THE WHITE SLAVE.
“Because immortal, therefore is indulged
This strange regard of deities to dust!
Hence, Heaven looks down on Earth with all her eyes;
Hence, the soul’s mighty moment in her sight;
Hence, every soul has partisans above,
And every thought a critic in the skies.”
_Young._
“The creature is great, to whom it is allowed to imagine questions to
which only a God can reply.”—_Aimé Martin._
No one who has travelled largely through the Southern States will
require to be told that the slave system sanctions the holding in
slavery of persons who are undistinguishable in complexion from the
whitest Anglo-Saxons. Several carefully authenticated cases, analogous
to that developed in our story, though surpassing it in unspeakable
baseness, have been recently brought to light. We need only hint at them
at this stage of our narrative.
The reader has already divined that the little girl sold at the
slave-auction, and placed under Mrs. Gentry’s care, was no other than
the unfortunate child whose parents were lost in the disaster of the
Pontiac.
There is a class of minds which, either from inertness or lack of
leisure, never revise the opinions they have received from others. If we
might borrow a fresh illustration from Mrs. Gentry’s copy-books, we
might say that in her mental growth the tree was inclined precisely as
the twig had been bent. She honestly believed that there was no appeal
from what her sire, the judge, had once laid down as law or gospel.
Having been bred in the belief that slavery was a wholesome and sacred
institution, she would probably have seen her own sister dragged under
it to the auction-block, and not have ventured to question the
righteousness of the act.
There were only two passions which, should they ever come in direct
collision with her veneration for slavery, might possibly override it;
but even on this there seemed to rest much uncertainty. Her
acquisitiveness, as the phrenologists would have called it, was large;
and then, although she was fast declining into the sere and yellow leaf,
she had not surrendered all hope of one day finding a successor to the
late Mr. Gentry in her affections.
Regarding poor little Clara Berwick (or Ellen Murray) as a slave, she
could never be so far moved by the child’s winning presence and ways as
to look on her as entitled to the same atmosphere and sun as herself. No
infantile grace, no solicitation of affection, could ever melt the icy
barrier with which the pride and self-seeking, fostered by slavery, had
encircled the heart, not naturally bad, of the schoolmistress. And yet
she did her duty by the child to the best of her ability. Though not a
highly educated person, Mrs. Gentry was shrewd enough to employ for her
pupils the most accomplished teachers; and in respect to Clara she
faithfully carried out Mr. Ratcliff’s directions. True, she always
exacted an obedience that was unquestioning and blind. She did not care
to see that the child could have been led by a silken thread, only
satisfy her reason or appeal to her affections. And so it was to Esha
that Clara would always have to go for sympathy, both in her sorrows and
her joys; and it was Esha whose influence was felt in the very depths of
that fresh and sensitive nature.
From her third to her fourteenth year Clara gave little promise of
beauty. Ratcliff, on receiving her photographs, used to throw them aside
with a “Psha! After all, she’ll be fit only for a household drudge.”
But as she emerged into her sixteenth year, and features and form began
to develop the full meaning of their outlines, she all at once appeared
in the new and startling phase of a rare model of incipient womanhood.
Her hair, thick and flowing, was of a softened brown tint, which yet was
distinct from that cognate hue, _abrun_ (a-brown) or auburn, a shade
suggestive of red. Her complexion was clear and pure, though not of that
brilliant pink and white often associated with delicacy of constitution.
A profile, delicately cut as if to be the despair of sculptors; a
forehead not high, but high enough to show Mind enthroned there; eyes—it
was not till you drew quite near that you marked the peculiarity already
described in the infant of the Pontiac. The mouth and lips were small
and passionate, the chin bold, yet not protrusive, the nostrils having
that indescribable curve which often makes this feature surpass all the
others in giving a character of decision to a face. A man of the turf
would have summed up his whole description of the girl in the one word
“blood.”
Such a union of the sensuous nature with pure will and intellect might
well have made a watchful parent tremble for her future.
Ratcliff had been for more than a year in South Carolina, helping to
fire the Southern heart, and forward the secession movement. Early in
January, 1861, he made a flying visit to New Orleans, and called on Mrs.
Gentry.
After some conversation on public affairs, the lady asked, “Would you
like to see my pupil?”
“Not if she resembles the photographs you’ve sent me,” replied Ratcliff.
Then, looking at his watch, he added: “I leave for Charleston this
afternoon, and haven’t time to see her now. Early in March I shall be
back, and will call then.”
“You must see her a minute,” said Mrs. Gentry. “I think you’ll admit she
does no discredit to my bringing up.” And she rang the bell.
“Tell Miss Murray, I desire her presence in the parlor.”
Clara entered. She was attired in a plain robe of slate-colored muslin,
exquisitely fitted, and had a book in her hand, as if just interrupted
in study. She stood inquiringly before the schoolmistress, and seemed
unconscious of another’s presence.
“I wish you, Miss Murray, to play for this gentleman. Play the piece you
last learnt.”
Without the slightest shyness, Clara obeyed, seating herself at the
piano, and performing Schubert’s delectable “Lob der Throenen,” (Eulogy
of Tears,) with Liszt’s arrangement. This she did with an executive
facility and precision of touch that would have charmed a competent
judge, which Ratcliff was not.
And yet astonishment made him speechless. He had expected an
undeveloped, awkward, homely girl. Lo a beautiful young woman whose
perfect composure and grace were such as few queens of society could
exhibit! And all that youth and loveliness were his!
He looked at his watch. Not another moment could he remain. He drew near
to Clara and took her hand, which she quickly withdrew. “Only maiden
coyness,” thought he, and said: “We must be better acquainted. But I
must now hasten from your dangerous society, or I shall miss the
steamer. Good by, my dear. Good by, Mrs. Gentry. You shall hear from me
very soon.”
And Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and black Tarquin opened the door for
Ratcliff. As it closed upon him, “Who is that old man?” asked Clara.
“Old? Why, he does doesn’t look a year over forty,” replied Mrs. Gentry.
“That’s the rich Mr. Ratcliff.”
“Well, I detest him,” said Clara, emphatically.
“Detest!” exclaimed Mrs. Gentry, horror-stricken; for it was not often
that Clara condescended to speak her mind so freely to that lady.
“Detest? Is this the end of all my moral and religious teachings? O, but
you’ll be _come up with_, if you go on in this way. Retire to your room,
Miss.”
Swiftly and gladly Clara obeyed.
_Apropos_ of the aforesaid teachings, Ratcliff was very willing that his
predestined victim should be piously inclined. It would rather add to
the piquancy of her degradation. He wavered somewhat as to whether she
should be a Protestant or a Catholic, but finally left the whole matter
to Mrs. Gentry. That profound theologian had done her best to lead Clara
into her own select fold, and, as she thought, had succeeded; but Clara
was pretty sure to take up opinions the reverse of those held by her
teacher. So, after sitting in weariness of spirit under the ministry of
the Rev. Dr. Palmer in the morning, the perverse young lady would
ventilate her religious conceptions by reading Fenelon, Madame Guyon, or
Zschokke in the evening.
Mrs. Gentry believed in secession, and raved like a Pythoness against
the cowardly Yankees. Clara, seeing a United States flag trampled on and
torn in the street, secured a rag of it, secretly washed it, and placed
it as a holy symbol on her bosom. Mrs. Gentry expatiated to her pupils
on the righteousness and venerableness of slavery. Clara cut out from a
pictorial paper a poor little dingy picture of Fremont, and concealed it
between two leaves of her Bible, underlining on one of them these words:
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof.”
Esha, the colored cook, a slave, was Clara’s fast friend in all her
youthful troubles. Esha had passed through all degrees of slavery,—from
toiling in a cotton-field to serving as a lady’s maid. Having had a
child, a little girl, taken from her and sold, she ever afterwards
refused to be again a mother. The straight hair, coppery hue, and
somewhat Caucasian cast of features of this slave showed that she
belonged to a race different from that of the ordinary negro. She had
been named Ayesha, after one of Mahomet’s wives. She generally wore a
Madras handkerchief about her head, and showed a partiality for
brilliant colors. Many were the stealthy interviews that she and Clara
enjoyed together.
Said Esha, on one of these occasions: “Don’t b’leeb ’em, darlin’, whan
dey say de slabe am berry happy, an’ all dat. No slabe dat hab any sense
am happy. He know, he do, dat suffn’s tuk away from him dat God gabe
him, and meant he sh’d hole on ter; and so he feel ollerz kind o’ mean
afore God an’ man too; an’ I ’fy anybody, white or black, to be happy
who feel dat ar way.”
