53 pages • 1 hour read
Lawrence HillSomeone Knows My Name
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3
Part 3, Chapter 14 Summary: “Gone missing with my most recent exhalation”
When Aminata reaches Port Roseway—renamed Shelburne—it is snowing, and there are thick pine forests around the new town. She is the only free Negro disembarking the ship, and the pier is full of whites who ignore her. Aminata first enters a coffee house and is denied service after being called a “nigger.” She then enters a door under a sign that reads The Shelburne Crier and meets Theo McArdle, a short white man arranging letters for printing. He doesn’t mind her race and allows her to proofread in exchange for tea and information. Theo directs her to Birchtown, a town where free Negroes live, and to the Land Registry Office. There she finds only a blind, elderly Negro. He introduces himself as a preacher named Daddy Moses and tells her to come to Birchtown. When he tells her that there is no land available for either whites or blacks, Aminata thinks back to Chekura’s realism. Jason—the 18-year-old who pushes Daddy Moses’s cart—reminds her of Mamadu, who would have been 20. On the way, Aminata trusts Daddy Moses with her entire story. Daddy Moses invites Aminata to temporarily move into the shack he shares with his wife. Aminata asks about Annapolis Royal and learns that it is unwalkable, and that she can’t afford to take a ship.
Birchtown has about 1,000 free Negroes and is a two-hour walk from Shelburne. Theo employs Aminata to write advertisements in the Shelburne Crier, which she enjoys reading. She searches for news about Annapolis Royal but sees only notices about runaway slaves. Aminata also starts delivering babies and is hired to teach Birchtown residents to read. She saves money to build her own shack, which is big enough to hold a bed, chair, table, and stove. Aminata learns that Negroes are often sentenced to floggings and lashings for stealing, dancing in a frolic, and being drunk. Some poor Birchtown residents have no option but to become indentured servants. Aminata promises her baby that she will never indenture it, and will teach it where she came from, who her people are, and how to read and write. She asks visitors from Annapolis Royal about Chekura and sends letters but receives no response.
Aminata attends Daddy Moses’s services twice a week. She doesn’t fall into ecstasy as the others do, but she cries remembering her mother, father, husband, and son, and prays for a healthy child. When she goes into labor in the spring, most of Birchtown’s residents have left to meet a ship in Shelburne for work. With no other option, she goes to Daddy Moses, who seems vulnerable without his wife. He keeps her company, giving her hot drinks and talking. When her baby girl is finally born, she holds the baby and feels her little heart pounding against her own.
Part 3, Chapter 15 Summary: “My children were like phantom limbs”
Aminata names her daughter May after the month of her birth. To Aminata, May’s little fits of anger seem as though all the wrongs of the world are pent up in her soul. Aminata keeps little May swaddled on her back wherever she works, talking to her about everything to make up for her lack of a father and tribe. May loves being held, especially by Mrs. Alverna Witherspoon—a white Loyalist who hires Aminata to work in her home. They meet when Mrs. Witherspoon drops by Theo’s shop to place an advertisement for her husband’s whaling business. Aminata works all day at the Witherspoons’, which combined with Theo’s salary keeps her alive. The Witherspoons treat Aminata and May like family, giving them leftover food and household items. The people of Birchtown envy Aminata’s good terms with the Witherspoons, and Daddy Moses warns Aminata that white folks are fair-weathered friends.
Aminata continues her search for Chekura. She places an advertisement for Chekura in Annapolis Royal with no response. When May is a year old, they visit Annapolis Royal, where no one has heard of Chekura or the Joseph. By age three, May is able to read her name and the words “mama” and “papa.” Aminata tells May about her homeland, to which May responds that they will go there one day. When May becomes sick with a fever and diarrhea, the Witherspoons allow Aminata and May to stay with them until she recovers, which brings Aminata closer to the Witherspoons.
In 1787 Mr. Witherspoon’s whaling business closes. There are no jobs, wages are low, and many businesses close. The whites face hard times and believe that Negroes have stolen their jobs. One evening Aminata sees an angry mob heading toward Birchtown, attacking Negroes. She runs to the Witherspoons with May, who allow them to stay until the madness ends. When Mr. Witherspoon reports that it is safe, Aminata temporarily leaves May under their care to check on Birchtown. Most houses in Birchtown are destroyed, and the Negroes injured. Back at Shelburne, Aminata finds the Witherspoons’ home empty. She cries and frantically searches for May. Theo tells her that they left for Boston and took May. He tried to stop them, but May wasn’t crying and Mrs. Witherspoon was consoling her. Aminata stops cooking, working, eating, and even reading. She desires to go to Boston, but Theo warns that she could become enslaved, and their final destination is uncertain. Aminata places advertisements and writes to Sam Fraunces but receives no help. Aminata reflects on the pain of losing her children—“My children are like phantom limbs, lost but still attached to me, gone but still painful” (349).
