Caribbean: a novel Part 11

From the first days of slavery, the rulers of the island had foreseen that if they educated their slaves, sooner or later there would have to be insubordination or worse, so they forbade the learning of the alphabet and absolutely outlawed any instruction in Christianity; blacks were never allowed in churches. Naomi knew this, and she delighted in the forbidden lessons Will gave her. Early on she recognized that he was like her; Will, too, was a rebel. She felt responsible for him, and as he grew older she took pride in his manly developments and his willingness to oppose anyone who trespa.s.sed on his right. 'That Will,' she told the two men slaves, 'he worth six of his brother.'

On the night before the slaughter of whites was to begin, Naomi felt pangs of regret, for she could not bear to think of her fine young man with his throat cut, so she sought Will out and whispered: 'Tomorrow doan' go to de field,' and when he asked why, she said: 'And doan' stay in de house.' Then, in some confusion as to what she was saying, she added: 'Blood promise me, doan' tell no one.'

Will Tatum was a bright lad, and when he went to bed he tried to sort out what Naomi's cryptic messages had really signified, and when the ugly possibilities became clear, he wakened his brother and they rapidly deduced what Naomi had known but had been afraid to spell out, and in a rush they alerted the neighboring white families, then galloped off to surrounding plantations.

When the two Tatums rushed to the outskirts of Bridgetown to spread the alarm, Isaac first headed east for the plantation of Henry Saltonstall, a respected planter but not one of the richest, while Will started north to alert Thomas Oldmixon, the most powerful planter on one of the largest plantations. But the two young riders were hardly out of the gate when Isaac shouted: 'Halloo, Will! I'll ride to Oldmixon's,' and without stopping, they switched directions, for Isaac, as always calculating the advantage, believed he might gain some if he were the one to save the big man's life.

When he reached the impressive Oldmixon estate in the northern part of the island, a pillared mansion at the end of a lane edged by tall trees, he started shouting: 'Sir! Sir!' and was gratified to see how quickly a light appeared.

'Who are you?' old Oldmixon asked as he opened the door in his nightclothes, complete with ta.s.seled cap, and when Isaac revealed his last name, the florid-faced master growled: 'So you're John Tatum's boy. Never liked your father. Skimped on the work he owed me.' He was about to turn the young man away when his essential decency manifested itself: 'I respect the way you've taken hold after your father's death, Tatum, picking up new land whenever you can. That's the way I started.' Then he noticed Isaac's extreme nervousness: 'Why did you gallop up here from Bridgetown? Fire or somethin'?'

'Worse,' and seeking to make the most of this opportunity to a.s.sist the great man, he whispered: 'Better inside,' and when he had Oldmixon's attention, Isaac gave the dreadful news: 'Slave uprising, sir.' Now Oldmixon, though in his early sixties but still capable of quick action when required, first grabbed for his two pistols, then shouted in stumbling words: 'By gad, Tatum, we must be off and movin', off and movin' I say,' and he actually started for the door in his nightclothes, when he stopped suddenly to utter a loud cry: 'Rebecca! Don't let me make a fool of meself!' and to Tatum he said apologetically: 'Man mustn't ride to hounds in his nightcap.' While Isaac waited, the big man, with his wife's help, drew on his cotton britches, his leather boots with their wide turned-down tops, his unders.h.i.+rt and brocaded weskit, and then donned his badge of position and honor, a big, broad-brimmed bonnet with the left side tucked up and displaying a bright turkey feather. His uniform in place, he ran to his horse, leaped easily astride and dashed down the lane, shouting back over his shoulder: 'Off to the wars, Tatum, off to the wars!'

Will Tatum rode the much shorter distance due east of Bridgetown to the substantial plantation of Henry Saltonstall, a slim, straight, beardless man of forty-two, who was still in his working clothes, for he had been reading by candlelight: 'What is it, young man?'

'I'm Will Tatum, from the edge of town.'

'Ah yes, and what could bring you here so late?'

