The Lamplighter, стр. 14

Scene 16: Freedom

LAMPLIGHTER:

This is the story of the Lamplighter:

One day, I finally managed to tell

My story. I wrote it down.

It was printed and reprinted

And told.

And retold again.

MARY:

At the end of the long day

I found a free man

Who loved me, even though

I was scarred all over.

He’d kiss me gently,

And hold my rough hands

To his face.

His voice was rich, melodious.

He tried to buy my freedom

FatMan wouldn’t let me go.

BLACK HARRIOT:

My children

Were his children.

I could always see his eyes in their eyes.

I don’t know where they’ve gone.

What’s become of them.

(With bravado.)

They haven’t had anything

I didn’t have.

I never knew my mother.

And I managed. Life’s tough!

SONG:

(Spiritual repeated.)

ALL (sings):

I went down in the valley one day

Good Lord, show me the way

Talking about that good old way,

Good Lord, show me the way.

CONSTANCE:

My children are scattered,

Maybe dead, maybe alive.

I wonder if I will ever see my wise boy,

My bean girl, if they’ll ever

Try and come and find me.

LAMPLIGHTER:

And one day the years caught up with me

I turned round, and there they were,

All the years,

ANNIWAA:

There I was

LAMPLIGHTER:

The years, facing me. Her hair plaited with thread. She has climbed down from the tree. She is wearing her mother’s yellow head-tie. Her arms on her hips

BLACK HARRIOT:

Eyes steady

MARY:

Mouth open

CONSTANCE:

Words ready

ANNIWAA:

To be spoken

BLACK HARRIOT:

This is not the end

LAMPLIGHTER:

Only when I turned and faced her,

Standing there like that,

Could I begin to tell this story.

ANNIWAA:

I am a girl. I am in the dark. I don’t know how long I’ve been kept in the dark. High above me, there is a tiny crack of light. Last time I counted, I was eleven, nearly twelve.

CONSTANCE:

Eventually I got my freedom.

I had to work to buy my shack,

Had to pay them back for

My own work!

I became Aunty to all the children.

All children are my grandchildren.

Sometimes I tell them the stories.

Sometimes, I sit quiet.

I’m just hearing where the breeze is coming from.

MARY:

You know the funny thing?

Big Man is dead. Houselady dead.

The driver is dead. The overseer man passed

Away last autumn. And me Mary

Who hardly ate a thing

And was beaten till

An inch of my life.

I survived! Trust in Jesus!

I survived them all.

LAMPLIGHTER:

Nobody told my story.

ANNIWAA:

I don’t know how long I’ll be kept in the dark.

ALL:

HushShhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

MACBEAN:

She never said a word.

LAMPLIGHTER:

This is my story.

ANNIWAA:

I am a girl.

CONSTANCE:

One day I would like to tell my grandchildren.

If I could find them; I would tell them.

BLACK HARRIOT:

This sure as hell is my story!

MARY:

This happened to me, the Lord knows it’s the truth.

ANNIWAA:

Once upon a time, I lived in a house with a cone-shaped roof, in a big compound. My mother grew okra and pumpkin in her yard. My father shaped woods and metals.

USEFUL SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano: Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (Penguin Classics)

Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself (Wilder Publications)

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth Dictated by Sojourner Truth (Penguin Classics)

The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave related by Herself (Wilder Publications)

Afua Cooper: The Hanging of Angelique: the untold story of Canadian Slavery (University of Georgia Press)

Hugh Thomas: The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Simon & Schuster)

Adam Hochschild: Bury the Chains (Houghton Mifflin)

C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (Vintage)

Eric Williams: Capitalism and Slavery (Cambridge University Press)

James Walvin: Britain’s Slave Empire (Wiley-Blackwell)

James Walvin: Black Ivory: History of British Slavery (Fontana)

Robin Blackburn: The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776-1848 (Verso)

Hilary Beckles: Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (Rutgers University Press)

Lucille Mathurin Mair, Hilary Beckles & Verene A. Shepherd: Historical Study of Women in Jamaica, 1655-1844 (University of West Indies Press)

Catherine Hall: White, Male, and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History (Polity Press)

Joseph Opala: The Gullah: Rice, slavery and the Sierra Leone-American connection (USIS)

Nigel Pocock: Liverpool Boom, People and Places Connected with Slavery in Liverpool and Lancaster (Soma Books Ltd)

S.D. Smith: Slavery, Family, and Gentry Capitalism in the British Atlantic (Cambridge University Press)

Madge Dresser: Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port (Continuum International Publishing Group)

S.I. Martin: Britain’s Slave Trade (Channel 4 Books)

Guy Grannum: Tracing Your West Indian Ancestors (Public Record Office Publications)

Pam Fraser Solomon: Enslavement a Timeline

Simon Schama: Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution (Eco)

Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester), curators Su Andi, Kevin R.U. Dalton-Johnson, Emma Poulter and Dr Alan Rice

WEBSITES

BBC History: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/

Museum in Dockland: London, Sugar & Slavery: http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk

Bryan Mawer, Sugar Refiners & Sugarbakers: http://www.mawer.clara.net/intro.html

Lifeline: The March of the Abolitionist: http://www.lifelineexpedition.co.uk/mota/index.htm

Anti-Slavery International: Rendezvous of Victory: http://www.antislavery.org/

Mia Morris: http://www.black-history-month.co.uk/

International Slavery Museum, Liverpool: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/

English Heritage: Slavery and Justice Exhibition at Kenwood House: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.13404

UNESCO: Breaking the Silence – The ASPnet Transatlantic Slave Trade Project: http://portal.unesco.org/education/

About the Author

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh.