THE BOOK OF NEGROES (19 page)

“She’s handsome,” Appleby told King.

“No worries, she’ll fetch you a fine price. Appleby, my boy, you want to run a class plantation, then get to know your people. Slaves from the Gold Coast or Gambia are best. After that, try picking strong males from the Windward Coast. Mandingoes—there you go, your girl here might be a Mandingo—are gentle but useless when tired. And they tire too damn fast. Then you got your Whydahs, who are cheerful to the point of lusty.
You want one or two of them around, but more and you’ve got too much dancing and frolicking. You can bet your life that a buck from the Congo will run straight to the Spanish, just as soon as he hears about Fort Musa. Don’t buy from the Congo, and never buy a Callabar. They are the worst. The worst, I tell you, the very worst.”

“You can tell them all apart?” Appleby said.

“I didn’t get rich by sleeping,” King said. “Take my word for it. You end up with an Ibo from Callabar, and soon as you give the man a knife to slit a hog’s throat, he’ll slit his own, instead. An Ibo is so lazy he doesn’t even want to live.”

I was bursting with questions but couldn’t ask any of them. Where were all these people from? How did King know all these tribes, and who they were? If he knew so much, how could he say Mandingoes tired fast, when I had seen them working all day with the mortar and pestle, throwing and lifting and throwing again for hours at a time to pound millet into flour, or shea nuts into butter?

“Lindo, come with me,” Appleby said. “Let’s talk about my indigo.”

As the two men walked out and the door was shutting, I could see Lindo peering back at me, brows furrowed. I made a move to leave, but the other man blocked my way.

“Know who I am?” he said.

I shook my head.

“William King. I’m the richest trader in Charles Town.”

I tried to step around him, but he wouldn’t let me past. “You understand rich? Girl, you still sensible?”

I was worried that he might think I had somehow become insensible, and that he would beat me, so the words rushed. “Big house, many niggers, plenty indigo vats.”

“Your man Appleby sticks to indigo. I grow rice, too. You think indigo is hard work?”

I nodded reluctantly.

“Indigo is nothing,” he said. “Try rice. Some niggers drop dead in one season. Wet work. Wet and hot. Gators, too, swimming right up to where you work. Snap snap and down you go.” William King spread his arms and clapped his hands together. I jumped back. “I like a sensible nigger,” he said.

I wondered if the door behind him was locked.

“Lindo came to grade the indigo, but I just came out here to see his niggers. I sold you myself and wanted to see how you were working out. Just fine, I see. Only you’re not Coromantee. I brought you over from Bance Island, and no Coromantees shipped from Bance that year. Step on over here.”

He held out his hand, but I stayed put.

“What is Bance?” I said.

“Don’t miss a thing, do you? Bance is where you were sold in Guinea.”

The door was probably not locked, but it would be hard to get around this big man to reach it.

William King slid off his waistcoat and unbuttoned himself. I stepped back, and dodged him when he lunged. But he lunged again and pinned me against a wall.

“Stop wriggling, girl. I just want to see how you turned out.” His breeches were down around his ankles. His bigness swung like a branch in the wind.

Behind King, the door rattled. I heard Lindo speaking to Appleby.

“Damnation,” King muttered, scrambling to fix his breeches.

A MONTH OR SO LATER, Georgia heard talk through the fishnet. The Jew in Charles Town had offered to buy me, but Appleby had refused. I felt disappointed. Going away with Solomon Lindo had to be better than
staying on Appleby’s plantation. But Georgia said Appleby would never sell me.

“Why?” I asked, weakly.

“Because you are too good. Too valuable. Catching babies and making indigo mud, why would that man want to sell you now?”

MY BREASTS WERE GETTING FULLER. Soon enough, I would be showing. Appleby didn’t let his Negroes marry. Some of them jumped the broom secretly, and others just lived together or visited at night. But I had no doubt what my parents would wish, and I told Chekura that I wanted to be married.

We chose the first full moon in August. The idea of our ceremony, no matter how humble, excited me. I wanted to bind my tiny family and keep us together. We wouldn’t be able to have a marriage like in my homeland, with village elders and
djeli
to witness the event and describe it to the next generations. There were no elaborate negotiations between parents and villages, and there was no exchange of gifts to compensate my family for losing a daughter. But I insisted that Chekura give Georgia a big present—and he rustled up two chickens, two head scarves, one blue glass jar, a bottle of rum and a pouch of Peruvian bark.

