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Second Daughter: The Story of a Slave Girl
Based on the true story of Mum Bett, or Elizabeth Freeman, a historical tale is told from the perspective of her sister, Aissa, and follows the young slave's victorious lawsuit for freedom from her owner.
214 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 1996
15 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
About the author
Mildred Pitts Walter
35 books9 followersDelegate to the 2nd World Black and African Festival of the Arts & Culture in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1977. Graduate of Southern University with an MA in education from Antioch College. She lives in Denver, Colorado, and travels widely as an educational consultant.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 7, 2012
I have read this book twice because I like the way the author exposed slavery in all its evil sides.I can help wondering how a decent human treats another human like an animal based on his skin's color.
I love the characters Aissa and her sister Bett with their strong will of survival and to overcome their condition leading to their freedom.
The book shows both the evil of slavery but the positive struggle of two sisters who fought at first not to be separated and to keep on fighting to finally get their freedom using their masters own rules saying "All men are created equal".
This is a book to read for all regardless to their background to better understand history of slavery and how a few slaves fought the smart way to get their freedom. It's a great book
I love the characters Aissa and her sister Bett with their strong will of survival and to overcome their condition leading to their freedom.
The book shows both the evil of slavery but the positive struggle of two sisters who fought at first not to be separated and to keep on fighting to finally get their freedom using their masters own rules saying "All men are created equal".
This is a book to read for all regardless to their background to better understand history of slavery and how a few slaves fought the smart way to get their freedom. It's a great book
February 18, 2021
With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I plotted myself on a chair with a cup of hot tea. Mildred Pitts Walter develops this story with detail. The amazing lives of Bett and Aissa, slaves made to belief they were servants, play a historical story based on events of the era. Beautifully written!
December 23, 2021
Wonderful story. We dont hear much of the slaves before the civil war. It was refreshing to read about these characters who this story was most likely based off really people. The discribtion of the book is wrong it was Bett who sued not Elizabeth.
April 25, 2016
Second Daughter is historical fiction based on the true story of an enslaved woman that went to court and won her freedom in New England around the time of the American Revolution. I received this DRC free from Net Galley and Open Road Integrated Media in exchange for an honest review. And it’s just as well, because if I had paid any money at all for this brief but troubled book, I would be deeply unhappy.
First, let’s examine the positive aspects that allowed the second star to happen. Walter has nailed setting, and when Aissa, the girl that serves as our narrator, describes the kitchen of her master’s house, we are there and can see it all. Here she does an excellent job. Other settings are also well told.
Second, the length, just 119 pages, is accessible for young adult readers, many of whom find it difficult, in these technologically advanced times, to focus all the way through a full length novel.
Unfortunately, the problems outweigh the virtues. I have two issues that plant this story on my literary wall of shame. The first is technical, the second philosophical.
Technically I see this as a decent if unmemorable read, and were I to judge this strictly on the writer’s skill, I would call this a three star novel. Overlong passages of narrative, often unbroken by action or dialogue and in lengthy paragraphs, are likely to hit the average adolescent’s snooze button early on. The choice to tell everything in past tense as opposed to the more widely used literary present deadens the pace further. When we finally do get a passage of dialogue, it is so stiff and stilted that not even the most engaging teacher, when reading this out loud to her class, could possibly breathe life into it. One character is depicted as speaking with a Sambo-like dialect, all “dis” and “dat”. If one is going to use a dialect, make it respectful and readable. This verges on mimicry, and any Black students in the room that haven’t tuned out or gone to sleep yet are going to be pissed, and rightly so.
I can see that Walters meant well in writing from the point of view of a Black slave girl and in depicting a victory gained by Black people on their own behalf, as opposed to the usual torture, death, and despair that represented those kidnapped and forced into slavery. But this is also where I have to step back and ask what the ultimate effect of this book will be on students that read it.
For the average or below average middle school student, reading all the way through even a fairly brief novel such as this one will likely be the only book they make it through during the term in which slavery is covered in the social studies, humanities, or language arts/social studies block. Part of the power of good literature—which this isn’t, and in some ways that may be for the better—is that it drives home a central message. I can envision students that pay attention to this book, perhaps because the teacher is particularly engaging and has driven home its importance, and then walking away from the term’s work convinced that all any slave in any part of the USA ever had to do to get out of his or her predicament was to find a good attorney, take the matter to court, and bang, that’s it, we’re free. Let’s party.
This novel addresses a relatively brief period in the northern states, where slavery had been legal but had not been as widespread as in the Southern states. King Cotton had not become the dominant economic mover it would become by 1850, when its grip on all of US governmental institutions would be absolute. By then, northerners made their money indirectly from the cotton industry in everything from shipping, boat building, rope making, and banking to growing crops for consumption by Southerners and in some cases, for their slaves.
