Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World 0367321270, 9780367321277

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Table
Introduction
Part I (Re)-Constructing the Memory and History of Slavery and of the Slave Trade
1 Senegambia and the Atlantic World: African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade Through the Archive
2 Postbellum Slave Narratives as Historical Sources: Memories of Bondage and Realities of Freedom in Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave
3 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and Native Enslavement in California in History and Memory
4 Subjective Interpretations of the Memory of Slavery: Solving and Expressing Internal Conflicts Through Genealogical Research
5 Tè Pa Konn Pèdi: What Rural Memory Has to Say About Haitian Freedom
Part II Re-Membering Memory: Inscribing the Memory and History of Slavery in Public Space
6 The Ghosts of Whose Past? Remembering and Remorse in the Body Politic
7 From White Guilt to White Responsibility: The Traces of Racial Oppression in United States’ Collective Memory
8 Remembering in Black and White: Memorializing Slavery in 21st-Century Louisiana
9 Lessons From Abingdon Plantation at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC
10 Reconstructing a Dismantled Past: The Case of Afro- Diasporic History in Ceará, Brazil
11 Enslaved by History: Slavery’s Enduring Influence on the Memory of Pierre Toussaint
12 Memorial Equality and Compensatory Public History in Charleston, South Carolina
Part III Artistic Memories of Slavery
13 The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape of Alexandria, Virginia
14 “The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead”: Time and Textuality in African American Visualizations of the Historical Past, 1990–2000
15 Breathing Statues, Stone Sermons, Pastoral Trails: Memorializing Truth
16 Re-Imagining Slavery in David Dabydeen’s A Harlot’s Progress
17 “A Modern Slave Song”: Reggae Music and the Memory of Slavery
List of Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World

Traces and Memories deals with the foundation, mechanisms, and scope of slavery-related memorial processes, interrogating how descendants of enslaved populations reconstruct the history of their ancestors when transatlantic slavery is one of the variables of the memorial process. While memory studies mark a shift from concern with historical knowledge of events to that of memory, the book seeks to bridge the memorial representations of historical events with the production and knowledge of those events. The book offers a methodological and epistemological reflection on the challenges that are raised by archival limitations in relation to slavery and how they can be overcome. It covers topics such as the historical and memorial legacy/ies of slavery, the memorialization of slavery, the canonization and patrimonialization of the memory of slavery, the places and conditions of the production of knowledge on slavery and its circulation, the heritage of slavery and the (re)construction of (collective) identity. By offering fresh perspectives on how slavery-related sites of memory have been retrospectively (re)framed or (re)shaped, the book probes the constraints which determine the inscription of this contentious memory in the public sphere. The volume will serve as a valuable resource in the area of slavery, memory, and Atlantic studies. Lawrence Aje is Associate Professor of United States History at the University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier. Nicolas Gachon is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier.

Routledge Studies in the History of the Americas

Memory of the Argentina Disappearances The Political History of Nunca Más Emilio Crenzel Projections of Power in the Americas Edited by Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, Helene Balslev Clausen, and Jan Gustafsson Mexico, 1848–1853 Los Años Olvidados Edited by Pedro Santoni and Will Fowler Tuberculosis in the Americas, 1870–1945 Beneath the Anguish in Philadelphia and Buenos Aires Vera Blinn Reber Negotiating Freedom in the Circum-Caribbean The Jamaican Maroons and Creek Nation Compared Helen M. McKee The Missile Crisis from a Cuban Perspective Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological Reflections Håkan Karlsson and Tomás Diez Acosta Science and Society in Latin America Peripheral Modernities Pablo Kreimer Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World Edited by Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Routledge-Studies-in-the-History-of-the-Americas/book-series/ RSHAM

Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World Edited by Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-32127-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-31680-7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of Figures List of Table Introduction

viii ix 1

LAWRENCE AJE AND NICOLAS GACHON

PART I

(Re)-Constructing the Memory and History of Slavery and of the Slave Trade

13

  1 Senegambia and the Atlantic World: African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade Through the Archive

15

HILARY JONES

  2 Postbellum Slave Narratives as Historical Sources: Memories of Bondage and Realities of Freedom in Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave

30

CLAIRE BOURHIS-MARIOTTI

  3 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and Native Enslavement in California in History and Memory

47

REBECCA ANNE GOETZ

  4 Subjective Interpretations of the Memory of Slavery: Solving and Expressing Internal Conflicts Through Genealogical Research

62

ARY GORDIEN

 5 Tè Pa Konn Pèdi: What Rural Memory Has to Say About Haitian Freedom WINTER RAE SCHNEIDER

84

vi Contents PART II

Re-Membering Memory: Inscribing the Memory and History of Slavery in Public Space   6 The Ghosts of Whose Past? Remembering and Remorse in the Body Politic

99 101

ASHRAF H. A. RUSHDY

  7 From White Guilt to White Responsibility: The Traces of Racial Oppression in United States’ Collective Memory

112

ANNE STEFANI

  8 Remembering in Black and White: Memorializing Slavery in 21st-Century Louisiana

128

NATHALIE DESSENS

  9 Lessons From Abingdon Plantation at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC

144

THOMAS A. FOSTER

10 Reconstructing a Dismantled Past: The Case of AfroDiasporic History in Ceará, Brazil

157

TSHOMBE MILES

11 Enslaved by History: Slavery’s Enduring Influence on the Memory of Pierre Toussaint

170

RONALD ANGELO JOHNSON

12 Memorial Equality and Compensatory Public History in Charleston, South Carolina

188

LAWRENCE AJE

PART III

Artistic Memories of Slavery

213

13 The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape of Alexandria, Virginia

215

RENÉE ATER

14 “The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead”: Time and Textuality in African American Visualizations of the Historical Past, 1990–2000 ISOBEL ELSTOB

233

Contents  vii 15 Breathing Statues, Stone Sermons, Pastoral Trails: Memorializing Truth

249

CLAUDINE RAYNAUD

16 Re-Imagining Slavery in David Dabydeen’s A Harlot’s Progress

267

NATHALIE MARTINIÈRE

17 “A Modern Slave Song”: Reggae Music and the Memory of Slavery

281

DAVID BOUSQUET

List of Contributors Index

295 300

Figures

2.1 Engraving of Isaac Mason. 33 2.2 Map of Isaac Mason’s travels (as a slave) and route to freedom.40 8.1 “The Children of Whitney,” Whitney Plantation Museum, Wallace, Louisiana. 134 8.2 Breaking Free, “Restore the Oaks” Project, New Orleans, Louisiana. 135 13.1 Erik Blome, Edmonson Sisters Memorial, 2010, Alexandria, Virginia. 219 13.2 Mario Chiodo, Path of Thorns and Roses, 2013, Alexandria, Virginia. 225 14.1 Glenn Ligon, Runaways, 1993, Suite of 10 lithographs. 238 14.2 Detail: Glenn Ligon, Runaways, 1993, Suite of 10 lithographs.242 15.1 “Marie revenant de la fontaine.” Charles Cumberworth. 253 15.2 Statue of Sojourner Truth, Port Ewen, Esopus, New York. 255 16.1 Hogarth, William. A Harlot’s Progress: Plate 2. 269

Table

2.1 List of the places Isaac Mason lived in or visited as a slave, a fugitive, and a free man.

36

Introduction Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon

Set in the context of the growing incorporation of the memory and history of slavery in the public sphere—and the violent resistance it has sometimes led to, as exemplified by the 2017 confrontations in Charlottesville, Virginia, around the removal of a Confederate symbol—Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World aims at enriching the growing field of memory studies on slavery by presenting the latest academic research on the topic produced by some of the leading scholars in the field as well as by junior academics.1 Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World’s primary goal is to deal with the foundation, the mechanisms, and the scope of slaveryrelated memorial processes. It interrogates the extent to which, by a process of collectivization of personal or family memories and (hi)stories, social actors of the present not only partake in generating and consolidating group identities but also how they foster the emergence of the memory of slavery in public space. In the process, the book critically examines the modalities whereby the memory of the slave past is incorporated into personal, group, local, historical, and national narratives. In addition to assessing the cultural and symbolic redistribution that are enabled by the memorialization of slavery, the book probes the constraints that determine the inscription of this memory in the public sphere and the extent to which social demand, especially in the context of the duty of remembrance, influences the production of historical knowledge and sometimes leads to conflicts of memory. While still an emergent research field with a distinctive shift from concern with the historical knowledge of events to that of memory, memory studies have become established as an academic field per se. In recent decades, a growing body of research has focused on the memory and representation of genocide and trauma, with works considering the history, implications, and psychological impact(s) of the Holocaust. Recent theoretical works on memory such as Michael Rothberg’s Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (2009), Max Silverman’s Palimpsestic Memory: The Holocaust and

2  Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon Colonialism in French and Francophone Fiction and Film (2013) along with Marianne Hirsh’s research now stand as references. Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World aims at bridging memory studies with perspectives on the formation of an Afrodescendant identity, such as Ron Eyerman’s Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity (2001). Significant research has recently been conducted, notably by Ana Lucia Araujo, who has published extensively on the emergence of slavery-related memory in public space in such prominent works as Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space (2012), Shadows of the Slave Past: Memory, Heritage, and Slavery (2014), and African Heritage and Memories of Slavery in Brazil and the South Atlantic World (2015). During the last two decades, there has been an increase of interest on the modalities whereby slavery and the slave trade are remembered or represented in contemporary culture, whether it is in literature, films, drama, art, photography, or performance.2 Many studies have laid great emphasis on the study of literary or visual discourse, as well as on philosophy or on the history of ideas.3 In an attempt to unearth historical facts that had been ignored or neglected, for example in relation to slavery in Great Britain, some projects have sometimes sought to dissociate the notions of history and memory.4 Some theoretical or edited monographs, which are not entirely dedicated to the slave trade or to slavery but that expand their perspective to African American history, have also examined the relation between memory, academic history, and public history in relation to Afro-descendant cultures.5 While building on previous scholarship, the specificity and originality of Traces and Memories of Slavery precisely lies in the study of the interaction between the memorial and material traces of slavery and of the slave trade. The unifying theme of the book is to confront the historical and memorial traces of slavery by seeking to understand the dialogic interaction between memory and history, rather than frame the relation as an antagonistic binary. Although interdisciplinary in nature, Traces and Memories of Slavery brings together a majority of historians as well as African-Americanists, anthropologists or ethnographers who, through fieldwork or discursive analysis, aim at empirically confronting the memory of slavery and the slave trade as it is translated in personal memory, public history, academic history, material and popular culture and how it has survived in archival records. Indeed, while memory studies mark a shift from concern with historical knowledge of events to that of memory, this book seeks to bridge the memorial representations of historical events with the historical knowledge of those events. Therein lies one strength and distinctive contribution: confronting memory with historical traces, including archival and genealogical traces, to gain better understanding of memorial processes. The book places particular attention on the palimpsestic

Introduction  3 dimension of the memorial process, as memories of facts dating back to several generations can only be transmitted and reconstructed and are inevitably fragmentary in nature. Contrary to studies that are solely contemporary in focus, Traces and Memories of Slavery endeavors to also analyze how slavery was remembered and memorialized by witnesses and past contemporaries. Previous studies have tended to be synchronic in their approach.6 Traces and Memories focuses on the longue durée and alternates between a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. In so doing, the book examines, from a longitudinal approach, the historical stages and modalities that contributed to the emergence or suppression of a personal and public memory of slavery and of the slave trade. In the same vein, whereas certain works have used the lens of a specific historical event to examine contemporary manifestations of the memory of slavery such as the Civil War, slave revolts, bicentenary celebrations, and official commemorations, while others have adopted a more personal take on the matter—sometimes by using the genre of travelogues or studies that only contain passages that address the question of the memory of slavery, Traces and Memories specifically proposes to analyze the complex interaction between the historical and memorial manifestation of slavery from multiple vantage points and pluridisciplinary perspectives.7 Traces and Memories of Slavery complements previous research accomplished by other scholars. However, it presents original research that covers aspects of memory of slavery studies that have not been examined yet. For instance, whereas Nathalie Joy (in Hamilton et al.) examines the representation of Indian slavery from the perspective of nineteenth-century abolitionists, Rebecca Goetz provides a comprehensive analysis as to why Native American slavery has not received the same amount of public exposure as Black slavery. On another topic, it is true that there has been a flurry of publications on the way the history of the transatlantic slave trade and of slavery has been materialized and represented in museums or valorized by way of historical sites or monuments.8 However, while Dessens’s chapter deals with the question of museography, her contribution offers a welcome enrichment and update to Eichstedt and Small’s early 2000 study about plantation museums. Indeed, her chapter examines the extent to which the public discourse on slavery has evolved in New Orleans with the opening of Whitney Plantation Museum in 2014—the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a specific focus on slavery— and in the aftermath of the hurricane Katrina. Still on the issue of the treatment of slavery in museums, Traces and Memories of Slavery does not aim at studying pedagogical questions relative to the representation of difficult histories or at adding to the recent wave of publications that serve as guides to interpret the sensitive issue of slavery in museums and historic sites.9 These “how to” manuals aim at providing practitioners in public history or students in museum studies with the necessary tools

4  Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon to help them learn best practices for interpreting slavery for the public. Traces and Memories of Slavery adopts a different perspective and seeks to analyze, from a historical vantage point, the process whereby the past and contemporary discourse on slavery and the slave trade is created. In addition to focusing on the representational, discursive, and material culture which emerge in the memorialization process, this book aims at historicizing the process by revealing the different stages in the formation of this personal or public memory/history by revealing its palimpsestic and sedimentary nature. In terms of geographic concern, research has been undertaken on the memorialization and commemoration processes in various post-slave societies.10 Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World has a broad geographical outlook (Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and the Caribbean) with a slight emphasis on former British slaveholding colonies. What distinguishes this volume from previous publications is that, to the best of our knowledge, the majority of the locales presented in the volume have not received scholarly attention yet. When they have, the chapters in this book present a reappraisal of previous research or inscribe the analysis in the perspective of the confrontation of memory and history. For example, whereas Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, or São Paulo have been studied, the state of Ceará in Brazil has hitherto not received scholarly attention on the question of the slave past and its remembrance. The contributions in this volume which cover geographic areas that have been the object of past research, offer new insights and an enrichment of the subject matter. Recently, scholars have tried to broaden the field by looking at the memory and legacy of slavery among African Muslims or have expanded their perspective by including memories of other forms of bound labor, such as indentured servitude or forced labor.11 However, in order to give more cohesiveness to the volume and to enable a comparative approach across regions, Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World only deals with transatlantic slavery by focusing specifically on the articulation between the way it is remembered through personal or group memory, inscribed in the archive (or absent thereof) and translated into the public sphere through academic and public history. Although the book seeks to identify common patterns and similarities in the memorialization process across the Atlantic World, it primarily endeavors to highlight their specificities by historicizing the process and factors that brought about their existence at a local level. Put together, these self-contained stand-alone chapters form a cohesive whole that clearly reveals the entanglement between history, memory, popular interpretation, and political power (Trouillot). Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World examines the internal and external factors that shape memory and history. It shows how the memory and history of slavery continue to influence national politics by emphasizing how the

Introduction  5 legacy of slavery is constantly redefined through the passage of time, by specific contexts that generate situated narratives of the memory of slavery. The book also seeks to identify the political motivations behind the memorialization of slavery and how competing personal, group, private, public, national, and international interests sometimes converge or collide. In so doing, Traces and Memories of Slavery reveals the modalities whereby the history and memory of slavery was/is silenced, suppressed, or has emerged or resurfaced in the public space. The book eventually offers a reflection on the extent to which public remembrance entails forgetting or downplaying troubling aspects of a national past that is deemed shameful. By analyzing what aspects of the history of slavery is valorized in the memorialization process, be it personal or collective and public, this book examines how forms of remembrance are racialized and how the racial lens through which the slave past is examined, remembered, recorded, and interpreted can have distorting influences on the subject matter. For example, several chapters in the volume show how increasing claims for a greater public representation of the memory and history of slavery, added to a surge in heritage tourism and the globalization of knowledge, has resulted in new historiographical and museum practices. Given that popular accounts sometimes compete with historical and official accounts, the volume also offers a reflection on the legitimacy and legitimization of historical discourse when it aims at serving public need. Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World sets how to historicize in different locales the evolution of the dominant discourse about slavery and its legacy and how the latter has framed the public memorial discourse and has been accepted or challenged. More importantly, the volume seeks to determine if the public memorialization of slavery is circumscribed to a range of permissible—authorized and expected— discourse about slavery and race that is subject to evolution. It evaluates if the resurgence of the memory of slavery provides an effective alternative counter-narrative to the dominant (master) narrative and whether this discourse is bound to be gradually incorporated into the national narrative of the countries under study or to remain on the margins, due to its dissonant nature. Although the issue of reparations is not the central theme of the volume, Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World looks at how peoples of African descent have organized politically and lobbied to create and promote alternative narratives as a response to national governments’ refusal to acknowledge this difficult history. By studying how the slave past is reconstructed in the present by people of African descent, public officials, and national government, Traces and Memories analyzes the political stakes that arise from the public memorialization of slavery and the claims to further reparations that these initiatives may lead to. Several contributions in this volume reveal that by retracing their African

6  Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon lineage and enslaved heritage, individuals engage in a process of “selfreparation.” Others show that while efforts to symbolically redress past wrongs by public memorialization are underpinned by a reconciliationist ideology, they sometimes, paradoxically—by offering a multilayered history with a plurality of equally acceptable perspectives—ultimately fail to appease socioracial tensions. Indeed, several contributions describe how symbolic reparation or compensation through public memorialization, which allots greater public space to the slave past, are means for political bodies to exonerate themselves of a past systemic injustice by acknowledging its existence, but falls short of addressing deep present-day structural racial inequalities that stem from slavery. In so doing, one aim of the book is not only to analyze the performative and socially transformative power of political and cultural initiatives but also to question the discourse of slavery that the latter produce—a discourse that is oftentimes ahistorical, universal, and sometimes abstract. In the process, Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World interrogates the limits of commemoration and the reconciliatory, celebratory, and positive discourse that the public memorialization of slavery sometimes fosters and ultimately seeks to assess the extent to which these initiatives satisfactorily succeed in making the voice of the subordinated heard. Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World is organized into three main sections. Part I, “(Re)-constructing the Memory and History of Slavery and of the Slave Trade” aims at examining how the memory of slavery is reconstructed thanks to historical traces, namely the archives. Part I analyzes the articulation between witnessing and experiencing slavery and inheriting it as a legacy. By confronting the physical remains of the slave past to its memory and history, this section offers a methodological and epistemological reflection on the challenges that are raised by archival limitations in relation to slavery and how they can eventually be overcome. Part  I shows how archival records provide an opportunity to reframe contemporary discourses that memorialize slavery and the slave trade, as well as play a role in the subjective interiorization of the memory of slavery by descendants of the enslaved, which partakes in personal and group identity formation. It eventually also assesses if the archival objectification of the enslaved in fragmentary archival records may find a present-day resonance in the precarious experience of their descendants in post-slave societies. Part II, “Re-Membering Memory: Inscribing the Memory and History of Slavery in Public Space,” examines how the United States and Brazil have engaged in different ways of acknowledging the slave past. It specifically addresses the motives and modalities of public apology and public history by political bodies and national or regional entities. Part II analyzes and historicizes how the slave past has fostered a culture of guilt and repentance. While simultaneously offering insight as to the limits of public apologetic endeavors, this section documents the recent shift, in

Introduction  7 the United States, from a culture of guilt to one of blame attribution in the form of White responsibility and White privilege. This section also seeks to understand why, despite the presumed post-racial turn that the United States is said to have undergone with Barack Obama’s 2008 election, and the racial democracy that Brazil has been described as, the contentious, sensitive memory of slavery is still interpreted and articulated along deeply polarized racial lines in both countries. In so doing, Part II probes into the multiple factors that account for the lingering silencing of the slave past in Brazil and in the United States by pointing to the limitations of the memorial discourse that is permissible. Part II addresses the way the material traces of slavery have been politically instrumentalized or ignored to present a simplistic, incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate vision of the slave past. Ultimately, Part II reveals how memories of slavery are socially constructed. Finally, by probing into the artistic modalities of the representation of slavery, Part III, Artistic Memories of Slavery, examines the role of art in the construction of a memorial trace of slavery. Through sculpture, paintings, artistic installations, literature, and music, this section studies how a contentious and difficult historical heritage is culturally translated or challenged through art. Part III analyzes the nature of the discourse on slavery that emerges from the artistic utilization and appropriation of memorial, archival, historical, and popular culture sources. In so doing, the chapters seek to assess the extent to which artistic evocations of slavery can supplement academic historical knowledge on the subject matter by reaching to a larger audience or partake in producing a new and sometimes conflicting memorial discourse. Part III offers a discussion on the aspects of slavery contemporary artworks choose to thematize and the particular and complex temporal relation between the past and the present these material traces demonstrate.

Notes 1. This edited volume is a selection of revised papers that were presented at the “Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World” international conference in Montpellier in December 2016. The editors would like to thank the University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, and more particularly the research laboratory EMMA for its financial and logistical support, which ensured that the event would be a success. 2. Allen and Williams; Bada; Bordin and Scacchi; Russ; Woolfork; Wood. 3. Braxton and Diedrich; Bordin and Scacchi; Halloran; Reinhardt; KowaleskiWallace; Wood. 4. Donington, Hanley, and Moody. 5. Araujo; Fabre and O’Meally; Foner; Horton and Horton. 6. Blight; Shackel; Smith. 7. On contemporary manifestations of the memory of slavery such as the Civil War, slave revolts, bicentenary celebrations, and official commemorations, see Blight; Shackel; Osagie and Smith. On studies that adopt a more personal

8  Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon take on the matter, see Hartman; Dewolf; Miles; Robert Hinton, in Braxton and Diedrich. On monographs that only contain passages that address the question of the memory of slavery, see Boritt and Hancock; Balgooy. 8. See for instance, Araujo; Braxton and Diedrich; Shackel; Smith. 9. Nikki Spalding in Hamilton, Hodgson, and Quirk; Gallas and Perry; Balgooy. 10. Without being comprehensive, on the United States, see Blight; Berlin; Horton and Horton; Minardi. On Puerto Rico, see Flores Collazo and Garcia Muniz in Araujo 2009. On Great Britain, see the studies undertaken by Smith; Donington, Hanley, and Moody; Devine; Kowaleski-Wallace. On the Caribbean, and more specifically Guadeloupe and Martinique, see Reinhardt or Chivallon; on Bermuda, see Swan in Araujo (2012); on Jamaica, see Nelson in Araujo (2009); on Haiti, see Hodgson. For studies on South America, and particularly Brazil (in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia or Sao Paulo), see Araujo (2012, 2015) and Braxton and Diedrich. On Suriname and Curaçao, see Smeulders in Araujo (2009). A  growing body of literature has focused on the emergence of the memory of slavery in the commemorative process, public space and political discourse in Africa; see, for example, Essien on Ghana; Araujo (2010, 2009) and Ciarcia on Benin; Brivio in Araujo (2009) on Togo; Bellagamba in Araujo (2012) on Gambia; Lovejoy and Oliveira (2016); Schenck and Candido in Araujo (2015) on Angola; Braxton and Diedrich on Senegal; Allen; Claveyrolas in Araujo (2012) on Mauritius. 11. On the memorial legacy of slavery among African Muslims, see Braxton and Diedrich. On memories of other forms of bound labor, see Frith and Hodgson.

Bibliography Allen, Marlene D., and Seretha D. Williams. Afterimages of Slavery: Essays on Appearances in Recent American Films, Literature, Television and Other Media. Jefferson: McFarland, 2012. Allen, Richard Blair. Slaves, Freedmen, and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Araujo, Ana Lucia, ed. African Heritage and Memories of Slavery in Brazil and the South Atlantic World. Cambria Studies in Slavery Series. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2015. ———. Living History: Encountering the Memory of the Heirs of Slavery. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Pub., 2009. ———. Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities, and Images. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2011. ———, ed. Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space. New York: Routledge, 2012. ———. Public Memory of Slavery: Victims and Perpetrators in the South Atlantic. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2010. ———. Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. ———. Shadows of the Slave Past: Memory, Heritage, and Slavery. New York: Routledge, 2014. ———. “Welcome the Diaspora: Slave Trade Heritage Tourism and the Public Memory of Slavery.” Ethnologies 32, no. 2 (2010): 145–78. Araujo, Ana Lucia, Mariana P. Candido, and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds. Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2011.

Introduction  9 Arnold-de Simine, Silke. Mediating Memory in the Museum: Trauma, Empathy, Nostalgia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Bada, Valérie. Mnemopoetics: Memory and Slavery in African American Drama Dramaturgies. Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2008. Balgooy, Max van. Interpreting African American History and Culture at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Barthélemy, Gérard. “Réflexions sur des mémoires inconciliables: celle du maître et celle de l’esclave. Le cas d’Haïti.” Cahiers d’études africaines 44, no. 173–74 (2004): 127–39. Bellagamba, Alice. “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives: British Officials, Slave-Owners, and Slaves in the Protectorate of the Gambia (1890– 1936).” Canadian Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines 39, no. 1 (2005): 5–41. Berlin, Ira. “American Slavery in History and Memory and the Search for Social Justice.” The Journal of American History 90, no. 4 (2004): 1251–268. Berlin, Ira, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller. Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. Bernier, Celeste-Marie, and Hannah Durkin, eds. Visualising Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016. Blight, David W. Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory  & the American Civil War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Bonniol, Jean-Luc. “Comment transmettre le souvenir de l’esclavage? Excès de mémoire, exigence d’histoire. . . .” Cités no. 25 (2006): 181–85. Bordin, Elisa, and Anna Scacchi. Transatlantic Memories of Slavery: Remembering the Past, Changing the Future. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2015. Boritt, Gabor S., and Scott Hancock, eds. Slavery, Resistance, Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Braxton, Joanne M., and Maria Diedrich. Monuments of the Black Atlantic: Slavery and Memory. New Brunswick: Lit Verlag (distributed in North America by Transaction Publishers), 2004. Brooms, Derrick R. “Lest We Forget: Exhibiting (and Remembering) Slavery in African-American Museums.” Journal of African American Studies 15, no. 4 (2012): 508–23. Chase-Riboud, Barbara. “Slavery as a Problem in Public History: Or Sally Hemings and the ‘One Drop Rule’ of Public History.” Callaloo 32, no. 3 (2009): 826–31. Chivallon, Christine. “L’émergence récente de la mémoire de l’esclavage dans l’espace public: enjeux et significations.” Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine 52, no. 4 bis (2005): 64–81. ———. L’esclavage, du souvenir à la mémoire. Contribution à une anthropologie de la Caraïbe. Paris: Karthala, 2012. ———. “Mémoires de l’esclavage à la Martinique: l’explosion mémorielle et la révélation de mémoires anonymes.” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 50, no. 197 (2010): 235–61. Ciarcia, Gaetano. Le Revers de l’oubli. Mémoires et commémorations de l’esclavage au Bénin. Coll. Esclavages. Paris: Karthala, Ciresc, 2016. ———. “Restaurer Le futur. Sur la “Route de L’esclave à Ouidah (Bénin).” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 48, no. 192 (2008): 687–705.

10  Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon Devine, Thomas M., ed. Recovering Scotland’s Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Dewolf, Thomas Norman. Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. Boston: Beacon Press, 2008. Donington, Katie, Ryan Hanley, and Jessica Moody. Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. Dresser, Madge, and Andrew Hann, eds. Slavery and the British Country House. London: English Heritage, 2013. Eichstedt, Jennifer L., and Stephen Small. Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. Essien, Kwame. Brazilian-African Diaspora in Ghana: The Tabom, Slavery, Dissonance of Memory, Identity, and Locating Home. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2016. Eyerman, Ron. Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Fabre, Genevieve, and Robert G. O’Meally, eds. History and Memory in AfricanAmerican Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Fleischner, Jennifer. Mastering Slavery: Memory, Family, and Identity in Women’s Slave Narratives. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Foner, Eric. Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003. Forsdick, Charles. “Cette île n’est pas une île: Locating Gorée.” In At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the Francophone World, edited by Nicola Frith and Kate Hodgson, 131–53. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Frith, Nicola, and Kate Hodgson, eds. At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the Francophone World. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Fuentes, Marisa, and Deborah Gray White, eds. Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016. Gallas, Kris, and James DeWolf Perry. Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Giraud, Michel. “Les enjeux présents de la mémoire de l’esclavage.” In L’esclavage, la colonisation, et après, edited by Patrick Weil and Stéphane Dufoix, 533–58. Paris: PUF, 2005. Halbwachs, Maurice. La mémoire collective. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950. Halloran, Nun. Exhibiting Slavery: The Caribbean Postmodern Novel as Museum. Charlottesville: Virginia University Press, 2008. Hamilton, Douglas J., Kate Hodgson, and Joel Quirk. Slavery, Memory and Identity: National Representations and Global Legacies. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012. Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A  Journey Along the Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames, Photography Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. ———. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.

Introduction  11 Holsey, Bayo. Routes of Remembrance: Refashioning the Slave Trade in Ghana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory. New York: New Press (distributed by Norton), 2006. Howard, Schuman, and Corning Amy. “The Roots of Collective Memory: Public Knowledge of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.” Memory Studies 4, no. 2 (2011): 134–53. Joy, Natalie. “From Slave Quarters to Wigwams: Native American Slaveholding and the Debate Over Civilization.” In Slavery, Memory and Identity: National Representations and Global Legacies, edited by Douglas Hamilton, Kate Hodgson, and Joel Quirk, 29–44. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012. Kaplan, Cora, and J. R. Oldfield. Imagining Transatlantic Slavery. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Kowaleski-Wallace, Elizabeth. The British Slave Trade and Public Memory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Lovejoy, Paul E., and Vanessa S. Oliveira, eds. Slavery, Memory, Citizenship. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2016. Miles, Tiya. Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Minardi, Margot. Making Slavery History: Abolitionism and the Politics of Memory in Massachusetts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Reardon, Carol. Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory Civil War America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Reinhardt, Catherine A. Claims to Memory: Beyond Slavery and Emancipation in the French Caribbean. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Rice, Alan. Creating Memorials, Building Identities: The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012. Rioeur, Paul. La Mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli. Paris: Seuil, 2000. Rose, Julia. Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites (Interpreting History). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Russ, Elizabeth Christine. The Plantation in the Postslavery Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Shaw, Rosalind. Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Silverman, Max. Palimpsestic Memory: The Holocaust and Colonialism in French and Francophone Fiction and Film. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. Smith, Laurajane. Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums: Ambiguous Engagements. New York: Routledge, 2011. Thelen, David. “Memory and American History.” The Journal of American History 75, no. 4 (1989): 1117–29. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Vergès, Françoise. La mémoire enchaînée: questions sur l’esclavage. Paris: Albin Michel, 2006. Wilder, Craig Steven. Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013.

12  Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon Wood, Marcus. Blind Memory: Visual Representation of Slavery in England and America 1780–1865. New York: Routledge, 2000. Woolfork, Lisa. Embodying American Slavery in Contemporary Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Yuhl, Stephanie E. A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Part I

(Re)-Constructing the Memory and History of Slavery and of the Slave Trade

1 Senegambia and the Atlantic World African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade Through the Archive Hilary Jones

When he lifted his wet face again he murmured, ‘Thankee Jesus! Somebody come ast about Cudjo! I want tellee somebody who I is, so maybe dey go in de Afficky soil some day and callee my name and somebody dere say, Yeah, I  know Kossula. I  want you everywhere you go to tell everybody whut Cudjo say, and how come I  in Americky soil since de 1859 and never see my people no mo.’1

In the introduction to her posthumously published field notes, anthropologist Zora Neal Hurston reminds us that while the Atlantic slave trade was “the most dramatic chapter in the story of human existence,” the books and papers written about this episode in modern history are based on the written record of slavers, masters, or sellers but never from the voice of the enslaved. “All these words from the seller, but not one word from the sold,” Hurston wrote.2 Over three months from December 1927 to February 1928, Hurston met with Kossola “Cudjo” Lewis, the last surviving individual of the slave ship Clotilda that sailed surreptitiously into Mobile Bay (Alabama) as the last known slave ship to enter North America.3 In her meticulous recordings of their conversation, Hurston sought to correct the record by rendering Lewis’s firsthand account in a vernacular that approximated his own voice. In doing so, Hurston offered a window into an African perspective on capture, the middle passage, enslavement, and memories of a distant homeland. For Lewis, this meant his recollection of the mid-nineteenth-century Dahomey Kingdom. Outside of Hurston’s interview with Kossola, few eyewitness accounts by Africans that recount the experience of capture and enslavement exist. The most well known come from eighteenth-century narratives that either reflect the genres of the captivity narrative or the conversion narrative or that emerged as part of the anti-slavery movement of the late eighteenth century.4 Other life histories of the enslaved were recorded by an interpreter or were crafted by a third person from courtroom documents or press interviews.5 While these narratives center on the life history of a slave or former slave, they are told through the lens of an

16  Hilary Jones outside observer. However, in her analysis of written and oral accounts by slaves from late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Ghana, Sandra Greene makes the case that even though these narratives may be recorded and structured by an amanuensis for their own purposes, it is also possible that the slave or ex-slave presented their account in such a way as to use the interpreter to achieve his or her own goals.6 In other words, the narrative or memoir of the enslaved was the product of a twoway interaction between subject and interviewer and thus cannot simply be dismissed as inherently biased because slavers, colonial officials, missionaries, or colonial courts recorded evidence about individual slaves for their own purposes. This chapter argues for a reexamination of the Senegambian experience of slavery in the French Atlantic. Yet to do this we must confront the problem that slave narratives generally appeared in Anglophone North America, England, or the British Caribbean rather than in the French Atlantic or Indian Ocean colonies. The equivalent of the Englishlanguage slave narrative does not exist in French literature before France declared an end to slavery in 1848.7 While French writers fictionalized accounts of race and slavery, no firsthand accounts of enslaved Africans were recorded in the eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century Francophone world. As a result, scholars who seek to understand the African experience of the middle passage and enslavement in the French Atlantic must look to archival sources. Recent research on slavery and freedom in the French Atlantic and Indian Ocean colonies have mined notarial records for information on births, wills, marriage, and property transfers to piece together the lived experiences of slaves and free people of color.8 In cases such as the Tinchant family of Louisiana, this information has produced new biographies of free families of color that go back many generations, even beginning with an African ancestor. Unpublished documents such as family genealogies, family papers, or letters contained in mission or parish archives provide an alternative lens from the official record of information collected by or pertaining to the state. While African voices may be absent from the historical record of slavery in the French Atlantic, reading official records of the colonial administration, police, or judiciary “against the grain” allows the researcher to bring the African perspective to the forefront of interpretations about slavery and freedom in the Atlantic.9 To bring a critical perspective to administrative records about Senegambia and the slave trade, it is necessary to identify inherent biases in the administrative record and to compare them with other narrative accounts that may offer useful perspectives on African understandings of the societies in which they lived and the ways that the negotiated slavery. For instance, the police files of the Naval Ministry contain documents on the expulsion of slaves from Martinique to Senegal that provide tables of names, age, gender, where they came from in the Antilles, and their “occupation” in Senegal.10

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  17 While official sources present limitations for revealing the African experience, analyzing these sources with an understanding of the local environment shows the options (or lack thereof) available to the enslaved. Considering these documents along with other records that offer insight into the strategies that Senegambians employed to negotiate slavery and freedom in North America and the Caribbean provides a valuable lens into how Senegambians moved through the Atlantic World. This chapter considers the role of Senegambia in the transatlantic slave trade and then examines research on the biographies of individual Senegambians who experienced the slave trade. Finally, it weights quantitative data and slave narratives of Senegambians with documentary evidence from the French and Senegal archives that assist in constructing the life history of enslaved Senegambians in the Atlantic World.

1. Senegambia and the Making of the Atlantic World Historian Boubacar Barry defines Greater Senegambia as the vast territory that extends from the great river basins of the Senegal to the Gambia and the southern rivers that extend to the border with Sierra Leone.11 For Barry, Greater Senegambia comprises a region bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the Saharan desert, the savanna grasslands, and the equatorial rainforest of the modern-day nations of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea (Conakry), and Guinea-Bissau, as well as parts of Mauritania and Mali to the frontier with Sierra Leone. Captives who left Africa from Senegambia may have come from regions as far away as the Upper Niger River. The quantitative side of slavery studies has sought to determine an approximate volume of slave exports from “Greater Senegambia” to the Americas.12 A precise accounting, however, remains elusive due to the uneven nature of sources and inadequate data. Available data show that Senegambia factored into African exports to the Americas in the first two centuries of the slave trade when the Portuguese held a monopoly on the slave trade from the region. By the late sixteenth century, the French and English entered into the trade with outposts on the Senegal and Gambia rivers. Exports from Senegambia increased in the seventeenth and the early eighteenth century with the heaviest volume between 1720 and 1740, which corresponded with the period of Islamic revolutions that generated civil war in Senegambia. In the eighteenth century, 337,000 enslaved Africans left the ports of Senegambia in the Atlantic slave trade. In the nineteenth century, the slave trade shifted markedly to the east and yet Senegambia accounted for 200,000 Africans sold into slavery for labor in the Americas during the illegal phase of the slave trade.13 For the French trade, the majority of slave voyages departed from Whydah in the Bight of Benin, followed by ports in West Central Africa.14 Senegambia only accounted for a very small portion of slave cargo bought

18  Hilary Jones and transported to the French Caribbean by French slavers. French slaving voyages, moreover, supplied the vast majority of slaves for plantation labor in the French islands in the Caribbean.15 Consequently, the dominant African cultural imprint in St. Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Guiana came from the Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa rather than Senegambia. African Diaspora research seeks to locate African cultural survivals and ethnic identities in the Americas, but this approach tends to generalize cultural traits or recognizes categories that correspond with known identities on the receiving side but that are imprecise for identifying the origin of the enslaved.16 Despite these limitations, research on the ethnicity of the enslaved shows that slavers used specific indentifiers such as Wolof (Jalof), Fulbe, Nar (Moor), Mandingo (Mandega), and Sape (Bullom or Temne) to describe slave exports and that slave owners recognized that the enslaved regrouped into these “national” categories in American slave societies. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall argues that the role of Senegambia has been underestimated in the literature on the African origins of slaves in the Americas. Between 1751 and 1775, when Britain occupied the former French posts on the Senegal and the Gambia, close to half of the British slave trade voyages from Senegambia went to North America and five of six transported the enslaved to British West Florida ports.17 According to Hall, even though slave owners in North and South America became fearful of rebellious Senegambians by the mid-eighteenth century, they still sought slaves from the region because of their expertise in the cultivation of rice and indigo. This trend continued in North America in the age of piracy and smuggling of slaves into North America after the United States prohibited the importation of slaves in 1807. Louisiana parish records between 1723 and 1820 reveal that Senegambians constituted 30.3% of the slave population. By comparing data compiled in the Louisiana Slave Trade Database with her analysis of data of slave voyages from the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, Hall found that Senegambians constituted 64.3% of French Atlantic slave trade voyages and 59.7% of all voyages from Africa to Louisiana and northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico between 1770 and 1803.18 While the overall numbers of Senegambians may be a fraction of those from other sending regions, such as the Bight of Benin or West Central Africa, it is clear that Portuguese slavers relied on exports from Senegambia in the early phase of the transatlantic slave trade. Additionally, French and English mercantile companies that operated depots on the Senegal and Gambia rivers profited from conflict in the region in order to acquire slaves in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Finally, Senegambia continued to supply some slaves in the nineteenth-century era of the illegal slave trade even as the focus of the trade moved east away towards the Bight of Biafra and central Africa. One additional

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  19 factor offers a compelling rationale for investigating the links between Senegambia and the Atlantic World. Saint Louis and Gorée both served as key administrative nodes for France and Britain in their contest over control of coastal trade between the Senegal and Gambia rivers. As a result, names and details about the lives of African men and women, whether slaves or slave owners, occasionally appear in official sources.

2. Biographies of Senegambians in the Atlantic World As useful as data on slave trade voyages are for unpacking the volume of the transatlantic slave trade, assessing gender and age ratios, and determining ethnicity, these sources do not answer the vexing question: how did the enslaved experience captivity and navigate the world around them? Recovering the names and narratives of individuals fills the gap of historical records that tend to favor the slave owner, ship captain, or metropolitan merchant. Lisa Lindsay and John Wood Sweet write that biography serves as a critical methodology for interpreting the history of the Black Atlantic precisely because it personalizes abstract processes such as the political economy of empire, identity formation, migration, slaving, and emancipation.19 Black Atlantic biographies show the fragility and instability of daily life for the enslaved and for free people of color. They also illustrate how people of African descent had to establish and reestablish their own networks of family and community in unfamiliar lands. Reading official records against known biographies of African people in the Atlantic World offers insight into their strategies for navigating the systems of law and bureaucracy with which they interacted. Gaining insight into individual lives, even if biographical information is partial and incomplete, offers perspective on the adjustments people of African descent had to make in uncertain and often violent circumstances.20 Piecing together these narratives also prevents the tendency to reduce enslavement, particularly for people of color, to one singular experience. Biographies of Senegambians in the Atlantic World appear in legal records and court testimony, in newspaper articles and in notarized documents. County archives and private archival collections such as parish records or missionary accounts also contain useful information for reconstructing biographies of the enslaved. Born in the kingdom of Bondu on the Faleme River not far from the French position at Gadiaga, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo was captured and sold during a trade mission to the Gambia in 1731.21 Diallo (also known as Job ben Solomon) narrated his story to Thomas Bluett, who found him in Maryland where Diallo labored on a tobacco farm. Having learned that Diallo came from an upper-class Muslim clerical family, Bluett published the story of the “noble savage” wrongly enslaved and worked to secure his emancipation. Diallo traveled to England, had an audience at the royal court of King George II, and then became an agent of the Royal Africa Company

20  Hilary Jones that secured his passage back to the Gambia. Philip Curtin’s analysis of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo’s memoir as recounted to Bluett sheds light on the eighteenth-century West African environment that shaped Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and illustrates the importance of Islam for Diallo and presumably for other Senegambians affected by this period of civil war and Islamic state-building. As one of the first to write a Black Atlantic biography, historian Terry Alford reconstructed the life of Abdul Rahman Ibrahmia Ibn Sori (otherwise known as “Prince”), who was born in Futa Jalon to a noble family of Muslim clerics.22 In 1788, Rahman was captured during a military campaign against a rival state and sold to British slaves. After being enslaved for 40 years to Thomas Foster of Natchez, Mississippi, Dr. John Cox happened upon Abdul Rahman whom he remembered from his time as a ship’s captain aboard a slaver. Cox initiated a nationwide campaign to liberate Abdul Rahman that reached as far as the secretary of state and president of the United States. Alford put together the life story of “Prince” by consulting newspaper articles of Rahman’s speaking tour, county records, court cases, and correspondence between US government officials who secured his emancipation and eventual return to Liberia through the American Colonization Society. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Abdul Rahman’s biographies illustrate the lives of Muslim men from the Greater Senegambia who claimed elite social status and whose position as Muslim men made them appear to officials and observers as exceptional among the slave population and thus worthy of arguing for their liberation. While Muslim Senegambian men stand out in the record, the voices of enslaved women from this region are virtually absent as the subject of memoirs or narratives that were produced in the era of the slave trade. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, men predominately acted as the recorders of slave testimonies. Societal expectations, moreover, valued men as subjects worthy of investigation over their female counterparts. Despite this bias, women slave owners of Senegambia, known as signares or nharas, have been the subject of intense investigation by historians researching the role of Afro-European trade diasporas that facilitated Atlantic commerce.23 Scott and Hébrard’s Freedom Papers (2012) and Daniel Schafer’s Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley (2003) offer perspective on Senegambian women in North America and the Caribbean. In both cases, these studies have required historians to reassemble traces of the life stories of these women who appear in archival documentation as marginal figures in the shadow of male plantation owners and as footnotes to the financial dealings of their husbands and sons. Daniel Schaffer’s monograph tells the story of Anta Majigeen Ndiaye, a woman captured from Senegal in 1806 at age 13. Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. (1765–1843), a slave trader and plantation owner from Spanish East Florida, bought Anta in Havana, Cuba, and took her to his plantation on

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  21 the Saint John’s River in northeast Florida. In Florida, her Wolof name became transposed as Anna Madgigine Kingsley. In an interview with abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, Zephaniah Kingsley maintained that he first met Anna on the “coast of Africa.” In his will, he wrote that he married her “in a foreign land” where the ceremony was “celebrated and solemnized by her native African custom.”24 While no evidence exists of his having met Anna in Senegal or that they wed in a “country style” marriage, Schaffer contends that it was more likely that they married in Cuba. Zephaniah Kingsley emancipated her in 1811. The couple had four children together. She became the owner of her own estate and managed his plantation in Florida and supervised the family’s finances after his death. This clue in the historical record is intriguing, however, because it suggests that Anna Kingsley may have married Zephaniah Kingsley in a mariage à la mode du pays or “marriage in the custom of the country.” Known in Senegal’s coastal towns, these unions conformed to Wolof and local marital unions but differed in that the marriage dissolved upon the death or permanent departure of the male spouse from the country. Records do not indicate an official marriage between the two or that Kingsley met her in West Africa or even that she originated from these coastal towns. Nevertheless, Wendy Wilson-Fall suggests that it raises the possibility that these types of unions were familiar to enslaved Senegambian women.25 By adopting a similar type of union, enslaved Senegambian women like Anta Majigeen Ndiaye may have tuned these relationships into unions that afforded slave women autonomy and control over finances and ultimately their family’s well-being. Anna Kingsley did not write her own memoir or even dictate her life story to a journalist or her children as a means of crafting her autobiography for future generations. She, however, attracted the attention of writers and became the subject of rumor because of her unusual status, fancy dress, and elite comportment.26 For historians, her life story is compelling because she witnessed the end of Spanish rule in Florida, her family fled to Haiti to escape the constraints leveled on free people of color when Spain ceded Florida to the US, and she lived to the eve of the US Civil War.27 For her descendants and for African Americans in Florida, the legend of Anna Kingsley remained alive in their memory. Schafer found that Anna Kingsley referred to herself by the names Anna Kingsley, Anna Madgigine, and Anna Jai. Wendy Wilson-Fall speculates that naming is an indication that Kingsley viewed herself as part of a wider social world of slave women.28 Anta Majigeen may have modeled the same acumen for commerce and managing capital as the signares of Senegambia. The idea of marriage between African women and European men, long a reality on the West African coast, may have demystified the idea of interaction across the color line and conjugal relationships between African women and European men. Her biography allows historians to consider how “image and memory travelled back and forth across the Atlantic.”29

22  Hilary Jones Rebecca Scott and Jean Hébrard use the migration story of the Tinchant family as a means of exploring how free people of color sought equality and citizenship in an Atlantic World shaped by slavery and racism.30 The Tinchant family history spans five generations and intersects with the Islamic Revolutions of late-eighteenth-century Senegambia, the Haitian Revolution, the 1848 French Revolution, the US Civil War, and Reconstruction. The Tinchants stand out in the historical record as proprietors of a successful nineteenth-century cigar manufacturing business with interests in Cuba, New Orleans, Belgium, and Vera Cruz. The work begins with “Rosalie, négresse de la nation Poulard.” Scott and Hébrard reconstruct the identity of Rosalie based on two documents deposited with a notary in New Orleans in 1835.31 Élizabeth Dieudonné (Édouard Tinchant’s mother) produced her baptismal certificate to claim the right to adopt her father’s surname. The birth certificate affirmed that she was born in 1799 in Saint-Domingue to a free Black woman named Marie Françoise called Rosalie and a Frenchman named Michel Vincent. In 1804, Rosalie and Michel Vincent deposited documents with French officials in Santiago, Cuba, where they fled to escape war that erupted in the Haitian countryside when Napoleon Bonaparte sent French forces to defeat Toussaint Louverture and the Black generals who ruled the island nation. This document described Rosalie as “Marie Françoise dite Rosalié, black woman of the Poulard nation.” For the authors, the documents confirm that the Tinchants’ maternal ancestry originated in Senegal among the Fulbe people of Fouta Toro, commonly referred to as the “Poulard nation” by French officials. Rosalie may have been sold into captivity as result of the Islamic Revolutions of the mid-1770s that engulfed the region. The family histories of the Tinchants and the Kingsleys and the biographies of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Abdul Rahman offer evidence of Senegambians in the Atlantic World that goes beyond abstract categories of identity or general patterns of dispersal in the Americas. These accounts offer a glimpse into the personal lives of those who experienced slavery and the slave trade. In using these stories to interpret the past, historians must pay attention to the challenges of recreating biography from documents that contain partial information. Oral history, particularly on the African side, presents other challenges as the taboo of slave status often obscures the ability to trace the genealogies of the enslaved. Despite the limitation of documentary evidence, archival sources hold the possibility for recovering biographies of Africans in the Atlantic World.

3. Africans in the Atlantic World: A View From the Senegal Archive The study of slavery in Africa and the impact of the transatlantic slave trade have produced a rich and varied literature. Most recently, research

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  23 on Africa’s Atlantic settlements offer greater perspective on African and multiracial populations who established new communities and commercial networks in the era of the Atlantic slave trade.32 Much of this research gets at the ways in which African merchants and traders understood and negotiated transatlantic commerce and investigates slavery from the point of view of African slave owners in Atlantic coast settlements and their hinterlands. Tracing the biographies of Senegambians is useful, but most end with the disappearance of a connection to Africa after several generations or by returning to Africa where their story fades in the historical record. Understanding the perspective of the enslaved is even more challenging. Although there may never be a complete answer to the problem of recovering the slave voice, reading the official archive against the grain of biographies of Africans in the Atlantic may shed new light on the marginal mentions of the enslaved in the official record or the ability to recover biographical information from private archival sources. The Senegal archive offers one avenue into gaining perspective on the lives of the enslaved. Saliou Mbaye, former director of the Senegal national archives, inventoried notary documents of Saint Louis du Senegal between 1817 and 1848.33 From these sources, Mbaye found documentation about the practice of slavery in Saint Louis as well as information on the sale and export of slaves to Martinique. The notarized documents include inventories after death, marriage contracts, acts of sale, mortgage contracts, testaments, and other legal documents such as acts of manumission and rachat (buying back) that yield information on transactions involving slaves in local context.34 Police records contained in the papers of officials in Senegal, Martinique, and the Naval Ministry in charge of colonies offer clues about the illegal slave trade and occasional biographical information about the sellers and slaves who were “deported” from the French Caribbean or resettled after illegal slavers were arrested at sea. Reading these sources alongside study of material culture and art history provides context to the everyday practice of slavery in Senegal’s coastal towns.35 New techniques like geospatial mapping may provide additional insight into the physical paths and trajectories of the enslaved in departing West African locations of the slave trade, the arrest of illegal slavers, and the repatriation or reverse migration of the enslaved. Finally, private archive collections contain key biographical information on Senegambians in the Atlantic World. Family genealogies may provide a roadmap for reconstructing family histories, although corroboration with other sources such as school records or baptismal notices substantiates information passed down within a family. Missionary reports, while biased towards the spread of Christianity, provide clues as to the biographies of the enslaved. In the Senegal case, Catholic orders dominated the landscape and the predominance of Islam limited the scope of evangelism. A Protestant Mission, led by Pastor Taylor of Sierra Leone, carved out a niche in the 1870s by creating a refuge for runaway slaves.36

24  Hilary Jones The testimonies contained in the mission’s annual reports mainly concerned the lives of former slaves from the hinterlands who became active in the church. These reports, however, also report on individuals sent to the home church in France to apprentice in skilled trades, as well as young women from the community who excelled in the church school. The story of the pastor and his wife, a Krio couple from Freetown who traveled to Senegal as traders, presents an intriguing life story of former slaves who became part of the process of emancipation and reestablishing new communities of Africans in diaspora on Senegal’s Atlantic coast.

Conclusion Senegambia may not have played a dominant role in the transatlantic slave trade compared with the Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa. Nevertheless, the imprint of this region in the Atlantic World is evident as a result of the concentrations of enslaved peoples from Greater Senegambia who were enslaved in colonial Louisiana and colonial South Carolina as well as those who were sold out of Senegal during the illicit trade. The memoirs of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Abdul Rahman underscore the importance of Islam in Senegambia in this period and its influence in the Americas. Anta Majigeen Ndiaye Kingsley and Rosalie of the Tinchant family present intriguing evidence of Senegambian women in the Atlantic World and the possibility that their understanding of African women in coastal Senegambia may have informed their skill in solidifying family networks and navigating being free women of color in slave societies of North America and the Caribbean. Scholars may never be able to fully comprehend the experiences of the enslaved, but delving deeper into archival sources and evidence of material culture may help to flesh out patterns of everyday life. A reexamination of sources such as those of the Senegal archive advance our understanding of the construction, maintenance, and reconstruction of social networks for enslaved men and women who faced uncertainty, danger, and violence as they were forced to leave their homelands and reestablish new kin and client ties in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic World.

Notes 1. Huston, 19. 2. Ibid., 6. 3. A student of anthropologist Franz Boas, Hurston went to Alabama to interview Lewis about his account of the raid that resulted in his enslavement and sale to the American ship captain William Foster who traveled to Whydah (Benin Kingdom) to acquire a cargo of slaves that he brought into North America surreptitiously in the illegal trade. The story of the Clotilda is well documented. Huston consulted archival documents about the Clotilda at the Mobile Historical Society. Study of the Clotilda and research on

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  25 the nineteenth-century Dahomey Kingdom allowed Hurston and subsequent scholars to reconstruct Kossola’s life history. See Deborah G. Plant’s introduction to Hurston, Barracoon. For the most recent study of the Clotilda and its African cargo, see Diouf. 4. The most well known of this genre is The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (London, 1789). Authored by Equiano and told in his own voice, the account was written, in part, as a central text to advance the anti-slavery movement. Recent scholarship has called into question the veracity of Equiano’s Igbo identity as claimed in the text. Other examples of slave memoires have been preserved as letters. See, for example, Margaret Priestly, “Philip Quaque of Cape Coast,” and J. F. Ade Ajayi, “Samuel Ajayi Crowther of Oyo,” in Curtin (1977, 99–142, 289–316). 5. See the essays in Curtin (1977). 6. Sandra Greene’s interpretation of Ghana slave narratives pushes historians of slavery in Africa to take seriously testimonies in missionary accounts, court transcripts, and other forms that exist in the colonial archive rather than to dismiss them as lacking credibility. For more on her discussion of the role of the amanuensis and the contribution of scholars of the North American slave narrative, see Greene, 10–11. 7. In her biography of slavery and freedom for an Indian Ocean family, Sue Peabody points out that the absence of slave narratives in the French Antilles, Indian Ocean colonies, or Louisiana is not an accident but rather occurred because of France’s internal political conflict as the regime shifted from the Old Regime to revolutionary government, empire, constitutional monarchy, and republic. The Protestant concern with sin and salvation that made the slave narrative so popular in the Anglophone world, moreover, did not resonate with a predominantly Roman Catholic French society. Finally, the Haitian Revolution resulted in censorship of publications sympathetic to the plight of the enslaved because they were perceived as politically harmful to the nation. Peabody, 3–4. 8. Scott and Hébrard; Jones (2013); Palmer; Johnson, 233–56. For example, Rebecca Scott and Jean Hébrard pieced together the biography of the Tinchant family of Louisiana from notarized documents and birth, marriage, and death records found in the archive of the archdiocese in New Orleans and the New Orleans Notarial Archives Research Center, the Depot of Public Papers from the colonies in the French National Archives for Overseas in Aix-en-Provence, among other sources. See my discussion of Rosalie of the Poulard Nation below. 9. By reading documents against the grain, I  am referring to the method of deconstruction that establishes as much as possible what can be known about the source, author, and its context and then examining the underlying assumptions or worldview that may have shaped the source. For an explanation of deconstruction as historical method, see Getz and Clarke, 126–129. 10. “Slaves Expelled from Martinique to Senegal,” 12 November 1844, Fonds Ministeriels/Serie geographique/SEN XI/Dossier 5b, French Overseas Archives, Aix-en-Provence. The police records for Senegal in the overseas archives also contain files on the fear of prostitution in Saint Louis after the end of slavery. Comparing these sources to what is known about the nature of slavery in Senegal’s coastal towns allows the researcher to examine the subtext of metropolitan discourse concerning prostitution vs. the nature of slavery in Senegal’s towns in order to better understand the options (or lack thereof) and thus strategies of former slave girls and boys otherwise dismissed as vagabonds. See the Dossier 4B, French National Archives for Overseas, Aix-en-Provence.

26  Hilary Jones 11. Barry, xi–xii. 12. Curtin estimated the overall volume of the slave trade (not including mortality) to be approximately 11.2 million. David Eltis revised those numbers to approximately 12.5 million by including 80% of all transatlantic slave trade voyages attempted. See Curtin (1969) and Eltis. 13. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade, 56–60. For an overview of slave exports to North America and Senegambia as a sending region, see Gomez, 17–37. 14. For an overview of the French trade, see Geggus, 119–38. 15. While I have focused on data regarding the sale of captives from Africa to the French Caribbean, it is important to remember that a significant portion of the enslaved in the French Caribbean came to the islands as a result of the intra-American slave trade. 16. Hall (2005, 80). 17. Ibid., 94–95. On the Senegambian presence in Louisiana, see also Hall (1992). 18. If arrivals from Sierra Leone are included, Hall finds that 51.1% of Louisiana’s enslaved came from either Senegambia or Sierra Leone (20.8%) (Ibid., 92–93). Hall produced this database beginning in 1984. It is available through the website www.ibiblio.org/laslave/ but omits some key fields. Hall has included the database on the site, Slave Bibliographies, hosted by Michigan State University, http://slavebiographies.org/databases.php. Michigan State University has plans to incorporate the Louisiana Slave Trade Database into a larger project called “Enslaved: People of the Historic Slave Trade” that compiles various databases on the enslaved. See also “Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.” Accessed October 11, 2018, https:// www.slavevoyages.org/. 19. Lindsay and Wood, 1. For examples of Black Atlantic biography, see Lindsay (2017) and Sweet. 20. Martin Klein points out that especially in reconstructing the lives of slaves in African societies, the documentation that exists rarely describes an individual’s entire life span. Klein, “Understanding the Slave Experience in West Africa,” 48–65. 21. The Kingdom of Bondu was located in the eastern region of the modern-day Republic of Senegal between the Upper Senegal and the Upper Gambia. The French maintained an outpost called Fort Saint Joseph where the Senegal River met the Faleme River. The British controlled trade on the Gambia from James Fort (Banjul), where merchants launched expeditions to the confluence of the Faleme and the Gambia rivers. In the eighteenth century, Bondu was strategically located at the central location for the export slave trade from Senegambia. For more on Bondu and Ayuba Suleiman Diallo’s account of capture and enslavement, see Curtin (1977), “Ayuba Suleiman Diallo of Bondu,” 17–59. 22. Alford. 23. For the seminal work on the signares of Senegambia, see Brooks. See also Searing. For an examination of signares as property owners and their economic adjustments after abolition, see Mbodj. 24. Schafer, 22–26. 25. Wilson-Fall, 290–93. On the concept of mariage à la mode du pays, see Jones, The Métis of Senegal, 35–36. 26. European travelers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries described signares in terms of their elaborate dress and head ties, their adornment in gold jewelry, and their “exotic beauty.” Ibid., ix–xii. 27. Although the date of her death is unknown, Schafer concludes that she must have died sometime between 1860 and 1870. 28. Wilson-Fall, 290–93.

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  27 29. Ibid., 274. 30. Scott and Hébrard. 31. Ibid., 6–7. For an analysis of the documents and their argument for Rosalie’s origins, see chapter 1. 32. For example Candido, Nwokeji, and Ipsen. 33. Saliou Mbaye’s research corresponds to Mbaye Guèye’s study of the slave trade from the Senegal archive. Both works are critical for understanding the record on slavery and the slave trade in the Senegal National Archives. See Guèye; Mbaye, 139–59. 34. The concept of rachat is particular to the French system of slavery and manumission. It began as a practice instituted in Senegal in the 1820s in which the administration “bought back” slaves from slave owners to then manumit them. These liberated slaves were placed with families in the towns as “apprentices.” The practice was adopted in the French Caribbean. On rachat see Moitt; Flory, 45–50. 35. Thiaw; Hinchman. 36. For an analysis of the Protestant Mission, see Jones (2017).

Bibliography Alford, Terry. Prince Among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold into Slavery in the American South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986 (1977). Barry, Boubacar. Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Brooks, George E. Eurafricans in Western Africa: Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and Religious Observance form the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003. Candido, Mariana P. An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Curtin, Philip D., ed. Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1977. ———. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. Diouf, Sylviane. Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Eltis, David. “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment.” William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 1 (January 2001): 17–46. Flory, Céline. De l’esclavage à la liberté forcée: Histoire des travailleurs africains engagés dans la Caraïbe française au XIXe siècle. Paris: Karthala, 2015. Geggus, David. “The French Slave Trade: An Overview.” The William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2001): 119–38. Getz, Trevor, and Liz Clarke. Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Gomez, Michael. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Greene, Sandra. West African Narratives of Slavery: Texts from Late Nineteenth-andEarly Twentieth-Century Ghana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.

28  Hilary Jones Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. ———. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Hinchman, Mark. Portrait of an Island: The Architecture and Material Culture of Gorée, Senegal, 1758–1837. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Hurston, Zora Neale. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”. Edited by Deborah G. Plant. New York: Harper Collins, 2018. Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Jones, Hilary. “Fugitive Slaves and Christian Evangelism in French West Africa: A Protestant Mission in late Nineteenth-Century Senegal.” Slavery & Abolition 38, no. 1 (2017): 76–94. ———. The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Johnson, Jessica. “Death Rites as Birthrights in Atlantic New Orleans: Kinship and Race in the Case of María Teresa v. Perine Dauphine.” Slavery and Abolition 36, no. 2 (2015): 233–56. Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Klein, Martin. “Understanding the Slave Experience in West Africa.” In Biography and the Black Atlantic, edited by Lisa A. Lindsay and John Wood Sweet, 48–65. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Lindsay, Lisa. Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Lindsay, Lisa A., and John Wood Sweet, eds. Biography and the Black Atlantic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Mbaye, Guèye. “La traite des noirs au Sénégal de la fin du XVIIe au milieu du XIXe siècle.” PhD diss., University of Dakar, 1962. Mbaye, Saliou. “L’esclavage domestique à Saint-Louis a travers les archives notariées (1817–1848).” In Saint-Louis et l’esclavage, edited by Djibril Samb, 139–59. Dakar: IFAN, 2000. Mbodj, Mohamed. “The Abolition of Slavery in Senegal, 1820–1890: Crisis or the Rise of a New Entrepreneurial Class?” In Breaking the Chains: Slavery, Bondage and Emancipation in Modern Africa and Asia, edited by Martin A. Klein, 171–96. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. Moitt, Bernard. “Slavery, Flight and Redemption in Senegal, 1819–1905.” Slavery and Abolition 14, no. 2 (1993): 70–86. Nwokeji, G. Ugo. The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Palmer, Jennifer L. Intimate Bonds: Slavery and Family in the French Atlantic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Peabody, Sue. Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom, Secrets, and Lies in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Schafer, Daniel L. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Scott, Rebecca J., and Jean M. Hébrard. Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Senegambia and the Atlantic World  29 Searing, James. F. West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, 1700–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Sweet, James H. Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Thiaw, Ibrahima. “Slaves Without Shackles: An Archeology of Everyday Life on Gorée Island, Senegal.” In Slavery in Africa: Archeology and Memory, edited by Paul J. Lane and Kevin C. Macdonald, 147–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Wilson-Fall, Wendy. “Women Merchants and Slave Depots: Saint-Louis, Senegal and St. Mary’s Madagascar.” In Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities, and Images, edited by Ana Lucia Araujo, 290–93. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2011.

2 Postbellum Slave Narratives as Historical Sources Memories of Bondage and Realities of Freedom in Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave Claire Bourhis-Mariotti Many types of documents from the era when slavery was legal, such as newspaper runaway ads, plantation records, government documents, speeches, pamphlets, or articles published in the black press or the abolitionist press, can tell us a great deal about the history of American slavery, the master-slave relationship, and the slave condition. But only slave narratives allow us to read and understand what the enslaved themselves experienced and how they remembered their time in bondage: just as there are some topics on which only the masters can provide reliable information, there are some questions which only the slaves can answer. . . . The individual and collective mentality of the slaves, the ways they sought to fulfill their needs, the experiential context of life in the quarters and in the fields, and the black man’s personal perspective of bondage emerge only after an intensive examination of the testimony of ex-slaves.1 Indeed, as historical sources, slave narratives document slave life from the invaluable perspective of firsthand experience. Marion Wilson Starling identified about 6,000 slave narratives written between 1703 and 1944.2 Apart from the approximately 200 non-fictional slave narratives published in pamphlet or book form, this impressive number includes the more than 2,300 oral testimonies collected under the auspices of the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s, as well as brief slave testimonies Starling found in judicial records, newspapers, and other sources.3

1. Slave Narratives: A Literary Genre or Historical Resources? Slave narratives published in pamphlet or book form have been recognized as a distinct literary genre.4 They developed as such during the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly in the antebellum period, when they became very popular with white readers in the North. As tales

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  31 of “romantic horror,” they captivated a white audience fond of romantic literature while serving the abolitionist cause.5 Romantic literature would then indeed stress intuition, imagination, and individualism and often feature a quest for American ideals—such as freedom—in which the common man could be a hero. Obviously, antebellum slave narratives would bring to the nineteenth-century reader all of the above: they unfolded stories where the narrator, a heroic and resourceful slave, would depict their difficult path from bondage to freedom. No wonder why many became instant best-sellers.6 Invariably following the same pattern, slave narratives written before the Civil War generally focused on the slave condition and ended with the moment of escape or freedom and/or the arrival in a free state or country (such as Canada). A number of scholars have sought to demonstrate why most slave narratives seem to follow a “master plan,” so that one may even consider that authors of slave narratives had to conform to a pre-established set of conventions.7 Recalling that most—if not all—antebellum slave narratives were mere written transcripts of oral testimonies that their black authors had been repeating over and over again at abolitionist meetings beforehand, John Sekora asserts that “the abolitionist imprint was decisive in [the narratives’] predisposition for ‘facts’ and for a particular ordering of those facts.”8 More than telling a personal story, slave narratives were meant to expose the abominable system of slavery—they were meant to serve a cause, that of abolitionism, not that of individuals.9 Thus, as “personal identities were often absorbed into the abolitionist crusade, so too were personal narratives.”10 This is why most antebellum slave narratives centered on the same issues: issues that would captivate white audiences at abolitionist meetings and make them want to buy the book to bring these incredible stories back home—and support the cause. These include the birth and parentage of the slave, their own family and their witnessing the separation of slave families, the (vicious) owner and their relatives, the cruel overseer, brutal punishments (often with a description of a woman being sadistically flogged for no reason in front of her children), the (lack of/ want for) education of the slave, religion (and the master’s degree of religiosity), the (lack of) food and clothing and slaves’ overall life conditions, the kind of labor they performed, their will to escape (and what triggered it), the escape itself (with details, when applicable, about the help they received from white and/or black abolitionists on their way to freedom, and the many obstacles they had to face, not to mention the fear of being recaptured), the arrival in a free land and its (moral, physical, etc.) consequences on the slave. The notable recurrence of these themes in most slave narratives (as well as the recurrence of the order in which they appear) does not call into question the veracity of their contents. Instead, these commonalities tend to support the idea that slave narratives can be considered as rationalized weapons in the fight against slavery, and

32  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti thus used as primary sources for the study of slavery in the United States, rather than categorized and studied as (auto)biographies pertaining to a specific nineteenth-century literary genre.11 Interestingly, the fugitive slave’s life and condition after slavery were seldom evoked in antebellum slave narratives, though the mid-1850s marked a moment when a few narrators like Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown began to describe their life after slavery, often adding a militant and political dimension to their narrative. These latter authors revealed not only the horrors of slavery, but also the struggles of colored people in the North, as they recorded the discrepancies between, on the one hand, America’s ideal of freedom and the slave’s dreams of freedom, and on the other hand the reality of segregation, discrimination, and/or exploitation in the so-called free states—not to mention daily threats such as abductions, whose number and frequency increased after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was passed.12 After the Civil War, former slaves continued to record their experiences under slavery. But while we know that at least 90 slave narratives were published between 1800 and 1865, only about half of those (53) were published after the abolition of slavery in pamphlet or book form.13 Of course, postbellum narratives share many common points with their antebellum counterparts. Postbellum narratives do recount their author’s life condition as a slave and their quest for freedom. Just like antebellum narratives, they do broach the same crucial subjects (see supra), so that their basic structures look similar; it is not surprising as their authors had necessarily read earlier narratives, and would thus (consciously or not) write their own stories using the same pattern. However, contrary to the ex-slaves writing before the abolition of slavery, they would also recount their personal difficulties and successes as free men. In that respect, Douglass’s 1881 postbellum narrative is a textbook case since it essentially highlights his public and political career, as an orator or as Marshall of the District of Columbia, for instance. Another major difference between antebellum and postbellum narratives is the context in which they were written and published, and consequently their purpose must be closely assessed. Whereas before the Civil War slave narratives were mostly aimed at a white audience, Lucia Bergamasco argues that postbellum narratives seem to address more directly a black audience, displaying “examples of success through honest and industrious work . . . in order to encourage the new generation of Blacks to rise up on their own.”14 For sure, the purpose and audience of slave narratives had shifted: these stories were no longer aimed at persuading white people to end slavery. In addition to encouraging young black people who were born free to progress through hard work, one may argue that the authors of these narratives were also willing to ensure that people would always remember what slaves had endured. They wanted to make sure that the memory of slavery would be properly recorded. In other words, these often unknown authors may have wanted

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  33 to contribute to the writing of the history of their community, at a time when Black historians and activists were seeking to construct the archives of their community in order to try to (re)integrate its history into American national history. Because they were published in a period when the whole country, from North to South, was plagued by segregation, when

Figure 2.1  Engraving of Isaac Mason. Source: Extracted from Mason, Isaac. Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave. Worcester, Mass., 1893, p. 2. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. “Isaac Mason.” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Digitized in 2013. Accessed June 25, 2018. http://digitalcollec tions.nypl.org/items/510d47da-7487-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

34  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti racial oppression and lynchings were at their height, when Blacks were disfranchised and relegated to the margins of American society, latenineteenth-century slave narratives can also be seen as a way for their authors to display the agency, the skills, and the value of former slaves in post-Civil War society. They would also demonstrate that African Americans were worthy citizens who had won for themselves the right to be equal and to enjoy the same privileges as white Americans. Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave (1893) is one of these postbellum nineteenth-century slave narratives.

2. Isaac Mason’s Narrative as a Reliable Source for the Study of Slavery Born a slave in 1822 in Galena (then Georgetown Cross Roads), on Maryland’s Upper Eastern Shore,15 Isaac Mason successfully ran away from slavery in 1847. He wrote and published his Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave in 1893, some 46 years after he escaped from slavery and 28 years after the Thirteenth Amendment officially freed him and more than four million slaves. One may wonder why it took so long for Isaac Mason to write and publish his story. One reason may be that Mason was illiterate when he ran away, and that he learned how to read and write much later in his life, when he was working for Senator George F. Hoar in Worcester, Massachusetts.16 Another reason is given by Mason himself in his preface: it is only after his “many friends . . ., especially [those] who ha[d] heard [him] lecture on certain portions of that ever memorable period of [his] life” had “repeatedly asked . . . [him] to write the history of [his] life as a slave” that he determined to do so.17 One last reason for publishing his story so late in his life may be the lack of funds; indeed, Mason’s book was self-published. This information is confirmed by George F. Hoar’s prefatory note, in which the senator states that he hopes Mason’s “book will have a good sale, and commend[s] it to the public.”18 In fact, postbellum slave narratives like Mason’s were “largely self-financed and local in their impact”19—like a number of authors of slave narratives in the antebellum period, most postbellum authors would resort to self-publishing. They often had no other ambition than to circulate their story among their relatives or within their local community.20 Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave, just like its author, is unknown to the general public and has been little studied. It must be said that unlike other authors of such narratives, Isaac Mason was not a famous black abolitionist or activist: he was no Frederick Douglass or William Wells Brown. He nevertheless claimed that he met William C. Nell, and a whole network of abolitionists whom he identified by name, which adds a little more interest, and perhaps even more credibility, to his story. Life is a 74-page slave narrative that contains all the “classic” elements that one would expect to find in an antebellum narrative, including a testimonial

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  35 written by a white friend.21 Of course, Mason gives us a vivid sense of what it felt like to be a slave, as he devotes two chapters out of five to his slave life. Indeed, in his first two chapters, “Earliest Recollections” and “In a New Home,” the author describes his daily life, the different types of tasks he performed for his masters, and the division of tasks within the plantation, but also the daily psychological or physical violence he experienced or witnessed. He also evokes the importance of religion for slaves as well as for masters, family life (births, marriages, and escapes, but also threats of separation), in addition to the different forms of resistance adopted by slaves and the role of abolitionist networks in the organization or management of slave flights. In his third chapter, “Escape From Slavery,” he gives us a firsthand account of what it was like to be a “passenger” of the Underground Railroad, the secret abolitionist network that helped thousands of slaves to escape and join the free states or the neighboring nations of the United States where slavery had been abolished.22 As a result, this narrative is a precious historical source for anyone interested in studying the condition of the slave, from their birth as a slave to the moment when they became free, thanks to the manumission granted by a generous master (this was the case for Mason’s grandfather), their purchase by a member of their family (Mason’s sister and mother were purchased by his father, a free Black), or their escape. But beyond this, and it is what clearly distinguishes Mason’s narrative from the antebellum narratives, his story also reveals what it was like to be free, because in the last two chapters of his book, “In the Land of Freedom” and “A Flying Visit to Haiti,” Mason takes his reader not only to the free states of the North, but also to Canada and Haiti; an exceptional variety of places he “tested,” first as a fugitive and eventually as a free man who was remarkably mobile. The last chapter of his narrative will particularly appeal to historians of the emigration and colonization movements, as Isaac Mason is one of the few African Americans who emigrated to Haiti in the early 1860s following an emigration movement initiated by the Haitian government and some African American emigrationists in the late 1850s and early 1860s.23 The chapter he devoted to his Haitian experience is one of the few testimonies written by an African American emigrant that has reached us. It is all the more precious, as Mason describes this experience in a rather negative way, whereas the majority of published letters and testimonies by emigrants to Haiti gave rather positive accounts of this emigration movement. Thus, his fascinating story gives a fairly good account of what black people’s life was like in the free territories (US free states as well as foreign countries where slavery had been abolished), and shows that being free was not “easy,” or at least not as easy as a slave might have expected. Mason had to face many disappointments, endure many hardships, and overcome many obstacles before realizing that life after slavery was very different from—and much more challenging than—what he had imagined in his

36  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti dreams of freedom. Therefore, more than simply relating the horrors of slavery, these 74 pages offer an extraordinary summary of a multiplicity of experiences lived by a single individual in diverse and varied places stretching from the South to the North of the United States, and from Canada to Haiti. Mason’s story actually begins in “George Town Cross Oats [sic],” in Kent County, in northern Maryland, but his adventures would lead him across the East Coast and the north of the continent. Mason was indeed able to travel to Baltimore, then travel through Delaware to make a stop in Philadelphia, then go to New York, Boston and Worcester in Massachusetts, and then Montreal and Toronto in Canada, and then back to Worcester, where he would spend the rest of his life after a “flying visit” to Haiti in 1860. Table 2.1 is a list of the places he visited or lived in for a few days, months, years, or several decades, in the case of Worcester. This is an impressive list when talking about a nineteenthcentury African American man born a slave. The great capacity of movement, the extreme mobility of this man, a simple slave, is one of the most

Table 2.1 List of the places Isaac Mason lived in or visited as a slave, a fugitive, and a free man24 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

George Town Cross Roads, Kent County, Md (today: Galena) Millington, Kent County, Md Chestertown, Kent County, Md Baltimore, Md George Town Cross Roads, Kent County, Md (today: Galena) Wilmington, Del. New Garden, Chester County, Penn. Doe Run, Chester County, Penn. Chatham, Penn. Philadelphia, Penn. Chatham, Penn. Philadelphia, Penn. New York, NY Boston, Mass. Worcester, Mass. Montreal, Canada Kingston, Canada Toronto, Canada Rochester, NY Worcester, Mass. Boston, Mass. St. Mark, Haiti Boston, Mass. Worcester, Mass. Worcester, Mass.

Source: © Claire Bourhis-Mariotti 2018

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  37 captivating and unique aspects of Mason’s narrative, which is thus a real testimony of the slave and ex-slave mobility in the antebellum era and a valuable source for historians.

3. A Testimony of Slaves’ and Fugitive Slaves’ Spatial Mobility To start with, Isaac Mason was very mobile and had a certain freedom of movement when he was a slave. Indeed, when he was about six years old, he was “assigned to the duties of housework; to wait on [his] mistress and to run errands. When [his mistress] went out driving, [he] had to accompany her in the capacity of a page,” which means he often visited other farms or small towns.25 Then as he grew up, after his mistress died, he was “hired out to pay a small bill.”26 Mason was then sent to another place, Chestertown, where he became an assistant to the local cabinetmaker and undertaker. This new position, and the different kinds of tasks he was asked to perform, as a domestic servant, as an assistant, and as a farm hand on two different farms, enabled him to regularly travel freely, so to speak, to different places as far as Baltimore. So, even as a slave, Isaac Mason was quite mobile. We can understand from his narrative that his different masters had no choice but to trust him and let him travel alone, as farms and small towns were quite isolated, so slaves sometimes had to travel long distances on their own: “we had to travel the distance four times a day to get meals and to feed the horses”; “the distance by the public road was ten miles, and it would be some time before I could return.”27 Then of course the most impressive part of his displacements started when he decided to run away. What prompted Isaac to run away was his discovering that his master was about to “send [him] to New Orleans.”28 In other words, he was about to be sold South. This passage of his narrative perfectly illustrates this peculiar phenomenon that was one aspect of the US domestic slave trade. The fear of being sold South was indeed one of the reasons why slaves, particularly in such border states as Maryland, would decide to escape. First, Mason went back to the place where he was born—Galena, about 20 miles from Chestertown, then he traveled to Wilmington, Delaware. He did not choose this place by chance. In fact, he was already traveling on the Underground Railroad. He and the two men with whom he escaped knew about people (i.e., agents of the Underground Railroad) who could hide, feed, and help them on their way. So Wilmington was their first stop, the first “city of refuge” on the road to freedom, where they met their first guide, a free Black.29 Then the three men “took leave of [their] former friend and guide and continued  .  .  . under the care of [a] new leader” and crossed the “dividing line that runs between the States of Delaware and Pennsylvania.”30 Next, they crossed Pennsylvania, and stopped in New Garden, Doe Run, Chatham, and

38  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti Philadelphia. As Mason describes his escape, he gives the names of the many different people who helped him and his mates, some of them being very famous today, such as William Cooper Nell. These pages are really fascinating as they describe what being a passenger on the Underground Railroad was like—and it was not always easy, as some of the so-called conductors, be they black or white, would not hesitate to make money on the fugitives’ backs. For instance, Mason relates an episode when one of the “colored” agents who was supposed to help him, a Mr. Gibbs, told Mason and his wife that “it would cost four dollars each to go to Boston, Mass.” Consequently, Mason gave Mr. Gibbs eight dollars so he could buy the tickets. But once on board the steamship, Mason discovered “that the tickets were second-class and not first, as Mr. Gibbs represented,” and that the latter had “only paid two dollars each for them, and kept half the amount for himself.”31 Also, we learn from Mason’s narrative that the escape was in fact a step-migration over long periods of time, each leg of it lasting weeks, months, even years. This step-migration phenomenon is well known when talking about the Great Migration of the early twentieth century, and lesser known when talking about the illegal migration process supported by the Underground Railroad. Understandably, Isaac Mason had to stop on his way to freedom to find jobs and earn money to be able to continue up North. For instance, when Mason was in Chatham, he “hired [himself] to a man . . . [who] agreed to pay [him] thirteen dollars a month with board and lodging.”32 He worked for this man for about a year and then found another employer and then another one so that in the end, he remained in Chatham for about two years, long enough to meet and date a woman whom he eventually wanted to marry. But unfortunately, he had to flee further North to Philadelphia because of the slave hunters who had come to Chatham to capture him and some other fugitives. What Mason states here is that masters would never give up looking for their slaves—even more so after the federal government passed the Fugitive Slave act of 1850. Slave hunting was a real business and slaves were never really safe, as they could be captured years after their escape. After living in Philadelphia for some time, Mason would then be able to go back to Chatham to marry his wife and bring her to Philadelphia—where they would not be able to settle permanently: “[they] had not been long settled at housekeeping before the Fugitive Slave Law came into full force. . . . Home was broken up, and travel or tramp was the order of the hour.”33 They thus traveled to New York, where they were supposed to meet a member of the Underground Railroad, then they reached Boston, where they met William C. Nell who helped them to go to Worcester, where they found a William Brown, who assisted them in securing permanent lodging in Worcester (B. Eugene McCarthy has identified this William Brown as being William H. Brown, “an African American active in the Worcester community”—not William Wells Brown, the famous fugitive, abolitionist, and author).34

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  39 Another of Mason’s Life’s historical value is its precise description of the way African American activists interacted locally and nationally. Indeed, Mason’s text attests to the close relationships between wellknown Black leaders such as William C. Nell and local activists such as Brown and others Mason mentions in his narrative. Whereas it could have been dangerous for antebellum Black authors to give the real names of their “helpers” (as the latter could be fined or jailed) or the places where they hid fugitives, giving real names and places was not an issue for postbellum authors writing about abolitionist networks. Again, these are precious elements for historians, who can thus precisely identify Underground Railroad agents, study who they were and try to establish their “profile,” and map the network with more accuracy.

