"One thousand!" shouts a rather fat but prosperouslooking gentleman, waving a card with a number on it. He has a woman with him, finely dressed—she leans on his arm, smiling broadly and waving at friends across the square. Such a lark, such fun, to be here laughing gaily as human beings are being auctioned off like animals.
Another man, dressed much like the other, jumps up on the platform to examine the slave more closely. He puts his hand on the Negro's face and uses his thumb to lift the man's upper lip to examine his teeth. "Eleven hundred!" he says, leaving the stage.
"Twelve hundred!"
"Thirteen!" calls out another man.
"Thirteen-fifty!" cries the fat man, and then there is silence.
"Gentlemen, I have one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars!" says the auctioneer. "Do I hear fourteen? No? Going once ... Going twice ... Sold! To Mr. Wilkes!"
Next a plainly terrified girl is pulled to the platform by a rope that is tied around her neck. Because she is young and pretty, she is stripped down to her skin and made to stand nak*d before the crowd. She tries to cover herself with her hands, but those hands are roughly pushed down by one of the slave handlers.
She is sold for sixteen hundred and fifty dollars, again to Mr. Wilkes, the fat man.
Another woman, this one heavy with child, is now brought up. There is a boy of about seven years old clinging to her side. He is crying. The auctioneer pushes the boy aside and uses his cane to lift up the front of the mother's simple white shift to show her belly. "Look at that!" he exclaims. "A proven breeder! How can you go wrong? Three for the price of one! Let's start at twelve hundred dollars for the lot! Who will give me twelve hundred?"
Someone does, and so the bidding goes on until—Sold! To Mr. O'Hara!—she, and her son, too, have been bought and are led off.
"Haven't you seen enough?" asks Davy, sounding thoroughly disgusted. "Do you want to stay to see them whipped?"
"I suppose I have been made sick enough," I say, hardened in my resolve to fight this evil whenever and however I can. "Let's leave the scum to their vile business and may they rot in—Hold on, what's this?"
As we are turning to leave, I notice that an older woman is now being shoved onto the stage, to much laughter from the crowd. True, compared to the young blacks who had been displayed before, she is a pitiful sight—heavy of body, a shawl around her shoulders and faded skirts hanging about her hips, an old rag tied around her graying hair. She stands, head up, eyes looking straight ahead, with her hands clasped before her.
"Hey, Silas! You gonna pay someone to haul that away? Hey?" shouts out some wit in the crowd, and there is laughter all around.
"Now, boys," says the auctioneer, signaling with his hands for silence. "This here Negress has been a house Nigra for forty-odd years now, and she can clean and she can sew and she can cook."
"Cook?" cries the wit again. "Hell, I reckon! And I reckon she been into the lard real good, from the looks of her!" More laughter.
I look over at the man who has been saying these things. He is thin, stooped, wearing a floppy black hat and smoking a thin cheroot.
"So what am I bid? Shall we start at five hundred dollars? Do I hear five hundred?"
No, he does not.
"One hundred dollars!" calls out the man with the cigar. "Hell, if I get her for that I can put her to chopping cotton till she drops dead. Still be worth it." He doesn't get as big a laugh on that one. It seems that not everyone here is quite as cruel as he.
"Come, Colonel Tarleton, surely you can do better than that?"
"Surely, I cannot, Suh!" responds this Tarleton. "Hell, she could die tomorrow, and then where would I be? Out one hundred dollars, and with one fat dead Nigra on my hands, that's where."
"I have one hundred dollars, then," says the auctioneer, looking out over the crowd. "Do I hear two hundred?"
Silence. Then...
"One hundred and fifty dollars!" I sing out. I have reached down and felt the gold coins in my money belt, as well as the money in my purse, and I think I have that amount.
"What the hell are you doin'?" demands Davy. Tink, beside him, looks shocked.
I grab each of the lads by the forearm and hiss, "Davy ... Tink ... Pretend to smile and laugh like all of this is nothing to you. If they see I want her too bad, they'll bid me up! And I ain't got no more money. Now, do it!"
And they play along, pretending they have absolutely no interest in what is going on in this slave market. I put on the Lawson Peabody Look, and wait.
"I have one hundred and fifty dollars!" says the auctioneer through his megaphone. "Do I have two hundred? Colonel Tarleton?"
Colonel Tarleton looks over at me. "Why you want this old Negress?" He takes the cigar from his mouth, throws it on the ground, and grinds it out with the heel of his boot.
"I need someone to look after my baby girl, Suh, as I am sickly and can no longer do it fo' m'self." I put the back of my hand to my forehead and affect a bit of a swoon.
"Hah! You shall have her, then. Never let it be said that Colonel Ashley Tarleton kept a flower of southern womanhood from having a proper mammy fo' her baby!" He takes off his hat and bows low.
I simper and curtsy to his bow.
"One hundred and fifty," says the auctioneer, impatient to get past this very unprofitable transaction. "Once, twice, gone! To the lady in the black dress! Now next we have a fine..."
I go around to the back of the stage, where I find a man seated at a table collecting the money and writing out the Bills of Sale. I tell him my name and pay him his money and he gives me the paper.
Bill of Sale
For the Negro Woman known as Jemimah.
Formerly owned by Asa Hamilton. Sold in as-is
condition to J. M. Faber.
Attested Herewith
William Meade, Esq.
Just as simple as that—the ownership of a person is passed from one to the next. I fold the paper and put it in my purse.
"Thank you for your purchase," says this Mr. Meade with a smirk. He has to be the brother of the auctioneer. "We do hope you will be pleased." I am handed the end of a rope, the other end of which is attached to the neck of ... Who? ... Oh, yes ... Jemimah.
She picks up a bundle, which I suspect holds all her earthly goods, and she looks at me and then gazes off, her eyes revealing nothing.
"You are crazy," says Davy. "You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," I answer, my nose in the air, as we all head back to the Nancy B.
Chapter 16
Higgins, Dr. Sebastian, and I are going off to see a musical revue this evening at Tagliaferro Hall in Charleston and will join the others later at The Fox. Higgins is giving me a bit of a brush-up. I sense that he is not entirely pleased with me. It doesn't take him long to get down to it.
"So, now you own a slave, Miss?"
"Yes, I do, Higgins. We needed a cook, and now we've got one." We have been getting along with Tink as cook, but I know it hurts his sailor pride, me and his brother Davy being onboard and all. Plus he's not really very good at it. And Higgins, though he will cook for me, doesn't like cooking for a crowd. Hey, he's second in command of Faber Shipping, not Ship's Cook.
"I see," says Higgins. His touch is not quite so gentle as usual. "We needed a cook, so you just went out and bought one."
"Ouch! Come on, Higgins, you know I'm going to set her free."
"Oh? And when will that happen? When we are done with this voyage? How convenient."
"As soon as we throw off the lines, clear the harbor, and leave this town. If she wants to get off in our next port, she can."
"Well, that eases my mind somewhat. Still, I shall have to ponder the morality of all this. By that transaction you have, you must know, participated in the slave trade. Every dollar made by the traders furthers the evil."
"I don't have to ponder anything, my dear and ever-present conscience, because I know that had I not bought her, she would have been put into the fields to pick cotton till she died. That's what I know."
Higgins does not reply to that but goes on silently brushing. Eventually he asks, "What will you wear tonight?"
I think for a moment and then decide. "The French one. Direct from Paris. That oughta set the Charleston ladies back on their heels."
Earlier, when Jemimah had been brought onboard, I straightaway led her down into the hold and showed her the galley and where she was to sleep, which was the bunk closest to the stove, just as Crow Jane once had done back on the Belle of the Golden West. Joannie and Daniel hung about close by, eyes wide, curious.
"They said you are a cook, Jemimah. Are you?" I asked.
"Yes, Ma'am," she said, those being the first words she had spoken. I know that she was startled when we had come down the wharf and she had gotten a look at what was to be her new home. But she said nothing then, and she is of very few words now.
"Well, then, your duties shall be cooking for the crew and some light housekeeping. Can you do that?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Good. Take some time now to settle in. Check out our cooking utensils and see what we've got in the way of stores. Most of us are going off the ship tonight, so you will not have to make dinner. Just put something together for yourself and these two kids here and the man on watch. This is Daniel, and that's Joannie. They are your helpers. Make them mind and don't take any back talk."
She nodded and I continued.
"We are leaving on the outgoing tide at six in the morning. We'll expect breakfast for the crew at eight." Then I raised my finger in the air and said as sternly as I could, "The one thing we fear most on a ship is fire, so you must be very, very careful with the galley stove. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, Ma'am. How many?"
"How many what?"
"How many for breakf'st?"
"Oh." Feeling foolish, I mentally counted up my crew. "Eleven. Including you."
She nodded again and I said briskly, "Very well, then. Joannie, Daniel, show Jemimah around the ship. Carry on."
I then left the galley and went back to my cabin, feeling not foolish now, but decidedly uncomfortable.
The musical revue at Tagliaferro Hall was great fun, the production having very professional singers, musicians, and dancers, and wildly funny skits.
And, curiously, in the middle of it all, the theatrical company performed a little playlet, which was very much like the thing I had written and that we had performed on the Belle of the Golden West when we were on the Mississippi. Very much like mine. Mine was called The Villain Pursues Constant Maiden, or Fair Virtue in Peril, while this production was titled simply The Villain Pursues Her. Hmmm.
Higgins, who was seated next to me, leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Could it be, Miss, that your rights to that little gem of deathless literature have been violated?" I gave him an elbow for his cheek, and then I thought about it and shrugged—no matter, for it is nice to know that one's literary efforts have been noticed and appreciated even if copied for someone else's profit. We joined the rest of the audience heartily booing and hissing the villain, and, yes, the her**ne's tear-away dress did come off just like mine did all those times.