The Bondwoman's Narrative

by Hannah Crafts

  “From first to last, the circumstances were most singular” said one of the gentlemen, a tall good-looking man dressed in black.

  “Very much so, indeed, very much so” answered his companion, speaking with a quick nervous accent, and reiterating his expressions over and over again. “Very much so, indeed, I should say.”

  “I only heard the particulars yesterday” continued the tall man.

  “Did you ever see the old gentleman?” inquired the other.

  “Oh yes frequently, he was a noted character, a great trav[e]ler, and almost everybody knew him, though it is doubtful if all his aristocrat associates were aware of how he had obtained his great wealth the means by which he had obtained his great wealth, or how hard and unfeeling he could be when it suited his purposes. He was a man of no principle.”

  “He had neither feeling, nor sympathy in common with other people. Love of gold had blunted all the finer sensibilities of his heart, and he would not have hesitated a moment to sell his own mother into slavery could the case have been made clear that she had African blood in her veins. No blood-hound was ever keener in scenting out the African taint than that old man.”

  “And one of his victims slew him?”

  [“]It is so supposed. He had a country house in a lonesome and retired place to which he generally caused the girls whom he purchased to be removed, and where he kept them concealed till some trader came around to whom he could sell them at an advanced price. His recent speculations in that line involved a peculiar and complicated affair. A wealthy planter with whom he had associated on terms of the closest intimacy had a family of beautiful children both boys and girls, but the mother was, or had been a slave, though she enjoyed all the perquisites and priveledges of a wife. Indeed her master had told her times without number that he had made out and signed the bill of her emancipation, besides making herself and her children his heirs in the event of his death. Of course the poor woman saw no reason to dispute his truth or honesty and so the matter rested. The children were well educated for stations of honor and usefulness, and little dreamed of the terrible blow that awaited them. At length the father, who had been long ailing, died. He had brothers, and these so who were extremely angry at the tenor of his will, and who employed Mr Trappe to endeavor invalidate it, while to the infinite surprise of all no bill of emancipation for either the mother or her children could be discovered. It was more than hinted that Mr Trappe, who had access to the planter’s papers during his illness visited the sick man, and had access to all parts of the house, had found and destroyed it. But this was mere conjecture, as no positive proof could be adduced that such an article had ever been in existence.[”]

  “How unfortunate.”

  “The distress of the family may be imagined; it certainly never can be described. Prostrated at once from happiness and wealth to the lowest depth of degradation and misery they spent the days in tears and the nights in bitter lamentations over the past.

  [“]The sons, however, were not so easily disconcerted as the mother and daughter. It seems they worried the old man dreadfully, followed him about, went to his chambers and openly accused him of destroying or secreting their father’s papers.”

  “This was during the course of the litigation, I suppose.”

  “Certainly, during the litigation which lasted a long time, and finally ended by consigning mother and children to the slave-market. Mr Trappe, who always took opportunity by the forelock had foreseen the end, and accordingly purchased the females at a risk, previous to the final settlement of the business, at a very reduced price. The sons and brothers had disappeared and no one knew where. Many supposed they had ran [run] off to the North, and wondered why their dear and near relatives did not accompany them.[”]

  “It certainly was singular.”

  “Not at all; they had other plans in view I suppose. One of them was heard to observe that if Trappe succeeded in trapping his mother and sisters he would never entrap anyone else, that he thought the old fellow had been the occasion of enough misery already, and that whoever put him out of the way would deserve the thanks of the community for ridding the world of a villain.[”]

  “Plain spoken indeed.”

  “Very, plain spoken, and it has been ascertained that Mr Trappe considered himself so much in danger from these fellows that he took the precaution of making oath against them, and nothing in the world hindered their arrest only the simple fact that they could not be found.”

  “A very good reason truly” laughed the little man. “An admirable reason.”

  [“]But they could not have been as far off as was at first supposed. Mr Trappe’s man-servant caught a glimpse once or twice of fellows answering their description, who seemed to be lurking, as he thought and as it proved, for evil purposes around the habitation of the former. He informed his master of the circumstances, and the old man manifested considerable agitation.[”]

  “Were these females at Mr Trappe’s county seat?”

  “They were; and by some unknown ways and means they must have kept up a constant communication with their relatives.”

  “Well, they fled.”

  “Certainly, they fled, and their absence in the morning was the first intimation the old man received that mischief had been done, or that strangers had been there during the night.[”]

  “He can tell a straight story, then.”

  “Oh yes. He says that he shut and barred the doors as usual and went to look at the ladies; it being his duty to see them at least three times a day, that the mother was weeping while the girls were endeavoring to comfort her and that he left them thus pleasantly engaged.”