4. A Testimony of the Ex-Slave’s Never-Ending Pursuit of Freedom Mason never felt free even after he had reached the North. His extreme mobility before the Civil War was actually mostly due to the fear of being captured by slave hunters and brought back to Maryland, or even worse, further South to New Orleans. This possibility of being recaptured was part of the realities of freedom in the early 1850s: no fugitive was ever safe. Isaac Mason’s narrative shows this reality, and also emphasizes the fact that to become and to remain free, one had to constantly work very hard, and was unfortunately likely to be exploited or cheated by heartless employers, be they white Quakers or free blacks, and sometimes by fellow fugitives. This fear of being recaptured while in the Northern states and the presence of slave hunters in Worcester is what prompted Mason to flee again on his own, this time to Canada. But his short Canadian experience—he visited Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto in less than two months in the spring of 1851—proved to be a disaster. There he was exploited and robbed of all his belongings, including his clothes. He finally managed to travel back to Worcester, and then decided to stay there with his family: “I concluded to remain in Worcester, Mass., or I may say to make it my home, as I had not found a place in preference.”35 But Isaac Mason was an adventurer, and in 1860, he decided to try his luck in Haiti. The last chapter of Isaac Mason’s narrative is devoted to his “flying visit” to Haiti, a last experience abroad that ended up being a nightmare. Mason’s testimony of this migration movement is most precious for historians studying the voluntary movements of African Americans to Haiti in the antebellum period. Indeed, his is one of the very few firsthand testimonials of this experience which—as it was written more than 30 years after it happened—was not biased by abolitionist, emigrationist, or anti-colonizationist propaganda. This emigration movement remains a little-known episode in African American history. This is partly because very few African American emigrants wrote about their Haitian

40  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti

Figure 2.2  Map of Isaac Mason’s travels (as a slave) and route to freedom.36 Source: Credit: Map created by Lauric Henneton, using outline © d-maps.com (https://dmaps.com/carte.php?num_car=1690).

experience—or at least their written accounts (often letters to their relatives in the United States) were not published or properly archived. Yet, approximately 2,500 African Americans immigrated to Haiti in the early 1860s, but their fate remains little documented. The Pine and Palm, a newspaper specially created and edited by James Redpath to advertise and encourage Haitian emigration,37 did publish some testimonies written by African American emigrants, but unsurprisingly, they were all very positive and enthusiastic. A very small number of less positive accounts of this experience were actually published in the black press. For example, on April 5, 1862, the Weekly Anglo-African published the “Story of Another Returned Emigrant from Hayti,” in which the author asserted that the government of Haiti was not keeping its promises, that the socalled emigration agents in Haiti were incompetent, that the allocated land was barren and far from water points, that emigrants were dying of hunger, that freedom of expression did not exist in Haiti, and that Haitians (whom he depicted as uncivilized people with barbaric habits

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  41 and customs) were hostile to emigrants. This “returned emigrant” even concluded that the many letters portraying emigration in a positive light one could read in The Pine and Palm should not be trusted.38 What is interesting about Isaac Mason’s account of his trip to Haiti is that it tends to give credit to these rare negative testimonies and to support the hypothesis that most emigrants were unable to adapt to their new environment, and that an important share of the African American emigrants who managed to survive harsh living conditions in Haiti made the trip back to the United States in the few months or years after their arrival.39 All things considered, one of the legitimate questions one may ask is: how reliable is Mason’s narrative? As is the case with every autobiographical work, slave narratives can sometimes be hagiographical; their authors may have been—consciously or unconsciously—tempted to embellish reality a little, and their memories may have somehow eroded with time. Consequently, historians willing to use a slave narrative as a primary source may want to cross-reference sources, that is, to try to check and assess the validity of certain elements (places, names, events) mentioned in the narrative. Sometimes, indeed, “the ‘facts’ supplied by the blacks may seem false. The only way such doubts can be removed is to try to verify the details of the account by examining independent sources.”40 Fortunately, a variety of more “classic” sources—such as state archives, plantation records, runaway ads, birth and death records—are available and provide reliable information as to where and when Mason was born, who he belonged to, who he was sold to, when he escaped, with whom he escaped, and even the precise date when he died. Digital archives have facilitated this work, and, to a certain extent, they can also help complete Mason’s narrative, which abruptly stops after his return from Haiti in 1860. For example, Mason’s death record states that he died of “blood poison, injury to foot” at the age of “76 years 3 months and 12 days” on August 26, 1898, in Worcester, and that at the time of his death he was a “carpetcleaner.”41 It also permits to check his parents’ names and the place of his birth. So in the end, according to this and other primary sources, most of Mason’s narrative can be deemed reliable. Of course, it does contain a number of inaccuracies or romanticized passages. For instance, at the end of his Haitian chapter, Mason asserts that [b]efore leaving I had placed in my hands three hundred and twentyfive letters from the emigrants to be forwarded to their friends in different parts of America. They all went through the Post Office in Worcester to their destination. Their personal contents were not known to me, but my return and the expressions contained in these letters broke up Haytian emigration.42 Of course Mason’s claim is incorrect: even though one can appreciate this romantic outburst, it really is the Civil War which put an end to

42  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti this migration movement: because slavery had been abolished, African Americans then hoped that they would be able to enjoy full citizenship on American soil. But even though the text contains some (rare) flights of lyricism or romanticized passages, there is no reason to doubt the truthfulness of most information in his narrative; we agree with John Blassingame that “[a]lthough they are sometimes rather romantic or devote few pages to their life on the plantation, the accounts published during the postbellum period are in many ways the most significant and reliable of the lot.”43

Conclusion When writing his narrative, Mason’s primary aim probably was to ensure that his stories, memories, and recollections of slavery would not be forgotten, because to forget about slavery would be to allow it to happen again. It should be recalled that Mason published his story in 1893, in a very particular context, that is the context of the 1893 Chicago Fair exhibition, the very same exhibition which prompted Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells to publish a pamphlet (The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition) denouncing both the invisibility of the African American community in the exhibition and the then degrading condition of the African American in the United States, as well as other manifestations of African Americans’ Jim Crow subjugation. Obviously, narratives like Mason’s, written decades after emancipation, are stories of sufferings and humiliations, but also stories of pride, agency, and resilience, whose aims were to ensure that the newly united nation did not forget the dark period of its history that had threatened its very existence, but also to claim the dedication of the ex-slave population to personal, social, and economic progress in a period when legal segregation became entrenched in American society, from the deep rural South to the urban North. This is why even though Mason’s narrative begins just like antebellum slave narratives, it goes beyond the moment of freedom. African American authors who focused on their experience in slavery tended to treat the passage to freedom not as a beginning but as an end, as the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams. Comparatively few African American authors wrote about the moment when that dream turned into a nightmare of continued oppression. That is just what Mason did. His narrative is not simply a classic depiction of the horrors of slavery. His Life is a most fascinating narrative with a particular historical value, because more than a slave narrative, Mason’s story is an extraordinary freedom narrative that can be used as a historical source not only for the study of slavery or the slave condition in the slave states, but also and above all for the study of the fugitive or ex-slave’s daily life and condition in the free states. Indeed, as this chapter has already argued, stories like his give us access not only to the slaves’ daily life and

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  43 their quest for freedom—which is what most antebellum slave narratives do—but also to the ex-slave’s experience of freedom, and in the case of Mason’s, access to the realities and disillusionment of freedom. It is a discussion of freedom, by someone who wanted to show himself as a model of black success through hard work. It demonstrates how far the ex-slave had come in his pursuit of happiness: life after slavery was not easy, but with hard work one could experience liberty and pursue and possibly attain happiness.

Notes 1. Blassingame (1975, 492). 2. Starling. 3. The University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has made an inventory of all slave narratives (including works of fiction) published between 1745 and 1999. It is available on the website Documenting the American South. According to this inventory, 105 non-fictional autobiographical slave narratives were published in pamphlet or book form between 1745 and 1865, and about the same number (102) between 1866 and 1999. 4. While the phrase “slave narrative” covers a multiplicity of published and unpublished documents, this chapter only addresses the slave narratives published in pamphlet or book form. 5. Angelina Grimké to Theodore Weld, January 21, 1838, quoted by Sekora, 498. 6. For example, Frederick Douglass’s 1845 narrative and Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853) sold about 30,000 copies each within a few years. Ripley, 30–32. 7. Apart from recurrent themes in the narrative itself, Olney identifies a book structure common to most slave narratives. He argues that most of them contain the following elements: a portrait of the slave; a title page including the claim that the narrative was written by the slave himself/herself or from the words of the slave; one or several testimonies/prefaces written by an abolitionist or any other important and reliable (often white) individual; a poetic epigraph; the narrative itself; one or several appendices proving the veracity of the story and/or enjoining readers to support the abolitionist cause. Olney, 50–51. 8. Sekora, 497. There were a few exceptions to this “rule.” Notably, Frederick Douglass’s 1855 narrative does not fall into this category, as it also contains political commentaries. Indeed, Douglass openly displayed his political stance on slavery in his second narrative, which presumably was one of the causes for his squabble with Garrison. 9. Aje; Parfait; Roy. 10. Sekora, 498. 11. Historians have long been reluctant to use these narratives as sources. Although these stories were used—albeit quite marginally—by a handful of (nonprofessional) black historians as early as in the 1830s, and then rediscovered and cautiously used by a few historians (J. H. Franklin, K. Stamp) in the 1940s. The first professional historian who actually used these narratives as reliable primary sources for writing the history of slavery probably was John Blassingame in his 1972 seminal book The Slave Community. Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. 12. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, any person suspected of being a fugitive slave could be returned to their supposed owner (the latter did not even

44  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti have to prove he did possess the said fugitive), which in fine threatened the freedom of all African Americans living in the North, even though eight Northern states implemented “personal liberty laws” which “prohibited state officials from assisting in returning fugitive slaves” to the South. See Olson and Mendoza, 251–52. 13. These 53 slave narratives were published between 1866 and 1899. University Library. 14. Bergamasco, 46. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author’s. 15. Located in Kent County, Maryland, the town was founded in 1763 under the name Downs’ Cross Roads. William Downs was a local tavern owner whose establishment was essential to the attractiveness of the early village. The name was later changed to Georgetown Cross Roads in honor of George Washington who stayed in the inn on his way to and from the first continental Congress and always traveled through the town when he visited Kent County. The name was finally changed to Galena in 1858. It would seem that the town owes its final name to a lead-based sulfite called Galena which was mined there (see “Town of Galena.” Accessed October 11, 2018. https:// www.townofgalena.com/history-3/). 16. McCarthy and Doughton, 242. This is probably the reason why Mason’s Life, unlike most slave narratives, does not evoke the slave’s quest for literacy and education. 17. Mason, 7. 18. Mason, 5. George Frisbie Hoar, a Republican politician from Massachusetts, settled in Worcester in the late 1840s. As the senator recalls in his foreword to Isaac Mason’s narrative, the latter worked for him and his family for some time (though we do not know whether Mason worked for Hoar before or after the Civil War, or for how long he did so). 19. Andrews, 226. 20. See Roy, 59–62, 141–47. 21. One major difference between Senator Hoar’s note and the testimonials published with antebellum slave narratives is that it does more than authenticating Mason’s narrative: it also aims at supporting Mason’s enterprise and encouraging potential readers to buy his self-published book. 22. Blight; Foner. 23. For more information about this and other voluntary migration movements of free Blacks to Haiti in the antebellum period, see Bourhis-Mariotti. 24. Places 1 to 5 are the places Mason regularly visited or lived in as a slave. Places 6 to 24 are the places where Mason stopped and/or lived for a while when he was a fugitive. Place 25 (Worcester, Massachusetts) is where Mason lived—and died—as a free man after the abolition of slavery in 1865. 25. Mason, 11. 26. Ibid., 13. Hiring out one’s slaves (for a day, a week, a month, or even years) was a common practice in the antebellum era, when slaves were in excess of their owners’ needs for instance. Sometimes slaves were even allowed to hire themselves out and would then keep part of the “wages” for themselves. Slaves could also be hired out after the death of their owner to pay debts due by the latter. In this particular case, Mason was hired out to a Dr. Hyde “to pay a small bill of $25” (Ibid.). 27. Ibid., 21, 29. 28. Ibid., 38. 29. Ibid., 41. 30. Ibid., 43–44. 31. Mason, 53. 32. Ibid., 49.

Postbellum Slave Narratives as Sources  45 33. Ibid., 51–52. 34. McCarthy and Doughton, 238. 35. Mason, 66. 36. Using a basic mapping software, one can realize the extent of the territory covered by Mason between the day of his birth and his return to Worcester after his visit to Haiti. One can thus estimate that Mason traveled approximately 1,850 miles on US territory. With his travel to Haiti and back, the distance amounts to 8,000 miles. 37. James Redpath, a white abolitionist and a friend and biographer of John Brown, was appointed as the “General Agent of Emigration to Hayti for the United States and the Canadas” by the Haitian government to run the Haitian Bureau of Emigration in Boston in the summer of 1859. His main mission was to help recruit would-be emigrants to Haiti. See Bourhis-Mariotti (2016, 2018). 38. See “Story of Another Returned Emigrant from Hayti,” Weekly Anglo African, April 5, 1862. 39. For more information on this emigration movement to Haiti in particular and on the African American emigrationist movement in the antebellum period, see Bourhis-Mariotti (2016, 2018). 40. Blassingame (1975, 479). 41. See Death Record for Isaac Mason. 42. Mason, 73. 43. Blassingame (1975, 478).

Bibliography Aje, Lawrence. “Fugitive Slave Narratives and the (Re)presentation of the Self? The Cases of Frederick Douglass and William Brown.” L’Ordinaire des Amériques 215 (2013). http://journals.openedition.org/orda/507. Andrews, William L. “Slave Narratives 1865–1900.” In The Oxford Handbook of the African American Slave Narrative, edited by John Ernest, 219–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Bergamasco, Lucia. “Honneur et réputation dans les récits d’esclaves fugitifs.” Revue du Philanthrope no. 5 (2014): 43–56. Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community. Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. ———. “Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems.” The Journal of Southern History 41, no. 4 (November 1975): 473–92. Blight, David W., ed. Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004. Bourhis-Mariotti, Claire. “African American Emigrationists and the Voluntary Emigration Movement to Haiti, 1804–1862.” In Undoing Slavery: American Abolitionism in Transnational Perspective (1776–1865), edited by Michaël Roy, Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Claire Parfait, 41–56. Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm, 2018. ———. L’union fait la force: les Noirs américains et Haïti, 1804–1893. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016. Death Record for Isaac Mason. “Massachusetts Deaths, 1841–1915.” Database with images, 0961527 (004225846), image 173 of 206; State Archives, Boston, August 26, 1898. Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Hartford: Park Publishing Co., 1881.

46  Claire Bourhis-Mariotti ———. My Bondage and My Freedom. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855. ———. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, 1845. Foner, Eric. Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Mason, Isaac. Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave. Worcester, 1893. McCarthy, B. Eugene, and Thomas L. Doughton. From Bondage to Belonging: The Worcester Slave Narratives. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007. Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853. Olney, James. “I Was Born: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature.” Callaloo no. 20 (1984): 46–73. Olson, James S., and Abraham O. Mendoza. American Economic History: A Dictionary and Chronology. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2015. Parfait, Claire. “Le récit d’esclave: une source pour l’histoire de l’esclavage.” Revue du Philanthrope no. 5 (2014): 17–28. Ripley, C. Peter, ed. The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. 3, The United States, 1830–1846. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Roy, Michaël. Textes fugitifs. Le récit d’esclave au prisme de l’histoire du livre. Lyon: ENS Éditions, 2017. Sekora, John. “Black Message/White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authority in the Antebellum Slave Narrative.” Callaloo, no. 32 (1987): 482–515. Starling, Maria Wilson. The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1988. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “North American Slave Narratives: Autobiographies Listed Chronologically.” Documenting the American South, 2004. Accessed June 14, 2018. http://docsouth. unc.edu/neh/chronautobio.html. Wells, Ida B., et al. The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition. Chicago: Ida B. Wells, 1893.

3 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and Native Enslavement in California in History and Memory Rebecca Anne Goetz

Between 1492 and 1900, Europeans enslaved between two and five million Native people.1 This violent encounter between colonizers and indigenous peoples marks all American landscapes, from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego. Enslaving Native people was a critical component of conquest; it allowed Europeans to depopulate Native spaces while simultaneously laying claim to them, and to exploit Native labor and expertise in the search for precious minerals and in the production of valuable commodities. Countless Native people were moved over long distances to labor for Europeans, a forced migration that in many respects rivals the transatlantic slave trade. The trade ripped apart Native communities and destabilized Native polities. Like the transatlantic slave trade, Native enslavement was geographically widespread and continued for several centuries, but unlike the transatlantic trade, Native enslavement is not generally taught in schools, makes only a small impression in textbooks, and lacks significant public memorialization. There is, for example, no equivalent of the UNESCO Slave Routes Project for the enslavement of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Even the United Nations’ 1993 Year of the Indigenous Person focused on contemporary issues (which includes human trafficking and modern slavery) while overlooking historical acts of enslavement. This general lack of public conversation about Native enslavement might stem from how the descendants of settlers choose to remember this past. A key element of settler colonialism is the creation of a celebratory past in which the coming of Europeans was inevitable and which masks violence, displacement, and enslavement with histories that begin with contact (whenever that date may be). In these memories, Europeans make “discoveries” while Native people are present only to give help and advice (Squanto saving the Pilgrims, for example) and then quietly vanish—noble savages whose time had come and gone and who now moved off the scene to accommodate superior settler societies. These edifices of memory, commemoration, and memorialization are designed to justify and mythologize a past in which Native people are easily erased and colonial peoples are natural, justified occupants of American lands.

48  Rebecca Anne Goetz This selective memory manifests itself historiographically as well; even professional historians emphasize the passive nature of epidemic disease in Native depopulation while downplaying active warfare, slaughter, and enslavement. The myth of the “vanished Indian,” which some scholars have also called a “terminal narrative,” denies the place of Native peoples in American nations’ histories and their continued presence in the present, an erasure that makes public memorialization and commemoration of Native enslavement both difficult and undesirable in the context of maintaining the settler colonial nation state.2 This is not to say that there is no memory of Native enslavement. Native communities in North, Central, and South America preserve oral histories of this past, often commemorating aspects of enslavement in ritual and in song. The Wayúu people in Colombia remember and commemorate their own acts of resistance, in particular an episode in 1769 when Spanish colonizers enslaved 22 Wayúu to work on fortifications in Cartagena.3 Near Boston, a coalition of Wampanoags, Nipmucs, and other Native people from the region have demanded a memorial on Deer Island to commemorate the internment of Native people during King Philip’s War in 1675–1676, thus reclaiming a space and a past ignored by Boston and Massachusetts officials.4 (After the war, the English enslaved many Narragansett survivors and sold them in the Caribbean and Bermuda.)5 Native people from the region also organized the Deer Island Sacred Run and Paddle in 2010, during which three mishoonash (dugout canoes), piloted by Native activists, traveled down the Charles River, commemorating Native space and land use before colonization and thus calling attention to violence and enslavement after the arrival of English settlers in 1630.6 In the Southwestern United States, communities in New Mexico commemorate a long and violent history of raiding, enslavement, and captive exchange through a ritual dance at Christmas called Los Comanches.7 Outside of settler communities, then, Native people commemorate and remember acts of enslavement in ways that shape community in the present. But these Native representations of a troubled past do not generally animate conversations outside Native communities. In the wider settler colonial world, the dominant narrative of heroic colonizers and doomed Natives prevails and works to obscure purposeful, destructive violence perpetuated against Native communities in the past. In order to remember Native enslavement, settler Americans must confront the ways in which they remember and memorialize settler colonialism. This requires both a deep reimagination of this past in popular culture and a concerted effort to rethink how professional historians interpret a past that includes Native dispossession and enslavement. In this chapter, I examine both the historical life of the sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who, among other things, traded in Native enslaved people, and the memory of his presence as the “discoverer” of

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  49 San Diego, California. In examining the popular memory of Cabrillo in California, the strength of historical narratives that present him as a hero and explorer, and the efforts of Native people to create a counter memory of Cabrillo, I show how popular memories deliberately hide violence and enslavement in the settler colonial past.

1. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo: Soldier, Sailor, Encomendero, and Slaver Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo is big business in the city of San Diego. As a wannabe conquistador who served during the conquest of Mexico under Pánfilo de Narváez and later under Hernán Cortés, Cabrillo undertook the exploration of the west coast of what is currently California in 1542. Cabrillo is generally credited with “discovering” San Diego Bay. The National Park Service operates a large monument and visitor center at Point Lomo, where he supposedly made landfall in September 1542. The Cabrillo statue is the focal point of an annual costumed reenactment of his arrival by the local Portuguese community, which concludes with a wreath-laying at the monument. (The governments of Spain and Portugal fight over where he was born and which country should claim him.) The Long Beach Unified School District named a high school after Cabrillo in 1996. The San Diego Maritime Museum built a seaworthy replica of Cabrillo’s flagship, the San Salvador, on which a tourist can take a fourhour sail for $100. The mythology of discovery makes a great tourist attraction. The region, claims the San Diego Maritime Museum, was an “object of European discovery.”8 But who was the historical Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo? As a young boy, possibly an orphan on the streets of Sevilla, Cabrillo fell in with a mentor who eventually sponsored his travel to the Caribbean. Cabrillo served Pánfilo de Narváez in Cuba, where he would have witnessed Narváez’s enslavement of Native people and his slaughter of them. One witness to a massacre of Native people in Cuba in early 1511, Bartolomé de las Casas, estimated that 3,000 Native Cubans had been killed. It was likely here that Cabrillo learned to think of Native people as eligible for both enslavement and slaughter.9 Cabrillo later joined Narváez’s expedition to try to thwart Cortés’s conquest of Mexico. It is in Mexico that we first see Cabrillo fighting—he was listed as a crossbowman in Hernan Cortés’s infantry, fighting against the Mexica. As part of the conquest of Tenochtitlan, Cortés required a fleet of brigantines to take the lake on which the city was built. Cabrillo served in the Spanish units engaged in boat building; he likely exploited the labor of hundreds, if not thousands, of enslaved Native people to harvest the timber and build Cortés’s boats.10 At least two contemporaneous Spanish historians noted that Cabrillo ordered the use of rendered fat from Native corpses to caulk the newly built ships. López de Gómara wrote that “[t]his was a cruel thing to do,

50  Rebecca Anne Goetz repulsive to the Spaniards, but the [enslaved] Indians, who were inured to sacrifice, were cruel and cut open the bodies and extracted the fat.”11 The Spanish were already busily constructing Native people as inferior because of the (rather limited) practice of human sacrifice. And from a young age, Cabrillo learned to think of Native people as inferior, as enslaveable, and as expendable. After the Spanish conquest of the Mexica, Cabrillo attached himself to another Spanish conquistador named Pedro de Alvarado. Alvarado led his men, an army that included Tlaxcalan and Cholutecan soldiers, south into what is now Guatemala and Honduras. Alvarado destroyed the Quiché capital of Utatlan in 1524, branding and selling survivors into slavery. Alvarado used the same approach in conquering other cities in the region, enslaving surviving Native people and endorsing the rape of Native women. Historians have tended to characterize this as “concubinage” or even “marriage,” using vocabulary that obscures the violence inherent in these relationships.12 Cabrillo himself took “an Indian wife” and apparently had several children with her who later married into prominent Spanish families. Cabrillo was listed among the Spanish citizens of the new province as early as 1524.13 Like many other Cortés protégés, Cabrillo was awarded an encomienda in 1532. The encomienda allowed Cabrillo to demand labor of local Native people, which Cabrillo used to build the great ships that were beginning to ply the Pacific Ocean and to sink gold mines in various spots in lands he controlled. By the late 1520s, Cabrillo also likely had several hundred enslaved Native people laboring for him in gold placers and in fields raising food for enslaved miners to eat.14 Cabrillo also apparently violated the terms of his encomienda by illegally selling Native men to other Spaniards in Honduras for mining.15 From tributes, mining, and illegal sale of enslaved Natives, Cabrillo became one of the wealthiest Spanish men in Guatemala. It was now time for Cabrillo to take his place as a hidalgo, a Spanish nobleman. To protect his wealth, he had to marry a Spanish woman and produce a male heir. On a return trip to Sevilla in the early 1530s, Cabrillo married the daughter of a merchant and in Guatemala she quickly bore him two sons. In testimony in a lawsuit after Cabrillo’s death, one Pedro de Ovide testified that Cabrillo “supported his house and his family in this city as an honored man with a wife and children.”16 Such accolades meant that Cabrillo had arrived— he was a nobleman who controlled the labor of many hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and had a large and flourishing family to support, and sons who would inherit his wealth and position. Yet Cabrillo watched many of his old fighting friends set themselves up for even greater wealth in other parts of the New World. Cabrillo, like other conquistadors, dreamt of even greater wealth and power, a dream he hoped to fulfill in California. Under the leadership of his old commander Alvarado, Cabrillo agreed to lead an expedition up the western

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  51 coast of Mexico, which Alvarado, Cabrillo, and other great Spanish magnates financed in hope of making new wealth-generating discoveries. Cabrillo, acknowledged as an experienced shipbuilder, supervised enslaved Natives building the ships. Bartolome de las Casas later wrote of Cabrillo’s shipbuilding activities, [h]e killed an infinite number of people in building the ships . . . he broke up homes, taking the women and girls and giving them to the soldiers and sailors in order to keep them satisfied and bring them into his fleets.17 Las Casas adroitly connected Cabrillo’s deadly exploitation of Native men’s labor with the sexual exploitation of Native women—without Native men to haul supplies and build the ships, and without access to Native women’s bodies holding Spanish soldiers in place, Cabrillo’s expedition would not have happened. Cabrillo had learned well how expendable Native people were and how simultaneously essential they were to the creation of wealth; he certainly thought he was headed to even greater wealth and fame, perhaps on the order of Cortés and Pizarro. In a grimly prophetic moment, Alvarado was killed by a falling horse before he could join his old comrade, while fighting Native people in the Mixtón Revolt in summer 1541.18 When Cabrillo left for California in his flagship the San Salvador early in 1542, he alone was in charge. In the summer of 1542, Cabrillo sailed north along the coast of Baja California in search of new lands and new peoples to conquer. He landed at San Diego on September 28, 1542. His instructions were to be wary of Native people he encountered but to be as friendly as possible.19 Any settlement Cabrillo authorized was to be far from any Native towns and villages—a change of approach that would be ratified in Spain with the New Laws of 1542, which, among other things, sought to curb the most egregious Spanish treatment of Native people. But Cabrillo did not know of the New Laws, and though he made some attempt to have reasonable interactions with Native people, his most crucial interactions with Native people ended in disaster. Native people attacked Cabrillo and his men within a day of their landing at what is presently San Diego. These people had apparently encountered Spanish people before, as they communicated to Cabrillo by signs that bearded men had attacked them in years past.20 In sailing up the coast from San Diego, Cabrillo and his men entertained several large groups of Native people, feasting and dancing on their ships. One member of the expedition later wrote, “it cost us much trouble to rid ourselves of the people.”21 The Spanish threatened these people with violence should they return. Cabrillo stayed in the area for several months, wintering on the Channel Islands, where the Spanish so antagonized Native groups that they could not even safely put in for water. On Christmas Eve 1542, while the Spanish were collecting fresh

52  Rebecca Anne Goetz water, a party of Native people attacked them. In the course of the fight, Cabrillo shattered a leg and died in January 1543 of gangrene.

2. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in Myth and Memory This ignominious death for a conquistador and slaver has led to a lively afterlife in Spanish and American myth and memory. Much of what we know about Cabrillo’s life comes from a document written in 1618, quite some time after his death, by Cabrillo’s nephew Gerónimo Cabrillo de Aldana. The document, an attempt to fend off several residual lawsuits regarding both Cabrillo’s properties in Guatemala and Honduras and the aftereffects of the failed California expedition, while simultaneously regaining royal favor, was a “meritos y servicios.”22 These documents, which have no analogue in the Anglophone archive, were specifically designed to report specific services done by an individual to the Crown, and were thus often celebratory and self-aggrandizing. The creation of this document was an act of memory-making; Cabrillo’s descendants were using the Spanish bureaucracy and its archiving system to build their own reputations and stake their own claims to both territory and respect in the New World. The document, now preserved in the Archivo General de Indias, in Seville, Spain, resides in an archive that the Spanish King Charles III founded explicitly in 1785 to encourage the rational study of the Spanish empire and to combat the so-called “Black legend” of Spanish cruelty in the New World. The archive has been crucial to the creation of a historical memory that celebrates Cabrillo the conquistador and obscures Cabrillo the slaver. The meritos y servicios, our principle source of information about Cabrillo, raise fundamental questions about who constructs the archive and who has access to the archive. Cabrillo’s posthumous meritos y servicios control his narrative; in it Cabrillo is a self-made nobleman devoted to the interests of the Crown, but never a slave trader. This is the mythology of the conquistador that infects the present. Cabrillo’s reputation as a shipwright has inspired much of the mythology around him. When it built a seaworthy replica of his flagship the San Salvador, the San Diego Maritime Museum wanted to focus particularly on this aspect of Cabrillo mythology. The work was apparently painstaking, with extensive research into sixteenth-century Iberian sailing vessels. According to the ship’s website, the museum “engaged a group of skilled professional boat builders, who are assisted by scores of regular volunteers.”23 Completed in 2015, the San Diego Maritime Museum claims that the replica ship memorializes a generally friendly first contact with the indigenous peoples of that coast. The San Salvador must be considered the founding ship of San Diego and of the State of California. As such she functions as an “origin symbol” ship for San Diego in much the same way as

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  53 the Mayflower is the origin symbol ship of New England. Her story represents the beginning of a common heritage for the peoples of California, both past and present.24 Cabrillo and his ship represent to white Californians a mythologized past, one that connects to the era of “discoveries” and of peaceful interactions between Native peoples and Europeans. The invocation of the Mayflower here is hardly accidental; the museum can capitalize on general American associations of the Mayflower with happy, generous, and innocent Indians, religiously persecuted Pilgrims, and a pleasant interracial First Thanksgiving. For the museum, the San Salvador is the West Coast’s Mayflower. It celebrates European ingenuity, Native passivity, and the inevitability of conquest. None of the museum’s promotional materials acknowledges that the original San Salvador was built by enslaved Native people. Unsurprisingly, Native people are less enamored of the San Salvador and do not share the museum’s rosy vision of the past. On March  4, 2014, Indian Country Today published an article on the San Salvador. The writer, the Shawnee and Lenape commentator Steven Newcomb, noted that the museum’s exhibit did not include a reference to those who built the original vessel—enslaved Native people forced to labor under brutal conditions in Central America. Why, Newcomb asked, was the museum refusing to acknowledge this genocidal history of enslavement and expropriation?25 One reason might be financial: a four-hour trip on the San Salvador, which is seaworthy, costs$50–$100—discovery and enslavement reframed as entertainment for those who can pay. Yet another reason is that commemorating Native enslavement along with this symbol of ingenuity and discovery devalues the touristy, feel-good aspects of the San Salvador. Only one locus of memory generates money for the museum. Similarly, Cabrillo’s American reputation as a self-made man has fueled a significant amount of memorializing among Californians. The mission statement of Cabrillo College, a community college founded in 1959 to serve San Diego County, notes that the institution’s name holds “special significance.” The mission statement hopes that students emulate Cabrillo’s “sense of exploration and discovery” while undertaking a “similar searching for their own new world of personal achievement and leadership.”26 The student population of Cabrillo College remains majority white, though Latinos are a steadily growing part of the student body.27 The general attachment of the American mythology of selfreliance and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is an attractive one to attach to a Spanish conquistador in a state that is increasingly demographically Latino. Yet the outcome is the public positioning of Cabrillo as a hero at the expense of the enslaved Native people who generated his wealth and built his ships.

54  Rebecca Anne Goetz If the San Diego Maritime Museum and Cabrillo College play on his reputation as a shipbuilder and as a self-made man to connect Cabrillo to a distinctly American vision of the past, other forms of public memorialization cater specifically to the Latino community. The Cabrillo National Monument, founded in 1913, originally intended to memorialize the triumphal vision of Cabrillo—the explorer, discoverer, and conqueror. Yet the place has become a focal point for the construction of and celebration of Latino identity, emphasizing Cabrillo’s origins as (take your pick) either a Portuguese or Spanish explorer. In the 1930s, San Diego’s Portuguese community began to lobby for a statue of Cabrillo as the focal point of the National Monument. Acting on the words of a sixteenthcentury Spanish chronicler who claimed that Cabrillo had been born in Portugal, Portuguese immigrants in San Diego lobbied for the national prominence of their explorer and discoverer in much the same way that Italian immigrants in New York lobbied for statues and other memorials to Christopher Columbus. Accordingly, in 1942, the quadricentennial of Cabrillo’s arrival in California, the Portuguese sculptor Álvaro de Brée delivered a 14-foot statue of Cabrillo. That statue remained in place until the 1980s, when another Portuguese sculptor, Joao Charters de Almeida e Silva, created a new statue to replace the badly damaged older model. The Portuguese community remains deeply involved in commemorating Cabrillo as a precursor to their own presence in San Diego; there is an annual fair every September complete with costumed reenactors imagining the arrival of (a Portuguese) Cabrillo and his entourage. Yet partisans of a Spanish Cabrillo have begun to insert themselves into this celebration and claim Cabrillo for Spanish-speaking communities of immigrants from Mexico and Central America.28 The National Park Service now advertises the monument specifically as a site of “Latino Heritage” along with monuments to Hernando de Soto and Coronado.29 These Portuguese and Latino immigrant-led celebrations emphasize the “discovery” of San Diego while connecting Cabrillo to immigrant groups intent on proving their Americanness. The National Monument’s website notes that Cabrillo’s expedition ultimately facilitated the “difficult task of colonizing the expanded Spanish Empire.”30 Amid these triumphal narratives, what of the Native people who had long lived in the San Diego area prior to Cabrillo’s arrival? The Kumeyaay Nation, a group now comprising 13 federally recognized tribes in the United States and five groups in northern Baja California (Mexico), were the people who first encountered Cabrillo.31 Kumeyaay communities are now using the Cabrillo monument and the annual Cabrillo festival as a means of asserting continuing Kumeyaay presence, identity, and understanding of their past. Since 2006, a Kumeyaay elder has opened the Cabrillo festival with a prayer in the Yuman language spoken by the Kumeyaay. In that same year, the National Monument began flying a flag designed by the Kumeyaay. Now in addition to the reenactment of

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  55 Cabrillo’s landing and claiming of Kumeyaay territory for Spain, there are demonstrations of Kumeyaay language and basket-making techniques.32 The National Park Service added a section to the Cabrillo Monument’s website about the Kumeyaay.33 The Kumeyaay are therefore laying claim and assigning meaning to a history that has traditionally been used to justify and celebrate European hegemony in California. Additionally, the Kumeyaay have begun to teach and tell their history in their own way. Yet even in these recent changes to the Cabrillo Festival, Cabrillo’s own heroic history remains hegemonic, and the experience of the Kumeyaay remains secondary. One way Native people do assert their own histories publicly is through education. In 2006, Sycuan band of Kumeyaay historian Michael Connelly Miskwish wrote the first textbook of Kumeyaay history from before contact to 1893. Noting that many prior accounts were “condescending and patronizing,” Miskwish hopes that his textbook will help both Kumeyaay and settler Californians understand that the histories of contact, conquest, mission, enslavement, reservation, and contemporary resurgence of Native peoples and of Kumeyaay identity.34 The textbook covers the Kumeyaay past from the precontact era to the later nineteenth century, emphasizing Kumeyaay resistance to colonialism. The Kumeyaay were instrumental in resisting the mission movement in Spanish and Mexican California. In the United States period, the Kumeyaay resisted American assimilationist policies even as they strove to maintain their land and identity in the late nineteenth century.35 Miskwish also developed a curriculum on California Native history available adaptable from elementary school through college.36 Providing an alternate narrative that acknowledges and privileges Native understandings of the past can help combat triumphal settler colonial narratives. The Kumeyaay history with Cabrillo is the start of the destabilizing experience of colonialism in southern California. When the Kumeyaay met Cabrillo and his men the first time, they ran, having already heard of Spanish predations well inland from the coast. When Cabrillo landed his men to look for fresh water, the Kumeyaay attacked them. Even after some understanding had been struck between the two peoples, the Kumeyaay remained wary and distant. After Cabrillo’s death, as the ships were returning to Mexico, the Spanish stopped again at points around contemporary San Diego, seizing at least six Kumeyaay boys and men to bring back with them, both so that they might learn Spanish and to have something to show for their long voyage.37 When the Spanish returned to Alta California in 1769, the Kumeyaay were among the first to experience the not-so-tender ministrations of the Franciscan friar and missionary Junípero Serra. The Kumeyaay, in fact, repeatedly attacked the mission in its infancy. As Kumeyaay historian Miskwish points out in his textbook, many Kumeyaay tried to maintain their distance from the mission system and remained threats to it well into the Mexican period.

56  Rebecca Anne Goetz Though this Spanish incursion brought with it disease, destabilization, and starvation, the Kumeyaay remained skeptical of Spanish power. During the Mexican period, officials created large ranches on Kumeyaay land, dispossessing both Christianized and unchristianized Kumeyaay, forcing many back into the mountains. Those Kumeyaay who remained on the ranches, Miskwish notes, “were forced to labor on the Ranchos like slaves or were hired out in slave gangs by cruel overseers.”38 Kumeyaay men even led a rebellion against the Spanish in 1827.39 Miskwish speculates that Kumeyaay-led attacks on Mexican holdings were on the brink of driving Mexican rancheros out of the San Diego area in the 1840s—a history of resistance that conventional histories do not acknowledge.40 After the coming of the Americans in the late 1840s, Americans forced Mission Indians, as they were called, into slavery-like conditions on their ranches. The Kumeyaay, though, were excluded from American reservation policy-making as they were not considered Mission Indians. Between 1875 and 1893, the Kumeyaay received reservations from the federal government totaling 120,000 acres (less than 5% of the land they had occupied when Cabrillo arrived in 1542).41 Even though the Cabrillo Festival is expanding to include more diverse peoples and deeper narratives in its commemorations, this part of the history of settler colonialism and Native dispossession remains hidden, mostly because any ritual that celebrates Cabrillo reifies the beginning of the conquest without regard to its consequences. The Kumeyaay experience with Cabrillo and his men is the beginning of the history of Native enslavement in California. In suffering the seizure of their young men, the Kumeyaay experienced a form of enslavement pioneered in the Caribbean by Christopher Columbus, who routinely seized Native people in new places he visited. This was a prelude to other practices of enslavement: Native enslavement was economically vital to many colonized regions, both as an import/export trade in commodified human bodies and in terms of the labor performed by enslaved Native people, who labored in mines (as they did for Cabrillo in Guatemala), in pearl fisheries, in sugar and tobacco fields, in provisioning enterprises, in shipyards (again as they had for Cabrillo), and in the homes and fields of settlers. On the island of Margarita, for example, enslaved Native people from around the Caribbean basin labored first in the pearl fisheries of the sixteenth century and then in the tobacco fields of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In São Paulo, enslaved Native labor powered a vast provisioning industry that supported the sugar fields of Bahia— where enslaved Native people also labored. In Carolina, enslaved Native women and children labored on English plantations while English slave traders sold enslaved Native men to sugar planters in the Caribbean. Native enslavement was woven into the fabric of the Atlantic economy. It also destroyed countless Native communities and remade Native polities across North and South America. The aptly named “shatter zone”

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  57 of the North American southeast, for example, connotes the destruction of Mississippian civilization in the interior—caused through slaughter, enslavement, and epidemic disease—and the birth of new polities such as the Choctaw, whose ethnogenesis was rooted in protection against slave raiding. One could apply the same terminology of the “shatter zone” to what is now the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, to the islands of the Caribbean, to the Brazilian sertão, and to the California world of the Kumeyaay.42 In short, Native enslavement transformed precontact Native societies and created the American world we know. For Native people, enslavement was a constant risk and a major force in determining the direction of colonized lives. The Kumeyaay learned this beginning with Cabrillo in 1542. Native enslavement began transforming the lives of the Kumeyaay in 1542, but it persisted in California into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even after the 1865 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed non-penal slavery in the United States. After US sovereignty was established in 1846, the population of Native people in California dropped from about 150,000 to 30,000, and in 1880, the census counted only 16,277 Native people.43 Historians have called American actions in California a genocide, made in part by deliberate massacre, by starvation, and by slaving activities.44 A  law in 1850 permitted the “involuntary servitude” of Native people, mostly children. Though California entered the union as a free state, most populated areas included a slave market where Native people were sold as de facto slaves. One Los Angeles lawyer noted that new vineyard keepers traded enslaved Native men on continuous one-week indentures until they perished. Sometimes whole communities were enslaved at once.45 So-called “squaw men” routinely abducted Native women for a thriving trade in sex slaves that persisted into the 1870s—a trade that would have been familiar to Cabrillo, who authorized a similar abuse of enslave Native women in the 1530s and 1540s.46 Though the legal regime that allowed white Californians to access Native labor through apprenticeship and debt peonage programs (a de facto enslavement if not a de jure one) weakened significantly after 1873, California still indentured Native convicts well into the 1930s.47 In other words, Cabrillo’s visit in 1542 ushered in a practice of Native enslavement that marked the lives of California’s Native people for the following five hundred years—a circumstance that goes unremembered and unacknowledged even as Cabrillo is feted annually. California remembers itself as a progressive state and as a free state where slavery was never legal, but that characterization holds only as long as California’s Native people do not push a counternarrative that includes slavery as an important part of California’s past. Despite extensive new scholarship, its history of Native enslavement remains largely absent from textbooks and school curricula and from museums.48 (For example, a set of lesson plans about slavery I recently

58  Rebecca Anne Goetz viewed, aimed at an audience of 10- and 11-year-old American schoolchildren, baldly stated that Native people were never enslaved. Though the curriculum development company Studies Weekly withdrew the lessons, the message for young people is clear: Native enslavement either did not happen or it did not matter.)49 Native enslavement also lacks visible public commemoration in the form of memorials: statues, plaques, and other forms of public memorializing. The history of enslaved Native people is in most respects playing catch-up with the far larger and better developed history of enslaved Africans and the transatlantic slave trade. Historians who study enslaved Native people in the Americas often find that their colleagues ask them questions about significance and about numbers, and that their colleagues express shock when they begin to realize the extent and longevity of Indian slavery. (This is no longer the case for studies of enslaved Africans and the transatlantic slave trade. History as a discipline is by and large convinced of the importance and significance of the transatlantic slave trade—with the exception of course of a few curmudgeons.) This also means that public understandings of Native enslavement among settler populations are pretty much nonexistent— especially in North America, and that the study of Native enslavement in memory—in terms of a broad public memory, including commemoration and memorialization—is behind the times. This might explain why Cabrillo’s triumphant narrative remains so powerful in contemporary San Diego, and why his own history as a slaver and his expedition’s introduction of enslavement to the Kumeyaay remain largely unknown. The public memorialization and indeed the public memory of an important event—the arrival of Cabrillo in San Diego—is the triumphal narrative of discovery, but in effacing Native enslavement, these celebratory narratives also efface the violence of conquest.

Notes 1. Rushforth, 9. 2. Dunbar-Ortiz, 39–42; on the absence of Native people from narratives, see Deloria, entire book but especially 230–32. 3. “Espiritus Guerreros” (documentary by Lina Britto and Forrest Hylton). Accessed March 25, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hQjAZiVvwU; Hylton. 4. DeLucia, 84–120. 5. Warren, 98–99; Newell, 142–54. 6. Delucia, 106–10. 7. Brooks, 1–10. 8. San Diego Maritime Museum website. Accessed April 1, 2018. https://www. sdmaritime.org/visit/exhibits/charting-the-sea/. 9. For details of this event, see Kelsey, 16–17. Kelsey’s is the most accessible biography of Cabrillo in English, and I have used it here to reconstruct the events of Cabrillo’s life. Though Spanish historians follow the Iberian convention of calling him Rodríguez, most North Americans will recognize him by the surname Cabrillo, which I have used here. 10. Kelsey, 31–32.

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  59 1. Quoted in Ibid., 34. 1 12. Ibid.,141–42. 13. Ibid., 43. Kelsey goes on to speculate that this woman was “perhaps one of the extremely attractive Tzutuhil women who still beguile travelers with their delicate features and flashing smiles.” This is not a history that takes Native women’s inability to consent seriously. 14. Ibid., 59. 15. The allegations of encomienda violations are in Las Casas, 73. See also Kelsey, 70–71. 16. Quoted in Kelsey, 58. 17. Las Casas, 73. 18. Altman, 147. 19. Kelsey, 109–10. 20. Ibid., 144. 21. Ibid., 152. 22. “Meritos y servicios de Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo . . .”; see also Kelsey, 166. The Meritos are now digitized on the AGI’s PARES database. Kelsey claims a date of 1616 but the document is dated 1618. For an English language version, see Beagles. 23. San Diego Maritime Museum Website. Accessed March  17, 2018. https:// www.sdmaritime.org/visit/the-ships/san-salvador/. 24. Ibid. 25. Newcomb. 26. “Cabrillo College Mission Statement”. Accessed April  14, 2018. https:// www.cabrillo.edu/home/mission.html/. 27. “Cabrillo College Demographics”. Accessed May  1, 2018. https://www. collegesimply.com/colleges/california/cabrillo-college/students/. 28. For an overview of the Cabrillo statue, see Martin. 29. See the National Park Service’s Latino Heritage tour, including the Cabrillo National Monument. Accessed May 5, 2018. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/ american_latino_heritage/cabrillo_national_monument.html/. 30. The National Park Service’s Brief Biography of Cabrillo. Accessed May 20, 2018. https://www.nps.gov/cabr/learn/historyculture/juan-Rodríguez-cabrillo. htm/. 31. For an excellent overview of Kumeyaay ethnic identity historically and in the present day, see Miskwish, 15–17. For information about the 13 federally recognized tribes and reservations, see Kumeyaay.com. Accessed May 5, 2018. https://www.kumeyaay.com/local-reservations.html/. 32. Dipping. 33. The Kumeyaay page on the Cabrillo Monument website. Accessed May 22, 2018. https://www.nps.gov/cabr/learn/historyculture/kumeyaay.htm/. 34. Showley. 35. See Miskwish. 36. “Kumeyaay Curriculum a Useful Model for Schools”. Accessed S­ eptember 16, 2018. https://www.kumeyaay.com/local-reservations.html/. 37. For a narration of these events, see Hackel, 32–33; Kelsey, 161. 38. Miskwish, 65. 39. Hackel, 45, 268–69. 40. Miskwish, 71. 41. Showley. 42. For a brief overview of this growing historiography, see Goetz and Ethridge and Shuck-Hall. 43. Madley, 8. 44. See especially Madley, who uses the United Nations definition of genocide. Madley makes the case that the label of genocide is particularly applicable to

60  Rebecca Anne Goetz American actions in California after 1846. See also Revsink, who advocates a broader definition of genocide that includes the deliberate destruction of Native languages, cultures, and religions. 45. Ibid., 161–62. 46. Smith, 156–58. 47. On these legal regimes, see Smith. 48. For an overview of this scholarship, see Goetz. 49. See the author’s tweets on the curriculum in a Twitter thread, ­February 14, 2018. Accessed September  9, 2018. https://www.twitter.com/historianess/status/ 963829481633918976/.

Bibliography Abbreviations AGI: Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain.

Primary Sources Beagles, Bernice, ed. and trans. “The Merits and Services of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo.” The Western Explorer 5 (1967): 1–19. Coronilla, Sandy. “San Salvador Finally Leaves Land.” San Diego UnionTribune, July 23, 2015, B-1. ———. “Volunteers’ Spirit Quickly Got Underway.” San Diego Union-Tribune, July 28, 2015, B-1. Dipping, Caroline. “Kumeyaay Elder Shared Knowledge of Tribe’s Old Ways.” San Diego Union-Tribune, May 7, 2014, B-4. Las Casas, Bartolomé de. The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account. Translated by Herma Briffault. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965. Miskwish, Michael Connolly. Kumeyaay: A History Textbook vol. I Precontact to 1893. El Cajon: Sycuan Press, 2007. N.A. “Meritos y servicios de Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, uno de los conquistadores de Mexico y de Guatemala.” Patronato 87, no. 2, R. 4 (1618): Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. Newcomb, Steven. “The San Salvador Project: Ignoring Genocide.” Indian Country Today 4 (March  2014). https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/ news/opinions/the-san-salvador-project-ignoring-genocide/. Showley, Roger M. “Reclaiming Their Past: In Books, Kumeyaay Community Recounts Its Own History for the First Time.” San Diego Union-Tribune, December 17, 2006, I-1.

Secondary Sources Altman, Ida. The War for Mexico’s West: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524–1550. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010. Brooks, James F. Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo  61 Deloria, Philip J. Indians in Unexpected Places. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Delucia, Christine M. Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2014. Ethridge, Robbie, and Sherri Shuck-Hall, eds. Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Gallay, Alan. The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Goetz, Rebecca Anne. “Indian Slavery: An Atlantic and Hemispheric Problem.” History Compass 14, no. 2 (November 2016): 59–70. Hackel, Steven W. Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: IndianSpanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769–1850. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Hylton, Forrest. “ ‘The Sole Owners of the Land’: Empire, War, and Authority in the Guajira Peninsula (New Granada), 1768–1779.” Atlantic Studies 13, no. 3 (2016): 1–30. Kelsey, Harry. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1986. Madley, Benjamin. An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. Martin, John. “A Tale of the Cabrillo Statues.” Journal of San Diego History 60, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 271–92. Newell, Margaret. Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015. Reséndez, Andrés. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. Rushforth, Brett. Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Smith, Stacey L. Freedom’s Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Warren, Wendy. New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2016.

4 Subjective Interpretations of the Memory of Slavery Solving and Expressing Internal Conflicts Through Genealogical Research Ary Gordien This chapter explores the relation between the memory of slavery and the use of genealogical research in Guadeloupe and in some French Caribbean networks in mainland France.1 Affiliating to ancestors who were enslaved has often proved problematic in the Caribbean and more generally in African American societies writ large. In the 1950s, the anthropologist Fernando Henriques coined the notion of “white bias” to describe the tendency in Jamaican society to favor European or white cultural forms and phenotypical traits and to despise African ones.2 In the same period, Frantz Fanon reflected on similar issues in the French Antilles and other colonial and postcolonial settings.3 He also showed how Black Antilleans often shrunk from identifying as Black, thus distinguishing themselves from the colonial imago of the African, associated with savagery and backwardness.4 The Négritude and subsequent anti-colonial movements challenged these Eurocentric and racist representations by rehabilitating Africa and Blackness as well as creole, African-derived cultural practices. In the case of Guadeloupe, peasant culture was redefined as authentic traditions. Mythical affiliation to maroon slaves,5 defined as the founders of the nation, became increasingly popular, while pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism also shaped local representations of Guadeloupean identity and past.6 Nowadays, in spite of the collapse of Marxist anti-colonialism in the late 1980s, the debate on identity remains as important as what the French anthropologist and surrealist writer Michel Leiris noted in the conclusion of his account of the Guadeloupean and Martinican societies of the late 1940s.7 Christine Chivallon argued that one common characteristic in the black diaspora in the Caribbean is the absence of a metanarrative, defining a group identity or an institutionalized and collectively shared memory of slavery.8 This, in her opinion, is due to a characteristic tendency, in this area, to resist any order, lest it should turn out to be as oppressive as the plantation regime.9 A sense of identity and original ways of remembering slavery are expressed through indirect and unexpected channels. In the hills of northern Martinique, for instance,

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  63 land is transmitted in peasant circles over generations, thus revealing the existence of a group consciousness that is not expressed through a shared narrative recounting the emergence of a community or celebrating its togetherness.10 Chivallon also showed how elusive and multi-vocal the memory of slavery was in Guadeloupe and in the rest of the black diaspora.11 Yet, none of those is congealed in rites or myths that lie at the basis of a solid and rigid self-identification process or that express a sense of groupness, as defined by Frederick Cooper and Roger Brubaker.12 Although these characteristics cannot be analyzed as flaws or anthropological abnormalities and aberrations, West Indians, whether they are activists or not, often construe the ruptures, discontinuities, acculturations, and inventions from which their culture and society were created as collective pathologies, especially due to the institutionalized dependence to mainland France and the cultural assimilation it entailed. In this peculiar postcolonial setting, how is slavery remembered and politicized? In relation to the various endeavors to define policies and discourses aimed at defining a strong myth of foundation, how do people relate to the memory of slavery on a more personal and subjective level? What do these more intimate ways of remembering slavery reveal? To begin to answer these research questions, I will use six life narratives that I gathered in the course of my ethnographic research and that are related to informants’ knowledge of their affiliation with ancestors who were alive during the slavery regime. Most of the material I used was gathered in 2011 and 2012 during my doctoral research on race, nationalism, and ethnicity in Guadeloupe.13 The participant observation and the 64 semi-structured interviews I undertook in the archipelago (namely in anti-colonial organizations, Indo-Guadeloupean associations, and white creole top entrepreneur circles) revealed the complexity of ethnic and racial relations. This helped me interpret their impact on the myriad, both similar and contrasting, definitions of what being Guadeloupean meant. For the purpose of this chapter, I  also explored with hindsight some of the data I had gathered in Paris in 2008 and 2009 and in Guadeloupe in 2009 and 2010, in the course of my master’s theses on the Parisian Caribbean gay scene and on the aftermath of the strike that had paralyzed Guadeloupe for 44 days in early 2009, respectively. In these sometimes very different fields of investigation, although slavery was not the central topic, its legacies in contemporary Guadeloupean society were always more or less directly and consciously addressed in analogous ways, through the topics of race relations, colorism, and identity. Moreover, whether they were activists or not, the individuals I interacted with in the field sought to better understand the history of Guadeloupe and to get a better sense of both Guadeloupean culture and their own personal and family trajectories. Tracing their ancestors back to the days of slavery in the archives or through oral transmission implies a personal involvement that differs from that of political activism. The ways informants

64  Ary Gordien interpreted their own and family’s past are nonetheless often related with the ideology of different political activist movements, although they also reflect a continuum of very personal forms of self-understandings and self-identifications.14 Their quest for a better understanding of the group they felt they belonged to often related to another, more personal identity quest. The memory, or post-memory, of slavery thus ultimately became central, and genealogy provided them with some meaningful hints from which they elaborated their own individual narratives that integrated them in a cultural or racial community.15 Considering the intricacies of identity formation and the memory of slavery addressed above, the point of this analysis is not to grasp once and for all one unique way in which slavery is remembered. The goal is rather to understand how, during different field studies, the memory of slavery emerged at various stages in a very vivid manner, revealing an array of subjective interpretations of the past. Rather than giving an overview of the political life and debates in Guadeloupe, the first section analyzes the ways in which the notion of Guadeloupean identity was constructed and politicized through the memory of slavery, with a recent focus on affiliation and genealogy, drawing on the work of Comité Marche du 23 mai 1998, one of the organizations that championed the politics of the memory of slavery. In the second section, I will analyze the intricate ways in which individuals—be they politically engaged or not—tweak various theories and use the archival data they found during their genealogical inquiries to create their own subjective narratives.

1. French Caribbean Identity and the Politicization of the Memory of Slavery The use of genealogy and the ways in which informants interpreted their family history was in many cases intrinsically linked with the anti-colonial definitions of Guadeloupean identity and past. Local politicians and the successive French governments subsequently recuperated this radical tradition, which has led to more recent, unprecedented developments. 1.1. The Role of Anti-Colonialism in the Construction of a Guadeloupean Identity and Foundation Myth Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the emergence and popularization of the Guadeloupean anti-colonialist movement led to the popularization of an unprecedented form of cultural awareness in the archipelago. In the aftermath of World War II, the Guadeloupean Federation of the French Communist Party became the Guadeloupean Communist Party and theorized the notion of personalité guadeloupéenne (“Guadeloupean personality”), which insisted on the historical and cultural specificity of

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  65 Guadeloupeans.16 Nonetheless, Guadeloupean communists campaigned for an autonomous status that would allow them to keep close institutional, cultural, and economic ties with mainland France. Their position was close to that of the Martinican poet, writer, and politician Aimé Césaire, who quit the French Communist Party in 1956 to create his own movement.17 In both cases, these French Caribbean movements sought to celebrate their cultural specificity and express a sense of cultural and racial consciousness and pride.18 In 1962, a network of more radical communist students based in mainland France created the first nationalist Guadeloupean organization advocating immediate national independence.19 Since the second and final abolition of slavery of 1848, the descendants of the formerly enslaved in French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Réunion were given French citizenship, although these territories remained colonies. About a century later, in 1946, the assimilation law was passed, a process known as départementalisation. According to French laws, this meant that these dependencies became French provinces where virtually the same laws as in the mainland applied.20 All anti-colonial activists denounced two forms of inequalities: on the one hand, the living standards that were worse in Guadeloupe than in mainland France, and, on the other hand, the ongoing racial stratification.21 However, among anti-colonial activists, there was one major disagreement: some favored a form of autonomy within the French nation whereas others advocated national independence. In spite of these stark political differences, all anti-colonial activists deemed it necessary to counter the acculturating effects of French cultural assimilation by affirming and celebrating a sense of cultural specificity. Because Guadeloupe was not (and still has not been) decolonized, and due to the French assimilatory policies implemented in the archipelago, Guadeloupean anti-colonialism seems to have been first and foremost concerned with proving Guadeloupeans were a distinct people from a cultural vantage point in order to build a political project. Implicitly, though, the Guadeloupean anti-colonialist movement (specifically the most radical organizations within this movement) indirectly addressed the race issue. The anti-colonial interpretation of Guadeloupean history reflects the potency of this racial innuendo conflating culture and race. Henri Bangou, who used to be the leader of the Guadeloupean Communist Party and the former mayor of the city of Pointe-à-Pitre, wrote an extensive book on the history of Guadeloupe, which has had a definite impact on the way anti-colonial activists subsequently mobilized the memory of slavery.22 According to Bangou, following the reestablishment of slavery in 1802, the coalition of freed slaves and of the former free people of color who worked in the militia to fight against Napoleon’s troops was a key episode of Guadeloupean history: it embodied the emergence of a political awareness that transcends the Black/mulatto divide.23 The

66  Ary Gordien field studies in Guadeloupe revealed that slave rebellions were still often depicted as the expression of Guadeloupean identity and resistance in the speeches anti-colonial activists gave in January 2010. The implicit racial undertone of the cultural or national identity Bangou popularized was clearly expressed in everyday language. The words Guadeloupéen and neg (“Black” in Guadeloupean creole) were used almost interchangeably, a conflation that was seldom called into question. White creoles were solely viewed as the atemporal oppressor. According to the prominent nationalist activist Josy Saint-Martin, the experience of descendants of Indian indentured workers, who probably account for the largest minority group,24 was not addressed until much later.25 Radical nationalist activists viewed the lifestyle of black peasants and poor workers, who still represented the vast majority of the population, as the epitome of cultural authenticity. The French creole language, the ka drum (as well as the celebrations, and the singing and dancing performances known as gwo ka) were gradually redefined as the embodiment of a revitalized cultural identity.26 Through the anti-colonial and nationalist discourses, the history of slavery was mobilized to address current dependency to the metropole and racial inequalities, which were perceived as a direct legacy of the past. Slavery was also used to write a shared narrative. The emergence of collective resistance to slavery was construed as the defining moment of the creation of the Guadeloupean nation. Anti-colonial activists viewed the Guadeloupean people as a group perceived as essentially black that shared a specific culture. In spite of the repression of the Guadeloupean anti-colonial movement by the successive French governments starting in the late 1970s, nationalist ideas concerning cultural and racial pride did spread in the Guadeloupean population.27 However, while cultural awareness became increasingly strong, as the promise of full equality with mainland France citizens was to be partly fulfilled starting in the 1960s,28 the idea of independence started to have less and less appeal for the majority of Guadeloupeans, if it ever had any. While the anti-colonial movement might have won the battle of ideas concerning identity, starting in the 1970s, the successive French government operated a shift from radical assimilation to the recognition of local cultural specificities.29 The election of socialist president François Mitterrand in 1981 confirmed this strategy: the French government passed a national law transferring some of the responsibilities from the central state to the local régions and départements.30 Anti-colonial political movements failed to convince the majority of the population to support some form of autonomous status, let alone national independence. They nonetheless remained powerful, especially in trade unions that kept popularizing cultural but also, in an increasingly explicit fashion, racial awareness through the memory of slavery.

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  67 1.2. The Legacies of Anti-Colonialism: Political Recuperation and Radicalization As the anti-colonial movement lost in political influence in the 1990s, its discourse evolved towards more race-conscious ideas. A good example is the strike that paralyzed Guadeloupe for 44 days in early 2009.31 Elie Domota, the leader of the General Union of Guadeloupe’s Workers, the biggest trade union and one of the historic independentist organizations in the archipelago, convinced several left-wing, green, and anti-colonial political parties, trade unions, as well as some associations and carnival bands to unite to fight against the sharp increase in gas and consumer good prices in the context of the global economic crisis.32 This new movement named Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (alliance against exploitation) denounced the very structure of the Guadeloupean economy, an economy that produces virtually nothing and relies on the importation of goods manufactured in mainland France and the European Union.33 However, Lyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon also denounced the reportedly exaggerated profit that predominantly white creole local entrepreneurs in the retail and import export industry made at the expense of the majority of population, and used this as a symbol of the reproduction of racial inequality.34 While Domota sought to inspire a sense of togetherness by using the strong symbols of Guadeloupean culture forged by his nationalist spiritual fathers, his speeches and, more generally, Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon’s rhetoric insisted much more on race and slavery. For instance, when the local offshoot of the Movement of the Enterprises of France, the country’s largest employer federation, refused to sign an agreement that raised low wages by 200 euros, Domota responded that they had to either sign the agreement or leave Guadeloupe and finally added, “we won’t let a bunch of Békés [White Creoles] reestablish slavery in Guadeloupe,” an explicit reference to the 1802 war which was deemed controversial if not racist by the press.35 The interviews I  conducted with younger anti-colonial activists revealed that they were seldom involved in political parties or trade unions. Nonetheless, many had been reflecting on their own about issues related to identity, culture, and race. Their trajectories also showed how the myriad musical, political, and religious subcultures that circulate in what Paul Gilroy refers to as the Black Atlantic influenced not only the Guadeloupean anti-colonial movement but also the ways in which AfroGuadeloupeans identify in everyday life.36 Reggae and reggae dancehall, Rastafarianism, hip-hop, and Afrocentrism often inspired a sense of strong and essentialist black identity. One good example of the circulation of ideas is the fact that the Guadeloupean linguist Maire-Josée Cérol (also known as Ama Mazama), who is based in Philadelphia, translated

68  Ary Gordien several books by the American Afrocentrist scholar Molefi Asante into French, thus introducing new ideas in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the rest of the French Caribbean diaspora in mainland France starting in the early 2000s.37 In mainland France, several organizations addressing racism, Black consciousness, and the memory of slavery also emerged.38 In 1999, a small group of former Guadeloupean nationalist activists based in Paris founded the Comité Marche du 23 mai 1998 (the committee of May 23 1998 demonstration). As its name indicates, the Comité was created following a demonstration organized on May  23, 1998, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the commemoration of slavery. The goal of this protest was to condemn the official commemoration campaign of the government of the socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.39 Inspired by Guadeloupean writer Daniel Maximin, the rhetoric used by the government focused on the abolition of slavery and referred to 1848 as the year of birth of all French citizens, regardless of color, in reference both to the second French Revolution and to the abolition of slavery that was passed in its aftermath. The motto used to express this idea was “tous nés en 1848!” (“all born in 1848”), a discourse congruent with the French universalistic, color-blind tradition.40 The horrors of slavery are not recounted, and neither is there mention of the history of the captured, the transported, and the enslaved Africans and their descendants. Race is hardly ever mentioned, but, as Michel shows, the official discourse did integrate the notions of métissage (race mixing), diversité (diversity), and créolité (creolity), a timid but important shift towards the recognition of racial and ethnic diversity that still did not lead to an acknowledgment of race, let alone to use of the word race, which is considered very problematic in French language and political culture. The philosophical postulates upon which French nationalism are based are universalism, human rights, and the idea according to which the French nation is a community of citizens. This civic link is believed to transcend any other form of allegiance, especially religious, ethnic, and racial ones. Although in reality, some infra-national allegiances might be called upon to inspire a sense of unity, communautarisme, i.e., the emergence of minority groups that would organize based on a group consciousness, is often thought to be one of the biggest threats to the French republican model. According to Michel, in 1998, the French state aimed to make the 150th anniversary of the commemoration of slavery a moment of national cohesion by celebrating abolitionists and bringing together all French citizens under the same republican banner. This universalistic patriotic zeal was certainly bolstered by the fact that 1998 was the year France hosted the Soccer World Cup in June and July. In reaction to the official discourse on the abolition of slavery, the founding members of the Comité elaborated their own narrative based on an affiliation to the enslaved populations and an attempt to inspire a sense of groupness

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  69 among people of Afro-Caribbean descent, in mainland France. The collective identification the Comité sought to inspire transcended Guadeloupean nationalism. It included and still includes French citizens based in mainland France who come from Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guyana, or whose parents and grandparents were originally from one of these territories. According to footage used in the only journalist report on the event, the majority of the 40,000 demonstrators who took part in the march on May 23, 1998, were Black. We can safely assume they were not only from the French Caribbean but also from Sub-Saharan Africa or at least of partial direct Sub-Saharan African descent, like tennis player Yannick Noah. Moreover, contrary to the Comité’s definition of slavery as the specific history of West Indians, defined as a particular ethnic group, prior and more popular theories have historically analyzed it as a diasporic experience, involving all people of African descent writ large. Paul Gilroy even uses the image of the slave ship to conceptualize the notion of Black Atlantic, a space of circulation between the Americas, Europe, and Africa.41 Challenging this focus on diaspora, the founding members of the Comité did not seek to address a Black audience that would include the entire African Diaspora. They willfully decided to limit the scope of their actions to French Caribbean people and self-identified as descendants d’esclaves (descendants of slaves), rather than descendants of fils et filles d’Africains déportés (“sons and daughters of deported Africans”), an expression used by the less popular Collectif de Filles et Fils d’Africains Déportés to put the emphasis on the strong link with the African continent.42 Drawing on ethno-psychiatric theories and on the anthropological scholarship on Black people in the Americas, and more specifically in the French Caribbean, the Comité’s members conceived an essentialist group identity. They insisted on the traumatic dimension of slavery, arguing that this tragic experience had produced a specific people with its issues of colorism, (internalized) racism, and specific religious beliefs and kinship relations. They sought to encourage West Indians to reconnect with their “identity” through the history of chattel and plantation slavery, and to get to know themselves and their community better thanks to the public conferences and support groups they organized.43 The theoretical definition of West Indian identity through affiliation to their enslaved forebears made literal sense when the leaders started to increasingly focus on genealogical research as a means to really connect with the past. Starting in 2007, activists in the Comité started to systematically transcribe the family names that were given to the formerly enslaved population after the abolition of slavery in 1848. The tens of thousands of surnames that were then invented by civil status officials in the decades following the abolition were recorded in registers.

70  Ary Gordien As the population of the French Caribbean is predominantly of African descent, the majority of these surnames are still in use and borne today. The organization published two books and created a traveling exhibition that both feature a list of nearly all the slaves freed in 1848 to whom a last name was given.44 Although the Comité’s action is supposed to be limited to mainland France, it spread to Guadeloupe not only because many French Caribbean frequently travel to and from Guadeloupe and Martinique, but also because, starting in 2011, the Comité’s leaders seized an opportunity to collaborate with the president of the regional council of Guadeloupe.45 On May 27, during the commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the archipelago, the council used buses and computers for the Comité to help Guadeloupeans of African descent find the first of their ancestors who bore their surname. This resulted in overt tensions with some of their former fellow anticolonial activists with whom the Comité’s leaders used to fight against French colonialism in the 1980s and who still self-identify as Guadeloupean and not as French while campaigning for Guadeloupe to achieve some form of political independence.46 However, the Comité’s position has clearly shifted from anti-colonialism. The organization’s leaders were primarily interested in defining a West Indian identity that would inspire a sense of pride and groupness for French Caribbean people, both in mainland France and in the Caribbean.47 They considered that the best way of accomplishing this goal was to ensure the French institutions officially celebrate the memories of the enslaved, referred to as the ancestors of West Indian people. It does not really matter to them whether this official political recognition takes place within the context of Guadeloupe and Martinique being dependences to France. On the contrary, the strategy they chose was to collaborate closely with French institutions both in mainland France and in the Antilles—this was especially the case in Guadeloupe. Although the Comité’s leaders once opposed assimilation and campaign in the Guadeloupean anti-colonial movement, it is hardly surprising nowadays that they should collaborate with local Guadeloupean politicians. Indeed, they now seem to converge toward similar positions or at least to have a mutual interest in collaborating. Lurel, the former president of the Regional Council of Guadeloupe and overseas minister under the François Hollande presidency between May 2012 and March 2014, who first collaborated with the Comité.48 He is also the one who founded the Mémorial ACTe, in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, the first sizeable museum dedicated to the history of slavery in the Caribbean. Since the emergence of Negritude and French Antillean anti-colonialism, the Comité is the first and probably the only that encourages French Caribbean people of African descent to carry out genealogical studies, for the organization’s philosophy is centered on the idea of affiliation

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  71 to enslaved ancestors. The Comité even provides online and face-toface logistic assistance to anybody who wishes to do archival work. The Comité’s is far from being the only organization to address the memory of slavery and identity. As it was referred to above, there is some contention, both in Paris and in Guadeloupe, as to how these issues should be addressed. However, as Johan Michel’s work shows, the Comité was successful in imposing its ideology on the subjects and to secure a support network in the French institutions both in mainland France and in Guadeloupe. Beyond these power relations, the memory of slavery, Guadeloupean culture, and identity are often more generally reflected upon as political issues that directly imply the self-esteem and definition of subjects. The second section of the chapter addresses this interplay between the subjective and collective levels.

2. Searching for Self, Groupness, and Genealogy 2.1. Activists’ Trajectories: Family History—The Quest for Identity and Metanarratives The Guadeloupean anti-colonial and nationalist activism described earlier emerged because the theoretical postulates of these movements resonated in individuals. There is a close relation between the individual subjective process of getting involved in a political movement and the more general historical and sociological phenomena at work. During the field study I  undertook in the course of my doctoral research, I  asked Thierry, a prominent nationalist leader, who was then in his early seventies, how he had become an activist. Before explaining how he engaged in practical activism, he provided a retrospective sociological analysis of his personal experience through anti-colonial lenses. “I was totally messed up intellectually speaking,” he explained, “that is to say I belonged to the Guadeloupean community but I believed I was French, just like all Guadeloupeans in those days.”49 Thierry viewed the complex history of Guadeloupe, the legacies of colonialism, slavery, and postcolonial integration to mainland France as a debilitating experience analogous to Fanon’s description of the effects of colonization on culture.50 However, prior to being exposed to any critical work on colonization, Thierry recalled experimenting with an irresistible desire to learn about Guadeloupean history when he was in his early teens after reading one of the first authoritative historical inquiries on the archipelago written by white creole notable Auguste Lacour in the late nineteenth century.51 He remembers very vividly asking one of his teachers about the 1802 war and not getting any satisfactory answers. Thierry moved to Paris to study law in the late 1950s, in the midst of the Algerian war (1954–1962). In the course of our conversation, he explained how this very tense geopolitical context had a decisive impact on how he viewed the world and his own history and identity. Thierry

72  Ary Gordien indicated that his gradual integration in the cosmopolitan anti-colonial student circles coincided with his growing awareness of being Guadeloupean and not French. This cultural consciousness was also connected with a racial one. Thierry had read Aimé Césaire and considered that the Négritude notion and movement played a key influential role by providing him and his fellow activists with the tools to combat anti-Black racism, which had such a strong negative impact on people of African descent. However, during the interview, he still considered that the cultural and political dimension of the anti-colonial movement was more important than the racial one. Because Thierry was absolutely convinced by the theoretical postulates of anti-colonialism, he decided, with a dozen fellow French Caribbean activists, to move to Algeria to join the National Liberation Front against the French army and lived clandestinely. Following the amnesty laws related to the Algerian war passed between the 1960s and the 1980s,52 he was not prosecuted for fighting against the French army and became increasingly involved in the French Caribbean and more specifically Guadeloupean anti-colonial movements. Thierry’s quest was not limited to the political realm; he also kept reading about Guadeloupean and Caribbean identity and aspired to learn more about his own family history. To that end, he carried out a genealogical research and organized a family gathering to share his findings. Thierry remembered that, during the reunion, when he revealed that his family descended directly from an enslaved person of African descent, it made them quiver. One of them even asked if that ancestor was dark-skinned. Because Thierry and his family are light-skinned, they did not expect to descend from enslaved people. Thierry used his scholarly knowledge of the history of slavery to explain to his family that their light skin resulted from miscegenation that he believed had occurred after the abolition of slavery without specifying any specific marriage or union. Quoting Glissant, Thierry interprets his family history as a perfect example of créolisation, which he conflates with the notion of métissage, that are both, he believes, characteristic of the Guadeloupean people. When I  interviewed Nathanael, one of Thierry’s fellow nationalist activists, he also stressed the fact that métissage should be taken into account when defining what being Guadeloupean means. Although I did not know whether he had undertaken genealogical research himself, Nathanael did mention his own mulatto grandfather and Indian background to make his point. Concerning his mixed-race grandfather, he commented: “this means that above him there’s a white person somewhere!”53 Following this comment, he criticized the “borderline” comments, which he believed verged on overt racism, that were made during the 2009 strike concerning White Creoles and stated that he knew some white creole entrepreneurs with whom he was in good terms and insisted that they were also Guadeloupeans.

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  73 Thierry and Nathaniel seemed to use their family histories to provide a tangible basis to their beliefs. Descent, the blood that runs in their veins, somehow validated the theoretical postulates of their past and current political actions and ideas. Knowing the history of slavery and its aftermath enabled them to identify enslaved ancestors, who, they consider, root them to the Guadeloupean land and culture. They recognized miscegenation as another characteristic of their individual identity, which they generalized at the collective level to make it a defining feature of Guadeloupean culture. In their case, recognizing the creole dimension of their Guadeloupean sense of identity did not lead them to question nationalism but rather to simply complicate the ambiguous racial rhetoric on which nationalist doctrine is based. Other informants, on the contrary, believed that the diversity of origins, cultures, and races that accounts for the current Guadeloupean population allows them to affirm a French identity. For instance, Xavier is an entrepreneur that self-identifies as a mulatto “in spite of [his] kinky hair,” who is part of a network of conservative, mostly white creole businessmen.54 Xavier is the son of a white creole man and of a black woman. The couple eventually got married when Xavier turned 10, despite the disapproval of the white creole family. Xavier carried out extensive genealogical research whose findings he exposed to me at length during the course of our two interviews. He was able to trace white and mulatto slave-owning ancestors as well as enslaved ones and indentured African workers. Just like Thierry, Xavier referred to Glissant and considered that in spite of the hardship he had been exposed to since his very young age because of his parents’ disapproved interracial union, he was convinced his diverse heritage and creole identity are major assets that make him culturally richer and more versatile. He blames nationalist leaders for not being knowledgeable enough and refusing to address the diversity and complexity of Guadeloupean history and culture and is not at all bothered by his French identity, defined in both universalistic political and cultural terms. Rather, he combines the fact of being French with that of being Guadeloupean by considering Guadeloupe as a province of the French nation. Contrary to Xavier, Thierry, and Nathanael, Ophélie, a follower of Afrocentricism, refused to celebrate creoleness and métissage as parts of who she is.55 Moreover, like nationalist activists, such as Thierry and Nathanael, she does not identify as French. However, while nationalists referred to a Guadeloupean identity implicitly defined as black, Ophélie wished to reconnect not only with blackness but more importantly with a lost African essence. She considered that Guadeloupeans were essentially African, unaware of their cultural and spiritual link with the culture (used in singular) that comes from this continent. To explain why she chose to identify primarily as African in spite of the fact that she is of European, East Indian, and African ancestry, Ophélie gave me a

74  Ary Gordien quite precise account of her family history, dating back to the period of slavery. The more specific the story became, the more difficult it proved to determine whether she had actually gleaned this amount of data from oral and archival sources or mostly relied on the visions she told me she had been having since she was a child. According to the story she recounted, Ophélie descends from an African house-slave and the cruel white slave owners she worked for. Ophélie seemed to refuse the very principle that her white and black forebears could have been involved in a relationship and insisted it was violent by essence. She views it as the epitome of slavery and racial oppression and seems to project her own quest for a pure African identity onto her family’s past. According to her, her ancestors had 11 children and eventually got married. Yet, she deemed it impossible that there could have been any form of romance involved and later claimed the only reason why the slave owner married his slave was because he fell while riding his horse and was so severely injured that he decided to quickly marry the mother of his children, lest she should use this opportunity to leave. Ophélie also conjectured on how sexually and physically abusive her white ancestor was to her black ancestor. According to an anecdote Ophélie claimed her aunt had recently shared with her, her white ancestor used to verbally abuse his wife whenever she wished to discipline their children and told her: “daughter of slaves, I forbid you to lay your black hands on my white children!” Ophélie had earlier indicated that this abusive relationship took place during the period of slavery. However, the fact that her white ancestor supposedly referred to his wife as a “daughter of slave” and not as a slave seems to indicate that, if this episode ever happened at all, it rather occurred after the abolition of slavery. These chronological inconsistencies are not relevant inasmuch as our inquiry seeks to interpret subjective interpretations and not to trace actual evidence of historical events. Ophélie’s personal reinterpretations reveal that the ultimate, more or less conscious motives of her narrative are to construe slavery in binary dichotomous terms that fit her Afrocentric views. The conclusion she draws from this is that it is impossible for her to affiliate to any white ancestor, whom she depicted as necessarily violent and almost devilish. As she explicitly criticized Édouard Glissant’s theories, she admitted having once identified as a cosmopolitan westernized woman, but now views that period of her life when she celebrated a form of creoleness as a state of total confusion; Afrocentrism, she argues, showed her the right path to take to be at peace with herself, which implies refusing miscegenation as a fundamental part of her family history or at least defining white remote kinship members of European descent necessarily as violent rapists that cannot be claimed as ancestors. Forms of sexual abuse often took place on the plantations and sometimes as early as the middle passage.56 The scholarship shows that, in the French Antilles, as the enslaved population became more and more

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  75 numerous (and the plantation system settled), the color bar rigidified.57 Although most white male masters abused or had sexual intercourse with their female enslaved workers in a situation of racial domination, ­marriages were taboo and usually led to the exclusion of the white person involved from his intertwined kinship and social networks.58 Xavier’s case, which is exposed above, shows this was still the case in the late twentieth century, while some interviews I conducted with white creole entrepreneurs showed opinions and practices in that regard changed very slowly within these circles. While it would be absurd to challenge Ophélie’s sentiment with scholarly evidence or to minimize the intrinsic sexual and racial violence of slavery, following Stéphanie Mulot,59 I argue that the complexity of interracial marriages in social and political settings that do not approve of them and that sought to forbid them at some stage during the colonial history tends to be systematically analyzed through the lens of the violent colonial past, no matter what the reality of these unions might have been then or might be in the present period. This, in itself, can be considered as a trace of the memory of slavery that has probably been exacerbated by activist movements and other forms of politicization. All the subjective analyses of slavery through genealogy I have examined so far show how individuals establish a link with the past in reference to a more or less clearly defined political movement or theory on the group identity they feel they belong to. Nonetheless, some people who know quite a lot about their family history might not use it in a political way at all. In these cases, the subjective interpretations of the memory of slavery challenge all political attempts to elaborate a coherent discourse that could be readily politicized. While Guadeloupean anti-colonialism, Afrocentrism, or the Comité’s philosophy try to define a group, at the individual level, some Guadeloupeans use slavery to seek for very personal answers to existential questions, while others do not refer to it at all. 2.2. Challenging the Political and Theoretical Postulates: Interiorizing the Memory of Slavery Subjectively What Thierry and other nationalist activists analyzed as a form of cultural alienation or assimilation among their peers was probably the norm in their days. However, their analyses might not expose the nuances of the trajectories of those who were born in the early to mid-1940s and earlier, the transitional period during which Guadeloupe gradually became fully integrated to France. For many, the promise of being recognized as full-fledged citizens rather than as second-class colonial French citizens was a positive thing in spite of the glaring social and racial inequalities that subsisted. The life narratives of 89-year-old Francis and his younger brother François, who are both retired civil servants, illustrate this point

76  Ary Gordien quite well. The former was a schoolteacher and the latter a postman, among other public sector jobs he undertook during his career. Both brothers could easily trace their genealogy back to the period of slavery, for a narrative had been transmitted within the family. Philippe, their father, was the son of Isidore, an enslaved man born in an unknown region in Africa, where he was sold and then shipped to Guadeloupe in the late eighteenth century. François, Francis, and their siblings were all raised on the land that was purchased by Théophile, another ancestor on their maternal lineage who was also an enslaved African. François once took me on a fieldtrip to that land located in the north of the eastern main Guadeloupean archipelago. During our conversation, he pointed to the location where his family and he, as well as his relatives, used to live and remembered the day one of his aunts told him about how, after the abolition of slavery, Théophile bought that piece of land from M. B., his former owner. In the 1920s, about 70 years after the abolition of slavery, Francis and François’s family lived in extreme poverty. Following Philippe’s death, Francis and François had to help their widowed mother Christiane the best they could, assisting her in her painstaking temporary low paid jobs (tying down bundles of sugar cane at the plant or placing cobblestones on the road). In the course of our interview, Francis remembered having had to sell the vegetables the family grew in their garden before going to school. Thanks to his excellent memory, Francis excelled at school and later passed the exams to become a schoolteacher in the 1940s. This impressive upward social mobility substantially changed the entire family’s lifestyle. So much so that, in Francis and François’s view, French assimilation proved very positive. They both celebrated their French and Christian culture and values. Although Francis told me he had always felt closer to the Communist party because he thought they cared for those in need, he did not wish to affiliate to it because of his religious beliefs. He was a supporter of the rather conservative president Charles de Gaulle and strongly opposed the anti-colonialist movements. Clearly, while these two brothers are the closest to a direct testimony of family members who experienced slavery and whereas they possess firsthand knowledge of their ancestry, none of them felt the need to use it to elaborate a narrative on what being Black or Guadeloupean means. However, through seemingly insignificant anecdotes they told me, I  understood that the social and racial relations that existed when they were young were indirect legacies of slavery. They expressed a form of racial awareness that was rooted in the manner in which they understood their social trajectory as a family. “Plant owners ruled the world then,” said Francis during our interview. Later he specified all of them were White while some executives were mulatto. According to François, mulatto and light-skinned pupils were better treated than those of a darker hue, especially when the former came from middle-class families. The sense of injustice both

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  77 brothers felt resulted in a thirst for social revenge. At Francis’s funeral, his eldest son Gerald claimed his father wanted to teach the most difficult classes, whose pupils were generally darker-skinned direct descendants of enslaved Africans like him. Although such a strong and clear-cut distinction between a dark proletariat and a light-skinned middle class or upper middle class no longer structures the social relations within the black majority in Guadeloupe today, color still seems to play an important role in the way Guadeloupeans, even the youth, identify. During the ethnography in the Caribbean gay scene in Paris, I  was integrated in a group of friends in their late twenties from Guadeloupe whom I followed in gay clubs that catered to a black or nonwhite clientele. I was also invited to dinners and parties and interviewed 99 informants. Some of them (including black activist Louis-George Tin, the founding member of the Representative Council of Black Associations in France) were middle or upper middle class. Most interviewees were part of a network of working and lower-middle-class men. Through this network, I was introduced to Yann, who was going through some difficult times when we had a long informal conversation. He had had several disappointing romantic relationships, had been let go of his job after a training period, and lived in a small studio in the outskirts of Paris. Yann grew up in a lower-middle-class family, in the easternmost part of one of the two main archipelagoes of Guadeloupe. His parents never married, and he seemed to hint that when he was born, his father was in a relationship with another woman. He insisted on the difference of skin color between his parents: he described his father as neg nwè (“darkskinned black man”) and his mother as very light-skinned mulâtresse. Yann was often referred to as chabin (“light-skinned”) and thought to be attractive. He had printed an enlarged color picture of his mother holding him in his arms when he was a baby. When he showed me the picture that was fixed on the wall, close to his desk, he commented: “I was so white! People didn’t believe I was my father’s child!” Yann had elaborated his own personal narrative on his family history in which witchcraft-related beliefs, the symbolism of color, and slavery equally played important parts. Yann recounted that he was estranged from his father, who did not raise him but became verbally and physically abusive with him when he discovered that his teenage son was thought to be effeminate and rumored to have sexual intercourse with other men. While Yann’s mother did not approve of his gay identity either, they had a very close relationship. When he told me about his unhappy love stories, he incidentally referred to his mother’s judgment and to the advice she had given him about his romantic life. This close relationship with his mother and the fact that he was estranged from his father certainly account for how opposed light-skinned and dark-skinned people are in a somewhat dichotomous way. The social and cultural logic of colorism is,

78  Ary Gordien in Yann’s case, closely intertwined with his own subjective interpretation of his family history. During the conversation, Yann also complained about the fact that darker-skinned Guadeloupeans were jealous of him because of his relatively lighter skin. As he further explained how he felt attacked and envied by others, he gradually referred to witchcraft and slavery.60 He showed me a picture of a very light-skinned man with fair eyes who was his maternal grandfather and who had passed away a couple of years before. According to Yann, someone had put a spell on him. Like many West Indians, although Yann was a fervent Catholic and kept a version of the Bible next to his bed, he believed in the power of witchcraft (sosyé). He was also interested in Hinduism and had put several posters of some Hindu deities on the wall of his small studio. Yann remembered that a suspicious wound had mysteriously appeared on his grandfather’s left leg and would not heal. This is often interpreted as a typical sign of bewitchment in French Caribbean unorthodox religious beliefs. Yann had an interesting hypothesis as to who had tried to harm his grandfather, a theory he had based on the archival work he had done in relation to slavery. During the ethnographic research, I discovered that Yann had become friends with the secretary of the Comité Marche du 23 mai, who comes from the same region of Guadeloupe as him. She had been helping him go through the French national archives to find his ancestors. During our informal conversation, when I  asked him about his genealogical research, Yann replied that he was not as interested in the organization’s work because it focused on tracing the ancestry of Caribbean people back to the first enslaved person they could find in the records. He explained that he would rather look for his white ancestors and clearly expressed a desire to affiliate to his maternal light-skinned lineage. Yann was very keen on celebrating his mix-raced heritage despite being aware of the fact that this side of the family probably descended from free people of color. Although it was not clear whether he had found documents that revealed that some of his white or free mixed-race ancestors owned slaves, Yann believed it was the case. He conjectured about the curse the dark-skinned enslaved Africans his ancestors might have owned could have cast on his mixed forebears. Yann also considered the possibility that this curse was transmitted to him through his maternal grandfather and his mother and that this could account for his current predicament. To make sense of the state of psychological distress he found himself in, Yann used the archival data the Comité helped him to have access to and to understand. However, he did not embrace the organization’s philosophy that focused on affiliating to the enslaved ancestors. Instead, he elaborated his own. The representations of race and slavery that transpire in his discourse show that some reconstructed memories of slavery can be elaborated though nonpolitical channels. That memory expresses itself through race relations and the representations of color that are

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  79 passed down from generation to generation and sometimes invented by individuals within that informal, non-politicized theoretical framework. More rigid and apparently consistent activist theories and actions are mobilized but also reinterpreted subjectively in the process.

