Nightjohn Gary Paulsen Setting 1850 s The American

Nightjohn Gary Paulsen

Setting • 1850 s • The American South • plantation

Characters • • • Nightjohn Sarny Mammy Master Waller Alice Jim

Plot • Sarny - quiet and listens • Mammy adds a notch to Sarny’s stick each summer • Sarny often learns things by listening while working in the flower beds • Sarny chewed tobacco leaves to spit juice on the bugs that ate the roses • When Waller brought him to the farm, Nightjohn was attached to the horse by a rope around his neck

Plot • When Nightjohn came in from the field, Mammy gave him a pair of canvas pants • Twice a day, the slaves ate from a wooden trough • No lights were allowed in the quarters because the master claimed it kept the workers awake • After he settle into the corner of the quarters, Nightjohn offered to trade letters for tobacco

Plot • Mammy slapped the back of Sarny’s head because Sarny wrote in the dirt • When he saw Sarny writing in the dirt, Waller lifted her off the ground by the back of her dress • After he saw Sarny writing in the dirt, Master Waller chained Mammy to the spring house

Plot • Because Nightjohn had taught Sarny to write, Waller cut off two of Nightjohn’s toes • Nightjohn taught Sarny more letters while he was recovering from his punishment • Before he ran, Nightjohn rubbed lard and pepper on his shoes to confuse the dogs • After looking at the catalog, Sarny wrote the letter A for the other slaves

Themes Man’s Inhumanity to Man The power of Literacy Indomitable human spirit Why do some people need to dominate others? • Self sacrifice for the greater good • What makes us human regardless of our circumstance? • •

Capture and transfer of slaves on West African Coast

Method used for detaining slaves

Conditions in the ship HMS Undine

Slaves being purchased in Africa

Slave Sales in America

Photo of actual slave…used as basis for description of Nightjohn

Nightjohn by Gary Paulson

• y I came into writing Nightjohn, I came in the back door. I worked for several years on research on a book on Sally Hemings, who was a slave girl owned by Thomas Jefferson. I think they had between six and nine children together over her life. When Jefferson died he was bankrupt and she was sold in the block. Said, "one 53 -year-old woman worth $50. 00, " and they just got rid of her. And I wanted to write about her but there's not enough. I think a lot of the historical information about her has been destroyed over the years. But while I was doing the research on Sally, I ran into many other stories and I got hold of the slave chronicles and its interviews of ex-slaves in the '20 s and '30 s in America. Just in dialect--some of it's hard to read. It's written the way they talked. It was beautiful. I sat in my basement reading these things crying every night. And one of the things I ran into several times was the slaves' attempt to learn to read. For the slaves it was a capital offense to learn to read and they could be killed. They usually didn't get killed right away because they were too valuable to the slave owner. So the owners would cut a thumb off, or sometimes a toe; sometimes the front half of the foot would be chopped off. Men were castrated. And they were always whipped. That didn't stop them and they would hide in the schools--they would call them pit schools--and they would get a ditch or a gully or a hole, and they'd cover it with brush so the light wouldn't shine out, and they'd go in there at night with torches. They tried to teach other to read and were successful in many places. Most of the owners were terrified of the slaves learning to read, because they knew they would want to be free

ABOUT GARY • Born May 17, 1939, Gary Paulsen is one of America's most popular writers for young people. Although he was never a dedicated student, Paulsen developed a passion for reading at an early age. After a librarian gave him a book to read — along with his own library card — he was hooked. He began spending hours alone in the basement of his apartment building, reading one book after another. Running away from home at the age of 14 and traveling with a carnival, Paulsen acquired a taste for adventure. A youthful summer of rigorous chores on a farm; jobs as an engineer, construction worker, ranch hand, truck driver, and sailor; and two rounds of the 1, 180 -mile Alaskan dog sled race, the Iditarod; have

The images of slave history shown in this power point are from: \"Slave Coffle, Western Sudan, 187981; Image Reference Buel-01, as shown on www. slaveryimages. org, compiled by Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite, and sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library. \" If there any questions not answered below, contact Jerome Handler jh 3 v@virginia. edu.