A Day in The Life Of A Slave Preparing for the Saturday night meeting

By Lulu G.

       I.

Unlike our master, we don’t get to change our clothing depending on how special the celebration. We have to wear the clothes we are given, which is not so bad because he wants us to have nice clothes because as his workers we represent him. I am excited because a celebration like this doesn’t happen so often. The master believes that if we have too much free time we will plan to run away… he is probably right though. This is a privilege given to us and I don’t know of too many plantations that let their slaves dance and grow. There are relationships with each other, of course, and that’s why we have to make it look like we are not having too much fun because if they think we are, then our privilege will be gone. If we get to have a Saturday night meeting it only happens once every month for those slaves who are lucky. But we are not so lucky because we have to wait almost a year to have a celebration like such. That’s why it so special.

No matter what, even if this is a time for us, we are being watched. We can’t plan, we can’t run away, we can’t have too much fun. But this is my first night time meeting. I have heard they are not fun at all, yet everyone shows up. When I was younger I wondered why that was, then I realized… all we do is work since they found we could. The only singing we get to do are the call and response work songs we sing so that we don’t get whipped. We get no time to dance and to express ourselves freely to the rhythm of our drums, like we used to. So the night time meetings are important not just to me but to everyone, and I’m excited to go, though it may not be fun and we will have to make it look uncomfortable. I am excited to get to dance One More Time.

         II.

I was talking to my elders when they told me we came over to America as indentured servants too, but since we couldn’t burn in the sun as easily as a pale skinned white people they took us and taught us to work all day in the sun. I started working on the fields when I was 5. I would come home with cut fingers and nearly fatal wounds, just like my elders. I was one of the lucky ones because I was able to pick up on the work songs quite quickly and I have never been whipped or beaten by the master. It’s important to know the work songs to keep pace while we are working, so no one gets tired and left behind or works too fast and makes the others look like they are slacking off. There is a young boy on our plantation who doesn’t understand the work songs. With his young energy and strong muscles he is able to do a bit more than the elders can. He likes to show off that he sings the work songs fast to begin with and he works at his own pace.

One day we were all singing and were working hard at the right pace but the young boy had been working as fast as he could for the entire morning that by the time the master came he was tired. The young boy was naïve and difficult. He got left behind. He hadn’t listened and now he’s learned the hard way. The boy was beaten and the blood stains and deep slashes on his back were enough to prove it. He is why I sing works songs because I never want to be in the place of that young boy.