My Slave Diary

Entry 1
Dear Diary, Hi my name is kunta kinteh and I am from Africa, I live with my family, friends, and the whole tribe. I am Muslim, I don’t go to school and I have no education but I work as a crafts man to help my community. In my tribe we Africans are very talented in many different ways to create a community where every single men and women work to live along. The different types of skills we Africans have are craftsman as myself, I am fifth teen years old and I live with my baby brother and my mom and dad. My dad is a sheep caretaker and my mom stays home, she cooks, cleans, and fetches water and wood. And my baby brother well you know the usual stays at home with my mom after all he is still a baby.

Today I felt better because I recovered the cut I got from my hand from my knife, that I was crafting with last week. Today is a beautiful and peaceful day, now I can continue my work on crafting wood into chairs, tables, spoons, forks, etc. After crafting everything it was time for me to go home to eat, meet my parents, and go to sleep. My life is very simple, wake up in the morning, shower at the river, go to work and help the community, and go home, eat and rest. I have one baby brother and a mother and a father. I am very happy with my life because it is very peaceful and life here is very calm.

In my tribe boys have to go through men hood before turning into real men. Their parents take their children away from the tribe and take them into the forest for a few days to turn them into men. During men hood, you have learn how to fight and defend yourself and learn other important things you have to do when I turn into an adult. After learning everything about being a man, you had to be circumcised, my tribe says if boys scream when they get circumcised, you are not deserved to be man. After that you go home and celebrate of turning into a man and visit all my friends and family’s. After turning into a man you have to move out of your parents house and live alone in your own hut. You have to leave your parents and take care of your self, and soon my time will come one day of being a man. But I am going to live to be a teenager for a while before turning into men.

Entry 2
Woke up in the morning and suddenly someone grabbed me very tight I couldn’t move, then the stranger raised a sack over my head covering me and I couldn’t see anything, it was pitch-black. But before the stranger covered me I saw that he was black and the same kind as me. I was walking for hours with this stranger who grabbed me. I was wondering who he/she was, the reason why I have been kidnapped, is the stranger really my own kind, I feel fear of what’s this stranger is going to do to me. My legs were very tired of walking for hours and we were finally there. We stopped for a moment and I felt the ground with my feet and it was grass I’m thinking that I am obviously in a forest. I bumped into a person, I was lining up for some reason, I feel like I’m not the only on here. Everything was silent suddenly, and a man walked in front of me and took of the sack.

I looked in front of me and I saw a men from the very same tribe I am from, I was surprised and shocked. I looked around and I was really in a forest, I saw kids the same age, height and the same kids from my own tribe I see everyday in my daily life, I wonder what they have got to do with any of this, I’m thinking are we in trouble. Everyone started to freak out of where they are, suddenly a men walked up with two buffed up man beside him like they were his guards or something. The man started talking and he said that we are very sorry if we scared you, you are all here for a very important reason. You kids are here because it is apart of our culture to do this. I figured it out, the reason were here is because we are going to go through men hood. The man ordered us to go into a formation a circle. So everyone did what he or she was told. After the circle was completed, one of the guards walked through the circle and asked someone to come out and to wrestle him. Nobody had the guts to volunteer so then I volunteered instead. I stood up and walked towards the guard and charged towards him. I kept charging him but I missed all the time jumping trying to knock him down. I kept trying and trying but failed. After wrestling everyone went to rest, it was the end of the day; so far we have learned how to fight. I went into the hut and found everyone sleeping on each other and it was weird for a moment but I was tired anyway, so I slept with everyone.

It was morning and I woke up, everyone was gone for some reason and I was alone in my hut. I went out of my hut; showered and got dressed quickly wondering where was everyone. I went and checked everywhere, and then I went into the guard’s house and found everyone lying on the floor for some reason. The guards had their knives out and they said it was my turn; I was very confused and scared. What does he mean? . The man grabbed me and I was pushed down to the ground, they circumcised me. It was very painful, because there weren’t any painkillers in my time. After that we all went home finally to meet all my friends and family. We celebrated all day after going back home and everyone who just had gone through men hood had to move out of their huts and live on their own that included me. I went into my family hut and packed everything I was very sad leaving all my past memories in this hut. My mom was very sad, she was crying when I was leaving but before that she hugged me and waved bye.

