Her words predict a bloody reality for the future: in an almost biblical take, Cora thinks violence will beget more violence. She concludes that it is fear at the root of their violence. Cora (Chapter 6)Ĭora reflects on the system devised by North Carolina to deal with their fear of slave rebellion. One day the system would collapse in blood. That was Sea Island cotton the slaver had ordered for his rows, but scattered among the seeds were those of violence and death, and that crop grew fast. They erected a new scaffolding of oppression on the cruel foundation laid hundreds of years before. Thus this perspective casts a damning eye on the nation, suggesting its promise is inherently corrupt. The very basis of this machine is evil: based on theft and literally sustained by the blood of slaves. Cora (Chapter 4)Ĭora's description of America imagines the nation as a machine, an engine perhaps like that of the Underground Railroad. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.
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