Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I've long thought that the key to a pro-freedman Reconstruction that wouldn't have been rolled back by the "Redeemers" would have been both arms and land... But if slave revolts in slave-majority areas resulted in their having both an effective armed militia and de facto possession of the land, and if the slave owners they rebelled against happened to be held to be guilty of treason against the USA, then the legalities might wind up conforming with the realities on the ground.

Yes, land is the key. It's possible to turn yeomen into serfs, but it's a lot harder than doing the same thing to tenants.

That's what was missing from the Sea Islands Experiment in OTL - the freedmen never had their land tenure recognized, and after the war, the plantation owners got it back. The freedmen who didn't leave ended up as tenants.

In this timeline, the manner of their liberation will be different, and political expediency will give them control over where the land goes. The Sea Islanders will come out of the war as yeoman smallholders which, especially when combined with other arrangements, will put them in a position to keep some political control. There will be one or two other places in a similar situation.

(And for that matter, the freedmen might not take only de facto possession - if they set up entities capable of granting de jure possession, the Union might force the postwar state governments to ratify these entities' acts.)

If reconstructionists could also build up an alliance of the poorer whites with these freed people, then the Redeemers might not be able to force their way back into power, in at least some Southern states, particularly ones with lots of African population, like Louisiana or Mississippi. Or South Carolina! There'd be black Senators, and a fair number of black Representatives in Congress.

The freedmen wouldn't even need that alliance in South Carolina, where they'd be close to 60 percent of the population; all they'd need is to be able to forestall the kind of political terrorism that occurred in 1876. Militias made up of county smallholders might do the trick. In LA and MS, they'd need alliances, which would depend on whether the poor whites put greater emphasis on the "poor" or the "white."

I would say no matter what happened in the other Southern states, but unfortunately Congress and I believe the Senate can refuse to recognize individual legislators and refuse to seat them, so if a sufficient number of other Southern states followed a Jim Crow path and found sufficient Northern allies, they could exclude entire states.

This was never done in OTL, even after the Redeemers took over the South; the last black Republican Congressman from North Carolina left office in 1901, and none of the representatives elected during the 1880s and 1890s were excluded. I'm not sure if the Redeemers even seriously tried. They might make the attempt if there were more black Congressmen, but I can't see the Republicans up north (or even many of the Democrats) going along with it. As you say, the African-Americans will be considered worthy supporters of the Union, which won't count for enough to prevent the Redeemers from coming to power in some states, but would probably preclude things like keeping South Carolina out of the Senate.

Now the big difference between this situation and OTL would be if significant tracts of land were self-liberated by slaves repudiating their bondage. OTL of course southern African-Americans did a whole lot to support the Union cause and would have done more if Lincoln and other Northern leaders weren't afraid to countenance their rebellion. Whereas I'm not sure even the Malê influence would be enough to consolidate really sweeping slave victories [...]

So far only the coastal islands of Carolina are being foreshadowed as likely bastions of slave self-liberation, and that's just about OTL too. So unfortunately I don't see a lot of hope that the situation will be a lot better for Southern ex-slaves than OTL, in most places. It would be quite something though if the Redeemers tried to take back SC, and failed.

There won't be really sweeping slave victories, but the Sea Islands won't be the only place that self-liberates, and even a temporarily successful slave revolt could create domino effects elsewhere. And as noted above, the Sea Islanders - and possibly some others - will end up with land as well as the ratification of certain political arrangements made during the war. Whether this will be enough to make Reconstruction stick at the state level - and I agree that South Carolina is the state where this is most likely to happen - remains to be seen.

Or more pessimistically, we could have some of black majority areas being treated like Indian Reservations (with all of the attendant problems that would come with that) after the ACW.

Less like Indian reservations than like quilombos or Maroon colonies (or the colonias of southern Texas) - mostly left alone, but also left out of whatever development plans the white-dominated government might dream up. Overcoming this will be a major part of this timeline's civil-rights movement. As noted above, though, South Carolina may be at least a partial exception.

