It was a nice sunny day in our home village. We were preparing for a feast that we have every year. My sisters and brothers had to help make the food, while I started a bonfire for everybody to dance around. By the time the sun came down I was finally finished. It isn’t as easy as it seems. Finally we were done with the preparations so that the feast could begin!

During this time we danced around the fire ate the delicious food that my brothers and sisters helped prepare. This time was my favorite time of the whole year because its always 1 day before my birthday. This year I would be turning 21.

After hours of feasting we finally went to bed. I had to admit, I was pretty darn tired. So I went to my comfy bed next to the shores and went to sleep. While sleeping I heard a strange noise. I heard men shouting in the distance and a heavy object crash against the sands. “Its probably just Dad having a bad dream” I said to my self. He and Mom sleeps a little further down the shore. So I went back to sleep although I could swear I herd footsteps approaching me and the village behind me when I was half asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I saw the weirdest thing. There were all sorts of food on the ground. Cooked meat, fresh bananas, oranges you name it, were making a straight line heading towards the bend of the shores and still going further. I thought it was some sort of blessing from the gods but I didn’t have a good feeling about it. Even so I quickly stood up and started picking up the food heading towards the bend because the whole village was right on my tail.

I kept on going until I passed the bend and went further until reached the spot where my Mom and Dad were sleeping last night. I looked back for a second but I didn’t see them. It was weird but I still kept going. And so I kept on going until the food came up a long wide piece of wood leading up somewhere. I didn’t even bother to look around. This was the meat section! Once we reached the top of the piece of wood we came upon an even bigger piece of wood at least 10 xs bigger! The food then led us into a dark pit. In the end it led to the end of this dark pit and I finally bothered to look around. “Mom, Dad? , and a big door shut.

To America

Mom and Dad told us everything on what these ugly white people call a ship. They told us about how these white men took them so that they couldn’t interrupt their plan of capturing us. And also about how they couldn’t shout to us not to come in or the white men would kill one of us. I said sorry for causing all this but my Mom said that it wasn’t my fault at all.

Hours went by and we were still in this horrid dark pit. Not only could you not see a thing, but we packed like wild animals. I didn’t even have any elbow room! Finally these ugly white men, who were the most disgusting creatures that I have ever seen, came into the dark pit and gave us a few bananas. A few bananas! For something like 50-150 people! A lot of people couldn’t take it any more and tried to escape by going through the door. The white man behind the other white man who was serving the food, who was wearing some very weird clothes and a big hat, killed everybody we even moved. I had no idea how he did and I didn’t want to find out. My only clue was that he was holding a metal/ wood thing going thick at the bottom and coming up and then to the side always getting smaller and smaller. The white man with the “thing”, looked at everyone after he just killed the people trying to escape. Everybody looked back at him in fear. Then there was a woman crying about the death of her husband who just died. The white man just looked at her and killed her too with the “thing”. After that everybody was dead quiet. With still everybody looking at the ugly white man with the weird clothes, the big hat and the “thing”, he started talking to the white man standing next to him. It seemed like gibberish to everyone from my village. Then the white man who just gave out the food nodded to what I think was probably like his leader or something and just walked on top of us like he can’t see us and grabbed my Mom and took her outside and closed the door behind him. I felt like screaming for my Mom but I didn’t want to get killed by the “thing”, just liked those poor other people of our village. I felt scared and helpless and just as I felt that I saw all my brothers and sisters dead on the floor which not only made me scared and helpless, but also terribly sad.

It must have been days now and we still haven’t gone out. I felt like I would never get out of here. Every 2 days or so we got fed with again just a couple of bananas and every 3 days they splashed a bucket of water on us which I guess, we were supposed to drink. Everybody did. Even I did although I was pretty sure it was sea water. Most people haven’t eaten at all yet. About a little bit less than half of us died already of starvation.

I felt so bad. About all the things that just happened. And my whole body was stiff. I wonder where we were going. I knew we were going somewhere because I could hear the ocean underneath us.

After at least 10 more days, we finally arrived at whatever place we were supposed to go to. We walked out of this “ship”, and we kept walking across this very flat rock that went on a long way. I looked back at the ship so relived to be out of there. When I saw my Mom in tears standing next to the ugly white man with the strange clothes and the big hat holding one of his arms around her.

I and the rest of us who survived kept on walking for a long time on the flat rock. We admired this weird place. It wasn’t exactly nice. At least not as nice as our home village. So we kept on walking until we came to a platform slightly higher than the ground. There we all had to stand for a long time. A lot of the people I knew were later taken away by all the ugly white creatures looking at us. Until after a while my Dad was taken away. I cried and waved at him indicating goodbye. He did the same to me. Unfortunately a white man saw me crying. I thought to myself, “I am so dead now”, but he didn’t kill me. Instead he hit me with a long rope. I must say, it really hurt, but I guess that it’s not as getting killed. Shortly afterwards, a white man came to look at me right in the face and started speaking gibberish again to another white man. He then gave a few gold pieces and held my arm really firm and pulled me towards a big thing with brown creatures attached to it. I went in the thing and off we went into what was for me at least the unknown.

I become what the white creatures call Slaves

When we finally arrived at what was only an hour or so at I don’t know where, we got out of the thing with brown creatures attached to it. I saw a huge green lush and a huge stone behind it. I’ve never seen such a large area of lush after we were taken from our home village. The white man who rode with me started speaking gibberish again but this time to me. I just looked back hoping he wasn’t going to hurt me or something. He sighed and led me to the big stone. I followed. He showed me inside this huge stone and I must say that I’ve never seen anything like it. Afterwards he led me outside again and pointed to what a think I was supposed to live in. It was something like a hut. Great, I had to live in a hut and he gets to live in this huge…..stone. Then he left. I looked around my new home which was basically a bed underneath a roof. I sighed and decided I would sleep for the night.

