The Long Song

After writing about the birth of Emily, elderly July expects Thomas to be angry that she had another child. She hides in a hut in the garden, where her granddaughter Miss May joins her to play cards. However, Thomas shows no emotion after reading the pages and instead discusses the work of the artist Francis Bear. July reflects on her son’s unpredictable moods.

Through the recollections of several formerly enslaved characters, the narrative details the rapid deterioration of Robert’s relationship with the newly freed people of Amity. One witness recalls seeing the artist Francis Bear deliberately erase the “negro village” from his plantation painting. However, the real trouble begins when Robert demands that the enslaved people work through the Christmas holiday and they refuse. They also reject his attempts to pay them by the task instead of by the day. When he insists on a six-day working week, the community, represented by a carpenter named James Richards, holds firm at four days to make time for tending their own provision grounds. Robert then tries to persuade individuals to abandon their grounds and work exclusively for him for a wage, but everyone declines. In retaliation, Robert imposes impossibly high rents on their provision grounds and forbids them from fishing in the river. In response, the field workers at Amity strike, agreeing to pay no rent and perform no work for him.

To break the strike, Robert summons a group of white men from the parish. He outlines a violent, two-part strategy designed to frighten the former enslaved people back to work. First, a detachment will ride to the provision grounds and burn them. While the fires distract the workers, the main group will invade the village and evict a few families as an example to the others. He gives explicit orders to destroy belongings, trample gardens, and shoot livestock but tells them not to burn the houses or kill anyone. While watching from the veranda, July notices that Robert’s hand trembles uncontrollably as he gives these commands before leading the men in prayer.

On the night of the evictions, a terrified Caroline seeks out July for comfort from the sounds of violence erupting from the village. For the first time, Caroline acknowledges the existence of July’s baby, noting that Emily looks just like Robert. Together in the drawing room, they watch the distant fires from the burning provision grounds. 

Robert returns later, covered in soot with a slash of blood on his collar, but jubilantly declares his plan a success, saying, “The negroes finally understand where their duty lies. And it is to their masters” (255). He is injured and leans on Caroline for support. In a moment that shocks July, he snaps at her to fetch water, referring to Caroline as “your mistress” and showing a complete shift in allegiance.

The morning after the attack, July finds Robert sleeping restlessly in a hammock on the veranda, clutching a pistol. He awakens with a start and immediately asks if she heard the conch blow, the signal for work to begin. July replies that she did not, and the morning remains unnervingly quiet, indicating that the strike hasn’t been broken.

Caroline hears a report that Robert is acting strangely, and she and July drive a cart through the now-devastated and empty “negro village” to find him. They discover Robert in a cane field, filthy and half-dressed, deliriously trying to harvest the cane himself. He tells July that everyone has abandoned Amity. When she tries to stop him, he attacks her with a machete. Caroline intervenes and disarms him, causing him to collapse in tears.

The former Amity residents create a new settlement on its backlands. Although the land is rough, they rejoice that it is “free.”

After recovering from a prolonged illness, Robert becomes enthusiastic about a plan to import indentured laborers from India. A doctor, however, prescribes a trip to England for his health. On their last night at Amity, July serves Robert and Caroline a cockroach-filled covered dish as an act of revenge. Although the couple is terrified, July doesn’t laugh.

As Robert and Caroline prepare to leave for England, Robert orders that July be kept out of his sight. From her room under the house, July overhears Robert and Caroline having sex. Later, July watches from a distance as their carriage departs, holding the piece of lace that Robert once gave her to make a christening dress for Emily. The cook, Molly, offers to give Emily some milk, and July lets her take the child. That evening, the house boy Elias returns from town and informs July that Molly departed for England with the Goodwins. He confirms that Molly took Emily with them on the ship, which has already sailed, leaving July to realize that her child has been stolen.

Elderly July finishes her story with a fabricated happy ending in which she becomes the wealthy and successful owner of a jam-and-pickle shop and later a boarding house. However, after reading this version of her story, Thomas rejects it as false. He reminds her of the “half-starved woman with the stolen chicken” and insists that she write the truth (283). Complaining about his meddling, July reluctantly agrees to rewrite the final part of her story.

More than 30 years after Caroline and Robert left for England, July, emaciated and impoverished, stands trial for stealing a chicken. The court hears that she and several other formerly enslaved people remain squatting on the Amity estate’s backlands, insisting that they have no other home. The judge dismisses the case due to lack of evidence. Afterward, a black man from the jury approaches her. He introduces himself as Thomas Kinsman, her abandoned son.

The narrative recounts Thomas’s life: He was raised in England by the Kinsmans, apprenticed to a London printer named Linus Gray, and eventually inherited the business. The Kinsmans renounced him when his religious beliefs shifted from Baptism toward deism. After three undocumented years in London, he returned to Jamaica, where he established his own successful printing company. 

Thomas takes July to his home, where she meets his wife, Lillian, and their three daughters. He tells July that he believes he’s the son she left at the manse; she responds by vomiting. 

The narrator states that she has lived with her son ever since. She once again tries to end her story, but Thomas insists that she recount the 30 years of hardship she endured. She refuses, stating that she lacks the “ink” to dwell on such sorrow.

The Afterword to the memoir is written by Thomas. He confirms that his mother’s story is largely true and that Emily Goodwin is his half-sister. He explains that Emily’s fate is unknown and asks any reader with information about her whereabouts to contact him at his printing business in Kingston. He adds a word of caution, advising discretion, as the discovery of Black ancestry might be an unwelcome revelation for a family living as white in England.