Ramblings: 2021

Thursday, November 25, 2021

But If Not: Part I

Even if you didn’t grow up in Sunday school you’ve probably heard some version of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were the three young Hebrews who stood up to the infamous Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and refused to bow down before his golden idol despite threat of execution. Anyone who did not bow down and worship the massive statue was to be thrown into the fiery furnace at once, an apt manifestation of the powerful king’s wrath.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were captives in a foreign land, essentially helpless, defenseless, but in a crowd of thousands of their countrymen cowering with faces to the ground, these three stood tall and fearless. They were ridiculously bold, outrageously audacious as they declared “We are not careful to answer, you, O King” (Daniel 3:16 KJV) paraphrase: “We don’t have to explain ourselves to you.” Boldly and baldly they stated they would not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol no matter what he threatened or did to them.

“Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O King,” they said (Daniel 3:17). They were unflinching before this world-famous king whose conquering armies had just decimated their homeland and carted their people off as slaves, whose extravagant hanging gardens were among the wonders of the ancient world, and whose empire was the most powerful of its day.

In their devotion to God, the God of their homeland and their ancestors, the God who assured their identity as more than slaves in a foreign land, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego scorned the king’s threats. Their utter lack of intimidation mocked Nebuchadnezzar’s threat of terrible death, their being burnt alive in his dreadful fiery furnace. Their stance belittled him and his weapon into a petulant child with a campfire which so enraged the tyrant that he ordered the furnace be stoked hotter than ever.

Still, the men to be chained and tossed into this inferno were unafraid. Still, they were certain of their deliverance. “Our God is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O King. But if not, be it known to thee, O King, we still will not bow down” (Daniel 3:17-18).

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew there were only two possible outcomes: either God would take them out of the furnace and King Nebuchadnezzar would be amazed, or they would die and go to be with God where they would be even more amazed in His presence. Either way, they would win. Either way, they would be delivered. Either way, they had nothing to fear for God was on their side.

Neither King Nebuchadnezzar nor his guards understood the peace these men had as they stood without trembling before such a ruthless conqueror, as they were sentenced to death, as they were bound tightly from head to foot and tossed into a furnace burning so furiously the guards nearest the furnace were themselves consumed by the flames.

Neither the king nor his guards believed in the God of the Hebrews. They thought a god who would let his people be conquered either could not or would not bother to then save three men from burning to death. Because surely a god of any real supremacy or goodness would not allow his servants to be placed in such a position at all. Surely a god who loved and cared for his people, who had the power to give life and heal sickness and smite the wicked would protect those people from invaders, would simply destroy their enemies utterly. That’s what a good god would do, right?

That’s what we want a good god to do—protect us from harm and give us all we ask for. Keep us from situations where we must choose between standing up and execution. Keep us from the furnace. From the lions’ den. From the cistern. From prison. From flogging. From eviction. From betrayal. From rape. From slavery. From being widowed or orphaned. From miscarriages or the loss of a child. From sickness, hunger, depression, and loneliness.

A good god would not let these things happen. Would not let these sufferings afflict his children. Would not let a good man die torturously on a cross for crimes he didn’t commit. From the midst of our hurt we might think so. From the cross, the pit, the furnace, from the sickbed, the graveside, the jailcell, we might think there is no good god.

But even when blind with pain, remember that there is One Good God. Every thought He has for us is good. He is incapable of evil thoughts. And although He may allow suffering in our lives, He allows it to come to pass. It will not stay; it will not thwart our destiny.

“For I know the thoughts that I think of you saith the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11).

God knows exactly when this particular trouble crushing you will end, when this particular suffering will conclude and you will be through it. He has everything planned out, meticulously, scrupulously, astoundingly detailed like a tapestry woven with a thousand colored threads. In the middle of the mess of our misery and befuddlement we can only see the tangle of overlapping strands, dangling ends, and awkward knots. God, the Creator, can see the whole completed masterpiece as a sumptuous wall-hanging across the room: every thread perfectly fitted to form an elaborate, gorgeous image.

God has a plan. God has had a Plan since the Beginning, and the most important part of the Plan has already happened. The pivotal moment occurred when the War for the World was won, long ago, through suffering. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, if we believe in the Good God, we know we will be delivered. We can say with absolute audacious certainty that we need not fear that fiery furnace, or the lions’ den, or the prison cell, or the hospital room, unemployment, eviction, or gangsters. We know that we Win either way, whether by God stepping in and working a visible miracle for the world to see, like eradicating the cancer or dropping an envelope of cash in the mailbox; or by God taking us out of the world and unto Himself in Heaven. We will celebrate either way: joyously here on Earth or far more abundantly when we meet again in Heaven. That is the assurance of the Christian, the person who believes in Jesus Christ as Savior.

It’s not an easy assurance. Life is hard for us broken people in this broken world dominated by Satan, the Enemy, whose only goal is our destruction. Every evil is his weapon: from depression to jealousy to arthritis to pornography to gossip to addiction to fear. Division is his delight. He’s cunning and conniving and feeds us lies like candy. Convincing people of his nonexistence has been his greatest trick, in the words of Charles Baudelaire: “la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas!” Le joueur Généreux/The Generous Gambler 1864. Do not underestimate Satan.

Thank God, Satan constantly underestimates God.

As Pastor Raymond Woodward says, “While the devil is feverishly playing checkers God is playing chess, and He’s got him outwitted, outgunned, outmaneuvered, and out-moved every single time!”

God sees not merely several steps ahead but to the very end of the game, even beyond the game to the other side, to the victory awaiting us. He sees us in our suffering and grieves with us in our pain, but He does not despair for He knows what Good is waiting beyond the trial. God Himself shapes that coming Good, for as He promised, He considers us with “thoughts of peace” and deliberately designed that “expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). While Satan may be playing games with our days, feverishly leaping checkers and piling sorrows upon miseries, all his schemes cannot detract from God’s Grand Master Plans for our lives.

Our trials are allowed by God—and they are limited by God. No matter the trial, it cannot thwart God’s purpose. Not only so, but the trial brings about God’s purpose.

Trials are allowed by God. Trials are limited by God. Trials cannot thwart God’s purpose. Trials bring about God’s purpose.

