FICTION — RESTIVE SOULS
The Tale of Shyllandrus Zulu: Chapter 12.1
Chapter Twelve of Part Two: The final chapter of Part Two
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A Restive Souls excerpt
As told to eminent historian Emmet Bolo by the high priestess Zulu West. This chapter is split into two parts: 12.1 and 12.2. This is 12.1.
Chapters 1&2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12.2
Restive Souls Part 2: Carolina Rising
Zulu’s Tale (1801–1804)
12.1
Ohemeng’s Eso of Ikoyi cavalry accompanied Margaret and me to Charleston’s city center. Her guardsmen were very happy for the help. I could hear them laughing and joking about how relaxing the short journey would be.
Someone had taught the Eso an old Zulu war chant. I felt adoration from an unexpected place because I could recognize immediately upon hearing them that they had learned the chant long before my recent chat with Ohemeng. His troops were chanting the verses almost as if they had known the cadence for decades. I felt my eyes well up, but I looked straight ahead as if nothing unusual was taking place.
Overnight, the cool weather had turned, giving us a humid, still morning. We quickly reached our destination, which was the Charleston docks, and we sent Margaret on her way.
It was a strangely emotional moment for me, for I had met the woman just the previous day. Yet I felt a strong tug against my heart as she prepared to board her ship. I had given her a finely sculptured head of an unnamed Eso warrior after our breakfast, but I felt like I should have offered a more European gift. The congregation certainly had an abundance of plunder from plantations from which to choose. As she began to turn from our farewell embrace, I offered her a prayer of prosperity and grace.
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I noticed a small growth of tear well up in her eyes as she said her final goodbye. She told me she’d cherish the sculpture for the rest of her life.
She embraced Diderot and Ohemeng, too, and then she was gone.
“You shall make a fine head of state,” said Diderot. “We have acquired an important ally.”
“Only a fool would lose an ally that was but a moment ago a part of the same nation,” I replied. “I have no interest in politics.”
“Your interest seems quite strong for a person with no interest. You handled the governess with aplomb.”
“She was a handful, I will attest to that,” I laughed. “But it was her and her stories that made it all interesting, Guillaume. Now that she is gone, so is my interest in diplomatic affairs. I will leave diplomacy to those better suited for it.”
“We need a head of state.”
“We have candidates. You, for one.”
“I, too, have no taste for it.”
“There are names before the Synod now.”
“And after that, a constitution will be drawn up to put this decision to the people.”
“Are they able to render such a decision?” I had wondered about this for some time. Education was creeping very slowly into the population, although much faster than it would have been without emancipation. “Can an uneducated country choose its leaders?”
“The Synod is chosen by the people, your grace. It seems a good result in my eyes so far.”
“The Synod was chosen from direct interaction. The All Saints Congregation sent a representative of its synod, and so on. Localities without congregations choose from among local citizens. The people know who they are sending. They know them by name and personality and character.” This was partly true, but I knew that many were chosen through the force of personality. Politics attracted people who sought power, no matter the nation.
“There is much chatter about a potential constitutional requirement that all Synod members be derived from a congregation.”
“Yes,” I laughed. “I do read occasionally, Mr. Diderot. I believe there is a copy of Richard Allen’s Methodist Magazine upon every desk in the union.”
This is surely a reference to the July 4, 1799, issue of The Methodist Magazine, the largest circulation magazine in the Union, which proposed a revised constitution whereby the Carolina Union government would be specifically run as a representative government on behalf of congregations, who would choose members of a “Synod” to run the government’s affairs. This, of course, was a direct contradiction to the original plan of colonial rebels, who argued vehemently for a distinct separation of church and state.
“And what of Chastain?” asked Diderot.
I had no answer for him. Chastain didn’t seem to respond to any form of justice aside from Ohemeng’s threats against his eyeballs.
The answer to the question of head of state was forced upon us during the Fall Synod, where it had been decided, without much fanfare or discussion, that an Ecclesiastical Tribune for all the Carolina Union would be chosen from among local synod ranks.
Criminal justice was also on the Synod agenda. Chastain had forced our hand, but there was also considerable noise regarding a person of numbers who managed monetary affairs for the Vanguard of Mary. This person, whose name, appropriately enough, was Sly Jawara, had pilfered money from our tithe and business accounts.
The favorite to be the Carolina Union’s first Ecclesiastical Tribune, Christian Falola, was a political ally of Diderot’s who had been serving as the Tribune of the All Saints Congregation. He and Diderot had presided over the congregation’s rapid expansion.
Falola cornered me in a hallway on my way to a Synod session. I, along with other clerics, had been invited to the session to provide input into the day’s agenda, which would be a long discussion on the correct approach toward criminal justice.
The sessions were to be held at All Saints Congregation House, which I had found out from Diderot that day would be turned over to the Union to be its legislative headquarters and renamed again as The Exchange. I laughed at that, asking him where the All Saints headquarters would then be. “We shall build a new one,” was his swift reply.
The Synod was the Carolina Union’s legislative branch whose membership consisted of tribunes selected from about thirty congregations in the Union.
Governance was fuzzy within the Carolina Union at the turn of the century. This fuzziness extended to its congregations. Many people considered Diderot to be the nominal tribune of the All Saints Congregation, but he had pressed hard for Christian Falola to stake that claim. Diderot eventually forced the All Saints Congregation synod to vote formally to make Falola the Tribune of the congregation. There were no other contenders. Falola was a firebrand preacher with a fondness for the Old Testament, but his governing style within the All Saints Congregation featured a strong inclination toward fairness. Zulu West wrote of Falola in one of her memoirs, “His Bible burned at the pulpit, but sang when he governed.”
The frequent raids on congregational properties by colonial rebels, along with an inherent distrust of Britain, resulted in a flurry of chaotic activity in 1801 that finally resulted in a formal constitution.
The Carolina Union ratified the Carolina Constitution in 1802, establishing a Christian Synod as the official legislative branch, the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court as the highest judicial arbiter, and an Ecclesiastical Tribune of the Synod as its chief executive. The Tribune was initially chosen by the Synod with a term of six years. The constitution was amended in 1837 to allow for the Ecclesiastical Tribune to be chosen by popular vote.
My interactions with Falola until that encounter in the hallways of the Congregational House had been few, but I was aware of his strict observances of Biblical canon. When he cornered me within The Congregation House’s great hall, I couldn’t help but think of Margaret and her questions about the Old Testament.
“I will be happy to provide testimony,” I said to him. Falola looked like a grand old man, with a graying, long, salt and pepper goatee that fell nearly to his broad chest. He was bald and wore a thin round brown church cap popular among Yoruba clerics. His face was marked with many pockets and a thick scar across his forehead that acted as a permanent signature of his days as a slave.
“But I must declare,” I said, “before you now, that if I am allowed any say in the matter, criminal statutes will never rise in the Carolina Union, that instead behaviors will be governed by the spirit of each congregation. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
“You quote here Galatians, chapter five,” Falola answered. “You may find some surprise when I say this, but I agree. A man cannot turn back time. We cannot erase his mistake. Human beings are flawed creatures but there is one flaw we can control. We can empower love through forgiveness. If we forgive our transgressors with love instead of forcing them to burrow down into the despair of imprisonment, we help save their souls.
“What will it gain our society to banish these people forever? What if, instead, we provide them love?”
“Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door,” I replied. “James, Chapter 5.”
“Yes!” he smiled broadly, revealing greying and yellowing teeth, the front top two of which were broken in half.
“You speak differently from the pulpit,” I replied.
“No. I do not. I admonish sinners. But I do not wish them to be imprisoned. Incarceration keeps them separated from God. Prisons are the domain of the devil himself. He relishes them like a Spaniard enjoys an audience while lancing a bull during his corrida de toros. I believe that demons germinate in prisons the same way that seeds germinate in the rain.
