The Invention of Wings

Little missus, or Mary, arrives back in Charleston after the death of her husband to take over the running of the house. Taking after her mother, she is just as mean as she was as a young girl. She runs the house with a familiar and similar lack of charity. For example, she acts thoughtlessly when the kitchen slave Phoebe runs out to greet her return, looking for her sister, Lucy. Lucy died a long time ago, but Mary merely mentions it in passing and goes on giving orders, oblivious to Phoebe’s emotional devastation. Mauma dies, outside by the spirit tree with the story quilt wrapped around her.

Sarah and Nina escalate their defiance against slavery. Acting upon encouragement found in William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator, they occupy the “negro” pew at the Quaker meetinghouse. They are risking their lives by taking overt actions as abolitionists, because pro-slavery mobs have been attacking, even killing, abolitionists all over the North. Some abolitionists have bounties on their heads.

At the Quaker meeting, Sarah and Nina sit in the pew with Sarah Mapps Douglass and her mother, Grace. They are asked to move, and they refuse. Several weeks later, they are confronted by the elders of their church. A letter Nina wrote has been published in The Liberator. In her letter she says that the abolition of slavery is a cause worth dying for. They are told that they must recant Nina’s letter or be expelled from their church and lose their lodgings as well. They do not recant. They discover that not a single boarding house will rent to them, now that they are infamous abolitionists.

They find a home with Sarah Mapps Douglass and her mother, but they must conceal their comings and goings so the neighbors do not find out they are living there. Stuck indoors, bored, Sarah and Nina come up with the idea to write pamphlets, as Southern women, addressing other Southern women and clergymen, speaking out for the anti-slavery cause. Sarah writes her pamphlet, A Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, while constantly thinking of Charlotte. Nina writes hers—An Appeal to Christian Women of the South. As they finish their pamphlets, in March 1836, they are invited by the American Anti-Slavery Society to be trained for public speaking roles as abolitionists. They will speak all across the United States. They accept.

Back in Charleston, Handful and Sky are unbearably punished by Mary, little missus. Sky gets the iron muzzle latched onto her mouth for singing a song about “mean Mary.” Handful gets whipped for returning home late and without the whiskey she was sent to purchase. These transgressions result from Handful getting distracted by a mob burning pamphlets. She pulls one out of the fire, and it is Sarah’s pamphlet. She is forced to turn over the whiskey to a drunk white man who tries to take the pamphlet from her. She receives 10 lashes. Handful dreams of escape.

The mayor arrives to tell Missus that Sarah and Angelina will be arrested and deported if they try to come to Charleston. Sarah and Nina give anti-slavery speeches to large crowds of women in New York City, New Jersey, and towns along the Hudson River.

Sarah and Nina become more famous, during the summer of 1837, as they travel all across New England. Their speeches begin to attract men as well as women. They are the first women to speak to audiences containing men. As a result, they also become vanguards of the women’s rights movement, not just abolition. They are doubly reviled for this further transgression of their proper roles.

As their speeches draw the ire of those who believe women should not speak in public, their fame begins to overshadow their anti-slavery message. In addition, their inclusion of the rights of women in their anti-slavery speeches threatens to split the abolition movement. They are also coming under attack at their speaking venues, with protesters throwing rocks at them and yelling threats. Angelina is nicknamed “Devilina.”

The Anti-Slavery Society men arrive, including Theodore Weld—their speech advisor—to ask them to confine their audiences to only women and to stop speaking about women’s rights. Insulted and angry, they refuse. Sarah tells them that women cannot help the slaves if they themselves are under the control of men, so she will continue to speak out for both women’s and slaves’ rights. Sarah begins writing her next pamphlet on women’s rights that evening.

When Mary comes into Handful’s room unexpectedly, she sees Mauma’s quilt. As a pictorial representation of the cruelties of her life, the quilt shames Mary. Handful knows that she has to hide the quilt before Mary can send someone to take it. This is the last straw for Handful. She knows that she and Sky must escape or die trying. Handful steals writing paper and writes to Sarah, telling her that she’s going to run away, heading for Sarah’s address in her letter—Sarah Mapps and Grace’s house in Philadelphia.

Nina and Theodore Weld have fallen in love, and they get married. Missus sends a letter, full of love and longing to see them. Sarah is haunted by her mother’s feelings. Sarah is to live with Nina and Theodore after their marriage, and Nina and Sarah plan to continue their work together on behalf of women and abolition. The wedding is a joyous gathering of all their friends and colleagues in the abolition movement. Handful’s letter is delivered to Sarah at the wedding.

Sarah rushes to Charleston to beg her mother to let her buy Handful and Sky’s freedom, risking her life. Meanwhile, Handful steals and alters mourning clothes as part of her escape plan. Sky brews up a deadly oleander potion; they will truly escape or die trying. Missus refuses to let Sarah buy Handful and Sky’s freedom; she will only promise to free them in her will. Handful asserts that in that case they are leaving on the next steamboat, and Sarah helps them escape.

Sarah packs Handful’s quilts—the story quilt and the blackbird wings quilt—in her own trunk. Handful and Sky put on the black mourning clothes, with heavy veils, which Handful has made for them to hide their identities. They further disguise themselves by putting on a white flour paste to hide their skin color. Though she is risking 20 years in prison for writing seditious, anti-slavery material and another 20 years for helping a slave escape, Sarah doesn’t hesitate to help Handful and Sky. Disguised as widows, Handful and Sky get on the boat with Sarah. The boat pulls out into the bay toward freedom, and Handful imagines that the flapping of their veils are blackbird wings.