Conclusion The collective dynamics of the memory of slavery are intimately intertwined with the subjective ones, although these two levels do not match perfectly. Rather, more or less clearly politicized social and racial tensions are articulated with subjective internal conflicts. The recent colonial history and the postcolonial situation of Guadeloupe inspire feelings of insecurity when it comes to identity. This is not linked to the fact that their identity is weak or problematic per se; rather, it is as though Guadeloupeans (and namely the predominant Guadeloupeans of African descent) were urged or felt the irresistible need to identify as a clearly defined community, whose identity is rooted in an immemorial past. In spite of the rupture that the slave trade represented and the acculturation and assimilation that French colonialism imposed, anti-colonial communist and anti-colonial movements as well as Afrocentrism endeavored to construct strong, rooted identities, interpreting any form of ambivalence and in-between states as impure or as threats. The success of Edouard Glissant and that of creoleness authors such as Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant contributed to popularize the opposite idea: “bastardy” should be celebrated as a source of strength rather than a fault.61 Both stances are commonly expressed and sometimes combined and challenged, especially outside the intellectual and political circles in which these ideas and notions were originally coined. Besides local political movements and thinkers, my field study also revealed the popularity in Guadeloupe of the TV series Roots, adapted from Alex Haley’s book, and Spike Lee’s biopic on Malcolm X. In various occasions, during interviews or informal conversations, these were explicitly mentioned. On other occasions, it was obvious many French Caribbean people believed the history of slavery in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guyana was the same as in the United States. As a graduate student, I helped the Comité Marche du 23 mai provide information to black West Indians in Paris, who wished to know about their ancestry. I realized most of them believed their last names belonged to that of a white slave owner and wished to get rid of it or at least to know the name of an African ancestor in order to trace their “roots” in Africa, which often proved impossible. This circulation of ideas and the influence of US-centered representations of Blackness and the memory of slavery through entertainment and activism will be further explored in my future research so as to understand how it might have initially inspired the quest for genealogy throughout the African Diaspora and influenced the different memories of slavery.

80  Ary Gordien

Notes 1. Most informants I interviewed and spent time with during the ethnographic studies I shall mention later were Guadeloupean. Although Guadeloupe and its “sister island” Martinique share a lot of historical and cultural similarities, there are also important specificities to be taken into account so that it is impossible to speak of a French Antillean memory of slavery without undertaking a thorough comparative approach. 2. Henriques. 3. Fanon (1971). 4. Fanon (1964, 29–31). 5. Michel. 6. Gordien. 7. Leiris, 186–87. 8. Chivallon (2011). 9. Chivallon (2008, 361–62). 10. Chivallon (1998). 11. Chivallon (2002, 105–6). 12. Brubaker and Cooper, 19–21. 13. Gordien. 14. Brubaker and Cooper, 14–19. 15. Hirsch. 16. Bangou (2002, 177), Blerald, 128–29, Bangou (2001, 8–9). 17. Césaire (1956). 18. Blerald, 129, Bangou (2002, 9), Césaire and Vergès. 19. Vernhes and Bloch; Blerald, 131. 20. The full law can be retrieved online. Accessed July 17, 2018. https://www. legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000868445. 21. Niger et al. 22. Bangou (2002). 23. Before the final abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1848, slavery had been abolished in 1794, in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This abolition only took effect in Saint-Domingue, French Guyana, and Guadeloupe, where the reestablishment of slavery led to a war. See Régent; Bangou (2002, 177–78). 24. Ethnic or racial statistics are illegal in France, except in New Caledonia. However, based on an observation of basic physical traits (although those might prove misleading), one can safely assume that the overwhelming majority of the population of Guadeloupe is of African descent and that the largest minority group is people of Indian descent. Whether they sociologically function as a minority sharing a sense of belonging and defending clear group interests is another, more complicated question. 25. Interview with Josy Saint-Martin, July 26, 2012. 26. Shepherd and Horn, 349–52; Camal; La fontaine. 27. Gama and Sainton. 28. Dumont, 12–18. 29. Blerald, 162; Daniel, 589. 30. Miles. 31. Bonilla. 32. Gircour and Rey. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Durand-Parenti. 36. Gilroy. 37. Asante (2003).

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  81 8. Blanchard, Deroo, and Manceron. 3 39. Michel, 71–101. 40. Michel differentiates between different “memory regimes” when it comes to the memory of slavery: one that focuses on national cohesion, another that is anti-colonialist and celebrates rebel slaves, and finally a third that, using the Holocaust as a paradigm, focuses on the victims. The Comité’s action, he argues, was clearly victim oriented. Ibid., 14–20. 41. Gilroy, 4. 42. Fleming. 43. Starting in 2000, the Comité organized seven public meetings during the weeks preceding the yearly remembrance ceremony to their “forebears who endured slavery” on May 23. The meetings that I attended as an undergraduate, graduate, and PhD student were referred to as “stations” of a “railway” and addressed topics such as the matrifocal Antillean family, colorism, and generalized distrust among the Caribbean community, all of which was analyzed as direct legacies of chattel slavery. Bonniol, 64–65. 44. Comité Marche du 23 Mai 1998. 45. A website founded by the regional Council of Guadeloupe was launched in May  2011. The last names that were given to formerly enslaved populations of French Guyana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique after the abolition of slavery can be found at https://www.anchoukaj.org. Accessed July 17, 2018. Anchoukaj means “rooting” in Guadeloupean creole. The idea is that French Caribbean people can find their “roots” thanks to the website. More information on this collaboration can be found on the website that was created and in the press articles on the subject “Anchoukaj. org pour tout savoir sur les noms de nos aïeux,” France-Antilles, May 23, 2012. Accessed July 17, 2018. https://www.guadeloupe.franceantilles.fr/ actualite/culture-et-patrimoine/anchoukaj-org-pour-tout-savoir-sur-lesnoms-de-nos-aieux-171126.php. 46. Interview with Félix Flémin, president of the Guadeloupean Communist Party, February 2012. 47. Personal recording of a conference by Serge Romana, former president of the Comité, at one of events the association organized in the context of its “popular university,” in January 2011, at the Paris 8 University in Saint-Denis. 48. Lurel praises the work of the Comité in his book. Lurel, 44. 49. Interview with Thierry, July 15, 2011, Sainte-Rose, Guadeloupe. 50. Fanon (1964). 51. Lacour. 52. As Stéphane Gacon shows, the French government passed amnesty laws that led to liberation of activists who had gotten involved in the conflict. 53. Interview with Nathanael, July 5, 2011, Lamentin, Guadeloupe. 54. Interview with Xavier, September 20, 2011, Le Gosier, Guadeloupe. 55. Interview with Ophélie, July 14, 2012, Anse-Bertrand, Guadeloupe. 56. Régent, 26. 57. Bonniol, 50–63. 58. Schœlcher,186. 59. Mulot. 60. Bougerol, 101–7. 61. Glissant, 25.

Bibliography Asante, Molefi Kete. An Afrocentric Manifesto: Toward an African Renaissance. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.

82  Ary Gordien ———. L’afrocentricité. Paris: Menaibuc, 2003. Bangou, Henri. La Guadeloupe et sa décolonisation ou un demi-siècle d’enfantement. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001. ———. La Révolution et l’esclavage à la Guadeloupe : 1789–1802. Epopée noire et genocide. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002. Bernabé, Jean, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Raphaël Confiant. Eloge de la créolité. Paris: Gallimard, 1989. Blanchard, Pascal, Deroo Eric, and Gilles Manceron. Le Paris noir. Paris: Hazan, 2001. Blerald, Alain-Philippe. La question nationale en Guadeloupe et en Martinique. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988. Bonilla, Yarimar. “Guadeloupe on Strike: A New Political Chapter in the French Antilles.” NACLA Report on the Americas 42, no. 3 (2009): 6–10. Bonniol, Jean-Luc. “Échos politiques de l’esclavage colonial, des départements d’outre mer au cœur de l’État.” In Politiques du passé: usages politiques du passé dans la France contemporaine, edited by Claire Andrieu, Marie-Claire Lavabre, et Danielle Tartakowsky, 59–69. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 2006. Bougerol, Christiane. Une ethnographie des conflits aux Antilles: jalousie, commérages, sorcellerie. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997. Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity’.” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 1–47. Camal, Jérôme. “Putting the Drum in Conundrum: Guadeloupean Gwoka, Intangible Cultural Heritage and Postnationalism.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 22, no. 5 (2016): 395–410. Césaire, Aimé. Lettre à Maurice Thorez. Paris: Présence africaine, 1956. Césaire, Aimé, and Françoise Vergès. Nègre je suis, nègre je resterai: entretiens avec Françoise Vergès. Paris: Albin Michel, 2005. Chivallon, Christine. “Black Atlantic Revisited.” L’Homme no. 3 (2008): 343–74. ———. The Black Diaspora of the Americas: Experiences and Theories Out of the Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle, 2011. ———. Espace et identité à la Martinique : paysannerie des Mornes et reconquête collective, 1840–1960. Paris: CNRS éditions, 1998. ———. “Mémoires antillaises de l’esclavage.” Ethnologie française 32, no. 4 (2002): 601–12. Comité Marche du 23 mai 1998. Non an nou: le livre des noms de familles guadeloupéennes. Pointe-à-Pitre: Jasor, 2010. Daniel, Justin. “L’espace Politique Aux Antilles Françaises.” Ethnologie Française 92, no. 4 (2002): 589–600. Diop, Cheikh Anta. Nations nègres et culture: de l’antiquité nègre-égyptienne aux problèmes culturels de l’Afrique noire d’aujourd’hui. Paris: Éditions africaines, 1954. Dumont, Jacques. L’amère patrie: histoire des Antilles françaises au XXe siècle. Paris: Fayard, 2010. Durand-Parenti, Chloé. “Guadeloupe: Domota menace les chefs d’entreprise.” Le Point, March 7, 2009. www.lepoint.fr/archives/article.php. Fanon, Frantz. Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1971. ———. Pour la révolution africaine, écrits politiques. Paris: François Maspero, 1964.

Subjective Interpretations of Slavery  83 Fleming, Crystal M. “White Cruelty or Republican Sins? Competing Frames of Stigma Reversal in French Commemorations of Slavery.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35, no. 3 (2012): 488–505. Gacon, Stéphane. “Les amnisties de la guerre d’Algérie (1962–1982).” Histoire de la justice no. 16 (2005): 271–79. Gama, Raymond Gama, and Jean-Pierre Sainton. Mé 67: mémoire d’un événement. Pointe-à- Pitre: Société Guadeloupéenne d’Edition et de Diffusion, 1985. Garvey, Amy Jacques, John H. Clarke, and Julius Garvey. Garvey and Garveyism. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2014. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso, 1993. Gircour, Frédéric, and Nicolas Rey. LKP, Guadeloupe: le mouvement des 44 jours. Paris: Syllepse, 2010. Glissant, Edouard. Introduction à une poétique du Divers. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. ———. Le discours antillais. Paris: Gallimard, 1997. Gordien, Ary. “Nationalisme, race et ethnicité en Guadeloupe: constructions identitaires ambivalentes en situation de dépendance.” PhD diss., Université Paris Descartes, 2015. Henriques, Fernando. Family and Colour in Jamaica. Londres: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953. Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Lacour, Auguste. Histoire de la Guadeloupe, tome troisième, 1798 à 1803. Paris: Edition et Diffusion de la Culture Antillaise, 1979. Lafontaine, Marie-Christine. “Terminologie musicale en Guadeloupe: ce que le Créole nous dit de la musique.” Langage & société 32, no. 1 (1985): 7–24. Leiris, Michel. Contacts de civilisations en Martinique et en Guadeloupe. Paris: Gallimard, 1987 (1955). Lurel, Victorin. Lettre ouverte à mes compatriotes de l’Hexagone. Paris: Armand Colin, 2012. Michel, Johann. Devenir descendant d’esclave: enquête sur les régimes mémoriels. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015. Miles, William F. S. “Mitterrand in the Caribbean: Socialism (?) Comes to Martinique.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 27, no. 3 (1985): 63–79. Mulot, Stéphanie. “Le mythe du viol fondateur aux Antilles françaises.” Ethnologie française 37, no. 3 (2007): 517. Niger, Paul, Yvon Leborgne, E. Marie-Joseph, and Édouard Glissant. Les Antilles avant qu’il soit trop tard. Paris: Esprit, 1962. Régent, Frédéric. Esclavage, métissage, liberté: la Révolution française en Guadeloupe, 1789–1802. Paris: Grasset, 2004. Schoelcher, Victor. Des colonies françaises : abolition immédiate de l’esclavage. Paris: CTHS, 1998. Shepherd, John, and David Horn, eds. Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Vol. 9: Genres: Caribbean and Latin America. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. Vernhes, Monique, and Jean Bloch. Pour La Guadeloupe Indépendante. Paris: François Maspero, 1970.

5 Tè Pa Konn Pèdi What Rural Memory Has to Say About Haitian Freedom Winter Rae Schneider

In memory of Fortuné and Omême Dorival Jatibwa, ou menm ki ban mwen chaj la pòte, Se pou m pòte li. Jatibwa, ou menm ki ban mwen chaj la pòte, Se pou m pòte li. Map vire kò mwen, m ap tounen kò mwen, Jou fèy la tonbe nan dlo se pa jou sa a li koule.1

It was late in March 2016 when Fortuné Dorival and I walked the limits of Lakou Soukri in the agricultural plains east of the Haitian city of Gonaïves. Beginning in the sanctuary of Bazou Mennen and the other Kongo gods, we gifted a bottle of cane alcohol (kleren) to the table, poured out water around the sanctuary, and lit a candle. From there we cut through fields of thirsty eggplants, moving southward away from the yard that enfolds the peristyle and its surrounding homes and buildings. “This land used to be my grandmother’s,” Fortuné, known as Fòti in Haitian creole, says as we walk. “Li te vann, men ou konnen tè pa konn pèdi (it was sold, but you know that land can’t really be lost).” The term lakou describes the lands on which rural Haitians reconstructed their family lines after both enslavement and the Haitian Revolution. Identified as one of the primary terrains through which Haitian freedom was enacted and experienced in the nineteenth century, land and the lakou in particular are also the places where rural Haitians experience the past through their ancestors, who lived and labored, in both captivity and coercive labor conditions after the revolution. Here I examine what it means to trace a history of the lakou, and through this historicization I show that the lakou retains a perspective on Haitian freedom that draws from and builds upon the complex, embodied, material, and archival histories it has witnessed. Fortuné’s insistence that while the land of the lakou can be sold it can never be lost—tè pa konn pèdi—signals the way that the lakou retains those diverse and sometimes conflicting histories as it suffers the changes inflicted on it over time.

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  85 Fòti and I moved under a small grove of mango trees that divide the inner portion of the lakou and land belonging specifically to the family Sarazin. “Over there is Elzina’s house, you know the old woman who used to dance ganga before she died. Yes? So that is Elzina’s house.” We cross a creek just below basin mambo, an important site to Soukri’s larger community as part of their celebrations every August. Along our way, we stop so that Fòti can point me to the property line, or lizyè, of Lakou Soukri. We also stop so that Fòti, who was born in the lakou, can explain to his kin that he is showing me the boundaries of the lakou, to offer them cigarettes and swigs from of a bottle of alcohol we have brought with us. “All these people are my people,” he says as we move on. We follow the property line across a gravel road that goes to Petite Rivière des Bayonné, and up a hot and rocky hillside until we come to the top of the ridge. Here we find a tree, a pye bawòn, that marks the division between Lakou Soukri and Lakou Souvenance. From our vantage point, the houses, fields, and giant mapou trees that make up Lakou Souvenance spread out in the valley in front of us, hugging a road where we can see motorcycles and occasional cars traveling. Fortuné explains that this path is the fastest way to move between the two lakou. He has used this footpath since he was small, and he explains that his parents and grandparents also leve jwenn ni, or knew it since their births. The footpath avoids the main roads that run mostly around the perimeters of the colonial plantations that once determined the area’s spatial makeup. We pour alcohol out at the pye bawòn and greet an aged woman who passes us, leading a mule behind her. This point on the ridge also marks the boundaries between the rural commune of Gonaïves’ first (Souvenance) and third (Soukri) administrative sections. We follow the ridge east and eventually cross back over the road and stop at the “new” cemetery founded by the Amedée family. We are both tired and the sun is getting hot. Instead of following the road towards Petite Rivière des Bayonné, we cut across fields guided by a farmer and his son. We come to the creek that we crossed, and here Fortuné asks that I pour out alcohol to the god of that particular water source, Batadou, while he and our onlookers speak about how the god (lwa) will have an affinity for me because of my white skin. We walk from Batadou back west, following the kanal madam, though there are more points on the lizyè all the way up towards Lakou Dorsiné that we’ve skipped. We follow the canal to another, older, cemetery called Simityè Danach, where Fòti’s family is buried. “I want to be buried here too,” Fòti says. “I love the shade and the cool water here.” We pour out the remaining alcohol in the cemetery before walking back to the central yard from the east. Lakou Soukri can be fundamentally understood as a patchwork of family properties, arranged around a central yard that itself holds spaces where the entire community—the extended families from the area and

86  Winter Rae Schneider Vodou practitioners from elsewhere in Haiti and beyond—gathers to commemorate occasions that concern the lives of the lakou’s family, both present and ancestral, through ceremony. That these far-ranging geographical points are also considered to be integral to Lakou Soukri is not generally known. That the lakou’s lizyè traces points far beyond the smaller family land holdings, their range more suggestive of the network of colonial plantations that ordered the physical and textual landscape of both colonial Saint Domingue and independent Haiti, brings into question the relationship between the lakou and those colonial plantations. Lakou translates from Haitian creole as a yard, or a yard between houses in a family compound. It is both a system of land ownership and of agricultural production, and it represents the spiritual attachment of generations of rural Haitian families to certain plots of land. The concept of “inalienable” land is the heart of Haiti’s lakou system, a system of inherited family land tied to ritual communication with family gods and ancestors and also a form of extended family organization for agricultural production. The inheritance of inalienable land, or demanbre, within a larger lakou, renders the land itself and the cognatic descent group of the founding ancestor indivisible. Social memory drawn from rural experiences within the Haitian landscape maintains a collective critical position on past and current developmentalist discourses. Through the concept of inalienable land and the cultivation of foodstuffs on family land in opposition to crops for export, Haiti’s rural agriculturalists have maintained radical memories that sustain a spatialized “counter-plantation system.”2 Like other post-emancipation societies in the Caribbean, the Haitian system of family land is foundational for historicizing rural space and rural experiences of space and place. In Haiti, family land is referred to as a lakou, and the retention of this land was central to how rural communities understood themselves and measured their new freedom within a national context where they were marginalized. Family land can take several forms, accounting for regional differences, but critical for this chapter, it is considered to be rural Haiti’s central form of continuity with the past.3 The land of the lakou is associated with the Haitian ancestors’ experiences and spirituality, and the inheritance of both their land and their spiritual legacies forms the basis for Haitian kinship networks, or eritaj (inheritance). Within the system of eritaj, Karen Richman writes, the land itself, left by the founding ancestor for his or her heirs, and the cognatic descent group, are indivisible.4 While a lakou can be vast enough to encompass several family houses and fields for growing crops, often a sacred portion were a family’s gods and ancestors are celebrated, or demanbre, is considered to be both inalienable (meaning it cannot be sold) and inherited by all of the original ancestor’s descendants or kin. It is on the demanbre that ancestors speak and dance through the bodies of their living descendants, who embody their experiences, memories, and attachment to the land itself.

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  87 The lakou is a physical space between houses in the larger family compound, and it connects rural families’ lived experiences over generations. As such, it is both a “yard space” and a “home space,” and it can be compared with similar sites throughout the African Atlantic. The yard is, as Whitney Battle-Baptiste argues, “more than the place that holds the answers that connect the study of slavery and archaeological theory; it is the beginning of a journey to understanding how landscapes and people come together to tell a story of community and survival.”5 When viewed as part of a historical landscape, the lakou is an institution that can at once locate and historicize the home places of Saint Domingue’s enslaved, and it can speak to the institutionalization, during the nineteenth century, of a property regime based on the resurrection of colonial plantations. Above all, as a place where Haitian families “know from,” the lakou represents both a complex historical landscape and a persistent historical and contemporary space for generating decolonial imagination and insurgent visions of freedom.

1. Origin Stories in the Lakou In 1958, Haitian anthropologist Odette Mennesson-Rigaud published an article in Présence Africaine on the role of Vodou in Haitian independence, which featured the origin story of Lakou Soukri as an example of the relative mercy of colonists towards Vodou practitioners. In the evenings in August, she wrote, old stories of the lakou are recounted by the elders there and sometimes by the lwa, who will tell the histories that even the elders have forgotten. So it was that the god Jatibwa Kentò (“Yatiboi-Kintò-Pem-Ba-Louvem-Ba” in Mennesson-Rigaud’s spelling) told the story of the slave named Figaro who cured a colonist named Danache’s daughter of a grave illness. In the story, at first Danache had Figaro put in irons then he offered to cure the little girl. Soon after, the girl went into a delirium and at the same time Figaro was possessed by the god Loufiyatou Ganga (Mennesson-Rigaud writes “Noc-Loufiatou-Canga”), who asked to cure the girl through Figaro, to which Danache consented. Left alone with her for three days, Figaro used leaves and secret prayers (that Danache was not party to), and eventually the girl was cured. In gratitude, Danache gave Figaro his freedom and a gift of land on Danache’s own property, called “Pougaudin.” “Soucri,” Mennesson-Rigaud adds, “is the creole deformation of the word, ‘sucrerie’ and indeed around the houses one can see a wall that is clearly colonial.” Her footnote to the lwa Jatibwa’s story also notes that “[a]ll of these place names still exist, around the old colonial sugar mill, called ‘Soucri,’ close to the town of Gonaïves. Touissaint [Louverture] had a plantation in Paugaudin. The colonist Danache can be found in the archives.”6 During interviews that I conducted with residents of Soukri, outside of Gonaïves, between 2014 and 2016, those in the lakou reported a similar

88  Winter Rae Schneider story to Mennesson-Rigaud, save that some details were changed and some were elaborated on. Ti Coq emphasized that the land given to Figaro was composed of senk kawo a rès, or five plus carreaux of land. Fortuné and his brother Omême added to the story that once given the land, Figaro planted himself on the land Danache gave him, where Figaro’s spiritual legacy was inherited by his two sons, and then by all of their descendants.7 Pierre Corvil, former magistrate of Gonaïves (who met Mennesson-Rigaud several times as a child during her research trips to the area) sketched an alternative version of the story in which two French or creole planters conspired to kill the child of the colonist Pongaudin. Figaro saved the child, and as he escaped the vengeful colonists, he ended up where Soukri stands today, which Pongaudin later bought from d’Hanache and gave to Figaro.8 Contemporary references to Figaro call him “Figaro Pongaudin,” and in the area called Pongaudin there is a Lakou Figaro where Figaro’s story prior to the Haitian Revolution can be heard.9 The narrative arc of Lakou Soukri’s origin story resonates in different ways with those of its neighboring lakou nasyonal, or lakou that are considered, like Soukri, to be part of Haiti’s national patrimony. Lakou Badjo Badi nearby is claimed to have been established in secrecy, through marronage, prior to the Haitian Revolution. The mystic potency of Badjo’s founder is said in the region to have been instrumental in giving Dessalines the power he needed before going to the battle of Vertières.10 Lakou Souvenance, by contrast, traces its origins to around 1815, when Papa Bois came to the area from Saint Michel de l’Attalaye and planted himself on land he bought in Souvenance, establishing the community that exists there to this day. Mambo Marie-Cam, the mystical head of Lakou Soukri, when asked if Lakou Soukri dates from a particular year, said that Soukri’s history cannot be known definitely, but that its history is experienced and known through the people who live there.11 The story recounted in the lakou, and repeated by Mennesson-Rigaud, focuses on Figaro as a powerful figure, and through him the god (lwa) Loufyatou Ganga. Ganga convinces Danache to let Figaro heal Danache’s daughter, for which Figaro receives a gift of land where Ganga and the other lwa become planted. This story provides a claim to territory grounded in the colonial period, drawn from an appropriation of colonists’ power, providing for Lakou Soukri’s inheritors into perpetuity. What this narrative does not disclose is how Lakou Soukri was constituted, or reconstituted, after the Haitian Revolution and how it managed to persist under successive states that focused their attention on erecting a system of property, legal ownership, and military and police control of the agricultural laborers in areas like the agricultural plains of Gonaïves, where Lakou Soukri sits. What follows is my attempt to trace the different historical narratives embedded in the landscape now called Lakou Soukri. To trace Lakou Soukri’s story, I mobilize a range of sources from archival, oral history, and historical ethnography research in order to think

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  89 about the work social memory performs in rural Haitian space. The question of rural land ownership after the revolution is closely tied with the subject of Haitian freedom after the revolution—how it was experienced, enacted, restricted, and resisted. Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that in Haiti in particular, “the acquisition of family land and the laborers’ right to the product of that labor on such land were the terms under which freedom was first formulated in the history of the nation.”12 Similarly, the lakou is identified by Laurent Dubois as an egalitarian system formed in resistance to the state that guaranteed “every rural resident a measure of autonomy” and “came to represent specific social conventions meant to guarantee each person equal access to dignity and individual freedom.”13 Rural land ownership and the lakou hold an important place in understanding Haitian freedom. My research across the archives and place-based narratives of Gonaïves in general and Lakou Soukri in particular help me center it as a space where rural Haitians know from, to use Katherine McKittrick’s term, and thus I  propose that it is a space where Haitian freedom is “known from,” or where the idea of Haitian freedom is planted.14 In particular, I will trace Lakou Soukri itself as a possibly continual process of reclamation, rooted in an experience of enslavement that shaped the landscape itself, and which in turn uproots the narrative power of the plantation even as it exists within the plantation’s historical boundaries. Lakou Soukri is part of a rural agricultural landscape shaped through the dispossession of land and the appropriation of labor from both Amerindians and enslaved Africans, and after the Haitian Revolution, it was further shaped by the social marginalization, attempted dispossession, and loading of debt onto Haiti’s insurgent peasantry. These forms of dispossession also shaped the archive of rural Haiti as we know it and how we come to have archival access to the Haitian ancestors who built the lakou system. And yet, despite ongoing forms of dispossession resulting in land loss and precarity for rural Haitian families, Fòti was able to say to me that that land cannot be lost (tè pa konn pèdi). In contrast to both nationalist appropriations of Gonaïves’ lakou and scholarship that locates the lakou as distinct from the Haitian state, I will show that the complex historical relationships represented in Lakou Soukri can give a more dynamic idea of the creation, maintenance, and persistence of the lakou system over time.

2. Archival Kongo Lives of Habitation d’Hanache References to Danache in France’s Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer and the departmental archives of La Gironde in Bordeaux and La Charente Maritime in La Rochelle document the property in land and in enslaved people held by two generations of the aristocratic colonist family Alexandre d’Hanache. The name “d’Hanache” was brought to Saint Domingue

90  Winter Rae Schneider by Jérôme-Marie-Hugues Alexandre d’Hanache, who was given a large concession of land in 1724 in a ridge of hills that border the agricultural plains of Gonaïves and the Artibonite to the north and east. Knight of Saint Louis, Alexandre d’Hanache is mentioned as having been accustomed to escorting traveling planters through those hills on their road to Cap Français.15 Alexandre d’Hanache and his wife had 13 children in Gonaïves, seven of whom survived their infancy. Two of his sons, Hugues-Bartelemi Alexandre, marquis d’Hanache, and Louis-Maximilien Alexandre, comte d’Hanache, owned land and slaves and produced coffee indigo and cotton in the Artibonite Valley and remained in the region until nearly the end of the Haitian Revolution.16 The marquis d’Hanache was evacuated to Jamaica from Môle Saint Nicholas in 1802, where his son sought passage for himself and five slaves to America. Another son of the marquis d’Hanache sought entry into Jamaica’s black military corps.17 The documents I consulted were part of the dossier of documents that the comte d’Hanache used to claim an indemnity for his properties—lost to the Haitian Revolution.18 These scant documents, which I researched across France’s colonial archives, the national archives, and the departmental archives in Bordeaux and La Rochelle (where generations of this branch of the family passed through or resided), formed part of the colonial regime that defined enslaved people as property, but they also gesture towards the lives of those they documented for their own ends.19 In 1785, the notary Jean Saunois Xavier Frigola was brought to one of the properties of Louis Maximilien Alexandre, the comte d’Hanache, called “Champfleau,” where he officiated the creation of a commercial “société” between d’Hanache and another colonist, DeFontaine. The document that Frigola drew up lists 50 enslaved people belonging to d’Hanache and includes their names, origin, particular skills, and short notes on physical description.20 The enslaved women who appear in the document were 16 to 55 years old, and 11 children are also listed in the number of d’Hanache’s slaves. Each name is accompanied by an estimated value. This 1785 transaction also documents, in explicit detail, how all of the enslaved people listed as belonging to d’Hanache were branded, either with the name “d’Hanache” or with the names of colonists who also owned land in the region around Gonaïves in the Artibonite Valley, such as “Magnan.” They carried these marks on their thighs and chests, and several, like Jacques, Philippeau, Flambeau, Mabiaume, Gillo, and Benjamin, are noted in the document as being “etampé illisiblement,” or branded illegibly.21 Petit Charles, the youngest recorded enslaved man belonging to d’Hanache, is noted as “without a brand,” and likewise none of the children had any marks that were recorded by Frigola.22 The name d’Hanache itself is an archive of pain. The list of enslaved people in the contract of société between Louis Maximilien d’Hanache and Desfontaine was seen, processed, and discussed by multiple colonial

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  91 officials and by the liquidation committee, the Archives de Saint Domingue, and by the colonists themselves and their children. That the document, like many others of similar genres, shares painful and intimate information helps contrast the substance of this history with the ways it was used strategically to maintain power and privilege. In fact, Saint Domingue’s ex-colonists spent a lot of time describing the lives of people they enslaved. Their lives, from a documentary perspective, are subsumed by the violent projects that their documentation both represented and facilitated. As this list in particular describes the literal markings on enslaved people’s bodies that serve to reproduce—epistemologically, painfully, corporeally—how they should be known by and for the colonists in whose transactions they appear, it also reproduces them as “objects of property.”23 In this way, d’Hanache’s slaves in this document are an “absented presence,” signaling both the marshaling and creating of information for d’Hanache’s purposes and the simultaneous dissociation in the record of their lives from history, geography, and any claims to self-ownership, belonging, or agency.24 And yet, while the lives of d’Hanache’s slaves are expropriated for the records of d’Hanache’s property, the name d’Hanache is simultaneously locatable in time and in place through how their bodies carried it within regions of space and experience. The archive of “d’Hanache” then, is also an archive that is refracted through the myriad experiences and associations of the people who encountered it on their bodies or on the bodies of others, and who continue to encounter its traces, corporeally, geographically, and metaphysically, through marks on the body, markers in the landscape, and through the stories told by Vodou lwa through the bodies of those who dance them. What can this documentation also say about the lives and experiences of the people enslaved by d’Hanache and DeFontaine? That the majority of the men and women described are listed as being of “Congo” origin resonates with the Soukri’s Kongo traditions and identity today. It is a seductive but uncertain connection.25 However, traces of “Congo” or Kongo spirituality can be found in the landscape of and surrounding Lakou Soukri, as part of the colonial legacy that clings to the name d’Hanache. Lakou Soukri’s connection with the old Danache cemetery, in which, due to its name and location relative to Sourki, I believe d’Hanache’s slaves and their descendants to have been buried over time,26 and its historical physical proximity to and spiritual association with agricultural crops that were grown by enslaved people for sustenance, like pitimi or pearl millet, help locate the space as lived in and constructed through the experiences of enslaved people, perhaps even those in Frigola’s list.27 Nineteenth-century documentation further complicates this question by both confirming acknowledged Kongo sites in the landscape of what was possibly d’Hanache’s land, but whether these sites were rooted in enslaved experience before the revolution or whether they were created after independence is inconclusive.

92  Winter Rae Schneider

3. The Nineteenth-Century Legacies of Lakou Soukri While colonial documentation of Habitation d’Hanache are scant yet suggestive, Haitian nineteenth-century state records and notarial documentation both historicize and add more complexity to an understanding of Lakou Soukri as a historical landscape constituted through different social relationships over time. The name d’Hanache also appears again in the early civil registry (Etat Civil), registers for Gonaïves, administrative capital of Haiti’s Artibonite Valley. At least three land concessions were made out of Habitation Danache by President Jean-Pierre Boyer (1818– 1843) in the 1820s. One of these was made to Charles Danache, who based on the size of the concession was likely a soldier of lower rank. That a concession of five carreaux of land was made to a man named Danache on Habitation d’Hanache raises real questions about which Danache is referenced in the name of Lakou Soukri, which is also referred to as “Lakou Soukri Danach.” A look at more nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century documentation held by notaries in Gonaïves further illustrates that what became Lakou Soukri existed alongside neighboring properties and was recognized within legal transactions made by neighbors and family that bought and sold land surrounding Lakou Soukri.28 On June 24, 1843, Prophète Auguste and Adélaïde Samson attested to the birth of their son, Alexis Prophète. President Boyer had been sent into exile and stripped of his citizenship three months earlier by then President Rivière Hérard, and the birth record marks the change of regime in its first lines, “[t]he year 1843, fortieth year of Haitian independence and the first year of our rebirth [rénégération].” The record then notes that both Adélaïde and Prophète lived on “Habitation Ganga” in Gonaïves’ third administrative section. In addition to being the Vodou god in Lakou Soukri’s origin story as related by Mennesson-Rigaud, “mòn Ganga” is also a small hill immediately east of the main sanctuary where an alter to the Kongo god is housed. Just as Ganga is celebrated as foundational to the lakou’s ceremonies and dances, “mòn Ganga” is a prominent feature of Lakou Soukri’s landscape today. Ganga is said to live in a tree on this hill, and this is where the ceremony and dances to him are performed each year. In this way, the landscape of the lakou and its religious ceremony are almost inseparable. The appearance of “Habitation Ganga” in a legal document suggests the existence and the legal recognition of spaces where different legacies, of the colonial plantation or “habitation” on the one hand and of the Kongo lwa Ganga on the other, merge by 1843.29 Habitation Danache also figures in land sales and surveys over the span of the nineteenth century. Notarial land sales and surveys on Habitation Danache reflect the “Don National” made by Boyer, but in their sale and resale between families and family members of the same families illustrate a tight web of property ownership surrounding Lakou Soukri, recognized by law and based on Boyer’s policy of remembrement. In land surveys associated with sales, surveyors documented walking around

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  93 the limits of properties sold within the larger Habitation Danache. On March 15, 1880, for example, Solages Jean-Baptiste brought a surveyor from Terre Neuve to draw up a map of one carreau of land that she had acquired from the siblings Pierrette Philippe and Spalie Philippe. The land that Pinchinat surveyed came, he wrote, from land that the brother and sister had inherited from their late father, Philippe Jeune, who came into possession of the land through a concession made by President Boyer in 1822. Like other surveyors, Pinchinat documented how he walked around the border of the half carreau, accompanied by all of their neighbors, in order to ensure the accuracy of his work. Along his way, he came across two “old property markers,” which he used to orient the map he later drew up of the land. Another survey, this time from March 31, 1896, makes explicit reference to Figaro and to his son. A declaration of sale of land from Dessalion Guillaumette to Rose Destin reads, I the undersigned, Dessalion Guillaumette, residing and a landowner on Habitation Danache, third section of Petite Rivière, commune of Gonaïves, and I  have as witnesses my son, Jean Dessalion, and le sieur Louissaint Figareau (called Zinzin) in the presence of my witnesses, I recognize having received from the citizen Rose Destin, also residing and a landowner on the said plantation, I [received] the sum of seventy piastres [gourdes] enough for a half carreau of land that I sold her on the said plantation on the property of the late General Jacques Gabriel. This land is bordered to the North by the property of the late père Figarau (called “au sucré Danache”) and to the East by the . . . citizen Félicienne and to the South by Petit-Nombre Eugène, and Rastochin St. Fleur, and to the West by the seller.30 Through Desslion Guillaumette’s land sale to Rose Destin, we learn that their neighbor Louissaint Figareau, called Zinzin, inherited land from his father, a space referred to as “au sucré Danache.” This record names Figaro’s land as “au sucre Danache,” which suggests another possible origin of the creole term “soukri.” Its inclusion carries the existence of the Lakou Soukri as back as to at least 1896, with the earlier reference to “Habitation Ganga” pushing it back another 50 years prior. The document does not record Zinzin’s age, but the honorific “le sieur” suggests he was at least middle aged at the time. As Zinzin is a witness to someone else’s sale, and not selling land himself, how le père Figareau acquired his land that Zinzin inherited is not mentioned.

4. Land Is Never Lost: Haitian Freedom From a Perspective of Struggle Did “Habitation Ganga” become “Lakou Soukri?” The naming of Gonaïves’ gran lakou, and the constellation of documentary, physical,

94  Winter Rae Schneider and embodied references both to legacies of colonial and national-era control via the plantation and to the existence of Kongo legacies within the same landscape, suggests this bridging of legacies. That these legacies both control self-possession and belonging co-exist in the lakou fits uncomfortably with romanticized views of the lakou that hold it as a refuge from the state’s laws and insistence on uplifting colonial forms of property ownership.31 And yet, from what is barely said within colonial and nineteenth-century documentation to what is lived in the experiences on Lakou Soukri’s land today, from cultivation to family land inheritance to the reclamation of Lakou Soukri’s children, by the lwa, to serve the gods’ and their ancestors’ needs, a glimpse of the lakou as a site that grounds a “perspective of struggle” necessary to sustain Haitian resistance, and Haitian freedom, emerges.32 Located in the once home spaces of enslaved people, the lakou as an example of what Stephanie Camp terms “rival geographies” continues to house a spiritually and territorially potent property discourse and territorial counterclaim to those made by the Haitian state and predatory foreign and national businesses and elites. As a historical site of captivity, the lakou can be seen as a space through which “some were able to manipulate and recast the meanings of slavery’s geographic terrain.”33 As a site where ongoing violence in the form of economic marginalization, soil degradation, and no reliable recourse to health or social services is experienced, the lakou, with its insistence on kinship, belonging, and its retention of land despite what the papers say centers the possibility of a decolonial future. The traces of Lakou Soukri’s history represent both a continuity of colonial forms of knowing, property, and identity and distortions and appropriations of those forms in rural spaces and through marginalized experiences. What comes of all of this is that although archivally fragmented, the accumulated geographic stories, the uses of space, the growing of crops, experiences of subjugation, and children and generations born constitute another narrative. It is refracted through myriad associations marking racial categories of property ownership and the daily lived experiences of resistance and subjugation to those ways of knowing. Insisting that the past and current space of the lakou be held at the center of the story forces a reevaluation of the kinds of archival illegibility that inform so much of how Haitian history is approached and understood, both within and outside of Haiti. Holding the lakou and rural space at the center of the story highlights just as much of what is unsayable and unknowable, and the colonial and national mechanisms that construe it as unknowable, as it highlights what is spoken, known, and experienced there. While the spatialized and historical experiences of those enslaved by the French colonists named d’Hanache are rendered dehistoricized and fragmented by the only records that describe them, the landscape and the ways it was shaped by those who were enslaved ultimately defines

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  95 the possibilities for how the lessons of Haitian freedom can be unpacked and understood. Considering the lakou as part of enslaved home spaces and also as part of a broader struggle for definition of the landscape as part of a fight for self-possession asks us to consider again what freedom meant and how it was experienced in this nineteenth-century context. Not outside of ongoing colonial and national state structures of control, and indeed potentially part and parcel of those mechanisms of control, the lakou represents not so much a separation from the state but rather a way to navigate it, co-opting a language of property and rooting a critique of the underpinnings of global capital in an ongoing alienation from places they also call home. Historicity in Haiti is often painful, as it demands talking about spaces of enslavement, resistance, and liberation in the same breath. Historicizing the home places that created a political culture that in turn fomented the revolution displaces narratives that normalize local, national, and international structures of anti-Black violence, capital, patriarchy, and global white supremacy. These spaces, exemplified by both the physical site and idea of the lakou, are precisely the spaces that can produce imaginaries of freedom as they straddle time and documentary regimes. Generative space of revolutionary imagination, the home spaces of the enslaved in Saint Domingue, continue to represent the possibility of the idea of being free. Tracing history in the lakou uncovers complex legacies that encompass colonial spatial understandings and the appropriative uses of colonial space both by Haitians’ enslaved and free ancestors and by Haitian families after independence. The lakou as a space is constituted through these complex, divergent, and diverse uses and experiences of space. As a space produced through the memories of its ancestors and through the traces of colonial violence and nationalist administrative order, the lakou is a center that draws together all these traces and interprets them for the present. Holding this center, living it, remembering it, walking it, and doing the work required to understand its many influences is in turn the persistent heart of a Haitian rural praxis of freedom.

Notes 1. This is a traditional song, or chan vodou from Lakou Soukri. It translates as “Jatibwa, you have given me this load to carry/I will carry it/Jatibwa, you have given me this load to carry/I will carry it/I’m turning my body/I’m moving my body/The day the leaf falls onto water is not the day it sinks.” 2. Casimir, 111. 3. Richman, 117. 4. Richman 2014, 216. 5. Battle-Baptiste, 5. 6. Mennesson-Rigaud, 4. While Mennesson-Rigaud references “Paugaudin” in her article, the land that bears the name today is not near Lakou Soukri. 7. Ibid., 49–50. Dorival, Fortuné, Dorival, Omême. Interview by Winter Schneider. Lakou Soukri, Gonaïves, Haiti, August 2016.

96  Winter Rae Schneider 8. Corvil, Pierre. Interview by Winter Schneider. Gonïves, Haiti, April 2015 and April 2016. Magistrate Corvil has been conducting independent research in Gonaïves’ lakou for his entire life. 9. Sèvitè Arnèl. Interview by Yves Figaro. Gonaïves, Haiti. March 2016. 10. Sèvitè Tilili. Interview with Winter Schneider. Gonaïves, Haiti. 2016. “Sou tras koulèv” translates as “snake tracks” and implies that the lakou was founded in conditions of secrecy and was essentially hidden. 11. Dorival, Omême and Dorival, Fortuné. Interview by Winter Schneider. Lakou Soukri, Gonaïves, Haiti. September  2015. Lakous Badjo and Souvenance each have origin stories tying them to Haiti’s revolutionary history and to post-independence land concessions, respectively. They are larger, nationally recognized versions of the lakou demanbre that surround them and make up the rest of Gonaives’ and the Artibonite Valley’s spiritual landscape. 12. Trouillot, 39–40. 13. Dubois, 107. Bastien, 28. 14. McKittrick, 122. 15. Viton de Saint-Allais, 20–22. 16. Thesée. 17. Debien and Wright. 18. ANF F12 2811. 19. “Vente d’une habitation.” Archives nationales d’outre-mer, 655. There is only one document from colonial Saint Domingue that I have been able to find that references a “Habitation d’Hanache,” the term name that is used to describe much of Gonaïves third administrative section, where Lakou Soukri is located. 20. Procès verbal de Description & Estimation des . . . mobilieres de la société entre Sieur Alexandre d’Hanache et le Suer le Page de Fontaine. Archives nationales d’outre-mer, 655. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Harris, 1712. Here Cheryl Harris references the term “object of property,” drawing from the work of Patricia J. Williams in “On Being an Object of Property.” 24. Katherine McKittrick, 33. Marisa Fuentes also navigates trying to read the lives of enslaved women in Barbados through archives that only describe them in relation to enslavement and capital. 25. Scholars have examined the Kongo origins of enslaved people brought to Saint Domingue and have traced their royalistic, militaristic, and spiritual practices in the shifting insurgent landscape of the Haitian Revolution. Additionally, another origin story of all three of Gonaïves national lakou is that after the revolution, people of different African origins grouped themselves into different communities based on their “nation.” While Soukri is Kongo, Lakou Souvenance represents itself as Dawomèy and Lakou Badjo as Nago, though Badjo’s annual ceremony encompasses the rhythms and lwa of Kongo, Nago, and Dawomèy. These stories and the origin story each lakou tells about itself are not mutually exclusive. The usefulness of this story lies in reclaiming and reconstituting different African identities and asserting a kind of pure retention of spiritual, military, rhythmic origins. See Thornton, and Fick. 26. The d’Hanache family owned and lived in residences in the town of Gonaïves, and in the custom of colonists there (and elsewhere), they were likely buried in the town’s cemetery. 27. These attributes of Lakou Soukri suggest that the site was possibly the home space of the enslaved and that the Lakou finds its origins in this particular, composite experience of and usage of the space by those enslaved on the property

Tè Pa Konn Pèdi  97 and its nearby properties like Dausigné and Souvenance. 73 J 1–861 Fonds Gabriel Debien, Archives Départementales de la Gironde, Bordeaux France. 28. The word “don” is important when considering the origin of Lakou Soukri, as it appears at the top of each of Boyer’s land concession documents, or “Don Nationale.” By comparison, land grants from the French crown to early colonists were more often referenced as “concessions” than as “don.” If Lakou Soukri is associated with one of these “don,” then it is possible that either the land grant made to Charles Danache became Figaro’s lakou, or it is possible that Figaro himself was a soldier and received five carreaux, from either Boyer, Christophe, or Dessalines (or from d’Hanache, or Charles Danache) on the historical Habitation d’Hanache. The word “don” can also be read as gift, and the word “colon” or “kolon” in Haitian Creole can mean both colonist in the historical sense or a lighter-skinned property owner, both of which support the narrative structure of the gift of land from the colonist to Figaro. Group interview on another property called “Danache” in the lower Artibonite Valley, by Winter Schneider, March 2016. 29. “Naissance de Alexis,” Naissances, mariages, décès, Gonaïves 1843, Archives Nationales d’Haïti, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 30. Rose Destin “Reçu de vente,” Archives de Notaire M. S. Laurent Lavaud, Gonaïves, Haiti. 31. Schneider, 2019. 32. McKittrick, xvii. 33. Ibid.

Bibliography Barthélemy, Gérard. L’univers rurale haïtien: Le pays en dehors. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1990. Bastien, Rémy. Le paysan haïtien et sa famille: Valée de Marbial. Paris: Kharthala, 1985. Battle-Baptiste, Whitney. “In This Here Place: Interpreting Enslaved Homeplaces.” In Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora, edited by Akinwumi Ogundiran and Toyin Falola, 243–48. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. Besson, Jean. Martha Brae’s Two Histories: European Expansion and Caribbean Culture-Building in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2003. Casimir, Jean. The Caribbean: One and Divisible. Santiago, Chile: United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 1992. Dubois, Laurent. Haiti and the Aftershocks of History. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012. ———. “Thinking Haitian Independence in Haitian Vodou.” In The Haitian Declaration of Independence: Context, Creation, Legacy, edited by Julia Gaffield, 201–18. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016. Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. Fuentes, Marisa J. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Harris, Cheryl I. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (June 1993): 1707–91. McKittrick, Katherine. Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

98  Winter Rae Schneider Mennesson-Rigaud, Odette. “Le rôle du Vaudou dans l’indépendance d’Haïti.” Editions Présence Africaine 1, no. 18–19 (1958): 43–67. Richman, Karen E. Migration and Vodou. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. ———. “Possession and Attachment: Notes on Moral Ritual Among Haitian Descent Groups.” In Spirited Things: The Work of “Possession” in AfroAtlantic Religions, edited by Paul Christopher Johnson, 207–24. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Schneider, Winter. “Racial Property and Radical Memory: Epilogues to the Haitian Revolution.” In Global Raciality: Empire, Postcoloniality, and Decoloniality, edited by Paola Bacchetta and Sunaina Maira. New York: Routledge, 2019. Shaw, Rosalind. Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Thésée, Françoise. Négociants bordelais et colons de Saint-Domingue: liaisons d’habitations, la maison Henry Romberg, Bapst et cie. 1783–1793. Paris: Société Francaise d’Histoire d’Outre-mer, 1972. Thornton, John. “I Am the Subject of the King of Congo: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution.” Journal of World History 4, no. 2 (Fall 1982): 181–214. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Haiti: State Against Nation: The Origins and Legacies of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990. Viton de Saint-Allais, Nicolas, and M. M. de Courcelles, l’abbé de l’Espines, de Saint-Pons, et al. Nobilaire Universel de France, Ou Recueil Général Des Généalogies Historiques Des Maisons Nobles de Ce Royaume. Vol. 8. Paris: Imprimerie de E. Cornillac, 1872. Williams, Patricia J. “On Being the Object of Property.” Signs 14, no. 1 (Autumn 1988): 5–24. Wright, Philip, and Gabriel Debien. Les Colons de Saint-Domingue passés à la Jamaique: 1792–1835. Pointe-à-Pitre: Société d’histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1975.

Part II

Re-Membering Memory Inscribing the Memory and History of Slavery in Public Space

6 The Ghosts of Whose Past? Remembering and Remorse in the Body Politic Ashraf H. A. Rushdy

An apology would appear to be a discursive form ideally suited to remembering. When we personally apologize for an event we regret, we name the event, recall it, bring it up, and place it in the foreground— right between ourselves and the person we hurt. Consider an example of apologizing: “I am sorry that I hurt your feelings by saying that unkind thing.” My apology explicitly makes present again the original event (my saying unkind things) and then, only after that event is acknowledged by both of us, does the apology become meaningful as a repudiation of that past behavior. We remember in order to atone. That, in any case, is the ideal scenario of apologizing, and two conditions on which it seems to rely are that it is an offering and that it is unconditional. An apology is offered from the apologist to the person wounded. Implicit in that act is an understanding that what is offered can be corrected by the recipient. If I  misremember or willfully attempt to palliate the crime or justify or excuse it, the person wounded can correct me. Because an apology acknowledges that the apologist’s perspective has changed (I now see what I did before as wrong), the perspective of the wounded assumes the salient and unassailable place that effectively moors the past event in question. If the perspective of the wounded is not the final determinant of the meaning of what happened, then we do not have an apology; we have an invitation to a debate or an argument. An apology, then, is an offering of a memory the truth of which the wounded determines. Likewise, we are all rightly wary of apologies that contain the word “if” in them. “I am sorry if I hurt your feelings” is conditional precisely because it is not an offering (I will tell you how you feel, or, I don’t know that you are in fact hurt) and because it does not remember. The statement if something happened is quite different, obviously, from one that declares that something happened. It posits a logical structure: if this, then that, and if not this, then not that. The event is no longer an event; it is merely a possibility. Instead of memory, we have speculation. These conditions clearly change when we turn from private apologies for personal failings of behavior to public apologies for collective

102  Ashraf H. A. Rushdy historical atrocities. That is part of the problem with these political apologies for the past—they seem to depend on the form and implied meaningfulness of the interpersonal apology, even as it is clear that the form cannot bear that burden.1 For that reason, it has become routine for critics and pundits to dismiss these apologies as trite, insufficient, and insulting to history. The words we say to repair a wound with our friends cannot serve as reparation for the enormous, collective misdeeds of a nation’s past. I do not disagree with that assessment, but I do feel that we need to do more than dismiss or parody these public apologies for the form they assume or the impertinence they may exhibit. For one thing, they have become a regular feature of our modern world, and therefore deserve to be explicated to show what purpose they serve. For another, they are often also one more strategy of clouding and occluding the memory of a nation’s past, and they therefore demand our analysis to show just what it is they do. Here, I would like to look briefly at three moments—at three apologies by American political institutions—and see what it is they do with (and to) the memory of American slavery.

1. Presidential Penitence On July 8, 2003, President George W. Bush stood at the slave factory on Gorée Island, Senegal, looking at the unending horizon of ocean on which human beings had been transported to the New World. He described the processes of the Middle Passage in which, as he put it, African people were “delivered, sorted, weighed, branded with marks of commercial enterprises and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return.”2 He celebrated the acts of resistance to enslavement and saw them as the fulfillments of the ideals of the nation. He was critical in his description of what mastery had done to America: the “brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience,” he noted, and “corrupted” those same American ideals.3 President Bush uses two terms in particular to describe the institution of enslavement. It is, he notes, “one of the greatest crimes of history.” He also calls it later in his speech “this sin.” These two terms—crime and sin—are not necessarily in conflict, but they do seem to imply different forms of amendment and invoke different kinds of authority. Presumably, a system of human government with legal and penal institutions punishes a crime, but only a divine being deals with a sin. And, while Bush embodies the former—he is the leader of that very government that creates laws and polices them—he seems insistent on focusing our attention on the latter. Consider two moments in his speech when he highlights what are admittedly laudable points. Here is the first: “The rights of African Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted

The Ghosts of Whose Past?  103 by the Author of Life, and regained by the persistence and courage of African Americans, themselves.” And the second: “By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free.”4 Both points acknowledge the role that African Americans have played in creating a more just American nation, not a supplementary role, but a fundamental one. But, in both cases, Bush also insists on using the discourse with which he feels most comfortable—the language and sentiments not of politics, but of Christianity. The “Author of Life” and “Providence” are the forces that transformed this “sin” of slavery into something redemptive. Slavery, in this vision, is not a historical oppression that requires reparation, but a part of a larger, divine design that was used to benefit the oppressor, whose conscience is awakened and soul redeemed. Now, to be fair to President Bush, he did note that the “racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery” and that “many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience” of slavery.5 But, nonetheless, the force of his discourse and the trajectory of his comments lead us away from dwelling on historical oppression as a persistent force and seeing it more as a prelude. What might be remembered one way—as an atrocity that made possible the economic and social life of a society built around slavery, as an historical event that continues to have enduring, destructive effects on the descendants of enslaved people—is instead remembered as a stage towards the new heaven and new earth that Providence promises. What President Bush “remembers” on the shores of Gorée Island is a product of Whig history and Christian theology. He portrays a world in which social conditions improve over time as a result of Providence, instead of one in which past crimes continue to fester because human governments refuse to address them or address them inadequately.

2. A Representative Apology Five years later, as Bush’s presidency was winding down, the House of Representatives in the 110th Congress of the United States passed House Resolution 194, entitled “Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans.” It was introduced by Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, and had 120 co-sponsors, of whom 118 were Democrats and two were Republicans. It was introduced on February 27, 2007, and passed on July 29, 2008, as a “Simple Resolution” (that is, it was passed only by the House, did not go forward to the President, and had no force of law). The bill quoted parts of President Bush’s Senegal speech—focusing on the parts that called enslavement “one of the greatest crimes in history” and not mentioning Providence or sin.

104  Ashraf H. A. Rushdy The bill dwells in substantial detail on the enormity of that crime, and it does so in two ways that are significant for us here. First, it argues for continuity in a more considered way. It identifies and names the forms of social control that followed the legal end of slavery in the United States— the Black Codes, lynching, disenfranchisement, and segregation. And it insists that the effects are ongoing. African Americans, the bill states, “continue to suffer from the complex interplay between slavery and Jim Crow—long after both systems were formally abolished.” Second, the bill emphasizes that enslavement was the basis of American civil society. The “system of slavery,” the bill declares, “and the visceral racism against persons of African descent upon which it depended became entrenched in the Nation’s social fabric.” The bill concludes with a four-part resolution: two acts of acknowledgements, a speech act, and a promise. It “acknowledges that slavery is incompatible with the basic founding principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal,” and it acknowledges the “fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity” of slavery. It then formally “apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors.” And, finally, it “expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.” What such an apology cannot do, according to the House, is “erase the past,” but what it can do, it continues, is “speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront the ghosts of their past.”6 This emphasis on presumably some Americans being haunted by the specters of past injustice is a significant statement, as I will discuss below. The past that cannot be erased also cannot be ignored.

3. A Sorry Senate The next year, on June 18, 2009, the Senate passed its own Senate Concurrent Resolution 26, with the same title, “Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans.” It was introduced by Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, and co-sponsored by 43 senators, 38 Democrat, four Republican, and one Independent. The Senate version differs in its ending from the House version, on four grounds: first, the Senate took out the resolution that passed in the House version acknowledging “that slavery is incompatible with the basic founding principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.” The second change involved what this apology was supposed to accomplish. For the House, “an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs committed can speed racial healing and reconciliation and

The Ghosts of Whose Past?  105 help Americans confront the ghosts of their past.” The Senate took out the “ghosts of their past” and replaced it with “help the people of the United States understand the past and honor the history of all people in the United States.” The third change was an addition. Where the House version noted that slavery and racism “became enmeshed in the social fabric of the United States,” the Senate adds that “during the history of the Nation, the United States has grown into a symbol of democracy and freedom around the world,” and, the bill further adds, “the legacy of African-Americans is interwoven with the very fabric of the democracy and freedom of the United States.” I will comment on the fourth change presently. It is the addition of a “disclaimer” at the end of the resolution. I would like to focus on the description of America’s fabric in the two bills. In the House bill, it is slavery and racism that are “enmeshed in the social fabric of the United States.” In the Senate’s, in addition, it is “the legacy of African-Americans” that is “interwoven with the very fabric of democracy and freedom of the United States.” One can charitably read this addition as an acknowledgement of how important African American culture and life have been and continue to be to America. Like President Bush, the Senate wants to recognize how much America’s professed values gained their life through the active resistance and revolutionary fervor of its black population. It is also possible to read this addition as considerably more problematic. After all, it weaves African American life into a fabric that already has racism in its very warp and woof. Yes—the Senate could be interpreted as saying—the whole cloth of the nation is woven out of the threads of slavery and racism, but African Americans, the victims of those institutions, are likewise enmeshed in it. They and their experience serve, perhaps, as the redemptive thread in that otherwise dismal fabric. In other words, this gesture by the Senate might be the equivalent of President Bush’s emphasis on salvation from sin. This is a story that is less about hypocrisy and the rottenness at the core of the nation’s founding and more about hope and the validity of those principles that have now made America, as the Senate version insists, “a symbol of democracy and freedom around the world.”7

4. Analysis and Comparison An apology, of course, is an attempt to repair. It implies, and has as its raison d’être, the hope of producing a future of reconciliation even as it recalls a past rupture. And what these apologies are doing—each in its specific way—is attempting just that. We cannot fault them, then, for making reconciliation part of their strategic remembering of slavery: that is simply what an apology has to do, or imply. In that case, we could then conclude, as have the pundits largely, that it is the form that is

106  Ashraf H. A. Rushdy inappropriate here—the apology itself. Insofar as an apology implies the kind of reconciliation that we see evident with different emphases here, it is unsuited to the work of remembering the atrocities of the past. These are events, institutions, practices that require memorialization in different forms—museums, public spaces, sacred places, and other lieux de mémoires. This is undeniable. What I have been suggesting throughout this chapter, though, is that apologies of the sort we have seen here have emerged as another form of memorialization, and they require more than our dismissal. The best thing we can do now, I think, is distinguish among them so that we can identify what is promising and what is absolutely unacceptable in their discursive choices. In analyzing and comparing these apologies for slavery, we should not follow the example of so many commentators who write about public celebrity apologies (and 2018 has been extraordinarily fertile for those, thanks especially to the Me Too movement). As I  point out in After Injury, we need to distinguish different kinds of public apologies in order to discern what work each kind of striving is to accomplish. Celebrity apologies are intended to protect a brand, while political apologies for past atrocities are meant to identify and reveal the relevance of the historical event for which the apology is offered.8 The issue, then, is neither perceived sincerity, which is what we assess in our interpersonal apologies, nor performed penitence, which is largely what we compare in our analyses of celebrity apologies, but rather depth of historical understanding and apparent sympathy with the meaning of the historical event in the lives of the descendants to whom the apology is offered. In these three cases, we can focus on the question of emphasis. To what extent does an apology focus on the wound of the past before turning to the hope for the future? To what extent does it remember, and dwell in the memory? And to what extent does it employ concepts that augment the act of remembering or to what extent does it rely on categories and metaphors that allay and reduce the pain of the memory, and thereby make it less meaningful an act? The Senate’s apology seems the one most hastily to go beyond remembering the horrors of the past in the pursuit of what turns out to be a facile model of reconciliation. This is clear in the ways the bill attempts to interpellate African Americans into a narrative that culminates in America’s being a beacon of freedom and justice for the world. If you wish to claim this, it seems to imply, you must disclaim that. This feels like one of those “America—love it or leave it” kind of invitations—not really an invitation. I mentioned previously that the Senate apology differed from the House version by adding a “disclaimer” at the end of the resolution. That “disclaimer” states: “Nothing in this resolution (A) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or (B) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.” Lest there be any misunderstanding, the Senate wanted to clarify that this was an apology, not an offer

The Ghosts of Whose Past?  107 of reparation; this was an expression of sorrow, not responsibility, not guilt, not money.9 The Senate version differed from the House version in being clearly milder, more an expression of the value of multiculturalism than an acknowledgment of the particular horrors of slavery. It is an apology that remembers, but does so with a cautious eye on what remembering can mean for the present and future. That is not remembering fully; that is remembering guardedly. In other disciplines, it would be called repressing rather than remembering. Likewise, this is not just an overly cautious apology. This is simply not an apology, since what it claims is that the act of remorse should not indicate or imply guilt, responsibility, agency, or, frankly, much respect for the wounded. Such an apology states, effectively, “What I  feel is that it is simply in my best interest to make a statement that means nothing and protects everything.” What the Senate offers is what we can call an unaccountable memory. They remember slavery as if remembering it is cost-free. That is not remembering, just as this is not an apology. In the end, it is an insulting statement that turns out to be focused less on the historical hypocrisy of America’s founding and haunted more by imagined lawsuits than by ghosts of the past. The story President Bush tells is of redemption, and it relies on the Christian idea of the felix culpa (the happy Fall). What happens in the past—the original sin of humanity and of the nation—is incorporated into an account that focuses on the greater positive good that allegedly comes from it. What is remembered is remembered within a framework in which justice is finally accomplished. A  sin, a crime, an evil can be understood only in light of the redemption, justice, or goodness into which it eventually manifests. In such a vision, as Alexander Pope glibly put it, “Whatever is, is right.”10 It is a model that confounds the idea of “return.” The place where President Bush delivered these remarks—the factory where enslaved Africans were sent across the Atlantic—is called “the door of no return.” And he himself alludes to that name when he describes the process as a “voyage without return.”11 But instead of seeing the travail of being fully at sea without the possibility of recovery, without the hope of return, the President quickly makes the voyage part of a different process of redemption. The paradise that is lost will be regained; it turns out that he is in fact telling a story of return. But it is a story of return in cosmic time—instead of historical time—a story that is out of time. It does not remember so much as it prophesies. Slavery is recalled only to serve a function, not to be remembered for what it was, what it did and does, what it represented and represents. It is a “sin” that is remembered, in the same way Original Sin is, as a beginning that was necessary for a greater good. Of the three apologies offered by these three American political institutions, the apology from the House seems clearly to be the one that most fully attempts to focus on remembering slavery without too rapidly

108  Ashraf H. A. Rushdy alleviating the pain of that memory. In the terms I used above, it is the one that most focuses and dwells on the past. It does that by showing us a full memory of how slavery was not an aberration, not a peripheral institution, but central to the formation of the nation. It does that by showing us that what we remember is not dead. Slavery has left a legacy, produced a set of mores, values, and principles that have fueled the injustice that a nation formed in injustice has perpetuated throughout all its institutions. And it does that, finally, by using concepts that describe more deeply what it means to remember. It means to be haunted by the “ghosts of our past.”

Conclusion As Toni Morrison so wonderfully understood, slavery and the vestiges of slavery cannot be exorcized by denial or hope or ignorance. It takes a collective act of love and profound comprehension, and an even deeper sense of recognizing the widespread complicity, and an act of concrete, material repair for us to get the ghost out of the house. Sethe in Beloved, as you recall, at the end of the novel has to relive the primal scene of her life. When the white man had entered her yard the first time, she had tried to save her daughter by killing her. When another white man enters it at the finale, she attacks him instead. Morrison’s point, I think, is that being haunted by the ghost of her past has taught Sethe to identify the source of her trauma—not to turn inward and harm herself and her loved ones, but to turn outward and see the harm caused by those who never thought of her as “beloved.”12 The House version’s recognition that Americans need to confront the “ghosts” of the nation’s past is perhaps a partial realization of that same profound truth. It was a truth whose time had perhaps come, or at least come to be recognized by Congress. One obvious question might be, why now? We can end by noting three possible answers. First, from the perspective of the shortest term, the answer could be the candidacy and election of the first African American president, Barack Obama. It might be a coincidence, but Representative Cohen introduced the bill about two weeks after Obama formally announced his candidacy for his presidential run. And in the minds of some pundits, it was not a coincidence. Some, like comedian Larry Wilmore, saw it as needless. “I thought Obama’s election was our apology,” he quipped in his role as “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show. Others, like columnist Clarence Page, saw it as a distraction and a cheap ploy that could derail Obama’s efforts to focus on uniting the country.13 But that tempting answer is also misleading. Even before Obama’s election, or candidacy, or even rise to national prominence, there had been a developing groundswell of legislative action at lower levels of governance. As both the House and Senate versions of the bill recognize, state legislatures,

The Ghosts of Whose Past?  109 including those of Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Maryland, and North Carolina, had already “taken the lead in adopting resolutions officially expressing appropriate remorse for slavery.”14 The legislative bodies of the nation were not leading here, but struggling to keep up with what was fast becoming an important phenomenon. The second answer assumes a perspective that is longer, encompassing about 70  years, and sees that what is happening in America’s political institutions is part of a more widespread and enduring trend that arguably goes back to the end of the Second World War, when many of the concepts that ground these historical apologies for past atrocities were formulated—concepts like collective responsibility and crimes against humanity. As I suggested in A Guilted Age, intellectuals, politicians, and populations struggling to find or rediscover a discursive form to deal with the uncomfortable truths of national crimes and widespread complicity inaugurated the public, collective apology for past atrocities.15 The final answer takes seriously what Toni Morrison stated and implied and brilliantly represented in Beloved. What the nation’s political institutions are doing now—finding the ghosts that had been there all along—is, at least in part, a renunciation of one aspect of what constitutes a nation. “The act of forgetting,” Ernest Renan famously said in 1882, “is an essential factor in the creation of a nation.”16 By repressing, denying, and misrepresenting the inglorious parts of its past, a nation creates its unity. What the House and Senate in the United States, and many other political and religious institutions worldwide, are doing is becoming more aware of the fragility and falsity of that unity premised on forgetting the violence and oppressions of the past. Remembering, being haunted by, and being driven to remorse over the past is more likely to produce a stable and enduring unity. Remembering slavery—personally, as Sethe does, or collectively as these American institutions attempt to do—is to indulge fully in the inescapable fact that, as Morrison’s novel states, “nothing ever dies.”17 Reconciliation and redemption are indeed possible—Morrison represents that in the coming together of the community at the end of the novel— but they are not based on repression, nor are they fulfilled in any kind of simple exorcism. They are based on a full and uncomfortable and self-effacing act of remembering what happened in a way that recognizes that what we remember happened and keeps happening. Nothing ever dies, as Morrison notes in her novel. Ghosts are not absent, even at the end, when footsteps keep appearing on the ground. Ghosts are just not visible—like many of the most devastating kinds of wounds.

Notes 1. On the question of apologies and public apologies in general, see Battistella, Smith (2008, 2014), Rushdy (2015), Rushdy (2018), and Tavuchis.

110  Ashraf H. A. Rushdy 2. Bush. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. U.S. House of Representatives. The bill states that it “apologizes to African Americans,” and it also states that it hopes “to help Americans confront the ghosts of their past.” It is unclear whether we should see a tension or a resolution in these two identities, whether, that is, African Americans are included in those “Americans” who confront the ghosts of their past. I discuss the questions and problems involved in having a body representing all Americans apologize to a subset of the citizenry in Rushdy 2015, 100–1. An earlier attempt to have Congress apologize for slavery, in a bill introduced by Tony Hall, Democrat of Ohio, in 1997, led one newspaper commentator to wonder whether Hall believed that “Congress is a Congress of white people, not all the people” (Chevlen). 7. U.S. Senate. 8. For a distinction among different kinds of public apologies, see Rushdy (2018, 224–55). 9. Conversations about public apologies for past atrocities often involve questions about more material forms of reparations. In this dynamic, apologies are often cast as either replacements or supplements. They are sometimes seen as an attempt to evade reparations; that is, they represent the words that the government offers instead of the more meaningful money they should pay. Or sometimes apologies are cast as the symbolic complement to material reparations; that is, the apology constitutes a separate but necessary part of the payment a government makes to its victims. The debates about reparations— material and symbolic—are crucial. My approach here is cautious and preliminary, attempting first to understand what such apologies do and what role they play in understanding the past to which they speak before turning to the relationship they can have with material reparations. For some exemplary work on the specific question of material reparations for slavery, see Bittker, Brooks, Cose, Henry, Salzberger and Turck, Winbush, and Yamamoto. 10. Pope, 280. 11. Bush. 12. Morrison. 13. Wilmore, quoted by Page. 14. U.S. House of Representatives; U.S. Senate. 15. Rushdy (2015). 16. Renan, 251. 17. Morrison, 42.

Bibliography Battistella, Edwin L. Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Bittker, Boris I. The Case for Black Reparations. 1st ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003 (1973). Brooks, Roy L. Atonement and Forgiveness: A  New Model for Black Reparations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Bush, George W. “President Bush Speaks at Goree Island in Senegal.” Remarks by the President on Goree Island Goree Island, Senegal, July 8, 2003. Accessed November 19, 2012. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/ 07/20030708-1.html#.

The Ghosts of Whose Past?  111 Chevlen, Eric. “Apologies Are Due—From Tony Hall.” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 2, 1997. Cose, Ellis. Bone to Pick: Of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation, and Revenge. New York: Atria, 2004. Henry, Charles P. Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Lazare, Aaron. On Apology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage International, 2004 (1987). Page, Clarence. “Apology, at Last, But with an Escape Clause.” Chicago Tribune, June 21, 2009. Pope, Alexander. “An Essay on Man.” In Alexander Pope: The Major Works. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006 (1993). Renan, Ernest. What Is A Nation? and Other Political Writings. Translated and Edited by M. F. N. Giglioli. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. Robinson, Randall. The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. New York: Dutton, 2000. Rushdy, Ashraf H. A. After Injury: A Historical Anatomy of Forgiveness, Resentment, and Apology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. ———. A Guilted Age: Apologies for the Past. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015. Salzberger, Ronald P., and Mary C. Turck, Eds. Reparations for Slavery: A Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Smith, Nick. I Was Wrong: The Meaning of Apologies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ———. Justice Through Apologies: Remorse, Reform, and Punishment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Tavuchis, Nicholas. Mea Culpa: A  Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. U.S. House of Representatives. H.Res.194—Apologizing for the Enslavement and Racial Segregation of African-Americans (110th Congress, 2007–2008). U.S. Senate. S.Con.Res.26 — Apologizing for the Enslavement and Racial Segregation of African-Americans (111th Congress, 1st Session, 2009–2010). Winbush, Raymond A., ed. Should America Pay? Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations. New York: Amistad, 2003. Yamamoto, Eric K. Interracial Justice: Conflict and Reconciliation in Post-Civil Rights America. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

7 From White Guilt to White Responsibility The Traces of Racial Oppression in United States’ Collective Memory Anne Stefani The present chapter examines the impact of slavery and segregation on white American identity and the consequences of such a legacy on contemporary American society. I  propose to search for the traces of past racial oppression in the various expressions, direct and indirect, of a collective white responsibility. The old idea of white guilt and its current avatars, white responsibility and white privilege—be they acknowledged, discussed, or denied—not only underlie the current public memorialization of slavery and segregation, but also pervade political discourse, historiographical debate, as well as racial activist thought. I  will deal more specifically with a recent trend in society and scholarship focusing on white supremacist oppression in US history rather than on the struggle against such oppression. This new focus is in fact a response to the rise of the conservative ideology in the last three decades, a growing number of Americans today using the concept of colorblindness to claim that the United States has entered a post-racial era, making the debate on racism and historical responsibility irrelevant. The new insistence by some on white responsibility is also due to a shift in the global and national debates on race and racism. My aim is to show that the emergence of white responsibility as an issue reflects the fact that the twenty-first century constitutes a new racial era for the United States and the world. Since the post-civil rights era, Whites have expressed several contradictory stances on their role in racial history, from guilt to denial with more or less good conscience. The evolution of the white mind frame in the recent decades is to be related to that of the post-civil rights racial paradigm hinging on African American agency and resistance to white oppression throughout US history. From this standpoint, a growing number of anti-racist scholars and activists have stressed the moral necessity to emphasize the central role of white racism in the building and development of American society in order to address the current racial situation. I  thus propose to put the notions of white guilt and responsibility in perspective by analyzing traces of the racial past in the contemporary context. Traces can be found in many places, but I will

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  113 concentrate on the fields of historiography, museography, and ­anti-racist activism. After presenting the factors that brought about a new racial era at the turn of the twenty-first century, I will examine the contemporary ways of apprehending the racial past and of dealing with the present, my leading thread being a shift in the general discourse, from white guilt to white responsibility and white privilege.

1. The Twenty-First Century: A New Era for Race Relations The twenty-first century marks the beginning of a new era in the United States’ racial history, due to several national and international factors. New trends have emerged in race relations and political discourse since the year 2000, among which an increasing focus on Whites’ responsibility in the perpetuation of racism in all spheres of contemporary society. A  number of global and national events account for this recent development. The September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and their aftermath had a definite impact on US society as a whole and race relations in particular. Beyond the tragic dimension of the attacks and the sympathetic responses they triggered from all over the world, these events put into relief the fact that the attacks were mainly motivated by the United States’ foreign policy and its role in the perpetuation of injustice around the world. The subsequent “War on Terror” waged at home as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan only provided more reasons to condemn white American leaders and their Western allies for the continued oppression of people of color.1 Thus, the September 11 attacks were a turning point because they dramatically demonstrated the growing influence of global issues on American politics, society, and culture. Another global event, the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa, also occurred in 2001.2 This event reflected an increased determination to deal with racism on a global scale. More specifically, the conference raised the highly controversial issue of slavery and reparations, and the Durban Program of Action requested the Commission on Human Rights to consider establishing a working group or other mechanism of the United Nations to study the problems of racial discrimination faced by people of African descent living in the African Diaspora and make proposals for the elimination of racial discrimination against people of African descent.3 The United Nations working group, which was subsequently established in 2002, visited the United States in January 2016 and published a report highlighting the government’s lack of commitment to “reparations and to truth and reconciliation.”4 The issue of reparations is especially

114  Anne Stefani interesting here insofar as it reflects the influence of world affairs on domestic affairs. Although a modern reparations movement had been launched in the United States in 1989 with the introduction of a bill in Congress, it did not really gain momentum before the Durban Conference, where it was a key issue.5 Since then, the reparations movement has gained ground in the United States, together with a movement for transitional justice, drawing its inspiration from post-apartheid South Africa. This movement calls for a large-scale investigation of civil rights crimes committed during the segregation era, together with the creation of truth commissions to set conditions for racial reconciliation in the nation.6 This leads to the national developments that have influenced the racial debate in the United States since 2000. Several factors have converged to emphasize the responsibility of Whites in a worsening of race relations in the twenty-first century, among which the rise of the colorblind ideology, Hurricane Katrina, and the intensification of police brutality against black people. In the late twentieth century, the concept of colorblindness, originally used to condemn racial segregation on the grounds that “[the] Constitution is colorblind,” ironically became a favorite tool of the conservatives—and especially the Republicans, to condemn the colorconscious policies enacted by the Democrats in the 1960s.7 An increasing number of people came to see such policies, best represented by affirmative action, as illegitimate in the new contemporary era.8 The main idea behind the new colorblind ideology was that the nation had solved its race problem in the 1960s with the enactment of federal legislation and that institutional racism was a thing of the past. The ideology gained even more strength after the election of Barack Obama in 2008, an event many interpreted as evidence that American society had finally reached its long-awaited post-racial stage. The conservative offensive against the color-conscious public policies inherited from the 1960s led racial activists and scholars to counterattack by pointing out evidence—or traces—of the persistence of racism in US institutions as late as the early twenty-first century.9 They did not have to dig deep under the surface, the most spectacular proof being provided by the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005: as thousands of African Americans were trapped in New Orleans and left without help for days, it became clear that federal and state authorities had failed to act not only out of incompetence but also out of indifference, most of the New Orleans victims being black, poor, and disabled people. The tragedy of Katrina thus put into relief the Whitedominated institutions’ insensitiveness to the fate of black people.10 One last key factor is the escalation of police brutality against black people in recent years, and the rise of the black Lives Matter movement. The murders of several black men by police officers and the failure of authorities to punish the culprits only exacerbated existing tensions, at a time when the high hopes stirred by Barack Obama’s first election had given way to disillusionment and bitterness.

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  115 Thus, the notions of white responsibility and white privilege have come to occupy central stage in the current denunciation of the structural racism inherited from slavery and segregation. The traces of white responsibility can be found in many forms of action and discourse, the most significant being those of historians and activists. The recent developments have directly affected the ways these people view the nation’s racial history as well as the current race relations.

