My Name is Henry Bibb Read online

  Frontispiece

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  To my son Akil and grandson Jahnoi

  * * *

  ISBN 978-1-5253-0826-0 (EPUB)

  KCP Fiction is an imprint of Kids Can Press

  Text © 2009 Afua Cooper

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Kids Can Press Ltd. or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Published in Canada and the U.S. by Kids Can Press Ltd.

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  Edited by Charis Wahl

  Designed by Marie Bartholomew

  Cover illustration by Shelagh Armstrong

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Cooper, Afua

  My name is Henry Bibb : a story of slavery and freedom / written by Afua Cooper.

  ISBN 978-1-55337-813-6

  1. Bibb, Henry, b. 1815—Juvenile fiction. 2. Slaves—United States—Biography—Juvenile fiction. 3. Abolitionists—United States—Biography—Juvenile fiction. 4. African Americans— Biography—Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  PS8555.O584M9 2009 jC813’.54 C2008-907591-9

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  We thank the Government of Ontario, through Ontario Creates; the Ontario Arts Council; the Canada Council for the Arts; and the Government of Canada for supporting our publishing activity.

  Prologue

  MY NAME IS HENRY BIBB. I WAS BORN A SLAVE. THIS WAS IN SHELBY COUNTY, KENTUCKY, IN 1814. MY MOTHER’S NAME IS MILDRED JACKSON, AND SHE TOO WAS A SLAVE. MY MOTHER HAD SEVEN SONS, ALL OF WHOM WERE FATHERED BY SLAVEHOLDERS. MY FATHER IS JAMES BIBB, A MEMBER OF THE WHITE SLAVEHOLDING CLASS. BUT ALL I GOT FROM HIM WAS HIS NAME AND COMPLEXION.

  By the time I was ten I was hired out to various slaveholders, most of whom abused me to the point of near death. Under these regimes of torment, I resolved to escape. I ran away for brief periods but was always found and brought back.

  As I grew older I came to understand that slavery was meant to crush its victim, drive him mad,render him a thing incapable of fighting back, and accepting of his lot.

  When I became a young man, I married and fathered a daughter. The birth of our child made me realize that the time had come for me to make a bid for liberty. I would escape and then return to free my family.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sold Before I Was Born

  My mother’s walk was heavy and lumbering, though she breathed deeply. Some days were filled with a complete and thorough silence that seeped into everything around me. Awed by this deep silence, I stopped moving. Other days, there was noise and activity. Still, my mother could not do much, other than repeat again and again, “Help me, Lord.” In the slowness of her body, I could feel myself groping toward something new. I would leave my home of water and darkness. I would go into another world.

  One early morning in May, I pushed myself into that world. My mother cried, and I did too. But she held me, hushed me and stroked my skin. The midwife bathed me in warm water scented with lemongrass and wrapped me up. My mother held me to her bosom and nursed me. The light hurt my eyes so I kept them closed. I was drowsy, lulled by my mother’s cooing and the warmth of her body. Then I heard her say, “Listen, little one, I have a story to tell you.” I suddenly grew alert. “You are as beautiful as the sun.” Then she began, in a sad but sweet voice.

  “Once a group of Africans came to America. They were Ibos. They came off the ship, their hands and feet shackled. As they came onto the land, they realized that a life of slavery lay in store for them. So they turned around, every last one of them — children, women and men — and walked into the sea. Even when their feet could no longer touch bottom, they kept on going until they reached Africa. Those Africans knew how to walk on water. One day, my son, you too will leave all this behind.”

  I had no idea what my mother was talking about. Water I knew, because I had been living in it for nine months. But who were Africans and what was America? What was slavery? One thing I sensed, and it was that the Africans knew that in America their life would be unbearable. So they left. After the story my mother hummed and rocked me. She lay beside me on the mat and held me close. Soon, we were both asleep.

  T

  On 14 May 1814, I was born. My mother, Mildred, an enslaved mulatto woman, named me Henry. Her master, Richard Butler, added Walton as my middle name. My last name was that of my father, a free White man named James Bibb. According to the law, any child born of a slave woman was also a slave. I was born mostly White, but part Black and therefore a slave. When I was about eight years old, my mother told me that my father had died when I was three. Not that it mattered. He never claimed me as his child. White men had their way with slave women, their own and others, but took no notice of the consequences. My mother was one such woman.

  Instead of a father, I had sorrow. My mother was owned by a man named Robert Hunter. When she became pregnant with me a planter named Richard Butler bought her for four hundred dollars. She was seventeen years old. While my mother worked in Butler’s house and waited for me to be born, Butler’s daughter, Sophia, married David White. By the time I was born and nursing, Sophia was pregnant, but died giving birth to a daughter. Richard Butler grieved for his beloved daughter and felt keen sorrow for his baby granddaughter. Motherless, Harriet needed someone to provide milk for her. In those days, it was common practice for slave women who were nursing their own children to nurse White babies as well.