The Bavarian army was integrated in the Imperial command structure and the King was commander-in-chief only during peacetime, and AFAIK, the Bavarian diplomatic corps consisted solely of an envoy to the Holy See (which wouldn't be an important issue for Hanover). I doubt that Hanover could achieve much more, so if we assume that the TTL German Empire is similar in structure to OTL's, real leeway for an independent Hanoverian foreign policy or own colonies seem unlikely.

Does it make a difference that Hanover will be in the North German Confederation, not the German Empire? The Empire's constitution wasn't much different from the NDB's, and the NDB was well on the way to being a state with a unified parliament and courts, but it was at least in theory an alliance rather than an empire, and the king of Prussia was at least in theory first among equals rather than overlord. So if the NDB continues to exist after a drawn Franco-Prussian war, would the more privileged member states have some autonomy over foreign policy? In other words, would there be Prussian and Hanoverian colonies, but no "German" colonies as yet? Once the NDB becomes an empire, of course, the member states' colonies would be subsumed as German colonial possessions.

If that's not plausible, then would the member states of the NDB be autonomous enough to charter their own state companies? If, as we discussed a while back, the Congo basin became a Portuguese colony with the proviso that other powers have the right to bid for concessions, could Hanover or even one of the free Hanseatic cities be among the concessionaires?

Failing either of those, I think I'll stick with the "Prussian win in 1866, draw in 1870-72, rematch in the 1890s" scenario.

I am really interested to see how you play Reconstruction now! It would be great to see a steady and continuous national or state at least Black political class develop in the South from the Civil War on, even if very restricted.

Most likely there will be a steady and continuous class at the county level, and a less-interrupted presence in some states (although not others) - a few more "Black Seconds" scattered around the South, maybe.

One pitfall here is that with the freedmen getting kicked out the most natural group to draw a Black political class from is being liquidated. Of course there are still natural leaders among the slaves, but the lack of educated freedmen will be a handicap (of course some will come in from the North after the war but not having lived there all their lives will be a disadvantage).

Not all the freedmen will get kicked out. The laws will vary from state to state, and as in OTL, some freedmen will be able to secure individual exemptions.

On one end of the scale, there will be states like Maryland and Louisiana where the free black population was large enough and well-established enough that expelling them would be logistically difficult and economically disastrous. On the other are states like Mississippi and Alabama where the freedmen are so few (and in Alabama's case, mostly concentrated in one city) that they aren't as much of a threat, and where the state government will focus more on restricting the freedmen and preventing new manumissions than expelling them all. The places in between - Virginia, North Carolina and to a lesser extent South Carolina - will crack down hardest, and even there, enforcement won't be 100 percent.

Also, some of the slaves will be educated - for instance, a certain gentleman from Charleston will play an even larger part in this timeline's Reconstruction than he did in OTL. And some of the freedmen who had to leave the Southern states before the war will come back during or after. There will be a base to draw from.

 

[Julius Vogel]

One pitfall here is that with the freedmen getting kicked out the most natural group to draw a Black political class from is being liquidated. Of course there are still natural leaders among the slaves, but the lack of educated freedmen will be a handicap (of course some will come in from the North after the war but not having lived there all their lives will be a disadvantage).

Of course in the long term such a class might develop, but it'll have some difficulties in getting off the ground.

Yes, that is certainly an issue. But if there are safe havens in the South, such as they are, they may form an attractant after the War. After all, I imagine Black freedmen and their families will be just like any other immigrant, they will hunger after the familiar and will oft become so disillusioned with their experiences as immigrants that they will seek to return to "home", or something similar

 

[Shevek23]

I didn't respond to your offer to note cameo requests because most of the names I can think of would be old hat; for instance the alt-timeline cousins of OTL escaped slave narratives. (Indeed the POD is so late, many of the most famous slave narratives of OTL had their action well underway as early as the POD itself, so as of 1860 many lives are still substantially unbutterflied.

But perhaps it is not too banal to point out what Fredrick Douglass said OTL, in response to the advocates of deportation back to Africa as part of the package of emancipation--that for the American-born African especially, the terrors and grim associations of the places where they were born and spent their early years were offset by the fact that when all was said and done, it was still their home, and loving that home was one of the few things they possessed; to deprive the slave of the only home they knew was at best a terrible cost to them if it were in exchange for benefits, and at worst a huge part of the terrors of slavery itself--being sold "down the river" being among the worst of the many calamities a slave might fear. A true friend of the slaves, Douglass pointed out, would respect their desire to be free right where they were born or had managed to make their half-life, and help them make it a whole life there if that were possible rather than make leaving their home a necessary condition of freedom.