'We'd better step inside, sir,' and when the two had done so, Will said quietly: 'Slave uprising, sir.'

At the mention of these terrible words, ones that every white man in the Caribbean feared more than any others, Saltonstall leaned against a corner of his desk, steadied himself, and asked: 'How can you be sure?' and when Will explained, the tall gentleman reached for his long gun, handed Will two more to carry, and said quietly: 'I must inform my wife. Wait for me outside.' Within minutes he was back, and as he mounted his horse, he cried: 'We must alert the western planters,' and off they rode to spread the dreadful news.

As happened so often before in history, when masters were alerted by some loving slave, black rebels were frustrated. In this case, eighteen of the leaders, including Hamilcar and the other Tatum male slave, were hanged. The accounts penned at the time and later endlessly reprinted said only: 'The Tatum slave Hamilcar and seventeen of his criminal accomplices were hanged.' These brave men, some of whom had held positions of power in Africa, died without even their names being recorded, but their dark bodies were left swaying in the wind as warning.

When it became known through the loose-lipped talk of the white leaders who ordered and supervised the hangings that it had been the Tatum slave girl Naomi who had betrayed the plot, no surviving slaves would tolerate her, and one night when the Tatum brothers came home from work, they saw suspicious signs in the little slave hut, and when they looked inside they found Naomi with her throat cut. The authorities preferred to ask no questions, and in this quick, harsh way the first major slave insurrection on Barbados was extinguished, and the principle was established that slaves were chattels with no rights other than those a benevolent master elected to give them. As a result of the hangings and murder, the Tatums were left with no field hands, and Isaac's dream of acquiring more fields until he became a big planter evaporated. The fact that it was he who had alerted the island to the tragedy that was about to overwhelm it did not impress his wealthy neighbors, for on Barbados there were only three cla.s.ses of people: white men who owned big plantations, white men who owned small or none, and black slaves, and the first group did not encourage any members of the second to climb upward.

With no slaves, the Tatum brothers had to do the work on their plantation themselves, and it was remarkable to watch Clarissa pitch in as if she were a third man. Never complaining, she kept the Tatum house cleaned and her two men fed and neatly clothed, and if occasion demanded, she volunteered to help in the tobacco and cotton fields, but she did not allow her husband to think that she intended continuing that pattern. 'When is a new s.h.i.+p coming in?' she demanded day after day. 'We've saved enough to buy us three or four good slaves, and we must do so.'

'When the s.h.i.+p arrives,' her husband promised, 'I'll be first to greet the slave master,' and in her prayers, which she said night and morning, he heard her whispering: 'Please, G.o.d, bring us a s.h.i.+p,' but England knew trouble in those years, with the result that s.h.i.+ps from London or Bristol to Barbados were not common, and no new slaves arrived.

Many now prayed for the good old days when everything the islanders needed, from needles to medicines, reached Barbados in these s.h.i.+ps, which in exchange carried back to England bales of cotton, tobacco, indigo and in recent years casks of a new experimental crop, sugar. But loyal as the islanders were to their mother country, they were also attentive to their own commercial interests, and when no English s.h.i.+ps came, even vocal patriots like Thomas Oldmixon evaded the laws which forbade trade with s.h.i.+ps of any nation other than Britain. They were especially bold in welcoming the well-known Captain Brongersma and his Stadhouder.

'Hmmm,' Oldmixon had grumbled when told that he ought to wait for legal English s.h.i.+ps. 'We wait for those tardies, we'd starve,' and then he added the more pertinent comment: 'And we'd get none of the slaves we need. I say, "G.o.d bless the Dutchmen." '

On a crisp morning in early March 1649, Will Tatum, up at five and staring out to sea, saw the dim outline of a sailing s.h.i.+p whose silhouette he thought he knew, and as day brightened and the s.h.i.+p moved close to sh.o.r.e, he leaped in the air, let out a yell, and sped through the streets, shouting 'Stadhouder coming!' And every merchant who hoped to have his stock replenished hurried to the sh.o.r.e.

