Island of a Thousand Springs

by Sarah Lark

Nora felt vaguely relieved. No one had called her by her real name since she had been kidnapped from Cascarilla Gardens.

  “So, Nora, neither me nor the queen like that you are here. We’ve even talked about getting rid of you. But this Akwasi wants you and it looks like we will need him. Is it true that he can read and write?”

  Nora shrugged. “He grew up with the backra’s son. They were friends, even if Akwasi hates him now.”

  Quao watched her carefully. “Is the backra’s son dead?”

  Nora shook her head.

  “It’s just getting worse and worse,” Quao sighed. “Perhaps he is looking for you. But, as I said, we need Akwasi. He will get what he wants. I will have to speak with him about slavery, how we handle you among the Ashanti. You needn’t be afraid. He will not treat you cruelly. And if he sires any children with you, he should take you as his wife, so that they can accept his inheritance. Anyway, I would be interested in finding out how he justified his right to keep you as a slave. ”

  Nora had learned a lot from this conversation — above all, that the Ashanti enslaved criminals and prisoners of war. They hunted the peoples of enemy tribes. Slavery had nothing to do with skin color.

  “But she is a prisoner of war!” Akwasi argued, when Quao confronted him later about Nora. “Her tribe is my enemy!”

  Quao sighed again. “Yes, I have already understood your insinuations. But you know that you can’t keep her like livestock. You are responsible for dressing and taking care of her, you may neither hit nor rape her.”

  Nora looked at the ground.

  Akwasi flew into a rage. “Did she complain? I take her like a man in Africa takes his wife, I—”

  “And I am conducting myself as a lady does in my country!” Nora cut him off in anger. “And I don’t talk about nights with my …” she struggled to say the word,“'master' in front of strangers.”

  Quao made a dismissive gesture, as if he were dealing with two quarreling children. “Do what you want,” he said shortly. “But remember, Akwasi, that you will make her your wife if she gives you a child. I insist upon it. We will not allow slave children to be raised here like on the whites’ plantations. And you, Nora, hold onto your sharp tongue. Your master is obliged to treat you well. For the tribe, however, this does not apply …”

  Nora would soon feel the reality of his words. In Nanny Town, they didn’t only live off of raids. As Doug had previously said, the Ashanti had always been farmers. And the farm labor mainly fell into the hands of the women, who did it together. Akwasi would also have to work the land where he was assigned on the next day, no longer isolated from the others. In fact, he was responsible for clearing it — whereby the slash-and-burn method was preferred — but then the women would begin digging and sowing the land in groups. Thus, Nora would no longer be able to hide from the other women. To her surprise, she heard one of the Maroons directing Akwasi to set the bushes on his land on fire.

  “You can see that for miles!” she said, half-uncomprehending and half hoping, to Akwasi. “The smoke and the flames — you might as well hang a map in Kingston pointing to Nanny Town.”

  The other Maroon laughed. “That not secret, white woman. Governor knows where they all are, Cudjoe Town, Nanny Town, Accompong …”

  Akwasi looked proudly down at her. His exclusion from the common men of the Maroons had not lasted long. On the contrary, many of them secretly envied him. After all, he was not the only one who had occasionally stared wantonly at the marble white skin of the planters’ wives.

  “Oh, yes,” he then confirmed. “The governor knows it quite well. And his troops have tried countless times to capture the town. But in vain. Each attach was driven back. Of course, that didn’t work for him. So, he acts as if he had no idea where we’re hidden.”

  Nora felt something like anger remembering how Doug and the other planters had helplessly wandered through the mountains during the past year. But maybe it was a good idea that the governor kept this location a secret — one didn’t need a great strategist to see that the defenders of Nanny Town would have wiped out the ragtag troop no time. She was slowly beginning to understand the multifaceted relationships and implicit agreement that existed, despite all the enmity, between the free blacks and the government of Jamaica.

