Roots: The Saga of an American Family

  But as furious as they were, from their first direct confrontation with the impostor out in the field on the following morning, he immediately made it difficult for their anger to remain at a fever pitch. Already out in the field when they arrived led by Virgil, the scrawny, sallow George Johnson came walking to meet them. His thin face was reddened and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he said, “I can’t blame y’all none for hatin’ me, but I can ask y’all to wait a little to see if I turn out bad as y’all think. You the first niggers I ever had anything to do with, but seem like to me y’all got black same as I got white, an’ I judge anybody by how they act. I know one thing, y’all fed me when I was hungry, and it was plenty of white folks hadn’t. Now seem like Mr. Murray got his mind set on having a overseer, and I know y’all could help him git rid of me, but I figger you do that, you be takin’ your chances the next one he git might be a whole lot worse.”

  None of the family seemed to know what to say in response. There seemed nothing to do except filter away and set to work, all of them covertly observing George Johnson proceeding to work as hard as they, if not harder—in fact, he seemed obsessed to prove his sincerity.

  Tom’s and Irene’s third daughter—Viney—was born at the end of the newcomer’s first week. By now out in the field, George Johnson boldly sat down with the members of the family at lunchtimes, appearing not to notice how Ashford conspicuously got up, scowling, and moved elsewhere. “Y ’all see I don’t know nothin’ ’bout overseein’, so y’all needs to help me along,” George Johnson told them frankly. “It would be no good for Mr. Murray to come out here an’ figger I ain’t doin’ the job like he want.”

  The idea of training their overseer amused even the usually solemn Tom when it was discussed in the slave row that night, and all agreed that the responsibility naturally belonged to Virgil, since he had always run the field work. “First thing,” he said to George Johnson, “you gon’ have to change whole lot o’ yo’ ways. ’Cose, wid all us lookin’ all de time, massa ain’t likely to git close fo’ us can give you a signal. Den you have to hurry up an’ git ’way from too close roun’ us. Reckon you knows white folks an’ ’specially oberseers ain’t s’posed to seem like deys close wid niggers.”

  “Well, in South Carolina where I come from, seem like the niggers never got too close to white folks,” George Johnson said.

  “Well, dem niggers is smart!” said Virgil. “De nex’ thing, a massa want to feel like his oberseer makin’ his niggers work harder’n dey did befo’ de oberseer come. You got to learn how to holler, ‘Git to work, you niggers!’ an’ sich as dat. An’ anytime you’s roun’ massa or any mo’ white folks, don’ never call us by our names de way you does. You got to learn how to growl an’ cuss an’ soun’ real mean, to make massa feel like you ain’t too easy an’ got us goin’.”

  When Massa Murray did next visit his fields, George Johnson made strong efforts, hollering, cursing, even threatening everyone in the field, from Virgil down. “Well, how they doing?” asked Massa Murray. “Pretty fair for niggers been on their own,” George Johnson drawled, “but I ’speck another week or two ought to git’em shaped up awright.”

  The family rocked with laughter that night, imitating George Johnson, along with Massa Murray’s evident pleasure. Afterward when the mirth had waned, George Johnson quietly told them how it had been to be dirt-poor for all of his earlier life, even before his family had been routed with their fields ruined by the war, until he had sought some new, better life. “He ’bout de only white man we ever gwine meet dat’s jes’ plain honest ’bout hisself,” Virgil expressed their collective appraisal.

  “I tell de truth, I ’joys listenin’ to ’im talk,” said Lilly Sue, and L’il George scoffed, “He talk like any other cracker. What make him different he de firs’ one I ever seen ain’t try to act like sump’n he wasn’t. De mos’ is so shame of what dey is.” Mary laughed. “Well, dis one ain’t shame, not long as he keep eatin’ de way he is.”

  “Soun’ like to me y’all done really taken a likenin’ to Ol’ George,” said Matilda. More laughter rose at their homemade overseer’s new nickname, “Ol’ George,” since he was so ridiculously young. And Matilda was correct: Incredibly enough, they had come to like him genuinely.

  CHAPTER 112

  The North and the South seemed locked together like stags in mortal combat. Neither seemed able to mount a successful campaign to put the other away. Tom began to notice some despondency in his customers’ conversations. It was a buoy to the hope yet strong in him for freedom.

