Master of My Fate

by Sienna Brown

  And this morning I come to understand, now is the time for new stories. Stories no longer filled up with the lonely yearnings of a lost boy, but stories bout the power that faith and belief in you own kind can bring. Stories where new beginnings lay in wait. All I have to do is pick up the gun I been hiding, keeping back for meself, open the door, step outside into this new day.

  Last night, slaves set fire to the trash house on Kensington Estate. Is a rich plantation that sit at top of a high hill looking down on Montego Bay. It burn fast, go up in smoke billowing out over the town for all to see. Sam Sharpe choose Kensington Estate because when the fire get lit, it going turn into a signal. A signal that slaves can see for many miles round. A signal that mean, the time has come. Time to rise, to stand up to backra.

  All of a sudden, more flames start to light up the sky. Was supposed to be just the one, but two light up, then three, four, five, six, ten. Moving cross the parish of Saint James. Then more and more flames start to rise up all over Saint Elizabeth. No choice now, no turning back. Not that we going change our minds. We been waiting for this glorious day all our life. Finally, it come. And from plantation to plantation, drums start to beat, carrying messages that the time is now. Time to make war on the master.

  I head up through the grove of slave huts towards the path that lead to the Ginger Hill Great House. Gather up bout eight to ten slaves I know willing to join me. Leave behind the slaves that quickly close them door and stay inside. Enter past the lower gates of the entrance to the Great House carriageway, start marching past trees lined up one after the other, just like the slaves marching behind me. Further up the carriageway, I see Busha Annand come striding down to meet us, looking angry, then looking plenty worried when him find himself surrounded by slaves with cutlasses at them waist. See that many of us not in work clothes, but in the blue and brown militia uniform.

  ‘What are you up to, William?’ him ask me. ‘Why are you and the other slaves not coming out to muster?’

  ‘Because I tell dem not to.’

  Busha Annand look round to see if him can find the head driver, but he not there. The night before I told him and the field slave them to not come out to be mustered, but to wait till I get there.

  I take a step towards him, hold up me gun so him know I mean business. Busha Annand take a step back. Him look round, I can see the fear in him eyes as I start to edge closer. Just then the head driver come up and Busha Annand shout out, ‘Tell the slaves they can have the day off, as long as they turn out for muster and be counted.’

  The head driver look at me and I shake me head.

  ‘If you want slaves to muster, you must agree to pay each and every one of us. If you don’t pay, slave going sit down by the canefield dem until all the green and yellow plants turn rotten.’

  Busha Annand look at me, mouth hanging slack. Him don’t know what to say. Is the last thing him expect. Finally him back away, turn on him heel, start to run up the path. The other slaves look at me to see what I going do. I head straight after him, catch him by him jacket, throw him to the ground.

  ‘Busha, you are my prisoner.’ I stand over him. ‘We slaves work hard enough, long enough, now is time for freedom. No more,’ I tell him. ‘No more you going use the lash, to beat us, to make us work. And there is nothing you can say or do going change this.’

  Busha Annand eyes get wide like him looking at a madman. Him brain can’t understand how him suddenly end up on the bottom, me on the top. Is a good thing him not too cruel, otherwise I think I would lose control, blow him head off.

  I tell a rebel to lock him up in one of the slave huts, leave someone to keep watch, make sure him don’t escape. Then I turn to the rest of the rebels.

  ‘Mek haste. Take everything out the slave huts and carry dem away. Hide dem in the caves nearby and when you finish, we going clear out Massa house. Make sure it empty before we burn the place down.’

  Everybody follow orders and get plenty busy. Leave me to make me way up the path to the Great House, open the front gate, walk right up the steps of the verandah to the front door. Is a strange feeling, because I always enter through the back. Now me standing at the front door with a gun in me hand. Some of the other rebels try to follow me, but I tell them to go help empty the slave huts first, take a rest, wait outside. Them not happy, but what they going do? Sam Sharpe put me in charge, so them must obey me.

