Fooling the British: Part Three Sam of Bergen

Sam rowed the boat, the six bags of vegetables, and Rem across Wallabout Bay to the dock in front of Barent Johnson’s house.? Barent Johnson and Jacob, his enslaved servant stood on the dock waiting for them.?

“Mr. Johnson is back home from the Provost prison?? How did he manage to get out?”? Said Sam, hoping against hope that Rem might fill him in.? Rem pretended not to hear him and told Sam to help Jacob unload the bags of vegetables.?? Jacob was a tall man and several years older than Sam.? His main tasks were to take care of Barent’s horses and he was grateful for Sam’s help unloading the bags of vegetables.? “The British officers at the Provost were Masons just like Barent is a Mason.” Jacob said, answering Sam’s question.? “What? Barent is a farmer, he doesn’t work with stone,” argued Sam.? “No, the Masons are a secret group of men, a secret society they call it, and they are from America, England, everywhere.? They got Barent out because he is part of them.”? Said Jacob.? Rem and Barent were indoors now talking. Jacob and Sam both wanted to hear that conversation so they got themselves to a place in the house, under the stairs, where they could both listen to the two men.?

?Barent was coughing, trying to catch his breath.? Rem said to him in Dutch, "‘Barent, gevangeniskoorts, hetzelfde als op het gevangenisschip.“ "Barent, prison fever, same as on the prison ship.”? Barent nodded his head and drank some coffee to calm his cough. ?Rem went on “you know John Rapalje is back.? He never got prison fever and he is healthy and hale.? In the Connecticut prisons, the Yankees treat the prisoners well.” Barent took a long drink of coffee and said, “At the Provost prison, the British wouldn’t agree to a prisoner exchange with the Americans until we were mostly starved, and good and sick first. And while we waited to be exchanged, more and more died.? They made us take our friends, who died in the dark the night before, and just dump them in the burial ground for the Blacks, back behind the Provost.”?

Rem was quiet for a bit.? Then he said: “That’s why I want to try to feed the prisoners on the ships, at least we can do something. They bury seven or more by my mill pond every day. My daughter Abigail is young yet, but she keeps a count each day of how many they bury and where. She is very good at keeping the ledger book hidden from the officers in our house.”?

“A clever girl you have.”? Said Barent.?? Rem continued, “So that is why I brought small vegetables today, small enough to hide in a pocket or under a hat.? I see they bring a boat and a lot of prisoners to your dock each morning.”? Barent nodded and said? “The prisoners fill up large casks of water from the stream behind the house.? And they let Annatje serve them breakfast.? I suppose those men would never have the strength to haul the barrels otherwise. I figure all of us have the prison fever, so they will do us no harm and we can do them some good with breakfast.”? Rem smiled “So feed them, and give them these vegetables to give to their fellows on the ship. If the officers see the bags, tell them the vegetables are for the market. ?Give the prisoners little scraps of paper, and make the scraps look like something they might have picked up in the lane. Then tell those men I will get their letters sent out.? I will have Abigail and my Black girl Peg walk halfway round Wallabout and you can have your son Jeremiah come with the letters and meet them.? No one will suspect two young people having a dalliance, with the maid watching nearby.”? Barent coughed some more and managed to say “It is the least we can do.”? Rem said, “As soon as I see the guards and prisoners on your dock, I will send Abigail and Peg on their way."? “And what of the Black girl, can she be trusted?”?Barent asked. “No!” Said Rem emphatically. “Ik vertrouw geen van hen!” “I don’t trust any of them.”? “You tell Jeremiah to be sure Peg hears and sees nothing.”? Behind the stairs, Jacob and Sam smiled.? They heard and saw everything.

Barent and Rem had Sam and Jacob hide the vegetables away while they had lunch together.? Sam ate a carrot from the pile and told Jacob about Canvas Town and the freedom they could have there.? “We have to leave, this is our chance.”? Sam let loose all of his feelings that afternoon.? “We have no Property!? We have no Wives!? No Children!? We have no City!? No Country! Why should we be plundered and robbed daily?”?

“Sam how are we going to get to this Canvas town?”? Jacob said simply.? Sam thought and said nothing. ?“See” Jacob said, “you can’t answer that question, because every time you think of a road or boat or ferry you remember what they have there to stop us.? They have passes you need to show, they have sentries and signs and cosigns you have to say or they won’t let you through.? And there are plenty of people here with muskets, bayonets, cutlasses and hangers that would be happy to kill a black man and pay no mind to the consequences, because there are none. Als iemand ons niet doodt, zullen ze ons verkopen. If we wander off, some Dutchman will grab us, if someone does not kill us, they will sell us.”?

