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Wow. More than ever, I've become emotionally involved with the fate of my distant ancestor. Her almost matter-of-fact account of Manton's attempted **** has me both angry and, I am embarrassed to say, a little aroused.

Perhaps it is because I saw that drawing later in the journal of Bianca kneeling naked in front of all those men, but I have a growing feeling of dread. I don't know how her fall from plantation owner to **** happened, but I fear for that the poor woman. Perhaps, I tell myself, it is Angelica or some other light-skinned **** that is being actioned off, but in my heart, I know it must be Bianca who awaiting her fate. Was this because she made an enemy of her cousin ... but what choice did she have?

I stare at the cold coffee and untouched bagel sitting accusingly on the table. A quick glance at the clock on the microwave confirms that I have just spent over forty minutes reading and rereading the neatly penned entries.

Maybe I am getting sick. I feel flushed, there's an itch in the roots of my hair and my palms are sweating.

More for something to do with my hands than because I'm hungry, I pick up the bagel and carefully spread some more cream cheese on it before I lift it to my tingling lips. The taste of tepid coffee reminds me of my mother. She refused to dump out her coffee even when the cup went unnoticed for hours as she went about her chores. It was a matter of pride for her that in her house nothing ever went to waste, there were never dishes in the sink, our coats were hung by the door and that the bedding was washed and replaced every Saturday like clockwork.

With a sad smile I return the coffee cup to its saucer. It's a good thing she wasn't alive to receive this journal. Historical treasure or not, one look at the sketches of naked women and Bianca's diary would have been dropped in the apartment building's incinerator and gone forever. It is all too easy to picture her wiping her hands on her apron and letting me know exactly what she thought.

“Lord knows, the world don't need no more of that trash; we get enough smut on the TV and internet.” Mom's solution to anything uncomfortable or shameful was to keep it from ever seeing the light of day. I have to wonder how rare something like this journal really is. There must have been some literate slaves who kept accounts of their lives, but even after they were freed, I doubt many of them were this open with the way things really worked on a plantation.

Aniya, on the other hand, would want to see this published for the entire world to read. My daughter is fiercely proud of her black ancestry. Even before 1619 came out, Aniya was getting into fights with me and her teachers about what real black people should be doing to change the system.

It's my fault; I'm the one that fought to instill these primal values in her. The irony of it all is that she feels closer to her dad than me. Jordan never gave a damn about the hip hop classes or summer camps on African art and culture; 'waste of good money' he'd complain. Not that it was his money we were spending.

Damn, my mind is going everywhere. I reach for the computer and find a map of 19th century Charlston area. The map is from some Civil War era. It was put up by a reenactment enthusiast eager to bring back glory to the Confederacy. The Ferguson's Artillery Company's website had a collection of documents, pictures and even a video of them firing off a trio of cannons. The site included a list of training dates for the volunteers. I could only imagine what their reaction to a someone like me showing up to one of their training camps might be. A woman, a black woman, alone with all those testosterone-driven men pretending to be soldiers ... I pushed back hard on where that thought was leading me.

From a similar site, this one from a Virginia Infantry company, I learn that carriages would typically travel at around six miles an hour and with a little high-school math I was able to work out a reasonable search area for where Havenhall might have been based on Bianca's description of her trip from Charleston. For the next hour I was able to keep my overactive imagination in check by printing out the map and using Aniya's old compass to trace out a donut between 12 and 24 miles from the center of Charleston and searching for any reference to plantations in the area. There were too many to keep track of; some were restored and open to the public, others merely mentioned in passing.

What I needed was someone who knew this history ...