American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Alone, away from home, and swept off his feet by what seemed to be love, he did not discern warning signs inherent in the reluctance of her father and mother for the two to spend time alone together. Thus he did not see the signs of emotional instability, nor learn of the cases of insanity that had plagued the extended family for generations.

  They were married, he with high hopes of remaining in England to practice law and make for himself and his new family a happy life. Soon afterward, however, disturbing signs in his wife’s mental state began to manifest themselves. Attempting to make the best of it, he gave of his best to her, hoping that no more lay at root of the increasing melancholy than the adjustments of newly married life.

  She became pregnant. Instead of happiness, the knowledge turned her yet more moody and withdrawn. Hushed comments and sighs now occasionally escaped the lips of various relatives in his hearing, giving rise to serious concerns. They had seen such behavior before.

  Only a few days before this, a son was born. His wife grew weak, delirious, and feverish. Hours ago as he had put her to bed, she was raving and frantic, drifting in and out of consciousness, calling for the baby, then yelling at him and her attendants to take it away.

  At last, holding the infant in her arms, she drifted into what appeared to be a peaceful sleep.

  Exhausted, he had gone to bed.

  Then suddenly, the screams of only moments ago had awakened him.

  “You killed him!” screamed the woman, bringing him back to the present crisis. “How dare you show your face in this room!”

  In panic he continued toward her. He stooped down and stretched out his arms, but fierce blows at his face prevented closer approach.

  “Please… please!” he said desperately. “Let me help. I must see if—”

  “Help!” she echoed bitterly. “Look what you have done. You’re a murderer! Go away. Get out, I tell you! I cannot bear the sight of you! I hate you!”

  With uncommon strength for her weakened condition, she flailed at him violently, until at last he succeeded in subduing her fury by the sheer force of his might.

  The effort had taxed her. She swooned and fell into a faint. Seconds later he was carrying the prostrate form from the room, shouting to rouse the servants to send for the doctor.

  Not until dawn did the house fall quiet. The young husband sank into a chair and stared dully at the floor. He had endured more mental and emotional anguish during the last few months than some men encounter in a lifetime.

  A sigh rose up from deep inside him. His shoulders sagged wearily. There seemed no escape from the living nightmare into which he had been plunged. “What can I do?” he whispered to himself. “I have tried everything—loved her to the best of my ability, but no change. Now she thinks I murdered…”

  A rough, dry sob shook him. “Oh, God,” he cried out, forgetting that he did not believe in such a being. “What should I do!”

  But he received no answering reply.

  A young woman, worlds separated by position, race, and distance from the man and woman who had just faced death, was thinking instead of the life stirring in her womb. She sensed the time fast approaching when her little one would enter the world. And at this time of her own woman’s glory, she was looking ahead, with a vision even she did not fully comprehend, toward the kind of world her child might someday face.

  She glanced about with a deep breath to calm the anxiety from the increasing pains that signaled to her that her time was at hand. Her eyes fell upon the mud floor and crude walls of the place she called home. She could give her baby neither security nor liberty. These Carolina slave quarters were the only home she had ever known.

  Faintly she began to whisper to the one yet unborn within her what her own mama had told her many times.

  “Honey-chil’,” she whispered, “I won’ be able ter promise you nuffin much. All I can gib you is da same love my mama gib me, an’ da words she tol’ me. She took my hand, an’ stretched out my fingers, an’ say dat our people cum from a place far, far away, an’ dat land belonged ter us. Dat’s what she say. She say we gots blood what cum frum kings flowin’ in us. Dat life be all I can gib you. An’—”

  A sharp pain cut her whispered words short. She winced and bent over till it passed.

  What kind of future would her baby know, she wondered to herself. Would he or she live and die picking cotton like generations before? Was life really better on plantations up North, like she’d heard? If only the good Lord they sang about would bring his children freedom like they said blacks had there.

