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1861: The Last Daughter of Abiriba-A Tale of Blood and Chains

Blurb:

She gave it her- Gave it her all to forget, Forget a past steeped in sorrow, But her mind held on. Her nightmares, They never slept, They dragged her back each night, To the blood that soaked her skin, To the screams, the silence, And the strange pleasure she had gotten. It all fell apart, The day they came, The day they claimed everything. September 16th 1870- A day carved into her bones, Her world shattered, Her soul scattered like ash, Her heart no longer beats for peace. She wanted blood, She wanted vengeance, And she would not rest, Until the river ran red, With what they owned her.

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Chapter 1

Blurb:

She gave it her- Gave it her all to forget, Forget a past steeped in sorrow, But her mind held on. Her nightmares, They never slept, They dragged her back each night, To the blood that soaked her skin, To the screams, the silence, And the strange pleasure she had gotten. It all fell apart, The day they came, The day they claimed everything. September 16th 1870- A day carved into her bones, Her world shattered, Her soul scattered like ash, Her heart no longer beats for peace. She wanted blood, She wanted vengeance, And she would not rest, Until the river ran red, With what they owned her.

Excerpt:

As the echoes of the great war rumble across the horizon in these uncertain times of 1915 and the ink in my pot seems like the only thing I can control, my mind wanders back to a quieter, yet harder time. My name is Ngozi Mgboafọ, daughter of Azewike, and this is my story. In the years of my youth, that was enough for any soul to know who I was. Now, in this strange new world of 1915, the officials ask for a surname, and so I write my father’s name behind my own. My story began in 1861, in the village of Abiriba, deep within the heart of Igboland. In those days, we did not have the maps the white men draw today; we simply knew it as our home in the hills of the Bende people. My father was a stubborn but strong man with a heart as wide and big as the rivers. In 1861, no cars could be seen. My father would have walked or used a canoe if he went by river. He was a proud man; he would till the fields by day and trade the best yields he had gotten to other villages and villagers. My father was a man of the soil, but his heart had the wings of a merchant. His barns in Abiriba were always heavy with the finest king yams, tied neatly with palm fronds. But he was not content to sit and watch them grow. Once the harvest was in, he would gather his best yields and trek for days to the markets of Uzuakoli. He would return with his pouch clinking with cowries and stories of the world beyond our hills. You may ask, as many have, "Ngozi, where is your mother?” The truth is a shadow that has followed me since my first breath. My father told me she slipped away into the spirit world just as I arrived, for the village healers had nothing strong enough to keep her here. And so, the only world I ever truly knew was the one my father built for me with his own two hands. My father always spoke of my mother as a kind and beautiful woman. He always said I looked so much like her. When I looked into his eyes, I could see the love that words would not be enough to tell—how much he truly loved her. That is why, when the Umunna had told him to marry again, he would always refuse. He loved my mother so much. When I was young, I remember telling myself I would find a husband like my father, who could love me as much as he loved her. But how the times have changed. I still vividly remember the day, the time, and how my father died. I was nine years old when the British came to my fatherland on August 6th, 1861. Then they started to spread throughout the region. By September 16th, 1870, I was eighteen years old. That was the day my life was buried. Soon before that, they had come to my village in the form of peace, offering things we had never seen. They spoke a language we did not understand. They spoke about their God we knew nothing about. At first, the villagers had opened their hearts to them; they showed us things on how we could improve our farm yields and taught us their tongue. But as every good thing must come to an end, we the villagers started to complain about the killings and how they could rape the women of my village, whether young or old. And fear that they would hurt the children of the village brought terror among us. We were no longer free; we were bound by fear and sorrow over who might be next. The villagers started to speak out, but the British did not like that. It was around that time when the sun began to dip below the hills; we were on our way back