Chariot on the Mountain by Jack Ford

Chariot on the Mountain by Jack Ford – 320 pages

Finished Copy provided by Kensington for an honest review

Book Blurb:

Two decades before the Civil War, a middle-class farmer named Samuel Maddox lies on his deathbed. Elsewhere in his Virginia home, a young woman named Kitty knows her life is about to change. She is one of the Maddox family’s slaves–and Samuel’s biological daughter. When Samuel’s wife, Mary, inherits her husband’s property, she will own Kitty too, along with Kitty’s three small children. Already in her fifties and with no children of her own, Mary Maddox has struggled to accept her husband’s daughter, a strong-willed, confident, educated woman who works in the house and has been treated more like family than slave. After Samuel’s death, Mary decides to grant Kitty and her children their freedom, and travels with them to Pennsylvania, where she will file papers declaring Kitty’s emancipation. Helped on their perilous flight by Quaker families along the Underground Railroad, they finally reach the free state. But Kitty is not yet safe.Dragged back to Virginia by a gang of slave-catchers led by Samuel’s own nephew, who is determined to sell her and her children, Kitty takes a defiant step: charging the younger Maddox with kidnapping and assault.

My Review: 4 stars

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Chariot on the Mountain was an amazing fictional story with a foundation steeped in history. I can’t thank author, journalist, Emmy winner, professor, television producer and news anchor Jack Ford for bringing this story to mainstream fiction. Everyone should know about Kitty Payne and her unbelievable plight for freedom.

Kitty, our protaganist and house slave, is the by-product of the plantation owner and Kitty’s mother. When the slave owner dies, Kitty begins her harrowing and remarkable journey of escape as she fears being sold or  seperated from her chilren. While on the run, each turn, every cry from a child, deciding who to trust or not to trust, each hiding spot she believes is safe is a risk and just a whisper away from possible capture and demise. As you’ll see when you read this book, she has an unusal traveling companion, one that surprised and pleased me equally.

The history making lawsuit, which was the crux of the novel, was something I’d never heard of, nor assumed, was possible during this time period. This book offered a fascinating learning opportunity. I was once again awed by those that helped along the underground railroad; they were the heroes of the time with many Quakers among them. This book left me with so many thoughts regarding the inequities, greed, and blatant racism in the early nineteenth century that are echoed in the twenty-first century.

Great read! I highly recommend.

Quotes I liked:

I remember once puzzling over how Thomas Jefferson- whom I’ve always revered- could author such soaring rhetoric as ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ and nevertheless still be a slave holder.”