Harriet Tubm Conductor On The Underground Railroad By Virginia Hamilton

In the excerpt from the novel Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry, and the folktale “The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales” by Virginia Hamilton, the authors portray the topic of freedom differently.

In the folktale, “The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales” the enslaved people had magical powers, allowing them to escape from harmful plantations. In the story “The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales”, Virginia Hamilton describes that the enslaved people used to have magic. It was then explained that many slaves lost their magic once getting enslaved. This is not the case for Harriet Tubman, a slave who escaped the plantation and then saved others, the Slaves did not have magic, nor could they fly. This also explains how free the slaves were before being enslaved, which largely contrasts with later in the book story when we see the cruelty of being a slave.

“At the same time, someone had taught her where to look for the North Star, the star that stayed constant, not rising in the east and setting in the west as the other stars appeared to do; and told her that anyone walking toward the North could use that star as a guide”(4) The enslaved people in America had been taught since a young age that to escape, you follow the North Star. This is because the North Star always stays North, never East to West like the sun. In the North, slavery is less common, and slaves could even escape out of the country to Canada. This is different from the way of escape in the folktale because Sarah, the main character of the folktale, was simply able to fly away. In reality, it was a long walk, and many were captured in the middle of their