his mouth pinched as a dose of pepper and his brow cut deep with frown. Samuel was poised to reply to the massa’s request—he would, like the others, work a little for a wage but could never give up his fishing—but was silenced when the massa bid him wait. He then beckoned to Miss July to repeat for Samuel everything that he had just told him. And even though Miss July hesitated to carry on when Samuel said, ‘Yes, me savvy, massa, but . . . yes, me catch, but . . . Miss July, me does savvy, but . . .’ the massa Goodwin kept commanding her to continue.
Only after Miss July had repeated every blessed word, was Samuel permitted to speak. Yet he had only drawn breath to say, ‘You see . . .’ before the massa screamed, ‘Why will you not do as I say?! It will be for the good of us all. Just do as I say, damn you!’
While Fanny recalled that the massa at her house was quite bedevilled. But not with her—even after she informed him that the work upon her lands allowed her to know free. No. His vexation was with Miss July. For when Miss July began to speak Fanny’s words for him, he growled upon her, ‘I know what she said! I’m not a fool,’ and then blasted out of the hut. That haughty house servant, Miss July, had to run to follow him out. But the massa was already atop his cart and riding away. Miss July had to call after him to wait. It was only after her pickney began to howl—one screech that did crumble the wattle of Fanny’s wall—that he stopped the cart to allow Miss July to catch him and climb aboard.
Following these visitations, the massa Goodwin then let it be known that he had spent many days in prayer and deliberation. He summoned all to the mill yard so they might hear the consequence of his careful thought. Standing atop his barrels, he proclaimed to his audience of leery negroes that, henceforth, the rents for their houses would be separated out from the rents for their provision grounds.
And, what is more, he said, he now believed it right and Christian to allow those negroes who did not wish to work upon the sugar plantation named Amity, to remain both within their homes and grounds, providing that all obligations to pay their rent, upon time, and with good grace, were met.
Come, those negroes who had of late called him ‘massa ground-itch’, for being more pestering than that accursed foot ailment, hung their heads. No. Massa Goodwin was a good man, a kind man, a handsome man, a clever man, a fair man, a tall man, and a credit to his papa. Only Benjamin Brown did not join in this cringe for, he always avowed, from the first they were uttered, he sensed a trick within those fine words. A white man is a white man, no matter how friendly he believed himself to be with God, was Benjamin’s judgement.
But Fanny recalled Benjamin’s mouth gaping as much as anyone’s when James Richards read aloud the tariffs of rents for houses and provision lands that were nailed upon the mill door.
A month’s rent upon the cottage was a day’s wage, as it had been from the first. And a day’s work could see it discharged. But the rents for the provision grounds! Read it again, was called out to James Richards—so sure were they that he had read in error. Bring Dublin Hilton to see it, he can read numbers better, was yelled when James Richards repeated the amounts. But when Dublin Hilton stepped forward to squint upon the paper and pronounce exactly the same rents, the gasp that flowed through that crowd disturbed the air so that it was felt in the town as a chill.
For the massa was to charge a full week’s wage in rent for every acre of land worked! Who could ever earn sufficient to pay it? None. While scrawled by a hurried hand within a corner of this grievous note were the words, ‘To fish the river is no longer permitted’.
Elizabeth Millar said later that the deputation that marched to the great house to request a parley with the massa Goodwin about these rents, were surprised to find him waiting for them. He stood with his arms folded and his legs astride upon his veranda, as if he had been lingering