Failed Moments

Chapter 6: Baako’s Return

Chapter 6

Baako’s Return

A FEW PLANTATIONS in the north—near the major port of Le Cap Francois—might make a claim of superiority in some respects, but in the Jacmel area Bel Air set the standard. The owner, Henri Baptiste, was known as a shrewd businessman and a ruthless slave owner, but his brutality was not of a perverse nature. He only administered punishment when rules were broken, but he made sure the vicious nature of its delivery created the best possible deterrent against future transgressions.

As the leader of the grands blancs in the southern part of the colony, Henri Baptiste tried to set a good example for other plantation owners in terms of slave management. He considered himself to be a man of reason and spoke of business strategies that maximized his human resource investment. The foundation of his approach: slaves and horse carriages had similar useful lives—about five years. Most died or broke down at that point and needed to be replaced. A few lasted longer or shorter, but the average tended to be about five years. Monsieur Baptiste’s slave management program consisted of four guiding principles, which had to be applied without fail during the typical five-year life of a slave:Work them hard.

Make punishment immediate for even minor violations of rules.

Offer a handsome reward if they run.

Publicly administer severe punishment to runaways upon their return.

He believed in his four-part program, and many of the other grands blancs and gens de couleur plantation owners followed his lead. Nobody, however, offered a reward even remotely close to what Henri Baptiste paid for the return of his human property. As such, finding a runaway slave with the Bel Air brand became cause for celebration. One of the local carpenters, Jean Claude Guilar, thought about his potential reward money as he waited with his prize catch, an oversized Mandinka slave, who he believed ran from the Bel Air Plantation.

“Bonjour, Jean Claude. You may be a fine carpenter, but you’re an even better slave tracker. Vous permettez?”

“Appres vous, Monsieur Baptiste. Of course, please have a look.”

“Where did you find this one?”

“Same place I find most of them. They come into town and think they can pass for gens de couleur. To me they all look the same, but this one stood out. He appeared to be a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than any I’ve ever seen. I thought he might be a runaway, so I checked for the brand. Three of us needed to hold him down to uncover the ‘BA.’ Take a look, you’ll see he tried to scratch it out, but I’d know the classic ‘BA’ of the Bel Air Plantation anywhere. After we grabbed him and brought him back to my shop, he got away for a moment, and swung at me with a hammer.”

Jean Claude paused as he pulled his bandaged hand out of his pocket. “That’s right, he crushed my thumb with my own hammer and should be punished accordingly.”

“Believe me, Jean Claude, he’ll be punished. I know this was no petit marronge—he’s been gone a long time. I haven’t seen him for years and although I own a thousand slaves, I do remember this one. My God, he must be six-three and close to two hundred and forty pounds. My overseer is checking his records. The punishment will be severe, especially since he’s injured such a prominent tradesman as yourself. If you’re able to manage with that injured finger, you and your assistants may secure him to that post.”

“I think I can,” Jean Claude responded with a smile as he marched the bare-chested slave to the wall. The slave, a young man of about seventeen years, was a bossale—he’d been born in Africa. Most of the African-born slaves were not as submissive as the creoles, who were born in captivity. This bossale likely knew he was doomed because he’d run three times. All he could do is hope for a merciful death. When he had arrived three years earlier, he’d worked in the grand atelier, the work group for the strongest slaves—a highly unusual placement for a slave who was only fourteen years old. Like many of his fellow Mandinka, he developed physically at a young age and grew to be a strapping man. Despite Jean Claude’s large size, he wouldn’t have been able to detain this slave by himself. A group of three petits blancs, a blacksmith, a tailor, and the carpenter, Jean Claude, put the odds in their favor.

Jean Claude whistled as he took the hammer out of his belt while his assistants held the slave to the wall. He used just two nails. The slave, nailed to a post though his earlobe, screamed in agony as each nail pierced the skin. All three men laughed, but Henri Baptiste remained serious. He was anxious to get the three buffoons—these low-class petits blancs—off his plantation.

The overseer arrived with the logbook—a thick journal used to maintain records on all of the slaves at Bel Air. At any given time, a thousand slaves worked the large 3,000-acre plantation. New arrivals replaced the two hundred who died every year. Henri Baptiste loved the math and felt it proved his useful life theory. Replacing two hundred slaves each year in an inventory of a thousand did, in fact, suggest a useful life of five years. It was cheaper to treat slaves poorly, have them die in five years, and then pay for a replacement, rather than treat them reasonably and have them age and present other problems. Again, just like horse carriages, there was a point when repairs were too costly and functional value decreased below an acceptable level. Sound economics. Henri prided himself on his deep, elevated thinking.

The overseer was Gilbert Kildew, a man in his late thirties with a beard as long and unkempt as his hair. He whispered a brief summary of the checkered past of this slave into his employer’s ear. His name was Baako, and this was the third time he had been returned as a runaway. The first time had been classified as a petit marronge—Baako returned in five days. The punishment—a whipping—then back to the grand atelier. When he ran the second time and returned after two months, Kildew knew he would continue to be a problem, so he cut Baako’s right hamstring. This explained the pronounced limp this otherwise excellent specimen displayed. This time, he’d been gone for two years and also injured a white man. Even though Jean Claude was just a petit blanc, violence against whites could not be tolerated, and his two-year run as a maroon also had to be severely punished. The overseer suggested the most extreme punishment, and Henri Baptiste nodded in agreement, but thought it a shame he wouldn’t be able to get a few more years of service out of this strong slave. Baako’s limited three-year run with gaps would have an effect on his average useful life calculation. Henri walked over to the slave and addressed him in Creole.

“Baako, you’ve been gone too long. This was your third time running and it will be your last.”

Henri Baptiste turned his back to his slave as he addressed his overseer, “Mr. Kildew, remove Baako from the wall, and let him remain bound in position awaiting his fate.”

Jean Claude and his two helpers struggled to control their excitement. They had such hatred for both the slaves and the gens de couleur. They understood what the punishment likely would be, but wanted confirmation.

Jean Claude asked, “Does this mean he’ll be broken on the wheel?”

Baako obviously understood more than just Creole and reacted when he heard “broken on the wheel” by ripping himself off the post and charging Henri Baptiste. The four men struggled to protect the plantation owner. Ultimately, a clean blow to the temple from Jean Claude’s hammer rendered Baako unconscious.

Jean Claude and his colleagues assisted the overseer in carrying the hulking slave to his place of execution. It wasn’t a tree from which he would be hung, or a wall against which he would be shot, it was the large spare wheel of a carriage to which he was bound with his limbs positioned in such a way that they rested in the gaps between the radial spokes. This would allow his bones to remain stationary targets for a large sledgehammer as they were broken in multiple locations. Some slaves were shown mercy when being “broken on the wheel” and received a coup de grace—a fatal blow—before each major bone in their body was then systematically shattered. No such mercy would be afforded to Baako. After running three times, injuring a white man, and attempting to attack his master, Baako’s death needed to be an example to all the other slaves of the consequences of certain actions. The four white men left the condemned slave attached to his wheel of death and began making preparations for the spectacle to come.