The Wedding Gift

by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

  “Sarah, you can’t be going on a ship full of men.”

  “But my mother told me about when she went up North with Mr. Allen on ships that had passengers, women and men, and cargo.”

  “That’s true. When they come home tonight, we’ll talk this out with them.”

  I helped Miss Adeline cook, and when supper was ready, she called the children inside. They were obviously confused but too well-mannered to ask why I was now wearing women’s clothing. After we ate, they showed me their books from Sunday school, and I gave them lessons in the parlor. That evening, Miss Adeline sent one of the older children to ask her sons, Steven and Samuel, to her house. She summarized what I had told her, including how I had disguised myself and worked on a steamboat.

  “We work on the docks, loading and unloading cargo, and we know some of the captains and merchant marines. In fact, some of the sailors go to our church when they’re on leave. The thing is, most of the ships is from England and their sailors is from the West Indies. I never heard of them hiring anybody from here. But you’re tall, and since you got freedom papers, maybe we could get you work on the docks. That way, you can get to know some of the sailors,” Steven said.

  “Yes, but if they have to check my freedom paper with the court in Madison County, they’ll know it’s not genuine.”

  “That’s a big problem. The same thing would happen if you tried to get on a ship.”

  They must have noticed my disappointment because the three of them looked at each other with concern.

  “All right, we’ll see what we can do. Mama, maybe we need to talk to the pastor about this.”

  “Could you stop by his house tonight and ask him to come over tomorrow morning?”

  The next day, Miss Adeline sent the children out to play when the pastor arrived. After she explained the matter to him, he said that he had an idea but that he had to make inquiries before discussing it with us. He remembered my mother and me from our visit.

  “Did you ever hear anything about your sister?”

  I smiled. “Yes, sir. Master bought her back.”

  “Thank God. The church kept your family in our prayers, and I know that the Lord is going to answer yours.”

  When Steven and Samuel returned that night, Miss Adeline told them what the pastor said.

  “I hope he can think of something, because today at the docks we noticed runaway notices about you and your husband. We didn’t even ask if there’s any work for you. One thing you can do is just stay here and wait until they give up looking for you.”

  I had much to ask for in my nightly prayers. The following day, the pastor reported that it would be another month before he had an answer to an inquiry that he had made. Miss Adeline assured me that she and her daughters were happy to have me there, especially because her grandchildren were enjoying their lessons with me. I asked her to purchase primers, pencils, and paper; and I kept myself busy by helping Miss Adeline with her housework and teaching the young ones.

  The pastor sent word throughout the first month I spent with Miss Adeline that he had not forgotten me and encouraged me to continue to pray. One Sunday, when she returned from church, Miss Adeline asked one of her daughters, a seamstress, to take my measurements and write them on a paper, which Steven took to the pastor. No one told me the reason for this activity, and I knew better than to ask.

  Early one morning, almost three months after I had arrived in Mobile, the pastor arrived and asked Miss Adeline if her daughters and their children could stay at another home that day and night. I said good-bye to them as they left for Steven’s house.

  “Sarah, I know you want to go to a free state, but that’s not a good plan, mainly because of the Fugitive Slave Act. Under that law, slave catchers from the South are allowed to go to states where slavery has been abolished and return runaways to their masters. The catchers not only bring back runaways, but sometimes they kidnap freedmen and sell them back into slavery. I think the best course, and one that I have been able to arrange, is for you to go to a British land, where slavery has been abolished. I know I’ve given you almost no time to consider this, but as you know, it’s dangerous to reveal too much information. Based upon what I have told you, are you willing to go forward with your flight to freedom?”

  I did not think for long. “Sir, yes, I am. I can’t hide inside for the rest of my life. My only question is—and perhaps you can’t answer it—how do I know I will be taken to freedom and not to slavery somewhere else?”

  “Sarah, the reason it took me so long to make preparations for you is that I wrote a letter to a British captain of a commercial ship who is a member of a Christian denomination called the Religious Society of Friends, or the Quakers. When we first met ten years ago, he told me that he and many Quakers believe in the abolition of slavery. Miss Adeline knows him, as he has worshipped with us. His ship was in port a month ago, and he spoke with me at the church. We made arrangements for you, which are now complete. I need to see your freedom paper.”

  He read it.

  “The captain will need to see your freedom paper because the company that owns the ship requires that everyone on board is legitimately there. Make sure that you take it with you.”

  The pastor gave me a bag containing clothes and shoes and told us that Miss Adeline needed to cut my hair short to my scalp like a sailor’s. He said that I should be dressed and ready to depart that midnight. He then led us in prayer and wished me Godspeed.

  After supper, Miss Adeline cut my hair and I took a bath. At ten, I changed into the merchant marine’s uniform and shoes that were in the bag. I transferred my papers and clean undergarments into the bag, and then Miss Adeline and I prayed. We could not keep ourselves from crying. About two hours later, we heard a hackney outside.

