My Name is Henry Bibb

by Afua Cooper

“Massa does not want you in the field.”

  “Why?”

  “You are too white. It would not be right.” There it was again. My complexion. “Captain Barker says that tomorrow you must go to the house to begin training as a houseboy, a sort of butler. Massa David is bringing home his new wife.”

  My master was away most of the time and had never needed a butler. Now he needed one, for when there is a mistress, a house must take on a more genteel tone.

  “Will massa’s new wife be mean or nice?”

  “Only time will tell,” my mother said. “At least Harriet will finally have a mother.”

  I had forgotten all about Harriet since she had been sent to her fancy academy in Louisville. Would she be happy about the arrival of a stepmother?

  T

  The following morning when I entered the kitchen I saw Elliot, the butler from Widow Beverly’s estate. My face must have reflected my horror because Elliot laughed and said, “Don’t worry, Henry, you are not coming back with me to the widow. I am here to train you.” And he added the now familiar refrain: “My, how you have grown.” It was true. I was almost as tall as he was, and he stood over six feet.

  Elliot first taught me how to answer the door. White folks enter through the front door; Blacks and slaves go to the back or the kitchen. I must always bow to Whites and keep my eyes lowered. I must say, “yessuh” or “no, suh,” or “yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am.” I must always be polite. Next, he taught me how to polish the silver and set the table, to help serve the food and to anticipate the every need of my master and mistress. He also showed me how to be close at hand but not there at all. “When you are with them, as they eat, drink, talk, shave, you must be visible to attend to them, but you must be invisible at the same time. They must never feel that you are intruding.

  “If you are angry with them, you must never show it. Smile, even at things you do not find amusing. You understand, Henry?” I nodded. “Whites do not like you thinking about them … watching them closely. You must be their shadow, but they must never know.”

  I was thirteen years old. This sounded insane. How can I be visible and invisible at the same time? Slavery had turned the world upside down.

  My training lasted the whole day, and in the evening Elliot rode off. Having his own horse was one of the advantages of being a trusted house servant of Widow Beverly.

  And so my new life as a houseboy-butler started. I worked under the same roof as my mother, and that gave me great satisfaction. My brothers George and John had been apprenticed to Shadrach and were learning his trade. Only the baby, Lewis, remained carefree.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Our New Mistress

  At the beginning of May, two weeks after I began as houseboy, David White returned home with his new bride. Her name was Phoebe. The day she was to arrive, all the slave people lined up in a row at the bottom of the veranda steps to receive her. We all wore our cleanest and best clothes. Because I was the houseboy I stood at the top of the stairs with a fan in my hand for her, though it was not hot. Everyone was curious.

  “Wonder what kind of woman Mrs. White be like?”

  “Hope she is not a tyrant.”

  “Nothing worse than a mean missis.”

  “Maybe she can prevent Captain Barker from being so evil.”

  “I hear she is very young.”

  Some of us said nothing, masking our disquiet. We heard the neighing of the horses before the carriage crested the hill between David White’s plantation and the road. Soon the horses stamped into the yard and up to the house. My master alighted, his carrot-colored hair glistening in the sun. He walked around the carriage and opened the door. Mrs. White descended to earth. She was tall, almost as tall as her husband. She wore a sky-blue dress with a pearl-studded belt. Her hair, black as midnight, was piled high on top of her head.

  Our master and new mistress walked along the row of slave people, and we all chanted “morning, Missis,” “welcome, Missis,” over and over. But she kept her head high, and looked straight ahead, as if we were invisible. She climbed the steps and reached the porch, where I stood at attention. “Morning, Missis. Welcome, Missis,” I intoned.

  She looked at me and her eyes came to life. “Well, wonders never cease,” she said. Then she walked toward the front door with her husband. My mother held it open for her to enter her new home. “Morning, Missis. Welcome, Missis.”