 

[Iserlohn]

Does it make a difference that Hanover will be in the North German Confederation, not the German Empire? The Empire's constitution wasn't much different from the NDB's, and the NDB was well on the way to being a state with a unified parliament and courts, but it was at least in theory an alliance rather than an empire, and the king of Prussia was at least in theory first among equals rather than overlord. So if the NDB continues to exist after a drawn Franco-Prussian war, would the more privileged member states have some autonomy over foreign policy? In other words, would there be Prussian and Hanoverian colonies, but no "German" colonies as yet? Once the NDB becomes an empire, of course, the member states' colonies would be subsumed as German colonial possessions.

If that's not plausible, then would the member states of the NDB be autonomous enough to charter their own state companies? If, as we discussed a while back, the Congo basin became a Portuguese colony with the proviso that other powers have the right to bid for concessions, could Hanover or even one of the free Hanseatic cities be among the concessionaires?

Failing either of those, I think I'll stick with the "Prussian win in 1866, draw in 1870-72, rematch in the 1890s" scenario.

Well, I recently had a discussion with my history teacher on this subject (revision for my finals) and while she states that your assumpitons on the NDB are correct, however it certainly drifted towards a federal state. So probably in the 1880s the NDB certainly could be a true federation similiar to the German Empire. When it comes to foreign policy: Not really. Prussia pretty much dictated what each state was supposed to do, since when the NDB formed the sole member state which was able to really do anything (excluding Prussia of course) was Saxony. Maybe I overred the part with Hannover surviving... Chartered companies might work though, seeing how there is no historical background so a surviving Hannover might want to immitate GB and use African colonies in order to boost its position in the NDB against Prussia.

So if you make Hannover survive the Austro-Prussian / German War, then something like that could be pulled off. The Hanseatic Cities... Not so much. They lacked the power base big time, even though they made up roughly a third of the German fleet in 1871, it certainly isn't enough in order to maintain something further away than Northwestern Africa.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Yes, that is certainly an issue. But if there are safe havens in the South, such as they are, they may form an attractant after the War. After all, I imagine Black freedmen and their families will be just like any other immigrant, they will hunger after the familiar and will oft become so disillusioned with their experiences as immigrants that they will seek to return to "home", or something similar

That would seem logical. I don't have any data on how many freedmen who escaped north before or during the Civil War returned to the South afterward, but there were at least some - several of the prominent black politicians during the Reconstruction era were freedmen who had lived in the North before the war or who escaped to fight for the Union during it. I'd guess that, if African-American political power proves more enduring in certain counties or states, at least as many if not more freedmen will come back.

I didn't respond to your offer to note cameo requests because most of the names I can think of would be old hat; for instance the alt-timeline cousins of OTL escaped slave narratives. (Indeed the POD is so late, many of the most famous slave narratives of OTL had their action well underway as early as the POD itself, so as of 1860 many lives are still substantially unbutterflied.

Many of them, but not all - Harriet Tubman, for instance, became free in 1849. I'm not sure if this timeline would butterfly her escape - the changes to Maryland thus far are much more subtle than the Deep South, and would be all the more so in the 1840s - but the details of her life might be different. Certainly, the Underground Railroad won't be exactly the same.

Oh, and she was in South Carolina during the OTL Civil War. Maybe she'll find something to do there in this timeline as well.

But perhaps it is not too banal to point out what Fredrick Douglass said OTL, in response to the advocates of deportation back to Africa as part of the package of emancipation--that for the American-born African especially, the terrors and grim associations of the places where they were born and spent their early years were offset by the fact that when all was said and done, it was still their home, and loving that home was one of the few things they possessed; to deprive the slave of the only home they knew was at best a terrible cost to them if it were in exchange for benefits, and at worst a huge part of the terrors of slavery itself--being sold "down the river" being among the worst of the many calamities a slave might fear. A true friend of the slaves, Douglass pointed out, would respect their desire to be free right where they were born or had managed to make their half-life, and help them make it a whole life there if that were possible rather than make leaving their home a necessary condition of freedom.

