Seeking Eden

by Ann Turnbull

  “Thou know that’s not what I mean. How are Patience … Lucie…?”

  “They all look anxious,” I said, “except Paul. He’s interested in the ship, running about, asking questions. The crew have taken to him already.”

  “That’s good. Oh, I hope there will be no trouble! I wish we could keep Patience. I like her well. But we have Mary, so I suppose there is no need for another girl. And of course she must not be separated from Antony.”

  Her remarks grated on me somewhat. I felt that her objections to the sale were immediate and personal – as if keeping Patience would make everything right, whereas it seemed to me that the buying and selling of human beings was wrong in itself. And yet – hadn’t I made a promise to stand by Antony, who was merely one of thousands?

  We arrived at the harbour, and all seemed well on board the Frances. Lucie and Rebecca had gone below; Paul was with one of the sailors, learning to tie knots. Antony and Patience leaned on the side, against the netting, talking together in low voices. I noticed that Antony had brought his little drum, fastened to a belt around his waist. The two of them turned round as Kate and I came by, and we exchanged cautious glances. It was going to be difficult, I thought, on a small crowded vessel, to maintain distance between master, crew and cargo.

  It was time to go. The mooring ropes were cast off, and the sails filled as the tide took us. Blue Caribbean sea opened between our ship and the dock. Antony and Patience watched it widening, the island seeming to slip away into the distance. But Paul ran to the forward rail and looked out to see the way we were going.

  We made good time on our return voyage, allowing the trade winds to take us up the coasts of Virginia and Maryland. We might easily have sold some of our Negroes in those colonies, but my master made no attempt to do so. He had promised John Crosbie he would sell them in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, where they might expect to have a better life and avoid working on a plantation. We anchored for a day or two at Chester on the Delaware, and here he put the word about that he had slaves for sale. In no time at all he had sold Rebecca to a respectable merchant of his acquaintance – a Friend – whose family were in need of a nursemaid. He was well pleased with this transaction.

  “I don’t want to sell them to dealers if I can avoid it,” he told me. “A direct sale is best.”

  Patience and Lucie embraced Rebecca and talked to her in low, soothing voices, and they all wept together a little when the time came to part. Rebecca looked apprehensive as she was taken away.

  Kate drew close to me. “She will soon settle,” she said. “I know the family. They will be kind to her.”

  I hoped she was right.

  It was difficult for me to find place or time to talk to Antony. I was aware that my master preferred to keep distance between us and the Negroes so that selling them would be less distressing. But there were moments; and that evening, when we were at anchor in Chester, was one of them. I met Antony on the lower deck and told him, “We will soon be in Philadelphia.”

  He had a brooding look about him, no doubt caused by the sight of Rebecca being led away.

  “Are there other slaves there?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen any, but they say some of the big landowners in the colony have slaves.”

  “In Barbados,” he said, “the slaves hold markets. If they have a good master they can grow their own food and have some left over to sell. So we used to mingle and talk; make friends; maybe ask about lost families – brothers and sisters; people would get news if they were lucky.”

  “Did thou ever hear news of thy family?”

  “No. But there are many slaves, many islands in the Caribbean. I always had hope…”

  He looked at me and I saw his fear of the unknown and his powerlessness. I wanted to reassure him that all would be well – but how could I know that? I could only offer Christian platitudes, and so I was silent.

  The next day we had several enquiries about Lucie and Paul. Lucie was a cook and housekeeper and therefore of considerable value; and her son was not necessarily a disadvantage since he was old enough to work. I began to realize how easy it might be to sell our people here in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

  Lucie and Paul went to a gentleman landowner who was en route to his estate near Trenton. Parting with them, especially with the child, was hard. The crewman who had been teaching Paul to tie knots gave him a toy wooden dog he’d been whittling away at during the last few days. The Negroes made their farewells to one another below deck, but we all heard their lamentations.