If one is going to teach about slavery, far better to do so as part of an American Civil War unit. It’s a tender, sensitive, painful thing for children of color, but it’s not okay to deceive them, however unintentionally, with the misimpression that all slaves had options that they didn’t. Better to use portions of Alex Haley’s Roots; teach about the vast but much-ignored free Black middle class in the north that was the primary moving force behind the Underground Railroad; or to show the movie “Glory” in class to emphasize the positive, powerful things that African-American people did during this revolutionary time, than to emphasize something as obscure, limited, and potentially misleading as what Walter provides here.
I am trying to think of instances in which this book might be part of a broader, more extensive curriculum such as the home-schooling of a voracious young reader, yet even then I find myself back at the technical aspect, which results in a book that is dull, dull, dull. Literature should engage a student and cause him or her to reach for more, rather than make students wonder if it will ever end.
In general I have resolved to read fewer YA titles than when I was teaching and treat myself to more advanced work during my retirement. I made an exception for this title because the focus appeared to be right in my wheelhouse, addressing US slavery and the civil rights of Black folk in America. I regret doing so now, but it doesn’t have to happen to you too.
Save yourself while there’s time. Read something else. And for heaven’s sake, don’t foist this book on kids.
First, let’s examine the positive aspects that allowed the second star to happen. Walter has nailed setting, and when Aissa, the girl that serves as our narrator, describes the kitchen of her master’s house, we are there and can see it all. Here she does an excellent job. Other settings are also well told.
Second, the length, just 119 pages, is accessible for young adult readers, many of whom find it difficult, in these technologically advanced times, to focus all the way through a full length novel.
Unfortunately, the problems outweigh the virtues. I have two issues that plant this story on my literary wall of shame. The first is technical, the second philosophical.
Technically I see this as a decent if unmemorable read, and were I to judge this strictly on the writer’s skill, I would call this a three star novel. Overlong passages of narrative, often unbroken by action or dialogue and in lengthy paragraphs, are likely to hit the average adolescent’s snooze button early on. The choice to tell everything in past tense as opposed to the more widely used literary present deadens the pace further. When we finally do get a passage of dialogue, it is so stiff and stilted that not even the most engaging teacher, when reading this out loud to her class, could possibly breathe life into it. One character is depicted as speaking with a Sambo-like dialect, all “dis” and “dat”. If one is going to use a dialect, make it respectful and readable. This verges on mimicry, and any Black students in the room that haven’t tuned out or gone to sleep yet are going to be pissed, and rightly so.
I can see that Walters meant well in writing from the point of view of a Black slave girl and in depicting a victory gained by Black people on their own behalf, as opposed to the usual torture, death, and despair that represented those kidnapped and forced into slavery. But this is also where I have to step back and ask what the ultimate effect of this book will be on students that read it.
For the average or below average middle school student, reading all the way through even a fairly brief novel such as this one will likely be the only book they make it through during the term in which slavery is covered in the social studies, humanities, or language arts/social studies block. Part of the power of good literature—which this isn’t, and in some ways that may be for the better—is that it drives home a central message. I can envision students that pay attention to this book, perhaps because the teacher is particularly engaging and has driven home its importance, and then walking away from the term’s work convinced that all any slave in any part of the USA ever had to do to get out of his or her predicament was to find a good attorney, take the matter to court, and bang, that’s it, we’re free. Let’s party.
This novel addresses a relatively brief period in the northern states, where slavery had been legal but had not been as widespread as in the Southern states. King Cotton had not become the dominant economic mover it would become by 1850, when its grip on all of US governmental institutions would be absolute. By then, northerners made their money indirectly from the cotton industry in everything from shipping, boat building, rope making, and banking to growing crops for consumption by Southerners and in some cases, for their slaves.
If one is going to teach about slavery, far better to do so as part of an American Civil War unit. It’s a tender, sensitive, painful thing for children of color, but it’s not okay to deceive them, however unintentionally, with the misimpression that all slaves had options that they didn’t. Better to use portions of Alex Haley’s Roots; teach about the vast but much-ignored free Black middle class in the north that was the primary moving force behind the Underground Railroad; or to show the movie “Glory” in class to emphasize the positive, powerful things that African-American people did during this revolutionary time, than to emphasize something as obscure, limited, and potentially misleading as what Walter provides here.
