Jordan On The Plantation Chapter Summaries

Chapter 7: Jordan is close to the end of his first day on the plantation. Once he finally finishes, Travis and Buster measure how much they had picked, Clara and Jordan are short. Jordan and Clara are asked to join the line of slaves who had picked less cotton that day. When Jordan speaks up for Clara, telling Travis and Buster that she had been giving some of her cotton to him, Travis tells Buster to give him an extra ten lashes. When Jordan is tied up to the whipping post, and is preparing himself for the whips, he is shocked that Buster does not whip him, but tells him every time he hears the whip hit the ground, Jordan is to scream and after five or six lashes to be silent (most slaves go unconscious after that amount). Jordan returns to

Once, Buster leaves, Clara is asleep, and Uriah is gone to the bathroom, Jordan heads over to the house, this time entering from the front. When he enters the house, he sees the master and his family having breakfast with his family in the kitchen. Jordan runs up the stairs, making sure to stay on the carpet that is placed on the staircase, so that no sound is made, while he takes in his surroundings. When he reaches the top of the stairs he walks down the hallway, thinking how different the mansion is from the slaves’ cabins, and when he sees a grand room, he’s sure that is Master Henning’s bedroom. He looks around the bedroom looking for the watch, when he is about to open a drawer, he hears footsteps getting louder, and learns that it’s the master and his wife, Lavania, so he hides under the massive bed. Jordan listens to the conversation and learns that these crazily rich people are in debt/ at a lack of money. They won’t be able to sell any land, paintings, clothes, or furniture because they will lose their respect, so they must sell some of their slaves. Lavania insists that they sell Clara, a fine slave, and when the master tries to argue, she doesn’t listen. At the end of the conversation, Jordan, Clara, and Thaddeus (a tough slave who is currently sick) are going to be sold. After the master and mistress are getting dressed, when the master is about to

When Jordan tells Clara everything that happened she doesn’t really believe him. Jordan doesn’t know how to make Clara believe, until she asks for him to swear on the Bible (a book the slaves’ shouldn’t own because they aren’t supposed to have any books at all and the Bible teaches them about freedom). Jordan swears on the Bible and Clara believes what Jordan was saying and now Jordan is going to tell Thaddeus the news. Right before he entered Thaddeus’s cabin, he heard the mistress’s voice, so he ducks behind the wall and watches her leave. Jordan enters the cabin and tells Thaddeus everything he knows, but he (Thaddeus) doesn’t believe a word he says because he tells Jordan how the mistress would never sell Thaddeus because whenever he is sick the mistress is always there to give him medicine. Jordan tells him to believe it or not, and runs to swamp woods. When he gets there he sees Uriah with Old Joe learning how to read. Jordan goes over to Old Joe hoping that he will be able to help him and explains everything that has happened to him so far. Jordan decides to go back where he had come from, until he hears the paddyrollers coming. He is caught by them and is taken back to his