Chapter 20: Kingdom
TL: Hanguk
The next morning, John Brown set out for the Sergent plantation, just as James Sergent had told him to.
He had told Kid to head back north if he wanted to, but the loyal subordinate stayed at John's side.
When the two of them reached the plantation gate, two black slaves came out to meet them as if on cue.
"My name is Leo. I serve Master James."
"I'm Ben, head driver of the fields and chief of security. Per Master James's orders, I'll show you inside."
Following the two men into the plantation, John found himself stopping in his tracks at the scene that unfolded before him.
Out in the fields, the work of getting ready for the next harvest was in full swing.
Dozens of slaves were tilling the soil, clearing away the leftover cotton stalks, and repairing the old fences.
"Sir, look at that. Is this really how a Southern plantation works?"
As Kid whispered under his breath, there was something different about this place compared to the Southern plantations John knew.
No overseer's shouting. No crack of a whip.
Everything simply meshed together and turned with machine-like precision, in perfect silence.
No wasted time, no unnecessary motion.
It was an eerie sight, as if one enormous machine had come to life.
"Getting it to that point must have taken monstrous exploitation."
What the hell was that devil so sure of, challenging him to a contest like this?
Did the bastard not realize that parading a sight like this around would do nothing but fuel his rage?
'Owen, my son, what hope could you possibly have found in this dreadful sight that you fell for this devil's honeyed words?'
Chewing over his disgust as he arrived at the mansion, he spotted a young man sitting in a chair on the veranda.
The fellow was too clean-cut to be called a devil, and gentlemanly enough that one might have taken him for an aristocrat.
But what seized John's gaze was the pitiful sight of his son, Owen, standing there like a condemned criminal with his head hung low.
His son's safety came before James Sergent, so he ran straight to Owen.
"Owen! Are you all right?"
Up close, his son's face was a wreck.
The nose, in particular, was clearly badly broken.
"These savages dared to make my son's face look like this!"
As John started to lose it, Owen hurriedly grabbed his father's arm.
"N-no, Father! This wound happened when I was foolish enough to get caught. Master Sergent never laid a finger on me."
"Wh-what? Master Sergent?"
Had Owen just used an honorific for this devil?
Owen Brown, of all people, John Brown's own son and his most ardent comrade?
Still seated in his chair, James calmly tipped his glass and spoke.
"As you can see, I'm a man who keeps his word, Mr. Brown. You're free to leave with your son right now if you wish. No one will stop you."
There was no lie in those words.
And yet that very fact only grated on John Brown all the more.
Gripping his son's shoulders, he glared at James with blazing eyes.
"Of course I'll leave. But not just like that. I'll leave only after I've stripped that hypocritical mask off your face before the whole world and torn your twisted convictions out by the root."
"You sound rather like your son."
"A debate, a theological argument, anything you like. Right here, I'll grind you to pieces. Now, name your terms!"
"Nothing dramatic. I'd simply like to know how strong your convictions really are. Before that, there are a few things I'd like to ask. How about we trade questions, to understand each other a little better?"
So first he wanted both sides to fairly dig up information on each other.
There was no particular reason to refuse, so John gave a light nod.
"There's nothing I'm curious about when it comes to the likes of you, but I'll answer your questions."
"Then I'll go first. They say you act with the noble aim of freeing the slaves. Once you've freed them, what then?"
"What?"
"You free them, turn them loose in the North, and that's it? No, before that: when slavery vanishes from this country, what do you think should become of the blacks?"
Listening to it, this was nothing but the typical drivel that Southern planters spouted.
John had heard it so many times he was sick to death of it, so he sneered and turned to look at his son Owen.
"Owen, you fool of a boy! You're telling me you fell for logic this pathetic?"
"F-Father, that's not–"
"Silence, you idiot. James, your nonsense is nothing but a textbook diversion. Most blacks in the North are poor and live hard, grinding days. But! They are free. Compared to slaves here who have to work from dawn to dark under the whip, they live a far more human life."
"Then on your way here, did you see even one slave being whipped?"
"Reaching that point required treating the slaves harshly, with fear and violence! The mere fact that a man can live his own life by his own will means the blacks of the North and the South cannot even be compared!"
Of course, his goal went further than that, to build a new society with no racial discrimination. But it was a plan that hadn't even taken its first step, so he saw no need to mention it.
A planter who could think of nothing but squeezing the blacks here dry could never understand the value of equality or freedom anyway.
Yet, making a mockery of John's inwardly scornful prediction, James nodded in a flat tone.
"Freedom. A fine word. But every human being is a slave to something. Just as you are a slave to your convictions, just as Leo and Ben here are my slaves. I, too, have yet to escape being a slave to something."
