Thus do I begin. Here commences my record — taken down in the hope that a record of such a struggle as here impends shall not be found uninteresting to the eye of future curiosity and the heart which thrills with compassion and is stirred by high deeds. So thus, on this day,

November 21^st, 1775

We are arrived at Norfolk. The town is of a good size, and its waters swelled with the ships of Lord Dunmore’s fleet.

We came to anchor at about three o’clock. There was a great bustle. Boats were prepared, that the passengers might disembark.

The moment being come that I should be rowed ashore to transact my enlistment, I bid a brief farewell to Dr. Trefusis, and hope that it shall be for but a short time, until we both have found our lodgings. As we embraced, he could not forbear to shed a tear. I fear I shed none, anticipation of coming adventures blotting out remembrance of those past; I fairly trembled with eagerness to reach the shore. I thrilled to that truth too sweet to be believed: that as I entered the Army, I should be freed in the eyes of the law — no stricture should bind me, no paper should hold me. Not simply escape, but freedom itself. ’Twould be a half an hour; an hour — but this same day.

The transit from ship to shore, meandering between hulls of schooner and brig, our oarlocks rattling monotonously, seemed to me interminable, so fired was I at the promise at last of landfall and recruitment; I strained forward, too, at the possibility that Bono should be presented to view at any moment; that by tonight, I might share a cup with him, who had been my only friend and brother throughout my youth.

I was conducted by a soldier to a warehouse requisitioned by the Ethiopian Regiment as a barracks, and there presented to a white serjeant by the name of Clippinger, that he might transact the enlistment. He asked me a great number of questions — viz. “Where d’you come from? Name of your master that was?”— to which he did not mark the answers, they being transcribed by his Corporal, a Scotsman named Craigie of a rough look and the letters G.R. branded upon the flesh of his forehead.

“Your name?” said the Serjeant.

“Octavian,” said I.

“Your surname?”

I considered. I would no longer be called Gitney. “I have none,” I said.

“And ye don’t have no master.”

“I have no master, sir,” said I, “except the King.”

To the tattooed Craigie he said, “Write ‘Octavian Negro.’”

“While I would not trouble the Serjeant, I would beg —”

“What then?”

“If it please you, sir, put down nothing for the surname. I would rather be called nothing than be named only for my race.”

Serjeant Clippinger gave an insalubrious smile. “Octavian Nothing?” said he.

I regarded my name. Knowing not who I was, it seemed a fair enough appellation.

“Octavian Nothing,” I agreed.

And thus it was inscribed.

So terrified was I that some irregularity would interfere with enlistment — some unforeseen objection — I perhaps answered with too great an exactitude, too punctilious a range of detail — desperate for approbation. When he asked, “Whether ye fought previous,” I thought in terror of my service with the rebels, and answered, “I have — through circumstance, not design — thrown in my lot with a regiment of — previously — but only as a slave — fought with — or built fortifications for —”

“Sweet Christ. No sermon, boy. A yea, a naw — no more, hear?”

I said, “Nay,” and his questions continued. I stared bewildered at the young Serjeant’s face — dazed not by his words, but by his features, his speaking mouth, his pimples; for in the last moments of my bondage, I was cast back into my years as a sort of half valet — unable to hold any thought but that I should hate to shave him, for that he would suffer cuts and scold. He asked his questions, and after each, I drew the razor down his pimpled cheeks in my helpless fancy, and saw him bleed.

And then I found that the time for questions was through; and he bade me place my hand upon my heart.

’Tis the moment, thought I — but scarce could understand it.

There was no ceremony to the oath he bade me swear. He, presuming I could not read, spake phrases regarding my loyalty to the Crown, and I repeated them without sense of their meaning — be faithful and bear true allegiance . . . His Majesty, King George III . . . crown and dignity . . . abjure the works of Rebellion . . .

And yet, those words were of infinite potency: for until then, I was a slave, though fugitive, bound by the laws of my country to Mr. Gitney and his house; but having spake the words of loyalty to my King, having been inducted into his service, my bondage, inherited from my mother, was, in accordance with the Governor’s proclamation, at long last dissolved.

At the final word — which was God — I baulked, and could not speak — and choked the word —“Gah”— sensible that in the space of open vowel, with the tongue touched to palate on the d, the oath would be complete, the enlistment accomplished, and I could never again be legally taken — and twice I stuttered — entertaining a hectic fancy that I should never speak it out, and so must remain bonded — gagging — but there it was — spoken — and Serjeant Clippinger was already turned half away, having accepted my first assay as sufficient.

As were it some spell (for such it was, that burst through chains that stretched from America’s shores to the palaces of London, the fastnesses of distant Oyo, fetters that bound together ships’ ledgers and the firearms of kidnappers and the combs with which I plaited Mr. Sharpe’s damp hair) I imagined the air should crack, the Atlantic sky yield forth its cataracts, and Hell itself howl misery.

Serjeant Clippinger hummed and hunted through papers. He held out a roster for me to sign, and indicated how to draw an X. I took his quill, and wrote my name.

O Lord — who hath taken mercy upon the afflicted — praised be Thy name.

The room was but an accounting room, with desks and rectangles of sun; and yet it was in that room that the curse fell from me, the curse of sixteen years, borne with me from my mother’s womb — and for the first time, I knew freedom.