Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  The large family of Williamses, Biggses, Harbuts, and Bournes had gathered for a meal of fish, oysters, turnips, and corn mush. A hint of springtime was in the air. Willy Biggs was moving to Carolina. He'd heard of deserted farms in Bertie Precinct, between the Cashie and Roanoke Rivers, where friends of his had already gone. His older brother, John, was back from years of study and work in England and discouraged Willy's move to the new wilderness. But Willy was determined to be off with his own family, eager to find solitude, eager to be away from the watchful eyes of the community of Friends.

  Willy Biggs wasn't satisfied with the faith of his father and grandfather. It left him cold and disappointed with himself. When God moved him to speak of his doubts at meeting, he wasn't comforted by the believers, but surrounded by their certitude and left in silence to find his own way.

  Stephen listened to his cousin and his own wanderlust returned. It had never been far below the surface, but the responsibility of providing for a family and the luxury of living in a house with a bed, soft sounds, and a soft, warm body next to his had settled him in Edenton. The busy, growing town needed carpenters and laborers, so Stephen hired himself out, foregoing luxuries of the marketplace for the simple luxuries of family life that he'd not had since leaving his father's hearth.

  Peter Michie was no townsman, so for most of the year the small family had the house alone. Stephen Williams was no townsman, either, but he wouldn't leave his wife and child alone.

  Willy's invitation to join up with him for the move to Bertie stirred Stephen. Over the past five years, Nancy had grown strong again—even though she'd borne no more children—and Junior was a strong boy who traveled well and shook off his childhood illnesses with little fuss. Stephen looked at Nancy and knew she was reading his thoughts. She smiled. He looked at his mother as Willy talked on, telling of the farmland Stephen had seen more than once.

  "Biggest problem is the trees," Willy said. "If a squirrel didn't mind swimming, once in a while, he could go from the sea to the mountains without touching the ground."

  Stephen knew that, and he knew the large old fields and cleared land that was there, too. Easy living.

  Mary Williams sat by her father, Daniel Bourne, as he lay in bed, paralyzed from an attack that had seized him a week before Joseph died. Junior stood at the foot of the bed, staring at his ancient great-grandfather. Mary held her father's hand, pretending to hear Willy. Her mother was dead, her husband, too. Her father would be, soon. Her last ambition had been to provide a church pew for her family, and she'd done that. She only wanted to enjoy the fruits of her labor, now.

  Mary was proud of her oldest son. He ran the mill well; he had provided heirs; he did his duty. Her daughters were provided for, even Sister Mary. She knew Stephen would be off again. Stephen was a lost soul. But, if her wastrel son wished to carry his woman and his bastard child to the backcountry of Carolina, it was fine with her. She'd worked too hard to gain respectability for her family to have it blemished by a son who had always refused to do the proper thing.

  James sat in his father's chair, toying with a new silver snuffbox. "Sounds like a land of opportunity for you, Stephen" he said.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Junior Williams could remember bits and pieces of the move to Bertie. He remembered walking for days through dark woods on a muddy path that was the road. The cart had gotten stuck, weighted down with his mother's cooking pots and the chests with all their clothes and the hogsheads of his father's tools. Finally, the ox got stuck in the mud, too, and it took his father and Uncle Willy all night to free, first the beast, and then its load. He remembered his father saying that the biggest problem with the land was all the trees, and he remembered, although he was only a little child, that he'd pulled a burning stick from the fire, one night, and tried to set the woods on fire. He thought he remembered those things, but his parents had told the stories so many times in the last five years that he wasn't sure if he remembered the incidents or just hearing about them.

  Junior Williams had never been so happy in all has ten years. His father wasn't drunk; his mother had found a bee hive full of honey; his cousin Tom had given him a plug of Virginia tobacco; and Tony had made him two pipes from reeds that grew by the pocosin. Junior sat propped-up in a corner on the packeddirt floor and blew on the longer reed whistle. He'd won a silver whistle from Tom by jumping out of that tall oak tree. He'd broken his leg, but it didn't really hurt, anymore, and he wasn't going to tell anyone.

  He heard a horse coming at full gallop and looked up through the open doorway to look up the road. It was his Uncle Willy.

  Willy Biggs was red in the face. Junior looked at his father for his reaction. Junior knew his father's cousin was mad before the man got off his horse.

  "Did you get Harris out of the jail?" Stephen asked.

  "Stephen, five hundred of us were in Edenton last week to get Harris out. So many men, cursing the king, ready for rebellion…."

  "What's wrong?" Stephen asked.

  "The governor…" Willy began.

  "Governor Johnston, again, is it? Come into the house, Cousin, and have a drink to cool off."

  Tony ran over from his cabin and took the reins of Willy's horse. The two white men went inside and sat down, the guest in Stephen's chair, he on a splitlog bench. Nancy brought them beer then went back to building her fire in the oven.

  "We're to pay our quit rents in cash, now. Proclamation money, alone! And where are we to get cash? The rent and tax men take our hogs and cattle for a shilling on the pound, and charge us ten times what the taxes are for their fees!"

