“All Our Stories Come Ashore” by Nancy Meyer
Nancy L. Meyer (she/her) is a 2020 Pushcart nominee, avid cyclist, and grandmother of five from San Francisco. Meyer is published in many journals including Gyroscope, Laurel Review, Colorado Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Sugar House Review; soon to be published in Outcast, Kind of a Hurricane Press; and additionally in 8 anthologies, including by Tupelo Press, Ageless Authors and Wising Up Press.
Author Foreword:
All Our Stories Come Ashore is an excerpt from a manuscript I’ve been writing for almost four years after discovering that my colonial New England ancestors were enslavers. This information not only reframed my sense of responsibility in the present, but also surfaced reflections on my marriage 40 years ago to a man of African-Jamaican origin. I imagined the Atlantic ocean disgorging our inter-connected stories from West Africa, to Jamaica, to Boston.
The day Zebulon crowed
from the steeple, the Gazette
reported him as Elizabeth Phelps’
African man. Not Mende or
Igbo. Not son of Arthur Prutt
of nearby Amherst.
Which African ancestors of his
survived the 80 days, their
18-inch berth?
Archives digitized, I might
trace the very ship, bill of lading,
auction tag. Who am I
to dig through these drawers?
Expose a birth name, village
raider, or telltale bead.
Do I want to know the first
price, first port, if mine
were ship-builders, bookkeepers
clerks who kept the ledgers?
Dormant in each molasses keg
and bit of crockery, iron ballast,
broken mast, or gold doubloon:
the waters brine us all.
Response to Text Fragment: Ad in Connecticut Courant, Sep. 8, 1766
Run away from the Widow Elizabeth Porter of Hadley,* a Negro Man named Zebulon Prut, about 30 years old, about five Feet high, a whitish Complexion, suppos’d to have a Squaw in Company…
I never imagined Zebulon as “whitish.” Or so small. How many of us white readers made him into some movie image? A Sydney or Denzel.
I remember how my ex-husband Mel struggled being light-skinned. Shoved aside by both Black and white.
Carried away with him, a light brown Camblet Coat, lin’d and trimm’d with the same Colour—a plain Cloth Coat, with Metal Buttons, without Lining—a new redish brown plain Cloth Coat, with Plate Buttons, no Lining—a light brown Waistcoat, and a dark brown ditto, both without Sleves—a Pair of Check’d and a Pair of Tow Trowsers—a Pair of blue Yarn Stockings, and a Pair of Thread ditto—two Pair of Shoes—two Hats—an old red Duffel Great Coat—whoever will take up said Negro, and bring him to Mrs. Porter, or to Oliver Warner, of said Hadley shall have Ten Dollars Reward, and all necessary Charges paid by Oliver Warner…..
Elizabeth, you practically grew up with him. Yet, you say nothing in your Diary about him running away. Only his capture a year later: “slave owned by my father.”
Like my saying nothing. When the garage attendant called Mel “boy.” Saying nothing. When he was depressed, overlooked by his white boss. Saying nothing. When, after the divorce, our 16-year-old son’s white therapist told him it was “okay to pass for white.”
*my 9th great grandmother
