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+{"text":" \n# METAPHOR AND FIELDS\n\n_Metaphor and Fields_ is an explanation and demonstration of the value of metaphoric processes and fields in psychoanalysis. In this book, S. Montana Katz articulates a future direction for psychoanalysis which is progressively explored, taking into account features essential to psychoanalysts of all persuasions, clinically and theoretically. In this way, psychoanalysis is brought into the postmodern future by fashioning an umbrella for the discipline. With this umbrella, the barriers to mutual understanding may be dismantled and a path permanently forged to the possibility of meaningful international, intercultural, interdisciplinary, and poly-perspectival psychoanalytic exchange.\n\n_Metaphor and Fields_ organically merges work on metaphoric processes with work on fields. The use of a framework with metaphoric processes and fields combined exhibits the uniqueness of psychoanalysis and shows how it explores and explains human experience. The relational fields of the North American school of relational theory, intersubjective matrices, self object matrices, and the ground breaking work of Madeleine and Willy Baranger are all examples of field concepts that have been successfully employed in theoretical frameworks and clinical technique. They show how other schools of thought can be understood as using an implicit field concept.\n\nThe chapters in this book approach the subject from diverse vantage points. Taken together, they form an intricate web of psychoanalytic thought that moves the scope of psychoanalysis beyond dispute towards the open, inclusive discussion of core concepts and technique. _Metaphor and Fields_ will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, mental health clinicians, psychologists, social workers, and a wide academic audience drawn from the fields of philosophy, linguistics, comparative literature, anthropology, and sociology.\n\n**S. Montana Katz** is a training and supervising analyst, and a member of faculty for the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. She is in private practice in New York City.\n\n# PSYCHOANALYTIC INQUIRY BOOK SERIES  \nJOSEPH D. LICHTENBERG  \nSERIES EDITOR\n\nLike its counterpart, _Psychoanalytic Inquiry: A Topical Journal for Mental Health Professionals_ , the psychoanalytic inquiry Book series presents a diversity of subjects within a diversity of approaches to those subjects. Under the editorship of Joseph lichtenberg, in collaboration with Melvin Bornstein and the editorial board of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ , the volumes in this series strike a balance between research, theory, and clinical application. We are honored to have published the works of various innovators in psychoanalysis, such as Frank lachmann, James Fosshage, Robert Stolorow, donna orange, Louis Sander, L\u00e9on Wurmser, James Grotstein, Joseph Jones, Doris Brothers, Fredric Busch, and Joseph Lichtenberg, among others.\n\nThe series includes books and monographs on mainline psychoanalytic topics, such as sexuality, narcissism, trauma, homosexuality, jealousy, envy, and varied aspects of analytic process and technique. In our efforts to broaden the field of analytic interest, the series has incorporated and embraced innovative discoveries in infant research, self psychology, intersubjectivity, motivational systems, affects as process, responses to cancer, borderline states, contextualism, postmodernism, attachment research and theory, medication, and mentalization. As further investigations in psychoanalysis come to fruition, we seek to present them in readable, easily comprehensible writing.\n\nAfter 25 years, the core vision of this series remains the investigation, analysis and discussion of developments on the cutting edge of the psychoanalytic field, inspired by a boundless spirit of inquiry.\n\nVol. 41  \n _Metaphor and Fields: Common Ground,_  \n _Common Language and the Future of_  \n _Psychoanalysis_  \nS. Montana Katz (ed.)\n\nVol. 40   \n_Growth and Turbulence in the Container\/_  \n _Contained: Bion's Continuing Legacy_  \nHoward B. Levine & Lawrence J. Brown  \n(eds)\n\nVol. 39  \n _Nothing Good Is Allowed to Stand:_  \n _An Integrative View of the_  \n _Negative Therapeutic Reaction_  \nL\u00e9on Wurmser & Heidrun Jarass (eds)\n\nVol. 38  \n _Self Experiences in Group, Revisited:_  \n _Affective Attachments, Intersubjective_  \n _Regulations, and Human Understanding_  \nIrene Harwood, Walter stone, & Malcolm  \npines (eds)\n\nVol. 37   \n_The Abyss of Madness_   \nGeorge E. Atwood\n\nVol. 36  \n _Manual of Panic Focused Psychodynamic_  \n _Psychotherapy - eXtended Range_  \nFredric N. Busch, Barbara L. Milrod,  \nMeriamne B. singer, & Andrew C. Aronson\n\nVol. 35  \n _World, Affectivity, Trauma:_  \n _Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis_  \nRobert D. Stolorow\n\nVol. 28  \n _Transforming Narcissism:_  \n _Refections on Empathy, Humor, and_  \n _Expectations_  \nFrank M. Lachmann\n\nVol. 27  \n _Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty:_  \n _Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis_  \nDoris Brothers\n\nVol. 26  \n _Living Systems, Evolving Consciousness,_  \n _nd the Emerging Person: A Selection of Papers_  \n _from the Life Work of Louis Sander_  \nGherardo Amadei & Ilaria Bianchi (eds)\n\nVol. 25  \n _Sensuality and Sexuality_  \n _across the Divide of Shame_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg\n\nVol. 24  \n _Jealousy and Envy:_  \n _New Views about Two Powerful Feelings_  \nL\u00e9on Wurmser & Heidrun Jarass (eds)\n\nVol. 23  \n _Trauma and Human Existence:_  \n _Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic,_  \n _and Philosophical Refections_  \nRobert D. stolorow\n\nVol. 22  \n _Psychotherapy and Medication: The Challenge_  \n _of Integration_  \nFredric N. Busch & Larry S. Sandberg\n\nVol. 13  \n _Self and Motivational Systems:_  \n _Toward a Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M.  \nLachmann, & James L. Fosshage\n\nVol. 12  \n _Contexts of Being:_  \n _The Intersubjective Foundations_  \n _of Psychological Life_  \nRobert D. Stolorow & George E. Atwood\n\nVol. 10  \n _Psychoanalysis and Motivation_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg\n\nVol. 8  \n _Psychoanalytic Treatment:_  \n _An Intersubjective Approach_  \nRobert D. Stolorow, Bernard Brandchaft, &  \nGeorge E. Atwood\n\nVol. 2  \n _Psychoanalysis and Infant Research_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg\n\n **Out of Print titles in the PI Series**\n\nVol. 15  \n _Understanding Therapeutic Action:_  \n _Psychodynamic Concepts of Cure_  \nLawrence E. Lifson (ed.)\n\nVol. 11  \n _Cancer Stories: Creativity and Self-Repair_  \nEsther Dreifuss-Kattan\n\nVol. 9  \n _Female Homosexuality: Choice without_  \n _Volition_  \nElaine V. Siegel | Vol. 34  \n _Change in Psychoanalysis:_  \n _An Analyst's Refections on the Therapeutic_  \n _Relationship_  \nChris Jaenicke\n\nVol. 33  \n _Psychoanalysis and Motivational Systems:_  \n _A New Look_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M.  \nLachmann, & James L. Fosshage\n\nVol. 32  \n _Persons in Context:_  \n _The Challenge of Individuality_  \n _in Theory and Practice_  \nRoger Frie & William J. Coburn (eds)\n\nVol. 31   \n_Toward an Emancipatory Psychoanalysis:_  \n _Brandchaft's Intersubjective Vision_  \nBernard Brandchaft, shelley doctors, &  \nDorienne sorter\n\nVol. 30  \n _From Psychoanalytic Narrative to Empirical_  \n _Single Case Research: Implications for_  \n _Psychoanalytic Practice_  \nHorst K\u00e4chele, Joseph Schachter, Helmut  \nTom\u00e4 & the Ulm psychoanalytic process  \nresearch study Group\n\nVol. 29  \n _Mentalization:_  \n _Teoretical Considerations, Research Findings,_  \n _and Clinical Implications_  \nFredric N. Busch (ed.)\n\nVol. 21  \n _Attachment and Sexuality_  \nDiana Diamond, Sidney J. Blatt, & Joseph   \nD. Lichtenberg (eds)\n\nVol. 20  \n _Craft and Spirit:_  \n _A Guide to Exploratory Psychotherapies_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg\n\nVol. 19  \n _A Spirit of Inquiry:_  \n _Communication in Psychoanalysis_  \n _Joseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M. Lachmann,_  \n _& James L. Fosshage_\n\nVol. 18  \n _Kohut, Loewald, and the Postmoderns:_  \n _A Comparative Study of Self and Relationship_  \nJudith Guss Teicholz\n\nVol. 17  \n _Working Intersubjectively:_  \n _Contextualism in Psychoanalytic Practice_  \nDonna M. Orange, George E. Atwood, &  \nRobert D. Stolorow\n\nVol. 16  \n _The Clinical Exchange:_  \n _Techniques Derived from_  \n _Self and Motivational Systems_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M.  \nLachmann, & James L. Fosshage\n\nVol. 14  \n _Affects as Process:_  \n _An Inquiry into the Centrality_  \n _of Affect in Psychological Life_  \nJoseph M. Jones\n\nVol. 7  \n _The Borderline Patient:_  \n _Emerging Concepts in Diagnosis,_  \n _Psychodynamics, and Treatment, Vol. 2_  \nJames S. Grotstein, Marion F. solomon, &  \nJoan A. Lang (eds)\n\nVol. 6  \n _The Borderline Patient: Emerging Concepts in_  \n _Diagnosis, Psychodynamics, and Treatment,_\n\n _Vol. 1_  \nJames S. Grotstein, Marion F. Solomon, &  \nJoan A. Lang (eds)\n\nVol. 5  \n _Toward a Comprehensive Model for_  \n _Schizophrenic Disorders: Psychoanalytic Essays_  \n _in Memory of Ping-Nie Pao_  \nDavid B. Feinsilver\n\nVol. 4  \n _Structures of Subjectivity:_  \n _Explorations in Psychoanalytic Phenomenology_  \nGeorge E. Atwood & Robert D. Stolorow\n\nVol. 3  \n _Empathy, Volumes I & II_  \n _Joseph D. Lichtenberg, Melvin Bornstein,_  \n& Donald silver (eds)\n\nVol. 1  \n _Refections on Self Psychology_  \nJoseph D. Lichtenberg & Samuel Kaplan  \n(eds)  \n---|---\nMETAPHOR AND FIELDS\n\nCommon Ground, Common Language,  \nand the Future of Psychoanalysis\n\n_Edited by  \nS. Montana Katz_\n\nFirst published 2013  \nby Routledge  \n711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017\n\nSimultaneously published in the UK  \nby Routledge  \n27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA\n\n_Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business_\n\n\u00a9 2013 Taylor & Francis\n\nThe right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.\n\n_Trademark notice_ : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.\n\n_Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data_  \nMetaphor and fields : common ground, common language and the future of psychoanalysis \/ edited by S. Montana Katz.  \np. cm.   \n1. Psychoanalysis. 2. Field theory (Social psychology)  \n3. Metaphor--Psychological aspects. I. Katz, Montana.  \nBF173.M38 2013  \n150.19'5--dc23 2012028007\n\nISBN: 978-0-415-63171-6 (hbk)  \nISBN: 978-0-415-63172-3 (pbk)  \nISBN: 978-0-203-07231-8 (ebk)\n\nTypeset in Garamond  \nby HWA Text and Data Management, London\n\nThis book is dedicated to the work of Madeleine and Willy Baranger, and to the possibilities for finding psychoanalytic common ground in field theory.\n\n# CONTENTS\n\n_Contributors_\n\n_Foreword_ _by Madeleine Baranger_\n\n1 Introduction  \nS. MONTANA KATZ\n\n2 Preliminary Foundational Concepts  \nS. MONTANA KATZ\n\n3 Metaphoric Processes   \nS. MONTANA KATZ\n\n4 Metaphor in Psychoanalysis and Clinical Data   \nROBERT WALLERSTEIN\n\n5 Metaphor and Conflict   \nL\u00c9ON WURMSER\n\n6 Metaphor, Meaning, and the Mind   \nARNOLD H. MODELL\n\n7 Metaphor in Three Psychoanalytic Perspectives   \nROBERT S. WHITE\n\n8 Metaphor and Metonymy as the Basis of a New Psychoanalytic Language  \nANTAL BORBELY\n\n9 Metaphor and Psychodynamic Research   \nROBERT F. BORNSTEIN AND NIKAYA BECKER-MATERO\n\n10 Psychoanalytic Field Concepts   \nS. MONTANA KATZ\n\n11 Context for the Barangers' Work on the Psychoanalytic Field   \nANTOINE COREL\n\n12 Metaphor in Analytic Field Theory   \nGIUSEPPE CIVITARESE AND ANTONINO FERRO\n\n13 Field Theory, the \"Talking Cure,\" and Metaphoric Processes   \nANA-MAR\u00cdA RIZZUTO\n\n14 Field, Process, and Metaphor   \nJUAN TUBERT-OKLANDER\n\n15 Metaphor, Analytic Field, and Spiral Process   \nBEATRIZ DE LE\u00d3N DE BERNARDI\n\n16 Other Fields Within the Analytic Field   \nCLAUDIO NERI\n\n17 The Analytic Relationship in Field Theory   \nELSA RAPPOPORT DE AISEMBERG\n\n_Bibliography_\n\n_Index_\n\n# CONTRIBUTORS\n\n**Nikaya Becker-Matero** , MA, is a Clinical psychology PHD candidate at Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. She completed internship training at albert Einstein College of Medicine's Bronx psychiatric Center, Bronx, NY, and is adjunct assistant professor in the department of psychology at Adelphi University. Ms. Becker-Matero has published in the _Journal of Personality Disorders_ , _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ , and _Journal of Counseling Psychology_ ; she has presented her work at the society for personality assessment (spa) and society for psychotherapy research (spr). Her main research interests focus on conducting empirical studies of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic models of personality, particularly histrionic personality, and on self-concept, self-complexity, and social awareness. Additional interests include the links between assessment and clinical practice in personality disorders. She has worked on grants founded by the national institute of Mental health and the national science Foundation.\n\n**Antal Borbely** , MD, is a Board certified psychiatrist and a graduate and lecturer at the new York psychoanalytic institute. He is a member of the American psychoanalytic association. He is interested in questions regarding the centrality of time and metaphor in psychoanalytic theory and in the mind's functioning. He wrote the following papers regarding these topics: \"Towards a temporal theory of the mind,\" _Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought_ , 1987; \"A psychoanalytic theory of metaphor,\" _International Journal of Psychoanalysis_ , 1998; \"Towards a psychodynamic understanding of metaphor and metonymy: Teir role in awareness and defense,\" _Metaphor and Symbol_ , 2004; \"Metaphor and psychoanalysis,\" in _The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought_ , 2008; \"The centrality of metaphor and metonymy in psychoanalytic theory and practice,\" _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ , 2009; \"Metaphor and metonymy as the basis for a new psychoanalytic language,\" _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ , 2011. He is presently working on the comparison between the bootstrapping aspects observed in evolutionary robotics and in free association (in preparation).\n\n**Robert F. Bornstein** received his phd in Clinical psychology from the state University of new York at Buffalo in 1986 and is professor of psychology at Adelphi University. He has published widely on personality dynamics, assessment, and treatment, wrote _The Dependent Personality_ and _The Dependent Patient: APractitioner's Guide_, and co-edited (with Joseph Masling) seven volumes of the _Empirical Studies of Psychoanalytic Theories_ series. Dr. Bornstein is a Fellow of the American psychological association, association for psychological science, and society for personality assessment; his research has been funded by grants from the national institute of Mental health and the national science Foundation. Dr. Bornstein received the society for personality Assessment's 1995, 1999, 2002, and 2008 awards for distinguished Contributions to the personality assessment literature, and the American psychological Foundation 2005 Theodore Millon award for excellence in personality research.\n\n**Giuseppe Civitarese MD, PhD** , a member of the Italian psychoanalytic association and of the American psychoanalytic association, is in private practice in Pavia, Italy. He has published several papers in the main international psychoanalytic journals. His books include: _The Intimate Room: Theory and Technique of the Analytic Field_ , The new library of psychoanalysis, Routledge, London 2010; _The Violence of Emotions: Bion and Post-Bionian Psychoanalysis_ , The new library of psychoanalysis, Routledge, London 2012; _Perdere la testa: Abiezione, confitto estetico e critica psicoanalitica_ , Clinamen, Florence 2012 [ _Losing One's Head: Abjection, Aesthetic Confict and Psychoanalytic Criticism_ ]; _I film della vita. Il cinema e l'interpretazione dei sogni_ [ _The Films of our Life. Cinema and the Interpretation of Dreams_ ] (in preparation). He has also co-edited _L'ipocondria e il dubbio: L'approccio psicoanalitico_ , Franco Angeli, Milano 2011 [ _Hypochondria and Doubt: The Psychoanalytic Approach_ ].\n\n**Antoine Corel** , MD, is a member of the argentine psychoanalytic association where he was trained, and member of the Paris psychoanalytic society. Since 1976 he has been in private practice in Paris. His main interests concern the psychoanalytic process approached as a transformation in time and the formulation of constructions. His activity as a film critic has continued around the relation between psychoanalysis and the cinema.\n\n**Antonino Ferro** is a training and child analyst for the Italian psychoanalytic society, IPA, and an Apsaa member. He has published several books translated into many languages \u2013 the most recent being _Mind Works: Technique and Creativity in Psychoanalysis_ , and _Avoiding Emotions, Living Emotions_ published by Routledge\/ new library. In 2007 he was selected as a recipient of the Mary S. Sigourney award. He is has been Chair since 2007 of the sponsoring Committee for the Turkish provisional society of psychoanalysis and Chair of the executives of the international appointments Committee of the _International Journal of Psychoanalysis_ elections. He was editor for Europe of _IJP_ for seven years and, since January 2011, a member of the editorial board of _Psychoanalytic Quarterly_.\n\n**S. Montana Katz PhD, LP** is a training and supervising analyst and on the faculty of the national psychological association for psychoanalysis. She is on the editorial boards of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ and _The Psychoanalytic Review_. S. Montana Katz has a private practice in new York City.\n\n**Beatriz de Le\u00f3n de Bernardi** is a Uruguayan psychoanalyst, and full member and training analyst of the Uruguayan psychoanalytic association (APU). She is past president of the APU and has formerly been director of the scientific Committee and editor of the _Uruguayan Journal of Psychoanalysis_. She is an editorial board member of the _International Journal of Psychoanalysis_. Currently she is also a representative for latin America in the international psychoanalytical association Board. She has published papers and books in diferent languages on psychoanalytic topics, mainly about the patient\u2013analyst interaction and the analyst's contribution to the analytic process, the notion of countertransference in latin America, and the thought of Madeleine and Willy Baranger and Heinrich Racker. She has researched and published on implicit theories in psychoanalytic practice. She has received the award of the Latin-American psychoanalytical Federation (FEPAL) in 1992 and the training today award in 2009.\n\n**Arnold H. Modell, PhD** practices psychoanalysis in newton, Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous papers and five books. The most recent is _Imagination and the Meaningful Brain_ (MIT Press). He is currently Clinical professor of psychiatry at harvard Medical school and a training and supervising analyst at the Boston psychoanalytic institute.\n\n**Claudio Neri MD, PhD** is a psychoanalyst and group analyst who lives and practices in Rome. He is a full member of the Societ\u00e0 Psicoanalitica Italiana and a training and supervising analyst in its institute; full member of the international psychoanalytic association, and the Group-analytic institute of London; full professor at the Faculty of Medicine and psychology, University la Sapienza of Rome; and visiting professor at the University Lumi\u00e8re-lyon 2 and Descartes-paris 5\u00b0. He is chief editor of the online journal _Funzione Gamma_ , and is the author and editor of numerous books, among which are: _Group_ (Jessica Kingsley publishers, 1998), and, with pines and Friedman (eds), _Dreams in Group Psychotherapy_ (Jessica Kingsley publishers, 2002).\n\n**Elsa Rappoport de Aisemberg** is a member and training analyst of the argentine psychoanalytic association; former vice-president of the argentine psychoanalytic association; member of the ipa new Groups for the sponsoring Committee of asunci\u00f3n; past Chair of scientific Colloquiums and advisor for the scientific department of the argentine psychoanalytic association; Chair of the research Group on psychosomatics at the argentine psychoanalytic association; and author of many papers and publications on sexuality and gender, psychosomatics, art and psychoanalysis and theoretical and clinical approach of the analytic field in psychoanalytic journals in spanish, english, French, German, and portuguese. Additionally, she is co-editor of _Psychosomatics Today, A Psychoanalytic Perspective, L_ ondon, Karnac, 2010.\n\n**Ana-Mar\u00eda Rizzuto MD** is a training and supervising analyst at the pine psychoanalytic Center, a member of the American psychoanalytic association and a member of the international psychoanalytic association. She is the author of _The Birth of the Living God. A Psychoanalytic Study_ (1979), The University of Chicago press, and _Why did Freud Reject God? A Psychodynamic Interpretation_ (1998), Yale University press. This book received in 2001 the Gradiva award for Best Book (religion subject), given by the national association for the advancement of psychoanalysis. She co-authored with W. W. Meissner and Dan H. Buie the book _The Dynamics of Human Aggression: Theoretical Foundations and Clinical Applications: Theoretical Foundations, Clinical Applications_ (2004), Brunner-routledge. She is the author of numerous articles on the psychodynamics of religion, language in psychoanalysis, aggression, the clinical situation, and other subjects. In 1996, she received the William C. Bier award, given by division 36, American psychological association, and in 1997 she received the oskar pfister prize, given by the American psychiatric association. Both prizes were given to her for her outstanding contributions to the psychology of religion. She is a regular participant in national and international psychoanalytic congresses and a frequent psychoanalytic lecturer in the USA, latin America, Europe, and Japan.\n\n**Juan Tubert-Oklander MD, PhD** is a psychoanalyst, group analyst, and family therapist who lives and practices in Mexico City. Originally from Argentina, he has been living in Mexico since 1976 and is presently a Mexican citizen. He is a full member of the Mexican psychoanalytic association, and training and supervising analyst in its institute; additionally he is a full member of the international psychoanalytic association, the argentine psychoanalytic association, and the Group-analytic society international. He is author of _The Learning Operative Group_ (in spanish), _Operative Groups: The Latin-American Approach to Group Analysis_ (with Reyna Hern\u00e1ndez-Tubert), _Hybrid Science: Psychoanalysis and Analogical Hermeneutics_ (with Mauricio Beuchot-puente, in spanish), and _Theory of Psychoanalytic Practice: A Relational Process Approach_ (in preparation).\n\n**Robert Wallerstein, M.D.** is emeritus professor and former Chair of the department of psychiatry of the University of California San Francisco school of Medicine, and emeritus training and supervising analyst, San Francisco Center for psychoanalysis. He is a former president of the American psychoanalytic association (1971\u201372) and a former president of the international psychoanalytical association (1985\u201389). He graduated from Columbia College (June 1941), the Columbia University College of physicians and surgeons (September 1944), and the Topeka institute for psychoanalysis (June 1958). He was director of research at the Menninger Clinic (Topeka Kansas) until June 1966, and then Chief of psychiatry at the Mount Zion hospital, San Francisco (1966-75). He was twice a Fellow at the Center for advanced study in the Behavioral sciences at Stanford, California (1964\u20135, 1981\u20132), a Fellow at the rockefeller Foundation study Center at Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy (1992), and given the Mary singleton Sigourney award for outstanding contributions to psychoanalysis in 1991.\n\n**Robert S. White** is a graduate and member of the Western new England psychoanalytic society, Faculty, and Western new England psychoanalytic institute. He is associate editor for the internet, Japa 2004\u20132009, and founder and moderator of the Japan online discussion group, 1997\u20132009. Since 2010 he has been Chair, IPA website editorial board, and is assistant Clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University. He is in private practice in psychoanalysis and psychiatry, new haven, Connecticut, USA and publishes in the areas of intersubjectivity, interpersonal psychoanalysis and Bion studies.\n\n**L\u00e9on Wurmser MD, PhD hc** (honorary degree in philosophy, Humboldt University, Berlin), is a psychoanalyst and former Clinical professor of psychiatry, University of West Virginia, with regular and extensive teaching in Europe. He is the author of _The Hidden Dimension_ (1978); _The Mask of Shame_ (1981); _Flight from Conscience_ (1987, in German); _The Riddle of Masochism_ (1993, in German); _Magic Transformation and Tragic Transformation_ (1999, in German); _The Power of the Inner Judge_ (2000); _Values and Ideas of Judaism in Psychoanalytic View_ (2001, in German); _Torment Me, But Do Not Abandon Me_ (2007); and _Shame and the Evil Eye_ (in German, 2011) and co-author with Aeidrun Jarass of _Jealousy and Envy\u2014New Views on Two Powerful Emotions_ (2007), a monograph in the psychoanalytic inquiry Book series and _Nothing Good is Allowed to Stand_ (2012) in the same series. He is a training and supervising analyst for the new York Freudian society, and recipient of Egn\u00e9r and _Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association_ prizes.\n\n# FOREWORD\n\n___Madeleine Baranger_\n\nI am extremely touched by the fact that dr. S. Montana Katz considers the work of the Barangers in the psychoanalytic field an important source for her own work and that she relates it to the concept of metaphor, which she has studied in depth.\n\nThe subject of this book, as refected in the title, is captivating: _Metaphor and Fields: Common Ground, Common Language, and the Future of Psychoanalysis_.\n\nIts purpose is to examine and address obstacles in understanding and dialogue between different psychoanalytic authors and schools and other types of professional institutions.\n\nShe is trying to demonstrate that the concepts of metaphor and of the field are valuable for psychoanalysis.\n\nThe book is structured to progressively explore a goal for the future that takes into account all of the psychoanalytic orientations that are usually recognized as constituents of a particular science. The goal is to convince readers to immerse themselves in the project, theoretically and clinically, so that, in a postmodern future, an \"umbrella field\" is created for psychoanalysis.\n\nRegarding this objective, the concepts she uses to illustrate her convictions originate from diverse sources.\n\nThis is an excellent example and model for thinkers and researchers who seek to evolve and present their own convictions and want a way to recognize the different concepts that have contributed to their development.\n\nAs a whole, the book is a project to present the psychoanalytic research and thought of a variety of current authors whose perspectives are considered building blocks of psychoanalysis. This is not just my definition; it is demonstrated by the variety of themes and developments that are presented.\n\nSo far, I have only made reference to the statements and intents of the book's editor. I would also like to focus on the most remarkable parts that manifest her conceptual way of thinking and expressing herself.\n\nThe book is organized and presented in an original manner. In the relevant portions, the editor\/contributor clearly indicates her own theories, which are referenced in the title. With a sense of fair and generosity, in addition to the usual quotations, she offers the reader complete texts from analysts she recognizes as influencing her work or from those who have made remarkable contributions to topics of her interest.\n\nThere is a lesson to be learned from the contributions of so many different points of view. It is not about adopting one wholeheartedly\u2014declaring ourselves disciples of some fellow scientist\u2014or about rejecting a point of view because of its maximal or minimal differences about the same topic.\n\nIt is necessary to have a very precise knowledge of one's own thinking, to feel it, and to want it to be in constant evolution around the same issues. This requires modesty alongside creativity. It does not involve a search for final certainty but eternal revisions and possible disillusions in order to acquire new knowledge.\n\nIt was wonderful to be able to compare many of the authors mentioned, along with the author.\n\nIn my case, I would like to mention the work of l\u00e9on Wurmser, with which I was not very familiar, and of other authors about whose valuable contributions I was not so aware.\n\nWe can deepen our own thoughts by recognizing the importance, whether major or minor, of an influence from or similarity with a colleague. Readers can learn a way to get to know themselves better, accepting or rejecting other people's concepts. This is a great example\u2014and a model\u2014for analysts committed to an endless education, as for any thinker or researcher with the same eagerness to learn and develop.\n\nThe book's richness and scientific rigor make it an essential resource for readers\u2014who will undoubtedly experience the same interest and pleasure I felt in discovering it.\n\n# 1\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n_S. Montana Katz_\n\nAs the editor, I have multiple expectations for what can be accomplished with this book. For the reader unfamiliar with the use of either metaphoric processes or fields in psychoanalysis, I hope that this book will offer an explanation and demonstration of the use and value of these concepts. For all readers, I have striven to arrange the contents of this book such that a potential future direction for psychoanalysis is articulated and progressively explored, taking into account features essential to psychoanalysts of all persuasions. I have attempted to build a convincing case for readers to become immersed in the resulting framework, clinically and theoretically. In this way an attempt is made to bring psychoanalysis into the postmodern future by fashioning an umbrella field for psychoanalysis.\n\nA common language is constructed in this framework through which all psychoanalytic perspectives can find faithful expression. It is hoped that conference and dialogue among the different analytic perspectives about psychoanalytic theory and practice will be possible without ineradicable loss or confusion of meaning. It is further anticipated that, ultimately, the result could be an expanded potential for the integration of concepts, principles, and techniques across analytic positions. Construction of the shared core concepts that underlie analytic perspectives constitutes a significant clinical and educational tool and may thus have an impact on psychoanalytic training.\n\nThere are other potential and far-reaching consequences to a common base for the psychoanalytic perspectives. Under this umbrella, analysts may reach across the interdisciplinary divide on firm ground. Psychoanalysis may become more accessible to disciplines in the humanities. Its irreducibility to other sciences is also clarified. The model exhibits what is unique to psychoanalysis and how it cannot be subjected to a reduction to a physiological or any other kind of inquiry. A possible outcome is enhanced and genuinely interdisciplinary cooperation, discussion, and research. This may afford a way to describe the discipline of psychoanalysis across perspectives for quantitative research. It is, moreover, an umbrella through which psychoanalysis may have expanded exposure in higher education and other kinds of professional institutions.\n\nThis book will thus address the current situation, in which not only are there multiple branches of psychoanalysis\u2014each refecting a different theoretical and clinical perspective\u2014but also there is also a dearth of understanding among the branches. This situation is due to several historical and other factors, which have been written about elsewhere and in some of the chapters here. Such a project is of contemporary relevance and perhaps urgency. In the current climate, psychoanalysis has endured diminished status and recognition, as well as reduced educational outlets.\n\nCombining these factors with the lack of communication amongst the multiple branches of psychoanalytic theory and practice, it is unclear whether there is currently a discernable integrated field of psychoanalysis. This situation is unacceptable if psychoanalysis as a body of theory and as a clinical set of techniques for addressing issues in mental health is to thrive. Over the past decades, there have been repeated calls to find a common ground and to open genuine discourse and understanding among the various analytic perspectives.\n\nMost of the work for this book grew out of two issues of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ for which I was the editor (31[2] and 33[3]). Many of the chapters in this book were written for one or the other of those issues. The first issue brought the psychoanalytic use of metaphoric processes up to date, with a particular eye toward forging a common ground amongst different schools of thought in psychoanalysis. The chapters in this book from that issue are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Together, these papers form a compelling discussion of how common ground might be achieved.\n\nTaking an overview of the work on metaphor, I felt that something was lacking in the structure such that the emerging umbrella framework was not entirely cohesive or complete. The missing piece was supplied by the formulation of a generalized notion of the psychoanalytic field. This concept arose from a process of abstracting from specific kinds of fields used in different psychoanalytic perspectives. This was part of the subject of the second issue. The chapters in this book that appeared in the second issue of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ are 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.\n\nIn the issue on fields, the discussion taken as a whole demonstrates the essential nature of this emerging family of field concepts and of the idea of a generalized psychoanalytic field in particular. Tat issue brought the discussion onto the cusp of a potential future direction for an integrated discipline of psychoanalysis. There a double language barrier was broached. First was the barrier of natural languages, in that much of the vast, important, and highly stimulating work on fields in psychoanalysis was just beginning to be translated into English. Second was the barrier of the difculty of translating the specifc languages of the diferent psychoanalytic perspectives; this situation was partially addressed in some of the papers in the first issue.\n\nField theory has emerged as an international psychoanalytic concept that may help bring not only a coherent underlying structure for disparate psychoanalytic perspectives, but also a way of fostering interactive exploration of the various uses of psychoanalytic concepts and techniques. Field concepts are not new to psychoanalysis. Since at least 1960, Madeleine and Willy Baranger have elucidated their formulations of analytic fields and have shown how they work with them clinically. The relational fields of the north American school of relational theory, intersubjective matrices, self object matrices of self psychology, and recent developments in Italian psychoanalysis resulting in a modified form of the field work of the Barangers are all examples where field concepts have been employed in theoretical frameworks and clinical technique.\n\nOther perspectives can be understood as using some form of field concept at the base of their theoretical structure, as well as underlying their clinical approach. In this way, the contents and process of what occurs in sessions conducted by an analyst of each perspective can be described in what will be explored in general field theory terms. In fact, each clinical way of working can be described as employing a specific kind of field. Thus, a general field structure that encompasses individual field configurations supplies an essential component for the psychoanalytic framework with which to move the new paradigm forward.\n\nThis book thus furthers the exploration of a merging of work on metaphoric processes and that on fields. The use of a framework with metaphoric processes and fields combined exhibits the uniqueness of psychoanalysis and shows how and with what concepts it explores and explains human experience. An umbrella for psychoanalysis may not dissolve disagreements amongst psychoanalytic schools of thought, but it may permit the schools to be more clearly rendered and more explicitly understood. Formulating an umbrella for the discipline does not have the objective of eradicating differences among perspectives, but rather to be able to understand, explore, and learn from each of them. Both similarities and differences amongst the different psychoanalytic perspectives may be clarified with such a model, which also shows how psychoanalytic perspectives are related and how they are more like each other by far than like any other discipline or clinical technique.\n\nWith this umbrella, the barriers to mutual understanding may be dismantled and a path permanently opened to the possibility of meaningful international, intercultural, and poly-perspectival psychoanalytic exchange. Thus, this book contains an attempt to shine a light on a possible future direction for psychoanalysis by building a framework that can be used to structure clinical work and the theoretical constructs of psychoanalysis. This framework builds on the complex and rich history of psychoanalysis and takes fundamental psychoanalytic principles and concepts as a foundation. The framework allows an exploration of what it means to thoroughly probe core psychoanalytic insights.\n\nIn particular, this book can be viewed as an exploration of building from the fundamental premise of the existence of unconscious processes and the discovery of the complex affective meaning of human experience. Every analytic perspective accepts the existence and infuence of some form of unconscious processes. Following from this, each perspective can agree to the use of a psychoanalytic conception of unconscious metaphoric process. From this, a general concept of unconscious fantasy emerges.\n\nPursuing the premise of multiple affective meanings embedded in every experience leads to the development of what is here called a general psychoanalytic field structure of human experience. Some analytic schools of thought explicitly employ field concepts. Others can be understood as having an operative, implicit field concept, each specific to and uniquely formed by the particular analytic perspective. What evolves from the multiple field concepts in use in psychoanalysis is the employment of metaphoric processes and a generalized understanding of psychoanalytic fields utilized as a way of comprehending and speaking about psychoanalytic processes, theory, and human experience, such that a psychoanalyst from any school of thought can engage with and speak a common language. With these building blocks, psychoanalytic work on metaphoric processes is united organically with the use of field theory.\n\nThe chapters in this book approach the subject from diverse vantage points. Taken together, they form an intricate web of psychoanalytic thought that moves the scope and frontier of psychoanalysis beyond the format of dispute and toward the open, inclusive discussion of core concepts and technique, in an era in which psychoanalysis is coming to terms with the conclusions and implications of postmodernism.\n\nIn Chapter 2, I discuss the first principles necessary to build a base for psychoanalysis in which all schools of thought can participate. In this brief chapter, I discuss the consequences of adopting the fundamental psychoanalytic premise of the existence of unconscious processes. Included in this chapter is a discussion of the implications of dualism and holism for psychoanalysis. Interpretation and fantasy processes emerge as essential to human experience. The multiple affective meanings of human experience are also explored.\n\nIn Chapter 3, I discuss the evolution and use of the concept of metaphoric processes in psychoanalysis. I describe a model of metaphoric processes by breaking them down into component parts and subsidiary concepts. The ingredients of metaphoric processes are then used to express fundamental psychoanalytic concepts. Psychoanalytic perspectives are characterized according to this model in order to display similarities and differences among the different perspectives within a single common base and resulting common language.\n\nIn Chapter 4, Robertallerstein revisits a pertinent aspect of psychoanalytic history in his discussion of the attempts to eliminate the use of metaphor in psychoanalytic theory with the purpose of rendering psychoanalysis more on a par with other sciences. Citing the work of lakof and Johnson, Wurmser, and others, Wallerstein discusses the ubiquity as well as the inevitability of metaphor in general, in all scientific theory andin psychoanalysis in particular. He cautions against the current trend to spread the concept of metaphor so widely as to render it devoid of content. Wallerstein calls for some way of drawing a distinction between the metaphoric and the literal, locating the latter in the data of clinical experience. Different theoretical perspectives are then viewed as employing different scientific metaphors, which serve as heuristic devices to guide clinical work. Common ground is located in the clinical concepts of transference, countertransference, defense, conflict, and compromise.\n\nIn Chapter 5, l\u00e9on Wurmser provides a philosophical and psychoanalytic discussion of metaphor. He locates metaphor in the tension between the realms it brings together. In this way, metaphor is discussed as uniquely suited to portray inner conflict in the widest sense. Building on his previous work, Wurmser finds common ground for psychoanalytic perspectives in the study of cultural historical metaphors for conflict, complementarity, and harmony. Both ancient Greek and Chinese traditions are discussed in this connection.\n\nArnold Modell, in Chapter 6, describes the evolution of his thought on the use of metaphoric processes in psychoanalysis. He locates the motivation for the genesis of different psychoanalytic perspectives alongside the rise in popularity of ego psychology. Modell identifies with Freud's early emphasis on the unconscious processing of memory and feeling, through which meaning making takes place. Modell elaborates and argues for his proposition that metaphor is the currency of the mind. In so doing, he refers to a potential common ground in psychoanalytic concepts rather than in psychoanalytic technique. Metaphoric processes, then, are the subject matter of both psychoanalytic theory and clinical work.\n\nIn Chapter 7, Robert White focuses on the concept of the _nondynamic unconscious_ , and in particular on three psychoanalytic perspectives in relation to this concept. The three theories are found in the work of Wilfred Bion, Cesar and sara Botella, and donnel stern. White discusses these theories in detail and emphasizes the metaphors contained in them. The three perspectives are then compared on this basis.\n\nAntal Borbely, in Chapter 8, envisions the possibility of forging understanding among diferent theoretical psychoanalytic perspectives and between psychoanalysis and cognitive science. He discerns closer alignment in practice among various schools of thought in their use of metaphoric process and temporality. Borbely characterizes the fundamental psychoanalytic concepts of transference, defense, and interpretation in terms of a conception of temporal metaphors. Tat is, the common ground amongst psychoanalytic perspectives is here identifed in core aspects of psychoanalytic process. These are modeled in terms of temporality, metaphor, and metonymy.\n\nIn Chapter 9, Robert Bornstein and Nikaya Becker-Matero discuss the role of metaphor in psychoanalytic process, psychoanalytic research, and interdisciplinary discussion. They show how psychoanalysis has and can make use of metaphors from other disciplines, and how psychoanalytic metaphors have been translated and transformed in the language of other disciplines. Included is a discussion of the use of metaphor in both the design of psychodynamic research and in understanding the results.\n\nIn Chapter 10, I describe extant field concepts in contemporary psychoanalysis. I then provide a structure for what I call _general psychoanalytic fields_. This structure is designed to express the principles and concepts of different psychoanalytic perspectives and aford a neutral language in which to be able to compare and discuss the concepts of each perspective.\n\nIn Chapter 11, antoine Corel describes the conceptual, social, and psychoanalytic antecedents to the development of the field concept by Madeleine and Willy Baranger. He describes the intellectual atmosphere in Argentina preceding their work and explains the development of psychoanalytic concepts in that time and place that led to the concept of the analytic field.\n\nIn Chapter 12, Giuseppe Civitarese and Antonino Ferro discuss the central role of metaphoric processes in analytic field theory, as both a clinical tool and a core component of a model of human experience. They explore the genesis and meanings of the field metaphor in Bion's work and in field theory in general. Civitarese and Ferro discuss the paradigm shift that occurred in psychoanalysis as a result of Bion's work and the development of field theory. The authors then offer rich clinical examples of work with metaphoric processes in a field theory context, expanding their discussion with retrospective refections.\n\nAna-Mar\u00eda Rizzuto, in Chapter 13, explores the analytic process from the perspective of the Barangers' work, with attention to the use, function, and evolution of the meaning of words and other forms of expression. She then reviews neuroscientifc, psychoanalytic, and other literature concerning communication, including verbal communication. Rizzuto argues that communication is fundamentally embodied. She further draws out the psychoanalytic implications of the embodied nature of word meaning, with emphasis on understanding the nature of the intersubjective. Rizzuto locates word meaning in experiential and afective interpersonal meaning.\n\nIn Chapter 14, Juan Tubert-oklander adds to the working concepts of this book\u2014metaphor and field\u2014two other concepts to be taken into account: process and analogy. He makes use of Matte Blanco's concept of _bi-logic_ to describe the diferences between primary and secondary process, and he reformulates the objectives of psychoanalytic process. Tubert-oklander ofers a fundamentally holistic account of human experience that integrates the concepts of field and process.\n\nBeatriz de le\u00f3n de Bernardi, in Chapter 15, reviews the development of field theory in latin America. She then explores the role of metaphoric processes implicit in analytic process within field theory. De le\u00f3n de Bernardi discusses the infuence of lacan's work and of the use of metaphor on field theory. She further discusses the psychoanalytic conceptions of _temporality_ and _spiral process,_ illustrating her discussion with clinical material.\n\nNext, in Chapter 16, Claudio neri discusses working within a field theory model with groups in psychoanalysis, and how this differs from field theory work with individuals. Neri discerns other kinds of fields that Analysands experience. He describes working with what he calls the _shadow_ of such fields in which the analysand is immersed. It is in the analytic field, Neri argues, that these other fields can be detected. He also explores how to analyze such fields by gradually bringing them into the work within the analytic field.\n\nElsa Rappoport de Aisemberg's contribution, Chapter 17, describes the history of the evolution of the concept of countertransference, and then of the Barangers' field theory. She describes a crucial element in clinical work: the movement from the intrapsychic to the intersubjective and then back to the intrapsychic. She discusses working with countertransference within contemporary field theory and offers clinical material in which this work was salient.\n\nThese chapters discuss and demonstrate different ways of understanding and working with metaphoric processes and with fields. They also suggest a language and a structure through which to express and ground each of the various psychoanalytic perspectives. As we move into the future, there may be a way to experience psychoanalysis as an integrated discipline and practice in which internal as well as interdisciplinary discussion and debate are fruitful. Greater familiarity with field concepts may help foster an interest in articulating other kinds of fields associated with schools of thought that are not currently expressed in terms of field work. Some of this work has begun on the following pages. The more that psychoanalytic education includes a framework such as the metaphor and field structure presented here, the more students will be able to readily grasp the connections between their institute's theoretical and clinical perspective and other perspectives. In this way, interperspectival understanding may come to be a matter of course in the future.\n\nThese chapters implicitly indicate another way in which the umbrella framework of metaphoric processes and fields opens an avenue into the future of psychoanalysis. This consists of drawing from a full exploration of the oneiric in everyday processes. Tat is, working with metaphor and fields as the basis of psychoanalytic work undermines the distinction that has at times been drawn between dream states and waking states in analytic process. In this way of looking at human experience, all communications in an analytic process are, in a general sense, infused with fantasy products. This makes explicit a fundamental aspect of psychoanalytic understanding: that in clinical work, there are no communications that are outside the process. Neither are there communications that can be understood solely on the manifest level. Psychoanalysis and postmodern thought together belie the possibility of such an utterance in any context. This framework brings this and other psychoanalytic working principles to the fore.\n\nIn conclusion, I wish to thank my colleagues and co-contributors who read or wrote and discussed different parts of this book. Joseph Lichtenberg offered the initial idea, encouragement and motivation for the book. Kristopher spring helped me to develop the initial conception of the book and Kate Hawes and her assistant Kirsten Buchanan saw the project to completion. Gina Atkinson was a thoughtful and invaluable reader, commentator and editor for Chapters 1, , , and . Laurie Erskine skillfully edited and prepared the manuscript. I would also like to thank _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ for the permission to reprint most of the chapters in this book and _The Psychoanalytic Review_ for the permission to reprint excerpts that contributed to two chapters.\n\n# 2\n\nPRELIMINARY  \nFOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS\n\n_S. Montana Katz_\n\nIn this chapter, I will explore some core principles of psychoanalysis from which the concepts of metaphoric process and of psychoanalytic fields (both general and specific) may be developed. These principles are ones that all psychoanalytic schools of thought could accept and make use of. This discussion revolves around neutral ways in which to understand and articulate human experience. In particular, some implications of what can be generally agreed upon amongst analytic perspectives\u2014that is, the existence of some form of unconscious process\u2014are explored. In this way, an underlying base for a neutral psychoanalytic umbrella framework is articulated.\n\nA conclusion that emerges from this chapter is that psychoanalytic conceptions of some form of fantasy process are essential to understanding human experience, and this conviction about fantasy grows out of the idea of unconscious process. This is integral to formulations both about metaphoric processes and about all kinds of fields. To reiterate, this belief in the central role of fantasy is not one specific to any particular school of thought; rather, fantasy is seen as a general process that transcends and transforms experience.\n\nA crucial aspect of the development of the concept of fantasy in psychoanalysis has been present from the beginning and has been emphasized in the postmodern era. This is the matter of the origins of and the potential for a foundational basis for human experience. That is, if unconscious processes in general and fantasy processes in particular are at the foundation of psychoanalysis, then it remains to be determined from where they derive: the body, the mind, or somewhere else.\n\nTo an extent, this remains an as-yet unresolved issue in psychoanalysis. The question involves consideration of the mind\u2013body dilemma. Discussions and disagreements about the relation between mind and body have endured in multidisciplinary contexts. It is a question about which a resting place is crucial to psychoanalysis and to the potential for forming an integrated discipline from disparate perspectives. The resting place outlined here is located in a holistic model.\n\n## **The Psychoanalytic Subject and Process in a Holistic Model**\n\nFor more than a century, psychoanalytic thought and practice have changed the way humans understand themselves\u2014their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behavior. Psychoanalytic constructs are used in ordinary discourse and have had a substantial impact on the creative arts and on many other disciplines and professions. Psychoanalysis has also been influenced by historical and social trends. Many of the psychoanalytic perspectives developed over the last half century have arisen hand in hand with a sense of disillusionment with unified and reductionist theory. This same disillusionment has led to formulations of postmodern thought.\n\nClassical Freudian theory became identified with reductionist, positivist science and was therefore the subject of a range of critiques and, at moments, wholesale rejection. While a thorough understanding of the application of postmodern principles to psychoanalysis was lacking, postmodernism was used to support the development of new psychoanalytic conceptualizations and practices. Unnecessarily rigid camps were formed. While there have been erroneous conclusions drawn from postmodern principles, psychoanalysis as a discipline has yet to reconcile one way or another with what has become established contemporary thought. For example, the rejection of absolute forms of truth and reality can be incorporated even into a classical psychoanalytic approach (in fact, with Freud's notion of _nachtr\u00e4glichkeit,_ amongst others, this has been implicit all along).\n\nWith the advent of the structural model and its underlying vision of human development, psychoanalysis was set on a path to favor the transferential, intrasubjectively shared, present moment. A common belief in postmodern thought and some contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives is that there is no subject, but instead it is the interactive nexus that creates an individual; consequently, the psychoanalytic subject has been purported to exist only as it emerges from a relationship. But it turns out that, for postmodern psychoanalysis, this is not an appropriate conclusion. In the postmodern framework, there is no unstructured, presymbolic, or prereflective state. It follows, then, that there is also no state of fusion. Thus, in this framework, a possibility exists from the beginning of a psychoanalytic, individual subject and structured, idiosyncratic experience.\n\nThe analytic experience for each participant has begun by the time initial contact is made between analysand and analyst. Already at that point, metaphoric fantasy processes are being brought to bear on the initial and subsequent contact and on the ongoing analytic process. At the point of initial contact, there is the beginning of a shared language with which to express the underlying intrapsychic meanings of each member of the dyad, especially the analysand. There is also initial input from each, necessarily understood by each in a different way. The analyst attempts to explore with the analysand the analysand's understandings. These inputs, verbal and otherwise, give rise to a complex set of affects, meanings, and understanding. For every communication, there is a potential for multiple, layered, and complex affective understandings.\n\nEach communication contains conscious and unconscious components, the understanding of which by the other then incorporates both components as filtered through the conscious and unconscious structures of the listener. Each step of communication in the analytic process is filtered through the preceding communications and understandings. A complex language is built by the analytic couple in which all terms have rich meanings. That is, the ongoing interaction between the two intrapsychic subjects is part of building a language of the psychoanalytic process that attempts to explore and express the experience of the analysand and is part of the experience of both. From the beginning of an analytic process, there are two imperfect, idiosyncratic translations or interpretations operating; it could be said that part of the analytic process is about understanding, exploring, and modifying the psychoanalytic subject's translation function.\n\nA goal of this process is to arrive at constructions that conceptualize, express, clarify, and elaborate the analysand's experience. These constructions, which may be understood as co-constructions, arise out of the analytic material originating in the analysand and interpretations from the analyst, both understood in the sense of the Barangers (2009) as having content only when each participant finds meaning in them and can make use of them to further the analytic process. An analytic goal is for the constructions to be ever more similarly understood by analyst and analysand\u2014that is, to be utilizing the terms of the analytic language in more similar ways toward a fuller expression of the analysand's idiosyncratic structures.\n\nCounterintuitive to postmodern psychoanalytic discussion, postmodern principles afford the possibility of a model of psychoanalytic process that is intrapsychic and co-constructed. The individual psychoanalytic subject, the analysand, naturally exists as an individual prior to the psychoanalytic process, but he or she also develops through the process of precipitating the idiosyncratic elements of experience into the process via co-constructed structures and the specific, unique language of the psychoanalytic process. Thus, the umbrella framework for psychoanalysis that is both nonreductive and allows for intrapsychic experience is compatible with contemporary, postmodern thought.\n\n## **Dualism and Reductions for Psychoanalysis**\n\nIn Western culture at least since descartes, theoretical and clinical discourse has assumed and made use of a separation and severability between each individual's mind and body, to the extremes of portraying persons as mindless bodies and as bodiless minds. In recent decades, this has often been expressed as the problem of mind\u2013brain. The debate has evolved into various camps of more complex or more articulated forms of dualism and of monism, including but not limited to the forms that involve reductions of mind or body, one to the other. There have also been models that include the outright elimination of mind or body\u2014often, most recently, the elimination of mind. There has also been an opposite trend: to implicitly correlate meaning with mind and to diminish the salience of the body.\n\nSome neuroscientists view the mind as reducible to the brain. Some psychoanalysts, including those who focus on one strand of Freud's thought, view the mind as emerging from the body during the course of development. One of Freud's postulations has been called a _dual-aspect monism_ (solms, 1997a). His position is more complex than that, however, due to his sense of the individual's long-range development that reaches back through past generations to seed the components of the structural model. Overall, there has been an emphasis on the body as the base or foundation from which the mind is either derived or built. This is in part the case because it is difficult to refute the idea that humans are born with bodies. At the same time, some feel that suficient evidence is lacking for the presence of mind at birth.\n\nThe discussions about adopting dualist or reductionist frameworks make use of many premises, some of which rely on heuristic principles about human nature involving survival instincts and adaptation hypotheses (Fonagy & target, 2007). Developmental theory begins with bodies and builds minds, language, and individual persons from the base of bodily sensation. This is a contemporary version of the empiricist theories of past centuries. The body has been taken to be that which provides a containment schema for the self (Modell, 2007). Humans are characterized as embodied minds or bodily minds (Rizzuto, 2001).\n\nPart of the motivation for considering the body as basic and as that from which mind grows is the quest for an answer to how it can be that humans\u2014with everything that operates privately and internally in each, together with unique idiosyncratic experiences\u2014may nevertheless share languages, meanings, and be largely predictable in agreeing on a multitude of factors. One point of view holds that it is the overall similarity of bodies, despite differences, and the strong similarity of bodily development and experience that affords communication and overall likeness among ourselves. As lakoff and Johnson (1999) describe the situation\u2014a description that many psychoanalysts accept\u2014meaning stems from commonalities among bodies and environments. There is a compelling argument that underlies this thought process, but one that warrants attention to its assumptions and presuppositions. Alternative conceptualizations that also address the theoretical requirements of this model diminish the need to accept a reduction to the body.\n\nRelevant to this question and of central importance to psychoanalysis are affects. As Modell (1978) has said so clearly, the communication of affect is the perceptual base of psychoanalysis. The formulation of a psychoanalytic theory of affect may be the litmus test for a characterization of mind, brain, and body, whether a dualist one, a monist one, or something else. To have a model of mind, brain, and body that allows for a rich understanding of affect would be to have the framework for a model of human experience.\n\nAffects do not fare well in dualist or reductionist monist models of mind, brain, and body. Problems arise as a result of situations reminiscent of Freud's assertion that the drives are located at the frontier of the psychic and the somatic. Unless affects are characterized as squarely on one side of the fence or the other\u2014which at times they have been\u2014the interactionist problem of joining or linking the two sides becomes crucial. Using affect to provide links does not redress the problem, unless affects themselves are characterized without embedding the issue there (pally, 1998). Heidegger graphically observed in his zollikon seminars that tears cannot be adequately described in a fundamentally dualist or reductionistic monist framework. To give another example, the internal perception of a sinking feeling in the stomach cannot be fully understood as body or mind alone, or as body plus mind, without some organic way of joining the two. This is the very problem posed by dualism.\n\nA tendency to adhere to Western dualism may be partly the reason why the formulation of a theory of affects has remained obdurately intractable. Neuroscientists have characterized affects as emerging from the neurodynamics of brain circuits. One way that psychoanalysts have characterized affects is as bodily experiences of drive derivatives or representations\u2014or, alternatively, as the basis of drives (Kernberg, 2001). As yet there is no articulated model of affects that exhibits their nature as neither solely of mind nor body, but as essential to both, and, further, as an integral part of a nondualist model of human experience. Also lacking at present is a model that recognizes the fundamental role of affects in psychoanalytic theory and in clinical practice (Arlow, 1977). More generally, an adequate theory of affects requires a different sort of framework than the ones we have been working with to date.\n\nBeginning from either side of the traditional dualism, either mind or body, engenders the serious liability that it is likely that either an irreducibly dualist position or a reductive monism will follow. Meissner (2006) provided an extensive and comprehensive discussion of this, noting the unsatisfactory nature of any form of either reductionist monism or dualism. Meissner developed a unified position that does not explicitly involve reduction. His language, however, is very much steeped in the dualist tradition, and thus it is difficult to assess the degree of success of this unification; he seems to have accepted what he called a _methodological dualism_.\n\nNearly one hundred years ago, heidegger noted that the division between mind and body is embedded in our very language. To speak of the problem or the issues involved is to use a language that renders expression fundamentally dualistic. Thus, dualism is the default position when using language to discuss the issues, with reductionistic monism a close second. Reductionistic monisms can be readily described in dualistic terms by noting that one of the two recognized categories is reducible to the other. Terminology is not lacking to make this kind of statement. But such a bias built into the language makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to formulate genuine alternatives to dualism that attempt to undercut the very way of thinking that lends to dualism.\n\n## **Immediate versus Interpreted Experience**\n\nAn implicit and crucial assumption of forms of dualism and of reductionistic monism concerns the possibility of unmediated access\u2014for example, direct access to the body, including self experience. The assumption of the existence of direct access arises organically from the separation of mind and body, whether by dualistic or reductionistic means. If the body is a severable entity in itself, then it must have at least a degree of independence. The body would thus be able to do something apart from performing automatic functions such as breathing. That is, it can also have sensations, at least in some sense of the word. This means that there is a possibility of the body taking in both the raw data of sensation and direct affective experience, without the use of the mind and without the use of concepts. This would also hold true in monisms that effect a reduction to the body. However, the assumption of direct access that would be entailed is untenable, as will be presently discussed, and without it, dualism and reductions to the body are undermined.\n\nA relevant distinction related to this question involves a clarifcation of what sorts of things humans experience and which have priority. Relevant are two possible kinds of experience. The first kind is the direct experience of things, without the necessity of intermediary identifying concepts. To have this kind of predicative experience would be to have an experience of that thing, that something holds of or pertains to it. The second kind of experience, on the other hand, requires some sort of conceptual background in order to have experience involving the thing. This is propositional and contextual experiencing that something holds of the thing.\n\nBoth Heidegger (1953) and Meissner (1997) have argued that there can be no independent immediate experience\u2014that is, experience of the first kind described above. Schafer (1993) and solms (1997b) have also argued to similar conclusions, and related discussions can be found in Bruner (1986, 1990), Grossman (1992), and Katz (2001). In practical terms, it is evident in clinical work that no experience is purely such\u2014free from conceptualization, interpretation, or being laden with unconscious meaning.\n\nThis means that a degree of interpretation or conceptualization is present in all human experience at all times. Specifically, there is no such thing as a pure, direct bodily experience. Even were there to be the possibility of direct sensory experience, it would have no human meaning.\n\nSimilarly, there is no direct access to the internal world or to self experience. All experience, including affective and sensory experience, is perceptual. This means that it proceeds by means of progressive interpretation, impacted by the environment and by idiosyncratic experience. A nondualist, nonreductive, holistic framework of human experience is thus essential for psychoanalysis.\n\n## **Fantasy Processes as Essential and Transcendent**\n\nGiven that there is no direct access, what is left for the umbrella framework for psychoanalysis is a way of understanding human experience as operating via holistic processes from the beginning. Transcendent and transformational processes are crucial to the psychoanalytic base. Without unmediated experience, mental processes must primarily make use of some form of transcendent concepts. Transcendence may be understood in a sense akin to phenomenologists' usage, in that it concerns going beyond what is given in experience, beyond what is accepted as relatively real. What is transcendent is not sensorily conferred by experience. The transcendent is constructed by rendering portions of the stream of experience meaningful, and this occurs by means of interpretation in a general sense.\n\nThus, transcendence is a process that goes beyond particular experience to conjecture to or posit conceptualizations. In this sense, concepts and constructions are transcendent. A concept that collects and organizes, perhaps sharpens or clarifies, disparate previous experiences and perceptions is transcendent. The concept acquired then becomes part of the cadre of what might be called the _relatively real_. The relatively real can be used to predict and shape the future, the experience itself, and memories of the past.\n\nFor example, a transcendent process could be said to proceed via the psychoanalytic notion of fantasy. Fantasy activity operates on prior experience, prior conceptualizations, and prior fantasy products, and arrives at perception and belief that are not and cannot be wholly derived from experience. A psychoanalytic example of a transcendent process in this sense is a transference interpretation. The analyst conjectures and posits a transcendent conceptualization of the analysand's communications.\n\nIn psychoanalytic terms, perception of an object proceeds by means of a transcendent process. An object is not experienced as such in itself, but only on the basis of relatively real past experience, including the involvement of prior perceptions and fantasies of the object. One is interpreting in experiencing and making predictions about the object. Friedman's (2002) discussion of symbolizing is perhaps another way of stating that a fundamental human activity is transcendence in this sense.\n\nWhile abstraction, generalization, and assessments of similarity are often taken as basic human operations, each one proceeds by means of a capacity to form and acquire concepts. What must be involved in these operations is a general psychoanalytic form of fantasy activity at their base. The ability to fantasize is more fundamental than other capacities that have been taken to be basic human ones; in fact, the capacity for fantasy activity can be considered inborn and taken as fundamental and primary. Put differently, it is perhaps by means of fantasy that humans can have and make use of sensory and other experience.\n\nEmbedded in, for example, peterfreund's (1978) paper on psychoanalytic conceptions of infancy, and also supported in Erreich (2003), are implications that something like the capacity for fantasy activity, which gives rise to concepts, must be present from birth. The world is understood by an individual via transcendent and transformational processes. Fantasy activity is a core capacity that is essential to life, and one through which the individual is able to move about in the world. Because fantasy is an essential component of life, each experience contains multiple affective, interpretive meanings. It is an objective of the analytic process to explore links amongst such multiple meanings.\n\nThus, a component of the psychoanalytic umbrella framework is a holistic base, and psychoanalysis highlights a fundamental aspect of human experience and life that is not reducible to any purely physiological theory or science. This theoretical framework includes the acceptance that human experience proceeds by means of fundamental transcendent processes. Such processes are, in a psychoanalytic sense, forms of fantasy processes. These are called _metaphoric processes_ and are explored in the following chapter.\n\n## **Note**\n\n Parts of this chapter appeared in _The Psychoanalytic Review_ vol. 97 (2010), \"Holistic Framework for psychoanalysis,\" pp. 107\u2013135.\n\n# 3\n\nMETAPHORIC PROCESSES\n\n_S. Montana Katz_\n\nThe concept of metaphor was broadened beyond the verbal by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). As will be discussed in detail in subsequent chapters, the concept of metaphoric process is an extension of this broadened view through the addition of temporal, developmental, and functional dimensions. A metaphoric process can be thought of as an unfolding of an unconscious trail, which includes and encodes emotional, procedural, dynamic, and other unconscious ingredients of experience.\n\nMetaphor is often contrasted with the literal. Similarly, metaphoric processes might be seen in distinction from direct, reality-based experience. In the umbrella framework for psychoanalysis, these are relative terms. What is experienced as real is such as a result of the metaphoric processes that give rise to the experience. Thus, what emerges from metaphoric processes may become the (relatively) real of the future.\n\nIt is argued extensively in the preceding and subsequent chapters that metaphoric processes are inborn and involuntary. Metaphoric processes are essential to human life; that is, without the continuous, ongoing stream of metaphoric processes, there would be no human world. They are the means by which each individual has experience, learns, and understands. They are the way in which humans communicate, verbally and nonverbally, intrapsychically and intervivos. Metaphoric processes are already active in early childhood (Imbasciati, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006). These early processes persist as strands in processes throughout life. We might consider the unthought known to be involved in such strands.\n\nModell (2009a) describes metaphoric processes as mappings that involve similarity-and difference-seeking activity. When similarity is salient, repetition, including transference, may be involved and may be clinically observable. When difference is salient in the activity of an individual's metaphoric processes, conceptualization and thought are relatively absent, according to the degree of difference discerned. When the degree of difference is not extreme, resistance may be clinically in evidence. When the degree of difference is high, linking is barred and conceptualization cannot be perceived.\n\nThe idea that metaphoric processes are mappings is a simplifying heuristic proposition. Mappings can be thought of as occurring in segments of metaphoric processes. A manifold of mappings could be open to view in time slices of metaphoric processes. That is, a given metaphoric process will contain multiple mappings, each of which is modified over time in form as well as in salience. It could be said that metaphoric processes may be viewed as systems of mappings during any given time segment. In their entirety, however, they are not mappings themselves. To add more complexity, a conceptualization may (and will be likely to) involve more than one metaphoric process.\n\nFor example, a subject's conceptualization of an object will in general involve segments of several metaphoric processes. Together, these segments coalesce into a temporal conceptualization of the object. This means that, at a given point in time, contained within segments of a set of related metaphoric processes, there is a conceptualization of an object. This conceptualization exists with respect to certain salient aspects. Part of the conceptualization will necessarily involve aspects of conceptualizations of other objects, including primary objects. Mappings contained in this moment of metaphoric processes could be viewed as stemming from conceptualizations of earlier objects and being transferred to aspects of one of the current object.\n\nAn inaccuracy involved in this pertains to time and where in time the mappings that make up metaphoric processes are located. During a time slice in the present, the subject does not have direct access to past conceptualizations embedded in past segments of metaphoric processes. What the subject has are current reconceptualizations of the early conceptualizations, embedded in current segments of metaphoric processes together with associated affect patterns. In that slice, these are then mapped onto aspects of the current conceptualization.\n\nTo take an extreme example for the purposes of clarity, the time slices of metaphoric processes involved in very early preverbal experiences are not accessible as such. In fact, it is not likely that the concepts that were involved are discernible in the mappings in such metaphoric processes. The conceptualizations involved may be of a radically different nature than later experiences. What carry through are associated affect clusters, including the derivatives of self experiences.\n\nAnother inaccurate shorthand is that time progresses in a measured, linear fashion. Yet it is rarely experienced or psychoanalytically understood that way. Transference is a much-discussed case of both nonquantifable and nonlinear, lived time. Metaphoric processes can be heuristically thought of as coursing through the life of an individual in conventional time, yet one thing that is crucially plastic in such a metaphoric process is time. A past event, feeling, or experience is continually brought into the present in its rearticulation by means of newly acquired experience imported into the metaphoric process. These elements refer back to, reinvent, and restructure the experience of the past, as well as informing the experience of the present.\n\nAt every moment, metaphoric processes are based in that moment. From the salient metaphors of a given moment in the experience of a subject\u2014including the current valences\u2014the categories of experience, the organizing principles (Feirstein, 2009), the templates (Freud, 1912c), or the structure (Modell, 2009a; Katz, 2004) can be discerned. The early metaphoric processes of an individual, for example, may contain elements of the experience of the maternal environment. Active metaphoric processes need not form a mutually consistent set. Contradictions and paradoxes abound within the life span of an individual, and this can be represented by contemporaneous metaphoric processes containing conceptions and structures that conflict with each other. Within an individual, as with everything unconscious, a metaphoric process is lifelong. A single metaphoric process may be salient and active in and for the individual at certain points, moderately active other times, and relatively dormant at still others.\n\nMetaphoric processes are continuously ongoing within a human being, and as Modell has described so clearly, they map from one domain to another, possibly dissimilar domain. Metaphor can be a form of transcendence, a mapping from the known, relatively real onto new conceptions of previous experience. This conception of metaphor is consistent with Arlow's (1969) discussion of fantasy in that metaphors are not only ongoing, but also provide the mental set with which humans function. Modell (1997a) states this similarly with respect to metaphor by saying that it is the _currency of the mind_. Freud, in his discussions of dreams and unconscious processes, emphasized visual components. Metaphor is multiperceptual. This includes multisensory elements as well as those of affect and conceptualization.\n\nWhen a metaphoric process within which an individual is functioning can be discerned, one strand of a layer of his or her life comes into high relief. This strand can at times be perceived more or less consciously, and at others may be active solely in the unconscious. Multiple metaphoric processes are ongoing in an individual's life at all times and can merge, diverge, overlap, combine, contradict, and conflict with each other. Unlike Husserl's undifferentiated, universal stream of consciousness, there is an idiosyncratic, differentiated stream of metaphoric processes that continuously course through time.\n\nWhile the concepts and constructions that an individual postulates are idiosyncratic, they are not incommunicable. A subject's experience and interpretations are unique, which is an essential premise of theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis. They are also largely unconscious. Unconscious individual heuristics are discoverable to consciousness through discourse with another (shapiro, 2005). This is made possible from at least two directions. First, the environment has an influence in shaping an individual's conceptions, from the earliest forms of his or her protothoughts and feelings. This normative conditioning occurs as part of the way that natural languages serve to carve human experience into discrete conceptualizations of the behavior of others\u2014especially their highly repetitive behaviors common to many individuals and present in the value systems of populations.\n\nFrom at least birth on, one begins to conceive of aspects of the world through social structuring, including by means of the acquisition of language. This means that, to a large extent, an individual processes experience by means of the conceptual apparatus of the primary language learned, and begins to do so possibly even prior to achieving language competence. That is, many of the concepts acquired or formed in early experience are derived from the way of carving up the world that is implicit and embedded in the language of primary caregivers. Thus, many of an individual's concepts\u2014and thereby his or her expectations\u2014are learned largely through the various media the individual encounters in the world.\n\n## **Metaphoric Processes Are Essential to Human Experience**\n\nTo the same degree that humans could not survive without oxygen and water, they could also not survive without unconscious fantasy activity, and therefore not without ongoing metaphoric processes. Metaphoric processes are essential for the formation, acquisition, and development of concepts within an individual, a community, and the human race as a whole. They are required for the formation of languages and other forms of symbolic representation and communication. What we are aware of and can conceive of\u2014objects, things, self, brains, bodies, minds, etc.\u2014are arrived at through perception and are thus interpretations. In a manner of speaking, they exist as discrete entities to the extent that they are conceptualized as falling into categorizations.\n\nFor humans, a world without metaphoric processes would not be an impoverished world; it would be no world at all. Without the ongoing capacity for metaphoric processes, human experience would not be identifable, discernable, or even describable. All perception would devolve into discrete and unusable sensory impressions. Without metaphor, the potentially infnite amount of sensory input at any given moment would be a bombardment of particulars without any sort of filtration or conceptualization. There would be no patterns, no observations, no predications or predictions\u2014in effect, nothing.\n\nModell has discussed aspects of situations in which the flow of metaphoric processes is diminished or restricted. Specifically, he has explored when and at which points the play of similarity and difference collapse into similarity-seeking processes only, resulting in a loss of the relatively free mobility of metaphor construction. Such cases eventuate in what Modell calls _frozen metaphor\u2014_ repetitions, including transference.\n\nAt the other extreme is the situation in which metaphoric play collapses into difference-seeking and discerning processes only. In this case, metaphoric processes are disabled to the same extent as the degree of the lack of similarity seeking. For example, if an analysand sees only difference between herself and the analyst or other objects, then points of reference with which to discuss this perception will be scarce to nonexistent. At the extreme end of difference discerning, with no similarities discerned overall, there are, in effect, no useful concepts to draw upon. A framework of human experience in which all concepts are singletons is not usable because of an absence of links among discrete sensations and perceptions. No patterns can be detected without categories into which things fall and in which they can be grouped together.\n\nAffective experience under such circumstances of solely difference seeking would be unlinked as well. There would be no linking of similar affective experiences from which humans learn about the world and themselves in it. Moreover, it would not be possible to link the affective expression of others, as is so crucial for development and growth, especially in infancy. The metaphoric capacity is disabled altogether in this extreme case, and is relatively disabled in less extreme cases.\n\nWithout ongoing metaphoric processes, the beginning of life would be entirely different. One aspect of early development is that affectively linked concepts are acquired and increasingly applied. The discernment of patterns of needs, satisfactions, and frustrations; progressive recognition of others and self; increasing control over mobility\u2014all these are in part the result of developing conceptual and perceptual apparatuses. Without this none of these developments can occur, seriously arresting maturation\u2014for example, in the emergence of conceptualizations of space and oneself in it as three-dimensional. In extreme cases, even basic intentional mobility would not be achievable.\n\nIt is not going too far to say that human life would not be possible without some capacity to detect similarity amongst even vast differences. While the situation of living with a diminished capacity to form links is well known to psychoanalysis and is treatable with analytic processes, human life entirely without that capacity is neither survivable nor even conceivable. Virtually by definition, the state of that experience cannot be described in a language that necessarily employs linking concepts.\n\nThis exploration of the role of difference in metaphoric processes again demonstrates the fundamental nature of metaphor to human experience and to life itself. Without some presence of the play of similarity\u2014that is, without some capacity for linking\u2014there is no human life. Modell's (1990, 1997a) statement holds: that metaphoric processes are involuntary and inborn, that \"metaphor is the currency of the mind\" (2009a, p. 555). Furthermore, metaphoric processes are present from the beginning of life and are the means by which humans experience, learn about, and understand the world, including themselves and all objects. The largest element of human commonality may be metaphoric processes. What is pervasive to our processing and experience is affective and interpretive.\n\n## **Components of Metaphoric Processes**\n\nOne way to articulate the concept of metaphoric process is to differentiate its components. The components are ingredients, or dimensions, of a given metaphoric process. As ingredients, each contributes to the totality of any given point or time slice of a metaphoric process. The discernment of components as various ingredients of metaphoric processes is for heuristic purposes; they may not be neatly isolable or readily observable in the flux of actual clinical experience. Four components in a given metaphoric segment are the _idiosyncratic_ , _local_ , _community_ , and _generalized community_ ingredients. Movement or influence within any one component may have ramifications and effects in each of the other components.\n\nIn normal development, the peak, active formation of idiosyncratic features of metaphoric processes will take place in the early, preverbal period. The segments of metaphoric processes that run through this preverbal period are unlikely to be retrievable with organizations or structures close to those originally involved in them. The acquisition of local and community configurations contributes to the transformation of prelinguistic, idiosyncratic elements. However, this does not mean that the latter disappear or that they have been rendered inactive.\n\nAt the other end of the spectrum from the idiosyncratic is the generalized community component. The contents of this related component are close to what have been called _primary metaphors_ (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). This component arises in structures as that portion common to all humans, across individual experience and culture. It might be that this component of metaphoric processes, while universal for humans, is relative to specific eras of human existence.\n\nThe structures from the other two components, the local and the community, lie in between the idiosyncratic and the generalized community in their influence on strands of metaphoric processes. These are configurations that revolve around perceptions of early environmental experience and those of broader cultural experience throughout life, respectively. Using metaphor as a foundation, all levels that have input into human experience can be incorporated. The idiosyncratic, the self in early relation to primary objects, the larger environment and enculturated community, as well as the level of general human experience\u2014all these contribute to metaphoric processes across the life span.\n\nLife proceeds along a sinew of metaphoric processes. The sinew continues for the life of the person. If the sinews of different individuals were entirely different from each other, then the individuals could not meaningfully interact with each other. While one's own sinew is what makes one oneself through time and space, many of the elements of that sinew\u2014that is, metaphoric processes, as well as items in those processes\u2014can be overridingly similar, more similar than not, across individuals, and this is what makes intersubjective, and derivatively intrasubjective, human interaction possible. Trough early experience, the highly idiosyncratic conceptualizations embedded in the metaphoric processes give way and merge with elements of this sinew that are held in common with others. Language acquisition and exposure to wider social experience contribute to this giving-way and merging process. Even in the idiosyncratic, more private, early phase, the ingredients of metaphoric processes may be mostly shared as a result of the commonalities of _in utero_ and early experience.\n\n## **The Concept of the Psychoanalytic Subject in Terms of Metaphoric Processes**\n\nA person can be represented as a sinew\u2014a bundle of metaphoric processes. All that is identified with a person\u2014his or her life experiences, memories, thoughts, bodily experiences, etc.\u2014are part of the sinew of metaphoric processes associated with that person. Not all strands persist throughout the entire length of the sinew (that is, the lifespan of the individual). Some become dormant, some merge with other strands, and some may even disintegrate. Some strands commence in the middle of the sinew, while some split into multiple strands. Some segments of strands overlap with others. Each strand carries valences throughout the metaphor and may become stronger or weaker at different points and in relation to valences on other strands.\n\nA momentary cross section of an individual's sinew would display multiple metaphoric processes in that time slice. Each metaphoric process in the time segment is composed of combinations of the four categories of ingredients, together with the valences of each. In addition, each valenced time slice is impacted to some degree by any or all of the metaphoric processes in the sinew up until that point of the time slice. Valences that are the strongest at that moment give rise to a tendency to influence the individual toward movement along the components or strands to which those valences are attached.\n\nThis way of describing a self provides a structural portrayal of the complex aspect of human experience with which psychoanalysts work. Each metaphoric process in itself represents one pathway that organizes and motivates the future of the self with respect to a specific cluster of experience. In any given moment of a person's life, multiple clusters of experience, multiple metaphoric processes, all have bearing on the moment, each with its own internal set of affects. Some current elements of one metaphoric process may well stand in contradiction to, or in affect bundle opposite to, another current slice of a different metaphoric process. Thus, motivation, multiple function, overdetermination, and conflict can be understood within this framework.\n\nIn this framework, self-awareness, whether bodily or otherwise, is mediated by metaphoric processes. In principle, one has no more direct route to self-awareness than object awareness. Whether it is a self-awareness of something as basic as enjoying a certain taste, it involves multiple metaphoric processes in order to arrive at linking the discrimination of a certain taste and the experience of pleasure. This may occur without an understanding of the past experience that led to the pleasure. Awareness of objects is not different in kind, but at certain points in the lifespan, it may sometimes be more limited and at other times less limited than self-experience and awareness. It is the sinew of ongoing metaphoric processes that brings one to a moment of affective or other experience, rather than an immediate self-experience. This view of persons and personal experience is grounded in unconscious processes.\n\n## **Note**\n\n parts of this chapter originally appeared in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 31(2): pp. 134\u2013146 as \"Unconscious Metaphoric processes as a Basis for an inclusive Model of psychoanalytic perspectives.\"\n\n# 4\n\nMETAPHOR IN  \nPSYCHOANALYSIS AND  \nCLINICAL DATA\n\n_Robert Wallerstein_\n\nSince the 1980 book, _The Metaphors We Live By_ , by Lakoff and Johnson, the cognitive-linguistic view of metaphor that they propound has come to be most widely accepted. Its characteristic features are that (a) metaphor is a property of the concept, not the words; (b) its function is to heighten understanding, not simply artistic or aesthetic; (c) it is often not based on similarity; (d) it is ubiquitous in ordinary language, not requiring special talent; and (e) it is an inevitable intrinsic aspect of all human thought and language. This is true of all speech, including the speech in and of psychoanalysis. Metaphor both amplifies and creates meaning. But it can also be misleading and produce conceptual errors of meaning. It should, therefore, not be reified or always taken literally, but should remain flexible and alterable, so that heuristically more relevant and more encompassing metaphor can readily be elaborated.\n\n## **The Meaning of Metaphor**\n\nOur language of discourse, daily conversation or literature and essay, has, as far back as it has been recorded, been saturated with metaphor. Zolt\u00e1n K\u00f6vecses (2002), a student of, and collaborator with, the noted American linguist, George lakoff, in his comprehensive book on metaphor\u2014called a _Practical Introduction_ \u2014calls metaphor a figure of speech that implies a comparison between two unlike entities, though with linking common features. He states that traditionally metaphor has had five characteristic features: a) it is a property of words, a linguistic phenomenon, b) it is used for rhetorical or artistic purposes, c) it is based on resemblance, d) it is a conscious and deliberate fashioning of words that requires special talent, quoting Aristotle who called it \"a mark of genius,\" and last, e) a figure of speech that we can well do without.\n\nThis view K\u00f6vecses declares to be dramatically challenged, and in his view superseded, by the \"cognitive-linguistic view of metaphor\" enunciated in the 1980 volume by Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in which five quite different\u2014and opposed\u2014characteristic features define metaphor: a) it is a property of the concept, not the words, b) the function is to heighten understanding, rather than simply an artistic or aesthetic purpose, c) it is often _not_ based on similarity, d) it is used effortlessly, and mostly unremarked, in ordinary language, not requiring any special talent, and e) it is far from being a superfluous, though pleasing, linguistic ornament, and is rather an inevitable, intrinsic aspect of human thought, reasoning, and speech.\n\nTough admittedly there may be strong proponents of both perspectives still continuing today, K\u00f6vecses devotes his entire volume to demonstrating, via seemingly endless examples, the clear superiority of the newer \"cognitive-linguistic\" perspective. The use of metaphor is so ubiquitous, and often so mundane and commonplace, that it is simply not noticed, being called in that case \"dead metaphor.\" two such examples are, \"a local _branch_ of this business\" (a plant metaphor of a tree), and \"the country was close to s _liding_ into war\" (a spatial metaphor). But these are really \"live metaphors\" since they frame our thinking and give it meaning; they are the metaphors we regularly live by. For example, our common metaphor of the human mind as a machine can be seen in another two of K\u00f6vecses' examples: \"How could any man ever understand the _workings_ of a woman's mind?\" or \"After my first cup of morning coffee, my brain was _ticking over_ much more briskly.\" and this common metaphor is evident in all visions of mental activity, of mind conceived as computer for example, by scientist and general public alike.\n\nIn this perspective, metaphorical language is not arbitrary and unmotivated, nor simply ornamental, but is embedded in and central to, our entire idea-creating, thinking process, originally arising from our basic bodily (sensorimotor) developmental experiences. And when we see ideas as food (\"I can't swallow that claim\") or life as a journey (\"We aren't getting anywhere\"), we are thinking about abstract concepts (ideation, or life) in ways that are deeply facilitated by the more concrete concepts of food, or a journey. In this sense; \"in the cognitive-linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another [more concrete] conceptual domain\" (K\u00f6vecses, p. 4). Thus it creates new meaning.\n\nAdam Bessie in his 2006 review of the literature on metaphor, also drawing centrally upon Lakoff and Johnson, states then the specific contention that \"metaphor is a foundational, constructive, and natural process by which we conceptualize the world\" (p. 6), and is therefore, \"a process for generating ideas\" (p. 5). Within this conception, \"all language is, at some level, metaphoric... not a matter for the artist alone, but a part of everyday life\" (pp. 10\u201311), and \"a way of thinking, a way to invent ideas, rather than [just] a way to clearly express thinking\" (p. 11). Metaphor has been moved, powerfully by Lakoff and Johnson, from mental product to mental process.\n\nBessie quotes peter elbow (1973) on _how_ metaphor generates new meaning. \"When you make a metaphor you call something by a wrong name... you are thinking in terms of something else... [each comparison] throws into relief aspects of the [topic] you might otherwise miss. You are seeing one thought or perception in terms of another\" (elbow, pp. 53\u201354). \"In essence... the writer discovers similarity, and between things which are at first, seemingly unrelated\" (Bessie, p. 13). And it is this \"discovery process [that] is generative; the writer develops new ideas atop old ones, seeing the world in new ways\" (p. 13).\n\nThis is what yields new insights, activating \"two separate concepts, bridging the two separate conceptual schemata\" (Bessie, pp. 21\u201322). And, of course, it also makes for the possibility of error. As James seitz (1999) said: \"Metaphor, in other words, represents language at its most vulnerable moment, not only because it stimulates multiple, unpredictable readings, but more importantly because it risks obfuscation that can result from calling _this_ by the name of _that_ \" (p. 42) and therefore, \"the metaphoric process... is not only one of finding comparisons between different things but [can become one of ] finding contrasts\" (Bessie, p. 17). And thus, can also produce conceptual errors in our process of taking \"what we know, to make sense of what we do not\" (Bessie, p. 14). Metaphor can also be used, deliberately or automatically, to influence, even to mislead, to further bias and advance ideology, as in political, economic, or cultural propaganda, or commercially, in product advertising. Examples are of course, everyday, and legion.\n\nAnd lastly, importantly, \"Given theory which suggests [that] metaphor is a matter of individual cognition 'difference' becomes contextualized within the individual, rather than universally. Thus, determining when a topic and vehicle are 'different' and thus metaphoric, is a matter of individual perception, and individual knowledge\" (Bessie, p. 18). In other words; \"What is metaphoric to one person, can well be literal to another\" (Bessie, p. 9).\n\n## **Freud and Metaphor**\n\nGiven this state of metaphor theory, with its still continuing varying perspectives, and its warning caveats on the pitfalls for the adherents of any of its perspectives, how can we situate the role and place of metaphor within psychoanalysis, both in its theory, and in its therapeutic applications, within that context? as is so often the case, sigmund Freud can be understood on both sides of this just stated question. On the one hand his descriptive-explanatory language is drenched in vivid metaphor, in both the clinical and the theoretical realms. A very well-known and oft-remarked _clinical_ example is his analogy of the psychoanalytic situation to a train ride, and the emergent free associations of the analysand to the recital of a railroad passenger seated at the window, describing the passing scenery to the companion in the adjacent seat (1913a, p. 135). An equally well-known and quoted _theoretical_ statement is his effort to explain how sense-impressions relating to what he calls the perceptual system and the mnemic systems become embedded memory through analogy with the operation of the then recently introduced contrivance of the \"Mystic Writing-pad,\" a writing-tablet from which notes could be erased by an easy movement of the hand (1925, p. 228). Every student of psychoanalysis has many more of Freud's examples at hand.\n\nHowever, given Freud's commitment\u2014under the guidance of his neuropathological mentor, von Br\u00fccke\u2014to the Helmholtz model of a natural science, physico-chemical basis for biological processes, he espoused lifelong his conviction that psychoanalysis, as an evolutionarily constituted, biologically grounded, psychological discipline would ultimately be firmly embedded in that same natural science framework. And, as corollary to that, would necessarily endeavor to eschew metaphorical language in favor of a more scientific mathematical language (a language direction in which Bion sought later to move, while himself, at the same time creating new metaphoric concepts like \"container-contained\").\n\nAt the same time Freud himself famously created numerous compelling metaphors, like those just indicated, to describe his advancing theoretical conceptions, such as id, ego, and superego, used to describe differing mental activities\u2014and to justify their heuristic use, as well as mark out his strong awareness of their provisional, and non-literal, nature. I cite two of his best-known cautionary expressions. In his 1914b paper, _On Narcissism,_ he said:\n\n> I am of opinion that that is just the difference between a speculative theory and a science erected on empirical interpretation. The latter will not envy speculation its privilege of having a smooth, logically unassailable foundation, but will gladly content itself with nebulous, scarcely imaginable basic concepts, which it hopes to apprehend more clearly in the course of its development, or which it is even prepared to replace by others. For these ideas are not the foundation of science, upon which everything rests: that foundation is observation alone. They are not the bottom but the top of the whole structure, and they can be replaced and discarded without damaging it. The same thing is happening in our day in the science of physics, the basic notions of which as regards matter, centres of force, attraction, etc. Are scarcely less debatable than the corresponding notions in psycho-analysis.\n> \n> (Freud, 1914b: p. 77)\n\nIn this pivotal paper, Freud clearly defended the necessity of metaphoric conceptions to the advancement of psychoanalytic theorizing\u2014and cited the quintessential natural science, physics, as also governed by comparable needs and strategies\u2014while expressing the implied hope that this might be only a way-station on the road to more scientific, i.e., mathematical, precision.\n\nAnd in his final years, in his 1937 paper, _Analysis Terminable and Interminable,_ he still made the identical point, even more dramatically, when discussing the instincts and their relation to the ego, \"if we are asked by what methods and means this result is achieved, it is not easy to find an answer. We can only say: 'So muss denn doch die Hexe dran!'\u2014the Witch Metapsychology. Without metapsychological speculation and theorizing\u2014I had almost said 'phantasying'\u2014we shall not get another step forward. Unfortunately, here as elsewhere, what our Witch reveals is neither very clear nor very detailed\" (Freud, 1937 p. 225). And here is clearly stated the presence of\u2014and the use of\u2014metaphor as central to the fabric of psychoanalysis from its very beginnings as an emerging science, but also, its limitations, and its possibility for obfuscation.\n\n## **The Struggle to Expunge Metaphor From Psychoanalysis**\n\nEver since, different theoreticians have thrown their weight on one or the other side of this struggle over the proper place, for better or worse, of metaphor within psychoanalytic conceptualizing. In the first decades after World War II\u2014and prior to the path-changing Lakoff and Johnson volume\u2014major theorists, concerned to make psychoanalysis more \"scientific,\" sought to progressively eliminate metaphor from its language. For example, else Frenkel-Brunswik (1954), schooled in Vienna in the logical positivist teachings of Moritz schlick, averred: \"While the psychoanalytic system comes closer to a truly scientific theory than most observers realize, psychoanalysis still contains many metaphors, analogies, and confusions between construct and fact which must in the end be eliminated\" (in Heiman & Grant, 1974, p. 226). And she explained away such metaphoric, and in her mind, logical, lapses that appeared in Freud's theorizing. \"When Freud ascribes some of the difficulties in his speculations concerning the instincts to our being obliged to operate with 'metaphorical expressions peculiar to psychology,' we must add in his behalf that for the type of problems with which psychoanalysis deals the mentalistic (introspectionist or animistic) vocabulary constitutes the precise counterpart of the pictorial vocabulary which has been stressed as a legitimate or at least _tolerable_ ingredient of the earlier stages of physical science\" (also p. 226, ital. Added).\n\nAnd H. J. Home (1966) warned of the danger of such lapses. \"If mind is not a thing then each time we speak about it as if it were a thing we are speaking metaphorically... If, however, we suppress or repress our consciousness of the metaphor and speak literally about the mind as a thing then we have created a metaphysical fact\" (p. 46), something to certainly be avoided.\n\nIt was under this anti-metaphorizing banner that two major American psychoanalytic theorists undertook to expunge metaphoric language from psychoanalytic discourse, though from different perspectives, Lawrence Kubie from a theoretical vantage point, and Roy schafer from a clinical one. Kubie (1966) undertook his campaign as the centerpiece of his effort to ground psychoanalysis within \"the future development of a psychophysiology of psychoanalysis\" (p. 196), in accord with Freud's own dream of this future for the discipline that he had almost single-handedly created. Kubie did acknowledge that he had as yet no methods to properly carry out this intent of a biologically grounded, i.e., truly scientific (in his sense), psychoanalysis. \"Unhappily we have as yet no precise methods by which to carry on such investigations. The development of appropriate techniques will constitute a major methodological breakthrough for all psychologies, but especially for psychoanalytic psychology\" (p. 196).\n\nAnd in decrying both Freud's topographic and structural metaphors, Kubie did endeavor to commit himself to the effort to expunge metaphorical language from psychoanalysis. \"I will make no further use of this metaphor [topographic aspects of mentation], however, nor of certain other metaphors which appear currently in psychoanalytic writings, and which are regularly miscalled 'hypotheses'\" (p. 191). As an example of the ill that he felt was done by the widespread use of Freud's structural metaphor of the mind (id-ego-superego), Kubie declared; \"Freud called this the 'structural' aspect of human mentation. This metaphor seems to me to have been even more unfortunate and misleading than the other [the earlier topographic model] because it does not increase the precision of our descriptions of mental processes, but blurs them by an inexact analogy, and also because it has no explanatory value itself. Indeed, the effort to use this analogy as an explanatory hypothesis has led us into a morass of anthropomorphic pseudo-explanations\" (p. 192).\n\nOf such statements, L\u00e9on Wurmser (1977), who later wrote in defense of metaphor as central to the creation of (all) science, including psychoanalysis, declared, \"But is a statement referring to 'the characteristics of behavior in which preconscious processing flows freely, dominating the psychic stream and furnishing a continuous supply of processed experiences for 'symbolic sampling'... in any way less metaphorical than the points of view, the metaphors and models, attacked by him?\" (pp. 468\u2013469).\n\nIt was, however, Roy Schafer who, from a clinical, rather than a theoretical, vantage point, mounted the most intense and prolonged effort, in a major sequence of papers (1972, 1973a, 1975, and others) culminating in a book (1976), to thoroughly eliminate metaphor from psychoanalytic work by shifting concretizing nouns, and their qualifying adjectives, so often cast within a passive voice, into active verbs and their adverbs\u2014all to be called \"action language\" (since the verbs would specify mental acts). This would restore the personal agency, and its inherent acceptance of personal responsibility, to personal behavior and its psychoanalytic unraveling. Schafer's battle cry was, \"We can no longer afford to maintain unchallenged the belief that there can be no Freudian psychoanalysis without Freudian metapsychology\" (1975, p. 41).\n\nIn this effort to rid psychoanalysis of all its spatial metaphors of the mind's various functions, and their interplay and their movements inside and outside, schafer (1972) declared, \"I have been re-examining psychoanalytic terms in the interest of eliminating from our theory confusing, unnecessary, and meaningless metaphors and the assumptions they both express and generate... I am... attempting to develop a sublanguage within the English language that will make it possible to specify mental facts in an unambiguous, parsimonious, consistent, and meaningful fashion: I refer especially to facts of interest to psychoanalysts and analysands\" (p. 421).\n\nHe does this because, \"we have complicated our thinking unnecessarily; we are using a pseudospatial metaphor from which it is all too easy to slip into concreteness of thought; once embarked on metaphor, we tend to develop a sense of obligation to be metaphorically consistent, and to involve ourselves in extravagant niceties of formulation, and perhaps we even introduce still another assumption into theory where none is needed. The history of the pseudoquantitative energy metaphor in Freudian metapsychology demonstrates what I mean\" (1972, p. 435).\n\nSchafer then went on to assert that, \"Even though such archaic thinking is widely used as metaphor in the adaptive communications of everyday life, it _cannot_ be used for exact clinical description and interpretation or for rigorous theoretical conceptualization\" (1973a, p. 47, ital. Added). And this is because it cannot be tested: \"There is no _it_ that metaphors capture and so there is no way of testing the truth of a metaphoric construction of experience when one has only the metaphor to work with. Ten it is self-contradictory to assert\u2014it is so often asserted\u2014that certain experiences can be expressed _only_ metaphorically; for if the assertion is true, then there is no way of assessing the metaphor against its referent and so no basis for making the claim in the first place\" (1976, p. 369). Tat, in essence was schafer's message, which he kept enlarging in a series of papers seeming to cover almost every aspect of psychoanalytic conceptualizing.\n\nThat Schafer's action language never won a significant constituency can be attributed, I think, to two reasons. First is the real ubiquity of metaphor in all our spoken language, whether in social or psychoanalytic discourse, as Lakoff and Johnson demonstrated so convincingly in 1980 (after the publication of the major bulk of Schafer's writings on the subject), so that the effort to totally expunge metaphor becomes an unending, and always failed, task. And second, because the endless sample alternatives that Schafer offered so often were strained and clumsy locutions that could not come easily into conversation. For example, in a chapter in his 1976 book devoted to the language of emotion, after giving many striking and common examples of the metaphor of the heart, used to describe emotional states (big-hearted, broken-hearted, warm-hearted, cold-hearted, and many more), Schafer offers substitutions like: \"A warmhearted person is someone who deals affectionately and generously with others. A chicken-hearted person is one who fearfully avoids dealing with ordinary dangers. A hearty person is one who does a variety of things vigorously, zestfully, and good-humoredly,\" etc. (p. 276).2\n\n## **In Defense of Metaphor in Psychoanalysis**\n\nBut metaphor in psychoanalysis has also had its determined, early defenders, in both its clinical and theoretical arenas. Given its conversational ubiquity, working with, i.e., understanding, metaphor has long been part of the clinical armamentarium of psychoanalysis. Rudolf Ekstein and Dorothy Wright in the 1950s made explicit what Ekstein called \"working within the metaphor.\" in a 1952 article, they described a \"schizophrenoid\" child, a delusional nine-year-old, massively phobic, given to suicidal fantasying, and troubled by severe asthma, who played out his psychic turmoil as a Five star General, commanding an armada of space ships engaged in destructive inter-galactic wars. He was labeled the \"space child\" because of the vast cosmological distances over which his internal wars with his all too powerful parents were presented.\n\nWorking within the metaphor was described as, \"When we speak of distance we refer to it in the physical, emotional, metaphoric sense, since his way of describing the man far away, his using the metaphor of hundreds and thousands of light years seemed to be nothing but an allusion to a psychological problem which he could not present in any other way. The mode of his defense, the way his ego attempted to master internal problems rather than the content of the conflict was attacked by psychotherapeutic work\" (Ekstein & Wright, 1952, p. 214). And after substantial therapeutic work the child's internal world was brought down from the distant galaxies to planet earth, where he now became Oscar Pumphandle, engaged in research in Arizona, improving the atom bomb, while his parents were also now earth-bound, but as dinosaurs (still distant in time). It was such changes, as in these mechanisms of distance, of space and of time, that Ekstein felt could be taken as indicators of therapeutic progress. It was \"defense through distance\" (p. 222) that was gradually undone.\n\nIn a successor paper two years later, the boy was now solidly on earth but moving time over great spans through a time machine that he had created. He could now move from our primeval evolutionary birth from a fish or reptile, through all of history, favoring William the Conqueror's 1066 conquest of England, and a trip as a tourist in Europe in 1425. His mission in going back in history was to intervene to change critical familial events, and thus by changing his past, saving his future. In this paper entitled \"The space Child's time Machine\" (Ekstein, 1954), the author stated that, \"Tommy has made use of many archeological metaphors\" (p. 505). Tommy's delusional states could be conceptualized as experiencing concretized metaphors, literally, i.e. Delusionally.\n\nClearly, work within the metaphor, or with the metaphor, is not always so explicit as with this very disturbed youngster, but more or less explicitly (or implicitly) it has long been an inevitable and accepted part of imaginative clinical psychoanalysis.3 how could it be otherwise, given the ubiquity of metaphor as an inextricable constituent of even the most ordinary language, let alone the usually more educated discourse within the psychoanalytic encounter. And it can be put to apt clinical use. When a patient expresses himself, for example, as hunting around for something, the alert analyst can at least wonder about buried aggressive connotations, hunting, hostile assaults, murderous fantasies, etc.\n\nBut the place of metaphor within the theoretical language of psychoanalysis, a discipline trying to warrant its claim to be a growing science, has always been more problematic\u2014witness the efforts by theorists like Kubie and schafer, intent to rid psychoanalysis of its metaphoric expressions, the one to legitimate its credentials as science by making its language ultimately more mathematical, and the other to enhance its power as therapy by making its clinical language more actively verbal and its agency more owned.\n\nIt was L\u00e9on Wurmser (1977)\u2014also writing, like Kubie and schafer, prior to the publication of the Lakoff and Johnson volume, which retrospectively gave powerful support to Wurmser's thesis\u2014who impressively made the case for the inevitability and the necessity, of metaphor as a central component of developing science. Wurmser began with a systematic critique of those who saw metaphor as either a distortion of the clinical process (like Schafer) or an anti-scientific turn (like Kubie), in both ways declared to be hurtful to psychoanalysis. Wurmser's response to Kubie, who he artfully showed was actually substituting one set of metaphors for another in the language of psychoanalytic theory\u2014since, as Lakoff and Johnson later demonstrated, there is no escape from metaphor when constructing speech or writing\u2014has already been earlier stated.\n\nOf Schafer, Wurmser said: \"As Schafer (1975) states in a recent article, his profound criticism would sweep away all of metapsychology and most of our clinical theory and erect a new theory based on psychoanalytic phenomenology. His criticism is based on two premises: first that metaphors derived from direct experience become concretized and therefore are dangerous, indeed ultimately evil;4 and second, that it is possible to form a theory of psychoanalysis based strictly on functional correlations which have shed all metaphorical impurities, and that he has found a key to build such a nonconcretized, nonreified theory\" (p. 471). But again, \"shedding all metaphorical impurities\" is a fruitless task, and the substituted language proved clumsy and less attractive, and therefore never caught on.\n\nWurmser then went on to stake out his own \"defense\" of metaphor in psychoanalysis, both clinically and theoretically. Essentially his argument is that, \"What is crucial is that our science, like any other science, is woven of the warp of observations and held together by the intricate woof of symbolism, of many layers of abstractions, of stark and faded metaphors, which 'interpret' for us ('explain' to us) the 'direct' facts which, as we know, are never really direct\" (pp. 476\u2013477). This led to the statement all in italics; \" _All science is the systematic use of metaphor\"_ (p. 477). Which is further explained by: \"Metaphors, taken literally, are unscientific. Metaphors, understood as symbols, are the only language of science we possess, unless we resort to mathematical symbols\" (p. 483). (The latter of which, of course, Bion attempted prematurely.)\n\nActually, this all follows ineluctably from the Lakoff and Johnson thesis that metaphor is of the very fabric of all language usage, even though as Bessie (2006, p. 7) has stated, \"Across fields there is [still] a great deal of debate over what metaphor is, and how it functions. [and] ironically, or appropriately, metaphor is an abstraction, one which it is difficult to define without resorting to metaphor... in fact, the very word metaphor, Seitz (1991) observes, 'derives from a metaphor: to transfer, to carry'\" (p. 389).\n\nSince metaphor is always there, the (scientific) interest of psychoanalysis in the use of metaphor in its clinical and theoretical discourse, \"is _, whether and in what forms and on what levels we choose symbolic representations_ for the specific experiences gained by the psychoanalytic method and the scientific inquiry based on this method\" (Wurmser, p. 482). For, \"The connection between symbol and fact is solely this functional relation... a means to predict consequences\" (Wurmser, p. 473). And Freud, whose dramatic and evocative prose style earned him the Goethe prize for literature, was so often masterful in his metaphoric language choices. Wurmser put it thus: \"What has been most _fruitful_ in analytic theory formation? one has only to read the works of Freud and a few other analytic theoreticians to discover that it was the richness and the systematic, coherent use of metaphorical constructs that added so much to our knowledge\" (Wurmser, p. 484).\n\nFreud, of course, was not always clear about _how_ he deployed and used metaphor. Talking about Freud's energy metaphor, designed to substantiate the economic viewpoint in metapsychology, Wurmser quoted, \"shope (1973) is probably right when he states that Freud saw the concept of energy not as metaphor, but as explanatory construct (p. 396); this should not hinder our re-evaluating it critically\u2014accepting it as useful in the former, as most dubious in the latter meaning\" (p. 487). Tough the energy metaphor has been substantially abandoned by much of the psychoanalytic world, replaced now by heuristically more useful metaphor, Wurmser did try to explain its long appeal to Freud (and to many others) as follows: \"The economic world in psychoanalysis is an attempt not to add yet a new physical content to those physical equivalent [energy in the natural sciences] but to establish metaphorically, by analogy, a _similar system 'of quantitative relations of equivalence'_ \u2014some novel form of lawful correlation between emotional phenomena\" (p. 486). And, of course, by now much of Freudian metapsychology of which the economic viewpoint was but one component, has been abandoned and replaced with more felicitous (i.e., more useful) conceptions. What are involved are continuing issues of judgment that try to find widening collegial resonance.5\n\nAt the new York University institute of philosophy chaired by sidney hook in 1958, devoted to an interchange between psychoanalysts (hartmann, Kubie, Kardiner, Arlow) and philosophers of science, the philosopher Arthur Danto was one participant who spoke to the same issues as Wurmser, and made the same comparison with the queen science, physics: \"a person who demands that every properly scientific term be redeemed (without remainder) with observational equivalents, merely betrays allegiance to a superannuated empiricism. It is hardly damaging any longer, therefore, to accuse psychoanalysis of being unscientific by virtue of its trafficking in unobservables. Providing that the theoretical terms function in psychoanalytical theories the way they do in (say) physical theories, and providing that psychoanalytical theories come up to the mark on syntactical grounds, the two could hardly be contrasted invidiously. So far as unobservableness goes, there is little to choose as between castration complexes and psi-functions\" (1959, p. 315).\n\n## **Current Psychoanalytic Understandings of Metaphor**\n\nBy now the Lakoff and Johnson \"cognitive-linguistic\" perspective, quoted in most current psychoanalytic contributions to the subject of metaphor, has come to be our almost universally accepted conceptual bedrock. There have been two prior issues of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ (2005, 2009) devoted to exploring the role, rather the centrality, of metaphoric thought to psychoanalysis, both issues edited by Alan Barnett and S. Montana Katz\u2014with this article in this third issue, with the same co-editors. Both prior issues acknowledge the pioneering role of Arnold Modell in fashioning the current very much broadened psychoanalytic conceptions of metaphor as what has been variously called the \"heart,\" or the \"currency,\" of psychoanalysis\u2014both of these words, themselves metaphors. Modell, himself, has a central article in both of those journal issues (2005, 2009a) and is referred to, as basic to their understanding, by almost all of the other authors in those issues, including even one (Fred levin) calling Modell his muse (2009, p. 70).\n\nBuilding on the Lakoff and Johnson thesis about the central role of metaphor in all thought and language, Modell expanded this framework to conceive of metaphor as the linguistic \"bridge\" from body to mind, from its origin in the sensorimotor biological building blocks of language acquisition, to being the lifetime \"bridge\" between (often unconscious) feeling states and verbalized speech (knowledge). And the whole array of fellow authors in the second issue of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ (2009) ranging from the self-declared neuro-psychoanalyst, Fred levin, to the prominent relationist, Donnel stern, each in their own way, fully support Modell's conceptions.\n\nSome sample quotations will demonstrate this wide concordance of seeing metaphor as _the_ \"royal road\" to meaning-making, underlying almost every central (psychoanalytic) linguistic conception, like the understanding of the unconscious, affect, thought transference, dream, etc.; even the whole of psychoanalysis itself. For example, \"Metaphor is at the center of the construction of meaning\" (Modell, 2009b, p. 93); \"a modern understanding of metaphor as the way we initially process and articulate new concepts\" (Aragno, 2009, p. 30); \"metaphor... transfers meaning between dissimilar domains, and, through the use of novel recombinations, transfers meanings\" (Barnett & Katz, 2009, p. 1). Which transfer of meanings is, of course, the essence of transference, as several of the contributors point out. And, of course, of dreams as well. \"Metaphorical thought\u2014understanding one thing in terms of another\u2014underlies and permeates dream-formation\" (Aragno, p. 40), and \"Metaphor points to one thing while signifying something else, just as dreams point to their manifest content while meaning their latent thoughts\" (aragno, p. 41).\n\nWhich brings us to the practical equation of the use of metaphor as the practically total explanation of the entire analytic process, in Modell's words, \"the currency of the emotional mind\" (2009a, p. 6); \"it is fundamentally embodied and is not simply a figure of speech\" (2009a, p. 68). Which leads to the full equation: \"In summary, contemporary analysts of all connections agree that analysis _is_ a metaphoric process, and that the patient's and the analyst's metaphoric processes and verbalized metaphors are essential for the transformations the analysand must undergo. This theoretical issue seems indisputable\" (Rizzuto 2009, p. 20). And even more encompassing is a summarizing statement by Aragno \"With respect to metaphor, psychoanalysts are indisputably privileged. We dwell in the realm of metaphor; of tropes, synecdoche, and metonymy: of irony, hyperbole, allusion, and illusion; of vital enactment and corresponding dream; of symptom, demonstration, meaning, and story as metaphoric _events._ Metaphor fills the space and the situation (even before the meetings have begun!); it permeates the process, its stages, phases, and exchanges...\" (p. 32).\n\nContrary voices in psychoanalysis, like those of Kubie and Schafer, seem to have died away. And nowhere are the cautionary notes, like those of the cognitive-linguists, or among analysts, like Wurmser, that metaphors can be poorly constructed, can point to irrelevant or false meanings, can thus obfuscate and derail psychoanalytic understanding, can even lend themselves to harmful interventions\u2014whether in clinical interchange or in theoretical construction\u2014at all mentioned. Nor is much specific attention paid\u2014aside from conventional metaphors that are broadly based, quite universally self-evident, and with consensually agreed-upon meanings\u2014to the specific individual contextualization of metaphoric meanings, that though clearly central to understanding individual therapeutic interchange, may create real difficulties in facilitating theoretical advance that is meant to be universally applicable and consensually understood.\n\nAnd beyond all this, what the contributors to _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ (2005, 2009) have done, is to push the by now quite well accepted conviction that our language, in all its dimensions, is (almost) automatically and inextricably, saturated with metaphor (both conventional, and in more creative minds, quite idiosyncratic), pushed this to the contention that all of abstract thought, is necessarily metaphoric, that abstraction cannot be conceptualized except metaphorically. Thus metaphor could become properly declared by Modell the \"bridge\" from the latent unconscious thought to verbalized speech. This carries the risk, to me, of making every thought and every speech act, other than the exactly literal, into metaphor, and, in so doing, making metaphor itself, lose its special distinctness of meaning. To me, this can be beyond the Lakoff and Johnson thesis, and it strips metaphor of an essential element, that metaphor makes an _abstraction_ more understandable in terms of something more _concrete_ \u2014with all the potential dangers then, of course, of leading to reification, to potential risk, and also to possible misunderstanding, because of individually different contextualization. To me, this overall broadening trend both overburdens the conception of metaphor and conceals its limitations and hazards.\n\n## **Where Do I Stand?**\n\nI first became explicitly involved in considering the place and the meaning of metaphor in psychoanalysis when I gave my presidential address to the international psychoanalytical association in Montreal in 1987, and chose as my topic the issue of our increasing psychoanalytic diversity, or pluralism as we had come to call it, a pluralism of theoretical perspectives, of linguistic and thought conventions, of distinctive regional, cultural, and language emphases; and what it was, in view of this expanding diversity, that still held us together as common adherents of a shared psychoanalytic science and profession.\n\nAfter reviewing in some detail Freud's own lifetime strenuous efforts to define the parameters of his new science of the mind, and to hold it together as a theoretically unified enterprise, against both destructive or diluting pressures or seductions from without, and also against fractious human divisiveness from within, I outlined how this effort broke down, even in Freud's lifetime, with the emerging Kleinian movement in Great Britain, and then spread with other new theoretical perspectives emerging around the world, leading to the multiple competing metapsychologies we were facing at the time of my address in 1987\u2014and continuing still today.\n\nTo respond to the question of what, in the face of this, still held us together that I had posed, I took as my starting point the distinction posited for psychoanalysis by George Klein (1976), between the low-level and experience-near clinical theory, dealing with the actual observables in the interactions within the consulting room, and the more encompassing, more generally explanatory, and more causally developmental accounting of mental life from its earliest fathomable origins, the experience-distant general theories (or metapsychologies) which seek to \"explain\" the clinical phenomena described by the clinical theory. Tough Klein declared the clinical theory to be eminently testable, he stated that the canons of correspondence between the clinical theory and our varying general theories were too tenuous to be able to claim any possibility of establishing utility or validity for any of the general theories, and that indeed, the general theories were anyway all unnecessary to psychoanalytic understanding, and should therefore be severed and cast out by an action he dubbed \"theorectomy.\" This, of course, was our entire realm of differing metapsychologies, the Freudian ego psychological (now, modern conflict theory), the British object relational, the Kleinian, Bionian, Lacanian, Kohutian self-psychological, relational, etc.\n\nI illustrated this contention with a vignette, described by Kohut, of a specific clinical interchange where three theoretical explanatory systems, the Kleinian, the ego psychological, and Kohut's own self psychological, could each be invoked and could each be used to differently causally \"explain\" that same clinical interaction, each putting the clinical specifics into a different framework of plausible meaning, within an overall theoretical explanatory context. And each of these general explanatory systems would indeed be persuasive to the adherents of that viewpoint who in fact would look at it as _the_ most useful and natural way in which to understand the described clinical interaction.\n\nWhat Kohut made of this was that the described clinical context was insufficient to decide which of the three \"interpretations\" would be in this instance closest to the mark, and so he called all three of them examples, potentially, of \"wild analysis\"\u2014 until proven otherwise. What I was differently suggesting was that our _data_ are the clinical events of the consulting room, and that their interpretation, that could carry consensually agreed meaning, was embedded only in our clinical theory, the theory level of transference and countertransference, of resistance and defense, of conflict and compromise, in fact, the original fundamental elements of Freud's 1914 definition of psychoanalysis.6 This I stated to be our common psychoanalytic clinical ground that united us within our shared discipline.\n\nI also suggested that our pluralism of theoretical perspectives within which we try to give overall meaning to our clinical data in the present, and try to reconstruct the past out of which the present developed, represent the various scientific _metaphors_ that we have created in order to satisfy our variously conditioned needs for closure and coherence and overall theoretical explanation. Joseph and Anne-Marie Sandler had earlier (1983) approached this same conception in their statement that deep interpretations into the infantile past could be viewed as but metaphoric reconstructions. For example, \"It is our firm conviction that so-called \"deep\" interpretations can have a good analytic effect only because they provide metaphors that can contain the fantasies and feelings in the second system [what they called the \"present unconscious\"]. The patient learns to understand and accept these metaphors, and if they provide a good ft, both cognitively and affectively, then they will be effective. This view gives us a way of understanding the interpretive approach of some of our [Kleinian] colleagues\" (p. 424).\n\nI broadened and extended this thinking to the conception that all our general theoretical perspectives, Kleinian, but also ego psychological, and all the others, are but our varyingly chosen explanatory _metaphors_ , heuristically useful to us in terms of our varying intellectual value commitments, in explaining, i.e., in making sense of, the primary clinical data of our consulting rooms, the realm of the \"present unconscious\" in the Sandlers' terms, or the realm of our \"clinical theory\" in George\n\nKlein's terms. Put most simply, this conceptualization makes all our grand general theory (and all of our pluralism of general theory), nothing but our individually chosen array of metaphor.\n\nPut this way, my conception of the place of metaphor in psychoanalysis, though within the framework propounded linguistically by Lakoff and Johnson, of its inextricable ubiquity in all our thinking and verbalization processes, is less broad than its equation with the totality of the psychoanalytic process\u2014itself very refractory to consensually agreed definition, with so many stating that, in judging case presentations, they find it hard to try to define the process, but they just know it when they see it\u2014and is rather something less automatic, less totalistic, but rather something more personal, more individually constructed, more idiosyncratically determined, by our own developmental and personality dispositions, and the outlooks on life that they embed.\n\nA similar view that life values are distinctly involved in our choice of theoretical perspectives, i.e., our scientific metaphors, was clearly articulated by John Gedo (1984), though perhaps not in a form with which we would all agree. He said on this issue:\n\n> Each of these conceptual schemata [the various psychoanalytic theoretical systems] encodes one or another of the primary meanings implicit in human existence\u2014unfortunately, often to the exclusion of all other meanings. Thus, the view of man embodied in the libido theory, especially in the form it took prior to 1920, attributed primary significance to the satisfaction of the appetites. By contrast, Melanie Klein's psychoanalytic system teaches the need to make reparation for man's constitutional wickedness... in the 1970s, Heinz Kohut promulgated views that give comparable emphasis to the unique healing power of empathy while acknowledging man's entitlement to an affectively gratifying milieu... let me hasten to add that I am emphatically in agreement with the need to satisfy appetites, to curb human destructiveness, and to provide an affectively gratifying environment for our children. And I am for other desiderata to boot! Isn't everyone?\n> \n> (Gedo, 1984: p. 159)\n\nWhich is exactly my point extended to the role of metaphor. Our chosen explanatory metaphors are not inherent and automatic in our thought and speech construction, but are to significant extent chosen (and so often, very thoughtfully and deliberately chosen) in terms of the personality predilections that we have\u2014individually and differently\u2014come to live by.\n\nThis same point of Gedo's, that our theoretical positions in psychoanalysis, i.e., our chosen scientific explanatory metaphors, are inevitably embedded in our fundamental social, political, and moral value dispositions has been made strongly as the closing statement in Greenberg and Mitchell's 1983 book on object relations perspectives in (American) psychoanalysis, which they traced developmentally and historically through critical discussion of the work of the various major object relations theorists starting with such diverse contributors as Melanie Klein, W. R. D. Fairbairn, and Harry Stack Sullivan. The summarizing point that they make at the end of their book is that the drive theory perspective and the relational theory perspective are linked to differing views of the essential nature of human experience and acquired world view.\n\nDrive theory they linked philosophically to the positions of Hobbes and Locke, that man is an essentially individual animal, and that human goals and satisfactions are fundamentally personal and individual. The role of the state rests on the concept of \"negative liberty,\" that the state adds nothing to individual satisfaction as such, but just ensures the possibility of personal fulfillment. Relational theory they linked philosophically to the position of Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx, that man is an essentially social animal and that human goals and satisfactions are realizable only within an organized community. The role of the state rests here on the concept of \"positive liberty,\" to provide an indispensable \"positive\" function by offering its citizens that which they cannot provide for themselves in isolation.\n\nGreenberg and Mitchell stated in relation to this that, \"The drive\/structure and the relational\/structure model embody these two major traditions within Western philosophy in the relatively recently developing intellectual arena of psychoanalytic ideas\" (p. 402). And in this context they quoted Thomas Kuhn, the well-known philosopher and historian of (natural) science, that \"communication between proponents of different theories is inevitably partial...What each takes to be facts, depends in part on the theory he espouses, and... an individual's transfer of allegiance from theory to theory is often better described as _conversion_ than as choice\" (1977, p. 338, ital. Added). Which is my own overall point, that we can and do choose different, and conflicting, explanatory metaphors to explain the same phenomena, the same facts, even what we take to be the facts, that we are endeavoring to explain.\n\nWithin this overall context, I see our present day theoretical pluralism, our, to this point, diversity of explanatory metaphors, arising out of our different life experiences, our different personality predilections, and our different psychoanalytic trainings and allegiances, as an expression of our current state of development as a credible science. Each metaphoric explanatory system represents, for its adherents, the best possible current understanding of the phenomena displayed in our consulting rooms, and is therefore heuristically useful, even essential, to the followers of that system. In that sense, these varying explanatory metaphors are vital to the current position of psychoanalysis as an evolving science, seeing the place of metaphor, of course, in a less totalistic way than others who view it more broadly as the vital coin of the entire psychoanalytic process, as in fact, the indubitable engine of all of psychoanalysis. That argument I leave aside, as I affirm what I regard as the central and essential role of metaphor in all scientific theory construction.\n\nI don't, of course, expect that psychoanalysis will simply remain in this current state. Psychoanalysis is rather a continually evolving scientific endeavor. I have in two previous publications (Wallerstein, 2002a, 2002b), the first, talking about the growth and transformations over time of American ego psychology, and the second, an effort to prognosticate what I saw to be the continuing course of evolving converging trends within our currently pluralistic metapsychological (metaphoric) international psychoanalytic world, recounted in both the efforts of many clinical and theoretical contributors (most explicitly Kernberg and Sandler, but also Chodorow, Gabbard, Gill, Loewald, etc.) to reconcile\u2014even creatively amalgamate\u2014disparate metapsychologies and their dominant metaphors. These efforts, anchored at the clinical level, but aspiring \"upward\" towards the general explanatory level of metaphor, represent unifying trends, which to the extent that they mature, in consensually acceptable ways, will necessarily also lead to increasingly more encompassing (and, hopefully, more precise) explanatory metaphors. (The reader is referred to my two 2002 articles, for a detailed exposition of the development, the then current status, and the expected near-future developments of these converging psychoanalytic perspectives.)\n\nHow far such unifying tendencies\u2014with the concomitantly enlarging explanatory metaphors\u2014will progress, is unclear, but they are similar to the unifying thrust of all science, even the paradigmatic science, physics, where an entire current generation of theoretical physicists, are pursuing, via the promise of (super)string theory, the effort to create T.O.E. (theory of everything). T.O.E. Would finally unite two current major theoretical structures, Einstein's relativity theory which explains so well the very large world of cosmology (galaxies, the expanding universe, space and time), and quantum mechanics, which explains equally well the very tiny world of subatomic particles (quarks, mesons, gluons, etc.), with the dilemma being\u2014somewhat akin to that of psychoanalysis\u2014that the two theories, of the very large and the very small, though each presumably valid in its own domain, stand in total opposition to each other, with\u2014in physics\u2014the situation, that if the one theory is correct, the other must be false.7\n\nHow far psychoanalysis will progress in this direction is clearly not at present knowable. Sciences do, incrementally, evolve, though at different rates, and varyingly towards a more precise (non-metaphorical) language of mathematical equations and symbolisms. It is certainly an open question as to how far each science can (or should) evolve from the language of metaphor to the language of mathematics. Certainly none are wholly there now, and psychoanalysis is very far, indeed.\n\nFinally, in terms of the whole tenor of the argument that I have been advancing through this article, the question in my title seems somewhat misplaced. Since metaphor is an integral component of the construction of language, all language, even the language of science, the issue is rather that though metaphor can indeed be misleading, and a bane, if it is concretized and reified and taken literally, it is indeed (most often) a blessing when aptly created, in the sense of imparting (and explaining) new meanings which advance our scientific understandings. And, as Freud counseled us at our very beginning, metaphor is intrinsically both flexible and alterable, so that heuristically more relevant and more encompassing metaphor can readily be elaborated. Thus scientific propositions advance towards greater explanatory comprehensions, and ultimately, testability.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n This chapter originally appeared in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 31(2): pp. 90\u2013106 with the title, \"Metaphor in psychoanalysis: Bane or Blessing?\"\n\n Schafer's cause did achieve significant literary support when Susan Sontag (1978), caught up with her own cancer, published a polemical essay decrying the dangers caused by the all too ready willingness to make \"mysterious\" and dreaded illnesses, like tuberculosis and cancer, and also others (leprosy, syphilis, and insanity) into \"morally, if not literally contagious\" (p. 6) happenings. With bountiful references from world literature, Sontag described the long romanticization of tuberculosis into an ailment of talented aesthetes, \"the sign of a superior nature\" (p. 34) (like Shelley and Keats), or cancer as a failure of expressiveness, reflecting the repression of violent feelings by life's losers. \"Contrariwise, my point is that illness is _not_ a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness\u2014and the healthiest way of being ill\u2014is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking\" (p. 3). Rather than being the bearer of secret (and often shameful) taboos, disease is an \"ineluctably material reality\" (p. 56). And in a wholesale assault on any hint of psychosomatic thinking, \"psychological theories of illness are a powerful means of placing the blame on the ill. Patients, who are instructed that they have, unwittingly caused their disease are also being made to feel that they have deserved it\" (p. 57). And that, of course, can be a danger of metaphor!\n\n For further striking examples of the use of flagrant metaphor in clinical psychoanalysis, the reader can consult Aleksandrowicz (1962), Reider (1972), and Voth (1970). For somewhat more theoretical conceptualizations, see Lewin (1970, 1971) and Sharpe (1940).\n\n The risks in concretizing metaphor, and taking it literally, can be very real and can do great harm. When I entered psychiatry in 1949, the lobotomy operation was still being employed for the mitigation of the psychotic structure in instances of severe, and chronic, paranoid schizophrenia. At a hospital \"lobotomy conference\" that I knew, the lobotomy was \"explained\" and justified by the conception that the ego resided in the frontal cortex, and the turbulent id in the thalamus, so that surgically severing the thalamo-cortical projections, would release the weakened ego from the tyranny of the overpowering, chaotic id. This formulation was advanced by the psychoanalytic consultant. An extreme and tragic instance of the risks of concretized metaphor!\n\n The earlier widely noted 1964 article by William Grossman and Bennett Simon made essentially the same argument as Wurmser, but under the more narrowly focused conception of anthropomorphism in psychoanalysis, rather than Wurmser's umbrella of metaphor.\n\n Freud stated there, \"[T]he facts of transference and of resistance. Any line of investigation which recognizes these two facts and takes them as the starting point of its work has a right to call itself psycho-analysis, even though it arrives at results other than my own. But anyone who takes up other sides of the problem while ignoring these two hypotheses will hardly escape a charge of misappropriation of property by attempted impersonation, if he persists in calling himself a psycho-analyst\" (1914a, p. 16). Of course we must add here that the key words \"transference\" and \"resistance\" also imply the concepts of the unconscious, of psychic conflict, and of defense and compromise formation, the key building stones of our shared psychoanalytic edifice. And, of course, modern conceptions of the place and use of countertransference must be included. Further along in this _History_ , Freud elaborates this same definitional statement, using much the same words (1914a, p. 50).\n\n For a detailed explanation of this situation in physics, I refer the reader to the two general explanatory books by the Columbia University theoretical physicist and string theory researcher, Brian Greene (1999, 2004).\n\n# 5\n\nMETAPHOR AND CONFLICT\n\n_L\u00e9on Wurmser_\n\nThe chapter deals with a double idea: Metaphor itself, by bridging two domains of experience, lives in the tension, even contradictoriness, of what it brings together, and in that way may be uniquely suited to present a theory of mental life that centers on inner polarities and antitheses, i.e., inner conflict in a wide sense, not necessarily bound to the drive or structural metaphors. In turn, the concept of \"conflict\" itself entails a spectrum of warlike or violent metaphors, like defense, antitheses, clashing values or forces, being torn or broken apart, inner part personalities fighting with each other, etc. The history of the metaphors for various forms of inner conflict is traced back in Western and eastern literature (homer, plato, Bible, Talmud, St. Augustine, Confucius, and Lao Tzu), thus broadening the search for a common ground for psychoanalytic perspectives.\n\nThe concept of \"symbol,\" encompassing that of metaphor, is itself derived from a striking and ritualized metaphor of fitting together what has been broken apart, a ritual that is very similar in ancient Greek and Chinese tradition.\n\nIn 1977 I published my paper in the _Quarterly_ defending the use of metaphor in psychoanalytic theory formation against the attacks by Schafer, holt, Kubie, and others (Wallerstein, this volume). This paper does not repeat what has been presented there but is based on its main ideas.\n\n## **\"The Seal of the Mind\"**\n\nSince I wrote my paper defending the use of metaphor in theory formation in the sciences in general, in psychoanalysis in particular (Wurmser, 1977), there have been several pertinent developments. They have been ably summarized and examined in various perspectives in the previous issue of _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ (2009, Vol. 29, no. 1). The most important step, it seems to me, was distinguishing metaphoric processes from metaphor proper. The latter is bound to language and is one form of symbolic formation. The former is a biologically deeply anchored process of cross modal equations which can already be observed in newborns (stern, 1985; Wurmser, 2000, p. 27; Aragno, 2009, p. 31). The new, broader view is simply put: \"The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another... most of our normal conceptual system is metaphorically structured; that is, most concepts are partially understood in terms of other concepts\" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, pp. 5, 56). It goes beyond words and deals more generally with concepts, understanding and action: \"Metaphor is primarily a matter of thought and action and only derivatively a matter of language\" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 153). Aragno (2009) speaks of \"metaphoric thought as a primary activity of mind\" (p. 33). Quoting Borbely, she refers to the _metaphorical process_ as being situated between primary and secondary process (ibid.). \"It is a fundamental _law_ of ideation, a principle of synthesis and integration\" (p. 36).\n\nI asked therefore (1989, p. 33): \"Is not all conceiving of truth [Erfassung der Wahrheit] lastly founded in the metaphoric action of the human being?\" More specifically and summarizing, I wrote in the same work:\n\n> Natural science does not rest until it has resolved everything into mathematical relations. The humanities trace back their phenomena to formal stylistic relations. Could it be that psychoanalysis has to put everything into relations of polarities? is the idiom specific for it that of metaphors for paradoxes, for multiple refractions of conflicts and polarities? does it live in the spirit of Socratic irony, like creativity in general, forever questioning all knowledge anew, disquieting, constantly on the way? \"Restlessness and dignity\u2013\u2013this is the seal of the mind (or spirit)\" [ _Rastlosigkeit und W\u00fcrde\u2013\u2013das ist das Siegel des Geistes_ , Thomas Mann, _Joseph und seine Br\u00fcder_ , 1933\/1966, p. 50]. And doesn't it therefore show, more than all the other symbolic activities of man, the dominating double principle of conflict and complementarity?\n> \n> (Wurmser, 1989, pp. 499\u2013500)\n\nThere is hardly any moment in psychoanalytic work where we are not aware of voices of the personality that contradict each other, of parts that struggle with each other. Such inner splits are the hallmark of the mind when studied with our method, an _a priori_ starting point for our systematic efforts to understand our inner life and our dialogue with others: \"We seek not merely to describe and to classify phenomena, but to understand them as signs of an interplay of forces in the mind, as a manifestation of purposeful intentions working concurrently or in mutual opposition. We are concerned with a _dynamic view_ of mental phenomena. On our view the phenomena that are perceived must yield in importance to trends which are only hypothetical\" (Freud, 1916, p. 67). \"It is important to begin in good time to reckon with the fact that mental life is the arena and battle-ground for mutually opposing purposes or, to put it non-dynamically, that it consists of contradictions and pairs of contraries. Proof of the existence of a particular purpose is no argument against the existence of an opposite one; there is room for both. It is only a question of the attitude of these contraries to each other, and of what effects are produced by the one and by the other\" (ibid., pp. 76\u201377).\n\nThe central concern for us as psychoanalysts is the consistent, systematic exploration of inner conflict, especially of unconscious inner conflict. No matter how we try to define our work, it always comes down to the fact that the focus, the center of our interest during our analytic work at its best, lies on inner conflict. Everything else moves to the periphery; it is not irrelevant, but our inner orientation is so that we notice it as part of the surrounding field, not as the beacon that guides us. In this way our inner life becomes the most prominent example for the word of Heraklitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher, that \"war is the father of all things\u2013\u2013 _polemos pater panton_.\" \"Polemos\" can certainly be translated as conflict.\n\nAs I described in 1977 in more detail there are other approaches to an understanding of the mind, especially those that look for the inner growth towards harmony and the full development of what Aristotle dubbed \"entelechy\": that try to achieve the indwelling essence of being, and correspondingly to rectify deviations from such a path and hence deficits and defects. But our approach centers on the vision of conflicts of contradictory forces or parts or values and their possible complementarity, i.e., that such opposites do not exclude each other, but complement them: \" _Contraria sunt complementa_.\"\n\nThe notion of inner conflict did not originate with Freud; its systematic use as explanatory device par excellence did. In his and even more so in our work, relevant _explanation_ more and more moves away from the short cut attempts at reducing our inner life to certain large factors, like trauma, stages of libido development, narcissism, masochism, repetition compulsion. If these concepts are taken as explanations of causality, the clinician soon discovers that their usefulness stops precisely there where the problem begins. They are the beginning, not the end of the search. Instead, the stopping point of such exploration is the concept of a specific inner conflict, specifically inner preconscious conflict that stands for, is derivative of, long range unsolved unconscious inner conflicts in multiple layerings. Thus psychoanalytic explanation rests in an understanding of _conflict causality_ : the causes of what we observe are seen in many layers of inner conflict. Conflict does not simply refer to that between drives and ego, drives and superego, ego and outer reality, but also between opposite ego aspects, between discordant superego parts, as between different ideals and values, between sharply split loyalties, even between opposing drives, between ideas and affects, between conformity and self-loyalty, etc. It is also not so that conflict psychology is synonymous with the exploration of Oedipal issues or even with the structural model, as important both are for conflict psychology; both of them deal with special forms of conflict. Nor does conflict understanding, including the analysis of unconscious conflict, have to be tied to drive theory (Modell, this volume). There are very many levels of inner conflict: between ideas, values, affects, entire \"subpersonalities\" within the self, as it were different selves, \"the soul as multitude of subjects, as community building of drives and affects\" (Nietzsche, 1885\/1976, p. 20), as \"dividua,\" as Nietzsche somewhere put it ironically.\n\nThus psychoanalysis is grounded in a philosophy that sees its center in _conflict and paradox, in polarity and complementarity_ , and that seeks on many levels the dichotomies of knowing, acting, and feeling. This vision did not originate with Freud, but is profoundly rooted in Western literature and philosophy, and hints of it may even be traced in Chinese thought. Our classical writings for thousands of years are replete with metaphors for such inner oppositions: for inner breaks and struggles and for the abyss that opens up when such contradictions are unbridgeable and unsolvable.\n\n## **The Centrality of Metaphor**\n\nAs stated earlier (Wurmser, 1977, 1989; Arlow, 1979; Sharpe, 1940; Caruth & Ekstein, 1966; Voth, 1970; Modell, 2003, 2005, 2009a), the analyst's work has to be largely _metaphorical_. Arlow spoke of the whole of psychoanalysis as a metaphorizing odyssey, it \"is essentially a metaphorical enterprise\" (Arlow, 1979, p. 373, quoted by Aragno, 2009 p. 45): \"The patient addresses the analyst metaphorically, the analyst listens and understands in a corresponding manner. Under the influence of neurotic conflict, the patient perceives and experiences the world in a metaphorical way\" (Arlow, pp. 373\u2013374), and he quotes Empson that it is ambiguity that makes metaphor possible: \"Ambiguity implies a dynamic quality to language which enables meaning to be deepened and enriched as various layers of it become simultaneously available\" (Arlow, p. 373).\n\n\"The language of dreams is entirely metaphorical,\" says Aragno (2009, p. 42). \"Metaphor is fictive, not factual; its message imaginative, not literal. Metaphors do not deliver data, but evoke _insight_ ; image and concept here fuse in thought\" (p. 43). Quoting Goodman, she adds: \"The oddity is that metaphorical truth is compatible with literal falsity\" (p. 36). \"Truth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined in large part by metaphor\" (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p. 159); there is no absolute, objectivist truth.\n\nPrimary process thinking underlying both neurosis and dream follows the logical laws of mythical thinking. Because they work with images and because they overstep the lines between perceptual categories, metaphors appeal to mythical thinking. Already the etymology of the word \"metaphora\" indicates the close relationship to one of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis: it means \"transference\" (Wurmser, 1977; Grassi, n.d.).\n\nOne of the most fascinating discoveries in the research of early infancy is the newborn's and infant's striking \"capacity to transfer perceptual experience from one sensory modality to another\" (stern, 1985, p. 47). Such \"yoking of the tactile and visual experiences is brought about by way of the innate design of the perceptual system, not by way of repeated world experience. No learning is needed initially...\" (p. 48). This implies \"that the infant, from the earliest days of life, forms and acts upon abstract representations of qualities of perception\" (p. 51). In other words, _abstraction_ , i.e., the ability to transfer formal qualities between different modalities, exists from the very beginning, independent from all experience, and thus is an immediate given, is _a priori_. Metaphorical thought is only a special case of this fundamental characteristic of our mind. Metaphorical process is an inborn readiness and manifests itself independent from language.\n\nWhat Aristotle ( _Poetics_ , 22.16\/17; 1459 a) saw as the \"by far greatest token of genius\" ( _euphyias the semeion_ ) in the poet, i.e., the use of metaphor ( _poly de megiston to metaphorikon einai_ ), can by rights also be claimed for the analyst: \"Seeing what is similar\" (l.c.). Similes, figures of speech, are an important road that may very directly lead to what is unconscious. Philosophically, it means also a great deal that the analytic models of insight and of ordering the data are themselves of metaphorical nature.\n\nThis philosophical attitude does also greater justice to the complexity of inner life than a closed and dogmatic system of theories could do. Theoretical models as metaphorical renderings that allow approximation to \"the truth,\" but are not absolute; models which are more useful for this purpose than others; all the models of the different schools being attempts to order smaller or larger segments of observations, some handier than others; based on such models, the technical guidelines as being more or less effective, short or long term, helpfully, yet unfortunately also often harmfully\u2014these are the _pragmatic_ foundations upon which, in my own psychoanalytic work, the concept of truth is built (Wurmser, 2000). \"Each metaphoric explanatory system represents, for its adherents, the best possible current understanding of the phenomena displayed in our consulting rooms, and is therefore heuristically useful, even essential, to the followers of that system\" (Wallerstein, this volume).\n\n## **Metaphor as Representation of Conflict**\n\n\"If psychoanalysis is the art and scientific study of interpreting our inner life, especially those parts disguised and hidden from ourselves\u2013\u2013that is, if it is a form of symbolically connected, meaningful wholes, patterns, strands, sequences of experience\u2013\u2013then the science of analysis has to describe and develop as many comprehensive 'models,' 'frameworks,' 'myths' (metaphors) as are practically useful and theoretically consistent, coherent, and integrated\" (Wurmser, 1977, p. 493). Today I would add: in these theoretical endeavors at explanation, metaphoric systems that center on conflict and related concepts have to assume a privileged position.\n\nThe trivial definition of metaphor is \"a word _substituted_ for another on account of the resemblance or analogy between their significations\" (Whately, cited in Black, 1962). The one Aristotle uses is more specific and is based on the etymology of _metaphora_ = transference (Wurmser, 1977): \"Metaphor is the application of a strange term either transferred from the genus and applied to the species ( _epiphora... apo tou genous epi eidos_ ) or from the species and applied to the genus, or from one species to another or else by analogy ( _kata to analogon_ )\" ( _Poetics_ , 21.7; 1457 b; Aristotle, 1927, p. 80). According to Black it is a contracted comparison (1962, p. 36). As third Black suggests the \"interaction view\": \"In the simplest formulation, when we use a metaphor we have two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is a resultant of their interaction\" (Richards, cited in Black 1962, S.38). He comments: \"To speak of the 'interaction' of two thoughts 'active together' (or, again, of their 'interillumination' Or 'cooperation') is to _use_ a metaphor emphasizing the dynamic aspects of a good reader's response to a nontrivial metaphor\" (S.39). \"The metaphor selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes features of the principal subject by implying statements about it that normally apply to the subsidiary subject\" (Black, S.44 ff.). Metaphor transforms and reorganizes the view. \"... The set of literal statements so obtained will not have the same power to inform and enlighten as the original\" (p.46).\n\nThis idea is deepened by Beardsley ( _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ ) when he talks about the \"verbal-opposition theory\": \"This theory... rests upon 1) a distinction between two levels of meaning, and 2.) the principle that metaphor involves essentially a _logical conflict of central meanings_ \" (Bd.5, s.286).\n\nThis inherent difference and, I would add contradictoriness and tension, is implied, but not made explicit when Modell (1997a, p. 106) defines metaphor as \"the mapping of one conceptual domain onto a dissimilar conceptual domain... resulting in a transfer of meaning from one to the other\" (quoted by Bornstein & Becker, this volume). Similarly, the latter authors describe the metaphor (metaphorically, in an inevitable circularity) as \"the glue that links disparate aspects of human life, over time and across different contexts, enabling us to construct cohesive life narratives that give meaning to past and present experience\" (this volume).\n\nIn contrast, White (this volume) stresses \"the emphasis on collision, tension and opposition over collusion and similarity\" in modern metaphor. I understand it similarly when Borbely (issue) writes about \"the tension inherent in metaphor which keeps the target away from the source yet at the same time connects source and target.\"\n\nI would stress the \"logical conflict of central meanings\" as the nub of my argument. At the end of this essay, in connection with Lao Tzu, I will talk about indirect, i.e., metaphorical presentation of conflict, by using _logical and perceptual contradiction as an indirect presentation of affective conflict_.\n\nTaking this together we conclude that we may see in non-trivial metaphors the result of a conflict of mental contents that usually have a strong emotional significance. If the psychoanalytic method as the study of inner processes focuses above all on seeing their essence as conflict it is evident that metaphor has to be the instrument par excellence to represent conflict. Such symbolization of conflict by metaphor serves a causal understanding of mental processes and is specifically and essentially explanatory.\n\n## **\"Words Have an Ancestor\"** 2 **\u2013\u2013A History of Some Central Metaphors**\n\nI would like to suggest that the search for common grounds for our divergent perspectives may be considerably helped if we study the metaphors that have been central throughout history for the understanding of the mind, most specifically those for conflict and its opposite: harmony.\n\n### Fitting Together What is Broken\n\nMetaphor is a special form of symbol; metaphoric processes are paramount forms of symbolic processes. But there is an inevitable circularity involved: when we talk about this we can only do so by employing metaphors as well, faded, even unconsciously deployed metaphors to be sure, but metaphors and metaphoric processes nevertheless. Etymology is largely a study of the emerging and development of metaphors.\n\nThe next question is then: What is the original metaphor standing behind \"symbol\"? it has a fascinating history in both world cultures, the Western and the eastern.\n\nThe Greek word \" _symbolon\"_ is derived from the verb \" _symballein\"_ \"to throw together.\" Its original meaning is that of sign, of a contract, in particular the sign by which old friends, guest and host, recognize each other. This sign consisted of a little tablet or a ring which had been broken in two at the time of farewell. Now, at the reencounter, these two pieces should ft together (Benseler-K\u00e4gi, 1931; Tzermias, 1976). Thus the \"symbol\" fits together two disparate realities: things and significance, concrete and what we call abstract.\n\nIt is fascinating to observe that something parallel happened in China: The ideogram for minister, Q\u00edng, is derived from the sign for _q\u012bng,_ the image of a piece of wood or jade that had been broken in two. Here the two separate pieces have to signify and verify charge and honor: \"In ancient times the emperor, when investing the feudatories or officials, handed over to them one half of a piece of wood or of jade diversely cut out; the other half was used to make the proof, as the modern counterfoil. The two pieces gathered are the, _q\u012bng..._ When they appeared before the emperor, or when they held the functions of their office, the feudatories or officials had this kind of scepter in their hands. It was used also as a seal\" (Wieger, 1927, S.147). Astonishingly, even the modern word for symbol, _F\u00fah\u00e0o,_ uses another ideogram for the verification in front of emperor or king by such a fitting correspondence of pieces of bamboo, jade or bronze.\n\nTo return to the Greek, in Aeschylos' _Agamemnon_ the fiery message of Troy's fall transmitted from mountain top to mountain top is called \"proof and symbol\u2013\u2013 _tekmar... symbolon te.\"_ Here the word already has our meaning: the fire has only one signification, the one that had been previously agreed upon.\n\nOn the other side we find in Plato's _Symposium_ the original use in the famous myth of Eros: Zeus had cut apart the previously complete human being: \"So ancient is the desire of another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature; making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a fat fish, is but the indenture of man _(anthropou symbolon),_ and he is always looking for his other half\" (Plato, p. 158).\n\nJust like in Chinese magical Taoism, _\"symbola\"_ can also in Greece be used in a mythical religious sense: in the orphic tradition about the mysteries of Dionysos the story goes that the god as child was lured away by the titans with the help of such _symbola,_ in particular by a mirror, then torn to pieces by them, buried or resurrected. Terefore, the mirror became the symbol for his death, to a mythically powerful, Paradoxically valued, sacred object because it also meant transmigration of the soul and liberation. It became a symbol for spiritual resurrection and fulfillment (Gu\u00e9pin, 1968, pp. 241\u2013251). It reappears in the mirror image of Narkissos and in our newer narcissism theories (Kohut, 1971).\n\n> Whereas in allegory something that can be represented is replaced by something else that is expressed, in the mystical symbol something that can be presented stands for another reality that is removed from the world of presentation and expression... A hidden life that has no expression finds it in the symbol. Symbol is sign, but more than sign.\n> \n> (Scholem, 1957, p. 29)\n\n### \"Fight, But Do Not Sin\"\u2013\u2013Conflict in the Western Tradition\n\nThe view of inner life as conflict is one that is, among others, intrinsic to the Western intellectual tradition. We find prototypes for it already in the Homeric epics: in the _Odyssey_ , when Odysseus is about to stab the Cyclops Polyphemos, he stopped: \"The second mind [thought] stopped me ( _heteros de me thymos eryken_ 9.302),\" the recognition of their own inability to remove the giant boulder from the entrance. And then there is the beautiful passage in the Iliad, 11. 402 ff: Left alone by the other Greeks in the middle of battle, Odysseus \"spoke to his own greathearted spirit ( _eipe pros hon megal\u00e9tora thymon_ ): 'Ah me, what will become of me? it will be a great evil if I run, fearing their multitude, yet deadlier if I am caught alone; and Kronos' son drove to fight the rest of the Danaans. Yet still, why does the heart [mind] within me debate on these things ( _alla tie moi tauta philos diel\u00e9xato thymos_ )? since I know that it is the cowards who walk out of the fighting, but if one is to win honor in battle, he must by all means stand his ground strongly, whether he be struck or strike down another.'\" (trans. Lattimore; cf. Also Dodds, 1951\/1968, pp. 16, 25, also for additional examples).\n\nAncient Greek tragedy revolves around the pivot of the tragic choice\u2013\u2013the necessity to decide between the opposing commitments to two enormously important values, ideals, loyalties. Many symbols or metaphors in Greek tragedy reflect this consciousness of inner conflict\u2013\u2013e.g., the \"blue clashing rocks\" or _Symplegades_ of Euripides' _Medea_ , the repeated use of the term _diphrontis_ , \"of two minds\" in the _Libation Bearers_ of Aischylos and in the _Hippolytos_ of uripides (i have gone into this in more detail elsewhere; see Wurmser 1981, 1989). It appears to refer with particular poignancy to what I have referred to as the shameguiltdilemma. Yet more generally, these presentations of the fatal consequences of tragic choice refer to the unresolvability of such basic, existential conflicts of conscience, i.e., that in this absolutely, extremely posed form, as it is put to the protagonists and lived out by them, it never can be resolved once and for all, that there cannot be a final, right, perfect solution, but that only the \"measure\" represented by the Chorus, the \"moderation,\" the acceptance of _both_ parts of conflict, and with that of the paradox inherent in human life, is compatible with the survival of individual and society, of the culture and its ideals (the Gods). This \"measure\" however entails the insight of \"wisdom\" that the opposite parts of inner conflict complement each other, i.e., that the understanding of inner life as conflict has to encompass the reconciliation of the hitherto clashing forces\u2013\u2013the drives, emotions, values, loyalties\u2013\u2013in the form of _complementarity_. I believe it is this that Anton Kris (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987) has recently presented in the duality of convergent and divergent conflict (cf. Also Rangell, 1963).\n\nThe consciousness of inner conflict accompanies Western thought and creativity throughout its history and with that the guiding metaphors for self-understanding. Speaking in the _Phaidros_ of \"the soul being like the combined force of the winged pair of horses and the charioteer,\" plato describes how \"the bad horse pulls the chariot down\" and then adds: \"And then there is pain ( _ponos_ ) and extreme conflict ( _agon eschatos_ ) inflicted upon the soul\" (246\/247).\n\nIn the _Talmud_ we hear: \"A man should always incite the good impulse to fight against the evil impulse ( _le'olam yargiz adam jetzer tov al yetzer hara'_ ). For it is written: Fight, but do not sin ( _rigezu we'al techeta'u_ [ps. 4.5]). If they overcome it, fine! if not, they should study the Torah. For it is written: speak with your hearts ( _imru bilvavchem_ )\" ( _Berakot_ , 5a). Seeing a man and a woman part without engaging in anything forbidden, Abaye who had followed them, said: \"'If it were I, I could not have restrained myself,' and so went and leaned in deep anguish against a doorpost, when a certain old man came up to him and taught him: The greater the man, the greater his evil inclination ( _Kol hagadol mechavero, yitzro gadol hemennu_ )\" ( _Sukkah_ , 52a).\n\nBefore our modern age, however, such inner conflict has been, to my knowledge, nowhere more keenly expressed and reflected upon than by Augustinus in the _Confessiones_ , even in its unconscious dimensions and with the very concept (metaphor) of conflict at its center: \"so stood two wills of mine in conflict with each other, one old, the other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, and in their discord they wasted out my mind. _Ita duae voluntates meae, una vetus, alia nova, illa carnalis, illa spiritalis, configebant inter se, atque discordando dissipabant animam meam_ (8.5).\"\n\n\"This was the controversy I felt in my heart, about nothing but myself, against myself. _Ista controversia in corde meo non nisi de me ipso adversus me ipsum_ \" (8.11). Here it is even the very word underlying \"conflict,\" namely the verb \" _confligere_ \": \"clashing together, crashing, fighting.\"\n\n\"... It was myself who willed it, and myself who nilled it; it was I myself. I neither willed entirely, nor yet nilled entirely. Therefore was I at strife with myself, and distracted by mine own self ( _Ideo mecum contendebam et dissipar a me ipso_ )\" (8.10). And crucially he immediately adds that there are many such inner conflicts: \"For if there be so many contrary natures in man, as there be wills resisting one another; there shall not now be two natures alone, but many. _Nam si tot sunt contrariae naturae, quot voluntates sibi resistunt, non iam duae, sed plures erunt_ \" (ibid.). There is a multiplicity of inner conflicts which tear apart the will and hence the consciousness of the self.\n\nHe even commented upon the complementarity between these opposite parts of his self: \"Hence it is that there be two wills, for that one of them is not entire: and the one is supplied with that, wherein the other lacks. _Et ideo sunt duae voluntates, quia una earum tota non est, et hoc adest alteri, quod deest alteri_ \" (8.9).\n\nHe gives an etiology for such an inherent inner discord\u2013\u2013for the existential nature of man's conflict\u2013\u2013in the _Civitas Dei_ : God commanded Adam and eve obedience because the fulfillment of their own will in opposition to that of their Creator's is destruction (14.12). It was a fitting punishment for their own disobedience that they suddenly were compelled to notice the disobedience of their own genitals, and with that the disobedience of their desires, the lack of control over their bodies; all mental activity, all reasoning becomes overrun (14.16), the entire human being is being totally taken by it. And on the other side this pleasure cannot be willed and compelled, even if one so decides and desires it (14.16). This powerlessness, this loss of control in the face of the overpowering force of the sexual parts necessarily fills man with shame, even if the sexual act is permitted and specifically engaged in for the procreation of children; even in front of one's own children it therefore has to be treated with secrecy (14.18).\n\nIn these excerpts the conflict is sharply delineated: the primary concern is the conflict between the sexual desires (and member) and the will led by reason and with that by Godly command. The loss of control over these desires and their executive organs is inherently a cause for shame. Yet this loss of control is in itself already the punishment for a deeper, prior conflict: the conflict between the wish to follow one's own will and the obedient submission under God's command. The first conflict is a shame conflict, the second, deeper and antecedent conflict is one leading to guilt, a guilt to be punished by that loss of control. The assertion of power and independence ( _potestas voluntatis_ ) is by itself evil; it leads to the secondary evil, \"the punishment\" by the omnipotence of lust.\n\nLooking back to the Talmudic sources, we see the same doubleness, although not as sharply divided: whenever there is talk about the _Yetzer haRa'_ \u2013\u2013the evil Inclination\u2013\u2013it always refers to sexual desire and lust; but this lust also is always equated with rebellion against God.\n\nYet farther back, in platon, the negative part of human nature that pulls the soul perniciously \"down\" and \"apart\" is sensuality altogether\u2013\u2013the attachment to the body and its desires\u2013\u2013against the autonomous power of reason and with that against the \"vision\" of the ideas.\n\nThe augustinean view came to dominate the value system of the Western world for about one millennium: sexual lust was the evil par excellence, prideful assertion of will power, even in the service of reason, ran a close second. The power of the faith in this value hierarchy is not completely broken even today.\n\nIt was Goethe who took up the concept of \"inner conflict\" as an explanatory metaphor when he described 1815 how shakespeare puts in the foreground \"the inner conflict\" between \" _Sollen_ \" and \" _Wollen_ ,\" between what man ought to do and what he wants to do.3 This inner conflict converges with an external one, \"a wanting that goes beyond what the individual is able to, is modern\"4 (Goethe, 1961).\n\n### The question of conflict and complementarity in Confucius (Kong Tzu) and Lao Tzu\n\nWhat do we find in the other great and continuous tradition of thought\u2013\u2013the Chinese world, as exemplifed by these two leading thinkers (both were said to have lived around 500bce although there is much controversy about the time of Lao Tzu)? There are a number of leading metaphors in opposition to each other that dominate the ethical, political, and metaphysical debates, centering around balance, harmony, the right path ( _dao_ ), the uncarved block, the great flow versus strife, disorder, doubt, what we would also call conflict.\n\n\"Harmony was seen as the great norm of both the natural and social worlds; Confucianism and Taoism were equally philosophies of balance, whether man's counterpoise was society or the natural cosmos. Imbalance would have meant man against man, man against nature, in either case a separation between the self and the 'other.' But Confucianism and Taoism, each in its way, meant union, oneness, the concord and stasis of the eternal pattern\" (levenson & schurmann, 1969, p. 113). \"Conflict between Confucianism and Taoism was abortive, a) because they had a common theme, harmony, and b) because that common theme, harmony, implied a philosophical deprecation of conflict\" (ibid., p. 116).\n\n\"By now it should be evident that basic among Chinese thought patterns is the desire to merge seemingly conflicting elements into a unified harmony. Chinese philosophy is filled with dualisms in which, however, their two component elements are usually regarded as _complementary and mutually necessary rather than as hostile and incompatible_. A common feature of Chinese dualisms, furthermore, is that one of their two elements should be held in higher regard than the other. Here again, therefore, we have an expression of the concept of harmony based upon hierarchical difference, such as we have already seen in the Chinese view of society\" (Bodde, 1953, p. 54).\n\nThis does of course not imply that there is no awareness of conflict or that there is a relative absence of social, historical or psychological conflict. Rather it appears that there is an overriding concern to shift the focus of attention away from conflict, to the point of denying its emotional relevance. Why Chinese culture and tradition, in spite of its inner orientation, its greatly creative and expressive inwardness, seems so peculiarly inimical to psychoanalysis may very well lie in this deep and abiding antipathy to inner conflict. This means also a different approach to ethical and psychological choice.\n\nIn discussing this issue, Fingarette ( _Confucius\u2013\u2013The Secular as Sacred_ , 1972, p. 22) refers to two passages in the _Lun Y\u00fc_ , the \"book of the discussions (or sayings)\" of Kung Tse (KongFuzi, Confucius): \"You love a man and wish him to live; you hate him and wish him to die. Having wished him to live, you also wish him to die. This is doubt\" ( _huo_ \u2013\u2013legge: \"delusion\"; 12.10). \"For a morning's anger to disregard one's own life, and involve that of his parents\u2013\u2013is not this a case of doubt (delusion, _huo_ )\" (2.21). \"In such conflict, the task is not posed as one of _choosing_ or _deciding_ but of distuinguishing or discriminating ( _bian_ ) the inconsistent inclinations. Furthermore, in each passage, we have no doubt about which inclination is the right one when we have discriminated one from the other. In short, the task is posed in terms of knowledge rather than choice. _Huo_ , the key term in the passages, means here 'deluded or _led astray_ by an un _li_ inclination or tendency.' it is not doubt as to which to choose to do\" (pp. 22\u201323).\n\nI interject here that the decisive word _huo_ which does not appear rarely in both Confucius and Lao Tse is usually translated as \"doubt, suspicion, deception.\" Yet as a symbol it is composed of _huo_ and _xin. Huo_ means \"either, or, if,\" _xin_ is \"heart, mind,\" the common radical associated with any emotional, or generally mental processes. The _huo_ used in this context can therefore etymologically be rendered as the \"either of the Mind,\" the \"or of the Mind.\" Fingarette is right that hardly anywhere is there an explicit formulation of inner conflict, and yet, it seems to me that the repeatedly emerging \"doubt,\" _huo_ , is something like a symbol for suppressed, hidden, veiled conflict.\n\nThis means, Fingarette continues, that \"we must recognize at once that the absence of a developed language of choice and responsibility does not imply a failure to choose or to be responsible... The task is posed in terms of knowledge rather than choice... This Confucian commitment to a single, definite order is also evident when we note what Confucius sees as the alternative to rightly treading the true path: it is to walk crookedly, to get lost or to abandon the path... It is the following of the Way itself that is of ultimate and absolute value... The imagery in the _Analects_ [ _Lun Y\u00fc_ ] is dominated by the metaphor of traveling the road\" (pp. 18\u201322).\n\nHe then refers to a passage which \"seems... To present a situation where the issue, as we would define it, is one of internal conflict in the moral code, a conflict to be resolved by personal choice.\" I quote from Legge's translation, adding some modiffers: \"The duke of she informed Confucius, saying: 'Among us here are those who may be styled ( _gong_ , meaning personally, self, own; I think this is what Legge translates as styled; Fingarette takes this word as a proper name Gong [Kung]) upright ( _zhi_ ) in their conduct. If their fathers have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact.' Confucius said: 'Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this'\" (13.18).\n\nIt is the conflict between the value of _Xiao_ , the loyalty and reverential commitment, the _pietas_ ( _Piet\u00e4t_ ) towards the parents, versus the value of _Zhi_ , honesty, sincerity, uprightness, straightforwardness (the very sign symbolizes \"straightness\"). Here two deep commitments stand in irreconcilable conflict. Fingarette comments:\n\n> When two profound duties conflict, _we_ must choose. And it is in this necessity to make a critical choice that lies the seed of tragedy, of responsibility, of guilt and remorse.... Confucius merely announces the way _he_ sees the matter, putting it tactfully by saying it is the custom in _Li._ 5 There is nothing to suggest a decisional problem; everything suggests that there is a defect of knowledge, a simple error of moral judgment on the duke's part... When we take into account Confucius's stature as a moralist and his insightfulness into human nature, his failure to see or to mention the problem of internal moral conflict in such a case as this can only be accounted for by supposing that his interests, ideas, concerns, in short his entire moral and intellectual orientation, was in another direction.\n> \n> (1972, p. 23 f.)\n\nZai Y\u00fc being asleep during the daytime, the Master said: 'Rotten wood cannot be carved; a wall of earth and dung cannot be covered with the trowel. This Y\u00fc! What is the use of reproving him?!' The Master said: 'At first, my way with men was to hear their words, and give them credit for their conduct. Now my way is to hear their words, and look at their conduct. It is from Y\u00fc that I have learned to make this change' (5: 9).\n\n\"Here the active disease, the fulminating wound of Augustine, is replaced by a state of mere deadness, of passivity and inherent insensitivity to moral values,\" comments Fingarette (p. 31). \"The proper response to a failure to conform to the moral order ( _li_ ) is not selfcondemnation for a free and responsible, though evil, choice, but selfreeducation to overcome a mere defect, a lack of power, in short a lack in one's 'formation.' The Westerner's inclination to press at this point the issue of personal responsibility for lack of diligence is precisely the sort of issue that is never even raised in the Analects\" (p. 35). \"Confucius's vision provides no basis for seeing man as a being of tragedy, of inner crisis and guilt; but it does provide a socially oriented, actionoriented view which provides for personal dignity. Moreover... We see then that the images of the inner man and of his inner conflict are not essential to a concept of man as a being whose dignity is the consummation of a life of subtlety and sophistication, a life in which human conduct can be intelligible in natural terms and yet be attuned to the sacred, a life in which the practical, the intellectual and the spiritual are equally revered and are harmonized in the one act\u2013\u2013the act of _li_ \" (p. 36). For Confucius man is not tragic since he is not determined by the inner crisis of choice, decision and guilt, but oriented towards action and towards the concentric circles of obligations surrounding him.\n\nThe center of gravity has entirely shifted away from the metaphors for what we would, analytically speaking, describe as the _choosing and deciding ego and to the absolutely (unconditionally) certain and commanding superego_. The side of the drives ( _y\u00fc_ ) is not often mentioned; they have to yield to the dictates of conscience. Since the ego itself is the site of inner conflict, its complete subordination under the inner authority of conscience amounts to a kind of _invalidation of inner conflict_.\n\nThis statement is predicated on the a priori assumption, as a basic vision of existence, that inner conflict is indeed an indispensable part of human nature. It is both a philosophical premise of vision (i.e., a metaphorical system) and a methodological premise of exploration of man's nature\u2013\u2013neither provable, nor refutable\u2013\u2013not merely of the psychoanalytic understanding of human nature, but of the Western understanding of Man in general.\n\nNow just a few references from the other great thinker who shaped Chinese culture for over two thousand years, Lao Tzu (\"the old Master\" or \"the old Child\").\n\n\"Nothing in the world is softer and more supple than water, yet when attacking the hard and the strong, nothing can surpass it. The supple overcomes the hard. The soft overcomes the strong. None in the world do not know this, yet none can practice it. That is why the sage says: to accept the filth of a nation is to be lord of the society.6 to accept the disasters (the ill omens) of a nation (country) is to be the ruler of the world.7 Words of truth seem contradictory\"8 (trans. Tam C. Gibbs and alternate interpretations, where indicated; Ch. 78). This last sentence is: \" _Zheng yan ruo fan\u2013\u2013Zheng_ : straight or regular or correct\u2013\u2013 _yan_ : words or speech\u2013\u2013 _ruo_ : is as, follows\u2013\u2013 _fan_ : to turn back, contrary, opposite, to rebel.\" I would paraphrase it: \"The direct talk also has the opposite meaning, turns into its opposite.\" The outer references, like water, dirt of the country, ruler, appear like metaphors for the inner truth: that our inner life incessantly moves in contraries, in opposites.\n\n\"Words have an ancestor; actions have a lord\" (Ch. 70). There is a past to one's thought; there is a context that gives it the meaning; \"if they don't know this, they cannot understand me.\" The first reminds us of the basic premise of our genetic understanding; the latter of the coherence theory of truth; the first of Freud, the latter of Wittgenstein and of the criterion for truth stressed precisely by Freud over that by correspondence and by pragmatism.\n\nOf special beauty is the 11th chapter (i quote from Waley's translation): \"We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; but it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; but it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; and it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends. Therefore, just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.\" What Waley circumscribes as \"the space where there is nothing,\" the Chinese has \" _wu you_ \u2013\u2013not having, nonbeing\"; the object is visible and concrete, yet its function _dang qi... Yong_ depends on the absence, the void, the no, the \"There is not.\" is this no not also the no to consciousness, the no inherent in all defense? are not these expressions very beautiful metaphors for the inner life we deal with in our work\u2013\u2013clearly, metaphors of a very different kind from those we use in our theory formation, yet nevertheless metaphors that should bridge the visible world of the Yes with the invisible, but far more powerful world of the No\u2013\u2013the _Wu_ or _Wu you_ or _Wu ming_ or _Wu wei_ (no, nonbeing, nameless, no action)?\n\nJust as the emptiness gives the objects their ability to function, so does the silence give to the mind and to the spoken words the dimension of depth. The _Tao The King_ itself is indeed like a finely woven, and yet mighty structure built of spare words and much silence. The contradictions open up abysses of meaning.9\n\nYet what is the central concern?\n\n\"'To remain whole, be twisted (Chan: yield)!' to become straight, let yourself be bent. To become whole, be hollow. Be tattered, that you may be renewed. Those that have little, may get more. Those that have much, are but perplexed ( _huo_ , see above, the 'Either-or of the heart or mind'). Therefore the sage clasps the primal Unity (Chan: the sage embraces the one), testing by it everything under heaven (Chan: and becomes the model of the world). He does not show himself; therefore he is seen everywhere. He does not define himself, therefore he is distinct. He does not boast of what he will do, therefore he succeeds. He is not proud of his work (loves himself), and therefore he endures. He does not contend ( _bu zheng_ ). And for that very reason no one under heaven can contend with him (Chan: it is precisely because he does not compete that the world cannot compete with him). So then we see that the ancient saying: 'To remain whole be twisted!' (Chan: 'To yield is to be preserved whole') was no idle word; for true wholeness can only be achieved by return ( _gui_ = home coming)\" (Ch. 22, trans. Waley).\n\nHere again, the contraries are seen as part of an overarching unity; the aim of the wise person ( _sheng ren_ ) lies in overcoming what is in conflict\u2013\u2013of what \"competes,\" _zheng_. The most expressive formulation, however, comes right at the beginning of the _Tao The King_ (Ch. 2). I follow Chan Wingtsit's translation: \"When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, there arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil. Therefore: _Being and nonbeing produce each other_ ( _you wu xiang sheng_ ); _difficult and easy complete each other_ ; long and short contrast ( _jiao_ or, alternately, _xing_ compare; Waley: test) each other; high and low distinguish each other; sound and voice harmonize each other; front and behind accompany each other. Therefore, the sage manages affairs without action ( _wu wei zhi shi_ ), and spreads doctrines without words. All things arise, and he does not turn away from them. He produces them but does not take possession of them (Gibbs: [nature] gives birth but does not possess). He acts but does not rely on his own ability (Gibbs: it acts but does not demand subservience). He accomplishes his task but does not claim credit for it. It is precisely because he does not claim credit that his accomplishment remains with him.\" The first four of the six pairs of contraries are rendered by Gibbs as follows: \"Is and is not are mutually arising; difficult and easy are complementary; long and short arise from comparison; higher and lower are interdependent.\" The accompanying commentary by ManJan Cheng calls the pairs _mutual functions, reciprocity: hu xiang_ , and speaks of the _paradox of the mutual support of opposites_ : _xiang fan xiang cheng._ in all of the six pairs the third of the fourth words is _xiang_ , \"mutual,\" translated here as \"each other.\" Waley comments: \"But, says the Taoist, by admitting the conception of 'goodness,' you are simultaneously creating a conception 'badness.' nothing can be good except in relation to something that is bad, just as nothing can be 'in front' except in relation to something that is 'behind.' Therefore, the sage avoids all positive action, working only through the 'power' of Tao, which alone 'cuts without wounding' _transcending all antinomies_.\"\n\nTough there is no special word about or for _inner conflict_ ; there is thus the clear awareness of the centrality of opposites, of contradiction, and the insistence to overcome, as we would say, conflict by recognizing complementarity. SiMa Qian speaks of the _unity of spirit_ as being advocated by the Taoist school (Ch. 130, quoted by Fung Yulan, 1931\/1934, p. 170). We would say in our theoretical framework that there is a consistent transcendence of conflict in favor of the synthetic function of the ego that attempts to reconcile all the opposites within and without, as well as between inwardness and outside world, while letting the paradoxes stand\u2014\"the mysterious leveling\" ( _y\u00fcan tong_ , Ch. 56, trans. Waley): \"The sage 'discards the absolute, the allinclusive, the extreme'\" (Ch. 29, trans. Waley) \"it is percisely because he does not compete ( _bu zheng_ , lit.: 'no conflict') that the world cannot compete with him\" (Ch. 66, trans. Chan; cf. Also 68, 72, 73, 77, 78, 81). The very last sentence of the _Tao The King_ is, I believe not coincidentally: \"The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete\u2013\u2013 _Sheng ren zhi Dao\u2013\u2013wei er bu zheng_.\"\n\nIf we assume now in all these references that _zheng_ does not merely refer to outer conflict in the meaning of \"competition,\" but that it expresses, with the consistent equation of inwardness and outwardness, equally inner conflict, then we can conclude that one of the major aims of Lao Tse is the overcoming of all conflict, inner and outer, in favor of a great unity (e.g., \"embracing the one,\" _bao yi_ ) or synthesis. It is what is called in Ch. 68 _bu zheng zhi D\u00e9_ \u2013\u2013the power of no conflict (Chan: the virtue of noncompeting, Gibbs: the Teh of noncontention, Waley: the power that comes of not contending).\n\nInstead of the social virtues of Kong Fu zi to deal with inner and outer conflict, Lao Tzu postulates something that appears to be radically different: \"Banish learning, and there will be no more grieving\" (Ch. 20, trans. Waley). In the place of these societal concerns, of the loyalty towards outer norms now internalized, there is the loyalty to what Waley translates as the Uncarved Block _, bo_ , to an inner truth ( _chang_ , the \"constant\"), to spontaneity ( _ZiRan_ , the \"selfso\") and creativity ( _sheng_ , \"life, birth\") beyond all contraries, transcending all strife ( _zheng_ ). Putting it positively, he speaks of the \"three treasures: the first is deep love, the second is frugality, and the third is not to dare to be ahead of the world\" (Ch. 67, trans. Chan).\n\nMost explicitly the Confucian virtues appear to be disavowed in Ch. 19 (Chan trans.): \"Abandon sageliness and discard wisdom; then the people will benefit a hundredfold. Abandon humanity (better: human solidarity) and discard righteousness; then the people will return to filial piety and deep love. Abandon skill and discard profit; then there will be no thieves or robbers. However, these three things are ornaments and are not adequate. Therefore, let people hold on to these: manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.\" Waley suggests for the latter portion: \"if without these three things they find life too plain and unadorned, then let them have accessories; give them simplicity ['raw silk'] to look at, the Uncarved Block to hold, give them selflessness and fewness of desires.\" Gibbs translates: \"I believe these three statements show that words are inadequate. The people should be made to adhere to these principles: 'Look to the origins and maintain purity; diminish self and curb desires.'\"\n\nI think all these translations struggle to approximate the original's interweaving of inward and outward, its deft, yet bewildering use of metaphors bridging both worlds, e.g., in the concluding sentence: \"Diminish 'self,' make desires scarce\" involves the symbol for self, _si_. It is derived from _si_ : \"a cocoon. It represents a silkworm that coils itself up and shuts itself in its cocoon. By extension, selfish, to care only for one's self, separation, private, particular.\" The compound used means: \"my share of grains. By extension, private, personal, partial, selfish\" (Wieger, p. 224).\n\nFor this kind of emphasis on the synthetic ego function\u2013\u2013especially in the sense of bridging resolutely the gap between inner world and outer world in spite of their disparate laws\u2013\u2013learning and reeducation, in the sense of Kong zi, can evidently not be as desirable, as a complete retreat from the entanglements in _zheng_ , in conflict, would be. Instead of dealing with conflict by subordinating oneself entirely to a superego modeled after the magical power of the sageKings of hoary antiquity and their impersonal representatives in the shape of rules and forms ( _li_ ), Lao Tzu suggests a much more determined withdrawal from choice, decision, will, wish, and action, especially, however, from all ambition and competition, in behalf of an ideal of the unity of opposites and of the power of yielding to \"the spontaneous Becoming\" ( _ZiRan_ , often now translated as Nature)\u2013\u2013a \"passivity,\" very akin to what I alluded to before as the stance of the analyst. It is very much a \"feminine superego,\" even far more pronouncedly so as the Confucian superego (which, after all, also suggests submission, renunciation of self and of competition): \"The good use of people is by putting oneself below\" (Ch. 68, my translation). \"The female always overcomes the male by tranquility, and by tranquility she is underneath... Thus some, by placing themselves below, take over (others), and some, by being (naturally) low, take over (other states)\" (Ch. 61, trans. Chan). \"Therefore 'the weapon that is too hard will be broken, the tree that has the hardest wood will be cut down.' truly, the hard and mighty are cast down; the soft and weak set high\" (Ch. 76, trans. Waley). \"The original power ( _y\u00fcan D\u00e9_ ) is so deep, so distant; it makes things so paradoxical ( _fan_ ). Thus one goes back until one reaches the Great Flow ( _Da Shun_ )\" (end of Ch. 65, my translation).\n\nOne removes conflict by undoing knowledge and desire; yet therewith something else is veiled: Culture and society are themselves expression of human nature, conflict itself is human nature, an indispensable basis of the _conditio humana_. It is the same dilemma as the one later on faced by Rousseau. That unity is only attained at the cost of denying such conflict. With social and cultural reality, with knowledge and social virtues, an entire part of the inner world is bypassed too\u2013\u2013 the fidelity to the need to know10 and to curiosity, the deep need for activity and symbolization\u2013\u2013all in favor of that overriding longing for synthesis. In our frame of reference, in our metaphorical system: the executive side of the ego\u2013\u2013the deciding and distinguishing function\u2013\u2013is sacrificed at the behest of the synthetic side. With that the attempt at synthesis appears to be itself subverted, undermined.\" if one desires to be in front of the people, one must speak as if behind them\" (Ch. 66, trans. Gibbs). Yet can this be done without deception? does not thus the very split to be avoided recur, the conflict reemerge as inner and tragic reality, as outer isolation and estrangement?\n\n> Wildly, endlessly, all men are merry, as though feasting upon beef or sitting on the veranda in the spring sunshine. I alone remain uncommitted, like an infant who has not yet smiled. I alone seem as mindless as one who has no home to return to. Everyone else has enough and more, yet I alone seem to be left with nothing. What a fool's mind I have! how muddled I am! Most people seek brightness and clarity. I alone seek dullness and darkness. Most people are imaginative and observant. I alone am stifled and mum; I am as unmoved as the ocean, as ceaseless as the wind high in the sky. Everyone else has something to do; I alone am ignorant and dull. I alone am different from the rest in that I value taking sustenance from the Mother.\n> \n> (Ch. 20, trans. Gibbs)\n\nIn contrast to this supreme identification with the Maternal as ideal in Lao Tzu we have the equally strenuous identification with the idealized paternal in Confucius\u2013\u2013 yet both in the service to avoid any power struggle and competition, be that of an anal or oedipalphallic nature. Clearly, however, the _Tao The King_ is by no means a pamphlet dedicated to the overthrow of the superego altogether. Rather it is, as I would postulate, _the overcoming of an archaic, mostly \"anal\" superego in favor of the positing of a new ideal_. It is a revolutionary superego, a protest against a value system that at least for us has become associated with Confucius. It is a superego that aspires to reach back to the \"origin\" ( _y\u00fcan_ ), a superego living from a new vision, a very different metaphorical system. There is, as already noted, clearly a radical shift in valuation, compared with the Confucian ethos, regardless if Lao Tzu preceded Confucius, as the tradition presumed, or followed him by centuries, as is assumed by many today\u2013\u2013a shift without requirements of faith, without a belief in a divinity in any customary sense, yet a deep spirit of reverence, a kind of \"philosophical belief\"\u2013\u2013 using a wonderful spectrum of metaphors without the fixation into any dogma.\n\nWhat does that new vision entail? The great connectedness of life is seen, the advice given that the encompassing cohesiveness of what we know never be lost. Purposive and ambitious doing interferes with such knowing of the whole context of Being. All forms of external power destroy such awareness and should be avoided. It is a grand vision of existence that treats all the external entities\u2013\u2013realm, war, ruler, plants, and animals\u2013\u2013as metaphorical help to formulate such inner truth. The most important, however, of all the insights of such an inwardness is that of _mutually conditioning_ attributes and actions, instead of the _absoluteness_ of any one thing, subject or object, its Eitheror. Nothing that is being put into words can claim unconditional truth:\n\n> There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before heaven and earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it _Dao_ (Way). If forced to give it a name, I shall call it great. Now being great means functioning everywhere. Functioning everywhere means farreaching. Being farreaching means returning to the original point. Therefore _Dao_ is great. Heaven is great. Earth is great. Man is also great. There are four great things in the universe, and man is one of them. Man models himself after earth. Earth models itself after heaven. Heaven models itself after _Dao_. And _Dao_ models itself after nature.\n> \n> ( _ZiRan_ , Waley: the \"selfso\"; Ch. 25, trans. Chan;  \n>  except that I follow the reading \"Man\" _ren_ , not \"king\")\n\nStill the most fascinating question remains: What about the seeming merging of opposites, that what has been called _fan yan_ , the speaking in paradoxes\u2013\u2013that big is small, small is big, full is empty, old is new, strong is weak, weak is strong? how can that be understood?\n\nThe immediate response is: speaking and knowing are impotent. It seems to imply an advocacy of a return to the preverbal, to the all encompassing and global affects. Ten we think of such \"absurd\" reversals in dreams, that may imply: \"This is incredible, ridiculous!\"\n\nWhat does it entail? I believe it expresses a deep doubt on the perception of reality and on the validity of everyday logic. Thus, by its very movement from one opposite to the other, it gives metaphorical expression to the profound quandary: What is truth?\n\nAnd yet it goes deeper still: This is the language of the soul, the discourse of the inner world where we discover layer upon layer, where we can tear of mask behind mask. It represents the depth dimension of inner reality. This is its hallmark, in Dickens' expression: \"... Things are not always as they seem...\" ( _Our Mutual Friend_ , 1971, p. 321) and \"But seeming may be false or true\" ( _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ , 1961, p. 262). The layering is laced with anxiety, it is a layering of defenses and of dangers.\n\nCould it therefore be that we deal here, in the _fan yan_ , with an indirect presentation of conflict, in the sense of using logical and perceptual contradiction, as an indirect presentation of affective conflict\u2013\u2013in our terms: of intrasystemic and intersystemic conflict (whereby it is, I would think, mostly the former)?\n\nIt is evident that in the _Tao The King_ metaphysics, ethics and politics are united, even amalgamated (Jaspers); but it is also clear how everything points back to the one central and original issue: that of the insight in the inner reality, of its manylayeredness and multiplicity of meaning, of its contradictoriness, and, ultimately and inevitably, of its roots in conflict and complementarity. However, at the same time, that insight says: inner and outer truth manifest each other in mutually reflecting mirrors. Therefore its discourse has to be eminently metaphorical: truth can only be approached with the help of images; it cannot be \"grasped\" and \"held.\" proceeding, it has to be \"cautious like crossing a frozen stream in the winter\u2013\u2013 majestic in appearance\u2013\u2013yielding, like ice on the verge of melting...\" (Ch. 15).\n\n## **Notes**\n\n originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 31(2): pp.107\u2013125 under the title \"Metaphor as Conflict, Conflict as Metaphor.\"\n\n Lao Tzu, Ch. 70.\n\n \"Die person, von der seite des Charakters betrachtet, soll: sie ist beschr\u00e4nkt, zu einem Besonderen bestimmt; als Mensch aber will sie. Sie ist unbegrenzt und fordert das allgemeine. Hier entspringt schon ein innerer Konflikt, und diesen l\u00e4\u00dft shakespeare vor allen anderen heraustreten.\"\n\n \"ein Wollen, das \u00fcber die Kr\u00e4fte eines individuums hinausgeht, ist modern.\"\n\n _Li_ is variably translated as propriety, beauty, holy ritual, sacred ceremony, used as metaphor for \"the entire body of _mores,_ or more precisely, of the authentic tradition and reasonable conventions of society,\" as Fingarette defines it, p. 6\/7.\n\n Better by Waley: only he who has accepted the dirt of the country can be lord of its soilshrines; Chan Wing Tsit: he who suffers disgrace for his country is called the lord of the land.\n\n Waley: Can become a king among those what dwell under heaven.\n\n Waley: straight words seem crooked [seem, as we would say, to be paradoxes]; Chan Wing Tsit: straight words seem to be their opposite.\n\n \"Diese mannigfachen Gestalten der Gegens\u00e4tze benutzt nun Laotse, um im Widerschein das Unsagbare sagbar zu machen, das sein im nichtsein, das Wissen im Nichtwissen, das Tun im Nichttun\" (Jaspers, 1958 p. 926).\n\n Aristotle's insight: \"All men naturally desire knowledge,\" the beginning sentence of the _Metaphysics_.\n\n# 6  \nMETAPHOR, MEANING,  \nAND THE MIND\n\n_Arnold H. Modell_\n\nMetaphor and metonymy are the primary and crucial cognitive tools of unconscious thought. Acknowledging this function of metaphor and metonymy might provide a unifying bridge between the disparate schools and factions of contemporary psychoanalysis. I suggest that we are more likely to find common ground, both within psychoanalysis and neighboring disciplines, if we view the unconscious mind as the area within which meaning is processed by means of metaphor, rather than the locus of a battleground between repression and instinctual forces.\n\nThe [original] title of this chapter refers to a judgment attributed to the quantum physicist Wolfgang pauli. A friend showed him the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but nevertheless wanted pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, \"it's not right it's not even wrong.\" to claim that a scholarly or scientific paper is \"not even wrong\" suggests that the author and the critic do not share the same conceptual system so that a judgment is not even possible. I'm afraid this can be said of the sorry state of affairs that separate the various \"schools\" and factions of psychoanalysis at this time. A \"classical\" Freudian ego psychologist, a Kohutian self psychologist, a sullivanian interpersonalist and a Lacanian cannot communicate with each other as they do not share in common a set of conceptual assumptions.\n\nConceptualizing the unconscious in terms of the Freudian instinctual id is unacceptable to most of us and is certainly incompatible with contemporary neuroscience. I will suggest that a revised concept of the Freudian unconscious, where metaphor is the cognitive tool, might be a starting point that will provide some shared basic assumptions. If we can agree on fundamental assumptions perhaps we can begin to talk to each other.\n\n## **Why I Am Not an Ego Psychologist**\n\nIn our field, at the start of our careers, our basic assumptions and beliefs usually follow from our identification with an idealized mentor, hence we describe ourselves as Freudians, Kleinians, Kohutians, Sullivanians, Lacanians, etc. But as we gain clinical experience we should begin to question those assumptions that we have uncritically adopted from our mentors. Although I would still describe myself as a Freudian, I would more specifically claim to be an early Freudian inasmuch as I reject Freud's instinct theory and many aspects of ego psychology, especially the idea of defense mechanisms. Of course I don't reject the idea of defense but I do reject the impersonal concept of mechanism. The machine metaphor is totally incompatible with the highly individualized, self-organizing, self-selecting function that unconsciously chooses a specific mode of defense at any given point in time. What I fully embrace, and identify with, is the Freud of _The Interpretation of Dreams_ (1900). As I shall describe, Freud's early concept of the unconscious processing of memory and feeling as illustrated by the formation of dreams is significantly and radically different from the concept of the unconscious that he later elaborated in _The Ego and the Id_ (1923a). If we return to Freud's early idea of the unconscious as a meaning making process and not a battle ground between instinctual wishes and those agencies that oppose their expression, we have, I believe, a better chance of finding a common conceptual ground between the various disparate schools that characterize contemporary psychoanalysis.\n\nI believe that ego psychology has proved to be a major divisive force that has separated the various schools of psychoanalysis. Freud's conception of the id has prevented us from viewing \"the unconscious\" not as that area of the mind in which instinctual forces are held in check by repression, but as that area of the mind concerned with the unconscious processing of meaning.\n\nNot surprisingly, the development of my beliefs and conceptual assumptions were influenced by the impact of my clinical experience. After my graduation from the Boston psychoanalytic institute in 1961, I tried to test the limits of the psychoanalytic method by accepting patients for psychoanalysis who were seriously ill such as the so-called borderline case as well as some patients who were diagnosed as schizophrenic. I soon discovered that their relationship to me was central to their treatment and that interpretation of their unconscious thoughts and feelings was not always useful and at times was counterproductive. Such an observation is today self-evident. I would think every clinician knows that with the sicker patient the effect of the therapeutic relationship transcended the result of interpreting unconscious content. But at that time this two-person relational understanding could not be easily integrated into Freud's third person concept of the mind as a mental apparatus. Nor could this two-person relational understanding be reduced to or understood simply under the rubric of transference. We know of course that this gap between clinical observation and Freudian theory was subsequently filled with the emergence of various \"relational\" and inter-personal schools of psychoanalysis.\n\nTo continue with this account of my conceptual development, I discussed this issue of a two-person psychology and its relation to Freudian theory in _Psychoanalysis in New Context_ (1984) (Modell, 1984) where I stated: that Freud essentially oscillated between a one person stance, for example, dream interpretation, and a third person \"scientific\" account of human psychology. In that volume I wrote: (p. 11) \"The process that occurs between two people, between the subject and the object in psychoanalysis is referred to the mind of the subject, who is the patient. This produces in us a certain intellectual unease when, for example, we describe dependency, a process occurring between two people, as an event in the mind of one person. Traditional psychoanalysis has not yet acquired theoretical language that would enable it to describe process occurring between two separate personalities in terms encompassing the events in both individuals.\"\n\nFreud of course was not unaware of a two-person dialogical perspective as such a perspective is implicit in Freud's recognition of the unconscious communication that occurs in transference and in the process of free association. For example in his encyclopedia article Freud (Freud, 1923b) understood free association to be a \"means to catch the drift of the patient's unconscious with his own unconscious.\" But this implicit two-person system could not easily be ft into his instinct theory or his structural ego psychology. Furthermore, Freud thought that the third person perspective, of a \"mental apparatus,\" a concept central to ego psychology, supported psychoanalysis' claim to be a scientific discipline.\n\nTo find mentors whose work was consistent with my clinical experience I turned to Winnicott as I did in my 1968 book _Object Love and Reality_ (Modell, 1968). There I applied Winnicott's concept of the transitional object to certain aspects of the relationship that one experiences in the treatment of borderline and schizophrenic patients. The concept of the transitional object can be thought of as a conceptual metaphor that is a shared imaginative construction, present in the minds of both parent and child. In a transitional object relationship the person of the analyst is treated as a protective magical agent that is interposed between the individual and one's existence of the world. There is a clear analogy here to the child's creation of the transitional object, where a real object, a blanket or teddy bear is, by means of the imagination, magically transformed. In a broader context this process can be thought of as an interplay between the real and the imagined. The transitional object illustrates the interplay between the real, the actual object, and its transformation by means of metaphor. This interplay reflects the synergy between metonymy and metaphor. The real object, blanket, etc., is a metonymic object, in that the part substitutes for the whole\u2014the whole being the mother. This \"real\" object is then magically transformed by means of metaphor. This interplay of metaphor and metonymy, the real and the imagined, is a crucial process that determines the unconscious construction of the other person. As this process is not limited to the therapeutic relationship, this can be described as the transference of everyday life. In our imaginative transformation of the other person we invariable respond to actual perceptions, something that is \"real.\" Metaphoric process always requires the \"real\" of metonymy (Jakobson, 1995). This formulation is consistent with a broader view of the perceptive process, including other species, where a distinction is made between raw sensations and their subsequent interpretation by the unconscious self (pincus, et al., 2007).\n\n## **Reconstructing the Freudian Unconscious in the Light of Neuroscience\u2014Hoping to Find Common Conceptual Ground**\n\nAnyone who identifies themselves as a psychoanalyst would, I imagine, unquestionably accept the idea of unconscious determinism. But how unconscious processes are conceptualized is a subject of much discord and disagreement. How one understands unconscious process is linked to several other theoretical controversies. One such controversy is the extent to which one believes that unconscious processes are neuro-biologically determined. Another is the extent to which one believes that unconscious processes are determined by the past unconscious, that is to say, memory, or the extent to which one believes in the importance of the present unconscious that is embedded in the inter-subjectivity of the present moment. As you know there are analytic schools of thought that minimize the importance of the past and therefore the significance of unconscious memory in determining the meaning of current experience. Some claim a certain autonomy for the present moment. I am thinking, for example, of the Boston Change process study Group (2008) who seem to have ignored the Freudian concept of unconscious process although they do acknowledge the significance of metaphor. It is not that I deny the importance of the present moment, which I take to be an aspect of the real, but this view omits a consideration of an unconscious metaphoric process that organizes the affective memories of the past through which the present moment interpreted. I will suggest, as I described in _Imagination and the Meaningful Brain_ (Modell, 2003) that an unconscious metaphoric process, analogous to dreaming, occurs in the waking state.\n\nIt is my belief that Freud went down the wrong path when he reframed human psychology in terms of instinct theory. Originally, in _The Interpretation of Dreams_ , Freud (1900) viewed the unconscious as a knowledge processing system that gave metaphoric expression to the unconscious wish. This view of the unconscious was radically altered with Freud's elaboration of instinct theory and the development of ego psychology. This is I believe one of the root causes for the divisions that separate the various schools of contemporary psychoanalysis. Freud never disclaimed his description of unconscious processing in dreaming, but he viewed it as special instance and put it aside when he re-characterized the unconscious, not as an area in which knowledge is processed, but as an area of the mind in which there is a conflict between instincts seeking discharge and the forces of repression that prevent, instinctual derivatives, thoughts, feelings and fantasies, from being from becoming conscious. The primary function of this revised unconscious was not the processing of knowledge but to prevent unacceptable impulses, wishes and fantasies from becoming conscious. In his introduction to his 1915 paper _The Unconscious_ Freud (1915b) states that everything that is repressed must remain unconscious, but he also noted that the unconscious has a wider compass, that the repressed is only one part of the unconscious and does not cover everything. But Freud does not say what this part consists of. Freud writes in that paper \"the nucleus of the unconscious consists of instinctual representatives which seek to discharge their cathexis; that is to say, it consists of wishful impulses.\" in his 1915 paper Freud further states that \"the content of the unconscious may be compared with aboriginal population of the mind. If inherited the mental formation exists in human beings\u2014something analogous to instincts in animals\u2014these constitute the nucleus of the unconscious\" (1915b, p. 186). At the end of his life, when he wrote _An Outline of Psychoanalysis_ Freud (1940a) now viewed unconscious process not as potentially adaptive but as a danger to the self. The id was seen as the ego's internal enemy he said: \"[I]mmediate and unheeding satisfaction the instincts, such as the id demands, which all would often lead to perilous conflicts with the external world and to extinction.\" had Freud retained his earlier view of the unconscious as a knowledge processing system, there would today be fewer theoretical divisions amongst psychoanalysts.\n\nLet me now turn to another conceptual area that has contributed to the divisions that exist between various schools of psychoanalysis. There are those who claim that psychoanalysis should have nothing to do with neuroscience because of the problem of reductionism (Blass & Carmeli, 2007). As a consequence those psychoanalysts who were interested in neuroscience have of necessity formed yet another separate school. In 1976 Merton Gill in his influential paper \"Metapsychology is not psychology\" observed that \"metapsychology deals with neurology and biology, with the physical substrate of psychological functioning while clinical psychoanalysis is a 'pure' psychology which deals with intentionality and meaning.\" Gill's belief that intentionality and meaning, the heart of psychoanalytic understanding, is a subject that is divorced from any biological substrate is no longer true. Some neuroscientists (Freeman, 1999), but I grant you not many, describe neural events that serve the function of meaning construction and intentionality. It should be noted however, in Gill's defense, that his paper was written in 1976 prior to the expansion of cognitive science and neurobiology. However, I believe that there are many psychoanalysts today who still wish to keep psychoanalysis \"pure,\" that is uncontaminated by neuroscience. There are even some analysts who have recently argued that being influenced by neuroscience is actually dangerous for psychoanalysis (Vivona, 2009).\n\nOne of the aims of this paper is to show that this problem of reductionism can be avoided if we recognize that there are separate and different levels of unconscious processing so that unconscious psychological processes are not to be confused with neurophysiological events.\n\nAs unconscious processes cannot be observed directly they can only be noted by inference and analogy. As Freud famously noted, the dream is the royal road to the unconscious. We can be conscious of the dream itself, but the process that created the dream is undeniably unconscious. You will recall that Freud understood that the metaphoric processes observed in dream formation was the same unconscious process that contributed to symptom formation in hysteria (Freud, 1923b). The physical symptoms of hysteria Freud interpreted as the metaphoric expression of an unconscious wish. The dream was also interpreted as a metaphoric expression of an unconscious wish. _Metaphor is therefore a fundamental cognitive tool that is central_ _to unconscious mental process._ Freud described dreams as a factory of thought, but to follow the analogy of a factory, the basic machinery that this factory employs is predominantly that of metaphor. The transfer of meaning between different domains and the multiplicity of different meanings that can be attributed to a single dream element, what Freud described as condensation, attests to the ubiquity of the metaphoric process in dreaming. As I have repeatedly maintained: metaphor is the currency of the (unconscious) mind (Modell, 2003). This means that unconscious thoughts, whether in the dream or whether in response to sensory inputs in current time are cognitively organized through the medium of metaphor.\n\n## **Unconscious Metaphoric Process and the Meaning Attributed to Past Experience**\n\nIn my book _Imagination and the Meaningful Brain_ (Modell, 2003) I suggested that a metaphoric process analogous to dreaming is operative in the waking state. In that book I quoted the critic and novelist Cynthia Ozick (Ozick, 1991) who observed that \"Metaphor, like the Delphic oracle is a priest of interpretation, but what it interprets is memory.\" according to the Nobel prize laureate Gerald Edelmam (Edelman, 1998) memory carves both the inner and outer world into categories. Further, these categories are recontextualized through experience. What I have observed is: that emotional memory is categorized by means of metaphor. In health these memorial metaphoric categories oscillate between similarities and differences. In the face of trauma, however, this play of similarity and differences is lost and the metaphoric transfer of meaning is invariant.\n\nIn health, metaphoric process facilitates the recontextualization of autobiographical memory. We assume that old memories are constantly re-interpreted in the context of new experience. This is the process that Freud termed _nachtraglichkeit_ , the meaning of old memories are re-interpreted in the light of subsequent experience. (i discussed this process in greater detail in Modell, 1990.) Metaphoric matchings play a crucial role in this process. Traumatic memories may represent a failure in the transformative power of metaphor. In this example memory was not recontextualized by means of metaphor. Metaphor was used not to transform memory but to simply transfer memory so that an unyielding similarity is experienced between the past and the present.\n\nMy patient reported the following incident. Because his airline went out on strike, my patient was stranded in a distant city and unable to return home. He did everything possible to obtain passage on another airline: he cajoled and pleaded with the functionaries of other airlines, all to no avail. Although my patient was usually not unduly anxious and was in fact a highly experienced traveler, in this particular situation he experienced an overwhelming and generalized panic. He felt as if the unyielding airline representatives were like Nazis and that the underground passages of the airline terminal resembled a concentration camp. The helplessness of not being able to return home, combined with the institutional intransigence of the authorities, evoked the following memory, which had been unconscious.\n\nWhen this man was three years old, he and his parents were residents of central European country and, as Jews, were desperately attempting to escape the Nazis. They did in fact obtain airline passage to freedom, but until that point, the outcome was very much in doubt. Although my patient did not recall his affect the state at that time, his parents reported that he seemed cheerful and unaffected by their anxiety. And as in this example, this helpless inability to leave a foreign city, combined with the intransigence of the authorities, evoked a specific affect category that remained a potential memory of an unassimilated past experience. In this example, unconscious memory was metaphorically interpreted with the help of a metronomic association. His helpless inability to leave a foreign city combined with the intransigence of the authorities served as a metonymic trigger. The metaphoric process can be defined as the transfer of meeting between different domains in this case the different domains are that of unconscious autobiographical memory and the present moment. This example also illustrates my hypothesis that an unconscious metaphoric process operates in the waking state. It is a process that interprets the meaning of current experience in a manner that is analogous to the way a dream utilizes metaphor.\n\nThe similarity between dream process and the unconscious process that occurs while we are awake has received some support from neuroscience. The neuro-physiologists Llinas and pare have also seen an analogy between the dream state and waking unconscious process. They provide some experimental evidence that points to a similarity of the neural process that supports the unconscious mentation of dreams and an analogous unconscious process that occurs while awake (Llinas & pare, 1991). As a consequence of their experimental observations they made the following statement: \"[T]hese observations indicate that mentation during dreaming operates on the same anatomical substrate as does perception during the waking state.\" This means that my suggestion that an unconscious metaphoric process, analogous to dreaming, occurs in the waking state is not physiologically implausible.\n\nI shall attempt to further spell out this analogy between dreaming and a waking unconscious process. Neuroscience believes that dreaming is initiated by a self-generated excitatory process within the brain. The anatomical site of this process is correlated with the various stages in the sleep cycle (Llinas & pare, 1991). Let us label this as the deepest level of unconscious dream process; it can be thought of as the physical or the neuro-chemical dream. Let us further consider that the dream of which we are conscious, is the product of a higher level of unconscious processing as compared to the initiating neurophysiological events. This higher level unconscious process interprets the excitory signals, what may be described as the raw neuro-physiologic dream. This higher level represents the functioning of the unconscious self. The functioning of the unconscious self encompasses many tasks of the dream that Freud described. These functions would include the classical Freudian dream wish, the defensive functions in accord with internalized moral values of the self as well as intentional thoughts directed towards future actions in response to specific elements from the previous day's residue. In contrast to the deeper neurophysiologic level of unconscious processing, which like other physiological processes are shared by all, the functions of the unconscious self are highly individualized.\n\nI recognize that these ideas are speculative and undoubtedly controversial. But I firmly believe that a revised theory of \"the unconscious,\" or more properly speaking unconscious processing, is a useful starting point. It is a theory that recognizes the ubiquity of the metaphor process that is active both in dreaming and in the waking state. I suggest that we seek common ground in concepts rather than in matters of technique. Those analysts who favor one aspect of technique over another will find it impossible to prove their case. For the uniqueness and variability of selves are such that generalizations are nearly impossible. Controversies concerning menace of technique ultimately prove to be irresolvable.\n\nIt may be a Quixotic hope that some agreement regarding the nature of unconscious process and recognition of the ubiquity of metaphor will enable a dialogue between the various factions of contemporary psychoanalysis. But the alternative, the absence of dialogue is unacceptable. We should welcome conceptual controversies for without controversy a discipline lacks vitality. But in order for controversies to be fruitful there must also be some basic shared assumptions. If the various psychoanalytic factions accept the idea that metaphor is the cognitive tool of unconscious processing, it is possible that we may then be able to establish other areas of conceptual agreement.\n\n## **Note**\n\n originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 31(2): pp. 126\u2013133 with the title, \"Not even Wrong.\"\n\n# 7  \nMETAPHOR IN THREE  \nPSYCHOANALYTIC  \nPERSPECTIVES\n\n_Robert S. White_\n\nAdopting the lakoff and Johnson view that conceptual systems of the mind are inherently metaphoric and embodied, I examine theoretical metaphor in psychoanalytic theory as an example of the use of metaphor more generally in the mind. I have chosen concepts of the non-dynamic unconscious to explore representative metaphors. These include the theories of W. Bion, C. And S. Botella, and d. Stern. This chapter first outlines recent interest in the non-dynamic unconscious and then examines the theories of Bion, the Botellas, and stern in detail. Differences and similarities among the theoretical metaphors are explored. I suggest that theoretical metaphors progress both through the attempted destruction of existing metaphor and reshaping of existing metaphor into new meanings. I am interested in finding among the metaphoric collisions that there may be hidden collusions that can potentially lead to unifying concepts.\n\n## **Metaphor**\n\nThe modern view of metaphor was introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a) in the now classic, _Metaphors We Live By_. In this work, our conceptual system is thought to be fundamentally metaphoric. All degrees of abstract thinking are built up of layers of metaphor. Conceptual metaphors consist of a mapping from a more concrete source domain onto a more abstract target domain. Meaning is created from such mappings. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) went on to claim that the mind is inherently embodied. Thinking is mostly unconscious and is built up out of sensori-motor experiences. This cognitive-linguistic approach is now widely accepted in psychoanalysis (Wallerstein, Chapter 4). Wurmser (1977, Chapter 5), Modell (1968, 1990, 2003, Chapter 6), Borbely (1998, Chapter 8) and Katz (2010a, 2011b) have been most instrumental in arguing for the centrality of metaphor. Wurmser believes that all scientific thinking is the systemic use of metaphor. Modell, drawing from lakoff and Johnson, proposes that metaphor is the currency of the unconscious mind. Katz and Borbely believe that meaning, created out of metronomic and metonymic processes, can be the primary organizing concept and bridge among disparate psychoanalytic schools.\n\nI would like to add a dialectical dimension found in the modern metaphor. In addition to unity, there is an emphasis on collision, tension, and opposition over collusion and similarity (harries, 1978). He suggests that, in modern poetry, metaphors become weapons directed against reality, to break the referentiality of language, to find a magical presence, a godlike self-sufciency. It is a refusal to owe anything to the world. Out of the destruction of the world, the poet creates his own poetic world. Inherited metaphor must be removed for the poet's more daring combinations. The poet seeks a presentness and instantaneousness, a perpetual creation of self. Transcendence means a world that would be truly objective and transparent, free from all perspectival distortions. In a poem, there is an invitation to leave familiar ground for the sake of a more profound transcendental vision of what is, to throw into relief and destroy beloved reality. A new predicative meaning emerges from the collapse of the literal meaning. It is the destruction of ordinary reference and the projection of new possibilities.\n\nUsing collusion over similarity gives another modernist twist. Collusion is defined as a secret agreement between parties for fraudulent or deceitful purposes. So even when there is apparent similarity and agreement, we see just beneath the surface the emergence of deceit and hiding of secrets. The collusion quickly shades into collision.\n\nAnother way to view this tension is the difference between a fox and a hedgehog (Berlin, 1951). These metaphors come from the Greek poet Archilochus: \"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.\" The fox pursues many ends even if unrelated and contradictory. This is a centrifugal vision that is scattered, diffuse, moving on many levels, finding the essence in many things. The hedgehog relates everything to a centripetal vision or system, a single and universal organizing principle. The major figures in psychoanalysis have been hedgehogs (strenger, 1997). They favor the development of a single, organizing system that guided the interpretation of every phenomenon. Hedgehogs provide magnets that shape possible voices into integrated visions. They push ideas to their logical extremes. Beauty, coherence, and nobility are prized above all others. Harries' modern poets are hedgehogs. Freud, Klein, and Bion are all hedgehogs. They attract schools and apostles. They wish to destroy in order to build a pure system. I think there is a universal human need to build pure systems. It is a fantasy of being uncontaminated and of being controlled by no one. Most people who write theory take one or more organizing principles and then see all of phenomena through the lens of these principles. Another theorist comes along and sees what is missing, then builds his or her theory around that. Freud's (1919a, p. 168) famous statement speaks to this: \"The large-scale application of our therapy will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis freely with the copper of direct suggestion; and hypnotic influence, too, might find a place in it again, as it has in the treatment of war neuroses.\" The pure gold of analysis has a magical draw in psychoanalytic theory.\n\nMost clinical practitioners are foxes, borrowing and using whatever theory seems to ft. In the real world of clinical work, the pure gold does not work. In thinking of the metaphor of gold and copper, we should note that pure gold is beautiful and precious, yet it is too soft to be useful in practical life. It must be alloyed with copper or other metals to make it useful. It is a pragmatic approach, a craft to serve people and ft local reality. The map must never be confused with the territory. Theory is a tool and not a map of reality.\n\nWe could think of psychoanalytic metaphor in three levels, metaphors of human nature, metaphors of psychoanalytic theory and metaphors in clinical practice. In this paper, I plan to concentrate on theoretical metaphors. Out of this, I will develop the following categories to use in analyzing psychoanalytic metaphor:\n\n1 What reality does the new metaphor attack and attempt to destroy?\n\n2 Is there preserved any continuity and similarity between the new metaphor and existing reality?\n\n3 What is the mental space that the new metaphor inhabits?\n\n4 To what extent does new metaphor aim for a transcendence of a unity of vision?\n\n5 In destroying existing reality, can a new unity be found that provides a new coherent vision?