How do we know anything about all these countless numbers of women and girls, 
who once lived and died down in the mine? 

Well - One day Amanda N..... (Her family name must for ever be kept a secret.)  arrived to the town. 

Being the youngest of three sisters, she had also proved to be the brightest, and while her 
sisters only had thought of bekomming married and have familes, Amanda had studied hard at school and 
at the university, and had now in the age of 25 just been employed as a journalist 
by a large London newspaper.  

She was a very ambitious young woman, and did not want to waste years 
doing minor articles, before being promoted. 
She wanted to make a big story as quickly as possible, so she could become famous right away, 
and prove women could be better journalists than men. 

The history of slavery had always had her big interest. 
She had often thought of, how it must feel to be owned by someone, and 
have to do whatever you were orderet, and work hard to the bennefit of someone els. 

Durring her studies, she had come on some papers about female chain gangs 
on prison farms in the Southern States, and specialy one small note had court her interest:
 
It was about several female convicts had been seen going into a coal mine to work as forced labours, 
and never had come out again. 

The editor was only pleased to get rid of his new a little to keen  employee for a while, and 
granted her the trip, telling her to take all the time she needed. 
 

"Your request is naturally granted miss N..... !
The sherif will be here in a few minutes, and 
he will show you all you want to see." 

The managers, incl. the governor were not 
at all pleased by having a journalist sticking 
her nose into their business, but denying 
her access, could make a scandal. 
 
So they contacted the sheriff. 
He would know, how to handle this in the 
best possible way. 
 

"It is to late to visit the prison today miss N.....!  
I have arranged a room for you at the towns best hotel. 
 Tomorrow afternoon you will be able to see 
the convicts as they return back to prison from work." 

The sheriff had a good plan. 
He had contacted some of his overseers 
and foremen, and 10 of their wives and daughters, 
would dress in strips and act as convicts returning 
back to jail, from a days of light work in the mine. 

"Every day all prisoners gets a shower after work, 
and a  nice clean prison dress. 

As you see, only female starf has access 
to the bath room, so no prisoner will have to
feel embarrassed by having males looking 
at them while undressed."
 

"You may ask them about anything, you want to. 

They get meat every day, and spend 
their spare time before bed time 
reading papers and magazines 
and listning to the radio. 
Sometimes they even dance together to the music."
  

That evening Amanda writes a 
new letter to the governor. 

In it she writes, she do not believe it were 
the real mining convicts, she had seen. 

She had noticed, all the women had fine hair 
and well cared hands and fingernails. 
None of them had ever done any kind of hard work. 

Now she demanded access to go down into 
the real mine, and see what were going on down there! 

"I must apologize - 
But we only did it to protect you. 

It is not a place for ladies like you. 

It is a dirty and harsh environment 
down there, but I see, you have chosen 
the right clothes for the visit. 

You see - We do not have ordinary 
convicts in the mine. 

They are all insane criminals, which normaly 
would be locked up in mad houses, but we 
believe it is better for them to do something 
usefull instead of spending their lives 
in straightjackets. 
 

"As you see, we have a very high grade 
of security down here. 
We will not take any risk, any of these dangerous insane 
females slips out, and maybe murder someone." 
 

"Oh no - What is this? 
It is a dead girl lying there!" 
 
"Yes - This is a dangerous place. 
But don´t worry, we will look after you, and 
all the women down here are kept permanently 
chained for safety!" 
 

Soon after a convict appears in the light from the lamp. 

The  governor and the foreman must be right! 
This must be a madwoman. 

She is working stark naked, and 
shamelessly let her menstrual run down the legs. 
Disturbed by the sudden light she
looks briefly at Amanda, with a wild 
expression in her otherwise pretty face. 
Seconds after she turns her back to Amanda and 
the foreman, and begin working with her 
pickaxe in an insanely high tempo.  

Confidant about the foreman must be telling the truth, 
and they only had lied to her to protect her, she 
listens to what the foreman now offers her. 

"All the women down here are like wild animals. 
They will never trust you, as long as you 
walk around looking like an overseer. 

If you want to get your story, you will have 
to look like them. 

I have brought with me fetters and a sack 
so you  can look like a convict." 
 

"Are you sure this is the only way to do it ???
It feels so strange wearing no underclothes 
under this sack, and the leg irons hurt !" 

"Yes Amanda - It will be uncomfortable, but 
it is the only way, you can get your story.
You will only have to pretent to work, and
 think of the fame, you will get. 
You will be a very rich woman in a very short time. 
You can leave again at any time you want to, 
after you have gathered enough material !" 
 

What Amanda didn´t know, was the foreman 
and Maria shortly after dressed the dead girl in 
Amanda´s clothes and  jewellery. 

The doctor at the town´s hospital proclaimed 
the crushed body as being Amanda´s, and already  
the next day, her parents could read bout  
their youngest daughter´s death in the morning papers
 

On the way down into the mine, 
Amanda and the foreman passes several 
fully loaded tipper waggons pushed 
by naked young women. 
 

