1856
Harriet looked around William’s Boston shop. She was struck again by the peacefulness of the place. But outside the shop, in Kansas, in the halls of Congress, and even in the streets of Boston, bloody skirmishes continued about slavery and particularly about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
Her brother Henry and Frederick Douglass insisted she meet with William again. But there is no one else to do it. People are suffering and you can help them; you have the attention of the world.
During their last meeting at Plymouth Church, they had discussed Governor Floyd being double-minded. But her mind also was divided. Harriet did not want war, and she was committed to working to end slavery. She was willing to write—she had proven that with Uncle Tom—and she was willing to accept the ridicule of those who disagreed with her stance. But she was not certain about Nat Turner. She no longer knew what to believe.
For years she, like the rest of America, had believed what she read in The Confessions. The document was signed by six judges and the Southampton County clerk. How could it not be true? And if it was a lie, what kind of man was the real Nat Turner?
Harriet was unsure. She only committed to listening.
There had been riots in Boston, Philadelphia, and even in small towns like York, Pennsylvania, when slave catchers had come North trying to reclaim slaves. People like William, a slave refugee from Virginia, and even Frederick Douglass, were at risk—they could be sent back South in chains. But the people in cities and towns, risking their own freedom, were rebelling against the Fugitive Slave Act and hiding, or even rescuing, the refugees by force. They were so brave, but all she felt was a nagging fear.
“I have not agreed to write his story.” She paused, sizing up William, the man who sat across from her—a coconspirator in Nat Turner’s uprising. “They tell me you know more about him than any man alive.” Harriet looked down at her notes. “But you said, before, you did not like him.”
William nodded. “But in the end, he was my friend. He gave me the gift few people would choose to give another. He gave me my life. He gave me hope.”
“Hope?” How could anyone who had been a slave, who had been through what the slaves had been through, speak of hope? She would not have known where to go or where to begin looking. “I cannot imagine.”
“I found my sister still in bonds, the light stolen from her heart and beaten out of her eyes.” William lowered his voice, his shoulders tensed. “I must decline, for the safety of others, to tell you where I found her or the exact circumstances of my spiriting her away.” He seemed to relax again. “She was the first missing part of me that I found.” The light flickered out in his eyes. “I still have not found my wife. Though I still sometimes muster the strength to hope, there is no sign of her.” His hands clenched and then unclenched.
Silent, Harriet looked around the shop and then back at William.
He cleared his throat. “God gave me back part of my life. He gave me back my sister and, with her, a niece. He gave me a voice.” William lifted his teacup, smiled briefly at Harriet, and then set it back on the saucer. “There is hope for bloodthirsty men.” He briefly flashed another smile.
Moved, she knew she mustn’t be so sympathetic that she failed to ask him the difficult questions. Harriet looked toward the other room where her brother and Frederick Douglass were waiting. The Confessions described Will as an executioner. How would he react to her questions? “What about all the lives you took?”
Surprisingly, William seemed nonplussed. “How many slave cheeks do you suppose were turned and lives taken? How many knees were bowed and pleas made? But it seems that violent people only understand violence. What remedy would you recommend to God for those who murder His children, or even your own?” The muscles at his temple throbbed. “They justify what they did to us by twisting the Old Testament. How long did they expect to continue before God unleashed Old Testament vengeance?
“Do you think God actually stood back without care and watched as His children were slaughtered?” William straightened his collar.
Though he was silent for a moment, his nostrils flared. “I believe that He wept. I believe from the beginning He planned to deliver us.”
Then William’s face was suddenly surprisingly emotionless. “They pretend to be God-lovers, but they are man-haters, and God will not be mocked. How can you torture your brother and say you love him? You cannot imprison others and say you love freedom. You cannot breathe war and say you are a peacemaker.
“It was God’s command. War. Judgment. But it was their choice—they could have chosen to repent; they could have chosen mercy for themselves.” His demeanor was placid as he delivered the words. “They held money, property, and power more valuable than men’s souls. It was their choice.”
