The first ship carrying kidnapped Africans to enslavement in what is now the United States arrived in 1619, and the institution of chattel slavery remained legal in parts of the US until 1865, when the Civil War ended and the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Because slavery was abolished in many states prior to 1865, fugitives from slavery would sometimes travel to those “free” states to avoid being recaptured. However, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed patrols to recapture formerly enslaved people in any state, and the act also required citizens to report formerly enslaved people. This made the northern, free states inhospitable to fugitives from slavery between 1850 and 1865. Since Trouble Don’t Last takes place in 1859, Samuel and Harrison must travel to Canada to seek true freedom. Neither Kentucky nor Ohio (which was a free state by then) are safe for them.

Under chattel slavery in the US, people born to an enslaved mother would automatically be enslaved as well and would legally become the property of the same person who enslaved their mother. This is what happens to Samuel, the protagonist of Trouble Don’t Last. Enslaved people were forced to work for whoever enslaved them, without pay or compensation.