THE BOOK OF NEGROES (49 page)

FOR READERS WHO WISH TO KNOW MORE about the history behind
The Book of Negroes
, I will mention some of the books that I came across in my research. (Other titles are noted in my acknowledgments.)

Novelists may forever be trying to make sense of the transatlantic slave trade, but in my view a good way to begin to appreciate its impact on ordinary people is by reading the memoirs of freedom seekers. As the editor of
The Classic Slave Narratives
, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., assembled four key slave narratives, including memoirs by Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs and Mary Prince.

First-hand accounts reflecting the experiences of the Black Loyalists of Nova Scotia can be found in George Elliott Clarke’s
Fire on the Water: An Anthology of Black Nova Scotian Writing, Vol. I
, which contains memoirs by David George, Boston King and John Marrant, among others.

Europeans have left accounts of their experiences with the Black
Loyalists, travels in West Africa or participation in the slave trade in the eighteenth century. I am especially indebted to John Clarkson, whose personal journal documenting his work in organizing the exodus of the Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone in 1792 was ably introduced and edited by Charles Bruce Fergusson in
Clarkson’s Mission to America, 1791-1792
. Also indispensable were
An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa
by the slave-ship surgeon Alexander Falconbridge and the letters written by his wife Anna Maria Falconbridge in
Narrative of Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leone During the Years 1791-1792-1793
. These two accounts can be found independently in libraries or joined together in one book with the same titles, introduced and footnoted by historian Christopher Fyfe. I relied on
The Journal of a Slave Trader (John Newton), 1750-1754; With Newton’s Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade
, edited by Bernard Martin and Mark Spurrell; and on
Journal of a Slave-Dealer: A View of Some Remarkable Axcedents in the Life of Nics. Owen on the Coast of Africa and America from the Year 1746 to the Year 1757
, edited by Eveline Martin. The historian Alexander Peter Kup edited the diary by the Swedish botanist
Adam Afzelius: Sierra Leone Journals, 1795-96
. Dr. Thomas Winterbottom provides many details in his two-volume
An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone
. Finally, in
Travels in the Interior of Africa
, the Scottish doctor Mungo Park describes his trip from Gambia through what are now Senegal and Mali in the years 1795-1797.

I found many books about the people of Africa. Some of the books about Sierra Leone were
A History of Sierra Leone
by Christopher Fyfe and
A History of Sierra Leone, 1400-1787
by Alexander Peter Kup. To learn more about Mali, I consulted
Groupes ethniques au mali
by Bokar N’Diayé;
The Heart of the Ngoni: Heroes of the African Kingdom of Segu
by Harold Courlander with Ousmae Sako; and
The Bamana Empire by the Niger: Kingdom, Jihad and Colonization 1712-1920
by Sundiata D. Djata.

There are many books about the transatlantic slave trade. Most helpful for my purposes were
Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1518-1865
by Daniel P. Mannix and Malcolm Cowley;
Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785
by David Hancock; and
The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870
by Hugh Thomas.

For old maps of Africa, I studied the
Historical Atlas of Africa
by J. F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder;
Blaeu’s The Grand Atlas of the 17
^th
Century World
by John Goss; and
Norwich’s Maps of Africa: An Illustrated and Annotated Carto-bibliography
, revised and edited by Jeffrey C. Stone.

For information about slave vessels and life on board eighteenth-century ships, I looked carefully at
Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail
by Stephen R. Bown;
Slave Ships and Slaving
compiled by George Francis Dow;
The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy
by N. A. M. Rodger; and in
The Journal for Maritime Research
, Jane Webster’s article “Looking for the Material Culture of the Middle Passage.”

A number of books introduced me to the history of South Carolina—particularly the history of black people in Sea Islands and in Charleston (or Charles Town, as it was spelled before the American Revolution). Some were:
Slave Badges and the Slave-Hire System in Charleston, South Carolina, 1783-1865
by Harlan Greene, Harry S. Hutchins, Jr., and Brian E. Hutchins;
Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys
by George C. Rogers, Jr.; and
A Short History of Charleston
by Robert N. Rosen.

The literature on the history of South Carolina is vast, but some books of great help to me were
Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Low Country
by Philip Morgan and
Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect
by Lorenzo Dow Turner. I also read
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82
by Elizabeth A. Fenn
; Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country,
1740-1790
by Robert Olwell; and
Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion
by Peter Woods. Other helpful books were
Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage: Legacy of Freedmen on St. Helena Island
by Ronald Daise;
Gullah Fuh Ooonuh (Gullah For You): A Guide to the Gullah Language
by Virginia Mixson Geraty; and
The Gullah People and Their African Heritage
by William S. Pollitzer.

I also came across articles and books about slave hair and clothing. Shane White and Graham White wrote
Stylin’: African American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit
, as well as the article “Slave Hair and African American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” which appeared in the
Journal of Southern History
. In the
Journal of American History
, Jonathan Prude wrote “To Look upon the ‘Lower Sort’: Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750-1800.”