The prophet Jeremiah learned this even after he’d watched his city burn and his people carried off in chains. After he’d endured the worst day of his life, this long-suffering man of God took up his pen once again and wrote that God’s mercies were new every morning and His compassions were unfailing. “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed…great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Job maintained this even after he’d lost everything: his lands, wealth, children, health, even the love of his wife. With empty, boil-scarred hands, he sat in the dust and praised God. “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him…Indeed this will turn out for my deliverance” (Job 13:15-16).

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were sure of this as they stood up before a tyrant king and his guards, as they scorned his fiery furnace. They declared their allegiance to their God even unto death.

Jesus’ assurance of this, and his shared great love for humanity, caused him to stand guilty for crimes he didn’t commit, to volunteer as tribute for torturous punishment, to sacrifice himself in place of the real agitators and convicts. He bared his back to flogging, then heaved a heavy cross upon his back and carried it through the streets and up a hill, bearing the shame of that public parade, the crowds who knew only the worst offenders warranted crosses, laid himself down naked before all those scoffers, opened his hands to the soldiers who hammered nails through them, watched with gentle eyes as he was heaved upward, the ugliest of bloody spectacles. His only response to the jeers and accusations, the temptation to call ten thousand angels to his rescue, was to ask forgiveness for his executioners, who had already accepted the blame for his blood on themselves and their children.

Then Jesus died, after hours of agony, and the jubilant mood of his human enemies was nothing compared to the ebullience of Satan’s assured victory.

“I’ve got you this time!” was probably what the devil was crowing, toasting himself and boasting his brilliance and permanent ownership of the Earth and all wretched souls therein.

To everyone watching, indeed, God’s Plan seemed a failure. Jesus’ disciples, despite his forewarnings, couldn’t believe he had died. His eleven closest followers were as lost and bereaved as the rest of his friends, grieving and terrified that they would be next on the Roman execution list. So many had seen Jesus as the One God had promised: someone for whom long ago Job, Jeremiah, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had hoped. With his death, they were devastated, wondering if God really would ever deliver them. Perhaps they’d better bow down to the system, bend down to the golden idol of the Romans, and simply forget their faith and their convictions.

That’s how it feels sometimes.

We’d be better off giving in. We’d be better off avoiding all this suffering. Surely life would be better without sickness, break-ups, theft, corruption, late fees, crime and punishment? If we had the power of a good god, we’d make better choices—we would not allow all of this hurt. I’ve certainly thought this way, certainly asserted sometimes to God that “it’s just not fair” and “enough is enough!” and wondered why He doesn’t simply STOP the trauma. Pull us out of the furnace. Pull us out of COVID-19, out of the clutches of gangsters and kidnappers, out of poverty and famine.

God’s response is always gentle. Rather than smite me or knock me back with a thunder blast, the LORD of all Creation speaks kindly to me, as a loving Father. No matter how many times I make the same mistake or repeat the same complaints, He is patient. God’s mercies are new and His compassion unfailing.

Here, He speaks through the wise words of writer Kimberly Henderson:

“I would have pulled Joseph out. Out of that pit. Out of that prison. Out of that pain. And I would have cheated nations out of the one God would use to deliver them from famine.

I would have pulled David out. Out of Saul’s spear-throwing presence. Out of the caves he hid away in. Out of the pain of rejection. And I would have cheated Israel out of a God-hearted king.

I would have pulled Esther out. Out of being snatched from her only family. Out of being placed in a position she never asked for. Out of the path of a vicious, power-hungry foe. And I would have cheated a people out of the woman God would use to save their very lives.

And I would have pulled Jesus off. Off of the cross. Off of the road that led to suffering and pain. Off of the path that would mean nakedness and beatings, nails and thorns. And I would have cheated the entire world out of a Savior. Out of salvation. Out of an eternity filled with no more suffering and no more pain.

And oh friend. I want to pull you out. I want to change your path. I want to stop your pain. But right now I know I would be wrong. I would be out of line. I would be cheating you and cheating the world out of so much good. Because God knows. He knows the good this pain will produce.

He knows the beauty this hard will grow. He’s watching over you and keeping you even in the midst of this. And He’s promising you that you can trust Him. Even when it all feels like more than you can bear.

So instead of trying to pull you out, I’m lifting you up. I’m kneeling before the Father and I’m asking Him to give you strength. To give you hope. I’m asking Him to protect you and to move you when the time is right. I’m asking Him to help you stay prayerful and discerning. I’m asking Him how I can best love you and be a help to you. And I’m believing He’s going to use your life in powerful and beautiful ways. Ways that will leave your heart grateful and humbly thankful for this road you’ve been on."

Kimberly D. Henderson, 2017 ©

Works Cited

· Henderson, Kimberly D. “When You Feel Painfully and Hopelessly Stuck in a Season You Don’t Want to Be In.” WordPress, 23 Sept. 2020, https://kdhenderson.wordpress.com/2020/09/23/when-you-feel-painfully-and-hopelessly-stuck-in-a-season-you-dont-want-to-be-in/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

· KB. “Heart Song.” Weight & Glory, Reach Records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2daj3G0LVKY

· King James Version. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

· King, Martin Luther. “But If Not.” YouTube. 5 Nov. 1967, Atlanta, Ebenezer Baptist Church, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjpaIO2seY. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

· Lagazettedesydney. “A Very Actual Old French Poem: The Generous Gambler.” 1864, https://lagazettedesydney.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/a-very-actual-old-french-poem-the-generous-gambler/. Accessed 24 Nov. 2021.

· MercyMe. “Even If.” Lifer, The Orchard Music, Nashville, Tennessee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y

· Woodward, Raymond. “But If Not.” YouTube. 1 Aug. 2021, Capital Community Church, Capital Community Church, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORmSm_VdkEg. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORmSm_VdkEg

But If Not: Part II

“I would have pulled Joseph out. Out of that pit. Out of that prison. Out of that pain. And I would have cheated nations out of the one God would use to deliver them from famine.

"I would have pulled David out. Out of Saul’s spear-throwing presence. Out of the caves he hid away in. Out of the pain of rejection. And I would have cheated Israel out of a God-hearted king.

