Jubilee

“Here you is ain’t dry behind your ears and here you come talking bout how us gwine be free. Does you know how many hundreds and hundreds of years we’s been slaves? Does you know how long since the white man brung us here from Afriky to this here America? You know how come? Well, you know what God told Ham, don’t you? […] Just hewers of wood and drawers of water, that’s what we is. That’s our punishment for being black.” 

Grandpa Tom, who later suffers a brutal death at the hands of the overseer, Grimes, demonstrates how many slaves internalized the false belief that black people were destined to become slaves. He alludes to the biblical Curse of Ham, which was actually imposed upon Canaan for seeing his father, Noah, naked. The supposed Curse of Ham was used to justify slavery and black people’s assimilation into Christianity made it easier to convince them that slavery was valid.

“Always, too, there were the poor whites, po buckra, who lived back in the pine barrens and on the rocky hills. They suffered more than the black slaves for there was no one to provide them with the rations of corn meal and salt pork which was the daily lot of the slaves, and therefore the black people were taught by their owners to have contempt for this ‘poor white trash.’” 

This quote is exemplary of how poor whites and black slaves were pitted against each other, thereby ensuring the dominance of the wealthy planters. The slaves looked down on the white people for lacking their relative access to food and hand-me-down clothing, while the whites knew that, despite being poor, their whiteness made them better than black people. This hierarchical snobbery contributed to the oppression of each group.

“He came back to Georgia […] and he married a woman from ‘Cracker country,’ or the pine barrens of Georgia. She could neither read nor write and she had no dealings with black slaves in any fraternal fashion. She told her husband, ‘I hate niggers worsener poisonous rattlesnake. We’uns is poor, but thank God, we’uns is white.’” 

Grimes married Jane. They are poor, but their belief in the supposed virtue of whiteness prevents them from realizing how they are oppressed by the planter system. Due to Grimes’ hope that he can one day become a planter like Marse John, he clings to his whiteness and cultivates a hatred for black people that is even stronger than that among the planters.

“Aunt Sally was told a month ahead to begin preparations by baking cakes, some to be soaked in rum and others to be stored with wine, and brandy poured over them frequently […] She must cook turkey, young roast pig, a side of mutton, chicken fried, as well as creamed in patty shells, and guinea hen. She must bake for the moment at hand […] A week before the party began, Aunt Sally complained at night that her feet hurt and she and Vyry hardly felt like eating the hot buttered biscuit and damson preserves that she had wrapped in a rag and stuck in her bosom.” 

Aunt Sally, like all house slaves, was essential to the notion of Southern hospitality. Her constant and forced service allowed for the perceived generosity of care that outsiders viewed as unique to the South. In her catalogues of Aunt Sally’s task, Walker lifts the veil and expresses to readers how enslaved black people were intrinsic to the South’s expressions of politesse and generosity.

“Those confounded idiots and abolitionists are trying to make a different Constitution out of the document written by Jefferson and Hamilton and amended by our governing bodies. I’m reminded of our illustrious Thomas Cobb when he said that they are trying to build a fire that we can only extinguish in the blood of war. Especially since this past year’s new compromise over Missouri, I’m afraid we are in for some more battles on the national issues and for the protection of our natural rights here in the state of Georgia.” 

Marse John expresses his contempt for those whom he believes are forcing him to compromise his way of life. Marse John applies the states’ rights argument to justify slavery, but he believes that the only solution to resolving the argument over slavery is through violence, particularly given the outbursts of violence both in the halls of Congress and in Kansas Territory (“Bleeding Kansas”). 

“As Big Missy said to Marse John, ‘They are all well treated, and we love them and take good care of them just like a part of our family. When they are sick we nurse them back to health. We feed and clothe them and teach them the Christian religion. Our nigras are good and wouldn’t try such a thing unless some criminal minds aided and abetted them, like abolitionists and free niggers from outside the state.’ Such monstrous activities were beyond the wildest imaginations of their good and happy childlike slaves!” 

Salina and John believe that Northern abolitionist intervention is to blame for their slaves’ disobedience. Their insistence on believing in the inferiority of black people, particularly their supposedly inferior intelligence, prevents them from understanding that black people would pursue freedom independently.

“Talk had feet and could walk and gossip had wings and could fly. She heard whispers and she was afraid they would grow as big as men, and she felt the wings of gossip threatening to sting and to smother her. It buzzed around her and flew against her and her words came back upon her to settle motionless in the air […] As if this were not enough, Big Missy kept throwing out broad hints and remarks about free black biggity niggers stirring up trouble amongst our good hard working niggers.” 

Vyry is thinking about rumors of abolition and how they, ironically, threaten her own hopes for freedom. Missy Salina’s alertness both to Northern abolitionists and to the potential disruption that Randall Ware may cause as a free black man cause Salina to think that her position of unquestioned authority and superiority will come into question.

“For Vyry the wedding was not over when the guests departed […] For her the wedding day was not a happy one. It was full of back-breaking work and the terrible stress of hurry-hurry-hurry […] You must not stop because you can’t go on, but you must go on because you can’t stop. And at the end of the day she could not tell whether her head ached because she was tired, or her heart ached from unhappiness, or it was her feet that felt so bad. But she was more tired than she could remember ever having been before in her whole life.” 

This passage evokes the incessant physical exhaustion that characterized slaves’ lives. House slaves supposedly had easier lives than those in the field, but this passage demonstrates that both experienced hardships, just of a different sort. Domestic slaves, because they were nearest to their masters, were sources of endless service, giving them little time to rest.

“She lived from day to day with no hope. Even the days had lost their color. Life was the same as always, drab and hopeless, with always a slender undercurrent of a nameless fear. Whatever happened could not be good. Only evil could happen, and more evil, and it was this evil that people all around her fear.” 

Vyry has been debilitated by slavery—not merely by its endless routine and the feeling that there would never be any literal escape—but also by the sense that her life was also debilitated by the persistent fear of violence, which kept her and other slaves under perpetual control.

“He hated the name of Lincoln […] he concluded that if the northern radicals only knew and understood his nigra slaves the way he did, they would not carry on such foolishness about containing slavery and not letting it spread to the territories […] The Bible is a witness to the benefits of slavery. The Church defends our system and the Constitution protects it.” 

Marse John detests Lincoln not only for destroying his way of life but also for disrupting his paternalistic thinking. He assumes that he knows best for his slaves, whom he considers docile and child-like. Moreover, he thinks that both American and Biblical law entitle him to his station. 

“Abe Lincoln had already declared for the second time that all slaves living in the States of the Rebellion were free, but he also knew for a fact that none of these slaves were set free from their masters […] Some of them made it to the Union lines. Some of them were destitute and suffering from exposure, privation, sickness, and hunger with no place to turn for help.” 

This quote exemplifies the South’s obstinacy in refusing to accept the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite it being the law of the land, the Confederacy were true to its rebellious principles, as well as to its dedication to slavery, in refusing to release black people from bondage.

“Haven’t you heard President Davis say time and again that the whole thing is a question of superior white people and inferior black people? Even the northern white people know that gorilla Lincoln is wrong. They don’t like him nor what he’s doing to the South any more than we do. Look at that big mess they had in New York just last summer when he tried to draft soldiers…” 

Missy Salina refers to the New York Draft riots in which white working-class New Yorkers revolted against being drafted into the Union Army. She believes, not incorrectly, that both white Southerners and Northerners are averse to equality with black people.

“‘I was just laying here praising the Lawd. I thank God I done seen the year of Jubilee. Now, like Simeon, I can pray ‘Lord lettest now Thy servant depart in peace.’ I knows all my peoples going free someday. Mister Lincoln is our Moses and God done tole him to make old Pharaoh set my people free.’” 

Brother Ezekiel believes wholeheartedly in justice and believes, too, that President Lincoln shares his vision. He is correct in thinking that Lincoln wants to end slavery but is unaware of the reasons why. Lincoln wanted to end slavery to bring an end to sectarian warfare in the United States, but he did not believe that blacks and whites were equal.

“Big Missy, as stoic as ever […] busied herself with the making of a Confederate flag, gray with bars crossed and studded with stars. Proudly she hung it over the front door that all who came might see the patriotism of her stricken rebel home.” 

Missy Salina represents the ways in which Southern white women upheld the values of the Confederacy. Like Betsy Ross, she fashions herself as the mother of a new republic.

“I wants to travel and see some more of the world before I die […] I ain’t got no where to go, but I’m gwine. I’m free, and I ain’t staying here no more.”

Caline, one of the house slaves who worked in the kitchen with Vyry, expresses the hope and optimism that many slaves likely felt after emancipation. Despite being illiterate, penniless, and without a place to call home, newly freed black people were elated to claim their lives and determine their own fates for the first time.

“I’d be happy to work in the fields the rest of my natural born life, if the harvest be mine.” 

Innis Brown has no aversion to farm work but, like many enslaved black people, resented that he was unable to claim or enjoy any of the fruits of his field labor. This is similar to how both Aunt Sally and Vyry were denied the right to eat the many delicacies they learned to cook.

“The 13th Amendment was passed and ratified by the states. Sooner or later it was sure to be tested.” 

The narration foreshadows the various means that the South would employ to resist permitting black people full freedom, this included sharecropping. Vyry and Innis experience this directly when a white planter tries to entrap them in permanent servitude through debt peonage.

“I learned on the plantation. Slaves where I was done everything. Just like you can make candles and soap and feather beds, rag rugs, and quilts, and spin and weave and sew, and cooking was your main job, I learned to do a lots of things ‘sides working in the fields. I really knows how to make good shoes if I had leather and tools.” 

Innis Brown describes how slaves learned various skills on plantations in the context of having to perform numerous jobs for the benefits of their masters. Ironically, these skills did not make it any easier for them to find employment due to systemic, and often violent, racism in both the North and the South.

“I understand how you colored people don’t want to work the way you useta […] You expect everything to come dropping into your laps, houses and land and schools and churches and money, and you want to leave the white people holding the bag. We’ve done everything we can for you, my husband and I…” 

Though she is initially kind and helpful to the Browns, Mrs. Jacobson expresses her true feelings about black people after Vyry tells her that she and Innis will be moving away, therefore making it impossible for Vyry to stay on as her maid and cook. Her attitude is typically racist in that she believes blacks exist only to serve whites. Ironically, she resents that black people want access to the same rights and privileges that many whites assumed were naturally theirs. 

“This is a war of white against black and it’s a night war with disguise and closed doors. The first white man you see in the morning could be the very man who beat you within an inch of your life the night before. No, they have begun a reign of terror to put the Negro back in slavery. They will never accept the fact that the South rose up in rebellion against the Union North and the North won the war. They mean to take out all their grudges on us.” 

Randall Ware is discussing how the Ku Klux Klan formed during Reconstruction as a vigilante group resisting black advancement in the South. What makes the Klan so much more dangerous than former masters and overseers, in Ware’s estimation, is that they hide their true sentiments so as not to run afoul of the new laws. They also carry with them the resentments of defeat and being forced to adjust to federal laws that are anathema to their former way of life.

But all that confusion in her house yesterday went back to something in her life that she thought she had forever escaped. It brought back all the violence and killing on the plantation when Grimes was driving and beating the field hands to death. It brought back the horror of the deaths of Mammy Sukey, and Grandpa Tom, the branding of Lucy, and burning the old men to death, the plague, and the hanging, murder, and fire, when the slaves all knew their lives were not worth a copper cent with a hole in it.” 

When Vyry sees Jim’s lashed back and finds out that her husband and his stepfather Innis Brown caused the damage, the violent act strongly suggests that Brown has internalized the violent habits that he and other slaves learned on plantations—a systemic and cyclical violence that Vyry is determined to escape.

“Freedom won’t mean much more than they can’t buy and sell us on the auction block. Even the Confederates abolished the slave trade. But they mean to keep us down under some kind of different system, controlling our labor and restricting our movements, and not allowing us to vote, and trying to keep us ignorant. The Ku Klux Klan will be just like the drivers and the patter-rollers were in slavery time.” 

Randall Ware explains the new form that oppression of black people will take in the South. As with his earlier comment about how the Klan operates in secrecy, he explains how whites needn’t revert black people back to slavery in order to maintain control over their lives. He notes how key education as well as economic and political power will be to ensure advancement.

“I don’t believe the world is full of peoples what hates everybody […] I knows lots of times folks doesn’t know other folks and then they gits to thinking crazy things, but when you gits up to peoples and gits to know them, you finds out they’s got kind hearts and tender feelings just like everybody else. Only ways you can keep folks hating is to keep them apart and separated from each other.” 

Vyry disagrees with Randall Ware’s view that all white people are untrustworthy. This statement from Vyry is a testimony to her resilient spirit and boundless capacity for love. She has experienced far more cruelty and ostracism than Ware, but none of it crippled her capacity to forgive or to judge people only by their individual characters.