Cooper River, North-West of Charleston, S.C., June 18, 1780:

With the L-shaped main house in front of me, part brick, on which other slaves in my cabin worked and built long before I was born, I look straight ahead to the Cooper River within running distance of a planned escape from Comingtee Plantation.

I’ve seen the river move past slowly to freedom since I was born in this very room of slave cabin 52, where, sixteen years ago, when, at once delivered, my mammy was taken away. Who she is; I don’t know. Whether she is yet among us here on Comingtee I cannot say, though I have looked and asked for her, I have never found her. Does she have my eyes, or mouth and what of my father?

Among the slaves here I am known as “Quest,” because I ask so many questions. A slave who asks questions is one of the most dangerous of hazards to other slaves on a plantation, so I find myself alone. Yet still I dream very little in spite of my loneliness, but one dream repeats itself most often. In that dream Quest, or Sam, the name the master knows me by, or whoever I am, is free to roam earth.

I wonder still, if even in my dreams, am I free to learn who I am? Will I ever, in my lifetime, become what I want to be? And will I ever know what that is? One thing’s certain my dreams are worthless here on Comingtee.

Yes, I dream of a far away place, an island of treasure…I hear the ocean’s roar; water runs free. I hunt and fish there; I build a home for my family – wife and children. Each day I celebrate our freedom. Home and family stir my innermost passions and desires, so for family I’ll do anything.

The obeah man, who we call, Gullah, has powerful-high business on this plantation; he tells me that for a gift of some fish that he’ll foretell his vision of my future. Slaves say he appears twisted.

“You must be the man…Gullah?”

“The Gullah Man speaks.” He replies, his high voice quivering nervously.

“Ahhh!” I say stone-faced. “They are crawling around my ankles!”

I think frantically: I have to shake them off.

“Those are vipers, some snakes and serpents, the ones that swim in the deadly swamps at Comingtee.” Gullah says and continues…

Yessss! My friends from the underworld, the undead, who teach me the meaning of life and the role the spirit world plays in human affairs. It’s all good.” He replies.

“I bring you fish, dead crows and wild fowl for your vision….”

“You will not come again, Quest, that is what they call you, isn’t it?”

“Hmmmm”

“You start your new life at once.” Gullah says.

“What new life?” I ask.

Gullah, a large Guinea man, has jet black hair and skin. He speaks also in extinct Guinea tongues. His raspy voice and language run an exquisite range of audible syllables.

From the candlelight in his dark abode Gullah’s oily snakeskin body emerges and shines as he levitates up from the soil. He spurns himself from earth, from among his kind -- the vipers, other snakes and serpents which cover it. From the slime his large, long, black and snake-like-body emerges to utter those words which give meaning to his vision:

“Look for the White soldiers in red coats…In a boat you row to an enchanted island, on which abide, ghosts of seamen from the past, centuries past. All are dead on that island but, it is your destiny to abide among these evil spirits. You reap their riches as they direct you to do, sharing with none but yours, and yours alone.” His voice drums and he adds, “Others will seek it in vain for centuries, but you shall find.”

From Gullah I scramble away in fear of the snake. I run, I run through the slave cabins. I run into George, the master’s chauffer; I knock him flat on his back. “Why are yea runnin’ so hard boy? George gushes.

“I’m on my way… I’m on my way to my new life.”

“Boy, are you dreaming? But which way is it to this new life of yours? I want to go too.” George sarcastically grinds, as if my foolish outburst made his fall worthwhile…

There were those who believed that cruelty on the plantation was spawned of sermons of “Rev. Willie Lynch.” It is said that it was he, a fiery minister of the gospel, who taught slave masters the use of fear through his sermons.

Ole Henry, one of the very old slaves, keeps a discarded copy. He’s learned to read and understand it. He relates how Lynch drew large crowds, from all over South Carolina.

Ole Henry and me we work together. Henry sleeps in the shed were we work. He says that one day when I come into work I’ll find him dead. He says it won’t matter much ‘cause he’s an old nigger slave.

“Henry!” I say to him, “Get out that paper you’ve been keepin’ all these years and let me hear it one last time.”

“What you mean, one last time?” Henry leans back, as though I was holding out on him.

“Gullah tells me my time is near at hand; he says he had a vision that I’ll be out of here soon…. (Ole Henry snickers)…he tells me that I’ll have a new life. He says that I’ll be free too and rich on account of pirates.”

“That’s the best one I heard yet.” Henry smiles, “Where does Gullah get these ideas?”

“Gullah’s a man of vision; he can see into the future.” I say to Ole Henry, who’s now starting to lean back further…

“The last time Gullah saw into the future the subject of his vision was hung down by the Cooper. When they took that young fella down, that poor soul had wet his pants and emptied his bowels into his trouser. It was quite a sight, seein’ him dead, when just hours afore he was so full of life.” Ole Henry nods.

“Well, looky here. Remember, this is our secret, this paper. So keep this one under her head gear, well under, or we’ll be joinin’ Gullah’s other disciples down by the Cooper. You get my meanin’? You can read; read it fer yourself”

“Gentlemen, as our boat sailed up the Cooper River, I think of our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish. I caught the whiff of dead slaves hanging from trees a couple of miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, and slaves are running away. Your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit. You suffer occasional fires, and your animals are killed.”

“Gentlemen, you know what your problems are. I am not here to enumerate them; I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling your Black slaves.”

