by Wayne Grady
“Mr. Parker,” Judge Amery said when he’d settled on the bench. Parker was still shuffling through his papers, looking as though he’d lost the first page. “Mr. Parker,” the judge said again.
“Yes, Your Honor?”
“Are you ready to grace us with your opening remarks?”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Excellent. Pray proceed.”
More shuffling and Parker put down the papers and stood up. Moody tried to read the expression on Judge Amery’s face. It looked interested and disinterested at the same time, like a portrait of a face.
“Your Honor,” Parker said, “Mr. Fritts here thinks it’s all right to quote to us from scientific books written half a century ago, before we had railroads and telegraph poles, and scientists thought tuberculosis could be cured with tobacco smoke. But I would draw the court’s attention to something written a little more recently and perhaps with more relevance. It’s an interesting paradox observed by Alexis de Tocqueville some fifteen years ago, in his book Democracy in America. ‘Race prejudice,’ he wrote, ‘seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those where it was never known.’
“Everything Mr. Fritts said earlier is race prejudice, not law,” Parker continued, “and certainly not science. He says he’s a foolish, sentimental old man, and I am inclined to disagree with him. It’s his attitude that is old, not he. And I don’t know if he is sentimental, maybe he is, but there is little of sentimentality in his referring to my clients as ‘animals.’ However, we are not here to explore the depths of Mr. Fritts’s heart, we are here to determine to what extent, if any, my clients have broken a law of the state of Indiana—which laws, as we know, are being amended at this moment at the convention taking place across the commons from this courtroom. We can assume, I think, that the stricture against fornication will remain in the new Constitution as it was in the old. So we may proceed. I am not, however, going to have the temerity to instruct Your Honor in your duty or remind Your Honor of what your responsibilities are, as my colleague has spent the morning doing.”
“Thank you for that, Mr. Parker,” said Judge Amery.
“What I will say, though, is that the entirety of Mr. Fritts’s opening remarks were predicated upon one assumption—that one of my clients here is white and the other is black—and it is my duty to point out that we cannot make that assumption. That’s why we’re here, to find out whether that’s the case, and I am not for one minute going to allow Mr. Fritts to proceed as if what we are here to prove has already been proved, to skip over the crime and just get on with the sentencing. To assume such a thing is to make a mockery of the whole judicial system, and I would not presume to insult this court by agreeing to go along with it.”
Parker paused and looked at his notes, as though trying to think what to say next.
“Mr. Fritts mentioned compassion, Your Honor. I think that’s a fine concept, compassion. For does the Bible not tell us that the Lord is filled with compassion and mercy, long suffering, and very pitiful, and forgiveth sins, and saveth in times of affliction? I believe it does. And does it not also say that whosoever hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? Now, I don’t suppose Mr. Fritts would have us shut up the bowels of our compassion from these two people in need, would you, Mr. Fritts?”
Parker had the room’s full attention now. Moody thought he must have listened to Brother Joshua more carefully than had been apparent during the break.
“Mr. Fritts also brought in the specter of science, and read to us some of the scientific pronouncements so dear to those Southern slaveholders in places like Charleston, because they suggest that chaining up Africans and forcing them to pick our cotton and our rice and our tobacco for us is no more a crime against humanity than is the yoking of oxen to the plow or horses to the wagon. Virginians talk like Frenchmen about freedom and equality because they have known for centuries that the poor are not going to rise up in a mob and want some of it for themselves. Mr. Fritts might be considered a compassionate man in Charleston, but the state of Indiana rejected slavery in its Constitution of 1816 as an abominable institution, and most of us who came here from the Southern states, whites and blacks alike, did so because we were sick of it, sickened by it. We didn’t have a trainload of scientists come here to tell us that it was all right to treat human beings like animals. We didn’t need them in Charleston, either, come to that, because the people down in Virginia and Georgia and the Carolinas have been treating human beings like animals for two hundred years without the blessings of science to help them sleep better at night. I guess they invented bourbon for that.
“But if we ever did bring a scientist to Indiana to advise us on our proper attitude toward our fellow men, I would rather it not be a bigot like Louis Agassiz, who made his reputation by studying fish, as I recall, not human beings. Louis Agassiz, who would not eat food brought to him by a negro servant, or sleep in a bed made up for him by a negro maid, or allow a negro manservant help him on with his coat. I would rather it were someone like Johann Blumenbach, the man who founded the science of anthropology to which Mr. Agassiz is but an untrained and opportunistic Johnny-come-lately. Blumenbach was the first scientist to measure human skull sizes and divide all of humanity into the five distinct races we recognize today, based on the size of their heads, the texture of their hair and the color of their skin. The one thing he ever maintained, however, was that the differences he recorded among the various races of man were not differences of quality, nor degree of worth or value, but simple anatomical distinctions. To him, as a scientist, the difference between a black man and a white man is no more significant than the difference between a black horse and a white one. They might look different, but they belong to the same species, and when interbred they produce viable offspring that are also of the same species. I would ask Mr. Fritts, when a white slave breeder sires a child on one of his female slaves, does he believe he has produced a child of a different species from his own? Our minds are not equipped to think that he does.
“Blumenbach hated to see his science used by priests, politicians and lawyers to justify slavery. What he said was this, and I’m quoting from memory here so I beg the court’s indulgence, he said: ‘The assertion is made about the Ethiopians that they come nearer to apes than other men, but if so it is in the same way that the solid-hoofed variety of the domestic sow may be said to come nearer the horse than other sows.’ He did not say that one sow was better than another, or that soft-footed sows should enslave solid-hoofed sows, only that the two kinds differed in the structure of their feet.
“Blumenbach also said something else that I find relevant here. He marveled at ‘the good disposition of those of our black brethren,’ and maintained that in their ‘natural tenderness of heart, they can scarcely be considered inferior to any other race of mankind. I say that quite deliberately,’ he went on, perhaps anticipating that men like Mr. Fritts here would need convincing, ‘their natural tenderness of heart, which has never been benumbed or extirpated on board the transport vessels or on the sugar plantations by the brutality of their white executioners.’ Mr. Blumenbach, Your Honor, was a truly compassionate man.
“But, as I said, Your Honor, we do not need to debate the justness or unjustness of slavery. The state of Indiana held that debate in 1816, and is debating it again across the street, and it decided then and will decide again this week that slavery is unjust and inhumane. We are here to decide whether Leason and Sarah have broken the law, and that’s where I intend to direct our attention, not to deflect that attention into areas that are inconsequent to it. I intend to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have not broken any law of the state, and I will end my opening statement at this point so as not to take up more of the court’s time than necessary.”
Parker sat down. There was silence i
n the courtroom, broken only by the creaking of a chair or the shuffle of shoe leather on the hardwood floor. Judge Amery let the silence hang in the air for a while, then cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, “now that we have heard from the Indianapolis Debating Society, perhaps we can get on with the actual trial. Mr. Fritts, are you ready to call your first witness?”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Good.”
“The State calls Isaac Handy as its first witness.”
Isaac Handy was a tall, bony man who’d been sitting at the front of the courtroom looking nervous, even from behind. Moody had never seen him before. His ears twitched as he made his way to the chair beside the judge’s bench. When he was seated, Fritts asked him to state his name and swear to tell the truth. He cleared his throat twice before finding his voice, and then his Adam’s apple looked like he’d swallowed a bobber and there was a small fish nibbling at it. Fritts asked him what his occupation was.
“I’m a farmer.”
“And what were you on the nineteenth of April, 1850?”
“Well, I was a farmer and a numerator.”
“That would be for the census, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And did you enumerate the township of Owen County in which the defendants reside?”
“Yes, I did. Them and others.”
Lawyer Fritts passed Handy a large book opened to a page close to the middle, and asked him to “peruse what is inscribed thereupon.” Handy glanced at him. “Read what’s written on it.”
“Out loud?”
“Yes, if you would be so kind.”
“The whole page?”
“Just what you wrote there for the Lewis family, domiciled at Freedom, if you please, Mr. Handy.”
“You mean the one for Virgil Moody?”
“Start with that one, yes.”
“Ah, let’s see. ‘Resident, Virgil Moody, age fifty, boatman. Thomasina Lewis, forty-seven, housekeeper. Children, Granville, seventeen, Sabetha, fifteen.’ ”
Heads turned to take in Moody and Tamsey. Handy had made it sound as though Granville and Sabetha were Moody’s children with Tamsey. Parker didn’t look up from his papers.
“And the next entry?”
“You mean for Randolph Stokes?”
“I do.”
“Resident, Randolph Stokes, age seventy, farmer. Leason Lewis, age thirty, boatman. Sarah Lewis, age twenty-nine, housekeeper.”
“Let the court record show that the space for ‘Color’ after Leason Lewis’s name has an M in it, and that the space after Sarah Lewis’s name has been left blank. What does that M signify, Mr. Handy?”
“That’s M for mulatto.”
“And the blank space for Sarah Lewis?”
“Well, it means she’s white.”
“Blank means white?”
“We’re supposed to put a W for white,” said Handy, “but most everybody in the county’s white, so if they’s white we just leave it blank. We only fill it in if the person is black or mulatto.”
“I see. So, to be clear, the M after Leason Lewis’s name means he’s mulatto.”
“That’s right.”
“And his wife, Sarah, is white.”
“That’s what it says.”
“Thank you, sir. Your witness, Mr. Parker.”
Parker stood up and smiled at the witness.
“How did you determine whether to put Sarah down as a blank, Mr. Handy? Did she tell you she was white?”
“No, sir. She weren’t at home. There weren’t no one home at the Stokes place.”
“No one home?”
“Nope. Place was empty as a church on Tuesday.”
“So how did you determine what to put in those little boxes?”
