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Stretching Out, Part Six: King of the Jungle

Written by Iver P. Cooper

 

Paramaribo (Gustavus), Suriname

Short Dry Season (February-March, 1635)

 

"My children. Help find?" The Dutch words were painfully enunciated, clearly learned by rote.

Maria Vorst put down the chalk with which she had been drawing, and studied the questioner. The tall black man, by his markings, was Coromantee. They were the people living in what the up-timers called Ghana. He was one of the two hundred or so slaves who the Gustavans had freed from the distressed slave ship Tritón when it had come hunting for drinking water.

Perhaps half of the slaves knew some Portuguese, either because their tribes had traded with the Portuguese, or because they learned it after their capture. Only a few knew Dutch, the Dutch presence in Africa being more recent and more limited.

Unfortunately, the Gustavans were mostly Dutch and German, and hardly any of them knew Portuguese. Maria, despite being far better educated than the rest of the colonists, didn't know much herself, although she was trying to fit language lessons into her schedule.

Fortunately, her teacher was nearby. "Mauricio, come here please!" Mauricio, a freed mulatto, born in Portuguese Brazil, had been trained there as a scribe and interpreter. Because of the large slave population in Brazil, he knew African, as well as European, languages. Once, he and Henrique had lived in Recife, and Mauricio had gone time after time to the dock to meet and greet, in his capacity as interpreter, the "wild" slaves, just delivered there to work on the sugar plantations. Most came from Angola, but there were slaves from all over Africa.

Maria remembered that there had been a few children among the slaves they had freed. She explained the situation to Mauricio and had him translate. "What are your children's names? How old are they? What do they look like?"

Mauricio turned to the Coromantee. They spoke rapidly together, first in Portuguese, and then in the Twi dialect of Akan.

"I am Kojo of the Asante. My boy Manu has seen thirteen summers, and his sister Mansa, eleven." Kojo described them.

"Where did you see them last?"

The answer was not what Maria expected.

"In Edina."

"Edina?" interjected her companion, Mauricio. "You mean São Jorge da Mina?" The man nodded.

Mauricio turned to Maria. "He was separated from his children back in Africa, in the Portuguese fortress you Dutch call Elmina."

"Elmina? My husband, may God rest his soul, spoke of it once, as a place of great trade. Somewhat enviously, I must say."

Mauricio nodded. "Enviously? That's for sure. The Dutch tried to take Elmina in 1625." He paused. "Where is this husband of yours, by the way?"

"He was lost at sea," Maria said.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you. It was years ago. And to be honest, I didn't know him all that well."

"Anyway," Mauricio continued, "Elmina was the first Portuguese base in Africa. On what we call the 'Gold Coast.' A century ago, it accounted for a tenth of the entire gold trade. There's still gold mined in that area, but nowadays Elmina is mostly a slave depot. Dozens of slave ships visit every year."

"Does he know which ship they were put on? Not the name, of course, but can he describe it? The number of masts? Or of its gunports? The figurehead?"

"I'll ask." He questioned Kojo further, then shook his head.

"Sorry, Maria. They don't give the captives the run of the fort you know. The children were taken first. He saw them at one point, in a different pen, so they were there when he arrived, but the guards didn't let him join them and they were sold off before he was. When he was put on the Tritón, he hoped that it would take him to the same place."

"So, is it hopeless? What do we tell him, Mauricio?"

Mauricio suddenly looked much older than usual. "I don't know. It does seem hopeless. If I think of something, I will let you know. In the meantime, all I can do is say that we will pray that they are safe, and that if we learn anything about their whereabouts, we will tell him right away."

"That seems so . . . ineffectual."

Mauricio shrugged.

"Wait," said Maria. "If he can provide a good enough description, I can draw them. Then you and he can show the drawings around, see if anyone knows more. And at worst, perhaps the drawings will give him some comfort."

Mauricio explained what Maria wanted to do. Maria didn't want to waste her precious paper, so she drew on a piece of slate. It was easier to erase that way, too. She decided to try to draw the boy first, guessing that his features would be similar to, but younger than, his father's. She erased a line here and added a curve there until the father seem satisfied.

Then she pulled out a second slate, duplicated the boy's picture, and then had Mauricio find out what needed to be changed for it to represent the girl. That took quite a bit more give and take, but at last it was done.

