The Rattling of the Chains: Volume I

By Errol D. Alexander

This is a thoroughly enjoyable and lucidly written book. The author provides an accurately reconstructed history of his family from an African slave trader named Jasinto in the eighteenth century to the year 2013. Also a series of lessons on doing genealogical research is supplied in the appendixes. It is a riveting and a must read for those who study the African American experience and the history of slavery in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503528390

Errol D. Alexander

Errol Alexander is an internationally acclaimed writer and lecturer. Although he had several academic articles and books published on leadership/innovation, his first novel, A Devil on Your Shoulder, was published in 2006. In addition to holding a PhD from the University of Glasgow (1991) and an MBA in organizational development from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, he was an associate member of the American Historical Association for more than twenty years and was elected into the Royal Society of Art. He has taught organizational behavior at some of the world-leading educational institutions and was the academic director of an international MBA program at the University of Sterling. After living in Europe for more than eleven years, he now lives on the West Coast of the United States.

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Copyright © 2015 by Errol D. Alexander.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2014922451

ISBN:        Hardcover          978-1-5035-2838-3

                  Softcover            978-1-5035-2840-6

                  eBook                 978-1-5035-2839-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover image source is the University Archives. From the William Greenleaf Eliot Personal Papers, Series 7, Box 1. University Archives, Washington University in St. Louis.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Contents

Acknowledgement

Foreword

Chapter 1 The Auction in the -Valley 1790-1792

Chapter 2 The Slave Merchant 1788 - 1791

Chapter 3 A Lack of Imagination 1764 - 1788

Chapter 4 Slaves- Hauling 1790 - 1792

Chapter 5 Into America 1792 -1814-

Chapter 6 The Virginian Years -1814- 1828

Chapter 7 A Product by Law 1818-1827

Chapter 8 For A Few Dollars More

Chapter 9 A Kindling Fire

Chapter 10 Touches of Madness 1828-1831

Chapter 11 Slave Boutique 1829-1831

Chapter 12 New Beginnings 1818 – 1829

Chapter 13 Westward Ho1829-1833

Chapter 14 Slave Life in Missouri 1836- 1839

Chapter 15 Keeping Promises

Chapter 16 Payback 1863

Chapter 17 The Confession -Redemption 1864-1866

Chapter 18 The Last Fugitive Slave of Missouri March 30, 1863

Chapter 19 Swallowing The Dog

Chapter 20 Citizen Rebel March 1863

Chapter 21 The Paths of the Forlorn 1868-1878

Chapter 22 Companions and the Making of a Legacy

Chapter 23 Revelations 1871-1880

Acknowledgement

I n deep gratitude to the African American members of the Alexander family as headed by Archer (1816-1879), James (1855-1889); James F. (1881-1966); Willis B. (1912- 2002); and Errol D. (1941-), their children’s children; and William Greenleaf Eliot (1811- 1887) who was the reporter, shaper and promoter of this American family.

As well as a series of heartfelt notes of appreciation to the staff at St. John College at Cambridge University-England, the British Mitchell Library in Glasgow, Scotland, the National Archives in Washington D. C., Wisbech Museum-Bristol England, the Harvard University Divinity School, Oberlin College, University of Arkansas, Charles L. Blockson Collection at Temple University, Unitarian Church Archives-Boston, Ma, the Clarkson Library at Howard University, Sarah Culton-Alexander, Genomic Genetree, DNA Tribes Search, the University of Utah-Salt Lake Genealogical Center, African American Ancestry at Silver Spring, MD, Cameroon Bureau of Consular Affairs Yaounde, Embassy -African visit, and the Christopher Rhodes Eliot family in Massachusetts and the other descendants of William Greenleaf Eliot who were contacted as well as a special note of appreciation to Alexandra Otis Eliot, Gladys Griesenauer and her family of Dardenne, Mo. Jeannie Selbert Mid-Rivers Magazine, Loretta A. Caldwell at the Boutefort County Library in Virginia, Joan Pendley of Augusta County Virginia Genealogical Center, Candace O’ Connor, Missouri Historical Society, Francis E. O’Donnell Curator at Harvard University, Robert W. Tabscott of Elijah Lovejoy Society, Merle M. Moore, Jar of Smithsonian Institute, Miranda Rectonwald of Washington University Public Libraries, Greta Cooper- Thomas Ball Family Pepperdine University, Carolyn Roth of the State of Missouri, Archives and for the Office of Provost Marshall General in Jefferson City, Missouri,-the St. Louis Genealogical Society Research Center, the City of Charlotte Public Library Genealogical Center, North Carolina, Reed College Special Collection in Portland, Oregon, the Tacoma Public Library (Swasey) with the special assistance of its special reference librarians in Washington State and Daniel Russell, a reader.

Foreword

W hat you are about to read is true. The people are real, the situations are realistically reconstructed as to their time and written in context. Equally the slave stories are really supposed to have happened

When millions of slaves were freed, each told their own stories of going from slavery to freedom… Unfortunately, a few decades later many were encouraged not to Rattle the Chains of slavery. That is not to talk about those days when their ancestors were enslaved. And when you do talk speaks only of the cruelty, and the evils of being enslaved. However, from reading this, the readers will learn more about the realities of slavery and a few things about my family history. Also how I gained answers to a series of questions. For example I personally wondered after listening to my grandfather quotes snippets of Shakespeare, where did he learn them? Who taught him how to play five different music instruments? If a female slave ancestor was allegedly killed and why another could speak several foreign languages. But the biggest mystery was how did we become descendants of a slave named Archer Alexander and why did Reverend Eliot write a book about him? And why did Eliot wait so long before writing the story?

* It has been stated that the biggest difference between Africans in Africa and the transplanted Africans in America is how the former are dedicated to remembering their history orally and the latter is committed to forgetting its slavery days. This has been reflected by a range of scholars in the African traditions such as Bakari Sumnano, Colin A. Palmer, Isabelle Leyarim, Massa Diabate and Thomas A. Hale.

