It had never been a promise, only a carrot, and in the end it had been
a lie. A white man's lie, to keep the black man complaisant.
"If you work hard for me, willingly and well, then, when the time is
right, I will give you your freedom."
Cap'n Jack didn't believe him. "When?" he asked.
"When you have earned it," James said, and believed it when it was said.
Cap'n Jack turned away. It was the old lie.
92 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"I give you my word," James said quietly, for he had seen the disbelief
in Cap'n Jack's eyes.
"I swear it."
What could Cap'n Jack do but believe him? It was his only hope.
The problem of finding a wife was not so easily solved.
There had been several women in James's life, for he cut a dashing
figure, and was considered quite a catch, but he had never felt more than
passing affection for any of them.
It made Eleanor cross.
"For heaven's sake, Jamie," she chided him. She would never call him
James. "You've had quite long enough to sow your wild oats."
James smiled ruefully. He had sown very few wild oats.
"You are a man of substance," Eleanor continued. "You must have sons. If
anything should happen to you, God forbid, what would become of all
this?"
James thought it was a cold-blooded reason for getting married and having
a family, but he took her point. He looked at his estate. What would
become of it all if something happened to him? He resolved to make a new
will, in favor of Eleanor's boys, and Sara's.
"What are you waiting for?" Eleanor demanded, concerned for her brother.
"I don't know," Jaynes shrugged. "Love, I suppose."
Eleanor gave a small sigh of exasperation.
"Jamie," she cried. "Be your age."
James was tired of it. He knew what was expected of him. He wanted to
marry; he wanted to raise a family. He loved having all his nieces and
nephews around, and wanted his own sons and daughters. But he wanted to
fall in love. He wanted to know what it was about love that moved people
to do ex-
BLOODLINES 93
traordinary things. He wanted to know what it was that the poets wrote
about. He wanted to know what it was like to have a heart so full that the
loss of the loved one might cause it to break.
"You found love," he said testily, to Eleanor. "You had Oliver."
"Yes, I did," Eleanor agreed. "And what a wild and wonderful time it
was."
She lapsed into pretty memory for a moment, but then shook herself from
the past and told James a tiny secret.
"But Thomas is the better husband," she said softly.
James was shocked. He had always imagined Eleanor and Oliver to be soul
mates, a passionate couple whose lives intertwined in events of great
moment. He could not imagine how the kind, balding, bespectacled Thomas
Kirkman could be a better husband than the dashing, fiery Oliver. But he
was grateful for the confidence Eleanor's confession gave him. He longed
to be more like Oliver, Sean, or Washington, or especially Andrew, but
doubted that he had that much bravado.
He wondered if he was scared of marriage because of his father. He could
not countenance the idea that his children would not love him.
Mostly, he envied Andrew Jackson, who had found in his Rachel a marriage
that James longed to emulate, and a woman that he adored.
Rachel Jackson was the most extraordinary woman he had ever met, and
sometimes when he thought of his dead mother, whom he had never known,
James thought of Rachel. She was dark-haired, pious and demure, dedicated
to God and Andrew, although not necessarily in that order, and to her
sons, who were not her sons.
The tenth of eleven children bom to John Donelson, who had founded
Nashville, Rachel had been her father's darling, a vivacious minx of a
girl, forever getting into scrapes. When she was thirteen, she had
accompanied her parents, her family, and others on an epic river journey
from Virginia to Nashville. They traveled a thousand miles, mostly
through hostile country. Several of their party were killed by Indians,
and some others drowned. Rachel, brown as a berry, fleet as a deer,
94 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
survived all the privations with unquenchable good spirits and a tomboy
appetite for the adventure. She flourished on the frontier and grew into
a stunning beauty, all dimples and laughter, cherry lips and lustrous
eyes. She had her pick of suitors, married the handsome Lewis Robards when
she was eighteen, and went to live with her new husband on his parents'
estate in Kentucky.
The marriage was a disaster. Lewis was irrationally jealous, and violent
toward Rachel when other men paid her attention. He ordered his wife out
of the house. She returned to her family in Nashville, lived with her
mother, and retired from the world. But not far enough. She took the eye
of a dashing young attorney who had come to the district, Andrew Jackson.
A settlement was negotiated with the contrite Lewis Robards, and Rachel
returned to her husband. He promptly forgot his contrition, and returned
to his earlier, jealous violence. Rachel fled her husband a second time,
and her family thought she would be safe from Robards in Natchez. Since
she could not undertake the perilous journey through Indian country on
her own, Andrew Jackson volunteered to accompany her.
In Natchez they heard that Robards had sued for divorce. They returned
to Nashville and were married.
That was the story as they told it. From others, James heard a slightly
different version. It was rumored that Andrew had seduced Rachel to elope
with him, which James thought possible. That he had offered to fight a
duel with Robards, which James thought likely, because Andrew fought more
duels than any other man in the country. That Andrew and Rachel had
married bigamously in Natchez, before the divorce was final, which James
thought unlikely, Andrew was too smart a lawyer for that. Neither Andrew
nor Rachel could ever be shaken from their simpler, more innocent version
of the tale, but the rumor of bigamous marriage haunted them all their
lives. Andrew challenged several men because of it, in defense of his
wife's honor, and killed at least some of them.
