The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

  “When Job was fifteen years old he assisted his father as Emaum, or sub-priest. About this age he married the daughter of the Alpha of Tombut, who was then only eleven years old. By her he had a son (when she was thirteen years old) called Abdolah; and after that two more sons, called Hibrahim and Sambo. About two years before his captivity he married a second wife, daughter of the Alpha of Tomga, by whom he had a daughter named Fatima, after the daughter of the Prophet Mahommed. Both these wives, with their children, were alive when he came from home.

  “In February, 1730, Job’s father, hearing of an English ship at Gambia River, sent him with two servants to attend him to sell Negroes and to buy paper and some other necessaries; but desired him not to venture over the river because the country of the Mandingoes, who are enemies to the people of Futa, lies on the other side. Job not agreeing with Captain Pike (who commanded the ship lying then at Gambia,) sent back the two servants to acquaint his father with it, and to let him know that he intended to go farther. Accordingly, having agreed with another man, named Loumein Ybai, who understood the Mandingo language, to go with him as his interpreter, he crossed the River Gambia and disposed of his Negroes for some cows.

  “As he was returning home he stopped for some refreshment at the house of an old acquaintance, and the weather being very hot he hung up his arms in the house while he refreshed himself. Those arms were very valuable, consisting of a gold-hilted sword, a gold knife, which they wear by their side, and a rich quiver of arrows, which King Sambo had made him a present of. It happened that a company of the Mandingoes, who live upon plunder, passing by at that time, and observing him unarmed, rushed in to the number of seven or eight at once, at a back door, and pinioned Job before he could get to his arms, together with his servant, who is a slave in Maryland still. They then shaved their heads and beards, which Job and his man resented as the highest indignity, though the Mandingoes meant no more by it than to make them appear like slaves taken in war.

  “On the 27th of February, 1730, they carried them to Captain Pike at Gambia, who purchased them; and on the first of March they were put on board. Soon after Job found means to acquaint Captain Pike that he was the same person that came to trade with him a few days before, and after what manner he had been taken. Upon this Captain Pike gave him leave to redeem himself and his man; and Job sent to an acquaintance of his father’s near Gambia, who promised to send to Job’s father to inform him of what had happened, that he might take some course to set him at liberty. But it being a fortnight’s journey between that friend’s house and his father’s, and the ship sailing in about a week after, Job was brought with the rest of the slaves to Annapolis in Maryland, and delivered to Mr. Vachell Denton, factor to Mr. Hunt. Job heard since by vessels that came from Gambia that his father sent down several slaves a little after Captain Pike sailed in order to procure his redemption; and that Sambo, king of Futa, had made war upon the Mandingoes and cut off great numbers of them upon account of the injury they had done his schoolfellow.

  “Mr. Vachell Denton sold Job to one Mr. Tolsey, in Kent Island in Maryland, who put him to work in making tobacco; but he was soon convinced that Job had never been used to such labour. He every day showed more and more uneasiness under this exercise, and at last grew sick, being no way able to bear it; so that his master was obliged to find easier work for him, and therefore put him to tend the cattle. Job would often leave the cattle and withdraw into the woods to pray; but a white boy frequently watched him and whilst he was at his devotion would mock him, and throw dirt in his face. This very much disturbed Job and added to his other misfortunes; all which were increased by his ignorance of the English language, which prevented his complaining or telling his case to any person about him. Grown in some measure desperate by reason of his present hardships, he resolved to travel at a venture, thinking he might possibly be taken up by some master who would use him better, or otherwise meet with some lucky accident to divert or abate his grief.”

  And a lucky accident was exactly what he did meet with. Arrested for traveling without a pass, he was held prisoner in a tavern in the county of Kent on Delaware Bay, the tavern-keeper being also the local jailer. The county court was then in session and among those attending was Mr. Bluett, the narrator of Job’s story, who along with some other gentlemen went to have a look at the prisoner. “He was brought into the tavern to us, but could not speak one word of English. Upon our talking and making signs to him he wrote a line or two before us and when he read it pronounced the words Allah and Mahommed, by which, and his refusing a glass of wine we offered him, we perceived he was a Mahometan; but could not imagine of what country he was, or how he got thither, for by his affable carriage and the easy composure of his countenance we could perceive he was no common slave. An old Negro man, who lived in that neighbourhood and could speak the Jalloff language, which Job also understood, went to him and conversed with him. By this the Negro’s keeper was informed to whom Job belonged, and what was the cause of his leaving his master. The keeper thereupon wrote to his master, who soon after fetched him home, and was much kinder to him than before, allowing him a place to pray in.”

  Several other letters were also written, one of them by Job “in Arabick to his father, acquainting him with his misfortunes, hoping he might yet find means to redeem him.” This letter was given to Mr. Vachell Denton to forward to the Royal African Company in London and there be given to Captain Pike to deliver when next in Africa. But the letter arrived just after Captain Pike had sailed, so it was passed on to General Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia and a director of the R.A.C. After sending it to a scholar at Oxford for translation, Oglethorpe wrote to Denton asking him to buy Job from his present master. Denton had no trouble doing so, “his master being very willing to part with him, as finding him no ways fit for his business.”