When Will carried the exciting news home, Clarissa stopped preparing breakfast, wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n, and raised her face in prayer: 'G.o.d, let there be on that s.h.i.+p the things we need!' but her husband, always eager to curry favor with Thomas Oldmixon, called for his horse and galloped north to inform the important planter that the Dutch s.h.i.+p was in, almost surely with a fresh supply of slaves.

He found Oldmixon already out of bed, supervising his slaves in the care of the sugar crop he had experimented with that year. Tatum hurried toward him, bursting to tell him the good news, but Oldmixon spoke first: 'Glad to see you, Isaac. Been wantin' to talk with you,' and although Tatum tried to interrupt him, the big fellow barged ahead: 'If you're the smart feller I take you for, and I believe you are, you'll quit your present crops and switch to sugar. Sure to be a bright future for it. A bright future, I say.'

Isaac, not listening and eager to deliver his news, cried: 'Sir! Tremendous! Brother Will spotted the Stadhouder in the bay. Bringing slaves.'

As soon as he heard this, Oldmixon became a different man, for slaves had played a major role in his life. He had been one of the first planters to use them in goodly number, and his reputation as one of the leaders on the island stemmed from an ingenious solution he had crafted for an irritating problem. A clergyman reported the affair in a letter to his brother in England: As I informed you in my last letter, I have been much concerned about a regrettable rumor circulating amongst our slaves. Tired of working in our fields and convinced that they would never again see their homeland, they whispered among themselves: 'If you commit suicide, you cheat the owner and your spirit returns to Africa.' So one fine strong slave after another killed himself, to the detriment of his master, who had paid good money for him and who was ent.i.tled to his services.

Planters asked me to move among their slaves, telling them that this belief is false, but I accomplished nothing, and the suicides continued. At this point, Thomas Oldmixon, a leader on the island, lost a fine Ashanti man, value of eleven pounds, and cried: 'Enough! This foul practice must be stopped!' and he devised a simple remedy. Going to the grave of his dead slave, he had the body dug up, whereupon he cut off the head of the corpse, carried it to his slave quarters, and posted it atop a tall pole.

'See!' he shouted to his Africans. 'Caesar did not go back to Africa. How could he, without a head? And you won't go back, either, so halt this silly business of killing yourselves.' We have had no more suicides, and from that day on, Oldmixon has been recognized as a man of good sense.

Now, at Tatum's fine news that a new slave s.h.i.+p had arrived, Oldmixon cried: 'Capital! But we've got to get there before the sale starts,' and with his turkey feather flowing in the breeze he kicked his horse in the ribs and the two men galloped off for Bridgetown.

At the halfway point the horses fell back to an easy canter, and Isaac felt that the time had come when he could best reveal the complications which beset his personal life: 'Clarissa and I lost our three slaves in the uprising. But we've saved what money we've been able to get our hands on and we face a ticklish problem, one we don't know how to resolve.'

'Such as?' Oldmixon asked, turning in his saddle.

'I'm torn by two desires. Spend it on more slaves? Or more land?'

Oldmixon took so long to reply that Tatum wondered if the big man had heard, but then the planter surprised him with an answer of remarkable probity: 'Young feller, I think you're preparin' to broach me for a loan, and I don't make loans. Too many complications. So you'll have to make up your own mind about how you want to apply your funds, and I'm pleased to learn that you have some. You must be thrifty.'

To hide his disappointment, Isaac said: 'It's my wife who tends the money, and she is thrifty, I can a.s.sure you.'

'Excellent. More I hear about you, Tatum, more I like you. Your father wasn't really a bad sort. Just lazy. So here's my proposal. I'm convertin' to sugar in a big way, three-fourths of my fields. Now, it would help me mightily if some of you other men would plant cane and make sugar too, 'cause then we could combine our yield and send it to England as a full cargo.'

'But doesn't sugar require slaves ... absolute necessity?'

'It does. So what I want you to do, buy up as much land as your funds allow, and borrow on it to buy more and plant it all in sugar.'

