FICTION — RESTIVE SOULS
The Tale of Shyllandrus Zulu: Chapter 6
Chapter Six of Part Two: Zulu West rides to the seized Drayton plantation
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A Restive Souls excerpt
As told to eminent historian Emmet Bolo by the high priestess Zulu West.
Chapters 1&2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12.1
Chapter 12.2
Restive Souls Part 2: Carolina Rising
Zulu’s Tale (1801–1804)
6
Diderot returned with nearly twenty men. I told him what Adwoa, who had fully recovered, told me.
He was dubious, wondering how she could possibly know.
“You want me to send twenty men on a hunt guided by a witch’s vision?”
I was offended by his tone when he mentioned the word “witch.” The Ashanti, whom I cherished, had oppressed priestesses and priests and shamans often enough on their own, and I found such prejudice recklessly naïve. Diderot himself had regaled me with stories of witchcraft from his ancestral lands in the Caribe. His reports were not negative.
“Did you have a better clue regarding their whereabouts? Besides, does it not make sense that they’d follow the river north back to Moncks Corner?”
“It does not. That is not what I would do. I would expect my pursuers to hunt me along those trails. I should make my own trail through the woods or find a well-camouflaged deer trail.”
“Perhaps they feel they have enough of an advantage of time that they can forego such tactics. Can your horses ride in this weather?”
The rain had not let up. It was a squall now, with thunder and lightning filling the city skies and presumably the woodlands beyond.
“Some will not be able to, some will. We shall see.”
“Do you trust me, Guillaume?”
He nodded. “More than myself.”
“Then trust her. Follow their trail, and you will find these men who did this thing.”
We had not bothered to discuss the significance of Chastain being with the men who were escaping north, although I had reported Adwoa’s mention of him.
Chastain’s presence among the men was enough to sow within me just the smallest seed of doubt about Adwoa’s interpretation, but I also knew that his presence in her visions didn’t necessarily mean that he was there.
Perhaps there was a relationship between Chastain and the men, but more likely Adwoa’s visions were commingling with Chastain’s dark spirits. Since I wasn’t convinced of a direct relationship, I told Diderot to not concern himself or his men with finding him among the men who had murdered Ahyoka.
“I must add one more conjecture, your grace,” said Diderot.
“What is that?”
“If I were him, I may simply stay in the city, and hide among the many rooms and inns and market stalls in the town. Perhaps a home, where I may steal my way inside and hold someone against their will until I can escape.”
“You truly have a criminal’s mind,” I replied. “I shall continue my hourly prayers for your soul.”
Diderot smiled.
“I have my own unpleasant experiences with false accusations based on a poor rendering of my person,” he said. “I would propose that the All Saints congregational printers publish a true likeness of Chastain and post it throughout the city.”
Diderot had seen to it that Chastain’s portrait had been drawn on a slab of softened mazer wood by a skilled local artist. He had stored the portrait at the congregational library, of all places. “They can do this at the All Saints Gazette.”
“The newspaper facility? They like their independence from politicians like you.”
“Mon Dieu! I am highly offended by that accusation! A politician? Me? No, never.” He was smiling as he said that. “Perhaps you did not know, but the news journal has solidified its independence. They will soon no longer be ours, so to speak. They will be theirs.”
“How will they be funded?” I asked.
“Money, of course. Taken in return for the promotion of congregational business interests.”
“That seems quite insidious. And something that should require the approval of your clerics. Besides, wouldn’t accepting money for promoting congregational activities tempt the newspaper to avoid criticism? I would suggest that they offer their sheet for a small fee to the public and be allowed to keep all revenues.”
His eyebrows raised at that. “Can we discuss this matter at another time? In order to expedite my current proposal?”
“They will agree to this?” News journals were notorious for wishing to avoid the appearance of being in league with those they considered to be under their watch and moral observation.
“They shall but they will insist on a compensatory arrangement. That is why I am requesting the Vanguard offer a small pittance of a sum to help defray the costs.”
“Surely the costs are minimal,” I replied. Diderot nodded. “Very well,” I said. “But do you really think he’ll be hiding here in the city?”
“Adwoa suggests he is on the trail out of the city. Your faith in her translates into my faith in her. Consider this a plan of assurance.”
This told me that Diderot’s faith in her was not the same as mine, but I wasn’t offended. He was at heart a military man. He was considering all his tactical options in his quest to apprehend Chastain as he considered the larger problem of discovering who killed Ahyoka.