While these scholars may disagree on some things, they all agree it was the storytellers in the Africa that made the difference. Named differently in various tribes, the importance of the storyteller remained the same. Whether they were called Mande jela, on its west coast, the Jeli in Cameroon, Wolof gewel in the middle or Sangoma in the Sudan‘. They were like the bards of old Europe. Going back to the 12th century, they have been the living archives, the walking museums, the keeper of records and the map-drawer of one’s genealogy.

Further, these pundits would state how many Africans who landed in America were stripped of their culture, beliefs, and skills by their masters. This is partially true. No one can strip one’s mind, experiences and beliefs inculcate within them for hundreds of years. Additionally no one can take away what is passed on by an elder. For over two centuries behind closed doors and in the dark of night American slaves engaged in a tradition of the Griot ((the storyteller) Also, the African slave was admired by the other immigrants as possessing a greater knowledge of medicine, healing herbs, and animal handling secrets. These skills as well as a code of ethics enabled them to cope with and survive the rigors of slavery."

*Some of the remarks as heard by Errol D. Alexander at the commerative dinner for Thomas Clarkson, the English slavery abolitionist at St. John College Cambridge England in 1990 – see Volume II of The Rattling of the Chains.

One’s true education begins when one starts a quest to

learn more about one’s grandparents.

-Alfred North Whitehead

(1861 – 1947)

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Chapter 1

The Auction in the -Valley

1790-1792

T here in the State of Virginia as the early morning light turned from a dull gray to a light shade of blue, one could see the mist rising off the blue green forested surface of the surrounding mountains. A valley framed by mountains on both sides. They are often called the Poor Mountains because few things grew on them but some scruffy trees and enough bushes, scrub and undergrowth for sheep and goats to graze on and for small critters to hide in.

In the midst of this valley was a tract of land called Beverley Manor. There were settlements all along its twenty mile length on the head branches of the South River as well as both Christian’s Creek and Lewis Creek. Crossing through its center of these settlements was a main thoroughfare, following the Shenandoah River. It rests between the gentle rounded peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains and twists into the more rugged Allegheny Mountains. Nestled between these two mountainous ranges were apple orchards, blue-green colored calf-pastures, and small patches of crops, all nourished by the rich limestone of the land. An area dotted with stone, brick and clapboarded log farmhouses.

This valley section of Virginia along the Blue Ridge Mountains Range was unique to all other sections of the Southern part of the United States. A place taken over in 1737, by a band of fiercely independent Scottish- Irish immigrants, refugees first from Scotland who then moved to northern Ireland and later on to America: There after living here less than two decades, when the colonists waged a war against the English for their freedom, these Scottish immigrants led the battle. Perhaps in retaliation for more than a hundred years back in their homeland when they fought the English so bitterly and lost made them more gallant soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. Whatever the case, they exited from that war with titles ranging from Captain to Majors, carrying legendary feats of bravery with a sense of ownership as well as belonging

Now after fighting, they retired to live in this place noted for its scenery, called Buena Vista by some and in the fall season it was called Kalorama by most due to a parade of colors that made the hillsides brim over from a tapestry of color into a visual mixture of foliage caused by the varying colors of the vegetation ranging from the mountain laurel, the orange sap of blood roots plants, the lavender- pink of rhododendron, the dark blue of the Wake Robin and the lighter blue flowery shrubs of the Caryopetius.

Then added to those colors- an annual rise of new colors each spring were the pink of peach trees; the orange of the Azaleas, and a host of fruit trees- apple, and cherry- and the equally colorful foliage from other trees such as cedar, breech, pine and oak, it was easy to see why this area was viewed as a special place in the colonies. To the white residents, it seemed as if Mother Nature had slathered one brilliant color after another from her paint box on this land because she thought this place was special. But to the Africans, it was a reminder from their god, Nhial who promised them that he will mark all dangerous places in bright colors as a warning to them. He told them it will be in the most colorful places that mankind should expect to be the most miserable, or will encounter the most dangerous animals. In such places there will be gaily-colored critters who crawl around with the deadliest poison in their sacs, they should be avoided. They would be safe only when the brightest winged birds that would fly, or when man is crawling around on all four legs as a baby or in the company of animals that graze with their mouths down. These would be the only creatures that man can trust without fear.

But it was also a place with spots of desolate and sparse pockets of population. These are caused by earlier residents moving westward on to Missouri, Arkansas and further west into Oregon. Thus reducing the once thriving communities in better times down into uninhabited stretches of land full of decaying buildings and unattended farm lands.

It was a place where relationships between people are deep, and color-coded, but ruled by ancient African customs and European traditions. Where some African tribal traditions were stronger than any law by their owners. Slaves who may have lived and worked all their lives in a white men world, generally wanted to be buried in an African way. Where their African beliefs were so strong that slaves killed themselves in the African tradition of the Zulu tribe when they heard a white kind master had died. Or when duplicating other tribal traditions for a death of a master, slave women pulled out a tooth or cut off a finger out of respect or love for others.

An area where there was a mulatto slave (child of mixed race parents) was born out of every eight slaves registered. A place where blacks and whites work together, go to church together and even celebrate together. Although they all may be in the same place, doing the same things and even for the same reason, there would be separation. One providing privilege and the other, a disadvantage. Such as in church there would be a separate section to slaves or when celebrating meals at weddings and festivals, dogfights or funerals there mostly likely would be different sittings from one group from the other. This was a society where relationships changed in the mind of a slave by simply placing the word, white before a person’s name or title.