  T

  The very day that Phoebe White landed at David White’s plantation she took a dislike to me, my mother and my brothers. When John and George came bringing firewood to the kitchen, Phoebe happened to see them and asked who they were.

  “Milly’s sons,” Suzette told her.

  She flew into a rage. “Milly doesn’t own anyone or anything.”

  She asked the boys to come closer, observed them. John had the same pasty white skin as her husband, and the identical red hair. The resemblance was unmistakable. She told them to leave the house.

  After that, Mrs. White got upset every time she saw them, even from afar. She had banned them from entering the house, and turned her spite on me. I worked well to avoid criticism and punishment, but my work was never good enough for her. If someone knocked at the door more than twice, because I was not at the door right away, she would beat me with an old shoe. She had me polish the silver time after time even though everything sparkled. After my mother cleaned and polished the house, Mrs. White made me do it again. At nights, I was so tired that I wished never to wake up.

  I had to bring the tyrant her breakfast in bed. One morning, she declared the tea too cold and threw it in my face. It was not cold; it scalded my skin. She also turned her wrath on my poor mother, who lived in torment. Nothing my mother did was good enough, and our mistress took pleasure in humiliating her in front of our master.

  One evening, when master and mistress sat down to supper, mistress tasted a stew and declared that the meat was rotten. “How dare you think I would eat this?” she screamed at my mother. She then threw the bowl of food across the room. All my master did was to pat her hand and say, “Calm down, my dear. Milly will make something else.”

  Finally, things came to a boil between them. Phoebe claimed that a piece of her jewelry was missing and accused my mother of stealing it. She threatened to have her arrested, even sold. David White promised to buy her an even bigger jewel, but she would not be placated. “I want you to send that nigger from the house. I cannot stand the sight of her. Put her in the field.”

  And so Phoebe got her revenge. David White sent my mother to the fields. However, though she was not used to that kind of work, she saw it as a blessing to be out of the way of both master and mistress.

  But Phoebe White was not yet satisfied. Next, she insisted her husband hire out my two brothers, his sons. And he did, to two farmers in LaGrange. Shadrach was upset because my brothers were making progress as apprentice smiths, and it broke my mother’s heart to see her children scattered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I Rebelled

  I became angry and rebellious in my heart. I detested both my master and mistress and White people in general for how they treated the slave people. The abuse we endured in the house and the ill-treatment Captain Barker meted out in the fields galled me. The injustice rankled, especially as I keenly missed my brothers and I saw my mother’s face lined with unhappiness.

  All that Elliot had taught me about not looking White people in the eye dissolved as my true condition dawned on me. I began to glower at both master and mistress with hatred in my eyes. When I took tea to my mistress and she said it was “too cold,” I would tell her it was not, because I had just seen Suzette pour the water from a kettle hanging over the kitchen fire. As for my master, I no longer polished his boots to shine. Sometimes I did not polish them at all. Though my mother told me to desist, I could no longer pretend that I did not feel what I was feeling. I co
uld no longer smile when I felt like crying.

  I got back at my owners the only way I could think of — by destroying their property. One day while it rained and thundered, and lightning streaked across the sky, I broke my mistress’s hand mirror. When she discovered it, she shrieked my name.

  “You broke this,” she said with confidence.

  “No, ma’am, I did not.”

  Right then, my master entered and saw the broken mirror. “The lightning did,” he said. “The large mirror in my study also broke, and I was there when it happened. A flash of lightning shattered the glass. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I was lucky that time. But even such a close call did not stop me. I cut up some of my master’s shirts, and once, as I walked down to the creek, I saw some bales of hay drying in the sun. Seeing no one, I pushed the hay into the water. Still I was not caught. At every opportunity, I did something that would displease my master and mistress. If Suzette was not in the kitchen, I’d eat from the plates and drink from the cups that my owners used. I dined with their knives and forks. As it was against custom for slave people to eat from the same dishes as their owners, I took great delight in doing so. Sometimes, when my master was away, I would go into his study and cut the pages of his books with a scissor. I cannot remember if I ever considered that my owners might find out what I was doing. I remember only that I wanted revenge and to fight against my powerlessness.

