The Price of Freedom (27 page)

“Hello, Ann,” he said, hugging her
in return and trying not to compare the feel of her in his arms with holding
Deborah. He released her to greet her parents who were delighted to see him
back safely.

“We’ll give you two a few minutes
to talk alone,” Ben said leaving the room and discreetly closing the door
behind them.

Richard’s eyes travelled over
Ann’s perfectly styled hair and her beautiful dress and he couldn’t help but
compare her to the olive skinned beauty that had turned his life upside down in
the last three months.  Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he tried to
attend to what she was saying, even as he wondered how he would marry this
woman and live with her when all he could think about was a beautiful free
woman in Barbados who had somehow captured his heart.

“I’m so glad that you’re back!”
she exclaimed excitedly. “I was getting worried when I didn’t hear from you so
I was very happy to get your note.  Barbados sounds like a wonderful place
to visit.  Maybe you can take me there some time.”

That was the last thing Richard
wanted so he made a noncommittal comment.  Ann didn’t seem to notice as
she gushed on telling him about all the things she had done when he was
away.  He noticed that Charles’ name came up quite often and he wondered
if Ann had begun to develop feelings for him. The thought gave him some measure
of relief although he did not examine why that was.  After a while her
constant chatter began to wear on him and he told her that he really had to get
to work to see what had transpired in his absence.

He sensed that Ann was waiting for
him to kiss her and any man would have been happy to oblige her.  Any man
but him, that is.  This was a very disturbing turn of events; he was
reluctant to kiss his fiancée!  That did not bode well for the fact that
they were supposed to get married before the end of the year. In the end he
gave her a brief kiss on the lips and quickly headed for the door, trying not
to look at her confused face.

August 10, 1696

St. Michael’s Town

Barbados

Thomas knocked at the door and
looked around while he waited for it to be opened.  The sun was beginning
to go down since he had left home in the afternoon with the plan to spend the
weekend in town. Elizabeth had been less than pleased when he’d told her not to
expect him back until Sunday evening.

He could see that in the month
Sarah and Deborah had lived here they had done a lot of improvements to the
property. Down below in the garden were barrels cut in half with small plants
in them which he assumed were Deborah’s herbs.  They had also planted some
flowers which added color to the well kept yard.

The door opened and Sarah peeped
around it. Her face broke into a welcoming smile and he stepped inside as she
opened the door wider to let him in.  She looked as happy to see him as he
was to see her.

“I missed you Sarah.”  He
pulled her into his arms for a hug, surprised at how good it was to hold her
and see her so happy and content.

“I missed you too Master Thomas,”
she said taking his hat and coat and the small bag that he had brought. “
You spending
the weekend?”

“Yes and you don’t have to call me
Master any more Sarah,” he reminded her.

“It’s hard to change, Thomas,” she
said deliberately, smiling again. “May I get you a drink or something to eat?”

“No, thanks Sarah, I don’t want
anything just yet. Only you,” he said, pulling her into his arms again. The
sound of someone entering the hallway stopped him and he looked over Sarah’s
shoulder to see Deborah looking somewhat embarrassed to see her mother in his
arms.

“Hello Deborah,” he greeted,
releasing Sarah reluctantly. Thomas had never embraced Sarah in front of
Deborah and it was strange to see.

“Hello, Master Thomas. How have
you been?”

“I’ve been better. I missed your
mother terribly,” he confessed, unable to resist pulling Sarah to his side
again. He realized that it was true.  He had called for Hattie a couple of
times in the month but she was not Sarah.

“You want to see what we did with
the house?” 
asked
Sarah excitedly.

 “By all means,” he said.

The ladies proudly showed him the
living room, the small parlor and the kitchen which they had decorated with
curtains, rugs and colorful cushions and then took him downstairs to see the
shop which was only partly stocked since they were waiting for their first
shipment of goods to arrive.

“Have you made contact with the
merchants I suggested through my lawyer?” he asked Deborah.

“Yes, we made some orders so we’re
waiting for them to come in but my mother bought some material from one of the
shops and has been sewing already and people are beginning to come in and buy
whatever teas I have available. I also planted some herbs.”

“Good, good.  Where are Jacko
and Mamie?”

“We gave them the evening
off.”  Thomas looked disapprovingly at them but kept his mouth shut since
he did not have the right to tell them anything anymore.

“It all looks very nice,” he
complimented instead. “Let me see what you did with your room,” he hinted to
Sarah. Deborah smiled slightly and excused herself, saying that she would go
and start dinner.

A while later Sarah lay with her
head on Thomas’ chest, idly playing with the graying hair that liberally
covered it.

“Thomas?”

“Hmm?” he responded lazily.

“I want to ask you something.”

“What is it?” He waited.

“How is it that when you owned us
you were so good to me and to Deborah but at the same time you could order one
of the field slaves to be whipped for running away or for stealing or sell one
of their children without thinking how they felt?”

Thomas was silent for such a long
time that Sarah thought he wouldn’t answer.  Had she gone too far with her
questions? She started to move from his arms but he tightened them around her,
keeping her where she was.

“I don’t know how to answer that
Sarah.  Thinking how they felt never came into it. They are just
slaves.  You and Deborah are different. You are more like one of us.”

“We’re all the same,” she said
quietly. “Maybe it’s just that when you don’t know people, when you don’t mix
with them, they seem like they different.  But we’re all the same,” she
repeated. 

