Drapetomania

Chapter I :

Taken Away;

Captured. Taken. Stolen.
The only words that could describe what had happened. All because we didn't believe our elder.

Adjibola was his name. He was the oldest in our village, by age and not wisdom. It had been stereotyped that with age came great wisdom, but wise was not a word you would use to describe him. His hair had grown to look like the produce of your family's goat. And his once rosy lips were as almost matching his wrinkled chocolate skin. Most of what he said earned him names like "loony" and "crazy".

I was sitting with my sister, Ashanti, petting and feeding our fathers goat. She was only seven and was the closest thing to a friend. Along came Adjibola, "white men have been spotted" He screamed.
My uncle Tamil and his friend snorted. "Old Adjibola has gone off his nut again" he chuckled placing the necklace he was beading down.
"White men?" He chuckled again and resumed his beading. I looked up to see him, he looked rather sad. As if someone had killed his parents.

But Uncle Tamil was right, white men? Who had ever heard of white men? I've heard of Barbary men and Moors, but white men. He has certainly gone deranged again. Then there was a
BAAM!
a strange noise I couldn't even comprehend or begin to understand. I looked up and saw Adjibola slowly fall forwards. Once he fell down there were men standing behind them, holding strange contraptions in their hands.

I looked down to see Adjibola. But his body was engulfed in red. Red. oozing from his body was red. This must've been what mother had told me about, blood. I looked back up at the strange men. They were speaking gibberish, a language so foreign, that the goats munching seemed understandable.

My uncle came running to me and my sister. "Take your sister and go" little did I know those were his last words to me. Everyone in the village was fleeing. But I could only run as fast as my little sister. I couldn't let her fall down like Adjibola. As we ran to our home dozens of the loud bangs were heard, over and over again.

I looked down at my sister. Her brown eyes, filled with confusion and discomfort. By the time we got there, there were several bodies lying on the ground. "Mother! Father!" Me and my sister screamed over and over again and to our wishes our mother came running. She engulfed me in her arms, her. "Mother, white men have been been spotted" as explained the situation her eyes seemed to trail above my head. I turned around to see what she was looking at. It had been the white men. He had the strange contraption. He lifted his gun towards us in a threatening manner. He stared at us for a while then aimed the strange contraption on the floor and -BANG-.
My statuses her hands over her head to block out the sound. The group of white men came up to my mother and grabbed her forcefully. They then came to me and my sister and grabbed us.
I wasn't sure what they were going to do. Educate us? Kill us? Befriend us?

In the distance I could see families torn apart. Brothers taken from sisters. Children taken from parents. Wives taken from Men. Everywhere I went there was screaming, crying and sadness. Not one person was happy.

I looked back frontwards and a some sort of vessel was being propelled by water. It was quite large. The were a planks of wood leading upwards.
The man holding me pushed me near the planks of woods. I looked up, people were climbing on to the unusual vessel. I guess that's what they wanted me to do. I looked back to find my mother and sister. But they were no where to be seen, maybe they where on the ship.