Marcus from Chicago to Calabar, Nigeria: Crossing Back Over the Water
A civil rights activist retraces the broken trail of the first stolen souls from Calabar to Veracruz, searching for the names history refused to keep. Marcus had spent his life fighting for justice in the streets of Chicago, but it wasn’t until he uncovered a forgotten chapter of his ancestry that he realized his true fight had only just begun.
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While researching the haunting history of the Candelaria, a Portuguese slave ship that transported 114 enslaved Africans from Calabar to Veracruz in 1625, Marcus discovered a void—a lack of names, a loss of identity, and a deep silence where the stories of his ancestors should have been.
Driven by a longing to reconnect and understand the past that shaped him, Marcus embarks on a journey to Calabar, Nigeria, to retrace the steps of the first stolen souls from the Cross River region.
There, he seeks not only to learn what happened to them but to reclaim the history that was stolen along with their lives. This is a story of remembering, of reconnecting, and of fighting for those who never had the chance to fight for themselves.
Day One – The Names They Never Gave Us
Marcus was used to marching through streets with a bullhorn in hand and justice on his lips. A seasoned activist from Chicago, he had stood in courtrooms, community centers, and the bloodied heat of protest lines. But the discovery that shattered him came quietly, while scrolling through archives late one night.
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A ship. The Candelaria.
A date. June 25, 1625.
A single entry: “114 enslaved Africans disembarked in Veracruz, from Calabar.”
No names. No ages. No faces. Just numbers and silence.
That night, Marcus felt a hollowness he couldn’t shake. His fight for justice had always been forward-looking, but suddenly, it felt incomplete.
He booked a flight to Nigeria, to the port where they were stolen, needing to feel the ground where the first record of his people’s erasure began.
Day Two – Calabar’s Quiet Storm
The heat in Calabar wasn’t like Chicago’s. It clung to the skin like memory.
Marcus walked along the old riverfront where the Cross River once carried lives into chains. Locals pointed him to the Old Residency Museum, and there, among rusted shackles and Portuguese records, was the date: 1625. Candelaria. 114 souls.
He stared at the brittle parchment. “So this is where it began,” he whispered.
A historian named Eyo took him aside and said, “They didn’t die. They multiplied. In Mexico. In the U.S. In you.”
Tomorrow, Marcus would follow the trail upriver to find the villages these souls were taken from.
Day Three – Echoes Along the Cross River
In a dugout canoe drifting across the wide, slow river, Marcus felt like he was sliding into the bloodstream of his past.
The boatman spoke of old stories—how Portuguese traders docked here under false pretenses of trade, how they colluded with kings, how entire lineages vanished in nights.
They reached a village where elders gathered to remember—not through books, but through drums and chants.
A griot sang of the Ukpabi people, some of whom were taken in 1625. He said, “We mourned them for generations. We knew they were never coming back. But you, you are a return.”
Tomorrow, Marcus would stand where the captives were marched and loaded.
Day Four – The Hill of No Return
They called it Nselle Hill, a place few visited now.
Marcus stood where the chained captives were once held before being dragged to the riverbank, bound for European ships. A local guide told him the hill still weeps when it rains.
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As he touched the soil, Marcus imagined 114 people—confused, terrified, stripped of everything, their names swallowed by the ocean.
He knelt, and for the first time in his life, he prayed—not with words, but with grief.
Tomorrow, he would take part in a memorial ritual to honor those whose stories were stolen.
Day Five – A Ceremony for the Unnamed
Beneath a canopy of trees, Marcus joined a gathering led by a local priestess. Drums pulsed like a heartbeat, incense rose like a memory. A libation was poured, and 114 stones were laid in a circle—one for each lost soul.
Marcus placed his hand on one stone and whispered, “I don’t know your name. But I’m your descendant. I carry your fight.”
The priestess touched his shoulder: “The blood remembered. That’s why you came.”
Tomorrow, Marcus would speak to the youth at a school, sharing a past that their textbooks never taught.
Day Six – Teaching the Hidden History
At a local high school, Marcus stood before students whose ancestors lived the history his people were cut off from.
He told them about the Candelaria, about Veracruz, about the fight for Black lives in America. He showed them how connected they all were—not divided by oceans, but braided by resistance.
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One boy asked, “Do you feel at home here?”
Marcus smiled. “I feel whole here.”
Tomorrow, he would return to the U.S.—but nothing about him would be the same.
Day Seven – A Bridge Between Struggles
Back in Chicago, Marcus returned to his work, but his voice had changed.
He spoke not just of policy and protest, but of memory, of ancestors, of bridges built from truth. He organized a ceremony for the Candelaria 114, inviting Afro-Mexican, African, and African American communities to remember together.
He told the crowd:
“They were never meant to survive. They were never meant to be remembered. But we are here. So they are, too.”
His journey had started with a line in a dusty archive.
It ended with a truth unburied and a future reclaimed.
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