Definitely. You'll notice that most of the people promoting emigration to Africa, in this timeline as in OTL, don't exactly have the best interests of the freedmen at heart. The state legislatures are promoting emigration in order to get rid of what they see as a demographic threat, and the colonization societies, for the most part, have exactly the same goal, albeit leavened with the belief that it's for the freedmen's own good.

Making the South a homeland in truth will be one of the key struggles of the postwar period.

Well, I recently had a discussion with my history teacher on this subject (revision for my finals) and while she states that your assumpitons on the NDB are correct, however it certainly drifted towards a federal state. So probably in the 1880s the NDB certainly could be a true federation similiar to the German Empire.

That's more or less what I had in mind. Even with a surviving Hanover, Prussia would still be the biggest state in the NDB by far, with a population of about 19.2 million (1864) as opposed to 1.85 million for Hanover (1862) and 2.34 million for Saxony (1864), so the natural progression would be toward a Prussia-centered federal state. Without the unification of 1871, though, the NDB would take a while longer to get there - it would be most of the way toward a true federation by the time the scramble for Africa begins, but there might still be some vestiges of the confederation at that time.

(BTW, is it Hanover or Hannover? I keep seeing it both ways.)

When it comes to foreign policy: Not really. Prussia pretty much dictated what each state was supposed to do, since when the NDB formed the sole member state which was able to really do anything (excluding Prussia of course) was Saxony. Maybe I overred the part with Hannover surviving...

Chartered companies might work though, seeing how there is no historical background so a surviving Hannover might want to immitate GB and use African colonies in order to boost its position in the NDB against Prussia.

According to the figures cited above, Hanover isn't much smaller than Saxony, and the two would certainly be the only member states big enough to take independent action. And if they can do so, I suspect that they'd want to do so at least once in a while, just to show that Prussia isn't their total boss. Colonies or colonial concessions may actually be seen as a "harmless" way of showing independence - it would give Hanover some prestige in a way that didn't impact Prussia's relations with other major powers (at least until one of those powers got into a colonial border dispute with Hanover).

The Hanseatic Cities... Not so much. They lacked the power base big time, even though they made up roughly a third of the German fleet in 1871, it certainly isn't enough in order to maintain something further away than Northwestern Africa.

Yeah, I checked the population figures - about 300,000 for Hamburg, 100,000 for Bremen and even less than that for Lübeck. Way too small for colonialism.

Anyway, I was hoping to get the next update done today, but it's now looking more like tomorrow evening. This will be a family-saga episode with Usman Abacar in England, and the one after that will start the ACW (which will probably be a two-parter).

 

[Shevek23]

...
(BTW, is it Hanover or Hannover? I keep seeing it both ways.)

I think "Hanover" is the English-language spelling and with 2 "n"s it's the German spelling. The place is relevant to several threads I follow and I have been switching back and forth inconsistently myself.

Anyway, I was hoping to get the next update done today, but it's now looking more like tomorrow evening. This will be a family-saga episode with Usman Abacar in England, and the one after that will start the ACW (which will probably be a two-parter).

Oh yay, I've been wondering what happened to Usman!

The civil war is not a subject for cheering. But I am looking forward to your posts on it and cheer that.

 

[Kaiphranos]

With Jonathan's permission, here is the first of a pair of new maps for Malê Rising. This one shows Sokoto and its neighbors as of 1858. (The second will zoom out to get a look at a bit more of West Africa.)

It'll be done... erm... once I sit down and work on it for a while.

 

[Ganesha]

With Jonathan's permission, here is the first of a pair of new maps for Malê Rising. This one shows Sokoto and its neighbors as of 1858. (The second will zoom out to get a look at a bit more of West Africa.)

It'll be done... erm... once I sit down and work on it for a while.

Excellent work, Kaiphranos. Wonderful map, and I'm looking forward to the second. That does indeed help me put everything in context. I'm surprised that the Igbo regions, so dense in population, were not developed into states by this point. Why was that, both IOTL and ITTL?

