Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  George didn’t really realize the full gravity of what had almost happened in Charleston until, after another two weeks—despite Uncle Mingo’s warning—he found himself unable to resist any longer the temptation to slip out for a visit with one of his girl-friends. Impulsively, he decided to favor Charity this time, swayed by memories of what a tigress she always was with him. After waiting to hear Uncle Mingo’s snoring, he went loping for nearly an hour across the fields until he reached the concealing pecan grove from which he always whistled his whippoorwill call to her. When he’d whistled four times without seeing the familiar “come ahead” signal of a lighted candle waved briefly in Charity’s window, he began to worry. Just when he was about to leave his hiding place and sneak on in anyway, he saw movement in the trees ahead of him. It was Charity. George rushed forward to embrace her, but she permitted him only the briefest hug and kiss before pushing him away.

  “What’sa matter, baby?” he demanded, so aroused by her musky body aroma that he hardly heard the quavering in her voice.

  “You de bigges’ fool, slippin’ roun’ now, many niggers as gittin’ shot by paterollers!”

  “Well, le’s git on in yo’ cabin, den!” said George, throwing an arm around her waist. But she moved away again.

  “You act like you ain’t even heared ’bout no uprisin’!”

  “I know was one, dat’s all—”

  “I tell you ’bout it, den” and Charity said she overheard her massa and missis saying that the ringleader, a Bible-reading free black Charleston carpenter named Denmark Vesey, had spent years in planning before confiding in four close friends who helped him to recruit and organize hundreds of the city’s free and slave blacks. Four heavily armed groups of them had only awaited the signal to seize arsenals and other key buildings, while others would burn all they could of the city and kill every white they saw. Even a horse company of black drivers would go dashing wildly about in drays, carts, and wagons to confuse and obstruct white people from assembling. “But dat Sunday mornin’ some scairt nigger tol’ his massa what s’posed to happen dat midnight, den white mens was all over, catchin’, beatin’, an’ torturin’ niggers to tell who was de uprisers. Dey’s done hung over thirty of ’em by now, an’ ever’where dey’s throwin’ de fear o’ Gawd into niggers, jes’ like dey’s doin’ roun’ here now, but ’specially in South Ca’liny. Done run out Charleston’s free niggers an ’burnt dey houses, de nigger preachers, too, an’ locked up dey churches, claimin’ dat ’stid o’ preachin’, dey’s been teachin’ niggers to read an’ write—”

  George had renewed his efforts to start her moving toward the cabin. “Ain’t you been listenin’ to me?” she said, highly agitated. “You git home fo’ you’s seed an’ shot by some dese paterollers!”

  George protested that inside her cabin was safety from any paterollers, as well as relief of his passion for her, which had caused him to risk being shot already.

  “Done tol’ you, NAW!”

  Exasperated, George finally shoved her roughly backward. “Well, g’wan, den!” And bitterly he went loping back the way he had come, wishing furiously that he had gone to Beulah’s instead, because it was too late to go there now.

  In the morning, George said to Mingo, “Went up to see my mammy las’ night, an’ Miss Malizy was tellin’ me what she been hearin’ massa tellin’ missis ’bout dat uprisin’—” Unsure if Mingo would believe that story, he went on anyway, telling what Charity had said, and the old man listened intently. Finishing, George asked, “How come niggers herebouts gittin’ shot at ’bout sump’n clear in South Ca’liny, Uncle Mingo?”

  Uncle Mingo thought awhile before he said, “All white folks scairt us niggers sometime gwine organize an’ rise up together—” He snorted derisively. “But niggers ain’t gwine never do nothin’ together.” He reflected for another moment. “But dis here shootin’ an’ killin’ you talk ’bout gwine ease up like it always do, soon’s dey’s kilt an’ scairt niggers enough, an’ soon’s dey makes whole passel o’ new laws, an’ soon’s dey gits sick of payin’ whole bunch o’ pecker-wood paterollers.”

  “How long all dat take?” asked George, realizing as soon as he had said it what a foolish question it was, and Uncle Mingo’s quick look at him affirmed the opinion.

  “Well, I sho’ ain’t got no answer to dat!” George fell silent, deciding not to tell Uncle Mingo his idea until things had returned to normal with Massa Lea.