2. New Perspectives on the Racial Past This shift in perspective shows especially in the way historians and activists now apprehend the racial past. The first striking illustration is the rise of a recent trend in historiography, focusing on the worst rather than the best aspects of racial history. After decades of research on the anti-racist movement at large, with a special emphasis on the 1950s and 1960s, a number of scholars have now turned to the history of white supremacy and racial violence in the same century. Several have asserted that the previous focus on the civil rights struggle had led historians to neglect, even to ignore, the perpetuation of white supremacy throughout the twentieth century.11 Historian Renée Romano is very representative of this trend bent on denouncing the forgotten crimes of history. In a book entitled Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders (2014), she chooses to investigate oppression and oppressors rather than the resistance of the victims or the anti-racist struggle. Her approach follows recent international trends in which nations are led to acknowledge guilt for past injustices. She examines modern civil rights trials as “restitution cases” in which “nations voluntarily offer acknowledgment of or reparations for a historical injustice.” From that perspective, her research can serve the purpose of a truth commission “to explore and redress” the United States history of violence.12 Romano took her latest book as a starting point for the plenary lecture she delivered before the Southern Association for Women Historians in Charleston, South Carolina, in early June  2015. On that occasion, she provocatively engaged her audience to reconsider the meaning and implications—for the general public and for scholars—of the multiple commemorations of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and the mid-twentieth century anti-racist struggles. According to her, while such commemorations—together with a rich wave of scholarship on the subject at the turn of the twenty-first century—have conferred a long-awaited visibility to the African American struggle against racism, they have actually failed to challenge the master narrative of a righteous national history of (white) innocence and progress. Romano argues throughout her recent work that it is now time for historians to probe into the less glorious aspects of racial history.13 This is, as James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton put it, the “tough stuff of American memory.”14

116  Anne Stefani Interestingly, Romano and the Hortons set their work within the frame of public history, an academic field emphasizing historians’ moral responsibility in the ongoing struggle for social justice. The publication of the edited collection, Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory, in 2006, testifies to the rise to prominence in the early twenty-first century of a historiographical trend seeking to address the uncomfortable truths of white racism omitted from the dominant narrative.15 The notions of white guilt and white responsibility pervade the essays of the collection. In a compelling epilogue, Edward Linenthal reflects on the ethical implications of historians’ work. “All of these essays,” Linenthal writes, assume the historical and moral importance of engaging America’s indigestible stories . . . These stories are what historians, to be worthy of the name, must insist upon including in—and thereby forever changing—triumphal or redemptive or progressive narratives. Resistance to their inclusion in our national stories allows the continuance of immature renderings of our past and an invitation to insidious forgetfulness.16 Like Romano, Linenthal insists on the crucial role of historians in creating the conditions for racial reconciliation through the excavation, remembrance, and acknowledgment of past oppression.17 Such a stance reflects the interaction at work between contemporary US scholars and the global movement for transitional justice. An early advocate of this approach to racial history, James Loewen, had written in 1995 that, “[a]lthough textbook authors no longer sugarcoat how slavery affected African Americans, they minimize white complicity in it. They present slavery virtually as uncaused, a tragedy, rather than a wrong perpetrated by some people on others.” His view has clearly gained ground since then.18 The new focus on Whites’ fault in the history of racial oppression is undoubtedly motivated by the rise of the colorblind ideology and the radicalization of the debate on racism in the twenty-first century. Most historians and scholars in other disciplines think it is their responsibility to expose white guilt in the face of the denial expressed by many. They actually present their work as a direct response to the conservative attacks on race-conscious policies since the 1990s.19 Denial became, for instance, a dramatically divisive issue in the aftermath of Katrina, leading Manning Marable to reflect on the “historical logic of whiteness” excluding Blacks from the national experience and the national historical narrative. This “process of falsification,” he argues, was based on two crucial elements, the suppression of evidence of black resistance, and the obscuring of any records of white crimes and exploitation committed against

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  117 blacks as an oppressed group. In this manner, white Americans can more easily absolve themselves of the historical responsibility for the actions of their grandparents, parents—and of themselves . . . Denial of responsibility for racism permits the racial chasm in America to grow wider with each passing year. When the “unnatural disaster” of the New Orleans tragedy of race and class is examined in the context of American structural racism, the denial by many whites of the reality of black suffering becomes clear.20 The same logic applies to the issue of apologies and reparations for slavery and segregation. Until recently, apart from a few exceptions, American politicians refused to apologize officially for racial oppression, but global trends and a reinvigorated reparations movement have forced them to do so. Congress did apologize for lynching in 2005 and for slavery and segregation in 2009.21 One last example of the search for traces of white guilt in history is the evolution of museography. Until recently, although slavery and Jim Crow could not be completely erased from national history, museography did not put the stress on the most horrifying aspects of white supremacy, rather emphasizing the most glorious moments of abolition or the Civil Rights Movement.22 The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed a multiplication of museums dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement, reflecting a general tendency to include African Americans and their white anti-racist allies in the national memory and to emphasize their contribution to the triumph of American democratic ideals in the late twentieth century.23 Until very recently, although these new museums were concerned with presenting African Americans as visible agents of history to redress a long period of silencing and erasure, the history itself remained a tale of progress glorifying all Americans and their institutions across racial lines.24 The last decade has witnessed a new development as some institutions have started to emphasize traces of structural racism in museum exhibits. The evolution of the interpretation of slavery at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, is a case in point. Monticello historian Christa Dierksheide explained in 2016 how the visiting tours have evolved in the past decades, from complete silence on slavery to a major focus on it in all tours—the latest development being the creation of a slavery app for Android and iPhone featuring descendants of Monticello slaves.25 Dierksheide recalled that the first step of this interpretive evolution came with the reshaping of Mulberry Row, the main plantation street where all slavery-related activities took place. Until 2000, visitors could not imagine such a thing, all evidence of slavery having been obliterated from the plantation. After 2000, following the national trend toward a full integration of Blacks, and especially enslaved people, into the collective memory, the Monticello staff restored Mulberry Row to its original

118  Anne Stefani function. Thus, in the words of Christa Dierksheide, “[w]hat began looking like a sort of pastoral lovers’ lane, a place where almost all traces of slavery and of the slaves themselves had been erased, is now a place where slavery is much more visible.”26 This actually reflects the first stage in the evolution of interpretation, the second stage, focusing on white responsibility, being now in process: What seems clear is that we need to make it impossible for visitors to NOT encounter slavery on the mountaintop. We need to stop allowing slavery to be an ancillary story on the mountaintop—we need to make it the main story. What this means is a change in the institutional narrative at American presidential homes like Monticello. It means a departure from the Enlightenment narrative of progress and triumph. It means a new narrative, one rooted in struggle, and even in tragedy.27 Like most museums and institutions dealing with early US history, Monticello has been actively involved in the national conversation on race through the reinterpretation of slavery and its legacy.28 The new racial paradigm is indeed reflected in the way contemporary museums present the history of slavery and segregation. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, inaugurated in Washington, DC, in September 2016, fits well in this pattern.29 White guilt or white responsibility is definitely not the main interest of the museum, which is dedicated to the African American experience. That said, the history galleries unambiguously display evidence of black suffering as a result of white oppression, from the earliest days of the nation to the present, along with testimonies of resistance of the oppressed. The many objects displayed, some tiny, others spectacularly large, appeal both to emotions and to mind in a clear effort to make visitors ponder over the darker side of US history. The Emmett Till Memorial, for instance, provides a visual, highly emotional evocation of Till’s murder—the exhibit including the teenager’s casket, the photograph of his mutilated face, and a video of his mother describing his body after the murder.30 In another gallery, the brick stack behind the statue of Thomas Jefferson, each brick of which bears the name of an enslaved person he owned, rather invites to reflect on the “paradox of liberty,” as the section where it is located is named. In this particular instance, Jefferson is not remembered for his contribution to the foundation of the nation but for his responsibility in the perpetuation of slavery. Further on through the visit, the contemplative court, located immediately after the history galleries, confirms the museum’s intent to contribute to the ongoing reflection on the legacy of slavery in contemporary society. The case of museography thus shows that public discourse on US racial history is slowly changing under the influence of global and national

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  119 trends. American collective memory is becoming more balanced between the glorification of its best elements and the acknowledgment of its worst. This new emphasis on White responsibility is obviously directly related to contemporary conditions as reflecting the current trends in US society, politics, and culture.

3. A New Perspective on the Present: White Privilege as a Trace of White Guilt Because contemporary US laws no longer discriminate against people, it has become more difficult to designate culprits for the perpetuation of racism today. Although tremendous progress has been made since the segregation era, few people deny that racism is still present in American society, but the prevailing idea is that the problem is not a collective one anymore. While many Whites argue that they should not be blamed for crimes committed by their parents and ancestors, others now turn from guilt to responsibility. The notion of white guilt does not apply so much to the present as to the past since it refers to the actual committing of a crime. When dealing with the present situation, racial activists and scholars rather use the notion of white responsibility to denounce structural racism. A  prominent white anti-racist activist, Tim Wise, explains the distinction as follows: The injury has been real. It is still real today. We are still in the middle of the catastrophe, and in order to emerge on the other end, we will have to confront the beast without apology and without hesitation. There is no other way. And we do this not out of guilt—after all, none of us created the system as we have found it—but out of responsibility: a responsibility to ourselves, to those who have gone before and to those who are coming after; out of responsibility to the nation and the planet, which in our better moments we claim to cherish. Guilt is what you feel for what you’ve done. Responsibility is what you take, because of who and what you are.31 Wise’s personal journey not only reflects the evolution of race relations since the late twentieth century, but also tells much about the evolution of whiteness during the same period. White guilt was actually more present in the discourse and acts of activists of the 1950s and 1960s, especially among those few Southern Whites who joined the black freedom movement. This makes sense, since Southern Whites were firsthand participants in the oppression exerted through Jim Crow laws. White guilt thus seems to be more relevant to the segregation era than to the present context. The shift from guilt to responsibility is also related to the post-civil rights racial paradigm emphasizing African Americans’ agency in history. Indeed, during the segregation era,

120  Anne Stefani as long as the dominant discourse on race confined black people to a subordinate, passive role in society and politics, and before Black protest against racism became massive, the notion of white guilt prevailed because it conveyed white individuals’ bad conscience for being agents of oppression. In other words, during the segregation era, the few Whites who expressed guilt alleviated their conscience, with a sense of keeping the initiative of racial progress and possibly bringing about change if they only decided to. In the contemporary era, by contrast, Blacks are in a ­position of leadership in the fight against racism, supported by a number of whites. They are also in a position to demand redress. Thus, unlike white guilt, which is a question of individual conscience, white responsibility is one of social justice. In the current context, moreover, white guilt has become a controversial notion as it typically moves attention away from racism while eliciting compassion for the person feeling guilty, without resulting in any further action. Hence, this white anti-racist activist’s conclusion: “[f]or me, what is more useful than getting mired in guilt is to understand that it is not about fault but rather about taking responsibility to do what you can to rectify the situation.”32 This is consistent with the contemporary view of race relations hinging on the notion of redress. It also follows the same rationale as the transitional justice movement now growing in the United States, a practical example of redress-oriented initiatives being the reopening of civil rights cold cases.33 Moreover, until the late 1960s, racism was commonly perceived as a specifically Southern sin, white guilt being an issue reserved for Southern Whites rather than for American Whites.34 In the contemporary racial context, racism has become a national issue involving society as a whole, and anti-racist Whites do not so much insist on their guilt as on their responsibility in the perpetuation of the system. Wise and other interpreters of whiteness point out the individual nature of guilt as opposed to the collective nature of responsibility, which is another difference accounting for the prevalence of responsibility in the current anti-racist discourse, in keeping with the denunciation of racism as a systemic rather than individual form of oppression. To many anti-racist activists and scholars, the notion of white guilt—or lack thereof—has now become a means to exonerate individuals from the charge of complicity in structural racism because it denies the possibility of a collective white responsibility. This is what Michael Brown et al. state in their introduction to Whitewashing Race: Today, many white Americans are concerned only with whether they are, individually, guilty of something called racism. Having examined their souls and concluded they are not personally guilty of any direct act of discrimination, many whites convince themselves that they are not racists and then wash their hands of the problem posed by persistent racial inequality.35

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  121 From this perspective, white guilt partakes of the ideology of colorblindness in its denial of racism. The corollary of white responsibility today is the notion of white privilege, this constituting the latest trace of white guilt. White privilege is not a crime for which a white person can be blamed, but it is the result of a historical process of oppression committed by Whites in history. It is the legacy of slavery and segregation, perpetuating a form of white supremacy in the sense that whiteness confers to all white people a superior status and better opportunities in society. Although the concept can be traced back to the early twentieth century, it only became an issue for anti-racist activists in the 1980s, and has taken on new significance in the last decade. In 1989, White feminist activist Peggy McIntosh described it in those terms: I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.36 In 2010, McIntosh added some notes to facilitate the use of her papers in the contemporary context: My work is not about blame, shame, guilt, or whether one is a “nice person.” It’s about observing, realizing, thinking systemically and personally. It is about seeing privilege, the “up-side” of oppression and discrimination. It is about unearned advantage, which can also be described as exemption from discrimination.37 Interestingly, in the later document, she explicitly discarded the notion of guilt as irrelevant, stressing instead the necessity to confront privilege as part of a system. This demonstrates that the notion of white privilege has become central in the current denunciation of structural racism by activists and historians alike. It is at the core of Black Lives Matter’s discourse, and, more generally, of the current anti-racist movement. Black Lives Matter literally started as a protest against blatant manifestations of white racism in the law enforcement system. In 2013, a white security guard, George Zimmerman, was acquitted after killing an unarmed black man, Trayvon Martin. In 2014, the police killing of another black man, Michael Brown, triggered massive protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and Black Lives Matter became a national movement. It was first motivated by the escalation of police brutality against black

122  Anne Stefani people and by public institutions’ failure to punish the culprits.38 Since the rise of the movement in 2014, the underlying idea behind all Black Lives Matter actions has been the entrenchment of white supremacy in American social, political, and cultural institutions. It is summed up in these words: Those white people who continue to mischaracterize the affirmation of the value of black life as being anti-white are suggesting that in order for white lives to matter, black lives cannot. That is a foundational premise of white supremacy. It is antithetical to what the Black Lives Matter movement stands for, which is the simple proposition that “black lives also matter.” The Black Lives Matter movement demands that the country affirm the value of black life in practical and pragmatic ways . . . None of this is about hatred for white life. It is about acknowledging that the system already treats white lives as if they have more value, as if they are more worthy of protection, safety, education, and a good quality of life than black lives are. This must change.39 The most blatant form of white supremacy, according to Black Lives Matter activists, is the killing of black people by police. The less ­tangible but no less harmful form is white privilege, which many conservative Whites deny, many white anti-racist activists discuss extensively, and the remaining silent majority ignore. This accounts for Black Lives Matter’s insistence on the necessity to expose white privilege. The movement’s activists and their supporters—Black and White—advocate such an exposure as the most effective form of action in the current context, while explicitly dismissing white guilt as irrelevant: The point of identifying and exposing inconsistencies within the social systems and cultural norms of the United States [writes Sincere Kirabo] isn’t to make whites feel guilty, but to garner greater empathy that will inspire change  .  .  . If you’re carrying guilt for being privileged, quit wasting your time. Devote your mental energy towards something worthwhile, like transmitting heightened awareness within your sphere of influence (however marginal) and seeking to destabilize the inequitable power structure that allows and excuses the bias and cruelty involved with cases like Eric Harris. Focus less on your guilt and more on being a catalyst for change.40 This stance is in perfect line with Peggy McIntosh’s views on the same issue. In addition to speaking up to shock people into awareness, antiracist activists urge people—and white people in particular—to act, providing education and training in the form of publications, workshops, and community work.41 Thus, the current movement against racism,

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  123 and Black Lives Matter in particular, emphasizes white responsibility in structural racism more explicitly than earlier movements because the gains of the 1960s black freedom movement led many conservatives and liberals of the following decade to proclaim the end of racism and to declare racial activism illegitimate in the late twentieth century. Black Lives Matter’s indictment of the system created by Whites is the twentyfirst century response to these developments. It is in fact the latest variation of the 1990s culture wars, the stress on white responsibility resulting from the radicalization of the racial debate since the mid-2000s. While the late twentieth-century racial debate between conservatives, liberals, and radicals hinged on the issues of diversity and multiculturalism in American society, the contemporary cultural and political conversation on race opposes the fighters of structural racism and the advocates of the post-racial paradigm.

Conclusion One eventually comes to face a paradox: the fact that traces of white responsibility in racial oppression have become much more visible in the twenty-first century than they were in the aftermath of the 1960s. This is the irony of the success of theblack freedom movement. Its historic gains in the form of civil rights legislation boosted white Americans’ faith in their democratic institutions, exonerating them from the collective guilt some—especially in the South—had felt so far. After the conservative backlash of the late twentieth century and the emergence of new forms of racism, evidence of white responsibility in racial oppression came back to the surface. As a result, not only are traces of white supremacy more visible than four decades ago—in the form of white privilege and structural racism, but they are much more pervasive than before insofar as all Whites, not only Southern Whites, are now concerned by them. This testifies to the potency of the new racial paradigm in which the historical victims of oppression expect the perpetrators of oppression and their descendants to confront the truth so as to create the conditions for reconciliation. In the eyes of anti-racist activists and scholars, now is the time for guilt to give way to accountability.

Notes 1. Marable (2007, 241–43). 2. For a discussion of the Durban Conference and of the September 11 terrorist attacks as pivotal moments in African American history, see Marable (2007, 238–43). 3. United Nations (2001, 23). 4. U.N. Human Rights Council (2016, 16). 5. H. R. 3745, 101st Congress (1989–1990), first session. The bill was first introduced in 1989 by US Representative John Conyers and has been reintroduced each year since then.

124  Anne Stefani 6. A United Nations report of 2004 defines transitional justice as “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation” (U.N. Secretary General, 4). The creation of the International Center for Transitional Justice in March 2001 testifies to the beginning of a new global era in the early twenty-first century. On the transitional justice movement in the United States, see for instance Griffin and Hargis, and Romano (2012, 181–98). On the issue of reparations, see Araujo, Martin, and Yaquinto. 7. On the original use of the term “colorblind,” see Justice John M. Harlan’s famous dissent in the Plessy v. Ferguson case (Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 1896). 8. See, for instance, Jim Sleeper’s Liberal Racism (New York: Penguin, 1997), Dinesh D’Souza’s The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society (New York: Free Press, 1995), Shelby Steele’s A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), and Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom’s America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997). 9. See, for instance Bonilla-Silva; Brown; Feagin, Vera, and Batur; Wise. 10. Marable (2016, 261, 265). 11. See Theoharis, xxii–xxiii, 9, 16–17. 12. Romano (2014, 5). 13. Romano (2015). See also Romano and Raiford, introduction. 14. Horton and Horton. 15. Also see Painter. 16. Linenthal, 214, 218. 17. Linenthal, 224. 18. Loewen, 145 (quoted in Kendall, 90). 19. See, for instance, Brown et al., 9. The most striking examples of conservative attacks on race-conscious policies are the many lawsuits brought against universities to challenge their affirmative action policies. See in particular the Hopwood v. Texas, Gratz v. Bollinger, Grutter v. Bollinger, and Fischer v. University of Texas landmark cases [Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996); Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003); Fisher v. University of Texas, 570 U.S. 297 (2013); Fisher v. University of Texas, 579 U.S. ____ (2016)]. 20. Marable (2016, 267–68). 21. On lynching, see S. Res. 39, June 13, 2005; on slavery and segregation, see H. Res. 194, July 29, 2008, and S. Con. Res. 26, June 18, 2009. 22. See Romano (2009). 23. See, for instance, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis (1991), the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (1992), the Brown v. Board of Education historic site in Topeka, Kansas (1992), or the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Alabama (1993). 24. Romano (2009, 46). 25. Dierksheide. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. See, for instance, the two-day conference (March  19–20, 2018), in Charlottesville, VA, sponsored by Monticello, the University of Virginia, and the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS), with the collaboration of the UNESCO Slave Route Project: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage. On slavery at Monticello, see also

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  125 Lois E. Horton, “Avoiding History: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and the Uncomfortable Public Conversation on Slavery,” in Horton and Horton, 135–150. Among other institutions following a similar course, see, for instance, Mount Vernon, or the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 29. See also the Atlanta National Center for Civil and Human Rights (which opened in 2014) and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson (which opened in 2017). 30. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum also dedicates significant space to the murder of Emmett Till while emphasizing the most brutal aspects of white supremacy in a specific gallery focused on lynching, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan. 31. Wise, 194. 32. Kendall, 120. 33. Several initiatives, such as the Civil Rights Cold Case Project—led by the Center for Investigative Reporting, Paperny Films, and public television station WNET.org in New York—were launched across the nation in the recent past to pressure public authorities into reopening unsolved civil rights cases. 34. As an illustration of this point, see the many autobiographical narratives published by white Southern racial liberals struggling to cope with their personal racial guilt. 35. Brown, 4. 36. McIntosh (1989, 10). 37. McIntosh (2010, 5). 38. See Taylor. 39. Cooper. 40. Kirabo. See also Greenberg. 41. See, for instance, the work of such organizations as the Catalyst Project, the Center for the Study of White American Culture, or the White Privilege Conference.

Bibliography Araujo, Ana Lucia. Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Brown, Michael K., et al. Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-blind Society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Cooper, Brittney. “11 Major Misconceptions About the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Cosmopolitan, September  8, 2015. www.cosmopolitan.com/ politics/a45930/misconceptions-black-lives-matter-movement/. Dierksheide, Christa. “Commemorations—Memorializations.” Unpublished conference paper, University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès, March 11, 2016. Feagin, Joe R., Hernan Vera, and Pinar Batur. White Racism: The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2001. Greenberg, Jon. “White Americans Are Still Confused About Racism—Here’s ‘The Talk’ We Need to Have.” November  24, 2017. http://citizenshipandso cialjustice.com/2017/11/24/white-americans-are-still-confused-about-racismheres-a-talk-we-need-to-have/.

126  Anne Stefani Griffin, Larry J., and Peggy G. Hargis. “Race, Memory, and Historical Responsibility: What Do Southerners Do with a Difficult Past?” Catalyst: A  Social Justice Forum 2, no. 1 (2012): Article 3. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton, eds. Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory. New York: New Press, 2006. Kendall, Frances E. Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships Across Race. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2013. Kirabo, Sincere. “Want to Help End Systemic Racism? First Step: Drop the White Guilt.” Humanist, April  27, 2015. https://thehumanist.com/commentary/ want-to-help-end-systemic-racism-first-step-drop-the-white-guilt. Linenthal, Edward. “Epilogue: Reflections.” In Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory, edited by James Oliver and Lois E. Horton, 213–24. New York: New Press, 2006. Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone Simon and Schuster, 1995. Marable, Manning. Beyond Black and White: From Civil Rights to Barack Obama. New York: Verso, 2016. ———. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945–2006. 3rd ed. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Martin, Michael T., and Marilyn Yaquinto, eds. Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States: On Reparations for Slavery, Jim Crow, and Their Legacies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. McIntosh, Peggy. Some Notes for Facilitators on Presenting My White Privilege Papers. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Centers for Women, 2010. ———. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Peace and Freedom Magazine (July–August 1989): 10–12. Painter, Nell Irvin. “America Needs to Reexamine Its Civil Rights History.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 32 (Summer 2001): 132–34. Romano, Renée C. “The Limits of Commemoration: Civil Rights Memory and the Enduring Challenge of Innocence.” Southern Association for Women Historians’ Tenth Southern Conference on Women’s History. Charleston, SC, June 11–14, 2015. ———. “Moving Beyond ‘The Movement that Changed the World’: Bringing the History of the Cold War into Civil Rights Museums.” The Public Historian 31, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 32–51. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2009.31.2.32. ———. Racial Reckoning: Prosecuting America’s Civil Rights Murders. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014. Romano, Renée C., and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008. Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016. Theoharis, Jeanne. A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018. United Nations. “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” Declaration, Durban, South Africa, August 31–September 7, 2001. Accessed July 14, 2018. www.un.org/WCAR/. U.N. Human Rights Council, Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, and United Nations Human Rights Council Secretariat. Report of the

From White Guilt to White Responsibility  127 Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on Its Mission to the United States of America, August 18, 2016. Accessed July 14, 2018. https:// undocs.org/A/HRC/33/61/Add.2. U.N. Secretary General. The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, August 3, 2004. Accessed July 14, 2018. https:// undocs.org/S/2004/616. Wise, Tim. Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equality. San Francisco: Open Media Series, 2010.

8 Remembering in Black and White Memorializing Slavery in 21stCentury Louisiana Nathalie Dessens

Long uncontested and undebated, the memory of slavery in the Americas has been a rich source of conversation in the past three decades. One after the other, the former slave societies of the Western Hemisphere, the former slave colonies, and their former empires have progressively tried to respond to the need to inscribe the memory of slavery in their memorial landscape.1 If this specific memory must be set in a larger context of memorialization, the memory of slavery has been particularly contested because of its connection to racism and discrimination. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement was the turning point that triggered a shift in attitudes concerning the memory debates. For a long time, the American South remained the undisputed realm of the memory of white supremacy. Public space, from museums to the urban landscape, was entirely devoted to memorializing the Southern Confederacy and its heroes, famous or anonymous. Slavery was nowhere to be seen or heard. For decades, Southern museums (and in particular plantation museums) practiced what Jennifer Eichstedt and Stephen Small call the “symbolic annihilation” of the slaves.2 While some Southern states discretely started exhuming their slave past from oblivion, Louisiana was less rapid than many. In the past two decades, however, museums in rural Louisiana have started turning to what Eichstedt and Small call a “relative incorporation” of slaves in the plantation environment. From the Louisiana State University Rural Life Museum, set in Baton Rouge, to the Laura Plantation in Vacherie, more and more museums have started replacing the word “servant” by the word “slave” in their guided tours.3 They have ceased to dress their tour guides in hoop dresses. They have started displaying slave cabins and mentioning the contribution of the slave population to the general economy and culture of Louisiana. Despite this slow evolution in the rest of Louisiana, New Orleans remained, for a long time, far behind other Southern cities in acknowledging this past, which many preferred to forget or to silence. The “symbolic annihilation” of the slaves in the New Orleans public space has largely remained. Except for The Tomb of the Unknown Slave, erected by

Remembering in Black and White  129 the Catholic Church by the Saint-Augustine Church in Faubourg Tremé, slavery is mostly absent from the memory of New Orleans as displayed in its public space. The sole other mention of the word, and the only institutional one, is on the plaque dedicated to Congo Square in what is today known under the name of Louis Armstrong Park.4 Although the memorialization scene is a rapidly changing one in what Andreas Huyssen calls an “urban palimpsest,” the main two memorials to slavery in New Orleans and vicinity are two private projects that share an overall common goal while using extremely different methods.5 One is a spontaneous collective non-institutional project by a group of black inhabitants of the Crescent City. The other one is an entirely private project by a New Orleans white investor. While many hoped that the discussion on race relations triggered by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, and the election of the first Black president, in 2008, would help inaugurate a post-racial society in the United States, this chapter will show how the memory of slavery, although now out of the closet, so to speak, still deeply divides New Orleanians along the color line. After a general contextualization of the memorial stage in New Orleans, this chapter will dwell on a presentation of the two memorials, before showing how both the very representation of slavery and the reception of the two projects show the persisting racialization of the discourse on slavery in New Orleans and the deep fractures that still oppose New Orleanians along the color line.

1. Slavery on the Memory Stage In the past three decades, the former slave societies of the Americas have started memorializing their slave past. Most of the European and American nations once involved in the institution of slavery have begun to consider the necessity to make this episode of their past more visible. Starting in the 1990s, this early memorial angle has gained momentum in the past 25  years. If all the nations have addressed the question, in one way or another, they have all devised various strategies to do so. For instance, in 2014, the CARICOM, the community of Caribbean countries, adopted a plan for reparations in ten points, including a request for official apologies and a cancellation of the debt Caribbean nations owed to European countries involved in slavery, as well as a specific investment plan to make up for the slower economic growth attributed to the slave past.6 In Brazil, to take another example, the memorial actions have taken on a resolutely national dimension with, for instance, the setting of a day of Black Awareness, an obligation to teach the history of slavery and the history of Africa in all secondary education programs, the restitution of land to the descendants of the maroon communities of the Quilombos, and the inscription on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list of a number of cultural features or events connected with the nation’s slave

130  Nathalie Dessens past.7 Everywhere, the memory of slavery has also been made visible, the urban landscape bearing clear signs of this memory. Monuments have been erected, museums and exhibitions have been dedicated to slavery, streets and squares have been renamed, and plaques have been added, in remembrance of the enslaved and to pay homage to their nation-building contribution.8 The United States has also started considering the question of the memorial debt owed to the descendants of the nearly four million people enslaved in the country on the eve of the Civil War. Institutions such as universities and railroad companies have created commissions to research their history in connection with slavery. They have used the reports written by these commissions to recognize their involvement in the “peculiar institution” and have issued public apologies to the descendants of slaves.9 Some have started dedicating memorials to the victims of slavery and the slave trade.10 Museums have opened or been remodeled throughout the country to commemorate slavery and its heritage, the most famous example being the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This latest addition to the Smithsonian, inaugurated on September  24, 2016, on the Mall of Washington, DC, is the museum closest to the White House, a location which may be interpreted as a strong symbolic signal.11 Most of the Southern museums now dedicate an increasing part of their space to the history of slavery, and numerous plantations have included in their tours reconstituted slave cabins and evocations of slave life and work. Twenty years ago, slaves were not mentioned except, occasionally, under the euphemistic term of servants, and most plantations offered tours that evoked solely the rich plantation economy and culture, the delicate tastes of the planters, and the architectural beauty of the plantation houses. When they published their groundbreaking book entitled Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums, in 2012, Jennifer Eichstedt and Stephen Small showed very clearly that the South lagged far behind the rest of the plantation societies in the Americas in recognizing its slave past. Studying 122 plantation museums of the American South (54 in Virginia, 29 in Georgia, and 39 in Louisiana), as well as two dozen plantations in five other Southern states, and, although more superficially, museums of local, regional, and state history, they showed that most of them practiced the “symbolic annihilation” of the slaves. They counted a few rare Louisiana plantation museums that practiced what they called “relative incorporation” of the slave past, citing among them the Laura plantation which included, from its opening, slave cabins in its visit. For a very long time, however, Louisiana resisted the new trends that were progressively spreading in the American South and remained relatively hesitant to really acknowledge slavery, New Orleans being still more intent on forgetting it. Although the city has a strong tradition of

Remembering in Black and White  131 memorialization of its rich history, from its colonial history to its creole culture, without forgetting, until extremely recently, its Confederate past, slavery was totally absent from the historical landmarks, from the statuary and monuments, and even largely from the museum exhibits.12 There are only two places in the whole city’s public space that bear markers using the word “slave” and only one is the result of an official institutional decision. The first plaque was installed in 2004, when the second oldest black Catholic church in the United States, the church of St. Augustine, built by the African American community of the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1842, erected and dedicated The Tomb of the Unknown Slave on the church grounds, in Faubourg Tremé.13 In 2010, the first institutional reference to slavery appeared in the city’s public space, when two plaques were set up in the newly remodeled Louis Armstrong Park, formerly known as Congo Square, where the slaves met on Sundays at the turn of the nineteenth century. The first one containing the word “slave” was installed below Adewale S. Adenle’s striking statue of a group of slaves playing music and dancing in Congo Square.14 A second plaque, containing the word “enslaved” twice, was set at the park’s entrance to tell the story of the place.15 Although these three markers and the two monuments they commented upon were a first move towards the acknowledgment of New Orleans’s slave past, they are a small contribution to this memorialization. Passersby have to pay particular attention to the words to read the acknowledgment on the Congo Square plaques, and few are those who venture near St. Augustine to see the monument dedicated to the unknown slave. The only two projects containing clear and powerful references to the memory of slavery are two non-institutional initiatives taken, in the past 15  years, by New Orleans citizens. The first one is a spontaneous art project, driven by a symbolical intent, developed in a totally deserted area of the city’s public urban landscape. The other is a private museum dedicated to the memory of slavery some 40 miles from the city.

2. Two Memorials to Slavery The two memorials have little in common except for the fact that the slave past of New Orleans and the experience of the enslaved are the main foci of both. The first memorial is located in Faubourg Tremé, just north of the French Quarter, a traditionally called “Creole faubourg” because it was the place where a large population of free creoles of color lived in the early nineteenth century when the faubourg was created on the former property of Claude Tremé. The story of this memorial is an original one. The main business artery of Tremé was Claiborne Avenue until 50 years ago. Lined with secular oak trees, it was the place where the inhabitants of the area shopped, strolled, and socialized. In the late 1960s, the oak trees were uprooted and supposedly replanted elsewhere in the city

132  Nathalie Dessens (although no one has ever been able to say where) and replaced by concrete pillars supporting the I-10 Expressway. Despite vocal local protest, no one could prevent this destruction, which was considered a cultural negation by the inhabitants of the area. The faubourg’s main commercial artery, where the population used to gather, became a totally sterile and unusable place. In 2002, the New Orleans African American Museum16 initiated a project, called “Restore the Oaks,” involving numerous local artists who were asked to paint murals on the pillars “memorializing the people, organizations, and traditions of historic Tremé, the 7th ward, and the African American experience in New Orleans.”17 Since then, the pillars of the I-10 between Orleans and St. Bernard avenues have become a permanent collection of pictorial art bearing representations of life in Faubourg Tremé and in New Orleans more generally.18 The second project is the Whitney Plantation Museum in Wallace, in St. John Baptist Parish, along River Road, a half hour away from the French Quarter. The plantation, originally called Haydel, from the name of the German migrants who founded it in 1752, was renamed Whitney and became, in the nineteenth century, one of the most flourishing sugar plantations of the German Coast. The detailed story of the plantation ownership can be found on the museum website.19 But to narrate just its past three decades, it was purchased by Formosa Chemicals and Fiber Corporation, in 1990. Formosa originally intended to build a plant on the premises, but environmentalist opposition made them abandon the idea. Following the suggestion of anthropologist Jay Edwards, the company later considered building The Museum of Louisiana’s Creole Culture, after commissioning a study from the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University. In 1992, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places, but the original project was thwarted by a depression in the rayon business, and the Formosa Corporation sold the site to John Cummings in 1999. Contrary to the initial plan to commemorate creole culture (which is the feature of Louisiana history and culture most commonly memorialized in the Louisiana public space, especially in New Orleans), Cummings decided to dedicate this space to the first exclusive memorialization of slavery in Louisiana. He hired Ibrahima Seck, a historian at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, in Senegal, to be his historical consultant and spent eight million dollars of his own fortune to establish the museum. This self-funding, as he easily acknowledges, made Cummings totally free in his choices. What these two memorials have in common is that both were noninstitutional ventures and that neither received any public funding. They stem, however, from two very different projects: one is a spontaneous initiative by an African American community attempting to repossess a threatened public space and to reclaim their symbolically negated ­culture, while the other is the project of a wealthy white businessman. While John Cummings has opted for turning an old sugar plantation into

Remembering in Black and White  133 a challenging, provocative museum, self-financing the whole project, the artists of the Tremé have created a free outdoor art museum displaying the memory of their enslaved past to the rare public that ventures in the area.20 Both memorialize slavery, but their memorializing strategies are extremely different.

3. Unshared Memories The African American artists of Faubourg Tremé who represented the story of the neighborhood, of the city, of its enslaved past, and of its identity on the I-10 pillars have built a collective memory of their enslaved past, thus reclaiming the history and space of their city. The residents have chosen to turn what were originally symbols of the destruction of their neighborhood into symbols of the history of their enslavement but also of their resistance, both physical and cultural, and to celebrate the creole culture of New Orleans. They managed to stage their lives and that of their neighborhood by representing, as the initial project reads, “the people, places, and events that have defined the area’s soul.”21 The instigator of the second project is John J. Cummings III, an extremely wealthy retired New Orleans trial lawyer. He explains that he purchased the plantation for pure investment purposes and that he started the project after researching the history of the plantation. According to his many interviews, he then read Gwendolyn Middlo Hall’s 1992 book Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. As he declares in an article he wrote for the Washington Post, “[a]s a lifelong Southerner, I realized that there had been a glaring omission in my education of the nation’s history, and that I was not alone in my ignorance.” The story he tells, generally quoting historian Eric Foner, is that he then noticed that out of the 35,000 museums in the United States, not a single one had been dedicated to slavery. He mentions the 9/11 Memorial and Museum that opened only ten years after that tragedy and generally refers to the numerous Holocaust museums that exist all over the country. One of his favorite questions, again paraphrasing Foner’s words, is: “What would we say if the Germans opened many museums to slavery before a single one to their own Holocaust?” Noting that it is essential to deal with this past because “every generation of Americans since 1865 has been burdened by the hangover of slavery, through the unequal education, and limited political and economic opportunities available to black Americans,” he declares that he decided to dedicate the Whitney plantation to “acknowledge the contribution that millions of forced laborers made to our nation.” One year before its opening, he criticized the new National Museum of African American History and Culture for only giving partial elements of the history of slavery, adding that “the assumption that slavery only relates to AfricanAmerican history is injustice.”22

134  Nathalie Dessens As can be expected, the two projects under study stage the same events and characteristics of slavery in New Orleans and vicinity. But they represent them very differently. In the Tremé project, African Americans are shown as the actors of their own fate. The paintings represent the neighborhood, evoke music, highlight the Civil Rights Movement, but also introduce important figures of the community (like the first black activists of the nineteenth century, the first black surgeon, and Marie Laveau, the great nineteenth-century Voodoo priestess). The whole project highlights African American agency. At Whitney, on the contrary, slaves are essentially presented as victims. The tours, mostly guided by African Americans, start with a church containing statues of slave children, a sound system featuring “The Children of Whitney,” and a recording of some former slave interviews conducted under the Federal Writers Project of the Work Progress Administration.23 An antique bell is tolled in memory of the enslaved who perished. The next step is a list of all the slaves who lived on Whitney plantation. Then comes the Wall of Honor bearing the names, taken from Gwendolyn Middlo Hall’s database, of 107,000 slaves who lived their enslaved lives in Louisiana.24 The guides then take the visitors to the “Field of Angels,”

Figure 8.1 “The Children of Whitney,” Whitney Plantation Museum, Wallace, Louisiana. Source: Photograph by Nathalie Dessens

Remembering in Black and White  135 four walls bearing 2,000 names of infants who died in slavery before their third birthday that enclose the statue of an African American angel holding a baby. In Faubourg Tremé, although some pillars are devoted to the history of sugar and thus suggest the burden of the enslaved, the general emphasis is on the self-liberating actions of the slaves. The 1811 German Coast slave rebellion, for instance, is depicted as a heroic episode, one of resistance

Figure 8.2  Breaking Free, “Restore the Oaks” Project, New Orleans, Louisiana. Source: Photograph by Nathalie Dessens

136  Nathalie Dessens and liberation. Although the suffering of the enslaved is graphically depicted, especially through the expression of pain displayed on their faces, the focus is on the breaking of their own chains, several paintings showing shackles falling into pieces. In Whitney, Cummings chose to exhibit poles bearing slaves’ heads as an echo to the heads of the convicted and executed rebels that were posted along the road leading to New Orleans by the authorities after the repression of the rebellion. Although this serves as a reminder of the plight of the actors of the rebellion, it also evokes victimization rather than agency and empowerment. The slaves are no longer shown as actors of their liberation but as the victims of the violent system that oppressed them. In Whitney, a slave prison, removed from its original location in Gonzalez, Louisiana, stands alone as a testimony to the suffering of some of the slaves who toiled on the plantations of the South. On the pillars, the murals narrate the whole history of the African Americans from their continent of origin to America. If only some are solely devoted to representing the suffering of the enslaved, displaying representations of the Middle Passage, slave auctions, cotton fields, the plantation cabins (and symbolically Christianization through the depiction of a cross hanging on the wall of a cabin), many evoke the “peculiar institution” when staging the courage of the enslaved (or formerly enslaved), the Civil War, the fight for equality with the Civil Rights Movement, and eventual access to education. The Whitney Plantation Museum very classically exhibits seven slave cabins (two of them original to the plantation), a blacksmith shop, a mule barn, a greenhouse, and a kitchen. No white figure is depicted on the pillars, with the sole exception of a representation of the Civil War, no reference is made to Southern white society while, at Whitney, the visit ends at the plantation house, a beautiful raised creole cottage, built in 1790, after the original plantation house burned. Although it is difficult to generalize, because the tours are not homogeneous from one guide to another and have changed in time since the opening of the museum, some guides then evoke the beauty of the painted ceilings, the only ones in Louisiana, suggesting the gentility of the Southerners. As opposed to what the pillars in Tremé represent, slaves are not pictured as agents of their lives in the Whitney Museum. Almost nothing is said on their resistance, culture, or on their individuality and community building. Obviously, despite the great merit of Cummings’s project, which most people consider as an indispensable step towards the end of the silence surrounding the institution of slavery, his representation of the victimization of the enslaved fails to meet the celebration of the slaves’ agency put forth by the artists of Tremé. The reception of both projects confirms the persisting racialization of the memorialization of slavery.

Remembering in Black and White  137

4. Racializing Memory The pillars, despite their artistic qualities, have never made it into the headlines, although they are mentioned in a few tourist websites and very occasionally in some local newspapers.25 They are today totally deserted. It took well over a year until cars, washed away by the post-Katrina flooding, were removed from the area. The author of the present chapter has never seen another visitor present on site during any of her visits. Few New Orleanians even know about them. They remain a legacy to the invisibility of the inhabitants of Tremé and to the persisting “symbolic annihilation” of slaves in the public space. Whitney, on the other hand, has had the honors of the national press ever since the announcement of its opening. Two major articles made headline news: the New York Times Magazine article “Building the First Slavery Museum in America,” published on February 26, 2015, and the already-cited August 13, 2015, article by Cummings in the Washington Post, entitled “The U.S. has 35,000 museums. Why is only one about slavery? Here’s why I opened the country’s first slavery museum.”26 The internet (especially via YouTube) testifies to the wide range of articles, television, and radio programs that have publicized the Whitney Plantation Museum throughout the country.27 This suggests a persisting inequality between projects, according to the socioracial category of their initiators, even if the fact that Whitney is a dedicated site while the pillar project is a public place turned into a museum may also account for the difference in visibility. The comments left by the readers of the two major articles just mentioned confirm this impression. The two articles indeed elicited comments on the blogs of the two newspapers: 366 comments were written on the blog of the New York Times Magazine between February 26 and March 2, and 214 comments were left on the Washington Post’s one between August 13 and August 24.28 Some of the comments clearly show the deep racial divide that marks the discourse on slavery, and they confirm that not everyone’s commemoration is deemed equally acceptable. Speaking of “a small, black-owned and accessible” museum in Washington, Nicole Ivy strongly reacts against the fact that this museum “gets erased in the media frenzy to celebrate the Whitney Plantation as the innovator in public commemoration of slavery” before concluding that “[t]he invisibility of this museum in [the Washington Post’s] article and in the New York Times piece says a lot about who gets authorized to be the legitimate bearers of memory” and “speaks to the unequal power of capital—both monetary and cultural— to promote some versions of memory and history and erase others.” Similarly, Gwen Giffen reproaches the Washington Post with publicizing John Cummings’s project to the detriment of other ventures, like that of a local man of African American descent who has put a lot of work and heart into our local Underground Railroad Museum. He has

138  Nathalie Dessens faced obstacles in publicity and support for it. We do need more education about this, but please let’s not promote more of the same with exclusivity, lest we exclude ourselves in undesirable ways.29 Beyond the treatment by the media of both projects, which shows that Cummings’s project is granted a manifest priority, the public’s reception has clearly highlighted the racialized oppositions Cummings’s project have provoked. In an article published in The Lens, a New Orleans newspaper, Eugene Thomas, a Black New Orleanian, evokes the extremely negative comments made by members of the Louisiana African American community who think that a rich white lawyer (even with modest social origins and even with a long history of activism in the Civil Rights Movement) opening a museum on slavery cannot but have ulterior motives, be they economic motives or a desire for publicity, among other reasons, although Thomas’s article does not detail these motives.30 BlackWhite oppositions are omnipresent in the local discourse. Thomas writes, “black and white folks alike—some of them skeptics, some of them cynics—seemed to be mightily opposed to the idea of a slave museum.”31 The very phrasing shows that, even when he wants to bind them together with the use of “alike,” he still separates them rhetorically. One of the Washington Post commentators, who calls himself “Iowa Lad,” asserts that “[r]acial differences remain because of primary cultural differences,” adding that “as a majority, Caucasians really do not care that much for African culture,” to which someone nicknamed “Kentucky-born Progressive” replies “[a]nd the reciprocal. Blacks do not care much for white Anglo culture.” Replying to the question raised by Cummings as to why there are so few memorials to slavery, the reader known as “pbend” writes, in the New York Times Magazine’s blog, that it is because “white people aren’t demanding them and Black people don’t get to make demands without repercussions. You are part of the problem,” he replies to Cummings. In an interview cited by New Orleans journalist Mimi Read in an article she published in the New Orleans Advocate on October 14, 2014, Cumming declared, “I’ve had to be prepared to meet every confrontation.” “I’ve been questioned: ‘White boy, are you using slavery to make money?’ The answer is no.” After this first vehement response, he conceded, “It’s a normal question. Why would a white man be doing this, for Christ’s sake? Why am I taking their heritage?” thus having apparently integrated the us/them opposition that most Louisianans, even those with the best intentions, seem to bear in their very heart of hearts.32

Conclusion In an article on the Whitney plantation published in The New Yorker in February  2016, Kalim Armstrong writes, “Discussing the legacy of

Remembering in Black and White  139 slavery in America is still a complex and difficult conversation to have.” Discussing it across the racial divide is still more difficult, and the impression remains, to use Eugene Thomas’s wording, that “black and white folks alike” now address slavery but in very different ways and with extremely different results. Many people thought that Katrina, in 2005, and the election of Barack Obama, in 2008, were the opening signs of the advent of a post-racial America. Hurricane Katrina and its terrible aftermath launched a longawaited discussion on race relations in New Orleans and partly drew the “symbolically annihilated” slaves from oblivion in the Louisiana space. Slavery is no longer a well-kept secret, but the memorials to slavery in New Orleans and vicinity show that the history of slavery is still largely written in black and white and that Louisianans, as Americans more generally, still have a long way to go to find the right way to commemorate their slave past in a common harmonious way. The question of the memorialization of slavery, however, is one in constant evolution. In recent years, several projects were developed in New Orleans which show that the public might be ready for new evolutions. While institutional memorialization is still lacking, to a large degree, in 2015, a privately funded archive, The Historic New Orleans Collection, organized an exhibit entitled “Purchased Lives,” dedicated to New Orleans’s position as the largest domestic slave market in nineteenth-­ century United States, a fact most Americans are unaware of and most New Orleanians prefer to ignore. Curated by historian Erin Greenwald, with the support of a grant from The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the exhibit, originally displayed at the Williams Research Center of the Collection, has been such an unexpected success with the public that it has, since then, traveled throughout the state of Louisiana and beyond.33 From this very successful exhibition to the remodeling of the rooms dedicated to slavery in the Louisiana State Museum, there are clear signs that representations are changing.34 Official memorialization of New Orleans’s past is also undergoing deep changes. In December 2015, the New Orleans City Council voted for the removal of four memorials to the Southern Confederacy and white supremacy. After two years of legal procedures that ended with the upholding of this decision by the Federal Appeals Court, the four monuments were removed between April 24 and May 19, 2017.35 More recently, the City of New Orleans Tricentennial Commission, appointed by Mayor Mitchell Landrieu to coordinate the commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Orleans, was the occasion of the appointment of a Subcommittee on Erecting Markers in Recognition of the Slave Trade, chaired by Erin Greenwald.36 In the near future, New Orleans will, as will many Southern cities, have its tour of the landmarks of slavery, and New Orleanians and visitors will have a better knowledge of the city’s slave past. It does not necessarily mean that

140  Nathalie Dessens remembering will no longer be in black and white, at least not imme­ diately, but it is another step towards attempting to blur the color line.

Notes 1. This chapter is part of a larger reflection initiated by my participation in a Franco-Brazilian CAPES-COFECUB comparative research project on the memorialization of slavery in the Atlantic World, co-funded by the French and Brazilian governments. 2. In an introductory chapter to their 2012 Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums, entitled “Racialized Ideologies and Plantation Museums,” Eichstedt and Small explain that their primary goal is to “understand how plantation museums reflect, create, and contribute to racialized ways of understanding and organizing the world” (Eichstedt and Small, 3). Chapters 4 (“Symbolic Annihilation and the Erasure of Slavery”) and 7 (“Toward Relative Incorporation Complicating the Master Narrative”) defined the notions that have guided their analysis. 3. See, for instance, the “How We Lived”; “From the Big House to the Quarters”. 4. The renaming of the square, in 1971, could be interpreted as a form of erasure confirming the general obliteration of anything connected with the city’s slave past, although it was, in fact, a first step towards at least acknowledging the contribution of the Afro-descendants to the New Orleans culture, as Louis Armstrong replaced the Confederate general Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, after which the park had been renamed in the 1880s. 5. In his book inspirationally entitled Present Pasts, Huyssen justifies his use of the trope of palimpsest as follows: “The trope of palimpsest is inherently literary and tied to writing, but it can also be fruitfully used to discuss configurations of urban spaces and their unfolding in time without making architecture and the city simply into text.” Huyssen, 7. 6. “CARICOM Ten Point Plan . . .” 7. See Araujo for a comprehensive presentation of the memorialization of slavery in Brazil. 8. See Frith and Hodgson. 9. This was the case, for instance, of Brown University, of Columbia University, of Princeton University and of Georgetown University, among others. “Steering Committee on Slavery . . .”; “Columbia University and Slavery”; “The Princeton and Slavery Project”; “Georgetown University, Slavery . . .”. 10. See, for instance, the website of Brown University, “Public Art”. 11. The museum website gives a good measure of the space dedicated to slavery in its exhibits. 12. For more details, see Dessens, 167–169. 13. For pictures of the memorial and the plaque that goes with it, see, for instance, “St. Augustine Catholic Church”. 14. Pictures of the statue and the plaque are visible at www.alamy.com/stockphoto-congo-square-sculpture-slaves-slavery-monument-adewale-adenlelouis-80500398.html. 15. See picture of the plaque at https://deadmanbluesnola.files.wordpress. com/2013/02/img_0655.jpg (accessed April 9, 2018). 16. Although the museum was founded in 1996 with support of the City of New Orleans Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development, the “Restore the Oaks” project was not publicly organized or funded. 17. The original description of the project is available on the website of the New Orleans African American Museum. 18. “Dr. Anna Brand . . .”.

Remembering in Black and White  141 19. Whitney Plantation. 20. Although entrance fees now cover the running costs of the museum, there has been no money input other than Cummings’s. 21. New Orleans African American Museum. 22. Cummings. 23. “Born in Slavery . . .”. 24. The Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy. 25. See, for instance, The Gambit Magazine. 26. Amsden; Cummings. 27. See, for instance, CBS This Morning or The New Yorker. 28. All the comments can be accessed on the websites of the Washington Post and of the New York Times. 29. Website of the Washington Post website comments. 30. Thomas. 31. Ibid. 32. Read. 33. The exhibit, initially presented at The Historic New Orleans Collection in New Orleans from March 17 to July 18, 2015, was then displayed in Natchitoches, Bunkie, Port Allen, Jonesboro, New Iberia, Thibodeaux, New Roads, Slidell, and Lake Charles, in Louisiana, over a period of 16 months between November 2016 and February 2018. In the same period, it also traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas. 34. The exhibit was seen by more than 15,000 visitors over the four months of its display in New Orleans, while the same exhibition space received 14,000 visitors over the whole year in 2014. 35. See, for instance, Marler. Interestingly, the city is now in the process of determining what will replace these monuments. See, for instance, the recent announcement by Mayor Landrieu. Woodward. 36. See TriPod: New Orleans at 300 project by 89.9 WWNO, “Sighting The Sites.” on New Orleans Public Radio. Also, see the list of the 2018 Tricentennial Committees, including one entitled “Racial Reconciliation,” New Orleans Tricentennial website.

Bibliography Amsden, David. “Building the First Slavery Museum in America.” The New York Times Magazine, February 26, 2015. Accessed March 15, 2018. www.nytimes. com/2015/03/01/magazine/building-the-first-slave-museum-in-america.html Araujo, Ana Lucia, ed. African Heritage and Memories of Slavery in Brazil and the South Atlantic World. Amherst: Cambria Press, 2015. Cummings, III, John H. “The U.S. Has 35,000 Museums. Why is Only One About Slavery? Here’s Why I Opened the Country’s First Slavery Museum.” The Washington Post, August  13, 2015. www.washingtonpost.com/poste verything/wp/2015/08/13/the-u-s-has-35000-museums-why-is-only-oneaboutslavery/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.41297044505e. Dessens, Nathalie. “L’esclavage dans l’espace public néo-orléanais: Effacement institutionnel et mémorialisation collective.” In Memórias da escravidão em torno do Atlântico, edited by Franck Ribard, 160–77. Fortaleza: Expressão Gráficae Editora, 2016. Dr. Anna Brand Brings Social Practice Expertise to LAEP, Fall 2017. Accessed May 22, 2019. https://frameworks.ced.berkeley.edu/2017/dr-anna-brand-bringssocial-practice-expertise-laep/

142  Nathalie Dessens Eichstedt, Jennifer, and Stephen Small. Representations of Slavery. Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums. Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. Frith, Nicola, and Kate Hodgson. At the Limits of Memory: Legacies of Slavery in the Francophone World. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Marler, Scott P. “Removing the Confederate Monuments in New Orleans Was Only a First Step Toward Righting the Wrongs of History.” The Nation, June  14, 2017. www.thenation.com/article/removing-the-confederate-monu ments-in-new-orleans-was-only-a-first-step-toward-righting-the-wrongs-of-his tory/. Read, Mimi. “New Orleans Lawyer Transforms Whitney Plantation into Powerful Slavery Museum.” The New Orleans Advocate, October  14, 2014. www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_fa6d3cf9-9a8f-52e8-8697be21958c026b.html. Shackel, Paul A. Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape. London, New York, Toronto and Plymouth, UK: Altamira Press, 2003. Thomas, Eugene. “Slavery Museum at Upriver Plantation Stirs Controversy on Both Sides of Racial Divide.” The Lens, December 1, 2014. https://thelensnola. org/2014/12/01/slavery-museum-at-upriver-plantation-stirs-controversy-onboth-sides-of-racial-divide/. Woodward, Alex. “Mayor Landrieu Announces Plans for Confederate Monument ites”, Gambit, March  7, 2018. Accessed April  15, 2018. www.bestofneworleans.com/thelatest/archives/2018/03/07/mayor-landrieu-announces-plansfor-confederate-monument-sites

Websites “Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938,” Library of Congress website. Accessed April 8, 2018. www.loc.gov/collec tions/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/articlesand-essays/introduction-to-the-wpa-slave-narratives/wpa-and-the-slave-narra tive-collection/ “CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice.” Accessed April  5, 2018. www.caricom.org/caricom-ten-point-plan-for-reparatory-justice/. CBS This Morning, April 8, 2015. Accessed March 15, 2018. www.youtube.com/ watch?v=JfC8X2Os2z4 “Columbia University and Slavery.” Accessed April  5, 2018. https://columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu “Congo Square sculpture slaves slavery monument.” Accessed April  9, 2018. www.alamy.com/stock-photo-congo-square-sculpture-slaves-slavery-monumentadewale-adenle-louis-80500398.html “From the Big House to the Quarters: Slavery on Laura Plantation.” Accessed April 5, 2018. www.lauraplantation.com/discover/museum-exhibit “Georgetown University, Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation.” Accessed April 6, 2018. http://slavery.georgetown.edu/

Remembering in Black and White  143 “How We Lived”, Rural Life Museum of Louisiana State University. Accessed April 5, 2018. www.lsu.edu/rurallife/discover/how-we-lived.php New Orleans African American Museum. Accessed July 20, 2014. www.noaam.org New Orleans Tricentennial. Accessed April  8, 2018. http://2018nola.com/com mittees-activities/ New York Times. Accessed April 2, 2018. www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/maga zine/building-the-first-slave-museum-in-america.html “National Museum of African American History and Culture.” Accessed May 22, 2019. https://nmaahc.si.edu/ “Public Art.” Accessed April  5, 2018. www.brown.edu/about/public-art/ martin-puryear-slavery-memorial “St. Augustine Catholic Church.” Accessed April 9, 2018. http://neworleanshis torical.org/items/show/551 “Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.” Accessed April  5, 2018. www. brown.edu/Research/Slavery_Justice/ The Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy (1719–1820) database. Accessed April 8, 2018. www.ibiblio.org/laslave/ The Gambit Magazine. Accessed April  4, 2018. www.bestofneworleans. com/gambit/who-painted-the-support-columns-for-the-elevated-interstatealong-claiborne-avenue/Content?oid=2749970 The Historic New Orleans Collection. Accessed March 15, 2018. www.hnoc.org/ exhibitions/offsite The New Yorker, February 16, 2016. Accessed March 15, 2018. www.youtube. com/watch?v=tcUgM-NLuHo “The Princeton and Slavery Project.” Accessed April  6, 2018. https://slavery. princeton.edu TriPod: New Orleans at 300 project “Sighting The Sites Of The New Orleans Slave Trade” November 5, 2015. Accessed April 6, 2018. https://www.wwno. org/post/sighting-sites-new-orleans-slave-trade Washington Post. Accessed April 2, 2018. www.washingtonpost.com/postevery thing/wp/2015/08/13/the-u-s-has-35000-museums-why-is-only-one-aboutslavery/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bc6ebbc71e77 Whitney Plantation. http://whitneyplantation.com. Accessed April 9, 2018.

9 Lessons From Abingdon Plantation at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC Thomas A. Foster

On a Wednesday evening in early spring of 1994, an unusual event was held at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, Virginia. Invitations had been sent out in March to a variety of interested parties, including local librarians. The invitation explained that an Abingdon Plantation Site Preservation Plan had been developed by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, in consultation with the Virginia State Historic Preservation Officer and the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The Airports Authority had carefully taken “into consideration the comments and suggestions expressed by local and state officials and interested members of the public.” Now, organizers wished to hold an “open house,” one “without formal presentations,” for the general public and interested stakeholders. If one was unable to attend, feedback was also accepted by mail received no later than mid-May. According to the invitation, the plan included preservation of the site, stabilizing the remains, improving accessibility for visitors, and interpretive signage and display.1 No records remain of feedback on the plans—or if details about signs and information were available for review at the time of the open forum.2 Did community members see the content of proposed exhibit signage and therefore know the site would include no mention of slavery? If so, was it of any concern? The omission of slavery at Abingdon Plantation is the central focus of this chapter. As the site of a former plantation, Abingdon is hardly unusual in its inadequate treatment of slavery, but a full examination of the site and its potential raises many issues with broader significance. Its unusual character and challenges require new solutions that could benefit even well-established plantation museums.

1. Exhibiting a Plantation Without Slaves Abingdon Plantation is unlike other plantation sites in that it is located on the grounds of a major metropolitan international airport. The exhibited information is divided, with some information presented inside the area for travelers only, whereas the preserved remains of the foundation

Lessons From Abingdon Plantation  145 of the house and an outbuilding are outside of the airport. While the interior exhibit is available only to travelers who have passed through the security checkpoint, and the exterior site is not conveniently accessible to travelers on a layover, given that it is outside of the terminal, the airport also has some information available to anyone on its website. There is no signage for the interior exhibit, so travelers seeking information about Abingdon Plantation would have to know about it prior to arrival at the airport. Directories throughout the airport, both outside and inside of the secure travelers’ area, contain information typically found on such a directory—shops, restrooms, gates, and other amenities—but Abingdon Plantation is nowhere mentioned, despite it occupying two different spaces at the airport (interior and exterior). The display cases and video installation are in an area generically labeled “Exhibit Hall” and are not distinguished from the other exhibits in that area that tell a fuller story about the history of the airport. The exterior site is uniquely situated for easy access, given that it is on airport grounds—but that does not mean that it is currently easy to access. As a site at an airport, there is no shortage of public transportation options, including a metro stop at the airport and several bus lines. Access is also possible by car, on foot, or by bicycle, and, unlike any other plantation site, is accessible to national and international travelers arriving at the airport or on layovers. For visitors arriving from outside the airport, signage for Abingdon Plantation is inadequate. The site is very well positioned for visitors as it is between two large parking decks with public access. It also is quite near an existing bike path that extends through the National Park area adjacent to the airport grounds. But here, too, one would need to plan far in advance, know the site is here, and figure out how to access it, as signage is not sufficient to guide a visitor to the site, regardless of how they travel to the airport. The external site is a now-classic example of the type of plantation site commonly found through the South, one that obscures the history of slavery. Signs with images and text are at the exterior site. Several are atop the small hill and adjacent to the brick house foundation and one is at the bottom of the small hill at one entrance to the site. Visitors can walk the small area along brick pathways, rest on benches, and learn that the plantation was once owned by George Washington’s stepson and is the birthplace of his step granddaughter Nelly Custis. It was also once owned by the Alexander family for whom Alexandria, Virginia, is named. Upon entering the main entrance to the site at the top of the hill, three signs greet the visitor, two focus on families who owned the property and the third is a map. A fourth sign is a short distance away from this initial grouping. Collectively they not only miss  opportunities to incorporate slavery and the experiences of enslaved people at the site—but they craft a particular narrative with subtexts that echo proslavery sentiments that date back to the early twentieth century and earlier.

146  Thomas A. Foster The first sign entitled “Alexander Family” describes the earliest history of the “plantation,” focusing on the Alexander family and the original size of the tract, 6,000 acres, granted in 1669. A family tree of the family is depicted on the sign, as well as an image of a tobacco plant, 6,000 pounds of which were used in 1669 by John Alexander to purchase the property from Robert Howson, “master of a sailing ship” who was given the land “in exchange for transporting settlers to the colony of Virginia.” It explains that the site was probably first lived on in 1741 by Gerard Alexander I. A second sign, entitled “The Custis Family,” includes an artist’s depiction of how Abingdon Plantation house “may have appeared in 1778,” details on John Parke Custis, George Washington’s stepson, who purchased the property in 1778, and information that, after his death, it was sold in 1792. It explains that they named the “estate” Abingdon and that one of their daughters was born at the property. The sign also includes an image of John Parke Custis, a diagramed family tree including several generations, and the Edward Savage 1796 portrait, entitled “The Washington Family” of George and Martha Washington with her grandchildren. Another sign is entitled “The Hunter Family.” It includes a drawing of the first-floor plan, dating to 1851 and showing that the Hunters made “extensive improvements to the house,” adding wings, porches, and a second story. It details how the property was passed from Alexander Hunter to his brother, Bushrod, until his son, also named Alexander Hunter, came of age. The sign explains that both men joined the Confederate Army. The second image on the sign is of Alexander Hunter, captioned to explain that he was assigned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee to the “prestigious Black Horse Cavalry” and that he later wrote a book about his capture, imprisonment, and escape from Union forces. The sign refers to Abingdon as an “estate,” but the decorative framing for the sign, consistent for all of them, refers to it as “Abingdon Plantation.” In the center of the site, closer to the foundations, is a sign that explains the preservation efforts. It includes diagrams of the structures and a photo of archeological research conducted. It also includes a photo of an adjacent plaque placed at the site in 1933 by the Washington Branch of the Association for the Preservation for Virginia Antiquities, “to commemorate the Abingdon ruins.” A sign at the entrance to the site located at the bottom of the small hill, visible to those pulling their luggage from the terminal to the rental cars located in the garage, as they must pass the site, is entitled “The Ages of Abingdon.” It describes Abingdon as a “plantation.” It mentions Abingdon’s moniker as the “Birthplace of Nelly Custis” and includes her portrait. It also includes a photo of the house from 1920 and a floorplan from 1930. It also includes the line repeated in a sign atop the hill, that

Lessons From Abingdon Plantation  147 Abingdon “survived” the Civil War (when it was occupied by the Union army) and “the end of plantation life,” suggesting a Lost Cause nostalgia. Even without incorporating detailed information about enslaved life at Abingdon Plantation, the signs miss multiple opportunities to incorporate slavery. On the first sign, the image of the tobacco plant and Captain Howson’s involvement with shipping immediately raise the topic of ­slavery in seventeenth-century Virginia, which could be acknowledged generally. On the second sign, the reproduced eighteenth-century image of the Washington family omits an enslaved man waiting on the table. Had the original been used, his presence could be acknowledged.3 A map of the site similarly keeps the focus exclusively on white owners’ family connections and explains that it was “historically intertwined with prominent families of Virginia.” However, it also adds, “Abingdon weathered the Civil War and the end of plantation life.” This cryptically wistful reference to Abingdon’s plantation life ending when enslaved people were emancipated will again be echoed in the video on display at the exhibit in the terminal. Signage that refers to Abingdon as the birthplace of Nelly Custis could raise the strong possibility that her birth was closely attended by an enslaved midwife. Here, too, is a missed opportunity, one that could include mention of enslaved women’s medical knowledge and the role they played in nursing and raising white children.4 Such signs at a site of actual enslavement do more harm than good for a national project of coming to terms with the history of slavery. While one might feel that they broach the subject of slavery by mentioning the word “plantation,” which does immediately evoke slavery, by including no mention of any enslaved people or of slaves or slavery at all, it in fact rewrites the history of Abingdon as a plantation but one without slave labor or slaves. Scholars of slavery at public sites have used the concept of “symbolic annihilation” to capture the damage done to history in such cases. Abingdon Plantation is an extreme example of this, as scholars have used the concept to describe plantation sites that also include only “negligible, formalistic, fleeting, or perfunctory” information about slavery and the experiences of enslaved people.5 At Abingdon Plantation, one could come away from the site thinking it must have been a farm that relied on free labor. The internal exhibit repeats much of the information found at the external site. A large multi-panel sign includes much of the information found outside, including the biographies of the various families who owned the site and their images and family trees. A  timeline puts that information in chronological order for the viewer. However, the internal exhibit differs from the external site exhibit and signage in one very significant way—it includes the only explicit mention of slavery at the site. On the other side of the large timeline, in three large display cases that face the carpeted walkway through the exhibit area, one can learn about the objects found on site. The panels are entitled “Digging Through

148  Thomas A. Foster Layers of Time,” “Daily Life: Colonial Times at Abingdon Plantation,” and “Trade Unites Abingdon with the World.” The panel entitled “Daily Life” includes mention of “Colono Ware” found on the site and contains the only reference to slavery related to the site: Colono Ware combines traditional Native American and African construction methods with European vessel forms. Those Colono Ware fragments were part of bowls probably made and used by slaves for soups and stews. Unfortunately, few historical records exist to help historians and archaeologists understand slave life on Abingdon Plantation. In the panel on trade, an image of Colono Ware is accompanied by a caption that notes, “This Colono Ware pipkin was made locally in Virginia, probably by African Americans.” This caption does not explicitly mention slavery or that individuals at Abingdon produced the item. The small caption at the panel on “Colonial Life,” however, informed readers that this type of pottery was used by enslaved people. The easily overlooked information allows viewers to incorporate slavery, but only if one pays close attention. Three short videos supplement the artifact cases, but these not only take part in “symbolic annihilation” of slavery by focusing exclusively on white residents and on the material development of the area—but also because one of the videos romanticizes the pre-industrial era and thus, implicitly, slavery.6 The videos are accessed by visitors selecting one of three buttons beneath a television mounted in the wall, with two chairs available for viewing. The videos are entitled “Abingdon Plantation History,” “Abingdon Plantation Restoration,” and “Airport History/Restoration.” The videos make use of the images and text found in the signs at the external site and interior exhibit. Colono Ware and slavery are not mentioned at all. Much like the romanticized depiction of Southern slavery as benign, famously depicted in Gone With the Wind, one video characterizes the end of the Civil War and development of industrial activity on the site with “The pastoral landscape faded.” The website presents information repeated at the interior and exterior sites and similarly obscures any history of enslaved people: The National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) site is rich in historical significance dating back to colonial days. The area, known as Gravelly Point, is where Captain John Alexander built a home called “Abingdon” in 1746. A descendent, Philip Alexander, donated most of the land on which the City of Alexandria was built, and it was so named in his honor. Abingdon was purchased in 1778 by John Parke Custis, the adopted stepson of President George Washington, and was the birthplace of Washington’s

Lessons From Abingdon Plantation  149 beloved granddaughter, Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis. Abingdon was destroyed by fire in 1930 and the ruins stabilized. In 1998, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority preserved the site and created an exhibit of artifacts now located in Terminal A. The website continues in a separate section devoted to “Abingdon Plantation”: In 1998, the Airports Authority took considerable care to preserve and stabilize an archaeological site on airport grounds. Abingdon was a colonial plantation and the birthplace President George Washington’s granddaughter, Eleanor Parke Custis. It was destroyed by fire in 1930, and the ruins stabilized. During the Airports Authority’s preservation effort, there were numerous archaeological finds. These artifacts, along with a detailed history of the airport and the surrounding area, can be viewed in the hallway located to the west of the Historic Lobby in Terminal A.7 Thus, the three venues, interior, exterior, and internet, rewrite history for those who visit and read about Abingdon Plantation as a plantation without slaves.

2. Lessons From Abingdon: Flipping the Plantation and De-Centering the Big House Abingdon’s setting raises important questions for public history sites devoted to slavery and the presence of “traces and memories” of slavery in everyday life.8 Connected to an airport, it is unlike other plantation sites that operate as tourist destinations. Abingdon exists amidst a sea of high numbers of visitors that are there for another purpose. How does one take advantage of a near-captive audience to discuss the history of slavery at that site and in the nation? What obligation does the Airports Authority have to the memory of those enslaved at that site to ensure that their lives do not go unrecognized, buried under so much concrete and asphalt, lost in the din of travelers coming and going? In some ways, it is fortunate that the house has not survived and was not recreated. It fell into disrepair and was finally destroyed by fire in 1930. As historians Jennifer L. Eichstedt and Stephen Small have remarked, plantation homes often over-emphasize architectural beauty and dwarf the full history of plantation life for the majority of those who lived there.9 The absence of an ornate plantation house in many ways allows for greater reflection on what was the plantation and what occurred there. The lack of a plantation house, although not conducive to the interests of most tourists, allows for greater exploration of the work that took place at the plantation. At Abingdon, the presence of the

150  Thomas A. Foster outbuilding (presumably the laundry or kitchen building) allows visitors to think about the labor done there by enslaved women and men. Many plantations without slaves portray history in a way that centers the white owners because of ties to the mansion. In some cases, the family still owns the property; in others, it is simply the central feature that drives tourism. Plantations in the Deep South may also encounter local politics that hesitate to critically depict white ancestors.10 Abingdon is in a different situation in that it is owned by the Airports Authority, rather than descendants, and is located in the mid-Atlantic, rather than the Deep South. Its current portrayal seems to still be largely the product of available scholarship on slavery at Abingdon at the time of the 1990s development of the site for visitors. One article in the local publication of the Arlington Historical Society, Arlington Historical Magazine, for example, used passive voice to discuss labor that was forced on enslaved people. Here, the author describes Abingdon as “a plantation where corn and tobacco grew”11 The absence of documentation about enslaved people also, of course, stems from the legacy of slavery. While so many plantation house museums were held by the same family for generations, some continuing to do so, Abingdon offers challenges to the researcher in that it had so many different owners over the years. Ownership of Abingdon Plantation House and surrounding land during the period in which it was a site of enslaved people, 1735–1861, involved a dozen individuals. In 1861, the property was occupied by Union forces and the United States government.12 This long line of owners has not increased the researchers’ successful opportunities for finding plantation papers. Indeed, the frequent turnover probably increased the chances of paper being scattered and lost as family ties to the property were not deep enough to warrant preserving such records. As a plantation ruin that is surrounded by a prosperous developed immediate area, Abingdon raises questions about how the reach of the plantation can extend beyond the site that visitors experience. Historian Stephanie E. Yuhl has observed that aspects of slavery are “hidden in plain sight in the American commemorative landscape.”13 The site of Abingdon Plantation extends into locations of everyday life in buildings and on streets that also are the very places where enslaved people labored in fields, shared a sense of community, buried their dead—and made possible the eventual economic development that led to those very office buildings, hotels, stores, restaurants, and streets. Could signs and other markers not indicate this history, memorializing the lives and experiences of those there enslaved and highlighting the extensive geographic reach of the plantation? In the absence of a plantation house, Abingdon is especially conducive to developing a site that truly centers the lives and experiences of the majority who lived and worked there: enslaved people. By de-centering the plantation Big House from plantation sites, visitors could shift their focus from the handful of individuals who enslaved to

Lessons From Abingdon Plantation  151 those who lived and labored on site. By flipping the traditional presentation of a plantation museum site, visitors can begin to understand more fully the realities of the plantation. In the immediate area, an adjacent park presents opportunities to remember and memorialize those enslaved at the plantation. Gravelly Point Park, which is part of the National Park Service’s George Washington Memorial Parkway in Arlington County, Virginia, is a relatively small grassy area adjacent to the airport. It is a popular park for watching airplanes land, taking in views of Washington, DC, accessing the Potomac, and biking. Although there is no easy access between the park and the outside exhibit and ruins of Abingdon, it is also part of the plantation site and as such presents a quieter, more picturesque site for additional markers and information related to Abingdon. In 2016, the United States House of Representatives heard a bill, proposed by Jody B. Hice (Georgia) to redesignate the park as Nancy Reagan Memorial Park and referred it to a subcommittee. In 2018, the bill was approved on party lines by the House Committee on Natural Resources and will eventually be voted on by the full House. Republican support for the bill was unanimous, as was opposition by Democrats. Local DC media outlets, including those with a national audience, such as the Washington Post, recalled the controversy that ignited when the National Airport was named to honor President Reagan. It also reported on the opposition, led by Democrat Don Byer (VA), which took issue with the federal government reaching into a locale to rename a popular park without any consultation of local residents. No mention was made of the history of the site. My own editorial on the history of slavery at Abingdon Plantation argued that the park presented an opportunity to add an additional and complementary Abingdon Plantation site, one that could memorialize and honor those enslaved in a setting that is more conducive to reflection and contemplation than the hectic buzz of the airport site.14 Regardless of Gravelly Point Park’s name, the site presents an opportunity to present important contextual information about the local network of plantations to which Abingdon belonged. Along the Potomac, an extensive network of large and small plantations took advantage of the access to the river for shipping and receiving goods and for food, enslaved men hauled in large quantities of fish. Situating Abingdon alongside better-known plantations such as Mount Vernon and Arlington, and lesser-known plantations such as Summer Hill and Notley Young’s plantation, provides a fuller picture of slavery in this region and also of the ways in which networks of enslavers and enslaved people developed regionally, across plantations. Even with full support from the airport and local community organizing, larger questions face Abingdon, questions that face many slavery sites across the nation. How best can one engage the public within

152  Thomas A. Foster existing geographic and budgetary constraints? Is Abingdon more likely to draw visitors if it is rebuilt? An uncomfortable truth about so many existing plantation houses is that visitors go there to bask in the splendor of days gone by, to visualize the grand life of wealthy plantation owners. Weddings, overnight visits, and celebratory events at plantation houses bring in much needed funding for these historical sites—even as they undercut the necessary education about the horrors of slavery and the respect for those who lived and died on the site, enslaved to produce the very wealth that still fascinates tourists.15 Technology introduces additional possibilities and challenges for sites such as Abingdon. Better signage can bring a more complete historical context, but as Gallas and Perry point out, signs alone can present challenges for visitors. Interpreters at sites “help visitors achieve comfort with their discomfort.”16 At sites like Abingdon, with few resources for staff and currently too small for a regular flow of tourists, what other mechanisms can take the place of interpreters? Videos might provide a more personalized presentation for the information, but as we have seen with the current videos installed at the airport exhibit, they can also operate in negative ways. Virtual reality headsets might allow tourists to best visualize the site and could even present broad depictions of the plantation setting, including a sense of distances between slave cabins, fields, and the plantation house. The internet also presents additional outlets for animation to depict the plantation in a way that fixed signage cannot. One cannot include overlooked subjects without also troubling the broader narratives of history in which they operated and exerted forces. Interpreting the history of slavery requires that we also expand our fuller understanding of the role of slavery in our nation’s history, which can be disturbing for some visitors. It also requires understanding the role of slavery in a location. This, too, can be upsetting for residents who identify with the region in different ways, causing some visitors to be confronted with “contested narratives,” a focus on slavery that may not be how some want to remember the history of their local community.17 Situating Abingdon Plantation in a broader context of slavery in the mid-Atlantic is necessary for understanding the site and its broader significance, even if that that does not ensure that it will become more embraced by all visitors. Currently, the information at the site and the physical setting work against contextualizing Abingdon Plantation in a broader narrative of slavery in the history of the United States. The physical isolation of the site is underscored by it being atop a small grassy hill encircled by imposing concrete parking garages on either side and at the center of the usual snakes in a basket configuration of airport access roads, taking individuals to departures, arrivals, rental car returns, and various points of exit from the airport property. Signage at the site that highlights the famous families connected to it, including the incomparable Washingtons, make it appear all the more unique.

Lessons From Abingdon Plantation  153 Abingdon Plantation could look to existing plantation sites for models of how to incorporate slavery. Other plantation sites approach slavery in a variety of ways, including tours, signage, recreated living quarters, exhibited objects of daily life, memorials, and bookstores. Recent scholarship, however, shows that many approaches come with issues, least of which is that so few plantations excel in this area. As Gallas and Perry point out, so many sites pay lip service to slavery in a way that only contributes to denial of the real power and presence of enslavement.18 At many sites, tours that emphasize slavery are generally self-guided or optional. Many plantation sites include rebuilt cabins. In virtually all cases, the cabins are not in their original locations and do not represent the number of cabins that were originally on site. At several plantations on Plantation Alley in Louisiana, for example, slave cabins are near the house for the convenience of visitors. It gives a sense of cabin and community life. The original community, however, was about a mile away, on the edge of the swamps where trees were being harvested. That distance is a powerful reminder of the relative autonomy for some enslaved communities. At Mount Vernon, a sole cabin illustrates housing for enslaved people, but as it stands alone nearer the river, it gives the romanticized appearance of a frontier house. The same can be said for Great Hopes Plantation at Colonial Williamsburg. Indeed visitors, primed with the romanticized view of frontier settler life, might view cabins of enslaved in a too positive light. Presenting a sole cabin also runs the unfortunate risk of reinforcing the scale of labor accomplished by enslaved people. A plantation like Mount Vernon with the original number of cabins on property, and in their original locations, would dramatically alter visitors’ perceptions of life at the “estate.” As Kristin L. Gallas and James DeWolf Perry point out, a site’s ability to offer “sound interpretation of slavery begins with historical research about the role of slavery that is both broad . . . and deep.”19 Scholarship on the specific conditions of enslavement at the site should be coupled with broader context and deepened with “individual stories.” When Abingdon Plantation was being preserved in the 1990s, little was available about the experiences of enslaved people at the site. Indeed, much energy had to be focused on getting the airport to preserve the site instead of building a parking lot over the ruins.20 And although one can present general information about conditions of slavery, sites run the risk of “overgeneralizations” as well as the “individual details and personal stories that visitors find compelling.”21 Research on enslaved life at Abingdon is currently underway and will likely provide much needed details to improve the site.22 If further developed, the site itself could serve as an introduction to a host of other related historical tourist destinations in the area, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon and also Arlington Cemetery, which was a plantation also owned by George Washington’s stepson

154  Thomas A. Foster and upon which his son would build Arlington House. The Capitol and White House could be tied in, given that slaves from this plantation almost certainly helped construct those now iconic buildings. A number of museums could be featured here, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Artifacts reflecting Native American life have been found at the site and could be useful as a way to introduce tourists to the exhibits at the nearby Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. In short, this site could serve a broad range of existing institutions that in turn could help develop it. As Gallas and Perry have argued, plantation site development can benefit from a community organization, one that can draw on community interests and work to advocate for the site.23 A community organization could work closely in partnership with the airport to improve the site and partner with the extraordinary resources of the Smithsonian Institute and its network of national museums. As historians Daina R. Berry and Jennifer L. Morgan have argued, “We live embedded in the afterlife of slavery. We are a nation that has failed to grapple with our past.”24 Sites like Abingdon Plantation play an important role in that process of collectively coming to terms with our nation’s past. The remains of Abingdon Plantation offer the opportunity to reflect on that history, to learn from it, and to acknowledge the enslaved people who lived and labored there—at a working plantation that would later grow and develop in ways that they could only imagine.

Notes 1. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. 2. Correspondence with Michael Cabbage, Corporate Relations Manager, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, March 30 and April 10, 2018. 3. Savage. 4. Fett. 5. Eichstedt and Small, 106–7. 6. Ibid. 7. “History of Reagan National Airport”. 8. Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World, conference held at Paul Valéry University, Montpellier, France, December 1–2, 2016. 9. Eichstedt and Small, 72–76. 10. Gallas and Perry; Horton and Horton. On America’s “obsession with issues of memory and history and an urgent desire to express and claim those issues in visibly public contexts,” see Doss, 2. On the challenges of designing memorials for controversial events with multiple types of victims, see Senie. 11. Abbott, 36–43. 12. These were the different occupants of the plantation: Gerrard Alexander (1735–61); Robert, Phillip, and Gerrard Alexander Jr (1761–78); John Park Custis (1778–1783) and his widow Eleanor (1781–83); Dr. David Stuart (1783–92); Robert Alexander (1792); Robert Alexander Jr. and Walter Alexander (1793–1805); George Wise owned house and land (1805–37). Others owned portions of the land: Reuben Johnston (1808–29); John Withers

Lessons From Abingdon Plantation  155 (1829–35); Alexander Hunter (1835); Alexander Hunter (1837–49); Bushrod Washington Hunter (1849–1861) and in trust for his nephew Alexander Hunter to inherit in 1864; U.S. government under Union forces (1861–1865). 13. Yuhl, 593–94. 14. Foster. 15. Eichstedt and Small, 89–92. See also Wood. On the importance of historical landscapes for understanding experiences, see Upton. 16. Gallas and Perry, 98. 17. Ibid., 9. 18. Eichstedt and Small, 106–7. 19. Gallas and Perry, xv. On slavery at Abingdon Plantation, see Abbott, and Dodge. 20. After individuals pressed for preservation and the Virginia Assembly passed a resolution protecting the site, the Airports Authority changed course from planning to build over the site to spending $500,000 to site improvements. See Hong. 21. Gallas and Perry, 36. On the general point of the importance of taking into consideration the wide variation of slavery over region and time period, see Berlin. 22. My current research is on enslaved life at Abingdon Plantation. 23. Gallas and Perry point out the important role that external advisory boards can play in their “how to” manual. Gallas and Perry, x, 42. 24. Berry and Morgan.

Bibliography Abbott, Dorothea E. “The Hunter Family and Its Connection with Arlington County.” The Arlington Historical Magazine 7, no. 2 (October 1982): 36–43. Berlin, Ira. “Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on British Mainland North America.” The American Historical Review 85, no. 1 (February 1980): 44–78. Berry, Ramey B., and Jennifer L. Morgan. “#Blacklivesmatter Till They Don’t: Slavery’s Lasting Legacy.” American Prospect, December 5, 2014. http://pros pect.org/article/blacklivesmatter-till-they-dont-slaverys-lasting-legacy. Dodge, George. “The Abingdon of Alexander Hunter, et al.” The Arlington Historical Magazine 11, no. 3 (October 1999): 43–54. Doss, Erika. Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Eichstedt, Jennifer L., and Stephen Small, eds. Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2002. Fett, Sharla M. “Consciousness and Calling: African American Midwives at Work in the Antebellum South.” In New Studies in the History of American Slavery, edited by Edward E. Baptist and Stephanie M. H. Camp, 65–86. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Foster, Thomas F. “Congress Shouldn’t Squander a Unique Opportunity to Honor Those Once Enslaved at National Airport.” Washington Post, February  2, 2018. www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/wp/2018/02/02/ congress-shouldnt-squander-a-unique-opportunity-to-honor-those-onceenslaved-at-national-airport/?utm_term=.4f8d893e6433.

156  Thomas A. Foster Gallas, Kristin L., and James D. Perry, eds. Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. “History of Reagan National Airport,” Reagan National. Accessed August  8, 2016. www.flyreagan.com/dca/history-reagan-national-airport Hong, Peter Y. “Airport Board Has Plan to Save Historic Ruins.” Washington Post, April 22, 1994, A.46. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton, eds. Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory. New York: New Press, 2006. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Washington National Airport: Historic Preservation Aspects of the Middle/North Parking Structure Design and the Associated Preservation Plan for the Abingdon Plantation Site. Washington, DC: The Authority, 1994. Savage, Edward. “The Washington Family,” 1789–96. Oil on canvas: 84 1/8 x 111 7/8 in. Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art. Accessed July 14, 2018. www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.561.html/. Senie, Harriet F. Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Upton, Dell. “White and Black Landscapes in Eighteenth-Century Virginia.” In Material Life in America, 1600–1860, edited by Robert Blair S. George, 357– 69. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988. Wood, Peter H. “Slave Labor Camps in Early America: Overcoming Denial and Discovering the Gulag.” In Inequality in Early America, edited by Carla Gardina Pestana and Sharon V. Salingers, 230–33. Hanover: Dartmouth College, published by University Press of New England, 1999. Yuhl, Stephanie E. “Hidden in Plain Sight: Centering the Domestic Slave Trade in American Public History.” Journal of Southern History 79, no. 3 (August 2013): 593–624.

