Unheard Voices
CONTENTS
About the Book
Title Page
Foreword by Malorie Blackman
Civil Lies by Benjamin Zephaniah
PART ONE: CAPTURE AND TRANSPORTATION
Extract from Ajeemah and his Son by James Berry
A Day in the Life by Daniel Aloysius Francis
Extract from Roots by Alex Haley
Newton’s Amazing Grace by John Agard
PART TWO: THE LIFE OF A SLAVE
Extract from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass: 1817–1895 by Langston Hughes
Extracts from The History of Mary Prince
Extract from Cane River by Lalita Tademy
Extract from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
PART THREE: SLAVERY IN BRITAIN
Runaway by Sandra Agard
Extract from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
The Last Words of Cato Hopkins by Catherine Johnson
PART FOUR: TOWARDS FREEDOM
Extract from Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen
The People Could Fly by Grace Nichols
North by Malorie Blackman
Freedom by Langston Hughes
Extracts from The History of Mary Prince
PART FIVE: THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY
Master, Master by Benjamin Zephaniah
The Awakening of Elmina by Grace Quansah
In Our Year 1941 My Letter to You Mother Africa by James Berry
Footnotes
Historical Note
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Malorie Blackman
Copyright
ABOUT THE BOOK
Slavery – an inhuman trade in human misery and suffering . . .
Award-winning author MALORIE BLACKMAN has drawn together a riveting collection of stories, poems and first-hand recollections on the theme of slavery.
John Agard, Olaudah Equiano, Alex Haley and Benjamin Zephaniah are among those whose work appears alongside an original story and foreword from Malorie herself.
Honour the past – and look toward a future in which all peoples of the world may live together in freedom.
UNHEARD VOICES
A COLLECTION OF STORIES AND POEMS TO COMMEMORATE THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE ACT
COLLECTED BY
Malorie Blackman
Stowage of the British Slave Ship ‘Brookes’, 1788
FOREWORD
Welcome to Unheard Voices. This is an anthology of stories and poems about slavery written by those who were themselves slaves, as well as by contemporary writers. Why publish such an anthology in the first place? Slavery is an emotive, painful subject that is often shied away from. But more often than not, the only way to move forward is to first look back and learn the lessons of the past. 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the British Parliament passing the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807. Although the abduction, transportation and selling of slaves didn’t stop immediately, it was an important first step.
And unfortunately, even in the twenty-first century, the subject is still relevant. Nowadays, more often than not, it’s called ‘human trafficking’ but it’s the same principle – the principle of one human being denying another human being their right to dignity, freedom and equality. Slavery, in all its forms, is a gross abuse of fundamental human rights.
On 10 December 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Assembly called upon all member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and ‘to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories’.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.’
No definition of slavery can adequately convey the full extent of the damage such a trade causes. In addition, many who have been held in slavery or their descendants are subjected to grave abuses of their right to be free from discrimination. One legacy of slavery is perhaps the way in which those descended from slaves, as well as those descended from slave owners or a slave-owning society, view themselves and each other.
Throughout Western history, only a small number of voices have been allowed to tell their story. Getting published when your voice was outside the perceived ‘norm’ was all too often a matter of having the right benefactors and patronage. And for too long, slaves were even forbidden to learn to read and write. Education, and thus knowledge, has always been one of the first rights denied to those in slavery.
From my own point of view, although the voyage through my past may make me weep, I can still draw strength from the fact that my ancestors were slaves in the West Indies. Why? Because they survived the inhuman, barbaric transportation from Africa. They survived the inhuman regime they encountered once they reached the West Indies. They survived. I am descended from survivors. And that thought makes me strong.
With this anthology, each writer pays respects to all those men, women and children who made it and somehow survived – and all the many millions who didn’t. It is an anthology of work from those to whom the slaves of the past still whisper. Perhaps they will always whisper until slavery and injustice are eliminated from every country on our planet. Let us hope that one day, and soon, that time will come.
Peace.
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH
Civil Lies
Dear Teacher,
When I was born in Ethiopia
Life began,
As I sailed down the Nile civilisation began,
When I stopped to think universities were built,
When I set sail
Asians and true Americans sailed with me.
When we traded nations were built,
We did not have animals,
Animals lived with us,
We had so much time
Thirteen months made our year,
We created social services
And cities that still stand.
So Teacher do not say
Columbus discovered me
Check the great things I was doing
Before I suffered slavery.
Yours truly
Mr Africa
PART ONE
CAPTURE AND TRANSPORTATION
JAMES BERRY
Extract from:
Ajeemah and his Son
That wiping out of Atu and Sisi’s wedding was always going to be one of the painful happenings.
It was the year 1807. The slave trade was on. By way of that trade, with all its distress, Africans were becoming Caribbean people and Americans. But the sale of Africans as slaves would end. In just another year or so a new British law would stop the British slave trade, and the Americans would soon follow. It would stop Africans being sold to be slaves on plantations in America and the Caribbean.
