Master of My Fate

by Sienna Brown

  Will I be captured? Wounded? Dead? Better dead, I think.

  I try not to dwell on thoughts of death, the words of backra buzzing in me head, and replace them with the last words I heard from our leader, me friend, and let them flow into me heart to stoke up whatever little courage I have left.

  ‘How did it come to be so, that a few men could have dominion over so many men and all because of skin colour? Colour! The sparkling blue of a sky after the early morning rain. The yellow of the canefields rippling in the breeze. The emerald green feathers of the honey feeder. The orange of a sunset and the pink of a sunrise. The musky brown of the ripe, rich earth that sustains us. The glow of copper on the faces of our women as they cook over the fire.’ Then him lower him voice and say, ‘Then there is the colour of death. Black deaths. Brown deaths. When backra cut beneath the skin, can they not see that we are all the same? We all bleed the same colour red. Cry the same colourless tears.’

  Life was simpler without the powerful words of Sam Sharpe. A childish life of bowing and scraping. A ‘yes, Massa, no, Massa’ life, filled up with backra rules and backra punishments. A half-life I can no longer endure. Is why I come to be looking into the darkness in the hope of seeing the enemy before they see me. I don’t have Sam Sharpe strength of will, but I finally come to understand that, at last, me life has served some useful purpose.

  From further down the pass, a crow caw in the distance. A well-used signal. The soldiers and militia is closing in.

  Captured

  Black River, the big port town. The town where Sammy working. I been locked up behind bars in the workhouse gaol, but him never even try to come and visit. Black River have a big court, just like up in Montego Bay, and the court trials been going on for weeks. Slaves herded in, sentenced, herded out. Most to them death. Now is my turn. I been sitting in the courtroom since early morning. I know what to expect since I already been in a courtroom, all those years ago. Should be different, but isn’t, and in the end I come to understand is going be all the same. The legal man start off by telling the court why I is there, what I done. Use plenty big words to describe a simple action – I pick up arms to fight for freedom.

  ‘William Buchanan, you have been brought to this bar and tried for rebellion, rebellious conspiracy and arson.’

  Yes, that’s right. I want to be a free man. They make it sound like is an evil thing. Is just like backra to put on blinders, the way we put them on a horse so they can only see in one way and one way only. I know if they was in chains, they going fight for freedom too.

  As I stand in the dock, look at the judge and all the jurors sitting on the bench, I already know how this trial going end, but I hope at least them who sit in judgement going hear me story. Maybe come to understand why I did the things I did. But looking at the fat, well-fed faces, most of them planters, one a doctor, another one a lawyer, some with Esquire after them name, I know they going learn nothing, hear nothing, and they think that as sure as the sun going rise, they always on the side of right.

  First witness that gets called is Busha Annand. When him enter, him look me up and down as if to say, now who is sitting in the dirt. Him swear on the good book that him telling the truth, but is a sideways truth. Make it sound like him was a brave and fierce warrior, don’t tell the court how him cower, shiver in him nightshirt.

  ‘On Wednesday night,’ Annand start up, but the prosecutor stop him.

  ‘May it please the court, for clarity’s sake, the Wednesday night Mister Annand is referring to was the twenty-seventh day of December, 1831. Is this correct, Mister Annand?’

  Annand nod and continue.

  ‘I saw several Negro men, from eight to ten in number, coming up the carriageway towards the Great House. I asked them what they wanted and then Buchanan stepped forward.’

  ‘Is that the prisoner in the dock? Is that the mulatto slave William Buchanan?’

  ‘Yes,’ Annand say, looking at me. ‘That is he.

  ‘Then William begged for slaves to have the day off. I said yes, as long as all the Negroes first turned out for muster, so I might see they were all present. Buchanan then seized me by my arm and said, “Busha, you are now my prisoner.” The other Negroes immediately surrounded me and I saw that most of them had cutlasses hidden beneath their shirts.’ Annand pause, wipe him brow where the sweat start to form. ‘Naturally I stood my ground and asked Buchanan what he wanted. He mumbled some nonsense about how they had worked long enough and were now free and how I knew very well the king had made them free and they were now determined to fight for it. I attempted to reason with him, telling him that the king would do no such thing.’

