Back in No Time. Brion Gysin

during Henson’s boyhood several ex-slaves had managed to make their way to Canada and a more secure freedom beyond the reach of American law, but the legend of the North Star, which led and guided those pushed by a relentless hunger for freedom, had not yet become part of the folklore whispered in the slave quarters of every plantation. One cannot blame young Henson for not knowing that there were sweeter joys than the rare and careless word of praise from the man who cracked the whip; that is, one cannot blame him yet. The fault in his nature, the fissure line along which it can be split, does not become evident until he is an older man. In his boyhood, typical as it was of the slave boy of superior talent and physical endowment, we can trace the causes. Let those who can, read an analogy in the circumstances and social pressures that surround, form, and shape a boy born today into the same racial group, however the legal freedom of that group may have changed in a century or so.

      Young Henson would naturally reject the movement to revolt, for his first memory was that of the tragedy to which a movement of revolt had led his father, and one cannot doubt that his mother constantly reminded him of its terrible consequences. She had stood there, calling on her husband to cease beating the overseer, and had persuaded him not to kill the man who had attacked her. She was a religious woman who taught her child that violence was in all cases evil and that one must submit and trust to prayer, and she must have worried over his high-spirited escapades and boyish devilry, thinking that it might lead him to a tragic end.

      [[ After undergoing a religious conversion around 1807, Henson became a more submissive and willing worker, rising in influence on the Riley estate until he became overseer. Recognized for his industry and his knowledge of farming and managing property, he supervised his fellow slaves with kindness, always seeking to ease their hardships. Gradually he took over management of the accounts and did all the buying and selling. During this time, having defended his master in a brawl, he was brutally attacked by the overseer of Riley’s brother, Amos; Henson, his arms broken and his shoulder blades smashed, was maimed for life. In 1825 Isaac Riley needed to dodge his creditors, so he asked a favor of his loyal slave: to lead all of his slaves down to Kentucky to his brother’s plantation. Henson succeeded in the perilous journey, proudly keeping his promise and maintaining his sense of moral virtue, even as he rejected opportunities from freed slaves on the Ohio side of the river for them all to seek their freedom. A few years later, Riley decided to sell the slaves he had sent to Kentucky, except Henson, whom he wanted returned. Henson grew determined to buy his freedom and raised most of the money during his trek back to Maryland by preaching on a detour through Ohio. But Riley cheated him out of the deal. Left with nothing but ineffective manumission papers, Henson returned to his family on the Kentucky plantation. Yet even then, in that period of unrest prior to Nat Turner’s rebellion of 1831, as a secret plan of revolt gained momentum, he persuaded the slaves to desist from rebellion as an act that was too dangerous and above all not Christian, once again becoming a sort of accomplice in the perpetuation of their misery. ]]

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      One day Riley suddenly announced that his young son, who was also called Amos, was going down the river to New Orleans in a flat-bottomed boat full of farm produce. Henson was to go with him, and they were to start the next day and dispose of the cargo to the best advantage. Josiah knew at once what this meant. He was to be sold too. No one said so, but he was sure of it. Rumors of an exchange of letters between the brothers had come from the Big House, and this was the result. Either those two intended turning him into riches without wings and to share the money, or Mr. Amos was stealing a march on his brother. Henson never knew.

      He told his wife to sew the precious paper in a cloth, and then to sew the cloth around his waist. It might yet be useful; at any rate, he would have it with him wherever he was to go.

      The boat was loaded with beef cattle, pigs, poultry, corn whisky, and other merchandise. Three white men were hired to handle the boat. Henson said goodbye, perhaps forever, to his family and stepped aboard. He was the only Negro, and was, therefore, forced to stand more watches than all the rest, but this turned to his advantage, for he quickly learned all that there was to know about handling the boat. Very soon, he could shoot by a “sawyer,” land on a bank, avoid a snag or a steamboat in the rapid current of the Mississippi as well as the captain himself. The latter seemed to have developed some disease of the eyes and actually became blind. Henson took over. He was, in fact, the master of the boat, although he did not have any more idea of what lay around the next bend than did the others, for none of them had ever been down the river before. They had to halt at night and travel by day.

      At night someone had to keep watch. They were in danger of river pirates and bands of escaped Negroes who, until they were captured or killed, lived as marauders in the wilds along the river’s banks. These Negroes lived in a sort of primitive freedom, frequently attacking such boats as were tied up for the night, killing and robbing.

      At one stop, a curious incident took place. This was at Vicksburg, where Henson got permission to visit a plantation a few miles inland. It might have been gossip from the Big House, the grapevine, or a chance remark made by young Amos Riley which told him that it was to this place that his former fellow-slaves and charges had been sold. It was the saddest visit he ever made. He found his friends old and broken after only four years in this malarial climate. They worked long hours, half-naked, in the marshes under the burning sun, ill-treated and ill-fed; they were tortured by mosquitoes, horseflies, and black gnats, and thought only of death as a deliverance. At first sight of Josiah they cried, and when he told of his own predicament they felt sorry that he was to be subjected to the same fate to which they were condemned. They seem to have felt no resentment toward him for the part which he had played in their betrayal. The very fact that he went to visit them would seem to show that he expected none. Yet the memory of that wretched group was to haunt him until his death. He had sold them, and now he could cry over them, and pray and roll his eyes to heaven.

      The boat drifted on down the great river. To his eye everything in man and in nature looked evil. He saw nothing but the wretched slavepens beside sullen, smelly, stagnant waters which harbored the bloated carcasses of drowned horses and oxen. These were covered with swarms of green flies that blew in clouds through the sticky atmosphere. From time to time huge turkey buzzards wheeled in the burning sky or fed on the half-putrid carcasses. The water extended for miles on either side, in broad steely sheets, bordered by half-dead, gaunt trees hung with funereal moss. Nothing was noble, nothing grandiose; he saw only the fate that awaited him. The world was ruled by whites and every white hand was against him. As he paced the deck during the nights of his long watches, he thought of the treacherous brothers, his masters. Here the son of one of them lay asleep in the cabin. In his power. He would kill him. It was only just.

      “If this is to be my lot, I cannot survive it long. I could not live through what I saw on the plantation at Vicksburg. I am not so young as they are. Two years would kill me. Yes, death would free me. Sweet death. But why wait. They don’t even suspect me. I am all smiles and ‘yes, Massa; no, Massa.’ They cannot see the tiger in my heart. Why should I not prevent this wrong? For it is wrong. Wrong that I should be sold and go there, after all that I have done for them. They would repay me with wickedness. One should prevent a wrong that is not yet done. They don’t suspect; they don’t know that I know. I could prevent it. Yes, but prevent it with an axe. That axe there. Then I would escape to freedom. I would be justified. I should be free. My Christian friends said I should be free. I could prevent them all from committing this wickedness. Tonight is dark, no one could hear me in this rain. I can wait no longer. We will be in New Orleans in a day or two and it will be too late to prevent this wickedness. This axe ….”

      But he could not do it. His hand had slid along the smooth handle of the axe as he moved silently into the cabin where, by the dim light of a swinging lamp, he could see the sleeping form of young Amos. His hand had been raised to strike the blow, when the thought came to him, “What! Commit murder? And you a Christian?”

      A thousand elements of irresolution weakened the arm that held the axe. Young Master Amos had done him no harm. He was only obeying the orders of his father. Josiah turned as silently as he had come and went out into the rain. He washed his hands and let them trail a long time in the night-cold current, for they were covered with imaginary blood which he alone could see. He shrank back into his old shape after his moment