  Accompanied by Mr. Bluett, Job arrived in London, in April, 1733. By now he had learned to speak English quite fluently and was taken up by fashionable society. To ensure his freedom and cover his expenses, a subscription was got up, with contributions amounting to fifty-nine pounds, six shillings and eleven pence halfpenny. “Job’s mind being now perfectly easy, and being himself more known, he went cheerfully among his friends to several places, both in town and country. One day, being at Sir Hans Sloane’s, he expressed his great desire to see the Royal Family. Sir Hans promised to get him introduced,” and soon afterward Job, “clothed in a rich silk dress, made up after his own country fashion,” was “introduced to their Majesties and the rest of the Royal Family. Her Majesty was pleased to present him with a rich gold watch, and the same day he had the honour to dine with his Grace the Duke of Montague and some others of the nobility, who were pleased to make him a handsome present after dinner.”

  The duke, who was interested in scientific agriculture, also took Job to his place in the country and showed him “the tools that are necessary for tilling the ground, both in gardens and fields, and made his servants show him how to use them”; and on Job’s departure he presented him with a large chest full of such instruments to take back to Africa. Finally, “at about the latter end of July last, he embarked on board one of the Africa Company’s ships, bound for Gambia, where we hope he is safely arrived, to the great joy of his friends, and the honour of the English nation.” Furthermore, added Bluett, “considering the singular obligations he is under to the English” there was good reason to hope that he “would upon all occasions use his best endeavours to promote the English trade before any other.”

  Job arrived from London at James’s Fort on the Gambia River, on August 8, 1734, where one of the first people he met was Francis Moore, the writer for the Royal African Company, who had by now been promoted to the rank of factor, or chief agent. Moore was about to go upriver, so Job went with him. “We arrived at the creek of Damasensa; and having some old acquaintances at the town of that name, Job and I went in the yawl. In the way going up a narrow place for about half a mile, we saw several monkeys of a beaut
iful blue and red, which the natives told me never set their feet on the ground, but live entirely among the trees, leaping from one to another, at such great distances as would appear improbable to any but an eyewitness.

  “In the evening, as my friend Job and I were sitting under a great tree at Damasensa, there came six or seven of the very people who, three years before, had robbed and made a slave of him, at about thirty miles distant from that place. Job, though naturally possessed of a very even temper, could not contain himself on seeing them. He was filled with rage and indignation, and was for attacking them with his broadsword and pistols, which he always took care to have about him. I had much ado to dissuade him from rushing upon them; but at length representing the ill consequences that would infallibly attend so rash an action, and the impossibility that either of us should escape alive, I made him lay aside the attempt, and persuading him to sit down, and pretending not to know them, to ask them questions about himself; which he accordingly did; and they told him the truth. At last he enquired how the king their master did? They replied that he was dead; and by further inquiry we found that amongst the goods for which he sold Job to Captain Pike there was a pistol, which the king used commonly to wear slung by a string about his neck; and as they never carry arms without their being loaded, the pistol one day accidentally went off, and the ball lodging in his throat, he presently died. Job was so transported at the close of this story that he immediately fell on his knees and returned thanks to Mahomet for making him die by the very goods for which he sold him into slavery. Then returning to me, he cried, ‘You see now, Mr. Moore, that God Almighty was displeased at this man’s making me a slave, and therefore made him die by the very pistol for which he sold me. Yet I ought to forgive him, because had I not been sold I should neither have known anything of the English tongue, nor have had any of the fine, useful, and valuable things which I have brought with me; nor have known that there is such a place in the world as England; nor such noble, good and generous people as Queen Caroline, Prince William, the Duke of Montague, the Earl of Pembroke, Mr. Holden, Mr. Oglethorpe and the Royal African Company.”

  Another relatively fortunate slave was Louis Asa-Asa, who when still a boy had been taken prisoner, brought down to the coast and put on board a French ship bound for the West Indies. His luck changed when, as it started on its way across the Atlantic, the ship was driven by a storm on to the coast of Cornwall, where he and four other youths were rescued twice—once from the waves, and then, thanks to a writ of habeas corpus brought by George Stephen of the Anti-Slavery Society, from the ship’s captain. A prosperous London family then took Louis in and made him a member of their household staff. While there he was interviewed by George Stephen, who wrote up his story, keeping the somewhat artless style in which Louis told it, and published it under the title The Narrative of Louis Asa-Asa, A Captured African.

  “My father’s name was Clashoquin; mine is Asa-Asa. We lived in a country called Bycla, near Egie, a large town. I had five brothers and sisters. We all lived together with my father and mother; he kept a horse and was respectable, but not one of the great men. My uncle was one of the great men of Egie: he could make men come and work for him; his name was Otou. He had a great deal of land and cattle. My father sometimes worked on his own land and used to make charcoal. I was too little to work; my eldest brother used to work on the land, and we were all very happy.

  “A great many people who we called Adinyes set fire to Egie in the morning before daybreak; there were some thousands of them. They killed a great many and burnt all their houses. They stayed two days and then carried away all the people whom they did not kill.

