"Non!" he shouted.
My brothers dug their emaciated hands deep into the white man's arms and each tried to drag him toward their side of the ship. The man screamed over and over again, but my brothers were unrelenting. He would become our meal. His screams would have curdled the blood of ordinary beings.
Suddenly, each of his arms was torn out of their sockets. While my brothers quickly took each arm and drank from them like a gourd, the hysterical white man flailed his torso about as his blood sprayed over us. Some landed in my mouth and slid down my throat easily.
I came back to life and knew that I could defeat my captors.
"Don't let him waste any more of that blood!" Babarinde shouted. "You! Pass those arms back! Give some to your brothers. And use your strength to break these chains! Oya sent us this meal. The rest is up to us!"
The two Razadi passed the pale and bloodied arms behind them and obeyed Babarinde's order to try to break through the chains. Each of them chanted and pulled as hard as they could. They'd never be able to break the chains, but perhaps they could pull the chains from out of the iron loops built into the ship.
They pulled. The wood began to creak against their efforts.
They struggled. The creaking got louder as the wood buckled.
They prayed. As the wood began to splinter, we screamed with excitement, drowning out the sound of the wood disintegrating into kindling.
Success!
"We did it!"
"We are free!"
"We're not free yet," Babarinde said. "Help us! Break these chains. And give me that white man's body!"
Immediately, one man hoisted the now unconscious white man on his shoulders, even as blood continued to ooze out of him. The other quickly broke through the chains of more Razadi.
The white man had little life left in his body.
"We normally don't torture people before we feed on them," Babarinde said to the white man. "Nor do we eat to kill. But what you swine have done to my people deserves no mercy whatsoever. I drink you to hell, white man."
Babarinde buried his fangs into the white man's neck and drank as much as he could. More freed Razadi bit other portions of the man's body and drank as much as they could. I was passed the man's arm and sucked the open portion that had once been his shoulder. I was growing stronger by the minute.
The raging storm continued, and though we weren't nearly as strong as we had been when we went in, we knew we would not lose this battle.
"My brothers!" Babarinde yelled out. "We go up! And eat every pale faced pig that you see!"
Enraptured by the emotion of our impending freedom, we leaped straight up through the hole in the ceiling of our prison like a swarm of bees leaving a hive.
Lightning lit the sky in terrible fireworks, the likes of which we had never seen. The handful of white men on the deck of the ship gazed upon us in horror as the ship tossed back and forth. There were less than a dozen men on the ship; hardly enough to provide a true feast, but they'd have to do. Eşusanya, Ogundiya, Aborişade, and I reassembled on the deck and grabbed the nearest white man we could find. He screamed and Ogundiya snapped his neck, killing him instantly.
"Drink up," Aborişade ordered. We each found an artery and inserted our already elongated canines. The chaos on the deck around us subsided as the white men were overpowered, too fast even for them to pick up their guns, to try to do to us what they did to our brothers on the continent.
I stood up from my meal and made room for one of my fellow brothers who had not yet eaten. The lightning still lit the night sky an eerie electric blue. I turned around in a complete circle and saw nothing but ocean around me. Land could have been a million miles away for all I knew.
In the distance, I saw our sister ship. Something was wrong.
"Babarinde!" I shouted. I pointed toward our sister ship in horror. He hurried toward me and then looked out at the other ship. Each man stopped and joined us on the side of the ship.
"No. No. No." Babarinde fell to his knees.
La Tête was sinking into the ocean like a child's toy. The wind whipping around us subsided to an eerie calm and the lightning bolts faded away. Our ship stopped rocking and we all fell silent as La Tête disappeared into the sea.
Not a single soul jumped off to swim toward us. No rescue boat or canoe emerged from the darkness. Our brothers and their captors were all dead. We were alone.
Babarinde, for the first and only time in my life, broke down in uncontrollable sobs. Many of us did.
But I did not. I comforted Baba and all of my other brothers who were in shock. Then I immediately began to assess the crew's quarters, the galley, and the cargo holds aside from our own. Two of our scrolls and a cask of our gold were here. We had four scrolls in total, and I knew we'd lost one to theft and the other to the ocean. Two were better than none, but it was devastating to know our knowledge was lost.
There was not enough room for all of us in the cabins. We'd have to take turns sleeping, a day shift and a night shift, until we reached our destination. But we would be comfortable. And we would remain full from the blood of our captors for a while.
The sea was calm. My head spun from the stress, from the shock, and from the blood intoxication I felt. But I had to carry on.
"Baba," I said. "Baba, get up."
I pulled him up by his arm. His face was still wet with tears. His chest heaved with sobs.
"Come. Rest."
He leaned on me and I carried him to the captain's quarters. He lay down on the slim bed and was asleep in no time.
I emerged from the quarters and saw dozens of my brothers still weeping on the deck of the ship. I gestured to Ogundiya, Eşusanya, and Aborişade. They came to me.