\n\nIn this project, I will choose a common psychoanalytic space, which can be described from several theoretical points of view. From the different theoretical points of view, I will select representative technical metaphors. Each theoretical school had developed metaphoric labels to reflect their core assumptions (Bornstein and Becker-Matero, this volume). These metaphors will be compared and contrasted, using the categories outlined above. The psychoanalytic space that I will use is non-symbolic codes. This will also give us a chance to examine the limits of metaphor when we examine non-linguistic mental space. The three theorists are all hedgehogs, who attack existing psychoanalytic metaphor and seek to organize psychoanalytic reality using new assumptions. This paper is written by a fox who admires hedgehogs but finds they do not ft the everyday reality of psychoanalytic work.\n\n## **Non-Symbolic Codes**\n\nThere is now widespread convergence among a number of psychoanalytic theories of the existence of dual codes in the mind, the symbolic and nonsymbolic (lecours, 2007). Symbolic codes are the characteristic targets of classical psychoanalytic theories. This would include mental conflict, signal affects, intrapsychic mental structures, unification of self identity, links between affects and representations, networks of unconscious wishes and pathological beliefs, and networks of defenses and compromise formations. Defenses based on repression are characteristic of symbolic conflict.\n\nThe persistence of non-symbolic codes in adult life can result from deficits in early development, from borderline and psychotic functioning and from severe trauma. The lack of symbolization results in the use of primitive defenses, organized around splitting and projective identification, and the compulsion to repeat in actions. Affects are unmodulated and eruptive. Mental structures are split into dissociated areas or fragmentation.\n\nTheorists from a number of traditions have articulated versions of non-symbolic code. Freud (1915a) developed a second theory of the unconscious; conscious ideas could be split into word-presentations and thing-presentations. In repression, the word-presentation is stripped of and only the thing-presentation is retained. The thing-presentation is the raw material of the sensory experience. Loewald (1978) argues that word-presentations are not a higher organization than thing-presentations. At the beginning of mental life, words are part of the undifferentiated total experience of the infant, a primordial density. Busch (2009), from American conflict theory and building on Loewald, describes action-language, where words become concrete acts. Green (1998, 1999a, 1999b) speaks of the work of the negative: disavowal, splitting, and foreclosure. Bucci and Maskit (2007), from an empirical orientation, suggest multiple coding systems in the mind: symbolic codes either verbal or non-verbal, and subsymbolic coding system which can occur in motoric, visceral or sensory modes.\n\n## **Tree Theorists**\n\nI will choose three theorists, each coming from different analytic cultures, to compare and contrast. Wilfred Bion comes out of the English Kleinian school with its roots in object relations. C\u00e9sar and S\u00e1ra Botella come out of the French school, with its roots in early Freud, Lacan and philosophy. Donnel stern comes from the American interpersonal school with its roots in H. S. Sullivan and interaction.\n\n### Wilfred Bion\n\nBion (1957, 1962a, 1965, 1989, 1995b) aims for a radical attack and recasting of basic Freudian and Kleinian metaphors. He used Greek letters for his major metaphors because he wanted to start fresh, without any pre-existing meanings. This is the opposite of Freudian theorists, such as loewald (1978) who aimed to extend existing metaphor and maintain a tradition. Bion's key metaphors would include \u03b2-elements, \u03b1-function, \u03b1-elements, reverie, K-link, and container\/contained.2\n\nBion recasts Freud's metaphor of primary process into a more modern theory of thinking, where there is a progressive increase in complexity and integration of thinking and transformation of preverbal into verbal thoughts. Bion is dissatisfied with the primacy of libidinal and aggressive drives. While he does not deny the existence of these drives, he postulates that human growth occurs primarily through the emergence of truth in knowledge. Drives are recast as links, l (love), H (hate), and K (knowledge). For Bion, these are not drives but emotional activities. The ability to think is born out of the ability of the person to tolerate frustration. The movement is from evading pain to the acceptance of painful truths. Thinking does not reduce psychic tensions but manages them. Bion discards the polarity of conscious\/ unconscious in favor of the metaphors, finite and infinite. Primary and secondary process is discarded and replaced with **\u03b2** and \u03b1-elements. The structural model is replaced with the metaphor of container\/contained  .\n\nBion postulated a psychic space that precedes and underlies the dynamic unconscious. It would correspond with Freud's (1915b) thing presentation and the repressed that never achieve consciousness (Freud, 1915a). For Bion (1995b), the mind starts out in catastrophe. Mental space cannot be represented, leaving an immensity that is accompanied by violent and psychotic fear. This space is filled with what Bion calls (\u03b2-elements.3 They are fragments and debris of the mental catastrophe. While for Freud, these objects are a form of thought, for Bion (\u03b2-elements are the matrix from which thoughts can arise. (\u03b2-elements can be stored and clog up the mind or can be evacuated by projection or through acting out. The only link possible with the analyst is projective identification because (\u03b2-elements can only be evacuated by projection (Bion, 1959).\n\nFor use in thought, (\u03b2-elements must be transformed by \u03b1-function into \u03b1-elements. \u03b1-elements are comprised of visual, auditory and other sensory patterns that are now available for dreaming and unconscious waking thought, what Ferro (2005b, 2005c) calls visual pictograms. Dreaming, for Bion, is a form of psychoanalytic work (ogden, 2004b), in which pre-conscious thoughts are pressing toward awareness. Attacks on \u03b1-function, from envy or hate, destroy the persons ability to make contact with herself or others. The self and objects become inanimate, lifeless, dead.\n\nBion uses the metaphor of a container to understand the communicative aspects of projective identification. In the metaphor of container and contained  , the infant projects (\u03b2-elements into the containing mother, who at first provides the \u03b1-function to transform the contained (\u03b2-elements into \u03b1-elements and feed them back to the baby at an appropriate moment (Bion, 1965). The mother must be in a state of reverie, a dreamlike state, in order to receive and contain the infants (\u03b2-elements. Over time, the infant can acquire his mothers \u03b1-function and perform his own transformations. The capacity for \u03b1-function makes possible the development of thinking and the possibility of thoughts.\n\n### C\u00e9sar and S\u00e1ra Botella\n\nThe Botellas (2005) propose another view of the non-verbal. Unlike Bion, they do not want to destroy existing theory but extend it. They would understand their project as completing an aspect of Freud's thought that was left unfinished at his death. But metaphors of the traumatic dream are bent and shaped into a much larger theory of trauma, so we end up much as in Bion with a completely new theory. Key metaphors include figuration, perceptual axis, and non-representation.\n\nThey suggest we conceptualize the psyche space as having two axes. One axis is familiar to psychoanalysis. It is the system of representations, the familiar world of drive \u2013 repression \u2013 fantasy. It is located in the Pcs and Cs. It encompasses all of what we ordinarily think of psychoanalytic technique: conflict, defenses, transference, the return of the repressed, memory and interpretation. Even primitive defenses such as splitting and projective identification utilize the representational system. It is the act of giving form, of developing linguistic and symbolic forms. The object representation is not just a memory but it also contains the meaning for the subject.\n\nWhat is new in their psychic space is the second axis, the perceptual system. This is drawn from Freud's metaphor of perceptual identity (Freud, 1900) and the unconscious work of representability (what the Botellas translate at figuration). They wish to emphasize that what is nonverbal cannot be understood by the same processes of normal representation. If progression of the sequence of drive to object-representation is blocked, the result is negating of representation, leading to disavowal. In this void, the mind has the capacity for creating the sensation of reality to fulfill a wish with a materialization through an hallucinatory actualization. It is transient, dazzling, and instantaneous. It is what will not go into words. We have a traumatic plunge into the loss of representation and the sudden emergence of hallucinatory phenomena. The Botellas call this the act of figuration. Freud had found in the experience of the uncanny, animistic thinking and the experiences of traumatic neurosis hints of this traumatic loss of inner objects (Freud, 1913a, 1919a, 1933b, 1939). It is ordinarily only found in night-time dreams but will emerge under traumatic conditions. Figurations carry the conviction of having grasped the truth, a hallucinatory experience of continuity projected onto the sensory realm. They are created to banish what is unfamiliar and disturbing. Perception of the object must be disavowed so that belief can be maintained as representation.\n\nIn psychic trauma, there can be a sudden experience of the loss of representation, either because of a lack of internalization or a traumatic rupture of the chain of representations. The trauma cannot be represented and can only be experienced as a negative, a violent and abrupt absence. There is a violent excitement. This is experienced as a negative, a void, an implosion, a psychic death. It completely erases the negative and provides a presence. This zone of non-representation exists at the heart of the psyche.\n\n### Donnel Stern\n\nIf Bion and the Botellas are both revising the basic Freudian canon, d. Stern (1983, 1990, 1997) has more of a radical revision. This goes back to a basic distinction between repression and dissociation. In _Studies on Hysteria_ (1895), Breuer explained anna O's hysteria as two states of consciousness existing side by side while Freud formulated repression, that of erecting a barrier that prevents emergence into consciousness. Traditional psychoanalysis is founded on the defeat of dissociation and the primacy of repression.\n\nEagle (2000) points out the key differences between repression and dissociation. In repression, certain mental contents are excluded from a unified ego or self. The repressed is constantly driven by drive pressure toward consciousness and requires continual repression to maintain unconsciousness \u2013 the return of the repressed. In dissociation, mental contents are split into sections that each are potentially accessible to consciousness.\n\nStern, coming out of the sullivanian tradition, proposes dissociation as a primary defense and the unconscious as the \"natural state of experience\" (1997, p. 85), where experience is outside awareness. Action and effort are then required to bring experience into consciousness. This reverses the Freudian theory of repression as a pressure to force out of consciousness. To make something conscious is to construct the experience in words. Consciousness is not a passive container but an active shaping and representing. What are dissociated, then, is differences in function, between formulated, largely verbal experiences and unformulated murky and poorly defined experience and images. Stern proposes that unformulated experience is the primary matrix of all thinking. Unformulated experience is mentation characterized by lack of clarity and differentiation, familiar chaos. It is experience that has never been articulated enough to enter into defensive operations. To be unconscious is something that is so much present that we live it rather than see it or understand it. Key metaphors include unformulated experience, construction, and dissociation.\n\nAction, an interpretive construction, is necessary for consciousness. The basic metaphor is of seeing, turning our eyes toward. Rather than forcing meaning and risking stereotyping, we let meaning come to us, to just appear directly. Language must be authentic and creative, bringing thoughts alive. The basic defensive process is one of prevention of interpretation in reflective awareness. It is a restriction on the experiences we allow ourselves. Instead of repressed content, we have familiar chaos and the refusal to allow prereflective experience to attain full-bodied meaning. Clinically we look for absences, gaps, contradictions, stereotypes, repetitions, and dead spots. Dissociation is a selective inattention, an avoidance of certain unformulated experiences, so they never reach reflective consciousness.\n\n## **Collisions**\n\nAll of the theorists aim to attack and destroy existing psychoanalytic theory and metaphor, while preserving what they consider pure metaphor. Bion attacks Klein's extension of object relations to birth and her extensive use of the death instinct, while wanting to preserve and enlarge on Freud's later thinking on primary and secondary process. The Botellas attack the Freudian unconscious while preserving and extending Freud's ideas about dream work. Stern attacks Freudian defense and the unconscious while preserving Freud's early work on dissociation and hysteria.\n\nThe most fundamental division among the theorists is the contrast between the model of stern and the models of Bion and the Botellas. Stern's unconscious is nondynamic, a \"natural state of experience,\" having never become conscious. The post-Freudian unconscious remains dynamic, a depository of the repressed or fragmented, what once had been conscious and now excluded from consciousness. For stern, the primary defense is dissociation, a selective including or excluding contents from consciousness. The main action of defense is not seeing, an unconscious shaping of what is allowed into consciousness. The flip side of defense is creativity, the active shaping of unconscious mentation into new and surprising forms. For the post-Freudians, the primary defense is repression, a force preventing the movement from unconscious to conscious. The unconscious is always forcing its way into consciousness and must be continually resisted. Creativity comes from a relaxation and reshaping of the defensive structures.\n\nA second division among the theorists would contrast Bion and stern against the Botellas. Bion, although he retains a Freudian dynamic unconscious, postulates a second non-dynamic unconscious with many similarities to stern. Both are unformulated and require a translation to move toward consciousness. Both nondynamic unconsciouses are filled with experiences and affects of early development, that both must be defended against and potentially provide creativity and life. The Botellas do not have a concept of the non-dynamic unconscious. At the bottom of the dynamic unconscious is the ultimate consequence of repression, non-representation. Non-representation is then covered over by the fash of figurability.\n\n## **Collusions**\n\nAll of the theorists would broadly ft into Modell's model of unconscious metaphoric process (Modell, this volume). In this view, all unconscious thoughts are cognitively organized through the medium of metaphor. Metaphor is crucial in creating more complex and more organized meaning states. The unconscious is not just a repository of repressed instinctual derivatives.\n\nBoth Bion and the Botellas have a dual unconscious. They postulate a psychic space that underlies and forms the dynamic unconscious, a second unconscious. Bion speaks of processing of \u03b2 into \u03b1 elements. The \u03b2 elements represent the concrete source domain and the \u03b1 elements the target domain. The mappings between domains are called links. The Botellas speak of a perceptual axis. The work of figurability is the act of giving form to what is unrepresentable. There is a similar mapping from the unrepresentable to the form of the hallucination.\n\nBoth Bion and the Botellas conceive of spaces of trauma and terror. For Bion, it is the space of \u03b2 elements. He speaks of \"an intense catastrophic emotional explosion\" (Bion, 1995a, p. 14) with immense fear and violence. The explosion results when either the contained blows up the container or the container cannot contain the explosive nature of the contained. This explosion destroys links and the resulting fragments are dispersed into an infinite space. The metaphor is of debris and fragments from the explosion floating in a vast space. For the Botellas, it is the perceptual axis. In the perceptual axis, there is the presence of animistic thinking in which representation, perception and motor activity become equivalent as a continuous universe. Rather than the terror of fragmentation, it is the terror of non-representation, of the metaphor of nothingness. There is a violent and abrupt collapse into nothingness. In the violent excess of excitation and distress, the ego murders the object and its meaning. The shadowy equivalent of the perception has disappeared, and the persecuting perception invades the scene. The metaphor is of a deep and dark hole that is patched out and hidden from view.\n\nBoth Bion and the Botellas talk of hallucinations yet they differ phenomenologically. Bion describes hallucinations among other types of fragmentary experiences. The mental event is transformed into a sense impression. They provide only pleasure or pain and a failure to yield meaning. This is a transformation into a \u03b2 element which can only be evacuated. There is a vicious cycle in which the patient continues to hallucinate to compensate for the missing meaning. Greed increases the hallucinations. Hallucinations are \"a state always present, but overlaid by other phenomena, which screen it\" (Bion, 1995a, p. 36). For the Botellas, the hallucination is a figuration, a defensive operation in which the hallucination is potentially reparative and integrating.\n\nStern and Bion have a concept of dissociation in common. Bion, in the Kleinian tradition, would understand \u03b2 elements as split of fragments, a type of dissociation. Stern enlarges the concept of the non-verbal to include the entire unconscious. He privileges dissociation as a primary mechanism over repression. For both of them, dissociation is the natural condition where the \u03b2 space or the unconscious contain elements that are widely separated and not linked.\n\nBoth Bion and stern are constructionists. The \u03b2 elements have to undergo a construction, what Bion calls \u03b1 process, before they can access consciousness. Stern postulates that all unconscious elements are unformed and undergo a construction to become conscious.\n\nBoth Bion and the Botellas think of this psychic space as containing fragments that cannot enter the dynamic unconscious. Both conceive of these elements as subject to projection. Both think of projection as a mean of communication. Both think of reverie as a receptive state. Yet these elements are quite different. For Bion, \u03b2-elements are a basic sensori-motor level of organization that directly incorporates the traumatic elements. For the Botellas, figuration is a hallucinatory experience that covers over and defends against the loss of representation.\n\nThere is a difference about the direction of psychic movement. For Bion and stern, the movement is forward, originating in the non-verbal unconscious and proceeding forward, achieving greater complexity and symbolization in the process. The movement is toward consciousness. For the Botellas, the movement is regressive and backward. Unacceptable psychic elements are repressed and regress backwards toward the perceptual and the void. In contact with the void, there is a violent and defensive push forward again in the figuration.\n\n## **The Limits of Metaphor**\n\nBorbely (this volume) provides a model of psychoanalytic process that uses metaphor as a basic template for framework language that is relevant for all the psychoanalytic schools. Source and target domains are separated by two dimensions, time and form. Defense, for example, is understood as a temporal metaphor. The defending part is associated with the present time and the defended against is associated with the past time. The repressed then becomes an interpretation of the present based on the past. The second dimension, form, is the domains of metaphor and metonymy. In trauma and neurosis, there is a loss of metaphoricity and replacement with metonymic relationship. This is the movement from abstract to concrete and rigid relationships. The defending part stands for, in a metonymic way, the defended against part.\n\nThis model works well to explain key dimensions in the traditional Freudian unconscious where the linguistic forms of metaphor and metonymy are maintained. In the non-verbal unconscious, there are no such forms. In addition, in a dissociative process such as splitting, there is not a temporal present and past relationship. The split of fragments are both in present time but kept separate. Or one might say they are both in the past but contemporary to each other. Borbely's model of temporal metaphors is a good ft for repressive defenses but not splitting defenses. Wurmser (this volume) suggests an answer. He distinguishes metaphorical processes from metaphor proper. Metaphoric processes are a biological aspect of the brain and a deep principle of the mind: \"processes of cross modal equations.\" Metaphor proper is the verbal and linguistic aspect of this larger process, bound to language and symbol formation. This would imply an inherent and biologically based process of progressive organization of mental functions. Could we think of metaphor proper as only the final stages of a larger process of progressive symbolization and differentiation of mental structures?\n\nBion implies such an organizing principle. \u03b2-elements are unmentalized fragments that have no links to each other or to more organized forms. Bion postulates a separate \u03b1-process, at first in the mother and later internalized, that transforms the \u03b2-elements, at first into more complex \u03b1 elements or pictograms and in a further process, into proto-symbols or metaphors. Bion does not specify how this \u03b1 process might work but it fits well with Loewald in a progress toward linkages and symbolization.\n\nThe Botellas also imply a progressive organizing function of the mind. In the trauma of nonrepresentation and nothingness, the figuration is a binding together into a sensory whole. It erases the negative and provides a presence. Representational thinking is a higher level of organization, arising out of the mirroring and doubling of mother and child. Like Loewald, they see a linking and symmetry of word and think presentation.\n\n## **A Unifying Proposal**\n\nStern asks the question, how can we refuse to spell-out an experience without first having spelled it out? (1997, p. 123). His answer is that the self has a consistent sense of coherence. What is not me is disavowed, not formulated. Yet does not this act of disavowal depend upon the self having some recognition of what is alien and erecting some sort of barrier?4 it is not logically possible for the unconscious to formulate its own barrier. Does this not bring repression and dissociation closer together conceptually? Both would have barriers between the unconscious and conscious. We could postulate different elements, some of which represent excluded conscious contents that retain a linguistic mode, while other elements are unformed and have never risen to full consciousness.\n\nIs there here a possibility of a unified theory of defense? defense could be conceptualized with two basic dimensions. One dimension is force. There is a variable degree of force that maintains access to consciousness of a mental element. The other dimension is separation. There is a variable degree of separation of mental elements as a means to control access to consciousness. Pure repression emphasizes the maximum degree of force to prevent consciousness and a minimum of separation. Pure dissociation emphasizes a maximum of separation and a minimum of force. Freud (1927, 1940c), late in his life, was trying to grapple with such complexities. In his concept of splitting of the ego, he finds an intermediate position between repression and dissociation. Freud's example is castration but we could read these papers as a theory of trauma. Under traumatic danger, there is simultaneously a recognition and a disavowal of the danger. When the danger is recognized, repression occurs; the instinctual pressure is forced out of consciousness. When the danger is disavowed, instinctual pleasure is allowed into consciousness but displaced or separated by placement in a new object, the fetish. Thus, for Freud, there are two types of defense that operate together, repression and displacement, a type of dissociation. Both originate in the ego. I think the Kleinians have come up with a different middle view. Repressive defenses are characteristic of higher level mental operations. More developmentally primitive defensive operations are based on splitting and dissociation. In the Kleinian view, all patients have a mixture of repressive and splitting defenses. There is a greater predominance of splitting in borderline and psychotic personalities.\n\nBion fundamentally changes the idea of splitting. Instead of a primitive defense originating in the ego as a pressure, splitting is a fundamental property of the nondynamic unconscious in which mental content exists as unlinked fragments. Yet there is also a sense of defense in which these unlinked fragments are further separated through evacuation via projective identification.\n\nWhile the Botellas do not directly address Freud's concept of the splitting of the ego, they refer to another type of splitting, that of the two axes of representation and perception, in which animistic and formal thinking exist side by side. Animistic thinking is a kind of dissociation, in which pleasure is allowed to attach to hallucinatory objects.\n\nFreud's concept of splitting also differs from both Bion and stern, for which dissociation is the natural state of the unconscious. Yet Bion and stern also differ in the origin of the dissociation. For Bion, \u03b2-elements are a result of the catastrophe of being born, of dangers that cannot be contained because there is no container. For stern, the mind is also born in a state of dissociation but he lacks the sense of danger. It is just the natural state of the unconscious.\n\n## **Conclusions**\n\n1 I have focused on theoretical metaphor in psychoanalytic theory to illustrate how we can conceive of theory through the eyes of metaphor.\n\n2 Psychoanalytic theory and its theoretical metaphors are born out of an attack and murder of existing theory and the erection of a new pure theory and metaphors.\n\n3 Psychoanalytic practitioners take aspects of pure theory and metaphor, and mix them pragmatically in their clinical work.\n\n4 In the formation of new theoretical metaphor, we can see the use of new metaphor that is thought to be uncontaminated with old meaning and the shaping of existing metaphor into new meanings.\n\n5 In the development of conflicting theory and metaphor, we can see a complex of similarities and differences.\n\n6 Examining such theoretical metaphors may provide insight into unifying concepts. I have given such an example in the differences and unities of splitting and repression.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n originally published in _Psychoanalytic_ _Inquiry_ 31(2): pp. 147\u2013158 with the title \"The non-verbal Unconscious: Collision and Collusion of Metaphor.\"\n\n of course, over time, Bion's Greek letters have become metaphors in themselves. In this paper, I treat his Greek letters as metaphors.\n\n This account of elements and functions is taken from what Ogden (2004a) calls early Bion, up to and including _Learning from Experience,_ where he does not depart significantly from Klein. Only in the later papers (Bion, 1995b) does he move beyond Kleinian theory (symington & symington, 1996).\n\n The Freudian definition of \"disavowal\" would include an active force coming from the ego that pushes the disavowal.\n\n# 8  \nMETAPHOR AND METONYMY  \nAS THE BASIS OF A NEW  \nPSYCHOANALYTIC LANGUAGE\n\n_Antal Borbely_\n\nMetaphors are \"in terms of\" relationships whereas metonymies are \"stands for\" or \"belongs to\" relationships. These relationships are basic on the linguistic, mental, and developmental level. They are therefore suitable for a psychoanalytic framework language capable of uniting the psychoanalytic schools and achieving a rapprochement to those cognitive sciences which already see the mind's functioning as based on metaphor and metonymy. Psychoanalysis with its dialectic between past, present, and future yields a temporal dimension to metaphor: Mentation at one time is understood in terms of mentation at another time\u2014therefore metaphorically (\"in terms of\"). If metaphoric \"in terms of\" flexibility is lost, a metonymic (neurotic) \"stands for\" or \"belongs to\" relationship holds between issues rooted in different times. It is this temporal dimension of metaphor and metonymy which can conceptually bridge the cognitive sciences with psychoanalysis. The main psychodynamic concepts _transference, interpretation,_ and _defense,_ if slightly reformulated, become relevant within and without the treatment setting. They all can be seen as relating issues from different times flexibly (metaphorically) or neurotically (metonymically) with each other. This leads to conceptualizing transference, interpretation, and defense as having two variants: a metaphoric (healthy) and metonymic (neurotic) one. Psychoanalytic theory was burdened by a one-sided focus on clarification at the expense of enigmatization, both being important aspects of metaphor. The enigmatization, not understood in its theoretical centrality, was therefore collectively enacted as a Babel-like confusion between psychoanalytic languages. The central importance of metaphor and metonymy was not theorized.\n\nWhy, after more than a century, are the penetrating insights of psychoanalysis underappreciated\u2014and largely ignored\u2014outside the field? Why isn't psychoanalysis more of a participant in the important discussions about the mind's functioning that have been going on within the cognitive sciences (Barcelona, 2000; Borbely, 2004; sweetser and Fauconnier, 1996; Gibbs 1994, 2008; Kittay, 1987; lakoff and Johnson, 1999)? Finally, why has there been such disagreement among the many competing schools within psychoanalysis about basic terms and concepts (Wallerstein, 2002b)? These questions are not unrelated. They deserve further inquiry.\n\nTo a large degree, psychoanalysis will continue to be a bystander to the great scientific and cultural debates, and psychoanalysts will continue to misunderstand or talk past one another, until a metaphor-based framework language can be formulated that could accommodate the divergent psychoanalytic schools, traditions, and languages. When intelligent, highly educated, and well-trained psychoanalysts find themselves to be adherents of so many divergent schools without being able to account for their choice, we should think of the possibility that we are witnessing a collective enactment of something suppressed. This deserves an inquiry.\n\nBefore I begin my argument, let me make a few obvious points. First, unlike the cognitive sciences, which are primarily focused on understanding the mind's normal functioning, psychoanalysis was developed as a way of understanding psychopathology. Although there was originally an expectation that psychoanalysis could serve as a basis for a general personality theory, the main psychodynamic concepts\u2014namely, transference, defense, and interpretation\u2014remained almost exclusively connected with what occurred in the therapeutic setting. Even today, these terms generally do not apply to the individual outside the consulting room.\n\nSeeing temporality, metaphor (Wurmser, 1977), and metonymy as central to all psychodynamic notions (Borbely, 2008, 2009) allows us, as we shall see, to comprehend transference, interpretation, and defense deeper, namely in their intrinsic, rather than only in their extrinsic, functional, relatedness. The fact that in psychoanalytic theories, the main psychodynamic concepts remained only extrinsically related to each other is, in my opinion, the main reason for the stagnation of psychoanalytic theory and for the splitting of psychoanalysis into different schools, as well as for the isolation of psychoanalysis from other cognitive sciences. Psychoanalysis, freed from such stagnation, could and should take its rightful place among the \"sciences of surprise\" (Casti, 1995, p. 15): theories of creativity, chaos, fractals, and complexity.\n\n## **Metaphor and Metonymy**\n\nTo begin, let me be clear about terminology. Metaphor is defined (Ricoeur, 1986) as seeing or understanding one thing _(the target)_ in terms of something else _(the source)._ in \"Juliet is the sun,\" the two objects or ideas that are being related belong to different semantic domains, namely the domain of human beings and the domain of celestial bodies. A nonlinear\u2014that is a complex, nonadditive, evocative, open-ended\u2014relationship exists between source and target located in these different domains.\n\nAnother noteworthy fact about metaphor: it is sensitive to the context in which it occurs (stern, 2000). For example, when Romeo exclaims, \"Juliet is the sun,\" we understand his meaning: as a lovesick young man he considers Juliet of supreme importance. If we were to consider the same statement in a different context\u2014say, as a remark made by a member of the Montague family\u2014it might have a more sinister quality. In that case, we might be invited to see Juliet as the sun that is blinding Romeo, making him unable to assess the danger he is in.\n\nMetaphor entails some features that are especially relevant for psychoanalysis and are labeled by us as _psychodynamics._ For the remainder of this article, I propose to focus among psychodynamic terms on the three important notions: _transference, interpretation,_ and _defense._ The connection between psychodynamics, metaphor, and metonymy is, at first, not easy to understand, but will later become clearer. Metaphor entails interpretation because the source interprets the target: in \"life is a journey,\" _journey_ interprets _life._ one aspect of such interpretation is what could be called transference, in the sense of the source transferring selectively, attributes to the target: in \"Juliet is the sun,\" some attributes of the sun get transferred; others concealed. The source, the sun, not only interprets the target, Juliet, but endows it with new attributes and, thus, changes its meaning. We can thus talk of a mutative interpretation. Another of metaphor's features can be called _tension_ or _defense:_ Metaphor invites us (Ricoeur, 1987) to consider a new mental organization of source and target remaining in tension with the previous organization of source and target. Metaphor thus also entails memory. The target, now understood in a temporal way as this new organization (of source and target), defends itself against undue intrusion by the source, now understood as the previous and subsequently transgressed organization. Trough the remembrance of these mental organizations, narrative coherence can be maintained. Consider the following example: When Freud metaphorized hitherto independently understood concepts such as motivation and the unconscious by proposing to understand one in terms of the other, the newly suggested organization of the two concepts, namely \"unconscious motivation,\" remained in temporal metaphoric tension with the familiar one. Because of this tension, a new metaphor in science can be both interesting and controversial. The new organization _defends itself_ against the old one by holding the latter in abeyance; the old one _defends itself_ against the new one by trying to maintain its staying power through an appeal to familiarity.\n\nTo summarize, metaphor entails, among many others features, the psychodynamic concepts interpretation, transference, and defense. We will later see the surprising fact that interpretation, transference, and defense are not only features of metaphor but have themselves a metaphoric structure. The point here is that the two concepts \"metaphor\" and \"psychodynamics\" can be metaphorized: one is seen in terms of the other.\n\nIn a metonymy, the name of one object or idea (the source) stands for or belongs to another (the target). We ask, \"have you read the latest philip roth?,\" thereby equating the writer with his work. We use the term \"the White House\" as a stand-in for United states policy, and the term \"the Crown\" for the person of the English king or queen. In a metonymy, unlike a metaphor, both the source and the target are seen as located in the same domain. Unlike metaphor, a metonymy expresses a linear relationship\u2014direct, one-to-one, literal, and closed\u2014between the source and the target.\n\nIn summary, we can say that metaphor articulates _in-terms-of_ relationships, where source, target, and context change relative to one another; whereas metonymy articulates _stands-for_ or _belongs-to_ relationships. The former could be likened to a storyline's plot, the latter to one of its scenarios. Obviously, plot and scenario are specific viewpoints focusing on transfiguration versus configuration of narrative elements. The narrative process is, itself, as we shall see, a metaphoric process. Such a process reassigns in an ongoing way what should be seen as part of a metonymic configuration, thus belonging to each other, and what as part of a metaphoric transfiguration, thus interacting with each other.\n\nA further point has to be made to understand the functioning of metaphor in health and of metonymy in neurosis. Metonymy, as used by linguists, gives access to something that belongs to it or for which it stands (Langacker, 1993). Consider, for example, the phrase: \"They went out for a drink.\" This phrase gives access to many other possible but not articulated phrases such as, \"They went to a bar,\" \"They had a good time.\" Thus, linguistically speaking, in metonymy one mental entity gives access to another mental entity.\n\nFor psychoanalysis, I introduced the concept of _negative metonymy_ (Borbely, 2004) to describe what happens when access to a mental entity is not given but barred, as in a neurotic defense. The defending mental entity (e.g., \"I love my brother so much!\") stands for a defended-against mental entity (\"I hate him also quite a bit!\") to which access is barred. This relationship is linear and rigid and has a _belongs-to,_ metonymic, quality. For the remainder of this article, unless otherwise noted, _metonymy_ will be used to mean negative metonymy.\n\n## **The Psychoanalytic Process as Metaphoric Process**\n\nAlthough there are substantial theoretical disagreements among psychoanalytic schools, most analysts of divergent persuasions would agree today that all schools attempt to and, in general, succeed in establishing a psychoanalytic process with their analysands. Given this consensus, we have to assume that the different schools are closer to each other in their practice than in their theories. Accordingly, as we search for a framework language within which to discuss the various theoretical conceptualizations and traditions, it is best to start with examining common elements within psychoanalytic practice.\n\nEarlier, we defined the linguistic concept of metaphor as seeing, understanding, or mutatively interpreting something in one semantic domain in terms of something in another domain. Temporality is not a central issue here. But because psychoanalytic practice aims at increasing awareness in an ongoing way, a process that entails the fundamental notion of temporality, we must expand the linguistic to a psychoanalytic _temporal metaphor_ concept. Temporality (Borbely, 1987) now becomes central within this metaphor concept as a reflection of the mind's changing in the course of time.\n\nThe psychoanalytic temporal metaphor concept relates to the linguistic one in the following way: linguistically, as just mentioned, the purpose of metaphor is to see something, understand something, or mutatively interpret something in terms of something else. Psychoanalytically, _in terms of something else_ becomes _in terms of another time._ in the enacted transference, the present is understood in terms of the past and in the interpreted transference the past is understood in terms of the present. An analysand misses a session, having overslept. The analyst's thoughts, guided by the present transference picture, move to the analysand's earlier experiences in life or in the analysis to find a possible hint for why the analysand's absence occurred. A specific problematic event in the present is, in principle, understood in terms of previous, now unconsciously reenacted, experiences. At the same time, such a present enactment can lead to new material from the past. For example, if the analysand were to experience a present vacation-related interruption of the analysis as abandonment, the analyst, drawing attention to this transference enactment, may gain access to childhood abandonment experiences, which can now be interpreted for the first time from an adult perspective.\n\nIt may turn out, for example, that what was originally experienced as abandonment was a separation due to a parent's illness. In both these just mentioned cases, the analyst will try to establish a metaphoric in-terms-of relationship between an experience in the past now resonating with an experience in the present. The aim is to overcome a sterile metonymic repetition in which the past cannot inform the present in a way that is sensitive to the new context.\n\nMetaphor as principle, structure, and process underlies the mind's functioning. Metaphoric processes, in an ongoing way, reinterpret and change one's self and one's world (Bruner, 1987). Given the discussion so far, attempts to integrate the concept of temporal metaphor with psycho- dynamic concepts of the mind are of obvious importance. Today, metaphor is also researched as an important principle, structure, and process not only of the mind, but also on the level of the brain's neuronal functioning (see Lakoff, 2008).\n\n### A Temporal View of Interpretation, Transference, and Defense\n\nTo integrate psychoanalysis and the theory of metaphor and metonymy, it is necessary to show that the main psychoanalytic dynamic concepts, namely transference, interpretation, and defense, actively structure the relationship between time domains\u2014either in a metaphoric way in the case of health, or in a metonymic way in the case of neurosis.\n\nLet us look at a temporal view of interpretation: in the case of health, where present and past can recursively reach each other, an interpretation is metaphorically mutative; in neurosis, where present and past are unable to communicate, an individual's self-interpretation becomes metonymic, nonmutative, and repetitious, and is in need of the analyst's interpretation.\n\nLet us look at a temporal view of defense: according to the classic theory of defense, defending and that which is defended against are seen as discretely opposed entities assignable to the specific agencies ego, id, and superego. Yet, such a nontemporal assignment runs into logical and clinical diffculties: What serves a defending function at one moment can be defended against in the next; and what was defended against can likewise assume the role of defender. Therefore, no matter how ego, id, and superego are defined, they can be found simultaneously on the side of defending as well as defended against mentation. Only a temporal, as opposed to a content- or function-related, view can help to differentiate between defending and defended: We can assign the defending to the present domain and the defended to a past domain. It is, after all, something that happened in the past that evokes a defending in the present so as to avoid anxiety.\n\nThis temporal view of defending and defended can accommodate clinical observations where passions like perversions defend against guilt-laden phantasies. In the received, logically and clinically flawed, parlance, this would amount to the id defending against the ego and the superego.\n\nAssertions regarding the superiority of drive theory, object-relations theory, intersubjective theories, and others, are closely connected to how the relationship between defending and defended parts of the mind are understood. A concept of defense based on temporality allows us to put aside the sterile discussions whether thoughts defend against drives or whether relationships in the here and now defend against relationships of the then and there, etc. Drives, object relations, intersubjective relations, self-objects, part-objects, are aspects of the simultaneously occurring defending as well as the defended parts of mentation, and there is, therefore, no need to play one theory out against the others. What is now relevant relates metaphorically or metonymically to what was then relevant, whatever we call it. In summary, the structure of the neurotic defense (the relationship between the defending and the defended-against aspects of defense) is a metonymic one; the structure of the healthy defense is a metaphoric one.\n\nThe point I am making here for psychoanalysis and, therefore, for the mind's temporal functioning, is this: in the optimal functioning or healthy mind, experiences have to be reinterpretable with the changing context of an individual's personal narrative. Experiences can be reinterpreted if they have been integrated in a context-sensitive, that is, a healthy way. Such integration means that the present experience can be seen metaphorically in terms of previous experiences, and the meanings of these previous experiences change in terms of the new experience (Johnson, 1987). The new experience interprets the old one, updating it and changing it so that it can become a meaningful precursor for the ever-changing narrative.\n\nAlthough psychoanalysis cannot change a person's past as it occurred, it can and must change the effects the past has on the present. The past continues to mutatively interpret the present. As indicated, we can assume that such mutative change between different time domains occurs quite naturally, and mainly unconsciously, also in life outside any treatment setting. Therefore, our psychodynamic concepts, once temporally redefined, can be used to describe neurotic, as well as healthy, functioning in and outside the treatment setting.\n\nWhen the mind functions optimally, present and past relate to each other bidirectionally, both forward and backward, like the source and the target in a metaphor (Borbely, 1998). In health, with the passing of time, one time domain changes its view of the other, and by informing the other of such a change, changes the other. This bidirectional, nonlinear dialogic relationship is also characteristic of the analytic situation in which the past and present are interpreted metaphorically in terms of one another and where, based on metaphor, \"the interpenetration of all systems of experience\" can occur (Coburn, 2002, p. 657).\n\nPsychological trauma leads to an overly concrete way of experiencing. It leads to a loss of context sensitivity and, with it, to an isolation of the traumatic experience from the context-sensitive, ever-changing, mainstream of narrative processes. After a traumatic experience, a new experience, touching on issues sequestered by trauma, cannot be interpreted in terms of the traumatic one (that is, it cannot be interpreted metaphorically). The sequestered experience metanymically determines (rather than metaphorically informs) the present by rigidly inducing a defense in order to avoid unbearable anxiety.\n\nFor example, an authority figure elicits fear for a young man not only in the context of the original experience in which he was abused by his father, but for all contexts involving authority figures. The structure of the relationship between the defending mentation, namely the fear of authority, and the defended-against mentation, namely the fear of the abusive father, has become metonymic. In other words, the fear of authority relates in a rigid, linear way to a target as yet unknown. Even though it is unknown\u2014in the sense that the man does not have conscious access to it\u2014such a target exerts its power by rigidly evoking a specific defense in the present. By falsely locating the source of anxiety in the present, rather than in the past, the past cannot inform and be integrated with the present and the future. As a result, the man's ability to comprehend the present is impaired, and his creative potential in the here and now is diminished. Thus he is said to be neurotic, or, put differently, time-confused.\n\n### The Metaphoric Process as Equivalence in Motion\n\nTo orient itself, the infant's and adult's mind has to be able to establish metaphoric and positive metonymic equivalences. This occurs within a supraordinate metaphoric _currency_ (Modell, 1997b) of meaningfulness across myriads of dimensions, so that concepts, sensations, categories, values, identities, needs, and plans become commensurable and, thus, translatable into one another regarding their narrative meaning. The metaphoric process is the making of new meaning (hausman, 1984, p. 92). It establishes a hitherto unknown equivalence in form of a meaningful anticipation. It is the currency within which changing mental organizations can be negotiated. As already mentioned, the metaphoric process reassigns, at each moment, which among the mental entities should be seen as relating in an in-terms-of and which in a belongs-to or stands-for relationship.\n\nLet us look at some such meaningful equivalencies across different sensory registers. For the infant, mother's soothing voice in the domain of sound is the same and not the same as her tender stroking in the domain of touching. Can these cross-modal sensations be understood metonymically as standing for something, for example, as two forms of satisfying a need? or are they to be understood metaphorically, in terms of something else, for example in terms of mother's mood at the moment? does mother's smile metonymically stand for her approval of the infant's behavior, or does it have to be seen metaphorically, in terms of something else going on in the mother? like the poet, the young child, to borrow a phrase from R. Posner (1982), \"makes use of non-precoded properties of language\" or observations (p. Ix).\n\nImmaturity or trauma can cause confusion regarding the metaphoric or metonymic connection between mental entities or relationships. The infant's immature mind might see the bottle metonymically as an extension, or stand-in, for the mother's breast. The child who has been beaten by the father may, from then on, see father\u2014and future authority figures\u2014almost exclusively as an authority to be feared. Father's metaphorical meanings in terms of a role model, a friend, a caregiver, or a loved-one subject to moods cannot any more be fully experienced. Both immaturity and trauma can degrade a potentially metaphoric integrative experience to a metonymic concrete one.\n\nThe fundamental importance of metaphor for understanding the mind's functioning cannot be overstressed, even though here we can only highlight a few further points. Metaphor, unlike metonymy, creates new categories that allow for learning, maturational change and innovation. Metaphor integrates the old with the new by bringing memory and anticipation into the here and now. Accordingly, it has aspects of both succession and simultaneity (Vrobel et al., 2008) and can move from discursiveness to image (Langer, 1957).\n\nConsider a situation in which the analyst is seen in a metonymical form of transference as an authority figure to be feared. Once interpreted metaphorically, the analyst can again be experienced as the coinquirer into the analysand's way of functioning; as a result, the analysand can become more creative and able to relate to the present more realistically, rather than to live in a pseudo-present filled with unrecognized ghosts of the past.\n\nBy showing how trauma can cause an event to be experienced metonymically, transference interpretation thus allows for the possibility of upgrading such experiencing to a metaphoric integration with its open-endedness and enigmatic resilience. It can bring together the relevant elements of different times into the simultaneity of a now (Vrobel, 2006), from which past, present, and future can be recast. Interpretation as curing means metaphorization of lost or lacking metaphoricity.\n\nThe metaphoric process is comparable to a tune connecting antecedent and subsequent. It is our ability to connect the memory of the preceding note, which still lingers on in our consciousness of the present, with the note we anticipate to follow it. This ability enables us to perceive a meaningful entity, a tune, as opposed to a succession of uncorrelated, isolated notes. Therefore, we must assume the now to be extended \"in order to host retention and protention\" (Vrobel et al., 2008, p. 5). The metaphoric process is the basis for narrative coherence regarding memory and anticipation.\n\n### Summary of the Expanded and Temporal Definition of Transference, Interpretation, and Defense\n\nTo accomplish the integration of psychodynamics with metaphor theory as so far outlined, the notions transference, interpretation, and defense have to be conceived in a somewhat broader but also simpler way. Seeing transference, interpretation, and defense as corresponding to their temporal metaphoric or metonymic structure can accomplish the three goals mentioned at the beginning of this discussion: to find a framework language through which divergent psychoanalytic schools can express themselves and communicate with each other; to bridge the gap between psychoanalysis and other cognitive sciences where there is an increasing consensus that the mind (and possibly the brain) functions metaphorically and metonymically; and that the basic psycho-dynamic concepts become equally useful to describe the neurotic and the non-neurotic aspects of the mind's functioning.\n\nLet us start with the expanded definition of _transference:_ all influences originating in the past and targeting the present will be seen as aspects of transference. There are three aspects of transference in this broader sense: (a) transference in the narrower, received sense; (b) the defended-against mentation; and, (c) the return-of-the-repressed mentation. These three aspects are, according to this redefinition, synonyms referring to transference in a specific clinical context.\n\nWe continue now with a broader definition of _interpretation:_ all influences originating in the present and targeting the past will be seen as aspects of interpretation. The three aspects of interpretation in this broader sense are: (a) interpretation in the narrow, received sense; (b) the defending mentation; and (c) the mentation holding the past in abeyance. These three aspects are, according to this redefinition, synonyms referring to interpretation in a specific clinical context.\n\nSince the direction of influence differs between transference in the broad sense and interpretation in the broad sense, we can construct temporally bidirectional pairings of above synonymous aspects. We get the following equivalences: _interpretation of transference_ is equivalent with _defending against the defended_ and with _holding in abeyance against the return of the repressed._ The pair _defending and defended against_ can be called _defense complex_ or, briefly, _defense._ We now come to the following important and clarifying formulation: \"Defense is the interpretation of transference.\" This formulation, with its temporal and metaphoric\/metonymic implications allows for a recasting of frozen parts of psychoanalytic theory in order to achieve the goals just mentioned.\n\nThe phrase _interpretation of transference_ is familiar to us from our practice, where it is one of the ways we try to promote insight. Seeing interpretation of transference as synonymous with _defending and defended against_ allows us to understand that the analyst's interpreting the transference is aimed at the change of a neurotic into a healthy form of defense.\n\nIn the example described earlier, concerning the analysand who was abused by his father, the analyst's interpretation is the transfiguration of a metonymically structured defense into a metaphorically structured one. Put differently, it is a remetaphorization of a trauma-based loss of metaphoricity. At first, the analysand experienced the neurotic part of the transference metonymically: he regarded the analyst as a childhood figure without the awareness that the tension between present and past had collapsed from two temporal domains into one. We recall here that, in linguistics, metonymy is defined as articulating a source and target within the same domain.\n\nWe have described the neurotic and healthy variants of transference, interpretation, and defense. As already indicated, we postulate that at any time the mind functions, in the main unconsciously, by interpreting its transferences such that the present and past maintain the metaphoric tension allowing for mutual and mutative interpretations.\n\n## **The Enduring Enigma of the Sphinx**\n\nThe process of metaphorization occurs not only within the changing mind but also within theory development. At one time, Freud metaphorized such hither to dualistically understood psychological concepts as motivation versus sexuality, motivation versus unconscious processes, personality development versus sexual development, remembering versus enacting, and many others, by seeing them in terms of each other. He discovered the intrinsic relationship between these hitherto only extrinsically related notions. His most famous metaphorization was the Oedipus complex, in which the triangular relationships between father, mother and child were seen in terms of passions conceived as incestuous sexuality and aggression.\n\nOedipus, according to the Greek legend, solved the riddle presented by the sphinx, which had caused such devastation for the population of Thebes. But in doing so, Oedipus bypassed the enigma contained in what we could call the sphinx complex: how was the sphinx able to tempt so many young men to their death? Why did these would-be heroes perish after not understanding something of great importance, which, as it turned out, had to do with the notion of the life cycle of childhood, adulthood, and old age? What kind of creature or event was half male, half female; half human, half animal? What was the function of the Sphinx's gravity defying wings? Why did the sphinx need to kill herself when Oedipus uncovered her secret? What was the great danger and great promise all about? (see Roheim, 1934, regarding the sphinx as representing the primal scene.)\n\nOedipus had to enact what he did not understand. He made the prophecy of filial rage and lust come to pass by killing his father and marrying his mother. When the truth was revealed, his mother, like the sphinx, killed herself. His unbearable guilt about having availed himself of mother's secret ended in self punishment through blinding himself. What one cannot metaphorize one has to enact, as is well known from clinical experience where enactments are observed when metonymic transferences remain without adequate metaphoric interpretation.\n\nIt was Freud's genius that solved the Sphinx's enigma by conceptualizing the Oedipus complex. What Oedipus understood too concretely, Freud was able to metaphorize. This is what the analyst does when interpreting. Metaphorizing means to make something more interesting by clarifying it while illuminating the ensuing enigma. But metaphorization needs to be kept up lest it becomes metonymic both clinically and theoretically.\n\nIn view of the puzzling existence of so many divergent psychoanalytic schools, we can now ask: What was it, in analogy to Oedipus, which Freud and his disciples were enacting and thus remained unaware of? it was building theory only on the level of metaphoric clarification\u2014and leaving out the crucial second step of metaphorization, namely enigmatization. Clarification without metaphoric enigmatization leads to dichotomies, thus reducing the flexibility of even the most creative concepts. As a result of this shortcoming, psychoanalytic theory became increasingly metonymic, filled with hard-to-resolve dichotomies resisting metaphorization. I am defining dichotomies as pairs of concepts that oppose or exclude each other and are left without mediation. This can be remedied by suffusing psychoanalytic theory with metaphor theory.\n\n### _**Psychoanalytic Schools and Their Pitfalls of Dichotomous Thinking**_\n\nMetaphor mediates between two separate entities, and thus can be used as an antidote to dichotomies. The concepts _primary process_ and _secondary process_ can serve as an example. Mediation between these exclusionary processes is achieved with the concept _metaphoric process._ The metaphoric process, like the primary process, entails displacements and condensations of meaning and, like the secondary process, is reality-oriented. The metaphoric process, neither fully irrational nor fully rational, can be said to represent imaginative rationality. As such, it is a process occurring between the edge of chaos and the edge of stagnation. It is the creative self-organizing process that occurs on a daily basis in parts of the mind that are not neurotically impaired. Metaphorizing has to be an ongoing process in order for the mind not to become metonymic.\n\nThe theories developed by the different psychoanalytic schools, having remained insuffciently metaphorized, are therefore burdened with a multitude of dichotomies. Starting with Freud and the orthodox Freudians, we encounter the following dichotomies, most of which we have only touched upon: The just mentioned primary versus secondary process was not mediated by conceptualizing a metaphoric process; psychodynamic concepts solely pertaining versus not solely pertaining to the treatment setting remained not mediated by a theory where the interplay of transference, interpretation, and defense is seen as occurring in and outside the treatment setting; defense versus defended against was not mediated by a theory of their metaphoric or metonymic relationship; transference versus interpretation versus defense were seen in their external, functional relationship and remained not mediated through a theory of their being congruent with each other as temporal metaphors; interpretation of transference versus defending against the defended was not mediated by a theory of their being synonymous; the concepts conscious versus unconscious were not mediated through a concept of awareness that could include both.\n\nThe Jungians, perhaps sensing the dichotomy of acceptable rationality versus unacceptable irrationality, developed theories trying to integrate enigmatic aspects of life. The Kleinians sensed, perhaps, the lack of an elaborated temporal theory as they developed a theory of successive paranoid and depressive positions, where patterns of organization rather than specific contents are emphasized as relevant for the interplay between developmental and transferential issues. The Kohutians sensed, perhaps, the dichotomy of drive-based motivation versus motivation resulting from interpersonal influences and, with it, the absence of a theory mediating self-interpretation and other-interpretation\u2014the analyst's or the parents'. They developed a theory integrating the influence of the parents' and the analysts' quality of empathy with the child\/analysand.\n\nAll psychoanalytic schools use their own metaphor language to connect transferential and developmental phenomena by seeing them as mutually illuminating. Each school, in its own way, brings the present transferential issues into metaphoric alignment with issues of the past, understanding one in terms of the other.\n\n## **Review and Outlook**\n\nAlthough psychoanalytic practice deals with temporality and metaphor in a mainly implicit but central manner, the psychoanalytic theories do not thematize temporality and metaphor as central notions. There are several reasons for this lag in theory: Metaphor, because of its open-endedness and its enigmatic vagueness (Tuggy, 1993), was not seen as a serious scientific subject; interpretation, an aspect of metaphor, was not seen as metaphorization of lost metaphoricity and, therefore, as both clarification and enigmatization: making something interesting, rather than being limited to solving a problem. The psychoanalytic process was not seen as a special case of ubiquitously occurring metaphoric processes in the mind. The dialogic recursivity between the present and the past time domains was not suficiently theorized. The psychodynamic concepts of transference, interpretation, and defense were, therefore, not understood as temporal metaphoric ones, and, in the case of neurosis, as temporal metonymic ones. The complexity theories' notions of nonlinearity and disequilibrium (prigogine, 1997)\u2014important aspects of metaphor\u2014were not known as essential attributes of the mind's functioning and were replaced by stifling notions of linearity and equilibrium. The notion of emergence, so important in the theory of metaphor and the developing theory of complexity, was, to some extent, thematized by psychoanalytic theory as the return of the repressed, as becoming conscious, and as getting in-touch with heretofore not integrated dynamics.\n\nMost important, transference was not generalized to mean the mutative interpretation of the present by the past and interpretation as the mutative interpretation of the past by the present. Transference, interpretation, and defense were, therefore, understood only in their extrinsic relationships. The notion of a defense complex with the two components of defending and defended was not theorized suffciently, and their relationship as source and target of a metaphor or metonymy remained unexplored. The psychodynamic pairing of these temporally bidirectional concepts, namely interpretation and transference on the one hand and defense as defending and defended against on the other hand, were not seen in their congruence. The important formula revealing the intrinsic connections between the main psychodynamic concepts, namely that _defense is the interpretation of transference,_ was not discovered. Interpretation of transference was conceptualized only as one of the analyst's activities, rather than as the mind's ubiquitous, mainly unconscious, and ongoing process in or outside any treatment setting. Accordingly, the extension of all psychodynamic concepts as relevant to the mind's general functioning, in or outside the treatment setting, could not occur because the psychoanalytic process was not seen as a special case of the mind's metaphoric processes.\n\nTo repeat, these theoretical shortcomings were the consequence of overlooking temporality and metaphoricity as the most central, albeit implicit, notions of psychoanalytic practice. The concept _metaphoric process_ remained unknown and thus could not forestall the sterile, metonymic dichotomies that became entrenched in psychoanalytic theories. Charismatic psychoanalysts, sensing the impediments of unacceptable dichotomies but not understanding their source, tried to overcome the problem by creating new theories, new languages, and new dichotomies. Many of these nonmetaphorically conceived theories had, nevertheless, staying power because they were still capable of grasping the metonymic, repetitive, neurotic aspects of the mind's functioning. Repetition was thematized, creativity (metaphor!) as a central concept of personality theory remained neglected.\n\nAs we contemplate, based on this discussion, the puzzling existence of divergent psychoanalytic schools, we should resist the following two suggestions advanced by contemporary theoreticians (Wallerstein, 2005) for solving this problem: We are asked to either research what these schools' theories have in common and hope for a diminishing divergence between them over time or find an ecumenical way of agreeing to disagree and see the burgeoning number of schools as a sign of vitality with which psychoanalytic theory advances. In both cases we would clarify, like Oedipus, a riddle but continue, like Oedipus, to enact confusion, instead of getting interested in the enigma of metaphorizing. Such enactment would further increase the distance to the cognitive sciences in general and to the unfolding complexity theory of the mind in particular. The latter, as well as the neural theory of metaphor, now in early formation (Lakoff, 2008) could be greatly advanced by introducing metaphor- and metonymy-based psychoanalytic notions.\n\n# 9  \nMETAPHOR AND  \nPSYCHODYNAMIC RESEARCH\n\n_Robert F. Bornstein and Nikaya Becker-Matero_\n\nIn recent decades psychoanalysts have examined the role of metaphor in psychodynamic theory and therapy, but the uses of metaphor in psychoanalytic research have received only modest attention. After briefly reviewing extant psychoanalytic writings on metaphor, we discuss how research from outside psychoanalysis (i.e., studies of embodied affect-space links, mental images and prototypes, and associative networks) can inform us about the nature of metaphor. We then explore the ways that metaphor deepens our understanding of psychodynamic research and its implications, focusing on metaphoric definitions of concepts, and the metaphoric features of experimental manipulations and outcome assessments. Implications of a metaphoric perspective for the empirical testing of psychoanalytic concepts are discussed, and future directions for exploration in this area are described.\n\nMetaphor has been defined as \"the mapping of one conceptual domain onto a dissimilar conceptual domain... resulting in a transfer of meaning from one to the other\" (Modell, 1997b, p. 106). As Lakoff and Johnson (1980a) noted, metaphor is not merely a rhetorical device, but a fundamental way of thinking and understanding. Metaphoric concepts connect ostensibly separate aspects of human experience, linking body and mind, emotion and memory, past and present, unconscious and conscious. Our ability to interact and communicate effectively with others depends upon a shared metaphoric understanding of ourselves and the world; intersubjectivity is inextricably grounded in metaphor. Formal definitions notwithstanding, perhaps the most useful conceptualization of metaphor is itself metaphoric: Metaphor is the glue that links disparate aspects of human mental life, over time and across different contexts, enabling us to construct cohesive personal narratives that give meaning to past and present experience.\n\nAlthough the concept of metaphor is rooted in linguistics, in recent decades psychoanalysts have noted the central role that metaphor plays in psychoanalytic theory and therapy (Borbely, 2009; Gargiulo, 2006; Katz, 2011b). Metaphor helps unify disparate psychoanalytic perspectives (e.g., drive theory, object relations theory, self psychology) and illuminates common elements of different models. Analysts have begun to explore the ways in which metaphor may be a useful tool for embedding psychoanalysis in a broader epistemological context as well, making explicit connections between psychoanalysis and other areas of inquiry (e.g., levin, 2009; Modell, 2005). In this respect metaphor has the potential to bridge the divide between psychoanalysis and other perspectives on personality (e.g., cognitive, humanistic), other areas of psychology (e.g., developmental, social), and fields outside psychology (e.g., art, physics).\n\nOne issue that has received only modest attention from analytic writers is the role of metaphor in psychoanalytic research\u2014the ways in which metaphor may help researchers test psychoanalytic hypotheses empirically, and utilize research findings from outside psychoanalysis to enhance psychoanalytic theory and therapy. This paper seeks to fill that gap by examining the role of metaphor in research, to facilitate meaningful dialogue in this area. After briefly reviewing extant psychoanalytic writings on metaphor, we address two issues in detail: 1) how research from outside psychoanalysis can inform us about the nature of metaphor; and 2) how metaphor can deepen our understanding of psychodynamic research and its implications.\n\n## **Theory, Process, and Treatment Dynamics: The Tree Prongs of Psychoanalytic Metaphor**\n\nFreud often relied on metaphor to describe psychoanalytic constructs and make esoteric concepts accessible to the reader. As Wachtel (2003) pointed out, many of these metaphors involved spatial and military imagery, sometimes in combination (e.g., Freud's [1923a\/1961] likening of fixation and regression to an army advancing through territories but leaving behind contingents of troops at various points along the way). For the most part metaphoric concepts have been applied in three domains of psychoanalysis: theory and metatheory, psychological process, and therapist\u2013 patient interaction.\n\n## **Theory and Metatheory**\n\nA diverse array of psychoanalytic constructs (e.g., psychic energy, displacement, preconscious, repression, libido) are fundamentally metaphoric. As Wurmser (1977) noted, this situation is not unique to psychoanalysis: novel concepts from various disciplines often emerge first in metaphoric form, eventually acquiring fixed labels as they become more widely accepted. Resistance to acknowledging the metaphoric underpinnings of psychoanalytic concepts can have myriad negative effects, however, leading to \"the error of misplaced concreteness\" (Gargiulo, 1998, p. 416) wherein metaphoric concepts are reified and treated as immutable entities rather than descriptive labels.\n\nMetaphor also plays an important role in psychoanalytic metatheory. Every major school of psychoanalytic thought (e.g., drive theory, self psychology, object relations theory) is identified by a metaphoric label which reflects the core assumptions characterizing that model (e.g., behavior as shaped by instinctual drives, mind-as-map, psyche as mental representations of self and significant figures). In some respects the evolution of psychoanalytic metatheory during the past 100 years has been a search for the ideal metaphor to capture in a single word or phrase all the key elements of intrapsychic functioning and interpersonal dynamics.\n\n## **Psychological Process**\n\nMetaphoric concepts have helped shape psychoanalysts' understanding of a broad spectrum of psychological processes, being applied most prominently to trauma, symbolization, memory reconstruction, and the dynamics of emotional memories. In this context, Modell (1997b, 2005) delineated the ways in which metaphoric processes help categorize and map emotional experience, providing structure and agency during periods of intense or overwhelming affect. Consistent with Modell's view, stern (2009) noted that dissociation occurs when this process fails, and memories of traumatic experiences are not infused with metaphor. As a result traumatic experiences become isolated and compartmentalized, and cannot take on new meaning: The patient is unable to apply new experiences to gain a more nuanced understanding of the traumatic event. As trauma gradually comes to be seen through a metaphoric lens, the patient can begin to experience the traumatic event as part of an evolving life narrative, linking the traumatic experience to aspects of the self and facilitating a therapeutic shift from knowing to feeling.\n\n## **Therapist\u2013Patient Interaction**\n\nSeventy years ago sharpe (1940) conceptualized free association\u2014the grist of the psychoanalytic mill\u2014as a metaphoric process in which preverbal events are expressed through speech. More recently Arlow (1979) suggested that psychoanalytic treatment _in toto_ is inherently metaphoric: The patient provides the analyst a metaphoric expression of unconscious fantasy, and the analyst engages the patient by adopting the perspective that the patient's metaphor requires. Consistent with Arlow's view, Ogden (1997) noted that a central curative element (or \"common factor\") in many psychodynamic interventions is that they help the patient replace concrete language with metaphorical dialogue.\n\nMetaphor not only provides the essential language of psychoanalytic process, but plays a key role in shaping transference by functioning as a \"pattern detector so that the meaning of an old relationship is unconsciously transferred into the here and now\" (Modell, 2005, p. 526). Borbely (1998, p. 933) captured nicely the central role of metaphor in these aspects of therapist\u2013patient interaction, noting that \"In order to be able to help the analyst must be in possession of a theory and technique of metaphor language, which is capable of conceptually encompassing the salient developmental stages, traumata and conflicts of childhood, as well as the events unfolding in the transference.\" in this respect different psychoanalytic schools may differ in the details, but they share a common goal of conceptualizing (and helping the patient conceptualize) psychological development, conflict, striving, and defense in metaphoric terms.\n\n## **How Research Informs Metaphor: Reifying the Unobservable**\n\nIn recent years psychodynamic theorists have used research findings from outside psychoanalysis to explore the ways that metaphor can enhance our understanding of a broad array of psychoanalytic concepts. The most widely discussed links involve neuropsychology, wherein research on brain structure and function has elucidated the biological underpinnings of unconscious mental processes, helped trace the evolutionary roots of human behavioral predispositions, and been used to examine the interplay of neuropsychological, social, and cultural influences on affective experience and emotional responding (e.g., Modell, 2005; slipp, 2000).\n\nDevelopmental studies\u2014especially those focusing on early infant-caregiver interactions\u2014have also garnered considerable attention. Research in this area has provided an empirical basis for distinguishing primary\u2014or \"root\"\u2014metaphors (i.e., metaphors that originate in pre-verbal bodily awareness), from metaphors that are more strongly shaped by experience (Modell, 1997b). Developmental studies have also enhanced analysts' understanding of the ways in which variations in infant-caregiver mirroring (itself a metaphoric concept) shape subsequent personality dynamics (stern, 2009).\n\nCognitive science has been a third area of emphasis, with cognitive research helping elucidate the role of metaphor in contextualizing memories, and the process by which retrieval of schema-based memories inevitably results in some degree of distortion and reconstruction (Michels, 2005). These latter findings have been particularly relevant for understanding the long-term negative effects of early trauma, and the obstacles to accessing and working through traumatic memories in psychoanalytic treatment.2\n\nBeyond these widely studied topics, a number of research programs from outside psychoanalysis have the potential to enhance our understanding of the psychodynamics of metaphor. Tree stand out.\n\n## **Metaphorizing the Environment: Embodied Affect-Space Links**\n\nCentral to contemporary psychodynamic models of metaphor is the assumption that there are inborn, pre-existing connections between affect and bodily experience, sometimes described as _embodied affect-space links_. For example, there appears to be an innate association between upward gaze or movement and positive affect (as reified in the assumption that heaven is skyward, and the common comment that \"things are looking up\"), and a parallel association between downward gaze or movement and negative affect (which is why hell is below us and sometimes we \"feel down\"). Until recently evidence for embodied affect-space links was primarily anecdotal, but research from social cognition has provided empirical support for psychoanalytic thinking in this area.\n\nFor example, Meier and Robinson (2004) found that evaluations of affectively positive words occurred more rapidly when those words were presented in the upper portion of the visual field, whereas evaluations of negative words occurred more rapidly when these words were presented in the lower portion of the visual field; presumably our tendency to associate \"up\" with positive affect and \"down\" with negative affect facilitated cognitive processing when affect and word position were concordant. In a subsequent series of studies Meier et al. (2007a) found that participants encoded God-related concepts more easily if those concepts were presented in a high (versus low) vertical position; the opposite pattern was obtained for devil-related concepts. A second study demonstrated that when participants were presented with God- and devil-related concepts and later asked to recall the physical location of each concept, they showed a bias toward misremembering God-related concepts as being high and devil-related concepts as being low. When shown pictures of strangers and asked to assess their religious beliefs, participants rated strangers as stronger believers in God when their pictures appeared high in the visual field.\n\nStudies further suggest that these highly automatized metaphor-affect links are not limited to vertical position. For example, Meier et al. (2007b) found that people perceive positive words as being brighter in color than negative words, which appear comparatively dark (even though all the words were actually presented in the same shade). Meier et al. (2008) demonstrated that, metaphorically speaking, bigger is indeed better: positive words were evaluated more rapidly when presented in a large font, whereas evaluations of negative words were more rapid when their font was small. These size biases occur for neutral words as well: in a follow-up experiment affectively neutral words were evaluated as being more positive when their font was large, and more negative when their font was small.\n\n## **Internalizing the External: Imagery as Metaphor**\n\nEach individual's internal world can be conceptualized as a metaphoric representation of the external world. We construct and retain mental images of significant figures (e.g., mother, father, self ) that have both physical attributes and affect qualities (e.g., benevolence, punitiveness, empathy, rigidity; see Blatt, et al. 1993). We construct mental images of other features of the external world as well (e.g., common objects, familiar environments), and like mental representations of significant figures, our mental images of inanimate objects are to some degree veridical, and to some degree distorted. These distortions reflect constraints inherent in the human information processing system (e.g., external percepts are reconstructed as they are encoded in memory), and psychodynamic processes as well (e.g., affective experiences which bias the ways in which we perceive and encode object features). Some of our internalized images need not reflect external reality at all: Many mental images depict people or places we have never actually seen (which is why we can generate an image of an ideal lover we've never met, or what the stairways inside the World trade Center must have looked like on 9\/11).\n\nResearch on the metaphoric aspects of mental imagery may point toward a deeper understanding of the ways in which person and object representations shape behavior and affective responding. Like affect-space links, our mental representations of self and others reflect innate predispositions to encode images in particular ways. Thus, cognitive scientists have shown that mental images must be conceptually categorized before they can be encoded in long-term memory (Finke, 1989; Kosslyn, 1994); there is no such thing as an \"uncategorized\" mental image. As we form mental images we integrate objective features of the stimulus with an array of expectancy and experience variables that modify the initial percept, transferring meaning into the image (thus, a photograph of a person is encoded differently when the person is identified as a criminal than when they are identified as a scientist; see Bornstein & Craver-Lemley, 2004).\n\nPrototypes\u2014exemplary members of a conceptual category\u2014also illustrate the ways in which mental images have metaphoric qualities (Corneille et al., 2004). When asked to picture a dog, few people generate an image of a dachshund, but instead generate a more prototypic dog, like a retriever. People judge retrievers to be \"doggier\" dogs than dachshunds, and hence more prototypic (Rosch, 1978). The same occurs with psychodynamically relevant prototypes, so that as transference occurs and an older male therapist takes on more and more paternal attributes, the therapist gradually comes to resemble the patient's \"father\" prototype. Metaphorically speaking, the therapist has replaced the father (see Borbely, 1998, 2009, for more general discussions of metaphoric aspects of transference).\n\n## **Metaphoric Associates: Accessing the Unconscious**\n\nCentral to the definition of metaphor is that meaning is transferred among ostensibly unrelated concepts; through this process connections among different objects, ideas, and experiences are created, and associative links are developed and maintained (Fosshage, 2005; Melnick, 2000). Some of these metaphoric connections seem logical and rational (as when unfamiliar authority figures take on parental attributes); other metaphoric connections have a more idiosyncratic, primary process quality (as when smiling clowns appear threatening and malevolent).\n\nMetaphoric links among tangentially related concepts can be quantified using the emotional stroop task (est; Riemann & McNally, 1995), a laboratory procedure designed to map an individual's associative network by determining the degree to which a concept within that network is active at any given moment. On the est a prime word (e.g., Father) is first presented, following which a target word (e.g., STRONG) appears. The target word is presented in one of several colors (e.g., blue, green, red), and the participant's task is to ignore the content of the target word and name the color in which that word is printed as quickly as possible. To the extent that the prime word (Father) is conceptually linked with the target word (STRONG) in the mind of the participant, the target word will be activated by the prime word, and reaction time will slow because the participant must devote additional attentional capacity to deliberately ignoring the activated concept and focusing on the color\u2014an effortful, time-consuming task (see William et al., 1996). Thus, est response times are typically slower when Father is followed by STRONG than when Father is followed by TABLE, suggesting that most people have a stronger associative link between the first two concepts than the latter two concepts.\n\nThe est can also be used to examine individual and group differences in associative links (Bornstein et al., 2005; Dozois & Backs-dermott, 2000), helping quantify the \"transfer of meaning from one to the other\" (Modell, 1997b, p. 106) that forms the basis of metaphor. For example, most psychodynamic frameworks would suggest stronger associations between Father and DANGEROUS in men than in women, so est response times for this word pair should be longer in men. Women who have been sexually abused by their father should show longer reaction times to this word pair than women who have not been sexually abused. To the extent that the Father = DANGEROUS equivalence has generalized metaphorically to other male authority figures, one would expect that abused women's reaction times for HUSBAND (or MAN) and DANGEROUS would also be lengthened.\n\nUsing similar logic, the degree to which therapist is metaphorically linked with Mother, Father, or parent can be evaluated using the est, as can the degree to which SICK is associated with POWERFUL (if, e.g., the clinician believes that a particular patient is motivated to remain symptomatic to gain influence within the family). Finally, it is worth noting that changes in associative linkages over the course of treatment can be evaluated using this procedure. For example, est reaction times for thin and Good should decrease in an anorexic patient during the course of successful treatment, but remain unchanged in an anorexic patient for whom treatment was less successful.\n\n## **How Metaphor Informs Research: Inside the Freudian Skinner Box**\n\nFreud's liberal use of metaphor has led some philosophers of science (e.g., Grunbaum, 1984) and critics of psychoanalysis (e.g., Crews, 1996) to describe Freud's work\u2014and much of the theorizing that followed\u2014as unscientific. Freudians are hardly alone in their reliance on metaphor to identify and describe unobservable constructs, however. Many core concepts in physics (e.g., black holes), biology (e.g., natural selection), and chemistry (e.g., molecular bonds) are metaphoric. As Wurmser (1977, p. 483) pointed out, \"Metaphors, taken literally, are unscientific. Metaphors, understood as symbols, are the only language of science we possess....\" Edelson (1983, p. 56) put it more directly: \"A scientific theory is a metaphor for reality... it is only through our studies of the metaphors of science that we can come to find out which is real.\"\n\nIn this respect a focus on metaphor may help inform psychodynamic research, and illuminate the ways in which the empirical testing of psychoanalytic hypotheses overlaps with and differs from the empirical testing of hypotheses in other domains. In the following sections we discuss the role of metaphor in delineating scientific concepts, developing useful experimental manipulations, and quantifying the impact of these manipulations on thought, emotion, and behavior.\n\n## **Naming the Unobservable: Metaphoric Concepts**\n\nNaming the unobservable is invariably metaphoric, and because all theories of personality invoke unobservable theoretical constructs, all rest upon metaphor. The left column of table 9.1 lists some widely used psychodynamic constructs, many of which are clearly metaphoric in nature (e.g., repression, ego, repetition compulsion). The right column of this table lists parallel labels for these concepts that were developed by researchers in other, more \"scientific\" areas of inquiry. Perusal of these alternative labels confirms that they too are metaphoric (e.g., cognitive avoidance, central executive, nuclear script). As Bornstein (2005) pointed out, even though operational definitions of the psychoanalytic and non-analytic versions of these constructs typically differ in certain respects, in every instance there is considerable overlap between the two versions of a given construct.3\n\nIt is important that psychoanalysts become familiar with the operational definitions of key psychodynamic concepts, and with the operational definitions of parallel non-analytic concepts, for two reasons. First, by doing this our theoretical frameworks will become more rigorous, and more firmly embedded in an appropriate nomological network of related constructs: researchers in other areas have much to teach us if we attend to their ideas and findings more closely. Second, by becoming familiar with the various definitions applied to a given concept we will be in a better position to prevent these concepts from being co-opted by researchers in other disciplines. Myriad seminal constructs originating in psychoanalytic theory (including those listed in table 9.1) have been renamed and reinvented by non-analytic psychologists, who gradually assumed intellectual ownership of the co-opted constructs (see Bornstein, 2005, 2007b). This process has contributed substantially to the decline of psychoanalysis within mainstream psychology in recent years.\n\n_Table 9.1_ Revisions and Reinventions of Psychoanalytic Concepts\n\n_Psychoanalytic Concept_ | _Psychoanalytic Concept_  \n---|---  \nUnconscious Memory (1900\/1953a) | Implicit Memory  \nPrimary Process Though (1900\/1953a) | Spreading Activation  \nObject Representation (1905\/1953b) | Person Schema  \nRepression (1910\/1957a) | Cognitive Avoidance  \nPreconscious Processing (1915\/1957b | Preattentive Processing  \nParapraxis (1916\/1963) | Retrieval Error  \nAbreaction (1916\/1963) | Redintegration  \nRepetition Compulsion (1920\/1955) | Nuclear Script  \nEgo (1923\/1961) | Central Executive  \nEgo Defense (1926\/1959) | Defensive Attribution\n\n_Note_ : Original Freudian sources are identified by year of original publication\/date of corresponding Hogarth Press _Standard Edition_ volume.\n\n## **Operationalizing Phenomenology: Metaphoric Manipulations**\n\nEvery experimental manipulation is a metaphor for in vivo experience; the more closely the phenomenological impact of a manipulation approximates that of the real-world experience we are trying to evoke, the more effective the manipulation. This principle can be restated in empirical terms: The external validity of an experimental manipulation is a function of the degree to which that manipulation produces the intended psychological impact in participants (e.g., evokes the desired emotional response, initiates a thought pattern, alters a motivational state).\n\nThus, when examining the impact of affect state on self-report and free-response measures of interpersonal dependency, Bornstein et al. (1996) asked participants to write brief essays regarding traumatic events, joyful events, or neutral events to induce a corresponding mood. In a subsequent investigation examining the impact of the presence (versus absence) of an authority figure on dependency related behavior, Bornstein (2006) employed an experimental manipulation wherein some participants were told that a psychology professor would soon arrive at the laboratory to evaluate their performance in the study, and other participants were told that no one but the undergraduate experimenter would have access to their data. In this instance the unseen professor was a metaphoric stand-in for authority figures in general.\n\nSimilar logic holds for other psychodynamically relevant research programs. For example, subliminal psychodynamic activation (spa) researchers frequently use the subliminal message MOMMY and I are one to evoke pleasurable feelings associated with Mahler's (1968) symbiotic stage, when infant and caregiver were psychologically merged (Weinberger & Hardaway, 1990). Conversely, I AM LOSING MOMMY has been used to induce feelings of helplessness and abandonment (Patton, 1992). Along somewhat different lines, Pennebaker (1997) has documented the positive effects of cathartic unburdening of negative affect by asking participants to write essays regarding traumatic events and experiences. In these studies essay writing replaces more traditional verbal disclosure (e.g., free association) as a method for accessing heretofore unexpressed thoughts and emotions.\n\n## **Quantifying Impact: Measurement as Metaphor**\n\nJust as experimental manipulations are metaphoric replacements for in vivo experiences, the outcome measures used in most studies are metaphors for in vivo responses. For example, the Rorschach inkblots are just that\u2014inkblots\u2014but descriptions of these inkblots are taken to represent respondents' perceptions and experiences of self and other people (see Exner & Erdberg, 2005). Put another way, when a respondent's descriptions of inkblots are filled with malevolent imagery, we assume (and data confirm) that these malevolent attributions taint the respondent's perceptions of actual people as well (Blatt, 1990; Lerner, 2005). Simply asking someone if they see others as dangerous is likely to produce a defensive reaction at best, and at worst outright hostility; asking someone to describe inkblots allows them to make malevolent misattributions without acknowledging (or even recognizing) their source (Bornstein, 2007a).\n\nThe notion that measurement is metaphor for in vivo response is not limited to inkblots, but occurs for a broad array of psychological assessment tools. Following Milgram's (1963) groundbreaking obedience studies there have been dozens of experiments examining conditions that exacerbate or inhibit people's willingness to behave aggressively toward others. But none of these investigations measured actual aggression (nor did Milgram): in every case aggression was operationalized metaphorically and assessed indirectly (e.g., willingness to shock another person during a \"learning study,\" severity of prison sentence assigned to a mock trial defendant, number of personal fouls committed during a hockey game).\n\nIt is important to recognize the metaphoric aspect of measured outcomes, because if we do not we risk erroneously equating the measurement with the underlying variable it is intended to represent. Such equivalence errors\u2014akin to Gargiulo's (1998, p. 416) \"error of misplaced concreteness\"\u2014are surprisingly common in psychology. For example, a survey of five leading personality disorder (PD) journals revealed that 80% of all PD studies published between 1991 and 2000 relied exclusively on self-reports to assess both personality pathology and its correlates; no behaviors were ever measured in these investigations (Bornstein, 2003). Such patterns would be troubling in the best of circumstances, but are especially problematic given the topic being examined. After all, a distinguishing feature of PDs is limited insight and distorted self-awareness (Kernberg, 1984; Millon, 1996). It is ironic (to say the least) that the vast majority of PD studies rely exclusively on questionnaires, when we know _a priori_ that the questionnaire responses of PD patients are almost certain to be unreliable.4\n\n## **Reconnecting Psychoanalysis to Mainstream Psychology: Can Metaphor Glue the Person Together Again?**\n\nPsychoanalysts' historical reluctance to embrace traditional empirical methods has had numerous unintended negative effects, including the co-opting of psychoanalytic ideas by researchers in other areas, and the marginalization of psychodynamic treatment in an increasingly cost-constrained managed care environment (Bornstein, 2001, 2005). Reconnecting psychoanalysis to mainstream psychology is crucial if psychodynamic principles and therapies are to regain the stature they had during the early part of the twentieth century. Although metaphor is essentially idiographic in nature (see Arlow, 1979; Gargiulo, 1998), it has the potential to contribute to a fruitful integration of psychoanalytic and non-analytic perspectives, and to nomothetic as well as idiographic research efforts. In this context the parallels between metaphoric and nomothetic understanding of internal and external reality, though subtle, are noteworthy. One function of metaphor is to contextualize emotional memories, tagging them with a sort of affect label that facilitates retrieval of these memories when similar situations arise in ostensibly unrelated contexts years\u2014even decades\u2014 later. Nomothetic research serves a similar function: it contextualizes discipline-wide principles (\"scientific memories\") to facilitate retrieval of these principles when similar results emerge in new, ostensibly unrelated contexts (see Bornstein, 2009, for a discussion of this process in the evolution of personality assessment, quantum theory, and nonrepresentational art).\n\nPsychoanalysis is in a unique position to conceptualize and study metaphor in the laboratory, as it has in the consulting room. Continued efforts in this area represent an opportunity to strengthen the empirical base of psychoanalysis, and increase the relevance of psychoanalytic research for clinicians. Equally important, a focus on metaphor may provide one of the best opportunities to identify those psychoanalytic constructs that have been co-opted, renamed, and reinvented by researchers in other disciplines. In this respect understanding the contrasting metaphoric labels used by psychoanalysts and others to identify similar psychological constructs represents a unique opportunity for us to reclaim what is ours.\n\nUnderstanding scientific metaphors is key, but scrutinizing the pseudo-scientific metaphors that are sometimes used to describe psychological constructs is important as well. Oftentimes patients have internalized misleading metaphors to understand mind and brain, leading them to develop inaccurate beliefs about psychological difficulties and unrealistic expectations regarding psychological treatments (e.g., that the effects of early trauma will dissipate immediately if repressed memories of the traumatic events can be accessed). Worse, countless patients have been harmed by well-meaning clinicians who internalized misleading metaphors (e.g., memory as film or computer hard drive rather than sketchpad, dissociative identity disorder as literally reflecting multiple personalities rather than a fragmented ego\/self ). Understanding how research informs metaphor (and vice versa) can help correct the distortions associated with reliance on pseudo-scientific metaphors in our patients, and in ourselves.\n\nA similar process of self-scrutiny may be useful in understanding the limitations of the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_ (DSM) as a tool for classifying psychopathology. Many DSM category labels have become metaphors for the syndromes they are intended to identify, and we find ourselves describing patients in metaphoric terms (e.g., \"a flaming borderline,\" \"a toxic narcissist\"). Exacerbating the problem, DSM category labels have become so widely used that many are now dead metaphors, having lost their metaphoric qualities. In this context one important contribution of the _Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual_ (PDM) is that it calls our attention to the fact that DSM categories represent only one of many possible metaphoric frameworks for describing psychological syndromes. To the extent that the PDM helps clinicians see the metaphoric qualities of DSM labels more clearly, it can enhance the rigor of both diagnostic systems.\n\nFinally, as the study of metaphor moves forward, it may be time to shift our focus from general principles of metaphoric process to individual differences in metaphor use. Beyond emphasizing the fundamental role that metaphor plays in thinking and understanding, Lakoff and Johnson's (1980a) work illustrates how different groups(e.g., liberals and conservatives) differ in their use of metaphor to conceptualize various issues. Although initial research in this area focused on individual differences in political attitudes and beliefs, the same principles hold for other individual difference variables as well (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity). Examining differences in metaphoric process in different types of patients (e.g., histrionic versus borderline) may allow us to tailor our interventions more precisely and enhance the effectiveness of psychodynamic treatment.\n\nThus, in addition to elucidating the role of metaphor in psychoanalytic theory, and the ways in which metaphor may deepen our understanding of research and its implications, it is time to explore differences in metaphor as a function of gender, culture, personality style, and other psychologically relevant variables. A truly integrative twenty-first century psychoanalysis must not only combine clinical wisdom with empirical data, and embed its ideas and findings in the broadest possible epistemological context, but it must also refine its interventions to maximize treatment effectiveness for patients with a broad array of backgrounds and diverse life experiences.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n originally published in _Psychoanalytic_ _Inquiry_ 31(2): pp. 172\u2013184 with the title \"Reconnecting psychoanalysis to Mainstream psychology: Metaphor as Glue.\"\n\n although numerous analytic writers have drawn upon studies from cognitive science to test and refine psychodynamic concepts, Michels (2005) pointed out that many constructs in contemporary cognitive science are flexible enough that they can be incorporated into extant psychodynamic frameworks without altering these frameworks in substantive ways (cf. Bucci, 1997).\n\n Behaviorists might argue that behavioral models\u2014especially radical behavioral models\u2014are metaphor-free, but they would be wrong. Myriad behavioral constructs (e.g., generalization, discrimination, unconditioned stimulus, avoidance learning, intermittent reinforcement) are to varying degrees metaphoric.\n\n PD researchers are not alone in their implicit equating of self-reports with the underlying variables assessed by self-report measures. Although the Five Factor Model (FFM; Costa & McCrae, 1997) is far and away the dominant model of personality in scientific psychology today, the vast majority of FFM studies rely exclusively on self-reports to assess personality as well as its correlates.\n\n# 10  \nPSYCHOANALYTIC  \nFIELD CONCEPTS\n\n_S. Montana Katz_\n\nField concepts currently in use in psychoanalysis may be viewed as special cases of general psychoanalytic fields. Existing field concepts include the fields of relational, intersubjective, and interpersonal psychoanalysis, self object matrices, the analytic situation of Donnet, Green's thirdness, Ogden's thirdness, fields resulting from Faimberg's listening to listening, and the fields originated by the Barangers and elaborations of them. Each particular kind of field serves as a core concept of the psychoanalytic perspective in which it was created or implied. It is useful to parse clinical process as evolving within an environment that could be called a \"field.\" The specific kind of field employed depends upon several factors, including the psychoanalytic orientation of the analyst. This chapter describes the fields employed in different psychoanalytic perspectives and also the concept of a general psychoanalytic field.\n\n## **Relational, Self Psychology, and Constructivist Fields**\n\nForms of relational psychoanalytic perspectives have used field terms such as _relational field, intersubjective field, interactional field,_ and _interpersonal matrix_ to describe the medium in which the analytic process unfolds. The emphasis is on the here and now of the interaction between analysand and analyst. This real-time interaction is what constitutes the relational field. The clinical interaction between analysand and analyst is the medium in which meaning evolves. This meaning of, for example, the analysand's enactments with the analyst is construed and understood within the dyadic interaction in which both participate. Enactments are understood as the means of expression of unsymbolized affective experience, primarily of the patient but also of the analyst (Bromberg, 2008). Unconscious intersubjective patterns are live in the transferential matrix. Once lived through in the analytic setting, there is a potential for understanding transferential elements. The individual is understood to emerge from the relational process of co-constructed meanings.\n\nIn contrast, in a classical model the individual enters the psychoanalytic process, is the focus of it, and leaves the process the same individual, albeit ideally deeply affected by the process. In relational models, the two-person field is posited to constitute the analysand through the analytic process. In forms of relational models, there is a varying degree of tension concerning the individual roots of the meanings of enactments. That is, the degree to which repetition is involved varies in relational perspectives. The psychic structure said to emerge from an interactional field is considered a co-construction based on the unfolding understanding of the analysand's historical, relational patterns that come alive and are potentially modified in the field (Hirsch, 1995). Analyst and analysand are both considered fully present and active, albeit asymmetrically, in the process.\n\nSelf object matrices of self psychology could be described in terms of relational fields that include\u2014and, in the transference, emphasize\u2014developmentally early relational fields of the analysand as experienced in the present analytic process. Constructivism expands the relational framework. It emphasizes that the progressive understanding arrived at is a collaboration between the processes of both participants\u2014that it is original, that it necessarily leads to change in both analyst and analysand, and that each emerges from the field as a result of what transpired there (Hoffman, 1991).\n\n## **Tirdness**\n\nThe relational and constructivist perspectives indicate the possibility of a complement to the concept of the here and now (Green, 2004). In this regard, concepts of thirdness could be viewed as widening the psychoanalytic relational field. In its most general form, the third points to other significant influences beyond the dyad that are involved in the analytic interaction. A specific concept of the analytic third could be viewed as launching from a relational matrix to posit another subjectivity beyond that of the analyst and analysand within analytic processes. The analytic third is considered to be generated by the dialectic of the subjectivities of the analysand and the analyst. This third is both created by and creates the subjective experience of analysand and analyst (Ogden, 2009). The necessarily unique matrix that evolves from the interplay and creation of subjectivity and intersubjectivity within the analytic process becomes an aspect of the object of psychoanalytic study.\n\nA further widening of the concept of the psychoanalytic field derives from an emphasis on the impact of the analytic setting itself on the process, as described by Donnet (2001). Donnet's conception of the analytic situation recognizes the interaction of the analysand with the analytic site, which includes the analyst, the analytic process, and what it offers. This interaction includes the activity of the intersubjective third.\n\n## **Faimberg Fields**\n\nFaimberg (2007) refines the concept of _nachtr\u00e4glichkeit_ and in so doing in effect constructs a kind of field. In the model that arises from the work of Faimberg, a central part of the analytic process is the analyst's attention to how the analysand listens to the analyst's interpretations and to the unfolding exchange within the dyad (Faimberg, 2005; sodr\u00e9, 2005). That is, the analyst is attending to the conscious and unconscious ingredients in the analysand's understanding of the meanings of the analytic exchange.\n\nIn effect, a kind of field is created by this attentive analytic listening to listening. This field contains a detailed expansion of the metaphoric processes from within each expression in the analytic exchange. The expansion includes an ever-branching articulation of derivatives of the analysand's unconscious processes that are involved in her or his experience of the analytic exchange.\n\nThe intrapsychic is modeled as constructed and reconstructed within the intersubjective exchange in a Faimberg field. The construction of the intrapsychic in this model is related to that posited in relational and other fields. As a part of the field, neither participant can survey the entirety of the field nor make sound, general statements about it. The analyst thus cannot be considered an authority concerning herself, the analysand, or the field.\n\nIn most psychoanalytic perspectives, analytic fields are said to be asymmetrical. As Baranger (2009) points out, it is only the analysand who speaks associations aloud, not the analyst. This creates asymmetry. The training and objective of the analyst to attend to understanding the derivatives of the analysand's unconscious processes strengthen the existence of asymmetry in the process (Katz, 2011b).\n\nWith Faimberg's concept of _listening to listening_ , the assertion that the analytic process is asymmetrical can be understood and given more precise meaning. That is, it is the analyst whose focus is primarily to listen to the analysand's listening to the analytic process. The analysand may also engage in this, but it is an essential role of the analyst to do so.\n\n## **Baranger Fields**\n\nThe foregoing field concepts lead directly to a further elaboration that yields another conception of an analytic field. This concept of the analytic field was introduced by Madeleine and Willy Baranger (1961\u201362). The Barangers' work, based on Kleinian and especially on Bionian thought, has multiple influences, such as the Gestalt theory of Kurt Lewin, Merleau-Ponty's work, Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re's contributions, and Racker's work on countertransference. The Barangers developed a structure with which to describe and guide clinical work (de Leon de Bernardi, 2000; Lewkowicz & Flechner, 2005; Silverman, 2010; Zimmer, 2010). The analytic field concept is used to describe another conception of the analytic situation as a whole. The analytic field encompasses all aspects of the analytic situation, including the spatial, temporal, and functional. Employing such a conception of the analytic field broadens the understanding of the analytic relationship and process to explicitly include all these dimensions (Ferro, 2005a).\n\nWhile there are said to be asymmetries in the field between the participants, the analyst is not considered to have authority in the process. In the Barangers' model, as in the relational, constructivist, and Faimberg models, the analyst is not considered to be self-contained or solely an observing interpreter. Rather, the analyst is viewed as an active contributor to and participant in the production of what is called the _basic fantasy of the field_. Thus the analyst is also an immediate part of the object of analytic study within the psychoanalytic process.\n\nThe individuals participating in an analytic process are considered to be derivative from the field, as are their unconscious processes. Unlike what is seen in relational models, the analytic field itself is posited to contain an unconscious dynamic that is more than and different from the sum of the unconscious dynamics of each participant. In this model, the unconscious of the field and the concomitant fantasies, called basic fantasies, are the immediate objects of interest and exploration in the analytic process. The analytic object of interest is thus neither the analysand nor the two-person interaction.\n\nThe quality of the analytic field is described as oneiric and as a dream membrane (Grotstein, 2009). The field is conceived in important ways as atemporal and as embodying a virtual reality. The fantasies of the field arise within the field and are not simple or direct imports from either participant.\n\nSimilarly, the presences found in the field are the results of and take shape in the fantasies of the field, and are thus neither solely from the past nor from the current experience of either participant. Derivatives of the metaphoric processes of the analyst and of the analysand are in the field, as are multiple virtual presences of analyst, analysand, primary objects, and others, as well as combinations and permutations of the participants' metaphoric processes.\n\nThe field and its fantasies are viewed in this model as novel creations that could not have arisen or been constructed in any other circumstance. This means that there will necessarily be different fields associated with different analytic couples and therefore different analytic processes. The intrapsychic is considered to be derivative from the intersubjective creations of the field. The individual participants are understood as emerging from the field rather than as components of it. By observing and understanding the basic fantasy, the intrapsychic processes of the analysand can be understood. The intrapsychic is viewed as a precipitate of the basic fantasy of the field.\n\n## **Comparison of Field Concepts**\n\nIn the following, common labels for psychoanalytic perspectives will be used only to locate classes of perspectives and without the precision of specific instantiation. That is, none of the names of different perspectives\u2014such as classical, Kleinian, relational, and so forth\u2014here specifies a theoretical and clinical position, but rather points to a general orientation within which there are variations.\n\nIt can be asked what work in one kind of field looks like from the vantage point of another. It might be that viewing an alternative perspective involves the diminished emphasis or erasure of certain components of metaphoric processes, or possibly understanding them as something else. Each analyst views clinical material through the filter of the chosen form of field implied by the psychoanalytic perspective used. For example, classical Freudian and relational filters are different in important respects that render understanding and clarity between them difficult. That is why general psychoanalytic fields in their broad inclusiveness of elements can help bridge gaps in understanding and meaning.\n\nAs has been elaborated above, the contents of analytic fields of different psychoanalytic perspectives vary. Psychoanalytic perspectives can be differentiated as well as linked in terms of the kinds of fields employed, together with which components of metaphoric processes and their derivatives are emphasized within each model. The kind of field associated with classical theory takes shape as a result of the transferences that develop. This means that, while there are two persons in a consulting room, there is in effect one subject recognized, and the focus is on action and change for that subject, the analysand. The components of metaphoric processes that are emphasized are the idiosyncratic and the general community. What could be called early metaphoric processes and thereby early fantasies are not emphasized in a classical analytic process. The phase of peak idiosyncratic development of metaphoric processes and early local experience is not the principal focus in a classical perspective. Because of the centrality of oedipal issues in a classical perspective, at least some of the salient poles in a classical field will necessarily have prominent features of sex and gender identifications and will involve oedipal-configuration derivatives. The analytic process is understood as steeped in the timelessness of the unconscious metaphoric processes and emphasizes repetition in the transference.\n\nIn Kleinian theory, while the environment is acknowledged, the focus is on phantasy and objects, which are always internal. In terms of the language put forth here, as described above, early segments of metaphoric processes\u2014particularly from the idiosyncratic and general community inputs\u2014and the objects extracted there from are salient to analytic processes. The field contains the derivatives of the analysand's metaphoric processes and evolves with the projective identifications of the analysand. While a Kleinian perspective could be represented in this model as having much in common with a classical perspective, the positions differ in that a Kleinian perspective significantly emphasizes the peak idiosyncratic as well as the universal, general community input to the analysand's metaphoric processes.\n\nThe field associated with a self psychological perspective also might be described as placing an emphasis on the local component of metaphoric processes, and to some extent on elements of the general community. A self psychology field, or self object matrix, will have self object poles and will contain derivatives of the metaphoric processes of the analysand. Rather than emphasizing transference repetition, the self object function complements or supplements early object experience. Repetition is considered to be present and as what motivates and formulates the self object matrix.\n\nForms of relational perspectives view the action of an analytic process as taking place within relational fields that emphasize the local and community components of metaphoric processes. The metaphoric processes of an individual in a relational perspective consist of unconscious organizing principles that have evolved intersubjectively (stolorow & Atwood, 1996). Analyst and analysand bring the contents of their prereflective unconscious and its derivatives and share an ever-expanding field containing the intersection of their structures and derivatives, and in which transference and countertransference are the means by which the intersubjective field is woven together and takes shape. This field is a functioning whole and is the object of the psychoanalytic process (Stolorow & Atwood, 1989). Individuals coalesce as precipitates of the field. The field functions in present, real time. Repetition, strictly speaking, does not occur. Where organizing principles are activated, it is within the intersubjective intersected nexus, and these are not attached to an individual.\n\nThe notion of the unconscious developed in Baranger models is a departure from the understanding of it found in classical and most other psychoanalytic perspectives. The central unconscious is that of the field and is not associated with an individual. In this conception of the unconscious, repetition in a traditional or even a relational-theory sense does not occur. As a result, there is a potential for\u2014and, in fact, a certainty of\u2014creativity and novelty. In other models, accounting for creativity and novelty is problematic. When the main action in analytic processes is, for example, intrapsychic and transferential, repetition of the analysand's past experience is a major focus. From repetition, there is no clear route to the creation of genuinely new meaning. Similarly, if the emphasis is on the enactment of amalgams of historical ingredients, repetition remains at the center of the analytic process. Experience in both cases is thus considered to proceed on the basis of transference and fantasy, which are understood to derive, ultimately, from previous experience and meaning. This can lead to a reconfiguration of what was already experienced but not necessarily to creation.\n\nIn some relational models, it is not repetition of the analysand but the real-time interaction of analysand and analyst, including the contribution of transferential elements of each, that is the focus of clinical process. In this case also, the available ingredients to work with are the union of the experience of the two participants. The potential for the emergence of something novel is not significantly different from the classical, one-person-focused situation. In this regard, a constructivist model does not introduce the possibility of something genuinely new beyond relational or intersubjective models.\n\nThe tension between repetition and the possibility of creativity is a core psychoanalytic issue. This tension and the problem of accounting for genuine creation in the analytic setting are sometimes believed to be, but are not addressed in the concept of _nachtr\u00e4glichkeit_ as understood as involving retranscription. That is, the understanding in the present of experience from the past, through the lens of accumulated further experience, involves the rearrangement of existing ingredients, including the emergence of derivatives of unconscious processes and the reconnection of affect with memories. Still, while new understanding of experience may be evocative or transformative, it does not necessarily afford the emergence of something new.