  And while Nora helped her new “master” trample out the fire and then began to toil at ridding the new land of the roots of the burned vegetation, she also understood why Nanny and Quao were concerned about their own roles in this dispute. Occasional raids, which were also tied in with robbery and murder, the governor grudgingly accepted. However, if the blacks began to take whites as slaves, the pressure would grow too strong. Nora hoped that Doug would realize she was alive. He could mobilize the sugar barons and force the governor to use all the power of the Crown to save the white woman from the hands of the Maroons. So long as he wasn’t reckless enough to try and do it alone.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lord Hollister, Keensley, and the other planters in the region pressed immediate retaliation against the Maroons, almost as soon as the funeral services at Cascarilla Gardens ended. They reacted indignantly when Doug Fortnam refused to join them.

  “You will have the opportunity to exact your revenge, young man!” Keensley reproached him. “Or do you want them to get away with killing your men, your father, and burning down your property?”

  Doug wanted to angrily remind him that they were also mourning a woman, but then he held back. Making his relationship with Nora public now was really the last thing he wanted. So, he silently clenched his fists and shook his head.

  “Has such action ever made any difference?” he asked, rubbing his forehead. “An expedition won’t help against the Maroons. They don’t live in tent camps; they have towns and defenses. We’d have to muster the troops and unleash a war. And for that, I have neither the urge nor the means. Appeal to the governor if you plan to accomplish anything there. But I have more important things to do here. I have no time to aimlessly wander through the mountains just to shoot at one or two blacks, while everything goes to pieces down here.”

  “But we owe it to Elias’s memory!” Lord Hollister crowed.

  Doug clenched his fists under the table again. He had no desire to avenge his father’s death. Elias got exactly what he deserved. Nora was the only one he cared about …

  “Do what you want,” he then said to his neighbors. “But I think that I am best fulfilling my duties as a son by taking care of Cascarilla Gardens.”

  And trying to repent for what my father did. Of course, Doug didn’t say the latter out loud, but the idea had controlled all of his actions since the night of the fire. It kept him from letting his thoughts revolve only around Nora and about what she thought and felt when the Maroons rammed their machetes into her body — about her fear and her pain.

  To start, Doug focused on taking stock and getting the work in order at Cascarilla Gardens. He decided to try it without whips and without overseers, and he gathered the blacks right after the funeral ended, once the reverend and the neighbors had gone.

  “I don’t really need to explain to you where we stand,” he said quietly. “We are in the middle of the harvest. The sugar cane on two thirds of the fields needs to be cut. But eighty of our group are gone — nearly all of them fieldworkers. Do we still have any among us?”

  A few older slaves raised their hands. Doug nodded to them.

  “I’m glad that you stayed here. And I can’t repay you by sending you to the fields day and night. Especially since most of the draught animals were stolen. Cascarilla Gardens has only two teams of oxen — they were lent out to Keensley — and three horses. My horse and two mares that were with Hollister’s new Berber stallion—”

  Doug’s voice nearly broke when he thought of Nora’s enthusiasm for the picturesque, black mare that had accompanied Nora from England. Hollister hadn’t liked that Nora’s horse, Aurora, outran his own at every one of the hunts that were now fashionable. He had had his stallion
imported and was now breeding it with the mares. That had saved the horses from the raid.

  “In any case, not a single draught horse. Tomorrow, I will ride to Kingston and try to buy a couple of workhorses — it will not be easy — and also … also a few slaves.”

  Doug found it difficult to say, but it didn’t seem to cause a stir among the blacks. They seemed to be happier for the help than they were upset about the enslavement of more blacks. “You,” he gestured to the old field slaves,” … will be responsible for teaching them. And, as sorry as it makes me, for now, all of the remaining house slaves and hand workers have to support them. At the moment, we don’t need any smithies, carpenters, or house servants.”

  A scandalized murmur went through the crowd of blacks.

  Doug sighed. “Yes, I know I promised not to demote anyone. But to acquire a house with many servants, I need the income from the sugar cane. So, you must initially work with them.”

