Yellow Wife

by Sadeqa Johnson

  The gravity of what we had just pulled off hit me all at once. The longer we waited, the more antsy I became. Where was the boat? Too much time had passed. Someone was bound to realize that we were gone.

  “Abbie, you sure they are coming?”

  “Certain.”

  I had had to rely solely on Abbie to make the arrangements through the bakery. I had not realized that Abbie had known the owner of the bakery since she was a girl, and after several notes from me to him, and pleading with Corrina at Sunday’s church services, they had agreed to arrange for passage. Monroe’s eyes found mine, big with worry. Getting my son to freedom had become my life’s mission, and now that we were so close, it dawned on me that I might never see him again. I held him in my arms and prayed over his life and safety. I cradled his face in my hands and kissed his cheek.

  “You might not understand it, but everything that I have done is because of my love for you. Always remember that.”

  Essex touched my shoulder, and that was when I realized what I had forgotten to do.

  “Monty, this is your father, Essex Henry.”

  “The prisoner?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you do?” Monroe said formally. Essex pulled him to his chest.

  Then I heard a swish in the water.

  “Wait here.” I climbed down through the muck. My heart soared at the sight of the boat pulling toward the dock. I stood in the light of the moon and waved the white handkerchief as instructed. The captain slowed the vessel and dropped the anchor.

  “Friend of a friend sent me.”

  “Cargo needs to move quick. You got the money?”

  I whistled for the others to come out of hiding. Essex had Monroe’s hand, and Tommy walked behind Abbie.

  I handed the captain the last of the purse that I had been collecting and hiding over the years. “We have four.”

  “You arranged for three.”

  I took the pearl necklace from around my neck and passed it to him. “Please.”

  He looked at it and waved his hand for them to board. A tall black man was at the back of the boat and reached out his hand. Abbie was the first to step on, and when her hand touched his, she jumped into his arms. I peered closer. The man was Basil. He had returned for her. He waved and smiled at me.

  I hugged Monroe again. “Go on, baby.”

  “Mama, you not coming?”

  “I have to stay behind. But you, son, are meant to see freedom. Go with your father and live the life you have been promised. I will find you soon enough.”

  I had already sewn a pouch of protection inside his pants. Monroe’s eyes filled with tears and he threw his arms around my waist again. I kissed the top of his head and then motioned for Tommy to take his hand. Basil hurried them both down below.

  “I am not leaving without you again, Pheby.” Essex’s shoulders bunched around his ears, the way they did when he dug his heels in.

  “You must.”

  “I can’t. Not again.”

  The captain called down, “We have to go. Do they have their papers?”

  I held them up for the captain to see, and then handed the pile to Essex. I wrote passes giving them passage to Baltimore. Essex folded them into his pocket. I removed the necklace he had made for me from around my neck and tied it around his.

  “You have our son to consider, and I cannot abandon my daughters.”

  He shook his head. I kissed his lips.

  “Someone has to stay behind and be the lamb.”

  “Last call!” shouted the captain.

  “Please do not risk this second chance. Go. I have memorized your friend’s address in Boston. I will find you again.”

  I did not wait for Essex to climb on board. Instead I turned and walked back up the worn path. My temples pulsed as I contemplated that I had yet again come close to freedom only to have the opportunity slip from my grasp. Still, for the sake of my son and daughters, I knew that this was the right choice. The one that Mama would have made for me.

  I strolled back toward the Lapier jail as another coffle was led across the bridge. They came the same way I had come. The same way it would always be, until enough hearts had the courage to change. As long as there was breath, there was hope.

  Epilogue

  May 3, 1867

  Richmond, Virginia

  My beloved Hester,

  I apologize, dear daughter, for the length of time it has taken me to reply. You can imagine how harried our world has been since the end of the war between the States. Richmond is unrecognizable. When the Confederate commanders realized the war had been lost, they ordered soldiers to set fire to our bridges, tobacco factories, and weapons caches, to deny them to the federal troops. The fire quickly blazed out of control and countless people lost their homes. The entire business district burned to the ground. However, the gutting of the city could not dampen the jubilation of the people being set free. If only my mother could have witnessed the emancipation with her own eyes.

