Let Us Descend

Sasha (who is referred to mostly as “Mama” because Ward portrays her largely through Annis’s eyes) has “a tender heart” (4). Her deep love for Annis is her most marked characteristic, and it is this relationship that introduces the essence of Annis’s story. In this way, Annis’s life is framed just as much by love as it is by enslavement, and the humanity of both women rises to the surface in spite of the extent to which their enslaver would seek to rob them of it. Sasha’s love for her daughter is evident throughout the short portion of the narrative that they spend together, but it is most prominently displayed during the traumatic scene in which the two women are forced to say goodbye forever. She gives Annis the elephant-tusk awl to be used both as an actual tool and as a kind of familial talisman, tells her daughter that she will “always” be with her, and vanishes from Annis’s life.

Sasha’s backstory is one marked by sexual violence, for Annis is the product of repeated rape. In this way, her character embodies the theme of Sexual Assault as a Hazard of Enslavement. She is not able to protect herself from her enslaver’s advances, but she is ultimately able to protect her daughter, for in spite of being sold to provide the man easier access to Annis, she has taught Annis well enough that the young woman is able to protect herself. Sasha’s other important piece of characterization is the warrior training that she passes on to her daughter. She herself learned these combat skills from her mother, and she passes this knowledge on to Annis. In this way, she teaches Annis how to defend herself, but she also instills in her daughter a sense of identity and an appreciation for the strengths, abilities, and social position of her ancestors. 

Mama Aza, Annis’s grandmother, appears only as a spirit in the later portions of the text, yet she looms large over the narrative from the very beginning, for Sasha tells stories of her many exploits in West Africa and passes her combat skills on to Annis. These various skills and stories allow Annis to learn to protect her physical body and to tap into the spiritual and ancestral knowledge that will preserve her strength of will and determination.

Mama Aza is the first character in the text to embody the theme of Families Destroyed by Enslavement, for the affair that she has while married to the Fon king initially leads to her sale to an American-bound enslaver as punishment for her transgression. Pregnant, she will give birth to Sasha aboard a ship on the way to another continent and will never again see her daughter’s father, a man whom she loved deeply. It is this original rupture that begins the legacy of generational trauma that will unfold throughout the lives of her daughter and granddaughter. And yet, because her cultural knowledge becomes the backbone of both her daughter and granddaughter’s identities, she emerges as a figure of resilience rather than one of suffering. It is her spear that Sasha wields when teaching her daughter how to fight and her elephant-tusk awl that Annis uses to free herself from the cruel confines of the hole in the moments leading up to her successful escape.

Mama Aza is most visible in the text through Sasha’s memories and stories, and through the way that her legacy survives within her daughter and granddaughter, but she does make one important literal appearance to Annis in the form of a spirit. She materializes at a moment of deep despair and shares her story in her own words. She describes to Annis that the elephants she hunted with the other warrior wives had such a strong will to live that even at the end, when it was clear that they would not survive, they would not accept death. This piece of information strikes Annis like a lightning bolt, and she embraces her own inner survival mechanism. It is because of this encounter that Annis is able to find the strength to stay alive, to escape, and to forge a new life for herself. 

Aza the Spirit is a complex figure. Annis has been taught by her mother to “call” on her ancestors, and Aza appears to her as a result of this calling. However, her role is not straightforward, and she cannot be assumed to always act as a benevolent guide. Rather, her presence in Annis’s life represents more of a dialogue as Annis learns to sift through the spirit’s ever-shifting, hard-to-parse advice in order to find her own truth. Aza thus helps Annis to hone her own skills of analysis and decision-making and does not provide any easy answers.

She is also shown to be emotionally volatile and self-aggrandizing, and she seems to thrive on the attention she receives from “mothering” those who call on her. During Annis’s escape, Aza wants Annis to move to New Orleans to become her priestess. With these urgings, it becomes clear that Aza has depth, will, and her own set of characteristics and motivations that exist outside of her relationship to Annis. This characterization is another manifestation of Ward’s stated objective of creating characters who, although they lived under enslavement, nonetheless exhibited agency and will. Aza certainly embodies both attributes, and the complexity of her personality allows Annis to see her ancestors as holistic individuals rather than as two-dimensional guides who exist in the spiritual realm only to assist their descendants.

Annis endures three white enslavers over the course of this narrative, and they are never named. She refers to her first enslaver as her “sire,” a nod to her observation that enslavers view the enslaved like livestock. The couple who purchase her and take her to their sugar plantation in Louisiana are likewise referred to only as “the man,” “the lady,” or “he” and “she.” In this way, Ward draws points of connection between all of those who enslave and denies them individual names in order to dehumanize them just as they have attempted to dehumanize those they enslave. This stylistic choice also shows how such enslavers function as one oppressive force, and it deliberately flattens their identities into the static, unsubtle role of “enslaver,” and nothing else. By mimicking the way that enslavers deny the identities of the enslaved, Ward uses her nameless enslaver characters to flip the script on traditional naming conventions and reimagine the history of enslavement a way that highlights the agency of those who historically had very little.

