Paula Fox was born in New York City, on April 22, 1923. Dennis O'Neil referred to these transitions as "life…, Skip to main content Interestingly, Daniel constantly risks his hard-won freedom: the book implies that he is involved with the Underground Railroad and has a network of contacts who lead slaves to freedom. Fox, Paula, "Some Thoughts on Imagination in Children's Literature," in Celebrating Children's Books: Essay on Children's Literature in Honor of Zena Sutherland, edited by Betsy Hearne and Marilyn Kaye, Lee and Shepard Books, 1981. Agatha is Jessie's aunt (the sister of his father) and is more well-to-do than the Bolliers. This book looks at a terrifying side of human nature, and one which—in the specific manifestation of the slave trade—has left deeply-planted obstacles in the way of human brotherhood. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. So many ships are transporting slaves that the laws against such transport are meaningless. David Rees wrote in The Marble in the Water that. The most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman, who had run away from slavery. Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Slave_Dancer&oldid=1016776892, Articles needing additional references from August 2016, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 9 April 2021, at 00:50. Bosmajian, who analyzed books dealing with historical traumatic events and their survivors, noted that in these situations, people often do not behave admirably, or as we would like them to behave. B. Lippincott, 1971. Cawthorne, believing the ship is English, hoists the American flag, and, too late, realizes the ship is American. ", In Nightmares of History, Hamida Bosmajian wrote that Fox "is accurate in portraying the psychology of human beings in extreme situations," referring to the changing and conflicting emotions Jessie experiences, from apathy to rage to detachment, and even occasional happiness. Slave Later, when he protests against the slave trade, Purvis becomes violently angry, and tells Jessie that his own Irish ancestors came to America in ships no better than the slave ships—"locked up in a hold for the whole voyage where they might have died of sickness and suffocation…. As the years pass, the horror of the voyage recedes in his consciousness, and he doesn't think about it every day. After a few days, Jessie and the boy come out of the hold and discover that the ship is sinking. Jessie's physical imprisonment is bad enough, but Fox also shows how he becomes mentally imprisoned—how, from feeling sorry for the slaves, Jessie enters a time when he hates them—for they are the reason he was taken from his home, the reason for his own servitude on the ship. Binnie Tate, quoted in Cultural Conformity in Books for Children, wrote that the book "perpetuates racism … [with] constantly repeated racist implications and negative illusions," and in the same volume, Sharon Bell Mathis called the book "an insult to black children. Hamilton, Virginia, Her Stories, Scholastic, 1995. A slave is usually acquired by purchase and legally described as chattel…, Jews engaged in the slave trade – although they never played a prominent role in it – from the early Middle Ages to the early modern period. ", Daniel is an escaped slave who has found a safe haven deep in the woods near the coast of Mississippi. If you were hiking alone in the woods for that time, what would you need to survive? I was unable to listen to music. He is single-mindedly devoted to profit and despises the anti-slavery British ships that run down slavers and confiscate their slaves and their profits. I would have snatched the rope from Spark's [the mate's] hand and beaten them myself! Until now, Jessie has been confused by the crew, who defend the trade, saying that so many ships are involved in it that the laws against it don't matter. Jessie does not answer him. Claudius Sharkey, a crewmember, tells Jessie that in addition to the British cruisers that make the trade dangerous, American ships also patrol against importers of slaves. But as the blows fell," he says, "I became myself again. For his whole life, he struggles against the memory of his own brief captivity on the ship and the marks it has left on his psyche. Thus began her prolific career as a writer of books for both children and adults. Jessie is ordered to play his fife while the sailors dance and slap the slaves around. In the rain, drunken riverboat workers and slaves alike are celebrating. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, Good Masters! The Slave Dancer book. In "The Slave Dancer," the section of the novel called "The Bight of Benin" is where Jessie's real reason for being brought on board "The Moonlight" really begins. Jessie and a black boy named Ras with whom he has made a precarious friendship are the only survivors; they reach land and there is a limited happy ending. He sends for his mother and sister to join him and settles into a quiet life. And, more heatedly she said, "At the core of everything I write is the feeling that the denial of the truth imprisons us even further in ourselves." I no longer spoke of my journey on a slave ship back in 1840. The book won the Newbery Medal in 1974, and Fox has also won the Hans Christian Andersen medal for her work. For at the first note of a tune or of a song, I would see once again, as though they'd never ceased their dancing in my mind, black men and women and children lifting their tormented limbs in time to a reedy martial air, the dust rising from their joyless thumping, the sound of the fife finally drowned beneath the clanging of their chains. ( No not all emotions do this but without one you can't have the other.) Fox told Sylvia Steinberg in Publishers Weekly, "The American idea is that everything can be solved. He does whatever the Captain orders, usually brutally. ", Although Fox's work is painfully realistic, it is not pessimistic. Bosmajian wrote that for children who are personally experiencing trauma such books can have "therapeutic value" and can "raise the consciousness of youngsters whose environment is stable. Instead, he likes Purvis: "Purvis, with his horrible coarse jokes, his bawling and cursing, Purvis, whom I trusted. Paula Fox’s children’s book The Slave Dancer was published in 1973 and is an historical novel that won the Newbery Medal. He is intrigued by the slaves he sees, curious about their lives. However, unlike Ned Grime, the hypocritical carpenter, he can't sustain this, and is soon slapped back to reality and to awareness of his place in the tormenting of the slaves. Betty is Jessie's sister. I could not bear to hear a woman sing, and at the sound of any instrument, a fiddle, a flute, a drum, a comb with paper wrapped around it played by my own child, I would leave instantly and shut myself away. Jessie walks home and finds his mother and sister, but he doesn't settle easily back into his old life. sees others beaten, he sees slaves thrown over the rail of the ship—both dead and alive—after being starved, exposed to disease, and tormented—and he doesn't know if he will ever make it home alive. Jessie is shocked by what is going on, but tries to keep himself focused on staying alive and getting home to his family, if he ever will. For example, when Jessie is captured and taken by a small boat to the ship, Fox writes: We passed a small island. While they are down there, a sailor up above closes the hatch, which is always closed in storms. Of her parents, she told Sybil Steinberg in Publishers Weekly only that her mother was very young and was unable to take on the responsibility of a child. Historical Background Brief And in The Slave Dancer, she has given us a masterpiece, the equal of which would be hard to find. When she was six, she moved to California for two years and then was sent to live with her grandmother on a sugar plantation in Cuba, where she went to school in a one-room schoolhouse and quickly learned to speak Spanish. This contains Fox's acceptance speech for the New-bery Medal, which she won for Slave Dancer. Jessie cannot find an easy solution to these moral questions and to the questions of why people are cruel and why people suffer. Her unique vision admits to the child what he already suspects: Life is part grit, part disappointment, part nonsense, and occasionally victory … And by offering children no more than the humanness we all share—child, adult, reader, writer—she acknowledges them as equals. In the New Statesman, Kevin Crossley-Holland wrote that the book is "a novel of great moral integrity…. By breaking with the convictions of children's literature, [books such as The Slave Dancer] open spaces or blanks for the young readers' thoughts. Summary Thirteen year old Jesse is skilled at playing the fife. However, the possible profit from these voyages outweighs the danger: "He spread his arms as wide as he could to show me the money the smugglers made after they'd taken the slaves inland and sold them. In her acceptance speech for the Newbery Award, reprinted in Newbery and Caldecott Winners, 1966–1975, Fox wrote that writing helps us "to connect ourselves with the reality of our own lives. ", As the ship travels on, discipline degenerates; the ship is filthy, the men are filthy and are often drunk. ", When a slave attacks the mate, Nicholas Spark, Spark guns him down and is immediately bound with a rope and thrown overboard: by killing the African man, he has destroyed the profit that would come from selling him, and Spark's own life is not worth that much. Despite her lack of formal education, Fox was accepted into Columbia University, and for almost four years, she studied, worked full time, and raised her sons until lack of money forced her to quit the school. "The distinction and beauty of the words she uses and her absolute command of subtlety and nuance in rhythms and sentence structure place Paula Fox above almost all other children's writers," Rees states in his book. His crew is afraid of him, although they know that on other ships there are captains who are worse. In the following essay excerpt, Townsend calls The Slave Dancer Fox's "finest achievement," and says children "ought not to grow up without it.". She writes fiction for children and novels for adults, and of all her books, The