Black Master, White Slave

by duBois-Guilbert, Rebecca

  Black Master, White Slave

  by

  Rebecca duBois-Guilbert

  In the South of the 1820s it was unusual for a free black man to be a slaveholder. It was scandalous for a black man to buy a white slave, especially one that was a woman. Josiah Cavanaugh didn’t care. Once he saw the red-haired Irish girl on the slave block – the girl who so resembled the woman who had seduced and humiliated him – he had to own her. Then perhaps he could exorcize his demons and get the sexual revenge he had longed for.

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  Except for actual figures of history, all the characters

  portrayed in this story are fictitious and products solely

  of the author’s imagination.

  Copyright 2014 by Rebecca duBois-Guilbert

  Venusberg Books

  Cover Design by Melody Simmons of eBookindiecovers

  Chapter One

  “I will have her.”

  A ripple of comment flowed around the slave auction room, moving from man to man like a breeze. In this year of 1820 it was unusual but not unheard of for a free black to buy slaves, even such a dandified creature as Josiah Cavanaugh with his black suit and starched white linen, but for him to buy a white Irish girl was incredible.

  “Do you not think…” began Elias Lapotiere, one of Charleston’s leading citizens.

  Cavanaugh shook his great, dark head, his expression stony. “She is for sale. I have the gold. I will have her.”

  The broker, accustomed to privately selling off a few of the choicer bits to his favored customers for a premium, mentally added fifty, then a hundred percent more to the girl’s price. Pity there was no other white girl in his cargo this trip, or he could really have made some money.

  But what a girl she appeared, even under a crust of several weeks’ dirt! Pure Irish, he’d swear, with a milky complexion and a great tousle of bright red hair barely hidden by her grubby mobcap. Beneath her thin dress she had a figure, too, with a trim waist and two firm breasts that strained at the fabric until it seemed her nipples might push through the faded old material. At the start of the voyage she’d been red from the hot sun of the Caribees, but the weeks in the dark hold had whitened her skin. He’d considered taking her for himself, but the potential of profit held too great a lure.

  He named a price probably ten times the worth of any slave in this shipment. It seemed every man in the room held his breath, mentally calculating if he could afford the girl should Cavanaugh decry.

  Josiah Cavanaugh’s hard expression did not change. He merely nodded, saying, “Send the reckoning to my man of business and attach the girl to my coffle. My seneschal will come collect them.” Then he turned and left the bleak room without a glance for the girl or for anyone else.

  * * * * *

  In her life Pegeen had seen a lot of things, but none stranger than the idea of a Negro buying her. She had been sold before, of course, several times, ever since she and her mother had been swept from Ireland in the poverty clearances and transported to the Caribees.

  What would he want from her?

  As if she couldn’t guess.

  The other slaves he had bought had all been field hands, uneducated and mostly stupid, fit only for outside labor. The man who had taken charge of the coffle from the broker had been at least partially colored, though his skin was markedly lighter than his master’s. Late in the afternoon the coffle had dog-trotted through the streets of Charleston – a city finer than any she had ever seen in the islands. Pegeen had been grateful they had only been roped together by their tied hands; being cuffed by the neck was both painful and dangerous. If one slave fell, all fell, and there was a very real chance of a broken neck.

  They had been brought to a great house on the edge of town, solidly made of brick and stone and for some reason reminding her of the houses in Ireland that she could barely remember. A barn-like structure stood in the back as they were led to, untied, and allowed to stretch out on the clean straw. After incarceration in the cramped hold and the scarcely larger auction room to be able to lie completely down without touching another body was the purest luxury.

  “The carriage house doors are locked,” the colored man said in a dryly precise, but carrying voice that was neither kind nor unkind. “You cannot escape, and you do not want to. Mr. Cavanaugh is a good master and will treat you well if you work well. If you misbehave, you will be punished. If you misbehave a second time, you will be sold to someone who is not a good master, so do what you are told and do it well.

  “I am William, Mr. Cavanaugh’s seneschal. That means I am second in command to him and you are to obey me as you would him. Tomorrow you will be taken to Mr. Cavanaugh’s plantation and given work. There will be good food and clothing and a good life. Now you will eat and then you will rest.”

  One of the doors opened and in marched two smart-looking men, one carrying a tray of bowls and the other a large steaming stewpot. William announced they were the sub-overseers who would take command of the new slaves until they reached Highgate.

  Sub-overseers seemed a grand title to Pegeen for two young men who carried food and dishes, but they seemed to know their job. They put both on the floor and stepped back, their dark faces as blank as statues. Behind them came a wizened old woman, so black and hunched that for a moment Pegeen remembered the tales her mother had told of the Little People in Ireland, the dark, savage ones who lived under the earth and resented those who lived in the sun.

  “You,” said William, pointing to Pegeen, “are to go to the house.”

