recall, several hundred negroes surrounded the prison house to demand release of five or six of the squatters, or settlers, as they insisted they were, who had been charged with trespass and were arrested when the police tried to evict them. The crowd of negroes were singing and making threats that they will see Jamaica become another San Domingo and run all white men from the island. Eventually, in order to free the prisoners, this mob attacked the gaol burning it to the ground.
Very bad business indeed, very bad. But most of the negroes were caught and justice was dealt with a firm hand, as I’m sure the court can recall. This one said she had nothing to do with it but the attorney was never sure—says she’s more crafty than most.
How many of them are still living there? Well, less now, as I understand. Many died from sickness—yellow fever mostly. They have been left pretty much alone for several years. And the land there is now very poor, evidently. It hardly yields anything—the odd yellowing banana perhaps—which is why some of them have succumbed of late to starvation. There is still work for them upon the plantation if they will do it, the attorney says. But these negroes, as always, seem to fear that slavery is being brought back; that this island will be sold to the Americas and they will then find themselves again slaves . . . and so on and so on; arguments this court has had to hear too often as justification for wrongdoing. And this one, the accused, who calls herself only July, has never, ever been willing to work.
‘Are you willing to work?’
What, what? She still cannot hear him.
‘Can you hear me? Can she hear me?’
‘Do you hear him?’
What?
‘Oh, never mind. Carry on. Let’s get to the charge against her. It’s so very hot.’
And Constable Campbell is brought forth to stand within the courtroom. Skinny as a broom with a skin pockmarked as a breadfruit. The accused—and now a white bony finger does point across the room to July—was lying down at the side of the path that runs from town to Unity Pen. He thought her dead, for she was not moving. She was covered with a filthy old shawl. So he kicked her. And he was quite surprised when she began to stir. She yelled several unrepeatable cuss words upon him. He asked her what she was doing. She said that he should mind his business. He repeated the question and this time she replied that she was on her way to market. But it was a very late hour for her to be going to market and she was told so.
Thinking something suspicious about her, the constable asked her to get up from the ground. It was as she was telling him in no uncertain terms to go away, that a fowl was heard clucking underneath her shawl. The constable, at once seeing a bird caught and flapping within her garment, asked her where she got this hen from. The negro replied that she had raised it. When asked to produce the bird from under her shawl so that the constable might inspect it, the accused ran off. By the time the constable had caught up with her, she had no hen under her clothes. She had proceeded to berate the constable—in some of the foulest language the constable had ever had to endure—for making her lose her only chicken. She was then arrested for stealing.
‘Did you steal the chicken?’
‘No, massa, me did raise it.’
‘What did she say? Was it your chicken?’
‘Yes, massa, me did raise it, then me did lose it.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said, my lord, that she raised the chicken.’
‘Yes, but where did she get it?’
‘Someone ’pon Allen Pen did give me to raise.’
‘What is she saying?’
‘Something about Allen Pen. I think she’s saying that somebody gave her the fowl to raise.’
‘Yes, but are you speaking the truth? Ask her if she is speaking the truth.’
‘Me place me hand upon the book and Lord strike me down if me not speak true.’
‘What is she saying?’
‘She wishes to place her hand upon the Bible to show she is speaking the truth.’
‘Was the hen eventually found?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Has anyone complained that they are missing a hen?’
‘Not up to now, my lord.’
‘Has she been in front of us before?’
‘Umm, no, no, it does not seem so. I believe this is her first time within a court, my lord.’