THERE IS NO LIFE FOR US HERE

[Published in The Copperfield Review, Fall 2011]


THERE IS NO LIFE FOR US HERE

The combination of farming without slave labor in a slave-dependent economy on land whose soil had become exhausted, along with a general economic depression led to mounting debt for John and Harriet Ratcliffe. In 1837, they lost the family farm in Skimino and sold off most of their personal possessions. They moved to Ohio, where they joined John’s father, siblings, and other relatives who had been part of the larger migration of Quakers from southeastern Virginia.


There is no life for us here
On this bitter ground grown cold.
We must leave this land, my dear.

Our debt’s grown too high, I fear.
The deed now in Barlow’s hold—
There is no life for us here.

The cows, the calves, John’s prize steer,
Farm tools, implements, all sold.
We must leave this land, my dear.

The earthen and chinaware
You thought you’d keep until old,
There is no life for us here,

Bedsteads, sideboard, all twelve chairs
Have been granted, bargained, sold.
We must leave this land, my dear.

O’er Virginia shed no tears
Our new life Ohio holds.
There is no life for us here,
We must leave this land, my dear.