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| Natalie Zemon Davies |
by Natalie Zemon Davis
“Two negroes hanged,” John Gabriel Stedman wrote in his
Suriname journal for March 9, 1776, and then two days later, among his
purchases of“soap, wine, tobacco, [and] rum” and his dinners with an elderly
widow, he records, “A negro’s foot cut off.” Stedman expanded on these events
in the later Narrative of his years as a Dutch–Scottish soldier fighting
against the Suriname Maroons: And now, this being the period of the [court]
sessions, another Negro’s leg was cut off for sculking from a task to which he
was unable, while two more were condemned to be hang’d for running away
altogether. The heroic behavior of one of these men deserves particularly to be
quotted, he beg’d only to be heard for a few moments, which, being granted, he
proceeded thus––
“I was born in Africa, where defending my prince during an
engagement, I was made a captive, and sold for a slave by my own countrimen.
One of your countrimen, who is now to be my judge, became then my purchaser, in
whose service I was treated so cruelly by his overseer that I deserted and
joined the rebels in the woods . . .”
To which his former master, who as he observed was now one
of his judges, made the following laconick reply, “Rascal, that is not what we
want to know. But the torture this moment shall make you confess crimes as
black as yourself, as well as those of your hateful accomplices.” To which the
Negroe, who now swel’d in every vain with rage [replied, holding up his hands],
“Massera, the verry tigers have trembled for these hands . . .and dare you think
to threaten me with your wretched instrument? No, despise the greatest tortures
you can now invent, as much as I do the pitiful wrech who is going to inflict
them.” Saying which, he threw himself down on the rack, where amidst the most
excruci ating tortures he remained with a smile and without they were able to
make him utter a syllable. Nor did he ever speak again till he ended his
unhappy days at the gallows.
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