two things, a strong and powerful man that must've been very powerful if he was more powerful than shanklin. and he did something to try to obstruct this the most wonderful phrases that he said subtlety is superior to strength. and this is a theme that many historians work with the resistance to slavery that has emphasized, the ways in which enslaved people have to be clever to hide their resistance to make it more effective. here we have a form of slaves winning explicitly and that's where it has happened. they had fooled them in order to pull off the escape and achieve freedom for 17 people. in our final question is how is it that this letter survives. first off, i am not surprised to find a letter written by a former slave, this is a period before the 1832 law outlawing the teaching of literacy to enslaved people during the previous generation and literacy among slaves is more common than what i think we have recognized and i'm not saying that most of them were illiterate, but i am saying that it is more common to find them in that period than either during the colonial era were subseque