XLVII

Lis Cherie was dreaming about the Tiger again, who danced on its hind legs about a great bonfire. He was surrounded by a thousand faces black like hers, who swayed with the guttural rhythm of the drums. He held before him a white serpent while the mambos threw goofer dust into the fire, which flared into a cyclone of sparks that spun up into the strange constellations. That's when she was awoken be her father, who looked very urgent and serious.

Lis Cherie. get your things, Bebe! We have got to go!

His tongue was French. His skin black as coal. Lis Cherie only knew her father's name as Francois. She did as she was told and took only her doll, whose limbs were porcelain but bound by twine. She was united with her beloved mother in a heartfelt reunion. Outside you could see plantations burning up the River Road towards La Place, casting a red glare across the low cloud deck. Francois and the other slaves were assembled on the porch of their master's home, which was Destrehan Plantation. This was on the Cotes de Allemands upriver from New Orleans. The year was 1811.

What they saw from the porch was a great assemblage of slaves bearing torches and cane knives and pitchforks. Many were women and children. There were perhaps two hundred of them. Standing for them was a tall man powerfully built. His French was like Lis Cherie's father, that of the colony of Saint-Domingue, which was now Haiti. This was Charles Deslondes, who lead this slave revolt.

Where are your masters, Francois?

Lis Cherie saw in her father great apprehension, and herself sensed great and unusual events were in progress. She was but eight years old. The twenty-something slaves on the porch looked to Francois, who replied that Jean Noel Destrehan and his family were in New Orleans. The white overseers had fled, along with half the slaves. They are streaming down the River Road towards New Orleans.

Why have not you fled yourself, Francois?

You know why, Charles. Because if it can be done over the water, then it can be done here. Do you think this is the moment?

Francois referred to the Saint-Domingue revolt of 1791. Tens of thousands of blacks and whites were slaughtered in the bloodiest slave revolt in the New World. It had been instigated by the voodoo priest Dutty Boukman and the bewitched mambo Cicile Fatiman. And that was not all. Saint-Domingue entered into a decade and more of terror and invasion during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Both Charles and Francois had been young men during those dark times, and they related their experiences together as friends, for Charles Deslondes was a frequent visitor to Destrehan with his master. They both dreamed of freedom, which had been fleeting and furtive prospect as Saint-Domingue was rocked by revolution. Both Charles and Francois had come to New Orleans when their masters finally fled the turmoil of Saint-Domingue. They remained in bondage while they learned only by mythic rumors that Saint-Domingue had become a republic of former slaves called Haiti.

Do you think this is the moment, Charles Deslondes said, repeating the question to himself. He turned to look at the throng of erstwhile slaves behind him. There was no turning back, he thought to himself. He saw the women and the children. He held back a tear, then turned back to Francois.

Freedom is worth more than just living, he said. We breathe in this moment of freedom now, Francois. Breathe it with us.

Francois looked at his wife Marielle, and his daughter Lis Cherie, and then to the other slaves of Destrehan who had stayed behind. He already knew the plan. He just did not realize it would happen so soon. The plan was collect an army as large as 3,000 slaves, which all the conspirators thought possible. Slaves were essentially worked to death in the cane fields. The alternative of freedom and a state of desperation was expected to swell the revolt's numbers as it had in Haiti. But the breathe of freedom? That alone was enough for Francois to make the decision to join the revolt. He stepped down off the porch and was embraced by Charles Deslondes. And with his wife and little Lis Cherie, they stepped out into the dark unknown on a desperate run towards freedom.