Ideas:
Opening scene: The location is on a farm with a lot of slaves. Some of them get rescued by people from the undergrund railroad but halway through executing their plan they get caught, so the ones who already left the farm have to run away and in that moment the character sees that his family hasn´t made it and he has to leave them on the farm. When they go over a hill and he looks back a last time he sees how the slaves who could not get rescued get beaten and whipped and so does his family.
Character 1:
There is a free black man who got saved by the underground railroad an is in one of the free states. But his family did not get saved, so he realizes it is not worth being free without his family being there. So he makes a decision: He will go back south on the underground railroad. He starts his way on the railroad in Windsor, Canada where he reached free dom and was accepted by society. so now he has to go all the way back. He talks to people who are headed north and asks for directions or locations of safehouses. He causes confusion between those people who are wondering why he would want to go back south after he has been rescued, some people even say: „This is so dangerous, what if you get caught and have to be a slave again?“ Now he ralizes how bad all those people want to get out of their situation and it is not only about his family, it is about hundreds, if not thousands of families.
Character 2:
A landlord in England was rich and had lots of slaves but he lost everything when the fields and the land he owned burned down in a revolt started by people from that town. He used to let them live on his land, but then he wanted to make more and more money for himself and started taking it away from them again. Now they start a revolt and burn down all the plants that his farm has grown and the forest he owns and his house. From now on all he does is try to get rich again by trying to rebuild his farm and begging for money from his friends to start up a new farm. At the same time he sees how it is to have nothing and having to find a way to get enough food to eat.
Character 3:
An Irish man is controlled by absentee lanldords from England, who only give him the bad land where he cannot grow anything. He decides to go to Canada after the landlord takes away his last piece of land. He takes the next Coffin Ship to Canada, but that is going to be a very hard journey because the hygiene on that ship is really really bad. He manages to not get sick, but he sees people get sick and die and the crew on the ship makes him throw over the barrels that they put the bodys in. The Irish man still does not get sick, but he learns a lecture: He does not want anybody else to live in conditions like he did most of his life. Especially when he gets to Windsor, Canada and is accepted for the first time in his life he wants to help other people get frredom too.
Story:
It is an adventure movie mixed with a drama
The basic idea is that a man who had to leave his family behind does the journey on the underground railroad again to save them
The main conflict is that there is too many people that have to be saved
He goes from the free states back to the slave states on the underground railroad
Clearing Land:
They need to clear land to create farmland
It is so important that they get other people to help and give them some of the cleared land
Barter:
They don´t have a currency
They trade their work and help on the boat for the Metis to take them on the journey
Absente Landlord
The farm that the free black man escaped from was owned by an absentee landlord
Later the slaves are absentee landlords, when they go back to the slave states and let the former British landlord work on their farm
Metis/ Voyageurs
Both the British landlord and the group of the free black man, the Irish man and the slaves go with a group of Metis because they know the region
The Irish man falls in love with a Metis woman, so her family helps them bring more people to Rural Canada
Voyageurs go on journeys to Rural Canada with Metis
Portages:
The slaves have no problem carrying the boat over Portages because they worked hard all their live
The former landlord struggles at the portages because he has never done hard work and now he has to carry the heavy boat through the mud
Pemmican
The Metis women prepare Pemmican that they give to to group of Voyageurs when they come to the camps
The landlord is also struggling here because he is used to eating only the best food and not the same food everyday
For the slaves this food is very good because they never got that much food at a time
The food does not turn bad quickly and it is nutritious so it is really good for the journey
Catholic/ Protestant
The absentee landlord is British, so he is protestant and he is rich in the beginning
The Irish man is Catholic, so he was controlled by the British landlords
Acceptance of Irish and Black people
In the United States black people are slaves unless they get to the free states
Irish people are not slaves, but they still cannot get good jobs and are descriminated
In Canada they all are accepted
Coffin Ship experience
The Irish man arrives with a Coffin Ship
He manages not to get sick, but he is exhausted from the jourey
The free black man has to help him recover
He did not enjoy the journey on the coffin ship
Slavery:
The slaves in the opening scene who got caught got beat up
Some of them get sold at an auction because the landlord does not want them anymore
The slaves who get caught shipping themselves get whipped and brought back to the farm where they came from
Underground Railroad
The uderground railraod is the free black man´s way back to the farm to safe his family
They spend their nights at safehouses along the underground railroad
People on the way can tell them the way south
People who are headed North are confused because they do not know why somebody would go back south
They build up their own network on the underground railroad to be able to get more people North and not always have to all the way back by themselves
Womens´Role
In the Metis community the women make snowshoes, warm clothes, navigate and are the factor of surviving
In urban Canada, where they arrive, women are doing domestic chores and carinf for the children
There are not many women outside because most of their jobs are done inside the house
Visualization:
