The Book of Negroes

Back in Charles Town, Aminata sails to New York City with Solomon Lindo on the Queen Charlotte when she is thirty years old. On the ship, Lindo tries to socialize with her, but she keeps her distance. The only time they interact is when she defeats another passenger at chess, at Lindo’s urging. As they near “Manna-hata,” the native American word for “hilly island” (241), the weight of the past lifts slightly. During their carriage ride through the city, they glimpse “Canvas Town” (242) and the free blacks who live there, whom Lindo urges her to avoid. The arrive at The Fraunces Tavern, a ten-room, two-story hotel renowned for its food and owned by a black West Indian named Sam Fraunces. Aminata thrills as she signs her name in the hotel registry, prompting an exchange with Sam about her situation and the “opportunities” New York offers (244). She plans to escape and Sam says he will help her, but he cautions her to forget about ever going back to Africa.

That evening, she and Lindo attend a cello performance by enslaved prodigy Adonis Thomas. The next day, Lindo instructs Aminata to write a letter about the indigo trade while he tries to get an audience with the governor. She explores Wall Street instead, where she witnesses an anti-British riot. She learns that two battles have been fought, at Lexington and Concord, and pandemonium begins to break out in the streets. Hastening back to the hotel, Sam tells her to make a run for it: The Revolutionary War has begun, and Lindo will be forced to return home immediately or risk getting stuck in New York. Sam advises her to hide in the woods and avoid Canvas Town for now. He gives her food and shows her a secret knock, so she can return to the hotel in a few days. It is April 23, 1775, and she has “taken back her freedom” (255).

In the woods, Aminata sees “whittled sticks pushed into a rectangular pattern on the ground, near a mound of stones in a perfect circle” (255). After a fitful night’s sleep, she finds a group of mourning Africans and learns the mounds are burial sites. She joins in their songs and sobs along with them. Left alone afterwards, she makes her way back to Fraunces Tavern. Sam tells her that Lindo raged about her escape, but he was forced to leave for South Carolina that very day. She sleeps in a storeroom and works for Sam six hours a day, earning five shillings a week plus room and board. She returns to midwifery and volunteers to teach negroes at St. Paul’s Chapel, a humble place where the white minister sponsors the classes. After two weeks, one of her students, Claybourne Mitchell, helps her steal enough wood to build her own shack in Canvas Town. They pick over the remains of a looted Tory house and she soon has a shack with “room enough for a chair, a lamp, a straw mattress, and some drawers” (263). She returns to the tavern each day to take her meals and work for Sam, “writing his letters and keeping his ledgers” (264). Her classes grow, and although she is not paid, students stop by her shack with gifts. She teaches an elderly slave, Miss Betty, to read in just three lessons and later attends her friend’s deathbed and burial.

One night, on her way to St. Paul’s, she is attacked and almost raped by a white man. She is rescued by another white man, Lieutenant Malcom Waters, a British naval officer who has heard of Aminata and wishes to discuss “a private matter” with her (271). Over dinner at Fraunces Tavern, he tells her that Lord Dunmore was willing to free any Negro who fought for the British, and that even women could serve. He then discloses that he has a paramour, a black girl from Barbados named Rosetta Walcott, who is pregnant with his child. Aminata charges him one pound in silver as a fee, a price which he resists at first. The girl lives in Holy Ground, where many prostitutes reside. Rosetta loves him and plans to drown the baby, but Aminata forces Malcom to pay for a shack in Canvas Town, where mother and child both move. Aminata becomes known as “One-pound Meena,” (277) delivering other officer’s babies and using the money to beef up her shack enough to make it through the winter. In April 1776, the British abandon New York City, and Governor William Tyron takes refuge in the harbor as the rebels stream into the city.

The rebels hold Manhattan for six months, but the British take it back and hold it for seven years. They use St. Paul’s to jail rebels, so Aminata must hold her classes in Canvas Town, at Fraunces Tavern, and in the woods. After the Philipsburg Proclamation of 1779, every black man and woman capable of working takes a job with the British, who promise them freedom. They are cooks, laundresses, blacksmiths, and other kinds of laborers. The brothels operate freely, so Aminata’s services as a midwife and healer, especially for venereal disease, are in high demand. She is also the bearer of news, reading the Amsterdam Gazette aloud to the people in Canvas Town. Sam believes in the American cause, trusting that liberty for the rebels will mean freedom for blacks, too. But the blacks in Canvas Town shout him down, and lean towards the British.

