“A fat white man came and took the men and women away and left us childrens. We held each other and cried. We didn’t know what was happenin’. The children who still had a mommy or daddy cried the hardest. I couldn’t understand what that fat white man was saying, but I watched from between the wood. He hauled up a young man and started slappin’ the boy’s haunches. He opened the man’s mouth and show off his strong yellowish teeth. Then he made the slave run and jump around the block, showin’ all them folks the young man’s strength and stamina. If they didn’t do what they was told, the fat man would whip them.” Old Bitsy grunted and shook her head. Many of these children had been born and grew up on the Anderson farm. She felt it was important to know from where their people came and the suffering their people went through, being ripped from their homes.
“Them white folks started a shoutin’ and wavin’ their arms. It scared me. The noise was loud and it hurt my ears. After a time, I was brought up to the block with the childrens. Some boys were taken away and I stood with other girls and we held each other. We was sore afraid and cold. We shivered and cried. I can still feel the cold chill of they bodies, like I was holdin’ a corpse. Our bodies dripped with sweat, not from the heat, but from the fear we felt. The big fat man came and smacked us. And we all got quiet. The girl beside me pissed and I felt the warmth of it hit my feet.”
The children sighed around her. They’d all heard this story before. Old Bitsy went on. “One by one, each girl was sold, our flesh was groped and touched, pulled and pinched. I was scared. As scared as I had ever been in my young life. My legs was shakin’ hard, like was grass in the wind. I tried to be brave. I sure did. I bared my teeth, like I was smiling, so they think I was a brave girl. Then, this white woman say something and that big ol fat man sets me down to the lady.” Old Bitsy remembered her, voice rusty with age.
Old Bitsy had been six years old at the time, when the kindly woman took the child into her home. The woman had been the wife of a merchant in Charleston. Bitsy was raised in a small household. There were only eight slaves and Bitsy had been the youngest. The other slaves taught her how to speak English and taught her how to care for the mistress of the house. Once, Bitsy had found a quill under the bed while cleaning. The master had found her with it and had beaten her for touching it. Bitsy found out later that it was forbidden for slaves to use quills or paper. They were not allowed to learn to write or read. Bitsy never touched anything to do with learning again.
The merchant’s wife died some five years later and Bitsy was taken to the block once again. She wasn’t quite as frightened and stood proud and straight. The young girl now understood what was happening and stood calmly on the block. She had clothing this time. The auctioneer shouted to the crowd, “Who’ll bid? Who’ll bid?” as he turned the eleven-year-old Bitsy around for all to see.
Dr. Alan Wyatt of Savannah, Georgia, bought Bitsy that day. Bitsy was to help the good doctor’s wife with house hold chores and be a personal maid and companion to Mrs. Hannah Wyatt. Mrs. Wyatt was in Savannah; she had been too sickly to come up to Charleston. On the long ride down to Savannah, Bitsy learned one other unpleasant task she was to do. The good Dr. Wyatt took out his bodily urges on the young girl. The first night out on their travels, they pulled off the road and set up camp.
Doctor Wyatt then proceeded to rape young Bitsy. When Bitsy cried out, she was smacked roughly about her head and face. By the time they arrived in Savannah, Bitsy had learned to stay quiet. It had been a long trip to Savannah and Bitsy had grown up quickly on that trip. She had learned to hate and mistrust white men for a different reason.
With the exception of Wyatt’s unwelcome attention, Bitsy’s life settled into sedate routine with the good doctor’s wife. Hannah didn’t make many demands on Bitsy and Bitsy tried to anticipate Mrs. Wyatt’s needs. Mrs. Wyatt was fond of Bitsy and gave her castoff dresses from one of the neighbor’s daughter.
When Bitsy turned seventeen, she drew the attention of another house slave, Carver Wyatt. When Carver asked for permission to marry Bitsy, Dr. Wyatt said no, refusing to hear his entreaty. Carver was so in love with Bitsy that one night he could endure the edict no longer, the couple ran away. Heading toward the north, they had been out almost a week when a patrol found them. Carver had tried to fight them and he was hung out right, on the nearest branch.
Bitsy cried, but refused to answer their questions of where she belonged and who her master was. They beat her savagely, but she kept silent. She was taken to Charleston once again and put up on the block. This time she was sold to a tobacco farmer up in Virginia. She and twenty other slaves were transported in two wagons. She was lucky, many slaves had to walk all the way to their next destination.
Bitsy spent the next thirty years on the tobacco farm as a field hand, working from dawn till
