It is December 15th, year of our Lord 1807. The grimm specter of life is upon me, I feel it in the essence of my very soul. As my time draws near, I write this confession. It is every Christian’s duty to confess their sins before their judgement in the Lord’s eyes. Though I refuse to dirty the priest’s ears in the confessional with what I have done, and what I have seen. Humanity will be judged dearly for the last century or so. Judged like the Pharaoh of old. Our treatment of the dark skinned people of the jungle land of Africa, it stains our souls.
My own experience with the horrors of slavery began when I found myself as one. In 1743 I had run afoul of the Royal Navy, and pressed into service as a crewman. I was no stranger to the harsh life of a seaman, I had sailed with my own father as a young lad, but the British Navy was not my father. The Navy was filled with hardened sailors, rough criminal types. The red backed army men ruled the ship, and dulled out their commands to their trusted first mates. They ran the ship with harsh words and even harsher whips. I myself was whipped as punishment for some trivial thing. I remember the crack ringing in the air then the stinging pain that came with it a second later. 96 lashes, 96 deep scars in my back, branding my forced adventure into memory forever.
Thoughts of waiting till the dead of night and slicing the captain’s neck for my pain crossed it. I thought better of it, and moved onto another ship soon after. The crew of my new ship detested me. They saw through me, saw I wasn’t one of them. Perhaps they knew of my flogging shame, my murderous thoughts of my previous captain. The first chance they had, they marooned me on the African coast, and I was pushed into a different kind of service. I was enslaved by the natives there, by the queen of her people no less. Royalty had no effect on the treatment of slaves. In fact, I suspect those of a higher class will always relish the chance at cruelty on those enthralled to them. The queen was vicious to me, beat me and berated me. It enraged me, this savage treating me like this. I was a different man then, hardened and warped by my time at sea. Does it excuse my ignorance and disgust? Maybe not, but I do believe my hatred was justified at the time. I hated West Africa, The jungles were warm and filled with beasts. Four legged creatures that looked like giant cats with blackened spots. They had emerald green eyes. I remember spying those glowing green eyes in the void of the night. The queen would chain me outside like a dog. I could feel eyes all the time, around me, watching me. Hungering for me. The eyes of the great cats were all that I saw in the dark. I shivered in the cold of the jungle. One would think the jungle would be hot. No, the damned great forest is cold in the night. It’s deceiving, all of it. Those memories will haunt me into the grave. Yet, despite my own treatment, I still ended up committing the sin of slavery myself.
Eventually I was rescued, my father had sent people and those people did what they could to save me. I would not speak to my father about Africa, he died never knowing the extent of horror that was betrothed on me. It sickened me, angered me that I had gone through it. I think that was why I ended up becoming a captain of the middle passage. My biggest regret, sailing those ships. I was a lean captain, I left discipline to my first mate. This included the treatment of any slaves kept below deck. I rarely went below, though it was my duty it churned my stomach to see the state of these people.
The crewman had them stacked up and shackled like boxes. It stank of musty seawater and excrement. There were cries, and some of them wailed out in their language. I could not understand them, but I assumed they were asking anyone, someone, for mercy of a kind. There was barely any light. At night, it would grow as dark as it did in the jungle. I was told by the night watchman that night was when they would scream out the most. I remember thinking even savages fear the dark like an Englishmen does. Like they had the same sense we did. I am ashamed of my thoughts then, I truly am. One day a slave tried to throw himself overboard. He was stopped and then chained. The quartermaster brought up what I assumed to be the doomed man’s family, and made them watch as he was punished. Each crack rang out in my ear, a sinister familiar ringing. The blood from the slave’s back spurted out onto the deck. Each lash made my own back throb out in pain. I wanted to stop it, right then and there, but I feared retribution from the crew, reminded of my marronement.
The worst part of it all was the dark man’s face. He barely winced at the pain, he just looked onward, a glassy look in his eyes. It was like the quartermaster was whipping the life out of his very soul. It was a look I would come familiar with. When we reached our destination, and the droves of people, yes people, I eventually did see the light of this profession, marched out onto the docks, separated and herded like cattle, at least half of them had that look. Dead and hollow inside, like mannequins.
