Owen Brown
It was not until nearly a fortnight had passed that we heard from Father at last. Due to the inescapable daily requirements of our livestock and the farm, which honor no human tragedy, the life of the family had resumed its old patterns and routines and had connected back to its various larger cycles by then; and even Ruth had made a few tentative steps back into the fold, as it were, although she was a much altered young woman. She had become the sober, even melancholy woman that she would remain for most of her life thereafter, even during her happiest years, when she and Henry Thompson were courting up in North Elba and in the first year of their marriage, before Henry rode off with us to Kansas.
Father’s letter, arriving as it did after we had already commenced to accommodate our lives and feelings as best we could to the death of Kitty, was painful to read aloud, as was our custom with all his letters, and, later on, difficult for me to copy, as per his instructions, for Father had long since told us to be sure that all his letters were copied and saved, and as I had the best handwriting of any in the family at that time, the task usually fell to me. My dear afflicted Wife & Children, he wrote, and I wrote after him. I yesterday at night returned after an absence of several days from this place & am utterly unable to give any expression of feelings on hearing of the dreadful news contained in Owen’s letter of the 30th and Mr. Perkins’s of the 31st Oct. I seem to be struck almost dumb. Not likely, I thought. For I was angry at Father, not so much for his letter, which was about all he could have said under the circumstances and which was very much in his usual voice. I suppose I was angry at his not being present when we all, and especially Ruth, suffered from the death of little Kitty, so that not only did we have to endure the horror and pain of that event alone but we had to report it to him as well—for his judgement, his huge perspective, his words of beneficence or condemnation, as if he were some lord high sheriff and we were his serfs who had to account for the loss of one of our number—without mentioning in our account that she whom we had lost was an especially beloved child, without mentioning that the awful conditions of her death had inflicted lifelong pain and shame in the heart of one of us in particular.
None of this, of course, was Father’s fault; yet that did not hinder my anger, as I copied his letter into the green school notebook used for the purpose. One more dear, feeble child am I to meet no more till the dead, small & great, shall stand before God. This is a bitter cup, children, but a cup blessed by God: a brighter day shall dawn; & let us not sorrow, like those who have no hope. Oh, if only we who remain had wisdom wisely to consider & to keep in view our latter end. This, I knew, was a pointed reference to me and to John and Jason, for surely we were the ones who were obliged to “sorrow like those who have no hope” of ever being amongst the small and great standing before God. Our sorrow, mine and my brothers’, was the greater, Father implied, because as unbelievers we believed that we would not see poor Kitty again, and that was too bad, just too bad, and nobody’s fault but our own. According to Father, the brighter day was not ours to believe in, and thus we had no wisdom wisely to consider.
In normal circumstances, this difference between us and Father did not create any painful conflict; but when we, too, were suffering, when we ourselves were grieving, it only angered us that he regarded the ragged edge of our pain as merely a consequence of our moral failings. There was no telling him of this, however.
Oh, we could tell him of it, yes; but he could not hear us, his own belief was so powerful, so constantly clanging in his ears: with all those hosannas, halleluiahs, and simple hoo-rahs he was hearing, it was to his large, hairy ears as if nothing but a serpent’s hiss were coming from our mouths. Divine Providence seems to lay a heavy burden & responsibility on you in particular, my dear Mary; but I trust that you will be enabled to bear it in some measure, as you ought. I exceedingly regret that I am unable to return & be present to share your trials with you; but anxious as I am to be once more at home, I do not feel at liberty to return to Akron yet. I hope to be able to get away before very long; but cannot say when. These words I could barely transcribe without breaking off the point of my pen, and the tension in my hand caused me to spatter the paper with several ugly blots of ink. But he was not through. I trust that none of you will feel disposed to cast an unreasonable blame on my dear Ruth on account of the dreadful trial we are called to suffer; for if the want of proper care in each all of us has not been attended with fatal consequences, it is no thanks to us. With a cold fury in my heart, though I said nothing of it to anyone, I saw that Father could forgive Ruth only by including the rest of us in her blame, which, of course, allowed him to forgive no one. As he saw it, not just Ruth, but we, all of us, were guilty of wanting proper care, so that it was only the Lord’s will that had kept the rest of us from the fatal consequences of our sloth and inattention.