Then she made a copy to paper of the images of the boy and girl, for Mauricio, and gave the slates to the Coromantee. She had plenty of slate from one of her expeditions upriver.

"I hope this helps," said Maria.

****

The Coromantee reverently set down the slates. He had been pleasantly surprised to discover that one of the whites was a tindana, a priestess of the Earth Goddess. Who else would place a magical incantation on a rock?

Now she had blessed him with a talisman by which he could speak to his children. Perhaps even call them back to him.

He had almost lost hope, had contemplated walking into the Great Sea.

He wondered how he could possibly repay her.

****

"Blue or red?" said Johann Mueller, spreading his hands, each pointing at a different pile of beads.

The young Eboe woman reached slowly toward a blue bead, then jerked her hand back. Two Eboe matrons, baskets on top of their heads, watched the interplay. Johann had no idea what they were saying, but he fancied they were placing bets on which color his customer would settle on.

Business had been good. The Eboe were very fond of beads. Both men and women were accustomed to wearing beaded necklaces. Since they had come to the New World as slaves, they had only whatever they had been wearing when they were sold to European slavers. And once they were freed, they wanted to adorn themselves, to distinguish themselves from their companions.

To buy beads, or anything else, they needed something to trade. And that meant that they needed to fish, hunt, grow crops, mine, or craft artifacts. Either on their own account, or as contract labor. Samuel Johnson's epigram—about liberty being the choice of working or starving—was known only in countries exposed to up-time literature, but the Africans were quick to appreciate the limits of the liberty the Gustavans had conferred upon them.

Of course, thought Johann, they were no worse off than the Gustavans in that regard. It was fortunate that the slave ship still had several months supply of food. Better yet, they had seeds to plant. Mauricio had told Johann that there was an Eboe insult, " I bet you even eat your yam seeds." The colonists had supplied water, and they had made and sold farm implements to the Africans, but they were expecting a return.

"Hello, Johann, how's business?" asked Mauricio.

Johann jumped. If Johann were a superstitious man, he might worry that his thoughts had summoned Mauricio.

"Fine, fine. Would you ask this young lady whether she has made up her mind?" Mauricio did so. She ended up trading for an equal number of both colors.

Mauricio walked over to the watching women. He held up the drawings Maria had made. "Did you see these Coromantee children before you boarded the giant canoe with the white wings?" That was, more or less, the proper way to describe a European sailing ship.

They shook their heads.

He heard a cough behind him. He turned, and saw Heinrich Bender. "Teach me some Portuguese, Mauricio. I need to be able to bargain with the blacks."

"What do you want to know?"

Heinrich smiled. "You can start with 'How much?' and 'Too much.'"

Mauricio laughed. "I should start a school."

"You should, Mauricio. You've been teaching Portuguese to Maria, I know, so why not teach a bunch of people at once?"

"I could, I suppose. Although Maria knows Latin, which makes it much easier for her than it would be for you German peasants." Mauricio smiled to show he was joking.

"I mean it, Mauricio. Teach Portuguese to us, and English or German to Africans. Earn some money."

"Perhaps I will. I can teach the Mandinka trade talk, too. The problem isn't just us talking to the Africans, it's getting them talking to each other."

 

****

 

The Eboe stood up, shading his eyes with one hand and hefting his fishing spear in the other. He kept his balance in the canoe with the ease of long practice. He had often gone fishing on the Niger and its tributaries. The dugout canoe, made by one of the local Surinamese Indians, was made from a strange tree, but he had learned to handle it quickly enough.

It was a good time to fish; early on a Sunday morning, when the colonists of Gustavus, across the river, were at prayer, or enjoying their day of rest.

There. A dark shape in the water. He threw.

Missed. The float bobbed in the water, as if it were laughing at him. He shrugged philosophically, and pulled on the retrieval line. He took in a few feet and then it resisted. Clearly, the spear was caught in something.

Back home, he might have chosen to abandon the spear. Here, he couldn't afford to do so. The Gustavans had freed the blacks, but that didn't mean that they felt obliged to give them much in the way of goods. For anything more than water, and a bit of food, they expected the blacks to work. The hospitality of the Indian tribes also had its limits.