In 1782, the British surrender to the Americans, and Section VII of the treaty pertains particularly to blacks, who would have to be turned over to the Americans without British intervention or protection. By agreeing to leave without taking with them “Negroes or other Property,” the British have betrayed the blacks of New York (283). Emboldened plantation owners begin sending their men into Canvas Town on raids to take back their property. The people of Canvas Town organize guard duty to protect their homes and their lives.

Malcom Waters, now promoted to Captain, pays Aminata a visit. He takes her to an officers’ room in the British barracks where she meets Colonel Baker. He tells Aminata that the British have not betrayed the negroes—anyone who has served them for at least a year is no longer American “property” (285) and will be relocated to Nova Scotia, a British colony in Canada. The British have agreed to vacate New York before the end of November, taking with them all Loyalists, whites as well as blacks. This leaves a great deal of work to be done in just eight months. Aminata and the other blacks will be free. They will be given land and tools; they will be required to farm the land and work hard. Col. Baker offers Aminata a job spreading the word among her people and helping to register them in a book. She will collect “names, ages, and how they came to serve the British,” and will register only those who have been “behind the British lines for a year” (286). She will be paid one pound per week, plus food and lodgings in the British barracks. When she asks Malcom what the book will be called, he quips, “Exodus from Holy Ground” (287).He then tells her it will be called “The Book of Negroes” (287).

Her friends gather to say goodbye. As she is packing up her shack, Chekura appears. It has been nine years since they have seen each other. He is free and she negotiates with Malcom Waters to ensure her husband’s safe passage to Nova Scotia. Malcom grants her request and gives Chekura a job cleaning the barracks. Aminata loves her work, despite the long hours. However, when the actual on-ship interviews begin for The Book of Negroes, none of the free blacks of Canvas Town is there. Malcom Waters explains that they must first register the slaves and indentured servants of the White Loyalists. He assures her that her people’s turn will come.

She and Chekura are dismayed at these developments but even so, Canvas Town is thinning out as the free blacks leave: the chaotic conditions make it easier for raiders to attack. Aminata grows more anxious to depart as British ships continue to leave for Nova Scotia. Captain Baker insists she must stay until her job is done. She and Chekura conceive their second child during this time. He tells his wife about his many adventures, and how he lost two more fingers trying to climb onto a departing British ship in Charles Town. He had worked for the British, like many others, and had been promised freedom. In the end, the British betrayed many of the blacks who had worked for them and had even re-enslaved others.

The next day Aminata learns that both Baker and Walters have departed for England with no goodbye and no assurances of her continued employment. When she is told her services are no longer required, she demands a place on a ship for herself and her husband. The deputy shoves at them two tickets for a ship departing on April 21, 1783. Their paperwork is in order, but as they prepare to depart, Aminata is told there is a claim against her and she cannot leave. Chekura wants to stay with her, but she insists he take safe passage to Nova Scotia. She fears he will lose his chance for freedom if he remains. She bids her husband farewell and assures him they will be reunited in Nova Scotia.

Aminata spends the night in jail. The Negro guard sends word to Sam, who tells her Lindo is back in New York. At the trial, she expects Lindo, but Appleby walks into the courtroom instead. He tells the judge that he only loaned Aminata to Lindo, and that he is still her rightful owner. Sam asks for a two-hour delay in order to obtain proof that Appleby is lying. He returns with Lindo, who reads the bill of sale disproving Appleby’s claim. The bill also reveals that Lindo made a deal with Appleby to separate Aminata from her child. Lindo explains that Appleby was determined to punish her for her pregnancy, so Lindo agreed to pay a higher price in order to save her from being sent to a rice plantation. He also tried to ensure that the baby was sold to a kind owner. The judge tells Appleby to leave New York under threat of prosecution for perjury, but when he tries to return Aminata to Lindo, but the latter sets her free. He tries to speak to her, but she has no wish to make peace with him. She must wait seven more months to depart for Nova Scotia. On November 30, 1783, she departs for Port Roseway, since she cannot find a ship going to Annapolis Royal, Chekura’s destination. All of her belongings were lost in jail and she has only her midwifery skills to sustain her and her unborn child. 