“You seem to doubt that they were or are Christians.”
His eyes bore into hers. “I am no judge, but in the wake of a Christian’s footsteps, there ought to be love.”
It was strange to hear William talk about love, to speak words that seemed kin to Henry’s. Before her sat a murderer speaking of love; she looked for some sign of insincerity.
“Slavery men are angry and discontent; they do not see themselves. They leave a trail of bitterness and sorrow behind them. They try to make their lives full with more houses, more servants, more lace, more money. They cannot even say they are wrong and repent to God. They cannot humble themselves and apologize.” A slight smile, an ironic one, played at the corner of William’s lips. “I know what it is to be angry, to choose judgment rather than mercy.”
His expression sobered. “I was bound, I was a slave, but the worst bondage was what I suffered inside. The worst was what I had to admit and confess before I could speak again, before I could love again.”
“Love? But you killed so many people.” Harriet looked for something in his eyes, some sign of deceit.
“It was a war for freedom. Nat Turner, the others, and I were sent to do battle with the giant, to warn him that he would fall. They gave no mercy, so received none.”
“What about the baby?”
William looked confused, as though he did not know how to respond.
“The baby. The one you went back and killed. Are you saying God directed you to kill the baby?”
William lifted his shoulders and shook his head as though he didn’t understand. Then his eyes widened and sarcasm crept into his voice. “Some folly from The Confessions?”
Harriet pressed him. “Did you find satisfaction in… in war… in killing all those people?”
William was matter-of-fact. He did not turn away. “At first. For a moment I was ecstatic—but the pleasure of lust is temporary satisfaction. When I was empty, bloodlust was the only thing that seemed to fill me. But not for long. In time, I repented, as any soldier repents; but I did what had to be done. It only satisfied me when I was not filled with love.”
Harriet looked for signs of insanity, some sign that William would lunge at her. “Love? But you still speak harsh things.”
He leaned back from the table. “The truth is a great weapon. You know that. You are a wordsmith. Words of truth are a double-edged sword. It cuts, but I always speak out of hope and out of love. I didn’t speak at all before.”
His eyes fixed on hers. “I fight with words now. I am still ready to die for what I believe.” He paused as though he wanted the truth of his words to sink in. Harriet felt chilled but fought to keep her composure, hoping William would not see.
He seemed to calm and, though he still held her gaze, he spoke more softly. “But I hope for life. Before, I was quiet but there was murder in my heart. Now I speak words like swords, but in my heart there is love. In my heart is the prayer that someone will hear me and turn.” He nodded at Harriet. “Love does not always appear as we think.
“I found my sister, I found forgiveness, I found the God of my fathers who was lost to me. Nat Turner led me there. Then I found my name—Love.”
“You speak so much about love. Other men think it is a weakness.”
He smiled and then shook his head. “Nat Turner told me it is not the weak but only the courageous who love. The ones who cannot love are the cowards. Only courageous men love. Only the bravest men, ferocious men, love their enemies.” He spoke loving words, but between the sentences his countenance was sometimes painted with anger.
A murdering slave who changed his name to Love? His visage was gray clouds and sunshine, and Harriet wasn’t certain what she believed. William was not the man she’d thought he would be. “When all this is over, will you be able to let it go, to move on with your life and forget it all?”
She was surprised by the sudden look of sympathy in his eyes. “Have you and I been able to forget the loss of our children?”
She had not been able to pray away, to think away, or even to write away the death of her infant son. She still had a full life, and love, and joy. But she could not forget him. Harriet stared at William—she would not, or could not, answer.
She did not want to think about baby Samuel. “You said you hated him… Nat Turner.”
“At first. But I learned. He shared his life with me. You might say that in the end, he was my confessor and I his.”
“Then, please, tell me what you know.” Harriet settled in to listen to his story.