The Wedding Gift (39 page)
Authors: Marlen Suyapa Bodden
“But, William, look over there. There’s something interesting to see. That land is an island called Cuba. Have you ever heard of it? It belongs to Spain.”
“Yes, I studied it in geography lessons. I can’t believe I’m actually looking at Cuba. Are we going there?”
“Oh, no. The Spaniards are even worse than the Southerners, if that’s possible, and our company trades only with the former or present British colonies.”
Captain left the first officer in command and told me to speak to him should I need anything. With nothing to do before it was time to prepare the midday meal for the few of us on board, I walked on the side of the deck facing away from shore, admiring the majestic ship with her four-masted rig. There I met First Officer Nathaniel Trusty, who, to my surprise, was a Negro. He was older than James and Anthony but not as old as Mr. Ebanks.
“I trust that your accommodations in the caboose are tolerable, but I’m sure you understand, given your situation, that it was the only possible solution.”
“Yes, sir. And it really is not that bad.”
“Good. Please inform me if there is any way that I may be of assistance.”
“Officer Trusty, I understand there are books on board that I may borrow.”
“Yes, we do maintain a small library in the officers’ quarters. Why don’t I take you there now?”
The collection was small but interesting. He left me there to browse and I found material about the Religious Society of Friends. There were no novels or poetry, but there was a copy of
The Tempest,
which I thought was an odd book to have onboard, since Mrs. Allen had told Clarissa and me that it was about a British shipwreck on the island of Bermuda. I selected that and a work by Anthony Benezet called
A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short representation of the calamitous state of the enslaved negroes in the British Dominions.
I also took a pamphlet entitled
The Sinfulness of Colonial Slavery: Extract from a Lecture on “The Sinfulness of Colonial Slavery,” delivered in the Meeting-house of Dr. Pye Smith Hackney on February 7, 1833,
by Robert Halley.
I prepared the noon meal, and after everyone had eaten, I sat on the deck, on the side not facing shore, to read. Captain and the second officer returned in time for supper, but the deckhands did not return until after I had fallen asleep.
Someone woke me by knocking on the door. I wrapped myself in my blanket and answered. It was Nathaniel.
“The captain wants you to get dressed, quickly, and go to the library. He will explain to you what this is all about.”
When I arrived there, the officers and perhaps ten deckhands, including Mr. Ebanks, were gathered around a table looking at maps.
“Chief Steward, when the second officer and I were on land, we met with officers of the United States Navy who said that they received a report of a ship near Havana, Cuba, illegally flying the flag of the United States. The ship was bound for Mobile and loaded with Africans who were kidnapped from the West African coast. We believe we are now close to that ship. The United States Navy is going to stop the slaver. If it is true that there are Africans on board, the navy is going to take them out and put them on their ship. Depending on the number of people who are being held captive, they may not all fit on the navy’s ship and we have agreed to take some on board. We have done this before, and what we found both times is that the Africans, about half of whom are children, had been living in horrible conditions.
“When we rescue them and bring them on board, we will have to give them water and food. The deckhands will assist in this effort, and we need your help as well. But enough speech for now. We have about two more hours before we meet the American ship and begin operations.”
I did not understand how this was possible. Captain told me that international slave trading was abolished in 1808, but then he explained that this was an illegal smuggling operation and that it happened far more often than most people knew.
Captain told all hands to gather as many blankets as we could find, even those belonging to the officers. Our ship stopped when we were close to the American navy’s. The blowers sounded their horns, and both ships intercepted the slaver, named the
Lackawanna.
American officers in rowboats were already next to the ship, which I later learned hailed from New York. We were too far to hear what the officers said, but they apparently requested and were granted permission to board. There was enough moonlight to see that the American officers were holding men on the
Lackawanna’s
main deck at gunpoint. Then deckhands from the American ship rowed to and boarded the
Lackawanna.
Fifteen minutes later, the deckhands emerged carrying children, sometimes two at a time, or leading emaciated adults to the boats to row them to their ship. I counted two hundred Africans, and as the captain had predicted, about half were children. The Americans arrested the
Lackawanna
’s officers and also took them on board their ship.
Captain told us that our ship was not needed because the Americans had accommodated all the former captives, officers, and crew. He said that the navy was taking the Africans to a country on the West African coast named Liberia and that the officers and crew of the
Lackawanna
would travel with them. Eventually the officers would be taken to New York to be tried for piracy, which, as of 1820, was a capital crime for United States citizens.