\n\n## **Psychoanalytic Process and Creativity in Fields**\n\nA general psychoanalytic field consists of bundles of metaphoric processes that potentially include all four elements: the idiosyncratic, local, community, and general community. An initial translation occurs when the idiosyncratic elements of an individual's experience become infused with those shared by the individual's local and extended communities, through natural language and other shared structures.\n\nA second level of translation involves the language built by analyst and analysand in the course of the analytic process. This language is unique to the couple. These two levels of translations are interpretations in a general sense and are necessarily imperfect and incomplete. This consequence lends weight to the associative method of psychoanalysis. Free association is the tool that allows for the translation and interpretation of the multiple systems of structuring by and with which an individual experiences. The way into these unconscious processes is by means of free association, which taps into and allows for the expression of the individual's metaphoric processes. The psychoanalytic process and the language built by the analytic couple seek to reverse the processes of the first level of translation with the acquisition of shared natural language and the socialization of the individual. That is, the analytic process attempts to precipitate idiosyncratic elements of the analysand into the constructs, understanding, and language of the couple, and bloom them in the analytic process in order to lay bare as much as possible of the analysand's unconscious idiosyncratic motivators.\n\nWhen two people come together to enter into an analytic process, a dialogue ensues. An utterance of either participant contains and potentially conveys multiple meanings. Included are the consciously intended meanings and derivatives of unconscious contents from the utterer. Once spoken, the utterance may take on other meanings, including those in the mind of the utterer. This is a commonly known event within analytic process. The one listening to the utterance may attend to some or all of these three sets of meanings. In addition, the listener will attach idiosyncratic meanings to the utterance, deriving from both conscious awareness and the listener's unconscious processes. The listener now takes in four potential sets of meanings at conscious and unconscious levels, all filtered by the listener's metaphoric processes.\n\nWhen a participant in the analytic process makes a contribution to the dialogical process, the utterer does not have control over the meanings of the utterance. In addition, when the utterer is the analysand, the analyst is explicitly attempting to attend to the derivatives of unconscious communication embedded in the utterance. Like all forms of perception, both participants are taking in more meanings of the utterances than they are consciously aware of. Such meanings taken in are the results of individual filtering and elaborations. What is absorbed by a participant will then impact on that participant's future contributions to the dialogical process. In this way, meanings associated with utterances necessarily give rise to their permutations.\n\nUnderstanding between the participants, given the multiple sets of meanings associated with any given utterance, can have several senses. When analyst and analysand have developed enough of a common language in which to work and understand each other well enough to have what is called _bipersonal understanding,_ several factors must be present. For an utterance of the analysand, for example, to be understood at least in some aspects by the analyst, there must be significant overlap in the conscious, intended meaning of the utterance by the analysand and the conscious understanding of the utterance by the analyst; there must be a significant overlap in the analysand's unconscious communication of the utterance with the conscious understanding of the utterance by the analyst; and there must also be a significant overlap in what the analysand understands of the utterance after having said it with what the analyst understands of the utterance. More will be absorbed by both parties in light of the utterance, and possibly other overlaps will emerge, but the foregoing is a minimal standard for mutual understanding of an utterance.\n\nWithin general psychoanalytic field theory, the lack of control over the meanings of utterances on the part of the participants in the analytic process gives rise to the possibility of the emergence of new meanings. The possibility of new meaning is not modeled on the interpretive understanding of its transferential repetition. Perceived repetition of the analysand's patterns in the present moment of therapeutic process is understood as the analytic pair's jointly fabricated pattern. This contains derivatives of the experience of the analysand. Such derivatives pertain to previous experiences, which correspond to what the current joint product appears to refer to in the analysand's past.\n\nBecause of the loss of control of meanings within the dyad and because two sets of derivatives of idiosyncratic unconscious processes are intermingling, patterns within the dyad are necessarily hybrid affairs. New meaning may emerge in this process of intermingling. In models in which transferential repetition is a straightforward concept, such as forms of classical theory, and in models that do not include idiosyncratic elements, such as forms of relational theory, genuine creation of new meaning can only be a premise.\n\n## **Ontological Commitments of General Psychoanalytic Fields**\n\nThe idea that the field is an object of psychoanalytic interest, that there is an unconscious process of and in the field that is different from and independent of the participants, has heuristic value clinically. It serves to focus the work on the unconscious derivatives present in the analysand's communications. It highlights the fact that the utterances of each participant convey more than is in the awareness of either party. The field concept is a way of modeling unconscious communication within an analytic process. Nevertheless, an ontology is potentially being posited by field models that bear understanding. The concepts of _thirds_ in their various formulations posit entities; for example, Baranger fields posit the third entity of a field, not a person, which has its own unconscious processes and fantasies.\n\nIn order to have more than heuristic value, the field concept and its ontological commitments need specification. A third, independent, nonhuman entity with its own unconscious process is not necessary to general psychoanalytic field theory. Rather, it is the conscious and unconscious transformations and permutations of elements in the analytic process that inform and are informed by the metaphoric processes of each participant. When a segment of a set of these meanings converges and coalesces, an insight has formed within one of the participants that may lead to an interpretation. Due to the factor of the lack of control over meanings, the unconscious processes and resulting fantasies are as independent of the participants as the Baranger or relational field models require. There is no loss of power to the model in paring down the ontology.\n\nOntological questions reemerge in further specifying the contents of fields. Psychoanalytic discourse proceeds as if persons, offices, thoughts, feelings, derivatives, and unconscious processes may all be elements of fields; thus, fields contain an ontological hybrid of ingredients. While there is heuristic value in this, it is also necessary to make explicit what is being posited underneath this manner of speaking. Psychoanalytic theory posits the existence of unconscious processes. The existence of individual humans and of space-time locations, such as consulting rooms, are further assumptions. All such entities are conjectured (Katz, 2010a). Just as there is no direct contact with the unconscious, neither is there with humans, couches, or other items purported to be in the world. The ontology of fields is relatively uniform and consists of derivatives.\n\n## **Two Kinds of Derivatives in Analytic Processes**\n\nA thread in an analytic process may be identified by the persistent presence of certain derivatives. Such a process could be considered constructive if it involves the articulation, elaboration, or connecting of these derivatives. A constructive process might culminate in the introduction of a construction. This would be a coalescing of derivatives into a formation that conveys emotional and other meanings to the participants, especially the analysand. A construction is an interpretation in the wide sense; an analytic interpretation proper is a special case. The latter consists of an interpretation that leads to the revealing or inciting of further derivatives and thus changes in the field.\n\nWhat can be worked with in general psychoanalytic fields are two kinds of derivatives, the first- and second-order derivatives of the participants' experience. Second-order derivatives are derivatives of derivatives. What are in evidence in the consultation room are linguistic and other expressions of the participants. Second-order derivatives consist of the meanings of expressions. These are derivatives of aspects of the participants' experience with embedded emotional valences attached to experience. First-order derivatives are the aspects of experience. These are themselves derivative of underlying unconscious metaphoric processes.\n\nWhen thinking in terms of field concepts, derivatives could also be thought of as precipitates. Every expression contains derivatives of both orders. Different psychoanalytic perspectives have different points of emphasis and goals in analytic processes and so make different use of derivatives to widen the scope of understanding the analysand. Different perspectives also emphasize different kinds of derivatives. For example, relational and constructivist theories in the United states rely on second-order derivatives. Classical models and those that use Baranger fields employ both orders of derivatives and emphasize first-order derivatives.\n\nDerivatives relate to aspects of the participants' experience and coalesce into different formations at different times. Derivatives are not perceived singly but as derivatives in coalesced states within constructions. Coalesced derivatives of either order are interpretations in the wide sense. First-order derivatives consist of aspects of experience and coalesce into interpretations (constructions) of metaphoric processes. Second-order derivatives consist of the meaning of the participants' expressions and coalesce into interpretations (constructions) of aspects of experience.\n\n## **Poles and Neighborhoods in Fields Represent Object Formation and Consolidation of Experience**\n\nOn the one hand, a field can be thought of as atemporal, as has been discussed throughout the history of psychoanalysis concerning the unconscious. Since multiple presences of the same person at different points of lived time can inhabit a given field and even be in contradictory relationship to each other, atemporality seems to describe fields. On the other hand, an analytic process is steeped in time (Birksted-Breen, 2003). What it has to work with is the present experience of the past and present predictions about the future. Thus, what an analytic process at any given moment has is what is contained in the field. It is not outside of it or located in the past of the analysand. In being wholly in and of the present, aspects of the field itself are both the subject and the object of analytic study. Interpretation and other aspects of analytic processes necessarily occur within and about aspects of the field.\n\nA field can be said to be inhabited by all kinds of presences. In terms of elements of fields, presences consist of coalescences of derivatives of segments of metaphoric processes. This includes a potentiality for multiple presences or aspects of experience of certain objects. These include the analysand and the analyst, primary objects\u2014especially of the analysand, and acquaintances of each of them, as well as public figures. All these presences inhabit the field, bearing multiple and possibly incompatible relationships to each other. In this medium, derivatives of the unconscious processes of both analysand and analyst co-mingle and combine.\n\nA field has poles that are consolidations of aspects of experience. Each pole could be thought of as having a _neighborhood_ or space around it, which consists of compact clusters of metaphoric processes. Derivatives of a metaphoric process within such a neighborhood have elements that pertain to the experience of the construct at the center of the pole. A field will contain poles of aspects of experience of objects, including at least one for the analysand and another for the analyst. A transference situation could be represented, for example, by the convergence or significant overlap of the neighborhoods around poles of a primary object and of the analyst.\n\n## **Field Representation of Change in an Analytic Process**\n\nIt is possible to filter a field for indexical items in aspects of experience and their derivatives. An indexical item of relevance in an analytic process is the temporal one. The filtering pertains to neighborhoods of poles. This might proceed in some way analogous to the way in which specific statements with indexical elements can be filtered out of a larger set of statements. In other words, it might be possible to compare aspects of experience and neighborhoods, making use of the filtering of certain kinds of indexical components. Derivatives and constructions might be considered congruent if they agree once they have been filtered for indexicals. When there is a change in a neighborhood across time, then there will also be concomitant change in aspects of experience, and therefore also change in the pole around which the neighborhood centers.\n\nFrom one point in time to another, nontrivial change might be described as a _nonindexical_ change in the elements within a neighborhood. That is, change could be said to take place if a neighborhood around a given pole is filtered for changes, from one time to another, that involve purely indexical item difference, while other differences remain. Change of this sort reflects movement in the sense of Faimberg (2005). When neighborhoods around a pole change, it follows that the pole itself within the time span has also been altered. When a neighborhood is stable, so is the pole within it. It could then be said that when there has been change in a pole, something has happened in the analytic process; there has been some therapeutic action. When there is no change, there is some sort of block, or _bastion_ in the sense of Baranger fields.\n\nPsychoanalytic perspectives place the locus of therapeutic action in various locations. In a model that uses Baranger fields, for example, the locus is in the unconscious of the field. In self psychological models, models implicit in Faimberg (2007), and classical models, the locus is in the unconscious process of the analysand. In Spezzano (2007), it is in the unconscious process of the analyst.\n\nThe use of unconscious metaphoric processes and psychoanalytic fields allows for a description of the increased complexity of psychoanalytic models. Within a psychoanalytic perspective, the specific kind of field used is posited to provide the medium of analytic process and a model of human experience. In the latter is a potential claim that human functioning inherently proceeds according to the structure of the elements of the kind of field used in that perspective. A series of debates in the history of psychoanalytic discussion can be rephrased to contain assertions that humans operate in one kind of field rather than others, and thus the analytic medium must be the designated kind of field.\n\n## **Perspective of Psychoanalytic Process From General Fields**\n\nA still greater increase in complexity emerges when we step back from specific perspectives to the vantage point of general fields. This affords a broader view and allows for a way of reflecting on what is being modeled by the different forms of field. Within general psychoanalytic field theory, each field model is to be viewed as a possible model of human experience that is related to and interconnected with other possible models. From this vantage point, it can be asked whether the different field models necessarily apply to the analytic pair, or instead to the individuals in the pair. That is, within general field theory, the question naturally arises whether it is possible to have more than one form of field operative at the same time within an analytic perspective. From within perspectives, this question is not intelligible.\n\nFrom the general field view, this can be further elaborated to the question of whether participants in an analytic process might each make use of different aspects of the process in such a way that each is active in a different field. The analysand, for example, might be understood as working in a Baranger field, while the analyst is working within a classical field. If this is conceivable, issues arise concerning communication between analyst and analysand.\n\nIt may make sense to wonder whether some of the impasses within a therapeutic process or misalignments between analyst and analysand may be understood as the result of a lack of awareness of the possibility that analyst and analysand are operating under different sorts of fields. A Pandora's box, so to speak, opens up here, of possibilities for understanding what is happening in the course of an analytic process. For example, it may make sense to understand the nature of the analytic field within a specific analytic process as determined by the analysand's state of mind rather than by the analyst's theory. It may also be plausible to view the form of the field as shifting throughout the course of a specific analytic process, either as the work progresses over time or session by session, or even possibly from moment to moment. More complex still, it may make sense to understand the kinds of fields operating as variable according to the different layers of unconscious processes at work. In this case, more than one kind of field is operating at the same time.\n\nPsychoanalytic fields may be used to model and describe what sort of experience is occurring at a given point in the analysis for the analysand. This might be effected in several ways. One is to determine which aspects of the field the analysand can make use of at that point. Another is to understand the analysand's experience of the field at that point\u2014that is, to appreciate what kind of field it is for the analysand. While the analysand's and the analyst's experiences of and in the field are necessarily different, the degree and kind of discrepancies also pertain to the analysand's experience. This is a way of expressing a generalization of Faimberg's (2005) concept of the distance between the analyst's understanding of an interpretation and how the analysand processes and understands it.\n\nAnalytic progress might be measured in some cases by the analysand's expansion of the kinds of fields within which the analysand is able to function. An eclectic perspective might entail the analyst changing the kind of field over the course of the analytic process, in tune with where the analysand is, as understood by the analyst. The analyst's assessments are made from the vantage point of the analyst's field. That is, there are choices to be made about whether a field model is considered to apply to what is occurring for the analytic pair, or for each individual of the pair, and by whom in the pair the field options are determined.\n\nEach analytic perspective, even an eclectic one, operates with a model of mental processes that is the foundation of that perspective's theory. This model then determines what kinds of fields can be used clinically within that perspective. That is, the field is a technical, psychoanalytic tool, and this points to another asymmetry of the field. The field is the field of the analyst, and it is determined and justified by the choice and assumptions of the psychoanalytic perspective within which the analyst works. Thus what is relevant is the analyst's field working with a specific analytic perspective, not that of the analysand. The analysand comes to treatment with a mass of experiences and active unconscious processes. The analyst works with the analysand progressively, making use of the field. Only general psychoanalytic fields include all possible elements. This is by design, in order that all perspectives may be included.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n some of the material for this chapter derives from _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) \"General psychoanalytic Field Theory: its structure and applications to psychoanalytic perspectives.\"\n\n# 11\n\nCONTEXT FOR THE BARANGERS' WORK ON THE PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD\n\n_Antoine_ _Corel_\n\nThis chapter evokes the intellectual atmosphere and the ideas developed within the psychoanalytical movement in Argentina during the two decades that preceded the formulation of the concept of \"psychoanalytic field\" by Madeleine and Willy Baranger in 1961.\n\nHowever brief its existence, a magnetic field organizes forces that may carry powerful effects\u2014as happens in a dynamo. Nearer to our analytic domain, with F. De Saussure we speak of the semantic field that organizes meaning in language.\n\nThese associations to the word \"field\" would be met by Mad\u00e9 Baranger (and would have been met by Willy) with one of their characteristic, wise, and meaningful bursts of laughter. I am pleased to imagine this, as I set out to evoke the intellectual atmosphere in which they coined the concept of psychoanalytic field. It was a fruitful soil that met them in the Rio de la Plata after World War ii.\n\nIn the decade that preceded their arrival in Argentina in 1947, a dynamic group of psychoanalysts had gathered, coming from a variety of backgrounds. Angel Garma, a Spanish physician born in 1904, had obtained his psychoanalytic training in Berlin, where he was analyzed by Theodor Reik and had been accepted as a member of the society with a paper on \"Reality and the id in Schizophrenia\"\u2014a remarkable subject matter for the times, which we shall see reappear in the membership papers of Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re and Racker. Besides an interest in psychosomatic symptoms characteristic of those years, Garma insisted throughout his life on the traumatic origin of dreams.\n\nAs a consequence of the Fascist takeover of his country, Garma was unable to settle in Spain. In Paris, he met Celes C\u00e1rcamo (an argentine physician analyzed by Paul Schif who had become a member of the Paris Psychoanalytical society). They both went to Buenos aires, where, as the only two formally trained analysts, they joined several persons from various horizons and frames of mind who shared a passionate interest in the science created by Freud. Among them was Marie Langer, who had interrupted her analysis with Richard Sterba in Vienna to take refuge first in Montevideo (Uruguay), then in Buenos aires in 1942. And in December of that same year, the argentine psychoanalytic association was founded by C\u00e1rcamo, Garma, Langer, Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, Arnaldo Rascovsky, and G. Ferrari Hardoy. With the exception of G. Ferrari Hardoy, who left to settle in the United states, they all became training analysts in 1943. Also in 1943, the _Revista de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ was founded; in the first years of its existence, papers by Fenichel, M. Klein, Sterba, Reik, Tausk, K. Abraham, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Ferenczi, F. Alexander, H. Deutsch, and G. R\u00f3heim appeared, together with articles by the local members.\n\nEnrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re is the personality who should interest us most in retracing the intellectual environment in which the \"field\" concept grew. Born in 1907 in Geneva to French parents who eventually settled in the subtropical northeast region of Argentina, Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re began to develop his original ideas on mental illness as a psychiatrist at the Hospicio de las Mercedes in charge of admissions. For him, the mentally diseased patient is the spokesman of the family group. This led him to take innovative initiatives in terms of family and group therapies, and to consider the conditions under which the sick member might be reintegrated (or not) into a family who would attempt to keep the disease \"frozen\" upon him. Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re described two essential types of anxiety: fear of losing and fear of being attacked. Asserting that a person falls ill \"for love, of hate,\" in his dialectic way of conceiving of psychic functioning he came to consider there to be only _one_ mental disease\u2014while at the same time maintaining refined nosographical distinctions. He described the interplay of three areas: mind, body, and the external world; and he pointed out, for example, that the persecuting object is located, in melancholia, hypochondria, and paranoia, respectively, in each of these three areas. In a study devoted in 1938 to delusions according to the German and French schools, he declared that the future lies with a structural approach.\n\nThese concepts provided the basis for the psychoanalytic treatment of schizophrenics within a rigorous frame. His paper on becoming a training analyst in 1943, \"Contribution to the psychoanalytic Theory of schizophrenia,\" draws on these experiences. One of Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re's favorite metaphors refers to a \"spiral process,\" a dialectical way of thinking applied both to the therapeutic process and to the process of learning: the spiral consisting in meeting similar conflicts or configurations at successively upward, growing levels. Another of his ideas that he carried to practice is \"the operative group,\" whose members learn within a model that includes solving the psychic conflicts that preclude learning.\n\nPichon-Rivi\u00e8re resorted predominantly to the oral transmission of his ideas. He published sparsely, or late. Among the exceptions we could mention: the aforementioned paper on schizophrenia published in 1946; another on the same subject in the _Revue Fran\u00e7aise_ (1952); and a study on the poet Lautr\u00e9amont. Many of his papers were collected in 1970 in two volumes under the title _Del psicoan\u00e1lisis a la psicolog\u00eda social._ But the series of conferences he gave in APA in 1956\u20131957 on his original theory of linking\u2014which has inspired many authors who have later elaborated on the topic\u2014for example, was published posthumously, in 1980, as _Teor\u00eda del v\u00ednculo_.\n\nWith the group who gradually gathered around his teaching and practice (and in which the non-medical, such as Racker and the Barangers, also benefited from the contact with psychotic patients), Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re founded in 1960 the school of dynamic psychiatry, where the psychoanalytic ideas were presented and discussed in a four-hour-per-week course of three years. Jos\u00e9 Bleger, d. Liberman, E. Rolla, and F. Taragano contributed to this space of psychoanalytic thinking that appeared, as we must recall, at a moment of democratic rebirth of the society at large.\n\nJos\u00e9 Bleger (born in 1922) was perhaps the most brilliant exponent of that group, and certainly the thinker who carried the fruitful dialogue with Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re to its most achieved methodological and philosophical foundations. Perhaps Bleger's most widely internationally known contribution is \"Psychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic Frame,\" where he purports that, parallel to the frame proposed and established by the analyst in terms of space, time, and method, there exists a frame (tacitly, unconsciously) conceived by the patient that explodes to light at moments of change or crisis and should be the object of interpretation. Bleger shared with many of his colleagues in Argentina a peculiar sensitivity to the elements that may thwart the process\u2014we could say an \"ear\" to understand secret, stealthy forms of resistance.\n\nIn _Symbiosis and Ambiguity_ , Jos\u00e9 Bleger gave the largest and most systematic expression to his ideas. He there describes the psychotic part of the personality (Bion) as linked to a phase of indifferentiation in psychic development, which he terms \"glischrocharic\" (meaning an agglutinated nucleus), that logically, not chronologically, preceding the paranoid-schizoid position (M. Klein) may manifest itself throughout life in the phenomena mentioned in the title. Tough couched in Kleinian terms, both his clinical examples and his conceptual formulations in _Symbiosis and Ambiguity_ go far beyond M. Klein. They may be linked to ideas of Ferenczi and Winnicott and, of course, Bion, without detracting from their originality.\n\nJos\u00e9 Bleger is no exception in this sense. Arminda Aberastury, in collaboration with Marie Langer, translated and published in 1948 _The Psychoanalysis of Children_ ; contacts were established in supervisions, by letter and personally; Emilio Rodrigu\u00e9 went to London to be analyzed by Paula Heimann and participated in _New Directions_ with the paper \"Te analysis of a Three-Year-old Mute Schizophrenic\": these may suffice as examples that the ideas of M. Klein were widely known and accepted within the Argentinian group\u2014which nevertheless kept the width, originality, and elasticity of its views in accordance with the teachings of Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re that had also included the ideas of W. R. Fairbairn and of French authors\u2014among them, Lagache.\n\nOne more point about Jos\u00e9 Bleger. He himself considered one of the rare antecedents to the ideas he presented in _Symbiosis and Ambiguity_ to be the article by Madeleine Baranger titled \" _Mala fe, identidad y omnipotencia_ \" (1963), in which a form of ambiguous personality is described: by means of the \"Proteus defense,\" the subject aims at maintaining omnipotence by presenting a succession of internal divided characters.\n\nDavid Liberman (b. 1920) gave a systematic slant to his formidable clinical intuition when he described the phenomenon of \"stylistic complementarity\" that, unawares or deliberately, may be produced by the analyst in relation to the patient's style; for example, to a discourse in the obsessional mood, the analyst would tend to respond in a \"hysterical\/dramatic\" style. Liberman later carried his developments into the field of structural linguistics\u2014another way of inscribing, we might say, the analytic dyad into a larger \"third\" frame.\n\nAt this point, we should recall that in 1954, Luisa Alvarez de Toledo's paper \"Analysis of 'Associating,' of 'Interpreting,' and of 'Te Words'\" made a long-lasting, fundamental contribution to this topic.\n\nAnother essential participant in the intellectual atmosphere of the 1950s in Argentina was Heinrich Racker. A non-medical, trained in music and philosophy, analyzed by Jeanne Lampl de Groot until he was obliged to fee Vienna in 1939, and then by Marie Langer, Racker became a member of the argentine association with a presentation on \"Aspects of the psychoanalysis of a schizophrenic.\" From 1948 to 1959, he gave a series of papers on countertransference that had deep resonance in the thinking of that group. The fact that the analyst relates to the patient, contributes to the process with his own psychic functioning, including his conflicts, and is in absolute need of knowing this in order to help the patient and modulate the process: all these ideas so thoroughly developed became essential acquisitions both at the clinical and the theoretical level. Together with the contemporaneous papers by Winnicott and Paula Heimann, Racker's essays (gathered in Spanish as _Estudios sobre t\u00e9cnica psicoanal\u00edtica_ and published in English under the title _Transference and Countertransference_ in 1968) gave systematic bases to accepting countertransference as an element that cannot be neglected in the process. Racker died in 1961, at age 50.\n\nFinally, we should consider another author, Jorge Mom. With the seminal papers on phobias he published from 1956 on, Jorge Mom appears more concomitant than antecedent to the concept of field formulated by the Barangers. They had trained in the same milieu and kept up a lively scientifc dialogue, as evidenced by the contributions the three of them later brought to international congresses (e.g., \"Process and Non-Process\" in 1982, \"Te infantile psychic trauma From Us to Freud\" in 1988). But in the middle, there was another period in which they worked in close association.\n\nIn 1954, Madeleine and Willy Baranger settled in Montevideo with the task of developing the Uruguayan psychoanalytical movement. They organized the training system counting with the regular visits and contributions to seminars by Jorge Mom, Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, David Liberman, and Jos\u00e9 Bleger. The Barangers took in analysis the candidates who would constitute the Uruguayan association. It was in that stimulating atmosphere in 1956 that they founded the _Revista Uruguaya de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ , to which they gave numerous papers\u2014among them, in the first issue of 1961\u20131962, a certain \"Te analytic situation as a dynamic Field\"\u2014but that, as the saying goes, is another story.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n Originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013).\n\n# 12\n\nMETAPHOR IN ANALYTIC FIELD THEORY\n\n_Giuseppe Civitarese and Antonino Ferro_\n\n> _... as I lay in bed, with my eyes shut, I said to myself that everything is capable of transposition..._\n> \n> Marcel Proust\n\nEach of the principal psychoanalytic models is underlain by certain key metaphors. For example, the archaeological and surgical metaphors, as well as that of the analyst-as-screen, all throw light on some of Freud's basic concepts. In classical psychoanalysis, however, metaphor still tends to be an illegitimate or secondary element. Analytic field theory, on the other hand, reserves a completely different place for it, both as an instrument of technique in clinical work and as a conceptual device in theoretical activity.\n\nMetaphor and the field are linked in a chiasm: the field metaphor transforms Kleinian relational theory into a radically intersubjective theory, which in turn places metaphor at a point along the spectrum of dreaming\u2014to paraphrase Bion, it is the stuff of analysis.\n\nFor the sake of illustration, we shall examine first the origins and meaning of the field metaphor in analytic field theory; we shall then consider the mutual implications of this particular development of post-Bion psychoanalysis and the modern linguistic theory of metaphor; and, finally, we shall put the theoretical hypotheses discussed in the first part of this contribution to work in the clinical situation.\n\n## **Origins of the Analytic Field Metaphor**\n\nMadeleine and Willy Baranger developed the notion of the analytic field on the basis of Gestalt theory; the ontology of Merleau-Ponty (1945, in turn influenced by the dialectic of Hegel and by Koj\u00e8ve's reading of it); Klein's concepts of projective and introjective identification; Isaacs's (1948) concept of unconscious fantasy; and Grinberg's (1957)2 notion of projective counteridentification (Etchegoyen, 1986). The Barangers' basic idea is that patient and analyst generate unconscious field fantasies, or couple fantasies, which may even become actual obstacles (\"bastions\" or \"bulwarks\") to the psychoanalytic process. These are bipersonal fantasies \"which cannot be reduced to [their] habitual formulation\u2014as, for example, in Isaacs\u2014that is, as an expression of the individual's instinctual life\" (Bezoari & Ferro, 1991, p. 48).\n\nAmong the nonpsychoanalytic sources, let us briefly consider Merleau-Ponty, because he furnishes a philosophical foundation for the field concept, which he emphasizes to such an extent as to make it the cornerstone of his own theory, and because his conception of corporeality is extraordinarily modern. By the metaphor of the field, Merleau-Ponty conceptualizes the rigorously interdependent relationship that comes into being between subject and context, the reciprocal and constant influence of self and other, and the dynamic continuity arising between consciousness and the spatiotemporal parameters of experience of the world (time and space not being containers within which the individual moves, but instead being born together with him3 )\u2014the intersubjective determinants of identity.4\n\nThe subject is formed on the basis of a substrate of anonymous, prereflective, and prepersonal intersensoriality\/intercorporeality even before any actual self-reflective capacity exists. An albeit still obscure precategorial background which, however, does not lack meaning, paves the way for the entry of the transcendental ego on to the world stage.\n\nIn this phase (which then remains as it were one of the constant dimensions of experience, given that the ego will never be able to free itself from the environmental context and from the contingency of a certain life situation), subject and object are not distinguished from each other\u2014that is to say, they are dialectically correlated. Rather than existing as positive entities, pure presences-in-themselves, except in an abstract sense, they mold each other in an incessant, fluid to-and-fro traffic of sensations regulated by the \"porosity of the flesh.\" subject and object \"co-originate\" in a primordial medium to which both belong. Touching something is at the same time being touched. Our sense of the world is not only an intellectual content, and cannot dispense with our experience of our bodies; it stems from our _fleshly_ existence and is present even before a consciousness of self forms. Hence Merleau-ponty's assertion: \"I am a field, an experience\" (1945, p. 473)\u2014that is, _a system of relationships_.\n\nThe Barangers' essay in which the French philosopher's vision is subsumed, \"Te analytic situation as a dynamic Field,\" dates from 1961\u20131962. Significantly, in the same years Winnicott and Bion were laying the foundations of a radically intersubjective psychoanalytic theory of the birth of the psyche. The dialectic that underlies subjectivity\u2014which could in Bion's sense be formulated in terms of the binary couple _narcissism\/socialism_ \u2014seen as an ongoing process, is the same as that which Winnicott sought to apprehend by his famous gerunds, such as _coming-into-being_ , _a going concern_ , _holding_ , _handling_ , _object-presenting_ , _realizing_ , or _indwelling_. In this way, as Ogden (1992, p. 620) explains, Winnicott\n\n> captures something of the experience of the paradoxical simultaneity of at-one-ment and separateness. (a related conception of intersubjectivity was suggested by Bion's [1962a] notion of the container-contained dialectic. However, Winnicott was the first to place the psychological state of the mother on an equal footing with that of infant in the constitution of the mother-infant [relationship]. This is fully articulated in Winnicott's statement that \"There is no such thing as an infant [apart from the maternal provision].\"\n> \n> (Winnicott, 1960)\n\nFor an ideal genealogy of the field metaphor in psychoanalysis, Bion is an unavoidable reference. While the Barangers do not quote him in their now classical paper, Madeleine Baranger5 (2005; Churcher, 2008) acknowledges his influence on her from the early 1950s on. At that time, Bion was already developing a highly original theory of the analytic field, although he did not use that metaphor.6\n\nIn his contributions on the \"basic assumptions\" (1948), which date precisely from those years (Ferro & Basile, 2009, p. 92f.), he develops the concept of unconscious fantasy within the group. The analytic couple is in fact already a group. In Bion's view, individuals are endowed with \"valences\"\u2014the term, borrowed from chemistry, denotes the propensity of atoms to bind together into molecules\u2014that is, the spontaneous and instinctive (unconscious, automatic, and inevitable) capacity to establish mutual emotional bonds, \"for sharing and acting on a basic assumption\" (Bion, 1948, p. 153), \"behaviour in the human being that is more analogous to tropism in plants than to purposive behaviour\" (ibid., p. 116f.). The basic assumption, whether pair, Fight-Flight, or dependent, gives rise to \"other mental activities that have in common the attribute of powerful emotional drives\" (ibid., p. 146). It is \"the 'cement' that keeps the group assembled\" (L\u00f3pez-Corvo, 2002, p. 39).\n\nValences and basic assumptions express the psychological function of an individual as dictated by the \"proto-mental system.\" The proto-mental system is one of Bion's more speculative concepts, in that it \"transcends experience\" (1948, p. 101). He coined it to explain the tenacity of the emotional bonds that keep the group together, linking its members in a common psychological situation, and to denote a dimension of the psyche in which the basic assumptions that are for the time being inactive can be accommodated. The proto-mental system is\n\n> one in which physical and psychological or mental are undifferentiated. It is a matrix from which spring the _phenomena which at first appear\u2014_ on a psychological level and in the light of psychological investigation _\u2014to be discrete feelings_ only loosely associated with one another. It is from this matrix that emotions proper to the basic assumption flow to reinforce, pervade, and, on occasion, to dominate the mental life of the group. Since it is a level in which physical and mental are undifferentiated, it stands to reason that, when distress from this source manifests itself, it can manifest itself just as well in physical forms as in psychological.\n> \n> (ibid., p. 102, our emphasis)\n\nThe absence of a distinction between the physical and the mental in the proto-mental system is of course reminiscent of the ambiguous status of the drives in Freud, as a \"concept on the frontier between the somatic and the mental,\" just as the valences call to mind the concept of libido (Fornaro, 1990, p. 55); the point here, however, is that \"proto-mental phenomena are a function of the group\" (Bion, 1948, p. 103). _The individual's proto-mental system is merely a part of a larger whole, namely the proto-mental matrix of the group, and cannot therefore be studied in isolation from it_.\n\nIt will be seen that, already for Bion\u2014who is here absolutely in unison with Merleau-Ponty\u2014the subject cannot be thought of except on the basis of the intrinsic intersubjective dimension of the proto-mental system, of the area of \"initial biopsychic emergence\" (Fornaro, 1990, p. 20, translated). Mental life extends beyond the physical boundaries of the individual; it is \"transindividual\" (ibid.). Hence the (relative) absence of a distinction between mind and soma in the individual is in some way correlated with the background of a substantial (relative) absence of distinction between individuals.\n\nWith regard to Merleau-Ponty's postulate of the ego-as-field and Bion's of the proto-mental area, the concept of projective identification now assumes powerful explanatory force, because it so-to-speak confers \"tangibility\" on the communication channels through which this common, unconscious psychological area can establish itself, as well as on the _way_ in which it can do so. It imparts \"visibility\"\u2014in Greek, _theorein_ means to see or contemplate\u2014to the concrete and indispensable points of contiguity whereby the processes of interindividual mental influencing take place.\n\nThese theoretical foundations show that, already with Bion, and even more with the developments that came after him and the transition to an analytic field theory, psychoanalysis underwent a change of paradigm of the kind described by Kuhn (1962). For example, it may be misleading to define the characteristics of the analytic field in terms of the use of the classical concepts of transference and countertransference, because these presuppose a configuration in which analysand and analyst \"face each other\" as two positive, pure, complete, and separate subjectivities, each somehow totally \"external\" to the other. Ogden comments:\n\n> I believe the use of the term _countertransference_ to refer to everything the analyst thinks and feels and experiences sensorially obscures the simultaneity of the dialectic of oneness and twoness, of individual subjectivity and intersubjectivity that is the foundation of the psychoanalytic relationship.\n> \n> (Ogden, 1994a, p. 8, n.)\n\nIn a theoretical framework inspired by a one-person psychoanalysis, the concept of projective identification too would assume an a-dialectic and substantially solipsistic meaning. If, however, subject and object are thought of as places in an intersubjective field, it will be realized, as Ogden (2008) writes, that when a patient goes into analysis, he so to speak _loses his own mind_. He reconnects with the reestablished proto-mental area. He initiates a communication which involves him in depth and can be channeled in such a way as to repair dysfunctional places in his internal group configuration, to restart the conversation that the various parts of the mind incessantly carry on among themselves, while always seeking better ways of thinking about his current emotional problem (however, terms such as unconscious thought, dreaming, thinking, and the like must be seen as virtually equivalent).\n\n## **Elements of Analytic Field Theory**\n\nAnalytic field theory fruitfully combines the contribution of the Barangers with the developments of post-Bion thought and certain ideas derived from modern narrativity known in the english-speaking world by the labels of _critical theory_ and _reader-response criticism_ , and developed in Italy by, in particular, Umberto Eco (Ferro, 1999b). Another important component, on the other hand, stems, via Luciana Nissim Momigliano (2001), from Robert Langs and his original conception of the spiraling progression of the unconscious dialogue between patient and analyst. Other significant notions are the emphasis by Ogden (1979) on the concept of projective identification in a strongly relational sense, and that author's more recent idea, avowedly inspired by Koj\u00e8ve's lectures7 on Hegel (!), of the \"intersubjective analytic third\" (1994a). Nor must one disregard the fundamental contribution of Bleger (1967) on the \"institutional\" nature of the setting and on everything involved in the formation of the individual's so-called _meta-ego_ (Civitarese, 2008).\n\nThese initial remarks already point to the reason for the central position of the metaphor\u2014and with it the \"philosophy\"\u2014of the field, perhaps because no other lends itself better to the construction of a radically intersubjective psychoanalytic model, which we consider to be most suited to a psychoanalysis for our time. By virtue of a whole set of theoretical increments, the metaphor of the field has succeeded in expressing all its theoretical and clinical potentialities, such as grasping\/ casting, characters of the session, narrative derivatives of waking dream thought, transformations in dream, weak or unsaturated interpretation, and the like (Ferro, 1992).\n\nThe field metaphor is of course borrowed from electromagnetic or gravitational field theory. Its essential properties are that it represents a _dynamic_ totality, and that it is _inclusive_ , _invisible_ (but deducible from its effects on its constitutive elements), and _delimited_ (even if constantly in the throes of contraction or expansion).\n\nThe field is intrinsically unstable and subjected to continuous displacements of energy. The forces concentrated at a given point in the field can have effects on other forces in locations remote from that point. Hence all the elements in a field are structured as a differential system in which each term is defined in relation to the others in a process of constant, mutual cross-reference. This is not very different from de saussure's conception of the structure of language, Lacan's of the system of signifiers in the unconscious, or derrida's of the text. Perhaps only chaos theory could offer an effective representation of the dynamism of the field, because it can model the complex vectorial manifestations that give rise to turbulence, catastrophic points, and ultimately changes of state.\n\nFurthermore, the field is delimited. It is a container. This does not of course mean that it is a closed system; instead, by causing itself to be contained, it is itself in a dialectical relationship with what is outside it\u2014that is, with other, broader containers (social groups, institutions, ideologies, etc.). However, the fact that the field is relatively closed permits account to be taken of what may be defined as _inclusiveness_. This is an aspect given an original interpretation by Antonino Ferro, who radicalizes the model of the field already outlined by the authors mentioned above, and invites us to see _any_ element within the fictional frame of the setting as (virtually) a function of the analytic field.\n\nIn clinical psychoanalytic work, the field concept effectively supports the extension of the dream paradigm of the session, to which it imparts rigor, because it puts to work in the couple Klein's concept of projective identification (albeit as revised and corrected by Bion and Ogden) and Bion's of \"waking dream thought\" (we dream not only at night but also during the day). There is no point in the field (whether an event, a memory, a dream, an enactment, a reverie, an association, an emotion, a sensation, or whatever) that is not touched by the \"electromagnetic waves\" of the intersecting projective identifications of patient and analyst, and that does not correspond to the recordings made of it by their respective alpha functions; it might in fact be better to invoke the alpha function of the field (or its _gamma function_ , as Francesco Corrao called it). This function represents the capacity of the couple, outside the rigid framework of a subject\/object dichotomy, to narrate, dream, think, and construct metaphors or myths in order to attribute a specific meaning to their joint experience. The field takes the form of \"a system dedicated to the transformation of sensory and emotional experiences into thoughts and meanings, [and confers life on a] theory of treatment centered on the transformations and developments of the psychoanalytic field (which includes the analyst, the patient, and theories) rather than on individuals and contents\" (Neri & Selvaggi, 2006, p. 182, translated).\n\nA limitation of the field metaphor is that it might suggest a two-dimensional situation. This may indeed be the case when a quasi-autistic type of mental functioning arises. Instead of actual characters, there are only fat, emotionless \"picture cards.\" The patient draws the analyst into an exclusively concrete world. Play is impossible. There are no metaphors, no dreams, and no reveries. If, however, these possibilities can gradually be introduced, that will be tantamount to adding new dimensions or worlds to the field. Moreover, except in these situations the field _is_ as a rule multidimensional\u2014it is a _pluriverse_.\n\nEach of the characters in the analytic dialogue, \"including those called the analyst and the patient\" (Ferro, 2010, p. 428, translated), and their internal worlds (!), represents a specific place in the analytic field. However, the following can also be places in the field: its scenic component (the ongoing formation and transformation of the characters); the analyst's mind; the countertransference; the place of formation of images (waking dream thought) and its derivatives; the analyst's actual countertransference dreams; his reveries; the internal worlds of the analyst and the patient; their histories; their relationship; enactments; projective identifications and all their vicissitudes; and the transgenerational elements of both protagonists (Bezoari & Ferro, 1991; Ferro, 2006a). The art of the analyst is to apprehend the patient's point of view, using the restrictions imposed from time to time on the field by the viewpoint that can be assumed by dwelling in one of its many different places.\n\nIt would of course be misleading to think of this situation in terms of a process of constant, hyperwakeful monitoring of the field, which would be mechanical and unproductive. The metaphor of virtual reality (Civitarese, 2008), which is basically an extreme form of the concept of the transference neurosis, can be used to show how a clinical and theoretical field model aims to keep two aspects in balance\u2014namely, the usefulness for the actors in and authors of the analytic dialogue of _losing themselves_ in the fiction established by the setting (which means intimacy, closeness, spontaneity, emotional intensity, and authenticity), and the need to _reemerge from it_ in order to gain access to the plurality of the possible worlds in which they are simultaneously living.\n\nIn this way it is possible to satisfy, on the one hand, a poetics and an aesthetics of emotional involvement (how to allow oneself to be captured by the text of the analysis, and why), and, on the other, a poetics and an aesthetics of disenchantment (how to achieve the insight that the text is a fiction, and in view of what effects). The analytic field might then perhaps be definable as a medium\u2014a means of communication\u2014in which the analyst seeks to achieve the best possible balance between immersion and interactivity, between semiotic transparency and self-referential demystification (like dreaming and waking from a dream, both of which are necessary for the definition of a dream). Unless the oscillations between these poles are made explicit, the result will be narrative interpretations or, in other words, transference interpretations (which are in fact nothing but metanarrations).\n\nWhen Ferro attributes an innate transformative capacity to the field and to the narrativities it expresses, he is on no account invoking some kind of magical virtue inherent in it, but rigorously articulating the intersubjective implications of the field metaphor and of analytic field theory. The mere fact of being in a room already modifies the chemical composition of the air breathed by its occupants. Likewise, any change in the medium in which they are immersed influences both patient and analyst, even if the change is coincidental and peripheral to the points of concentration of the system of forces in the field that correspond to the two subjectivities involved. If a cellphone rings, the field is modifed. The modification is even greater after a significant exchange in the analytic dialogue. Between the two \"places\" represented by the patient and the analyst, there occur interactions that are to a greater or lesser extent direct and of variable intensity and to a greater or lesser extent differentiated in terms of the continuum from metonymy to metaphor, from sensoriality\/intercorporeality to the exchange of concepts or to the vicissitudes of the unconscious projective and introjective processes.\n\nThe field, seen as a dynamic system that identifies with the analytic couple and interweaves narrations that tell instant by instant of its own functioning, is a viewpoint very different from that of an analyst acting as a screen for the patient's projections. If three \"negative\" characters appear in the first analytic session after the summer break, they may be regarded as three areas of emotional congestion, lumps of nonthinkability waiting to be narrated and broken up (like the crime featuring at the beginning of a traditional thriller)\u2014but without any need to be made explicit by interpretation, unless the actual psychoanalytic game of interpretation itself becomes a place in the field, or a character in the text of the analysis. If one of the three \"baddies\" were an incompetent lifeguard or a rude barman, the narration could develop along the lines of understanding why he behaves in this way, of making hypotheses, of getting to know them, of considering them from a number of different possible points of view, and of trying to guess the reasons for them\u2014in a word, with a view to seeing if it is possible to bring about a transformation that can rid the field of the initial atmosphere of persecution. Of course, the patient could perfectly well signal the change in the plot by allowing a new character to take the stage. Beneath the new mask, however, the analyst would have no difficulty in recognizing the same tangled ball of emotions in the process of transformation.\n\n## **Metaphor as a Rhetorical Figure and as a Basic Cognitive Mechanism**\n\nMetaphor, in the sense of a rhetorical figure, is a schema (a \"configuration\" according to Mortara-Garavelli, 2010) that serves to model the expression of thought. A synonym of a rhetorical figure is a \"trope,\" which means \"turn,\" denoting an effect of \"deviation and transposition of meaning.\" When the \"deviated use\" becomes habitual, the metaphor turns into _catachresis_ (this Greek coinage means \"misuse\"). The irregularity receives the sanction of law and even becomes the norm. A catachresis, like certain state pardons granted for especially common offenses, is the fruit of a \"necessity\": it provides a name for an object that did not previously have one. The institution of a catachresis is therefore governed by a principle of economy which is applied at the cost of a certain imprecision, while also involving an effect of polysemy, or expansion of meaning. It is only when a catachresis is awakened from its sleep\u2014as often occurs in analysis by virtue of the attention devoted to the play of the signifier, for example in the case of a parapraxis or a joke\u2014that its primal nature as a metaphor is revealed. The memory of the underlying abuse then comes to the surface. A catachresis is usually seen as different from _extinct_ or lexicalized metaphors, which are now completely unrecognizable as such except by exploring the derivation of the word concerned (for example, the Italian word _testa_ [head] comes from the identical latin word, which originally denoted the shell of a tortoise\u2014ibid.).\n\nMetaphor is deemed the queen of tropes, \"the easiest to recognize and the most difficult to define [...] a mechanism that is so universal and so within everyone's reach has resisted every attempt to explain it completely and homogeneously\" (ibid., p. 9, translated). After all, metaphor is not always the contraction of a comparison or a simile that is abbreviated or described as such. The analogy is in fact often not recorded but _created_. Metaphor is the invention of an intelligence that is \"sympathetic\" (de Beistegui, 2010, p. 35, translated) to the matter of the world, a way of assigning a personal meaning to it, and of impressing one's own \"style\" on it. It is not the fruit of an analysis of the similarities and differences between two terms\/objects thought of as always identical with themselves, but itself _generates_ the relationship. Establishing a metaphor is tantamount to the use of a kind of violence, to causing a slight shock; in this respect, it is more consonant with a psychoanalysis understood as a _development of narrations or opening up of possible worlds_ , and less with a psychoanalysis that translates the unconscious into the conscious and is inspired by a cold, distant, and objective intelligence, as, for example, Freud's surgical metaphor might suggest.\n\nIt is at any rate clear that, on the one hand, language is composed of a gradient of abusive acts (cf. De saussure's notion of the arbitrary nature of the link that joins the signifier to the signified, the word to the thing, or separates them from each other, or Aulagnier's idea of the \"violence\" of interpretation, 1975), while, on the other, it is nothing but a \"cemetery of tropes\" (Mortara-Garavelli, 2010, p. 11, translated): violence and mourning would appear to lie at the origin of language and culture. Be that as it may, metaphor's constant \"transportation\" of heterogeneous terms remote from each other, like the subterranean cars of a subway train between stations, serves the purpose of _seeing reality_ \u2014of seeing it for the first time, as children do; and children of course produce highly original metaphors. They also make it possible to see again with new eyes, a capacity possessed by poets in greater measure than anyone else. For this reason it is indeed the case that \"metaphors can be the ghosts of ideas waiting to be born\" (Bion, 1977, p. 418). They are ultimately the royal road to reality, because they express the functioning of what we sense to be a basic cognitive mechanism of the psyche\u2014an actual \"principle of knowledge rather than of recognition\" (de Beistegui, 2010, p. 44, translated).\n\nIn a famous passage from _Totem and Taboo_ , Freud discusses the way in which magic thought treats past situations as if they were present:\n\n> It is further to be noticed that the two principles of association\u2014similarity [\u00c4hnlichkeit] and contiguity [ _Kontiguit\u00e4t_ ]\u2014are both included in the more comprehensive concept of \"contact\" [ _Ber\u00fchrung_ ]. Association by contiguity is contact in the literal sense; association by similarity is contact in the metaphorical sense. The use of the same word for the two kinds of relation is no doubt accounted for by _some identity_ [ _Eine... Identit\u00e4t_ ] in the psychical processes concerned which we have not yet grasped.\n> \n> (Freud, 1913b, p. 85, my emphasis)\n\nFreud here identifies an essential, albeit problematic, quality of the mind that makes the creation of meaning possible. He postulates the existence on the infralinguistic level of a central psychic mechanism, albeit as yet indeterminate, and does so by invoking linguistics and rhetoric. He thus subordinates similarity (metaphor, from the Greek _metapherein_ , \"to transport\") and contiguity (metonymy, from the Greek _metonymia_ , \"exchange of name\"\u2014although what is involved here is not so much the classical definition of the figure as the type of semantic relationship, based on its implication of coexistence\/proximity) to \"contact.\" But when we say \"contact,\" are we not in fact still referring to an idea of contiguity? in other words, are we not stating that the second of the modes of relating, contact _in the direct sense_ , is primary? it is no coincidence that the English words, as well as their Italian equivalents, have a common root in the latin _contingere_.\n\nFreud here seems to be alluding precisely to the relationship between metaphor and metonymy, a figure (of \"contiguity\"\u2014Mortara-Garavelli, 2010, p. 23, translated) that is no less important and no less difficult to define. The debate is ongoing in the linguistic field: some hold that metaphor can be reduced to metonymy because it is the fruit of a twofold metonymy (\"'two metonymies short-circuited,' or, as it were, the product of two synecdoches\"\u2014ibid., p. 24, translated). From this point of view, metonymy is the only transformational device, or trope, that can be thought of both as a general function of semiosis, and as something that entails a strategy of thought _which cannot be further broken down_.8\n\nOrdinary usage of course relies on traditional definitions and customary practical distinctions. However, this hypothesis will facilitate the tracing of thought, and the huge gulf it can bridge in joining even the most diverse of objects in metaphor, back to their bodily and sensory roots (as Merleau-Ponty teaches); to the cheek-breast interface (a relationship of contiguity), an \"area of sensations of a soothing sort\" that is the first nucleus of subjectivity (Ogden, 1994b, p. 174); and to the first (the most elementary) \"translation,\" which Freud may have had in mind in 1895 when he wrote in the \"Project\" that, for an infant at the beginning of life, the object is his own cry. Metonymy would then in effect be metaphor in its ground state, and thought an extension (virtualization) of the concrete and direct interbody contact that acts as a matrix for a child's nascent psyche (or for the development of the rudimentary subjectivity\/alpha function with which a child might already be endowed at birth). _\" Transferred contact\" (i.e., contact at a distance) would then be referred to \"direct contact,\" the intellect to its sensory and bodily roots, and the isolated subject to the intersubjective field_.\n\nHowever, as (mostly verbal) rhetorical figures, do metaphor and metonymy not correspond, as Lacan maintains, to the two key dream mechanisms discovered by Freud, namely condensation and displacement? _So in trying to define metaphor and metonymy, are we not actually referring to the meaning of dreaming? After all, did Bion not say that we dream not only at night but also during the day, and that to dream is to think?_ here, then, linguistic theory and psychoanalysis, although starting from different vertices, are seen to converge in formulating the idea that _in order to name things (to think), it is necessary to construct metaphors or to dream (to displace\/to condense)_ , and that these are two modes of expression, albeit on different levels of abstraction, of one and the same basic psychological process.\n\nThis meeting between a new theory of dreams (and of reverie) and narratology (and the modern theory of metaphor) underlies the model of the mind that serves as a framework for analytic field theory. Let us therefore briefly consider this model before turning to clinical examples.\n\n## **A Model of the Mind**\n\nIn psychoanalysis, the realm of the image is the dream. Perhaps we should say \"was\" rather than \"is,\" at least since Bion provided us with a model of the mind involving the continuous production of images (that could be called pictograms) by a function (described as the alpha function) on the basis of the sensoriality that pervades us from whatever source. The sequence of images somehow soothes and pacifies the mind whenever the transformation is successful. The result is a sequence of such images or pictograms, called \"dream thought of the waking state.\" These images are normally unknowable in themselves. Given, for example, a sequence of powerful sense impressions such as relatively undefined proto-emotional states of rage \u2192 relief \u2192 longing, a possible sequence of pictograms might be:\n\nOf course, the choice and construction of an individual \"pictogram\" and of sequences of pictograms are extremely subjective. It is like one and the same \"subject\" painted by degas, and then by Caravaggio, Monet, Chagall, Picasso, etc.\n\nTis, then, is the mind's first locus of creativity. In Bion's terms, it would be the transformation beta (via the alpha function) \u2192 alpha.\n\nThere is also a second locus of creativity in the mind. In a manner that is again extremely subjective, the sequence of pictograms (waking dream thought) is \"narrated\"\u2014that is, put into words. Here too, an infinite number of narrative genres can be used to perform this transformation. In any case, _narrative derivatives_ of the pictograms (or of the alpha elements, or of waking dream thought) are the outcome.\n\nThe sequence in the above example could generate a set of stories differing in style but all characterized by one constant\u2014namely, the succession rage\u2013relief\u2013longing. A \"memory\" of infancy leads to a \"diary entry,\" a chronicled event, a fantasy, and so on.\n\nWe can also come into contact with a pictogram of the sequence that forms in our mind in (and outside) an analytic session, by the phenomenon we call reverie. Reverie enables us to make contact with the image synthesized by the alpha function\u2014for example, that of a \"storm.\"\n\nAnother situation in which a pictogram of the sequence originating in waking dream thought is \"seen\" is when the patient projects one of these images to the outside, thus endowing it with a strongly sensory character; this is not a true hallucination, because the meaning it conveys can easily be guessed. A telling example is that of the patient who responded to a request by one of the present authors for an increase in fees by exclaiming: \"Good heavens, I can see a chicken being plucked on the wall opposite!\"\n\nAccording to this model of psychic life, throughout the day an enormous number of pictograms (alpha elements) are constantly forming and being transferred to memory. These are acted upon by an \"alpha-megafunction\" (Grotstein, 2007, p. 271)\u2014a mental device that performs a kind of second pressing or weaving of this material, eventually giving rise to dream images. These are the most \"digested\" elements which our apparatus for thinking thoughts is capable of producing.\n\nIt is no coincidence that Ogden holds that a psychoanalyst's work consists of dreaming\u2014that is, of undertaking the transformations of sensory \"storms\" into images which the patient cannot perform by himself. It follows, too, that the aim of analysis is to develop in the patient the capacity to \"generate images,\" to create dreams out of the forms of concrete thought represented by symptoms.\n\nO'shaughnessy (2005) distinguishes Bion's notion of waking dream thought from Klein's conception that the infant mind possesses from the beginning a rich unconscious fantasy life manifested in sensations and affects. Both of these processes confer meaning on experience, even if waking dream thought entails something new\u2014namely, the idea of a primary process (situated upstream of unconscious fantasy) of transformation\/\"alphabetization\" of the crude data of experience.\n\nLet us try to describe what happens in the analyst's consulting room. The patient arrives with a variously sized bottle of ink (his anxieties and proto-emotions\u2014in the jargon, his beta elements), which he keeps pouring on to the special kind of blotting paper represented by the field. The field absorbs the ink and becomes thoroughly soaked in it. Analyst and patient dip their pens into this ink in order to write down the text of the session. What was previously a mere formless blot is transformed into stories, narrations, and constructions. In this way, what at first had a \"soiling\" effect becomes susceptible to thought, narration, and sharing.\n\nAnother image of the patient's problem might be that of a big horse, with \" _ferri_ \"(!)9 on its hoofs, which, as it gallops, clip-clop back and forth like the types of an old-fashioned typewriter. However, eventually the horse finds a groom to take care of it, and as its hoofs fail back and forth, it begins to write at first fragments of stories, and then complete stories. Moreover, in the process of writing it calms down, grows ever smaller, and ultimately ceases to be a problem.\n\n## **The Aesthetics of Metaphor and the Analytic Field**\n\nSo far we have considered the significance of the field metaphor as the organizing schema of a particular psychoanalytic model.10 examples include the use of the archaeological, military, and chess metaphors in Freud's theories; Bion's digestive and sexual metaphors; or the gastronomic or cinematographic metaphors employed by Ferro (1992, 1996). We then proceeded to examine metaphor as a rhetorical figure and an elementary psychological mechanism (cf. Also the now classical studies of Lakoff & Johnson, 1980a); _and, on the basis of a passage from Freud and certain cues from the linguistic theory of metaphor, we postulated the substantial identity of metaphors and dreams (and visual images)_. Last, we come now to the meaning and use of metaphor in both the broad sense (referring to the level _of_ discourse) and the specific sense (of an image or rhetorical figure involved _in_ discourse), as a technical device in clinical psychoanalytic work within a field model.\n\n### Playing with Metaphors\n\n#### __Not Just Herbivores__\n\nPaolo begins his analysis as the good boy that he is. In his first session, he tells me about his attempts to fix his \"Vespa,\" which has been lying about, forgotten for years. After a number of sessions devoted to this subject, I venture to suggest that \"sometimes a _vespa_ [Italian for wasp] will sting.\" A prolonged silence ensues.\n\nIn the next session Paolo, who has hitherto always come along with a laptop, tells me: \"My computer has been struck by lightning and it is literally completely burnt out.\" So I mitigate the pressure of my interpretations, which was intended to demechanize certain aspects of the patient, but when I later return to a more pungent interpretative regime, there appears \"the neighbor who collects weapons and who seemed to be aiming a threatening submachine gun.\" When I return to a more \"playful\" style of interpretation, Paolo mentions the neighbor again, saying that his gun\u2014now he has had a clear view of it!\u2014has a red plug on top of it. It is manifestly a toy weapon, so there is no reason to be worried.\n\nAs the analysis proceeds, he tells me about his grandmother's farm, which is populated by a whole menagerie of chickens, ducks, hens, sheep, cows, and so on\u2014until one day I ask him if he is not fed up with all these herbivores (!). Paolo at first reacts as if struck by a wave of persecution, but in the final session before the summer vacation, I am surprised to be given a present of little toy wild animals. On returning from vacation, he discovers, carved into the beams of the ceiling of my consulting room, a five-pointed star, the symbol of the red Brigades\u2014which neither I nor the patients on the couch had ever noticed in thirty or more years.\n\nI now realize that rage and revolution have entered the room. However, when I try to find the carving again, I cannot focus on it: these aspects of Paolo tend to disappear. On another occasion when he shows me the five-pointed star and the mark of the red Brigades, I take the opportunity of telling him that he has the eyes of a hawk. In this way, I am substituting the hawk for the lost little sparrow he kept in a cage, about which he had told me at length.\n\nThese more intensely passionate aspects make their entry into the sessions, albeit in \"bleached white\" form, when he receives a letter from his girlfriend, from whom he has heard nothing for a long time; after a prolonged silence on my part, he comments: \"I didn't know whether to tear it up or to open it with the letter opener.\"\n\nIt will thus be seen that metaphor in the strict sense of the term (as a word-related fact) belongs to the order of the narrative derivatives of waking dream thought, but also that the process whereby it comes into being is the same as that of unconscious thought. The transformations from sensoriality into narrative derivatives are \"metaphorical,\" and conversely the metaphors are narrative derivatives.\n\n### Metaphors Living or Dead?\n\n#### __The Check__\n\nAndrea tells me of the climate of anxiety into which he was plunged by a friend who made him fear that he would no longer receive his monthly check for his new job. In fact, it would not be very serious even if he did not receive this check, as that would enable him to look for a more satisfying, better paid job. However, his friend has succeeded in making him feel persecuted and threatened, as well as open to the envy of others.\n\nThe \"friend\" of course represents a kind of functioning in the patient himself which, in the absence of analysis at the weekend, manages to undermine his (wavering) basic level of confidence, plunging him into a climate of discomfort and distrust, and causing him to lose sight of the progress he has made.\n\nI now make a metaphorical intervention. I tell him that he reminds me of a competent swimmer who is told that his lifejacket might be removed or that he will not be given one, because he doesn't need it and it would get in his way. My point is that this image, however, is not a preconstituted metaphor, because it arises in me, with him, there, in real time, for the first time and simultaneously with his communications. It is a reverie produced on the spot, or rather, one whose discursive formulation arises out of a reverie\u2014which is not directly communicable in itself, in its visual form, just as a dream is not communicable except by a kind of intersemiotic \"transmutation\"\/translation; that is, after being transferred from one system of signs to another, different system of signs.\n\n### Introducing the Patient to the World of Metaphors, or the Resumption of Dreaming\n\n#### __Lucio's Grease Gun__\n\nI tell Lucio that I shall be away for a couple of weeks (for professional reasons). He begins the next session by saying that _he has not had any dreams_. He then tells me that he took the cat along to be neutered and that he feels quite calm. He adds that he has met with one of the leaders of a pacifist association, who has been abandoned by his wife and weeps inconsolably. His wife cheated on him, taking up again with a female fellow student with whom she had already had a relationship.\n\n_I tell him that, if we were to look at these two communications as if they were two dreams_ (that is always one of my listening vertices when a patient speaks to me), we might think that he was worried that, if the cat had not been neutered, it might perhaps scratch me. What is more, who knows what might happen if the member of the pacifist organization who cried because of _my_ cheating on him, even if the cheating was in a way \"justified\" (for a congress, as he tells me he has discovered on the internet), was actually the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa or simply the Italian national hero Garibaldi.\n\nLucio immediately gets my drift, and says that he has nevertheless begun to make some progress. He has not yet become Garibaldi, but has at least taken on some of that worthy's boldness of character. He has, for example, plucked up the courage to go to the pharmacy to buy a vaginal lubricant for his girlfriend, who suffers from a dryness in that region. In the past he would never have exposed himself in this way, but this time he felt no shame. He asked for a \"nonspermicidal vaginal lubricant.\" he then remembers the film _Kill Bill_ , in which a male nurse gave a jar of Vaseline to someone about to have sex with a woman whose vagina was so dry that \"without the Vaseline it would have been like sticking his penis into a can of sand.\"\n\nI tell him he has been quite Garibaldi-like in managing to show his needs to the \"pharmacist,\" but at the same time, it seems to me that he feels the need to lubricate his relationships because he wants to avoid any friction with others. Yet he is still leaving something \"alive,\" he is not eliminating everything. Lucio confirms my interpretation, telling me of some episodes from his childhood in which, so as not to upset his parents, he always avoided any \"friction\" with his classmates, in what was in fact a pretty turbulent class. In the same session, he makes a slip, when he tells me of his \"fear of not being able to stop\" (he meant to say the opposite), and then wonders whether he should see himself as a bull dressed up as an ox or an ox dressed up as a bull. We then work on these themes of containment\/ noncontainment, referring also to the Michael Douglas movie _Falling Down_ , and Lucio returns to the subject of lubrication as the end of the session approaches. As a boy, he tells me, he already enjoyed using a grease gun to lubricate the gears of his bicycle; it was a sort of elongated contraption with a nozzle that made a very good job of lubricating. I now tell him that it seems obvious to me that a bull likes making women grow fat,11 and what better way could there be of making them pregnant (referring to a wish to have children that cannot be made fully explicit).\n\nWe thus observe an entire spectrum of shades of defense concerning the \"bulls,\" the feared and uncontainable proto-emotions that extend from the production of autism to that of a bonsai, of a mechanism, and of lethargy. In particular, however, we see how, little by little, a space for dreaming is regained by a series of metaphorical openings\u2014in fact, amounting to a kind of _ongoing metaphor_.\n\n### Negative Reverie\n\nThe analyst's mind should be receptive and capable of absorbing and containing the patient's emotions\u2014that is, of transforming proto-sensory and proto-emotional states into images and hence into thought, and then of imparting the method to the patient. Any narration, however seemingly realistic, always tells us as analysts (and only as analysts) of something else: of the patient's internal world and, in particular, if we are able to listen, of the appropriateness or otherwise of his instruments (for feeling, dreaming, and thinking). In substance, analysis has to do with all the methods whereby these instruments (and apparatuses) can be developed (and sometimes created).\n\nA symptom often takes the form of a \"stopper\" to prevent the emergence of something unknown both to the patient and to ourselves, but about which we ought sooner or later to become capable of \"dreaming together.\" At the beginning of an analysis, and at the beginning of each session, we should deploy our \"negative capability\" (a PS without persecution), and be able to wait for a meaning to slowly take shape. Every hypothesis of meaning that we formulate, and every misused metaphor that we employ, should be rapidly set aside, so as to put ourselves into a mental state open to the new and unpredictable.\n\nTings do not always turn out that way. Our functioning is sometimes affected by various degrees of negative reverie (\u2013 R), partially or totally blocked reverie\u2014perhaps even a situation of reversed functioning, in which the mind that is supposed to receive and transform projects things into the mind that wants and needs to evacuate and find a space and method to manage proto-emotions. These forms of mental functioning\u2014these traumatic facts (trauma is basically exposure to more beta elements than one can receive and transform, either by oneself or with the other's help)\u2014are then, as always, narrated in an infinite number of scripts.\n\n#### __Gino__\n\nIn one of his sessions, Gino takes out a Barbie doll and says: \"How's the dancer today?\" The therapist interprets the question as directed to herself and answers: \"Very well, and how are you?\" \"I'm at the cemetery,\" he answers (this seems to be something that has actually happened; it is the only way Gino can deal with the despair he has felt in the interval between sessions). He says the girl he likes most was not in class and the teacher was not listening. Gino is immediately noticing that the therapist has failed to pick up his depression, and adds that he would like to touch the long, bushy hair of his female classmates. Disoriented by the concreteness of the communication, the therapist (whose hair is cut short almost to her scalp) fails to grasp his wish for a gentle, soft touch, and says: \"Does it turn you on?\" Now also disoriented, Gino mentions a girl in his class who removed the hand he had placed on her hair, and then tells the therapist that he saw a boy blowing on a girl's hair. The feeling of being repelled makes Gino puff, but the warm, emotional component of puffing is lost in the blowing.\n\nHe goes on: \"Our teacher came to school wearing an undershirt, so can the boys wear a T-shirt on top of their sweaters?\" He adds: \"They're speaking German.\" There is a coded message here; restoring the freeze-dried emotion that has been sucked away, the communication becomes: \"You told me something about yourself (being turned on), so can I reveal intimate things too instead of covering them up?\"\n\n_Gino is in effect constantly sucking in the emotional sap of metaphor, and what the therapist ought to be doing (but cannot because she is in \u2013R) is to restore sap and emotional and affective solidity to what (seemingly) has to remain totally neutral in order to be expressed._\n\nGino begins another session as follows: \"Do you have a short-sleeved T-shirt? take of your sweater!\" His meaning seems to be: \"Uncover yourself, show the emotions you have underneath!\" He then adds: \"Is my hair clean?\" He is afraid the therapist might think there is something dirty in his communication (the \"turning on\" mentioned by the therapist), whereas Gino's communication is innocent! he adds: \"I want to grow a pigtail; I also like people with a crest on their heads.\" Although this too could be seen as a sensualization or erotization of the communication, I do not think that is correct. Until not long ago, in his sessions Gino used to lean over the desk with his face as close as possible to the therapist's. It was like the tropism of a plant toward the light, a kind of \"vegetable\" behavior (but previously, locked up in his mute amimia, his behavior had been mineral in nature for years on end!). Unable to say \"I feel attracted by you,\" he _moves toward_ the other, like a climbing plant. He now feels that the next stage in his evolution is the leap from the plant world of _concrete metaphor_ to the animal world of proto-emotions, the pigtail, and the crest as representatives of a no longer vegetable world. This development could also be seen as possessing a sexual element, as a transition from pollination to a more sexual form of functioning of minds. An emotional thread is indeed beginning to form, binding the two minds together, even if it is still wrapped in thick layers of sweater\/insulation\/German.\n\n### Metaphor, Reverie, and Free Association\n\nThe dichotomy of living vs. Dead metaphor is reflected in that of reverie vs. Free association. There are differences between a free association and a reverie. The latter is characterized by direct contact with the pictogram that constitutes the waking dream thought. It comes into being upstream of interpretation, and in some way inspires or suggests it. It is an image (which is usually communicable to the patient only in exceptional cases, but would then come under the heading of self-disclosure) that is created in the mind\u2014spontaneously and not \"to order\"\u2014whose difficulty lies in organizing it in a pertinent, explanatory communication. Rather than in effect being taken from an encyclopedia (that is, from the harvesting of preformed metaphors present in language), this communication should be created there, in that place, for the first time, like a small fragment of a dream triggered by situations permeated with projective identifications or, if you will, beta elements. The only possible approach for bringing out this stratum of thought processes is a negative one (Bion's \"negative capability\").\n\nAny reverie could also be said to be a free association, but the opposite is not the case, even though the boundary is sometimes blurred. An association may share the nature of reverie if it is spontaneous and is received in a state of passivity. Mostly, however, it emerges among the entities that can be described as \"narrative derivatives\" (Ferro, 2006a) of waking dream thought. Unlike reverie, a free association can also be \"forced.\" A free association\u2014which may be a metaphor already recorded in language, either because it is banal or because it has become a catachresis\u2014arises at a less early stage of thought, downstream of waking dream thought, when the level of narrative derivatives has already been reached. It is, rather, a widening of narration.\n\nGiovanna's analysis has reached an impasse with no obvious way out, when I come into contact with\u2014I actually see\u2014a \"sailboat in a bottle,\" which provides me with a visual description of what is happening in the analytic field: the sailboat of the analysis is bottled up. Hence the interpretation: \"It seems to me that we are stalled, and I find myself imagining a sailboat in a bottle\u2014a boat made like the analysis for sailing...\" and so on.\n\nThe corresponding metaphor, on the other hand, would be if I were to use an example taken from one of Conrad's typical tales in which a sailboat is \"becalmed.\" I could then more readily describe a situation of which I am already aware, to which the image of the \"sailboat in the bottle\" belongs; indeed, it suggests, triggers, and inspires the interpretation.\n\n## **Transformations of the Field and Narration**\n\nAs these vignettes show, in an analytic field theory, the analyst's reveries and affective and visual transformations based on the patient's narration, together with any metaphors that stem from these, are the actual factors of growth. The analyst transforms anxieties and persecution feelings into affective images; he has a dream about the patient's communication. He shapes the alpha elements and passes them on to the patient\u2014but, in particular, he puts the patient in touch with his own functioning (his alpha function), which governs these transformations. It is not so much metaphor in itself, as a living metaphor, arising there and specific to that patient at that time, that bears witness to the oneiric functioning of the analyst's mind and supplies him with the method for performing this act (paradoxically, in some cases, even if he does not say or do anything). The same can be said of the situation in which the analyst \"reawakens\" one of the now lexicalized or extinct metaphors used by the patient or by himself.\n\nWith patients who are more seriously ill (or with the more seriously ill parts of all patients), only this level can permit the development of the alpha function\u2014that is to say, of the patient's own capacity to dream, both while awake and while asleep, because a more explicit offer of meaning might arouse a sense of persecution.\n\nThe session proceeds by a kind of oneiric reciprocity, both when the patient \"dreams\" (if he can) the analyst's intervention and mental state, and when the analyst \"dreams\" the response to give to the patient (Civitarese, 2006; Ferro et al., 2007). The more this response is \"dreamed\"\u2014that is, the fruit of unconscious thought\u2014the more it will be a factor in shaping the patient's alpha function or in mending any defects in it.\n\nHowever, what we have described for the sake of simplicity as belonging to the analyst and the patient actually takes place in a _dimension that transcends both, which is_ _that of the field_. This situation could therefore be redescribed from this other complex viewpoint in terms of turbulences and the alpha function of the field. The idea is that, if we creatively transform the field constituted by the two subjectivities, each will benefit\u2014in particular, the patient, because, by definition, he comes along with less capacity to dream experience, or, in other words, to assign a personal meaning to it, and hence to contain emotions.\n\nIf the drama undergone by a character in the tale comprising the analytic dialogue is resolved, the positive turn of the plot is a narrative form that reflects profound emotional transformations occurring in the common psychological area of the analytic field, which are therefore bound to be relevant to both members of the analytic couple, albeit as a rule asymmetrically (because, after all, the analyst should also be capable of a certain detachment). Of course, whereas this situation is in our view more correctly described in intersubjective or field terms, there is no reason why it could not be portrayed more abstractly or with its complexity simplified, for example by the fiction of two completely separate subjectivities, or indeed using less radical relational models.\n\nThe vignettes show that, from a field vertex, rather than \"giving interpretations\" or \"making interventions\" _directed to_ the patient, the need is to _attune oneself to_ the emotions that are not yet thinkable for the patient and to help him to give shape to them. Attention will then be paid more to the development of the container\u2014that is, to facilitating the growth of the capacity to think\u2014than to its contents. In order to be in unison with the patient, the guiding principle is to reach him at the point where he is, and to take account of the degree of truth about himself that proves _tolerable_ to him\u2014that is, as Eco (1984) says in connection with metaphors, of his _limit of acceptability_. For this reason, the analyst must pay attention to the derivatives of waking dream thought, as a basis for constantly attempting to apprehend the signals addressed to him by the patient about where he is and how he reacts to what he says (or does not say) to him. The essential aim is to weave together the emotional threads making for growth of the patient's capacity to dream\/think\/symbolize. To this end, the conversation often proceeds on a twofold level, in which the manifest text _metaphorizes_ the latent text of the unconscious\/field dimension of the relationship\u2014the invisible \"electromagnetic waves\" that establish it, exactly as in the case of play in the therapy of children.\n\nAs rhetorical figures involved in the text of the analysis, metaphors appear to us as _transformations_ (a becomes B; the real appears to us, on the phenomenal level, as a given reality) which are _narrative_ \u2014that is, expressed in words: there is a temporality, a becoming. Felicitous metaphors have a containing effect (the frightening and unknowable \"O\" is \"cooked\"). By virtue of their metonymic basis, they represent a point of equilibrium between emotions and thought, because they are pervaded with sensoriality (i.e., they retain the mark of things), while at the same time distancing themselves from things (which they symbolize). They are _sensible ideas_ (Carbone, 2008)\u2014that is to say, they combine emotion and thought. They therefore restore a bodily element to the mind; they reunite psyche and soma; they reforge the \"psychosomatic collusion\" (Winnicott) that is the foundation of subjectivity; they are dreams that _create_ reality and give it a personal meaning.\n\nIt will therefore be understood that, in order to live, rather than knowing how the mechanisms of the unconscious work or receiving logical or rational types of explanations, patients need good metaphors. As in the case of aesthetic experience in art, there is nothing like a good metaphor to give someone a feeling of truth about his existence. An apt metaphor is an image of which we can never have too much; it is an inexhaustible source of meaning. To be apt, however, in analysis a narration must be attuned to the patient; it must contain his most anxiety-inducing emotions at their point of urgency. The analyst must be capable of reverie, have a well developed alpha function, and be in a receptive state. Reveries give birth to living metaphors, while, conversely, metaphors are an excellent, if not the only, way of using reverie.\n\nIn the dialogue, priority is given to the clear text furnished by the patient, because the metaphorical discourse as a whole is open and unsaturated, conveys emotions, and creates meaning. In our view, analytic field theory is the approach that places the greatest possible emphasis on metaphors and on metaphorical discourse, because, by virtue of its strict inclusiveness (at least in principle), there is nothing that cannot refer to the field and to the transference, and hence nothing that is present only for itself, like a lexicalized or extinct metaphor. As Proust writes in _The Captive_ , and as quoted in the epigraph to this contribution, \"everything is capable of transposition.\" There is no fact, event, memory, account of a dream, and the like, that cannot stand for something else. If we accept the suggestion of one of us (Ferro and Basile, 2009) that we should precede everything the patient says (as well as everything that we say) with the words \"I dreamt that...,\" in order to recover an \"internal setting\" (Civitarese, 2011, in press), the frame of reference is immediately shifted, thus saving his (or our) words from running aground on a realism lacking in personal significance, reopening the way to the play of meaning, and revealing to the patient (and to ourselves) the path toward the resumption of dreaming one's interrupted or undreamt dreams\u2014i.e., one's very existence (Ogden, 2005).\n\nTranslated by Philip Slotkin MA Cantab. MITI\n\n## **Notes**\n\n Originally published in _Psychoanalytic_ _Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) with the title \"The Meaning and Use of Metaphor in analytic Field Theory.\"\n\n The Barangers also took inspiration from Kurt Lewin, Heinrich Racker, and Enrique Pichon Rivi\u00e8re (de Le\u00f3n de Bernardi, 2008). Churcher (2008) points out that Lewin's name is replaced by that of Merleau-Ponty in the second, revised version of the Barangers' 1961\u20131962 paper as republished in 1969.\n\n [Translator's note: For convenience, the masculine form is used for both sexes throughout this translation.]\n\n The lectures delivered at the Sorbonne in the 1950\u20131951 academic year, \"The Child's relation With Others\" (published in English in 1964), demonstrate Merleau-Ponty's familiarity with Klein's works. Klein used the concept of projective identification as the basis of an intersubjective theory of the psyche that was both extraordinarily advanced and in some respects complementary to that of Merleau-Ponty. According to Angelino (2005, p. 374, translated), Melanie Klein fascinated Merleau-Ponty \"because her writings are rich in highly concrete, indeed brutal, and quite shocking descriptions of our relations with others and with things, which bear out what he thought about the role of corporeality and the drives (libido and aggression) in our relationship with the world.\" As we know, Klein studied in detail, to a degree bordering on obsession, the mechanisms of the first introjections\/projections and identifications of a child when still immersed in a state of partial nondistinction from the object. Klein admittedly accepts the existence of a primitive ego from birth, but, as Kristeva (2000, p. 62f.) notes, \"the fragile ego is not truly separated in the sense of a 'subject' separated from an 'object,' but it incessantly consumes the breast from within and ejects the breast into the outside world by constructing-vacating itself while constructing-vacating the other.\" The point, however, is that Klein's model proves valuable not only for representing the relationship between the subject and his environment at the stage described by Freud as that of primary narcissism, but _also when the subject is no longer in such an elementary phase of constitution of the ego_. Like Klein, Merleau-Ponty considers that identity can be thought of only in terms of difference, of the intersection between the subject's body and the world of things and other people. A person can be himself only by projecting himself outside his own self into the other, and vice versa. The subject (S) constructs himself only by transferring himself into the object (O), which is thereby transformed (O'), and by then reintrojecting from the object what he had deposited in it, thereby in turn being modified (S'); the structure of the chiasm\u2014the resulting notation seems to allude ironically to a kind of appeal to the other\u2014would be SOO'S'. Hence the approaches of Klein and Merleau-Ponty can be seen as complementary. Oddly enough, because Klein was interested mainly in the unconscious and in psychic reality, she in effect disregards the \"carnal\"\u2014feeling and felt\u2014aspect of the body (even though the body is absolutely the protagonist of the subject's unconscious fantasies). Merleau-Ponty's concentration on the experience of the body, on the other hand, leads him to develop theories very close to current notions of the unrepressed, or \"sensory,\" unconscious and of procedural, rather than declarative, memories.\n\n Cf. Baranger M (2005, p. 62f.): \"It was when we reviewed Bion's studies on small groups that we modified and added precision to our thinking in a direction different from transference\u2013countertransference interaction [...] We then understood that the field is much more than interaction and intersubjective relations [...] translating what is described as the group's 'basic assumption' to the individual analytic situation, we spoke of the 'basic unconscious phantasy' that emerges in the analytic situation, created by the same field situation [...] This phantasy is not the sum or combination of the individual fantasies of the two members of the analytic couple, but an original set of fantasies created by the field situation itself. It emerges in the process of the analytic situation and has no existence outside the field situation, although it is rooted in the unconscious of the members [...].\"\n\n However, consider the following passage from Bion's letter to Rickman of 7 March 1943: \"Te more I look at it the more it seems to me that some very serious work needs to be done along analytical and field theory lines to elucidate [...]\" (Conci, 2010, in press). The article published in _The Lancet_ in 1943 and signed by both, \"intra-group Tensions in Terapy\u2014Their study as the task of the Group\" (which subsequently became the first chapter of \"experiences in Groups\" [1948]), contains what is clearly a field theory (Civitarese, 2010, in press). Lacan (1947) had no hesitation in describing this article as miraculous!\n\n Koj\u00e8ve (1947, p. 43) concisely sums up Hegel's conception of the subject as follows: \"if they are to be _human_ , they must be at least _two_ in number.\"\n\n Cf. Eco (1984, p. 87): metaphor \"[...] a trope that seems to be the most primary will appear instead as the most derivative, as the result of a semantic calculus that presupposes other preliminary semiotic operations. A curious situation for a figure of speech that has been recognized by many to be the basis of every other.\"\n\n [Translator's note: literally horseshoes, but the Italian word is also the plural of _ferro_ , the name of the analyst and one of the authors of this paper.]\n\n New metaphors are among the \"mutations\" that cause a scientific paradigm to evolve (Kuhn, 1962).\n\n [Translator's note: The Italian word _grasso_ can mean either grease or fat.]\n\n# 13\n\nFIELD THEORY, THE   \n\"TALKING CURE,\" AND  \nMETAPHORIC PROCESSES\n\n_Ana-Mar\u00eda_ _Rizzuto_\n\nThe Barangers field theory considers the analytic situation as dialogical, bipersonal, and at the service of the interpretation of unconscious phantasies created in the field by the shared participation of patient and analyst. They ask about the power of words to offer meaningful interpretations and their potential to return to their earlier meanings in the patient's life.\n\nExamining the richness of the spoken word as a medium for the expression of private experiences to another I suggest that what counts in analytic work is the use of living words, linked to past and intra-analytic experiences. I suggest that in psychic life the semantic meaning of words is embedded in their experiential and affective interpersonal meaning. The words act as the medium to link the private experience of the analysand to the private experience of the analyst without a direct intersubjective communication. I illustrate my point with the example of the analyst's warm words being \"savored\" as warm milk by a regressed analysand.\n\nField theory offers a conceptual framework to describe and interpret what happens during an analytic treatment based on the therapeutic contract between two persons who have accepted to talk with each other under the conditions imposed by the analytic setting. It was introduced as a psychoanalytic conception by Madeleine and Willy Baranger in their seminal article _La situaci\u00f3n anal\u00edtica como campo din\u00e1mico_ published in the _Revista Uruguaya de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ in 1961\u20131962 and translated into English in 2008. Willy Baranger (1959) had already asserted that psychoanalysis \"must accept its character as a science of dialogue\u2014that is, of bi-personal psychology\u2014its character as an interpretative science\" (cited in de Leon de Bernardi, 2008, p. 774). Willy and Madeleine Baranger considered in their later article \"that the essence of the analytic procedure is a dialogue\" (2008, p. 816). The field is created spontaneously and dynamically by the participants in the analytic process and it emerges as a result of their engagement in the total situation between them, which includes the past, the present, and the future (Churcher, 2008). The Barangers had borrowed some of their concepts from the Gestalt psychologists and the work of Kurt Lewin on social field phenomena. Later, they referred to the work of the French phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty without explaining their motive for the selection of the new author. Merleau-Ponty insisted on \"the primacy of perception\" and proposed that our knowledge of the world is dependent upon and inseparable from our bodily condition.\n\nBased on their conception of the analytic process as a dynamic gestalt the Barangers offered their idea of the analytic field as a _heuristic model_ to understand facts present in the analytic situation (Canestri, 2004\u20132005, p. 1511, cited by Churcher, 2008). The field they describe is ambiguous and is characterized by the emergence of a bipersonal unconscious phantasy created by the analytic couple. Such phantasy may become a \"bastion\" of joined resistance to the progress of the analytic process. The analytic process may also bring about a \"point of urgency\" calling for the analyst's to offer an interpretation to the analysand: \"[W]e consider the point of urgency to be a moment in the functioning of the field when the structure of the dialogue and the underlying structure (the basic unconscious phantasy of the field) can come together and give rise to an insight. The analyst feels and thinks that he can and must interpret (formulate an interpretation to the analysand)\" (M. Baranger, 1993a, p. 18).\n\nIn their original paper _The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field_ (1961\u20131962\/2008) the Barangers question how words acquire their interpretive power:\n\n> our problem is therefore reduced to this: how can the interpretation reduce the \"gestalt\" of the manifest content to the \"gestalt\" of the urgent unconscious phantasy in the session? This leads us to the problem: how can the interpretation, as words, act upon the different structurings of the bi-personal field? in other words, what is the basis of the interpretative power of the word?\n> \n> (2008, p. 820)\n\nIn response to their question, they mention the work of Luisa Alvarez de Toledo (1954\/1996) who connects \"speaking,\" \"associating,\" and \"interpreting\" to a \"doing\" of the analyst with the patient based on early object relations and the maternal voice. The voice of the analyst carries not only meanings but also gratifcation, danger, and has the power to evoke phantasies. They believe that these considerations are not enough to understand the function of words in analysis: \"It is one thing for the patient to take our words as milk or stones, and quite another for the patient to understand their meaning and for this understanding to provoke an important modification in the patient's world. The specific problem is the relation between the word and the insight that the patient acquires with an adequate interpretation\" (Baranger & Baranger, 2008, p. 821). The Barangers' consider the patient's capacity for insight and change to be the final goal of analysis, achieved through \"the patient's increased awareness of his or her inner world (ibid., p. 822).\n\nThey consider that \"the word is equipped with three essential functions: it carries object relations and very primitive emotions, connects split of and isolated structurings in the field and differentiates the parts and aspects of the field thus reunified. Thus, the word again acquires the characteristics discovered by M. Klein (1930) in the process of symbol formation: the equivalence of symbol and symbolized, on the one hand, and differentiation between the two on the other hand. The absence or insufficiency of either of these two aspects constitutes a very great difficulty in the technique of interpretation\" (Baranger & Baranger, 2008, p. 822). They believe that the question to be asked is \"how words have lost their original power to reach deeply into internal life\" and conclude: \"Te role of interpretation is to overcome the weakening of words that made them lose their original global communicational function and transformed them into mere abstract signs\" (ibid., p. 823).\n\nHow do words manage to modify the field? \"Te word opens up the communications in the field, uniting its isolated or split of regions. But it also serves to locate, determine and differentiate its multiple aspects. It is both communication and control, and the function of interpretation can be lost if one of these aspects is exaggerated at the expense of the other\" (ibid., p. 823). A modification of the field occurs when concrete words related to \"primitive phantasies of object exchange\" have the abstract power to make intelligible \"the prevalent situation in the field\" (ibid.). When this situation obtains \"one of the parts of the patient that is split of and isolated or deposited in some sector of the field is re-integrated into the patient's self and recognized as the patient's own\" (ibid.). As a result\n\n> the ego also differentiates between its own aspects that have been attributed to the object and the internal objects (different from the ego) that contributed to the structuring of the external object. This is a double process: the ego recovers what belongs to it as its own and also assimilates something more from its internal objects which, in turn increases the Ego's \"real potential and improved contact with reality\".\n> \n> (Baranger & Baranger, 2008, pp. 823\u2013824)\n\nThe entire process reveals that the bi-personal field \"is an experimental field\" (ibid.) which in the end permits the analysand to see the analyst as the analyst and not as a projected figure. To arrive at this final point, the patient and the analyst, as participants in the field, must continuously confront ambiguity: \"It is essential for the analytic procedure that each thing or event in the field be at the same time something else. If this essential ambiguity is lost, the analysis also disappears\" (ibid., p. 799). The ambiguity even involves the bodily language of the patient during the analysis: \"The ambiguity of the body in the analytic situation sometimes becomes quite patent at the moment when the patient abandons his 'body' of the session in order to recover the body of his daily life\" (ibid., p. 801). The process affects the analyst as well who responds with \"his or her own body to the patient's unconscious communications. The analyst also elaborates a body language with which to respond to certain modifications of the field\" (ibid., p. 802).\n\nThe different meanings of ambiguous verbal and bodily languages converge in the field, which the Barangers call the \"third configuration\" where they consider that the very essence of the analytic process takes place (ibid., p. 804). The analyst strives to interpret the configuration of the field: \"Te analyst searches through the multiple latent situations that can be perceived in the material offered, which are also related to the manifest content and the current phantasy of the contract, to find the situation that is effectively interpretable\" (ibid., p. 804). The analyst selects from the configuration the one manifestation that is most vivid to the patient, the most urgent and sees in it the \"point of urgency\" that calls for an interpretation capable of modifying the field\" (p. 804). The analyst's interpretation and its potential to alter the analytic field reveals the asymmetry of the participation between the members of the bi-personal field.\n\nThe rereading of the Barangers' early paper and their later contributions fills me with respect and admiration for the richness of their clinical understanding and the complexity of their analytic model. I have selected out of their many conceptualizations their manner of understanding communication, verbal and bodily, as well as their key concept of the jointly constructed unconscious phantasy during analytic work with a clear intent in my mind. I believe that their ideas may find support and at the same time call for some modification if they are placed in the context of a comprehensive understanding of the function of the spoken word in human relatedness and transformative interactions. In the next part of my paper I intend to review the present-day understanding of the spoken word as a fully embodied human capability and its significance for the understanding of any human communication. Ten, these concepts can be applied to the analytic process as a well-structured continuous process of verbal and bodily communicative exchanges between two individuals in the analytic setting. First, I must attend to the development process that introduces the child to the spoken word.\n\n## **The Acquisition of the Spoken Word**\n\nChildren are enclosed in a speech situation before birth. The capacity to hear some sounds develops during the fifth month of gestation. Mothers seemed to know it because they speak to their babies while pregnant: one of my patients addressed her baby boy fetus who was moving inside her: \"Charlie, you make me laugh. You kick so much. Be quiet now\u2014 _we_ are in analysis.\" Kolata's (1984) research shows that babies who heard their mother's voice during gestation favor it over any other after birth. Butterfield and Siperstein (1974) have shown that four-month old babies prefer words over any other sound, even over music. Mothers seemed to know that babies experience pleasure in hearing their voice and speech because they talk to their babies to the point of keeping them \"bathed in sound\" (Mowrer, 1952). This is the first bi-personal situation and it involves\u2014among the many ministrations that mothers offer to their infants\u2014the constant accompaniment of directly speaking to the baby about them. Thus bodily care and the baby's experience of it are directly _integrated as a total situation_ with the maternal voice, its prosody, affective tone, and spoken relational engagement. However, mothers\u2014and fathers\u2014also talk to their babies when they do not have a specific need: they want to _engage_ the baby in a personal encounter, be it of playing or of describing the baby to himself or aspects of the world to the infant. It must be noticed that the tone of voice of the parents\u2014and other adults\u2014include modifications of melody, loudness, and pitch in order to _engage_ the child in the conversation. Snow (1977) has demonstrated that mothers create for their non-speaking infants the normal turn-taking structure of dialogue. After having spoken to the baby, they use any action on the infant's part as if were a verbal response while they include the time pause typical of a conversation before entering their new spoken turn. When the child begins to use words, the parents progressively guide her to master the accurate use of language to join them in spoken exchanges. In all these developments, the child's proper name and the parent's use of the pronoun \"you\" (Rizzuto, 1993a) facilitates the new individual's formation of an identity, a mode of experiencing itself, and a mode of being together with others. The above description suggests that: 1) we have never been outside a context of spoken words addressed to us; 2) the prosodic component of language and its affective impact goes beyond the perception of sounds and words: it affects the individual viscerally (Fernald, 1996) and somatically (Condon & sander, 1974) and assists him to somatically experience the affect of the other and its emotional investment during the spoken encounter; 3) the words we learn from parents and others are always richer in their associative and affective links than just giving names to things. Each person has its own affective experience of particular words in relation to the contexts of their use during development. I have called this process _the emotional history of words_ (Rizzuto, 2003); 4) in ordinary life, speech is bi-personal: it involves two persons engaged with each other in order to achieve something together. In this respect psychoanalysis consists in the technical use of the richness always present in the spoken exchanges between two people; 5) language is part of the more extensive interpersonal communication between mother and child (Trevarthen, 1979) that precedes the acquisition of words. Even adults with full mastery of language cannot help but to have their spoken exchanges embedded within conscious and unconscious communications from the past; 6) bodily expressions and speech need to be organized as processes at the service of communication in the _privacy of the subjective experience_ of the person who relates, speaks or listens to the bodily or spoken communication of the other. The resulting communication with its affective, motoric, expressive, and verbal components creates a bridge between the interlocutors, to facilitate access to the _private_ experiences each of them is having. The aim of the communication is to find a _medium_ that facilitates _some_ access to the respective subjective experiences and expressions of the two people involved. This means that each participant is consciously and unconsciously (Meissner, 1993) an active intentional agent capable orchestrating\u2014preconsciously and unconsciously\u2014through the perception and _interpretation_ of the communications of the other\u2014its own manner of participating in the exchange. I understand this to be an interpersonal dialectic, ever present in human exchanges at the service of establishing meaningful links between two subjects whose inner reality remains _unavoidably private_. Bodily affective communication and speech create a virtual field of exchange as a _medium_ to indirectly access subjective reality.\n\n## **Recent Teories About Language Formation, Usage, and Understanding**\n\nIn 1980 Lakoff and Johnson proposed that we live by bodily created metaphors. More recently, the discovery of mirror neurons mediated by visually perceived actions or acoustically presented action-related sentences suggest that embodied perception of the action of others is a mediated \"embodied simulation\" (Gallesse et al., 2007). Embodied simulation is a spontaneous process probably facilitated by mirror neurons. Gallese describes it: \"A _direct_ form of 'experiential understanding' of others is achieved by modelling their behaviours as intentional experiences on the basis of the equivalence between what others do and feel and what we do and feel\" (p. 3, my italics). He concludes: \"By means of a shared neural state realized _in two different bodies_ that nevertheless obey the same functional rules, the 'object other' becomes another self'\" (p. 3, my italics). The embodied simulation facilitates the understanding of the intentions of others: \"ascribing _intentions_ would therefore consist in _predicting_ a forthcoming new goal\" [of an action] (p. 8, my italics). In a later article Gallese et al. (2007) says: \"we employ the term embodied simulation as a mandatory, nonconscious, and prerefexive mechanism that is not the result of a deliberate and conscious cognitive effort aimed at interpreting the intentions hidden in the overt behavior of others, as implied by the theory-theory account. We believe that embodied simulation is a prior _functional mechanism_ of our brain. However, because it also generates _representational content_ , the functional mechanism seems to play a major role in our epistemic approach to the world\" (p. 143, my italics). The authors suggest, based on numerous experiments and previous theoretical contributions, in particular Lakoff and Johnson (1980a) that we used our embodied experiences to understand the nonverbal as well as the spoken language of others.\n\nThese fascinating discoveries do add a dimension to our understanding of the function of the direct or indirect _perception_ of the body, the actions, the feelings and the words of others, including their intentions. As a psychoanalyst, I consider that we must pay attention to the fact mentioned above by Gallese that the embodied simulation takes place between _two different bodies_ , that can be similar in their neurological functioning, but never identical. The innumerable factors present in the simplest experience of satisfaction (Rizzuto, 2003, pp. 296\u2013297), the variety of circumstances that affect the relational and historical life of the individual, and the never-resting process of fantasizing about them, gives each of us a _historically personalized_ body to put at the service of any mirroring process. The embodied simulation seems to be an actual _neural mechanism_ at the service of human relatedness. Yet, in my opinion, when we intend to understand the subliminal or obvious bodily expressions and verbal communications in analysis, we must take the mirroring processes and its _perceptual foundation_ for granted, but remember that our human organism has the capacity to create a _psychical reality_ based on all those phenomena plus two other functions that go beyond mirroring and embodiment: the need to interpret ourselves to ourselves by the mediation of imagery, metaphoric processes, narratives, and our untamable need to create fantasized scenarios to rehearse our wishes and fears. This brings us to the _representational content_ that Gallese asserts emerges in the person involved in mirror neurons embodied simulation. In my way of understanding it, the _representational process,_ includes the automatic mirror neuron registration of the perception of the action and words of others, to which the individual adds two _interpretations:_ what it means for the self he conceives himself to be and what is the meaning of the _relational scene_ between the self and the other in the context of the wishful and fearful expectations\/fantasies elicited by them. This includes the dimension of the relational future. Green (1978) mentions scientifically well-documented transformative process in perception, in which the percept is not a simple registration of sensory input but the person's active way of organizing and decoding that input according to its own modalities of perceiving (p. 267). Gazzaniga (1995), a cognitive neuroscientist, after reviewing the large number of processes that function outside awareness introduces the notion of interpreter: \"Catching up with all this parallel and constant activity seems to be the function of the left's hemisphere's interpreter module. The interpreter is the system of primary importance to the human brain. It is what allows for the formation of beliefs, which in turn are mental constructs that free us from simply responding to stimulus-response aspects of everyday life. In many ways it is the system that provides the story line or narrative of our lives\" (p. 1394).