Historical Fiction Biography
Name: Miles F March 2017
Humanities Africans in NY: Creative Narrative Assignment
Joanie’s Journey
Hello. My name Joanie and I am owned by John Mclennan. I live in Bowling Green New York. Most people don’t know my name because I am not treated as a human, therefore they don’t think I need a name. They treat me as I am a monster and that the only thing I can do is work. One day people in my own land of Angola forcefully stole me from my village and made me walk 150,000 miles to get the closest slave port which is Benguela which is owned by the British. It got worse from there. After I got to the slave port they threw me onto a slaver which is the boat they brought me over to New York to be a slave. The process of coming over to America is called the triangle trade. The triangle trade is a very nasty and dangerous process and I almost died multiple times. These slavers were horrible, people were packed into the ship like sardines on the bottom of the boat so no one could get any fresh air. Sometimes people would get through the netting and jump off the boat. It was so horrible. I also got smallpox on this boat. Smallpox almost brought me down, but god was on my side and I survived. This was a blessing and tragedy. Once we got to New York they sold me off, the person they sold me to was John Mclennan. John traded for me with some rum. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard I was bought for rum. My life was only worth some rum. Mclennan would make me cook and be a dairy women. John was also a nasty man. He would whip me if I was slow and would never say please and thank you. Basically, I did all the chores around the house. Then out of nowhere, he put me on the slave market offering me up for someone else to buy me.
I would not let someone own me again, so I decided to leave. I was going to run away. I would stop at the Canal Street underground railroad stop and stay there for a little bit and gather more supplies. The once I got everything I would head north into the Harlem Woods. I would leave tomorrow night at midnight. Everything was the same that day, I did my job and everything was fine. Then the nerves started to kick in at ll:00 PM. I got out of bed at 12:30 packed all my stuff and crept out of my room. I could hear the cold floor creaking under my toes and every time I stepped I prayed that no one would hear me.
Once I got to the open field and saw a glance of the cows and I promised myself that I would never let someone own me again. Then I ran as fast as I could across the field into the forest. Once I got into the forest I saw something. It was a white man. I had no idea who this man was. He was not going to stop me, so I made a plan. I was going to throw a rock in the opposite way of where I’m going to create a distraction. So I did it, and it worked. He went the opposite way. From there I ran as fast as I could. The rest of the day I went north. At around 9:00 PM I stopped walking and found a place to sleep. I found a nice place to sleep. It was right under a big tree so if it rained I would be dry. Then I started to make a fire to cook some food. After I ate I started to make my bed. Once my bed was made I went to sleep. The next morning I was cold and wet. It must have rained while I was asleep. Hopefully, I could find a place to dry them off. But right now I must go. The people in New York by now must know that I am gone. If they find me I could beet. So I packed up my stuff and left.
I started to walk. I walked until 6:00, my feet were aching and I really wanted to stop but I had to make a good distance from New York. So I kept walking until I heard a sound. I stopped dead in my tracks to listen. It sounded like there were at least five of them. I was in big trouble. There was no way I could fight off all five them. So I just had to wait and hope they would not notice me. But of course me being me, I stepped on a stick and it made a very loud THWACK! This was going to be the end. I had no way of getting out of this one. I was always going to be something worth money and rum. Then I saw them. They looked like me. They had the same color skin. I jumped out of the bushes to show that I was one of them. They were about to shoot me when one of them really saw who I was. He yelled stop, and they all lowered their weapons. Then I told them who I was and why I was in the middle of the woods. Then they told me who they were. They were runaway slaves that had found each other and had run together. Then the guy who I thought was the leader of the group said something to me that I have wanted to hear all my life. He said, “Do you want to join our group?” At that moment I finally thought that I belonged in this world and people would never own me and I was never going back to a life as a slave.
I really enjoyed this assignment. I enjoyed it because in my case I got to use a historical charter that was an African in New York. But my charter had very little detail about her so I got to really show my creativity. One thing I realised that I really need to work on is run on sentences. I think I can fix this by reading over my writing more than once.