The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial (2 page)
Read The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial Online
Authors: Sharon Ewell Foster
There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.
âLuke 12:2â3
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
âEcclesiastes 12:14
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Prologue
Aksum, Ethiopia
1849 Years of Grace, Ethiopian Calendar (
A.D
. 1856)
M
inutes stretched into hours, hours into days, years into decadesâtime seemed bitter, thick, and useless like overboiled stew cooked to scorching. Afework counted the leaves, the pages, in her book of remembrance. There were thirty-two of them, one for each year since the theft of her child, her daughter, Nikahywot.
A month after the night of the theft, a night that sent the women fleeing into the darkness, her husband, Kelile, had found her in the Christian section hidden among the tens of thousands in the great city of Gondar. A family there had taken Afework and her granddaughter, Ribka, in. While there, the women had told her stories of other childrenâsons and daughters, brothers and sistersâstolen away.
The Arabian Peninsula was less than a mile across the Red Sea from Ethiopia. Ottomans, she had heard the women whisper, Arabs, Berbers, Turks, corsairs, Barbary pirates. The women spoke of Yemen, Hijaz, Cairo, Tripoli, and Tunisia. The thieves stole Christians to ransom and sell, the women whispered to her. They stole Christians from Ethiopia, from Sudan, and from as far away as Italy, Spain, Bosnia, and even beyond, where all the people were of white skin. They transported them to slave markets, even as far away as Morocco across the great Sahara. They sold them as slaves, carrying them back across the Red Sea, up the Mediterranean Sea.
Stolen boys might be turned to eunuchs, the women wept for
their stolen sonsâthere would be no generations to follow. But the young men might become guards, soldiers, or even well-paid officials. Their daughters, however, would most likely become concubines or even part of a harem. Some of the mothers dissolved into hysterical tears at the thought, but as they cried they overlooked the tears of the weeping servants who walked among them. But Afework could not shake the feeling that the slavery that had gripped Nikahywot and Misha was but an echo of that practiced in her own land.
Even in her own family, it was slavery that insisted that some family members were favored while others were born to serve. Some were blessed to be masters,
chewa
, while others were cursed to be slaves,
barya
. It was ancient slavery and deeply rooted. Afework worried that the slavery within her family displeased Egzi' abher Ab, God, the Father of all. They had failed to free Misha and her family, and now there was a family debt they owed. Now Nikahywot had been stolen and bound in slavery, or worse.
“Forgive us, Egzi' abher Ab,” Afework whispered.
In the time it took him to find her, Kelile's hair turned gray. He took Afework and Ribka back home to the family farm. They would wait there for Nikahywot and her cousin Misha to return. But years passed and there was no word of their beautiful daughters.
Over time, Kelile lost all taste for farming and raising livestock. There was no one to help himâJosef, Nikahywot's husband, and Misha's husband had perished the night of the raid, the night before Misha and Nikahywot were stolen.
The land was raped of the youngâthe childbearers, those who carried truth and hope forwardâand it suffered. The sky was brokenhearted and ran out of tears to cry so that each year the land grew more parched and cracked.
Before Afework's eyes Kelile seemed to shrivel like a gourd abandoned to the sun, drying up like the land that grieved for the stolen lives. Ribka cried every night.
They sold the farm and all their possessions and used the
money to travel to slave markets they learned of, like Zanzibar. They hoped to find Nikahywot and Misha, to ransom them, to purchase them back. But the two were nowhere to be found.
With the little they had left, what was left of the family had moved to Aksum. There were many mothers and fathers there also weeping for stolen children.
Now Ribka had become one of the shrouded women, living in a cave, swallowed in the ashen cowl of her grief. Each day she walked to stand outside the cathedral. She sang sorrowful psalms and offered prayers. Kelile found work sweeping the cathedral steps and doing other odd jobs. Afework spent her days in prayer and song, rehearsing the holy stories she had learned from her mother, reciting them aloud as though, far away, she hoped that Nikahywot would hear and remember.
Afework prayed day and night. The sun still shone in the sky over the highlands of Ethiopia like a gold coin against a curtain of blue silk with yellow and red ribbons. Birds like jewels still flew overhead. The water still roared off the edge of the Tis Isat Falls, but all that Afework could see was scorched brown grass. On her knees, her head bowed, she prayed that Egzi' abher would help her eyes and ears to remember that she was still in
ghe net
, paradise. She prayed to Iyyesus Krestos to help her to love and not hateâto remember that even those who stole and ruined so many lives were still Abraham's children, and that it was only the greedy ones who used the name of Mohammed to cloak their theft.
Afework turned on her knees to face the Cathedral of Maryam of Zion. Beneath the sun, and at night the moon and stars, she prayed that God would stir a strong wind that would blow her child back home. “Blow Nikahywot and Misha home.” She prayed that the strong wind would destroy the chains and set all the captives free. She prayed that it would blow the dust of ignorance from the eyes of the captors. She prayed each day, but only soft winds and gentle storms arose.
Cross Keys Area, Southampton County, Virginia
1856
NATHANIEL FRANCIS USED the money he was paid to start over. Taking advice he got from slave traders, he now shackled the boys and men in the barn at night. There was no need to chain the women and girls; they would never leave the men, never leave their families. He was finally able to sleep comfortably at night.
