Free Indeed

Brian Sankarsingh shares a poem from his book Enslaved, A Chronicle of Resistance

What happens when a person who has been born into slavery is suddenly told they’re free? You will never know. You have known freedom all your life. You are free to come and go as you pleased. You are free to choose one thing over another. You are free to give your love to whoever you want, and they are free to accept or reject that love. From the time you were born your first breath was of freedom. It is not second nature to you it is one of the things that define you. You don’t have to tell the people around you that you are free. They know! Because they are free too. 

But what if that was not so? What if you did not even know your father because he was sold by the person who said they own you? What if that person did indeed have that power over your life – even its minutest aspects – to do with as they pleased? What if you had the welts and permanent scars on your back and bottom to prove that was true? And, what if one day you’re told by that person that you were FREE? What would that mean to you?  

There is a classic story called The Elephant and the String. On the day a new elephant is born, the training method of East Asian mahouts has been to tie one end of a thick rope to the elephant’s neck or leg, and the other to a stake planted deeply in the ground. From birth, the young elephant struggles and fights to free itself, day after day, month after month, and year after year. But the overwhelming rope eventually conquers the young elephant, as at some point in its life, it gives up, stops resisting, and stops fighting. From that day forth, the trainer replaces the thick rope with a thin string, and the elephant continues living under the belief that it cannot defeat the rope. Whenever the elephant feels the familiar tightening of the string (albeit much softer), it is reminded of the rope, and gently moves back to the centre of its radius.

Although the story is real – this is a common practice – it serves as an excellent metaphor for this discussion. The original enslaved Africans, like Mufa, KNEW what it meant to be free. They had been free, and that freedom had been brutally stolen from them. Even their children would have probably somewhat understood from their stories and from experiencing firsthand the longing for what once was. That disappears by the next generation. Freedom becomes so abstract that they know they want it but have no idea what it means.

The Emancipation Proclamation set me free  
But what does that really mean to me 
 
I stand here alone in this cotton field 
Surrounded by hundreds of other people like me  
 
We’ve been yearning for freedom all of our lives 
But now that we have it, it’s not all that it seems  
 
What do I do now, where do I go 
When being enslaved is the only life that I know 
 
What happens next to me, how do I survive 
After all my hard work there is nothing to receive  
 
 
I look into the faces of my fellow freedmen 
Every man, every child and every woman  

There I see something that helps me to cope 
In everyone’s face is an expression of hope 

I see confirmation and we silently agree 
We are emancipated and we are free indeed 

Bio: BRIAN SANKARSINGH is a Trinidadian-born Canadian immigrant who has published several books of poetry on a wide range of social and historical themes including racism, colonialism, and enslavement. Sankarsingh artfully blends prose and poetry into his storytelling creating an eclectic mix with both genres. This unique approach is sure to provide something for everyone.

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