  The newly freed men, women, and children cheered on the Union troops as they entered the city, and then paraded in their finest attire down to the State Capitol to celebrate this most blessed victory. Oh, how I wanted to march alongside them.

  As I am sure you can imagine, the slaves’ freedom caused distress and chaos for most owners. Your father became desperate to keep his source of wealth and tried to flee with a coffle of fifty people. When he got to Danville depot he was denied entry onto an already crowded train heading south, and was forced to free his captives on the spot. He never recovered from the loss.

  And so, sweet daughter, it is with a heavy heart that I inform you that your father passed away on October 25, 1866. Officially, he died of an attack of cholera, which held on to him for ten days. Though I think he died of heartbreak, as a result of the war. The Richmond Examiner was very kind in his obituary, describing him as “an honest man.” I have included the clipping for you.

  Darling, do you remember Reverend Nathaniel Colver, who would come down from Boston to speak at the Free African Church? He has returned to Richmond to establish a school to educate and train the freed men for the Baptist ministry. Your father, in his will, left the Lapier jail and what little remained of his fortune to me. And so I leased the property to Reverend Colver for three years. I needed to do something redemptive with the property where so many had suffered. The irons and cuffs from the floor have been removed and replaced with desks and chairs. The jail has shed its awful nickname Devil’s Half Acre and is now called God’s Half Acre. Praise be!

  My dear Hester, always know that I am very proud of you and your sisters, and my heart is comforted by the fact that the three of you are safe in Massachusetts, getting the education my mother so longed for me to get and that I so wanted for myself, even if it entails you passing as white women to do so. Know that every decision that I have made has been for the betterment of my children, and I regret nothing. Remember you are free. Free to choose. Free to live. Free to love. And your freedom will be even more expansive if you continue in your new world without looking back. Your lineage of being born to a mulatto mother and a father who owned and operated a jail is of no consequence for the life you are living, so carry these secrets to your grave. Renaming you with my father’s surname, Bell, will continue to provide distance, and I trust that you, Isabel, and Joan will do well because of it. Birdie, on the other hand, has declared that she will never join you in Massachusetts, never join you and your sisters in turning her back on her history. At ten years old, she has become quite active in teaching freed children how to read. Such a wise girl already with an incredible heart, she says it is her mission from God to educate those who have suffered under the irons of slavery. Even though she has not responded to any of your letters, please keep her in your prayers as she sets about to right the world.

  My mother could not even imagine the life you are living, so please do not risk it with your sentiments. Burn this letter after you have read it. It is for your s
afety. You do not need proof of me for I am always in your heart.

  With love and affection,

  Pheby Delores Brown

  February 2, 1874

  Ipswich, Massachusetts

  Dear Mother,

  Thank you so much for sending the purse. My wedding was extraordinary and beautiful in every way. I kept to the story that you were much too ill to travel. It was a lovely day, and I wish that circumstances were different so that you could have experienced it with me, but I understand the gravity of what is at stake. My John is a fine husband, and has taken care of me in every way. There is nothing that I want for, and he is extremely kindhearted and generous. Isabel and Joan have grown into utter beauties, though Joan keeps reminding me that she wants to be known for her brains, not her beauty. She has become quite the writer and is teaching at a nearby school. Isabel is being courted by a very well-off lad in his final year of law school. They seem to be a suitable match, and every day we await his proposal.

  I have enclosed my wedding announcement that ran in the newspaper. You will not believe this, but a few days after the announcement ran, I saw Monroe on the street. Yes, our Monty! We pretended to be strangers meeting at a vegetable stand. He managed to slip me a note asking me to meet him at a church on the edge of town the following morning. I went under the disguise of helping Joan with her students, and it warmed my heart to see him. Mother, you would not recognize him. Tall and extremely handsome. He told me things that I did not know. Even though we both grew up on the Half Acre, our experiences were very different, and I apologized for the beating I caused him over that silly hide-the-puppet game. Monroe, still good-natured, laughed it off. He has taken a wife and they have two children, Robert and Mary. Mother, I did not know that the fugitive, Essex Henry, who lived on top of the jail was Monroe’s father and your great love. The secrets you keep! And I never knew that it was you who freed them all. What I do remember is you falling ill for weeks after the fire at the jail, and fearing you would not recover. It was because of our faithful prayers that your health was restored. Glory be!

  Mother, I also regret to be the bearer of bad news, but according to Monroe, Essex Henry died in Canada of tuberculosis. Monroe said he only had a few years with his father, but they were good years. First in Ohio and then settling in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, where Monroe resides now. Speaking of lost, I think of July every single day. Still no word from her?

  Now that I have married and moved into my husband’s home, I agree that our correspondences are even more dangerous. I have not taken your advice and burned your previous letters, as they are all I have of you. Like you with your mother’s recipes, I will hide them, along with the extra purse, as you have instructed, for an emergency. I send all my love, and please tell Birdie that we miss her dearly. Even though she refuses to forgive us for living as white women, nor responds to our letters, we each pray for her daily. I wish she was not so stubborn about giving up her identity and joining us in Ipswich, but I do understand that it is her choice to remain by your side. Please know that you are both in my heart always, and that I pray for your good health and happiness daily. Isabel and Joan send their love.

  Yours truly,

  Mrs. Hester Francine Bell Dillingham

  Author’s Note

  This book is a work of fiction and all the characters are from my imagination, intuition, and alignment with Spirit. It was inspired by the story of Mary Lumpkin and Lumpkin’s jail in Richmond, Virginia. I first discovered Mary Lumpkin in the spring of 2016 by accident. My family had just moved to the Richmond area less than a year prior. Close family friends came for a visit, and in looking for an activity that both the kids and adults could enjoy, my husband suggested we take a walk along the Richmond Slave Trail. The trail, unveiled in 2011, had seventeen markers running nearly three miles from the Manchester Docks to Lumpkin’s slave jail. We started along the James River, giving the children a chance to read the markers aloud. While listening to them read the marker for Lumpkin’s jail, I found myself drawn to the story of Robert Lumpkin, who lived on a half acre of land with his wife and five children, where enslaved people were held, bought, beaten, and sold, in a complex that was said to reek of the most offensive odors. I live on three-fourths of an acre, and could not stop wondering what the conditions were like for his wife raising children. As we continued along the trail, I discovered that Robert Lumpkin’s wife was a former slave named Mary. Knowing that interracial marriages were illegal in the 1800s, I assumed that Robert was black. My mind started racing. How could a black man be the biggest slave trader in Richmond?

  The kids grew tired of walking along the river so we got back into the car and skipped ahead on the trail, driving to the original site of Lumpkin’s jail and African burial ground. The energy around the jail was both eerie and surreal; I felt the presence of souls wanting their voices to be heard. It was like the ancestors had latched their spirits into my skin and followed me home. I spent the next three days reading everything I could find on the jail. I learned that Robert Lumpkin was, in fact, a white man and that Lumpkin’s jail was a notorious holding pen and “breaking” center for more than three hundred thousand enslaved people from 1844 until 1865. Lumpkin was so well known for his cruelty to blacks that the jail was known as the Devil’s Half Acre and he as the Bully Trader.

  My curiosity led me to Anthony Burns, the most publicized prisoner ever detained at Lumpkin’s jail, who had escaped from a plantation in Virginia to freedom in Boston. Burns was recaptured in 1854 under the federal Fugitive Slave Act and kept at Lumpkin’s jail for 120 days, very similarly to the way I wrote it in the story. His one relief was a hymnal, secretly given to him by Lumpkin’s slave concubine/wife, Mary, who had taken pity on Burns.