After a long walk, the foreman points at 
a narrow tunnel on the right side of the main shaft, 
and tells Amanda to crawl into it. 
 

Amanda watch with horror, while the foreman, as 
if it is the most natural thing to do, knocks the 
first girl they see in the tunnel unconscious, 
so Amanda can lend her pickaxe. 

"Don´t worry Amanda - 
Now she willn´t get any silly ideas while 
she can´t work with her pick. 
She will wake up again in some hours. 
In the meantime you can try to use 
her pickaxe, so you can experience, how 
it is to work with one. 
When the slut wakes up, you just give it back 
to her, and she will continue her work. 
 

The pickaxe is much more heavy, than 
Amanda had imagined. 

After only working half an hour, Amanda 
can feel her sweat pouring down her back, 
and both her arms and her back begines to hurt. 
 

Oh no - This is much to hard !!! 
How can the women down here work 
all day like this? 
They must surely be mad, since they can endure it ! 

I will try to find one I can talk to instead. 
 

It is not easy to find one, who wants to talk. 
All the women she sees are working in 
an insane pace and have no time for her. 

Or maybe because they are madwomen, they simply 
can´t understand me, Amanda thinks.
 

Amanda finds a girl, who is still good looking, 
and can´t have been here for more than 
a few months. 
 

"Don´t be afraid - I am Amanda, 
I´am a journalist, can you tell me......"

"Please be quiet - Do you want me to get punished?
We are forbidden to talk, and I must work" 

"Not yet ! - Wait until he has chained us for the night. 
I will get punished, if he hear me say anything ." 

Surprised about how cultivated the woman 
has answered, Amanda sits down and waits 
for the foreman. 

This woman did not at all sound like 
if she was insane! 

"Who are you? - 
Why did the foreman not beat you?
Why are you allowed to have 
a pen and a notebook" 

"Don´t be afraid - My name is Amanda. 
I am here to hear your story.  
I´am not a convict. 
I only wear this sack and chains, so I 
will not scare the women I try to talk to. 

What is your name? - 
How long has the doctor said you must stay here?" 
 

"Doctor? - What doctor? 

My name is Marianna, I´am 26. 
I have been in this hell for 2 or 3 months by now. 
I was on my way home on holliday from the university, 
when the train stopped for an hour in this town. 
I went for a walk to get some exercise on the long trip. 
Then the police suddently grabbed me, and 
took me to the sheriff´s office, where they 
accused me for shoplifting, even I hadn´t 
been inside any shop. 
They took away my shoes and stockings, and 
locked me into a stinking cell, where I 
had to stand up all night, as I did not want 
to dirty my clothes. 
 

The next day, they brought me before the judge. 
But he said he didn´t have any time to listen 
to my lies, because he was late for dinner, and 
sentenced me to life down here in this 
horrible place, without even bothering 
to look at me. 

Then I had to walk barefooted all the way through 
the town to this mine. 

There are 3- or 400 kidnappet women down here, 
and all of us must work as slaves until we die ! 
Don´t you understand?  
We will never see the light again ! 

Now please no more questions. 
I have to sleep.  If we don´t meet our quoata 
every day, we don´t get anything to eat!" 
 

Amanda shakes her head, as she writes down, 
what Marianna has told her. 

This poor woman must surely be incurably insane 
 if she can make up such a story. 
The sheriff had warned her against, how 
some of these insane convicts never realizes 
how crazy they really are! 

Tomorrow she will try to find another woman, 
who´s mind is less imaginative. 
 

But Amanda must soon realize, Marianna 
maybe not has been as crazy, as she had thought. 

"How long I must stay here? 
Ha - How can you ask such a silly question?
If you want to know, my name is Miranda, 
and if the year you just told me is right, 
then I must be 28 by now. 

 I´am going to work every single sickening day 
in this stinking hell, for the rest of my miserable life, 
and after that I am going to rot together with 
all the others down in one of the bone pits ! 

Now go away - Maria can come any minute. 
If she finds us talking, I will be very lucky, if 
she only thrashes me and let me starve!" 
 

"Oh -  I can´t breath - Wait a little - Ohhh! 

Sorry, I am Nicole, I´am 19 - It´s all so terrible.
They fetched us in the middle of the night. 

Mom, my little sister Amy and I were sleeping 
at the highway motel. 
They accused us for being prostitutes. 
But both I and Amy are virgins, we tried to say! 

But they handcuffed us and forced us 
to run in a rope tied to the car 
all the long way to this horrible place,
only wearing our night clothes. 

Now please no more talking - 
I must meet my quota - I have to - 
Maria will also punish my mother, 
and Amy, if I don´t !"
 

Amanda tries to ask a young black girl. 
For her it must be more  natural 
doing hard labour, she thinks. 

But: 
"My name is Sally, I´am 20 years old.
I always got very find grads at school. 
But when I was choosen to go 
to the university, it was to much 
for the town government. 
They don´t like educated blacks, 
particularly not  if they are women ! 
So here I am -Why are you here?" 

Amanda tells her, but when she says she 
is going to leave again in a couple of days, 
Sally only shakes her head  sadly . 
 

