My Name is Henry Bibb

by Afua Cooper

  From that moment I had one dream: to cross the Ohio and head north. The corn shucking, that one bright spot in the blanket of regret and grief with which I was covered at the widow’s, gave me knowledge of a world of freedom beyond the slavery in which I languished.

  T

  On my last day at the widow’s she was in the drawing room, as it had grown too cool for the porch. She ordered me to bring her chair close to the fireplace; then, of course, she complained she was too hot, so I had to fan her. Her tall glass of lemonade sparkled on a side table. Suddenly, the widow jumped from her chair, mumbling about her food being stolen in the kitchen. She barged into me, knocked me down and stepped over my prostrate body. I could not get up as I felt dizzy, then drowsy, and soon fell asleep. I was awakened by shouting and something hitting my ribs. It was the widow’s foot. “Look what you did!” she was shrieking, and pointed to the lemonade. Black ants had covered the glass. I felt the thud, thud of her shoes in my back, belly and chest. I curled up, holding my hands over my face, so that her kicks would not blind me. My heart raged against Widow Beverly and I thought of all the ways I could get back at her, even burning down her house with her in it.

  But it was Elliot who saved me.

  “Widow Beverly, careful, ma’am.” Elliot lifted me from the floor and held me against his body. “Henry here is a hire. If he was your’n, you could do what you wished, but …” His voice trailed off.

  “Send him back to David White.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Before I left she had Maude bathe and oil me to disguise the marks from the blows she had inflicted. But it was not me she cared about. She was afraid of my master’s anger at damaging his property. And I was valuable. Elliot told me that my master had hired me to the widow for one hundred dollars a year. My master was earning one hundred dollars for my labor. And I earned nothing but beatings.

  A field hand walked me the ten miles from the widow’s farm to David White’s plantation. I could not have been happier.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Back at My Old Master’s

  Boxer announced my arrival. I heard his loud barking at least a mile from David White’s plantation. As soon as he saw me, he bounded over and then threw himself into my arms. I rubbed his ears and embraced him. Some of the plantation people came to see what was going on.

  My mother cried when she saw me. “I had no idea you were coming today.” Boxer eased himself from my arms and my mother scooped me up. “Oh my God, you have grown so big.”

  “Why are you back, boy?” David White stood tapping his riding whip on his leg.

  The field hand answered for me. “The widow said she does not need his services anymore. She prefers to be served by a female, Massa, and she sends this letter. I better be off, Massa, before it gets dark.” He handed the letter to David White and walked briskly from the yard.

  David White looked at me and my mother. “You may take him to your cabin, Milly, but tomorrow I want him in the house for work.”

  “I have a surprise for you,” my mother said as we walked toward her cabin.

  “A good one?”

  “Yes.”

  When we got to our small house, my brothers were asleep and so was the surprise — a new baby, born while I was away at the widow’s.

  “Tell me about you. How have you been?” my mother asked, as she peered at me.

  I wanted to tell her “fine,” but the word would not come out of my mouth. “I missed you all so much,” was what I managed to say.

  “How did you get that bruise across your face?”

  “From the widow.”

  “Come here, Henry.”

  My mother took off my shirt.

  “Oh my God, how did you get these?” she asked, running her hands over my bruised and battered skin. I remained quiet. “It was the widow?”

  I nodded.

  My mother heated water, prepared a bath and filled it with all kinds of soothing leaves. She commanded me to sit in it as she prepared supper. How happy I was to be home.

  As night deepened, visitors came. First Shadrach, then Dinah the midwife, and later Pearl with her three children. They all commented on how much I had grown and said that now I was a real man to have been hired out and all. Shadrach asked if I remembered my mother’s stories. I nodded, though in truth I had not thought of them at the widow’s.

  “Don’t full up the boy’s head with nonsense,” Pearl said to Shadrach.

  “What stories?”

  “Stories about Africans who could fly and walk on water.” Pearly sucked her teeth loudly. “Shadrach, you are a fool. If they could do all those miracles, why are we still here and under Captain Barker’s bullwhip, Milly, tell me that?”

  “It don’t mean directly they could fly or walk on water, Pearl,” my mother said. “It means that they had powers to hide themselves from massa, to make themselves invisible.”

  “Henry, boy,” Pearl said, “you are your mother’s eldest child, and so you must be wise. Take my advice, don’t listen to any of this foolishness.”

  My mother steered the talk to the harvest.

  T

  Before I set to work in my master’s house he gave me a talking to. He said that though the widow did not tell him, he knew I had become a runaway. “Things like that are not kept hidden, boy.” He then warned me that if I tried to escape from his plantation, he would sell me down the river. “I know that your mother wants to have you close, and I like Milly. That is the only reason I am putting up with you, Henry. Don’t force my hand.”

  Days rolled into months, and each was the same. I scrubbed and polished the floors, rubbed and dusted the furniture, fetched water from the well, cleaned Harriet’s shoes and boots, polished the silver, helped serve meals and prepared Harriet’s baths. It was a far cry from playing with Harriet when we were children, but if she missed our childhood games she did not show it. “Pass me this, Henry,” or “Pass me that, Henry,” or other commands was all our relationship now. If her food was not to her liking she would say, “Henry, take this soup to Suzette. It is too cold, let her warm it.”

