Teddy's Poems about Lettuce

Freed Twice
by Teddy M.

Here we are ready to tell an amazing story,

about a slave, named Lettuce.

Freed not once, but as we know it,

twice.

We start in 1765 where a Tamar

births her first baby at the age

of 21.

We don’t know much about the birth of

Lettuce, but we assume

she was born into slavery.

Not much is known about

Lettuce until we first see her in

the final will of

Reverend Johnathan Todd.

He mentions a servant maid

with the name of Lettuce.

It immediately jumps off the

page as it intrigued us like a

baby is intrigued by the smallest

movement.

Lettuce had three children at the time

of the will.

Sadly, the man himself, Reverend Johnathan Todd,

died shortly after that final will was made.

Lettuce was now free, but

we don’t have a lot of information

about Lettuce during this time.

Then something terrible

happened.

After Lettuce was freed for what we believe

was at least

one year,

Lettuce became a slave.

Again.

We assume that she became a slave again

from around 1792 - 1793.

She was freed again in 1793 so the enslaver could

save money.

She was then free for a few

years.

Its is unclear what happened during the time Lettuce

was free, but

we know she arrived at the Almshouse in 1812.

In between these times we

believe that she met her soulmate, the great

Cesar Bailey.

We believe they had three children:

Fredrick, Eli, and daughter R who

seems to have the horrifying tragedy of not having a

name.

Sadly, Fredrick ran away on

May 15,1820. This was the last record

of Lettuce’s family until the very sad day,

December 4, 1820, Lettuce breathed her

final breath, as she passed away.

We are now here to bring back the memory

of a slave that had a rare fate.

That she was freed twice.

And on December 4, 2020, she

will have been dead for exactly 200

years.

Author’s Statement

This is a poem about a slave named Lettuce who was freed twice. I wanted to tell her life story (as we know it) in a powerful way. So, I decided to use a poem. I was able to achieve this by adding poetic devices like hyperbole, personification, simile, and enjambment. I hope that people read this thoroughly and see what the struggle was for African-Americans during slavery. I also hope that people realized the north wasn’t perfect during this time. I knew about this time and I tried to put specific dates in, but there were some struggles. One struggle was that there wasn’t a lot of information about Lettuce. There wasn’t a specific date when Lettuce was born so I just had to say 1865. Another one was Lettuce had a daughter named Daughter R. One more struggle was that at the last minute we found out that Lettuce and Caesar Bailer were married. Overall I think this was a good thing to share Lettuce’s story and I’m glad I did it.