Mammy’s Story

 

HENRIETTA WAS BORN INTO SLAVERY. Leaving people behind was nothing new to her. Her mother birthed five children, including her. They were split up and sold off. She realized at a young age that she would never have a life filled with anything but pain. Henrietta developed a tough skin, closing her emotions off to survive the life dealt to her.

At the tender age of twelve, she was sold to a plantation in Georgia, to a cruel masa. She learned to detach herself from the world; making no friends, she kept her head down and worked hard. She hoped to go unnoticed and worked herself to the point of exhaustion as a way to keep her mind numb and her heart shut off. She did not feel alone in the world, she simply existed because human nature forced her to. She worked as a field slave from morning to dusk without a complaint. She ate and slept and started the process over again in the morning. This was what she learned defined life.

Two years after she arrived at the plantation, the masa brought home a new group of slaves. By this time she had been pulled from the field and given a new position as a domestic slave. Her duties entailed laundry, helping in the kitchen, and serving the main table.

That day she was hanging the bedsheets on the clothesline beside the big house when the dust-covered group of slaves arrived. Curiosity pulled her to the corner of the house, where she peeked around the corner so she wouldn’t be spotted. And she laid eyes on Big John for the first time. He was the tallest slave she’d ever seen. He stood proudly, his spirit unbroken by years of slavery. No marks scarred his glistening chocolate skin.

Later she learned he was a prince from West Africa, almost straight off the boat. He had made the unspeakable journey across the Atlantic Ocean that Henrietta heard other slaves describe as the ships of horror. They spoke of how the slaves were led onto the ships and stowed below by the hundreds; the living conditions were restricting and it was hard to breathe. Sometimes they were left for days before coming on deck for fresh air. Slaves begged to be killed to leave this life of misery behind. Some refused to eat, but their mouths were pried open with vises and they were force-fed. She’d heard slaves had found ways to end their suffering aboard the ships.

Her masa paid a high price to own a slave of John’s strength and skills. Henrietta’s interest surged whenever she saw him. He would give her a grateful nod and then continue on to his work. He worked part-time in the fields and the rest of his time as the plantation’s medicine man.

The masa’s infant son became ill and Henrietta was sent to find Big John. She went to the small cabin the masa allowed him to have all to himself. No other slave had this privilege. Masa said it was so he could tend to his patients and make his medicines. When slaves testified to the miracles he performed on them, he made a name for himself among them. The slaves looked to Big John for healing all their ailments, as did the masa and his family.

Knocking on the cabin door, she waited.

Big John opened the door and towered above her.

“Masa wants you up at de big house. De li’l masa is awful sick,” she mumbled. This was the first time they’d shared words. Stepping back, she took in the man who stood before her.

He disappeared into the cabin and returned minutes later carrying a sack, which she assumed held his medicines and the supplies he needed to treat the little masa. No words were exchanged as they rushed to the big house to help the child and spare themselves the wrath of the masa. Big John took the stairs two at a time and she scurried behind him. The head house servant, Lily, showed him toward the child’s room, and Henrietta stayed in the hall, awaiting commands from inside the room.

The masa exited his son’s room and his eyes looked at her with lust. That night his look was accompanied with determination, and it set her heart racing as he walked by. Without warning he stopped and pulled her body to him and with one hand squeezed her backside. As he pulled back he took her face in his warm, clammy hand and whispered in her ear, “You are ripe for the picking and I shall enjoy that very much.” When he released her, she stood trembling. She had caught the eye of the masa, and this wasn’t good. Her eyes wide with fear, she looked to Lily, who gave her a knowing look full of pity.

Big John stayed with the little masa that night and the next day, until his fever broke. He told the masa and the mistress the boy would improve, now that the fever had broken.

As Big John was leaving the big house to go back to his cabin, Henrietta met him in the hallway. “Will de li’l masa be all right?”

“Yes, Miss Rita, he will be fine,” he said as he cut past her and was gone.

Rita? She had never received a nickname in all her years. She liked the sound of it as it rolled off her tongue.

She found herself inventing reasons to seek him out. At first their conversations were short and to the point. Big John seemed not to care much for her, but as time went on Big John flashed a smile from time to time. These smiles would set off long-buried emotions in her. Her brain warned her of the danger of letting her heart feel things that could cause her great pain. She couldn’t pinpoint the moment she let her guard down, but she guessed it was the first day he arrived at the plantation and she had sized him up from the safety of the corner of the big house.

They spent many evenings on the steps of his cabin, gazing at the stars and speaking of his homeland. He told her stories of his tribe and his family. He had a mother, a father, and a younger sister. When his village was raided by the slave traders, he had been in the jungle hunting. The smell of smoke had caught his attention and he ran frantically back to the village, only to find his home in ruins. The bodies of men, women, and children of his tribe lay butchered on the ground. He went from body to body in search of his family. When he came upon his father’s lifeless body he turned him over to find multiple bullets lodged in him. Big John held him and let out a war cry that reverberated through the night.