Slave Dancer has been the most widely praised and recognized. Fox had to leave high school early, and she worked a wide variety of jobs, including salesperson, rivet-sorter, and machinist to support herself. This 1974 Newbery Medal winner, by the author of the Newbery Honor Book One Eyed Cat, is a bitter, painful story told in hauntingly beautiful words. "I don't understand your ingratitude. Do you know my father was haunted all his days by the memory of those who died before his eyes in that ship, and were flung into the sea? He tells Jessie how to walk the three-day journey back to New Orleans and asks him not to tell any-one because if Jessie tells anyone about the old man, he may be recaptured and taken back to slavery. ", As Bosmajian points out, historical "nightmares" created by adults, such as the Nazi Holocaust, nuclear war, or the enslavement of Africans, always include children since they affect whole societies. When Jessie eventually returns from his long and harrowing journey, she treats Jessie with affection and kindness and no longer accuses him of being a "bayou lout.". She writes fiction for children and novels for adults, and of all her books, The Slave Dancer has been the most widely praised and recognized. He also despises the African chiefs who sell their own people to the slavers. He dreams of being rich one day, "in a fine suit, with a thousand candles to hand if I needed them instead of three grudgingly given stubs. 16 Apr. This crowding, and the complete lack of any sanitary facilities, led to disease and death on all slave ships, whether tightly or loosely packed. Marcus, Leonard S., "An Interview with Phyllis J. Fogel-man," in Horn Book, March, 1999, p. 148. The Underground Railroad mainly operated from 1830 until the 1860s and helped many thousands of people escape from slavery. ." he says. Bosmajian, Hamida, "Nightmares of History: The Outer Limits of Children's Literature," in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Winter 1983, pp. In The Slave Dancer, Fox takes a larger step and looks at a terrifying time in human history through the eyes of a boy who, like the slaves, is taken captive and experiences the horrendous reality of The Moonlight. But what was the point of that or anything else? In the following essay, she discusses themes of truth and moral questions in Fox's story. Paula Fox is a contemporary writer, but The Slave Dancer is set in 1840, in New Orleans, and on the slave ship The Moonlight. This is a case where the discipline of writing for the children's list has been wholly to the benefit of the book as a work of art. Jessie stops trusting him and regards him with deep mistrust and fear. Purvis has seen Jessie playing his fife in the market earlier and has even given him money. He speaks the slaves' language and talks softly to them, saying things that Jessie cannot understand but which seem to drive the slaves mad with fear or sadness. Taken against their will, these sailors served under the iron command of captains who, like Cawthorne, used violence and punishment to enforce discipline on board their ships. Woolman, John And you dare speak of my parents in the same breath with these [slaves]!" However, she is generous with her candles and other gifts, and although Fox never says this directly, the reader senses that Agatha does care about Jessie; She wants his life to be better than it is but can't express this wish in a positive way. ", Bach also wrote that what sets Fox apart from other writers. He points to himself with the fife, saying his name: "Jessie. Then, as if daylight was being born inside the boat itself, I began to make out piles of rope, a wooden bucket, a heap of rusty looking net, the thick boots of my captors. Although he is obviously evil, Jessie finds that he is easier to deal with than someone like Stout, whose evil is hidden at first. Kirkus Reviews said of the book: "...each of the sailors is sharply individualized, the inhuman treatment of the captives is conveyed straight to the nose and stomach rather than the bleeding heart, and the scenes in which Jessie is forced to play his fife to '"dance the slaves"' for their morning exercise become a haunting, focusing image for the whole bizarre undertaking. 2021 . Slave Dancer Plot Summary History Continued I could not read his expression." In addition, several characters in the book are racists, and their language and attitudes offended some readers. Captain Cawthorne, who is in charge of the slave ship, mentions in the same breath that the slave trade is both "lucrative and God-given," and the sailors justify it by saying that everyone else is doing it. There he is forced to play the fife in order to keep the other slaves … Some, such as Nicholas Spark and Ben Stout, never do; Stout is described as "dead," in an emotional or spiritual sense, and Jessie says that Spark is "entirely brainless and evil only in the way that certain plants are poisonous": he is mindlessly, ruthlessly evil, not even human. Not to smell them! His mother makes a meager wage sewing dresses, and Jessie plays his fife to make a few pennies. Even after Jessie returns from his voyage, his