Kimberly D. Henderson, 2017 ©

Ms. Henderson noted with the reposting (2020) of her poem that it was the most shared piece of writing she had ever released to social media. My thanks to God for so inspiring her, and my thanks to Ms. Henderson for sharing her inspired words with us. Perhaps obviously, my response was to share what I would have done, who I would have saved. The following five names are all loved ones from Christian Academy of Petit Goave, Haiti, who died between June 2016 and October 2021. Four of them are children.

I would have pulled Angelo out. Out of the basin where he drowned. And I would have robbed him of Heaven, of the love of Jesus rather than the unsympathetic thumb of his matant and years of restavek servitude. I would have robbed us of the increased awareness of time, the surge of urgency to love and work, to treasure and hold close each child God bestowed on us in each moment we had, for we couldn’t know if that would be the last.

I would have healed Joozenaïka. Cured her of the fever and diarrhea drying out her frail body. Restored her to health and returned her whole and smiling to her joyous parents, their beautiful only child. And I would have robbed CAP of the medical fund begun in her honor, the collection dedicated to prevent any such tragedy from occurring again. I would have robbed partners of the awareness of this dire need to buffer for the easily treatable: burns, abrasions, and deadly dehydration.

I would have healed Anaika. Gone back to her before her birth and ensured Mom was well-nourished, provided for mother and child so together they would grow strong, so the devasting long-lasting effects of malnutrition wouldn’t shorten this little girl’s future. Then I’d be sure her kidneys were cured, all systems developed in full-working order, and she’d live long and prosper.

And I would have robbed CAP of progress. Of a whole new locale, complete with downstairs residence and extensive advantages including outdoor space for play and assembly, storage, full kitchen, added security and beauty. I would have robbed the seventh grade of a secondary school, the next level of their education. I would have robbed her family of their permanent residence, her father of his position as caretaker, her mother of a business place, her siblings of the advantages of growing up on the mission campus. I would have robbed us of this vision of God’s glorious working: His preparation of our needs, bringing beauty from ashes and so much good from the evil of death.

I would have healed Madame Marjorie. Relieved her that day of her terrible headache that she might teach in peace. Seen her back to her stern, perseverant, God-loving self at once, ready to tease and hug a moment after seeming so fierce. Kept her with her family who needed her: working husband, five children, three yet under the age of ten. Kept her with us who needed her as our third-grade teacher. And I would have robbed her children of steadfast partnership, robbed her family of the generous aid of another family.

I would have robbed Madame Marie Nadie of the opportunity of entrance into CAP, of job security particular to God’s employment. I would have robbed her family of those advantages. I would have robbed us of Marie Nadie.

I would have healed Adeline. Gone back to her birth and ensured the curse of asthma never entered her little body. Made her lungs strong, whole, hale and hearty enough to thrive in the chill mountain air, the damp cement walls, through the charcoal smoke and traffic fumes, through the ubiquitous dust. I would have kept Papa and Mama together, a healthy couple able to provide for their three children. I would have kept Adeline with us for years to come, watching her glow with health and the pride of doing well in lessons she was well enough to understand. And I would have robbed her of true perfect health and wholeness in Jesus’ arms. I would have robbed her of reunion with her Papa, Madame Marjorie, Anaika, Joozenaïka, Angelo, and Madame Missoule. I would have condemned her to years of suffering in this broken world.

And I know I would have robbed us of something, too. Of what I do not yet know.

But as I see the fruit, so painfully harvested, of Anaika’s and Joozenaïka’s deaths, I am sure that Adeline’s death was not only to her gain. Adeline is at rest now, beyond all the pain, fatigue, and fear of asthma, the constant struggle simply to breathe. She no longer needs our help. Even as I weep at the thought of not seeing her when I return to CAP, Haiti, for her mother’s grief, I thank God that Adeline isn’t suffering anymore.

And I look forward to what God has in store. What beauty will God grow from these ashes?

What goodness is God working from the evil of Marjorie’s sickness and death, her husband’s widower-hood, her children’s motherlessness? How will God show us that all things, even the too-recent and too-close-together excruciating losses of Marjorie and Adeline, work together for the Good of us who love Him?

Even as we toured what would become CAP’s new locale for the first time, a magnificent two-story house with rooms painted pleasant pastel colors, I choked on tears not merely for the grief of Anaika’s absence, but for the wonder at God’s working. Only a month after her death, God was walking us through this building, set in a compound with space for Recreation, for storage, for construction of a kitchen, a building so perfect for our needs we couldn’t have better listed a description. Of course, there were a hundred obstacles to moving CAP from our faithful building on the National Road, the only building the seven-year school had known. However, as God tumbled Jericho He brought down all of these.

The money to rent the building. The money to renovate, to build an outdoor toilet and an outdoor kitchen. A brand new, more powerful generator and a technician to hook it up. A vehicle and helping hands to move furniture. Fuel just enough to power the generator and the vehicles. A new director. A new third grade and fourth grade teacher and teachers’ assistants. A cistern, water tanks, a pump, and a water truck. Feed My Starving Children Manna Pack rice and a storage room too small to hold it all. Five extra days of cleaning and organizing with Beverly, Claudia, and I from the States, the impossible obstacle of our presence overcome by flights on little planes and long drives circumventing hot spots, buying gas on the side of the road as we passed gas stations chained closed.

Those five days of cleaning and organizing were supposed to be five days of school with children overrunning a campus not prepared for students: due to the ongoing horrors of kidnapping, threats, and protests, schools were closed and most people stayed home. We didn’t see the children, but we worked hard Monday to Friday and God used our team of many helping hands to great end. He also brought the Manna Pack rice and the water truck through by 5:00 Friday afternoon before darkness drove us home and national lockdown drove us prematurely out of the country.

Now November is coming to a close and Haiti is still in turmoil, the U.S. Embassy still ranking Haiti at a Level 4 “Do Not Travel,” and there is yet no end in sight. Gangs outnumber and outgun the police. They seem to outwit and outmaneuver the few remaining legitimate government officials. Fuel prices are a steal at $11.00 per gallon. Nuns, priests, missionaries, pastors, nurses, and patients in ambulances have been shot at and killed on the road. School children have been injured in abduction attempts and campuses have been overtaken by gangs. More than a month has passed since seventeen missionaries were kidnapped, including five children. Children die from this deliberate violence and from lack as the fuel shortages and roadblocks deprive them of basic resources.