Here, a black friend was not the same as a white friend; a black boss was different from a white boss; yep, things changed when an adjective describing one’s skin color is placed before a person, i.e. when a black brother became a white brother, white woman or white churches and so on. This simple color reference changed the nature of most relationships. And yet, as babies the color code seemed less important as a custom with black slaves nursing whites or in the raising of one’s child. But as time goes on, this coding by skin color becomes more important after the age of twelve years old if one was a black slave according to the law.

It was said that, the slaves loved the area because the land holdings were small and if one had to be a slave…here it was best to be one. Most of the residents treated slavery as a necessary evil. And yet by law and custom they supported the right for one man to own another, even the rights to sell, trade, and to breed them but will react negatively to any outright cruelty. But the real cruelties of slavery was not in its practice, but how it shaped the character of the slave and reduced the level of a slave’s dreams. Idle time was what most slaves wished for and what most masters dreaded. It was believed by some slaves it was good to have idle time and to receive good treatment. Such a humane treatment brought with it high expectations, believing the better you are treated, the better you expect to be treated; and imprinted a message of expected treatment in the minds of the enslaved as well as a code for their owners to follow in a slaveholding area.

But, unfortunately, few things are worse for a slave-holding area than bad economic times, poor yielding crops, or natural disasters. Do bad times for the master means idleness and good times for the slaves? Does every frown of a master’s face that appeared due to the disappointment of a poor crop was secretly viewed by a slave with a silent cheer of triumph? - Most slaves believed that it was just the chickens coming home to roost and many prayed for such failures. But unfortunately before too long in a bad economy the slaves also knew that he or she would be the first casualty when there are bad times."

Yes, this valley was a strange place of unique customs. Where one would see more short men on average than tall ones sporting hooked noses, whose hair were generally braided into pigtails, by men who worn funny -looking hats, fringed leather shirts, and their women were adorned with tartan colored scarves… Where every free man was expected to own a gun, a knife and a dog.. Where men were encouraged to marry a first cousin or a brother’s daughter rather than to marry an outsider.

A place of revenge where one could identify which residents had been former Indian fighters, who worn boot leggings made of Indian skins- stripped from their backsides and tanned- as a way to always remember the eighty-one Virginians massacred in one day by the Shawnee Indians. The discovery by the Rockbridge’s Philip Love militia of the dozens of their soldiers’ bodies stripped and skinned like rabbits made them vow to wear the Indian skin -leggings until they rot and drop off.

A place of tolerance where a group of white renegades, free coloreds, runaway slaves, and mulattoes lived down near Irish Creek, next to the farms of these Scottish -Immigrants who chose to ignore the whooping and hollering of this group. And who referred to them as those Isahs folks with issues and long as they don’t steal our cows or our chickens: -let them be.

A place of strange contrast where strong habits were reinforced by passed-down oral traditions bound tightly by a Scottish yoke of hierocracy where one was taught to worship God openly; spend one’s wealth carefully; learn to write and speak clearly, to educate profusely and to brew one’s whisky slowly. : As Christians, many believed no man shall be owned by another but it was acceptable to rent out a slave from one of the local churches or issue an indenture contract for years.

Legally, this was a place within a greater place called the Commonwealth of Virginia. This was a time when slavery in the United States was at its zenith with more than 3.9 millions slaves over all, and almost 700,000 of them were here. Where almost thirty percent of the population was slaves and the average slaveholder owned 6.7 slaves. Yet it was also a place with less slaveholders registered within its geographic area when compared to the rest of Virginia:- the largest slaveholding enterprise being owned by Col. John Taylor with 150 slaves and the Presbyterian Churches with about hundred for hire were next and then a host of farmers -James McDowell, Henry Bowyer and Louis Holladay -who owned more than 40 slaves at a time. All others who owned slaves had less than five slaves each, but it should be stated that more than 80 percent of the white population did not own any slave at all…. and yet more slaves were sold here than anywhere else in Virginia, Maryland or North Carolina. How did all this happen so quickly?

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"My God, those slaves aren’t even chained or being guarded." observed Jonathan Caper as he approached the slaves holding pen outside the courthouse.

Maybe I h’d to buy those leg shackles after all, he thought.

Caper, medium height, black hair with sloping shoulders, and a wearied looking pair of dark brown eyes caped by a thick set of bushy eyebrows was there for a slave auction. It was scheduled to start at 8am as many regional slave auctions being held every other week; and once a month at some seaports. But if a person wanted to get a slave quickly and without a hassle, this was the place to be.

Feeling the heavy weight of the coins in his vest pocket and the crispness of the stiff papers commissioning him to acquire some African slaves, made Caper nervous. His goal was to acquire two field hands as well as one slave who could train animals. This buying of humans was something that he did not relish doing but his village in Virginia needed some slaves desperately.

leaning back on the wall of the auction pen, Caper was thinking this was definitely a pretty part of the world, a far cry from the hazy industrial fog of his hometown in England. The morning’s light continued to slide away as if it was a large blue curtain being gently pulled along by an invisible hand. The sky was becoming brighter and brighter, the first hint of a gradual heat, and a fair indication that another hot sweltering day was starting off in the Valley area of Virginia.

Since I got a few minutes before the auction starts, best to empty the old bladder now, thought Caper. All that drinking of hard cider last night, the juggling around in that wagon ride earlier this morning have backed up his system, feel like I going to burst, if I don’t take a leak soon. That was one of the things he hated about being in this settlement, while back on the farm he would just find a tree.

He walked rapidly down to the town’s lean-to for that purpose, a public toilet which was just some rough wooden walls erected around a hole in the ground, located in the back alley next to bunch of restaurants and a large yellow compound with the name, A.M. Sawyer’s Slave Dealership emblazoned across its front. The brightly yellow painted compound contained three buildings, a stable and -one of the largest wood framed buildings existing anywhere between the settlements of Lexington, and Richmond, Virginia, It was three stories high with a tavern/inn in its middle, a ground floor activity room and a top floor with sleeping accommodations. All owned by Ann Morris Sawyer who ran one of the most successful business enterprises in the region. At any time her stable was full of horses, and her tavern full of drinkers. Also one knew there would be a waiting list for her bedrooms, which attracted visitors from all parts of Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania as well as North Carolina.

