Maine and Missouri wanted to enter the Union of twenty-two states, half of them free, half slave. Maine would join as the former, Missouri the latter. Debate in Washington was fierce and partisan. An 1820 compromise admitted both states and, with the exception of Missouri, prohibited slavery above an east-west line running along the northern border of the Arkansas territory. Ex-President Jefferson, himself a slave owner, heard a warning in the divisive clash of North and South. He called it “a firebell in the night.”
From 1800 to 1820 Charleston had not escaped its familiar civic woes: another catastrophic fire in 1812; a devastating hurricane a year later. Epidemics of smallpox and malaria came as regularly as the seasons. Through it all the better sections of the city had grown more opulent and attractive, while the run-down areas became filthier and more crowded.
By 1820 nearly sixty percent of Charleston’s population was Negro, three thousand of them free. The lightest of these made up the so-called brown elite, a minority of proud, prosperous people of color who felt they had more in common with whites than with their darker brethren. Most looked down on other Negroes. Some owned slaves.
The wife of Morris Marburg came from the brown elite. So did the cabinetmaker Hamnet Strong, Poorly’s son; he married a woman named Mary Ward, whose skin was scarcely darker than old ivory. Their children were correspondingly light. Edgar’s son and daughter were friends and playmates of Henry and Marcelle Strong.
Whether black or brown, the city’s colored population still intimidated whites. More laws were drafted to restrict the rights and behavior of slaves and freedmen. Edward had freed Sally and Hamnet by signing a simple statement. Now manumission required a special, individual dispensation from the state legislature.
In the early summer of 1822 Charleston saw its oldest nightmare realized. On June 14, a Friday, a mulatto slave named George heard of a plot to murder every white man, woman, and child, then burn the city. George’s owner informed the intendant, James Hamilton.
In the next two days rumors of the impending revolt ran through the white community like a grass fire. If the rumors were true, the slaves had secret caches of weapons and would rise up to kill and burn when darkness fell on Sunday night.
Alexandra Bell, already called Alex, was seven years old on that night of terror.
BOOK TWO
CITY ON FIRE
1822–1842
Everywhere I looked I saw mountains of cotton…. Conversation everywhere was on the price of cotton lands or cotton itself…. I believe that in the three days I was in Charleston I must have heard the word “cotton” pronounced more than three thousand times.
A visitor to Charleston,
circa 1827
The laws of the United States must be executed…. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution deceived you…. Their object is disunion. But do not be deceived by names. Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt?
President Andrew Jackson
Nullification Proclamation
December 1832
This is the question—and the only question: whether it is not the sacred duty of the nation to abolish the system of slavery now, and to recognize the people of color as brethren and countrymen who have been unjustly treated and covered with unmerited shame.
William Lloyd Garrison,
1832
26
Rebellion
Sunset painted White Point a deep red. The pathways of the broad, sandy promenade were deserted, unusual for a summer evening. Out of sight on Church Street, horses galloped, coming fast. Five curious children squeezed against the garden gate of the Bell house, watching for them.
Drayton, the black gardener, called out, “You best come away from there.” The children ignored him. Two of them were white—Alex and her brother, Hampton. At seven Alex was already an inch above four feet, taller than the rest. She was slender as a reed, with a long waist and large blue-gray eyes. Ten-year-old Maudie, Drayton’s daughter, served Alex as a personal maid, though Alex preferred to call her a friend instead of a slave. Like Alex she was barefoot.
Both Henry Strong and Ham were eight. Ham was sallow, and slender like his sister. Loose limbed, with round shoulders, he already had the look of a little old man. Henry was a handsome, stocky boy with smooth beige skin and curly black hair. Henry’s sister, Marcelle, was four. Henry loved Marcelle but resented her following him everywhere. Marcelle’s threadbare doll, her eternal companion, rested on her shoulder. The doll’s china face was white.
Half a dozen armed men galloped out of Church Street and across South Battery past the house. As the dust cloud settled and the mounted patrol disappeared up King Street, footsteps on the piazza announced the arrival of someone with more authority than Drayton. Edgar Bell’s normally pale face glowed pink from the June sun. Coming up behind the children, he clapped for attention.
