Portraying a Character's Attitude Toward Slavery

 

One dilemma that a writer of historical fiction faces is how to make the story historically accurate without offending readers. As mentioned last week, I faced this dilemma when writing my middle-grade historical novel Learning to Surrender with a protagonist who grew up in a culture where slavery was the established way of life.

My protagonist has never thought deeply about the issue, but here is a quote from the first chapter showing her initial feelings.  

As Charlotte waited for the artillery to stop firing, she frowned. Why did the North want to get rid of slavery? The Gibsons had always treated their slaves well, and Benjamin and Nettie didn’t have to worry about anything. They had a comfortable place to sleep and plenty of food to eat, and her parents never beat them. Yes, there were some bad masters and mistresses, but that was the fault of the owners, not the system.

That passage takes place while Charlotte, her family, and their two slaves are cowering in a small cave as cannonballs and bullets fly around them. The danger Charlotte is in and the fear it causes her create some sympathy for her in spite of her attitude toward slavery. At the least, they give the reader a reason not to give up on her yet.

The story tries to be true to the historical context in which slavery existed and was accepted by the white community in the deep South, but it also shows my protagonist grappling with the issue and learning what slavery meant to those in figurative (as well literal) chains. Here is the book blurb:

When the Union armies surround Vicksburg, 12-year-old Charlotte and her family find themselves living in a cave. As she discovers what it is like to lose control of her life, will her attitude toward slavery change?

Of course it does. Otherwise, she would have been an unsympathetic character all the way until the end.

If the readers had gotten that far.

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My research indicates that the image at the top of this post, titled “The Auction Sale,” is one of six illustrations created by Hammet Billings for the 1852 edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is in the public domain because of its age.

A Historical Dilemma

 

Last Sunday’s Bible class topic was Paul’s letter to Philemon, which deals with slavery. It reminded me of the struggle I had with that issue when writing Learning to Surrender, which has since been published and is available on Amazon. The story takes place during the Civil War siege of Vicksburg, and my dilemma over slavery was how to make the book historically accurate without offending my readers. This week’s blog post is a slightly revised reprint from February 19, 2024, just before the book was published. Next week I’ll tell you how I resolved the dilemma mentioned in the reprinted post.

Creating Sympathy for Characters with Unsympathetic Beliefs

During a trip down the Mississippi River to research a different book, I came across information on the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg, where the residents dug and lived in caves that served as bomb shelters. The idea intrigued me, but it had one big negative.

There were few, if any, abolitionists in Vicksburg at the time. Early in the writing process, I came up with several ideas of how I might make my character and her family secret opponents to slavery, but Roland wasn’t sure that even closet abolitionists existed in the deep South then. Besides, that choice didn’t feel right. Historical realism dictates that my main character believe in slavery, so how could I make her sympathetic in spite of her unsympathetic beliefs?

This isn’t an unusual situation for a writer to be in. Many stories begin with an unsympathetic protagonist whose change in character or beliefs is at the crux of the story. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge, who starts out as a people-hating miser and ends up as an open-hearted and generous person. Or Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden, who is one of the most spoiled, selfish heroines in children’s literature until she starts having compassion for someone else.

Readers don’t usually identify with unsympathetic characters, and they don’t like to read about people they don’t identify with. Unless we catch their interest at the beginning of the book, they won’t read on. That means that one of our tasks as writers is to generate sympathy for unsympathetic characters or for otherwise likeable characters with unsympathetic beliefs. Charles Dickens did it with humor. Frances Hodgson Burnett did it by showing the circumstances that formed Mary’s obnoxious character.

Generating sympathy for a main character with unsympathetic beliefs is just part of the job.

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The drawing at the head of this post comes from Harper’s Encyclopedia of United States History (vol. 10), John Lossing Benson, ed. (New York, NY, Harper and Brothers, 1912). It is in the public domain because of its age.

The Changing Face of Political Correctness

Recently, a friend was reading Desert Jewels and asked me about the authenticity of a passage explaining that the protagonist’s Japanese American father and Caucasian mother got married in Indiana because it was illegal in Chicago. While the book is fiction, the scene is based on the real life experience of Nakaji and Eleanore Torii, who married in Crown Point, Indiana in 1930.¹  To add to that story, apparently the FBI tried to pressure Eleanore to divorce Nakaji in 1943 but she refused because he was a good provider. Although this is pure speculation, I would like to think that the real reason she refused was because she loved her husband. However, saying he was a good provider was an answer more people would likely understand or accept.