'How can I raise sugar with no slaves?'

'You can't, and that's why I'm going to buy you seven. Keep the t.i.tle in my name until you can pay me with your first crop. You board and feed them and use them in your fields like they were your own.'

Isaac dropped his head, almost in prayer, for an offer like this exceeded even his most extravagant hopes, and when he looked sideways at Oldmixon and saw the big man nod and then wink as if to say: 'That's what I promised,' he cried out: 'It's help I never expected,' and Oldmixon corrected him: 'No, you'll be the one helpin' me if we can get sugar started on Barbados.'

Having said this, he looked over Tatum's shoulder and cried out in a petulant voice: 'Well, here comes Saltonstall with his d.a.m.ned beasts,' and Isaac turned to see a sight which never ceased to amaze him. From the plantation of Henry Saltonstall came that tall, dour man perched atop a huge camel, behind which lumbered in an orderly fas.h.i.+on six others, all laden with produce from the Saltonstall lands and headed to Captain Brongersma's Stadhouder for transport to European markets. It was a dramatic caravan, which children cheered as they ran behind the huge-footed beasts, so well suited to heavy work on plantations.

But Oldmixon and Tatum were concerned not with camels but with what for them was a much more important matter: the auction of the forty-seven slaves Captain Piet Brongersma had brought in cages belowdecks from Africa. The captain had not come ash.o.r.e to conduct the sale, but his first mate, an able Dutchman who spoke English, was ready to start the auction, when he saw Oldmixon approaching. Bowing low, he asked, from former experience: 'Do you wish to buy the entire lot, Mr. Oldmixon?' and smaller planters who had hoped to acquire a few slaves groaned, but Oldmixon said: 'No, my friend here wants seven, and I want fifteen. More than enough left for you men,' and he indicated the others, who cheered.

Oldmixon, impressed with the crafty manner in which young Tatum chose his seven, said: 'You know slaves, young feller,' but Isaac said: 'I know which men and women will be able to work,' at which Oldmixon said: 'Pick my fifteen,' and with equal skill Isaac pa.s.sed among the frightened slaves, trying to select for Oldmixon fifteen as good as the seven he had chosen for himself.

Then came the shocking moment of this bright March day. Captain Brongersma was rowed ash.o.r.e, and when he landed he came forward gravely, his big bulletlike head and square face creating an ominous impression. He moved directly and silently to Thomas Oldmixon, whom he had known favorably as a planter to be trusted. Not greeting Oldmixon in his accustomed way, he came close and whispered in a heavy Dutch accent: 'a.s.semble the other leaders,' and when this was done, he announced, as if informing each man of the death of a brother: 'On the thirtieth day of January past, Cromwell's men beheaded your King Charles.'

'No, by heavens! It can't be,' shouted Oldmixon, grabbing Brongersma by the jacket, and the other leading planters whom Oldmixon had brought into the shed joined him in averring that no loyal Englishmen, not even cravens like Oliver Cromwell, would dare to strike their king, let alone behead him.

'What proof have you?' one planter cried, and Brongersma had to admit: 'None. I was already in the Channel ... no chance to buy a newssheet.'

'Then how do you know, if you weren't even on land?' Oldmixon demanded, and the Dutchman replied: 'An English s.h.i.+p spoke me and over the horn gave me the news.' Others began to pester him, but even though he lacked visible proof, he stuck to the report as he had heard it: 'On thirty January last, Cromwell's men beheaded your king. All is chaos.'

And then Henry Saltonstall joined the crowd to which he had not been invited. 'You were busy unloading your camels,' Oldmixon said as if apologizing, and Saltonstall, a man of sharp wisdom, perceived from the faces of his friends that something devastating had happened, and he asked bluntly: 'What is it? War again with the Dutch?' and Brongersma replied: 'Those days are past. Your King Charles has been beheaded,' and Saltonstall said instantly: 'It was bound to happen.' The other planters in the shed looked at him with abhorrence, their manner foretelling the angry days that were about to engulf Barbados.