I am trying to think of instances in which this book might be part of a broader, more extensive curriculum such as the home-schooling of a voracious young reader, yet even then I find myself back at the technical aspect, which results in a book that is dull, dull, dull. Literature should engage a student and cause him or her to reach for more, rather than make students wonder if it will ever end.
In general I have resolved to read fewer YA titles than when I was teaching and treat myself to more advanced work during my retirement. I made an exception for this title because the focus appeared to be right in my wheelhouse, addressing US slavery and the civil rights of Black folk in America. I regret doing so now, but it doesn’t have to happen to you too.
Save yourself while there’s time. Read something else. And for heaven’s sake, don’t foist this book on kids.
December 29, 2014
If you like books that are about slavery, read Second Daughter. I say this book is Historical Fiction because slavery took place in the book. I think that this book is a pretty good, but not my favorite.
This book took place in 1781 in Massachusetts. A slave Girl Aissa and her big sister Elizabeth were both sold to Slave owners, Master and Mistress Anna. Both sisters worked really hard but Aissa was more disobedient to Mistress Anna. When they did something wrong they would get whipped. Aissa hated it there and wanted to leave, but Elizabeth had no hopes. One day Elizabeth and a freed black man named Josiah got married. Elizabeth had a baby and protected her all the time. So they had there own little house but Elizabeth could only go to there house on weekends and then needed to go back to work at the Master and Mistresses house. That meant that Aissa had to do Elizabeth's work on the weekends, and she hated to be alone. One day when the sisters were sitting in the kitchen and laughing the Mistress came in and demanded them to get back to work. Aissa refused to move and the Mistress got very angry. So the Mistress took a hot shovel form the fire place and was about to his Aissa, but Elizabeth went in front of her and got hit. Elizabeth argued with the Mistress and she said she was going home and never coming back for hitting a slave cruelly. She took Aissa and her daughter with her of course. Elizabeth and many others went to Argue about still having slavery in court with the Master and Mistress Anna. They won, and slavery was illegal. They were finally free!!
I was surprised when Elizabeth stood up to the Mistress finally. I was surprised because she never talks back to any of them and then she just yelled at her for hitting her. The main character was Aissa. I new this because the book is written in her point on view.
My favorite part of the book was when they were free.I liked this because it made me feel happy they were finally free. An interesting thing I learned from this book was to not be judge the skin of people, but judge their personality.
In conclusion I rated this book 4 stars because I thought it was a pretty good but not my favorite. I recommend this book to anyone who wants likes a book with slavery and their freedom. So don't miss out all the hard work they go through and read the book..
This book took place in 1781 in Massachusetts. A slave Girl Aissa and her big sister Elizabeth were both sold to Slave owners, Master and Mistress Anna. Both sisters worked really hard but Aissa was more disobedient to Mistress Anna. When they did something wrong they would get whipped. Aissa hated it there and wanted to leave, but Elizabeth had no hopes. One day Elizabeth and a freed black man named Josiah got married. Elizabeth had a baby and protected her all the time. So they had there own little house but Elizabeth could only go to there house on weekends and then needed to go back to work at the Master and Mistresses house. That meant that Aissa had to do Elizabeth's work on the weekends, and she hated to be alone. One day when the sisters were sitting in the kitchen and laughing the Mistress came in and demanded them to get back to work. Aissa refused to move and the Mistress got very angry. So the Mistress took a hot shovel form the fire place and was about to his Aissa, but Elizabeth went in front of her and got hit. Elizabeth argued with the Mistress and she said she was going home and never coming back for hitting a slave cruelly. She took Aissa and her daughter with her of course. Elizabeth and many others went to Argue about still having slavery in court with the Master and Mistress Anna. They won, and slavery was illegal. They were finally free!!
I was surprised when Elizabeth stood up to the Mistress finally. I was surprised because she never talks back to any of them and then she just yelled at her for hitting her. The main character was Aissa. I new this because the book is written in her point on view.
My favorite part of the book was when they were free.I liked this because it made me feel happy they were finally free. An interesting thing I learned from this book was to not be judge the skin of people, but judge their personality.
In conclusion I rated this book 4 stars because I thought it was a pretty good but not my favorite. I recommend this book to anyone who wants likes a book with slavery and their freedom. So don't miss out all the hard work they go through and read the book..
June 24, 2012
This was a well-written book. I enjoyed it, and it did not have the violence that often accompanies such books on slavery. I read it because the author was the aunt of another African American who has recently written another book on slavery. Sorry I cannot recall his name.
May 2, 2017
Based on the true story of Elizabeth Freeman, a slave in 1770s Massachusetts who gained freedom for her family and herself by taking her owner to court.
March 10, 2009
good so far
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews