THE SILENT SALE AT THE LANDING The voyage was rough, we lost half of the cargo, the black gold as the Portuguese, French and British called us. So rough was the voyage, but once we landed on the shores of the New World the voyage became easy. We witnessed the beating and selling of our men, women and children. The stench of the voyage still on our bodies they used huge buckets of water to wash away its intolerable smell. Children crying for their mothers as they separated us one by one, and we mothers watching as they took our husbands away to a different area. We were greeted by some of the others that had taken the voyage prior to us and they looked on with hatred and despised what they were a part of, the selling and auctioning of human beings. Some being sold to the highest bidder, some being sold because of the age and some being sent off to die because they were of no value, stud service was not even an option because they were so broken down.
The master had plantations to plant and harvest and we were the harvesters and planters and we knew that we would never see our homeland or loved ones again. We were put in a dark and dismal place as we became the property of the master. Whips were used on our backs to keep us in line with whatever the master wanted from us. We knew not the language or the area, were could we go, we only knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and where the ocean was, too wide, too deep and too long to go back home; what are we to do?

Artist: Lana E. Talbot (Enyale) Medium: Acrylic