The rumors had their strongest effect on Rachel. Because of them, and
perhaps to counteract them, she withdrew from public life, and settled
for simple happiness with the man she loved. It was hard to see any of
the passionate creature she must once have been in the somberly clothed,
deep'ly religious
BLOODLINES 95
woman who was Rachel now, but sometimes when she talked with James about the
early days in Nashville, she allowed a little of her old self to show. Her
cheeks dimpled, and her eyes sparkled and flashed, and there was a hint of
gentle mockery in her voice, as she teased him with hints as to her romantic
&nbs
p; past.
She adored Andrew, and he her, and their sadness was that they had no
children of their own. Sons they had aplenty, orphaned boys of dead
relatives, and later Andrew adopted a Creek boy, Lincoyen, and they brought
him up as his own. But their darling was Andrew junior, who was the only
son they had from infancy.
Rachel's brother Severn and his wife, Elizabeth, had many children, and,
after so many, when Elizabeth delivered twin boys, Sevem sent for Rachel
and Andrew. Elizabeth told her sister-in-law that they had been amply
blessed, while she had not, and she gave Rachel the pick of the
four-day-old twins. Rachel chose the littler of the two, and she and Andrew
raised the boy with love and tenderness, and called him Andrew, in honor of
the man who was his most doting father.
In the early days of their marriage they had lived on Andrew's farm at
Hunter's Hill, but with prosperity he bought a new estate, somewhat closer
to Nashville, and built a lovely home for them, with landscaped gardens,
that he called the Hermitage.
"Soon I shall retire from public life," he told James, "and live here, like
a simple hermit, and contemplate the world."
James laughed out loud. Andrew was only fifteen years older than he, and
James could not imagine that he would ever retire.
James was a constant and welcome visitor to the Hermitage, and when Andrew
was away, as frequently happened, on military expeditions or,affairs in
Washington, James would pay particular attention to Rachel, to make sure she
was not lonely.
They would sit together for hours in the lovely garden, and Rachel, who
cared for James dearly, would talk to him of the past, and instruct him in
the pioneer ways, and, like Eleanor, chide him for not being married.
"I can't get married," he told her, laughingly. "The woman I love is
already spoken for."
96 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
She slapped his hand with her fan, and blushed, and hid behind dimples.
These were among the sweetest days of James's life.
Cap'n Jack loved these visits too, for it gave him a chance to be with his
old friend Alfred. The two slaves would sit together near the vegetable
plot, telling yams about their Massas, or gossiping about slave life, or
simply sitting, in convivial silence, and dreaming, for a sunny moment,
that they were free.
12
Cap'n Jack was determined to keep his side of the bargain with James. He
assumed it was unlikely he would be given his freedom at any time in the
foreseeable future, but he vowed to give James no reason to deny the
promise.
He took charge of his Massa's life, and became the most diligent of
slaves, as Alfred was to Andrew, constantly on guard for his Massa's
welfare. He advised him, with information gathered on the remarkable
slave grapevine, as to plots of land that might soon be on the market
because of a death in someone's family, or what farmers might need to
sell their cotton early, for need of money. He organized the house
niggers, and kept a weather eye on the field hands. He made friends with
Micah and Tiara and helped ease Ephraim through his adolescent years.
Because his Massa loved racing he took a keen interest in the track, and
learned about blooded horses.
Easy of manner, quick of mind, he made friends with the trainers and
stable hands, and passed any tips he heard along to his Massa. Cap'n Jack
was fascinated by the tiny jockeys, almost all black, a few free, most
slaves, and became good friends with one in particular, Monkey Simon.
BLOODLINES 97
Monkey Simon came from Senegal, in Africa, where a form of horseracing was
a traditional sport among the people. He had grown up with horses, and by
the time he was twelve, despite his hunchback, he had ridden in several
races. He was captured by slave traders, transported to America, and
fetched a high price on the block, because good jockeys were highly
prized. He was purchased by Archibald Simon, a friend of John Coffee's,
and brought to Nashville. He soon made a considerable name for himself,
and the crowds adored him, and cheered when he won, which was often. His
tiny size, his hunchback, and his riding style of clutching the horse's
neck caused people to say that he rode like a monkey.
It was a tradition that newborn slaves, or those from Africa, took their
Massa's surname. The jockey from Senegal became known as "Monkey" Simon,
and the nickname stayed with him for the rest of his life.
It was Monkey Simon who taught Cap'n Jack about Africa.
For all his education, Cap'n Jack had no knowledge of Africa other than
as a large continent in an atlas. His parents had been bom in America,
and two of his grandparents were white. Very few of the slaves ever
talked about Africa, either because they couldn't remember it or, in the
case of the newer arrivals, because they could not speak English, and by
the time they had learned it, Africa was only a distant memory.