"There aren't enough places for everyone to sleep, so we'll have to double up. Eşusanya, divide the group in half. Take the ones who need rest down below. Leave Babarinde's quarters be, but double everyone else up. Two to a bed. Put blankets on the floors. Whatever will get everyone comfortable. Aborişade, give everyone else something to do. Shutter the hatch down to the slave holding cell. I don't want to see or smell that pit ever again. Figure out how those weapons work. Search the ship for other useful things. And Ogundiya, stay with me, here by the wheel. We'll figure out how to steer this ship until we find land."
I was the youngest of the bunch but somehow I was able to take charge without question. I knew this moment wouldn't happen again anytime soon, but the glory of the position wasn't important to me. We had lost half of our tribe when we were taken from our homeland and now we'd lost half of that half. There wasn't time to cry. Only time to figure out what was next.
My friends had done what I'd asked and Ogundiya and I figured out how to work the ship. The Orishas were with us for the next few days with calm, strong winds in our sails and placid waters beneath us. Within days, La Coeur reached land, an island we eventually learned was called Dominica. We weren't sure what we'd see once we disembarked from the ship, but with our weapons in our hands, we knew we'd never be enslaved again.
Dominique Bellanger of Dominica
The black sand beach and green mountains lining the Dominican coast looked menacing in the first rays of the morning sun. I leaned over edge of the ship and strained my eyes to see through the fog.
"We should drop the anchor," I suggested to Babarinde. He nodded.
"Drop the anchor!" I called out. My brothers did so and the ship lurched and then steadied itself as it rocked in the water. I continued staring off into the mountains as the morning heat burned away the fog.
Soon, I saw people descending the mountain. They were brown people, like us, with dark, shiny hair. About a dozen of them carefully came down the hills and assembled on the beach. They stood in a silent formation and waited for us. Several had weapons.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"You, me, and Aborişade. We take the rowboat to the shore. And we talk to them as best we can. We'll bring the white men's weapons, but we will do them no harm as
long as they mean us no harm."
I nodded and asked Sangodare to prepare the boat.
"Dagunro?" Babarinde beckoned to the lean brother near him.
"Yes, Baba?" he answered.
"If anything happens to us…destroy the scrolls."
"I will, Baba."
The boat was lowered into the water, and, with a rope, I climbed down first with a gun across my back. Aborişade came next, also with a gun, and Babarinde came last, unarmed.
"No weapon?" I asked him. "Not even a knife?"
"No," he said with finality.
We rowed the boat through the blue waters and made it to the shore. The brown men helped us out of our boat and pulled it to the safety of the beach. They rejoined the other men, forming an inverted V with their leader at the apex.
Aborişade and I raised our weapons, but Babarinde told us to stand down. We had been through too much to let more strangers violate us, and I wasn't eager to let Babarinde walk into a trap.
But these men were different. As I glared into their eyes, all I saw was concern for us. Compassion. A willingness to talk.
These men were not evil.
Babarinde approached the leader, an older man who wore a loincloth, like the men guarding him. The morning wind whipped around us. Babarinde had both hands extended, to show the brown men he was approaching in peace.
"We are Razadi," Babarinde said in our native tongue. "We come in peace."
"Razadi?" the leader repeated. Babarinde nodded. He pointed to his heart and repeated "Razadi." He walked back to Aborişade and me and once again repeated "Razadi." He nodded and again put his hands out in peace.
The brown man nodded.
"Razadi," he said softly. He then made a fist, thumped his chest and said "Kalinago."
Babarinde nodded.
"Kalinago," the man repeated, outstretching his arms as if to include his warriors in the word.
"Kalinago," Babarinde repeated.
The man walked toward Babarinde and pointed to his chest, rapidly speaking in his own language.
"I don't understand," Baba said in the language of the Razadi. "Please slow down, I can learn."
The leader shook his head vigorously and grabbed Babarinde by the shoulders. They stared at one another and focused.
"Babarinde, show him. Show him like our people do."
Babarinde nodded and took the leader by his shoulders and leaned in, touching his forehead with his own. As Babarinde transferred his memories and emotions to the leader of this tribe, I could see them both tense their muscles with the strain of this great emotion. From my vantage point, I could see a single tear fall from the tribe leader's eye.
Moments later, Babarinde released the leader, who then took several steps backward.
The ocean roared all around us. The call of birds was thick in the air. We stood still as life around us continued.
Finally, the leader nodded. He pointed to the ship, then pointed to the palm of his hand and nodded.
Babarinde shook his head and pointed to his own palm, then made a cutting movement against his neck with his hand.
The leader nodded again and then spoke three words.
He pointed at our ship and said "No."
He pointed to behind him and said "Kalinago."
He pointed to the east and said "Razadi."
Babarinde smiled, nodded, and clasped hands with the leader of the Kalinago people. The warriors broke ranks and clasped our hands as well as Babarinde's.
After countless days and nights, and what might as well have been millions of miles, the Razadi were back on peaceful soil with people who meant us no harm.
~
The Kalinago were a gentle, peaceful people who, like the Razadi, merely wanted everyone else to leave them alone. And we did. After they had seen what we'd been through, they gave us three simple directives: to establish our own village to the east of theirs, deep in the forests; to stay away from their village if at all possible; and to dismantle our ship. The Kalinago wanted desperately to prevent their island from becoming a port, and they somehow felt that even the presence of a ship was a beacon of evil. After some debate, we decided to comply with their wishes. We had no way of discerning our way back to our homeland anyway. The maps of the white men were useless to us, as we didn't know where we were, which way we'd come, or what they had renamed the places they had "discovered" and stolen from natives.
