Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette. Volume 21

"Well, that's something. I imagine there would be records of who was sold out of which ship, to which plantation. And there can't have been that many children. But he certainly can't go there and ask, can he?"

"He would need to learn Spanish of course. And if he didn't want to be a slave within seconds after stepping onto the dock, he would need a letter of manumission. Preferably, from a Spanish source."

"Henrique could write the letter, couldn't he? Portugal being under the Spanish crown, they would honor a Portuguese document. And I wouldn't think a minor port official in Santo Domingo is going to have been informed that Henrique is a heretic."

"Probably not. But then there's the other problem. The financial one. He would have to buy his children. And he doesn't have any money."

"Well, it's going to take him months, if not years, to learn Spanish, and more important how he must act if he wants to be successful. The important thing is that we can give him a reason to hope."

A moment later she added, "A reason to live."

Carsten Claus looked out across the expanse of the Suriname. The river was perhaps half a mile across here. The vegetation on the far bank was dense; there could be an army of Africans hiding there, for all he knew. He wished he knew how the troublemakers were arming themselves. He suspected that the Portuguese in Belem do Para, or the Spanish in Santiago de Leon de Caracas, were involved, to harass the USE. But would they arm slaves who had been taken off a Portuguese-crewed, Spanish-licensed ship? Could any of the colonists have been so short-sighted as to sell arms to the ex-slaves without permission?

To reassure the colonists, he had put the Eikhoorn on river patrol duty, and banned the Africans from fishing within a mile of the colony. He was waiting for the Eikhoorn to return from upriver; he had some questions for its skipper. But what he wanted most of all was for David de Vries to show up with a ship of force, and more colonists, so that they clearly outpowered and outnumbered the Africans. David should have been here a month ago.

At least, if their African informants were correct, he could now put a name to the problem: Imbangala. Mauricio, sitting beside Carsten, had just explained to him that since 1615, the Portuguese of Luanda had used the Imbangala as mercenaries in their wars with Ndongo. Ndongo warriors, if captured in battle, were exported to the New World to work on plantations and in the mines. But the Imbangala? Since they were allies of the Portuguese in Luanda, Mauricio hadn't expected to find them sold into slavery. Perhaps these had disobeyed orders? Or had the Portuguese beaten the Ndongo into submission, and decided the Imbangala had outlived their usefulness?

Carsten expressed the hope that the Gustavans' African friends were, indeed, friends. Mauricio nodded, but offered no reassurances on that score. They sat in silence for a few minutes, then both realized simultaneously that they were no longer alone, and turned their heads.

"Forgive the interruption," said Maria.

Carsten forced a smile. "How can a visit from you be considered an interruption?"

"You perhaps know that Mauricio and I have been researching the whereabouts of the children of one of the Coromantees? We think it very likely that they were shipped to Havana. I wondered-could the Anti-Slavery Society send someone there, to find and redeem them? I am sure it would be very good publicity, to reunite the children with their father."

Carsten swatted a mosquito. "The Society has discussed the possibility of redemption."

"And?"

"Decided against it. First, because our financial resources are limited. Second, because we fear that any concerted policy of that kind would just encourage the slavers to fetch more slaves so they could sell them to us for a quick profit. We would be, what's that American term, a 'revolving door.' Once naval resources can be spared to stop the slave trade at its source, and we have better funding, we may reconsider redemption."

"So what would you recommend?"

"Well-" Carsten was distracted by the appearance of the Eikhoor n, just coming around the upriver bend. It reminded him of the exciting day that they had seized the Triton, and sunk its longboat, not many yards from where the Eikhoorn was plowing back downriver.

The longboat. He started cursing.

"Carsten, what's wrong?" asked Maria.

"We know from the reports that the Africans who have been causing trouble have weapons. I just figured out where they got them from." He pointed upriver.

"I don't understand… oh… the longboat? But wouldn't the weapons all be rusted?"

"By now they would be. But if they were found early enough, not irretrievably. The rust could have been scraped off."

"But how would they have known where to look? You don't suppose a colonist told them?"

"Perhaps. It might not have been evil in intent. A colonist might have bragged about the battle. Anyway, I will have the damn boat brought up. We'll take a count of how many bodies, guns and swords are still there, and that will let us make a good guess as to what was taken.

Carsten stood up. "The crew of the Eikhoorn is going to have to wait a little longer for their supper, I'm afraid. As for your problem, I think you are going to have to find a way for your Coromantee protege to find the money himself. If he does, then the Society could perhaps find a trustworthy agent to send. A clergyman, perhaps."

The three Ndongo warriors, Mukala, Aka, and Miguel, studied the body of their fallen comrades. Both bore diagonal gashes on their foreheads, but their death wounds were elsewhere.

"Imbangala," Mukala said. The Imbangala were in the habit of distinctively marking their kills so that each warrior could claim the bodies of the enemies he had slain, have them carried back to the camp by his slaves, and then eat them with the proper formalities so that their ghosts couldn't haunt the slayer.

Miguel, pointed to the death wound. "That wasn't made by a spear."

"No," Mukala agreed. "It's a slash, not a thrust."

"And look how clean the edges are," said Aka. "That wasn't made with sharpened wood, or flint. It was a cut from a steel blade."

"This is very bad news," said Miguel. "The whites are arming the Imbangala with cutlasses. That is the only possible explanation."

"We should have wiped out the filthy Kasanje Imbangala right after we landed," said Mukala. "We had the advantage of numbers then." Many Ndongo, warriors and farmers alike, had been captured and shipped to the New World, to work Portuguese sugar plantations and Spanish silver mines. There were relatively few Imbangala on the slave ship because most were Portuguese allies. But Kasanje, who led one of the Imbangala bands, had set up an independent state in 1620, and so his people were fair game.

"That is easy to say now," reproved Aka. "But we were so thirsty we could barely move our limbs when we were freed." The slave ship had gone first to Angola, and tried its luck. It ventured further north, among the Coromantee, Eboe and Mandinka, only because it hadn't been able to fill its hold. So the Angolans had endured the privations of middle passage longer than any of their brothers in suffering.

Mukala made a gesture of propitiation to the gods. "Powers forbid we suffer so again!"

Miguel added thoughtfully, "If we had attacked the Imbangala immediately, the whites might have feared that we would attack them next, and turned their swivel guns on us."

"Do you think the Imbangala have guns, too?" asked Mukala. "If so, we are in big trouble."

"Don't know, but we better tell the elders what we found." Aka pointed at the bodies. "In the meantime let's rig a sled for these bodies. I'll not leave them for the Imbangala. And be quick about it; we don't know when they'll be back."