Chapter 1 -- The Code

James McBride has the ability to say a lot using very few words. He begins by introducing Liz Spocott to his readers. He opens with who she is, "a colored slave" and leads us into her dreams and her condition.

A few things I found especially interesting in this first chapter were:

Liz's resilence: She was nineteen and a runaway slave. Daring to find freedom with three other women. She had been badly wounded--"She had taken a musket ball to the head". She managed to not only survive but extracted the ball from her left temple.

Who to trust: Immediately McBride paints a picture I had not considered before. Whenever I read or thought about the runaway slaves experience, after they had escaped the dogs, horses and slave catchers, it had been or at least from what I would imagine, the kindness of white abolitionist/Quakers and other run aways who would help them safely to freedom. Not to say these accounts are not accurate, but McBride gives another account. The white farmers wife, who after having warned them about the slave catchers, demanded a dime from them. And when they could not produce one, well she screamed alarming the slave catchers.

And the introduction of the character of L'il George. Liz, after being shot (the other three women continued to run), she waits for them to come for her. She is surprised when it is not a white face she sees but a "calm, handsome face of a Negro boy". But he wasn't there to help her. He points the gun in her face and then Liz evidently passes out.

Terminology: McBride doesn't just refer to them as slaves but rather "souls". He describes Patty Cannon as a "trader of souls".


When Liz wakes up she is chained and held in Joe's Tavern, Patty Cannon's house and learns who L'il George is. She is chained to an old woman who wants to know about the dreams she has been having in exchange for the code. She is convinced the young girl dreams is how they are going to escape L'il George and Patty. She calls Liz "two headed girl". Not only is the code important, but the trust between the slaves, the way the code song and the singer of the song. McBride leaves the reader wondering immediately how essential these facts will be to the rest of the story.

Their condition and escape from the tavern is a display of man at his lowest. These souls, reacting and surviving, not necessarily considering what they are doing in order to do so.

From the beginning you know McBride is not giving just another account of slavery, but rather a full view of slavery and humanity.

Characters:

Liz Spocott
L'il George
Woman with no name
Patty Cannon
Big Linus