THE PACT of FREEDOM

Monday, July 5, 1852

Crabtree Plantation

Charlotte, North Carolina

Most folks in town called me Millie, but my Christian name’s Mildred. It means, “gentle strength.” Of course, I never thought it suited me well. There’s nothing gentle about a breech birth, and as my Papa always said, “Any child born feet first was a curse.” Since I was born, Mama struggled to reach full-term, leading to her inadequacy and depression. Every white woman’s value in the South rested on two things: her husband’s status and her ability to bear him a son.

I was a disappointment to my father, the curse of my family’s roots. Papa said my mind was dark to the world’s ways—that I was a naïve walker, and maybe it was true. Fear and insecurity lived within me like haunting spirits taunting my soul. What could I do to make my parents proud? How could I accept the traditions of the South? Once my best friend Pearl and I formed our sister blood pact as little girls, I felt as much in bondage as the slaves on my father’s plantation.

Rather than accept life as it was, I wanted the freedom to explore the world, live my dreams, and grasp the pleasures of life, liberty, and happiness. But in the South, this felt like a fantasy—an intangible dream, as I lacked the courage to execute it. Maybe my statements were inconsiderate in a nation that favors the white race, but I saw slavery as inhumane and nothing more than a pit of hell. Having opposing views made me a branded traitor to my own flesh and blood. “Slaves aren’t meant to be friends, they’re servants,” Papa often emphasized. But I saw things differently; or maybe—maybe I was too ignorant to comprehend the expectations of a slave master’s daughter.

As a young, female child, I didn’t know what slavery was. But when I grew older my eyes opened to the dark truths of the mortal sin of my family. Papa, like most slaveholders, criticized the Yankees for their fight for abolition and saw nothing wrong with slavery. Mama claimed she didn’t either, but her hard shell was just a facade to cover her guilt from owning slaves. Her countenance exposed the shame buried in her heart. Like most wives, she did whatever her husband told her to do, which made her no better than the house slaves she ruled in our mansion home.

Constantly, I prayed to God I’d somehow escape the corrupted institution in the South. But things worsened, and I learned witnessing the brutality of slavery was only the start of my misery. Being the wife of a slave master held its privileges, but also its trauma and loneliness. Those who gave a male heir to their husbands were the most treasured. Unlike others, my mother was a sickly, weak woman—unable to meet my father’s desire for a son to pass on the land and bear his name. After me, she miscarried every other child she had. Perhaps it wasn’t God’s will for them to live a life of sin.

Lying on her bed, something changed in Mama’s eyes, a sparkle of remorse as Dula tended to her needs, her cold bitterness no longer there. Dula was an older house slave and the grandmother of Pearl. After I turned one, she was my mammy, who Mama placed the duties of motherhood on to keep watch of the other house slaves. Though Dula worked for us, she was also a good friend of mine. She was golden brown, sweet, and warm, like a baked apple pie. Somehow, regardless of living on Crabtree Plantation, she had a joy kindled within her like a steady, burning fire that I admired. I reckon it was how she coped with her aches and pains from her chores and whenever she overheard Papa or Jed, the overseer, flogging one of the field slaves.

“It’s a curse . . . it’s a curse, I tell you,” Papa fussed, during Mama’s fourth miscarriage.

On the humid July morning, the tension in the sitting room was so thick one could chop it like wood with an axe. Within the agonizing silence, I overheard Mama’s deafening screams and low moans as she fought with her pain. Dear God—why was this always happening to her?

Reclining in his big chair, Papa stroked his black, full beard, in deep thought. Was I to blame? From his steady glare, his intimidating words echoed inside my mind, “Any child born feet first was a curse . . .”

Ashamed, I looked away through the curtained window. Shifting my eyes across the snow-white, cotton field, I tried to make sense of and find an escape from the current situation. Somehow, there had to be some kind of explanation other than me, right?

“Mama’s . . . Mama’s a thin and fragile woman, Papa. She needs time to heal and build up her strength.” I fluttered my eyelids and exhaled a shaking breath. “I’ll . . . I’ll go see about her.”

Walking past my father, I sighed and entered the big room to check on my mother in bed.

“Dula . . . Dula, please, get me some water,” Mama said. “I feel like a wilting plant. I’m . . . thirsty.” She panted and wiped her hand across her sweaty forehead.

Dula nodded. “Yessum, I be right back.” She grabbed the glass from the nightstand and glanced at Margaret, one of the younger house slaves. “Marge, you stick with her. Doc should be here shortly.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Margaret gulped and stood at the foot of my mother’s canopy bed, clutching the brass frame. Her ebony face wore a look of terror as Dula walked past to do her errand.

