The sun was high and hot beating down on our backs as the men worked on the fields and the women were going along doing some household chores and keeping an eye on the children who one day take our place on the fields and chores. There was nothing else for them to do, the curse of being born a slave...to have no other option than to serve our pale lord of the plantation. I was struggling with two large bags of flour that had needed to be brought into the kitchen when I heard it. The sounds of the overseers dragging someone along, I turned just in time to see Tony my...well I am not sure what to call him, what do you call a man who is not your husband but is the father of your children? But I turned just in time to see him being pushed against the large old peach tree, to see one of the overseers pull out that long evil whip out.

"SAY YOUR SORRY!" the overseer bellowed so loudly that I am sure the people on the fields could hear him.

Tony didn't say anything and there was a loud crack as the leather met his skin.

"I SAID SAY YOUR SORRY!"

I closed my eyes as the whip lashed out and the crack could be heard. I couldn't bear to watch this. I could bear to see the man I adored being brutally punished like this.

"COME ON YOU STUPID NIGGER SAY YOU'RE SORRY!"

I dropped the bags of flour on the third crack and began to flinch every time the overseer shouted, every time the whip met Tony's skin. I couldn't take it anymore. I began to run.

I ran and ran until I was in my little cabin and then I slammed the door shut and pressed my back to it as I panted.

The memories began to take over my senses.

I can remember the feel of the cold, harsh leather whip cracking against the soft skin of my back, the sting it had left when it was gone. I can remember the feel of the bark pressing into my breasts and stomach and the smell of it overpowering my nose. I remember the voice of the overseer, the brutal angry tones, and the harsh hurtful words. I remember feeling my hair being almost torn out as he dragged me away from the tree and pushed me onto the floor. I can remember the smell of his breath, the stale ale strong and disgusting.

I don't even know why I was given those lashings...I think the man was so out of his mind he didn't know what he was doing. Or he did and thought beating a Negro woman was great fun.

Either way I still had the scars.

Either way I was still traumatised.

Either way my Tony was still out there getting a beating.

I can feel a tear roll from underneath my eyes lashes and down my cheek when someone tugged on my skirt. I opened my eyes to see my little boy, my boy of five years, one of the sweetest things I still have in my life...though for how long I don't know.

"Mama what's wrong? Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you mama?" he asked with concern.

"No baby, mama is fine" I said shakily. I couldn't do anything to reassure him, my hands are shaking too badly.

"Toby dear, why don't you go over there and play" Nana said pushing my boy to the side. Nana was the eldest here on the plantation, she took care of the children because she's too frail to work on the fields these days. She was the only mother figure any of us have. She took me by the shoulders and looked at me carefully. "Oh baby what happened?" she asked.

"I don't want to talk about it" I said trying to remain calm as possible.

She stared at me for a few more seconds before nodding and letting me go. The moment I got to the bed I fell and curled up into the pillow, sobbing heavily.

His back was ruined, his beautiful smooth, soft milk coco skin completely ruined. Blood stained his skin and had dried out to a dark rusty crust, his wounds looked sore and pink. There were so many...was this how my back looked after my beating? I dare not think of it, my concentration should only be on Tony. I slowly picked up the rag and dipped it in water before scrubbing furiously at the crust.

"OW! Ella please be soft!" Tony complained flinching beneath my hand.

"Being hard makes the crust go away, I should know" I said quietly pressing down harder while ignoring his hiss of pain. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I wasn't going to let them take away my seven year old daughter" Tony said flatly. And I am sure if I was looking at his face, it would be tight with fury.

"Foolish man!" I shouted while pressing harder against a wound. "You should know by now that what white man says goes and we have no say in it!"

"A child Ella. She's just a child and they treated her like they treat us...cattle!"

"Do you think Kitty was the first child I had lost to these white men?" I asked quietly. "Do you think you were the first man I was forced to love? Remember I am older than you by twelve years, I know how these things work. White man doesn't care how old you are to him you're still a nigger for the fields"

We both remained silent as I continued to clean his wounds. When I finished I walked away slowly to put the bowl and rag away. When I came back he was still sitting there as if he was still in thought, I have no idea what he was thinking.

"You should lie on your belly" I said, my voice louder than it was in this silence. "For a couple months. Otherwise it would hurt like hell"

He nodded before getting up and slowly lying down on our mattress. Not even looking at me, let alone speak to me. I slowly took my place beside him and I blew out the candle lying there in the darkness. Pondering, wandering, thinking...wishing.

I was fourteen when I got pregnant with my first. I had only just arrived on this plantation and the overseer and taken a liking to me. It was hard, brutal and forced. It was not love but a ravaging animal taking me brutally.

I had considered killing it before it was born.

Nana had stopped me and held my hand every step of the way.

My first child was a boy. A boy with light brown skin, so light it reminded me of the milky chocolate our lady eats occasionally. His eyes were different from most Negro babies, instead of the dark brown most had, he had beautiful green eyes, green as the leaves on the oak tree. I had called him Jasper out of Nana's and the lady of the plantation's advise.

He was taken away from me before his second birthday.

Five years of being given to different men in hopes of another baby to sell. Five years of being taken in the wrong way by white men...I did not conceive. Not until they started to rent out this man, this beautiful man whose sole duty was to make sure I had another baby. And he did, he got me with child immediately. Nine months later and I had another boy who was dark as his father and stubborn than most. The same man had given me another child before my son was a year old.

She was a girl. My first daughter and I adored her. They were called David and Amy, I did not name them this time. The white men did saying that the children needed good decent white names. When they were ten and nine they were sold, their father I never saw since after Amy was born never knew them. A month later I was given to Tony and I was with child immediately.

When Kitty was two and I was with Toby I felt the death of David shudder through me. I knew that stubborn boy had done something foolish and gotten himself killed. It made feel like ice inside.

Kitty had been sold to a plantation far, far from here and I know that like my first three, I'll shall never see her again.

I'm sitting there on a hardback chair watching them direct Tony how to sit as the nice white man fiddles with his camera. They were going to take a photo of Tony's back to show the hideous mounds of scars that almost looked like a tree...Toby thinks it's a tree, he finds them fascinating...I'm just glad he'll never know how painful it was.

We managed to get away last year before Toby's eighth year. We're now helping some nice, kind white people make posters to stop slavery for good, to set our people free from the bad white people.

From the corner of my eye I can see my nine year old son talking animatedly to a white person, his hands moving as he spoke... it was nice to see him being listened to. Even more satisfying seeing a white man of good money listening to my son.

Beside my son, a beauty in the making was my daughter, my Kitty...we found her here not long after we ran. Fortune for once was on our side. I might, might, just be able to have a proper decent family, mama, papa and the children together in one place...

There's a flash and smoke comes from the camera.

"There you go sir, photo taken" the white man said politely. "Your face won't be seen so you have no shame but your back, your back will be famous, your back will set the others free, I can assure you sir"

"Thank you" Tony said quietly before walking up to me. He took my hand and held it tight. "I told you didn't I? Changes for the better, we're going to life a good life like a good proper family, like them white people."

"It won't ever make up for what happened" I pointed out. "Both of us will forever be scarred and I'm not jus talking about our bodies"

"We are good people, not a taint on our soul" Tony argued.

"I didn't mean our souls, I meant our minds and emotions. Those white people scarred us by treating us like pawns on their strange little game, they marked our bodies, give us bad dreams and take our children. When I die I'll leave my marked body but my broken mind and scarred feeling will always be damaged and that I can never forgive them for"