Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  Kunta wondered what the rules were, but the gardener kept on talking. “Reason massa like he is ’cause he of a family was rich even ’fore dey come here from dat England ’crost de water. Dem Wallers always been what most massas jes’ tries to act like dey is.’Cause most of dese massas ain’t nothin’ but coonhunters what got hole of a piece of lan’ an’ one or two niggers dey worked half to death, an’ jes’ kep’ on growin’ from dat.

  “Ain’t many plantations got a whole lot of slaves. Mos’ of ’em jes’ maybe anywhere from one to five or six niggers. Us twenty here make dis one pretty big. Two out of every three white folks ain’t got no slaves at all, dat’s what I heared. Real big plantations with fifty or a hunnud slaves is mostly where de black dirt is; dem river bottoms like in Lousiana, Miss’ippi, an’ Alabama got some, too; an’ dem coasts a Geo’gia an’ South Ca’lina where dey grows rice.”

  “How ol’ you?” Kunta asked abruptly.

  The gardener looked at him. “Older’n you or anybody else thinks I is.” He sat as if musing for a moment. “I heared the Indians’ war whoopin’ when I was a chile.”

  After a silent moment with his head down, he glanced up at Kunta and began singing, “Ah yah, tair umbam, boowah—” Kunta sat astounded. “Kee lay zee day nic olay, man lun dee nic o lay ah wah nee—” Stopping, the old man said, “My mammy used to sing dat. Say she got it from her mammy, who come from Africa, same as you did. You know by dem sounds where she come from?”

  “Soun’ like Serere tribe,” said Kunta. “But I don’t know dem words. I heared Serere spoke on the boat what brung me.”

  The old gardener looked furtively around. “Gon’ shut up wid dat singin’. Some nigger hear it an’ tell massa. White folks don’ want no niggers talkin’ no African.”

  Kunta had been about to say that there was no question the old man was a fellow Gambian; of Jolof blood, with their high noses and flat lips and skins even deeper black than most other Gambian tribes. But when the gardener said what he said, he decided it was better not to speak of such things. So he changed the subject, asking where the old man was from and how he had ended up on this plantation. The gardener didn’t answer right away. But finally, he said, “Nigger suffered a lot like I is learn a lot,” and he looked carefully at Kunta, appearing to be deciding whether or not to go on. “I were a good man once. I could ben’ a crowbar over my leg. I could lif’ a sack of meal dat would fell a mule. Or I could lif’ a grown man by he belt wif my arm straight out. But I got worked an’ beat near ’bout to death ’fo’ my massa what done it sign me over to dis massa to pay a bill.” He paused. “Now I done got enfeebled, I jes’ wants to res’ out whatever time I got lef.”

  His eyes searched Kunta. “Sho’ don’ know how come I’m tellin’ you dis. I ain’t really bad off as I ack. But massa won’t sell me long as he think I’m bad off. I seen you caught on how to garden some, though.” He hesitated. “I could git back out dere an he’p if’n you wants me to—but not too much. I jes’ ain’t much good no mo’,” he said sadly.

  Kunta thanked the old man for offering, but reassured him that he’d be able to get along fine. A few minutes later he excused himself, and on his way back to his hut, got angry with himself for not feeling more compassion toward the old man. He was sorry he had been through so much, but he couldn’t help turning a cold ear toward anyone who just rolled over and gave up.

  The very next day, Kunta decided to see if he could get Bell talking too. Since he knew that Massa Waller was her favorite subject, he began by asking why he wasn’t married. “Him sho’ was married—him an’ Miss Priscilla, same year I come here. She was pretty as a hummin’bird. Wasn’t hardly no bigger’n one, neither. Dat’s how come she died birthin’ dey first baby. Was a little gal; it died, too. Terriblest time I guess anybody ever seen ’roun’ here. An’ massa ain’t never been the same man since. Jes’ work, work, work, seem like sometime he tryin’ to kill hisself. He cain’t bear to think a nobody sick or hurt he can he’p. Massa would doctor a sick cat quick as he would some hurt nigger he hear’bout, like dat fiddler you always talkin’ to—or like when you was brung here. He got so mad ’bout how dey done your foot, he even bought you away from his own brother John. ’Co’se wunt his doin’, it was dem po’ cracker nigger catchers he hired, who say you tried to kill ’em.”

  Kunta listened, realizing that just as he was only beginning to appreciate the individual depths and dimensions of the black ones, it had never occurred to him that even white folks could also have human sufferings, though their ways in general could never be forgiven. He found himself wishing that he could speak the white folks’ tongue well enough to say all this to Bell—and to tell her the story his old grandmother Nyo Boto had told him about the boy who tried to help the trapped crocodile, the story Nyo Boto always ended with, “In the world, the payment for good is often bad.”

  Thinking of home reminded Kunta of something he’d been wanting to tell Bell for a long time, and this seemed like a good moment. Except for her brown color, he told her proudly, she looked almost like a handsome Mandinka woman.

  He didn’t have long to wait for her response to this great compliment. “What fool stuff you talkin’ ’bout?” she said irately. “Don’ know how come white folks keep on emptyin’ out boatloads a you Africa niggers!”

  CHAPTER 56

  For the next month, Bell wouldn’t speak to Kunta—and even carried her own basket back to the big house after she had come for the vegetables. Then, early one Monday morning, she came rushing out to the garden, eyes wide with excitement, and blurted, “Sheriff jes’ rid off! He tol’ massa been some big fightin’ up Nawth somewhere call Boston! It’s dem white folks so mad’bout dem king’s taxes from ’crost de big water. Massa got Luther hitchin’ de buggy to git to de county seat. He sho’ upset!”

  Suppertime found everyone clustered around the fiddler’s hut for his and the gardener’s opinions, the gardener being slave row’s oldest person, the fiddler its best traveled and most worldly.

  “When it was?” somebody asked, and the gardener said, “Well, anything we hears from up Nawth got to of happened a while back.”

  The fiddler added, “I heared dat from up roun’ where dat Boston is, ten days is de quickest dat fast hosses can git word here to Virginia.”

  In the deepening dusk, the massa’s buggy returned. Luther hurried to slave row with further details he had picked up: “Dey’s tellin’ it dat one night some a dem Boston peoples got so mad’bout dem king’s taxes dey marched on dat king’s soldiers. Dem soldiers commence to shootin’, an’ firs’ one kilt was a nigger name a Crispus Attucks. Dey callin’ it ’De Boston Massacree’!”

  Little else was talked of for the next few days, as Kunta listened, unsure what it was all about and why white folks—and even the blacks—were so agog about whatever was happening so far away. Hardly a day passed without two or three passing slaves “Yooohooo-ah-hoooing” from the big road with a new rumor. And Luther kept bringing regular reports from house slaves, stable-hands, and other drivers he talked with on every journey the massa made to attend sick people or to discuss what was going on in New England with other massas in their big houses, or the county seat or nearby towns.

  “White folks ain’t got no secrets,” the fiddler said to Kunta. “Dey’s swamped deyselves wid niggers. Ain’t much dey do, hardly nowheres dey go, it ain’t niggers listenin’. If dey eatin’ an’ talkin’, nigger gal servin’ ’em actin’ dumber’n she is, ’memberin’ eve’y word she hear. Even when white folks gits so scared dey starts spellin’ out words, if any niggers roun’, well, plenty house niggers ain’t long repeatin’ it letter for letter to de nearest nigger what can spell an’ piece together what was said. I mean dem niggers don’ sleep’fore dey knows what dem white folks was talkin’ ’bout.”

  What was happening “up Nawth” continued to arrive piece by piece through the summer and into the fall. Then, as time passed, Luther began to report that as exercised as white folks were about
the taxes, that wasn’t their only worry. “Dey’s sayin’ it’s some counties got twice many niggers as white folks. Dey’s worryin’ dat king’crost the water might start offerin’ us niggers freedom to fight’gainst dese white folks.” Luther waited for the gasps of his audience to subside. “Fact,” he said, “done heared some white folks so scared, done took to lockin’ dey doors at night, done even quit talkin’ roun’ dey house niggers.”

  Kunta lay on his mattress at night for weeks afterward thinking about “freedom.” As far as he could tell, it meant having no massa at all, doing as one wanted, going wherever one pleased. But it was ridiculous, he decided finally, to think that white folks would bring blacks all the way across the big water to work as slaves—and then set them free. It would never happen.

  Shortly before Christmas, some of Massa Waller’s relatives arrived for a visit, and their black buggy driver was eating his fill in Bell’s kitchen while regaling her with the latest news. “Done heared dat over in Geo’gia,” he said, “nigger name a George Leile, de Baptis’ white folks done give ’im a license to preach to niggers up an’ down de Savannah River. Hear de claim he gon’ start a African Baptis’ church in Savannah. First time I heard ’bout any nigger church. . . . ”

  Bell said, “I heard ’bout one ’fo’ now in Petersburg, right here in Virginia. But tell me, you heared anythin’ about de white folks’ troubles up Nawth?”

  “Well, I hear tell while back whole lotta impo’tant white folks had a big meetin’ in dat Philadelphia. Dey call it de First Continental Congress.”

  Bell said she had heard that. In fact, she had painstakingly read it in Massa Waller’s Virginia Gazette, and then she had shared the information with the old gardener and the fiddler. They were the only ones who knew she could read a little. When they had spoken about it recently, the gardener and the fiddler had agreed that Kunta shouldn’t be told of her ability. True, he knew how to keep his mouth shut, and he had come to understand and express things unexpectedly well for anyone from Africa, but they felt that he couldn’t yet fully appreciate how serious the consequences would be if the massa got the slightest hint that she could read: He would sell her away that same day.

  By early the next year—1775—almost no news from any source was without some further development in Philadelphia. Even from what Kunta heard and could understand, it was clear that the white folks were moving toward a crisis with the king across the big water in the place called England. And there was a lot of exclaiming about some Massa Patrick Henry having cried out, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Kunta liked that, but he couldn’t understand how somebody white could say it; white folks looked pretty free to him.

  Within a month came news that two whites named William Dawes and Paul Revere had raced on horses to warn somebody of hundreds of King’s soldiers heading for somewhere called “Concord” to destroy rifles and bullets that were stored there. And soon afterward they heard that in a furious battle at “Lexington,” some “Minutemen” had lost only a handful while killing over two hundred King’s soldiers. Scarcely two days later came word that yet another thousand of them had fallen in a bloody battle at a place called “Bunker Hill.” “White folks at the county seat is laughin’, sayin’ dem king’s soldiers wears red coats not to show de blood,” said Luther. “Heared some a dat blood gettin’ spilt by niggers fightin’ ’longside white folks.” Wherever he went now, he said he kept on hearing that Virginia massas were showing greater than usual signs of mistrust toward their slaves—“even dey oldest house niggers!”

  Relishing his new importance along slave row, Luther arrived home from a trip in June to find an anxious audience awaiting his latest news. “It’s some Massa George Washington got picked to run a army. Nigger tol’ me he’s heared he got a big plantation wid plenty a slaves.” He said he had also heard that some New England slaves had been set free to help fight the king’s redcoats.

  “I knowed it!” the fiddler exclaimed. “Niggers gon’ git dragged in it an’ kilt, jes’ like dat French an’ Indian War. Den soon’s it’s over, white folks be right back whippin’ niggers!”

  “Maybe not,” said Luther. “Heared some white folks call themselves Quakers done put together a Anti-Slavery Society, up in dat Philadelphia. Reckon dey’s some white folks jes’ don’t believe in niggers bein’ slaves.”

  “Me neither,” put in the fiddler.

  The frequent bits of news that Bell contributed would sound as if she had been discussing them with the massa himself, but she finally admitted that she had been listening at the keyhole of the dining room whenever the massa had guests, for not long ago he had curtly told her to serve them and leave immediately, closing the door behind her; then she had heard him lock it. “An’ I knows dat man better’n his mammy!” she muttered indignantly.

  “What he say in dere after he lock de do’?” asked the fiddler impatiently.

  “Well, tonight he say don’t seem no way not to fight dem English folks. He speck dey gon’ send big boatloads a soldiers over here. He say it’s over two hunnud thousand slaves just in Virginia, an’ de biggest worry is if dem Englishmans ever riles up us niggers’gainst white folks. Massa say he feel loyal to de king as any man, but ain’t nobody can stan’ dem taxes.”

  “Gen’l Washington done stopped ’em taking any more niggers in the Army,” said Luther, “but some free niggers up Nawth is arguin’ dey’s part of dis country an’ wants to fight.”

