Freedom Dues

Recipient of the 2021 Gold IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, Historical Fiction category. 1729: Blair Eakins is a fifteen-year-old Ulster-Scot living in Ireland under the crushing weight of famine, poverty, and prejudice against his people. In search of a better future for himself and his beloved, he pays for passage to the American colonies the only way he can: he commits himself as an indentured servant for a term of four years, having no idea what he's in for. His rough ocean crossing is ony the beginning of a new life of hardships in Philadelphia. In Lodon, ten-year-old orphan pickpocket Mallie Ambrose is arrested for stealing a handkerchief. After experiencing the horror of Newgate prison, she is sentenced to Transportation; bound into indentured servitude and exiled to the American colonies. Once in Maryland, she is sold to a tyrannical tobacco planter for seven years. As Blair and Mallie each endure hellish conditions, their paths eventually cross when they are acquired by the same