10 Reconstructing a Dismantled Past The Case of Afro-Diasporic History in Ceará, Brazil Tshombe Miles

In 1884, Ceará would become the first province of Brazil to end slavery. Slavery would end nationally in Brazil in 1888. Although Ceará has the distinction of being the first province to end slavery, the history of slavery and of people of African ancestry is still understudied. In part, this is because by 1884 the population of slaves made up only 4% of the population.1 As a result, historical scholarship has largely denied the role of people of African ancestry in the Ceará region. Yet, the census information strongly contests this assumption. Provided one includes the free nonwhite categories, the black and Afro-descendant population has been a definitive majority since the census was first taken early in the eighteenth century.2 Eurípedes Funes points out that by linking blackness to slavery, the historians of Ceará have made a faulty assumption.3 There is a “common sense” logic4 that blackness and slavery are one and the same, and since, according to the census of 1872, black slaves only accounted for 4% of the population of Ceará, historians have concluded that people of African ancestry were not significant in the multi-ethnic matrix of Ceará.5 Contributing further to the myth of Ceará’s whiteness is the fact that the state’s economy was never dominated by a major cash crop. Nor was Ceará an important center of the slave economy. As a result, slaves played a smaller role in Ceará’s economy than they did in places such as Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, and Minas Gerais.6 The most influential local historian of Ceará, Raimundo Girão, wrote a book claiming that there was a negligible black population in Ceará. Obviously, if Ceará had a small population, it could not have been a site of African diasporic culture. However, Afro-spirituality, particularly the samba, was a prominent aspect of the culture in the region. However, scholars of Ceará and Brazil tended to assume that only slaves were of African ancestry. What was seldom recognized was that by 1884, the majority of slaves in Ceará were pardo (of partial African descent) as was also the case for the majority of the non-slave population. Moreover, this free population of African ancestry primarily engaged in

158  Tshombe Miles the same kind of labor that slaves did. This chapter argues for an Afrodiasporic understanding of Ceará. In other words, it argues for a perspective that recognizes that within the multi-ethnic matrix exists a history in which people of African ancestry have played a significant role in the development of the culture and region. It suggests that a denial of this multi-ethnicity reflects a stigma rooted in anti-blackness.

1. The Denial of Blackness People of African ancestry contributed significantly to the formation of the province of Ceará, and people of African descent had enormous agency in shaping the history of the region. In 1956, Raimundo Girão published his book O Abolicão no Ceará, which, to this day, remains the only scholarly monograph about the abolition of slavery in Ceará. Girão portrayed abolition in Ceará solely as the vision of the elite, and he ignored the attitude of the popular classes toward slavery. This text became the definitive way of framing abolition in Ceará. Girão focuses on the benevolence of white elite abolitionists but ignores the socioeconomic realities of the region and how people of African ancestry were crucial to the development of the area. Slaves were not as significant a factor in the province of Ceará as they were in other provinces of Brazil, but labor was still heavily dependent on a multi-ethnic group of free workers who comprised a subaltern class. This group was overwhelming of African and indigenous ancestry. The day-to-day history of the popular classes in Ceará remains to be written.7 Raimundo Girão’s work was not written in an intellectual vacuum. His work was representative of the thoughts and views of the local white elite  in Ceará. Among these were the intellectuals who produced the Revista Instituto Do Ceará in 1887, which is still in existence. The institute is an archive of letters, documents, and scholarly articles about the history and culture of the province. The institute is of great importance to scholars, and Girão was one of the main intellectuals of the institute and representative of the intellectual tradition of the institute.8 The archives of the Revista Instituto do Ceará as a result are, for the most part, silent on the role of the black community in Ceará and their agency in shaping their own lives.9 The denial of any extensive role played by the black community can be traced back to the Old Republic (1889–1930), when Brazilian political and intellectual elites were masking the extent of Brazil’s African and indigenous heritage and were attempting to whiten the country.10 Apart from those places with undeniable histories of Afro-derived cultures, such as Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, there was an effort by the intellectual and political elite to render the African and indigenous populations invisible. An example of this can be seen in a letter written to the New York Times editor by Dr. De Moreira, an elite businessman from Brazil, on

Reconstructing a Dismantled Past  159 December 31, 1913. He was displeased with W. E. Carson, an American New York Times journalist who had assumed the blackness of much of Brazil. Dr. De Moreira wrote, “There is only one city in Brazil in which Negro blood predominates, and that is Bahia.” De Moreira also stated, “Mr. Carson gave the impression that a good part of the population of Brazil was made up of Negroes or men with Negro blood in their veins.”11 In another letter to the editor published in the New York Times some years later, the anxiety about race among white Brazilian elites was articulated in a more sophisticated manner but was nevertheless apparent. The letter, written in January 1921 by a representative of the Brazilian embassy in New York City, argued that the Portuguese, not “foreigners” or Blacks, made up the vast majority of the country’s population. The letter stated as follows: Brazil was once a Portuguese colony, and the great majority of her people are of Portuguese ancestry. It is estimated that about 12 percent of the population are Negroes. These are concentrated largely in the four central states San Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Bahia especially the latter. In the states of the north of Bahia and particularly in the two great states to the Amazon valley Para and the Amazonas, the Negro element is so small as to be negligible. Interestingly, the letter ignores people of indigenous ancestry and reduces people of African descent to 12%. This low estimation is a sleight of hand, enabled by making a distinction between “Negro” and “pardo.” In Brazil, there has always been a distinction between people of mixed ancestry and “pure Blacks.”12 The problem is this: slaves were often pardo, and faced the same socio-economic conditions as “pure Blacks.” In fact, according to census data, before abolition, the majority of the slaves in Ceará were classified as pardo. Moreover, academic studies show that pardos faced racial discrimination to roughly the same extent as Negros (or “pure Blacks”), mainly if they were of visible African ancestry.13 However, the author of the 1921 letter does not even mention the pardo category. He implies that the pardo category is white. The vast majority of Brazilians in the north and northeast have some Native American and African ancestry. With one swipe of the pen, this letter renders their African and indigenous descent invisible. Therefore, although Brazil is known as a country of people of African ancestry, there are many regions that history has never mainly explored.

2. The Invisible Man and Woman of Color The black and Afro-descendant population has held a definitive majority since the census was first taken in the eighteenth century, provided one includes the free nonwhite categories. There were enormous

160  Tshombe Miles socio-economic disadvantages to being nonwhite in Brazil. Those who were not of visible African ancestry had more opportunities and greater access to better positions than darker-skinned people. Even during the Brazilian empire (1822–1889), when the color bar had legally been erased, people of color were excluded from most important positions in government and commerce.14 Free blacks and pardos were not only connected by “blood,” but in Ceará there was not much socio-economic difference between them. In other words, Degler’s mulatto escape hatch argument is rendered useless because there never was any major socioeconomic difference between pardos and Blacks.15 This is not to say that there were not successful mulattos. As Koster points out, there were cases of rich Blacks and mulattos. For instance, he describes the success of one mulatto landowner while traveling in what is Ceará today: I asked for water to drink at one of the houses: some was brought to me by a pretty white girl, who was apparently about seventeen years of age. She talked a great deal and in a lively manner, so as to show that she had inhabited more civilized regions. There were in the house two children of color, which she told me were hers. She was the daughter of a man of small property, who had married her [to a] wealthy mulatto man. She gave a message to the guide to deliver to her husband. We met with him; he was of a dark complexion and about forty years of age. I learnt her story from the Acu guide. He said it had made some noise in these parts at the time.16 This quote reveals some interesting tensions in late colonial Brazil and Ceará. It shows that it was unusual to see such a successful mulatto, but it was also feasible for mulattos and for Blacks whose skin was lighter to have a degree of monetary success.17 There were tensions surrounding interracial marriages, but as long as the man was financially well off, it was possible. However, as we know, most black or nonwhite men had limited financial means. In Ceará, the nonwhite population was dominant, since the local census was taken in the early nineteenth century and the African component was very significant in all local censuses. Much of the census data for the nineteenth century does not distinguish between the mixtures of black and white (mulatto), or black and Indian, until the census of 1872 introduced the term “caboclo.”18 This vague term connotes a relationship with indigenous people but not necessarily a blood relationship. Billy Chandler gives a telling definition when he describes a caboclo as “an uncultured Sertanejo.”19 In the eyes of the “cultured white elite,” caboclo people were backward and connected to the indigenous culture. The Indian population was decreasing, but it was not entirely extinct; instead of using the term “Indian,” the census and many writers started to use

Reconstructing a Dismantled Past  161 the word “caboclo” as a way of referring to a phenotypically multi-ethnic group with indigenous roots at its cultural core. Nevertheless, the caboclos were the most visible descendants of the Indian population. If the caboclo was synonymous with people of Indian ancestry in the 1872 census, then the use of the term “pardo” was even more complicated, since its literal definition is brown, and it could, therefore, mean a mixture of any race or ethnic group. The local census of the earlier nineteenth century uses the term “mulatto” or “pardo” to describe people of mixed blood. For example, one local census of 1808 uses the terms “white,” “mulatto,” “Indian,” and “black” (“negro”). An 1813 census uses the words white, pardo, Indian, and black. The 1872 census uses “white,” “caboclo,” “pardo,” and “black.” Many people who were classified as pardo were of indigenous ancestry, but there were also many people classified as pardo who were of African descent. The exact racial proportions are not known because there seems to be no consistent way that the question of race was enumerated.20 What we do know is that the majority of the remaining slaves in the 1872 census were pardo. These multi-ethnic slaves were not classified as caboclo, even though they may have had Indian ancestry. We also know that pardo slaves were of African descent because in 1872 only people of African ancestry could still be enslaved. It was illegal to enslave the indigenous population. Therefore, it is logical to assume that many of the free pardos were also of African ancestry because those that were considered noticeably Indian would have been considered caboclo. In other words, we cannot escape the fact that, like caboclo, which has a loose connotation with people of Indian ancestry, pardo has a loose connotation with people of African descent.21 Therefore, although in Ceará the vast majority is a multi-ethnic community that consists of people of indigenous and European ancestry, those of African ancestry also play a vital role in the matrix.22

3. The African Descendant in the Labor Force of Ceará The majority of Afro-descendant slaves, as well as free men of African ancestry, did not come to Ceará directly from Africa in the first settlements. During the early colonial period, they reached by land from other provinces such as Bahia and Pernambuco—with the ranchers who arrived with their cows, moradores, and vaquieros to settle on large tracts of land granted to Portuguese men that were known as a Sesmeiro. Although cattle ranching was not labor intensive, black slaves participated in nearly every aspect of the economy in addition to other free workers who were also of African ancestry.23 The main source of labor of the Sesmeiros was the moradores who lived on the land rent-free and grew subsistence crops in exchange for their land. They were mainly humble families of various races, overwhelmingly

162  Tshombe Miles nonwhite, who came with the vaquiero or Sesmeiro from Bahia or Pernambuco.24 Usually, when slaves were freed, they chose to stay on the estates and live as moradores. Many indigenous refugees were allied with the landowners and chose to stay as well.25 The largest groups were free “mixed bloods” who were part of the original moradores, and the majority were of partial Afro-descent, especially in the early days of the settlement when the landowner did not live there. In that case, the moradores and slaves took their orders from the vaquieros. The vaquieros were skilled with cattle and were responsible for the commerce relating to the cows. It was they who ran the day-to-day affairs of the estate. If a vaquiero was not the Sesmeiro, he would have his own house near the Sesmeiro family. Naturally, the Sesmeiro had the largest house, the vaquiero had a smaller house, and the slaves lived with or in close proximity to their owner. The moradores did not have to live as near. They sometimes served as overseers to protect the borders of the patrão’s (the boss/landlord) estate. Moreover, the moradores needed space to grow crops for themselves.26 Blacks played a vital role in the population and labor force of the early settlements of Ceará. The first slaves reported in any significant quantity arrived in 1756. According to government documents, over 73 slaves were brought to São José to mine for minerals. The population was apparently large enough to form Quilombo communities.27 Blacks were recorded as participating in segregated militias and in fighting and capturing Indians.28 João Brigido, one of the most important historians of nineteenth-century Ceará, writes that it was a black slave who helped settle a region where Cariri Indians lived, because he spoke the language and knew the roads of the Cariri population.29 This slave became a power broker because of his ability to speak and understand both the Cariri and Portuguese languages. Interestingly, Brigido describes this slave as a vaquiero, which, if correct, demonstrates his importance to his master, since the vaquieros were highly esteemed on the cattle ranches. There were cases of black slaves who worked on sugar cane plantations in Ceará, producing cachaça (Brazilian rum), one of Brazil’s most successful business enterprises. Ypióca cachaça was founded on black slave labor in Maranguape, Ceará. Starting in the eighteenth century, there were many sugar plantations that utilized black slaves.30 There was one in Rendenção, or what was then known as Villa Acarape, which was the first city to end slavery. This city had one large sugar plantation that produced cachaça. When the city ended slavery in 1883, the plantation had about 50 slaves. The town at this time had no more than 200 slaves and no more than 12,000 residents. What separates these sugar plantations from other northeastern plantations—in the nineteenth century, and much earlier—was that their product was not for international export. They served the needs of the local market, producing rapadura (a candy made from sugar) and cachaça for local consumption and subsequently

Reconstructing a Dismantled Past  163 were far less wealthy than the majority of sugar plantations in Pernambuco or Bahia. Moreover, it was common for free laborers to work on many of these plantations. In fact, it was only as Indian slavery ended and, more importantly, with the profitability of cotton that black slavery began to play a vital role in the labor force of Ceará in the late eighteenth century.31 The cattle ranching industry was less labor-intensive than the sugar plantations. Additionally, slaves were able to procreate and thus replenish the slave population naturally.32 On the cattle ranch, male slaves were still more valuable than female slaves, but the number of slaves needed was smaller. However, some owners did have huge slave holdings. For example, in 1777, Moreira Gomes possessed some 200 slaves,33 but these slaves were spread among the different estates that he owned. João Vales owned some 263 slaves in 1843, which, again, were dispersed between several different estates.34 Nevertheless, the population of slaves increased dramatically until the second decade of the nineteenth century, when a rapid decline began in the servile population.35 In Ceará, all work that did not require literacy could be considered slave work.36 Although interestingly, the unskilled free population fared in the same way as slaves in almost every area. Slave life in the Sertão, or “backlands,” was similar to the life of the average person who was free. This is not to say that the slaves’ lives were no different from those of free people. One of the main reasons they ran away was because they were beaten and brutalized.37 Nevertheless, life in the Sertão was preferable to life on the big sugar or coffee plantations. Koster aptly sums up life on the Sertão, when he says, I have had opportunities of conversing with Negroes from the sertam; and have invariably found that they preferred their residence in the cattle districts even to a removal into the country bordering upon the sea. The diet of the Sertam Negro is preferable to that of the plantation slave; so that this circumstance independently of all others would make the former be well aware of the superiority of his situation. Fresh beef and mutton are the usual food of the Sertam slaves: but upon the plantations these are rarely served out.38 In Ceará, this was mainly true because a large part of the economy throughout the state was based on cattle ranching, which included Fortaleza, a port city. In general, slaves and free people of African ancestry were in proximity to the Indian and Portuguese cultures. As a result, it should not be surprising that the majority of the African descent population were part of free multi-ethnic communities that included a minority of slaves.39 The sesmarias in the northeast formed a close-knit community of free and slave labor. In the early stages, it was more likely that the laborers

164  Tshombe Miles were Indian, Portuguese descendants, free blacks, and the majority of mixed blood with only a minority of slaves. However, by the late eighteenth century, this ratio had changed. The percentage of black slaves continued to increase until the early nineteenth century, to about 28%, but this increase was temporary so that by the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century, their numbers had decreased drastically to about 4%.40 The percentage of free labor increased and the number of “pure Indian” laborers declined dramatically. In other words, the free men who labored were mostly of mixed blood or multi-ethnic, with a minority classified as black (Negro), and a smaller group as Indian (Indio).

4. Reconstructing Afro-Derived Culture in Ceará People of African ancestry played a major role in the development of the local cultural traditions of Ceará. There are two important areas in which the Instituto do Ceará and other official historical societies have ignored the vital role played by African diasporic cultures in the multiethnic majority of Ceará. One was the daily practice of “brujaria” (or “witchcraft”) among all the multi-ethnic communities. The records are replete with stories of slaves getting drunk and dancing “samba.”41 For example, on the May 23, 1858, in the capital of Ceará, two slaves, Manuel and Martiniano, were imprisoned for being the ringleaders of the samba meetings. According to the documentation, free persons of all colors were engaging in “lascivious behavior,” including the drinking of cachaça.42 Another example of this was reported by an intellectual from Rio de Janeiro, Freire Alemao, when he was traveling to the city of Pactuba, Ceará. He was horrified at what he saw: On the porch there was a big circle of black men and black women that I  would calculate at over 100 people, family and others from Pactuba. The instruments that they used were tambores and caquinhos that was tormenting to hear, still more flooded on the porch with live song. The women arrived entering the circle so did the men that watch the lewd dances of the black women, and grotesque jumping.43 Suffice it to say that authorities would often arrest participants for dancing “samba.”44 They were thought to be engaging in practices seen as lewd and dangerous. On November 11, 1879, a law was passed in Fortaleza, Ceará, that prohibited the use of the drum or batuque, which was an instrument of African descent. People from Fortaleza and the territory of Ceará could be put in prison for five days or pay a fine of five thousand reis for playing the drum. The authorities and elites believed these practices to be backward. In reality, there is nothing unique about this, but instead, it

Reconstructing a Dismantled Past  165 proves that culture of African descent played a vital role in the regional development of Brazil.45 The other critical aspect of African diasporic culture that we can see in nearly every region of Brazil, including Ceará, is the ceremonies of the Black Kings and Queens. There were a few known religious brotherhoods in Ceará that admitted people of African descent, the best known of these was The Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário, located in Sobral, Fortaleza, and Ico. They admitted black people of African ancestry. Their rules allowed “black men, free and enslaved and also any other color that wishes to have a membership.” Another brotherhood, called Senhora dos Prazeres, existed in Aracati, Ceará. This one admitted “pardos.” But it was the Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário that gave Blacks and non-Whites the space to assert their cultural identity as King and Queen. The religion was based on a ceremony that still exists in the northeast of Brazil. A  new King and Queen are chosen and crowned at the festival every year. This festival has its roots in Catholicism, but because of the liberty that the slaves and free blacks were given in organizing it, it took on many African characteristics.46 What had apparently been tolerated by the elite in the early nineteenth century seemed somewhat dangerous by the mid-to late nineteenth century because, by 1872, the elites were complaining about the free blacks and slaves playing batuques and engaging in illicit behavior, and by 1879 they would pass a law prohibiting African drumming.47 Although there was also harassment of the Kings and Queens,  Kings and Queens continues to be practiced until this day in many parts of Ceará.48 The black brotherhoods played a role in helping to maintain black identity. Catholic fraternities that people of African ancestry were permitted to join were not intended for the liberation of people of African descent nor to Africanize Christianity, but rather to promote Catholicism and to create “proper” Christians in the black community. In contrast, the black fraternities helped to establish what the historian John Thornton has called a type of black Christianity that is not practiced just in Brazil but in Africa and Europe as well.49

Conclusion In Ceará, people of African ancestry are, by and large, part of multiethnic multi-racial communities. What has been missing is the recognition of the role played by the people of African ancestry in this multi-ethnic matrix. Scholars like Raimundo Girão and those coming from the Instituto do Ceará have underplayed the part of people of African descent in the development of the history of Ceará. It is important to recognize that this is not only important to the people of Ceará, but it is also intended

166  Tshombe Miles to change the way of thinking about people throughout the African diaspora, wherever their history remains invisible and stigmatized.

Notes 1. For 1872 census information, see Melo, 50–53. 2. A nonwhite majority can be confirmed by looking at the census information for Ceará from 1804, 1808, 1813, and 1872. See Funes; Girão, 100–01. Raimundo Girão is probably the most insistent in saying that blacks were virtually absent from the formation of Brazil. Billy Chandler should be given credit for being one of the first scholars to note the presence of African descendants in his study of the Inhamuns (1972). The Inhamuns includes a short chapter on slavery in Ceará (146–56). However, his footnote on page 155 requires further explanation. He uses Gustavo Barroso, a native of Ceará and an esteemed intellectual of the early twentieth century, as an example of a popular writer and intellectual who does not give proper credit to people of African heritage in Ceará. Barroso does acknowledge the African influence but correctly points out that they are mixed with Indian or Portuguese ancestry. It is very rare to see a “pure Negro” in Ceará. People of African ancestry are a part of the mix; this is clear from the census information. Gustavo Barroso wrote his classic Terra do Sol in 1912, but the work has been republished several times since then. See Barroso (2015), 185. The original statement about the African population was, “Os mesticos do Negro com o indio-cabras, e do negro com todas as suas gradacões-existem em menor proporcão” (There are mix blood blacks and Indians mix with blacks, and lesser graduations of black with minor proportions). João Capistrano de Abreu’s Caminhos Antigo e Povoamento do Brasil describes the free population as “mulattos, mesticos, e os pretos forros” (115). Therefore, there is no doubt that the majority of the free population was multi-ethnic and included people of African ancestry. 3. Funes, 103. 4. The idea of common sense logic is taken from Gramsci, 14. 5. We can make the claim of 28% from census data from the local government in Ceará in 1819, and this information appears in the Brazilian politician and scholar Pandiá Calógeras’s work. Arthur Ramos first published the census data in his book (Ramos, 323). 6. Census information in 1840 shows a decrease to 20% of the population. See Pandiá, 35. 7. Billy Chandler started this debate in the 1960s, when he challenged the historians of the Instituto do Ceará with his rebuke of their scholarship on slavery and race. See Chandler (1966, 169–76). This work was largely dismissed by scholars at the institute. In the 1990s, Alex Ratt’s ethnographic work “Os Povos Invisíveis: Territórios Negros e Indígenas no Ceará” (109–27) challenged this myth. But there are still very few works that show the extent to which people of African ancestry formed a part of the multi-ethnic mix of Ceará. 8. Girão (1984). 9. Most of the archive is online. See www.institutodoceara.org.br/revista.php (accessed July 15, 2018). 10. Skidmore, 64–78. 11. “Races in Brazil. Proportion of Negro Population Overstated, Says Dr. de Moreira,” New York Times, December 31, 1913.

Reconstructing a Dismantled Past  167 12. Since the first national census in 1872, Brazil has consistently used the word pardo to describe people of multiple ethno-racial backgrounds. 13. Hasenbalg and Valle’s work can be found in Fontaine, 32–67 and Reichmann, 53–66, and 67–82. Telles 125–26. 14. Graham, 7–10. 15. Hasenbalg and do Valles, 53–82; Telles 125–26. 16. Koster, 234. 17. Telles, 125–26. 18. Hasenbalg and do Valles, 53–82. 19. Chandler, 177. 20. Smith, 180–81. 21. Riedel, 59. “Pardo,” “mulatto” and even “caboclos” to a lesser degree, are terms that denote African ancestry. 22. If one looks at the local 1808 census, one recognizes that the “preto” (black) population of 19% and the “mulatto” population of 37%, if taken together, form a majority. No doubt, people of partial Indian descent were included in this 1808 census as mulattos, but there is no reason to believe that a large number of these mulattos were not also of partial African ancestry. In many cases, they were probably all three. 23. Brigido, 40. 24. Abreu, 115. 25. For a discussion on the economics and labor market of the cattle ranches, see Chandler (1972, 125–43); Araripe, 128–55. It should be noted that the moradores were responsible for growing subsistence crops, in the equivalent of a sharecropper arrangement. 26. Chandler (1972, 125–46). 27. Studart, 270. 28. Ibid., 85. 29. Brigido, 85. 30. Oliveira. 31. According to census information, by 1819, slaves comprised 28% of the population in Ceará. Calogeras, 35. 32. Chandler (1972, 125–43); Araripe, 128–55. 33. Brigido, 174. 34. Chandler (1972, 147). 35. Funes, 104–5. 36. Chandler (1972, 147–48). For further evidence, see Registro de Venda, 1865– 1872, APEC. This contains an excellent listing of over 255 slaves. There was diversity in the jobs done by these slaves, but we can make an educated guess about those not registered with a profession by newspaper clippings advertising slaves for rent. Male slaves who were rented did a variety of tasks. For advertisements to rent slaves, see O Cearense, July 20, 1858, and Dom Pedro, December 11, 1873. 37. For example, on April 19, 1855, a slave named Benedicto was put to death. See Studart, 153. 38. Koster, 234. 39. Riedel, 34. Riedel documents many slaves who were not listed by African ethnicity, but as Creole or mulatto. Also, see Livro do Notas Fortaleza Public archives V.1 1838–1843. 40. Funes, 103–32. 41. Rol Culpados, 1858 APEC. 42. Ibid. 43. Alemão, 146.

168  Tshombe Miles 4. The police reports use the word “samba.” 4 45. For studies on how African resistance works, see Harding. 46. Campos, 53–74. 47. Resolução n°. 1878, de 11 de novembro de 1879. 48. Carneiro, 30–66. 49. Thornton, 235.

Bibliography Archives Arquivo Publica do Estado do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brasil. Biblioteca A Pública Governador Menezes Pimentel. Livro do Notas Fortaleza Public Archives V.1 1838–1843. Registro de Venda, 1865–1872. Resolução n°. 1878, de 11 de novembro de 1879. In: Colleção de actos legislativos da Provincia do Ceará promulgados pela Assemblèa no anno de 1879. Fortaleza: Typ gra phia Brazileira, 1879 Instituto do Ceará institutodoceara.org.br/revista.php. Accessed October 8, 2018. Rol Culpados, 1858.

Newspapers Dom Pedro, December 11, 1873. O Cearense, July 20, 1858.

Printed Sources Abreu, João Capistrano de. Caminhos Antigo e Povoamento do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Sociedade Capistrano de Abreu, 1960. Alemão, Francisco F. Os Manuscritos Do Botânico. Rio De Janeiro: Divisão De Publicações E Divulgação, 1964. Araripe, Tristão de Alencar. Historia da Provincia do Ceará: Desde Os Tempos Primitivos ate 1850. Fortaleza: Demócrito Rocha, 2002. Barroso, Gustavo. Terra do Sol: Natureza E Costumes Do Nortes. Ceará: Edicoes Democrito Rocha, 2015. Barroso, Oswald. Reis De Congo: Teatro Popular Tradicional. Fortaleza, Ceará: Ministério da Cultura do Brasil, 1996. Bezerra, Antonio. O Ceará e Os Cearenses. Fortaleza: Editor Assis Bezerra, 1906. Brigido, João. A Capitania do Ceará e seu Comércio. Fortaleza: Instituto Do Ceará, 1910. ———. Ceará: Homens e Fatos. Ceará: Edicoes Democrito Rocha, 2001. ———. Ephemerides Do Ceará. Fortaleza: Studart, 1900. Calogeras, Pandiá. A Escravidão no Brasil. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1976. Campos, Eduardo. As Irmandades Religiosa do Ceará: Provincial Apontamentos Para sua Historia. Fortaleza: Secretaria de Cultura de Cultura e Desporto, 1980. Capistrano de Abreu, João. Caminhos Antigo e Povoamento do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Sociedade Capistrano de Abreu, 1960.

Reconstructing a Dismantled Past  169 Chandler, Billy. The Feitosas and the Sertão dos Inhamuns: The History of a Family and a Community in the Northeast Brazil, 1700–1930. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972. ———. “Os Escravistas de Milagres: Um Pos-Escrito a Historia da Escravidão no Ceará.” Revista do Instituto do Ceará 80 (1966): 169–76. Fontaine, Pierre-Michel, ed. Race, Class, and Power in Brazil. Los Angeles: Center for Latin American Studies, UCLA, 1985. Funes, Eurípedes A. “Negros no Ceará.” In Uma Nova Historia do Ceará, edited by Simone de Souza, 103–32. Fortalez, Ceará: Edicoes Democrito Rocha, 2007. Girão, Raimundo. A Abolicão no Ceará. Fortaleza: Secretaria de Cultura e Desporto, 1984. ———. Pequena Historia do Ceará. 2nd Edicão. Fortaleza: Instituto Do Ceará, 1962. Gramsci, Antonio. The Prison Note Book. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971. Graham, Richard. “Free Afro-Brazilians in the 19th Century.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2016. Harding, Rachel. A Refuge in Thunder: Candomble and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Hasenbalg, Carlos A. “Race and Socio-Economic Inequalities.” In Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, edited by Pierre-Michel Fontaine, 25–41. Los Angeles: University of Los Angeles, 1985. Koster, Henry. Travels in Brazil. 2 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orman and Brown, 1816. Melo, Manoel Nunes de. “Provincia do Ceará. Quadro da população segundo o recenseamento procedido nas diversas paróquias no 1o de agosto de 1872.” Revista do Instituto do Ceará. Fortaleza: Instituto do Ceará 25 (1911): 50–57. Oliveira, Antonio José de. “Engenhos de Rapdura do Cariri.” Trabalho e Cotidano (1790–1850). Masters in Social History. Universidade Federal do Ceará, 2003. Ramos, Arthur. Introducão a Antropologia Brasileira. vol. 1. Rio de Janeiro: Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1943. Ratts, Alecsandro. “Os Povos Invisíveis: Territórios Negros e Indígenas no Ceará.” Cadernos CERU FFLCH/USP (1997): 109–27. Reichmann, Rebecca, ed., Race in Contemporary Brazil: From Indifference to Inequality. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Riedel, Oswaldo de Oliveira. Perspectiva Antropologica do Escravo no Ceará. Ceará: EUFC, 1988. Russell-Wood, Anthony J. R. “Ambivalent Authorities: The African and AfroBrazilian Contribution to Local Governance in Colonial Brazil.” The Americas (July 2000): 13–36. Skidmore, Thomas. Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (in a preface to the 1993 edition and bibliography). Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. Studart, Barao De. Datas E Factos Para a Historia Do Ceará: Ceará Estado. Fortaleza: Typographia Studart, 1924. Telles, Edward E. Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Thornton, John K. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

11 Enslaved by History Slavery’s Enduring Influence on the Memory of Pierre Toussaint Ronald Angelo Johnson*

In 1766, Ursule, an enslaved woman of African descent, gave birth in Saint-Marc, on the central western coast of Saint-Domingue. The boy born into slavery was named Pierre. Within four decades, neither Pierre’s enslaved status nor the slavocracy into which he was born existed. The Haitian Revolution (1789–1804) replaced Saint-Domingue with Haiti. It created a dynamic environment that led to Pierre exiting the colony and gaining his freedom. Like thousands of people of African descent across the eighteenth century, Pierre disembarked from a ship at a US port, destined for bonded service to white inhabitants. Unlike millions of people who entered the early Atlantic World as an enslaved person, Pierre eventually greeted death as a free man. In 1807, he took the surname Toussaint and married a woman he loved. The couple built a life and buried a daughter together. He lived as an immigrant New Yorker with a strong Catholic faith and died in 1853. The transnational experiences in the life of Pierre Toussaint unfolded in the midst of geopolitical transformations across the Atlantic World. Along with icons of freedom like Toussaint Louverture, Simón Bolívar, and Nat Turner, who lived concurrently during the Age of Revolution, it is unsurprising that Pierre Toussaint’s life journey found itself relegated to historical obscurity. Still, such longevity and achievement by a man of color in the early Atlantic World merits a more textured memory beyond his birth into slavery. The New York Public Library holds a repository of Toussaint’s personal and business correspondence. Though only five letters from Toussaint seem to remain, the library possesses hundreds of letters written to Toussaint, spanning decades of his life as free man, by family and friends from across the Atlantic World. However, because of the powerful historical attraction of the involuntary servitude of black people, biographers appear unable to discuss Toussaint’s life as a husband, father, businessman, and philanthropist without writing as much about the narrative of his enslavement.1 The absence of a modern scholarly monograph on the life of Toussaint as a post-revolutionary Haitian immigrant, prospering in New York City and living beyond the normal limits of black life in the nineteenth-century United States, is inexplicable.

Enslaved by History  171 This chapter argues that a white American author’s mid-nineteenthcentury romanticizing of slavery and silencing of the Haitian Revolution predominantly shaped the twenty-first-century memory of Pierre Toussaint. It underscores the significance for historical subjects of color to have greater input into the telling of their stories.

1. The Black Saint? Toussaint’s life has gained public notice intermittently during some of the more racially volatile moments in US history. His path from historical anonymity to more recent notoriety began in the midst of the United States’ Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Committee for Interracial Justice, a New York-based Irish-American Catholic group devoted to social justice for African Americans, began researching and promoting Toussaint’s story.2 In 1968, Cardinal Terence Cooke, Archbishop of New York, nominated Toussaint for canonization.3 The Catholic Church exhumed his body in the 1990s, a period of racial unrest, including the videotape of white American police beating African American motorist Rodney King and the divisive O. J. Simpson trial.4 Strained US race relations helped Toussaint to gain public interest beyond biographers. In 1996, Pope John Paul II proclaimed him to be venerable, the second of four major steps toward sainthood in the Catholic Church.5 A  flurry of newspaper articles popularized Toussaint’s canonization process. He may become the first American saint of African descent. As reporters described his life in encyclopedia form, one word appeared repeatedly across the stories: slave. Because he was a New Yorker and the Archdiocese of New York champions his sainthood, the New York Times has covered the story extensively. A  sample of the newspaper’s reporting demonstrates that the newspaper remembered him predominantly through the lens of Atlantic slavery: Pierre Toussaint, a slave born in Haiti. His masters, fleeing revolution there in 1797, brought him to New York . . . [He] was born into slavery in 1766 and came to New York . . . with the family, which owned him . . . Toussaint, a Haitian slave, moved with his family to New York . . . their slave supported the survivors . . . a person who is exceptionally meek, charitable, patient . . . and was known for his charitable works. He died in 1853.6 For the New York Times’ writers, slavery became the emblem of Pierre Toussaint’s entire life. Other print media outlets echoed their infatuation with his enslavement. An American Catholic magazine article titled “Venerable Pierre Toussaint” begins, “Born a slave in Haiti on a sugar plantation owned by Jean Bérard.” After a description of his charitable acts towards enslavers, the article employed the penultimate line to offer

172  Ronald Angelo Johnson a homiletic lesson: “Born a slave, he did not allow that fact to prevent him from helping his fellow man, whatever their race.”7 The Chicago Tribune reported, “The Vatican took another step this week toward declaring a Haitian-born slave the United States’ first black saint.”8 The Los Angeles Times informed its readers, “The next American to issue from the saint-makers’ assembly line will probably be layman Pierre Toussaint, born a slave in Haiti.”9 The public memory of Toussaint fueled debate regarding his canonization process. Print media’s focus on enslavement led some people of color in Haiti and the United States to raise questions about his saintly qualifications. “Many black Catholics have strongly objected” to his candidacy, viewing “Toussaint as passive and servile and thus a poor candidate to be considered for sainthood.”10 New York Times columnist Deborah Sontag intervenes in the unsettled history surrounding the memory of Toussaint. Her article, with its inflammatory headline “Canonizing a Slave: Saint or Uncle Tom?” presents two misconceptions regarding the memory of him. First, in Toussaint, the Catholic Church would not be canonizing an enslaved person. The examined reporting demonstrates that a French family in Saint-Domingue enslaved Toussaint from birth. Sontag’s article incorrectly suggests he “chose to stay, a slave.”11 However, he became a free man in 1807 and died a free man 46 years later.12 Second, the title assigns Toussaint with the divisive, racialized moniker “Uncle Tom.” According to Sontag, “at a time when slaves were rebelling in his native Haiti he was accompanying his owners to New York.”13 By this reasoning, if enslaved people in Saint-Domingue did not rise up and kill enslavers, they were an “Uncle Tom.” Likewise, if enslaved people did not kill to gain their freedom, they preferred enslavement. Here, the memory of Toussaint is used to propose dangerously that if black people left the embattled colony or chose not the fight in the revolution, they were sellouts to their people and not deserving of liberty. After gaining freedom, Toussaint did not abandon nor demean his enslavers. Instead, according to Sontag, “by day Toussaint the coiffeur would earn money powdering and pomading the heads of New York society. By night, he would don his crimson uniform and return to wait on his invalid owner.” She quotes Reverend Lawrence E. Lucas of Harlem’s Resurrection Catholic Church, a critic of the canonization who describes Toussaint as “a good boy, a namby-pamby, who kept the place assigned to him.” The memory of his life from the article’s perspective characterizes a free man’s charitable behavior toward former enslavers as suspect and assigns confining roles to people of color across the early Atlantic World. It also casts doubts on the Catholic Church’s motives for advancing Toussaint as a saint. Reverend Gilles Danroc, a French priest in Haiti, asserts Toussaint fled the fighting of the Haitian Revolution before asking, “[i]s the church encouraging the model of the docile slave who follows his master and waits patiently for his liberation?”14

Enslaved by History  173

2. Hannah Lee’s Memoir The public first widely engaged Pierre Toussaint during the explosive, partisan pre-Civil War decade. The current memory of him is heavily weighted toward his earlier life as an enslaved person. However, the “venerable” part of Toussaint’s life stems from his latter four decades as a free man. The questions arising over his nomination for sainthood illuminate the importance for people of color to tell their stories. The memory of Toussaint reflects the interests of the storytellers much more than the life of the historical subject. When he died at age 87, no family members remained to tell his story. Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee, a white American writer from Massachusetts, wrote the foundational story of Toussaint’s life in 1854. The pages of the work illustrate her fascination with slavery and his life as an involuntarily servant. Her writing commemorates how Saint-Domingue, one of the Atlantic World’s more brutal slavocracies, “was in its most flourishing state,” employing the toil and brutalized lives of some 500,000 enslaved Africans. With no commentary on the cost of black lives, she recalled, “[t]he French colony was then at the height of its prosperity.” In Lee’s hands, the Bérards’ enslavement of Toussaint and generations of his family was natural and intimate. “We can scarcely imagine a more beautiful family picture; it was a bond of trust and kindness. Slavery with them was but a name.”15 According to Lee, his time as an enslaved person was “the happiest period of Pierre Toussaint’s life.”16 Lee’s conclusions regarding slavery in Saint-Domingue and Toussaint’s life are puzzling. She drafted the biography of Toussaint during a period filled with best-selling narratives written by formerly enslaved people. The books of Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup, and Sojourner Truth, along with many others, illustrated the ills and horrors of slavery.17 Additionally, the famous fictional work of white American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, published two years before Lee’s memoir, indicted slavery and its supporters.18 However, Lee chose to characterize the life of Pierre Toussaint as a mitigant to the Atlantic World’s growing tide of repugnance toward those who profited from the inhumane treatment of black people. Despite Hannah Lee being born in Massachusetts, the US state most closely associated with Garrisonian abolitionism, her Memoir shares elements of racialized tropes found in other writings by white American authors from non-slaveholding states. The writers, even well-known anti-slavery advocates, reinforced racist stereotypes in their narratives when engaging historical subjects of color. William J. Allinson was a noted abolitionist and editor of the Quaker journal Friends’ Review from Burlington, New Jersey, the same hometown of famed writer James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper became known for negatively racialized depictions of Native and African Americans. Regarding the latter group, his

174  Ronald Angelo Johnson fiction, like the 1828 novel Notions of the Americans, exposed inherent contradictions in a democratic republic’s dependence upon the enslavement of black people. Though the book’s protagonist appeared to abhor the institution of slavery and racial prejudice, he held doubts and fears about living in a United States in which slavery did not exist.19 Allinson, on the first page of an 1851 biography, introduced readers to his subject, Quamino Smock, a formerly enslaved free person of color, using the following descriptors: “poor,” “aged,” “coloured,” “meek,” “lowly in heart.”20 In the memoir, described by one scholar “as a romantic racialist tract,” Allinson determined to use Smock’s enslaved surname (Buccau), not the surname (Smock) Quamino chose for himself as a free man.21 According to historian James Gigantino, Allinson and other writers narrated emancipation stories of black people “to validate the role of [white Americans] as mediators of black freedom.”22 The author dedicated the first half of the biography to Smock’s life in slavery. The remainder related the story of white American Quakers’ generosity to assist Smock, who, “with touching meekness and resignation,” needed them because “the old man” was “cripple,” “forlorn,” and “living alone in his house, too feeble to dress and undress himself.”23 Allinson’s Memoir offered readers an image of a black man who was uninterested in and unfit for freedom in the nineteenth-century United States. “Being extremely illiterate, [Smock’s] language was often incoherent; and he not unfrequently labored in vain to find fitting phrases to fully convey the thoughts he was anxious to express.”24 Not all writings by white Americans of the North helped the aboli­ tionist cause or ameliorated racial tensions. Some “used race as a powerful tool to appropriate power from free [black people], design specific social spaces for them, and define their proper republican societal and gender roles.”25 The writing in Lee’s biography of Pierre Toussaint, published three years after Allinson’s book, performed a similar function. Lee described the freedom of Toussaint and other family members as something granted to them—when, in fact, it had been taken from them—by the Bérard family. At one point she quotes Toussaint as telling a group of abolitionist African Americans, “I  do not owe my freedom to the State, but to my mistress.”26 Hannah Lee’s work has influenced most writings of Toussaint since 1854. She wrote the biography from notes of her sister Mary Anna Sawyer Schuyler, who was one of Toussaint’s affluent clients. Lee’s work did not fully engage the totality of his life. As a free man, he succeeded as a businessman, a husband, a Catholic patron, and a New Yorker, all of which led to his candidacy for sainthood. Yet, Lee’s focus—and the New York Times nearly a century and a half later—remained fixated on the enslavement inflicted upon Toussaint earlier in his life.

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3. US Denial of the Haitian Revolution The title of Lee’s book is illustrative. It is suggestive of most things written about Toussaint since: Memoir of Pierre Toussaint, Born a Slave in St. Domingo. The title hearkened back to a colony that had not existed for half a century. The nation-state Haiti replaced the slave society “St. Domingo” on January 1, 1804, when Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared independence. The evocation of “St. Domingo” and Lee’s treatment of the Haitian Revolution minimized the achievement of black people in the Atlantic World. By not writing about the revolution, but of “the terrible events” in “St. Domingo,” as late as 1854, she contextualized the Haitian Revolution as an aberration of human actions. Portraying Pierre Toussaint as “a slave” projected her understanding of model behavior for people of color in the mid-nineteenth century. Early in the narrative, she laid the foundation of Toussaint’s pedigree as a perpetually enslaved person: “Pierre Toussaint was born in the island of St. Domingo . . . on the Plantation . . . which belonged to Monsieur Bérard. The grandmother of Toussaint . . . was a slave in the family.”27 For Lee, the loss of white power and wealth on Saint-Domingue were “too painful to record.”28 She mentioned the Haitian Revolution as a backdrop for a discussion of the noble, tranquil qualities of the iconic figure Toussaint Louverture and the losses of the French planter class. She offered little critical analysis of the costly strides black people in Saint-Domingue made to be free. Instead, she cast the Haitian Revolution as an unfortunate disruption to white prosperity in the Atlantic World.29 Lee participated in what anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot termed the “silencing” of the Haitian Revolution. According to Trouillot, [t]he very deeds of the revolution were incompatible with major tenets of dominant Western ideologies . . . Between the Haitian independence and World War I, in spite of successive abolitions of slavery, little changed within the various ladders that ranked humankind in the minds of the majorities in Europe and the Americas.30 Lee’s romantic remembrance of slavery in Saint-Domingue and her repudiation of the Haitian Revolution seemed to voice support for white supremacy based upon an idealized inferiority of black people in the United States. Lee wrote Memoir of Pierre Toussaint during a time when the United States remembered the Haitian Revolution as an Atlantic World eccentricity. For 50  years after independence, US presidents refused to recognize Haiti as a neighboring state. US diplomacy conducted a consistent campaign to discredit and deny the revolution. The United States posted no official diplomats in Port-au-Prince. To avoid using “Haiti,”

176  Ronald Angelo Johnson US officials sometimes referred to “the French part of the Island.”31 In full diplomatic-speak, Secretary of State Daniel Webster, in 1851, explained to the Haitian foreign minister that “commercial agents,” not “consuls,” was “the class of officers which the United States now have, and for many years have had residing in Haytian ports.”32 Out of reciprocity, the federal government would accept representatives “not of African extraction, [who] should be appointed commercial agent of Hayti” in the United States.33 Members of the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts rebuked the diplomatic position of Webster, the famous anti-slavery orator from Massachusetts. The intended distinction is readily understood. If the Federal Government should recognize Haytien consuls . . . there would seem to be an implied recognition of the Haytien nation . . . or prove a precedent for receiving a Haytien minister, who might be a black man!34 To more fully explain his position, Webster wrote, “[t]he United States have a commercial agent at St. Thomas [controlled by Denmark until 1917], because the Danish government declines to recognize a consul there.”35 The Secretary of State articulated a foreign policy influenced heavily by Americans’ memory of Saint-Domingue, not Haiti, as a European colony—like St. Thomas—and denied the Haitian Revolution. Congregationalist ministers rejected Webster’s reasoning and offered a more plausible explanation for US nonrecognition of Haiti. “A black minister to the seat of government at Washington would be offensive to slaveholders, and might inspire ideas of the capabilities of the colored race, inconsistent with prevailing theories, and incompatible with the perpetuity of their enslavement!”36 According to Trouillot, diplomatic rejection was only one symptom of an underlying denial [of Haitian independence] . . . Ostracized for the better part of the nineteenth century, the country deteriorated both economically and politically . . . As Haiti declined, the reality of the revolution seemed increasingly distant. In the memoir of Toussaint, Lee wrote about the revolution as if it had been “an improbability which took place in an awkward past.” Therefore, “the revolution that was unthinkable became a non-event.”37 Still, Webster decided to suggest to the Haitian foreign minister, by way of a white American intermediary, “if the Haytian government shall abandon its ambitious projects of foreign conquests, devote its attention to the improvement of its people, [it may] command the respect of dispassionate and impartial men.”38 For the United States, Haiti would exist as an independent nation within the Atlantic World only if it yielded to Americans’ memory of Haitians as enslaved French subjects.

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4. Slavery’s Effect on Memory Lee’s Memoir argues Pierre Toussaint “was perfectly contented with his condition. Though surrounded in New York by free men of his own color, he said he was born a slave,—God has thus cast his lot, and there his duty lay.”39 In the understanding of Toussaint as a perpetually enslaved person—a premise Sontag’s Times article sustained—Lee leans on a proslavery novel published in 1853 by Ben Shadow, the pseudonym of a white American writer critical of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.40 Both authors interpret Toussaint’s lack of participation in the Haitian Revolution and his post-slavery support for the widow Bérard as a servile nature, which “elevates Toussaint in the respect of all who knew his history.”41 The 1854 obituary of Toussaint in the New York Evening Post carried this logic even further with its headline “Uncle Tom Not an Apocryphal Character.”42 Lee reprinted the obituary in her book, suggesting comparisons between Toussaint and Stowe’s Uncle Tom. A correspondent suggests to us, that the aged black man, Pierre Toussaint, who came to the city nearly sixty years ago from St. Domingo  .  .  . might, if Mrs. Stowe could have supposed to have known him, have sat as the original portraiture to which she gave the name Uncle Tom.43 It is very likely Lee’s evocation of Stowe’s character inspired the memory of Toussaint as an “Uncle Tom” in Sontag’s article, along with the subsequent questions the moniker raised about his suitability for sainthood. As the US Civil War approached, white American writers grappled to find effective narratives to locate black people within white-dominant societies of the Atlantic World. Even the memory of the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture underwent modifications. Early nineteenth-century histories of Louverture as a military strategist who commanded battlefield campaigns in Saint-Domingue leading to the deaths of thousands of French, Spanish, and British soldiers dwindled. In their place, white American writers remembered Louverture protecting his former enslavers from black revolutionaries.44 In a clear comparison with Pierre Toussaint, Lee wrote of Louverture, “[i]n the insurrection of the negroes, he refused all participation, until he had effected the escape” of the French family that had enslaved him.45 Like Pierre Toussaint, Toussaint Louverture’s domestic life became a special focus for white American writers. Nineteenth-century writer Henry Adams concluded, [i]t is neither as the warrior nor to the legislator . . . that we look upon Toussaint L’Ouverture with the greatest admiration. Rather, we prefer to view him in his social and domestic relations as the attached

178  Ronald Angelo Johnson and devoted servant, the tender and affectionate husband and father, the faithful friend.46 According to Lee, Pierre Toussaint and Toussaint Louverture bear “no other connection with the subject of our memoir than accidently arises from similarity of name, color, country, and being born in slavery, and on the same river.”47 Her analysis, in its fascination with a more comfortable narrative affirming Adams’s implied docility of black people, overlooked Toussaint’s embrace of freedom over slavery. Lost to memory in modern images of Pierre Toussaint, based upon Lee’s memoir, is the importance of the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint Louverture to his life. Louverture’s leadership of the revolution placed Toussaint in New York, where he gained freedom and flourished as an entrepreneur. A visible symbol of Pierre Toussaint’s embrace of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution’s conquest over slavery appears in his surname. Pierre possessed no surname as an enslaved person at birth. After freedom, he did not take the name of his enslavers, among whom, according to Lee, “we were all so happy!”48 Instead, Pierre chose the surname Toussaint—most likely after the revolutionary leader—and shared that name with his wife and daughter. Prior to the revolution, Toussaint’s enslaver-godmother Aurore Bérard would have referred to him by his first name only. After the Haitian Revolution, Bérard addressed her letters from France “À Monsieur Toussaint.”49 Historian Matthew Clavin’s work highlights the importance of “the transatlantic abolitionist memory” of Louverture and the Haitian Revolution at mid-century. Many white Americans retained a memory of the revolution that evoked a “romantic racialism” of black people in the abolitionist imagination.50 The Haitian Revolution propelled Toussaint Louverture as an Atlantic World leader. He led Saint-Domingue’s military and managed the political administration effectively through turbulent years and economic hardships. The third article of Louverture’s Constitution of 1801 declared to the Atlantic World that slavery would not again take root on the island.51 As Lee described, the Bérards, though disquieted by their sojourn in New York, “were sanguine in the hope of returning to the island, and taking possession of their property.”52 But, advances in black political and economic power in Saint-Domingue ended the family’s tradition of enslaving men, women, and children of color in the maintenance of a picturesque Caribbean plantation life. The freedom of Pierre Toussaint and of hundreds of black people like him, who were taken to the United States, was secured by the success of Louverture’s revolutionary leadership. Yet, white American writers in the 1850s chose to memorialize transient acts of human charity by the two black men toward white people who had enslaved them. According to Trouillot’s analysis, white American writers, a half century after the declaration of Haitian independence, used Toussaint Louverture and Pierre Toussaint in their narratives to prolong the memory of slavery in Saint-Domingue, because of an “incapacity to express the unthinkable” revolution.53

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5. A Record of Freedom The Pierre Toussaint Papers housed in the Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library offer a fuller perspective to the memory of Toussaint. The collection’s hundreds of letters written to Toussaint predominantly in French over four decades from family and friends across New York, the United States, France, and Haiti reveal a free man, a loving husband, a doting father, a faithful Catholic, a New Yorker, a Haitian immigrant, a homeowner, and a successful businessman. The broad correspondence does not hearken back to Toussaint’s enslavement. There is little evidence among the holdings to corroborate Lee’s assertion that Toussaint “was perfectly contented” to be enslaved.54 Instead, the letters detail common life occurrences among friends and loved ones in early America and the Atlantic World. In one letter, Charles Grins, of Buffalo, New York, informed Toussaint, “[h]ere, we have a lot of snow, it is extremely cold.”55 In another message, John Noel, of Baltimore, confirmed sending Toussaint letters from a mutual friend in Port-au-Prince.56 Madame Navarre, from Paris, informed Toussaint she had broken her hand in a fall she took the previous winter.57 The correspondents did not exalt Pierre Toussaint being born into slavery and having been enslaved during his first years in New York. When the Bérard patriarch had moved the family to the city, slavery remained a legal, common practice. Some enslaved persons brought to New York City from Saint-Domingue successfully sued for their freedom under a law prohibiting the importation of enslaved people. In 1799, the state of New York enacted a law granting gradual emancipation to enslaved children born after that year. The law freed no enslaved adults and gave freedom to children only after a lengthy indenture to their slaveholders.58 Toussaint did not gain freedom from the courts or the emancipation law. He was made an apprentice to a local hairdresser. He soon became a sought-after hairdresser in his own right. Following Mr. Bérard’s death, his talents enabled him to financially support the deceased enslaver’s family.59 Toussaint achieved such renown across the US for original coiffures that the racist novel Echoes of a Belle praised his skills. The book, which rejected “delicate and refined sensibilities” for people of color in its defense of the antebellum South’s slavocracy, characterizes them instead as naturally submissive and inferior humans. According to the author, “darkies” who toiled on Southern plantations were “a cheerful class of working people full of pride and attachment to their owners.” Within the derogatory, patronizing work, the writer displayed a capacity to praise the stylish “superstructures” of “the illustrious Toussaint” and characterized him as “the pioneer in a new and unexplored road to fame.”60 Toussaint’s professional success was inseparable from his personal accomplishments. The gradual emancipation law, though not freeing enslaved adults, empowered some of them to negotiate a series of cash payments with their slaveholders in return for their freedom.61 Within

180  Ronald Angelo Johnson this new, elastic atmosphere surrounding slavery, Toussaint used his abilities and his earnings to achieve his freedom in 1807. He later secured freedom for Juliette Noel, and the two were married in 1811. Lee’s Memoir mishandles the memory of Juliette in its attempt to characterize Toussaint as a perpetual slave-servant. The narrative portrays Juliette as a Mammy archetype, with little more ambition than to be a wife-servant.62 In fact, Pierre and Juliette were a team who believed in giving and assisting others in need. Almost all of Toussaint’s correspondents expressed amitié and affection for Juliette. The couple shared a strong Catholic faith, and they partnered in support for religious and educational charities across New York City.63 Toussaint embraced his freedom and lived a life that offered freedom and benevolence to others. Affluence empowered Toussaint to purchase his sister Rosalie’s freedom. She married and, in 1815, gave birth to a girl. Rosalie died when the child, Euphemie, was only six months old. Pierre and Juliette did not have biological children. They adopted Euphemie and raised her as their own.64 Euphemie shared Pierre and Juliette’s surname. When Euphemie was six years old, Toussaint bought a piano—a substantial personal acquisition in 1822—and secured private music lessons for her.65 Toussaint’s relationship with Euphemie expands the memory of him beyond that of “a slave” in another way. He commissioned a miniature portrait of her when she was about ten years old. The portrait’s existence presents a lens into his financial resources. Enslaved people did not commission portraits. Scholars who study people of color in the early Atlantic World often do not get to see their subjects or engage their handwriting. Toussaint’s life has bequeathed to generations of historians and other researchers a trove of records and images of himself and his family. Members of the American middle class often chose bust-sized oil paintings of themselves to announce their respectability and prosperity. Toussaint, instead, commissioned artist Antonio Meucci to paint Juliette, Euphemie, and himself in miniature to serve as a symbol of the domestic and sentimental privacy he cherished. He sat for the portrait dressed like a prosperous businessman. Juliette’s dress and headscarf illustrated the family’s Haitian heritage. And, as her adopted father likely intended, Euphemie, arrayed in a linen dress, pearls, and holding a flower basket, appeared as just another normal, demure young lady of New York City, who happened to be black.66 Toussaint took an active parental role in Euphemie’s education. He encouraged her to write to him over one hundred letters retained by the New York Public Library’s collection. In them, she demonstrated her learning levels and English-language skills. She wrote him practically every week. These short notes from the hand of a loving daughter, though not filled with historical or political analysis, contribute to memory an understanding of Toussaint as a doting father indulging Euphemie’s fancies and encouraging her intellect. In one note from 1823, Euphemie informed Toussaint, “I saw a man dressed in women’s

Enslaved by History  181 clothes. I wish you had seen him. I would not have known it was a man if Mrs. Rochefort had not told me.”67 A year later she posed the question, “Why do people lie when they know God hears us, in all that we say and think, whether bad or good?”68 On New Year’s Day 1829, she wrote two notes, one in English, another in French. In the French version Euphemie explained, “I don’t know how to express to you all the affection that I have toward you.” She added in the postscript, “I am and always will be your affectionate niece.”69 In English, exhibiting an evolving maturity, she assessed the relatively privileged condition of her life. Give me leave Dear Uncle to tell you as well as my poor mind can express itself how truly sensible I am of all your favors. I will try by my conduct to merit the continuance of them. As it has pleased God to give you good health during the course of the last year I blessed him to grant you the same to the end of the present and many more, my prayers are morning and night offered up to heaven for your preservation.70 God may have answered Euphemie’s prayers for her adoptive father. Toussaint lived another two decades. She, on the other hand, did not live to see the close of 1829. Euphemie died that year at the age of 14. Toussaint’s grief was total. Despite loving letters of consolation from friends around the world, “[h]e grew thin, avoided society, and refused to be comforted.”71 The Pierre Toussaint Papers also contribute to the memory of his life as an immigrant of color who successfully assimilated into American life while maintaining ties to his native Haiti. In New York, he became a fixture in the French-speaking Catholic community. For over 50 years, Toussaint rented and occupied pew number 25 in Old St. Peter’s Church. Juliette and he raised money to help poor children and helped to finance the building of hospitals and churches. When yellow fever epidemics periodically swept the downtown, such as in 1822, Toussaint nursed the sick and comforted the dying.72 His status as an immigrant in early America allowed him to benefit the lives of fellow New Yorkers and compatriots in Haiti. For over 30 years, he maintained a correspondence with friends in Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien, and Jérémie. Their letters underscore the importance of Toussaint’s life in New York to theirs in Haiti. He helped with financial support for their businesses, connecting their goods to American buyers. He served as a confidant with whom they could share their hardships and frustrations. Constantin Boyer, of Port-au-Prince, served as one of Toussaint’s most consistent, intimate correspondents. In 1834, after relaying news of friends back home, he informed Toussaint that he had shipped ham and milled-corn flour for sale in New York. He wrote his most gripping letter nine years later. It concerned the 1842 Cap-Haïtien earthquake and

182  Ronald Angelo Johnson subsequent tsunami that killed some eight thousand people. According to Boyer’s account, At half past five in the evening, on the 7th of May last, Cape Haitien, Santiago and Port-au-Paix were destroyed by an earthquake. All houses two or three stories high have been thrown down in half a second. At the Cape not a house stands upright. At Gonaives the earth opened and a clear stream of water rushed out. At Port-auPaix, the sea rose violently, nearly five feet, and carried off the rest of the houses, which had not fallen. At the Cape nearly six thousand persons have been killed under the ruins, and two thousand wounded. The country is now most miserable.73 Over the next few years, Toussaint sustained people in Haiti with support, supplies, and prayers. His life as an immigrant in New York helped to improve life for those he loved in Haiti.

Conclusion Hannah Lee characterized Pierre Toussaint as “a slave” who did not want freedom. However, he used freedom, professionalism, and affluence to secure the liberty, well-being, and prosperity of others. A central question connects Lee’s Memoir and modern writings about Toussaint that focus on his enslavement: how could an enslaved black person who lived through the Haitian Revolution have bestowed such kindness and love on his enslavers after gaining freedom? The question assumes, as does the work of Lee and others, slavery created a desire for vengeance in the hearts of the oppressed. A primordial fear of white Americans and white people across the Atlantic World—of black people killing white people— premised this false assumption. Broadening of the question appropriately to encompass the universal human condition can lead to a secondary inquiry: how do people of all races continue to love after living through oppression? Mary Anna Schuyler presented Lee an answer to this question in the notes upon which the latter based her memoir. According to Schuyler, Pierre Toussaint “is a Catholic, full in the faith of his Church, liberal, enlightened, and always acting from the principle that God is our common Father, and mankind our brethren.”74 Lee, however, interpreted her sister’s perception of Toussaint’s Christian spirituality as evidence of his fitness for enslavement. Had she understood his lifetime of selfless acts beyond the lens of black docility, perhaps her history, and the current memory of him it inspired, would read differently. The skewed memory of Pierre Toussaint argues for subjects of color to assert greater agency into the crafting of their historical narratives. Remembrance of him continues to be shaped heavily by the pen of a white American writer who romanticized the enslavement of black people over

Enslaved by History  183 a century and half ago. Beyond the egregious title, the author employed the last pages to solidify her view of Toussaint as forever enslaved. Though, according to Lee, “Toussaint for more than sixty years has been the most respected and beloved negro in New York . . . no familiarity ever made him forget what was due to his superiors.”75 The Memoir buries the dynamic, loving, professional, charitable, freedom-giving life of Toussaint beneath an oppressive emphasis on his enslavement. At a time when slavery continued in the southern United States and racial hostilities plagued New York City, Toussaint prospered. He garnered acclaim for his creative hairdressing styles. He was respected for devotion to his family, his church, and his countrymen. Some leaders of the worldwide Catholic communion believe his life, which involved participating faithfully in neighborhood church life, being a dutiful husband and father, nursing New York City’s sick and dying, assisting Haitian earthquake victims, and contributing generous amounts to Catholic buildings and causes, is worthy of the Church’s highest spiritual recognition. Yet, to many people in the twenty-first century, the memory of Pierre Toussaint remains enslaved by history.

Notes * The author received generous funding for this chapter from the Texas State University Research Enhancement Program and would like to thank research associate Landon Lynch. 1. Jones. 2. Sontag; Carter, 99. 3. Archdiocese of New York. 4. “An Exhumation”; “Church Hopes.” 5. McClarey. 6. Emphasis added. Brennan; Cantwell. 7. McClarey. 8. “Sainthood Studied for U.S. Black.” 9. “Next U.S. Saint.” 10. “Sainthood Studied for U.S. Black.” 11. Sontag. 12. Dorsey, 15. 13. Sontag. 14. Ibid. 15. Lee, 5. 16. Ibid., 10. 17. Douglass. 18. Stowe. 19. Wallace, 707–8. 20. Allinson, 3. 21. Marshall, 2. 22. Gigantino, 116. 23. Allinson, 19–22. 24. Ibid., 22. 25. Gigantino, 118.

184  Ronald Angelo Johnson 6. Lee, 3, 28, 57, 86. 2 27. Ibid., 2. 28. Ibid., 6. 29. Ibid., 5–10. 30. Trouillot, 95. 31. U.S. Senate, 32nd Congress, 1st Session, no. 62. 32. U.S. Senate, 32nd Congress, 1st Session, no. 113. 33. Emphasis added. Ibid. 34. Emphasis original. General Association of Massachusetts, 59. 35. U.S. Senate, 32nd Congress, 1st Session, No. 113. 36. Emphasis original. General Association of Massachusetts, 58. 37. Trouillot, 95–97. 38. U.S. Senate, 32nd Congress, 1st Session, no. 113. 39. Lee, 20–21. 40. Boston Public Library, 21; Clement, 254. 41. Shadow, 113–15; Lee, 35. 42. Sontag. 43. Lee, 119; Daut, 580, n. 37. 44. Clavin, 38. 45. Lee, 7. 46. Emphasis added. Clavin, 38–39. 47. Lee, 6. 48. Ibid., 10. 49. “À Monsieur Toussaint” is the French translation of “To Sir Toussaint.” Ibid., 39. 50. Clavin, 39. 51. Louverture, 5. 52. Lee, 21. 53. Trouillot, 97. 54. Lee, 20. 55. Charles Grins to Pierre Toussaint, January 15, 1815, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 2. 56. John Noel to Pierre Toussaint, October  27, 1848, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 2. 57. Marie Navarre to Pierre Toussaint, May 26, 1849, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 2. 58. Harris, 73. 59. Lee, 22. 60. Shadow, 14–15, 113–14, 190. 61. Harris, 73. 62. Parkhurst. 63. Lee, 48–49. 64. Ibid., 36, 58. 65. Receipt for piano purchase, July 25, 1822, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 3. 66. Kelly, 94, 100–2. 67. Euphemie Toussaint to Pierre Toussaint, May  10, 1823, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 2. 68. Euphemie Toussaint to Pierre Toussaint, August  7, 1824, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 2. 69. Euphemie Toussaint to Pierre Toussaint, January  1, 1829 (French), Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 3. 70. Euphemie Toussaint to Pierre Toussaint, January  1, 1829 (English), Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 3. 71. Lee, 66. 72. Cantwell; Townsend.

Enslaved by History  185 73. Constantin Boyer to Pierre Toussaint, June 13, 1842, Pierre Toussaint Papers, Reel 1. 74. Lee, 24. 75. Ibid., 121–22.

Bibliography Archives Pierre Toussaint Papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. New York, NY. U.S. Senate Executive Documents and Reports, 1817–1969. Law Library Reading Room. Library of Congress. Washington, DC.

Primary Sources Allinson, William J. Memoir of Quamino Buccau, A Pious Methodist. Philadelphia: Henry Longstreth, 1851. Boston Public Library. Catalogue of Books in the South End Branch Library of the Boston Public Library. Boston: Printed by Order of the Trustees, 1883. Clement, Jesse, ed. The Western Literary Messenger: Family Magazine of Literature, Science Art, Morality, and General Intelligence. vol. 20. Buffalo: Jewett, Thomas, & Co., 1853. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Written by Himself. Boston: American Anti-slavery Society, 1845. General Association of Massachusetts. Minutes of the Sixty-First Annual Meeting. Boston: Press of Crocker and Brewster, 1863. Lee, Hannah Farnham Sawyer. Memoir of Pierre Toussaint, Born a Slave in St. Domingo. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Co., 1854. Louverture, Toussaint. “Toussaint’s Constitution (1801).” Institute of Haitian Studies Scholarly Works. https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/12660. Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana. Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1853. Shadow, Ben. Echoes of a Belle: Or, a Voice from the Past. New York: George P. Putnam & Co., 1853. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly. Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1852. Townsend, Peter S. An Account of the Yellow Fever, As It Prevailed in the City of New-York, in the Summer and Autumn of 1822. New York: O. Halsted, 1823. Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave, Emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828. Boston: The Author, 1850.

Newspapers Banks, Adelle M. “Haitian Immigrant’s Faithfulness May Make Him 1st Black U.S. Saint.” Orlando Sentinel, June  20, 1992. http://articles.orlandosentinel. com/1992-06-20/news/9206200882_1_pierre-toussaint-dorsey-new-york.

186  Ronald Angelo Johnson Brennan, Emily. “A Tourist’s Guide to Catholic New York.” New York Times, September 15, 2015. www.nytimes.com/column/cultured-traveler. Cantwell, Mary. “Editorial Notebook; A  Very Special Graveyard.” New York Times, August 24, 1990. www.nytimes.com/1990/08/24/opinion/editorial-note book-a-very-special-graveyard.html?pagewanted=print. “Church Hopes Grave Will Yield a Black Saint.” New York Times, August 11, 1990. www.nytimes.com/1990/08/11/nyregion/church-hopes-grave-will-yielda-black-saint.html?pagewanted=print. “An Exhumation on the Road to Sainthood.” New York Times, November 2, 1990. www.nytimes.com/1990/11/02/nyregion/an-exhumation-on-the-road-tosainthood.html?pagewanted=print. McClarey, Donald R. “Venerable Pierre Toussaint.” The American Catholic, May 21, 2010. http://the-american-catholic.com/2010/05/21/venerable-pierretoussaint/. “Next U.S. Saint Is Likely to Be Ex-Haitian Slave.” Los Angeles Times, January  5, 1995. http://articles.latimes.com/print/1995-01-05/news/mn-16709_1_ ex-haitian-slave. “Sainthood Studied for U.S. Black.” Chicago Tribune, December  19, 1996. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-19/news/9612190284_1_firstblack-saint-sainthood-pierre-toussaint. Sontag, Deborah. “Canonizing a Slave: Saint or Uncle Tom?” New York Times, February 23, 1992. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/23/nyregion/canonizinga-slave-saint-or-uncle-tom.html?pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print.

Secondary Sources Archdiocese of New York Office of Black Ministry. “Venerable Pierre Toussaint.” Accessed November 22, 2016. https://obmny.org/venerable-pierre-toussaint. Carter, Elmer. “In the Tradition of Daniel O’Connell.” Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life 20, no. 3 (1942): 99. Clavin, Matthew J. Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Daut, Marlene L. Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1789–1865. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Dorsey, Norbert. Pierre Toussaint of New York, Slave and Freedman: An Illustrated Study of Lay Spirituality in Times of Social and Religious Change. Jamaica: Passionist Congregation, 2014. Gigantino, James T. The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775–1865. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Harris, Leslie M. In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Jones, Arthur. Pierre Toussaint: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Kelly, Catherine E. Republic of Taste: Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Marshall, Kenneth E. Manhood Enslaved: Bondmen in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century New Jersey. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2011.

Enslaved by History  187 Parkhurst, Jessie W. “The Role of the Black Mammy in the Plantation Household.” Journal of Negro History 23, no. 3 (1938): 349–69. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Wallace, James D. “Leatherstocking and His Author.” American Literary History 5 (Winter 1993): 700–14.

12 Memorial Equality and Compensatory Public History in Charleston, South Carolina Lawrence Aje

In July 2015, 23 days after the killing of nine African American churchgoers in Charleston by a white supremacist, the South Carolina legislature voted to take down the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds in Columbia. The Confederate battle flag, which had been flying since 2000 next to the Confederate Soldier Monument, was removed and placed in the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. The spatial displacement of the flag from prominent public view was gradual. In 2000, the Confederate naval jack was removed from the top of the statehouse dome where it had flown since 1962 to commemorate the centennial of the start of the Civil War in an act of defiance to the Civil Rights Movement.1 The decision to display the flag in a more confidential setting indicated that this sensitive historical object was no longer in congruence with contemporary political and majoritarian views. After an 18-year-long administrative and financial battle, the 2014 unveiling of a statue in Charleston of Denmark Vesey, a free man of color who was accused of plotting a large-scale slave insurrection in 1822, provided yet another example of the diverging views concerning the modalities of the memorialization of slavery in South Carolinian public space. The erection of the statue nevertheless testified to the socio-political will to bring to the forefront the legacies and achievements of prominent African American historical figures who had been silenced by history and, consequently, absent from public display and memorialization. Placing the Vesey monument in Hampton Park, a park located outside of the historic and touristic center of Charleston, however, illustrates how this controversial and divisive historical figure was geographically relegated to the margins, and thus only partially integrated in South Carolina’s commemorative landscape. In August 2017, the death of a counter-protester and the injury of 19 people during a Unite the Right rally against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, revived debates about how Confederate symbols, rather than celebrating a cultural heritage, fostered hate. That month, the Charleston mayor responded to calls to remove the statue of divisive former vice president and slave apologist John C. Calhoun from Marion Square, a centrally located square, by

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  189 instead proposing to add plaques to Confederate-related monuments in order to contextualize them. By taking South Carolina, and more particularly Charleston, as a case study, this chapter aims to analyze how, despite its recent efforts to adopt a more consensual and racially inclusive approach in the memorialization of its past, the state has been the site of representational struggles that hinge around race and the production, as well as the control, of public historical knowledge. It examines how, in the context of an upsurge of racial violence in the United States, the memorialization process in South Carolina has become increasingly antagonistic as it faces the conundrum of both redressing past historic injustices that stem from slavery and racial segregation and providing an accurate, comprehensive, and racially inclusive history that would partake in building more social cohesiveness. Finally, this chapter argues that political, economic, and racial factors ultimately determine and shape the commemorative landscape and memorial discourse on slavery in Charleston.

1. Memorializing Slavery and Its Legacy in Charleston As of 2001, South Carolina had over 170 Confederate monuments and markers. The majority of these privately funded Confederate memorials were first erected between the end of Reconstruction and the late 1920s by Confederate heritage groups in an effort to bolster the “Lost Cause” mythology.2 There was a second spike in the 1950s and 1960s in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center established that, with 58 Confederate monuments and markers, South Carolina ranked fifth out of the 11 former Confederate states in the number of this type of symbols.3 Though they pale in numerical comparison with their Confederate memorial counterparts, it would be inaccurate to say that no recognition has been given to the role African Americans have played in South Carolinian history. In the United States, there was a marked increase in the number of black history markers in the context of the commemorations of the 150-year anniversary of the end of the Civil War and the 50-year anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement.4 In Charleston, the bulk of this memorialization gained momentum after 2010, mainly through the form of the erection of historic markers that commemorate episodes in relation to abolitionism, slavery, and the Civil Rights Movement.5 During the last two decades, South Carolina has increasingly given slavery public recognition. In 1990, the South Carolina General Assembly approved a distinctive historical marker to be placed at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan’s Island, on National Park Service ground, to commemorate the main port of entry in North America of enslaved African captives. In 2006, a marker commemorating the Stono slave rebellion of 1739 was erected along Highway 17 in Rantowles, Charleston County.6 In 2008,

190  Lawrence Aje as part of the “A Bench by the Road Project” initiated by Toni Morrison, a bench was placed on Sullivan’s Island to highlight the absence of “historical markers that help remember the lives of Africans who were enslaved.”7 In May 2012, an interpretative sign and a sidewalk historic marker were both placed near the waterfront in downtown Charleston to commemorate Robert Smalls, an enslaved harbor pilot who seized the Confederate steamer CSS Planter in May 1862 and made his escape along with his family and other slaves across the Union’s maritime blockade. During Reconstruction, Smalls was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives and to the state’s Senate as well as serving five terms as a US Representative. Prior to his memorialization in Charleston, Smalls’s house in his hometown Beaufort was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973.8 More recently, in March  2016, a historic marker entitled “Slave Auctions,” which acknowledges the central role Charleston played in the slave trade, was placed in front of the Old Exchange Building, a national historic landmark located at the intersection of East Bay and Broad streets in downtown Charleston.9 Despite these episodic initiatives, the construction of monuments and installation of historic markers relative to slavery in South Carolina has been a sensitive issue, as the state is still grappling with the history and legacy of slavery, thus making the larger effort to designate landmarks associated with African American history more difficult. A major factor to explain this resistance is that heritage tourism has shaped the way slavery is displayed (or erased) in the public space in Charleston. Although progress has undeniably been made in terms of the incorporation of African American history in the commemorative landscape, Confederate memorials still hold the most prominent locations in the city center and along the Battery, namely in “Historic Charleston.” Between 1920 and 1940, Charleston’s local leaders developed the city’s trademark image as “America’s Most Historic City.”10 In order to boost the burgeoning tourist industry, Charleston’s cityscape and commemorative landscape was transformed by elite white local cultural producers who fashioned the city’s image against the national movement of urban growth and progress that characterized the interwar period. These architectural preservation efforts, which sought to revitalize the economy of a once-booming city, led to a romanticized and skewed version of the past marked by nostalgia.11 Capitalizing on the lore, nostalgia, and history of the city proved successful. After the 1970s, owing to the development of heritage tourism, Charleston was attracting millions of visitors annually—mainly white middle-class tourists who were eager to enjoy a picturesque experience.12 With an annual average of five million visitors who spent $4 billion, Charleston was named the No. 1 US tourist destination for the fourth year in 2014; No. 2 in the world behind Florence in Italy.13

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  191

2. Giving a Face to Slavery: The Memorialization of Denmark Vesey The challenges posed by the incorporation of the history of slavery in Charleston’s commemorative landscape is forcefully demonstrated by the heated debates that arose in the context of the erection of a figurative monument to memorialize Denmark Vesey. The Denmark Vesey 1822 failed uprising is considered to be the most important slave plot in American history.14 Had the plan not been betrayed, 9,000 insurgents would have taken up arms.15 Out of a total of 131 slaves and free people of color from the Charleston area who were arrested, 67 suspects were convicted, out of whom 35 were executed in public.16 In the wake of the aborted plot, the African Methodist Church, to which a majority of the insurgents including Vesey belonged to, was destroyed. In 1825, the Citadel, an arsenal that would house an augmented municipal guard force, was built as a defensive measure to deter future plots.17 The Denmark Vesey plot has been presented by historiography and popular culture as an act of resistance of unequal magnitude. Given the scope of the intended insurrection and the exceptional personal story of the ringleader who, despite his free legal status, ran the risk of sacrificing his life to join forces with slaves to overthrow an oppressive regime, it is fitting that Denmark Vesey would make a perfect candidate for memorialization. Yet initiatives to memorialize Denmark Vesey for permanent local display in South Carolina stirred controversy, as it would materially inscribe a contested historical figure in the state’s commemorative landscape.18 In May 1976, in the context of the celebration of the bicentennial of the American Revolution, a Washington, D.C. -based organization, the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation, that sought to give visibility to Black heritage and participation in national history, obtained that Vesey’s supposed residence at his time of death be granted National Historic Landmark status.19 In August 1976, under the impetus of black councilmember Robert Ford, a portrait of Denmark Vesey was commissioned by the City Council.20 As there is no archival evidence of his physical appearance, Vesey was depicted from behind, preaching to members of a religious class. A month after its unveiling in the Gaillard Auditorium, the painting was stolen. It was later retrieved after Mayor Joseph Riley threatened to have a new one commissioned.21 In 1987, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), whose roots can be traced back to the Hampstead Church that was founded in 1817 and later closed in the aftermath of the Vesey conspiracy, placed a marker on Calhoun Street to commemorate “the unique ministry of South Carolina born bishops,” and the “1822 Martyrdom of Denmark Vesey.”22 Four years later, the AME Church installed a permanent memorial to honor Denmark Vesey under the form of a sculpture by artist Ronald

192  Lawrence Aje Jones in an alcove. The piece represents four African American boys and is a recreation of George Bernard’s 1874 stereograph, “South Carolina Cherubs (After Raphael),” which is itself an extrapolation of Raphael’s two famous cherubs in the Sistine Madonna (c. 1512–1514).23 Jones’s sculpture is not a figurative representation of Vesey, and only the plaque beneath it allows one to understand that the memorial is in “remembrance of Denmark Vesey’s righteous rebellion.”24 Until 2000, the only statue to represent a real African American historical figure in South Carolina was the Robert Smalls bust that was erected in 1976, in Beaufort, by the Beaufort County Council. Twenty years later, in 1996, Governor David Beasly signed a bill authorizing the erection of an African American monument on statehouse grounds.25 In 1999, confronted with mounting pressure from activist groups and the business and religious community, but also, and more importantly, with the economic consequences of the boycott of the state launched by the NAACP, a divided South Carolina House of Representatives voted 63–56 to remove the Confederate naval jack from inside the two chambers and atop the Capitol dome and to place it next to the Confederate Soldier Monument on the statehouse grounds as of July  2000.26 This decision was part of a compromise which also provided that South Carolina would celebrate its first Confederate Memorial Day on May 10, 2000, as an official holiday, as part of a bill establishing a state holiday to honor Martin Luther King.27 In addition, the displacement of the Confederate flag would be accompanied by the installation of a monument to honor African Americans on statehouse grounds. As part of what Dell Upton describes as a “dual heritage strategy,” the South Carolina Heritage Act adopted in 2000 prohibited “the removal, changing, or renaming of any Confederate flag, any local or state monument, marker, memorial, school, or street erected or named in honor of the Confederacy or the Civil Rights Movement without the enactment of a joint resolution of the General Assembly approving” it “by a two-thirds vote of the membership of each house.”28 Eventually, in March 2001, the United States’ first African American monument dedicated to Black history on statehouse grounds was erected on the eastside of the Capitol.29 The monument is composed of an obelisk standing on a pedestal lined with 12 bas-relief bronze panels that illustrate the major historical periods of 300 years of African American South Carolinian history from slavery to freedom, ranging from the representation of shackled slaves to black astronauts. The privately funded 1.1-million-dollar monument also features the depiction of a slave ship’s hold and a map of Africa.30 Denver, Colorado-based African American artist Ed Dwight, who had distinguished himself by making numerous works celebrating black historical achievements, was chosen to make the piece. Dwight initially intended to include a panel with hooded Klansmen burning crosses and black men being lynched. The monument

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  193 commission requested him to “tone down the images.” Thus what would have been graphic illustrations of racial violence were replaced by written expressions such as “Jim Crow Law” and “lynching.”31 Quite similarly, Dwight’s plan of including a large statue of Denmark Vesey was also discarded by a split Designing Committee that ultimately asked him to represent periods of black South Carolinian history rather than specific individuals.32 There are, however, likenesses of famous native-born South Carolinians such as the first African American state chief justice, Ernest Finney, jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and tennis player Althea Gibson.33 Thus, much of the resistance stemmed from representing a divisive historical figure such as Denmark Vesey rather than real historical figures. Dwight was nevertheless able to convey the notion of slave agency with a panel showing four unidentifiable slaves “huddled in a cabin, plotting an uprising.”34 In the context of the Heritage Act debates, which began as early as 1994, two African American senators, Robert Ford and Maggie Glover, suggested that as the Confederate flag would still remain on the statehouse grounds, the Black Liberation Flag, or Pan-African flag that was created by Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association in the 1920s, should be allowed to fly next to the African American monument.35 Although the proposal passed Senate Judiciary Committee, it was eventually dropped, as it proved too divisive.36

3. Celebrating the Spirit of Freedom: Reconciliation and Reparative Memorialization in Charleston In 1996, while the State Assembly in Columbia was debating the modalities of a Heritage Act that would celebrate South Carolina’s dual heritage, The Denmark Vesey and the Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee was formed by some members of the local African American community in Charleston to erect a figurative statue to honor Denmark Vesey in the port city.37 Ed Dwight, the sculptor of the African American Columbia Monument, was chosen to make the piece.38 The project met resistance, as it sought to memorialize a contested historical event and a controversial figure.39 Yet, in 2014, 18 years after the project was initiated, the lifesize realistic bronze sculpture of Denmark Vesey was dedicated.40 This was the first ever erected statue of an African American in Charleston. Due to a lack of funding, the initial project that should have represented Vesey flanked by two of his lieutenants, Monday Gell and Gullah Jack Pritchard, was scaled down to a seven-foot-high single-person statue.41 Vesey is represented standing erect on a granite pedestal that bears biographical information on one side and a summary of the conspiracy on the other. Vesey is holding a Bible in his left hand and his carpentry bag with tools and hat in his right hand. He is composedly looking into the distance, which gives a visionary, reflective nature to the statue, rather than a combative one. In the tradition of uplifting African American

194  Lawrence Aje themed monuments, Vesey’s dignified posture is edifying and meant to be inspirational.42 Vesey is not represented in the act of planning the insurrection nor is the violence that he and his coconspirators were subjected to displayed. The Denmark Vesey Monument was made more palatable by arguing that it was not a celebration of racial violence but rather the celebration of man’s innate capacity to aspire to freedom.43 Presenting Denmark Vesey as a freedom fighter inscribed him in the larger American historical metanarrative, that of the land of the free, while simultaneously emphasizing the universal nature of the quest for freedom.44 Despite the Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee’s wish to place the statue in Marion Square, a prominent downtown location, it was erected in an upper part of the peninsula, in Hampton Park. The park is named after Confederate General Wade Hampton III, a large slaveholder who later became state governor in 1876, after using racial violence to restore the conservative Democratic Party to power. Marion Square was believed to be the ideal location for different reasons. It was the location of the historic Citadel that was built in reaction to the failed insurrection. The site would also have been very fitting as a towering statue of John C. Calhoun, the statesman who theorized nullification and presented slavery as a “positive good,” dominates the square. In addition, an obelisk to the memory of Wade Hampton can also be found there. Finally, many believed the square was a very appropriate location, as a Holocaust Memorial was installed there in 1999.45 Placing the Vesey memorial in Marion Square would have therefore symbolically given recognition to the plight of African Americans by inscribing their historical presence in the same memorial landscape as Confederate history, but also by giving geographic proximity, and thus encouraging historical comparison or continuity with the commemoration of the Jewish genocide.46 The owners of the park, two nineteenth-century militias, the Washington Light Infantry and the Sumter Guard, however, objected to the controversial statue of Vesey being placed there.47 Concern was expressed that placing the statue in the northern part of the peninsula in Hampton Park symbolically marginalized a historical actor whose memorialization specifically aimed at removing him from the margins of history, by publically acknowledging his central historical role. Mayor Riley, the City Council, and the Spirit of Freedom Committee nevertheless tried to highlight the relevance of this location. The Vesey monument was near the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, which was moved to that location in 1922.48 In addition, the area used to be a race course that served as a Union prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War. Two hundred and fifty-seven Union soldiers died on the site and were exhumed by freed slaves from a mass grave to be properly buried. On May 1, 1865, thousands of African Americans gathered at the site to honor the “Martyrs of the Race Course” during what would become the first Decoration Day or Memorial Day.49

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  195 According to Spirit of Freedom Committee member, College of Charleston History Professor Bernard E. Powers, the Vesey memorial offered a counterpoint to the master narrative provided by “other monuments to white supremacy and slavery that populate Charleston’s streets.”50 The Vesey memorial is also an invitation to reflect on the systemic violence that Blacks have historically experienced in the United States. The plaque of the statue hints at this violence and indicates that the 35 convicted plotters who were hanged “represents the greatest number of slave conspiracy related executions in American history.” The dedication of the statue in February 2014 proved timely to many as it occurred in the context of resurfacing racial tensions in the wake of the shootings of several African Americans by predominantly white shooters, mainly police officers, many of whom were either not prosecuted or acquitted. A proposal that was envisaged to represent the hangings of the conspirators of the Vesey plot was rejected in order to not create indignation, or guilt, or embarrassment for the city.51 This option could have been relevant, as it would have bluntly inscribed Vesey and his accomplices in the enduring history of African Americans who have been wrongfully convicted, lynched, or recently shot by the police. However, had the statue represented the hung bodies of falsely accused innocents, it may have sparked indignation and maybe revolt. Choosing to represent Vesey in a dignified and uplifting way may also have been motivated so as to prevent the reinforcement of “messages of inferiority and humiliation” that African Americans may have experienced by viewing him in a degraded situation.52 The Denmark Vesey memorial is a piece of historical artwork vested with socioracial transformative power. The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture played an active role in the Denmark Vesey statue project and celebrated its completion by noting that the monument would “no doubt encourage further dialogue about slavery, freedom, race, heroism, resistance, and justice.”53 Despite the polemical choice of the subject, the Denmark Vesey statue was a representational compromise that aimed at symbolically promoting racial equality and harmony by providing space for African Americans in the South Carolinian commemorative canon. Placing African Americans, as metonymized by Denmark Vesey, on an equal representational footing with Whites would, it was hoped, signal the promise of a social and racial equality to come, in an effort to bury the past and to move forward. The erection of monuments honoring African American history signals a progressive evolution in the commemorative history of South Carolina. Yet the memorialization of slavery in public space is strikingly unmarred by its most sensitive—and yet central—aspect, namely violence. African American history related monuments, while alluding to the ordeal slaves and their descendants went through, simultaneously highlight their resilience and achievement. In so doing, these monuments involuntarily euphemize the brutal reality of slavery and Jim Crow. These monuments

196  Lawrence Aje provide an uplifting representation of African American history in an upbeat narrative of liberation that, interestingly enough, fits into the permissible discourse on slavery and race South Carolinian authorities allow and seek to promote.