  “Dey sho’ gon’ git dey chance, jes’ let ’nough white folks git kilt,” said the fiddler. “Dem free niggers is crazy.”

  But the news that followed two weeks later was even bigger. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, had proclaimed freedom for slaves who would leave their plantations to serve on his English fleet of fishing boats and frigates.

  “Massa fit to be tied,” reported Bell. “Man come to dinner say lotta talk ’bout chainin’ or jailin’ slaves suspicioned a joinin’ up—or even thinkin’ ’bout it—an’ maybe kidnapin’ an’ hangin’ dat Lord Dunmore.”

  Kunta had been given the job of watering and feeding the horses of the flushed, agitated massas who visited the grim-jawed Massa Waller. And Kunta told how some of the horses had sweat-soaked flanks from long, hard riding, and how some of the massas were even driving their own buggies. One of them, he told the others, was John Waller, the massa’s brother, the man who had bought Kunta when they took him off the boat eight years before. After all that time, he had known that hated face at first glance, but the man had tossed the reins to Kunta with no apparent recognition.

  “Don’ ack so surprised,” said the fiddler. “Massa like him ain’t gone say howdy to no nigger. ’Specially if’n he ’members who you is.”

  Over the next few weeks, Bell learned at the keyhole of the massa’s and his visitors’ alarm and fury that thousands of Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia slaves were said to be boldly fleeing their plantations to join Lord Dunmore. Some said they had heard that most of the fleeing slaves were simply heading for the North. But all the whites agreed on the need to start breeding more bloodhounds.

  Then one day Massa Waller called Bell into the living room and twice read slowly aloud a marked item in his Virginia Gazette. He ordered Bell to show it to the slaves, and handed the paper to her. She did as she was told, and they reacted just as she had—less with fear than anger. “Be not, ye Negroes, tempted to ruin yourselves . . . whether we suffer or not, if you desert us, you most certainly will.”

  Before returning the Gazette, Bell spelled out for her own information several other news items in the privacy of her cabin, and among them were reports of actual or predicted slave revolts. Later the massa shouted at her for not returning the paper before supper, and Bell apologized in tears. But soon she was sent out again with another message—this time the news that Virginia’s House of Burgesses had decreed “death without benefit of clergy for all Negro or other slaves conspiring to rebel or make insurrections.”

  “What do it mean??
?? a field hand asked, and the fiddler replied, “Uprise, an’ white folks won’t call no preacher when dey kills you!”

  Luther heard that some white folks called “Tories,” and some other kind called “Scotchmen,” were joining with the English. “An’ sheriff’s nigger tol’ me dat Lord Dunmore’s ruinin’ river plantations, burnin’ big houses, an’ tellin’ de niggers he free ’em if’n dey come on an’ jine ’im.” Luther told how in Yorktown and other towns, any blacks caught out at night were being whipped and jailed.

  Christmas that year was but a word. Lord Dunmore was reported to have barely outraced a mob onto the safety of his flag-ship. And a week later came the incredible news that Dunmore, with his fleet off Norfolk, had ordered the city emptied within one hour. Then his guns began a bombardment that set raging fires, and much of Norfolk had been reduced to ashes. In what was left, Bell reported, water and food were scarce, and fever had broken out, killing so many that Hampton Roads’ waters were dotted with bloated bodies drifting ashore with the tides. “Say dey’s buryin’ ’em in san’ an’ mud,” said Luther. “An’ lotta niggers near ’bout starvin’ an’ scared to death on dem English boats.”

  Mulling over all these terrible events, Kunta felt that in some unfathomable way, all of this suffering must have some meaning, some reason, that Allah must have willed it. Whatever was going to happen next, both to black and white, must be His design.

  It was early in 1776 when Kunta and the others heard that a General Cornwallis had come from England with boatfuls of sailors and soldiers trying to cross a big “York River,” but a great storm had scattered the boats. They heard next that another Continental Congress had met, with a group of massas from Virginia moving for complete separation from the English. Then two months of minor news passed before Luther returned from the county seat with the news that after another meeting on July 4, “All the white folks I seen is jes’ carryin’ on! Somethin’ ’bout some Decoration a Ind’pen’ence. Heared ’em say Massa John Hancock done writ his name real big so the king wouldn’t have to strain none to see it.”