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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
THE GRIPPING NOVEL BASED ON A TRUE STORY OF SLAVERY In 1839, fifty-three African slaves staged a bloody mutiny on board the Amistad, a Spanish slave ship from Cuba. Their success was short-lived as the slaver was intercepted by the American Navy and towed to Connecticut where the slaves were held for deportation. But instead of sending them back to Cuba, the fledgling Abolitionist movement forced a series of trials, culminating in their defence in the Supreme Court by former President John Quincy Adams. This powerful dramatisation of one of America's first battles for civil rights brings flesh, bone and emotion to what has been little more than a footnote in history. Torn from their homes, sold into slavery and faced with a terrible future, this moving novel evokes the fight, courage and hope of a people determined to be free.
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Seitenzahl: 490
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Amistad
David Pesci
To my parents
Contents
Acknowledgments
I couldn’t have written this book without time, support, and guidance from numerous people, and I need to express to them my most sincere gratitude.
The reference staff at the Homer Babbidge Library at the University of Connecticut in Storrs was extremely helpful in answering my many questions and making a variety of resources available.
Special thanks to my unbelievably patient and wise proofreaders, Nancy Kelleran, Russ Malz, and Susan Campbell. They fixed the typos, offered suggestions, and provided moral support and encouragement from start to finish. Extra special thanks to Carol Hobbs, Esq., who not only proofed many chapters, but offered legal advice on the passages of this novel that dealt with the court trials.
Thanks to my uncle, Don Pesci, the best writer I have ever known. Your suggestions, moral support, and help were invaluable and indispensable throughout this project.
Thanks to Keith Lashley for the introductions and for his belief in the importance of this book. Thanks also to Raúl da Silva for the title suggestion, the introductions, and his enthusiasm.
Thank you to Roberta Flack for her interest and kind words.
Deep and heartfelt appreciation to my agent, John White. Your enthusiasm, suggestions, editor’s eye, and drive made the publication of this book a reality. Thanks again.
Finally, to my family – my parents, to whom this book is dedicated, my sisters, my brother and his family, my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. All of you have constantly supported me with your encouragement, prayers, and pride. It is a debt I can never repay. Thank you always.
—David Pesci
Part One
The Atlantic
April 1839
Singbe
A cold touch woke him from a dreamless sleep. It was the hand of the boy lying next to him, tossed by the roll of the ship in the night sea. The palm was cold, the fingers stiff. The boy was dead.
Singbe lightly pushed the hand away and shifted his body to face the boy. He could not see him in the darkness of the ship’s hold. Groping with his left hand, he found the boy’s chest, rigid and still with the lifeless cold. The chain running between Singbe’s wrists was connected to another running between his feet and did not let his hand move up any farther. He shifted his body again and reached with his right hand. The manacle grated into his wrist as he stretched it forward. He found the boy’s eyes, open. Singbe tried to pull the lids down with his fingertips, but they were fixed and would not move. He said a short prayer and turned away, leaving the dead boy to stare into the darkness.
Singbe closed his own eyes and tried to picture Stefa, and Ge-waw, Klee, Baru, and his father, all together, happy and real. He saw his hut and his farm, the broad field that he and Stefa and his father had worked so hard to clear. They had planted well. The weather had been kind, the sun warm and the rains soft and measured. The birds and small animals had been kept away. There were no locusts or worms. The rice would soon be ready for harvest. After it was in, Singbe would take Ge-waw on his first hunt.
The images were bright and strong. But for the past few weeks, Singbe was finding he could not hold them long in his mind before others began to creep in. At first it was the lion, coming upon Stefa, Klee, and Baru at the river while they were drawing water for the day. The lion gave way to a pack of hyenas, sharp-toothed, quick and bloodthirsty, descending upon Stefa and Father and the children as they tended the fields. But lately these images had yielded to a new one – a man.
He was not a man Singbe had seen before. At first, his features and movements were so thin and sketchy that he was little more than a shadow in the background, barely noticed or seen. But in the past few weeks the face and form had grown clearer, more defined and strong, so that he had become familiar. Confident and smiling, the man moved as one with Stefa and the children, looking back at Singbe with a leering grin as he lay down with Stefa or shared the hunt with Ge-waw. He lived in Singbe’s home, sat in his place at mealtimes, and walked his lands. Father was gone.
Each time the man appeared, Singbe saw the light of his own presence in the eyes of his wife and children fade a little more. It had been so long already. How much time would it take before all that was left of him in their minds was a memory living with the ghosts of the dead?
The ship rolled and the boy’s hand touched him again. Singbe pushed it away angrily. He closed his eyes again and tried to think of a way to get back home.
Moans and cries, thumps of wood on wood, and a cold gurgle of chains shook Singbe awake. A whiteman held a musket in one hand and slid open the square wooden portholes with the other. Dull morning light filtered in and salt air slowlv began to mix with the hold’s rancid stink. Two other men, one white and one a light-skinned black, both bare-chested and shoeless, walked down the aisle yelling in that foreign tongue of theirs. They unlocked the links that bound wrists to ankles, then grabbed the wrist chains and pulled the tribesmen to their feet.
Another, a yellow-haired whiteman, stood in front of the deck-hatch ladder, watching. He was tall and lean, sinewy at the neck and forearms, and his skin was whiter than the other whitemen on the ship. He was dressed more completely than the others, wearing a bright white shirt, striped pants, and polished black boots. He had a hawklike nose and wore his thick mane of yellow hair tied behind his head. In his left hand he held a black, sharp-ended walking stick with a dog’s head carved in the gold handle. A pistol stuck out from his belt. Singbe looked away from the men. These were the ones who always came in the morning.
The light-skinned black was moving toward him, and Singbe shifted from his side to a sitting position. When the sailor was two men away, Singbe nodded his head to the left.
“The boy is dead. He is dead.”
