The USS Planter

When Gennul Shumman done march to the sea is when them colored start pohin down outa countryside. They just walk off fum they owner and set theyseff free. The patrol done stop, and they wunt nothing to keep um slave, really, so they just walk off.

And mos of em come down roun top Beaufort, and down rown top Hilton Head and Port Royal and Savannah, cause people knowed that wuh where the colored wuh free and could join up the Army, and they wunt no Southern white folk to laud it oerm no mo.

That wuh when Gennul Shumman nounce he goin give evvy free colored famly forty acre and a mule. You aint hardly bleeb it now, the way they treat nigguhs roun here these day, lynching and whipping and murdering and cahyun on like they do. But I member it like it wuh yesterday. I tellin you boy. I live through it.

Yo ma and me, we join up with the ones goin get forty acres and a mule, and they put us on a steamship, the Planter, run by Gennul Bob Small. That brother wuh one fine, proud man. He a fine and a proud a any white man I ever see. He wuh Capn of that ship, and when we clamb on board he standin there at the gangplank, shakin our hand and talking Gullah to each and evuh brethren sister, tellin us welcome on board, we boun for black heaven. Black pahdice, he say. He laughin and smilin and cahyin on. I member that Bob Small I do.

And Capn Small he took us on that ship down in Jawjuh, up the Geechee river, and the yankee soldier, they wuh there at the landing, handin out paper and telling folk where to go to they new land. They give yo ma and me forty acre and a mule, and a wagon, and nuff vittel to lass six munt.

You aint never seed a place pretty a that farm. It wuh up on the marsh, overlooking the Geechee river, up on a bluff, and they wuh live oak all along, where we built our house, and the breeze blow up long that bluff all summuh long, where it aint hardly evuh hot in that house. And then out behind wuh the field. We had three big field of land, where yo ma reah chicken, and goat, and vejubble mo than we could eat, and then I reah cotton out yond all that.

And they wunt none of this lynchin and cahyun on back in them day. The yankee soldier wuh in charge, and the white men uh still off in the war, mos of em, and the one come back already wuh too beat up to do nothin to the colored back then.

I tell you what it wuh like, son. It wuh like the holy spirit done deliver us to the promise land. A man live he whole life, and he hear the preacher preachin and the women singin bout the Laud goin take care of him and whole him in he hand and the Laud done number the hair on he head. Well, for that two year, it wuh like that.

Coase it wunt real. They done kill President Lincoln, and President Johnson, he done take all that land back from the nigguh, and thowed us off, and we done walk back up to Beaufort on our bare feets.

And how we done get from that black heaven to this sorry state we in now, you ask, well it didn happen all twunce. It took a lifetime to get roun where it be nowday.

I member I got back to Beaufort, and yo ma just bout drag me off to chuch. I didn want no part of it. I done give up on hope and the Laud and the gumment and the yankee soldier. And she just drag me in to chuch with her one Sunday moaning, and they wuh Gennul Bob Small, come roun to talk to the brethren sister. And that man, he aint loss no hope. He wunt nothin but hope heseff. He say we goin build a black heaven right there in Beaufort County, what treat all the brethren sister, colored and white, like they the chillun of God they be.

That wuh a fine man, Bob Small. That wuh a fine a man as evuh be.

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