Cambridge

by Caryl Phillips

  John Williams instructed me in the gentlemanly art of dressing hair (although with my wool he quickly retired). All the while he made improvement to my English language so that others soon came to comprehend my responses to words addressed. On the dark subject of my name he was unable to assist, and the will of my captain prevailed. No longer Olumide, but Thomas. My captain, a serious man who celebrated the Sabbath by reading prayers to the ship's crew, rewarded me with a flurry of cuffs when I chose to ignore the tide Thomas and wait on Olumide. John Williams beseeched me to submit to Thomas, arguing most persuasively that my condition far out-ranked my betrayed brethren, whose backs were breaking under perpetual toil while I carried only the featherish burden of a new name. He asked me if I had not, only the previous day, witnessed a white man flogged unmercifully with a mass of rope and then tossed over the side of the ship as one might spurn a disobedient dog? I was to understand, by virtue of the reasoning of John Williams, that white men's cruelty to white men was often savage. Little would be spared should my idle cuffing find cause to swell into a more powerful signal of displeasure. So, this is how Olumide became Thomas. Some time later every heart was gladdened when sight of merry England was announced. Every heart but my own, for now I was obliged to give up my John Williams, and he I, and we parted with the shedding of tears on both sides.

  London, the most enviable capital in the world, was destined to be my home for the greater part of the next decade. My master made it known that I was to consider myself his domestic, not his slave, and he spoke in a manner which suggested abhorrence of the trade which had occasioned his fortunes to increase. I soon came to understand that English law had recently decreed trading in human flesh illegal, so I learned to perceive of my master as a criminal. However, he was but one of a large multitude of contented plunderers happily accommodated in the bosom of English society. My master lodged me in the servants' quarters of his Pall Mall home where a supplementary attendant, a woman of my own clime and complexion, Mahogany Nell, serviced his needs. To my dismay these included his frequently admitting her to his bed. Although her pigmentation might not be as engaging as that of the fair daughters of Albion, my master clearly derived much comfort through his actions, for they were frequent and, if my ears did not deceive me, brutal in their lengthy pleasure. His sole servant beyond the dark pair (of whom I was one) comprised a sturdy Englishwoman by the name of Anna, who appeared to be deemed unworthy of fleshy exploration. We four, my master included, contrived to create a colourful kingdom of peace in this Pall Mall to which we were bound by fate. We domestic servants waited upon my newly retired master (for I was the final piece in his stratagem of pensioned ease), cleaning, cooking, attending to his toilet, determining that he should want for nothing. He was not of that breed of retired captain who delighted in displaying his good fortune in gaudily laced coats and cocked hats. His only marks of distinction were his black servants, but thankfully we were never pressed to shadow him in the streets. My master grew fond of his black Tom, and I loved him in return. I would observe his manner, and by my actions I hoped to introduce him to the notion that my sole pleasure in life derived from the great privilege of being able to serve him. It was he who, as my dexterity with English words multiplied, informed me that I was at liberty to walk about this great city and gather intelligence which might help me further appreciate my situation. I daily found my predicament becoming more agreeable, and I thanked him most profusely in his own words. Mahogany Nell and Anna near-burst with joy on hearing my first true and unaided speech, which contained many phrases strung confidently together.

  Armed with an enhanced mastery of this blessed English language, I went forth into London society and soon discovered myself haunted by black men occupying all ranks of life. To my great surprise I found men of colour and ladies of complexion who walked the higher streets and occupied the gardens of the formal and distinguished squares. These darling blacks were effectively shielded from the insults of the vulgar, but I was soon to discover that the source of their fortunes often lay in the desire of the Englishman and the Englishwoman to take up a black or brown companion as a fashionable appendage. Lower down the ranks were the destitute blacks: harlots, entertainers, assorted vagabonds, a motley congregation of Jumbo's and Toby's, many of whom exhausted what bronze they could beg or pilfer swilling down that most famous national cordial, best gin. The bustling narrow cobbled streets of London were indeed teeming with a variety of unfortunate negroes. Black men too feeble to work were often turned adrift in their decay of health, and the useless women were generally reduced to advertising themselves as capable of 'performing the rites of Venus as they are done in the Carib seas'. These sad females elicited much bawdy laughter from young bloods and civilized men alike, the quality of their usage being the object of much coarse speculation. It was the comical street entertainers who were the real aristocrats of the destitute blacks, and chief among this ungodly scourge was one who sported a wooden leg and a quite ludicrous hat. I suspect this man is more responsible than most for fixing us in the minds of the English people as little more than undignified objects for their mirth and entertainment.

