by Lynn Austin
“What’ll I talk about? What’ll I say? What if my mind goes blank?” she worried. She needn’t have. Rev. Greene descended from a long line of ministers and was well-practiced in the graceful art of taking afternoon tea with parishioners. He also had a subject that he never grew tired of discussing—abolition. It didn’t take Julia long to realize that if she kept to that topic, she would have his full attention.
“I simply can’t understand how people can own someone,” she said, pouring him a third cup of tea. Then she made her first mistake. “My cousin Caroline is from Virginia,” she said. “Her family owns slaves.”
“Really?” He turned his attention to me as if I was a fascinating new species from an exotic culture. With his smooth-cheeked, boyish face and reddish-blond hair, he looked much younger than twenty-five. He would have made a more convincing schoolboy in overalls, playing hooky from school, than a minister in a dark suit and clerical collar. He even had freckles, for goodness’ sake. But his first question unnerved me.
“I’d like to hear your view of slavery, Miss Fletcher.”
“My . . . view?”
I remembered my first view of Slave Row, of the ramshackle cabins with Caleb and the other little children playing outside in the dirt. Then I pictured the view from my bedroom window that terrible morning, the wagon full of slaves in chains, Grady screaming as the men dragged him away.
“It’s . . . it’s horrible . . .” I couldn’t finish. Tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them. I dug in my pockets for a handkerchief and couldn’t find one. Rev. Greene offered me his.
“Here . . . I’m so sorry, Miss Fletcher. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He rested his hand on my shoulder, patting it consolingly.
As I battled to regain control, Julia eyed me jealously. She seemed to be weighing the idea of bursting into tears herself, just so he would rest his freckled hand on her shoulder. In the end, she was wise enough to realize that the way to Nathaniel Greene’s heart was to become an ardent abolitionist herself.
“How did you become involved in this very worthy cause?” she asked him, passing the plate of tea cakes one more time. “Did you live down south yourself?”
“No, I first joined the New England Anti-Slavery Society when I was in college and—”
“I had no idea there was such an organization,” she chirped. “Might I join the society, too?”
He swiveled his full attention back to Julia. “Certainly, Miss Hoffman. We’d be pleased to have you. In fact, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded right here in Philadelphia in 1833.”
“Why, I had no idea. What is it that the society does, exactly?”
“Well, you see, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed freedom and liberty for all men, yet the Negroes are still enslaved. It says all men are created equal, yet the Negroes don’t share that equality with whites. Slavery is a great evil, Miss Hoffman, and a curse to this great nation. It must be abolished. The Society believes it is our task to complete the unfinished work of the American Revolution.”
Julia appeared horrified. “You don’t mean going to war—with real guns and things!”
“Oh, no, no—nothing like that.” He pulled a square lump from his bulging jacket pocket. I had assumed it was a Bible, but it turned out to be a good-sized packet of abolitionist tracts. He peeled off two and passed them to Julia and me. “The Declaration of Sentiments, written in 1833, reads that our principles ‘forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject—and to entreat the oppressed to reject—the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage; relying solely upon those which are spiritual, and mighty through God . . . the destruction of error by the potency of truth—the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love—and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance.’ ”
I stared at the words in disbelief. They were so similar to what Eli had told his fellow slaves—that they wouldn’t have to resort to violence, God would fight their battle for them. I wanted to learn more from Rev. Greene, but when I looked up, Julia was perched on the edge of her seat, gazing at him like a puppy with its master. I could see that he mistook her adoration as interest in abolition, especially when she said, “I would love to accompany you to one of your meetings sometime.”
Rev. Greene beamed at her. It wasn’t love I saw in his eyes but the excitement of a zealot who has just made a new convert. “There will be an anti-slavery lecture next week, in fact. It’s being held at the Quaker meetinghouse in Germantown. I’d be very happy to escort you—and Miss Fletcher, of course.”