\n\nThe accurate mirror neuron perception of the experiential moment, creates the possibility of analytic redressing, when the analytic process assists the patient to examine his interpretations and fantasies built around them by returning in certain global manner to the bodily memory of the original mirroring perception, that is, of the bodily state that was experienced while being with the other. This process is part of the working through, in particular of the transference.\n\n## **Freud and the spoken words**\n\nHow did Freud understand the word? he presented his ideas early in his career in his monograph _On Aphasia_ (1891) _._ he considered the word to be composed of two representations: the object representation that is formed by the sensory perception of objects and the word representation, composed of the sound and the images of movement for the spoken word and the visual image for reading and writing. The replication of the sound and movements to pronounce the spoken word is a learned process resulting from the imitation of others. The object presentation originates from the sensory perceptions in the body periphery. They travel along neural pathways from the receptive sense organs on the body's surface and proceed to undergo transformative processes in their way to the cerebral cortex where they come to form the multisensory (auditory, tactile, visual, and other modalities) object representation. The neural transformative processes, Freud (1891) says explicitly, is organized to represent the body \"in a manner suited to the function [of language]\"(p. 53; Rizzuto, 1990). Freud makes a very strong statement about perception: \"'perception' and 'association' are terms by which we describe different aspects of the same process\".... \"We cannot have a perception without immediately associating it... In reality they belong to one single process\" (p. 57). In brief, for Freud, object representations are not only 'embodied,' but they have the automatic capability of establishing instantaneous associations to other perceptive and mental processes. Would Freud have said that the mirror neurons associate what they mirror to other experiences? to me, this is a further confirmation that people's neural systems are unquestionably alike, but also _highly diversified_ by the accumulation of private associative links. According to Freud, in normal functioning the complex formed by the object associations establishes a connection of their visual component to the sound component of the spoken word. In this manner _a meaningful psychical word_ has been formed. As a learned spoken word it shares a linguistic meaning with the speaking community; as the internal representation of an object and a verbal form it combines the accuracy of sensory perception of the words learned from others with the context of the private associative networks of the individual. Freud makes another remarkable point: \"all stimuli to spontaneous speech arise from object associations\" (p. 79), and repeats it several times: \"Every 'volitional' excitation of the speech centres... involves the region of the auditory representations and results in its stimulation by object associations\" (p. 84). What is he saying? My reading is that the _wish_ or the _need_ to speak find their source in representational processes of associated objects in the privacy of the individual's mind. Contemporary linguist ray Jackendoff (1988) says something very similar today: \"people have things to talk about only by virtue of having mentally represented them\" (p. 83). He concludes that what a person has not represented does not exist for him, even when it unquestionably exists in the world. We analysts know that our task is to assist people to represent and describe in words those aspects of their psychical or actual reality that their pathology has blinded them to. Furthermore, we can say that psychoanalysis is possible because there is always an unconscious connection between things that have been represented in the past and the subjective experience of the patient in the present, regardless of how early that experience has taken place. Assisting the patient to make that representation consciously available and namable during analysis is critical to our work.\n\n## **The Components of the Spoken Exchanged Between People**\n\nI have insisted that people talk when they have mental representations that motivate them to share them with another. Several questions emerge: to whom do I want unconsciously and consciously to talk about it? how many people am I addressing when I talk to just one person? how do I want to talk about it? What do I want to do to my listener when he hears me talking to her? What do I want her to feel for me, about herself, about us? What am I asking her to _really_ hear? What kind of contact do I want to establish with her? What kind of message do I want to give? What is the context in which I want to contact her and how do I create such context? how do I phrase what I want to say so that it can be heard by my interlocutor? or do I want to speak and not _really_ be heard? The linguist Roman Jakobson (1990) created a model in response to these questions describing the six components of the functions of language and the six factors of the speech event. The latter include: the _context_ [what they are talking about], a _code_ [a language understandable to both partners], a _contact_ [the physical and psychological connection between interlocutors], _a person who addresses_ another, and _a person who is addressed_ , and who receives a _message_ from the addresser. As for the functions, Jakobson describes the _emotive or expressive_ , that presents the speakers attitude about his words; the _conative_ , that indicates the attitude towards the person addressed; the _referential_ , that puts a denotation to the message; the _poetic_ function that organizes the entire structure of the communication and that is manifested in the form the spoken expression takes; the _phatic_ function is placed at the service of maintaining contact, as when one interlocutor asks: \"Do you hear me?\" Finally, the _metalingual_ function serves to check the state of the communication: \"Do you know what I mean?\" it is no necessary to agree with Jakobson linguistic theories to accept that his description of the factors and functions present in spoken language are for real. What the description offers is a clear understanding of how many simultaneous events, actions, feelings, and relational elements are involved in the simplest of speeches between two people. Spoken language, I conclude, is closer to an orchestra than to a single instrument.\n\nJerome Fieldman and srinivas narayanam (2004) outlined \"an explicit neural theory of language (NTL) that attempts to explain how many brain functions (including emotion and social cognition) work together to understand and learn language\" (p. 385). They propose that \"one does not expect to find brain areas specialized only for language or to find language processing confined only to a few areas\" (ibid.). More than a century earlier, Freud (1891) had defied the neurologists of his time by rejecting the theory of localization of language centers and proposing the involvement of large areas of the cortex in the speech function (Rizzuto, 1993a). Fieldman and Narayanam (2004) assert: \"The NTL assumption is that people understand narratives by subconsciously imagining (or simulating) the situation being described. When asked to grasp, we enact it. When hearing or reading about grasping we simulate grasping, being grasped, or watching someone grasp\" (p. 385). We embody the words presented to us: \"This ability to simulate or imagine _situations_ is a core component of human intelligence and is central to our model of language\" (p. 389, my italics). Their experiments argue in favor of \"the embodied meaning of action words. They also provide robust biological evidence that planning, recognition and imagination share a common representational substrate. Our model of actions and their use in narrative predicts that the same structures are being exploited in understanding language about both concrete and abstract events\" (p. 390). They conclude that \"the basic ideas on embodied word learning, active simulation, and metaphorical interpretation appear to form the basis for a biologically plausible model of language acquisition and use\" (p. 391). I conclude from these assertions that we understand language by preconsciously creating somatically based _imaginary scenes_ in relation to what we are talking about. The scenes involve the multitude of interpersonal events that occur in the simplest of conversations. I have placed above a long list of questions to give concrete form to all the events that take place as a result of the factors and functions present in ordinary speech. In analysis we must add the great complexity introduce by our capacity to fantasize, to repress our fantasies, and to create with others shared fantasies, whether we are aware of them or not. When we put it all together, we can say that when there are two people talking to each other we believe that as part of their exchange they create one or several multifaceted fantasies about what is happening between them and to each of them. In other words: they place themselves in a complex interpersonal scene. It is worth noticing that although Freud did not theorize about the concept of scene, it is one of the most used words in his vocabulary. According to the Freud's standard edition concordance he used the term in 564 instances.\n\nIf we now connect the conceptions of Fieldman and Narayanan with Jacobson description of the multiple simultaneous factors and functions that compose any spoken exchange, we have all the ingredients we need to form a conception of what the analytic field may be about.\n\n## **The Analyzing Situation and the Analytic Field**\n\nPsychoanalysis rests on a critical premise: if we are to understand the private and pathogenic reality of our patients we need to use words. There is _no other avenue_ to access the patients psychic reality, the subjective experiences, beliefs, fantasies that sustain his way of relating to himself and to others. Freud said it as early as 1890: \"words are the essential tool of mental treatment\" (p. 283). The analyzing situation involves by definition two people speaking exclusively to each other under the specific conditions of the analytic setting or frame. The setting creates a very specific _context_ for the subject matter of the communicative exchanges between them. Whatever the partners talk about is organized by the context that they are talking with each other to assist the patient to 'grasp' his difficulties, make sense of them, and overcome them. The _message_ s patient and analyst send to each other, consciously or unconsciously, will be located within the context of their therapeutic relationship. The _contact_ between them, mediated by spoken words, voice, bodily movements, attitude and other factors opens in analysis a much wider spectrum of experiences than in any other ordinary conversation. In ordinary circumstances the aim of establishing contact is \"to enter and stay in communication\" (Jakobson, 1990, p. 73). Yet, we as analysts know how many patients do their best not to communicate and _that_ is their manner of communicating. We also know how frightened, ashamed, defiant, oppositional and other modalities of avoiding contact they may bring to the process. The analyst is not exempt from developing a wish to avoid hearing communications that are conflicting for her and sometimes enact the wish by losing contact with the patient's experience of the moment.\n\nThe _code_ in the analytic exchanges is more multilayered than it is in ordinary circumstances. In analysis words are capable of carrying several meanings, intentions, connotations, allusions, together with the affects present in the communication. In the treatment the basic code is the actual language\u2014English, French, Spanish\u2014they use to communicate. The analyst, however is aware, and invites the patient to become progressively aware, that ordinary words convey in their apparent innocence and simplicity multitude of experiences and meanings. They link to memories, to the body that experienced the events of the memory, and also to wishes, fantasies, and fears, which the patient may or may not recognize, but which are present in the hearing of the analyst by the mediation of symbolic processes, unusual assonances, evoked imagery, bodily responses, and other phenomena. The analyst accesses them preconsciously by forming fleeting scenes with the assistance of nonconscious processes such as condensation and displacement. In other words, the listening analyst, who does master the spoken language as an accurate vehicle for meaning, listens to the analysand with her entire embodied being. She cannot help but transform the words heard under the guidance of the analytic context into _preconscious scenes_ that involve her, directly or indirectly, with the analysand, thus registering what she has heard and sensed as a bi-personal experience, which may assist her to orient herself in the direction of understanding the analytic moment as well as non-verbalized unconscious processes present between them. The analyst is not inventing the preconscious scenes: they are somewhat present in the embodied selection of the words the patient is using to communicate what is in his mind, which in turn evokes the analyst's conscious and unconscious personal experiences. Freud (1901) was aware about the impact of the patients words upon him by noticing how: \"[it] runs through my thoughts a continuous current of 'personal reference,' of which I generally have no inkling... It is as if I were obliged to compare everything I hear about other people with myself; as if my personal complexes were put on the alert whenever another person is brought to my notice\" (pp. 24\u201325). I am talking about the _referential function_ of the words present in the patient's communications, which convey unconscious and preconscious denotations far beyond the analysand's capacity to be aware of them. Ogden (1994a) has written about the use of reverie to access the analyst's private experience of the analysand's communications. When the patient speaks, he cannot help but to address the analyst as he, consciously and unconsciously, senses the kind of person the analyst is. The universal phenomenon of transference described by Freud makes it abundantly clear that the person we intentionally address is, somehow, like a Russian doll: it contains layered one upon the other peoples of other times and circumstances, loaded with the combined affects, beliefs, and feelings of the past in the present. The analytic situation enhances and exacerbates the normal transferential situation to transform it into what we call in technical terms transference and countertransference. In analysis, more than in any other circumstances, the addressed analyst is always much more than herself. As a result, the analyst's task consists of finding in the patient's words the hidden and unconscious aspects of his communications and shared narratives, that, in one way or another, involve her as the analyst in the present. All the functions of spoken language become greatly enlarged and enhance by the analytic situation: the messages embedded in the simplest of sentences include complex affective expressions of overt and forbidden wishes, hidden or explicit demands and commands, requests to be loved\u2014or rejected and humiliated\u2014all of it embedded in the orchestral playing of the form (poetic function) taken by the patient's actual words, prosody, bodily posture, attitude, and gestures, in brief in his verbal and bodily communications. While listening, we, analysts, attempt to hear it all, with our embodied mind, hoping that we can achieve a sort of _free hovering attention_ that excludes as little as possible. In few instances there is a single message in the patient's words. Most frequently than not conflicts, contradictions, forbidden emotions and desires appear as dissonant notes barely audible but present in the communication. This description is far from exhaustive, but it permits to glance at the extraordinary complexity of the words we hear and speak during a session.\n\n## **The Analytic Field and the Spoken Word**\n\nHow does all this lengthy description of words, spoken exchanges, and their connection with the analytic situation relates to the concept of the analytic field? First I want to say that the Barangers' (2008) original article is an unquestionable precursor to all I have said about the function of the spoken word in analysis. They attended to the patient's bodily communications, his manner of speaking, and of relating to the analyst. Their concept of the bi-personal field is valid, even though, in my opinion, requires clarification and needs to be located not in the entire analytic setting but on the private and overt _interpretations_ the participants make about themselves in the field. The Barangers' description of the field includes the spatial organization of the office, the temporal dimension that involves the times for meeting, the frequency of sessions, the length of the treatment, and the \"basic functional configuration contained in the initial commitment and agreement\" that \"explicitly _distributes the roles_ between the two participants in the situation: one agrees to communicate to the other, as far as possible, all his or her thoughts\".... \"Te other agrees to try to understand the former, to provide help in resolving conflicts through interpretation and promises confidentiality and abstention from any intervention in the other's 'real' life\" (p. 797, my italics). In a later definition M. Baranger (1993b) says \"in speaking of the analytic field, we are referring to the formation of a _structure_ which is a product of the _two participants_ in the relationship but which in turn involves them in a dynamic and possibly creative process\" (p. 16, my italics). She continues: \"Te advantage of being able to think in terms of a field is that the dynamics of the analytic situation inevitably encounter many stumbling blocks which are not due to the patient's or the analyst's resistance but reveal the existence of a pathology specific to this structure\" (ibid.). The field facilitates the formation of \"a basic unconscious fantasy which, as a _creation_ of the field, is rooted in the unconscious of each of the participants\" (p. 17, my italics). The analyst is responsible for understanding the fantasy and making sense of it. The analyst attends to three aspects of the analytic moment: \"(1) the patient's explicit discourse; (2) the unconscious configuration of the field (unconscious phantasy of the field), which includes the activated aspect of the transference\/countertransference; and (3) what corresponds at this point to _something unconscious in the analysand_ , which must be interpreted\" (p. 20, my italics). Madeleine Baranger concludes: \"it is by virtue of the mediation of the unconscious configuration of the field that the analysand's unconscious can express itself and the analyst can find an interpretation. We thus avoid the risk of arbitrariness: it is not just any sense that is appropriate, and not just any interpretation that is valid\" (p. 20). It must be noticed that the analyst uses the \"unconscious configuration of the field\" to make an analytic _inference_ about \"something unconscious in the analysand.\" That inference is conveyed in the verbal form of an interpretation. However the verbal interpretation is not based on the semantic\/symbolic components of language (de le\u00f3n de Bernardi, 2008, p. 783), but on the understanding of the unconscious phantasy of the field. Madeleine Baranger (1993b) clarifies that \"the analyst generally retains a certain distance from the field, and except in a few rare cases there is no actual blurring of the distinction between him and his patient\u2014something that really would be an identification\" (p. 1161). The field therefore is narrower than the analyst's capacity to take distance from it\u2014as the Barangers suggested when talking about the \"second look\" to restore the analytic process. Analyst and patient do preserve their capacity to interpret themselves in relation to themselves and the other, the interpretive function of Gazzaniga, while still participating in the field. Madeleine Baranger (1993a) takes some notions for granted: \"Let us start with intersubjectivity as a _self-evident basic datum_. Freud described one aspect of this intersubjectivity in referring to communication from unconscious to unconscious (1912a), which he stated to be bi-directional. The field is a _structure_ different from the sum of its components, just as a melody is different from a sum of its notes\" (p. 16, my italics). I am not sure that intersubjectivity is a basic datum. All our knowledge of the world, including of ourselves, comes from perception, intero- and exteroceptive, which as demonstrated not only by psychoanalysis, but by all the empirical studies on subliminal perception and mirror neurons among many others, needs not be conscious. The so-called direct communication from unconscious to unconscious described by Freud could today be understood as subliminal perceptual processes mediated by all the bodily and verbal exchanges that are inevitably present when two people are together in a relationship. Intersubjectivity as a concept confronts a similar problem. How can we access the subjectivity of another, except through perceptual processes? I agree with Meissner (1999b): \"[T]he subjectivity of the other cannot be known directly but only inferred from objective data. Intersubjectivity comes to connote relations between persons who are known to each other as objects whose subjectivity is _inferred_ or assumed\" (p. 383, my italics). This notion is supported by the fact that each participant in the analytic situation has its own body\u2014similar and different from the body of the other. They may have similar mirroring neurons or subliminal perceptions as non-conscious processes, but the non-conscious or conscious subjective associative processes and the interpretation of them in relation to the meaning to the self is private, particular, and idiosyncratic to each of them. This is the distinction Gallese makes that I mentioned earlier between the process of mirroring and the representations that emerge from it.\n\nI am therefore disagreeing with the concept of intersubjective communication while I agree that the process it purportedly describes is in fact, as Madeleine Baranger suggests, bi-directional. We are always unavoidably registering the slightest expressions and bodily communications of others. This is not an intentional activity on our part, but the way in which our neural organization has us programmed to register what other people do with us. Only pathological defenses may remove awareness of its conscious components\u2014in the case when the neural process, such as vision or hearing calls for awareness. All the other subliminal and non-conscious processes are perceptually registered and associated (as Freud said) with previous processes. They influence us, not by mysterious communications, but through the signals we send to and receive from the other whether we are aware of them or not. Subjectivity registers them only when I become aware within myself of my experience of those signals. Numerous non-conscious processes may accompany the moment. I may register them as subliminal perceptions without becoming consciously aware of doing it and therefore not being able to include them in my subjective experience. Meissner (1999a) attributes such actions to the self-as-agent: \"Agency is attributed to the self-as-agent, encompassing all actions of the self (conscious, preconscious, unconscious) while the self-as-subject is the author of all conscious (and by implication preconscious) mental action. Self-as-agent and self-as-subject are the same in all conscious activity, but not in unconscious activity. Unconscious action has no subject, only agency\" (p. 155). The conclusion seems clear to me: we cannot share our subjectivity; we must resort to a _medium_ that is capable of establishing a connection between what I experience in myself and what I consciously or unconsciously want to express or communicate to another. The other has to register unconsciously or perceive consciously my communication for us to establish a _partial correlation_ in his own subjectivity of what I have tried to express. In between our subjectivities there are always numerous _objective mediators_ , even in the simplest of communications: words, voice, prosody, gestures, bodily posture, actions, mirror neurons registrations and all the embodied processes we use to relate to each other. And even so, the understanding of the meaning of the communication is dependent upon context and codes and the communal meaning of bodily and verbal communications. I believe that the term intersubjectivity is misleading because it gives the false impression that it is possible to share our subjective experience in a direct and unmediated form, when the truth is exactly the opposite: we all, as ordinary humans, and we analysts in particular, have to go through great efforts to ascertain what the patient is consciously experiencing, and to assist him to bring to conscious awareness what he is afraid of experiencing.\n\nNone of these considerations require that we reject the _concept_ of the field as a heuristic tool to understand the extraordinarily complex events that occur in the _exchanges_ between the patient and the analyst. Psychoanalysts who have adopted the concept of the field consider, together with the Barangers, that it involves the total analytic situation, including the components of the setting and some details of it such as the furniture. I believe that the setting as time, space, payment, frequency of hours, and even the fundamental rule are the _context_ in which a field is created. The context _conditions_ the type of communications that are suited for the analytic situation and the ones that are expected in order to achieve its therapeutic goal. The patient has to give words to all that is in his mind. We know that _that_ is impossible and that what he manages to say and succeeds in concealing are at the very heart of the analytic process. His manner of interpreting and feeling subjectively what happens in the office between him and the analyst are the core of the process: not the furniture, but the meaning of the furniture for him in connection to the analyst. The Barangers understood it this way even though it is not that explicit in their papers. After having clarified my position about intersubjectivity, I want to offer my own understanding of the field.\n\n## **The Analytic Field as a Complex Emergence of Successive Converging and Diverging Interpersonal Scenes**\n\nLakoff and Johnson (1980a) suggested in their now-classical book that \"metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another. This suggests that understanding takes place in terms of entire domains of experience and not in terms of isolated concepts\" (p. 117). They add other claims: \"most of our normal conceptual system is metaphorically structured\" (p. 56); \"metaphor is not merely a matter of language. It is a matter of conceptual structure\" (p. 235). They also assert: \"Metaphor is primarily a matter of thought and action and only derivatively a matter of language\" (p. 153), and: \"Te primary function of metaphor is to provide a partial understanding of one kind of experience in terms of another\" (p. 154). They draw a strong conclusion: \" _In actuality we feel that no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential basis\"_ (p. 19, italics in the original).\n\nThe experiential component includes the _situation_ in which the metaphor is used: \"Understanding a sentence as being true in a given situation requires having an understanding of the sentence and having an understanding of the situation\" (p. 169). Lakoff and Johnson's conception of the metaphoric understanding of human relatedness and conceptual comprehension in language helps us see, as they say, that we live our lives metaphorically. We are like Moli\u00e8re's Monsieur Jourdain: we all have been speaking [metaphoric] prose for many years without having been aware of it. Today many analyst's concur that psychoanalysis _is_ a metaphoric process (see _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ , 2011) _._ how do psychoanalyst's use their experiential and spoken metaphoricity to help their patients to modify their pathogenic experiences and find metaphors they can live with and by?\n\nThe Barangers and many contemporary analysts resort to the concept of field as the medium for the analytic process. The field at times is given some ontological reality by the Barangers as a _structure_ or a _third_ , while at other times they present it as a virtual process. Green (1975) proposes that \"the formation of the analytic object through symbolization\" must take into account \"the _third element_ , which is the setting, in the dual relationship\" (p. 21, my italics). Ogden (2009) describes the third: \"This third _subjectivity_ , the intersubjective analytic third... Is a _product_ of a unique dialectic generated by (between) the separate subjectivities of analyst and analysand within the analytic setting\" (p. 161, my italics). The many authors that use the field concept oscillate between the two positions: a virtual field or an actual third endowed with subjectivity. I want to be clear about my position: the field cannot have an _ontological reality_ of its own: its virtual existence depends upon the subjective experiences of the participants and the verbal and bodily perceptual channels available to them to communicate with each other. The third cannot have _subjectivity_ because it is not a subject. Only persons can be subjects.\n\nFurthermore, the field\u2014unlike what the Barangers and many others propose\u2014cannot have effects caused by itself, because being a medium, the field has _no agency_. Only people have agency to carry out expressive, communicative, and understanding actions. I propose that we limit the notion of field to the extremely rich processes of simultaneous, diachronic, and synchronic verbal and somatic exchanges between the participants. The word \"limit\" is almost a contradiction because the multitude of events taken place between the two people who are attempting to communicate with each other is staggering. I have listed in a previous section the orchestral complexity of any verbal communication. Our present-day knowledge of embodied communication, registered preconsciously and non-consciously, barely discloses the multiple channels available to us to give perceptually registerable signals to others: think of subliminal scents and pheromones, just to talk about what we know today.\n\nThe term \"field\" used in analysis is itself a metaphor, most frequently than not a spatial metaphor. Freud used the metaphor of the battlefield. The Barangers (2008) describe it as the spatial structure of the entire office and setting where patient and analyst meet (p. 796). They also describe the analytic situation as one \"between two persons who remain unavoidably connected and complementary as long as the situation obtains, and involved in a single dynamic process. In this situation, neither of the couple can be understood without the other\" (p. 796). I fully agree with this second description. However, I want to add that for me what constitutes the analytic field, its very essence, is the personal connectedness and complementarity ever present in their daily encounters. I also want to bring back Lakoff and Johnson's (1980a) point mentioned above: \"Understanding a sentence as being true in a given situation requires having an understanding of the sentence and having an understanding of the situation\" (p. 169). The same applies to the understanding of any bodily communication, be it subliminal or overt. The situation in psychoanalysis is a very specific one: all that the patient and analyst do together as part of the \"single dynamic process\" is to use what happens between them only and exclusively at the service of making sense of the patient's experienced life and psychic reality as he presents it to the analyst. Psychoanalysis is an _intentional_ enterprise on both sides: the analyst's and the patient's. Freud could not fail to observe that the patient's unavoidable difficulty in keeping his part of the intentional agreement and his inclination to seek other goals and to keep to himself what he had promised to share was at the very core of the process. Soon he would learn that the analyst must remain watchful of himself because he too might try to avoid, escape, or became entrapped in the web of demands coming from the patient to respond or to avoid them rather than making analytic sense of them.\n\nThe single dynamic process of the Barangers includes the words and bodily communications the analytic pair exchange hour after hour. I have described at length the multitude of interpersonal events present in any verbal exchange. To that we must add the bodily messages and signals ever present when two people are together. Both partners cannot help but to add almost instantaneously two _interpretations_ about: 1) what it all means for the self he conceives him\/herself to be, whether as an analyst\/person or as a patient\/person; 2) the meaning of the _relational scene_ that is just occurring between them in the context of the double positioning of themselves. It is here that the asymmetry of the analytic situation becomes most obvious. The patient is immersed in the analytic process under the motivational guidance of his unacceptable wishes, fears, beliefs, in one word, his pathology. The analyst has a double task: she must be totally immersed in the process if she is to access the patient's unconscious pathogenic processes. She must also keep her distance to be able to perceive what the patient is really saying and what is actually happening between them. When this process fails and the analyst finds herself entrapped in a \"bastion,\" the Barangers recommended that she takes a \"second look\" at herself and the analytic process when she is _outside_ the analytic situation as a way of recovering her analytic function. What is happening between them, in their communicative field holds the clues the analyst needs in order to understand the analytic moment and the scenic roles attributed to each other. The Barangers' original article provides no clinical example but they make an allusion about the patient's perceiving the analyst's words as warm milk or as stones thrown at him. Let me play with one of them as a scenic moment. The analyst speaks calmly and warmly about something the patient has said. The scene the analyst _intends_ to bring about is one of understanding in preparation for a broader insight. The patient however responds in such a way that it requires more clarifications from the analyst. At one point the analyst becomes aware of how the patient perceives the scene they are involved in: he wants more calm and warm words because they feel like warm maternal milk\/words to him. A crossmodal perception of warmth has been established between the analyst's affect in her words and voice and the patient's reactivated wishes for maternal care and warm milk in the present analytic moment. It is all profoundly metaphorical and experiential. Teir exchanges have revived in the patient bodily experiences that he still feels need satisfaction. How does the analyst make the transition from her scene of giving meaningful words to his scenes of \"drinking\" them as warm milk? The analyst arrives at that point\u2014according to my theorizing\u2014by observing what is _incongruous_ in their share dcommunicational field: the patient should have attempted to understand her words; instead the analyst senses, through complex verbal and bodily communications, that he is not listening to her words but \"savoring\" them. The analyst's perception of the total situation guides her to describe to the patient what is happening between them and to access his revived wishes. After they have together recognized what is happening an interpretation is possible. If the analyst remains unaware of what is happening, perhaps because of her own maternal inclinations towards the patient, they may create a joint transient or protracted fantasy in the field that her \"words\" are good for him. They have jointly and unknowingly created a fantasized enactment of the good mother with the good baby she wants to feed. In this manner it must be said that enactment and fantasy\/phantasy in the field go hand in hand. As the Barangers say, this very ordinary analytic event is at the core of the progress of the analysis. Now, patient and analyst together need to analyze what they have done and find a meaning that simultaneously helps them to understand their bodily and communicative stances. Let's suppose that after much work the patient \"recalls\" that the analyst's voice reminds him of his mother's voice when getting ready to feed the children. Ten, we know that a perceptual metaphoric equation has been established between the two situations and experienced by the patient as \"real\" in the analytic present. The very fact that he has experienced it as \"real\" gives the analytic moment what it needs to give meaning to the interpretation. Perhaps this is what the Barangers meant when they say that analysis has to return to words their original meaning as the basis for their interpretation. They also questioned how the patients understand the meaning of words to achieve insight and change.\n\nMy answer is that the activation of metaphorically experienced scenes in the present moment of the analysis gives the words exchanged between them a level of meaning that goes beyond semantics and reaches the bodily experiences of the present and of the past in a single unit of perception, which connects the experienced past with the analytic present. The metaphoric experiential process is the mediatory link between life and words. Obviously the maternal care of the analyst was exclusively metaphoric, but it found its bodily incarnation in her \"warm\" voice duly registered by the patient. The analysand's \"drinking\" her words as \"warm\" milk was also a metaphoric process that also found its bodily form in her \"hearing\" him \"savoring\" her words. The field composed of this metaphoric processes permitted the analytic pair to revive the memory of the analysand's childhood experience and wishes that contributed to the creation of the metaphorically verbalized field of that particular analytic moment.\n\nJoseph sandler (1962) created the concept of role-responsiveness as a phenomenon linked to the countertransference. He describes how he felt compelled to talk more than usual in the case of a man who ended his sentences with an interrogation. It turned out that they were both reenacting an early event of the patient's life: \"He would feel extremely anxious as a child when his father returned home from work, and would compulsively engage his father in conversation, asking him many questions in order to be reassured that his father was not angry with him\" (p. 45). Sandler points out that the analyst may \"tend to comply with the role demanded of him, to integrate it into his mode of responding and relating to the patient\" and that \"he may only become aware of it through observing his own behaviour, responses and attitudes, _after these have been carried over into action_ \" (p. 47, italics in the original). Sandler tried to differentiate role-responsiveness from a countertransference originating only in the analyst's mind. I believe that role-responsiveness _is_ a component of the creation of the metaphorical field of joint experience in which somatically and verbally based signals given by the patient to the analyst have induced him to respond with a matching behavioral pattern. Sandler and his patient unknowingly recreated in analysis the childhood scene of a frightened child trying to disarm a frightening father.\n\n## **Conclusions**\n\nI would like to sum up in a concise form the main points I have discussed in this chapter.\n\n1 Communication between subjects is never direct. It is mediated by perceptual registration of bodily and verbal communications organized as metaphorical experiences of the individuals involved in the exchange.\n\n2 The Barangers questioned how words can return to their earlier meanings. My response is that when they do, it is through the mediation of intra-analytic experiences in the communicational field in the present between patient and analyst. I prefer to say that one could return to an experiential moment in early life in which the word was used in a particular relational context. That means to say that in psychic life the semantic meaning of words is embedded in their experiential interpersonal meaning.\n\n3 The Barangers asked about the power of words to offer meaningful interpretations. I reflect that only _living_ words have the power to offer meaningful interpretations. I call living words those that have been used and recognized as part of shared metaphoric affective experience by the patient and analyst in the present of the analytic situation. In my playful example of the analyst's \"warm\" words \"savored\" as \"warm\" milk by the adult\/child patient, the word \"warm\" becomes alive between them as actual and complex metaphorical experiences they are having together, each in his own way. The word \"warm\" has acquired the capacity to name simultaneously, what the analyst was doing, what was happening between them, what did happened in his childhood, and what he had wished would continue to happen with his mother in the past and with his analyst in the present. In brief, the word \"warm\" provides access to his wishes\/needs in the past and the present in the context of a concrete analytic moment and becomes a key word to interpret his metaphoric and historically revived experience of that analytic moment. The interpretation is possible because the word \"warm\" is a living affectively significant word between patient and analyst.\n\n4 The Barangers search for the point of urgency to interpret. They describe how the analyst selects what \"is most vivid to the patient, the most urgent\" to offer \"an interpretation capable of modifying the field\" (2008, p. 804). I believe that in the example just discussed the word 'warm' with all its metaphoric experiential past and present meanings for both analyst and patient is the point of urgency that will modify the field and open a new understanding of the patient's experience and assist him in the understanding of himself.\n\n5 The Barangers also ask about how the words of the interpretation can modify the shared unconscious phantasy and the structuring of the bi-personal field. In the example of the words \"warm\" and \"milk,\" patient and analyst shared for some time the unconscious phantasy that she, as a good and caring mother, is feeding him the warm milk he needs as a child\/patient. The analyst's interpretation of what is happening between them instantaneously restructures the field by reorganizing the metaphorical experiential situation between them. The adult side of the patient comes to the fore to understand the child desirous of warm milk and the analyst redresses her metaphorical experiential participation as a warm mother to take up again her role as the analyst in charge of making sense of what is happening between them.\n\n6 Finally, I want to make a brief comment about the metaphorical entailments of the word \"insight\" in the analytic vocabulary. It implies that real psychical life takes place in some internal locus of the individual and that the events or meanings in that place have to be seen by some psychical eye to acquire meaning for the person. This metaphorical entailment is at odds with all I have said in this presentation. We understand ourselves only through embodied interpersonal metaphorical experiences that help us to make sense of ourselves and of others. When we achieve \"insight\" what we actually do is to modify our embodied metaphorical experience of ourselves and the words we use to describe them to ourselves.\n\nI hope that my presentation of how I understand the concept of field in psychoanalysis contributes to the clarification of a term that is dear to so many contemporary analysts.\n\n## **Note**\n\n Originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) with the same title.\n\n# 14\n\nFIELD, PROCESS, AND METAPHOR\n\n_Juan_ _Tubert-Oklander_\n\nThe proposal of juxtaposing and articulating the concepts of \"field\" and \"metaphor\" is both challenging and intriguing, since both concepts are necessarily related, as pointed out by S. Montana Katz (2012). On the one hand, the very idea of the field is a metaphor; on the other, metaphors generate a field in themselves, when considered as a form of mental activity. So, this promises to be a fruitful match. To this I have added yet another metaphor, that of a \"process\" which complements, from my point of view, that of the field, and shall develop a juggling act, which will include yet another concept, that of \"analogy,\" hoping that this play with ideas will clarify some of the issues raised by our present theme.\n\nI shall, therefore, explore this problem by approaching the various concepts sequentially, while at the same time showing their mutual relations, and finally expound my own ideas on the subject.\n\n## **Analogy and Metaphor**\n\nIt is clear for me, from the very start, that our interest in metaphor goes far beyond its restricted sense, as a figure of speech intended to embellish a linguistic expression, especially in poetry, but rather extends to the kind of problems studied by logic, epistemology, semiotics, and hermeneutics. It also deals with the psychological fact that a major part of our mental processes\u2014what Freud (1900) called the \"primary process\"\u2014is intrinsically metaphoric. So, I shall start from the widest possible perspective, before landing it on the more restricted purview of our discipline.\n\nMetaphor is a particular case of a much wider concept, that of _analogy_ , which has been acknowledged ever since the beginnings of Greek philosophy, even though it was Aristotle who made the first formal study of it. Unlike formal logic, which is based on _identity_ , analogical thinking deals with _similarity_. To say that two things are similar implies that they have something in common, but that they differ in other aspects. Consequently, analogy is particularly useful for exploring similarities and differences between things, either physical or mental, that would otherwise seem to be unrelated. The results of this kind of reasoning are never certain, but only _probable_ ; this accounts for the disdain that strictly logical thinkers have always displayed towards analogy, which they consider to be an inferior and unreliable form of thought. Yet, practical disciplines such as medicine (\"probable diagnosis\") and law (\"beyond reasonable doubt\") have always relied heavily on analogy. This is certainly the case of psychoanalysis. Besides, analogy may be the only feasible way to articulate the knowledge derived from disparate disciplines, such as psychoanalysis, group analysis, philosophy, social sciences, and neurosciences, and even from the diverse theories within our own profession.\n\nAnalogy is the main tool for the interpretation of texts, so that we are now stepping on the hallowed ground of Hermeneutics, where many analysts fear to tread. This has been defined as the \"theory and practice of the interpretation of texts,\" but \"text\" means here much more than a written document. _Textus_ originally meant \"fabric\"\u2014 as in \"textile\"\u2014so the term was really a metaphor for a set of words that have been weaved, much as warp and woof in a cloth, to form a meaningful whole. Originally, it referred to written documents, but then extended to speech, dialogue (with Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1960), intentional action, whether conscious or unconscious (with Paul Ricoeur, 1965, who was a true Freudian scholar), and to any other meaningful human expression. Hence, nowadays hermeneutics stands for the theory and practice of interpretation of anything that might act as a bearer of meaning, and this clearly includes psychoanalytic interpretation.\n\nEver since its beginnings in Greek philosophy, hermeneutics has taken one of three forms: univocality, equivocality, and analogy (Beuchot, 1997). _Univocality_ demands that each word, sign or text have a single unambiguous meaning; this breeds certainty, but also dogmatism\u2014what Isaiah Berlin (2001) called \"monism.\" Contemporary science implies a univocal conception of meaning. _Equivocality_ affirms that for any meaningful expression there is an indeterminate, perhaps infinite, number of disparate possible meanings, and that they all have equal value, so that an interpreter can only choose one among them on the basis of personal taste, practical convenience, tradition or whim. This opens the way for taking into account motivation and context\u2014both the author's and the interpreter's\u2014but paying the heavy price of forsaking the quest for truth and proclaiming the inevitability of total uncertainty\u2014this being what Berlin calls \"relativism.\" Finally, _analogy_ claims that there are a number of possible interpretations for any given text, though not an infinite one, but that these various interpretations may be more or less adequate in depicting some aspect of the highly complex nature of the text\u2014some of them may be good, others not so good, poor or outright bad. Yet there may be several good interpretations of a same text, depicting different aspects of it as seen from disparate perspectives\u2014what Berlin calls \"pluralism.\" The result is that the path of analogy does not renounce the search for truth, and indeed attains some degree of it, even though only a partial, perspectival, and humble truth, but good-enough to continue thinking and acting rationally (Beuchot, 1997, 2003a). Such a perspective seems particularly fitting for a discipline as psychoanalysis, which was not only defined by Freud (1904) as \"an art of interpretation\" (p. 252) that rejects any fixed meanings, but also has to deal with the coexistence of diverse theories that seem to have a common referent, and which have probably expounded each a part of the truth about it (Tubert-Oklander & Beuchot Puente, 2008).\n\nIn contrast with formal logical thinking, which cannot create any new ideas, since the conclusion is always already contained in the premises, analogical thinking follows the drift of successive analogues, propelled by their similarities, and arrives at radically new conclusions, based on their differences. This requires, of course, a new period of rigorous thinking, in order to winnow out the less satisfactory interpretations and retain the better ones. Nonetheless, these conclusions are never certain, but only probable, or even just plausible, but in any case, something one can live and work with.\n\nBut the term \"analogy\" also covers several linguistic and logical phenomena that are loosely related. In other words, analogy itself is analogical (McInerny, 1971, p. 4), as it comprises three\u2014or perhaps four\u2014quite different types: the _analogy of inequality_ , the _analogy of attribution_ , and the _analogy of proportionality_ , which can be further divided in two subtypes, _proper_ or _metonymical_ and _improper_ or _metaphorical_. This classification was posed in the early sixteenth century by the Dominican archbishop, theologian, and philosopher Thomas Cajetan (McInerny, 1971; Hochschild, 2001).\n\nIt may be argued that the _analogy of inequality_ is not a real analogy, since it merely states that the same word may be used to refer to quite disparate ideas. Thus, the word \"body\" may refer to a distinct mass of matter, the material substance of a living organism, a human being as such, the trunk of an organism, the main part of a text or document, a planet, a group or number of persons or things, the viscosity of an oily fluid, the firmness of texture of a fabric, the richness of favor of a beverage, the fullness or resonance of a singer's voice, the import of a literary work, the spiritual presence of Christ in the bread during Eucharist, the Christian Church conceived as a mystical organism with Christ as its head, among others (Merriam-Webster, 2002, see \"body\"). This is a highly complex set of associated and derivative meanings, and dead, dying, and active metaphors, all as a result of the semantic shifts involved in the development and evolution of a living language. As much as univocal theories of meaning may decry the vagueness of such polysemy, both dictionaries and the actual use of language are full of it, and this certainly applies to the basic terms of psychoanalytic theory. However, it is precisely this characteristic that determines the superiority of true languages over artificial univocal ones, such as those created by symbolic logic, as tools for human thought. This is so because living words do not only have a _denotation_ \u2014i.e., they refer to some entity or other\u2014but also a _connotation_ of ramified associations, and this gives the expression a particular complex favor, which links words by association to a whole set of related implied meanings, thus turning them into _symbols_.\n\nFor instance, the term that serves as the axis of our present discussion, \"field,\" is most certainly analogous. It may refer to the open country, a piece of enclosed land, the place where a battle is fought, an area of land containing a natural resource, an area in which a particular activity or pursuit is carried out, the scene of actual living observation in research, the area where some sport is practiced, the empty area where visual symbols are projected (as in fags or heraldry), a battle (by extension from the battle field), a set of players in a game, a continuously distributed entity in space that accounts for actions at a distance, a complex of coexistent forces which determine human experience and behavior, a limited or demarcated area of knowledge, the site of a surgical operation, among many others (Merriam-Webster, 2002, see \"field\"). This multiplicity of meaning forecloses any precise definition of the term, but it is also the source of its richness, its evocative power, and the strong conviction it provides when actually used in thinking.\n\nThe _analogy of attribution_ implies that there is a flow of meaning from an original primary object (idea, perception, wish, experience), called the _primary analogue_ , to a series of derivative signs, called _secondary analogues_ , increasingly removed from its initial term, which constitutes their final referent that gives them their meaning. For example, the term \"healthy\" strictly refers only to a living organism, but its use may be extended to apply to food, medicine, habits, thoughts, lifestyle, ideology, appearance or urine (as an indicator of health), all of them analogues of the primary meaning. The classical psychoanalytic theory of symbolism, as developed by Freud (1900), Klein (1930), and others, suggests that symbols are the result of a displacement from an original vital and organic experience, related to psychosexuality, to a series of substitutes that disguise and express their true meaning at one and the same time. This kind of analogy presupposes a single original primary meaning, which makes it more palatable for univocally minded thinkers.\n\nHowever, the links between the primary analogue and the successive secondary analogues is something more than a matter of psychological associations, since they represent a _causal_ relation. And here \"causal\" does not only mean the kind of active preceding cause that is the only one acknowledged by our contemporary natural science and corresponds to Aristoteles's \"efficient cause,\" but all four Aristotelian causes: _material_ , _formal_ , _efficient_ , and _final_. In this, the final or teleological cause is always the most important one, which is manifested by means of the other three (Beuchot, 2010). Leaving aside the possible ontological connotations of this statement, there is no doubt that psychic phenomena are always intentional, that is, that they always tend to some aim, as the young Freud soon learned in his philosophy courses with Brentano, a great Aristotelian thinker (Beuchot, 1998).\n\nThe _analogy of proportionality_ represents the original Greek meaning of _analogy as proportion_. This is an assertion that follows the following logical model: \"A is to B as C is to D\"\u2014for instance, \"as water is to a plant, so is friendship to man.\" it should be noted that this statement says nothing about each of its four terms, taken in isolation, but only about their relations, and that it really compares one relation to another. When studying figures of speech, it is traditional to distinguish between a _simile_ , in which the comparison is explicit (\"friendship is like water\"), and a _metaphor_ , in which it remains implicit (\"the water of friendship\").\n\nIn hermeneutic analysis, this type of analogy is usually divided in two subgroups: _proper_ and _improper_. A proper analogy of proportionality compares elements coming from a same semantic field; for instance, the word \"semen\" comes from \"seed,\" with the implied analogy between the biological functions of two products of living organisms (\"semen is to man as the seed is to the plant\"). This kind of reasoning is known as _metonymy_ , and remains within the realm of the literal. On the other hand, an improper analogy of proportionality, called _metaphor_ , compares elements from widely different semantic fields, on the basis of a partial resemblance in structure, function or meaning, which is thus spotlighted and maximized, sometimes revealed. An example of this would be the phrase \"the wings of imagination,\" which compares a bird's organ with a mental function, on account of their being operative in sustaining two different kinds of \"fight\"\u2014physical and mental.\n\nFor the logical positivistic mood that prevails in natural science in our time, metaphor appears as a kind of sloppy thinking, confuse, ambiguous, and unscientific at best, but in the tradition of the humanities it is the most approximate way of conveying and pointing at some essential human experience or complex relationship that cannot be actually said in unambiguous terms. It is therefore the very stuff of symbols. When Shakespeare puts in Hamlet's mouth the exacting task of determining \"Whether 'this nobler in the mind to suffer \/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, \/ or to take arms against a sea of troubles, \/ and by opposing end them\" (hamlet: iii, 1), is he not using three different metaphors, including an outrageously mixed one, in order to say something meaningful about the human condition?\n\nPsychoanalysis, as a discipline, and we psychoanalysts, as practicing professionals, are in the very same situation as the other human sciences. Thus we make an extensive use of metaphor in our theories, in the interpretations we offer to our patients, and in the narratives of our professional experiences, both written and oral. But here we have a wider basis for justifying this procedure, since, unlike the other humanities, we have a special knowledge of the workings of the mind that sustain it, as we shall presently see in the next section.\n\n## **Metonymic and Metaphoric Processes**\n\nFreud's point of departure was his conviction, which he probably derived from his philosophy courses with Brentano (Beuchot, 1998), that mind and all its processes are by definition _intentional_ \u2014i.e., that they always tend towards some aim. Edmund Husserl, who was also one of Brentano's students, derived his phenomenology from the very same conviction, albeit he restricted it to the workings of consciousness. Freud, on the other hand, made the momentous discovery that _all human behavior and experience is intentional and bears a meaning, but that such intention and meaning are largely unknown and inaccessible to the subject who has these experiences and carries out these actions_ (Tubert-Oklander, 2000, 2006a). They are inaccessible because the subject exerts an ongoing effort, which goes also unnoticed, to avoid their open expression; this is what we call \"repression.\" hence, whenever we wish to explore the unconscious dimension, we have to apply a method and work in order to neutralize this effort of repression and allow the emergence of those intentions and meanings that had been actively ignored by the subject (Freud, 1912a, 1915b). This is the work of psychoanalysis.\n\nBut Freud (1900) went even further, when he discovered that unconscious mental processes are of a different nature and follow quite another path from that of their conscious counterpart, and accounted for this with his theory of the primary and secondary processes. Ignacio Matte-Blanco (1988), who studied this problem from the logical perspective, suggests that the main characteristic of the primary process is that it is ruled by a _symmetric logic_ , which allows a reversibility of all relations, this being the hallmark of unconscious thinking. This is in sharp contrast with the secondary process that rules conscious thought, working in accordance with the traditional Aristotelian logic, which deals with irreversible relations\u2014if John is Peter's father, peter is not John's father: this is _asymmetric logic_. But in the logic of the unconscious, all statements are reversible; thus, John and peter have a father\u2013son relationship, in which each of them can occupy any of its poles. This is the reason why it is easy to be alternatively a sadist and a masochist, passive and active, abuser and abused.\n\nBut with this reversibility of relations, all the other characteristics of the secondary process simply vanish. This is, for instance, the case of causal relations, which can only be thought in irreversible terms\u2014in medicine we say that Koch's bacillus causes tuberculosis, but not the other way round. The same happens with the concept of objective time, which requires an irreversible sequence of successive moments, as well as that of space, since, if any given place can be replaced by any other, spatial relations become meaningless. Thus, in unconscious thought, a house may emerge from a fire or a mouth be turned into a nipple.\n\nBut the most striking feature of primary process thinking is the reversibility of the class-member relation. For instance, Mary is a woman and a mother, hence we may conceive her as a member of the class of mothers, but this class is not a woman, just as humankind, conceived as the set of all human persons, is not a person. This is the irreversible asymmetrical logic of the secondary process. But in the reversible and symmetric logic of the primary process, we may say that Mary is, at one and the same time, a member\u2014i.e., a part\u2014of the set of all mothers, and that this set is a part of Mary. The relations between a whole and a part, and between a class and one of its members, just collapse, and we are left with a diffuse but overwhelming concept of Motherhood, in which Mary becomes the bearer of the Great Mother archetype, and the latter incarnates in the visage, the body, and the voice of a particular woman. But since every one of the members of the class of mothers participates in such reversibility, in this dimension any of them is equivalent to any other and all mothers are one. This is the basis of those two peculiar mental processes that we call \"condensation\" and \"displacement,\" which, together with plastic representation and symbolism, are the instruments of the dream work (Freud, 1900).\n\nIn terms of our previous hermeneutic analysis, we may say that conscious mental processes are mainly metonymical, while unconscious ones are metaphorical. But there is yet another most significant difference, which may well account for the two types of logic: conscious thinking works mainly in terms of verbal, conventional, socially acquired, and interpersonally shared language, while unconscious thought seems to be made of idiosyncratic images derived from sensuous experiences\u2014what we call _iconic signs_.\n\n_Verbal signs_ are conventional, in that there is no visible relation between the word \"dog\" and that gentle, furry, and loving mammal that sleeps happily on the carpet while I am writing these words. They are appropriate because they are shared by a linguistic community, but they could easily be replaced by others\u2014as they frequently are, when a living language evolves\u2014without a loss of meaning. _Iconic signs_ , on the other hand, are an attempt to reproduce a part of the experience of perception of a given object or situation. An instance of this is onomatopoeia, by means of which cats _meow_ , bees _buzz_ or a twig _snaps_ (of course, when a market _cracks_ , we have concocted a metaphor out of an onomatopoeia). Another one are photographs o portraits of a person, which clearly depict her or him, but what is the status of a political cartoon that draws a caricature of its subject? The latter clearly represents a more elaborate symbol, which highlights a more general characteristic of icons: that they do not only depict, but always imply an interpretation. For Charles Sanders Peirce there were three kinds of icons, according to their distance from sensuous experience: _images_ , _diagrams_ , and _metaphors_. All of them are clearly ways of depicting relations, rather than things.\n\nThe icon always signals a presence, rather than an absence, and it can always be perceived simultaneously, unlike verbal discourse, which is necessarily sequential. So, the very fact that primary process operates as iconic thinking may account for its characteristic features, such as timelessness, reversibility, lack of causal relations, which are replaced by relations of meaning, and the inability for negation. But whereas words are more precise in denotation, icons have a much greater capacity for connotation, so that they have a deeper emotional impact, when used in interpersonal or social communication. In the inner workings of the individual mind, secondary process and verbal thought are the bases for reason, logic, and science\u2014hence, metonymy. On the other hand, primary process and iconic thinking are the language of feeling, art, poetry, and religion\u2014i.e., metaphor.\n\nIf we accept these propositions, clearly derived from the Freudian concepts of the primary and the secondary processes, as much as from hermeneutics and Peirce's conception of semiotics, we should admit that, at the unconscious level, there cannot be any discrimination between subject and object, and that they may be easily identified or interchanged. In the analytic situation, this implies that, in the unconscious dimension of the encounter, analyst and analysand are inevitably identical and interchangeable, and that this applies to the former, as much as to the latter. It is only in the conscious dimension of experience, thinking, and acting, that the analytic asymmetry can and must be understood, remembered, and preserved.\n\nBut obviously the stuff of human beings is not restricted to the unconscious and the primary process. Consciousness and the secondary process also exist and have a major bearing on human existence, so that thinking always travels along two contrasting and complementary paths. This is what Matte-Blanco calls \"bi-logic,\" that is, the alternance and confluence of both kinds of logic, which are kept in a state of dialectic tension between them.\n\nAll this derives, not only from the Freudian discovery, but also from the Kleinian conception of an unconscious fantasy, which determines a type of experience of oneself, objects, and the world and its happenings that underlies and is quite different from ordinary conscious experience. Donald Meltzer (1981) asserts that \"Mrs. Klein... made a discovery that created a revolutionary addition to the model of the mind, namely _that we do not live in one world, but in two_ \u2014that we live in an internal world which is as real a place to live in as the outside world\" (p. 178, italics added). It may be argued that Meltzer is overstating his pro-Klein case, and that this discovery really comes from Freud. This is unquestionably so, as far as clinical discoveries go, but the author develops a convincing argument for his contention that the original causal-deterministic and quasi-physiological model of the _Project_ (Freud, 1950) prevented him from finding a place in his theory for an internal world, and completing his \"approach to transforming himself from a neurophysiological psychologist into a phenomenological one\" (Meltzer, 1981, p. 178).\n\nThis perspective brings about substantial consequences, both for our hermeneutic approach and for clinical practice. It is easy to see that any attempt to think exclusively in terms of the asymmetrical logic of secondary process will bring about a univocal interpretation and view of things, while any way of thinking ruled by the symmetrical logic of the primary process will generate an equivocal one; these would be the bases of monistic and relativistic thinking. Likewise, bi-logic would be the psychological substrate of analogical thinking. Now, according to Matte-Blanco, bi-logic is the true shape of human thought, but in most circumstances they are mutually alienated, so that conscious thinking tries to follow only the path of asymmetrical logic, while unconscious mentation takes that of symmetrical logic, generating a steady flow of _dream-thoughts_ (Meltzer, 1983), thus constituting that \"other scene\" (Freud, 1900) of a parallel invisible world.\n\nHowever, the conscious assumption and development of the capacity for bi-logic is a veritable maturational achievement, which should be expected as a result of a successful psychoanalytic treatment. This implies the assumption that the aim of psychoanalytic treatment may be framed as _the integration of the personality_ , so that its various components and processes may fuse into a functioning whole\u2014a far cry from Freud's (1933a) staunch belief that the secondary process should prevail (\"Where id was, there ego shall be. It is a work of culture\u2014not unlike the draining of the zuider zee,\" p. 80).\n\nNow, this dual world also reflects on the very nature of the analytic relationship. In these terms, there is a conscious level in which the analyst is an analyst, the patient is a patient, and they are both together in a closed room doing something called \"psychoanalysis\", however, this has been defined in their initial agreement. Nevertheless, this coexists with another level in which things occur quite differently; thus the patient may feel that interpretations turn into a venom that poisons him or her, or the analyst may have the unconscious experience of being a good mother that feeds a hungry baby, or becomes the pray of the cannibalistic impulses of a starving one.\n\nSuch description is, nonetheless, insuffcient, since it is trying to express an experience belonging to the domain of the symmetric logic of the primary process, in terms of the asymmetric logic of the secondary process. It is no use saying to a patient \"You are having the unconscious fantasy that my interpretations are a sadistic penetration that tears you inside,\" since such a formulation translates the unconscious fantasy into the discriminate terms of consciousness, which are the only ones in which there is a differentiation between analyst and analysand. So, it is a metonymical framing of a valid intuition of something that can only be approached by metaphor\u2014approached, but never fully reached or encompassed. Fortunately, the patient's metaphorical mental processes usually take hold of the interpretation and retranslate it into terms that are more adequate for the kind of understanding they are both striving to attain. In any case, the use of poetical (metaphoric) language is frequently more effective, at the time of interpreting, than that of a more concrete and precise (metonymic) one.\n\nA more serious objection is that this way of phrasing the interpretation is tantamount to affirming that the unconscious fantasy belongs only to the patient, and that the analyst is not a part of the session's unconscious dimension\u2014a claim that is clearly absurd and unsustainable. A more adequate formulation would perhaps be: \"something is happening to us that transforms my interpretations into a sadistic act, which may be compared to a violent and painful rape.\" This is the metonymic version, while a more metaphoric one would be \"it seems that I am raping you with my words.\" such an interpretation would be based, both on the patient's feelings of pain, humiliation or indignation, and on the analyst's experiences of guilt or sadistic pleasure, felt at the moment of verbalizing it. The concrete wording of the interpretation will obviously depend on the context and associative substrate, which would stem from the patient's dreams or associations and the analyst's countertransference occurrences (racker, 1968), as well as from their respective personalities and communicative styles, and the history of their analytic relationship.\n\nIn this, Matte-Blanco's contribution turns out to be much more complex and nuanced than Klein's original concepts. For the former, it is not a question of us living in two worlds\u2014that of consciousness, which is determined by reality, and that of unconscious fantasy, derived from instinctual motions\u2014but that our relation with reality\u2014the whole of reality, which includes both the external world facts, harvested by perception, and those of emotional life, which are experienced without any mediation\u2014is transformed through the various thinking processes: _symmetric logic_ , _asymmetric logic_ and _bi-logic_. The result is a highly complex and polysemic view of the world, in which there is a confluence of disparate elements of diverse origins, which might be compared with the world of Greek mythology, inhabited by many different beings: the titans, the major Gods of Olympus, mortals, demigods born from the coupling of the previous two, and a myriad minor gods who dwelled in the various spaces of the everyday world, such as woods, fountains, seas or crossroads.\n\nIn the previous paragraph, I have made an extensive use of metaphoric language and iconic representation, in order to convey a highly complex conception of the organization and functioning of mind. This is precisely the way in which psychoanalytic theorizing works, what Freud, in his letter to Fliess of May 25, 1895, called \"fantasizing\" ( _Phantasieren_ ). The full quotation says:\n\n> During the past weeks I have devoted every free minute to such work [of theory building]; have spent the hours of the night from eleven to two with such _fantasizing, interpreting, and guessing_ , and invariably stopped only when somewhere I came up against an absurdity or when I actually and seriously overworked, so that I had no interest left in my daily medical activities.\n> \n> (Freud, 1895, p. 129, italics added)\n\nSo, when facing the protean quality of human mental life, Freud felt he had to resort to a peculiar admixture of scientific and poetic thinking, which alternated between moments of imaginative frenzy (\"fantasizing, interpreting, and guessing\") and the more sober ones of checking these fights of fancy with actual clinical experience and the rigors of argumentation. The resulting theory is necessarily mixed, a hybrid of logical discourse and poetic language; hence the omnipresence of metaphor in psychoanalytic theory, which has been a source of vexation for many an epistemologist.\n\nWhat is specific of psychoanalysis is the psychoanalytic experience, which is emotional, interactive, and cognitive, all at once. And such experience may only be conveyed by poetic language, which is mainly metaphorical. It is only afterwards that this gives rise to a conceptual discourse, as a transformation of the former, which aims at a universality that it never fully reaches; this is what we call \"metapsychology.\"\n\nMetapsychology is to the clinical discourse that aims to recreate in the reader or listener something of the living experience of the analytic encounter and dialogue, as metaphysics is to poetry\u2014and this is a metonymic analogy, which follows Mexican philosopher Mauricio Beuchot's (2003b) ideas on \"the intercrossing of metaphysical and poetical discourses.\" For him \"poetry is pre-metaphysic, and metaphysics is post-poetic\" (p. 143), and their mutual influence and dialogue should result in \"metaphysical poetry\" and \"poetical metaphysics.\" The same may be said about the clinical-poetical and metapsychological-conceptual discourses in psychoanalysis; it is not that the latter serves as foundation for the former, or vice versa, but that they complement each other in their mutual encounter, uncovering their similarities and common ground, but without losing sight of their specific differences, not unlike what goes on in the psychoanalytic dialogue. We shall now consider how this complementarity works, in the case of the field concept in psychoanalysis.\n\n## **The Field Concept**\n\nThe concept of \"field\" was originally introduced in physics, in order to account for phenomena that implied an influence of one object on a distant other, without any visible intermediation between them, such as gravity or magnetism. Since the type of influence the former had on the latter seemed to irradiate in all directions, as if in concentrical circles with diminishing strength, the term was thereafter used to refer to a region of space in which a given effect of these characteristics exists. But it also implied a certain organization of such region, in which any change at a given point had effects on every other point of the field. Field theories implied an epistemological revolution in science, since they replaced linear causality, as an explanatory principle, by complex interdependence. They also gave up the assumption that a cause should always precede its effects; consequently, they had the characteristic of being atemporal, since they explained the phenomena that took place in the field in terms of the latter's organization and dynamics, without any reference to its previous history (Tubert-Oklander, 2007).\n\nThese concepts were imported into psychology by Gestalt theorists, who were particularly interested in the study of \"wholes,\" as opposed to that of \"parts\" (Koffka, 1935; Katz, d. 1943; Merleau-Ponty, 1942). From such perspective, _the whole was considered to be more than, prior to, and more elementary than the sum of its parts_. In other words, _the relationship between the whole and the parts constituted a field_. This meant that, in the complex organizations that characterize living phenomena\u2014such as organisms, their structure and functions, and their interactions with other organisms and their environment\u2014this complexity is a primary phenomenon, and its so-called parts are artificially created by our analytic activity, whether intellectual or physical. For instance, the kind of anatomical and functional dissection used by physiologists to create the \"systems\" they study, by means of isolating parts of the organism, falsifies the fact that the latter always acts as a whole, and generates a situation that is akin to, as Kurt Goldstein (1940) pointed out, that which characterizes pathological conditions. The same would apply to the effects of some of the research artifices introduced by Freud's technique, such as the fragmentation of the dream, in order to inquire and follow the associations forced by the analyst's questioning (Freud, 1900).\n\nIf we accept this point of view, we are bound to conclude that the results attained by an approach based on an analytic activity that fragments the integrity of an organism (or personality) in order to inquire into the nature, structure, and functioning of the \"parts\" that are thus created, can only be used for the understanding of normality if we identify the ways in which this isolation modifies the functioning of the whole, and take the necessary measures to compensate such distortion. This demands reintegrating this information into the functioning of the organism-as-a-whole, and restoring the organism to its normal context, from which it had been segregated when it was placed in the laboratory (or consulting room). The same applies to any study or conception of the individual in isolation. The human being always acts as a whole and is inserted in a relational and social context.\n\nOf course, when the integrity of personality and\/or its relations with others and groups is impaired by pathology, the partial aspects that result from splitting are real, and need be analyzed, in order to restore\u2014or perhaps institute for the first time\u2014their wholeness. In this, traditional clinical psychoanalysis has made a fundamental contribution.\n\nBut the field concept was brought to social psychology by Kurt Lewin (1951), who came, like Freud, from a natural science background, and tried to formulate his field concept in quasi-physical terms. For him, the human being existed in a \"vital space,\" conceived as a field in which many different forces interact, thus shaping his or her behavior and experience. This concept allowed him to map the effect on the individual of a series of disparate elements, such as childhood experiences, wishes and aspirations, membership in groups and institutions, organic characteristics and transformations, physical and social climates, the geographic milieu, language, cultural values, the structure and functions of institutions and society, political events, and accidental happenings. Even though these may seem to be so different as to become incommensurable, their interaction and mutual influence turn out to be cogent, if we consider that they are all psychological events, acting within a psychological field.\n\nThis is especially evident when we consider the relation of individual psychology to interpersonal and group events and situations, which, according to Lewin, also constitute a psychological field in which the whole\u2014the group\u2014is more than, prior to, and more elementary than the sum of its parts\u2014the individual members. Following the aristotelian conception of the human being as essentially social, the individual becomes an abstraction, as the behavior and experience of concrete human beings can only be understood in terms of the organization and the dynamics of the group field.\n\nThe field approach is based on a spatial metaphor, so that it develops an atemporal theory. This implies the methodological principle of taking into account _contemporary factors_ only. Everything is viewed in terms of the present, and the past and the future have a purely psychological existence, as remembrances of what has happened and expectations of what is to come. In this, it is belief and meaning, rather than actual occurrence, which determine the psychological relevance of any given event. This would seem to be in dire contradiction with the psychoanalytic approach, which seeks to explain the present in terms of the past, but this is so only in terms of Freud's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to turn psychoanalysis into a positivistic science (Freud, 1940b).2\n\nAnother different approach to the psychological use of the concept of field was that of Maurice Merleau-ponty, in his books _The Structure of Behavior_ (1942) and _Phenomenology of Perception_ (1945). Starting from Husserl's phenomenology and the Gestalt point of view, he took a different turn, since, instead of emphasizing the experimental study of perception, as the classical Gestalt psychologists, or that of motivation, as Lewin, he adopted the phenomenological-existential perspective, thus focusing on the study of _personal experience_. This brought him into contact with one possible way of understanding psychoanalysis, as a methodology for the study of unconscious experience.\n\nThis field perspective of human existence became quite attractive for those psychoanalysts who were particularly interested in its interpersonal and social dimensions. For instance, harry stack Sullivan (1953) was overtly sympathetic to Lewin's field concepts, although he differed from them, as he developed his own view of human existence in terms of the individual's participation in an interpersonal field.\n\nField concepts also found their way into the theory and practice of those psychoanalysts who initiated the clinical analytic inquiry of groups, thus creating what became known as \"group analysis.\" Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, whose influence was acknowledged by Willy Baranger (1979a), as his analyst, teacher, and friend, explicitly referred to Lewin's concepts and techniques in his papers on his own approach to group analysis, which he called \"operative groups\" (Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, 1971; Tubert-Oklander & Hern\u00e1ndez-Tubert, 2004). On the other hand, S. H. Foulkes (1948; Foulkes & Anthony, 1965), the creator of group analysis in Britain, denied having a Lewinian influence, but he shared with him an origin in Gestalt psychology, which he had received from his teacher, the neurologist Kurt Goldstein (1940). The fact that Lewin's models were physical, like Freud's, while those of Foulkes stemmed from the study of human biology and social science, determined a significant difference in their perspectives.\n\nBut the true inception of a field theory of the psychoanalytic situation and process came in 1961, when Madeleine and Willy Baranger published, in the _Uruguayan Review of Psychoanalysis_ , their seminal paper \"Te analytic situation as a dynamic Field\" (Baranger & Baranger, 1961\u20131962), which was later included in their 1969 book _Problems of the Psychoanalytic Field_ (Baranger & Baranger, 1969). This seminal text has only recently been published in English translation by the _International Journal of Psycho-Analysis_ , in 2008.\n\nThe Barangers' point of departure is methodological: the minimum dimension for psychoanalytic observation comprises two people, not one. In this they implicitly agree with British independents, such as Michael Balint, who pointed out the paradoxical effects of trying to account for what happens in a bi-personal situation, by means of a one-person theory. Hence, they define the nature of the analytic field as follows:\n\n> A situation between two persons who remain unavoidably connected and complementary as long as the situation obtains, and involved in a single dynamic process. In this situation, neither member of the couple can be understood without the other.\n> \n> (Baranger & Baranger, 2008, p. 796)\n\nHere they introduce the concept of \"field,\" which they import from Gestalt psychology, especially from Merleau-Ponty (1945), whose approach is more consistent with their whole approach to psychoanalysis, which is mainly philosophical and humanistic, in sharp contrast with Lewin's quasi-physical perspective.\n\nBut the structure and dynamics of the field include more than the two people involved; they also comprise the place and physical disposition of the consulting room, the temporal sequence of the sessions and the functional definition of both parties' roles, in sum, the analytic setting. In later papers, they also included the analyst's theories (Baranger, Baranger & Mom, 1978). What they did leave unmentioned was the participation of the social, historical, and political context in the constitution of the analytic field. This may be understood as a result of their traditional psychoanalytic focus on the intrapsychic, in spite of Willy Baranger's life-long interest on the study of ideology and its influence on the psychoanalytic situation (Baranger, 1954, 1957, 1958, 1992; Hern\u00e1ndez-Tubert, 2005; Tubert-Oklander, 2005, 2007).\n\nThis holistic approach to the analytic situation and process led them to a reformulation of some basic concepts of the theory of technique. Insight, for instance, came to be seen as a reorganization of the field, which generates new meanings (Baranger & Baranger, 1964). The essential ambiguity of the analytic situation paves the way for a certain degree of regression in both parties, and the emergence of a _field unconscious phantasy_.3 This is clearly derived from Melanie Klein's concepts (Isaacs, 1948; Klein et al., 1952), but with a major difference: this mental product cannot be considered as an expression of the individual's drives, but as a _phantasy of the couple_ , which cannot \"be considered to be the _sum_ of the two internal situations... [but as] something created _between_ the two, within the unit they form in the moment of the session, something radically different from what each of them is separately\" (Baranger & Baranger, 2008, p. 806).\n\nIn this, there is an obvious influence of the experience and theories of group analysis, which they received from Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re. This they explicitly acknowledge, when they write that \"we can only conceive of the basic phantasy of the session\u2014the point of urgency\u2014as a phantasy in a couple (in analytic group psychotherapy, the appropriate expression is 'group phantasy')\" (pp. 805\u2013806).\n\nAnother major point in their argument is that, when the patient's resistance becomes a _bastion_ ( _baluarte_ in spanish)\u2014understood as \"whatever the patient does not put at risk because the risk of losing it would throw the patient into a state of extreme helplessness, vulnerability and despair\" (p. 814)\u2014its analysis and final resolution shows that this was truly a field phenomenon, which included an unconscious participation of the analyst. This bi-personal bastion also includes the analyst's theories and technique (Baranger, Baranger, & Mom, J. M., 1978). In this they follow the path opened by Racker's (1958) pioneer work on the analyst\u00b4s counter-resistances.\n\nThe resolution of such bastions requires that the analyst take a \"second look\" at the developments in the analytic situation, taking himself or herself as an object of the analytic inquiry. This happens whenever the necessary asymmetry of the analytic relation, instituted by the initial contract, has been lost and substituted by a pathological symmetrical organization, which has to be solved by interpretation (Baranger, Baranger & Mom, 1983). When this interpretive effort is successful, the result is that reorganization of the analytic field that we call \"insight,\" and the asymmetry of the relationship is restored, thus reactivating a stagnated process, which they call a \"non-process.\"\n\nNow, this later formulation is more restricted than their initial statement that the analytic situation can only be fully understood as a bi-personal field. In their 1983 paper called \"process and non-process in analytic Work,\" the Barangers and Mom were more cautious, as they seemed worried about the risk implied by taking the field concept as an affirmation of a total symmetry of the positions of analyst and patient. Perhaps this was a reaction to some misreadings of their original text that emphasized a mutuality in the analytic relationship\u2014i.e., a relational perspective that they would be far from sharing (Tubert-Oklander, 2007). In any case, they were posing the problem of the alleged opposition between symmetry and asymmetry that emerges whenever the issue of _mutuality_ in analysis is discussed, ever since Ferenczi's bold experiments in mutual analysis (Ferenczi, 1932; Aron, 1996; Tubert-Oklander, 2004a, 2004b).\n\n## **The Author's Point of View**\n\nMy personal position vis-\u00e0-vis this problem is that the analytic relation needs be asymmetrical, since it is defined as a professional helping intervention; hence, the analyst's and the analysand's positions, functions, responsibilities, and rights are necessarily different and complementary. But this happens only at the differentiated level of conscious and preconscious experience, since the unconscious knows nothing about differences or professional obligations. Therefore, at the deepest level, not only are both parties symmetrical and interchangeable, but they are also completely undifferentiated, in a state of primeval unity (Loewald, 1951; little, 1960; Bleger, 1967a; Tubert-Oklander, 2006a, 2008). This is what creates a symmetrical unconscious field, which enters into a dialectic tension with the asymmetrical analytic relation, which the analyst strives to maintain, as the only possible tool for an understanding of the field. When this difference and tension is momentarily lost, it is high time for that second look, which may come from self-analysis, personal analysis or supervision, in order to salvage the analytic process.\n\nBut the field is not a \"thing,\" a discrete structure or event, which may or may not be present and is in need of explanation, but rather a different perspective, another way of organizing our perceptions and thinking about them. Classical psychoanalytic theory starts from the assumption that only the individual is \"real,\" and that dyads, fields, interpersonal and transpersonal processes, or collective entities such as groups, institutions, and communities, are secondary phenomena, or even fantasies. One instance of this is to be found in Bion's (1952) assertion that \"the belief that a group exists, as distinct from an aggregate of individuals, is an essential part of [the members'] regression, as are also the characteristics with which the supposed group is endowed by the individual.... [Te word] 'group'... [means] an aggregation of individuals all in the same state of regression\" (p. 142).\n\nThis brief text, which was written while the author was training as a psychoanalyst and in analysis with Melanie Klein, enters into a sharp contrast with his previous \"experiences in Groups\" (Bion, 1948), in which he poses an entirely opposite position:\n\n> In the group the individual becomes aware of capacities that are only potential so long as he is in comparative isolation. The group, therefore, is more than the aggregate of individuals, because an individual in a group is more than an individual in isolation.\n> \n> (Tubert-Oklander & Hern\u00e1ndez-Tubert, 2004, p. 90)\n\nBe it as it may, the unquestionable existence of the individual was clearly Freud's starting point, and from it he derived his research program of investigating psychic processes, considered as something \"inside\" the individual. The rationale seems to be that only material entities are \"real,\" and that the isolated physical organism is the only possible true substrate of mind. But this is an assumption that stems from his previously accepted conception of the world\u2014the materialistic metaphysics of modern science\u2014and not a result of the psychoanalytic inquiry (Hern\u00e1ndez-Tubert, 2004; Tubert-Oklander, 2004c).\n\nNonetheless, not all psychoanalysts share these positivistic assumptions, and there has been lately a sea change in a large sector of the psychoanalytic community towards holistic thinking. The idea that the psychoanalytic situation is an organic whole, whose parts cannot be understood without referring to each other and to the organized totality in which they are immersed, may be framed in more than one way (\"Being is said in many ways,\" said Aristotle in his _Metaphysics_ ). If one conceives it in atemporal terms, as a complex mutual interaction and influence between a number of elements that occur simultaneously, then you have a _field model_ of complexity. If, on the other hand, one looks at it in temporal terms, as a hypercomplex evolution with direction, course, and aim, this is a _process model_. Finally, if one constructs it as a model of personal relations in an imaginary group, as the ancient Greeks did with the Olympus and Freud (1923a) with \"Te ego and the id,\" the result is a _dramatic or mythological model_. There is no need for us to choose between these three kinds of models, since they have an epistemological and not an ontological validity; they are something like three different lenses or recording instruments, three basic metaphors for understanding, each of which gives a different image of one and the same thing (Tubert-Oklander, 2006b). And this \"same thing\" is human ontology, ever present and evolving, but never fully visible or knowable. This is the Being which is said in many ways and called by many names.\n\nHence, the three models that I have just described are but metaphors, coined in order to describe some aspect or other of the ineffable complexity of the analytic experience. They offer a metaphoric description, more akin to the symmetric logic of the unconscious and poetry, which is to be articulated with the literal or metonymic description, in terms of the asymmetric logic of consciousness and science, in order to attain an analytic bi-logical understanding of the experience we share with our patients.\n\nBut does the assertion that human existence is a highly complex totality imply that the individual be nothing but a creation of our thinking processes, a partial metaphor used to refer to an aspect of a complex whole? I would say it is, but so are relations, the field, the group, the community, and humankind. We are always striving to picture in our minds a hypercomplex, irrepresentable reality by building sketchy maps of our primary pre-reflective experience (Merleau-Ponty, 1945), and playing with them, like a child plays with building blocks.\n\nIn this, the group-analytic experience is the necessary complement of the traditional bi-personal psychoanalytic experience. Wilfred Bion's (1948) early incursion into groups led him to postulate the existence of _proto-mental phenomena_ , prior to any dreaming or wording of them. In the proto-mental level, there is no differentiation between body and mind, self and other, individual and group, since the proto-mental system is the matrix from which such entities are formed and emerge.\n\nIn the same vein, S. H. Foulkes, the creator of group analysis, stated\u2014in his _Introduction to Group-Analytic Psychotherapy_ , published in 1948, the very same year in which Bion's \"Experiences in Groups\" started to appear in _Human Relations_ \u2014that:\n\n> Each individual\u2014itself an artificial, though plausible, abstraction\u2014is basically and centrally determined, inevitably, by the world in which he lives, by the community, the group, of which he forms a part.... The old juxtaposition of an inside and outside world, constitution and environment, individual and society, phantasy and reality, body and mind and so on, are untenable. They can at no stage be separated from each other, except by artificial isolation.\n> \n> (Foulkes, 1948, p. 10)\n\nThe obvious corollary is that the group is also \"itself an artificial, though plausible, abstraction.\" in this, Foulkes was envisaging, just like Bion, a conception of existence as a hypercomplex undifferentiated whole, but whereas the latter conceived this as a primitive level, the former saw this systemic quality in all levels, from the apparently isolated individual through groups, institutions, and communities, up to the whole social and political reality.\n\nThe very same stance was taken by Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, founder of the argentine psychoanalytic association and pioneer of psychoanalysis and group analysis in Latin-America, who, as we have already seen, had a major influence on the Barangers. He also conceived both psychoanalysis and human life in general as an organic whole, although he preferred the temporal metaphor of the process to the spatial one of the field. His conception of the \"spiral dialectic process\" of analysis was part of the inspiration for the Barangers' concept of the analytic situation as a dynamic field (Baranger, W., 1979a).\n\nIn pichon-rivi\u00e8re's thinking, there was never an opposition between individual and collective psychology, since they are two sides of one and the same mental phenomenon\u2014that of human existence. He used to refer to the metaphor of the island and the mainland, taken from John Donne's famous _Meditation XVII_ , in which the poet says: \"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.\"\n\nThis poetic metaphor speaks for itself: neither the island, nor the continent are real entities, but only that part of a single irregular ground that can be seen over the level of the waters. Hence, the individual and the group are illusions, derived from our mind's tendency to split and splinter complex wholes, in order to be able to talk and think them through (Tubert-Oklander, 2011). Or, perhaps, rather than speaking of \"illusions,\" we should call them, after Foulkes (1948), \"artificial, though plausible, abstractions.\"\n\nSo, we are now back to our original problem of articulating _metaphor_ and _field_. The concept of \"field\" is now clearly a metaphor for the analytic situation, which is complemented by two other metaphors that depict other aspects of it: the _process metaphor_ , which highlights its evolution in time, and the _dramatic metaphor_ , which iconizes the mental processes in the analytic relation and dialogue, in terms of that \"other scene\" of fantasy and dream (Tubert-Oklander, 2006b).\n\nOn the other hand, the unconscious metaphoric processes that represent the mind's basic efforts to represent its dealings with the world are the very stuff of the analytic interaction, in its three aspects of field, process, and drama. In these deepest levels of minding, there is no differentiation between self, others, and the whole environment, and unconscious experience comprises everything there is; communication does not follow the ordinary, discrete, and perceptible paths, and neither does it occur in sequence, but rather as a simultaneous mutual influence\u2014i.e., field and process phenomena. This is what we try to depict and unravel by means of the analytic dialogue, in its double aspect of interpretation and explanation, which requires both metaphor and metonymy, which correspond to the poetic and argumentative uses of language (Ricoeur, 2008).\n\nThe end result is truly analogical, inasmuch as it finds a proportional midpoint in between the univocality of metonymy and science, and the equivocality of metaphor and poetry\u2014\"analogy\" originally meant \"proportion.\" and this requires, on the part of the analyst, an exercise of the Aristotelian virtue of _phronesis_ (prudence), which is the ability to give to all parties their due. The knowledge that is thus acquired is necessarily partial, since it is based on similarity, rather than identity, but enough for the analyst and the analysand to go on thinking and working together\u2014i.e., analyzing (Beuchot, 1997, 2003a; Tubert-Oklander & Beuchot Puente, 2008).\n\n## **Summary**\n\nThe concepts of \"field\" and \"metaphor\" are necessarily related. First, because the very idea of the field is a metaphor; second, because metaphors generate a field in themselves, when considered as a form of mental activity. The mind works in terms of two logics and two processes: the secondary process, which is verbal, realistic, logical, and scientific, and the primary process, which is iconic, fantastic, metaphorical, and poetic. The logic of the secondary process is asymmetrical and that of the primary process is symmetrical; the confluence and articulation of both is bi-logical. The analogical synthesis of both logics gives the fullest integration of the human mind.\n\nAt the unconscious level, there is no individuation and no differences, but rather a primeval fusion of subject, object, and environment; this is the psychological and logical basis of the bi-personal field and process, which include both patient and analyst in an evolving dynamic whole. There is necessary complementarity between psycho-analysis and group analysis, as there was between the Barangers' concept of the dynamic field and their teacher Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re's concept of the spiral process. These ideas originated from the group-analytic experience and found their way into the theory of psychoanalytic technique.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n Originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) with the same title.\n\n \"Psychology, too, is a natural science. What else can it be?\" (Freud, 1940b, p. 282).\n\n Here the unusual spelling of the word corresponds to the Kleinian usage (Isaacs, 1948), in which \"phantasy\" refers to the original unconscious mental processes and their iconic content, as something quite different from conscious \"fantasies,\" akin to daydreaming, and their repressed derivatives, as described by Freud (1908).\n\n# 15\n\nMETAPHOR, ANALYTIC FIELD,  \nAND SPIRAL PROCESS\n\n_Beatriz_ _de Le\u00f3n de Bernardi_\n\nThis chapter deals with field theory issues in the frame of latin American thought, linking it to the subject of metaphor in psychoanalysis.\n\nIn the first part, some general developments about the theme of metaphor and about metaphor in psychoanalysis are exposed. The author presents the concept of dynamic field theory in the vision of Madeleine and Willy Baranger, the metaphoric processes implicit in this theory, and interpretations formulated over different basic concepts.\n\nIn the second part, the author develops a personal perspective of the field theory, supporting herself with examples from her clinical practice. She describes the characteristics of moments of intense communication between patient and analyst and the metaphoric processes implicit in interpretations. These metaphoric processes enable the integration of different levels of the intersubjective experience created between patient and analyst. The author postulates a dialectic point of view that allows the articulation of a situational perspective that studies the specific intersubjective moments of change in the analysis, with a vision that considers the process of analysis through time.\n\nConclusions are formulated regarding the role of metaphor in analysis and the future of the field theory in the context of theoretical and technical pluralism of current psychoanalysis.\n\n## **Metaphor and Theory of the Analytic Field**\n\nMetaphor has been traditionally understood as a rhetorical figure used by poets and artists. Usually, it has been defined as \"a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it does not literally apply to in order to imply a resemblance\" (Collins dictionary). Aristotle had already put the emphasis, in _Poetics_ and _Rhetoric_ , on the processes of transmission and extension of meaning that are characteristic of metaphoric creation. When a metaphor is created, we transfer an attribute from one subject to another subject to which it does not literally correspond. This transmission is accompanied by a figurative extension of the original meaning. From this perspective, Ricoeur (1986) considers that metaphors emerge to fill semantic vacuums. Processes of meaning extension that are present in metaphoric figures generate a new reference and new semantic pertinence that becomes impertinent with regard to the literal meaning and the usual reference of the term.\n\nIn a different posture, D. Davidson (1978) stated the pragmatic character of metaphor. From his point of view, what is relevant in a metaphor does not lie in the transmission of a meaning but in the promotion of conceptual changes and the creation of meanings in the listener. Thus, the metaphor does not create a figurative meaning, but the terms used in the metaphor keep meaning in a literal way. But the central aspect that this author highlights is that metaphors leave some degree of indetermination among related aspects, something that suggests new associations that are relevant to the listener. The way in which new connections are established, producing new meanings and emotions, depends on this listener (Quintanilla, 1999). In this approach, the function of metaphor is not mainly to give a message, but to provoke effects in the subjective experience of the listener. Following Davidson's point of view, authors such as Rorty (1989) have shown how the use of metaphors in communication also attempts to establish bonds with a strong emotional basis.\n\nAt present, the conception of metaphor does not gather only literary and philosophical reflection, but it has extended to the general processes of human cognition, the development of artistic and scientific thought, the different ways of communication and culture (Gibbs, 2008). The studies of Lakoff and Johnson (1980b, 1999) stated how metaphor is not only a figure of speech but is also part of daily expressions, being an intrinsic element of communication and of the thought processes since the origin of life.\n\nIn psychoanalysis, the subject of metaphor has been present in the reflection about the role of psychoanalytic theoretical conceptions and in elaborations about the characteristics of analytic communication. Authors such as G. Klein (1976), schafer (1976), and spence (1987) have understood, for example, how psychoanalytic theories may be seen as explanatory metaphors of unconscious psychic functioning. For some of these authors, this has been the reason why metapsychological constructions with a high degree of abstraction and generalization must be left aside in our practice. For others, however, this metaphoric character of psychoanalytic theory constitutes its greatest instrumental value.\n\nRecently, Wallerstein (this volume) critically reviewed the proposals of G. Klein and R. Schafer, who considered the metapsychological contributions as metaphors that must be left aside in their clinical application. Wallerstein, on the contrary, hierarchized the instrumental and descriptive value of the different psychoanalytic theories. He also stated how this value is lost if psychoanalytic theories are taken in their literal sense when in contact with the patient, because in a contact adjusted to the richness of the clinic and to the interpretative processes, \"Metaphor has been moved, powerfully by Lakoff and Johnson, from mental product to mental process\" (Wallerstein, this volume).\n\nAnalytic communication may also be understood, in a broad sense, as a metaphoric process that establishes connections between the literal meaning of the analyst's expressions, those of the patient and their unconscious meaning, between manifest and latent speech. Borbely (1998), for example, stated how the metaphoric process, inherent to interpretation, establishes relationships between the present and the past as a way to re-establish the polysemic flow of experiences interrupted by the neurotic suffering. The interpretation proposes new categorizations that question old conceptions about oneself:\n\n> All new insight leads to a greater or lesser extent, to a change to all previously established concepts. This mental change entails a re-conceptualisation of all previous concepts and their simultaneous re-categorization along new dimensions of relevance and meaningfulness.\n> \n> (Borbely, 1987)\n\nAs we see, considering the issue of metaphor in psychoanalysis includes different perspectives of approximation to the subject: that of metapsychological constructions of a more general and abstract character and the consideration of the specific way in which processes of metaphorization are established and the use of metaphors in the dialogue with the patient.\n\nThe perspective of the field theory constituted a model of clinical work that allowed M. And W. Baranger to establish connections between the more general and abstract levels of metapsychological constructions and the level of experience in the session. Teir reflection is placed at the phenomenological level, something that allows them to rethink different general notions of psychoanalysis in relation to its way of functioning in practice. This led them, as time went by, to permanently think and reformulate their own ideas questioned by their experience.\n\nField theory in the vision of M. And W. Baranger was understood as a metaphor of the analytic situation, and these authors' most meaningful publication about the subject is precisely entitled \"Te analytic situation as a dynamic Field.\" The different manifest aspects of the analytic field\u2014spatial, temporal, and functional\u2014supposed a \"radical ambiguity,\" an \"as if\" that enabled the analysis of the underlying unconscious phantasies.\n\n> It is essential for the analytic procedure that everything or every event in the field is at the same time something else. If this essential ambiguity is lost, the analysis also disappears.\n> \n> (Baranger & Baranger, 1961\u20131962a, p. 9; Baranger & Baranger, 2008, p. 799)\n\nIn this paper, I will first refer to the central notions of the field theory and to the vision of the analytic process of Madeleine and Willy Baranger, including references to Lacan's ideas, some of which were reviewed by these authors. I will analyze metaphoric processes in two interpretations, each formulated from a different conceptual basis.\n\nIn the second part of the paper, I develop my perspective of the field theory and of the analytic process. I describe the characteristics of moments of intense communication between patient and analyst and the metaphoric processes implicit in interpretations. These metaphoric processes enable the integration of different levels of the intersubjective experience created between patient and analyst. Starting from Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re's idea of the \"spiral process,\" I postulate a dialectic point of view that allows the articulation of a situational perspective that studies the specific intersubjective moments of change in the analysis, with a vision that considers the process of analysis through time. Finally, I will consider perspectives of the field theory and metaphor in the context of the theoretical and technical pluralism of current psychoanalysis, formulating some conclusions regarding the role of metaphor in analysis and about the future of the field theory.\n\n## **The Dynamic Field Theory in Latin America**\n\nThe analytic field theory emerged in Uruguay at the beginning of the 1960s with the appearance of the paper \" _La situaci\u00f3n anal\u00edtica como campo din\u00e1mico_ \" (\"Te analytic situation as a dynamic Field\") by Madeleine and Willy Baranger (1961\u20131962a). This paper was published in the _Revista Uruguaya de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ 50 years ago, at a moment when psychoanalytic groups were being formed and consolidated in Uruguay and Argentina.2 That paper, which was recently reprinted in the _International Journal of Psychoanalysis_ (Baranger & Baranger, 2008), had a strong impact on the psychoanalytic thought of the time and continues to have influence today, as shown in publications and congresses of the Federaci\u00f3n de Psicoan\u00e1lisis de Am\u00e9rica Latina (Fepal).3\n\nThe field theory referred to the analytic situation (de Le\u00f3n de Bernardi, 2008),4 incorporating conceptualizations from philosophy, psychology, social psychology, and psychoanalysis developed at that time in both margins of the R\u00edo de la Plata. It also incorporated contributions from phenomenology, through Merleau-ponty's thought, especially from \"Te phenomenology of Perception\" (1945); from the psychology of Gestalt and through the thought of Kurt Lewin; and from social psychology through Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst residing in Argentina, who theoretically and clinically conceptualized the effects of the social bonds in the structuralization of psychism, favoring group treatment of different problems.\n\nFrom psychoanalysis, the contributions of M. Klein, S. Isaacs, and W. Bion were central. These authors had, at that time, a strong impact on the region and meant to modify the classical Freudian points of view, centered on the role of instinct, libinal evolution, and childhood history, considered from an intrapsychic point of view. The importance given by Klein and those who continued his work to the primitive object relationships, with their anxieties and defenses when facing destructive impulses, the unconscious phantasy, and the conception of different paranoid and depressive positions along life, led to conceiving the analytic situation as an expression of primitive relationships in the \"here and now\" of the session.\n\nBion's Group Theory offered a vision of the unconscious root of certain group behaviors that went beyond individual psychology. In the same way, Kurt Lewin applied the notion of field, with its dynamism and directions, to social situations, which influenced the thought of Bion (Churcher, 2008). Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re (1998), from his experience as a doctor in a psychiatric hospital and later as psychoanalyst, was interested in developing group activity that would promote forms of more creative and healthier social adaptation. His experience as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst led him to broaden the notion of object relationship, proposing the notion of bond.\n\n> The analytic investigation of this inner world took me to broaden the concept of \"object relationship,\" formulating the notion of bond, which I define as a complex structure that includes an individual, an object, and their interrelation with processes of communication and learning.\n> \n> (p. 10)\n\nThese different conceptions about the group experience influenced the analytic vision of M. And W. Baranger, which was understood as a situation of a couple.\n\nBut, in addition, the field theory had a heuristic value, offering an answer to epistemological preoccupations of Willy Baranger on the specificity of psychoanalysis and the need for validation of our interpretations.\n\n> The systematic exam of what occurs in the analytic bipersonal situation is the only access to an ideal of knowledge validation that is truly characteristic of psychoanalysis. This ideal currently conceivable is made\u2014without being formulated\u2014in several writings of the last years, which offer a very exhaustive description of the analytic situation with the interpretations and modifications that occur in limited temporal groups.\n> \n> (Baranger, W., 1959, p. 81)\n\nFrom my point of view, the field theory was conceived as a tool of knowledge and clinical investigation, representing an attempt to broaden the capacity of observation5 and perception of the analyst to the multiple manifest and latent aspects of the analytic situation. In this regard, it was logical that they would support themselves on ideas of the Gestalt psychology, which showed how the human mind could perceive elements in globalizing structures.\n\nM. And W. Baranger conceived the existence of a dialectic interrelation between the need for observation and the search for objectivity through acceptance and use of their own subjectivity. They considered the analyst's subjectivity as a determining factor of the field phenomena,6 but at the same time, they found the need for the analyst to be participant and observer, an idea that was highlighted by Racker in relation to countertransference.7\n\nIt becomes necessary that the analyst can establish in himself or herself \"a process of relative division, as an observer of the interpersonal situation\" (Baranger & Baranger, 1961\u20131962a, p. 168), which implies questioning their own emotional reactions and interventions, evaluating their impact in the interpersonal situation, at the same time converted in object of analysis. This attitude will lead them to postulate the need of a second look after the session, which would allow the review of what was experienced and acted by both participants of the situation. We have stated (Bernardi & de Le\u00f3n, 1993) that the second look implies the analyst's disposition to auto-analysis regarding the different ways of his or her participation in the bond with the patient. Establishing a second look during and after the session offers the possibility of testing alternative hypotheses and technical options, as we will see below.\n\n## **Metaphoric Process in the Field Theory**\n\nThe approach of the analytic situation as a dynamic field led to putting the target in the present of the session and in the characteristics of the analytic dialogue established in it.\n\n> The essence of the analytic procedure is dialogue, as Freud (1926) has defined it.\n> \n> (Baranger & Baranger, 2008, p. 89)\n\nS. Isaacs's ideas about unconscious phantasy gave the conceptual basis to understanding the latent sense of this dialogue. For Isaacs, unconscious phantasies are emotional structures, primitive ways of relating in their variants of love and hate, created in the contact with the first object relationships. Still far from verbal expression, they organize the foundations of psychism, of the perception of the self and the world, and they are re-lived in the transferential bond. In this approach, what basically guides the analyst is the \"logic of emotion.\" The point of \"urgency\" of the interpretation is determined by the type of anxiety, depressive or paranoid, and the defenses when facing it, captured by the analyst in his or her countertransference.\n\n> The primary phantasies, the representatives of the earliest impulses of desire and aggressiveness, are expressed in and dealt with by mental processes far removed from words and conscious relational thinking, and determined by the logic of emotion. The unconscious phantasy condenses visual images; auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile, taste, olfactory sensations, etc.\n> \n> (Isaacs, 1948, p. 84)\n\nIsaacs, as well as M. Klein, considered unconscious phantasy from an intrapsychic point of view. But the field perspective, especially influenced by Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re's idea of bond, integrated the intrapsychic with the intersubjective. The dialectic intergame of the individual with others modifies inner object relationships. The subject and the object are reciprocally constituted. It is from this perspective that the shared unconscious phantasy, in its game of reciprocal projective identifications, was placed in the center of the analytic communication in the session.\n\nFor the perspective of the analytic field, which gathers ideas of \u00c1lvarez de Toledo (1954), the words between analyst and patient acquire in the communication with the analyst a pragmatic character, being an expression of multiple actions and unconscious phantasies:\n\n> in addition to its semantic value, the word acquires concrete value, most particularly in analytic work, in terms of fantasied action: shooting arrows, throwing rocks, poisoning, suckling, caressing, etc.\n> \n> (Baranger, Baranger, & Mom, 1983, p. 4)\n\nThe analytic dialogue is compared to ways of exchange from early infancy.\n\n> In early infancy there are synaesthesias between sounds, smells, temperatures, shapes and feelings; the most frequent of these are synopsias (coloured hearing). A sensation corresponding to a given sense appears associated with one or more others, and arises regularly when the latter are stimulated... This is particularly relevant to the process of symbolization.\n> \n> (Alvarez de Toledo, 1954[1996], p. 299)\n\nI have noted (de le\u00f3n, 1993, 2008) proximities among these ideas with ideas emerged in investigations of early development that have shown the phenomenon of the unity of the senses and of the amodal transposition of the information in the bond of the child with his or her mother (stern, 1985b). These phenomena are comparable to the metaphors of poetic creation, which achieve their effects of meaning when they propose analogies and correspondences among different levels of the sensorial experience. It has called my attention to how d. Stern (1985b) and \u00c1lvarez de Toledo (1954) used the same poem by Baudelaire, \"Correspondances,\"8 to illustrate their ideas.