“But it isn’t the slave’s fault, Esha, that he’s a slave.”
“It’s de slabe’s fault dat he stay a slabe, darlin’,” said the old
woman, with a strange kindling of the eyes. “But den de massa hab de
raisin’ ob him, an’ so take good car’ ter break down all dar am of de
man in de poor slabe; an’ de poor slabe hab no larnin’, and dunno whar’
to git a libbin’ or how to sabe hisself from starvin’. An’ if he run
away, de people Norf send him back.”
On studying Esha further, Clara discovered that she was half Mahometan,
and could speak Arabic. Her mixed notions she had got partly from her
father, Amri, who belonged to one of those African tribes who cultivate
a pure deism, tempered only by faith in the mission of Mahomet as an
inspired prophet. Amri had been captured by a hostile tribe and sold
into slavery. He lived long enough to teach his little Esha some things
which she remembered. She could repeat several Arabic poems, and Clara
first became familiar with the Arabian Nights through this old household
drudge. One of these poems had a mystical charm for Clara. Through the
illiterate garb which the slave’s English gave it, Clara detected a
significance that led her to write out a paraphrase in the following
words:—
“The sick man lay on his bed of pain. ‘Allah!’ he moaned; and his
heart grew tender, and his eyes moist, with prayer.
“The next morning the tempter said to him: ‘No answer comes from
Allah. Call louder, still no Allah will hear thee or ease thy pain.’
“The sick man shuddered. His heart grew cold with doubt and
inquietude; when suddenly before him stood Elias.
“‘Child!’ said Elias, ‘why art thou sad? Dost think thy prayers are
unheard and unanswered; that thy devotion is all in vain?’
“And the sick man replied: ‘Ah! so often, and with such tears I have
called on Allah! I call _Allah!_ but never do I hear his “Here am I!”’
“And Elias left the sick man; but God said to Elias: ‘Go to the
tempted one; lift him up from his despair and unbelief.
“‘Tell him that his very longing is its own fulfilment; that his very
prayer, “Come, Allah!” is Allah’s answer, “Here am I!”’
“Yes, every good aspiration is an angel straight from God. Say from
the heart, ‘O my Father!’ and that very utterance is the Father’s
reply, ‘Here, my child!’” [23]
Like many native Africans, Esha was fully assured of the existence of
spirits, and of their power, in exceptional cases, to manifest
themselves to mortals. And she related so many facts within her own
experience, that Clara became a believer on human testimony,—the more
readily because Esha’s faith in demonism was unmixed with superstition.
“Tell me, Esha,” said Clara, at one of their secret midnight
conferences, “were you ever whipped?”
“Never badly, darlin’. It ain’t de whippins and de suf’rins dat make de
wrong ob slavery. De mos kindest thing dey could do de slabe would be
ter treat him so he wouldn’t stay a slabe no how. But dey know jes how
fur to go, widout stirrin’ up de man inside ob him. An’ dat’s the cuss
ob slabery.”
“But, Esha, don’t they generally treat the women well on the
plantations?”
“De breedin’ women dey treat well,—speshilly jes afore dar time,[24]—but
I’ze known a pregnant woman whipped so she died de same night. O de poor
bressed lily ob de world! O de angel from hebbn! O de sweet lubly chile!
Nebber, no, nebber, nebber shall I disremember how I held de little gole
cross afore dat chile’s eyes, an’ how she die wid de smile on her sweet
face, and her own husband’s head on her bosom.”
And the old woman burst into a passion of tears, rocking herself to and
fro, and living over again the sorrow of that death-bed scene to which
she and Peek and one other, years before, had been witnesses.
Clara pacified her, and Esha said, “You jes stop one minute, darlin’,
and I’ll show yer suff’n.” She went to her garret-closet, and returned
with a small silk bag, from which she took a package done up in fine
linen. This she unpinned, and displayed a long strand of human hair,
thick, silky, soft, and of a peculiarly beautiful color, hardly olive,
yet reminding one of that hue. Holding it up, she said: “Dar! Dat’s de
hair I cut from de head of dat same bress-ed chile I jes tell yer
’bout.”
