So did he want to blow into Manhattan with Stuyvesant, like an avenging angel?
He looked at the river ahead. Another hour at this rate and they’d be at the northern tip of Manhattan. He glanced at his oarsmen. Would they be able to keep up this pace? Probably not. And so much the better. If he could discreetly fall behind, then he should be able to separate himself from Peg Leg before reaching New Amsterdam.
He waited. The governor’s boat was already a couple of lengths ahead.
“Keep up,” Stuyvesant cried. He had turned completely round to watch them.
“I’m with you, my General,” van Dyck called back. Hearing this, his men pulled harder still, and for a little while kept pace with the bigger boat. So much the better. Let them wear themselves out. If he could just satisfy the governor for the time being.
The prow of the boat hit a tiny wave, rising and smacking down on the water, causing him to lean forward. He straightened up, and as he did so, the pouch on his belt tapped lightly against the top of his thigh. He glanced down, thought of the silver dollar in its box, safely secreted in the pouch, and realized with a shock: they were almost at Pale Feather’s village. This unexpected business with Stuyvesant had caused him to forget his daughter. The tap on his leg had been a reminder.
Pale Feather. What was he going to do?
Stuyvesant was still watching him intently. He dare not pull across to the village now. For all he knew, the governor would turn and drag him downriver by force. The man was quite capable of such a thing.
Minutes passed. The two boats, held in place by the invisible force of Stuyvesant’s will, sped together down the stream. They were coming past the village now, away on the eastern bank. Van Dyck could see the Indians with fishing nets in the shallows. Other figures, women probably, were watching from higher up the bank. Was Pale Feather among them? He could not tell. Was she looking at him now? Did she know he was going past her, not stopping even for a moment, despite his promise? Would she suppose her father had turned his back on her?
He stared across the river, then looked away. If his daughter was there, he did not want her to see his face. A foolish gesture. Even with her keen eyes, she could not see his face from there. He lowered his head, gazed at the pelts at his feet, and felt ashamed. Away on the far bank, the little Indian village began to fall behind. He glanced back. He could still see the line of women, but they were becoming blurred and indistinct.
They slipped downstream another hundred yards. Then another.
“Pull across stream.” He gave the order. The oarsmen looked astonished.
“But, Boss—” said one.
“Pull across.” He pointed to the eastern bank. He was the Boss, after all. Unwillingly, they obeyed him.
As the boat began to turn, Stuyvesant saw at once.
“What the devil are you doing?” he shouted over the water.
Van Dyck hesitated. Should he reply? He thought quickly.
“I’ll follow,” he cried, in a voice which, he hoped, suggested that his only desire was to be with the governor. “We’ll catch up shortly.”
“Maintain your course,” Stuyvesant bellowed back. A second later, Stuyvesant’s voice came over the water again. “Never mind your Indian bastard, van Dyck. Think of your country.”
How did he know about Pale Feather? Van Dyck cursed the governor under his breath. It had been a mistake to take the girl to New Amsterdam. He should never have done it.
“Follow me, Dirk van Dyck,” Stuyvesant’s voice rang out again. “Forget your half-breed and follow me, or your wife shall hear of this, I promise you.”
Van Dyck cursed again. Had the governor and his wife discussed the girl? What was the relationship between Stuyvesant and his wife anyway? Who knew? But the threat to tell Margaretha was serious. It was one thing to leave her in doubt about where he was. But to have her know that he’d defied the governor, failed to protect his family—for that was what she’d say—all for the sake of his half-breed daughter … Such an accusation would be a serious matter. Margaretha wouldn’t let this go. God knows what it would do to his business, and his family life. Curse Peg Leg. Damn him. He nodded to his men.
“We’ll follow,” he said, resignedly.
The prow of the boat swung round, pointing once again down the flow of the stream.
Van Dyck stared ahead. What an exercise in futility! Was he condemned to follow Peg Leg all the way, now? The very thing he had been trying to avoid.
His hesitation had caused quite a distance to open up between his boat and the governor’s. He thought of the English fleet ahead, of the determined, wrong-headed governor, and of his wife’s hurt and angry face. He thought of his innocent, defenseless little daughter who had waited for him. The gray palisade of rock above him seemed to echo with a soundless lament as the water rushed by. He glanced back again. The village was out of sight, hidden by the trees. He had come to his daughter, then passed by on the other side.
“Turn back.”
“Boss?”
“We’re going back. Turn round,” he ordered them. The men were looking at each other, hesitating. “Do you want to fight the English, then?” he cried. The men glanced at each other again. And obeyed. The prow swung round toward the eastern bank.
Stuyvesant was still watching. He saw, and understood. And now his voice came up the stream in a great cry.
“Traitor!” The word reached van Dyck like a clap of thunder. And for all he knew, it went echoing up the great river, all the way to its origins in the distant north. “Traitor.”
He gazed toward the governor’s boat, but he did not alter his course. It was a parting of the ways, and they both knew it, as the great river swept Stuyvesant southward in its mighty current, and he, free for a moment at least, turned back to give the shining dollar to his daughter.