  I long ago decided I going be the first to cross the threshold, the first to enter the Great House. To smash the windows, to trample cross the polished floors in dirt-covered feet. Floors polished week after week, month after month, year after year by the hands and bent backs of our women. Is something I been brooding over, since Sam Sharpe told me to lead a group of rebels onto Ginger Hill plantation.

  ‘You know the lay of the land,’ him told me. ‘If we can take Ginger Hill, it opens the way towards taking the other plantations in the south. All the way down to Black River.’

  I bowed me head and said yes, I would be happy to lead. To take Ginger Hill and burn it down. It mean nothing to me anymore, it never really did, was not me home. It not even the Massa’s home, him don’t live there. And as the years built up, I started to despise the place with its white window shades, lime-washed walls, pretty gardens, kitchens full up with food. All made good by slave labour. The harder we worked, the more money Massa made and the prettier the place got. Made me detest it more and more. But standing at the front door, bout to open it, I get afraid. Is then I remember the questions Sam Sharpe asked me.

  ‘What gives one man the right to own so much? What gives this same man the right to withhold so much? And what gives any man the power over another? The right to say whether you or I can live in peace or die in agony?’

  He asked a truth I needed to hear.

  Opening the door, I step inside, quiet, like when Busha Annand used to call for me to come stand outside him office. The room is silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock. It don’t know no one but me is round to listen to it beat out the rhythm of time behind the big glass cover. The clock have gold hands moving, moving, step by step, like all the moments that added up to this one. I, standing inside the Great House, and Busha Annand, tied up in the slave hut. Him always eager to put a slave in the stocks or in the bilboes where them spend all night tied up, getting bitten by mosquitoes. And here’s me, inside backra’s home, backra’s kingdom, standing in the front parlour, not in the kitchens in the back.

  I start to tiptoe towards the clock, then stop meself. Still acting like a slave. I straighten up, walk over, open the clock cover, like I seen Busha Annand do when him wind it. The ticking get louder and louder like a pounding in me head. Before I know what me doing, I reach out, hold that gold ticker, feel it push, struggle against me hand as I stop it from moving. Stop it ticking forward. Maybe if I can stop the ticking, I can hold things up, slow things down. Step into a place between what me bout to do and what going happen next. And the price I know me going have to pay for doing it.

  The gold ticker start to cut into me hand. Me bout to let it go, when I remember Stella hanging from a rope and something inside me snap. I twist and twist, until that gold ticker get all bent and, with a final beat, stop ticking. Then the Great House is truly silent, only filled up with the sound of me breathing. Even the sounds of the rebels outside seem far away, like part of another world, another time. I close the glass, seal the moment.

  The rebels start calling out that Sam Sharpe getting closer. Him have one hundred and fifty rebels with him and we must be ready to make a move as soon as him come.

  I move quick cross the parlour into the dining room, discover a table laid out made ready for a meal. A scrubbed white linen cloth, set with china plates ringed in gold. Painted teacups, silver spoon and knife and fork them, gleaming beside crystal glasses waiting to be filled.

  I walk to the head of the table, pull out Busha Annand chair, sit down. It don’t feel that much different to any other chair. If anything, it need t
o be fixed. One of the legs feel mighty wobbly. I look down to the end of the table, imagine the other chairs filled with family, with friends. I pick up one of the glasses, drink deep from the imaginary wine, break the imaginary bread.

  The rebels call out again, so I push back the chair, pick up the carving knife off the table, put it in me belt. Is only then I realise where me really heading. To Busha bedroom. A room where things take place in the dead of night with slave women against them will. Where skin meet skin, where backra loins fill up with the power, the control him over the black flesh that lay naked, limp on the white sheet before him. The young slave girls laugh bout how much heaving and groaning backra do. The older women only bored by it. Them minds full up with more important things, like if them sick child going recover from the yaws, or if rain coming so there going be enough to eat. Whether they going make a good sale at the markets.

