Black Lily

The clearest memory from my childhood is my mother. Her radiant smile, her laughter, her warm hands, her tender embrace. That was who she was, and that is how I remember her.

My mother was born on a plantation near St. Augustine—the daughter of an overseer and the mistress of the master. Her entire short life was spent in the master's house, in his bed. When people speak of lovers, they speak of love. But in slavery, there is no such thing. My mother was not loved by Master Edmund. He owned her—as if she were nothing more than a thing he could use at his convenience.

For men, slavery is a convenient arrangement. No need for gifts, for poetry, for romances sung beneath a window. Just command the property to bare itself, and the matter is settled. For married planters, slave women are a gift from heaven. Their wives do not see these black mistresses as a threat to domestic happiness—jealousy of a black woman would be beneath their white dignity. So they do not confront their husbands. Instead, they take their fury out on the helpless slave women.

The mistress screams and slaps your face for being a lazy, slow wretch. And only you know the real reason for her rage. Her husband was in his study last night, bestowing his favor upon you. He used you. And what have you done wrong? You were born beautiful, and your master wanted you. Your duty is to be a meek, obliging, faithful slave. And even your children—his children—will be slaves.

I was not my mother's only child. Over the years she spent in the master's bed, she gave birth nine times. Only I survived. She would barely recover from one birth, bury the child, and the master would put another in her womb. And so it went, until death finally released her.

Every child fears losing their mother. We cannot imagine life without the one person who means everything to us. She is our anchor, our shelter. Without her, our existence is unthinkable.

I was terrified of losing her.

When I was very young, I witnessed something so cruel it has never left me. A black slave woman—her child being torn from her arms. A little boy, no older than me. Just a baby, really. He clung to his screaming mother, sobbing, while one overseer grabbed him by the legs and pulled. The mother fought to hold on. Then another overseer came. He swung his whip and struck her across the back. The leather cut through her thin dress, leaving a bright red stripe across her skin.

My child's mind did not understand at first that it was blood. And then the man with the whip struck again. The woman roared with pain and let go. I closed my eyes. In that moment, I felt a terror so deep I could not breathe—the terror of losing my own mother.

A harsh voice cut through the air:

— The niggers have multiplied!

The boy was thrown into a cage like an animal. The trader locked it shut and moved on, collecting his merchandise from the plantations. The mother tried to run after the cart, but the whip found her before she could take a single step. Again and again, he tore into her body until the cart disappeared around the bend. She did not scream anymore. She lay in the dust, trembling with each blow, her body a bloody ruin. And still the overseer did not stop. He kept beating her—a mother already broken by grief.

They believe we cannot love. They think our feelings are nothing but animal instinct. Take a child away, and we will forget, like cats. We will bear another, then another, until our bodies can produce no more slaves for the master.

That day, I ran to my mother in the master's house. I ran so fast, so certain that the trader might return and take me too. I believed that as long as I was near my mother, I was safe. She would never let anyone take me—even if they beat her as they had beaten that woman.

How naive I was. It was not the trader I should have feared, but the man who did the selling. My father.

I ran barefoot through the back entrance into the kitchen. I remembered my mother's warnings about the white masters' house. We were not to enter without permission. Disobedience would be punished. But I was not thinking of that. I only wanted to see my mother, to press myself against her, to hide in her arms from the terror that chased me.

She was standing at the table, kneading dough for a pie. Dinner would be served soon, and the masters would gather in the dining room. Everything had to be ready on time—or someone would answer for the delay.

I ran through the kitchen, weaving between the slave women in their gray dresses. Among them, I found my mother.

— Mama! — I screamed, crashing into her. — Mama, don't let the mean uncle take me!

Startled, she dropped the bowl. The sound of breaking pottery made everyone freeze. The other women stared at me, clutching my mother's legs.

— Meg, if Master Edmund's favorite pie isn't on the table, you'll feel the whip. Understood? — the head house slave snapped.

I did not like Aunt Tara. She always walked with her nose in the air, believing herself the most privileged slave in the house. She said the entire household rested on her shoulders—that without her, the white folks could not survive a single day. She claimed the master loved her dearly. And yes, she had been his wet nurse. But we all knew that in their eyes, she was worth little more than the master's hunting dog.

— I'll manage Master Edmund well enough, — my mother shot back.

Aunt Tara curled her lip and turned her fury on the other slaves. She never pushed my mother too far. The master's wet nurse knew all about Meg's connection to Edmund.

— Now, what happened? — my mother knelt down.

— A bad white uncle took a baby away from aunty, — I sobbed.

She wrapped her arms around me. Her hands, warm and gentle, stroked my back. Her lips kissed my cheeks, wet with tears.

— Hush, my dear, — she soothed. — No one will take you.