\n\nAs we see, the interpretation in the perspective of the field theory, influenced by ideas of the Kleinian frame, supposed an implicit metaphoric process that attempted through the word of interpretation the symbolizing reunification of aspects of the split primitive experience, or fragmented in its emotional and bodily aspects. The word will attempt to integrate the sub-symbolic levels (emotional and bodily) with the symbolic ones (images and verbal representations).\n\nThis perspective is illustrated in an investigation about the \"Changes in the interpretation in the Uruguayan psychoanalytic Group\" (Bernardi et al., 1997). Interpretations of the decades of the 1960s and 1990s were studied in 93 papers of associated Member Work (theoretical-clinical papers on analytic processes presented by the candidates to end their training) and 443 interpretations that made latent contents explicit. A quantitative-qualitative analysis was made of them. From that investigation we extract a paradigmatic example by Aida Fern\u00e1ndez (1967) that shows the interpreting mode of the 1960s, influenced by Kleinian ideas and the conception of unconscious phantasy.\n\nA young homosexual patient, with \"a weak structure of the self\" and with confusional states that show difficulties in the differentiation of the self and the objects, suffers intensely the separations from his analyst, experiencing them as abandonment. With great difficulty, the patient narrates that after the session he has looked for promiscuous sexual contacts, which have generated great discomfort and guilt. When referring to them, the patient describes the uncontrollable impulse of sexual contact as \"a fire in my head\" that had blinded him and made him lose control:\n\n>... then I felt as a fire in my head; it seemed that it had blinded me. I don't know what happened to me; it was amazing...\n\nThe analyst answers, retaking the patient's expression:\n\n> You feel fire in your head due to rage, when you believe that I stop giving you here\u2014to give it to someone else\u2014on weekends. That is why you go searching and giving, relating through all the holes. You go searching outside what you believe I do not want to give you. You are taking revenge brutally\u2014leaving me alone\u2014as you feel yourself, alone and hungry when you reject me\n> \n> (Fern\u00e1ndez, 1967, p. 189)\n\nIn this interpretation, we see how the analyst recontextualizes the expression of the patient, giving a new meaning to it in the bond with her. The expression \"fire in my head\" is used as a metaphor that puts the anger with the analyst on the same level as the anger experienced when facing frustrations in the patient's primary bodily contacts.\n\nThe formation of metaphors and metaphoric processes in the analytic field shows a complex dynamism. In this case, the starting point is the feeling of the analyst of being \"brutally\" attacked by different actions of the patient that lead to self-destructive acts. The image of the \"fire in your head\" used in the interpretation contributes to the processing in the analyst of the impact generated in herself by the actions of the patient, at the same time that she attempts to facilitate processes of integration of the split emotional and bodily experience in the patient. The analyst transmits how she conceived this movement of integration and symbolization in analysis.\n\n> The countertransferential experience is, in this regard, very important, because it can condition all the relationship between analyst and patient. My interpretative task was to translate the act at the level of verbal thought, taking each detail of his movements, of the intention, and their meaning, patiently and carefully, using the healthy parts of the transferential bond. Those of the patient and those the patient felt in me, his analyst. In this way I was able to penetrate the primitive, unreachable world of his internal reality, stopped in the primary process. I consider that he gradually came to accept his acting out and showing what he wanted to communicate to me, that he started to understand, to think.\n> \n> (Fern\u00e1ndez, 1967)\n\nThe notion of bastion that was stated by W. And M. Baranger (1961\u201362a, 1983; 1983 with Mom) describes difficulties in this integration process. Splittings of the primitive self escape the flow of the verbal free association that may end up deceptive, slowing the process of analysis. In these cases, the implicit metaphoric processes in our interpretations fail. Racker's ideas on complementary countertransference (1957a) and the notion of projective counteridentification, which included the analyst's emotional and bodily reactions (Grinberg, 1956), described situations in which the analyst defensively assumed identifications with roles of objects from the inner world of the patient. If this was not understood, it could cause the formation of \"types of stereotyped patterns of experiencing and behaviour,\" of shared phantasies acted in the analytic interaction during a long period of the analysis. In these situations, the analyst put into play his own conflicts and impulses, especially the avoidance of his own destructiveness.\n\n## **New Developments and Changes in Interpretation**\n\nThe advent of Lacan's thought in the R\u00edo de la Plata at the end of the 1960s created a favorable atmosphere for the re-reading of Freud's works, introducing new ideas that differed from those postulated by the theory of object relationships. Ideas about language as the structure of the unconscious, the three registries\u2014symbolic, imaginary, and real\u2014introduced new metapsychological postulates.\n\nLacan's ideas about the influence of the other's desire in the structuring of psychism took him to first place himself in an intersubjective perspective, a position that was later modified together with the advance in his developments about the symbolic order. Lacan clearly differentiates the position of the analyst from the position of the patient. From his point of view, the ordering function of the analyst, exerted from a \"third\" place, is what makes restructuring the patient's psychism possible in relation to the limit of lack and castration. Lacan will question the approaches that highlight the relational or intersubjective aspects because they can cause the loss of analytic asymmetry.\n\nThe conception of metaphor had a central place in Lacan's ideas about the oedipal complex and the paternal metaphor, repression, and the mechanism of condensation. In reference to the condensation mechanism, Lacan takes up again contributions from Roman Jakobson (1956), who, based on studies about aphasia, distinguished the metaphoric axe of language, which allows the selection and substitution of linguistic items, and the metonymic axe, which allows their combination. He followed ideas of de Saussure when he considered metaphor to belong to the paradigmatic axe of _langue_ , while metonymy belonged to the syntagmatic one. Jakobson linked metaphor and metonymy to the fundamental mechanisms of the dream work described by Freud: metonymy with displacement and condensation and metaphor to identification and symbolism.\n\nLacan takes distance from Jakobson when he links metonymy with displacement and metaphor with condensation. From his point of view, interpretation has the effect of substitution of signifiers in a new game of metaphoric meanings. The metaphoric substitution and condensation of verbal signifiers as an effect of interpretation appears in a disruptive way, and it shows in the appearance of lapsus linguae and other formations of the unconscious, provoking ruptures in the known discourse of the conscious self and new restructuring in the patient's psychism.\n\nWhen it comes to hierarchizing moments of rupture, Lacan's approach is placed in the antipodes of Klein's and Isaacs's perspective, who highlighted the phenomenon of the emotional experience integration as an effect of interpretation. In the new perspective, language is what constitutes the structures of the world, as Wittgenstein would say, an outlook that prevails in structuralism influenced by L\u00e9vi-Strauss's thought. The floating attention of the analyst stops focusing on his or her own emotional reactions, to pay attention to the insistence of certain verbal signifiers in the associative discourse of the patient. This perspective necessarily made Lacan strongly question the notion of countertransference (de Le\u00f3n, 2000).\n\nThese ideas, developed within the frame of a growing theoretical and technical pluralism, had an influence on the listening of the analyst in the session in the R\u00edo de la Plata since the early 1970s (de Le\u00f3n, 2005). The previously mentioned paper about the changes in interpretation in the Uruguayan group (Bernardi et al., 1997) shows how interpretations become less saturated of sense and the analyst goes from an active and incisive attitude in his interpretations to an exploratory, interrogative, and expectant attitude toward the patient's associations, working on the basis of the implicit transference, differentiating from the way transference was explicitly worked into many interpretations of the 1960s.\n\nAn example of an interpretation influenced by Lacan's theory clearly appears in a more recent paper of the _Revista Argentina de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ , Paulucci and Dujovne (2003), that I, myself, have commented on (de Le\u00f3n, 2003).\n\nThe author of the paper shows how a patient complains about his relationship with his partner, saying:\n\n> There is one _ensilladura_ (a Spanish word that literally means \"saddle,\" and that the patient here uses to mean \"tight relation\") between my professional relationship with J. And how mad his rudeness and the yelling he brings to the office make me.\n> \n> Then the analyst answers with an interrogative intervention: **_\"\u00bf_** _Ensilladura_?\"\n> \n> This intervention that attempts to highlight the ambiguity and opacity of the term _ensilladura_ evokes in the analysand the fragmentation of that word:\n> \n> \" _en \u2013 silla \u2013 dura_ \" (in Spanish, \"on hard chair\")\n> \n> To which (the analysand) adds, intensely moved: \"It looks as if I am always suffering on a hard chair.\"\n> \n> (Paulucci & Dujovne, 2003, p. 14)\n\nThe metaphoric game between _ensilladura_ and on \"hard\" \"chair\" opens the patient's later associations. This allows the analyst to conclude that this interpretative modality produced a clarification in the patient about \"his position of masochistic suffering.\"\n\nIn this case, the metaphoric process is guided by the appearance of a term in the patient's speech that is repeated by the analyst in an interrogative way. The patient transforms, substitutes, and surprisingly relocates the term in another context of meaning, linked to his masochistic identification, showing himself \"intensely moved.\" in this case, unlike the previous example, the analyst does not make any direct reference to transference.\n\nM. And W. Baranger reviewed the field theory in papers dated 1961\u201362a and 1983 (and 1983 with Mom). In these reformulations, they stated problems and limitations of the theory regarding the risk of carelessness of the patient's history, the exaggeration of the role of transferential interpretation and of countertransference that were confused, at the same time, with the mechanisms of the projective identification and projective counteridentification. These concepts could be extended in excess to explain clinical phenomena of a varied nature.\n\nM. And W. Baranger dealt with some of Lacan's questions about the risks of asymmetry loss in a bipersonal psychology and his approach to the opaque character of the unconscious (M. Baranger, 1993a). However, they kept the notion of bastion, which would lead to articulating this notion with the one of analytic process and non-process, in their papers dated 1961\u201362a and 1983 (and 1983 with Mom). The second look broadens then beyond the session, to the consideration of the unconscious guidelines of interaction established between patient and analyst, in a more extended period of the analysis.\n\n## **Dialectics of Temporality: \"Field\" Theory and \"In Spiral\" Process**\n\nAlthough in the paper dated 1961, the subject of temporality\u2014present, past, and future\u2014had been introduced in regard to the patient's history, it is twenty years later that Willy Baranger (1979a), when proposing the idea of \"spiral process,\" introduces the dialectics of temporality to the analytic process. This idea from Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re was developed by W. Baranger from a close exchange with Pichon that was established in Argentina and maintained in Uruguay between the years 1954 and 1958 (de Le\u00f3n, 2008).\n\n> The spiral process essentially aims to explain the temporal development of the analytic process, of its turns, repetitions, elaborations, in the alternation of regression and progression, of the dialectics of the history and the temporality that characterizes it.\n> \n> (W. Baranger, 1979a)\n\nThe notions of \"dynamic field\" and \"spiral process\" imply different perspectives. The metaphor of the \"field\" attempted to describe the permanent framing of the analytic work at the time that the characteristic elements that configure the analytic situation, in the synchrony of one given moment of analysis. The \"spiral\" metaphor used to describe the analytic process implied the vision of a succession of moments in time, from a diachronic perspective.\n\n> The concept of \"dynamic field\" is a neighbour of the \"spiral process\" concept, though it aims to describe the structures of minor temporal units. It enables to understand the reciprocal constitution of the individual and the object, and the need to understand one based on the other. Field designates both the frame and the configuration of the analytic situation.\n> \n> (Baranger, 1979a)\n\nThe fertile moments of interpretation and \"insight\" punctuate the analytic process, described by Pichon Rivi\u00e8re (1998) as a \"spiral process,\" an image which expresses the temporal dialectics of the process. \"Here, now, with me\" is often said, to which Pichon Rivi\u00e8re adds \"Just as there, before, with others\" and \"As in the future, elsewhere and in a different way.\" it is a spiral, each of whose turnings takes up the last turning from a different perspective, and which has no absolute beginning or given end. The superimposition of the spiral's curves illustrates this mixture of repetition and non-repetition which may be observed in the characteristic events in a person's fate, this combined movement of deepening into the past and constructing the future which characterizes the analytic process (Baranger M., Baranger W., & Mom J., 1983, p. 9).\n\nThe idea of \"spiral process\" did not only introduce the issue of the temporality of the patient's life \"Just as there, before, with others,\" but also the time in the history of analysis conceived as dialectic process.\n\nThe dialectic spiral in M. And W. Baranger's thought complements the Freudian notion of _Nachtr\u00e4glichkeit_ , which allows understanding of how not only the analytic situation will have prospective effects in analysis, but also that while in the process, situations and analytic moments of the past history of analysis will retroactively resignify. The concept of \"listening to the analysand's listening\" of H. Faimberg (2006) is an example of how different interventions of the analyst only acquire their sense with the advance of the analysis, in responses the patient gives to the interpretations of the analyst in _a posteriori_ time.\n\nTogether with the contributions of Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re and M. And W. Baranger, different authors in latin America have differentiated situation and process (Etchegoyen, 1986), reflecting on the characteristics and the way in which they are mutually conditioned. Bleger (1967a) proposed that the analytic situation is defined from the process, because all analysis needs certain permanent conditions, as the frame and the respect to essential aspects of the analytic situation. More recently, emphasis has been given to the internal setting of the analyst (Alizade, 2002), and to the fact that the dynamics of the process gradually determine the situation and the type of setting.\n\nThese two perspectives have been integrated, attempting to both describe essential aspects of the situation and the process. Isa\u00edas Melshon (1989, pp. 57\u201358) stated how in the session, \"the types of speech, intonation, rhythmic line, building modalities... The expressive movements of the body... Everything, becomes ordered around nodal points of organization and disorganization\" that follow one another and transform along the analytic process. Ruben Cassorla (2005), in his developments about enactment, studies phenomena of interaction over which pathological aspects of patient and analyst converge, which become chronic and prevent the advance of analysis. It is in certain moments in which these phenomena become acute that they can be perceived by the analyst in a retrospective look about the process.9\n\nFrom an integrating approach that takes into account the situational and temporal vision, I have proposed that the analytic process is constituted on the basis of moments of mutual link, in which an intense emotional contact and an intense psychic work happens between patient and analyst. These moments imply complex dynamisms in communication in which _\"_ facilitated by regression, a tight intergame of images, affects and words happens between patient and analyst\" (de Le\u00f3n, 1993). These moments of the analytic relationship intricately include transferential and countertransferential aspects, which, as formations of the unconscious, get installed in the field and must be unraveled in a retrospective look of the analyst, regarding the nature of his or her own participation and regarding the ways of interaction established up to that moment. In that sense, I believe that these moments constitute true neoformations of the analytic field, \"interactive dynamic nuclei\" that mark the history of analysis and establish \"the shared substratum of interpretation\" (de Le\u00f3n, 1993).\n\n## **Situational and Temporal Perspective of the Metaphoric Processes in the Analytic Field**\n\nPablo, aged 42, married, father of two daughters and one son, who had finished his treatment with me more than 15 years ago, recently returned for consultation. I had included a vignette of this analysis to exemplify my ideas about the characteristics of intense interaction moments between patient and analyst, in which implicit metaphoric processes take place, which allow integrating experiences expressed in different sensory registers (de Le\u00f3n, 1993). Meeting Pablo again demanded reviewing my vision of the dynamics of these clinical moments from a situational perspective, but at the same time, the fact of Pablo having consulted me again allowed me to consider them in a temporal dialectic of effects and retrospective new meanings.\n\nPablo had started his analysis with me at the end of his adolescence, expressing difficulties in his relationship bonds and questions regarding his professional future. After five years of analysis, we decided, by common consent, to end it. Pablo had accomplished many objectives that he had set for himself at the beginning of treatment.\n\nFirst, I did not remember a precise description of Pablo's analysis, and I preferred not to review my own written material about it, so as to be able to see the current situation with a new outlook, somehow \"without memory.\" however, during the days before the interview, one expression came to me, which I remembered was especially meaningful in his analysis. It was the expression \"\u00a1 _A cucha_!\" (a Spanish expression equivalent to \"shoo!\" in English), said to dogs when we want them to get far from us. I remembered that I had referred to it in the vignette narrated in my paper dated 1993, but I did not clearly remember how that word had emerged in the analysis and who had said it.\n\nThe reunion with Pablo impresses me because of the sudden, vivid, and pleasant recovery of the shared experience that seems to have stayed intact over time. Pablo has formed a family and achieved success in his professional life. However, he returned to consult because he is going through a period of great anxiety. His wife has been promoted at her job, which revives in Pablo strong feelings of abandonment and rejection, awakening paranoid ideas. At that point, I re-read my previous vision of the patient.\n\n### _**Twenty Years Ago: A Moment in Analysis**_\n\nAlmost 20 years ago, Pablo appeared to me as\n\n> an adolescent patient who consults after moments of great insecurity in his couple relationships in which he has felt rejected. This insecurity extends to other situations. He defends himself with intellectualizations and taking distance, attempting in that way to achieve better control of his feelings. He has problems handling his aggressiveness, which is usually denied and when it appears, it generates very unpleasant feelings to him. During his childhood he had problems with sphincter control, he presents an untidy aspect and sometimes impresses me as dirty.\n> \n> (de Le\u00f3n, 1993, p. 811)\n\nFrom the material of the analysis, I had selected a moment that occurred in a session immediate to an unexpected interruption of the analysis. When he referred to a sexual relationship he had with a girl that weekend, the patient had used the term _acuchar_ instead of the term _acostarse_ (Spanish for \"go to bed with\"). Following is the quote of my vision of that clinical moment:\n\n> The lapsus linguae _acuchar_ provokes certain commotion to me. When exploring my countertransferential experience I admit that it is true that this patient has raised certain rejection which reason I don't get to clarify completely. His dirty aspect, his demand of proximity, certain behaviour of lack of consideration that I connect with his aggressiveness...\n> \n> However, at this moment his lapsus has had in me the opposite effect... I feel a special type of proximity. I have immediately related his expression _acuchar_ with the exclamation \"\u00a1 _A cucha_!,\" and this one with feeling rejected, taken out of my office.\n> \n> The patient associates with childhood situations in which, having finished individual lessons, he waited for his mother to pick him up, feeling great anguish thinking that his mother would forget about him. At the same time he remembers episodes of enuresis and encopresis at school, in which he felt ashamed and rejected.\n> \n> Then, his waits for his mother, his loneliness and his great anguish get connected in me, the image of the animal and dirt. For the first time I feel that he opens a way to the understanding of my feeling of rejection that gets partly connected to this image of something \"animal,\" dirty, in a corner, and rejected that the patient transmits to me.\n> \n> I only verbalize his feelings in relation to having felt pushed away from his sessions during the interruption of analysis, as if I had told him, \"shoo!\" The patient keeps talking as if nothing had happened, but suddenly he gets quiet for a long time. Finally, when he resumes talking, he says that he can't explain why he has felt a very intense emotion, that he doesn't know how to understand it, and he associates with a poem he has read about creation.\n> \n> At that time, the patient dreams with the image of an animal in a cradle. It was a \"dog-fish,\" half dog (from the waist up) half fish (from the waist down). I recall once again the lapsus linguae of the patient and my associations.\n> \n> (de Le\u00f3n, 1993, p. 812)\n\nAt present, I agree with the characteristics that I had attributed at that clinical moment: the intricacy of the experiences of patient and analyst, the figurative character of them, and the way of multimodal functioning of the analyst's mind.\n\nThe exclamation \"\u00a1 _A cucha_!\" that had emerged in me condensed my tone of rejection and the inhibited gesture of pushing. This expression had unexpectedly revealed to me my own latent posture in the analytic situation. The halt due to the setting of the \"access to motility\" eased my gestures and emotions to regressively express in the image \"of the animal in the corner, and far in his dirt\" that imposed to me in the session.10 This image allowed me to capture an unconscious or preconscious identification of the patient, but also to visualize the scene I myself was involved in.\n\nIt was a moment of intricacy and reciprocal link between my experiences and those of the patient. I had alternatively placed myself in a complementary or concordant way with the patient (Racker, 1957a), with a phenomenon of regressive circularity between both. From the first moment in which I had been left in a place in a complementary way, pushing the patient far from me, I came to place myself concordantly in his place, which enabled me to perceive the quality of his subjective experience and produced the feeling of greater proximity in the session.\n\nThe dynamics of the metaphoric processes that occurred in the analysis show a process that is co-built between analyst and patient. But in this case, the metaphoric condensation is not made between verbal meanings only, but among different levels of the subjective experience expressed in emotions, in images that include primary bodily representations of the bond with the others (such as my gestures in the previous clinical example), and, finally, in verbal expressions. From my perspective, the multimodal functioning and the analyst's mind capacity for reverie make it possible that the analyst, being aware of the answers of the patient, may:\n\n> walk an alternative or simultaneously different registries of expression in himself or in the patient, attempting to give place to still unformulated phenomena. In this way, images, feelings, bodily representations and words can displace or condense in a representation, exchange themselves, re-translate themselves.\n> \n> Regressive understandings make possible that what is expressed in a register reaches its meaning for the patient and for ourselves in the other.\n> \n> (de Le\u00f3n, 1993, p. 819)\n\n### At Present\n\nDuring the early times of Pablo's re-analysis, I find again aspects perceived at that clinical moment but now lived in an amplified and dramatic way. Pablo is afraid that the current situation will cause him to take distance from his family; he feels out of balance and overwhelmed by anguish. His painful feeling of abandonment and rejection is updated. His oedipal conflict reappears re-lived by the current situation. Intellectualizations and obsessive thoughts, uncontrollable at moments, attempt to control his jealousy and paranoid ideas toward his wife. He attempts to control his aggressiveness, which, when it gets to be expressed, does so in an explosive and sadistic way, generating great discomfort and suffering. But what called my attention most was that in certain moments, his jealousy acquired the fixing of the delirious ideas, putting his phantasies and thoughts on a level with reality. In certain moments, he lives the breaking of his couple and his family as the only possibility.\n\nDuring the first months of the re-analysis, I have the impression that I am facing a crack in Pablo's psychism that cannot be reached by my words. The dimension of the \"as if \" is lost, and I feel that it is impossible to establish a metaphoric process that will restore it. Analysis becomes a place of catharsis, emotion processing, and prevention of his self-destructive actions.\n\n* * *\n\nUndoubtedly, this second meeting with Pablo resignified my vision of the clinical moment previously described. I had seen Pablo as an adolescent who reproached his mother her lack of attunement and her exaggerated dedication to his father and siblings during his childhood, which at that time, I thought essentially framed in his oedipal conflicts. Although I had found little intrapsychic permeability in Pablo and great difficulties for him to become conscious of his own aggressive impulses, I had attributed it to his steely obsessive defences. Today, I see that the oedipal conflicts and their tendency to isolate his emotions is reinforced by splitting mechanisms of a more primitive self, which make the integration of different aspects of his psychism difficult.\n\nThe second dream about the \"dog fish\" had made me think then of the castration anguish. Today, his identification with animals shows me difficulties in the integration of his bodily image and his emotions. His movements are rigid and inexpressive at times. Today, I see his bonds little discriminated, which has made his couple relationship difficult and has caused an exaggerated identification with her, which has contributed to the genesis of the current crisis. It has been difficult for him to feel that he is not her wife, and this repeats in his close bonds, where he exaggeratedly puts himself in the others' place, taking care of their problems. His good reflexive capacity is always at the service of the others, living through them and leaving aside his own desires and personal projects. In general, he avoids, in this way, expressing his aggressiveness.\n\nAfter three years of analysis, the storm calms down and pablo recovers his stability in his family life and his working capacity. He becomes gradually conscious of his dissociations, ambivalences, and contradictions, at the same time that his bonds become more discriminate, recovering his joy. However, he has warned me that \"it is better not to touch some things.\"\n\nThis second moment of Pablo's analysis has made me think about the limits of our task. But I have also proved how metaphoric processes established in the analytic field are a privileged way to convey the emotional communication between patient and analyst and intrapsychic modifications in the patient. The clinical situation described in the first analysis of Pablo perhaps did not have the scope that I gave it at that moment, but undoubtedly, it was a meaningful moment that enabled the understanding in the analysis of different aspects of the unconscious problematic of the patient and his integration at a mental and emotional level, something that allowed the analytic bond to sustain through time.\n\n## **Conclusions: Analytic Field and Metaphor**\n\nThe central focus of the dynamic field theorization attempted to illuminate how, beyond the manifest forms of analytic interaction, unconscious interaction patterns are built and mark the dynamism of analysis. These ways of interaction are undoubtedly conditioned by the individual past of the patient and analyst but, at the same time, are specific and new in the present of the bond and context in which each analysis is established.\n\nI think the metaphoric processes and metaphors that emerge in the analysis ease the analytic communication and the emerging of transforming moments of intersubjectivity. As the clinical moments described in this work show, these moments are dynamically co-built in a way that goes beyond the conscious will of the analyst. In that way, the relationship that is established in the analytical dialogue between the words _ensilladura_ (\"saddle\") and _silla dura_ (\"hard chair\") constitutes a field formation in its manifest and latent aspects that will determine the history of this analysis. This phenomenon imposes itself beyond the conceptual frame of the analyst, who apparently attempts not to get actively involved and only to participate, precisely highlighting an expression of the patient's speech.\n\nBut it is necessary to consider the limits of verbal language in our interventions and metaphors. Not only because, as in the case of pablo, rigid defensive mechanisms can make more difficult a more permeable and fluid verbal communication of the patient with us and with himself, but also because the metaphoric processes emerged in the analysis show through language only some of the multiple phenomena (attitudes, tones, etc.) inherent to the analytic communication.\n\nIn fact, different interpretative styles also imply attitudes toward the patient that may go unnoticed at first sight. Ten the explanatory style of the interpretation of the first clinical example may be accompanied by an active attitude, which may be experienced as instrusive by the patient, generating an attitude of submission to the analyst's point of view. On the contrary, the laconic style of the second case may be experienced by the patient as an indicator of a cold and indifferent analyst attitude. Pablo's case made me reflect on possible attitudes of rejection toward him that probably were present before the mentioned moment. These manifest attitudes, also in styles and voice tones, may answer to characteristics of the analyst or patient, but also to unconscious patterns of interaction that get established beyond verbal language, but which may have their meaning in the internal world of the patient. Becoming aware of them may avoid acute enactments, the installation of bastions, or impasse situations.\n\nIn psychoanalysis, interpretative processes of metaphoric character show the double function of the metaphor stated at the beginning of this paper: they transmit implicit meanings and produce unexpected effects in the patient or analyst, or in both, with the corresponding internal restructuration. One or another of these aspects, or both, may predominate along the analytical process. In this way, in the expression \"fire in your head\" used by the analyst, it predominates the intention of the analyst to transmit a meaning connecting the expression of the patient to different aspects of his unconscious subjective experience. In the second example, the patient is the one who, supported by the analyst's intervention, builds the connection between his own expressions _ensilladura_ and _silla dura_ , which allows him to become aware of his masochistic positions. In the case of pablo's analysis, it is an expression of the patient that awakens in me a second meaning and allows me to establish the connection of the lapsus linguae _acuchar_ with the expression \"\u00a1 _A cucha_!\" that produces in both a moment of \"insight.\"\n\nAs we saw before, in Davidson's perspective, the emerging of novel metaphors (not the ones integrated in the conventional language) has the effect of correlating emotions and meanings linked to subjective experiences of the listeners: \"Metaphor makes us see one thing as another by making some literal statement that inspires or prompts the insight\" (Davidson, 1978, p. 47).\n\nUndoubtedly, it calls to our attention the apparent coincidences between these developments and the analytic experience. In effect, the \"insight\" in psychoanalysis is a new and creative experience that produces similar effects to those caused by the listening to a poem or the contemplation of a piece of art, or when\u2014as Davidson states\u2014we feel that one metaphoric expression used in the communication makes us evoke experiences and emotions shared by those who surround us. In the Uruguayan psychoanalytic milieu, T. Bed\u00f3 (1987) stated how the experience of insight in analysis can be shared between patient and analyst in an \"insight \u00e0 deux.\"\n\nThe metaphoric processes that emerge in analysis are the product of a complex dynamism that includes specific moments that have to be considered, as in a dialectic spiral, in relation to different moments of the analytic process: retrospectively\u2014in the new meanings of previous moments\u2014as well as prospectively, in its possible effects. Besides, these processes are guided by a therapeutic preoccupation and, in this sense, the transformation of impulses, identifications, and unconscious defenses that imply emotional and primary bodily experiences that generate suffering to the patient.\n\nThe figurative language of our interpretations evokes not only childhood experiences but also concrete experiences of the present in the life of the patient in his bonds with those who surround him or her. Pichon-Rivi\u00e9re had already referred to the dialectic interrelation between the internal world and the external bonds: \"... All unconscious mental life, I mean the domain of the unconscious fantasy, has to be considered as the interaction between the internal objects (internal group) in permanent interrelation with the objects of the external world\" (1998, p. 42). This same posture is seen in the developments of Bleger about the situational, dramatic, and dialectic perspective (Bernardi, 2009).\n\nPablo's analysis was done in the context of his separation from his family of origin and the search of an independent way. At present, childhood experiences are reformulated regarding his bonds at work and especially the relationship with his wife and his own children. And my current vision is also influenced by my experience, the evolution of analytic thought, and my vital situation.\n\nThe notion of dynamic field formulated within the frame of phenomenology brought up a dialectic relationship between the intersubjective and the intrapsychic, between subjectivity and objectivity. In this vision, the idea of field itself provided two aspects. It supposed a scenery in which we are immersed like actors in an immediate relationship with the other, but also a scenery-field that may be seen from a more distanced and reflective second look. In this sense, moments of intersubjectivity and of certain symmetries that manifest in regressive syntony and in the use of a figurative language get dialectically entangled with moments of intrapsychic elaboration in analyst and patient, or moments of joint elaboration.\n\nThe notions of \"second look\" and \"participant observer\" refer precisely to the possibilities of elaboration by the analyst of the different ways of his or her participation. With the notion of second look, the field theory proposed an attitude of putting off-center our own participation and the ways of established unconscious interaction. But currently, this attitude becomes necessary also with regard to the way in which our theories influence our practice, in a moment in which the development of psychoanalysis is characterized by the plurality of theoretical and technical ideas that condition in a different way our interventions with the patient.\n\nIn effect, the metaphoric processes present in our interpretations, idiosyncratic to each analytic situation, implicitly condense different \"partial theories, models, or schemata\" (sandler, 1983, p. 37) that start processes of integration of the regressive experience of the analysis in the analyst, on a preconscious-conscious level.\n\nAbout the expression _\"\u00a1A cucha!,\"_ in my mind converged, in a blurry and partial way, constellations of ideas belonging to different theoretical frames: implicit ideas about countertransference\u2013transference and the mechanism of projective identification, Freud's ideas about the anal stage, and Kleins ideas about separation anxiety. But also the influence of Lacan's thought on my way of listening to the patients speech and the formulation of open interventions, not saturated of sense. As has been noted (Sandler, 1983),11 these groups of ideas or implicit mini-models (Leuzinger-Bohleber & Fischmann, 2006) do not look for internal coherence nor do they respect the no-contradiction principle. They emerge spontaneously in the analysts mind, searching to adjust to the personal characteristics of each patient. This theoretical\u2013clinical integration that is characteristic of the metaphoric processes of analytic communication seems to give the reason to F. Schkolnik's thesis (1985) that invariants exist beyond differences and Wallerstein's (1990, 2005) about the existence of a common clinical base, \"a common ground,\" over which different theoretical approaches of contemporary psychoanalysis converge, transcending the existing differences among them.\n\nHowever, it is also true that the implicit theoretical\u2013clinical integration in the moments of greatest emotional closeness with our patients opens the space of internal differentiation processes among different alternative hypotheses, which will be available to the \"attention\" and \"floating deliberation\" of the analyst (de Le\u00f3n, 2010). The participation and answers of the patient resignify (H. Faimberg) previous visions and hypotheses of the analyst, opening a space of reformulation, comparison, and validation of her interventions and of critical evaluation of the effects that the participation of the analyst has on different moments of the process. From the second stage of Pablo's analysis on, new hypotheses emerge. But his warning not to touch certain nuclei of his problems: is it part of a defensive bastion that protects him from an unmanageable unbalance, or a bastion of the field that implies me somehow?\n\nI consider it useful to hold the phenomenological and dialectic points of view on which the formulation of the field theory supported in latin America. The phenomenological point of view broadened the possibilities of observation and perception of the analyst, making the considered analytic situation available to the floating attention of the analyst as a whole, following the perspective of Gestalt theory. The dialectic point of view complements the previous one, as it makes us consider as central the reciprocal influence of unconscious character between analyst and patient, the interrelation among different moments of the analytic process in its retrospective and prospective meanings, and, finally, the consideration of the dialectic interrelation among the unconscious aspects and the possibilities of their integration at a preconscious-conscious level (Baranger, 1993a).\n\nIf the field theory emerged within the frame of Kleinian thought, later it showed itself to have a more independent approach, which, conserving some aspects of this one, could critically reformulate them according to the phenomena of the analytic experience. In this sense, the psychoanalytic theories about the unconscious must not be considered with an ontological character but as a partial approximation to the particular characteristics of the field, in the bond with a certain patient and in a certain moment of the analytic process. In the same way, the field perspective considered the dialectic interrelation that happens in the session and the analytic process between the unconscious aspects and the possibilities of their integration at a preconscious-conscious level (Baranger, 1993a). The validity of these points of view has caused the field theory to keep its value as a tool of knowledge and clinical investigation of the analytic practice until today.\n\n## **Notes**\n\n Originally published in _Psychoanalytic_ _Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) with the title \"Field Theory as a Metaphor and Metaphors in the analytic Field and process.\"\n\n Madeleine and Willy Baranger, members of the Asociaci\u00f3n Psicoanal\u00edtica Argentina (Argentinian psychoanalytic association), lived in Uruguay between 1954 and 1965, helping to form the Group of the Uruguayan psychoanalytic association; they were founders of the _Revista Uruguaya de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ ( _Uruguayan Journal of Psychoanalysis_ ).\n\n For example, the xxi Congress of Fepal in Mexico in 1995: \"Problems of the transference and Countertransference Field.\"\n\n The reflection about the analytic situation appeared in different thinkers of the time, as Enrique Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re, Heinrich Racker, Luisa Alvarez de Toledo, and Jorge Mom, among others, but we owe to M. And W. Baranger the more exhaustive study of the subject.\n\n It is interesting to confirm proximities between this approach and different current experiences in working groups formed by analysts from different regions, who with different methodologies attempt to observe and investigate specific aspects of psychoanalysis based on the study of clinical materials presented by analysts (IPA Berlin Congress and Chicago Congress, FEPALCongress).\n\n \"Te analytic situation should be formulated by an indefinite and neutral personage\u2014in effect of a person confronted by his or her own\u2014but a situation between who remain unavoidably connected and complementary as long as the situation obtains and is involved in a single dynamic process. In this situation neither member of the couple can be understood without the other\" (M. Baranger & W. Baranger, 2008, p. 796).\n\n \"Te true objectivity,\" says Racker, \"is based on a form of inner splitting that trains the analyst to take himself\/herself (their own subjectivity or countertransference) as object of continuous observation and analysis. This position also trains him\/her to be relatively 'objective' towards the analysand\" (Racker, H. [1948\/58] 1957a).\n\n \"La Nature est un temple o\u00f9 de vivants piliers \u2044 Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; \u2044 L'homme y passe \u00e0 travers des for\u00eats de symboles \u2044 Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers. Comme de longs \u00e9chos qui de loin se confondent \u2044 dans une t\u00e9n\u00e9breuse et profonde unit\u00e9, \u2044 Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clart\u00e9, \u2044 Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se r\u00e9pondent\" (Baudelaire, \"Correspondances\") (L. \u00c1lvarez de Toledo, 1954[1996], p. 299).\n\n This polarity between situation and process is present in the psychoanalytic reflection of different schools, which stress one of these aspects or the other. B. Joseph (1985), for example, from a Kleinian perspective, defines essential aspects of transference understood as total situation. From another theoretical posture, d. Stern (2004) analyzes the characteristics of \"present moments\" of the analytic relationship that show meaningful changes in the relating patterns. The already-mentioned perspective of Haide\u00e9 Faimberg, although it studies specific moments of analysis, also studies its effects in the process development. Thoma and Kachele (1989) referred in their interactive model of the analytic process to \"thematic nodal issues\" or \"interactive foci\" that happen one after the other along the analysis.\n\n Different authors have stated that the analyst's mind operates with similar mechanisms to those described by Freud in relation to the dream work, as shown Ferro and Cevitarese in this n\u00famero. W. Bucci (2001), in her theory of multiple codes, has shown how the interpretative activity allows to integrate the analogic subsymbolic, emotional, and bodily levels with the discrete, symbolic elements of image and word. The image or sequences of those which are characteristic of dreams and the expressions of the analyst or patient appear as intermediate nexus that allow integrating emotional and bodily experiences, several times split in the process of symbolization achieved by the access to the word.\n\n Sandler (1983) differentiated the public, official, or explicit theories, exposed in the scientific exchange with colleagues, from the theories used in the individual clinical practice, which he called private theories or implicit theories. This perspective has given origin to different contributions. Latin American thinkers also marked differences between the way in which theory works in the psychoanalytic session and in the field of scientific discussion with colleagues, such as Pichon-Rivi\u00e8re (1998), Liberman (1970), and Bleger (1969). Bleger was one of the first who, in the R\u00edo de la Plata, talked about implicit theory, noted that the \"theory developed and made explicit does not always coincide with the implicit theory in practice\" (288). He also notes \"the divergencies between psychoanalytic theory and implicit theory [in practice], not completely formulated nor assimilated\u2014this last one\u2014in the theoretical body of psychoanalysis\" (p. 289).\n\n# 16\n\nOTHER FIELDS WITHIN  \nTHE ANALYTIC FIELD1\n\n_Claudio Neri_\n\nThe main point of this chapter is the recognition that the patient doesn't create a field only with the analyst but also with other important people, with his workplace, and with some self-objects. The analyst may perceive how the patient's moods, feelings, and self-esteem change when entering each of these different fields. The analytic field created between the analyst and the patient is an important tool, a sort of Geiger counter, through which the analyst may detect the presence and the activity of these other fields. Isabel's brief case history illustrates a useful approach to deal with the negative effects of a very disturbing and confusing field she established with the company she worked for.\n\nAn original \"field theory\" has been developed in Italy, and many colleagues have contributed to this collective intellectual achievement. I will mention only a few here: Corrao, Ferro, and Gaburri, and in 1994, the Societ\u00e0 Psicoanalitica Italiana dedicated its x Congress to \"Te transformations in the analytical Field.\"\n\nThe field theory that was elaborated by Italian psychoanalysts differs from that of Madeleine and Willy Baranger in many ways. I will briefly mention only three here. First, in Italy the field theory was connected to Bion's alpha function and the idea of transformation of emotions in narration and vice versa (Emotions \u21d4 Narrations). Second, the field was not considered to be a product of exchange of projective identifications between the patient and analyst, and its existence was put into a relationship with the presence and pressure of \"thoughts without thinkers\" that can be taken on board and thought through by both the analyst and the patient. And, finally, the most important rules for the analyst\u2014during the session\u2014are the maintenance of a mental setup that is characterized by \"negative capacity,\" and the practice of \"unsaturated interpretation.\"\n\n## **Psychoanalysis and Group Psychotherapy**\n\nI used field theory in my practice as a group psychotherapist. In 1988, at Didier Anzieu's invitation, I presented a paper on the difference between field theory and transference theory in paris at the historical salp\u00eatri\u00e8re auditorium, the hospital where Freud had followed Charcot's lessons. In my opinion, this conceptual tool is of critical importance in group psychotherapy work.\n\nAfterwards, I tried to use field theory in the traditional psychoanalytic setting. In this case, however, I came up against great difficulty. It was immediately clear for me that not only a group but also the \"analyst\u2013patient couple\" produce and are immersed in a field; however, when I tried to use this theory extensively in psychoanalytical sessions, I was often dealing with the impression that it was not quite the right choice. There certainly were some advantages compared to the use of the relationship and transference concepts. For example, I managed to obtain an overall picture of the situation more easily. I was also more inclined to give a value to everything that in the sessions was non-verbal. However, the dialogue and the contact between the patient and me lost some spontaneity. In the back of my mind, the unpleasant perception that something was not working in the right way kept coming out. Discouraged, I sometimes thought about letting it drop. It could have been as in music: symphonies are for big orchestras, sonatas for two or four musicians.\n\n## **Other Fields That Influence the Patient**\n\nI don't wish to concentrate all the attention on the theme of the difference between the group setting and the psychoanalytic setting. Instead, I would like to speak about the first clinical circumstance when I used \"something similar to field theory\" with a patient and felt that it was something appropriate and effective. It happened when I put an idea I had to the test. What was important to pay attention to was not only the field that was established between the patient and me, but also, and above all, the \"shadow of other fields\" that the patient set up with other people with his self-objects, both positive and negative. The idea of using the field theory in this way came from the sudden appearance of a memory of the life of a comic-strip character, superman.\n\nSuperman was different from other superheroes such as spiderman, Batman, and robin, for one main reason. These latter heroes were normal people who became superheroes when they took on a secondary identity; superman's real identity was that of being someone from another planet. He was born on the planet Krypton and possessed all the abilities and powers of a Krypton inhabitant. When this planet was on the point of exploding, his parents put him into a spaceship and sent him to earth. Ten, after the explosion, some fragments of the planet Krypton struck earth. I will now come to the key point. When superman, the superhero, enters a room or an area where there is also a sliver of Kryptonite, he becomes weak, feels ill, and loses all his powers.\n\nSome of my patients have to face up to a similar catastrophic transformation that occurs not only in the presence of their mothers but also when they perceive something that makes them remember even the most distant existences of their mother. They become confused, afraid, exhausted as if they were under the effects of the powerful rays of the \"kryptonite minds of the mothers.\" Teir faces would become dull, and they would become almost unapproachable for me (and for anyone else) during the time that they found themselves under the influence of the toxic mind-of-the-mother field. Thinking about these patients to myself, I realized that i was using the expression \"field created by the mother's mind.\" Thus, I was using the term and the concept of field to refer to something with which the patient had come into contact, I wasn't using it instead\u2014which usually happens\u2014to indicate something that was between myself and the patient, between the analyst and the patient.\n\n## **Field and Non-Places**\n\nThe successive step in my process of reflecting was to recall other conditions in which a patient was under the influence of a \"field\" that was not produced by an imaginary figure (such as the \"toxic mother\") but by a social situation\u2014for example, a field that corresponded to working in a certain company. The summary of my analytical work with Isabel illustrates this situation and explains which clinical approach I honed to deal with the problem.\n\nI will mention a few facts. Six months after beginning the second part of her analysis, Isabel had begun to speak at length about a strong disturbance she felt regarding anything to do with work. I listened with great interest. For Isabel, her company was not an object that was totally differentiated from her. It was something that she was submerged in and, at the same time, something that pervasively occupied almost her whole life and thoughts.\n\nAt this part of the analysis, I also saw some changes that concerned the \"analytical field.\" I noticed difficulties on both our parts in not being able to perceive personal feelings. It was as if the \"analytic field\" was occupied by a silent and invisible force that was restraining and imprisoning it. Everything was fat and painfully the same, hour after hour, day after day. The heavy atmosphere in Prague after the occupation by soviet tanks that had retreated to the outskirts of the city came to mind.\n\nFor Isabel, what did the company world correspond to? Who were the tanks? her father? her mother? The family? had her life been divided into two by a traumatic break that had left a feeling of emptiness? For the moment, I left these questions in the background. I wanted to concentrate on that which seemed to present a more pressing need, the sharing of Isabel's concrete daily life. So I took the problem of living the company as a very serious problem indeed. I considered it to be a real situation. However, I didn't take it at face value, but rather as something that Isabel didn't really know, even though she did say that she knew about it, and that\u2014in a conventional and factual way\u2014Isabel did know. At the beginning, the difficulties and uneasiness that she felt appeared, both to me and to her, comparable to the experiences, the psychic processes, and the changes that a person who has entered into an organized group has to face (in Isabel's case, the company-group).\n\nIn analysis, speaking about the \"social field\" of the company and its dynamics, little by little, we managed to see the existence of a \"psychological field\" that corresponded to the \"social field\" only in part. This \"psychological field,\" which was characterized by something hazy and uncertain and waves of engulfing and discharging spurts, was fundamentally not suitable for taking on board any autonomous form of intellectual and affective life of an individual. This first knowledge of the nature of the \"psychological-company field\" didn't come about through a representation but through a sharing that occurred because my attentive and interested listening to her long accounts was like accompanying her to her place of work.\n\nAfter a few months, the picture changed once more. Loneliness, disorientation, the lack of a guide, and affective proximity for which Isabel had suffered during her infancy appeared with great force. Isabel didn't have anyone who was really close to her. Above all, she was lacking someone who could have given her some confirmation of being right about her perceptions. Immediately after the emergence of these painful memories and experiences, two positive things happened to her. The first was her discovery of a talent for writing short stories. She read me some during the sessions. The first one she read was about a little girl who comes out of school and sees the mother chatting among the other mothers. Listening to her, I thought that she could finally see herself with her mother. I also thought about some changes I had noticed in the analytical field. It was no longer rigid and immobile. On the contrary, it was possible to see the slight presence of a \"narrative field\" inside it\u2014that is, a place in which the experiences, sensations, and feelings are connected to words, scenes, and a narrating voice.\n\nThe second event related to the fact that Isabel, who had recognized the characteristics of the \"company field,\" was then able to recognize the characteristics of her own feelings and experiences that were connected to the company. Tis, in turn, had freed her from her immobility and impotence. Soon after, Isabel was also able to find a practical solution to her problems at work.\n\n## **Conclusion**\n\nIn presenting the second part of Isabel's analysis, I spoke about three different fields. The first one is the field of the company world; it is very concrete and, simultaneously, a very elusive field. At the beginning, when Isabel was under the influence of this field, she wasn't able to distinguish herself and her moods from the atmosphere and tension that were present in this field. Isabel also felt very unhappy and lonely. In Isabel's company-field, there were no feelings besides persecution and uneasiness. All the other feelings had either been ejected or inhibited. Later on, Isabel compared being in this field to \"being in a concentration camp.\" it is also possible to establish an analogy between Isabel's company-field and a labyrinth\u2014first, because there were no possibilities of reaching a sense of orientation, and second, because the people in this field appear and feel that they are like monsters and that other people are like monsters, like a Minotaur.\n\nThe narrative field is much less concrete and more livable than the company-field. It is a transformation of the company-field. This transformation takes place when the company-field becomes the subject of a repeated, friendly, and lively conversation between the patient and the analyst. The possibility of speaking in analysis besides the one just mentioned, the company-field also has other effects. First of all, the company-field can be seen through not just one position (being immersed in it), but from many vertices, as many as the different narratives. Second, being the issue of a human conversation, the company-field becomes a little bit more humane. Finally, the narrative field is full of images and feelings; some of these feelings may migrate and inhabit the company-field that was previously just a wasteland, a gulag.\n\nThe analytic field is governed by the rules of the analytic setting. Its characteristics are elements such as intimacy, directness, absence of intrusiveness from the analyst, and the continuity of the sessions with predetermined phases of suspension. The analytical field is not only a frame or structure. It is also a powerful detecting apparatus, a Geiger counter. The analyst may perceive the quality of other fields (e.g., the company-field, the mother-mind field, etc.), through either perturbations of the analytic field, or through non-verbal, extra-verbal, ultra-verbal, a communication from the patient such as body posture, facial expressions, unexpected breaks in the narration of a dream. It is as if a dream editor had introduced a cut and then continued with very different characters and feelings. Later on, the patient is able to glimpse the other fields from the secure base of the analytic field. Thus, he can begin talking about these fields, which in this way can be shared with the analyst and become objects of narrations.\n\n## **Note**\n\n1 Originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) with the title \"Isabel: social Field, psychological Field and narrative Field.\" it was also presented to the panel \"Te Field Theory\" at the IPA Congress (Mexico City, 5 august 2011).\n\n# 17\n\nTHE ANALYTIC RELATIONSHIP  \nIN FIELD THEORY\n\n_Elsa_ _Rappoport de Aisemberg_\n\nI focus my presentation on the patient\u2013analyst relationship within the frame of contemporary psychoanalysis. In order to do so, I take the Freudian origins of transference as a starting point, then move on to the evolution of the concept of counter-transference, and finally reach the essential point: the theory of the analytical field, such as it was described by Willy and Madeleine Baranger, including my own perspective of the subject.\n\nThe unconscious fantasy, common to both the patient and the analyst, the unconscious to unconscious communication, the relationship from the intrapsychic toward intersubjectivity and back, as well as neutrality, are all crucial concepts in the presentation, which ends with a clinical vignette in which my ideas are illustrated.\n\n## **Introduction**\n\nI celebrate that the Mexico Congress has stimulated us to think about the patient\u2013 analyst relationship, as we understand it today in contemporary psychoanalysis. First of all, why speak of a theory of the analytical field and of a contemporary psychoanalysis?\n\nI think that when Freud created our discipline based on the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality, Oedipus, drives, and transference, he focused on the patient's problematic. With the vicissitudes of clinical work, there appeared difficulties that gave rise, among others, to the notion of counter-transference. In 1910 at the Nuremberg Congress, he referred to it as an obstacle to the cure, the analyst's blind spot, the need of the analyst to be under analysis present in the demand to set up the law or order over the young analysts' erotic counter-transference so as to bar their acting out. The formulation of the abstinence law and that of neutrality belong to the same problematic.\n\nAfter forty years of silence on this subject, only interrupted by Ferenczi's contributions, at the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s there were Paula Heimann's conceptualizations in London and Enrique Racker's in Buenos aires introducing another dimension: counter-transference can be an obstacle, but it can also be a tool for the understanding of preverbal, sensorial elements previous to the word.\n\nIn a third stage, we have broader counter-transference or the use of the analyst's mind, which was started in 1961\u20131962 by the works of Willy and Madeleine Baranger on the analytical field. Later, other concepts were added: de M'Uzan's Chimera, Bion's _reverie_ , Winnicott's, Bollas's, Green's contributions, and C\u00e9sar and Sara Botella's statements on regredience, figurability, and the \"work by double\" in the session. We should also add Antonino Ferro's interesting developments with his particular conception of the analytical field.\n\nAs Madeleine Baranger clearly stated in her presentation in Athens in 2010, all this speaks of an evolution in our discipline. Science develops by overcoming crises and inevitable obstacles that must be transformed into new knowledge, as Freud taught us with his works. The new hypotheses we build based on our clinical work must be articulated with Freudian metapsychology to maintain psychoanalytical status.\n\nMoreover, the development and extension of our clinical work concerning the approach to narcissistic and non-neurotic functioning, added to classical psychoneuroses, has led us to an extension of our theories to account for the diversity of psychic functionings; this is what we call contemporary psychoanalysis.\n\n## **The Field Theory**\n\nWilly and Madeleine Baranger, both committed researchers into clinical work, thought their praxis articulating it with ideas from Gestalt psychology, from Merleau-ponty's phenomenology, and from other psychoanalysts such as Racker and Heimann, which led them to formulate in 1961\u20131962 the first model of the analytical field, understood as a product of projective identifications between patient and analyst. In this manner, they generated a hypothesis lying between the clinical work and metapsychology, coherent with their concern, shared by our analytical world, about the gap between clinical work and theory.\n\nIn a later paper, they added the idea of an encounter between two psyches generating a common basic unconscious fantasy, in the manner Bion describes for groups. To do so, they used the concept of unconscious fantasy put forward by Susan Isaacs (1952), another Kleinian author who thinks that fantasies are the primary content of unconscious psychic processes, first experienced as sensations, which later take up the form of plastic images and scenes. They refer primitively to the body and represent the instinctive movements of the libido and of destruction, oriented toward the objects.\n\nIn another theoretical model, in Freudian semantics, its equivalent could be the purposive-idea ( _Zielvorstellung_ ), as Laplanche and Pontalis (1967) point out. We should bear in mind that representation is the ideational component of the drive, while affect refers to quantity.\n\nIn 2004 Madeleine Baranger, after having widened her theoretical references, reformulated the concept of analytical field as a structure created between a patient and an analyst in the analytical situation\u2014a third one, which has both a mythic and a symbolic dimension. That is to say, these repetitions in the analytical field, which have a mythic dimension, can achieve symbolic transformation in the interplay of the analytical situation.\n\nI think that the patient\u2013analyst encounter, which has something of the original encounter with the primary object or other significant objects, is what the patient transfers to the analyst and, in turn, gives rise to the therapist's listening, who brings into play his own counter-transference.\n\nInstead, the symbolic level is the power of the setting, surely asymmetric, and of the interpretation that works as a third one that transforms the emotional experience shared by patient and analyst into what Green calls analytical object and what Ogden calls the analytical third one, thus paving the way for the construction of a representation in the analyst's mind, the origin of his intervention on transference.\n\n## **From the Intrapsychic to Intersubjectivity**\n\nIt is important to highlight that in this model of the theory of the field, to which I fully adhere, there is circulation from the intrapsychic to intersubjectivity and back, whereas in the intersubjective model, to my mind, there is a predominance of interaction rather than an encounter between two subjects with their unconscious, their drives, and their unconscious fantasies, as both Barangers state.\n\nThis leads me to remark on another similar theme, as follows.\n\n## **Unconscious to Unconscious Communication**\n\nAs Freud already wrote in his metaphor of the telephone in 1912, the physician \"must turn his own unconscious like a receptive organ towards the transmitting unconscious of the patient. He must adjust himself to the patient as a telephone receiver is adjusted to the transmitting microphone\" (1912b, _SE_ , 12, pp. 115\u2013116). The field theory and related formulations as well: de M'Uzan's chimera, Bion's _reverie,_ and Botellas' figurability try to account for the communication from unconscious to unconscious, which would give rise to \"perceived\" experiences without being aware of it, which would function as the day's residues that stimulate the use of the analyst's mind and that of the analysand. Thus I think the corporal perception of the relationship with the object is the origin of the unconscious to unconscious communication, which certainly must be transformed by the analyst. Who in these cases works as an \"auxiliary,\" lending her or his mental capacity as M. De M'Uzan pointed out in 1976, since the patient is not yet able to turn it into words or representations. In addition, this helps us to understand figurability or the analyst's dreams aroused by the patient's clinical material as a complementary remembrance activity in the analytical field.\n\n## **On Neutrality**\n\nI believe that we should not give up the aspiration for asepsis and neutrality even though we know it is impossible to reach. It is one of our many paradoxes, as Willy\n\nBaranger pointed out in 1957 in his work on \"Interpretation and ideology,\" since the analyst as a person and his or her presence inevitably act upon the patient, giving rise to diverse transferences, among others, idealized transference, which has to be deconstructed at one point during the analytical process to attain a good outcome. However, in the beginning, such transference favors the installation of the treatment, especially when there is a predominance of non-neurotic functioning.\n\nI believe that we as analysts are involved in our task all the time. To achieve our work\u2014aware of the asymmetry in the setting\u2014we have to let ourselves be partly affectively and sensorially involved in the patient's unconscious messages, besides the verbal listening. We must admit we are not entomologists, but it is also true that we have to understand, self-analyze, and resolve those experiences belonging to the transference-countertransference field and then decide whether to include them in our interpretative or constructive approach. This view is accepted by some colleagues and questioned by others, depending on their theoretical framework as well as their scientific or personal ideology.\n\nThis affective involvement has advantages and problems. One advantage is that it helps to understand the patient, true within the limits of our own insight. The problems lie in the blind spots shared by patient and analyst, what the Barangers call bastions, which demand a second gaze, either self-analysis or supervision. That is to say, in the transference-countertransference field that inevitably is created between patient and analyst, we oscillate between empathy and the need of a second gaze.\n\n## **Mar\u00eda**\n\nI shall illustrate my ideas with a clinical vignette.\n\nIt deals with Mar\u00eda, a patient who had analysis on the couch four times a week during six years. When she first came to see me, she was a young woman, 35 years old, very pretty and elegant, who produced a great aesthetic impact. She was married and had two children and a high income. She was a psychologist but not happy with her profession; she wanted to become a writer. She had tried to start writing but had difficulties.\n\nShe needed me to help her to overcome the inhibitions that prevented her from fulfilling her wish; in addition, she brought a passionate story. The object of her love was a close friend of the couple, also married and with children, who was close affectively and also geographically. On the other hand, or \"on the same hand,\" her husband was a very jealous man, a little paranoid, who for rational reasons kept a gun in their house.\n\nMar\u00eda let me know about her intense and urgent sexual desire for this friend as well as his desire for her and, at the same time, the image of a husband who noticed that something was going on and voiced it through scenes of violent jealousy or falling ill.\n\nI had the intuition that a situation out of Greek tragedy might burst out because Mar\u00eda was ready to break up her marriage, her friendship with her friend's wife, the friendship between their children, and her financially comfortable position by defying a jealous husband with a gun. On a counter-transference level I was very worried; I had to put aside\u2014the analysis of counter-transference and ideologies aims at that\u2014my bourgeois ideology. I told myself: this married woman, with children, with an attractive and well-of husband is ready to sweep all this away in order to fulfill her passion! I had to elaborate all this to maintain certain analytical neutrality.\n\nIf I respected the rhythm set by her desire and her passion, we were approaching an atmosphere of Greek tragedy. She described with anxiety scenes in which she and her friend exhibited their erotic desire before the husband and how he reacted with violence to this provocation. If I stopped her, leading her to reflection, Mar\u00eda had serious psychosomatic episodes. She had an accident with the car and also an infectious clinical picture lasting several months. Death anguish was floating in the air. Either she would destroy herself or she would be destroyed by her jealous husband.\n\nLike Mar\u00eda, I had to break with my own values, my ideas of a bourgeois woman, to accompany her in her growth so that she might find the way to realize her forbidden erotic desire without having to exhibit them before her husband, seeking punishment. She was able to do so; she succeeded in separating from her husband on friendly terms, taking care of the relationship with the children. She began to work to earn her living in something connected with writing and creation, and at the same time, she began to write novels.\n\nDuring her analytical process, we went through constructions and histories about a very poor childhood when Mar\u00eda used to share the bedroom with her brother, with incestuous, dangerous plays that were acted in the present passionate story. We also examined her guilt because of her present comfortable life in contrast with the poverty of her parents' home and also the fact that she was a survivor of a group of friends who had died during the years of state terrorism in Argentina.\n\nDeath runs through Mar\u00eda's history, and she put my psychoanalyst's ethical attitude to a test\u2014in the end with a good outcome for the shared task. I think that Oedipal conflicts in their dimensions of erotic and destructive desires and of prohibition and guilty feelings were dramatized in the analytical field constructed between the patient I call Mar\u00eda and myself. The elaboration of such conflict, where I was able to rescue my own feelings and ideas to understand the patient's truth, contributed to constructing a new way out of her Oedipal drama.\n\n## **In Conclusion**\n\nNowadays, we deal not only with what the patient repeats in the transference dimension, the repressed unconscious derivates, but also with what is dramatized in the patient\u2013analyst relationship, and this enables us to create something new that has no meaning yet, the expressions of the proper or genuine unconscious.\n\n## **Note**\n\n Originally published in _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 33(3) (May 2013) with the title \"Te Theory of the analytical Field.\"\n\n# BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nAeschylus (1955). _Aeschyli septem quae supersunt tragoediae. R_ ecensuit Gilbertus Murray. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.\n\nAhumada, J. L. (1994). Interpretation and creationism. _International Journal of Psychoanalysis_ 75: 695\u2013707.\n\nAisemberg, E. R. (2008). 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Metaphor as conflict, conflict as metaphor. _Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ 31: 107\u2013125.\n\nYoung-Breuhl, E. & Bethelard, F. (1999). The hidden history of the ego instincts. _Psychoanalytic Review_ 86 (6): 823\u2013851.\n\nZimmer, R. (2010). _Psychoanalytic Quarterly_ 79 (4): 1151\u20131165.\n\n# INDEX\n\nabandonment , ,\n\nAberastury, a.\n\nabstraction , , ,\n\naction language \u2013\n\nAeschylos \u2013\n\naesthetics ,\n\nAffect \u2013; -space links \u2013\n\n_Agamemnon_\n\nagency ,\n\naggressiveness , , \u2013\n\nAhlvers, W.J.\n\nairlines \u2013\n\nalpha function , , \u2013,\n\nAlvarez de Toledo, l. , , \u2013\n\nambiguity , , , ,\n\n_Analects_ \u2013\n\nanalogy \u2013,\n\nanalytic field \u2013, \u2013; metaphor in , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013; other fields within , , ; spiral process \u2013, , , , ; \"talking cure\" , , , , \u2013 _see also_ fields\n\nanalytic situation \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013\n\n_The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field_ , , , \u2013\n\nanimism , ,\n\nanorexia\n\nanxiety \u2013, , ,\n\nAnzieu, D.\n\naphasia\n\nAragno, a. , ,\n\nArgentina , \u2013, , ,\n\nargentine psychoanalytic association \u2013, ,\n\nAristotle , , , , , , , , ,\n\nArlow, J. , , ,\n\nasymmetry , , , , \u2013, \u2013,\n\nAtemporality ,\n\nAugustine \u2013,\n\nAaulagnier, p.\n\nauthority figures \u2013,\n\nbabies  _see also_ infancy\n\nbalance\n\nBalint, M.\n\nBarangers xviii\u2013xix, \u2013, \u2013, , , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, , \u2013\n\nBarnett, A.\n\nbastion , , , , , , ,\n\nBaudelaire\n\nBeardsley, M.C.\n\nBecker-Matero, N. , \u2013\n\nBed\u00f3, T.\n\nBerlin, I.\n\nBessie, A. ,\n\nbeta-elements \u2013, \u2013\n\nBeuchot, M.\n\nbi-logic , \u2013, ,\n\nbi-personal field \u2013, , , ,\n\nBion, W. \u2013, , , , \u2013, \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013\n\nBlack, M.\n\nBlanco, M.\n\nBleger, J. \u2013, , ,\n\nbody , \u2013, \u2013, , , ;-language\n\nbonds , \u2013, ,\n\nBonner, S.\n\nBorbely, A. , , , \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\nBornstein, R.F. , \u2013\n\nBoston ,\n\nBotellas , , \u2013, \u2013\n\nBowers, K.S.\n\nbrain \u2013, , ,\n\nBrentano, F. \u2013\n\nBreuer, J.\n\nbridge ,\n\nBritain ,\n\nBruner, J.\n\nBucci, W.\n\nBuenos aires\n\nBusch, F.\n\nC\u00e1rcamo, C.\n\ncaregivers , , ,\n\nCassorla, R.\n\ncastration\n\ncatachresis ,\n\ncatastrophe ,\n\nCatejan, T.\n\ncausality , ,\n\nCaven, A.J.\n\nchange \u2013\n\nchaos theory\n\nchildren , \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\nchimera \u2013\n\nChina , , , \u2013\n\nchoice \u2013,\n\nChristianity\n\nCivitarese, G. \u2013, \u2013\n\n_Civitas Dei_\n\nclassical perspective \u2013,\n\ncode \u2013; non-symbolic \u2013\n\ncognitive sciences \u2013, , ,\n\ncognitive-linguistic view \u2013,\n\ncoherence ,\n\ncollusion \u2013, ; psychosomatic\n\ncommunication , , \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\ncommunity \u2013,\n\ncompany-field \u2013\n\ncomplementarity , , , , , , ,\n\ncomplexity theory \u2013\n\nconative\n\nconceptualization \u2013\n\ncondensation , , \u2013,  _conditio humana_  _Confessiones_\n\nconflict \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013,\n\nConfucius \u2013, \u2013\n\nconnotation ,\n\nconstructivism , \u2013, , \u2013\n\ncontact , \u2013\n\ncontainer \u2013, \u2013, , ,\n\ncontext , \u2013, \u2013,\n\ncontiguity \u2013\n\ncontradiction \u2013, , \u2013,\n\ncopper \u2013\n\nCorel, a. , \u2013\n\nCorrao, F. ,\n\ncountertransference , , , , , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013\n\nCrawford, L.E.\n\ncreativity , ,\n\ncritical theory\n\ncurrency of the mind , , , , ,\n\ndanger\n\nDanto, A.\n\nDavidson, D. ,\n\ndefense , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , , ,\n\nderivatives \u2013,\n\nDerrida, J.\n\nDescartes, R.\n\ndesire , \u2013, \u2013\n\ndevelopmental studies\n\ndevil  _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental_ _Disorders_\n\ndialectics , , , , \u2013, \u2013\n\ndialogue , , , ,\n\ndichotomies \u2013\n\ndickens, C.\n\ndifference , \u2013, ,\n\nDionysos\n\n_diphrontis_\n\ndisavowal \u2013\n\ndisplacement , ,\n\ndissociation \u2013, \u2013\n\ndistortions \u2013\n\ndogs , , \u2013\n\nDonne, J.\n\nDonnet, J.-L. \u2013\n\ndoubt \u2013\n\nDouglas, M.\n\ndramatic metaphor\n\ndream , , , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013,\n\n130\u2013, \u2013, , ; -thoughts ;\n\nmembrane\n\ndrives , , , , ,\n\ndualism \u2013,\n\nDujovne, I.\n\ndyad ,\n\ndynamic field \u2013, \u2013\n\neagle, M.\n\neast ,\n\nEco, U. ,\n\neconomic viewpoint \u2013\n\nEdelman, G.\n\nEdelson, J.T.\n\nego , , \u2013, , , \u2013, ,\n\n_The Ego and the Id_\n\nego psychology , , \u2013\n\nEinstein, A.\n\nEitherOr ,\n\nEkstein, R. \u2013\n\nelbow, p.\n\nembodiment , , ;\n\nembodied simulation \u2013\n\nemergence\n\nEmotional Stroop Task (EST) \u2013\n\nemotions , , \u2013\n\nempathy\n\nempiricism\n\nenergy ,\n\nenigmatization , \u2013\n\n_ensilladura_ , \u2013\n\nentelechy\n\nequilibrium\n\nequivalence , ,\n\nequivocality\n\nEros\n\nErreich, A.\n\netymology\n\nEucharist\n\nEuripides\n\nEvil Inclination \u2013\n\nexchanges ,\n\nexperience \u2013; immediate\/interpreted\n\n12\u2013; private ; role of fantasy \u2013;\n\nunformulated\n\nfactory analogy\n\nFaimberg, H. \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\nFairbairn, W.R.D.\n\n_fan yan_\n\nfantasy \u2013, , \u2013, , , ; analytic relationship \u2013; field concepts \u2013; foundational concepts \u2013, \u2013; metaphoric processes \u2013; process \u2013 , ; spiral process \u2013, ; \"talking cure\" \u2013, , , \u2013, ,\n\nFascism\n\nfathers , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013,\n\nFieldman, J. \u2013\n\nfeminine\n\nFerenczi, S. , ,\n\nFern\u00e1ndez, A.\n\nFerrari Hardoy, G.\n\nFerro, A. \u2013, , \u2013,\n\nfields \u2013, , \u2013; Faimberg field \u2013; general psychoanalytic field , , \u2013 ; interpersonal field ; intersubjective field , , ; psychoanalytic field , ; relational field , \u2013, ,  _see also_ analytic field\n\nfigurability , \u2013, \u2013\n\nfiltering , \u2013\n\nFingarette, H. \u2013\n\nforce\n\nFoulkes, S.H. ,\n\nfoxes \u2013\n\nfragmentation \u2013\n\nfree association , , , \u2013\n\nfree hovering attention\n\nFrenkel-Brunswik, E.\n\nFreud, S. , \u2013, , \u2013, , \u2013, , , , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, , , , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , , ,\n\nFriedman, ,\n\nfurniture\n\nGaburri, E.\n\nGallese, V. \u2013,\n\nGargiulo, G.J.\n\nGarma, A.\n\nGazzaniga, M.S. ,\n\nGedo, J.\n\nGeneva\n\nGestalt , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013,\n\nGibbs, T.C. \u2013\n\nGill, M.\n\nGod ,\n\nGods\n\nGoethe, J.W. von\n\ngold\n\nGoldstein, K. ,\n\nGreeks , \u2013, , \u2013, ,\n\nGreen, a. , , ,\n\nGreenberg, J. \u2013\n\nGrinberg, L.\n\nGrossman, W.I.\n\ngroup , , , \u2013\n\nguilt , ,\n\nhallucination , \u2013,\n\nhamlet\n\nharmony ,\n\nharries, K.\n\nhealth \u2013,\n\nhedgehogs \u2013\n\nHegel, G.W.F. , ,\n\nHeidegger, M. \u2013\n\nHeimann, P. \u2013,\n\nHelmholtz, H. von\n\nHeraklitus\n\nhermeneutics , , \u2013\n\nHobbes, T.\n\nholism \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\nHolt, R.\n\nHome, H.J.\n\nhomer\n\nHook, S.\n\nHospicio de las Mercedes\n\nhuman nature\n\nhumanities ,\n\n_huo_\n\nHusserl, E. , ,\n\nhysteria , \u2013\n\niconic signs \u2013\n\nid \u2013, , \u2013\n\nidentity\n\nidiosyncratic \u2013, \u2013; peak\n\nIliad\n\nimages \u2013, \u2013, , ,\n\nimagination ,\n\n_Imagination and the Meaningful Brain_ ,\n\nimmaturity\n\ninclusiveness ,\n\nindexical items \u2013\n\nindividualism\n\ninfancy , , , \u2013, , , \u2013,\n\n146\u2013,\n\ninsight , , \u2013\n\ninstincts \u2013, \u2013\n\nintentionality ,\n\ninteraction , \u2013, \u2013\n\ninterdisciplinarity ,\n\ninternalizing \u2013\n\ninterpretation ; fields \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\n145\u2013, , , \u2013; metaphor ,\n\n, \u2013, , \u2013, ; process \u2013,\n\n,  _Interpretation of Dreams_ ,\n\nintersubjectivity \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, , ,\n\nintrapsychic , \u2013, \u2013, , ,\n\nIsaacs, S. \u2013, , , ,\n\nItaly , ,\n\nJackendoff, R.\n\nJakobson, R. \u2013,\n\nJaspers, K.\n\nJohnson, M. , , , \u2013, \u2013, , , , , , , \u2013,\n\nKardiner, a.\n\nKatz, S.M. xviii, \u2013, , , \u2013,\n\nKleinians \u2013, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , \u2013, \u2013, , , \u2013, ,\n\nknowledge , ,\n\nKohut, H. \u2013, ,\n\nKoj\u00e8ve, A. ,\n\nKolata, G.\n\nK\u00f6vecses, Z. \u2013\n\nKris, A.\n\nKryptonite\n\nKubie,L. , , \u2013,\n\nKuhn, T. ,\n\nKung Tse _see_ Confucius\n\nLacan, J. , , , , , , , \u2013,\n\nLakoff, G. , , , \u2013, \u2013, , , , , , , \u2013,\n\nLampl de Groot, J.\n\nLanger, M. , \u2013\n\nLangs, R.\n\nLanguage , \u2013, , , , ; acquisition , ; barrier ; clinical data , ; dualist bias ; shared ; \"talking cure\" ,\n\nLao Tzu , , \u2013\n\nLaplanche, J.\n\nlatin\n\nLatin America , ,\n\nLegge, J.\n\nL\u00e9on de Bernardi, B. , \u2013\n\nL\u00e9vi-Strauss, C.\n\nLevin, F.\n\nLewin, K. , , \u2013,\n\nLiberman, D. \u2013\n\nliberty\n\nlinearity\n\nlinking , \u2013, ,\n\nlistening to listening\n\nliving words\n\nLlinas, R.R.\n\nlocal \u2013, \u2013\n\nLocke, J.\n\nLoewald, H ,\n\nlogic , \u2013, ; of emotion ; symmetric\/asymmetric\n\nlubrication\n\n_Lun Y\u00fc_ \u2013\n\nlust\n\nmagic\n\nMahler, M.S.\n\nMann, T.\n\nmappings \u2013, ,\n\nMarx, K.\n\nMaskit, B.\n\nmasochism \u2013\n\nmaterialism\n\nmathematics , \u2013,\n\nMatte-Blanco, I. \u2013\n\nmeaning \u2013, , \u2013, , , \u2013, , ; shared ; spiral process \u2013,\n\nmeasure \u2013\n\nmeasurement \u2013\n\nmechanism\n\nmedicine ,\n\nMeier, B.P. \u2013\n\nMeissner, W.W. \u2013, \u2013\n\nMelshon, I.\n\nMeltzer, D.\n\nmemory , \u2013, , ,\n\nmentation , ,\n\nmentors \u2013\n\nMerleau-Ponty, M. , \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013,\n\nmessages \u2013\n\nmetaphor: current understandings \u2013; frozen ; as rhetorical figure \u2013; working within \u2013\n\nmetaphoric processes \u2013, , , , ,\n\n_Metaphors We Live By_ ,\n\nmetapsychology , , \u2013, , , ,\n\n, \u2013\n\nmetatheory \u2013\n\nmetonymy , , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , , \u2013, ,\n\nMilgram, S.\n\nmilk \u2013\n\nmind , \u2013, , \u2013,\n\nMinotaur\n\nmirror \u2013\n\nmirror neurons \u2013,\n\nMitchell, S. \u2013\n\nModell, A. , , , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, ,\n\nMom, J. ,\n\nMomigliano, L.N.\n\nmonism \u2013,\n\nmonsters\n\nMontevideo ,\n\nmorality \u2013\n\nmothers , , \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013\n\nmotivation ,\n\nmutuality\n\nM'Uzan, M. de \u2013\n\n_nachtr\u00e4glichkeit_ , , , ,\n\nnarayanam, S. \u2013\n\nnarcissism , ,\n\nnarrative , \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013; derivatives , \u2013,\n\nNazis \u2013\n\nnegative affect \u2013,\n\nnegative metonymy\n\nneigborhood \u2013\n\nNeri, C. , \u2013\n\nneural theory of language\n\nneuropsychology\n\nneuroscience , , , \u2013, ,\n\nneurosis \u2013, , \u2013\n\nneutrality \u2013\n\nNietzsche, F.\n\nnomothetics \u2013\n\nnonlinearity\n\nnovelty\n\n_Object Love and Reality_\n\nobject relationships , \u2013,\n\n_Odyssey_\n\noedipal issues , \u2013, , , , ,\n\nOgden, T. , \u2013, , \u2013, , , ,\n\nOlympus ,\n\noneiric , ,\n\nonomatopoeia\n\nontology \u2013, ,\n\noperative group ,\n\norganism\n\nO'Shaughnessy, E.\n\nOzick, C.\n\nparadox , , \u2013,\n\npare, d.\n\nPauli, W.\n\nPaulucci, O.\n\nPeirce, C.S.\n\nPennebaker, J.W.\n\nperception , , \u2013\n\nPeterfreund, E.\n\n_Phaidros_\n\nphantasy _see_ fantasy\n\nphenomenology , , , , ,\n\n_phronesis_\n\nphysics , , , , ,\n\nPichon-Rivi\u00e8re, E. , \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013,\n\npictograms ,\n\nPlato , \u2013\n\npluralism \u2013, ,\n\npoetics , , , , \u2013, ,\n\npolarity \u2013, \u2013\n\nPontalis, J.-B.\n\npositive affect \u2013\n\npositivism ,\n\nPosner, R.\n\npostmodernism , \u2013\n\npreverbal ,\n\nprimary process , \u2013, , , , \u2013\n\nprivate experience\n\nprocess , ,\n\nproportionality \u2013,\n\nProteus defense\n\nproto-mental system \u2013, \u2013\n\nprototypes\n\nProust, M. ,\n\npsychism , , \u2013,\n\n_Psychoanalytic Inquiry_ , , ,\n\npsychodynamics \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, ,\n\nPumphandle, O.\n\nquantum mechanics ,\n\nquestionnaires\n\nRacker, H. , \u2013, , , , ,\n\nRappoport de Aisemberg, E. , \u2013\n\nRascovsky, A.\n\nrationality , \u2013\n\nreality , , \u2013, \u2013, , ,\n\nreciprocity\n\nreductionism \u2013,\n\nregression \u2013\n\nreifcation , ,\n\nReik, T.\n\nrelational theory , , \u2013, , , ,\n\nrelatively real \u2013\n\nrelativism\n\nrelativity\n\nreligion\n\nrepetition \u2013\n\nrepresentation ,\n\nrepression , \u2013, \u2013,\n\nresponsibility \u2013\n\nreverie \u2013, , , \u2013, , \u2013, ,\n\n, , \u2013; negative \u2013\n\n_Revista Argentina de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_\n\n_Revista de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_\n\n_Revista Uruguaya de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_ , , ,\n\n_Revue Fran\u00e7aise_\n\nrhetoric\n\nRicoeur, P. ,\n\nR\u00edo de la Plata , , \u2013\n\nRizzuto, A.-M. , \u2013\n\nRobinson, M.D. \u2013\n\nRodrigu\u00e9, E.\n\nRolla, E.\n\nRomeo \u2013\n\nRorschach test\n\nRorty, R.\n\nRousseau, J.-J. ,\n\nSandler, J. , \u2013\n\nSaussure, F. de , , ,\n\nscene , \u2013; other ,\n\nSchafer, R. , \u2013, , ,\n\nSchif, P.\n\nschizophrenia \u2013,\n\nSchkolnik, F.\n\nSchlick, M.\n\nSchool of Dynamic Psychiatry \u2013\n\nSchools of thought \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013\n\nscience , , \u2013, ; natural \u2013, , ; as systematic use of metaphor  _see also_ cognitive science\n\nsecond look , , \u2013, , ,\n\nsecondary process , , , \u2013\n\nSeitz, J. ,\n\nself , ; -awareness ; -objects \u2013; experience \u2013; object matrices ,\n\nsemiotics ,\n\nsensation \u2013\n\nsensuality\n\nseparation\n\nsexuality , , \u2013, ,\n\nShakespeare, W. ,\n\nshame\n\nSharpe, E.F.\n\nShope, R.K.  _si_\n\nsigns , \u2013\n\nsimilarity , \u2013, \u2013, , , ,\n\nsimile\n\nsinew \u2013\n\nsleep\n\nSnow, C.E.\n\nSolms, M.\n\nsoul \u2013\n\nsource , ,\n\nspace child \u2013\n\nSpain\n\nspence, d.\n\nspezzano, C.\n\nsphinx \u2013\n\nspiral process , , \u2013, , ,\n\nsplitting \u2013\n\nspoken word , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013\n\nstate\n\nsterba, R.\n\nstern, d. , , , , \u2013, ,\n\nstyle ,\n\nsubjectivity \u2013, , , ; and metaphor \u2013, \u2013; spiral process , ;\" talking cure\" , \u2013,\n\nsubliminal psychodynamic activation\n\nsullivan, H.S. , , , ,\n\nsuperego , , \u2013, \u2013\n\nsuperman\n\n_Symbiosis and Ambiguity_\n\nsymbol , \u2013, , \u2013, ; symbolic codes ; symbolic order\n\n_symbolon_\n\n_Symposium_\n\nsynesthesia\n\nsynthesis \u2013\n\n_Talmud_ \u2013\n\n_Tao The King_ \u2013, \u2013\n\ntaoism , \u2013, \u2013\n\ntaragano, F.\n\ntarget , \u2013, , ,\n\ntemporality , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013\n\ntension , , ,\n\ntexts\n\nTebes\n\nthing-presentations\n\nthirds \u2013, , , , \u2013,\n\ntime , \u2013, ; temporal metaphors \u2013\n\ntitans\n\ntorah\n\n_Totem and Taboo_\n\ntranscendence \u2013,\n\ntransference \u2013, , , \u2013, \u2013, ; in field theory , , , \u2013, \u2013; metaphor\/metonymy \u2013, , \u2013,\n\ntransformation \u2013, , ,\n\ntransitional object\n\ntranslation , , , ,\n\ntrauma \u2013, , \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013, , ,\n\ntropes \u2013\n\ntruth ,\n\nTubert-oklander, J. , \u2013\n\numbrella xviii, \u2013, \u2013, , \u2013\n\nunconscious \u2013, \u2013, , , ; analytic relationship \u2013; field concepts , , , ; meaning \u2013; nondynamic , , \u2013, ; process \u2013, ; \"talking cure\" \u2013\n\nunivocality \u2013\n\nunobservables , \u2013\n\nuprightness\n\nUruguay , , , \u2013,\n\n_Uruguayan Review of Psychoanalysis_ see _Revista Uruguaya de Psicoan\u00e1lisis_\n\nUs ,\n\nutterances \u2013\n\nvalences , \u2013\n\nverbal signs\n\nverbal-opposition theory\n\nVienna , ,\n\nvirtual reality\n\nvital space\n\nvoice \u2013\n\nvoid , ,\n\nWachtel, P.L.\n\nwaking , \u2013; dream thought , , \u2013\n\nWaley, a. \u2013\n\nWallerstein, R. , \u2013, ,\n\nWest , , , , \u2013,\n\nWhite, R. , , \u2013\n\nwill \u2013\n\nWinnicott, D.W. , \u2013, ,\n\nWittgenstein, l. ,\n\nwords , \u2013, \u2013, \u2013, \u2013\n\nWright, d.\n\nWurmser, L. xix, , , \u2013, \u2013, , , ,\n\n_xiang_\n\n_xin_\n\nzeus\n\n_zheng_ \u2013\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n#\n\nDAVE EGGERS  \nZEITOUN\n\nDave Eggers is the author of six previous books, including _What Is the What_ , a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France's Prix Medici. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, run by Mr. Deng and dedicated to building secondary schools in southern Sudan. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces books, an eponymous quarterly journal, a monthly magazine _(The Believer)_ , and _Wholphin_ , a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries. In 2002, with N\u00ednive Calegari he cofounded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C. In 2004, Eggers taught at the University of California\u2013Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and there, with Dr. Lola Vollen, he cofounded Voice of Witness, a series of books using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. A native of Chicago, Eggers graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.\n\nwww.zeitounfoundation.org  \nwww.voiceofwitness.org  \nwww.valentinoachakdeng.org  \nwww.826national.org  \nwww.mcsweeneys.net\n\n#\n\nALSO BY DAVE EGGERS\n\nMemoir\n\n_A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius_\n\nFiction\n\n_You Shall Know Our Velocity!  \nHow We Are Hungry  \nHow the Water Feels to the Fishes  \nWhat Is the What  \nThe Wild Things_\n\nNonfiction\n\n_Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers_ (with N\u00ednive Calegari and Daniel Moulthrop)\n\nAs Editor\n\n_The Best American Nonrequired Reading_\n\n_Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated_ (with Lola Vollen)\n\n#\n\nAll author proceeds from this book go to the Zeitoun Foundation, dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans and fostering interfaith understanding.\n\nwww.zeitounfoundation.org\n_For Abdulrahman, Kathy, Zachary, Nademah,  \nAisha, Safiya, and Ahmad in New Orleans_\n\n_For Ahmad, Antonia, Lutfi, and Laila in M\u00e1laga_\n\n_For Kousay, Nada, Mahmoud, Zakiya, Luay, Eman, Fahzia,  \nFatimah, Aisha, Munah, Nasibah,  \nand all the Zeitouns of Jableh, Lattakia,  \nand Arwad Island_\n\n_For the people of New Orleans_\n\n# Contents\n\nAbout the Author\n\nOther Books by this Author\n\nTitle Page\n\nDedication\n\nNotes About this Book\n\nPart I\n\nChapter 1 - Friday August 26, 2005\n\nChapter 2 - Saturday August 27\n\nChapter 3 - Sunday August 28\n\nChapter 4 - Monday August 29\n\nChapter 5 - Tuesday August 30\n\nPart II\n\nChapter 6 - Tuesday August 30\n\nChapter 7 - Wednesday August 31\n\nChapter 8 - Thursday September 1\n\nChapter 9 - Friday September 2\n\nChapter 10 - Saturday September 3\n\nChapter 11 - Sunday September 4\n\nChapter 12 - Monday September 5\n\nChapter 13 - Tuesday September 6\n\nPart III\n\nChapter 14 - Wednesday September 7\n\nChapter 15 - Thursday September 8\n\nChapter 16 - Friday September 9\n\nChapter 17 - Saturday September 10\n\nChapter 18 - Sunday September 11\n\nChapter 19 - Monday September 12\n\nChapter 20 - Tuesday September 13\n\nChapter 21 - Wednesday September 14\n\nChapter 22 - Saturday September 17\n\nChapter 23 - Monday September 19\n\nPart IV\n\nChapter 24 - Tuesday September 6\n\nChapter 25 - Wednesday September 7\n\nChapter 26 - Thursday September 8\n\nChapter 27 - Friday September 9\n\nChapter 28 - Saturday September 10\n\nChapter 29 - Sunday September 11\n\nChapter 30 - Monday September 12\n\nChapter 31 - Tuesday September 13\n\nChapter 32 - Wednesday September 14\n\nChapter 33 - Thursday September 15\n\nChapter 34 - Friday September 16\n\nChapter 35 - Saturday September 17\n\nChapter 36 - Sunday September 18\n\nChapter 37 - Monday September 19\n\nChapter 38 - Monday September 19\n\nChapter 39 - Tuesday September 20\n\nChapter 40 - Thursday September 22\n\nChapter 41 - Friday September 23\n\nChapter 42 - Sunday September 25\n\nChapter 43 - Monday September 26\n\nChapter 44 - Tuesday September 27\n\nChapter 45 - Wednesday September 28\n\nChapter 46 - Thursday September 29\n\nPart V\n\nChapter 47 - Fall 2008\n\nThe Zeitoun Foundation\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nCopyright\n\n#\n\n_... in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime..._\n\nCormac McCarthy, _The Road_\n\n_To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail_.\n\nMark Twain\n\n# NOTES ABOUT THIS BOOK\n\nThis is a work of nonfiction, based primarily on the accounts of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun (pronounced \"Zay-toon\"). Dates, times, locations, and other facts have been confirmed by independent sources and the historical record. Conversations have been recounted as best as can be remembered by the participants. Some names have been changed.\n\nThis book does not attempt to be an all-encompassing book about New Orleans or Hurricane Katrina. It is only an account of one family's experiences before and after the storm. It was written with the full participation of the Zeitoun family, and reflects their view of the events.\n\n# I\n# FRIDAY AUGUST 26, 2005\n\nOn moonless nights the men and boys of Jableh, a dusty fishing town on the coast of Syria, would gather their lanterns and set out in their quietest boats. Five or six small craft, two or three fishermen in each. A mile out, they would arrange the boats in a circle on the black sea, drop their nets, and, holding their lanterns over the water, they would approximate the moon.\n\nThe fish, sardines, would begin gathering soon after, a slow mass of silver rising from below. The fish were attracted to plankton, and the plankton were attracted to the light. They would begin to circle, a chain linked loosely, and over the next hour their numbers would grow. The black gaps between silver links would close until the fishermen could see, below, a solid mass of silver spinning.\n\nAbdulrahman Zeitoun was only thirteen when he began fishing for sardines this way, a method called _lampara_ , borrowed from the Italians. He had waited years to join the men and teenagers on the night boats, and he'd spent those years asking questions. Why only on moonless nights? Because, his brother Ahmad said, on moon-filled nights the plankton would be visible everywhere, spread out all over the sea, and the sardines could see and eat the glowing organisms with ease. But without a moon the men could make their own, and could bring the sardines to the surface in stunning concentrations. You have to see it, Ahmad told his little brother. You've never seen anything like this.\n\nAnd when Abdulrahman first witnessed the sardines circling in the black he could not believe the sight, the beauty of the undulating silver orb below the white and gold lantern light. He said nothing, and the other fishermen were careful to be quiet, too, paddling without motors, lest they scare away the catch. They would whisper over the sea, telling jokes and talking about women and girls as they watched the fish rise and spin beneath them. A few hours later, once the sardines were ready, tens of thousands of them glistening in the refracted light, the fishermen would cinch the net and haul them in.\n\nThey would motor back to the shore and bring the sardines to the fish broker in the market before dawn. He would pay the men and boys, and would then sell the fish all over western Syria\u2014Lattakia, Baniyas, Damascus. The fishermen would split the money, with Abdulrahman and Ahmad bringing their share home. Their father had passed away the year before and their mother was of fragile health and mind, so all funds they earned fishing went toward the welfare of the house they shared with ten siblings.\n\nAbdulrahman and Ahmad didn't care much about the money, though. They would have done it for free.\n\nThirty-four years later and thousands of miles west, Abdulrahman Zeitoun was in bed on a Friday morning, slowly leaving the moonless Jableh night, a tattered memory of it caught in a morning dream. He was in his home in New Orleans and beside him he could hear his wife Kathy breathing, her exhalations not unlike the shushing of water against the hull of a wooden boat. Otherwise the house was silent. He knew it was near six o'clock, and the peace would not last. The morning light usually woke the kids once it reached their second-story windows. One of the four would open his or her eyes, and from there the movements were brisk, the house quickly growing loud. With one child awake, it was impossible to keep the other three in bed.\n\nKathy woke to a thump upstairs, coming from one of the kids' rooms. She listened closely, praying silently for rest. Each morning there was a delicate period, between six and six-thirty, when there was a chance, however remote, that they could steal another ten or fifteen minutes of sleep. But now there was another thump, and the dog barked, and another thump followed. What was happening in this house? Kathy looked to her husband. He was staring at the ceiling. The day had roared to life.\n\nThe phone began ringing, today as always, before their feet hit the floor. Kathy and Zeitoun\u2014most people called him by his last name because they couldn't pronounce his first\u2014ran a company, Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor LLC, and every day their crews, their clients, everyone with a phone and their number, seemed to think that once the clock struck six-thirty, it was appropriate to call. And they called. Usually there were so many calls at the stroke of six-thirty that the overlap would send half of them straight to voicemail.\n\nKathy took the first one, from a client across town, while Zeitoun shuffled into the shower. Fridays were always busy, but this one promised madness, given the rough weather on the way. There had been rumblings all week about a tropical storm crossing the Florida Keys, a chance it might head north. Though this kind of possibility presented itself every August and didn't raise eyebrows for most, Kathy and Zeitoun's more cautious clients and friends often made preparations. Throughout the morning the callers would want to know if Zeitoun could board up their windows and doors, if he would be clearing his equipment off their property before the winds came. Workers would want to know if they'd be expected to come in that day or the next.\n\n\"Zeitoun Painting Contractors,\" Kathy said, trying to sound alert. It was an elderly client, a woman living alone in a Garden District mansion, asking if Zeitoun's crew could come over and board up her windows.\n\n\"Sure, of course,\" Kathy said, letting her feet drop heavily to the floor. She was up. Kathy was the business's secretary, bookkeeper, credit department, public-relations manager\u2014she did everything in the office, while her husband handled the building and painting. The two of them balanced each other well: Zeitoun's English had its limits, so when bills had to be negotiated, hearing Kathy's Louisiana drawl put clients at ease.\n\nThis was part of the job, helping clients prepare their homes for coming winds. Kathy hadn't given much thought to the storm this client was talking about. It took a lot more than a few downed trees in south Florida to get her attention.\n\n\"We'll have a crew over this afternoon,\" Kathy told the woman.\n\nKathy and Zeitoun had been married for eleven years. Zeitoun had come to New Orleans in 1994, by way of Houston and Baton Rouge and a half-dozen other American cities he'd explored as a young man. Kathy had grown up in Baton Rouge and was used to the hurricane routine: the litany of preparations, the waiting and watching, the power outages, the candles and flashlights and buckets catching rain. There seemed to be a half-dozen named storms every August, and they were rarely worth the trouble. This one, named Katrina, would be no different.\n\nDownstairs, Nademah, at ten their second-oldest, was helping get breakfast together for the two younger girls, Aisha and Safiya, five and seven. Zachary, Kathy's fifteen-year-old son from her first marriage, was already gone, off to meet friends before school. Kathy made lunches while the three girls sat at the kitchen table, eating and reciting, in English accents, scenes from _Pride and Prejudice_. They had gotten lost in, were hopelessly in love with, that movie. Dark-eyed Nademah had heard about it from friends, convinced Kathy to buy the DVD, and since then the three girls had seen it a dozen times\u2014every night for two weeks. They knew every character and every line and had learned how to swoon like aristocratic maidens. It was the worst they'd had it since _Phantom of the Opera_ , when they'd been stricken with the need to sing every song, at home or at school or on the escalator at the mall, at full volume.\n\nZeitoun wasn't sure which was worse. As he entered the kitchen, seeing his daughters bow and curtsy and wave imaginary fans, he thought, _At least they're not singing_. Pouring himself a glass of orange juice, he watched these girls of his, perplexed. Growing up in Syria, he'd had seven sisters, but none had been this prone to drama. His girls were playful, wistful, always dancing across the house, jumping from bed to bed, singing with feigned vibrato, swooning. It was Kathy's influence, no doubt. She was one of them, really, blithe and girlish in her manner and her tastes\u2014video games, Harry Potter, the baffling pop music they listened to. He knew she was determined to give them the kind of carefree childhood she hadn't had.\n\n* * *\n\n\"That's all you're eating?\" Kathy said, looking over at her husband, who was putting on his shoes, ready to leave. He was of average height, a sturdily built man of forty-seven, but how he maintained his weight was a puzzle. He could go without breakfast, graze at lunch, and barely touch dinner, all while working twelve-hour days of constant activity, and still his weight never fluctuated. Kathy had known for a decade that her husband was one of those inexplicably solid, self-sufficient, and never-needy men who got by on air and water, impervious to injury or disease\u2014but still she wondered how he sustained himself. He was passing through the kitchen now, kissing the girls' heads.\n\n\"Don't forget your phone,\" Kathy said, eyeing it on the microwave.\n\n\"Why would I?\" he asked, pocketing it.\n\n\"So you don't forget things?\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\n\"You're really saying you don't forget things.\"\n\n\"Yes. This is what I'm saying.\"\n\nBut as soon as he'd said the words he recognized his error.\n\n\"You forgot our firstborn child!\" Kathy said. He'd walked right into it. The kids smiled at their father. They knew the story well.\n\nIt was unfair, Zeitoun thought, how one lapse in eleven years could give his wife enough ammunition to needle him for the rest of his life. Zeitoun was not a forgetful man, but whenever he did forget something, or when Kathy was trying to prove he had forgotten something, all she had to do was remind him of the time he'd forgotten Nademah. Because he had. Not for such a long time, but he had.\n\nShe was born on August 4, on the one-year anniversary of their wedding. It had been a trying labor. The next day, at home, Zeitoun helped Kathy from the car, closed the passenger door, and then retrieved Nademah, still in her carseat. He carried the baby in one hand, holding Kathy's arm with the other. The stairs to their second-floor apartment were just inside the building, and Kathy needed help getting up. So Zeitoun helped her up the steep steps, Kathy groaning and sighing as they went. They reached the bedroom, where Kathy collapsed on the bed and got under the covers. She was relieved beyond words or reason to be home where she could relax with her infant.\n\n\"Give her to me,\" Kathy said, raising her arms.\n\nZeitoun looked down to his wife, astonished at how ethereally beautiful she looked, her skin radiant, her eyes so tired. Then he heard what she'd said. The baby. Of course she wanted the baby. He turned to give her the baby, but there was no baby. The baby was not at his feet. The baby was not in the room.\n\n\"Where is she?\" Kathy asked.\n\nZeitoun took in a quick breath. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Abdul, where's the baby?\" Kathy said, now louder.\n\nZeitoun made a sound, something between a gasp and a squeak, and flew out of the room. He ran down the steps and out the front door. He saw the carseat sitting on the lawn. He'd left the baby in the yard. _He'd left the baby in the yard_. The carseat was turned toward the street. He couldn't see Nademah's face. He grabbed the handle, fearing the worst, that someone had taken her and left the seat, but when he turned it toward him, there was the tiny pink face of Nademah, scrunched and sleeping. He put his fingers to her, to feel her heat, to know she was okay. She was.\n\nHe brought the carseat upstairs, handed Nademah to Kathy, and before she could scold him, kid him, or divorce him, he ran down the stairs and went for a walk. He needed a walk that day, and needed walks for many days following, to work out what he'd done and why, how he had forgotten his child while aiding his wife. How hard it was to do both, to be partner to one and protector to the other. What was the balance? He would spend years pondering this conundrum.\n\nThis day, in the kitchen, Zeitoun wasn't about to give Kathy the opportunity to tell the whole story, again, to their children. He waved goodbye.\n\nAisha hung on his leg. \"Don't leave, Baba,\" she said. She was given to theatrics\u2014Kathy called her Dramarama\u2014and all that Austen had made the tendency worse.\n\nHe was already thinking about the day's work ahead, and even at seven-thirty he felt behind.\n\nZeitoun looked down at Aisha, held her face in his hands, smiled at the tiny perfection of her dark wet eyes, and then extracted her from his shin as if he were stepping out of soggy pants. Seconds later he was in the driveway, loading the van.\n\nAisha went out to help him, and Kathy watched the two of them, thinking about his way with the girls. It was difficult to describe. He was not an overly doting father, and yet he never objected to them jumping on him, grabbing him. He was firm, sure, but also just distracted enough to give them the room they needed, and just pliant enough to let himself be taken advantage of when the need arose. And even when he was upset about something, it was disguised behind those eyes, grey-green and long-lashed. When they met, he was thirteen years older than Kathy, so she wasn't immediately sold on the prospect of marriage, but those eyes, holding the light the way they did, had seized her. They were dream-filled, but discerning, too, assessing\u2014the eyes of an entrepreneur. He could see a run-down building and have not only the vision to see what it might become, but also the practical knowledge of what it would cost and how long it would take.\n\nKathy adjusted her hijab in the front window, tucking in stray hairs\u2014it was a nervous habit\u2014while watching Zeitoun leave the driveway in a swirling grey cloud. It was time for a new van. The one they had was a crumbling white beast, long-suffering but dependable, filled with ladders and wood and rattling with loose screws and brushes. On the side was their ubiquitous logo, the words ZEITOUN A. PAINTING CONTRACTOR next to a paint roller resting at the end of a rainbow. The logo was corny, Kathy admitted, but it wasn't easy to forget. Everyone in the city knew it, from bus stops and benches and lawn signs; it was as common in New Orleans as live oak or royal fern. But at first it was not so benign to all.\n\nWhen Zeitoun first designed it, he'd had no idea that a sign with a rainbow on it would signify anything to anyone\u2014anything other than the array of colors and tints from which clients might choose. But soon enough he and Kathy were made aware of the signals they were sending.\n\nImmediately they began getting calls from gay couples, and this was good news, good business. But at the same time, some potential clients, once they saw the van arrive, were no longer interested in Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor LLC. Some workers left, thinking that by working under the Zeitoun Painting rainbow they would be presumed to be gay, that somehow the company managed to employ only gay painters.\n\nWhen Zeitoun and Kathy finally caught on to the rainbow's signifying power, they had a serious talk about it. Kathy wondered if her husband, who did not at that point have any gay friends or family members, might want to change the logo, to keep their message from being misconstrued.\n\nBut Zeitoun barely gave it a thought. It would cost a lot of money, he said\u2014about twenty signs had been made, not to mention all the business cards and stationery\u2014and besides, all the new clients were paying their bills. It wasn't much more complicated than that.\n\n\"Think about it,\" Zeitoun laughed. \"We're a Muslim couple running a painting company in Louisiana. Not such a good idea to turn away clients.\" Anyone who had a problem with rainbows, he said, would surely have trouble with Islam.\n\nSo the rainbow remained.\n\nZeitoun pulled onto Earhart Boulevard, though a part of him was still in Jableh. Whenever he had these morning thoughts of his childhood, he wondered how they all were, his family in Syria, all his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews scattered up and down the coast, and those who had long ago left this world. His mother died a few years after his father passed on, and he'd lost a treasured brother, Mohammed, when he was very young. But the rest of his siblings, those still in Syria and Spain and Saudi Arabia, were all doing well, extraordinarily so. The Zeitouns were a high-achieving clan, full of doctors and school principals and generals and business owners, all of them with a passion for the sea. They had grown up in a big stone house on the Mediterranean, and none had strayed far from the shore. Zeitoun made a note to call Jableh sometime that day. There were always new babies, always news. He only had to reach one of his brothers or sisters\u2014there were seven still in Syria\u2014and he could get the full report.\n\nZeitoun turned on the radio. The storm that people were talking about was still far down in Florida, moving slowly west. It wasn't expected to make it up the Gulf for another few days, if at all. As he drove to his first job of the day, the restoration of a wonderful old mansion in the Garden District, he turned the dial on the radio, looking for something, anything, else.\n\nStanding in her kitchen, Kathy looked at the clock and gasped. It was all too rare that she got the kids to school on time. But she was working on it. Or planned to work on it as soon as the season calmed down. Summer was the busiest time for the business, with so many people leaving, fleeing the swamp heat, wanting these rooms or that porch painted while they were away.\n\nWith a flurry of warnings and arm movements, Kathy herded the girls and their gear into the minivan and headed across the Mississippi to the West Bank.\n\nThere were advantages to Zeitoun and Kathy running a business together\u2014so many blessings, too many to name\u2014but then again, the drawbacks were distinct and growing. They greatly valued being able to set their own hours, choose their clients and jobs, and be at home whenever they needed to be\u2014their ability to be there, always and for anything relating to their children, was a profound comfort. But when friends would ask Kathy whether they, too, should start their own business, she talked them out of it. You don't run the business, she would say. The business runs you.\n\nKathy and Zeitoun worked harder than anyone they knew, and the work and worry never ended. Nights, weekends, holidays\u2014respite never came. They usually had eight to ten jobs going at any one time, which they oversaw out of a home office and a warehouse space on Dublin Street, off Carrollton. And that was to say nothing of the property-management aspect of the business. Somewhere along the line they started buying buildings, apartments, and houses, and now they had six properties with eighteen tenants. Each renter was, in some ways, another dependent, another soul to worry about, to provide with shelter, a solid roof, air-conditioning, clean water. There was a dizzying array of people to pay and collect from, houses to improve and maintain, bills to deal with, invoices to issue, supplies to buy and store.\n\nBut she cherished what her life had become, and the family she and Zeitoun had created. She was driving her three girls to school now, and the fact that they could go to a private school, that their college would be taken care of, that they had all they needed and more\u2014she was thankful every hour of every day.\n\nKathy was one of nine children, and had grown up with very little, and Zeitoun, the eighth of thirteen children, had been raised with almost nothing. To see the two of them now, to stand back and assess what they'd built\u2014a sprawling family, a business of distinct success, and to be woven so thoroughly into the fabric of their adopted city that they had friends in every neighborhood, clients on almost any block they passed\u2014these were all blessings from God.\n\nHow could she take Nademah, for instance, for granted? How had they produced such a child\u2014so smart and self-possessed, so dutiful, helpful, and precocious? She was practically an adult now, it seemed\u2014she certainly spoke like one, often more measured and circumspect than her parents. Kathy glanced at her now, sitting in the passenger seat playing with the radio. She'd always been quick. When she was five, no more than five, Zeitoun came home from work for lunch one day and found Nademah playing on the floor. She looked up at him and declared, \"Daddy, I want to be a dancer.\" Zeitoun took off his shoes and sat on the couch. \"We have too many dancers in the city,\" he said, rubbing his feet. \"We need doctors, we need lawyers, we need teachers. I want you to be a doctor so you can take care of me.\" Nademah thought about this for a moment and said, \"Okay, then I'll be a doctor.\" She went back to her coloring. A minute later, Kathy came downstairs, having just seen the wreck of Nademah's bedroom. \"Clean up your room, Demah,\" she said. Nademah didn't miss a beat, nor did she look up from her coloring book. \"Not me, Mama. I'm going to be a doctor, and doctors don't clean.\"\n\nIn the car, approaching their school, Nademah turned up the volume on the radio. She'd caught something on the news about the coming storm. Kathy wasn't paying close attention, because three or four times a season, it seemed, there was some early alarmist talk about hurricanes heading straight for the city, and always their direction changed, or the winds fizzled in Florida or over the Gulf. If a storm hit New Orleans at all, it would be greatly diminished, no more than a day of grey gusts and rain.\n\nThis reporter was talking about the storm heading into the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 1. It was about 45 miles north-northwest of Key West and heading west. Kathy turned the radio off; she didn't want the kids to worry.\n\n\"You think it'll hit us?\" Nademah asked.\n\nKathy didn't think much of it. Who ever worried about a Category 1 or 2? She told Nademah it was nothing, nothing at all, and she kissed the girls goodbye.\n\nWith the thrump of three car doors, Kathy was suddenly and definitively alone. Driving away from the school, she turned the radio on again. City officials were giving the usual recommendations about having three days' worth of supplies on hand\u2014Zeitoun had always been vigilant about this\u2014and then there was some talk about 110-mile-per-hour winds and storm surges in the Gulf.\n\nShe turned it off again and called Zeitoun on his cell phone.\n\n\"You hear about this storm?\" she asked.\n\n\"I hear different things,\" he said.\n\n\"You think it's serious?\" she asked.\n\n\"Really? I don't know,\" he said.\n\nZeitoun had reinvented the word \"really,\" prefacing a good deal of his sentences with \"Really?\" as a kind of throat-clearer. Kathy would ask him any question, and he would say, \"Really? It's a funny story.\" He was known for anecdotes, and parables from Syria, quotations from the Qur'an, stories from his travels around the world. All of it she'd gotten used to, but the use of \"Really?\"\u2014she'd given up fighting it. For him it was equivalent to starting a sentence with \"You know,\" or \"Let me tell you.\" It was Zeitoun, and she had no choice but to find it endearing.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" he said. \"Are the kids at school?\"\n\n\"No, they're in the lake. My God.\"\n\nThe man was school-obsessed, and Kathy liked to tease him about it and any number of other things. She and Zeitoun spoke on the phone throughout every day, about everything\u2014painting, the rental properties, things to fix and do and pick up, often just to say hello. The banter they'd developed, full of his exasperation and her one-liners, was entertaining to anyone who overheard it. It was unavoidable, too, given how often they talked. Neither of them could operate their home, their company, their lives or days without the other.\n\nThat they had come to such symbiosis continually surprised Kathy. She had been brought up a Southern Baptist in suburban Baton Rouge with dreams of leaving home\u2014she did so just after high school\u2014and running a daycare center. Now she was a Muslim married to a Syrian American, managing a sprawling painting and contracting business. When Kathy met her husband, she was twenty-one and he was thirty-four and a native of a country she knew almost nothing about. She was recovering from an unsuccessful marriage and had recently converted to Islam. She wasn't even vaguely interested in getting married again, but Zeitoun had turned out to be everything she had not believed possible: an honest man, honest to the core, hardworking, reliable, faithful, devoted to family. And best of all, he very much wanted Kathy to be who and how she wanted to be, nothing more or less.\n\nBut it didn't mean there wasn't some fussing. Kathy called it that, their spirited back-and-forth about everything from what the kids ate for dinner to whether they should enlist a collection agency to help with a particular client.