Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a good book a long time ago: Uncle Tom's Cabin. (That should be underlined, but I can't find the "underline" button on Blogger.) Most of you are no doubt acquainted with the book, an anti-slavery novel written in 1852 - before the Civil War. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a Connecticut Yankee who spoke out against slavery, as did her equally-famous abolitionist brother, Henry Ward Beecher.
Down the road from our house is an old stone church named the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church. Henry Ward Beecher and his church supplied rifles and Bibles to the Connecticut folks who came out west here to settle. (You can Google it.) Along our pathways around here in the Flint Hills is amazing history of that pre- and post-war era. The Underground Railroad went through this county. Our house was built ca. 1887, the land of which was once owned by a former Civil War soldier.
Down the road the other direction from Beecher Bible and Rifle Church is a lovely and old cemetery. There are graves from the late 1800s, and one can also take note of the numerous graves dated around 1918: the years of the Great Flu Epidemic. Fort Riley, Kansas is believed to be where the onset of the great epidemic originated.
There is a grave in this old cemetery, said to be the grave of a white former slave. There's a book written about him: The White Slave, by Fanny Howe. Years ago when I heard about the man, and now as I am writing about him, I wonder what piques our interest about him, perhaps moreso than if we were to read about a black former slave. *gasp!* A white slave?? How could that be?! Let's all just make sure we never ever become desensitized to the idea of slavery of anyone; we should all be horrified at the enslavement of our fellow human beings, regardless of ethnicity.
And that's all I've got today...
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