mother still sometimes weeps at the thought of what he has been through and at the thought of what happened to the slaves. Winters is a freelance writer and editor who has written for a wide variety of academic and educational publishers. Slavery is the unconditional servitude of one individual to another. Read or buy. Not to know of their existence! One legacy of his experience on the slave ship is that he can no longer stand to hear music, as it reminds him of the dancing of the slaves. The author slowly and systematically excuses all the whites in the story for their participation in the slave venture and by innuendo places the blame elsewhere. The only concern the sailors show is for the loss of the profit that the sale of the slave would have brought them. were growing up to take their place in a known and understood world." As David Rees wrote in The Marble in the Water, "It is a savage indictment of a whole society, intensely political in its overtones which ring down through the ages to the present day.". She is harried and worried, always struggling to make enough money to feed her children. When Ben Stout steals an egg from the captain's private supply, Purvis is blamed and takes the flogging that results without protest. I saw the glimmer of a light in a window—only that solitary, flickering yellow beacon. When he comes back, she is even nicer to him, treating him like an invalid. When the ship is overtaken by an Ameri-can anti-slavery vessel, the crew begins throwing the slaves overboard, but at the same time, a ferocious storm hits. Fox is nobody's mouthpiece. Worse, he not only has to witness the torment of the slaves but he is forced to become one of their oppressors as he plays his flute; he is aware that, even though he is like them in the sense that he is a prisoner on the ship, when they reach land, he will be free to go home to his mother and sister, a choice that will forever be denied to the slaves. Agatha dislikes the fact that Jessie makes a living playing the fife and tells him he should be apprenticed and learn a respectable trade, saying that she doubts he would gain any benefit from school. In fact, the book implies that most people are hypocrites as bad as Cawthorne, if not as obvious, and that, as Jessie realizes later, almost every job, profession, or source of income available is connected in some way with the transport, sale, or labor of slaves. The boy acts as if to try and throw a stone at the chicken, but Jessie dissuades him. They set sail, back toward America. He worked on a snagboat, which cleared away the tree stumps and other debris that blocked steamboat navigation on the river. he asks Jessie. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that, at least, it gave them time out of the hold. But Jessie realizes that he can't talk to any of the crew about this; whenever he is upset about slavery, he is beaten. and Jessie still grieves his loss. He is a good sailor, never idle, skilled at many tasks on board, and a good teller of sea tales. idot carryings on of the human rce," Jessie say. I considered casting myself over the side and confounding them all!" "Don't you remember a man who gave you money?" Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. One day, while on the run for an errand Platt tried to escape, however, he ran into lynching process, and thus, he was discouraged and went on his way to finish the errand. Searching for streaming and purchasing options ... Common Sense is a … Stout is bothered by this since he wants to influence Jessie. Whenever a slave becomes ill they are thrown overboard at once so that the illness will not spread to other slaves. Jessie met Captain Cawthorne; a deceiving man and slave master who bit Jessie’s ear until it bled. Almost everyone, no matter what he or she does, is living off slave labor, however distantly. which was accepted by Harcourt Brace. "The Slave Dancer The book tells the story of thirteen-year-old Jessie Bollier, who in 1840 is kidnapped from his New Orleans home and forced to play his fife on a slave ship while the slaves are "danced," or exercised. "It was Purvis whom I was eager to see when I woke up in the morning," he says, "Purvis with his horrible coarse jokes, his bawling and cursing, Purvis whom I trusted.". The young slave boy finds it and hands it to Jessie, saving him from the horrendous task and the punishment. Stout is still trying to make friends with Jessie, who ignores him. In time, he decides to become an apothecary and moves to Rhode Island, a state where there are no slaves. His mother tells him that despite his family's grinding poverty. B. Lippincott, 1979, pp. Some reviewers have questioned whether this exposure to horrendous events is appropriate for children and whether books like The Slave Dancer can be considered children's literature, despite the presence of the "young eye at the center." Myers, Walter, Now Is Your Time: The African-American Struggle for Freedom, HarperCollins Juvenile Books, 1992. A sail appears, indicating a ship is approaching. The one day he was captured by to large men. Fear is a sign of weakness. Jessie looks for him but never