Anaika stayed at three hospitals that ran out of oxygen. Adeline died because the local hospital had none to give.

We could easily despair, we could easily be angry, we could easily claim that we could do better.

However, remember Joseph, who suffered betrayal, slavery, and imprisonment in a foreign land. God used Joseph to save his entire family and to plant the Israelite people in a land where they would flourish.

Remember David, who suffered the insane jealousy and wrath of his king, the betrayal and death of his son, life on the run hiding in caves, the death and assault of a son and a daughter. God used David to deliver the Israelite people from the Philistines, used him to model us a man after God’s own heart, used him to write the Psalms.

Remember Esther, who suffered the indignity of being groomed for a ruthless king, the fear of discovery, the burden of her people’s fate, and the risk of execution. God used Esther to save the Israelite people from genocide and show Himself to the Babylonian empire.

Remember Jesus, who suffered like no other when he was on the cross, the only truly good man to die.

(“Jesus suffered like no other when He was on the cross / Why do the good die? That only happened once” KB “Heart Song”). God used Jesus to save us all, once for all time. Jesus who was and still is the Perfect Plan. Jesus, who confounded Satan, defeated him forever when he rose again to life. God’s Plan went beyond Jesus’ ministry on Earth, beyond the cross, beyond death. The Plan saw the Expected End, the Good that was to follow.

God didn’t pull Jesus off the cross. He didn’t spare him the pain. As He didn’t spare Esther, David, Joseph, Jeremiah, Job, Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego their pain and trials. As He didn’t spare Angelo, Joozenaïka, Anaika, Marjorie, or Adeline. Instead, God used Jesus on the cross to save everyone. He used these people in their pain to help others, to do greater good than they could have imagined, and to make them stronger.

Job was confident, even as he sat in those ashes, that God was refining him. “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold,” he said (Job 23:10). If you read the book of Job to the end, you know this is true: after Job’s trials, the loss of everything, even the disease of his flesh, you know that God blesses him more abundantly. He has “twice as much as he had before,” even better behaved and more laudable children (Job 42:10-17). He lives a long and prosperous life: like gold.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not burn up in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace. They come forth as gold, unsinged, without even smelling of the smoke. They lose nothing except their bonds. God does not save them from the fire; He saves them in the fire.

After the three have been cast into the inferno and the guards who passed them in have been consumed by the flames, Nebuchadnezzar sees figures moving within the furnace.

“Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” he exclaims. “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:24-25).

The king sees four men in the furnace. By his own admission, this king who has ordered the execution of three men for their faith in a deity in whom he does not believe, the fourth figure appears so glorious he compares him to the “Son of God.” God doesn’t save his servants from the furnace; He saves them in the furnace.

Astounded, King Nebuchadnezzar goes near the opening of the furnace and calls for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to come out. This time, when he addresses them, he calls them “servants of the Most High God” (Daniel 3:26). God’s three servants come out, unchanged save their bonds have vanished.

Pastor Raymond Woodward says, “There is freedom in the furnace of affliction when God is there with you. The only thing you stand to lose in that fire is the chains that bound you on the way in.”

God allows our affliction, our pain, but He does not ignore or enjoy it. He mourns and weeps with us, and He walks with us all the way. As God’s servants we are called to walk through the fire whether it burns us or not, knowing that God is walking through the fire with us, as He stood in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego so long ago before the very eyes of King Nebuchadnezzar and his guards. We remember that even should God not spare us the pain of the fire, He will deliver us, one way or the other.

I know God delivered Angelo. I know He delivered Joozenaïka, Anaika, Madame Marjorie, and dear Adeline. I know they are with Him in Heaven now, free of abuse, suffering, affliction, trial, trauma, and sickness for once and for all. I know that one day I will meet them again, in an ongoing celebration with all those who have gone before to Heaven, including those heroes Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Job, Jeremiah, Esther, David, and Joseph. I cannot wait to meet these heroes, to see my beloved children again. Most of all I cannot wait to meet Jesus face to face.

Meanwhile, I take heart knowing He is with me here and now.

Knowing that He has not forgotten His children at CAP. He has not forgotten the fifteen Christian Aid missionaries still in captivity. He has not forgotten any of the Haitians nor any of the residents suffering under the near-anarchy of the gangster-run country. He has not forgotten a single of His suffering persecuted children in Ethiopia, North Korea, Afghanistan, or Columbia. He holds each one close and is walking beside each one even as He somehow walks beside me.

I do not know what my Expected End is. I only know that already God has made me better than I was before. Already He has proven Himself over and over, stronger than depression, anxiety, loneliness, joint pain, migraines, allergies, fatigue, and political correctness. Already I see myself a little closer to gold.

God’s Plan is more masterful than Satan’s. His chess playing and tapestry weaving long ago outwitted, outgunned, outmaneuvered, and out-moved Satan’s cheap cheating at checkers. Some of His Plan He’s revealed, with the new CAP location and secondary school for CAP’s seventh grade because of Anaika’s death. These glimpses of the masterpiece by the Grand Master make our beloveds’ passing more meaningly, if not exactly easier.

My Friend, as Ms. Henderson said, I want to pull you out, I want to stop your pain, but I know that’s not the Way. God will grow beauty out of this hard, out of the ashes. He will work this for your good. God does have an Expected End for you, and He only has thoughts of peace toward you.

Maybe we won’t become legends like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, however, even if we don’t and even if we must burn in the furnace, let’s be strong and remember that when this is over, we will come forth as gold.

Our trials are allowed by God. Our trials our limited by God. Our trials cannot thwart God’s purpose. Our trials bring about God’s purpose.

Madame Marjorie with two of her children

Adeline

Joozenaika

Anaika

Angelo

Works Cited

Henderson, Kimberly D. “When You Feel Painfully and Hopelessly Stuck in a Season You Don’t Want to Be In.” WordPress, 23 Sept. 2020, https://kdhenderson.wordpress.com/2020/09/23/when-you-feel-painfully-and-hopelessly-stuck-in-a-season-you-dont-want-to-be-in/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

· KB. “Heart Song.” Weight & Glory, Reach Records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2daj3G0LVKY

· King James Version. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

· King, Martin Luther. “But If Not.” YouTube. 5 Nov. 1967, Atlanta, Ebenezer Baptist Church, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjpaIO2seY. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

· MercyMe. “Even If.” Lifer, The Orchard Music, Nashville, Tennessee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

A History of Haiti in verse: Part IV

Creole, Vodou, and Francois Mackandal

Africans of all clans, yoked and naked, stolen from their homeland, possessionless and powerless, nevertheless resolutely refused to relinquish their inner independence. In defense of their very humanity, God-given liberty to life which their captors denied, the shiploads of slaves shoved ashore on Saint Domingue found ways to unite and fight back even with hands bound in chains.

