ABELLA
A Voice for the Voiceless

Abella is a story about an enslaved girl who has a unique gift of singing. As the youngest child on the Butler's Plantation, Ol Hoss, the plantation overseer, exploits Abella's singing gift and uses it as a bizarre personal comfort zone as he abuses the enslaved. Her singing sends coded messages to help people escape from slavery and carries the burden of erasing the pain and sorrows of brutally tortured people. Abella considers it all as a mixed blessing.  Her saving grace appears when Mrs. Whiticure, an accomplished music teacher inadvertently, hears Abella singing and offers Mr. Butler a price he couldn't refuse. With the help of the servant Percy, Mrs. Whiticure begins a rigorous program of mentoring and educating Abella. She becomes her model student, and the transformation is so noticeable that the locals began to question the young girl's demeanor. If they could prove that Mrs. Whiticure had broken the law by educating a slave, they could be severely punished or even killed. Mrs. Whitcure's son Philip's returned home from school in England, and she sends Abella and Percy with Phillip to New Orleans to work in his new medical practice. Abella becomes intrigued by the strange presence of freed and enslaved Blacks gathering on Sundays in Congo Square. After receiving her freedom papers, she becomes a willing participant as a performer and partakes in an abolitionist movement. News of her singing voice began to spread as wealthy Blacks, Creole, and French residents paid her to perform at their special occasions. She receives an offer to perform in Paris, France, and once she arrives, the overwhelming acceptance convinces her to stay. As her wealth, popularity, and power increase, she establishes an abolitionist movement to help free other enslaved people in the United States. She purchased a record number of enslaved people to freedom, including her grandparents. She returns to New Orleans after the Civil War.