Vocabulary in Kindred

People who are related by blood or who share a deep bond; one's family or close kin. Here it carries the sense of a fundamental, inherited connection between people.

An opening section of a book that comes before the main story begins, setting up context or introducing a situation the rest of the narrative will explain.

Belonging to the period in American history before the Civil War, typically used to describe the culture and society of the slaveholding South.

A white supervisor on a plantation whose job was to manage and discipline enslaved workers, often through violence and intimidation.

A large farm in the antebellum South worked primarily by enslaved people, typically growing crops such as tobacco or cotton.

A derogatory term used by white slaveholders to refer to an enslaved Black woman, stripping her of dignity and personhood.

Legal documents carried by a free Black person in the antebellum South proving they were not enslaved; without them, a free person could be seized and sold into slavery.

A member of a slave patrol, a group of armed white men authorized to stop, question, and punish enslaved people found off their plantation without permission.

Confused about one's surroundings, identity, or situation, especially after an abrupt or shocking change of circumstance.

A line of enslaved people chained or bound together and marched from one place to another, typically for sale at a slave market.

A raised platform where enslaved people were publicly sold to the highest bidder; a central symbol of the dehumanizing slave trade.

A hard stone struck against steel to produce sparks for starting a fire, used before modern matches were common.

A harsh, caustic alkaline solution made from wood ash and water, used in the nineteenth century for making soap and cleaning.

A roofed, open porch running along the outside of a house, typical of large Southern plantation homes.

The formal legal act by which a slaveholder releases an enslaved person from bondage, granting them freedom.

A legal contract binding a person to work for another for a set period, sometimes used as a form of controlled labor that resembled enslavement.

To wave or flourish a weapon or object in a threatening or aggressive way, meant to intimidate or warn.

A regional and period expression meaning to think, suppose, or believe something; common in nineteenth-century Southern American speech.

A beating administered with a leather strap as punishment, a common form of violent discipline inflicted on enslaved people.

A very strong, violent wind; used here to describe the intensity of a storm that drives the plot of this section.

In a state of mental confusion and disturbed consciousness, often caused by fever, injury, or extreme shock.

To tie or fasten something or someone to a fixed point so they cannot move freely; used figuratively for the bond that pulls the protagonist through time.

A plant fiber used to make rope; a hemp rope was the material of the noose and restraints associated with the violence of slavery.

A closing section added after the main story ends, offering a final reflection on what has happened and its lasting consequences.