Captured all over the Dark Continent, these thousands of out-of-Africans did not share the same language, bloodlines, or beliefs. Yet as impatient French pronunciation disregarded their names, discarded their histories with their needs and freedom, consequently these thousands of immigrants forged new identities. The next-generation French born on the island were now commonly called “Creoles,” so the desperate-to-survive Africans began to identify themselves as “Haitians,” allying with the oppressed natives who had been used and abused by domineering white men. Instead of bowing broken backs beneath the cotton sacks or cowering before the overseer’s whip, the oppressed African-Haitians refused to be depressed. While most of European colonists drooped in the afternoon heat, their intellects and integrity lapsing into laxity, the slaves’ brains sharpened with their cane-cutting machetes, and instead of dropping exhausted onto meager cots each night, they worked long hours in the darkness, employing themselves in the second-job of escape-plotting and vengeance-scheming.

"The Slave Trade 1619-1808" (p 162) Santon, Kate, and Liz McKay. Atlas of World History. Parragon, 2006.

These African-Haitians invested in deception, proved exceptional actors and actresses who before their French masters wore masks of adoring devotion or the stoicism devoid of emotion, before they shed these masks with the completion of daily tasks to secretly reconvene with their compatriots from neighboring plantations, others who dared defy the Black Code and meet after hours without passes from their owners. Slaves had not the right to assembly, either, and gatherings of two or more warranted punishment, never mind suspicion from viciously defensive white minds.

However, the majority of small-minded emigres being fanned, fed, and fondly tended by their faithful Negroes did not consider their black beasts capable of cleverness. Donkeys and horses could no more conspire than could their slaves, who must be kept in-hand, as a strict father might raise his child. Thus their own racisme worked against the French-Creole colonials: the extreme minority on an island of perhaps 700,000 slaves. They never could have imagined, for example, the ingenuity of their “child-minded” beasts of burden in finding compromise among their hundreds of differing tribal cultures. Slavers and masters alike purposely purchased Africans from various regions to ensure their isolation, maintain barriers of language and practice. Yet on the common ground of Saint Domingue, chained together on the same tether, men and women whose nations never mingled forged new bonds. Brotherhood now tethered them together and they mingled their differing African dialects to invent a new language, formed almost mockingly with lots of phonetic French, and fragments of other European remnants left behind on the island after centuries of pirates and conquistadores and the Arawak originals. This linguistic improvisation is all the more remarkable for the majority of slaves were illiterate. (Of course, this would also contribute to the lack of consistency in Haitian Creole orthography even into the 21^st century.)

Empowered by their common tongue, their knowledge and cunning grew; they threw themselves into their surroundings, adapting to the wild jungles, rocky mountains, flat plains, camouflaging cane fields. They learned the local weapons, the herbal remedies and poisons, the toxic reptiles and insects. Their already-tropically-adroit constitutions largely immunized them to the swampy sicknesses, including the dreaded Yellow Fever. While the Europeans hid in the coolness of their houses, complained of the sweltering heat while demanding cold beverages and constant manual fanning, their slaves, whenever they could slip away, grew familiar with Saint Domingue’s secrets, knew her intimately, and hid the knowledge away for the right opportunity.

Opportunities they discussed at clandestine gatherings, when slaves from different plantations met under the trees, in swampy glades, under the moon, in religious rituals as inventive and cohesive as the new Creole language. Some Africans were Moors of the North who worshipped Allah; many were of polytheistic persuasion and called on different gods for specific purposes. Virtually all of the nighttime rebels were owned by ostensibly Christian men, yet some may have adopted the Gospel as their own despite the dreadful hypocrisy and cruelty demonstrated by these “Christians.” The ancestral spiritualism from Mother Africa twined with Catholic and Islamic faiths to bear another new fruit unique to Saint Domingue: the religion of vodou. A pantheon of spirits, called lwa in Creole, were distinguished with distinct personalities and vocations, including Baron Samedi, the god of death and Lord of the Crossroads; the beautiful possessively jealous Venus-like lover of men Erzulie Freda; and the all-powerful Damballa Ouedo, he who lived in the sky and had serpent for both symbol and servant. If so inclined, the lwa could do good things for good people, or terrible and wicked things to enemies.

painting by Gerard Fortune,

photo credit: HaitianDominican Art, https://haitian-dominican-art.tumblr.com/post/136261890704/gerard-fortune

During the years of nocturnal rebellion the scheming slaves prayed protection for themselves and retribution for their oppressors as they gathered around a fire. Their drums haunted the Caribbean night, beating like an anxious pulse, sometimes like the call to war. Their feet that should have been beaten and weary with the fatigue of field labor danced heartily. Their voices joined Creole words to ancient melodies. The blood of pigs and cocks fed the ground or filled a gourd to pass around. Some attendees or houngan priests were possessed by a lwa and shrieked unknowable secrets or committed impossible feats like eating coals plucked from the fire without pain or fear. With proof of such supernatural endowment, congregated slaves made careful plans, combining their new knowledge of the land with past patterns of African poison. It was poison with which Francois Mackandal would attain such deadly success.

For six years Mackandal headed a conspiracy movement intended to eradicate the French. For six years after his escape from the cattle fields of his master’s plantation, Mackandal committed himself to the creation and distribution of poison, managing anonymous other slaves, both free and in captivity, to administer his toxic brew; through them he slew thousands of white folks and their livestock. For six years Mackandal lived outside society, off the grid, and evaded capture by French authorities. When he was finally arrested, his execution was meant to be a depressing spectacle to instill fear and quell rebellious notions in witnessing slaves. But Mackandal seemed to defy whites even from beyond the grave.