It was only the importing that would end, not slavery itself, nor the selling of slaves by their existing owners. Stopping the importing was a beginning, and a very welcome start to the end of slavery altogether. Yet even that beginning stirred up wild rage, resistance and awful reactions.
The new law soon to be enforced made people who benefited from the trade all angry, anxious and bitter. The new law made plantation owners cry out. It made them furious at the idea of an end to their regular supply of a free labor force. It caused panic among the ship-owning slave traders and the local African dealers. All ground their teeth in fury and rage at the coming end of their money-making from selling slaves. And the
slave traders became determined to work with new vigor. They became determined to beat that end-of-slave-trade deadline, when no more slaves could be shipped; they would get and supply as many more slaves as they could in the short time left.
Remember here too that young people and children came into the slave treatment all the time. They too had to endure a life of no freedom for their parents and for themselves. All was personal for them. The teenage couple Atu and Sisi came into it. They were going to have to face their wedding plans ruined – gone, wiped away as dust.
Truly, European slave buyers would buy. Truly, African traders would obtain their prisoners for sale into slavery. They would find them, even if they had to make their own riots and wars to get prisoners to sell. The slave-trader groups geared and equipped themselves. Their surprise attacks became more unstoppable in the villages. Yet, with all that hidden trouble about, people simply had to go on living their lives.
It was the sunniest of afternoons now. Bird singing filled the day. All unconcerned, Ajeemah and his son Atu walked along their village road in a happy mood. The eighteen-year-old Atu was soon to marry. He and his father were taking a dowry of gold to his expected wife’s parents. Going along, not talking, Ajeemah and Atu walked past groups of huts surrounded by bare ground with domestic animals and children playing. They passed fields of yam and grain growing robustly. Atu was thinking about getting married. He knew their coming marriage delighted and excited his sixteen-year-old bride-to-be, Sisi, as much as it did him.
‘My father Ajeemah,’ Atu said, ‘isn’t it really something that two other fellows – two others – also wanted to be Sisi’s husband?’
Ajeemah didn’t look at his son, but a faint smile showed he was amused. ‘This bride-gift of gold I carry,’ he said, ‘will make Sisi’s parents receive you well, as a worthy son.’
‘I thank you, my father Ajeemah. I know it’s your good fatherhood and good heart that make it possible.’
‘More than my good heart, it’s my thrift. My thrift! You know I’m good at not losing, but keep adding to our wealth.’
‘I know, my father, I know. I should have said, may you continue to have all blessings.’
‘And you, my son Atu. May you continue to have all blessings.’
‘Thank you, my father Ajeemah.’
‘Your mother smiles to herself when she thinks of your coming union with smooth-skinned and bright-eyed Sisi! Good singer, good dancer, that Sunday-born Sisi! Delights everybody!’
‘Plays instruments, too.’
‘Oh, yes, yes.’
His eyes shining, Atu said, ‘She’s the best. She pleases everyone.’
‘Pleases everyone,’ the father agreed.
‘And two other fellows shan’t get her.’
The father smiled, repeating, ‘And two other fellows shan’t get her.’
‘I’m happy your first wife my mother is happy.’
‘Your mother is happy because you’ll begin to live your manhood. And she waits for new children you and Sisi will have.’
‘And I’m nervous.’
‘Nervous?’
‘Yes. I’m nervous of all the preparations and ceremonies to get through.’
‘That’s usual. Marriage makes even a warrior nervous. Especially first marriage.’
‘I’ll try to enjoy being nervous.’
‘Wisdom, wisdom, from a young head!’
‘Thank you, my father.’
‘Atu, when we get to the house of Sisi’s father – Ahta the Twin – watch his face. Watch for the look on his face. First when he thinks I’m empty-handed. Then next when he sees me lift the two pieces of bride-gift gold, one from the inside of each sandal I wear.’
Everybody knew Ajeemah worked in leather and all kinds of skins. In the village he was called ‘Skin-man’. He preserved animal, alligator and snake skins and made sandals, bags, belts, bracelets, knife sheaths, ornaments, talismans and pouches for magic charms and spells. But Ajeemah was also known for his practical jokes. He’d chuckled to himself, thinking up the way he’d present Atu’s dowry in a most individual and unusual way. He’d created himself the special pair of leather-stringed, lace-up sandals with thick soles. Each sandal had a space under the insole to fit and hide the bride-gift gold in, while he walked to Sisi’s house. Ajeemah’s big joke was that he’d arrive as if empty-handed. Then, while talking, he’d simply take off each sandal, lift up the insole and produce his gift by surprise. But Atu wasn’t at all sold on the idea.
‘My father Ajeemah,’ Atu said, ‘suppose Sisi’s father Ahta the Twin is displeased, and things go wrong?’