  After stumbling upon this piece of history, I could not stop thinking about Mary. What was life like for her and her children? How did she live on the Half Acre, both witnessing and assisting in the business that profited from fellow enslaved people? Did she actually love Robert and adapt easily to being mistress of the property, or had she operated simply from a place of survival?

  In my research, Mary was described as an enslaved mixed-race woman who had arrived at the jail as a child. She would birth five of Lumpkin’s children. It was said that he treated her and her children as family. He formally emancipated Mary after the Civil War, married her, and sent two of their daughters to a finishing school in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where they passed for white. In Lumpkin’s will, he left all of his property and money to his “yellow wife.” She, in turn, leased the land to Dr. Nathaniel Colver, who used it as a seminary school for the freed slaves. This school would later become the historically black college Virginia Union University.

  Online, I scoured plantation ledgers for the names that I used in the book as my way of paying homage to the ancestors. I also used real people who were operating in the slave trade in Richmond during that time, including Silas Omohundro, Hector Davis, and David Pulliam, who were all major in the Richmond slave trade along with their mulatto wives, Helen, Anne, and of course Corrina Hinton, who dazzled me with her beauty, charm, and head for business from the start of my research.

  I studied pictures on websites and visited several plantations, including Green Hill plantation, Greenway plantation, Shirley plantation, Prestwould plantation, and Burroughs plantation in Virginia. I read several books in preparation for writing Yellow Wife, including Money over Mastery, Family over Freedom by Calvin Schermerhorn; Back of the Big House by John Michael Vlach; Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs; Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese; A History of the Richmond’s Theological Seminary, with Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Work Among the Colored People of the South by Charles Henry Corey; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass; Fifty Years in Chains, or, The Life of an American Slave by Charles Ball, which lent me the whipping scene of Essex with the hot pepper bath and
the recounting of the fancy girl telling Pheby about “the punishment of the pump.” I also read The Known World by Edward P. Jones; Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade by Maurie D. McInnis; The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion by Jack Trammell and Alphine W. Jefferson; and many online periodicals.

  Acknowledgments

  It is by the Grace of God that I moved to Virginia on His word and discovered the story of Mary Lumpkin. I am grateful for every step of this journey. Imani, Monique, Kaya, and Xola Moody, thank you for embarking upon the Richmond Slave Trail with us where the nugget of this story was planted. To my lovely family and friends, I appreciate you all. My father, Tyrone Murray, for reading every page with gusto and pride. My mother, Nancy Murray, for your unwavering love, and Francine Murray for your support. My wonderful in-laws, Paula Johnson, Glenn Johnson Sr., and Pacita Perera for lovingly cheering me on. My favorite sibs: Tauja, Nadiyah, and Talib Murray for always having my back, and my cousin Elisa Garbett for sharing Vinnie Brown with me along with our family tree. To all the Belles, with a special thanks to Claudia and Anne for being my guiding light, and Ashkira for allowing me to return the favor. To my early readers who urged me to keep writing this story: Mary Patterson of the Little Bookshop; Robin Farmer, Samantha Willis, and Toni Bonita. To Kimbilio and all my fellows. All the book clubs and readers who still love good fiction and spread the word for authors like me.

  My A-team: Wendy Sherman for never giving up on me, and Cherise Fisher for being my backbone. I could not imagine writing without you. Editor extraordinaire Dawn Davis: I’m in awe of your magic and working with you has been a dream come true. Thanks also to the wonderful team at Simon & Schuster for having my best interest at heart: Leila Siddiqui, Brianna Scharfenberg, Carly Loman, Chelcee Johns, Lashanda Anakwah, Chonise Bass—you remind me of a younger me, and to everyone who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to lift this book up. Shelby Sinclair, thanks for your keen eye and vast knowledge of our history. My children, Miles, Zora, and Lena Johnson: everything I do is for you. And my beloved husband, Glenn, who on that beautiful fall day pushed me to visualize my machine, and here we are. Thank you for being my rock, and my first pair of ears when my novels are just a sensation in my gut. After twenty-five years, we are just getting started.