The next few days were the finest in Will Tatum's life so far, for now that his brother had seven slaves, he, Will, often sneaked away from the fields, and he spent the time aboard the Stadhouder, mostly in Captain Brongersma's cabin, for the Dutchman not only enjoyed talking with the boy but also found him useful as a source of information about doings on Barbados.

In turn, Brongersma threw out fascinating bits of information: 'Our hold is filled with salt we collected after a running fight at the great flats of c.u.mana on the Spanish Main.'

'Where's the Spanish Main?'

'The coastline of Central and South America, where the Caribbean touches the mainland.'

'Why did you have to fight for the salt?'

'The Spaniards never want us to take it away. It's theirs, they say.'

'Then why do you take it?'

'To salt our herring. And you know what herring is to a Dutchman? The same as a s.h.i.+lling is to an Englishman.'

'Do you fight the Spanish often?'

Brongersma reflected for some moments before answering this ticklish question, then said: 'I suppose it's time you knew, Will. We make our living three ways. Capturing salt at c.u.mana, running contraband into Barbados and the other English islands, and best of all, tracking down some rich Spanish s.h.i.+p, boarding her and winning ourselves a fortune.'

'Are you pirates, then?'

'That's not a word we fancy. We're legal pirates, you may say, freebooters with papers giving us the right to attack Spanish s.h.i.+ps wherever we meet them.'

'Don't the Spaniards ever fight back?' Will asked, and Brongersma burst into laughter: 'Do they ever fight back! Look at that scar on my wrist-from a handsome Spanish s.h.i.+p laden with Potos silver out of Havana on her way to Sevilla. Part of a great armada she was, protected by four wars.h.i.+ps of the line, but we cut her out, boarded her, and would have won ourselves a fortune except ...'

'What happened?' Will was on the edge of his chair as the Dutchman said glumly in recollection of that sad day: 'One of their wars.h.i.+ps spotted us, what we were doing, came roaring back, and we were lucky to escape with our skins.'

'Are the Spaniards good fighters?'

'Never believe the English fairy tale that one Englishman is better than three Spaniards. The well-armed Don from Sevilla with a sharp Toledo blade is a match for any fighting man on any s.h.i.+p. Halloo, Franz! Show us your face,' he shouted as into the cabin came a big Dutchman with a long scar, scarcely healed, across his right chin. 'He's our best swordsman, none better,' the captain said, 'but a Spaniard with a Toledo would have killed him for sure, except one of our men shot the Spaniard dead as he was about to do so.'

The next time Will returned to the s.h.i.+p, Brongersma said: 'I wish I'd had a son like you,' and Will asked: 'Would you have taken me to sea with you? To fight the Spaniards?'

'Now, that's a difficult question, lad. As a father I'd agree with your mother, that you ought to stay in Amsterdam and learn your letters. But as captain of the Stadhouder, I'd want you at my side when we took on the Spaniards, for there's nothing n.o.bler in this world that a Dutchman can do than wage sea war against those swine.'

'Why do you call them that?' and the captain became quite grave, there in the hot cabin, and spoke with an intensity Will had not heard before: 'My grandfather, his grandfather before him were hanged by Spaniards ruling the Low Countries, and no man like me can ever forget that.'

'Why were they hanged?'

'They were Protestants ... followers of Luther. But the Duke of Alva ... the Duke of Parma ... they were strong Catholics, and the quarrel between the two religions could be settled only by hangings, endless hangings.' He looked at the floor as he said quietly: 'So if you sailed with me as my son, we'd have eight or nine Spanish s.h.i.+ps to burn before my rage was quenched.'