from the farm when we saw a soldier. He was coming toward us with his gun. My father knew something was wrong before the soldier could take another step. He told me to run and not look back, and I did. I did not even know why I was crying as I ran, but I knew deep down that something was extremely wrong. I had not run very far when I heard a sound as loud as the heavens. It came from the gun he was holding. Then I looked back. I saw my father lying lifeless on the ground with so much blood on the earth that I had never seen before. I shouted “Father!” with tears now freely rushing from my eyes. I forgot what my father said to me because I ran back to him. I knelt on the earth, crying and looking at my father who lay in his blood soaking the dust. Just one bullet could ruin everything, and it did. After killing my father, I knew it was my turn next. But he did not kill me right away. No, he grabbed me by my hair and dragged me down. I started shouting and screaming for my father, telling the soldier to let me go, hitting him and begging to go back to my father. But he did not listen. I could not even lay a scratch on him because my body was thin and weak from hunger. Though I was eighteen, I still looked small and frail. I knew he could not understand what I was saying, but I did not care. All that mattered then was my father. As he dragged me into the thick bush, the rough undergrowth clawed at my skin, but something deep inside my mind went completely silent. Air refused to enter my lungs; my body froze, transforming into stone as he ripped off my clothes. I still remember the utter disgust coating my throat as I looked up at him. He was revolting. He tore off his shirt and unbuttoned his heavy wool trousers, stripping down to his linen undergarments. The sour, gagging reek of booze on his breath washed over me, pressing close, suffocating me as he forced the full weight of his body upon mine. I did not understand what he was doing, but the agony told me enough. Rage mixed with utter horror rushed through my veins, destroying the numbness. Then I felt it, an incredible pain, and I screamed to the skies and cried. I was so scared, I thought I would die. I did not understand what he was doing, but the pain told me enough. At that moment, what was going through my mind was my father, how I left him there alone. I wanted to go to my father, to return back before any of this happened, but I knew I could not. Knowing that, I cried more. Then I felt myself rocking to and fro. He did not stop, but he just kept on going. I could not take it anymore. My hand, scraping blindly through the dead leaves and dirt, brushed against something hard. A stone. A large, heavy stone. Time slowed to a crawl. My blurred vision focused entirely on that half-buried rock. I gripped it, cold and rough against my palm, lifting it with the force of a dying soul. With all the desperation of a trapped animal, I smashed it against the side of his head. A deafening crack echoed in the brush. He collapsed inward for a horrifying second. Then I removed his body from mine, my hands shaking. Crying, I did not know what I had done to deserve this. Then I looked down. I saw so much blood dripping from my legs. I felt myself stumble. I knew what he had done to me, but I could not name it at that time. All I knew was that there was something inside me that went silent. He swayed, reaching for his gun. And unadulterated panic seized my chest—what if he fights back? What if he visits a worse fate upon me? So I smashed the stone, crying, venting all my sadness on him until I was completely soaked with his blood. I laughed, a choking mixture of surreal happiness and revolting guilt strangling my throat. Then his heavy body went limp. I was alive. He was gone. And the best part—he died by my hands. A man’s lifeless eyes stared into nothingness. My hands were shaking so violently I could hardly push myself up. In the prevalent darkness, I looked down at my arms, realizing with sickening horror that blood was coating extremely close to my skin. Instantly dropping the stone, I backed away on my knees, lowering from the corpse. My legs trembled beneath me like withered reeds. I stood up, picked up my ripped clothes that were covered with mud and blood, and put them on, every inch of my body rebelling against the movement. The world is deadly silent now, save for the drip of night dew and the cruel, rhythmic throbbing in my own head. When I reached the clearing, the earth was still congealed with the warm life that had been stolen from my family. There he lay. Nnam. I fell to my knees beside his state of utter stillness, the ground soaking into the shreds of cloth I had managed to pull back over my bruised frame. The horror of what had just happened to me clawed at