Letters from a Slave Boy: The Story of Joseph Jacobs

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Mama

EDENTON, NORTH CAROLINA
3 April 1839

Dear Mama,

As you can see, I no how to rite. A skinny stick of a white boy, name of Josiah Collins, is teeching me. He say, Joseph, rite down wurds that mean something to you. You will learn spelling soon enuf.

I meet Josiah this time last spring, round tree-leafing time. We standing on the fishing bridge, me at one end, him at the other.

He call out, Hey! How come you catch three stripey bass, while I only caught one?

Use short little fish for bait, I tell him. Then I give him baby shad from my bucket, and he catch two bass.

Next time I go to the bridge, Josiah show up with a pensul and old ledjer book. He rite alfabet letters in it to get me started. From then on, he been showing me how to turn letters into words and how to make punctuashun. He say it is a trade. I teech h im to fish, he teech me to write.

Mama, I figure one fello in this family shood get some lerning. Your brother John can not read, leastways not before he run away from Mister Samuel Sawyer lass year. Great Uncle Mark can not ethur.

A boy is got to have his private thorts sometime. That is why Gran do not know bout this practice book. Only you, Mama, and it is our secrut.

Your good boy,
Joseph

12 May 1839

Dear Mama,

Lass nite I ask Gran again where you gone. She creak to her feet, poke at the coals in her bake oven.

Look in the sky, she say like always. Find the handle of the dipper. Your mama is working her way along that line of stars. They point to New York. To freedum.

And duz she miss me, I ask.

Same as if her right hand cut off, Gran reply.

And my daddy, where he, I ask again.

Stop pestering me, Gran order, or I will send a witch hag after you. Now go fetch a log.

Gran always say this when she want me to shut up. So I stomp outside to the woodshed. Stare up at the Big Dipper and look tord New York. The stars blink back, like they is smiling at such foolishness. I think them stars must be right.

I am nine years of age. That is too old to believe my mama is traveling thru the sky. A n d too old to believe the ghostie stories Gran tell. They is no such thing as hags, is they, Mama? Or plat-eye monsters?

Your son,
Joseph

3 July 1839

Dear Mama,

Something happen today that burn my bottom. I am walking down Broad Street, going to buy cinmun for Gran. Mister Samuel Sawyer pass by with his wife.

She call to me, What a pretty little negro! Who do you belong to?

I run home fast, tell Gran and Uncle Mark. Say I am a colored boy and do not like a white lady calling me negro. Or little, ethur. I am three and one half feet tall and growing every day.

Gran take her loafs of bread from the oven, slide in a pan of krackers. What folks call you don't matter, she say. It's what you answer to that matters.

But Gran, I ask, what the lady mean, who do I belong to?

A secrut look pass between Gran and Mark. The look that growed-up people think children don't see.

Joseph, she reply, remember when you was a teensy thing, and we have a big party? How we shut the curtains and light the candles?

I try hard, Mama, but nothing come to my mind.

The night we clap and sing, Mark remind me.

Oh, I say, when Lulu and I spin round the room, make ourselfs dizzy?

That's right, say Gran. That night we celebrate. Cause Sawyer buy you and your sister from Norcom, the man your mama run from.

Sawyer own me and Lulu? I cry. I never knew it!

Mark wrap each loaf in paper and tie it with string. You only five when it happen, he splain. Lulu but two. Both of you too yung to understand.

It don't make sense, I say. Sister and I, we live here in Gran's cabin. I am a free boy!

Sawyer is letting me raise you and Lulu, Gran reply, but he ain't signed your free papers yet. You still belong to him.

Then why don't Sawyer's wife know that? I ask. Why don't he tell her?

Gran lift her apron, dab a dot of sweat from her lip. Mark tell me that is enuf questshuns and leave her alone.

Mama, you need to come get me. I do not want to belong to anybody but you.

Your son,
Joseph

29 August 1839

Dear Mama,

They is bad news in this house today. I meet Josiah on the fishing bridge. When I get back, Gran is sniffling in her rocker. She say a free colored sailur stop by. He work the packet ship between Edenton and Boston, bring a letter from Uncle John. Uncle write that he is going off on a whaling trip.

Whales is giant sea monsters! Gran cry. One might swallow John whole, just like Jonah in the Bible.

But Gran, I ask, didn't that whale sick up Jonah after three days and nights? And didn't Jonah come out whole?

She smile a little, wipe her eyes. Yes, she answer, after Jonah pologize to God first. Your Uncle John is quick-tempered all right, but he always been slow to say he sorry.

