The Time I Took a Risk and Its Effect on Me

The time I took a risk was the time when I almosted died. You may be thinking that happened to you well to tell you that I will have to take you back way back to the year of 1843 the year I was born. I was born up in the northern states where all man black or white to live and work together as one. Well boy was my family wrong up north was just as bad so down south. That’s what Ma said all the time because that’s what my grandma used to say. She died before I was born she was a runaway slave she got lucky to get out of the south. When I turned 14 I had to try and get a job so I could help Ma with some of the bills we had to pay.

My Pa he died a couple years ago it was hard on Ma so I thought I would help her out you know try and make a few bucks a month. Well I got a job at a factory making cotton pickers. I was working there for a month my job help Ma a lot I was making 3 bucks a week at this point a lot more than I thought I would get. There was only 2 or 3 of us black boy working here but it was all good. One day after work I started walking home and I heard someone yelling behind a building. When I went back there to see what going on someone put a bag over my head and through me in the back of a wagon. I started to scream and haller but all that got me was a boot to my side. I was in the back on that wagon what felt like forever. The last thing I can remember about that wagon ride was when we stopped. The people that took me brought me to some old looking barn. When I they took the bag off my head I started to look around and all I could see was a bunch of rich looking white men. When I clicked I was being sold to become a slave. I started to scream for help but that didn’t work all I got was a bunch of white men looking at me. I was standing there for about 10 minutes until this one man walked over to me and examined my body after a few minutes that man gave this tall man the money and walked to me. He gave me this weird look and then he grabbed me and put me in a wagon. I knew exactly what just happened to me and where I was going. When we got to where we were going I got out of the wagon and the man told me to go to the barn. When I got over to the barn and I heard a voice say “Hey it looks like we got a new one. ” I was tired so I just went to a stop on the ground that looked ok to sleep on.

The nest day I got woke up buy a little kid. The kid said time for work. When the kid woke me up I thought it was just a bad dream but when I got up off the ground I looked around and saw that I was in a barn. I started to freak out but the kid just said to go out in the field and start picking so that’s what I did day after day after day it started to feel normal I had been there for about 2 years now. One day the man how bout us came into the barn and say get ready to go to war. Me and the other slaves didn’t know what was going on so we walked outside and them some man in a uniform started loading us in to wagons. When we were all in the wagons they alerted moving. We were in those wagons for about 6 hours. When they stopped about 17 men with gums walked to each wagon and started unloading us. After we were all unloaded they walked us to a campsite. When we got to the site people started giving us uniforms and guns. I could tell that some of us haven’t ever held a gun. After most of us got our uniforms on this man came over and started telling us that we were about to go to war. A lot of us got scared at that point and put our gums down. Just them the man shot someone in the chest. The man he shot fell over in pane. In a few minutes the man died. Then we all picked up our guns and stood there quickly. The man started to talk again put when he started to talk this group of men started running over the hills around us. Everyone of the men had a gun in hand. All I could do was drop to the ground and hide under a table. When I got over to the table I started hearing gunshots I saw me some of my friends jump to the ground and I also saw some of they fall over died. After the gunshots stopped I saw the men run over to the camp and started to try and see if everyone was died. When they were doing that I stood up and started to run as fast as I could into the woods not knowing if I was going to get shot or not. When I stopped running I was a good ways from the camp. Just that second when I thought I was save this man jumped on me. The person that was on me was someone I worked with in the factory before I got took. He started hitting me so I said his name and he stopped hitting. He looked at me and started saying he was sorry. When we got up and started walking to a different camp. He told me all about some war that way going on called the civil war. When we got to the camp I got on a wagon and started heading home.

The risk I took was running into the woods from the men at the camp I learned to not go behind a building in the middle of the night.