My Name is Phillis Wheatley

by Afua Cooper

  I decide that the next poem should be the one I wrote for Lord Dartmouth. Because he is here at Lady Huntingdon’s and because he has been so good to me since I arrived — he has given me five pounds and the complete collection of Milton’s works — I read “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth.”

  The Earl of Dartmouth has been appointed secretary of the American colonies. The Americans hope that he will listen to their complaints and do right by them. They are being taxed by the British on almost everything but do not have representation in the British Parliament. Now they are almost up in arms, demanding their freedom from British “slavery.”

  Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,

  Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:

  The northern clime beneath her genial ray,

  Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:

  Elate with hope her race no longer mourns…

  No more America, in mournful strain

  Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,

  No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,

  Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand

  Had made, and with it meant t’enslave the land…

  I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate

  Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat…

  Such, such my case. And can I then but pray

  Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

  The Earl of Dartmouth looks at me, bows from his waist and leads the applause. I bask in the praise and recognition Lady Huntingdon and her friends bestow on me. “Is this me?” “Did I just do what I did?” “Am I the girl that everyone now loves?” And I answer all three questions: “Yes!”

  T

  Two days later, Amelia brings me the newspapers. I smile when I see the headlines: “Phillis Wheatley, American African Poet Conquers London.” “The Ethiopian Poetess and Her Surprising Genius.” They are flattering articles. The Monthly Review states that I should be given my freedom, that I am much too talented to be kept in bondage. The writer says that Bostonians pride themselves on the principles of liberty, yet they hold one such as I in slavery. “Oh ye America, give Phillis her freedom!” the Review proclaims.

  Another newspaper calls me the “mother of Black literature.” It seems I am the first African woman in this part of the world to have a book published. I shake my head in wonderment at this praise. Of course I am flattered, but I quickly remember my mistress telling me not to get too big a head from the acclaim that would be heaped on me.

  That evening, my publisher, Archibald Bell, visits the house. He takes off his hat and bows to me. He kisses Lady Huntingdon’s hand. “Ladies, I have good news. Phillis, the manuscript is gone to press!” he says. The countess claps her hands. I simply stare. Since neither of us speaks, Mr. Bell continues. “There are already three hundred subscribers!” This must mean that sufficient buyers have agreed to purchase copies to make printing profitable for him. Finally, Lady Huntingdon says, “Well done, Phillis. God is on our side.”

  Though I prepare for sleep, the excitement of the past days courses through my mind and body, and I am unable to relax. I am happy, of course, but the words from the newspapers rush around in my head: “Phillis Wheatley, a slave.” “Genius in bondage.” Though used well, I am a slave, it is true. But it was not always so.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Capture

  Through the dust storm, beyond the wall of the town, we saw the cowherds with their cattle. My friends and I wanted to pelt the cows, but they were too fast for us. Instead, we watched. No sooner did the herds thunder by than we saw a lone rider coming from the horizon. His horse ran with such haste. From the center of the village, we heard the sound of the cow horn alerting the people. My friends and I ran to the gate of the town. Uthman Tall, a friend of my father, opened the gate. Horse and rider thundered through. In an instant, a crowd gathers at the square. The rider dismounts. He walks briskly to the chief. They greet each other in formal language. Then Chief Ibrahima says, “Speak to us. I know you bring news of great urgency.”

  The man spoke. “Slave traders are about. Toubabs, White men. Seal the gates of your town at dusk. Keep a watch night and day. Go beyond the wall only in groups. Do not allow the children to wander off by themselves. Go about your business carrying your weapons. This is a message from the king.”

  And with those words the rider changed our lives. Soon the drums were pounding out the message that would travel from village to village, town to town, throughout the whole kingdom. I listened to the rhythmic patterns of the music — “slavetraders,” “toubabs,” “go about in groups.” And I trembled.

