Haley Newlin’s Reviews > Blood Slaves > Status Update

“I chose darkness. I did it so I could live in the light…I’m not after vengeance. I want retribution…Every good we do here is met with evil. So maybe it takes evil to defeat evil.”

“Land belongs to no one. My people sworn to protect it, like ancestors did. We live in peace, white man come, bring fire sticks, kill our people, force us from land.”

Kwadzo meets Native in the woods and realizes their stories are similar. Both want peace and freedom without oppression of the white man

“A stronger mind speaks strongly and clearly in any language.”

Rafazi tells Kwadzo that speaking strongly and clearly doesn’t mean they speak like the white folks

This isn’t a white trait but an educated one

A lot of times dogs are used in horror to represent innocence. But in historical horror books like Blood Slaves, The Reformatory, and Burn Down Master’s house, they’re a symbol of evil. A tool of cruelty, capture, imprisonment, and even death

“Blood, this gorgeous red nectar. There was no way he would ever be able to get enough of it.”

Being forced to take possession of a name not your own was an ultimate scar of slavery, an announcement to anyone hearing it that your life didn’t belong to you

- they beat Willie’s birth name out of him, until he accepted “Willie”

He reclaims the name his father gave him, Kwadzo - “it felt as if a shackle around his heart had fallen away.”

This is such an emotional and powerful moment

“Vengeance is not the same as courage…Vengeance is a followed impulse, a reaction. Courage is a choice. It drives you to do the thing you know is right, even in the face of opposition.”

“Killin’ to live ain’t no kinda life.”

For Big Jim, “Possessing things was the theme of his life…He did so delight in the discomfort his power elicited in others.”

He humilities his chief overseer in front of guest, Oliver Gibbs - Captain of the Lakeside Slave Patrol

“The Blood leaves little room for middle ground. It is either feared or revered.”