Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  “Look like our only hope is we’s all dey got,” said Bell. “If ’n dey kills us off, dey won’t have no slaves no mo’.”

  “Fiddler back?” asked Kunta, ashamed that he’d been so engrossed in telling what had happened that he hadn’t thought of his friend until now.

  Bell shook her head. “We all been mighty worried. But dat fiddler a crafty nigger. He get home awright.”

  Kunta didn’t fully agree. “He ain’t home yet.”

  When the fiddler didn’t return the next day, the massa wrote a message notifying the sheriff, and told Kunta to deliver it to the county seat. Kunta had done so—seeing the sheriff read the message and silently shake his head. Then returning homeward, Kunta had driven slowly for three or four miles, staring gloomily at the road ahead, wondering if he’d ever see the fiddler again, feeling badly that he had never actually expressed that he considered him a good friend—despite his drinking, his cussing, and other shortcomings—when he heard a poor imitation of a white “cracker” drawl, “Hey, nigger!”

  Kunta thought he must be hearing things. “Where de hell you think you goin’?” the voice came again, and reining the horses, Kunta looked around and along both sides of the road, but saw nobody. Then, suddenly, “You ain’t got no travel pass, boy, you in a heap o’ trouble”—and there, climbing from a ditch, ragged and torn, cut and bruised, covered with mud while carrying his battered case and grinning from ear to ear, was the fiddler.

  Kunta let out a shout, jumping down from his seat, and within seconds he and the fiddler were hugging and whirling each other around, laughing.

  “You de spittin’ image of a African I knows,” exclaimed the fiddler, “but couldn’t be him—he wouldn’t never let nobody know he glad to see ’em.”

  “Don’ know why I is,” said Kunta, embarrassed at himself.

  “Fine welcome fo’ a friend what crawled on his han’s an’ knees all de way back from Richmon’ jes’ to see yo’ ugly face again.”

  Kunta’s seriousness conveyed the degree of his concern. “Was it bad, Fiddler?”

  “Bad ain’t even close to it. Thought sho’ I’d be playin’ a duet wid angels fo’ I got out’n dere!” As Kunta took the muddy fiddle case and they both clambered into the wagon, the fiddler continued talking, nonstop. “Richmon’ white folks jes’ ’bout crazy scared. Militiamens ever’where stoppin’ niggers, an’ dem widout a travel pass next stop in jail wid a headache. An’ dem de lucky ones. Packs o’ po’ crackers roamin’ de streets like wil’ dogs, jumpin’ on niggers, beatin’ some so bad can’t hardly tell who dey was.

  “De ball I’se playin’ at break up halfway through when dey gits firs’ word ’bout de uprisin’, missies screamin’ an’ runnin’ roun’ in circles, massas pullid’ guns on us niggers up on de bad’stan’. ’Midst all de ruckus, I slips into de kitchen an’ hid in a garbage can till eve’ybody gone. Den I climbs out a window and took to de back streets, stayin’ way from lights. I’d got to de edge o’ town when all of a sudden I hears dis shoutin’ behin’ me, den a whole lotta feets runnin’ same way I is. Sump’n tell me dey ain’t black, but I ain’t waitin’ to fin’ out. I cuts ’roun’ de nex’ corner flyin’ low, but I hears’em gainin’ on me, an’ I’se ’bout to say my prayers when I sees a real low porch dat I rolls right under.

  “It’s real tight under dere, an’ I’se inchin’ further back jes’ when dem crackers goes runnin’ by wid torches shoutin’ ‘Git dat nigger!’ I bumps ’gainst sump’n big an’ sof’, an’ a hand clap over my mouf, an’ a nigger voice say, ‘Nex’ time, knock!’ Turns out it’s a warehouse nightwatchman seen a mob tear a frien’ o’ his apart, an’ he ain’t got no ’tention o’ comin’ out from under dat porch ’til nex’ spring, if’n it take dat long to blow over.

  “Well, after a while I wishes ’im luck, an’ heads out again an’ makes it to de woods. Dat was five days ago. Would a made it here in fo’, but so many paterollers on de roads, I had to keep to de woods, eatin’ berries, sleepin’ in de thickets wid de rabbits. Did all right ’til yestiddy a few miles east o’ here, bunch o’ real mean crackers cotched me in de open.

