The Underground Railroad

My hands were sore, after I'd been digging for about 7 hours. My palms were completely red and had scratches. I had to help dig a hole for a new rail towards Illinois. I was stuck here in Detroit, I had been kept here for the past 2 years.About 60 slaves were kept here in the camp, everyone had one dream. Everyone wanted to be free men, and everyone had one pursuit, escaping. If you tried you would get shot so it was very risky buiness. You heard many stories about people escaping, only a few people at our camp actually tried, or at least that's what I heard.

I had been chosen to work for this camp, mainly because I was still young, generally only young black men got to be slaves.

After one year, the only thing I thought of was trying to escape. I couldn't cope with it longer. I had thought of many ways to get of this hell, the easiest solution, would be at around noon, run around 5 miles, into the woods. Then swim along the shore at St. claire Lake. It seemed simple, but in reality it was almost impossible. The owners would check you around every hour, which meant you had low chances of actually escaping. It all started in the late 1950's, I came all the way from Egypt, boats came and took me, they killed the rest of my family right in front of me. They took about 1000 egyptians from my tribe and transported us the whole way to America. From that moment on I knew I was never coming back to Cairo. I got sent to this camp, and had to work with rail work. A few days later I planned everything, I tried to convince my best friend at the camp that he should try and escape too. He considered the situation, but rejected my offer, even tough my plan seemed perfect.I set off around noon, the sun was just about to set, I'd been digging for a long time now, and one of the owners had just checked if I was there. And I went for it, I ran like I never ran before, I could hear my old working partners shouting for me, after a mile I could no longer see the camp, but I could hear gunshots. I finally came to the woods, where I hid myself for about an hour until the it was completely dark, I found the Lake, I swam with my clothes on since I didn't want to leave any traces, so it was very tiring. I got a sudden relief after I couldn't hear gunshots or horses nearby. I swam until I was freezing and slept in the woods. I finally felt like a free man again, not knowing when I had to get up, not being pushed around I was and felt like a free man.