"What kind of word games are these?"
"But is the freedom the blacks of the North enjoy really freedom? The freedom to work only in certain trades because of occupational segregation? The freedom to be unable to see a doctor even when you're sick? The freedom to be barred from a restaurant even when you have money? The freedom to be refused a room at a hotel?"
"Even so! It means they're still better off than those worked to the bone as slaves here."
Even living in tearing poverty and suffering under discrimination, wasn't that still better than slavery?
As for that discriminatory treatment, if you kept fighting, and fighting, and fighting until the day you died, someday things would get better.
Blacks come north and still wallow in poverty, groaning under discrimination?
This was nothing but Southern planters splitting hairs, clinging to any excuse because they didn't want their privileges taken from them.
"Mr. Brown, I'm not trying to persuade you. I simply wanted to hear your answer. You have no intention of having a 'conversation' with me anyway. So now let me tell you the terms of our contest."
"Fine. Say whatever you like."
"I'll give you three days. In that time, you go and persuade my family's slaves yourself. If even just five of them come forward saying they want to follow you north, you win. Then I'll take responsibility for letting those slaves escape to the North. And I'll admit that your way is superior to mine."
"You want me to personally persuade the slaves you rule over?"
"Lie to them if you'd like. Of course, if you deceive the slaves with lies in a contest like this, it'll mean your convictions only ran that deep."
As if anyone would lie.
He wouldn't even need to. Tell slaves they'd be set free, and naturally they'd cling to you, begging to be taken along. Which was exactly why he couldn't understand it.
"What are you scheming? Have you already brainwashed all of them?"
"I won't interfere in the slightest. But if, even after I've gone this far, you can't persuade five of them in three days, then doesn't it mean that your splendid convictions aren't understood by the very people they concern, the slaves themselves?"
"I've no idea where you get the confidence to propose such a preposterous wager, but very well. I'll persuade as many slaves as I can and ruin you."
"I'll be looking forward to it. They do have to work during the day, though, so I'll limit your persuading to after working hours. Ah, and for fairness, no contact with your son for the three days. You'll do your persuading alone."
Maintaining his infuriatingly relaxed manner to the very end, James drained his glass and left the room with Owen.
Owen hesitated, then bowed his head to John before going out.
Letting out a long sigh, John decided to wipe the pathetic image of his blockhead son from his mind for now.
Whatever the scheme was, he had almost never seen a slave who refused freedom in its true sense.
If he couldn't persuade even five out of the several hundred slaves here, then he might as well give the whole thing up.
He staked all of his convictions and burned with the will to break James.
*
Thinking it over coldly, the very idea of persuading people to leave a slave plantation was laughable.
At first, John had expected that James must have bound the slaves tight with fear.
So he would have to go step by step, approaching them one at a time after work to settle the contest.
But reality was nothing like what he'd expected.
"What? You want me to come north with you?"
"That's right. If only you wish it, you can come north with us and live the life of a free man. Not this life as a slave, but a life where you choose your own path."
"But if I go north, what would I do for a living?"
"Why, you'd choose whatever trade you wanted. Barber, dockworker, kitchen work, there's no end to the work you could do!"
"And if I do that, I'll have no trouble feeding myself the way I do now? Once a month I get to stuff myself with meat and get good and drunk?"
What? Stuff yourself with meat and drink?
Was this lunatic of a slave mocking him?
Seeing the dumbfounded look on John's face, the young slave sighed and shook his head.
"Ugh, forget it. Maybe in the old days, but now if I stay here, the Master gets me treated even when I'm sick. Go north and I'd just catch some disease and die."
"No, no, no. That's far too narrow a way of thinking, don't you see? Have you never once thought you'd want to be the master of your own life? Freedom! To live a free life and walk this land–"
"Listen here, white sir. Freedom like that is something only the likes of you get to enjoy. What I'm asking is, if we go north, can we live the way you do?"
He couldn't lie.
He had the aspiration of building a community where everyone was equal, but to hold up a goal that hadn't even begun would be a flat-out lie.
This condition of "persuasion" was more troublesome than he'd expected.
John couldn't answer, and the black slave sneered and went off into his quarters.
"So, James Sergent. Contrary to what the world thinks, it seems you've won the slaves' favor by treating them rather well. I can guess your gambit. But it won't work."
The slaves themselves wanted a life like slavery, and so he wanted to mock John, asking by what right he had to free them?
But John had merely stumbled because, for the moment, he hadn't known the lay of the land.
Persuade them a little more carefully, and he could turn any of their hearts.
But.
"N-no, I won't go!"
A refusal.
"Leave this paradise to go to a Northern gutter? Do we look like fools to you!"
Another refusal.
