Chapter Six 

More Babies: Master Allen is interested in seeing Rosa and Mama bear children, just as a farmer wants to raise horses and cows that can be sold for profit. According to James Haney, a Tennessee court, ruling that selling a slave of childbearing age would be a great loss to an heir, declared that, “the modest profit gained from the labor of a gang of slaves in Tennessee made an increase in stock an object of their owners.” Since marriage was a legal contract, slaves could not legally marry, and they were sold without regard to family relations or personal feelings, disrupting the formation of stable and secure families.

Master’s sermon: Defenders of the system of slavery cited the Bible to support their view that masters had the right to keep servants and the responsibility to manage their behavior. Master Allen’s statement in Chapter Three: “Slaves, obey your earthly master in everything” comes Paul’s letter to Colossians, chapter 3, verse 22. His statement in Chapter Six: “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal” is Colossians 4:1, and “the powers that be are ordained of God” is found in Romans 13:1.

Abolitionists argued that Paul was only responding to the pervasive slave-owning culture of Roman and Hebrew history, and they also cited the Bible in defense of their position that when the Kingdom of God prevails, “prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor,” and “the servant is free from his master” (Job 3:17-18). In the Nineteenth Century, as today, religious opinion and discourse fueled much of the political debate.

 Chapter Seven

 Naming the baby: Since Master Allen “owns” Rosa’s baby, he names him. Slave owners often used Biblical or heroic names for their slaves—names such as Isaac, Sarah or Hercules, but they sometimes used demeaning or clownish names as well, robbing people of their dignity or social status. Owners often changed a slave’s a name when they purchased someone, and they generally applied their own surnames to their slaves.

Edward’s wasp stings: Toby’s clever trick of putting molasses on Edward’s toys so that he will be stung is a mean, but typical way for a slave to take revenge on his tormentor. No one can assign any blame to Toby, because he did not personally harm Edward. Slave folklore has the frequent theme of the “clever trickster,” a powerless and abused person—or animal—finding ways to torment stronger and apparently more powerful adversaries, or of finding ways to cause these figures to harm themselves.

 Toby licking his molasses: This scene is taken directly from the autobiography of Booker T. Washington. “I would always shut my eyes while the molasses was being poured out into the plate, with the hope that when I opened them I would be surprised to see how much I had got. When I opened my eyes I would tip the plate in one direction and another, so as to make the molasses spread all over it, in the full belief that there would be more of it and that it would last longer if spread out in this way” (246).

Chapter Nine

 Handling cotton: I owe my thanks to fiber artist Joan S. Ruane, who was my seatmate on a three-hour flight on her way to teach a spinning workshop. She eagerly shared her knowledge of the growth, preparation, spinning, and idiosyncrasies of cotton fibers. Serendipity and generosity combined! Joan taught me to hold the seed and pull the cotton off of it, rather than try to pull out the seeds.

 Columbus, Kentucky: Columbus was once a booming Mississippi River port, not far south of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, where traders from Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri could exchange their cargoes and passengers. People from all over western Kentucky brought cotton and hogs to sell in Columbus, and steamboats delivered mail or carried passengers to and from St. Louis and from Chicago. In 1854, Columbus was the northern terminus of the Mobile and Ohio, as Benjamin predicted it would be (Jewell).

Mama and Daddy’s Argument: I have taken the idea for this conversation for Josiah Henson’s account of his decision to run away. “I communicated the intention to my wife. She was overwhelmed with terror. With a woman’s instinct she clung to hearth and home. She knew nothing of the wide world beyond, and her imagination peopled it with unseen horrors. We should die in the wilderness,–we should be hunted down with blood-hounds,–we should be brought back and whipped to death. With tears and supplications she besought me to remain at home, contented. In vain I explained to her our liability to be torn asunder at any moment . . . I then told her deliberately, that though it would be a cruel trial for me to part with her, I would nevertheless do it, and take all the children with me except the youngest, rather than remain at home” (104-05).

Chapter Ten

Slave patrols, commonly called “paddy rollers” often broke up illicit meetings, thus after the master announced there would be no more unsupervised meetings in the woods, George or the other men watched to make sure they were not caught having a meeting. The master could impose a punishment of twenty lashes on any slave present at an “unlawful meeting” (Littell, 1151-52).

 Cotton Gin: In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which removed the sticky green seeds that were typical of the cotton that could be grown inland. The gin made it suddenly profitable for farmers in many states to grow cotton, and created a huge increase in the demand for slaves to plant and harvest the crop.

Mobile and Alabama Railroad: Benjamin’s predictions about the growth of the railroads was accurate. In 1850, railroads still connected only a few cities on the east coast of the United States, and a trip from Boston or New York to Chicago required a transfer to stagecoach or steamboats. By 1860, all the major cities east of the Mississippi River were connected together, and railroad trains passed through Columbus on the way north to Chicago. Cotton from Kentucky as well as Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee would have passed through Columbus on its way north, as Benjamin predicted.

Br’er Rabbit: Tales of Br’er Rabbit (Brother Rabbit) were popular in The South in the 1850’s. They fall into the tradition of the clever trickster, and were derived from traditional African tales of a clever hare and Anansi the clever spider. Some of the tales, including “Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby,” had been published earlier, but in 1881, Joel Chandler Harris made them famous when he published a book of tales which he had collected, not composed himself. Br’er Rabbit is not only a trickster, but a villain, cheat, and rogue as well. 

Sampson’s top: James is technically correct. Since slaves “belonged” to their masters, then everything they owned also belonged to the master. Some compassionate slave owners allowed slaves to work or sell produce on their (very limited) own time, and those slaves sometimes saved money for years and bought their own freedom from their masters. But the slave code in Kentucky defined a slave as “one who is in the power of the master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor; he can possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what belongs to the master” (Littell).

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