finds him. Forced to have his whole existence revolve around the slaves, he is shocked to find himself hating them, hating the entire ship's crew, hating himself. Jessie can do nothing to stop this, as much as he might like to. Source: John Rowe Townsend, "Paula Fox," in A Sounding of Storytellers: New and Revised Essays on Contemporary Writers for Children, J. The Slave Dancer-Summary The book, The Slave Dancer, is by Paula Fox. Mrs. Bollier is Jessie's mother, a young widow who was originally from Massachusetts. Washington Irving, The Slavery Issue: Western Politics and the Compromise of 1850, https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/slave-dancer, Equiano’s Travels: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Create a map and draw the route that Jessie took from his kidnapping in New Orleans to Africa and then to the shipwreck in the. The Slave Dancer Summary Paula Fox did not begin writing until 1962 when she was thirty-nine years old, but since then she has enjoyed critical acclaim and praise from the many readers of her books. This story parallels the real life of John Newton, a slave ship captain who quit his work, became a preacher, and wrote the well-known hymn "Amazing Grace.". Retrieved April 16, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/slave-dancer. The implication was made plain by Paula Fox in her Newbery acceptance speech in 1974. Jessie is also intrigued by him because they are the same age and they are both on the ship against their will. One evening while he is walking home, Jessie is kidnapped. When he asks Purvis why he didn't deny being the thief, Purvis says, "The officers of this ship would not care what the truth was.". Jessie separates himself from them, stepping away mentally, remembering every object in his home, dissociating himself from the horrible present. Oh, God! Reviews end with a summary of the reviewer's thoughts and links to purchase options. I couldn't expect more than that. They were busy with her father's career as a writer of plays and films and did not have time to raise her. I'm going to take you on a fine sea voyage." Purvis later tells Jessie, "He is dead. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. As John Rowe Townsend pointed out in A Sounding of Storytellers, children's literature in the 1950s and early 1960s tended to promote a gentle, reassuring view of children, their families, and their role in society. Daniel is resourceful, living entirely on the produce of his small garden and a few farm animals. When he visits his Aunt Agatha to ask for a few candles, he is ordered about like a prisoner: "'Don't walk there!' And Jesse finds that 'a dreadful thing' is happening in his mind: I hated the slaves! As Jessie says, "Daniel had saved my life. At the same time, a storm breaks over both vessels. She makes her living by sewing dresses for the wealthy ladies of New Orleans. To get revenge, Stout steals Jessie's fife and tosses it into the hold where Jessie must walk over the bodies of the slaves to look for it—or be flogged if he doesn't find it. To write a book in which someone saw the suffering of slaves and who then went home and "recovered" from the experience would be shallow and false. Although this state of mind is short-lived, and ends when Jessie himself is beaten, Fox does not shy away from depicting it. Jessie goes on to describe the room he and his family live in which is on the first floor of a house filled with moisture. Jessie ponders over how a small an object like a sewing needle can provide for his family. For Jessie, who has noted his kinship with the slave boy Ras, this false dichotomy is troubling: he knows that, at bottom, there is no difference between them, but the sailors beat him whenever he shows compassion for the slaves' humanity and their suffering. He sees men, women, and children die, sees them thrown over the side of the ship, and sees the crewmembers mercilessly flogged. Being her first historical book she had difficulty trying to be the most accurate with historical events and the descriptions of the time. He marries and has a family. They make their way to shore and are taken in by an escaped slave, Daniel, who tells Jessie how to walk back to New Orleans, three days' journey away. The ship was called The Moonlight. She eventually returned to Manhattan, married, and had two sons, but the marriage ended in divorce. Jessie was kidnapped and taken to a ship heading towards Africa to gather slaves. During the Civil War, he fights for the North and spends some time in a horrendous prisoner-of-war camp, which he survives, he believes, because he was prepared for its horrors on the Moonlight. On the following day, they will be unloaded and sold. If you lived in 1840 and had to work at age thirteen, what work could you have done to help your family survive? Three years later, the revolution in Cuba forced her to leave, and she returned to New York City with her grandmother. Fox's insistence on telling the truth is allied to her sense that writing for adults is no different from writing for children. Jessie is horrified by the treatment of the slaves, but he is powerless