Slave-Boy Poem by Sheena Blackhall

I am Akello son of the Yoruba
My sister is Abeba, little gazelle
We worship Esu, the god of travellers and crossroads
Listen, I will tell how this came to be

We had a mother and she loved us dearly
Here is the song she sang around our fire:

Someone would like to have you for her child
But you are mine
Someone would like to rear you on a costly mat
But you are mine
Someone would like to place you on a camel blanket
But you are mine
I have you to rear on a torn old mat
Someone would like to have you as her child
But you are mine

We went to the river for water, through the reeds
There we were caught by slavers,
From an enemy tribe, who prey on the young and helpless

Chained together by neckrings, we were driven
Like cattle for miles, till we reached the coast.
Abeba wept for our mother all the way

And then, we saw the ship, not like our own canoes
A floating city with blankets hung from rods

Aaeee! If we had known what was inside
We would have fed ourselves to the crocodiles in the swamps

Abeba was pulled from the line to join the women
Of many tribes. I was chained with the men

Shackled, two by two, right wrist to our partner’s ankle,
We were packed below like fish beneath the deck
Secured by leg irons, no room even to sit.

I would not eat, the devils forced my mouth
Open, with a contraption, to spoon slops down

I heard from a crewman who spoke my mother tongue
My little Abeba had been raped by many
And now was dumb, and trembled all the time

We lay in human urine, shit and vomit
The air was foul, like a great slaughterhouse
Of rotting meat, in a death’s ante-chamber

The dying were unshackled like feast-pigs,
And thrown aboard, still live, a treat for sharks

Farmers, priests, musicians, weavers head-men
Here we were nameless, slabs of numbered cargo

Until the second birthing at the auction.
Kingston, St Vincent Isle, each faced their fate

Abeba, branded, became Rose, field worker
Now I am Jacob, hog-boy to a pig