  My father had seen the toubabs before. He said their skin is as pale as a ghost’s. They have stringy hair and big noses. They have almost no lips, and their eyes are of different colors. Even so, my father said, they are human. He saw them when he worked as an apprentice in Djenne. Those toubabs had come to Senegal to trade, but many others wanted to buy people to be slaves in their countries far across the sea.

  My mother had also seen a toubab. He had come to Tumbakulli before I was born. My mother said that this man was on his way to discover where the great river Niger ends. The Niger is the river of the world, my mother said. Its source is in the land of our ancestors, the land of Guinea. The Niger winds its way through the empire of Mali. The great cities of Djenne, Timbuktu and Gao sit on its banks. The toubab, my mother said, was from a White country called Scotland. The women of our town touched his skin and told him he ought to sit more in the sun to acquire the complexion of our people. They wondered if his nose was real. It was big and pointy. And they asked him why he would leave his family to find out where the Niger ends.

  This man stayed for two weeks on his way to Timbuktu. Oftentimes, you would hear people say, “It was at least fifteen rainy seasons before the toubab came to Tumbakulli” or “It was after the toubab passed through our village.”

  But most toubabs did not seek the sources and destinations of rivers. Many came to buy the bodies of Africans. My father had said he had seen White men called French in their fort at Saint-Louis with groups of captured Africans huddled together, forlorn, terrified and weary. They were sent to the land of the toubabs, and no one knew what happened to them. They were never seen again. I listened to my father, and I was afraid.

  After the messenger rode away, the chief raised his hands, but there was no need to because everyone was as still as stones. “You have heard the messenger, and you will abide by what he says. We will now organize the watch and strengthen our fortifications.” I thought of my brother and the other cowherds outside the walls. As if reading my mind, the chief said, “The cowherds will have heard the message of the drums. Nonetheless, I will send someone to warn them.”

  Our lives changed with the coming of the messenger. At first, my friends and I still played games outside the gates, but we stayed close to the wall under the watchful eye of the guards. After a few days, we were not permitted to play outside the walls. When the women and children went to swim and bathe and carry water from the pools of the Senegal, they were accompanied by guards. My brother and his fellow cowherds carried spears and bows and arrows while herding their cattle. Older men carried the guns they acquired in trade with the Moors, Mandinka or toubabs.

  The fear remained constant and was often punctuated by news that a village had been attacked by slavetraders and the people carried off. Yet trade caravans still came. The men with their faces covered with blue veils. They rode on camels, sometimes with wives and children. Moors and Tuareg. From Mauretania and Morocco and even from Algeria. Mandinka caravans on their way to and from the highlands of Guinea, from the Gambia, from Mali. Hausa traders from such distant places as Sokoto, Zaria and Bornu in the east. They traded cloth, rice, millet, corn and sorghum. Dried fish, alligator skin, elephant tusk, amber, gold, cloves, peppers and other spices.

/>   We were having supper when we heard the commotion. The crying of the animals, the shouts and screams of the villagers: “Slave raiders, slave raiders!”

  Father grabbed baby Asta, who was sleeping on a cot beside mother. “Come!” he yelled.

  My mother hesitated and reached into a wicker basket for food for the baby.

  “Asta!” my father shrieked. He held the baby to his chest with one hand, and with the other held my hand. We bolted from the house just in time. We heard a loud explosion and saw bright flames fill the air. An acrid smell assaulted my nostrils. I turned and see my mother fall. That was the last I see of her.

  More booming explosions and the burning smell. I felt my lungs tightening and heard the furious drum of my heart. There was a pounding in my head. I held tightly to my father’s hand, and we got through the gates of the town and stumble through thick undergrowth. What of my mother? I pushed the thought from my mind. I must not think, but run, run, run. We staggered through the dark night with our townspeople. We reached a hilltop, and my father stopped to look back. A furious blaze brightened the night. The town was on fire.