Caper remembered when Sawyer first arrived in town from New Orleans; she was one of the tallest women he ever seen and she brought more fresh monies to the area that anyone could remember. Even Col. John Taylor, the richest of the land-holding group respected her. Caper recalled how she hired most of the joiners (carpenters and woodworkers) and slaves in the area to construct a huge tavern, called the Fighting Cocks, employing everyone from the local seamstresses, stone masons, and leather harness makers to the village blacksmith for more than six months solid. Even Caper and his wife, stained glass manufacturers, were hired to install a huge stain glass window eight wide and over ten feet high on the back wall of the tavern. The window displayed two fighting cocks locked in battle, one jumping over the other, with brilliant colored feathers of reds, blues and yellows. In each corner was either a set of sea horses, a group of rabbits, otters swimming and two sniffing moles of a sort. But it was a row of animals and sea creatures across the bottom that was the most unusual.

Caper’s wife, an artist of sort, was asked to draw this row of animals, some starfishes, a spotted hyena, a lion, a garter snake, mallard duck and a dolphin across the bottom of the window. Each animal was supposed to have some interesting fact about its sexual activity. Patrons of Sawyer often pointed out the one they would like to duplicate sexually with the slaves in the activity rooms downstairs or in a bedroom upstairs. On the sunniest days, the stained glass was alive with color and other days, a fireplace would illuminate it. The warmest and most colorful room in Virginia was the judgment of many.

In addition to the stained glass display, Sawyer built a long balcony along the wall facing the town center, "just like in Orleans’ there she would sit, addressing everybody who walked by. Rain or shine. If I just can get by without her seeing me, Caper thought.

Mister Caper, you’all been over to the slave auction?

Yep, he answered back while still walking straight ahead, how does she know everyone by his or her given name? He wondered. While she was thinking about him he sure tries to act so properly to be one of her spotted hyenas.

Any youngin’ among the group. Um you’all know -one of those small comely wenches or some slightly built bucks?

Naw, nar a one I could recall

Walking now with a spring in his step, Caper headed back to the town center as he thought how much can an area change in just a few years and how did it happened?

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As the rose-fingered lights of dusk are gradually being replaced by the shield of darkness, a group of men gather as they do at this time each month knowing the light of a full moon will help them find their ways back home, later. This group of men, eleven in all are also known as the Village Elders, comprised up of a member from each of the three churches in town, the five business and property owners, the local elected representative for the House of Burgess Assembly as well as a Justice of Peace and the High Sheriff.

There are few things stranger in a strange town than the unexpected appearance of strangers, and in they walked, a tall red-haired woman and a dark skinned dwarf. And equally outlandish in their appearance were their reasons for them attending this Elders meeting. First it was unusual for a woman to attend an Elder meeting uninvited. Sometime women appeared, but always by invitation only to explain or answer a manly concern about a womanly view… If this was not unique enough, the way she looked made her even more exotic. All in all, she was a stunning looking woman, standing nearly six foot tall with shoulders wide like a man, stunning blue eyes the color of Wedgwood china, the fairest of skin color, and the brightest red hair anyone ever seen and a huge buck-teeth smile. The hair was supposed to be natural, but several of the women said it looked like the work of a dye. Just the result of an Irish red-headed father and the auburn colored hair of a French mother she bragged later when asked about it.

Regardless of the reason for the brilliance of her hair color, all agreed it was spectacular. But the most noticeable thing about her was not her hair, but her companion, a dark-skinned dwarf named, Ruben, a free colored man. Later it was determined that he accompanied her everywhere, spouting long tousled curly black hair, a set of oblong gold earrings, a sharply trimmed mustache, and always dressed in a pin striped vested suit with its pant legs stuffed into a pair of fancy tooled, bright red cowboy boots with an onyx-handled pistol sticking out of each side. Later it was rumored, with a swoop of his overly long arms, pistols could appear almost out of nowhere like the lighting upward speed of startled quails into the palms of his hands.

Then to make it all a little more exotic and even more bizarre, if not strange they spoke in a type of pidgin French, talking in whispers most of the time. They were used to being noticed and watched wherever they traveled, but seldom had they experienced the deep silence when they appeared at the Elders’ meeting. Taking their seats, they seemed as if they were not aware of the commotion they were causing in the minds of the Village Elders.

When the woman rose to speak, she said in the most off-handed way, Howdy folks, I’m Ann Morris Sawyer and I’m here to open a business in this here town

Oh that’s good, um, um what kind and how can we help? was answered slowly by McDowell, the High Sheriff. He did not want to appear too eager by her declaration, but the town has little commerce and even fewer businesses. Outside Cherry Grove Plantation, his place, there were few successful farms.

Oh maybe something around the three S’s, not too sure yet she drawled.

The what? You did say the three S’s? Um, not exactly sure as what that mean? Could you explain?

Yessum, it means the selling of sex and slaves Do y’all have any laws against that?

After the Elders and others recovered their composure, the High Sheriff broke the awkward silence, Uh. Dat what you’re promotin’ it’s kind of goes against our ways and to most of us, against the laws of our God

Oh you do say, show me! I say, show me where dat laws say these people-whores, perverts and black slaves -are protected. Show me or step aside. and let me get on with it. I’m only providin’ what some slave owners’ re takin’ for free and most other men pay for it willingly with the cash on the barrel head. Anyway I checked and y’ll aint got no laws against either. Allow me to open this business and I promise to keep your stores busy and your eating places full…there’s will be a jingle in all of your pockets before long. Now this, I’ll guarantee as sure as fishes swim, birds fly and men’re men.

