Doublehead was sitting in a tavern with his son.
"It is a good day to die," Doublehead told Jimmy. And sent his son away
from him.
Three men came in, Chief Ridge, a half-breed, Alex Saunders, and a white
trader named Rogers. Doublehead stared at Rogers in contempt.
"You are not of our people," Doublehead said to the white man. "You live
among us by our permission. I have never seen you in council or on the
warpath. Go away, and do not bother me."
Rogers laughed.
Believing that his end was near, and perhaps wanting to hasten it,
Doublehead struck the white trader. A fight devel-
84 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
oped, and others came to Doublehead's assistance, and shots were fired.
The assailants fled into the night, but Doublehead's jaw was shattered by
a bullet. A friend helped Doublehead down the street to seek help, but the
assailants came out of hiding and attacked again. Doublehead fought like
a panther, but was killed by a tomahawk blow to his skull.
In fear of his own life, Jimmy came to James, thinking he would be safe
with a white man, and poured out his grief. James comforted him, and told
him that if there was ever anything he could do for Jimmy and his family,
in honor of the chief, he had only to ask.
The merchant James Jackson, who had been kind to the Indian people, was
one of the few white men allowed to attend the funeral of the once great
chief, who was buried according to the tribal ways.
James was fascinated by the intricate, exotic ceremonies, and found
himself wondering about the relationship between man and the spirit
world. These people did not believe in his God, but they believed in some
powerful metaphysical force that caused awe in James. He thought that
Chief Doublehead's personal dilemma exemplified the tragedy of all his
people, of all the tribes. In order to live in peace with the white men,
they had to surrender to them, because they could not win against them
in war. Their land, pristine, primeval, was too valuable to be left to
their stewardship, for it was unproductive. The march of progress could
not be stopped, yet, surely, in this vast country, there was land enough
for all? James approved of the concept behind the treaties, whereby the
Indians gave land for white settlement in return for the right to live
in peace on what was left, and he cursed those whites who coveted what
the Indians still had. When he saw the wonderful, empty landscapes on
which the Creek and Cherokee and Chickasaw still roamed, he envied them
their freedom, and thought it was a sweet and simple life to live as they
did, taking from the land only what could be replenished, living from the
land that gave to them in abundance.
At the same time, in his darker moments, he knew how much money he could
make if he could persuade them to part with some few acres of it. He
cherished the idea that perhaps he could wrest a private treaty from
Chief Doublehead, as
BLOODLINES 85
others had done, and make that land available to settlers on a legal
basis, and be rich beyond imagining.
When wealth did come to James, it was indeed from land, but not quite as
he expected. Successful as James and Washington were in all their
endeavors, the real money came to them when Thomas Jefferson, the
president, put an embargo on all shipping from United States ports.,
"Tom's gone mad!" Andrew cried, and railed and fumed, and swore it would
bankrupt the country, which it very nearly did. James only vaguely
understood why Jefferson had taken this action, but thrilled to be
friends with a man who called the president Tom.
As James understood it, Britain, at war with France, had put an embargo
on American ships sailing to European ports, and Napoleon retaliated by
putting an embargo on American ships sailing to British ports. Jefferson
put an embargo on all American shipping, to try to bring the two warring
factions to reason with regard to neutral American commerce.
"Cutting off his nose to sprite his face," Andrew cried again, stomping
on the floor in rage.
The effect of the embargo was catastrophic. Some smart companies and
ship's captains found their way around it by using ports in the
Caribbean, but few goods came into America, and fewer left. The dormant
secession movement in New England woke up sharply, because theirs were
the ports most harshly affected, but Southern cotton growers, and those
around Nashville, suffered as well. They could not get their cotton to
British markets.
The farmers lived in hope that the embargo would be repealed, and tried
to continue to pay their debts. Cash money was scarce and promissory
notes abounded.
" Danmed paper!" Andrew cried again. "It will be the ruin of us. Hard
currency is the only honorable money!"
James and Washington obliged their customers to the limit of their
financial ability, which was now considerable. When all else failed, they
accepted land in payment of debts, and by the time the embargo was lifted
they owned over fifty thousand acres. With the resumption of trade, the
price of land rocketed to the sky. James and Washington sold half of what
86 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
they owned at formidable profit, and bought yet more.
Washington was drawn more and more to the South, to Natchez. He loved the
lazy, unhurried river life, and bought some barges to carry cargo between
Natchez and New Orleans.
James's passion became a farm he had accumulated outside Nashville. It
was the first estate he had ever owned, and he enjoyed the role of
country squire. He gave soirees and picnics, and entertained the notables
of the town. A frequent visitor to Andrew's house, he became involved in
the politics of the South, and of the frontier, and met several of the
rising young politicians of the day, Henry Clay and his son Henry junior
from Kentucky, John McKinley from Tennessee, and John Coffee, a military
man, and Andrew's aide. John Coffee and Andrew owned the Cloverbottorn
Horse Race Track, and James and Andrew, the two Jacksons as they were
called, were always to be seen at the meetings. Both men loved the sport,
and Andrew owned several blooded horses.