On their last day together Brongersma was in a more relaxed mood: 'This was a profitable stop, lad. We bought our slaves from the Portuguese at nine pounds and sold them at thirty. We bought six new camels for Mr. Saltonstall at eleven each and sold them at thirty-three. We sail home with a ballast of pure salt and casks topside with brown sugar, which will bring a fortune.' He tapped his pipe against his left hand, and said: 'On a day like this, with a calm sea out there, and a fast run home, and always the chance of catching a Spaniard laden with gold or silver ...' He paused, not knowing how to end his sentence, then concluded quietly: 'A man could sail on forever ... forever till the final darkness comes.'

'You love sailing your s.h.i.+p, don't you?' and Brongersma said: 'I'll sail the Stadhouder till her bottom is eaten through by the worms and my bottom is ready for its return to dust.'

Will asked: 'Why do you get angry when someone calls you a pirate? Are you not one?' and Brongersma replied: 'There's a difference, I'm an honorable Dutch captain who fights the Spaniard. I shall be unhappy if you call me pirate.' And next morning at dawn, when Will scouted the sea, the Stadhouder was gone.

For the next eleven days the men and women of Barbados had no solid information about their king, only those rumors brought by Captain Brongersma, but then a trading s.h.i.+p arrived from Bristol with printed confirmation. King Charles I, beloved of the island's Royalists, had actually been beheaded at Whitehall by a common axeman who executed ordinary criminals.

The shock was profound, and in the days of tension that followed, the islanders divided into the two camps that would contest for the right to govern. On Barbados, as in England, each side adopted a name for itself: the conservatives elected to be called Cavaliers, which implied men of breeding, substance and unquestioned loyalty to the king, while liberals elected to be called Roundheads, which described st.u.r.dy men of middle position socially possessed with business ac.u.men, common sense and a preference for rule by Parliament.

Derivations for the two names were interesting: the Cavaliers took theirs from the gaudily dressed, bewigged and flamboyant cavalry officers who fought so bravely in defense of the king, and Roundheads came from men with a preference for an austere haircut that made their heads seem like ugly round pumpkins when compared to the elaborate locks of their opponents.

A contemporary, who knew members of both sides well, described them in this way: 'Cavaliers comprise the gentry, the Church of England clergy and the loyal peasants. Your Roundheads are apt to be men from the middle cla.s.s, the rich merchants and a surprising number of great n.o.bles; you might say, all who can read and write.'

The archetypal Cavalier was das.h.i.+ng Prince Rupert, nephew of the king and probably the greatest cavalry officer who ever fought one major battle after another, winning most; the quintessential Roundhead was the blind poet John Milton, austere in person but with a pen that scattered fiery diamonds, especially in his prose essays dealing with politics.

On Barbados the Cavaliers were led by robust Thomas Oldmixon, who announced: 'I've always been loyal only to the king and shall remain so, and if Charles I is truly dead, his son Charles II is my king and I'll fight to protect his claim,' and men of similar loyalties began to cl.u.s.ter about Oldmixon and look to him for leaders.h.i.+p.

Control of the Roundheads, fewer in number but equally dedicated to their cause, devolved naturally upon Henry Saltonstall, who approved of the deposition of the king though not his murder, and who believed that Parliament could rule England more effectively than royalty had done.

The effect of all this on the Tatum brothers was especially divisive. Isaac was a young man who intuitively liked royalty and its attendant n.o.bility; secretly he hoped that one day he would, through increase in the size of his plantation, his slave holdings and the consequent amount of sugar produced, ama.s.s a fortune. Then he planned to donate large sums to enterprises in which the king was interested and thus win attention in London, and who knows, perhaps even a t.i.tle.

Roustabout Will would not have known what to do with a t.i.tle had it been offered him. In fact, he had already shown certain tendencies which greatly disturbed Isaac and Clarissa: he had been overly familiar with the slaves; he sometimes ridiculed Thomas Oldmixon's pompous ways; twice he had absented himself on Sundays from the parish church, when everyone knew that attendance was required by law; and most distressing, he had frequented the waterfront, palling around with Captain Brongersma, who only a few years before had been at war with England.