Cheers,
Ganesha

 

[iori]

Excellent work, Kaiphranos. Wonderful map, and I'm looking forward to the second. That does indeed help me put everything in context. I'm surprised that the Igbo regions, so dense in population, were not developed into states by this point. Why was that, both IOTL and ITTL?

Cheers,
Ganesha

IOTL as far as I know it was a mixture of things, on the one hand the slave trade probably caused issues, but aside from that before the British came along the Igbo primarily practiced a form of quasi-Republicanism based on villages and really did'nt have a common identity to forge any real states.

 

[wolf_brother]

Well there was the Kingdom of Nri and the Aro Confederacy, but the slave trade, and then abolitionism, really wrecked both of them. As well, iirc, Jonathan Edelstein has made reference to some of the Igbo city-states that were nominally in or allied to the Aro, and two of them at least are shown on the map.

 

[Julius Vogel]

With Jonathan's permission, here is the first of a pair of new maps for Malê Rising. This one shows Sokoto and its neighbors as of 1858. (The second will zoom out to get a look at a bit more of West Africa.)

It'll be done... erm... once I sit down and work on it for a while.

Well it looks good anyway, good start!

 

[Kaiphranos]

Alright, I got this done more quickly than I expected. The rest of West Africa!

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Excellent work, Kaiphranos. Wonderful map, and I'm looking forward to the second. That does indeed help me put everything in context.

Yes, the maps are great. Thanks, Kaiphranos!

I'm surprised that the Igbo regions, so dense in population, were not developed into states by this point. Why was that, both IOTL and ITTL?

IOTL as far as I know it was a mixture of things, on the one hand the slave trade probably caused issues, but aside from that before the British came along the Igbo primarily practiced a form of quasi-Republicanism based on villages and really did'nt have a common identity to forge any real states.

Well there was the Kingdom of Nri and the Aro Confederacy, but the slave trade, and then abolitionism, really wrecked both of them. As well, iirc, Jonathan Edelstein has made reference to some of the Igbo city-states that were nominally in or allied to the Aro, and two of them at least are shown on the map.

Sources on the Nri and Aro are damnably hard to come by (if anyone has JSTOR access and can get me Apollos O. Nwauwa's two articles on the Aro Confederacy, I'd appreciate it). My understanding is that Nri may have been more a religious and cultural hegemony than a true state - waiting several years between the death of one king and the selection of the next is a pretty clear indication that the kingship was ceremonial. The Aro were major middlemen in the slave trade, and given how hard the Sahelian states have cracked down on the middleman kingdoms in this timeline, I'd expect the Aro Confederacy to fall apart even earlier than OTL. The saying Igbo enwe eze ("the Igbo have no king") will exist in this timeline as well.

The Nri, though, may get a chance to put themselves back together. And as in OTL, the Igbo will be politically active during the colonial era - possibly due to their quasi-republican tradition - and there will be incidents like this one, possibly on a much wider scale with more Edo, Yoruba and Northern participation.

BTW, it's looking like the update will have to be pushed to this weekend due to real-world issues - tomorrow evening if the stars align, Saturday otherwise.

EDIT: And in the meantime, just as a teaser and without any comment:

​

 

[iori]

Alright, I got this done more quickly than I expected. The rest of West Africa!

How come the Gobir Emirate shown on the first one is'nt on this one?

 

[Shevek23]

Yes, the maps are great. Thanks, Kaiphranos!

Yes, thanks!

...And in the meantime, just as a teaser and without any comment...

Consider me teased!

 

[Kaiphranos]

How come the Gobir Emirate shown on the first one is'nt on this one?

It's labeled just as "Gobir," without any borders marked. The Watsonian explanation is that the maker of the second map didn't have much information about its borders or level of organization...

 

[imperialaquila]

If those shadings represent what I think they do...very interesting.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

With Jonathan's permission, here is the first of a pair of new maps for Malê Rising. This one shows Sokoto and its neighbors as of 1858. (The second will zoom out to get a look at a bit more of West Africa.)

It'll be done... erm... once I sit down and work on it for a while.

Alright, I got this done more quickly than I expected. The rest of West Africa!