Singbe knew the sailors did not speak Mende or any languages of the tribesmen, but maybe he could get the sailor to understand. The man was over him now. Singbe repeated his words and nodded again. The man unlocked the middle chain, pulled Singbe up hard and pushed him forward from behind the head.
“Shut-up that gibberish and move, Congo.”
The push twisted Singbe’s feet around the ankle chain and sent him hard to the floor. He started to get up and saw the sailor pull up on the boy’s chains. The lifeless body jerked forward, the feet coming off the floor, the head bouncing off the sailor’s chest, shit dripping onto his feet. The sailor jumped back.
“Bloody hell.”
He threw the boy’s body hard, smashing his head against the bulkhead. The eyes, still open, stared back, glazed and vacant.
Singbe jumped to his feet and swung his wrist chains at the sailor, hitting him square in the side of the neck. The man fell sideways, the deck coming up hard on his elbow. The other sailor pulling up tribesmen exploded with laughter.
“That one giving you some attitude, Paolo?”
“Je-sus!”
The sailor jumped up and struck Singbe with the back of his hand, knocking him face first to the floor. He fell on Singbe’s back and grabbed his hair. He pulled it back hard and then smashed Singbe’s face into the planking. Singbe felt his head come up again. He rolled his body, hitting the man hard in the side of the face with the wrist chains. He tried to raise his leg to kick, but the manacles snapped it back. He turned and drove his knees up into the man’s groin. The man let out a howl. He drew a knife from his belt. Singbe slapped his chains into the man’s hand, sending the knife flying. The man shoved his palm up into Singbe’s jaw and pressed his knees into the manacled arms. He grabbed Singbe’s throat with both hands, thumbs digging deep into the neck, and squeezed.
“Die you bloody-shit nigger! Die!”
Singbe struggled but he could not loosen the man’s grip. He couldn’t see and he couldn’t breathe. There was a cracking in his throat. And then, quite suddenly, the sailor stopped squeezing.
“No, Paolo.”
The yellow-haired whiteman held a pistol to the sailor’s temple.
The sailor smiled weakly. “But, Señor Shaw, this nigger …”
The hammer drew back with a metallic click. The man pressed the pistol deeper into the sailor’s temple.
“Carries a cash value. More than you’ll get paid for this voyage. More than you’ll ever be worth yourself, I daresay. Leave off and get up. Now.”
“But, Señor Shaw, sir. He pushed me to the floor. Surely he is not to get away with it?”
The sailor started to rise. Shaw kicked him back to the floor.
“I’ll warn you now not to second guess me or my motives with my property. Your job is to do as you’re told. Period.”
Shaw stuck his pistol in his belt and pulled Singbe, still gasping for air, to his feet. He gently turned Singbe’s head and inspected his neck and bloody nose. Singbe stared at Paolo.
“Get me a wet cloth, Paolo.”
The sailor grabbed a bucket of seawater and pulled out a rag. Shaw rung it out and swabbed the blood from Singbe’s face.
“I am to say how these blacks are handled. I will give orders for punishment or not. You are to follow those orders. Above all, you are also not to damage my property. Understand?”
“Si,Señor.”
The yellow-haired man pointed to the line of tribesmen going up the hatch and nodded to Singbe. Singbe understood. He stared at Paolo for a second longer and then turned and got in line.
“This black’s got strength and spirit,” Shaw said. “And that’s exactly why I am in this business. The African blacks work longer and better in the fields. They make better breeding stock. That’s why we can get twice for any one of these what they get for Creoles. We have already had excessive losses on this voyage. I’ll be lucky to break even. What I do not need is some stupid shitfaced scab as yourself busting on my healthy cargo. Now, no harm better come to that particular black unless I order it. If I see a cut to his body, a bruise to his face, if he gets sick, if he catches a bloody cold, it’ll be out of your pay. And I can assure you, you useless mulatto scum, it will be out of your hide. Understand?”
‘Si.Si,Señor.’
Shaw took one step toward Paolo, who took one step backward.
Shaw smiled, “Cross me, Paolo, and you will live no longer.”
The other sailor, Miguel, had been walking down the line and now had all the tribesmen on their feet and walking toward the hatch. He reached down and dragged the dead boy’s body to the aisle.
“Another one, Señor Shaw.”
Shaw moved to the boy and poked him in the ribs with the walking stick.
“Take an ear and drag him up with the others once these are on deck, Miguel.”
‘Si,SeñorShaw.’
Shaw walked down past the line of tribesmen and the sailor with the musket and went up the ladder. Miguel pulled the dead boy onto the pile. There were twelve bodies plus the boy. Paolo picked up his knife off the floor and began cutting off the left ear of each dead tribesman and putting them in the burlap bag Miguel held.
“I’m gonna kill that Inglese son-of-a-bitch. I’m gonna kill him and his precious nigger.”
“He’s not Inglese, he’s American. And if I were you I’d let it go, Paolo. Señor Shaw may walk and talk like some highborn gentleman, but he will kill you or any other man who crosses him. He’ll do it without a thought.”
“He’s a dead man walking.”
On deck, Singbe followed the other tribesmen, shuffling to the railing where they were urinating into the sea. All of them were naked, and despite the warm air brought by the ship’s southern latitude and the growing strength of the morning sun, their bodies shook with chills. Three whitemen with muskets stood close by. Two others were on the raised deck in the stern.
“Have you lost your mind?”
The words came from a tribesman along the railing, Grabeau, a Mende man like Singbe, with the ceremonial marks of Poro on his back. Many on board were Mende. But there were also Mandingo, Gissi, Timmani, Balu, Bandi, and even Gula. Singbe said nothing.
“Is it not enough that the blackman with the white blood in his skin hates the tribesmen? He would gladly kill any of us. But now you have gone and given him reason to want to kill you, especially.”
Singbe stared out at the sea.