Yet even without names, Ward’s enslaver characters embody many of the atrocities that plagued enslaved people during this time frame. To that end, Annis’s sire is a serial sexual abuser of women, and in this way, he embodies the theme of Sexual Assault as a Hazard of Enslavement. He subjects Sasha to a series of rapes and, although Ward does not reveal his thoughts or motivations, he is never depicted as showing remorse for his actions. Indeed, the fact that he is attracted to Annis despite the knowledge that she is his daughter represents a particularly vile characteristic ,and through Ward’s illustration of his cruelty and his penchant for sexual violence, the author emphasizes the gendered brutality of slavery. Enslaved women were frequently the targets of this violence and lived in constant fear of assault.

When he sells first Sasha and then Annis, making it clear that both decisions are meant as a punishment for the women’s defiance, his actions emphasize the theme of Families Destroyed by Enslavement, for he is the individual responsible for separating Annis from her mother forever. This, too, shows the brutality of slavery, and the scene in which Sasha says goodbye to Annis is meant to evoke empathy and to show the unbearable loss and deep pain in such a fundamental and permanent separation. This scene represents a common occurrence during times of enslavement in America, and it is the source of much of the generational trauma that is evident within the characters of Let Us Descend and of Ward’s other novels.

The white couple to whom Annis is sold in New Orleans is similarly cruel, and the woman’s refusal to properly feed the enslaved people who work for her is immediately evident to Annis because of the gaunt figures of Esther and Mary. And yet, this instance of extreme brutality becomes a source of Resilience and Agency Amidst Oppression for Esther, Mary, and Annis because they are able to supplement their meagre rations by hunting and foraging for themselves. Their ability to live off the land represents part of Annis’s legacy from her mother and grandmother, and it is a source of strength for her.

The man, like Annis’s sire, is a serial sexual abuser of the enslaved women on his property, and Esther warns Annis not to be alone with him. She also tells her that, even if he does not “go after” a particular woman, he still “meddles” by forcibly pairing his enslaved men and women together so that they can produce more children to work in his fields. This, too, speaks to the theme of Sexual Assault as a Hazard of Enslavement and shows the extreme cruelty of a system that forced enslaved women into unwanted sexual encounters and required them to give birth to children to increase their enslaver’s wealth.

The female enslaver also illustrates the extreme cognitive dissonance of similar women whose husbands sexually assaulted enslaved women and kept placées. It is widely known on the plantation that the man has a “plaçage woman” in New Orleans. It is improbable that this enslaver’s wife is completely unaware that her husband has a Black mistress and is a serial rapist of the women on their plantation. Yet, her grief when the man dies of yellow fever is so extreme that she will not allow his stinking body to be removed from their home for days. Given his extra-marital affair and status as a sexual abuser, her sorrow seems misplaced, but she is able to ignore his behavior because she has so dehumanized enslaved women that she is not moved by the plight of the many rape survivors among the women on her plantation, nor would she consider a placée to be a true source of competition for her husband’s affection. 

Safi is Annis’s first lover. She is an enslaved woman on the North Carolina plantation where Annis was born. Even before they embark on a romantic relationship, Safi demonstrates how deeply she cares for Annis. She comforts Annis after her mother is sold, and her selfless kindness speaks to the strength of enslaved men and women who were able to remain compassionate in the face of so much inhumanity. She and Annis become lovers, and the two are a happy and caring couple. They embody a kind of perfect, mutually supportive love that provides them both with a sense of strength and belonging.

It is because of this love that the women are sold off, and on the way to New Orleans, Safi is raped by one of the white enslavers accompanying their group. Her experiences speak to the theme of Sexual Assault as a Hazard of Enslavement, but like other examples of sexual violence in the text, the women are portrayed as survivors rather than as victims. It is Safi’s brutal experience of assault that compels her to escape enslavement, and this act of defiance speaks to the theme of Resilience and Agency Amidst Oppression. Escape takes will and strength of character, and Safi possesses both. When one of her enslavers ties her ropes too loosely, she is able to slip out of them. Annis notices that her hands are “running with blood” (47), but in spite of her injuries, she is able to make her escape. 

Esther and Mary are enslaved women on the Louisiana sugar plantation with Annis. They are true friends, both to each other and to Annis, and their ability to maintain their sense of kindness and humanity in the face of a lifetime of brutality speaks both to their individual strength of character and to the resilience of enslaved women all over the South. Upon Annis’s arrival, they immediately take her under their wing. The three women live and work well together, and their friendship is a source of strength for each woman. They are also resourceful, and this speaks to the theme of Resilience and Agency Amidst Oppression. Although their enslavers do not properly feed them, the women are adept hunters and foragers and are able to supplement what little food they are given. They are happy to share with Annis, and Annis uses her own knowledge of edible mushrooms to add to their shared food supply.

Their ultimate act of agency is their escape. The two are eventually able to tumble into the river and are swept away from the plantation. This is one of many similar scenes in the narrative, for Safi, Esther, Mary, and Annis all manage to escape enslavement, and Esther’s brother Bastian has already found his own way to freedom by the time he enters the story. Through these many depictions of escape, Ward portrays enslaved men and women as strong, competent individuals whose humanity, will to live free lives, and sense of agency has not been suppressed by enslavement.