by Maggie Mbroh

Created on: March 19, 2009

My Escape From Slavery in the 1840s

Cinque was my name. I was a little boy playing around in the bush as every motherland boy would do in the 1800s. I was snatched from my family, my home, my freedom, my hemisphere, and all.

It's been several years now since that incident occurred, but every bit of the hardships I endured on my journey kept on coming to me. Compared to what I was going through was no different. Ever since I came to South Carolina, I was treated no better than domestic animals. The shelter I slept in, the food I ate, the clothes I wore, to the number of hours I worked, I knew I would not live long like my relatives back home in the motherland. I have heard about the great African legends like a 'A Woman Called Moses' and the 'Father of the Underground Railroad,' but I still trembled with fear when I heard other slaves talking about escaping from slavery. The awful punishments I had seen given to people who attempted to escape was extremely beyond description.

It was the early beginning of Spring in the 1840s, when we were all summoned. I asked a co-slave friend about the gathering, but he also said he had no clue. We were in a straight line as we watched a group of light-skinned, black and white men count us all. I later learned that what they did was called census. They counted us numerous times because they claimed they kept on missing one slave or the other, which they later told us that it was a trick- they were agents. They did it several times until the overseers were fed up and left the scene for a couple of minutes. As soon as the overseers left the scene, two of the agents looked to the right and then to the left to make sure no one was in sight. I did not know what was going on, and from the look on my colleagues faces I drew the same conclusion. They began to talk to us about their mission. Before they left the plantation, I was baffled to take a life decision up to that day I thanked my friend for making. The question the agents asked was "Who would like to escape from bondage?" Out of the hundreds of slaves on the plantation, about 15 people opted to escape bondage including my friend, Kimba, but excluding me. My friend tried to raise up my hand for recognition as number 16, but each time he did, I brought my arm down. I was called Cinque. My name meant a lot, but I had never lived up to the meaning of it. The agents later told the 15 slaves who aggreed to escape where and when to meet.

That night I just could not sleep, and I kept

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