The Marengo Jake Stories: The Tales of Jake Mitchell and Robert Wilton Burton

Introduction

Introduction De Renmant Truth: The Tales ofJake Mitchell and Robert Wilton Burton In Auburn, Alabama, in the late nineteenth century lived two unusually talented men. Except for residence in this small college town and the possession of extraordinary gifts for storytelling, the two had little in common. One was black; one white. One's literary medium was the spoken word; the other's was the written language. For different reasons neither would have called the other his collaborator, but that is exactly what these two individuals were. This uncontrived and heretofore almost unknown partnership produced the Alabama "Marengo Jake" stories, now rediscovered and published as a collection for the first time-and also for the first time granting full, deserved credit to the primary, black teller of these marvelous tales. Who were the persons who gave life to Marengo Jake? And what exactly did they, and their characters, create? The white man was Robert Wilton Burton. The black man was 2 / Introduction Jake Mitchell. Their social statuses and, relatediy, their motives and methods for storytelling differed tremendously. Together, however, with "Moss [Master] Wilbur" Burton recording the fabulous adventures and tall-tale yarns of "Marengo Jake" Mitchell, the two, in effect, co-authored thirty-six stories that appeared in major state newspapers from 1886 to 1891. These stories artfully presented the reality and the mythology ofvarious Alabama social communities -and of the human community as a whole. If, as Burton's own testimony asserts, Jake Mitchell is to be credited with the tales themselves, it is to R. W. Burton that we owe their skillful preservation. From one viewpoint, the Jake stories, whether considered individually or as a whole, are like a shapely tree ofimpressive natural growth: they provide an experience capable of untutored appreciation. Thus, one task ofthis Introduction is to expose a root system-to point out that while the shallo\v secondary roots of these stories are in the mixed topsoil oflate nineteenth-century east Alabama, the primary root extends, through Europe and through centuries, deep into universal soil. Exploring pertinent history ofthe local-color and tall-tale literary traditions will introduce the names of Thomas Nelson Page and Joel Chandler Harris through the American picture and that ofBaron Munchausen via the European. Certain facts of post-Civil War social and cultural history must be acknowledged: that Wilton Burton and Jake Mitchell were not, and therefore are not now, co-equal coauthors ; that the springs of Mitchell's imaginative genius were probably more negatively reactionary than creatively positive, more necessitated than voluntary; and that Burton's writing, part and parcel of his time and place, promoted a white supremacist stereotype. Such contextual Robert Wilton Burton, 18481917 . (Courtesy, Special Collections, Ralph Brown Draughon Library, Auburn University) Introduction / 3 and explanatory information should, however, deepen the intrinsic appeal, humor, and humane education that the Jake tales offer. Although in some sense extrinsic, such facts are integral. Understood as intended, they make these threedozen memorable testimonies to the human spirit even more impressive. Robert Wilton Burton R. W. Burton moved to Auburn in 1878 in response to the request ofthe faculty ofthe prospering young college that he establish a bookstore there.J The Auburn venture was an extension of the bookselling business he and his brother had begun in nearby Opelika. Wilton Burton had assumed the occupation of bookseller after several years of teaching in various schools in Lee County, Alabama. Born in 1848 in Camden County, Georgia, he grew up in Lafayette, Alabama. Too young for regular army service when the Civil War broke out, Burton joined a youth militia whose members helped construct Fort Tyler near West Point, Georgia, in 1863. He enlisted in the Confederate army in March ofl865 and was assigned to Troop F ofthe Sixth Alabama Cavalry. Two days later he was captured on a troop train and held prisoner until the end ofthe war in May. 4 / Introduction Thus legitimatelyifbarelydid he hold the distinction ofbeirtg a Confederate veteran. When Burton died on June 22, 1917, the Montgomery Advertiser reported that Auburn had lost the "educator, author, philanthropist" who had become its "best loved citizen." He had held numerous official positions-Presbyterian church elder, county superintendent of education, secretary ofthe town board ofeducation, member and clerk ofthe city council, secretary to the college board oftrustees. It was his unofficial offices, however, that most endeared Burton to his contemporaries. A participant in the N. T...