Monkey Simon was different. He was a quick study at languages, and
remembered Senegal very clearly, and loved the country of his birth. On
those days when he had run a race and was feeling pleased with himself,
he would sit with his horse in the stable, chuckling about his success,
and remember his earlier boyhood triumphs on the track, before he was
captured. Cap'n Jack loved to be with him then, because sometimes Monkey
Simon would chant the songs of his people, or tell stories of the tribe.
Because of his racing success, many personal foibles were indulged by his
Massa, and, a devout Muslim, Monkey Simon was never given pig meat to
eat. He prayed to the east five times a day, was scrupulously clean in
his personal habits, and could recite long sections from the holy book,
which he called the Koran. The aspect of his slavery that distressed him
the most was that he would never be able to make the pilgrimage to Mecca,
as all good Muslims strove to do, at least once in their lifetime.
98 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
He tried to explain to Cap'n Jack what it was like to live in a place
where the color of a person's skin didn't matter. Most of the Senegalese
were dark, like himself, but not all were jet black. Some had married
lighter-skinned traders from other countries, and some, when the big
ships came with their sails like clouds, had children by the white men
who sailed them. All these offspring were part of the greater community.
No man was judged by the color of his skin.
Cap'n Jack could not imagine such a blessed country. He dreamed of seeing
Africa, of living in such a society, and would beg his friend to tell him
more. But the nostalgia for his homeland became too painful for Monkey
Simon, and instead he took up his banjo and sang songs he had written
about the Massas, and the strange ways of the white men and their Missys.
Although racing was a man's sport, it was acceptable for "M
issys," white
women, to attend the meetings as spectators, and so the Cloverbottorn Race
Track became the center of social activity in Nashville. It was here that
Andrew introduced James to many of the leading citizens of the town, and
the men who would become James's friends, it was here that James had his
first encounter with dueling, some years before he bought Cap'n Jack, and
it was here that he met a young widow called Sarah McCullough.
John Coffee, who owned the track, was a big, burly man, who was
conservative in all things except his passion for horses and his devotion
to Andrew. Something of a feud had developed between Andrew, with his
horse Truxton, and Captain Joseph Erwin, with his horse Ploughboy. The
horses had been matched in a forfeit race, but Ploughboy went lame, and
Erwin paid the forfeit. At a later rematch, Truxton had been injured in
training, and both James and John Coffee advised Andrew to withdraw the
horse. Andrew would not, because the race had personal relevance for him.
He had been told that Erwin's son-in-law, Charles Dickerson, had made
disparaging remarks about Rachel's marital status, repeating the old ru-
mors about bigamy. Having no proof of the slander, Andrew had let it go
unchallenged, but he longed to get his revenge on the track.
BLOODLINES 99
He went alone into Truxton's stable, nuzzled the horse, looked him in the
eye, and spoke to him as he spoke to soldiers. Truxton won the race by
sixty yards.
Andrew thought it was the end of the feud, but heard that Dickerson had
slandered Rachel again. Eyes bright with rage, he asked John Overton and
James to represent him.
James had never been a second in a duel before-had never seen a duel-and
it thrilled him to the core. Proud that his new friend had chosen him,
but nervous about what to do, he accompanied Overton to call on
Dickerson, and they presented Andrew's challenge. It was accepted.
On a warm May morning, James and Overton went by carriage to the
Hermitage, and watched Andrew say a tender farewell to Rachel. He did not
tell his wife the purpose of his absence, but James was sure that Rachel
knew. It was not the first duel that Andrew had fought, nor the first in
Rachel's honor.
It had been agreed that the duel would take place in Kentucky, because
Tennessee had laws against the practice. They traveled to Harrison's
Mills on the Red River. Alfred rode on the box with the coachman.
James marveled at Andrew's calmness. He spent the journey discussing
politics, Jefferson, the president, and Aaron Burr, who was to be tried
for treason and defended by Henry Clay. James knew a little of the
strange story of Burr, and hints that Andrew was somehow involved in his
plot to declare the Southwest independent of the United States, but
Andrew would not be drawn on the subject. He respected and admired Burr,
as a brilliant but wayward politician and a crack shot in a duel, but
otherwise he laughed the matter aside.
"Aaron can't be all bad; he killed Hamilton," Andrew said, and teased
Overton, who was English. "Personally, I liked Hamilton, but he was a
monarchist and all for England. He even tried to persuade George
Washington to take a crown."
Andrew's commentaries on the history of the country, the founding of it,
and the already legendary figures who had created it were eternally
fascinating to James. Andrew had an ability to put everything in
perspective, and made James feel as if he were a part of things greater
than himself. He began to think he would like to become involved in
politics, if only in some small way.
100 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
Andrew thought in grander concepts. He was more concerned that Jefferson
should take some action against Britain. The British Navy was constantly
harrying the American fleet at sea, and had introduced the first of many
embargoes against American trade with Europe.