Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [49]
She often accompanied doña Benigna to town, or to visit her friends on other farms. The other ladies were impressed by how well trained Flora was. They didn’t say it to her, of course. Blancos didn’t praise slaves. She heard them talking about her through open doors, or when the ladies gossiped among themselves as Flora served.
“Giving them compliments gives them airs, and you know where that leads to,” one of the ladies said to doña Benigna. “No, my dear, don’t tell her she’s doing well, quite the opposite! Slap her, beat her, make sure she knows you’re in command. As soon as a slave thinks he’s superior to others, he thinks he’s equal to blancos and expects the same rights. Look at what happened in Haiti.”
By then Flora had learned from others “what happened in Haiti” and that she had been days from reaching it by following the sun. Haiti was on the western end of the island she’d lived before, Hispaniola. Rather than try to escape by sea, slaves in Haiti turned against their masters and won their freedom. After Flora was taken to Puerto Rico, the slaves on the other side of Hispaniola’s mountains were also freed, but not before blancos escaped with their chattel. Many of the slaves built bamboo rafts and drifted from Puerto Rico toward the setting sun and freedom. No one knew whether they reached land or not, whether they died, were captured, or returned.
Over the twenty years that Flora lived with don Felipe and doña Benigna, she saw people stream into Puerto Rico from Venezuela, from Santo Domingo, Colombia, Peru. These new immigrants were loyal to the Spanish Crown and felt safe in Puerto Rico. Every time word came of another war for independence or about uprisings on other islands or in other parts of Puerto Rico, soldiers marched in large numbers. They settled right in the center of town and practiced battles, their plumed hats waving, their sabers rattling, their horses high-stepping and neighing. They organized local militias: every free man was expected to appear weekly at the practice grounds, where they were trained to repel attacks from those who wanted to make Puerto Rico an independent nation, like the countries in Spanish America. The local militias and the soldiers also practiced how to suppress rebellions because independence and abolition were spoken in the same whispering breath.
If a slave reported on others preparing to escape or to take arms, he or she received a reward and freedom. Leaders were seized and killed, and the others were punished by whippings or by having their limbs crippled or severed. The new elites and veterans from the revolutions on Hispaniola and in South America were determined to keep Puerto Rico Spanish. Rigorous suppression and censorship regulated the written word and even spoken language. Advocating independence for Puerto Rico, even in conversation, was cause for exile.
By the time the Argosos arrived on the island in 1844, there were only two Spanish colonies left in what had been a vast empire. Every other former colony was independent and had abolished slavery. The exceptions were Cuba—and Puerto Rico.
Flora nursed doña Benigna through four pregnancies and helped to raise the surviving three children into adulthood. By then their town, Ponce, on the Caribbean side of Puerto Rico, had expanded into a city right to the steps of don Felipe’s house. Don Felipe and doña Benigna were now rich, their children were grown and settled, and as their hair grayed, their conversations turned to nostalgia and Spain. They sold their home, and the morning they left, their human chattel were marched to town. Severo bought Flora, now forty years old, at the auction in the plaza.
Within days of their arrival at Hacienda los Gemelos, Flora was certain that don Ramón and don Inocente would pester the women. She was old now, so she was grateful that they’d have no interest in her.