was no ruling class. Those who governed were elected by the people, and
were beholden to them,
At that moment of realization, so simple and yet so profound, James's soul
took wing, and he understood the enormity of freedom, and knew that he was
free. He was humbled by it, and his sense of gratitude to America was
unbounded.
BLOODLINES 59
His brothers had prospered along with everyone else, and were generous
with their success. They had welcomed Uncle Henry to their business when
he arrived, just as they welcomed their brother James. They had a large
provisions store, and supplied to and bought from farmers as far away as
Tennessee. The arrival of Henry had enabled them to expand, and Hugh and
Alexander had gone to Baltimore, to open a branch there, while John and
his uncle supervised things in Philadelphia. They took James into their
hearts and their affairs, employed him immediately, and, because he had
a natural aptitude for accounting, within a year they had made him a full
partner.
Thus James prospered with America, and teamed the contradictions that
came with that prosperity. He lodged in an elegant boardinghouse in High
Street, run by the formidable Mrs. Bankston. The rooms were spacious and
high-ceilinged, and adequately, if simply, furnished. There was a large
ballroom, with columns grained in imitation of marble, wide-board,
immaculately polished floors, and intricate Oriental rugs. The house had
been the home of George Washington when Philadelphia had been the
capital, and it amused James, and gave him no small sense of triumph,
that he lived in what had been a presidential palace. Several of the
staff were black, and James assumed that they must be slaves until Mrs.
Bankston disenchanted him.
I 'They are free men," Mrs. Bankston sniffed. "I do not hold with
slavery."
Mrs. Bankston didn't hold with a lot of things. She ruled her staff with
a rod of iron, and didn't hold with her niggers getting uppity.
"They are prone to it," she sniffed. "Because they are so recently from
the jungle, and civilization has gone to their heads. "
She didn't hold with her gentlemen guests receiving ladies in their
rooms. She didn't hold with drunkenness; she didn't hold with atheists;
she didn't hold with taxes.
"I had to board up many of my windows," she sniffed. "Because the
property tax is based on the size and number Of one's windows. It is
iniquitous. It is atheistic heresy to tax God's daylight."
She didn't hold with politicians, who were intent on accumulating the
powers of monarchy unto themselves, and were
60 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
building palaces in the dismal swamp that was Washington, the new capital.
"I bless my cotton socks that the good Lord sent Thomas Jefferson to us,"
she sniffed. "He is a man of the people, unlike that Mr. Adams, who wanted
to be king."
She didn't hold with the fact that the new president kept slaves on his
estate in Virginia, but forgave him for it.
"He is good to his niggers," she sniffed, and then lowered her voice. "Much
too good to one of them, if rumors are to be believed, and even had
children by her, if you take my meaning. "
She didn't hold with Indians, who were nothing but bloodthirsty savages,
she didn't hold with anyone who lived in New York, which was a cesspool of
vice, and she didn't hold with New Englanders.
"They believe that God speaks only to them, and that only they know what is
ordained for the country," she sniffed. "They are plain folk, but arrogant
in their humility. The sooner we are rid of them the better. "
Most of all, she didn't hold with the British.
"They have never forgiven us for trouncing them," she sniffed. "They regard
us as disobedient children. Mark my words-they will try to smack our
naughty posteriors for it
yet. "
James understood that well, because he remembered his own father, but some
of the things Mrs. Bankston didn't hold with confused him. He went to his
brother John for clarification,
John laughed. "It is the great flaw of equality," he explained. "For it
means that everyone believes that only they know what is best for the
others."
The United States, he told James, was not one country but a collection of
independent, sovereign countries, which had forgotten their differences and
banded together to defeat the British. Once they had achieved their aim,
they were not quite sure what to do next. They had a federation but no
common purpose anymore, other than an idea. Some wanted a return of the
monarchy in some form; others wanted a true democracy; some wanted to break
away from the loose federation
BLOODLINES 61
and form confederations of smaller numbers of states, or go it alone. The
states fought and bickered and argued among themselves, and somehow held
fast. Many in New England, with Boston as its capital, were resolutely
opposed to any expansion of the original thirteen states, believing the
result would be unwieldy.
"What they really mean is that their own power and influence would be
reduced," John said.
Many in the South, the slaveholding states, wanted to break away and form
their own country, a slave country, or to extend the number of slave
states so that their own influence would be increased.
Virginia was the glue that had kept the country together. Although it was
a slaveholding state, it was balanced between the two major factions,
North and South, slave and free, and it had produced giant men and giant
minds, who had a dream of America and the ruthless will to make that
dream a reality.
"I don't know how long it can last as it is," John said. "But it will
survive in some form or another. America is inevitable."
The issue of slavery confused James most of all. The few blacks in
Philadelphia were free, but were largely disparaged and despised by the
whites. Jungle bunnies, they were called, who were lucky to be allowed
the crumbs from the white man's table. Yet they were not enslaved. Again,
John provided clarification.