Twenty-five years ago he had lost his brother, Salathiel, and his sister, Sallie, to the brutal insurrectionists. A quarter century past, as a young man of twenty-four, Nathaniel Francis had gotten his revenge. He looked back at his homeâit had grown at least three sizes. With more money, money from the slave trialsâSam, Hark, Dred, Tom, Davy, Moses, Nat Turnerâhe was now a respected man, one of the elders of Southampton.
His wife, sweet Lavinia, had returned from her father's home in Northampton County in North Carolina and bore him many children.
In 1838 Nathaniel Francis became senior trustee at Turner's Meeting Place. He had the deed reviewed and the property surveyed: He believed in doing things in decency and in order. No nigger would ever be trustee.
Nathaniel rubbed his hand over the leather belt he still wore. Some had made wallets from Turner's hide. He had even heard of a lamp shade, but Nathaniel's trophy was a belt. It was a fine belt, a fine, fine belt.
He rarely saw his friend Levi Waller now, only occasionally, staggering drunk down the road. Thomas Gray had drunk away the money he earned from sales of
The Confessions.
He had lost his wife and, because of his inability to provide for her, his daughter was taken away. Gray no longer practiced law. Nathaniel Francis had seen him last crying and wallowing in the mud, begging for alms. Gray needed to pick his friends better. It was his just reward.
Trezvant no longer held public office. But Nathaniel Francis had done right well.
In all, Nathaniel Francis earned almost three thousand dollars for the lives of eight slaves, more than any other slave owner. He was not paid for Wicked Charlotte because he shot her. Nor was he paid for Will; the boy's body was never recovered.
Nathaniel Francis compulsively fingered his leather belt. Long ago, in 1831, he had dyed it dark brown. A fine belt indeed. He took it off only at night or to show his grandchildren when he told them the story of Nat Turner.
Nathaniel Francis wasn't afraid anymore. He had enough money that the lights in his home were always on.
Jerusalem, Southampton County, Virginia
1856
WILLIAM PARKER'S HAIR had grayed prematurely.
The Cross Keys bunch. Rowdies from the area just outside Jerusalem. Troublemakers. William Parker did not want to be one of them.
He had a recurring dream about a man he had seen when he was a boy, in a slave pen in the nation's capital. The man was dressed and shined like a new wagon waiting for a buyer. But there was something in the man's eyesâsomething sad, something broken, something angry. William Parker drew closer to his father's side, squeezed his hand.
When he awakened he could not remember if he saw the man's eyes in his dream, or if he had awakened during the night and seen the man's eyes staring at him in the darkness.
He did not make the system, William Parker had told himself for years. He did not make himself white. He could just as easily have been born black. He was one
man; he could not change the world. He tried to do good in the spot that was his. He was as much a victim of fate as anyone, he told himself. He had no choice but to live out the life he had inherited.
William Parker had to live the life that had been given to him. He did not want to be one of them, but he was only one man.
Since the slave trials, William Parker hardly ever slept through the night. When he did sleep, he dreamed and saw their faces. There were so many innocent men hanged, and he felt powerless to do anything about it. So many women and children killed and so many families tortured.
Everything was in shambles. The little that still remained was crumbling around him. He dreamed over and over again that there was a decomposing corpse in his cellar and he did not have the courage to bring it out. William Parker had been praying since Nat Turner's hanging about what he should do. He prayed that God would make it all go away.
He remembered visiting Nat Turner at the jailhouse. He could still see the man's battered face. Nat Turner looked up at him from the bench where he sat chained. William had cleared his throat. “I'm sure that they are not going to allow me to put forth the evidence that you are a free man.” It was impossible being the Negro's defense attorney. “In some ways it would only make matters worse. They are angry that you ⦠They are angry at who you are and they do not want their beliefs challenged. I don't think there's much I can do.” William Parker realized after he spoke the words that he had come seeking absolution.
“You owe me nothing,” Nat Turner said. “What you do in the courtroom tomorrow, do for God.”
William Parker had expected the next day's trial to be open-and-shut. Levi Waller would testify, some version of what Waller purported to be the truth. He had already testified six times and each time altered his story. But Waller's testimony was good enough; Nat Turner would hang.
Then on November 5, 1831, things in the courtroom had taken a turn. Maybe Waller was overconfident, or maybe he had
taken a cup too much of the fruits of his still. Perhaps it was the hand of providence.
Waller stumbled during his testimony, the perjury so great the whole courtroom had gone silent. And against his better judgment, William Parker had pressed Levi Waller further.
“My question is this. Where were you, Mr. Waller? You testified you were in your home, and then you were hidden in the weeds. Now, today, you tell us you were hidden in the swamp. Is there a swamp close to your house? Where were you, Mr. Waller?” William Parker plunged in the blade. “You mentioned some other place I've never heard you mention before. Where was it you said you were?”
Waller hung his head. “My still.”
“That just seems peculiar to me. Insurgents are coming, your family is threatened, and you have them loading guns. Your wife and children must be out of their minds with fear. They must have been terrified.” William Parker withdrew the bloody blade and plunged it in again. “Where were you, Mr. Waller? And please say it loud enough that all the people can hear. Where were you after you learned the insurgents were coming?”