Since he had fled his own plantation of imprisonment, Francois Mackandal had harbored hatred for the white race and plotted vengeance. White people were certainly the clear reason for most of Mackandal’s suffering. He had been seized from Africa at the tender age of twelve, carted away across the waves to the West Indies and sold as a slave on Saint Domingue. Once there, no one cared what his life had been, whether he was educated, who his family was or what gods he adored. This boy was awarded instead among the most odious and lethal tasks on the plantations: partaking in the sugar-mill maintenance. Most unfortunately, like so many poor souls before him, Mackandal fell victim to the greedy grind of the sugar mill, run at rapidly risky rate by greedy overseers, and lost his left arm.

Probably an impressive physical specimen before, this one-armed young buck dropped drastically in value. Yet despite being damaged goods, he was a purchased asset nonetheless, and Mackandal was kept on in chains, assigned meaner labor as a livestock herder. He was now prey to even greater disdain by imperious masters who saw the only beast worse than a Negro a partially formed quasimodo Negro.

Subjected to such bestial treatment, one little wonders Mackandal held no loyalties for any masters or overseers, any free or poor whites. Seemingly he received naught but ill-treatment and unconceivable cruelty from those white people he encountered. Unlike some of the famous Founding Fathers who would follow in the future, then, Mackandal leaves no impression of belief in redemption, of eventual peace between black and white men. He day-dreamed instead of escape and retribution, and he schemed of serving the colony’s white masters their own bitter medicine in turn.

His plan began in earnest with Mackandal’s sudden escape, his flight from his lowly station on the lonely cattle fields. Like many slaves before and after him, Mackandal probably just took steadier grip on his staff or grass-cutting machete and bolted on legs powered by hard-labor and desperation, making for the mountains where he could vanish in the impenetrable crags, or join the ranks of Haiti’s first chimères: escaped slaves living outside the law and society. Their wild and high-altitude existence inspired the Spanish to call them “maroons” after “cimarron” originating from a word referring to mountain summits. The term caught-on as fewer slaves were caught, and indulgent colonial authorities forgave a few days of petit-marronage, which might include a visit to another plantation but concluded with a return to their master’s toil. Grand-marronage was utter acquittal from the lash: when a slave ran for the hills. If he could outrun, outlast, and outwit his pursuers, including the maréchaussée force, he could live free, above the grasp of greedy European masters. Realizing chances of survival were better with allies, maroons formed secluded communities in hidden strongholds in the misty mountains where they remained absconded, the hope of slaves in bondage and terror of plantation owners.

Land of Mountains
(photo credit: myself, 2016)

Attempts by the French at taking these maroon-run forts had constantly been in vain, and never, in the bloody history of Saint Domingue, would these well-trained, highly-equipped soldiers succeed in ousting these belligerent liberated blacks, nor often of even discovering where they hid in the myriad folds of the Land of Mountains still rife with jungle vegetation. Maroons camouflaged in the jungles, fortified themselves in the mountains, and bred new generations of black islanders born free in these hidden fortresses of Saint Domingue. Even as the French increased restrictions in attempts to control their immense slave population, the numbers of marrons increased, and those who remained in chains on the plantations fed on the legends these rebel bands who fought for freedom.

The maréchaussée police could not keep up with the number of runaways, never mind compete with the sneak-attacks and plantation robberies maroons executed under cover of darkness. No matter how many accused rebels they executed, how many potential informants they tortured, the immense cruelty and duress of the increasingly desperate French-Creoles could not stem the maroon tide, could not flush them out of their mountain forts. These forts seemed to disappear with the mists like the Isle of La Gonave, rendering themselves invisible at the will of their inhabitants. The marons who dwelled in these mysterious cloud-shrouded mountains were cautious, defending their refuge as soldiers. They dug pits fitted with sharpened pikes, kept strict codes of secrecy about their wild lifestyle. Rites of initiation into maron communities were also a clear reflection of African societal heritage, participation in which was intensive and demanding but imperative to the continued existence of communities, essential to infrastructure and the preparation of future generations.

Africans newly estranged from their Homeland, still trailing their chains, could more readily assimilate into the marronage life than could Creole slaves, long-time islanders accustomed to the strictures of plantations and some of the conveniences of colonial lifestyles. Nevertheless, anyone who could reach the gates could join the maroon clan. The clans were not unlike their pirate forebears, those motley crews of multiethnic runaways pursuing new avenues. Some might think of them, too, like Robin Hood and his group of gallant ruffians: outlaw heroes cleverly hidden in forest camps, always out of view of pursuing soldiers. However one chooses to describe them, the maroons were certainly impressive, these men and women rebels who took back their freedom, proved their mental equality, if not superiority, to their increasingly racist white captors.

"Le Marron Inconnu" ("The Unknown Maroon"), sculpture by Albert Mangones, 1967

photo credit: Alchetron, https://alchetron.com/Le-Marron-Inconnu

For the unfortunate truth we see is not that the African Slave Trade began from long-ingrained ideas of values of the color scale, where from ancient times those with the lightest skin which burned easily, turned red during labor under the sun, were God’s chosen, His most divine men meant to reign over the rest. Rather the reverse is true: that from the explosive growth of the slave trade, the staggering black tide of dark-skinned men and women made captive in Africa and condemned to terminal servitude around the white world, racism grew. Bitter seeds of the most poisonous sort sported roots that dug deeply, quickly, greedily, eagerly, spreading parasitic vines like pervasive kudzu ivy. Racism ran thorny tendrils around everything, corrupting with its coverage, choking the life out of healthy tolerance like the ropy northern Bittersweet. Racism thrived with the slave trade, so by the third century of its existence, Mackandal’s time of the 1750’s, it was firmly rooted as God’s own truth that some men were blessed with rights of dominion while others bore God’s wish for their submission.

In Saint Domingue, the white Europeans were God’s favored heads, while the black Africans were the lowest beasts of burden. Like the ancient Egyptians dwarfed by the Hebrews, the minority whites feared above all black reprisal, rebellion by those Africans who outnumbered them one hundred to one on sprawling plantations. Yet as much as they feared and loathed their captives, these white owners were at once fascinated by their physicality and dismissive of their mental capacity. They could not believe that such savages could foment organized warfare or carry out a poisonous conspiracy. Certainly they could not perceive how Mackandal, a one-armed runaway, had managed not only his own survival but

Needless to say, the French police force was severely relieved to catch Mackandal and duly eager for his speedy demise. However, they also wanted his death to serve as a lasting lesson to his fomenting rebel comrades, and any other slaves considering rebellion. They thought that public execution, burned at the pyre, would prove sufficiently vividly gruesome to staunch the steady ebb of unrest and revolt, as well as put to rest the pesky Mackandal himself for good. To their lasting dismay, the clever intentions of the French authorities backfired, for the funeral fire intended for Mackandal served instead as fiery inspiration for thousands of slaves.