“But that is the hair of a white woman,” said Clara.
“Bress yer, darlin’, she war jes as white as you am dis minute.”
After some seconds of silence, Clara said, “Tell me of her.”
And Esha related many, though not all, of the particulars already
familiar to the reader in the story of Estelle.
“Esha, you must give me some of that hair,” said Clara.
“Yes, darlin’, I ’ll change half of it fur some ob yourn.”
The exchange was made, Clara wrapping her portion in the little strip of
bunting torn from the American flag.
On the subject of her birth Clara had put to Mrs. Gentry some searching
questions, but had learnt simply that her parentage was unknown. For her
concealed benefactor she had conceived a romantic attachment; and
gratitude incited her to make the best of her opportunities, and to
patiently bear her chagrins.
A month after the late interview with Ratcliff, Mrs. Gentry received a
letter which caused Clara to be summoned to her presence.
“Sit down. I’ve something important to communicate,” said the
schoolmistress. “You’ve often asked me to whom you are indebted for your
support. Learn now that you belong to Mr. Carberry Ratcliff, whom you
met here some weeks ago. He is the rich planter whose house and grounds
in Lafayette you’ve often admired.”
“_Belong_ to him?” cried Clara. “What do you mean? Am I his daughter? Am
I in any way related?”
“No, you’re his slave. He bought you at auction.”
Impulsive as her own mocking-bird by nature, Clara had learned that
cruel lesson, which gifted children are often compelled to acquire when
subjected to the rule of inferior minds,—the art, namely, of checking
and disguising the emotions.
Excepting a quivering of her lips, a flushing of her brow, a slight
heaving of her bosom, and a momentary expression as of deadly sickness
in her face, she did not betray, by outward signs, the intensity of that
feeling of disgust, hate, and indignation which Mrs. Gentry’s
communication had aroused.
“Did Mr. Ratcliff request you to inform me that he considered me his
slave?” she asked, in a tone which, by a strenuous effort, she divested
of all significance.
“Yes; he concluded you are now of an age to understand the
responsibilities of your real situation. He not only paid a price for
you when you were yet an infant, but he has maintained you ever since.
But for him you might have been toiling in the sun on a plantation. But
for him you might never have got an education. But for him you might
never have heard of salvation through Christ. But for him you might
never have had the privilege of attending the Rev. Dr. Palmer’s Sunday
school. Is there any sacrifice too great for you to make for such a
master? Would it be too much for you to lay down your life for him?
Speak!”
Mrs. Gentry, it will be seen, pursued the Socratic method of impressing
truth upon her pupils. As Clara made no reply to her interrogatories,
she continued: “As your instructress, it has been my object to make you
feel sensibly the importance of doing your duty in whatever sphere you
may be cast.”
“And what, madame, may be the duty of a slave?” interposed Clara,
stifling down and masking the rage of her heart.
“The duty of a slave,” said Mrs. Gentry, “is to obey her master. Prompt
and unhesitating obedience, that is her duty.”
“Obedience to any and every command,—is that what you mean, madame?”
“Unquestionably, it is.”
“And must I not exercise my reason as to what is right or wrong?”
“Your reason, under slavery, is subordinated to another’s. You must not
set up your own reason against your master’s.”
“Supposing my master should order me to stab or poison you,—ought I to
do it?”
The judge’s daughter, like all who venture to vindicate the leprous
wrong on moral grounds, found herself nonplussed.
“You suppose a ridiculous and improbable case,” she replied.
“Well, madame, let me state a fact. One of your pupils had a letter
yesterday from a sister in Alabama, who wrote that a slave woman had
killed herself under these circumstances: her master had compelled her
to unite herself in so-called marriage with a black man, though she
fully believed a former husband still lived. To escape the abhorred
consequence, she put an end to her life. Was that woman right or wrong
in opposing her master’s will?”
“How can you ask?” returned Mrs. Gentry, reproachfully. “’T is the
slave’s duty to marry as the master orders.”
“Even though her husband be living, do I understand you?”
“Undoubtedly. Ministers of the Gospel will tell you, if there’s wrong in
it, the master, not the slave, is to blame.”[25]
“I thank you for making the slave’s duty so clear. You’re quite sure Dr.
