My Lover, My Slave

Prologue

Henry Sawyer

I was born and raised on this plantation, just like my father and my grandfather before him. It was tradition for the eldest son in the family to take over the plantation. I’m the youngest, but the only boy, so that means I’ll be taking over this plantation one day. I don’t really want to though, I’m not really a slave person. I’ll explain.

When I was a boy, I liked to run. I’d be running everywhere. My mama, she didn’t like that so much, (mostly because I knocked over her vase once) so she would send me outside to go run in the cotton fields, where the slaves worked. One sunny hot afternoon, I was walking through the fields, too tired to run, when I saw a negro boy about my age picking cotton (at that time I was 4 years old).

“Hello!” I greeted him.

“Go away!” he said back.

Naturally, I didn’t listen to him, instead I asked, “Why are you working?”

“ 'Cause the Master says so.” he answered back.

“But you’re just a little boy like me!” I exclaimed.

“But I’m a negro.” he said back.

“So?” I asked.

“That means I work.” he explained.

“That don’t make any sense.” I said.

He smiled and we became friends. Later, I learnt that his name was Elias Sawyer, he was born on this plantation! I would come everyday to talk to him and when I started going to school, I would come in the evenings and we would sneak off in the woods. I was shocked to hear that he couldn’t read or write, so I taught him. He was my best friend, even before Billy White who let me win when we played. But one day, we were caught.

We were in the forest play fighting. We had been friends for a while now and we were 11 years old. We were playing and Elias was beating me (I realized later that it was because he grew strong from working everyday). He had me pinned down, when my father caught us. It turns out my sister, Melissa, saw me leaving with Elias and told our father. He yanked Elias off me by the collar and threw him to the ground. He was furious. He started yelling at Elias saying how he would be punished for hurting me.

“Pa, it’s not his fault, we were just playing!” I tried to explained.

My father didn’t take it so well and he started yelling at Elias for corrupting me and said that he would be sold to another plantation a lot worse than ours.

“Pa, no!” I exclaimed, “Don’t sell him!”

My father turned and looked at me with a look I’d never forget. He smiled, then said, “Okay, sure. I won’t sell him.”

I was relieved, until I realized what I had done. He took out his whip and said, “I’ll punish him, so the other slaves know what’ll happen to them if they try corrupting any my children!”

Elias looked at me with big eyes and a scared expression and then it begun. My father whipped him, like it was his last day on earth. I tried stopping him, but there was use, I just made it worse. I sat down by a tree and cried, didn’t matter that I was a boy, my friend was being whipped because of something I’d done.

Finally, the whipping stopped. Elias was in so much pain he could barely move. He could just barely move his hand as he started writing in the dirt mixed with his blood, “WE WILL ALWAYS B-”. My father noticed what he was doing and was enraged. He pulled out his gun and shot Elias right in the head, while I screamed. It was the worse day of my life.

My father ended up hanging Elias’s body on a tree where everyone could see it, so they knew what would happen if they tried anything like that again. I was in pain for months and during those months I vowed that I’d never pull a stunt like that again.

That is until I met Rosa.

Rosa Jackson

I was born a slave. Not on this plantation though, on the Jackson plantation. I was born on that plantation just like my brother and sister, Joseph and Sarah. I grew up knowing that I was just a slave and was worth nothing, but I was determined to die free, worth everything. I started working on the cotton fields when I was 3 years old. I wasn’t so good at picking cotton. I wasn’t fast enough. Master Jackson thought that I would get faster if he whipped me like a horse, but he was wrong, I didn’t get better. I just couldn’t do it as fast as the others. Sarah would try to help me, when no one was looking. She was one of the fastest cotton pickers. She’d pick her cotton and some of mine, if she could. She was a great sister and friend, but one day it caught up to us.

A few months before my greatest adventure, the Master came banging into our cabin. It was after working hours and we were singing, Sarah, mamma and I. The Master just came in and started dragging me out. My mamma, she started screaming, she didn’t want her baby to be taken away. He just said he didn’t want no cheating, slow pickers, he didn’t care. Mamma always said white men ain’t got no hearts. I didn’t believe her until then. I thought they would have a soft spot somewhere, but I knew then that their hearts are pure rock.

I was sold to the Sawyer plantation as a cleaner. I cried the whole way there. I was missing my mamma and Sarah and I knew I’d never see them again. That night I knew that every white man was pure evil.

I never thought I’d be so wrong.