Amanda is not quite happy about, 
what the convicts have told her. 

Neither Marianna, Miranda, Nicole nor Sally had 
seemed as being madwomen, even their 
stories at first had sounded unbelievable. 

With a sinister feeling in her stomach, 
she joins Sally on the long way up to the 
exit of the mine, and calls at the armed man 
standing guard outside the gate:  

"Hallo - Can you please tell the foreman 
I´am finished now, and I am ready to leave."
 

"Please Mr. - I have got enough material, 
and I really have to go to a bathroom, and...." 

"Shut up! - You do as I tell you to do ! 
The order is, that you stay here. 
Nobody will search for you
Your parents and your employer 
believes, you are already dead ! 

Give me those notes. 
The governor wants to read them." 
  

"And stop crying - Tears willn´t help you. 

Now you go back to your tunnel, and 
every week you must deliver at least 
five full pages, about your life as a slave.

If you fail in doing so only once, 
you will be very sorry !" 















 

In despair and cursing herself of
being so stupid believing those bandits, 
Amanda faces her second night in chains. 

Her fellow slaves are so exhausted 
after the long work day, they almost 
immediately falls into sleep, but Amanda 
knows, she has to write something. 

Only one blond woman sitting behind her 
in a sack like Amanda´s says anything. 

She turns out to be Nicole´s and Amy´s mother. 
Through tears she tells, she is Karen H...., and 
is 37 years old.  She was a business woman 
and had been divorced long ago. 

She and her daughters had taken on a holliday 
ride in her car through the country. 
They had stopped in this town for 
the night, but then.... 

The foreman had given her a sack to put on,
 but both her daughters have to work naked. 

Then she cries herself into sleep. 
 

The next morning Amanda has to stand 
in line, and receive orders, just like 
all the other slaves. 

Only two hours later -

"You dare stop working - 
get on with that pickaxe NOW !" 

"But Mistress - I am so tirred and 
you havn´t given me anything to eat, 
since I came here the day before yesterday !" 
 

Amanda must realize, that was a wrong answer. 

The rest of the day and all night she  is hung by her 
wrists, and weighed down by a heavy log. 

This is the normal punishment for disobedience.

 None of the other slaves feels any pity for her. 
Lazy and obstinate slaves means 
trouble for them all. 
 

The next morning Amanda is let down 
and the foreman gives her a heavy caning.

"From now on you both work and write ! 
Do you understand? 
And you never talk back to Maria nor me !
This is your last warning !
From now on there is no more mercy ! " 
 

Every week Amanda´s notes are send 
in a sealed envelope to the governor. 

He has never until now been curious to know, 
how the women in the mine 
felt about being enslaved, as long as 
the profit was high. 

Now he can read it at first hand. 
He soon finds it very amusing. 
It is not only writen by a slave, but the paper is 
also stained of sweat and tears, and has 
dirty fingerprints all over it from the girl. 
 

Every evening Amanda must try to get 
at least one of the other slaves to tell 
her something about herself, 
so she can get a story. 

She writes about homesick girls 
like the young jewish girl Sara, who every 
evening cries herself into sleep . 




 

She writes about Betty, a very strong black girl, 
who meets her quota every day year after year - 
 

- Marina, an unusual lazy blond chick, 
who was kidnapped only a week ago near 
a camping site outside town, and how Maria must 
spend a lot of time and energy, to make her work. 
 

- And the shy Loreen, who tries to draw as little 
attention to herself as possible. 

Attention means punishments, she says, 
but tells Amanda briefly she is 35, and
is devorced because her husband wanted 
to marry a younger woman. 
 

As she puts down her shovel, and continue 
to work with a pickaxe, she continues: 

It is a obedient wife´s duty to devorce and 
go to this place, if her husband want to remarry. 
It hadn´t been a surprise for her. 
She had for 6 months known, her husband 
was seeing Vera, the yong blond 
shop assistant at the shopping centre. 
 

Unlike the white ones, fare the most of 
the black slaves working in the mine, are local girls. 

A few of them are arrested for being 
to smart, and getting to good grades in school, 
but most of them are surplus daughters sold 
cheaply by their families to the Mine . 
 

Even only 25 percent of the slaves are 
black, they are indispensable to the mine. 

They are much better workers, and don´t look 
as sad or moan so much as the white slaves. 

With a few  exceptions, they usualy 
meet their quotas, so they can eat, and 
as a result of this, they live twice as 
long as the kidnapped white girls. 
 

Some days the Foreman put Amanda
 to work together with only black girls.

They seem to enjoy to speed up the pace,
while having a white woman among them, 
knowing they are capable to work much 
harder and for a longer time. 
 

After such a day, Amanda is to exhausted 
to write anything, and only want to 
find herself a white girl to sleep with at night.  
 

But most days, Amanda is allowed to 
leave her work for a couple of hours, 
So she can find material for her notes. 

As time goes, Amanda gets more popular 
with many of her fellow slaves. 

She is the only one, they are allowed to talk to, 
and after maybe years of not being 
allowed to say a word, it is a bliss for a 
female to be able to chat again.