  So, Pegeen thought, I am to be a house slave instead of a field hand. That could be both good and bad.

  She rose obediently, but the old woman shook her head. “Let her eat first.”

  The seneschal shook his head. “The master said…”

  “Massa won’t want her dropping dead on him,” the old woman snapped with the freedom of the very old. “Look at the scrawny thing! There’s not a smidgen of meat on her bones. Let her eat a bowl of soup first.”

  After a moment’s serious consideration William nodded and Pegeen received the first bowl. After the thin gruel that was all there had been on the slave ship it was heavenly; it might be the best stuff she could remember eating in her life. Redolent with shrimp, rice, tomatoes, and other things she didn’t recognize, it smelled as good as anything she had ever seen on any of her masters’ tables.

  The old woman let her gulp down two bowls, then pointed toward the door. “Now,” she said, “get on with you. Massa’s waiting.”

  * * * * *

  Pegeen knew that a slave should keep his head down and do nothing to draw attention to himself, but she couldn’t help looking around and then exclaiming in pleasure. The room was so beautiful it might have come from Heaven itself. Done in yellow, white, and gold, it was prettier than anything she had ever seen in the islands.

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nbsp; “I am glad you approve,” said Josiah Cavanaugh in a stern voice.

  Immediately, she dropped her gaze and stood still, intently studying the carpet. She didn’t need to look at him to be amazed all over again.

  Where she had come from the slaves had been white and black and a few brown, but without exception the masters had all been white. For a black man to own slaves was something totally outside her imagination, but apparently this man did.

  At the slave broker’s she had studied him covertly. Dark, with hair cropped so close it couldn’t kink, he was muscular and well built and dressed as nicely as any white man she had ever seen. His face was handsome but hard, as if he never smiled, nor spoke more than he had to.

  He circled her slowly and though she saw nothing but the carpet at her feet, she could feel his gaze going over her like the hot winds of an island summer.

  “Take off your dress.”

  Pegeen looked up, shocked. “In your drawing room?”

  The hard face became harder and his words were like small stones. “You are a slave. I bought you. I own you. If you do not please me I can take you to bed, whip you, brand you, even kill you and no one will say a word because you are my property. Do you understand?”

  Recklessly Pegeen looked him in the eye. His eyes were large and black, with slightly yellowish whites, like they were reflecting a spring sun. They were also hard and completely devoid of human emotion.

  “I have been a slave since I was five years old,” she replied in level tones. “I have been sold half a dozen times. I was ten when I was sold away from my mother, and I have no idea if she still lives or not. I know what owners can do to slaves.”

  “Then take off your dress!”

  Wordlessly Pegeen lifted the faded old dress over her head and let it drop. She had nothing on underneath. Underthings were for ladies. It was stupid, but she had to restrain herself from covering herself with her hands. Her new master exuded a maleness that no other man she had known did and it evoked in her an unknown response. In spite of herself she wondered what he looked like without his clothes and a small worm of feeling stirred in her belly and began to tingle in her nipples.

  Fool! she thought viciously. She could smell herself, stale and rank and foul; there had been no bathing facilities on the slaver. The milky whiteness of her skin was marred with smears of dirt and other things. No one could find her attractive.

  “Your cap, too.”

  She did not question his command, but yanked off the filthy mobcap. When released her hair fell in greasy locks past her shoulders. It smelled, too.

  “You stink. How long has it been since you had a bath?”

  “Since before I was sold.”

  He circled her again, this time more slowly, then stopped and pointed at the faint silvery markings on her belly. “A child?”

  Pegeen nodded, a shaft of grief mixed with relief piercing her again. “Yes. Born too early to live,” she said. She thought, Thank God.

  “So you are no virgin.”

  A bubble of bitter laughter seeped from between her lips. “I told you I have been a slave since I was five.”

  “You know how to please a man?”

  “I suppose. I know how to let a man use me to please himself.”

  The answer, honest though it was, did not please this strange new master. He frowned, the expression driving whatever humanity had been there from his face. For a moment Pegeen thought he might strike her, but then realized he hardly knew she was there.

  “You will learn,” he muttered, then shouted, “Ellen!”

  The aged crone scuttled into the room. If she thought anything unusual about a filthy, smelly white woman standing naked in the parlor on a late summer afternoon, it did not show on her face. She merely scooped up Pegeen’s discarded dress and cap like ordinary litter.

  “Take her up and bathe her. Bathe her well. I will send for her when I want her.”

  Astonished at being expected to walk naked through such a magnificent house, Pegeen followed the old woman upstairs.

  Chapter Two

  It was three days before her new owner sent for her. In the meantime Pegeen lived a life of unknown luxury. In a tiny room under the roof she slept as long as she wanted in a bed – a real bed, like the masters slept in! – with clean sheets, and she ate lots of good, if somewhat strange tasting, food. She bathed every day, sometimes twice, sitting in the tub of hot water in the kitchen until it grew cool. Sometimes it seemed she would never get the stink of the slave ship out of her skin and hair, but eventually the delicate lemon-scented soap peeled away the weeks of dirt and Pegeen at last began to feel clean again.

