NEUOFFENBARUNG[MEr.01_006,001] Now that you have had quite enough of looking about one part of North America, let us turn our eyes on the screen back to the coast. We shall stay there a few moments longer, until the large ship you see by the shore has been fully laden with sugar. Then we shall sail with it wherever it sets its course.
[MEr.01_006,002] Look for a little longer at that spot. See how the enslaved people haul great barrels and crates to the shore on all those carts. Here is a heavy cart like a waggon, piled with crates like a small mountain. Some forty enslaved people are harnessed to it like oxen, and the overseers whip them to make them move the load faster. On each side of that mountain of a waggon, many others must keep it from tipping with forks and ropes. At the slightest sway of the waggon, the cruel whip is swung over their necks.
[MEr.01_006,003] See, they have come quite close to the shore, and all has gone well with the waggon so far. But you did not notice that one of its wheels gave way under the weight. It breaks, and now some twenty enslaved people lie crushed beneath the great load on the overloaded waggon. The other half are beaten mercilessly for failing to hold it up. Those pulling it are not spared either, as you see. A poorly fastened crate at the top spilled barely three Loth of powdered sugar through a crack in the violent fall. At least three enslaved people must pay for this great loss with their lives. These innocent lambs of humanity must pay for all the blame that lies with the abominable overseers and their almost incessant drunkenness.
[MEr.01_006,004] See, the brutes have now whipped their fill. Only then do they make fresh arrangements. They bring up new, smaller carts, and all the crates are taken to the shore on them amid the cries and lamentations of the enslaved people.
[MEr.01_006,005] See, everything has been brought here. The Englishman takes delivery of the goods and settles the account with the plantation owner's bookkeeper, who is there in person.
[MEr.01_006,006] But the crates must also be taken aboard. The bargain includes this work, and it falls once more to the enslaved people.
[MEr.01_006,007] See how they lift into small boats crates that often weigh many hundredweight. Fortunately, they do not drop any into the sea, though that sometimes happens, especially when an overseer has poured too much spirits into his stomach and mistreated his poor subordinates for amusement.
[MEr.01_006,008] On such occasions, if a loss so immense occurs that their weakened limbs cannot lift a crate all the way into the boat and it falls into the water, the careless workers are whipped nearly to death, even if they fish it out at once and not a drop of water has reached what is inside. Sometimes, at the cruel whim of an overseer, they are shot on the spot and thrown into the sea.
[MEr.01_006,009] The poor people are out of immediate danger only once all the goods have been safely taken aboard. Then, of course, the carts are taken back. The overseers sprawl on them in place of the crates, and for their amusement and pleasure the carts must go at a constant gallop. The crack of their whips sees to that readily enough.
[MEr.01_006,010] You may ask what happens to those who were crushed. I tell you, nothing at all. Look here and see with the eyes of your spirit how some of them, with broken hands and feet, lament, scream and wail and call for help in their own way. Do you suppose a surgeon is fetched, or that they are taken to some hospital for enslaved people?
[MEr.01_006,011] Oh, you are mistaken. These devils in human form know a much quicker cure than you do. They hang a stone dressing round each one, and a final, all-enveloping water compress awaits them at the bottom of the sea. In this way they are cured for all eternity.
[MEr.01_006,012] Perhaps you will ask whether, once those galloping enslaved people and their overseers have reached home, the poor people will at least be given an hour's rest or perhaps even a break.
[MEr.01_006,013] Oh, see, that is not the custom in that country. But it often happens, when the proprietor is particularly inhuman, that under the barbarous owner's orders they are given a further beating for their carelessness, to his full satisfaction.
[MEr.01_006,014] And would you like to know the true number of these unfortunates, whose lot offers very little variety in its misery?
[MEr.01_006,015] There are some eleven million of them throughout the territory of the free states of North America. And you must not imagine that all these enslaved people are Black. At least a quarter are White. But since there is after all a law prohibiting the enslavement of White people, White slaves are specially blackened and ‘smuggled in as Black’.
[MEr.01_006,016] Now that we have seen nearly everything, let us board the ship, which, as you see, is just sailing out of the harbour. See how the sailors balance on the yards like tightrope walkers.
[MEr.01_006,017] Look for a moment at these faces scorched by the sea. Their nakedness is covered only by the most wretched rags. See how bereft of humanity and spirit they look, as though they belonged to some order of beings other than the human. See, these are the much-talked-of English seamen.
[MEr.01_006,018] O humanity! Into what depths has your worldliness plunged you! How far you are from Me, the primal source of life, and how near to the abyss of eternal ruin! The depth of the sea does not frighten you. My storms roar and rage past your brow in vain. You acknowledge no one above you but yourself. With your supposedly sharp eye you stare far out over the deceptive surface of the waves.
