Spark’s new way of telling history on its site has produced three exciting tales in the Maryland-Virginia area of the fight for freedom from slavery in the United States.
A comic book-style telling of inspiring freedom fighters based on true stories makes for easy and interesting reading for both young and old. The stories hew closely to the known facts, but include conjecture to fill in the unknown, as well as fictional dialogue.
These tales are a great way to engage young readers from fourth grade and up and an easy way for older readers to learn history they never knew.
Mark Caesar and William Wheeler – A Daring Quest for Freedom is the easiest and shortest read (16 pages) and can be read by those with a fourth grade reading level and above. Harry Washington – Freedom Ran Through His Veins is 24 pages and is set at a sixth grade reading level and above. William Parker is the longest at 36 pages and is set at a sixth grade reading level and above.
All the tales encourage readers to look up words they don’t know, including some used when the stories took place. They also include references in the back to encourage further exploration of these stories.
On the occasion of the nation’s 250th birthday and its celebration of freedom, it is important to remember that independence did not include freedom for Black people, women, Native Americans or White males without property.
These tales are available for individual PDF downloads of each separate story and as an 80-page PDF book of all three stories on the Spark site. Or you can purchase the 80-page bound book for $9.99 on Amazon. It makes a great gift for young relatives and neighbors to encourage reading and an exploration of history from a non-traditional point of view.
Harry Washington (24 pages) – Freedom Ran Through his Veins
Harry Washington is kidnapped from a village near the Gambia River in west Africa, enslaved by George Washington in Virginia, escapes in 1775 and fights with the British against the colonials to gain his freedom, protests British colonial rule in Canada, helps establish a provisional government in Sierra Leone before finding freedom as an exile.
Caesar and Wheeler (16 pages) – A Daring Quest for Freedom
Mark Caesar is a free Black man and Bill Wheeler is enslaved in Charles County, Maryland. The two men lead dozens of enslaved people on an epic march for freedom in 1845 that climaxes in a battle near Gaithersburg, MD against an armed militia of slave catchers. The story includes a death sentence for Wheeler and his escape from jail and a hung jury for Caesar before he is re-tried and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He dies of tuberculosis in prison five years after his incarceration.
William Parker – (32 pages) Bold as a Lion
William Parker escapes slavery in Maryland in 1838, finding freedom in Lancaster County, PA where he organizes a Black militia that fights bounty hunters and enslavers in Pennsylvania. The militia engages in an 1851 battle in Christiana, PA that leaves a Maryland slaver dead and his son and nephew wounded. Forty-one people were arrested by U.S. Marines and charged with insurrection by the federal government and murder by the state. All were eventually exonerated, leading to bitter feelings by southern slave owners who began agitating to secede from the union. It was one of the incidents that led to the Civil war in 1861. William Parker’s story is based on his 1866 autobiography and quotes extensively from that work.
Tales of Freedom – (80 pages) Based on True Stories (all three stories together)
All three stories in one 80-page PDF or you can order the bound book from Amazon for $9.99
All three tales were written by Craig G. Simpson who was a bus operator for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority who went on to became a labor leader in the greater Washington, D.C. area. He has a B.A. degree in labor studies from the National Labor College and is currently retired and living in North Carolina where he administrates the Washington Area Spark website and Flickr pages.