If I had a right sense of my habitual neglect of my family’s Eternal interests, I should probably go crazy from shame, he said, and I transcribed. And as he had apparently not gone crazy, were we to assume then that he did not have a right sense of his habitual neglect of his family’s Eternal interests? Was that his point? Or was he merely changing the subject, at which he was so skilled, in order to invite us to reassure him, to praise him, to be thankful that he was out there in Springfield looking after his family’s temporal, rather than Eternal, interests? I humbly hope that this dreadful, afflictive Providence will lead us all more properly to appreciate the amazing, unforeseen, untold consequences that hang upon the right or wrong doing of things seemingly of trifling account. Who can tell or comprehend the vast results for good or evil that are to follow the saying of one little word? Everything worthy of being done at all is worthy of being done in good earnest & in the best possible manner. Not that again, I said to myself and dutifully wrote his words into the tablet as if they were my own. Not more platitudes and maxims, not more of Ben Franklin’s rules for living. We are in middling health, & expect to write to some of you again soon. Our warmest thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Perkins & family. From your affectionate husband, & father,
John Brown
When I had finished transcribing the letter, I put the tablet away in the folder where we kept his papers, and we none of us read or spoke of the letter again. It was odd, for we had suffered numerous deaths in the family by then, and each of them had drawn us closer together; but the death of little Kitty caused me, and I think the rest of us as well, to withdraw ourselves from Father to a greater degree than any previous event or circumstance. Of course, here and there, now and again, one or the other of us had gone through a period of withdrawal from intimacy with Father, but it was almost always a solitary act, a brief and lonely rebellion. But on the occasion of Kitty’s death, we all as a group rebelled, even including Mary, and shut Father away from our feelings and conversations with one another for many weeks afterwards.
1 believe that I learned then for the first time that it was possible to oppose Father, to swell with anger against him and to walk away from his sputterings and recriminations, without any terrible cost to my own sense of worth as a man and without the crippling loneliness that I usually associated with opposing him. But I could not do it until the rest of the family marched with me. The awful irony is that we could never march against him unless one of us was capable of sacrificing another of us beforehand—as Ruth had sacrificed the baby Amelia, little Kitty. Only then could we stand against him and say to him, “Father, you do not understand.”
Yesterday, while searching through my cache of Father’s papers for the letters concerning the death of poor Kitty, I happened onto another long-forgotten transcription, which I am sure you have not read and which will show you an aspect of Father’s character that may surprise and even amuse you. It may also give you some further insight into the true nature of my relationship with Father, so that later, when I have told everything, you will believe me.
The document of which I speak, when it came to my hand, caused me unexpectedly to thi
nk back to the time when Father corked his face, as it were, and actually tried to pass himself off as a Negro. It was an audacious thing, but he was fully aware of that and did it anyhow. His ostensible purpose was to instruct and warn. He had carefully composed an essay entitled “Sambo’s Mistakes,” which he read many times over to any of us who would listen and after much hesitation finally submitted anonymously to the Negro editors of the Ram’s Horn, in Brooklyn, New York. It was not published, probably because it was seen for what it was—a white man in blackface telling Negroes how to behave. The rejection of his little essay infuriated Father, for he believed that he was saying things to Negroes that they ought to hear and rarely did, except when he himself told them in meetings or when invited to speak to the congregations of Negro churches. He explained that he had chosen to speak as Sambo because when he said these things to Negroes in whiteface, he was perceived strictly as a white man and thus was not truly heard. “Racialism infects everybody’s ears,” he said. “Negro ears as much as white.”
This was in the winter of ’48, after we had left Akron and were newly settled in Springfield, and I found the whole thing somewhat embarrassing then, although later on I came to see that in a sense, perhaps subconsciously, Father was advising and correcting himself as much as his Negro brethren. He was speaking his little narrative, in spite of his intentions to disguise himself, with his own genuine voice quite as much as when he wrote letters home and advised and corrected us. This may be of interest to you, for you were born long after Father’s death and can have no idea of how he sounded in actual conversation. Father’s voice, including his grammar and choice of words and his pacing, was more or less the same whether spoken aloud or written down on paper. It was uniquely his own—although I was often told that I myself spoke very much like him.
Earlier today, I carried Father’s original manuscript of “Sambo’s Mistakes,” from which I had made the “official” copy that he submitted to the Rum’s Horn, outside my cabin and read it in the dying light of day. It is perhaps the nearness of our voices, his and mine, that enabled me to recall his voice exactly when I read through this composition, for I could hear him speaking to me quite as if he were seated next to me on the stoop, the ink on the paper barely dry.
“Tell me truthfully, Owen’ he said, “if you think I have left anything of use and importance out. And note any particular infelicities of language, son, if you will.” And then he began to read “Sambo’s Mistakes” aloud, very slowly, savoring all the words as if they were great poetry.
Notwithstanding that I have committed a few mistakes in the course of a long life like others of my colored brethren, you will perceive at a glance that I have always been remarkable for a seasonable discovery of my errors and my quick perception of the true course. I propose to give you a few illustrations in this and the following paragraphs.