The natives called this place Wai'tu kubuli, and so did we, only calling it Dominica after we left. The terrain was rugged, but lush and beautiful. The Kalinago had left their previous homeland and settled here because the island was so difficult to penetrate.
We used the timber from the ship as the foundation for the village we built in the forest. Dominica was full of trees, and the Kalinago showed us which ones were best for building. They also showed us where to plant our seeds for the best harvest. But after those tips, they left us be.
Months passed, and we were comfortably entrenched in our new lifestyle. We hunted wild boar for their blood. Nothing would ever taste as rich as human blood, but we knew our neighbors could never become our meal. They had been too good to us.
Aside from the boar's blood, we were vegetarians, successfully growing things we'd brought with us from Africa as well as plants and fruits native to the island. I've never eaten as clean as I did on Dominica.
Babarinde found a way to work through his grief and properly emerge as our leader. He was often quiet and withdrawn, but every now and then, a glimpse of the old Babarinde would shine through, whether it was a joke or a song.
We hid our scrolls and other valuables in a cave deep in the forest. There was little use for jewels and gold coins on an island like ours, so we hid them and mostly forgot about them. Our surviving scrolls were of the utmost importance to us, though. When we worshipped together, our scrolls were never far away. It devastated us that one of scrolls was lost to the ocean and the powerful mercenaries back in Africa had stolen another, but we knew they'd be of no use to anyone without the whole story and the oral traditions.
As the months went by, I took up a trade or two. I became adept at fishing, and even though we didn't typically eat the blood of the fish, we were committed to making goodwill offerings to our neighbors. They would smile politely, take the offering, and then close the gates of their village, leaving us to walk back to our own village.
We had a lot of time to work, to think, and to pray. We already knew each other well as family, but during this period, many of us became friends. And when the nights were long and lonely, some of us became more than friends. Others remained celibate.
When I wasn't fishing, I also worked as a carpenter alongside a brother of ours named Ariori. He towered over me by about seven inches. His hair had grown wild and wooly over the past few months. He refused to wear it in braids or dreadlocks as many of us had done. His shoulders were broad and his arms and back were muscular. His legs were lean.
After our carpentry was done for the day, Ariori and I would go down to the beach where we first landed, to swim and to walk and play in the black sand. It was one of our favorite places. Our home village was days and days away from the coast, so enjoying the beach was still a novelty for us, even though years later we would enjoy the golden and white sand beaches of many other countries.
Ariori and I would disrobe and leave our garments on the rocks near the shoreline. He would follow me out to the water and we'd swim. We had to learn how to swim in what you might call "the old fashioned way." Most of us hadn't learned how back in the old country because the rivers were shallow, and those that weren't were teeming with crocodiles. The waters of Dominica were safe. Babarinde threw us into the water again and again until we learned how to float and how to swim. Some days, we could see the Kalinago watching us from the mountains and laughing.
Ariori had no carnal interest in me. He was one of the brethren who opted to be celibate. As for me, I hadn't yet figured out what I was or who I was interested in.
As the youngest of the group and the son of Mama Abeo, the brothers had a kind of respect for me that meant I remained untouched until I decided who I wanted—not the other way around.
We played around in the water for a bit. We took turns diving beneath the surface of the water and exploring the marine life below. We were naturally stronger and more durable than humans, so it was easy for us to hold our breath for six, seven, even eight minutes at a time.
When we came above water, we were startled to see a young white woman walking toward us. We had never seen a white woman before, and hadn't seen a woman at all since we left our village. What was interesting about her was that she was wholly unafraid of us. Making eye contact only piqued the interest in her deep brown eyes.
We were startled into silence. The last time we encountered anyone of her complexion, we were shackled and thrown in the belly of a boat. But she was a woman, and she was alone. She couldn't possibly be dangerous to us, could she?
Ariori and I looked at each other while we floated in the water, then we looked at her.
"Je m'appelle Dominique," she said from the shore. "Je n'ai aucune mauvaise intention."
We swam to the shore and walked to our clothing on the rocks. The woman stared at us until we arose nude from the water. She then lowered her head and averted her eyes to provide us some privacy.
When we were clothed, we approached her and quizzed her in our own language. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you want? Why are you here? Of course, she didn't understand us and we didn't understand her. We did discover that her name was Dominique Bellanger.
Our first meeting with Dominique was brief. We ran off and prayed she didn't see which way we went. She didn't follow us at first, though we would see her every few days. She remained friendly and harmless. The more time we spent around her, the more I could tell that she and Ariori had an attraction for one another. Ariori showed a quiet, respectful restraint around her, and though she never made overt advances, I could tell by her posture and her avoidance of his gaze that she was intrigued by him.
Wherever she came from, with her long brown tresses and her dirty white gown, she was not interested in returning. Each day we spent with her seemed longer and longer; each evening she was more and more reluctant to leave us.
Birth of a Dark Nation Page 17