Rough Passage to London(133)
“Captain Morgan, I presume?” he asked politely.
“Yes, indeed. What can I do for you, sir?”
Morgan noticed the man’s hands, clasped together in front of him.
“My name is Reverend John Wall, and I am just back in London after many years of service as a Baptist missionary in the West Indies.”
“Are you in need of a stateroom? We may still have availability.”
“No, Captain, that is not why I am here. I have a story to tell you and a message to deliver. I know you are extremely busy, but could I have a few moments of your time, perhaps in your quarters?”
Morgan nodded brusquely and motioned him to come up the gangway and to follow him. He offered the man a chair in the seating area outside his cabin. The small man with thinning gray hair wasted no time in beginning his story.
“Captain, I am someone who has dedicated his life to baptizing and bringing the word of God to the unfortunate African laborers who were enslaved and brutally treated in the English islands. I worked with William Knibb, who once said that sugar is sweet, but the liberty of man is much more sweet. Those words have been my life’s compass. My colleagues and I have opened scores of missions and churches in Jamaica alone, and helped to establish free Negro villages deep in the mountains where few white men go. Now these past few months I am back here in London to tell those interested about how the planters have established a new form of slavery with emigrant laborers. The fight for liberty and justice is far from over.”
Morgan nodded impatiently. He had a ship to prepare for departure and he was uncertain as to how any of this pertained to him. The man seemed unaware of Morgan’s restlessness as he continued speaking.
“I was addressing the London Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society a week ago, and I mentioned several touching human stories of courage and defiance against the institution of slavery. One story in particular about a blind man caused considerable interest. A woman who was introduced to me as Harriet Leslie approached me and suggested I contact you right away.”
The mention of Harriet Leslie caused Morgan to put his growing impatience in check, but it was the detail about the blind man that triggered his curiosity.
“What did he look like, this blind man?”
The minister paused, and looked at Morgan intently.
“A man about your height, stockier, bearded face, hair thinning and gray, a good-looking man I would say, with a straight forehead and a strong chin. You can’t see his eyes. His eyelids are closed shut. Why do you ask?”
Morgan shook his head.
“It’s probably nothing, just a notion I had. Please go on.”
“I should give you a little bit of background, Captain. My missionary work began in Jamaica at the time just before emancipation, just after the bloody Sharpe Rebellion where hundreds were killed. One of the areas the runaway slaves fled to was a remote mountainous region in the western end of the island called the Land of Look Behind. It was named long ago for the soldiers who rode two in the saddle, back to back, to make sure they could see any possible attackers from all directions. Now it is more commonly called Cockpit Country because of the pockmarked terrain riddled with sinkholes reminiscent of cockfighting pits. Maybe you have heard of this part of Jamaica, Captain?”
Morgan didn’t say anything. He shook his head.
“This is an uncharted place with no roads, only narrow footpaths that wind their way up steep forested slopes. Believe me, it is rugged terrain, an easy place to get lost in or to elude your hunters. There are dozens of hidden caverns and sinkholes filled with water, lush forests, and waterfalls. It is a veritable Garden of Eden, Captain. Birds you have never seen before, and yes, many poisonous snakes. The frightful fer-de-lance is actually prevalent there. The people who have lived there for centuries are called Maroons, the descendants of runaway slaves who first defied the Spanish and then the English.”
Wall paused as Lowery brought in some coffee.
“It was here in this lost land that I found the blind man, his eyelids sealed over his eyes. He was a white man living amidst these African souls in one of the thatch huts in the village. These settlements are so well hidden in the forest that you can walk right by them and not know they are there. I found this white man, his skin bronzed and leathery from years in the sun, seated on a small stool weaving a hammock. He was talking with a group of barefoot children. He spoke the patois that these people speak, a rich stew of English mixed with some Spanish and African words, all spoken in a lilting voice.”
Morgan pulled out one of his Havanas, his first of the day, and lit it with the lantern on the table.
“I went over to this man and spoke to him. He seemed surprised to hear my English voice, and once I explained who I was he began to speak in a halting way. His accent was American. I asked him where he was from, and he just shook his head and said he had no memory of the past. I offered to take him with me to the nearest Baptist mission, but he seemed disinterested. I sat and read the Bible with him, and I knew he came from a Christian home because he seemed familiar with many of the scriptures I read. Before I left, I asked the village elder about the white man and he told me he had come to them with a group of African slaves who had been shipwrecked off the coast of Jamaica. This was many years ago, he said. He pointed to a tall black woman who was talking with several other women who were weaving baskets. He told me she was his wife. Her name was Adeola. She was a Yoruba princess from somewhere north of the Kingdom of Dahomey.”