  "Calm down, man. You'll do yourself harm, you will," Stephen said. He almost laughed at Willy. His cousin let governmental doings get to him and there'd been enough turmoil in the affairs of the precinct to keep him riled ever since they'd arrived in Bertie.

  Or, was it finally, Edgecombe? Governor Burrington and his Council had requested that the western part of Bertie Precinct become a separate body, Edgecombe Precinct, as early as 1732, but the governor's insulting and argumentative style had contributed to the hostile air in Edenton and the situation was not yet resolved. Power was shifting to the southern part of the province, to New Hanover and to the merchants and townspeople in Brunswick, on the Cape Fear River. Stephen's Uncle Richard had removed south to Onslow, and Samuel Swann, too, who was now a member of the Assembly, himself.

  "And now we'll have to pay the collector to come collect the taxes! The fees are more than the taxes. They're merely an excuse to charge fees! We're a fountain of coins for the king's friends, and friend's of his ministers. Enough!"

  "Enough?" Stephen asked. "Then don't pay. Many of us don't."

  "Damn the Board of Trade!"

  "Willy! Where are your Quaker beliefs? Peace, Willy. No curses. No mobs."

  Stephen finally allowed himself to laugh.

  "You're not paying attention, Stephen. They'll make you pay, one day. Beware."

  Willy sat back in the chair and shook his head in resignation of Stephen's ignorance.

  While the sound of Willy's horse faded in the distance, Nancy Williams hummed a tune. She wondered if her son might learn to play it on his new pipe. It had been so long since she'd heard music. When she was a Ruffin there were parties with music and dancing. Everybody danced! It seemed so important, then, to be a good dancer. Charles had planned to hire a dancing master for the girls. But, that was another life.

  She sealed the corn pone in the oven and went back to her loom. She was relieved that Stephen would be gone for awhile. She'd use the free time to get back to her spinning. If she had enough wool carded! The oil lamp flickered and she resolved to make candles, too, while Stephen was away. Maybe she could get Junior to comb some wool while no one was here to see him doing women's work.

  Stephen leaned back in the one chair that they owned. He leaned away from the fire; the summer heat was coming early. He drank from his noggin of plum wine and wiped the dribbled splash from his chin. By the ti
me he got back from driving his cattle to the Nansemond, other fruit would be ripe enough for making brandy. Peaches would be next, and peach brandy was his favorite. There was enough of the plum wine to get him to the town on the Nansemond. There, he'd buy some Barbados rum. He hadn't had good rum in a year, and the long cattle drive to the Nansemond landing would be worth it, just for that first drink.

  "Put that thing away, Boy. You can play with it while I'm gone."

  Stephen barked at his son. The boy didn't think. He was still mad with Junior for breaking his leg when every hand was needed for the cattle drive. He puffed on his pipe, but it was dead.

  "Where's my tobacco?" he asked.

  Nancy broke her rhythm and got up from the stool. She walked to the table where Stephen had his feet propped up. She picked up the pouch and handed it to her husband, then went back to the loom.

  "You don't want any?" Stephen asked his wife.

  "I have a chew, right now. Too busy for a pipe," she said.

  "You give the boy his medicine?" Stephen asked.

  "It won't be long," Nancy said.

  They both looked at Junior. He was beginning to nod. The wine and Saint John's wort were beginning to work.

  Junior pulled himself to the pallet he had laid in a corner. He put his face toward the wall, looking outside through gaps in the mud caulking to where his dog, Amos, lay sleeping next to the door of Tony's hut. Cattle were lowing and on the move. Amos raised his head. The moon was full, and Junior blinked his eyes to focus.

  When he opened his eyes Amos wasn't there, it was daylight, and the house was empty. He reached for his crutch and limped to the door. He pulled it open and dragged it back, deepening the rut it made in the dirt. Six of his father's cattle—all of them except the bull, a milk cow, and her calf—were gathered in the yard, mixed with ten of his Uncle Willy's. His father and Tony, his Uncle Willy, his cousin Tom, and some hired men of his uncle's were herding the cattle to Virginia. But he didn't see Tom, and his uncle had no men with him. Junior's mother was standing by his father and when she saw him on his feet, she came to the doorway.

  "How's your leg, Son?"

  "It's good. Where's Tom and the men?" he asked his mother.

  "They're all down with the ague, but Willy and your father have decided to go, anyway. The three of them can handle those few cattle, your father says."

  Nancy wasn't sure of that.

  Stephen wasn't sure, either, but he and Willy had been planning this trip since winter. They knew old Henry Williams' agent be would be on the Nansemond to buy Carolina livestock, tobacco, and wheat. Carolina's produce brought only a fraction of what a Virginia's planter got from these merchants, but the Carolina men had no choice but to take what was offered. They were isolated and dependent. They got less for what they sold and paid more for what they bought. The injustice existed with quit rents and government fees, too. The landholder's taxes and fees were paid in "proclamation money," that was money valued at a rate set by the government and that had no relation to its market value. Many men refused to pay their quit rents, especially those of the old Albemarle County, even though their rates were usually only half that in the more recently settled areas. Stephen hoped that his distant family connection to Henry Williams might bring him a few shillings more for his cattle, but he had few illusions, remembering the man's treatment of his father and uncle when they were building the mill in Deep Creek.

