33. It needs to be noted that much of what Foreman and Pitts claim to have discovered about the early life of Wilson, prior to her departure to Boston, is either too speculative or simply unsupported by evidence—we would argue to a damaging degree, since on a number of occasions these speculations are not presented or are inconsistently presented as such. See the “Note on the Penguin Edition” in appendix 4. This should of course take nothing away from Flynn’s and Pitts’s and Foreman’s many major, groundbreaking discoveries about Wilson’s hair products business and her career as a Boston spiritualist.
34. See R. Laurence Moore, “The Spiritualist Medium: Female Professionalism in Victorian America,” American Quarterly (May 1975), vol. 27: 215, 218.
35. For example, the Spiritual Scientist, from December 1874 through May 1875, ran a series of articles by “Diogenes,” in which he visited Boston test mediums and subjected their performances to rigorous analysis, often accompanied by excoriating attacks on their authenticity. Wilson’s trance medium performances did not attract his attention.
36. Banner of Light (hereafter cited as BL) XXVIII, no. 8 (November 12, 1870): 2. See also appendix 1.
37. Hattie E. Wilson, [no title], BL XXIV, no. 4 (October 10, 1868): 4.
38. “The Negro,” BL XXI, no. 3 (April 6, 1867): 5; “The Messenger … Gabisha, a Slave,” BL IX, no. 25 (September 14, 1861): 6. See also “African Colonization,” BL XX, no. 25 (March 2, 1867): 4; the Banner had also all too happily characterized “the blacks in the North Carolina legislature” as “ignorant and superstitious” because they were prepared to expel a spiritualist named Thorpe from their legislature for his beliefs, when, in point of fact, it was not North Carolinian African Americans but “the white man’s party” that had been the instrument of Thorpe’s exclusion. See BL XXXVII, no. 3 (April 17, 1873): 3.
39. BL LXXVII, no. 8 (April 27, 1895): 3; Anonymous, “The Anniversary Celebration of Modern Spiritualism in Rochester, New York,” BL XXIII, no. 6 (April 12, 1868): 2.
40. See, for example, “The Religious Test,” BL XXXVII, no. 3 (April 17, 1873): 4; “Thorpe’s Exclusion,” BL XXXVII, no. 8 (May 22, 1875): 3; BL XXXII, no. 3 (September 28, 1872): 6.
41. BL XXI, no. 26 (September 14, 1867): 5.
42. The allusion here is to Michel de Certeau’s distinction between tactics and strategy, as developed in his The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), xix and passim.
43. See appendix 1. The Banner also felt it necessary to denounce the way that “mediums who have stood before us for years” were being subjected to testing regimes that meant they were “shamefully set upon by those claiming a faith in the verity of spirit communication” (BL XXXIX, no. 3, [April 15, 1876]: 8). Moore makes the point that in spiritualist circles professional jealousies constantly ran high (“The Spiritualist Medium,” 201).
44. “The Red Man’s New Year,” Spiritual Scientist I, no. 19 (January 14, 1875): 226. It should be noted that this celebration displays Wilson at her best, creatively producing a memorable and novel event to enhance her reputation among her lyceum coworkers.
45. See Bettina Friedl, On to Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987), 15–18.
46. Dr. H. E. Gardner, BL XXXIX, no. 2 (April 8, 1876): 8; “Inauguration of the Shawmut Spiritual Lyceum, BL XLVII, no. 4 (April 17, 1880): 8; “The Red Man’s New Year,” Spiritual Scientist I, no. 19 (January 14, 1875): 226.
47. See White, “ ‘Our Nig’ and the She-Devil,” 29; First Congregational Church, Milford Church Records: Marriages by Rev. H. Moore and Deaths.
48. See Ellis, Harriet Wilson’s “Our Nig,” 89–91; Ramsdell, History of Milford, 373; White, “ ‘Our Nig’ and the She-Devil,” 37.
49. It is difficult to be sure of the extent of Wilson’s involvement in the struggle to establish this “temple.” Certainly the Banner notes her election as the institute’s “Educational Director” and she served on a committee that processed nominations to its “Executive Board.” But anyway, the American Spiritual Institute seems to have collapsed in September 1875 without achieving anything. See “Meetings at Rochester Hall,” BL XXXVII, no. 9 (May 29, 1875): 4. See also appendix 2.
