HM 337 Assignment 1

Name: Ketav Patel

Id: 201101051

My memoirs of a civilized life

So I was told, the year was 1687 and the month of June. The ship sailed into the harbor of, what I
was told was England. I had never seen so many and so huge boats in the totality of my life,
leave alone together. Everything seemed so obscure to me. I could see a wide grin on my
masters face. And I was happy for him. I had never seen such a mass of humanity. It was like
getting lost in a sea of people. Everyone was dressed here and there were beautiful white girls
too. I cant really tell about how I felt about England or my first views of it. Pretty much
everything was alien to me. I had never known anything except my little piece of land and
another piece of land where I and my master lived for four years. But this was a very big piece of
land. My master, for some days, as I did not know anything about, took me with him wherever
he went. First of all, he took me with him to meet his family. When we reached there, we found
that his parents were dead and so was the rest of family except his two sisters and some children
of his brother. I overheard, from his conversation with his sisters, that his family had died a
Black Death in 1666 due to something they called Plague. As I later came to know Plague was
something that happened due to some animals called rat. A lot many people died due to that,
almost 100,000. If it would have been my country there would have been no surviving humanity.
And I was surprised that in spite of so many people killed, there were still so many people in
London.

In England they call caves houses. They are built of wood, rocks and glass. These houses are
fascinating. They have a different place to cook, a different place to sit and yet another different
place to sleep. They have toilets too. And the water also comes directly to house. After we had
inquired about the masters family he took me to a place to live. Anywhere we went I had to be
really careful not to bang into some person or the many poles, on the sides of roads, which
helped us to see at night too. My master met a lot of other people over the course of next some
days.
I noticed that no one ever spoke to me or asked me anything. But then from hearing my master
talking to people I learnt that he said a word, Hello each time he met someone. I then decided
to use the word when we next met someone. One day while going home we met one of masters
friend on the street. I was so eager to use the new word that before my master could say anything
I blurted out Hello. Instead of replying to me he made a very odd face and asked my master
that how dare I even spoke! Master quickly apologized and scolded me as soon as we left. Then I
to realize why nobody talked or even cared to look at me. I was told by my master that all

servants or slaves in England where not given any importance and that they all had the skin color
like I had. And I felt bad. Even though I did not exactly knew what slave was, to me it didnt
sound any good. I did not want to be a slave. I was grateful for what my master had done for me
and I am just serving him to return whatever I can. In my country I was a very important and the
people valued me because I was strong, tall, well-shaped and young.
I learned that the ruler of England at that time was King James II. My master told me that the
king had issued a declaration to suspend laws against a religion called Roman Catholics and he
did not like that ruling. He also told me that there was a widespread discontent among the people
and that the kings days were numbered. And I even had my first English food. They eat almost
four times a day. We thought ourselves to be lucky even if we got food once a day! And the food
was nothing like what I had eaten before. Everything tasted so good that I thought how stupid we
were, all these years, to eat other humans and not had a thought, even once, about cooking such
food. Every day, in the night, he took me to a place, where there were a lot of people who were
drinking alcohol. I had to carry him home every night as my master wasnt able to walk to the
place where we lived. We also went to the place of an old woman, whom master knew, and took
some money from her. I also learned about how to call people by their surname and that you
called the people above you as sir. I am a quick learner. I couldnt decide which people are above
me and which are below me. So the solution I found was that, the people who had worn better
clothes than me were above me and the rest below me.
I was settling in to the life and then one day my master, Mr. Crusoe, decided to go to a place
called Lisbon in a country named Portugal. I was told that the country was very far. We started
the journey to Lisbon. All the while I was quiet and only thinking about everything that I had
seen and everything that I was about to see. My master had a friend, a captain, in Lisbon. We
reached there in the morning. He met with his friend on the harbor. I was too engrossed in
looking at the things around that I never realized when my master had strolled off whilst talking
to his friend. And there I was alone not knowing where to go. So I decided to stay back at the
harbor and hoped that my master would come looking for me.
There was no sign of him that whole day. There were a lot of people there, working hard under
the sun. A lot of people came in and out of the harbor- travelers, merchants, rich, poor, masters,
servants and all kinds. I tried to listen to what the people were saying but hardly could make out
anything. But wherever I tried to listen to people or tried to go and talk to them, they turned their
faces away. I soon remembered that this was to do with me being black and that all blacks were
looked upon as servants or slaves. Every time this happened I felt bad but I thought that maybe
that is the rule on these lands and I had to live with it whether I like it or not. I finally came
across two young boys, the age of 20, who were talking in English. The inquisitive person I was,
I went and asked about them, to which they told me that they have been living here for almost 6
years now with their master and were now preparing for a voyage. Curios to know about the
country I asked them about the place. They said it was a beautiful country, they had heard, but
never got a chance to see it as almost their whole time was spent in serving their master. I also
learnt that the king of the country was Peter II and that he had recently married one Maria Sophie

