This story is written in English, but traditionally it would have been spoken in Gullah. It was created to highlight some of the artifacts in the Pantovic Collection. Hear the Gullah version of Afua's Story!

My name is Margaret. My grandmother used to call me Afua. She said that it means "born on Friday" where our people come from in Africa. Mama said I was born in 1838. We lived on a farm in Wilmington, North Carolina, and we were the slaves of Jefferson and Polly Smith. Mama and I had our own little house and our own little vegetable garden out in the back of the Smith's house.

On my twentieth birthday, Miss Polly told me to gather my things because I was going to leave their farm. Well, Miss Polly had sold my mama and kept all of the money for herself because she said that mama was too sassy. I didn't care much about leaving hem - Miss Polly and Master Jeff - because I was expecting a child and I was scared that Missy Polly would keep telling me that she would sell my baby just to keep me from being what she considered to be sassy.

Master Jeff and I left the farm the next morning at dawn. The night before, Old Uncle Hercules gave me a thing that looks like a tiny horseshoe, instead it was thick, not flat. He said it was a manilla and people used to use them like money back in Africa. He told me to carry it with me for good luck and so that I could remember everybody.

I didn't know where we were going, Master Jeff didn't say and I knew better than to ask him. All I knew was that I wasn't going back to that farm. The buggy was loaded down with plenty of the Smith's things, even that old slave-made chair that Old Man Jebby had made and had put some kind of animal skin on the seat. And Master Jeff, he had that old musket of his loaded and right beside him. All I could do is wait and see.

The ride in that old buggy was long and it was real cold out there. Master Jeff said that he wanted to be back home before it turned to the next year. He said that it would soon be 1859. That child in my belly sure didn't like that cold. He or she was just twisting and turning the whole time.

I don't know when, but finally we came to a place Master Jeff said was called Mars Bluff, South Carolina. I sure was glad that that trip was over. Our first stop was at a big house on a big farm. A woman that put me in the mind of my mama took me with her. She gave me some sassafras tea, hoe cake and preserves, clean clothes, and she gave me warm pallet to lay on. I fell fast asleep.

When I woke up, that woman, her name was Sukey, Sukey told me to sleep some more because a man named Master Ben was going to come for me early the next day and we were going to head for a place called Charleston. I could think of a bunch of questions to ask her, but I was too sleepy, and too glad to be warm.