Kizzi Letter

Dear Kizzi,

I hope everything is all right at home. Before I explain to you what has happened to me since I left home, I hope you are respecting everyone in the village. Listen to your mother very carefully and make sure you do whatever she tells you to do. Always be kind to fellow villagers and do not make foolish choices. Your mother and I are very proud of how you are taking this. Now I will explain to you what has happened to me since then.

One day, while I was out hunting, I was ambushed by about 5 people from the neighboring villages. I tried to fight them off but there were too many of them. The quickly overpowered me and stripped me of my weapon. They put a putrid smelling rag over my face and tied it along with my hands and feet together. All along, I was wondering what was happening. They carried me for about 2 hours until I started hearing the crash of waves on the shore. They set me down and I heard them talking to another person about what they should get for me. The other man had a strange accent. I had never heard it before. A person grabbed me roughly from my neck and held me up. The person with the strange accent muttered while he was inspecting me. He offered to give the men 2 guns for me. They men declined and then he offered to give them 3 guns, two barrels of gunpowder, and 15 pieces for me. The other men eagerly agreed. After they left, the man with the strange accent inspected me a little more, after that, he whistled and I heard footsteps on the sand. It sounded like about 3 more men. He told them to carry me to the ship. They roughly picked me up and started walking towards the water. I started hearing the moans of other captives. I wondered what was going on. The men dragged me into the boat and climbed below decks. The smell was horrific! It reminded me of the smell of a deer carcass I had encountered one time while I was out hunting. It was rotten and vultures had already taken their share of the meat. It smelled like that 5 times over. There were a lot more people down here. The men threw me down and climbed above decks, but not below they had taken off my rag, they left my hands and legs tied. I did not need to let my eyes adjust to the light because there was barely any down here! That was when I noticed where I was. I looked around and noticed dozens of black folk all lined up in neat rows moaning. I had heard of ships like these. They were the worst places to be. It was a slave ship.

The conditions on this ship were horrible. All along I was thinking about what would happen to me. Occasionally, the white men would allow us to go above decks and stretch out sore legs. One day, a man refused to eat, he said "I would rather die than be in your clutches", when the captain of the ship heard of this, he sent two men down. One man held him down, while another beat him with a whip. I will never forget his cries of pain. I will never forget this for the rest of my life. All along the way, you could hear the cries of the lonely and sad and you could hear the moaning of the sick and dying. One day, while we were in our bunks, which were barely big enough for a child, much less for me, I overheard the captain talking. He was talking with his first mate about what route they would take. He decided that we were going to be taken to the colonies because there were not a lot of ships on that route because a lot of other ships were going farther south to a place called the West Indies and South America. He was talking about how bad the conditions were there. From the way he described it, I was glad we were going to the colonies.

When we reached shore, we were put into rows and made to march out onto the land. It was a very strange place indeed. Almost all the people there were white. They were all overdressed, even the little children even though it was blistering hot, though not as hot as home. I was so glad to be out in the open again. I had gotten sick quite a few times on the ship. I was so starved that you could see my ribs. That was the same with most of the people that had gotten off the ship. I suddenly remembered all the cruelty I had seen on the ship. If they could do that much cruelty on water, I wondered what they could do on land. On the ship, the white men had flogged many of us. They had not fed us for 2 days at a time, and then would give us only a few pieces of stale bread. What was surprising was that they had not only been cruel to us, but they had been cruel to each other also. It was quite fascinating. Anyway, back to the present, the white men led us down a path and led us into cages like animals. When I saw the cages, I spat at one of the men leading us into them and he slapped me and gave me a good whipping. Then he pushed me into the cage and locked it behind me. Then a white man got up on a platform and started shouting, "To be sold: a cargo of 94 Negroes! There are 39 men, 15 boys, 24 women, and 16 girls! I could tell that this may just as well decide the rest of my life.

I was bought by a white man and was taken to a plantation. I saw a lot of other black people working the fields when I got there. I was then put to work on the fields. The conditions were horrible also, although they were better than being in the ship. We barely had any rights on the plantation. It was one of the first times I had felt this lonely. I have to go now, it is morning and I must go work. I will write again soon.