  Another sharp pain doubled her over. When it had passed, she called to the girl playing just outside.

  “Go git Amaritta!” she called. “Go to da kitchen door ob da big house. She’ll answer it hersel’. Tell her hit’s time an’ dat I needs her.”

  The girl ran off and the expectant mother lay back on the straw of her pillow, closed her eyes, and breathed in and out peacefully.

  As she waited for Mistress Crawford’s house mammy, who also acted as midwife for the slaves on the plantation, her reflections drifted again to the unborn child now struggling in earnest within her to enter a world of men which was no happy place for those whose skin was black.

  That many slaves were related in distant fashion was not something either whites or blacks found unusual. Since the trafficking in slaves from Africa had been ended, plantation owners had to breed their own slaves to keep the supply constantly increasing. As generations passed, it might have been that half or more of the slaves on any large plantation were related in some way. Thus it was that the lady called Amaritta from the big house, and the young woman about to become a mother, had both descended from old Tungal’s son Magado of the Ibo tribe—the only evidence of which, had they known it, would have been the many men of their lineage who had gone by the name Moses. But now it was time for a lineage of women to carry Magado’s ancient African progeny into the future… a future which to this new mother seemed like a distant dream. She little knew that her own child, despite her paternity, would be one of a bold rising generation that would find the courage to claim that freedom of their heritage for themselves.

  In a few minutes she heard footsteps approaching outside. Two more pains had come as she waited. It was with relief that she glanced up as the large house mammy entered.

  Amaritta smiled and dabbed at the beads of perspiration on the expectant mother’s forehead, then set about to make her comfortable and begin that most ancient and precious work of ministration that one woman can give to another.

  Three hours later, a tiny brown daughter was born. Amaritta wiped her dry and handed her to the weary but eager arms of the new mother. Little did the midwife realize that in twenty years she would be handing this same infant her own newborn baby, as one of the first in a new generation of their race, who would grow up to know the freedom they could as yet only dream about.

  “She’s a beautiful chil’,” said Amaritta. “Wha’ chu be fixin’ ter call her?”

  “Lucindy,” the young woman answered wearily, “her name be Lucindy.”

  She closed her eyes in a peaceful smile. Within minutes, both mother and daughter were asleep.

  When she awoke several hours later, she was alone. Her daughter slept on her breast.

  The young mother gently reached for the hand of the infant sleeping so close to her. It was scarcely wider than one of her fingers. Tenderly she stroked the tiny fingers and thumb, then gazed at the palm.

  “Dere be dose lines ob doze five ol’ ribers,” she whispered in a voice no one else ever heard. “Dey’s tiny an’ faint all right, but dey’s dere jes’ like on my own han’. I been hearin’ dat story as long as I been alive. What it means, I ain’t so sure, and now here’s one mo generashun born ter hear dat ol’ story ob dose ribers an dat king from dat ol’ land. I’ll be tellin’ you dose ol’ stories in time too, little chil’, when you’s old enuf ter know what I’s sayin’. I don’ know why we’s sur’ pozed ter keep tellin
’ ’em. Dey say dey’s stories from da ol’ books—books dat no one’s eber seen—da ol’ books er freedom when our kin wuz kings in da ol’ land. An’ so maybe you’s da one, my little one, dat’ll sumday know what dat ol’ book er freedom sez. Maybe you’ll be da one dat’ll know da freedom er dose ancient kings dey say we all cum from.”

  She paused and set down the little hand, gazing contented at the sleeping face, then offered her breast to the tiny mouth, which, even asleep, took it eagerly.

  “So you drink an’ eat an’ grow, little Lucindy, chil’,” she added, “an’ you git strong, so dat when yo’ day er freedom cums, you’s ready ter fin’ it.”

  PART ONE

  1855

  SEEDS OF FREEDOM

  One

  A woman with caramel skin, but the rest of whose features gave clear evidence of her African heritage, stole quietly from the hovel she called home and tiptoed away from the slave quarters.

