Copper Sun

by Sharon M. Draper

  Amari glanced toward the west and watched the sun set. It glowed a bright metallic copper—the same sun that set each evening upon her homeland. She knew that she had found a home once more.

  AFTERWORD

  ALTHOUGH THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION, THE FACTS OF the story are true. Fort Mose (pronounced Mo-ZAY) was a real place. As early as 1670, enslaved Africans began to escape and make their way south, rather than north, down the Atlantic coast to the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, Florida, where they were offered liberty and religious sanctuary. These runaways eventually established Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first free black town within the present-day borders of the United States.

  Located two miles north of St. Augustine, Fort Mose was a frontier community of homesteaders from diverse cultures—including Caribbean, West African, Native American, and European—creating a complex family network. Their skilled labor, technological ability, art, music, ideas, and traditions served as valuable resources to the area.

  In 1738, when this story takes place, the United States did not yet exist. There were a series of loosely connected colonies, most of which were ruled by England. The area known as Florida, however, was controlled by Spain, which made for some lively clashes and political posturing between the two countries. For example, the Spanish promised freedom to any escaped slave who became Catholic and promised to fight with the Spanish against the English.

  A West African Mandingo by birth, Francisco Menendez, formerly enslaved in Carolina, arrived in St. Augustine around 1724. He became captain of the black militia of St. Augustine and fought to ensure the promises of the king of Spain. The black militia was well known in the area for their bravery. Captain Menendez was well respected by people in both Fort Mose and in St. Augustine and had a reputation as a fierce fighter.

  In 1740, although the black militia fought bravely against General James Oglethorpe of Georgia, who sought to return escaped slaves back to the colonies, Fort Mose was badly damaged. Most of the citizens of Fort Mose, however, had already been safely moved to the protection of St. Augustine. The fort was rebuilt a few years later, larger and stronger, but it was finally abandoned in 1763 when Florida became an English colony.

  Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994, Fort Mose is now an important designation on the Florida Black Heritage Trail. Although the actual site is now underwater off the coast of Florida, it remains a tangible reminder of the people who risked and often lost their lives in their struggle to attain freedom.

  Note to teachers and students about resources: I did years of research to write this book, using hundreds of sources. It is impossible to include in the story all the information that I learned. If you’d like to learn more about this period in history, the list below contains not all, but some of the best sources that I found. Please do not let this list limit your research. There are many more books and Web sites on the subject of slavery and freedom. I offer this list as a service, just to get you started.

  WEB SITES

  Daily life of slaves: http://www.sciway.net/hist/chicora/slavery18-3.html

  Housing: http://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/houses.html

  Hunger and hardships: http://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/food.html

  The work day: http://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/work.html

  Slavery time line: http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

  The Middle Passage—the journey of slaves from Africa to the New World:

  http://www.juneteenth.com/mp2.htm

  Runaway slave ads:

  http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/costa-browse?id=r38040013

  http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/costa-browse?id=r38040015

  Maps of the slave trade:

  http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w111/slaves.htm

  http://www.africanculturalcenter.org/4_5slavery.html

  http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/curriculum/lm15/stu_actone.html

  The African/Atlantic slave trade:

  http://www.sciway.net/hist/chicora/slavery18-2.html

  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr4.html

  http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/curriculum/lm7/B/stu_7Bactivityone.html

  Slavery:

  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1731.html

  http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/resources/index.html

  http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery

  http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/

  http://www.sciway.net/hist/chicora/slavery18-2.html

  The Middle Passage:

  http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/curriculum/lm7/B/stu_7Bactivityone.html

  http://www.juneteenth.com/middlep.htm

  Fort Mose:

  http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0213580/fortmosel.html

  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h14.html

  http://www.oldcity.com/sites/mose/

  http://www.archaeology.org/9609/abstracts/ftmose.html

  http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0213580/fortmose2.html

  http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0213580/fortmose4.html

  http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/services/magazine/01winter/mose.cfm

  Indentured servants:

  http://odur.let.rug.n1/~usa/D/1601-1650/mittelberger/servan.htm

  http://www.stratfordhall.org/ed-servants.html?EDUCATION

  Underground Railroad map:

  www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/detailedroutes.htm

  National Underground Freedom Center—Cincinnati, OH:

  www.freedomcenter.org

  Underground Railroad resource study:

  www.historychannel.com/blackhistory/?page=exhibits2

  www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/

  www.undergroundrr.com

  Slave narratives:

  http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavenarratives/

  http://core.ecu.edu/hist/cecelskid/narrative.htm

  http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html

  http://metalab.une.edu/docsouth/neh/neh.html

  http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html

  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html

  BOOKS

  Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

  Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002.