  He cast a worried glance at the group of house slaves. If they didn’t willingly play along, he would have to employ an overseer. And then whips would probably be cracking again soon. Doug kept quiet about it as Kwadwo stepped forward. The Obeah man and stable master undoubtedly felt it beneath his dignity to cut sugar cane. But then the words of the old diviner allowed Doug to relax. “I will do my best and my stable boys will, too,” he said in a dignified manner.

  The next one to come forward was Adwea. “As will I!” she exclaimed. “And my kitchen staff. But we will not do as much as field niggers, Backra Doug. You whip us then?” The question lay somewhere between absurd humor and fear.

  Doug shook his head. “No one will be whipped at Cascarilla Gardens any longer!” he said. “Unless he stole or did something worse. But some overseer won’t be determining that — I will decide alone. And in the future, you will also no longer work on Sundays or Christmas or Easter—” Cheers broke out. “In return,” Doug cried, “I expect loyal and willing duty. Tomorrow morning you will all report to Kwadwo for duty and listen to the field niggers’ instructions. Everyone except for Adwea and her kitchen staff. After all, the fieldworkers shouldn’t starve.”

  When Doug rode out to Kingston the following morning, the blacks had already gathered, accepted their machetes, and let themselves be divided into work groups. At least that was going well. But Doug could feel no joy. Every palm tree on the road, every turn, every beautiful view of a settlement or the beach, reminded him of Nora. How could she be dead? And why was something inside of him not ready to accept it? Again and again he felt for the pendant in his pocket and glanced obsessively over his left shoulder. But no Duppy — neither a vengeful Simon, nor a loving Nora nor a wrathful Elias — was there.

  Over the course of the next few months, Doug Fortnam reorganized life on Cascarilla Gardens and missed no opportunity to cause a stir among his neighbors.

  “The loss has cost him his mind!” Lady Hollister sighed, when the young man refused to rebuild the house right away. “He cannot live in the house of an overseer!”

  “Most of all, he’s risking his life and limb!” Christopher Keensley exclaimed. “So close and the only white in a village of niggers. If the old ones don’t kill him, then the new ones will!” Doug had managed to purchase fifty new workers for his fields — people who had come directly off the slave ship from Africa. They were in the usual, terrible shape when they came ashore, and Doug gave them the first weeks off to settle in. His core staff took care of them and taught them English — and to his own surprise, it all worked out: none of the new blacks were foreign to the idea of slavery. They certainly mourned their fate, but it had never been something unthinkable for them to at some point be owned by another person.

  Doug had also gained popularity by buying a woman and her daughter, even though the girl was still very young and would not be immediately useful. And he also purchased two couples and a family together and allowed them to share a hut.

  The long-established blacks at Cascarilla Gardens were also so courageous that three couples asked to be married. Doug allowed it and gave them each a goat and three chickens, as well as two days off to build larger houses. A formal wedding ceremony officiated by the reverend, however, was not possible.

  “I asked, Tiny,” he said with a guilty conscience to a giant fieldworker and his wife who was very religious. They usually hung to Stevens’ every word during services. “But the reverend won’t marry you because you haven’t been baptized. And you also can’t be baptized because—” Doug stopped short. There was no way he could speak of the possibility of blacks not having souls. “I don’t know why,” he continued. “But, the law forbids that slaves enter any contracts. And since marriage is a contract …” Tiny and Leonie looked at him blankly. Doug tried to think of how Nora would have solved this problem. She had always been pragmatic … “Listen, just take another chicken,” he told the slaves, “and give it to Kwadwo. I’m sure that with a sufficiently large quantity of chickens he can summon any spirit for you.”

  “And that counts?” Leonie asked, doubtfully.

  She was no longer young; Cascarilla Gardens was the third plantation she had served since she had been taken as a seventeen-year-old. Doug knew that Nora had treated her several times. Probably after visits to the baarm madda.

  Now he nodded at her encouragingly. “On Cascarilla Gardens it does!” he assured her. “I won’t separate you and Tiny, and if your marriage is blessed with children, you have my word that I also won’t sell them.”

  Over the course of the year, three children were born at Cascarilla Gardens.

