Freedom's Pen

by Wendy Lawton

  For a brief moment, Janxa looked at some of the faces of the captives, but what she saw there reminded her—don’t look. One woman reached down to scoop up dirt and hold it close to her chest. The action brought the whip down on her back, but several others did the same. She could hear murmurs in many tribal tongues, but she could pick out the word home and the word Africa in her own Wolof. They were gathering what they thought might be the last bit of homeland.

  The tear of sorrow falls from every eye

  Groans answer groans and sighs to sighs …

  She mouthed the words in her soft Wolof tongue before she stopped herself. No one should make a song of this moment.

  She knew that she’d never forget the soft sound of shuffling feet on dirt and the clank of rusty chains being pulled through shackle loops. Her father and the men chained with him climbed into a crowded boat to be rowed to the island. Father watched her, and she never took her eyes off him. She saw him get out of the boat when they landed on the island and disappear into a large hut made of stone.

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She had never been without family before.

  But all that had happened more than a moon ago. Now as she sat on this large canoe—this canoe they called a ship-wedged between the wooden crates, she wondered if she had somehow known then. Did she have a sense that she ‘d not see her father again?

  She had been taken to a building with women and children —all mourning their families and their villages.

  “I never thought I’d be captured as a slave,” said one Mandinka woman.

  “Are we all slaves?” Janxa asked.

  “Yes, child. Every last one of us.”

  Sometimes she saw groups of slaves being moved from one place to another on the island. She always searched for a glimpse of her father but never saw him.

  She didn’t want to remember most of what happened, like the pain of having a hot iron brand the flesh on her back. The burn hurt for days. She looked at the design burned onto the backs of her fellow slaves. Each bore the same marks. One woman said it was the name of their owner.

  Janxa hated the brand. It was another sign that she could never go home again. But she kept thinking about what the woman said. Those marks represented a name. She didn’t know you could make marks that could represent a name. She never wanted to brand anyone—ever—but she knew she wanted to know the mark that represented her name.

  After several days she was taken with a small group of women and children, put in a rowboat, and rowed out to a ship they called a schooner in tubaab language. She hoped her father would follow.

  “Janxa, are you there?” She heard the whisper of her friend, Obour, and it brought her back to the present. The rocking motion of the boat and her ever-present nausea reminded her if nothing else.

  “Shhh. Yes. Come sit with me.”

  Janxa had met Obour on the island. They’d sat next to each other as they waited. They didn’t know what they waited for, but they knew that they were all waiting. The women and children were crowded into a small, hot, filthy-smelling building. Insects buzzed around them. Once a day two men came with an iron kettle of porridge. They offered no gourds. The people just put out their hands, and the men plopped the food into them. Janxa didn’t want to remember those days of waiting either.

  But now they waited no longer—they were both on this ship, leaving their homeland far behind. Obour squeezed in between the crates next to Janxa. The ship rocked on the waves. It moved up, seemed to pause, and then sank down. Several of the slaves down below were sick. It seemed that the more the ship heaved on the water, the sicker people became. It didn’t help that the grain they were given to eat was usually boiled down to a sickly paste. The food was worse than the porridge they’d been served on the island. The tubaab who did the cooking didn’t even bother to remove the weevils and worms before they cooked it.

  Janxa and Obour stayed up on what the tubaab called “deck” as much as they could. They had learned that no one paid much attention to children on the boat. The tubaab worried most about the men—they seemed to fear them.

  “They are bringing out the slaves to dance,” Obour said, pulling on her ear. Janxa had noticed that Obour pulled on her ear whenever she worried. “Are you still hoping to see your father?”

  “No,” Janxa said, wrapping her arms tightly around her body. “If he were on the ship I would have seen him by now. We’ve watched the fathers brought up from the belly of the ship. We’ve seen all of them many times but never my father.”

  At first, Janxa did not understand why these tubaab did any of the things they did. Why were all the men chained to long wooden pallets deep in the belly of the ship, stacked one shelf of men on top of the other? There was not even enough room for the fathers to sit—they could only lie on their wooden pallets, day after day. The women and children were not chained. They were crammed into another space, but during the day some of them were allowed up on deck.

  The smells deep inside the ship were so awful that they were another reason Janxa spent every moment she could up in the fresh air of the deck. That meant that she was often slapped or kicked or sent down into the hold, but if she stayed out of the way, they often didn’t notice her.

  “Do you think my father could have escaped and gone back to our village?” Janxa had never voiced the hope out loud.

  Obour thought for a long time. In the time Janxa had come to know Obour, she learned that her friend never spoke without giving a matter careful thought. “Before we were taken captive I heard that none had ever escaped from the tubaab to come back to tell why the tubaab were taking captives.”

  “I heard the same,” Janxa said.

  “Do you think he could do what no others have yet done?”

  Janxa thought about her father. “Maybe.”

  “But you’ve told me many stories about your father. How he fought for you, even when it cost him great pain.” Obour measured her words. “I do not believe your father would have escaped and left you in the fort at James Island.”

  Janxa hated to hear her friend’s reasoning, but she heard the truth in them. “You are right, Obour. My father would not have escaped unless he could have taken me with him.”

