Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Explanatory Notes

EXPLANATORY NOTES EPIGRAPH 1. "Away . . . dew": From Thomas Moore (1779-1852), "A Ballad. The Lake of the Dismal Swamp" (1806). PREFACE 1. broad regions. . . forbidden it to enter: The Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854 repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820-1821, which prohibited the spread of slavery into the unsettled portions of the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36° 30'. 2. Judge Ruffin: Judge Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870) of North Carolina issued a famous ruling in the 1829 North Carolina case of State v. Mann that "the power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect." That decision is "placed in the mouth" of Judge Clayton; seevolume II, chapter X. VOLUME I CHAPTER I The Mistress of Canema 1. Venus: Roman and Greek goddess of love and beauty; and probably a more specific reference to the Greek statue Venus de Milo in the Louvre in Paris. 2. Byronic: A reference to the Romantic poet Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824). The Byronic hero was known for his dark, brooding rejection of conventional society. Stowe admired Byron, though when she learned of his supposed incestuous relationship with hishalf-sister Augusta, she published a notorious attack, Lady Byron Vindicated (1870). 3. cachucha: A Spanish dance resembling the bolero. 4. billets-doux: Love letters. 595 596 EXPLANATORY NOTES 5. curl-papers: Papers that fix locks of hair into curls. 6. Don Juan: Legendary seducer and social rebel; see Lord Byron's Don Juan (1818-1820). 7. sack pattern: A pattern for a loose, unbelted dress. CHAPTER II Clayton 1. dramatis persons: The characters in a play. 2. marooning party: A pleasure party or outing, usually lasting several days. 3. 'Law . . . world': From Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Ecclesiastical Polity (1594-1597), Book I. A clergyman of the Church of England, Hooker argued for the central place of reason in the Church's civil and ecclesiastical policies. 4. Viri Romae: Men of Rome. 5. Regulus, or Quintus Curtius, or Mudus Scxvola: Famous patriotmartyrs : the Roman general Marcus Atilius Regulus (who died circa 250 B.C.) was tortured to death by the Carthaginians after advising th Romans to reject their conditions for ending the First Punic War; Quintus Curtius voluntarily plunged into a crevice in the floor of the Roman forum in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy that a sacrificial victim was needed to preserve the forum; and Quintus Mucius Scaevola was a Roman soldier of the sixth century B.C. who heroically demon strated his resistance to his captors by placing his hand in flames and refusing to speak. 6. quadroon: A term used in the nineteenth century (and less often in the twentieth century) to refer to people who were thought to be onefourth "black"; more generally, the term referred to light-skinned peoples of mixed racial ancestry. 7. Mahomet's paradise: A reference to Muhammed (570-632), founder of Islam. 8. 'What. . . soul?': Mark 8:36. 9. 'All. . . me': Matthew 4:9. 10. Liberator: Founded in 1831 in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), the Liberator was the best-known and most influential antislavery newspaper of the antebellum period. 11. 'a light. . . gentiles': Luke 2:32. 12. Selah: In Psalms, an instruction to raise the voice, as when praising God. 13. Ophir: A region rich in gold and sandalwood trees; see 1 Kings 9:28, 10:11-12. EXPLANATORY NOTES 597 CHAPTER III The Clayton Family and Sister Anne 1. Thaddeus of Warsaw, and William Wallace: Heroes of the popular novels Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and The Scottish Chiefs (1810) by the Scottish novelist Jane Porter (1776-1850). 2. 'If . . . all': From Alexander Pope (1688-1744), "The Rape of the Lock" (1712). 3. White Mountains: Mountain range in New Hampshire. 4. Hannah More: An English author and social reformer, Hannah More (1745-1833) was best known for her religious and philanthropic writings , such as Thoughts on the Importance of Manners of the Great to General Society (1788). CHAPTER IV The Gordon Family 1. Eboe: Ibo—a people of the area around the lower Niger Valley in Africa. 2. colporteur: Traveling peddler of Bibles and religious tracts. 3. rusticated: Suspended. 4. Law's Serious Call: A reference to the British clergyman William Law's (1686-1761) A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), a classic of Christian devotional literature. 5. Owen on the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm: In his writings...