of Neuberg who became the new queen after the death of his previous wife- Maria Francisca.
They also said the new queen was more beautiful and prettier than the one before her.
Nothing hurt me more because I was black, than the fact that I saw a lot beautiful and pretty girls
but was never able to talk to them as they always looked away from the sight of me. Back at my
original home, the girls were less pretty but I was always very famous between them. But I have
hopes that someday I will meet someone just like me and who doesnt hate me because I am
black.
Master came looking for me in the night. He scolded me for not paying attention and said that he
had forgotten about me as he was occupied with his friend. I felt very bad. I saw my master not
only as my master but also as a companion and he had told me that I was his companion too but
here when he met with his friend he forgot about me. I thought he had become selfish but then I
remembered that how he had saved my life and helped me on the island and that I should be
grateful to him and not have thoughts like this. He told me that he had a large fortune in Brazil
and that he was pretty rich now and that the captain, his friend, had taken good care of his
fortune. The next some days were spent in obtaining a notarized letter, through which he was
able to transfer his Brazilian investments back into his own name. And all I did, now, was to just
follow him wherever he went and not get too captivated with other things. He finds himself in
possession of a large fortune. My master then sent gifts of money to his widow friend and to his
two sisters. Although he had such a large sum he just bought me a pair of new clothes and
nothing else. He told me that he was tempted to move to Brazil, but later decided against the idea
because he was reluctant to become Catholic. So he decided it was time to go back to England
again and settle down there.

Master was too apprehensive about taking the sea route back to England. And on top of it he had
heard that on 16 April, last year, a Portuguese vessel named Nossa Senhora dos Milagros with
150 crew had run aground at Struisbaai near Cape Agulhas. Although Cape Agulhas was
nowhere near England, it being the southernmost point of Africa, the very fact that the vessel
was Portuguese and his previous adventures forced his mind and heart to not to take the sea
route. I didnt have any problem with sea route and these kind of news hardly affected me.
Almost everything I encountered, in terms of place, situations, food, shelter etc. was way more
comfortable then what I was used to in my home country and then on the island and nor did I
have the fear of storms in the seas. So I was ready to go by any way and anywhere that master
wanted to go. As I had a choice, but whatever his choice was did not bother me much.
Master finally decided that we would go to England via the way of land. And thus we left on our
way to England, accompanied by five other gentlemen and 2 servants. I asked master that when I
was there why he would need other servants. He replied that I was too unfamiliar with this part
of the world to serve all his needs and so he wanted someone who knew the traits of this part of
the world. Everybody started calling my master, Captain, as he was the oldest. And on the way
came again open fields, mountains, forests and I again felt as if I was in a familiar territory.