“We are in a world of shit.”
“Yes, Singbe, it is true. But would you rather be dead?”
“The Gods have not kept me alive through all this just to die.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps they just haven’t gotten around to killing you, yet.”
“No. I don’t believe that. I will return home to my wife and my children and my father.”
Grabeau let loose a small laugh and spat into the sea. “How, Singbe? The water is everywhere. The ship leaves no trail in it. We do not even know where the factory or Mende or anywhere is anymore.”
A sailor yelled at them. They had been on the ship long enough to know they were being told not to talk. Singbe looked back to the ocean and lowered his voice.
“The ship sails away from the sun in the morning and into it in the afternoon.”
“So?”
“So, we need to move toward the sun in the morning and away from the sun in the afternoon.”
“And how are we to do that? Slip over the side and walk?”
“No. We take this ship and sail it ourselves.”
Grabeau smiled broadly. “I see that mound of shit black-whiteman must have knocked the mind from your head. Have you forgotten these?” He shook the chains lightly. “Or the whitemen on this boat with their guns?”
“I count only twenty-four whitemen on this boat. Even with all the dead they’ve thrown over the side, there still must be more than three hundred tribesmen in its belly. They bring us up sixty or more at a time. Sixty tribesmen against twenty-four whites. That is more than enough. Guns or not. And all of the whitemen do not have guns all the time. We surprise them, we kill them. The boat will be ours.”
“Maybe if we were not in chains or starving or if so many of us were not sick, I might agree with you. But trying it as we are … It would be madness. Slaughter.”
“No. Spending the rest of our lives in chains, living as slaves at the end of a lash-that is madness. That is slaughter.”
The crack of a whip hit the deck a breath away from Singbe’s feet.
“No talking! Shut up. Shut up and walk.”
A sailor with a musket pushed them forward and they began to walk, slowly, following the railing and the riggings, around the deck. They would do this for an hour then be given a handful of rice and a cup of water, which they had to eat and drink while watched by sailors and the yellow-haired man. It had been this way every day since the second morning, except for the three days and four nights of wind and rain and boiling, heaving seas. On those days they ate below. Many got sick, spilling their food up from their stomachs onto the floor. The stench of that and human waste and the dead drew the food out of most of the others.
Just above the stern, the sun had begun to glow brighter behind the morning mist. Singbe looked out at the sea. He still found it hard to believe its size, that they could sail for so many days without seeing land. Forty-three days so far by Singbe’s count. Thirty-five before that in the slave factory at the mouth of the Gallinas River. Thirty-two before that chained in a pen in Genduma. And it was twelve mornings before being brought to Genduma that he was captured by tribesmen on the road.
It was on the road to Kawamende, a Mende village a half day’s walk from his farm, where he had gone to look at some goats he might want to trade for. Singbe had never seen the man who stopped him. He was not a Mendeman but he spoke the language and asked Singbe if this was the way to Mawkoba. Singbe was suspicious of the stranger and watched him carefully as he answered. When he finished, the man thanked him and turned up the road toward Mawkoba. It was then that Singbe was hit on the head from behind. The blow was sharp and caught him by surprise. He fell to the ground but he did not lose consciousness. He rolled and then lunged at the man who hit him, tackling him at the knees and striking him on the face. But then others fell upon him and beat him senseless.
When he regained consciousness, he found himself tied to a tree. The men were eating around a fire. Singbe yelled to them but they paid him no mind. After they finished eating, one man came over and tied a rope around Singbe’s neck, looped it out to his right wrist, and tied another knot leaving about ten feet of slack hanging. Then he tied another rope around Singbe’s neck and freed him from the tree. Singbe stood slowly. A hot, thick throbbing pulsed through his head. His body ached and burned from the beating. Suddenly, one of the men pulled at the rope around his wrist. The noose tightened at Singbe’s neck, choking him so hard he couldn’t stand. The men all laughed and then pulled him up by tugging on the other rope around his neck. They walked him through the jungle like this. Any time Singbe tried to resist or slow down, they pulled hard at the rope on his wrist, dropping him to his knees, breathless and choking.
Singbe did not know the men. He thought they were Vai, or perhaps Genduma, both neighboring tribes that the Mende had warred with off and on for hundreds of years. It didn’t matter. He knew what was happening. Men taking other men as slaves was as old as the tribes. It was practised in war, as a payment for debts and crimes, and, if it could be arranged, as a way to acquire men’s lands, animals, or women. Some slaves were sold and taken away. They could end up as close to their homes as a few days’ walk, or be put on caravans and taken halfway around the globe, never to be seen again. In some tribes, slaves could work themselves out of slavery, eventually joining the tribe as an equal, able to take a wife and hold property. In others, the slaves were worked until they died. Singbe had never owned a slave, but he knew plenty of Mende men who did.
The four men who took Singbe sold him to Bamadzha, son of Shaka, the Genduma king. Bamadzha held Singbe in a pen with ten other men for more than a month and then marched them through the bush for three days and nights to the slave factory on the Gallinas River near Lomboko Harbor. There they were sold to a Spaniard, the first whiteman Singbe had ever seen. Whitemen had been buying slaves for a long time, almost three hundred years, trading with rum, fabrics, silver, gold, knives, and even guns. Singbe knew some tribal chiefs had become extremely wealthy dealing captives from rival tribes to the white slave traders.
The slave factory was a collection of huge holding pens which was situated just back from the river in a small hollow concealed by trees. Though they looked crude, the giant cages were nearly impenetrable. The walls were bars made of wooden planks and tree trunks that had been driven deep into the soil. There was barely enough space between each bar for a man to stick two fingers through. Each pen was sealed by a roof of rough, knotty planking and had a single door, chained shut and padlocked. Whitemen with muskets guarded the doors from the outside.