“Where did that crazy boy get Peruvian bark?” she said, over and over again. From that day forward, Georgia decided that she loved Chekura.

The guests showed up with presents and food. Georgia and Fomba had lugged an iron pot out to the clearing ahead of time, and she had a rabbit stew simmering. Mamed brought me a candle and a beautiful stool made out of polished cypress wood. Fomba had whittled a little statue of a woman holding a baby. He had oiled and polished it for days, and seemed unbelievably happy to give it to me. Chekura gave me a comb, a jar of corn oil said to be good for working through kinky hair, a red and
gold headscarf, and a beautiful blue wrapper made of soft, smooth cotton—the same material that I saw on buckra visitors when they came to the big house. I gave Chekura a bright yellow wrap that I had received in exchange for catching a baby. Georgia said I shouldn’t give him anything at all.

“You is giving yourself to him,” she said, “an the crazy big-mouth African lucky to have you.”

We had flutes and a banjo at that frolick. Some of the men and women sang and danced, while others drank rum and smoked pipes. I had stopped praying years ago, but still avoided spirits and tobacco—even the night that Chekura and I married. After we ate, Mamed laid down a broom, had us jump over it, and said that made us man and wife. Chekura and I kissed. We were married, and now my baby would have a proper father. We went back to the hut and held each other and moved together as man and wife and fell asleep in each other’s arms. At least, I fell asleep in his.

When I awoke, Chekura was gone—back to his own work on a plantation on Lady’s Island.

ROBINSON APPLEBY RETURNED TO THE PLANTATION in December. He sent for me. I arrived, swollen-bellied, on the broad porch that wrapped around his big house. The baby inside me had only three moons to go.

“I heard,” he said, nodding in the direction of my belly.

“Li’l baby,” I said. I didn’t want him to see my pride, but my lower lip was quivering.

He swallowed. He chewed his cheek. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, brought them out, removed a watch from his breast pocket and examined it.

“Who is the father?” he said.

I said nothing.

“I know a boy has been coming to see you.”

I looked down so he couldn’t read anything on my face. I was hoping that he hadn’t heard about the wedding.

“I make the decisions around here about breeding,” he said.

He motioned for me with his fingers. I stepped a little closer.

“Fancy clothes these days. Blue wrapper, red and gold scarf. Bet you love those clothes. Let me see that wrapper. Come here. Right here.”

I stepped closer.

“Say ‘I love my clothes, Master.’”

I said it.

“Come out into the yard,” he said.

I felt a momentary wave of relief. If we were going to stay outside, there were certain things he wouldn’t do. Appleby hollered for Mamed and Georgia to gather every man, woman and child on the plantation. Any who did not come would miss the next three meals and do without any of his little gifts of rum, cloth and salt from Charles Town. Everyone on the plantation formed a big circle around us in the yard. Appleby ordered two women to start a small fire. He made Mamed roll up an empty barrel from the storehouse. Another man was to fetch a shaving knife. A woman had to fetch a washtub and scissors. And Georgia was ordered to bring every shred of my clothing to Appleby, who was standing there by the fire.

When the fire was blazing, the washtub filled and the knife ready, Appleby shouted out that any person who raised a word of protest would suffer the same fate as me, or worse.

“Your clothes,” he said to me. When I hesitated, he tore them off and threw them down into the pile that Georgia had brought. “We have a law in the Province of South Carolina,” he said. “Niggers don’t dress grand.”

I made a decision then. He would do whatever he wanted, anyway. I was from Bayo and I had a child growing inside me and I would stand proud.

“Throw them in the fire,” Appleby said to me, motioning to my clothes on the ground.

I did not move. Appleby turned to Georgia. He pointed at me.

“Georgia. You know I mean business. In the fire or I’ll make it worse for her.”

Georgia’s face was as blank as a skipping stone. She bent over, picked up my clothes and threw them in the fire. Privately, I thanked her. She had burned my clothes but saved my dignity. With all the Negroes watching, I had stood up to Appleby. I had that one victory, and I would remember it.

Now he pointed to the tub. “Get down on your knees and soak your head,” he said. I remained motionless. “Last warning. Head in the tub.”

I kneeled but, with my swollen belly, couldn’t bring my head to the tub.