  Sometimes, when backra feel a little guilty, him pay the women with a bolt of cloth or with extra coins, but most times him just do him business, order them out the room.

  I look down on the bed and it take me back to Rock Pleasant. How Massa have him way with Stella, with Eliza. And before I know it, I hold up the carving knife, rake it cross the bedspread, cutting, ripping it to pieces. Dig deeper, cut through the mattress, plunder the inner workings, me rage growing with every rip, every tear, until the room get covered in bits of cloth and matting and the bed look like it been torched by a hurricane. But is not enough to cool the rage that been roaring inside me. I pick up anything I can get me hands on, throw them on the ground, smash them up. Open up the closet, rip the clothes to shreds. We supposed to collect all the things we think we can use when the fighting done. Sell them and use the money to help build back up the plantations we pull down. Plant the cane, cut it, take it to the mill. Reap the rewards backra been reaping. But not this time, not this room. This room going be left shattered. Just like me family.

  Finally, I walk out the bedroom, close the door softly behind me. Walk back cross the dining room floor, pick up a silver spoon from the table, hide it in me belt. Walk past the clock in the parlour till I reach the front door and open it. Look at the rebels waiting, eyes alert, ready for action. Then I beckon to them.

  ‘Come in,’ I say. ‘Come in, me friends. Take what you want and make this place you own.’

  On the first few days things go our way.

  We strike like lightning, travel from plantation to plantation, gathering up the slaves willing to fight for freedom. The slaves that still want to follow in Busha footsteps, we lock them up in slave huts, let them out after most of us gone. We take every stick of furniture, clothes, cutlery, pretty plate and glass them out of the Great Houses, then set fire to them houses. Watch as the smoke billow and the flames of the red-hot fire rise up to devour them. Turn the sun blood-red, to match the passion in our hearts.

  We of one mind, one will. Sam Sharpe will.

  But some of the slaves, they don’t wait for the signals. Don’t fall in line behind our leaders, Dove, Johnson and Gardiner, when they relay the messages as to what going happen next. A few of the rebels make them own plans. Don’t listen. For some is not bout fighting for freedom, for justice. For some is just bout payback. Use the fighting to take revenge on the ones that done them wrong. But revenge make them hot-headed, careless. Come out into the open when them should stay hidden. Be late when them should be early. And when it come down to it, them don’t stand and fight. Instead them run.

  And we drink the rum of victory, not knowing we betrayed by our own kind. The slaves that still think freedom going descend from the heavens, when backra heart get ploughed under with kindness. Them run to backra. Run like a dog when the massa whistle. Confess! Give all the details bout the plan. They live in a dream world, what fools. But so is we, because we think the ships in the dock bringing black sand to use in our guns and the king already sign the freedom papers. But the ship full of soldiers sent to fight us and the king, him gave no such freedom.

  For some of us, it make no difference. We going continue to hold steady, to fight. Listen for the signals coming down the line, even though the scent of death lingering round us and the cries of wounded brothers left behind still ringing in our ears.

  Word reach us that, all over town, notices going up. Hammered into trunks of tree or pasted to boards, in each and every town, in every parish where the slaves rising up. So a few nights ago, Sharpe gathered up those of us still fighting and read out to us what them notices say.

  To the Rebellious Slaves.

  NEGROES – YOU have taken up arms against your Masters, and have burnt and plundered their Houses and Buildings. Some wicked persons have told you that the King has made you free, and that your Masters withhold your freedom from you. In the name of the King, I come among you to tell you that you are misled. I bring with me numerous Forces to punish the guilty, and all who are found with the Rebels will be put to death, without mercy. You cannot resist the King’s Troops. Surrender yourselves, and beg that your crime may be pardoned. All who yield themselves up to any military post immediately, provided they are not principals and chiefs in the burnings that have been committed, will receive His Majesty’s gracious pardon. All who hold out will meet with certain death.

  WILLOUGHBY COTTON, Maj. General Command.