There were whitemen everywhere and they all had guns. Most of the tribesmen held captive had never seen either. To provide an education for new captives, a special demonstration was arranged every week or so. The bodies of four dead tribesmen were tied to trees. The whitemen loaded their guns and took turns shooting at the bodies. Large pieces of flesh were blown off with each shot. The head of one of the dead tribesmen exploded completely. After each volley, one of the whitemen would turn to the pens and say some words. A Genduma tribesman standing next to him translated, first in Genduma, then in Mandingo. Singbe found out later that he said a gun could kill a man or a lion or even an elephant from across a field. There was no escaping its fire and power. Nothing could stop it.
The first time Singbe saw this demonstration, there was an added element. After shooting the corpses, a live tribesman was dragged out from a small shack across from the pen. He looked like a Gissi, but Singbe could not tell for sure. He had been badly beaten and his back and face were bloody. Despite his wounds, the man fought and struggled madly. It took four men, two whitemen and two Genduma tribesmen, to drag him to a tree and bind him. He struggled and screamed despite their repeated strikes to his face and ribs. Singbe watched two men, one whiteman and one Genduma, calmly load guns and aim them at the man. His screaming had become manic, bloodcurdling, heaving cries. There was a flash and then loud crack from the Genduma’s gun. The blast hit the tribesman square in the belly. The whiteman fired, snapping the tribesman’s head back quick and hard against the tree. Blood flowed from the large hole in his belly. His head sagged forward, the face sheared off. The tribesmen in the pens stared in silence.
By Singbe’s count there were almost four hundred men in the pen with him when he was first brought to the factory. Ten to twenty a day were added to their number. They were fed a bowlful of rice and half a fish each day and could have all the river water they wanted. They urinated out through the bars and shit in a hole in one corner. Despite openings in the bars and between the roof planks, the stench was overwhelming. The other captives were from many tribes, some Singbe had never heard of, from as far away as eighty days’ walk. Some had been taken in battle, others kidnapped as payment for debts owed by either the man himself or one of his family members. There were others like Singbe who had just been taken for no reason other than the fact that they were strong and healthy and would bring a good profit to their captors.
There were many Mende men in the pens, some whom Singbe had met before at the great harvest gatherings, and two, Grabeau and Kimbo, whom he knew well. Kimbo was taken in his own fields by Bah-rae and five men. He had sold Bah-rae two slaves a few months earlier, in payment of a debt. Soon after the transaction was made, one of the slaves ran off. Bah-rae demanded repayment, but Kimbo said that a slave’s actions were Bah-rae’s problem once he became the owner. Bah-rae left angry, then came back a few days later with the five men. It was near dusk and they found Kimbo alone in his fields. They beat him and carried him away, bound hand and foot to a pole like an animal killed on the hunt. Kimbo believed that Bah-rae coveted his lands and his wife.
“He is a thief,” Kimbo said. “He paid off his friends. They will lie and get people to believe I was taken by Genduma or Vai. Then Bah-rae will steal my property and my wife.”
Grabeau had been taken like Singbe, while traveling on a road, except Grabeau was traveling with a companion, his brother Ge-lu. They were on their way back from Fulu, a large Mende village, nearly a day’s walk from their own goat farm. It was midday when they came upon a man lying motionless in the road. As Grabeau bent down to see if he could help the man, he was struck from behind. When he awoke, he was tied as Singbe had been, at the neck and wrist. He asked the men where his brother was, and they said he was killed fighting them. But Grabeau thinks they lied, that his brother escaped.
“He will assemble a war party of Mendemen and follow our trail to this place,’ he told Singbe. “He will find me and we will kill all the slavers – the whites and the tribesmen who trade with them.”
Singbe thought of a war party of Mendemen coming to the factory. It would be a journey of several days that would take them through the lands of several hostile tribes. And even if they made it, they would have to fight against men with guns.
Every few days at the factory, whitemen – slave dealers or ambitious ship captains – would come by, looking through the bars and having certain tribesmen taken out of the pen so they could be inspected more closely. Singbe was taken out like this on three occasions. Men came in the pen with guns and a long stick with a noose at its end. The noose was slipped over Singbe’s neck. He struggled the first time, but they quickly tightened the noose and choked him so hard he felt the life nearly go out of his body. They led him out of the pen and the whitemen felt his arms, back, buttocks, and legs, and looked at his teeth and hands. One of these was the yellow-haired man, who was on the ship with them now.
Two days after the yellow-haired man came to the factory, whitemen with guns and their tribesmen allies, armed with guns and clubs, came into the pen. They yelled at the tribesmen to line up. Those who did not do so right away were beaten by the tribesmen with clubs. Many did not understand and were struck with the clubs until they realized what was expected of them. Their ankles and hands were bound with manacles and chains. Then they were lead out along the river’s mouth to a beach on the Atlantic. Like most of the captives, Singbe had never seen the ocean or a boat larger than a canoe. Many of them were terrified by it all. They were loaded onto long rowboats, fifteen tribesmen to a boat, with four whitemen pulling at the oars and one sitting in the bow holding a gun.
They were about halfway to the ship when a tribesmen in one of the boats ahead began screaming and trying to stand. The whiteman in the bow put down his gun and drew a whip from his belt. He stood and struck out at the screaming tribesman, hitting him and others. He struck again but the tribesman caught the end of the whip and pulled, jerking the whiteman to the boat’s floor. The other whitemen stopped rowing and tried to grab the tribesman. He swung at them with his chains, stumbled to the edge of the boat, and jumped into the water. The chains dragged him down, but after a few seconds he surfaced, his head barely rising above the water. The whitemen tried to reach him with the oars but the tribesman pushed them away. The whiteman with the gun called out to the tribesman, raised the gun to his shoulder, called out again, and then fired. The tribesman disappeared beneath the water just before the musket’s flash. He resurfaced a few seconds later in a different spot, farther away, and began laughing loudly. They rowed toward him while the man with the gun reloaded. The tribesman waited until they got close and then rose up a little higher in the water and screamed words in a language Singbe did not understand. Then he threw his arms back and let the weight of his chains pull him down under the waves. They waited several minutes but they saw him no more. Many of the tribesmen in the other boats began yelling and shaking their boats, but a few musket blasts into the air quickly brought silence. They were rowed out to the great ship, the Portuguese-flagged Teçora, and taken below. At sunset, the ship headed toward the open ocean.
