Boston

BOSTON, born in Africa in 1783 – Died December 1859 in Society Hill, Darlington County, SC. (Story originally posted Nov. 10, 2018).

When I think of my 4x great-grandfather, I think about a free young man walking alongside his brother going through the daily routine of trading and selling their wares in their homeland of Africa.

They are of an age where they have taken wives and possibly have children on the way.  They are two brothers with so much hope for their future.

After all, isn’t that the way life should be?

BROTHERS WALKING

In the year 1805 on a day that should have been like any other day, Boston and his brother are approached by men who tell them that they have rare trees that would be of interest to them.

Of course, this was just a ploy to abduct the brothers and sell them into slavery.

THE FIGHT…….

In my mind’s eye I can see what is taking place, as I am sure that you can too.

You know that moment when life takes you by surprise? There are those things that no matter how you try to prepare for them……there is just no preparation.

Have you ever experienced that “shocked second” that seems like minutes or hours?

I often refer to it as the second of the LOUDEST silence EVER!!!  It’s when YOU ARE COMPLETELY STUNNED!!!!

That is where we now find these two young men, they are in their “second of the loudest silence ever”, and then FIGHT or FLIGHT kicks in.

The fight that ensued would have taken your breath away. These two young men are now realizing what is happening.

It’s not that they have never heard about the slavers, it’s just that they can’t believe that it is happening to them.

How long that brutal fight lasted, I do not know, but I do know that it had to be brutal.

CAPTURED……..

If you had been a spectator of that brutal fight,  I’m sure you would have been too appalled to watch and too stunned to look away.

Seeing that bloody battle would have left you weak, sickened and on your knees gasping for air; as it did these two young men who now find themselves captured.

Captured

FROM FREEDOM TO ENSLAVEMENT

Beaten and shackled together along with other captured men, women and children, they are marched off to the coast to a slave castle dungeon.

View Of Cape Coast Castle. Cape Coast Castle Is A Fortification In Ghana Built By Swedish Traders For Trade In Timber And
Gold. Later The Structure Was Used In The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Eventually they were taken to a slave ship to begin an unimaginable and inhumane journey into a life of enslavement.

Based on the research that I have done regarding slave ships combined with genealogical records of Boston’s purchase date,  I would say that the ship that carried him and his brother to the slave market in Charleston, SC was called Love and Unity.

Ship Voyage Data – Love and Unity https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database#results

What an oxymoron, a ship called “Love and Unity”, transporting captured men, women and children across the ocean to be sold into enslavement.

Ship Holdings -Captured and Enslaved

The voyage was a harrowing ordeal that lasted nearly three months. According to the ship records 47 days of the journey was spent in the “MIDDLE PASSAGE”.

Voyage route of the Love and Unity

MIDDLE PASSAGE

FORTY-SEVEN DAYS chained together in the smallest of spaces, unable to move or sit up. Barely anything to eat or drink, all bodily functions were performed in the spot in which you lay.

The staggering heat, the stench and illness that occurred was almost unbearable.

MIDDLE PASSAGE IMAGE

Historical records state that the deaths that occurred during the middle passage were staggering.  Nearly 1.8 million enslaved Africans died while in the Middle Passage.

Slave accounts and doctor’s logs say that the bottom of a slave ship looked like a slaughter house by the time you
completed the middle passage.

SURVIVING THE JOURNEY………

Historians say that strength alone would not have been enough for an enslaved person to survive the brutal conditions of the Middle Passage.

A person would have to be able to envision life at the end of the journey in order to survive it.

I can see myself standing within the confines of that slave ship that my 4x great-grandfather and his brother were on.

I can hear the sounds of the night on that ship.

The sounds of Africa. When you think of the beauty of the African voice that one can listen to for hours, mixed with the agonizing pain of brutality,  the longing for home and the utter sense of loss and hopelessness, you have what I have come to think of as the death rattle of a ennslaver’s ship.

I can imagine the  nights  that  Boston and his brother called out to each other  with the need to hear the familiarity of their names spoken from a loved one’s lips saying, “I am still here brother, we will live and not die, we will see our homeland again.”

SOUTH CAROLINA

Love and Unity arrived in Charleston SC on June 12 th , 1805.  From that day on, my 4x great-grandfather would be known by the name of Boston.

Slave Auction Pen-For Africans in Carolina, arrival in Charles Town was a brutal and traumatic experience. After surviving the Middle Passage, many then spent weeks in pest houses for disease quarantine, followed by sale at the hands of traders. Initially slave sales in Charles Town were confined to pens or yards behind homes or stores on Broad and Tradd Street, or outside the Exchange Building. Carolina traders sought to make slave sales organized and civil processes, providing wine, drink, and other refreshments for buyers as they debated prices for enslaved African men, women and children.

McIver Plantation (Whirligig Plantation)
https://scpictureproject.org/darlington-county/john-k-mciver-house.html

Boston along with five girls and four boys were purchased and taken to Darlington County, SC.

Boston never saw or heard of his brother again.

Old Slave Mart on Chalmers

One of the girls that had been purchased with Boston on that day of June 12 th , 1805 was given to him several years later as his companion/wife, her name was Fanny.

Boston and Fanny had five children, a daughter named Dicey (she was given as a companion/wife to an enslaved man named Jack. After enslavement they took the last name of Brown), four sons, Solomon (my 3x great-grandfather), William, Boston Jr and Scipio.

I can’t tell you very much about Boston on a personal level, but I would like to think that a part of the man is revealed in the historical and family accounts of his children and grandchildren.

The inner strength that enabled Boston and Fanny to survive the brutal journey to the Americas was the same strength that was instilled in their children.

Boston was captured as an adult, he knew with clarity what it was like to be free. He never forgot the big skies and copper sun of Africa.

Boston knew that a time would come that the chains of enslavement would be broken and that was the vision he implanted in his children.

PERSPECTIVE …….. Lessons Learned
Thinking of Boston makes me think of an experience that a world-renowned pastor told about himself.
He said when he was young, foolish and early in his ministry, he was in a taxi that was driven by an African.
While in conversation with the driver, the pastor made the comment that he really didn’t care for Africans that much because they seem so arrogant. The African taxi driver responded back in a thoughtful manner and said, “Oh no, we are not arrogant, we are what you WOULD have been, had you NOT been slaves.

The pastor said that was one of the greatest lessons he had ever learned. I believe that is the lesson that Boston taught his children.

BOSTICK (Bostic)
Boston instilled freedom into the hearts and minds of his children, it’s evident in the choosing of the last name that the sons took after enslavement.

BOSTICK, (which has been shortened by much of the family to BOSTIC). This wasn’t their slave owner’s last name, it was the name THEY choose.

1. In part to honor Boston.
2. According to oral family history, and this takes me back to when I was a teenager visiting my great-aunt, she explained that her mother, aunts and uncles always said that the brothers choose Bostick as a play on words, “BROKE STICK” (the broken stick of the master), they were FREE.
   As I’m sharing this history about my 4x great-grandfather Boston, I can’t help but think about all the times (especially now), when people ask, “why are black people always
   talking about slavery?”
   THE ANSWER ………Because we honor our ancestors that endure the unthinkable. The countless names of family members that survived so much must be remembered because without them there is no us.
    
   Genealogy Research Tip* Document, Document, Document….. Document everything because it will all be of importance when researching your family lineage.