the inside of my throat, rising like ash and nausea, but looking at his lifeless face, a different kind of agony tore me in two. I was shattered, consumed by a filth that water could not wash away, and yet the sight of him broken upon the red earth muted my own pain with deafening grief. I reached out a trembling, blood-stained hand and touched his cold cheek. “Nnam,” I whispered, my voice cracking like dry twigs. “Nnam, please wake up. You told me to run, and I did. I ran, but the world caught me anyway. He tore everything away from me, Nnam. He tore my clothes, he tore the breath from my lungs, and he tore you from my side. Now I tore him away from the world.” A gush of tears mixed with mud and sweat on my face as I leaned my forehead against his silent chest. “Who will build the world for me now with their own two hands? Who will defend me from the white monsters who walk our paths? You left me alone in the darkness, Nnam, and the darkness has consumed me. Look at what he has done to your only daughter, your Ada. Look at the wreckage he left behind. If you can hear me in the spirit world, tell Nkem that I tried to be strong. Tell her that I struggled. But there is nothing left of the Ngozi you loved.” I clutched the earth beside his head, crying until no sound could escape my lips, bound to the dust by the weight of a tragedy too heavy for one soul to bear. In Igbo cosmology, proper burial rites and accorded respect to the dead—particularly revered elders and parents—are ultimate duties to ensure they become Ndịichie (peaceful spirits) rather than Akalọgọlị (restless spirits). Since I had to flee and could not dig a grave alone in the dark, performing a brief symbolic act with leaves, cold dirt, and crying out his lineage, that ended with me. My sobs gradually burned into a hollow, ghostly silence. The cold hard reality of the night pressing down upon the hills of Abiriba reminded me that the monsters might still be lurking in the shadows. I could not stay here, yet my feet refused to move until I had tended to Nnam. To leave a great man, a diji, exposed to the scavengers of the forest and the mockery of rain was a sin against the ancestors that my soul could not bear. I dragged my shaking body upward, relying on strength that felt lost forever. Gathering fresh, green palm fronds and broad Oji leaves from the nearby brushes, I walked back to where he lay. In our tradition, the leaves of the coconut and palm carry deep sacred protection; indeed, they sanctify the dead from defilement. Kneeling at his feet, I scooped up a handful of the loose, red soil we had tilled for years together. “Nnam,” I whispered, letting the earth slip gently through my fingers over his ankles, symbolically freeing his feet for the long journey to the land of the ancestors. “Go in peace. Let Àlà the earth goddess, welcome you. Do not look back at my wreckage with wrath. Become our shield from the outside spirit world.” Then, I took the sacred leaves and placed them carefully over his chest and face, shielding his eyes from the harsh moonlight. Next, I extended my torn wrapped cloth to securely cover his lifelong strong arms. The red earth was no longer a symbol of his harvest; it was now his shroud. I kissed my palm and touched the leaves resting on his forehead one last time. “You are the son of Azewike. You are a man of Abiriba. He stripped me of my dignity, Nnam, but he cannot strip away the bloodline you gave me.” Forcing my dry throat to stand firm, I stood up. The pain in my body was screaming, coated in mud, blood, and the deepest agony a daughter could know. But as I turned my back on the clearing and faced the dark, unknown wilderness ahead, I did not look back. I began to run, running deeper into the hills, running to my village, leaving my childhood and my father buried forever in the night. I rushed back to my village, only to find the home that had raised me swallowed by flames. Smoke twisted into the dark sky while terrified screams echoed through the night. The sharp scent of burning wood and blood hung heavily in the air as I walked the path that was once my home. The shadows dancing erratically against the mud walls—not the shadows of my ancestors, but of armed men—British soldiers—their faces slick with sweat and greed. They carried torches that spat fire onto rooftops, and long guns that cracked through the darkness like angry thunder. What had they done to my people? My village? My legs weakened beneath me as I fell to the dirt, my fists clenched so tightly that soil pressed beneath my nails. “What have I done to deserve this?” I whispered. How could men destroy innocent lives and feel no guilt? Tears blurred my vision as I looked around at the bodies scattered across the village square. Everything I had known was