4. The Racial and Economic Politics of Memorialization: Improving South Carolina’s Image The increasing presence of African American related monuments and markers in Charleston’s public space can be traced back to Joseph Riley’s election as the city’s mayor in 1975. Riley, an Irish Catholic Democrat, was elected on a platform of racial reconciliation through affirmative action.54 As a result of the political gains achieved by the Civil Rights Movement and the racial demographics of Charleston, the city council was evenly divided across racial lines when Riley was elected in 1975— with six white and six African American councilmembers.55 Riley’s ­promise to work for racial reconciliation was motivated by personal ideals. However, that it stemmed from political savviness cannot be discarded given the significant political power of the large African American population, which represented 45% of the city’s total population at the time.56 During his ten terms in office until 2015, the memorialization process of black historical achievement gained impetus with the presence of African Americans on various boards, commissions, and city and county councils. According to Henry Darby, the cofounder of the Spirit and Freedom Committee but also a former county councilmember, their presence enables to “unmarginalize the history that’s so often left us out.”57 However, Charleston’s African American population has lost political clout, as its share in the total population of the city keeps decreasing. Starting in the 1920s, under the pressure of preservationists who strove to restore and protect Charleston’s historic district, in an effort to revitalize the economy for touristic purposes, public housing funds were allocated for the relocation of black tenants in the northern part of the peninsula.58 The trend continued due to gentrification and rising downtown rents. During the last 30 years, there has been a further displacement of the African American population of Charleston to its suburbs.59 Since 1990, the black population of Charleston has dropped from 42% to 23%.60 Between 2000 and 2010, the white population of Charleston County increased by 32.7%, whereas its black population decreased by 11.3%.61 Consequently, more white residents are moving into historically black neighborhoods and for the first time in 60 years, the downtown area has become majority white.62 This racial reconfiguration has had political consequences. Between 2000 and 2011, with the redrawing of political constituencies during redistricting, Charleston went from a five black-majority council seats to three.63 After the 2017 election, the number of African American councilmembers dropped from five to four.

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  197 The shifting racial demographics of Charleston are bound to influence the commemorative process, as African American councilmembers have historically been instrumental in seeking recognition of the region’s black heritage. Indeed, the valorization of South Carolina’s black heritage has been the result of the efforts of African Americans.64 Since the 1990s, South Carolina has adopted official measures to valorize African American history and culture. In 1993, the State Assembly created the South Carolina African American Heritage Council (SCAAHC), which was established as a commission in 2001. Among its many goals, the SCAAHC encourages and supports “the listing of African American historic sites in the National Register of Historic Places and the placement of South Carolina Historical Markers to recognize and interpret places important in African American history.”65 In 2006, South Carolina’s African American cultural heritage was given national recognition of its importance. That year, owing to the efforts of the then Democratic House majority whip, James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina African American US Representative, the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor that cuts across the Carolinas, in Georgia and Florida, was designated a National Heritage Area that had to be protected.66 Late efforts by South Carolina to give more visibility to its black heritage and to tackle its troublesome slave past partakes in the national conversation about race that was fostered by the recent surge of racial violence against African Americans. In 2015, Charleston experienced this violence firsthand. In April, video footage surfaced of a North Charleston police officer shooting an unarmed black man, Walter Scott, as he fled. Two months later, the city made international headlines after the killing of “the Emanuel Nine” by a white supremacist. Yet, as well intended as they may be, South Carolina’s initiatives to officially celebrate its black heritage and partially disavow its Confederate past seem to also be motivated by a strategy of improving its image in order to draw more business investments and tourists—notably African American travelers. African Americans travel to South Carolina at a higher rate than to other states and represent 12% of the total share of the Palmetto State’s tourists.67 African American tourists generate $2.4  billion in economic impact for the state.68 South Carolina is seeking to improve these numbers, as African American tourism is one of the fastest-growing segments of the travel sector.69 To do so, in 2016, the SmartState center for Tourism and Economic Development, funded by a $60,000 grant from the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism, conducted a study to identify ways that would develop the African American tourist market. As the Increasing African-American Tourism in South Carolina report showed, the removal of the Confederate flag had a positive influence on prospective visitors’ decision to travel to South Carolina, particularly on African American travelers.70 However, the study also revealed that African American tourists feared more than other racial

198  Lawrence Aje groups to experience racial discrimination during their stay in the state. The report insisted that this concern threatened South Carolina’s “competitiveness . . . to attract more travelers” as well as to “draw large-scale events, and even new businesses.”71 A key finding of the report was that South Carolina had “a poor image, damaged because of racial issues” that needed to be improved, especially for African Americans who felt unwelcome in the state.72 The decision to open an International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston in 2020 is a major step forward in the memorialization process of African American history. The $75-million project, which aims at documenting and celebrating African American history and achievement, is also a means to attract more African American tourists to the city. It will be symbolically placed on Gadsden’s Wharf, the site where nearly 40% of all the imported slaves to the United States were disembarked in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before being sold at auction. The IAAM project is considered to be economically sound as all tourists, regardless of their racial origin, are interested in African American museums.73 Quite interestingly, some of the marketing strategies that respondents to the 2016 study recommended, such as focusing on “coming home” and “telling the true story of African-Americans in South Carolina,” are currently being implemented in Charleston’s plans for tourism development with, for instance, the promotion of genealogy tourism—or roots tourism—as many African Americans can trace their origins to South Carolina.74 The African American Memorial Garden in the IAAM will offer visitors the opportunity to honor and commemorate African ancestors and to “reflect on the historical significance of Gadsden’s Wharf.”75 In the museum’s Genealogy Center for Family History, visitors will have access to state-of-the-art technology to trace their ancestry.76 The IAAM’s international and outward-looking orientation seems to be in congruence with another recommendation of the 2016 report that South Carolina should be part of a larger project of international slaveryrelated tourism. Quite interestingly, in a perfect example of diasporic tourism or some would argue dark tourism, a suggestion was made to develop tours “along the major slave routes—from Western Africa, then via the notorious Middle Passage to the Caribbean where slaves were sold (and raw material purchased), and then on to South Carolina.”77 The authors of the 2016 report believe that African American tourists who currently visit Ghana or take the Barbados Slave Route Heritage Trail and Tour would “be interested in connecting the dots to visit all the key places on the old slave route—perhaps all in one signature trip.”78 In the future, the IAAM’s Memorial Garden is projected to link Charleston to the “growing network of global sites of memory interconnected by the history of slavery and its legacies,” and may become one of the “key places” of the international slave route project.79

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  199 The IAAM project also partakes in a larger communication strategy to polish Charleston’s image in its bid to be recognized as one of the more than one thousand UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This distinction grants special status to places that bear a cultural, historical, scientific, or some other form of significance.80 Such a recognition would provide an increased economic windfall from tourism. Charleston is promoting the following racially inclusive and reconciliatory project: “the story of the infusion of African slaves and European immigrants in the creation of a booming, world-class colonial and antebellum metropolis.”81 In 2016, the city was not able to make it to the tentative list established by the National Park Service, but will reapply during the next selection process in 2026.82 The Charleston World Heritage project will certainly lead to the promotion of the importance of slavery in the region’s history, as one of the areas for improvement in the 2016 application was to demonstrate the actual technology and how African knowledge was transferred to South Carolina by the enslaved.83

5. Celebrating Separate Heritages South Carolina’s, and more specifically Charleston’s, orientation to African American tourism—that is promoting its black heritage to attract tourists and more specifically African American tourists—is a reversal with the past.84 Yet, one of the difficulties the state is faced with is that this form of tourism cannot be promoted in a similar fashion as businesses that cater to niches by offering specific services, such as womenonly floors in hotels, adults-only resorts, or LGBT-friendly destinations. Advertising trips as being “black-friendly” could be commercially very risky or an overt call to a form of touristic racial separatism.85 Quite interestingly, in South Carolina, the growing development of a specific offer for African American tourists paradoxically belies the state’s promotional rhetoric that focuses on racial reconciliation and racial inclusion. Indeed, despite stressing the universal nature of Vesey and his accomplices’ desire for freedom, the monument also sought to offer an “Afro-centric” perspective on South Carolinian history.86 As historians Kytle and Roberts have shown, one instance of the racialization of public historical memory in Charleston is that black heritage guides offer a different vantage point during their tours by emphasizing certain aspects of history rather than others.87 One can only be intrigued as to the form that a business proposal of the African American Tourism Conference to offer black tourists “an African-American styled bed and breakfast” would take.88 In the same vein, the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission recently developed a state-funded app: The Green Book of South Carolina. This free mobile travel guide app allows users to browse locations near them or by category and to locate the approximately 300 African American cultural sites across South Carolina that

200  Lawrence Aje are on the National Register or have a State Historic Marker.89 The app is a modern adaptation of Victor Green’s The Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide series published yearly from 1936 to 1967, during Jim Crow.90 At a time when very few hotels or restaurants accepted to serve African American motorists and tourists, the guide sought to provide vital information to help them plan their travel and their “vacation without aggravation.”91Although the SCAAHC is aware that the days of segregation “are gone,” the choice of the app’s name is interesting in light of the fact that half of prospective African Americans visitors to South Carolina are concerned they may experience racial discrimination during their stay.92 It also raises the question as to whether the app caters specifically to African American tourists or if it targets a larger audience. The second option seems unlikely, as research has shown that non-African Americans are less interested in black heritage attractions than African Americans are.93 Targeting a specific African American niche could also bear consequences on the nature of the public history of slavery that will be offered in the state. In 2018, more than half of the African American total US population lives in Southern states and is more likely to travel in the region, compared to travelers overall. The profile of these tourists may determine the type of African American-related cultural sites and attractions that will be developed.94 If South Carolina takes into account the recommendation of the 2016 report, African American history, and by the same token that of slavery, could be given more visibility. The report recommended the development of restaurants that serve African American cuisine, as well as the creation or promotion of African American themed festivals and events.95 Events such as the Sweetgrass Festival in Mount Pleasant that promotes Gullah culture and heritage, or the annual celebration of the International Day of Remembrance, at Fort Moultrie, Sullivan’s Island, which, for the 21st year in 2018, has paid homage and tribute to the millions of Africans who perished in the Middle Passage, would be given publicity.96 Yet, an interesting finding of the 2016 report is that African Americans, despite being first and foremost interested in African American historical sites, express less interest than non-African Americans in visiting plantations, slave dwellings, or the Gullah Geechee Corridor.97 The complex stance among African American tourists on the question of slavery is likely to create yet another difficulty in terms of how much importance and visibility South Carolina will choose to give to this part of its (difficult) history. Some tourists believe that the state’s history of slavery makes it unappealing as a travel destination, whereas others see it as an asset, given that many African Americans can trace their roots to South Carolina.98 In addition, the fact that the majority of African American visitors to South Carolina come from other Southern states would seem to indicate that they have prior knowledge of the history of

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  201 slavery in their state of origin and may be interested in other (black) cultural attractions. The loss of African American constituencies and political leadership in Charleston, added to the constraint of improving South Carolina’s damaged image, are likely to have an impact on the nature and importance of the memorial narrative of slavery in the public space. With a focus on tourists and the fact that today, out-of-state newcomers represent a little under half of the total population of Charleston, the memorialization of slavery might be, just as in the past, fashioned by an outward and reconciliatory perspective that tends to minimize the horrors of the “peculiar institution.”99 Promoters of African American tourism to South Carolina and the valorization of the state’s black history stress the economic benefits the industry would have for the local black community. They claim it would provide job opportunities as well as rejuvenate economically depressed neighborhoods where some historic African American sites are located. By the same token, and quite opportunistically, it would address tourists’ negative perception that Blacks do not benefit from the tourism industry.100 Yet, skeptics such as Dot Scott, the leader of the Charleston branch of the NAACP, have expressed concern that the profits generated by black tourists may, ultimately, not benefit the local African American community, as in the past, several black-owned businesses had to close as a result of the rise in property value generated by tourism.101

6. Exposing the Slave Past as a Way Forward? There are numerous barriers laying ahead on the path to a pacified and racially reconciled commemorative landscape in South Carolina. First and foremost is the 2000 South Carolina Heritage Act. This piece of legislation has, for instance, recently prohibited the Military College of South Carolina, the Citadel, from removing the Confederate flag from its chapel despite its wish to do so.102 In a similar fashion, in August 2017, Charleston Mayor Tecklenburg justified his opposition to the removal of the city’s Confederate monuments on the grounds that it would be made difficult due to the Heritage Act.103 Tecklenburg, however, proposed a series of recommendations such as erecting more monuments to honor African American history and to add plaques with explanatory information to Confederate-related monuments, public places, parks, or buildings as the City’s History Commission and City Council would see fit.104 The mayor responded to calls by activists to remove the Marion Square Calhoun statue by asking the History Commission to propose a less than 300-word text for a plaque that would aid to contextualize the monument. After protracted and “spirited” debates, the interracial commission proposed a compromise text that both condemned and praised Calhoun at the same time.105 On January  9, 2018, owing to diverging opinions among councilmembers—with African American

202  Lawrence Aje councilmembers unanimously against the plaque and some calling for the removal of the statue—the vote on the draft was deferred.106 Although the vote on the Calhoun plaque seems to have been tabled indefinitely, Charleston City Council is proposing initiatives as well as endorsing several privately funded projects that all aim at giving more visibility to African American history in an attempt “to tell the full story.”107 For instance, QR code technology has been used since May 2018 to bring to life African American historical figures by making historic markers and statues speak, signage will be added to help people find the Denmark Vesey statue in Hampton Park, and an online interactive map will be created to take users on a trail with sites of historic relevance to African American history.108 The majority of these initiatives adopt a social justice approach as exemplified by the Charleston Justice Journey project, which hopes its interactive map “will help define Charleston as a city that learns from a fully-told past to build a better and more just future.”109 On June 19, 2018, Charleston City Council voted 7–5 in favor of a resolution recognizing, denouncing and apologizing on behalf of the city of Charleston for the city’s role in regulating, supporting and fostering slavery and the resulting atrocities inflicted by the institution of slavery and further, committing to continue to pursue initiatives that honor the contributions of those who were enslaved and that assist in ameliorating remaining vestiges of slavery.110 The two-page resolution, which was proposed by African American Councilmember William Dudley Gregorie, formally apologized “for the wrongs committed against African Americans by the institution of slavery and Jim Crow” and made a “commitment . . . to eliminate prejudice, injustice and discrimination” in Charleston.111 Among several initiatives, the resolution pledged to address the quality of education for children and to create an “office of racial reconciliation . . . to assist in the everpresent process of racial healing and transformation.”112 Critics of the Charleston City apology have qualified it as a symbolic and superficial measure that fails to address deep structural racial inequalities that still plague the US today.113 As early as 2015, in the wake of the AME shooting, the SCAAHC denounced the lingering racial disparities in income, employment, education, and health between Whites and Blacks in South Carolina.114 In 2017, The State of Racial Disparities in Charleston County, South Carolina 2000–2015 report, written by Stacey Patton, confirmed the long-lasting economic chasm between black and white residents in Charleston County.115 Patton reacted to the city’s apology by ironizing on the fact that “[m]ore than $25 million has been invested in a forthcoming African American museum, now that actual

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  203 black people have been almost completely pushed out of Charleston’s historic core.” Patton also regretted that, since the release of the 2017 80-page report documenting the state of racial disparities in Charleston County, there has been a lot of lip service but no measurable action  .  .  . to reverse centuries-old systems of power that have perpetually prevented most black residents from attaining the wealth and opportunities of their white counterparts, despite the fact that their enslaved ancestors built the city.116

Conclusion Although South Carolina tentatively initiated the process of removing Confederate symbols from its public space in 2015, every May 10th the state still observes Confederate Memorial Day, a public paid holiday, to honor the Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War. South Carolina can also boast of being one of the few states to still have a standing monument honoring its “faithful slaves” in Fort Mill. Yet, the recent trend in memorialization in South Carolina, and more specifically in Charleston, has sought to exhume and display a silenced and sometimes difficult history in order to cathartically and symbolically make atonement for a shameful and sinful past. In so doing, it is hoped that the state’s deeply polarized racial past, the consequences of which are still being felt today, will be addressed. The July 2015 removal and displacement of the Confederate flag to the Confederate Relic Museum can, to some extent, be compared to Vesey’s de-centering to the margins of the city. In both cases, the relegation to the margins signals a will to remove from central display divisive symbols and to lay emphasis on symbols of reunion and reconciliation.117 Yet, the Vesey statue could paradoxically mark the starting point for more radical commemorative claims.118 Symbolic reparations could be the driving wedge that may pave the way for other forms of compensation, thereby fueling debates about concrete economic empowerment or monetary reparations, as some of the citizens who participated in the Charleston City Council debates on the apology for slavery adamantly demanded.119 In Multidirectional Memories, Michael Rothberg pertinently asks, “[w] hat happens when different histories confront each other in the public sphere? Does the remembrance of one history erase others from view?”120 The commemorative landscape in Charleston does not provide enough material memorial confrontation to allow us to answer to this question yet. However, the recent calls to balance the narrative by creating new African American history related monuments without removing the Confederaterelated ones will inevitably offer a commemorative landscape that honors a separate heritage articulated along polarized racial lines.

204  Lawrence Aje

Notes 1. Prince, 47. 2. Groups such as the United Confederate Veterans, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Letter of Charles Condon; Brown, Civil War; Webster and Leib, 31; Whose Heritage? (2016 report), 14–15. 3. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) launched the effort to catalog and map Confederate place names and other symbols in public spaces, both in the South and across the nation. The center admits that its study is “far from comprehensive.” In its 2016 report, the SPLC had identified 112 symbols in South Carolina. “Whose Heritage?” (updated report); Whose Heritage? (2016 report) 7; 9. 4. Mellnik. 5. Ibid. 6. “The Stono Rebellion (1739).” 7. “Bench by the Road Project.” 8. “National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina.” 9. Call & Response, Spring 2016, 3. 10. On the question of tourism and slavery in Charleston see, Yuhl 157–88; Brundage, especially chapter 5 “Exhibiting Southernness in a New Century”; Blain and Roberts “Looking the Thing” (2012) and (2018); Mellnik. 11. Yuhl, 6–9; Brundage, 221. 12. Brundage, 221 ; Estes, 60; Patton, 5. 13. Darlington, “Charleston named No. 1.” 14. For an official account of the conspiracy, see Negro Plot; An Official Report of the Trials. For a detailed study of the conspiracy and the trials, see Egerton, chapters 6 to 8. 15. An Official Report, 25, 41. 16. Ibid., 47, 183–88; Negro Plot, 46; Wade, 145–47. 17. Negro Plot, 28–29; An Official Report, 22–23; 40. 18. See Egerton, “Abolitionist”; Hunter, “Denmark.” 19. “Denmark Vesey House, Charleston County.” 20. “City to unveil portrait.” 21. “Vesey Painting Missing”; “Vesey Painting Is Returned”; Blain and Roberts “Looking the Thing” 676–77; Dykens, 74. 22. “Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Marker.” 23. For a detailed explanation of the history of the installation, see Dykens, chapter 6, “Ronald Jones Sculpture at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church.” 24. Dykens, 99. 25. Emerson, 82. 26. Hainer; Botsch, “Confederate Flag.” 27. Hainer. 28. Upton, 176, 198–99; H 4895 — General Bill. 29. Bauerlein, “Granite,” A18. 30. Ibid, A1. 31. Ibid., A18. 32. Ibid. 33. “Monument draws rave reviews,” A8. 34. Bauerlein, “Granite,” A18. 35. Ibid. 36. “We don’t need another separatist flag.” 37. On the 1994 and 1996 Heritage Acts, see Upton, 176, and Emerson, 81–82. On the question of how “depersonalized” memorials commemorating slavery foster little resistance, see Kytle and Roberts “Looking the Thing,” 684.

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  205 38. Avery, 7. 39. To make matters worse, during the early stage of the project, a historiographical controversy broke out that questioned the very existence of the plot and presented it as a miscarriage of justice. For a balanced summary of the historiographical controversy and the interpretative complexity of the plot, see Peter Charles Hoffer’s introduction to Lofton’s Denmark Vesey’s Revolt (2013), vii–xxii. 40. For a detailed history of the Denmark Vesey Monument, see Dykens and Kytle and Roberts “Looking the Thing,” 677–84 and Denmark, 331–36; Henry E. Darby, Dykens, 142. 41. Ed Dwight became the major contributor to the monument. Part of the funding also came from accommodation taxes, and $65,000 came from the City Council; Avery, 2, 7. 42. On African-American monuments as projects of uplift, see Upton, 22–23, 94, 196. 43. Avery, 7. 44. The plaque indicates that “[h]is resolve demonstrates the timeless universality of men and women’s desire for freedom and justice, irrespective of race, creed, condition, or color.” 45. Brown, Civil War, 90. 46. Blain and Roberts, “Looking the Thing,” 683. 47. Ibid., 677–78. 48. Dykens, 141. 49. In the 1870s, the graves were moved to Beaufort National Cemetery. “First Memorial Day”; Blain and Roberts “Looking the Thing,” 646–54. 50. Avery, 8. 51. Henry E. Darby interview, Dykens, 142. 52. Gallas and Perry, 27. On African-Americans who are sometimes reluctant to confront Charleston’s difficult past, see Kytle and Roberts, Denmark, 313. 53. Avery, 2. 54. Estes, 49, 52, 54. 55. Ibid., 52; Fraser, 428. 56. In 1975, Riley was elected by carrying 75% of the black vote. According to Estes, Riley “owed a debt to the Civil Rights Movement and to the biracial political coalition that swept him into office” (54). Estes, 46–49, 52–56; Kytle and Roberts “Looking the Things,” 676, Fraser, 428–29. 57. Henry E. Darby interview, Dykens, 147. On the role of African-American politicians in the State Assembly in the Confederate flag debates, see Emerson, 81. 58. Estes, 50–55; Weyeneth, 276. For more information on the relationship between historic preservation and a racialized approach to housing policy in Charleston, see Yuhl, 46–47. 59. Slade, “Racial Shift”; Patton, 4, 32–33. 60. “In Charleston, S.C.” 61. “Population of Charleston County.” 62. Patton, 32. 63. Slade, “Racial Shift”; “Fewer black-majority.” 64. For a historical analysis of the question in Charleston until the early 2010s, see Kytle and Roberts, Denmark. 65. H3298 Concurrent Resolution. 66. “S. 203–109th Congress.” Gullah generally refers to the sea islanders in South Carolina, whereas Georgia sea islanders are referred to as Geechee. 67. “Q&A with Simon Hudson.” 68. “About.” African American Tourism Conference. 69. Munday, “S.C. tourism industry”; “Increasing,” 5. 70. “Increasing,” 1.

206  Lawrence Aje 71. Ibid., 8, 16, 21, 29. 72. Ibid., 9. 73. Ibid., 29. 74. Ibid., 11, 29. 75. “Inside the Museum,” 49. 76. Ibid., 19, 22, 27, 44. 77. The report lauds the success of the Barbados Slave Route Heritage Trail and Tour as well as the increased interests of African American tourists. “Increasing African-American,” 31. 78. Ibid., 31. 79. “Inside the Museum,” 49. 80. To be included on the World Heritage List, “sites must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of ten selection criteria.” “The Criteria for Selection.” (UNESCO); Behre, “Charleston World Heritage.” 81. “Project.” (Charleston World Heritage). 82. Behre, “Charleston”; “Project.” (Charleston World Heritage). 83. Behre, “Charleston.” 84. For examples of other Southern states, such as Alabama or Louisiana, that are trying to profit from the financial boon offered by a rapidly expanding African-American tourism market, see Holloway, 200–4 or Eskew. 85. “Increasing,” 8. 86. Henry E. Darby interview, Dykens, 149. 87. Ibid., 149; Blain and Roberts, Denmark, 308. 88. “About.” African American Tourism Conference. 89. “The Green Book of South Carolina.” 90. The title was changed to the Negro Travelers’ Green Book after 1952. 91. Travelers’ Green Book, cover and page 2. 92. Call & Response (2017, 1); “Increasing” 16. 93. “Increasing,” 15, 17. 94. On the share of African American Southerners traveling in the South, see “About,” African American Tourism Conference. 95. “Increasing,” 29. 96. “About.” African American Tourism Conference; “The 21st Annual Charleston Middle Passage.” 97. “Increasing,” 15, 17, 19–21. 98. Ibid., 9. 99. Out-of-state newcomers represented 38% of the city’s total population in 2000 and increased to 44% in 2013. Patton, 32. 100. “Increasing,” 31. Today, some efforts are made to hire African Americans in the black heritage industry. For instance, The Old Slave Mart states that it seeks to employ a majority of staff who can trace their history to Charleston slaves. “Old Slave Mart Museum.” 101. Munday, “S.C. tourism industry.” 102. Knich and Munday. 103. Mayor Tecklenburg Presents Plan; CCCM, January 9, 2018. 104. Mayor Tecklenburg Presents Plan. Darlington, “Charleston mayor.” 105. According to the chairman of the Commission, Harlan Greene. CCCM, January 9, 2018. 106. CCCM, January 23, 2018; Darlington, “Vote.” 107. CCCM, January 9, 2018. 108. Ibid; CCCM, May 8, 2018; Behre, “Audio-guided.” 109. CCCM, January 9, 2018. 110. In so doing, Charleston was imitating a few other city councils or mayors and nine states so far that have issued formal apologies. “Debate emerges around Charleston’s apology.”

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  207 111. Darlington, “Why Charleston’s slavery”; “Vote on Charleston’s slavery apology.” 112. Resolution. The resolution was symbolically adopted on Juneteenth and three years after the Emanuel Church shooting. 113. “Debate emerges.” 114. Call & Response (2015, 10). 115. The study was made with recommendations developed by the Race and Social Justice Initiative, an organization founded in 2015 thanks to a major grant from Google in response to the tragedy at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. 116. Patton, “Charleston’s apology”; The State of Racial Disparities. 117. On the growing distancing by Southern authorities and the public in general to Confederate symbols’ intimate link to slavery and white supremacy, see Janney, 310. 118. In 2015, Henry E. Darby, one of the co-founders of the Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee, was confident that “if the Charleston community could erect a monument on Vesey, the Hampton community in Virginia and the Chicago community in Illinois could use our experience as an example to erect a monument on Nat Turner and Fred Hampton, respectively.” Avery, 8. 119. CCCM, June 19, 2018. 120. Rothberg, 2.

Bibliography Abbreviations CCCM: City of Charleston Council Meeting.

Primary Sources H.3298 — Concurrent Resolution. January 1, 2007, Session 117 (2007–2008). Accessed August 16, 2018. www.scstatehouse.gov/query.php?search=DOC& searchtext=mission%25&category=LEGISLATION&session=0&conid= 6897895&result_pos=950&keyval=117329&numrows=50. H.4895 — General Bill. Session 113 — (1999–2000). Accessed August 16, 2018. www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=4895&session=113&sum mary=B. Kennedy, Lionel H., and Parker, Thomas. An Official Report of the Trials of Sundry Negroes, Charged with an Attempt to Raise an Insurrection in the State of SouthCarolina: Preceded by an Introduction and Narrative: And, in an Appendix, a Report of the Trials of Four White Persons on Indictments for Attempting to Excite the Slaves to Insurrection. Charleston: James R. Schenck, 1822. Letter of Charles Condon, Attorney General, to Charles R. Sharpe, Representative of South Carolina, July 18, 2001. Accessed August 16, 2018. www.scag.gov/ wp-content/uploads/2013/11/01feb-2-sharpe.pdf. Mayor Tecklenburg Presents Plan for Monuments to Commission on History, August 30, 2017. Negro Plot: An Account of the Late Intended Insurrection Among a Portion of the Blacks of the City of Charleston, South Carolina. Boston: Printed and published by J.W. Ingraham, 1822.

208  Lawrence Aje “Resolution Recognizing, Denouncing and Apologizing on behalf of the City of Charleston for the City’s Role in Regulating, Supporting and Fostering Slavery and the Resulting Atrocities Inflicted by the Institution of Slavery and further, Committing to Continue to Pursue Initiatives that Honor the Contributions of those who were Enslaved and that Assist in Ameliorating Remaining Vestiges of Slavery.” Accessed September  3, 2018. https://thesophiainstitute. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Final-Draft-Slavery-Resolution-pdf-version6.15.2018-1-pm.pdf. “S. 203–109th Congress: National Heritage Areas Act of 2006.” December 30, 2016. Accessed August 16, 2018. www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/s203. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, “Denmark Vesey House, Charleston County.” Nomination form. Accessed August  30, 2018. www. nationalregister.sc.gov/charleston/S10817710094/index.htm. Travelers’ Green Book: 1963–64, International Edition. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed August  8, 2018. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/666fe28082ee-0132-31f3-58d385a7bbd0.

Secondary Sources Botsch, Carol Sears. “The African-American Monument.” Non dated. Last updated January 7, 2002. Accessed August 16, 2018. http://polisci.usca.edu/ aasc/African-AmericanMonument.htm. ———. “The Confederate Flag.” Non dated. Last updated January  7, 2002. Accessed August 16, 2018. http://polisci.usca.edu/aasc/Flag.htm. Brown, Thomas J. Civil War Canon: Sites of Confederate Memory in South Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005. Dykens, Sarah Katherine. “Commemoration and Controversy: The Memorialization of Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina.” Master’s Thesis, Clemson University, 2015. Egerton, Douglas R. He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Egerton, Douglas R., and Robert L. Paquette. The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017. Emerson, Eric. “Commemoration, Conflict and Constraints: The Saga of the Confederate Flag at the South Carolina State House.” In Interpreting the Civil War at Museums and Historic Sites, edited by Kevin M. Levin, 77–92. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Eskew, Glenn T. “From Civil War to Civil Rights: Selling Alabama as Heritage Tourism.” In Slavery, Contested Heritage, and Thanatourism, edited by Graham M. S. Dann and A. V. Seaton, 201–14. New York: Routledge, 2001. Estes, Steve. Charleston in Black and White: Race and Power in the South After the Civil Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Fraser, Walter J. Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989.

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  209 Gallas, Kris, and James DeWolf Perry. Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015. Holloway, Jonathan Scott. Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Janney, Caroline E. Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Johnson, Michael P. “Denmark Vesey and His Co—Conspirators.” William and Mary Quarterly 58 (October 2001): 915–76. Kytle, Ethan, and Blain Roberts. Denmark Vesey’s Garden. New York and London: The New Press, 2018. ———. “Looking the Things in the Face: Slavery, Race, and the Commemorative Landscape in Charleston, South Carolina, 1865–2010.” Journal of Southern History 78, no. 3 (August 2012): 639–84. Prince, Michael K. Rally ’Round the Flag, Boys! South Carolina and the Confederate Flag. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. “Q&A with Simon Hudson, Smartstate Endowed Chair for Tourism and Economic Development.” Breakthrough Research Magazine (Spring 2017): 14–15. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Upton, Dell. What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South/Dell Upton. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. U.S. Census. 1990 Census of Population. General population Characteristics. South Carolina. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992. Webster, Gerald R., and Jonathan I. Leib. “Religion, Murder, and the Confederate Battle Flag in South Carolina.” Southeastern Geographer 56, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 29–37. Weyeneth, Robert R. “Ancestral Architecture.” In Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States, edited by Max Page and Randall Mason, 257–81. New York: Routledge, 2004. Yuhl, Stephanie E. A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Newspaper Articles Alani, Hannah, and Abigail Darlington. “Debate Emerges Around Charleston’s Apology for Slavery: Too Much or Not Enough?” The Post and Courier, June  18, 2018. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/debate-emerges-aroundcharleston-s-apology-for-slavery-too-much/article_99b2d1ac-7319–11e8– 9b4e-8b9569df6fdb.html/. Bauerlein, Valerie. “Granite, bronze and triumph.” The State Newspaper, March 25, 2001, A1, A18. ———. “History Embraced.” The State Newspaper, March 30, 2001, A1, 12. Behre, Robert. “Audio-Guided Smartphone Experience Gives Voice to Charleston’s Iconic Statues.” The Post and Courier, May  24, 2018. https://www. postandcourier.com/news/audio-guided-smartphone-experience-gives-voiceto-charleston-s-iconic/article_5561a536-5f60–11e8–9a7bff7ee553f53e.html/.

210  Lawrence Aje ———. “Charleston World Heritage Effort Picking Itself Up, Dusting Itself Off, Vows to Be Ready for 2026.” Post and Courier, March 25, 2017. https://www. postandcourier.com/charleston_sc/charleston-world-heritage-effort-pickingitself-up-dusting-itself-off/article_68964906-09c4-11e7-b39c13497a82971c.html/. ———. “City to Unveil Portrait of Rebel Slave Leader.” Charleston News and Courier, August 3, 1976, 3-A. Crumbo, Chuck. “African American Monument Awes, Overwhelms Lunchtime Visitors.” The State Newspaper, March 25, 2001, B1, B5. ———. “Monument Draws Rave Reviews from Crowds.” The State Newspaper, March 31, 2001, A1–A8. Darlington, Abigail. “Charleston Mayor Calls for African-American Monument, Plaque at Calhoun Statue.” Post and Courier, August 30, 2017. https://www.post andcourier.com/news/charleston-mayor-calls-for-african-american-monumentplaque-at-calhoun/article_3fb059d6-8da0–11e7-b2ef-7fcd1bfa84c1.html/. ———. “Charleston Named No. 1 U.S. Tourist Destination for Fourth Year; No. 2 in World.” Post and Courier, October 19, 2014. https://www.postand courier.com/business/charleston-named-no-u-s-tourist-destination-for-fourthyear/article_59992a5b-ce5b-57ae-8537–2492aaf053a8.html/. ———. “Vote on Charleston’s Slavery Apology Reveals Just How Divided City Council Is on Race.” Post and Courier, June 20, 2018. https://www.postand courier.com/news/vote-on-charleston-s-slavery-apology-reveals-just-howdivided/article_5da980ca-7495-11e8-9121-5f5205e211b3.html/. ———. “Why Charleston’s Slavery Apology Barely Passed City Council.” Post and Courier, June  24, 2018. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/whycharleston-s-slavery-apology-barely-passed-city-council/article_c52aa6267561-11e8-9391-3b03a8ca2ac3.html/. Egerton, Douglas R. “Abolitionist or Terrorist?” The New York Times, February 25, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/opinion/abolitionist-orterrorist.html/. Hainer, Robert. “House Votes to Take Down Flag.” The Herald-Journal, May 11, 2000, 1A. Hicks, Brian. “The First Memorial Day.” The Post and Courier, May 23, 2009. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/the-first-memorial-day/article_ ba50dcb3-d261-5306-b771-1fce87a27f26.html/. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. “The Story of Denmark Vesey.” The Atlantic, June  1861 issue. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1861/06/ denmark-vesey/396239/. Hunter, Jack. “Denmark Vesey Was a Terrorist.” Charleston City Paper, February 10, 2010. https://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/denmark-vesey-was-aterrorist/Content?oid=1756179/. Isaac, Bobby. “Vesey Painting Missing from Auditorium.” The News and Courier, September 19, 1976, 1A-7C. Knich, Diane, and Dave Munday. “City Faces Continued Controversy Over Confederate Naval Jack on Citadel Campus.” Post and Courier, March 7, 2016. https:// www.postandcourier.com/archives/city-faces-continued-controversy-over-confe derate-naval-jack-on-citadel/article_18dff030-80b6–56ff-8f8a-3c09455527c0. html/. Mellnik, Ted. “The Remarkable History of Charleston’s Racial Divide, as Told by the City’s Silent Statues.” The Washington Post, June 24, 2015. https://www.

Memorial Equality in Charleston, SC  211 washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/24/the-remarkable-history-ofcharlestons-racial-divide-as-told-by-the-citys-silentstatues/?noredirect=on& utm_term=.19278c686150/. Munday, Dave. “S.C. Tourism Industry Is Working to Draw More Black Visitors.” Post and Courier, November 27, 2016. https://www.postandcourier.com/ business/s-c-tourism-industry-working-to-draw-more-black-visitors/article_be 56a2d6-956c-11e6-978d-6b4f9ae13e42.html/. Patton, Stacey. “Charleston’s Apology for Slavery Is Just Empty Symbolism.” The Washington Post, June 25, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ posteverything/wp/2018/06/25/charlestons-apology-for-slavery-is-just-emptysymbolism/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.94e10781f24b/. Parker, Adam. “Interactive Map in Works to Tell Broader Story of African-American History in Charleston.” Post and Courier, January 27, 2018. https://www. postandcourier.com/features/interactive-map-in-works-to-tell- broader-story-ofafrican/article_70176efc-0127-11e8-b125-f70c530c67dc.html/. Slade, David. “Fewer Black-Majority Districts in City.” Post and Courier, April 13, 2011. https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/fewer-black-majoritydistricts-in-city/article_03c39fe7-93cf-588a-b735-50f69f1dc245.html/. ———. “Racial Shift: Charleston Peninsula’s Makeup Reverses in 30 Years, with Blacks Leaving for Suburbs, Area Becoming Two-Thirds White.” Post and Courier, March  28, 2011. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/racial-shiftcharleston-peninsula-s-makeup-reverses-in-years-with/article_69581977-ef005f6c-b969-edb7104344bb.html/. “Vesey Painting Is Returned to City Auditorium.” The News and Courier, October 6, 1976, 5A. Wang, Hansi Lo. “In Charleston, S.C., Racial Lines Redraw a Neighborhood.” June 25, 2015. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/06/25/417516367/incharleston-s-c-racial-lines-redraw-a-neighborhood/. “We Don’t Need Another Separatist Flag at Capitol.” The State Newspaper, March 13, 2001, A8.

Newsletters Avery Messenger (Summer 2014). Call & Response X, no. 1 (Fall 2015): 1–13. Call & Response XII, no. 5 (Spring 2017): 1–18.

Reports and Studies Hudson, Simon, Hudson, Louise, Cárdenas, David, Meng, Fang, and Kevin Kam Fung So. Increasing African-American Tourism in South Carolina, 2016. https://jc-associates.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/African_American_ tourism_report_allPages-2.pdf/. Patton, Stacey. The State of Racial Disparities in Charleston County, South Carolina 2000–2015, 2017. http://rsji.cofc.edu/resources/disparities-report/. Southern Poverty Law Center. “Whose Heritage” (updated report). https://www. splcenter.org/20180604/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#findings/. ———. “Whose Heritage” (2016 report). https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/ files/com_whose_heritage.pdf/.

212  Lawrence Aje Websites African-American Tourism Conference. “About.” Accessed August  16, 2018. https://scaat.us/about//. “Bench by the Road Project.” Accessed August 16, 2018. https://www.tonimorri sonsociety.org/bench.html. Census Viewer. “Population of Charleston County, South Carolina: Census 2010 and 2000 Interactive Map, Demographics, Statistics, Quick Facts.” Accessed August 16, 2018. http://censusviewer.com/. Charleston Justice Journey. “About.” Accessed August 16, 2018. http://charles tonjusticejourney.org/about/. Charleston Middle Passage Remembrance. “The 21st Annual Charleston Middle Passage.” Accessed August  20, 2018. https://asalh.org/the-charleston-remem brance-program/. Charleston World Heritage Project. “Project.” Accessed August 16, 2018. www. charlestonworldheritage.org/project/#project/. City of Charleston Council Meeting (CCCM). Accessed August 16, 2018: ———. January 9, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JetDaLbRUVQ/. ———. January  23, 2018, part I. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GyZr 6BAbo/. ———. May 8, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXi66wMXfHA/. ———. June 19, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vman6fk8GA/. “The Green Book of South Carolina.” Accessed August 8, 2018. https://greenbookofsc.com/. Historical Marker Database. Accessed August 16, 2018: ———. “Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Marker.” https://www. hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=52010/. ———. “Robert Smalls.” https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=94744/. ———. “The Stono Rebellion (1739).” https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker= 14855/. International African American Museum. “Inside the Museum.” Accessed August 16, 2018. https://iaamuseum.org/about/inside-the-museum/. National Historic Landmarks Program. “National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina.” Accessed August 20, 2018. www.nps.gov/nhl/find/statelists/sc.htm/. Old Slave Mart Museum. “Old Slave Mart Museum.” Accessed August 16, 2018. www.oldslavemartmuseum.com/. Unesco. “The Criteria for Selection.” Accessed August  16, 2018. http://whc. unesco.org/en/criteria/.

Part III

Artistic Memories of Slavery

13 The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape of Alexandria, Virginia Renée Ater

Founded in 1749, Alexandria, Virginia, began as a tobacco trading post that later transformed into one of the busiest port towns on the Atlantic seaboard. During the colonial and antebellum periods, the town served as a key slave-trading center. Isaac Franklin and John Armfield ran the infamous Franklin and Armfield Slave Pen at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, one of the largest slave-trading firms in the United States. Other slave traders operated in the city, including Joseph Bruin who ran the Bruin Slave Jail at 1707 Duke Street. Enslaved persons sold for profit or to pay off debts passed through the city on the way to the Deep South, often transported by boat to the slave markets in New Orleans and Natchez or by overland coffles, marched out of the city to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Up until the American Civil War, free blacks—who had lived in the city since the 1790s—worked alongside enslaved persons in Alexandria. At the beginning of the Civil War, the slave trade in the city ceased when the Union Army occupied the city in May 1861, making it a central supply center and creating temporary medical facilities for wounded soldiers. Soon after the occupation, African American refugees flooded into the Union-controlled city. This complex history is now memorialized in the urban landscape of Alexandria.1 Because Alexandria was not destroyed like other Southern cities during the Civil War and because residents became interested in the city’s colonial history in the 1930s and then mounted an intensive preservation push in the late 1960s, Alexandria’s colonial and antebellum history is represented through a rich array of historical markers, monuments, museums, and archaeological sites.2 This chapter considers two recent monuments to the memory of slavery in Alexandria: Edmonson Sisters Memorial (2010) (Figure 13.1) and Path of Thorns and Roses (2013) (Figure 13.2), part of the Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial. The artists, Erik Blome and Mario Chiodo, respectively, created two very different representations of slavery and the black body. Blome’s Edmonson Sisters Memorial focuses on the fully clothed bodies of Mary Edmondson (1832–1853) and Emily Edmonson (1835–1895), emphasizing the sisters

216  Renée Ater as upstanding and demure, rightfully freed from bondage. In contrast, Chiodo in Path of Thorns and Roses modeled the semi-clothed bodies of enslaved men and women as abject and atavistic. Framed as allegories of Oppression, Struggle, Loss, Sacrifice, Compassion, and Hope, the enfolded bronze bodies suggest the sorrow of slavery as the monument spirals upward with the promise of hope high above. The artist realized a linear progressive narrative in bronze, the longue durée of the African American freedom struggle. These two memorials to slavery point to the difficulties contemporary artists continue to face in visualizing the historical enslaved body in three-dimensional form and in rendering it with sensitivity in public space. In the United States, three-dimensional representations of the black body have functioned traditionally as stereotype or ethnographic type, such as the seminude muscular enslaved male on Thomas Ball’s Freedmen’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. (1876) and the bare-breasted black woman as Africa included in Daniel Chester French’s Four Continents for the US Custom House in New York City (1907). Huey Copeland and Krista Thompson point to “the inherent difficulties involved in crafting a visual language capable of representing slavery.”3 They also maintain that “material traces and visual representations of slavery not only give a particular shape to the past, but also actively produce it in the present.”4 In this chapter, I contend that the Edmonson Sisters Memorial and Path of Thorns and Roses reveal some of the complexities of creating a visual language of slavery in threedimensional form. I  argue that the two monuments also give shape to and produce two different histories of the slave past for contemporary audiences in Alexandria. The Edmonson Sisters Memorial underscores the heroic story of the Edmonson sisters’ fight for freedom during the antebellum period. Path of Thorns and Roses presents an allegory of the anguish of the slave experience in the context of death and a cemetery. In the case of the Edmonson Sisters Memorial and Path of Thorns and Roses, I propose that neither monument can truly convey the “terrible spectacle” of slavery, the violence and subjugation, only suggest it.5

1. Escape on The Pearl The Edmonson Sisters Memorial is located at the historic site of Bruin’s Slave Jail and a modern-day office building, 1701 Duke Street, in Alexandria. The memorial commemorates Mary and Emily Edmonson and their quest for freedom on board The Pearl; after their failed escape attempt, the two teenage girls were imprisoned at the notorious slave pen. Harriet Beecher Stowe famously told their story in her source book, A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853). Fifteen and thirteen at the time, Mary and Emily were two of 14 children of Paul and Amelia “Milly” Edmonson. Their father was a freeman and their mother a slave. Together they built

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  217 a home and life in Montgomery County, Maryland. Because of Milly’s enslaved status, US law considered the teenage girls to be slaves. At the time of Mary and Emily’s escape attempt, their owner hired out the girls as domestics to two prominent families in Washington, D.C.6 Along with their four older brothers and 71 other fugitive slaves, Mary and Emily attempted to flee on board the schooner The Pearl, on the evening of April 15, 1848. The original plan was to aid seven slaves so that they could escape from Washington, D.C., but once word spread in the enslaved and free black communities in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, many more joined. The Pearl anchored along a secluded area of the Seventh Street wharf, in present-day Southwest Washington. Quickly boarding the fugitives as they arrived in pairs and small groups that dark evening, the captain of the ship, Edward Sayres, planned to sail south on the Potomac River to the Chesapeake Bay, then up the bay to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, with freedom waiting in New Jersey. Daniel Drayton, a bay trader, worked with abolitionists and paid Sayres to transport the group to freedom.7 Unfortunately for the 77 men, women, and children on board The Pearl, inclement weather prevailed and news of the escaped slaves quickly spread among slave owners and residents of Washington, D.C. The next morning, a steamer, the Salem, debarked from Georgetown with a posse of 30 white men including a magistrate and owners, with plans to recapture the fugitives. Forced to take shelter overnight in the waters of a creek near Point Lookout, Maryland, The Pearl was overtaken by the Salem. Boarding the schooner, the magistrate moved Sayres and Drayton to the Salem for questioning, and towed The Pearl back to Washington, D.C., on April 18. All 77 people on board were initially imprisoned at the D.C. jail. For three days, riots rocked Washington, with a mob of white men and boys threatening the lives of Sayres, Drayton, and the prisoners and destroying the offices of the recently opened National Era, an abolitionist newspaper. By the end of the week, Hope Slatter, a Baltimore slave trader, purchased 50 of The Pearl fugitives and transported them via Baltimore to the slave market in New Orleans.8 Before Paul Edmonson could raise monies to purchase the freedom of his children, Joseph Bruin purchased the four brothers and two sisters for $4,500 and imprisoned them at his slave pen in Alexandria. Shortly thereafter, Bruin transferred the siblings to Baltimore and put them on board a ship to New Orleans with the intention of selling the brothers to cotton plantation owners and Mary and Emily into sexual slavery as “fancy girls.” Within three weeks of their arrival, a yellow fever epidemic coursed through the city and Bruin had the sisters transported back to Alexandria to protect his “investment,” along with their brother Richard. A grandson of John Jacob Astor donated enough money to purchase the freedom of one brother. Stowe wrote that Richard’s wife and children suffered greatly in his absence and needed his income for survival.

218  Renée Ater Because of this, his father decided that Richard should be purchased and given freedom first.9 Unfortunately, the other three brothers were sold into bondage in Louisiana. In Alexandria, Bruin hired out the sisters as domestic laborers and set their price at $2,250 for their release. Through the unrelenting efforts of their father, the two sisters became a cause célèbre, with the Congregationalist preacher and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher and members of Methodist churches across New York City raising the funds to purchase the young women’s freedom. On November 4, 1848, Mary and Emily Edmonson were emancipated.10

2. Edmonson Sisters Memorial In 2007, Carr Properties, a Washington, D.C.-based development company, commissioned the Edmonson Sisters Memorial as part of a fivestory office project built behind the Bruin Slave Jail. Carr hired the Louis Berger Group to conduct an archaeological investigation and historical study to better understand the lives of those imprisoned at the Bruin Slave Jail and to gather more information about the Edmonson sisters.11 Simultaneously with the study, Carr planned and paid for the memorial in order “to emphasize the site’s history instead of ignoring it, particularly once officials realized that many people were unfamiliar with the Edmonsons’ story.”12 Carr, city planners, residents, and civil rights activists met to determine what the memorial should look like. In 2008, Carr and the city selected Chicago-based artist Erik Blome, who was known for his monuments of African Americans, including memorials to George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. Dedicated on June  25, 2010, Blome modeled the 10-foot-high cast bronze sculpture of Mary and Emily Edmonson, relying on Stowe’s A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and other sources for historical information.13 Edmonson Sisters Memorial consists of two full-length portrait sculptures of the teenage girls emerging from a large bronze boulder, which according to Blome “represents the darkness of slavery.”14 Mary, the older sibling, is slightly taller and in command, gesturing forward with her left hand. Basing his statue on one of the only historic photographs of the girls, Blome modeled them in nineteenth-century work dresses, buttoned in front from the waist to the neck. Each wears a shawl around her shoulders. Leading her forward, Mary firmly grasps Emily’s hand with her right hand; their knees are slightly bent underneath their dresses, as if moving out of the bronze rock. Both girls wear serious expressions on their faces with their brows slightly puckered in concentration. Their hair is neatly coiffed, parted in the middle, pulled back, and braided into buns. On the reverse of the roughly modeled boulder, the artist created an image of The Pearl, in full sail on the Potomac River, with the name of the schooner inscribed below the ship. By selecting bronze, Blome stated that the medium and its staying power gave “his work gravity.”15 Blome’s

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  219 technique and choice of bronze are evocative of a Beaux-Arts aesthetic, which highlighted naturalism, contemporary costume, and energetic treatment of form and surface. Many Civil War monuments of the late nineteenth century evinced the same aesthetic, linking Blome’s memorial to a tradition normally reserved for war heroes and the common soldier. In her recounting of The Pearl incident, Stowe stressed the Christian devotion of the Edmonsons, writing, “Paul and Milly Edmondson were

Figure 13.1  Erik Blome, Edmonson Sisters Memorial, 2010, Alexandria, Virginia. Source: Photograph by Renée Ater

220  Renée Ater both devout communicants in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Washington, and the testimony to their blamelessness of life and the consistence of their piety is unanimous from all who know them.” She remarked that the sons and daughters of the family were “distinguished for intelligence, honesty, and faithfulness, but above all for the most devoted attachment to each other.”16 Using less hortatory language, historian Stanley Harrold also has written about the importance of faith for those individuals escaping on The Pearl and as well as their unusual status in Washington, D.C: Many who boarded the vessel were members of the AME Church. Many belonged to families that functioned as economic units independent of their masters. Others possessed special skills or remarkable trustworthiness. A  significant minority were light-complected. All of them were representative of the respectable people of color who constituted the African American component of Washington’s biracial antislavery community.17 The Edmonson’s faith as well as the upstanding character of their children became the leitmotif for the rescue and purchase of their daughters. This leitmotif also undergirds Blome’s conceptualization. Blome stated that he had read Stowe’s account and stressed that his representation was based in “accurate historical dress and highly researched depiction.”18 His modeling of the girls cloaks them in their piety and morality, rooting them in nineteenth-century notions of respectability and modesty. Violence and terror also lurk at the edges of the Edmonson Sisters Memorial. I suggest that we could read the statue as showing the teenage girls “dressed for sale,” ready to be auctioned off. “Costuming was an essential part of the theater of the slave auction,” writes Maurie D. McInnis. “Slaves were dressed as characters in a play and expected to act out their parts.”19 To know Mary and Emily Edmonson’s story is to glimpse the depth of black suffering and the historical threat of rape against black women. The two sisters were housed in darkness at Bruin’s with no beds and not enough blankets, their bodies were measured and prodded, and they were threatened with the whip. In New Orleans, they witnessed untold cruelty in the slave prison, the separation from their brothers who were sold, and their own constant fear of purchase as “fancy girls” in “fancy dress.” The spectacle of slavery resides in the bronze of the memorial and in the still-standing Bruin Slave Jail, now incongruously a real estate office, and which the memorial abuts. For the City of Alexandria, the statue represents both an acknowledgment of the slave past and redemption: “The Edmonson Sisters honors the lives destroyed by slavery while celebrating the triumph of human spirit.”20 Yet, this history is to a large extent displaced. Blome produced a history that underscores triumph and freedom; little in the monument

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  221 indicates the lives destroyed by slavery. Noting the difficulty of creating sympathetic representations of slavery, Copeland and Thompson argue “the process of sympathizing with the slave, of making her suffering visible and intelligible, necessarily risks occluding her subjectivity from view at the very moment of its representation.”21 We do not and cannot know Emily and Mary’s conscious experiences, their personhood, or their perspectives of their individual selves. They are forever suspended in bronze, described through physiognomy and surface detail. Blome could only imagine them based on the limited photographic record: images that stress their Christianity and Victorian respectability. In addition, the placement of the monument in front of a gleaming office building and next to the Bruin Slave Jail (now a lawyer’s office) contributes to this occlusion; their suffering as enslaved persons is alluded to, but nonetheless displaced and sanitized for a modern audience. This problem of representation suggests that the personhoods of Emily and Mary can never be fully manifested in three-dimensional form.

3. A Forgotten Cemetery, Now Remembered The Edmonson Sister Memorial is located approximately one mile from the Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery and the Path of Thorns and Roses. Both memorials indicate the recent integration of slavery into the city’s history. We are meant to understand Path of Thorns and Roses in relationship to the cemetery. Created to honor the dead, the monumental statue functions as an object where family members of those deceased now gather to remember their ancestors. The cemetery came into being out of desperation. As a Union-occupied city during the Civil War, Alexandria provided a haven for African Americans escaping the bondage of slavery. Known as “contrabands,” many who arrived in the city were penniless, malnourished, and suffering from an array of illnesses.22 By 1862, Alexandria found itself with a refugee crisis of enormous proportions; within 16 months of the occupation, the population had increased by 10,000 people. The Union Army housed the newly emancipated in barracks and poorly constructed shantytowns. In close quarters, disease quickly spread, including small pox and yellow fever.23 Harriet Ann Jacobs, famed for her slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), served as an aid worker for the relief effort in Alexandria. She wrote of the horrors she witnessed for the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator: I found men, women and children all huddled together, without any distinction or regard to age or sex. Some of them were in the most pitiable condition. Many were sick with measles, diptheria [sic], scarlet and typhoid fever. Some had a few filthy rags to lie on; others had nothing but the bare floor for a couch. . . . Each day brings its fresh

222  Renée Ater additions of the hungry, naked and sick. In the early part of June, there were, some days, as many as ten deaths reported at this place in twenty-four hours.24 By 1864, nearly 1,200 black individuals had died, overburdening the municipal cemetery. In February  1864, the commander of the Alexandria military district confiscated land from its pro-Confederate owner and designated it a cemetery for contrabands. Located on a parcel of land south of the city at the corner of Washington and Church Streets, the first burials at the new cemetery took place in March 1864.25 Under the auspices of the American Baptist Free Mission Society, Reverend Albert Gladwin, an African American minister from Connecticut, was appointed the first Superintendent of Contrabands by the military governor of Alexandria and oversaw the cemetery from 1863 to 1865. During the five years of its operation, 1,879 people were buried in the cemetery, each grave marked with a whitewashed, wooden headboard. Gladwin recorded the deaths as well as marriages in a volume he entitled Book of Records Containing the Marriages and Deaths that have Occurred within the Official Jurisdiction of Rev. A. Gladwin. Together with any Biographical or other Reminiscences that may be Collected. After his departure, his successors kept up the record book. Initially, African American soldiers of the United States Colored Troops were also buried at the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery, until they were disinterred in 1865, to be reburied at Arlington National Cemetery. The last official burial in Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery took place in 1869.26 Over the years, the cemetery’s upkeep declined. Until 1939, the cemetery appeared on maps of the city, but little evidence of burial plots remained. Commercial development including a railroad and brickyard had encroached on its parameters. In 1955, a gas station was built on the site, followed later by an office building in 1960; numerous graves were lost below the concrete slabs. As the city expanded to the south and the state constructed a major interstate highway at its edge, few knew of the hundreds of African Americans buried at the site. This all changed in 1987, when city historian T. Michael Miller discovered a reference to the cemetery in an 1894 local newspaper. Then in 1995, historian Wesley E. Pippenger found Gladwin’s records in the archives of the Library of Virginia in Richmond. Starting in 1996, the city conducted remote sensing at the site, and with the Virginia Department of Transportation, began archeological excavations in 1999. With the razing of the gas station in 2007, the archaeological team located and identified approximately 540 graves. Although excavations revealed the location of grave shafts, no burials were disturbed or disinterred.27 A collaboration between The Friends of Freedmen’s Cemetery, founded in 1996 for the express purpose of preserving and commemorating the

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  223 African American burying ground, and the City of Alexandria was instrumental in bringing sustained attention to the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery, including the commission of a permanent memorial for the space. The City of Alexandria has a long-standing municipal archaeology program, and the city council enacted the Alexandria Archaeological Resource Protection Code in the late 1980s for the purpose of protecting historical sites from development. The city provided the technical expertise and worked with private archaeologists on the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery and the “Friends group and the Alexandria Archaeological Commission promoted awareness and sustained interest in the freedmen’s historic plight and the contemporary concerns for the protection and recognition of the cemetery.”28

4. Path of Thorns and Roses In 2008, the City of Alexandria held a design competition for the creation of a public commemorative park at the site of the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery. Alexandria architect C. J. Howard won the $10,000 first prize, in an international competition where over 200 designs were submitted from architects, landscape architects, artists, students, and the general public. Whereas the Edmonson Sister Memorial was privately funded, the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery was supported through the City of Alexandria, the Federal Highway Administration and Virginia Department of Transportation, and a grant from Save America’s Treasures, a private-public partnership between the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.29 Howard’s original design included a monument to an African American Union soldier at the southern end of the cemetery. Howard conceived of the monument as a direct response to Appomattox (1889), the Confederate soldier statue, which continues to stand eight blocks north of the cemetery, at the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets. A local newspaper reported, “the steering committee overseeing planning for the park nixed the idea as too militaristic.”30 Instead, Howard’s winning design was used as “the framework for a detailed site design.”31 Today, the memorial park includes the contemporary gravestones of unidentified adults and children on top of the excavated graves and an open structure named the Place of Remembrance, four walls constructed from Virginia sandstone with inserted bronze plaques. Two walls include narrative texts and the names of all those buried in the cemetery from Gladwin’s full records. Living descendants are indicated with round markers next to the name of the deceased. The other two walls include bas-relief narrative scenes of “Fleeing slavery for sanctuary and freedom in Alexandria” and “Learning to read in Alexandria freedmen’s school.” Created by artist Joanna Blake, these walls also include a map of the city of Alexandria, a map of the site, and explanatory historical text.32

224  Renée Ater A second design competition was held in 2011 for a monumental sculpture with the process managed by the city’s Office of the Arts and the Alexandria Commission for the Arts’ Public Art Committee. In the request for qualifications, the City of Alexandria identified a complex purpose for the proposed public art: to educate visitors to the cemetery about the courageous struggles of the thousands of contrabands and freedmen who sought refuge in Alexandria. . . . to serve as a symbol of our respect for those who did not live long in freedom. . . . and to stand as a reminder to generations that the struggle for freedom, and the people who fought for it, will not be forgotten again.33 The city also stressed that all submissions needed to show an understanding of the slave past in Alexandria, and in particular, that the artists convey the experience of the contrabands and freedmen. In a nationwide call, three artists were invited to present their maquettes and design proposals for the memorial in July 2012: Erik Blome, Mario Chiodo, and Edward Dwight. A panel of a diverse group of stakeholders selected the artists, including descendants of the buried, the Friends of the Freedmen’s Cemetery, the Old Town/Hunting Creek Civic Association, the Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, Alexandria Historical Society, the Public Art Committee, and subject matter experts. Presented at a centrally located arts center, the city invited the public to review the month-long display of proposals and to submit comments. In a well thought out and inclusive process, the selection panel considered the public comments and then made their recommendations to the Alexandria Commission for the Arts and the Alexandria City Council.34 Chiodo received the commission for his monumental sculpture of “figures of male and female slaves, one above the another, positioned in a double helix fashion that . . . represent the common DNA of mankind.”35 Dedicated on September  6, 2014, the statue was the focus of the ceremony, which included period music, local church choirs, ceremonial bell ringing, and a formal address.36 Several hundred of the descendants of those buried at the site also attended the dedication, one noting, “I can almost see them now, walking down the same streets I did, in their period clothes. It empowers me and fuels me in tough times to understand how far my family has come.”37 Chiodo’s visual language, a spiraling vine of thorns and roses embedded with human figures, is startlingly different from the Beaux-Arts aesthetic of Erik Blome in the Edmonson Sisters Memorial. In Path of Thorns and Roses, Chido references both the emotional intensity of the Renaissance sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in his famed Ecstasy of Teresa (1647–52) and the modernist form of Auguste Rodin, particularly his Gates of Hell (1880–1917).

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  225 The memorial begins with a quotation from Harriet Jacobs engraved in the granite base: I am thankful there is a beginning. I am full of hope for the future. A Power mightier than man is guiding this revolution; and though justice moves slowly, it will come at last. The American people will outlive this mean prejudice against complexion.38 Out of this base, Chiodo’s human forms twist and gesture in agony in the modeled clay cast into bronze. On bended knees with back arched and head thrown back, a male figure contorts at the base of the sculpture. Every one of his ribs is revealed and his hands claw at the air. With a distended neck and head thrown back, this figure, identified as Oppression, gazes up towards the towering figure atop the sculpture. From the figure of Oppression, the statue spirals upward in an extended arced line to the left as one is standing directly in front of the sculpture. Immediately behind the torqueing figure of Oppression is the figure of Struggle; his head rests in the bow of his arms, and his bare back and the curve of his spine are exposed. Chiodo has said these two figures are “representative of the diseases, such as typhus, that slaves were afflicted with.”39 This figure touches the limp foot of a dead child, Loss, that is locked in the

Figure 13.2 Mario Chiodo, Path of Thorns and Roses, 2013, Alexandria, Virginia. Source: Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia. Photograph by Renée Ater.

226  Renée Ater grief-stricken embrace of a woman, Sacrifice. This anguished form leans deeply into the rough-hewn modeled bronze on the back of the sculpture. A  fourth clothed female figure extends her arm to offer Sacrifice a rose with one hand, while she holds a baby in her other arm. Chiodo has stated that this image of Compassion “symbolizes a new chapter in life.”40 Atop the sculpture is a final figure of Hope standing on his toes in a bronze circle of thorns and roses. Dressed in rough pants and shirt, the male figure with eyes closed and brow furrowed extends his hands outward, “meant to symbolize that hope is within grasp but still unattainable due to hardships.” In his hands is a partially blossomed rose, representing freedom.41 Wing-like forms extend from Hope’s back, one arcing upward, and the other bending downward to his feet, a wounded angel perhaps. In his memorial for the Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery, Chiodo offered a detailed description of the form and meaning of the monument that reflects deeply, to borrow from Petrina Dacres, “the embodied experiences, anxiety, and desires of the artist.”42 Despite the artist’s pronouncements, I  believe that the problem of visualizing slavery persists with Path of Thorns and Roses. In viewing the monument for the first time, I found myself disconcerted by the aesthetic forms of ravaged black bodies and deeply aware of my position as both witness and spectator. By representing disease, anguish, and death, Chiodo forces us to encounter the reinscription of black suffering in public space. Yet, we are distanced in time and to the particular pain of the enslaved that is unknowable for modern viewers. We cannot place ourselves in the position of these ravaged bodies because of the “impossibility of fully reconstituting the experience of the enslaved” and without reinforcing the “spectacular character of black suffering,” in the words of Hartman.43 Chiodo’s primal rendering of the slave bodies, the spectacle of it, recreates the subjugation and violence of the slave past in the present, not intentionally, but through the artist’s use of traditional sculptural forms and his deployment of “emotional types” to express black trauma.

Conclusion Up to this point, I  have argued for the failure of representation, the inability to represent the violence or suffering of an enslaved person, in regard to the Edmonson Sisters Memorial and Path of Thorns and Roses. I would like to offer another way of thinking about these two monuments in relation to the urban landscape of Alexandria in the belief that varying the interpretative lens can provide other ways of seeing. Monuments never have singular meanings, despite the desires of artists, city officials, and community members. From the moment they are installed on site, meaning can and will shift and mutate. By their placement within the landscape of the city, they dialogue, often inadvertently, with each other and with older monuments already in place.

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  227 In May 1889, the White citizens of Alexandria dedicated a statue to their Confederate dead. Although the subject of recent debate in the city and the Virginia General Assembly, Appomattox (The Confederate Statue) remains standing at a central and busy intersection in Alexandria, a lone marble solider in Confederate uniform standing on a plinth while cars veer around it.44 The Edmonson Sisters Memorial and Path of Thorns and Roses could alternatively be understood to form interventions in the public urban spaces of Alexandria, effective counter-monuments to Appomattox. “In the public-historical sphere, visual arts and monuments are important to the evocation and denial of memory,” Dacres rightly notes, “a nexus of reclamation and invention significant to the making of history and identity.”45 Here I would conclude that we have a disruption of the memory of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause with an evocation of the slave past at both sites. For the city and citizens of Alexandria, acknowledgment of slavery and its integral part to the history of the city was an important recuperation process, allowing them to produce for themselves a more nuanced and complete history of their city.

Notes 1. “A Brief History of Alexandria”; “History of Alexandria’s African American Community”; Artemel, Crowell, and Parker, 11–20; McInnis, 93–96; Bedell, 29–33. 2. “A Brief History of Alexandria”; Appler, 44–46. 3. Copeland and Thompson, 4. 4. Ibid., 6. 5. I am interested here in Sadiya Hartman’s writings on slavery, black suffering, and the limitations of empathy in our understanding of the terror of slavery and the enslaved’s ravaged body. She writes, “Are we witnesses who confirm the truth of what happened in the face of the world-destroying capacities of pain, the distortions of torture, the sheer unrepresentability of terror, and the repression of the dominant accounts? Or are we voyeurs fascinated with and repelled by exhibitions of terror and sufferance? What does the exposure of the violated body yield? Proof of black sentience of the inhumanity of the ‘peculiar institution’?” (3). 6. Stowe, 155–68. Stowe published her first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly in 1852. After accusations that she had exaggerated and outright falsified her account of slavery, Stowe felt obligated to publish a source book, A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in 1853 that documented the “truthfulness” of the novel’s depictions. Although an anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin reinforced stereotypes about African Americans, including the faithful mammy and dutiful servant as exemplified by Uncle Tom. Similar stereotypes appear in A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and in her descriptions of Milly Edmonson. 7. Stowe, 158–59; Paynter, 53–90; Rohrs, 712; Harrold, 116–17; Ricks, 5–30. 8. Stowe, 159–60; Paynter, 90–124; Harrold, 121–24; Russell, 32–35; Ricks, 61–62, 74–86, and 132–33. 9. Stowe, 160. 10. Stowe, 161–66; Paynter, 125–202; Harrold, 134–37; Ricks, 127–62 and 181–97.

228  Renée Ater 11. Appler, 61–62. 12. Downey. Surprisingly little information exists in regards to the selection of the artist, the discussions as to how the Edmonson Sisters Memorial should look, or the reception of the memorial once it was installed on Edmonson Plaza. 13. “Slavery and Freedom, Embodied.” 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Stowe, 156–57. 17. Harrold, 118. 18. Blome. 19. McInnis, 137. McInnis dedicates a chapter of her book, Slaves Waiting for Sale, to the complex issues of grooming and the purchasing of new clothing and shoes for enslaved persons at the time of the slave auction. 20. “Media Advisory: Edmonson Sisters Sculpture to Be Dedicated June 25.” 21. Copeland and Thompson, 3. 22. Willis. The first contrabands of the American Civil War escaped to the Union stronghold at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in May 1861. General Benjamin Butler, the fort’s commander, decided, “he no longer had a constitutional obligation to return runaways. Rather, in keeping with military law governing war between nations, he would seize the three runaways as contraband—property to be used by the enemy against the Union. Lincoln let the decision stand.” 23. “Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial,” City of Alexandria Virginia; Richardson, 2–4; Smith-Reidel; Korb. 24. Jacobs (1862). 25. “Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial,” City of Alexandria Virginia. 26. “Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial,” City of Alexandria Virginia; Smith-Reidel; “A  Guide to the Arlington County (Va.) Book of Records.” 27. “Archaeology at Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery”; Smith-Reidel; Kapp; Sullivan. 28. Cressey and Vinton, 406. 29. “Freedmen Cemetery Design Winner Named”; “A Cemetery and a Park.” 30. “A Cemetery and a Park.” The jury included a wide range of representatives from the following agencies and organizations: Alexandria Archaeological Commission, Alexandria Commission for the Arts, Alexandria Historical Society, Alexandria Park and Recreation Commission, Alexandria Planning Commission, Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, The Friends of Freedmen’s Cemetery, Historic Alexandria Resources Commission, Neighborhood Civic Associations, Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Neighborhood Task Force. See “Contraband and Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial Design Competition.” 31. “Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial,” City of Alexandria Virginia. 32. Sturdivant. 33. City of Alexandria, Virginia, Request for Qualifications (RFQ) No.00000194. 34. Russ; “Public Invited to Meet the Artists and View Proposals for the Freedmen’s Cemetery Sculpture on July 7 at the Durant Arts Center.” 35. Russ. 36. “The Journey to Be Free: Alexandria Celebrates the Dedication of the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial.” 37. Samuels. 38. Jacobs (1864). 39. Russ.

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  229 40. Ibid. 41. Russ; Chiodo. 42. Dacres, 143. 43. Hartman, 3, 11. 44. The Confederate Statue. 45. Dacres, 137. Dacres writes specifically about the controversy surrounding Laura Facey Cooper’s monumental bronze statue Redemption Song (2003) installed in Emancipation Park in Kingston and the problem of history, identity, and memory in postcolonial Jamaica.

Bibliography “Alexandria Slave Memorial Planned.” Richmond Times Dispatch, December 7, 2007. www.richmond.com/news/alexandria-slave-memorial-planned/article_ c67a414e-47b6-5c47-91c5-8551976a4374.html/. Appler, Douglas R. “Municipal Archaeology Programs and the Creation of Community Amenities.” The Public Historian 34, no. 3 (Summer 2012): 40–67. “Archaeology of Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery.” City of Alexandria, September  27, 2017. Accessed November  10, 2017. www.alexandriava.gov/ historic/archaeology/default.aspx?id=39008. Artemel, Janice G., Elizabeth A. Crowell, and Jeff Parker. The Alexandria Slave Pen: The Archaeology of Urban Captivity. Washington, DC: EngineeringScience, Inc., 1987. Bedell, John. Archaeology of the Bruin Slave Jail (Site 44AX0172): Final Report. Washington, DC: The Louis Berger Group, Inc., 2010. Bernier, Celeste-Marie, and Judie Newman. “Public Art, Artefacts, and Atlantic Slavery: Introduction.” Slavery & Abolition 29, no. 2 (2008): 135–50. Blome, Erik. “The Edmonson Sisters.” Figurative Art Studio. Accessed September 14, 2017. http://figurativeartstudio.com/id80.htm. “A Brief History of Alexandria.” City of Alexandria Virginia, June 4, 2017. Accessed November 10, 2017. www.alexandriava.gov/historic/info/default. aspx?id=29540. Brownell, Richard. “The Edmonson Sisters of Alexandria: Legends in the Fight Against Slavery.” Boundary Stones: WETA’s Local History Blog, December  15, 2016. Accessed September 14, 2017. https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2016/12/15/ edmonson-sisters-alexandria-legends-fight-against-slavery. “Carr Properties’ Edmonson Plaza Receives City Council Approval.” Business Wire, June 25, 2007. Accessed May 23, 2019. www.businesswire.com/news/home/ 20070625005807/en/Carr-Properties-Edmonson-Plaza-Receives-City-Council. “A Cemetery and a Park.” The Connection, October 15, 2008. Accessed November 10, 2017. www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2008/oct/15/a-cemeteryand-a-park/. Chiodo, Mario. “Path of Thorns and Roses.” Freedom March of Art. Accessed November 10, 2017. http://freedommarchofart.com/thepathofthornsandroses. html. City of Alexandria, Virginia. Request for Qualifications (RFQ) No. 00000194, Contraband’s and Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial, August 19, 2011. Accessed June  8, 2018. https://eprocure.alexandriava.gov/bso/external/bidDetail. sdo?bidId=00000194.

230  Renée Ater “Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial.” City of Alexandria Virginia, June  4, 2017. Accessed November  10, 2017. www.alexandriava.gov/ FreedmenMemorial. “Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial.” Howard+Revis Design. Accessed November 10, 2017. www.howardrevis.com/freedmens-cemetery. “Contraband and Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial Design Competition.” Akichiatlas.com. Accessed June  8, 2018. http://akichiatlas.com/en/archives/contra band_memorial.php. “Contraband’s and Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial Sculpture.” Competitions. Accessed June  8, 2018. https://competitions.org/2011/09/contrabands-andfreedmens-cemetery-memorial-sculpture/. Copeland, Huey, and Krista Thompson. “Perpetual Returns: New World Slavery and the Matter of the Visual.” Representations 113, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 1–15. Corrigan, Mary Beth. “Imaginary Cruelties: A  History of the Slave Trade in Washington, D.C.” Washington History 13, no. 2 (Fall–Winter 2001–2002): 4–27. Cressey, Pamela J., and Natalie Vinton. “Smart Planning and Innovative Public Outreach: The Quintessential Mix for the Future of Archaeology.” In Past Meets Present: Archaeologists Partnering with Museum Curators, Teachers, and Community Groups, edited by John H. Jameson Jr. and Sherene Baugher, 393–410. New York: Springer, 2007. Dacres, Patrina. “Monument and Meaning.” Small Axe 8, no. 2 (September 2004): 137–53. Davis, John. “Eastman Johnson’s Negro Life at the South and Urban Slavery in Washington, D.C.” Art Bulletin 80, no. 1 (March 1998): 67–92. Downey, Kirstin. “New Alexandria Building to Honor Brave Slave Girls.” Washington Post, November 12, 2007. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2007/11/11/AR2007111101589.html. “Freedmen Cemetery Design Winner Named.” The Connection, September 16, 2008. www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2008/sep/16/freedmen-cemeterydesign-winner-named/. A Guide to the Arlington County (VA.). Book of Records Containing the Marriages and Deaths That Have Occurred Within the Official Jurisdiction of Rev. A. Gladwin. Together with Any Biographical or Other Reminiscences That May Be Collected. Library of Virginia. Accessed June 8, 2018. https://ead.lib. virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=lva/vi02602.xml. Harrold, Stanley. Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828–1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. Hartman, Saidiya V. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. “History of Alexandria’s African American Community.” City of Alexandria Virginia, June 4, 2017. Accessed November 10, 2017. www.alexandriava.gov/ historic/blackhistory/default.aspx?id=37214. Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself. Edited by Child, L. Maria. Boston: Published for the author, 1861. Jacobs, Harriet A. “Life Among the Contrabands.” The Liberator, September 5, 1862, 5. Documenting the American South. Accessed September 10, 2018. http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/support5.html.

The Memory of Slavery in the Urban Landscape  231 Jacobs, Harriet A., and Louisa Jacobs. “Letter from Teachers of the Contrabands.” National Anti-Slavery Standard, April  16, 1864. Documenting the American South. Accessed September 10, 2018. https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/ jacobs/support4.html. “The Journey to Be Free: Alexandria Celebrates the Dedication of the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial.” City of Alexandria Virginia, August 11, 2014. Accessed September 14, 2017. https://preview.alexandriava. gov/news_display.aspx?id=79519. Kapp, Amy. “Managing Sacred Ground.” Parks  & Recreation Magazine, May 1, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2017. www.nrpa.org/parks-recreationmagazine/2013/may/managing-sacred-ground/. Killian, Erin. “Site Next to Historic Jail Set for Offices, Memorial.” Washington Business Journal, June 4, 2007. Accessed September 10, 2018. www.biz journals.com/washington/stories/2007/06/04/story8.html. Korb, Scott. “Politics in a Refugee Camp.” New York Times, August 8, 2013. Accessed September 10, 2018. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/ 08/politics-in-a-refugee-camp/. Kraus, Lisa, John Bedell, and Charles Lee Decker. Joseph Bruin and the Slave Trade. Washington, DC: The Louis Berger Group, Inc., 2007. “Living Legends: Two Women Who Restored a Cemetery.” The Connection, November 8, 2008. Accessed September 10, 2018. www.connectionnewspapers. com/news/2008/nov/18/living-legends-two-women-who-restored-a-cemetery/. McHugh, Mark. “Working to Create Fitting Memorial: Contrabands and Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial on Pace for Spring 2013 Opening.” The Connection, August  30, 2013. www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2012/aug/30/ working-create-fitting-memorial/. McInnis, Maurie D. Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. “Media Advisory: Edmonson Sisters Sculpture to Be Dedicated June 25.” City of Alexandria. Accessed September 14, 2017. www.alexandria.gov/news_display. aspx?id=34808. Office of Historic Alexandria. The Confederate Statue. Alexandria, VA: Office of Historic Alexandria, 2002. “Path of Thorns and Roses.” CODA: Collaboration of Design + Art. Accessed November  10, 2017. www.codaworx.com/project/path-of-thorns-and-rosescity-of-alexandria-va. Paynter, John H. Fugitives of the Pearl. Washington, DC: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1930. Pope, Michael Lee. “Mystery Endures: As Dedication Approaches, Full Story of Freedman’s Cemetery May Never Be Known.” Alexandria Gazette Packet, August 28, 2014, 1, 18. “Public Invited to Meet the Artists and View Proposals for the Freedmen’s Cemetery Sculpture on July 7 at the Durant Arts Center.” City of Alexandria Virginia, July 3, 2012. Accessed September 14, 2017. https://preview.alexandriava.gov/recreation/info/default.aspx?id=62386. Richardson, Margaret, comp. Alexandria Freedmen’s Cemetery: Historical Overview. Alexandria: City of Alexandria, 2007. Accessed June 8, 2018. https://web. archive.org/web/20120324140231/http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/ historic/info/archaeology/ARFreedmensHistoricalOverview.pdf.

