My Name Is Not Angelica
Scott O'Dell
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Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O'Dell, Scott
My name is not Angelica / by Scott O'Dell.
p cm.
Summary. Relates the experiences of a young Senegalese girl
brought as a slave to the Danish owned Caribbean island of St. John
as she participates in the slave revolt of 1733–1734.
ISBN 0-395-51061-9
[ 1. Slavery—Virgin Islands of the United States—Saint John—
Insurrections, etc.—Fiction. 2. Saint John (V.I )—History—
Fiction. 3. Blacks—Fiction.] I. Title
PZ7.0237My 1989 89-1864
[Fic]—dc19 CIP
AC
Copyright © 1989 by Scott O'Dell
All rights reserved. For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue
South, New York, New York 10003.
Printed in the United States of America
QUM 10 9 8
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To Rosa Parks
who would not sit in the back of the bus
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Author's Note
In the writing of My Name Is Not Angelica, I talked to librarians and teachers on the islands of St. Thomas and St. John and to the descendants of slaves who lived through the revolt of 1733—1734.
The island of St. John was discovered by Columbus in 1493. It passed from hand to hand among the Spaniards, the Dutch, the British, and the French until the year 1717, when it was settled by the Danes. Two hundred years later they sold the island to the United States.
Besides numerous scholarly papers, I found most helpful Westergaard'sThe Danish West Indies Under Company Rule; Jadan's booklet A Guide to Natural History of St. John; Night of the Silent Drums by John Anderson, who spent thirty-five years of research on this fine novel; and the splendid books of the explorer Basil Davidson, Black Mother: The African Slave Trade, The African Genius, and The Lost Cities of Africa.
1
Late in the summer King Agaja sent out ten of his five hundred women guards. They came down the river in a war canoe. They wore golden shifts, loops of moonstone beads, and silver rings, but each of them carried a cutlass.
I stood beside my father at the river's edge, holding my sister's hand. I was sixteen and tall for my age, but I felt like a child beside these giant women as they strode toward the ceiba tree where Konje waited. They looked like ten giant statues come to life.
The leader spoke to Konje in a queenly voice. "King Agaja," she said, "King of Zamboya, Emperor of Lands to the West and East, has learned of your father's death. The news has saddened His Majesty. He fears that the friendship between Zamboya and Barato will languish and die."
My father, Tembu Motara, the chief counselor of Barato, squeezed my hand as the word "friendship" was spoken. Never was there any friendship between King Agaja and Konje's father. No one in Barato had ever seen the king. His merchants had never traded with us.
The leader went on. "In order that this friendship will not end, His Majesty will give a feast ten days from this day, to which you and your court are invited."
Konje, who could smile at a charging lion, was startled when the ten warriors stepped from the canoe. He was startled when their leader spoke to him. He bowed twice, tugged at this belt, then glanced at my father.
In his deep voice, my father replied, "Please inform His Majesty that in the spirit of friendship we accept his generous invitation."
The leader, towering over us all, looking beyond us, said, "His Majesty will be pleased that he will have the good fortune to entertain you and your court."
Without more words, to the tinkling of bracelets, she led her warriors to the canoe and quietly they set off up the muddy river. She waved and the village waved back.
"The invitation surprises me. What do you think of it?" Konje asked my father.
"We go to the feast, of course. But before we go, we think hard. The flood has changed things. Barato is no longer seven villages hidden in the wilderness, far from the river and the sea."
Last April, when it rained nights and days for weeks, our mighty river changed its course. In a great loop, it rushed away from the country King Agaja ruled and left him without a harbor. The river's new course washed out one of our villages and most of our palm forest, but miraculously we were now on the sea.
"King Agaja has lost his harbor," my father said. "Now he has to send his goods through Barato. What's on his mind is very simple. He doesn't want to pay us a tax on the goods he'll ship, even a small tax."
Konje knew little about business. "What does the king send?"
"Elephant tusks, gold, palm oil. Also slaves."
"Slaves? From where?"
"From lands beyond the mountains where the river begins. But he collects them from everywhere. Each year he sends more than six thousand to Spain and Portugal. To other countries also."
"We cannot collect a tax on slaves," Konje said. "I do not like the idea."
"It's the most profitable tax of all. King Agaja would pay us a tax for every slave he sends out. And a tax on what he is paid in return—a musket, lead, and barrels of powder. You'll be rich in a short time."
"No," Konje said.
"You own slaves. I own slaves. All the elders own slaves. What's the difference between our slaves and those that King Agaja sends?"
"Ours are well treated, a part of the family. Of the slaves that are sold, I have heard, many are roasted over hot fires and eaten."
"Eaten?" my father exclaimed. "That's nonsense."
The sun was going down in a bank of rain clouds. A cool wind wandered in from the harbor. Servants came with a string of horses. It was the time of day when Konje and his lordly friends rode off to the grasslands, beyond the swamps and the palm forest that surrounded us, to hunt wildebeests and panthers.
