Freeville

When he died Master left me my freedom. ‘To Outrageous B Roscoe I bequeath total liberty from bondage’, is what the will read, ‘for a lifetime of faithful service’.

Thus it was I left Master’s estate a free man. But though I was unburdened by slavery, neither was I burdened by note and coinage. My lack of material possession gave me the advantage that I was free to fit through the narrow passageway to Heaven, but unless my fortune changed I was likely to be headed that way sooner than I’d intended. For all my new-found freedom, I lacked the liberty of a roof over my head and a meal in my belly.

It was with great joy that I heard about work in Freeville. Of course, when I asked around I soon found that there was no such place. I caused great jocularity every time I asked for directions, as if people were competing to make the wittiest wisecrack response to my request, or simply competing to be the least helpful respondent.

Eventually, I got myself introduced to Governor Nathan Hawkin, the man who was building Freeville. This explained the confusion my quest for work had caused; for although Freeville didn’t exist, there was work there all the same.

Governor Hawkin smiled approval at my request for employment.

“You look like you can do your fair share of toil,” he said, respecting the muscle I had built up in Master’s service. “You ever been in the building trade?”

I admitted my failings in this area, but rather than turn me away he embraced me. “I’ll soon teach you what you need to know,” he said.

The work was hard, but it paid well enough for two square meals a day and a place to sleep. It was temporary accommodation, at first in a makeshift tent, then an equally makeshift hut. “There’ll be houses for you all as soon as you’ve built them,” he said, thus encouraging us all to work hard.

There were sixty workers all-together, a mix of slaves and free men. I was paired up with a slave call Jess Bones, who shared my accommodation. I slept on the free side of the tent and Jess slept on the slave side. The other huts and tents were similarly divided.

“You’re a free man,” he said one day, posing the words as a question rather than a statement, “how come you do the same work as a slave?”

“You can’t compare my lot with yours,” I said “I’m free in the eyes of the law, I’m not duty bound to work like you are.”

“Not duty bound?” he said, again turning a statement into a question with his inflection.

“I could leave work tomorrow if I so chose.” I explained.

“And how would you eat? Where would you sleep?”

“I’d have to find another job, of course,” I replied, “but I’d be free to take any job I so chose.”

“I thought you said there were no jobs, how that before you found Governor Hawkin you thought you’d starve. Is that what you call freedom?”

“That’s why I’m so grateful to Governor Hawkin,” I explained, “why I’ll never leave his service.”

As well as sharing accommodation, Jess and I also shared our meals. One mealtime, a few months after the conversation I’ve previously reported, Jess said to me: “Let us swap our plates, so that I can enjoy the taste of free man’s food.”

I reluctantly agreed to his request, respecting as I do the importance of charity. Though his food was the same as mine, it tasted dreadful. It was what I ate before Master died; slave food.

Within two years we had built an entire town. There was housing for everyone and I moved into permanent residence with Jess, again occupying the free side of the house, with Jess on the slave side.

The last thing to be built was the town wall, a great construction, ten feet high if it was an inch, a wall no man could scale, even if his legs were made of rubber. “It’s so no man can neither enter nor leave Freeville without my permission,” Governor Hawkin explained when I asked him. “It makes us the safest town in the whole state.”

“And I’m a free man in that town,” I said proudly.

“You’re a free man,” he agreed.

As his favourite worker I was given the honour of laying the last stone, completing the circle of the wall. To celebrate we were granted a day of celebration. Much drink flowed and to mark the birth of Freeville all remaining slaves, including Jess, were granted their freedom.

Which is why there are no slaves in Freeville, only free men like me; Outrageous B Roscoe.