Constitution Forever in the USA (eBook)

Chapter 4

1757 Summertime Charleston

The noon sun in May illuminated the bright pastel painted mansions on East Bay Street, Charleston, South Carolina. Rich White wives with their children were conversing and walking on a red brick promenade overlooking the picture perfect blue sea water and merchant sailing ships in Charleston Bay. Oak trees, several hundreds of years old, and old brass cannons lined the promenade.

Black women, maids dressed in white shifts, attended to the children, almost invisible to their owners. Commands were uttered forcefully, without a please or thank you.
“Don’t let them near the breakwater.” One mistake and a slave master’s black leather whip, with lead beads at the striking end, found at each mansion, kept the slaves humble, saying only “Yes mam” or “Yes sir.” Beneath the shifts, their backs were lined with welts from whippings, some raw and some healed. Any minor mistake, such as failure to respond quickly, could mean the whip. Death of a slave, whipped by a hired White slave master, was not a crime in any of the colonies.

Away from the promenade, on Market Street, men from all over the British colonies in America, waited for the bidding to start. They milled about excited by seeing the naked slaves to be sold.

Almost all of the slaves were from middle Africa and could not speak any English, whispering only in tribal languages. Usually they were kidnapped by slavers from their homes and transported in ships chained to the hull below the deck for weeks on end. Many died on the way, bodies tossed overboard without even a prayer.

Buyers with considerable fortunes stood around the auction platform with a stand for the auctioneer. They chatted about how fine the city of Charleston was to visit, with the fabulous restaurants and bars. They were loudly vocal about the whore houses, with beautiful Black women slaves, and exchanged information about the best places and women, sometimes children.

The slaves to be auctioned off were kept under guard by a white sheriff in jails on Market Street’s wharf. Usually the auctioneer sold each of the slaves singly, regardless of family ties. The exception this day was a young woman, about seventeen, and a mixed Black and White naked boy child, who had little current value, with his beautiful, tall, black mother, who was stripped bare as well, both from New Orleans as noted on a poster. They were to be sold as a pair upon orders of the seller, a rich White French woman from New Orleans, not present, who sent them to Charleston by ship.

Dressed in a red colored suit and a black felt top hat, the auctioneer looked like the moneyed gentry doing the bidding, except his face was lined hard with deep, vertical wrinkles like knife slashes, in his cheeks. He was known by the bidders to be rough with the whip on slaves who had any complaints, treating them more like cattle than humans.

The auctioneer said to the men assembled to bid, hawking his wares, “Strong as an ox,” for the men and for the women, “Attractive house and bedroom maid,” inferring that bedding her would be a pleasure they would enjoy for years, while building up their stock with slave children to sell. He said, “All sales were of course without any guarantees as to child bearing.”

The bidding was strong this day, because the slaves from middle Africa were in good health, rested and fed for a few weeks after they were taken off the slave ships.

A muscled young male slave, of about age seventeen and six feet tall, was sold to a rice grower in Louisiana as a field hand for five hundred English pounds Sterling. The auctioneer said he would be a strong field worker. The bidders poked and prodded him to make sure he was of sound body, never looking at his face which was of no importance. The boy never even looked at them, his head and eyes down. His mouth was opened by grubby, tobacco stained and dirty fingers to examine his teeth, decay being a major problem of packed slave ships.

The bidders all knew he could live for only about two years, working in the water and mud for growing rice for eighteen hours every day for the new owner. The boy and his parents cried as he was taken away in tears as well, sold with a pause only for payment and then shipment in a cage on a wagon.

His parents were next on the block and were sold as a mating pair to produce more slaves like their son in the future to use for work or to sell. The couple was sold to a cotton grower in Georgia, and so, his parents would never see their son again. The woman was attractive and the winning grower bragged, to those who listened, that she would be great in bed and would produce lots of children by him. Nobody even commented or cared, eager to bid on the next lot.

The next lot was the beautiful Black woman, almost six feet tall, pretty, said to be originally from a tribe in North Africa. Her face was oval with an aquiline nose, and her head was covered with long, straight black hair. Her blue eyes radiated intelligence. She was a dark black and she was with the young tall male child, said by the auctioneer to be half White. The boy had light colored skin, looked like his mother and was about seven years old.

The auctioneer said, “These two slaves are to be sold as a pair on the instructions of the previous owner. The slave, Rose, is an intelligent servant from a very wealthy French family in New Orleans. She is guaranteed to be an excellent cook, New Orleans style. The woman owner of the house wanted her gone because she was too attractive to her husband and it is his child by the woman. She is not currently with child and is about twenty-five years old. They are both in very good health and speak English. Rose speaks French. The boy’s name is Peter and he will be a good worker with horses. You may not paw them in any way. I certify that they are strong, healthy, and well-mannered slaves.”

The bidding went quickly through two thousand pounds Sterling. One bidder was determined to buy them, needing a cook. He was Charlie McDonald, a well-known Virginia tobacco grower, who was buying field slaves from Charleston. He was related to a very rich, export merchant, Harry McDonald, living in Charleston and well known to most of the bidders for slaves. There was smirking in the crowd with loud, rude comments about how she would be in bed.

Henry McDonald had blonde hair, was about forty years old, with a weathered and tanned face from too much sun, working in his tobacco fields with his slaves. He had a beard and mustache which were both gray. He looked like an ancient warrior, which was his Irish heritage. He stood six feet two inches tall.

“Mr. McDonald, you are high bidder Sir.” Another bidder with a French accent said, “Three thousand Pounds.”

without hesitation, McDonald said, “Five thousand pounds.” There was complete silence for a minute and then clapping, when there was no further biding.

The auctioneer said, “They are your slaves sir,” bringing the hammer down on the top of his stand. “You can pay in cash to my associate at the desk inside.”

They sold for twice the original estimate. The auctioneer was very happy with a one thousand Pound Sterling profit.

Charlie McDonald went inside and paid for them in British gold coins. He said to an assistant there, “I will take them with me now to my brother’s home near here. You can remove the shackles on their feet.”

To Rose and Peter, he said, “We will walk to my brother’s home.”

The assistant said, “They will run away.”

McDonald said, “Nonsense, where would they go?” He left with them for the short walk to Harry’s mansion.

On the way there, the Frenchman who was bidding against McDonald, stepped up close to him and said, “I will pay you twice as much as you paid when I get to my bank in New Orleans.”

Both Rose and Peter said, “No” in unison.

McDonald said, “I demand that you step back sir and go about your business. They are not for sale at any price.” McDonald pulled out a small pocket a flintlock pistol, pulled the hammer to full cock, and pointed it at the Frenchman’s heart. He said, “I can kill you or at least have you banished from this city forever. You could not have outbid me, if that helps you understand.”

The Frenchman said, “I will be on my way now. Maybe we will meet again. Some day you will regret your decision.” He turned and started to walk away.

McDonald said, “I don’t want to see you again.”

Afterwards, Rose sighed and said, “Thank you Sir. He is Peter’s father. It was forbidden, but he was in love. His wife hated me and sent me here, threatening to kill us both.”

McDonald said, “You will both be safe and unmolested in my brother’s home, here for a short while, and in my home in Virginia. Let’s walk a little faster.”

They walked up East Bay Street to a large three-story mansion with a pastel green colored front, overlooking the bay. They followed McDonald on an outside path to the back of the mansion where the horses, carriages and slave quarters were situated. He showed them their rooms on the second floor.

Rose walked around the floor. The room for them was ten feet by ten feet and six feet tall, with rough wood...