gone. Then I felt a rough hand seize my arm with crushing force. I cried out as the man dragged me across the ground. I struggled at first, but I had lost all hope to fight. The fight in my eyes faded. Everything became a blur. I saw that I was not alone. Some of the villagers were alive, chained together inside a wooden cage like captured animals. Children cried helplessly while elders tried to comfort them despite the fear trembling in their voices. Some of the wounded had lost arms or legs. Others lay motionless, too weak to move. We were no longer being treated as human beings but as animals waiting to be slaughtered. A sudden pull jerked my forward. My knees scraped painfully against the earth as the man dragged me toward the cage and threw me inside like some animal. They left us there in the cold of the night with no source of warmth except for ourselves. The cold wrapped around us like death itself. We huddled together for warmth because there was nothing else to protect us from the bitter wind. No one slept. Deep down, we all knew something terrible awaited us beyond the coming dawn. The air smelled of smoke, dried blood, and fear. By morning, the fires had burned low, leaving only black ash drifting across the ruined earth, thick and damp, mingling with the lingering smoke. I sat in the dirt, my wrists now bound by heavy iron chains. It bit into my wrists, their cold weight cutting against my skin. Buckets of freezing water were thrown over us to wake us before the march began. We were forced out of the cage and tied together in a long, rattling chain of captives, a human necklace of grief winding through the ruins of our lives. Elders, mothers, young men, and children—all were bound, their eyes hollowed out by exhaustion and the sudden brutal realization of what was now reality. The soldiers whipped us whenever we slowed. Till this day, I still bear the marks of it. But that mark no longer speaks of what was taken. Now it speaks of what I survived. What I endured. For three days we marched without proper food or water. At night, we watched our captors eat while hunger twisted inside our stomachs. Sometimes they tossed scraps toward us as though feeding animals. We were no longer seen as people. Some of the women were taken away by the guards during the nights. When they returned, their silence spoke louder than screams. Cries never came back at all. The march continued until the earth itself seemed to end. Then, for the first time in my life, I saw the great water my father had once spoken about — the endless ocean stretching farther than my eyes could see. I had never imagined anything so blue and vast. Or so terrifying. As we reached the shore, a massive wooden ship rose through the mist like a sea monster waiting to feed. Waves crashed against its hull with the sound of funeral drums. “Move!” one of the soldiers shouted. The sting of a whip cut across my back against my skin, and I stumbled forward with my head lowered. The ship towered above us, built like a mountain of dark timber and pale white sails, a floating prison designed to swallow human lives. Then I heard a familiar voice. One of the village elders struggled against his chains as he shouted at the soldiers. “You cannot do this, you cannot do this to me. We had made a promise, bounded by the flames of the gods. You promised protection!” he cried. “You promised. You said we would go beyond the waters to your home, where we would live a better life. You promised us riches!” The man only laughed. They mocked him. That was the moment I understood. We had been betrayed. The journey from the shore into the belly of the ship felt like being buried alive. The air below deck was thick with sweat, sickness, and terror. We sat shoulder to shoulder in chains, pressed so tightly together that breathing became difficult. We were chained to the floor. The weak lantern swaying above us cast trembling shadows across exhausted faces wet with tears. “We are not dead yet,” an old man whispered somewhere in the darkness, his voice dry and shaking. “As long as we remember our home, our spirits still live.” I leaned my head against the rough wood behind me. Then I saw it. A thin beam of sunlight pierced through a crack above the deck, catching the amber glow of a young girl’s eyes, who had once dimmed — now those eyes still carried defiance despite the chains around her wrists. The chains were heavy, but my spirit was weightless. I stared at that single ray of light while the ship groaned beneath the waves. The chains were heavy, but something inside me refused to die. I can not do this here, I told myself. I have to survive. I must continue my father’s legacy. And somehow, even in chains, that hope kept me alive.

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