Part 3, Chapter 16 Summary: “Elephants for want of towns”
Four years pass, and Aminata is unable to find any information about either May or Chekura. Many Loyalists in Shelburne close their businesses and return to the United States. Now nearing 45 years old, Aminata’s hair is graying and she wears spectacles Theo orders from England—an expensive luxury she can afford without a family to support. She refuses every opportunity to leave Birchtown in the hope that her husband and daughter may return.
In 1790 a Negro named Thomas Peters visits Daddy Moses’s chapel; he shares his plan to visit England and speak to the Parliament about landless Black Loyalists. His ambition reminds Aminata of her old desire to return to Africa, which she can no longer afford as she waits for Chekura and May. Thomas Peters returns a year later with the news that he met British who are prepared to send them to Africa. No one believes his ludicrous story until a British naval officer named John Clarkson arrives in Birchtown, confirming eligible passage to Sierra Leone. Clarkson and his company believe that the slave trade is a stain on Christianity, and he shares the promise of a new life in Africa, with a colony of their own. The Company’s directors are passionate abolitionists who believe it is their duty to relocate Negroes for a life of dignity and that the black colonists would build profitable trade for the British that does not depend on slavery. Clarkson listens to and answers each question patiently, speaking with a warm and respectful confidence that Aminata admires. He even says that they could teach him more about Africa than he could. Word by word, he earns Aminata’s respect.
Clarkson asks Aminata to become his assistant. She agrees but shares that she cannot leave without her husband and daughter. He promises to find out what he can. Clarkson works tirelessly and passionately on the adventure. Though he cries in worry during the day and screams in his nightmares at night, he perseveres. They reach Halifax in November 1791, where hundreds more Negroes arrive. At Christmas dinner in the Government House, Aminata finds the most recent map of Africa, which includes Bance, the island she was shipped from, and Segu, a town her father spoke about. She also reads Jonathan Swift’s poetry, and his words about the placement of “elephants for want of towns” (367) resonate with her own emotions. Clarkson interrupts with the news that the Joseph and everyone on board went down. Aminata runs out of the house to process the news. After a morning of grief, she decides to join the exodus to Africa, convincing herself that she will never again see May. In January 1792, 15 ships with 1,200 Negroes set sail for Sierra Leone.
Part 3, Chapters 14-16 Analysis
justification for slavery and dominance over free blacks. In the Government House’s map room, Aminata is comforted by Jonathan Swift’s sentiment about how geographers “place elephants for want of towns” (367) on maps of Africa. Swift makes a point that Aminata empathizes with—the white man’s fantasy of the savage African demonstrates that white dominance stems from ignorance of African civilization and a lack of desire to learn of it or acknowledge it. Even when the Negroes are free, the whites hold an entitled upper hand over them. They are neither served in the same places nor allowed to live in the same town as the whites. When the people of Shelburne face financial difficulty, they blame the Negroes for stealing their jobs and resort to violence, effectively dominating the entire race and deeming them undeserving. Even the Witherspoons, who seem to genuinely care for Aminata and May, snatch the young girl from her mother without considering Aminata. White people seem to think nothing of the blacks and know nothing of their homeland.
The theme of identity transition is further developed in these chapters. Aminata’s identity continues to shift as all her loved ones are snatched away. Her dream of returning to her homeland is finally within grasp—she has even found a map that can lead her to Bayo. However, she no longer feels the same passion and desire to return home after “losing” half her body—her children are her “phantom limbs” (349), and the pain of their loss stays with her. The change in her motivation to return to Africa speaks to a shift in her definition of home. What was once home for the 11-year-old Aminata Diallo is no longer the home of the 45-year-old Meena Dee, who has lost her husband and both children. Learning of Chekura’s death is the final straw, after which she decides to take what is left of her body and spirit on the exodus to Africa. Aminata contemplates her mortality as she thinks of the number of times she could have died. Instead, her husband and son are dead, and her daughter, if alive, has probably forgotten her. Each of her journeys across an ocean symbolizes a major transition of context and setting, and now she is yet again at the precipice of another.
John Clarkson enters Aminata’s story as an unlikely protagonist, especially after her disappointing experiences with white men she once trusted—including Solomon Lindo, Malcolm Waters, and Mr. Witherspoon. In a surprising twist, Aminata is fond of Clarkson from the start. She appreciates the warmth in his speech, his patience with the Negroes, his passion for his work, and his humble confidence. Aminata wonders at his obsession with the Negroes, which seems unnatural to her. However, he does nothing wrong and earns only her sympathy and trust.
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