  The family plunged into intense speculation when Ol’ George Johnson said mysteriously, “Mr. Murray done said I could go ’tend to some business. I be back jes’ quick as I can.” Then the next morning he was gone.

  “What you reckon it is?”

  “Way he always talked, wasn’t nothin’ lef’ to take care of where he come from.”

  “Maybe sump’n to do wid his folks—”

  “But he ain’t mentioned no folks—leas’ways, not partic’lar.”

  “He bound to got some somewhere.”

  “Maybe he done ’cided to go jine de war.”

  “Well, I sho’ cain’t see Ol’ George wantin’ to shoot nobody.”

  “’Speck he jes’ finally got his belly full an’ we done seen de las’ o’ him.”

  “Oh, heish up, Ashford! You ain’t never got nothin’ good to say’bout him or nobody else!”

  Nearly a month had passed when one Sunday a whooping and hollering arose—for Ol’ George was back, grinning shamefacedly, and with him was a painfully shy creature of a girl as sallow and scrawny as himself, and her eight-months pregnancy made her seems as if she had swallowed a pumpkin.

  “This is my wife, Miss Martha,” Ol’ George Johnson told them. “Jes’ befo’ I left, we’d got married, an’ I tol’ ’er I’d be back when I found us somewhere. How come I hadn’t said nothin’ ’bout a wife was it was hard enough to find anybody willing to have jes’ me.” He grinned at his Martha. “Whyn’t you say hello to the folks?”

  Martha dutifully said hello to them all, and it seemed a long speech for her when she added, “George tol’ me a lot ’bout y’all.”

  “Well, I hope whatever he tol’ you was good!” Matilda said brightly, and Ol’ George saw her glance a second time at Martha’s extreme pregnancy.

  “I ain’t knowed when I left we had a baby comin’. I jes’ kept havin’ a feelin’ I better git back. An’ there she was in a family way.”

  The fragile Martha seemed such a perfect match for Ol’ George Johnson that the family felt their hearts going out to the pair of them.

  “You mean you ain’t even tol’ Massa Murray?” asked Irene.

  “Naw, I ain’t. Jes’ said I had some business same as I tol’ y’all. If he want to run us off, we jes’ have to go, that’s all.”

  “Well, I know massa ain’t gwine feel like dat,” said Irene, and Matilda echoed, “’Cose he ain’t. Massa ain’t dat kind o’ man.”

  “Well, tell him I got to see him first chance,” said Ol’ George Johnson to Matilda.

  Leaving nothing to chance, Matilda first informed Missis Murray, somewhat dramatizing the situation. “Missy, I know he a oberseer an’ all dat, but him an’ dat po’ l’il wife o’ his’n jes’ scairt to death massa gwine make ’em leave ’cause he hadn’t mentioned no wife befo’ an’ times is so hard an’ all. An’ her time ain’t far off, neither.”

  “Well, of course I can’t make my husband’s decisions, but I’m sure he’ll not put them out—”

  “Yes’m, I knowed y’all wouldn’t, ’specially bein’s how I ’speck she ain’t no mo’n thirteen or fo’teen years ol’, Missis, an’ lookin’ ready to have dat baby any minute, an done jes’ got here an’ don’t know nobody ’ceptin’ us—an’ y’all.”

  Missis Murray said, “Well, as I say, it’s not my affair, it’s Mr. Murray’s decision. But I do feel certain they can stay on.”

  Returning to the slave row
, Matilda told a grateful Ol’ George Johnson not to worry, that Missis Murray had expressed certainty there would be no problem. Then she hurried to Irene’s cabin, where after quick consultation, the two of them ambled over to the converted small shed behind the barn where the Ol’ George Johnsons were.

  Irene knocked, and when Ol’ George Johnson came to the door, she said, “We worried ’bout yo’ wife. Tell ’er we do y’alls cookin’ an’ washin’, ’cause she got to save up what strength she got fo’ her to have y’all’s baby.”

  “She sleep now. Sho’ ’preciate it,” he said. “’Cause she been throwin’ up a lot ever since we got here.”

  “Ain’t no wonder. She don’t look to have hardly de strength of a bird,” said Irene. “You ain’t had no business bringin’ her all dat long way right dis time nohow,” Matilda added severely.

  “Tried my best to tell ’er that when I went back. But she wouldn’t have it no other way.”

