‘If I Should Fall Behind’

Abstract

What happens when a mother has to leave her young child and husband behind to go far away to work? Matilda Percival, a free woman of colour, lived separated from her family for at least two years, and maintained contact by writing home. This chapter uses Matilda’s letters as the basis for a discussion of not just Matilda and her family, but a larger exploration of how enslaved and free people of colour maintained family relationships in the mid-nineteenth century. Themes such as migration, information networks, and family structures will form the background to a story that revolves around the struggle of one small family to deal with distance, sickness, uncertainty, financial insecurity, and jealousy.