  “We know we are sailing to a place called … how do they say it? America? Boston?” Obour said the words, trying to mimic what they’d heard in the tubaab tongue. “We know there are many ships carrying slaves.”

  “Yes. We’ve heard the tubaab who speaks Wolof say it to some of the mothers.”

  Janxa did not want to think about the mothers and what they endured on the ship. She repeated her chant—don’t think, don’t look, don’t feel. She had put her head between her knees yesterday when one of the tubaab sailors had grabbed a sick baby right out of his mother’s arms and thrown the tiny boy into the sea. While the mother rocked and keened throughout the night, Janxa put her fingers in her ears and made a praise song to the tiny baby. As night wore on and sleep wouldn’t come, Janxa kept forgetting what the baby had looked like and kept remembering Caaman instead.

  “I think your father may be on another ship to America.”

  Janxa hadn’t considered that. What if they were to find each other? Would they ever be together again? She didn’t want to say it out loud to her friend because Obour’s mother had died on the island. It didn’t seem fair that Janxa could have the hope of seeing a father again when Obour had no hope at all. At least Maamanding, Baaku, and Caaman were safe in their village.

  She heard the clank of chains and knew the dancing ritual would begin. She hated watching the humiliation of the fathers, so she turned to Obour. “Do you see these marks here?” She pointed to markings on the wooden crates. “I think they are marks that represent sounds or words.”

  “I don’t understand,” Obour said. But she was distracted as she stared at the thin men stumbling out of the hold. “Why don’t they unchain them? Why don’t they give them clothing?”

  “Don’t look,” Janxa s
aid.

  Some of the tubaab began throwing water on the men and scrubbing them with long-handled brushes.

  Though Janxa tried not to look, she knew that the men were chained night and day to their platform except for when they were marched above deck for what the tubaab called exercise. It was no way for humans to live. Chained to a ship, a man could not go into the bush to take care of bodily functions. He could not bathe or keep clean here. The belly of the ship reeked with filth and vomit.

  Each day the tubaab would make the men come up on deck and dance to soulless music played on a tubaab instrument. The men didn’t dance like they danced in their villages —there was no joy, just a shuffling movement. The mothers said the tubaab only did this so the men wouldn’t die before the ship arrived in Boston. If they didn’t move to the tubaab’s liking, the whip slashed through the air and onto their backs until they danced with vigor.

  While the men danced, some of the younger tubaab tied cloths around their faces and went down into the ship’s belly with hot water and something they called vinegar and scrubbed at the filth. It didn’t seem to make a difference—the misery and the smell just got worse with each day.

  Janxa could only keep herself going if she didn’t think too much about it. Instead she watched the tubaab. One of them made marks on a thin white skin. She heard him call it a paper. He made the marks with the feather of a bird and some kind of dye. She kept watching the marks and listening to the scratch of the quill. She watched hard and tried to copy the marks in her mind. Once in a while she noticed that he made the same marks as those on the box next to her. She put her finger on her piece of carpet and pretended it was a quill. As he made the marks, she mimicked them. Over and over. She began to see patterns in the marks. That’s when she began to suspect that the marks had some purpose.

  Once, she saw him go from slave to slave—looking at the person and then making a mark on his paper for each one. She heard him call it writing. That’s when she began to understand that those marks represented words spoken or names of people. She fingered the brand burned into her shoulder. The marks on that paper were like her brand. She didn’t think anyone from her village knew writing. Did the griot? No, he had to remember all the stories of their people so he could speak them.

  What if she could learn writing? If she couldn’t be a griot and have her songs sung, could her words be marked in this writing and remembered forever?

  “Come, Janxa.” Obour’s voice snapped her out of her daydream. “Quickly, down into our place below.”

  Janxa followed, not knowing why. The smell of filth and vinegar made her stomach lurch. The ship had begun to roll even more violently. “What’s wrong?”

  “So many have become sick. They are bringing men up from the lowest part of the ship’s belly and—You don’t want to know, do you?”

  “No,” Janxa said. Obour was right. She did not want to know, but she wasn’t able to stay as blind as she pretended. She knew the tubaab would be throwing the sickest slaves overboard to keep the rest from sickening. Obour didn’t want her to have to watch.

  Janxa left Obour with the other women and squeezed into a far corner, pulling her carpet close to her. She took a small piece of burnt wood she’d found up on deck and scratched one group of marks she had seen on the box—PHILLIS.

  Nothing but Chattel

  I … can’t … breathe.” Janxa gasped the words out. It felt like a great weight on her chest—as though someone squeezed the very breath out of her. She had been down below in their tiny space, and the air seemed to get hotter and heavier as the day wore on.

  Obour rushed to get Faja, one of the Wolof mothers. “Should we take her up on deck to get some fresh air?” Obour asked.

  “No,” said Faja. “If the tubaab believe she is sick they may throw her overboard.” The mother began pushing everyone away. “Squeeze back as tightly as you can to give the girl room to breathe.”

  Janxa panicked. She couldn’t find her next breath.