Well now… what you’re proposing requires a powerful amount of thinking and talking between us, can you come back next month? The High Sheriff smiled inwardly, knowing the best strategy against the unexpected is to stall, stall, stall, Maybe it will go away.

Making an appearance every month for the next few months, the debate as to how she should be stopped consumed many a town meeting. Before it was decided to ignore her for now. And to bring it up at the next House of Burgess assembly for a solution, six months away. Within that time, knowing men never vote against their own self-interests, she hired a few of the local men and joiners at top wages; and out of their visions of profits, it was decided to overlook, if not accept, Sawyer’s offer, the dwarf and her line of business, even if it was the selling of sex or slaves… Besides her business and her slaves can be taxed in a number of ways that would raised revenue for the village argued the Sheriff.

Within six months, there was a host of other related slave selling business in place. The market demand for the specially talented or trained slave attracted buyers from more than a fifty mile radius: If one wanted a slave that could sew beautifully, slaves that were local-grown, or trained to keep a large house or a special type of cook, this village became the place to come. Within a year, four more taverns opened up and two other slave boutiques were started.

Ann Moore Sawyer was not just a provider of slaves for sex, but attracted the bizarre ranging from those who wanted to maintain a pet slave on her premises only to be used by them once in awhile, to those who take one home and replaced them each year without any question as to what happened to the last one. She purchased child slaves ranging in ages from five year up and sold them after they reached their teenage years as a general rule.

One of the strange things about Sawyer’s establishment was the lack of a ground level doorway. And how one had to climb a set of an outside staircase slanted almost 45 degree in all with a long walk way and once inside climb down interior stairs to reach the activity room. Lemme tell you it aint easy to bust through a door to get into my place if you aint been welcomed, especially to hard to navigate for no good busybodies and drunks. I expect some of my customers to leave drunk, but not to arrive that way.

Now, most of the elders were be-grudely showing Sawyer some respect, but still there were some treating her with disdain. Yet most were curious about what her slaves did that were different from other places offering sexual pleasure. Men have as many different tastes as to what they want in women and from other men as they in the types of foods they want, she would often say.

Sure, some people will always treat those whom run a bordello or sold slaves with some reservations, but within a few months most town-people were treating her as if she was running an ordinary business. Maybe it was the high level of the French cuisine she served in her restaurant once a month- scalloped oysters, truffle-stuffed turkey, charlotte russe, fine wines, and glistened spun-sugar ornaments. Or for a shilling, one could sumptuously dine on a sweet omelet or a thick steak and have their meals topped off with a good French cup of coffee, made in a way that only a French-trained chef could make it, which turned out to be another talent of Reuben, the dwarf.

Then again, perhaps it was her outgoing good naturalness without any quilt about what she was doing. Or just, was it something special about her; that people start saying this about her from the first moment they met her. Frankly most people like being around her. Perhaps she possessed, what would be the proper term for it? A genius at projecting good will so that others felt it and were charmed by it? Added to this, the way she laughed and joked about the strangest things while reminding everyone who she was and what she offers. While laughing in a wide -open way, she would often introduce herself, No, don’t call me Sawyer, just call me, A. M., the initials before my name stand for Always More" and always ready, dat’s how mine female slaves’ll be most of the time.

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Walking away, Caper thought about Sawyer. He was still uneasily as to how to treat her. Caper had heard about some of her methods and contraptions long before he first viewed them- the swinging leather harness, in which a slave could be strapped in facing frontward or backward depending on what was being paid for. The thought boggled his mind. The walls of chains and handcuffs he saw and tried to ignore when installing the stained glass window.

Still he could not believe the volume of the business. At first the business was slow, and then a steady flow of buggies and wagons start coming and going at all times of the day became the norm. All types of men from rich looking patrons to those walking with patches on their pants, powerful state politicians to frocked priests, gentle-looking schoolteachers to rough wagon drivers, they came and the town prospered. Within a few years, the more prominent members of the community had moved away to the north side of the valley and began building new and larger homes in a wide six mile circle around a newly-built church made with the finest red bricks, paneled plate glass windows and the largest pillars

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Back at the courthouse, Caper waited for the auction, leaning on one leg, slouched against its buff brick salmon colored walls, a picturesque building with its gabled roof, a fenced in loggia and a two tiered white painted cupola. Taking in the scenery as the morning fog was now completely lifted, Caper felt a little bit more relaxed. One of the secrets of this land is how it hypnotizes and relaxes one with its raw beauty and the grandeur of its mountains thought Caper. However before long, he started thinking back to the task ahead of him- pulled out the flyer from his side pocket that described the slaves being offered.

Concerned as he was about the purchasing of another human being, he was more concerned about spending other people’s monies and the pressure of self-doubt about doing this task itself.. But for some strange reasons, attending slave auctions was something he and many others did all the time drawn by the spectacle and human drama of them all ; to him it was uniquely an American thing.

Brother Caper- I’m not surprised seeing you here! boomed a loud voice from behind.

Caper, upon hearing his name, turned around, just as he felt a hand on his shoulder, making him to look up at an overly tall man who was speaking, he swallowed, thinking. My God, oh, no …it’s Pastor Thames!

As the Pastor spoke, his left eyelid fluttered up and down and then open up again, giving the impression as if he was winking at Caper in confidence. But he was not. Just a lazy eye. Perhaps this was the only flaw on his striking handsome, cleft-chinned face with its aristocratic nose as finely shaped as one would find on a Roman statute. Not only was he tall, impeccably dressed, and freshly shaved, smelling as he did most of the time of a rum-based scent with his hair tied behind in a pigtail, these things identified him up close and afar as being special but most identifying element was how smart he was. Everything about this man, named William Albert Thames, from the way he dressed to how he carried himself reinforced a self-generated opinion that he was one of those people sure of what they knew and equally sure how little others knew, whether it was buying slaves, preaching, farming, building or horse riding he thought he knew better.