“I shall go further, your grace. Perhaps you are familiar with Lamentations chapter three, verse thirty-six: to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve. Let us distance ourselves from European ways, your grace. Let us in today’s session testify against the popular British institution of the civil lawsuit. They reflect brutality and a primitive interpretation of our Lord’s ways. Let us have no high court of chivalry within congregational lands. Walk with me, your grace.”
It felt like a command, but I was not at this point offended. I was surprised at the benevolence I felt from his voice. His eyes spoke of a deep-rooted kindness. His aura was such that I nearly wished to take his hand for such a walk. “We have at least an hour to spare before the session begins,” he said.
I was a tall woman, but he towered over me. I realized he was built more like a great oak tree than a human. His shoulders nearly filled the hallway. I looked up at him and said, “Very well.”
We talked for the full hour, but I wanted to talk much longer. Our discussion, as we walked around the area immediately surrounding The Congregation House, covered many topics in that short time, from the idea of a formal holiday for the Carolina Union called Thanksgiving to celebrate the end of slavery, to the very nature of career development within the framework of congregational economics.
“Do you understand why our congregation does so well with commerce?” he asked me as we stepped along a footwalk on one side of The Congregation House. The wall on the side of the building was covered with bamboo scaffolding held together with hemp rope. The thick wooden platforms of the scaffolding were filled with several Afriker men and women painting a mural of a man holding a crystal ball in his palm. The artistry was beautiful. I couldn’t understand how multiple artists could create the same magnificence.
“Well, I do have some ideas, your eminence,” I said as I stopped to take a closer look at the artisans. I wanted to simply utter the word, “Diderot,” as the most obvious explanation for the All Saints’ commercial success, but I resisted the temptation. Upon closer inspection of the side of the building, I saw that each artisan was tasked with specific aspects of the mural. One was working on the man’s palm, another on his clothing, and another on the sunlit blue sky that made up the background.
The Afriker nation, now freed, was an uncontrollable cauldron of expression and creativity. All the former years of bottled-up expression were released, changing the face of the Carolina Union at a pace that, I thought as I marveled at the work, was unique to world history.
“It is because we understand that a man’s, and a woman’s, should she choose, vocation should be determined by the gifts that God has given us. The Old Testament teaches much,” he said. I began to sense an awareness on his part that I was not a great adherent to the Old Testament’s teachings.
“If I may,” he continued, “I would like to refer to chapter thirty-one of Exodus, in which it is said, and I quote this verbatim, your grace: The Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.’”
The Afriker nation, now freed, was an uncontrollable cauldron of expression and creativity. All the former years of bottled-up expression were released, changing the face of the Carolina Union at a pace that, I thought as I marveled at the work, was unique to world history.
“God himself provides us these gifts, your grace, and it is very nearly a sin if our society does not encourage their growth and use. The Lord further said, and behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony, and the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furnishings of the tent, the table and its utensils, and the pure lampstand with all its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin and its stand, and the finely worked garments, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, for their service as priests, and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense for the Holy Place. According to all that I have commanded you, they shall do.
“You see, your grace? Can you understand what the Lord did there? He apportioned to each man a skill, and commanded that these skills be put to a specific use.”
This man is very didactic, was my only thought upon hearing his catechism. I began to walk again, satisfied that I was finished admiring the mural artists’ work.
“And what of someone with a great skill, but no passion for it? What of idle hands?” I asked.
“As for the first, does such a thing exist?” he replied, a step or so behind me.
“One must think so,” I replied. We crossed the street to one of the many buildings under construction. Diderot had said it would be called Commerce Hall and would consist of a large number of what he called offices and trading halls.
At this point, only the first layers of masonry had been laid, but I was amazed at the number of workers hurriedly moving about the construction grounds. A group of them in a far corner that I could not see well was singing in a dialect I didn’t recognize. Whatever song they shared was a stirring one, one that made me think that even I could haul large stones in this hot, humid air.