I sat down in a chair next to my mother’s bed and held her hand. “Good morning, mama.”

Mama smiled tenderly, but tears were in her eyes. She patted the top of my hand with her free one. “Mildred . . . my dear Millie. You look lovely today. I’m sure you’ll turn the heads of every man in town during the party tomorrow afternoon. Happy Birthday, darling.”

My mother was in the middle of a life-threatening experience, and she could only think about me getting a husband. I struggled to accept her willing compliance while trapped in a male-dominating system of gender roles and proper place. But it had gone on for many years in the South, so it was most expected of us.

I hung my head, ashamed and dismayed.

“Millie, dear? Millie, please, don’t blame yourself. Your Papa’s claims are wrong. You have nothing to do with my health issues. I don’t want you to be sad on your special day.”

“I’ll try mama.” Moisture blurred my vision as I gave a weak smile.

Mama squeezed my hand. “Good, that’s my girl. Be sure to wear your best dress . . . and mind your manners.”

I knew what that meant. She was asking me to keep my Christian notions and unfavorable views of slavery to myself so as not to offend any of our invited house guests.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said and glanced down, but I wasn’t confident I’d be able to keep my tongue about Papa and the other townsmen’s slave dealings.

Dula returned with a glass of water and walked around the opposite side of the canopy bed. “I brought you water, missus.”

“Help me sit up, girls,” Mama said.

Dula put the glass on the windowsill and she and Margaret helped my mother get into an upright position, one of them placing her pillow behind her back. Then Dula handed my mother the glass.

“Thank you, Dula.” Mama sipped the water and ran her fingers through her chestnut-brown, wavy hair.

Dula stood back, kneading her white apron. “Anything else you need, Missus?”

“Just the doctor,” Mama joked, “but at least the worse is over.” She laughed faintly, and then winced, rubbing her hand to her chest. “My heart aches. This one really put a strain on me.” Her cheeks turned crimson, glancing up at Margaret. “I’m deeply sorry for ruining my linens, Marge. I know how hard you clean them.”

Margaret wore a weak smile. “It’s all right. You couldn’t help it. Just a part of nature, that’s all.”

Horses neighed outside, followed by the sound of hoofbeats and wheels.

I stood and peeked out of the window. “The doctor’s here, mama. He just came up to the house.”

“Thank God.” Mama drank from her glass of water again. “One of you girls make me a warm bath in the basin.”

“Yessum. Maybe Doc will give you medicine for your chest pain,” Margaret said.

“Breakfast must be served. I’ll check on Pearl in the kitchen. That girl’s got lots of learning to do,” Dula said. She and Margaret left in their separate directions, one to the washroom and the other to the kitchen.

Pearl was as pretty as her name, and what folks in town called a mulatto. Her high yellow complexion could make her pass for white. After birth, her former slave master sold her mother before she knew her well enough, less her mama disgraces him. I didn’t know what happened after that, but when she was nine, Papa bought Pearl and three others from a slave trader. For a while, she was like a lamb led to the slaughter, so scared she couldn’t speak. It wasn’t until I noticed she had an interest in storybooks that she talked more and opened up. Without Papa knowing, I helped her learn the alphabet and read, and let her borrow some of my books. Little by little, we became friends—like close sisters.

Ten years ago, I took one of Mama’s pink roses from the bush and we each punctured our forefingers with a thorn, forming a blood pact. Since that day, we promised to look out for each other, and I consented I’d help Pearl get her freedom someday. One summer morning, we were playing hide and seek during harvest time, and Pearl had gotten into trouble with my father and Jed, the overseer.

As Papa instructed, Jed took a branch switch to her for not harvesting cotton as the other slaves did. The overseer tied her small wrists with a rope around the trunk of the same tree where I had counted to ten and beat her until her shoulder blades were bruised. We thought Jed would never stop. Every time Papa said, “Again,” the switch slashed her little body. My father hadn’t long bought Pearl, but she told me this day was her wake-up call to slavery. As a slave in the fields, there was hardly a time for play, just work, work, work.

It made me feel awful—like I had broken my promise. But Pearl said she forgave me. Ever since Mama’s third miscarriage, Pearl was brought into our white mansion from the fields to work as a house slave. As an only child, I was deeply distressed by the loss of my siblings, as was my mother. Being friends and only a year apart, Papa said her in the mansion was to help me cope and feel better, and it was one of the nicest things he’s ever done. But every day he liked to watch her, and I worried about his true intentions.