I drew additional information about South Carolina history and details about indigo from
South Carolina: A History
by Walter Edgar;
The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 1, 1514-1861
by Lawrence S. Rowland, Alexander Moore and George C. Rogers, Jr.; and the booklet “Indigo in America” produced by BASF Wyandotte Corporation.

Two books offered herbal remedies and details about the care of pregnant women in the South:
Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies
by Faith Mitchell and
Southern Folk Medicine 1750-1820
by Kay K. Moss.

Various books describe Jews in South Carolina in the eighteenth century. Among others, I relied on
This Happy Land: The Jews of Colonial and Antebellum Charleston
by James William Hagy;
The Jews of South Carolina Prior to 1800
by Cyrus Adler Hühner; and
A Portion of the People: Tree Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life
edited by Theodore Rosengarten and Dale Rosengarten.

For details about New York City in the eighteenth century, I consulted
New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century
Manhattan
by Jill Lepore
The Epic of New York City
by Edward Robb Ellis;
The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution
by Barnet Schecter;
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898
by Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace;
The Loyal Blacks
by Ellen Gibson Wilson; and
Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810
by Shane White. To learn about the African Burial Ground in Manhattan, I read “Historic Background of the African Burial Ground,” a chapter in the
Draft Management Recommendations for the African Burial Ground
, produced by the United States National Park Service.

As for the lives of the Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, I read
King’s Bounty: A History of Early Shelburne, Nova Scotia
, by Marion Robertson;
The Life of Boston King: Black Loyalist, Minister and Master Carpenter
edited by Ruth Holmes Whitehead and Carmelita A. M. Robertson and the Nova Scotia Museum curatorial report “The Shelburne Black Loyalists: A Short Bibliography of All Blacks Emigrating to Shelburne County, Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, 1783,” by Ruth Holmes Whitehead.

To learn about the abolitionist movement in Britain and to imagine the lives of blacks in London at the turn of the nineteenth century, I consulted
Hogarth’s Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth-Century English Art
by David Dabydeen;
Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain
by Peter Fryer;
Black England: Life Before Emancipation
by Gretchen Gerzina;
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves
by Adam Hoshschild; and
Reconstructing the Black Past: Blacks in Britain, 1780-1830
by Norma Myers.

I could never have written
the Book of Negroes
without the work of all the diarists, memoir writers and historians who went before me, but I alone am responsible for any intentional or accidental deviations from history in this novel.

I CAN’T BEGIN TO ACKNOWLEDGE ALL OF THE PEOPLE—some living, and others who wrote diaries, travel accounts and slave narratives more than two hundred years ago—on whose shoulders I climbed to write
the Book of Negroes
But I do wish to thank the people, books and institutions that helped me the most.

I came across the idea for
the Book of Negroes
while reading a book that I had stolen, so I will begin by acknowledging what I took and where I found it. The book was
The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870
, and the author was James W. St. G. Walker, a history professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. I took it from the Toronto home of my parents, Donna Hill and Daniel G. Hill. Dad scribbled his name inside the front cover before I went out the door, but it did him no good, because that was twenty years ago and I still have the book.

Dr. Walker was a good friend to my father and mother—they all wrote books about the history of blacks in Canada—and later he became a friend and steady adviser to me, as well. He answered numerous questions as I researched
The Book of Negroes
, introduced me to other scholars and commented on an early draft.

Out of respect for Dr. Walker and all of the other scholars who advised me, I must emphasize that any historical inaccuracies in this novel—intentional or otherwise—are my responsibility and mine only.

Paul E. Lovejoy, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of History at York University and author of
Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa
and many other books, shared with me some of his scholarly articles dealing with scarification, enslavement and Muslims in West Africa. Dr. Lovejoy commented on scenes set in Africa, suggested other books and articles, and provided details about British parliamentary hearings into the abolition of the slave trade.

Valentin Vydrine, author of the
Manding-English Dictionary
and head of the African Department, St. Petersburg Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, answered many questions to do with languages and ethnic groups in the West African country now known as Mali.

Gordon Laco, a ship expert who acts as a consultant to filmmakers, was kind enough to offer advice for the novel, as was my friend Chris Ralph, who has spent years working on ships performing scientific missions.

Nicholas Butler, Special Collections Manager of the Charleston County Public Library, suggested and helped me find many books and articles about colonial Charleston. Dr. Butler took the trouble to send me a good dozen letters, assisting—and correcting—me on matters such as identification tags worn by slaves, travel by small craft in the low-country waterways, the Gullah language, coin usage, slave clothing, slave auctions, street life and so forth. He must have answered one hundred questions, and every one patiently and kindly.

I wish to acknowledge assistance from the Penn Center on St. Helena Island. Located on the site of one of the first schools for freed American slaves, the Penn Center is a museum and cultural centre exploring the history and culture of Gullah people in the Sea Islands. Staff at the Penn Centre introduced me to the video
Family Across the Sea
produced by South Carolina ETV, which documents the connection between the Gullah people and their ancestors in Sierra Leone.