Palmer would approve your view?”
“Entirely. All his preaching on the subject convinces me of it.”
“And the woman, you think, who killed herself rather than be false to
her husband, went straight to hell?”
“I can hope nothing better for her. She must have been a poor heathen
creature, wholly ignorant of Scripture. Paul commands slaves to obey;
and the woman who wilfully violates his injunction does it at the peril
of her soul.”
Clara was silent; and Mrs. Gentry, felicitating herself on the powerful
moral lesson adapted to her pupil’s “new sphere of duty,” resumed, “By
the way, your master—”
“Master!” shrieked Clara, running with upraised hands to Mrs. Gentry, as
if to dash them down on her. Then suddenly checking herself, she said
pleasantly: “You see I’m a little unused to the name. What were you
going to say?”
“Really, child, one would think you were out of your wits. It isn’t as
if you were going to be consigned to a master who’d abuse you. There’s
many a poor girl in our first society who’d be glad to be taken care of
as you’ll be. Only think of it! Here’s a beautiful diamond ring for you.
And here’s a check for five hundred dollars for you to spend in dresses,
and you’re to have the selecting of them all yourself,—think of
that!—under my superintendence of course; but Madame Groux tells me your
taste is excellent, and I shall not interfere. ’T is now nine o’clock.
We’ll drive out this very forenoon to see what there is in the shops;
for Mr. Ratcliff may be here any hour now. Run and get ready, that’s a
good girl. The carriage shall be here at half past ten.”
Without touching, or even looking at, the ring, Clara ran up-stairs to
her room, and, locking the door, knelt, with flushed, burning brow and
brain, at a little _prie-dieu_ in the corner. She did not try to put her
prayer in words, for the emotions which swelled within her bosom were
all unspeakable. Clara was intellectually a mystic, but the current of
her individualism was too strong to be diverted from its course by
ordinary influences, whether from spirits _in_ or _out_ of the flesh.
She was too positive to be constrained by other impulses than those
which her own will, enlightened by her own reason, had generated. So,
while she felt assured that angelic witnesses were round about her, and
that her every thought “had a critic in the skies,”—and while she
believed that, in one sense, nothing of mind or body was truly her
own,—that she was but a vessel or recipient,—she keenly experienced the
consciousness that she was a free, responsible agent. O mystery beyond
all fathoming! O reconcilement of contrarieties which only Omnipotence
could effect, and only Omnipotence can explain!
She paced the floor of her little room,—looked her situation
unflinchingly in the face,—and resolved, with God’s help, to gird
herself for the strife. Her unknown benefactor, whom her imagination had
so exalted, ah! how poor a thing, hollow and corrupt, he had proved!
Could she ever forgive the man who had dared claim her as his slave?
And yet might she not misjudge him? Might he not be plotting some
generous surprise? She recalled a single expression of his face, and
felt satisfied she did him no injustice. How hateful now seemed all
those accomplishments she had acquired! They were but the gilding of an
abhorred chain.
In the midst of her whirling thoughts, her mocking-bird, which had been
pecking at some crumbs in his cage, burst into such a wild _jubilate_ of
song, that Clara’s attention was withdrawn for a moment even from her
own great grief. Opening the door of the cage, she said: “Come, Dainty,
you too shall be free. The window is open. Go find a pleasant home among
the trees and on the plantations.”
The bird flew about her head, and alighted on her forefinger, as it had
been accustomed. Clara pressed the down of its neck to her cheek, and
then, taking the little songster to the window, threw it off her finger.
Dainty flew back into the room, and, alighting on Clara’s head, pecked
at her hair.
“Naughty Dainty! Good by, my pet! We must part. Freedom is best for both
you and me.” And, putting her head out of the window, Clara brushed
Dainty off into the airy void, and closed the glass against the bird’s
return.
She now summoned Esha, and said: “Esha, we’ve often wondered as to my
true place in the world. The mystery is solved to-day. Mrs. Gentry
informs me I’m a slave.”
“What! Wha-a-a-t! You? You, too, a slabe? My little darlin’ a slabe? O,
de good Lord in hebbn won’t ’low dat!”
“We’ve but a moment for talk, Esha. Help me to act. My owner (owner!)
may be here any minute.”
