Michael was dead from a beating from the overseer, Connelly, so Terrance makes the slaves dance to amuse them. The brothers ask for a slave called Michael, who supposedly could recite the Declaration of Independence from memory. Terrance, on the other hand, preys upon his female slaves. James is a rare visitor to the slaves, mostly leaving them alone. The Randall brothers suddenly appear among the slaves’ celebration, holding wine cups in their hands. Everyone except Cora joins in to the “lively madness” (29). Together, they watch the wrestling matches, and then, finally, the dancing starts an opportunity for the slaves to make “a circle of themselves that separated the human spirits within from the degradation without” (28). I want you to come… For good luck.” Cora laughs him off and goes to find Lovey. He takes her arm and says, “I’m going back north. After the races, Caesar, a new slave Cora has never spoken to before, approaches her. Young and old slaves drift over to watch, and Lovey stands at the finish line to judge. Cora watches as the children arrange themselves for the races, including Chester, a stray who she looks after. His brother, Terrance, is a meaner master, obsessed with profit. This kind of celebration, a small slave freedom, only happens on the northern half of the Randall population, under James. The chapter continues on the day of Jockey’s birthday feast. By that point, Blake was gone, having tried to run away and been punished for it. No one intervened when a few men dragged her behind the smokehouse in a gang rape. After the incident, Cora became even more of an outcast. Miraculously, Blake backed down, leaving Cora to her plot. Overcome with rage, “in a spell” (19), Cora smashed the doghouse with a hatchet. One day he tried to claim Cora’s plot for his dog, building a doghouse on the plot and digging out the garden vegetables.
Blake, a young, powerful worker, new to the Randall plantation, was next. A fellow slave, Ava, set her eye on the plot and made Cora’s life miserable, forcing her to move to Hob, a cabin for the outcasts of slave society on the Randall plantation. On her own at age eleven, Cora was left to fend for the land herself.
Slaves coveted these small plots of land, and both Ajarry and then Mabel guarded their vegetables with zeal. The plot was first planted by her grandmother, Ajarry, when she arrived on the Randall plantation. She reminisces about the story of the garden, the place she returns to every Sunday where she “own herself for a few hours” (12). The second chapter transitions to Cora’s perspective, opening as she sits at the edge of her small garden plot, awaiting the start of celebrations to mark the birthday of a fellow slave Jockey.
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