for her spirited black eyes. It is time to put that younger July from your mind for another has just walked in. And her face, if the grime was wiped from it, or she was commanded to lift her head, is so pinched with starvation that death’s bony skull can be glimpsed beneath it; her skin is as tanned, wrinkled and care-worn as a neglected hide; her hair so matted that it stands in stiff locks; and her gait so stooped that the flimsy tattered rags of the dress she wears appear like a weight for her to carry.
And no seat is offered, so she clings her fingers to the wood of the dock that she might lean against its bulk. A bible is thrust before her. What must she do? Take it? No, she must place her hand upon it as she speaks her name. For that man—the white man within that big soft chair—must know the name she goes by. But not so hushed. He requires it spoken louder. Yet still he cannot hear when all her breath is used to pronounce it.
The man commanded to listen at her mouth tilts his head so close to hers that she can see white flakes of dead skin entangled within his hair. As he straightens away from her, he puffs out the breath he held so her stench did not overwhelm him and pronounces her name. July, says he. But July who? July who? The big-big man must now know. Again his breath is held as scaly-head man leans forward, but he hears no surname. Red as a goat’s testicle his face becomes, waiting for July to respond. But she has not uttered the name Goodwin for too many years and will not speak it now. The accused knows no other name, this gasping man is finally forced to expel.
Then there be a fat-bellied, bewhiskered white man standing erect about the other side of this room behind a desk. He says that she, that negro—and his fleshy finger points steadily across at July—was a squatter upon Unity land.
‘Are you living unlawfully upon the land?’
What? She could not hear him.
‘Do you live within the boundary of the estate?’
What? How could she reply if she could not hear him?
‘Oh, no matter, carry on.’
She has been living upon that land since its ownership passed from Amity to Unity and the boundaries were redrawn, begins this fat man. She was slave to John Howarth who owned Amity, then to his sister Caroline Mortimer. Mrs Mortimer married a Robert Goodwin and the estate was subsequently sold. England is where they now reside, my lord, in England.
Many, many years, the accused has lived upon those backlands. She lives amongst several other of the negroes who used to work the plantation at Amity. Never has she paid any rent, according to the attorney. It is true it is unlevel rough and spent land, useless for cultivation, yet still within the boundary of the estate. But those negroes would not be moved.
This one (and again the fleshy finger points), declares she has no other home but this. Says she had been living upon Amity for all her life. That it was the place of her birth, where her kindreds’ bones were rested . . . et cetera, et cetera. She believes, as many of the negroes do in their child-like way, my lord, that there is no other world.
How many negroes lived there? Quite a few at first. It was the whole of the negro village from the Amity plantation. They were a blight. And, oh yes, there were several attempts made to have them moved on. The attorney at Unity—a Mr Fielding, my lord, he runs several of the estates in the parish for Sir Salisbury Edwards of Bristol, England, who bought Amity and combined the lands—said that much effort was made to reclaim the area. But never did he use unwarranted brutality, he wishes this court to know, like some Baptist ministers have implied within the press here. Never.
The attorney felt that, at the time, he was within his rights to see the negroes put beyond the land’s boundary. But he did not order the lands to be cleared with fire. Those fires were started by the negroes who did not realise how tindered the land had become during the drought of that time. And the militia were sent in only to apprehend those that took part in the prison incident in town.