“Tides of a Black Hope”
Nneka Sophie Amalu
Copyright© 2012 by Nneka Sophie Amalu
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 or retrieval system without permission in writing from copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locale is entirely coincidental.
“Move fast! We cannot delay anymore! Can’t you see its getting late? They guards roared.
“Let u..us rest a lit…little before we continue the journey” a stammering captive suggested.
Fear gripped Amanabiefori as the voices and footsteps of the local soldiers and the captured villagers drew closer as he ran back to inform his friends who were at the swamp hideout of the approaching soldiers. They trembled on their feet as the heard the bushes rustle; in readiness to run thinking, it was the soldiers, only for Amanabiefori to rush in panting like a frightened dog.
“Shhh be silent! Be silent!” He said before placing his fingers on his mouth for emphasis.
This was their sixth day of hiding and running from one place to another without food or clean water to drink. The fear of wild animals and numerous insects of the swamp were frightening; more frightening was the fear of their own soldiers capturing and selling them to the Whiteman. They had their hearts in their mouths, as the voices became clearer.
“Leave me alone, you’re very wicked,” another captive said aloud after the whip had landed on his back. Amanabiefori seemed to have recognized the voice of the captive, but was not sure of whom the captive was.
“Could it be Obelem, his cousin? Was he released from prison or was he caught trying to escape?” he pondered confusingly. “We must leave here as soon as possible,” his friend, pointed out the obvious. “Not as soon as…but right now!” Amanabiefori shouted with order in his voice after he gave up trying to decipher whose voice it was. Chaos, slave raids running and hiding, killings, weeping and sympathizing were the major events of the day in Bonny, a State in the Eastern Delta regions, at the end of the 18th century, the year 1769 precisely. An era when buying and selling of slaves in Africa became the main commodity sought by the European traders and all other items of commerce like palm and fish became secondary to the lucrative business of supplying the Americas with cheap labour force. The slave raid intensified even more quickly as they British established treaties with King Perekule and the local chiefs. The chances for Amanabiefori and his friends to escape were very slim. He thought of how his mother and his little sister, who was barely four years old, would cope without him. “Who would cut the firewood and fetch water for the drums?” he asked himself guiltily.
However, in the midst of his friends; Finiyenimbo and Abbiyesuku, he couldn’t understand why this sudden feeling of loneliness had engulfed him. He would have wished to be a slave in his fatherland if only he knew what white slavery was all about. His legal position would not be much better though, but his customary situation would have been significantly different. He would be a member of his master’s family, be a worker but a worker with rights. Punishment was certain if he did wrong, and if he had management and military skills, he could rise to an eminent position. The idea of slavery to the Europeans was a different ball game entirely. A slave was a person who was an absolute property to his master; he could never own property or even marry without the consent of his master and could never own his freedom. The master could treat his slave anyhow and could even kill him. Tamuno-Igoni paced from one corner of the room to another with thoughts of what might have happened to Amanabiefori, it had been twelve days now and yet, no news of his whereabouts. “He would come back when everything is all right,” Tamuno-Tonye her twin sister, told her hopefully. Igoni cried out aloud, “maybe he’s dead or captured”. ‘The gods forbid’ she rebuked loudly. She never really understood what the slave raid or trade was all about; all she knew was that their able-bodied men, sold by their so-called king and chiefs, taken somewhere unknown deprived them “the locals” of the labour needed in their farms, poultries and homes. Most of their people even benefitted from the trade as intermediaries.
The slave trade or the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a big business employing many men, large capital and was highly organized both in Africa and in Europe. The commercial demand came from the Americas, the distributive initiative from Europe and the supply from Africa, West Africa especially.
Tonye had to leave in other to make supper and for whatever reason, she had wished that such an episode of brutality, barbarism and dehumanization were only scenes in her dream, but this was reality! Suddenly, it crossed Igoni’s mind after she had brought the tray of fish, which was drying on the rooftop of the kitchen that she had not seen her ‘soon-to-be mother-in-law”, Amanabiefori’s mother for a while. “Sister I’m coming o,” she shouted while leaving the kitchen. The trade by barter with metal bars, knives, guns and ammunitions, liquors, clothes and mirrors with their indigenes increased rapidly, many White masters had to complete their transactions as quick as possible in other to leave the next day in other to avoid loss of life from tropical diseases. Unknowingly, to some runaways, that night was their last on the soil of their fatherland. Before the cocks crowed and the birds sang that morning, the chiefs had already sent some soldiers to go in search for the runaways who would never had expected it at such an hour. Amanabiefori and his friends, unfortunately, were victims of this raid.
As the boarded them on the ship for the journey across the Atlantic commonly called the ‘middle passage’, Amanabiefori found that the other slaves were not only people from his area, but also a ship filled with both women and men from both yorubaland (old Oyo, Egbado) and the Western Niger- Delta (Lagos, Itsekiri). Though he had never seen a ship this gigantic, even bigger than his village, there wasn’t enough space for everyone. They kept them in a crate called a ‘baracoon’ where they were laid and treated less reverently than cattle. As they sojourned to the Americas, the spread of diseases became alarming due to the brutal and unhygienic conditions in the ship. Many slaves never made it to America; Amanabiefori lost his two friends to leprosy. However, the shipmasters also were prone to these diseases; but the £5 to £36 on each slave was worth the risk. Throughout the journey, he thought of Igoni, his mother and sister, they were his only hope of staying alive; he secretly wept and felt so sorry for them that they may never see him again.
At Africa, his mother just recovered from a severe heart attack after hearing that the soldiers had captured and taken her son overseas. “It will never be well with them that took my son away” She silently cursed their chiefs who were deeply involved in the slave trade and whom were accumulating wealth in an unsatisfactory form of luxury goods hoarded in their compounds. They used it to increase their political influence and to reward services done. Igoni on hearing what had happened ran in tears to her future mother-in law’s hut to confirm it. “Could she still call her ‘mother-in-law’, when she may never see him forever?” she clapped her hand in a hopeless manner as these thoughts ran through her mind after confirming the news of his capture. Two days later, Igoni woke up filled with thoughts of what she would become without Amanabiefori by her side. “Will I be able to survive without seeing him even for one more time?” ??
?I can’t live without him” she exclaimed loudly. Suddenly, her face brightened like a child who had just seen her mother after one month. She thanked her personal god for giving her such wisdom. “What if this is going to be the worst decision ever made” She wondered as she left her room.
In the Americas, the Caribbean regions of Jamaica and Barbados welcomed Amanabiefori with loneliness, tears and fears, though some strength came