The Pull Of Freedom (13 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

The slaves were whispering among themselves about the strange disappearance of John Smith. Asha was in the cabin she shared with Mamee. She could hear the croaking of the lizards in the rafters of the cabin and that was not good. On a plantation the size of theirs the croaking of lizards could only be heard in the later hours of the evening. The unusual stillness frightened her. The stillness was usually preceded by an ambush.

She had never seen a maroon ambush before but there were stories of the maroons killing the white men they saw on the plantations, oftentimes slaves would die in the crossfire.

She gazed at Mamee’s still body. She had been sleeping a lot in the past couple of days, mother Esther’s potions were responsible but her breath sounded like a gurgling stream when it came through her mouth. The closest human to her was dying; she felt it deep in her bones.

She knelt beside the bed and placed her hand on Mamee’s. The plantation pastor had taught them to pray from early. There was one God, he said, and he listened when you speak to him in prayer. He told wonderful stories about how God delivered another race from slavery in Egypt—most of the slaves were waiting on this God for their deliverance too.

Asha prayed to the God in Heaven and waited for his reply but she only heard the steady beat of her heart and the uneven breaths of Mamee.

A mosquito droned around her ear and she slapped it hard against her cheeks.

Mamee opened her eyes a slit and coughed. She looked at Asha and smiled and then squeezed her hand.

Asha squeezed her hand and whispered, “the plantation is silent tonight.”

Mamee nodded and clutched Asha’s hand tighter, “listen to me.”

Asha leaned toward her closer.

“When the maroons come, go with them.”

“But I would leave you and Mark,” Asha said, hardly realising that she had called Mark’s name.

“I will feel better if you go,” Mamee said quietly, “I might get better and work for the Massa for another twenty years, if I know you are free.”

“But I can’t … ”

Mamee looked at Asha gravely, her eyes were half masked in the dim light but still stern and intense. “You cannot stay here for me, your mother wished that she could have run away with Cudjoe, when she was pregnant with you but it was too late. Slavery is not natural.” Mamee closed her eyes, “it would kill me if you stayed, freedom is more precious than love. More precious than anything.”

Asha closed her eyes and swallowed.

Mamee fell asleep.

The mosquito’s buzzed and then a shout rent the air.

Cudjoe’s men led the men who were looking for John Smith farther away from the plantation than they realised. That was when Cudjoe struck. His remaining men stealthily strangled and rendered unconscious the men placed to guard the plantation.

They were standing at their posts obliviously as silent feet came within a hairsbreadth of where they were and attacked. Slaves who were preparing for the maroon invasion hurriedly gathered themselves together running blindly toward the hills and freedom. Young children were lifted on shoulders and a great stampede could be heard, as the slaves tasted the first inkling of what it would be like without a whip threatening their freedom of movement.

Cudjoe and his men advanced to the Great House as they assigned themselves in groups to retrieve guns and weapons and grains and horses. Cuffy and Jelani were determined to get gold for trading purposes. They went to the Great House and searched, aware that they had limited time. Instead, they found a white man, his face chagrined as he viewed the stampede that was overtaking the plantation.

The white man was curiously emotionless when he saw them in the house. He had a gun in his hand but he didn’t challenge them. Cuffy raised his musket and was about to fire when Nanny stepped up to his side.

“Put it down,” she said.

A young girl was standing in the doorway of the house her hand was on her breast and her mouth was trembling. The white man’s eyes lit up when he saw her. Jelani looked at Cuffy and then at Nanny.

“Don’t kill him,” the young girl said trembling.

Nanny turned to her and looked her over, “take his gun Jelani,” she said looking over her shoulder at her youngest brother.

Jelani obediently took the gun.

“Hurry up and search for what you came for,” Nanny said in the short silence. Both men hurried at her prompt and left the room.

“Asha,” Nanny said to the young girl, “you are coming with me.”

Asha looked askance at the slim woman in front of her, she was slight in build but her expression was fierce, she had on a red bandana and a dirty white dress.

“Come quickly or death will approach.” Her calmness belied the frenzy that was surrounding them.

A sound like ripping silk came from the throat of Mark, “you can’t take her,” he rasped. “Take all the other slaves but not Asha.”

Nanny smiled, and grabbed Asha’s hand. “I saved your life white man. Now you save ours.”