“Who am dat owner?”
“Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”
“No,—no,—no! Not dat man! Not him! De Lord help de dare chile if dat
born debble wunst git hole ob her!”
“What do you know of him?”
“He war de cruel massa ob dat slabe gal whom you hab de hair ob in yer
bosom.”
“I’m glad of it!” cried Clara, throwing her clenched hand in the air,
and looking up as if to have the heavens hear her.
“O, darlin’ chile, what am dar ole Esha kn do for her?”
Clara stopped short, and, pressing both hands on her forehead, stood as
if calling her best thoughts to a council of war, and then said, “Can
you get me a small valise, Esha?”
“Hab a carpet-bag I kn gib her. You jes wait one minute.” And Esha
returned with the desired article.
“Now help me pack it with the things I shall most need. Mrs. Gentry
expects me soon to go a-shopping with her. When she calls for me, I
shall be missing. I’ve not yet made up my mind where to go. I shall
think on that as I walk along. What’s the matter, Esha? What do you
stare at?”
“Look dar! What yer see dar, darlin’?”
“A pair of little sleeve-buttons. How pretty! Gold with a setting of
coral. And on the inside, in tiny letters, C. A. B.”
“Wall, dat’s de ’stonishin’est ting I’ze seen dis many a day. Ten—no,
’lebben—no, fourteen yars ago, as I war emptyin’ suds out ob de
wash-tub, I see dese little buttons shinin’ on de groun’. ’T was de
Monday arter you was browt here. Your little underclose had been in de
wash. So what does I do but put de buttons in my pocket, tinkin’ I’d gib
’em ter missis ter keep fur yer. But whan I look for ’em, dey was clean
gone,—couldn’t fine ’em nowhar. So I say noting t’ all ’bout it. Jes
now, as I tuk up fro’ my trunk a little muslin collar dat de dare saint
I tell yer ’bout used ter wear, what sh’d drop from de foles but dis
same little pair ob buttons dat I hab’nt seen fur all dese yars. Take
’em, darlin’, fur dey ’long ter you an’ ter nobody else.”
“Thank you, Esha. I’ll keep them with my other treasures”; and Clara
fastened them with a pin to the piece of bunting in her bosom. “And now,
good by. Pray for me, Esha.”
“Night and day, darlin’. But Esha mus gib suffn more ’n prayers. Take
dese twenty dollars in gold, darlin’. Yer’ll want ’em, sure. Don’t ’fuze
’em.”
“How long have you been saving up this money, Esha?”
“Bress de chile, only tree muntz. Dat’s nuffn. You jes take ’em. Dar!
Dat’s right. Tie ’em up safe in de corner ob yer hankerchy.”
“But, Esha, you may not be paid back till you get to heaven.” And Clara
put on her bonnet, and spoke rapidly to choke down a sob.
“So much de better. Dar! Put ’em safe in yer pocket. Dat’s a good
chile.”
Fearing a refusal would only grieve the old woman, Clara received and
put away the gold-pieces. Then, closing the spring of the carpet-bag,
she kissed Esha, and said, “If they inquire for me, balk them as well as
you can.”
“Leeb me alone fur dat, darlin’. An’ now yer mus’ go. De Lord an’ his
proppet bless yer! Allah keep yer! De mudder ob God watch ober yer!”
In these ejaculations Esha would hardly have been held as orthodox
either by a mufti or a D.D. But what if, in the balance of the
All-Seeing, the sincere heart should outweigh the speculative head? Poor
old Esha was Mahometan through reverence for her father; Catholic
through influences from the family with whom she lived when a child; and
Protestant through knowledge of many good men and women of that faith.
She cared not how many saints there were in her calendar. The more the
merrier. All goodness in man or woman, of whatever race or sect, was
deified in her simple and semi-barbarous conceptions. Poor, ignorant,
sinful, unregenerate creature!
“God bless you, Esha!” said Clara. “Look! There is poor Dainty perched
on the window-sill. Plainly he is no Abolitionist. He prefers slavery.
Take care of him.”
“Dat I will, if only for your sake, darlin’.”
And the old woman let the bird in and closed the window; and then—her
bronzed face wet with tears—she conducted Clara to a back door of the
house, from which the fugitive could issue, without being observed, into
an obscure carriage-way.