‘True, my son Atu. If Ahta the Twin is displeased, that would be a disaster. But Ahta will not be displeased at all! With the sight of gold for him, Ahta’s grin will split his face in two.’
Atu laughed with his father. Won over, Atu now enjoyed his father’s scheme along with him. Laughing together, they came around the corner of the footpath, between high bushy banks on each side of the track. And ambushed, with total surprise, Ajeemah and Atu were knocked to the ground, overpowered, by a gang of six Africans with two guns, two dogs, and knives and sticks. With lightning speed, three of their fellow Africans tied Ajeemah’s arms behind his back, tightly bandaged his jaws – so he couldn’t cry out – and shackled his legs with a chain. The other three tied and shackled Atu the same way. Then, to allow them to see and breathe but not identify, the kidnappers put a bag – a dirty, sickly stinking hood – right down over each captive’s head and face.
The kidnappers stood now and stared at the older man. Ajeemah had on more than just a loincloth and his special sandals. Ajeemah wore his magic-spell amulet like a black leather armband. And he wore a flamboyant jacket made of the whole skin of an animal. The front of the jacket was held together with a stringed snakeskin lace; the sides were netted with round and square holes; the back was lengthened with tails of monkeys and lions all round. The leader and his second-in-command both carried the guns. They spoke both the other men’s language and Ajeemah’s. The second-in-command said to Ajeemah, ‘All dressed up, eh?’
The bushy-bearded leader had thick-set shoulders and short, bulky thighs and arms; he walked with a waddle. Admiring Ajeemah, he took a few steps around him and answered, ‘Yeah. Looking like a proper local prince.’
‘Ain’t he just,’ the second-in-command said, undoing Ajeemah’s jacket to take it off him. ‘This’ll do me very nicely!’
‘Wait!’ the bearded leader warned him. ‘Wait! You better watch it!’ And he and the others pointed to the magic-spell amulet Ajeemah wore like an armband. ‘Take one thing from them,’ the gang leader went on, ‘and you begin to rot. Every day you wake up a bit more rotten and deformed. A hand falls off. Then another. A leg dries up. An eye closes. Never again to mend. And you’re driven raging mad. Haunted, till you just go dumb. Not a word ever again to come.’
Horror, awe and dread blanketed the kidnappers’ faces. The hand of the second-in-command fell from Ajeemah’s jacket as if the words he heard paralyzed it. He commanded, ‘Get moving!’
Eaten up with rage, with everything in them saying, ‘Strike back!’ Ajeemah and Atu stood their ground. Blows from a stick rained down on their backs with cutting pain.
‘Hold your stick,’ the waddling leader said. ‘These two are real specials. There’s a top price to be demanded for them. We mustn’t damage these strong, good-looking bodies.’ He signaled the dogs. And growling with menace, the dogs leaped up and gripped the captives as if ready to butcher them till called off. Ajeemah and Atu obeyed and found themselves walking. And with their hands tied, their legs chained, from that moment Ajeemah and Atu would experience treatment they had never believed possible. The kidnappers took Ajeemah and Atu through a wood down to the river. A small boat waited at the bank of the river, guarded by two men with a gun. Four other men and two women were there, shackled and tied together, lying down in the boat.
Ajeemah and Atu had their hoods removed. Made to get into the
boat too and lie down, they had their legs tied to the others’. The boat moved off. Ajeemah remembered his gold in a terrible fright, while his ankles were handled. At first he thought he might have lost the gold, then that his guard might have wanted to steal the sandals.
Ah! he said to himself. I still have it! I have Atu’s bride-gift gold. I still have on my sandals! That’s a good sign. This bride-gift is for my son’s bride and goodwill for their children. For nobody else. Nobody else must ever get this gold. I must guard it. Always! . . .
The boat sailed and stopped several times. Sometimes it waited a long time till other captives were brought. Eventually the boat was full.
Night came down. Like all the others with them, Ajeemah and Atu were parched with thirst, empty with hunger and stifled with heat. They were weak. But they were taken from the boat, hands tied and ankles chained. They were made to walk a painful, killing distance in dim lantern light to their overnight stay in hard, bare, prisonlike barracks, where they were given tiny bits of food and very little to drink.
Next day they traveled early and arrived at the coast by dusk. They found themselves taken into a hot, airless, stinking old fort full of other captives. Well guarded, everybody was in some body pain or plain misery. With many hundreds there together, chained up sitting or lying on the floor, the place was a horror of groaning, crying, swearing and noisy gloom. Everybody was in terror over what was going to happen to them.
Next morning, after eating, Ajeemah and Atu found themselves going through the strange business of being oiled up to look clean and shiny for display for sale. In many ways they were lucky. Their trader had put them with a specially selected lot of youthful and strong-looking men, to attract the highest price.
Ajeemah was getting oiled by helpers when the bushy-bearded leader of the kidnappers waddled up, supervising.
‘Hello, chiefman!’ Ajeemah called. ‘Chiefman!’