Summary
Maccabees
Timothy has called for Samuel next. Isaiah does not react, saying that Samuel has no choice, the same way he himself has no choice. Samuel disagrees, saying that there is always a choice, but Isaiah just makes the wrong ones. Before Isaiah can protest, Maggie comes by with some food. She asks if they are having problems with Amos, to which Samuel replies that they can handle him. Maggie sees something familiar in Samuel, and Samuel sees “something black” flash across Maggie’s back as she leaves. Neither Samuel nor Isaiah can bring themselves to continue the argument, and they eat their food in solemn silence.
The Revelation of Judas
Sweeping the porch, Maggie feels uneasy at the coming storm. Looking for clues to the future, she throws pig bones on the ground and is alarmed at what it portends. In his shack, Amos wakes with a headache, and heads for the Big House. He sees the barn and regrets that Samuel and Isaiah did not listen to him, choosing to put themselves over the people. He particularly feels sympathy for Isaiah, whose real name, Kayode, he has been saving since the day they arrived at Empty. A dream of Essie with Solomon emboldens Amos’s decision to sacrifice the few for the many, and he heads for the Big House. Maggie attempts to stop him, throwing down bones, spit, and rock salt. Amos crosses them all with the help of his god, and Maggie begins swinging at Amos in a last-ditch effort to stop him. She fails, and Amos walks into the Big House, headed towards Massa Paul’s study.
Chronicles
The voice of the collective ‘we’ returns and says that the first mistake was in trying to reason with something that has no nature at all. Things without a nature always plunder and consume in search of one, and the voice mourns that they were doomed from the start.
Bel and the Dragon
On a cramped, rotting ship, Kosii is trapped below with other bodies, chained so closely together that he cannot move to help deliver a newborn baby beside him. He can only hope that she hears his mourning. Kosii lost track of Elewa at the shore, when they were chained to other people and loaded onto the ship. Kosii fears that he is going to be eaten, and wonders why his village received no warning of the invaders. He believes it is because the Kosongo people were one of the few to maintain the original order and crown a woman king, which the other kings resented. Kosii concludes that it is spitefulness that has allowed them to be captured.
Kosii calls out and asks if anyone understands his language. A man turns around and opens his mouth, revealing his lack of tongue. In the early morning, the skinless come down to remove the dead bodies from the living ones. One of the corpses is Elewa’s, and Kosii reaches futilely for him. Devastated, he utters a curse upon their captors, but the curse is ultimately meaningless and redundant. He mourns the loss of Elewa and what is to come.
Paul
As a young child, Paul’s father brings him out to the middle of their land and points out everything that is theirs by God’s will. Both Paul’s mother and father dedicated their lives to building up the land, and Elizabeth, Paul’s mother, eventually becomes sick and dies from overwork. To commemorate her, Paul and his father name the plantation Elizabeth in her honor.
In the present, Paul is proud of how far the plantation has come since his parents’ days. Paul tried to reenact the same fatherly moment with Timothy, but Timothy did not react with the awe and joy that Paul once did. At the dinner table that night, Paul contemplates Timothy and the Northern education he has received. He has no desire to get up until there is a rumbling in his stomach, and Paul rushes towards the outhouse, but not in time to prevent shitting his pants. He frantically calls for Maggie and demands a cloth, then a bowl of water. Essie is given the soiled pants to wash, while Paul orders Maggie to wipe his ass. Maggie and Essie kneel to clean Paul’s boot, but for one moment, he sees an image in reverse: Maggie and Essie standing while he is on his knees.
Paul’s plan was to multiply his slaves through Samuel and Isaiah, who he purposefully assigned to work in the barn. This plan crumbles one morning when Amos enters his study and tells him about the sodomy occuring in the barn. Paul contemplates this dilemma. James advises him to sell Samuel and Isaiah, but Paul dislikes the idea of ‘wasting’ their potential.
Paul visits the barn in the early morning, holding a whip and a Bible. He begins threatening Samuel and Isaiah, when a vision of Elizabeth frantically waving to him from the edge of the cotton field distracts him. Disoriented and unnerved, Paul walks away from Samuel and Isaiah, before nearly passing out in front of the Big House. Timothy rushes to help him up.
Later that same night, Paul has Adam drive him to the saloon. A stranger approaches Paul and introduces himself, claiming to be interested in the ‘studs’ that Paul is looking to sell. Though initially suspicious, Paul is persuaded to follow the man out to the back, where he is ambushed by robbers. They steal his money and his golden watch, then leave Paul in the dirt. Firmly resolved to sell Samuel and Isaiah at an auction, Paul laughs before returning to his coach, and wakes Adam, who immediately jumps to his aid. Paul tells Adam that God has blessed them and touches his cheek intimately.
Adam drives Paul back to the plantation. Upon their return, Paul sees a light in Timothy’s room, and shadows tussling in the window. He sprints to Timothy’s room, gun ready, and kicks the door open. In the darkness, Paul trips and lands on something soft and wet — it is Timothy’s body. He screams, cursing God, when he sees a flash of light in the corner of his eye.
Analysis
Samuel and Isaiah’s argument continues from the previous chapter, as this time Timothy has called for Samuel to come to his room to be ‘painted’. Isaiah believes that violence in answer to violence only creates wreckage, but he concedes that being soft will also result in destruction. The futility of the slaves’ situation is stressed here, as Isaiah and Samuel find themselves stuck between impossible options.
Maggie feels a premonition, and she is warned by voices of Amos’s approach. This chapter also illuminates Amos’s logic in betraying the secret of Samuel and Isaiah’s relationship to Massa Paul, and how it is affected by the consideration of many, and his personal interest in Essie’s wellbeing. To Amos, he is simply taking a utilitarian approach of prioritizing the wellbeing of the many over the few.
Kosii’s journey on one of the slave ships across the Atlantic is a sobering and rapid transition from the idyllic Kosongo village. Kosii symbolizes the immense loss of history and culture that occurred when European came to Africa—it was not just a pillaging of people and bodies, but also of their sacred objects and traditions. The Europeans' cruel actions reveal them for the shameless hypocrites they are: traveling on mighty ships yet unable to wash their hands before eating.
By detailing Paul’s backstory, the novel loops back to the present-day narrative on the Halifax plantation, where Amos has just reached Paul’s study to tell him about Samuel and Isaiah’s relationship. In presenting Paul’s backstory, first him as a young child bonding with his father, and his dead mother Elizabeth after whom the plantation is named, Paul is made a more complex character rather than a one-dimensional villain.
It also affords us a glimpse into the mindset of a slave owner, as Paul believes that ownership equals right. Paul’s incident with his bowels also becomes a metaphor for how in treating the enslaved people so brutally and without dignity, it is actually himself that Paul is degrading. His chapter provides an interesting view of how the slave owners justified their brutal, often-inhumane treatment of slaves.
