Alex Haley - Roots - The Saga of an American Family

“Pappy, ain’t none my chilluns gon’ grow up widdout knowin’.” Tom strained a smile. “I reckon if I don’ tell ’em, Gran’mammy Kizzy come back to set me straight.”

There was silence for a while as the three of them sat staring at the fire.

Finally Chicken George spoke again.

“Me an’ ’Tilda was countin’ I got forty more days fo’ I has to leave, ’cordin’ to what de law say. But I been thinkin’ ain’t no good time to go. Ain’t no point keep jes’ puttin’ off—”

He sprang up from his chair, fiercely embracing Tom and Irene. “I be back!” he rasped brokenly. “Take care one ’nother!” He bolted through the door.

It was early in November of 1860, and Tom was hurrying to finish his last blacksmithing task before darkness fell. He made it. Then, banking the fire in his forge, he trudged wearily home to have supper with Irene, who was nursing their baby girl, Maria, now half a year old. But they ate wordlessly, because Irene elected not to interrupt his thoughtful silence. And afterward they joined the rest of the family crowded into Matilda’s cabin, cracking and shelling hickory nuts that she and Irene—who was again pregnant—had been collecting for use in the special cakes and pies they planned to bake for Christmas and New Year’s.

Tom sat listening to the light conversation without comment—or even seeming to hear—and then, finally, during a lull, he leaned forward in his chair and spoke: “Y ’all ’member different times I’se said white mens talkin’ ’roun’ my shop done been cussin’ an’ carryin’ on ’bout dat Massa Lincoln? Well, wish y’all coulda heared’em today, ’cause he been ’lected Pres’dent. Dey claim now he gon’ be up dere in de White House ’gainst de South an’ anybody keepin’ slaves.”

“Well,” said Matilda, “I be primed to hear whatever Massa Murray got to say ’bout it. He sho’ been steady tellin’ missis gwine be big trouble less’n de North an’ South git dey differences settled, one way or ’nother.”

“Different things I’ve heared,” Tom went on, “whole lots mo’ folks dan we thinks is ’gainst slavin’. Ain’t all of ’em up Nawth, neither. I couldn’t hardly keep my min’ on what I was doin’ today, I been studyin’ on it so hard. Seem like too much to b’lieve, but it could come a day won’t be no mo’ slaves.”

“Well, we sho’ won’t live to see it,” said Ashford sourly.

“But maybe she will,” said Virgil, nodding toward Irene’s baby.

“Don’t seem likely,” said Irene, “much as I like to b’lieve it. You put together all de slaves in de South, wid even jes’ fiel’ hands bringin’ eight an’ nine hunnud dollars apiece, dat’s mo’ money’n God’s got! Plus dat, we does all de work.” She looked at Tom. “You know white folks ain’t gwine give dat up.”

“Not widdout a fight,” said Ashford. “An’ dey’s lot’s more dem dan us. So how we gwine win?”

“But if ’n you talkin’ ’bout de whole country,” said Tom, “it might be jes’ many folks ’gainst slavery as fo’ it.”

“Trouble is dem what’s ’gainst it ain’t here where we is,” Virgil said, and Ashford nodded, agreeing with someone for a change.

“Well, if ’n Ashford right ’bout a fight, all dat could change real fast,” said Tom.

In early December, soon after Massa and Missis Murray returned home in their buggy from dinner at a neighboring big house one night, Matilda hurried from the big house to Tom and Irene’s cabin. “What do ‘seceded’ mean?” she asked, and when they shrugged their shoulders, she went on. “Well, massa says dat’s what South Ca’liny jes’ done. Massa soun’ like it mean dey’s pullin’ out’n de Newnited States.”

“How dey gon’ pull out de country dey’s in?” Tom said.

“White folks do anythin’,” said Irene.

Tom hadn’t told them, but throughout the day, he had been listening to his white customers fuming that they would be “wadin’ knee deep in blood” before they’d give in to the North on something they called “states’ rights,” along with the right to own slaves.

“I ain’t wantin’ to scare y’all none,” he told Matilda and Irene, “but I really b’leeves it gon’ be a war.”

“Oh, my Lawd! Where’bouts it gon’ be, Tom?”

“Mammy, ain’t no special war grounds, like church or picnic grounds!”

“Well, I sho’ hope don’t be nowhere roun’ here!”

Irene scoffed at them both. “Don’t y’all ax me to b’lieve no white folks gwine git to killin’ one ’nother over niggers.”

But as the days passed, the things Tom overheard at his shop convinced him that he was right. Some of it he told his family about, but some not, for he didn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily, and he hadn’t decided himself whether he dreaded the events he saw coming—or hoped for them. But he could sense the family’s uneasiness increasing anyway, along with the traffic on the main road, as white riders and buggies raced back and forth past the plantation faster and faster and in ever-growing numbers. Almost every day someone would turn into the driveway and engage Massa Murray in conversation; Matilda employed every ruse to mop and dust where she could listen in. And slowly, over the next few weeks, in the nightly family exchanges, the white people’s frightened, angry talk gradually encouraged all of them to dare to believe that if there was a war—and the “Yankees” won—it was just possible that they might really be set free.

An increasing number of the blacks who delivered blacksmithing jobs to Tom told him that their massas and missies were becoming suspicious and secretive, lowering their voices and even spelling out words when even their oldest and closest servants entered a room.

“Is dey actin’ anyways ’culiar in de big house roun’ you, Mammy?” Tom asked Matilda.

“Not no whisperin’ or spellin’ or sich as dat,” she said. “But dey sho’ is done commence to shift off sudden to talkin’ ’bout crops or dinner parties jes’ soon’s I come in.”

“Bes’ thing for us all to do,” said Tom, “is act dumb as we can, like we ain’t even heard ’bout what gwine on.”

Matilda considered that—but decided against it. And one evening after she had served the Murrays their desserts, she came into the dining room and exclaimed, wringing her hands, “Lawd, Massa an’ Missy, y’all ’scuse me, jes’ got to say my chilluns an’ me is hearin’ all dis talk goin’ roun’, an’ we be’s mighty scared o’ dem Yankees, an we sho’ hopes you gwine take care of us if ’n dey’s trouble.” With satisfaction, she noted the swift expressions of approval and relief crossing their faces.

“Well, you’re right to be scared, for those Yankees are certainly no friends of yours!” said Missis Murray.

“But don’t you worry,” said the massa reassuringly, “there’s not going to be any trouble.”

Even Tom had to laugh when Matilda described the scene. And he shared with the family another laugh when he told them how he had heard that a stablehand in Melville Township had handled the ticklish matter. Asked by his massa whose side he’d be on if a war came, the stablehand had said, “You’s seed two dogs fightin’ over a bone, Massa? Well, us niggers be’s dat bone.”

Christmas, then New Year’s came and went with hardly any thought of festivity throughout Alamance County. Every few days Tom’s customers would arrive with news of secessions by still more among the southern states—first Mississippi, then Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana, all during the month of January 1861, and on the first day of February, Texas. And all of them proceeded to join a “Confederacy” of southern states headed by their own President, a man named Jefferson Davis.