Jump Ship to Freedom

by James Lincoln Collier

“Eighty pounds? I’d have thought thee worth more than that.”

  “Oh, I reckon that’s about the going price for a nigger boy.”

  Mr. Fatherscreft shook his head. “Not in the sight of the Lord, surely. Nor in thy own view, either. I’d have thought that thee would be worth a good deal more than eighty pounds to thyself.”

  I’d never thought about it that way before. It put a new light on things. “Come to think of it, I suppose I am. If I lived to be pretty old that wouldn’t come out to more’n twenty-five shillings a year.”

  “Thou wouldn’t take twenty-five shillings for a year of thy life, would thou, Daniel?’’

  I shook my head. “No sir. Nor anything near it, neither.”

  “What would thou take? A thousand pounds?”

  I puzzled over that for a minute. “Well, I guess a man’s life don’t exactly measure out in money. I mean, what’s the use of having the money if you don’t have your life?”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it, Daniel? Well. Now how dost thou plan to get thy father’s notes back from the brig?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” I said. “I hardly even dare go down to the waterfront.”

  “It would be risky,” Mr. Fatherscreft said. He coughed again.

  “Where’s the brig at the moment?” Mr. Fraunces said.

  “I ain’t sure. She was anchored off Bedloe’s Island this morning.”

  “You can see Bedloe’s from the window,” Mr. Fraunces said.

  I walked to the window. It was getting dark, but you could plainly see the Battery, the ships tied up at the harbor, and then beyond the Upper Bay with Bedloe’s and Governor’s islands in them. The Junius Brutus wasn’t anchored there anymore. “I guess the captain brought her into the dock,” I said.

  “They’ll probably be unloading pretty soon,” Mr. Fraunces said. “Ivers will want to get rid of the stuff as soon as possible, so he can put the brig into a shipyard for repairs.”

  “I’ve got to get those notes out of there.”

  “Is it worth the risk, Daniel?” Mr. Fatherscreft asked.

  “It’s our freedom money, sir,” I said.

  “It won’t be worth much if Captain Ivers catches thee,” he said. “He’ll take it away from thee in any case.”

  “There’s Mum. It’s her freedom money, too.”

  Nobody said nothing for a minute. Then Mr. Fatherscreft said, “Suppose the notes turn out to be worthless, Daniel?”

  I scratched my head. “I’m blamed if I can see how that could happen, sir,” I said. “How could they do that to all those soldiers like my daddy? I mean, he fought and risked his life for years and years. They just wouldn’t take his pay away from him, would they?”

  “Who dost thou mean by they, Daniel?”

  “They?” I puzzled over that for a minute. “Why, the government, I guess.”

  “What government?”

  I puzzled about that some more. “Well, come to think of it, I ain’t sure. The Congress, I guess.”

  “But suppose the Congress were to adjourn permanently, just disband entirely.”

  “What? Just quit?”

  “Daniel, the point is this: you’ve heard of the Philadelphia Convention, surely.”

  “Oh, yes sir.”

  “Dost thou know what the convention is doing?”

  I thought that one over, too. I was beginning to feel pretty stupid. “Well, sir, not exactly. Captain Ivers says it’s to fix up the Articles of Confederation so he won’t have to pay import taxes to New York.”

  “Well, that was the idea, Daniel, but they’ve decided to scrap the old articles and write a whole new constitution. The greatest men from twelve of the thirteen states are gathered in Philadelphia to try to write a constitution under which all of the states can join into one single nation. But it isn’t an easy matter. There are many different ideas about how the new nation ought to work. For example, in a new government, should each state have a single vote in making laws, or should the votes be calculated according to how many people there are in each state?”

  I scratched my head again, feeling more stupid. “I don’t rightly know,” I finally said.

  “Neither do the men at the convention,” Mr. Fraunces said.

  “Thou should understand, Daniel, that the larger states, like Virginia and Pennsylvania, want the votes to be allotted according to population, because that would give them more power. The smaller states, like New Jersey and Maryland, want it one vote to each state, as it is now, so that the large states aren’t able to run everything their own way.”