50. “THE PROPOSED SPIRITUAL INSTITUTE,” Spiritual Scientist II, no. 5 (April 8, 1875): 58; “American Studies Institute,” Spiritual Scientist II, no. 14 (June 10, 1875): 166; “Concluding Session” of the “Fourth Annual Spiritualist Camp Meeting … Plympton,” BL XXXIII, no. 21 (August 23, 1873): 8; “National Mass Meeting of Radicals, Socialists, Infidels, Materialists, Free Religionists and Free Thinkers,” BL XXXV, no. 26 (September 26, 1874): 8; “American Studies Institute,” Spiritual Scientist II, no. 14 (June 10, 1875): 166.
51. See BL LII, no. 8 (May 12, 1883): 8.
52. Wilson never appears in the Boston journal Facts (1882–87), for example, which centrally featured “test” mediums’ claims to have made material contact with the spirit world. Wilson’s “grievances” are mentioned in “Freeloveism,” Religio-Philosophical Journal (Chicago) XVII, no. 4 (October 10, 1874): 6.
53. The Boston City Directory records her as living at 9 Pelham Street in both 1897 and 1898. No entries for Wilson exist after 1898, however. This might suggest she had moved to the Cobb household at this time, since she had been annually listed in the Boston City Directory since 1878 and regularly since 1868. See Boston City Directory, Embracing the City Record (Boston: Sampson, Davenport and Co.) for 1897 (1610) and 1898 (1660). However, her Quincy death records still list her usual residence as Pelham Street, Boston, which may suggest a much shorter period spent in Quincy (for example, her health may have become too poor for her to ensure any later Boston directory listing), especially since she is listed in the Banner in December 1899 as an audience member at an event in Dwight Hall. See BL LXXXVI, no. 15 (December 20, 1899): 6.
54. See Wilson, Our Nig, ed. Foreman and Pitts, 2009, xlii; Commonwealth of Massachusetts Return of a Death, no. 192, Name: Hattie E. Wilson.
55. This account of Wilson’s death and how she became buried in the family plot of the Cobbs in Quincy, Massachusetts, is indebted to information supplied by Russell Cobb in an e-mail to R.J. Ellis, December 13, 2010. See also our chronology of Harriet E. Wilson’s life on this page-this page.
56. For other examples, published after Our Nig, see Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889) and Rebecca Harding Davis, “Life in the Iron Mills; or the Korl Woman,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 7 (April 1861): 430–51.
57. See BL XXXV, no. 26 (September 26, 1874): 8.
Following is a Facsimile of the 1859 Edition of Our Nig
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,
BY MRS. H. E. WILSON,
In the Clerk’s office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
PREFACE.
IN offering to the public the following pages, the writer confesses her inability to minister to the refined and cultivated, the pleasure supplied by abler pens. It is not for such these crude narrations appear. Deserted by kindred, disabled by failing health, I am forced to some experiment which shall aid me in maintaining myself and child without extinguishing this feeble life, I would not from these motives even palliate slavery at the South, by disclosures of its appurtenances North. My mistress was wholly imbued with southern principles. I do not pretend to divulge every transaction in my own life, which the unprejudiced would declare unfavorable in comparison with treatment of legal bondmen; I have purposely omitted what would most provoke shame in our good anti-slavery friends at home.
My humble position and frank confession of errors will, I hope, shield me from severe criticism. Indeed, defects are so apparent it requires no skilful hand to expose them.
I sincerely appeal to my colored brethren universally for patronage, hoping they will not condemn this attempt of their sister to be erudite, but rally around me a faithful band of s
upporters and defenders.
H. E. W.
OUR NIG.
CHAPTER I.
MAG SMITH, MY MOTHER.
Oh, Grief beyond all other griefs, when fate
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate
In the wide world, without that only tie
For which it loved to live or feared to die;
Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne’er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!
MOORE.