  So there I was one day, cutting up the pages of my master’s law books, when I sensed a presence behind me. I turned and beheld my master, staring at me with a look of utmost surprise on his face. He said nothing and quietly walked away. Still, I knew what was to come.

  I went and sat in one of the plush armchairs that graced the study. I felt no fear. Captain Barker arrived, dragged me from the room as if I was a sack of corn and took me to the whipping post. He stripped me down to my shirt. Some of the slave people had heard what had transpired, and they gathered to bear witness. The women began to cry even before the captain applied the lash.

  All my life, Captain Barker had been threatening to whip me. Now he had his opportunity, and I could see the glitter in his eyes.

  My master stood beside him. “Do not maim him, but make this an unforgettable moment,” my master said to the captain, and walked away.

  It was, indeed, unforgettable, indelibly marked in my mind and on my back. After the eighth lash, I fainted, but the captain gave me seven more. When Shadrach cut the ropes that bound me to the whipping post, my back was a torn and bleeding mass. But it was not resignation I felt, nor was it regret. I felt only rage and hatred.

  After my beating, I started running away again.

  My master’s shirt prompted my first flight. Mrs. White was giving a fund-raising party and her husband was to serve as master of ceremonies. He told me to take down his shirt for Suzette to iron, because it did not look pressed. I told him that I had seen Suzette iron the shirt the day before.

  “Are you being saucy, Henry?,” he shouted. I kept quiet because I knew his temper. “You have grown rude and insolent of late, and I will have none of it, you understand? Now take this shirt to Suzette for her to iron.”

  I don’t know what came over me, but I remained rooted to the spot, my body shaking. I looked at my master’s red face, and a rage came over me that I could not control. I shouted at him. “She ironed it already!”

  David White was so startled that he dropped the shirt onto the bed. He walked toward me menacingly. Before I knew it, he was boxing my face with such force that the teeth rattled in my head. Tears spilled from my eyes, but he continued hitting me.

  When I came to, in my mother’s cabin, she, Dinah and Shadrach were bending over me. They told me that Shadrach had come to the house to bring Suzette some new knives he had made, when he heard my screaming and my master’s shouting. He ran upstairs and pulled me from my master’s grip. “Looked like he was going to kill you, boy,” Shadrach said.

  My body healed, but my spirit did not. I became melancholy. I had no desire to remain in the land of the living. But my master was not going to let his investment go to waste. Not wanting me in the house, he decided to hire me out once more. I decided to run away instead.

  By this time I had some knowledge of the geography of my county. To get to the Ohio River I had to go through Oldham County, which bordered that river. I walked for a long time through the woods in the direction I perceived the Ohio to be, but I had not planned my escape properly: I had left with no food. I thought I could live off the land by eating berries, as I did when I used to run away from Widow Beverly. For three days I wandered, but there were no berries. I also lost my sense of direction, often coming back to the spot where I had started from. I became so hungry that I gnawed the tall grasses that grew wild. One afternoon, tired and hungry, I fell asleep on a grassy patch beside the river. I heard the bark of a dog in the distance, but I was too drowsy to rouse myself.

  I woke up with Boxer licking my face. Standing beside him was Shadrach. He looked at me, his face serious. “You hungry, Henry?” I nodded. He sat on the ground and unwrapped a corn cake and some roasted chicken from a piece of cloth. I ate ravenously.

  “Massa White sent me to find you,” he said. “This is not the way to run away, Henry. When you are really ready, let me know. In the meantime, come on. Your mama is worried to death.”

  “What’s Massa White gonna do to me?”

  “Maybe hire you out. Maybe sell you. One thing’s for sure. He will not keep you on the plantation.”