“You go now, Guillaume. You have anxious men waiting for their orders. I will visit the news journal offices and see to it that they print your posters.”
“Merci, your grace.” At that, he bowed, then led the men away.
After the hunting party left to begin its search for Ahyoka’s killers, I tasked Adwoa with working with the news journal to handle the Chastain portrait. I told her to tell the plant manager at the news journal that the request came from Diderot and to press its urgency.
Feeling confident that she was up to the task, I borrowed a horse and rode in the pouring rain to The Vanguard of Mary congregational grounds, fully aware that I would have raised the ire of my friends by leaving alone.
The horse didn’t belong to the congregation, and I had never ridden it, which made the ride on the main road along the Ashley River a little more of an adventure than I would have preferred after such an awful afternoon.
I arrived in one piece.
The Vanguard of Mary grounds consisted of extensive rice fields and a plantation formerly owned by a family that had emigrated to the Carolinas from Barbados. As the Colonial Rebellion had drawn to a close, the newly freed slaves that worked the plantation took it over and hung its owner, Thomas Drayton, from a large cypress tree, wrapping his naked body in magnolia fauna and tar.
As with most plantations, the main house was converted into a congregational house. Congregational houses served different purposes for different congregations. Ours was an administrative center and part-time school.
Downriver, thirteen slave houses were rebuilt from the ground up. These were near a large home formerly occupied by another member of the Drayton family that colonials called Drayton Hall.
Its ornate Palladian architecture was perfectly suited for conversion to a small university, the Vanguard’s first, serving twelve students. Near this second home were indigo and rice fields, also harvested by the former slaves who had at one time been chained to their work in the fields.
We also adopted a small chapel that had been built next to the main house. This was in addition to the larger cruciform church that had once been called St. Andrews, which had been built a few miles down the road.
Two of the original Episcopalian rectors stayed on. This surprised me because I had introduced a not-insignificant Ashanti, Edo, and Zulu veneer to Christian religious proceedings. Zulu because that is who I am, and Ashanti and Edo because most of my congregants were from the western coast of my homeland.
The rectors both seemed eager to learn more about my relationship with the white man’s God. This, in turn, helped with reconciliation, because although the original plantation owners had been fierce opponents of the British, most people, as is the case everywhere, were quite apolitical, interested more in their living situation than in those who might affect it.
With the help of the European rectors, we welcomed Europeans into our congregation, with some trepidation, of course. Most of the former parishioners fled, but a few remained and joined the congregation. They soon discovered that their previous subsistence living was now one founded on the prosperity of truly shared wealth. Interestingly, this seemed to keep them out of the taverns.
The original plantation owners had grown a small but beautiful garden which we significantly expanded. Vanguard of Mary planters added trees, shrubs, and flowers from around the world. These efforts were led by a Scotsman, whom everyone called Wild Henry. Wild Henry’s thick calloused green thumbs planted everything from evergreens to azaleas from Asia.
The rice fields were worked mainly by the same West Africans who had worked them as slaves, but now they were the beneficiaries of their labor. What had once been labor borne of oppression was now a labor of love, and the quality of rice grown at Vanguard of Mary became the most sought-after in the world.
The Gullah culture of the rice laborers grew along with extensive earthworks of dams and dikes built for irrigating the fields along the river.
Rich Europeans paid premium prices for a strain of rice made by people who had been quite literally harvested in Africa specifically for their rice cultivation skills.
Our music, which never ceased, could be heard up and down the river by people traveling by ferry from Charleston north along the Ashley River. Boree had introduced a new instrument that he called the thudhorn, which was a massive woodwind instrument larger than a harp. No one person could haul it to its destination, and only a few could play the difficult instrument. The instrument imitated the sound of a drum with different tones when it was played correctly. These sounds blended with deep woodwind sounds. Together, Boree referred to the music as thudsong.
Music boutiques and venues opened along the two rivers, attracting Europeans from as far away as New York and Philadelphia. It became fashionable among them to say they were familiar with our ways.
“Why didn’t you take the new ferry service out of Charleston?” Wild Henry asked when he saw my drenched body approach by horseback. “And most of all, why do you ride alone?” As usual, he was tending to the ever-expanding garden.