LONELY MAG SMITH ! See her as she walks with downcast eyes and heavy heart. It was not always thus. She had a loving, trusting heart. Early deprived of parental guardianship, far removed from relatives, she was left to guide her tiny boat over life’s surges alone and inexperienced. As she merged into womanhood, unprotected, uncherished, uncared for, there fell on her ear the music of love, awakening an intensity of emotion long dormant. It whispered of an elevation before unaspired to ; of ease and plenty her simple heart had never dreamed of as hers. She knew the voice of her charmer, so ravishing, sounded far above her. It seemed like an angel’s, alluring her upward and onward. She thought she could ascend to him and become an equal. She surrendered to him a priceless gem, which he proudly garnered as a trophy, with those of other victims, and left her to her fate. The world seemed full of hateful deceivers and crushing arrogance. Conscious that the great bond of union to her former companions was severed, that the disdain of others would be insupportable, she determined to leave the few friends she possessed, and seek an asylum among strangers. Her offspring came unwelcomed, and before its nativity numbered weeks, it passed from earth, ascending to a purer and better life.
“ God be thanked, ” ejaculated Mag, as she saw its breathing cease ; “ no one can taunt her with my ruin. ”
Blessed release ! may we all respond. How many pure, innocent children not only inherit a wicked heart of their own, claiming life-long scrutiny and restraint, but are heirs also of parental disgrace and calumny, from which only long years of patient endurance in paths of rectitude can disencumber them.
Mag’s new home was soon contaminated by the publicity of her fall ; she had a feeling of degradation oppressing her ; but she resolved to be circumspect, and try to regain in a measure what she had lost. Then some foul tongue would jest of her shame, and averted looks and cold greetings disheartened her. She saw she could not bury in forgetfulness her misdeed, so she resolved to leave her home and seek another in the place she at first fled from.
Alas, how fearful are we to be first in extending a helping hand to those who stagger in the mires of infamy ; to speak the first words of hope and warning to those emerging into the sunlight of morality ! Who can tell what numbers, advancing just far enough to hear a cold welcome and join in the reserved converse of professed reformers, disappointed, disheartened, have chosen to dwell in unclean places, rather than encounter these “ holier-than-thou ” of the great brotherhood of man !
Such was Mag’s experience ; and disdaining to ask favor or friendship from a sneering world, she resolved to shut herself up in a hovel she had often passed in better days, and which she knew to be untenanted. She vowed to ask no favors of familiar faces ; to die neglected and forgotten before she would be dependent on any. Removed from the village, she was seldom seen except as upon your introduction, gentle reader, with downcast visage, returning her work to her employer, and thus providing herself with the means of subsistence. In two years many hands craved the same avocation ; foreigners who cheapened toil and clamored for a livelihood, competed with her, and she could not thus sustain herself. She was now above no drudgery. Occasionally old acquaintances called to be favored with help of some kind, which she was glad to bestow for the sake of the money it would bring her ; but the association with them was such a painful reminder of by-gones, she returned to her hut morose and revengeful, refusing all offers of a better home than she possessed. Thus she lived for years, hugging her wrongs, but making no effort to escape. She had never known plenty, scarcely competency ; but the present was beyond comparison with those innocent years when the coronet of virtue was hers.
Every year her melancholy increased, her means diminished. At last no one seemed to notice her, save a kind-hearted African, who often called to inquire after her health and to see if she needed any fuel, he having the responsibility of furnishing that article, and she in return mending or making garments.
“ How much you earn dis week, Mag ? ” asked he one Saturday evening.
“ Little enough, Jim. Two or three days without any dinner. I washed for the Reeds, and did a small job for Mrs. Bellmont ; that ’s all. I shall starve soon, unless I can get more to do. Folks seem as afraid to come here as if they expected to get some awful disease. I do n’t believe there is a person in the world but would be glad to have me dead and out of the way. ”
“ No, no, Mag ! do n’t talk so. You shan’t starve so long as I have barrels to hoop. Peter Greene boards me cheap. I ’ll help you, if nobody else will. ”
A tear stood in Mag’s faded eye. “ I ’m glad, ” she said, with a softer tone than before, “ if there is one who is n’t glad to see me suffer. I b’lieve all Singleton wants to see me punished, and feel as if they could tell when I ’ve been punished long enough. It ’s a long day ahead they ’ll set it, I reckon. ”
After the usual supply of fuel was prepared, Jim returned home. Full of pity for Mag, he set about devising measures for her relief. “ By golly ! ” said he to himself one day—for he had become so absorbed in Mag’s interest that he had fallen into a habit of musing aloud—“ By golly ! I wish she ’d marry me. ”
“ Who ? ” shouted Pete Greene, suddenly starting from an unobserved corner of the rude shop.