  The judge ask, ‘What happened then, Mister Annand?’ And I notice how everybody in the court sit forward, waiting to hear what happen next.

  ‘He demanded I hand over any arms and ammunition I had in my possession. I of course refused. Buchanan then told one of the Negroes to guard me and he went into the Great House in search of gunpowder.’

  ‘Did the prisoner harm you in any way?’

  ‘No, but I believe he meant to murder me if he found no arms.’

  ‘Objection,’ the defence shout out. ‘You were left unharmed, were you not?’

  ‘Yes,’ Annand say.

  After that, the legal man call other slaves come be a witness against me. Slaves that don’t take part in the rebellion, don’t do nothing, don’t risk them lives. Let backra use them against them own kind. The last slave that get called is Francis Williams, a Negro slave belong to YS estate, one of the estates close to Ginger Hill. I know Francis. Surprised to see him in court, but when you a slave, you take the side of the hand that going feed you.

  ‘Me was there when William set fire to the estate. First him throw rum on the roof of the Great House and then throw on fire coals. Get the other slaves to fan the flames. Make the house start to burn up quick.’

  ‘Was there anyone else there, anyone else in charge?’ the prosecutor ask, and I come to understand this is the information they really want. I is just bait.

  ‘After that me see Sam Sharpe come riding up the path on a white horse, followed by plenty rebels. And when him arrive at the burning him make the horse wheel and turn, fire off him gun in the air.’

  ‘Anything else?’ the prosecutor ask.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Francis say. ‘Sam Sharpe jump off him horse, go up to William, shake hands. Hold dem up in the air. Tell the rebels to fire off dem guns in celebration, blow on the conch shells. After that him gather everybody round him, kneel down to pray. Me was too far away to hear, but me can see by dem faces him speaking words of wisdom. Then him get back on him horse. As him ride away him call out to dem to remember that they all warriors for freedom.’

  I look at Francis as they lead him out of the courtroom, see a man that could be me. Is then I come to truly know what Sam Sharpe done for me. How him turn me mind, so I no longer think I is nothing, nothing but chattel, nothing but a slave. And a strange peace settles in me heart. And the fear drop away, and I just sit quiet gathering strength for what I have to face.

  So many of us dead. Broken, hanged, given the lash. The slaves that gave up find out how stupid them was. They believed backra when him said if slaves returned peaceful like and went back to work, them going ‘receive His Majesty’s gracious pardon’. As soon as them slaves walked out of the hills, some owners so angry, them shot them on sight. Others got put in chains, put on trial, condemned to death. Hanged in twos and threes outside the courthouse.

  The militia even rode up and down hillsides burning the Baptist churches they believed lead us astray. Convinced ‘the church was the whirlpool from which the Rebellion frothed up, to decimate the land’. And backra showed no mercy. A gang of them set upon a group of slaves, tore them apart limb from limb, till the whiteness of them skin no longer white but red, from the covering of blood. Is like the hatred of our black skins, all the fear they been storing up season after season, burst out, turn into avenging acts. And I know backra
pouring retribution down on us because we dared to believe we is equal, have the right to freedom.

  After a while I stop listening. All the witnesses they call say the same thing: me guilty. And don’t take long before the judge read out him sentence.

  ‘After a very deliberate and impartial hearing, the jury has found you guilty of the offences with which you stand charged. It is now my painful duty to pass on you the awful sentence of the law, which is that you be taken from hence to the gaol of this parish and from thence to the place of execution, to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, at such time and place as His Excellency the Governor shall think proper to appoint. May the Lord have mercy upon your soul.’

  The hammer come down with a bang. It sound like gunfire.