Somehow, I'm rather baffled by Sokoto territory stretching across Niger so deep into Borgu territory. This is out of semi-ignorance though, since as far as I have learned about Sokoto's historical territory, it doesn't seem to had ever included any chunk of Borgu lands. Which baffles me even more in turn, since they were really just across the river from Sokoto center of power but they were never part of its empire ?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

How come the Gobir Emirate shown on the first one is'nt on this one?

It's labeled just as "Gobir," without any borders marked. The Watsonian explanation is that the maker of the second map didn't have much information about its borders or level of organization...

Well, there's also the fact that my sketch map didn't include any borders. For the record, the Gobir emirate has its capital at Maradi (in OTL south-central Niger) and extends eastward to the Damagaram sultanate, westward to the approximate border between the OTL Tahoua and Dosso departments, southward to Sokoto and Atikuwa, and northward to the Tuareg sultanate of Agadez. This map should give you an idea of where the boundaries are.

If those shadings represent what I think they do...very interesting.

If I'm reading your mind correctly, they do.

Somehow, I'm rather baffled by Sokoto territory stretching across Niger so deep into Borgu territory. This is out of semi-ignorance though, since as far as I have learned about Sokoto's historical territory, it doesn't seem to had ever included any chunk of Borgu lands. Which baffles me even more in turn, since they were really just across the river from Sokoto center of power but they were never part of its empire?

In OTL, the Borgu kingdoms repelled Fulani invasions during the 1810s-20s, and fought inconclusively with the Gwandu emirate in the 1830s. I can only guess why the Fulani weren't able to conquer them, but my guess would be that while Sokoto was the Caliphate's center of power, it was at the extreme west of its territory. The Fulani jihad was seriously overextended by the time it got to Borgu, and I suspect this is why it couldn't establish itself there as it did in Hausaland.

The Sokoto Republic, in contrast, was more compact, and its political and military center of gravity was near the capital. Also, because of its focus on suppressing the slave trade, its southern and western borders were key areas of military operation. Given those considerations, I think it would be plausible for Sokoto to bring some of the eastern Borgu kingdoms under its sway, particularly Bussa which didn't always get along with the other Borgu states. But even so, only the easternmost Borgu lands are part of Sokoto, and the areas that are located in the OTL Republic of Benin (such as the kingdom of Nikki) are, and will remain, separate.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Stranger in a familiar land

Harrow
West Dorset
March and April 1859

The Harrow School, 19th century
​

Two teenage boys, one white and one black, stood in a circle of their peers. Their cravats undone, waistcoats unbuttoned, frock-coats and straw hats forgotten on the ground, they began to circle each other with back-and-forth rocking movements, each intent only on the other, waiting for an opportune moment.

The moment came. The African struck first, pivoting on one foot and bringing the other up in a wicked arc toward his opponent’s head. The other boy threw himself sideways to avoid the blow and, with the same movement, brought his legs around to knock his opponent off his feet. But the black youth leaped upward, letting the sweep pass harmlessly underneath, and drove a punch downward toward the other’s solar plexus.

The other boys clapped their hands and began a rhythmic nonsense chant as the fight began in earnest, a dizzying sequence of strikes and evasions. Each strike was met by a corresponding dodge or leap, and each evasion was carried forward into another attack. The two were well-matched, and their combat might almost have been a dance; indeed, under other circumstances, it would have been a dance. But this was no choreographed exhibition; the fighters moved against each other rather than in tandem, and every so often a blow would strike home. Here, the white boy’s kick struck his opponent in the side and staggered him; there, the black youth landed a punch and moved in to press the advantage against his stunned foe. For long minutes, though, neither could land a decisive blow, and each managed to dance back and recover his feet.

Then, all at once, it happened. The white youth, tiring, misjudged a strike, and rather than going where he wanted it to, his roundhouse kick carried him off balance. The other threw himself backward on his hands and flung his legs forward, taking his opponent’s remaining leg out from under him. His momentum carried him around and he spun through the air as his foe fell, landing on his feet and driving a kick at the other boy’s unprotected stomach. The chanting from the surrounding circle rose to a crescendo as the white teenager folded and lay where he had fallen.