  There were even clothes for her. They had arrived the afternoon she had come to the house. They were simple, just short sleeved, high-waisted day frocks of plain muslin unadorned by ribbons or embroidery, but they were finer than any slave should expect.

  Maybe things are different for house servants up here, Pegeen thought, pulling her hair back under a cap. Once clean her hair had become a silky fall of brilliant red, the same blazing red one sometimes saw in a sunset before a spell of particularly fine weather.

  On the third afternoon he sent for her, this time to a small sitting room on the second floor of the house. It was done in greens and golds and totally different than the big drawing room, though just as beautiful.

  Clad in simple breeches and a shirt, Josiah Cavanaugh sat behind a spindly desk made of a strange striped wood, a pile of papers in front of him. The darkness of his skin looked oddly at variance with the elegance of the room. He looked up and in spite of his iron control, blinked in surprise.

  “Take off your cap.”

  Immediately Pegeen pulled away the muslin cap, allowing her hair to flow over her shoulder like a tide of sunlit blood.

  “Turn around,” he ordered. When she had completed a slow circuit he nodded. “You clean up well, girl.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now take off your dress.”

  Obediently Pegeen lifted the airy muslin over her head and dropped it on the floor. In the sunlight spilling through the window her skin glowed like new ivory.

  “Come here.”

  Pegeen walked until she was but a yard away. He shook his head and indicated a spot between his splayed knees. She knew then for sure what she had suspected since arriving. She stepped forward, an odd blend of fear and anticipation and distaste swirling in the pit of her stomach. It was to be expected that a female slave would have to submit to the sexual desires of her owner. A slave like Pegeen just got more of it.

  “Do you like lying with men?” Josiah asked in a queer voice. His eyes were inspecting every inch of her, but though Pegeen could feel the warmth of his breath on her bare skin, he made no move to touch her.

  No one had ever asked her such a question. Who cared what a slave liked or disliked? She looked down at her bare toes. Like most house slaves, she wore no shoes.

  “I like pleasing my master.”

  “A standard answer,” Josiah replied with a trace of disgust. “Have you ever lain with a black man?”

  Memory surged in Pegeen’s mind and she hardened her face to keep from crying out. Josiah saw the look and asked again, this time in a voice that demanded an answer.

  “Not really. At Three Arches Big Walt tried to.”

  “Big Walt?”

  “He was head of the gang that cut the cane. Biggest buck on the plantation.”

  “And did he succeed?”

  Pegeen shook her head. “He grabbed me from the yard and carried me out behind the sugar shed. Tore my dress right off me. He did that with all the slave girls – when he wanted one, he just grabbed her and took her. No one dared stop him.”

  “But not you.”

  “He was trying. I was fighting and wiggling – he was a rough man, liked to hit the girls while he was… was…” Pegeen took a deep breath. “Massa Higgins heard my screams and came running with the cane crew. Took three big men to pull Big Walt off me
.”

  When she was silent a while, Jason asked, “What happened then?”

  “They took me back to the house. I heard later that Massa Higgins told all the men that any darkie who touched me would get what Big Walt got.”

  “And what did Big Walt get?”

  Pegeen’s stomach knotted with memory. “Massa Higgins had him whipped. Took four men two days, but they whipped him until he died.”

  “Sounds like your Master Higgins thought a lot of you.”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “So why did he sell you?” Idly, Josiah drew a fingertip from the valley between her full, proud breasts down to the small dimple that was her navel.

  “He got married. A rich man’s daughter. He had to get me off the place before she came.”

  “So you ended up on the slave ship.” The finger descended over the slight swell of her belly and gently drew a triangle around the coppery curls of her sex.

  “Yes.”

  His fingertip spread into his whole hand as he slid back up her stomach and then around to cup the globes of her behind. Abruptly he pushed her back and stood; a scant number of inches separated them.

  “Undress me.”

  Obediently, Pegeen tugged his shirt from his trousers and lifted it off over his head. He raised his arms without prompting, but did not help her in any other way. He towered over her; she couldn’t help brushing against his skin and surprised it felt so satiny. She hadn’t had call to touch many of the bucks in the islands, but when she had their skin was dried and leathery from the sun.

  Her new master was very solid, muscular and almost totally hairless, something she wasn’t used to. Only a few kinky curls of hair sprouted around his nipples. The skin on his chest was as dark as the skin on his face, and so black it seemed to absorb the light.

  One thing made her gasp, one thing about him similar to the black slaves she had known in the islands; a silvery gray webwork of scars covered Josiah Cavanaugh’s shoulders like a lacy shawl. Pegeen could not stifle a gasp.