  “They came again every now and then for a month, as long as they could find people to carry away. They used to tie them by the feet, except when they were taking them off, and then they let them loose; but if they offered to run away they would shoot them. I lost a great many friends and relatives, at Egie; about a dozen. They sold all they carried away, to be slaves. They were sold for cloth or gunpowder, sometimes for salt or guns; sometimes they got four or five guns for a man … The Adinyes burnt a great many places besides Egie. They burnt all the country wherever they found villages; they used to shoot men, women and children if they ran away.

  “They came to us about eleven o’clock one day, and directly they came they set our house on fire. All of us had run away. We kept together and went into the woods and stopped there two days. The Adinyes then went away and we returned home and found everything burnt. We tried to build a little shed, and were beginning to get comfortable again. We found several of our neighbours lying about wounded; they had been shot. I saw the bodies of four or five little children whom they had killed with blows on the head. They had carried away their fathers and mothers, but the children were too small for slaves so they killed them. They had killed several others, but these were all that I saw. I saw them lying in the street like dead dogs.

  “In about a week after we got back, the Adinyes returned and burnt all the sheds and houses they had left standing. We all ran away again; we went into the woods as we had done before. They followed us the next day. We went farther into the woods and stayed there about four days and nights; we were half starved; we only got a few potatoes. My uncle Otou was with us. At the end of this time the Adinyes found us. We ran away. They called my uncle to go to them, but he refused and they shot him immediately; they killed him. The rest of us ran on and they did not get at us till the next day. I ran up into a tree; they followed me and brought me down. They tied my feet. I do not know if they found my father and mother, and brothers and sisters; they had run faster than me and were half a mile farther when I got up into the tree. I have never seen them since.

  “They carried away about twenty besides me. They carried us to the sea. They did not beat us; they only killed one man, who was very ill and too weak to carry his load. They made all of us carry chickens and meat for our food, but this poor man could not carry his load and they ran him through the body with a sword. He was a neighbour of ours. When we got to the sea they sold all of us, but not to the same person. I was sold six times over, sometimes for money, sometimes for cloth, and sometimes for a gun … In about six months we got to a ship, in which we first saw white people; they were French. They bought us. We found here a great many other slaves; there were about eighty, including women and children. The Frenchmen sent away all but five of us into another very large ship. We five stayed on board till we got to England, which was about five or six months.”

  Of the five enslaved youths who were shipwrecked on the English coast, two died of measles while in London and two were sent to Sierra Leone. When offered the chance of going back to Africa, Louis is reported to have replied, “Me no father, no mother now; me stay with you.” And, concluded the Anti-Slavery Society’s account, “here he has ever since remained, conducting himself in a way to gain the good will and respect of all who know him. He is remarkably intelligent, understands our language perfectly, and can read and write well…On one occasion in particular, he was heard saying to himself in the kitchen, while sitting by the fire apparently in deep thought, ‘Me think—me think—’ A fellow-servant inquired what he meant; and he added, ‘Me think what a good thing I came to England! Here I know what God is, and read my Bible; in my country they have no God, no Bible.’” On another occasion he said, “‘I should very much like to see my friends again, but I do not now wish to go back to them; for if I go back to my own country, I might be taken as a slave again. I would rather stay here, where I am free.’”

  The story of an unfortunate young woman called Nealee is told by Mungo Park, a young Scottish physician who had volunteered to lead a small expedition to discover the source of the Niger River, an exploration financed by The Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Inland Part of the Continent of Africa. (Mungo, though a fairly common name among slaves in America, was common also in Scotland in honor of St. Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow.) After arriving on the Ga
mbia River, Park prepared himself by getting used to the climate, a process known as “seasoning,” and learning the language of the Mandingoes. He then set off with a few native companions into the interior. After more than a year’s hard travel, during which he barely survived several close brushes with death (from starvation, fever, drowning, the beasts of the forest and hostile Moors), he found himself several hundred miles from the coast, at a place called Kamalia. Here he met Karfa Taura, a Bushreen (Negro Muslim) slave trader, who was preparing to set off for Gambia with a coffle of slaves as soon as he had completed his purchases and the rainy season had come to an end. Impressed by Park’s ability to read (from a copy of the The Book of Common Prayer that had somehow found its way to this remote village), Karfa Taura invited him to join his expedition, and Park—so yellowed by malaria and so blackened by the sun that he had difficulty passing as a white man—was happy to accept the offer. “Thus was I delivered by the friendly care of this benevolent Negro from a situation truly deplorable. Distress and famine pressed hard upon me; I had before me the gloomy wilds of Jallonkadoo, where the traveller sees no habitation for five successive days … I had almost marked out that place where I was doomed, I thought, to perish, when this friendly Negro stretched out his hospitable hand for my relief.” Park continues:

  “On the 24th of January [1796], Karfa returned to Kamalia with a number of people, and thirteen prime slaves he had purchased. He likewise brought with him a young girl whom he had married at Kancaba, as his fourth wife, and had given her parents three prime slaves for her. She was kindly received at the door of the baloon [guest house] by Karfa’s other wives, who conducted their new acquaintance and co-partner into one of the best huts, which they had caused to be swept and white-washed on purpose to receive her.