  I never saw my mother as angry as she was when Shadrach brought me back. “You could have gotten yourself killed. Massa David could have sent patrollers for you. You could have been killed by a rattlesnake.” She boxed my ears, but began crying the moment she did so.

  I was now a problem for my master. Slaveholders have one thought on their minds and that is to make money buying and selling slaves and earning wages from their labor. Many slaveholding families in the neighborhood knew that I was in the habit of running away. This made me a “bad example” to their slaves. Thus, my master could no longer hire me to any nearby farm. He resorted to putting a notice in the Louisville News.

  FOR HIRE

  A mulatto boy named Henry. He is about thirteen years old and is tall and strong for his age. He was brought up principally as a house servant, and can do all manner of housework.

  He can also dress ladies’ hair, and has some experience working in a store. He can also tend a garden.

  For further information contact David White, esquire, at Aurora Plantation, Trimble County.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Louisville

  One month after the advertisement was placed, a Louisville judge named Marson hired me to be his body servant. Shadrach took me to the judge’s house.

  I had not been to a city, and it filled me with great excitement. Never before had I seen so many carriages, wagons, horses, mules and donkeys jostling on broad streets. So many stores and houses made me giddy. People of all complexions rushed about as if attending to serious business. Many of the Black people were well dressed and walked with their heads high.

  But it was the river that filled me with gleeful expectation. The city stood on the south bank of the Ohio. The river was broad and sparkling. Numerous boats, ferries and other water transportation lined its docks. The din that emanated from the harbor kept the city in a constant hum. As we passed the docks, I could barely look at the groups of slaves waiting with the dealers who had sold them down south. I thought of the great pleasure Phoebe White took in threatening me and my mother with their fate.

  Beyond the docks we came to an intersection where there was an unusual amount of activity. Wagons were laden with Black men, women and children. Most were crying or emitting mournful sounds. White men stood outside a low, brown, brick building with whips and guns in their hands. Sad-looking slaves
walked in and out of the building. “The slave market, depot and jail all in one,” Shadrach said, without looking at me. “The slave dealer’s paradise.”

  It dawned on me for the first time that there were dealers who simply bought and sold slaves, like any other commodity, rather than for their own use.

  “Many Kentucky masters think they don’t have enough work for their slaves so they sell them south to places like Alabama and Louisiana, where they have huge plantations growing cotton and sugarcane. Those places need more and more slaves.” My excitement immediately left me.

  We soon came to a part of town where the streets were broader and lined with big trees, and stopped the wagon in front of a mansion. A sign attached to the open gate read Judge Alexander Marson. Shadrach and I got down off the wagon and walked to the back of the house. I stared with amazement at the well-kept lawn bordered by flowers I had never seen before. At the back door, a woman looked us up and down. “What you want here?”

  “This here is Henry. He is to be Judge Marson’s new valet.”

  The woman opened the door wider and cocked her eyebrows as if to say “Come in.” She led us to the kitchen. “Sit,” she commanded. She dished out some mashed potatoes mixed with pork fat for us.

  “Judge is still at court, but you may leave the boy with me,” she said, after Shadrach finished his meal. “My name is Sarah.”

  “Henry, behave yourself. I will come back every so often to check on you.” He thumped me on my shoulder in a friendly way. As Shadrach walked out the door, my heart sank.

  “No need to be unhappy,” said the woman. “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t get in the judge’s way. Just do as he says.”

  T

  And so my new life commenced in Louisville. Judge Marson was of average height, but he had an imposing presence and a booming voice. When he spoke, his voice resounded around the room. He was a widower, and his two children were grown. His daughter was married to a very wealthy planter in Lexington. His son was a lawyer. He, too, was married, living in Frankfort, and had plans to run as a state senator. On the wall of his study, the judge had a framed document, which Sarah told me was his family tree. The judge claimed Russian aristocrats, English royalty, German farmers and French-Canadian fur traders as ancestors. Sarah often repeated that the judge was a direct descendant of a king named Charles the Second of England.