New York
MY NAME IS Quash, which signifies that I was born on a Sunday. For I have learned that in Africa, from where my people come, a child is often named for the day on which it is born. In Africa, I have been told, my name would be Kwasi. If I had been born on a Friday, it would be Kofi, which in English is Cuffe. Monday’s child is Kojo, which in English they say Cudjo; and there are other similar names.
I believe I was born around the year of Our Lord 1650. My father and my mother were both sold out of Africa as slaves, to work in the Barbadoes. When I was about five years old, my mother and I were taken from my father to be sold again. In the market, my mother and I were separated. From that moment, I have never known what became of her; but I was bought by a Dutch sea captain; and this was fortunate for me, because the Dutch captain brought me to New Amsterdam, as it was then called; whereas if I had remained where I was, it is not likely I should be alive today. In New Amsterdam, the Dutch captain sold me, and I became the property of Meinheer Dirk van Dyck. I was then about six years old. My father I do not remember at all, and my mother only slightly; they are certainly long since dead.
From an early age, I always had the dream that I might one day be free.
I came by this notion on account of an old black man I met when I was aged eight years old or nine. At this time there were in the province of New Netherland only maybe six hundred slaves, half of them in the city. Some were owned by families, others by the Dutch West India Company. And one day in the market I saw an old black man. He was sitting in a cart, wearing a big straw hat, and he was smiling and looking pleased with himself. So I went up to him, being somewhat forward at that age, and said: “You look happy, Old Man. Who is your master?” And he said: “I have no master. I am free.” And then he explained to me how it was.
For the Dutch West India Company, having brought in parcels of slaves some years before, and used them in many public works such as building up the fort, paving streets, and suchlike, had given land to some of those who had worked longest and best, and worshipped at their Church, and upon certain further conditions of service had made them free. They were termed freedmen. I asked him if there we
re many such people.
“No,” he told me, “just a few.” Some lived a little way above the wall, others further up the island on the east side, and some more across the north river, in the area they call Pavonia. I could see small hope of such a thing for myself, but it seemed to me a fine thing that a man should be free.
I was fortunate, however, to be in a kindly household. Meinheer van Dyck was a vigorous man who liked to trade and go upriver. His wife was a large, handsome lady. She was strong for the Dutch Reformed Church and the dominies and Governor Stuyvesant. She had a low opinion of the Indians, and was never happy when her husband was away among them.
When I first arrived in that house, there was a cook, and an indentured servant called Anna. They had paid for her to cross the ocean, in return for which she was to give them seven years of work, after which time they were to give her a certain sum of money, and her freedom. I was the only slave.
Meinheer van Dyck and his wife were always mindful of their family. If they ever had angry words, we seldom saw it, and their greatest delight was to have their family all around them. As I was working in the house, I was often with their children, and because of that I came to speak the Dutch language almost as they did.
Their son Jan and I were about the same age. He was a handsome boy with a mop of brown hair. He looked like his father, but he was more heavily built, which he took from his mother, I think. When we were young, we often played together, and we always stayed friends. As for his baby sister Clara, that was the prettiest child you ever saw, with golden hair and bright blue eyes. When she was little, I would carry her on my shoulders, and she would go on making me do this even when she was ten or eleven, laughing all the while, just to vex me, she said. I loved that child.
I was always very fast at running. Sometimes Meinheer van Dyck would set myself and Jan and little Clara in a race, with Jan well in front of me and Clara near the finishing line. I would usually pass Jan, but when I came up with Clara I’d hold back just behind her so she could win, which used to delight her very much.
Some Dutch masters were cruel to their slaves, but Meinheer van Dyck and the Mistress always showed me kindness in those years. As a young boy I was only given light work. As I grew a little older, Meinheer van Dyck would give me many tasks to do. I always seemed to be fetching and carrying something. But the only time he ever whipped me was after Jan and I had broken a window, and then he took a strap to us both, each getting the same.
When I was about fourteen years of age, Meinheer van Dyck became a more important man of business than he was before, and everyone started to call him Boss, including myself. So from now on I shall call him by that name. And about this time it entered into the mistress’s mind that I should look well dressed up in livery like a servant in a big house. The Boss laughed, but he let her do it, and I looked very well in that livery, which was blue. I was very proud of myself. And the mistress taught me to open the door for guests and wait at table, which pleased me greatly. And she said, “Quash, you have a beautiful smile.” So I made sure to smile all the time, and I was in high favor with her, and the Boss too. One day, the old Dominie Cornelius came to the house. He was a man of great consequence. He was tall, and always dressed in black, and despite his age, he was still very upright. And even he remarked to the Boss’s wife upon my smart appearance. After that, I could do no wrong with her. So I suppose that on account of all this good treatment, I had too great a conceit of myself. Indeed, I believe I thought myself more like an indentured servant than a slave, for a time. And I often thought about what I could do that would cause that family to hold me in higher regard.