  Afterwards, we all silent as a grave. Some of the rebels push for us to surrender, others say no, we must fight on. We look to Sharpe to see what him going say. We are not disappointed. Just like in church, him preach a sermon that pick us up and keep us fighting.

  ‘When did backra ever tell the truth, unless he’s going to benefit? When did backra ever withhold the lash, when he had a chance to use it? If we turn ourselves in now, what will we gain? It is too late, my brothers, my sisters, we have already done the deed. I know if they catch me, I will hang. And those of you that they think is a ringleader, you will also hang. Make no mistake, I would rather die on yonder gallows than live in slavery. I am happy to go this way, knowing that our work is done. Go to my death wrapped in a future that will declare we did the right thing. The sacrifice well worth it. Our actions are just one more step on the road to freedom. A road we have pried open with our hands, our struggle, our blood, our lives. A road made a little wider like all those who rebelled before us have done.’

  Many of us take what him say to heart and carry on. Fighting day after day, week after week until we all weary to the bone. Others believe the king lie, give themselves up, only to discover that backra once again is not to be trusted. They get thrown in gaol, marched off to court, sentenced to death and hanged, or paraded round the streets and lashed fifty times in each town square. So many hangings that the bodies pile up, just left on the ground, turn rotten, causing a stink.

  After a while I come to know is only bout a hundred of us still fighting, but till Sam Sharpe say stop, nothing going stop. We going strike like a wind that blow, stop and blow again, till everything standing in its path get cleared away. What we going do? Give up? Return to the plantation, to the yoke of slavery? Even when me bone tired, want to rest, I owe it to the brothers and sisters, men, women and pickney me leading. They all brave souls who would rather feel them chests pierced with a bullet than them backs bleeding from the cut of the lash.

  Yesterday, we backtracked through the hills and gullies until we came to this pass in the woods. Hid in the rocks, behind bushes, some alongside the ravine, the only way forward, to play a waiting game. Wound the soldiers and militia men, one by one, as they try to pass. We all know this will be the last stand. Nowhere else to go, except hide in the hills, keep on running. But run to where? Even if we make it to Maroon town, way up in the hills, the Maroons going tie us up, drag us back, turn us in, collect them reward.

  Tonight, a thin slice of a moon hang in the air. Lucky for us she rise late, give off only a little bit of light. I sit at the first lookout near the mouth of the ravine keeping watch, knowing each and every one of the slaves hiding behind me. Some work with m
e on the plantation. Been to prayer meetings with most of them. We listened and learnt the plans Sam Sharpe made and we all come together to make them happen.

  And now, we wait. Wait for the soldiers as they march closer and closer to us like the calm before the start of a hurricane. Wait in the darkness, like shadows. Still. Silent. A stillness and silence like you find only in the dead of night. A listening silence, ready to act. Our ears and noses like eyes as we sniff the wind, to smell the English soldiers trudging up the hill. Soldiers backra bring from the Mother Country to track us down. They have plenty guns and rockets, but them and the militia don’t know the land like we do. Don’t find out its secrets like how we had to, when the first of us got dragged in chains to the island. Every slave that ran away stored up the memory of the hidden, winding paths them came cross. Kept the memory alive. Passed it down to generation after generation of slaves, until it become the only home we know.

  Something bout the darkness of this night making me nervous. Many a time I used to walk through darkness, to be back at the plantation in time for early morning muster, specially after attending a church service with Daddy Sharpe. I liked the feel of it, the cool breeze against me skin as it soothed me weary body. Helped me to rest, blend into the shadows, become invisible like I used to when I was a pickney. Gave me a feeling of what freedom must be like. But tonight, this darkness have a weight to it, as if all of nature brooding, waiting for the ambush of gunshot, to rip through its earthen bowels.

  Feeling restless, I move further along, check if I can see, hear anything. As I creep through the woods me insides start to churn and a big fear rise up about the future. What going happen when the fighting finish? What going happen to me?