A reverse Cinderella story

I woke up to the sound of trumpets blowing that morning, this is when things really changed for me. My handmade came and dressed me and quickly ushered me to my father’s court. By the looks on everyone’s face I knew something frightening was happening. Then I saw them, the Portuguese trader and his interpreter standing in front of my parents. I took my seat next to my father, my father nodded his permission to the man. The man said “ I am here to establish a trade relation between our two peoples” “what type of trade do you speak of sir?” I could tell even then what my father was thinking “here comes one of these no good portuguese slave traders”. The man said, “gunpowder and horses in exchange for slaves” “ I will not give my own people away to a life of tyranny in exchange for wealth,” My father said. Then the two men left just like that! Well my mother said sighing I bet that won’t be the last of them, and she was right.

Mother was right, from then on there was always at least 2 Portuguese men in our village. They continued to make offers to my father that he refused in his court. After awhile strange things started happening; villagers kept claiming their livestock was being stolen, babies would go missing in the middle of the night, the other villages began to treat us coldly, our peanut storages were diminishing. I could see our village changing for the worst; there were less festivals,music,singing, dancing, the stories stopped, and everyone seemed afraid.

I was also able to sense the fear, like sharp fingers digging into my heart. I had taken to sleeping with my parents again since about a month after the 2 men showed up. That night I got in bed with them but I lay awake. Finally I asked, “father why don’t you just give in to the portuguese so they will leave us alone?”My parents looked at each other, then father said, “what they want is wrong, our village is like a body and they want to chop off a limb by taking people. Then imagine that limb growing back and them continuing to chop it off every time.”What do they do with the slaves?” I ask, “they take them to work in America where they are beaten and starved to death”, mother told me. I Thought about all of this as I lay in bed until I finally fell asleep.

The next morning after breakfast I told mother I wanted to go out and welcome the hunting party back. “Ok but be careful”, mother said. The Portuguese were always causing trouble now days so father sent me with 3 armed guards. We left the stone gates of the palace, the men forming a triangle around me with bows ready. We headed toward turtle rock at the edge of our village where people usually assemble to greet the hunters. No one was there yet because we were early, so I sat down and we waited. BOOM! The man standing in front of me hits the ground. I jump up, the other 2 men look around trying to figure out where to aim. BOOM! The man to the left falls. Then from behind the bushes 2 men with guns and nets tackle me, my guard races forward to protect me but gets shot with one of the guns. I fight off my attackers as best I can, but they are much stronger. One of them knocks me out in the head with his fist, everything goes black. I woke up laying on the ground with hard metal chains on my ankles and wrists tying me to other captors. There were about 15 of us, we were at what seemed like a small camp and there were about 5 Portuguese men. There were also these strange animals I had never seen before like donkeys but faster and with tails. I was hungry and thirsty so I was glad when one of the men came over and gave us cassava and vegetables and water. It was dark out by now and I felt terrified. Here I was chained up, away from my parents and village, I began to cry. I cried and cried until one man came over and slapped me. This only made me cry harder, “Adaeze” I heard my name called. I look around then I see the source, a girl of about 19 who looks to be from my village.

The girl is chained a few feet away from me. She is tall and has short tight curly hair. “My name is Amara” the girl says “you are the Chief’s daughter right?” I nodded “I’m sorry you got captured” she says. “You should try to sleep who we will need our energy for tomorrow”, Amara tells me. I wake up the next morning to men shouting at us and hitting us with sticks. Amara gets up so I do too. We start walking, feet chained together, it hurt I had never been in chains before. I felt angry, how dare they do this to me and treat me like this! How dare they treat other people like this! We had been walking all day and my feet were tired now. I tried to stop, but got pulled to the ground by the people around me. The men noticed all this and came over, one man pointed at me I was unchained. Then another man held me up while the first whipped me 5 times. Blood streamed down my back I cried and screamed and punched the man in the nose. I bit his cheek, he dropped me. Immediately the other men rushed at me, I kicked one in the lower parts, but the other 3 tackled me and shackled me into the chain again. The other captors looked at me fearfully, and from then on one of the men always had his eye one us. This was the routine of things for the next few days, I cried a lot and Amara tried to comfort me. Then something in the air changed I smelled salty and tasted wilder, I new we had reached the ocean.