  “Day’s jes’ spoilin’ to whup deyselves a nigger, maybe even string’im up—dey had a rope right dere wid ’em! Dey’s shovin’ me back an’ fo’th, axin’ whose nigger I is an’ where I think I’se goin’, but not payin’ no ’tention to what I tells ’em—’til I says I’se a fiddler. Dey hol’ on, dey thinks I’se lym’, an’ hollers, ‘Well, le’s hear you play, den!’

  “African, le’me tell you sump’n. I open up dat fiddle case an’ you ain’t never heard no concert like I give right out dere in de middle o’ de road. Played ‘Turkey in de Straw’—you know po’ crackers loves dat—an’ fo’ I’m warmed up good, I had dem all a-hootin’ an’ clappin’ an’ tappin’ dey feets, an’ I ain’t quit ’til dey’s had dey fill an’ tell me to go ’head an’ don’t dillydally gittin’ my tail home. An’ I ain’t neither! Done hit de ditch whenever I seen a hoss or buggy, or wagon comin’, until dis one was you! An’ here I is!”

  As they rolled into the narrow road leading to the big house, soon they heard shouting and then saw the people of slave row running to meet the wagon.

  “Might think a body was missed ’round here”—although the fiddler was grinning, Kunta could sense how moved the man was, as grinning himself, he said, “Look like you gon’ have to tell de whole story all over again.”

  “You ever knowed dat to stop me?” asked the fiddler. “Leas’ways I’se here to tell it!”

  CHAPTER 78

  In the months that followed, with the capture, trial, and execution of one conspirator after another, and finally of Gabriel Prosser himself, news of the Richmond uprising—and of the tensions it generated—gradually subsided, and once more politics became the chief discussion topic among the massa and his friends, and therefore also within the slave row. As best Kunta, Bell, and the fiddler could piece together what they overheard in various ways about the voting for the next President, a Massa Aaron Burr had run a tie with the famous Massa, Thomas Jefferson—who finally had gotten the job, apparently since he was supported by the powerful Massa Alexander Hamilton; and Massa Burr, an archenemy of Massa Hamilton, had been made Vice President.

  No one seemed to know much about Massa Burr, but Kunta learned from a buggy driver who had been born in Virginia not far from Massa Jefferson’s Monticello plantation that his slaves declared there couldn’t be a better massa.

  “Dat driver tol’ me Massa Jefferson ain’t never ’lowed his oberseers to whup nobody,” Kunta shared with the slave-row people. “An’ dey all eats good, an’ he let de womens spin an’ sew ’em all good clothes, an’ he b’lieve in lettin’ ’em learn different trades.” After Massa Jefferson returned home from one long trip, Kunta had heard, his slaves had met him two miles from the plantation, unhitched the horses, and gleefully pulled the carriage that long distance to the Monticello big house, where they carried him on their shoulders to the doorstep.

  The fiddler snorted. “Pret’ near eve’ybody know plenty dem niggers Massa Jefferson’s own chilluns by high-yaller woman he own, name o’ Sally Hemings.” He was about to say more when Bell contributed the most interesting thing she knew. “’Cordin’ to a kitchen maid he use to have dere,” she said, “ain’t nothin’ Massa Jefferson ruther eat dan a rabbit soaked all night in oil, thyme, rosemary, an’ garlic, den next day simmered down in wine till de meat fallin’ off de bones.”

  “You don’ say!” exclaimed the fiddler sarcastically.

  “See how soon you gits ’nother piece dat rhubarb pie you keeps axin’ me to make!” snapped Bell.

  “See how soon I axes you!” he shot back.

  Refusing to get caught in the middle, as he had so often been in the past—in trying to make peace when his wife and the fiddler started in on each other, then turned on him for butting in—Kunta acted as if he hadn’t heard, and simply continued where he’d left off before they interrupted.

&nb
sp; “I heared Massa Jefferson say slavery jes’ bad for white folks as for us’ns, an’ he ’gree wid Massa Hamilton it’s jes’ too much nachel diffrence fo’ white an’ black folks ever to learn to live wid one’nother peaceful. Dey say Massa Jefferson want to see us sot free, but not stickin’ roun’ dis country takin’ po’ white folks’ jobs—he favor shippin’ us back to Africa, gradual, widout big fuss an’ mess.”

  “Massa Jefferson better talk to dem slave traders,” said the fiddler, “’cause look like dey got diffrent ideas which way de ships oughta go.”