  Miss Adeline opened the door and signaled me to go. I embraced her and thanked her and her family. I asked her, if she ever saw my mother again, to tell her everything and especially to let her know that I was well. The driver waved to Miss Adeline and beckoned me. There were two sailors inside the carriage, James Carter and Anthony Eden. Anthony gave me a paper and said, with a delightful way of speaking, that I had to show it to the customs officer before I would be permitted to board the ship.

  “Your name is Bradley Ebanks. The three of us will be drunken sailors. Me and James are going to act the way we normally act after a night of carousing with wenches while on leave. But you can’t take that rucksack on board or they won’t believe we’ve been in town drinking.”

  “I have my papers and…”

  “Just take them and put them inside your socks, like so.”

  I wished I had taken the knife Henry and Oliver had given me, because I had the same misgivings I felt the night that LeRoy and Arthur left me on that road in Chambers County. It was too dark to read the paper that the sailor gave me, and I was afraid to ask what it said. To calm myself, I prayed and silently recited the paper that I had written proclaiming my freedom:

  DEED OF MANUMISSION, WILLIAM CAMPBELL. To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, Gregory Campbell, of the County of Madison, have released from slavery and manumit my Negro boy named William Campbell, being of the age of eighteen and able to work and gain sufficient livelihood. Him, the said Negro, I do declare to be henceforth free and discharged from all manner of servitude to me, my executors, or administrators forever.

  We arrived at the wharf at the same time as about thirty other sailors. A clerk was standing outside a booth holding a lantern and reviewing papers that the sailors were handing to him. James and Anthony were singing a strange song about drinking rum. When it was our turn, we each gave the clerk our documents. He looked at them quickly and told us to go ahead to the gangway. The captain was waiting for us as we stepped onto the main deck. I imitated the others and saluted him.

  “Give me the paper the deckhands gave you, sailor, and come with me,” the captain said.

  He led me to the cook-room, closed the door, and read my freedom paper.
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  “William Campbell, you are now in the service of the British West Indies Trading Company. You will be paid sixty pounds a month to be the chief steward of this ship. Two utility men will assist you to cook and serve meals to the officers and the deckhands. Because of your…situation, you will not sleep below decks, but here. Tomorrow morning Merchant Marine Ebanks will bring you two uniforms. You will thereafter use his uniform when you are on shore leave. You will report to me. I will speak with you in detail about our voyage tomorrow, after the evening meal. Do you have any questions now?”

  “Sir, Captain, may I have my freedom paper back?’

  “No, sailor. I will keep it in the coffer, where it will be safe. Now go to sleep. I take tea at six thirty in the officer’s dining room, and the morning meal for everyone must be ready at eight o’clock. Your assistants will be here at five thirty to tell you how everything is done, but they are terrible cooks, so we are grateful that you are here. There are new night clothes and other garments in that bag over there. During the day, you can roll the pallet and put it in the corner. You can put your clothing in that cabinet there. Lock the door, and good night.”

  I lit a lantern and closed the wooden shutters. There was a straw-filled pallet on the floor, a pillow, and folded bed linens. I arranged my bed and knelt by it to say my prayers. Perhaps because it was late and the ship was rocking gently, I went to sleep fast.

  The following morning, my assistants arrived promptly at five thirty. Without them, I could not have cooked three meals a day for sixty people. Bradley Ebanks arrived after the morning meal with my chief steward’s uniforms. He was my height but much older than I expected. We were alone in the cook-room, and I thanked him for the use of his uniform.

  “You’re welcome. My nephews enjoyed the little adventure. I remember you from Mobile. You and your mother visited the church in Mobile at the same time we did.”

  “Uh, you remember me?”

  “Yes. Well, I remember your mother. What a beautiful lady. Well, the captain is going to talk to you and he’ll explain everything. In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.”

  As he promised, the captain came to the cook-room to speak to me that night. I admitted to him that I was afraid of spending the rest of my life in a foreign land where I did not know a soul, and that it pained me that I would never again see my family.

  “Sailor, I have found that young people have the ability to thrive in new surroundings. You will never be alone because the Good Lord will always be by your side, and I trust that he will guide and comfort you as you make your way.”

  I stood on the deck that night before going to bed and tried to remember Mrs. Allen’s astronomy lessons, but I could identify only a few constellations. Having nothing else to do, I went to the cook-room. I thought about the library at Allen Hall, and I thought how odd it was that there was nothing to read now that I no longer had to hide my literacy.

  We arrived at the port of Key West the next morning. Mr. Ebanks came to the cook-room after the meal to ask me if there was anything I wanted from shore. As we were speaking, James and Anthony interrupted us.

  “William, do you want us to bring you something from Key West?”

  “Thank you. I was just about to ask Mr. Ebanks if he could get me a book.”

  “A book? From Key West? I don’t think they have booksellers there, just taverns. Besides, the officers have books that you can borrow from them.”

  “Really, I didn’t know that. Then I don’t need anything from shore.”

  Captain had said the night before that I should not even go on the gangway to help unload or load cargo. Local governmental officers in Key West had ties to the slave states, particularly to Alabama and South Carolina, and they accused British ships of assisting runaways and so kept a close eye on them. He was concerned that someone on the wharf might request to board to inquire about my identity and ask why I did not disembark. James and Anthony assured me that there was not much to do on the island other than patronize taverns.

