Ethan’s grandmother Sukey was brought to America from West Africa in 1781. She had a black earth complexion and round features, and the auctioneer described her as “good-looking enough” and an “ordinary size”. When she arrived in Savannah, she was thirty pounds lighter than when she left her home. Sukey never regained the weight, and she never recovered from the grief and rage she breathed in when she was sold from the auction block along with kegs of brandy, bales of cotton, and furniture.
Master James Cartwell, the owner of a cotton plantation thirty miles west of the port, had his foreman take her from the market along with twelve other Africans. As they rode away, she felt sadder than the day her mother died, her proud mother, stronger than most men and better looking than any woman. The farther the wagon took them, the more she suspected she would never see the ocean again. The smell of salt water had been in her nostrils all her life.
Sukey didn’t mind the plantation except for the summer heat with no ocean breeze to give relief. Once she got used to it, she didn’t mind picking cotton; it wasn’t the worst way a person could spend her time. At first it tore up her hands, but after a month, they were as tough as a puma’s paw. She wasn’t chained like some or branded like a slave who’d been brought from South Carolina, and some of the folks she worked with spoke a dialect close to hers.
Although she could have had an easier life as a house slave – she had the comportment and intelligence for it – she didn’t want to speak English, she didn’t want to become a Christian, and she didn’t want to work close to White people. She preferred life with people like herself. Even in the inclement seasons, Sukey would rather be outdoors under the camphor tree than in a cabin or barn. People would leave her alone when she sat under that tree; its seeds were poisonous and most people had a bad reaction to it.
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