The Rebel Heart of Miss Emmaline

It began with questions. Quiet inquiries to those enslaved on the plantation. They whispered back answers, tales of families torn apart, forbidden languages and traditions stifled—tales of tears.

Emmaline was eighteen then, with an innocent demeanor and genuine compassion. She had grown up on the plantation, seeing everything but never knowing the stories. Life had been about becoming a good housewife in a prominent home. Her mother would often tell her, "A lady knows her place."

Emmaline remembered stealing glances at her reflection in the ornate mirror that hung in their hallway, trying to find that very lady her mother spoke of. All she saw was a girl with wild curls and eyes that sparkled with a hunger for something more than the circumscribed world around her.