I almost ask Gran what take Jonah so long. Been me, Fd a pologized right off. Not sit in a dark whale belly for three days first.

And I almost ask how come she know what the letter say. Gran can not read. Did the sailur read it to her? But two questshuns at a time is enuf for Gran, specially when she been crying.

Joseph

December 1839

Dear Mama,

More bad news. This morning I am helping Gran iron her best white tablecloths. She tell me that next year, Mister Sawyer might send Lulu to a place call Brooklyn, New York. She be under the care of his cuzin, James Tredwell, and his wife, Mary.

New York! That mean Lulu get to be with you, Mama!

I ask Gran, so Lulu seeing Mama?

Not zactly, Gran answer. Harriet might not be in New York just yet.

But Gran, I cry, Sister be living with strangers! Don't Sawyer know that her eyes get bad sometimes?

Lulu will be safer, say Gran, tho I wish he'd go on and give her the free papers. That slab of worry been hanging heavy over my head.

What he waiting for? I ask. I wrap a rag around my hand, pull an iron from the bake oven.

Gran spit on the iron, see if it hot enough. Say, I guess Sawyer don't want...

She stop herself, roll on to another subject.

Free papers is only half the problem, she say. Yesterday Dr. Norcom tell Sawyer you both still belong to his daughter. That she not of age when he sell you in her name. He brag that you and Lulu is still in his power.

Gran lay one end of the cloth on the table. I hold up the other end, wonder what she talking bout. She slap the iron down like she squashing bugs. Iron go slap, slap!

Norcom might take his claim to a judge, she say. If the judge rule the sale been illegal, you and Lulu belong to Norcom's daughter again.

Slap! go that iron. Then Norcom might send you out to his plantashun. Make you cut cornstalks from sun to sun.

Let him try! I holler, dropping the cloth. I will whack him down!

Joseph, Gran reply, we got to bide our time. Unball your fists and leave well enough alone.

But Mama, I hear that Norcom's overseer ride the fields with a horsehair whip in his meaty hands. He beat any slave who beg for water or try to rest a while. You know what's the truth? I am skeered.

Joseph

1 June 1840

Dear Mama,

We wait all winter for Norcom to see the judge, try to take me and Lulu back. Gran say he put her in mind of a cottonmouth snake. Hiding in the shallows, waiting to slide up and bite.

And now I got me a new worry. Today I am standing at the street end of Gran's cabin. I hear a raspy noise coming from over the woodshed. Sound like your cough, Mama. That cannot be true, I tell myself. Cause you is far from here, heading north.

Then I wonder if I am hearing a plat eye. Maybe it is taken the shape of a hunchback hog. Maybe it is in the shed, rooting around for the flesh of a boy!

I do not speak of the noise to Gran. I do not want her thinking she can still scare me with them shape changer stories.

Or Josiah, ethur. In the winter, he at his daddy's Somerset plantashun across the sound. But it is too buzzy with skeeters over there now. His family spend some of the hot months at their town house here on Edenton Bay.

Josiah a lucky boy. He got two houses. And he get to see his mama every day.

Joseph

15 July 1840

Dear Mama,

Lass night I dream a five-legged cow is running me down. It is a plat eye, with boiling yellow eyes and a long ruff tongue. Just when it catch up, I hear whispering.

Go to sleep, it say, and remember never to tell. I wake up a little, think, that ain't no plat eye. That is Gran talking to Lulu! Then I wonder if Gran and Lulu is turn into hags during the night. Been flying over the moon on straw brooms.

I make up my mind to ask Lulu about it in the morning. But Sister leave too quick. At dawn, Sawyer's carriage come to Gran's cabin. It is carrying him, his wife, their baby, and the baby's nurse.

Mama, it been a sad thing, watching Mark lift Lulu through the carriage door. She only eight years old. Will that cuzin in New York wipe her eyes when they get red and swollen?

And it make me mad to rite the name of Samuel Sawyer. So what if he a rich congressman? Or got fifty slaves waiting on him at his town house, and lots more on his plantashun? That do not give him the rite to send Sister away to a strange place without free papers.

I will miss Lulu. Miss her chasing me through the woods, calling, Brother, wait up! and her muslin dress astreaming round her legs. Now, you know a boy don't want his little sister going fishing with him. But the truth is, I am sorry I did not let her come along. Not every time, a course, but at least once or twice.

Your son,
Joseph

Text copyright © 2007 by Mary E. Lyons