For instance, when I was a boy I learned to read, but instead of giving my attention to sacred and profane history, by which I might have become acquainted with the true character of God and man, learned the best course for individuals, societies, and nations to pursue, stored my mind with an endless variety of rational and practical ideas, profited by the experience of millions of others of all ages, fitted myself for the most important stations in life, and fortified my mind with the best and wisest resolutions and noblest sentiments and motives, I have instead spent my whole life devouring silly novels and other miserable trash such as most newspapers of the day and other popular writings are filled with, thereby unfitting myself for the realities of life and acquiring a taste for nonsense and low wit, so that I have no relish for sober truth, useful knowledge, or practical wisdom. By this means I have passed through life without profit to myself or others, a mere blank on which nothing worth perusing is written.
But I can see in a twink where I missed it.
Another error into which I fell early in life was the notion that chewing and smoking tobacco would make a man of me but little inferior to some of the whites. The money I spent in this way, with the interest of it, would have enabled me to have relieved a great many sufferers, supplied me with a well-selected interesting library, and paid for a good farm for the support and comfort of my old age; whereas I now have neither books, clothing, the satisfaction of having benefited others, nor a place to lay my hoary head.
However, I can see in a moment where I missed it.
One of the further errors of my life is that I have imitated frivolous whites by joining the Free Masons, Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, and a score of other secret societies and chapters established by and for men of color, instead of seeking the company of intelligent, wise, and good men of both races, from whom I might have learned much that would be interesting, instructive, and useful, and I have in that way squandered a great amount of most precious time and money, enough sometimes in a single year which, if I had put the same out on interest and kept it so, would have kept me always above board, given me character and influence amongst men, or have enabled me to pursue some respectable calling, so that I might employ others to their benefit and improvement; but as it is, I have always been poor, in debt, and am now obliged to travel about in search of employment as a hostler, shoeblack, and fiddler.
But I retain all my quickness of perception and see readily where I missed it.
An error of my riper years has been that, when any meeting of colored people has been called in order to consider an important matter of general interest, I have been so eager to display my spouting talents and so tenacious of some trifling theory or other which I have adopted, that I have generally lost all sight of the business at hand, consumed the time disputing about things of no moment, and thereby defeated entirely many important measures calculated to promote the general welfare.
But I am happy to say that I know in a flash where I missed it. Another small error of my life (for I have never committed great blunders) has been that, for the sake of union in the furtherance of the most vital interests of our race, I would never yield any minor point of difference. In this way I have always had to act with but a few men and frequently alone, and could accomplish nothing worth living for.
But I have one comfort, I can see with a passing glance where I missed it.
A little but nonetheless telling fault which I have committed is that, if in anything another man has failed of coming up to my standard, notwithstanding he might possess many of the most valuable traits and be most admirably suited to fill some one important post, I would reject him entirely, injure his influence, oppose his measures, and even glory in his defeat, though his intentions all the while were good and his plans well laid.
But I have the great satisfaction of being able to say without fear of contradiction that I can see very quick where I missed it.
Another small mistake which I have made is that I could never bring myself to practice any present self-denial, although my theories have been excellent. For instance, I have bought expensive gay clothing, nice canes, watches, gold safety-chains, finger-rings, breast pins, and other things of a like nature, thinking I might by that means distinguish myself from the vulgar, as some of the better class of whites do. I have always been of the foremost in getting up expensive parties and running after fashionable amusements and have indulged my appetites freely whenever I had the means (and even with borrowed money) and have patronized the dealers in nuts, candy, cakes, etc., have sometimes bought good suppers, and was always a regular customer at livery stables. By these and many other means I have been unable to benefit my suffering brethren and am now but poorly able to keep my own soul and body together.
But do not think me thoughtless or dull of apprehension, for I can see at once where I missed it.
A not-so-trifling error of my life has been that I am always expected to secure the favor of the whites by tamely submitting to every species of indignity, contempt, and wrong, instead of nobly resisting their brutal aggressions from principle and taking my place as a man and assuming the responsibilitie
s of a man, a citizen, a husband, a father, a brother, a neighbor, a friend, as God requires of every one (and if his neighbor will not allow him to do it, he must stand up and protest continually and also appeal to God for aid!.). But I find that, for all my submission, I get about the same reward that the Southern Slavocrats render to the dough-faced statesmen of the North for being bribed and browbeat and fooled and cheated, as the Whigs and Democrats love to be, thinking themselves highly honored if they be allowed to lick up the spittle of a Southerner. I say I get the same reward’.
But I am uncommonly quick-sighted, and I can see in a twinkling where I missed it.
Another little blunder which I have made is that, while I have always been a most zealous abolitionist, I have been constantly at war with my friends about certain religious tenets. I was first a Presbyterian, but I could never think of acting with my Quaker friends, for they were the rankest heretics, and the Baptists would be in the water, and the Methodists denied the doctrine of Election, etc., and in later years, since becoming enlightened by Garrison, Abby Kelley, and other really benevolent persons, I have been spending all my force against friends who love the Sabbath and feel that all is at stake on that point.
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