Delaware's Own

Water washed the steps to the house. Another white baby had been scrubbed and rinsed and dried. Tobacco juice landed on the dirt outside the house steps. Willliam Martin wiped some spittle from his chin and surveyed his rental property from Founder John Dickinson who lived in Wilmington, Delaware. John “Keto” Martin peered at the sun setting. He waited. He had no family as he was shipped to another plantation, ripped away from his wife and children, his eyes looked keen. The night finally fell. A few other runaway slaves joined him in his effort to get to Philadelphia. They said no words. They used hand signals to bring their journey across state lines. Moonlight guided their travels. The green of the moss looked like mold on the rocks and trees. It would guide them to their destination in Pennsylvania. The North Star also pointed the way. Sticks breaking and puddles under foot produced sounds but Keto kept going. Scraps of food including salted pig feet and radishes and vinegar sated their hunger. They drank water. Prepared for the trip, they clutched sacks full of wheat along with the other food. They found rest against tree stumps and used the sacks of wheat as pillows.

Morning came and they saw the sun bleed its colors of blue and orange across the sky. Like an orb of life, the glowing mass provided better sight for everyone. By taking the time to polish off their breakfast, they chewed thoroughly and breathed. As if pushed by some sense of knowing all of the details they would have known about the area, so they stepped into town.

With their sacks empty, they separated. Handshakes and hugs secured the bonds that would forever link them. Keto walked right up to a building. When the door swung open he looked at a gentleman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Captain Miles Pennington looked up at the black man.

“Help you?” Pennington asked.

“I have no papers. I have nothing to show that I’m a free man because I’m not. I want to join up to gain my freedom.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ket—Jonathan Martin,” Keto corrected himself and straightened.

“Well, Martin. We’re going to have to get you into a uniform and teach you how to fight, you’re going to be with the Continental Marines,” Pennington said with a smirk.

“Yes, sir,” Keto said.

“Can you read and write?” Pennington asked.

“No, but I’m good with my hands. I’m a blacksmith.”

“Alright. You’ll be in the galley.”

“Yes, sir.” Keto understood he’d had no training with handling and preparing food but could work iron like he had gained tutelage under St. Eligius himself. He took his right hand and continued to salute Pennington. The captain smirked and returned the salute.

“Yes, sir,” Keto repeated.

“You’ll be the first Negro to ever be part of the Continental Marines.”

“I’m honored, sir.”

“Let’s go to the outfitter and get your clothes.”

At the house adjacent to the recruiting station, Keto continued his journey with a determination to make his mark as a soldier of the sea. He received used and tattered uniforms. They hung loosely to his body. Some moths took some chunks out of the fabric. He looked like he had already been in battle. A battle he would never see….

He traveled on the ship Reprisal. Keto carried heavy ropes and joined with the white men.

“Corporal Garrett Tompkins,” a man aboard the ship introduced himself.

“John,” Keto replied. They shook hands.

“I’m a cook. I supply this whole ship with victuals.”

Keto smiled. It was a smile of satisfaction that he knew that the men on the ship would be tighter together in the sense of fraternity.

“I’m really a blacksmith, not a cook.”

“That’s okay. I’ll show you how to do it.”

Tompkins lifted a pot and placed it on a stove. The heat from the oven and stove top drove Keto’s mind. That warmth reminded him of the heat from the metal he worked.

“You’re going to want to pour water and add capers, olives, potatoes, and some of this beef for a stew.”

Keto stirred the pot. He smelled the vegetables and the meat. It was the first time he would be as close to beef other than dining on the innards of the cattle. With a few sips, he savored the notes of the beef and the vegetables complimented the flavor.

“Attention on deck!” Corporal Tompkins announced.

“Attention on deck!” the men responded.

“Captain Pennington is now aboard. Good morning, sir!”

“Good morning, sir!”

“Good morning. I’m sure you men have noticed we have a Negro on this ship. We will welcome him and make him feel like he is one of us. He may be out of his element, but we’re here to ensure that he is treated with respect and dignity. Is that clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Right when the captain commanded them to carry on and exited the galleyway, they pounced on Keto like pumas.

“Where are you from, blackie?” Private First Class Elias Goldsberry asked with venom on his tongue.

“Delaware,” Keto replied with his chest out and his chin to the sky.

“Well, boy, you’re going to have to earn your keep on this boat,” Courtney Reddington announced.

Keto, a man, a worker of fire and iron knew how to shape and mold some of the finest materials he could get his hands on during his time in Delaware. Now, his station reduced him to working with turnips. He turned to both of the white hecklers.

“I’m a man. You will treat me with the same amount of respect as you would your own fathers. That should be made clear.”

“You’ve got a devilish, slick mouth,” Reddington continued. “Maybe you should make me something and bring the temperature down with those soup coolers,” he antagonized.