\n\n\"We're just fussin',\" she would tell her kids when they heard the two of them. Kathy couldn't help it. She was a talker. She couldn't hold anything in. I'm going to speak my mind, she told Abdul early in their relationship. He shrugged; that was fine with him. He knew that sometimes she just needed to blow off steam, and he let her. He would nod patiently, sometimes thankful that his English wasn't as quick as hers. While he searched for the right words to respond with, she would go on, and often enough, by the time she was finished, she had tired herself out, and there was nothing left to say.\n\nIn any case, once Kathy knew that she would be heard, and heard to the end, it softened the tone of her arguments. Their discussions became less heated, and often more comical. But the kids, when they were young, sometimes couldn't tell the difference.\n\nYears before, while Kathy was driving and fussing about something with Zeitoun, Nademah spoke up. Strapped into a car seat in the back, she had had enough. \"Dad, be nice to Mom,\" she said. And then she turned to Kathy. \"Mom, be nice to Dad.\" Kathy and Zeitoun stopped cold. They looked at each other, and then, in unison, back to little Nademah. They already knew she was smart, but this was something different. She was only two years old.\n\nAfter she hung up with Zeitoun, Kathy did what she knew she shouldn't do, because clients no doubt needed and expected to reach her in the morning. She switched off her phone. She did this every so often, after the kids had left the car and she'd turned toward home. Just to have that thirty minutes of solitude during the drive\u2014it was decadent but essential. She stared at the road, in total silence, thinking of nothing at all. The day would be long, it would be nonstop until the kids went to bed, so she allowed herself this one extravagance, an uninterrupted, thirty-minute expanse of clarity and quiet.\n\nAcross town, Zeitoun was at his first job of the day. He loved this place, a magisterial old house in the Garden District. He had two men on the job and was stopping by to make sure they were there, that they were busy, that they had what they needed. He jumped up the steps and strode into the house. It was easily 120 years old.\n\nHe saw Emil, a painter and carpenter from Nicaragua, kneeling in a doorway, taping off a baseboard. Zeitoun snuck up behind him and grabbed his shoulders suddenly.\n\nEmil jumped.\n\nZeitoun laughed.\n\nHe wasn't even sure why he did things like this. It was hard to explain\u2014sometimes he just found himself in a playful mood. The workers who knew him well were unsurprised, while the newer ones would often be startled, thinking his behavior a bizarre sort of motivational method.\n\nEmil managed a smile.\n\nIn the dining room, applying a second coat to the wall, was Marco, originally from El Salvador. The two of them, Marco and Emil, had met at church and had gone looking for work as a team of housepainters. They'd shown up at one of Zeitoun's job sites, and because Zeitoun nearly always had more work than he could handle, he'd taken them on. That had been three years ago, and Marco and Emil had worked for Zeitoun consistently since then.\n\nOutside of employing a number of New Orleans natives, Zeitoun had hired men from everywhere: Peru, Mexico, Bulgaria, Poland, Brazil, Honduras, Algeria. He'd had good experiences with almost all of them, though in his business there was an above-average rate of attrition and turnover. Many workers were transient, intending only to spend a few months in the country before returning to their families. These men he was happy to hire, and he'd learned a fair bit of Spanish along the way, but he had to be prepared for their short-notice disappearances. Other workers were just young men: irresponsible and living for today. He couldn't blame them\u2014he'd been young and untethered once, too\u2014but he tried, whenever he could, to instill in them the knowledge that if they kept their heads down and saved a few dollars a week, they could live well, could raise a family doing this kind of work. But he rarely saw a young man in this business who had an eye to the future. Just keeping them in food and clothing, chasing them down when they were late or absent\u2014all of it was exhausting and occasionally disheartening. He felt, sometimes, as if he had not four children but dozens, most of them with paint-covered hands and mustaches.\n\n* * *\n\nHis phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and picked up.\n\n\"Ahmad, how are you?\" Zeitoun said in Arabic.\n\nAhmad was Zeitoun's older brother and closest friend. He was calling from Spain, where he lived with his wife and two children, both in high school. It was late where Ahmad was, so Zeitoun worried that the call might bring grave news.\n\n\"What is it?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"I'm watching this storm,\" he said.\n\n\"You scared me.\"\n\n\"You should be scared,\" Ahmad said. \"This one could be for real.\"\n\nZeitoun was skeptical but paid attention. Ahmad was a ship captain, had been for thirty years, piloting tankers and ocean liners in every conceivable body of water, and he knew as much as anyone about storms, their trajectories and power. As a young man, Zeitoun had been with him for a number of those journeys. Ahmad, nine years older, had brought Zeitoun on as a crewman, taking him to Greece, Lebanon, South Africa. Zeitoun had gone on to work on ships without Ahmad, too, seeing most of the world in a ten-year period of wanderlust that eventually brought him to New Orleans and to his life with Kathy.\n\nAhmad clicked his tongue. \"It really does seem unusual. Big and slow-moving. I'm watching it on the satellite,\" he said.\n\nAhmad was a technophile. At work and in his spare time he paid close attention to the weather, to developing storms. At the moment he was at his home in M\u00e1laga, a beach town on the Spanish Mediterranean, in his cluttered office, tracking this storm making its way across Florida.\n\n\"Have they begun evacuating?\" Ahmad asked.\n\n\"Not officially,\" Zeitoun said. \"Some people are leaving.\"\n\n\"And Kathy, the kids?\"\n\nZeitoun told him they hadn't thought about it yet.\n\nAhmad sighed. \"Why not go, just to be safe?\"\n\nZeitoun made a noncommittal sound into the phone.\n\n\"I'll call you later,\" Ahmad said.\n\nZeitoun left the house and walked to the next job, one block over. It was often like this, multiple jobs in close proximity. Clients seemed so surprised to work with a painter or contractor they could trust and recommend that through referrals and in rapid succession Zeitoun would get a half-dozen jobs in any given neighborhood.\n\nThis next house, which he'd worked on for years, was across the street from the home of Anne Rice, the writer\u2014he had not read her work, but Kathy had; Kathy read everything\u2014and was as stately and gorgeous a home as existed in New Orleans. High ceilings, a grand winding staircase descending into the foyer, hand-carved everything, each room themed and with a distinct character. Zeitoun had painted and repainted probably every room in the house, and the owners showed no signs of stopping. He loved to be in that house, admiring the craftsmanship, the great care put into the most eccentric details and flourishes\u2014a mural over the mantel, one-of-a-kind ironwork on every balcony. It was this kind of willful, wildly romantic attention to beauty\u2014crumbling and fading beauty needing constant attention\u2014that made this city so unlike any other and such an unparalleled sort of environment for a builder.\n\nHe walked in, straightened the drop cloth in the front hall, and made his way to the back of the house. He peeked in on Georgi, his Bulgarian carpenter, who was installing new molding near the kitchen. Georgi was a good worker, about sixty, barrel-chested and tireless, but Zeitoun knew not to get him talking. Once Georgi started you were in for a twenty-minute discourse on the former Soviet Union, waterfront property in Bulgaria, and his various cross-country motorhome trips with his wife Albena, who had passed away years ago and was greatly missed.\n\nZeitoun got in his van and the radio assaulted him with more warnings about this storm called Katrina. It had formed near the Bahamas two days earlier and had scattered boats like toys. Zeitoun took note, but thought little of it. The winds were still many days from being relevant to his life.\n\nHe made his way to the Presbytere Museum on Jackson Square, where he had another crew working on a delicate restoration of the two-hundred-year-old building. The museum had been a courthouse long ago and was now home to a vast and extraordinary collection of Mardi Gras artifacts and memorabilia. It was a high-profile job and Zeitoun wanted to get it right.\n\nKathy called from home. She had just heard from a client in the Broadmoor neighborhood. Zeitoun's men had painted a window shut and someone needed to come unstick it.\n\n\"I'll go,\" he said. Easier that way, he figured. He would go, he would do it, it would be done. Fewer phone calls, no waiting.\n\n\"You hear about the winds?\" Kathy said. \"Killed three in Florida so far.\"\n\nZeitoun dismissed it. \"This is not the storm for us,\" he said.\n\nKathy often poked fun at Zeitoun's stubbornness, at his unwillingness to bow before any force, natural or otherwise. But Zeitoun couldn't help it. He had been raised in the shadow of his father, a legendary sailor who had faced a series of epic trials, and had always, miraculously, survived.\n\nZeitoun's father, Mahmoud, had been born not far from Jableh, on Arwad Island, the only island off Syria, a landmass so small it didn't appear on some maps. There, most boys grew up to be shipbuilders or fishermen. As a teenager Mahmoud began crewing on shipping routes between Lebanon and Syria, on large sail-powered cargo boats, bringing timber to Damascus and other cities along the coast. He had been on such a ship during World War II, sailing from Cyprus to Egypt. He and his shipmates were vaguely aware of the danger of Axis forces targeting them as potential suppliers to the Allies, but they were astounded when a squadron of German planes appeared on the horizon and bore down on them. Mahmoud and the rest of the crew dove into the sea just before the planes began strafing. They managed to detach an inflatable lifeboat before their ship sank, and were crawling into it when the Germans returned. They were intent, it seemed, on killing all the crew members who had survived. Mahmoud and his fellow sailors were forced to dive from the dinghy and wait underwater until the Germans were satisfied that the crew had all been shot or drowned. When the surface seemed safe again, the sailors returned to their lifeboat and found it full of holes. They stuffed their shirts into the gaps and paddled by hand, for miles, until they reached the Egyptian shore.\n\nBut the story Mahmoud told most often when Zeitoun was growing up, the story he told when forbidding his children to live on the sea, was this one:\n\nMahmoud was returning from Greece on a thirty-six-foot schooner when they ran into a black and tortuous storm. They sailed through it for hours until the main mast cracked and dropped the sail into the water, threatening to drag the whole ship into the sea. Without thinking, Mahmoud climbed up the mast, intending to free the sail and right the hull. But when he reached the crack in the mast, it gave way completely, and he fell into the ocean. The ship was traveling at eight knots and there was no chance of turning it around, so the crew threw what they could to Mahmoud\u2014a few planks and a barrel\u2014and in minutes the boat was gone into the darkness. He was alone at sea for two days, with sharks below and storms above, clinging to the remnants of the barrel, when he finally washed ashore near Lattakia, fifty miles north of Arwad Island.\n\nNo one, including Mahmoud, could believe he had survived, and thereafter he vowed never to take the chance again. He quit sailing, moved his family from Arwad onto the mainland, and forbade his children to work on the sea. He wanted good schooling for them all, opportunities apart from fishing and shipbuilding.\n\nMahmoud and his wife went looking all over Syria for a new home, a place far from the water. They spent months traveling with their small children, inspecting this town and that house. But nothing seemed right. Nothing, that is, until they found themselves inside a two-story home, with enough room for all their current and future children. When Mahmoud declared that this was the place for them, his wife laughed. They were facing the sea, not fifty feet from shore.\n\nThere, in Jableh, Mahmoud opened a hardware store, sent his sons and daughters to the best schools, and taught his boys every trade he could. Everyone knew the Zeitouns, all of them hardworking and quick, and they all knew Abdulrahman, the eighth-born, a young man who wanted to know everything and who feared no kind of labor. As a teenager, he watched the tradesman in town whenever he could, studying their craft. And once they realized he was serious and a quick learner, they'd teach him whatever they knew. Over the years he'd learned every trade he could get close to\u2014fishing, ship rigging, painting, framing, masonry, plumbing, roofing, tile work, even auto repair.\n\nZeitoun's father would likely be both proud and bemused by the trajectory of his son's life. He hadn't wanted his kids to work on the sea, but many of them, including Zeitoun, had. Mahmoud wanted his children to be doctors, teachers. Zeitoun, though, was too much like his father: first a sailor, then, to provide for a family and to ensure that he lived to watch them grow up, a builder.\n\nZeitoun called Kathy at eleven. He'd freed the window in Broadmoor and now was at Home Depot.\n\n\"You hear anything new?\" he asked.\n\n\"Looks bad,\" she said.\n\nShe was online. The National Hurricane Center had upgraded Katrina to a Category 2. They had shifted the possible track of the storm from the Florida panhandle to the Mississippi\u2013Louisiana coast. The storm was crossing southern Florida with winds around ninety miles an hour. At least three people had been killed. Power was out for 1.3 million households.\n\n\"People here are worried,\" Zeitoun said, looking around the store. \"A lot of people buying plywood.\" The lines were long. The store was running low on plastic sheeting, duct tape, rope\u2014anything that would protect windows from the winds.\n\n\"I'll keep watching,\" Kathy said.\n\nIn the parking lot, Zeitoun looked to the sky for signs of the coming weather. He saw nothing unusual. As he pushed his cart to his van, a young man, pushing his own cart full of supplies, approached Zeitoun.\n\n\"How's business?\" the man asked.\n\nProbably an electrician, Zeitoun figured.\n\n\"Not bad,\" Zeitoun said. \"You?\"\n\n\"Could be better,\" he said, and introduced himself and his trade: he was indeed an electrician. He was parked next to Zeitoun, and began helping Zeitoun unload his cart. \"You ever need one,\" he said, \"I show up when I say I'll show up, and I finish what I start.\" He handed Zeitoun his card. They shook hands, and the electrician got into his own van, which Zeitoun noticed was in better shape than his own.\n\n\"Why do you need me?\" Zeitoun asked. \"Your van's newer than mine.\"\n\nThey both laughed, and Zeitoun put the card on his dashboard and pulled out. He would call the young man, he figured, sooner or later. He always needed electricians, and he liked the man's hustle.\n\nWhen he began working in New Orleans, eleven years earlier, Zeitoun labored for just about every contractor in the city, painting, hanging Sheetrock, tiling\u2014anything they needed\u2014until he was hired by a man named Charlie Saucier. Charlie owned his own company, had built it from scratch. He'd become wealthy, and was hoping to retire before his knees gave out on him.\n\nCharlie had a son in his late teens, and he wanted nothing more than to leave the company to this son. He loved his son, but his son was not a worker; he was shifty and ungrateful. He failed to show up for work, and when he did, he worked listlessly, and condescended to his father's employees.\n\nAt the time, Zeitoun didn't have a car, so he rode to Charlie's work sites on a bike\u2014a ten-speed he bought for forty dollars. One day, when Zeitoun was already in danger of being late, the bike blew a tire. After riding on the rim for half a mile, he gave up. He needed to get four miles across the city in twenty minutes, and it was looking like he would be late for work for the first time in his life. He couldn't leave the bike and run\u2014he needed that bike\u2014and he couldn't ride on the flat tire, so he threw the bike over his shoulders and started jogging. He was panicking. If he was late for this job, what would happen to his reputation? Charlie would be disappointed, and he might not hire him again. And what if Charlie talked to other contractors, and found he couldn't recommend Zeitoun? The consequences could be far-reaching. Work was a pyramid, he knew, built on day after solid day.\n\nHe ran faster. He would be tardy, but if he sprinted, he had a shot at being no more than fifteen minutes late. It was August and the humidity was profound. A mile or so into his run, already soaked in sweat, a truck pulled up next to him.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" a voice asked. Without breaking stride, Zeitoun turned to see who it was. He figured it was some smart aleck poking fun at the man running along the road with a bike over his shoulders. But instead it was his boss, Charlie Saucier.\n\n\"I'm going to the job,\" Zeitoun said. He was still running; in hindsight he should have stopped at this point, but he was in a rhythm and he continued, with the truck puttering beside him.\n\nCharlie laughed. \"Throw your bike in the back.\"\n\nAs they drove, Charlie looked over to Zeitoun. \"You know, I've been at this for thirty years, and I think you're the best worker I've ever had.\"\n\nThey were driving to the job site and Zeitoun had finally managed to relax, knowing he wouldn't be fired that day.\n\n\"I have one guy,\" Charlie continued, \"he says he can't come to work because his car won't start. I have another guy, he doesn't come because he slept late. He slept late! Another guy, his wife kicked him out of the house or something. So he doesn't show. I have twenty or thirty employees, and ten of them show up to work any given day.\"\n\nThey were at a stop sign, and Charlie took a long look at Zeitoun. \"Then there's you. You have the perfect excuse. All you have is a bike, and the bike has a flat. But you're carrying your bike on your back. You're the only guy I've ever known who would have done something like that.\"\n\nAfter that day, things moved quickly forward and upward for Zeitoun. Within a year, he had saved enough to buy his own truck. Two years later, he was working for himself and employing a dozen men.\n\nAt noon Zeitoun made his way to the Islamic Center on St. Claude\u2014a humble-looking mosque and community gathering place downtown. Though his siblings worshiped in a variety of ways, Zeitoun was perhaps the most devout, missing none of his daily prayers. The Qur'an asked Muslims to worship five times daily: once between first light and dawn; again after midday; at mid-afternoon; at sunset; and lastly an hour and a half after sunset. If he found himself near home during the afternoon prayers, he would stop, but otherwise he prayed wherever he was, on any job. He had worshiped all over the city by now, at job sites, in parks, and in the homes of friends, but on Fridays he always stopped here, to meet friends for the _jumu'ah_ , a ritual gathering of all the Muslim men in the community.\n\nInside, he first washed in a ritual cleansing called _wuduu_ , required of worshipers. Then he began his prayers:\n\n_In the name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful:  \nPraise be to God, the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth.  \nThe Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.  \nMaster of the Day of Judgment.  \nYou alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help.  \nGuide us to the straight way;  \nthe way of those whom you have blessed,  \nnot of those who have deserved anger,  \nnor of those who are astray..._\n\nAfterward he called Kathy.\n\n\"It'll be a Category 3 soon,\" she said.\n\nKathy was at home, checking the weather online.\n\n\"Coming at us?\" he asked.\n\n\"They say it is.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Not sure. Maybe Monday.\"\n\nZeitoun dismissed it. Monday, to him, meant never. This had happened before, Zeitoun noted, so many times. The storms always raged across Florida, wreaking havoc, and then died somewhere overland or in the Gulf.\n\nKathy's call waiting went off; she said goodbye to Zeitoun and switched over. It was Rob Stanislaw, a longtime client and friend.\n\n\"You leaving or are you crazy?\" he asked.\n\nKathy cackled. \"'I want to leave. Of course. But I can't speak for my husband.\"\n\nRob had a similar predicament. His husband, Walt Thompson, was like Zeitoun\u2014bullheaded, always feeling like his information was better than what anyone else had access to. Rob and Walt had been together for fifteen years, and had been close with the Zeitouns since 1997. They had hired the Zeitouns to help with the renovation of a house they'd bought, and immediately the two couples had clicked. Over the years they'd grown to depend on each other.\n\nWalt's family was in Baton Rouge, and it was likely that Rob and Walt would go there for the weekend, he said. Rob and Kathy agreed to update each other throughout the day.\n\nShe was about to take a break from the internet when something caught her attention. A news item, just posted: a family of five was missing at sea. The details were few\u2014two parents, three kids aged four, fourteen, and seventeen. They had been sailing in the Gulf, and had been expected Thursday in Cape Coral. But when the storm came, they'd lost contact. Family and friends had notified the Coast Guard, and boats and planes were searching as best they could. That was all anyone knew for now, and it looked bad.\n\nKathy was a mess. Stories like this just wrecked her.\n\nKathy called her husband. \"Rob and Walt are leaving.\"\n\n\"Really? Walt wants to leave?\"\n\nZeitoun trusted Walt's judgment on just about everything.\n\nKathy thought she might have her husband tilting her way. \"Fifteen inches of rain, I hear.\"\n\nSilence from Zeitoun.\n\n\"Twenty-five-foot waves,\" Kathy added.\n\nZeitoun changed the subject. \"Did you get the DeClercs to approve that paint sample?\"\n\n\"I did,\" Kathy said. \"Did you hear about this family of five?\"\n\nHe had not, so in a breathless rush Kathy told him what she knew about the family lost at sea in their tiny boat, swept away in the hurricane, just as the Zeitouns might be swept away if they didn't flee its path.\n\n\"We're not at sea, Kathy,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nZeitoun had spent the better part of ten years on ships, carrying everything from fruit to oil. He worked as a crewman, an engineer, a fisherman\u2014he'd been everywhere from Japan to Cape Town. All along, his brother Ahmad had told him that \"If a sailor finds the right port or the right woman, he'll drop anchor.\" In 1988 Zeitoun came to the United States on a tanker carrying oil from Saudi Arabia to Houston. He began working for a contractor in Baton Rouge, and it was there that he met Ahmaad, a Lebanese American who became one of his closest friends and the conduit through which he met his bride.\n\nAhmaad was working at a gas station at the time, and Zeitoun was hanging drywall. They bonded over common ancestry, and one day Zeitoun asked Ahmaad if he knew any single women who might be appropriate for him. Ahmaad was married to a woman named Yuko, an American of Japanese ancestry who had converted to Islam. And Yuko, it turned out, had a friend. Ahmaad was conflicted, though, because while he liked and trusted Zeitoun and wanted to help, he was hoping this friend of Yuko's might be a match for another friend of his. If it didn't work out between his friend and Yuko's, he said, he would surely introduce her to Zeitoun. Zeitoun was willing to respect that boundary, but at the same time his interest was piqued. Who was this woman who was so prized that Ahmaad would not even mention her name?\n\nThat year Zeitoun became increasingly determined to find the right woman. He told friends and cousins he was looking for a down-to-earth Muslim woman who wanted a family. Knowing he was a serious and hardworking man, they provided many introductions. He was sent to New York to meet the daughter of an acquaintance. He went to Oklahoma to meet the cousin of a friend. He went to Alabama to meet the sister of a coworker's roommate.\n\nMeanwhile, Yuko's friend had been set up with Ahmaad's friend, and though they courted for a few months, that relationship came to an end. Ahmaad, as promised, let Zeitoun know that Yuko's friend was now single. It was only then that Zeitoun was told her name: Kathy.\n\n\"Kathy?\" Zeitoun asked. He hadn't known too many Muslims named Kathy. \"Kathy what?\"\n\n\"Kathy Delphine,\" Ahmaad said.\n\n\"She's American?\"\n\n\"She's from Baton Rouge. She converted.\"\n\nZeitoun was more intrigued than ever. It took a courageous and self-possessed woman to take such a step.\n\n\"But listen,\" Ahmaad said. \"She's been married. She has a two-year-old son.\"\n\nThis did nothing to dissuade Zeitoun.\n\n\"When can I see her?\" he asked.\n\nAhmaad told him she worked at a furniture store, and gave Zeitoun the address. Zeitoun formulated a plan. He would park out front and observe her unnoticed. This was, he told Ahmaad, Jableh style. He didn't want to make a move, or allow anyone representing him to mention his intentions, before he could see her. This was the way of doing things where he'd come from: observe from afar, make inquiries, gather information, then meet. He wanted no confusion, no hurt feelings.\n\nHe pulled into the furniture store's parking lot at about five o'clock one day, planning to wait and watch as she left at the end of her shift. He was just settling in for his stakeout when a young woman burst through the door, wearing jeans and a hijab. She was striking, and very young. She tucked a few strands of hair into her scarf and looked around the parking lot. And then she was walking again, striding with a powerful confidence, her hands flying about as if she were drying just-painted fingernails. Then she broke into a private smile, as if recounting something that had made her laugh. _What was it?_ Zeitoun wondered. She was beautiful, fresh-faced, and the smile was everything\u2014wide, shy, electric. _I want to make her smile like that_ , he thought. _I want to be the one. I want to be the reason_. He liked her more with every step she took toward him. He was sold.\n\nBut she was getting too close. She was heading straight for him. Did she know he had come to see her? How was this possible? Someone had told her. Ahmaad? Yuko? She was almost at his car. He would look foolish. Why was she coming right at him? He wasn't ready to meet her.\n\nNot knowing what else to do, he ducked. Crouching below his dashboard, he held his breath and waited. _Please God_ , he thought. _Please_. Would she pass by, or would she appear at his window, wondering about the man trying to disappear below her? He felt ridiculous.\n\nKathy, though, had no idea she was passing a man hiding under his steering wheel. Her car just happened to be parked next to his. She unlocked her door, got in, and drove off.\n\nWhen she was gone, Zeitoun righted himself, breathed a sigh of relief, and tried to settle his stampeding heart.\n\n\"I need to meet her,\" he told Ahmaad.\n\nIt was agreed that they would meet at Ahmaad and Yuko's house. There would be a casual dinner, with Ahmaad and Yuko's kids and Kathy's son Zachary. It would be low-pressure, just an opportunity for the two of them to talk a bit and for Kathy, who had yet to even see Zeitoun, to meet this man who had inquired about her.\n\nWhen she saw him, she liked his eyes, his handsome, gold-skinned face. But he seemed too conservative, and he was thirty-four to her twenty-one\u2014well beyond the age she had imagined for a husband. Besides, it had been just two years since she'd left her first marriage, and she felt unready to begin again. She could think of nothing she needed from a man. She could certainly raise Zachary herself; the two of them had become a very good and streamlined team, and there seemed no reason to upset the balance of her life. She couldn't risk the chaos that her first marriage had wrought.\n\nAfter he left that night, Kathy told Yuko that he was a nice enough man, but she didn't think it was a good match.\n\nBut over the next two years, she and Zeitoun saw each other occasionally. He would be at a barbecue at Ahmaad and Yuko's, but out of deference to her\u2014he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable\u2014when Kathy arrived, he would leave. He continued to ask about her, and once a year he sent an offhand inquiry through Yuko, just to be sure she hadn't changed her mind.\n\nMeanwhile, Kathy's outlook was evolving. As Zachary grew, she began to feel guilty. She would take him to the park and watch the other boys playing with their fathers, and she began to wonder if she was being selfish. _A boy needs a dad_ , she thought. Was it unfair to dismiss the possibility of a father figure in Zachary's life? Not that she was ready to act on these notions, but there was a slow thaw occurring within her. As the years went by, as Zachary turned three and then four, she grew more open to the idea of someone new.\n\n* * *\n\nKathy called Zeitoun in the early afternoon.\n\n\"Let's wait and see,\" he said.\n\n\"That isn't why I'm calling,\" she said.\n\nA client on the West Bank wanted a bathroom repainted.\n\n\"Really? We just finished that one,\" he said.\n\n\"She doesn't like how it looks.\"\n\n\"I told her that color was wrong. Tangerine.\"\n\n\"Well, now she agrees with you.\"\n\n\"I'll go now,\" he said.\n\n\"Don't rush,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, make up your mind.\"\n\n\"I just don't want you driving fast,\" she said. Kathy worried about his driving, especially when there were people worried about a coming storm. She knew Zeitoun considered himself a good driver, but when they rode together she was a jumble of nerves.\n\n\"Kathy, please\u2014\" he started.\n\n\"I just get scared when you drive!\"\n\n\"I ask you,\" he said, beginning what Kathy knew was one of his frequent thought experiments. \"Let's say the average person drives maybe two hours a day, every day, and that person gets, on average, two tickets a year. I drive maybe _six_ hours _each day_. How many tickets should I have? This is what I ask.\"\n\n\"I'm just saying, I personally get scared.\"\n\n\"I get only two, three tickets a _year_ , Kathy! I knew this man, a cab driver in New York for thirty years. No license, and this man\u2014\"\n\nKathy didn't want to hear about the man in New York. \"I'm just saying...\"\n\n\"Kathy. Kathy. In Syria we have a saying, 'The crazy person talks, the wise person listens.'\"\n\n\"But you're the one talking.\"\n\nZeitoun had to laugh. She always got the best of him.\n\n\"I'll call you later,\" she said.\n\nZeitoun headed to the West Bank to get a look at the tangerine bathroom. He tried to be amused by the fickle nature of clients' tastes; it was part of the job, and if he got exasperated every time someone changed their mind, he'd never survive. The upshot was that it ensured no day was dull. The intensely personal nature of his business, the subjectivity of taste, the variables of light and curtains and carpets, guaranteed that minds would reevaluate and work would have to be redone.\n\nStill, the most unusual requests often came from the most normal-seeming people. One customer, a Southern belle in her sixties, had called Zeitoun Painting and had been happy to talk with Kathy, with her chatty demeanor and familiar accent. But when the painters showed up to begin work on the exterior of her home, the woman immediately called Kathy.\n\n\"I don't like these men,\" she said.\n\n\"What's wrong with 'em?\" Kathy asked.\n\n\"They're swarthy,\" she said. \"I only want white people working on my house.\" She said it like she was choosing a kind of dressing for her salad.\n\n\"White people?\" Kathy laughed. \"Sorry, we're fresh out of those.\"\n\nShe convinced the woman that the men who had been sent\u2014all of them Latino, in this case\u2014were skilled professionals who would do an excellent job. The woman assented, but continued to call. \"He's too short to be a painter,\" she said about one worker, Hector, who was over six feet tall. Realizing that no matter how much she complained, she would not be able to replace these painters with taller, Caucasian ones, the Southern belle resigned herself to watching the men, checking on them frequently.\n\nOf course, every so often, would-be clients could not get past Zeitoun's last name. They would call for an estimate and ask Kathy, \"Zeitoun, where's that name come from? Where is he from?\" And Kathy would say, \"Oh, he's Syrian.\" Then, after a long pause or a shorter one, they would say, \"Oh, okay, never mind.\" It was rare, but not rare enough.\n\nKathy sometimes told Zeitoun about such incidents, sometimes not, and never at dinner. Usually he just laughed it off, but occasionally it got under his skin. His frustration with some Americans was like that of a disappointed parent. He was so content in this country, so impressed with and loving of its opportunities, but then why, sometimes, did Americans fall short of their best selves? If you got him started on the subject, it was the end of any pleasant meal. He would begin with a defense of Muslims in America and expand his thesis from there. Since the attacks in New York, he would say, every time a crime was committed by a Muslim, that person's faith was mentioned, regardless of its relevance. When a crime is committed by a Christian, do they mention his religion? If a Christian is stopped at the airport for trying to bring a gun on a plane, is the Western world notified that a Christian was arrested today and is being questioned? And what about African Americans? When a crime is committed by a black man, it's mentioned in the first breath: \"An African American man was arrested today...\" But what about German Americans? Anglo Americans? A white man robs a convenience store and do we hear he's of Scottish descent? In no other instance is the ancestry mentioned.\n\nThen Zeitoun would quote the Qur'an.\n\n_Be one who is staunch in equity,  \nwitnesses for God  \neven against yourselves  \nor ones who are your parents or nearest of kin;  \nwhether rich or poor,  \nfor God is closer to both than you are;  \nso follow not your desires  \nthat you become unbalanced;  \nand if you distort or turn aside,  \nthen truly God is aware of what you do_.\n\nKathy was astonished at how well he knew the book, and how quickly he could quote a passage appropriate for any occasion. Still, though, these monologues at dinner? It was good for the kids to have some awareness of such prejudices, but to see Zeitoun disappointed, to get him so worked up after a long day\u2014it wasn't worth it. In the end, though, Zeitoun could laugh this kind of thing off, but the one thing he could not abide was a client raising their voice to Kathy.\n\nThere had been one client, a young woman married to a doctor. She was thin, pretty, immaculately put together. She had not set off any alarm bells when Zeitoun had provided an estimate and begun work on painting her stairway and guest bedroom. She told him that she and her husband were expecting houseguests, and she wanted the stairway and guest room painted in five days' time. Zeitoun said the timetable would be tight, but would present no problems on his end. She was thrilled. No other painter had been able to commit to such a deadline.\n\nZeitoun sent a crew of three over the next day. The client, seeing the quick and efficient work Zeitoun's team was doing, asked him if they could paint her husband's office and her daughter's bedroom, too. He said they could. He sent more painters to the house, and she continued to add rooms and jobs\u2014including re-tiling and painting a bathroom\u2014and Zeitoun's men continued to execute the work quickly.\n\nBut not quickly enough. On the third day, Kathy phoned Zeitoun, near tears. The woman had called Kathy four times in rapid succession, cursing and carrying on. The house wasn't ready, the client had screamed, and her guests were coming in less than two days. Kathy had told her that Zeitoun's crew had finished the original work on the guest room in plenty of time. But this wasn't what the client wanted. She wanted everything\u2014all seven rooms and their myriad tasks\u2014done in five days. She wanted three times the work done in the same amount of time.\n\nKathy had tried to reason with her. She and Zeitoun had never promised that he could finish all of the additional work in five days. That schedule was irrational; no one, not even Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor LLC, could complete the work on that timetable. But the client was beyond reason. She barked at Kathy, hanging up, calling again, hanging up. She was loud, condescending, and cruel.\n\nKathy, in tears, reached Zeitoun on his cell phone while he was driving to a job on the other side of the city. Even before they hung up, he had turned his truck around and was barreling to the client's house as fast as was legal. When he got there, he walked calmly into the house and told his crew they were leaving. In the space of ten minutes, they packed their paint, ladders, brushes, and tarps, and loaded them into the bed of Zeitoun's truck.\n\nAs Zeitoun was backing out, the client's husband ran out to the truck. What's wrong? he asked. What happened? Zeitoun was so angry he could barely think of the words in English. It was better, in fact, that he did not speak. He waited a few seconds to say only that no one talked that way to his wife, that he was leaving the job, that this was over and good luck.\n\nWhen he arrived at the tangerine-bathroom house, he called Kathy to run through the prices for the materials they'd need. Looking around the orange room\u2014it really was difficult to look at\u2014he noted the clients' new tub, a huge claw-footed antique.\n\n\"It's big, but isn't it beautiful?\" Kathy asked.\n\n\"Yes, like you!\" he joked.\n\n\"Watch it,\" she said. \"I can lose this weight, but you're never growing that hair back.\"\n\nWhen they'd met, Kathy had been weight-obsessed, and was far too thin. She had been chubby as a child, at least to some eyes, and in her teens her weight fluctuated wildly. She binged and dieted and then cycled through it all again. When she and Zeitoun were married, he insisted that she get beyond the weight issues and eat like a normal person. She did, and now joked that she'd gone too far. \"Thank God for the abaya,\" she told friends. When she didn't want to bother worrying about clothes or how they looked on her, the shoulder-to-floor Islamic dress solved the problem, and tidily.\n\nThere was a knock on the door. Kathy went to answer it and found Melvin, a Guatemalan painter. He was looking to get paid before the weekend.\n\nZeitoun was relentless in his efforts to pay the workers well and promptly. He always quoted the Prophet Muhammad: \"Pay the laborer his wages before his sweat dries.\" Zeitoun used that as a bedrock and constant guide in the way he and Kathy did business, and the workers took note.\n\nStill, Zeitoun preferred to pay on Sundays or Mondays\u2014because when he paid on Fridays, too many of the workers would disappear all weekend. But Kathy's heart was soft, her resolve to withhold payment even an hour weakened in the presence of these workers soaked with sweat, knuckles bleeding, forearms yellow with sawdust.\n\n\"Don't tell Zeitoun,\" she said, and wrote him a check.\n\nKathy turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. Every station was covering the storm.\n\nNothing had changed: Katrina was still headed their way, and it was losing no power. And because the hurricane as a whole was traveling so slowly, about eight miles per hour, the sustained winds were causing, and would continue to cause, catastrophic damage.\n\nThe coverage was just background noise, though, until Kathy caught the words \"family of five.\" They were talking about the family lost at sea. _Oh no_ , she thought. _Please_. She turned up the sound. They were still missing. The father's name was Ed Larsen. He was a construction supervisor. _You're kidding me_ , she thought. He had taken the week off to take his family sailing on his yacht, the _Sea Note_. They had been at Marathon and were sailing back to Cape Coral when they'd lost radio contact. His wife and three kids were with him. They were on their way back to shore for a family reunion. The extended family had gathered only to realize that the Larsens were missing; the celebration turned into a vigil of worry and prayer.\n\nKathy couldn't stand it.\n\nShe called her husband. \"We have to go.\"\n\n\"Wait, wait,\" he said. \"Let's wait and see.\"\n\n\"Please,\" she said.\n\n\"Really?\" he said. \"You can go.\"\n\n* * *\n\nKathy had taken the kids north a handful of times when storms had gotten close. But she was hoping she wouldn't have to make the trip this time. She had work to do over the weekend, and the kids had plans, and she always came back from those trips more exhausted than when she'd left.\n\nAlmost without exception, whether it was fleeing a storm or for a weekend vacation, Kathy and the kids had to go without Zeitoun. Her husband had trouble leaving the business, had trouble relaxing for days on end, and after years of this vacationless life Kathy had threatened to pack the kids and just leave for Florida some Friday after school. At first Zeitoun hadn't believed her. Would she really pack up and leave with or without him?\n\nShe would, and she did. One Friday afternoon, Zeitoun was checking on a nearby job and decided to stop at home. He wanted to see the kids, change his shirt, pick up some paperwork. But when he pulled into the driveway, there was Kathy, loading up the minivan, the two youngest already buckled inside.\n\n\"Where you going?\" he asked.\n\n\"I told you I'd go with or without you. And we're going.\"\n\nThey were going to Destin, Florida, a beach town on the Gulf about four hours away, with long white beaches and clear water.\n\n\"Come with us, Daddy!\" Nademah pleaded. She had just come out of the house with their snorkeling gear.\n\nZeitoun was too stunned to react. He had a hundred things on his mind, and a pipe at one of the rental properties had just burst. How could he go?\n\nNademah got in the front seat and put on her seatbelt.\n\n\"Bye bye,\" Kathy said, backing out. \"See you Sunday.\"\n\nAnd they were gone, the girls waving as they left.\n\nHe didn't go that Friday, but after that, he no longer doubted Kathy's resolve. He knew she was serious\u2014that in the future he'd be consulted on vacation plans, but that trips to Florida or beyond could and would happen with or without him. So over the years there were other trips to Destin, and he even made it on a few of them.\n\nBut always his decision was made at the last minute. One time Kathy was late in getting started, and he was so late in deciding that he couldn't even pack. She was in the driveway, backing out, when he pulled in.\n\n\"Now or never,\" she said, barely stopping the car.\n\nAnd so he jumped in the car. The girls giggled to see their dad in the back seat, still in his work clothes, dirty and sweating\u2014as much from the stress of the decision as from the day's work. Zeitoun had to buy beach clothes when they got to Florida.\n\nKathy was proud that she'd gotten him to Destin once a year. Zeitoun didn't mind going too much because, given how close it was, he knew he could come back at any time\u2014and more than once, he had cut a vacation short because of some problem at one of the work sites.\n\nBy 2002, though, Kathy wanted something that really felt like a vacation. And she knew she had to do something drastic. In all their time together\u2014eight years at that point\u2014he had never taken more than two days off in a row. She knew that she had no choice but to kidnap him.\n\nShe started by planning a weekend in Destin. She chose a weekend when she knew things would be calm at work; it was just after Christmas, and there was rarely much work till well after New Year's. As usual, Zeitoun wouldn't commit till the last minute, so she took the precaution of actually packing a bag for him and hiding it in the back of the minivan. Because she had made sure the weekend was quiet, he came along\u2014as always, at the last minute. Kathy told him she'd drive, and because he was exhausted, he agreed. She made sure the kids were quiet\u2014they were in on the plan\u2014and he soon fell asleep, drooling on his seatbelt. While he slept, Kathy drove right on through Destin and onward down the paunch of Florida. Each time he woke up she would say, \"Almost there, go back to sleep,\" and thankfully he would\u2014he was so tired\u2014and it wasn't until an hour north of Miami that he realized they weren't going to Destin. Kathy had driven straight down to Miami. Seventeen hours. She'd checked on the computer for the warmest place in the country that week, and Miami was it. Being that far away was the only way to ensure he would take a real vacation, a full week's worth of rest. Every time she thought back on the gambit, and how well it had worked, Kathy smiled to herself. A marriage was a system like any other, and she knew how to work it.\n\nAt about two-thirty, Ahmad called Zeitoun again. He was still tracking the storm from his computer in Spain.\n\n\"Doesn't look good for you,\" he said.\n\nZeitoun promised he would keep watch on it.\n\n\"Imagine the storm surge,\" Ahmad said.\n\nZeitoun told him he was paying close attention.\n\n\"Why not leave, just to be safe?\" Ahmad said.\n\nKathy decided to go to the grocery store before picking up the girls from school. You could never tell when people would make a run on the basics before a storm arrived, and she wanted to avoid the crush.\n\nShe went to the mirror to adjust her hijab, brushed her teeth, and left the house. Not that she thought about it much, but any trip to the grocery store or the mall presented the possibility that she would encounter some kind of ugliness. The frequency of incidents seemed tied, to some extent, to current events, to the general media profile of Muslims that week or month. Certainly after 9\/11 it was more fraught than before, and then it had calmed for a few years. But in 2004 a local incident had stoked the fire again. At West Jefferson High School, a tenth grader of Iraqi descent had been repeatedly harassed by her history teacher. He had called Iraq a \"third-world country,\" had worried that the student would \"bomb us\" if she ever returned to Iraq. In February of that year, while passing out tests, the teacher had pulled back the girl's hijab and said, \"I hope God punishes you. No, I'm sorry, I hope Allah punishes you.\" The incident was widely reported. The student filed a lawsuit against him, and his termination was recommended by the Jefferson Parish School District superintendent. The school board overruled; he was given a few weeks' suspension and returned to the classroom.\n\nAfter the decision, there had been an uptick in minor harassment of Muslims in the area, and Kathy was aware of the invitation she was providing in going out in her hijab. There was a new practice in vogue at the time, favored by adolescent boys or those who thought like them: sneak up behind a woman wearing a headscarf, grab it, and run.\n\nOne day it happened to Kathy. She was shopping with Asma, a friend who happened to be Muslim but who wore no hijab. Asma was originally from Algeria, and had been living in the U.S. for twenty years; she was usually taken for Spanish. Kathy and Asma were leaving the mall, and outside, Kathy was trying to remember where she'd parked her car. She and Asma were on the sidewalk, Kathy squinting at the rows of gleaming cars, when Asma gave her a funny look.\n\n\"Kathy, there's a girl behind you\u2014\"\n\nA girl of about fifteen was crouched behind Kathy, her arm raised, about to yank the hijab off Kathy's head.\n\nKathy cocked her head. \"You got a problem?\" she barked.\n\nThe girl cowered and slunk away, joining a group of boys and girls her age, all of whom had been watching. Once back with her friends, the girl directed some choice words Kathy's way. Her friends laughed and echoed her, cursing at Kathy in half a dozen different ways.\n\nThey could not have expected Kathy to return the favor. They assumed, no doubt, that a Muslim woman, presumably submissive and shy with her English, would allow her hijab to be ripped from her head without retaliation. But Kathy let loose a fusillade of pungent suggestions, leaving them dumbfounded and momentarily speechless.\n\nOn the drive home, even Kathy was shocked by what she'd said. She had been brought up around plenty of cursing, and knew every word and provocative construction, but since she'd become a mother, since she'd converted, she hadn't sworn more than once or twice. But those kids needed to learn something, and so she'd obliged.\n\nIn the weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers, Kathy saw very few Muslim women in public. She was certain they were hiding, leaving home only when necessary. In late September, she was in Walgreens when she finally saw a woman in a hijab. She ran to her. _\"Salaam alaikum!\"_ she said, taking the woman's hands. The woman, a doctor studying at Tulane, had been feeling the same way, like an exile in her own country, and they laughed at how delirious they were to see each other.\n\n* * *\n\nOn this day in August, the grocery-store trip went off without confrontation, and she picked up her girls.\n\n\"You hear about the storm?\" Nademah asked.\n\n\"It's coming toward us,\" Safiya added from the back seat.\n\n\"Are we going to leave?\" Nademah asked.\n\nKathy knew that her kids wanted to. They could go to one of their cousins' homes, in Mississippi or Baton Rouge, and it would be a vacation, a two-day sleepover. Maybe school would be canceled on Monday as the city cleaned up? This was surely what they were thinking and hoping. Kathy knew the workings of her children's minds.\n\nWhen they got home, it was five o'clock and Katrina was all over the news. The family watched footage of enormous waves, uprooted trees, whole towns washed grey with torrential rain. The National Hurricane Center was suggesting that Katrina would soon become a Category 3. Governor Blanco held a press conference to declare a state of emergency for Louisiana. Governor Barbour did the same for Mississippi.\n\nKathy was rattled. Sitting on the arm of the couch, she was so distracted that soon it was six o'clock and she hadn't started dinner. She called Zeitoun.\n\n\"Can you get Popeyes on your way home?\" she asked.\n\nAt home, Nademah arranged the tablecloth and placemats. Safiya and Aisha set out the silverware and glasses. Kathy threw together a salad and poured milk for the kids and juice for herself and Zeitoun.\n\nZeitoun arrived with the chicken, showered, and joined the family for dinner.\n\n\"Finish, finish,\" he said to his daughters, who were picking at their food, leaving huge swaths of it uneaten.\n\nHe had gotten used to it after all these years, but still, there were times when the waste got to him. The disposability of just about everything. Growing up in Syria he had often heard the expression \"If your hand doesn't work for it, your heart doesn't feel sorry for it.\" But in the U.S., it wasn't just the prosperity\u2014because New Orleans was not uniformly prosperous, to be sure\u2014there was a sense that everything could be replaced, and on a whim. In his children he was trying to instill a sense of the value of work, the value of whatever came into their house, but he knew that much would be lost in the context, the waste and excess of the culture at large. He had been brought up to know that what God hates as much as anything is waste. It was, he had been told, one of the three things God _most_ hated: murder, divorce, and waste. It destroyed a society.\n\nAfter dinner the girls asked if they could watch _Pride and Prejudice_ again. It was Friday night, so Zeitoun had no school-related reasons to block the movie. Still, it didn't mean he had to sit and watch it again. He'd liked the movie fine the first time, but the need to watch it a dozen times in as many days was beyond him. In the past week, he and Zachary had retired to other rooms to do something, anything, else. Kathy, though, was right there with the girls each time, and this time all of them draped over each other on the couch, misting up at the same parts they always did. Zeitoun shook his head and went into the kitchen to fix a cabinet door that had gotten loose.\n\nAll evening they paused the movie to watch the news reports about the storm's intensity and direction. Still moving slowly, the hurricane was heading up the coast with winds over one hundred miles per hour. The longer it lingered over any region, the more destruction it would bring. All the news was terrible, and when Kathy saw the picture of the family of five she was ready to turn it off. She was sure they were gone, and she would obsess over this family for weeks, thinking about all their relatives gathered for the reunion, now forced to mourn the loss of so many at once\u2014but then Kathy realized that the family was not lost. She turned up the volume. They had been rescued. They had docked their boat on a mangrove island near Ten Thousand Islands, and had ridden out the storm in the cabin of the yacht, praying and taking turns climbing up to look for help in the skies. Just hours earlier, the Coast Guard had spotted their boat and lifted them all to safety. The family of five had been saved.\n\nLater, after kissing Zachary goodnight, Kathy lay down in Nademah's bed and the girls arranged themselves around her, a mess of overlapping limbs and pillows.\n\n\"Who wants to start?\" Kathy asked.\n\nSafiya began a story about Pok\u00e9mon. The stories, which the girls told collaboratively, were often about Pok\u00e9mon. After Aisha introduced the protagonist, Safiya provided the setting and central conflict, and Nademah took it from there. They continued, taking turns advancing the plot, until Aisha was asleep and Nademah and Safiya were drifting off. Kathy looked up to find Zeitoun in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching them all. He did this often, just watching, taking it all in. The scene was almost too much, too beautiful. It was enough to burst a man's heart wide open.\n\n# SATURDAY AUGUST 27\n\nZeitoun and Kathy woke late, after eight. When they turned on the TV they saw Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, telling all residents of New Orleans to leave as soon as they could, to head inland with all possible haste. The National Hurricane Center had issued a watch for central Louisiana and warned that the hurricane could become a Category 5 by the time it made landfall. Category 5 hurricanes had only struck the United States mainland three times before, and never New Orleans.\n\n\"Honey,\" Kathy said, \"I think we should go.\"\n\n\"You go,\" Zeitoun said. \"I'll stay.\"\n\n\"How can you stay?\" she asked.\n\nBut she knew the answer. Their business wasn't a simple one, where you could lock an office door and leave. Leaving the city meant leaving all their properties, leaving their tenants' homes, and this they couldn't do unless absolutely necessary. They had job sites all over the city, and any number of things could happen in their absence. They would be liable for damage if their equipment caused harm to clients' property. It was yet another hazard of the company they'd built.\n\nKathy was leaning strongly toward fleeing, and watching the news throughout the day it seemed that there were so many new indicators that this storm was unique that she didn't feel she could even contemplate staying in the city. They'd already closed down most operations at Louis Armstrong International Airport. The Louisiana National Guard had called four thousand troops into service.\n\nMid-morning, it was at least ninety-five degrees, the air leaden with humidity. Zeitoun was in the backyard, running around with the kids and Mekay, the dog. Kathy opened the back door.\n\n\"You're really staying?\" Kathy asked him. Somehow she thought that he might be wavering. She was wrong.\n\n\"What're you worried about?\" he said.\n\nShe wasn't worried, in fact. She didn't fear for her husband's safety, really, but she did have the feeling that life in the city would be very trying during and after the storm. The electricity would go. The roads would be covered with debris, impassable for days. Why would he want to struggle through all that?\n\n\"I have to watch the house,\" he said. \"The other houses. One small hole in the roof\u2014if I fix it, no damage. If not, the whole house is wrecked.\"\n\nBy the early afternoon Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco had called for a voluntary evacuation of the city. Nagin told residents that the Superdome would be open as a \"shelter of last resort.\" Kathy shuddered at the thought; the year before, with Hurricane Ivan, that plan had been a miserable failure. The Superdome had been ill-supplied and overcrowded then and in '98, with Hurricane Georges. She couldn't believe the place was being used again. Maybe they'd learned from the last time and better provisioned the stadium? Anything was possible, but she was doubtful.\n\nKathy planned to leave as soon as the contraflow took effect, supposedly around four o'clock. The contraflow would allow all lanes of every highway to flow outward from the city. By then Kathy would have the Odyssey packed and ready in the driveway.\n\nBut where would she be going? She knew well that every hotel within two hundred miles would be booked already. So it was a matter of deciding which family member she'd impose on. She had thought first of her sister Ann, who lived in Poplarville, Mississippi. But when she called, Ann was considering leaving, too. Her home was technically within the area that would be affected by the high winds, and it was surrounded by old trees. Given the likelihood that one of them might fall through her roof, Ann wasn't sure she should stay there herself, let alone with Kathy and her kids.\n\nThe next option was the family headquarters in Baton Rouge. Owned by her brother Andy, it was a three-bedroom ranch in a subdivision outside the city. Andy traveled frequently and was currently in Hong Kong, working on a construction project. While he'd been gone, two of Kathy's sisters, Patty and Mary Ann, had moved in.\n\nKathy knew they would allow her family to stay, but it would be cramped. The house wasn't so big to begin with, and Patty had four kids of her own. With Kathy's family there, all told there would be eight kids and three sisters living together in a house that would likely lose electricity in the high winds.\n\nStill, it had been some time since the families had gotten together. This might bring them closer. They could all eat out, maybe go shopping in Baton Rouge. Kathy knew her kids would endorse the plan. Patty's kids were older, but they got along well with the Zeitouns, and anyway, eight kids always found something to do together. It would be cramped and loud, but Kathy found herself looking forward to it.\n\nThroughout the afternoon, Kathy tried to convince her husband to come with them. When had officials suggested an all-city evacuation before? she asked. Wasn't that reason enough to go?\n\nZeitoun agreed that it was unusual, but he had never evacuated before and he saw no need to do so now. Their home was elevated three feet above the ground, and rose two stories on top of that, so there would be no danger of getting stuck in an attic or on a roof, even if the worst happened. Zeitoun could always retreat to the second floor. And they lived nowhere near any levees, so they wouldn't get any of the flash flooding that might hit some of the other neighborhoods. It was East New Orleans, or the Lower Ninth, with its one-story houses so close to the levees, that were in the gravest danger.\n\nAnd he certainly couldn't leave before he secured all his job sites. No one else would do it, and he wouldn't ask anyone else to do it. He'd already told his workers and his foremen to leave, to be with their families, to get a head start on the traffic. He planned to go to every one of the nine job sites to gather or tie down his equipment. He had seen what happened when a contractor failed to do this: ladders careening through windows and walls, tools damaging furniture, paint all over the lawn and driveway.\n\n\"I better go,\" he said.\n\nHe set out, visiting the work sites, tying down ladders, packing up tools, brushes, loose tiles, Sheetrock. He was through about half the sites when he headed home to say goodbye to Kathy and the kids.\n\nKathy was loading up a few small bags in the back of the Odyssey. She had packed enough clothes, toiletries, and food for two days. They would return on Monday night, she figured, after the storm had come and gone.\n\nKathy had the minivan's radio on and heard Mayor Nagin repeat his instructions for residents to leave the city, but she noted that he had stopped short of a mandatory evacuation. This would embolden her husband, she was certain. She switched to another station, where they were issuing a warning that anyone who planned to ride out the storm in New Orleans should be prepared for a flood. Levee breaches could happen, they said. Storm surges might cause flooding. Ten or fifteen feet of water would be a possibility. Any diehards staying home should have an axe, in case they needed to chop through their attic to reach the roof.\n\nZeitoun pulled up and parked the van on the street in front of the house. Kathy watched him approach. She never doubted his ability to care for himself in any situation, but now her heart was jumping. She was leaving him to fend for himself, leaving him to chop holes in the attic with an axe? It was insane.\n\nHe and Kathy stood in the driveway, as they had many other times when she and the family were leaving and he was staying.\n\n\"Better hurry,\" Zeitoun said. \"Lot of people leaving at once.\"\n\nKathy looked at him. Her eyes, much to her own frustration, teared up. Zeitoun held her hands.\n\n\"C'mon, c'mon,\" he said. \"Nothing's going to happen. People are making a big deal for no reason.\"\n\n\"Bye, Daddy!\" Aisha sang from the back seat.\n\nThe kids waved. They always waved, all of his children, as he stood on the driveway. None of this was new. A dozen times they had lived this moment, as Kathy and his children drove off in search of sanctuary or rest, leaving Zeitoun to watch over his house and the houses of his neighbors and clients all over the city. He had keys to dozens of other houses; everyone trusted him with their homes and everything in them.\n\n\"See you Monday,\" he said.\n\nKathy drove away, knowing they were all mad. Living in a city like this was madness, fleeing it was madness, leaving her husband alone in a home in the path of a hurricane was madness.\n\nShe waved, her children waved, and Zeitoun stood in the driveway waving until his family was gone.\n\n* * *\n\nZeitoun set out to finish securing the rest of his job sites. The air was breezy, the low sky smudged brown and grey. The city was chaotic, thousands of cars on the road. Traffic was worse than he expected. Brake lights and honking, cars running red lights. He took streets that no one fleeing would use.\n\nDowntown, hundreds of people were walking to the Superdome carrying coolers, blankets, suitcases. Zeitoun was surprised. Previous experiments using the stadium as shelter had failed. As a builder, he worried about the integrity of the stadium's roof. Could it really withstand high winds, torrential rain? You couldn't pay him enough to hide there from the storm.\n\nAnd anyway, in the past it had been little more than a few hours of squealing winds, some downed trees, a foot or two of water, some minor damage to fix once the winds had passed.\n\nHe already felt good. New Orleans would soon be largely vacated, and being in the empty city always felt good, at least for a day or two. He continued to make his rounds, secured the last few sites, and arrived home just before six.\n\nKathy called at six-thirty.\n\nShe was stuck in traffic a few miles outside the city. Worse, between her own confusion and the unprecedented volume of cars, she had gone the wrong way. Instead of taking the I-10 west directly to Baton Rouge, she was on I-10 heading east, with no way to correct her error. She would have to cross Lake Pontchartrain and swing all the way back through Slidell and across the state. It was going to add hours. She was harried and exhausted and the trip had barely begun.\n\nZeitoun was sitting at home, his feet up on the table, watching TV. He made a point of telling her so.\n\n\"Told you so,\" he said.\n\nKathy and the kids were expected at her brother's house for dinner, but at seven o'clock she'd traveled less than twenty miles. Just short of Slidell, she pulled into a Burger King drive-through. She and the kids ordered cheeseburgers and fries and got back onto the road. A little while later, a foul odor overtook the Odyssey.\n\n\"What is that?\" Kathy asked her kids. They giggled. The smell was fecal, putrid. \"What _is_ that?\" she asked again. This time the girls couldn't breathe they were laughing so hard. Zachary shook his head.\n\n\"It's Mekay,\" one of the girls managed, before collapsing again into hysterics.\n\nThe girls had been sneaking the dog pieces of their cheeseburgers, and the cheese was clogging her pipes. She'd been farting for miles.\n\n\"That is awful!\" Kathy wailed. The kids giggled more. Mekay continued to suffer. She was hiding under the seat.\n\nThey passed Slidell and soon met up with I-190, a smaller road Kathy figured would have less traffic. But it was just as bad, an endless stream of brake lights. Ten thousand cars, twenty thousand lights, she guessed, extending all the way to Baton Rouge or beyond. She had become part of the exodus without entirely registering the enormity and strangeness of it. A hundred thousand people on the road, all going north and east, fleeing winds and water. Kathy could only think of beds. Where would all these people sleep? A hundred thousand beds. Every time she passed a driveway she looked at the home longingly. She was so tired, and not even halfway there.\n\nShe thought again of her husband. The images she'd seen on the news were absurd, really\u2014the storm looked like a white circular saw heading directly for New Orleans. On those satellite images the city looked so small compared to the hurricane, such a tiny thing about to be cut to pieces by that gigantic spinning blade. And her husband was just a man alone in a wooden house.\n\nZeitoun called again at eight o'clock. Kathy and the kids had been on the road for three hours and had only gotten as far as Covington\u2014about fifty miles. Meanwhile, he was watching television, puttering around the house, enjoying the cool night.\n\n\"You should have stayed,\" he said. \"It's so nice here.\"\n\n\"We'll see, smart guy,\" she said.\n\nThough she was exhausted, and was being driven near-crazy by her flatulent dog, Kathy was looking forward to a few days in Baton Rouge. At certain moments, at least, she was looking forward to it. Her family was not easy to deal with, this was certain, and any visit could take a wrong turn quickly and irreparably. _It's complicated_ , she would tell people. With eight siblings, it had been turbulent growing up, and when she converted to Islam, the battles and misunderstandings multiplied.\n\nIt often started with her hijab. She'd come in, drop her bags, and the suggestion would come: \"Now you can take that thing off.\" She'd been a Muslim for fifteen years and they still said this to her. As if the scarf was something worn under duress, only in the company of Zeitoun, a disguise she could shed when he was not around. As if only in the Delphine household could she finally be herself, let loose. This was actually the command her mother had given the last time Kathy had visited: \"Take that thing off your head,\" she'd said. \"Go out and have a good time.\"\n\n* * *\n\nThere were times, however, when her mother's loyalty to Kathy trumped her issues with Islam. Years earlier, Kathy and her mother had gone to the DMV together to have Kathy's license renewed. Kathy was wearing her hijab, and had already received a healthy number of suspicious looks from DMV customers and staff by the time she sat down to have her picture taken. The employee behind the camera did not disguise her contempt.\n\n\"Take that thing off,\" the woman said.\n\nKathy knew that it was her right to wear the scarf for the photo, but she didn't want to make an issue of it.\n\n\"Do you have a brush?\" Kathy asked. She tried to make a joke of it: \"I don't want to have my hair all matted for the photo.\" Kathy was smiling, but the woman only stared, unblinking. \"Really,\" Kathy continued, \"I'm okay with taking it off, but only if you have a brush...\"\n\nThat's when her mother jumped to the rescue\u2014in her way.\n\n\"She can wear it!\" her mother yelled. \"She can if she wants to!\"\n\nNow it was a scene. Everyone in the DMV was watching. Kathy tried to diffuse the situation. \"Mama, it's okay,\" she said. \"Really, it's okay. Mama, do you have a brush?\"\n\nHer mother barely registered Kathy's question. She was focused on the woman behind the camera. \"You can't make her take it off! It's her constitutional right!\"\n\nFinally the DMV woman disappeared into the back of the office. She returned with permission from a superior to take the photo with Kathy wearing her scarf. As the flash went off, Kathy tried to smile.\n\nGrowing up in Baton Rouge, it was a crowded house, full of clamor and extremes. Nine kids shared a one-story, 1,400-square-foot home, sleeping three to a room and squabbling over one bathroom. They were content, though, or as content as could be expected, and the neighborhood was tidy, working-class, full of families. Kathy's house backed up against Sherwood Middle School, a big multiethnic campus where Kathy felt overwhelmed. She was one of a handful of white students, and she was picked on, pushed around, gawked at. She grew to be quick to fight, quick to argue.\n\nShe must have run away from home a dozen times, maybe more. And almost every time she did, from age six or so on, she ran to her friend Yuko's house. It was just a few blocks away, on the other side of the high school, and given that she and Yuko were among the few non\u2013African American kids in the neighborhood, they had bonded as outsiders. Yuko and her mother Kameko were alone in their house; Kameko's husband had been killed by a drunk driver when Yuko was small. Even though Yuko was three years older, she and Kathy grew inseparable, and Kameko was so welcoming and dedicated to Kathy's well-being that Kathy came to call her Mom.\n\nKathy was never sure why Kameko took her in, but she was careful not to question it. Yuko joked that her mom just wanted to get close enough to Kathy to bathe her. As a kid Kathy didn't like baths much, and they weren't a great priority in her house, so every time she was at Yuko's, Kameko filled the tub. \"She looks greasy,\" Kameko would joke to Yuko, but she loved to make Kathy clean, and Kathy looked forward to it\u2014Kameko's hands washing her hair, her long fingernails tickling her neck, the warmth of a fresh, heavy towel around her shoulders.\n\nAfter high school Kathy and Yuko grew closer. Kathy moved into an apartment off Airline Highway in Baton Rouge, and they began working together at Dunkin' Donuts. The independence meant everything to Kathy. Even in her small apartment off a six-lane interstate, there was a sense of order and quiet to her life that she had never known.\n\nA pair of Malaysian sisters used to come into the shop, and Yuko began talking to them, questioning them. \"What does that scarf mean?\" \"What do you see in Islam?\" \"Are you allowed to drive?\" The sisters were open, low-key, never proselytizing. Kathy had no real inkling that they had made a great impression on Yuko, but Yuko was captivated. She began reading about Islam, investigating the Qur'an. Soon the Malaysian sisters brought Yuko pamphlets and books, and Yuko delved deeper.\n\nWhen she caught on to how serious Yuko was about it, it drove Kathy to distraction. They'd both been brought up Christian, had gone to a rigorous Christian elementary school. It was baffling to see her friend dabbling in this exotic faith. Yuko had been as devout a Christian as walked the Earth\u2014and Kameko was even more so.\n\n\"What would your mom think?\" she asked.\n\n\"Just keep an open mind,\" Yuko said. \"Please.\"\n\nA few years passed, and Kathy, through a series of missteps and heartbreaks, was divorced and living alone with Zachary, who was less than a year old. She was renting the same apartment off Airline Highway and working two jobs. In the mornings she was a checkout clerk at K&B, a chain drugstore on the highway. One day the manager of Webster Clothes, a menswear store across the road, had come into the drugstore and, admiring Kathy's ebullient personality, asked her if she'd be willing to quit K&B or, if not, take a second job at Webster. Kathy needed the money, so she said yes to the second job. After finishing in the early afternoon at K&B, she would walk across the highway to Webster and work there until closing. Soon she was working fifty hours a week and making enough to cover health insurance for herself and Zachary.\n\nBut her life was a struggle, and she was looking for some order and answers. Yuko, by contrast, seemed peaceful and confident; she'd always been centered, so much so that Kathy had been envious, but now Yuko really seemed to have things figured out.\n\nKathy began borrowing books about Islam. She was just curious, having no particular intention to leave the Christian faith. At first she was simply intrigued by the basic things she didn't know, and the many things she'd wrongly presumed. She had no idea, for instance, that the Qur'an was filled with the same people as the Bible\u2014Moses, Mary, Abraham, Pharaoh, even Jesus. She hadn't known that Muslims consider the Qur'an the fourth book of God to His messengers, after the Old Testament (referred to as the _Tawrat_ , or the Law), the Psalms (the _Zabur)_ , and the New Testament _(Injeil)_. The fact that Islam acknowledged these books was revelatory for her. The fact that the Qur'an repeatedly reaches out to the other, related faiths, knocked her flat:\n\n_We have believed in God  \nand what has been sent forth to us,  \nand what was sent forth to Abraham,  \nIshmael, Isaac, Jacob,  \nand the Tribes  \nand what was given the Prophets  \nfrom their Lord;  \nwe separate and divide not  \nbetween any one of them;  \nand we are the ones who submit to Him_.\n\nShe was frustrated that she hadn't known any of this, that she'd been blind to the faith of a billion or so people. How could she not know these things?\n\nAnd Muhammad. She'd been so misinformed about Him. She'd thought He was the actual god of Islam, the one whom Muslims worshiped. But he was simply the messenger who related the word of God. An illiterate man, Muhammad was visited by the angel Gabriel _(Jibril_ in Arabic), who related to him the words of God. Muhammad became the conduit for these messages, and The Qur'an, then, was simply the word of God in written form. _Qur'an_ meant \"Recitation.\"\n\nThere were so many basic things that defied her presumptions. She'd assumed that Muslims were a monolithic group, and that all Muslims were made of the same devout and unbending stock. But she learned that there were Shiite and Sunni interpretations of the Qur'an, and within any mosque there were the same variations in faith and commitment as there were in any church. There were Muslims who treated their faith lightly, and those who knew every word of the Qur'an and its companion guide to behavior, the Hadith. There were Muslims who knew almost nothing about their religion, who worshiped a few times a year, and those who obeyed the strictest interpretation of their faith. There were Muslim women who wore T-shirts and jeans and Muslim women who covered themselves head to toe. There were Muslim men who modeled their lives on the life of the Prophet, and those who strayed and fell short. There were passive Muslims, uncertain Muslims, borderline agnostic Muslims, devout Muslims, and Muslims who twisted the words of the Qur'an to suit their temporary desires and agendas. It was all very familiar, intrinsic to any faith.\n\nAt the time, Kathy was attending a large evangelical church not far from her jobs. Though not always full, it could seat about a thousand parishioners. She felt a need to connect with her faith; she needed all the strength she could find.\n\nBut there were things about this church that bothered her. She was accustomed to the kind of fiery preaching that the church offered, the extremes of showmanship and drama, but one day, she thought, they crossed a line. They had just passed the collection plates, and after they had gathered and counted the funds donated, the preacher\u2014a short man with a rosy face and a mustache\u2014seemed disappointed. His expression was pained. He couldn't hold it in. He chastised the congregation calmly at first, and then with increasing annoyance. Did they not love this church? Did they not appreciate the connection this church created with their lord Jesus Christ? He went on and on, shaming the congregants for their miserly ways. The lecture lasted twenty minutes.\n\nKathy was aghast. She'd never seen the collection counted during a Sunday service. And to ask for more! The congregants were not wealthy people, she knew. This was a working-class church, a middle-class church. They gave what they could.\n\nShe left that day shaken and confused by what she'd seen. At home, after putting Zachary to bed, she turned again to the materials Yuko had given her. She flipped through the Qur'an. Kathy wasn't sure that Islam was the way, but she knew that Yuko had never misled her before, that Yuko was the most grounded and sensible person she knew, and if Islam was working for her, why wouldn't it work for Kathy? Yuko was her sister, her mentor.\n\nKathy struggled with the question of faith all week. She lived with the questions in the morning, at night, all day through work. She had just started her shift at Webster one day when a familiar man walked in. Kathy recognized him immediately as one of the preachers at the church. She came over to help him with a new sport coat.\n\n\"You know,\" he said, \"you should come to our church! It's not far from here.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"I know your church! I'm there all the time. Every Sunday.\"\n\nThe man was surprised. He hadn't seen her before.\n\n\"Oh, I sit in the back,\" she said.\n\nHe smiled and told her that next time he'd look for her. He made it his business to make sure everyone felt welcome.\n\n\"You know,\" Kathy said to him, \"this must be a sign from God, seeing you here.\"\n\n\"How so?\" he asked.\n\nShe told him about her crisis, how she had been disappointed with aspects of the Christianity she knew, in some of the things she'd seen, in fact, at his own church. She told him that she had actually been considering converting to Islam.\n\nHe was listening closely, but he didn't seem worried about losing a member of the congregation.\n\n\"Oh, that's just the devil toying with you,\" he said. \"He'll do that, try to tempt you away from Christ. But this'll only make your faith stronger. You'll see come Sunday.\"\n\nWhen he left, Kathy already felt more certain about her faith. How could his visit not be a sign from God? Just at the moment she was having doubts about her church, a messenger from Jesus walked straight into her life.\n\nShe went to church that Sunday with a renewed sense of purpose. Yuko may have found comfort and direction in Islam, but Kathy was sure that she herself had been personally called by Christ. She walked in and sat near the front, determined that her new friend should see her and know that he had made a difference.\n\nIt didn't take long. When he looked down at the congregation and upon her, his eyes opened wide. He gave her an expression that made clear that she was the one he'd been looking for all day. She'd seen the same expression on kids spotting a birthday cake with their name on it.\n\nAnd then suddenly, in the middle of the service, her name was being called. The preacher, in front of a full room of almost a thousand people, was saying her name, Kathy Delphine.\n\n\"Come up here, Kathy,\" the preacher commanded.\n\nShe rose from her seat and stepped toward the blinding lights of the pulpit. Onstage, she didn't know where to look, how to avoid the glare. She shielded her eyes. She squinted and looked down\u2014at her shoes, at the people in the front row. She had never stood in front of so many people. The closest thing had been her wedding, and that had been only fifty or so friends and family. What was this? Why had she been called forth?\n\n\"Kathy,\" the preacher said, \"tell them what you told me. Tell us all.\"\n\nKathy froze. She didn't know if she could do this. She was a talkative person, rarely nervous, but to recount something she'd said privately to the reverend in front of a thousand strangers\u2014it didn't seem right.\n\nStill, Kathy had faith that he knew what he was doing. She believed she'd been chosen to remain in this church. And she wanted to serve. To help. Perhaps, like Reverend Timothy entering the store that day, this was another event that was meant to be, meant to bring her closer to Christ.\n\nShe was given a microphone and she spoke into it, telling the congregation what she'd told the reverend, that she had been investigating Islam, and that\u2014\n\nThe preacher cut her off. \"She was looking to Islam!\" he said with a sneer. \"She was considering\"\u2014and here he paused\u2014\"the worship of Allah!\" And with that, he made a snorting, derisive sound, the sort of sound an eight-year-old boy would make on a playground. This preacher, this leader of this church and congregation, was using this tone to refer to Allah. Did he not know that his God and Islam's were one and the same? That was one of the first and simplest things she'd learned from the pamphlets Yuko had given her: Allah is just the Arabic word for God. Even Christians speaking Arabic refer to God as Allah.\n\nHe went on to praise Kathy and Jesus and reaffirm the primacy of his and their faith, but by then she was hardly listening. Something had ruptured within her. When he was done, she sat down in a daze, bewildered but becoming sure about something right there and then. She smiled politely through the rest of the service, already knowing she would never come back.\n\nShe thought about the episode while driving home, and that night, and all the next day. She talked to Yuko about it and they realized that this man, preaching to a thousand impressionable and trusting parishioners, didn't know, or didn't care, that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were not-so-distantly related branches of the same monotheistic, Abrahamic faith. And to dismiss all of Islam with a playground sound? Kathy could not be part of what that man was preaching.\n\nSo by fits and starts, she followed Yuko into Islam. She read the Qur'an and was struck by its power and lyricism. The Christian preachers she'd heard had spent a good amount of time talking about who would and wouldn't go to hell, how hot it burned and for how long, but the imams she began to meet made no such pronouncements. Will I go to heaven? she asked. \"Only God knows this,\" the imam would tell her. The various doubts of the imams were comforting, and drew her closer. She would ask them a question, just as she had asked questions of her pastors, and the imams would try to answer, but often they wouldn't know. \"Let's look at the Qur'an,\" they would say. She liked Islam's sense of personal responsibility, its bent toward social justice. Most of all, though, she liked the sense of dignity and purity embodied by the Muslim women she knew. To Kathy they seemed so wholesome, so honorable. They were chaste, they were disciplined. She wanted that sense of control. She wanted the peace that came with that sense of control.\n\nThe actual conversion was beautifully simple. With Yuko and a handful of other women from the mosque present, she pronounced the _shahadah_ , the Islamic pledge of conviction of faith. \"AshHadu An La Ilaha Il-lallah, Wa Ash Hadu Anna Muhammadar Rasul-allah.\" That was all she needed to say. _I bear Witness that there is no deity but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His Messenger_. With that, Kathy Delphine had become a Muslim.\n\nWhen she tried to explain it to friends and family, Kathy fumbled. But she knew that in Islam she had found calm. The doubt sewn into the faith gave her room to think, to question. The answers the Qur'an provided gave her a way forward. Even her view of her family softened through the lens of Islam. She was less aggressive. She had always fought with her mother, but Islam taught her that \"heaven is at the feet of your mother,\" and this reined her in. She stopped talking back and learned to be more patient and forgiving. _It brought back a purity in me_ , she would say.\n\nHer conversion might have been a step forward in her eyes, but in the eyes of her mother and siblings it was as if she'd renounced her family and all they stood for. Kathy tried to get along with them nevertheless, and her family tried too. There were times when all was good, visits were enjoyable, uneventful. But for every one of those, there was one that spiraled into sniping and accusations, slammed doors and quick departures. There were a few of her eight siblings she wasn't in touch with at all.\n\nBut she wanted extended family. She wanted her own kids to know their aunts and uncles and cousins, and so the relief was profound when the Odyssey arrived at her brother's house in Baton Rouge at eleven-thirty. She unpacked the kids and they fell asleep, on couches and floors, in minutes.\n\nSettled, she called Zeitoun.\n\n\"Winds come?\"\n\n\"Nothing yet,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm gonna pass out,\" Kathy said. \"Never been so tired.\"\n\n\"Get some rest,\" he said. \"Sleep in.\"\n\n\"You too.\"\n\nThey said good night and turned out the lights.\n\n# SUNDAY AUGUST 28\n\nKathy woke before dawn and turned on the TV. Katrina was now a Category 5 storm with winds over 150 miles an hour. It was heading almost directly toward New Orleans, with the brunt of it expected to strike about sixteen miles west of the city. Meteorologists were predicting furious winds, ten-foot storm surges, possibilities of levee breaches, flooding everywhere along the coast. It was estimated that the storm would reach the New Orleans area that night.\n\nThroughout the day, as news of the hurricane grew more dire, clients called Kathy or Zeitoun, asking them to secure their windows and doors. Kathy collected requests and relayed them to Zeitoun. Zeitoun discovered that one of his carpenters, James Crosso, was still in the city, so the two of them spent the day driving around, rigging the houses on the list. James's wife worked for one of the hotels downtown, and the couple was planning to ride the storm out there. Zeitoun and James drove from job to job, a quarter ton of plywood in the back of the truck, doing what they could before the winds came. The roads were still crowded, a new surge of cars leaving, but Zeitoun didn't consider it. He would be safe in their house on Dart Street, he figured, far from any levees, with two stories, plenty of tools, and food.\n\nMid-morning, Mayor Nagin ordered the city's first-ever mandatory evacuation. Anyone who could leave must leave.\n\nAll day Zeitoun and James saw people lined up at bus stops\u2014those who planned to stay in the Superdome. Families, couples, elderly men and women carrying their belongings in backpacks, suitcases, garbage bags. Seeing them exposed like that, as the winds picked up and the sky darkened, worried Zeitoun. He and James passed the same groups, waiting patiently, on the way to their job sites and on their way back.\n\nIn Baton Rouge, the weather was dark and unruly. High winds, black skies at noon. The kids played outside for a while, but then came inside to watch DVDs while Kathy caught up with Patty and Mary Ann. The trees in the neighborhood swung wildly.\n\nThe power went out at five o'clock. The kids played board games by candlelight.\n\nKathy periodically went out to the car to listen to the news on the radio. The winds were smashing windows in New Orleans, knocking down trees and power lines.\n\nKathy tried to call Zeitoun, but the call went straight to his voicemail. She tried the home phone. Nothing. The lines were down, she assumed. The hurricane had not hit the city yet, and already she had no way to reach her husband.\n\nBy six o'clock, Zeitoun had dropped James off and was home and ready. He watched the news on TV; the reports had not changed much. The outermost edge of the hurricane was expected about midnight. He assumed that would be the end of the electrical grid for a few days.\n\nWalking through the darkening rooms, Zeitoun assessed all the possible dangers he would face during the storm. The house had four bedrooms\u2014the master bedroom on the first floor and the kids' rooms upstairs. He expected leaks up there. Portions of the roof might be compromised. A few windows might break\u2014the front sitting room, with its bay window, was at risk. There was an outside chance the tree in the backyard would fall on the house. If that happened, there could be significant damage, because nothing, then, could keep the water out.\n\nBut he was optimistic. And in any case he wanted to be in the house, on which he had spent untold thousands for improvements, to protect it in whatever way possible. His grandmother had stayed put during countless storms in her home on Arwad Island, and he planned to do the same. A home was worth fighting for.\n\nThe only thing that concerned him was the levees. Again and again the news reports warned of the storm surge. The levees were meant to hold back fourteen feet of water, and the storm surges in the Gulf were already nineteen, twenty feet high. If the levees were breached, he knew the battle would be lost.\n\nHe called Kathy at eight o'clock.\n\n\"There you are,\" she said. \"You disappeared.\"\n\nHe looked at his phone and saw that he'd missed three calls from her.\n\n\"Coverage must be spotty already,\" he said. His phone had not rung. He told her that nothing significant had happened yet. Just strong winds. Nothing new.\n\n\"Stay away from the windows,\" she said.\n\nHe said he would try.\n\nKathy wondered aloud if there was something foolish in what they were doing. Her husband was in the path of a Category 5 hurricane and they were talking about staying away from the windows.\n\n\"Say goodnight to the kids,\" he said.\n\nShe said she would.\n\n\"Better go. To save the battery,\" he said.\n\nThey said goodnight.\n\nThe kids asleep, Kathy sat on the couch in her brother Andy's house and stared at the candle in front of her. It was the only light left on in the house.\n\nJust after eleven o'clock, the front end of the storm arrived at Zeitoun's house. The sky was a brutal grey, the winds swirling and cool. Rain came in sheets. Every half hour brought an escalation in the mayhem outside. At midnight the power went out. The leaks began at about two or three. The first was in the corner of Nademah's bedroom. Zeitoun went down to the garage and retrieved a forty-gallon garbage can to catch the water. Another leak opened a few minutes later, this one in the upstairs hallway. Zeitoun found another garbage can. A window in the master bedroom broke just after three o'clock, as if a brick had been thrown through the glass. Zeitoun gathered the shards and stuffed the opening with a pillow. Another leak opened in Safiya and Aisha's room. He found another, bigger garbage can.\n\nHe dragged the first two garbage cans outside and dumped them on the lawn. The sky was a child's fingerpainting, blue and black hastily mixed. The wind was cooler. The neighborhood was utterly dark. As he stood on the lawn, he heard a tree fall somewhere on the block\u2014a crack and then a shush as the branches pushed down through other trees and rested against the side of a house.\n\nHe went inside.\n\nAnother window had broken. He stuffed another pillow into it. Branches clawed at the walls, the roof. There were unknown thumps everywhere. The bones of the house seemed to be moaning under the strain of it all. The house was under assault.\n\nWhen he next checked, it was four o'clock in the morning. He hadn't stopped moving in five hours. If the damage continued at this pace, it would be worse than he had predicted. And the real storm hadn't come yet.\n\nIn the small hours, Zeitoun had a thought. He didn't expect the city to flood, but he knew a flood was not impossible. So he walked outside, tasting the cool wind, and dragged his secondhand canoe from the garage and righted it. He wanted to have it ready.\n\nIf Kathy could only see him now. She had rolled her eyes when she saw him come home with that canoe. He'd bought it a few years before, from a client in Bayou St. John. When the client was moving, Zeitoun had seen it on his lawn, a standard aluminum model, and asked him if he was selling it. The client laughed. \"You want _that?\"_ he asked. Zeitoun bought it on the spot for seventy-five dollars.\n\nSomething about the canoe had intrigued him. It was well-made, undamaged, with a pair of wooden benches inside. It was about sixteen feet long, built for two people. It seemed to speak of exploration, of escape. He tied it to the top of his van and brought it home.\n\nThrough the living room window, Kathy saw him pull up. She met him at the door.\n\n\"No way,\" she said.\n\n\"What?\" Zeitoun said, smiling.\n\n\"You're crazy,\" she said.\n\nKathy liked to act exasperated, but Zeitoun's romantic side was central to why she loved him. She knew that any kind of boat reminded him of his childhood. How could she deny him a used canoe? She was fairly certain he would never use it, but having it in the garage, she knew, would mean something to him\u2014a connection to the past, the possibility of adventure. Whatever it was, she wouldn't stand in the way.\n\nHe did try, two or three times, to get his daughters interested in the canoe. He brought them to Bayou St. John, put the canoe in the water, and sat down inside. When he reached for Nademah, standing on the grass, she refused. The younger girls weren't having it, either. So for half an hour, as the girls watched from the grass, he paddled around by himself, trying to make it all look fun, irresistible. When he returned, they still wanted no part of it, so he put the canoe back on the roof of the van and they all went home.\n\nThe wind picked up after five o'clock. He couldn't tell when the hurricane actually made landfall, but the day barely brightened that morning. It went from black to a charcoal grey, the rain like pebbles thrown against glass. He could hear tree limbs succumbing to the wind, great exhalations as their trunks fell on streets and roofs.\n\nEventually he could not stay awake. Though his house was under attack, he lay down, knowing something would awaken him soon enough, and so, surrendering for now, he fell into a shallow sleep.\n\n# MONDAY AUGUST 29\n\nZeitoun woke late. He couldn't believe his watch. It was after ten a.m. He hadn't slept that late in years. All the clocks had stopped. He got up, tried the light switches in three rooms. The power was still out.\n\nThe wind was strong outside, the sky still dark. The rain was coming down\u2014not heavily, but enough to keep Zeitoun inside much of the day. He ate breakfast and checked for any other damage to the house. He put buckets under two new leaks. Overall the damage had remained at about the level it had been at before he fell asleep. He had slumbered through the worst of the hurricane. Through the windows he could see the streets were covered with downed power lines and fallen trees and about a foot of water. It was bad, but not much worse than a handful of storms he could remember.\n\nIn Baton Rouge, Kathy brought her kids to Wal-Mart to stock up on supplies and buy flashlights. Inside, there seemed to be more people than products. She'd never seen anything like it. The place had been bought out, the shelves nearly bare. It looked like the end of the world. The kids were scared, holding on to her. Kathy looked for ice and was told that the ice was long gone. Improbably, she found a package of two flashlights, the last one, and reached for it a split second before another woman did. She gave the woman an apologetic smile and went to the check-out counter.\n\n* * *\n\nIn the afternoon the wind and rain calmed. Zeitoun went outside to explore. It was warm, over eighty degrees. He estimated there were eighteen inches of water on the ground. It was rainwater, murky and grey-brown, but soon, he knew, it would drain away. He looked in the backyard. There was the canoe. It called to him, floating and ready. It was a rare opportunity, he thought, to be able to glide over the roads. He had only this day. He bailed the water resting in the hull, and in his T-shirt and shorts and sneakers, he stepped in.\n\nLeaving the yard was difficult. A tree across the street had been ripped from its roots and lay across the road, branches spread over his driveway. He paddled around them and looked back to the house. No great damage to the exterior. Some shingles missing from the roof. The windows broken. A gutter that would need remounting. Nothing too bad, three days' work.\n\nIn the neighborhood, other homes had been hit by all manner of debris. Windows had been blown out. Wet, black branches covered cars, the street. Everywhere trees had been pulled out of the earth and lay flat.\n\nThe quiet was profound. The wind rippled the water but otherwise all was silent. No cars moved, no planes flew. A few neighbors stood on their porches or waded through their yards, assessing damage. No one knew where to start or when. He knew he would be giving many estimates in the coming weeks.\n\nHe paddled only a few blocks before he began to have second thoughts. There were power lines down everywhere. What would exposed lines do if they made contact with his aluminum canoe? Besides, there wasn't enough water to paddle much. In some parts of the neighborhood, there was scarcely any water at all\u2014only a few inches. He ran aground, got out, turned the canoe around, and paddled back home.\n\nThroughout the afternoon, the water fled from the streets, a few inches an hour. The drainage system was working. By that evening, the water had receded completely. The streets were dry. The damage was extensive, but really no worse than a handful of other storms he could remember. And it was over.\n\nHe called Kathy.\n\n\"Come back,\" he said.\n\nKathy was tempted, but it was already seven o'clock, they were about to eat dinner, and she knew she wasn't about to drive through the night again with four kids and a flatulent dog. Besides, there was no power in New Orleans, so they would be returning to the same situation they were suffering through in Baton Rouge. The kids were still enjoying the time spent with their cousins\u2014the laughter rattling the house was testament to it.\n\nShe and Zeitoun agreed to talk about it again in the morning, though they both expected Kathy to be packing up the kids sometime the next day.\n\nShe went inside and the combined families, three adults and eight kids, ate hot dogs by candlelight. That her sisters had put pork on the table did not go unnoticed, but Kathy vowed not to make an issue of it. _Better to let it go_ , she said to herself. _Let it go, let it go_. She had so many battles to fight. There would be so many more in the coming days, she was sure, that she couldn't expend her energy on her sisters, on hot dogs. If they wanted to serve her children pork, they could try.\n\n* * *\n\nLater, when Kathy went to the car to steal a few moments with the radio, she heard Mayor Nagin echoing her reluctance to return. Don't come back yet, he said. Wait to see what the damage is, until everything is settled and cleaned up. Give it a day or two.\n\nIn the afternoon, Zeitoun got a call from Adnan, a second cousin on Zeitoun's mother's side. Adnan had done well since emigrating over a decade earlier; he owned and managed four Subway franchises in New Orleans. His wife Abeer was six months pregnant with their first child.\n\n\"You still in the city?\" he asked, assuming Zeitoun was.\n\n\"Of course I am. You in Baton Rouge?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"I am.\" Adnan had driven up the night before with Abeer and his elderly parents. \"How is it there?\"\n\n\"Windy,\" Zeitoun said. \"Really? It's a little scary.\" He would never have admitted this to Kathy, but he could confide in Adnan.\n\n\"You think you'll stay?\" Adnan asked.\n\nZeitoun said he planned to, and offered to look after Adnan's shops. Before Adnan had left the city, he'd emptied the cash register at the City Park Avenue location and made sure bread was baked; he'd assumed he'd be back on Tuesday.\n\n\"You know any mosques in Baton Rouge?\" Adnan asked. All the motels were booked, and he and Abeer knew no one in Baton Rouge. They'd been able to place Adnan's parents in a mosque the previous night, but there were already hundreds of people there, sleeping on the floors, and they couldn't accommodate more. Adnan and Abeer had spent the night in their car.\n\n\"I don't,\" Zeitoun said. \"But call Kathy. She's with family. They'll take you in, I'm sure.\" He gave Adnan her cell phone number.\n\nZeitoun emptied all of the buckets in the house, put them under the holes in the roof again, and got ready for bed. It was warm outside, stifling inside. He lay in the dark. He thought about the strength of the storm, its duration, how oddly minimal the damage had been to this house. He went to the front window. Already, at eight o'clock, the streets were dry as bone. All that effort to flee, and for what? Hundreds of thousands of people rushing north for this. A few inches of water, all of it now gone.\n\nIt was quiet that night. He heard no wind, no voices, no sirens. There was only the sound of a city breathing as he breathed, weary from the fight, grateful it was over.\n\n# TUESDAY AUGUST 30\n\nZeitoun woke up late again. He squinted at the window above, saw the same grey sky, heard the same strange quiet. He had never known a time like this. He couldn't drive anywhere, couldn't work. For the first time in decades, there was nothing to do. It would be a day of calm, of rest. He felt strangely lethargic, ethereally content. He fell back into a shallow sleep.\n\nArwad Island, his family's ancestral home, was soaked in light. The sun was constant there, a warm white light that bleached the stone buildings and cobblestone alleys, that brought incredible clarity to the surrounding cobalt sea.\n\nWhen Zeitoun dreamt of Arwad, it was the Arwad he visited during the summers of his boyhood, and in these dreams he was doing boyish things: sprinting around the island's tiny perimeter, scaring seagulls to flight, searching in the tide pools for crabs and shells or whatever oddities had been thrown onto the island's rocky shore.\n\nBy the outer wall, facing the western expanse of the sea, he and Ahmad chased a lone chicken through the ruins around the outermost homes. The scrawny bird raced up a pile of garbage and rubble and into a cave of coral and masonry. They turned at the sound of a frigate dropping anchor, waiting to land at Tartus, the port city a mile east. There were always a half-dozen ships, tankers, and freighters waiting for a berth at the busy port, and often they would anchor close enough to cast a shadow over the tiny island. Abdulrahman and Ahmad would stare up at them, the hulls rising twenty, thirty feet over the sea. The boys would wave to the crew and dream of being aboard. It seemed a life of impossible romance and freedom.\n\nEven then, when Ahmad was a skinny, tanned boy of fifteen, he knew he would be a sailor. He was careful not to tell his father, but he was certain he wanted to steer one of those ships. He wanted to guide great vessels around the world, to speak a dozen languages, to know the people of every nation.\n\nAbdulrahman never doubted that Ahmad would do this. Ahmad was, in Abdulrahman's eyes, capable of anything. He was his best friend, his hero and teacher. Ahmad taught him how to spear a fish, how to row a boat alone, how to dive from the great Phoenician stones on the island's southern wall. He would have followed Ahmad anywhere, and often did.\n\nThe boys stripped to their underwear and set out for a narrow archipelago of rocks. Abdulrahman and Ahmad found the spear they kept hidden in the stones and took turns diving for fish. Swimming came naturally to the boys of the Zeitoun family, and to all the children of Arwad. They could swim as soon as they could walk and would stay in the water, swimming and treading, for hours. When Ahmad and Abdulrahman emerged they would lay on a low stone wall, the sea on one side and the town's outer promenade on the other.\n\nThe promenade wasn't much to look at, a wide, crumbling paved area, dotted with litter, evidence of the island's half-hearted attempts to attract tourists. Most of the residents of Arwad didn't much care if visitors came or not. It was home, and a place where real industry happened: fish were caught, cleaned, and brought to the mainland, and ships, strong wooden sailboats of one or two or three masts, were built using methods perfected on the island centuries before.\n\nArwad had been a strategic military possession for an endless succession of sea powers: the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, the Greeks under Alexander, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Mongols, the Turks, the French, and the British. Various walls and battlements, in pieces and all but gone, spoke of past fortresses. Two small castles, scarcely altered since the Middle Ages, stood in the center of the island and could be explored by curious children. Abdulrahman and Ahmad often ran up the smooth stone stairs of the lookout tower by their home, pretending they were spotting invaders, sounding bells of warning, planning their defenses.\n\nBut usually their games took place in the water. They were never more than a few steps from the cool Mediterranean, and Abdulrahman would follow Ahmad to the shore and up the great Phoenician stones of the wall. From the top they could see into the windows of the higher-sitting dwellings of the town. Then they would turn to the sea and dive. After swimming, they would lay on the stone wall, the surface polished by the crashing waves and the feet of uncountable children. They warmed themselves with the heat of the rocks and the sun above. They would talk of heroes who had defended the island, of armies and saints who had stopped there. And they would talk of their plans, their own great deeds and explorations.\n\nSoon the two of them would grow quiet, near sleep, hearing the waves push against the island's outer walls, the ceaseless shushing of the sea. But in Zeitoun's half-dream, the sound of the ocean seemed wrong. It was both quieter and less rhythmic\u2014not an ebb and flow, but instead the constant whisper of a river.\n\nThe dissonance woke him.\n\n# II\n# TUESDAY AUGUST 30\n\nZeitoun opened his eyes again. He was home, in his daughter Nademah's room, under her covers, looking through the window at a dirty white sky. The sound continued, something like running water. But there was no rain, no leaks. He thought a pipe might have broken, but that couldn't be it; the sound wasn't right. This was more like a river, the movement of great volumes of water.\n\nHe sat up and looked down through the window that faced the backyard. He saw water, a wide sea of it. It was coming from the north. It flowed into the yard, under the house, rising quickly.\n\nHe couldn't make sense of it. The day before, the water had receded, as he had expected it to, but now it had returned, far stronger. And this water was different from the murky rainwater of the day before. This water was green and clear. This was lake water.\n\nAt that moment, Zeitoun knew that the levees had been overtopped or compromised. There could be no doubt. The city would soon be underwater. If the water was here, he knew, it was already covering most of New Orleans. He knew it would keep coming, would likely rise eight feet or more in his neighborhood, and more elsewhere. He knew the recovery would take months or years. He knew the flood had come.\n\nHe called Kathy.\n\n\"The water's coming,\" he said.\n\n\"What? No, no,\" she said. \"Levees broke?\"\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it.\"\n\nHe heard her stifle a sob.\n\n\"I better go,\" he said.\n\nHe hung up and went to work.\n\n_Elevate_ , he thought. _Elevate, elevate_. Everything had to be brought to the second floor. He recalled the worst of the predictions before the storm: if the levees broke, there would be ten, fifteen feet of water in some places. Methodically, he began to prepare. Everything of value had to be brought higher. The work was simply work, and he went about it calmly and quickly.\n\nHe took the TV, the DVD player, the stereo, all the electronics upstairs. He gathered all the kids' games and books and encyclopedias and carried those up next.\n\nThings were tense at the house in Baton Rouge. With the weather windy and grey, and so many people sharing a small house, tempers were flaring. Kathy thought it best to make her family scarce. She and her kids put away their sleeping bags and pillows and left in the Odyssey, intending to drive around most of the day, going to malls or restaurants\u2014anything to kill time. They would return late, after dinner, only to sleep. She prayed that they could return to New Orleans the next day.\n\nKathy called Zeitoun from the road.\n\n\"My jewelry box!\" she said.\n\nHe found that, and the good china, and he brought it all upstairs. He emptied the refrigerator; he left the freezer full. He put all the chairs on top of the dining room table. Unable to carry a heavy chest, he put it on a mattress and dragged it up the stairs. He placed one couch on top of another, sacrificing one to save the other. Then he got more books. He saved all the books.\n\nKathy called again. \"I told you not to cancel the property insurance,\" she said.\n\nShe was right. Just three weeks before, he had chosen not to renew the part of their flood insurance that covered their furniture, everything in the house. He hadn't wanted to spend the money. He admitted she was right, and knew she would remind him of it for years to come.\n\n\"Can we talk about it later?\" he asked.\n\nZeitoun went outside, the air humid and gusty. He tied the canoe to the back porch. The water was whispering through the cracks in the back fence, rising up. It was flowing into his yard at an astonishing rate. As he stood, it swallowed his ankles and crawled up his shins.\n\nBack inside, he continued to move everything of value upward. As he did, he watched the water erase the floor and climb the walls. In another hour there was three feet of water indoors. And his house was three feet above street level.\n\nBut the water was clean. It was translucent, almost green in tint. He watched it fill his dining room, momentarily struck by the beauty of the sight. It brought forth a vague memory of a storm on Arwad Island, when he was just a boy, when the Mediterranean rose up and swallowed the lower-sitting homes, the blue-green sea sitting inside living rooms and bedrooms and kitchens. The water breached and dodged the Phoenician stones surrounding the island without any difficulty at all.\n\nAt that moment, Zeitoun had an idea. He knew the fish in his tank wouldn't survive without filtration or food, so he reached inside and liberated them. He dropped them in the water that filled the house. It was the best chance they had. They swam down and away.\n\nUsing his cell phone, he talked to Kathy throughout the day. They reviewed what couldn't be saved, the furniture too large to carry upstairs. There were dressers, armoires. He removed all the drawers he could, carried upstairs everything that could be removed and lifted.\n\nThe water devoured the cabinets and windows. Zeitoun watched, dismayed, as it rose four, five, six feet in the house\u2014above the electrical box, the phone box. He would have no access to electricity or a landline for weeks.\n\nBy nightfall the neighborhood was under nine feet of water and Zeitoun could no longer go downstairs. He was spent; he had done all he could. He lay on Nademah's bed on the second floor and called Kathy. She was driving around with the kids, dreading a return to the house in Baton Rouge.\n\n\"I saved all I could,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm glad you were there,\" she said, and meant it. If he hadn't been at home they would have lost everything.\n\nThey talked about what would become of the house, of the city. They knew the house would have to be gutted, all the insulation and wiring replaced, the plaster and Sheetrock and paint and wallpaper. Everything, down to the studs, was gone. And if there was this much water Uptown, there was more in other neighborhoods. He thought of them\u2014the houses near the lake and the houses near the levees. They didn't stand a chance.\n\nAs they talked, Zeitoun realized his phone was dying. Without electricity, they both knew, when his battery was gone there would be no reliable way to call out.\n\n\"Better go,\" he said.\n\n\"Please leave,\" she said. \"Tomorrow.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, but even as he spoke, he was reconsidering. He had not anticipated being confined to this house for long. He knew there was enough food for a week or more, but now the situation would present a greater strain than he had planned.\n\n\"Tell the kids I said goodnight,\" he said.\n\nShe said she would.\n\nHe turned off his phone to conserve what power it had left.\n\nKathy was still driving. She'd exhausted all means of diversion and was about to go back to her brother's house when her phone rang again. It was Adnan. He was in Baton Rouge with his wife Abeer, he said, and they had no place to stay.\n\n\"Where'd you stay last night?\" Kathy asked.\n\n\"In the car,\" he said, sounding apologetic and ashamed.\n\n\"Oh my God,\" she said. \"Let me see what I can do.\"\n\nShe planned to ask Mary Ann and Patty once she got back to the house. It would be crowded, but there was no way a pregnant woman should be sleeping in a car when there was enough room at her family's house.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen Kathy returned to Andy's, it was ten o'clock and the rooms were dark. All the kids, save Nademah, were asleep in the car. She roused them and walked quietly into the house. After the kids were settled in their sleeping bags, Mary Ann appeared and confronted her.\n\n\"Where were you all day?\"\n\n\"Out,\" Kathy said. \"Trying to stay out of the way.\"\n\n\"Do you know how expensive gas is?\" Mary Ann said.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" Kathy said. \"I didn't know you were paying for my gas.\"\n\nKathy was exasperated, defeated. In the house, they were made to feel burdensome; now she was being scolded for leaving. She vowed to herself to get through the night and think of a new plan the next day. Maybe she could drive to Phoenix to stay with Yuko. It was a ludicrous idea, to travel fifteen hundred miles when her blood relatives lived fifty miles from New Orleans, but she'd run to Yuko's house before and could do so again.\n\nThe tension was bad enough already, but for Adnan and Abeer's sake, Kathy had to ask. After all, Mary Ann knew them; she'd met Adnan and Abeer many times. Couldn't they stay for one night?\n\n\"Absolutely not,\" Mary Ann said.\n\nOn the dark second floor, Zeitoun held a flashlight between his teeth, sifting through the pile of belongings he'd salvaged. He shelved the books he could. He boxed the certificates and pictures. He found pictures of his children when they were smaller, pictures from a vacation they'd all taken to Spain, pictures from their trip to Syria. He organized them, found a plastic bag, put them safely inside and then re-boxed them.\n\nIn another, older box he came upon another photo, sepia-toned and in a rickety frame, and paused. He hadn't seen it in years. He and his brother Luay and sister Zakiya were playing with their brother Mohammed, eighteen years older. They were all wrestling with him in the bedroom Zeitoun and Ahmad and all the younger boys had shared in Jableh. There little Abdulrahman was, on the far right, maybe five years old, his tiny fingers swallowed by Mohammed's huge hand.\n\nZeitoun stared at his brother's electric smile. Mohammed had everything then. He _was_ everything, the most famous and accomplished athlete in Syrian history. He was a long-distance ocean swimmer, one of the best the world had ever known. That he was from a country not well known for its coast made his achievements all the more remarkable. He had won races in Syria, Lebanon, and Italy. He could swim thirty miles at a stretch, and faster than anyone else. Faster than any Italian, any Englishman or Frenchman or Greek.\n\nZeitoun examined the picture more closely. Poor Mohammed, he thought, all his brothers and sisters swamping him. They did that to him whenever he was home. The races\u2014in Greece, Italy, the United States\u2014kept him away too long. He was feted by heads of state and featured in newspapers and magazines all over the world. They called him the Human Torpedo, the Nile Alligator, the Miracle. When he was home his siblings went wild, buzzing around him like flies.\n\nAnd then, at age twenty-four, he was gone. Killed in a car accident in Egypt, just before a race in the Suez Canal. Zeitoun still missed him terribly, though he was only six when it happened. After that, he knew Mohammed only through stories, photos, and tributes, and the monument to him that stood on the waterfront in Jableh, just down the street from their home. Growing up they had to pass it every day, and its presence made forgetting Mohammed, even momentarily, impossible.\n\nZeitoun sat and stared at the photo for a minute or so before putting it back in the box.\n\n* * *\n\nHe couldn't sleep inside the house. It was hotter this night, and in New Orleans he had never withstood this kind of heat without air-conditioning. Laying on sweat-soaked sheets, he had a thought. He looked in one of the upstairs closets for the tent he'd bought a few years back. The previous summer, he'd set it up in the backyard, and the kids had slept outside when the heat relented and allowed it.\n\nHe found the tent and crawled through the window of Nademah's room and onto the roof. Outside it was cooler, a breeze cutting through the stagnant air. The roof over the garage was flat, and he set up the tent there, securing it with books and a few cinder blocks. He dragged one of the kids' mattresses out and squeezed it through the tent's door. The difference was vast.\n\nLaying on the mattress, he listened for the movement of water. Was it still rising? He wouldn't be surprised. He would not be shocked if, come morning, there was twelve, thirteen feet of water covering the neighborhood.\n\nThe darkness around him was complete, the night silent but for the dogs. First a few, then dozens. From all corners of the neighborhood he heard them howling. The neighborhood was full of dogs, so he was accustomed to their barking. On any given night, one would become excited by something and set off the rest, an arrhythmic call-and-response that could last hours until they calmed, one by one, into silence. But this night was different. These dogs had been left behind, and now they knew it. There was a bewilderment, an anger in their cries that cut the night into shards.\n\n# WEDNESDAY AUGUST 31\n\nZeitoun woke with the sun and crawled out of his tent. The day was bright, and as far as he could see in any direction the city was underwater. Though every resident of New Orleans imagines great floods, knows that such a thing is possible in a city surrounded by water and ill-conceived levees, the sight, in the light of day, was beyond anything he had imagined. He could only think of Judgment Day, of Noah and forty days of rain. And yet it was so quiet, so still. Nothing moved. He sat on the roof and scanned the horizon, looking for any person, any animal or machine moving. Nothing.\n\nAs he did his morning prayers, a helicopter broke the silence, shooting across the treetops and heading downtown.\n\nZeitoun looked down from the roof to find the water at the same level as the night before. He felt some relief in knowing that it would likely remain there, or even drop a foot once it reached an equilibrium with Lake Pontchartrain.\n\nZeitoun sat beside his tent, eating cereal he had salvaged from the kitchen. Even with the water no longer rising, he knew he could do nothing at home. He had saved what he could save, and there was nothing else to do here until the water receded.\n\nWhen he had eaten, he felt restless, trapped. The water was too deep to wade into, its contents too suspect to swim through. But there was the canoe. He saw it, floating above the yard, tethered to the house. Amid the devastation of the city, standing on the roof of his drowned home, Zeitoun felt something like inspiration. He imagined floating, alone, through the streets of his city. In a way, this was a new world, uncharted. He could be an explorer. He could see things first.\n\nHe climbed down the side of the house and lowered himself into the canoe. He untied the rope and set out.\n\nHe paddled down Dart Street, the water flat and clear. And strangely, almost immediately, Zeitoun felt at peace. The damage to the neighborhood was extraordinary, but there was an odd calm in his heart. So much had been lost, but there was a stillness to the city that was almost hypnotic.\n\nHe coasted away from his home, passing over bicycles and cars, their antennae scraping the bottom of his canoe. Every vehicle, old and new, was gone, unsalvageable. The numbers filled his head: there were a hundred thousand cars lost in the flood. Maybe more. What would happen to them? Who would take them once the waters receded? In what hole could they all be buried?\n\nAlmost everyone he knew had left for a day or two, expecting little damage. He passed by their homes, so many of which he'd painted and even helped build, calculating how much was lost inside. It made him sick, the anguish this would cause. No one, he knew, had prepared for this, adequately or at all.\n\nHe thought of the animals. The squirrels, the mice, rats, frogs, possums, lizards. All gone. Millions of animals drowned. Only birds would survive this sort of apocalypse. Birds, some snakes, any beast that could find higher ground ahead of the rising tide. He looked for fish. If he was floating atop water shared with the lake, surely fish had been swept into the city. And, on cue, he saw a murky form darting between submerged tree branches.\n\n* * *\n\nHe remembered the dogs. He rested his paddle on his lap, coasting, trying to place the pets he'd heard crying in the dark.\n\nHe heard nothing.