  “S’pose sump’n would o’ happened. You don’t know nothin’ in de worl’ ’bout ’liverin’ no baby!” exclaimed Matilda.

  He said, “I can’t hardly believe I’m gon’ be no daddy nohow.”

  “Well, you sho’ ’bout to!” Irene nearly laughed at Ol’ George’s worried expression, then she and Matilda turned and headed back to their cabins.

  She and Matilda worried privately. “De po’ gal don’ look noways right to me,” Matilda muttered in confidence. “Can nigh see her bones. An’ speck it ’way too late to git her built up right.”

  “Feel like she gwine have a mighty hard time,” Irene prophesied. “Lawd! I sho’ ain’t never thought I’d end up likin’ no po’ white folks!”

  Less than two more weeks had passed when one midday Martha’s pains began. The whole slave-row family heard her agony from within the shed, as Matilda and Irene labored with her on through the night until shortly before the next noon. Finally when Irene emerged, her face told the haggard Ol’ George Johnson even before her mouth could form the words. “B’leeve Miss Martha gon’ pull through. Yo’ baby was a gal—but she dead.”

  CHAPTER 113

  The late afternoon of the 1863 New Year’s Day, Matilda came almost flying into the slave row. “Y’all seen dat white man jes’ rid in here? Y’all ain’t gon’ b’leeve! He in dere cussin’ to massa it jes’ come over de railroad telegraph wire Pres’dent Lincoln done signed ’Mancipation Proclamation dat set us free!”

  The galvanizing news thrust the black Murrays among the millions more like them exulting wildly within the privacy of their cabins ... but with each passing week the joyous awaiting of the freedom dwindled, diminished, and finally receded into a new despair the more it became clear that within the steadily more bloodied, ravaged Confederacy the presidential order had activated nothing but even more bitter despising of President Lincoln.

  So deep was the despair in the Murray slave row that despite Tom’s intermittent reports of the Yankees winning major battles, including even the capture of Atlanta, they refused to build up their freedom hopes anymore until toward the end of 1864, when they had not seen Tom so excited for almost two years. He said that his white customers were describing how untold thousands of murderous, pillaging Yankees, marching five miles abreast under some insane General Sherman, were laying waste to the state of Georgia. However often the family’s hopes had previously been dashed, they scarcely could suppress their renewed hope of freedom as Tom brought subsequent nightly reports.

  “Soun’ like de Yankees ain’t leavin’ nothin’! Dem white mens swears dey’s burnin’ de fiel’s, de big houses, de barns! Dey’s killin’ de mules an’ cookin’ de cows an’ everythin’ else dey can eat! Whatever dey ain’t burnin’ an’ eatin’ dey’s jes’ ruinin’, plus stealin’ anythin’ dey can tote off! An’ dey says it’s niggers all out in de woods an’ roads thick as ants dat done lef ’ dey massas an’ plantations to follow dem Yankees ’til dat Gen’l Sherman hisself beggin’ ’em to go back where dey come fum!”

  Then not long after the Yankees’ triumphal march had reached the sea, Tom breathlessly reported “Charleston done fell!” . . . and next “Gen’l Grant done took Richmon’!” . . . and finally in April of 1865, Gen’l Lee done surrendered de whole ’Federacy Army! De South done give up!”

  The jubilance in the slave row was beyond any measure now as they poured out across the big-house front yard and up the entry lane to reach the big road to join the hundreds already there, milling about, leaping and springing up and down, whooping, shouting, singing, preaching, praying. “Free, Lawd, free!” . . . “Thank Gawd A’mighty, free at las’!”

  But then within a few days the spirit of celebration plunged into deep grief and mourning with the shattering news of the assassination of President Lincoln. “Eeeeeeevil!” shrieked Matilda as the family wept around her, among the millions like them who had revered the fallen President as their Moses.