He reached for a branch through a sleeve of his long canvas coat. I could barely see him under his large wide-brimmed rain hat and the netting hiding his face to combat the mosquitos that had swarmed the grounds after the long rain.
I had to admit that the thought of taking the ferry had not occurred to me after the turmoil of the day’s events. I tried to tell him I felt safe in the downpour, but his skeptical eyes told me he wasn’t convinced.
“Perhaps just as well about the ferry,” he said in his thick Scottish accent as he clipped a tall, thick rose bush adorned with multicolored banded roses. “She been having some trouble with her start. One just yesterday, she nearly sunk. Day before, bandits. ’Tis a rocky road on that river to this date.”
I dismounted and approached him. “Bandits?”
“Aye, a whole lot of them from the scuttlebutt I ‘ear. And that forest, she is no kinder. If I see you ride alone again, I shall throw you into a rose bush on next sight.”
I laughed at that. “First Settlers?”
“No, your grace. They said to be colonials. Maybe’s some from Savannah. So say others”
“Savannah. What would they want in these parts?”
“Slaves, ma’am.”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s a portion there, ma’am, sorry to say.”
“An illegal slave trade between here and the Muskogee Nation?”
“I cannot say. The Muskogee, they are not keepers of slaves.”
“I should say not. They’ll shoot a slaver faster than you can slice a weed.”
Wild Henry chuckled at that. “But what lies between the Muskogee and Charleston is rice, and a lot of it. Needing people to harvest it, cut its ditches and such. And Savannah, she be the rightist place for such.”
“You are saying that there are slaves in Savannah still?”
“I be not saying that your grace. But the story is told.”
That didn’t explain the presence of colonial bandits on Charleston rivers. I was unable to guess their objectives. Rounding up freed slaves would be a murderously risky enterprise without substantial military personnel, something we had seen little of.
Then I realized that the so-called bandits might be aiming for control of the river. They may have been nothing more than scouts. Probes designed to test the strength of the local militias. And, perhaps, to sow some terror.
“Thank you, Wild Henry.” Wild Henry tipped his hat, then took it off and bowed.
There were two rows of azaleas split by the brick path to my residence. Each bush resembled a large ball full of bright purple flowers. The purple balls were stunning contrasts to the green around them.
The path led to my residence, which was one of the few buildings on the plantation not repurposed by the congregation because it had formerly served as a slaves’ quarters. The building resembled the brick kitchen houses that were being built on Charleston’s narrow lots. It had been surrounded by a moat with a bridge leading out of the path to its entrance.
Wild Henry had filled the moat with another path, using a portion of the moat as an irrigation ditch for mountain laurel and its hungry-looking pink, rose, and white flowers. Each flower on the wide, thick bush contained ten dark pink or red spokes, giving the appearance of an uncontrolled appetite. Even the flowers that were not yet open seemed to stretch eagerly for something just beyond their grasp as if their purpose was to snatch approaching bees and other pollinators out of the air before the insects could reach their destination.
I desperately needed to rest. The energy from the day’s events was still within me, so I couldn’t imagine sleeping, but my exhaustion had reached the point where I couldn’t imagine not trying.
I was unable to proceed, however, without stopping to take in the flora. The flowers smelled faintly of grape, and as I bent to sniff one, I was struck by the realization that the same being who created the gorgeous plant before me was busy at this moment also tending to the stars above. And yet, somehow, finding the time to answer my prayers and speak to me in a calm voice within me, one that was forever at my side.
This soft voice within, tranquil, still, almost a quiet water of calm, never left me. It was a voice that offered encouragement at every turn, even during the events before my return home. I marveled at this as I took in the soft pungency of the laurel’s flower. My strong sense was that I would need this voice’s guidance in the days ahead.
When I entered my residence, I could smell the lingering scent of Bedíàkṍ’s fine cooking. My nose detected hints of nutmeg and garlic and onion, but whatever she made was probably now put away or set aside for later, for the scent of the home was one of a recent meal, not that of a simmering stew.
I found her in the bedroom mending a curtain. She looked at me with a glaze of warmth. I approached her and rubbed my hand against her bald head, then kissed it softly. Her big brown eyes captured mine as her lips reached out and we kissed.
“Lie with me?” I asked. “I am exhausted.”
She took my hand and I led her to the bed. “Don’t you want to change into bed clothes?” she asked.
“I am far too tired to even take off this robe,” I replied as I collapsed onto my back. She lay down next to me. I fell asleep instantly, my hand still in hers.