"It is New England again. The great argument of the federation was that
the Puritans and Calvinists and Quakers would not tolerate slavery, and
the Southern states would not abolish it. A compromise was reached, but,
like all compromises, it is hardly satisfactory, because it leaves the
issue unresolved."
The compromise was that the Northern states would be free states and the
Southern states slave states, but neither side was happy with the status
quo. The Southerner wanted new, slaveholding territories admitted to the
Union, thus increasing the power of the South, and the North as strongly
resisted the expansion of the Union under those terms.
None of this helped James's confusion. He did not know what he thought
of slavery because he
had not yet encountered it. He knew of free blacks
in Philadelphia who were doing
62 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
extremely well. One, a sailmaker called Fortan, was reputed to earn over one
hundred thousand dollars a year. At the other end of the scale, Mrs.
Bankston's blacks were hardly literate.
"They were not meant to read or write," Mrs. Bankston sniffed. "They are
put here to serve us, to atone for the sins of their ancestor, Ham, who
mocked his father, Noah. God cursed them for it. That is why they are
black."
Certainly, the black staff served James well, and he heard that during a
recent outbreak of yellow fever, when many whites had fled the city, the
blacks had stayed, and volunteered to work in the hospitals.
He felt inadequate to argue with Mrs. Bankston because she claimed the
Bible as her authority. James had only a superficial acquaintance with the
Good Book. So he shrugged his shoulders on the matter of niggers and
slavery, because it did not directly concern him, and went about his
business.
In the first flush of his flirtation with Philadelphia, he had abandoned his
intention to go west, to find some idyllic spot and build a simple country
life for himself, but his growing confusion at the contradictions of the
city rekindled his earlier dream.
He had thought America to be a classless society, but quickly discovered he
was wrong. If there was no ruling class as such, there was certainly a form
of aristocracy, with wealth as its bloodline, and its members could be at
least as arrogant as their more illustrious counterparts in Europe.
John was a citizen of some standing, and invited to many fine houses. He
took his brother with him sometimes, to introduce him, because James was
young, and handsome and eligible. James discovered that he enjoyed being
the center of attention for the many charming young ladies of the elite. He
flirted with them outrageously, to their delight, and the greater, evident
pleasure of their mothers, who saw him as a potential suitor for their
daughters. Invitations flooded to him, and he was invited to the annual
Pemberton ball, the finest evening on the Philadelphia social calendar.
The display of wealth was almost too gaudy. He had never seen such opulence
and extravagance. The tables were heaped with food, hams and lobsters and
crabs and pheasant and ven-
BLOODLINES 63
ison and tempting cakes and trifles, and fruits he had never before seen.
The men were simply but handsomely attired in dark velvets, as if they
did not want to distract from the beauty of their female companions. The
women were gorgeous. The younger wore elegant, simple gowns, cut low to
reveal their breasts in a way that James found delightfully shocking.
Their mothers and aunts were more cautiously dressed, but still the
rainbow colors of the silks and satins and velvets enchanted him, and the
clusters of jewels on necks, fingers, arms, and ears dazzled his eyes.
The splendid musicians played lively gigs, black servants dressed in
white kept his glass filled with champagne, and he danced as heartily as
ever in his life.
Giddy with happiness, he was introduced to his hosts and their daughter,
Lucy Pemberton. He smiled his most mischievous smile, told Lucy how
pretty she was, and begged to be allowed the honor of a dance.
Somewhat to his surprise, Lucy found a place on her card for him
immediately, and accepted his arm. To his further surprise, many of those
watching applauded as the couple stepped to the dance.
"You will never amount to anything."
James wished his father could see him now, for he had already amounted
to something, an eligible young bachelor with money in his pocket,
dancing with the most desirable young lady in the city. He had been in
America for only a year, was hardly on his way, and yet he was already
more than his father had been.
Lucy's dress was in the French Empire style, and exceedingly low cut.
James could hardly take his eyes from her delicious breasts, which must
bounce from their muslin restraints, he was sure, if she danced too
energetically.
"We haven't seen you before," Lucy said sweetly, and James turned on his
most charming, self-effacing smile.
"No," he laughed. "I just got off the boat."
Lucy trilled a silly laugh and told him how worried she was about the
conditions in Ireland.
"Indeed, they are terrible," James agreed, his eyes drifting to her
bosom.
64 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"With all those peasants dying, how will we ever get our supplies of
linen?" Lucy twittered.
James said nothing because he could think of nothing to say. He tried to
keep the smile on his face, and concentrated on Lucy's breasts, but they
had lost their attraction for him. He finished the dance and delivered Lucy
to her parents, and shortly afterward he left the party without telling
John of his departure.
He walked home with a dull and simmering anger churning in his stomach. He
was appalled at Lucy's callousness. Peasants, his friends, were dying, and
all she could think about was her precious linen. He couldn't blame her; she
was just a silly, vapid girl who didn't know what she was talking about. He
directed much of his anger at himself, because he did know better, and he
began to question his goals. Although he had worked hard, he had been idle
in the pursuit of his dream since he had come to America. He had taken what
he had been given by his brothers, but had created nothing for himself. He
was doing well by other people's standards, but not nearly well enough by
his own. He had been sidetracked by his need to be accepted as a member of
this new society, but it was all glitter and frippery. He had not earned his
invitation to the Pembertons'; it had come to him for superficial
reasons-because of his looks, and his family, and his bachelor state.
He was not his own man; he was other people's toy. He had abandoned his
principles to pursue social acceptance; he had allowed himself to be
seduced by wealth and glamour and-that word that he hated-class. In his
depression, other aspects of life in Philadelphia became distasteful to
him. He was tired of the interminable political arguments about what
America should be. America was America, and that was enough. He was bored
with the constant raging against Britain and France; he had fought that
battle in his youth, and had come to America to be free of it. Yet he was
angry at the way both Britain and France seemed to be playing games with
the new country, the British Navy harassing American ships, and the French
emissaries trying to seduce America into the Napoleonic cause. He wanted a
simple life, with no great, moral issues to consider.
BLOODLINES 65
John and Uncle Henry had eased him into this new world and he was
grateful for it, but it
was time to strike out on his own.
He had money. Quite apart from what he earned, the sum that had come to
him from his father was sitting in the bank, earning interest. When he
first heard of it, James refused to touch it, determined to keep his vow
that he would take nothing from his father, but Uncle Henry had called
him a fool.
"It's your money, boy," he said. "Will you send it back?"
James didn't send it back, but neither did he use it. He decided to save
it, in case he ever had need of it.
His problem was that he didn't know what to use it for. Or where to go.
Or what to do.
He was distracted from his new melancholy by the arrival, as promised,
of his younger brother.
Washington bounded off the boat and into America with a zest and energy
that left James breathless. Unscarred by life, full of Irish blarney,
bright-eyed and apple-cheeked, Washington ripped into life with careless
abandon. Women adored him, men shook their heads in wonder, and everyone
envied his joyous youth. Mrs. Bankston mothered him, John and Uncle Henry
took him into the business, and James found in him the same rapture of
companionship that he had found with Scan.
He brought them family news. Eleanor had married again, to an older
merchant, Thomas Kirkman, and they had a daughter, Mary. Sara and Jimmy
also had a daughter, another Mary, and a second child on the way. Martha,
their other sister, was grievously ill, and Eleanor was taking care of
her two girls.
He brought no news for James from his father.
Jugs was pining for James, but did not want him to return. The social and
political situation had got worse since the socalled Act of Union with
Britain. The persecutions of the Catholics continued with unabated
ferocity, and mass evictions of the peasants had turned half the country
into homeless wanderers.
"But to hell with Ireland," Washington shouted in glee. "We're here now!"
He could find nothing bad to say about the country. When it snowed and
others grumbled of the cold, he built snowmen.
66 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
When it rained, he said it reminded him of Ireland, and when the sun
shone, he turned his face to it, and said home was never like this. In the
stifling summer he said it made him appreciate winter more, and in the
winter he said how much he would enjoy the summer. In the spring he was
the first to cast off his heavy clothes, and in the fall he stood before
the changing leaves and applauded them for their fabulous display.
"If this is good," he said to James, "how much better is it in the
wilderness?"
James couldn't tell him. He'd never been farther than Baltimore.
"Man, what are we waiting for?" Washington urged. "There's a whole world
out there."
He was the stuff of pioneers, ready to take on anything with a laugh and
a smile, ready to put his muscles to any task, ready to carve out his own
life.
He had wild dreams of becoming a hunter and living in a log cabin by a
brook in some sylvan glade. He wanted to catch a bear. He wanted to watch
beavers build dams. And he wanted to see an Indian.
"Nashville," John said, tapping a letter with his fingers. Uncle Henry
nodded.
James was uncertain. He hardly knew where Nashville was, although they
did a fair business with the settlement.
"Isn't that a long way away?"
"Out west," John agreed. "Hundreds of miles."
"Thirty days traveling if you make good speed," Uncle Henry concurred.
Nashville was almost the frontier of the settled world. Beyond it was
only the territory of Missouri, a wild Indian land, and the Mississippi
River, and beyond that was a foreign country, the Mexican province of
Texas. To the south was Louisiana, which Jefferson had just purchased,
against the strident opposition of the New Englanders, from Napoleon.
John believed that the Purchase would open up vast new territories for
settlement, and that Nashville would be the gateway, for it was the
junction between the East Coast and New Orleans. If James and Washington