  In the course of the next couple of months, Massa Lea gradually did begin to act more or less like his old self—surly, most of the time, but not dangerous. And one day soon afterward George decided that the time was right.

  “Uncle Mingo, I been studyin’ a long time on sump’n—” he began. “I b’lieves I got a idea might help massa’s birds win mo’ fights dan dey does.” Mingo looked as if some special form of insanity had struck his strapping seventeen-year-old assistant, who continued talking. “I been five years gwine to de big chicken fights wid y’all. Reckon two seasons back, I commence noticin’ sump’n I been watchin’ real close every since. Seem like every different gamecocker massa’s set o’ birds got dey own fightin’ style—” Scuffing the toe of one brogan against the other, George avoided looking at the man who had been training gamefowl since long before he was born. “We trains massa’s birds to be real strong, wid real long wind, to win a lot dey fights jes’ by outlastin’ de other birds. But I done kept a count—de mos’ times we loses is when some bird flies up over massa’s bird an’ gaffs ’im from de top, gin’ly in de head. Uncle Mingo, I b’lieves if ’n massa’s birds got stronger wings, like I b’lieves we could give ’em wid whole lot o’ special wing exercise, I b’lieves dey’d gin’ly fly higher’n other birds, an’ kill even mo’ dan dey does now.”

  Beneath his wrinkled brow; Mingo’s deep-set eyes searched the grass between George’s and his own shoes. It was awhile before he spoke. “I sees what you means. I b’lieves you needs to tell massa.”

  “If you feels so, cain’t you tell him?”

  “Naw. You thunk it up. Massa hear it from you good as me.”

  George felt an immense sense of relief that at least Uncle Mingo didn’t laugh at the idea, but lying awake on his narrow cornshuck mattress that night, George felt uneasy and afraid about telling Massa Lea.

  Bracing himself on Monday morning when the massa appeared, George took a deep breath and repeated almost calmly what he had said to Uncle Mingo, and he added more detail about different gameflocks’ characteristic fighting styles “—An’ when you notices, Massa, dem birds o’ Massa Graham’s fights in a fast, feisty way. But Massa MacGregor’s birds fights real cautious an’ wary-like. Or Cap’n Peabody’s strikes wid dey feets an’ spurs close together, but Massa Howaid’s scissors wid dey legs pretty wide apart. Dat rich Massa Jewett’s birds, dey gin’ly fights low in de air, an’ dey pecks hard when dey’s on de groun’, an’ any bird dey catches a good beakhold o’ jes’ liable to git gaffed right dere—” Avoiding the massa’s face, George missed his intensely attentive expression. “Reckon what I’se trying’ to say, Massa, if you ’grees wid me an’ Uncle Mingo givin’ yo’ birds some whole lotsa strong wing exercisin’ dat we oughta be able to figger out, seem like dat help ’em to fly up higher’n de res’ to gaff ’em from on top, an’ speck nobody wouldn’t quick catch on.”

  Massa Lea was staring at George as if he had never seen him before.

  In the months that remained before the next cockfighting season, Massa Lea spent more time than ever before in the gamefowl training area, observing and sometimes even joining Uncle Mingo and George as they tossed gamecocks higher and higher into the air. Descending with a frantic flapping of their wings, trying to support their five-to-six-pound weights, their wings grew steadily stronger.

  As George had prophesied, the 1823 cockfighting season opened and progressed through one after another “main” contest, with no one seeming to detect how-or-why the Lea birds were managing to win an even higher percentage of their
fights than the year before. Their steel gaffs had sunk fatally into thirty-nine of their fifty-two opponents by the end of the season.

  One morning about a week later, Massa Lea arrived—in high spirits—to check on the recovery of the half dozen of his prime birds that had been injured seriously during the season.