  It was my job to write up the accounts. This focused my mind on the iniquity of what we were doing. Mother and child were sold together, and might well be going to a good place; but they were slaves, and what was to stop their new master, at some later time, selling Paul away from his mother, if it suited him? Nothing can justify this business, I thought.

  We left Chester, and arrived at last at Philadelphia. My master and Richard Grey congratulated each other on a successful trading voyage – one, moreover, achieved with no trouble from the Negroes, for Patience and Antony had remained tractable, and there had been no need to confine Antony below decks.

  “And it has been an enlarging experience for Kate, and even more so for Josiah,” my master said, turning to include me. “Thou hast done well, lad; been a great help to me and shown thyself willing and able and interested in everything. I did not expect thou would be so directly involved in the sale of slaves on thy first voyage; but it is all experience, and the sales in Chester turned out well.”

  I thanked him for his praise. And it was true, I thought: this voyage was not an experience I would have missed, for it had given me much to think about. I felt that I had entered the Garden of Eden and found the serpent coiled at its heart.

  Eighteen

  FOR SALE

  TWO NEGROES FROM BARBADOS, SOLD FOR NO FAULT, THEIR FORMER OWNER HAVING NO USE FOR THEM:

  A WENCH, ABOUT SEVENTEEN YEARS OF AGE, WILL WASH AND SEW.

  A PRIME YOUNG MAN, ABOUT NINETEEN YEARS OF AGE.

  BOTH HONEST, SOBER AND DEPENDABLE.

  APPLY TO GEORGE BAINBRIGG AT HIS COUNTING HOUSE IN SECOND STREET, PHILADELPHIA.

  “Should I add, ‘To be sold together’?” I asked.

  My master read through the notice. “No. No restrictions. Buyers must be free to negotiate. Thy notices are well drawn, Jos. I’m pleased with thee. It’s a useful skill.”

  I felt far less happy about the notice than he did. Last night, on board the Frances, I had been writing up my journal. I wrote at length about my concerns, and how I had never imagined, when I left London to be part of a better future in this city of brotherly love, that I would be involved in the buying and selling of human beings.

  It surprised me that I appeared to be alone in my objections. Even Kate took the situation for granted, as being normal – though the more we talked together I realized that she was beginning to feel, as I did, that for Friends to own slaves was wrong in itself. But she loved her father, and would not believe ill of him. I too liked him well, but I believed I saw more clearly.

  “This trade is evil through and through,” I told her, “and therefore anyone who takes part in it is tainted by it. Can’t thou see that?”

  “Yes … but there will always be slaves, so isn’t it better that they should go to Friends rather than those who might abuse them? It is how we behave towards our servants that is important. Friends treat them well and encourage the light within them.”

  “Thou’rt simply parroting what thy father says—”

  “No! It’s true!”

  “It’s what thou hast been taught to believe – not what thou hast experienced thyself.”

  She looked troubled. I knew I was forcing her to think in ways that were unsettling for her, but I persisted in it, for I needed her to understand. I needed her to agree with me, to be on my side.

  My mother had been waiting on the quay when we arrived at Philadelphia, word having come to
her that the Frances had been sighted. I waved, and she waved back eagerly, with a little girlish bounce of delight; I knew the sight of me, safely home, must be a huge relief to her.

  “Go greet thy mother,” George Bainbrigg said, with a smile, as we clambered ashore, the mud clinging to our shoes.

  My mother hugged me hard. “Thou’rt well, son?”

  “Yes. And I’ll come soon, and see you all – on seventh-day, if not before.”

  “And tell us thy adventures?”

  “Of course.”

  She moved away, content with that.

  Now the ship had to be unloaded, the crates and hogsheads brought off in boats and checked against the bills of lading. And there were Antony and Patience to be attended to. They came ashore last and stood on the quay, wide-eyed, close together, glancing all around, and shivering – for although it was summer and the sunshine was bright, the air struck cool after the heat of the Caribbean.

  “What will we do with them now?” I asked my master.