The African waited a moment, continuing to circle back and forth, but then realized that the fight was over. His foe raised a hand, and he stepped over to help the other boy up. The two shook hands, and several of the surrounding boys - the black youth’s supporters - crowded in to shout their congratulations and raise him on their shoulders.

Usman Abacar at seventeen. Five inches taller than his father, well-favored, with his mother’s ready smile and a presence inherited from the shehu he was named after. Facile with languages, a quick student, a gifted speaker albeit a mediocre essayist; a total loss at cricket, a fair football player and a superlative rider. And, of course, the Harrow School’s reigning champion of the capoeira.

Capoeira in Brazil
​

That still bemused him even after all this time. On his first week at school, he’d beaten a boy who called him a nigger and a black slave, but although the boy had been a notorious bully, his schoolmates hadn’t approved; instead, they’d condemned him for striking foul blows. The idea that one could cheat in combat was beyond Usman’s comprehension - he’d learned to fight from soldiers, who’d taught him that the only thing that mattered was winning - but it was clearly something that mattered to the other boys. So he’d learned to restrain himself when boxing and wrestling, and filed a bit of information away for later use: these are a people to whom rules are important.

The capoeira had rules. The other boys considered it wonderfully exotic - even more so than his Fulani scars, the flowing Arabic calligraphy of his Koran and his letters home, or his repertoire of Malê camp songs - and they’d learned it eagerly. Teaching the capoeira had brought Usman his first friends at Harrow, and his practice sessions never failed to attract a crowd, even though Thompson and Cavendish were the only ones who could put the outcome in doubt.

“Almost had you there a couple times,” Thompson said as they both dressed. “You’ll have to show me how you got away from that back-kick.”

“Better watch out if you do, Abacar,” a fifth-former called before Usman could answer. “Thompson’s getting better. He’s even quicker coming at you than the vicar is.” There was general laughter, but the joke had an edge to it; at chapel, the parson had a way of looking directly at Usman when he preached about heathenism and false religion. Some of the masters were the same way, and sitting classes with them had taught Usman diplomacy.

He didn’t use it now. “Bugger the vicar,” he said. “What’s for supper?”

“Probably boiled boots and pasteboard like every other day,” Thompson answered. Usman nodded; the school’s cooks seemed to take a perverse pleasure in making bland food blander. “I’ll probably skip it anyway; we’ve got trials tomorrow, and I haven’t studied.”

“Those of us who have studied will be happy to eat your share, then,” said Sorrells, the fifth-former. “We’ll need the strength for Latin.”

Usman nodded absently - the Latin trial was famously rigorous - but talk of the exams had already shifted his thoughts away from capoeira and supper to the end of term. That was only six days away now, and in a week’s time he’d be at the station waiting for the train to Dorchester. To the house that, in the past five years, he’d come to think of as home.

*******

Usman and Sarah sat close together, under a tree above the River Cerne. They said nothing, enjoying the sensation of each other’s presence, her fingers tracing his facial scars and continuing across his lips.

She was the daughter of one of the small farmers whose lands bordered Major Alexander’s, and they’d known each other since soon after his arrival in England. She’d been twelve then and he thirteen; they’d met one day walking on the downs, and the fascination had been mutual. At first, for both of them, it had been the fascination of novelty, but it had outlasted that. She’d long since stopped thinking of him as exotic, although it warmed her that he still thought of her that way, and her interest in his stories had been overlaid with regard for the person who told them.

It had been an innocent fascination, when she was twelve and he thirteen. It wasn’t, now that she was almost seventeen and he not far from eighteen. The shadows were lengthening, and they were both looking forward to what the evening might bring.

“Won’t they miss you at the house?” she whispered.

“Not tonight. The colonel’s down at a Whig rally in Dorchester, speaking about army reform.” John Alexander had returned from the Crimea incensed by the amateurish way the war had been fought and appalled by the suffering of the common soldiers, and he was standing for Parliament as a Whig in next month’s election. “And Mrs. Alexander” - John’s formidable wife Dione, four years married - “is entertaining her literary society. They’re just as happy if I fend for myself tonight.”

“Good,” Sarah said. She was proud that the squire’s son was running in the election, but beyond that, politics didn’t interest her. Usman did.

She leaned against him. “Tell me another story.”