  “Don’t b’lieve dis’n gwine pull through, Massa,” said Uncle Mingo, indicating one so drooping and battered that Massa Lea’s head quickly shook in agreement. “But I speck dese in dese next two cages gwine heal up so good you be fightin’ ’em again next season.” Mingo gestured next at the last three convalescing birds. “Dese here ain’t gwine never be perfect enough fo’ de big main fights no mo’, but we can use ’em as catchcocks if you wants to, Massa, or dey be good cull birds anyhow.” Massa Lea expressed his satisfaction with the prognosis and had started toward his horse when, turning, he spoke casually to George. “These nights you slip out of here tomcattin’, you’d better be mighty careful about that bad nigger that’s sweet on the same gal—”

  George was so dumfounded it took a full second before anger flared within him at Uncle Mingo’s obvious treachery. But then he saw that Uncle Mingo’s face was no less astounded, as the massa continued. “Missis Teague told my wife at their quilting club meeting she couldn’t figure out what had come over her yaller house-maid until lately some of the other niggers told her the gal’s wore out from two-timing you and some bad buck older nigger—” Massa Lea chuckled. “Reckon the two of y’all sure must be tearin’ up that gal!”

  Charity! Two-timing! As George recalled furiously with what insistence she had blocked him from her cabin that night, he forced himself to smile and laugh nervously; Uncle Mingo joined in just as hollowly. George felt stricken. Now that the massa had discovered that he had been slipping off nights, what was he going to do to him?

  Having paused to let George expect his anger, Massa Lea said instead—in an incredible, almost man-to-man way—“Hell, long as you do your work, go on and chase you some tail. Just don’t let some buck slice you to pieces—and don’t get caught out on that road where the patrol is shootin’ people’s niggers.”

  “Nawsuh! Sho’ ain’t—” George was so confused he didn’t know what to say. “Sho’ ’preciates, Massa—”

  Massa Lea climbed on his horse, a discernible shaking of his shoulders suggesting to his gamecock trainers that he was laughing to himself as he cantered on up the road.

  Finally alone in his shack that night, after enduring Uncle Mingo’s frostiness through the rest of the day, free at last to vent his outrage at Charity, George cursed her—and vowed that he would turn his attentions, which she obviously didn’t deserve, to the surely more faithful, if less hotly passionate, Beulah. He also remembered that tall, cinnamon-colored girl who had given him the eye at a secret frolic he had stumbled on in the woods while hurrying homeward one night. The only reason he hadn’t tried her then and there was he got so drunk on the white lightning she offered him that he was barely able to stagger home by dawn. But he remembered she said her name was Ophelia and that she belonged to the very rich Massa Jewett, who owned over a thousand gamefowl, or so it was said, and whose family had huge plantations in Georgia and South Carolina as well as the one there in Caswell County. It was a long way to walk, but first chance he got, George decided he was going to get better acquainted with that tasty-looking field girl Massa Jewett probably didn’t even know he owned.

  CHAPTER 92

  One Sunday morning George had left for his weekly visit on slave row by the time Massa Lea showed up for daily inspection of the flock. It was the perfect moment. After walking about and talking of gamecocking for a while, Uncle Mingo said, as if it had just occurred to him, “Massa, you knows how every season we culls out dese fifteen or twenty good birds dat’s better’n a whole lots o’ folks fights wid. I b’lieves you can make good side money if’n you lets dat boy fight yo’ culls in hackfights.”

  Uncle Mingo knew well that the name of Tom Lea, throughout the length and breadth of Caswell County, symbolized the rise of a poor white man to eminence and a major gamecocker who started out as a hackfighter with one good bird. Many a time he had told Uncle Mingo how fondly he looked back upon those early, hungry days, declaring that their excitements were at least the equal of those he had enjoyed in all of the major “mains” he had competed in ever since. The only significant differences, Massa Lea said, were that the big “main” fights involved a better class of people as well as of gamecocks, and much higher amounts of money were wagered; one might see really rich gamecockers winning—and losing—fortunes in the course of a single fight. Hackfights were for those who were able to fight only one or two or three usually second- or third-rate birds—the poor whites, free blacks, or slaves whose pocketbooks could afford bets ranging from twenty-five cents to a dollar, with as much as perhaps twenty dollars being bet only when some hackfighter went out of his head and put on the line everything he had in the world.

  “What makes you think he can handle birds in a cockpit?” asked Massa Lea.