  The hour was late and the night quiet. A half-moon illuminated her steps, though she would have been able to find her way even had the darkness been as black as her husband’s skin. The stream was less than half a mile away. She could have found it with her eyes closed. They carried their wash this way once a week, and bathed the children more often than that. But on this night all she wanted to do was let the cool water flow over the wounds on her back. It might only stop the stinging for a few minutes. But even such temporary relief would be worth it. The water, however, would not prevent tears continuing to rise, nor quiet the anguish in her heart from the day’s events.

  She reached the stream safely and paused. No sound other than the gentle gurgle of water met her ears. She glanced around nervously, though she knew from the deathly quiet that she was alone. Then she slipped her dress over her head, dropped it on the ground, and walked barefoot and naked into the stream. Moments later she sat on one of the large submerged stones of the washing pool, where the water reached about four feet, and slowly sank into its depths. The water gently rose up over her shoulders to her neck in wonderfully anticipated relief from the throbs pulsing across the skin of her back.

  Twenty-four-year-old Lucindy Eaton was a slave. Whippings were part of a slave’s life in South Carolina. She expected no different. But today—hearing that her husband had been sold and that, even as she carried his child, she would probably never see him again—everything had changed.

  Today, for one of the first times in her life, she had become angry. Angry enough to speak up, to fight back, and inwardly to curse the white man. Today she had felt the injustice of this way of existence like never before. For today that injustice had suddenly revealed its harsh ugliness in her own life.

  The master had ridden into the village while the men were in from the fields eating lunch.

  “Caleb!” he called in the voice they all knew and feared. “Caleb Eaton… come out here.”

  Lucindy glanced at her husband with wide eyes of silent terror. “What does he want?” she whispered.

  “I don’ know,” answered Caleb, rising from where they sat on the floor eating. “But you jes’ wait here wif da young’ uns.”

  He walked outside, where a dozen or more black faces had already poked out windows, with a few emerging out of their own cabin doors to see what was happening.

  “I’s here, massa,” said Caleb walking bare-chested into the sunlight.

  “I can see that, Eaton,” said the white man, still seated on his horse, holding the ever-present whip, whose tongue had tasted the flesh of nearly all the men present more than once. “All right,’ then, get your things—you’ve been sold.”

  The words fell like a sentence of doom on the ears of the listening blacks. Dumbfounded, Caleb stood as still as a statue. The number of watchers quickly increased as the master’s message spread like an invisible brush fire through the collection of shanties.

  The overseer and another white man now rode up behind the master, the latter holding the reins of a riderless horse.

  “But, massa,” said Caleb after two or three seconds, “I gots me a family, wif anuder chil’ on da way. Maybe you ain’t herd, but my Lucindy’s gwine hab anuder—”

  “I know all about it, Eaton,” interrupted Master Crawford. “Why else do you think I waited till now? I figured I ought to get myself one more nigger baby out of the bargain.”

  Low churlish laughter sounded from the two men behind him.

  “But, massa… Lucindy, she need me. I’s work harder effen you likes, an I’s—”

  A cruel lash on the front of his shoulder silenced him. He staggered back and fell to his knees.

  “It’s too late for all that, Eaton! That’s the trouble with you—your tongue’s too long for your own good. I’ve put up with it long enough.”

  Crawford turned and nodded to one of his men, who jumped off his horse and dragged the black man to his feet.

  “Now either you get in there and get what things you want to take with you, or else we’ll take you as you are, without shirts or coat or anything else.”

  Caleb shuffled back toward the house in a daze, where Lucindy now stood in the doorway watching in stunned disbelief. He could not look into her eyes, but walked past her inside.

  Two little children, aged one and three, clung to her legs and dress. A minute or two later, Caleb walked back carrying a small handful of ragged clothes and an extra pair of boots. This time he paused and now sought Lucindy’s face. His expression was one of sorrow, grief, and apology for whatever might be his own part in this terrible turn of events.

