Idea for next Felicity story...

Felicity is at her grandfather's plantation(he's still alive), riding through the fields on her horse by herself, when she stops to talk to a slave girl in the fields who is her age. The overseer yells at the slave and tells her to get back to work. She wants to become her friend, but her grandfather tells her she is forbidden to speak to or have any contact with any slaves. When she sneaks to the slave cabin one night, she finds out exactly what slavery is and why it is wrong, even though every non slave around her thinks it is right.

Well, what do you all think?

AWSOME! I love that idea! That would be really great. What kind of slave? An indentured servant from Eurpope, or Africa, or a Native American girl?

An African slave, like Addy, except maybe instead of being a slave all her life, she was captured in Africa with her family and sold to the plantation.

That would be a GREAT story! Are you going to write it?

It made me sad when I realized that Felicity would be the (only) American girl whose family (Grandfather) would have had slaves. I think Felicity befriending a slave girl would be a great story! In the books, Felicity's father paid Marcus, a free black man, to work in his store, and Rose was always referred to as a servant, not slave, implying she was paid as well.

Once I e-mailed American girl about wanting a 1960s doll and they wrote back and said that they can't take ideas for stories or characters because they fear the creator could go back to them later on and make up some lawsuit for stealing their idea. I wish I could submit the idea. Of course I could always just write the story myself in a journal or something and imagine it happened to Felicity.

That's not entirely true, Dancer. Kaya's tribe would have had slaves. Native American tribes, especially the Plains tribes, were constantly enslaving each other and captives became slaves for the brave who had captured them, and they could be bought and sold among other tribe members. That's how Sacajawea ended up marrying the French trader, she was sold to him by the man who had captured her.

For once, I would like to see an average plantation owner depicted in children's literature. VERY FEW slaveholders were as cruel as history would have us believe. Slaves were an investment, a MAJOR investment. Most plantation owners saw their slaves in that light. You don't beat and starve and ignore a major investment. Yes, it's a sad mindset to have, but that's the way most of them thought. Owning slaves was a BIG financial commitment. The master was responsible for food, clothing, shelter, shoes, medical care, repairs, maintenance, and anything else that came along. And this was for LIFE. On sugar plantations, the costs went up even more come sugar-making time, from all of the things that the master would give to them to get them through the long process and round-the-clock work. Most slaves were allowed to grow vegetables, and then they had the option of selling the vegetables to the kitchen, or they could take them into town on Sundays and sell them. Anything they made on their own time could be sold and they got to keep every penny of the money.

For example, the plantation where I work, we have no records or stories WHATSOEVER of any slaves enduring abuse of any kind. All 80 of the builder's slaves marched in his funeral procession, which they were not required to do. And then after the Civil War ALL 120 field hands that the second owner had, opted to sign a work agreement and REMAIN on the plantation. Most of them then stayed on the plantation for the rest of their lives, or until it was divided up in 1908- whichever came first.

And then on the other hand, one parish over is where "Twelve Years a Slave- the Story of Solomon Northup" took place, and his life was a living hell. Treatment of the slaves varied greatly from plantation to plantation. The kind, somewhat benevolent masters far outweighed the bad apples.

This issue is the reason that I do NOT like Meet Addy. It paints a rather unrealistic, somewhat exaggerated portrayal of slavery at that time in Virginia. They made it a lot more grim than it actually was on most plantations. I've never connected with her character in any way because of the way her story opens. I've read all of her books, but don't remember anything about them because of my first impression in Meet Addy.

I realize that slavery was a very dark time in American history and I am in no way trying to justify it. As a student of history, I simply want the people around me to see BOTH sides of the story, the good and the bad, the nice and the cruel. I'm a born and bred Southern girl, and I don't like it one bit when my history is portrayed incorrectly or when all Southerner slave owners are made out to be cruel. Please look at both sides of the issue before anyone makes a sweeping judgement about an issue as complex as slavery.

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Originally posted by Grapedy1982:
That's not entirely true, Dancer. Kaya's tribe would have had slaves. Native American tribes, especially the Plains tribes, were constantly enslaving each other and captives became slaves for the brave who had captured them, and they could be bought and sold among other tribe members. That's how Sacajawea ended up marrying the French trader, she was sold to him by the man who had captured her.