He launched into a tale of the Fulani jihad, full of battle and treachery and star-crossed love. He found himself describing the scenery - the blue of the sky, the enormous sun, the scrubby trees, the vast grassy plains and wind-shaped rocks of the savanna - and realized he was doing so as much to remind himself of what his motherland looked like as to tell Sarah. How long would it be, he wondered, before the setting of his stories began feeling as foreign to him as it did to her?

Then she kissed him, and he stopped wondering for a while.

*******
​

It was past midnight in the sitting-room, and the colonel and his wife had gone to bed, leaving Usman alone with the old major. It was April, but there was still a chill in the air, and the old man sat close to the fire and resorted frequently to his bottle of blackberry brandy.

He motioned Usman to the chair beside him and poured another glass of the liquor. “Have some,” he said. “I made it with my own hands. God will forgive you this once.”

The young man took the glass without hesitation. He’d wavered the first time he’d been asked, years ago, but he’d accepted that time as well. He wasn’t a mystic like his father had been, and he suspected that God was concerned by the same things that concerned him: things he could see and touch, people. Surely God would forgive him much more easily for a drink of brandy than for rejecting the hospitality of an old man who’d made free of his home.

“Your health,” said the major. “And mine, whatever may be left of it.” The two drank.

The old man looked at Usman intently. Robert Alexander had entered his eighty-sixth year and was beginning to fade, but his mind was still sharp and his glance was piercing.

“You know I’d been planning to do something for you in my will,” he said. “But then I thought I might not die in time to do you any good, so I went ahead and did it now. I’ve bought you a lieutenancy.”

Usman was stunned. The major had treated him like family from the beginning, but wasn’t one to give his thoughts away, and until now, Usman hadn’t known the old man had plans for him. And this…

“But I’m not an Englishman,” he said, buying time.

“No, you’re not, are you? But with your father being who he was, and me being who I am, and my son being who he is, and some of my friends at Horse Guards being who they are, it’s been sorted. You’ll take an oath to serve the Queen while you wear her uniform, and you’ll be released from it when you sell up. You won’t be the first, believe me.”

“I hadn’t thought of the army. I’d been planning to go to Magdalen, and then home…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Where was home now? Did he have one? More than one?

“Go, go. Read law or philosophy, or what you will; you’ll have a militia commission while you’re there, and you can exchange it when it’s time to go to India. But India’s where you’ll learn to lead, and you’ll need to know that.”

“To lead? I’m no prince, and I don’t have a country to rule.”

“Yes, I know you don’t want to be a king, and it’s a credit to you. But you’re your father’s son, and you’ve got his name. The people in your country will call on you whether you want them to or not - and after knowing you these five years, I daresay they’ll be right. But first you need to know how to get people to follow you even if they aren’t like you, and there’s no better school than the army.”

Usman found himself warming to the idea; it answered well to his sense of adventure, and his desire to emulate his father. “A cavalry regiment?”

“Infantry’s the king of battle, boy! Your father knew that. But yes, riding as you do, it’s the cavalry for you. You’ll need to learn politics too, and you won’t be an officer in a Bombay cavalry regiment and not learn that.”

“I think I’d have to practice politics in any regiment.”

“There is that, yes. There are some bloody snobs in the cavalry. You’ll have superior officers who think you’re just another heathen nigger, and they won’t make things pleasant for you. But if you’ve survived five years at Harrow, you’ve already learned to handle that. And the good’uns’ll know you for another good’un, and there’ll be more of them than you think.”

The major paused for breath. “Now listen to me,” he said. “Don’t make the mistake of staying in the army. Serve two or three years, learn what it has to teach you, and then sell up and go back to Africa. A regiment’s no home.”

Usman nodded. “I wasn’t expecting this,” he said, “but it’s a handsome gift…”

“No more than you deserve, and it may not be as handsome as all that - it’s a gift that might get you killed. But every lesson comes at a risk. And,” he added, looking at the place where Usman had been wounded when denouncing Amilcar Said’s coup, “we already know you can take a bullet. Try not to take any others, won’t you?”

The major reached down and poured two more glasses of brandy. “Here. I suspect you need this. And if God forgave you the first one, he’ll forgive you the second…”