As the political debate intensified, Clarissa warned Isaac: 'Your brother isn't a person to be trusted. Next thing you know, he'll be announcing that he's siding with Saltonstall.' She proved a good prophet, because a few nights later at supper Will made bold to say, even though he knew the loyalties of the older Tatums: 'I think Saltonstall and his Roundheads make a lot of sense. Does England really need a king?' The question was so bluntly asked that Isaac and Clarissa were too stunned to respond.

As the turmoil on the island spread, Isaac became increasingly concerned that his favorable start with Oldmixon might grind to a halt. As he explained to his wife: 'With the execution of the king, anything can happen,' but she advised steadiness: 'Don't falter now. All's at chance.' When she learned that Oldmixon had declared for the king, she told Isaac, leading him to his horse and spurring him on: 'Now's the time to strike. Ride up there and tell him you're with him.'

Bursting into Oldmixon's hall, Isaac cried in the deep voice he cultivated: 'I'm for the new king,' and the wealthy owner clasped him warmly: 'You're a welcome volunteer to the Cavaliers, Tatum.' Then he drew back, studied the man he had only recently come to know, and cried: 'Egad, Tatum! You have done me three favors. Forestalling the slave rebellion, planting sugar, and now joining me for the king. I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of each other.' Even in his enthusiasm, Oldmixon took care to say egad, because blasphemy was severely punished on this island, which led men to use old, safe forms like egad as a subst.i.tute for ah G.o.d, 'sblood for by G.o.d's blood and zounds for G.o.d's wounds.

When Isaac Tatum returned home he told Clarissa: 'I did what you said. We're in this together now.' They did not say anything to Will, but that evening the Tatums had a serious conversation, started by the wife: 'If Will persists in his sentiments, I can't be happy having him share quarters with us.'

'Half the house is his, my love. Half the fields.'

'Can we buy him out?'

'With what?'

After a long silence Clarissa said: 'Will's a hothead, we've seen that. He's a rebel, and if this island remains loyal to the new king, as I'm sure it will, he'll do something that will drive him from Barbados. His land will be forfeit ...'

'My love, there's no way we can ask him to leave now. I need his help with the new slaves and the sugar.'

Petulantly she said: 'Isaac! I'm not happy with him around. Answer me this. Why did that Naomi tell him about the plot? Why didn't she tell us? What was there between them?'

Isaac had to lay down the law: 'We need him. We need his share of the land. And we must have his share of the work.' When she began to cry, he promised: 'As soon as things are steady, we'll ask him to leave. He can always stay with the Pennyfeathers,' referring to the Tatum sister, Nell, who had married a fairly worthless shopkeeper, Timothy Pennyfeather. The thought set Isaac's mind to working: 'On one thing you're right, Clarissa. Will's share of the land must come to us, because the secret of wealth on this island is control of land, and I aim to acc.u.mulate a great deal of it.'

And then, as the year closed with the island divided into two almost warring factions and with the split in families like the Tatums, an event transpired which demonstrated the unique quality of Barbados, for when it was announced in the various churches that a hunting party would be setting forth for the island of All Saints, one hundred and fifty miles to the west, men of every persuasion flocked to the little s.h.i.+p that would convey them there. Thomas Oldmixon, head of the Cavaliers and a master shot, had nineteen of his supporters at his side, while Henry Saltonstall, armed with two fine guns, led the Roundheads. Isaac Tatum stood with Oldmixon, brother Will with Saltonstall.

When the s.h.i.+p hove to on the western side of the glorious bay of All Saints, its small boat ferried the hunters ash.o.r.e, with leaders Oldmixon and Saltonstall sharing the same small craft and the Tatum brothers riding side by side on a later trip. When the party was a.s.sembled, Oldmixon issued instructions in his hearty voice: 'Men, Saltonstall, a fine shot, will lead his half in that direction, rest come with me-and we'll see if we can finish with these b.u.g.g.e.rs.'