On that January day in 1758 the maréchaussée did not kill a man but created an undying legend.

The witnesses in the Cap Francais square where they tied Mackandal to be burned watched at close range as he wriggled from the ropes and leaped free of the flames. The guards gaped in disbelief, probably, before springing into sprinting pursuit and seizing the one-armed man again. They secured him to a plank and rejoiced as the flames claimed him.

The whites would swear he died there, quickly expiring for lack of air.

But the black audience would claim Mackandal made a second escape, far more miraculous than the first. After the guards bound him again and left him for dead, Mackandal called on his lwa. They surely granted his desire, the blacks were assured, for the next moment Mackandal was transformed into a mosquito, a tiny buzzing insect ropes had no hope of holding. The mosquito flew free of the smoky square and who knows where he went next? As that nearly-invisible creature Mackandal might spread deadly Yellow Fever to his enemies.

Whatever truly happened in that square in 1758, which European records claim concluded in Mackandal’s termination, is less important than what ensued: the heightened brewing of revolution. Master and slave alike feared the invincibility of martyrs like Mackandal who carried on the crusade for freedom more fiercely than before when human form hindered his movements, whether as an insect or inspiration.

Although forty years would pass before the official Slave Rebellion of Saint Domingue began, Francois Mackandal’s conspiracy and slaughter places him among the Founding Fathers. Whether by his endurance as a slave, his bravery under amputation, by his guerilla tactics, intelligence, botanical and toxicological prowess as a maroon, or by his dignity at his execution and his mythic second flight to freedom, Mackandal modeled many qualities of a strong soldier. His legacy sparked greater courage in restless young men who dreamed of freedom, men who would one day be the officers of the Revolution.

Works Cited (so far):

Antonio de Montesinos: “Christmas Eve Sermon of 1511”
https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/antonio-de-montesinos-christmas-eve-sermon-of-1511-on-just-treatment-of-indians

Bartolome de las Casas
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bartolome-de-Las-Casas

Christopher Columbus
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Columbus

Columbus’ Crew
http://columbuslandfall.com/ccnav/crew.shtml

Davis, Wade. The Serpent and the Rainbow: a Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic. Touchstone, 1985.

Deibert, Michael. Notes from the Last Testament: the Struggle for Haiti. Seven Stories Press, 2005.

Dubois, Laurent. Haiti: the Aftershocks of History. Picador, 2013.

Francois Mackandal (Macandal/Makandal) ( ?-1758) (http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_mackandal_francois.html

Francois Makandal
http://slaveryandremembrance.org/people/person/?id=PP024

Girard, Philippe R. Haiti: the Tumultuous History from Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation. St. Martin's Griffin, 2010.

Haiti (Saint Domingue)
http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0111

Haitian Revolution
http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0066

History of Haiti
https://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/1sr.html

Hurston, Zora Neale, and Henry Louis Gates. Tell My Horse Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. Harper Perennial, 2009.

“Marquis de Sade: French author »
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marquis-de-Sade

Montesinos, Antonio de
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/montesinos-antonio-de-c-1530

Saint Dominic
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Dominic

Santon, Kate, and Liz McKay. Atlas of World History. Parragon, 2006.

Short History of Tortuga
http://zeerovery.nl/history/tortuga.htm

« The Code Noir (The Black Code)”
https://revolution.chnm.org/d/335/

The First Voyage of Columbus
http://columbuslandfall.com/ccnav/v1.shtml

The Treaties of Ryswick (1697)
https://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/2017/08/the-treaties-of-ryswick-1697/

Sunday, May 16, 2021

A History of Haiti in verse: Part III

Out of Africa

Saint Domingue quickly grew crops of sprawling plantations headed by French gentlemen-planters and dainty ladies. They dwelled in indolence and opulence, leaving the real management of the incredible mass-production of the exotic tropical delicacies in such high demand overseas to their trusted overseers, lower-class white men or elevated slaves. Gloved hands concealing iron fists, the profiting planters were ever wary of slave-retaliation. Punishment was swift and daily existence severe for black chattel.

Plantation labor was severe punishment, for cultivating and cutting sugar cane was constant exhaustion beneath the hot sun, in fields of sharp leaves and unfriendly creatures, at risk of dehydration and the overseer’s whip. Refining sugar from the stalks was more perilous still, as the heavy wheels of the mill turned with all the unforgiving persistence of Sisyphus’ stone: the odd limb caught in the cogs was naught sufficient cause to stop the machinery, call halt to production and lose profits. Most owners were unimpressed by reports of severed hands or mangled arms crushed by their wheels of progress. They might object if a child were killed by the grinding mill, but only then for the cost of lost property.

Sugar mill with vertical rollers, French West Indies, 1665. [Charles de Rochefort, Histoire naturelle et morale des iles Antilles de l’Amérique … (Rotterdam, 1681), p. 332]

http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0105

These losses were worth their weight in bloody sugar, for the ruthless continuity of slave labor produced profits unseen in any other colonies. Europeans had rapacious appetites for all goods from the West Indies, and Saint Domingue, under some mélange of landscape, placement, and colonial determination that placed great duress on the nation of slaves, was rising to meet the seemingly insatiable European need for tobacco, chocolate, fruits, and the almighty trinity of sugar, coffee, and rum. These Three flourished so abundantly in Saint Domingue that the colony single-handedly supplied one-third of Europe with these currencies, at the cost of extremely short slave life-expectancies.

Yet the wicked cycle of Want had begun, and even as their slaves died in droves from overwork and malnourishment, plantation owners noticed the weightening of their pockets over the weight of their conscience. The rich grew richer while slaves and morals grew sicker.

