The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves but are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs and begins a desperate search to find her children who survived birth and were sold. Rachel is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear.
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