He didn't care about the spear shaft—there was plenty of wood around—but a metal spear point, made by the Gustavan smith . . . that was another matter.

He tied the near end of the rope about the canoe, as best he could, and then dived into the water.

When, he emerged, his teeth were chattering. Not with cold, but with fright. There was a boat, with dead men, resting on the shallow river bottom. And not just any men, but the terrible white men who had taken them across the Great Sea. Had they turned into river demons?

He clambered into the canoe and just lay there, trying to calm down. The pleasant warmth of the sun had a lulling effect. He drew a knife, and was about to cut the rope away and head back to shore, when he had a change of heart.

If the bad men turned into river demons, surely they would have drowned someone weeks ago. And there would have been talk.

So these were just dead men. Dead men still holding their weapons, and with other valuable goods on their persons.

Who needs a spear shaft, if one has a sword? he thought. And with that, he paddled the boat closer to the sunken longboat, and then jumped back into the water.

Some time later, he beached the canoe, and gazed with satisfaction at the pile of goods heaped beside him. A half dozen cutlasses, a gold bracelet, and other odds and ends. He was rich now, by the standards of the ex-slaves. Rich beyond his wildest dreams.

With this, he would be an ozo, a big man. A giver of great gifts. And when he ran out, he could slip back here, and collect more goods. He would have a round stool, with three legs, and a stool carrier. He would have the town smith make him an iron staff, with bells attached. He would wear a red hat.

As he mused over these attractive possibilities, he was grabbed from behind. He tried to reach for one of the weapons so close to his feet, but the attackers pulled him back, away from the canoe, and tapped the side of his head with a war club.

When he came to, he was hanging, head down. One of his fellow ex-slaves, from an unfamiliar tribe, was studying him. Three others, who seemed from their markings to be of the same tribe, lounged nearby.

"Ah," the warrior said to his fellows, "our fish is squirming. Should we toss him back into the water, or throw him into the pot?" His filed teeth suggested that this was not a metaphor.

The Eboe had no idea what they were saying, but was pretty sure it didn't bode well for him. He began pleading for his life, first in his native tongue, then in Mandinka trade talk.

The warrior held up one of the weapons. "Where did you get these?"

"Spare me, and I will show where to find more."

 

Near modern Paranam, Suriname

 

Heinrich Bender held up the chunk of rock. "This is what we are looking for." Kojo had asked Mauricio whether the Gustavans had any mines, and one thing had led to another.

Kojo, and the two Coromantee he had brought with him, studied the specimen. Kojo took it in his hand, then returned it with a moue of distaste.

"Worthless clay. We gold miners, not dirt farmers."

"This is bauxite," said Henrich. "Very useful. Back home they can make it into a metal which looks like silver but is as almost as light as wood. The Americans call it 'aluminum.'"

"You smelt it?" The Coromantees had been smithing for centuries.

"Not exactly. Uh—Maria, could you explain?"

Maria had researched the possible products of Suriname before the expedition was launched. She knew more about aluminum than anyone else west of the Line of Tordesillas.

"We wash the bauxite with hot lye to make alumina, and then we run electricity through a mixture of alumina and cryolite to melt it down and transform it."

"What is cryolite?"

"It is a stone that it is found in Greenland—that is a land far to the north, where it is so cold that the water is hard like rock. "

The Coromantees digested this information. Magic stone, they thought.

"And electricity?"

"That is like lightning."

Any doubts which Kojo's fellow Coromantees had, as to whether Maria was as powerful a priestess as Kojo had told them, were now dispelled.

"Anyway," said Heinrich, "don't worry too much about the color—it can be white, yellow, red or brown. It is soft, so soft I can scratch like this, see? " He scratched with his fingernail. "But the real proof is that it has this funny 'raisin pie' texture." He pointed at one of the little pea-sized concretions.

"And where do we find it?"

"It is usually easiest to dig it up from the sides of stream banks."

Kojo flashed his teeth. "Fine. Now let's talk price."

The Gustavans didn't care for digging in the constant heat and humidity; it was worse than farming. So they were happy to give the Coromantee the opportunity to mine the bauxite.

