"Many of us had already lost one home. A home of deep roots and of ancestors delved down into history. Those roots did not save us. Those roots rotted in the hulls of slave ships, in darkness and filth. We had little left to plant in the new world, and whatever we had was the white men's is for taking. So we tried to live only on the island's surface. We planted cane, but nothing of our own."
The slaves were ruthlessly uprooted from their original homeland. They were taken to the Caribbean, where they labored for the white slave owners. They are not allowed to form deep roots on the island because children are snatched from their families and sold into slavery. Hope is the only strength they master in the face of continued oppression and dehumanizing enslavement. As a result of being uprooted and separated from their blood, the slaves lose their history and lead an incomplete life that Shearer describes as a "half-life."
“After a day of feverish sleep, he woke up with a smile that cracked the dried herbal mixture crusted on his lips. Everyone in the house allowed themselves a brief moment of celebration—gripping of another’s arm, or the raising of eyes skyward in thanks.”
The sick child is one of the many that stay at the tobacco plantation. Mama B treats him using a mixture of hers obtained from the forest. The mixture contains various plant parts such as leaves are rots. The medicine is effective because it cures the fever eventually. Notably, those unfamiliar with the herbs lose their loved ones to the fever, such as in the case of two of Rachel's' children. The recovery affirms that the slave families' traditional healing techniques and remedies are powerful.
"Stepping outside the boundaries of the old tobacco plantation, Mama B's little sanctuary, Rachel felt uneasy. The road to Bridgetown would take her back toward Providence. Were they searching for her? Did they have dogs following her scent?"
Rachel's greater fear is returning to Providence, where she will be subjected to extremely inhumane and deadly punishments. Going out of the plantation aggravates her fear of losing her freedom once she is caught are returned to Providence. The dogs she dreads are extremely aggressive; this could be instructed to inflict harm on her as a punishment for running away. Despite her fear, she must go to Bridgetown because of the tip-off about the possibility of her long-lost daughter being there.