That was forty-three days ago.
Now, Singbe sat on the deck of the Teçora with Grabeau and the other tribesmen, eating a handful of rice. Then he slowly drank from his cup of water. When the yellow-haired man saw that they had all finished, he would give the word and the sailors with guns would herd the tribesmen below and bring up another group. The rice was not cooked and they often found maggots and grubs among the grains. But they had to eat what was given to them. Anyone caught throwing it away or spitting it up later was flogged.
As Singbe ate, he shifted his body slightly out of the shadow of the mast. He wanted to feel the sun’s warmth on his whole body.
“That one.”
Two men grabbed Singbe’s arms from behind and pulled them up and back. Two more men grabbed his feet and together they lifted him off the deck. Singbe twisted and tried to flail with his arms and legs, but he could not get free. The men carried him over to the stock on the raised deck in the stern. Singbe knew what was going to happen. He had seen it before with other tribesmen on the ship. He struggled more, screaming oaths and curses at the sailors. One grabbed a musket and jammed the muzzle into his cheek. Singbe looked up at the barrel and the sailor looking back down at him. He froze. They pulled his legs into the stock’s grooves and locked the crossbar down over his calves, just above the manacles on his ankles. Singbe, back flat against the deck, looked into the sun. Two of the men now knelt on his forearms, pinning him to the deck. His feet stuck out the end of the stock. Shaw moved over him, blocking out the sun.
“I own you, buck.”
He stood and spoke louder, so that all the tribesmen could hear him.
“I own all of you! You will obey my rules and the rules of this ship! Or you will suffer the consequences!”
He turned back to Singbe, then said, “Neither you nor your friends understand our language, and I do not understand yours. But you will understand this.”
He stepped away and again all Singbe could see was the sun. He tried again to move his arms but the men held him tight. There was the rush of air and a loud crack. Singbe bit down on the insides of his mouth, determined not to scream. Shaw struck his feet again. Singbe bit down harder. Two more strikes. Shaw paused. He saw the small trickle of blood running out from the side of Singbe’s mouth and let out a laugh.
“Oh, you’re a hard one, all right. But I appreciate that, lad. I love the spirit.”
He swung again.
“Pride.”
Another strike.
“Resolve.”
Shaw now took the stick in both hands and drew it back behind his head.
“These are all highly marketable qualities.”
He let loose, swinging with all his might. Singbe could not hold back. An anguished cry exploded from his throat.
“But we cannot have you lads jumping the hired help.”
Three more cracks. Singbe cried out louder with each strike. Pain burned and ripped through his feet.
Shaw came around the stock, grabbed Singbe by the hair and held the bloody stick up to his eyes.
“Your blood, African. In my hands.”
He held the stick high so all the tribesmen could see it.
“Your blood is in my hands! All of you!”
He looked back down at Singbe.
“I think you know what I’m saying here, buck. I think we’ve reached an understanding. Yes?”
Shaw cleaned the stick with a rag and nodded to the sailors. They pulled Singbe’s legs out of the stocks, spun him around, and plunged his feet in a bucket of seawater. He let out another scream.
“Hurts, yes? But it’s a healing pain, I assure you. By the time I get you to market there’ll be no trace of your little punishment. And I dare say, you’ll think twice before trying to get the drop on one of these chaps again.”
Paolo had watched the entire episode from the railing. Shaw caught his eye and nodded. Paolo turned away, muttering under his breath.
A sailor tied rags drenched in seawater around Singbe’s feet and they lowered him down the ladder into the hold. The rest of the tribesmen followed. They were chained back into the half-sitting position that Shaw demanded for transport of his Africans. It took up less space, which meant more cargo could be fit on board.
In the afternoon, when they were brought back up on deck for more exercise, Singbe was left behind. His feet burned as though they had been scraped raw, and even the slightest move inside the salty rags brought sharp, driving pain. He tried to think of Stefa, and of walking through cool mountain streams. Later that night, word came down the line from Grabeau asking how he was.
“Sixty against twenty-four.”
Shaw
The captain lit a pipe and passed the bottle to Shaw. A large oil lamp hanging over the table between them swayed lightly with the ship’s motion. Shaw drew hard on his own pipe, poured a small amount of rum into his mug, corked the bottle, and passed it back to the captain.
“The way you treat your niggers, Señor Shaw, I like it.”
The captain, Alonzo Frederico Miguel Figeroa, was a short, bald-headed man with a brushy salt and pepper mustache that curved down around the sides of his mouth like a permanent frown. He was thick everywhere, from the thick round face and stumpy neck to the broad barrel chest that ran down to a waist almost as wide, to the large muscled arms with heavy sailor’s forearms, fat hands and thick, stubby fingers. It was as though he were an oversized fleshy infant whose proportions never changed through life, but rather became larger, more toughened and weathered. When he smiled, and sometimes when he spoke, you could see the black gap on the left side of his mouth. He had lost three teeth, yanked out long ago during a hurricane off Bermuda, when he was gripping a mastline in his jaw while tying off another. He was also without half the ring finger on his left hand. He cut it off himself after crushing it against some rigging in ’09 on the southern passage to Brazil. It was useless; besides, better to lose a finger than to have it go gangrenous and kill him outright. Because of it, though, he wore his wedding ring on his right hand. His wife, a devoted Catholic like himself, went to church every day and kept their home, a bright two-story cottage on a sunny side street up from the Lisbon docks, in perfect order. She had borne him nine children, five of whom had survived to adulthood. His oldest son, Tomás, was a ship’s captain, too, and ran cargo from Europe to the Americas and back. Figeroa owned the Teçora and had selected its crew, which was mostly Portuguese, but also included a few Spaniards, and Paolo, the mulatto from Brazil. Compared to Shaw, who managed to maintain the glean and bearing of a nobleman about him no matter what the surroundings, the captain looked ugly and inappropriate. Yet Figeroa maintained an aura of authority always. He was a smart sailor and ran a tight ship. There had been many times when he had out-skippered faster British or American cruisers looking to intercept slavers.