We stopped for the night and the daily cassava and water rations came around. I was so hungry all the time now, sometimes Amara would share a little bit of her ration with me. “What happens now” I ask Amara? “Tomorrow a giant ship will come and take us to what they call the Americas” she said. I remembered what my parents had told me before about people being kidnapped to toil until death in the America’s and I shuttered. Other captors heard what Amara had said and began whispering amongst themselves. It was hard to sleep that night, I cried and snuggled next to Amara. When I finally woke up the next morning they made us march a little bit further then we stopped. There it was looming imposingly in front of us just as Amara described the ship that would take us away forever! All around me people started to sing a deep low melancholy tone that pierced my heart. I saw men on board the ship, soon they came down and stood in front of us. They looked us up and down then nodded. A man walked up to each of us with a hot metal rod in hand, I looked at Amara, “he is branding them”, she said. Then he walked up to me, hot fiery pain seized my hip I blacked out. When I opened my eyes Amara was holding me up in a strained hug due to the chains. One of the men pointed for us to board the ship, so we started walking again. Once on deck the men opened a trap door to the cargo hold and made us go down. It was dark, damp, hot, crammed and there was little air.

We were made to lay down shoulder to shoulder, head to toe with no space in between. Luckily I was put next to Amara. There were only about 4 inches above our heads not nearly enough to sit up. Then they closed the cargo hatch and it was stifling! I felt like I couldn’t breath, like I might faint. I couldn’t possibly survive three months on this ship! Then we started moving I felt like I would throw up. I was afraid that I might drown because I was on the bottom of the ship. I could hear the sounds of people around me throwing up on themselves. “The worst part about getting sick or going to the bathroom here is that you have to do it on yourself or your neighbor and it will be on you until we get to the Americas”, “how can I avoid this” I asked. “ I don’t know, I have never been on these ships before, but I don’t think you can”, Amara said. “Try to sleep so you don’t suffer so much” Amara said. I tried but was so uncomfortable I didn’t know how I would ever sleep. Somehow I did though, I slept most of that journey. Occasionally a man came down to give us some strange tasting food and water. It was barely enough to survive, I was hungry and thirsty everyday. I could feel that I had soiled myself countless times by now but I was so used to it. I have often thought about my parents and cried, I heard the disparing mouns of others and knew that they were thinking about their past and their loved ones too. One day we heard a loud horn from up on the deck. In a dry raspy voice Amara said, “Adaeze that is the horn that we have reached America.”

The ship docked and the cargo hatch was opened. “ this is where we will likely be separated”, Amara said to me. I was already scared out of my mind, I was in a new country starving to death and dying and now I was being told that I will lose the one person that I had just met. I started to cry again as they made us come on deck. In chains they made us walk down to the shore. There there was a group of men waiting to receive us. They made us walk until we came to a giant building with a huge platform in front. There were people gathered in front of the platform watching, men would unchain us one by one. Then I saw people being dragged onto the platform and their body parts being maneuvered as though they would know more than dolls, the audience would point or laugh at them. We were still soiled from our trip no one had given us a chance to bath. Then one of the men grabbed me he picked me up and put me on the stage. I was completely humiliated I was soiled and half naked I was bone skinny and bruised and bloody. He roughly lifted each of my arms, I tried to push him away. He was startled at first, but then he only tightened his grip and sneered at me. One man in the audience was particularly impressed by this and found it to be hysterically funny. He pointed at me than called out some gibberish that I could not understand. The man holding me brought me over to him, I wriggled and squirmed and kicked and tried to get free but he was too strong. I looked pleadingly at Amara my eyes screaming rescue me, rescue me. I saw her eyes filled with tears and her shake her head and cover her face and look away. I was trapped at the feet of the new man and he forced me to stand. He pinched and prodded me all over, I glared up at him. Then he tied me up and put me in the back of a wagon. The wagon was attached to one of those strange creatures that I had seen before, like a racing donkey with a tail. He got on the creature and we begin moving further and further away from that's strange place with the platform and the spectators in the building, further away from my life before, Further away from Amara.