Section 4 Analysis of Historical Sources 40 points This section will test whether you have evaluated the main ideas from course readings You will answer the following questions over the book In Search of the Promised Land How did the various members of the Thomas Rapier family seek to attain freedom In what ways did they succeed and in what ways did they fail in their quest The members of the Thomas Rapier family sought to attain freedom through hard work and relentless determination Sally s three sons each achieved financial freedom first through barbering then through a few other lines of work They succeeded in that all of the members of the family reached their goal and lived without much restraint Sally and each of her sons were able to make personal choices that most African Americans were not able to at the time They failed in that Sally was never free and the sons faced trials along the way The Thomas Rapier family failed in that they all had to constantly fear the possibility of being captured and forced into slavery and none of them could live without fear Sally sought freedom by buying her sons out of slavery and then herself Sally was selfless and relentless and she worked extremely hard to free her sons from slavery and give them a chance to live a life they wanted At one point Sally and her two sons at the time were transported from the tobacco plantation in Virginia to the big city of Nashville Tennessee This move provided many opportunities for her especially by giving her the opportunity to work and save some of her earnings Sally first was hiring out as a cleaning lady with the permission of her master Sally became a clever business women and was able to create a thriving business of cleaning clothes Sally then arranged work for her oldest son James to work on a river barge She found work for her youngest son Henry to run errands for various white men in the city Sally put part of each of their earnings in a hidden tea canister in hopes that she would someday be able to buy free papers for her children These papers were very expensive but she was able to save 300 within about ten years of moving to Nashville One of her failures in her quest to achieve freedom for her children although not her own doing was having a third child She was raped by a third white man and gave birth to another son James Now that she had three children her chances of being able to buy freedom for all of them were very slim However all three of her children achieved freedom by 1851 Sally was able to live in a house and operate her business independently for so long that people did not even realize she was a slave Although she was never technically free her way of life and the freedom of her children provided her a sense of freedom The oldest son John Rapier achieved freedom through Richard Rapier s will where the man left one thousand dollars to John for his emancipation He settled in Florence Alabama where he became a successful barber acquired real estate in Alabama and purchased a house in the downtown district of Florence By 1860 he was one of the wealthiest free blacks in Alabama He also raised two different families one by a free black wife and after her death another by a slave wife Although he lived a good life John felt insecure wherever he lived At any time a white man could have captured him and taken away everything he had in an instant This constant fear was a big trial throughout John s life After the final settlement of the Thomas Estate Sally and the remaining two sons became property of a new man and Sally was afraid her sons would be sold elsewhere possibly trapping them in slavery permanently Henry escaped successfully but was captured near Louisville Henry escaped a second time and this time he was able to remove his leg chains and take a boat to drift into the current of the river that took him to Buffalo New York Henry opened a successful barber shop in Buffalo He barbered in Buffalo New York and farmed in Canada before settling in Mississippi Shortly after Henry escaped Sally went to a prominent lawyer in Tennessee and asked for his help to free her son from the new slaveholder s grasp The lawyer asked the new slaveholder how much he wanted and when Sally came up 50 short the lawyer agreed to hold James in trust until she paid him back shortly This plan was successful however six year old James would have to leave Tennessee on his own Even though James had free papers he was still a slave legally Henry Thomas became a prosperous barber and got married He and his wife still feared slave catchers so they decided to move from Niagara to Buxton Canada in the west Henry was able to purchase a hundred acres build a house on it and farm the land He sought his independence through self sufficiency in his farm This was one of the few occupations available to blacks at that time that could be profitable and allow them to achieve financial independence James further sought freedom through education He enrolled in a black school and developed a desire to learn and quickly mastered the basics of math reading and writing With this education John had opportunities he would not have had otherwise and his knowledge was the main key to achieving financial freedom Once he achieved a basic education James became an apprentice barber He learned quickly and became a respectable barber in no time After a five year apprenticeship James opened his own barber shop in the same house his mother Sally established her business As a barber James was able to hear some of the conversations of his often famous customers However he failed experienced a small failure when he argued with some of the customers on certain issues and it caused set backs for him Regardless of those issues he faced James operated one of the most successful barbershops in the city He even owned a large amount of personal property traveled around the city without a pass and did nearly everything a freedman could do even though he was technically a slave Finally James was able to secure his freedom once and for all Not only was James granted emancipation he became one of if not the first black man to gain both freedom and residency under the law This was a major victory for himself and freedmen across the country