Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Wench

It was only after Sweet’s death that they decided to read the pamphlet, as if the loss of her had stirred in them a more urgent reason to know about these freedom-loving whites. On the first morning that she read, only Mawu and Reenie sat beside her. Later, Philip and George would join them. But that first time, it was just the three women sitting in the parlor of Lizzie’s cottage. Lizzie pulled the couch over to sit just in front of the two women. Reenie put out a plate of bread, and Mawu sipped from a cup of tea.

“The Philosophy of the Abolition Movement” by Wendell Phillips. This is a speech delivered in Boston on January 27, 1853.

Lizzie cleared her throat, and decided to start at the beginning. She had looked the pamphlet over several times and there were words she could not accurately pronounce because she had never heard them said aloud before. But she was pretty certain of the general meaning of what she was about to read. Even so, her hands shook. She wondered what the women would think if they knew that it had been Glory who had stolen the pamphlet and given it to her. Glory, the faithful Quaker, had stolen it out of the bag of a man at the post office.

Mr. Chairman,-I have to present, from the Business Committee, the following resolution:-

Resolved, That the object of this Society is now, as it has always been, to convince our countrymen, by arguments addressed to their hearts and consciences, that slaveholding is a heinous crime, and that the duty, safety and interest of all concerned, demand its immediate abolition, without expatriation.

Lizzie wanted to stop and read those words again. She had never heard a white man talk in such a way. For a moment, she faltered, wondering if she’d mispronounced the word “heinous.” But she continued:

I wish, Mr. Chairman, to notice some objections that have been made to our course, ever since Mr. Garrison began his career, and which have been lately urged again, with considerable force and emphasis, in the columns of the London Leader, the able organ of a very respectable and influential class in England. I hope, Sir, you will not think it a waste of time to bring such a subject before you. I know these objections have been made a thousand times; that they have been often answered; though we have generally submitted to them in silence, willing to let results speak for us. But there are times when justice to the slave will not allow us to be silent. There are many in this country, many in England, who have had their attention turned, recently, to the AntiSlavery cause. They are asking, “Which is the best and most efficient method of helping it?” Engaged ourselves in an effort for the slave, which time has tested and success hitherto approved, we are, very properly, desirous that they should join us in our labors, and pour into this channel the full tide of their new zeal and great resources. Thoroughly convinced ourselves that our course is wise, we can honestly urge others to adopt it. Long experience gives us a right to advise. The fact that our course, more than all other efforts, has caused that agitation which has awakened these new converts, gives us a right to counsel them. They are our spiritual children: for their sakes, we would free the cause we love and trust from every seeming defect and plausible objection. For the slave’s sake, we reiterate our explanations, that he may lose no little of help by the mistakes or misconceptions of his friends.

Lizzie read slowly, and when she noticed Reenie picking at the hem of her dress, she decided to skip ahead a bit.

The charges to which I refer are these: That in dealing with slaveholders and their apologists, we indulge in fierce denunciations, instead of appealing to their reason and common sense by plain statements and fair argument;-that we might have won the sympathies and support of the nation, if we would have submitted to argue this question with a manly patience; but instead of this, we have outraged the feelings of the community by attacks, unjust and unnecessarily severe, on its most valued institutions, and gratified our spleen by indiscriminate abuse of leading men, who were often honest in their intentions, however mistaken in their views;-that we have utterly neglected the ample means that lay around us to convert the nation, submitted to no discipline, formed no plan, been guided by no foresight, but hurried on in a childish, reckless, blind and hot-headed zeal-bigots in the narrowness of our views, and fanatics in our blind fury of invective and malignant judgment of other men’s motives.

Mawu whistled. “Ooh, I didn’t know you could read so nice, Miss Lizzie. I can’t hardly understand for listening to the sound of them words. What that man saying there?”

“He’s saying that the abolitionists have been accused of being too…too vicious, too mean, and he doesn’t believe this to be true. He believes these folks that accuse them of this don’t know what they’re talking about. He believes that the cause of freedom is just and right and they must do all they can to get rid of slavery.”

Reenie’s eyes were wide. “Oh my sweet Jesus. Go on,” she urged. “Go on.”

Two days after Sweet was laid to rest, the white men discovered Philip sneaking off the resort to meet his woman. No one knew how they found out. But the word got back to the slaves that Philip had been meeting her halfway between the colored resort and the white one. Lizzie thought of how often slaves did this back in Tennessee, meeting halfway between plantations and making their love felt on the forest floor. In contrast, she thought of how direct Drayle was back on their place, exercising his rights wherever and whenever the mood hit him.

They all waited around wondering what would happen next. No one had seen Philip, and Lizzie searched frantically for Drayle, but he, too, was nowhere to be seen. From her porch, Lizzie could make out Reenie hanging laundry behind her cottage and Mawu walking on the other side of the lake carrying something on her head.

Lizzie swept the dust out the front door of her cottage. Back at the plantation, Drayle might have gotten away with giving Philip a light scolding and perhaps having the slave trader visit the place to scare the slaves into thinking that Philip might be sold off. But here, in this northern climate, where he was under the scrutiny of the other Southern slaveholders, Drayle would probably decide to take a sterner approach.

Lizzie had to get to Drayle first, remind him that Philip was still his favorite slave. It was no longer a rumor but a well-known fact that this would be their last summer at the resort. Most likely, Drayle figured that if he could get Philip back to Tennessee without this woman, he would be able to get his slave’s mind off her.

Once, Drayle had bought a beautiful woman for one of his slaves after the man’s wife died in childbirth. The young woman had been intended to salve the older man’s grief. They had taken up residence together in one of the slave cabins, and it was not long before the young girl had genuinely fallen for the kind old man. It had been an unexpected but welcome outcome to the forced coupling. Lizzie thought this was probably what Drayle was hoping for now, that he could purchase a woman for Philip that would solve everything.

Lizzie tried to block out any image in her mind of Drayle having Philip beat. Besides, who would beat him? There was no overseer here to perform Drayle’s dirty work, and Drayle had never been one to perform such an unpleasant task himself. There was that one hotel porter who would do anything the white men told him for a price, the one with the watch who had accompanied them to Dayton. George would do it if so ordered, but she doubted that he would complete the task with any zest. And the slaveholders knew this.