Harrison

This Was Life

by Harrison

Dedicated to Theophilus Niger

Born in 1720,

Into enslavement.

Or was it 1723,

I guess we’ll never know.

But what we do know,

Is that like bark from a tree,

His rights were stripped away from him,

Just because of the color of his skin.

He didn’t know why or how,

And no one would tell him, either.

This was life.

Just a young boy,

Forced into the dry and rough fields.

Heat rising,

Energy and years to live,

Sinking faster than a pebble in the ocean.

A million days of non-stop work to be done.

And what in return?

Nothing,

Nothing at all.

This was life.

A man no different from everyone else,

Except for the way he was treated.

Bought and sold like property,

Without documentation of his life,

Except for a very few dates,

When he was referred to as a “negro.”

Besides his neighbor Jeddediah Coe,

No one seemed to care about him,

Or even tried to remember him.

Life was nothing but a meaningless void,

Sucking up every last bit of him,

Until he was forgotten.

This was life,

In the desolate and inhumane times of slavery,

Where only white males had a voice.

Was he taught anything?

We can’t be sure.

But what we do know,

Is that he learned to work endless hours,

All day,

Every day,

Whether he wanted to or not.

Was he given some land?

Or was he not?

Was he given his indebted freedom?

Or was he not?

He already lived a life no one should ever have to live.

Yet to come out with a wife and four children,

Proves his strength.

Proves his impact on the world,

An impact that was not apparent during his enslavement.

This was life.

This was life,

For Theophilus Niger.

Harrison's Reflection:

Ever since we started Witness Stones a few months ago, I have been deeply intrigued with Theophilus Niger (his life, connections, family, places he lived, etc.). When Mr. McDonough first introduced ancestry.com and said that we would be developing a project to represent some aspect of his life, I joined forces with Milo and Blake, attempting to uncover as many places he has been throughout his lifetime as we could. After finding out that he spent most of his life in Old Saybrook, CT, Milo and I decided to go check out Cypress Cemetery in Old Saybrook, hoping to find his grave. In addition, if we couldn’t locate his grave, we would keep an eye out for graves of people who lived during his lifetime, then check ancestry.com to see if they had any connection with Theophilus Niger. Unfortunately, we didn’t actually find Theophilus’ grave, but we did come across many interesting things: several Revolutionary War and War of 1812 veterans, all with the same last name (Tully), a Saybrook Pequot War Memorial Site, and an old train track operated by formerly enslaved people. Although we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for, the feeling of discovering and learning about people who existed centuries before, with Theophilus, truly had an impact on me and inspired me to want to learn more and more.

There was a small break from Witness Stones after this trip, when we learned about the Civil War and the five key experiences formerly enslaved people dealt with: Dehumanization, Enslaved as Property, Paternalism, Economics of Slavery, and Agency & Resistance. This unit genuinely informed me of the true cruelties of slavery, including its impacts on formerly enslaved people. Writing a poem to describe what Theophilus Niger went through was challenging because so little of this man’s life was documented and he was practically forgotten. However, after weaving together the few things I do know about him and the aspects of slavery he experienced, I was able to construct a poem about him with an “album cover” to go with it.

To start, with the first lines of the poem, I wished to convey a feeling of remembrance for Theophilus, for he was forgotten. We can’t be sure of when he was born, just the general time period. To help deliver the fact that his rights were torn away from him, the simile, “But what we do know, /Is that like bark from a tree, /His rights were stripped away from him, /Just because of the way he looked” (lines 5-8), in my opinion, demonstrates this perfectly by comparing rights to a situation where something is ripped away, and is a primary example of dehumanization (Theophilus was stripped from having basic human privileges). In stanza two, I aim to inform my audience about how brutal the work conditions were for the enslaved, and how the work hours were never-ending: “A million days of non-stop work to be done” (line 17). By using this hyperbole, I believe that this point is made. In addition, I wrote “A million days of non-stop work to be done,/ And what in return?/ Nothing/ Nothing at all” (lines 17-21) to illustrate the economics of slavery with my audience: revealing it only benefited white males, and the formerly enslaved were forced into labor for free, with absolutely no pay. When I wrote, “A man no different from everyone else, /Except for the way he was treated. /Bought and sold like property” (lines 22-24), this was also a prime example of the formerly enslaved being treated like property, for Theophilus was bought and sold without any say. Within the same stanza, I also demonstrated the idea of paternalism, where the white male was “alpha”: “In the desolate and inhumane times of slavery,/ Where only white males had a voice” (lines 35-36). Throughout the next few stanzas, I send the message of how Theophilus was forgotten and reiterate the idea of countless hours spent working each day. To end off these stanzas, I wrote the three word phrase (also the title of my poem): “This was life.”

Repetition was my way to make this poem special and ultimately lead up to the conclusion of the poem. My favorite part of the poem is the ending, which I attempted to make the most powerful, for it would leave the audience thinking: “Was he given some land? /Or was he not? /Was he given his indebted freedom? /Or was he not? /Did it matter? /Or did it not? /He already lived a life no one should ever have to live. /Yet to come out with a wife and four children, /Proves his strength. /Proves his impact on the world, /An impact that was not apparent during his enslavement. /This was life. /This was life, /For Theophilus Niger'' (last stanza of poem). First of all, I decided to include the fact that Theophilus had a wife and four children, for marrying and having children fall under the theme of Agency and Resistance among the formerly enslaved population. Purposely, I decided to include Theophilus’ name at the end, and in bold, to emphasize to the audience that Theophilus Niger was one of millions of formerly enslaved people, and they all deserve to be remembered by name.

In addition, as an “album cover” for the poem, I decided to create an image demonstrating the meaning of the poem as best I could. Normally, I don’t take my time with drawings, but this one was different. It took me about two hours to complete; I am proud of the result and the way it represented my interpretation of Theophilus Niger’s life. The drawing shows a sweaty and tired Theophilus Niger, looking out in the distance at the sun with his hand on his hip, in the middle of Thomas Hodgkin’s fields. Just under the sun in the sky is the title of the poem, dripping with sweat from a long day’s work. Intentionally, everything is drawn in black and white, for this period of Theophilus’ life was colorless, nothing but dull years stacked onto each other. The only thing colored in is the sun, beaming as bright as ever. The reason I chose to color the sun was to demonstrate it as a beacon of hope for life beyond enslavement, which he was given, and while he was free, got to live a much fuller life. Although we can’t be sure, because we learned that Theophilus was given land and not referred to under Thomas Hodgkin’s name, we can infer that he was freed. In my drawing, the sun is the hope for a truly free life, one he was always meant to live.