I agreed to go, partly because I was genuinely interested, and partly because Julia never would have forgiven me if I hadn’t. Her father wouldn’t allow her to attend the lecture alone with an unmarried man, minister or not.
Uncle Philip let us take his carriage when the day finally arrived, and he instructed his driver to stop by the church to pick up Rev. Greene. The young reverend started lecturing us on abolition the moment he’d taken his seat beside Julia. His fanaticism reminded me of Robert’s devotion to the subject of war.
“Since you are new to this area, Miss Fletcher, you may not know the history of where we are going today. Germantown was settled in 1683 by a group of Quakers and Mennonites from Germany. Its residents published some of America’s first protests against slavery. Lucretia Mott, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was a Quaker, and her husband organized free stores. Have you heard of those?”
“No . . . do tell me,” Julia said.
From the rapt expression on her face, he might have been reciting love poems to her.
“Free stores sell only those products made with non-slave labor. Many of New England’s most fashionable women are choosing to avoid southern-grown cotton for their dresses.” I am sure Julia would have dressed in animal skins like a native for Rev. Nathaniel Greene.
All my life I had heard Scripture used to defend slavery, but at the lecture that day, for the first time, I heard the Bible quoted to oppose slavery. Jesus’ commandments: “. . . whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them . . .” and “love thy neighbour as thyself ” applied to all of mankind, the speaker said. Slavery was a violation of the law of love and was therefore a sin. Taking our fellow man’s freedom by force was not only cruel and unjust but also abhorrent to God.
“If you assume God will approve, then you don’t know God,” the speaker concluded, and I nearly rose from my seat and shouted, “Amen!” the way the people in Eli’s congregation did. Those words finally explained the difference I’d always noticed between the way most preachers talked about God and the way Eli always talked about Massa Jesus. Eli knew God’s heart.
As time passed, I grew more and more interested in the antislavery movement. Before long, I was no longer going for Julia’s sake but to hear the lectures for myself. I couldn’t get enough of them. The message of God’s deliverance from slavery, which Eli had preached about in the pine grove years ago, suddenly seemed possible. And ordinary people like me could actually do something to help.
In the past, Julia’s affections for her various beaux usually flamed and died fairly quickly, so I was surprised when they didn’t this time. Her obsession with Nathaniel Greene grew stronger over time, even though he gave her no encouragement at all. I could have told her that the cause of abolition so consumed him that he had no room left in his heart for any woman—but I didn’t. I wanted to attend every meeting I could.
We heard the famous Negro orator Frederick Douglass speak. We saw the lash marks on a former slave’s back and heard the story of his daring escape. We learned about the Fugitive Slave Law, passed in 1850, and how any slave fortunate enough to beat the odds and escape could still be arrested up north and sent back into slavery. We met God-fearing people who risked fines and imprisonment to help escaped slaves reach safety in Canada.
But as time went on, a lingering discontent began to grow inside me. While a few individuals were actively trying to ma
ke a difference, most of us did little more than listen, shake our heads in dismay, then go on with our shallow lives. I finally voiced my thoughts to Nathaniel one day as we drove home from one of the meetings.
“Is all this talk really doing any good?” I asked him. “These speakers are preaching to an audience that already believes in abolition. What are they doing to change the attitudes of the slaveholders down south?”
“Well, our leaders hope that laws will eventually be passed in Congress and—”
“Laws? I think . . . I think that it’s very easy for people in the North to support abolition because there aren’t very many Negroes up here. And the ones who do live here are kept segregated from white people. They don’t live in our neighborhoods, their children don’t attend our schools. Even the pews in our churches are kept separate.”
“Why, Miss Fletcher, I believe that’s because—”
“Do you even know any Negroes, Rev. Greene? No one in my uncle’s family does. Yet back home, Tessie and Esther and Eli and Grady were part of my family. As wrong as slavery is, our slaves’ lives were woven together with ours in a complicated pattern— a pattern that often included genuine love. The North may have outlawed slavery, but it hasn’t done away with bigotry and racism. Is the one condition any worse than the others?”
He smiled at me, the way a proud teacher will smile at his prize pupil. “I can see that you have a great deal of passion for the cause, Miss Fletcher.”
His words struck me like a slap in the face. I suddenly realized what was missing in so much of the abolitionists’ rhetoric and in so many of their hearts.
“Rev. Greene,” I said in a trembling voice, “the Negroes are not a cause. They are people!”
Chapter Eight
October 1859
When my cousin Rosalie turned nineteen, she decided she must get married at once or risk being labeled an old maid. After a great deal of fuss and deliberation, she finally made her choice—the oldest son of a wealthy Philadelphia banking family. Her wedding was the premier social event of the season.
Cousin Robert arrived home from West Point and served as my escort. He had lost a good deal of his baby fat after one year at the academy, and he now sported a shadow of soft, dark fuzz on his upper lip that was supposed to be a mustache. But he still made an unconvincing soldier, even in uniform. Now he looked like a mournful Spanish poet dressed up for a costume ball. He walked and stood with his shoulders hunched, hanging his head as if he was about to apologize for some grave error. Julia made fun of him behind his back, but I was grateful for his arm to cling to at the wedding. He helped me thwart unwelcome advances from several of the groom’s relatives.
Rosalie’s wedding was the kind every girl dreams of—a gown like a fairy-tale princess’s, a church fragrant with jasmine and roses, a glittering champagne reception, a wedding trip to Saratoga with a brand-new trousseau. Julia and I couldn’t help being envious. When it was all over that night, our bedroom seemed very quiet and empty without Rosalie. Julia and I had the mirrored dressing table all to ourselves, but neither one of us could bear to sit there in Rosalie’s place.
After we were both in bed with the lights out, I heard Julia sniffling. “Are you crying?” I asked.
“No!”
But when I tiptoed across the room and climbed into bed with her, I knew that she had been. “There must be a leak in the roof, then,” I said. “Your pillow is all wet.”
Julia’s tears turned to giggles. We lay in the dark for a while, whispering about the day’s events. Then Julia said, “Rosalie was so caught up in the wedding, I’ll bet she never once remembered that she’d have to share a bed with a man tonight, dressed in only her chemise.”
“Julia!” I was shocked. She laughed.
“Well, it’s part of life, isn’t it? And it’s certainly part of marriage. Where do you think babies come from?”
“You shouldn’t talk about such things. It isn’t proper.”
“Phooey! Who cares about being proper? Do you think Rosalie is in love with her new husband?”
“I never heard her say that she loves him. Just that she thought he’d make a good husband.”
Julia sighed dramatically. “I could never marry a man I wasn’t in love with, could you, Caroline? It would be awful to share a bed with him otherwise.”
“I wish you would stop talking about . . . that.”
“What? Sharing a bed with my husband?” She laughed at me again. “I sometimes pretend that my pillow is Nathaniel Greene and I hug it tightly all night. Who do you pretend yours is?”
“I . . . I’ve never done that.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love, Carrie?”
Hadn’t I? I recalled the excitement of my infatuation with my cousin Jonathan years ago, how I’d wanted to spend every minute with him, how I’d thrilled to his touch. But I had long since outgrown those feelings. And I had felt nothing close to them since— certainly not with Robert, nor with any of the other men I’d danced with. I’d once heard love in Tessie’s joyful laughter when she was with Josiah. I’d seen love in Julia’s eyes when she gazed at Nathaniel. But I had never known it firsthand.
“I’ve never been in love,” I said at last.
“Oh, poor you!”
Later, when I was back in my own bed, I tried hugging my pillow, pretending it was my husband. But the pillow had no face, and it seemed wrong, somehow, to even imagine such a thing.