Of course, that meant that the Coromantee had to be allowed to shift their village to the west side of the river, the Gustavus side, since that's where the known deposits were. The colonists debated this a bit, but Carsten Claus, the acting governor of the colony, pointed out that the deposits were still more than a day's march south of Gustavus, and so the Gustavans didn't have to worry about casual thievery on the part of their new neighbors.

What really clinched the deal was when Heyndrick de Liefde, who was the cousin of the colony's founder, David de Vries, suggested that the Coromantee would act as a buffer if the English colony further south, at Marshall's Creek, got restive. There were many Dutch among the colonists, and given the treacherous attack by the English on the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Ostend, they weren't happy about the proximity of the English, who had come before them to Suriname.

Only some of the Coromantees made the move. As Mauricio told the Gustavans, the word "Coromantee" just meant any slave who was sold out of the port of Kormantin. So it included Asante, Denkyira, Fante, Akwamu, and of course slaves from further north. Kojo was Asante. It was his people, and the Denkyira, who controlled the gold fields of Ghana. The Akwamu were to the east, but they were very friendly with the Asante, so they came, too, albeit as farmers, not miners. The Fante were fisher folk, somewhat hostile to the Asante, and decided to stay near Fort Lincoln.

****

Borguri, who had been the highest ranking of all the Imbangala on board the Tritón, had declared himself their chief when they were freed by the Gustavans. He fought two duels to secure his position, but in view of their small number, had declined to kill either challenger. To make sure that they didn't consider this a sign of weakness, he beat them to within an inch of their lives. They now obeyed him with seemingly doglike devotion.

It was a pity, he thought, that the guns recovered from the longboat were unusable. But he kept them. If his warriors carried them openly, their opponents would think that they worked, and would respond accordingly. They might flee, instead of charging, perhaps. And, if they weren't fooled, well, the guns were reasonably good war clubs.

The freed slaves had divided into groups along tribal lines, and spread out in the area east of the Suriname River. The Imbangala had raided the weakest of the nearby groups, for provisions and tools that might be used as weapons, but since the Africans started with little in the way of possessions, they weren't very productive targets. Not yet, at least.

For the moment, while the Imbangala regained their strength, they concentrated on stealing, not killing. The only exception was if they encountered any of the Ndongo, who they had fought back in what an up-timer would call Angola. 'Ngola was the title of the Ndongo king, Nzinga. Who actually was a queen.

The white traders who circulated among the African settlements were more tempting prey. But Borguri wasn't ready to attack the whites yet. Not even those traders, let alone the white colony west of the river. The whites were too well armed, he didn't want to draw their attention yet. His warriors could steal from the whites, if they could avoid being spotted, but no more. If spotted, they must just flee. No killing. Yet.

The Indians, now. . . . At first, the Imbangala had avoided confrontations with them. After all, this was their land. Who knew what spirit protections they had? And of course they had missile weapons, which the Imbangala had to make for themselves. But the Imbangala's contempt for the Indians grew. They were clearly primitives, like the upriver Africans the Imbangala captured for sale to the Portuguese.

The Imbangala chief studied the Indian villages nearest to the Imbangala camp. When did they hunt, what weapons did they carry, did they make war on other villages, did they set sentries when they held festivals. After some time, he picked the Imbangala's first native target.

The Indians had been drinking piwari all day and night. They were ripe for the plucking. There was just one more matter to attend to.

Borguri looked at the Eboe fisherman. His head had been shaved, and ashes from the Imbangala hearth fire sprinkled over it, to erase his old identity, to remove him from the protection of his ancestral spirits. Assuming that they cared what happened to him across the Great Sea. In the ordinary course of things, in a few weeks he would go through a binding ritual which would make him property of Imbangala's lineage, and drive thoughts of escape from his mind.

But no war party could set forth without at least one human sacrifice, to please the gods and feed the warriors.

****

Mauricio spoke to the sentry. "I need to talk to him." The guard shrugged. "Watch your step."

Mauricio took a deep breath and entered the hut. The change in illumination, from the high tropical sun to the indoor gloom, was stunning. It was several minutes before he could see much beyond the tip of his nose, and he said nothing until his eyes adjusted. At last he could make out the dark figure sleeping, or pretending to sleep, at the far end of the hut, his arms and legs both shackled, and the leg shackles in turn fastened to a chain which circled the great tree trunk that rose from the ground, piercing the roof of the hut.