  Carney, Judith A. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

  Clarke, Duncan. Slaves and Slavery. London: Grange Books, 1998.

  Currie, Stephen. Life of a Slave on a Southern Plantation. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2000.

  Deagan, Kathleen and Darcie MacMahon. Fort Mose: Colonial America’s Black Fortress of Freedom. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida/Florida Museum of Natural History, 1995.

  Dean, Ruth, and Melissa Thomson. Life in the American Colonies. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1999.

  Everett, Susanne. History of Slavery. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1997.

  Franklin, John Hope and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

  Hagedorn, Ann. Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

  Harms, Robert. The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

  Haskins, Jim. Get on Board: The Story of the Underground Railroad. New York: Scholastic, 1993.

  Hawke, David Freeman. Everyday Life in Early America. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

  Howell, Donna, ed. I Was a Slave. Book 5: The Lives of Slave Children. Washington, D.C.: American Legacy Books, 1998.

  Johnson, Charles and Patricia Smith. Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998. (Also available on video)

  Kelley, Robin D. G. and Ear
l Lewis. To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

  Kleinman, Joseph and Eileen Kurtis-Kleinman. Life on an African Slave Ship. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2001.

  Landers, Jane. Fort Mose. Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida. St. Augustine, FL: St. Augustine Historical Society, 1992.

  Lester, Julius. To Be a Slave. New York: Scholastic, 1968.

  Rappaport, Doreen. Escape from Slavery: Five Journeys to Freedom. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

  Thomas, Velma Maia. Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation. New York: Crown Publishers, 1997.

  A Reading Group Guide to Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper

  Questions and Topics for Discussion

  1. Copper Sun is a work of historical fiction. Discuss how the merging of history and fiction in a novel affects the reader’s response to the story, as well as the reader’s response to an uncomfortable period in history.

  2. How would you describe the social structure, family structure, and cultural structure of the community in the African village of Ziavi? How did the custom of graciousness to guests become a death sentence for the town? Explain why the African Ashanti helped the European killers.

  3. A reviewer commented that some of the events and characters in Copper Sun seemed exaggerated or stereotypical. However, in her research the author found facts and events exceedingly more horrible and tragic than those depicted in the novel. Discuss the Middle Passage, as well as life on a slave plantation as described in the novel, and what you know about it from history texts and movies. What is it about humans that makes one person mistreat another? What is about humans that makes us survive in spite of it?

  4. Discuss Amari’s growth as a character, from her innocence in her village to her maturity at Fort Mose. Which characters were most instrumental in her growth and development? Describe her relationship with Afi, Teenie, and Polly, and their short-term and long-term influences on Amari’s life.

  5. White women during the period of the novel had few social and political options. They had very little power other than that given by their fathers or husbands. How is Mrs. Derby almost like a slave herself? Discuss the relationship between Mrs. Derby and Noah, and Mr. Derby’s social and legal justifications of what he did to Noah and the baby.

  6. Why didn’t more slaves rise up and protest or fight back? What social, political, and cultural structures were in place to prevent it? The slaves who lived on Derbyshire Farm obviously outnumbered their owners, so why did they continue in subjugation without much overt complaint? Discuss the characters of Teenie, Cato, Lena, and Noah, as well as Besa later in the story.

  7. A reader recently said, “I don’t care about slavery. That happened a long time ago, and I don’t want to think about it in my life today. It is no longer important.” What do you think about that statement? What do you think were the short-term and long-term effects of slavery on both slaves and slave owners? Explain how slavery was an integral force in the shaping of American history. When the book is read by members of different racial groups, how do you think the response to the novel will differ?

  8. Several recent adult novels have used teenage protagonists to chronicle the events in the story. What is the effect of having a young female character go through the struggles and abuses of the narrative? How would Copper Sun be different if it had an adult protagonist, or a male protagonist, as in Roots, for example?

  9. Discuss the economic ramifications of slavery. Importing slaves by ship was, at the time, a surefire way to get rich quickly. After slave importation became illegal in the 1820s, the buying and selling of slaves as property continued to be a prosperous venture until the end of the Civil War. Discuss Mr. Derby and his son and their attitudes about the economics of their life. What modern-day comparisons can be made?

  10. In spite of the horrors of her life, Amari finds joy and even laughter in the characters of Kwasi, Tidbit, Teenie, and Hushpuppy. Discuss the importance of comic relief in a harsh narrative and in the difficulties of our lives in general.