Once on land, instead of Port Roseway, the sign reads “Shelbourne” (312). A hateful tavern owner tells her “Birchtown is the place for your kind” (313). She has no food or shelter, so she must find work immediately. She finds herself at the door of a small print shop owned by Theo McArdle, who gives her tea and information. Shelbourne is the town’s new name, he says, and when he discovers she can read, he offers her some proofreading work in exchange for tea, biscuits, and free newspapers. He tells her that free blacks live in Birchtown, and sends her to the Land Registry office. There she meets an elderly Negro preacher named Daddy Moses, who befriends her. He tells her not to expect the land she was promised by the British—there are thousands of whites and blacks already ahead of her. The free blacks in Birchtown are divided into companies, each with a leader who distributes the British rations. He invites her to stay with him and his wife, Evangeline, in their humble cottage, until she gets settled. She starts midwifery again and gets a job teaching reading to free blacks in a class sponsored by a British group called The Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Theo pays her to write advertisements and she likes to read the news while working there.

Aminata has little but works hard and soon earns enough to build her own shack, the only one with a stove. She tries to send word to her husband via travelers to Port Royal; they leave letters she has written for Chekura at taverns that are frequented by Black Loyalists. This is the only way she can search for her husband: Port Royal is too far to walk and she has no money for ship’s passage. The people of Birchtown live a hardscrabble life but they also have “music and laughter in [their] churches” (324-25). Despite the pious Evangeline’s warnings, the people seek refuge in sexual relationships with varied partners. Twice a week, Aminata attends Daddy Moses’s services, where he thunders and wails; as the parishioners wail, too, Aminata weeps for her lost child, her parents, and her absent husband. She works as a midwife and is paid with goods, since no one has currency. On the day she goes into labor, all the Birchtown folks have gone to work in town, so Daddy Moses stays with her as she delivers her daughter.

Aminata names the baby May, after the month of her birth. The baby, swaddled to her body, comes with her to the print shop, where she tells May stories about “everything” (332). One day at the shop, she meets Alverna Witherspoon, whose husband runs a whaling business. She hires Aminata to work in their house Wednesday through Saturday. The work involves physical labor, but the Witherspoons are generous with leftover food and hand-me-down furniture. Daddy Moses warns Aminata that white Loyalists can be “fair-weathered friends,” but they are kind to her and her child (334). Alverna plays with May, and is surprised that the toddler already knows how to read, and knows about her daddy. Aminata has searched everywhere for Chekura. She even saved enough money to take a short boat trip to Port Royal. But there is no trace of him or his ship, the Joseph, ever having arrived in 1783.

When May is briefly ill, she and her mother are invited to stay with the Witherspoons, which brings them all closer. The Witherspoons left Boston during the war, leaving behind a home and land. Now they had to close their whaling business because the local economy was collapsing. The British had cut off their rations and few of the free blacks were ever given the land that was promised. Many whites in Shelbourne demanded higher wages than poor blacks, and they resented losing jobs to black labor. Such conditions bred resentment, making poor whites dangerous for the free blacks of Birchtown.

One day, a white mob descends upon the streets of Shelbourne and starts killing blacks. Aminata and May are walking down the street. They run to the safety of the Witherspoon house. The mobs roam the streets, killing and raping, and then they descend upon Birchtown. Aminata and May remain with the Witherspoons. Each day, Mr. Witherspoon brings news, and when the riots stop, Aminata leaves May in their care. She goes to Birchtown to see if her own house is still standing. She finds Daddy Moses sitting in his cart, his face bruised and his church burned to the ground. His home is barely standing. His attackers let him off with a warning: tell the free blacks to stay out of Shelbourne. The community bands together to repair the homes that are salvageable, and many take in people who have lost everything. Aminata and the others work for two days. Then she heads back to Shelbourne to retrieve May.

On her way out of Shelbourne, Aminata had seen a ship docked in the bay. Now, that ship is gone. Little does she know that her daughter was aboard. Aminata finds the Witherspoon’s house deserted. Desperate to find her daughter, she pounds on the door, until a frightened neighbor tells her they sailed away. She shouts, “You and that girl are none of my business,” and slams the door (345). Aminata storms into Theo’s print shop, where he tearfully tells her the Witherspoons have sailed for Boston, taking May with them. He tried to stop them, but his fear kept him from fighting them. She forces him to give her food from his meager stores, then she departs.

In despair, and with Theo’s help, she places newspaper advertisements in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. But she has no money to go to any of these places, and Theo adds that she wouldn’t be safe there alone. She writes to Sam Fraunces, who now works for George Washington, but he cannot find any trace of the Witherspoons. Aminata is heartsick. Her two lost children are “like phantom limbs” (350), and she stops eating, drinking, working, and teaching. Eventually she returns to work for Theo, as well as resuming midwifery and teaching, but she is always in pain. Yet, she “kept going” (351).

