writing

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“Black Woman” Nancy Morejón (2002)

Translation by William Little (2012)

Still I smell the foam of the sea they forced me to cross.

Night, I cannot recall the night.

Nor could I even recall the ocean itself.

But never have I forgotten the first seagull I glimpsed.

High up, the clouds, like innocent ever-present witnesses.

Perhaps I’ve not forgotten my lost coast nor even my ancestral tongue.

They dropped me here and here I’ve lived.

And because I work like a dog,

Here is where I was reborn.

And I sought to rely on epic story of the Mandinga after epic story.

I rebelled.

His Grace purchased me in a public square.

I embroidered His Grace’s cloak and I bore him a son.

My son was given no name.

And His Grace, he died at the hands of an impeccable English lord.

I trudged forward.

This is the land where I was lashed and beaten upside down.

I paddled along all its rivers.

Under its sun I sewed, harvested, and ate none of the crops.

I got a slave barracks for a house.

I myself carried the stones to build it,

but I sang in the natural beat of the nation’s birds.

I rose in rebellion.

In this very land I touched the warm blood

and rotten bones of many others like me,

brought here, or not, as I was.

Then I stopped thinking about the way to Guinea forever.

To Guinea or Benin? Was I thinking about Madagascar or Cape Verde?

I worked even more.

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Then I laid the foundation for my best millenary chant and my hope.

Here I built my world.

I went to the mountains.

My true independence happened at the stockade 1

and I rode with Maceo's cavalry. 2

Only one century later,

alongsie my descendants,

from atop a blue mountain,

I came down from the Sierra

to put an end to capitalists and userers,

and generals and the petit bourgois.

Now I am: only now do we hold and create.

Nothing is beyond our reach.

Our land.

Ours the sea and sky.

Ours the magic and the amazing dreams.

My equals, here I see you dance

around the tree we planted for communism.

Its generous wood is clearly resounding.

1 In the historical context of the present phrase in "Black Woman," there's a sense that the 'stockage' (Spanish: el

palenque) refers to or alludes to a free slave fort, stockage, or arena. In contemporary Cuba (i.e., late Castro

regime), there's a reference to "stockade" (el palenque), which clearly refers to freedom. A blog from Eastern Cuba

(Oriente) that tries to send Internet messages and photos clandestinely out of Cuba to call attention to oppression in

Cuba is called El Palenque; Blog de la Alianza Democrática Oriental (The Post; Blog of the Eastern Democratic

Alliance). The following gives an idea of this blog: "Nuestro blog es colectivo por la imposibilidad de que cada uno

pueda tener un espacio de debate personal, y quienes escriben lo hacen como un llamado a la gente en el mundo para

que conozcan el estado opresivo existente en nuestra isla." (Our blog is communal due to the impossibility for each

of us to have a space for individual discussion, and those who write do so as a call to the world's people to recognize

the oppressive condition or our island.") Clearly, Nancy Morejón, writing as a strong supporter of the Cuban

Revolution, one would think, would be opposed to the the content of El Palenque, but she surely would support the

call for freedom. [http://palenquecubano.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/sobre-palenque-cubano/] 2 Antonio Maceo Grajales (1845-1896) was a heroic Cuban military officer who figures among the main leaders in

the three 19 th

century Cuban wars of independence from Spain. His father was a Venezuelan farmer and his mother

was Afro-Cuban. He was born and raised in the Oriente region of Cuba, an area renowned for being the center of

resistance to both Spain and the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who was overthrown by Castro and the Cuban

Revolution. He died fighting against Spanish forces.

- Excerpted by the National Humanities Center for use in a Professional Development Seminar 

The Moment of Freedom Selections & photographs from

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938

as transcribed in the interviewers’ typed reports Library of Congress, Manuscript Division http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html _____________________________________ How old is I? Law chile, I don’t know. My mammy say I

was fifteen year old time of de surrender. I ‘members dat mighty

well. Massa John call all de niggers on de plantation ‘round him

at de big house and he say to ‘em “Now, you all jes’ as free as I

is. I ain’t your marster no mo’. I’se tried to be good to you and

take keer of all of you. You is all welcome to stay and we’ll all

wuk togedder and make a livin’ somehow. Ef you don’ want to

stay, dem dat go will jes’ have to root, pig, or die’. Some stayed and some lef’. My daddy stayed wid

Marse John till he was called home to glory. Now dey all gone but Siney, and I’se jes’ here, waitin’ for

‘em to call me.

Siney Bonner

Siney Bonner, 87, emancipated in Alabama

I sho remembers when freedom was declare cause I was bout 16 year old den. When dem Yankees

talk bout comin round, my Massa take all we colored boys en all he fast horses en put em back in de

woods to de canebrake to hide em from de Yankees. It been many a year since den, but I recollects dat we

was settin dere lookin for de Yankees to get us any minute. Wasn’ obliged to make no noise neither. . . .

Yes’um, I look at dem Yankees wid me own eyes. Dey was all dressed up in a blue uniform en dey was

just as white as you is. Oh, dey said a lot of things. Say dey was gwine free de niggers en if it hadn’ been

for dem, we would been slaves till yet. Coase I rather be free den a slave, but we never have so much

worryations den as people have dese days.

Charlie Davis, 88, emancipated in South Carolina

We left the plantation soon as de surrender. We lef’ right off. We

went to goin’ towards Fayetteville, North Carolina. We climbed over

fences and were just broke down chillun, feet sore. We had a little meat,

corn meal, a tray, and mammy had a tin pan. One night we came to a old

house; some one had put wheat straw in it. We staid there, next mornin’,

we come back home. Not to Marster’s, but to a white ‘oman named

Peggy McClinton, on her plantation. We stayed there a long time.