A blow to the back of the head sent him into a sphere of blackness. When he came to, he was chained to other tribe members, and people from nearby villages. Desperately he searched their faces for his mother and sister and not seeing them, his heart sank, wondering if they had shared the same fate as his father.

The slave traders ordered them up and they were marched from what remained of his village. His eyes searched the trees. Off in the direction he’d gone to hunt, his keen eyes spotted his mother with her arm around his little sister, watching them be led away. His heart leaped with triumph that they were safe, and he quickly lowered his head so he wouldn’t draw attention to them.

“Do you think dey are still in Africa?” Henrietta had asked, placing a comforting hand over his giant one.

Focusing on the hand lying gently on his, he covered it with his free one. “Dey may have been saved dat day. But de slave traders began to infest my homeland long ’fore dat day. I fear dey suffered de same fate as my father, or dey have taken de ships across the ocean. I wish for dem death, above coming to a life lak dis. I may be spared of the cruelty in dis place ’cause I serve a purpose for now, but I watch dese white masters and no one is safe. At leas’ in death, dey are free to sit along with my father in royalty. In dese lands, I am but a servant to dese white masters.”

“We have to survive, John. Et be de only thing dat makes sense. I’ve been dead inside for too long. Dere be no joy in dat. We must find somepin’ worth livin’ for. We must live. Dey can’t take our memories. In our hopes and dreams, we find life,” Henrietta said, bewildered at the words coming from her own lips. This man before her made her soul want to live again.

The moon shone down on them, enfolding them in its light. He leaned in and placed a tender kiss on her lips. They were forming a bond of trust and opening their hearts up to the love they both felt. The next months passed with many evenings spent like this, including talks of marriage.

She started to notice the masa’s eyes following her more openly when she was in the big house, serving the table or simply doing her work. He sought her out in the corners of the house, sometimes pinning her to the wall so she couldn’t escape, and laying sloppy kisses on her neck and down to the tops of her breasts, visible in the lower-cut servant’s uniform all domestic slaves were required to wear when serving the house. She would wiggle away, or someone would enter and he would back off. She shared her concerns with John about the masa’s increasingly bold advances. John, still not used to being a slave, paced his cabin in angry frustration at the masa’s nerve, and his helplessness in defending her.

One night as they were taking a walk within the bounds of the slave quarters that shielded them with some privacy, she found the courage to make an awkward request. “John?” She stopped him.

“Yes, my love?”

“I’m riddled wid fear dat I may not be able to hold off de masa’s advances much longer. He is obsessed wid me, and evvywhere I turn, he finds me.”

Concerned filled his eyes.

She licked her lips nervously. “I do not wish for him to be my fust. I want to belong to you. He can never have my body ef it already belongs to you. No matter what he does to me.”

“Oh, my Rita. I’m honored by your request, b-but we aren’t husband and wife,” he stammered.

“Do you love me?” she demanded, placing her hands on her hips.

“You know I do, Rita!” The whites of his eyes shone in the moonlight.

“Den dat is all dat matters. Masa will not allow us to marry, but et is before God dat we claim ourselves husband and wife. We do not need witnesses, as he is de only one dat counts.”

A smile grew across his face. “Well den, wife, I say we make you my wife in all ways!” He swept her into his arms and carried her to the tall grass, where he gently laid her down.

That night they became husband and wife in all forms before God. They spent hours clasped together as one under the stars.

Henrietta’s intuition had been right, for within the week she was alone in the kitchen when the masa entered. Fear clawed at her, and she looked wildly around for an escape route. She edged toward the back door, but he pounced on her before she had barely taken two steps.

“Your weeks of toying with me will stop now, nigger!” he snarled.

“I’m not toying wid you, Masa. I only wish to be about my wuk and be left alone,” she pleaded, trying to escape his grasp, but his fingers burrowed into her arm.

“Left alone? You are my property to use as I see fit.” He cocked his head, his eyes raking over her body.

“Please let me go!” she cried, panic choking her voice. Curling her free hand into a fist, she hit him repeatedly, trying to fight him off. “Oh, fight, little one. I like that even more.” He chuckled and wrestled her around until her back was against his chest.

With one swipe of his arm he cleared the table, then pinned her facedown on it with one arm. With the other he raised her skirt and with one sharp, painful thrust, he was inside of her. The next minutes seemed like hours. Finally he found his release and withdrew. With a hard slap to her backside, he stepped back.

She never moved. She heard him pull up his trousers and then shuffle around the room. “Until next time, little one,” he whispered in a thick voice. Then he was gone.

She lay there in pain and horror at his violation of her body. Lily found her that way and scurried to find Big John. He burst through the kitchen house door with Lily right behind him. Henrietta fell into the safety of his arms and wept as he led her away.

The rapes happened frequently, breaking her spirit once again. She learned to not fight to reduce the pain and his aggressiveness, willing her mind and spirit to go to the place where she had sent it before John entered her life. Her will to live was gone. Big John tried to comfort her but his words fell on deaf ears.