  The baby began to wail, and I whispered, “Papa, my legs are tired, I cannot go on.” My poor father starts to say something, but shadows emerged from the thicket and throw him to the ground. I screamed, but not for long, because rough and powerful hands covered my mouth and I fell. A blow to my head and I sank into a thick blackness.

  When I came to, dawn was peeping through the darkness. I felt a pressure on my wrists. They were tied together with a length of thick rope. I was certain that my mother and many other villagers had been killed in the attack. What had become of my father and baby sister I did not know. What has happened to my elder brother, Amadi, I had no idea. When the slave raiders arrived he was with his cattle in the grazing lands beyond the town. My little brother, Chierno, was at our uncle’s house. Did he survive?

  In an instant, my life had changed. One moment I was basking in the warm embrace of my family. The next, I was dragged away, shackled to a slave coffle — a group of captives. Slave raiders had reaped a bountiful harvest. There were women with babies on their backs and at their bosoms. Young children like me, teenagers, grandparents and people my parents’ age. Some had been captured from neighboring villages on the banks of the Senegal. We began a trek to the mouth of the Gambia River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean. It is a journey of several hundred kilometers. We walked. I was eight years old.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Vultures

  We walked under the hot sun, the vultures flying low overhead. Along with the sun, a fever burned my body. Sharp images of my mother and the baby danced before my eyes. I cried out. But to no avail. The more I cried, the farther away they became. I stumbled, but the weight of the coffle held me up. Every limb of my body ached. My feet felt like hot iron. I knew I would die, as surely as Yasin Balde, the cowherd who was attacked by a hungry lioness. Finally, the owner of the coffle put me in a basket carried by two other captives. This was a mercy because I had some protection from the sun. For days I remained unconscious. In these spells I was with my parents, my baby sister and brothers, and we were swimming and bathing in the pool and eating sweetmeats. Other times, I was with my friends, throwing stones after my brother’s cattle or mimicking and frustrating our poor teacher, Baba Dende.

  Sometimes cool drops from the sudden rains brought me to consciousness. During such times, I forced myself to fall asleep again. I refused to face what was happening around me. When babies died, they were snatched from their screaming mothers and thrown into the bush. The buzzards that accompanied us had their reward. The hot sun, the endless walking and the starvation also claimed some of the adults, especially the grandparents. There would be a jerking motion in the coffle and we would pitch forward. A guard immediately freed the dead from their chains and threw the bodies into the bush. Every day someone died. Every day the vultures, messengers of death, accompanied us, and when they sensed that someone was about to die, they circled around our heads.

  After many days, the intense heat disappeared and it became cooler. I sat up and saw a landscape of green, trees tall and thick and covered with broad leaves. We were passing through a true forest. We waded across small streams. Rainbow-colored birds arched toward the sky, and their sounds resounded through the air. Soon we came to a small town. We first approached the fields. Rows and rows of corn and twines of peas. We passed an area of dense cotton cultivation. Men and small children stood guard with tall sticks and stones to chase away monkeys. As our coffle approached, the townspeople talked excitedly and pointed to us. They spoke Mandinka, which I understood, though I could not speak it. We pressed on and came to a swampy area. Women stood knee-deep in the water. Slim shoots protruded from the mud. Rice. Rice. Rice. The women looked mournfully at us. In spite of my condition, I was struck by the beauty of the place. Every plant seemed to be in bloom. The hills and dales were round and green. Streams made the place cool and fertile. Even the blue of the sky was soft on the eye. The inhabitants appeared healthy. The coffle moved on.

  The air grew even cooler, and I felt my lungs opening. I lay back in my basket, my head swimming from all that I had seen. But excited chatter made me rise again and look in wonder. Before us spread a broad river. It seemed to go on forever. It was the River Gambia. And it led to the sea. The excited murmurs from the coffle turned into wails, and even I, feeling as if I had only one breath left, joined in the mournful song.

  The Atlantic opened out in front of us like a wide scarf, the color of the sky. The foamy waves rushed to the shore and then back into the arms of the wide ocean. My father had seen the ocean and had told me about it. And I had wished one day to see it. But not like this. Not like this. A thousand smells sought my nostrils: of fish fresh and stale, the salt of the sea and other scents, foul ones, carried by the wind. The sea birds screeched their stories in deafening tones.

  We were lodged in the dungeon of a “slave castle,” built by toubabs from a country called Germany. Later, it was captured by the English, who called it Fort James. The English were in command when my coffle arrived. The captives were hoarded in the dungeon until a ship came from Europe or America to buy them. Sometimes, captives waited at Fort James for more than two months. Fortunately, our wait was only one week. I say fortunately because Fort James was a living hell. The dungeon was dark and stank with a hundred vile odors. Chinks of light came from one tiny window. A massive iron door blocked our way. With chains around our feet and hands, we lay in our filth and misery. Some wailed and shrieked, others emitted a low moan. I was too weak and frightened to do either.

  Then one day, White men with guns came and opened the iron door. They hustled us up the stairs, our chains making an awful sound, into the blinding light above. A ship had entered the harbor. The captain of the ship did not want to buy me — I would be of no use to any slaveholder, not in America, not in Brazil, not in the Caribbean. But the trader persuaded him, and he bought me for a quarter of the price paid for a child my age.

  On that day, more than three hundred captives boarded the ship with me. Some were children, others were advanced in age, but most were young men and women, teenagers and young adults. Canoes took us out to the waiting ship. Even though I was feverish, the sight of the ship was alarming. It was like a monstrous wooden bird, with wings white and broad. The ship bounced up and down on the water. As the canoes drew near to the ship, I made out bold letters on its side: P-H-I-L-L-I-S. I knew that meant something, but what I did not know. I had studied my letters with Baba Dende, but they did not look like this. These letters were straight and angular. The letters I had learned in my village school were soft and curvy. The letters on the side of the ship danced into my head until, once again, I blacked out.

  But fainting could not save me. We were herded onto the ship like chained cattle. A mournful cry went up, the children crying for their mothers. “Mama, Maaa, Umi, Amma.” Some
tried to jump overboard but were held back by the toubab sailors. The adults wept, too, howls bursting from the depths of their bowels. Some silently stared into space. A fearsome noise beat against my brain, and my body convulsed as I lay on the wooden planks, wet with water, wet with fear.

  The men were shackled two by two. The right wrist and ankle of one were attached by chains to the left wrist and ankle of another. And so, cross-shackled, they shuffled along the deck. Toubab men with guns pointed the men to a stairway down into the ship. The women and children sat on the open deck, though the women who were heavy with child were sent into a makeshift room on the deck. Mercifully, neither the women nor the children were chained. Did the toubabs not think we were dangerous? Did they believe they could control women and children more easily than men? Is that why our fathers and brothers were shackled like beasts?

  How long I lay on the cold planks I do not know. Amid the noise, I slept, my body broken by exhaustion. And, as I slept, my spirit flew back to Fouta Toro. All around me I saw the smoldering ruin of my town. Dead and dying cattle sprawled in the corral. Rotting bodies of humans. I searched for my mother and sister but did not find them. I willed myself to escape from the dream. I entered another dream. My family and I were sitting in the town square and watching a camel caravan enter the town. Fifty camels! What a sight. Merchants had come to trade. They were going to the land of Mali. My father was feeding me sour cream mixed with honey.

  “It is a dream. That is all, my child.”

  I opened my eyes to see a woman bent over me. She had a green shawl over her shoulders. I gazed at the woman and tried to figure out who she was and where I was. But a sound was coming from somewhere. A low moan. “It’s only a dream, my child,” the woman said in my language. The sound was coming from me. And I remembered the dream. I had woken up crying. My face was wet with my tears. I turned away from the woman, moaning louder, the taste of honey and sour cream still in my mouth.