“I proceeded to the next closest place down the road and numerated them, and they told me about the Lewises. That’s what we was supposed to do.”
There was a long pause while Parker allowed that to sink in. “Do you mean to say,” he said, “that your assessment of the color of the defendants’ skin was based entirely on the say-so of a neighbor?”
“That’s what the law says. If a person ain’t a-home, I’m to get the information from the next closest neighbor.”
“So did you then go back to Virgil Moody’s cabin and get the information from Virgil Moody, or from the other members of the Lewis family who were in residence there?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“Why didn’t you? The Moody residence is closest to the Lewis residence. You can almost see the Moody cabin from Randolph Stokes’s front porch.”
“That’s right, it’s the closest. But the law says I go to the next closest, not the last closest, and the next closest was the Putnam farm, so that’s where I went.”
“But the Putnam farm is half a mile from Stokes’s cabin.”
“ ’Bout that. I didn’t pace it off.”
Parker sat down and stared at Handy. Judge Amery appeared to be busy looking out one of the side windows.
“Mr. Handy,” Parker said at length. “Do you realize that if you had gone back to the Moody residence, as the law clearly intended you to do, we wouldn’t be here in this courtroom today?”
“I done what the law intended,” Handy said.
“Your Honor, I move that this case be thrown out on the grounds that the charge against my clients is based solely on hearsay evidence.”
“Now, just hold your horses, Mr. Parker, if you please,” said Judge Amery. “Like I said, this is a preliminary hearing for a misdemeanor. We got a whole lot of evidence to get through here, and if some of it’s hearsay we can throw it out after we hear it.”
“But hearsay is inadmissible, Your Honor. Once we hear it—”
“What is inadmissible, Mr. Parker, is that you go on objecting after I’ve made my ruling.”
“Your Honor,” said Mr. Fritts, rising from his chair like Satan rising to rescue St. Michael, “I am confident that my learned colleague’s reservations will be answered by my next two witnesses. If we may proceed…”
“Are you done with this witness, Mr. Parker?”
“I guess so.”
“Then let’s get on with it. Mr. Fritts, if you please.”
“Thank you. The State calls Mrs. Etta Pickering.”
Etta Pickering was dressed like a planter’s wife, as if she had a garden party to go to after the trial. Despite the fall weather, she was wearing a large, lacy dress and a pink sun hat pinned to her hair, and was carrying a fan. The hat made her appear younger, but she still looked to Moody like a chicken that had just caught sight of a worm.
“Mrs. Pickering,” Fritts said when she was in the witness chair and had taken her oath, “you own the dress shop on Main Street, do you not?”
“I do. It’s called Mrs. Pickering’s Ladies’ Finery and Emporium. We sell—”
“Yes, thank you. Did Sarah Lewis enter your shop on July 9 of this year and apply for a job there?”
“She did.”
“What did she tell you on that occasion?”
“She told me she was living in Freedom with her husband but they were planning to move into Spencer, Freedom being too much of a constriction for her, she said, whatever that means. She said that when she moved into Spencer she would like to work, and so she was applying for the position of saleslady, as for which I had advertised in the window.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her she could apply, and that I would let her know when I had made up my mind.”
“And did she apply?”
“Indeed she did. She wrote her letter of application right there in the shop. I told her there were certain things I needed to know, such as her age and where she lived. And her nationality.”
“And what did she put down?”
“She wrote that she was twenty-two years old, that she lived in Freedom, Indiana, and that she was white.”
“But did you ask her to write down her color?”
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“No, she wrote ‘Nationality: United States.’ ”
“Not ‘white’?”
“It’s the same thing. You can’t be American if you ain’t white.”
“Now, Mrs. Pickering, would you be good enough to tell us what happened after this.”
“You mean when her husband came in?”
“I mean when Mr. Virgil Moody and Leason Lewis came into your shop.”
“They came in to buy some silk handkerchiefs.”
“When was this?”
“A week or so later, I don’t recall exactly.”
“Did they mention Sarah?”
“Yes, they said they were buying the handkerchiefs for Sarah Lewis. I asked Mr. Moody if he was related to Sarah Lewis, and received the shock of my life, the shock of my life, Mr. Fritts, when Mr. Moody’s negro servant spoke to me without first having been spoken to, or acknowledged in any manner whatsoever, and contributed the unsought and I must say unwelcome information that the said Sarah Lewis was his wife.”
“And do you see said negro servant in this courtroom today, Mrs. Pickering?”
“Of course I do. That’s him sitting right there beside Mr. Parker.”
“That would be Leason Lewis?”
“That’s who he said he was, yes.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pickering. I believe Mr. Parker may have some questions for you.”
Parker didn’t bother to stand or even look up at the witness stand.
“Mrs. Pickering, if I told you I was an ourang-outang, what would you say?”
“I would say that you were either a madman or a fool.”
“Oh? You wouldn’t go to your husband and tell him I was an ourang-outang?”