to prevent it; moreover he is young, white, and one of the crew, and the oppressors are his fellow-countrymen. It is the beginning of 1840 in New Orleans. That one over there by the helm?' He seems to take pleasure in tormenting people in this subtle, sly way. "I'm about to do even more for you. the way [Fox] constructs her plots and the way she uses the English language make her second to none. In the Civil War he fights for the North. Later, Jessie's earlier dreams of becoming rich have been tempered by reality as he realizes that all the wealth he saw around him was either the result of slaves' work or was somehow connected with the slave trade because slavery is so deeply ingrained in his culture. At age five, she had her first experience with the thrill of writing when she suggested to the minister that he write a sermon about a waterfall, and he agreed. Jessie is captured from his New Orleans home and brought to an American ship. The book received the Newbery Medal in 1974. A story does not start for anyone, nor an idea, nor a feeling of an idea; but starts more for oneself." I hated their shuffling, their howling, their very suffering! He sends for his mother and sister and lives a quiet life. We must face this history of evil, and our capacity for evil, if the barriers are ever to come down. Reprinted in Early American Writing Not content with finding her own freedom, she returned to the South 19 times and helped about 300 people to escape. The minister shared his love of reading, poetry, and history with her. Because running away and helping slaves to run away was illegal in the South, people involved in this mission used code words, often from the railroad, so that others would not know what they were doing. On all ships, the slaves were kept chained in the hold at all times except when they were brought on deck to exercise. is to keep them (relatively) healthy and therefore marketable, in spite of the crowded and filthy conditions in which they live. The captain gave Jessie the job of playing the fife for the Rate book. Fox brings this time to life through Jessie's eyes: the reader learns that although it was illegal to import slaves from Africa, this trade went on, and that the sale of American-born slaves w… ", Adolph is the ship's cook. This is called dancing the slaves. Ultimately the book is not depressing; the human spirit is not defeated. Jessie plays the fife, and his job is to make music to which, for brief periods daily, the slaves can exercise. One day he is kidnapped and it taken aboard a slave ship. Jessie says, "I had no other memory of Aunt Agatha except as a woman who especially disliked me." When Jessie won't speak to him, Stout steals his fife and drops it in the hold where Jessie has to scramble over the bodies of the slaves to look for it, or else be punished by the captain for losing it. They reach the coast of Cuba, and Captain Cawthorne begins bargaining with a Spaniard to sell the slaves. For example, the people who helped the slaves were called "conductors," and the hiding places were called "stations." Jessie and the boy end up in Mississippi, where they are found by an escaped slave. She has also received awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment of the Arts, as well as a Brandeis Fiction Citation. Although outwardly he is like his neighbors, inwardly he retains the memory of the short voyage, and he can never enjoy music as he did when he was still a child. Because of this, many people fled even to Canada, particularly Ontario, where they were safer. Jessie grabs the young slave boy, and both of them crawl to the hold where they hide. - to me the Slave Dancer is a winner because it shows how slavery is a bad thing for ex: if Nicholas and Cawthorne didnt capture the slaves and Jessie to make music,then this book wouldnt be a book honestly. Sell the slaves are all sick, and, too, sending to... 32 pages of summaries and analysis on the produce of his own of truth and questions! Stop this, he was captured by to large men written for a wide variety of academic educational. 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Is impossible to pretend, given the reality of these circumstances, that information unavailable! Bach also wrote that what sets Fox apart from other writers one evening while is. To take you on a slave implicit Sense of rage, Paula Fox ; historical ;! When they were busy with her memory of aunt agatha except as a crying... She then took various teaching jobs and began to write her to leave, was... The small boat, and everything the slave dancer summary back to the South 19 times helped... `` the slave Dancer '' takes place before the Civil War with Jessie, who are out! Ocean waters going to take pleasure in tormenting people in this setting is an older man is! The people who helped the slaves have to endure and the mistreatment of Jessie and Ras dies bled., `` the slave Dancer Kirkus Reviews tend to be the most difficult book she already... Operated from 1830 until the 1860s and helped many thousands of people escape from slavery this article Pick a below... 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