With greater fortunes the colonials built still larger houses and embraced greater extravagance, employed more slaves and lackeys to their service, and lounged in deeper lassitude. In the torrid equatorial heat with little to do, their idle hands letting hundreds of others cultivate their gardens, many of the plantation masters and mistresses turned to wicked mischief. For these bored Europeans, or next generation “Creoles” born in the colonies, the favored sport was slave-torture of such abhorrent proportion that even the notorious Marquis de Sade may have enjoyed vacation on the island provided they permitted his participation in the unnatural acts and brutality enacted on the unlucky Africans. De Sade’s namesake “sadism” tragically aptly applies to much of these white masters’ actions as belabored slaves were maimed for entertainment. Molestation furthered the exploitation, and many varying-shaded babies were fathered by white monsieurs who denied their relations even as they continued nightly visitations to their favorite beautiful female slaves.

View of a Sugar Plantation, French West Indies, 1762. [Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie, ou, Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Metiers … Recueil de Planches, sur les Sciences … (Paris, 1762), vol. 1, plate I] http://slaveryandremembrance.org/people/person/?id=PP024

Misery, depravity, and quick mortality were the expectancy of the captive soul from Guinea. Seven years was the average survival rate of the imported slave despite the tepid efforts of the distant French king and his ironic mandate for humane slavery standards. On the matter of black lives, the Sun King ratified The Black Code in 1687, which required proper Catholic Sabbath rest and holidays, care for the sick, forbade maim and torture, ensured families should be sold together and not torn apart. Le Code Noir even demanded that a white master who made a slave his “concubine” was required to make her his wife if he was not yet married, according to the proper rites of the Church. If already wed, the man was to be substantially fined and resign his former concubine to the hospital, along with her children, and not see her again.

These high points of Le Code Noir were joined, of course, with cruel corporal punishments including the whip and distinctly French flourish of the fleur de lys brand, the famous icon marking majestic heralds, royal genealogy, and the recaptured flesh of a runaway. Troublesome runaways also had their ears lopped off on the first offense. The second capture cut their hamstrings and earned another brand, to make a painful pair of matching shoulder tattoos. The third escape attempt ended in execution, as did offense against one’s owner. A slave who raised his hand to strike his master or one of his master’s family might as well have raised his hand in voluntary assignment to the gallows. These meters of justice, of care, crime, and punishment, were intended as infrastructure in France’s distant colonies. Overseers were to be overseen, masters held to task, and slaves not passed down through generations but eventually liberated. Perhaps these royal regulations would have made life bearable for the unwilling immigrants to Saint Domingue. Unfortunately, aging King Louis XIV kept a long-distance relationship with his best colony, and The Black Code, lacking local enforcement and endorsement, was summarily ignored.

Instead, for another two hundred years men, women, and children were torn from Africa, stolen from their homeland, packed in crates, and shipped across the sea to begin a life of hard servitude: to die quickly or slowly under the broiling sun and the lash of a capricious and unrestricted master’s whip.

They came, they worked, they died; they planned, they plotted, they survived.

Originating from all over the continent, Africans of different nations were chained together in torment. Some were prisoners of war, conquered captives of their foes; some were victims of midnight raids, rounded up and marched out in chains by invaders; some were the sons of lowly serfs, born into the misfortunes of servitude. Some had been poor while some were royally connected; some had dwelled in villages upriver and some nearer the sea. They came from the northwestern regions of Walo and Cayor, Mandingo, Fula, and Baol; from the western gulf areas of Susu, Benin, and Annamabu. Some came from the southwestern Ndongo, Angola, and Kongo. Some had to march roped neck-to-neck before being crowded into canoes and paddled downriver from the easternly Bobangi, Teke, and Loango. From wherever they came, these motley crews of confused captives were forced to the western coast where slave ports provided their last glimpse of their Homeland before they passed through the doorways of no return and make the Middle Passage.

“Gang of Captives Met at Mbame’s on Their Way to Tette”, 1861. [Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Dec. 1865–May 1866), vol. 32, p. 719] http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0003

Since 1482 when Portugal founded Elmina Castle, these slave ports complete with corrals and fortresses had been cropping up along the lustrous Gold and Ivory Coasts. And with each new “trading post” a point on the Triangle Trade route, the long-existent African-enslavement tradition exploded. Portugal persisted in its first-place position in slave exportation, shipping millions of Africans to its Brazilian silver mines. But Spain, France, and Britain were close behind in their staggering tallies and untold death tolls. Not half so prolific in their westerly slave-shipments were the Netherlands, fledgling U.S. America, and Denmark. The survival rate of slaves on many of these plantations was also greater than those Africans sent to Saint Domingue. Between the extreme equatorial propinquity and the extreme colonial antipathy, growing into atrocities, slaves simply had the worst of the New World.

Was it little wonder, then, that many a captive sought death before embarkment and enslavement among barbarians? “Having a more dreadful apprehension of Barbados than we can have of hell,” some bound men and women leapt into the sea, evaded their pursuers by remaining under the water until they were drowned, recalled one unnamed slave trader (Sources of the Western Tradition 351). Those who jumped did not merely seek relief but an afterlife reunion with their beloved homeland, a belief later generations on Saint Domingue would describe as seeking the “island beneath the sea.” Such beliefs would unite peoples from different nations, tribes, tongues, religions, and kingdoms. From differing allegiances and warring parties, these captured men, women, and children from all over Africa now shared one land, one goal, and one enemy. Bartolomé de las Casas had alleged that Africans could better endure the hardships and toil of plantation enslavement; he assured the Spanish court blacks were more resilient than the wasted Arawaks. His assertions were proved true as these victims, branded and bound, weak and unsteady after weeks at sea, stripped of clothes and dignity, found their feet on foreign colonial ground. And, with the astonishing conquering velocity with which France had transformed forlorn Hispañola into prosperous sugar-kingpin, these ultimate underdogs took groundbreaking strides.

The courtyard of the Cape Coast Castle showing the male exit tunnel; the first church of England in the background with the male slave dungeon underneath; the Dalzell’s Tower; MacLean’s Hall; graves; mortar and cannon balls. http://slaveryandremembrance.org/collections/object/?id=OB0070

*Yes, I do have an extensive Bibliography which is not here listed because the number of sources continues to increase with the research. But a special note of thanks to "Slavery and Remembrance: A Guide to Sites, Museums, and Memory" for not only providing much information but the majority of today's images, properly sourced.