This inspiring story, filled with bravery and courage, tells of a young Choctaw girl who crosses the river that divides their land from the slave land. After she loses her way back to the river, a young slave boy named Mo helps her find her way back to the river, which is the start of their friendship. When Mo’s family faces trouble on the plantation, the family’s fate relies on the two children. This story began as a song by the Choctaws about the spirit of freedom, and is accompanied by beautiful, full-length pictures, illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. 39 pgs, pb. ~ Brianna
There is a river called Bok Chitto that cuts through Mississippi. In the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears, Bok Chitto was a boundary. On one side of the river lived the Choctaws. On the other side lived the plantation owners and their slaves. If a slave escaped and made his way across Bok Chitto, the slave was free; the slave owner could not follow. That was the law.
Martha Tom, a young Choctaw girl, knows better than to cross the river, but one day, in search of blackberries, she disobeys her mother and finds herself on the other side. Thus begins the story about seven slaves who cross the big river to freedom, led by a Choctaw angel walking on water! Crossing Bok Chitto will be an eye-opener for kids and adults alike. It documents a part of history that is little-known: the relationship between the Choctaws, members of a sovereign nation, and the slaves who lived in Mississippi during that time before the Civil War, before the Choctaws were forced out of Mississippi to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.
