Amari had no idea where they were being taken or why. They just marched, prisoners in a land so full of beauty and harmony that Amari could not bear to watch the golden sun rising in the east or the freely running giraffes and elephants in the distance.
Occasionally, other coffles of slaves would join their group. They looked with dead eyes at Amari and her sad little procession. No one spoke. Eventually, all of the prisoners were herded together, moving slowly down a path that was becoming increasingly wider and more well traveled. The dirt was packed hard by the feet of those who had passed that way before. Amari wondered if they, too, had been coffled and shackled.
Finally one day they arrived in a city—so much larger than what Amari had ever known that she stared in wonder at the huge buildings made of stone. The variety of noises—screeching monkeys in cages and vendors loudly proclaiming their goods from the side of the road—made her head throb. She marveled at the people who lived there—people with dark and pale and even honey-colored skins. Black men and women who walked freely and laughed loudly, speaking in languages she did not know. White men walking arm in arm with black men, with no chains on either of them. Amari was amazed and understood none of it. Some of the people looked at the group of enslaved captives with pity as they were marched through the center of town, but no one made any move to help them. In fact, Amari noticed that most turned away as if the miserable group were invisible.
The air smelled salty and felt wet upon her skin. The little river in Amari’s village had smelled of mud and of the animals that used it as a gathering place to drink the water. But here she could smell a larger body of water—something huge and foreign and frightening.
Although Amari could not understand the language of the white men, she soon began to recognize words they repeated often, such as “slave” and “price.” Once they entered the city, she kept hearing them say, “Cape Coast, Cape Coast,” with great excitement. What is this place? she thought to herself. Why are we here? And how will we ever find our way back home? Then she gasped. There was no more home. She had no more family. And, for the first time, she began to weep.
Amari and the rest of the captives were guided to a huge white building made of bricks and stone, larger than any Amari had ever seen or even imagined. The leader of the pale warriors barked orders to someone in a colorful uniform at a gate. Huge doors opened and they were led inside. The bright sunlight was suddenly gone, and she had to adjust her eyes to the gloom inside the structure. It smelled of blood and death. She could hear terrifying wails that seemed to be coming from the walls of the place. Amari was filled with dread.
The men were then separated from the women, and Amari’s neck irons and leg irons were finally removed. She rubbed her wrists and couldn’t help but breathe with relief. Nothing could be worse than what they’d already gone through, she thought.
She was wrong. A huge stone door with iron bars slid open, and Amari was shoved inside a room with the rest of the women who had survived their journey. She thought she was blinded at first because the darkness was so total and sudden. The smell engulfed her next—the odor of sweat and fear, of body wastes and hopelessness. As her eyes slowly adjusted, she could see women—dozens of them—lying on the floor, huddled against the walls, curled into balls. Some of them looked up when the newcomers were tossed into the cell, but most did not bother to acknowledge their presence. Amari trembled with fear and disgust, afraid she would become like they were, afraid she already was.
Amari found an unoccupied place by the wall and sat down on the floor, which was wet and slimy. The room had no window, just a large hole near the ceiling for a little bit of air to circulate. No one spoke to her. Those who were talking among themselves spoke in dialects she could not understand. Only a few could she decipher. Amari surmised that women from many different tribes and countries were imprisoned here—Ibo, Ga, and Mandinka. She was amazed at the thoroughness of their captors, how they had managed to capture so many of them. Had they murdered the families and destroyed the villages of everyone here as well? The thought of so many dead seemed to crush her. She covered her head with her arms and barely stifled a scream. No one listened.
Amari gradually grew accustomed to the dim light and looked around the room. She spotted a woman in a corner who was rocking a child who was not there. She sang to it and caressed it gently, but her arms were empty. The woman’s sorrow was raw and palpable, like spoiled meat.
Amari’s stomach growled. She could not remember the last time she had eaten, so when the guards tossed some chunks of bread through the opening, she was grateful. But by the time she got up to get some of the food off the floor, the previously quiet women had already rushed past her and savagely fought over every scrap of bread. She ended up with nothing. Amari dropped to the cold wet floor, bowed her head, and wept.
A large woman came and sat down next to her and offered her a small piece of her own portion. Amari took it gratefully.
“Crying won’t help, child,” she told her. “This place is slimy with tears.”
Amari was surprised to hear the woman speak in her own Ewe language. She wiped her eyes and said in barely a whisper, “I feel like a broken drum—hollow, crushed, unable to make a sound.”
“You must learn to make music once more.”
Amari was miserable. “I don’t understand,” she told her.
“In time, you will.”
Amari pondered this for a moment while she nibbled at the bread to make it last longer.
“Where is this place?” Amari asked her.
“Cape Coast Castle. It is a prison for our people. We will be held here until they have captured enough of us, then we will be sold and sent into the sea.” She breathed deeply.
“Sold? I do not understand.”
“You were chosen because you are young and strong. You survived the long journey here. You will fetch a great price.”
“From whom? For what?” Amari asked in confusion. “Who would want to sell me or buy me? I am just a girl who has seen barely fifteen summers. I have no skills.”
“There are white men who will buy you to work for them by day and amuse them by night.”
Amari looked up, her eyes wide with disbelief. “How do you know this?”
“I have been sold before,” she replied quietly. “My master, a fat white man from this city, grew tired of me and sold me to buyers who brought me here.”
“Have you been here long?” Amari asked.
“Long enough to see one group sold and sent away. We were marched into the courtyard, and white men bargained for us. One by one they were taken through a small door. I could see the white sand and the blue of the sea beyond it, but no more. All I know is they never returned.”
“Do you think they were killed?”
“No. They had value. They did not die. At least not physically,” she added.
“Why were you not sold?” Amari asked her.
“I caught the attention of the leader of the guards.” She paused. “He sends for me to come to him at night.”
At first Amari didn’t understand, but suddenly she realized what the woman meant. Amari looked at her in horror. “You mean he . . . ?”
“Yes, child. It is terrible. But I am allowed to bathe. I get extra food rations. I do not allow myself to think while I am with him. I hate him. But I will live. My spirit is too strong to die in a place like this.”
Amari looked at this woman, at her strong body and kindly face, and began to cry once more, huge racking sobs of despair. The woman took Amari in her arms and let her cry, the only comfort she had known since that horrible night in the village.
5. THE DOOR OF NO RETURN
ONCE A DAY AMARI AND THE OTHER WOMEN were taken from the cell in small groups. Cold water from large wooden buckets was tossed upon them. Their clothes, what little that remained, were torn and barely covered their bodies. The soldiers who guarded them liked to rip the tops of the women’s garments so their breasts were exposed. Ama
ri learned to swallow her shame.
The woman who had befriended her was called Afi. She made sure Amari had food each day and protected her from some of the other women who had grown fierce and violent from their captivity. She showed Amari how to walk with a limp and look with a vacant, stupid stare to make sure the soldiers would pass her by when they looked for women to come to their rooms. She also showed Amari how to exercise inside the cell, to stay strong and ready for whatever may come next. At night she crooned soft songs similar to the ones Amari’s mother had once sang to her as a child. Afi told Amari that her husband and a daughter about Amari’s age had died two years before. Amari figured that Afi needed her as much as she needed Afi.
“Do you think the ancestors can speak to us in this place?” Amari asked Afi one hot night. The air was thick with the stench of excrement.
“I don’t know, child,” she replied, trying to cool Amari by fanning her with her hand. “I know they see us, however. And they weep for us. I can feel it.”
“We need more than weeping, Afi,” Amari said quietly. “We need an army of warriors to come and unfasten the locks, kill our captors, return us to our homes, and bring our families and friends back to us, alive and smiling.”
“You know that is not to be, my child,” Afi replied gently. “We are caught in a place where there is no hope, no escape from the misery of the present or the memories of the past.” They were silent then, for there was nothing more to say.
One day, without warning, Amari and the rest of the women were brought into the center of the prison by the white soldiers, who chained their hands behind them and shackled their feet as well. Then strange white men, one of them so tall and thin that he seemed to sway when he walked, looked over each of the women as if inspecting goats for slaughter.
The thin man came up to Amari and lifted her upper lip, pinching the flesh with his long, bony fingers. He smelled unwashed. Amari whipped her head away from him, her eyes dark with anger. Glaring at her, he slapped her face so hard, she almost fell to the ground. Then he yanked her back up, grabbed her chin, and held it tightly while he pulled at her lip again.
“Open your mouth!” Afi hissed at her.
Terrified, Amari did so. The tall man took his time inspecting the inside of her mouth. He ran his fingers along her teeth and gums, mumbling to himself as he did so. When he was satisfied with his inspection of her, he moved on to the next woman.
Amari stood close to Afi, shivering with fear and disgust as the rough hands of each of the white men examined and prodded her arms, thighs, calves, and breasts.
The men yelled and spoke very fast in their strange language. Amari heard the word “price” many times. Finally, they seemed to come to a settlement. Cowrie shells were counted and passed from the trader with the willowy body to the men who had captured them. Amari saw cloth also being exchanged and jewelry and gold. They had very little need for gold in her village, but she knew what it was. She knew it held the value of her life.
One by one the women were taken through the door that Afi had spoken of earlier. Some screamed; some fought back and had to be pushed. The door was narrow and very low to the ground. No one could stand upright and pass through it; the only way to go through that passageway was to crawl.
A soldier grabbed Amari roughly and pushed her toward that door. He forced her to the ground and then kicked her in the direction of the passageway. She had no choice but to proceed. It was difficult with the chains on, but she managed to crawl, painfully and slowly. The walls were smooth and worn, as if many bodies had passed through that narrow, low tunnel.
At the end of the passage a pair of hands pulled her up, and she had to close her eyes to the brightness of the sun. When she could finally open them, she saw that beautiful white sand lay in front of her. The salty smell that she had grown accustomed to was now overwhelming. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Amari cast her eyes for the first time upon the ocean. Travelers had occasionally come to her village, so she had heard tales of the blueness and vastness of the ocean. But nothing could have prepared her for water so blue, so beautiful, so never ending.
After so many days of the darkness of her cell, the glory of that view was powerful—and very, very frightening. Would she be thrown into the sea? And what was that strange house in the distance that seemed to rest on the surface of the water? It could not be a boat—boats were small and held one or two people. Boats were used for fishing or visiting family members downriver. This was huge, with white fabric dancing from it. That could not be a boat, Amari decided. It must be a place of the dead.
Before she had a chance to absorb it all, a man dragged her to what looked like a goat pen. A fire burned brightly in the center of it, even though the day was very warm, and the man was steering her toward it, Amari realized with fear. Am I going to be cooked and eaten now? Why couldn’t I have died with my family? she thought wildly. Panicked, she tried to pull away from the man, but his grip only tightened.
A black man who spoke the language of the white men pushed her roughly down into the sand and held her firmly so she could not move. Amari could see only the feet of the second man, but he moved toward the fire, leaned down to pick something up, then walked purposefully toward her.
Intense, fiery pain pierced the sweaty softness of the skin above her left shoulder. Amari could hear her flesh sizzle, and she nearly fainted as she realized she was being branded. Like a wounded animal, Amari screamed and screamed. Why? was the only thought in her head. Someone then pulled her away from the fire, smeared a horrible-smelling salve on her wound, and yanked her over to another holding pen full of prisoners like her, all dazed from the pain of the hot branding iron. Many of them sat hunched over, trying to nurse their wounds. A few stared at the pale blue sky, the deep blue of the unbelievable expanse of water, and the death house that tossed on the waves in the distance.
The salve must have been effective, for the intense pain gradually subsided and was replaced by a duller throbbing that would not go away. Amari saw then that Afi had emerged from the prison as well. When she was branded, she did not cry out. Amari could see the pain on her face and the tears roll down her cheeks, but Afi did not utter a sound.
Afi was thrown into the holding pen soon after that, and they hugged each other gently, avoiding the fiery sores on their shoulders. “What happens now?” Amari whispered.
“Child, I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never seen the ocean before. I have heard that the water spills over the edge of the world and that only death is found there.”
“There has to be something on the other side of the great water,” Amari reasoned. “The white soldiers had to come from whatever that place is.”
“It must be a place of death, for sure,” Afi replied, agreeing with Amari. “For only such a horrible place could create such creatures who could burn a person with a flaming hot iron.”
Amari started to remind her that they had been held down by people of their own land—people who looked just like them. But at that moment several men were shoved into the holding cell. Three of them were some of the very same Ashanti warriors who had helped to capture the people from her village. They looked stunned at their sudden change in status. Another new captive, who looked positively irate, was the black man who had just held Amari down on the sand while she was branded. He held his freshly branded shoulder and called out in the language of the whites, but they ignored him. The last man to be tossed into the pen was Besa.
The men had been kept from the women, housed in a separate section of the prison. Amari had not seen Besa since they had arrived. He was thin and filthy and looked absolutely beautiful to her. She wanted to call out his name, run to him, and hug him, but she found she could say nothing as he was taken to the far corner of the holding pen and chained there.
Besa looked up and gazed directly at Amari for just a moment. His face, once so proud and happy, showed only defeat. She understood.
The pen offered no shelter from the intense h
eat of the day. No water was offered to them. Men in uniform and men with obvious power and authority strode across the sand all afternoon, clearly preparing for something. But what? Amari wondered.
Then several of them climbed into a small boat that rocked and tossed in the waves of the large water, and they rowed out to the floating house in the distance. The boat returned with more men in uniform and a load of heavy chains. Amari knew they were for them.
The sunset that evening was unlike any Amari had ever seen. The spirit of the copper sun seemed to bleed for them as it glowed bright red against the deepening blue of the great water. It sank slowly, as if saying farewell. The shadows deepened and darkness covered the beach.
As night fell, the leader of the captors ordered small fires to be made on the beach, and Amari soon smelled the welcome odor of food cooking. It had been a long time since they had been given anything to eat, and she was amazed when the holding pen was opened and generous portions of water and food—fresh fruit, boiled cassava, and some kind of fish stew—were distributed to them. Nobody questioned the offering, and the food was consumed greedily and quickly.
Licking her fingers, she asked Afi, “Why do they feed us so well tonight?”
“To prepare us for the journey, I believe.”
“What journey?”
Afi hesitated.
“Tell me,” Amari urged.
“We will be taken to the boat of death on the horizon, and we will never see this place again.” Her voice chilled Amari even more than the brisk wind that blew off the ocean.
“I do not understand.”
“We are slaves, Amari. Slaves.”
“I know this.” Amari knew, of course, what slaves were—some of the wealthier elders in her own village had a few slaves. They had been won in battle or traded in negotiations between villages and tribes. They were usually respected and sometimes even adopted as extended members of a family.