  “Oh,” I said. Once I thought about it, it made sense enough. I could see easy enough that there was likely to be a lot of squabbling over it.

  “And that isn’t all of it, either, Daniel,” Mr. Fatherscreft said. “Some of us are especially worried about what the convention will decide to do about the black people in America. Many of us want slavery abolished. Others, especially the big slaveholders in the South, want slavery continued. Still others have different points of view—slavery should be permitted, but no new slaves brought in; slavery to be permitted in the present thirteen states, but not permitted in any new states that are made, and so forth.”

  “Do you think they’ll set us free, sir?” I asked.

  “I don’t think there’s any chance of that, for now at least. Someday, perhaps. For the present we’re trying to bargain for whatever limits on slavery we can get.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Then we’ll need our freedom money.”

  “Yes, of course,” Mr. Fatherscreft said. “The point is simply that if the convention fails to agree on all of these questions, they’ll give up the attempt to form a new government. Each state will be independent, like the countries of Europe. And the soldiers’ notes won’t be worth the paper they’re printed on, because there’ll be no government strong enough to make the states pay taxes. And without tax money, the U.S. government can’t pay off the notes.”

  “They’d be worth nothing at all? After all that fighting my daddy did?”

  “Nothing at all. Not a penny. Not unless the state governments decided to pay them. On the other hand, if the convention settles all the disputed points and forms a new federal government, they’ll almost certainly pay off the notes—perhaps not in full, but certainly they’ll pay something for them.”

  Once Mr. Fatherscreft spelled it out point by point like that, I could understand it. “If I wasn’t just a stupid nigger, I’d have seen it before,” I said.

  Mr. Fraunces gave me a funny look. “What makes you think you’re stupid, Daniel?”

  My face got hot and sweaty. I shouldn’t have said such a thing in front of Mr. Fraunces. Maybe he was black and maybe he wasn’t, but whichever way it was, he wasn’t stupid. “Well, I guess I am just stupid,” I said. “If I’d had more brains I wouldn’t have left those soldiers’ notes on the brig.”

  “Seems to me like you had to be pretty smart to get them that far,” he said.

  That kind of stopped me for a minute. It seemed to me that pretty much everything I’d done had gone wrong. “I don’t see what I did that was so smart,” I said.

  “A lot of people would think that the trick you pulled to escape from the brig was pretty smart.”

  It confused me. When you figured you was one kind of person all your life, it’s hard to start thinking of yourself as another kind. I reckoned I’d have to think about it some more. “If I’d have been really smart I’d have figured out a way to get those soldiers’ notes off the brig, too.”

  Mr. Fraunces laughed, and Mr. Fatherscreft gave a little smile, as much as he could, being sick as he was. “Think about it, Daniel,” Mr. Fraunces said. “The more important question is, what do you do now? It’s my advice to forget about those notes. You don’t know what they’ll fetch in the end, and it isn’t worth taking a chance that you’ll spend the rest of your life in slavery to get them.”

  “They ain’t just mine. They’re Mum’s, too.”

  “
Look, Daniel,” Mr. Fraunces said. “As you stand right now, you’re free. If you stay out of sight for a couple of weeks, Ivers will be gone back to Connecticut. You could go to Philadelphia or Boston, or west to the new Pennsylvania lands that are opening up, or into the Northwest Territories around Lake Michigan, and start a new life. Why take a chance on it?”

  But I knew I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t go off like that and leave Mum with no husband and no son, to work for the Iverses all the rest of her life. “I have to get those notes, sir. I know it’s risky, but I have to chance it.”

  “Think about it, Daniel,” Mr. Fraunces said. Then he turned to Mr. Fatherscreft. “When do you plan to leave for Philadelphia?” he asked.

  “I’m to see William Few tomorrow. If negotiations come right, I’ll leave for Philadelphia immediately.”

  Mr. Fraunces shook his head. “Not as sick as you are,” he said.

  “I can’t let an illness stop me. I’m an old man; staying alive is of no great importance. It’s the work of the Lord that matters.”

  Then Mr. Fraunces remembered that Nosy and I were listening. “Carrie, find Daniel a place to sleep in one of the sheds. We’ll see what to do with him in the morning.” So we went and left them talking; but my mind was working, too, for if Mr. Fatherscreft was going to Philadelphia, maybe I could figure out a way to go, too.

  9

  Nosy found me a place to sleep in one of the sheds back of the tavern, on a pile of empty sacks amongst some bins of fruit and vegetables. I was plenty tired, but worrying as I was about those soldiers’ notes, it took me awhile to get to sleep. Finally I dozed off; but when I woke in the morning, I began thinking about them first thing.

  I went out of the shed, across the yard, and into the kitchen, hoping that somebody would see how hungry I looked and take pity on me. But the cooks was all dashing around getting breakfast for the paying guests, and all they said to me was to keep out of the way unless I wanted a cuffing. So I went out in the yard and stood there in the morning sunshine, and by and by Nosy came along with her barrow. “Where you going, Nosy?” I said.

  “The fish market. They always wants fried fish for breakfast.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what, Nosy,” I said. “If you can duck into the kitchen and get hold of a piece of bread and cheese, I’ll go along with you and give you a hand.” There was coming into my mind the beginning of a plan.

  “Maybe I don’t need a hand,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “But I ain’t going to be very strong if I don’t have breakfast.”

  She gave me a look, but she went into the kitchen and in a minute came back with a nice chunk of bread and a big piece of cheese. We went around the tavern out of the yard into Broad Street and headed for the waterfront. I chewed on the bread and cheese as we went along. Naturally, Nosy began right away asking me questions about the soldiers’ notes and how I’d stolen them back from Mrs. Ivers, and what they looked like and what they was worth, until finally I said, “Nosy, I can’t hardly get a mouthful to eat for answering questions,” and she shut up for a couple of minutes.

  We had gone along Broad Street to Dock Street and was getting close enough to the water so’s I could smell the smell of it. My nerves was beginning to hum a little. “Now, Nosy, where are we coming out to?”

  “The fish stalls at Old Slip Market.”

  “Is that a likely place for Captain Ivers to have docked the Junius Brutus?”

  She shrugged. “There’s no way to know. A lot of them Connecticut captains puts in at Peck’s Slip, though. Old Peck, he’s a Yankee himself.”

  I stopped and put a hand on her shoulder. “Now here’s the idea, Nosy. If you just amble along the dock with your barrow, maybe you can spot the Junius Brutus. You won’t have trouble, the railing’s all busted up and there ain’t but one mast on it. The main thing we have to know is whether they’re unloading it. I’m going to wait right here.”

  “I can’t do that. The cook’ll kill me if I don’t get right back with the fish.”

  “Oh, come on, Nosy, you ain’t scared of the cook, are you?”

  “You’d be scared of him too if you’d been cursed out by him as much as I have.”

  “Oh, a cook’s cursing ain’t nothing to worry about. Wait till you get cursed out by a mate. That’s real cursing.”

  “Well, I ain’t going to do it,” she said. “You didn’t say nothing about it when we left.”

  “Oh, you’ll do it, Nosy. Because if I do it on my own, you’ll be left out, and I won’t tell you none of it afterward. You’ll never know what I did.”

  That got to her, I could see that. She kind of swung her eyes around here and there, and finally she said, “Well, just for a little bit. Then I got to get back with the fish.”

  “I knew you’d do it, Nosy. I knew you wasn’t a coward.”

  She trotted off, and I ducked back into a little alleyway where I was covered in shadows, and waited. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t stop looking until she found the brig. She was too curious to quit until she’d seen what it looked like and knew what was going on.

  So I waited; and waited; and about twenty minutes later she came trotting back with the barrow loaded up with fish, all out of breath. “I seen it,” she said. “The mainmast was busted clean off.”

  “I already knew that, Nosy. Where’s she at?”

  “Peck’s Slip, like I said.”

  “Are they unloading her?”

  “They’re taking boxes and such off and stacking them up on the dockside. There’s about the biggest black man I ever did see with a club standing watch over them.”

