Summary Of Christopher Paul Curtis's Elijah Of Buxton

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The astonishing book Elijah of Buxton, written by Christopher Paul Curtis, is about eleven-year-old Elijah who was the first in Buxton to be born free of slavery. Elijah’s family and friends were all slaves. Everyone's families had gotten free except for Mr. Leroy’s family. Finally, after several years, Mr. Leroy had saved enough money to buyout his family. When Mr. Leroy went to Michigan something tragic had happened to his money. Elijah tried to save Mr. Leroy’s money and saw the things the people in Buxton went through in the 1860s. Elijah of Buxton has many connections to historical events that have taken place. It connects to slavery, the abolitionist movement, and free states and slave states.
Slavery was very popular in the 1860s; the whites would buy blacks and use them to harvest cotton, hemp, rice, tobacco, and sugarcane. One historical event that happened is Harriet Tubman had gone to Virginia to be free. This connects to Elijah of Buxton because everyone who lives in Buxton and was a slave in Detroit went to Buxton to be free. Another connection is that Elijah tried to save Mr. Leroy and his money that was stolen by the Preacher, but instead came back to Buxton with a baby named Hope to save her from slavery. This is connected to history because …show more content…

This was the end of slavery. Harriet risked her freedom to save her family and bring them back to the north. In the book Mr. Leroy went to Michigan to save his family and tried to bring them back to Buxton. An additional historical event is Harriet was separated from, her family to be a slave when she was only five years old. This is connected to Elijah of Buxton because there was a young, black boy who worked at the carnival and he had no family and he was only five of six years old. The abolitionist movement happened in the early eighteen hundred. This was just another way Elijah of Buxton shows historical