  “But, William, look over there. There’s something interesting to see. That land is an island called Cuba. Have you ever heard of it? It belongs to Spain.”

  “Yes, I studied it in geography lessons. I can’t believe I’m actually looking at Cuba. Are we going there?”

  “Oh, no. The Spaniards are even worse than the Southerners, if that’s possible, and our company trades only with the former or present British colonies.”

  Captain left the first officer in command and told me to speak to him should I need anything. With nothing to do before it was time to prepare the midday meal for the few of us on board, I walked on the side of the deck facing away from shore, admiring the majestic ship with her four-masted rig. There I met First Officer Nathaniel Trusty, who, to my surprise, was a Negro. He was older than James and Anthony but not as old as Mr. Ebanks.

  “I trust that your accommodations in the caboose are tolerable, but I’m sure you understand, given your situation, that it was the only possible solution.”

  “Yes, sir. And it really is not that bad.”

  “Good. Please inform me if there is any way that I may be of assistance.”

  “Officer Trusty, I understand there are books on board that I may borrow.”

  “Yes, we do maintain a small library in the officers’ quarters. Why don’t I take you there now?”

  The collection was small but interesting. He left me there to browse and I found material about the Religious Society of Friends. There were no novels or poetry, but there was a copy of The Tempest, which I thought was an odd book to have onboard, since Mrs. Allen had told Clarissa and me that it was about a British shipwreck on the island of Bermuda. I selected that and a work by Anthony Benezet called A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short representation of the calamitous state of the enslaved negroes in the British Dominions. I also took a pamphlet entitled The Sinfulness of Colonial Slavery: Extract from a Lecture on “The Sinfulness of Colonial Slavery,” delivered in the Meeting-house of Dr. Pye Smith Hackney on February 7, 1833, by Robert Halley.

  I prepared the noon meal, and after everyone had eaten, I sat on the deck, on the side not facing shore, to read. Captain and the second officer returned in time for supper, but the deckhands did not return until after I had fallen asleep.

  Someone woke me by knocking on the door. I wrapped myself in my blanket and answered. It was Nathaniel.

  “The captain wants you to get dressed, quickly, and go to the library. He will explain to you what this is all about.”

  When I arrived there, the officers and perhaps ten deckhands, including Mr. Ebanks, were gathered around a table looking at maps.

  “Chief Steward, when the second officer and I were on land, we met with officers of the United States Navy who said that they received a report of a ship near Havana, Cuba, illegally flying the flag of the United States. The ship was bound for Mobile and loaded with Africans who were kidnapped from the West African coast. We believe we are now close to that ship. The United States Navy is going to stop the slaver. If it is true that there are Africans on board, the navy is going to take them out and put them on their ship. Depending on the number of people who are being held captive, they may not all fit on the navy’s ship and we have agreed to take some on board. We have done this before, and what we found both times is that the Africans, about half of whom are children, had been living in horrible conditions.

  “When we rescue them and bring them on board, we will have to give them water and food. The deckhands will assist in this effort, and we need your help as well. But enough speech for now. We have about two more hours before we meet the American ship and begin operations.”

  I did not understand how this was possible. Captain told me that international slave trading was abolished in 1808, but then he explained that this was an illegal smuggling operation and that it happened far more often than most people knew.

  Captain told all hands
to gather as many blankets as we could find, even those belonging to the officers. Our ship stopped when we were close to the American navy’s. The blowers sounded their horns, and both ships intercepted the slaver, named the Lackawanna. American officers in rowboats were already next to the ship, which I later learned hailed from New York. We were too far to hear what the officers said, but they apparently requested and were granted permission to board. There was enough moonlight to see that the American officers were holding men on the Lackawanna’s main deck at gunpoint. Then deckhands from the American ship rowed to and boarded the Lackawanna. Fifteen minutes later, the deckhands emerged carrying children, sometimes two at a time, or leading emaciated adults to the boats to row them to their ship. I counted two hundred Africans, and as the captain had predicted, about half were children. The Americans arrested the Lackawanna’s officers and also took them on board their ship.

  Captain told us that our ship was not needed because the Americans had accommodated all the former captives, officers, and crew. He said that the navy was taking the Africans to a country on the West African coast named Liberia and that the officers and crew of the Lackawanna would travel with them. Eventually the officers would be taken to New York to be tried for piracy, which, as of 1820, was a capital crime for United States citizens.

  “These laws are difficult to enforce. The Lackawanna was built and financed in New York. Unfortunately the courts in the United States and in Britain have made a mockery of the laws against international slave trading and kidnapping. It is not likely that they will be convicted, or even prosecuted, for their crimes.”

  Our next port of call was Bodden Town, the capital of a small island called Grand Cayman, 195 miles northwest of Jamaica. There the deckhands unloaded manufactured goods from Massachusetts and loaded ship parts that were made in Grand Cayman. We were not there long, but James and Anthony went to the beach and brought me back a small turtle.