The next morning I woke up early because of some sort of animal shouting really loud. I went out of bed and found the white man looking at me. He then led me back in his stone. So I followed. I came in and he showed me that I had to sit on this comfy surface on legs and had 2 arms sticking out. So I sat. He then started talking gibberish to me again. I was confused at first. But I soon discovered that he was trying to teach me this language. It wasn’t gibberish but a language this whole time. So I concentrated on the lesson as best as I could.

After a few days of learning this language, I finally understood it. I didn’t exactly perfect it but I understood it. The language was called English.

The next few days my master wasn’t being nice to me anymore. He started treating me badly and telling me to do chores. He told me that, that was what my job was. To be a slave. And that is what slaves do. And if they don’t they get whipped.

So for the next few days I did what I had to do. When suddenly more slaves came. At least 5 new ones. And I had a feeling even more would come. So I decided that for the next few days I would work as hard as I could. So I did. And finally my master started to treat me with respect again. So now everything was like it was when I first came here and that’s how I like it.

The Resistance of the Slaves

It was pretty early in the morning when I herd the other slaves talking to each other. I didn’t understand what they were talking about. So I went to their huts to check it out. I first went to the closest hut in could find. There was no one there. I went to the other hut, no one there as well. So I went to all the huts I could find and finally found one last hut. And there they all were. All 5 slaves just sitting there on the bed talking to each other. And I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. So I asked them in English, what languages were they speaking and what were they talking about. They told me in English that they were talking in Swahili. I started to think for a while what Swahili was when I remembered. That was the language my people spoke on the beach back in my home village. But surprisingly, the slaves didn’t seem confused. They told me that they were talking about an escape plan. I asked them why they would want to escape. And only then they all seemed confused. “What do you mean why?” they asked. Then they told me that I had no idea of what these Americans were planning to do with us. Then one of the Africans pulled of his shirt and showed me his whip strikes. I glanced at the whip strikes, looked away and said that I was their own fault. That they should just do what the master says. They all just looked at me and said that they could tell that I was a new one. “So”, I said. “So you have know idea of what they do to us”, they said. I looked at them confusingly. Then they told me everything about how they are talking advantage of me by being nice to me so that I would forget about everything else that I used to have. The proof was that I didn’t understand Swahili anymore which was true. They also said that once they have been nice to me and all, he would suddenly treat me real bad and then I wouldn’t have anywhere else to go. That way I would probably never escape. I sighed confessing that it was probably true although I didn’t want it to be. “So”, I said, “What’s the plan?”

They told me the plan and actually it was quite simple. We would distract the guard by throwing a gold coin close by to him that I found earlier. Then someone would sneak up to him while the guard was bending down to pick up the gold coin. Then that somebody would knock him out by hitting him on the head with a broken pipe I found. Then we would take his keys and open the gate and escape. So we all decided that we were going to try it out.

So we waited till the next night and then executed the plan. But unfortunately, the plan got ruined from the start. One of the slaves tripped over a rock sticking out of the ground and the guard saw him. The whole plan was busted!

That same night the guard handed us over to our master and told him the whole story. Our master got so disappointed in us, especially me. He then started going on and on about how he teaches us English and what everything in America is. But then, he took out, the whip. We all gulped. Then he started to whip us no less than 20 times. Now I really understood what the other slaves were talking about. This guy was evil and I was not happy about it.

From that day on we just did our chores. Now there was definitely no chance of escape for our master has tightened up security a lot more than before. Now I would often just ignore him if he told me to do something. When he said do the dishes or something, I would just go and eat something of his. And when he found about this, he would get really angry and start whipping me again. But even so. I didn’t really care all I could think about was how bad this guy was and I would do almost anything to get out of this place.

Freedom

One day while just doing my chores, one of the slaves tried to escape again. This has been the third time that he tried to escape. I could tell these guys were really desperate. Then when the master found out again, he would whip him again. I could hear him scream while he was getting whipped during the night when I was going to sleep. I had listened to him the whole time in agony. When at one point the screaming stopped. Unfortunately the slave had been whipped to death.

So after that day I just kept doing the chores as usual. Since I had not complain after the death of that slave, I kept silent too afraid of what the master would do to me if he herd me complain. I kept this up for a couple of more weeks. Then the master said that I could pick up the newspaper every morning. I said great and started straight away.

So that same day I went to the front gate and picked up the newspaper. I then returned to the house and gave it to my master. He snatched it away from me and started reading the front page of the newspaper and slurping his coffee. Then suddenly he spat out his coffee on the front page of surprise or something. I then asked him what the matter was. He said nothing still in shock and threw the newspaper into the bin. “Well, don’t you have something to do like cleaning up?” he cried.

So I just cleaned up for a few hours or so, when the master had to go somewhere. And so he did. I said to myself that I probably should just carry on working until I thought of something. The newspaper. I was so eager to see what was so shocking so I crept up to his room and took the newspaper out of the bin.

Afterwards I went back to my hut and attempted to read it. I was never really good at reading newspapers. But I tried anyway and finished the whole page in outstanding delight. It said that President Abraham Lincoln had freed all the slaves. That all slaves were now free. And the great thing was that if the master of the slaves still wanted to keep us against our own will, that the police will arrest him for a minimum of 10 years! I was so delighted.

I then told all the other slaves about the great news. They were extremely happy as well. So then we all marched of to the guard and I showed him the newspaper. He like our master was also shocked but eventually said OK and that we were free to get out of this place. I still didn’t get over it.