"I have a few questions for you."

"Do you now? Come a little closer, so I can hear you better." The erstwhile slaver captain rattled his chain. "It's not as though I can come closer to you."

"I'll just speak louder, thanks," said Mauricio. The first day after his capture, the captain had half-strangled the man who brought him food. The captain was then punished, by being given nothing to eat for several days, and was fed only after he apologized properly. Mauricio was not especially reassured by this expression of contrition.

The captain laughed and laughed, then stopped abruptly. "Well, well, I am a busy man, as you can see. So be quick about it."

"It's a small matter. One of the Coromantee said that his two children were kidnapped and taken to Elmina for sale. He pursued the kidnappers and was captured in turn."

The captain snickered.

"He spotted the children in a pen, but that was all."

"How old were they?"

"The boy thirteen, the girl eleven."

"Ah, a good age. They can be trained as domestic servants, or be taught a trade and hired out. Of course, they are long-term investments. "

Mauricio suppressed the urge to strangle the captain. "So, do you know what happened to them?"

"I can make a educated guess. But what's in it for me?"

Mauricio hesitated. He had already read the ship's log, and quizzed all of the other survivors of the slaver's crew. The captain, damn his soul, was Mauricio's last hope.

"I suppose I could do something about your rations, if I thought your answer was sufficiently helpful."

"My rations, eh? Well, that's not good enough. I want my freedom."

Mauricio turned and started to walk out.

"Wait, young fellow." Mauricio stopped.

"They can put a ball on this chain and let me walk about a bit, outside. Where would I run to, after all? If the Africans didn't get me, the Indians would."

"I promise that if you give me the information I need, I will speak to the governor, and request this boon."

"Not on my behalf. As a favor to you for all the . . . assistance . . . you have given him. To redeem your word."

"Yes, as a favor to me! Now talk, damn you!"

****

The attack took the Indians by surprise. The men were too drunk to put up a fight at all. The women weren't in much better state.

The men of warrior age were slain and eaten, to the horror of their kin. Not that cannibalism was unknown in South America, but of course the Africans had different rituals and so far as the Indians were concerned, what the Imbangala were doing was completely wrong!

The younger boys were gathered together. They would be taught, brutally, that they were now Imbangala. The young women would become wives of the senior Imbangala warriors, and the older men and women would be put to work, as slaves, in the fields. If the old men thought that farming was beneath their dignity they would be beaten until they rethought the matter.

A week or so after the assault, one of the young women managed to escape. Tetube hid in an old hunter's shelter that her brother had once pointed out, until the Imbangala tired of searching for her. Then she slipped down river.

 

Long Rainy Season (April to July, 1635)

 

Carsten raised his hands. "All right, I can't hear anyone if you all talk at once."

"We've had goods stolen, time and again," one colonist, who frequently made trading forays across the river, complained.

"Anyone killed?"

"Not yet," the trader admitted.

"That's not all," said a second colonist. "The Africans are already killing each other."

"Are you surprised?" asked Henrique, Mauricio's white half-brother. "It's not as though they were all that friendly back in Africa, you know. That's how at least half of them ended up as slaves in the first place. They fight these little wars, and the prisoners get sold."

"So the villages are armed camps, now," added the trader. "It makes it tough to do business. The Africans are thinking more about fighting than about farming, I assure you. They have less to trade and sooner or later some nervous sentry is going to shoot an arrow or throw a spear into one of us."

"We just find out who started it, and teach them a lesson," said Heyndrick. "That's what cousin David did with the Indians in America."

"You mean kill them?" asked Michael Krueger. " I have a better idea. If a tribe can't keep its people from stealing or killing, then I think it should be considered lawful to re-enslave them all."

"Ah, lawful war," said Mauricio. "The Portuguese did that in Brazil, with the Indians. Funny thing was, there always seemed to be a lawful reason to enslave any tribe which was too weak to resist."

Henrique held up his hand. "There's worse news."

Carsten gave Henrique his full attention. He knew that Henrique was a woodsman, and he and Mauricio's Manao Indian brother-in-law, Coqui, moved freely among the Indians in the affected region. "What?"

"We've had reports that some of the Africans have real weapons. Steel swords. Guns even. Some Indian villages have been attacked."