"You will never amount to anything."
His father's last words to him were the fuel to the engine of James's
ambition, and yet he could never convince himself that he had achieved
enough to prove his father wrong.
. Thus James became one of the landholding gentry, though still in trade,
the owner of a small cotton plantation, a cotton gin, a successful
business, a breeder of racehorses, and Massa to more than forty slaves.
He had never attended a slave auction, nor had he ever sent one of his
slaves to the block.
Family gathered to him as rapidly as money. After his sister Martha died,
Eleanor came from Ireland with her second husband, Thomas Kirkman, and
r /> their children, Mary Letitia, James, and little Tom, together with
Martha's two girls, Mary and Anna. Thomas had an astute mind for
commerce, and James put him in charge of the store. Sara and Jimmy came
with their four children, Mary Ann, Jane, Robert, and Ellen. James
employed Jimmy in his land office. Shortly after arriving in Nashville,
Sara gave birth to a girl, who was called Letitia, in honor of Hugh's
wife, in Baltimore.
Surrounded by loving family, rich and successful, still young enough and
handsome enough, James had almost all his heart desired, except two
things. He had no shadow, no personal manservant, as Andrew had Alfred,
and he had never found a woman to love.
BLOODLINES 87
The first was easy. He discussed his need with Andrew, and Andrew sent
Alfred looking. It took a year, but finally Alfred found a winner.
Cap'n Jack was in his early twenties when he came to James. His previous
Massa, in Virginia, had seen the potential in him, and had taken the
youthful slave, Jack, into the house, and trained him as a manservant. He
also taught Cap'n Jack to read and write, which was unusual among slaves,
and forbidden in some states. Cap'n Jack took full advantage of the ben-
efits that had come to him, worked hard and well, and made himself
indispensable to his Massa, who was old and infirm. He had a habit of
calling everyone "Cap'n" because he could not bear to use the word
"Massa," which accentuated his slave status, and eventually became known
as Cap'n Jack himself. Andrew Jackson was a frequent visitor to the
estate, on his many trips to Washington on government business, and Alfred
and Cap'n Jack became friends. When Cap'n Jack's Massa became mortally
ill, Alfred suggested to Andrew that he buy Cap'n Jack on James's behalf.
Despite the fact that this almost certainly saved Cap'n Jack from the
auction block, he seethed with resentment about this change in his
ownership. He wanted to stay and nurse his old Massa. He didn't want to
be uprooted from the only home he had known, in pleasant Virginia, and
be carted off to the frontier to a man he didn't know. Besides, he
cherished the hope that his Massa would free him in his will. This was
not to be. Although the old man was fond of Cap'n Jack, he did not
believe in the practice of freeing niggers, no matter how loyal they had
been.
"It the block, or the backblocks," Alfred told him with a wheezy chuckle.
Cap'n Jack was forced to admit that his dream of freedom had been false,
and having no alternative, he accompanied Alfred and Andrew to his new
Massa, but went with bad grace,
For the first few weeks it was a disaster. Cap'n Jack did as he was told
by James, but with ill humor, and never extended himself. To reinforce
his bitterness at his status, Cap'n Jack stopped calling white men
"Cap'n," and called James "Massa," with scarcely concealed contempt. It
made James
88 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
angry. He had paid a thousand dollars for Cap'n Jack, and hoped for a
servant as loyal and obliging and inventive as Alfred was to Andrew, not
this surly, if competent, man, who never questioned anything, and never
took any initiative.
He lost his temper with Cap'n Jack, and threatened to sell him, but Cap'n
Jack only shrugged.
"If'n that make you happy, Massa," he said. "To buy an' sell niggers."
That made James angrier, because Cap'n Jack had touched his conscience.
James was still ambivalent in his attitude to slavery. He had acquired
slaves because it was the done thing, because it was expected of him, and
because only slaves performed certain jobs. It was also true that he
enjoyed the status that having so many slaves gave him. He believed
himself to be a benevolent Massa, he never went to an auction or sold
slaves away, and, for the most part, he treated his slaves well. His
lenience had declined over time. He allowed his foreman on the plantation
to use the lash mildly, or some of the children to be chastised with the
switch, but he persuaded himself that his slaves were better looked after
than any in the district. Ephraim, and Tiara and Micah's boys were almost
like sons to him.
He lived in the South and slavery was the way of the South. He had not
made his fortune on their sweat and labor, but by his own sharp brain and
endeavors. He thought his slaves responded well to his treatment of them.
They seemed loyal, and obedient, and none had ever run away. There were
some dissenters, a couple of troublesome young men on the plantation, but
James put this down to intemperate youth, and a few stinging lashes from
the foreman's whip soon brought them to heel.
Still, the practice troubled him, although less and less as the numbers
of those he owned grew larger, and he knew them less well, and was less
involved in their lives. He calmed his conscience by telling himself that
slavery was best for these people, who were illiterate and not able to
survive in the white man's world, but most of the time he tried to avoid
thinking about slavery, or freedom, as an issue.
