Slavery and Racial Discrimination in the US - Essay Example

SLAVERY AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED S The events in the 2 books {‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ by Harriet Beecher Stowe, ‘Absalom, Absalom!” by William Faulkner} and some of the events in ‘Roots’ by Alex Haley occur during the 1800 – 1865 period in American History, a period during which racial discrimination was at its peak in the United States. While racial discrimination continued to exist during the post-1865 period {until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 put blacks on par with whites in the country}, it did not contain what the pre-1865 period did, namely, the worst category of racial discrimination – slavery. Introduction Slavery was introduced into the United States by English settlers who first arrived in Virginia in 1619. It was estimated that the number of slaves {all of African descent} was 645,000 at that time. Slavery became legal in the United States. Slave owners were predominantly white, while a few American Indians and still fewer free black slaves were also known to own slaves. Even one of the country’s Presidents {Thomas Jefferson [1743 – 1826]} kept slaves in his household (Wikipedia.org). The people living in the Southern states practiced slavery much more than those in the Northern states of the United States. In 1860, by which time the original black slave population had grown to 4 million, the United States census found 95% of them lived in the Southern states comprising 33% of Southern population, as compared to forming just 1% of Northern population. By that time the Southern states had grown immensely wealthy due to flourishing plantations run with very cheap black slave labour. Slaves were also widely used as household servants (Wikipedia.org). Southerners were guilty of meting out harsh and inhumane treatment to black slaves. Slaves were widely ill-treated; slave supervisors were empowered to whip and extract maximum labour from them, slave hunters were employed to catch runaway slaves and punish them brutally, slave families were cruelly torn apart when members were sold off to distant new slave owners, female slaves were openly used by their owners for sexual gratification, children born of slave women {whether fathered by male slaves or their white owners} automatically inherited the mantle of slavery from their mothers. The entire series of racial discriminatory practices was authorised by Slave Codes that empowered and protected perpetrators of such practices (Wikipedia.org), and supported by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that declared that helping runaway slaves in any way was considered a crime (Stowe 75). The Abolitionist or Anti-Slavery Movement {1830 – 1870} sought to make slavery illegal in the U.S. While it was very well supported by the Northern states, the South was totally opposed to it. Prominent leaders of the Movement included William Lloyd Garrison {publisher of ‘The Liberator’ newspaper}, Frederick Douglass {author of ‘Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass’ and Harriet Beecher Stowe {author of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’} (Wikipedia.org). Southern literature is so obsessed with slavery and racial difference during the pre-1865 period because Southern intellectuals tried their best to target the largely Christian people in the Northern states, using their powerful writing to shock them into awareness of the enormous injustice and inhumane degradation being meted out to slaves so widely and blatantly. The ultimate aim of the Southern intellectuals was to provoke their Northern audience into taking decisive action to redress the unsavoury situation in the South that was giving the entire country a bad reputation. Stowe, Faulkner and Haley depict several incidents in their books that serve as pointers to the harsh practices involved in slavery as well as to common perceptions of Southerners. Pointer 1: Ill treatment of Slaves The slaves who toiled hard in the lavish households as well as the huge, sprawling plantations of their owners were generally rewarded with ill treatment. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ the slave woman Prue is so traumatized after years of ill treatment by her former owner and his wife in Kentucky that she tells Tom she will gladly go to hell {“torment”} rather than going to heaven {which she believes contains only white people} and risk encountering her abusive “Mas’r and Missus” owners there (Stowe 201). Topsy, the slave girl bought by Augustine St Claire was so brutally beaten by her earlier owners that her back and shoulders bear “great welts and calloused spots” (Stowe 223). Simon Legree shakes his fist in front of Tom and the other slaves, saying it is as hard as iron and ideally suited to “known down niggers” (Stowe 314). Legree also warns Tom and the other slaves against running away by showing them vicious dogs that “have been raised to track niggers,” saying he would “let them loose if ye try to run off” (Stowe 320). The escape of the female slaves Emmeline and Cassy makes Simon Legree fly into a fury {“[it] irritated the before surly temper to the last degree”} that “fell on the defenceless head of Tom” (Stowe 379). When Tom refuses to betray the girls, he is brutally beaten throughout the night by Legree and his overseers Sambo and Quimbo to such an extent that he dies a martyr’s death. In ‘Absalom, Absalom’ Thomas Sutpen is a wild, violent man who loves to hold brutal fights between his slaves in his estate ‘Sutpen’s Hundred’ {“in the centre two of his wild negroes fighting, naked, fighting not as white men fight, with rules and weapons, but as negroes fight, to hurt one another” (Faulkner 29)}, frequently joining in the fighting himself “Sutpen [was] fighting half naked with one of his half naked niggers” (Faulkner 120). In another part of the book, Sutpen is depicted hitting his slaves {“Sutpen waded in with a short stick and beat niggers away” (Faulkner 257)}. In ‘Roots’ when Kunta newly arrives in John Waller’s plantation in Virginia he is soundly beaten when he refuses to eat food given to him, and warned that if he persisted in refusing food “he would get more beating” (Haley 230). When he continues to resist following orders later “dizzy with pain and exhaustion, he grimly anticipated the beating he would receive” (Haley 249). Waller’s house cook Bell was also the recipient of ill treatment from her former master {“It had been with horror that Kunta had first seen the deep lash marks on Bell’s back” (Haley 350)}. Pointer 2: Slave Hunters In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ slave patrols are described as a group of “six or seven [men] with guns and dogs” who “can get up just as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer (Stowe 217). Tom Loker is a brutal and violent man who thrives on hunting runaway slaves with a formidable reputation of getting his victim nearly every time “Tom’ll have the boy for yer anywhere ye’ll name” (Stowe 65)}. Haley pays him 50 dollars as fees for his and his slave hunting partner Marks’ services to catch the runaway slave Eliza and her son Harry. Without the knowledge of Sam and Andy, Haley secretly agrees that after capturing the woman and her son, Loker and Marks can keep Eliza {as their special reward} and only return Harry (Stowe 65). In ‘Roots’ Kunta’s first attempted escape fails when the slave hunters catches him easily with the help of professional tracker dogs {“Kunta was sure he could now hear the shouting of men behind the dogs (Haley 227}). His second attempted escape is likewise thwarted {“He [one of the hunters] was the one who held the rope after Kunta had been trapped by the dogs {Haley 232}). Kunta’s final attempt to escape was also foiled by the slave hunters’ expert dogs {“and the dogs were upon him, as he rolled over and over on the ground ripping at the dogs” {Haley 263)” but this time he is punished by having half his right foot chopped off with an axe {“the front half of his foot, which was falling forward, as bright red blood jetted from the stump” (Haley 264)}. Pointer 3: Slave Families Torn Apart Selfish slave owners did not consider their slaves sufficiently human to know, understand and appreciate family life. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ when Kentucky farmer Arthur Shelby encounters financial difficulties, he does not hesitate to cruelly break Tom’s family by selling him to Mr. Haley the slave trader who in turn sells him to Augustine St. Claire. Tom is driven further away from Kentucky when his kind owner Augustine St. Claire dies and his cruel wife Marie sells Tom to Simon Legree in Louisiana. Cassy too is ruthlessly separated from her daughter Eliza when she is sold to Simon Legree. In ‘Roots’ despite Kunta’s warning to his daughter Kizzy {“If’n you keeps messin’ roun’ wid dat Noah” (Haley 462)} to keep away from Noah, Kizzy forges papers to help him escape. Bell’s piteous pleas: “Massa, please have mercy! She ain’t mean to do it!” (Haley 452) has no effect. Kizzy is separated from her parents and sold to Tom Lea, a plantation owner in far away North Carolina. George is separated from his wife Matilda and their 8 children when Tom Lea sells him off to Sir Eric Russell to settle a gaming debt, and then sells Matilda and the 8 children to the Murray family (Haley 605). Pointer 4: Sexual Abuse of Female Slaves As slaves were considered their legal possessions, it was a common practice for slave owners to use female slaves to satisfy their sexual lusts. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ the female slave Prue relates how she was continuously raped for years by her slave owner in Kentucky (Stowe 201). On his journey home with Tom and the 15-year old slave girl Emmeline, Simon Legree leers at her, promising she will “have fine times” with him if she’ll “be a good girl” {meaning she should cooperate to appease his sexual demands (Stowe 319). Legree intends to make Emmeline his new slave mistress as he is tired of Cassy, the slave woman with whom he has been living. In ‘Absalom, Absalom’ when his slave mistress Milly gives birth to a child, instead of accepting fatherhood, Sutpen callously tells her “Too bad you’re not a mare. Then I could give you a decent stall in the stable” (Faulkner 185). In ‘Roots’ Kizzy is brutally raped by her new owner Tom Lea on the floor of the barn in his North Carolina plantation on the very first night of her arrival there. Tom goes on raping her many times each week after that until she becomes 5 months’ pregnant. Kizzy later delivers the child whom Tom names “George” after the “hardest-working nigger” he had ever come across (Haley 464). Pointer 5: The Innocent Sufferers - Children Born to Slaves Children who were born out of sexual relationships between slave owners and slaves inherited slavery from their mothers. Children born from a relationship where at least one parent has Negro blood were treated as whites due to their fair colour but only as long as they kept their bloodline secret. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ Prue tells Tom how her former owner used her “to breed chil’en for [the slave] market” to get money by selling them “as fast as they got big enough” (Stowe 201). In ‘Absalom, Absalom’ Thomas Sutpen’s children by his second wife, Henry and Judith, have Negro blood because Sutpen himself has it. They are allowed to live a normal life without any discrimination. Charles Bon, Sutpen’s son by his first marriage to a part-black girl Eulailia Bon whom Sutpen denounces when he discovers she has Negro blood, has a larger level of Negro blood in him due to contributions from both parents. Yet he too is able to live a normal life. Clytie, born of Sutpen’s illicit relationship with his mistress Milly, is also tainted with his Negro blood. Her low level Squatter background prevents her from being assimilated into white society. The lives of the Sutpens are destroyed by their inability to keep their bloodline a secret. Charles Bon and Judith are prevented from marrying each other when Henry kills Charles Bon on the eve of the wedding. Her isolation causes Clytie to wither early in life, eventually making her so fed up that she burns down the “monstrous tinder-dry rotten shell” (Faulkner 375), ‘shell’ standing for her life metaphorically as well as the ‘Sutpen Hundred’ house, taking her own life as well as that of Henry Sutpen. Charles Etienne de St Valery Bon is the son of Charles Bon and his unnamed French-Negro wife {“She found in Bon’s coat the picture of the octoroon mistress and the little boy” (Faulkner 95). The fact that he cannot keep secret his Negro bloodline forces him to marry a Negro woman. Their son Jim Bond turns into an idiot mix blooded “hulking slack-mouthed saddle-coloured boy” (Faulkner 214). In ‘Roots’ Bell overhears the whites talking about “too many white mens is havin’ slave chilluns, so dey ain’t doin’ nothin’ but buyin’ and sellin’ dey own blood.” (Haley 345). Pointer 6: Many Southerners were slave haters In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ Marie St Claire ridicules some whites for treating slaves “as if they were exotic flowers or china vases” (Stowe 161) because slaves are “stupid, careless, unreasonable, childish and ungrateful set of wretches” (Stowe 162). Marie is also annoyed with her husband for daring to compare her love for Eva with a slave woman’s love for her children {“Just as if Mammy could love her dirty little babies as I love Eva” (Stowe 162)}. Augustine St Claire’s nephew Henrique does not hesitate to beat his slave Dodo at the slightest opportunity {Henrique calls Dodo a “lazy little dog” and strikes him for not rubbing down his horse properly (Stowe 246)}. In “Absalom, Absalom” Rosa Coldfield is a bitter spinster who hates blacks. She manifests during an incident where Clytie tries to block her way. “Take your hand off me, nigger!” is her vicious retort (Faulkner 140). In ‘Roots’ the mindset of the whites who hate slaves is revealed by the actions of their children: “The white children seemed to love nothing more than playing ‘masse’ and pretending to beat the black ones” (Haley 311). Pointer 7: Many Southerners were against slavery and did their best to alleviate the plight of slaves. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ Emily Shelby is very kind towards the slaves. She suspects that her maid Eliza has overheard her husband’s decision to sell both her son and her, yet she says nothing; in fact she is very glad when she learns the next day that Eliza has fled with her son Harry {Eliza thankfully exclaims: “The Lord be thanked!” (Stowe 39)}, and does her best to delay the pursuing slave hunter Mr Haley by first providing him a lame horse and then inviting him to a long meal which Tom’s wife Aunt Chloe purposely takes a long time to prepare, in order that Eliza and her son have more time to escape. John Van Trompe, who helps Eliza and Harry go from the Northern states to Canada, was once a wealthy Kentucky landlord with many slaves; he became so sickened with the concept of slavery that he freed all his slaves and began a new life in the Northern states (Stowe 86). Ophelia St Claire helps the slave girl Topsy by educating her (Stowe 244). Eva St Claire feels very sorry for the slaves. When she hears the sad story of Prue from Tom, she is very saddened and later tells her mother: “The poor creature was unhappy; that’s what made her drink” (Stowe 216). She urges her father to educate the slaves: “Why don’t we teach our servants to read?” (Stowe 244). Eva does not hesitate to mingle closely with slaves: “[She] loved to play with [slave girl] Topsy and the various coloured children” (Stowe 244). She berates her cousin Henrique for striking his servant {“How can you be so cruel and wicked to poor Dodo?” (Stowe 247)}. Eva tells Tom that, like Jesus Christ, she would gladly die for all the slaves in the Southern states if it would help ease their suffering (Stowe 255). Eva tells the slave girl Topsy: “Don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me” (Stowe 262)}. In one incident, she is depicted as “fondly throwing her arms around her old nurse [female slave Mammy]” (Stowe 269)}. In order to redress the grave injustice perpetrated by his father Arthur Shelby in selling Tom, George Shelby goes all the way to Louisiana to buy back Tom. After witnessing Tom’s death, George Shelby takes a solemn oath to exert his utmost efforts against slavery: “Witness, eternal God! Oh, witness that, from this hour, I will do what one man can do to drive this curse of slavery from my land!” (Stowe [Front Matter]). He keeps his word by freeing all the slaves in the Shelby farm while telling them it is due to the good example of Tom {“Think of your freedom every time you see Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (Stowe 406)}. In ‘Roots,’ Dr. William Waller is a kind-hearted man who opposes slavery. His house cook Bell, for whom Waller has a particular soft spot {Kunta calls her the “Toubob’s [Waller’s] pet” (Haley 390)} declares: “I bet you half de niggers in Virginia ain’t never been off dey massas’ plantations” (Haley 358)}. The innate kindness in Missy Anne, Dr. Waller’s niece, makes her treat Kunta’s daughter Kizzy as her friend and “playmate” (Haley 398), insisting Kizzy accompanies her to parties {“that Kizzy was going to be so busy partying with Miss Anne” (Haley 384)} and even attempts to educate her {“Kizzy had fallen asleep on the table after hours of copying her latest writing lesson from Missy Anne (Haley 436)}. Pointer 8: Some Southerners were against slavery but were afraid of revealing their opposition as their vested interests could be compromised. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ George Shelby acknowledges slavery is evil yet he uses slaves liberally to do his farm work and run his household. Augustine St Claire, who buys Tom from the slave trader Mr. Haley is against slavery yet he practices it because “in a community so organised” what can he do “but shut his eyes and harden his heart” (Stowe 204). Pointer 9: Some Southerners believed slaves did not know about Christianity and its principles. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ Emily Shelby’s female slave Eliza who escapes with her son by travelling throughout the night, continuously praying to God for assistance, ultimately succeeds in crossing the frozen Ohio River by executing a series of astounding leaps to reach the safety of its Northern bank because she has been suffused with a “strength such as God gives only the desperate” (Stowe 57). Tom is a devout Christian. During the boat ride to New Orleans he spends most of his time sitting on cotton bales and reading the Bible (Stowe 116). Tom also epitomises Christianity’s great principle ‘Love thine Enemy’; as he writhes in mortal pain, he urges Legree not to kill him because “it will hurt you more than it will me” (Stowe 382) meaning that murder will send Legree to hell. In ‘Roots,’ when Kizzy is being torn away from her family to be sold because she helped Noah, she “lay imploring God to destroy her, if He felt she deserved all this, just because she loved Noah” (Haley 457). In ‘Absalom, Absalom’ the slaves are depicting congregating in front of the church: “The banquette before the church door was a sort of arena lighted by the smoking torches which the Negroes