  Nanny Town was also swarming with children, but there were hardly any herbal healers. Granny Nanny was the only one who knew anything about midwifery and nursing, but what she knew didn’t match the knowledge of the baarm maddas on the plantations. Nora noticed, although of course, none of the black women trusted the white woman. However, she had plenty of time to watch them, since Akwasi sent her out to the fields immediately. With that, Nora’s ordeal in Nanny Town entered a new phase, since the women now no longer restricted themselves to watching her and laughing at her incompetence with everyday things like weaving mats. Instead, they made sure she felt her status as a slave.

  “We don’t need to cut the sugar cane ourselves anymore!” A beautiful Ashanti woman announced, apparently acting as the spokeswoman for the younger, still unmarried women. “We have our slave for that!”

  Laughing, she pushed a blunt machete into Nora’s hand and pointed to the sugar cane field on the settlement. In Nanny Town, sugar cane was also planted, but not to the same extent as on the plantation. Actually, they only produced sugar and alcohol for their own needs — thus allowing Nanny and Quao to wisely control the distillery, only distributing limited amounts of liquor to the residents of the settlement.

  The majority of the fields in Nanny Town were used for growing food: from yams to cassava; to grains and fruits. The work on these fields was traditionally the responsibility of the women and was not all that difficult — as long as one was accustomed to the physical labor in the typical heat and high humidity of the area. The proud Ashanti men did not understand why they should help in the sugar cane harvest. They left the women to do it alone, and they in turn pushed it on the younger girls. Now, however, they forced Nora to swing the machete.

  “Well, come on, slave!” the girl laughed and hit Nora with whips made of palm fronds.

  They left no welts, but it still hurt and was humiliating. Especially since Nora worked hard. In the beginning, she clung to the hope that if they saw her working hard, she might be able to impress the women with her tireless efforts. However, Nora soon realized that she wasn’t up to the self-imposed task. The hot sun that burned down on her gave her headaches and the heat made her dizzy. Going riding, or for a walk, or caring for the sick in the Jamaican climate was not the same as hacking away at an unruly, hard grass that was as tall as a man.

  Nora was drenched in sweat within a few minutes, her dress clung to her body, an
d she got tangled in her skirts again and again — although they also protected her several times from the machete hitting her own leg instead of the sugar cane. She had never believed that the slaves intentionally sustained the injuries that she had so often treated at Cascarilla Gardens, but she also hadn’t been aware of how quickly the machete swung off target. Eventually, she considered it almost lucky that the girls had equipped her with such a dull knife. It made the work arduous, but also reduced the risk of getting hurt.

  Nora fought to maintain her dignity and at some points, her consciousness, as the sun rose and the girls berated and taunted her, giggling. Her hands were blistered, her feet were sore again, and her genitals ached after the last night with Akwasi. This did not improve as she’d hoped. All of her attempts to touch herself and perhaps get a bit aroused before he climbed on top of her were doomed to failure. At the moment when Akwasi came to her, she tensed up in fear and anticipation of the pain. She would have been able to ease the pain with an ointment, but had no time to produce such a thing, nor did she have the freedom to gather the ingredients. There was in fact a herb garden in Nanny Town, but it almost solely contained plants that Nora didn’t know. The understanding of them must have come from Africa and not from Europe to Jamaica.

  Eventually, she gathered all of her courage and asked the other women about a baarm madda — but that only brought on new suspicions.

  “What’s this about, white woman, are you pregnant? You maybe don’t want a child? But that won’t help you, it also didn’t help me!”

  Julie, an older married woman who spoke very good English, glared at Nora, full of rage. Nora wondered why. She hadn’t done anything to provoke the woman, but Julie seemed to want to tell her.

  “My backra dragged me onto his bed, and I wanted to get rid of it,” she said. “But the missis wanted slave children. She caught me and had me whipped. And then they kept me chained up until the child was born. Unfortunately, it was pale, almost white, and it was immediately clear who had put it in me. And so she took it away … I never heard about it again.”