On board ships, captors did not love us. We knew this. But they wanted us. For something vile, something wrong, something that would diminish the supplier while exalting the supplied. Where we were going we did not know. Where our gods had gone we did not know. We called them, over and over again, but the wind returned only silence. Some jumped overboard, into the depths of the Great Mother, but with hands and feet bound, their struggling forms sank instantly into the dark water. Captors did not weep. They seemed, instead, to harbor anger that we did not want to go with them. Their words we could not understand.

They picked through us like an assortment of fruit, choosing whom they preferred. They scattered and melded tribes. One of our own, a man they called Frank, made this possible. He knew us. He knew our marks. We knew his. He knew what would break our spirits. And he enjoyed doing so. With his help, they shuffled us belowdecks into the big bellies of the boats. They packed us on our sides in rows and lines, arching our bodies to fit into narrow chambers. Sometimes they took us all with no regard for human comfort. Some, chained with the willing and unwilling, jumped into the water, trying, once again, to swim away, but they either died, were captured, or killed. We knew not where we were going. But we knew we were not going home.

One by one, men and women were stacked like books on a shelf. Hundreds lay this way, in the big boat’s belly, weeping silently for a home we’d never see again. In lucid moments, we wondered who these people were—not in flesh, but in spirit—and how, in good conscience, they could treat us this way. In other moments we talked to silent gods. Oshun? Obatala? Yemaya? Allah? Can you hear us? They did not reply.

Some women were taken elsewhere. We learned later that they were not shackled, as we were, yet in their freedom they were not free. Their bodies serviced the captors’ pleasure, warming frigid beds and encasing throbbing penises. We heard the shrieks of our daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts, their screams, their piercing cries, not of excitement and joy, but of horror and pain as unwelcomed flesh divided their souls. These were our women, and we could not help them.

Wails and cries intensified during the night. We were shrouded in darkness. This was not like our nights, with brilliant stars so close you could practically reach up and touch them, this was darkness so black, so complete, it swallowed us whole. We could see nothing. Even the body to which we were chained became invisible in the deep purple blackness.

Above and below, feces, urine, menstrual blood, mucus, and death surrounded us, multiplying by the hour. The stench nauseated. Our only relief was to vomit, but then our bellies were emptied of the few nutrients it held. We begged Death to come and for some, it came. For others, not at all. We’d never summoned Death before, never beckoned its power, its premature arrival, never desired its unwelcomed stay. Now, it was our only comrade, our one trusted confidant. So it joined us, Death did, on this journey across the seas and carried us away whenever our spirits surrendered. Many learned to lay their lives, without illness or accident, into Death’s hands. They simply bowed their heads and died. We’d never seen such a thing. Even Death was surprised. However, those of us whom Death skipped over, the unfortunate ones, we lived—and each day we lived, we etched grooves into the planks upon which we lay, counting our days at sea.