The Scars of Slavery

~ Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan ~

George Washington Black is the full name of our protagonist – though he is often called Wash by friends – who was born in 1818 in Barbados, a slave, and the son of a slave (although he did not know who his parents were.) He was a field slave at first:

a field slave was a black-skinned brute born for hard toil, certainly not a being to be brought inside

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until the brother of his master requests him as assistant, because being a small boy of nine, he would be the right weight to suitable ‘ballast’. The master of Faith Plantation is Erasmus Wilde, and his brother Christopher Wilde (Titch to his friends) is a scientist who was attempting to build a hot air balloon (his Cloud-Cutter). Wash is given into Titch’s service for a time, and trained to be a field assistant, a house servant, and treated relatively well by his new master, who is secretly anti-slavery. Titch quickly discovers Wash’s talent for drawing, and also teaches him to read.

Life in Faith Plantation is more than grim, it is inhumanely cruel.

Then the maimings began […] I saw men limp into the fields, blood streaming down their legs. I saw women with bloodsoaked bandages over their ears. Edward had his tongue cut out for backtalk. Elizabeth was forced to eat from a full chamberpot for not cleaning the previous day’s thoroughly. James tried to run away […] the master had an overseer burn him alive as we watched. Afterwards in the embers of the pyre, an iron was heated and we filed past the charred horror of him, one by one, and were branded a second time. James’ was the first of the new killings; other killings followed. Sick men were whipped to shreds or hanged above the fields or shot.

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There are many other instances in the novel which testify to the brutality with which slaves were kept, and killed. Even suicide was not permitted, and attempts were punished harshly.

However, this is not just a novel about slavery and its atrocities. The storyline goes that in an early effort with the Cloud-cutter, Wash has been warned by Titch to stand back, but Titch’s cousin, Phillip, sends Wash to get him sandwiches; obeying this order, Wash’s face  is badly burnt when the experiment goes wrong. Later, Phillip inflicts an even graver wrong on Wash by making Wash witness Phillip’s suicide. Because Wash witnessed it, he knows his own life is forfeit, and he despairs, hoping he will be granted a quick death rather than torture and a slow death. Titch however, has an audacious plan – to leave Faith although all the ports will be watched, to take off that same night, before Erasmus can stop them, on the Cloud-Cutter.

The story requires some willing suspension of disbelief, but it is worth it. The Cloud-Cutter runs into a storm, lands on a ship, is taken eventually to shore on this ship all the way to Virginia. Wash meets a friend of Titch, a gentleman who aids runaway slaves, but Wash himself refuses to leave Titch even when Titch urges him to join these slaves going north where they will be free. There are wanted posters and a man hunt for Wash, for whom Erasmus would pay a thousand pounds, dead or alive. Wash carries the fear of this bounty on his life for many years.

Meanwhile, Titch who had received news while still in Barbados that his revered father died in the Arctic, resolves to go there, and Wash follows, gladly escaping the clutches of his bounty hunter. In the Arctic, they find the senior Wilde alive. Titch abandons Wash in the Arctic – not without money and resources, but clearly leaves him. Wash is at first petrified, to have the protection of Titch removed. But after being with Wilde senior until he died, Wash resolves to go to Nova Scotia and starts a life there.
In Nova Scotia, Wash finds a friend, Medwin, and a woman to fall in love with, Tanna, the daughter of another famous scientist, Goff. Goff eventually brings Wash back with him to London to set up an exhibition of marine life, using aquariums for the first time. In UK, Wash resolves to visit the Wilde’s a family house, Granbourne, in Hampshire. It is actually quite a momentous visit for an ex-slave to make, as this property was the control centre of the sugar plantations and slaves owned by this family. However, Wash seems primarily driven by the need to find Titch and actually confront him, a search which takes him to Amsterdam and Morocco, with Tanna in tow. The end of the book is perhaps weakest of all, but overall, it is a good read. 

The novel tries to depict the inner working of Wash’s mind, given that he was a runaway slave, given the kind of brutal early life he had, his loneliness, his mistrust, his trauma, combined with his exceptional intelligence and talents, and his own sense of justice and dignity. It is a surprisingly palatable novel for all its tenuous and incredulous plot twists and turns.