gigantic blur.
Traveling to Philadelphia; where I obtained the most precious gift of life, despite Proctors protests. With the help of Nig Nag, a Negro messenger, Passmore Williamson, and William Still, who told me to ‘rise up with my children and walk away’, I have become a free woman.
Traveling to the Olive Cemetery; where the Quick’s were mourning their deceased family and I was ‘quickly’ trying to make my own family. Meeting Manny, the man who made this family and kept them tightly together like the walls of his strongbox, Tyree, Bea, and Aunt Zilpha, whose home in West Chester safely separated me and my children away from the nightmarish horrors of discovery.
Traveling to New York; to hear new ideas from abolitionist William Wells Brown; a brown skinned man, who means all things well in ending slavery in the South, dinning at my first restaurant, and signing an affidavit of hope for a man that my gain of freedom has placed in jail.
Speaking to Eliza Ruffin, Eugenia Pitts and the Ladies of the Anti Slavery Society in halls and parlors; smelling the aroma of sweetly baked cakes, and hearing the clank of the china tea cups on each ladies plate.
Speaking to the multitudes at mass services in Massachusetts, offering my knowledge hoping they won’t get offended.
Many speeches, towns, and faces changed. Countless days and two deaths later, it was time to move on.
The hardest part was leaving Tyree. Leaving Tyree for a new life in Canada. Going to Canada on the same ferry Proctor would’ve taken towards Nicaragua. The same ferry where I found my freedom up on its docks. The docks where I began my new life - my free life. The life I was leaving, and Tyree, who I was saying goodbye to.
Tyree, the man who carried my children, the man who welcomed me, the man who loved me and the man that I loved, the man who gave me the silver toothpick.
The silver toothpick that glistened like the horizon would on the day when I would be reunited with my son Bennie. Nothing could separate me from my boy any longer. Leaving my beloved Tyree was the price for my child, and that was the price I was more than willing to pay.