For once, I would like to see an average plantation owner depicted in children's literature. VERY FEW slaveholders were as cruel as history would have us believe. Slaves were an investment, a MAJOR investment. Most plantation owners saw their slaves in that light. You don't beat and starve and ignore a major investment. Yes, it's a sad mindset to have, but that's the way most of them thought. Owning slaves was a BIG financial commitment. The master was responsible for food, clothing, shelter, shoes, medical care, repairs, maintenance, and anything else that came along. And this was for LIFE. On sugar plantations, the costs went up even more come sugar-making time, from all of the things that the master would give to them to get them through the long process and round-the-clock work. Most slaves were allowed to grow vegetables, and then they had the option of selling the vegetables to the kitchen, or they could take them into town on Sundays and sell them. Anything they made on their own time could be sold and they got to keep every penny of the money.

For example, the plantation where I work, we have no records or stories WHATSOEVER of any slaves enduring abuse of any kind. All 80 of the builder's slaves marched in his funeral procession, which they were not required to do. And then after the Civil War ALL 120 field hands that the second owner had, opted to sign a work agreement and REMAIN on the plantation. Most of them then stayed on the plantation for the rest of their lives, or until it was divided up in 1908- whichever came first.

And then on the other hand, one parish over is where "Twelve Years a Slave- the Story of Solomon Northup" took place, and his life was a living hell. Treatment of the slaves varied greatly from plantation to plantation. The kind, somewhat benevolent masters far outweighed the bad apples.

This issue is the reason that I do NOT like Meet Addy. It paints a rather unrealistic, somewhat exaggerated portrayal of slavery at that time in Virginia. They made it a lot more grim than it actually was on most plantations. I've never connected with her character in any way because of the way her story opens. I've read all of her books, but don't remember anything about them because of my first impression in Meet Addy.

I realize that slavery was a very dark time in American history and I am in no way trying to justify it. As a student of history, I simply want the people around me to see BOTH sides of the story, the good and the bad, the nice and the cruel. I'm a born and bred Southern girl, and I don't like it one bit when my history is portrayed incorrectly or when all Southerner slave owners are made out to be cruel. Please look at both sides of the issue before anyone makes a sweeping judgement about an issue as complex as slavery.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A lot of children's and young adult historical novels with white Southern children or teens as main characters are like this. I've read quite a few like this, usually with a wealthy southern girl/teen as the main character, whose family's slaves are not abused... I can't think of any particular ones right now, maybe some of the Ann Rinaldi ones, I know she has a few like this, and one of the Dear America books...

That's true Grapedy 1982!
Also the Native were used as slaves in the early colonial period. But the colonials found that it was too difficult because they weren't imune to the European diseases and died quickly in captivity. Also when one ran away they were hard to find because they could blend in. Sadly the Africans were the most practical, the terrible transformation, as the historiy books call it, when the colonies began the participating in the slave trade. Because a large part Africa was colonized by Europeans, they were already imune to diseases like milaria and such so they were able to live much longer in the New World. It's a sad thing when humans become property, but that was how it happened.

Total subject change here, lol. Malaria actually comes from Africa. It was exported to other parts of the world because of the slave trade. It's mosquito borne and the mosquitoes traveled to continental Europe, and the Americas via the slave ships. Same thing happened with yellow fever. Yellow fever was a white man's disease until it was eradicated from the continent in 1905. (I spent two months researching yellow fever last summer for work. Had all of the North American epidemics memorized at one point, lol)

Your point about Native Americans being used as slaves is another one that a lot of historians tend to forget. That was very prevelant during the time Spain owned the Louisiana territory in the latter half of the 18th century. Black and Native American marriages were VERY common in Louisiana at the time of the Purchase in 1803. The slaves would develop friendships with the Indians living in the area, and often times runaways would hide out in the villages for weeks, sometimes even months at a time.

And all of this racial intermingling made Louisiana cuisine the wonderful stuff it is today!