  A Conversation with Sharon M. Draper about Copper Sun

  1. What prompted you to write Copper Sun, and what did you do for research?

  I went to Africa—to Ghana, Ethiopia, Togo, Kenya—several years ago and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the land and people, as well as the history of the place that hovered just out of reach. When I visited the slave castles, where thousands of Africans were housed like cattle before being shipped as cargo and sold as slaves, I felt their spirits crying out to me. Castles mean luxury; these were not luxurious. They were just dungeons, black holes. There was only the merest light, from above, and no sanitation; food was just thrown in. People were treated like animals. They sometimes stayed there for a couple of months before they were shipped out.

  When they were taken from the “castle,” it was through a door called the Door of No Return. It’s low to the ground so you can’t stand up like a human being; you have to crawl on your hands and knees to get through. When you emerge on the other side of the door, you’re on this bright white beach, and if you’re from the interior of the continent, you’ve never seen a beach before, and you’re terrified. And beyond the beach is this huge blue water, and you’ve never seen an ocean before, and floating out on that water is the biggest house you’ve ever seen, and you’re terrified. You don’t know what these people are going to do or why they’re doing it. They take you out on the beach and they brand you with a hot poker, and then you’re put on this big ship, and you’re terrified. When I went through that door, the stone walls were rubbed smooth by the number of bodies that had gone before me. I really, really, really felt the presence of the spirits of those people who had gone through that door.

  When I crawled on my hands and knees through the Door of No Return, which led from the darkness of the prison to the incomprehensible vastness of a beach, I knew I had to tell the story of just one of those who had passed that way. And that was when I knew I had to tell the story of what it was like for one girl. Amari represents all of them.

  I spent almost ten years doing research on this novel and editing it for accuracy of fact as well as sincerity of spirit. I read dozens of books, listened to transcripts of slave narratives, spent years on the Internet, and talked to friends in Ghana who made sure I was telling the story correctly.

  As an interesting side note, when I was researching a place for the girls to escape to, I came across an obscure reference to a place that existed in Florida for a very short time. Fort Mose, a little-known but very important part of the history of slavery in this country, offered freedom and a chance to live one’s dreams if only one could reach it. A museum and several artifacts from Fort Mose can be found near St. Augustine, Florida. On my website (www.sharondraper.com) I have provided a resource page where dozens of websites and books that can give you more information are listed.

  2. Why did you include a character who was an indentured servant?

  Most young readers probably know quite a bit about slavery, but not much about the process of indentured servitude. An indentured servant worked for a specified period of time, after which freedom could be purchased. It was a good way for a hard worker to find a place in the new world. Europeans and even some Native Americans were indentured at first. Many Africans who were first brought to this country in the 1600s were originally brought in as indentured servants. It soon became easier to enslave them, however, and their rights of indenture were lost. An indentured girl like Polly had a good chance of assimilating into the society at some point, although as a runaway, she would have been severely punished. An excellent source for exploring how indenture merged into slavery can be found in the PBS book and film Africans in America.

  3. What racial, cultural, and social statements do you make through the friendship of Amari and Polly? Were Amari and Polly based on real people, or were they composites of people you found in your researc
h?

  Even though the two girls initially mistrusted and disliked each other, they show that a friendship is something that grows and develops through shared triumphs and difficulties. The two girls grow into their friendship gradually, which is more realistic than making them instantly like each other. I think they show that race and culture have very little to do with the human spirit and that which makes us cling to one another as friends.

  Amari and Polly are composites, of course, but I believe that Amari and Polly, or people very much like them, lived at one time. I really believe that I was chosen to tell this story. With Polly, I wanted to bring out a little bit about the plight of an indentured servant. When we think about whites in America, we think about slave owners who had property and who had money. The indentured servants had nothing—they had no money—which is why Polly didn’t like the slaves. They worked for free, and how can you compete with somebody who works for free? The other reason Polly is in the book is that Amari is learning English, but she doesn’t understand enough to know what’s going on. The point of view switches to Polly’s when Amari gets to this country, so that everything that’s going on can be explained to the reader by somebody who speaks English.

  4. As Polly is listening to Mr. Derby discuss buying and selling slaves at the dinner table, we catch a glimpse of the banality of evil, while so much of your story offers a vision of an active evil. Would you talk about your decision to include the different types?

  When I’m writing a story, I don’t pre-plan that a certain section is going to deal with the philosophical ethics of slavery; it just evolves and emerges. And a story has to be balanced so that there is action, like when Amari is beaten, as well as things to discuss and to think about later. I don’t want to include all action, or, conversely, all philosophical thought. If the whole book had been like that dinnertime conversation, nobody would read it—it would be way too esoteric and meaningless. It is necessary to balance thought with action. I don’t think I consciously did that, because the writing process becomes a function over which the author has very little control. All the pieces somehow meld into the whole. It’s as if I were painting a picture. I choose the colors and the texture, and the end result is often something glorious that I hadn’t really planned when I first picked up the brush.