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The Slave Experience of the Holidays
Christmas as an
Opportunity to Escape
By DocSouth Staff
American slaves
experienced the Christmas holidays in many different
ways. Joy, hope, and celebration were naturally a part
of the season for many. For other slaves, these holidays
conjured up visions of freedom and even the opportunity
to bring about that freedom. Still others saw it as yet
another burden to be endured. This month,
Documenting
the American South considers the Christmas holidays as
they were experienced by enslaved Americans.
The prosperity and
relaxed discipline associated with Christmas often
enabled slaves to interact in ways that they could not
during the rest of the year. They customarily received
material goods from their masters: perhaps the slave's
yearly allotment of clothing, an edible delicacy, or a
present above and beyond what he or she needed to
survive and work on the plantation. For this reason,
among others, slaves frequently married during the
Christmas season. When Dice, a female slave in Nina Hill
Robinson's
Aunt Dice, came to her master "one
Christmas eve, and asked his consent to her marriage
with Caesar," her master allowed the ceremony, and a
"great feast was spread" (pp.
24-25). Dice and Caesar were married in "the
mistress's own parlor . . . before the white minister"
(pp.
25-26). More than any other time of year, Christmas
provided slaves with the latitude and prosperity that
made a formal wedding possible.
On the plantation,
the transfer of Christmas gifts from master to slave was
often accompanied by a curious ritual. On Christmas day,
"it was always customary in those days to catch peoples
Christmas gifts and they would give you something."
Slaves and children would lie in wait for those with the
means to provide presents and capture them, crying
'Christmas gift' and refusing to release their prisoners
until they received a gift in return (p.
22). This ironic annual inversion of power
occasionally allowed slaves to acquire real power.
Henry, a slave whose tragic life and death is recounted
in Martha Griffith Browne's
Autobiography of a Female
Slave, saved "Christmas gifts in money" to buy his
freedom (p. 311).
Some slaves saw
Christmas as an opportunity to escape. They took
advantage of relaxed work schedules and the holiday
travels of slaveholders, who were too far away to stop
them. While some slaveholders presumably treated the
holiday as any other workday, numerous authors record a
variety of holiday traditions, including the suspension
of work for celebration and family visits. Because many
slaves had spouses, children, and family who were owned
by different masters and who lived on other properties,
slaves often requested passes to travel and visit family
during this time. Some slaves used the passes to explain
their presence on the road and delay the discovery of
their escape through their masters' expectation that
they would soon return from their "family visit."
Jermain Loguen plotted a Christmas escape, stockpiling
supplies and waiting for travel passes, knowing the
cover of the holidays was essential for success: "Lord
speed the day!—freedom begins with the holidays!" (The
Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman. A
Narrative of Real Life, p.
262). These plans turned out to be wise, as Loguen
and his companions are almost caught crossing a river
into Ohio, but were left alone because the white men
thought they were free men "who have been to Kentucky to
spend the Holidays with their friends" (The
Rev. J. W. Loguen, p.
303).
Harriet Tubman
helped her brothers
escape at Christmas. Their master intended to sell
them after Christmas but was delayed by the holiday. The
brothers were expected to spend the day with their
elderly mother but met Tubman in secret. She helped them
travel north, gaining a head start on the master who did
not discover their disappearance until the end of the
holidays. Likewise,
William and Ellen Craft escaped
together at Christmastime. They took advantage of passes
that were clearly meant for temporary use. Ellen
"obtained a pass from her mistress, allowing her to be
away for a few days. The cabinet-maker with whom I
worked gave me a similar paper, but said that he needed
my services very much, and wished me to return as soon
as the time granted was up. I thanked him kindly; but
somehow I have not been able to make it convenient to
return yet; and, as the free air of good old England
agrees so well with my wife and our dear little ones, as
well as with myself, it is not at all likely we shall
return at present to the 'peculiar institution' of
chains and stripes" (pp. 303-304). [Running
a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, The Escape of William
and Ellen Craft From Slavery]
Christmas could
represent not only physical freedom, but spiritual
freedom, as well as the hope for better things to come.
