The slave trade and the ensuing centuries of plantation slavery across the Atlantic world were marked by dehumanization, avarice and barbarity. During slavery, such creative employments of the imagination turned the intended financial returns in slavery speculation on their head with African diasporans taking back control over their bodies through covert and overt forms of resistance and flight.
Harriet Tubman’s continued embrace of liberatory visions for the future reminds us of the necessity of intentional organizing, insisting on re-narrativizing master accounts to get at the truth, and proceeding speculatively to truly live: Let [us] not forget/be free or die.