Part of me thought he was deliberately keeping her from Randall, another slave who worked in the fields. It wasn’t a secret Randall and Pearl were fond of each other and had hopes of someday escaping to freedom as many slaves had before them. They had already asked for permission twice, but Papa made it clear he owned his slaves, and no one would leave his plantation and not get caught. Crabtree Plantation, which Papa said had been in our family since the late seventeenth century, had a long and terrible history.

Since then, not one slave had ever gotten free.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Mama called.

Dr. Grayson, the town doctor, peeked around the door. “Good morning, you two.” He entered the big room, holding his derby hat and black valise. Then he walked to the bed and looked at my mother. “I’m sorry, Missus Charlotte.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, doctor. Like Marge said, ’It’s a part of nature,” Mama said in a sad, weak voice.

Dr. Grayson placed his derby hat on the nightstand and opened his bag on the bed. “I suppose, but four times? How are you so strong about this?”

“Well, doc. The good Lord said he’ll heal the brokenhearted, didn’t he?” Mama said.

Dr. Grayson inched a smile. “Indeed, he did, Missus Charlotte.” He took out his stethoscope. “Let me check that heart of yours.” He plugged his ears and moved the drum over my mother’s chest, listening intently. “Your heart sounds slow, but it’s strong.” He smiled and linked the earpieces around his neck.

Mama smiled. “Thanks, Doc. You got anything in that bag for my chest pain?” She studied the doctor as he rummaged through his valise.

“I’ve brought some laudanum, but that’s about all I can do, I’m afraid. With your condition, you should get plenty of rest, and wait a year or two before, well . . . any more physical activity. That’s what your body needs. Perhaps then you’ll have another successful delivery.”

“I told Wade, doc. But . . . getting older, he’s worried it’ll be too late,” Mama said.

Dr. Grayson sighed and filled a spoon with laudanum from a glass bottle. “Well, it’s that or your life, ma’am. I’ll talk with him outside. Open wide for me, please.”

Mama opened her mouth and took in the spoonful.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Yes, dear—” Mama grimaced and smacked her lips— “but that is the nastiest stuff I’ve ever tasted, and I feel filthy as a pig. I can’t wait to freshen up and take a bath.”

Dr. Grayson chuckled. “I’ll leave this bottle here for you. Based on your reaction, I reckon I don’t have to worry about you taking more than one spoonful per dose.” He tucked the cork back in the bottle and placed it on the nightstand. “Are you ready for me to examine you?”

“Sure, doctor,” Mama said with a nonchalant shrug. “Do what you have to do.” Bending her knees in her upright position, she propped up her legs.

After losing so many babies, I suppose the process of examination wasn’t too big a deal to my mother anymore, but I’d never been in the room during one of them. Thus, I didn’t know whether to stick around for support or leave to give her and the doctor privacy.

“I could use some extra light,” the doctor said, surveying the bedroom.

A kerosene lamp rested on the armoire.

“Oh, I can help you.” I stood and came over to the oil lamp. A few matches were near my mother’s hairbrush. Some oil was already in the lamp, so I took out a match and struck it on the box. Raising the glass globe, I lit the wick and replaced the globe over the burning flame. “Where would you like it, doctor?”

“On the nightstand will be fine. Thank you, Millie.” Dr. Grayson moved from aside the bed and stood in front of my mother with his valise.

As I placed down the lamp, he glanced at me over his wired eyeglasses, unbuttoning and raising his long sleeves to his elbows. “Uh, Millie, you can leave if you want.” Perhaps he saw the fright on my face, but I’d wanted to be brave for my mother.

“That’s right, dear,” Mama added, “I’ll be just fine.”

Dr. Grayson cleared his throat. Then he took out two strange-looking metal instruments from his bag that look like a pair of large eating utensils.

I gulped and looked at my mother, squeezing her hand again. “Are you sure?”

Mama smiled and nodded. “Yes, dear. It’s not the first time. Besides, you look like you’re about to faint.” Well, my mother was right—I was about to faint. Going out for a moment to calm my nerves and relax my breathing seemed like a good idea.

“All right, I guess I’ll go outside then. I love you, Mama.” I kissed my mother’s forehead and left the room. Stepping onto the front porch, I warmed my face in the sunshine and inhaled a couple of breaths of fresh air.

Papa was getting a morning shave from Harold, one of the male house slaves. He grimaced and slapped a Carolina Watchman newspaper on the small table beside him, resting in his outdoor rocking chair. “Who does he think he is? If he’s got a problem with white folks celebrating Independence Day and the birth of our country, why doesn’t he go back to where he came from?”

I turned to my father. “Who are you talking about?”

“That runaway fugitive Frederick Douglass,” Papa said. “He had the audacity to make an anti-slavery speech in Rochester, New York and everybody’s talking about it.”

I picked up the paper and skimmed the front page. Sure enough, printed on the cover was Mr. Frederick Douglass’ photograph and a passage about the event. An eloquent black man speaking against the ills of slavery irritated my father, but I admired him and would’ve liked to have met him one day.

“I know you don’t like him, Papa,” I said, “but you have to admit he’s got power and heart.”

“Slaves get work and taken care of in slavery. Negroes shouldn’t be causing no trouble,” Harold said, sharpening his blade, “that only disrupts the peace. Seems to me that youngster Frederick Douglass is trying to steal away his own people’s rights.”

“You’re a smart one, Harold.” Papa smirked. “I wish my daughter had your common sense.”

I frowned and placed my hands on my hips. How could Harold take sides with an evil man like my father? Maybe he was ignorant or too scared to speak against Papa’s blunt notions. After all, the best way to survive for the slave was to be submissive to whatever was required of them.

Facing the front yard, the slaves worked in the cotton fields, Jed’s indistinct orders and whip echoing in the distance as he pranced around on his horse. From sunup to sundown, they worked tirelessly in the hot sun, picking cotton from the bolls and putting it in baskets and sackcloth bags like millions of pearls. In the South, there wasn’t a more pleasant sight than a full-bloom, cotton plantation, a wide field of fallen snow. It was the way of life for Southerners that meant an incoming profit—a white emblem that gave slave masters a sense of reputation and power. Cotton was wealth, raiment—everything. It was the reason my Papa and other slave owners were so relentless about their slaves following through with their expected pounds per day and getting their duties done.

My father called his cotton “white gold” because his plantation was like a goldmine. He was proud of it, but the wealthiest plantation owners in Charlotte weren’t the Crabtrees—it was the McMillans.

On the dirt trail between the cotton fields, a blond gentleman rode up in a dark buggy with a pretty brown horse toward our mansion home. It was Chauncey McMillan. His father had fallen gravely ill, but he’d made sure Chauncey inherited his massive estate before he passed away.

Chauncey pulled his reins and stopped in front of the house. “Whoa, boy.” He tipped his dress hat to my father. “Hello, Mr. Crabtree. I came to wish Miss Millie a happy birthday.”

“How nice of you,” Papa said, but I was more annoyed than anything else.

Chauncey leaped from his buggy. He took off his hat and handed me a bouquet of white lilies with a grin spread across his narrow face. “For you, Millie, dear.”

I glanced down at his hand, and then at him again. His pointy chin made his face the perfect shape of a triangle and was so unattractive and a nuisance to me. “I don’t want them.”

“Millie, dear. Don’t be rude. Take them,” Papa said.

I drew a deep breath and grudgingly took the flowers.

“You should have one of the slaves put them in water to keep them fresh,” Chauncey said.

“I’ll handle them myself,” I replied.

“Very well.” Chauncey eyed me and smiled. “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps you’ll become smitten with me during the party.”

“I doubt it,” I said.

Chauncey snickered and tipped his hat to me. “Goodbye, Miss Millie.” He rode away.

I watched him until I could no longer see him down the road as the distant heat waves jittered on the blistering summer day.

Papa sat up with shaving cream on his chin. He raised his brows, stunned. “I’m surprised you don’t like him. You ought to be glad to get Chauncey’s attention. He’s a rich, young man who could have any woman he wants.”

“Well, I’m not.” I grimaced at my father, clutching the stems of the lilies in my hand down by my side. “I wouldn’t settle for Chauncey McMillan if he was the last man on earth!” I turned away my face and strutted toward the front entrance, almost bumping into the doctor. “Oh, sorry, Dr. Grayson.”

“You’re fine, Millie.” He smiled and patted my shoulder.

“How is she, doctor?” Papa asked, reclining in his chair.

“Charlotte’s doing well. Nothing a little medicine and proper treatment couldn’t cure; but please, ensure that she gets much rest before and during Millie’s birthday party.” He sighed and looked at my father. “Most of the tissue from her miscarriage has been removed, but the rest will have to discharge naturally. And, please . . . wait longer and let her body heal before . . . well, you know.”

“Of course, doctor. Anything you say.” Papa gave a nod, rocking in his chair.

“Good day, Mr. Crabtree.” Dr. Grayson placed on his derby and climbed into his carriage with his valise. He struck his reins and drove in his carriage of muscular gray horses down the long dirt trail between the cotton fields.

“Your mama’s gonna be fine, Millie. She’ll be just fine,” Papa said casually, rocking in his chair.

Uneasiness filled me. I glanced from my father in his chair to the flowers in my hand, pondering whether to place them in water.

I wasn’t sure I wanted them to die.