— And he beat her, — I cried, imagining my mother in that woman's place.

— I cannot be beaten, and no one will take you, Lily. — She cupped my face in her hands.

I looked into her eyes. They sparkled like drops of morning dew. My mother was fighting back her own tears—she did not want to frighten me. It is better for children not to know that in this beautiful world, pain and sorrow exist. She did everything she could to shield me from the cruelty of slave life.

I learned I was a slave when I was six years old. Late, for a truth like that. Many black children know by the age of three that they are property. But I lived in blissful ignorance. I chased butterflies. I did not pick cotton like the other children. I ate the delicious food my mother brought from the master's house. I never realized it was scraps from their table—crumbs tossed to us like bones to dogs. I never saw a flogging. My mother never took me to the punishments. For everyone else, these spectacles were mandatory, meant to instruct and warn. But my mother hid me from all of it. I did not hear the groans from the cold pits. I did not see the fugitives in their stocks. By the mistress's whim, all punishments were carried out behind the house, at the stables—her delicate nature could not bear the sight of cruelty.

I learned the truth on the day a child was taken from my mother. The first six years of my life, I was happy. Almost as happy as the white children of my father. But that day, as I clung to my mother, Aunt Tara spoke the most terrible words I had ever heard:

— When you tire of her, she'll go to the cotton fields, where the overseers will be far less gentle than the master. And he'll sell her—look how pretty she is. She'll fetch a good price. But the master is a Christian—he won't touch her once she blooms.

My mother rose. Her back straightened, and she pulled me tighter against her.

— Shut your mouth, you old hag! — she snarled.

The fury in her voice frightened me more than Tara's words. There was something animal in it, the growl of a cornered dog baring its teeth.

— No one likes the truth, Meg, — Tara said with a sneer. — Being pregnant by the master again doesn't make you special. You are a slave, and so is your girl. Do not forget it.

So I learned I was a slave. That whole day, I kept hold of the hem of my mother's dress, afraid to let go. Even when the master came in, I clung to her.

Everyone fell silent the moment he entered. I felt their fear. They dropped their eyes and worked harder. My mother tried to hide me behind the fullness of her skirt. Edmund did not scold her when he saw me in the kitchen. He gave me a thin smile and rumpled my hair, like a puppy. I was six, and that was the first time I had ever been touched with affection by the man who was my father.

I had seen him before. He used to walk past without noticing the little girl hiding behind the trees in his garden. Sometimes our eyes met—and I would dart away, heart pounding, and run back to our hut. I was drawn to him, and I was terrified of him. Watching him play with his white daughter, I imagined myself in her place. What happiness it must be, to have a father who loved you.

I did have a father—I heard him, saw him. But he had never been as close to me as he was that day in the kitchen.

At first, I asked my mother the questions all children ask:

— Why don't we live with Papa?

— Why doesn't he love us the way he loves them?

My mother would sigh and hold me instead of answering. It must have been too painful for her to speak of it. Did she love him? I often wondered. Can a woman truly love the man who owns her?

My mother was beautiful. So beautiful that others envied her. They hated her for it, cursed her beauty. No one wanted to befriend her. Even slaves have friends, but my mother was shunned. They saw her as the master's favorite, a traitor. As if she had any choice in the matter. As if loving or not loving the master was something she could decide.

I was her only friend, her only family.

My endless questions stopped the day my mother's eyes closed forever. A difficult childbirth had stopped her heart. My brother lived only a few minutes. That night, a ten-year-old girl grew up. I was terrified of being sold, of being lost to her forever. Terrified I would never see her kind eyes again, never feel her hands upon me. I was terrified of the evil uncle who stole children—he came to me in my nightmares every night. I woke drenched in sweat, in tears. I clung to my mother, but sleep would not come until dawn. I believed that if I closed my eyes, the nightmare would return.

But I feared the wrong thing. It was not I who was taken from her—it was she who was taken from me, by yet another child of Edmund's.

A slave pastor said a prayer over my mother's grave. They sang, and they left. Just another dead slave. No one cared. I stood beside the mound of earth under which she lay, and I wept.

It had been raining since morning. My tears were lost in the downpour.

"Too bad I cannot weep like the sky," I thought, clutching my little bouquet.

I was only ten years old. Still a child—but not in the eyes of slavery. For enslaved children, childhood ends the moment they learn to walk and talk. By four, they are working in the fields. By six, they are carrying water, scrubbing floors. It had not been that way for me. While my mother lived, she shielded me from it. She gave herself to the master again and again, buying me a better life with her own body. But now she was gone. What would the man who had fathered me do with me now? Would he take me into his fine house? Or send me to the fields, to work beneath the blazing sun? Perhaps he would sell me, as Tara had said. But whatever he did, it could never hurt as much as this. In this world, I was entirely alone.