  After the courthouse, they take me straight back to the workhouse gaol. Many other slaves housed there, waiting for the sentence of death to be carried out. Too many of us. There is no space to lay down, must stand, sit, our backs against the wall, even when we sleep. One by one, the other slaves disappear. Many of them get hanged just outside, in the back of the courthouse yard. Backra let the bodies pile up, leave them rotting in the hot sun. We, the slaves what left in the cell, can hear the victory wail of death, smell the stench of it as it come sneaking through the bars of the window, to hover over us. Make us know we is next. Is like hell come down to earth. And in this hell I sit, day after day. Night after night, praying for fate to make it me turn. Begging death to release me gently to the Ancestors.

  Part Three

  Jamaica to the Colony of New South Wales, 1835

  New Worlds

  All I want to do is howl. Howl long, hard into the night. Scream into the hard stone floor, where I lay me head down. Scratch at the stone walls, make me fingers bleed. Smash at the wall again and again with me fists, till the pain of it knock me out into a deathlike sleep.

  I never do. Instead, long before the cock crow, I wake in darkness trembling with anger, with shame, with a bitter grief that gnaws, growling at me from the pit inside the shadow.

  Three years gone since backra pass sentence on me. A lifetime since Sam Sharpe gave himself up. Hanged by the neck till dead. Tossed in the sands of Montego Bay Harbour. Buried like a criminal in a watery grave unknown. Even in death, him still owned. Him massa got paid sixteen pounds sterling from the Mother Country as recompense. My Sammy, who done nothing but bow and scrape, come running like a dog when Massa call him, got sold for much, much more.

  And in them long hard nights, when I think back over everything that happened, how much I lose, how much I gain, me heart start to rattle in me chest. Cause the breathing sickness to come back with a vengeance till I collapse on the dirt floor, panting, unable to move, and the guards just leave me to lay there sick and alone, till I come good again.

  Father, mother, brother gone. Last I heard, old Calla finally gone too. Gave Mistress Josephine what she wanted, another little Rose. Gained her freedom. Live a long life, old Calla, come visit me one time, in a dream. Come visit, hug me up, then I know for sure she gone from this earthly plane for good.

  The thin line between Sammy and me finally break for good too. Him want nothing to do with one of Sam Sharpe rebels. Is only Eliza left to comfort me. Now a big woman. Turn fierce, full of fire, but still have kindness running in her veins. And once more, I find meself sitting behind the wait-a-bit fence, a shroud of despair wrapped tight round me shoulders.

  Why freedom come for others, but not for me? How come fate not yet take me life, send me back to the Ancestors? Questions, plenty questions, that have no answers. No answers, except just like on the plantation, is only routine, routine, routine.

  All day and every day, I get sent to the quarry, spend it breaking rock. Lift the hammer, strike. Lift the hammer, strike again. Turn rock to rubble, strike again. If not the quarry, I end up stepping on the treadmill. Up down, up down, the wheel turning, rumbling, creaking all day long. Bare feet, marching on the spot. Hands holding tight to the pole, so I don’t drop off. Praying when it jam me legs don’t get mash up in the rolling stair them. And all the while, me body sweat till it dripping wet. Sweat and more sweat, with no shade from the hot afternoon sun. I lose so much water when the guards say, ‘Stop the mill – break and rest,’ I tumble off into the barren yard behind the workhouse, vomit up what little food they give us. It so dry and dusty the ground suck up the watery mess like it starving.

  If I knew what going happen next, me heart would be sore with longing to return to even them threadbare days.

  Early one morning, the warden send down orders for a watchman to bang on the cell door. Open it, drag me off along the stone-laid path, pass the wash house, the supply hut, the little garden that can’t seem to grow nothing, only weeds. Push me into the warden’s office, leave me to stand to attention in front of him big desk full up with papers, wide windows on each side. The sunlight round him shining like a halo, like the power of sunlight is him power and is why him put him desk there.

  The warden a stout man with a big nose. Have not much hair on top. Him use lackeys under him to do him dirty work. Keep us in line. Beat us if we not grovelling enough. Hold up food rations when they want to control us, keep us quiet.

