Ball, an enslaved African-American man, appears the most frequently out of any of the figures in the book. When Baptist first introduces him, he does so to illustrate the way “Georgia-men” represent “a specific type of danger in the oral book of knowledge of enslaved African Americans (21) and to illuminate the changing nature of American slavery. Ball is 25 years old at the time and living in Maryland, where he is owned by his fifth master, “a hard man” (16) who sells him on to Georgia-men. Highlighting how frightening Georgia-men and the move south and west are to enslaved people, the men jump Ball from behind and tie him up because a slave who learns he is “being taken south might be desperate enough to do anything” (23). This is highlighted again when Ball, having been sold on again, asks another enslaved man if it’s true that slaves “have to eat cottonseed instead of food” in the South (112). The other man assures him that his fear is unfounded but warns that “his work in the cotton fields [will] be more difficult and draining than the long hours of labor he had served in Maryland” (112).

The story of Ball learning that this is indeed true helps to show how the pushing system functions and illuminates the theme of violence and

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