Let Us Descend

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains vivid depictions of enslavement and outlines a brief moment of suicidal ideation.

Weeks pass, and Annis does not see Aza’s spirit again. She and the rest of the enslaved men and women who have been forced to march further and further south are now exhausted and injured and do not have any hope left. As the march progresses, they endure the first of many difficult river crossings, each helping the other make it across the dark, rapidly moving water. At the next crossing, Annis finds herself sinking below the surface of the water and briefly contemplates allowing herself to drown, but she thinks of her mother, of Aza, and of the women around her who would surely be pulled under by her dead weight. Therefore, she fights the water and makes it safely to the other bank. At the next crossing, one of the men is unable to swim and dies, and the Georgia men cut his body loose and allow him to float downriver. They come upon a vast swamp, and the woman walking ahead of Annis, who finally introduces herself as Phyllis, tells her of the “Great Dismal Swamp,” which is so large that it spans portions of North Carolina and Virginia.