Days went by, then years. The prison ships emptied their contents of soldiers into the graves by the millpond and then around Wallabout Bay, first by the hundreds and then astonishingly, by the thousands.? Abigail gave up the ledger book of the dead after a while.? What was the point after she reached five thousand and the number of the dead still climbed daily??

As the years wore on, the prisoners set the prison ships ablaze rather than endure daily suffering.? The British simply pulled the prisoners from the burning ships and stuffed them into a new batch of rotting vessels. In time the soldiers died away and the British replaced them with thousands of captured American sailors.?The millpond filled, and then emptied with the tide, but now and then bones and skulls washed in and out of the floodgates.?

Most of all, Sam hated the smell, the smell of decay and death.? He watched as Rem, Pheobe and Abigail all grew ill. Each day Mrs. Grant would bring a small boat over to the prison ships and sell fresh food to the prisoners until she also died of the fevers. Sam, and Peg the servant girl, did not eat the same foods the family ate, and perhaps that spared them.? Jeremiah Johnson came over to the Remsen’s house more and more, both of his parents died from the diseases that swirled in and out with the tides. Jacob was sold to Jeromus Lott. ?John Rapalje and his family had had enough and left for a more comfortable life in England.

One early morning, Rem burst into the mill and woke up Sam. Peg, the servant girl, was standing in the doorway nearby.? Sam had been up most of the night because the darkness had been filled with flashes and thuds of gunfire.? The chance of success was almost nil, and yet prisoners would cut through the bars that covered the old gun ports on nights when thunderstorms masked the sounds of their work.? Then on the next moonless night, a few would try their luck swimming to shore without being shot by the soldiers in the guard boats anchored next to each prison ship.?

These prisoners were fighting for the United States, the same people who kept Sam in bondage, and yet Sam could not help but watch all night long for some sign that someone had managed to escape.? On this night, near daybreak, when the gunfire had at last died away, Sam had at last fallen asleep.? Now Rem was shaking him awake.? “Sam we need to pretend that you got hurt in the mill.? Open the gates and start the wheel.? Then I need you to scream really loudly.”?? “Why?’ Asked Sam.? The servant girl answered, “There is a young man in the barn without a stitch of clothing on.? He is all shot up and he is begging for help, and clothes.” Peg said with a smirk on her face.?

Rem was already gathering up some of Sam’s shirts and breeches.? “No! Wait, not my clothes!”? Rem looked at him impatiently, “I give you clothes, you have plenty of others, and I need these. The guard knows you from these clothes.? I am going get that young man dressed in them and bring him here in the mill, then you turn on that wheel, and you are going to yell.”? Sam looked over at Peg.? She shrugged.? Sam wondered if he should tell the guard, turn Rem in, and uncover everything that Rem was doing to defeat the British army who lived in his own house.? Why not help the British in return for a trip to Canvas town? Sam wondered.

“I will be right back with the young man.” Rem announced.? While he was gone, Sam let out a disgusted sigh.? Peg the servant girl said, “If we escape, we are going to need to rely on the kindness of strangers.”? Sam looked up, “Who said we are going to ever escape? There is no way off this island, except as a dead man.”? Peg, smirked again.? “Sam,” she said, “you think you know everything, but nothing is what it seems.” At that moment, Rem half carried and half dragged a young sailor into the mill.? Sam made a face because the clothes he normally wore were on the man, covered in dark red blood.? “Now start the mill wheel and scream.” Said Rem.? Sam did as he was told.? Rem went to the British lieutenant of the guard and announced that his servant Sam was injured at the mill and needed his room back.? If the British wanted his flour, he would need his servant Sam to get well, Rem insisted.? The lieutenant grumbled but agreed to find another place to stay for a couple of weeks.?

Rem’s plan worked brilliantly, and he was in the best of moods for those two weeks.? His plan worked so well, that he even pulled off a similar trick when an American officer, Major Wyckoff needed to be hidden for a few weeks.? Sam became suddenly “ill” this time and "needed his old room in the house back", and a different lieutenant of the guard once again fell for the ruse.? Rem seemed hardly able to contain his joy. Sam struggled to throw off the dead weight of jealousy like never before.

During the weeks that the Remsen's kept escaped prisoners in the house, Sam was made to stay in the dark recesses of the mill. The mill cat was thrilled with Sam's constant presence, bringing him many dead mice as tokens of appreciation. Peg brought him dinners and spent more time with him than usual. Sam expected her to be as frustrated with life as he was but Peg seemed as tranquil as ever. He could not understand why she did not share his daily frustrations about bondage. "Keep your eyes open Sam." She muttered. When he began to complain about enslaved people having: "No children of our own!? No City!? No Country!" She just shook her head and said no more.