232  Renée Ater Ricks, Mary Kay. Escape on the Pearl: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad. New York: William Morrow, 2007. Rohrs, Richard C. “Antislavery Politics and the Pearl Incident of 1848.” The Historian 56, no. 4 (Summer 1994): 711–24. Russ, Edison. “Help Choose Statue for Freedmen’s Cemetery.” Alexandria Gazette Packet, July 12, 2012, 1, 3. Russell, Hilary. “Underground Railroad Activists in Washington, D.C.” Washington History 13, no. 2 (Fall–Winter 2001–2002): 28–49. Samuels, Robert. “A Memorial Honors Slaves Who Escaped the South for Refuge in Alexandria, Va.” The Washington Post, September 6, 2014. Accessed November 10, 2017. www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-memorial-honorsslaves-who-escaped-the-south-for-refuge-in-alexandria-va/2014/09/06/727ec 754-35eb-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html?utm_term=.ad1483069ecb. “Slavery and Freedom, Embodied.” Alexandria Times, May 27, 2010. Accessed September 10, 2018. http://alextimes.com/2010/05/slavery-and-freedomembodied/. Smith-Reidel, Charleen. “A Graveyard Resurrected.” Folklife, February 1, 2018. https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/a-graveyard-resurrected-contrabands-freedmenscemetery-alexandria-virginia. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co., 1853. Sturdivant, Christina. “Local Artists Work Speaks Through Historic Narratives.” H-Net Online, June 20, 2014. Accessed November 10, 2017. http://h-net.msu. edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-DC&month=1406&week=c&msg= 63QDQJzNrXf4oDt/oEq65g. Sturken, Marita, and James E. Young. “Monuments.” Oxford Art Online, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Accessed August 3, 2013. www.oxfordartonline.com. proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/subscriber/article/opr/t234/e0362?print=true. Sullivan, Patricia. “African American Cemeteries Winning New Recognition in Virginia.” Washington Post, May  15, 2014. Accessed September 10, 2018. www.washingtonpost.com/local/african-american-cemeteries-winning-newrecognition-in-va/2014/05/15/5f0a2fce-dc68-11e3-bda1-9b46b2066796_ story.html?utm_term=.66a426413e3d. “Va. Memorial to Honor 2 Md. Slaves Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, November 13, 2007. Accessed September 10, 2018. http://diverseeducation.com/article/10161/. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. “Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery.” African American Historic Sites Database. Accessed June 8, 2018. http:// aahistoricsitesva.org/items/show/96. Wessler, Seth Freed. “Black Deaths Matter.” The Nation, October  15, 2015. Accessed September 10, 2018. www.thenation.com/article/black-deathsmatter/. Wills, Eric. “The Forgotten: The Contraband of American and the Road to Freedom.” National Trust for Historic Preservation, June 19, 2017. Accessed June 8, 2018. https://savingplaces.org/stories/the-forgotten-the-contraband-ofamerica-and-the-road-to-freedom#.WzJFIKknagQ.

14 “The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead”1 Time and Textuality in African American Visualizations of the Historical Past, 1990–2000 Isobel Elstob The powerful discourses that emerged in the closing decades of the twentieth century surrounding history’s temporal and narratological demise were especially problematic for those seeking to re-present the historical past from an African American perspective. Indeed, one of the greatest inadequacies of the postmodern lens for black cultural readings is that its late-capitalist derivations already boast a long history for people whose (collective and individual) identity was systematically fragmented by “the Other.” As Toni Morrison remarks, “black women had to deal with ‘post-modern’ problems in the nineteenth century and earlier . . . certain kinds of dissolution, the loss of and the need to reconstruct certain kinds of stability.”2 Indeed, to consider Morrison’s temporally driven storytelling against the backdrop of Fredric Jameson’s assertion that “we now inhabit the synchronic rather than the diachronic” and that “our psychic experience, our cultural languages, are today dominated by categories of space rather than by categories of time” exposes the insurmountable formal and ethical gulf between their visions.3 This is largely because the “End of History” perspective that Jameson describes not only undermines the importance of previously marginalized historical narratives, but also threatens the creative potential that they carry. Within this late-twentieth-century context, however, formal methods-ofmaking traditionally associated with postmodernism’s depthless simulacra were deployed by African American artists as visual devices of critical rupture. Carrie Mae Weems’s, Glenn Ligon’s, and Lorna Simpson’s visualizations of the historical past creatively subvert the perceived obstacles of historiographical representation by weaponizing the temporal flattening and narratological textualization of history promoted by Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, Hayden White, and others in the 1980s and beyond. By constructing intertemporal dialogues between text and image-based signifiers, their work thus offers a visualization of American history that critically refracts the epistemological and ethical implications of traditional postmodernist conceptualizations of history and its representation.

234  Isobel Elstob

1. Time vs. Space Speaking in 1766 of Laocoön and His Sons, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing proclaimed that “since this single moment receives from art an unchanging duration, it should express nothing essentially transitory.”4 Unearthed over one hundred years previously in Rome, the sculpture’s portrayal of a “single moment” in time appeared to support Lessing’s reiteration of the Aristotelian belief that the visual and literary are distinguished by their varying ability to mediate time. According to this view, time-driven narrative is the preserve of the written or spoken word, while the sculpted or painted object is above all concerned with spatial portrayal. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, critics like Bryan Wolf and W.J.T. Mitchell began to interrogate this narrativity-based division between word and image-based arts and sought instead to “reunify them under the common banner of representation.”5 One of the ways that art historians challenged the presumed “a-temporality” of nonliterary arts in this period was through applying the poststructuralist conceit that every “text” converses with those before, around, and beyond it; that is, that it functions intertextually.6 Norman Bryson, for example, proposed a “visual poetics” that is “established by dissolving the frame around the work,”7 and Wendy Steiner argued against what she terms the “hyper-semantic” reading of paintings that divest them of their intertextual potential; proposing rather that it is only by viewing paintings in light of other paintings or works of literature, music, and so forth that the “missing” semiotic power of pictorial art can be augmented—which is to say that the power is not missing at all, but merely absent in the conventional account of the structure of art.8 This “semiotic power” is widely deployed by visual artists like Sherrie Levine and Cindy Sherman, who remake readymade images and visual motifs, and Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger, who commit wholesale appropriations of visual culture in order to reflect a perceived societal deadening of the senses. However, because of the regurgitative nature of these processes, their resultant imagery is associated with a form of postmodernism that repeats rather than regenerates visual signs within a society for which “depth is replaced by surface, or by multiple surfaces” and thus “what is often called intertextuality is . . . no longer a matter of depth.”9

2. The End of History. And Its Return This ascribed depthlessness of the cultural psyche (and what it produces) also had important implications for how time is perceived and represented.

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  235 As Jan Verwoert highlights, writers like Craig Owens spoke of a society in the throes of “an intense sense of an interruption of temporal continuity, a black-out of historic time,” which responded by “turn[ing] its tropes into inanimate figures, into pre-objectified, commodified visual material, ready to pick up and use.”10 With the according emphases on freeze-framing, repetition, simulacrum, and suspension that such a perspective invites, scholars of black cultural production have voiced strong reservations about the apposition of this lens to the reading of their subjects. As Kimberly Chabot Davis observes, this rejection is largely due to the “concern that real history was being replaced by historicism [and] the textualizing of time as a mere representation.”11 The writings of Hayden White were of course hugely influential in generating ideas surrounding the textualization of history. Since the late 1970s, White has argued that historiographic and literary representation are equivalently bound to authorial emplotment and constructed modes of narrativity: Stories are told or written, not found. And as for the notion of a true story, this is virtually a contradiction in terms. All stories are fictions. Which means, of course, that they can be true only in a metaphorical sense and in the sense in which a figure of speech can be true.12 While rhetorically seductive, such a view is not without its dangers. Denying the attainability of truth, fact, and historical reality carries the risk of collapsing each account of the past onto a common plane of “textuality” regardless of authorial motivation, ideology, or wider corroboration. Of course, in its very nature time does insert itself between now and then, and us and them; put another way, time distorts our ability to mediate the past present, or that which once existed, because we are only capable of constructing the present past, as we imagine it to have been.13 While this unassailable fact appears to resist ascendancy, we know that it can at least be confronted. The historical past is mediated variously across disciplines: from evidence-based textbooks to diary-inspired novels and object-led exhibitions. And while representations of the historical past are now accepted—indeed by many embraced—to be colored by the representor, this acknowledgment need not result in a flattening of each story’s epistemological, creative, or moral worth. But further to interrogations of history’s “literary turn,” the “death of historical meaning” described by writers like Jameson and Baudrillard in the same period was problematized by “the re-emergence of a multiplicity of histories in the historic moment of the 1990s.”14 As Verwoert outlines, a shift thus occurred that redirected attention away from a primary focus on the arbitrary and constructed character of the linguistic sign towards a desire to understand the

236  Isobel Elstob performativity of language and grasp precisely how things are done with words, that is, how language through its power of interpellation and injunction enforces the meaning of what it spells out.15 This alternative orientation of how language might be utilized to mediate the historical past is an important model of linguistic play, one that embraces the socially interactive function of language by celebrating its performative potential. Although such an approach maintains the knowing and essentially self-conscious sensibility of its forebears, it rejects outright their creative interpretation to inevitably involve “the accumulation of dead matter of hollowed out signs,” and asserts instead that “what was deemed dead speech has indeed manifest effects on the lives of the living.”16

3. Textuality A creative focus on resurrection rather than regurgitation offers specific opportunities for artists re-presenting historical narratives that carry historiographic and/or ethical obstacles in “the present.” For African American artists approaching the task of visualizing American history and its afterlives, the subversion of white representational strategies is an important method of critique. Artists such as Renée Green and Carla Williams deploy performative and photographic mediations of selfhood in order to destabilize the visual power dynamics between viewer and viewed first imposed during the historical construction of race.17 Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson are also most often discussed in relation to their works’ formal disruption of the dominating gaze and its desire to possess the Subject. Scholars like Lisa Gail Collins and Cherise Smith focus their analyses on how Simpson and Weems delineate and debunk constructed subjectivities through using text-image combinations.18 As Smith notes, Simpson’s inclusion of “text-plaques [is] crucial to the artist’s investigation of the relationship between photographs and text and of the narratives these elements imply.”19 Smith’s emphasis on narrative here is important, and she returns to it in her discussion of Weems’s photographic installation From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995–96), arguing that the work functions to “link the past and present experiences of African Americans” by “collaps[ing] time and space.”20 From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried depicts photography’s role in how the black subject has been historically defined by the white gaze. But while redirecting the examining lens onto the representor, the work also restores subjectivity to the represented. As Weems explains, when we’re looking at these images, we’re looking at the ways in which Anglo America—white America—saw itself in relationship to the black subject. I wanted to intervene in that by giving a voice to a subject that historically has had no voice.21

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  237 The desire to proffer agency to individuals whose identity has been externally framed for economic, political, and personal gain is the primary content of Weems’s representation. But in addition to spotlighting constructed narratives of race, From Here I  Saw What Happened also controverts fictive narratives of progression. The images have been curated in a variety of ways, but Weems created the work in the first instance to operate from left to right and/or top to bottom; in other words, the viewer’s eye is led from image 1 to image 27 and thus from the earliest to the most recent photograph. This apparent conformity with Western narratological tradition has two important results. The first is that the viewer reads From Here I Saw What Happened chronologically; and the second is that the viewer reads it as a narrative. These are not, of course, mutually inclusive requirements. Consider how many films, novels, and television programmes flit between the past, present, and future in order to “tell their story,” and how crucial this structural device is for reader/viewer configuration of the narrative. Indeed, Weems discusses the narrativity of From Here I Saw What Happened in such terms, explaining that while each image represents “a singular moment,” they “go on to make a more complex story [and therefore] in a way it’s like a film.”22 From Here I  Saw What Happened’s “filmic” effect serves to undermine the traditional association between a-temporality and the visual arts because it depends on the emplotment of individual units along a linear axis. The first-order narrative that this structural device implies is subsequently amplified by Weems’s content. While the renewal of its Subjects’ agency is crucial to the installation, it is nevertheless provided by the artist’s voice: “You Became a Scientific Profile,” “You Became Mammie, Mama, Mother,” “You Became Uncle Tom Johan & Clemens’ Jim,” “Some Said You Were The Spitting Image of Evil.” For each of the textual insertions that Weems makes, then, the words “You” (and “Your”) replace “I” (and “Mine”), which highlights the artist’s refusal to ventriloquize for Subjects of historical reality. Of course, the question of who speaks for whom is crucial to our understanding of the historical past and its retelling. As Alan Robinson highlights, “narrative alterations between analepsis, from the perspective of the authorial narrator and present-day readers, and prolepsis, from the perspective of the historical agents, opens up the possibility of irony, which one might regard as historical narrative’s default position.”23 The form of irony to which Robinson refers is literary in its character and operates on the premise that the narrative’s reader/viewer is aware of significations of which its characters are ignorant. For Weems, this default position enables her to restore her characters’ agency through retrospective knowledge, but via an authorial voice that formally, and forcefully, signals its own presence. Like From Here I  Saw What Happened, Glenn Ligon’s Runaways (2011) depends on a collection of repetitive forms: ten lithographs printed on thick cream paper, which, as Huey Copeland observes, possess

238  Isobel Elstob a “sumptuous facture that is a far cry from the utilitarian look and feel of the original handbills that inspired them” (Figure 14.1).24 However, in contrast to Weems’s insertion of the authorial voice, Ligon dispossesses him-Self through the authorial voice of an-Other. The subject matter of the series is the artist—linguistically drawn by ten associates and relayed through brown ink typeface. Some of the descriptions focus on the physical outline of the man (“He’s a shortish broad-shouldered black man, pretty dark-skinned, with glasses, kind of stocky”), and others elect to conjure up something of the man himself (“He has a sweet voice, is quiet. Appears somewhat timid”). But while the subject matter of Runaways is Glenn Ligon as described by others, its content is the textual mediation of the Black Subject “then and now.” Unlike Weems’s re-presentation of specific historical agents, Ligon’s Runaways evokes a generic figure—the “runaway slave”—but with an apparent devotion to particularity. This effect strongly echoes the character of texts produced in the eighteenth-century period for “runaway” posters, one of which offers a $100 reward for the return of “Emily” described as “Seventeen years of age, well grown, black color, has a whining voice,” and another the same sum for “Robert Porter,” “aged 19; heavy, stoutly made; dark chestnut complexion, rather sullen countenance.” Like these examples, even those descriptions in Runaways that

Figure 14.1 Glenn Ligon, Runaways, 1993, Suite of 10 lithographs, 16 x 12 inches (40.7 x 30.5 cm). Source: © Glenn Ligon; Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Thomas Dane Gallery, London and Chantal Crousel, Paris.

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  239 reference Ligon’s race late (or less), they nevertheless make “apparent . . . the way [that] the black male body in any description, however benign, bears some relation to a history of stereotype and racial prejudice.”25 In this way, Runaways’ threading of a contemporary subject matter via an historical form of representation reveals how both time and identity are flattened upon and through the black subject. The content that emerges is therefore neither the past nor the present, but the unacknowledged violence of their linguistic, and psychic, interdependency.

4. Intertextuality “As creatures living in time, humans are constantly in transition from the elusive present into a future which itself soon becomes the ever-receding past,” and which can therefore only be conceived by observing the tangible traces of its events, lives, and actions.26 Such traces are often framed in semiotic terms, “as signifiers which stand for the signified, ‘the past’ . . . which correspond to a non-linguistic reality or referent.”27 The challenge for those wishing to visualize such a reality is thus both formal and moral; for the question is not simply of how such signifiers are deployed but also of why. In creative literature, the reuse of an existing signifier within the production of a new text is most often referred to as a “borrowing”—a term that carries an automatically benign characterization of returning something because it will always belong elsewhere. In the visual arts, the term used is “appropriation,” which, conversely, hints at finality and theft. Throughout the 1980s, the technique of appropriation was pinned to a model of simulacrum for which “any notion of radical critique had become an impossibility with the merging of reality and its media representation.”28 As David Evans outlines, this model is associated with “a certain time (late 1970s and 1980s); a certain place (New York); certain influential galleries (Metro Pictures, Sonnabend); and certain artists who were critically located within ambitious debates around the postmodern.”29 However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the possibility emerged for a “materialist model” of appropriation which “describes art production as the gradual re-shuffling of a basic set of cultural terms through their strategical re-use and eventual transformation.”30 Verweort’s use of the word “transformation” is fundamental to this model of appropriation’s function, which is defined by criticality rather than indifference and which offers distinctive opportunities for artists visualizing the problematic nature of history’s temporal and textual conception. The historical signifiers that Weems appropriates and resurrects in From Here I Saw What Happened derive from museum and university collections, including Louis Aggasiz’s commissioned “portraits” of enslaved people from the Harvard Collection.31 These signifiers thus not only correspond to the historically located referent (nineteenth-century slavery, scientific racism, comparative anatomy) but also to their contemporary

240  Isobel Elstob collection, preservation, and sometime display. By indexing their historical function so clearly (“You Became a Scientific Profile”), Weems signals the ease with which we disassociate ourselves from such images and their proclaimed intentions. However, the installations’ formal unity through coloring, framing, and scale prohibits any facile ethical differentiation to be made between “You Became a Negroid Type” (image two) and “In Your Sing Song Prayer You Asked Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?” (image 27). Crucially, however, this collapse of the narrative’s trajectory does not undermine temporality but rather subverts its deep-seated association with teleological progression. The placement of two images of identical but inverted side-portraits of Nubian women on either side of the installation visualizes this black subversion of traditional European forms of narrativity. Presented as exchangeable temporal bookends, the images carry a single sentence across them—“From Here I  Saw What Happened/And I Cried”—which is, of course, also the work’s title. Looking forwards towards the past future and backwards towards the present past, the portraits oversee a narrative that moves diachronically across time and back again but without evolution; they therefore mourn not only for its Subjects, but also for chronology’s inadequacy as a formal explication of the black American experience. Exposing the deficiencies of post-Enlightenment models of progress to the reading of how African American people have experienced history is also a central content of Ligon’s Runaways. Refusing to adhere to the premise that we must be either standing still or moving forward in time, Ligon pulls texts from disparate regions of the historical past and creatively weaves them together. As Julia Kristeva theorized in the wake of Mikhail Bakhtin’s critique of historicist literary criticism, texts hold “the status of mediator, linking structural models to cultural (historical) environment” and therefore bring their authorial origins and associative discourses into any newly formed configurations.32 Of course, European historiographical discourse traditionally privileges the written text over all mediatory forms, including oral, performative, and visual. And while the foci of this cultural veneration have, of course, shifted over time— from Rankean promotions of the written archive to late-twentiethcentury commentaries on historical realism—they uniformly prioritize word-based texts for inspection and/or critique. However, the visual intertextuality deployed by Weems and Ligon depends upon both word and image-based texts that have been appropriated from temporally distinct historical environments. Indeed, although the inclusion of written descriptions in Runaways appears to supersede the visual motifs with which they are paired, when their compositions are compared with authentic historical “runaway” posters, this imbalance is revealed to be illusory. The descriptive texts on eighteenthcentury posters spill into the furthest corners of their paper’s edge, and the heavy use of bold typeface, capital letters, racial terminology, and

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  241 exclamation marks imbue a maniacal character that is both optically and psychologically overwhelming. But the texts inserted into Ligon’s Runaways are physically restrained by their consistent font and size, as well as by the uniformity of their indentations and the Black square margins that contain them. Above each box, Ligon plants a single image, which is appropriated from the eighteenth-century cultural environment—all but one of which depicts a “runaway slave.” Embedded on the tenth lithograph, however, is an apparently oppositional signifier: Josiah Wedgwood’s illustration of a chained, kneeling man, which was designed to be stamped onto abolitionist literature and pamphlets in conjunction with the text “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” (Figure 14.2). The sole figure who remains enslaved in Runaways is, then, the emblem of abolitionism. By flattening the dominant culture’s representations of the black subject across apparently divergent moral perspectives, Ligon draws attention to their similitude, and the emblem’s notoriously subservient posture becomes a stark visualization of white patronage: praying (or) begging for release to a “higher power.” The homogeny of the representor is thus delineated through a coded visualization of equivalent attitudes towards the task of representing, echoing the innate racializations that fill the word-based descriptions produced over two centuries later.

5. Intertemporal Intertextuality Although anachronism is most often conceived as an unhelpful view of the past present, it is also a vital tool for producing accounts of it. Not only does the historian’s temporal removal from the context that s/he draws allow the emplotment of each text into a position of (cultural or temporal) relevance, it also permits a “complete” past to be perceived. This is because temporal distance results in “the modern historian’s knowledge [being] in some ways greater than that of agents at the time, in that s/he has more information, a wider contextual and chronological overview and can compare several accounts of the same event.”33 This anachronistic overview of events, actions, and experiences that have already occurred allows, indeed encourages, historians to scour the past for catalysts whose future effects could never have been perceived at the time (Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, the Treaty of Versailles, Rosa Parks’s refusal to stand, etc.). Indeed, as Arthur C. Danto observes, “Not knowing how it is all going to end is the mark of living through events.”34 The challenge that this epistemological privilege entails is, then, an ethical one of restraint. In other words, historians must achieve a balance between retrospective insight and contemporaneous ignorance when proposing the causes and effects of historical agents’ experiences. Lorna Simpson’s formal choices not only spotlight her photographs’ content as a collection of readymade signifiers but also interrogates the ethical complacency that anachronistic overview can incite. In the late

Figure 14.2 Detail: Glenn Ligon, Runaways, 1993, Suite of 10 lithographs, 16 × 12 inches (40.7 x 30.5 cm). Source: © Glenn Ligon; Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Thomas Dane Gallery, London and Chantal Crousel, Paris.

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  243 1980s and 1990s, Simpson’s practice evolved from a focus on the “didactic, communicative, and social aspects of documentary photography” into a “critique [of] the objectivity, veracity, and authority with which documentary photographs are invested.”35 But Simpson’s work also contains important intertemporal signposts. By combining the high conceptualist tropes of stark compositions, text plaques, and Black-and-White film, Simpson underlines how important these formal devices were to historically located forms of myth making, such as nineteenth-century “specimen portraits.” This correlation between presentational techniques of the past and present thus conflates the presumed archaic character of history with that of our own supposed enlightenment by splicing together trans-temporal approaches towards “straightforwardly” depicting the Subject. In works like Outline (1990), Simpson very literally subverts this “straightforwardness” by facing her figures “straight-backward.” A photographic diptych presenting two different representations of a “back,” Outline’s first image is composed of a braid of hair manipulated into a three-sided rectangle with the word “back” inserted through a textual plaque. The second image shows the back of a female with short hair and exposed shoulder blades overlaid with a plaque listing the words “lash,” “bone,” “ground,” “ache” and “pay.” The lexical choices here signify the (black) female’s extinct and extant societal role(s) and their perceptual overlap. “Ground,” for example, can be read both literally and figuratively: as working the ground/soil, but also as worked into it; while “pay” can be read as an action that is both done by and to you (to pay/to be made to pay). However, despite this semantic approach giving the impression of relinquishing mastery over to the viewer, it is in fact the viewer who is being mastered. The built-in ambiguity of Outline’s identity frustrates our innate desire to own the Subject through sight—that most domineering of senses—and we are forced, instead, to construct her from piecemeal fragments of scattered words, familiar compositions, and visual tropes. The power that Simpson’s formal approach appears to accord the viewer therefore ultimately functions to expose who “we” are by visually triggering our historically borne presumptions, prejudices, and beliefs. The question of authorial construction in From Here I  Saw What Happened is also more complicated than first appears. As we have seen, Weem’s visualization of the historical past operates diachronically and depends upon a mutual reciprocity between its parts. This reciprocity is mediated starkly by Weems’s presentation of the images that carry the texts: each print is positioned within a circular frame that physically confiscates the image’s original context, which, as Mary Drach McInnes highlights, “dissects” the original images to produce “the effect . . . of a lens focusing on a specimen.”36 While the visual pastiche of pseudoscientific anthropology is central to Weems’s critique of dominating

244  Isobel Elstob systematizations of race, it also enables her to focus on particular compositional elements. The primary focus of many of the images is the face of its Subject(s), which forces the viewer into a direct visual encounter with the historical agent presented. For others, Weems elects to zoom in on one or two figures within a larger group, such as in “You Became the Joker’s Joke,” or a single part of a group portrait, such as in “Anything But What You Were Ha.” But regardless of her compositional choices, Weems’s dissection of pre-existing images underlines the fact that “this was something taken from something else . . . [it] was lifted,” and thereby ensures that each image is perceived as a record of the authentic historical past rather than its lens-based simulacrum.37 Weems’s determination to spotlight her role as author and appropriator is also made increasingly explicit as the installation progresses through noticeable shifts in the linguistic character of the texts overlaying each visual record. For earlier images, the textual sensibility appears to adhere to the self-purporting objectivity of their original function (“You Became an Anthropological Debate”), while those used later contain multiple signifiers (“Black and Tanned Your Whipped Wind of Change Howled Low Blowing Itself— Ha—Smack into The Middle of Ellington’s Orchestra Billie Heard It Too  & Cried Strange Fruit Tears”). Through this rhythmic change of textual form and content, Weems draws attention to both the authority and elasticity of language. Like the photographs that it covers, each word, sentence, or phrase deployed carries its own cultural referents into a new context, but its signification is also made anew by their intertextual positioning. Image 24, for example, shows a black nanny holding her white charge and over it lies the words, “Others Said ‘Only Thing a Niggah Could Do Was Shine My Shoes.’ ” Alone this image offers a furious exposé of white hypocrisies, but when read in the center of image 23 and 25, its signification expands. The latter contains part of a boot-shining shop logo overlaid with the words “You Became Boots, Spades & Coons,” and the former carries the text “Some Laughed Long & Hard & Loud” across the photograph of a biracial couple each holding a well-dressed baby chimpanzee. Taken at Central Park Zoo in 1967 by Garry Winogrand, the unknown couple’s action was intended as a subversive literalizing of racist tropes. But, like Weems’s inclusion of Robert Mapplethorpe’s Man in Polyester Suit (1980), what is more important here than its discursive implication is the continued recognizability of such a trope at all. The three texts therefore join to read: “Some Laughed Long & Hard—Others Said ‘Only Thing a Niggah Could Do Was Shine My Shoes’—You Became Boots, Spades & Coons.” Black subjectivity is thus exposed to three forms of linguistic confinement: ridicule, subservience, and dismissal. And while each method of derision is, as Weems suggests, a “singular moment,” the repetitive visualization of their equivalence flattens the relevance of time passed.38 But this is not a deployment of the depthless repetition of “hollowed out signs” that the “End of History” viewpoint observes; like

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  245 Ligon’s Runaways series and Simpson’s Outline, it is instead a visualization of the past and present via an intertemporal intertextuality of their signifiers.

6. Time and Textuality For artists seeking to visualize the historical past, its signifiers contain “the manifold traces of earlier activities, to whose former existence they bear witness” and the question of how to re-present them requires careful handling.39 Referred to by Morrison in literary terms as “a kind of . . . archaeology,” this process of gathering the extant remains of the past is used to inform creative “reconstruct[ions] of the world that [they] imply.”40 It is, therefore, a subjective activity of selection and curation that is dictated as much by what remains are uncovered as it is by how they are subsequently framed. To give an equal footing to both content and form in this way may appear to adhere to the constructionist viewpoint, which argues for their textual equivalence.41 But, as we have seen, questions surrounding history’s veracity are complicated by authorial motivation and method. The works of Weems, Ligon, and Simpson cannot therefore be associated with a hollow form of simulacrum responding to “a new depthlessness” and “a consequent weakening of historicity,” because the belief in an authentic historical past is crucial to both the making and reading of them.42 Indeed, if “the historical discourse of our civilization” depends upon “the process of signification . . . filling out meaning,” as Roland Barthes attests, then the visualizations created by Weems, Simpson, and Ligon function anarchically.43 Not only do they interrogate established narratives of moral progression, they also confiscate the possibility of encountering any solution other than historical discourse’s incapacity to describe content that is without temporal conclusion. As Ashraf Rushdy underlines, an “insistence on the interdependence of past and present” by African American artists is “a political act, for it advocates a revisioning of the past as it is filtered through the present.”44 In the works studied here, this politicism is directed towards both history and its representation, and it exploits the tropes of both. By directly appropriating postmodern methods of historiographical critique, Weems, Ligon, and Simpson do not so much seek to create new versions of the historical past as to invent new visual languages for its intertemporal resurrection in “the present.”

Notes 1. Ellison, 5. 2. Morrison, 178. 3. Jameson, 16. 4. Lessing, 17. 5. Wolf, 198–99.

246  Isobel Elstob 6. The term “intertextuality” was first used by Julia Kristeva in Word, Dialogue, Novel (1966), which introduced the Russian formalist Mikhail Bakhtin to Western scholarship. It will be discussed further here. 7. Bryson, 187. 8. Steiner, 58. 9. Jameson, 12. 10. Verwoert, 147. 11. Davis, 247. 12. White (1999, 9). See also White (1987). 13. Koselleck’s conceptualization of present past, past present, and past future emerges in his discussion of modern perceptions of temporality —terms now widely used by historiographers. 14. Verwoert, 152. 15. Ibid., 152–53. 16. Ibid., 152. 17. See, for example, Renée Green’s “Seen” from Anatomies of Escape (1990) and Carla Williams’s How to Read Character (1990–91). 18. See Collins, The Art of History and Smith “Fragmented Documents.” 19. Smith, 249. 20. Ibid., 254. 21. Weems (2000). 22. Weems (2011). 23. Robinson, 32. 24. Copeland, 91. 25. Ibid., 95. 26. Robinson, 4. 27. Ibid., 4. 28. Evans (2009), 13. 29. Evans (2009), 15. 30. Verwoert, 146. 31. Agassiz commissioned the original daguerreotypes in 1850 to evidence his theory of an evolution of “races.” They were made by the South Carolinabased photographer Joseph T. Zealey and remained at Harvard University where Agassiz was based as the first director of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. 32. Kristeva, 37. Emphasis original. 33. Robinson, 21. 34. Danto, 294. 35. Smith, 246. 36. McInnes, 5. 37. Weems (2011). 38. Ibid. 39. Robinson, 4. 40. Morrison, 302. 41. See, for example, White (1987) and Ankersmit. 42. Jameson, 6. 43. Barthes, 16. 44. Rushdy, 567.

Bibliography Ankersmit, Franklin, R. Historical Representation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

The End Is the Beginning and Lies Far Ahead  247 Barthes, Roland. “Le discours de l’histoire,” trans. Stephen Bann, Social Science Information, VI, 65–75, in English, “The Discourse of History” (1967). In Comparative Criticism: A Yearbook, edited by E. S. Shaffer, vol. 3, 7–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Bryson, Norman. “Intertextuality and Visual Poetics.” Style 22, no. 2 (Summer 1988): 183–93. Collins, Lisa G. The Art of History: African American Women Artists Engage the Past. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Copeland, Huey. “Glenn Ligon and Other Runaway Subjects.” Representations 113, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 73–110. Danto, Arthur C. Narration and Knowledge. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Davis, Kimberly Chabot. “‘Postmodern Blackness’: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the End of History.” Twentieth Century Literature 44, no. 2 (1998): 242–60. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. 1st ed. London: Penguin Books, 1995 (1953). Evans, David. “Introduction: Seven Types of Appropriation.” In Appropriation, Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art Series, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. Gilroy, Paul. “Living Memory: Meeting Toni Morrison.” In Small Acts: Thoughts on the Politics of Black Cultures, 175–82. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1993. Green, Renée. “Seen” from Anatomies of Escape, 1990. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New York: Verso Books, 1991. Lessing, Gotthold, E. Laocoön and His Sons. An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient. (1776). Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877. Koselleck, Reinhart. Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985. Kristeva, Julia. “Word, Dialogue, Novel,” translation of Mikhail Bakhtin, “Le mot, le dialogue, le roman.” (1966). In The Kristeva Reader, edited by Kristeva and Toril Moi, 35–61. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Macleod, Dianne, S. Macleod, and Dianne Sachko. “Intertextuality in ‘Word and Image’.” Victorian Poetry 33, no. 3–4 (1995): 333–39. Mapplethorpe, Robert. Man in Polyester Suit (1980), McInnes, Mary, D. Telling Histories: Installations by Ellen Rothenberg and Carrie Mae Weems. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. Morrison, Toni. “The Site of Memory.” In Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, edited by Russel Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minhha, and Cornel West, 299–305. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Robinson, Alan. Narrating the Past: Historiography, Memory and the Contemporary Novel. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Rushdy, Ashraf H. A. “Daughters Signifyin(g) History: The Example of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” American Literature 64, no. 3 (1992): 567–97. Smith, Cherise. “Fragmented Documents: Works by Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, and Willie Robert Middlebrook at the Art Institute of Chicago.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, no. 2 (1999): 244–59, 271–72. Steiner, Wendy. “Intertextuality in Painting.” The American Journal of Semiology 3, no. 4 (1985): 57–67.

248  Isobel Elstob Verwoert, Jan. “Living with Ghosts: From Appropriation to Invocation in Contemporary Art.” Art & Research 1, no. 2 (2007): 1–7. Weems, Carrie Mae. Audio interview for MoMA 2000: Open Ends, The Museum of Modern Art and Acoustiguide, Inc., 2000. ———. Audio Recording Produced by the Getty Museum, November 4, 2011. White, Hayden. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1987. ———. Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Williams, Carla. How to Read Character. 1990–91. Wolf, Bryan. “Confessions of a Closet Ekphrastic: Literature, Painting and other Unnatural Relations.” Yale Journal of Criticism 3(1990): 181–203.

15 Breathing Statues, Stone Sermons, Pastoral Trails Memorializing Truth Claudine Raynaud

While Sojourner Truth’s slave past is the subject of the first part of her 1850 Narrative and her ex-slave status the basis of her fight for abolition and women’s rights, the dearth of representations that directly refer to that past questions the place and import of Truth’s slave experience in collective memory. It is as if Truth’s aged body, in her photographs, her statues, themselves overwhelmingly designed after these same photographs, acted as archiving that past by testifying to its transcendence.1 Such a perception finds its source in Truth’s lifetime and a persistent and willed distortion of her Northern experience of slavery by abolitionist propaganda. On the lecture circuit and in her religious addresses, Truth contributed to the construction of the figure of the old wise woman, the “mammy” type by presenting herself as a slave exhibit,2 the Southern slave mother. Her exposed live body acted throughout her life as persistent reference to the fact that the child Isabella Baumfree was born in slavery circa 1797. Her maimed right hand and the scars from the lash were the indelible traces of her sufferings. Yet, why do we encounter such a continued repression, such effacement of Truth’s slave past in the numerous representations of this icon of African American heroism? The answer might partly reside in the evidence that public memory, being a rhetorical process, is the result of constant negotiations amid controversies.3 The memory of Truth is no exception, haunted as it is by the very public spectacle of the auction block and “the country of the slave,” that other field from which she said she came.4 A national legend, Sojourner Truth has been publicly remembered through statues, memorial plaques, and the creation of tourist attractions to celebrate her life of political commitment.5 Probing the notion of official memory in the representation of Truth’s bodily features, this chapter attempts to answer the following questions: what contradictory forces go into the continued transmission of her image and the production of a symbol? How has her memory been passed on within the context of current efforts to salvage America’s slave past?

250  Claudine Raynaud

1. A “rememory that belongs to someone else” As her biographer, historian Nell Irving Painter makes plain in Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (1996) that the legend is stronger than the facts.6 While her cartes de visite and the various—visual as well as written— renditions of Truth have been the subject of recent study and in-depth articles,7 the monuments and various plaques, or even the actual trail in Florence, Massachusetts, that retraces her flight, have yet to be analyzed in light of current research on cultural memory. The notions of postmemory, multidirectional memory, palimpsestic memory, the development of memorial tourism, and the critical categories developed in the field of Museum Studies may help understand what is at stake in the treatment of Truth’s slave past.8 Posited as always already there and hence not worthy of direct treatment, it is paradoxically understated. The presence or absence of references to Truth’s slave past in the effort to honor her “memory” or the achievements of a lifetime indeed interpellates. Truth’s case can thus be seen as emblematic of “the inscription of the memory of [slavery] in the public sphere” and its travails.9 A statue necessarily celebrates the life and death of the person, marks his/her inscription in public memory. Sojourner Truth, for her part, became a symbol before she died, helped shape her celebrity, and even generated an income from her own fame.10 She sold copies of her Narrative and her cartes de visite when she lectured. She may in fact be said to be at the source of this insistence on the later part of her life at the expense of her slave experience. At the time, Harriet Beecher Stowe also contributed to enshrine the legend through the hackneyed comparison of Truth’s figure and body to two statues. She gave her the surname of “The Libyan Sibyl,” which Truth later rejected as “that old symbol,” preferring present action to celebration.11 To this day, contemporary statues of Truth continue to perpetuate the vision of the matron and erase the slave girl and the slave woman. On the one hand, the process of iconization contributes to shaping a narrative of success—the abolitionist, the feminist, the preacher, the civil rights activist—that celebrates progress, whereas “memorial tourism,” or even “dark tourism,” helps, on the other hand, to reflect on a past of trauma and revises official history. If the first tendency concurs with the desire for positive representations, the second insists on the pain, the violence, and the trials and fights repression, or even oblivion. Yet the two come into constant tension as they rely on different emotional thrusts and respond to different historically bound sensitivities. While abolitionists exhibited visual documents such as the photograph of the scarred back of the slave Gordon, as part and parcel of their propaganda, acknowledging and responding to the slaves’ sufferings sustains the current trend towards imagining “living memorials” to replace sculptural monuments.12

Statues, Sermons, Trails  251 The searing contradictions between victim and survivor, suffering and healing are still at work, surfacing even in the sanitized projections that the statues effect. The last to date is the bust placed in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall on April 28, 2009, inaugurated by Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Sheila Jackson Lee, and the women of the National Congress of Black Women who succeeded in placing the monument in this shrine of national values.13 These statues can also be contrasted with the African American Heritage Trail, also in Washington, DC, and her flight route where the visitor gains the illusion of physically experiencing what Truth might have gone through, placing as it were his/her footsteps in hers. “Places. Places are still there,” Sethe tells her daughter Denver in Morrison’s 1986 neo-slave narrative Beloved.14 The slave mother warns her child that she will bump into “a rememory that belongs to somebody else” when walking the Southern landscape.15 Morrison’s “rememory” is a vernacular version of “postmemory,” a term Marianne Hirsch defines as “the relationship that later generations or distant contemporary witnesses bear to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of others—to experiences they ‘remember’ or know only by means of stories, images, and behaviors.”16 In her 1989 acceptance speech for the Melcher award, Morrison expressed this need for a place to remember and summon up the absence of the slaves: There is no place you or I can go, to think about, or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves; nothing that reminds us of the ones who made the journey and of those who did not make it. There is no suitable memorial or plaque or wreath or wall or park or skyscraper lobby. No small bench by the road.17 Since then, the Toni Morrison Society has placed 20 benches in select locations, like the rue Louis Delgrès in the 20th Arrondissement of Paris, on November 6, 2010. Private recollection, personal meditation, albeit in a public place open to all passersby, replaces the collective, communal, practice of memorialization.

2. Mediated Memories of a Slave Girl Truth’s body—she was almost six feet tall, manly—and the references she herself made to it, as is reported in the famous and inaccurate 1853 Akron speech (“Ain’t I  a Woman?”), places it always already as the “incarnation”—the embodiment—of slavery, when her name comes up.18 The exhibition or public display of her sinews as a slave exhibit, her powerful arms and her breasts, queers the representation of this famous woman, an icon of abolitionism and black feminism. Contrasting with these public performances where the body evidences lived experience and

252  Claudine Raynaud relies on the immediacy of testimony, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s description of Truth likens her to a statue in her long 1863 essay “The Libyan Sibyl” published in the Atlantic Monthly. The article recalls their meeting but was written ten years after they met in Andover, Massachusetts. Stowe mistakenly thought, when she wrote it, that Truth was dead, but ironically, she depicts her as a statue come to life: She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as Cumberworth’s celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation of that work of art.19 Rather than material for statuary, Truth is a living sculpture conjured up by the narrative of her life. A follower of James Pradier, Charles Cumberworth was a French British sculptor who exhibited his bronze statues at salons in the mid-nineteenth century. More precisely, critic Carla Peterson identifies the statue that Stowe mentions as “Marie à la fontaine” (1840s) exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1846.20 It may be representing Marie, the slave woman character from Bernardin de St. Pierre’s 1788 Paul et Viriginie. The novel is set in an unknown island, but reference is made to the Island of France, now Mauritius, where Bernardin de St. Pierre had sojourned. This statue is indeed closest to what Truth would have looked like during her young slave years when she was working at the Shryvers’. Martinus Schryver was Isabella’s third master; she worked for him from 1808 to 1810 and, if one assumes that she was born in 1797, she was then 11 when he bought her. He owned a tavern, and Isabella had to fetch molasses or liquor from Round Creek, as is reported in her 1850 Narrative: [The Shryvers] owned a large farm, but left it wholly unimproved; attending mainly to their vocations of fishing and inn-keeping. Isabella declares she can ill describe the kind of life she led with them. It was a wild, out-of-door kind of life. She was expected to carry fish, to hoe corn, to bring roots and herbs from the woods for beers, go to the Strand for a gallon of molasses or liquor as the case might require, and “browse around,” as she expresses it.21 Cumberworth produced several renditions of the “Negro Woman at the Fountain,” and he eventually signed a contract with the brothers Susse to have his statuettes serialized. These 1840 statues are variously named as “The Nubian Water Bearer,” or “The Negress at the Fountain.”

Figure 15.1 “Marie revenant de la fontaine.” Charles Cumberworth (Verdun, 1811–Paris, 1852). Sand melt bronze by E. Quesnel (c 1792–1858); black and light brown bicolor patina. H: 0, 65m; L.: 0, 22m; D: 0, 25m, Paris, Musée du Louvre, sculpture department; 1846 Salon, no. 2137; commissioned on June  13, 1846, delivered on November 24, 1846. Courtesy of Musée du Louvre, Paris. Source: Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/Thierry Le Mage

254  Claudine Raynaud Another rendition of a young black woman, with two small children in her care, is entitled “Les petits blancs”: is it a slave mother looking after her white wards, or could it be Marie, the Mauritian slave woman, who looked after Paul and Virginie? The various depictions in the sale catalogues of the artwork differ. Cumberworth’s model was most probably a young woman from the Island of France or the West Indies present in France at the time, which adds a twist to Stowe’s linking her image of Truth to this statuette. Colonial history and the global slave trade converge: France’s colonial empire and colonial America, part of the Dutch background of Truth’s childhood, contribute to a dense layering of her representation, itself multilayered with hypertextual connections, such as its link to the eighteenth-century French novel. The multidirectional memory of a global colonial history and the slave trade is thus exposed, as well as the abolitionist’s own cosmopolitanism. Stowe, an American, refers to a sculpture exhibited in Paris by a French British artist, himself influenced by the orientalism of Parisian artistic circles. Stowe also mentions a visit to William Wetmore Story in Rome in her “Libyan Sibyl.”22 This imbrication of geographical and cultural references is made even more complex by the circulation of these representations as serialized art objects deemed for everyday use, by the concurrent commodification of art.23 French poet Charles Baudelaire denounced this vulgar use of sculpture that turned the noblest of art objects into common utensils, such as candelabra. Commenting on the 1846 Paris salon, he pointed his finger at Cumberworth: When [sculpture] has become a salon or bedroom art, the West Indies of lace, such as M. Gayrard’s, make their appearance. Then comes the West Indies of the wrinkle, of the facial hair, of the wart. Then the West Indies of the andiron, the clock, the desk set, etc.; like M. Cumberworth whose Marie is a Jane of all trades, at the Louvre or at Susse’s, a statue or a candelabrum; like M. Feuchère who possesses the gift of hopeless universality: colossal figures, match-boxes, silverplated motifs, busts and bas-reliefs; he can do it all.24 In short, Truth evokes to Stowe the character pictured in a statuette representing an iconic black slave, hence any female servant-slave (Marie, Jane), at the same time as the sculpted art object is itself reduced to a serial object. This simultaneity reifies the slave status of the represented “subject,” contrary to Stowe’s enthusiastic romanticized imagining of a statue come to life, a black Galatea.

3. “Seeing a child as a slave”: Troubling Perceptions Cumberworth’s orientalist statue strangely calls forth a contemporary attempt to depict Truth in her childhood years, precisely as she may have been when she was a slave at the Shryvers’.

Statues, Sermons, Trails  255

Figure 15.2  Statue of Sojourner Truth, Port Ewen, Esopus, New York. Source: Photograph courtesy of Susan DeMark—Mindful Walker

This statue was unveiled on September 21, 2013, in the town of Port Ewen, Esopus, close to where Truth lived with her second master, Charles Hardenbergh, from 1799 to 1808, and with her last master John Dumont whose residence was in New Palz (1810–1826). Local artist Trina Greene was commissioned to make the statue after an international competition. The Sojourner Truth Memorial Working Committee formed in 2008 raised funds for the memorial and decided that it should be a life-size

256  Claudine Raynaud statue of Truth as a child. In an interview, ahead of the dedication, local historian Anne Gordon declared, The statue of Isabella will be placed within yards of where Isabella herself walked on her way back to the Jug Tavern. . . . It may be the most significant representation in the world of a slave child doing the owner’s work. . . . We hope that for children, the statue will be an educational tool. They will see a child as a slave.25 Truth is barefoot; she carries two jugs and her back bears the traces of the lashes of the whip with which her previous master, John Neely, for whom she worked in 1808, would punish her. She tells in her Narrative how she did not understand the orders given in English since she spoke low Dutch.26 She states that her body exhibits to this day the marks of these punishments, and there is evidence that she would have shown these traces when she spoke in public. These two renderings placed side by side across centuries seem to be reworking the same subject, an old trope: a young girl bringing water back from the fountain. The first one is presumably based on a West Indian or Mauritian model that exoticizes its subject, a tamer version of Cumberworth’s master’s, Pradier’s sensuous Négresse aux calebasses (1837). Pradier was praised for the eroticism of his creations, his statues of flesh.27 The other rendering tries to bring to life what would have been everyday slavery for a young girl coming back with jugs, here full, not of water, but of rum and molasses. Everything takes place as if the nineteenth-century model was haunting its twenty-first century rendition through its reference to slave child labor. In each interpretation, the colonial presence takes on a different dimension. Originating from a French colonial island, the model enters in correspondence with the content of the jugs, a product of West Indian slave plantations. Another layer to the twenty-first century interpretation is added with the actual genesis of the work. Greene has explained how she used Leni Riefenstahl’s book The People of Kau (1976) to capture Truth’s gait.28 Riefenstahl’s livre d’art contains stunningly beautiful photographs of the Nuba people of Kau engaged in body paintings, knife fights, and ritual ceremonies. Thus, the gaze of the official photographer of the Third Reich mediates the realization of Truth’s statue. Another medium (photography) and another ideology, granted sifted through a contemporary artist’s sensitivity, a sculptress sincerely intent on retrieving the authentic bearing and the beauty of the girl “Bell,” enter into the re-creation of Truth as a young child, forever differing and troubling any access to her experience. In her “Fascinating Fascism,” Susan Sontag has convincingly argued for Riefenstahl’s continued adherence to National Socialistic aesthetics in her later African work.29 Indeed, one cannot evade the politics of representation, the mediation of visual images, the recourse to the imaginary—in this

Statues, Sermons, Trails  257 case, the photographs, the statuette—and the traces they bear in these re-constructions of Truth’s appearance. The goal is not so much to attain the truth of slavery as to move, educate, and transform the visitor, the spectator, or the reader. This is where the otherness of the image, once encountered, feeds on the imaginary of the other and tries to appropriate it, channel it into one’s own vision in a network of multidirectional connections. The question at the heart of this analysis is indeed the ways in which statuary that, as a genre, relies on allegory can render, or rather symbolize, the slave child’s experience. By allegorizing that experience, what ellipses does it perform? What shortcuts does it take? What ideologies leave their traces through the best-intentioned figurations? The subsidiary question is that of the history of slave children, and slave girls in particular. Scholar Jean Fagan Yellin has attempted to address the narrative of Harriet Jacobs’s childhood, a decisive chapter of Incidents, “The Trials of Girlhood.”30 Historian Nell Irvin Painter has also drawn historians’ attention to child abuse and sexual harassment among slave children and youth in a controversial article entitled “Soul Murder.”31 As early as the 1970s, children’s history started to develop, and a new enlarged edition of Wilma King’s Stolen Childhood. Slave Youth in 19th Century America came out in 2011.32 The statue’s symbolic dimension runs counter to the desire to bear witness, an intention that must be borne by precisely allegorizing the detail. The location of the work signals a place where one can remember, where the young can be educated, where a historical figure can be celebrated. It inscribes in space the location of memory. It fixes a site of memory. It ritualizes memory in the practice of commemoration. At the same time, sculpture as an art entertains a singular relation to time. As art historian Kirk Savage explains, “Sculpture has been uniquely haunted and driven by the specter of its belatedness, its difficulty finding a compelling place in the modern world.”33 As it concurrently claims to fight the passing of time, sculpture is marked by obsolescence. It is always already too late, superseded by other models and forms of perception. Another question should be raised: that of the relation between art and activism. In the case of Truth, showing her in her young years purports to lay bare the foundations of her later activism. Is dedicating a statue to her in a public place an act of activism? Is it urging the younger generations through Truth’s example to perform their “duty to remember” (devoir de mémoire) or, as Holocaust survivor and woman politician Simone Veil suggests, does it trigger “memory work” (travail de mémoire)?34 Sculptor Trina Greene, who created the Esopus statue, comments on her work as follows: All my works are narratives. I feel very much like a writer who makes objects and paintings. I’m interested in the communicative potential of art to heal our souls. . . . The sculpture is placed so that a child

258  Claudine Raynaud can walk up and stand next to it. It’s our hope that they’ll see the real cruelty of slavery forever captured in bronze.35 Conversely, is the disremembering or mis-remembering that Marcus Wood signals in the museums dedicated to slavery such as Liverpool, Hull, or Nantes for that matter, also at work in the dedication of statues? The critic insists, The mock-ups of the conditions in a slave ship displayed in Hull and Liverpool attempt to concretize, to simulate, the memory of the middle passage. . . . Yet surely there are subjects and objects which cannot fit within an educational framework of current museum culture. Museum parodies of the experience of the middle passage, which claim to “put us there,” may well do more harm than good. . . . In inviting us to think we are getting a “total experience,” these exhibits simply recast the empathetic yet complacent emotional substitutions with which the West has been mis-remembering and dis-remembering slavery for more than three centuries.36 The whole issue is indeed that of complacency, of sentimentalism, and the risk of re-conducting the patronizing pathos, of re-producing the posture of victimization, that we so readily denounce in nineteenth-century abolitionist rhetoric.

4. “Slavery on the horizon”: Allegorical Renderings The second mention that Stowe makes of a statue is to explain how Truth was the subject of Wetmore Story’s “anti-slavery sermon in stone” as the abolitionist sculptor qualified his work. Wetmore, as she explains, was working on his statue of Cleopatra in line with the Egyptomania that ran through the nineteenth century and that can be illustrated by African American and Native American sculptor Edmonia Lewis’s own version of the Egyptian queen. Stowe writes, [Truth’s] memory still lives in one of the loftiest and most original works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story, which attracted so much attention in the late World’s Exhibition. Some years ago, when visiting Rome, I related Sojourner’s history to Mr. Story at a breakfast at his house. Already had his mind begun to turn to Egypt in search of a type of art which should represent a larger and more vigorous development of nature than the cold elegance of Greek lines. His glorious Cleopatra was then in process of evolution, and his mind was working out the problem of her broadly developed nature, of all that slumbering weight and fullness of passion with

Statues, Sermons, Trails  259 which this statue seems charged, as a heavy thunder-cloud is charged with electricity.37 Stowe then describes the Sibyl and one wonders about the relation between Truth, as she appeared to her, and this allegorical rendition of the African mystery. Stowe upon meeting Truth had found something “gloomy” in her:38 The Sibilla Libica has crossed her knees—an action universally held amongst the ancients as indicative of reticence or secrecy, and of power to bind. . . . [A]nd to keep her secrets closer, for this Libyan woman is the closest of all the sibyls, she rests her shut mouth upon one closed palm, as if holding the African mystery deep in the brooding brain that looks out through mournful, warning eyes.39 Truth, the famed orator and preacher, is praised in this rendition for her shut mouth. Story, for his part, having conceived his statue after the onset of the Civil War, explained his intentions to depict her as a prophetess, envisioning her people’s plight: [She is] full lipped, long-eyed, low-browed and lowering with the largely developed limbs of the African. She sits on a rock, her legs crossed, leaning forward  .  .  . It is a very massive figure, bigshouldered, large-bosomed, with nothing of the Venus in it, but as far as I could make it, luxuriant and heroic. She is looking out of her black eyes into futurity and is seeing the terrible fate of her race. This is the theme of the figure—Slavery on the horizon and I  made her head as melancholy and severe as possible not at all shirking the real African type . . . Libyan Africa of course, not Congo.40 As Wetmore Story acknowledges, to him the “real African type” is not Congo, but Libyan African. The comparison with Cleopatra helps understand the lack of concern for a faithful depiction of Truth’s decidedly African features. In the colonial imaginary of the times, the epithets Nubian or Libyan are acceptable, yet black African (i.e., “negrolooking”) is not. Truth’s ancestors were indeed African: her father came from the Gold Coast (Ghana) and her grandmother from the Kongo.41 She also had Mohawk Indian blood in her ancestry from a grandmother. Slavery is allegorized in the grand manner of nineteenth century colossal figures, and Truth becomes the “inspiration” for a noble idea and ideal. The actual living conditions, the physicality, the flesh/body, are absented to give way to the stone rendering of a symbol. Granted the motivation is abolitionist and the occasion linked to the American Civil War, but we are far from the reality of enslavement, or even from a stylized and

260  Claudine Raynaud symbolic allusion to slavery as a violent system of oppression, as in the gashes of the whip on the girl’s skin. On the contrary, the slave narratives as abolitionist propaganda depicted over and over as a trope the slaves’ tortured bloody bodies. Different media, different messages: the noble art of sculpture could not accommodate what the popular slave narratives indulged in. Kirk Savage concurs, “Sculpture in the classical tradition left no room for an African American body . . . indelibly scarred by slavery.”42 Most of the statues erected in the twenty-first century choose to rely on the photographs of the cartes de visite and to extoll Truth’s action as an itinerant preacher. They de facto erase any visual reference to her slave years, except for the “knowledge” that the viewer has of her life history and that he/she reads back into the representation. Plaques with short written mentions placed next to the statue might perform that office. Truth’s upright body, at times in massive statues, like the Battle Creek one, a 12-foot creation, thus represents how one overcomes slavery. What is celebrated is the heroic figure, the abolitionist, the woman’s right activist, the religious leader, the orator. What is honored is her legacy. The size of the statue is also a gesture towards her role as model and protector: she often called her audience “children” and her listeners referred to her old age.43 Quite another way of remembering slavery is the endeavor to retrace the route of her flight and to have her trail taken up by visitors.44 Truth fled from her master’s house one October morning in 1826; she was 29 and took her youngest child Sophia with her, leaving the rest of her children with her husband. The Sojourner Truth’s Freedom Trail hails the tourist to “follow her 11-mile escape route traced on a map and view the dedication plaques on Route 213 near Sturgeon Pool, her birthplace and the Kingston Court House.”45 The visitor thus experiences firsthand the distance she traveled when she escaped.46 Susan DeMark, who writes for The Mindful Walker, depicts her own walk on the trail as follows: Much of [Popletown] road is surrounded by fields, woods, stone fences, and large boulders. As I took it in slowly, I appreciated its beauty. Yet I thought about how much fear the young Isabella felt as she walked so many miles, with only her young daughter. She did not have reason to believe that Dumont would harm her, if he found her, but what about others? One can’t underestimate the risk of a young African-American female slave walking with her child along a rural road at that time.47 Walking that escape route is a way of communing in spirit with the young Isabella, of projecting oneself into what is mentally reconstructed, projected, as her slave experience. It is an autobiographical moment that tries to conjure up the feelings Truth went through on that day. It calls up that particular moment in the Narrative and links it to the actual

Statues, Sermons, Trails  261 topography of the site. In a way, it willfully performs Sethe’s injunction that “places are still there.”48 Another project entitled the African American Heritage Trail in Florence, Massachusetts, places specific hallmarks of Truth’s life along its guided tour, as well as references to the Northampton Association for Educational and Industry, the socialist utopian commune to which Truth belonged when she dictated her Narrative.49 Established in 1842, the Association was dissolved in 1846; its members, who sought to practice equality without distinction of sex, color or condition, sect or religion, communally owned and operated a silk mill. The tourist thus discovers Truth’s life in the context of abolitionism and its major figures: William Garrison, Amy Post, Wendell Philips, Frederick Douglass. This guided tour along 18 stops features Truth’s house (stop 16) at 35 Park Street50 and starts at her memorial statue. It helps recreate the links between Truth and the white abolitionists and patrons that were part of her support network. Such apprehension of memory mixes commercial ventures—making money from the evocation of the past—with an actual pedagogical and educational gesture. It is also for the visitor a pleasant if meditative moment.

Conclusion The memory of slavery is thus irremediably caught up in its time and its contradictions. From the highly romanticized Libyan Sibyl to the barefoot itinerant preacher to the massive motherly figure, Truth is allegorized. The young slave girl working for her master and bearing the traces of the lash is a more realistic rendering of what she indeed was in the course of her life: an enslaved and abused child. Such a representation is made possible only when others seem to have run their course and new choices are made, fostered by new demands, entertained by a different sensitivity. When compared to her nineteenth-century representations, this contemporary depiction of Truth fulfills other purposes: it is less the celebration of a heroic figure than a communion with a past of enslavement that needs to be acknowledged. It performs the aesthetics of vulnerability that Marianne Hirsch outlined: “Postmemorial aesthetic strategies . . . can offer ways in which we can practice vulnerability as a form of attunement and responsibility—responsibility not as blameworthiness but as the ability to respond.”51 It is an educational tool to know and understand America’s past, but also to ensure a progressive future thanks to an ethics of the imagination.

Notes 1. Photography and sculpture are different artistic media. See Barthes’s analysis of Richard Avedon’s photograph of the slave William Casby in Camera Lucida: “The man I  see here has been a slave: he certifies that slavery has existed, not so far from us; and he certifies this  .  .  . by a new, somehow

262  Claudine Raynaud experienced order of proof” (Barthes, 35). The presence of the subject is mediated and made possible by the image of the body, and the photograph is evidence of that (past) presence. 2. See Bennett, Hartman. 3. See Mandziuk and Fitch, Mandziuk. 4. “My friends, I am rejoiced that you are glad, but I don’t know how you will feel when I am through. I come from another field—the country of the slave” (May 9, 1867). First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Convention. Fitch and Mandziuk, 121. 5. Among the various statues of Truth, one can mention: i. The Florence, Mass., Memorial Statue designed by Thomas Jay Warren that stands at the corner of Pine and Park streets in that town where Truth lived. Born in Mississippi in 1958, Warren studied sculpture as a presidential scholar at Mississippi College. The statue was unveiled on Sunday, October  6, 2002. http://sojournertruthmemorial.org/about-us/memorialstatue/ (accessed July 16, 2018). ii. The Battle Creek monument designed by Tina Allen located in Monument Park. The purpose was to erect “a twelve-foot-tall bronze statue of Sojourner Truth in Monument Park, reflecting the collective community spirit and inspiration Truth gave the residents of this city.” Sojourner Truth is buried in Battle Creek. www.sojournertruth.org/Monuments/ MonumentParkProject_Menu.htm/ (accessed July 16, 2018). iii. The bust of Truth placed in Capitol Hall on April  28, 2009, is by California-based sculptor Artis Lane. It is designed after Truth’s photographs: “The over-life-size bust shows her in a cap and shawl similar to those in which she was often photographed. She is depicted with a smile suggesting confidence and determination. The texture of her hair and shawl contrast with the smooth surfaces of the face and under blouse.” California-based sculptor Lane is known for her bronze and painted portraits of famous Americans. www.aoc.gov/art/busts/sojourner-truth-bust (accessed July 16, 2018). iv. The Esopus statue of her as a child by Trina Greene was unveiled on September  21, 2013, at the corner of Route 9W and Salem Street in Port Ewen. See Susan DeMark 2012 (May, July, October), 2013. v. A  life-size bronze statue of Truth at Thurgood Marshall College Campus, University of California at San Diego, 2014. On her website artist Manuelita Brown explains, “In Sojourner Truth, Manuelita demonstrates her preference for life-sized as opposed to monumental sculptures of remarkable people, to effectively help viewers relate to the humanity of that individual. Her primary goals are to contribute sculpture works to the American public which edify and give expression to the human spirit, and to convey the strength, character, and beauty of her own people, the descendants of African survivors in the Americas.” www.tsahaistudio. com/about-manuelita/ (accessed July 16, 2018). vi. A petition addressed to Governor Cuomo to have a statue placed on the Empire State Trail, Ulster County, in New Paltz is posted on the following site: www.change.org/p/governor-andrew-cuomo-place-the-statue-ofsojourner-truth-in-new-paltz:/ (accessed July 16, 2018). 6. Painter, 258 (“Neither Truth nor the memorialists cemented her brilliant fragments into a whole, successive purveyors of her memory have each magnified their favorite piece”). 7. See Zadocknik, Grigsby (2011), Bernier (2012), Grigsby (2015). Bernier’s work is reviewed favorably by Hills and critically by Levine. She answered

Statues, Sermons, Trails  263 these critics in “When Nothing Is Said of Black Heroes” (2012). See also her Public Art (2009). 8. For the notion of postmemory, see Hirsch (2012); multidirectional memory, Rothberg (2009); palimpsestic memory, Silverman. 9. Chivallon, 335. 10. Mabee, 68 (“Truth often seemed willing to let friendly myths develop about her”). See note 6 about Painter. 11. Ibid., 114 (“I don’t want to hear about that old symbol, give me something that is going on now”). 12. Shanken. 13. Mandzuic retraces the fight between the NWHM (National Women’s Historical Museum), led by Karen Staser, that wanted to build a museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as early as 1996 and the NPCBW (National Political Congress for Black Women). When the NWHM decided to relocate a statue commemorating three women suffrage advocates (Stanton, Anthony, and Mott) from a basement room, C. DeLores Tucker, president of the NPCBW, circulated a pamphlet in 1997 asking for the inclusion of Sojourner Truth. 14. Morrison (1987, 36). 15. Ibid. 16. Hirsch (2014, 339). 17. Morrison (1989). 18. Abolitionist and reformer Frances Dana Barker Gage published Sojourner Truth’s celebrated 1851 Akron speech in May  1863, 12  years after Truth delivered it at the women’s rights convention that Gage presided over. Truth’s Southern accent is a willed distortion, since she was a Northern slave and spoke Dutch as a child. Historians prefer to refer to Marius Robinson’s transcription in the Anti-Slavery Bugle (June 21, 1851), which they deem more accurate (Washington 1993, 117–18). 19. Emphasis added. Stowe, 103. 20. Peterson, 35. 21. Truth, 17. 22. Stowe, 115. 23. To assess the import of this process of the devaluation of the work of art through reproduction in the modern age, Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” immediately comes to mind. 24. Emphasis added; translation by author. Baudelaire, 185. 25. Gibbons. 26. Truth, 14–15. 27. Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève. 28. DeMark (July 2012). 29. Sontag. 30. Jacobs. See also Yellin’s biography of Harriet Jacobs. 31. Painter (1995, 125–46). 32. King, 1995, 2011. 33. Savage (2010, 9). 34. Raynaud 2014. 35. Emphasis added. Gibbons. 36. Wood, 300. 37. Emphasis added. Stowe, 116. 38. Ibid., 103. 39. Ibid., 116. 40. Mabee, 112. 41. Washington, 10–13.

264  Claudine Raynaud 2. Savage, 11, 14. 4 43. Truth, 89, 95. 44. The Esopus town historian Dorothy Dumond traced the route that Isabella might have walked. She identified two possible itineraries: a more direct route and another one that passes the Hardenbergh farm. 45. This is item number 10 on the brochure to discover the town of Esopus that can be downloaded at www.esopus.com/brochures/heritage_trail.pdf. Accessed July 16, 2018. For information on the trail, see Nyquist. 46. These business, educational, and touristic ventures are part of the Town of Esopus Heritage and Recreation Network 2002. 47. DeMark (July 2012). 48. Morrison (1987, 36). 49. The map of the tour is available at http://sojournertruthmemorial.org/ walking-tour-map/ (accessed July 16, 2018). The 18 stops of the tour can be viewed at www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFO7GndDgQqkOmfnQvlYgeR vGsZYglfeZ. Accessed July 16, 2018. 50. A video of the house is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kxWSAegeik. Accessed July 16, 2018. 51. Hirsch (2014, 339).

Bibliography Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981. Baudelaire, Charles. “Curiosités esthétiques, Salon de 1846.” In Œuvres complètes de Charles Baudelaire, edited by Michel Lévy frères, vol. 2, 77–198. Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1868. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations. Essays and Reflections, edited by Hannah Arendt, 217–52. New York: Schocken, 1968 (1935). Bennett, Lerone, Jr. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 1619– 1962. Chicago: Johnson, 1969 (1962). Bernier, Celeste-Marie, and Judith Newman, eds. Characters of Blood. Black Heroism in the Transatlantic Imagination. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. ———. Public Art, Memorials and Atlantic Slavery. London: Routledge, 2009. ———. “When Nothing Is Said of Black Heroes.” African American Review 45, no. 4 (Winter 2012): 518–26. Chivallon, Christine. “Mémoire de l’esclavage et actualisation des rapports sociaux.” In Les esclavages et les traites. Perspectives historiques et contemporaines, edited by Myriam Cottias, Elisabeth Cunin, and Antόnio de Almeida Mendes, 335–55. Paris: Karthala, 2010. DeMark, Susan. ———. “The Child Who Became Sojourner Truth.” Mindful Walker. Posted October 14, 2013. Accessed July 16, 2018. www.mindful walker.com/beyond-gotham/the-child-who-became-sojourner-truth. ———. “In Sojourner Truth’s Footsteps.” Mindful Walker. Posted May  31, 2012. Accessed July  16, 2018. www.mindfulwalker.com/beyond-gotham/ in-sojourner-truths-footsteps. ———. “Tracing Sojourner Truth’s Escape Route.” Mindful Walker. Posted July  31, 2012. Accessed July  16, 2018. www.mindfulwalker.com/beyondgotham/tracing-sojourner-truths-escape-route.

Statues, Sermons, Trails  265 ———. “Statue to Show Sojourner Truth as a Child.” Mindful Walker. Posted October  24, 2012. Accessed July  16, 2018. www.mindfulwalker.com/ beyond-gotham/statue-to-show-sojourner-truth-as-a-child. Fitch, Suzanne Pullon, and Roseann M. Mandziuk. Sojourner Truth as Orator. Wit, Story and Song. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997. Gibbons, Ann. “Sojourner Truth to Be Honored in Port Ewen with Statue of Her as Slave Child.” Daily Freeman News, August 31, 2013. www.dailyfreeman. com/article/DF/20130831/NEWS/308319957/. Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. Enduring Truths. Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015. ———. “Negative-Positive Truths.” Representations 113, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 16–38. Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery and Self-Making in 19th America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Hills, Patricia. “What ‘Characters of Blood’ Can Offer Art Historians.” African American Review 45, no. 4 (Winter 2012): 501–4. Hirsch, Marianne. “Connective Histories in Vulnerable Times.” PMLA 129, no. 3 (2014): 330–48. ———. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl. Written by Herself, 1861. Documenting the American South. Accessed July  16, 2018. http://docsouth. unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/jacobs.html. King, Wilma. Stolen Childhood. Slave Youth in 19th Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011 (1995). Levine, Robert S. “Bernier’s Experimental Poetics; or, What Was African American Experimentalism?” African American Review 45, no. 4 (Winter 2012): 496–500. Mabee, Carleton, and Susan Mabee Newhouse. Sojourner Truth. Slave, Prophet, Legend. New York: New York University Press, 1993. Mandziuk, Roseann M. “ISSA Proceedings 2014—Gender and Generative Argument: Locating the National Women’s History Museum in the Landscape of Public Memory.” Rozenberg Quarterly (2014). Accessed July 16, 2018. http:// rozenbergquarterly.com/issa-proceedings-2014-gender-and-generative-argu ment-locating-the-national-womens-history-museum-in-the-landscape-of-pub lic-memory/. Mandziuk, Roseann M., and Suzanne Fitch Pullon. “The Rhetorical Construction of Sojourner Truth.” Southern Communication Journal 66 (2001): 120–38. Morrison. Toni. Beloved. London: Picador, 1987, (1986). ———. “A Bench by the Road.” Unitarian Universalist World (January–February 1989). Repr. 2008. www.uuworld.org/articles/a-bench-by-road/. Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève, ed. Statues de Chair, sculptures de James Pradier (1790–1852). Paris and Genève: Catalogue de l’exposition éponyme. 1985–1986. Nyquist, Corinne. “On the Trail of Sojourner Truth in Ulster County, New York.” Posted August  11, 2008. Accessed July  16, 2018. http://www2.new paltz.edu/sojourner_truth/. Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth, a Life. A Symbol. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. ———. “Soul Murder and Slavery: Toward a Fully-Loaded Cost Accounting.” In U.S. History as Women’s History: New Feminist Essays, edited by Linda

266  Claudine Raynaud K. Kerber, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Kathryn Kish Sklar, 125–46. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Peterson, Carla L. “ ‘A Sign unto this Nation’: Sojourner Truth, History, Orature, and Modernity.” In Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830–1880), edited by Carla L. Peterson, 24–55. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Raynaud, Claudine. “Memory Work.” Black Studies Papers 1, no. 1 (2014): 29–36. Riefenstahl, Leni. The People of Kau. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1976. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. ———. “Multidirectional Memory.” Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire 119 (2014): 176. Savage, Kirk. “History, Memory, and Monuments: An Overview of the Scholarly Literature on Commemoration.” National Park Service. Accessed July 16, 2018. www.nps.gov/parkhistory/resedu/savage.htm. ———. “The Obsolescence of Sculpture.” American Art 24, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 9–14. ———. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves. Race, War and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Shanken, Andrew. “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States During World War II.” Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 130–47. Silverman, Max. Palimpsestic Memory: The Holocaust and Colonialism in French and Francophone Fiction and Film. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015. Sontag, Susan. “Fascinating Fascism.” The New York Times Review of Books, February  6, 1975. Accessed July  16, 2018. www.nybooks.com/ articles/1975/02/06/fascinating-fascism/. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “The Libyan Sibyl.” The Atlantic Monthly, April  11, 1863. In Narrative of Sojourner Truth. A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence. Drawn from her ‘Book of Life’ Also, a Memorial Chapter, edited by Nell Irving Painter, 103–17. New York: Penguin, 1998 (1884). Accessed July  16, 2018. www.theatlantic.com/ magazine/archive/1863/04/sojourner-truth-the-libyansibyl/308775/2/. Terry, Esther. “Sojourner Truth: The Person Behind the Libyan Sibyl.” The Massachusetts Review 26, no. 2–3 (Summer–Autumn 1985): 425–44. Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Edited by Margaret Washington. New York: Vintage Books, 1993 (1850). Washington, Margaret, ed. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. ———. Sojourner Truth’s America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Wood, David. Blind Memory: Visual Representations of Slavery in England and America, 1780–1865. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Yellin, Jean Fagan. Harriet Jacobs. A Life. New York: Basic Books, 2004. Zadocknik, Theresa. “The Green-Backs of Civilization. Sojourner Truth and Portrait Photography.” American Studies 46, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 117–14.

16 Re-Imagining Slavery in David Dabydeen’s A Harlot’s Progress Nathalie Martinière

At the heart of the dispute over The Satanic Verses, . . . behind all the accusations and abuse, was a question of profound importance: Who shall have control over the story? Who has, who should have, the power not only to tell the stories with which, and within which, we all lived, but also to say in what manner those stories may be told?—Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton (2013).1

In his novel entitled A Harlot’s Progress2 (1999), David Dabydeen, a British poet and novelist of Guyanese origin, offers a new life to the characters in Hogarth’s famous series of prints (1732), concentrating his attention on the little black servant placed on the edge of Plate no. 2, a mere detail in Moll Hackabout’s—the harlot’s—life. In typical postmodern and postcolonial fashion, Dabydeen gives him a life of his own and offers him the possibility of speaking for himself. Asked by an abolitionist to tell his story in return for charity, Mungo, the main character-cum-narrator, definitely rejects the clichés about Blacks and slavery that his protector expects. Claiming that he has lost all his memories of the time before he came into contact with Whites, he lets his narrative be fertilized by dreams, fantasies, and myths, and invents for himself and those around him conflicting stories of “alternative lives,” placing himself clearly on the side of fiction. By so doing, Dabydeen questions the possibility of a reliable, objective type of knowledge on the subject and underlines the constructed nature of memory. As the descendant of slaves and a specialist of eighteenth-century English painting, David Dabydeen also explores how art—especially Hogarth’s prints, haunted by the presence of black slaves, contributed to petrifying the figure of the slave into clichés whose influence can still be felt nowadays. He also suggests that fiction can nevertheless offer a way of circumscribing and transcending the traumas associated with the experience of slavery. The novel is set in the eighteenth century and tells the story of Mungo, the narrator, from his birth in some African village to his death in a garret in London. In between, Mungo is kidnapped with all the villagers by slave

268  Nathalie Martinière traders, transported on a ship commanded by Captain Thistlewood who rapes and abuses him, but also Christianizes him; in London, he is bought by Lord Montague as a gift for his wife, flees and takes refuge with Mr. Gideon, a Jewish quack doctor who tends to syphilitic whores and eventually poisons them to alleviate their sufferings; it is there that Mungo meets Moll and Hogarth. In the end, alone and sick, he becomes the prey of Mr. Pringle, a representative of the Committee for the Abolition of Slavery, who tries to force a confession about his life as a slave out of him.

1. Moving From the Edge of Hogarth’s Plate no. 2 Dealing with the memory of slaves and slavery means dealing with the way they were represented, from a historical point of view—in academic essays, for instance—but also, and arguably more importantly because the impact is broader, through fiction. We are used to postcolonial rewritings of classics of literature, such as Robinson Crusoe, which underline their role in the creation of stereotypes, their role in the “naturalizing of constructed values (e.g., civilization, humanity, etc.) which, conversely, established ‘savagery,’ ‘native,’ ‘primitive,’ as their antitheses.”3 It is the type of approach chosen by David Dabydeen in order to explore both the influence of art and fiction on the way we conceive slavery and the questions raised by the very process of its memorialization. The idea, as Stephen Slemon puts it, is to “offer a key to destabilisation and deconstruction of a repressive European archive.”4 In handling this question of the “repressive” dimension of artistic and literary archives concerning slavery, David Dabydeen also raises a number of interesting issues on the very possibility of remembering or representing a past to which we have no firsthand access, questioning the sources we usually rely on. 1.1. Anxiety of Authorship: “he has fixed [us] for all time on the point of his burin” (271) Dabydeen chose a title for his novel that explicitly refers to one of Hogarth’s most famous sets of prints, a choice that can be read as a declaration of intention. Dabydeen wrote two books on Hogarth, and one of them concentrates on the images of Blacks conveyed by eighteenthcentury art and the way they have been interpreted henceforth: Of eighteenth century English artists, William Hogarth was the most prolific painter and engraver of blacks. They figure in each of his major satirical series, from the Harlot’s Progress of 1732 to the Elections pictures of the 1750s. Countless critics have repeatedly marveled at the elaborate narrative structure of the artist’s work, at the fact that each detail within a particular work is purposefully placed to yield specific meaning or to create a specific effect, no detail being

Re-Imagining Slavery in A Harlot’s Progress  269 gratuitous or accidental. Austin Dobson for instance remarks that “the chairs and tables, the masks and fans, the swords and cudgels, have all their articulate message in the story; there is a sermon in a dial, a moral in a cobweb, a text in a paper of tobacco”. Even so, no attempt has been made to place Hogarth’s blacks in the narrative contexts in which they occur. (1) It should therefore come as no surprise that Dabydeen chose to focus on the little black servant in Plate no. 2: placed on the edge of the scene, he brings the tea while Moll distracts her rich Jewish lover’s attention to allow another younger lover to leave the room. It was a way for Dabydeen of continuing in fiction what he had started from a critical point of view in his essay Hogarth’s Blacks, placing Hogarth’s Blacks into the limelight, reassessing their position in eighteenth-century British society and art, insisting on their “nearly invisible” or spectral presence.

