Information: a Network

With the millions of ways of communication with other people available today, the method that is the oldest and most common during the time period of Jacobs' and many other slaves is now rendered useless with our new faster methods of communication across the country in matters of minutes.
The letter.
            Dead.
                   Extinct.
When we think of the time it takes to send, receive, and respond to a letter we realize that there is more than plenty enough time to lay a trap for a slave. When Jacobs talks of, "receiving this brief letter from Ms. Bruce" the reader realizes how much room for action the time it takes to send a letter allows(206). If the slaves of the time period were aided with modern methods of communication, the more efficient methods theoretically could have created an entire network of information to aid slaves going undetected in their escape, like the Under Ground Railroad, but with more people across the country connected and so much more efficient methods of communication that a slave could have left the state days before the master arrived looking for her there. when several people, "came to inquire about (Jacobs)" living with the Bruces, she narrowly avoids being caught there and being brought back to slavery under the fugitive slave law(202). If she had been at home she would have certainly been brought back against her will. Yet if she had been aided by modern communication, she would not have had to worry about the risk of being found at her house. She simply would be forewarned of peoples' inquiring about her house and would have known not to arrive back at the Bruces' house or would have gone into hiding, depending on the case. With modern technology at their aid, the slaves of the past would have avoided detection and many more would have escaped. The very same ones that were killed in their attempts to escape. The same ones that would have become the societal leaders of today.