Bryan Prince
A Shadow on the Household tells the shocking story of a black family torn apart by slavery. It chronicles the family's courageous struggle, against impossible odds, to reunite in freedom and the unflagging commitment of the abolitionists who assisted them.
Bryan Prince, the descendent of slaves, lives in Buxton, Ont., not far from the original slave settlement where part of this story unfolds. He is the author of I Came as a Stranger: The Underground Railroad, which won the Nautilus Book Award for Children's Non-fiction. The gifts of the children's novelist - lucidity and sincerity - serve him well, particularly as he conveys the content of complicated slave records. Prince exposes the home economics behind the domestic slave trade, and the resources required to fight it.
The story opens mid-19th century in Maryland, where John Weems and his wife, Arabella, are raising their large family. John is a free black man, but Arabella and their children are slaves. They are the property of Adam Robb, of Rockville, who permits the family to live together on and off. The wealthy proprietor of a popular inn, Robb owns many slaves. As a rule, he has no qualms about splitting up black families for sale; however, there is some speculation that Arabella's sister is his child and he feels some responsibility to keep her family together.
Everything changes, however, after his death. The slaves are divided between his two daughters, and when one, Catharine, falls deep into debt, she and her husband liquidate their "assets." Catharine sells the Weems family to traders with the cruel stipulation that they never be returned to the area. John desperately raises money, but it is too little too late, and Arabella and the boys are sent to the Deep South, while the two daughters are held in a slave pen.
The eldest Weems daughter had escaped years before to Geneva, N.Y. There, for her own safety, she was adopted into the family of a former slave, the respected abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet. It is through Garnet's ties with powerful abolitionists abroad that the Weems family became a popular cause. A fund was started to help John locate the scattered members of his family and buy them out of bondage.
Prince pieces together much of the story by scouring the financial ledgers of various slave owners, accounts in which furniture, utensils, animals and black people are evaluated alike. In Robb's books, Arabella's aging mother, Cecilia, is worth $15, the same as a roan cow and six silver tablespoons. Prince notes that masters would often turn slaves over to their children as a means of hiding assets. Many regularly broke faith with slaves they had promised to free.
Prince reminds us that Robb, his daughter, Catharine, and Dr. Rumph, the southern owner of John and Arabella's son, were the elite, among the wealthiest, most esteemed and influential members of their community. Today, slavery is presented as an aspect of the black past, but Prince situates the practice smack in the middle of mainstream history.
Personally, I never quite believed that anyone ever thought of slavery as a respectable idea. But I am beginning to grasp why so many seemingly decent people stood by and let it to go on as long as it did. It was partly owing to race hatred, and partly because of the way this culture worships wealth; the way people believe that somehow money equals morals. Slavery was permitted to continue because slave owners were rich, and, naturally, people who are rich must be doing something right.
Many abolitionists had been speaking out for decades, of course, some going to great and dangerous lengths to help fugitive slaves. William Chaplin of New York assisted Arabella's sister and daughter, Stella, when they fled Maryland. Chaplin was instrumental in a large number of escapes and was eventually imprisoned for his trouble. Another committed activist, Lewis Tappan, worked fervently for years to track down John and Arabella's missing children. The international network Prince describes is eye-opening, amazing.
Still, money was also central to the abolitionist debate: An outcry ensued over the funds to procure the Weems's freedom. Many abolitionists refused to contribute a cent that in any way perpetuated slavery. They also believed that the money might better be employed assisting runaways: Most conductors on the Underground Railroad did not work for free. They were paid to hide, house and transport fugitives. Once in Canada, slaves required cash to begin their new lives.
In appearance, this excellent book resembles a keepsake or family album. Set into the type are lovely sketches and antique, oval, faithfully reproduced photos of the central players, along with pictures of the famous figures who touched the Weems's lives. They include Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose timely novel Uncle Tom's Cabin heightened outrage at the family's plight, and Josiah Henson, the character upon whom the book was based. Henson, also a former slave of Adam Robb, resided at the Dawn Settlement in Dresden, in Upper Canada, where John and Arabella would eventually live.
While this chronicle contains no first-hand accounts of the Weems's experiences, Prince's concrete details of a desperate time and place bring the family fiercely to life. It is a superb piece of scholarship.
Donna Bailey Nurse is the editor of Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing.