The Prince of Jockeys

by Pellom McDaniels III

  Through these innocent interactions, white children learned their place in the world as future masters. This form of social conditioning was at the very heart of slavocracy and black-white power relations. Identity development in the American South during slavery was a constant negotiation between power and purpose. In most scenarios, black children were conditioned to accept their roles as subordinate social actors, conscious of their lack of power over anything, including their own lives.

  Like a majority of slave mothers, America Murphy took every opportunity to protect baby Isaac from the ill treatment and cruelty of a society in which blacks had no rights that white men were bound to respect. Given what we know about the institution of slavery and the spirit of rebellion embedded in the human psyche, there can be no doubt that America imagined a much sweeter and kinder future for the people of her race. She would have worked hard to shield baby Isaac from the daily trauma of life as a slave, and she would have maintained a hopeful and determined outlook for the future—one in which her son would have every opportunity to grow mentally and physically strong and achieve a full sense of manhood by acquiring his freedom.

  Records reveal that Tanner owned no other slave children in 1862, which means that Isaac likely spent much of his time alone under the care of an elderly slave woman who watched over him while America performed her duties. The tradition of communal child care ensured the availability of maternal figures to feed small children, keep an eye on them, and correct any behaviors deemed dangerous to their present and future safety. Clearly, someone needed to supervise Isaac while America was attending to her responsibilities in the Tanner home or performing other errands required of her. On occasion, she may have been able to steal some time away from the Tanner residence after completing her chores of cooking, cleaning, and washing. On small farms, domestic servants like America were allowed some flexibility in their comings and goings, as long as they met their masters’ needs. America may have been allowed to attend to Isaac after she fulfilled all her daily duties in the “big house,” working under the strict supervision of the Tanners.

  Like most children born in slavery, young Isaac was unaware of his status as human chattel. If it had been up to his mother, he would never have learned that he was the property of another human being. She did her best to satisfy her child's needs, comforting him at night when he cried for affection and preparing their meals from the meager rations provided for their subsistence. Perhaps America risked taking some crumbs from the Tanner kitchen—a transgression that could have resulted in flogging.

  It is unclear whether Isaac was America's first child, the first to survive beyond birth, or the first she was allowed to keep. If she bore children before Isaac, they may have been taken from her and sold at the Clark County court day or at Cheapside in Lexington to raise funds or pay debts. Or they may have been sold to “soul drivers” from St. Louis, Missouri, or Louisville, Kentucky, as they passed through the Bluegrass on their way to the slave markets of New Orleans.33 In any case, Isaac was too young to be aware of the world outside the farm or to understand the dramatic changes taking place during this heroic time in American history. For people of African descent, their dreams of deliverance were coming true.

  By the summer of 1862, the war had taken hold of the nation, and enslaved blacks in the Bluegrass listened to their white masters talk openly about the battle at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the “black Republican” conspiracy to end slavery and take the property of good white people, and their constant fear of slave uprisings. For most African Americans, both enslaved and free, the notion of liberation from the peculiar institution and overt racism became a real possibility as long as the Union soldiers kept coming. Furthermore, freedom fighters like Charles Lenox Remond, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth were constantly agitating white people to see blacks as human beings and challenging black folks to fight for the freedom they longed for. In Kentucky, abolitionism was as old as the state and its constitution. However, its meaning in the Civil War era was much different from that understood by the early settlers. Previous generations had argued against extending the institution of slavery beyond the “Old Dominion” of Virginia because it promoted idleness among white men and diminished the value of work.

  The philosophical position of abolitionists had evolved since then. For men like William Lloyd Garrison, the abolition of slavery was essential to the moral life of the country: the “degrading vassalage of the entire North to the accursed Slave Power” resulted not in a Union of honor, he claimed, but in disunion and dishonor.34 Garrison believed, as did many New England abolitionists, that black men and white men were equal in the eyes of God. Kentuckian Cassius Marcellus Clay had been an early advocate for the gradual emancipation of slaves, but by the 1860s, he had become a stringent proponent of the abolition of slavery. He gave speeches throughout the state under threat of violence from both slaveholders and nonslaveholders who adamantly opposed the potential increase in the population of free blacks. Given the climate of the country and Clay's support of President Lincoln, his position in favor of full emancipation for African Americans became an immovable force in Kentucky politics.

  As America Murphy struggled to care for her son and satisfy the daily needs of the Tanners, she would have been well aware of the drama taking place around her. She would have paid attention to the movements of the Union and Confederate armies, both of which would have a significant influence on her future as a slave and her son's future as a freeman. By the spring of 1863, Federal troops and Confederate rebels challenged each other for control of the border state of Kentucky. As a pivotal geographic, political, and strategic location, the Bluegrass region became the focus of John Hunt Morgan, who traveled north through Kentucky to Ohio in an attempt to distract Union commanders. Unlike South Carolina and the ten other states that seceded, Kentucky remained a Union state and was therefore under the protection and control of the Federal government. Kentucky slaveholders loyal to the Union were allowed to keep their human property unless their slaves were impressed by Federal troops to work at the various encampments throughout the state. All white persons who were arrested as rebels, who were known to be Confederate sympathizers, or who actively supported the rebel army, financially or otherwise, could take an oath of allegiance if they wanted to remain free. The penalty for violating the oath was death.35 Those who refused were arrested and had their property confiscated by Federal troops, including their human chattel, which were deemed “contrabands of war.”36 It is not clear whether enslaved African Americans in the Bluegrass completely understood the particulars of the Emancipation Proclamation, believed that it was real, or understood the conflict the nation was embroiled in. More than likely, a great number recognized that their freedom was linked to President Lincoln's efforts to keep the nation together.

  There can be no doubt that America Murphy believed her prayers were being answered each time she saw or heard of a Union soldier near the Tanner farm. Like most enslaved black men and women, she reflected on the gravity of her situation and was cautious not to express her joy and anticipation too loudly, so as not to arouse the ire of her master. However, in private, in the darkness of her cabin, she would have dropped to her knees and tearfully thanked God for smiling on her and her people and for blessing her with the opportunity to see her child attain his freedom.

  With war at the doorsteps of their masters, enslaved African Americans, including the placid yet courageous America Murphy, understood that drastic changes were taking place. This heroic age would draw the masses of oppressed black people together to fight for the right to live free—or die in the process. And through a series of opportunities, circumstances, and luck, they would find the strength to develop the skills, abilities, and confidence to succeed socially, politically, and economically.

  For children born at this moment in American history, their future was being shaped by circumstances and forces beyond their control. For Isaac, the America of his ancesto
rs was dissolving, and the laws that proclaimed him the property of another were crumbling under the weight of revolution and rebellion. Men and women he did not know, but who would come to know him as an adult, were changing the world, inspired by thoughts of freedom. Isaac was a child of the great movement to lift the black masses from the “depths of slavery to the height of liberty and manhood.” The boy born in slavery in Clark County, Kentucky, would become one of the millions to benefit from the sacrifices of those who came before him and from the bravery of the black soldiers, including his father, who fought and died under the banner of freedom during the Civil War.37

  PART 2

  Rise

  3

  Seizing Freedom

  Almost immediately after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November 1860, the country split down the middle. Tensions had been building for nearly forty years, since the Missouri Compromise, and the Republican Party's platform of limiting the expansion of slavery into the Federal territories sent a shock wave through the United States. Historians may argue that the causes of the Civil War were multiple, yet all would agree that the linchpin was the issue of slavery.

  Other than the radical abolitionists who believed the institution was morally and religiously wrong, white Americans in the North, South, and West became agitated over the possibility of a change in the status quo if the position of the lowly Negro was elevated. In the North, nativists and Irish immigrants railed against the thought of blacks gaining access to the rights and privileges of citizenship, which would mean increased competition for jobs. In the South, advocates of the “Slave Power” chafed at the thought of their way of life being attacked. They believed in the much-debated notion that blacks were natural slaves and whites their natural masters, and each depended on the other for survival. In the West, advocates of popular sovereignty, which threatened the balance of power in the United States, sought to exclude any elevation of the Negro beyond his status as subordinate to the “white race.”1 What is more, immigrant and nativist whites did not want their future success and sense of entitlement to the land and its resources to be jeopardized by the Negro question: what to do with 4 million black people. Overall, a majority of whites wanted to maintain the racial hierarchy supported by the Constitution and reinforced by custom.

  Not surprisingly, African Americans saw things differently, especially black leaders who had committed their lives to fighting slavery. Prior to the beginning of the Civil War, black writers expressed the opinion that it was time for the “black man to learn to stand firmly upon his feet—his own feet” and pursue a greater degree of freedom beyond the control of white men and their traditions.2 In addition, radical abolitionists, antislavery organizations, and colonization societies challenged the validity of owning human beings, becoming more vocal in their efforts to destroy the “Southern way of life” while advancing a more just and respectable national character. Conversely, the Slave Power, with its Northern supporters and government constituents, decided that the institution was too important to lose, forcing the country into a transition that would intensify sectional tensions and ultimately lead to civil war.

  With the Compromise of 1850, which included a more stringent fugitive slave law, African Americans faced an avalanche of fierce refusals, all choreographed to “suppress and crush out” any “agitation for Liberty and human equality.”3 What seemed to be an attempt to defend the rights of slaveholders became a siren call for those who were paying close attention to the unfolding political contest. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 eroded what little stability African Americans had gained over time. From this defensive position, black leaders launched an assault on the institution of slavery, challenging their community to be brave and to speak the truth.

  Under the protection of the Fugitive Slave Act, slave catchers, bounty hunters, and “nigger stealers” roamed the streets of Northern cities in search of runaways to return to their masters. Freeborn or manumitted African Americans living in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or Cincinnati had no defense against accusations that they were runaway slaves, and agents sometimes stole them from their homes in pursuit of the rewards for recovering human chattel. On occasion, free black men would be kidnapped and sold into the cotton fields of the Deep South, never to be heard from again. Cavalier attempts to remove former slaves from the comfort of their homes in the urban North sometimes resulted in violent confrontations between former masters or bounty hunters and members of the black community seeking to protect their own. Moreover, under the law, whites as well as African Americans were required to assist in the capture of blacks accused of being a runaways. In effect, the law entitled the Slave Power to reach beyond its borders and into the lives of those who wanted no part of slavery. To avoid being caught and returned to the South, runaways used the Underground Railroad to get as far north as they could travel.4 From 1850 to 1860, thousands of former slaves made their way to Canada, where they came under the protection of the British government, and set up communities in cities such as Windsor, Montreal, and Toronto.

  The Fugitive Slave Act forced African Americans to defend their natural right to be recognized as human beings and to resist at all costs the doctrine that guaranteed their perpetual servitude. When former slave William Parker of Christiana, Pennsylvania, gave shelter to a fugitive slave owned by Edward Gorsuch of Maryland, bloodshed ensued. Gorsuch and his men asked Parker to submit to a search of his premises, and when Parker refused, the slave hunters began firing on the residence. Parker and his men defended themselves, and the exchange left Gorsuch dead and his son wounded. Parker was hurried out of the county to Canada, where he found refuge and protection under the British flag. The other men involved were indicted for treason against the United States.5

  The September 18, 1851, issue of the National Anti-Slavery Standard carried a commentary on the bloody confrontation: “Love of liberty is no less powerful in men whose skins are black than in those of light complexions, it need surprise nobody that in the game of slave-hunting…it should sometimes happen that the hunted become the mark for bullets, and the law of self-preservation, and not the Fugitive Slave Law, be obeyed and triumph.” Parker, who had defended his right to freedom, was lionized by Frederick Douglass, who wrote: “Parker and his noble band of fifteen at Christiana, who defended themselves from the kidnappers with prayers and pistols, are entitled to the honor of making the first successful resistance to the Fugitive Slave Bill.”6

  Parker's resistance was just one of many examples of how blacks, abolitionists, and antislavery advocates responded when the evils of slavery threatened to expand beyond the geographic boundaries of the South. Northern whites generally did not care for the Negro, but they regarded the “slave hunters searching for human prey in northern neighborhoods” as opportunistic man stealers and kidnappers.7 Being forced, under the law, to assist slave hunters and law enforcement officials in their pursuit of so-called runaways may have been responsible for engendering antislavery sentiments among many private citizens in the Northeast.

  Perhaps the most significant development during this tumultuous period was the action taken by Dred Scott, an enslaved servant of U.S. Army physician John Emerson. Since 1833, Scott had accompanied Emerson in his travels across the country into the free states and throughout the free territories. After Emerson's death in 1843, his widow hired out Scott and his wife to work for different families in the St. Louis area. In 1847 Scott sued Mrs. Emerson for his and his wife's freedom, stating that Dr. Emerson's frequent moves between posts in the free North and the slave South had, in fact, emancipated Scott and his family. Scott won an early decision in 1850 in the St. Louis Circuit Court but then suffered a defeat in the Missouri Supreme Court. At that point, Emerson's widow turned over her legal affairs to her brother, John Sandford, who continued to fight to restore her property. The 1854 reversal of the Missouri Supreme Court's ruling gave Scott grounds to petition to have his case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. The mere fact that Scott was able to
challenge his assumed status as a slave and a noncitizen in court was a moral victory for African Americans who were watching the drama unfold.

  In 1856 the Supreme Court heard the arguments of Dred Scott and John Sandford. The decision handed down by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney confirmed to whites that the inferior status of black men in America would be perpetuated forever. Taney advanced the argument that slavery was secure “wherever the Constitution of the United States extends” and that Congress lacked the power to prohibit the institution's natural growth and expansion.8 Furthermore, with regard to Scott specifically, Taney's interpretation of the Constitution was clear: “colored persons of African descent have no rights that white men are bound to respect,” and “colored [men] of African descent are not and cannot be citizens of the United States.”9 In other words, black men—whether enslaved or free—would never achieve equality with whites. African Americans could not—or, rather, they should not—expect any help from U.S. law, which was intended to protect citizens, not the property of citizens. Blacks in America were at the mercy of the white majority.

  By 1858, with Abraham Lincoln as its primary spokesman, the newly formed Republican Party gained momentum for its direct challenge to the Southern Democrats' stronghold on national politics. In a series of debates with incumbent senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Lincoln was successful in restructuring the issue of slavery. Douglas, the principal framer of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and initiated the bloody fight over Kansas by pro- and antislavery factions, was popular with Southerners. In his final debate with Douglas on October 15, 1858, in the town of Alton, Illinois, Lincoln professed that the “real issue in this controversy” was that “one class…looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and…another class…does not look upon it as a wrong.” In a sympathetic plea to men of common means and simple ambitions, Lincoln argued, “What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except the institution of slavery?”10 In the end, Lincoln lost the Senate race to Douglas, but two years later, Lincoln and the Republican Party's antislavery position won the presidency of the United States.