What would they be hunting? Carib Indians who had fanned out from their original home on Dominica to the neighboring islands of All Saints and St. Vincent, where the cannibals had proved murderously dangerous to any English or French sailors s.h.i.+pwrecked on their sh.o.r.es. They were an implacable foe who so belligerently refused any overtures for peaceful sharing of their islands that European settlers deemed extermination to be the only policy. This was not the first hunting party sent after them, but it was the largest, and the Englishmen with their long muskets set out at a merry clip, with many cries of self-encouragement to battle with the savages. It was by no means a one-sided fight. Venal Dutch and French and English traders-pirates, really, of whom Brongersma of the Stadhouder was one of the worst-had provided the Caribs with guns fabricated in the American colonies and ample shot and sh.e.l.l to go with them, so the Barbadian hunting party and its intended prey started about even; the English shooters knew they were going to be shot at.

Thus, in only a few centuries, the fierce Caribs who had uttered wild war cries as they swept down to annihilate the Arawaks, now heard those same cries shouted against themselves.

In the first half-hour Thomas Oldmixon, with Isaac Tatum at his side as kind of gun-bearer, killed two Caribs and dodged Indian bullets as they rattled back at him. Saltonstall's team, containing many Roundheads who tended to be fine shots, also killed its share of Caribs, and for about two hours the hunt continued, with Barbadians shouting in triumph whenever they brought down an Indian and keeping score as they might have done at a pigeon shoot, for it was wildly exciting to see a brown form scuttling through the low brush and to hit him dead-on and see him turn and twist as he fell. Of course, sometimes the running figure was a woman or a child, but the shooting continued, and during the entire hunt not one Barbadian expressed concern about gunning down the savages, male or female, and certainly no remorse.

At the end of the third hour, when light was beginning to fade, both teams put on an extra drive, and because they were attacking from different directions, they forced the Indians into a defensive position at the far end of the beautiful bay that gave this island its distinctive character, and there they hammered at the Caribs with a deadly crossfire until some nineteen men and women, plus a handful of children, were exterminated. That night the Barbadians returned temporarily to their s.h.i.+p, and there was considerable celebration in which Cavaliers and Roundheads toasted each other with good English ale.

During the second day, as the group was surrounding another Carib camp, one Carib marksman who had mastered his fine New England musket, hid in a tree, drew a bead on young Will Tatum, and would have killed him had not the boy moved at the last second. The bullet ripped through Will's left arm but missed the bone, and when Isaac bound the wound with a bit of torn s.h.i.+rttail, all members of the hunting party congratulated Will as the hero of the expedition. In that congenial frame of mind the Barbadians sailed away from All Saints satisfied that they had 'taught the d.a.m.ned Caribs a lesson.'

When the hunting party returned to Barbados, the almost-forgotten factionalism revived: at times debate between the two parties grew heated, and men with any sense of history antic.i.p.ated the day when angry words would be replaced by ugly deeds. But it was to be a characteristic of Barbados in those troubled years that both sides, Cavalier and Roundhead, carefully, almost pa.s.sionately, avoided overt actions of a hostile kind or the bloodshed that might have been expected to accompany such basic and emotional differences. Credit for this common-sense approach was due to the two leaders, Oldmixon and Saltonstall, for neither man was the kind who might encourage his followers to drastic action; each believed in legal procedures and the avoidance of either riot or rebellion. Oldmixon might talk louder than Saltonstall but never to the point of incitation, and although Saltonstall seemed to have beliefs more profoundly grounded than Oldmixon's, he never saw civil disturbance or attack upon his adversary's property or person as a proper means for advancing them.

In short, and this was the highest praise that could be bestowed on Barbados at this crossroads in Caribbean history, the islanders were behaving like properly disciplined English gentlemen and proving that they merited the enviable t.i.tle 'Little England.'

The same courteousness prevailed in the Tatum household, though Clarissa clearly wanted to rid the place of her disreputable brother-in-law and Isaac considered him an embarra.s.sment, especially when Thomas Oldmixon asked one day: 'What's this I hear about your brother Will? Is he with us or not?'

'He's been contaminated by Saltonstall.'