There is nothing new to talk about the journey except my fascination with the new town and
cities that came along the way and the chilling cold that I felt would kill me when we were at
Pamplona. Wait, I just forgot to tell you about the encounter we had with a pack of wolves and a
bear. I did defeat the bear by killing it, and Crusoe was just standing on the sidelines smiling and
looking as if he didnt care. This wasnt new to me but the past few days had me thinking about
love and caring and now it had also started to make a difference to me if he cared or not. I started
to give a sincere thought that if he really cared less about me and I didnt make any difference to
him.
We moved on to our way to England. On the way, he told me that after reaching back he wanted
me to take care of the affairs of his large fortune and for that I had to learn basic Arithmetic and
so after reaching back I will have to go and learn it. Also to get experience he would land me a
job at some other person on a temporary basis, so that I can learn the traits of the business and
managing it. A job? I asked him. He said that now that he had a big fortune he could find many
other people to serve him and that I was more of his friend and manager. I was shocked to hear
this, about the sudden change of heart my master was having. Although it didn;;t look like I was
given much of a choice this was something new and maybe better. I agreed to it. Again as if I
really had any choice. We reached back to England in January, the date to be precise was
January 14th.
So this country was going to be future, at least for the time being. But I was happy to be away
from my native country. I was so drawn towards Christianity that I now almost never
remembered Benamuckee. My master, as I still called him, taught me arithmetic by night and the
whole day I had to go to a certain Mr. Brown to learn the traits of business. Soon Mr. Crusoe
sold all his plantations in Brazil and received a huge sum of money from it. Meanwhile, around
the month of May the Church of England was outraged by King James orders of Declaration of
Indulgence which suspended the penal laws against Catholics. It was about to give more freedom
to the people who wanted to observe other religions. I do not know why some people had started
to oppose this rule. According to me it was the right thing to do. In the next month the
conspiracy against King James started brewing and a high-powered conspiracy of notables invite
Dutch lieutenant William III of Orange and Princess Mary to defend the freedoms of England
and overthrow King James II. William was successful in invading England and ascended to the
English throne as William III of England.
I had become very well-versed in English by now. 3-4 years had passed and the same routine
continued except that I was now handling Mr. Crusoes accounts and was doing a nice job of it.
Mr. Crusoe was now married and leading a good life with his family and his friends who he had
made after coming back. There was no interaction of his with me now except if he wanted to
assign me some work or that he paid wages every month. I was alone now. But I had made some
black friends. They lived nearby and worked in the houses around. I forgot to tell you where I
live. Mr. Crusoe was kind enough to lend me a room in the corner of his estate here in England.
In those days there was a rage about a certain person named Isaac Newton. In July, some years
back, 1687 to be precise, there was a book published by the name of Isaac Newton named

Principia. In it, Newton described various concepts of how things on earth worked. I was
attracted by it and from the little money I had saved, bought a copy of it and read it. In there he
described some principles like theory of universal gravitation, explains the laws of mechanics,
which is how machines worked and gives a formula for the speed of sound. The book was and is
still bringing in a large wave of changes in thought and practices at this time. The talk now has
switched to science and people were curious to study in deep. The inquisitive mind that I was, I
also became curious and started to think about in detail and started asking around as much as I
could. And this became a passion. I wanted to study and do something like Newton did. I
expressed my wish to Crusoe who was completely against the thought. He told me to remember
what he had done for me and that I should humble enough to work for him. But now I was
growing tired of it and wanted to break the shackles and run away from it. One day very
determined to do things my way now, I took my belongings and left Crusoes house. There was
an old lady in the town, who was kind enough to take me in and rent me a room. As it turned out,
she was well educated too. She promised to teach me everything she could about Math and
Science. Meanwhile I went to work in the nearby fields every day to pay for the rent and my
expenses. This has now been the routine for a couple of years now. Last month Crusoes wife
died. I was sad to hear that and paid him a visit. Last week, when I came home from work I
found Crusoe at my place. He made a very strange request. He wanted to go back to the island
and help the people there. I said no at the very thought of it. And he went on to tell me that it was
time we did something different from the mundane things and that it was our moral obligation to
help the people out there on the island and help ushering the society there. I felt it was true and
even though I had spent a dismal time at the island, I did have my moments of adventure. I
always felt a belonging to that place. I wanted to stay back and study and do work on sciences
but my sense of moral responsibility overpowered the desire to study. My mind gave into my
heart. And now I am really excited to go. We leave the day after tomorrow. And I will write a
journal of my visit to the island soon.

Note:
All the historical facts mentioned here are true. And there might some alteration from the events
mentioned in the book.
When I said poles on the side of the streets which helped to see at night, I didnt not mean street
lights. There were beeswax candles kept in the poles and lighted at night on certain streets in
London.
For the rest of the corrections I have made changes in the story. I hope they answer the
questions posed by you in my 1st draft.