Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
Thanks to Erik for telling me about this book, “the best book on slavery,” which I finally read. I think the family described may be similar to my own family who owned slaves. When I asked my brother how our family could have owned slaves, he replied “I bring it back to myself. Would I be willing to give my own money for reparations? Would I be willing to stop using my i-phone because of labor exploitation? Would I be willing to give up the next Italian bicycle I want in order to give money to others more deserving?”
Our family lived on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and identified with Nashville, the largest city nearby, at the time a center for classical music, art, and literature. They looked on Memphis as a river town known for gambling. Memphis being flat was ideal for growing cotton and could produce large plantations with many slaves.
My family saw Memphis as the Deep South, different from the upper South of the Cumberland Plateau and Nashville. Because of the mountainous terrain, there could be no cotton farms. My family owned a handful slaves, who worked in the household or helped in the peach orchard. They hid the family silver in the woods during the Civil War. Owning slaves contributed to the survival of my family at the expense of slave autonomy and wellbeing.
There are two main themes in the book. First, slaves were part of the family and part of the emotional system. Second, the behavior of the slave owners toward the slaves were a mix. The white woman could take it personally that her husband innocently enjoyed the company of a young pretty slave. She could act revengefully toward a vulnerable young person. She reflects that she and her husband are both thinking of the girl when they talk to each other, but neither will mention her openly.
If she did not feel personally threatened, she could be generous, unwilling to sell slaves because it would separate families. Her husband privately questioned the morality of owning slaves, but he kept it to himself as he didn’t want to upset his wife. The family could also believe in an image of itself as principled, not aggressive, and kind. The family tried to sustain the image and as a result some of their actions were hidden.
The family used Christianity, teaching the slaves about God and Jesus, as a justification for owning slaves who had been captured from what was believed to be savage societies. From what has been learned from anthropologists, the hunting and gathering societies out of which the slaves may have been kidnapped were more egalitarian and had greater respect for women and the common good than our own.
In the end of the book, the pretty young slave is helped to freedom by a member of the next generation of the family who then faced the wrath of her white mother. Unlike the terrible things the family had imagined would befall the young slave in freedom in Canada, we learn how well she did when she returns for a visit 25 years later, well after 1865.
[In Acts 5 in the Bible, Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, sold a parcel of land and donated part of the sale proceeds to the Church. But they also led the Apostle Peter and others to believe they donated the entire sum. For conspiring to lie as they did, they were struck dead.]
Laurie,
What a gift it is to discover a book that touches upon a subject that is important and sensitive in one’s own family. A distinction you make between the relationship between slaves and owners who lived on cotton plantations, and those who lived together in households is helpful in showing the variation in how slavery was experienced on both sides. In the household, there would have been more personal connection that for some would develop into emotional attachment and the possibility of kindness and understanding. I think there must still have been an undercurrent of fear, more for the slaves who were subject to the rule and whims of owners, but also for the owners. I have wondered about those slaveholders who had troubled consciences, but feared the social pressure that would come from challenging the system. Of course, as you capture so well, there are the questions we face now: What would I have done back in the 1800s? What am I doing now to address the issues of reparation and the institutional reforms that are necessary to end racism.
The success of the heroine of the book after she became free is an example of what so many freed people did after 1865. I find it stunning to look at the achievements of Black Americans, building families, schools, churches, communities, creating art, music, and literature, and holding many public offices, doing this even with the post-emancipation ongoing discrimination they have endured. Maybe this is one answer to Dr. Bowen’s question to Mignonette Keller: How does a slave develop a self in an oppressive, dehumanizing system forcing him into a no-self position? Her research on her once-enslaved ancestor shows that he had a few favorable elements in his relationship with two owner families, and that as a free person, he maintained those relationships as he went on to marry, raise a large family, and become a community leader. Do you have any way of learning anything of what happened with the people who were slaves in your family?
Thank you, Stephanie, for your thoughtful reflection on my post. You have given me much to think about. There may be a way to find out about the descendants of slaves owned by my great-great grandfather who was a US congressman. Yes, I agree that African Americans have contributed much to our society and continue to do so. My family’s relationships to African Americans and their story and human rights is part of my own family story, but that is a long story . . . Thank you again,
Laurie