124 women and children. I’d have doubted the vessel’s capacity had I not seen it with my own eyes.
While we’d been gone up the creek, the rest of the sailors, under the supervision of the carpenter, had built double decks in the hold. The decks were like shelves, with two feet between each deck. Arriving in canoe loads of fifty or so, the slaves were herded into the hold and onto the narrow-spaced tiers, shackled together two by two, while a pair of mounted carronades swept the hold in the event of an uprising. With the exception of some screaming and fainting, all went smoothly. The females and children were placed together in the aft hold (therewas no need to shackle them), separated by a reinforced bulkhead from the men in the main hold. They were packed together tightly—too tightly, in my opinion, for they were like spoons in a drawer. How would they even roll over?
I mentioned this to Uncle, but he reassured me that all the negroes would take exercise twice daily—stretch their limbs, dance, and enjoy themselves. That they’d have two meals a day of boiled rice, beans, and yams, and that the men would be given a pipe and tobacco once daily to share about. “So don’t let it trouble you,” he said, in as pleasant a mood as I’d ever seen him. “They’ll have many opportunities for comfort.”
Uncle’s mood was infectious, sweeping all my doubts away.
See? The arrangements are excellent
, I told myself.
While the slave trade is a necessary evil, it’s not such a rotten thing after all. You’ve seen the worst of it, and it’ll get better from here. As Uncle said, they’ll have many opportunities for comfort
.
The night before we were to weigh anchor, I lay curled in my berth. Jonas slept above me, snoring. A candle burned in the lantern hanging on its peg above the desk. Cries and moans issued from the hold, seeming to permeate the air, the very timbers of the deck above me, the whitewashed boards of my cabin. A sudden irritation grabbed hold of me, and I thought,
Why don’t they just calm down and have it over with?
—whereupon I fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of the time when Master Crump dragged me by the ear, the arm, the ear, from the cotton mill back to the workhouse; me burning with fever, barely able to stand; him saying,
Why must you always be so difficult? Why can’t you just do your job like all the other good lads?
Reprovisioned with wood, water, yams, and rice, with our fine ship well tallowed, every seam caulked within and without, and her standing rigging tarred black as a crow, we heaved up anchorto the tune of “The Maid of Amsterdam,” set our fore topsail, and headed down the creek toward the river Bonny. I offered to help Uncle navigate the shallow waters, but he chased me off. Said he’d important work to do for the moment, else we might ground on a sandbar and lose our ship and precious cargo altogether.
So I sat on deck, under the shade of one of the spare boats hanging above, studying languages and sweating like a coal miner. Chains rattled and cries came from below, but I was beginning to understand that the racket was a constant bother I’d have to tolerate. Until we were safe at sea and out of sight of land, none of the slaves would be allowed on deck; otherwise, I was told, they’d try to jump overboard and swim back to shore. It was an unhappy arrangement, but would soon right itself. The faster, the better, in my opinion. I felt rotten for them, remembering my time aboard the
Hope
, and the horror of steerage.
While I’d been upriver, Uncle had encouraged me to begin a journal of African words and phrases, seeing as I’d a gift for languages. It was this journal I studied now, determined to be able to talk to the slaves and African slave traders directly on future voyages.
I was scratching a mosquito bite when the cabin boy, Billy Dorsett, approached me.
Up until now I’d distanced myself from the crew, not wanting to become too friendly with such a
While we’d been gone up the creek, the rest of the sailors, under the supervision of the carpenter, had built double decks in the hold. The decks were like shelves, with two feet between each deck. Arriving in canoe loads of fifty or so, the slaves were herded into the hold and onto the narrow-spaced tiers, shackled together two by two, while a pair of mounted carronades swept the hold in the event of an uprising. With the exception of some screaming and fainting, all went smoothly. The females and children were placed together in the aft hold (therewas no need to shackle them), separated by a reinforced bulkhead from the men in the main hold. They were packed together tightly—too tightly, in my opinion, for they were like spoons in a drawer. How would they even roll over?
I mentioned this to Uncle, but he reassured me that all the negroes would take exercise twice daily—stretch their limbs, dance, and enjoy themselves. That they’d have two meals a day of boiled rice, beans, and yams, and that the men would be given a pipe and tobacco once daily to share about. “So don’t let it trouble you,” he said, in as pleasant a mood as I’d ever seen him. “They’ll have many opportunities for comfort.”
Uncle’s mood was infectious, sweeping all my doubts away.
See? The arrangements are excellent
, I told myself.
While the slave trade is a necessary evil, it’s not such a rotten thing after all. You’ve seen the worst of it, and it’ll get better from here. As Uncle said, they’ll have many opportunities for comfort
.
The night before we were to weigh anchor, I lay curled in my berth. Jonas slept above me, snoring. A candle burned in the lantern hanging on its peg above the desk. Cries and moans issued from the hold, seeming to permeate the air, the very timbers of the deck above me, the whitewashed boards of my cabin. A sudden irritation grabbed hold of me, and I thought,
Why don’t they just calm down and have it over with?
—whereupon I fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of the time when Master Crump dragged me by the ear, the arm, the ear, from the cotton mill back to the workhouse; me burning with fever, barely able to stand; him saying,
Why must you always be so difficult? Why can’t you just do your job like all the other good lads?
Reprovisioned with wood, water, yams, and rice, with our fine ship well tallowed, every seam caulked within and without, and her standing rigging tarred black as a crow, we heaved up anchorto the tune of “The Maid of Amsterdam,” set our fore topsail, and headed down the creek toward the river Bonny. I offered to help Uncle navigate the shallow waters, but he chased me off. Said he’d important work to do for the moment, else we might ground on a sandbar and lose our ship and precious cargo altogether.
So I sat on deck, under the shade of one of the spare boats hanging above, studying languages and sweating like a coal miner. Chains rattled and cries came from below, but I was beginning to understand that the racket was a constant bother I’d have to tolerate. Until we were safe at sea and out of sight of land, none of the slaves would be allowed on deck; otherwise, I was told, they’d try to jump overboard and swim back to shore. It was an unhappy arrangement, but would soon right itself. The faster, the better, in my opinion. I felt rotten for them, remembering my time aboard the
Hope
, and the horror of steerage.
While I’d been upriver, Uncle had encouraged me to begin a journal of African words and phrases, seeing as I’d a gift for languages. It was this journal I studied now, determined to be able to talk to the slaves and African slave traders directly on future voyages.
I was scratching a mosquito bite when the cabin boy, Billy Dorsett, approached me.
Up until now I’d distanced myself from the crew, not wanting to become too friendly with such a
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