As I contemplated this week’s column, the sunshine had long receded and the feeling of being slowly rotisseried over the past weeks had vanished. Instead, the skies were gray and the floodgates of tears from above were open. With the opening, there was a deluge of heavenly waters filling the dried and parched earth in the yard, swelling the perimeter drains, and releasing all manner of odours into the country air. I wondered whether these were the tears of ancestors who have felt mostly forgotten and only periodically remembered. Quamina. Jack Gladstone. Others unnamed. I wondered whether the heavenly waters were those of regret for what could have been; victory for 9,000 to 12,000 enslaved men and women who rose up in a bid to gain what they always knew should be theirs and a birthright. Freedom! Freedom from shackles. Freedom from the whips and the stocks and perpetual exploitation. Freedom to self-actualise and self-realise. Freedom that was fought for in myriad ways. Malingering. Sabotage. I reflected on how little is known of Susanna and Amba and the other women of the rebellion. I wondered whether my womenfolk from those times had joined in the rebellion.