The main protagonist of Martha Griffin Browne's
Autobiography of a Female
Slave, Ann, found little
positive value in the slaveholder's version of
Christmas—equating it with "all sorts of culinary
preparations" and extensive house cleaning rituals—but
she saw the possibility for a better future in the story
of the life of Christ: "This same Jesus, whom the
civilized world now worship as their Lord, was once
lowly, outcast, and despised; born of the most hated
people of the world . . . laid in the manger of a stable
at Bethlehem . . . this Jesus is worshipped now" (p.
203,
47-48). For Ann, Christmas symbolized the birth of
the very hope she used to survive her captivity.
Not all enslaved
African Americans viewed the holidays as a time of
celebration and hope. Rather, Christmas served only to
highlight their lack of freedom. As a young boy, Louis
Hughes was bought in December and introduced to his new
household on Christmas Eve "as a Christmas gift to the
madam" (Thirty
Years a Slave—From Bondage to Freedom; The Institution
of Slavery as Seen on the Plantation and in the Home of
the Planter—Autobiography of Louis Hughes, p.
13). When
Peter Bruner tried to claim a Christmas
gift from his master, "he took me and threw me in the
tan vat and nearly drowned me. Every time I made an
attempt to get out he would kick me back in again until
I was almost dead" (A
Slave's Adventures toward Freedom. Not Fiction, but the
True Story of a Struggle. p.
22).
Frederick Douglass
described the period of respite that was granted to
slaves every year between Christmas and New Year's Day
as a psychological tool of the oppressor. In his
1845
Narrative, Douglass wrote that slaves celebrated the
winter holidays by engaging in activities such as
"playing ball, wrestling, running foot-races, fiddling,
dancing, and drinking whiskey" (Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
Written by Himself, p.
75). He took particular umbrage at the latter
practice, which was often encouraged by slave owners
through various tactics. "One plan [was] to make bets on
their slaves, as to who can drink the most whiskey
without getting drunk; and in this way they succeed in
getting whole multitudes to drink to excess" (Narrative,
p.
75).
In My
Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass
concluded that "[a]ll the license allowed [during the
holidays] appears to have no other object than to
disgust the slaves with their temporary freedom, and to
make them as glad to return to their work, as they were
to leave it" (My
Bondage and My Freedom, p.
255). While there is no doubt that many enjoyed
these holidays, Douglass acutely discerned that they
were granted not merely in a spirit of charity or
conviviality, but also to appease those who yearned for
freedom, ultimately serving the ulterior motives of
slave owners.
Source:
DocSouth
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Family
and Friends Escape on Christmas to Prevent
Separation
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Not Gone
With the Wind Voices of Slavery—Henry Louis
Gates, Jr.—9 February 2003—Unchained Memories,
an HBO documentary that makes its debut tomorrow
night, provides a powerful answer to that question.
It gives us, through the faces and voices of
African-American actors, an introduction to a vast
undertaking that took place in the 1930's: the
collection and preservation of the testimonies of
thousands of aged former slaves in an archive known
as the Slave Narrative Collection of the Federal
Writers' Project. This archive unlocked the brutal
secrets of slavery by using the voices of average
slaves as the key, exposing the everyday life of the
slave community. Rosa Starke, a slave from South
Carolina, for example, told of how class divisions
among the slaves were quite pronounced:
''Dere was just
two classes to de white folks, buckra slave owners
and poor white folks dat didn't own no slaves. Dere
was more classes 'mongst de slaves. De fust class
was de house servants. Dese was de butler, de maids,
de nurses, chambermaids, and de cooks. De nex' class
was de carriage drivers and de gardeners, de
carpenters, de barber and de stable men. Then come
de nex' class, de wheelwright, wagoners, blacksmiths
and slave foremen. De nex' class I members was de
cow men and de niggers dat have care of de dogs. All
dese have good houses and never have to work hard or
git a beatin'. Then come de cradlers of de wheat, de
threshers and de millers of de corn and de wheat,
and de feeders of de cotton gin. De lowest class was
de common field niggers.''—NYTimes
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 |
Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
* * * * *
|
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
 |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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