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“She went into the woods…”

Sims claims that he performed a forceps delivery of Anarcha’s first child, and then saw Betsey a month later, and a month after that he encountered Lucy—the process of gathering the women together in his Negro Hospital began soon thereafter. There is no written account of what happened with Anarcha during this time, but there is later evidence that cabins built for her were away from other slave quarters, and a time of ostracization is consistent with the experience of fistula sufferers in Africa today. For example, in the afterword of this book, I tell the story of a young fistula sufferer in Nigeria. She was kept in a small structure alone, and not fed for five weeks—she eventually died of starvation. A period of separation from those Anarcha might have thought of as family is consistent with the experience of fistula sufferers, and the details of what she encounters in the woods is drawn on actual accounts of formerly enslaved persons.