The next day, Robert insisted on accompanying Julia, Rev. Greene, and me to our regular abolition meeting. As soon as we entered the assembly hall, we saw that it was not only packed, but also cloaked in an atmosphere of secrecy and danger. The guest speaker was a young Negro man named Peter Sullivan, a newly escaped slave. He was on his way to freedom in Canada, but he could be arrested and sent back to Mississippi if he was discovered speaking to us. Peter was a quiet, sullen young man whose smoldering resentment reminded me of Josiah. He had never spoken in public before, so the society’s president interviewed him about his escape.
After a few preliminary questions the president asked, “What made you decide to take the risk and escape, Peter?”
“I leave after I find out who my father is.” He stared at his feet, as if to hide his shame. “He a white man. . . . I find out Massa Sullivan my father.”
I heard a collective gasp in the meeting hall. All the usual rustling and shuffling stilled.
“How did you find this out, Peter?”
He lifted his head, gazing out at the sea of white faces. But it was as if he was looking through all of us. “My mama tell me so. Ain’t nothing she can do about him, either. Any time he want her, she have no choice.”
I was certain that I wasn’t the only woman who was blushing. Julia stared at the man, her mouth hanging open. Robert wiped his sweating palms on his thighs. I didn’t dare look at Rev. Greene.
“Peter,” the president said quietly, “I think the audience should know that your story is by no means unique. White masters have the right to use slave women for their own purposes any time they please, and many of these unions have produced mixed-race children.”
A memory stirred from long ago—the old Negro granny at Hilltop, asking which heaven the little black children with white daddies would go to when they died. I hadn’t understood the question at the time, but now that I did, I felt another rush of heat to my face. Surely not my Uncle William . . . surely not.
“So for most of your life, Peter, you didn’t know who your father was?”
“Mama scared to tell me. She say a Negro woman be killed for telling.”
I finally understood Eli’s fear when I’d asked him about Grady’s father. “Never ask . . . They kill a gal if she tell.” I hadn’t thought about Grady for a long time, but I let my mind wander away from this embarrassing subject and allowed myself to think about him now. The deep grief I felt at losing my friend was still there after more than six years. I missed him. He would be fifteen now and nearly grown. He’d been my onl
y friend as I was growing up, except for Jonathan. I smiled to myself when I remembered how alike they were, the same sparkling dark eyes, the same mischievous grin.
“My skin nearly as light as Massa’s white sons,” I heard Peter say. “I know I can pass for white. That’s how I escape.”
Grady had been a very light-skinned Negro, too. A shade lighter than Tessie, several shades lighter than his ebony-skinned father, Josiah.
“. . . child cannot be lighter-skinned than his parents,” the interviewer said. “And so a lighter skin shade, like Peter’s, is an indication of mixed race. . . .”
His words hit me with the force of a physical blow. How could Grady be Josiah’s son if his skin was so much lighter? As I struggled to work out a logical explanation, another thought forced its way into my dazed mind. My cousin Jonathan resembled my father. What if the reason Jonathan reminded me so much of Grady was because . . . because . . .
Cold dread rose up inside me. I began to tremble as if my entire body was trying to reject the thought. It couldn’t be true. My daddy would never do such a terrible thing.
“. . . and so Peter’s very own white father kept his son bound in the chains of slavery. . . .”
I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. I stood to leave, to run out of the meeting hall, but when I took the first step I felt as if all the blood had drained from my body. The world went black.
I woke up outside in Robert’s arms. He was sitting on the grass with me, frantically repeating my name. “Caroline! Caroline! . . . Please, God . . . Darling Caroline! What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t tell him what I feared. I could never tell anyone. The horror, the shame of it! Could Grady really be my half brother? Had Daddy sold Josiah to Hilltop so he could have my Negro mammy all to himself? I remembered how Tessie had blamed my mother for sending Grady away—my mother, who couldn’t give Daddy a son of her own. I remembered Eli saying that Daddy would never sell Tessie, “And you know the reason why.”