held above their heads” (Faulkner 56). In another scene, slaves are shown celebrating Christmas: “[On the] 24 of December the nigger children” were celebrating “with branches of mistletoe and holly” (Faulkner 105). In ‘Roots,’ Kunta’s wife Bell is a devout Christian. Even though Kunta himself is a Muslim, Bell insists on baptising their daughter Kizzy in a church (Haley 392). The slaves had their own churches and preachers, for example “African Baptist Church in Savannah” (Haley 297) and “Dat Prince Hall what started dat nigger Masonic Order! I seen pictures some dem big [black] preaches what started nigger churches” (Haley 426). Pointer 10: Some Southerners contended that slavery was advantageous to the slaves because their masters took decisions that benefited them. In ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ Tom proves this perception erroneous, instead believing the ultimate benefit slaves could get was freedom. He dies a martyr’s death rather than reveal the whereabouts of the escaped female slaves Emmeline and Cassy to Simon Legree, thus ensuring their freedom. In the process he also unwittingly brings about the freedom of all the slaves in the Shelby farm. In ‘Roots,’ Kunta also proves the Southerners’ perception wrong. Because he is educated, knowing to read and write in Arabic, he is frequently flabbergasted at the ignorance of the slaves {“Kunta wondered where on earth Bell thought her own grandparents had come from” (Haley 377)}. Kunta is very proud of his heritage and keeps constantly telling Kizzy “about the homeland [Africa] she would never see” (Haley 383) that consisted of proud and free people. His pride and belief in his proud heritage {“Kunta felt Africa pumping in his veins”} transmit themselves to his daughter {“and flowing from him into the child” (Haley 368)} who also begins to take pride in her ancestry {“My pappy come from Africa, an’ he sho’ ain’t never been in no trees!” (Haley 481)}. The book also exposes the hypocrisy of this group of Southerners; on the one hand, they talk about the slaves not being able to care for themselves, while on the other hand they not only do they deliberately not educate the slaves, but they also prohibit it {“[There is a] law ‘against teachin’ any nigger to read or write, or givin’ any nigger any book” (Haley 274)}. Pointer 11: Some Southerners were anticipating the end of slavery in the South. In ‘Roots,’ Luther overhears whites “worryin’ dat king [Lincoln] ‘crost the water [Ohio River] might start offerin’ us niggers freedom” (Haley 297)}. Bell hears John Waller and his guests “bitterly discussing the fact that slavery had recently been abolished in the Northern state calls ‘Massachusetts’” (Haley 318). Bell overhears Waller and his dinner guests discussing about “all the Haitian land [Haiti] and its slaves – that they vacationed in France and schooled their children there just as the rich whites did, and even snubbed poor whites” (Haley 374). Conclusion The efforts of Southern intellectuals by writing books steeped in slavery and racial difference were ultimately successful. The knowledge that the atrocities being committed by the Southerners was not only against moral and human values but was also besmirching the image and reputation of the country as a whole, strung them into action which spawned the Civil War. Slavery was officially eradicated by the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution in 1863 when the Northern States {‘the Union’} led by President Abraham Lincoln was about to win the 1861 – 1865 Civil War against the pro-slavery Southern States {‘Confederates’}. In the context of this essay, only Stowe, who was before the Civil War in 1811 can be considered as directing ‘fresh and applicable’ pointers to the Northerners so that they could be sparked into taking action – which they did. The efforts of Faulkner and Haley {born in 1897 (Nobelprize.org) and 1921 (The University of Tennessee Libraries) respectively} are relatively ‘stale news’ in that ‘Absalom, Absalom’ and ‘Roots,’ when published, did not cover groundbreaking territory as ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ It is no wonder therefore that, following the lines of Helen, whose face launched a thousand ships in the Trojan War, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ is widely regarded by historians as the book that launched the American Civil War (Anti-Slavery Society). References: “Alex Haley.” The Universities of Tennessee Libraries. 2003. 30 Dec. 2007. Faulkner, William. “Absalom, Absalom!” USA: Random House. 2002. Haley, Alex. “Roots.” USA: Dell. 1980. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” UK: Wordsworth Editions Ltd. 1999. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Anti-Slavery Society. 2003. 30 Dec. 2007. “William Faulkner: Biography.” Nobelprize.org. 2007. 30 Dec. 2007. Read More