The Book of Negroes

St. Helena Island, 1757. On the island, Aminata and the others are led to a large white house. Aminata is shocked to see dark-skinned people (whom Aminata refers to as “Negroes”) milling around the house’s sprawling yard. Women cook over a fire. A man sits beneath a tree, holding a knife in his hand, and she is puzzled as to why he doesn’t run away. A toubab man wearing fancy clothing (Appleby) stands among the Black people. He looks important, and Aminata decides he must be the chief. Beside the chief stands a “Negro helper” (Mamed) who is dressed far better than the others.

The Black helper (Mamed) moves toward the newcomers, poking and prodding them. He rips off Aminata’s cloth and motions for her to spread her legs. Aminata refuses, and the toubab chief (Appleby) slaps her. She falls to the ground. The helper is about to cane her, but the toubab chief calls him off and crouches beside Aminata, examining her developing body. A Black woman in the distance berates the helper and moves toward Aminata, silently picking her up and carrying her into a mud-walled house. She guides Aminata to a bed of a straw and gives her a gourd of water to drink. Aminata falls into a deep sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness. The woman tends to her, wiping her brow with a wetted cloth and lifting water to her lips to drink.

When Aminata wakes, she’s wearing a dress made of rough, scratchy fabric. The woman (Georgia) leads her around the group of mud houses and introduces her to the others. Everyone stares disbelievingly at Aminata. The woman grabs a chicken from a pen and points to it, then to Aminata’s mouth. Aminata nods yes. Then she sees Fomba exit a hut with some other men. “Fomba,” she says to the woman. The woman smiles, though Aminata can tell she doesn’t understand. The woman is Black, but she is not a homelander. She was born in this place. Aminata knows she must learn to understand the woman’s language, for her and Fomba’s sake.

Back in the woman’s hut, the woman points to herself and says, “Georgia.” Aminata replies with her own name. Georgia struggles to say Aminata’s name, only managing “Meena.” This, Aminata decides, will be her new name in her new life. 

Months pass, and Aminata learns the rhythm of her new life. They work six days of the week, feeding pigs, collecting eggs, and making soap. The toubab chief, Appleby, is often away from the plantation. In his absence, a different toubab man, “the overseer,” stands guard over the enslaved people. When the overseer is gone, the Black helper—Mamed—guards them. Georgia guides Aminata around the plantation, teaching her words and guiding her through her chores. Aminata looks on as Georgia makes ointments made of various herbs cooked in lard and prepares soups made of turtle.

After a couple months, Aminata is better at understanding Georgia’s speech. She seems to speak two different, but related, languages. She uses one language to speak to the toubabu. And she uses the other language, Gullah, around the other Black people. Georgia instructs Aminata never to call a White person “white,” otherwise she’ll receive a beating. Instead, she is to address them as “Master” or “Missus.” She’s also not supposed to look a White person in the eye or act like she knows more than them. She should also never share any Black words with White people. All this is a lot to take in, but Aminata is a fast learner, which pleases Georgia. Georgia asks Aminata why Fomba doesn’t talk, and Aminata explains that he stopped speaking on the long passage overseas. Georgia is perplexed, but she commends Fomba’s physical strength.

One day, Mamed approaches Aminata and orders her to come with him. As he leads her into the forest, Aminata observes his lighter skin and his hair, which is less tightly curled than Aminata’s own. Mamed stops at a group of colored wooden vats. They smell awful. Mamed hands Aminata pine needles and a brush and orders her to scrub the wood with lye. Later that night, Georgia explains that the vats are for “indigo,” a crop that White people use to dye their clothing. Cleaning the vats becomes Aminata’s job, and she notes that even when it’s just she and Mamed in the forest, he never speaks “the Negro language.” Later, Georgia explains that Mamed was “born here in the Carolina low-country.” His mother was “pure African”—but his father was a White man. After Mamed’s mother passed away, his father sold him to Master Appleby.

Another day, Mamed leads Georgia, Aminata, Fomba, and some others to the field to plant seeds. They sing as they work. Aminata shrieks when she steps on a snake, and Fomba rushes in and kills it, severing its head. Georgia brings the body back to her hut and skins it, oiling the skin each day and then using it to adorn her Sunday hat. She says it’s good luck.

One night, Appleby comes by and fetches Georgia to help a pregnant enslaved woman on another island. Aminata accompanies Georgia, who is impressed by Aminata’s ability to determine, just by touch, that the woman is carrying twins. Aminata can also communicate with the pregnant woman, who speaks Fulfulde and whose name is Falisha. Falisha starts to push, and soon one baby is born. Aminata urges Falisha to birth the remaining baby, but she drifts off to sleep. While they wait for her to wake, Aminata mentions Chekura to Georgia, who promises to find him on the fishnet. Felisha awakes when her first baby starts to suckle at her breast. She starts to push again, but the second baby is stillborn. Georgia conceals the dead baby beneath her clothes and tells Aminata she is not to tell anyone about it: as far as anyone knows, Falisha only had one child. 

