Enslaved people Elizbeth and Green Flake (ages 5 and 10) were given as wedding gifts to James and Agnes Love Flake. In this segment, Darius Gray and I depicted the moment when Liz was taken from her mother and prepared to become the property of Agnes Love Flake. We know that Green was told that his mother had died. This was not true, but he was told this so that he wouldn’t run off and seek her. This excerpt is from Bound for Canaan.
She had another name once but couldn’t recall it. It was a sweet name only her mama used. Mama had said it like a sad. song, braiding her hair, whispering, “Massa say he goin’ put you in his pocket. That pocket like to hold every one of us before long, and all we be doin’ is jingle.” Mama pulled hard to get the braids tight. “He actin’ crazy. Why he want to sell off my baby for? What might you do, so young? Fetch and carry?” Mama finished the last braid. “If you was mine, I’d have you pluckin’ flowers for the table. Nothin’ but pluckin’ flowers.”
“I is yours!”
Mama turned her around and nodded. “Today you is.” Tears made gold streaks down Mama’s cheeks. “Some folk put young ’uns in the field where the cotton be taller’n they is. What they want with a baby anyhow?” The tears glistened. “I cain’t recollect my mama’s face, and I don’t reckon you goin’ recollect mine.”
She did recollect it, though, even after she forgot her sweet name. She recollected her mama’s weeping face, her mama’s stretched-out arms, her mama’s legs running to beat the band when the horses pulled the cart away.
That was the way the world worked for us colored folk back then. We had no choice in much of nothing and no lawful right to cling to our own kin.
Inside the cart, all she could do was cry herself to sleep atop the turnips and rutabagas. She and all these vegetables were being taken to Mizz Agnes Love’s daddy, Massa William.
She recognized Massa William Love straight off. He was a tall, sharp-faced man with a plump belly, who had paid a visit to the old massa only a few days before.
At the Loves’ big house, she got a new dress and a permanent name. The dress was stiff gingham, and the name was Elizabeth. Of course, she was dressed so fancy not to please her but because she was a gift for Mizz Agnes, whose wedding celebration was upcoming. The place was Anson, North Carolina, and the marriage date was October 2, 1838.
There sat Elizabeth, on a stair landing next to a black boy called Green. Her hair had been pomaded and combed into a knot at the back of her head. She was dressed in a yellow frock that matched the roses she was supposed to carry. Green was wearing a yellow shirt and brown suspenders, hitched to new pants. The pants fit him tight. Seemed someone wanted to show off how big Green was. It appeared he might bust out of those pants with one big step and stand embarrassed in front of all the white folks.
Looking like a matched set, these children could see everything from where they’d been told to wait.
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