Hm’s that a spec sheet? Don’t tell me you’re here to buy a slave… after all that talking last month? My, my

Indeed I might, Pastor. Eh um, perhaps I’m here for the same as you I suspect

Without any other comments, Caper turned back to reading the bill of specifications on the slaves, stealing a moment to gather his wits. Although he was always pleased to see Pastor Bill Thames on most days, but today for several reasons, he felt completely uncomfortable.

As usual Caper noticed that the Pastor was carrying a small bible in his left hand as if he needed it as a constant reminder to all that he was a man of God. How can a person, so handsome, so pleasant and gentle acting most of the time, so caring to his neighbors, who talks so passionately about the glories of God, be a seller of humans. How can this God- fearing man about most things, makes his living being a slave trader and trainer?. How can the ever-welcoming Pastor and good-natural appearing Sawyer operated so nonchalantly while at the same time they are exploiting people, again a sordid combination of human traits that boggled the mind, thought Caper.

At the village elders meeting last month they had argued about Thames’s last delivery of two slaves, one with the back of his shirt still bloody probably from being whipped severely or beaten Alabama style (tying a slave’s legs and feet together under a barrel stringed over a rope between two trees). While Caper and the other residents were disturbed by the young slave condition, but it was Thames’s fees, they argued about. Thames was asking for 4 cents for each day for boarding per slave not their physical condition and a 12 percent commission over their buying price. Every thing seemed to be double what other slave dealers were asking elsewhere but with supply and demand ruling and an ever-shrinking pool of slaves, they reluctantly met his terms.

Then were two weeks ago, when this flyer arrived announcing the latest boatload of slaves the other elders had asked Caper to take the morning off and attend this auction, even agreeing to finish plowing his fields in his absence. Caper knew he was asked because of his honesty and quiet unruffled manner. Plus he had an trained eye for details and he was probably the best educated of the group. But frankly, he was one of the few farmers that was not related to any other around the area, he being an only child and his wife being an orphan,. They became the invited guests other than those of blood relatives attending many gatherings. When his wife Anne Elizabeth said, If you’re being asked, then you gonna to go, He agreed as she was usually right about such matters he discovered long ago. She being tougher about such things, even though she was expecting a baby any day now and he preferred to be there in their village with the mid-wife.

Aint worth! what, they’re asking for…too dear if you ask me? Thames said.

Well, I-

Dicey business, buying’ these critters Yep sir, it’s dicey business added Thames

Uh- mm, they look fit it to me

Think so, heed what I’m tryin to tell you’all…this’s dicey business. My mate, you are buying livestock that must do tasks on two feet that we expect from those with four.. The good things about them Africans slaves they live twice as long as most four-footed critters. But then again that’s their plight and that they must do it for forever

Oh come now, you don’t believe Africans are like horses and oxen! …And doomed to be a slave forever Surely you don’t believe that!? Jonathan was stunned by what he heard and remembers how he was an indentured servant, himself just a decade ago.. Slavery in his mind was caused by a series of unfortunate circumstances, by law, by war, by need of one man needing another man’s labor, all made-made invention rather than by the laws of nature.

Oh, I forgot you’re one of them non church going people, But it’s right there in the good book flipping through the pages of his bible the Pastor was eager as if he expected people to ask, there’s in Genesis 9:25 to be exact that Noah’s youngest son, Ham saw his father nakedness and Noah cursed him to be the lowest of slaves to his brothers forever. And his skin shall be black

Frankly my good pastor, I’m not in the mood for a sermon this early in the morning. Let us agree that Africans slaves are smarter than dumb animals and some of us

Pastor Thames laughed before answering, Barely, if they’re from good stock. Most can talk and understand things a little better than other critters and that’s about it. My advice to you, my good friend’s to buy them as if you’re buying a good bunch of grapes.-.you’ want them of good rich color, fleshly bottoms, smooth-skinned and healthy. Buy them for breeding like one buys a boar for hogs or a rooster for chickens but above all, buy them if the critters are manageable

Thanks, but I’m gonna to buy them by what’s on the shipping manifest

I won’t…see that one over there-Thames pointed with his hand, Yesterday I looked them over really good, you gonna to know what you’re getting. Um it’s about their stock and where they hail from… Yep, it’s always best to get a grain eater when ever you can, you know them by taking a quick peek at the ridges on their fingernails… See there, he’s a meat eater, it ll be too expensive just to feed him, and look at how spotty his skin’s.

Wiping away the beads of sweat with a swat of his hand, as the morning temperature must had climbed by more than twenty degrees in the past hour, Caper was becoming even more uncomfortable about what he was doing.

Caper trying his best to ignore the comments of the Pastor, turned back to reading the specs, partly to escape any further comments from Thames and partly to see if he could determine which was the slave, identified by him as having spotty skin and what was the price set for him. Thinking now, I should have come by here yesterday like Thames instead of spending the night at Fincastle, my god there’s so much to learn with this slave business.

Nudging Caper with his elbow, Thames pointed, See.. See those two over there, hollow looking legs, feet shaped wrong, the tibia not formed right, ears too small

But… They’re rated by the State of Virginia as being the top of the line

So what…as I told you people at last month meeting. If you’ll would just hold on to your hosses, I’m tellin you’all another shipment’s coming

Cannot do… in a few weeks, we’ll be plowing, and after- Caper said.

Grieving Nelly…you’all can’t wait… That boat from the Portuguese will be here any day now. Yep, it’ll be full of dark-skinned slaves at half the price with two times the work life. I.ll bet you

That’s third time we heard that, Pastor…. You keep goin’ on about Portuguese’slaves, hey, a.. a slave is a slave, what makes them so dif-

Cutting off Caper in mid-speech, Thames answered, Because the Portuguese pick their slaves differently… they use a list of those tribes they know are born with an easy temperament. Particularly those with sloping heads, protruding lips, prominent noses, wide jaws, skin dark as an eggplant and tight curled hair, all telling you something about the way they’ll work and can be managed later on…

Are you trying to tell me their skin color and shape of their heads ’ll tell us what type of worker they’ll be. Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me, I’se never heard-

’Jeez, maybe cause you’re a dilly-dally type of buyer…. Slave buying ’s not a spectator sport. Gosh boy, I see you at the Augusta County auctions all the time, but aint never seen you buy anyone

Well, I’m just thinkin’..