It was about a month after his visit to the house that, on an errand for the Mistress, I saw that old dominie in the street, dressed in black and wearing a big pointed black hat with a wide brim. Now it happened that just a few days before, I had conceived a notion of how I might raise myself in the estimation of the Boss and his family; for I remembered that old black man telling me how the freedmen had been allowed to become Christians in the Dutch Church. And so when I saw the old dominie, I went up to him and said, very respectful: “Good morning, sir.” And he gave me a somewhat stern look, because I was interrupting him in his thoughts, but he recognized me and said: “You’re the van Dycks’ slave boy.”
“I am, sir,” I said. “And I was wondering,” I went on, “if I might ask Your Reverence something.”
“Oh? What’s that?” he said.
“I was wondering,” I said, “if I might join the Church.”
He looked at me for a moment as if he’d been struck by a thunderbolt.
“You wish to become a member of my congregation?”
“Yessir,” I said.
Well, he didn’t speak for a while, but he just stood there looking at me, in a cold, considering kind of way. When he did answer, his voice was quiet.
“I see you for what you are,” he said. And I, being young and foolish, supposed that this might mean something good for me. “You seek,” he asked me, “to better yourself?”
“Yessir,” I said, very hopeful, and giving him my best smile.
“As I thought,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. And he nodded. “Those who join the congregation,” he said, “do so for love of God, not in hope of any reward.”
Now, on account of living with the van Dyck family, and knowing how their children were raised, I reckoned that I knew a little of the Christian religion. And, forgetting I was only a slave and that he was the dominie, I was disposed to argue.
“But they do it to escape hellfire,” I said.
“No.” It seemed to me that he did not want to have any conversation with me, but being a dominie, he was obliged to give instruction, even to a slave. “It is already predestined who shall go to hell and who shall be saved,” he said. “The godly serve the Lord for His sake, not for their own.” Then he pointed his finger at me. “Submission, young man, is the price of entry to the Church. Do you understand?”
“Yessir,” I said.
“You are not the first slave to imagine that by worshipping at our Church you may open a path to freedom. But it will not be tolerated. We submit to God because He is good. Not to better ourselves.” And now his voice was getting louder, so that a man passing in the street turned to look. “God is not mocked, young man,” he cried to me then, and fairly glared at me before he strode away.
A few days later, the Boss turned to me and said: “I hear that you had conversation with Dominie Cornelius.” And he gave me a strange look.
“Yes, Boss,” I said. But I took care not to speak of religion again, after that.
And soon there were more important things to concern me than the saving of my soul. For that summer, while the Boss was away upriver, the English came.
I was working in the kitchen when Jan came running in with the news.
“Come quickly, Quash,” he calls. “Down to the water. Come and see.”
I was wondering if the mistress would give me permission, but a moment later she was there too, with little Clara. Clara’s little round face was flushed with excitement, I remember. So we all went down to the waterside by the fort. It was a clear day and you could see right across the harbor. And there in the distance you could see the two English sails. They were riding out in the entrance to the harbor, so that no ships could get in or out to the sea. By and by, we saw a puff of white smoke. Then there was a long pause until we heard the sound of the guns, like a little rumble; for they were maybe seven miles away. And the people by the water cried out. Word came that the English settlers out past Brooklyn were mustering and taking up arms, though nobody knew for sure. The men on the walls of the fort had a cannon pointed out at the harbor, but the governor not being there, nobody was taking charge, which greatly disgusted the Mistress. I think she’d have been glad to take charge herself.
They had already sent messengers upriver to warn the governor. But it was a day or two before he came back. During that time, the Englis
h ships stayed where they were and didn’t come any closer.
Then one evening the governor arrived to take charge, and as soon as she heard this, the Mistress went to see him. When she got back, she was looking very angry, but she didn’t say why. The next morning, the Boss came home too.
When the Boss walked in the door, the Mistress remarked that he had been gone a long time. And he replied that he had come back as soon as he could. That was not what the governor said, she answered. She heard he’d made a stop upriver. And she gave him a black look. Made a stop when the English were attacking his own family, she said.
“Indeed I did,” says he, with a big smile. “And you should be glad of it.”
She looked at him somewhat hard when he said that. But he paid no mind. “Consider,” he says, “when Stuyvesant told me the English had come, I had no means of knowing how matters stood here. For all I knew, they had already entered the town, seized all our goods and driven you out of house and home. Was I to see our cargo—a rich one, by the way—stolen by the English too? It might be all the fortune we had left. So I thought to take it to a place of safe keeping. It is lodged with the Indian chief in the village to which Stuyvesant saw me going. I have known this Indian many years, Greet. He’s one of the few I can trust. And there it should remain, I think you’ll agree, until this business is over.”
Well, the Mistress didn’t say a word more, but it showed me plainly the good character of the Boss, to be thinking always of his family.
All that day New Amsterdam was in much confusion. There were boats taking messages from the English commander, Colonel Nicolls, to Governor Stuyvesant, and back; but no one knew what was in those messages, and the governor, he said nothing. But the English gunships stayed down by the narrows.