Figeroa considered himself a good judge of character, but he had found Shaw difficult to figure. The captain knew that before joining the House of Martinez slave brokerage, Shaw had been an agent of Pedro Blanco, owner of the Lomboko slave factory and the number-one dealer of African slaves in the world. Despite the fact that he was an American, Shaw had become Martinez’s chief broker. He was reputed to be shrewd, but also man of his word. Figeroa had met him in January. Shaw was looking to contract the transport of six hundred slaves from Lomboko to Cuba. They haggled for nearly a week over the price. What they agreed to was below Figeroa’s usual fee for such a journey, but with a more acceptable payment schedule. Instead of the usual 50 per cent up front and remainder upon reaching port, Shaw paid the captain in full, and in gold, the day the contract was signed. True, the price they settled on represented nearly a 20 per cent discount, but Figeroa had been cheated on owed sums before and decided it was better to have a little less and have it all in hand.
Aside from business dealings, however, he knew very little about Shaw. No one else he talked to before the trip could tell him more, either. Shaw lived like a gentleman in Havana and frequented only the most exclusive of the city’s restaurants and salons. He had no wife or family that anyone knew of. It was rumored that he was a fugitive in America and could not return to that country, though no one could say for sure if this was true.
One thing people did say, though, was that Shaw was not a man to be crossed. There was the story of a ship’s captain, who four years ago had promised Shaw a shipment of Africans at a specific price. When the captain arrived in Havana, however, he demanded an additional 30 per cent markup. Shaw refused. The captain sold his slaves to another dealer at an even larger profit. Two days later the captain was found in the shithouse of a dockside bar with his throat slit and his balls cut off and jammed into his mouth. A man was found in a similar condition about a year ago in Sierra Leone’s Freetown. He was later identified as a slave trader from another brokerage firm. It was rumored that he had cheated Shaw on a deal some years before. There was nothing definite to link Shaw to either murder – other than innuendo and speculation, which served as better than proof for most people in the trade.
Figeroa took a long drink out of his mug, then went back to his pipe. “Some men, they whip the niggers until the life is almost gone from their bodies,” he said. “Others, they are too soft, worried about damaging the cargo. They let them get away with anything, which ends up making more work and risk for the ship’s captain and crew. But you, Señor Shaw, you know exactly how to walk the line with these animals. You keep them in fear, but you keep them intact.”
“Perhaps that is because I don’t see them as animals, Captain Figeroa. Rather, I see them as they are. As men.”
Smoke trickled out through the broad gap in Figeroa’s smile. “Men? As you and I are men in the eyes of God? Of course, you are not serious.”
“Yes, I am. They are men. Oh, perhaps they are not as learned and cultured and scientific as we. Perhaps they are a little closer to Eden in their way of life. But they are men, just the same.”
“I do not believe that. I do not believe that you believe it, either. They are ignorant, godless creatures. A lower breed, closer to the monkeys in the trees of their homeland than to any whiteman.”
“When you transport female slaves, do you take one to your bed to keep you warm at night?”
“Of course. In fact, I was very disappointed to see that you were not bringing any negresses onboard this trip.”
“There demand is stronger for the men, though I never mind giving a wench over to a ship’s captain to add comfort during his voyage. After all, it is customary, and, as I see it, a courtesy. However, I detest having my property roughed over by the crew. It can depreciate their value, especially if the females are going to purchased for breeding.”
“A good point, Señor Shaw.”
“Actually, my point rests on a question, captain. You bed-down female slaves on your voyages, yes?”
“So, do you mean to tell me that you have been fornicating with animals, sir?”
Figeroa’s lips parted into a smokey grin.
“Let us say, animals with a human form.”
“Nonsense, captain. They can reason, they can speak, they have families and farms and laws. They have governments and wars and take slaves of their own. Show me monkeys that do that. As for ignorance, well, I have seen black servants in America and the Indies who have been taught to read and cipher and speak English, Spanish, and French as well as any whiteman. No, they are men. They are people, as are you and I.”
“If you believe such a thing, then how can you do what you do, buying and selling them as cattle, as slaves to other men?”
“There have always been slaves, my friend, in almost every human society since time began. In the Bible, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and before that the Jews had slaves themselves. Slaves are the spoils of the conqueror. And, at this point in history, Christian whitemen are masters of the earth. The Africans are men, but their simple ways and societies are no match for our science and weapons or our politics or resolve.”
“But why do you do this, especially now, when the trading of Africans is outlawed by treaties with the British and the Americans? There is great risk to you.”
“I could put the same question to you, sir. Why do you run slaves when your ship and its cargo could be taken by some pasty-faced British officer who came ’long your side with his deck guns pointed at your hull? Why – when you yourself could be imprisoned for captaining a ship carrying Africans fresh from the bush? It is because we are businessmen. We know the market, supply and demand. We know profit and the advantages it can buy. I can make five to ten times from a raw wild African what I can make from landed stock. And you, you get nearly a hundred times more from running this cargo than from running fabrics or looms or other goods from the continent. Of course, such profits always carry risks. But I think that is part of the attraction, too. The risks. It is a man’s challenge – such risks – and there are fitting rewards if the task is pulled off. We are just the type of men who are willing to take that type of challenge. A sad attribute of our own character and nature, no doubt.”