Oh.. bull Balls!…all y’ll doin’ just hanging about like most of the men folks around here do, eh…Just lookin’ for an easy way to pass the morning while the womenfolk’re shopping and gossiping like old hens, eh?

The pastor, smiled to himself, seeing how uncomfortable Caper was, decided to lawd his knowledge over him just a little longer, continuing, Now them Portuguese found after buying slaves for hundreds of years there’re some tricks of the trade. Yep, long before the English.

Hm, so what

Oh, it’s just the way God made them. Pure and simple some slaves from certain tribes are just better workers, yeah; one got to know what to look for…Um so I’ll look for them. Haven’t had any problems buying this way, ever since I only buy the ones from Portuguese…but those critters from English boats ’re trouble I tell you …see that one over there

Where?

Him, over there…The small buck slave by the fence with his arms folded, see.. see him! …it aint right how he looks back at white people dead straight into their eyes…bad signs… see, there he goes looking again; see how he won’t look away. Bad signs I tell you, bad signs

Caper now after listening to the Pastor felt even a greater amount of anxiety, turned back to reading the specs sheet, again. The Pastor sensed Caper was annoyed, and frankly, he didn’t care, as this was his business and a very profitable one, plus he is doing God’s work by being a slave trainer he thought.

Pastor Thames, often-cited one of his favorites quotes justifying how the Deity himself permitted slavery. Leviticus Chap. 25, verse 44-45 ‘Take those from the foreign lands around you, buy them to serve you and they will be yours to pass down as an inheritance forever and ever‘ he mumbled to himself before reading the specifications and the stock price lists again.

Now taking out a pencil, marking over a few of the auction prices, and doing some quick calculations, the pastor suddenly stopped writing and turned to Caper, Brother Caper, I’m off…. may God can help you today as he helps me everyday. Ain’t no slave worth what they’re asking for here. Besides the Portuguese slave boat w’ll be landing any day now"

Watching the tall man walking away rapidly in the direction of the town center, Caper felt a strange mixed sense of relief and fear. Perhaps the Pastor was right, but they’re surely a good lookin’ group of slaves, he thought.

Taking out his pipe, packing it full, Caper leaned against the building and waited, typical for those people who used to working with his hands idle time is enjoyment time. Smoking a pipe was the few pleasures he ever engage in that helped him to relax, particularly when he found himself with free time. It was a way to escape, to think and to come up with a solution to any pressing problem, another way was to do mathematic problems and calculations in his mind.

Doing what was his habit, and lumping the things into groups, Caper noticed, as with most slave auctions as a rule, there would be three different groups of actors present. The potential buyers and the ultimate users of the slaves being one group. The promoters and the wholesale suppliers being another. Moreover, the third group being those traders buying the goods (slaves) for re-sale. The invisible laws of economics’ supply and demand governed the interplay between them as they do for any type of business. However, the rules for engagement and in the way the slave trading business is conducted may be slightly different. It is cash on the barrelhead for first time buyers and no returns regardless.

Still smoking his pipe, Caper observed the three group of buyers at a distance, the smaller one, he called in his mind, the eager beavers as they moved closer to the auction stand and seemed more nervous than the other two groups. They were the one who arrived the earliest at such auctions, generally, looking for the best quality of slaves.

When this’s going to get started? said George Hancock, known by the slaves and others as the chucker. He had a habit of throwing rocks down at meandering slave workers into the flatlands with some accuracy from one of the six different sitting perches he had built high on the mountainsides. A futile gesture because, the slaves discovered long ago, a man cannot be in the same place at the same time,. They often plotted his movements as he changed from one sitting perch to another. By their hand signals to another, the slaves knew when they could loaf and when they should show a bit more energy. Sometimes Hancock would wait for hours to catch a slave loafing.. a battle of wits, deception and group united against a common enemy.

Caper had not decided whether Hancock’s one-man war against his slaves was due to him being too cheap to hire slave drivers or just being mean-spirited. Nor did it occur to any of the white residents that the slaves had worked out a bunch of systems how to beat the rock throwing, taking a greater inner pleasure of outthinking their masters rather than by working harder to please them.

Caper noticed that some of the buyers were hanging back. Either they would deliberately wait to bid or by arriving late at an auction on purpose, prepared to mop up the remnants of any unsold slaves at the lowest prices possible, for resale elsewhere. To Caper, these were the Vultures the hard-hearted, sharp-eyed and most commercial of the different buyers, a group that he thought Pastor Thames belonged.

He knew the bulk of the slaves that the Vultures would purchase would go to the sugar or rice plantations where slaves are replenished regularly as the work there was much more grueling type of work that resulted in early deaths of the slaves. These types of work created almost a semi- annual need for new slaves.

Still waiting, Caper’s mind now turned to reflecting on how well his life has gone since arriving in America more than a decade ago. It was a silly argument that caused Caper, to leave England at the age of thirty. He and his wife, Anne Elizabeth, two of the best silversmith and calligraphers in the manufacturing firm of Hardman & Hardman were tired of doing all the creative work in making stained glass and others getting all the credit and most of the profits.

It really disturbed Anne Elizabeth that the youngest son of the owner, John Hardman seemed to want to take all the credit for anything done well, pinning the blame for any mishap on anyone else, especially his female workers. Elizabeth Caper had been an apprentice for Eliza Godfrey, daughter of Simon Pantin, the Huguenot silversmith who had moved to England twenty years ago. It was an off chance she became an apprentice as she had just been released from a convent orphan school and walked by a display of sliver ware in the marketplace. First she was surprised that the seller was a pleasant looking woman and so overwhelmed by the grace and beauty of the pieces, she blurted out to the seller.

