One morning, on a wet autumn day, I caught sight of the ship in the distance and hurried towards it. The salty sea air bore excited voices towards me, and it was not long before I became part of the bustle. Shouldering my luggage consisting of clothes, some valuable books and expedition materials, I climbed on board. The ship was crowded with men and women. There were no children. Among the passengers were carpenters, stonemasons, tailors, and a preacher. But the last was not the only one there who had embraced the word of the Lord. Seated or standing in groups, the men revelled in dreams of a better life in a republic with abundant land and the opportunity to establish a trade. Nowhere in the wide world was the freedom desired by black people of America fulfilled more than in the coastal republic of Liberia. As I edged my way to the berth that would be my abode for the coming weeks, I heard those dreams being exchanged with conviction and hope. Although I did participate in these conversations, my dreams differed from all the others. I cherished freedom and had longed for it all my life, but that was not why I was heading for Africa, for the land of my fathers. What made me trade America with all its promises for a distant shore was perhaps greater than freedom.

The ship set sail out of the crowded dock with the Atlantic winds guiding it. Well-wishers in their dozens waved from the pier, but I chose not to wave back. I was resolved to put America and everything about it behind me and to forge a new beginning for myself.

Yet, how could I escape from it all – the fields, the great house, Sarah, and the huge country where I had spent so much of my life.

I was born to a mother who raised many children who were not her own. One day, one of the children in her care fell into a well. I remember being with her when the incident occurred. We were drawing water when the child, a boy of six, tripped and fell head first down the well. Mother, who had sustained an injury to her legs that had resulted in a pronounced limp and who could not walk without a cane, used a ladder and climbed down the well to rescue the child. Such a woman was my mother.

One Christmas morning – I must have been eight or thereabouts and regarded my world with mother and stepfather as sufficient – a white man sauntered up to our cabin and shot me a look I had not seen in a face like his all my life. The man went on to ruffle my hair and called me by my full name. After sharing a few words with my mother, my actual father, our master, took leave of us to prepare for a sumptuous Christmas dinner at the great house with his daughters and in-laws.

We were all given a few days off from the fields and could visit relatives and friends at other plantations. We could attend to our little gardens, which produced things we could sell in the city; or we could come together to sing and narrate stories until dawn. And although we were not allowed to drink, we managed to forget the fields by doing chores that appealed to us.

The cooks and other domestics were busy at work preparing the best dishes of the year at the great house. Having no duties around the cabins, I walked over there, which I was allowed to do.

The house consisted of a small study, ten bedrooms, two of which were occupied by servants, drawing rooms, a lounge, a large kitchen, a pantry, and a verandah giving onto a beautiful garden bordered by cypress trees. As I approached it, I had the impression of entering a domain where everything, from the servants and others who occupied it, the rooms and gardens, contrasted in every way with our lives in the cabins. And of course this was true.

In the house, our master and one of his four daughters, Sarah, and some servants lived. Sarah was sitting on a bench on the verandah, reading aloud from the Bible, her whole attention riveted to the book. Standing not far away, I listened to her telling the story of Jesus. I found the story and the way she read it captivating, and whenever I paused to reflect on the moment I took to the Lord, I would always associate it with hearing Sarah's voice. She was reciting the story of Lazarus's death and the Lord proclaiming that Lazarus was but asleep and then waking him up to life. Despite my awareness of the danger associated with a person of my kind trying to acquire knowledge, which was thought to lead to recalcitrant thoughts and eventually to rebellion, I resolved to master those passages. I suppose, looking back on it all now, the Lord had held out his hand to me.

Sarah would now and then pause, perhaps to acknowledge my presence. At one point, she sat upright, closed the Bible which rested on her lap, and gazed at me. There was mischief in her eyes. She was tall, lean, with bony hands, pale cheeks and long black hair. Both of us had piercing eyes, prominent foreheads and the irritable habit of toying with our fingers. Her three older sisters had married men who owned plantations. Their mother, a woman who had controlled the affairs of the plantation with an iron fist, had died a few years back, and Sarah was the only woman left in the great house.

She smiled now as I went on to the kitchen. We did not speak that day.

The kitchen was a beehive of activity. The head cook and domestic, Benjamin Johnson, called out to me when I entered. 'Come over here, Edward,' he said, and I approached him. The aroma of fried chicken and diverse sauces pervaded the air.

Benjamin Johnson was hashing onion, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and boiled eggs to prepare salad. He was of amicable disposition, which he had cultivated and which, he told me later, was necessary for his survival on the plantation. Occasionally he visited our cabin, bringing some leftovers with him. Old now, but as healthy as a horse, he wore an expression that seemed to plead and deride at the same time. Benjamin smiled when least expected and during inappropriate times, throwing one into confusion as to how to respond to him. With seasoned hands, he now prepared the food, while at the same time issuing orders to other servants. He seemed at home in that world and yet, on more than one occasion, he had told my parents of his desire to escape. He was an important figure on the plantation and our master appeared to rely on his counsel regarding us. He would boast of his successes. Other servants consulted him on everything pertaining to culinary issues and to the house. Through the years, he had climbed the ladder of plantation life from a young man who tilled the fields to being head of the domestics and a cook bent on mastering an art form in which he took the greatest pride.

He offered me a drumstick.

'This will do you good, I know it, Edward,' he said, and I looked for an empty corner, eased myself down and bit into it. Benjamin Johnson was right. The food did indeed do me a lot of good.

Later, I left the kitchen. Sarah was no longer on the verandah. In those days I was wont not to head straight for the cabins but to stroll along paths that ran through the bushes, pausing to listen to nature, to the songs of birds or the cries of animals. During one of my wanderings I found a place in the bush, covered with dusty sand, a place so tranquil that it became my sanctuary, where I would retreat to take stock of my life as a child on the plantation, my head brimming with questions regarding my fate. I often wondered, in the light of the stories my mother told us about Africa, what had happened that resulted in us being cast away forever...