  Then in May, as it was happening all across the defeated South, Massa Murray summoned all of his slaves into the front yard that faced the big house. When they were all assembled in a line, they found it hard to look levelly at the drawn, shocked faces of the massa, the weeping Missis Murray, and the Ol’ George Johnsons, who, too, were white. In an anguished voice then, Massa Murray read slowly from the paper in his hand that the South had lost the war. Finding it very hard not to choke up before the black family standing there on the earth before him, he said, “I guess it means y’all as free as us. You can go if you want to, stay on if you want, an’ whoever stays, we’ll try to pay you something—”

  The black Murrays began leaping, singing, praying, screaming anew, “We’s free!” . . . “Free at las’!” ... “Thank you, Jesus!” The wild celebration’s sounds carried through the opened door of the small cabin where Lilly Sue’s son, Uriah, now eight years of age, had laid for weeks suffering a delirium of fever. “Freedom! Freedom!” Hearing it, Uriah came boiling up off his cot, his nightshirt flapping; he raced first for the pigpen shouting, “Ol’ pigs quit gruntin’, you’s free!” He coursed to the barn, “Ol’ cows, quit givin’ milk, you’s free!” The boy raced to the chickens next, “Ol’ hens quit layin’, you’s free!—and so’s ME!”

  But that night, with their celebration having ended in their sheer exhaustion, Tom Murray assembled his large family within the barn to discuss what they should do now that this long-awaited “freedom” had arrived. “Freedom ain’t gwine feed us, it just let us ’cide what we wants to do to eat,” said Tom. “We ain’t got much money, and ’sides me blacksmithin’ an’ Mammy cookin’, de only workin’ we knows is in de fiel’s,” he appraised their dilemma.

  Matilda reported that Massa Murray had asked her to urge them all to consider his offer to parcel out the plantation, and he would go halves with anyone interested in sharecropping. There was a heated debate. Several of the family’s adults wished to leave as quickly as possible. Matilda protested, “I wants dis family to stay togedder. Now ’bout dis talk o’ movin’, s’pose we did an’ y’all’s pappy Chicken George git back, an’ nobody couldn’t even tell him whichaway we’d gone!”

  Quiet fell when Tom made it clear he wished to speak. “Gwine tell y’all how come we can’t leave yet—it’s ’cause we jes’ ain’t noways ready. Whenever we git ourselves ready, I’ll be de firs’ one to want to go.” Most were finally convinced that Tom talked “good sense,” and the family meeting broke up.

  Taking Irene by the hand, Tom went walking with her in the moonlight toward the fields. Vaulting lightly over a fence, he took long strides, made a right-angle turn, and paced off a square, then striding back toward the rail fence, he said, “Irene, that’s going to be ours!” She echoed him, softly. “Ours.”

  Within a week, the family’s separate units were each working their fields. A morning when Tom had left his blacksmith shop to help his brothers, he recognized a lone rider along the road as the former Cavalry Major Cates, his uniform tattered and his horse spavined. Cates also recognized Tom, and riding near the fence, h
e reined up. “Hey, nigger, bring me a dipperful of your water!” he called. Tom looked at the nearby water bucket, then he studied Cates’ face for a long moment before moving to the bucket. He filled the dipper and walked to hand it to Cates. “Things is changed now, Mr. Cates,” Tom spoke evenly. “The only reason I brought you this water is because I’d bring any thirsty man a drink, not because you hollered. I jes’ want you to know that.”

  Cates handed back the dipper. “Git me another one, nigger.”

  Tom took the dipper and dropped it back into the bucket and walked off, never once looking back.

  But when another rider came galloping and hallooing along the road with a battered black derby distinguishable above a faded green scarf, those out in the fields erupted into a mass footrace back toward the old slave row. “Mammy, he’s back! He’s back!” When the horse reached the yard, Chicken George’s sons hauled him off onto their shoulders and went trooping with him to the weeping Matilda.

  “What you bellerin’ fo’, woman?” he demanded in mock indignation, hugging her as if he would never let go, but finally he did, yelling to his family to assemble and be quiet. “Tell y’all later ’bout all de places I been an’ things I done since we las’ seen one’nother,” hollered Chicken George. “But right now I got to ’quaint you wid where we’s all gwine togedder!” In pindrop quiet and with his born sense of drama, Chicken George told them now that he had found for them all a western Tennessee settlement whose white people anxiously awaited their arrival to help build a town.

  “Lemme tell y’all sump’n! De lan’ where we goin’ so black an’ rich, you plant a pig’s tail an’ a hog’ll grow ... you can’t hardly sleep nights for de watermelons growin’ so fas’ dey cracks open like firecrackers! I’m tellin’ you it’s possums layin’ under ’simmon trees too fat to move, wid de ’simmon sugar drippin’ down on ’em thick as ’lasses . . . !”