Liberty or Death
I am back on the road after spending half a day at the Boone Hall plantation near Charles town or Charleston as it is known today.
The beauty of the city has a charm on me. Be it any street, turn onto any lane, none will disappoint. The city is architecturally beautiful. The colonial homes along the water, the multicoloured homes that make the rainbow row, the cobbled streets, old buildings all just make a picturesque landscape. Be it Church street, Meeting Street or Market Street, each is a strong competitor for the other when it comes to the architectural beauty of homes, condos or shops lining both the sides of streets. They say beauty is in the eye of beholder, but even on my 3rd trip to the city, my appreciation for Charleston’s beauty just keeps growing.
For my earlier trips, the walk on the streets, the local Okra chips, strolls on the beaches, praising the size of angel oak tree and a shopping spree in the old city market kept me occupied. Though I had some idea about the history, I did not delve into the details.
But this time, I tried to understand more about the past of this land. The time spent at the Boone Hall Plantation helped to visualise what past must have looked like. Charleston’s history is tainted with Slave Trade. Charleston being a port city, along with goods, people from Africa were brought here to be sold as slaves. And the spot where this trade took place is the Historic Old City Market. From the statistics, between 17th century and 19th century more than a lakh people were brought in to the Charleston port to be traded. Each ship had about 100–200 (more in some cases) people who would be soon sold as slaves to white masters. Then onwards their identity was a slave tag, an id. They weren’t recognised with names but numbers since they were considered possessions by the slave owners. As they were considered possessions, a dying owner would often pass them down to their kids and their Will clearly mentioned how many slaves along with other possessions like land, money,etc.
Whereas for the children of slaves, the life was not rosy. They had to sleep on top of makeshift bed made of wooden plank placed near the roof. Working since the age of 5–6 was a norm. Initially, the slaves did not have the freedom to pray because of the fear of them organising against the masters. Reading and writing was illegal for them. After all, according to historian and author Yuval Noah Harari, the thing that made Sapiens dominate the world is the skill to organise and collaborate. A platform for slaves to meet, exchange thoughts through texts would exactly give them that and would make it easier for them to overthrow slavery. It is due to the fact that the slaves were not allowed to read or write, much of their history and culture has been lost since it is not documented.
At the Boone Hall, I got to see the original slave quarters built in 18th century. It must have been about 200 sq ft. There were about 8 of them. It housed over 200–250 slaves. Each of the quarter would further have dividers so each family can have privacy for themselves. 2–3 families usually living in one quarter. The quarters themselves were built using discarded bricks, the ones unfit for sale or the imperfect ones which could not be used anywhere else in the estate. Can you imagine 1/3rd of a 200sq ft space housing an entire family?
Earlier I mentioned that the visit to Boone Hall helped me visualise how the past must have been. But to tell the truth, my imagination fell short. I could not imagine any possible way in which so many people lived there. I could not fathom the normalcy in denying one all those things that we consider basic rights in a developed or democratic country. I could not understand labour that does not pay in cash, kind, love or respect. In the liberal societies of later half of twentieth century, even if we are denied of one of the above, life became difficult and unbearable in some cases. Throughout history wherever there were unscrupulous rulers uncaring towards their subjects, we have seen a denial of one or more of these.
In such times, the revolutionaries saw only two choices: Liberty or Death. It is due to the sacrifices and struggles of these revolutionary men and women, a lot of societies in the world enjoy freedom and no more have to choose between liberty and death. The slave trade and ownership created such a huge economic and social gap that even 15 decades after Abraham Lincoln passed the proclamation to ban slavery, generations are left playing catchup.
As it is famously said, History teaches us lessons, personally to me, the visit today has made me alert towards the fact that even small steps towards inequality can soon pile up to injustice. I would like to quote here a statement from the Grace Cathedral building in San Francisco, “Injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere.”