Four years pass with no news of May. Aminata is about forty-five years old. Her hair has streaks of silver now, and she wears spectacles that cost her two-month’s salary. In the spring of 1790, a man named Thomas Peters comes to preach at Daddy Moses’s church. He is raising money to travel to England to address the British Parliament about the injustices endured by the free blacks of Nova Scotia, and also to denounce the continuation of slavery there. Aminata admires his ambition and wonders where her own strong will has gone. All she can do now is care for her shack in the hope that one day Chekura and May will return to live there with her.

Another year passes and Thomas returns to say he has been to England. He met with some white folks who are prepared to send them all to Africa, a scheme Aminata finds “ludicrous” (354). At one time, that had been her dream, too; but since he has “no details to back up his story,” no one believes him (354). He vows to return with more information. A few days later, Aminata sees a notice in the Royal Gazette from the Sierra Leone Company offering “Free Settlement on the Coast of Africa” as well as twenty acres of land (354). She reads the notice to all the folks in Birchtown, but they realize it is not safe to talk about such a plan in public. No one understands how this scheme will be enacted, and no one knows where Sierra Leone is.

A few days later, an Englishman named John Clarkson rides into town. A Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he asks permission to address Daddy Moses’s congregation. He knows the free blacks of Nova Scotia have been poorly treated, and he believes slavery is “a stain on Christianity” (356). He offers to help them start a colony in Africa where they will “enjoy political and racial equality”; the Sierra Leone Company will grant them free passage, land, and seeds to plant crops (356). He asks someone to take notes and smiles when he meets Aminata, who likes him “from the instant [she meets] him” (358). Clarkson is patient and kind, and treats all people with respect. He explains that the Company “was directed by men whose life’s passion was to abolish slavery” (359). The Company is also motivated by “duty and patriotism,” and the new colonists can help advance the British economy by reducing dependence on the slave trade (359). There was already a failed colony at Sierra Leone, so the new colony would use the old site. He exhorts them to consider themselves “adventurers” who will embark upon a new life (365).

Clarkson and Daddy Moses come back to her shack to celebrate, and he examines her books. He asks her to work for him as his secretary, and she agrees, but says she cannot come with them, for she is waiting for her husband and daughter. Clarkson promises to search for naval records on the Joseph, Chekura’s ship, when he returns to Halifax; he cautions her that May could be anywhere and is beyond her reach. She will work for three shillings a day, plus room and board at the Water’s Edge Inn in Shelbourne. Then they will sail together to Halifax to finish the job.

She and Clarkson proceed to work hard, overcoming all the objections and insults of the whites in Shelbourne. She worries about him, for at night he has nightmares about the injustices he witnesses, which Aminata understands. After eight years, Aminata departs for Halifax with “an odd sense of relief” (363). She fears for her new friend, worrying that he will lose his mind, for any white man to be that concerned about Negroes was “just not natural” (363). It is her first real relationship with a truly virtuous white man.

They sail for two days to Halifax, a “fledgling town…in 1791,” but thankfully a “far less menacing [one] for Negroes” (363). She settles into a private room at The King’s Inn. As the free blacks come streaming into the city, Clarkson finds them lodgings, helping those who are destitute. Some have walked for two weeks through the woods, having no money to take a boat. On Christmas Day, Clarkson lays out a feast, and then walks among the people, praying with them and reassuring them about the conditions of the upcoming ocean voyage. He reminds them of the rules that they have promised to abide by. He and Aminata are invited to dinner at the Governor’s mansion. During a tour of the “palatial home” (366), Aminata becomes entranced by the map room, where she finds a poem by Jonathan Swift, “On Poetry: a Rhapsody.” She is struck by a passage in which Swift laments all the blank spaces in maps of Africa, just as she has always done.

As she searches for Bayo, her village, on the map, Clarkson comes in and delivers devastating news: he has discovered that Chekura’s ship had shipwrecked and everyone aboard perished. He reaches out a hand to comfort her but she runs out, needing to be alone with her grief. She misses her loved ones in her body and soul, and decides she will “join the exodus to Africa” (370). On the docks, the people wait quietly to board the boats that will row them to the ships. Twelve hundred men, women, and children, one third of them Africa-born, wait to embark upon fifteen ships. She boards the Lucretia with Clarkson, and on January 15, 1792, they set sail.