  ***

  Well after sunrise, Willy Biggs rode his horse up to the doorway and dismounted.

  "I have 'em ready. You ready?" he asked Stephen.

  "I'm ready," Stephen said, and gave his wife a quick kiss.

  "I'll walk with you to the river," Nancy said.

  "No need. We have 'em under control."

  Stephen picked up two sticks he'd set aside and walked to Tony and gave him one. As Willy started off, pulling the lead cow behind him, Stephen and Tony fell in behind the herd as it moved off, up to where they'd cross the Roanoke.

  The two men and the slave boy were laughing when they climbed out of the river, thinking that the worst part of the cattle drive was over with at the beginning. But, it had rained for the last fortnight and the road was mud, again. The heavy hoofs of cattle pressed it into mire and muck and soon the cattle, even, searched for ways around it. Strays drifted to the edge of the woods and the men were kept on the run chasing them back onto the path. Tony was an agile runner, and a system soon evolved that let Stephen and Willy remain with the herd while the young slave chased strays back to the road.

  "You have a good worker in that boy, Stephen. I wager he's worth a few hundred pounds," Willy said.

  Stephen grunted agreement. His father had been smart in buying slaves, spending his money on young, strong boys that he could feed and train to be hard workers. He'd needed strong backs for mill work, hauling and handling barrels of corn and wheat, then the meal and flour. Stephen did have to thank his father for willing him Tony. The boy had been no trouble. He ate like a horse, but food wasn't a problem. The boy grew his own corn, anyway.

  Tony was, maybe, five years older than Stephen's Junior, and he'd been a good playmate for Junior, back in the country where the nearest neighbor was at least a mile off in either direction.

  "Yes, and that's good since he's my only slave, and probably will remain my only one. The price of slaves is high and people aren't selling the good ones. Not here."

  "You going to buy him a wife? Willy asked.

  Tony looked towards his master to hear the answer.

  Stephen chuckled.

  "Can't do it. Doubt he'll ever have a woman."

  Stephen laughed to himself at Willy's talk. It wasn't "thee" and "thou," anymore. It hadn't been for some time. With no Quaker community around, Willy's speech had lapsed into the style and pattern of his neighbors. Not that there was much neighborly conversation to mimic. There was little occasion for neighbors to get together in this part of Carolina. There was no sense of community, like there'd been in Virginia. Court days were an excuse to gather and get drunk, but the taverns were expensive and they expected cash payments. There was no church to gather around; no exciting militia drills. Stephen didn't miss it, but he knew Nancy missed the parties and gatherings she'd been used to. Stephen didn't know the answer to that. There was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't moving back to Virginia. William Bass paid him a few pounds rent for the land that abutted his, and James did the same for that next to his. Stephen had used that Virginia money to buy his horse.

  Much of the road northeast into Virginia was through piney woods and swamp land; good forage for the cattle, but uncomfortable for the men. Tony seemed to be the only one among them who took to the landscape. He was a cheerful worker, and Stephen was glad to have him along. He carried his own knapsack of food and spoke only when the white men spoke to him.

  The drive was slow and uneventful, so, by the second day, Stephen relaxed early and started drinking from his jug of brandy earlier than usual. He retold old stories of his pirate days and, as they neared the western edges of the Dismal Swamp, he and Willy retold each other stories of the swamp; of what they'd seen there, and how people survived. Tony was convinced that humans couldn't live in the swamp, but the men said they had, and both bragged to the slave boy about their survival techniques.

  On the third morning, the road forked into three branches and, later, when a road leading south from Virginia crossed it, the cattle scattered at the noisy approach of a slave trader. The trader helped them collect the cattle and the two groups stopped to share a noon-time meal. The trader had three blacks and two Indians in chains; the Indians having been bought at the nearby Meherrin Indian town, he said, captives brought to that tribe from allies in the west. He was headed south to Edenton, he said, where a crowd had gathered to hear a traveling preacher named Whitefield. Folks said the preacher drew huge crowds out into open fields to hear his style of preaching, and that he made men cry out and fall down shaking with the power of his message.<
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  Willy was curious to see such a scene and to hear the man, but Stephen wasn't interested. He was more interested in the Barbados rum waiting on the Nansemond.

  That afternoon, the men and cattle eagerly plunged across the Chowan, just south of where the Meherrin River joined it, and by the next afternoon they had crossed into Virginia about ten miles west of where Stephen had left the survey team twelve years earlier, and about ten miles south of the Ruffin plantation.

  The men and cattle were passed by people returning to their homes from hearing Whitefield. None of the dispersing congregation was alone. They were small groups and larger groups, but everyone seemed within touching distance of another. They walked arm in arm, smiling and laughing, or stopped by the road to put their arms about each other, some of them sobbing, most with wet eyes. Most of them shed tears of happiness. A group stood by for them to pass and comforted a member who was distraught with fear, on his knees pleading to God for forgiveness. Willy was upset that they'd not attended the sermon, but Stephen was preoccupied with worldly things.