The beribboned horses caught Konje's eye. He clapped his hands like a child and hummed a tune. He chose a beautiful spotted mare, leaped on her back, and began to circle the tree where my father and I stood. He rode slowly, sitting straight on his gold-trimmed blanket.
His eyes were fixed on me. He wanted to make sure that I was watching. I watched while he made two slow circles of the big ceiba tree. "Raisha, do you like the horse?" he said.
"It's beautiful," I said.
We would not be married until he was thirty years old. Now he was only twenty-seven. That was the law of Barato. It was never broken. He liked to tease me. Once I teased him. I hinted that one of the elders had asked me to marry. But both of us knew that our hearts were joined forever.
2
Days after the women warriors left, King Agaja sent canoes filled with flowers, with night-blooming cereus, pink jungle ferns, and frangipani. Our village ran down to the river to meet them.
Warriors, who spread the flowers under the ceiba tree, and a grizzled dwarf got out of the canoe. He waddled up the pathway and stood stiffly in front of Konje.
"Flowers of friendship," he said in a piping voice. "A gift from King Agaja to the women of your court."
Konje was startled at the sight. He couldn't think of anything to say. He had to do something to repay King Agaja. But what? He glanced at my father, who looked away, a signal meant to calm him. But Konje went on. He sent a servant to the counting house. The man came back with a gourd of river pearls that shone like the moon as it sets at the break of day.
"With pleasure I send King Agaja these pearls of friendship," Ko
nje said.
The dwarf smiled showing gold teeth. "His Majesty will be pleased, also the women who will wear them." He pressed the pearls to his chest. "How many of your beautiful guests will we have?"
"Ninety-three from this village," Konje said. "From the other five villages, I don't know. It is harvest time with them."
He excused himself and went to a papa drum sitting among the trees, the big one made of a hollow log covered with goatskin. He beat on the drum with his hands and talked to the nearest village. Then he talked to the rest of the villages, beating the big drum with a rhinoceros horn.
Numbers came back quickly. He added them to the number from our village and told the dwarf that he would come to the feast with one hundred and eight guests, possibly a few more.
"As many as you wish," the dwarf said. "His Majesty has just given a month's shelter to a caravan from Ethiopia of more than two hundred merchants."
Konje ran a hand through his bushy hair. He frowned. Again he glanced at my father. I was sure that he wanted to make another gift. He had given pearls to the women of Agaja's court. Must he make a gift to King Agaja himself?
Again my father cast a cold eye at Konje and turned away. He was very careful with money. In a big book bound in zebra hide he put down all the money that came into and went out of our six villages. And as the chieftain of Barato, until the day Konje reached the age of thirty, he would keep a tight rope on the spoiled young man.
Rain began to fall. Warriors leaped out of the canoe and held mats over the dwarf, as if they thought he would melt away. He touched his forehead to the ground and bowed himself to the river. He faced Konje as he went, yet I noticed that he cast a long look at the bamboo wharf the Elders were building at the mouth of the river.
From his canoe, he called out, "In three days I will meet you at the gates of Malai, be it day or night."
True to his word, he was there three days later, wrapped in folds of scarlet cloth that sparkled with jewels, with two rows of naked guards that stretched from the river bank to an odd-shaped hill some distance beyond.
Up this pathway, between the two rows of guards glistening in the heat, the dwarf led the way. Konje walked behind him and the rest of us followed Konje. The sound of trumpets and little tan-tan drums came from somewhere.
On both sides of the path were streets straight as arrows faced with mud and straw huts, half of them in ruins. Men crowded the street, carrying stones.
Between the rows of guards, the pathway led toward a stone cliff. Circles and triangles and zigzag lines were painted on its face in glittering colors.
The pathway began to narrow. The top of the cliff turned outward and hung above us. We left the guards behind. Suddenly we were in a walled, cavelike place. The pathway went no farther. Over our heads was a glimpse of blue sky and a white cloud.
The dwarf, speaking in a gentle tone, placed us against a wall. A basket came down through the hole over our heads.
"We go up to the king's gardens and his palace," he said. "We go seven at a time. It is not far to the top."
But the top was far, high as ten men. There were more than a hundred guests, yet servants lowered the basket and pulled it up before the dwarf had finished telling Konje how many invaders had tried to climb the cliff and failed.
"Not just one cliff protects the king," he said. "Cliffs surround the palace on every side. Most of the invaders are slain at the river. Those who reach this far go no farther."
While the basket went up and down, he told us tales of those who had foolishly attacked King Agaja. Since we were no threat to the king, the dwarf must have told the tales for only one reason. He was sure that they would be passed on to the English in their big fort at the mouth of the river.
The last to be hauled aloft were Konje, my father and mother, Dondo, our servant, and me. The basket bumped against the stone sides of the dark hole. The rope creaked. Water dripped on us. The servants who were hauling us in sang. They stopped. The basket stopped. We dangled for a while, I think on purpose. My mother said that she wished she had stayed at home in our quiet village and I felt the same.