  Yet, sometimes I felt sorry for her, she seemed so alone. Once I expressed that thought to mother, but she snapped, “Your feelings are misplaced. Harriet does not need anyone’s sympathy. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth!”

  Harriet helped me in an important way, though she did not know it. While her tutor was giving her lessons, it was the custom for a slave to stand by the door to attend to any need. As Harriet learned arithmetic, reading and writing, so did I. I learned the alphabet and how to put together the sounds to form words. I learned to read. I learned to cipher. And it awakened a thirst for learning in me. I would leaf through her reader, do sums on her slate, all while she was taking her afternoon nap, for there would be hell to pay if I was caught.

  And I was. It happened this way. Simmons was going through some grammar drills with Harriet. Automatically, I was mouthing the answers, too.

  “What are you doing, boy?” he snarled. “These lessons are not for you.”

  Harriet turned and looked at me. Her eyes were tender but she said nothing.

  Mr. Simmons walked toward me. “How much do you know, boy?”

  “Nothing, Massa. Nothing.”

  “Can you read or write?”

  “No, Massa, no.” I heard the fear in my own voice.

  “I sure hope not. For your own good I sure hope not.” Simmons looked down at me, his eyes mean and menacing. “Never let me find you mixing up yourself with learning. If you do, your master will put you to work in the fields. Or sell you down the river.” And he slammed the door in my face.

  Why was it that a White child like Harriet could learn and a slave child like me should not? “Slaves were made for hard work. Whites were made to manage them,” David White often said.

  In truth, it w
as dangerous for a slave to read and write and to display that learning. Slaves were often maimed or killed if their masters discovered they had learning. If slaves learned to read they could write passes that said they were free or had their master’s permission to travel, and then run from slavery. They could read their masters’ documents and come to know his business. They could read books that would open their minds to light and wisdom. They could think about their condition as slaves and take steps to liberate themselves. Literacy was a key to freedom.

  A boy like me could be punished by being whipped and put to picking tobacco. That I could bear, but to be sold down the river, to be sent to plantations in the deep south, was certain death. Even the names of those places — Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama — struck terror into every slave’s heart. It was said that work in the cotton or cane fields of the South could kill a strong slave in mere months. I had seen slave traders in Bedford town carting away chained slaves destined for the markets of Louisiana. A more heartrending weeping and wailing I had never heard as the captives were torn from their loved ones and their homes.

  As I stood outside the door of Harriet’s study, my body shook and my heart raced. I said to myself, “You have to more careful, Henry.”

  T

  It was the Christmas season of 1825 and my master David White came back from the state capital, as the government had recessed for the holidays. Though no one really liked our master, his return broke the monotony of our existence. He always brought guests, and we took pleasure in making fun of them. Our master’s personal servant was also a fount of information. Lord Byron knew every bit of gossip about the people of Frankfort. As soon as he had settled our master, he came to the kitchen and regaled the household with news. Lord Byron was from Trimble County like all of us, but in his eyes we were country bumpkins. To us he was sophisticated and knowledgeable. He travelled with our master throughout the state, and even out of the state. And because he was our master’s valet, he dressed well, like a White man.

  Before David White was to appear he would send instructions, so the house would be gleaming. My mother changed all the bedsheets, and supervised the preparations. Hogs and goats were killed and cured, and for days such a cooking went on!

  I was in the house when master arrived. I heard the horses neigh and master’s voice as he dismounted. “Lord Byron, come take my horse.” My master bounded in, the house shaking with his voice. “Milly!” he yelled.

  My mother was already waiting in the living room, our master’s favorite drink ready on the table. She stood tall and neat in the uniform that she had donned for the occasion.

  “No welcome words from you, Milly?”

  “Welcome home, Massa, and merry Christmas.”

  “It is not yet Christmas.”

  My mother did not respond.

  My master then looked at me. “In the six months I have not seen you, Henry, you sure have grown. I have a new job for you.”

  My mother and I caught each other’s eye. A new job? Did that mean a new hire?

  I was not about to find out because Harriet came bounding and squealing down the stairs.

  “Father, father!” She rushed into his arms.

  “My baby girl.” The master hugged her tightly.

  At that moment Suzette yelled my name, and I escaped to the kitchen.

  “My God, Henry, where are you growing to?” Lord Byron was sitting on a sack of corn and eating roast potatoes and a big piece of ham. “Come over here, boy,” he said. He gave my hair a tug. I could not wait until he told us the stories of his travels.

  “Nothing like coming home after months of travel,” he laughed mockingly. Then he said, “I know Massa is happy to see your mother.”

  “As the Lord is my witness, if you ever say that again I will smack you with this skillet.” Suzette was standing over Lord Byron, her frying pan threatening his head.

  He looked at me with a foolish grin. “Didn’t mean nothing.”

  “Henry, take this to Massa,” Suzette said, and pushed a plate of sweet cakes into my hand.

  It was only when I left the kitchen that I realized how hot my face was, and it had nothing to do with the heat from the fireplace. Why would Master be happy to see my mother? Would my mother be happy to see him? Only later would I discover that my brothers were the sons of David White.

  T

  At nightfall we all sat at the back of Shadrach’s cabin — all except my mother. Lord Byron was holding court. “Frankfort has the prettiest women in the world, certainly in all of Kentucky. White, Black and mulattoes. Ol’ Massa sure seems to love them mulatto slaves. And the houses, they are big … with so many rooms. You should see the governor’s mansion. It is bigger than the president’s house.”

  Shadrach who had done some traveling himself, said, “In Louisville, there are many grand houses.”

  “But not like in Frankfort,” Lord Byron retorted. “Anyway, more important news.” And he dropped his voice to a whisper. “In the north, in New York, they formed an abolition society.”

  Abolition? What was that?

  “Whites and some free Blacks formed a society to do away with slavery.”

  “That can’t be true,” Pearl said. “Massa White said slavery will last forever because it is the way of nature.”

  “Well, in the north they beginning to talk about ending slavery. It is all over the newspapers in Frankfort, and all the White people are talking about it.”

  “Well, glory be,” was all Shadrach said, as he stoked the fire.

  “Now, I don’t want any of you to repeat what I just said. Whites in these parts are afraid of this Yankee society. If they ever figure that you know about it, they will think you are planning an insurrection and sell you south. Massa David asked me in Frankfort if I knew about the abolition society, and I said, ‘No, sir, never heard of it.’ And then he said, ‘Good, Lord Byron. You are a good nigger.’”

  I had always assumed his name was as natural for him as ours was for us. But didn’t “Lord” mean God? “How did you get that name?” I asked. “Why are you called ‘Lord’?”

  “The same way you got your name, Henry. Massa David named me when he bought me.”

  “My mother named me,” I said.

  “Well, Massa David bought me on the Louisville docks. I was waiting with my mother, father, two sisters, aunts, cousins — everyone from the plantation. We were to be sent south. My old master had died, and his son did not want anything to do with running a slave plantation. So he sold every jack one of us to Louisiana. He was going to take the money and live in the north. Said he was going to study at a fancy college called Princeton to become a doctor.

  “So I was sitting there on a box, when I saw a book lying on the floor. I picked up the book and began leafing through it.

  “That’s when Massa David showed up. He looked at me and said, ‘Boy, you can read?’ I said, ‘No, Massa.’

  “‘Then why you have that book in your hand?’

  “‘Just looking at it, Massa.’

  “‘I’m your new owner and I don’t ever want to see you with a book.’

  “Here I thought I was going south, but Massa David had bought me to be his body servant. But the rest of my family went south. We cried and cried. It was dreadful.”

  “But how did you get your — ?”

  “As I went home with Massa David, he said, ‘Boy, your new name is Lord Byron.’

  “‘What kind of name is that, Massa?’

  “‘The book you were looking at was written by Lord Byron.’

  “‘And who is he, Massa?’

  “‘Lord Byron was an English lord. Of the aristocracy he was. He wrote poetry.’”

  This made us all laugh out loud, because our Lord Byron could not read, much less write poetry. But it was common for Whites to give their slaves mocking names. A
round these parts were many slaves named George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Hannibal and Caesar.

  “What was your name before that?” Pearl asked.

  “My old self is gone, so my old name does not matter,” Lord Byron said, almost to himself.

  “But here’s more important news,” he said, his face brightening. “Attention, everyone.” He clapped his hands. Lord Byron was born for drama, and we loved him for it. “Massa David is to be married. He has proposed to a Lexington belle, and I do believe she accepted his proposal. We will have a new mistress. Harriet will have a mother. And Milly will be happy.”

  There it was again, my mother’s name connected to my master’s. All the pleasure I got from Lord Byron’s news left me. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Shadrach looked me directly in the eye, and said in a voice that only he and I could hear, “Never mind, Henry. Never mind. One day, it will all work out.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Christmas

  At Christmas season, all work was stopped for a whole week of celebrating. This was the time when the slave people had the most to eat, when they visited friends and relatives on neighboring plantations. In the slave quarters, the women cooked meal after meal. The men repaired the shacks and built new stools and tables.

  Massa David was at his most generous. He bought candy for the slave children and gave brandy to the men.

  Each Christmas, Massa gave out new cloth for us to make clothing for the upcoming year. This Christmas, Massa David had rough unbleached linen shipped from a place called Massachusetts. When Christmas day dawned, as was his custom, Massa David came down to the shacks and cabins to smile at us and accept our thanks for the new clothes. But he was in for a shock: not one of us was in that linen. The shirt my mother had made for me itched so much that my skin turned red. And I was not the only one: other people had the same reaction to the linen, so we discarded it. Our people decided that for this Christmas, they wanted to wear white, and by some miracle they acquired white cotton. How they did so remained a mystery, though I believe Shadrach had a hand in it.