Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
skeleton of Don Alexandro, in a way the negroes afterwards told the deponent,
but which he, so long as reason is left him, can never divulge; that Yan and Lecbe
were the two who, in a calm by night, riveted the skeleton to the bow; this also the
negroes told him; that the negro Babo was he who traced the inscription below it;
that the negro Babo was the plotter from rst to last; he ordered every murder,
and was the helm and keel of the revolt; that Atufal was his lieutenant in all; but
Atufal, with his own hand, committed no murder; nor did the negro Babo; * * that
Atufal was shot, being killed in the ght with the boats, ere boarding; * * that the
negresses, of age, were knowing to the revolt, and testied themselves satised
at the death of their master, Don Alexandro; that, had the negroes not restrained
them, they would have tortured to death, instead of simply killing, the Spaniards
slain by command of the negro Babo; that the negresses used their utmost inuence
to have the deponent made away with; that, in the various acts of murder, they
sang songs and danced—not gaily, but solemnly; and before the engagement with
the boats, as well as during the action, they sang melancholy songs to the negroes,
and that this melancholy tone was more inaming than a dierent one would have
been, and was so intended; that all this is believed, because the negroes have said
it.—that of the thirty-six men of the crew, exclusive of the passengers (all of whom
are now dead), which the deponent had knowledge of, six only remained alive, with
four cabin-boys and ship-boys, not included with the crew; * *—that the negroes
broke an arm of one of the cabin-boys and gave him strokes with hatchets.
[Then follow various random disclosures referring to various periods of time.
The following are extracted:]
—That during the presence of Captain Amasa Delano on board, some attempts
were made by the sailors, and one by Hermenegildo Gandix, to convey hints to him
of the true state of aairs; but that these attempts were ineectual, owing to fear of
incurring death, and, futhermore, owing to the devices which oered contradictions
to the true state of aairs, as well as owing to the generosity and piety of Amasa
Delano incapable of sounding such wickedness; * * * that Luys Galgo, a sailor about
sixty years of age, and formerly of the king’s navy, was one of those who sought
to convey tokens to Captain Amasa Delano; but his intent, though undiscovered,
being suspected, he was, on a pretense, made to retire out of sight, and at last into
the hold, and there was made away with. This the negroes have since said; * * * that
one of the ship-boys feeling, from Captain Amasa Delano’s presence, some hopes of
release, and not having enough prudence, dropped some chance-word respecting
his expectations, which being overheard and understood by a slave-boy with whom
he was eating at the time, the latter struck him on the head with a knife, inicting a
bad wound, but of which the boy is now healing; that likewise, not long before the
ship was brought to anchor, one of the seamen, steering at the time, endangered
himself by letting the blacks remark some expression in his countenance, arising
from a cause similar to the above; but this sailor, by his heedful after conduct,
escaped; * * * that these statements are made to show the court that from the
beginning to the end of the revolt, it was impossible for the deponent and his men
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