Ernest J. Gaines' book, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, used many historical events to connect to the character's story. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was published by Bantam Books in 1972 and is 259 pages long. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a classic fiction book. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman tells the story of a woman's life when she was over one hundred years old. The novel covers 3 main periods: the war years, reconstruction and slavery. In The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, it is the Reconstruction era and the novel is really connected to the history of the time. The novel begins the story when Jane was a young slave. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order announced by my President Abraham Lincoln in September 1862 and officially issued on January 1, 1863, freeing slaves in all Confederate states still in rebellion (Abbott et al. 408). Jane and the other slaves read the proclamation and were offered to stay on the plantation by their former slave master. The slaves then gather and decide whether to stay on the furlough plantation. At the time, many whites were afraid of what the now freed slave would do. Former slaves did not even initially dream of social equality; Even less did they plan murder and unrest, as whites feared (Abbott et al. 439). Although the slaves were freed, slavery in the social framework continued. When Jane and a few others decided to leave the plantation, the patrolmen spotted them and killed many of them. Jane says, “It was they and the soldiers of the Secesh Army who later constituted the Ku Klux Klan” (Gaines 21). Organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan terrorized blacks in the South during Reconstruction...... middle of paper ...... during this period. The problem of racial order in society has caused many deaths, not only in the book but in real life. Jane was free but lived as a slave her entire life. Jane tried to escape to the South, but failed and worked the same job as when she was a slave. Blacks were no longer slaves but slaves to the law, but they still lived in mental slavery, bound by the racial order. Black people suffered for many years after slavery and fought for their civil rights, just like Jane, Ned, and Jimmy “The One.” Works Cited Abbott, Carol, Virginia Anderson et al. The American Journey A History of the United States. 6. River: Pearson Education, 2011. Print. Gaines, Ernest. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. New York: Bantam Books, 1972. Print. Mackintosh, Barry. “A time of judgment.” www.nps.gov. Np, January 30 2014. .