Friday, October 5, 2007
William Wells Brown II -- The Georgiana Issue
Clearly, Georgiana is an antislavery advocate. In the last part of the book, what do you think about the choices she made when it came to her slaves? Do you think Brown viewed her -- a northerner by education and sentiment -- as he viewed the North -- "prejudice[d] . . . on account of color"? In the last part of the story, how does Brown represent Georgiana?
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Georgiana thought enought of her slaves to not only consider the best places for the slaves to immigrate, but also gave some of the ones with families land to begin their free lives with. Georgiana clearly understood that the foundation to education and prosperity lay in the slaves' financial stability. She understood that the slaves' free lives wouldn't mean much if the slaves were starving or were so bad off that they would want to return to slavery. Georgiana carried neither the sentiments of the idle North or the prejudical characteristices of the South, but was rather a Christian soldier in the midst of evil. As we already know Christians are not perfect and she may be have been wrong in the respect that if she was really against slavery she would have freed her slaves as soon as she came within possession of them. I believe her her was in the right place or at least headed in the right direction, but she needed the right time to execute her plans. But death truly is a leveller, and it is real and often places things in proper perspective. Georgiana, a true devout Christian believing enough in Christian values to put them into action, knew she could not meet her Lord with human beings He made in her bondage. Death was the last moment for her to do the right thing and I commend her for doing it. Those against Georgiana's actions during the novel I ask: what would you have had Georgiana do?, what do you think would have been the best method for emancipating her slaves? One method I had in mind could have been to set a date at which all slaveholders at that time would be required to emancipate their slaves at the moment of death, basically extingiushing the fire of slavery about forty to fifty years from the said date. So was Georgiana wrong for waiting until she was on her deathbed to free her slaves?
Considering that Georgiana was a real Christian and therefore had to submit to her husband's will how important has it that she picked out, excuse me, married a man whose actions and thoughts she could sway with her will and sexuality?
I believe that Brown represents Georgiana as an antislavery advocate but not solely with the views of a northerner. Although she had been to some womens roghts meetings and was educated there, her heart was far from being a northerner. Brown reprsented her as being an educated slave who wanted to see her inherited slaves free but not sent to Liberia. Because she thought that if they were sent there, there would be no hope for “true freedom”. In the book there is a passage that says “This was her view of Christianity, and to this end she laboured with all her energies to convince her slaveholding neighbours that the Negro could not only take care of himself, but that he also appreciated liberty, and was willing to work and redeem himself. Her most sanguine wishes were being realized when she suddenly fell into a decline. ..Although she had confidence in her husband that he would carry out her wishes in freeing the Negroes after her death”. In saying this I believe that Georgiana wanted what was best for her slaves and whatever she felt that she had to do to get across her point and make sure that they were free, she did it- no matter if it was her life that was at stake. However, she did tell her slaves while she was dying some things to adhere by to make sure that they did not take their freedom for granite, she mentioned in this statement …“Make the Lord Jesus Christ your refuge and exemplar. His is the only standard around which you can successfully rally. If ever there was a people who needed the consolations of religion to sustain them in their grievous afflictions, you are that people. You had better trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Get as much education as possible for yourselves and your children. An ignorant people can never occupy any other than a degraded station in society; they can never be truly free until they are intelligent.”- Chapter XXI. Therefore, she wanted them to get an education and learn how to take care of themselves. In conclusion, I believe that what Georgiana did and the choices that she made were as a sacrifice, as to how The Lord himself sacrificed his body and soul for everyone’s sins. And at times death is the only way that new begiinings or things can actually come to past. However, I pose the questions as to what else could she have done? Why did Carlton not just release the slaves even before Georgiana died? Could her death had been prevented?
Georgiana’s choice to free her slaves in the way that was planned, by allowing them to buy their freedom by building up credit, was a step toward emancipation. Although it isn’t the radical solution, just freeing them whenever she acquired them, that would have been assumed of a person so opposed to slavery, it is however a reasonable solution for the time and circumstances surrounding Georgiana. She did consider the well being of the slaves in regard to the best place for their relocation as they couldn’t stay in the state, and also made plans to provide them with land. The “gradual emancipation” was a good idea and ideally gave the slaves time to prepare for freedom, but also raised the question of Hadn’t the slaves already paid and worked enough to pay for their freedom many times over? Did the suffering and hardships already suffered add up to nothing. I do agree that the slow and gradual emancipation was a good idea and probably the best solution for the time it isn’t the plan that I would expect someone to come up with who held slavery with such disgust. The credit toward their freedom may also be taken as the owners trying to get more work and profit from the slaves before they were free. Although I don’t think that this was Georgiana’s intentions it did cross my mind briefly as I would have thought this had I not known her feelings toward slavery.
Georgiana, knowing she was close to death, chose to immediately free her slaves. This action can be taken two ways: Did Georgiana free them suddenly because she wanted to free them and come through with her promise of freedom that they had been working towards and make sure her plan was seen through or did Georgiana know she should have freed them and was trying to retaliate and make up for not freeing them at once? Was Georgiana freeing her slaves because it was the right and Christian thing to do or freeing them for redemption before she died because she didn’t do the right and Christian thing at the beginning, which would be to free them when she acquired them? Even though she did treat her slaves exceptionally well, she was still a slave owner. When her father died and the slaves were rejoicing and feeling no remorse for his death Mr. Carlton was outraged at their disrespect, but Georgiana responds with outrage at the thought of the slaves being grateful for receiving fair treatment even saying that “slavery even in its best and mildest form is wrong.” I believe the first suggestion that she was just carrying out her plan and truly believing in the emancipation of slaves with her heart and as a Christian woman, but simply the fact that she held slaves seems to be a contradiction. I still view Georgiana as a good person with good intentions towards her slaves and hatred of the slave system, that did what she could in the circumstances that she faced.
Georgiana’s actions towards the end of the book were noble in that she was trying to make a way for her slaves to gain freedom. I would have loved to see quick action in reference to the releasing of the slaves and their gaining personal freedom but one positive that I noticed during my reading in choosing this route that was taken by Georgiana was the relationship that was formed between the slaves and Georgiana. The book states “They no longer feared Huckelby’s whip, and no longer slept under the preaching of Snyder. On the Sabbath, Mr. And Mrs. Carlton read and explained the Scriptures to them; and the very great attention paid by the slaves showed plainly that they appreciated the gospel when given to them in its purity.” Through Georgiana they begin to form a real relationship, one that they clearly didn’t have with her cruel father. Throughout my reading I went back and forth between the real intentions of Georgiana but one thing that really stuck out to me was her reaction to her fathers death and the apparent joy that it brought to the slaves. Carlton is offended by it, I think because he assumes that’s what Georgiana would be feeling. He states, “They are ungrateful.” Georgiana clearly has influence over him because her response is “what do they have to be grateful for.” Georgiana looks beyond the fact that she has lost her father and instead sees the real wrongs that were committed by him, the cruelty that was inflicted onto the slaves. Carleton goes on to see the feelings of the slaves as an act of deception, but Georgiana retorts with the honestly they hold and then continues with making it known that she wants to free the slaves. I think Brown does a great job of capturing how I viewed Georgiana. I saw her as someone who wanted to do right and did take some action yet her pace was just too slow for me. Whether that is a reflection of her time period and the place in which she was living I am not sure, all I can say is I still wanted to see immediate freedom and an allowance of the salves to work and earn a salary on their own, while building a relationship with her.
Jeremy, in response to your questions, could the answer be both? You say, "Did Georgiana free them suddenly because she wanted to free them and come through with her promise of freedom that they had been working towards.... Was Georgiana freeing her slaves because it was the right and Christian thing to do or freeing them for redemption before she died?" She does appear to be a good person, but she is still human nonetheless. Considering the times, I'm sure it was difficult. How easy is it to stand for what you believe in when you face possible persecution yourself? Was she merely acting in a self-preserving way? She is as antislavery as she probably thought she should have been. It does feel that she could have been using her religion and femininity to have her way, but that is unsure. Maybe she should get some credit for attempting to do something right, however contradictory it may seem. Surely there were other slaveowners in her time that never came to her level of understanding concerning the situation.
It would be fair to say that Georgiana was not only in sentiments and thinking against slavery, but neither was she prejudiced against color. While there is a distinction between being anti-slavery and being for the abolition of slavery, Georgiana was not simply an anti-slavery advocate, she was an abolitionist. While her actions not to free her slaves until after her death is a contradiction to what she preaches as an abolitionist, we cannot say that she is part of the "anti-slavery" movement that wanted to merely free the slaves yet still be prejudiced against their color. Georgiana had true remorse toward the African American race which has been exhibited time after time in the book. I think that Brown uses her character as a means to show the struggle that people had with the idea of slavery and the depair they felt as to how to deal with the situation. One can be against slavery and the prejudice against African Americans but what can be done to alleviate the system? It is easy for us to say today that all we have to do is rally against the system and the government will change its ways. But how realistic is that for the time period in which this book takes place? People were for the end of slavery (like Georgiana) as exhibited by Brown's writing but how could they change the system overnight? Brown wants the reader to have sympathy for Georgiana and even for those people in the north who were for the total destruction of slavery. Georgiana is the perfect representative of the white abolitionist in the north and the struggles they deal with internally about how they feel towards the system and how they should act on those feelings. Georgiana did her duties as a Christian. She showed compassion and reverence for her fellow man. And ultimately she did the right thing and freed her slaves. As a woman during this time can we really expect her to do much more than she already did?
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