Time passes, and the weather grows warmer. Georgia takes Aminata along anytime she’s called to deliver a baby or tend to the sick. She’s famous all across the island for her skills, and she often demands payment for her work, whether in rum, cloth, or Peruvian bark (which she claims treats fever). Aminata loves to accompany Georgia, who teaches her how to identify herbs and their medicinal properties. Georgia also inoculates Aminata against “the pox,” cutting into Aminata’s arm and sliding through it a needle contaminated from a sick man. Though Aminata will soon become mildly ill, the procedure will prevent her from becoming deathly ill later on. Sure enough, Aminata makes it through her illness with no pockmarks on her face. Though this pleases her, Georgia warns her that a little ugliness is a good thing—it’s not good to be too beautiful around here.

Soon the indigo harvest begins. Mamed canes Aminata when she walks to quickly with the plants, shaking from them the dust that coats their leaves. Later, Appleby takes Aminata aside and asks her if she’s “sensible” and which skills she can do. He seems interested when she mentions being able to catch babies but doesn’t inquire further. He asks her if she’s had the pox, and she says she doesn’t know. On his way back to the house, Appleby mentions to Mamed that Aminata will “turn out fine next season,” then he heads off. Aminata returns to the indigo harvest, hard, labor-intensive work that lasts through the night and involves cooking down the indigo powder until it forms a thick blue mud.

On the last day of the harvest, Aminata drops a sack of processed indigo, ruining it. Mamed grabs her hand, and without thinking she cries out, “Allahu Akbar.” Mamed motions for Aminata to follow him and asks how she knows Arabic. She explains about Papa’s Islam religion. To her surprise, Mamed doesn’t beat her again. Instead, he tells her to come see him after she’s finished with the day’s work.

That night, Aminata walks over to Mamed’s home, which is twice as big as the others’, and far nicer. In his home, Mamed tells Aminata about his life. His father was plantation owner, and his mother was the daughter of a Fula chief. She learned to read from her enslaver, who taught her to read and promised to free her and Mamed. Aminata likes this side of Mamed: he is “like a man who was willing to teach,” like Papa.

Mamed explains to Aminata that he still lives on the plantation because an injury to his leg left him unable to “run.” Curious, Aminata asks where Black people go when they run. Aminata pauses, eyeing Aminata strangely. Eventually he explains that they live among the “Indians,” or they go south and live with the Spanish. But that’s a hard and unpredictable life, and he likes having a roof over his head each night and a garden of his own. And he has an arrangement with Appleby: if the plantation continues to produce healthy crops, Mamed is allowed to have whatever food or books he wants—so long as he locks his door and doesn’t teach any of the other Black people to read. Aminata admits she’s long wanted to read, and Mamed agrees to teach her if she promises not to tell anyone. Aminata agrees, and they begin their first lesson.

Later, Georgia demands to know what happened at Mamed’s—did he hurt Aminata? Aminata promises that Mamed wanted only to talk, but Georgia is dubious. Then Georgia confesses that while Aminata was out, Chekura came looking for Aminata. Aminata shrieks with excitement. Georgia shushes her and says that Chekura lives on a nearby island and will come back for Aminata soon.

The indigo harvest continues. In her downtime, Aminata sneaks off to practice her reading, carving the words Mamed has taught her into a tree. The more she learns, the more eager she grows to learn more. In one of their sessions, Aminata boasts to Mamed of Fomba’s hunting skills, and Mamed later arranges for Fomba to go fishing with another Black man. 

One day, Georgia summons Aminata and tells her that Chekura has returned and is waiting for Aminata in the woods behind their home. Aminata rushes into the woods and embraces her dear friend, speaking to him in Fulfulde and catching up about all that has happened since they last saw each other. Chekura is impressed with how quickly Aminata has learned the Black language, and Aminata admits that she’s also learning to read. He presents her with a beautiful red kerchief to wear in her hair. She dons it, and he tells her she looks beautiful. They embrace. Though Aminata can tell that Chekura wants to have sex, he can sense she’s not ready, and they just sleep side by side. Aminata feels happy to wake up with him beside her, though he has to rush off so that no one back at his plantation notices his absence.

Chekura manages to see Aminata once a month or so, and she eagerly awaits his visits. One day, Appleby fetches Georgia to deliver a baby on Lady’s Island—but this time, he says, she is to go alone. Aminata will come with him. Appleby leads Aminata into the plantation house and into a bedroom, flinging her down onto the bed. Then he rips the red kerchief from her head and demands to know who gave it to her, sensing that Aminata is seeing a man. Appleby growls that Aminata belongs to him, and then he rapes her. The pain is excruciating. Afterward, Happy Jack, the enslaved man who works in the house as a cook, tries to comfort her. He carries her back to Georgia’s home.