In 1930, mixed marriages were not politically correct. And during World War II, it wasn’t even politically correct to have Japanese American friends. Entire families—including many American born children—were incarcerated simply because of their blood line.

Then there are my current works-in-progress, which take place in the South before and during the Civil War. In that time and place, it was politically correct to support slavery and politically incorrect to oppose it.

These days, very few people would argue that mixed marriages are wrong and that the Japanese American incarceration and slavery were right. And it isn’t that the rightness or wrongness changed with the times, although many people who held those now outdated political beliefs did think they were morally right. Political climates and beliefs change, but right and wrong never do.

So don’t expect me to be politically correct if I don’t believe it’s right.

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¹ Images of America: Japanese Americans in Chicago, by Alice Murata. See pages 9, 15–18. 

The photo at the top of this post was taken by Dorothea Lange in San Francisco, California during April 1942, while she was working for the War Relocation Authority. It is in the public domain because it was taken as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government.

Unrecognized Irony

Does irony count as irony when it isn’t intentional? What about a description of the “tyranny” imposed on the South by the North that sounds exactly like the bondage imposed by Southerners on their slaves?

I’m reading The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman by Sarah Morgan, which is research for a book about the Siege of Vicksburg. Sarah Morgan lived at Baton Rouge, not Vicksburg, but her thoughts and experiences provide insight into how a Southern female from that time viewed her society and the events happening around her.

Sarah’s diary abounds with intentional sarcasm, but she doesn’t seem to see the irony in her cry against the North. Here are some passages she wrote after Union forces occupied Baton Rouge.

June 1, 1862

A gentleman tells me that no one is permitted to leave without a pass, and of these, only such as are separated from their families who may have left before. All families are prohibited to leave, and furniture, and other valuables also. Here is an agreeable arrangement! I saw the “pass” just such as we give our negroes, signed by a Wisconsin Colonel. Think of being obliged to ask permission from some low ploughman, to go in and out of our own homes!

June 29, 1862

We all feel so helpless, so powerless under the hand of our tyrant [Lincoln], the man who swore to uphold the Constitution and the laws, who is professedly only fighting to give us all Liberty, the birthright of every American, and who, neverless has ground us down to a state where we would not reduce our negroes, who tortures and sneers at us, and rules us with iron hand! Ah Liberty! what a humbug!

I would rather belong to England or France, than to the North! Bondage, woman that I am, I can never stand! Even now, the northern papers distributed among us, taunt us with our subjection, and tell us “how coolly Butler will grind them down, paying no regard to their writhing and torture beyond tightening the bands still more!” Ah truly! this is the bitterness of slavery, to be insulted and reviled by cowards who are safe at home, and enjoy the protection of the laws, while we, captive and overpowered, dare not raise our voices to throw back the insult, and are governed by the despotism of one man, whose word is our law!

I would like to think that I would never condone slavery or see life the way Sarah did, even if I was raised in her time and place. But that’s too self-righteous. None of us really knows how we would react to a situation until we are in it.

Still, I hope I recognize the irony in my writing.

__________

The photo at the head of this page is in the public domain because of its age.

How Could We?

Two stops on our vacation were stark reminders of the time in American history when white men and women regarded our black brothers and sisters as property, like dogs and horses. Except dogs and horses were sometimes treated better.

How could we? But would I have been any different if I'd lived then? I'll probably never know.

The first picture shows the old slave market in Charleston, South Carolina. It is now a museum, dedicated to educating visitors on how people bought and sold other people. Even when it split families apart.

The second picture shows John Brown's Fort at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It was really a fire station, but Brown chose it for his fortress when his raid failed.

John Brown was a white abolitionist who planned to seize the armory at Harpers Ferry, arm the slaves, and induce a slave revolt. This was in 1859, before the Civil War started.

When the raid went wrong, Brown and his men retreated to the "fort" and tried to hold off the U.S. Marines. Failing, they were captured and hung.

Although few people today deny the justice of John Brown's cause, some question the wisdom of his actions. Still, John Brown's Fort reminds us that some white men were willing to put their lives on the line for their black brothers.

But it shouldn't have been necessary.