  Uncle Mingo was relieved to hear no objections to his proposal. “Well, suh, close as you know dat boy watch fights, reckon he ain’t missed a move you made in de cockpits for five, six years, Massa. An’ put dat togedder wid jes’ how na’chel born he is wid roosters, I sho’ b’lieves he’d need no mo’n a little teachin’. Even fights he’d lose be jes’ cull birds we has roun’ here dat you don’t never hardly use nohow, suh.”

  “Uh-huh,” the massa murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t see nothin’ wrong with it. Why don’t you buff the spurs of some culls and help him practice fights across the summer? If he looks any good by next season, yeah, I’ll stake him a little for some bets.”

  “Sho will, yassuh!” Uncle Mingo was exultant, since for months now in the gamefowl area’s woodsy privacy, he and George had been mock-fighting culled birds, their spurs harmlessly covered with a light leather pouch Uncle Mingo had devised. Being the cautious man he was, the old man hadn’t ventured his suggestion to the massa without first ascertaining for himself that his able apprentice showed genuine potential to develop into a really good fight handler. With enough hackfighting experience, he thought privately that George might someday become as expert as Massa Lea at handling birds at a cockpit. As Uncle Mingo had said, even the culls from a flock as good as the massa’s were superior to the ones usually pitted in the many hackfights that were staged each season in various impromptu and informal settings around the county. All in all, it seemed to Uncle Mingo that there was practically no way George would miss.

  “Well, boy, you jes’ gwine stand dere wid yo’ mouth open?” asked Uncle Mingo when he broke the news that afternoon.

  “Don’t know what to say.”

  “Never thought I’d live to see de day when you ain’t got nothin’ to say.”

  “I ... jes’ don’ know how to thank you.”

  “Wid all dem teeth showin’, you don’ need to. Le’s get to work.”

  Every day that summer, he and Uncle Mingo spent at least an hour in the late afternoons squatting on opposite sides of a make-shift cockpit, smaller in diameter and shallower than the regular size, but still sufficient for training. After several weeks, the massa came down to observe one of the sessions. Impressed with the pit-side agility and keen reflexes George showed in handling his bird, he gave him a few cockfight pointers of his own.

  “You want your bird to get the jump. Now watch me—” Taking over Mingo’s bird, he said, “Okay, your referee’s already hollered ‘Get ready!’ You’re down here holding your bird—but don’t watch it! Keep your eyes on that referee’s lips! You want to tell the split second he’s going to say ‘Pit!’ It ’s when his lips press together tight—” Massa Lea compressed his own lips. “Right then snatch up your hands—you’ll hear ‘Pit ’ just as your bird gets out there first!”

  Some afternoons, after their training session was done and the cull birds they had used had been put
back in their pens, Uncle Mingo would sit and tell George about the glory and the money that could be earned in hackfights. “Jes’ like de po’ peckerwoods hollers for massa to win, I’se seed niggers dat gits hollered for at de big hackfights. An’ it’s much as ten, twelve, even mo’ dollars can be winned in one fight, boy!”

  “Ain’t never had a dollar, Uncle Mingo! Don’t hardly know what a dollar look like!”

  “I aint never had many neither. Fact, ain’t got no use for none no mo’. But massa say he gwine stake you some bettin’ money, an’ if you wins any, he jes’ might let you have some of it—”

  “You reckon he do dat?”

  “I specks, ’cause I know he got to be feelin’ pretty good ’bout dat wing-strengthenin’ idea of your’n what done put good money in his pocket. Thing is if he do, is you gwine have sense enough to save up what you git?”

  “Sho’ do dat! I sho’ would!”

  “I’se even heared o’ niggers winnin’ an’ savin’ enough from hackfightin’ to buy deyselves free from dey massas.”

  “Buy me an’ my mammy both!”

  Immediately Uncle Mingo rose from the stump he had been sitting on; the lancing of jealousy that he had just experienced had not only come entirely unexpectedly, but it was also so unsettling deep within him that he found it hard to make any reply. Then he heard himself snapping, “Well—reckon ain’t nothin’ impossible!” Wanting suddenly to get away from a feeling that his own sense of sharing a truly close affection wasn’t being equally reciprocated, he walked quickly off toward his cabin, leaving George staring after him, puzzled.