That night, the night of the flogging of the doomed man, I dreamt of hell. This was my turning point, towards my abolitionist stance at the whole horrid affair. I was chained up, people on all sides of me, cramped together. It was the cargo hold of a slave ship. There was a smell in the air, like Sulphur, and as the cries of the damned started to echo around me, I saw that a ring of fire was slowly engulfing us. I struggled to get out, the chains dug into my wrists, cutting them, yet I still struggled. The pain was real, my throat burned at the Smokey air. The fire slowly crept up to me, and as the cries died out, I then knew what people smelt like when burnt. I looked up and saw a bright light, and a creature that almost makes me wish I would descend to Hell when I die. It was an angel. But not one that Michelangelo would paint. It was. . . spherical, all parts moved and droned out an excessive noise, like a trumpet. It was covered in eyes, all blinking and all seeing. It judged me, and condemned me for my role in the middle passage. I burned, and the last thing I saw was the angel, almost taunting me as it succumbed to the hellfire.
I awoke in a cold sweat that night. I have never forgotten the vividness of that dream, nor, even know, have I let go of my guilt. The white man will be judged harshly in the gates of Heaven, this I know. I have seen what waits for me in the afterlife, and though I have devoted the rest of my life to the church, it will not be enough. The angel showed me my Hell, and it will be just. I have earned my place in damnation, no matter what I feel now. All I can say is, I truly am sorry, and may God have mercy. Though I know he will not.
REFLECTION
So for this first project I decided to write a horror story about slavery. Which ya know is sort of redundant because slavery in of itself is a fucking horror show, pardon my French. But I am fairly decent at writing fiction, plus even more so at writing horror fiction, so I ran with it. Helms gave me the idea of using the writer of Amazing Grace as an influence, which was much appreciated because I did end up learning more about the dude. I knew he was a slaver, because I like irony and a man turning to God after selling people is perfect irony. I did not know his whole backstory however, and that was intriguing to see. It reminded me of equinox, oh God I am butchering that name, the man who we read about. I thought the similarities were too perfect to pass up, so Amazing Grace it was. I think the nightmare part was my favorite part to write, that and the whipping scene. Nightmare gave me a little creative freedom to get weird with it and whipping, well that is just tense and cringe inducing I feel, no one likes the feeling or remembrance of being reprimanded, and we all know they were not easy on the slaves when it came to whipping. As to the question, why does literature matter? Well thats easy. This was written about a dark time in history, and history can and should not be forgotten, lest we repeat it. That is a big part of why I think literature is important. Every book, even easy grade things like Goosebumps have a little piece of history in them, be it legitimate information or just a little insight into how life was around that time. Without literature, we have no history, and without history, we are nothing.
If this pans out well after the edits, I might do the short horror story idea again, I did enjoy writing historical fiction. It was interesting to write in that sort of POV. It was not really something I had done before. When I write I tend to create my own character and explore who they are throughout the story, or just do first person and go from there. This was the first time I had like, a real person as the lead. I think I did ok, could have gone better. I did my research, I think I captured what sort of man he was, in so many words mind you. I have written about famous people before, Dracula shows up in the first chapter of the book I’m writing. It’s. . . it’s not exactly the same thing I know but It shows I have a resume of writing famous people ok.
It seems to me the only real issue with it is formatting, which I think that was wordpress screwing up. Technology has not been my friend this semester, which is bad because the whole online classes cause corona. Tried to do a flip guard for my French class today, but that failed miserably. I have no idea why, it just refused to upload. So I had to email the video directly. Hell My computer broke and then I pretty much lost access to this class cause nothing works. From what I have seen of this class, it’s pretty enjoyable. I truly, TRULY wish I could have taken this class in like, the real world. But I can not afford to take a year off, and it was only offered in the Fall so, here we are. I just wish it would blow over all ready, but this is not the place to voice my opinions on Corona.
In any case I think I did ok with this, I know I have some blog posts to do, but I figure Iĺl get caught up on that this week, buy going to class and seeing what the reading is and just sort of working backwards. It’s easily doable, especially since I believe the second project, which if it’s on early English lit will ALSO be a horror piece, because god That was a scary time as well. Basically this week I plan on speeding through things I missed because the tech at my disposable is god awful.
Sprockets and Springes 