  John Williams introduced me to the Christian religion while I dwelt on board the ship. Unfortunately, I was unable to make a coherent sense of either his words or his ideas, being more concerned with avoiding English jaws and my possible fate as meat to match their drink. But after talking awhile with Anna, and marvelling at her pure and godly thoughts, I begged my master for full and proper instruction in Christian knowledge so that I might be received into Church fellowship with both experience of the Bible and a conviction of belief. To this end my master, at his expense and with his blessing, sent me to study under a Miss Spencer of Blackheath, who proved a most patient and virtuous instructress. I earnestly wished to imbibe the spirit and imitate the manners of Christian men, for already Africa spoke only to me of a barbarity I had fortunately fled. To this end, I embraced this magical opportunity of improvement. Reading and writing, common arithmetic, and the first elements of mathematics, I acquired all of these, but none without some difficulty. My progress could best be described as assured, if not altogether swift. Miss Spencer was a woman of truly bountiful patience who, when I stumbled, always sought to remind me that books are 'fair virtue's advocates and friends', and that reading and writing are procured only by unwearied application, for which, according to Miss Spencer, I possessed a good capacity. She advised me that with a Christian education I would find it possible to behave with reverence to my betters, with civility to my equals, and to subdue in others the prejudice that my colour gives rise to. Soon I came to regret any time that passed away without improvement, and I would employ not less than ten hours of the day in reading.

  My uncivilized African demeanour began to fall from my person, as I resolved to conduct myself along lines that would be agreeable to my God. Miss Spencer informed me that good persons, into whose company she would introduce me, minded the Bible. She challenged me to name any bad persons of my circle for whom the Bible was a guide. I could not. It remained for her powerfully to encourage me to drive old Africa clear from my new mind for, as she related, black men were descended from Noah's son Cham, who was damned by God for his disobedience and shamelessness in having relations with his chosen wife aboard the Ark. This wicked act produced the devilish dark Chus, the father of the black and cursed Africans. Miss Spencer convinced me that supplication to God's will would allow me to gain access to the heavenly thereafter, and she described to me the work of the recently successful abolitionists, naturally favouring those with a Christian zeal over the, formally humanitarian. Soon after the Lord was pleased to break in upon my soul and cast his bright beams of celestial light into this dark place. Having completed her task, the good angel of Blackheath then set a crown upon my head; banished was black Tom, and newly born she gave to the world, David Henderson.

  My master could scarce contain himself in the change occasioned by my residence in Blackheath.
He promptly ordered a new livery for myself, and announced a shilling increase in my allowance so that this personal attendant now drew the princely sum of eight shillings a week. Mahogany Nell, who rejected all my efforts to liberate her from her unlettered heathen misery, seemed truly suspicious of my person on account of my new learning and improved bearing. Indeed, a great and lamentable distance grew between us which mercifully tarried on this near-shore of open hostility. Meanwhile Anna, at our master's urging, gave her Christian mind over to perusing several entertaining books calculated for women, in order that she might develop some conversational elegance. Our short courtship produced great happiness on both sides, and I therefore thought it only proper to propose a marriage. Anna, to my barely concealed delight, acquiesced. My master convened an audience with me at which he expounded upon the nature of common opinions pertaining to such a liaison. I confessed that while walking abroad with this female in the Haymarket I had been rudely set upon by a swarm of white gallants with epithets of black devil, while she that was under my protection received considerably worse for being in company with a man of colour. I set before my master the hope that foul discord might never approach his blessed abode, and promised that my wife and I would withdraw should such a misfortune descend. At this he discerned deeply, which was his custom, before pronouncing, 'David Henderson,' for he was fond of my name, 'your wife and yourself must have shelter beneath my roof, but be ever wary of the disagreeable consequences of such an unnatural connection.' He then continued, and recounted how a goodly proportion of my countrymen had scandalized London society by carrying too far the empire of Cupid. He asked if I had not observed how some of the bawds and lower-class women of England seemed remarkably fond of my complexion. I said that I had, but I pressed on and spoke to him of God's love for all, as long as they be Christian and part of His world. The ill-breeding of the populace concerned Anna and myself only in as far as it threatened our bodily safety and that of our master. We had already supped at the cup of bitterness that would evermore be set before us, and its taste, though unpleasant, had not stricken us a mortal blow. My master stood and paced a while. He then pronounced that in addition to his permission we should also have his blessing. My heart was over-powered with joy, and his agreement caused me such sensations as I was able to express' only in my looks.

  Sadly we were soon abandoned, for barely a week after this day our master was hastened to a heavenly world by a sudden squally fever which strengthened in force and blew the life out of his body. My wife and I mourned deeply, and with much volume, but our misery could never compare with the amplitude of the grief displayed by faithful Mahogany Nell. It was eventually considered politic to attend upon her to dam her misery, for we worried that she too might take her leave, but her storm of passion having been unleashed she chose to rail against those closest to her and forcefully bade my wife and I to depart from her Pall Mall mansion. It was feared (and then confirmed by an attorney) that she in whom no Christian values might be planted would have the good fortune to enjoy the sole benefits of my late master's will. This being the case, my Anna and I were cast out without an asylum of a friend ready or willing to receive and protect us. Mrs Henderson's family were long since scattered and lost, and mine beyond the seas and inhabiting a warmer, but less civilized clime. My raging mind could think only of Miss Spencer of Blackheath as one who might give us tolerable shelter, for my wife and I had nothing between ourselves and the St Giles Poorhouse for Blacks, save only a few trinkets we might offer up to a pawnbroker in the hope of some trifling sum.