  “Caleb…?” she said in a forlorn tone of question and desperation.

  “Where Daddy goin’?” said a young voice at her side.

  “Oh, Broan!” said Lucindy, suddenly bursting into tears.

  The innocent boy’s question jolted Lucindy’s brain awake. Even as Caleb stooped to give a tearful good-bye kiss and hug to the three-year-old little boy and his sister—both too young to understand what was happening—she ran out toward the imposing presence of the master where he sat on his horse with growing impatience.

  What went through the mind of such a man at sight of her—whether her light skin, or that of any number of his slaves, roused the awareness anywhere in his being that this was his own flesh and blood, his own daughter—it would have been hard to say. If Miles Crawford even thought of that fact, he gave no sign of it. For the purposes of expediency in adding to his stable, in the absence of suitable men, he had fathered fifteen or twenty of his own slaves through the years, but he made no attempt to keep track of them. They represented mere inventory, value on his ledger. If he had paid nothing for them but a few minutes of his time, so much the better.

  Lucindy had always been vaguely aware that the master was her father, a legacy or a fate, depending on how one looked at it, that she shared with a dozen of her fellow slaves who were still here. But the fact meant nothing to her. Pity the poor heart to whom the word father arouses no thoughts of tenderness and compassion. Before that day, in Lucindy Eaton’s mind, it aroused no feelings at all. Ever after, the word filled her with hatred. She knew that some black fathers were kind. Caleb was a good father to Broan and Rebecca. But in her deepest heart, nothing more represented evil to Lucindy’s ear than the single word father.

  “Massa, please!” she cried, running forward and looking up at him with pleading expression. “Dese two young’ uns, dey need dere daddy. I’s work too, massa. I’s do whateber you wants effen you jes’ don’—”

  “Shut up!” he yelled, as a shove from his boot sent Lucindy sprawling to the ground. “What good can you do me in your condition! Now stand back and get out of our way before you feel the whip along with your man.”

  He nodded to his overseer again, who now walked toward the house where Caleb knelt on one knee and was talking quietly to the two children. The man took hold of his shoulder and wrenched Caleb viciously to his feet. Keeping a tight grip, he now turned him and shoved him toward the waiting horse.

  Lucindy sc
rambled to her feet and ran toward him. She threw her arms around his neck.

  “Caleb… Caleb…,” she sobbed, kissing his eyes and forehead and cheeks and finally his lips.

  But another crack from the master’s whip, this time on her back, brought an end to the tearful parting.

  She screamed in pain. At her side she felt Caleb’s muscles tighten in silent rage. He was a large and powerful man and in an instant could have put all three white men on the ground. But even outspoken slaves like Caleb Eaton learned that to yield to temper never helped, but always made things worse. To fight them now, even to protect his wife’s honor, would only insure a worse whipping than the lash she had already received.

  “Get up, Eaton!” barked the overseer. “You’re not so dumb you need to be told what to put in that saddle!”

  Caleb reached for the saddle horn and set his left foot up in the stirrup.

  “No!” cried Lucindy, picking herself off the ground and again running toward her husband. But the overseer rudely pushed her away, then shoved the black man up the rest of the way onto the horse’s back.

  “Mama, Daddy?” babbled the little girl, who had waddled out from the house.

  Lucindy swept her daughter into her arms and again approached the awful throne of judgment.

  “Please, massa! Look at dis chil’!” she said, holding the one year old up toward her own grandfather. “Dis little girl need—”

  “She needs to learn something her mother apparently never did,” the white man spat back angrily, “and that is to hold her tongue!”

  Again he shoved Lucindy away from the side of his horse with his boot, sending mother and child to the ground. At last his patience had been driven to the extreme.

  “Get him out of here,” he shouted to his overseer as he dismounted, “while I teach this tramp a lesson!”