“I guarantee… every one of you… that if installed correctly, it will control your slaves for at least 300 hundred years.”

“I say, 300-years,” He thunders… “My method is simple.”

“Slaves have differences. I take these differences and make them bigger, LARGE! I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes.”

“Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them.”

“On top of my list is "Age", but it is there only because it starts with an "A"; the second is "Color" or shade, and intelligence, size, sex, status on plantation, whether the slave lives in the valley, on hill, has fine, or coarse hair, or is tall or short.”

“Now that you have a list of differences, I shall provide you with an action plan. But, before that, I shall assure you that “Distrust” is stronger than trust and “Envy” is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration. The Black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry it on and will become self re-fueling and self re-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.”

“Remember you must pitch the old Black male against the young Black male … the young Black male against the old Black male. You must use the dark skin slaves against the light skin slaves…the light skin slaves against the dark skin slaves. They must love, respect and trust only us. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them…”

“He lived on Comingtee for sure, Quest,” Ole Henry says sipping his tea.

“He must have lived among us, how else do you suppose he’d know the situation so good?” I add, “We better get a-working, Ole Henry, the overseers will be by soon. Let’s stick that away,” I say, pointing to the sermon.

“Or down to the Cooper we’ll be goin’.” Ole Henry says, adding…. “Quest, if Gullah’s right and your time’s drawing near, I want you to have this paper so you can pass it on.”

“Ole Henry, what am I going to do with it…?”

“In a short time, you’ll be able to do more with it than I can, and that fer sure.” Ole Henry replies…

Cooper River, North-West of Charleston, S.C., June 19, 1780:

“Boy, don’t you go getting lost in that there big city.” Condosuela says to me as I leave the door of Comingtee’s main house for Charleston on an errand for master. Little do I realize that this is the last time I’ll ever see my vision of beauty.

Condi is a thin wiry woman, lean, and slim, as hollow as the Willows on the lawn of Comingtee. Her neck is long, and regal. Her skin is jet black. Maybe she is an American, or perhaps she is pure African too. Yet, wherever she stands among us all, African or White, she plays a skillful, colorless chameleon to us all. Mystery’s mystery, I call her. She is neither one thing nor the other. Condi is the mother I never had, and a lover I hope to find on my journey to freedom on my treasure island.

Condi is well-bred genteelness to perfection; she is a keepsake of the long lost art of Southern modesty. But if you seek to love and to possess her you must first gaze upon her eyes; yet gaze upon them at your peril, those Condosuela eyes. I picture her in my private thoughts…

“I see her with the sun on her face; I see her tormented eyes. I turn and, walk hastily, toward the barn; I see master walking toward the carriage where George, the driver is standing by. This, my last secret glimpse of Condi, haunts me still…”

My destiny set, I hold the carriage door open, allowing master to get in and, after he sits quietly, in deference I close it gently. Never once do I gaze on him directly and, as far as I know, he does not on me.

As my mind in master’s carriage lurches through miles of cottonwood trees on either side of the road, I drift…. It is as though the trees, one by one, are voices screaming from the hidden past, jolting the present with collective memories of the entire tragedy of Comingtee slaves’ relationships to their various masters.

“George?” Master says, sensing something. “Ask the boy what he is thinking?”

“Boy, master wants to know what you thinking?” George asks timidly.

“I once thought that lack of knowledge of one’s past was every man’s situation.”

I reply, looking downward, not daring to raise my head.

“Oh! Well…the boy is thinking. Is he George?”

“Hmmm….” George grunts.

“Please ask the boy what he thinks now, George?”

“Boy’, asks George. ‘Master wants to know what you think now.”

“Not knowing from whence I came is my situation and not every other man’s.” I reply, picking out the smallest tree to gaze upon, the one next to the large one.

The carriage sways, like the still before the storm. I faintly remember a numbing silence, induced by the heat from the summer’s sun as it begins growing in such great intensity that my back, and all parts of my body, became vast pools of water, dripping downward, drenching my trouser, running down my long, boney legs and ending up on my bare feet, soaking them.

Oak Island, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, December 23, 1845:

That was a long time ago, when I was a boy back in 1780, the last time I felt the chill of master’s voice come over me. Minutes later, British troops, Red Coats, surround us and George and I are asked to choose between life as a slave, and life as a free man in some unknown, other place.

I chose the uncertain -- a life as a freeman somewhere else. Yet, pieces of my past life as a slave trouble me still. One creepy thing is I chose to preserve something I wanted to forget:

I keep, as payment for my many years of free toil, only master’s surname -- Ball.

Why do I do that? I often tell myself: I don’t know…I don’t know…

Since, I hear that voice telling me: the more things change; the more they remain the same. I thought, naively, that master’s differences with my own were shallow: as if buried, only six feet deep, and so our differences were slight.

But now, much older, in 1845, just hours before my own death, to my surprise, I find our differences, one man to another, are as vast as an ocean. I sought to understand slavery and the White people who imposed it upon me, and many others, with far less success than finding pieces of Captain Kidd’s gold bullion which lies buried on Oak Island, here in Mahone Bay, off the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada.

In the past sixty-two years I have prospered. I have built the home that Gullah predicted I would; I have also expanded my land ownership from one to nine lots; I have a wife and children. I am free and my children were born free, I have witnessed the seeds of a new beginning.

There is one thing unsaid though and it is something I could not find in Canada, even here on my treasure island; yet, it is a passage to a treasure and it lies still in Condosuela’s eyes.