Darcy Martinez
HIST 1700
Essay Question #4
The year is 1700; Chesapeake, Virginia has been my home now for fifteen years since I was captured into slavery from my homeland of Oyo, Africa. I was the only one of my family that survived the traumatizing journey that my master calls, "the Middle Passage." If only he and all the rest of these free people knew what I had to endure it would have a far harsher name than that. Being in that ship for two whole months listening to the sound of pure agony every single day left me with wounds in my heart that will never heal.
My life now consists of working on a tobacco plantation cultivating, drying and packing the crop. I have heard that it is then exported on a ship to Great Britain and now where else. It sounds as if the masters there are just as greedy as the ones here. I live and work with many other slaves, both men and women. We work from when sun rises to when it sets. Receiving just enough food so we don’t die
As the years have gone by, we now have young children who were born from enslaved parents, one of those children being mine. He is of lighter complexion compared to the rest of us slaves because our white master is his father. My son is just another one of his slaves to him. Knowing that every one of these children being carried by a slave is destined to a life of enslavement kills me inside. My son will work his life on this damn plantation just as I did. That is, if he doesn’t get the crazy idea to run away. That would entail hundreds of whips and as I’ve witnessed, castration.
We have a new slave that has worked on a plantation in this place they call, "the West Indies." He does not speak the language well yet, but from what he has been able to communicate to us; it is sugar cane what they grow there and there are far more slaves there. He was born in the West Indies and had parents that were born there. Just as we have heard of, "indentured" slaves being here in Chesapeake before us, he tells us they had them there for some time but realized that even though slaves were more expensive they could work them until our death and have title to our children, that being more profitable for them.