“Henry, Marcelle, time to run along home. Maudie, take Alex inside. Don’t put on your nightclothes or get in bed. The same for you, Hampton. We’ll stay downstairs tonight. You children can make pallets on the floor. We must remain alert. There are rumors of unrest.”
Henry said, “We heard them, Mr. Bell. Pa says Gullah Jack’s been all over town, stirring up the colored.”
Alex tugged the exposed tail of Henry’s much-laundered gray shirt. “Who’s Gullah Jack?”
“Conjure man. People are scared of him. They say he can’t be killed. I say that’s stupid, anyone can be killed.”
“Jack’s a born troublemaker,” Edgar said. “The worst kind of colored man.” He tapped the shoulders of his children. They backed away from the gate, Ham obediently, Alex with an annoyed toss of her long blond hair. Edgar prodded her. “Inside, missy.”
Henry said good-night. Leaving, he managed to brush Alex’s hand with his. As he opened the gate, she blew him a kiss. Maudie giggled. Edgar wheeled around to see the cause of the merriment. Alex smiled sweetly, curtseyed to him, and ran inside.
In the hall by the large Henry Benbridge portrait of Joanna, Cassandra directed Alex to the downstairs front, Tom Bell’s old office. Alex puzzled over the unusual precautions. Were Charleston’s Negroes really preparing to do something bad? She had trouble believing it. The Negroes she knew best, those in the household, were quiet, polite—her friends. She adored Maudie. The only black person who scared her was a sullen houseboy, fourteen or so, owned by Great-Aunt Lydia. He always looked mad enough to bite the head off a nail. Oddly, his name was Virtue.
Alex, Ham, and Maudie settled down on blankets. The red light leached from the sky; the tall windows turned black. Alex beat Ham at three games of checkers. After the last one Ham shouted, “Oh, damn you anyway.” Cassandra smacked his hand and ordered them to lie down.
Itchy and hot without a bath, Alex still managed to doze. Maudie snuggled against Alex’s bare feet, snoring softly. Sometime later Alex woke to see her father rush from the room with a pistol. Another mounted patrol thundered by. She heard distant shouting. Cassandra knelt, kissed Alex’s forehead, and murmured soothing words. Alex fell back to sleep.
A terrific clang, and her mother’s shriek, jolted her upright again. Ham jumped up, ran to the dark hall, whispered, “Someone’s in the house.” He raised his fists.
Titus, the black butler, appeared from the back of the house. “Ain’t nothing wrong, Mist’ Ham. Just my wife, stirrin’ around when she shouldn’t. Dropped a chamber pot, clumsy woman. We’s very sorry, Miz Bell.” Cassandra managed a forgiving smile.
Alex slept soundly until daylight woke her. Through slitted eyes she saw Ham sitting up with his Latin grammar. She couldn’t see her mother, who was behind her, but she saw Papa, his legs stretched out, his boots dusty, the pistol on the rug beside his chair. His heavy dark beard showed; it always did in the morning, before he used his razor.
Cassandra said, “We sat up all night, Edgar. Nothing happened.” She sounded cranky.
“You should be thankful. Now you u
nderstand the purpose of the slave code you’re always criticizing. It may be onerous, but it’s necessary.”
Drowsy, Alex wondered what the slave code was, and why it was necessary.
“I suspect the trouble isn’t over yet,” Edgar added.
He was wrong; there was no public disorder, nor had there been any during the night. A hundred and forty Charleston blacks were quickly rounded up and thrown in the workhouse, however. Whips and truncheons soon loosened tongues about the aborted uprising.
The headquarters was said to be Reverend Morris Brown’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in the outlying district of Hampstead. Jack Pritchard, the bandy-legged Angolan known as Gullah Jack, was a recruiter. The workhouse interrogators heard one name more than others—Denmark Vesey, a communicant of Brown’s AME church and a teacher in Bible classes. One informant said he feared Vesey more than he feared God.