Entry 3
I woke up in the morning thinking I should make a gift for my baby brother or for my mother. Last time I heard my mother wanted a bookshelf for her hut but she said she wanted my father to build her one so I thought what my brother would like and I know my little brother likes drums. So I went to shower and got dressed to go out and to hunt such a log to make a drum. I walked into the forest I found a very big and long log. I lifted it up off the ground and checked the conditions. The log was perfect and I carried it home, but suddenly I see two men from my tribe and a white man I see for my first time, I wonder why he was here. They started running for me and I ran away. I ran really fast but I couldn’t just leave my brothers log here so I brought it with me. I was getting slower because the log was very heavy and the men were gaining. Suddenly the white men jumped out of no where and caught me with his rope, they tied me up with their rough ropes very tight I couldn’t move.

The men carried me back deep into the forest till the end of the forest where there was a very fine beach. I saw a massive ship with white sailings and they brought me into the boat. The boat was filled with white sails men, must be the captains crew. Shockingly I saw most of the men and women captured as well, I was very terrified of what’s going to happen to all of us, shot, tortured? They got everyone onto the boat. The boat was very nice and clean, not any boat I have ever seen before. They took every men under the ship below, where they locked us in rusty old used chains. They were very tight chocking everyone. Chain for the neck, feet, and hands. They made us lie onto a wooden floor with several rows of them on top of each other. It was very dark down here and smelly, the place was dreadful. We were trapped and chained down here for days, we were only fed 1 a week with a plate of white man rice. Lots of men were bleeding from head to toe. Everyone was suffering, and we were stuck down here like it felt for ever.

Until one day their crew got down stairs and were ordered by the captain with very long hair and a black beard. They all released everyone’s chains and I wonder what was going on. This is a chance that I can escape, I was hoping I could swim to shore safely, but then we all went up stairs back onto the ship and there wasn’t any land, I was very shock that there wasn’t any land I thought to myself that the earth was gone. The bright sun light shined above us and the sea shook below us. The crew rounded everyone around and brought out the woman too. The crew was ordered to clean us with water and so they did. Everyone was screaming from the stings of the water. Everyone still had their wounds from the wood that we slept of for weeks. We were done showering, and then we were forced to dance to their song. We all danced to the song, and there was no way of getting out of this boat. Soon my time will come and I will plan to escape and have my freedom once again.

Entry 4
The journey took three months and I am finally out of the ship. Right after we got off the ship they took us straight to the pound/ cell, now I am stuck in a pound locked up and have no where to go. Just what I thought caged forever. They were dragging girls out of the pound, they were screaming for help. They took greasy oil and oiled them all. I see woman and young girls being sold to other men and woman. Soon I am going to go through the same process of horror where I am going to face in front of the white audience.

I am scared because I wonder what would happen if I am taken from one of them, I am confused because I don’t know what they are doing up there, and I am nervous to get up there to face the audience. After all the woman were sold I was the only men that was dragged out of the pound. I tried to hold myself back but I was already on the stage. I was very frightened because lots of men went over me and grabbed my face and checked my teeth. The very annoying thing was that a man was talking really fast. I was taken by a men who bought me and I was very furious and scared. The buyer grabbed me and I went into his limo. It took us about ten minutes to get to his house.

We arrived and we got out of the fancy white limo, and I followed him into his fancy house. He asked another slave just like me to show me what was my job inside and outside the house. He told me that my job was to cook and clean inside the house daily, and to work in the boiling hot sun in the plantation twenty four seven. I had to plant seeds, rake the leaves, water the plants, and watch my friends suffer, getting whipped by other man. The hearing of the lashes make my eyes water.

After a whole day of difficult and intense labor, the man dragged me and hanged me with ropes tying my hands. I was hanged off the ground and a man called Bruno brought a whip along with him. He said that your name is now Jacob and he asked what is your name. I answered back my name is Kunta Kinteh. He took his whip and whipped me on the back. I screamed out loud on the top of my lungs. My skin was shattered away from me. He kept asking the same question and I kept getting whipped harder and harder, until I gave up and they cut the rope down. I had twenty permanent scars on my back, that was the first torture of my life and I will be getting more of it every single day. There is no escape and an end to this nightmare and I will be stuck here till the day I will die.