“One must not,” Falola was saying as I watched the workers. “One must not think anything. God provides. We sow according to his demands. There is nothing complicated here. You are overthinking these considerations. The passion shall come soon enough if one prays. As for idle hands, these are cured by the sheer might of peer pressure in a society such as ours.”
I found his conversational and debate style somewhat insulting, almost stultifying, but I also found myself unable to resist his personality. It was as if something in his demeanor created a stronger urge to continue our conversation than the simultaneous urge to quit.
Perhaps my positive reflections came from the fact that I was ecstatic over his opinions regarding criminal justice. He reaffirmed them as we advanced past the construction site into a bustling nest of market stalls when he quoted Colossians: “How many apostles of our brother Christ are now in prison, unable to help their brothers and sisters?”
“We must all be allowed to be apostles for Christ,” I said in reply, dodging a child holding a leather ball before she ran through a thick crowd of customers. “We must banish no one from this opportunity. This is the most basic of human rights.”
“I submit that this is the most important legal requirement for our new nation to establish,” he said. “Few understand this as well as you, it seems.”
“Do you think these concepts will require great persuasion?” I asked. I paused at a stall selling dried, salted meats.
“Indeed, I do,” he replied. “Vengeance is a passion almost as strong as the impulse toward procreation. But,” he whispered into my ear, “we can be fortunate that few among us are aware that we have within our midst an assassin of a prominent man of the New England Federation.”
I was mortified. How did he know of this? I asked him. The salted meat that had been on my mind to purchase vanished from my thoughts.
“It is not important. But I believe we can use this to our advantage. To convey that life and justice are not easily defined within the scope of the Lord’s teachings. That such judgments belong to the Lord.”
“We cannot expose the governess so,” I declared firmly. “We shall lose our alliance with the federation, and we shall lose her. They will kill her, your eminence, as sure as you are declaring this establishment of the Lord’s justice.”
“A closed session, then perhaps.”
“There is no such thing. Gossip is one of humanity’s most cherished flavors.” I gently took his hand and led him to an unfinished lot near the market, and further, to an oval brick edifice that looked destined to encircle a statue, now covered with hemp cloth, that was not yet complete. We sat on the round brick ledge. “We can never be at war with ourselves, your eminence,” I said.
“I’m sure I do not know what you mean,” he replied as we unclasped our hands.
“Let us say that a man’s greatest skill is with counting numbers, but that he despises numbers, and would rather play the flute on the street because that is what sends his soul into a happy trance. How strange that war becomes with himself. It can become a greater war, even to the point of becoming a war with God. But a war with God is impossible, partly because God does not wish it, and partly because there can only be one truth. His only hope for you is peace. Therefore, full communion with God can only come to a quiet mind. Conflict within oneself batters the soul because God can’t participate in the outcome. We won’t let him. So, we struggle within.”
“Because God wishes no inner conflict. Hmmm. You seem to be arguing that today, an angry stone mason could become Roland Chastain. You do realize that if we simply say to everyone, do what you please, we will soon have no stonemasons.” He looked behind toward the fledgling Commerce Hall.
“I believe that your quotation of Exodus is valid. God provides us with, shall we say, certain proficiencies. I do not, however, believe that any man is born to be a stone mason for life. Let us help him, as a community, achieve what his soul is looking for him to do, and find it within the context of God’s plan that you describe from Exodus.
“The governess did just that, you see. She freed herself from bondage. Our people know bondage well. She then became the governess of New York. If we expose her deeds, we invite conflict into her soul, which she doesn’t deserve. We must fight for justice without introducing her testimony as to the reasons why.”
Falola squinted as he said, “If I asked any man laying stone at Commerce Hall, or anyone purchasing an item at the markets in front of us, they would, to a man and to a woman, insist that we hang Chastain. The governess’s story is a powerful one. It creates a distinct reason for not hanging the man.”
“For Chastain did right by her? He did it for money,” I said. “Not out of some great honor growing from his heart.”
Falola was silent for a moment. “How did our people survive these last two hundred years? If what you say is so, we should all be insane from the conflict within forced upon us by slavers.”