  “We must find somewhere to put them while they await sale. They need to be watched at all times and restrained if necessary.” He sighed. “I never know how best to accommodate slaves. They are a trouble to deal in. The sooner they are sold the better. But for now Antony can help move the goods into the counting house. I’ll take charge of him. Thou can take the wench up to the house with Kate and ask Izzie to find her some work to do and somewhere to sleep – there’s a room upstairs that can be locked. I doubt she’ll give any trouble; she seems a good, quiet girl. Come back to the counting house when thou’rt done.”

  “Right.”

  Antony and Patience immediately appeared anxious as we came to separate them, and clung to each other. But my master had no time for any nonsense, as he called it. He directed Antony towards Zachary and the crates and barrels that the seamen had unloaded onto the quay.

  “Thou must come to the house,” Kate told Patience. “Don’t be afraid.”

  And so Patience walked up Walnut Street between the two of us, holding herself proudly, even though we knew she must feel frightened and out of place in this unfamiliar country where there were no other slaves to be seen, no one like her at all.

  Mary answered the door, and I saw her eyes widen at the sight of Patience.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed – and seemed unsure whether or not to allow us all in. “Isobel! Here’s Kate, and Josiah, and a Caribee wench with them!”

  Isobel appeared, drying her hands on a cloth. I saw that she had the measure of the situation and was not pleased.

  “Isobel,” said Kate – and I was impressed by her authoritative manner – “my father has with him two Negroes, bought from John Crosbie of Barbados. They must stay here until they are sold. This is Patience. She will need one of the top floor rooms.”

  “I’ll see to it,” said Isobel. “Mary, fetch beer! And some meat and pickle. Does the girl drink beer?”

  “Yes, I thank thee,” Patience murmured, lowering her eyes.

  I saw Isobel’s surprise at this direct response. “And there’s another, thou say?” she asked.

  “A man,” I said, “Antony” – and caught Patience’s bright glance on me at the mention of his name. “I don’t know where he is to be housed.”

  “In the counting house, I’d guess,” said Isobel, evidently in some relief.

  I took a jug of beer and a basket of bread and cold meat back with me to the counting house, leaving the women to deal with Patience.

  Antony was at work with Zachary, manoeuvring hogsheads of sugar into position at the back of the building.

  “He’s a good worker,” my master said. “Some of these Negroes can be sullen and deliberately slow. But John always treated his people fairly – that makes a difference.”

  He called a break, and I poured beer into tankards.

  My master took a swift draught of beer and went off to settle accounts with Richard Grey and the crew, leaving me in charge.

  I helped Antony roll one of the barrels of rum into place.

  “Where is Patience?” he asked me in a low voice.

  “At my master’s house. Up the street.”

  I spoke shortly, for Antony now belonged to George Bainbrigg and I had been left in charge of him and felt a need to establish my authority.

  When my master came back he left the other two at work and called me upstairs, where he unlocked one of the small storerooms – a closet rather than a room, except that it had a tiny high window covered by a grating. Inside were a few pallets stacked against the wall, and a large chest which he opened to reveal a stock of well-worn blankets and clothes.

  “Thou can make this space ready for Antony,” he said. “Put down a pallet and some blankets, and fetch a bucket from the yard – that’ll serve as a chamber pot. I hope he won’t be here long. With luck I’ll sell the two of them together to one of the settlers from upcountry.”

  I too hoped it would not be long. The room was like a cell, dismal and dark, and my master told me that Antony was to be locked in there overnight and watched at all times during the day.

  “They get nervous when they’re to be sold,” he said. “There’s no knowing what they might do. He could make a run for it, or drown or hang himself. So keep him in your sights.”

  I thought it unlikely that Antony would be in such despair while Patience was close by, but I did as I was told. It was that afternoon that I drafted the sale notices. I despised myself for doing it, but could see no way to avoid the task. In the evening, when we had closed for business, I was obliged to lock Antony into the little room without a candle (for my master had a great fear of fire destroying the counting house). I felt sorry for Antony, but did not know what to say, for after all he was a slave and might have to endure much worse when my master sold him on. I guessed that many slaves slept in barns and outhouses all year round.

  “There is food for thee here,” I told him, setting down a trencher and a tankard of beer. “I’ll come early in the morning to open up. And I’ll bring thee word of Patience.”

  “I thank thee.” But he looked dejected. It occurred to me that he might never have slept alone before.

  “Eat now,” I said, “out here, where we have light. I’ll sit with thee.” My master was in his office, working; he would not mind, I knew.

  We sat on the top step of the stairs. Antony wanted to share the bread and meat, and I took a little to please him, though I explained that I’d be eating later.

  “At home, in the forest,” he said, “my name was Tokpa. Then John Crosbie bought me and named me Antony. Maybe soon I will have another name. But Tokpa is my true name.”

  “Tokpa,” I said, trying it out. I felt that a gift had been given me, but one I knew I must keep secret. “And Patience?” I asked. “What is her true name?”

  “Her name is Miata. Her father is kinsman to a chief and she is his eldest daughter. The bride-price for such a girl is high. I could not have paid it, even with the help of my family. Instead, I would have offered bride-service. Her father would accept my labour in return for his daughter.”

  I thought about this. The idea of buying a wife seemed to me strange – and demeaning to the girl. And yet Tokpa seemed to hold Miata in high honour. A thought that had been at the back of my mind for a while came more clearly to me, and I wondered if Kate and I would marry – whether she’d wish it, as I felt I would. It would suit both our families very well, I realized. Everyone would be pleased. The route from apprentice to son-in-law was so common it was almost to be expected if the young people were of the right age and inclination. But not yet. I was still an apprentice; I could not marry yet, and did not feel ready to do so.

  Unlike Tokpa.

  “Could thou and Miata have a Friends’ wedding?” I asked. “Would John Crosbie have allowed it?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t ask. We would not have wanted to be married in that house. It had bad magic in it. And Friends’ weddings are not joyful. We want to go home, to our people, an
d be married among them.”

  “What should thy wedding be like?” I asked.

  He gazed out into the sales area, as if he were seeing the event. “It will be celebrated in her village. Miata will be waiting for me in a headdress of beads and white cowrie shells that shake and shine around her face. The women and men will sing and dance, and the little children will copy them; and we will laugh, and talk, and the elders will advise us about married life. We will eat goat and chicken, and rice with pepper sauce, and beans, and slices of mango…” He paused. “One day this will happen. We will go home. We will be free. And Miata will be my wife.”

  My master called up from the outer office, “Jos! Art thou ready to leave?”

  Antony and I looked at each other, then rose together; and he did not resist when I locked him into the tiny room. I took the keys and went downstairs.

  Nineteen

  The following morning I got up, as always, before my master, took the keys from their box on the parlour wall, and went to open up the counting house. Once there, I ran upstairs and freed Antony from the storeroom. He was awake; I saw the whites of his eyes flash in the gloom.

  “Help me fetch the kindling and lay the fire,” I said. “That’s my first job in the mornings. And then we’ll eat. I’ve brought beer and bread for us both.”

  As he rose I added, “Patience – Miata – is well cared for at the house. Kate says she’ll try and bring her here later so that thou can speak to her.”

  I did not tell him that my task that morning, after my usual chores, would be to make two fair copies of the sale notices I had drafted the day before. These were to be displayed outside the counting house and at the Society of Traders’ hall, in the hope of generating a quick response.

  This, and the coming and going of customers who had seen the Frances arrive and came to see what goods were for sale, took up all my time. I had thought I might be given permission to go home that evening and see my family, but my master kept me busy and did not mention it; and in a way I was glad, for my mind was so full of conflicting thoughts and ideas to be talked over with Betty and my parents that I knew an hour in the evening would not suffice.