  Butler gave my mother to his infant granddaughter as a gift. He drew up a deed giving Harriet “one Negro woman named Milly and her infant son Henry, and the future increase of said Milly.” Harriet White, a baby, owned me and my mother. Should my mother give birth to other children, Harriet would also own them.

  My mother lived in David White’s house and became his housekeeper. I lived with her. When I was older, she told me that she used to feel that both children were hers, not just the one she gave birth to. She would hold both of us at her bosom and nurse us. When I understood the vileness that was slavery, I realized that Harriet White not only stole my mother’s labor but also my milk.

  Our master, David White, was a tall, burly man with a mop of red hair that kept falling in his eyes. His skin was pasty white. He owned a modest farm in Shelby County, in the bluegrass area of Kentucky. The farm was blessed with a large expanse of prairie lands interspersed with undulating hills. The property bordered one of the principal county roads, and a sizable river ran at the base of the land. About twenty slave people grew corn, tobacco, indigo, hemp and various vegetables. They also raised pigs and goats for the slaughterhouses of Ohio and Indiana. Our nearest neighbor was about four miles away.

  David White was a government lawyer and spent much time in the Kentucky state capital, Frankfort. Because he was away for long periods he hired a manager, a vicious, bowlegged man named Captain Barker. It was said that Barker had fought in the War of 1812. He took great pleasure in whipping the slaves, although when I was young I was spared because I was Harriet White’s playmate. Yet, whe
n he passed me in the yard, he would screw up his eyes, spew tobacco juice at me and mutter, “One day, Henry, I will get you.”

  Harriet and I, because we were the only children in the big house, grew up together. I cannot remember my early life without Harriet, and came to think that she was my sister. As we grew we played outside under a huge oak that stood in the front yard of the house. Harriet and I would hold hands, and she would say, “Come on, Henry, my little nigger.” When I was about seven years old, I asked my mother what Harriet meant by “nigger.” She was peeling potatoes.

  “Mama, what is a nigger?”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Harriet called me her ‘little nigger.’”

  My mother’s eyes filled with tears and pain.

  “Never mind Harriet,” she said. “A ‘nigger’ is what White people call us slaves.”

  “What is a slave?”

  “A slave is someone that another person owns. You and me. Sister Dinah, Shadrach, Lucy, Old Trevor — all of us who work for Mr. White — are slaves. The Black people.”

  “But I am White, Mother. You are, too.”

  My mother laughed out loud. She pulled me to her and hugged me. “You look White. And I have enough White blood in me to look White, too. But the blood of Africa in our veins makes us Black.

  “Henry, Harriet owns us. Her grandfather owned us and gave us to her. She is our owner, though this is her father’s house and plantation.”

  I became quite dizzy. What I had just learned filled me with such surprise that all I could do was sit and listen to my breath going in and out.

  “Listen, Henry,” my mother whispered. “When you were born I told you a story about the Ibos, the Africans, the Black people who could walk on water and how they walked right back to Africa.”

  I did not remember such a story but nodded nonetheless.

  “Africans could also fly.” My mother must have seen doubt in my eyes because she said, “It is true. My own mother told me. Once upon a time, Africans could fly.”

  “Why can’t they fly now?”

  “The White people threw salt at their feet.”

  “What?”

  “Those who never forgot Africa, who held it close to their hearts, whose spirits never gave in to slavery used to go down to the riverside. Some would beat rhythms on drums and, like magic, those who wanted to go home would rise up into the air and fly away. But others, those whose spirits slavery had broken, learned what was happening, and they told the White people. One day, as some Africans prepared to fly away, patrollers seized them and sprinkled salt at their feet. It is said that salt makes people so heavy that they remain bound to the earth. But even today, some of us still fly away. Every day, Henry, slaves vanish into thin air and massa never finds them. Don’t worry about Miss Harriet. One day you will be like those Africans and fly away.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Hired Out

  By the time I was eight years old, I was working as a household domestic. I helped my mother with the scrubbing and polishing of the floors. I learned how to peel and scrape potatoes, to shell peas, help with the food preparation and dust furniture. I also gathered firewood with other slave children. Though I still played with Harriet, I could not spend as much time doing so because of my work. My master also discouraged us from playing together. He did not think it wise for a free White girl to be playing with a Black slave boy. Further, Harriet had begun her education. A tutor named Simmons, a Yankee man, came to the house every day to instruct her in reading and writing.

  As my master grew successful as a lawyer and planter, he wished to increase his domestic staff to show his increasing prosperity. Mr. White brought guests whenever he came to stay in the country, and my poor mother would work around the clock to satisfy their every need. She must have complained because one day he returned home from Frankfort with a mulatto slave named Suzette to take over the cooking.

  My mother rejoiced at Suzette’s arrival. Now she could get some respite both from her duties and from Mr. White. (During the eight years we had been living at his farm, my mother had given birth to two more boys, George and John. I was four years older than George and six years older than John.) When Suzette arrived, my mother asked David White for her own cabin in the slave quarter. While we lived in the house, my mother and we three boys had slept on the floor in Harriet’s bedroom. Now Harriet would have Suzanne with her in the house, and my mother could have her privacy.