  “Relax, child,” Faja said. “Think of something back in your village to make your body relax enough to let the air in.”

  Janxa thought hard about Maamanding grinding millet. She tried to remember the sound the grinding made. When the panic of not getting any air started to overtake her again, she mouthed the song her mother sang as she worked her pestle. Little by little she felt the tight grip ease, and she could pull a little air into her lungs.

  “Hush, everyone,” Faja said. “Hush.” She began to hum a song Maamanding used to hum to the babies.

  Janxa pulled some air in through her nose instead of gasping for air through her mouth. The panic eased a little.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Janxa began to take notice of those around her. All the women and children had pushed as far back against the wall as they could to give her air. She still didn’t have enough breath to talk, but she longed to thank them. She knew it was hot and fetid there in the cramped hold. It must have been unbearable to sit and stand pressed tightly against each other. One of the older women knelt, praying. At first Janxa thought she was praying to Allah, but she kept saying the name Yeesu. Janxa wondered who Yeesu was—she’d never heard of a god by that name.

  “Are you better, Janxa?” Obour kneeled next to her and held her hand.

  Janxa nodded. The other women and children eased forward a little. The rocking of the boat and the soft hum of Faja’s song eased the rest of the tightness.

  Pretty soon the women and children settled themselves back around Janxa. She pulled her tattered piece of carpet toward the wall and lay down on it. She felt tired but safe.

  The days continued one like the other. Their sleeping space grew less crowded as the ship continued across the water. Janxa did not like to think about why. She missed many of the faces that had become familiar. There had been too many losses.

  “Obour, do you dream about your village?” she asked as they sat above deck, between the crates. She often dreamed about her father, mother, and brothers. She even dreamed about the griot. When she woke to the rocking of the ship and the cries of the other slaves, she missed her family and her village all the more.

  “Almost every night. I sometimes even smell the smells of Africa.”

  “Is your dream more real than this?”

  Her friend stayed silent while she thought, but Janxa had become used to that. Finally Obour said, “I think it is. The music is more real, the colors are brighter, the people are more alive.” She paused. “I think it is.”

  “What if this were just a nightmare and our dreams are real?”

  “I couldn’t dream things this evil. I didn’t know about tubaab and I could never have imagined the cruelty.” Obour pulled on her ear. “No one in my village did the things we’ve witnessed.”

  Janxa pressed her hand against her mouth. She’d been worried about her teeth. The two front ones had become loose. As she tested them with her finger and felt them wobble, one came out in her hand. “Oh no!”

  “What?” Obour said.

  “My tooth just fell out.” Janxa almost never cried, but she couldn’t help herself. Was she going to lose one piece of herself at a time?

  “Don’t cry. Those are just your milk teeth. Everyone loses them.”

  “They do?”

  “Yes. I lost mine about two rains ago.”

  “But you have all your teeth.” Janxa had seen that slow smile enough to know.

  Obour laughed. “I have my adult teeth. I had to lose the baby ones in order to get these.”

  What would she do without Obour? “Will you stay with me wherever we go?”

  Obour didn’t answer for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was far from steady. “I still do not know what will happen to us. Faja understands some tubaab language. She said they talk about selling the cargo in Boston. She says we are the cargo.”

  “You and me?”

  “No, all us who are not tubaab. I think we will be sold as slaves when we get to Boston.”


  Slaves. Janxa had never heard of children who were slaves. “If we are sold I hope we will be sold to the same village.”

  Obour didn’t answer.

  More than two moons had passed on the sea voyage when Obour shook Janxa awake. “Come, look!”

  Janxa followed her friend up to the deck. The tubaab seemed distracted and excited. There, off in the distance, Janxa could see land. How she wished the land could have been Africa, but she knew it was the land they called America. They would be landing at the village of Boston.

  “Look at all the other ships,” Obour said. “I wonder if your father is on one of them.”

  Janxa looked hard. She never thought of that. Yes, there were all manner of floating canoes on the water—some much larger than the one she stood on. “Stay with me, Obour,” she said as she clutched her piece of carpet.

  From that moment on, nothing was the same. The tubaab ordered the slaves up on the deck and then back into the ship’s belly, scrubbing and whipping and fussing all the time. The women and children were scrubbed and shouted at as well.

  All the while, Janxa and Obour clung to each other.

  “Whatever you do, stay with me,” Obour said. “We don’t want to be separated.”

  Janxa held on to Obour with one hand, and the other clutched her piece of carpet. They tucked themselves between their crates to stay out of the chaos on deck. The tubaab chief shouted orders at all the other tubaab. Some were climbing the tall trunks that held the flapping cloths. Others tied and untied ropes, wound things up, and reeled things out. Everywhere shouts rang out and feet pounded from one end to the other. Soon the ship was turning, heading toward land.

  The girls stood now, hanging on to the rail. It was like nothing Janxa had ever seen. As they came closer to land she understood that Boston was nothing like an African village. They climbed down below where all the other women and children had gone.

  No one spoke. The ship had been like a nightmare to all of them, but Janxa could tell from the faces that it was at least familiar to them. Fear of the unknown etched all of their faces.