Her already crumbling world crumbled a little more when she found out she was with child. She knew it was the masa’s; she hadn’t been able to let Big John touch her in an intimate way since the rapes started. Bitter and angry, she refused to love a child born of her masa’s seed. She went to the witch doctor, as the slave woman who practiced such things was called, to rid herself of the babe. The witch was busy with another slave girl, and told Henrietta to return in a few hours. She sat on the front porch of the witch’s shack, waiting her turn.

How Big John happened to pass by she wasn’t sure, but when he noticed her he paused, knowing the steps she sat on were those of the witch doctor’s. Not wanting him to try to change her mind, she turned her back to him and told him to go away. He would have none of it, and sat in silence beside her. When the witch came out he glared at her and plucked Henrietta from the porch, snapping, “She ain’t gitting rid of de baby.” He marched her away. She dug her heels into the ground and struggled with every step they took.

When they were alone he loosened his grip. He took her into his loving embrace. Scared and feeling helpless, she had cried, whispering over and over, “What will I evvr do.”

Big John said they would raise the child as if they had made it together. They prayed the child would be born of a darker complexion so the masa and missus wouldn’t know he had fathered the child. They knew Henrietta could not handle any more heartbreak. If the masa found out, the child would be sold or drowned in the river to cover up his shame at having a child with a nigger.

When her child was born, John handed her the baby bundled in a clean white cloth. She looked at her daughter with her straight, full hair capping her head like a summer bonnet, her skin wrinkled and new. She gawked up at her mother with round, unfocused eyes. Placing a finger in the tiny grasp of her baby, Henrietta discovered a love like no other.

John made true his promise to father Mary Grace as his own. He cooed at her when he held her and kissed the top of her little head. Henrietta loved to sit and watch him with their daughter. But with each changing month, Mary Grace’s skin grew paler, and the slaves’ tongues started to wag. Talk of the white blood in her daughter reached the big house.

One day the missus sent Lily for her. Lily found her in the kitchen house and Henrietta knew something was wrong by the meek way Lily approached her.

“Henrietta?”

“Yes, Lily?”

Lily hung her head and said, “De missus wants to see you and de chile.”

“Why, Lily? What she want wid my Mary Grace?” Henrietta fretted.

“I’m not sho’, but you bes’ hurry.”

Henrietta went to find the elderly slave woman who tended Mary Grace each day while she performed her tasks. Gathering up her sleeping daughter, she snuggled her tight against her cheek, inhaling her sweet baby smell. Her legs felt like lead as she pushed herself toward the big house and up the front steps. Fear threatened to cut off her air as she made her way to the study in search of the missus. She found the missus alone, waiting for her.

When Henrietta entered, the missus rose and came around the desk to stand in front of her. She reached forward to inspect the now wiggling and wide-awake Mary Grace. Unable to deny the child was fathered by her husband, she stepped back. Rubbing her forehead with her index finger and thumb as if to rub away tension, she addressed Henrietta. “I can’t control my husband. I do not agree with the ways of men and what they think they can do with the women slaves. It is not holy before God, and I will not be shamed by his sins in my own household. I will not separate you from your child, but you can’t stay here, as he will only find you and father more of your children. If your child had been born darker, it might have gone unnoticed. A gentleman will be here this afternoon and you will be going with him. I need you gone before my husband gets back tomorrow. I suggest you say your goodbyes. You’re dismissed.” She turned to gaze out the window.

Henrietta felt weak as she tottered out of the main house and down the front steps. How many times had she wished to be off this plantation and away from the masa? But to be separated from John—she couldn’t bear it!

She hurried to John’s cabin, hoping to find him there and not in the fields. Luck was on her side; she found him mixing potions, and he smiled with surprise when she entered. The smile faded when he read her face. “Rita, what is de matter?”

“We’ve bin sold, John. Mary Grace and I be leaving in a few hours on a ship headed to Charleston, de missus say.”

“No…” he moaned.

“Et true, my love. I don’t know how I gwine to go on widout you, John. I jus’ can’t bear de thoughts of losing someone I love again. I’ve bin strong for so many years until you came into my life. Den de masa, he broke me, and den dis here baby gal and your love healed me. Now I’m weak and breakable all over again.” She wept with overwhelming grief.

His feelings of grief at once again losing his family took over, and her African prince fell to his knees and a cry of anguish split the air. The sound sent Mary Grace into screams of her own, and with this Henrietta and John both tried to comfort her.

That afternoon the man arrived, and it was the last time she saw Big John.

She was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, and stood at auction waiting for her next master. She knew she and Mary Grace could be sold as a bundle or split, whatever the buyers wanted. Terror at the thought of losing Mary Grace made her hold her infant tighter. She looked out over the crowd, praying God would show her mercy this one time in her life. Her eyes settled on a tall, handsome blond man; beside him stood his exceedingly pregnant wife, lightly holding his arm. She was petite, with dark, wavy hair framing her face, her eyes green and enchanting. There was a kindness in those eyes that Henrietta held onto. The woman gave her a smile of compassion and tugged on her husband’s arm. He lowered his ear to her and then looked at Henrietta. What happened next was a whirlwind, ending with auctioneer yelling, “Mother and child sold to this gentleman here and his wife!”

Thus began Mammy and Mary Grace’s story at the Livingston Plantation.