Read Online Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende - Free Book Online
Authors: Isabel Allende
Tags: Fiction, General, Fiction - General, Historical, Historical - General, Haiti, Women Slaves, Caribbean Area, Plantation Life, Latin American Novel And Short Story, Sugar Plantations, Racially mixed women, Allende; Isabel - Prose & Criticism
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and not even death could free him because he was already dead.
The head overseer had often been in that region with the marechaussee , chasing fugitives. He knew how to read the signs of nature, marks invisible to other eyes; he could follow a trail like the best bloodhound, smell the fear and sweat of a prisoner from several hours away, at night see like the wolves, divine a rebellion before it matured and demolish it. He boasted that under his command few slaves had fled from Saint-Lazare; his method consisted of breaking their souls and wills. Only fear and exhaustion could conquer the seduction of freedom. Work, work, work to the last breath, which was not long in coming, because no one's bones grew old there; three or four years, never more than six or seven. "Do not overdo the punishments, Cambray, you are weakening the workers," Valmorain had ordered on more than one occasion, sickened by the purulent sores and amputations that made the slaves useless for work, but he never contradicted Cambray in front of them; in order to maintain discipline, the word of the overseer had to be beyond appeal. That was what Valmorain wanted; it repulsed him to deal with the Negroes, he preferred to have Cambray be the executioner and keep for himself the role of benevolent master, which fit within the humanist ideals of his youth. In Cambray's view, it was more profitable to replace slaves than to treat them with consideration. Once their cost was amortized, it was profitable to work them to their death and then buy others younger and stronger. If someone had doubts about the need to apply an iron hand, the story of Francois Macandal, the magical Mandingo, dissipated them.
Between 1751 and 1757, when Macandal sowed death among the whites of the colony, Toulouse Valmorain was a spoiled little boy living on the outskirts of Paris in a small chateau that had belonged to his family for several generations, and had never heard the name Macandal. He didn't know that his father had miraculously escaped the collective poisonings in Saint-Domingue, or that if Macandal had not been captured, the winds of rebellion would have swept the island clean. His execution was postponed in order to give the planters time to reach Le Cap with their slaves; thus the Negroes would be convinced once and for all that Macandal was mortal. "History repeats itself, nothing changes on this damned island," Toulouse commented to his wife as they were going down the same road his father had traveled years before for the same reason, to witness an execution. He explained to her that that was the best way to dishearten the rebels, as the Gouverneur and the Intendant, who for once were in agreement about something, had decided. He hoped that the spectacle would calm Eugenia, but never imagined that the trip was going to turn into a nightmare. Halfway there he was tempted to turn and go back to Saint-Lazare, but he couldn't; the planters had to present a united front against the blacks. He knew that gossip was circulating behind their backs; people were saying that he was married to a half mad Spanish woman, that he was arrogant and took advantage of his social position but did not fulfill his obligations in the Assemblee Coloniale, where the Valmorain chair had not been occupied since the death of his father. The elder Valmorain had been a fanatic monarchist, but his son despised Louis XVI, the irresolute monarch in whose chubby hands the empire rested.
Macandal
T he story of Macandal, which her husband told her, stirred Eugenia's dementia but had not caused it--it already ran in her veins. No one had warned Toulouse Valmorain when he sought Eugenia's hand in Cuba that there had been several lunatics in the Garcia del Solar family. Macandal had been brought from Africa, a cultivated Muslim who read and wrote in Arabic, and had knowledge of medicine and plants. He lost his right arm in a horrible accident that would have killed a weaker man, and as he was unable to
The head overseer had often been in that region with the marechaussee , chasing fugitives. He knew how to read the signs of nature, marks invisible to other eyes; he could follow a trail like the best bloodhound, smell the fear and sweat of a prisoner from several hours away, at night see like the wolves, divine a rebellion before it matured and demolish it. He boasted that under his command few slaves had fled from Saint-Lazare; his method consisted of breaking their souls and wills. Only fear and exhaustion could conquer the seduction of freedom. Work, work, work to the last breath, which was not long in coming, because no one's bones grew old there; three or four years, never more than six or seven. "Do not overdo the punishments, Cambray, you are weakening the workers," Valmorain had ordered on more than one occasion, sickened by the purulent sores and amputations that made the slaves useless for work, but he never contradicted Cambray in front of them; in order to maintain discipline, the word of the overseer had to be beyond appeal. That was what Valmorain wanted; it repulsed him to deal with the Negroes, he preferred to have Cambray be the executioner and keep for himself the role of benevolent master, which fit within the humanist ideals of his youth. In Cambray's view, it was more profitable to replace slaves than to treat them with consideration. Once their cost was amortized, it was profitable to work them to their death and then buy others younger and stronger. If someone had doubts about the need to apply an iron hand, the story of Francois Macandal, the magical Mandingo, dissipated them.
Between 1751 and 1757, when Macandal sowed death among the whites of the colony, Toulouse Valmorain was a spoiled little boy living on the outskirts of Paris in a small chateau that had belonged to his family for several generations, and had never heard the name Macandal. He didn't know that his father had miraculously escaped the collective poisonings in Saint-Domingue, or that if Macandal had not been captured, the winds of rebellion would have swept the island clean. His execution was postponed in order to give the planters time to reach Le Cap with their slaves; thus the Negroes would be convinced once and for all that Macandal was mortal. "History repeats itself, nothing changes on this damned island," Toulouse commented to his wife as they were going down the same road his father had traveled years before for the same reason, to witness an execution. He explained to her that that was the best way to dishearten the rebels, as the Gouverneur and the Intendant, who for once were in agreement about something, had decided. He hoped that the spectacle would calm Eugenia, but never imagined that the trip was going to turn into a nightmare. Halfway there he was tempted to turn and go back to Saint-Lazare, but he couldn't; the planters had to present a united front against the blacks. He knew that gossip was circulating behind their backs; people were saying that he was married to a half mad Spanish woman, that he was arrogant and took advantage of his social position but did not fulfill his obligations in the Assemblee Coloniale, where the Valmorain chair had not been occupied since the death of his father. The elder Valmorain had been a fanatic monarchist, but his son despised Louis XVI, the irresolute monarch in whose chubby hands the empire rested.
Macandal
T he story of Macandal, which her husband told her, stirred Eugenia's dementia but had not caused it--it already ran in her veins. No one had warned Toulouse Valmorain when he sought Eugenia's hand in Cuba that there had been several lunatics in the Garcia del Solar family. Macandal had been brought from Africa, a cultivated Muslim who read and wrote in Arabic, and had knowledge of medicine and plants. He lost his right arm in a horrible accident that would have killed a weaker man, and as he was unable to
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