The year was 1842 in Glendora, Mississippi; there lived a little boy named Jimmy. At the age of 13 Jimmy was sold and separated from his father. It was sold to William C. Ford. From that day on, Massa Ford never let him go. Jimmy however was not just any slave, his father had taught him to read at the age of 10, but he never let Massa Ford know. He was young and the fastest cotton picker on the plantation. He harvested over 300 bushels of cotton. As the days and years passed Jimmy always wondered what life was like outside of this plantation. His favorite days were when the old men sang old Negro spirituals in the fields. “Move slowly, sweet chariot, come and take me home, I looked across the Jordan and what did I see? A gang chasing me. Jimmy has always wondered what those black spirituals meant, and he'll soon find out. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay One day Jimmy asked one of the older slaves Abraham "why y'all always sang them nigger spirituals what do they mean" so Abraham started to explain Jimmy to him what the songs mean especially swing low sweet chariot”. Little boy, see, everything we sang is just coded for a way for us to get it from the white man, said Abraham. When we sang swing low which means "come to the slave states" and the sweet wagon that comes to take me home simply means "the underground railroad come take me to freedom in the north or Canada". Jimmy was amazed at the meaning and I wonder if it was all true. Jimmy told Abraham "one day I will be a free man." Days and days Jimmy began to sing the low sweet nigga spiritual swing wagon, remembering word for word, imagining what would happen if one day he was free, Jimmy had premeditated his escape route for nights on end, before Massa Ford fell asleep he checks the slaves to make sure none had escaped, or that they learned nothing. One night Massa came around for his nightly checks, looked around and saw that everyone was asleep and fine. Everyone pretended to be asleep, including Jimmy. Tonight Jimmy planned his escape plan, he planned everything while humming his anthem. Jimmy needed help to make sure he didn't get caught, so he asked Abraham to provide him with a distraction while he ran through the woods for a while. He was reluctant at first, but eventually gave in to Jimmy's pleas and said he would help him. Abraham would have set fire to something of value, it could have been the cotton fields or the staple food with the animals, something that would have kept them worried about throwing out the valuable things first. then worry about fugitive slaves. The code Jimmy used to escape was "steal, steal, steal from Jesus" used to let him know an escape attempt was coming. Jimmy had a lot to remember. It was dark so he couldn't see the stars. He looked at a moss-covered tree on the north side and remembered, “Dead trees will show you the way” (meaning moss grows on the north side of a dead tree when you can't see the stars look at the trees). As he runs he hears the dogs and looks, sees a river bank and remembers "The river bank makes a very good road" (the dogs can't smell it through the water) he enters and exits the same tracks that take them cross off. Jimmy had found the Jordan River (the Mississippi River or Ohio River) where the angels (a group of workers on the Underground Railroad) went. He approached the group saying "a friend of a friend sent me" (a code used when they travel.