“The pain I would feel if you had
taken Deborah away from me and sold her is the pain any mother would feel
,
whether she work in the house or in the field, whether she
is pure black or she mixed with white. And the pain Deborah felt when Jethro
flogged her is the same pain that the field slaves feel when they get flogged.”

Thomas thought about that for a
long time.  Years of prejudice battled with the truth of what she was
saying and finally he admitted, “I suppose you’re right, Sarah.”

“I know I right.”

Two months later

Deborah looked around the shop
with appreciation. Deborah’s Health and Beauty Shop and Sarah's Sewing Emporium
were doing well. She had just got a shipment of new herbal teas which she
displayed in large glass jars ready to sell in smaller portions to her customers.
The soaps she had made would soon need to be restocked as there were only a few
bars left and she was expecting a shipment from France. She smiled at
that.  Who would have believed that she, who had been a slave just months
ago, would now be ordering soaps and perfumes from France for her own shop?

At first they were regarded with a
bit of wariness by the merchants on their street. After all it was not common
for two free colored women to own a shop in Town. However one day, a distraught
woman had run into the shop asking for herbs to help her daughter who was
suffering from a terrible tummy ache and nothing would help her. Deborah made
up a small packet of herbs and gave her instructions how to prepare the
tea.  The next day the woman came back to thank her and tell her that the
tea had worked. After that incident the merchants’ wives began to patronize
their shop. They had also got to know some of the slaves of the merchants in
Town and a few free colored people that they could count on one hand.

Jacko and Mamie were a tremendous
help, even though Jacko only had the one hand Deborah was glad that the master
had insisted on giving them to Sarah. It was not that she liked the idea of
owning slaves but she could not imagine how they would handle the heavy lifting
or how she would have time to make her soaps and work in the shop as well
without them.

Deborah was just about to lock the
door for the day when Jacko came in from running some errands and said:
“Mistress Sarah, I just heard that they having a Quaker meeting tomorrow night
at the Brown’s boarding house."

"It must be like the one
Jethro told us about,” she said.

"Yes. A man and woman named
George and Margaret Baxter are staying with them and they tell me to invite you
all to the meeting tomorrow night. It’s to start at nine so that some of the
slaves could sneak out when the masters gone to sleep.”

"So late?
You think it safe to go Jacko?” asked Sarah.

“Yes. I can take you all.”

Deborah was curious to hear more
from this group of people who were bold enough to speak out against the
treatment of slaves and she was happy to know that they were being included by
their new friends. She hoped they could explain more about what Jethro had told
them.  Now that she was free from slavery, she was more willing to hear
about being free from sin.

"Let's go and hear them,
ma," she urged. Sarah was reluctant since she didn't want to get into any
trouble.

"Alright, we will go."

The Next Night

Jacko, Deborah, Sarah and Mamie
walked quietly down the road to the Brown's boarding house. Since it was late
and a day in the week the roads were fairly quiet and thankfully there was no
moon to draw attention to their presence.

Deborah and Sarah were a bit
nervous as they did not usually go out at night. In fact this was the first
time that they had been on the streets after dark and they were glad that Jacko
was with them. His size was enough to deter anyone from attacking them, even
with the one hand.

Nevertheless Deborah was glad when
they arrived at the boarding house and knocked. One of the Brown’s servants
opened the door and led them into a large parlor that was lit by several lamps
and had about fifteen people already there sitting around on sofas and chairs
that were pulled from the dining room while some of the slaves sat on the
floor. They were a mixed group, a few whites, about ten black slaves and about
four free coloreds including them.

Doreen Brown introduced them to
the
Baxters
and Deborah and Sarah were surprised when
the attractive, well dressed white couple, came and hugged them warmly in
greeting. 

They shared that they were on
their way to America and were catching a boat the next day.  Deborah
wondered if they were going to Carolina.  The thought brought Richard back
to mind, with an ache that dulled a bit more each day.  She would never
forget the time that they had together but she knew that she had to move on
with her life.  After all he might already be married and she would
probably never see him again.

After waiting a few minutes for
any latecomers to arrive, they began to sing a hymn softly which Deborah and
Sarah had never heard before, but felt soothed by the quiet song.

After the hymn, George began by
saying: “One of the main reasons the Quakers are not welcome in Barbados is
because we do not condone slavery.  The Anglican Church has not done
anything to help the slaves and in fact they have sought to justify it by
quoting from the Bible where Noah cursed Canaan, the son of Ham.”

“Who is Ham?” Sarah asked.

“Do you know anything of the
Bible?” The wife asked kindly.

“Not a lot. When the master’s
children were taught I used to hear a little of it.”

They went on to explain about Noah
and that Ham was one of Noah’s sons who did something that was so abominable to
him that Noah cursed Ham’s son, Canaan and said he would be a slave to his
brothers.

“Many people believe that Ham was
cursed and since Africans are one of the races that descended from Ham, they
apply the curse to that race and that is what they have used to justify
slavery. However Noah cursed Canaan and the African race did not descend from
Canaan.”

“God loves all of us, whether we are
slave or free, black or white. He loves you so much that he sent his son Jesus
to die for you so that you can be free.”

“But I free now,” insisted one
woman. She was one of the few free colored women who lived in the city.