The vessels were just as people along the canal had told him. The wharf was crowded with great ships—greater than the ones he had imagined as a boy—with enormous masts like great trees that reached up toward the sky. As large as the ships were, they bobbed in the endless water like leaves on a pond. Sailing to and fro were ships bigger than any house he had ever seen, bigger than five houses. Ships big enough to sail to Philadelphia. Big enough to sail around the world.
Ships big enough to carry him home.
There were ropes and riggings he had not imagined. There were sails that caught the sunlight. Like Southampton breezes fluttering wildflowers, great invisible bay winds effortlessly rippled the immense stretches of canvas. There was a snapping sound like fresh, wet linens hung out to dry, wet sheets snapping in the wind.
Birds cried overhead. He saw black men among white men, brown men, and yellow men, clambering on the ships. He would blend in; others would take no special notice of him.
He paused to listen to the sailors singing.
O Shenandoah! I hear you calling!
Away, you rolling river!
Yes, far away I hear you calling,
Ha, ha! I’m bound away, across the wide Missouri.
My girl, she’s gone far from the river,
Away, you rolling river!
An’ I ain’t goin’ to see her never.
Ha, ha! I’m bound away, across the wide Missouri.
Nat Turner breathed in the song. It was a song of freedom. He was bound away.
O Shenandoah! I hear you calling!
Away, you rolling river!
Yes, far away I hear you calling,
Ha, ha! I’m bound away, across the wide Missouri.
He inhaled the air. Sea air. Free air. Nat Turner filled his lungs again and then laughed out loud. Dreaming. His heart pounded. He steadied himself so that in his excitement he would not lose his pole, or his cargo, or his head.
He drew nearer. The men boarding the boats carried few belongings—unencumbered by what had or had not been. Nat Turner promised himself he would join them.
He pulled his flatboat, still loaded with supplies, aground. The Chesapeake waters foamed like gray chargers racing into the shore. Clam and crab shells mixed with rocky gray sand. He pulled off his shoes so that his feet touched the water—ebbing and retreating, baptizing his feet. He inhaled, smelling distant shores. He would sail away to those distant places and forget everything that was behind.
He saw terrapins swimming near the shore. He would sail away. He would not look back.
He inhaled the smell of crab-filled waters and then remembered a promise he had made as a boy to his mother. “When you make it to great waters, you must speak to your grandmother across the sea in Ethiopia. She was a doting mother and I know she still waits for me. I know she is still by Tis Isat Falls searching for me.”
The waters called to him, the ancestors’ call, and though he had promised that he would not, Nat Turner raised his arms to pray the ancient prayers his mother had taught him—the prayers that his people had prayed for more than a thousand years. “Our Father in heaven, Your name is Holy and Righteous. You are the Living God, Father of us all.”
Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us lest we wander into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and glory unto ages of ages. Amen.
He prayed the prayer to honor Maryam, the Kidane Mehret, “the Covenant of God’s Mercy” with Africa, as his mother had taught him.
As Gabriel greeted you, Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you though virgin in conscience as well as body. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Holy Mary, the God-bearer, pray that your beloved son, Jesus Christ, may forgive us our sin. Amen.
Nat Turner spoke across the water to the grandmother and grandfather he had never known. He introduced himself to them. He used his Ethiopian name. “I am Negasi.” He knew that his grandmother was a worrier, and he knew that he must not upset her. He could not add to his grandmother’s burden, to her broken heart, so he told his grandmother that her daughter, his mother, was fine. “I will board a ship and I will come to Ethiopia, and one day she will also return.”
The sky overhead was blue and rose, the sun golden. He spoke to his sister. It was the first time he had spoken her name. “I greet you, my sister, Ribka.”
And then he spoke across the water to all those like him and like his mother, children of the captivity, and he prayed for them. “Awaken!” He prayed that they would raise their heads, stretch out their arms, and make their way to freedom. He prayed that they would find great ships to carry them home.
Fell’s Point, Baltimore, Maryland
FREDERICK BAILEY, A boy of less than ten, stood on the opposite shore of the Chesapeake. He lived in Baltimore as a slave on loan to the Auld family. It was his duty to care for the family’s young son, Tommy.
Whenever he could, Frederick looked out at the waters that lapped at the shores of Fell’s Point. He was hypnotized by the bobbing rhythm of the water. Before him were ships whose sails caught the sunlight and birds that flew overhead to wherever they pleased.
When he looked out over the water, he spoke to the ships, “You are loosed from your moorings, and free. I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip.”
Each time he looked out over the water, he spoke to the birds, “You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in bonds of iron. O, that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone: She hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free!—Is there any God? Why am I a slave?” Each time he spoke, there was no answer.
On the banks of the Chesapeake, young Frederick stopped this time, as though a voice called to him. He turned from the poor white boys he paid wages of bread to teach him to read. He stared out over the water. He had gazed out at the water many times before. He had prayed the same prayers many times before. But this day something seemed different. Escape was no more probable or possible than it had been the day before, but this day he felt a quickening. It was as though he heard a voice across the water calling to him.
He watched the ships cut through the water, saw the wind catch their sails, and heard the birds cry above. Frederick pledged to himself and to God that day that he would be free. “I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught or get clear, I’ll try it. I had as well die with ague as with fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it: one hundred miles north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom.”
It was as though the hand of God touched Frederick and he knew—if he had to fight, or starve, or risk his life, he would be free. “Let but the first opportunity offer, and come what will, I am off. I am but a boy yet, and all boys are bound out to someone. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is a better day coming.”
Chesapeake
1821
NAT TURNER STOOD on the shores of the Chesapeake staring at the ships. Men of all hues boarded, none of them in chains. They were all men sailing into their futures. He would be one of them.
He walked the wharf marveling at the most insignificant things—wooden planks under his feet, seagulls in flight. He stopped a sailor and asked him how a man might go about finding a job. The man pointed at a line of men and told Nat Turner the ship was still hiring.
He stood in line watching the birds fly overhead. He breathed deeply, intoxicated by free air.
When he reached the hiring man, Nat Turner told the man he would do anything. He was handy and smart, and he was willing to learn. He knew farming and hard work. He had worked as a millwright.
The man did not ask for his pass. He did not ask where Nat Turner had come from. Nat Turner was hired aboard the ship. They would set sail in three days.
AFTER HIS DELIVERY was made, Nat Turner steered the flatboat back down the Dismal Swamp Canal. It would be his last time. He would sail away on the boat harbored now on the Chesapeake and never see Southampton again.