  ‘This is your lucky day, boy,’ the warden say, looking at me sideways like Massa used to do.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ waiting to see what game him going play, the kind or cruel one.

  ‘Instead of the rope.’ Him mouth a thin smile. ‘Left to hang rotting in the town square.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ Hope in me voice that backra finally going release me.

  Most of the other prisoners, long time gone from the workhouse. Some been executed, some already sent back to the massa they belong to, after getting plenty lashes. I would be happy to get some of them lashes, if the warden going release me from the hell I been living in.

  ‘You are to be transported,’ him say, shuffling him papers.

  ‘Transported?’ I say, wiping the sleep from me eyes.

  ‘Something wrong with your ears, boy? Yes, transported,’ him smile getting wider. ‘Sent away.’

  ‘Leave Jamaica?’

  The warden scowl at me, keep shuffling him papers. ‘Ever since you took up arms against your master, you lost the right to have a place on this island. A place where you were tended and cared for. A home, where you belonged. Now you belong nowhere. Belong to no one. Isn’t that what you Negroes wanted? Freedom to choose, to come and go as you please?’

  Why the warden telling me this? Haven’t I already done me time?

  Transportation is what happen to slaves when they talk back too many times, refuse to work, run away, get caught. Get branded on them cheeks, sent to one of the other islands. If backra not able to break them, they sent cross the seas to one of the big cotton farms up north, where backra work them till they dead.

  ‘Leave? And go where, sir?’ I praying is not to one of them cotton farms.

  ‘You are to be put on the next packet ship heading north. One sails in two weeks time. Then you will be transferred to another ship and transported to our newest colony. The colony of New South Wales,’ him say with pride. Then he push back him chair, straighten him jacket, the sunlight reflecting off him shiny buttons, and say, ‘May God rest your soul. If the sea monsters don’t get you, then the natives will,’ before him stamp the papers in front of him with a big bang.

  It make no sense. I already serve time in the workhouse breaking rock. Spend three years wondering when the soldiers going come marching down the stone path. Drag me out the workhouse to the back of the courthouse, where backra do the hanging. In that moment, the words of my beloved leader Sam Sharpe come back to me.

  ‘Knowledge is power. It gives you choices. Choices about what to do, how to do it. Without the power of knowledge, you are just grovelling around in the dirt.’

  So I bow me head, buck up me courage and ask the warden.

  ‘Why, sir? Why me must do this transportation business?’

  The warde
n look at me like I am a fool.

  ‘It is not my place to question the wishes of the governor. I don’t make the rules. I just follow them. If I had my way, I would have had you executed.’

  Just like the way backra killed all the leaders in the rebellion and many, many other slaves.

  ‘Over four hundred,’ the watchman tell me when him dragging me back to the cells.

  Maybe it would be better if backra killed me. Shot me dead. Left me by the side of the road for me body to bloat, turn rotten. For the johncrows to come pick at me, have a good feed. Forgotten by all except family. Must be the strength of the Ancestors, of Stella, of Calla, of James protecting me. And for this, I always going be grateful. Except is I that have to live with them orders. Orders to leave the island, leave everything I know and love behind. Suffer whatever backra sending down the line.

  If only Sam Sharpe had been alive when whispers started to spread cross the island again. Whispers and rumours that the king going grant slaves them freedom, for true now. Was Eliza told me, when she finally got permission to come visit me in the workhouse, after I been locked up bout a year. Bring extra food to help keep me strength up.

  We hugged each other up and I gobbled up the food she bring me, and after, I asked her for news, longing to hear bout life outside me cell walls.

  ‘Big news, little Will. Big news,’ she said, a wide smile cross her face. ‘It soon going be law that backra must free each and every one of him slaves.’

  ‘So the rumour them is true?’ looking at her straight, waiting to see what lies hiding behind it.

  ‘Yes, little Will. Freedom.’

  ‘Real freedom? I don’t believe it. Even if the king make it law,

  I know backra not going follow through.’

  ‘We still going have to work for Busha. Get called apprentice, no longer slave.’