“Then sit up,” he said, and dumped three buckets of water on me. The water ran down my face and neck and over my belly.

Appleby rolled the barrel up to me. “Lean over that barrel.”

“No,” I cried.

“Do what I say and do it now, or I’ll clean out your hut. I will burn everything you have. Clothes, comb, all of it. Georgia too. I will throw her clothes, pouches and gourds in the fire. Everything. You hear?”

I tried to lean over the barrel, but my belly was too big.

He grabbed my hair and pulled up my head. “Then sit up straight,” he said.

Still on my knees, I straightened my back.

“You and your secret man,” Appleby said. “Aren’t you clever? Don’t you think I knew you were with child? You and your head scarves. Fancied up like white folks, you put the nigger women in Charles Town to shame.”

Appleby stepped behind me and yanked my hair. “What is this?” he shouted.

I cried out in pain.

“What’s this?” he said again.

“My hair.”

“Not hair,” he said, pulling my head back even farther. “Wool.” When he pulled harder, I gasped. “Not hair,” he said. “Say ‘wool.’”

“Wool.”

“Say ‘I gots wool on my head, not hair.’”

“Gots wool, not hair.”

“It is just wool, and you ain’t even got a right to it without my say so.”

Pressing one elbow down into my shoulder blades and forcing me to stay bent over the barrel, Robinson Appleby began snipping with his scissors. Slivers of my hair began to fall over my forehead and into my eyes. More slivers of hair fell into my mouth, while silent tears ran down my cheeks.

I lost all of the hair that Georgia and I had worked over every Sunday morning. All the combing, oiling, braiding and bunching was gone. When Appleby had finished with the scissors, he soaped my head and drew out a knife.

“You move an inch, your own scalp bleeds,” he said.

I heard the Negro women whimpering. I had kept my courage up to that point, but suddenly it broke.

“Master, please—”

He pushed my head back down and rubbed soap and water all over my scalp. Then he began shaving me crudely with his knife, scraping the blade over my head, from the top of my forehead to the nape of my neck. He splashed more soapy water on my head. It burned the cuts on my scalp, ran over my face and stung my eyes. Its bitter taste mingled with the hair slivers on my tongue. He kept me bent over, kept his elbow high up on my back, and drew the knife over and over, always moving backwards on my head. Finally, he tossed more water on my head and forced me to stand. He held a mirror up to my face.

I screamed as I have never screamed before. I didn’t recognize myself. I had no clothes, no hair, no beauty, no womanhood.

“I let you off without a beating this time,” he said. “Get out of here, and go put on your osnaburgs. If I catch you again dressing white, I’ll shave you like a lamb again and burn every single thing in Georgia’s hut.”

“Georgia don’t live in no hut,” I whispered.

“That better not be back talk,” he said.

“She has a home. It’s a home she lives in.”

His jaw dropped. I turned away from him. Head shaven, clothes ripped from me and belly distended, I began walking toward the far end of the yard. It was a Sunday, and people had been doing their washing and cooking. Every man, woman and child on the plantation stood silent and still as I passed by. Fomba had his head down, hands covering his eyes. I touched his arm as I walked by, held in my sobs, and refused to run. It would only add to my shame.

“You don’t own that baby any more than you own the wool on your head,” Appleby said. “They both belong to me.”

I walked on, as smoothly as I could, big bellied and all, and shed not a single tear until I was alone in my home.

I HAD BEEN LIVING ON ST. HELENA ISLAND for four years when my time came. It was March 15, 1761, and I was sixteen years old.

“This is your home now,” Georgia said. “For you and your baby, right here in Carolina.”

I thought it would hurt Georgia’s feelings for me to disagree, so I kept quiet. Where would home be for this child of mine? Africa? The indigo plantation? One seemed impossible, the other unacceptable. For this child of mine, home would be me. I would be home. I would be everything for this child until we went home together. But I didn’t say that to the woman who had been caring for me like a mother since I arrived in this land.

Georgia had me wash in a big leather bucket out under the moon. She
rubbed my back, and made my skin and my muscles go soft in her hands. In due time I was riding waves inside my own body. When the big waves came, they threw me about. Georgia prepared to slide her hand inside me, but I said no. I wasn’t ready. It was still time to wait. And so it went for more hurting and waves and revolting from within my own belly. How could such a tiny child cause such commotion?