"Where could they get them from?" Carsten wondered, aloud.

"The Spanish. Or the Portuguese," Denys Zager suggested. He scowled at Henrique and Mauricio.

Henrique scowled right back. "We are wanted men in Brazil. And Maria and Heyndrick transported us here, from hundreds of miles away. They can vouch for the fact that we brought only our personal weapons with us."

Zager folded his arms across his beer barrel chest. "You say you're refugees, but how do we know? Perhaps your Indian friends are helping you smuggle weapons here from your friends in Brazil."

"Enough," said Carsten firmly. "The accusation is ridiculous. Please don't distract us from the real problem."

"Perhaps," Maria offered tentatively, "we should help the good Africans, the ones who are just trying to defend themselves, deal with the troublemakers themselves."

"You mean, give arms to the 'good' Africans? That's crazy."

Carsten clapped his hands. "We will try to figure out which Africans are the source of the problem, and deal with them. With or without African allies, as seems best at the time.

"For the moment, the Africans who wish to trade will have to come to us, not us to them. We'll set up a trading post just outside Fort Lincoln. We'll strengthen the inland defenses there, too. And I think we better institute river patrols. Hopefully, the blacks'll all calm down after a while."

****

Borguri held out his favorite whetstone, and one of his new Arawak wives dutifully poured water over it, letting the liquid cascade down into a waiting basin. A tied-up African watched in fear, not knowing what would happen next.

He pointed to the basin. "Drink," he ordered. The cowering captive complied.

Borguri then hit him over the head with the stone. "My sword serves me, my stone serves my sword, my water washes my stone, you have drunk my water. Your ancestors have forgotten you; mine watch your every move, your every thought. You are mine."

He gave the slave a playful cuff, and ordered, "Back to work."

The slave should be thankful. Now that he was officially part of Borguri's lineage—albeit at the lowest level—he was unlikely to be picked as a pre-battle sacrifice.

Borguri frowned. The process of assimilation just wasn't fast enough. Borguri needed a cadre of true Imbangala to serve as role-models for the coerced recruits, and to discipline those who didn't comply with the rules. There were only so many new recruits he could absorb within a period of a few months.

But if he took too long to build up his strength, the Ndongo would make or buy themselves decent weapons, and counterattack.

So Borguri had made a decision. Just as the Imbangala of old had allied themselves to the Portuguese, Borguri would ally his tribe to one of the Carib Indian tribes. One which, he had learned, was not happy about the white presence in their vicinity. Borguri felt confident that they would be delighted by the prospect of revenge and plunder which Borguri would hold out to them.

Of course, once the whites were driven out, the Caribs would no doubt turn upon the Imbangala.

Except that the Imbangala would turn on them first.

****

Mauricio walked up beside Maria, coughed. "About that Coromantee man."

Maria looked up. "Yes? You thought of something?"

"I questioned the crew. Even the captain. They didn't remember the children, of course. What're two slaves among hundreds? But they did know which ship left Elmina before they did. And where it was headed."

"Well?"

"The Fenix. Bound for Havana."

"Well, that's something. I imagine there would be records of who was sold out of which ship, to which plantation. And there can't have been that many children. But he certainly can't go there and ask, can he?"

"He would need to learn Spanish of course. And if he didn't want to be a slave within seconds after stepping onto the dock, he would need a letter of manumission. Preferably, from a Spanish source."

"Henrique could write the letter, couldn't he? Portugal being under the Spanish crown, they would honor a Portuguese document. And I wouldn't think a minor port official in Santo Domingo is going to have been informed that Henrique is a heretic."

"Probably not. But then there's the other problem. The financial one. He would have to buy his children. And he doesn't have any money."

"Well, it's going to take him months, if not years, to learn Spanish, and more important how he must act if he wants to be successful. The important thing is that we can give him a reason to hope."

A moment later she added, "A reason to live."

****

Carsten Claus looked out across the expanse of the Suriname. The river was perhaps half a mile across here. The vegetation on the far bank was dense; there could be an army of Africans hiding there, for all he knew. He wished he knew how the troublemakers were arming themselves. He suspected that the Portuguese in Belem do Para, or the Spanish in Santiago de León de Caracas, were involved, to harass ...