“These laws are difficult to enforce. The
Lackawanna
was built and financed in New York. Unfortunately the courts in the United States and in Britain have made a mockery of the laws against international slave trading and kidnapping. It is not likely that they will be convicted, or even prosecuted, for their crimes.”
Our next port of call was Bodden Town, the capital of a small island called Grand Cayman, 195 miles northwest of Jamaica. There the deckhands unloaded manufactured goods from Massachusetts and loaded ship parts that were made in Grand Cayman. We were not there long, but James and Anthony went to the beach and brought me back a small turtle.
“You can keep it as a pet or you can make a delicious soup out of it.”
I named my new companion Mariner.
Our next stop was Kingston, a large town located on the southeastern coast of Jamaica. Captain told me when he spoke with me that second night on board that I would disembark there and that he and the other officers would accompany me off the gangway in order that the local officials would be less likely to ask for my papers. No one stopped me. The officers went into town, and I joined the deckhands unloading goods from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York that the ship had taken on in Key West. When that labor was completed, we loaded sugar and spices.
Captain assigned James and Anthony to show me around Kingston while on shore leave, but he told them to have me back in time to make supper, and he gave me money so that I could buy groceries for the ship. We went to the lovely and crowded Harbor Street. James was pointing out a fruit vendor when I stopped walking because my knees almost buckled.
“What’s wrong?”
“It just occurred to me. This is the first time I’ve ever been on free soil. It’s true, isn’t it? Every person I see is free.”
“Yes, every single one, since 1838,” James said.
Tears came to my eyes. “And no one has the right to ask me for my papers?”
“No. No one,” he said.
I must have embarrassed them because I stared at people, marveling that they were free. I also noticed that there were no public notices on posts or walls advertising runaways.
“William, by the way, do we still have to call you William?”
I laughed. “When did you know?”
“I thought so from the beginning,” Anthony said.
“Why?”
He lowered his voice. “You’re too pretty to be a man. And I knew it was true when the captain didn’t let you sleep below decks.”
“And, yes, you do have to keep calling me William. After all, he’s the one employed by the British West Indies Trading Company.”
We wandered around the main roads and on side paths. There were brick buildings wherever I looked. James bought us dinner at the home of a family that sold meals to sailors, and we sat underneath a tall tree in the yard in the back of their house to eat. For dessert, I tasted, for the first time, the mango.
“This is the tastiest fruit I have ever had. Do they grow all over the Caribbean?”
“Yes. And not just in the Caribbean, but in Central and South America too. If you like mango, wait until you try the other fruits that grow on our island, like guava, soursop, papaya, pineapple, and of course bananas and coconuts. The best part is that we all have these fruits on our yards. All you have to do is pick them.”
“Does your island look like here?”
“In many ways, except that ours is much more beautiful and much less crowded.”
We walked around town after we ate. It was quite hot, and they asked me if I wanted to go to the beach.
“Sure. I’ve never been.”
“Not even in Mobile?”
“We went with Mr. and Mrs.…our…masters to Orange Beach, but we weren’t allowed to actually go on the sand or in the water.”
When we got to the beach, James and Anthony rolled up the legs of their trousers and took off their shoes and socks. They told me to do the same. I jumped because the sand was scalding and they laughed at me. We ran to the water’s edge, but at first I was afraid to put my feet in the water.
“When we get home, you can ask Grandmother Ebanks to make you a bathing costume and we’ll teach you how to swim,” Anthony said.
“Me? I’d be afraid of drowning.”
“That’s why you have to learn first,” he said.
After an hour, we went back to Harbor Street, where we bought supplies that I needed for cooking. The venders delivered the goods to the dock by wagon, and we met them there to load them on the ship. James and Anthony returned to town to visit taverns.
When everyone was on board that night, we sailed to the next destination, my new home.
THE WEEK AFTER MR. HARRIS TOLD US THE TERMS of the will, I began planning where I was going to spend the rest of my life. My sons did not figure in my arrangements. They were angry that Cornelius left them relatively small portions of the estate and because the scandal had ended their nascent professions. I would have helped them, but they treated me not as their mother but as someone who did not merit their respect. Cornelius had blamed me for Clarissa’s transgressions, and I blame him for my sons’. He took them from me when they were small, claiming that I was not qualified to teach them and that they needed to be taught by men. Thereafter, I saw the boys only at holidays and summertime, when we went to the lake house in Madison County. When they completed university, my husband decided that they should work in commerce. He gave them substantial sums of money and introduced them to bankers in Georgia and South Carolina. Had Cornelius not died when he did, the older men would not so easily have pushed them out of their businesses. When Paul received a letter telling him that his services were no longer needed, he waved it in my face.