Linda Spalding

This book won the Governor General’s Award for English Literature in 2012 but I somehow missed reading it then. It’s interesting that I would read it now since it deals so extensively with slavery and racism. The USA has been swamped with protests using the “Black Lives Matter” slogan for the past two weeks since a policeman in Minneapolis killed a black man by kneeling on his neck for 8 ½ minutes. The protests have gone global; even our own Prime Minister joined one in Ottawa. Has the time finally come for the injustice perpetrated against blacks ever since the time of slavery to end? Time will tell.
Daniel Dickinson brought his young family and new wife (who was also very young) from Pennsylvania to Virginia. He was brought up in the Quaker faith and was a staunch abolitionist so only the most extreme circumstances would take him to a state that allowed slavery. Those circumstances were that his wife died soon after giving birth and he was thrown out of the Quaker fellowship because he kept the young orphan Ruth in his house after his wife died. Daniel decided to marry Ruth but that only compounded the problem because she was a Methodist. With no background of farming Daniel decided to become a farmer in Virginia. He went off to an auction to purchase some machinery but ended up buying a young slave by the name of Onesimus. Daniel never could explain how he made the bid and he didn’t even have enough money so he had to leave one of his horses with the auctioneer. When Onesimus broke his leg hauling logs for the house to be built for the family the local black healer Bett said he had to stay where he was until the leg healed. Onesimus convinced Daniel to buy some piglets to raise in the bottomland where he was confined because in his previous job he had looked after pigs and it was his one skill. The future life of the Dickinsons and Onesimus and Bett and the other neighbours and even children unborn was forever changed because of Daniel’s purchase of Onesimus.
This was a powerful tale powerfully told.… (mer)