No Name
December 6, 1887
To whoever reads this,
keep fighting.
I’m getting old, too old. I always thought I would die surrounded by friends and family, but at the same time, I knew it was a fantasy. I’ve fought for many years, to understand that this life I wouldn’t get to live it the way humans should. But I promise that the next one will be better. I’ve done all I can in this life, to make the next one a good one.
Since I was a young boy, I have been fighting for our freedom. The white man took over our lands and forced us into speaking their tongue and believing in their god, but one thing I know is that they were never able to erase from my mind all the horrors they’ve done. I remember my mother grabbing me by the hand one night and dragging me out of our small hut. I remember her voice saying, “run my boy, run and don’t look back.” She ran by my side for a while. There was a giant field, and she asked me to run until the end of it, even if I didn’t hear her behind me, but that I should just run. I ran for so long, never stopping, never looking back. I later found out my mother helped me escape and she had been whipped to death by our master. She bled nonstop from the wounds that covered her whole body; I was “safe.”
At the end of the field, men were waiting for me. Slaves that had escaped their faith and were now fighting for a better world for us. They were called “quilombos,” and I became a part of them. We were a community, we helped each other and together kept what we remembered of our African culture alive; we had an organized political and economic system. Our leaders were powerful men that kept us safe and even the Portuguese, that had taken over Brazil, feared us and made treaties with us. We became a small community that only wanted the best for our people; we wanted freedom, equality. I helped escape so many slaves and children that, like me, were being pushed to flee by their parents. Our communities were based on fugitive settlements, people that made attempts at the seizure of power and armed insurrections and we all just wanted better working and living conditions; we wanted to be treated like human beings.
Later on, in my life, I became too ill to go and fight or help others escaped and so I turned to assist in the fields. We grew camellias. Oh! That flower became our symbol of abolition. We had a sanctuary, and we gave so much love and respect to those fields. That flower was the embodiment of our fight.
Oh! I really want to make it, but I hear drums nonstop nowadays. I hear music calling me and telling me to rest. But I had to write these words in case someone forgets how it was and is today.
How I wish I get to see the day, where we are free at last.
No Name.