Cap'n Jack was the living proof that he had compromised some of his
ideals, and that made him angry. He discussed the problem with
Washington, when his brother passed through
BLOODLINES 89
Nashville on his way home to Ireland, for a visit to the old country.
Washington had no problem with slavery. He owned a number of slaves in
Natchez, who operated his fleet of barges between that city and New
Orleans. A natural leader of men, a natural authority figure, but with
chann and good humor, Washington kept his slaves well disciplined, but
although he tolerated harsh punishment, he enjoyed finding less extreme
ways of solving problems.
"Don't get mad," he told James with a laugh. "Get Irish."
James got Irish. He called Cap'n Jack to his study one night, ordered him
to sit, and produced a bottle of good whiskey. He poured drinks for both
of them, and asked Cap'n Jack to explain his problem.
Cap'n Jack couldn't believe this was happening.. Slaves were discouraged
from drinking liquor-often it was forbidden to them-and no one, not even
his first, much-loved Massa, had ever asked him what he felt. What he
thought, yes, but never what he felt.
Sullen at first, he sipped on the whiskey, and felt the fire race through
him. He didn't know how to say all the things that raged in his heart,
but the liquor released his tongue.
"I ain't free," he blurted out.
"No, you're not," James agreed calmly. "You're my slave. "
"An' what gives you the fight to own me?" Cap'n Jack retorted. He was
astonished at himself. Such audacity would surely get him flogged
tomorrow, but it was done now. In for a penny, in for a pound. He was
going to be punished anyway; he might as well make the most of his crime.
"I don't know," James replied, hon
estly. "But it is the way of it."
"Then the way is wrong," Cap'n Jack insisted. He gulped on his whiskey
again, and suddenly all the distress and bitterness he had accumulated
over the years came pouring out of him.
He was treated as an animal, or livestock, but he was not an animal; he
could read and write, he could think, and he could feel.
90 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"I think, therefore I am," James agreed. He poured more whiskey, and
asked if Cap'n Jack's previous Massa had not treated him well.
"He was good to me," Cap'n Jack was forced to admit. "Like his pet dog,
or his best stallion. But he never treated me human."
"I try to do that," James said. "But you resent me."
"Course I do," Cap'n Jack said. "Coz I ain't free. All yo' niggers resent
you. Coz you got the power over them."
It had never occurred to James, nor did he believe it. His people loved
him. Even the troublesome few on the plantation were angry because of
their work and their lowly conditions, he had thought, but not at him.
He was sure, not at him. But he would investigate what Cap'n Jack told
him.
Cap'n Jack fought for words to make him understand, but what words were
there? What words could explain to someone who was free, and whose
freedom was never in doubt, how precious freedom was? How could he
explain what it felt like to be bom in bondage, and know you would never
be free of it?
Never be free to choose your own name, and your own life. Never be free
to make decisions for yourself-, never be free to travel where vou
wanted, to do what you wanted. Never be free of being sold. Never be free
of the fear that your wife might be sold away from you, and your
children. Never be free to create something of your own, to farm some
small few acres, and give it to your son, saying I made this, yo' pappy
made this. Never free to fight for yourself and yours, never free of the
fear of unfair punishment, never free from the potential pain of the
lash.
Never free to be a man.
"It don't matter if'n you don't never whump us," he said. "It is enough
that you have the power to do it."
His mind exploded at the simple unfairness of it, the Linbelievable
injustice that had been done to him and his people, all because they were
black. He fought back tears.
"You think we's proud to be slaves?" Cap'n Jack asked him, his anger
nearly spent, and other emotions unsettling him.
James listened to the litany of grief, the sad song in praise
BLOODLINES 91
of freedom, and thought of Fortan, the black sailmaker in Philadelphia,
who made over a hundred thousand dollars a year, and could look on his
life with pride.
He thought of his peasant friends in Ireland, who toiled all their lives
for some other man's benefit, and were prepared to die for a chance of
freedom.
He thought of Sean, effectively slave to soil he did not own, and who did
lay down his life to be free, and went triumphantly to his grave.
He remembered the shame he felt on the day he bought Ephraim, and did not
even think of the boy's enforced separation from his family. He felt
ashamed now, and when he saw that there were tears in his new slave's
eyes, he was distressed.
"What can I do?" James asked.
"Make me free," Cap'n lack said.
"Why should I do that?" James wondered. "I have paid a great deal of
money for you, and you have given me no indication that you deserve your
freedom."
"Did you earn yours?" Cap'n Jack responded. "Or was you bom to it?"
He had gone too far, he was sure. He'd be sent to the block tomorrow,
after a hundred lashes at least, but it was almost worth it.
"Yes, I was," James agreed. "You were not, for that is not the way of it
here. But you could earn it."
Cap'n Jack brushed away the tear from his eye, and looked at him. Was
this the bait they always dangled? His ol' Massa had said it to him so
often.
"Work hard for me, Jack, and you could be free."