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Chapter
2
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Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy!
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As far as your eye can see,
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men, women, and baby slaves
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coming to the land of Liberty,
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where life's design is already made.
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So young and so strong |
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they're just waiting to be saved...
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Lord, I'm so tired
and I know you're tired too,
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look over the horizon,
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see the sun
shining down on you...
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Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy!
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Can't you feel the motion of the ocean,
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can't
you feel the cold wind blowing by?
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There's so many fish in the sea, |
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we're just, we're just, we're just
riding on the waves...
the waves... the waves...
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Naturally I was not around to photograph these
historical slave pictures, so here is where my own American journey
starts.
I had thought that slavery was far back in history, but when I
hitchhiked around Florida I met Charles Smith who
claimed to be 134 years old. He remembered vividly the good life before he was
enslaved and told me about it on my tape recorder. |
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Charles Smith: I came to the United States
when I was only 12 years old.
Jacob Holdt: Were you sold as a slave to the States? |
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- Yeah, let me tell you now. When I came to the
USA, people were sold. That was in slavery time. They brought me
from Africa. |
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White people came over there getting folks. I had
never seen a white person in Africa. |
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I asked my mama, could I go down to the boat and
see that man. She said yeah, and I ain't seen my mama since. And I
wasn't but 12 years old. |
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People got on the boat to see "sugar trees". Men,
women and children... "Come on down here in the hatch holes!"
Surely they wanted to show us something down there. |
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The boat was moving, but we thought it was just
rocking...due to the wind. He never did bring us back... |
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The colored people wanted to throw me off. "Throw
him overboard!"
Legree, the chapman on the boat didn't want me thrown off.
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We got into the United States. People were sold
there in New Orleans.
The highest bidder would get you. |
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