Figure 16.1 Hogarth, William. A Harlot’s Progress: Plate 2: [estampe] (deuxième état) W.m Hogarth inv:t pinx:t et sculp:t, ID/Cote  : CD-13-FOL, Tome 1. 1 est. : eau-forte, burin. Paulson, 122 (2), pl. 128. Source: R146431. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

270  Nathalie Martinière In their essay The Madwoman in the Attic, Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert make it clear that female writers are not under the “anxiety of influence” studied by Harold Bloom in The Anxiety of Influence; they must rather fight what they call an “anxiety of authorship”: “an anxiety . . . to be inappropriately authored . . . built from complex and often only barely conscious fears of that authority which seems to the . . . artist to be by definition inappropriate to [his/her situation].”5 This anxiety is based on the stereotypes propagated by the fictions of the past. It seems to me that the situation is identical in Dabydeen’s novel: Hogarth may be dead, but his influence remains overwhelming and his “authority” is not easily dispelled. In the print, the little black boy is only an accessory to the story, a fetish, a sign of Moll’s status, a situation which, however, means—and it is the positive aspect of the situation—that Dabydeen is entirely free in his narration, so that he can turn a very minor presence into not only the central character but also the narrator of his novel, therefore endowing him with control over what he wants to tell (or not).6 For as we rapidly realize, Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress serves as a starting point for Mungo’s story, a story that is only loosely related to the prints, and it is only because of the title and the vignettes at the beginning of each chapter (each one a different detail borrowed from the prints) that we are reminded of the connection, while Moll Hackabout, the “harlot” in Hogarth’s prints, and Hogarth himself appear only in the last pages of the novel.7 Modifying the relative place assigned to the characters in Hogarth’s prints, Dabydeen thus manages to question the ideological structures that led to this type of casting. Because of the reference to Hogarth’s prints, Mungo’s narrative also problematizes the process of memorialization of slavery through the question of the disciplinary, controlling European gaze: as a slave, Mungo is not allowed to speak freely for himself and is turned into a fetish (as is the case in the prints).8 In Hogarth’s Blacks, Dabydeen underlines that Hogarth supported the anti-slavery movements, but Mungo nevertheless sees his prints from a different angle, insisting on the fact that they imprisoned him in clichés that have been perpetuated over the centuries: I wanted him to make me ordinary, for that is what a Negro is, ordinary man and woman, deserving of the ordinary human feeling that yet creates and recreates glimpses of new worlds . . . I fear that I will forever be associated with the indecencies of merchants and whores, for Mr. Hogarth’s prints will last forever.9 Centuries from now, when your descendants think of a Negro, they will think of a pimp, pickpocket, purveyor of filth. (273) As a result, Mungo calls Hogarth a liar: “Yet for all the seeming realism of his art, he lied” (272). What he means is that art has an influence

Re-Imagining Slavery in A Harlot’s Progress  271 on reality and therefore an ethical responsibility. And for that matter, he is not interested only in Hogarth: while he is living with Lady Montague, Mungo meets a character he calls “a Reynolds black” who is incapable of distancing himself from the image created by Reynolds’s paintings10 and “behave[s] accordingly,” seeing himself as “a detail” in the picture rather than an individual: He was a Reynolds’ black, and behaved accordingly, ignoring Perseus’ uncouthness though inwardly revolted by it. . . . [I]n spite of his rich suit, Perseus is obviously a maladjusted Negro, one perhaps best left in the bush, in the company of other bare savages. It is his kind that brings such shame on the race, making the English believe that no amount of exposure to virtue can cleanse us within. They live in secret fear of us, awaiting the inevitable outbreak of native manners; the household of a nobleman no less dangerous than a West Indian plantation. Still, I  have set a standard as a Reynolds black, and though the Ladies, quite properly, do not acknowledge it, I know that my equanimity in the face of Perseus’ outburst proves me a hopeful specimen of Negro. (220) Parts III and IV of the novel refer to Turner’s famous painting, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying (1840), in order to question the disturbing aestheticization of the slaves’ suffering in art. In the preface to his poem Turner, which deals with the same question in similar terms, Dabydeen insists on the fact that his characters cannot “escape Turner’s representation of them as exotic and sublime victims. Neither can they describe themselves anew but are indelibly stained by Turner’s language and imagery.”11 And a long passage dealing not only with Hogarth’s prints, but also with cheaper versions that perpetuated what he calls the “penny image” (274) of the negro also insists on the alienating influence of images on the collective imagination, especially cheap ones, reproduced by thousands: “because of Mr. Hogarth I was possessed in penny image, by several thousands. To be sure I thus became an historic and memorable figure in the birth of democracy in the British realm” (274). 1.2. Mungo as a “ruined archive” (3) If the title explicitly refers to Hogarth’s prints, the novel starts with a prologue that, for its part, associates the story with a second type of “repressive archive”: the slave narratives published in the eighteenth century. The prologue’s role is essential as it tells us what we are going— or rather not going—to read and defines the stakes of the relationship between Mungo and Mr. Pringle, the abolitionist who tries to force a confession out of him. It insists, therefore, on the fictional dimension of

272  Nathalie Martinière Mungo’s story and on his refusing to comply with the demands of the abolitionist. Mr. Pringle and Mungo disagree on the necessity to write his story, and Mungo would rather forget about his past, or so he claims: “Memory don’t bother me, that’s why I don’t tell Mr. Pringle anything. I can change memory” (2). Significantly, also, the prologue is written by an omniscient third person narrator (contrary to most of the story, told by Mungo himself) and can therefore be read as the author’s point of view on the numerous slave narratives, whose reliability and authenticity have been questioned: Mr. Pringle, realizing that Mungo is a ruined archive, resolves to colour and people a landscape out of his own imagination, thereby endowing Mungo with the gift of mind and eloquence.12 For the book Mr. Pringle intends to write will be Mungo’s portrait in the firstperson narrative. A book purporting to be a record of the Negro’s own words (understandably corrected in terms of grammar, the erasure of indelicate or infelicitous expressions, and so forth) would bring great dividends for the Committee for the Abolition of Slavery. As its young secretary, Mr. Pringle would of course be universally applauded for his dedication and achievement in recording the Progress of the oldest African inhabitant of London: Mungo, brought to England by Captain Thomas Thistlewood and sold into the service of Lord Montague, then passed on to the notorious Jewish trickster Mr. Gideon, and his mistress, Mary (“Moll”) Hackabout; reputed to have resided in Charing Cross for two decades or more. (3) The choice of terms “ruined archive,” “portrait in the first-person narrative,” and the title chosen by Mr. Pringle are reminiscent of the sort of titles Defoe (also playing on the ambiguity fiction-reality) favored for his novels. As a parody of a slave narrative, Mungo’s story is meant to raise questions about the reliability of slave narratives in general, about the way they were obtained, and the (sometimes hidden) reasons why they were compiled:13 “Something must be said . . .[,] there must be a story,” Mr. Pringle tells Mungo, but such a story should definitely be called a fiction. As Ward underlines, “slave narratives were instrumental to the abolitionist movement,” but the way they represented Blacks “was not devoid of exploitation,” both economic and voyeuristic (in the novel, Mungo depends on the abolitionists’ charity).14 There is also a strong probability that slave narratives were carefully controlled, if not rewritten, as may have been the case for the most famous of them: Dabydeen suggests through his character Mungo the ways in which slave narrators have, in “speaking” their stories, also been spoken for. . . . [I]t has been suggested that Cugoano, for example, was not

Re-Imagining Slavery in A Harlot’s Progress  273 the actual author of his book and concerns have also been voiced over the “authenticity” of Equiano’s narrative. Pringle’s proposed role in shaping Mungo’s tale serves as a reminder that slave narratives were actually representative of slaves—the slaves “writing” their tales were inevitably Anglicized, and had often much assistance in constructing their stories.15 This point of view is confirmed by Mungo himself in the prologue, when he insists on the fact that his speech is constantly controlled and disciplined: I can write the story myself, for I have imbibed many of your mannerisms of language, and the King James Bible is at hand to furnish me with such expressions as could set your soul aglow with compassion for the plight of the Negro. . . . But such revelations will not do for Mr. Pringle. He wants a sober testimony. (5) Significantly, also, while eighteenth-century Europeans equated Africans with “cannibals,” Mungo recurrently associates the image of cannibalism with London and the English (266), ironically speaking of Mr. Pringle’s “hunger” (4) for his story, or of Captain Thistlewood “feeding” on his mother (121), asking “[a]re you to eat me?” of Betty, the woman who prepares him to be sold (106). What this “hunger” reveals is the English’s desire to atone for their “sins” and for their feeling of guilt, a feeling which is fueled by religion—a prime mover of Mr. Pringle and the abolitionists, according to Mungo. As Ward underlines, it also corresponds to “a sadomasochistic element in the inversion of the dynamics of slavery, with slave narrators ‘flagellating’ the white readership:”16 And I, Mungo, am to prick the nation’s conscience by a testimony of suffering, which Mr. Pringle will compose with as much intelligence as a Jewish conspiracy. For I am to become a crucial instrument in Mr. Pringle’s scheme to rescue England from its enemies. . . . We are black and enslaved. We are in anguish. We have no family, no home, no money. It is such wants that Mr. Pringle believes endow us with missionary power, though of heathen character. Our humility is our strength, as it was the strength of Our Lord, and Mr. Pringle will unleash us in your midst, dear merchants, to worry your conscience as our Lord worried the temple of Jerusalem. . . . A negro slave is the closest England comes to having Our Lord in its midst, Mr. Pringle believes. (144) Throughout the novel, the motivations of the abolitionists are clearly questioned as Mungo denounces their self-serving manipulation and

274  Nathalie Martinière instrumentalization of the slaves’ stories—even though such motivations usually remained in the shade. Mungo, for his part, declares, “I will not move you to your customary guilt, gentle reader, even though you may crave that I hold up a mirror to the sins of your race. . . . [I]t is your love that I greed for, not the coinage of your guilt” (70–71), thus differentiating himself from Mr. Pringle and making it clear that he will not be manipulated, and that what he is seeking is not revenge. Framed by Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress and slave narratives, which are revealed as the main sources but also the main dangers looming over Mungo’s narrative, the novel constantly insists on the problematic aspects of the memorialization of slavery both in the eighteenth century and for contemporary readers, whose knowledge and vision of slavery depends largely on such written testimonies or images, especially since the general public has little knowledge of their context of production.17

2. From “ruined archive” to “resurrected expression” (36) Questioning the sources of our knowledge of slavery, Dabydeen suggests that it is indissociable from fiction, even though he himself relies on historical sources: once he is given a voice of his own, Mungo significantly never pretends he is telling the truth or could tell the truth. On the contrary, his own narration of his story relies on a number of devices which show clearly that there can be no absolute truth, no story fixed forever and that, as a slave, he is a screen for what people project onto him: From the Craftsman, the Monthly Intelligencer, the Spectator, and the Daily Journal, as well as from Grub Street broadsheets and penny-ballads, I have, over the years, created an archive of my own morals and manners. I believe no such comprehensive compilation on the Negro exists in one place. . . . As a collection of newspaper items, I am a false parcel and counterfeit story. (242–243) 2.1. “[M]y book lies” (257) Mungo describes himself throughout the novel as a hotchpotch of names, stories, and images. He is a man of many names: Mungo, Noah, Perseus—all of them given by Whites, his successive owners, as he cannot remember the name his parents gave him.18 He is also a man of many personalities and styles, a chameleon forced to adapt to what is required of him if he wants to survive: I remember nothing, but I pity Mr. Pringle’s solicitousness and I am in need of his charity, so I must create characters, endow them with

Re-Imagining Slavery in A Harlot’s Progress  275 traits and peculiarities, and sow dialogue between us to make luxuriant plots of the pages of his notebook. . . . I know nothing. . . . There was nothing. (67) In this passage, slave narratives are clearly associated with fiction. The fact that he cannot remember his past, however, and has to reinvent it for Mr. Pringle is also associated with the trauma represented by his kidnapping in Africa and above all by what he went through in the slave ship: “Captain Thistlewood had pressed a hot iron on his forehead, the shock of pain erasing memory of Africa which returned only in occasional glimpses and fragments of voices” (152–153). Such a description looks very much like Cathy Caruth’s characterization of trauma in the introduction to her book, Trauma. Explorations in Memory. She insists on the fact that the event is “not simply an overwhelming experience that has been obstructed . . . but an event that is itself constituted, in part, by its lack of integration into consciousness:”19 The trauma is the confrontation with an event that, in its unexpectedness or horror, cannot be placed within the schemes of prior knowledge. . . . . Not having been fully integrated as it occurred, the event cannot become  .  .  . a “narrative memory” that is integrated into a completed story of the past. In its repeated imposition as both image and amnesia, the trauma thus seems to evoke the difficult truth of a history that is constituted by the very incomprehensibility of its occurrence.20 Captain Thistlewood has left Mungo with a mark on his forehead, a double T (TT) that signifies his “taming,” but even this mark he reinterprets in various ways: a birthmark, “some slight tribal scarring” (164), the sign π which proves his Greek ancestry.21 Even a material mark left on his flesh is therefore open to interpretation and reinterpretation: the scar works as a support that initiates a succession of probable or improbable stories, thus underlining the limits of knowledge and interpretation in the case of such a traumatic experience as slavery. More importantly, the multiple stories have another function, which is to point out the redeeming nature/power of fiction: Eckstein suggests that, because they allow what Dabydeen calls a “transfiguration” of the traumatic experience,22 these alternative stories may “free Mungo from the affective force of trauma.”23 For this very reason, Mungo chooses to (re-)invent himself and his story constantly; “I had many beginnings,” he says in Part II (27). His life is made of many contradictory episodes too, since he is ready to transform himself and modify his memories, as the repeated changes of linguistic register show, ranging from broken English to the use of Latin: “I  will describe such pulchritude that the poets of

276  Nathalie Martinière England will cower at my eloquence” (118); “But with me, I  already done forget. ‘Forget the land! Forget the land!’ Thistlewood done teach me” (247); “I can invent familiar perils and comforting ideologies. I can make of myself an exemplary and heroic Negro” (248). The novel is therefore based on repetitions and variations on the same episodes, with the same sentence, for instance, repeated in two different scenes, as if there were alternative stories and he were to choose from them: “Mungo awakens to such darkness and blades of cold that he cries out for mercy” (105, 125). His narration is characterized by its plasticity and the juxtaposition of constantly conflicting versions: “I care not for this business of writing, the necessity of plot and verisimilitude. In any case I am an African and old beyond the recall of exactitude,” (248). He also insists on the role of the English language, of European culture and mythology in this reinvention of himself.24 The fact that he speaks English and remembers the past in English has an influence on the way he sees the world and remembers their past history. “[Thistlewood] will not kill you with blows but with new words,” Manu his African friend warned him, “[h]e will plant in your mind pictures of his land, and root up ours” (64–65). As a consequence, the novel conveys the idea that the truth of the slaves’ experience cannot be expressed in English, or rather that what can be expressed in English is limited and modified by the fact that it is in English and the narrator is Europeanized: “my English falters, or else English itself falters” (244), “no English word can describe the perfection of the Greek tribe” (32), Mungo says. Consequently, Mungo’s book “lies,” as he puts it, but it lies differently from Hogarth’s prints, since it promotes a multiplicity of conflicting images of the slaves’ experience, their juxtaposition signaling their highly unreliable nature. However, the novel also insists on the fact that lies may have a positive side. 2.2. “[A]lternative lives” If Mungo gives Mr. Pringle his story/ies, because he needs his money, what he tells us is somewhat different. For that matter, as an eighteenthcentury narrator, Mungo is not verisimilar: his preoccupations and speech are typically postmodern and postcolonial and he repeatedly addresses a “reader” who is obviously a twentieth or twenty-first-century reader. And what he tells us is that he has set himself a mission, or a mission has been forced onto him and he has accepted it. As he says early in his narration, speaking of the reasons that made his father beget him: He willed me to come forth, even bearing the sign of evil, for although the miracle of such birth would bring destruction to the tribe, it would also loose them into a necessary future. I would be the ruined archive of our tribe but also its resurrected expression, writing the discovery of the New World of Whitemen. (36)

Re-Imagining Slavery in A Harlot’s Progress  277 So Mungo becomes both a chamber of echoes and a repository of dead voices revealing the ghosts hidden behind Hogarth’s prints or contained in slave narratives, specters we fail to see most of the time when we look at them or read them. For the story he tells us is different from the story he tells Mr. Pringle, and it is peopled with more characters. There are the villagers from his past life in Africa, whose voices he hears constantly in his head and for whom he feels responsible, comparing his book to “a splendidly adorned memorial and grave” (34), and feeling that “his duty is to write them into life” (256): “[w]ithout physical memorials to slavery, Mungo appears to propose that books about this past may act as monuments to the trade.”25 “Remember us as we are, not as the whiteman will make you,” the villagers say (62). But his story is more than just a memorial, and his “voices” also “trust . . . [him] with their expectations of alternative lives,” fictional lives “which they did not live, but which were possible, for they could imagine the possibilities of them,”26 fantasies meant to make up for their plight and “resurrect [them] in happy stories” (272). As a consequence, violence and torture on board the slave ship are dealt with, sometimes with graphic details (in parts III and IV in particular), but they are also counterbalanced by these “alternative lives.” In an interview with Lars Eckstein, Dabydeen justifies this choice, saying, if you are to remember the past, and you are only to remember it within the framework of suffering, or the framework of grievances, then you are not really remembering the past. The potential that the past has—even though it might have been an aborted potential—for throwing up a bewildering array of stories which deny and transcend that suffering and those grievances, that’s the potential I really want to get to.27 For Dabydeen, it seems that the unutterable in the slaves’ experience must be counterbalanced by an act of imagination, fiction having the power of freeing them—if only imaginatively: “[t]he unspeakable traumas of Atlantic slavery may be relieved of their oppressive force . . . if they are confronted by alternative versions of this past which evolve from the free play of the imagination.”28 And then, there are also all the other silent minorities: the whores, the Jews, the poor servants, Moll, and Mr. Gideon, whom he has also (this time of his own accord) decided to rescue from Hogarth’s prints and “restore” to their “true” selves (267). “I write for Moll, not for Mr. Pringle’s money. I write for Rima” (45). And the end of the novel establishes a clear parallel between whores, Jews, the London proletariat of the time, and Blacks, all of them similarly petrified into stereotypes, his role being to free them through fiction: Mungo/Dabydeen offers them alternative lives and in so doing, he interrogates the way in which questions of identity are posed for all silent minorities through realist fiction and

278  Nathalie Martinière its conventions (linearity, narrative authority, etc.), opting for a form of resistance that foregrounds ambivalence, multiplicity, undecidability.29 As a consequence, the unstable character of identity is underlined, “realistic” representation is replaced by narrative discontinuity, no version is privileged, and the stereotype loses part of its repressive power. As a consequence, Moll becomes “Ceres, goddess of harvest” (267) and Mr. Gideon is recast as a protector of fallen prostitutes, helping them to die. Even Mungo’s tormentor, Captain Thistlewood, is not “demonized.”30 In Dabydeen’s A Harlot’s Progress, “alternative lives” do not annihilate reality or the past, but as the traumatic experience is transformed in multiple ways, its petrifying power decreases and fiction becomes the instrument of a liberation.31

Conclusion A Harlot’s Progress is a novel about the marks and traces left by slavery in our culture and the ways we interpret them: scars left on the bodies, traces left by other texts or artworks, traces that can be read as signposts or starting points for new stories. Not only does Dabydeen move Mungo from the edge of Plate no. 2, giving him pride of place, he also acknowledges both the limits of a historical approach and the need to listen nevertheless to the lost, disembodied, voices of the slaves that “haunt” our culture. Above all, he foregrounds fiction as the best way of fighting both the stereotypes perpetuated by art (or literature) and the petrifying effect of trauma.

Notes 1. Rushdie, 360. 2. Unless otherwise stated, all unspecified in-text references are to Dabydeen’s A Harlot’s Progress (1985). (From A Harlot’s Progress by David Dabydeen. Published by Jonathan Cape. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited. © 1999.) 3. Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, 3. 4. Slemon, x. 5. Gilbert & Gubar, 51. 6. Dabydeen is familiar with that sort of resurrection: in the preface to his poem Turner (1995), which deals with Turner’s “Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On,” he questions Ruskin’s interpretation of Turner’s painting as sublime (“the noblest [painting] certainly ever painted by man”), thus “relegat[ing] its subject, the shackling and drowning of Africans, to a brief footnote” (Dabydeen, 7)—a type of reading that is encouraged by the painting itself. He turns the “footnote” into the central story, or rather endows the drowned slave with a future. The two parts (III and IV) in A Harlot’s Progress that deal at length with the slave ship also recall Turner’s painting and the episode of the Zong. See Eckstein, 150–55. 7. As Lars Eckstein notes, Dabydeen writes “both against and from Hogarth [. . . creating both] subversive destabilization and homage.” Eckstein, 137, 139.

Re-Imagining Slavery in A Harlot’s Progress  279 8. As Edward Said made clear in Orientalism, Europeans, “poet(s) or scholar(s), make . . . the Orient speak, describe the Orient, render its mysteries plain for and to the West. . . . What he says and writes . . . is meant to indicate that the Orientalist is outside the Orient, both as an existential and a moral fact” (Said, 20–21). 9. Even abolitionists and slave narratives were influenced by Hogarth’s prints according to Mungo, who thus suggests that the power of images is much stronger than texts, as images are more easily printed in people’s minds and contribute to creating long-lasting stereotypes: “Mr. Pringle too will replicate Moll and me in lies, for he believes Mr. Hogarth’s prints and the dozen pirated versions of them” (275) and “his only source of information is Hogarth’s portrait of Mungo as a boy-slave to the harlot Moll Hackabout” (4). A  hierarchy is thus created between text and image, images being accused of polluting the public’s mind with clichés, and Mungo’s reticence with Mr. Pringle can be explained by the fact that he felt betrayed by Hogarth and became cautious: “I keep quiet [with Mr. Pringle]. As we should have kept quiet when Mr. Hogarth enquired of us. He made a hue and cry of our lives but heard not their unfolding into mystery” (277). 10. Cf. Reynolds’s A Negro, said to be Sir Joshua’s Black Servant (c. 1770), for instance, and Eckstein for analysis of Dabydeen’s approach. 11. Dabydeen (1995), 8. 12. Mr. Pringle’s name is significantly borrowed from a well-known abolitionist of the time, Thomas Pringle, secretary of the English Anti-Slavery Society at the time. Eckstein, 128. 13. See Ward, 112–30, and Eckstein, 128–33. “Mungo, of course, frustrates and subverts Pringle by celebrating all those aspects in his narrative that are anathema to his prospective editor: sex, lies, constant contradiction, and money.”Eckstein, 131. 14. Ward, 114. 15. Ibid., 116, 118. 16. Ibid, 125. 17. Eckstein identifies a number of secondary sources for the characters in the novel, ranging from Reynolds to Enoch Seeman and, of course, Turner. Eckstein, 140–44. 18. If Mungo is typical of the names that were given to slaves, Noah associates him with the Bible and religion, but also suggests that “[he] alone was escaped to tell [us].” And Perseus suggests that, like the Greek hero, he overcame Medusa, i.e., the petrifying effect of (Hogarth’s) images. 19. Caruth, 152. 20. Caruth, 153. 21. See Ward, 122, and Eckstein, 144, for a discussion of the multiple meanings of the sign on his forehead and the possible historical source. 22. Dabybeen (1995), 7. 23. Eckstein, 164. 24. He particularly insists on his Greek ancestry (107, 118, 122, 267–68, sq.) 25. Ward, 121–22. 26. “[Ellar’s] ambition is to live otherwise on the page, differently from the way she died on the soiled plank of a whiteman’s lap” (257). 27. Eckstein, 158. 28. Ibid., 162. 29. For that matter, postcolonial and feminist approaches to past representations have a lot in common, as the novel makes clear. 30. Ward, 122–23.

280  Nathalie Martinière 31. Significantly, one of Mungo’s names in the novel is Perseus. However, he does not kill Medusa with a sword but with his capacity to tell new stories, again and again.

Bibliography Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Oxon: Routledge, 2002 (1989). Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997 (1973). Caruth, Cathy, ed. Trauma. Explorations in Memory. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Dabydeen, David. A Harlot’s Progress. London: Vintage Books, 2000 (1999). ———. Hogarth’s Blacks. Images of Blacks in Eighteenth’s Century English Art. Mundelstrup: Dangaroo Press, 1985. ———. Hogarth, Walpole and Commercial Britain. London: Hansib Publishing Ltd., 1987. ———. Turner. New and Selected Poems. Leeds: Peepal Tree, 2010 (1995). Eckstein, Lars. Remembering the Black Atlantic. On the Poetics ad Politics of Literary Memory. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006. Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Hogarth, William. A Harlot’s Progress. Plate 2: [estampe] (deuxième état) W.m Hogarth inv:t pinx:t et sculp:t, ID/Cote: CD-13-FOL, Tome 1. 1 est.: eau-forte, burin. Paulson, 122 (2), 1732, pl. 128. R146431. Reynolds, Sir Joshua (manner of). A Negro, Said to Be Sir Joshua’s Black Servant, 1770. Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.2 cm. Tate Gallery. Accessed July 19, 2018. www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/reynolds-a-young-black-francis-barber-t01892. Rushdie, Salman. Joseph Anton. London: Vintage Books, 2013. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003 (1978). Slemon, Stephen. “Modernism’s Last Post.” In Past the Last Post. Theorizing Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism, edited by Ian Adam and Helen Tiffin, 1–12. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1990. Turner, Joseph Mallord William. The Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), 1840. Oil on canvas, 90.8 x 122.6 cm. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Accessed July 19, 2018. www. mfa.org/collections/object/slave-ship-slavers-throwing-overboard-the-deadand-dying-typhoon-coming-on-31102. Ward, Abigail. Caryl Phillips, David Dabydeen and Fred D’Aguiar. Representations of Slavery. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011.

17 “A Modern Slave Song”1 Reggae Music and the Memory of Slavery David Bousquet

The title of this chapter is borrowed from a dub poem by Benjamin Zephaniah, which addresses the continued consequences of slavery in the present day under the form of a neo or postcolonial racist ideology of cultural appropriation. The piece states that black people are being dispossessed of their physical and symbolic resources by a capitalistic system of exploitation. The link to slavery is made apparent in both content and form, notably when the poem’s narrator (a black Jamaican identifying himself as a slave descendant) accuses the addressee (a wealthy White tourist visiting Jamaica) of selling him his own music and shirts made of cotton grown and cultivated on his land.2 This title was chosen to reflect the relevance and significance of the issue of the memory of slavery in contemporary oral texts from the AfroCaribbean diaspora. Jamaican popular music—often simply referred to as reggae—features prominently among the expressive art forms produced within the Black Atlantic.3 For more than half a century, reggae musicians and vocalists have created a vast repertoire of lyrical and textual content and established an alternative discourse of political radicalism and cultural autonomy. Unsurprisingly given reggae’s Afrocentric ethos, the memory of slavery has been a central concern of musicians and lyricists. It resonates in some of Bob Marley’s hits that have enjoyed worldwide circulation on a mass scale for decades (“Slave Driver,” 1973, “Redemption Song,” 1980) and in other classic reggae songs from the 1970s such as Burning Spear’s “Slavery Days” (1975) or Culture’s “Too Long in Slavery” (1979). Yet, the corpus and methodology used for this chapter will demonstrate that the memory of slavery has always been an integral part of reggae music, present in a very large number of song lyrics, and that this legacy is constantly being rejuvenated and disseminated through the specific channels of reggae subculture. The theoretical framework employed is based around the work of scholars Paul Gilroy and Carolyn Cooper, who have both studied reggae—and in the case of Gilroy other expressive art forms from the African diaspora—as a product of slavery in the present day.4 They both

282  David Bousquet situate reggae in black radical traditions of political resistance and cultural autonomy that developed from the onset of slavery and the plantation economy, such as maroonage and later Rastafari.5 Gilroy, for instance, insists, The struggle to overcome slavery, wherever it developed, . . . politically infused music and dance. . . . [Black] cultures have been produced over a long period of time in conditions of the most terrible oppression. They have been created inside and in opposition to the capitalist system of racial exploitation and domination, by those who experience subordination at its most vicious and degrading.6 Interestingly, the cultural studies approach of these authors is based on a close articulation between textual and contextual analysis. The same method will be used here to highlight the central role of the memory of slavery in reggae lyrics as forms of “verbal maroonage,” based on the close reading of a corpus of selected texts.7 This chapter uses a representative sample of reggae songs from the last 50 years; the next section will examine in detail how it was designed. The discursive material produced by reggae artists will be analyzed quantitatively (section 2) and qualitatively (section 3) to identify the specific treatment given to slavery and its present-day consequences. Then, attention will be paid to the conditions in which this discourse is produced and circulated (section  4). This will help establish that, in spite—or rather because—of their unofficial and underground nature, reggae songs effectively propagate a discourse on slavery that is accessible to wide and diverse audiences in Jamaica, in the Afro-Caribbean and African diasporas, and beyond to ever new places.

1. Reflections on the Corpus The corpus was established according to criteria that are coherent with the purpose of this chapter, which is to bring to light the underground networks that help produce and circulate an unofficial, alternative discourse on the issue of slavery and its consequences. More specifically, songs were picked from the Jah Lyrics website, which compiles the transcripts of almost 8,000 reggae songs that can be accessed freely. The website’s search engine made it possible to identify 256 songs that feature the words “slave(s)” and/or “slavery” in their title or lyrics, dating from 1962 to 2016.8 Building such a corpus implies a number of challenges. First, the transcripts are made by fans and therefore imply a measure of inaccuracy. This can be explained by the simple fact that they are submitted by anonymous contributors, so that there do not seem to be specific guidelines or spelling rules to be respected. Yet, with respect to the impressive

“A Modern Slave Song”  283 work done by the Jah Lyrics team, it must be said that transcripts from contributors are moderated by the website administrators and that, as a result, errors or blanks in the lyrics are few and are most often signaled with various symbols in the texts.9 More generally, such inaccuracy is a common problem in the transcription of oral material, and a certain fluidity in spelling and even meaning could even be said to be constitutive of oral texts. This issue also resonates with debates as to the spelling and writing of creole languages, in this case of Jamaican Patwa.10 After careful analysis, it can be argued that transcription problems on Jah Lyrics are relatively limited and that the diversity of transcription techniques and methods can simply be said to reflect the fluid nature of oral texts. More generally, the questions of inaccuracy and textual fluidity can be related to the unacademic nature of the Jah Lyrics website, which does not employ established methods of textual genealogy. The lyrics featured are not official transcripts—even though some are copied from liner’s notes or CD booklets—and do not mention any explicit authorization or consent from the artists or producers. This could even raise legal issues since the copyright on lyrics does not appear to be respected. But the approach of Jah Lyrics can also be traced back to reggae’s ethos of piracy, based on a long history of resistance to the colonial order from the days of slavery onwards, and to a typically creole tendency to consider oral texts as part of a collective repertoire from which artists and fans can freely borrow rather than as self-contained entities written by individual authors.11 In that sense, the illegal use of the internet as a means of circulation of cultural material is—at least partly—a continuation of the old tradition of resistance initiated by the Maroons in the days of slavery. Up to this day, reggae culture still strongly resists attempts at standardization and canonization and rests on a marked desire for cultural autonomy. The Jah Lyrics website then implies a form of alternative, fan-based recognition of the work of reggae musicians, since its fundamental goal is to widen the access to their lyrics and foster the music’s autonomy. The author’s claim, then, is that reggae culture largely evades academic circles, which explains why the only available primary sources are equally unofficial or unacademic, and that Jah Lyrics is one of the most serious and comprehensive attempts at sourcing and transcribing reggae lyrics.12

2. Elements of Quantitative Analysis The 256 songs featuring the words “slave(s)” and/or “slavery” in their title or lyrics account for about 3% of the 8,000 songs available on Jah Lyrics. This figure might seem relatively low, but a narrow search criterion was used, for two reasons. First, the purpose was to identify songs that deal explicitly with the question of slavery and its memory. Second, the corpus needed to be large enough to be representative of reggae

284  David Bousquet lyrics in general. In that regard, the rough figure of 250 seemed adequate. Yet, a search for other keywords related to slavery gives an idea of how pervasive this theme is in the songs transcribed on Jah Lyrics: the word “captive(s)” features in 18 songs, “captivity” in 53 songs, “chains” in 96 songs, “shackles” in 45 songs, “plantation” in 40 songs, and “whip” in 69 songs.13 Since the website only comprised about 8,000 songs at the time of our research, which is but a little proportion of the output produced by reggae singers and musicians since the 1960s, it can be estimated that several hundreds—maybe even thousands—of reggae songs deal explicitly with the topic of slavery, reflecting the ubiquity of this theme in Jamaican popular music. The website also does not include a number of classic reggae tunes addressing this topic that have enjoyed massive circulation and that any reggae fan would probably know by heart.14 Cover versions were also excluded, since by definition they have the same lyrics as the original song, though this is a very common practice in reggae that obviously amplifies the propagation of oral texts on slavery.15 The dates when the songs were released also highlight the importance of the theme of slavery in reggae music. Jah Lyrics mostly features songs from the 1970s onwards, explaining why only one song in the corpus was released in the 1960s while quite a few ska and rocksteady numbers deal with the issue of slavery.16 Yet, among the songs released in the five following decades, it appears that the corpus has an almost identical number for each decade (around 50). This confirms that the theme of slavery is still a very current concern for reggae artists and is far from disappearing from their lyrics (55 songs in the 2000s and 43 in the 2010s feature the words “slave(s)” or “slavery”). Unsurprisingly, all the most popular Jamaican singers, DJs, and bands from the heyday of roots reggae in the 1970s feature prominently in the corpus (The Abyssinians, Black Uhuru, Bob Marley and The Wailers, Bunny Wailer, Burning Spear, The Congos, Culture, Don Carlos, The Gladiators, Gregory Isaacs, The Heptones, Horace Andy, Israel Vibration, The Mighty Diamonds, Peter Tosh, Sugar Minott, Yabby You).17 But other Jamaican musical styles are also largely represented, such as dub poetry (Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mutabaruka), the new roots movement of the 1990s (Anthony B, Buju Banton, Sizzla), the reggae revival movement of the 2000s and 2010s (Chronixx, Damian Marley, Jah9, Kabaka Pyramid, Protoje, Raging Fyah), and also and maybe more surprisingly gangsta DJs that are associated with the slackness movement (Beenie Man, Bugle, Busy Signal, Mavado, Shabba Ranks).18 Some of these artists refer to slavery frequently; for instance, dub poet Mutabaruka has 13 songs in the corpus and conscious DJ Sizzla has 18. The corpus also includes major British reggae bands (Aswad, Capital Letters, Steel Pulse, UB40, Eddy Grant, Ijahman, Macka B), and interestingly quite a few international reggae artists from Africa (Alpha Blondy,

“A Modern Slave Song”  285 Lucky Dube, Tiken Jah Fakoly), Europe (Alborosie, Gentleman, Patrice), and the US (Christafari, Groundation, Matisyahu, Midnite/Reemah, SOJA). It must be noted that some European or American singers that mention slavery in their lyrics are white. This reflects the fact that reggae has always been an international, even transnational genre, so that the reggae discourse on slavery is spreading to new places around the world that do not necessarily have historical ties with Jamaica or the AfroCaribbean diaspora.19 The obvious conclusion is that references to slavery are ubiquitous in reggae lyrics. All major singers and bands have mentioned it at one point or another, over a period of more than 50 years. It can then be argued that slavery is part of the reggae intertext and infuses the lyrical output of singers and musicians willingly or unwillingly.20 Incidentally, the quantitative analysis of the corpus also shows that it is in fact representative in terms of the time and place of production, of the artists’ popularity, and of the relevance of the songs chosen.

3. The Reggae Discourse on Slavery The corpus provides an interesting insight into what could be termed the reggae discourse on slavery. Despite differences over the course of more than 50 years of music production, reggae songs constitute a repertoire of oral texts that remains fairly coherent in its discursive treatment of the theme of slavery. The fundamental elements of this discourse will be analyzed synthetically in this section. In the corpus, not one single song provides a historical or historiographical account of slavery—dates, places, and names are never mentioned. Instead, slavery is evoked through recurrent images that revolve around the brutality and violence of life on the plantation: the shackles and chains, the whip, and the slave ship and its human cargo are used to transmit in the present day the traumatic experience of the dehumanization of slaves. Slavery is not remembered as a series of factual episodes but as a coherent period of 400 years during which black people in the Caribbean were brutalized, killed, and reduced to the condition of commodities. This is evident, for instance, in the title and lyrics of “400 Years,” sung by Peter Tosh on the Catch a Fire album by Bob Marley and The Wailers (1973). Although the focus is very often placed on physical brutality, slavery is equally seen as a psychological and cultural process that affects AfroCaribbean people not only in their bodies but also in their minds. One striking aspect of this cultural dimension is that slavery in the songs is equaled to the separation from the African motherland, the utter and complete loss of African cultures, which Edouard Glissant referred to as the sense of dispossession. This is clearly stated, for instance, in the lyrics of “Declaration of Rights,” one of the first roots reggae hits by

286  David Bousquet The Abyssinians, in which the deportation from Africa is equated with the loss of civilization. In that respect, and as reggae songs perfectly illustrate, the trauma of slavery could be said to be constitutive of AfroCaribbean identity. Many songs insist on the fact that Afro-Caribbean people are still affected by the slave mentality and that they should free themselves from “mental slavery,” which is coherent with the discourse of cultural emancipation and empowerment conveyed by reggae since the 1960s. The theme of mental slavery appears frequently in the corpus and mostly evokes the consequences of 400 years of slavery in the post-independence period during which reggae was born. Eighteen songs feature the expression “mental slavery” itself, including Marley’s hit “Redemption Song,” but roughly two-thirds of the lyrics in the corpus refer to it implicitly. In that sense, and as Paul Gilroy pointed out, the memory of slavery is used to discuss the more general relationship of Afro-Caribbean people to labor and to anchor an incipient anti-capitalist discourse within the African diaspora.21 A well-known example of the reggae discourse on slavery is “Slave Driver” by Bob Marley and The Wailers (1973). It elaborates on the themes of physical and psychological violence, the consequences of slavery in the present day (mental slavery), the ongoing struggle for emancipation, and the links between slavery, capitalism, and (neo)colonialism. Slavery is typically constructed as a memorial matrix that helps address present issues: using the images of the whip and the slave ship, the song’s lyrics clearly identify poverty and illiteracy in contemporary Jamaica as a continuation of slavery. In the songs studied, reggae singers and DJs, acting as spokespeople for their community, often admonish their peers to free themselves from their mental chains, to reclaim a sense of pride in their identity and culture, and to refuse any further form of subjugation, be it economic (in the form of low-wage labor or neocolonialism), political (with frequent denunciations of the ruling Jamaican middle class or white British elites), or cultural/psychological (with songs addressing issues such as skin bleaching or racial prejudice).22 Conversely, the image of the slave master is frequently used to denounce the abusive authority of (post-)colonial figures like the policeman, the judge, or the politician (20 songs in the corpus include the words “slave master”). Only a limited number of songs deal with slavery as their main topic, mostly during the “roots and culture” era of the late 1970s, but they are certainly significant. Many famous songs from the period are not included in the corpus, even though they have become classics of reggae— and even of international pop music for some of them—and have thus contributed to the dissemination of the memory of slavery. In most lyrics, the words “slave(s)” or “slavery” are mentioned only once, yet this does not indicate that the issue of slavery is disappearing from reggae lyrics.

“A Modern Slave Song”  287 On the contrary, it could be argued that references to slavery are so well established in reggae texts that they even permeate songs that do not deal directly with the topic; they have become an intertext for artists and fans alike, an integral part of the cultural legacy that reggae music propagates.23 Many “roots and culture” or “conscious” songs allude to slavery to address contemporary issues, using this theme as a memorial matrix that perpetuates an ethos of resistance in the present day by anchoring it in a counter historical tradition. Some songs also make metaphorical use of the theme of slavery. In most of these instances, slavery is used to refer to love as a form of romantic or erotic attachment. This is the case of “Have Faith in Me” by Derrick Harriott or of “Bring It on Home to Me” by UB40, for example. In a similar fashion in both songs, the singer/narrator states that he will always be a slave to his lover. On the surface, it could seem that these songs imply a devaluation of the historical significance of slavery by comparing it to more trivial issues. At a deeper level, those references can more appropriately be analyzed as a form of double entendre or secret language, such as can be found in blues music, in a strategy to talk about slavery indirectly by displacing it in the metaphorical domain.24 Because the issue of slavery has become an intertextual foundation of Jamaican popular culture, it would be clear to most reggae listeners that these songs do refer to slavery, even though in an implicit or ironic mode. A very small number of songs by white reggae artists also make metaphorical or abstract use of the theme of slavery. It is the case of US artists such as Matisyahu or Groundation, who refer to the Old Testament as part of their Jewish legacy. Many Rastas have identified themselves to Israelites, precisely because of a link with slavery, even though to them slavery is perceived in an actual rather than symbolic mode.25 In the case of “Rasta Courage” by SOJA (Soldiers of Jah Army), though, references to slavery can appear as more problematic since they seem to be completely dissociated from their historical or memorial dimension. When very general, universalistic statements are made and lead to the conclusion that Blacks and Whites have both suffered from slavery, one can wonder whether this is not an ambiguous attempt to dehistoricize and depoliticize slavery and a case of cultural appropriation.26 What can be concluded from this exploration of the reggae discourse on slavery is that it favors a memorial approach to the question over a historical or historiographical one. Following Gilroy, it is possible to assert that this emphasis on memory over history does not detract from the potency of this discourse, which is able to convey an authentic sense of what slavery was and of how it affects the present. Indeed, the reggae discourse on slavery rests on an alternative epistemology, which opposes and deconstructs Western metanarratives, including historiography. In this sense, reggae lyrics might be more authentic or “real” in their approach to slavery than more institutional or academic approaches, in

288  David Bousquet both content and form.27 In the same vein, it can be noted that reggae texts make use of the re/created, re/invented, or re/imagined nature of creole cultures and languages. Since the access to African cultures was more or less successfully forbidden during slavery, slaves often had to relate to their original culture through memory and imagination, or through fragmentary poetic traces, as Glissant calls them.28 In that respect, the theme of slavery serves as a memorial matrix that mobilizes a sense of identity and community through acts of the imagination.

4. Modes of Production, Circulation, and Consumption Reggae’s alternative epistemology is based on another major aspect of the discourse on slavery, i.e., the modalities in which it is produced, circulated, and received. Reggae up to this day is still a music of resistance that is produced mostly at the margin of the international/North American pop music industry. Despite what is asserted in narratives that locate the music’s heyday in the 1970s and consider dancehall as its degenerate offshoot, reggae singers and musicians still follow a strong Afrocentric, alternative ethos that finds a powerful illustration in Rastafarianism but is certainly not limited to it. Similarly, reggae music is still mostly circulated through unofficial channels such as pirate radio stations, underground record distribution channels, websites such as Jah Lyrics, or, even more significantly, through sound system parties that make the music and words available “live and direct” to reggae “massives” worldwide.29 This last point is crucial to establish a full understanding of how reggae lyrics are circulated, and it also relates to slavery and its legacy. In Gilroy’s words: “It bears repetition that the premium which all these black diaspora styles place on the process of performance is emphasized by their radically unfinished forms—a characteristic which marks them indelibly as the products of slavery.”30 Reggae lyrics are of a fundamentally antiphonic or dialogical nature, requiring the input from an audience in live performance as regards their reception but also their production. Oral texts are fluid, and even more so in performance where words, phrases, or even entire verses can be significantly altered based on the audience’s reaction. This textual fluidity is enhanced by the generalized practices of song covers and recuts and of intertextual borrowings, and the premium placed on live performance implies that the reggae discourse on slavery is constantly being re/created by new generations of artists in new contexts of performance and with new audiences. In the Black Atlantic, the live performance of music and words is frequently seen—and lived—as an empowering experience that unites performer(s) and audience(s) physically (by means of the sounds themselves, for instance the heavy bass of reggae sound systems) and spiritually (mostly through the words or message shared by means of

“A Modern Slave Song”  289 call-and-response or antiphonic patterns). It has a healing or cathartic dimension that resonates deeply with the traumatic memory of slavery. In live performance, song lyrics are delivered with energy and strength at a high volume and combined with body language and dance, increasing their empowering effect. The performance of the memory of slavery in music, words, and dance involves yet another form of re/creation that occurs in live interaction with the audience as the singer or DJ performs a discourse on slavery as a slave descendant.31 This is another way in which the memory of slavery in reggae songs might be perceived as more “real” than academic or institutional discourses: in performance, the memory of slavery is not only represented in abstract terms but also experienced live, physically and mentally. One last dimension of reggae lyrics that needs to be addressed is that they are circulated mostly orally. Using a corpus of written transcripts might have blurred the obvious fact that reggae lyrics are primarily consumed in an oral—sung or DJed—format.32 The relationship between orality and writing is a complicated issue in the creole context, and reggae lyrics are more appropriately described as oral texts since they follow some rules of textual or scribal composition.33 Yet, reggae songs do not need to be read to be understood and can be received by very large groups of people that might have limited access to reading and writing— not to mention to academic books on slavery—especially in the age of the internet.

Conclusion Reggae music can be seen as a powerful and effective medium for the circulation of a discourse on slavery and its memory. It is rarely addressed by the media or even academic literature, but it reaches ever wider audiences internationally. Interestingly, and maybe problematically, this discourse is not confined to Jamaican or Afro-Caribbean communities, or even to the larger African diaspora, but is increasingly appropriated by white and Asian reggae artists who are active participants in the reggae transnation and might not have direct historical or cultural links with slavery. Finally, it should be repeated that reggae discourse on slavery is easily and freely available to anyone around the world. This certainly implies a measure of illegality, but this notion must be reevaluated in the context of Afro-Caribbean slave cultures of resistance. At a deeper level, this illegality is the mark of the profoundly alternative nature of reggae culture: the memory of slavery is produced, circulated, and received following a radically oppositional and autonomous epistemology that refuses to let the cultural legacy of slavery be elaborated by dominant Western institutions and discourses.

290  David Bousquet

Notes 1. Zephaniah, 52. 2. Ibid. 3. Although technically reggae is just one of the many subgenres of Jamaican popular music since the end of WWII, the term will be used here to encompass all the musical production of the last 60 years for simplicity’s sake. The term “Black Atlantic” was forged by Gilroy (1993) to refer to the complex sets of physical and symbolic relationships that unite Africans on the continent and in the Americas. It can be understood as a synonym for African diaspora, and it will be used as such in this chapter. 4. Cooper (1993, 2004), Gilroy (1987, 1993). 5. Rastafarianism as a tradition of resistance, and its links with the legacy of Maroons are studied in Campbell, and Zips. Regarding the influence of Rastafari on reggae, see Barrow and Dalton, and Bradley. On Maroons, see Mackie. Basic information on the various styles associated with reggae will be given when they are mentioned, and a more detailed account of the history of Jamaican popular music can be found in Barrow and Dalton, and Bradley. 6. Gilroy (1987, 209–10). 7. Cooper (1993, 136). 8. The figures mentioned in this chapter date back from November 25, 2016, when the research was carried out. At that time, Jah Lyrics featured exactly 7,780 song lyrics. On May  13, 2018, when this chapter was submitted, it had 10,112 lyrics, 321 of which featured the words “slave(s)” or “slavery” in their title or lyrics. The ratios and other quantitative elements discussed have remained unchanged overall. 9. See the “About Us” section on the Jah Lyrics website for more information on problems of accuracy and symbols used in the transcripts: www.jah-lyrics. com/contact (accessed July 18, 2018). 10. On the question of the fluidity of Creole oral texts and the implications of various transcription strategies, see Cooper (1993, 12–13). 11. For more information about practices and debates related to copyright and intellectual property in Jamaican popular music, see Collins, and Manuel and Marshall. For a discussion of the outlaw legacy of Maroons on reggae, see Cooper (2004, 301), and Mackie. 12. This process can be explained in two ways. Many reggae artists and fans are explicitly defiant of academia and related institutions, which are associated to Western domination in the postcolonial context and are often suspected of cultural appropriation, i.e., dispossessing black people of their cultural resources and using them for their profit (be it financial or symbolic). Conversely, academia is often reluctant to address forms of alternative, autonomous black cultural expression, especially when they are marked by a strong racial and anti-colonial dimension. 13. Although some of these words could be used in another context than slavery, they all evoke, at least indirectly or implicitly, the memory of life on the plantation and point to the centrality of slavery as a fundamental intertextual component of reggae lyrics. 14. One of the interesting aspects of using such a corpus is that it avoids a form of subjective arbitrariness in the choice of texts (which is often the case in literary analysis where texts are selected based on the author’s tastes or preconceptions about their relevance), to replace it with a form of objective arbitrariness (which makes it possible, among other things, to approach the corpus quantitatively). This methodology is also more adequate to represent a collective repertoire of oral texts from which lyricists can borrow freely,

“A Modern Slave Song”  291 rather than self-contained texts written by individual authors (as is most often the case in literature). 15. Gilroy (1987, 1993) has devoted a lot of critical attention to the question of covering or recycling already existing musical or lyrical material, in reggae specifically and in musical styles from the Black Atlantic more generally. Reggae musicians have always covered songs from other musical traditions, from the US or the Caribbean, for instance. With the style known as dub, Jamaican sound engineers pioneered what became later known as sampling and remixing, enabling the generalized practice of “recutting” reggae songs from earlier periods. On these two points, see Barrow and Dalton, and Bradley. 16. Ska is generally recognized as the first modern form of Jamaican popular music that emerged around the time of Jamaica’s independence in the early 1960s. It evolved from earlier, more rural musical traditions such as mento and American jazz and rhythm and blues that were popular in Jamaica between the two world wars. Rocksteady followed ska from 1966 onwards and is characterized by a slower tempo and more romantic themes. 17. Reggae appeared in the late 1960s and took over rocksteady as the most popular style in Jamaica, but also in the UK. It was followed by roots reggae which appeared in the mid-1970s with artists such as The Abyssinians, Burning Spear, and of course Bob Marley and the Wailers. The popularity of these artists accounts for the fact that it is very often equated with reggae or even all Jamaican popular music. It is characterized by slow tempos, an emphasis on drum and bass, and “conscious,” Afrocentric lyrics. 18. The term “slackness” is used in reggae culture to refer to songs with sexually explicit lyrics and whose main topic is the graphic description of sexual acts. It is generally opposed to “conscious” reggae that predominantly deals with social commentary and cultural and political struggles. The dominant narrative on the history of reggae music is that of a gradual rise to fame and recognition of the “roots and culture” styles through the 1960s and 1970s followed from the mid-1980s onwards by a long downfall into “dancehall,” its computerized rhythms and its focus on sex and violence. Versions of this somewhat simplistic narrative can be found in Barrow and Dalton, and Bradley. For a more elaborate discussion of the “slackness/culture” dialectic in reggae, see Cooper (1993, 137–73, 2004, 73–97). In fact, the “conscious” or “cultural” styles of Jamaican popular music never entirely disappeared, as is exemplified by the popularity of the “new roots” movement of the mid-1990s and the current “reggae revival,” which both draw on the musical and lyrical repertoire of roots reggae and adapt it to contemporary concerns. Conversely, dancehall artists that are more popular among younger generations still mention slavery and other “conscious” issues in their lyrics. 19. On the question of the reggae or “dancehall transnation,” see Cooper (2004, 279–301). Reggae historically developed through close transnational connections with places hosting large Jamaican and Caribbean communities, mostly the UK and Canada but also the US (where Jamaican immigrants gave birth to hip-hop). With the international success of Bob Marley and other roots reggae artists in the late 70s, the music became widely known and practiced around the world, notably in Africa and Western Europe. Today, reggae is played on all continents and is an important underground scene in countries such as Japan, India, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and France. 20. Jamaican popular culture is intertwined with a long-standing oral tradition that comprises folk material and forms (proverbs, nursery rhymes, legends and myths, songs), Biblical references, and reggae lyrics themselves. These form a common repertoire from which songwriters, singers and DJs, and poets and

292  David Bousquet writers amply borrow in an intertextual fashion (which contradicts Western uses and codes regarding authorship, copyright, and intellectual property). Cooper has studied the biblical intertext in Marley’s lyrics (1993, 117–35), and discussed how his lyrics themselves have become a common repertoire for other reggae artists (2004, 179–206). Prahlad provides a study on how proverbs and other elements of the oral tradition are used in reggae lyrics. Breiner provides insight into the use of the biblical intertext in Rastafarianism. 21. Gilroy (1987, 271) (“The historical memory of slavery has left similar traces in the expressive arts of the Caribbean and their British offshoots. The slave experience remains a central metaphor for the processes of work in general. They are frequently counterposed to the realm of autonomous desire and collective self-realization”). 22. An example that is representative of how slavery can be used to address contemporary issues and incite to rebellion is “Fire Pon Rome” (1999) by new roots DJ Anthony B. Starting from the premise that black Jamaicans still suffer from mental slavery, he goes on to mention issues of land property and housing before identifying a number of prominent Jamaican politicians that he will symbolically burn with fire. He also states that the cost of living is too high (a claim already made by Marley in the 1970s), criticizes the General Consumption Tax, and denounces police brutality against the poor. The message is phrased in typical Rastafarian fashion with Rome and Babylon standing for the forces of evil (and slavery), while the DJ leads his people to Mount Zion on the road to freedom and emancipation. 23. An interesting example of a song that does not discuss slavery but still mentions it is Beenie Man’s dancehall anthem from 1997, “Who Am I (Sim Simma).” In typical slackness fashion, the DJ brags about his sexual prowess and fast cars, but also casually claims that he is no slaver. 24. This strategy is more commonly used in African American music since Blacks were always a minority in the US and had to resort to double language to voice their concerns in a way they could understand but without being understood by white masters (Calt, xi–xix). Though the situation in Jamaica shares some of these traits, Blacks were always a majority and could express their opinions more directly. It can be noted here as well that the Jamaican love ballad is strongly influenced by its American counterpart, which accounts for similarities in the lyrics. 25. On the symbolic relationships between Rastas and Jews, see Murrell. On American Jewish reggae, see Kaplan. 26. SOJA, “Rasta Courage” www.jah-lyrics.com/song/soja-soldiers-of-jah-army-rastacourage. 27. Gilroy (1987, 280–81) (“The recovery of historical knowledge is felt to be particularly important for Blacks because the nature of their oppression is such that they have been denied any historical being. Their banishment from historicity is presented as originating in the slave experience. . . . The repression of the memory of slavery is felt to be a central achievement of the colonial regimes which followed emancipation and of contemporary racism. Burning Spear asks the question ‘Do You Remember the Days of Slavery?’ because confronting that historical memory, grounding the contemporary experience of racial oppression in the past is recognized as the first step in progress towards emancipation from the mental slavery which has remained intact even as the physical bonds have been untied. . . . This type of detail plays a vital role in establishing the epistemological and historical superiority of roots knowledge and culture over the partial and unstable knowledge(ism) which guides the practices of the oppressors”). 28. This re/creative element of Afro-Caribbean cultures is well established in academic literature and has been called “subversion and appropriation”

“A Modern Slave Song”  293 (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin), “deconstruction/reconstruction” (Dabydeen), “détours et retours” (Glissant), or a “changing same” (Gilroy, 1993). 29. The word “massive(s)” is used by reggae artists and fans to refer to the crowds of listeners attending sound system parties and live concerts. On reggae’s alternative modes of production, circulation, and reception, see Collins, and Manuel and Marshall. 30. Gilroy (1993, 105). 31. On the question of antiphony, see Gilroy (1993). On the dancehall as a cathartic space, see Gaye. On the performance of slavery, see Stanley Niaah. The emphasis placed on performance and its cathartic, empowering effects are not specific to reggae but can be found in many other expressive cultures of the Black Atlantic (in the Caribbean, the US, and South America). 32. Again, this is a typical feature of expressive cultures of the Black Atlantic, from blues to hip-hop through calypso, salsa, and cumbia. 33. Cooper (1993) has established the notion of an oral/scribal continuum in Jamaican popular culture to describe a variety of oral texts including reggae lyrics, dub poems, film, and theater. She has also extensively discussed the critical tensions around orality and writing in Jamaican culture.

Bibliography The Abyssinians. “Declaration of Rights.” Satta Massagana. Penetrate, 1976. Anthony, B. “Fire Pon Rome.” Star Trail, 1999. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. The Empire Writes Back. London: Routledge, 1989. Barrow, Steve, and Peter Dalton. The Rough Guide to Reggae. 3rd ed. London: Penguin, 2004. Bennie, Man. “Wo Am I (Sim Simma).” 2 Hard Recordings, 1997. Bradley, Lloyd. Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King. London: Penguin, 2000. Breiner, Laurence. “The English Bible in Jamaican Rastafari.” Journal of Religious Thought 42, no. 2 (1985): 30–43. Burning Spear. “Slavery Days.” Marcus Garvey. Island Records, Ltd. 1975. Calt, Stephen. Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Campbell, Horace. Rasta and Resistance. St John’s, Antigua: Hansib, 1985. Collins, Loretta. “Raggamuffin Cultural Studies: X-Press Novels’ Yardies and Cop Killers Put Britain on Trial.” Small Axe 9 (March 2001): 70–96. Cooper, Carolyn. Noises in the Blood—Orality, Gender and the “Vulgar” Body of Jamaican Popular Culture. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1993. ———. Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture At Large. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Culture. “Too Long in Slavery.” International Herb. Virgin Records, Ltd., 1979. Dabydeen, David. “On Not Being Milton: Nigger Talk in England Today.” In Tibisiri: Caribbean Writers and Critics, edited by Maggie Butcher, 121–35. Coventry: Dangaroo Press, 1984. Gaye, Abdoulaye. “De l’espace dancehall comme refuge cathartique à la Jamaïque.” Espaces et sociétés no. 144–45 (2011): 105–19. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. ———. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson, 1987.

294  David Bousquet Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Translated by Michael J. Dash. Charlottesville: Virginia University Press, 1989. Harriott, Derrick. “Have Faith in Me.” Crystal Records, 1962. Jah Lyrics. Accessed July 18, 2018. www.jah-lyrics.com/. Kaplan, Louis. “Yaweh Rastafari! Matisyahu and the Aporias of Hasidic Reggae Superstardom.” The New Centennial Review 7, no. 1 (2007): 15–44. Mackie, Erin. “Welcome the Outlaw: Pirates, Maroons, and Caribbean Countercultures.” Cultural Critique 59 (Winter 2005): 24–62. Manuel, Peter, and Wayne Marshall. “The Riddim Method: Aesthetics, Practice, and Ownership in Jamaican Dancehall.” Popular Music 25, no. 3 (October 2006): 447–70. Marley, Bob, and The Wailers. “400 Years.” Catch A Fire. Island Records, Ltd., 1973. ———. “Redemption Song.” Uprising. Island Records Ltd., 1980. ———. “Slave Driver.” Catch A Fire. Island Records, Ltd., 1973. Murrell, Nathaniel Samuel. “Turning Hebrew Psalms to Reggae Rhythms: Rastas’ Revolutionary Lamentations for Social Change.” Cross Currents 50, no. 4 (2000): 525–50. Prahlad, Anand. Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music. Jackson: Mississippi University Press, 2001. Soldiers of Jah Army. “Rasta Courage.” Peace in a Time of War. SOJA Music, 2002. Stanley Niaah, Sonjah. “Performance Geographies from Slave Ship to Ghetto.” Space and Culture 11, no. 4 (November 2008): 343–60. UB40. “Bring It on Home to Me.” Labour of Love IV. Virgin Records, 2010. Zephaniah, Benjamin. “A Modern Slave Song.” In City Psalms, 52. Highgreen: Bloodaxe Books, 1992. Zips, Werner. Rastafari: A Universal Philosophy in the Third Millennium. Kingston: Ian Randle, 2006.

Contributors

Lawrence Aje is Associate Professor of United States History at the University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier. He specializes in African American history. His doctoral research focused on free people of color in nineteenth-century Charleston, South Carolina. His current research explores the interconnection between law, race, and group identity formation, as well as the migration and circulation of free people of color in the United States and in the Atlantic World during the nineteenth century. He also specializes in historiography and more specifically on the political, methodological, and epistemological stakes involved in the writing of the history of slavery. Renée Ater is Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland, where she worked from September  2000 to July  2017. A  scholar of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century art of the United States, her research focuses on monuments, race, national identity, and public space. She is the author of Keith Morrison, volume 5 of The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art (Pomegranate Books, 2005) and Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller (University of California Press, 2011), as well as numerous articles on public monuments. Currently, she is engaged in a digital project entitled Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past: Race, Memorialization, Public Space, and Civic Engagement, which has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities-Mellon Foundation, The Getty Research Institute, and the Smithsonian Office of Fellowships. Claire Bourhis-Mariotti is Associate Professor of American History at the University of Paris 8. Her main research concentrates on nineteenthcentury African American history, and more particularly the antebellum emigrationist and colonization movements to Haiti. She authored L’union fait la force. Les Noirs americains et Haiti, 1804–1893 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), and coedited a collection of essays entitled Writing History From the Margins: African Americans and the Quest for Freedom (London, New York: Routledge, 2016).

296 Contributors David Bousquet is Senior Lecturer at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France. He specializes in the study of Caribbean poetry, popular music, and culture, and especially reggae. His research on song lyrics and performance poems focuses on the tension between orality and writing with a postcolonial and cultural studies perspective. He has published several articles and book chapters: “Conscious Entertainment: Commitment in the Reggae Lyrics of Clinton Fearon and Protoje” in Commonwealth Essays and Studies 38, no. 1 (2015); “ ‘Dis Poem Shall Call Names’: Naming in Reggae Culture, the Example of Dub Poetry.” Commonwealth Essays and Studies 36, no. 1 (2013); “Poet and the Roots: Authenticity in the Works of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah” in The Aesthetics of Authenticity: Medial Constructions of the Real, Edited by Wolfgang Funk, Florian Gross & Irmtraud Huber, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2012. Nathalie Dessens is Professor of American History and Civilization at the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès (France). For many years, she conducted research on ideology in the antebellum American South, on the myth of the Old South in literature and popular culture, and on the history of the slave societies of the Americas. In the past two decades, she has refocused her research on nineteenth-century New Orleans. She has written about 50 articles and book chapters and edited several journal issues published in Europe, in the Caribbean, and in the United States. In addition to the two books she has coedited with JeanPierre Le Glaunec, Haïti, regards croisés (Le Manuscrit, 2007) and Interculturalité : La Louisiane au carrefour des cultures (Presses de l’Université de Laval, 2016), she has authored, among others, Myths of the Plantation Society: Slavery in the American South and the West Indies (University Press of Florida, 2003), From Saint-Domingue to New Orleans: Migration and Influences (University Press of Florida, 2007), and Creole City: A Chronicle of Early American New Orleans (University Press of Florida, 2015). Isobel Elstob is Assistant Professor in History of Art at the University of Nottingham, having held roles at Birkbeck, University of London, and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Her research focuses on British and American visualizations of marginalized historical narratives and makes cross-disciplinary applications of postmodern literary and historiographical models. Isobel has contributed to panel discussions and given conference presentations both nationally and internationally and has also directed contemporary art engagement events in the UK. Her publications include articles in the Journal of Victorian Culture and the Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies and the forthcoming monograph Visualizing the Victorians: The Nineteenth Century in Contemporary Art.

Contributors  297 Thomas A. Foster is Associate Dean and Professor of History at Howard University. He has written numerous refereed articles and book chapters. He is the author of three books: Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2019), Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014), and Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006). In addition he is the editor of four books: Women in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 2015); Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012); New Men: Manliness in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 2011) and Long Before Stonewall: Histories of SameSex Sexuality in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 2007). He is currently working on a history of Abingdon Plantation. Nicolas Gachon is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier. Born in Dakar, the descendent of a métis family, he is interested in memory studies, in genealogical research, and in the British occupations of Gorée Island and of Saint-Louis, Senegal. He recently published “John Ware (1807–1841): traces et mémoires d’une trajectoire goréenne” (2015) [“John Ware (1807–1841): Traces and Memories of a Gorean Trajectory”] and “John Ware (1786–1818): les outremers de l’Atlantique britannique” (2018) [“John Ware (1786– 1818): Across and beyond the British Atlantic”] in the French historical journal Outre-Mers. His primary specialty area is in American politics and society. Rebecca Anne Goetz is Associate Professor of History at New York University. A historian of the Atlantic World, Goetz has written numerous refereed articles and book chapters on race and religion. Her first book, The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race, appeared with Johns Hopkins University Press in 2012. She is currently at work on a monograph tentatively titled Captive Archipelagos: Native Enslavement in the Greater Caribbean, 1492–1792. Ary Gordien  is a post-doctoral researcher at Université Paris 8. He is currently investigating anti-racist movements in the outskirts of Paris. The other research topics he explores are the Jamaican reparation commission for slavery, music, dance, gender, and sexuality in the African diaspora. He defended his dissertation entitled Nationalisme, race et ethnicité en Guadeloupe, constructions identitaires ambivalentes en situation de dépendance at Université Paris Descartes in 2015. Ronald Angelo Johnson is Associate Professor of History at Texas State University, where he specializes in the history of early US diplomacy,

298 Contributors Atlantic World, and race relations. He is the author of Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance (University of Georgia Press, 2014). His current book project focuses on the influence of diplomacy and immigration on the evolution of American identity in the early United States. Hilary Jones is Associate Professor of History, Core Faculty in the African and African Diaspora Studies Program, and an affiliate faculty member with the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. She is a historian of Africa who is interested in the African Diaspora. Her research interests concern the social history of Africa, French empire, the Francophone Atlantic, comparative race and slavery, women and gender, and Africa’s urban histories. In her research and teaching, she pays close attention to the interconnected histories of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Her book The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2013) examines Senegal’s colonial capital through the lens of people of mixed racial ancestry. Her research has appeared in the Journal of African History, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, and Slavery and Abolition, as well as in four edited volumes. Her current research projects investigate the making of a French Atlantic from an African perspective, and women and political power in Senegal. Nathalie Martinière is Professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Limoges, where she teaches literature. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on spatial representations in Joseph Conrad’s novels and works both on Conrad and on postcolonial rewritings of classics. She is the author of Figures du Double: du personnage au texte (2008) and has recently coedited Rewriting in the 20th–21st Centuries: Aesthetic Choice or Political Act? (2015). She is the editor of L’Epoque Conradienne. Tshombe Miles, Assistant Professor of Black and Latino Studies, is an expert in the history of Latin American race and ethnicity as well as the black diaspora in the Atlantic World, specifically Brazil. His most recent book was published in Brazil and is entitled A luta contra a escravidão eo racismo no Ceará, Brasil (The Fight Against Slavery and Racism in Ceará), Fundação Demócrito Rocha/IEPRO, March 2012, and he is currently working on a second book entitled Race and AfroBrazilian Agency in Brazil for Routledge Press. He is a member of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, and Associação Nacional de História (The National Association of History (in Brazil)). He earned a BA from City College of New York and a PhD from Brown University. Claudine Raynaud is Professor of American Studies at the University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier. She has taught in the UK (Birmingham and

Contributors  299 Liverpool) and the US (Michigan, Northwestern, and Oberlin). A Fellow at the Du Bois Institute (Harvard, 2005), she headed the French African American Studies Research Group created in 2004 and works with the ITEM/CNRS. She is the author of Toni Morrison: l’esthétique de la survie (1996) and numerous articles on black autobiography (Hurston, Baldwin, Angelou, Baker). Her publications include “Coming of Age in the African American Novel” (2004), “Beloved or the Shifting Shapes of Memory” (2007), an article on Hurston’s field trip to Haiti (2013), and a series of essays in translation from the Harlem Renaissance (2013). She coedited two volumes of Diasporas, Cultures of Mobilities, ‘Race’ (2014, 2016), RFEA #154 on African American Modernism and ELA # 44 (2018). Her translation of Sojourner Truth’s Narrative appeared in 2016. Ashraf H. A. Rushdy holds the Benjamin Waite Professorship in the African American Studies Program and the English Department at Wesleyan University. He is the author of The Empty Garden (1992), Neo-Slave Narratives (1999), Remembering Generations (2001), American Lynching (2012), The End of American Lynching (2012), A Guilted Age (2015), and After Injury (2018). His research interests include race, racial violence, and the practices of reconciliation. Winter Rae Schneider is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at UCLA, where she also received her MA. Her work focuses on land tenure, law, sovereignty, and personhood in the Caribbean and Latin America. Drawn from archival research in Haiti, France, and the United States, in addition to oral history and historical ethnography research in Haiti, her dissertation focuses on historicizing rural Haitian space through competing sovereign claims. Her research has been supported by the UC Center for New Racial Studies and the FulbrightHays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad award. Anne Stefani is Professor of American Studies and American History at the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès, France. She is a specialist of the US South. She is the author of Unlikely Dissenters: White Southern Women in the Fight for Racial Justice, 1920–1970 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015), which explores the intersection of gender, race, and region during the segregation era. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of race, memory, and history in US culture. Her latest publications include “Race, Casting, and Politics: A Comparative Study of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical and Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop,” in Kevin Wetmore, ed. Hamilton: History, Hip-Hop and Politics: Essays on the Afterbirth of a Nation (McFarland and Company, 2018).

Index

Abingdon Plantation (Washington, D.C.) ch.9; Arlington Historical Society 150; Association for the Preservation for Virginia Antiquities 146 abolitionism 32, 43, 174, 189; abolitionists 31, 34, 38, 45, 68, 158, 217, 218, 258, 261, 271 – 3; Committee for the Abolition of Slavery 268, 271; cosmopolitanism 254; Garrisonian 173; imagination 178; literature 241; memory 178; networks 35, 39; press 30, 217, 221; propaganda 39, 249, 260; rhetoric 258 abolition of slavery 32, 72, 74, 76, 117, 159; Ceará 158; commemoration 70; France 68, 69, 80n23, 81n45 affirmative action see reparations African American Heritage Trail 251, 261 African Methodist Episcopal Church 191 – 2, 220; shooting 202 Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation 191 agency 42, 91, 112, 119 – 20, 134, 136, 158, 193, 237; see also empowerment Alexandria (Virginia) ch.13; Alexandria Historical Society 224; Appomattox (statue) 223, 227; Bruin Slave Jail 215, 216, 218; Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery 215, 221, 223, 226; contrabands 221; Edmonson Sisters Memorial 218 – 23; foundation 215; Franklin and Armfield Slave Pen 215; Friends of Freedmen’s

Cemetery 22; Old Town/Hunting Creek Civic Association 224; Path of Thorns and Roses 223 – 7; Public Art Committee 224; Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage 224 Alexander (family) 146 Allinson, W.J. 173, 174 American Baptist Free Mission Society 222 apologies for slavery and slave trade ch.6, 129; Charleston 202; public 101 – 2, 106; United States 206n110; U.S. Congress 117; U.S. House of Representatives 103 – 4; U.S. Senate 105 – 5 archives: construction 33; digital 41; French colonial archives 25n8, 25n10, 78, 89, 90 – 1; Louisiana parish records 16, 18; Louisiana Slave Database 134; Louisiana Slave Trade Database 18; missionary reports 23; New Orleans Notarial Archives 25n8; New York Public Library 178; private 19, 23; Revista Instituto do Ceará 158; Richmond (Library of Virginia) 222; Senegal 17, 22 – 4, 27n33; Senegambia 19; slave narratives as historical resources ch.2; slave trade ch.1 Arlington National Cemetery 153, 222 Armfield, J. 215 Astor, J.J. 217 Ball, T.: Freedmen’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln 216 Baudelaire, C. 254 Beaufort (South Carolina) 190, 192

Index  301 Beecher, H.W. 218 Bernard, G. 192 Bernardin de St. Pierre, J.-H. 252 Bernini, G.L. 224 Black Atlantic 19, 20, 67, 69, 281, 288, 291n15, 293n31, 293n32; biographies 20, 26n19; term forged by P. Gilroy 290n3 Black Awareness Day (Brazil) 129 Black Codes 104; see also Jim Crow Black Lives Matter 114, 121 – 3 Blake, J. 223 Blome, E. 215, 218 – 20, 224; Edmonson Sisters Memorial 218 – 21; monuments of African Americans 218 Bolivar, S. 170 Brazil: Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário 165; Cariri Indians 162; Ceará ch.10; denial of blackness 158 – 9; Empire 160; Old Republic 158; pardos 159 – 61; Senhora dos Prazeres 165; slave holdings 163; Ypióca cachaca 162; see also genealogy; Maroons Brown, W.W. 32, 34, 38 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 124n23 Bruin, J. 215, 216, 217 – 18, 220 – 1 Bush, G.W. 102 – 3, 105 – 7 Cabrillo, J.R. ch.3; Cabrillo College 53, 54; Cabrillo National Monument 54; Kumeyaay Nation 54 – 8; San Diego Maritime Museum 49, 52 – 4; San Salvador (ship) 49, 41, 52 – 3 Calhoun, J.C. 188 – 9; statue in Charleston (South Carolina) 194, 201 capitalism 233, 281, 282, 286 Carver, G.W. 218 Césaire, A. 65, 72 Charleston (South Carolina) ch.12; Battery 190; Denmark Vesey and Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee 193 – 5; Denmark Vesey Monument 188, 194; Fort Moultrie 189, 200; Hampton Park 188, 194, 202; International African American Museum project 218; Old Exchange Building 190; tourist industry 190, 197 – 9, 201

Child, L.M. 21 Chiodo, M. 215 – 16; Path of Thorns and Roses 223 – 6 Civil Rights Movement 115, 117, 128, 188, 189, 196; Black Freedom Movement 119, 123; commemorations 115; see also King, M.L.; Parks, R. Civil War (United States) 3, 7n7, 22, 31, 32, 41 – 2, 136, 148, 194, 203, 215, 228n22; commemoration 188 – 9; conservative backlash 123; King, M.L. 192, 218; National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis 124n23 Clinton, H. 251 Clotilda (ship) 15, 24n3 Columbus, C. 54, 56 colonialism 47 – 8, 55 – 6, 71, 79; anticolonialism 62, 64, 65, 67 – 71, 72, 75; neocolonialism 247, 286; postcolonialism 62, 63, 71, 79, 229n45, 268, 276, 279n29, 281, 290n12 colorblindness 112 – 13, 114, 116; original use of the term 124n7 commemorations 3, 7n7, 56, 115, 189 Committee for Interracial Justice (New York) 171 Community of Caribbean countries (CARICOM) 129 Confederacy 128, 139, 192, 204n2, 227; Confederate Memorial Day 192, 203; Confederate monuments and markers ch.12; Confederate Relic Museum 203 Cooper, J.F. 173 Creoles 27, 63, 136; Békés (White Creoles) 66, 67, 71, 72, 75; Creole culture 132 – 3; Creole languages 66, 81n45, 86, 87, 93, 97, 283; free Creoles of color 131; French 66, 88; identity 68, 73, 74, 79; oral texts 283, 289, 290n10 Cumberworth, C. 252 – 4, 256; Marie revenant de la Fontaine (statue) 253 Custis (family) 145 – 9 Dabydeen, D.: A Harlot’s Progress, ch.16 Defoe, D. 272 Dessalines, J.-J. 88, 175

302 Index d’Hanache, A. 88, 89; Habitation d’Hanache 89 – 91 Diallo, A.S. 19 – 20, 22, 24 diaspora: African 18, 24, 69, 79, 113, 281, 286, 288, 289, 290n3; Afro-European trade 20; in the Caribbean 62, 281, 285; in mainland France 68 Douglass, F. 32, 34, 42, 43n6, 173, 261 Dwight, E. 192 – 3, 224 Edmonson (sisters, family). ch.13; Edmonson Sisters Memorial 218 – 21; see also Blome, E. emancipation 19, 20, 24, 86, 179; cultural 286 empowerment 136, 203, 286; see also agency Federal Writers Project 134 feminism 121, 250; black feminism 251; Me Too (movement) 106; women’s rights 249, 260 Finney, E. 193 Franklin, I. 215 French, D.C. 216 French revolution of 1848 22, 68 Fugitive Slave Act 32, 38, 43n12 Garrison, W. 261; Garrisonian abolitionism 173 Garvey, M. 193 genealogy 16; African ancestry in Brazil ch.10; biographies 19 – 20; Guadeloupe ch.5; Indian ancestry in Brazil 160 – 1; oral transmission 63; Senegal archives 23 Gibson, A. 193 Gillespie, D. 193 Gladwin, A. (Reverend) 222, 223 Glissant, E. 72 – 4, 79, 285, 288 Green, R. 236 Green, V.: Negro Motorist Green Book 200 Greene, T. 255 – 7 Guadeloupe: activism and politicization 106 – 20; anticolonialism 71 – 9; Comité Marche du 23 mai 1998 64, 68; Communist Party 64 – 5, 76; créolisation 72; family histories ch.5; genealogy 75 – 6, 79; French government policies 65 – 6, 68 – 9; Guadeloupean identity 64 – 71;

Lyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon 67; Mémorial ACTe 70 Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor 197, 200 Haiti ch.5; Haitian revolution 22, 84, 88 – 9, 170 – 1, 177 – 8, 182; lakou (family land) system 84 – 9; Lakou Soukri 88 – 9, 92 – 5; U.S. denial of Haitian independence 174 – 6 Hampstead Church 191 Hampton, W. 194 history: end of 233, 234 – 6, 245; inter-/textuality 236 – 45; oral 22, 63, 88 – 9; representations 233, ch.14; temporality 234 Hoar, G.F. 34 Hogarth, W. 267 – 71, 276 – 8; A Harlot’s Progress 268 – 74; Hogarth’s Blacks 269; influence on abolitionists 279n9 Howard, C.J. 223 Hunter (family) 146 Hurston, Z.N. 15 – 16 Jacobs, H.A. 221, 225, 257 Jefferson, T.: Monticello 117 – 18 Jim Crow 42, 104, 117, 119, 193, 195, 202; lynching 34, 104, 125n30, 193; see also Black Codes Jones, R. 191 – 2 Katrina (hurricane) 114, 116, 129, 137, 139 King, M.L. 192, 218; see also Civil Rights Movement King, R. 171 King, W. 257 Kingsley, A.M. 20 – 2, 24 Kingsley, Z. 20 – 2 Ku Klux Klan 125n30, 192 Laveau, M. 134 Lee, H.F.S. 173 – 8, 182 – 3 Lee, R.E. 146; statue in Charlottesville (Virginia) 188 Lessing, G.E. 234 Lewis, K.C. 15 Ligon, G. 233, 237 – 42, 245; Runaways (lithographs) 238, 242 Lost Cause 147, 189, 227 Louisiana ch.8; Laura Plantation 128, 130; Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 139; Louisiana State Museum 139; Louisiana State

Index  303 University Rural Life Museum 128; Plantation Alley 153; Whitney Plantation Museum 132, 134, 136, 137; see also archives; New Orleans Louverture, T. 22, 87, 170, 175, 177 – 8, 262 – 3, 266, 270, 273 – 5; Constitution of 1801 178; nominated for canonization 172 Marley, B. 281, 284, 286 Maroons 283, 290n5; Quilombos 129 – 30 Martin, T. 121 Martinique: export of slaves to 23; land transmission as group consciousness 61 – 3; slaves expelled from Martinique to Senegal 16, 25n10 Mason, I. ch.2 Maximin, D. 68 memorial tourism 190, 198 – 201, 250; African American Heritage Trail 261; Plantation Alley 153; Sojourner Truth’s Freedom Trail 260 memory: amnesia 275; collective 49, 102, ch.7, 117, 119, 133, 249, 251; Confederacy 227; constructed 101, 261, 267; creative 272, 288; cultural 250; denial 108, 227; forgetfulness 5, 109, 116, 130, 131; genealogy ch.4; Haitian revolution 177; history 6, ch.3, 137, 154n10, 198, 199, 287; identity 71, 229n45; Lost Cause 227; Middle Passage 258; multidirectional (M. Rothberg) 1, 203, 250, 254, 257; music 282; myth 52 – 8; narrative 275; national 102, 115, 116 – 17; official 3, 68, 139, 154, 249, 250, 384; palimpsestic (M. Silverman) 1, 3, 4, 250; politicization 64 – 6, 196 – 9; postmemory 64, 250, 251; public 1 – 6, 47, 48, 58, 107, 116, 172, 188, 195, 203, 249 – 51; racialized 137 – 8; regimes 81n40; rememory (T. Morrison) 250 – 1; ritualized 257, 267; rural 84; sites 257; slavery 1, 2, 71, 75, 79, 80, 108, 128, 129 – 31, 134, 149, 176 – 8, 215, 261, 268, 281, 283, 286, 289; social 86, 89; studies 1, 2; subjective ch.4; transmission 78 – 9; traumatic 106, 287; white supremacy 128; see also trauma

Middle Passage 16, 102, 136, 198, 200, 258; see also slave trade Morrison, T. 108 – 9, 233, 245, 251; Beloved 108, 109, 251; rememory 250 – 1; Toni Morrison Society 251 museums: 9/11 Memorial and Museum 133; Confederate Relic Museum 203; dedicated to slavery 53, 257 – 8; Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology 246; International African American Museum project (New Orleans) 198; Louisiana State Museum 139; Louisiana State University Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge 128; Mémorial ACTe 70; Mississippi Civil Rights Museum 125n29, 130; museography 3, 113, 117, 118 – 19; museum studies 250; National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis 124n23; National Museum of African American History and Culture 118, 130, 133, 154; National Museum of the American Indian 154; National Women’s Historical Museum 263n13; New Orleans African American Museum 140n17, 141n20; Old Slave Mart Museum 206n100; San Diego Maritime Museum 49, 52, 54; South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum 188; Whitney Plantation Museum 3, 134, 136; Underground Railroad Museum 137; see also plantations National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 192, 201 National Congress of Black Women 251; see also feminism National Register of Historic Places (U.S.) 132, 197 Native enslavement ch.3; absence from public sphere 47 – 8, 57 – 8; compared to transatlantic slave trade 47; demands for a memorial 48; memorialization and museification 52 – 3, 55 – 6 Ndiaye, A.M. 20, 21, 24 Négritude (literary movement) 62, 70, 72 Nell, W.C. 34, 38, 39 New Orleans (Louisiana): Claiborne Avenue 131 – 2; Congo Square/

304 Index Louis Armstrong Park 129, 131; Faubourg Tremé 129, 131 – 3, 135; French Quarter 131 – 2; I 10 Expressway 132, 133; Historic New Orleans Collection 139; New Orleans African American Museum 132; slave market 139; St. Augustine church 129, 131; Tomb of the Unknown Slave 128, 131; Tricentennial Commission 139; see also Louisiana Northup, S. 43n6, 173 Obama, B.: 2008 election 7, 108 – 9, 114, 139; postracialism 114, 139 Obama, M.: unveils Sojourner Truth bust in Capitol 251 Owens, C. 235 Parks, R. 218, 241; see also Civil Rights Movement Pearl, The (ship) 216 – 20 Philips, W. 261 Plantation Alley 153; see also plantations plantations 150 – 1: Abingdon Plantation ch.9; Arlington Plantation 151; Great Hopes Plantation 153; Laura Plantation 128, 130; Monticello 117 – 18; Mount Vernon 151, 153 – 4; Notley Young’s Plantation 151; Plantation Alley 153; Summer Hill Plantation 151; Whitney Plantation 132 – 4, 137 – 8 police brutality 114, 121 – 2, 171, 292n22 Post, A. 261 post-raciality 7, 114, 123, 129, 139 Pradier, J. 252; Négresse aux calebasses (sculpture) 256 race mixing (métissage) 68, 72, 73, 78, 159, 161, 166n2; see also Creoles; signares racism 68 – 9, 72, 104, 105, 112 – 26, 292n27; colorism 69; scientific 239 Reagan, N. 151 Reagan, R. 151 Reagan National Airport see Abingdon Plantation Redpath, J. 40 reggae ch.17; artists 284 – 5; deconstructs Western meta-

narratives 287 – 8; discourse on slavery 285 – 8; ethos of piracy 283; Jah Lyrics (database) 282 – 4, 288; Jamaican Patwa 283; see also Marley, B. Renan, E. 109 reparations 5, 110n9, 113 – 15, 117, 129, 193 – 6, 203; affirmative action 124n19 Reynolds, J. 271 Riefenstahl, L. 256 Royal Africa Company 19 – 20 Rushdie, S. 267 Salem, The (ship) 217 San Salvador, The (ship) see Cabrillo, J.R. segregation (racial) 32, 33, 42, 103 – 4, 112, 114, 115, 117 – 21, 199, 200 Senegambia ch.1; biographies of Senegambians 20 – 2; Gorée (Senegal) 19, 102 – 3; Islamic revolutions 17, 20, 22; role in transatlantic slave trade 17 – 19, 23; Saint Louis (Senegal) 19, 23, 25n10; signares 20 – 1, 26n23; see also archives September 11: 9/11 Memorial and Museum 133; attacks 113 signares 20 – 1; see also race mixing (métissage); Senegambia Simpson, L. 233, 236, 241; Outline (photographic diptych) 243, 245 Simpson, O.J. 171 slave narratives 16 – 17, 219n9; abolitionism 272 – 3; antebellum 30 – 2; Douglass, F. 34; as historical resources ch.2; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 221 – 2; Life of Isaac Mason as a Slave ch.2; literary genre 30 – 1; mercantile companies 18; oral 16, 22; postbellum ch.2; women 21 – 2; see also slavery; slave trade; Truth slavery: abolitionism 31, 34 – 5, 39, 173, 189, 241, 251 – 2, 261; apologies ch.6, 117, 129 – 30; blackness 62, 73, 79, 157 – 9; commemoration 68, 70, 115, 137, 189, 194, 257, ch.12; compensation ch.12; fictionalized accounts 16, 170; French Caribbean 18, 23, 26n15; historical records 16 – 23,

Index  305 30, 41, 148; indentured servitude 4, 57, 66, 73; legality 30, 57, 103; memorialization 4 – 6, 47 – 8, 58, 106, 112, 128 – 9, 131 – 2, 136, 139, 188 – 96, 201, 203, 251, 268, 270, 274; redemption 109, 220, 281, 286; reparations 113 – 15, 117, 129, 203; shared narrative 66; see also memory; slave narratives; slave trade slave trade: archives ch.1; illegal 18, 23, 73; Native people ch.3; Senegambia 17 – 19, 23; see also archives; Middle Passage Smalls, R. 190, 192 Sori, A.R.I.I. 20, 22, 24 South Africa 113 – 14; post-apartheid 114 South Carolina African American Heritage Council 197, 202, 220 South Carolina Heritage Act 192, 201 Southern Poverty Law Center 189 Stono slave rebellion 189 – 90 Story, W.W. 254, 258, 259; see also Stowe, H.B. Stowe, H.B. 173, 219, 220; Truth, S. 250, 252, 254, 258, 259; Uncle Tom’s Cabin 177, 216 – 17, 218 Susse Frères (firm) 252, 245 Taylor, J.C. (pastor) 23 Till, E. 118, 125n30; Emmett Till Memorial 125 Tinchant (family) 16, 22, 24 Toussaint, P. ch.11 trauma 69, 226, 250, 251, 267, 285, 286, 289; amnesia 275; see also memory Tremé, C. 131; see also New Orleans Truth, S. 173, ch.15; Narrative of Sojourner Truth 250, 252, 260, 261; nicknamed “The Libyan Sibyl” by Harriet Beecher Stowe 250, 252, 254, 258, 259, 261; Sojourner Truth’s Freedom Trail 260; statues ch.15; Truth Memorial Working Committee 255 – 6 Turner, M.W.: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying 271 Turner, N. 170, 271 Underground Railroad 35, 37, 38, 39; museum 137 – 8

United Nations 47, 113; Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO) 129 – 30; Slave Routes Project (UNESCO) 47 Universal Negro Improvement Association 193 U.S. Declaration of Independence 104 U.S. South ch.8; enslaved persons transported to the Deep South 215; plantations 150 – 1; Confederacy 128, 139, 192, 227; see also Charleston (South Carolina); Confederate monuments and markers; Ku Klux Klan Veil, S. 257 Vesey, D. ch.12; Denmark Vesey and Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee 193; memorialization 191 – 9; uprising 191 – 3 Washington, G. 145, 146; George Washington Memorial Parkway 151; Mount Vernon 151, 153 Washington, M. 146; Mount Vernon 151, 153 Webster, D. 175 – 6 Wedgwood, J. 241 Weems, C.M. 233, 236 – 40, 243 – 5; From Here I Saw What Happened (prints) 236 – 7, 239 – 40, 243 Wells, I.B. 42 White, H. 233 white identity 116, 119, 120, 121; bias 62; conservative backlash 123; guilt and responsibility ch.7; privilege 121 – 3; racism 116; Southern whites (U.S.) 119 – 20, 123; supremacy 115, 117, 121 – 3, 128, 139, 175, 195 Williams, C. 236 Winogrand, G. 244 Wise, T. 119, 120 women: enslaved 20 – 4, 96n24; Senegambia 22; sexual exploitation 51, 57, 74 – 5, 217; signares 20 – 1, 26n23; slave owners 19, 20; suffering 220; women’s rights 384; see also feminism World Conference against Racism 126 Zephaniah, B. 20 – 1, 281