Mark watched with numbing incredulity as Asha was removed from his presence then the acridity of fire reached his nostrils and he bolted to the back of the house and watched as his father’s pride and joy was overtaken by flames.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“The vagrants outwitted us,” Robert Simmonds said in the empty shell that was once his house. “They lighted my fields, they killed my overseer, they have gone with all my slaves.” He stared at Mark who was soot covered and leaning on the wall.

“It will take me years to rebuild what was lost,” he was on the verge of crying, his frustration mounted in proportion to all the empty slave shacks that he had passed when he got back from hunting for John.

“Those stinking niggers are trouble.” He ran his fingers through his hair, “all my hard work gone in flames.” He sighed.

Mark silently looked at him.

“Say something,” Robert growled.

“You still have some slaves,” Mark said diplomatically, about a hundred or so and only the west section of the field was destroyed. “Only the front part of the house was gutted. It will probably take you a few months to get back on track.”

Robert growled and paced, “I should have sensed that it was a trap. I should have ignored John’s disappearance and armed myself and stayed to protect my property.”

“If you stayed you could have been killed,” Mark said heavily, “some men came into the house and they held me up. There was this maroon woman who told them not to shoot. I was fortunate that they did not kill me.”

“Thank God for his mercies,” Robert said heavily.

“Are any of the house slaves here?”

“Jamilia is here and Mamee. The footmen and butler are gone. The carpenter and distillery workers all gone.”

“I will have to get in touch with Peter, I need more slaves.”

“Is that wise?” Mark asked incredulously, “more slaves will mean more runaways and more problems.”

“Sugar is in great demand,” Robert said holding up his hand, “I would be stupid if I did not take advantage of it now. I will not go back to England with my tail between my legs and listen to your mother as she laughs at me.”

Mark slid down to the ground and put his head in his hand, “I'm going to join the council.”

Robert smiled, “I'm sorry it took my plantation to be robbed and burned for you to come to your senses but I can’t say that I'm unhappy to hear that you have finally grown up.”

Mark shook his head, “no Dad, I am joining the council so that I can help to find Asha.”

Robert stood up, “she is a slave, she is not worth all this effort on your part. Concentrate on the plantation, marry a nice white girl and have babies.”

Mark growled, “no and you are not going to make me, I know about your little meetings through the years with the different black women, I know about your bastard children. Dad I know that Daniel is your son.” He inhaled and looked at his father fully, “it is hypocrisy to treat black women like objects of your lust and yet deny the finer feelings of love.”

Robert walked up to his son in anger, “I am no hypocrite, a white man does not marry a black woman or love her!”

“But it is okay to sleep with her and have mulatto children floating around the island?” Mark asked incredulously. “You know Dad, in a few years this island might have more mulatto children than even blacks or whites. That’s how blind and stupid the white men here are. They spill their seed around the slave cabins and go home to their wives and pretend that everything is well. You are all going to burn in hell for it.”

“How dare you?” Robert was livid a vein throbbed in his head. His son was defying him, he sounded like his mother. “You went to England and listened to your mother’s poison and now you are telling me that I am going to burn in hell?”

Mark sighed, “Dad you know that I'm right. Actions have consequences, we do not treat our slaves right. Your idea of orientation is to rape the newly bought slave girls and you trample on the young men’s esteem by ordering them to perform stud services, that’s why they are quick to run away at the slightest provocation.”

“We treat them right,” Robert grunted, “we feed them and clothe them like good slave owners.”

“Have you ever heard of slaves running away from Aunt Bridget’s?” Mark asked coldly.

Robert shook his head; he was getting weary of Mark’s preaching, if it were up to his son he would have them granting all the slaves their freedom and then paying them wages like normal workers. He blamed himself for his son’s upbringing, Mamee and the nigger loving Bridget reared the boy and then he had sent him away to his pious and faithless mother.

He walked away from Mark. He felt like strangling him. He should have sold the girl Asha from she was a baby; the black girl was coming between him and his only heir.

Section 3

Freedom Is Better Than Anything

1736-1738

Chapter Thirty-Eight

They walked through the hills for days. Asha was not used to the long walk and her feet ached, she knew that she slowed them down but the slim, wiry woman, who they called Nanny, was patient with her. The men rarely spoke but instinctively seemed to sense danger, when they approached another band of maroons they would blow the horn that they called an abeng and an answering echo could be heard through the hills.