“How about the both of you tend to the navigation before we run into some rough seas.”

“You give orders, boy?”

“I’m suggesting you get out of my face, white boy, before we all go over. Now, I’m telling everyone in earshot. I’m not for play.”

“C’mon,” Goldsberry called. “We’ve gotta clean the head.”

“This isn’t over Jonathan,” Corporal Reddington sneered. Keto looked on with an unflinching stance. He remained a statue until the two other Marines had left.

“We’re all grown men here. I’ve gotta be hard on you, too. We’re a unit though, so that saves us from any more ill will,” Tompkins explained further.

“The same goes for you corporal. I rebuke you, too, if you forget who you’re talking to at any moment. I’m from Delaware.”

In time, Keto would witness life on the seas. He let anyone know that he wouldn’t be the one to mess with at any point. His verbal acumen kept him from being brought to the brig on the ship. When the time came for the men to continue seafaring, Keto kept mostly to himself. Reading and writing proved to be a struggle, but his speech gave him the power to confront those that attempted to besmirch his name. The salt remained in his whiskers as the ocean spray blasted across the bow. He found small pleasures in the way the ship swayed upon the seas. The beating heart in his chest pumped the red fluid that fortified his station in this life as a Continental Marine. He had been seasoned at cooking. He served up some of the best meals on the ship. With his knowledge of preparing meals, he knew how to craft dishes with cloves, cinnamon, sage, and berries. It was like he transferred his skills to the culinary arts. By the light of a candle, he tried to read pamphlets from Benjamin Franklin. With no guide or anyone to correct his mistakes, he put plume to paper each night. Salty air seeped through his cabin as the light flickered in the wind. He mouthed out various sentences and showed himself to be quite the specimen for understanding. Attempts to write letters to his family he had been separated from all those years ago stirred his soul. As the quill spilt ink he had asked to use from Captain Pennington, Keto became enlivened with every syllable he placed down on the page. Eyes wide, he pushed himself to learn the alphabet and live the life of a literary man. It got better. He knew he could be a learned man in the months he would be out to sea. Until he saw Reddington and Goldsberry take his writings and books and cast them out to sea. He ran after them and held them down and kept them together until the captain arrived.

“What is all this ballyhoo?” The three men stood at the position of attention.

“Sir, these corporals threw away my writings. I just held them down until they could be brought to justice. I’m glad you’re standing right there––”

“Hold it. I didn’t want any trouble out of you. What these men have done is valiant.”

“Valiant?! Sir, these men absconded with my things and tossed them overboard.”

“No Negro should be reading or writing. I know I gave you some ink. But I didn’t consider you to be one to be so beholden to the idea that you could actually become literate.”

“Excuse me sir, but what you just said made absolutely no sense.”

Captain Pennington approached Keto. “What’d you say?”

“I said you’re not following up on your promise to allow me to read. I can’t win. If I’m ignorant and tired, I can’t pull my weight around men who can read and write, then I’m going home when we get back to port.”

“That’s your choice,” the captain asserted. “At ease. Dismissed!” he commanded. The three men sneered at each other. Keto returned to his cabin and saw a blank desk with a candle flickering all alone.

Now, Keto saw promotion to private first class.When he got back to his work in the galley, he felt inspired to at least make the dishes worthy of savoring. The plates looked like swirling galaxies, the colors ever vibrant. Then, the ship rocked. A crashing sound enveloped the entire vessel. Some men screamed. Keto stepped into action, filling huge tubs with water and trying with urgent desperation to stop the waves from interfering with the ship. Water began pouring in on all sides. Now, Sergeant Tompkins, made desperate attempts to get huge pots and use them to get the water out of the ship as well. No avail. Shouts from the brig became deafening as men remained locked in cages on the ship like animals. There existed a great cacophony of hollers, gushing water, and the screeching of the ship hull shredding like extra thin linen. Men jumped overboard into the black depths of the ocean. Keto marked many instances of valiant moves. He struggled to keep the water out, even more. Tompkins reached out a hand to save Keto, but he slapped his hand away. The cook remained the sole survivor of the sinking of the Reprisal just off the coast of Newfoundland. No bodies could be recovered, Tompkins would later hail Keto as a hero, but no one believed him. Instead of being recorded in the papers at the time, any notion had been destroyed and the realization of Keto’s acts of honor forever remained hushed in the halls of history.

But Keto’s legacy as the first black Marine stretches to the twelve men who enlisted in the eighteenth century; to the time where men and women of color could not enlist in the United States Marine Corps until close to the middle of the twentieth century; to Montford Point Marines; to the first black four star Marine general, Michael E. Langley in 2022.

As a Delawarean, Keto’s history will forever be etched in the minds of the people from that state, even if his story has mostly been forgotten by historians and the populace. This great man ought to have a statue erected for him to honor the might of his mind and the power of his great resolve.