  “Seem like lately when massa go to other plantations, I hears’bout lots of peoples gittin’ sol’,” said Kunta. “Whole families dat’s been all dey lives roun’ here is gittin’ sol’ off down South by dey massas. Even passed one dem slave traders yestiddy on de road. He wave an’ grin an’ tip ’is hat, but massa ack like he ain’t even seed ’im.”

  “Humph! Dem slave traders gittin’ thick as flies in de towns,” said the fiddler. “Las’ time I went to Fredericksburg, dey was buzzin’ after sump’n ol’ an’ dried-up as me, ’til I flash my pass. I seed a po’ ol’ graybeard nigger git sol’ off fo’ six hunnud dollars. Young healthy buck use to fetch dat. But dat ol’ nigger sho’ didn’t go quiet! Dey’s jerkin’ ’im off’n de auction block, an’ he bawlin’ out, ‘Y’all white folks done made Gawd’s earth a livin’ HELL fo’ my peoples! But jes’ sho’ as JEDGMENT MAWNIN’ gwie come, y’all’s hell gwine bounce BACK on y’all dat brung it! Ain’t no BEGGIN’ gwine stop it from ’STROYIN’ you! No MEDICINES y’all make ... no RUNNIN’ y’all do ... none y’all’s GUNS ... no PRAYIN’, no NOTHIN’ he’p y’all den!’ By dat time dey’d drug ’im off. Ol’ nigger soun’ like a preacher or sump’n, de way he carry on.”

  Kunta saw Bell’s sudden agitation. “Dat ol’ man—” she asked, “he real black an’ skinny, kin’ o’ stooped over an’ got a white beard an’ had a big scar down his neck?”

  The fiddler looked startled. “Yeah! Sho’ was! Sho’ did. All dem things—you know who he was?”

  Bell looked at Kunta as if she were ready to weep. “Dat de preacher what christened Kizzy,” she said somberly.

  Kunta was visiting in the fiddler’s cabin late the next day when Cato knocked at the open door. “What you doin’ out dere? Come on in!” the fiddler shouted.

  Cato did. Both Kunta and the fiddler were very glad that he had come. Only recently they had expressed mutual wishing that the quiet, solid lead field hand Cato was closer to them, as the old gardener had been.

  Cato seemed ill at ease. “Jes’ want to say I b’lieves it be good if y’all maybe don’ tell de scaries’ things y’all hears ’bout so many folks gittin’ sol’ off down South—” Cato hesitated. “Reason why I’m tellin’ y’all de truth, out in de fields de folks is gittin’ so scairt dey gwine git sol’, dey jes’ can’ hardly keep dey minds on no workin’.” Again he paused briefly. “Leas’ways nobody ’ceptin’ me an’ dat boy Noah. I figgers if I gits sol’, well, I’se jes’ sol’, ain’t much I can do’bout it. An’ dat Noah—don’ seem like he scairt o’ nothin’.”

  After several minutes of talk among the three of them—during which Kunta sensed Cato’s warm response to their warm welcoming of his visit—they agreed that it would probably be best if only they, not even Bell, shared the news that was the most frightening, that could only alarm the others needlessly.

  But one night in the cabin a week or so later, Bell looked up abruptly from her knitting and said, “Seem like de cat got some tongues roun’ here—either dat or white folks done quit sellin’ niggers, an’ I knows I got mo’ sense dan dat!”

  Grunting in embarrassment, Kunta was amazed that she—and probably all the other people on slave row—had guessed intuitively that he and the fiddler weren’t telling them all they knew anymore. So he began reporting slave sale stories again—omitting the most unpleasant details. But he stressed news about successful runaways, featuring the black grapevine tales he had heard about wily, fast-talking slaves in the act of escaping and making fools of ignorant poor cracker “paterollers.” One night he told them of a high-yaller butler and a black stablehand having stolen a buggy, horse, and fine clothing and a hat that the high yaller wore while he pretended to be a rich massa loudly cursing his black buggy driver whenever he drew within earshot of any white patrols they met along their rapid buggy ride into the North and automatic freedom. Another time Kunta told of a no less audacious slave who always galloped his mule almost into the “paterollers’” faces before halting and unrolling with a flourish a large, fine-print document that he said would explain his urgent errand for his massa—gambling always correctly that the illiterate white crackers would wave him on rather than admit they couldn’t read. Kunta often now set the slave-row people to laughing—telling such as how other escaping blacks had so perfected an act of chronic stuttering that disgusted “paterollers” told them to get along their way rather than spend obvious hours trying to question them. He told of runaways’ affected fearful reluctance before finally apologetically confiding how much their rich, powerful massas despised poor whites and how harshly they dealt with any interference with their servants. One night Kunta set slave row to roaring about a house slave he’d been told of who reached safety up North just a jump ahead of his hotly pursuing massa, who quickly summoned a policeman. “You know you my nigger!” the massa screamed wildly at his slave, who simply looked blank and kept exclaiming, “He’p me Gawd, I ain’t never sot eyes on dat white man!”—convincing a gathered crowd, along with the policeman who ordered the furious white man to quiet down and move on or he’d have to arrest him for disturbing the peace.

  For years now Kunta had managed to avoid going anywhere near any slave auction, ever since the one where the girl had futilely cried out to him for help. But a few months after his talk with Cato and the fiddler, one early afternoon Kunta drove the massa into the public square of the county seat just as a slave sale was beginning.

  “Oyez, oyez, gentlemen of Spotsylvania, I offer the finest lot of niggers ever seen in y’all’s lives!” As the auctioneer shouted to the crowd, his beefy, younger assistant jerked an old slave woman up onto the platform. “A fine cook!” he began—but she began screaming, gesturing frantically to a white man in the crowd: “Massa Philip! Philip! you act like you done forgot I worked fo’ you an’ yo’ brudders’ daddy when y’all was jes’ young’uns! Knows I’se ol’ an’ ain’t much now, but please, Lawd, keep me! I work for you hard, Massa Philip! Please, suh, don’ let ’em whup me to death somewheres down South!”

  “Stop the buggy, Toby!” the massa ordered.

  Kunta’s blood ran cold as he reined the horses to a halt. Why after all these years of showing no interest in slave auctions did Massa Waller want to watch one? Was he thinking of buying someone, or what? Was it the pitiful woman’s heartbreaking outburst? Whomever she had appealed to yelled back some ridicule, and the crowd was still laughing when a trader bought her for seven hundred dollars.

  “He’p me, Gawd, Jesus, Lawd, he’p me!” she cried as the trader’s black helper began shoving her roughly toward the slave pen. “Git yo’ black hands off’n me, nigger!” she screamed, and the crowd rocked with laughter. Kunta bit his lip, blinking back tears.

  “Prize buck o’ the lot, gentlemen!” Next on the platform was a young black man, glaring baleful hatred, his barrel chest and thickly muscled body crisscrossed with the angry, reddish welts of a very recent, severe lashing. “This one jes’ needed some remindin’! He’ll heal up quick! He can plow a mule into the ground! Pick you four hundred pounds of cotton any day! Look at ’im! A natural stud—if your wenches ain’t bearin’ every year like they ought! A steal at any price!” The chained young man brought fourteen hundred dollars.

  Kunta’s vision blurred anew as a weeping mulatto woman great with child was led onto the platform. “Two for the price of one, or one for free, dependin’ on how you look at it!” shouted the auctioneer. “Pickaninnies today wo
rth a hundred dollars soon’s they draw breath!” She brought a thousand dollars.

  It was becoming unendurable when the next one came, being pulled along by her chain—and Kunta nearly fell from his seat. The teen-aged black girl, quaking with terror, in her build, her skin color, even her facial features, might have been an older Kizzy! As if Kunta had been poleaxed, he heard the auctioneer start his spiel: “A fine trained housemaid—or she’s prime breedin’ stock if you want one!” he added with a leering wink. Inviting closer inspection, he abruptly loosened the neckpiece of the girl’s sack dress, which fell about her feet as she screamed, weeping, flinging her arms downward in an effort to cover her nakedness from the ogling crowd, several of whom jostled forward, reaching out to poke and fondle her.

  “That’s enough! Let’s get out of here!” the massa commanded—an instant before Kunta felt he would have done it anyway.

  Kunta hardly saw the road before them as they rode back toward the plantation; his mind was reeling. What if the girl had really been his Kizzy? What if the cook had been his Bell? What if they both were sold away from him? Or he from them? It was too horrible to think about—but he could think of nothing else.

  Even before the buggy reached the big house, Kunta intuitively sensed that something was wrong, perhaps because it was a warm summer evening, yet he saw none of the slave-row people strolling or sitting around outside. Dropping the massa off, Kunta hurriedly unhitched and stabled the horses, then headed straight for the kitchen, where he knew Bell now would be preparing the massa’s supper. She didn’t hear him until he asked through the screen door, “You awright?”