James Nelson: The Blackbirder

James’s men were silent, staring at the hatch, which seemed to move of its own accord. And then from below a black figure emerged, stepping carefully up the ladder, clearly unsure of what was waiting on the upper deck. He blinked and squinted and shielded his eyes from the dim evening sun, looked around. He stepped over the combing, still in a half crouch, ready to move if attacked.

James stepped forward, hands up, palms out. The man looked at him, looked around the deck, seemed to relax a bit as his eyes moved from black face to black face.

He looked back at James, straightened his stance. He was a big man, six feet tall at least, powerfully built and well proportioned. Handsome. He smiled with big white teeth set against dark skin. Held up his hands. Addressed James with words that James did not understand.

James stared at him, shook his head. The man said something else, it sounded like a different language, and James shook his head again.

The man squinted at him, looked closer, and then spoke again, slowly, and the language was Malinke. Slow, uncertain, but clearly Malinke. James’s native tongue, at once familiar and foreign. Images of his father, of his village, swam before him as he heard the words: “I am Madshaka. Are my people safe to come up?”

James nodded, then spoke slowly, finding the words deep in his memory. “Yes. You are safe. Tell them to come up.”

Madshaka turned, looked back down the hold. He called something in the first language he had used, then the second, and then repeated the order in two more languages. One by one the people came up from the hold, frightened, confused, broken. They squinted, like Madshaka, though the light was fading fast in the west. They spread out across the deck, looking carefully around, not trusting the reality that greeted them: freedom, safety.

Madshaka stepped up to James. He was naked, save for a cloth around his hips. All of the Africans were dressed that way. The stink of the hold clung to him.

He looked down at James, but despite his overwhelming size he appeared subservient, almost cowed. He said in James’s native tongue, “You are the chief here? You are Malinke? What is your name?”

“Yes, I am Malinke. Was Kabu Malinke, from the House of Mane.” His name? That was not so easy to answer. “Once I was known as Komdaka, prince of the Malinke. Now I am King James.”

“King James?” Madshaka said, trying the words out, working his tongue around them. “What of the ship’s crew?”

“Dead. Captain dead, some others dead. The rest sent away.”

Madshaka looked at him and his eyes grew wide and a look of astonishment, of gratitude and near worship spread over his face. He sank slowly to his knees in front of James, grabbed his hand and kissed it. James felt himself flush, cleared his throat, tried to work out the words in Malinke to tell Madshaka to stand.

Then Madshaka released his hand and looked up into James’s eyes and spoke, and the words were English.

“Thank you. Thank you, King James. You set us free from hell.”

James took a step back. He could not have been more surprised if Madshaka had burst into song. He thought of all those languages the man had called down the hold. African tongues. But how could he speak English?

Madshaka got to his feet with a fluid thrust of the legs, smiled down at James, spoke again in English. “I was a grumete, a boatman. I am of the Kru of Bassa, the most skilled boatmen. I was a merchant, interpreter. Traveled the whole coast, from Goree to Congo. Carried many people in my boat. Learned many tongues.”

The two men regarded each other. Madshaka was Kru, from Bassa. King James was Malinke, from Gambia. They had most likely been born within six hundred miles of each other. But now James was a man of the New World, and the gulf between them was as wide and as deep as the Atlantic.

“Are any aboard Malinke?” James asked. He did not know why. It just seemed like something he should know.

“No. Ship from Whydah. There are people from many places, all mixed up. Ibo, Yoruba, Awakam, Aja, Bariba, Igbomina, Weme, Za. No Malinke.”

James nodded. A polyglot group, but all from within the arc of the Bight of Biafra and the Bight of Benin, two thousand miles from where he was born.

Behind them, more and more people were coming up out of the hold, standing in small clusters, huddled together as if for warmth, men, women, and a few children looking around, pointing, talking in their odd, lyrical voices.

The Northumberland’s crew were in their own group, looking at the freed slaves with as much curiosity as they themselves were being watched. Cato and Joshua had been born in Virginia, as had Quash and Good Boy.

James pointed at the gaping hold, the destruction all around. “What happened?” he asked.

Madshaka looked around, shook his head. He was silent for a moment, as if trying to put the chaotic tale in some order. “We at sea many weeks, many weeks. Very little food, very little water. Sometimes they let us up here, mostly keep down there.

“Then, a week ago, we attacked. Boo-con-eers. Pirates. They take the ship, steal some of our people. They on ship two, three days. Much drinking, much devilment. When they leave they set us all free. We try to take the ship from that bastard captain but the white slavers, they have guns, swords, and we, nothing. They drive us down again, shoot down into us with cannon. Close up the hole.

“They afraid to open hole, afraid we fight them again. So for week we sail, they don’t give food, no help to the people hurt in fight. They die, just left down there. Dead men, women, children. They open up a little place, give some food, some water, but only a little. Many die.”

King James shook his head, tried to imagine the horror. There had been dead enough on his own voyage to the New World, sometimes left for days before their bodies were hurled overboard. He had thought no horror on earth could match that which he had experienced, and here was Madshaka making him realize that he was wrong.

“Kusi!” Madshaka called across the deck, and then in a language that James thought to be of the Aja territory he addressed the man who turned. The man nodded, hurried away from his cluster, stood by Madshaka’s side.

“Him Kusi, Fante, from Great Popo. He grumete too. Not so good as Kru. He speak many languages.”

Kusi nodded. He was a slight man, shorter than James and older by ten years at least. His face was lined and he bore the traces of ritual scarring, but he had an honest look. “I speak English too, and other tongues.”

“Well,” James began. He stopped himself, framed his words in Malinke, and said, slowly, haltingly, “It is good you both are here. We have much work. You must translate for me. We will have to sail the ship.”

The two men nodded, as if they were already resigned to the fact that they would have to put to sea once more.

The last of the captives climbed up from the hold and stood shielding their eyes from the sun, dazed, staring around. There appeared to be eighty or so in all. James was sure that there had been far more than that when the ship had sailed from Africa.

Madshaka turned toward the clusters of freed Africans and addressed them in a loud voice, a commanding tone that made them all fall silent and listen.

He spoke in animated tones, repeating himself in several tongues and the people nodded. James could not follow the words, but he saw eyes darting toward him. And then Madshaka pointed at James, his finger like the barrel of a gun, and along the deck the people sank to their knees, their wide eyes locked on him.

“He tell them you are their great savior, a great king come to free them,” Kusi explained.

“Oh, for the love of God…Madshaka, tell them…”