[MEr.01_006,019] You foretell the storm and know all the reefs and sandbanks in the sea. Between life and death you sail untroubled on frail boards across unfathomable depths, over the heaving surface from one region of the world to another. But you give no thought to the fact that I too am aboard your floating palace of planks, no longer your Father, but your inexorable Judge.
[MEr.01_006,020] You know the way and recognise your course in the furrows of the sea. See, your time is up. With one finger I stir the depths of the Earth and, while you suspect nothing, I have set new reefs in your path that you do not know. I, the unseen helmsman, will know how to dash your wretched handiwork, this shameful box stuffed with the refuse of shameful hopes, against the new, hard brow of reefs unknown to you, and so bring you to ruin.
[MEr.01_006,021] Oh, look, this laden ship is now running into the very arms of such an unknown reef. See how the wind drives it as swiftly as an arrow, and do not be alarmed. They suspect nothing, for I have not raised the reef above the surface of the water.
[MEr.01_006,022] Now look. Two moments more and the wretched box and all its contents will lie in pieces. Look here! See, its bows now strike the reef with great violence. See how completely they are smashed and how the ship begins to sink. See how the sailors try to release the boats hanging from the ship, and how some snatch up planks in great haste and, floating in the water, knock them together into a raft.
[MEr.01_006,023] See, the wreck is caught on the reef. Many cling to the ribs of the ship that project above the water, and fewer float towards certain death in their wretched craft. The captain and the owner of the goods crouch on the projecting mast. It is already the third day after the wreck, and in their utter despair they struggle with death, as do the other travellers on the skeleton of the ship.
[MEr.01_006,024] Do you suppose that any of these people has begged Me for help? They stare out across the wide-open sea to see whether a vessel might come into view. [4] But they look in vain, for I shall know how to guide the other vessels so wisely that they do not come near this spot for some time.
[MEr.01_006,025] Now see how these two wrestle with one another as they crouch on the mast. You will think they are struggling to get a firmer hold on it. But the struggle has another cause, and it is called starvation. Each wants to kill the other so that he may have something to eat.
[MEr.01_006,026] Look over at the ribs of the ship. You can already see such a meal. Another English merchant is greedily devouring the breasts of his dear wife, who had clung to him.
[MEr.01_006,027] See, this devouring of one another usually goes on until only one is left. In the end that one turns on himself and eats as much of himself as he can reach. After a few hours this scene usually ends with his bleeding to death.
[MEr.01_006,028] As for the bones, they gnaw off as much as possible and often curse as they throw the rest into the sea.
[MEr.01_006,029] Since we have no more life to find or anything to see here, let us follow our three vessels and see what happens there.
[MEr.01_006,030] Look, here is one already. Only three human beings, more like corpses, are crouching in it. These are three heroes who, after throwing the rest of their company into the water, made it a rule not to eat one another. Now, scarcely alive, they leave themselves to blind chance.
[MEr.01_006,031] To spare you from having to linger over these three, we shall soon be done with them. See, a mighty wave strikes the frail craft, and a good-natured shark already waits longingly for the contents of the boat it has so long accompanied as a faithful companion.
[MEr.01_006,032] Now see, the wave has done its work and the shark has swallowed the prey it so eagerly awaited. So there is nothing more to observe here either. Let us look for another of the vessels.
[MEr.01_006,033] You will wonder where it might be. But I tell you, do not worry. Whoever seeks with Me will have no difficulty finding. Look here, it is already before us! Count the people still in it, and you will have little difficulty in making out the scene.
[MEr.01_006,034] Why do you not count? You say, ‘We see no one.’ Come nearer and look into the rocking boat. See, nothing but gnawed bones, and it is only the tenth day since the wreck! You would now like to know where the last man to gnaw on them has gone, since he could not have eaten himself down to the bare bones.
[MEr.01_006,035] Now turn your eyes a little to one side. Here, in the more westerly half of the screen, a moss-covered reef measuring only a few fathoms around projects above the sea.
[MEr.01_006,036] See how he crouches in despair in the middle of this tiny islet, gathering the moss and the little grass there is and pushing it into his mouth. See, that is now the lot of this last man. Of all those shipwrecked, he is also the only one whom another ship will take aboard alive in two days' time, so that he may bring word of what happened. And he is the only one who has begun, on this island at least, to remember Me a little.
[MEr.01_006,037] So let us leave him there to await his rescue and see where the raft may be. Look, there it floats! No one is left here either. Some bones are tied to a plank with a rope, and there is a corked bottle in the middle of the raft.
[MEr.01_006,038] The last man wrote down the loss of the ship and his own, and secured his account with the bottle to a plank with a rope. As he did so, weak and unsteady, he slipped and put one foot into the water. For a while he kept hold of the plank with his hands, until a discerning shark tore away half his body and finally devoured the other half as well.
[MEr.01_006,039] See, we have come to the very end of our voyage. As your saying goes, even death has lost its rights where nothing remains. So we too shall give up our right to look where death has stolen everything from our sight. Let us look a little farther across our screen showing the sea, to see whether anything worth remembering is already afloat and waiting for you to see it.
[MEr.01_006,040] Now look here! An English ship of the line is just coming this way. Apart from the sailors and the helmsman, nothing living is to be seen on deck. Would you like to know what lies within its tarred planks?
[MEr.01_006,041] Look here, then. I shall thunder an ‘Ephphatha’ over this ship, and at once it will become transparent as glass. What it holds will leap out at your eyes horribly enough. So I say: Ephphatha!
[MEr.01_006,042] Now look and judge what is here. In the lower parts of the ship see three hundred people of both sexes in heavy chains, nearly naked. Look how emaciated they are. Count their livid welts and see the wretched fare they are given. From week to week, rather than day by day, each person receives a stone-hard loaf weighing barely two and a half pounds and a measure of foul water in a jug.
[MEr.01_006,043] See how in one corner an elderly man, whose feet the rats have already tried, begs the gaoler coming in to put him to death. Look over in another corner at a woman who would be a veritable Venus by your idea of beauty. With chains on her tender arms, she cries out in fear and begs to be thrown into the sea, or at least to have one hand freed so that she can wipe the stinging filth from her nose.
[MEr.01_006,044] But what does the gaoler do? He takes a stiff broom and holds it to her nose for her to clean herself. In this way he scratches and smears her whole face until it is covered in sores and pus. And if she complains of such treatment, she is beaten into the bargain.
[MEr.01_006,045] Look down at her feet. Oh, those delicate little feet! Only three weeks ago a lecherous, wealthy English profligate held them in high esteem. But his lavish promises did little to seduce the girl. The baseness of his revenge found a way of getting her where you see her now. He fabricated a charge of theft and secretly bribed the sworn judges.
[MEr.01_006,046] A few others in this company are being transported as criminals, just as this poor woman is. See, chained in the opposite corner is a fairly young man. He was the sole heir of a rich man, and after his father's death his own mother had him brought here with the help of one of her shameful lovers.
[MEr.01_006,047] We shall follow his story no further, but look again at our fair prisoner's beautiful, delicate feet. See how nimbly she moves them to drive off the vermin aboard and keep them from trying on her feet what they did to the old man's. Look a little farther down at her feet and see how, through her exertions, she has already made herself a veritable cushion of rats.
[MEr.01_006,048] Do you suppose the lazy brutes aboard go down at least to clear the dead vermin from the ship? Oh no, they do nothing of the kind. They would rather fumigate this wretched part of the vessel daily with tar to ward off any outbreak of sickness aboard.
[MEr.01_006,049] You will think such inhumanity passes all understanding, and that surely doctors and priests must ensure that any laws imposed from outside are observed.
[MEr.01_006,050] But I tell you, once a ship in England leaves harbour, it has no law except the living law of the captain. Before long all the officers aboard are of one mind, and often a single baseness reigns under the whole deck. It takes no more than what happened here. A young, beautiful woman being transported refuses to heed the wild passions of the often drunken officers and to let them use her for every conceivable lewd indignity. Her most pitiable sentence in this world is already passed. Now you will see why the vermin are not cleared from the ship.
[MEr.01_006,051] But this is not the only thing such a poor woman has to endure. On top of it all, her fellow prisoners, men and women alike, often howl the most dreadful curses at her, saying it was in her power to make their fate more bearable.
[MEr.01_006,052] Look about you a little longer in these chambers of sorrow, and then turn your gaze upwards to the splendid rooms of the ship's officers. See how riotously they carry on there.
[MEr.01_006,053] Foaming wine spurts from their cups. They all shout a toast to their commander, and one also shouts, ‘Long live our beautiful prisoner!’ They all cheer in assent as though seized by madness.
[MEr.01_006,054] See, the officers put their heads together. What can they have in mind, you will ask. Do not concern yourselves with this secret. It is merely a cunning trick to win over the poor young woman.
[MEr.01_006,055] And what do you think the trick is? See, the young woman is freed from her chains at once and immediately given effective medical care. When she has recovered, she receives a formal proposal of marriage, by which she may become the wife of one of the ship's officers.
[MEr.01_006,056] The poor woman is too frightened by the hellish torture of the lower quarters to see through the subtle deception. She is married in a sham ceremony conducted by a ship's soldier in disguise. Her supposed husband thus has his way with her, and at night another takes his place at will. In this way our poor prisoner is made, without her knowledge, into the ship's prostitute.
[MEr.01_006,057] As far as food goes, she lacks nothing, and happily thinks her fortune is made. But her eyes are opened only at Botany Bay, on the coast of Australia, where she is consigned like the other convicts to a lifetime of flogging. The fate of this unfortunate woman follows in the seventh hour.