The following Saturday, in a raging tropical storm, authorities broke into a Bull Street house and seized Denmark Vesey. The freedman’s hatred had grown until he refused to bow or step aside for whites on public footpaths, as was expected. Year after year he’d traveled the Low Country, secretly promoting his plot—his vision from Joshua: And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city.
Or so it was alleged by the white court convened on the second floor of the workhouse to try Denmark Vesey and his fellow conspirators. They were convicted with virtually no evidence but the self-serving accusations of others. On July 5 five of them were removed to a desolate area of brush and tidal inlets known as Blake’s Marsh and hanged. Vesey was taken to Ashley Street where it straggled out of town at the city’s northern limits, for a similar end. The executions were hasty, the burial sites of the six kept secret.
Alex learned most of this from Henry Strong. He took her to see the oak where Vesey died. “You ever say a word to your pa, he’ll whip me to pieces,” Henry said. The wide-eyed girl clung to his arm. The intimacy drew fierce looks from a farmer in a wagon passing by.
“I won’t, Henry, I swear to the Lord Jesus I won’t,” Alex said.
“You’re crying. What the devil’s wrong?”
“I know they say Mr. Vesey was a bad man, but I feel sorry for him. And I never saw a place like this before. A place where they killed someone.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll see plenty more before this settles down.”
“Do you think Vesey’s gone to heaven?”
“No. He was a sinner. Anyway, I don’t expect niggers can go to heaven, just like they can’t go a lot of places in Charleston.”
Later executions were less secretive. The Courier and the City Gazette advertised that twenty-two conspirators would be hanged en masse on July 26, Friday, at the Lines, an area outside the city where defensive earthworks once stood. Grandfather Mayfield was visiting the Bells. He wanted to take Alex and Ham to see the condemned men. “Not an edifying experience, I grant you, but educational,” he said at the breakfast table. The children picked at their food, heads down. Maudie ate on a stool in the corner.
Cassandra said, “I think it’s cruel. I don’t want them to go.”
“Permit me to decide,” Edgar said.
“As you decide everything important in this house. What does a mere woman know?” She put down her linen napkin and left the room.
Mayfield wiped a smear of egg from his chin. “Get much of that from my daughter, do you?”
“Enough to make it annoying, frankly,” Edgar said. Alex felt bad. Papa must think that being female was less desirable, less important, than being a man.
Mayfield said, “What I’m suggesting will be a good lesson for them. They’ll see how the Negroes must be treated if we are to have peace.” Mayfield owned no slaves but never questioned the propriety of the system.
Edgar said, “Children, would you be upset if you went with your grandfather to see such a thing?”
“No, sir,” Ham cried loudly, to show his bravery. Alex covered her ears and made a face.
“Alex?” Edgar said.
“No, sir.” Her cheeks felt feverish; she was sure Papa saw through her lie. Two hours later Grandfather Mayfield and the children stood in a huge crowd on Meeting Street. Maudie had asked to stay behind; Alex gave her permission.
In the middle of the street the City Guard escorted a long line of horse-drawn carts, each one carrying a prisoner with his hands tied behind him. Most looked frail and helpless. Almost all were badly bruised. Alex tugged Ham’s sleeve.
“What are those boxes they’re sitting on?”
“Their coffins.”
A few white people cursed or jeered the condemned men, but mostly it was a solemn crowd. Alex saw few Negro spectators. Then suddenly, across Meeting, she spied Aunt Lydia’s houseboy. Virtue stood out because scowling whites had drawn back to call attention to him, and the black rag tied around his sleeve.
“That’s trouble,” Grandfather Mayfield said when he saw the armband. “No nigger’s permitted to mourn Vesey or his gang. It won’t be long before—”
The sentence ended there. Armed men of the City Guard quickly surrounded Virtue. He flung off the first hand that touched him. The butts of muskets beat him to the ground. A knife flashed, cutting the armband and gashing his shoulder.
“For that he’ll get thirty-nine stripes in the workhouse,” Mayfield said. “Surely the boy knew the penalty before he flouted the law.”