“ Where you come from, you sly nigger ! ” exclaimed Jim.
“ Come, tell me, who is ’t ? ” said Pete ; “ Mag Smith, you want to marry ? ”
“ Git out, Pete ! and when you come in dis shop again, let a nigger know it. Do n’t steal in like a thief. ”
Pity and love know little severance. One attends the other. Jim acknowledged the presence of the former, and his efforts in Mag’s behalf told also of a finer principle.
This sudden expedient which he had unintentionally disclosed, roused his thinking and inventive powers to study upon the best method of introducing the subject to Mag.
He belted his barrels, with many a scheme revolving in his mind, none of which quite satisfied him, or seemed, on the whole, expedient. He thought of the pleasing contrast between her fair face and his own dark skin ; the smooth, straight hair, which he had once, in expression of pity, kindly stroked on her now wrinkled but once fair brow. There was a tempest gathering in his heart, and at last, to ease his pent-up passion, he exclaimed aloud, “ By golly ! ” Recollecting his former exposure, he glanced around to see if Pete was in hearing again. Satisfied on this point, he continued: “ She ’d be as much of a prize to me as she ’d fall short of coming up to the mark with white folks. I do n’t care for past things. I ’ve done things ’fore now I ’s ’shamed of. She ’s good enough for me, any how. ”
One more glance about the premises to be sure Pete was away.
The next Saturday night brought Jim to the hovel again. The cold was fast coming to tarry its apportioned time. Mag was nearly despairing of meeting its rigor.
“ How ’s the wood, Mag ? ” asked Jim.
“ All gone ; and no more to cut, any how, ” was the reply.
“ Too bad ! ” Jim said. His truthful reply would have been, I ’m glad.
“ Anything to eat in the house ? ” continued he.
“ No, ” replied Mag.
“ Too bad ! ” again, orally, with the same inward gratulation as before.
“ Well, Mag, ” said Jim, after a short pause, “ you ’s down low enough. I do n’t see but I ’ve got to take care of ye. ’Sposin’ we marry ! ”
Mag raised her eyes, full of amazement, and uttered a sonorous “ What ? ”<
br />
Jim felt abashed for a moment. He knew well what were her objections.
“ You’s had trial of white folks, any how. They run off and left ye, and now none of ’em come near ye to see if you ’s dead or alive. I ’s black outside, I know, but I ’s got a white heart inside. Which you rather have, a black heart in a white skin, or a white heart in a black one ? ”
“ Oh, dear ! ” sighed Mag ; “ Nobody on earth cares for me — ”
“ I do, ” interrupted Jim.
“ I can do but two things, ” said she, “ beg my living, or get it from you. ”
“ Take me, Mag. I can give you a better home than this, and not let you suffer so. ”
He prevailed ; they married. You can philosophize, gentle reader, upon the impropriety of such unions, and preach dozens of sermons on the evils of amalgamation. Want is a more powerful philosopher and preacher. Poor Mag. She has sundered another bond which held her to her fellows. She has descended another step down the ladder of infamy.
CHAPTER II.
MY FATHER’S DEATH.
Misery ! we have known each other,
Like a sister and a brother,
Living in the same lone home
Many years — we must live some
Hours or ages yet to come.
SHELLEY.
JIM, proud of his treasure, — a white wife, — tried hard to fulfil his promises ; and furnished her with a more comfortable dwelling, diet, and apparel. It was comparatively a comfortable winter she passed after her marriage. When Jim could work, all went on well. Industrious, and fond of Mag, he was determined she should not regret her union to him. Time levied an additional charge upon him, in the form of two pretty mulattos, whose infantile pranks amply repaid the additional toil. A few years, and a severe cough and pain in his side compelled him to be an idler for weeks together, and Mag had thus a reminder of by-gones. She cared for him only as a means to subserve her own comfort ; yet she nursed him faithfully and true to marriage vows till death released her. He became the victim of consumption. He loved Mag to the last. So long as life continued, he stifled his sensibility to pain, and toiled for her sustenance long after he was able to do so.
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