  She had the right ship, that was clear. “That’s Big Tom,” I said. “He don’t like black folks.”

  “Why not?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it’s because he wants white folks to favor him instead of other black folks.”

  “Well, he looks mighty scary to me,” she said. “I wouldn’t mess with him if I was you, Dan. Now come on. I got to get this fish back. You promised.”

  So I picked up the barrow handles and started off at a trot, with Nosy clipping along beside me, and we got back quick enough so that Nosy didn’t get cursed out by the cook, only a couple of dirty looks.

  Now at least I knew where the soldiers’ notes was. They wouldn’t be there for long, though. Captain Ivers wasn’t going to leave the cargo sitting around on the dock, no matter who was standing guard over them. If he didn’t find a buyer for them right away, he’d put them in a storehouse somewheres. I’d have to do something about them quick. But I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it, because word came that I was to help out in the stables to work out my keep, and the stable boss kept me on the jump the rest of the morning.

  But about the middle of the afternoon things slackened off a little, and I sat down on a bale of hay and gave it a little thought. The first thing that worried me was that if Mr. Fraunces or Mr. Fatherscreft knew what I had in mind, they’d probably stop me, or at least try to. I don’t know why they was worried about me; as far as they was concerned, I was just another darky without no home. But they was worried about me, that was clear. Part of it had to do with Mr. Fatherscreft being a Quaker. And of course if Mr. Fraunces really was black, that would explain another part of it; but I didn’t know if he was black, and anyway, being black didn’t make Big Tom any nicer to his own kind.

  No, it had mainly to do with my daddy. They respected my daddy, there wasn’t any two ways about that. It was a funny thing, here he was drowned and all, and he was helping me more than he could if he was alive. And that was the reason I wasn’t going to quit on those soldiers’ notes. If I left Mum up there in Newfield to rot, I’d never be able to think about my daddy again as long as I lived without feeling terrible. A feeling like that would be worse than slavery. So I was going to take the chance. And that meant not letting on to Mr. Fraunces or Mr. Fatherscreft.

  But who would I get to help? The only person
I knew was Nosy, and she wasn’t nothing but a child. But she wasn’t stupid, neither. And I figured she’d help me, so as not to be left out.

  I didn’t have a chance to talk to her until suppertime, when we was on the ground out in the yard with our backs up against the shed wall, eating bowls of stew. “Now listen, Nosy,” I said. “Are you game to help me out again? It’s a mighty scary adventure.”

  “You bound to get into trouble, Dan.”

  “I’m already in enough trouble so’s a little more won’t matter very much. Tonight, after it gets dark, we’re going back to the Junius Brutus and get my daddy’s soldiers’ notes. There’s just one little thing you have to do. It ain’t scary at all. I’ll do all the scary parts.”

  “Mr. Fraunces, he’ll kill me if I get into trouble.”

  “He ain’t going to know about it. It’s a secret between you and me. And afterward we’ll be heroes.”

  Well, she was torn about it. I could see that. She wanted to go with me, that was for sure; but on the other side of it, she knew that she could get into a peck of trouble for helping me out. “You sure nobody’s gonna know?”

  “Sure as sunrise,” I said. “You ain’t going to say nothing, and I ain’t going to say nothing, so how would anybody find out?”

  I left it like that. We finished up our suppers, and she went back into the kitchen to help wash up the dishes. About an hour later she came out into the yard to pump some water. I came up to her. “Soon’s it gets dark we’ll go, Nosy. Bring your barrow.”

  I stayed out in the yard, mostly hanging around the shed where nobody would notice me. It came to be seven o’clock. The time went awful slow, but finally it was near full dark. I could see Nosy through the kitchen window, messing around with the plates. Finally she came out into the yard to pump up another bucket of water. I crossed over the yard. “Let’s go,” I said.

  She looked at me like she was hoping I’d forgot about it. “I got to fill the water barrel.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “What are we going to do, Dan?”

  “I’ll show you when we get there. Now swipe the oyster knife when you come.”