美国记者收集奴隶时代的爱情故事

American Journalist Gathers Love

Stories from the Slavery Era

美国记者收集奴隶时代的爱情故事

 

Award-winning journalist Betty DeRamus has written about race riots, refugee camps and other news events around the world. But more recently she's been pursuing a different kind of story -- this one dating as far back as the 1600s and set against the backdrop of African American slavery. She describes what she found in a new book called Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad.

 

Ms. DeRamus began writing Forbidden Fruit after meeting the descendants of an interracial couple who overcame huge obstacles to marry in the mid-1800s. That spurred her on to look for more love stories -- at family reunions, in court documents, census¹ records, unpublished memoirs² and old newspapers. Looking back at a time when marriages between slaves were not legally binding³ in the United States…and when masters could sell or move their slaves at will.

 

Betty DeRamus: It's the story of couples who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty⁴ hunters, bullets, whippings, everything you can imagine, every possible peril⁵. When the first escape didn't take, they had to do it again and again and again, before they finally were able to achieve their goal.

 

Many stories in the book unfold along the “Underground Railroad,” the organized network that sheltered fugitive⁶ slaves during the decades before slavery was abolished in the 1860s. Other feature people who relied on more informal methods to stay together. Some couples walked across several states or waited decades to be reunited. One pair traveled in disguise from south to north, with bounty hunters in pursuit, then sailed to England. One young woman hid herself in a wooden chest and had herself shipped to the man she loved.

 

An 1806 Virginia law led some people to renounce⁷ their freedom.

 

Betty DeRamus: That was one of the surprises in my research, the Virginia Assembly ruled that any newly-freed blacks would have to leave the state. And some of those newly-freed blacks petitioned the Virginia Assembly saying they would rather go back into slavery than be free without their families. I tell the story of Joseph Antoine, a slave in Cuba, who was freed, moved to Virginia and fell in love with an enslaved woman. When her owner was about to move west, he threatened to sell her off to someone else so that Joseph Antoine would not be able to see her any more -- unless he agreed to become what was known as an indentured⁸ servant, which was temporary slavery, and he did so.

 

Forbidden Fruit also includes the account of the couple who launched Betty DeRamus on her research. Isaac Berry was a black slave living in Missouri when he fell in love with Lucy Millard, a white minister's daughter. After learning he was about to be sold, he fled north to Windsor, Canada, walking by night and hiding out by day. Lucy promised to follow him. The couple great grandson Jim Cross says Lucy was supposed to leave home for boarding school at the time. But, instead, she bought a train ticket north and eventually reached Windsor.

 

Jim Cross: As the story is told, she walked that summer looking for him, and finally one evening heard him playing his violin in a tavern⁹. She recognized him because he had a special way of playing. And they met, they married and stayed in Canada, I think, for 19 years.

 

The couple eventually resettled in Michigan, and opened a school that welcomed mixed race children. But Jim Cross said they paid a high price for their life together.

 

Jim Cross: They never saw any of their families again, Isaac didn't see his mother or his brothers or sisters again, and Lucy gave up her family -- for love, which has to be pretty powerful.

 

The story of Isaac and Lucy Berry has been handed down from generation to generation.

 

Jim Cross: It's our roots, our beginning in this area. It's caused our family to be very energetic. Lawyers and many, many educators, professional people, business people, have come out of this family and have done remarkable¹⁰ things.

 

Not all the stories in Forbidden Fruit end happily. But Betty DeRamus says most of the stories are about reunions, and she hopes they will provide a new way of looking at the history of African American slavery.

 

I’m Nancy Beardsley.

 

注释：

race riot 种族暴动

refugee camp 难民营

descendant [di5send(E)nt] n. 子孙，后代

spur [spE:] v. 鞭策

reunion [ri:5ju:njEn] n. 团圆，重聚

census [5sensEs] n. 人口普查

mob [mCb] n. 暴徒

bounty hunter 为领赏而追捕逃犯者

peril [5peril] n. 危险

disguise [dis5^aiz] n. 伪装

renounce [ri5nauns] v. 放弃

indentured servant 契约佣工

tavern [5tAvE(:)n] n. 酒馆，客栈

1 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

2 memoirs   

n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)

参考例句：

• Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
• I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 binding   

有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的

参考例句：

• The contract was not signed and has no binding force. 合同没有签署因而没有约束力。
• Both sides have agreed that the arbitration will be binding. 双方都赞同仲裁具有约束力。

4 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

5 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

6 fugitive   

adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者

参考例句：

• The police were able to deduce where the fugitive was hiding.警方成功地推断出那逃亡者躲藏的地方。
• The fugitive is believed to be headed for the border.逃犯被认为在向国境线逃窜。

7 renounce   

v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系

参考例句：

• She decided to renounce the world and enter a convent.她决定弃绝尘世去当修女。
• It was painful for him to renounce his son.宣布与儿子脱离关系对他来说是很痛苦的。

8 indentured   

v.以契约束缚（学徒）( indenture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The Africans became indentured servants, trading labor for shelter and eventual freedom. 非洲人成为契约上的仆人，以劳力交换庇护及最终的自由。 来自互联网
• They are descendants of indentured importees. 他们是契约外来工的后代。 来自互联网

9 tavern   

n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店

参考例句：

• There is a tavern at the corner of the street.街道的拐角处有一家酒馆。
• Philip always went to the tavern,with a sense of pleasure.菲利浦总是心情愉快地来到这家酒菜馆。

10 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。