Throughout revisions of the novel, I was lucky to have a steady stream of advice, encouragement and corrections from Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Curator Emerita of the Nova Scotia Museum, and Co-curator of its virtual exhibit
Remembering Black Loyalists, Black Communities in Nova Scotia.
Dr. Whitehead has spent the past ten years researching a forthcoming book on the Black Loyalists of South Carolina.

Cassandra Pybus, Australian Research Council Professor of History at the University of Sydney and author of
Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty
, answered my questions about blacks in Manhattan in the eighteenth century and led me to scholarly articles.

In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Cromwell and Debra Hill of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society gave me access to their resource centre in Shelburne and introduced me to descendants of Loyalists, and Debra Hill took me on a walking tour in the old black settlement of Birchtown on the south shore of Nova Scotia. In my endeavours to learn more about the Black Loyalists and their first ten years in Nova Scotia, I was also assisted by Henry Bishop of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, who gave me a copy of John Clarkson’s journal
Clarkson’s Mission to America 1791-1792
, and by Finn Bower, Doris Swain and Betty Stoddard in the Shelburne County Museum, who steered me to numerous books and old newspaper clippings.

David Bergeron and Sophie Drakich, curators of the Currency Museum of the Bank of Canada, shared reference texts and answered my questions
about eighteenth-century coins and other media of exchange—both African and European—and Yann Girard gave me a personal tour of the museum.

Librarians working in the University of Toronto Robarts Library led me to atlases, maps and other references. Staff at the Burlington Public Library helped me find scholarly articles about the living conditions of slaves in South Carolina.

I wish to thank the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council for their financial assistance.

I thank my literary agents, Dean Cooke (in Canada) and Denise Bukowski (international markets), for supporting this novel and bringing it to market with both enthusiasm and professionalism.

I am grateful to my editor, Iris Tupholme, and all of her wonderful colleagues at HarperCollins Canada. Iris wanted this novel before it was written, waited patiently for the first draft, advised me on revisions and—in her notes and our conversations—always found a way to be both exacting and encouraging. I also wish to thank Lorissa Sengara for additional editorial advice and Allyson Latta for her diligent work as copy editor.

Many friends helped me in this long project. Agnès Van’t Bosch prompted me nearly thirty years ago to begin a series of trips to West African countries as a volunteer with Canadian Crossroads International. A walking encyclopedia of knowledge about African cultures, languages and books, Agnès made suggestions about the novel and gave me a place to write in solitude. Charles Tysoe read early drafts, made suggestions about religious matters, directed me to helpful books and planted an idea that led me to write the chapter “Nations Not So Blest as Thee.” Jack Veugelers, an old friend and a sociology professor at the University of Toronto, brought scholarly articles to my attention and expressed belief in the book throughout its long gestation. Judith Major, Rosalyn Krieger and Sandra Hardie advised me on early drafts. Barbara and John McCowan, Deborah Windsor and Ray Argyle, Michael and Cara Peterman, Laura Robinson and John
Cameron, Conny Steenman-Marcusse and Al and Mary Lou Keith offered me keys to their homes—all well stocked with food, coffee and good writing chairs—so that I could work for long periods of time in solitude. Randy Weir shared with me his extensive knowledge and collection of books about eighteenth-century coins in the British colonies, and Peter Haase helped with details about traditional printing presses. The novelist Lauren B. Davis and her husband Ron Davis offered perspective and personal encouragement as this story was settling into its final form.

And now I come to my family. This is the first book I’ve written without advice from my father, Daniel G. Hill. He died before I had made much headway on the novel, but his love of story and passion for history inspired me to keep at it. My mother, Donna Hill, was finally able to offer her own insights into one of my books without fending off interruptions from her beloved husband. Sandy Hawkins, my mother-in-law, assisted me with proofreading and a considerable amount of research. Sandy and my father-in-law, William Hawkins, helped look after my children when I was writing and let me use their house for long spells of concentrated work. My sister, Karen Hill, also helped with research, and she and my brother, Dan Hill, read drafts and offered suggestions. The first person to offer comments on the initial draft of the novel was my stepdaughter Evie Freedman, who, by the age of ten, had already read more books than most adults in her life—myself included. Evie encouraged me to fill in the story about Aminata’s childhood in Bayo, and I followed her advice. Geneviève Hill, my eldest child and an enthusiastic reader in her own right, commented on a later draft.

In this loving madhouse we call home, my other children—Beatrice Freedman, and Andrew and Caroline Hill—not only endured my disappearances into
The Book of Negroes
but also proved to be terrific listeners and conversationalists around the dinner table. I admire the energy that all of my children bring to the business of living, and hope that my own passions have inspired them.

I would not have found the strength, courage, and time to complete this novel without loving assistance on every front from my wife, Miranda Hill. Spending years inside one’s own head—with no guarantee of emerging with a finished book—can be a lonely way to live. Miranda was the one person with whom I could speak at all times about where the book was moving—forward, backward, sideways or nowhere at all. She told me she loved me every day of every year that I gave to the novel, and fed and cared for the children and me while I pounded away on the keyboard. When I was ready to share my drafts, Miranda made practical suggestions on every page. Miranda was my first editor, my first critic, my biggest supporter and my great woman … so I thank her with everything I have.