The Wanderer — Cilucangy: Ward Lee

The Wanderer — Cilucangy: Ward Lee. . Imagine going back to an African home much like Jekyll Island where the brush is low and the trees twist and turn into each other. Coming ashore in 1858, a young boy named Cilucangy remembered the conditions in which he was forced to leave his village and the horrid conditions in which he was forced to live for forty-two days at sea aboard the Wanderer., Cilucangy was dragged in chains to a surely ominous fate on the Wanderer waiting on the shores of the African Coast. He existed miserably in quarters on the Wanderer's slave deck so cramped that people were almost piled upon one another. With food and water in short supply, the only time he saw the light of day was when salt water was thrown at him before being fed what could be spared. Despite it all, Cilucangy and the other survivors found it in themselves to come together around a fire once they arrived on the soil of Jekyll Island. There they ate, rested and mustered up enough energy for a rejuvenating dance., Upon his arrival, Ward Lee (his English-given name) became one of the "lucky" ones. He was sold to John F. Tucker to work the standard manual labor that came with maintaining a Southern plantation. Tucker's plantation was just down the river from Savannah. Lee used the basket weaving skills his mother had passed down to him on this plantation. When the Civil War broke out, Lee lost the life he had become accustomed to on the Tucker plantation. He was satisfied though to accept an offer of a tenant house, 40 cent wages and a garden plot., Despite homeownership, successful selling of his handcrafted baskets, getting married and having four children, Lee was stirred into longing for his African roots. Lee went to work on getting to Africa by printing a letter begging for help to get him to Africa. Lee re-created from his dreams a woven straw house just like the one that the village chief had stood in front of to say goodbye on that fateful day in Africa. Unfortunately his plea for help to return to Africa went unanswered. He died ten years later without ever fulfilling his "God-sent" yearning to return home to his Africa., To the dismay of researchers and interested parties, it is difficult to know the places where the enslaved Africans came from and at what age. In Africa, it is customary to change the name of a village when the chief dies to reflect the name of the new chief. Such examples include recollections from the Africans pictured here, all of whom came to America aboard the Wanderer. Asked from where he came, Zow Uncola (Tom Johnson) could only say "you can see the water just drippin' out o' the sun". Manchuella, or Katie Noble as she was known here in the United States, said that she came "from deep in Africa" and was only able to comment that she had a child. Many others such as Uster Williams and Lucy Lanham were too young to remember their village or age when they were taken from their homes.