This book, Susanna, is dedicated to the life of Susanna, a girl from Bengal whose real name remained unknown throughout history. What is known about Susanna is that history was not on her side.
This fictional rendition, based on her historical footprint found in court records, dates back to 1658. It is a mere snapshot of her life as well as those of fellow slave women under Dutch rule at the Cape. These historical timelines, data and collected information are pieces of history to get a glimpse inside her heart, mind and her pain.
It my wish that Susanna will lead to a deeper understanding not only of her life as a convict slave, woman and mother, but also of others who suffered the same fate under slavery.
At the heart of this story lies the simple presumption that Susanna, a woman like any other woman, once felt the gentle touch of rain on her face. That she like any other woman once yearned for the cleansing power of water on her skin, shoes on her feet. That she dreamt the kind of dreams all young girls dream of.
What is known is that Susanna never experienced the most basic freedoms as a girl or as a woman. Her mouth never had an opportunity to speak of her life as a convict slave or how she ended up in the court records of a Dutch outpost between 1658-1669.
The introductory poem below entitled History is dedicated to all the Susannas who suffered and died under the yoke of slavery unknown, undocumented and unheard.
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HISTORY
By ETK
History was the ship of prosperity and wealth that roamed the virgin shores;
That turned daughters and women into concubines and whores.
History is the custodian of the slave,
The servant, the rogue, the thieve and the knave.
Only History knows the story behind the story of the runaway,
And only History holds the keys to their restless slumber and the their ultimate decay,
For History held the books and kept the records of a justice that looked the other way...
When the persecuted repulsed against the sweat and grime
And dared revolt against the rape of their groins and tender loins
once upon a time...
History is a perfect reflection
Its imperfections are blurred, tainted and distorted deep inside the photography's lines and moulds
Hovering beneath the dirt of every crumpled crease and evey fold
Meshed into proud and upstanding ancestry trees its origins and depths are there. Untold.
But it smiles bright as diamonds and it simmers beneath the lure of gold.
Rooting. Breathing. Jostling. Shoving. Pushing. Clawing for light, air water and sun.
Waiting to release the forgotten. The repressed. The muted. The cancelled. The historical debt.
History is a like stubborn stain.
It lies against the journal's grain
Speaks louder than a justify
Writes its own script and weighs it in a its own scale of right and wrong, of truth and lie.
It is an unreliable account of where, what and who we once were
A patient vulture that waits, watches, never sleeps
It pounces on the unheard, unseen, unacknowledged yesterday’s
Disembowels them in the presence of the here, the now.
It is the silent shadow, the ever present reminder, the only witness
Always here, there, everywhere.
It is who, the what, the where, and the when.
It is our past and our present; it is location, home and family
It is land, it is country, it is nationality.
History is unpredictable, it has many moods and faces
An invisible swell that grows, balloons, mutates and militate against the present.
It curdles with revenge and retribution when the day is too long and the wolf is howling at the door.
It is a prosperous noose of discomfort drowning in an ocean of prosperity.
Repressed, ignored, denied, revered, celebrated, remembered, imitated or repeated...
Our history is our past.
Our past our history.
History is in us.
It is where, what and who we once were
A long, long time ago...
When our world was new and uninhabited young, fresh, wild and free
Before it was harnessed shackled and hollowed out
By our forefathers and their forefathers and theirs before them.
History was not peopled by one, single individual
Not shaped by one single race, creed, country, or continent.
It belongs to all of us.
It is in all of us
It is our umbilical chord
That demands we stake our claim
In its victories and its defeats
In its suffering and its pleasures.
In its justice and its injustice.
History commands us to speak, write, act, sing, paint, shout;
To remember the man, woman and child inside the documented, tagged artefacts and glass coffins
To see the invisibles beside the rusted iron, shackle and harness
To hear the screams beside the ancient torture instruments
To feel the heart that once drummed in the breast of the remains besides the spaces of the exhibitions and displays
To find for their voices in the silence of the musty museum, to listen to their last anguished hours, minutes and seconds
And resurrect them from their mummified, entombed, embalmed silence
And Free them!
Free them from their unknown, unrecorded, unheard, undocumented archival grave because they are there…
In the spaces above, between and next to the written pages, diaries and journals and court records.
Free them because they were there…
When the world was raw and uncivilised and uninhabited.
Before their bare, shackled hands, feet and backs buckled under the weight of history.
Before they gasped for their last breath of air.
Before they were shipped on the ever changing tides.
Before they crossed the multitude of foreign seas, shores and oceans.
Before they were subjects of unimaginable, unrecorded, undocumented depths of pain, despair and injustice.
Before they met their ultimate destiny…
Before they were slaves…
When they were free.
***
YOU ARE READING
SUSANNA
Historical FictionThe year is 1658. A young woman is tried in a Batavian court as a runaway and a thief. Her ear is cut off branding her as a convict slave and she is sentenced to a lifetime of slavery. Banished to a Dutch settlement she must serve her sentence as a...
