Strange Mini Dreams

I had a bizarre mini dream last week; I saw my aunt Willa dressed in a green two-piece suit with fur around the collar and a hat with fur trim. My aunt was always a smart and stylish dressing woman. She looked like she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and married well. The truth is quite the opposite she was born poor her mom worked as a maid sometimes her father worked on the railroad some and did some construction work. Now about marrying she did do well (for a poor woman) her husband was retired from the military. He was a high-ranking sergeant, so his check was above average. The way she spoke you would have thought she was very highly educated. She was like many poor black women of her day. She dropped out of school about the six grade and went to work to help her family. She passed in 1996 at the age of 82.

The first part of this very strange dream I was an intern with a private forensic company. I saw some green vomit on the carpet and acorns. My next recollection was I am in an international chapel with two distinct places for Christians (Catholics and Protestants) to pray and an open area between the two for everyone else. Muslims were there trying to figure out how to line up for one of our daily prayers. The room was round with the Christian sections in two distinct areas several feet apart. My aunt was there in the protestant Christian group she spoke to me however I cannot remember what she had to say.

There was a lake that you could see from a window in the chapel. The water had a grayish hue rough, very choppy the waves hit against the bank like the fist of a fighter in the ring slugging an opponent. Some people who either owned the place or were caretakers were aimlessly milling around. Somehow, I found out the family who I thought were caretakers actually owned the place and indeed were extremely wealthy.

There had been a mysterious murder a few months earlier in the main foyer of the home and the police had received some additional information about it and decided to look over the crime scene again. The forensic team was hired because of their reputation of thoroughness and using only the most recent technology. We were there to take a second look at the place. Actually, I was combing the carpet with a fine-tooth comb looking piece of equipment that had a laser light on it and peering into some of the tiny cracks in the wall around the fireplace.

The Debose’s were old world aristocrats from Europe they had several titles and lots and lots of money. The historical patriarch was Count Debose he and most of his family migrated to America from France in 1623 (three years after the landing of the Mayflower). The family loaded two huge ships filled with all of their belongings to include a gigantic chest filled with gold and silver coins. Count Debose made his living in Europe by owning several properties that were used as brothels and gambling salons. These places catered to very wealthy men who wanted to have fun in ways not acceptable in polite society.

He transitioned easily after arriving in the colonies to supplying enslaved Africans to work the fields. Yes, he became a slaver! He would commission ships and make semi-annual trips to West Africa. Where he would negotiate with the chiefs of warring tribes to buy the losers of the conflicts to fill his ships The winners readily sold their captives to the European and Arab slavers.

He brought in ships of human cargo in collaboration with the New Africa Company out of England since they held the rights to dock at the ports. The enslaved people packed like sardines in a can in the hull of the ships were barely fed, sanitation was non-existent, many died of diseases because of having to lie in their own body waste for weeks at a time aboard the ship. Once the ships landed the local wealthy class got the first opportunity to inspect and choose who they wanted to purchase from the Count. After cleaning and stocking the ships with provisions the trans-Atlantic ships continued on to south America usually to Brazil. The Count would fill at least a dozen smaller ships that were part of the US East West Coastal Slave Shipping Routes with the balance of the human cargo. They would stop at the Port of Charleston, SC, then Mobile, AL then on to the Gulf stopping at the Port of New Orleans and then Houston.

This sordid business made huge sums of money for the Count and his family over time allowing them to increase their business exponentially. So much so they bought out a lot of the competition and purchased shares in the New Africa Company in England. Count Debose generated wealth that is still benefitting his family in the 21st century. The slave business was just that lucrative.

The indigenous people did not fare well working in the cotton fields of the south or anywhere else for that matter. Because of getting ill due to exposure to the white overseers who had diseases the indigenous population had no immunity plus their negative attitude about working for them, made it easier to have the Africans work the fields. Using white indenture servants did not work due to them being under contract for only 4-7 years. Since they were white like the slavers, they had rights regardless of their economic status and the overseers had a difficult time treating them as they did the Africans. This fact was a huge benefit to the slavers like the Count.

Many of the slavers and their workers thought the Africans were just savages who did not have a stake in the land or rights and were perfect for the purpose of working long hours in the mines, tiling soil, harvesting crops, cooking and cleaning in the grand mansions and on smaller farms. Well, some white folks of the period even thought they were doing the enslaved Africans a favor. They were saving them from the wilds of their homeland where they ran around half naked and could be attacked and eaten by wild beast. At least as slaves they were clothed and did get to eat and become more civilized.

The group of enslaved people who were shipped down south and to the Caribbean found the conditions horrific the steamy heat, bugs, torturous punishment and the occasional clashes that their white owners would have with the remaining indigenous tribes in some of the regions. They made the necessary adjustments to the hardship for their survival and picked cotton, cut cane (sugar cane) and worked in the homes as domestic servants. Some of the indigenous tribes had also enslaved the Africans brought to the colonies. It was a business just like sex trafficking is the human cargo business of today.

Some drug dealers have left the smuggling and selling illegal drugs to traffic young girls and women. It is much easier for them to traffic the women and girls than to be responsible for huge amounts of drugs that need to be processed before going to the street for sale.