The dwarf had been left behind, I thought, but when the servants lifted us out of the basket, he was there, grinning. He pointed toward a flowery path lined with palm trees. At its end was a wall painted with the same color as the face of the cliff. Above the wall rose three broken turrets with the same zigzags and fish hooks in the Arabic language.
Speechless, every one of us save Konje overpowered by the dark hole dripping with water, the swinging basket, the tumbling walls and turrets that lay in front of us, we passed silently through an arch into a hall lit by torches.
The hall was hung with loops of colored cloth and there were cloth mats underfoot. The air, which smelled of frankincense, moved softly around us, stirred by a row of guards waving palm fronds.
3
From this hall we were herded into a courtyard that could easily hold a thousand guests. In its center were a pit and a pile of stones that once had been a fountain. Hooded vipers now sunned themselves among the stones.
Around the rim of the courtyard were small openings decorated with flowers. Here we were invited to refresh ourselves. Afterwards, the dwarf led us out of the courtyard through a dark passageway into an even larger courtyard, where the sky was hidden by strips of colored silk.
Smoke filled the air. Oxen and wildebeest turned on spits. Small boys caught the drippings and poured them on the turning meat. Plumed birds roasted on burning coals.
We ate sitting on the floor among flowerbeds. We sipped juices from big-eared jars. Horns and little tan-tan drums played music that none of us had ever heard before.
The dwarf waddled about, making sure that we lacked nothing to eat or drink. But King Agaja did not appear. I began to think that he did not exist, that the dwarf himself was King Agaja. Then, with a blare of horns, painted warriors marched to the center of the courtyard.
On their shoulders was an ivory chair with gold ropes and bangles. In the chair, almost lost among the cushions, sat a man, no larger than the dwarf, draped in a yellow robe, with a red peaked hat on his head.
Horns and drums fell silent. Warriors that lined the walls of the courtyard touched their heads to the floor. A whispered word from Konje passed among us and we got to our knees, slowly, for none of us, being Christians, felt comfortable paying homage to a Muslim king.
The king spread his hands wide and spoke in a voice made bigger than he was, in the dialect of our village. He welcomed us to his kingdom. He held a cup to his lips and invited us to join him in an act of friendship.
Servants, while the king held the cup to his lips, poured cups of sparkling juice among us. The king drank and we drank. The king finished his cup and tossed it away. We finished our cups and we, too, tossed them away. The king laughed and we laughed.
Quickly, everything changed. The laughter ended. King Agaja, surrounded by his women guards, marched out of the courtyard, through an arch of elephant tusks, into a room lit with hanging lamps. The dwarf motioned Konje and our Council of Elders to follow the king. A lattice door decorated with glittering gems closed behind them.
The women of our court and the women of King Agaja's court talked little to each other because we spoke different languages. I was uncomfortable.
Musicians played and sweets were served. Night came. The moon rose. Now and again voices sounded through the latticed door, but they were never clear enough for me to hear what was said. Still, I had the strong feeling that an argument had arisen between the king and our Council of Elders about something that could not be settled in a friendly way.
I was right, horribly right. Toward morning, when the moon was hidden by dark clouds, I was awakened by a hand clenched tight on my mouth, another hand at my throat, and a voice saying softly, "Quiet. You will not be harmed."
Sounds suddenly came from everywhere in the curtained room where our women were asleep. The sound of feet moving stealthily on the thick carpets,
gasps, curses, a wild scream.
I was pulled to my feet and a length of silk scarf wound about my head. In the grasp of two men who lifted me in the air every few steps to hurry me along, I was taken to the cliff and sent down the yawning hole. There were seven people with me. Who they were, I didn't know until we reached the river and were lying in a war canoe.
In the first gray streaks of dawn I made out Konje, bound hand and foot, with something stuffed in his mouth and a gash on his cheek that hadn't stopped bleeding. Beside him was Dondo, also bound. In front of me was our slave Lenta and her two boys. It seemed to me that Agaja had picked out the six of us deliberately.
There were two canoes close behind us filled with people from our village. But I didn't see my family, my father and mother and my sister. I was never to see them again.
We went down the river fast, through the big loop the storm had made. As we passed our sleeping village, Konje tried to speak but only croaks came from his mouth. Dondo pointed toward the sea.
"Slave ships," he said. "They're waiting for us."
There were three of them where the river met the sea. Three ships that needed paint were anchored a good distance from each other. All had tattered flags flying from their masts.
As we passed the first of the ships, blacks called down to us. With raised fists they warned us of the evils to come. They told us to jump into the sea. Some told us to kill our captors before it was too late.
When we reached the third slave ship, we were hauled on deck in a net. At the last minute, Konje struggled to get free. But he was still fastened to Dondo by chains. His struggles were ended when a smiling sailor gave him a blow on the head.
The ship had sailed north for many days before I saw Konje again. I worried about him, sure that his arrogance would get him in trouble. I grieved for him, fearing that he was dead. But the worry and the grief saved my life. It kept me from thinking about the terrible thing that had happened to me and my family. It kept me from slipping over the side of the ship some dark night when no one was looking, to my death.