Notes
The historical record in our timeline involving the Drayton family is much more complicated than it appears in the novel. A more famous Thomas Drayton, born in 1809, was a Confederate general, but his father migrated north to Philadelphia, where he became a Unionist. The Drayton family may have been one of those families truly torn apart by the Civil War.
List of slaves who worked at Drayton Hall
Here is a partial list of slaves who worked at Drayton Hall in the early 1800s. In Restive Souls, they all would have been free. Would they have lived on the Vanguard of Mary property? Some of them may have. Others may have moved on to accomplish great deeds elsewhere. They may have become architects or mathematicians or painters. They may have become mayors or legislators.
Their primary “master” (a truly horrible word) was a fellow named Charles Drayton. Most of the information about them comes from his diaries where he mentions, by name, 190 slaves. All of whom are free in Restive Souls, and some of whom go on to do great, even historical things.
Their descendants should, in fairness, own the property once occupied by the Drayton plantations. They do not.
Let’s honor some of those slaves today because their lives are no less important.
Toby
A cook who ran away at least three times. Other than that, I’m sure he was very happy (sorry, there are no Medium sarcasm fonts). The diary entry about Toby is one of the more interesting ones:
On July 17, 1803, Toby reported to Charles that someone fired shots at him while he was traveling at night with another enslaved man. He believed the shooter was a man named Trumbull, who worked as an overseer for a Mr. Roper. Charles wrote that Trumbull had threatened to “waylay and kill” some individuals enslaved by Charles “and nobody shall know who did it.” Charles saw visible marks on a tree that confirmed shots had been fired, but he did not make any further comments in his diaries about the incident.
The diary entries about Toby suggest that in the world of Restive Souls, Toby would have left a great mark on his world.
Dumplin
A cook for the family. In Restive Souls, she may have been responsible for a variety of congregational restaurants. Or, perhaps she would have found another calling.
Mary
Another cook, she died a mysterious death, according to the diaries. That’s usually bad in the slave world.
Sue
Her role on the plantation is unknown.
Affy
Affy took care of the Drayton children and was written most frequently about by Charles Drayton. Most likely, she was an unwilling concubine, but of course, his diaries would never reveal that. The diaries indicate that she was extremely industrious and caring. One can only imagine the great things she may have achieved in Charleston or the Vanguard of Mary.
Billy
A driver who had a volatile relationship with the family. He once ran off after convincing the family to let him work in Charleston. He was moved to different plantations owned by the family, depending on his behavior. Yet he seemed to be a trusted “servant,” too. Sometimes.
According to the PDF document from Drayton Hall:
In April 1807, Billy was removed from the position of driver. He ran away and didn’t return for a couple of months. He may have been moved to another plantation when he returned, and he ran away from that property as well. Three months later, he returned with two other men enslaved by Charles Drayton: Toby and Seaboy. Charles said the three had joined a group of armed runaways at the head of the Stono River.
Soon after, many individuals accused of participating in the armed group — whom Charles now referred to as prisoners — were tried for their involvement. It was illegal for enslaved people to assemble or have weapons. A committee was created to plan and execute trials for the enslaved people, who had no legal rights.
One of the people tried and punished for his involvement was Billy. On January 11, 1808, Charles wrote: “Billy brought to DH [Drayton Hall] to be sent to Workhouse according to his sentence. There to remain until May and to receive a flagellation every 16th day.” The Workhouse was a place in Charleston where enslaved people were sent to receive corporal punishment. It was adjacent to the Old City Jail and was also known as the Sugar House. After spending several months receiving physical punishment and performing hard labor in the Workhouse, Billy was a changed man, and Charles’s writings about him changed.
In other words, the story of Billy is a tragic one.
George the Butler
Charles Drayton wrote a lot about his “trusted” servant, George. Think Downton Abbey’s Mr. Carson, with a chain around his ankle, and you’ve pretty much got the picture. George had a daughter named Fanny. Charles Drayton didn’t write anything of significance about her, which raises some red flags, doesn’t it?
You can learn more about the stories of the Drayton slaves here, but keep in mind the stories are told largely from a slaveowner’s perspective (click here if the embedded PDF doesn’t show up):
Other notes
Chapters 1&2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5.1
Chapter 5.2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12.1
Chapter 12.2
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.
The Restive Souls timeline (always in flux):
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