Strategies for Survival: Recollections of Bondage in Antebellum Virginia

Chapter 11: Families

168 Families Inthe1950sscholars—blackandwhitealike—believedthatslavery had weakened African American family institutions. A powerful reaction against this view surfaced during the 1970s, marked particularly by the publication of Herbert Gutman’s The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom. Gutman observed that slave women often bore their first child before marrying, but he argued that once the woman married, long-lasting nuclear families were the norm. During recent years, however, Gutman’s view has come under increasingly close examination. Perhaps the most explicit challenge has been made by the historian Brenda Stevenson, especially her article “Distress and Discord in Virginia Slave Families”—an article based partly on Virginia’s WPA interviews.1 These interviews suggest a less than roseate view of slaves’ family lives. Among the outstanding issues are these: How significant was the role of fathers in the slaves’ families? How did the institution of “abroad marriages” function? What was the overall effect of slavery on the bondpeople’s family lives? Erotic excitement was for most slaves—as for most human beings —a profound interest. Perhaps it was even more important for slaves, because they were deprived of so many other satisfactions . Interviewers and interviewees shied off from discussing such matters in 1937, but the interviewees’ remarks about dancing suggest the feelings of young slaves as Saturday night approached. Usually, dances were gladly accepted by the masters as safety valves that let bondpeople blow off steam. Susie Melton’s master, for example, “never cared how much his slaves danced an’ carried on, jus’ so long as dey didn’t do it 11 Families 169 on Sundays. Danced mos’ times on Sadday nights ’cause dey got Sunday to res’. Soon’s dey git in fum de field Sadday arternoon dey would start gittin’ ready.” The dance, if taking place early in the year, would be in the barn; but “Marsa never would let ’em have de barn arter de crops was in—scared dey’d set it on fire.” The bondpeople would therefore clean the biggest cabin for the dance; the women would iron their dresses, and everyone would get smartened up. The slaves knew that if they didn’t attend this dance, there would be no other blowout for at least another week. An atmosphere of excitement prevailed: “While dey was gittin’ ready,” Melton reported, “dey would sing dis song”: All de ladies goin’ to de ball? Don’t go Sadday night, You can’t go at all, Hog-eye, hum um Hog-eye, hum um. All de gen’mens goin’ to de ball? . . . “Dey keep dat up, jus’ laughin’ an’ jokin’ each other an’ ev’ybody know dey sho’ gonna have a good time dat night. Hog-eye? Lawdy, chile,” Melton replied evasively to her interviewer’s query, “I don’t know what dat mean. Some devilment, I reckon” (Interviews, 212). If young people felt constrained under the eyes of their masters or their parents, they might leave the plantation surreptitiously. “Some time all de cou’tin’ couples slip ’way an’ go to de wood to a ole cabin to dance,” Nancy Williams exulted. “Whoops! Dem dances was somepin. Dem de day’s when me’n de devil was runnin roun in de depths o’ hell.” Similarly, Martha Showvely (a privileged house servant born in 1837) averred that “I was ve’y wicked when I was young. I’d rather dance den eat.” And Sally Ashton, born about 1845, used exactly the same formulation about her priorities when she was a girl (Interviews, 316, 265, 14). During their courtship days bondpeople’s language sometimes subverted racial “etiquette” by awarding to slaves titles supposed to be reserved for white people. But this language was not uniformly decorous. “My father say when he went courting my mammy . . . ,” Eliza Robinson testified, “he say, ‘Miss Sally!’ She say, ‘Sir, Mr. Jones?’ He say, ‘Miss Sallie I got a terrible cold in my haid. What must I do ’bout hit?’ She say, ‘Mr. Jones, go home and burn a shoe sole and bind hit in your ass hole.’ Dats de 170 responses way dey courted in dem days. They talk like dat but don’t put dat in your book” (Interviews, 238). Dancing offered particular scope to female slaves. Women might organize the dance, they sometimes called out the steps, and they often led the dancers; and a young woman might star by outdancing her rivals . According to Dave Lowry, the girls from...