“It is a testament to the grace within our people. I would argue that it is unique to human history. Perhaps, too, there is the added element of human suffering, which urges us to fight, even if merely for our survival.”
“Do you ever speak of your family’s bondage when preaching, your grace?”
“I do not,” I said simply. God had extricated the devil’s horrors from my life, and I intended to keep it that way.
“The New England governess does not have in common with us this same story of suffering,” he said in a way that sounded like he was thinking out loud.
“In many ways she does,” I replied. “But human suffering isn’t a competition that the Afriker has won by virtue of its sheer magnitude. I can’t explain why the European considers himself superior to those he tries to colonize, but how we define separation isn’t important. If I separate myself from Margaret Moncrieffe because I claim more suffering than she, then I thrust a dagger into human unity. You have heard Guillaume Diderot talk of what he calls a mélange of cultures, have you not?”
“Yes of course. He calls our nation a wonderful stew that is only beginning to simmer.”
“To say it crudely, the stew needs its white meat as much as its dark meat. Jesus lived among the most oppressed. Those are the ones with whom he most identified. I suspect there will be some bleak days ahead when those with pale skin suffer some, but let’s always leave our congregational doors open to all who wish to join our congregations on our terms, for Jesus will side with them on those days. And our terms are simple. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and we must all love one another equally. This comes from the spirit within,” and I pointed toward my heart.
As I spoke, I noticed a cylindrical pile of cut stones near the front of my right foot. I thought them to be granite or limestone. The beginning of another stack sat ahead on the other side of a still unpaved trail or roadway leading just beyond the unfinished statue to the foundation of a building that was only in its earliest stages. The stones on the more complete structure were roughly cut and stacked about the height of a six-year-old child into a perfect cylinder.
Like so many things in Charleston, it was a work in progress. Each layer was cut with an irregular edge, with a bit of stone extending out, and small human figures gathered along the rim. The figures, not more than an inch or two high, were engaged in different activities, such as cooking or dancing or singing.
Falola must have seen me looking at the small monument because he said, “The artisan is Hubert DeVries. He is of Prussian and Dutch descent, I believe.” The figures were intricately detailed. Most were Afrikers. Some were not. First Settlers were also represented. “To your point,” he nodded to the structure.
“Well. That is a stone mason who will perhaps never yield his current occupation for a different dream. Although. I do worry about children vandalizing such a beautiful work of art as this, exposed as it is.”
“And if they do, it may be quite by accident. They may think the stone figurines to be toys,” he said. “But they are part of the stone structure itself. Hopefully, even a child will understand not to try to move them.” I imagined a Charleston of a decade hence, blooming with art that poured out of every crevice.
I also imagined many more conversations such as this with Falola. I found him to be a congregational man with a softer than expected heart, another in a growing list of such men. Could the violence in men’s souls, I wondered, be tempered by congregational living? Certainly, much war had been waged in the name of God, but these episodes had been under false pretenses. Under a false God.
“And what about those who are dim?” Falola said as he stood up. “We should be heading to the session now.”
“Sorry. Dim?” I asked as I also rose.
“Yes. I was speaking about our gifts from God, and how we are destined to use them?”
“And?”
“It’s always been an unanswerable question for me. Where do those who are dim fit in this biblical pronouncement regarding the use of our God-given gifts? What of those who have no gifts? My biblical interpretation seems simple until I consider this.”
I chuckled. “Our ambition will never exceed our capabilities if they come from God.”
Continued here
Top image credits:
Shyllandrus Zulu (middle) based on original Photo by Breston Kenya from Pexels (also appears in charcoal-style image);
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels — Bearded white guy
Photo by Collis from Pexels — Bearded man looking up and pensive
Photo by 4TH FINGERSTUDIO from Pexels — Woman next to pensive man
Image of the painting by Raintree Elk Jọláóyẹmí by Midjourney
The paragraphs in this excerpt are reformatted to allow for more white space than the original text from the novel. This is sort of a Medium audience thing.
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