Figeroa grinned and nodded, but then he shook his pipe at Shaw.
“You still cannot get me to believe they are men.”
“Most certainly they are. And like all men who are in chains, they must be watched, beaten, cowed, and reminded that they are less than their captors. Or they will rise up, and then it is we who will be in chains. Or worse.”
The risks Shaw had spoken of were not slight. Trade in African-born slaves had been banned in the Western Hemisphere for nearly twenty years. Britain had ended the importation of slaves to its own colonies during the eighteenth century, and the United States outlawed the importation of Africans to its soil in 1809. That same year, the British drafted a treaty that prohibited the taking of slaves from the African continent or taking part in their importation to English, American, or Spanish colonies. The Americans were willing to sign; in fact, the American minister to England at the time, John Quincy Adams, helped to write the treaty. But the African slave trade was extremely lucrative for the Spanish government and its subjects, and the Spanish prince stated he would not sign the treaty unless his government received payment for “perceived losses.” The British complied, giving the Spanish over £400,000 sterling. The Anglo-Spanish Treaty became law in 1819. By signing the treaty, Spain and its colonies agreed to deal only in African slaves purchased before 1820 and in landinos, slaves descended from slaves. Britain went even further and ended all slavery in its colonies in 1833.
But the British made a major mistake – they did not include a legitimate mechanism in the treaty to ensure Spanish compliance. The Spanish government recognized this and did what it could to subvert the process. Publicly, they created a bureaucracy that supported the tenets of the treaty. Privately, however, payoffs, often termed “special taxes and fees,” allowed the slave traders to go on with their activities. After all, the market had not disappeared. If anything, the treaty increased demand and the prices paid for African-born slaves.
The Portuguese became the main purveyors of illegal slaves, although ships under Spanish, French, Dutch, American, and Russian flags were also involved. The majority of Africans were brought to Cuba or Brazil. Portugal and Brazil had no treaty with the British or United States regarding slave trade, and Cuba, with the winking complicity of the Spanish government, continued importing Africans. By some estimates, more than twenty-five thousand African slaves were brought to Cuba in the first twenty years after the treaty went into effect. More than ten times that number were brought to Brazil during the same period. Such activities were hazardous though. British cruisers patrolled the shipping lanes in search of illegal slavers. If discovered, the ship, slaves, and cargo would be impounded and the captain arrested. The dealer owning the slaves could be tried on charges of piracy and, if found guilty, hanged.
The fate of the Africans depended on where the seizure occurred. If the ship was taken close to Africa, the slaves were returned to an African port and delivered into the hands of a Christian mission. But for Africans intercepted off the coast of Cuba or another Spanish colony, return to Africa was an expensive proposition. The English, in the treaty negotiations, insisted that the Spanish pay the return transport as a “moral obligation,” because the Africans were illegally destined for a Spanish port. The Spanish argued that they had no control over renegade elements of society or the destinations of their contraband. Besides, if the English felt so strongly about the morality of the issue, the price of return passages should be of no concern. Morality gave way to economics and the English agreed to an arrangement. Illegal slaves taken in Spanish waters were to be termed emancipados. The Spanish government would be obligated to provide each emancipado with a Christian education and apprenticeship to a viable trade. The emancipados, who had no say in their fate, were to give five to seven years of indentured service in return for their apprenticeship and education. After that they were free.
The British saw treatment of emancipados as a fitting compromise if not an outright reward for the Africans. “These ignorant bush people would be introduced to God and the vestiges of civilization, and turned into functional productive members of society,” said one British diplomat.
But the British neglected to enforce or monitor these high-minded conversions. True, the Spanish had to produce paperwork showing the emancipados had been apprenticed, and after the terms of the indenturement were met, give proof of the individual being freed. But no independent office or individual was charged with verifying that actions matched documentation. The British merely assigned an unofficial observer to watch and report what he saw. This left the Cuban administration and other colonial governments free to pervert the already dubious arrangement. They did so, selling emancipados as slaves on five-to seven-year contracts. Emancipados were offered at slightly cheaper prices on the market than African-born slaves, or bozales, because the plantation owners were contractually bound to turn them over after the allotted time. Even though this was rarely enforced, many plantation owners were wary that the contracts might be upheld by the government or British interference. As a result, the planters had adopted a proven method to ensure they got their money’s worth: they worked the emancipados to death.
“What say you, lookout?”
The man near the top of the middle mast perched on a platform barely a foot square.
“All clear, deck!”
Figeroa scanned the horizon with a spyglass.
“Have we found our shadow again, Captain?”
“One of the men thought he saw a sail an hour earlier, but now there is nothing,” Figeroa said. “Not to worry, though, Señor Shaw. As long as we see them soon enough, they will not he able to catch us.”
Singbe braced himself on the railing as he shuffled slowly along the deck with the others. He had barely slept last night, and this morning, when the sailors came to take the tribesmen on deck, Singbe was sure he would be left behind. But after the last tribesman went up the ladder, the yellow-haired man came over and looked at Singbe. He took the rags off Singbe’s feet, inspected the wounds, and then pulled him up by the chains. Singbe faltered, his feet tender and burning with soreness and pain. The yellow-haired man motioned for him to walk. Singbe shuffled a few steps and then fell forward into the ladder.
“Right. Good enough. Up you go.”
The yellow-haired man motioned up the ladder with his pistol. Singbe stared at him for a moment and then began to climb. He tried to push his feet deep into the rungs and climb with his heels, which were less bruised and raw. At the top of the hatch he fell to his knees, but two sailors caught him by the arms and dragged him over to the side with the others. He grabbed the railing and stood.
The tribesmen walked around the deck in their slow parade. Grabeau stayed next to Singbe, ready to catch him if he fell. But Singbe was worried more about the feeling in his stomach than falling. The pain of his feet, the foul taste of the rice, and the rolling of the ship were all conspiring to create a heaving bilious churning in his belly. The price for vomiting his rations would be another lashing, either on the feet again, or on his back. He looked at the railing, concentrating on just moving forward one step at a time.
Grabeau leaned in close and whispered, “I talked to many men last night about your plan. I could only find seven who said they would attempt it if asked. With myself, who I am not sure we should include, and you, nearly a cripple at the moment, we have nine.”
“Why would you not join us? You prefer to submit to this?”
“No, but I do prefer living to dying in vain. Singbe, our chains restrict even the simplest of movements. How could we overpower the whitemen like this? And even if we could, they have the guns.”
“We attack the whiteman with keys first, at the proper moment. And we take his gun.”
“While the others shoot at us?”
Singbe ignored the comment and looked up and down the line.
“There are nearly sixty of us here now. It sickens me to think that only nine of us would be willing to make a stand against these whites.”
“Yes. And how many of those nine do you think would desert you at the critical moment?”
“I count twenty-three whitemen. Twenty-three whites and one half-black. Only ten of them have guns. Two of them, the yellow-haired man and the bald one on the raised deck, only have small guns.”
“The small guns can kill as well as the long guns.”
Singbe said nothing. He shuffled along. The anger now added to the boiling in his stomach.
“Nine!” Singbe yelled, looking back and forth at the line of tribesmen. “Only nine would stand and fight against the whites! Are you men without honor? Without courage? One blackman from any tribe is worth at least three of these soft-bellied whites. Mendemen would not think twice about this challenge. Mendemen have courage and resolve.”
A lash came down hard on his shoulder and brushed Grabeau’s face.
“Shut up! No talking!”
Singbe did not look at the sailor with the whip. He stared straight ahead and shuffled through a few more steps.
“We are better than they are – no matter how much they beat and starve us. We are freemen, not slaves. Let us take this ship and sail it back into the morning sun to Africa.”
The whip slapped Singbe’s face. And again on his neck and shoulders.
“Shut up, damn you!”
The sailor raised his arm for another lash. Shaw stopped him and stepped in front of Singbe, halting the procession. The eight guards with muskets lifted their weapons, aiming them at the line.
“What have we here? Yesterday’s bastinado wasn’t enough? You feel a need to cry out? Perhaps in protest of your treatment, or to announce the details of some sorry little uprising?”
Grabeau slid in front of Singbe and pointed to his feet and then to his head.
“Please, sir, he is in pain from his wounds. It has weakened his mind.”
Shaw watched Grabeau and smiled.
“The pain’s gone to his head?” Shaw smiled and turned to the sailors. “’Well, that’s a shame. We’ll have to get him medical attention, eh, boys?”
He wheeled and struck Grabeau hard in the face with the whip’s handle, knocking to the deck.
“Take that one to the stocks.”
Three sailors grabbed Grabeau by the arms and legs and dragged him toward the stocks. Shaw turned back to Singbe, smiled, and drove the whip handle into his stomach. Singbe dropped to his knees. Shaw grabbed him by the throat with one hand and pulled him up on his feet.
“As for you, I think I shall have to get creative.”
Singbe’s mouth opened as if to reply, but instead of words, vomit shot into Shaw’s face and down his hand.
“Bloody Christ!”
Singbe fell to the ground and heaved again onto Shaw’s fine black boots.
“Fucking hell.”
He kicked Singbe in the ribs and picked him up by the hair.
“This … will cost you dearly. Miguel! Bring me a coil of rope.”
“Sail! Sail to starboard!”
The man on the mast pointed to a small patch of white flickering on the horizon. Figeroa aimed his spyglass at the sail. A familiar flag waved above it.
“Get the niggers below and locked up,” Figeroa yelled. “The one in the stocks, too. Do it now!”
The sailors scrambled, herding the tribesmen to the hatch and into the hold. Grabeau struggled and yelled for Singbe but one of the sailors swept the butt end of a musket across the back of his head, knocking him unconscious. Shaw paid no heed to the activity. He looped the rope around Singbe’s feet and hands and took off the manacles. With the help of two sailors he dragged him up the stairs to the raised deck in the stern.
“Union Jack on the ship!” the sailor on the mast called out. ‘British ship starboard.”
Shaw tied-off the free end of the rope to a cleat and, together with the sailors, pulled Singbe up on the rail.
“You will understand who is in charge here, buck. Even if it’s the last thing you do.”
Shaw pushed Singbe over the railing. It was about a fifteen-foot drop to the water. Singbe could hear the wind rushing through his ears. His body slapped into water flat, face first, and sank quickly. The rope stretched out and brought Singbe to the surface. His body spun in the ship’s wake. Water rushed into his mouth and nose.
“Señor Shaw! What are you doing?”
“Providing an education to my property, Captain.”
“Well, cut the line or bring him. We’ve got a British cruiser on the starboard.”
Shaw looked out at Singbe, bobbing and gasping in the surf behind the Teçora.
“You are not saying that towing one sorry black behind us will allow that ship to catch up, are you, Captain?”
“What I’m saying is that I need all hands on tackle and sails to outmaneuver that ship. I need these men. And I do not argue with anyone on my ship. Make a decision, Señor Shaw. Now.”
Shaw was not accustomed to being told what to do. He looked from the captain to the two sailors, and smiled. He said, “But Captain Figeroa, you must understand …”
Figeroa drew his knife and reached out to the rope. Shaw grabbed on to the line.
“My black, Captain. I say whether he lives or dies. Pull, lads. Pull him in now.”
It took about two minutes to get Singbe back on board. He fell to the deck, bloated and lifeless. The sailors walked away. The captain looked over from the ship’s wheel and laughed.
“Looks like that black had his own say about living and dying, Señor Shaw.”
