[b]Feb 13, 1874, Slaughter Farm, Outside of Richmond VA[/b]
 
Temitope had been planting crops all day. The heat was terrible, and she felt as she often did that this day on Slaughter Farm would be her last. It was a fitting name for the farm, on account of the slaves who drop dead from overwork. The Slaughter Family can't help their name, but they sure do embrace it. Gad Slaughter, the Master of the plantation, didn't care about his workers. At least with the Callejas, they felt the need to protect their property. The Slaughters thought themselves too lofty to care about the lives of their slaves.

Temitope watched her overseer, Caleb Slaughter, some cousin or whatnot of the Lord of the Manor, patrol with his whip in hand. Caleb was a younger man who took great pleasure in practicing his whipping arm, although the general consensus was that he was but a boy and that his father, Overseer Peter, was a much more fearsome man. One of the slaves, Temitope knew him by the name of Baba, boasted how he didn't know he had been struck by Caleb Slaughter's whip until it was pointed out to him by his wife.

Temitope just had been planting for hours and stopped to wipe the sweat from her brow when Caleb turned his attention on her. "Hey, Paula," he called out. "Get yourself back to work, girl. Won't have me no slackers on my watch. That's not what the Old Man pays me for."

The Yoruba slave rose from the dirt and walked towards the man with a proud stride, and with English laced with a Jamaican accent, she spoke, "My name is Temitope, of the Yoruba people. Paula is a dead woman. You kill my freedom, but you do not kill my spirit." She grabbed the whip from his hand and struck him across the face with the butt. Caleb fell to the ground, his nose gushing blood. "I am not dead," she repeated as she began to whip the Overseer. "I am NOT dead! I am Temitope, and I live!" They cried in unison, slave and master.

The slave blinked to see Caleb standing over her. "We got a problem, girl? Do I gotta use this thing?" He cracked the whip, and Paula's head lowered to the ground, her hands resuming the process of planting seeds.

"No sir, I'm working the farm. Excuse me, sir."