  “Pleasantly engaged” said the little man. “Does he call weeping a pleasant engagement?”

  “He seemed to think it was for women. However on going to their apartments next morning he was greatly surprised to find the doors and windows fastened as usual he had left them, though the birds were flown, while neither sign nor trace of where they had gone, or how they had escaped could be discovered. Deprecating his master’s anger which he knew would be fierce, and striving to frame some vindication of his own conduct he ascended to the chamber the lawyer occupied. The door was shut; he knocked loudly, there was no response. Somewhat astonished he opened it and walked in. Mr. Trappe was lying with his face downward to the floor.

  “Master” said the servant.

  All silent.

  “The girls have escaped.”

  No answer.

  He advanced, touched his hand, turned him over. There was a hole in his forehead, a bullet had penetrated his brain. His schemes of wealth and ambition had suddenly terminated, He was dead and he had gone to that fearful and final reckoning which none can escape.”

  “And nothing further is known?”

  “Nothing, except that a lady who was watching over her sick child in the night heard a carriage driven furiously by, apparently towards the north.”

  “And so the miscreants escaped.”

  “They did, and thus far no claim to their farther progress has been obtained.”

  ’Twas pitiful, ’twas mournful to think of that old man sent to his long account with all his imperfections on his head, and without a moment’s time for shrift or prayer. ’Twas a dreadful thing, I shuddered with the lone idea and could have wept, though what better could one so heartless and unfeeling expect? “Since he that sows the wind, must reap the whirlwind.”

  CHAPTER 21

  In Freedom

  “He leadeth me through the green pastures, and by the still waters.”

  DAVID

  There is a hush on my spirit in these days, a deep repose a blest and holy quietude. I found a life of freedom all my fancy had pictured it to be. I found the friends of the slave in the free state just as good as kind and hospitable as I had always heard they were. I dwell now in a neat little Cottage, and keep a school for colored children. It is well attended, and I enjoy myself almost as well in imparting knowledge to others, as I did in o
btaining it when a child myself. Can you guess who lives with me? You never could—my own dear mother, aged and venerable, yet so smart and lively and active, and Oh: so fond of me. There was a hand of Providence in our meeting as we did. I am sure of it. Her history is most affecting and eventful. During my infancy she was transferred from Lindendale to the owner of a plantation in Mississippi, yet she never forgot me nor certain marks on my body, by which I might be identified in after years. She found a hard master, but he soon died, and she became the property of his daughter who dwelt in Maryland, and thither she was removed. Here she became acquainted with a free mulatto from New Jersey, who persuaded her to escape to his native state with him, where they might be married and live in freedom and happiness. She consented. Their plan of escape proved successful, and they lived together very happyly many years when the husband died.

  She said it had been her incessant prayer by day and by night for many long years, that her child left in slavery might be given to freedom and her arms. She had no means of bringing about this great desire of her heart, but trusted all to the power and mercy of heaven. So strong was her faith that whenever she beheld a stranger she half-expected to behold her child. We met accidentally, where or how it matters not. I thought it strange, but my heart yearned towards her with a deep intense feeling it had never known before. And when we became better acquainted, and fonder of each other’s society, and interested in each other’s history, I was not half so surprised as pleased and overwhelmed with emotions for which I could find no name, when she suddenly rose one day, came to me, clasped me in her arms, and sobbed out in rapturous joy “child, I am your mother.” And then I—but I cannot tell what I did, I was nearly crazy with delight. I was then resting for the first time on my mother’s bosom—my mother for whom my heart had yearned, and my spirit gone out in intense longing many, many times. And we had been brought together by such strange and devious ways. With our arms clasped around each other, our heads bowed together, and our tears mingling we went down on our knees, and returned thanks to Him, who had watched over us for good, and whose merciful power we recognised in this the greatest blessing of our lives.

  I have yet another companion quite as dear—a fond and affectionate husband. He sits by my side even as I write and sometimes, shakes his head, and sometimes laughs saying “there, there my dear. I fear you grow prosy, you cannot expect the public to take the same interest in me that you do” when I answer “of course not, I should be jealous if it did.” He is, and has always been a free man, is a regularly ordained preacher of the Methodist persuasion, and I believe and hope that many through his means, under Providence, have been led into wisdom’s ways, which are those of pleasantness.

  I must not omit telling who are my neighbors. You could scarcely believe it, it seems so singular, yet is none the less true. Charlotte, Mrs Henry’s favorite, and her husband. From the window where I sit, a tiny white cottage half-shaded in summer by rose-vines and honeysuckle appears at the foot of a sloping green. Before it is now In front there is such an exquisite flower-garden, and behind such a dainty orchard of choice fruits that it does one good to think of it. It is theirs. He has learned the carpenter’s trade, and gets plenty of work, while she takes in sewing. Need I describe the little church where we all go to meeting, and the happiness we experience in listening to the words of Gospel truth; and as I could not, if I tried, sufficiently set forth the goodness of those about me, the tenderness and love with which my children of the school regard me, and the undeviating happiness I find in the society of my mother, my husband, and my friends. I will let the reader picture it all to his imagination and say farewell.

  TEXTUAL ANNOTATIONS

  Preface

  Crafts prefaces her novel with a traditional apologia, modestly questioning the very possibility of successfully achieving her goal of “portraying any of the peculiar features of that institution whose curse rests over the fairest land the sun shines upon,” because her background as a slave is “a sphere so humble.” Slavery, well before the 1850s, was commonly referred to as “the peculiar institution,” a phrase that she echoes here. Her rhetorical strategy claims that slavery “blights the happiness of the white as well as the black race,” southerners as well as northerners. This argument was common among authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass, whose bestselling slave narrative was published in 1845, and abolitionist novelists, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852.

  In addition, it was also traditional to assert, as Crafts does, the factual nature of fictional narrative. Despite the fact that her text is so pervaded with gothic themes, Crafts claims that the work “makes no pretensions to romance.” Throughout her text, Crafts shows an easy familiarity with fictional literary genres, such as the gothic and sentimental novels, both exceedingly popular forms in the 1850s. Referring to George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), Crafts writes that truth is “stranger than fiction.” Ironically, Byron wrote that “truth is always strange—stranger than fiction” in his major work of fiction, Don Juan (canto 14, stanza 101).

  Chapter 1

  p. 5: Crafts provides biblical citations as a preface for almost all of her chapters. These are often slightly inaccurate or contain spelling errors. Crafts was very familiar with the King James Bible and is drawing from memory. The full verse of The Song of Solomon 1:6, which begins the first chapter, is as follows:

  Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

  p. 5: The narrator’s claim to have been reared without parents is a common theme in slave narratives. As in Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Crafts’s childhood as a slave is marked by “no training, no cultivation.” Similarly, her reference to animals such as the “birds of the air” and “beasts of the feild [sic]” as comparisons for the status of a slave was a common feature of the slave narratives, again as in Douglass. Distinctly unlike the slave narratives, however, Crafts’s text rarely uses verisimilitude— specific names, places, or dates—to authenticate her text, signaling early on that The Bondwoman’s Narrative is a fictionalized text, even if based on a slave’s actual experiences.

  p. 6: Crafts refers to her African heritage ironically as “the obnoxious descent,” parodying commonly held racist views of black ancestry. Despite the protagonist’s light complexion and European features, she is influenced by her “obnoxious descent” to prefer “flaming colors.” Throughout the text, this supposed preference for bright colors by African Americans is a source of fascination for the narrator. Her claim that her black genetic heritage was also responsible for “a rotundity to my person, a wave and curl to my hair,” and “fancy pictorial illustrations” as well as a fondness for “flaming colors” reflects commonly held pseudoscientific beliefs about the dominant role of genetics in both physical and metaphysical characteristics, and preferences of taste.

  p. 6: Crafts’s observation that her master felt that education made slaves “less subservient to their superiors” echoes Douglass’s claim that his master said that “learning would spoil the best nigger in the world…. It would forever unfree him to be a slave.”

  p. 6: Crafts’s reference to her master’s opinion of the status of slaves as similar to that of “horses or other domestic animals” reflects Douglass’s use of the same comparison.

  p. 6: Echoing the passionate desire for literacy that is a structural principle in many slave narratives, Crafts yearns for “knowledge and the means of mental improvement” despite fear of punishment from her master. Although she concedes that her owner was “generally easy and good-tempered,” he insists upon ignorance and subservience rather than literacy training among his slaves. Like Douglass, Crafts decides to teach herself by examining old books or newspapers.

  How a slave learned to read and write—and hence eventually gained the wherewithal to w
rite his or her own narrative—is a standard feature of several slave narratives, the signal scene of instruction that sets the text’s plot “from slavery to freedom” in motion.

  p. 7: The narrator’s plan for literacy is aided when she meets a kindly, old northern woman. In explaining why she intends to defy the ban on teaching slaves to read, the pious woman answers that she was thinking of Christ’s admonition to Peter to “feed my lambs” (John 21:15). Douglass’s first literacy teacher was also a white woman, his master’s wife, who initially is free of racial prejudice.

  p. 8: Hannah’s description of herself during this first encounter with literacy as “a being to whom a new world with all its mysteries and marvels was opening” again echoes Douglass’s observation that literacy was “the pathway from slavery to freedom.”