"Maybe six months ago, but now you couldn't drag me out if you beat me to death."
A storm of one refusal after another.
Astonishingly, John Brown failed to persuade a single slave and was turned down fifty-four times straight.
At first, he wondered whether the blacks simply didn't properly grasp an abstract value like freedom.
He was an oddity of his age who believed there was no essential difference in intellect between blacks and whites, but he also knew full well how foolish an uneducated person could be.
So he tried changing his methods of persuasion, offered inducements, broke things down into the simplest possible terms.
And yet, every result was a failure.
On the second day, Tuesday, he couldn't even get near the slaves.
"You there. Could I have a word for a moment."
"No can do. We've gotta practice for the JLB today."
"That's right. We've got fielding drills to run, so could you make yourself scarce?"
"Fielding? Why on earth would you take it upon yourselves to defend the plantation! That's clear proof you've been brainwashed! Open your eyes! Open your eyes and head north–"
"Ugh, here this guy goes again. We've got fungoes to hit, so beat it!"
Spouting incomprehensible words like "James Baseball", the slaves split into several teams the moment work ended and started a ball game out on the field.
That the slaves were playing a ball game was absurd enough, but the most baffling part was that James himself was up on the mansion veranda watching the match those fellows were playing, drinking beer and tearing into fried chicken.
The female servants cheered on the players, everyone enjoying the game like a festival, and only after the surroundings had grown dim did all the matches finally end.
"Hah! Did you see that? My walk-off hit! If it weren't for me we'd have gone to extra innings!"
"Are we in second place now? Play it right and the championship prize could be ours at the next team dinner."
"You there. Let me have a word for a moment. About coming north–"
"Hey, hey, all well and good, but first let's hurry up, wash, and sleep. Otherwise we won't finish tomorrow's work on time."
Having thoroughly enjoyed their baseball, the slaves all headed back without exception, and astonishingly, not one of them paid John Brown any mind.
"This can't be. Don't tell me he's subjugated their very souls this thoroughly. What a terrifying man."
Feeling a genuine sense of crisis, John ran up to a sturdy black man, Ben, who was watching him from a distance, and shouted.
"Why can't you understand! Become free men! If you don't become free men, you'll have no choice but to die as slaves!"
"Haa... you really can't take a hint, can you. Don't you get it? There's not a single slave here who'll follow you."
"You dull-witted fool! Have you no desire to enjoy freedom? I'm asking whether you have no wish to walk the broad earth of this Union wherever you please!"
"Of all the blacks in the North, is there even one who gets to live however he pleases? From what I hear, there isn't."
He was wrong.
To persuade them, it seemed he'd have to give them solid assurance that the blacks of the North enjoyed definitively more than the slaves standing here.
But there was no way that was possible.
Coaxing them with the promise that even after leaving here for the North they could eat and drink and laugh and carry on as much as they did here was, no matter how he thought about it, a lie.
"Was telling me to persuade them a trap in itself?"
If persuasion hadn't been the goal, he might instead have driven these slaves hard.
Cowards. Are you satisfied just because you alone get to live a comfortable life in a comfortable place?
Shouldn't you burn your very lives to save even one more soul, even if you die tomorrow?
No, to be honest, that too was an excuse.
He'd expected James had something to fall back on, yet he'd been certain he could refute it well enough, which was why he'd walked into the trap himself, wasn't it?
And now, to cry that fighting on a battlefield favorable to the enemy put him at a disadvantage would be nothing but an ugly excuse.
In the end, did it mean he couldn't tear down this fortress of hell the devil had built?
Only then did John understand why his son had been broken.
He'd resolved to devote his entire life to the abolition of slavery, and yet not one of these slaves would listen to a word he said.
Even John Brown himself, if only for an instant, had felt a flicker of doubt: was a man who treated blacks this well truly an evil human being?
For his son Owen to endure this bizarre reality, one he had never once experienced before, must have been agonizing.
In that case, why had James Sergent proposed a contest like this to him?
To mock him with the fact that he was a powerless man who couldn't rescue even a single soul among the slaves James had bound?
At first he'd assumed so, but as he kept watching the atmosphere of the plantation, he began to think that might not be it.
All at once, James's words flashed through his mind: 'You have no intention of having a conversation with me anyway.'
"Well then, shall we hear the results?"
And so, after exactly three days had passed.
"How many want to leave with you?"
"One."
"Oh, so you persuaded one after all?"
"There wasn't... even one."
One hundred and seventy-two proposals, and one hundred and seventy-two failures.
"I've lost the contest."
It was a total defeat, without the slightest room for excuse.
"Before I leave... I'd like to talk."
That day, for the first time in his life, John Brown requested a "conversation" with a slaveholder.
*****
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