:Madame how can you or anybody get so much beauty and grace it was as if God had touched them".

Never finished until each piece delighted the eye, intrigued the mind and moved the soul

Um- how does do that?

Train the eye, always move the material upward from a point, and teach one’s fingers to make details. Ah, it.’s all in the attention to details, do you want to learn?

Oh my gracious yes, I would be honored and indeed blessed by God, himself for such an opportunity

With that exchange, Anne began an apprentice to Eliza Godfrey, starting every morning after making her devotional to the Virgin Mary preceded by the Lawd’s Prayer, ending with a Gloria Patria, she practiced drawing. Then working each day except Sunday learning the process of making silver ware and stained glass windows. Finally she knew what she wanted to do - to make beautiful religious artifacts- and to be as well known as Eliza Godfrey.

So it irked her when she found that the British Guild had decided that Eliza (beth) Godfrey and Elizabeth Tutie were to be the only females allowed to have a registered trademark on their products. Even thought there were dozens of women working in the trade and further no woman can be registered in her own name. But only in their spouse or father’s name. While it was the huge profit margin being made off his labor that galled Jonathan the most, this failure to accept her and most other women into the Guild was the main reasons over the years she had argued for going to America.

At first he tried to ignore her complaints but after a while what she was saying made sense. Caper even tried to reason with her, Come on Duckie, the company’s his, forget about it! We’re paid well for our part". Still he shuddered when he found out for every shilling he made on a project that Hardman received 25 times that amount.

This was the way it was, he the reluctant careful one and she the most aggressive. Whenever Jonathan pacified his wife by reminding her how well they were paid, she would often say nothing. Married for six years, after they met working in Bristol, England being hired at the same time as apprentices (she in silver work and he in making stained glass windows).

Her stand up attitude impressed him almost immediately balancing his easy go along manner.

Anne Elizabeth, was a slightly over weight woman with a leathery soiled –looking face permanently discolored with caked- in dirt and grime marks from standing over smoldering smoky fires of charcoal and a bobbed blond hair streaked by the harsh chemicals, she said nothing about his argument of higher wages because it was a fact. Compared to other workers, they were well paid. Yet, even with both of them receiving wages, there was barely enough monies to keep food on the table after paying for their supplies and clothing advanced by the Hardman’s firm. It was the love of constructing stained glass into a visual story or stirring a mood as well as making something out of nothing that intrigued the Capes.

Manufacturing stained glass is really a misnomer as the images are painted on to mosaic glass tiles and then using colored and oxidized glass. To create a picture or scene. Silver smith was also dirty work smelting sand, potash, hunks of silver ore and lime into the various shapes and forms

Anne Elizabeth’s skills as silver smith and her imaginative use of jewel-like colors with some enamel paints and the Hardman’s family soon noticed the painting of animals in real tic poses. However, when she suggested the green foliage be drawn looser and in warmer shades of color, the male workers objected, as it would not be traditional designs that way. Once in fixing the pieces of glass to the structure, she asked, Wouldn’t vertical pieces, be better, what you think? Placing those pieces in an uplifted way, don’t you think, it would add to the mood of the piece?

‘Mood! Snorted John Hardman, What’s this nonsense about setting a mood with animals and pelicans of all things?"

You would n’t know a mood if your finger was cut in half snapped Anne Elizabeth. Frankly, she was still upset about how the ceremonies for the stained glass windows made for the British House of Parliament were conducted. She as well as most of the women, who did most of the work, was not even invited.

Then the next month, they and dozens of workers were laid off, not enough trees to furnish wood needed for the charcoal were the line. Therefore, after nine years as designers, Caper and his wife, trained to be top-flight silver smiths and stained glass artesian found themselves out of work. Go to America, there’re plenty of trees there, they were told.

Privately Caper thought his wife’s silly argument with John Hardman about the design of stained glass probably accounted for them being let go as certain others, less skilled, were kept on. It was either for them to move on than change their crafts Lack of options can make decision-making easy, after a while it became clearer that they should head for America. How to get there became the question, becoming indentured servants to cover passage and wages became the answer.

Doing what thousands of Europeans had done for decades, they became servants under contract. This funding by indenturing was a sure way to attract, pay for, and to transfer workers across the seas to the colonies. Generally, the indentured contract covered four to six years and stipulated that each servant must receive annually, a wide brim hat, a suit of clothing, and one pair of shoes. The diet mandated by Parliament for indentured servants was a combination of a half-pound of boiled beef; a loaf of bread and two pints of beer weekly.

All other provisions in the contracts were a list of do’s and don’ts mostly favoring the investor. Some say the contract of an indentured servant was so iron clad that it was like a contract written in one’s own blood with the devil, he

Every contingency for avoiding a task was foreseen and plugged up heavily in favor of the overseer- investor and were swiftly reinforced by the community as a whole. The negative factor was that most indentured servants died before their time agreement expired. Few escaped. The plus factor for being an indentured servant over being a slave is one knew at some time, once the costs of passage or any other debts were paid, one was free in a land of opportunity. This was the appeal and the hope of many.

After checking out the provisions of being an indentured servant, it was decided Jonathan would go first. If it worked out well for him, then Elizabeth would join him in about three years. Out of living more than nine generations in the same area, and often having not one member of his family or a neighbor ever traveled more than 25 miles away in any direction or another, this was a big step.

Entering one of the many seaport-shipping offices in England, Jonathan sold his services for the cost of passage to America and an annual wage of 12 pounds. After years of breathing the lime, potash, soda and lead oxide mixture in the making of glass, living in the crowded city of London, being in the open sea air was