Alex yearned to go home but feared her grandfather would think it cowardly if she asked. They joined the procession of carriages and pedestrians following the carts. At the Lines drummers beat a slow rhythm while the first three blacks fearfully climbed the steps of a new scaffold.
Ropes dangling from a projecting beam dropped over their heads. One by one the men were booted off the edge of the scaffold. A sigh ran through the crowd. Alex’s eyes watered.
Mayfield muttered, “Something’s wrong.” Ham gasped, pointed.
“They’re not dead, Grandpa.”
Alex wanted to scream and run. The three black men seemed to dance in the air, naked feet just inches from the ground. An officer of the City Guard stepped forward, put his pistol against a bare stomach, fired. The victim stopped his mad dance. His head lolled; blood ran from his belly and sopped his trousers. The officer signaled his men to shoot the others.
Grandfather Mayfield’s voice was strangely subdued. “Children, I am so sorry. I was not prepared for this. We are leaving.”
Trying not to weep, Alex clung to his big hand. Two more shots crashed as they fled.
At home she ran to her room. For the rest of the day she refused to come out or speak to anyone, even Maudie. Grandfather Mayfield was not welcome in Edgar Bell’s house for months.
Thirty-five black men died in the summer of 1822. Denmark Vesey’s rebellion, the rebellion that never was, permanently scarred Charleston, the state of South Carolina, and all the South. It scarred Alex. Something new and horrible had spoiled the beautiful city she loved.
27
…. And After
Beauty was Alex’s first, best memory of her childhood: the beauty of the sun-struck harbor, the white sails of ships bound for exotic ports. Even the pine dust that fell in the spring, coating every surface with a fine lime-colored powder, had a fairylike charm.
She loved the sight of men casting shrimp nets from sturdy piraguas or spearing flatfish by lantern light. She loved the mockingbirds perched on the pittosporum, guarding their nests and trilling their song; the great blue herons standing still as statuary; white egrets stepping high through marsh reeds in search of a meal; gulls diving to snatch one from the water.
She loved the steamy shade of summer; the rattle of rain on palmetto fronds. She loved the pealing bells of St. Michael’s—she grew up listening to them sweetly ring the hours, or wildly ring fire alarms. Great Michael, the eighth and largest, tolled by himself to announce the fire’s end. Evenings, the bells rang to warn Negroes to leave the streets in one hour. When they rang again, it signaled the
City Guard to patrol for violators of the curfew. The evening bells were no more than pretty serenades until Alex discovered their purpose.
In the wake of the Vesey affair the AME church was torn down, its pastor driven from the city. New regulations further restricted the behavior of blacks. Respected men, including Alex’s father, petitioned city council for a larger, stronger arsenal—a citadel, they called it—to arm an enlarged defense force. She overheard Titus whisper to his wife about a terrible new machine of punishment at the workhouse, the treadmill.
She hated having to fear black people. Evidently most adults in Charleston did. Out of this realization came questions. She took them to her friend Henry; Maudie accompanied her.
The Strongs had a two-story frame house and carpentry shop on John Street, above Boundary, near the city line. In that section of town freedmen and whites of the commercial class lived together in relative harmony. Alex found her friend astride a shaving horse in the sandy yard of the shop.
Henry plied his two-handled draw knife skillfully, shaving and shaping a square wooden rod held in a clamp in front of him. Henry’s knife peeled off thin slivers to round the wood. Alex pointed to it. “What’s that for?”
“Pegs, for joints in a serpentine sideboard Pa’s building for a customer.”
Maudie wandered inside to visit Mr. Strong. Alex inhaled the lovely wood smell of the chip-strewn yard. “You’ll make a fine carpenter when you’re grown up, Henry.”
“Not sure I want that, but it’s all right for now.”
“Can I ask you some things? Vesey made me think of them.” Henry bobbed his head, giving permission. “Why do we have slaves at all?”
“Because white folks want to make money but they don’t want to do the hard work. Too hot most of the time.”
“Are there slaves all over the world?”