  Miss Spencer, may the Almighty bless her kind soul, agreed to provide us with temporary lodgings. When we had explained fully to her the nature of our predicament, Miss Spencer declared that the time had arrived for David Henderson to begin his task in life. 'And what task might this be?' I asked of her. She informed me that I must open the ears and eyes of the ruder of her countrymen to the hope of Christian redemption that is buried at the heart of mission work. I alone among my intemperate heathen brethren, who injure their constitutions by too frequent a repetition of the charms of the bottle, might present a spectacle of salvation and collect money for exploratory travels in the country of my birth. That the negro was no longer goods, in the manner of hides, redwood, or grain, had been well-served out by the abolition (although many, including myself, were aware of the unfinished state of this abolition). Miss Spencer insisted that the commonly held assumption that a black Englishman's life consisted of debauchery, domestic knavery, and misdemeanour, served as a false and dangerous model, while the notion of irreversible savagery in old Guinea presented an equally untruthful picture. It was determined that I should tour England as a servant of the Blackheath mission, and in the company of my wife. Upon our return to the capital we would travel to Africa in the office of missionaries and preach the Gospel in the hope of spiritually reforming my former countrymen and persuading them to embrace the faith of Jesus Christ. My exhilaration, on being presented with this solution to the ills that had plagued my life since the departure of my master, was doubled on learning that my stay in Guinea would be brief. Truly I was now an Englishman, albeit a little smudgy of complexion! Africa spoke to me only of a history I had cast aside.

  Across the full breadth of fair England we trod, the spectacle of my Christian wife and I sometimes provoking the vulgar to indulge themselves in a banquet of wicked jest. We who are kidnapped from the coast of Africa, and bartered on the shores of America, occupy a superior and free status in England, although an unsatisfactory reluctance to invoke the just English law permits the outward appearance of slavery to be enacted by some persons. This creates in the minds of many true Englishmen a confusion as to the proper standing of the black people in their presence. My divers addresses were often prefaced with exempla of this taxing discrepancy as I read from contemporary English newspapers on this phenomenon.

  To be sold, a handsome creole wench named HARMONY alias AMY. Fourteen years of age, she reads but a little. She has a scar on her breast occasioned by a bum, and a toe cut off each foot. Any person who may have a mind to the said girl, is desired to apply before the 30th.

  Such short illustrations seldom failed to produce a gasp of shame from amongst those present, many of whom secretly flourished upon bread whose origins lay in slavery. I would proclaim: "The air of our island is too pure for slavery to breathe in!' Furthermore, I would maintain that the maxim, 'Once free for an hour, free for ever!' should be fervently adhered to. Then I would quote from the holy book. 'Did not He that made them, make us; and did not One fashion us in the womb?' This fraction of scripture was generally followed by a period of contemplative silence into which I would introduce the notion that such a state of affairs as exists in England cannot be tolerated under the government of God. 'Surely,' I would say, 'it is a blasphemy against His benevolence even to suppose it.' I then continued, pointing out that the engrossment of the public mind in that disastrous conflict with France having reached a conclusion, time and energy must immediately be given over to correcting the situation of the poor, oppressed, needy, and much-degraded negroes. Having gained some resigned acceptance of this fact in the form of nodding of heads and whispered 'amens', I would then seek to assure my congregation that the painful circumstances that had forced me from obscurity and set me before them had not planted in my soul a single seed of revenge against those who had so cruelly treated myself and my family. God, I would remind them, is the true avenger of the oppressed, and that deeply injured race of black men of whom I numbered but a solitary one would, if supplicated in true humility, always secure from Him a favourable and candid hearing. Huzza's and tears often followed my delivery, but at this I would raise my hand and remind my congregation that the whole law of God is founded upon love, and the two grand branches of it are: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' I then swiftly drove home the feathered shaft into their wounded English consciences: 'Again,' I would announce,
'from an English newspaper':

  Run away from his Master, a Negro Boy of the Mungola country, named Jamaica. Under five feet high, about fifteen years old, very black features. This Sambo was formerly the property of William Jones, deceased. He is very ill-made, being lame in one leg, stooped in appearance, and Falstaffian in girth; he had when he went away a coarse dark blue linen frock, a thick-set waistcoat, tolerably dirty leather breeches, and set about his head an old velvet jockey cap. A suitable reward will be given to any person who will lodge him in any gaol.

  To expose the hypocritical iniquities of English custom was not the main thrust of my mission. Its purpose was two-fold, three-fold if one includes the petitioning of the pocket for coppers and shillings, and the thanking of God for feeling and humane hearts and strong natural parts. The first purpose of my mission was to open a school in my native Africa, so that those of complexion might acquaint themselves with knowledge of the Christian religion and the laws of civilization. Those of England, who by means or motives of avarice were dishonouring Christianity, might thereafter witness the unnatural nature of their work being repaired by those of both England and Guinea working together in conjoined brotherhood. It was also intended that those of my native Africa should be given the great advantage of a little learning in reading and writing. Whatever evil intentions and bad motives these insidious robbers might have had, access to the divine goodness displayed in those invaluable books, the Old and New Testaments, ought to be shared with all humanity for the greater glory of our Lord God of Hosts, the God of the Christians!