  Living in her own cabin did not mean she ceased working as a maid in Mr. White’s house. Every morning before dawn I accompanied her to the house, then returned to the cabin to look after my brothers and give them breakfast.

  Suzette became a sister to my mother, and loved us with all her heart. When I first saw her I thought she would be unfriendly, as she had a mournful countenance and walked with her head bowed. But she looked up at me and smiled. After that, every time she saw me or my brothers she would hug us close. She did this many times a day. And she was forever giving us sweets, cakes and roast meat. Though I was glad for the attention, I was puzzled by it. I asked my mother why Suzette loved us so.

  “Massa White bought her from a slave dealer in Lexington. She had two boy children who looked just like you and your brothers; but when she was sold to Massa White, her sons were sold to a planter from Tennessee,” my mother said. “Her husband was sold to Alabama. She grieves that she will never see them again.”

  One day I was stoning the leaves off the big oak tree that stood in the front yard when I saw Simmons, the tutor, mount his horse and ride away. That signalled that Harriet would have afternoon refreshment.

  “Let’s play a game.” The voice belonged to Harriet.

  Startled, I looked around and shook my head slowly.

  “Don’t feel like it,” I said.

  “Henry, you are my nigger and you must do as I tell you,” she said in the voice that she used whenever she wanted to have her way.

  I glowered at Harriet, wanting to tell her that I was not her nigger.

  “Africans can fly, and one day I will.”

  “What are you talking about, Henry? You ain’t an African, and you sure cannot fly.”

  I stared at Harriet, my anger rising.

  “Come here, boy.”

  Harriet and I both turned at the sound of the voice. It belonged to Shadrach, the blacksmith. Shadrach spent most of his time around fire, melting metals, hammering out utensils, horseshoes and tools for the field. Working at the forge made Shadrach’s eyes red, and must have burnt all the fat from his body. Shadrach had a cabin right behind his smithy, yet day and night he might be found in his shop working metal.

  His ways were mysterious. You could be walking on the farm, and out of nowhere he would appear. It was as if he emerged from the trees or from the very earth itself. Once, when I was picking berries, I sensed a presence behind me. Startled, I turned around. Shadrach merely said, “Sorry Henry, I was gathering herbs,” and walked in the opposite direction.

  He learned his trade from his father. In Africa, his father had been a smith, and when he came to America he fetched a high price for his skills. His father had also been a smith, and his father’s father before him. Smiths were important people in Africa, not only for their trade, but because it was said they possessed magic. They were great hunters who could talk to the plants and animals, and were also skilled herbalists.

  Massa David prized Shadrach very highly: not only did Shadrach work for him, but he also worked for other planters and for the racetrack in Louisville. During the racing season Massa moved Shadrach to Louisville so he could work unhindered, making shoes for the horses. He made lots of money for our master, who had agreed that Shadrach would keep a portion of his wages.

  Shadrach always seemed to think deeply about his words before he spoke them. His voice was gruff, yet he was kind, especially to the children, giving t
hem fruit and sweet cakes. He had no wife or children, yet he seemed satisfied in his aloneness.

  He said again, “Come here, boy.”

  I walked over to where Shadrach stood. “Don’t say that kind of stuff to Miss Harriet. And if she wants to play with you, then play with her.” Then he stooped to match his height with mine, and said in a half-whisper, “Play with Miss Harriet, just don’t tell her any of the things your mother told you. You will put us all in danger. If you were meant to fly, you will. If you were meant to walk on water, you will. You understand, boy?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Good.”

  Shadrach then continued on his way. As he passed her, he lifted his hat and said, “Good day, Miss Harriet.”

  My mother then appeared on the porch, George and John on either side. John tugged at her skirt, and she picked him up.

  I remember when my mother went into labor with him. It was summer and the sun was already high in the sky. My mother and I were in the drawing room dusting the furniture. She placed one hand over her belly and let out a long sigh.

  “Mama, are you all right?”

  “Go tell Shadrach to bring Sister Dinah,” she said. “Hurry.”

  I could hear the pounding of Shadrach’s hammer as I ran down to the smithy. “Mama said to get Sister Dinah.” Without saying a word, Shadrach put down his tools and drove off in the wagon.

  When he came back with Sister Dinah, my mother was in our cabin. The midwife sent me and George outside. After what seemed a long time she called us in. My mother was lying with a baby, as red as a beet, in her arms.

  I opened his fist and placed my finger in his palm. He held my finger. George kissed the baby on his forehead.

  Now seeing my brothers standing with our mother, I felt a sadness in my heart for all of us fatherless souls.

  T

  Maybe Harriet told her father about what I had said about Africans flying, I do not know. But, soon afterward, David White summoned my mother, and she was instructed to bring me along with her.