Louisa Adams, 80, emancipated in North Carolina Liberty and Freedom was all I ever heard any colored folks say dey

expected to get out of de war, and mighty proud of dot. Nobody knowed

they was goin to have a war till it was done broke out and they was

fightin about it. Didn’t nobody want land, they jess wanted freedom. I

remembers when Lincoln was made the President both times and when

he was killed. I recollects all that like yesterday.

Louisa Adams

The army had been through and swept out everything. There wasn’t a chicken or hog nowhere to be

had, took the stock and cattle and all the provisions. So de slaves jess had to scatter out and leave right

now.

Wylie Nealy, 85, emancipated in South Carolina I remember so well, how the roads was full of folks walking and walking along when the niggers

were freed. Didnt know where they was going. Just going to see about something else somewhere else.

Meet a body in the road and they ask, “Where you going?” “Dont know.” “What you going to do?” “Dont

know.” And then sometimes we would meet a white man and he would say, “How you like to come work

on my farm’” And we say, “I dont know.” And then maybe he say, “If you come work for me on my

farm, when the crops is in I give you five bushels of corn, five gallons of molasses, some ham-meat, and

all your clothes and vittals whils you works for me.” Alright! That’s what I do. And then something

begins to work up here, (touching his forehead with his fingers) I begins to think and to know things. And

I knowed then I could make a living for my own self, and I never had to be a slave no more.

Robert Falls, 97, emancipated in North Carolina

After the War I stay on the plantation ‘til a soldier man tells me of the freedom. The master never tell

usnegroes working just like before the War.

John White, 121, emancipated in Texas

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No ma’am, we ain’t had no celebration after we was freed. We ain’t know we was free ‘til a good

while after. We ain’t know it ‘til General Wheeler come thru and tell us. After that, de massa and missus

let all de slaves go ‘cepting me; they kept me to work in de house and de garden.

Fannie Griffin, 94, emancipated in South Carolina

Yes sir, I was ‘bout fourteen years old when President Lincoln set us all free in 1863. The war was

still goin’ on and I’m tellin’ you right when I say that my folks and friends round me did not regard

freedom as a unmixed blessin’.

We didn’t know where to go or what to do, and so we stayed right where we was, and there wasn’t

much difference to our livin’, ‘cause we had always had a plenty to eat and wear. I ‘member my mammy

tellin’ me that food was gittin’ scarce, and any black folks beginnin’ to scratch for themselves would

suffer, if they take their foot in their hand and ramble ‘bout the land lak a wolf.

Daniel Waring, 88, emancipated in South Carolina

Henry Bobbitt

I ‘members de day moughty well when de Yankees come. Massa

Dick he walked de floor an’ cussed Sherman fer takin’ his niggers

away. All o’ de niggers lef’, of course, an’ me, I walked clean ter

Raleigh ter find out if I wuz really free, an’ I couldn’t unnerstan’ half

of it.

Well de first year I slept in folkses woodhouses an’ barns an’ in

de woods or any whar else I could find. I wucked hyar an’ dar, but de

folkses’ jist give me sompin’ ter eat an’ my clothes wuz in strings

‘fore de spring o’ de year.

Henry Bobbitt, 87, emancipated in North Carolina

I was living in Bartow County in north Georgia when freedom came, I don’t remember how the

slaves found it out. I remember them saying, “Well, they’s all free.” And that is all I remember. And I

remember some one saying  asking a question, “You got to say master?” And somebody answered and

said, “Naw.” But they said it all the same. They said it for a long time. But they learned better though.

Sarah Jane Patterson, 90, emancipated in Georgia

I think  now I don’t know, but I think I was bout six or seven when they surrendered. . . . When we

went down to the gate to see the soldiers, I heard Miss Judy say (she was old mistress’ sister), I heard her

say, “Well, you let em beat you” and started cryin’. I cried too and mama said, “What you cryin’ for?” I

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said, “Miss Judy’s cryin’.” Mama said, “You fool, you is free!” I didn’t know what freedom was, but I

know the soldiers did a lot of devilment. Had guards but they just run over them guards.

I think Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the people some land after they was free, but they didn’t

give em nothin’  just turned em loose.

Course we ought to be free  you know privilege is worth everything.

Susa Lagrone, 79, emancipated in Mississippi

You ain’t gwine to believe dat de slaves on our plantation didn’t stop workin’ for old marster, even

when they was told dat they was free. Us didn’t want no more freedom than us was gittin’ on our

plantation already. Us knowed too well dat us was well took care of, wid a plenty of vittles to eat and tight

log and board houses to live in. De slaves, where I lived, knowed after de war dat they had abundance of

dat somethin’ called freedom, what they could not eat, wear, and sleep in. Yes, sir, they soon found out

dat freedom ain’t nothin’, ‘less you is got somethin’ to live on and a place to call home. Dis livin’ on

liberty is lak young folks livin’ on love after they gits married. It just don’t work. No, sir, it las’ so long

and not a bit longer. Don’t tell me! It sho’ don’t hold good when you has to work, or when you gits

hongry. You knows dat poor white folks and niggers has got to work to live, regardless of liberty, love,

and all them things.

Ezra Adams, 83, emancipated in South Carolina

I ‘lieve they ought to have gived us somethin’ when we was freed, but they turned us out to graze or

starve. Most of the white people turned the Negroes slam loose. We stayed a year with missis and then

she married and her husband had his own workers and told us to git out. We worked for twenty and thirty

cents a day then, and I fin’ly got a place with Dr. L. J. Conroe. But after the war the Negro had a hard

struggle, ‘cause he was turned loose jus’ like he came into the world and no education or ‘sperience.

Tom Holland, 97, emancipated in Texas

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