They slept in small maroon settlements or sometimes under the stars. Nanny would tell stories about Africa and great battles that her mother and grandmother fought. She had a fierce light in her eyes when she spoke about conquering another tribe.

“So Africans had slaves?” Asha asked incredulously.

“Yes we had slaves,” Nanny said contemplatively, “but not like this. After working for a while some of them would be incorporated in the village if they married someone of the tribe.”

“So which tribe were you?” Asha asked.

The men around would laugh softly.

“I come from the Ashanti,” Nanny said proudly, “and so are you. Your name is Ashanti, your father is Ashanti.”

They stopped to eat dried meat and fruits. Nanny did not eat the meat; she just sat and watched her men.

“So you are my aunt?” Asha asked the woman called Nanny.

Nanny nodded, “your father is Cudjoe his name means Monday. He was born on a Monday. Monday children are proud. I'm happy your mother named you correctly. In our tribe names are important, it predicts how you will be in life.”

Asha grimaced, she was not too sure she was enjoying this freedom that the maroons held in such esteem. The Great House was in flames when they fled the plantation; bloodthirsty slaves were squealing blue murder at the Massas. She wondered if Mamee was alive and if Mark had escaped the burning house. She was uneasy.

Why did this woman choose to ‘save’ her from slavery even though she didn’t want to be saved? She sat on the ground with mixed feelings. All that she knew was taken from her and now she was a runaway. She would never see Jamilia, Mamee or Mark again.

“Ashanti women are strong,” Nanny intoned as the sun descended over the mountains. “They are the backbone of the family.” Her voice chided Asha, “we were never made to be bounded by other men.”

“What does your name mean?” Asha asked wearily, she was tired of the freedom lectures, she was not Ashanti she was born a slave. It would take her a while to be as fired up about freedom as Nanny.

“The Nanny in our tribe is a wise woman who is the keeper of ancient legends and stories.”

“If you are so wise,” Asha said tremulously, “why did you take me from the plantation when I didn’t want to go?”

“God sent me,” Nanny said simply, “when the voice speaks I follow. Now sleep we have far to go.”

Asha laid down on the springy tufts of grass and looked into the gathering dusk. She could still hear the echoes of Mamee’s voice in her head, freedom is more precious than love, freedom is everything.

A tear slid along her cheeks, like a litany that put her to sleep.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

They arrived at Nanny Town in the wee hours of the morning. They had raided one plantation on their way. Nanny had orchestrated the whole thing using herbs and an awe inspiring military strategy.

She had sent her men down the hill and then standing on an incline started to chant, the white men had rushed to the sound of her voice but undisguised and in plain view, they could not see her. While the white men had searched madly for the chanter their plantation was set on fire and their extra weapons retrieved.

The slaves on the plantation had scattered into the hills, some of them had followed Nanny back to Nanny Town. The relief on their faces when they were freed stayed with Asha and she realised that she had been ungrateful to the woman who had walked miles just to release her from slavery.

The village was a huge one set on top of a hill and not easily accessible. The roads were winding and the hills were steep. The people were happy to see their leader’s return and Nanny, who rarely smiled, gave them a warm smile upon her return.

The sun wasn't up yet but they were energetic and happy. The women started to cook and the men took out djembe drums, the skin covered hand drum had a forceful bass undertone which practically urged the listener to move, they started singing and clapping and one lithe female, her body flexible, would writhe in semi-circles, her hands extended. Others joined her, and the drum beat in a frenzy signalling that they should speed up their movements.

The recently escaped slaves had tears in their eyes and were quickly dragged into the frenzied foray. Asha stood still and watched, this was a slice of the motherland she could tell, but she wasn't familiar with any of it. Some of the people were even talking in strange dialects. It was unusual for her to hear other tongues except English.  African dialects were banned on the plantation and slaves were forced to speak English or a form of it.

No wonder Nanny fought for freedom, Asha thought, being subjected to no one was a good feeling. She started tapping her feet. The gentle sunrays of the morning sun lit her face.

She was alive and she was not a slave. Freedom is better than love; at this moment she could feel it. Better than love, better than anything. She joined the impromptu dance and lost herself in the freedom of music.