\n\nHe was conflicted about what he was seeing, a refracted version of his city, one where homes and trees were bisected and mirrored in this oddly calm body of water. The novelty of the new world brought forth the adventurer in him\u2014he wanted to see it all, the whole city, what had become of it. But the builder in him thought of the damage, how long it would take to rebuild. Years, maybe a decade. He wondered if the world at large could already see what he was seeing, a disaster mythical in scale and severity.\n\nIn his neighborhood, miles from the closest levee, the water had risen slowly enough that he knew it was unlikely that anyone had died in the flood. But with a shudder he thought of those closer to the breaches. He didn't know where the levees had failed, but he knew anyone living nearby would have been quickly overwhelmed.\n\nHe turned on Vincennes Place and headed south. Someone called his name. He looked up to see a client of his, Frank Noland, a fit and robust man of about sixty, leaning out from a second-story window. Zeitoun had done work on his house a few years ago. The Zeitouns would see Frank and his wife occasionally in the neighborhood, and they always exchanged warm greetings.\n\nZeitoun waved and paddled over.\n\n\"You got a cigarette?\" Frank asked, looking down.\n\nZeitoun shook his head no, and coasted closer to the window where Frank had appeared. It was a strange sensation, paddling over the man's yard; the usual barrier that would prevent one from guiding a vehicle up to the house was gone. He could glide directly from the street, diagonally across the lawn, and appear just a few feet below a second-story window. Zeitoun was just getting accustomed to the new physics of this world.\n\nFrank was shirtless, wearing only a pair of tennis shorts. His wife was behind him, and they had a guest in the house, another woman of similar age. Both women were dressed in T-shirts and shorts, suffering in the heat. It was early in the day, but the humidity was already oppressive.\n\n\"You think you could take me to where I can buy some smokes?\" Frank asked.\n\nZeitoun told him that he didn't think any store would be open and selling cigarettes this day.\n\nFrank sighed. \"See what happened to my motorcycle?\" He pointed to the porch next door.\n\nZeitoun remembered Frank talking about this motorcycle\u2014an antique bike that he had bought, restored, and lavished attention on. Now it was under six feet of water. As the water had risen the day before, Frank had moved it from the driveway up to the porch and then to his next-door neighbor's porch, which was higher. But now it was gone. They could still see the faint, blurred likeness of the machine, like a relic from a previous civilization.\n\nHe and Frank talked for a few minutes about the storm, the flood, how Frank had expected it but then hadn't expected it at all.\n\n\"Any chance you can take me to check on my truck?\" Frank asked. Zeitoun agreed, but told Frank that he'd have to continue on a while longer. Zeitoun was planning to check on one of his rental properties, about two miles away.\n\nFrank agreed to come along for the ride, and climbed down from the window and into the canoe. Zeitoun gave him the extra paddle and they were off.\n\n\"Brand new truck,\" Frank said. He had parked it on Fontainebleau, thinking that because the road was a foot or so higher than Vincennes, the truck would be spared. They made their way up six blocks to where Frank had parked the truck, and then Zeitoun heard Frank's quick intake of breath. The truck was under five feet of water and had migrated half a block. Like his motorcycle, it was gone, a thing of the past.\n\n\"You want to get anything out of it?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nFrank shook his head. \"I don't want to look at it. Let's go.\"\n\nThey continued on. Soon they saw an older man, a doctor Zeitoun knew, on the second-floor porch of a white house. They paddled into the yard and asked the doctor if he needed help. \"No, I've got somebody coming,\" he said. He had his housekeeper with him, he said, and they were well set up for the time being.\n\nA few doors down, Zeitoun and Frank came upon a house with a large white cloth billowing from the second-floor window. When they got closer, they saw a couple, a husband and wife in their seventies, leaning out of the window.\n\n\"You surrender?\" Frank asked.\n\nThe man smiled.\n\n\"You want to get out?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"Yes, we do,\" the man said.\n\nThey couldn't safely fit anyone else in the canoe, so Zeitoun and Frank promised to send someone back to the house as soon as they got to Claiborne. They assumed there would be activity there, that if anywhere would have a police or military presence, it would be Claiborne, the main thoroughfare nearby.\n\n\"We'll be right back,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nAs they were paddling away from the couple's house, they heard a faint female voice. It was a kind of moan, weak and tremulous.\n\n\"You hear that?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nFrank nodded. \"It's coming from that direction.\"\n\nThey paddled toward the sound and heard the voice again.\n\n\"Help.\"\n\nIt was coming from a one-story house on Nashville.\n\nThey coasted toward the front door and heard the voice again: \"Help me.\"\n\nZeitoun dropped his paddle and jumped into the water. He held his breath and swam to the porch. The steps came quicker than he thought. He jammed his knee against the masonry and let out a gasp. When he stood, the water was up to his neck.\n\n\"You okay?\" Frank asked.\n\nZeitoun nodded and made his way up the steps.\n\n\"Hello?\" the voice said, now hopeful.\n\nHe tried the front door. It was stuck. Zeitoun kicked the door. It wouldn't move. He kicked again. No movement. With the water now to his chest, he ran his body against the door. He did it again. And again. Finally it gave.\n\n* * *\n\nInside he found a woman hovering above him. She was in her seventies, a large woman, over two hundred pounds. Her patterned dress was spread out on the surface of the water like a great floating flower. Her legs dangled below. She was holding on to a bookshelf.\n\n\"Help me,\" she said.\n\nZeitoun talked gently to the woman, assuring her that she would be taken care of. He knew that in all likelihood she had been there, clinging to her furniture, for twenty-four hours or more. An elderly woman like this would have no chance of swimming to safety, much less have the strength to cut a hole through her roof. At least the water was warm. She might not have survived.\n\nZeitoun pulled her out the front door and caught a glimpse of Frank in the canoe. His jaw had gone slack, his eyes disbelieving.\n\nNo one knew what to do next. It would be very difficult to fit a woman of her size into the canoe under normal circumstances. And lifting her into it would require more than two men. Even if they could lift her and fit her inside, they couldn't possibly fit all three of them. The canoe would certainly capsize.\n\nHe and Frank had a quick whispered conversation. They had no choice but to leave her and find help. They would paddle quickly to Claiborne and flag down a boat. They told the woman the plan. She was unhappy to be left alone again, but there was no choice.\n\nThey reached Claiborne in a few minutes and immediately saw what they were looking for: a fan boat. Zeitoun had never seen one in person, but they were familiar from movies. This was a military model, loud, with a great fan anchored perpendicularly to the rear. It was headed directly toward them.\n\nZeitoun thought it was very lucky to have found another craft so quickly, and he was filled with something like pride, knowing that he had promised help and could now deliver it.\n\nHe and Frank positioned their canoe in the path of the boat and waved their arms. The fan boat came straight for them, and when it was close, Zeitoun could see that there were four or five uniformed officers aboard; he wasn't sure if they were police or military, but he was very happy to see them. He waved, and Frank waved, both of them yelling \"Stop!\" and \"Help!\"\n\nBut the fan boat did not stop. It swung around the canoe holding Zeitoun and Frank, not even slowing down, and continued down Claiborne. The men aboard the fan boat barely glanced at them.\n\nThe fan boat's wake nearly tipped their canoe. Zeitoun and Frank sat still, gripping either side until the waves subsided. They hardly had time to exchange incredulous looks when another boat came their way. Again it was a fan boat, also with four military personnel aboard, and again Zeitoun and Frank waved and called for help. Again the fan boat swung around them and continued without a word.\n\nThis happened repeatedly over the next twenty minutes. Ten of these vessels, all staffed by soldiers or police officers, ignored their canoe and their calls for assistance. Where were these boats going, what were they looking for, if not for residents of the city asking for help? It defied belief.\n\nFinally a different sort of boat approached. It was a small fishing boat manned by two young men. Though Zeitoun and Frank were disheartened and unsure if anyone would stop, they gave it a try. They stood in the canoe, they waved, they yelled. This boat stopped.\n\n\"We need help,\" Frank said.\n\n\"Okay, let's go,\" the men on the boat said.\n\nThe young men threw a line to Zeitoun, who tied it to the canoe. The motorboat towed Zeitoun and Frank to the woman's house, and once they were close, the young men cut the engine and coasted toward the porch.\n\nZeitoun jumped into the water again and swam to her door. The woman was exactly as they'd left her, in her foyer, floating near the ceiling.\n\nNow they only had to figure out how to get her into the fishing boat. She couldn't lift herself into the boat; that wasn't an option. She couldn't drop down into the water for leverage. It was too deep and she could not swim.\n\n\"You have a ladder, ma'am?\" one of the young men asked.\n\nShe did. She directed them to the detached garage at the end of the driveway. Zeitoun dropped into the water, swam to the garage, and retrieved it.\n\nWhen he brought it back, he set it on the ground and against the boat. The plan was that the woman would let go of the bookshelf, grab the ladder, put her feet onto it, and climb up until she was above the boat and able to step into the hull.\n\nZeitoun held the ladder while the two young men steadied it against the boat, ready to receive her. It seemed an ingenious plan.\n\nBut she couldn't climb the ladder. She had a bad leg, she said, and couldn't put pressure on it. It took a certain degree of agility, and she was eighty years old, weakened by staying awake for twenty-four hours while floating near her ceiling, thinking only that she might drown in her own home.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she said.\n\nThere was only one option now, they decided. They would use the ladder as a sort of gurney. They would prop one end on the side of the fishing boat, and one of the young men would stand on the porch, holding the other side. They would then have to lift it high enough to get her over the lip of the boat, and far enough in that she could roll into the hull.\n\nZeitoun realized that two men, one on either end of the ladder, would not be enough to lift a woman of over two hundred pounds. He knew he would have to push from below. So when the two young men were in position, and the woman was ready, Zeitoun took a deep breath and went under. From below the surface, he could see the woman let go of the bookshelf and grab the ladder. It was awkward, but she managed to place herself atop it, as if it were a kind of raft.\n\nAs she put weight on the ladder, Zeitoun positioned his shoulders under it and pushed up. The motion was akin to a shoulder-press machine he'd once used at a gym. He straightened his legs, and as he did, the ladder rose from the water until he saw light breaking the surface, until he felt the air on his face and was finally able to exhale.\n\nThe woman rolled into the bed of the boat. It was not a graceful landing, but she managed to sit up. Though she was wet and breathing heavily, she was unhurt.\n\nZeitoun shuddered as he watched her recover. It was not right to watch a woman of her age suffer like this. The situation had stolen her dignity, and it pained him to bear witness.\n\nZeitoun climbed back into the canoe. Frank, smiling and shaking his head, stretched out his hand from the fishing boat.\n\n\"That was something,\" Frank said.\n\nZeitoun shook his hand and smiled.\n\nThe men sat in silence, letting the woman determine when it was time to go. They knew it was an impossible thing for her to see her house like this, untold damage and loss within. At her age, and with the years it would take to restore the home, she would likely never return. They gave her a moment. Finally she nodded and they arranged their convoy. Zeitoun was alone in the canoe, being towed behind. He was soaked and exhausted.\n\nWith Frank directing the fishing boat, they made their way toward the couple who had been waving the white cloth. On the way there, they heard another cry for help.\n\nIt was another older couple in their seventies, waving from their second-story window.\n\n\"You ready to leave?\" Frank asked.\n\n\"We are,\" the man in the window said.\n\nThe young fishermen brought the caravan to the window, and the couple, fit and agile, lowered themselves into it.\n\nWith six people now aboard the fishing boat, they arrived at the white-flag house. The couple living there lowered themselves down, making the number in the fishing boat eight. The young men had seen a temporary medical staging ground set up at the intersection of Napoleon and St. Charles, and they agreed that they would deliver the passengers there. It was time for Zeitoun and Frank to part ways with their companions. Frank stepped back into the canoe and said goodbye.\n\n\"Good luck with everything,\" one of the young men said.\n\n\"You too,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nThey had never exchanged names.\n\n* * *\n\nIn Baton Rouge, Kathy was again driving to kill time, her car full of children. Needing distraction from the news on the radio\u2014it was getting worse every hour\u2014she stopped periodically at whatever stores or restaurants were open. Zeitoun had sounded so calm on the phone the previous night, before his phone had given out. But since then conditions in the city had devolved. She was hearing reports of unchecked violence, widespread chaos, thousands presumed dead. What was her lunatic husband doing there? She tried his phone again and again, hoping he had somehow found a way to charge it. She tried the home phone, in case the water had miraculously dropped below the phone box and the wiring was undamaged. She got nothing. The lines were dead.\n\nOn the radio, they were reporting that another ten thousand National Guardsmen were being sent to the region, about one-third of them directed to maintain order. There would soon be twenty-one thousand National Guard troops in the area, coming from all over the country\u2014West Virginia, Utah, New Mexico, Missouri. How could her husband be so calm when every branch of the armed forces was scrambling?\n\nShe turned off the radio and tried Zeitoun again. Nothing. She knew she shouldn't worry yet, but her mind took dark turns. If she was out of touch with her husband already, how would she know if anything was wrong? How would she know if he was alive, in danger, dead? She was getting ahead of herself. He was in no danger. The winds were gone, and now it was just water, placid water. And troops were on their way. No cause for worry.\n\nReturning to her family's house in Baton Rouge, she found her mother there. She had come to deliver ice. She greeted all the kids and looked at Kathy.\n\n\"Why don't you take off that thing and relax?\" she said, pointing to Kathy's hijab. \"He's not here. Be yourself.\"\n\nKathy suppressed a dozen things she wanted to say, and instead channeled her rage into packing. She would take the kids and go to a motel, a shelter. Anywhere. Maybe to Arizona. It just wasn't working in Baton Rouge. And it was all so much worse not knowing where Zeitoun was. Why did that man insist on staying? It was a cruel thing, really. He wanted to make sure that his family was safe, but Kathy, his wife, wasn't afforded the same certainty. When they next spoke, she was determined to get him to leave the city. It didn't matter anymore why he wanted to stay. Forget the house and property. Nothing could be worth it.\n\nIn New Orleans, Zeitoun was invigorated. He had never felt such urgency and purpose. In his first day in his flooded city, he had already assisted in the rescue of five elderly residents. There was a reason, he now knew, that he had remained in the city. He had felt compelled to stay by a power beyond his own reckoning. He was needed.\n\nZeitoun and Frank's next stop was Zeitoun's property, back on Claiborne at number 5010. He and Kathy had owned the home, a two-story residence, for five years. It was a rental unit, with four to six tenants at any given time.\n\nWhen they arrived, they found Todd Gambino, one of Zeitoun's tenants, on the front porch, a bottle of beer in his hand. Todd was a stout man in his late thirties, and had lived there as long as the Zeitouns had owned the building. He worked as a mechanic at a SpeeDee Oil Change and Tune-Up franchise most of the week, and had a part-time job delivering lost luggage for the airport. He was a good tenant; they'd never had a late check or any sort of problem from him.\n\nHe stood up, incredulous, as Zeitoun approached.\n\n\"What're you doing here?\" he asked.\n\n\"Really? I came to check on the building,\" Zeitoun said, smiling, knowing how ludicrous it sounded. \"I wanted to check on you.\"\n\nTodd couldn't believe it.\n\nZeitoun and Frank got out of the canoe and tied it to the porch. They were both happy to stand on solid ground again.\n\nTodd offered them beers. Zeitoun passed. Frank accepted and sat on the porch steps while Zeitoun went inside.\n\nTodd lived in the first-floor unit of the building, and had brought all of his possessions up to the second floor. The front rooms and hallway of the house were full of furniture, chairs and desks stacked on tables and couches. Various electronics saved from the flood were now resting on the dining-room table. It looked like a haphazard estate sale.\n\nThe damage to the house was extensive but not irreparable. Zeitoun knew the basement would be a loss, and might not be habitable for some time. But the first and second floors had not been badly harmed, and this gave Zeitoun comfort. There was a lot of dirt, mud, grime\u2014much of it from Todd moving things upstairs and rushing in and out of the house\u2014but the damage could have been far worse.\n\nZeitoun learned from Todd that because the house's phone box was above the water line, the landline was still working. He immediately dialed Kathy's cell phone.\n\n\"Hello? I'm here,\" he said.\n\nShe almost screamed. She hadn't realized how worried she'd been. _\"Alhamdulilah_ ,\" she said, Arabic for _Praise be to God_. \"Now get out.\"\n\nHe told her he would not be leaving. He told her about the woman in the ballooning dress in the foyer, how he had lifted the ladder to save her. He told her about the fishermen, and Frank, and the two elderly couples. He was talking so fast she laughed.\n\n\"So when do you plan to leave?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't,\" he said.\n\nHe tried to explain. If he left, what would he do? He would be in a home full of women, with nothing to occupy himself. He would eat, watch TV, and be left to worry from afar. Here, in the city, he could stay and monitor developments. He could help where needed. They had a half-dozen properties to look after, he reminded her. He was safe, he had food, he could take care of himself and prevent further damage.\n\n\"Really? I want to see this,\" he said.\n\nHe wanted to see everything that had happened and would happen with his own eyes. He cared about this city and believed in his heart he could be of use.\n\n\"So you feel safe?\" she asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said. \"This is good.\"\n\nKathy knew that she couldn't dissuade him. But how would she explain to her children, as they watched images of the city drowning, that their father was there by choice, paddling around in a secondhand canoe? She tried to reason with him, noting that the TV reports were saying that things were only getting worse, that the water would soon become infected with all manner of pollutants\u2014oil, garbage, animal remains\u2014and that diseases would soon follow.\n\nZeitoun promised to be careful. He promised to call back at noon the next day, from the house on Claiborne.\n\n\"Call every day at noon,\" she said.\n\nHe said he would.\n\n\"You better,\" she said.\n\n* * *\n\nThey hung up. Kathy turned on the television. The news led with reports of lawlessness and death. The media consensus was that New Orleans had descended into a \"third-world\" state. Sometimes this comparison was made with regard to the conditions, where hospitals were not open or working, where clean water and other basic services weren't available. In other instances, the words were spoken over images of African American residents wilting in the heat outside the Morial Convention Center or standing on rooftops waving for help. There were unverified reports of roving gangs of armed men, of guns being fired at helicopters trying to rescue patients from the roof of a hospital. Residents were being referred to as refugees.\n\nKathy was certain Zeitoun was unaware of the level of danger being reported. He may have felt safe where he was in Uptown, but what if there really was chaos, and that chaos was simply making its way to him? She was reluctant to believe the hyperbolic and racially charged news coverage, but still, things were devolving. Most of those left in the city were trying desperately to get out. She couldn't stand it. She called the house on Claiborne again. No answer.\n\nHe was already gone. Zeitoun and Frank were paddling back to Zeitoun's house on Dart Street. As they made their way home, passing a half-dozen fan boats along the way, it occurred to Zeitoun that he and Frank had heard the people they had helped, in particular the old woman floating inside her home, because they were in a canoe. Had they been in a fan boat, the noise overwhelming, they would have heard nothing. They would have passed by, and the woman likely would not have survived another night. It was the very nature of this small, silent craft that allowed them to hear the quietest cries. The canoe was good, the silence was crucial.\n\n* * *\n\nZeitoun dropped Frank at his house and made for home. His paddle kissed the clean water, his shoulders worked in perfect rhythm. Zeitoun had traveled five, six miles already that day, and he wasn't tired. Night was falling, and he knew he had to be home, safe on his roof. But he was sorry to see the day end.\n\nHe tied the canoe to the back porch and climbed up into the house. He retrieved a portable grill and brought it to the roof. He made a small fire and cooked chicken breasts and vegetables he'd thawed that day. The night fell as he ate, and soon the sky was darker than any he'd known in New Orleans. The sole light came from a helicopter circling downtown, looking tiny and powerless in the distance.\n\nUsing bottled water, Zeitoun cleaned up and prayed on the roof. He crawled into the tent, his body aching but his mind alive, playing back the events of the day. He and Frank really had saved that woman, hadn't they? They had. It was a fact. They had brought four others to safety, too. And there would be more to do tomorrow. How could he explain to Kathy, to his brother Ahmad, that he was so thankful he had stayed in the city? He was certain he had been called to stay, that God knew he would be of service if he remained. His choice to stay in the city had been God's will.\n\nToo excited to sleep, he went back through the window and into the house. He wanted to find the photo of Mohammed again. He'd forgotten who was with him in the picture\u2014was it Ahmad?\u2014and he wanted to see the expression on Mohammed's face, that world-conquering smile. He retrieved the box of pictures, and while looking for that one he found another.\n\nHe'd forgotten about this photo. There he was, Mohammed with the vice president of Lebanon. Zeitoun hadn't seen the image for a few years. Mohammed wasn't even twenty, and he'd won a race starting in Saida and ending in Beirut, a distance of twenty-six miles. The crowd was stunned. He had come out of nowhere, Mohammed Zeitoun, a sailor's son from the tiny island of Arwad, and stunned everyone with his strength and endurance. Zeitoun knew his father, Mahmoud, was somewhere in the crowd. He never missed a race. But it had not always been so.\n\nMahmoud wanted Mohammed, and all of his sons, working on dry land, so Mohammed spent his early teenage years as a craftsman, laying brick and apprenticing for an ironsmith. He was a powerfully built young man, and was finished with school at fourteen. At eighteen he looked much older, with a full mustache and a square jaw. He was both a workhorse and a charmer, admired equally by his elders and the young women in town.\n\nWith his father's grudging approval, Mohammed crewed on local fishing boats in the afternoons and evenings, and even at fourteen, after a full day of fishing miles from land, Mohammed insisted on swimming to shore. The other fishermen would have barely pulled in the last net when they would hear a splash and see Mohammed cutting through the sea, racing them to the beach.\n\nMohammed didn't tell his father about such endeavors, and he certainly didn't tell him when, a few years later, he decided that he was destined to be the world's greatest long-distance swimmer.\n\nIt was 1958. Egypt and Syria, reacting to a number of political factors, including growing American influence in the region, merged, creating the United Arab Republic. The union was meant to create a more powerful bloc, one that might grow to include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others. There was wide public support for the alliance, pride bursting from the streets and windows of Syria and Egypt, the citizens of both countries seeing the union as a step along the way to a broader alignment between the Arab states. There were parades and celebrations from Alexandria to Lattakia.\n\nOne of the commemorative events was a race between Jableh and Lattakia, in which swimmers from all over the Arab world would swim thirty kilometers through the Mediterranean. It was the first race of its kind on the Syrian coast, and eighteen-year-old Mohammed followed every step, from the preparations to the race itself. He watched the swimmers train, studying their strokes and regimen, longing to be part of it himself. He managed to be appointed to the crew of the guide boat for one of the competitors, Mouneer Deeb, which would keep pace with him along the race's route.\n\nAlong the way, unable to contain himself, Mohammed jumped in and swam alongside Deeb and the other contestants. He not only kept up with the professionals, he impressed one of the judges. \"That boy is great,\" the judge said. \"He is going to be a champion.\" From that day on Mohammed thought of little else but the fulfillment of that prophecy.\n\nStill only eighteen years old, he worked mornings as a mason and ironsmith, afternoons as a fisherman, and at night he began to train for the next year's race. He kept his training secret from his father, even when he undertook two long-distance tests, one between Lattakia and Jableh and another between Jableh and Baniyas. Soon enough, though, Mahmoud learned of his son's aspirations, and, fearing he would lose his son to the unforgiving sea that had almost taken his own life, he forbade him from swimming long distances. He wanted him out of fishing, away from the sea. He wanted his son alive.\n\nBut Mohammed could not stop. As difficult as it was to disobey his father, he continued to train. Telling no one in his family, Mohammed entered the next year's race. As he stepped out of the water in Lattakia, the cheers were deafening. He had won handily.\n\nBefore Mohammed could return home, an old friend of Mahmoud's, himself a champion swimmer, visited the Zeitoun house, congratulating Mahmoud on his son's victory. This is how Mahmoud learned that Mohammed Zeitoun was the best swimmer in all of Syria.\n\nBy the time Mohammed arrived home that night, Mahmoud had given up his resistance. If his son wanted this, and if his son was destined to swim\u2014if God had made him a swimmer\u2014then Mahmoud could not stand in the way. He bought Mohammed a bus ticket to Damascus to train and compete with the best swimmers in the region.\n\nZeitoun found another photo. Mohammed's first major victory came in that same year, 1959, in a race in Lebanon. The field was crowded, filled with well-known names, but Mohammed not only finished first, he did so in record time: nine hours and fifty-five minutes. This photo, Zeitoun was almost sure, was taken during the celebration afterward. Thousands were there, applauding his brother.\n\nHow old was Zeitoun at the time? He did the calculations in his head. Just a year. He was maybe one year old. He remembered nothing of those early wins.\n\nThe next year, Mohammed entered the famed race between Capri and Naples, a contest that attracted the best swimmers in the world. The favorite was Alfredo Camarero, an Argentinean, who had placed first or second in the race five years running. Mohammed was an unknown when the race began at six in the morning, and after eight hours, when he was approaching shore, he had no idea that he was in the lead. It wasn't until he stepped out of the sea, hearing shrieks of surprise and the chanting of his name, that he realized he'd won. \"Zeitoun the Arab has won!\" they cheered. No one could believe it. A Syrian winning the world's greatest long-distance competition? Camarero told everyone that Mohammed was the strongest swimmer he had ever seen.\n\nMohammed dedicated the victory to President Nasir. In return, Nasir made the twenty-year-old Mohammed an honorary lieutenant in the navy. The prince of Kuwait attended the race and celebrated him at an honorary dinner in Naples. The next year Mohammed won the Capri-to-Naples race again, this time breaking the course record set by Camarero by fifteen minutes. Mohammed was now indisputably the best ocean swimmer in the world.\n\nAs a boy, Abdulrahman was enthralled, proud beyond measure. To grow up in that house, with a brother like that, to bask every day in the glory he'd brought to the family\u2014his siblings' pride in Mohammed fueled how they felt when they awoke each day, how they walked and talked and were perceived in Jableh and Arwad and everywhere across Syria. It changed, permanently, how they saw the world. Mohammed's accomplishments implied\u2014proved, really\u2014that the Zeitouns were extraordinary. It was incumbent, thereafter, on each and every child to live up to that legacy.\n\nIt had been forty-one years since Mohammed's death. Mohammed's incredible rise and premature passing had shaped the trajectory of Zeitoun's family in general and of Abdulrahman in particular, but he didn't like to dwell on it. In his less generous moments he believed his brother had been stolen from him, that the unfairness of taking such a beautiful man so young put many things into question. But he knew he was wrong to think this way, and it was unproductive in any case. All he could do now was honor his brother's memory. Be strong, be brave, be true. Endure. Be as good as Mohammed was.\n\nZeitoun tucked himself into the tent and fell into a fitful sleep. All over the neighborhood, the dogs were mad with hunger. Their barking was wild, unmoored, spiraling.\n\n# THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 1\n\nBy six a.m., Kathy had the Odyssey packed and the kids buckled in. Her sisters were still asleep as she quietly backed out of the driveway, leaving Baton Rouge. It was fifteen hundred miles to Phoenix.\n\n\"Are we really leaving Mekay?\" Nademah asked.\n\nEven Kathy couldn't believe it, but what else could they do? She had begged Patty to let her leave the dog there for a week; she'd given dog food and money to one of Patty's teenage sons to care for poor Mekay. It was better than putting her in a kennel, and far better than trucking the dog all the way to Phoenix and back. Kathy didn't have the nerves for it. It was hard enough with four kids.\n\nThey were beginning what would be a three-day drive, minimum\u2014more likely four or five. What was she doing? It was crazy to drive four days in a car full of kids. And making the decision without her husband! It had been so long since she'd been in such a situation. But she had no choice. She couldn't stay in Baton Rouge for however many weeks it would be before New Orleans was habitable again. She hadn't even begun to think about school, about clothes\u2014they'd only packed for two days\u2014or about what they would do for money while the business was at a standstill.\n\nHeading west on I-10, she felt some measure of relief in knowing that at the very least, on the open road she would have some time to think.\n\nOut on the highway, she dialed the Claiborne house. Though it was hours before their agreed-upon time, she called in case Zeitoun had gotten there first and was waiting to call her. The phone rang three times.\n\n\"Hello?\" a man said. The voice was an American's, not her husband's. It was gruff, impatient.\n\n\"Is Abdulrahman Zeitoun there?\" she asked.\n\n\"What? Who?\"\n\nShe repeated her husband's name.\n\n\"No, no one here by that name.\"\n\n\"Is this 5010 Claiborne?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I think so,\" the man said.\n\n\"Who is this?\" she asked.\n\nThere was a pause, then the line went dead.\n\n* * *\n\nKathy drove for a mile before she could even wrap her mind around what had just happened. Who was that voice? It was not one of the tenants; she knew them all. It was a stranger, someone who had found a way into the house and was now answering the phone. Again her mind took quick turns downward. What if the man on the phone had killed her husband and robbed the house and moved in?\n\nShe pulled into a McDonald's and parked, calming herself down. She turned on the radio and almost immediately came upon a report from New Orleans. She knew she shouldn't listen, but she couldn't help it. The reports of lawlessness were worse than before, and Governor Blanco, in a statement directed to would-be criminals, warned that war-hardened U.S. soldiers were on the way to New Orleans to restore order at any cost. \"I have one message for these hoodlums,\" she said. \"These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will.\"\n\nKathy knew she should turn the dial before the kids heard any of it, but it was too late.\n\n\"Did they say the city was flooded, Mama?\"\n\n\"Is our house under water?\"\n\n\"Are they shooting people, Mama?\"\n\nKathy turned the radio off. \"Please, babies, don't ask me questions.\"\n\nShe steeled herself and got back on the highway, determined to drive straight through to Phoenix. She just had to get to Yuko and she would be okay. Yuko would settle her. Of course Zeitoun was okay, she told herself. The man on the phone could have been anyone. There would be nothing unusual about people sharing a phone when most of the city's landlines had ceased to function.\n\nFor a few minutes she was calm. But the kids started in with the questions again.\n\n\"What happened to our house, Mama?\"\n\n\"Where's Daddy?\"\n\nThis got Kathy's mind going again. What if that man _was_ her husband's killer? What if she had just spoken to the man who had murdered him? She felt as if she had been watching, from above, the convergence of forces on her husband. Only she knew what was happening in the city, the madness, the suffering and desperation. He had no television, couldn't know the extent of the chaos. She had seen the images from helicopters, the press conferences, she had heard the statistics, the stories of gangs and rampant crime. Kathy bit her lip. \"Babies, don't ask me right now. Don't ask me.\"\n\n\"When are we going home?\"\n\n\"Please!\" Kathy snapped. \"Just leave it alone for a minute. Let me think!\" She couldn't hold it in anymore. She could barely see the road. The lines were disappearing. She felt it coming on and pulled over. She was blind with tears, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, her head against the steering wheel.\n\n\"What's wrong, Mama?\"\n\nThe highway flew beside her.\n\nIn a few minutes, she managed to gather herself enough to pull into a rest stop. She called Yuko.\n\n\"Don't drive another foot,\" Yuko said.\n\nWithin twenty minutes a plan was shaped. Kathy stayed put while Yuko's husband Ahmaad looked into flights. Kathy would only have to make it as far as Houston. Yuko would arrange for Kathy and the kids to spend the night at a friend's house there. Ahmaad would fly to Houston immediately, and in the morning he would meet her there and drive the family all the way to Phoenix.\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Kathy asked.\n\n\"I'm your sister. You're my sister. You're all I have,\" Yuko said. Her mother Kameko had passed away that year. The loss had been devastating to both Yuko and Kathy.\n\nThis got Kathy crying all over again.\n\nThat morning Zeitoun woke after nine, exhausted from the howling of the dogs. He was determined this day to find them.\n\nAfter his prayers, he paddled out over his flooded yard. The dogs seemed very near. He crossed the street and went left on Dart. Only a few houses down, he found the source.\n\nIt was a house he knew well. He paddled closer, and the dogs went wild, their desperate sounds coming from within. Now he had to find a way inside. The first story was flooded, so he assumed the dogs\u2014two of them, he guessed\u2014were trapped on the second. There was a many-boughed tree near the house. He paddled to it and tied the canoe to the trunk.\n\nHe lifted himself into the tree, climbing until he could see through a second-story window. He saw no dogs, but he could hear them. They were in that house, and they knew he was close. The tree where he was standing was about ten feet from the window. He couldn't jump. It was too far.\n\nAt that moment, he spotted a plank, a foot wide and sixteen feet long, floating in the sideyard. He climbed down, paddled to the plank, brought it to the house, and leaned it against the tree. He climbed up again and lifted the plank to create a bridge between the tree and the roof. He was about sixteen feet off the ground, about eight feet above the waterline.\n\nThe bridge he created was not so different from the scaffolding he used every day in his work, so after testing it quickly with the weight of one foot, he walked across and onto the roof.\n\nFrom there he pried a window open and ducked into the house. The barking grew louder and more urgent. He walked through the bedroom he'd arrived in, hearing the dogs grow more hysterical. As he strode through the second-floor hallway he saw them: two dogs, a black Labrador and a smaller mixed breed, in a cage. They had no food, and their water dish was empty. They seemed confused enough to bite him, but he didn't hesitate. He opened the cage and let them out. The Labrador ran past him and out of the room. The smaller dog cowered in the cage. Zeitoun stepped back to give him room, but he stayed where he was.\n\nFor the Labrador, there was nowhere to go. He tried the stairs and saw the water reached to just a few inches below the second floor. He returned to Zeitoun, who had a plan.\n\n\"Wait here,\" he told them.\n\nHe walked back across the plank bridge, climbed down the tree and into his canoe, and paddled back to his house. He climbed up to the roof, slipped through his window, and went down the few steps not underwater. Knowing Kathy kept the freezer stocked with meat and vegetables, he leaned down and removed two steaks, quickly closing the door to keep the finite cold from escaping. He walked back up to the roof, grabbed two plastic water bottles, and dropped them and the steaks into the canoe below. He shimmied down and returned to the house of the dogs.\n\nAgain they sensed him approaching, and this time they were both waiting by the window, their heads peeking over the sill. When they smelled the meat, frozen though it was, they began barking wildly, their tails wagging. Zeitoun refilled their water dish and they dove for it. After drinking their fill they went to work on the steaks, gnawing on them until the meat thawed. Zeitoun watched for a few minutes, tired and content, until he heard more barking. There were other dogs, and he had a freezer full of food. He went back to his house to prepare.\n\nHe stacked more meat into his canoe and went in search of the other animals left behind. Almost immediately after leaving his house he heard a distinct barking, muffled, coming from almost the same location as the dogs he'd just found.\n\nHe paddled closer, wondering if there was actually a third dog in the home he'd just been in. He anchored the canoe to the tree again, took two steaks with him, and climbed up. From the middle bough he looked this time to the neighboring house, the one on the left, and saw two more dogs, jumping against the glass.\n\nHe pulled the plank away from the first house and arranged it so it extended to the other. The dogs, seeing him coming, went wild, leaping in place.\n\nIn a moment, he had opened the window and stepped in, the two dogs jumping at him. He dropped the two steaks and the dogs pounced, forgetting about him entirely. He needed to give them water, too, so he again paddled home and brought more water bottles and a bowl back to them.\n\nZeitoun left the window open enough to allow the dogs to get fresh air, then walked across the plank again and climbed down the tree to his canoe. He paddled off, thinking it was about time to call Kathy.\n\n* * *\n\nAs he paddled, he noticed that the water was growing more contaminated. It was darker now, opaque, streaked with oil and gasoline, polluted with debris, food, garbage, clothing, pieces of homes. But Zeitoun was in high spirits. He felt invigorated by what he'd been able to do for the dogs, that he was there for those animals, and four dogs that almost certainly would have starved would now live because he had stayed behind, and because he had bought that old canoe. He couldn't wait to tell Kathy.\n\nBy noon he'd returned to the house on Claiborne. Today Todd was gone and the house was empty. He went inside and called.\n\n\"Oh thank God!\" Kathy said. \"Thank God thank God thank God. Where have you been?\" She and the kids were still driving to Houston. She pulled over.\n\n\"What're you worried about?\" Zeitoun asked. \"I said I'd call at noon. It's noon.\"\n\n\"Who was that man?\" she asked.\n\n\"What man?\" he asked.\n\nShe explained that when she'd called earlier that day, someone else had answered the phone. This was unsettling to Zeitoun. As they spoke, he looked around the house. There was no sign of theft or crime of any kind. There were no broken locks or windows. Maybe the man had been a friend of Todd's? He promised Kathy it was nothing at all to worry about, that he would get to the bottom of it.\n\nKathy, calmer now, was glad to hear that he had been able to help the dogs, that he was feeling useful. But she didn't want him in New Orleans anymore, no matter how many dogs he was feeding or how many people he was finding and saving.\n\n\"I really want you to leave,\" she said. \"The news coming out of the city, it's so bad. There's looting, killing. Something bad is going to happen to you.\"\n\nZeitoun could hear how worried she was. But he hadn't seen anything like the chaos she described. If it existed at all\u2014and she knew how the media was\u2014it would be downtown. Where he was, he said, it was so quiet, so calm, so otherworldly and strange, that he couldn't possibly be in danger. Maybe, he said, there was a reason he'd stayed, a reason he'd bought that canoe, a reason he was put in this particular situation at this particular time.\n\n\"I feel like I'm supposed to be here,\" he said.\n\nKathy was silent.\n\n\"It's God's will,\" he said.\n\nShe had no answer to this.\n\nThey moved on to practical matters. Her cell phone never worked well at Yuko's house in Phoenix, so she gave Zeitoun the landline there. He wrote it down on a piece of paper and left it by the Claiborne phone.\n\n\"Get the kids into school when you get to Phoenix,\" he said.\n\nKathy rolled her eyes.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said.\n\n\"I love you and them,\" he said, and they hung up.\n\nHe set out again, and immediately saw Charlie Ray, who lived just to the right of the Claiborne house. He was a blue-eyed carpenter in his fifties, a friendly and easygoing native Zeitoun had known for years. He was sitting on his porch like today was a day like any other.\n\n\"You stayed too,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"I guess I did.\"\n\n\"You need anything? Water?\"\n\nCharlie didn't, but said he might soon. Zeitoun promised to check in with him again, and paddled off, curious about how many people had remained in the city. If Frank stayed, and Todd and Charlie had weathered the storm, surely there were tens of thousands more. He was not alone in his defiance.\n\nHe continued on, knowing he should feel tired. But he was not at all tired. He had never felt stronger.\n\nThis day he ventured closer to downtown, passing families wading through the water, pushing laundry tubs full of their possessions. He paddled by a pair of women pushing an inflatable baby pool, their clothes and food inside. Each time, Zeitoun asked if he could help, and occasionally they would ask for a bottle or two of water. He would hand them whatever he had. He was finding so many things\u2014bottled water, MREs, canned food\u2014and whenever he saw anyone, he gave them whatever was in his canoe. He had plenty for himself at home, and didn't want any more weighing him down.\n\nHe paddled up to the I-10 ramp at Claiborne and Poydras, a concrete structure about ten feet above the waterline. Dozens of people were there, waiting for rescue. A helicopter had dropped off water and food, and they seemed to be well provisioned. They asked Zeitoun if he wanted any water, and he said that he had enough, but that he would bring it to those who needed it. They gave him a case. As he turned his canoe around he saw a half-dozen dogs with the group, most of them puppies. They seemed healthy and well-fed, and were keeping cool from the heat under the shade of the cars.\n\nZeitoun, assuming that whatever was ailing the city was likely worse downtown, chose not to get too close to the epicenter. He turned around and made his way back to Dart Street.\n\nAs Kathy was driving to Houston, Yuko was making arrangements for the family to spend the night with a longtime friend of theirs she called Miss Mary. Like Yuko and Kathy, Mary was an American, born into a Christian household, who had converted to Islam as an adult. Now her house had become a sanctuary for families fleeing the storm, and when Kathy's Odyssey pulled into the driveway there were already a dozen or more people there, all of them Muslims from New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi.\n\nMary, a bright-eyed woman in her forties, met Kathy and the kids in the driveway. She took their bags and hugged Kathy so tight that Kathy started crying yet again. Mary took them inside and showed the kids the pool in back, and within minutes the four of them were swimming and happy. Kathy collapsed on the couch and tried not to think of anything.\n\nWhen he got back to the house on Dart, Zeitoun found his tent in the water below. It had been blown off the roof\u2014probably, Zeitoun guessed, by a helicopter. He retrieved it and set it up again, dried the interior with towels, and then went inside the house to look for ballast. He brought out stacks of books, this time the heaviest ones he could find, and put them in the corners of the tent.\n\nAs he was inside stabilizing it, he heard another helicopter approach. The sound was deafening. He expected it to pass over his house on its way elsewhere, but when he poked his head out and looked up he saw that it was hovering over his house, over him. Two men inside were signaling to him.\n\nHe waved them off, trying to indicate that he was fine. But this only seemed to intrigue them more. The second man in the helicopter was beginning to lower a cage to him when Zeitoun thought to give the man a thumbs-up. He signaled to his tent and then to himself and gave the helicopter a series of frantic thumbs-ups and _a-okay_ signals. Finally understanding Zeitoun's intent to stay, one of the men in the helicopter decided to drop a box of water down to him. Zeitoun tried to wave him off again, to no avail. The box came down, and Zeitoun leapt out of the way before it knocked the tent flat and sent plastic bottles bouncing everywhere. Satisfied, the helicopter tilted away and was gone.\n\nZeitoun returned to restabilizing his shelter, beginning to get ready for bed. But like the night before, he was restless, his mind racing with the events of the day. He sat on the roof, watching the movement of the helicopters circling and swooping over the rest of the city. He made plans for the following day: he would venture farther toward downtown, he would revisit the I-10 overpass, he would check on the state of their office and warehouse over on Dublin Street. On the first floor there they kept their extra supplies\u2014tools, paints, brushes, drop cloths, everything\u2014and on the second floor they had their offices, with their computers, files, maps, invoices, deeds to the properties. He winced, thinking of what had become of the building, a rickety thing to begin with.\n\nAll night the helicopters roamed overhead. Besides them it was quiet; he heard no dogs. After his prayers, he fell asleep under a vibrating sky.\n\n# FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 2\n\nIn the morning Zeitoun rose early, climbed down to his canoe, and paddled across the street to feed the dogs. They whimpered as he approached, and he took it as relief and gratitude. He climbed the tree, stepped carefully across the plank to the house on the right, and crawled through the window. He dropped two large pieces of steak for the dogs and refilled their water dish. As they busied themselves, he climbed out of the window, stepped carefully over to the next-door roof, and made his way into the second house to feed the second pair of dogs. They barked and wagged their tails, and he dropped two pieces of lamb between them and refilled their water. He left through the window, climbed down to his canoe, and paddled off.\n\nIt was time to see what had become of his office building. It was about a half mile away, just off Carrollton, a nearby road lined with warehouses, chain stores, and gas stations. The water was filthy now, streaked with oil and spotted with detritus. Anyone left to wade through this would become sick, he was sure. But so far this day, he had seen no one in the water. The city was emptying. Every day there were fewer people wading, fewer faces in windows, fewer private watercraft like his.\n\nIt had been drizzling throughout the morning but now the rain began to pick up. The wind came on, and the day grew miserable. Zeitoun paddled into the wind, struggling to control the canoe, the wind rippling the brown-blue water.\n\nHe took Earhart over to Carrollton, and took Carrollton southwest on his way to Dublin. He expected that there might be people on Carrollton\u2014like Napoleon and St. Charles, it seemed a logical thoroughfare for rescue or military boats\u2014but when he got close, he saw no official personnel at all.\n\nInstead he saw a group of men gathered at the Shell station just across the street from his office. The station was elevated from the main road and was under only a few feet of water. The men, about eight or nine of them, were carrying full garbage bags from the station's office and loading them into a boat. It was the first looting he had seen since the storm, and these men were the first who fit the description of those Kathy had warned him about. This was an organized group of criminal opportunists who were not simply taking what they needed to survive. They were stealing money and goods from the gas station, and they were operating in numbers that seemed designed to intimidate anyone, like Zeitoun, who might see them or try to impede them.\n\nZeitoun was far enough away to observe without fear of them reaching him\u2014at least not quickly. Still, he slowed his canoe to keep a safe distance, trying to figure out a way to get to his office without passing directly by them.\n\nBut one of the men had already noticed him. He was young, wearing long denim shorts and a white tank top. He squared his shoulders to Zeitoun and made a point of revealing the handle of a gun he had holstered in his belt.\n\nZeitoun quickly looked away. He did not want to invite confrontation. He turned his canoe around and made his way toward the house on Claiborne. He would not check on the office this day.\n\nHe arrived before noon and called Kathy. She was still in Houston at Miss Mary's house.\n\n\"Won't be able to check on the office today,\" he said.\n\n\"Why?\" she asked.\n\nHe didn't want her to worry. He knew he had to lie.\n\n\"Rain,\" he said.\n\nShe told him that friends had been calling her, checking in to see where she and Zeitoun were, if they were safe. When she told them that her husband was still in the city, there was always a three-stage response. First they were shocked, then they realized it was Zeitoun they were talking about\u2014a man who did not inspire worry in any situation\u2014and finally they asked that while he was paddling around, would he mind checking on their property?\n\nZeitoun was all too happy to be given a mission, and Kathy obliged. She had just gotten a call from the Burmidians, friends of theirs for thirteen years. Ali Burmidian was a professor of computer science at Tulane University, and ran the Masjid ar-Rahmah, a Muslim student association on campus. They had a building on Burthe Street that housed a resource center and dorm for visiting students from the Arab world.\n\nDelilah Burmidian had just called Kathy, asking if Zeitoun could check on the building, to see what kind of damage it had sustained. Zeitoun said no problem, he would check on it. He knew the building well\u2014he'd been to functions there a few times over the years\u2014and he knew how to get there. He was curious, actually, to see what had become of the campus, given that it was on higher ground.\n\n\"Call again at noon,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nBefore he left, Zeitoun called his brother Ahmad. After expressing great relief to hear from him, Ahmad got serious.\n\n\"You must leave,\" Ahmad said.\n\n\"No, no. I'm fine. Everything is fine,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nAhmad tried playing the big brother. \"Go to your family,\" he said. \"I really want you to leave. Your family needs you.\"\n\n\"They need me here more,\" Zeitoun said, trying not to sound too grandiose. \"This is my family, too.\"\n\nAhmad had no way to counter such a statement.\n\n\"This call is expensive,\" Zeitoun said. \"I'll call you tomorrow.\"\n\nWhen he arrived at Tulane, the water was so low there that he easily stepped from the canoe onto dry land. He walked into the tiled courtyard of the Masjid ar-Rahmah and looked around. The grounds were crosshatched with downed branches, but otherwise the property was undamaged. He was about to look inside when he saw a man emerging from the building's side door.\n\n\"Nasser?\" he said.\n\nIt was Nasser Dayoob. Also from Syria, Nasser had left the country in 1995, traveling first to Lebanon. From Beirut he stowed away on a tanker whose destination he did not know. It turned out it was heading to the United States, and when it made port Nasser jumped off and immediately sought asylum. He was eventually granted sanctuary, and by then he'd moved to New Orleans. He had stayed at the Masjid ar-Rahmah during his legal proceedings.\n\n\"Abdulrahman?\"\n\nThey shook hands and exchanged stories of what they had been doing since the storm. Nasser's home, in the Broadmoor neighborhood adjacent to Uptown, had been flooded, and he'd come to the student association for shelter, knowing it was on higher ground.\n\n\"You want to stay here or come with me?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nNasser knew that he would be safe at the campus, with little possibility of flooding or crime, but still he went with Zeitoun. He too wanted to see what had become of the city and of his home.\n\nHe ran back into the building to get his duffel bag and then stepped into the canoe. Zeitoun gave him the other paddle and they were off.\n\nNasser was thirty-five and tall, with freckles and a thick mess of red hair. He was quiet, with a slightly nervous demeanor; when Kathy met him she'd thought he was a fragile sort of man. He was a sometime housepainter, and had occasionally worked for Zeitoun. They were not close friends, but running into Nasser here, after the flood, gave Zeitoun some comfort. They shared a lot of history\u2014Syria, emigration to America and New Orleans, work in the trades.\n\nAs they paddled, they talked about what they had seen so far, what they had been eating, how they had been sleeping. Both men had heard the dogs barking. Always the dogs barking at night. And Nasser, too, had fed dogs in the empty homes, on the streets, wherever he encountered them. It was one of the strangest aspects of this in-between time\u2014after the storm but before anyone had returned to the city\u2014the presence of these thousands of left-behind animals.\n\nThe wind was stronger now. Fighting through an angry horizontal rain, they paddled by the post office near Jefferson Parkway and Lafitte. The parking lot there had become a staging ground for evacuations. Residents who wanted to be airlifted out of the city could come to the post office and helicopters would take them, presumably, to safety.\n\nAs they paddled closer, Zeitoun asked Nasser if he wanted to leave. Not yet, Nasser said. He'd been hearing about the New Orleanians stranded under highway overpasses, and he didn't want to be among them. Until he heard more reliable reports of successful evacuations, he would stay in the city. Zeitoun told him he was welcome to stay at the Dart house or the house on Claiborne. He mentioned that there was a working phone on Claiborne, and this was a godsend to Nasser. He needed to call a half-dozen relatives, to let them know he was alive.\n\nThey paddled back to Claiborne, passing a full case of bottled water bobbing in the middle of the waterway. They lifted it into the canoe and continued on.\n\nWhen they arrived at the house, Nasser got out and began tying up the canoe. Zeitoun was stepping out when he heard a voice calling his name.\n\n\"Zeitoun!\"\n\nHe figured it was Charlie Ray, calling from next door. But it was coming from the house behind Charlie's, on Robert Street.\n\n\"Over here!\"\n\nIt was the Williamses, a couple in their seventies. Alvin was a pastor at New Bethlehem Baptist Church and wheelchair bound; Beulah was his wife of forty-five years. Zeitoun and Kathy had known them for almost as long as they'd lived in New Orleans. When the Zeitouns had lived nearby, Pastor Williams's sister used to come to Kathy for meals. Kathy could never remember how it started, but the sister was elderly, and liked Kathy's cooking, so around dinnertime, Kathy always had a plate ready for her. It went on for months, and it warmed Kathy to know someone would go to the trouble to eat what she'd made.\n\n\"Hello!\" Zeitoun called out, and paddled over.\n\n\"You think you could help us get out of here?\" Alvin asked.\n\nThe pastor and Beulah had waited out the storm but had now exhausted their supply of food and water. Zeitoun had never seen them look so weary.\n\n\"It's time to go,\" Alvin said.\n\n* * *\n\nGiven the rain and the wind, it was impossible to try to evacuate them in the canoe. Zeitoun told them he would find help.\n\nHe paddled up Claiborne, the wind and rain fighting him, to the Memorial Medical Center, where he knew there were police and National Guard soldiers stationed. As he approached, he saw soldiers in the alleyway, on the roof, on the ramps and balconies. It looked like a heavily fortified military base. When he got close enough to see the faces of the soldiers, two of them raised their guns.\n\n\"Don't come any closer!\" they ordered.\n\nZeitoun slowed his canoe. The wind picked up. It was impossible to stay in one place, and making himself heard was difficult.\n\n\"I'm just looking for help,\" Zeitoun yelled.\n\nOne of the soldiers lowered his gun. The other kept his trained on Zeitoun.\n\n\"We can't help you,\" he said. \"Go to St. Charles.\"\n\nZeitoun assumed the soldier hadn't heard him correctly. The wind was turning his canoe around, veiling his words. \"There's an old couple down the road that needs to be evacuated,\" he clarified, louder this time.\n\n\"Not our problem,\" the soldier said. \"Go to St. Charles.\"\n\nNow both guns were lowered.\n\n\"Why not call somebody?\" Zeitoun asked. Did the soldier really mean that Zeitoun should paddle all the way to the intersection of Napoleon and St. Charles when the soldier could simply call another unit on his walkie-talkie? What were they doing in the city, if not helping evacuate people?\n\n\"We can't call nobody,\" the other soldier said.\n\n\"How come?\" Zeitoun asked. \"With all this technology, you can't call someone?\"\n\nNow the soldier, only a few years older than Zeitoun's son Zachary, seemed afraid. He had no answer, and seemed unsure of what to do next. Finally he turned and walked away. The remaining soldiers stared at Zeitoun, holding their M-16s.\n\nZeitoun turned his canoe around.\n\nHe paddled to the intersection of Napoleon and St. Charles, his shoulders aching. The wind was making the work twice as difficult. The water grew shallow as he approached the intersection. He saw tents there, and military vehicles, and a dozen or so police officers and soldiers. He stepped out of his canoe and walked up to a man, a soldier of some kind, standing on the grassy median\u2014New Orleanians called it the _neutral ground_.\n\n\"I have a situation,\" Zeitoun said. \"I have a handicapped man who needs help, medical attention. He needs help now.\"\n\n\"Okay, we'll take care of it,\" the man said.\n\n\"Do you want the address?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"Yeah, sure, give me that,\" the man said, opening a small notebook.\n\nZeitoun gave him the exact address.\n\nThe man wrote it down and put his notebook back in his pocket.\n\n\"So you'll go?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"Yup,\" the man said.\n\n\"When?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"About an hour,\" the man said.\n\n\"It's okay. They're on their way,\" Zeitoun said. \"They said one hour.\"\n\nThe pastor and his wife thanked Zeitoun and he returned to the Claiborne house. He picked up Nasser, and they set out to see what they could do. It was just after one o'clock.\n\nA thousand miles away, Yuko's husband Ahmaad was driving the Odyssey. Kathy was resting and the kids were in the back as they barreled through New Mexico. Ahmaad had been at the wheel for seven hours without a break. At this pace, they would make it to Phoenix by Saturday afternoon.\n\nAhmaad discouraged Kathy from listening to any news on the radio, but even on the rock and country stations snippets of information were leaking through: President Bush was visiting New Orleans that day, and had just lamented the loss of Trent Lott's summer home in coastal Mississippi. Heavily armed National Guardsmen had just entered the Convention Center, and though they had been led to believe their entry would be met with something like guerilla warfare, they had found no resistance whatsoever\u2014only exhausted and hungry people who wanted to leave the city. Kathy took comfort in this, thinking that perhaps the city was coming under control. The military presence, one commentator was saying, \"would soon be overwhelming.\"\n\nMaking their rounds, Zeitoun and Nasser found an abandoned military jeep and in it, a box of meals, ready-to-eat\u2014MREs. Shortly after, they encountered a family of five on an overpass, and gave them some water and the box of MREs. It was a tidy coincidence. Zeitoun didn't like to carry anything of value at all, and welcomed any opportunity to unload anything he'd found.\n\nIt was about five o'clock, the sky darkening, when Zeitoun and Nasser made their way back to the Claiborne house.\n\nZeitoun was sure that the pastor and his wife would have been rescued by that point, but just to be certain, he and Nasser made a detour and paddled over to Robert Street.\n\nAlvin and Beulah were still there, on the porch, their bags still ready, a light rain still falling on them. They had been waiting for four hours.\n\nZeitoun was furious. He felt helpless, betrayed. He'd made a promise to the pastor and his wife, and because he had been lied to, his promise had not been kept.\n\nHe apologized to the couple, explaining that he had first tried the hospital, where he was sent away at gunpoint, and then gone to St. Charles to tell the soldiers and the relief workers about their plight. The pastor expressed confidence that help was still on its way, but Zeitoun didn't want to take any chances.\n\n\"I'll figure something out,\" he said.\n\nWhen he and Nasser returned to the Claiborne house, they saw a small motorboat tied to the front porch. Inside the house, they found Todd Gambino sitting inside with a new dog. With the boat\u2014which Todd had seen floating under a ruined garage and figured he would put to use\u2014he'd been making his own rounds around the city, plucking people from porches and rooftops and bringing them to the overpasses and other points of rescue. He'd even found this dog, which was now happily eating food at Todd's feet, on a roof and had taken him in.\n\nAgain Zeitoun felt the presence of some divine hand. The Williamses needed help immediately, help he had not been able to provide, and here was Todd, with precisely the vehicle they needed, at precisely the right moment.\n\nTodd did not hesitate. Zeitoun agreed to care for the dog while he was gone, and Todd was off. He picked up Alvin and Beulah, cradling them one by one into the motorboat. Then he sped off toward the staging ground at Napoleon and St. Charles.\n\nThe mission took all of twenty minutes. Soon Todd was back, drinking a beer and relaxing again on the porch, his hand stroking the rescued dog's matted fur.\n\n\"Some things you just have to do yourself,\" he said with a smile.\n\nZeitoun had known Todd to be a good tenant, but he didn't know this side of him. They talked for a time on the porch, and Todd told him stories of his own rescues\u2014how he'd picked up dozens of people already, how he'd been shuttling them to hospitals and staging grounds, how easy it was with a motorboat. Todd had always been, to Zeitoun's mind, a bit of a wanderer, something of a playboy. He liked to have a good time, didn't want to be too tied down with rules and responsibilities. He smoked, he drank, he kept irregular hours. But here he was, his eyes alight, talking about carrying people to safety, how his arrival at any given house or overpass was met with cheers and thanks. A time like this could change a man, Zeitoun knew, and he was happy to see it happening here and now to Todd: a good man made better.\n\nThat night Nasser came back with Zeitoun to the house on Dart. They removed the last of the lamb from the freezer and barbecued on the roof, recounting what they had seen and what they had heard. But Nasser was exhausted, and faded quickly. He crawled into the tent and was soon fast asleep.\n\nAgain Zeitoun was restless. He was still angry about the pastor and his wife. Nothing upset him more than someone breaking a promise. Who had that man been, at Napoleon and St. Charles, who had said he would send help to the Williams couple? Why had he said he would come if he did not plan to come? Zeitoun tried to be generous. Perhaps he had been pulled away to another emergency. Perhaps the man had gotten lost along the way. But it was no use. There was no excuse that could suffice. The man had abrogated a simple agreement. He had promised help and he had not kept that promise.\n\nUnable to sleep, Zeitoun went back inside and sat on the floor of Nademah's room. Her smell, the smell of his girls, was faint now, replaced by rain and the beginnings of mildew. He missed them already. He could not think of more than a few times when he had been apart from them this long. It was always like this: the first day alone afforded a welcome sense of calm and quiet, but slowly the missing would begin. He would miss their voices, their bright dark eyes, the rumble of their feet up and down the stairs, their squeals and constant singing.\n\nHe opened one of the photo albums he'd saved and lay down on Nademah's bed, smelling her strawberry shampoo on the pillowcase. He found a picture from his first year at sea, aboard a ship captained by Ahmad. He marveled at his hair, so much of it then, and such vanity. He was about thirty pounds lighter then, a constant grin on his face, a man tasting the full feast of youth. His brother Ahmad had saved him, had opened to him worlds upon worlds.\n\nAhmad left home a year after their father's death, traveling to Turkey to study medicine. This was the presumption in the house, at least. Though Mahmoud had forbidden his sons from pursuing a life on the sea, Ahmad wanted nothing else. So he took a bus to Istanbul, telling his mother that his intention was to become a doctor. And for a while he did study medicine. But soon Ahmad left college and enrolled in a naval officer's training academy. When his mother learned Ahmad was to become a ship captain, she was surprised, but did not stand in his way. Two years later, Ahmad had graduated and was crisscrossing the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.\n\nZeitoun found one of Ahmad's photos. He had more pictures of Ahmad than he did of himself\u2014it was almost comical how many photos his brother took and kept and distributed to family members. He documented every port, every ship. In this one, he and his crew were grilling something, some kind of animal. Zeitoun stared at it. It looked like a greyhound. _Could it be?_ No. Zeitoun hoped it was not a dog. The banner above the men said EASTER 1978. In another picture, Ahmad was standing in the middle of downtown New Orleans. When he saw this photo, and so many others of Ahmad standing in front of this city or that monument, Zeitoun always thought of the people Ahmad had asked to take the pictures. Ahmad must have met a thousand people during these trips, chiefly in the pursuit of someone to help him document that _Ahmad Zeitoun, of Jableh, Syria, was here_. Here in Tokyo. Here in America. Here in India.\n\nWhile Ahmad was seeing every corner of the world in rapid succession, Zeitoun was back home in Jableh, and he wanted out. It was a hollow home, and Zeitoun couldn't stand it. During the days he worked at his brother Lutfi's construction-materials store, hearing the stories of Ahmad's continuing adventures, his trips to China, Australia, South Africa, Holland. Zeitoun knew his father would not have approved when he was alive, but he was gone now, and Mohammed was gone, too. Zeitoun did not want to be stuck in Jableh.\n\nHis mother knew his feelings. She had heard him pace back and forth on the second floor, had seen his eyes' longing look when he talked to Ahmad on the phone. So on her own accord, she called Ahmad one day and asked him to take his younger brother with him. It was time, she said, for Abdulrahman to leave Jableh and get away, if only for a spell, from their home so full of melancholy.\n\nAhmad called his younger brother and told him he'd be shipping out in a few weeks' time. Zeitoun was speechless. He kissed the phone. He kissed his mother and sisters. And when the time came, he gathered a sackful of things and met Ahmad in Greece.\n\nOn his first voyage, he was a deckhand, the youngest man onboard. The other crew members hailed from everywhere\u2014South Africa, Turkey, Nigeria\u2014and welcomed him warmly. Zeitoun was convinced Ahmad was treating him a bit more roughly than the others, to compensate for any suspicions of nepotism, but he didn't mind. He washed and painted and hauled. He did the jobs no one wanted to do.\n\nThey sailed from Piraeus to Naxos and back, and Zeitoun was in love with it all. He let his hair grow, he spent his free time on deck, looking out, watching the water come at the ship and disappear behind it. Though the schedule was grueling, four hours on and four off, all day and night, he didn't mind. He didn't need to sleep, not yet.\n\nHe had not known until then how badly he had needed this kind of freedom. He felt twice as strong, three times as tall. And finally Zeitoun knew Ahmad's secret, why he had become a sailor, why he had risked so much to become a captain. As they passed on deck or on their way to their different quarters, Zeitoun and Ahmad shared knowing glances, sheepish smiles. Only now did Zeitoun know liberation, and it was everything. Ahmad could see that his younger brother would not be returning to Jableh any time soon.\n\nTheir lives were at sea, together and apart, as they passed from their twenties to their early thirties. There were cargo ships, passenger ships, combinations of both. They brought Nebraskan wheat to Tokyo, Brazilian bananas to London, American scrap metal to India. They brought Romanian cement to Nigeria, and always in Nigeria there were stowaways; every time they left Lagos they could count on finding two or three men hiding, and always they made the same arrangement: earn your keep onboard, and when we reach the next port you're on your own.\n\nJobs on general cargo ships were prized most; they usually spent a week or two at port, giving the crew plenty of time to investigate the area. Zeitoun explored dozens of cities, always docking with a pocketful of money and no obligations to anyone. He would rent a car, devour the surrounding towns, explore the coast, visit famed mosques, meet women who would beg him to stay.\n\nBut he was a serious young man, perhaps too serious at times. It was no secret that seamen liked to play cards and enjoy a drink or two. Zeitoun didn't gamble and had never had a drop of alcohol, so when his own shifts were over, he went back to work, helping whoever needed it. And when there wasn't work to do, while his crewmates got stoned and took each other's money playing cards, he found a different diversion: he would go to the small pool onboard the ship and tie a rope around his waist. He would tie the other end to the wall, and then he would swim\u2014three hours at a stretch, strengthening his arms and back, testing himself. He was always testing himself, seeing how much his body could do.\n\nIn the end, Zeitoun spent ten years as a sailor. Aboard a ship called the _Star Castor_ he saw the Persian Gulf, Japan, Australia, and Baltimore. Aboard the _Capitan Elias_ , he saw Holland and Norway. He saw herds of humpbacks, breaching grey whales, schools of dolphins leading the ships to port. He saw the aurora borealis, meteor showers over tumbling black waves, night skies so clear the stars seemed within reach, hung from a ceiling by fishing wire. He served on the _Nitsa_ , the _Andromeda_ , he sailed all the way until 1988, when he landed in Houston and decided to explore inland. That brought him to Baton Rouge, and Baton Rouge brought him to Kathy, and Kathy brought him Zachary and Nademah and Safiya and Aisha.\n\nZeitoun prayed on the floor in his house, and then lay down on Nademah's bed, wondering where his wife and children were this night, if they had made it to Phoenix yet, thanking God that they were safe, that he was safe, that they would see each other soon.\n\n# SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3\n\nIn the morning Zeitoun rose with the sun, prayed, and then checked the freezer. There wasn't much left, and what was left was thawing. It would be rotten by the following day. He figured it had to be eaten immediately, so he removed some hamburger for the dogs and figured he'd barbecue the rest that night. He'd invite Todd and Nasser and anyone else he could find. They'd cook all the meat that remained, and have some grim semblance of a party on his roof.\n\nHe paddled across the street to feed the dogs.\n\n\"How are you boys today?\" he asked the first two.\n\nThey whimpered, and ate, and licked his legs. He was amused by how grateful, how surprised, they were every day.\n\n\"Have a little faith,\" he said.\n\nHe climbed across the rickety board to the second pair of dogs. They whined as he climbed through the window.\n\n\"What're you so worried about?\" he asked them. \"Every day I come, same time. Don't worry.\"\n\nYuko's husband Ahmaad had driven through the night, stopping only once, and they finally arrived in Arizona midday on Saturday. They were both too dazed, too wired to sleep, and that first day at Yuko and Ahmaad's house was full of welcome distraction. Yuko and Ahmaad's five children loved the Zeitoun kids, and they loved their Aunt Kathy, particularly the boys. She was one of them, effortlessly so, and they treated her like a peer. They played video games and watched TV, and Kathy tried not to think about what had become of their home, where Zeitoun might be at that moment.\n\nZeitoun still feared getting near his office on Dublin\u2014the armed men were likely still nearby\u2014so he and Nasser had no set itinerary this day. They decided to do a thorough check of Uptown, to see if any neighbors were left, if any help was needed.\n\nPaddling south on Octavia Street, Zeitoun noted that with the strength of two, and without rain or wind, they were fast. They sped past homes, over cars, around debris.\n\nZeitoun had worked on a dozen or so homes on this street, and knew he would return when the waters fell away. With every passing day, the standing water went deeper into the homes, made it less likely anything within would be salvageable.\n\nNasser saw the helicopter first.\n\nThe helicopters were everywhere, but didn't usually hover so low for so long, and rarely in such a densely built neighborhood. Zeitoun could see this one through the trees and over the roofs long before he could see the water below it. Zeitoun and Nasser paddled toward it to find out what was going on. As they got closer, they saw a dark smudge in the water, a log or piece of debris. They continued paddling, now feeling the wind from the rotors, the ripples radiating outward.\n\nThe object in the water looked like a tire, shiny and bulbous\u2014\n\nIt was a body. They were sure now. It had turned, and now the head was visible. It was a man of average size, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, half-submerged, face-down.\n\nZeitoun looked up to the helicopter. Was it a rescue in progress? He looked closer. No. A man was pointing a camera at the body. He did so for a few more minutes and then the helicopter rose, tilted, and drifted off.\n\nZeitoun and Nasser maintained their distance. Zeitoun knew too many people in this neighborhood. If this was a neighbor or friend, he didn't want to see him this way.\n\nRattled, they paddled silently to the Claiborne house. Zeitoun had never imagined that the day would come that he might see such a thing, a body floating in filthy water, less than a mile from his home. He could not find a place for the sight in the categories of his mind. The image was from another time, a radically different world. It brought to mind photographs of war, bodies decaying on forgotten battlefields. _Who was that man?_ Zeitoun thought. _Could we have saved him?_ Zeitoun could only think that perhaps the body had traveled far, that the man had been swept from closer to the lake all the way to Uptown. Nothing else seemed to make sense. He did not want to contemplate the possibility that the man had needed help and had not gotten it.\n\nWhen Zeitoun tied the canoe to the Claiborne porch, the phone was ringing. He picked it up and found his brother Ahmad.\n\n\"I wish you would leave,\" Ahmad said.\n\n\"I'm fine. Safer every day,\" Zeitoun said. He had no plans to tell Ahmad about the body.\n\n\"My kids are worried about you.\" Ahmad's son Lutfi and daughter Laila had been watching CNN since the storm. They saw the images of devastation and desperation, and could not believe that their uncle was living amid all that.\n\n\"Tell them not to worry,\" Zeitoun said. \"And hello from me.\"\n\nZeitoun was grateful for his brother's constant concern. The Zeitoun siblings were all close-knit, but no one worried more, and spent more time collecting and updating addresses and phone numbers and photos, than Ahmad. Perhaps it was because he felt disconnected from them, living in Spain, but in any case he liked to know where his siblings were, what they were doing. And he focused on Abdulrahman in particular, so much so that one day, a few years before, Ahmad had called in the middle of the day in New Orleans and made a very strange proposal.\n\n\"What are you doing today?\" he'd asked.\n\nIt was a Saturday, and Zeitoun was about to go to the lake with Kathy and the kids.\n\n\"Do you know the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter?\"\n\nZeitoun said he did.\n\n\"I have an idea,\" Ahmad began, and then explained that he had found a website where he could tap into a live webcam at that corner. If Zeitoun went there, Ahmad could watch him, in real time, while sitting at his computer in Spain.\n\n\"You up for it?\" Ahmad asked.\n\n\"Sure,\" Zeitoun said. \"Why not?\"\n\nZeitoun packed the kids up in the van, drove the few miles to the French Quarter, and looked for the corner of St. Peter and Bourbon. Once there, he searched for the camera. He didn't find it, but figured he should at least stand there for a while. He and the kids stood on every corner, in fact, just in case. And when he got home, he called Ahmad, who was just about leaping through the phone.\n\n\"I saw you!\" he said. \"I saw you all! Next to the hot-dog stand!\"\n\nHe had watched them for five minutes, grinning the whole time. He had made a screen capture and emailed it.\n\nWhen he saw it, Zeitoun laughed, amazed. There he was, with all four kids. Nademah was just below the streetlight, Zachary was holding Safiya, and Zeitoun was holding Aisha. Ahmad, technophile and deeply protective brother, was, in very real ways, watching over Zeitoun at all times.\n\nOn the roof that night, Zeitoun and Todd and Nasser barbecued the remaining meat, noting that it was the first time any of them had been at any sort of social event since the storm. The conversation was awkward, and the humor had a dark edge to it. They talked about FEMA, about the Superdome and the Convention Center. They had been hearing isolated reports from the radio and others who had stayed in the city, and they were all relieved they had eschewed shelter there; they had known it would turn out poorly. None among them could live caged like that.\n\nThey talked about what the city would look like when the water was gone. There would be trees and trash everywhere\u2014the ground would look like that of a dredged lake. The roads would be impassable for cars and bikes, for almost any kind of vehicle.\n\n\"A horse could do it,\" Zeitoun said. \"We'll get some horses. Easy.\"\n\nEveryone laughed.\n\nAs the sky blackened, Zeitoun saw an orange light through the trees, less than a mile away. Soon all three men were watching the light grow, the flames twisting higher. Zeitoun was sure it had engulfed two or three buildings at least. Then he looked closer, realizing that the fire was very close to\u2014\n\n\"My office,\" he said.\n\nThere was paint there, hundreds of gallons. Paint thinner, lumber. So many toxic and flammable things.\n\n\"We have to go,\" he said.\n\nZeitoun and Todd climbed down the side of the house and into Todd's motorboat. They sped toward the fire until they could see the flames blooming white and orange between buildings and over treetops. When they got close, they saw that the fire encompassed an entire block. There were five houses alight, the flames grasping for a sixth. They had no tools to stanch a fire, and no plan at all for what they might do to put out a chemical inferno.\n\nZeitoun's office was unharmed, but it was no more than twenty feet from the fire. They tested the winds. It was a still night, with heavy humidity. There was no predicting where the fire would go, but it was certain that nothing could stop its course. There was a fire station four blocks away, but it was empty and flooded; there were no firefighters in sight. And with the phones down, with 911 inoperative, there was virtually no way to alert anyone. They could only watch.\n\nZeitoun and Todd sat in their boat, the heat of the fire pulsing at them. The smell was musky, acrid, and the flames swallowed the homes with remarkable speed. One was an old Victorian Zeitoun had always admired, and a few doors down was a house he had considered buying when it had been on the market a few years earlier. Both homes were devoured in a minute. The pieces disappeared into the dark water, leaving nothing.\n\nThe wind was picking up, blowing away from Zeitoun's office. If there had been any gust in the other direction, his building would have succumbed, too. He thanked God for this small mercy.\n\nAs they watched, they glimpsed a few other watchers, faces orange and silent. Other than the crackle of the fire and the occasional collapsing wall or floor, the night was quiet. There were no sirens, no authorities of any kind. Just a block of homes burning and sinking into the obsidian sea that had swallowed the city.\n\nComing back to the house on Dart, Zeitoun and Todd were quiet. The stars were out. Todd steered the boat like he was captaining a great yacht. He dropped Zeitoun at his house, and they said good night. Back on the roof, Nasser was already asleep in the tent.\n\nZeitoun stood there, watching the fire ebb and flow. The flood, and now the fire: it was difficult not to think of passages in the Qur'an that recounted the flood of Noah, the evidence of God's wrath. And yet despite the devastation visited upon New Orleans, there was still a kind of order to the night. Zeitoun was safe on his roof, the city was silent and still, the stars were in their place.\n\nHe had been on a tanker once, maybe twenty years earlier, navigating through the Philippines. It was late, after midnight, and Zeitoun was keeping the captain company on the bridge.\n\nTo stay awake and alert, the captain, a Greek man of middle age, liked to take up provocative subjects. He knew that Zeitoun was a Muslim and a thoughtful man, so he sparked a debate about the existence of God. The captain began by expressing his utter conviction that there was no God, no deity in the sky watching over the human world.\n\nZeitoun had been on the bridge with the captain for an hour at that point, watching him pilot the ship through the many islands, avoiding high shelves and sandbars, other ships and countless unseen dangers. The Philippines, with over seven thousand islands but only five hundred lighthouses, was known for its frequency of maritime accidents.\n\n\"What would happen,\" Zeitoun asked the captain, \"if you and I went below the deck, and just went to our bedrooms and went to sleep?\"\n\nThe captain gave him a quizzical look and answered that the ship would most certainly hit something\u2014would run aground or into a reef. In any event, disaster.\n\n\"So without a captain, the ship cannot navigate.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the captain said, \"What's your point?\"\n\nZeitoun smiled. \"Look above you, at the stars and moon. How do the stars keep their place in the sky, how does the moon rotate around the earth, the earth around the sun? Who's navigating?\"\n\nThe captain smiled at Zeitoun. He'd been led into a trap.\n\n\"Without someone guiding us,\" Zeitoun finished, \"wouldn't the stars and moon fall to earth, wouldn't the oceans overrun the land? Any vessel, any carrier of humans, needs a captain, yes?\"\n\nThe captain was taken with the beauty of the metaphor, and let his silence imply surrender.\n\nOn his roof, Zeitoun crawled into his tent, trying not to wake Nasser. He turned his back to the fire and slept fitfully, thinking of fires and floods and the power of God.\n\n# SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 4\n\nIn the morning Zeitoun rose early, climbed down to his canoe, and paddled across the street to feed the dogs. He climbed up the tree, crawled through the windows, and fed them all the last of the meat.\n\n\"Like barbecue?\" he asked.\n\nThey did.\n\n\"See you tomorrow,\" he said, making a mental note to get some dog food from Todd.\n\nHe picked up Nasser, dropped him at the house on Claiborne, and went on alone. He wasn't sure where he would go today, so he chose a new route, this time going back to Dart, then east on Earhart, heading to Jefferson Davis Parkway.\n\nThis day was quieter than the few before it. There were no helicopters, no military boats. He was seeing far fewer people wading through the water, now green-grey and streaked everywhere with oil. It smelled dirtier every day, a wretched m\u00e9lange of fish and mud and chemicals.\n\nAs he approached the junction of Earhart, Jefferson Davis, and Washington, the land rose up a bit, and he could see dry grass, a wide intersection with a large green and brown patch in the middle. And on the grass there was an astonishing sight, especially given what he and his guests had been talking about the night before. There were three horses, chewing happily. They were free, with no riders or saddles. The scene was at once idyllic and hallucinatory. He paddled closer. One of the horses lifted its head, noticing Zeitoun. It was a beautiful animal, white and perfectly groomed. Seeing Zeitoun as no threat, the horse returned to its meal. The other two, one black and one grey, continued to eat. How they had gotten there was beyond Zeitoun's imagination, but they seemed ethereally content, luxuriating in their freedom.\n\nZeitoun watched them for a few minutes, then traveled on.\n\nZeitoun paddled down Jefferson Davis. He carried his canoe across the bridge over I-10 and continued on, reaching the residential stretch of the road. Near the corner of Banks Street, he heard a female voice.\n\n\"Hey there.\"\n\nHe looked up to see a woman on the second-floor balcony of a home. He slowed down and paddled toward her.\n\n\"Give me a ride?\" she asked.\n\nThe woman wore a shimmering blue blouse. Zeitoun told her he would be happy to help, and he steered the canoe to her steps. As she descended from the balcony, Zeitoun noticed her short skirt and high heels, her heavily made-up face, her small glittering purse. And finally he realized what might have been obvious to many: she was a prostitute. He didn't know what he thought about paddling around in his canoe with a prostitute aboard, but he didn't have time to turn her away now.\n\nShe was about to step into the canoe when Zeitoun stopped her.\n\n\"Can you take off the shoes?\" he asked.\n\nHe was afraid the high heels might puncture the boat's thin aluminum. She complied. She was going to Canal, she said. Could he drop her off there? Zeitoun said he would.\n\nShe sat in front of him, her hands on either side of the canoe. Feeling like a gondolier, Zeitoun paddled steadily and said nothing. He wondered if there was, only a few days after the hurricane, already a market for her services. Could she have been working in the home where he picked her up?\n\n\"Where you going?\" he asked, unable to quell his curiosity.\n\n\"To work,\" she said.\n\nAt the corner of Jefferson Davis and Canal, she pointed to the First United Methodist Church.\n\n\"Drop me here,\" she said.\n\nHe paddled to the pink brick building, where the water met the church's higher steps, and she lifted herself out.\n\n\"Thank you, honey,\" she said.\n\nHe nodded and paddled on.\n\nZeitoun came to the I-10\/Claiborne overpass again, and even from a distance he could see that the people who he had seen awaiting rescue there a few days ago had been taken away. The cars remained, as did piles of garbage and human waste. As he floated closer, something caught his attention: a patch of fur. In a moment he was close enough to see that it was a dog, lying on its side. He remembered that when he was last here, there had been a half-dozen small dogs, most of them puppies, taking shelter in the shade of the cars. As his canoe tapped against the overpass, he could see that there were ten or more animals, the same ones he'd seen before and a few others, in various positions on the road. He anchored his canoe to the overpass and climbed up onto the pavement. He gagged at the sight. They were dead. The dogs had been killed, each of them shot in the head. Some had been shot repeatedly\u2014head, torso, legs.\n\nHe paddled quickly back to the house on Claiborne, shaken. He called Kathy. He wanted to hear her voice.\n\n\"I saw the most terrible thing,\" he said. He told her about the dogs. He couldn't understand it.\n\n\"I'm so sorry,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't know who would do this.\"\n\n\"I don't know either, honey.\"\n\n\"Why kill them all?\"\n\nThey tried to make sense of it. Even if they were euthanizing the animals, it didn't add up. There were so many boats in the city. It would only take a moment to take them aboard and set them loose anywhere. But perhaps something had changed irrevocably. That this was considered a sane or even humane option signaled that all reason had left this place.\n\n\"How're the kids?\" he asked.\n\n\"Fine,\" she said. \"They miss you.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow you'll put the kids in school?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'll try,\" she said.\n\nHe tried to understand, but he was frustrated. The kids needed to be in school. But he was in no mood to argue.\n\nThey talked about what he planned to do that afternoon. There was both more and less to see each day. There were fewer people left in the city, even downtown, and yet the horses, the prostitute, the dogs\u2014it was growing ever more apocalyptic and surreal. He thought maybe he would relax this day. Think about it all.\n\n\"You should,\" she said. Any time he stayed home she felt more sure of his safety. \"Stay at home today.\"\n\nHe decided he would.\n\nHe tried to, at least. He lay there on Nademah's bed, trying to relax. But he couldn't stop thinking about the dogs. Who could shoot a dog? All those animals, needing, trusting. He tried, as always, to give the benefit of the doubt to whoever had done it. But if they could find their way to the dogs with guns and bullets, wouldn't it be just as easy to feed them?\n\nHe got out of bed and looked for his Qur'an. There was a passage he'd been thinking about, _al-Haqqah_ , \"The Reality.\" He took the book from Nademah's shelf and found the page. It was as he remembered it.\n\n_In the name of God,  \nThe Merciful, The Compassionate,  \nThe Reality!  \nWhat is The Reality?  \nWhat would cause you to recognize  \nwhat The Reality is?  \nThamud and Ad denied  \nthe Day of Disaster.  \nThen as for Thamud,  \nthey were caused to perish  \nby a storm of thunder and lightning_.  \n _As for Ad,  \nthey were caused to perish  \nby a fierce and roaring, raging wind.  \nHe compelled against them  \nfor seven uninterrupted nights and eight days  \nso you would have seen the people laid prostrate  \nas if they were the uprooted fallen-down palm trees.  \nThen see you any ones who endure among them?  \nPharaoh and those who came before him,  \nand the cities overthrown,  \nwere ones of iniquity;  \nthey rebelled against the Messenger  \nof their Lord,  \nso He took them with the mounting taking.  \nWhen the waters became turbulent,  \nwe carried you in the floating Ark,  \nthat We might make it a Reminder for you,  \nand attentive ears would hold onto it_.\n\nZeitoun crawled through the window and onto the roof. The sky was muddy, the wind cool. He sat down and watched the city in the distance.\n\nHe was struck by the possibility that those who had killed the dogs might not have been law-enforcement officers at all. Perhaps Kathy was right, and armed gangs were free in the city, shooting whatever they chose to.\n\nHe pondered his own possibilities for self-defense. What would he do if men came here, to him? He had seen no robberies in his neighborhood thus far. But what if they came here?\n\nAs the night darkened, Zeitoun wished he was not alone. He thought of returning to the other house, to talk to Todd and Nasser about what he'd seen.\n\nBut instead, he sat on his roof, pushing away thoughts of the dogs on the overpass. Perhaps he was weak in this way. He had always been soft when it came to animals. As a child, he had kept many. He'd caught lizards and crabs. He'd even kept a stray donkey in the back alley for a few days, wanting it to be his, to take care of it. His father scolded him for that, and for the pigeon-grooming operation he'd run with his brother Ahmad. It was Ahmad's idea, really\u2014another scheme into which he had enticed his little brother.\n\n\"Want to see something?\" Ahmad had said one day. Ahmad was sixteen, and Abdulrahman would follow him anywhere.\n\nAfter swearing Abdulrahman to secrecy, Ahmad brought him up to the roof and showed him a cage he had built from scrap wood and chicken wire. Inside was a nest of straw and newsprint, and inside the nest was a bird\u2014something, Abdulrahman thought, between a pigeon and a dove. Ahmad planned to keep dozens like this one on the roof, to feed and care for them, to try to train them to deliver messages. Ahmad asked if Abdulrahman wanted to help. Abdulrahman did indeed, and they agreed to care for the birds together. Abdulrahman, being younger, would clean the cages when necessary, and Ahmad, being older and more experienced in these matters, would find new birds, feed those who lived there, and train them when the time came.\n\nAnd so they spent hours there, watching the birds come and go, feeding them from their palms, exulting in the familiarity that allowed the birds to land on their arms and shoulders.\n\nSoon there were thirty or more birds living on their roof. Ahmad and Abdulrahman built more homes for them, until they had assembled a complex that looked not unlike the stone and adobe structures in their neighborhood, homes stacked upon each other, rising up from the ocean, interlocking like a crude mosaic, extending inland.\n\nAll was good until their father Mahmoud discovered their hobby. He considered the keeping of birds a terrible and unsanitary waste of time. Since Mohammed's death, Mahmoud had been impatient, irritable, and so the kids had tried to find diversions outside their grieving home. This hobby, Mahmoud insisted, was taking them away from their schoolwork, and if they forsook their education for pigeons, he would be stuck with not only the birds but two illiterate sons.\n\nHe demanded that they free the birds and dismantle the cages. The boys were despondent, and argued their case to their mother. She deferred to her husband, and he was unbending. Abdulrahman and Ahmad refused to do it themselves, so one day, as the boys were leaving for school, Mahmoud said he would do it himself while they were gone.\n\nThe boys returned that afternoon and ran straight to the roof to see what had been done. They found the birds still there, their homes untouched. Amazed, they ran down to the kitchen, where they found their mother beaming. Apparently when Mahmoud had gone up to the roof, the birds had flocked to him, alighting on his shoulders and arms, and he was so charmed that he couldn't send them away. He allowed the birds to stay.\n\nMahmoud died a few years later. The cause was heart disease, but the talk in Jableh was that it was simple heartache. He had never gotten over the death of his golden son, the glory of the family and all of Syria, Mohammed.\n\nZeitoun assumed Nasser was staying at the other house. If he wanted to be here, he could. Todd had a boat. So Zeitoun settled into the tent and went to sleep alone.\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 5\n\nIn the morning Zeitoun rose early, said his prayers, and paddled across the street to feed the dogs. He'd gotten a bag of dog food from Todd.\n\n\"No more steak, guys,\" he said. \"I'm out.\"\n\nThey didn't seem to mind. They devoured what he poured. They seemed to be doing well now, and were no longer in the same state of shock as a few days before.\n\n\"See? I come every day,\" he said. \"I always come.\"\n\nHe climbed down from the roof and paddled away.\n\nHe went by the Claiborne house and found Todd and Nasser on the porch, eating breakfast. He went inside and called Kathy.\n\n\"The cops are killing themselves,\" she said.\n\nTwo different officers, overcome by the storm and its aftermath, had taken their own lives. Sergeant Paul Accardo, a prominent spokesman for the department, was found in nearby Luling, in his squad car; he'd shot himself. Officer Lawrence Celestine had committed suicide on Friday, in front of another police officer.\n\nThis hit Zeitoun hard. He'd always had good relations with the police in the city. He knew the face of Sergeant Accardo well; the man was frequently on television, and projected an air of reason and calm.\n\nKathy mentioned the roving gangs, the toxic chemicals, the diseases that were being unearthed and spread. She was trying, again, to convince her husband to leave.\n\n\"I'll call you later,\" he said.\n\n* * *\n\nRob, Walt's husband, called Kathy to check on the Zeitouns, to see where they were staying and if they needed any help. When Kathy told him that Zeitoun was still in New Orleans, Rob was incredulous.\n\n\"What's he doing there?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, he's got his little canoe,\" Kathy said. \"He's paddling around the city.\" She tried to sound nonchalant.\n\n\"He's got to get out,\" Rob said.\n\n\"I know,\" Kathy said. \"That's what I tell him every day.\"\n\nAs they talked, Rob mentioned that he and Walt had left their cat when they fled the storm. They had tried to find her before they left, but she was an outdoor cat, given to roaming, and hadn't been in or near the house. Now he was hoping that if Zeitoun found himself in their neighborhood, he could look for any sign of her. If Zeitoun happened to make it over there, there was a generator in the garage that he was welcome to if he needed it.\n\nShe called the house on Claiborne. Zeitoun was still there, about to leave. Kathy told him about Rob's hope that he could check on the house. It was a good three miles away, and would require a portage over the highway, but Zeitoun was happy to have a clear-cut task. Kathy mentioned the possibility of the generator, but Zeitoun dismissed it. He preferred not to travel with any possessions at all. Besides being doubtful he'd be able to get the generator into the canoe, he was wary of picking up anything of value. He knew the police were looking for looters.\n\nHe and Nasser made their way to Walt and Rob's house. The day was warm and white. They decided to check on Nasser's house along the way, so they went up Fontainebleau to Napoleon. Nasser's house was at the corner of Napoleon and Galvez, and he wanted to see if anything could be salvaged.\n\nWhen they got there, the water had reached the eaves of the roof. There was no way to get into the house, and nothing inside would be worth it. Nasser had prepared himself for this sight, and it was exactly as he'd expected.\n\n\"Let's go,\" he said.\n\nThey took Jefferson Davis Parkway to Walt and Rob's. The water at the house was far lower, only about eighteen inches. Zeitoun got out of the canoe and walked up to the front door. The house would be fine. But he saw no sign of the cat. He considered jumping the fence to get to the backyard, but it was this kind of suspicious activity that police and neighbors would be looking for.\n\nThey turned the canoe around and left. On the way home, they passed the post office at Jefferson Davis and Lafitte, the staging ground for helicopter rescues. They saw no helicopters, but there were rescue workers milling in the parking lot.\n\n\"You want to go?\" Zeitoun asked Nasser.\n\n\"Not today,\" he said.\n\nThat night Zeitoun and Nasser prayed together on the roof of the house on Dart and barbecued hamburger meat on the grill. The night was humid and quiet. There was the occasional sound of breaking glass, the growl of a low-flying helicopter. But overall the city seemed to have reached a new equilibrium. Zeitoun fell asleep missing Kathy and the children, wondering if it was time to leave.\n\n# TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 6\n\nIn the morning, after his prayers, Zeitoun made his way to the dogs across the street and fed them more of the dog food Todd had acquired for his rescued pet. When he paddled back to the house to pick up Nasser, he noticed Nasser was carrying his black duffel bag.\n\nZeitoun nodded at it. \"You're ready to go?\"\n\nNasser said he was. He was ready to be evacuated. Zeitoun would be sad to see him go, but he was happy to know that his friend would be safe, and that, even better, Zeitoun would no longer have to share his tent. Nasser got in the canoe and they were off.\n\nThey made their way to the post-office parking lot. They had passed it together a half-dozen times, and always Zeitoun had asked Nasser if he was prepared to leave, but he had not been ready, not until now.\n\n\"There's your ride,\" Zeitoun said, pointing to an orange helicopter in the distance, resting on the ground.\n\nThey paddled closer and realized there was something strange about the helicopter. It was resting on its side.\n\n\"Oh no,\" Nasser said.\n\nIts rotor was broken, the grass blackened all around it.\n\n\"It crashed,\" Zeitoun said, awed.\n\n\"It crashed,\" Nasser repeated, in a whisper.\n\nThey coasted toward it. There was no one near it, no sign that anyone had been hurt. There was no smoke, no rescue crew. The crash must have been the day before. All there was now was a mound of orange steel. Nasser would not fly out this day.\n\nThey returned to the Claiborne house, dazed. Zeitoun called Kathy. He couldn't decide if he should tell her about the helicopter. He knew it would upset her, so he chose not to.\n\n\"You put the kids in school yet?\"\n\nKathy said she was trying, but it wasn't easy.\n\nZeitoun exhaled loudly.\n\n\"You're like the man who lost his camel and is looking for the rope,\" she said. It was one of his favorite expressions, and she relished using it against him. He would often say it when he felt Kathy was focusing on irrelevant details while ignoring the crux of a problem.\n\nHe wasn't amused.\n\n\"C'mon honey,\" she said.\n\nSchool wasn't the first thing on Kathy's mind. She had been determined, the night before and all morning, to convince her husband to leave the city. Mayor Nagin had ordered a forced evacuation of everyone remaining.\n\n\"A forced evacuation,\" she repeated.\n\nOfficials were concerned about the spread of E. coli, the risk of typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery. Unsanitary conditions would threaten the health of anyone still in the area.\n\n\"I'm not drinking the water,\" he said.\n\n\"What about the toxic waste?\" she asked. \"You know the crap buried underground there.\" She reminded him that parts of the city had been built on landfills containing arsenic, lead, mercury, barium, and other carcinogens. \"What if that stuff leaches through?\"\n\nZeitoun didn't know what to say.\n\n\"I'll be careful,\" he said.\n\nWhat he didn't say was that he was considering leaving. Everything was becoming more difficult, and there was less for him to do. Fewer people were left in the city, and fewer still needed help. There was only the matter of his properties, looking after them, and of course the dogs. Who would feed the dogs, if not him? For now, he told her it would be fine, that he would be careful. That he loved her and would call her in a few hours.\n\nHe set out alone for a while and before long, at the corner of Canal and Scott, he encountered a small boat. It was a military craft, with three men aboard: a soldier, a man with a video camera, and one holding a microphone and a notebook. They waved Zeitoun down and one of the men identified himself as a reporter.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" the reporter asked.\n\n\"Just checking on friends' houses. Trying to help,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"Who are you working with?\" the reporter asked.\n\n\"Anybody,\" Zeitoun said. \"I work with anybody.\"\n\nAs he paddled back to Claiborne, a hope flickered within Zeitoun that his siblings might see him on TV. Perhaps they would see what he was doing, that he had done something good by staying in his adopted city. The Zeitouns were proud, and there was plenty of sibling rivalry that had pushed them all to an array of achievements\u2014all of them measured against the deeds of Mohammed. None of them had ever done something like that, none had achieved on his level. But Zeitoun felt again that perhaps this was his calling, that God had waited to put him here and now to test him in this way. And so he hoped, as silly as it seemed, that his siblings might see him like this, on the water, a sailor again, being useful, serving God.\n\nWhen Zeitoun got back to 5010 Claiborne, he saw a blue-and-white motorboat tied to the porch.\n\nWhen he entered the house, there was a man inside, a man he had never seen before.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"Who are _you?\"_ the man asked.\n\n\"This is my house,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nThe man apologized. He introduced himself. His name was Ronnie, and he'd passed by the house one day, looking for a place that might have a working phone. He'd seen the phone box above the waterline and walked into the house. Since then, he'd been coming in periodically to make calls to his brother, a helicopter pilot. Ronnie was white, about thirty-five, six feet, two hundred pounds. He told Zeitoun that he worked for a tree company.\n\nZeitoun couldn't think of a good reason to ask Ronnie to leave. Zeitoun was happy to see anyone alive and well in the city, so he left Ronnie in the house and went upstairs to see if the water worked. He found Nasser on the second floor.\n\n\"You meet this man Ronnie?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nNasser had, and had found him to be agreeable enough. They both felt there was a certain strength in numbers, and again, if the man wanted to use the phone occasionally, who were they to prevent him from communicating with the outside world?\n\nImpossibly, the water in the bathroom was still functioning. Zeitoun hadn't even thought to check it sooner. It was a miracle. He told Nasser he was going to take a shower.\n\n\"Be quick,\" Nasser said. \"I'm next.\"\n\nNo shower had ever felt better. Zeitoun washed away all the sweat and grime, and what he assumed was a fair amount of oil and raw sewage. Afterward, he came downstairs.\n\n\"All yours,\" he told Nasser.\n\nHe picked up the phone and called his brother in Spain. He wanted to check in with him quickly before calling Kathy.\n\nAgain Ahmad tried to convince him to leave.\n\n\"Do you realize the images we're seeing on TV?\" he asked.\n\nZeitoun assured him that he was far away from that kind of chaos. Not counting the armed man at the Shell station, Zeitoun had seen almost no danger in all the time he had been canoeing around the city.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said, excited, \"I might be on TV. Someone just interviewed me. Look for it. Tell Kathy.\"\n\nAhmad sighed. \"So you won't go.\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\nAhmad knew better than to argue. But he did want to remind his brother that even if he felt safe now, danger could come at any time. There were roving gangs of armed men, he said. That's all the media could talk about\u2014that it was the Wild West out there. Ahmad felt powerless, and he hated the feeling. He knew his little brother considered him overly cautious. \"Won't you please consider leaving, for the sake of your beautiful family, before something happens?\"\n\nZeitoun was holding the piece of paper with Kathy's Phoenix number on it. He needed to call her before she started worrying. He was already ten minutes late. He was about to get off the phone with Ahmad when he heard Nasser's voice from the porch. He was talking to someone outside.\n\n\"Zeitoun!\" Nasser called.\n\n\"What?\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"Come here,\" Nasser said. \"These guys want to know if we need water.\"\n\nZeitoun assumed it was more men like himself and Nasser\u2014people with boats who were roaming around, trying to help.\n\nWhen he put the phone down and looked toward the front porch, he saw a group of men, all of them armed, bursting into the house. Zeitoun hung up the phone and walked toward the door.\n\n# III\n# WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 7\n\nKathy woke up tense. She fed and dressed the kids, trying not to think about the fact that her husband hadn't called the afternoon before. He had promised to call. Yuko told her not to worry. It was silly to worry. It had barely been a day, and even the regular contact Zeitoun had maintained so far was remarkable. Kathy agreed, but she knew she would be anxious until he called again.\n\nAfter Yuko took her own kids to school, she helped keep Kathy's children occupied while Kathy paced, phone in her hand.\n\nAt nine, Ahmad called from Spain.\n\n\"You hear from Abdulrahman today?\" he asked.\n\n\"No. You?\"\n\n\"Not since yesterday.\"\n\n\"So you talked to him?\" she asked.\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"He called you and not me.\"\n\n\"He was about to call you. But he got off the phone quickly. There was someone at the door.\"\n\n\"Who was it?\" Kathy asked. Her stomach dropped.\n\n\"I have no idea.\"\n\nShe called the Claiborne house and let it ring a dozen times before hanging up.\n\nNow she was a wreck. _He must call today_ , she thought. _I'll kill him if he doesn't call at noon_.\n\nAt ten o'clock Phoenix time it was noon in New Orleans. Kathy waited. The phone did not ring at ten, ten-thirty, eleven\u2014one o'clock New Orleans time. By noon in Phoenix she was frantic.\n\nShe called the Claiborne house again. No answer.\n\nYuko tried to put it in context. It was miraculous that the phone line at the Claiborne house was working at all. Chances were that it finally gave way and died. He'll find a way to call, she said. He's in an underwater city, she said. Cut the man some slack.\n\nKathy was calmer now, but still she paced the living room.\n\nYuko took the kids to the mall. She didn't want to leave Kathy alone, but the pacing was worrying the kids. Yuko was sure Zeitoun would call while they were gone, so why not let the kids enjoy themselves? The mall had a food court, an arcade for Zach. They planned to be back at three.\n\nKathy called the Claiborne house again. No answer.\n\nWalt called. \"You hear anything from Zeitoun?\"\n\nKathy told him she hadn't.\n\nShe called Adnan, Zeitoun's cousin.\n\n\"I'm still ashamed,\" she said. Last they had spoken, Kathy had had to tell him that her sister would not allow Adnan and Abeer to stay with them. It had been painful.\n\n\"Don't worry. We're fine,\" he said.\n\nHe was still in Baton Rouge with Abeer and his parents. After spending two nights in their car, they had returned to the mosque, and had been sleeping on the floor there for the past week.\n\n\"How is Abdulrahman?\" he asked.\n\n\"I haven't heard from him. Have you?\"\n\nAdnan had not.\n\nAlone and seeking distraction, Kathy turned on the TV, avoiding the news, finding Oprah Winfrey. Or she thought it was Oprah's show. But soon she realized it was a news report replaying portions of the previous day's show, with New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass and Mayor Nagin as Oprah's guests.\n\nCompass was lamenting the extent of the crime in the Superdome. \"We had babies in there. Little babies getting raped,\" he said, weeping. From Mayor Nagin: \"About three days we were basically rationing, fighting, people were\u2014that's why the people, in my opinion, they got to this almost animalistic state, because they didn't have the resources. They were trapped. You get ready to see something that I'm not sure you're ready to see. We have people standing out there that have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people. That's the tragedy. People are trying to give us babies that were dying.\"\n\nKathy turned the TV off again, this time for good. She called the house on Claiborne. The phone rang and rang. She paced. She walked outside, into the assaulting Phoenix heat, then went back inside. She called again. The rings began to sound hollow, desolate.\n\n* * *\n\nFour o'clock arrived and he hadn't called.\n\nShe called Ahmad in Spain. He hadn't heard from Zeitoun either. He had been calling the Claiborne house all day, to no avail.\n\nIn the late afternoon, the kids returned.\n\n\"Did Dad call?\" Nademah asked.\n\n\"Not yet,\" Kathy said, \"still waiting.\"\n\nShe held herself together for a few seconds but then imploded. She excused herself and ran to the guest room. She did not want her girls to see her this way.\n\nYuko came in and sat on the bed with Kathy. It's been just one day, she said. Just one day in the life of a man in a city with no services. He would call tomorrow. Kathy pulled herself together, and together they prayed. Yuko was right. It was one day. Of course he would call tomorrow.\n\n# THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 8\n\nKathy woke up with a better outlook. Maybe her husband didn't even realize he'd forgotten to call. He was likely saving any number of new people and animals and homes, and in the midst of it all he'd gotten overwhelmed. In any case, Kathy was determined to put on a brave face for the kids. She cooked their breakfast and pretended she was sane and content. She played GameCube with Zachary and killed the morning with diversions.\n\nPeriodically she pushed the redial button on Yuko's phone. The phone at Claiborne rang in an infinite loop.\n\nNoon came and went.\n\nKathy was losing her grip again.\n\n\"I need to go to New Orleans,\" she told Yuko.\n\n\"No you don't,\" Yuko said. She peppered Kathy with logistical questions. How would she get into the city? Did she plan to buy a boat and dodge the authorities and find her husband on her own? Yuko dismissed the notion.\n\n\"We don't want to have to worry about you, too.\"\n\nAhmad called Kathy. His tone had been neutral the day before, but now he sounded worried. This unnerved Kathy. If Ahmad, made of the same stuff her husband was\u2014and both of them made of the stuff of their father Mahmoud, who could survive two days at sea tethered to a barrel\u2014felt this to be a dire situation, then if anything, Kathy was underreacting.\n\nAhmad said he would try to contact the TV station that had interviewed Zeitoun. He would contact all the agencies that tracked missing persons in New Orleans. He would contact the Coast Guard. They agreed to call each other as soon they heard something.\n\nDate: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 19:08:04 +0200\n\nTo: SATERNKatrinaReliefUpdates@csc.com\n\nSubject: Ref. AMER-6G2TNL\n\nDear Sires,\n\nMany thanks for your answering.\n\nKindly please do your best to give us any good news about him.\n\nHe's my brother, he leave many years ago in New Orleans:\n\n4649 Dart St. New Orleans\n\nNew Orleans, LA\n\n70125-2716\n\nActually I'm at Spain, but her wife and childrens they left a day before Katrina hit to ARIZONA, his wife: Mrs. Kathy Zeitoun actual contact: 408-[number omitted]\n\nMore information:\n\nHe remained at home without phone, but he've a small boat and he went daily to: Mr. TODD at:\n\n5010 S. Claiborne Ave 70125-4941 New Orleans\n\nLast calling was on Sept 6 at 14:30 local time, after that till now no calls, no news. The phone which he used is ringing but no answering. Here I including his pictures maybe can help.\n\nMany thanks.\n\nSincerely,\n\nAhmad Zeton\n\nIn the afternoon, Zeitoun's family began calling from Syria. First it was Fahzia. A secondary-school teacher in Jableh, she spoke fluent English.\n\n\"Have you heard from Abdulrahman?\"\n\nKathy told her she had not for two days.\n\nThere was a long silence on the line.\n\n\"You have not heard from Abdulrahman?\"\n\nKathy explained that the phones were down, that it was likely that her husband was just trying to reach a working phone. This did not sit well with Fahzia.\n\n\"Again, please\u2014you have not heard from Abdulrahman?\"\n\nKathy loved the Zeitouns of Syria, but she did not need this extra burden. She excused herself and hung up.\n\nKathy did not attempt to sit at dinner. She paced the rooms, the phone an extension of her arm. She thought through the possibilities\u2014who she knew and what they could do to help. She didn't know a soul still in the city, she realized. It was paralyzing. It seemed impossible that in 2005, in the United States, there was an entire city cut off from all communication, all contact.\n\nLater, thinking the kids were asleep, she passed one of the bedrooms and heard Aisha talking to one of Yuko's kids.\n\n\"Our house is under ten feet of water,\" Aisha said.\n\nKathy held her breath at the door.\n\n\"And we can't find my dad.\"\n\nIn the bathroom, Kathy covered her face in a towel and bawled. Her body convulsed, but she tried not to make a sound.\n\n# FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 9\n\nKathy had no choice but to lie. She had never told a bald-faced lie to her children before, but now it seemed necessary. Otherwise they would all lose their composure. She planned to enroll them in school on Monday, and to have the strength to be thrown into such a situation they had to believe that their father was healthy and in contact. So at breakfast, when Aisha asked if she had heard from Dad, Kathy did not hesitate.\n\n\"Yup, heard from him last night,\" she said.\n\n\"On what phone?\" Nademah asked. They hadn't heard a ring.\n\n\"Yuko's phone,\" Kathy said. \"I got it on the first ring.\"\n\n\"So he's at the house?\" Nademah asked.\n\nKathy nodded. And as smart and skeptical as her kids were, they believed her. Especially Nademah and Zachary. Whether or not they sensed the lie, they _wanted_ to believe it. Safiya and Aisha were harder to read, but for the time being her kids' fears had been assuaged and now Kathy only had to worry about her own.\n\nJust after breakfast, the phone did ring. Kathy leapt to it.\n\nIt was Aisha, another sister of Zeitoun's. She was the director of an elementary school in Jableh, and also spoke English.\n\n\"Where is Abdulrahman?\" she asked.\n\n\"He's in New Orleans,\" Kathy answered calmly.\n\nAisha explained that no one had heard from him in days. He had been in touch a few times after the storm, and then nothing. She was calling on behalf of all the siblings, and she was worried.\n\n\"He's fine,\" Kathy said.\n\n\"How do you know?\" Aisha asked.\n\nKathy had no answer.\n\nKathy got online. Immediately she was swamped with horrific news from the city. Officials were reporting the death toll in and around New Orleans at 118. But Mayor Nagin estimated that the final number might climb as high as ten thousand. She checked her email. Her husband had never sent an email in his life, but she couldn't rule it out. She found an email from Zeitoun's brother Ahmad. He had cc'ed her on an email to another aid agency.\n\nFrom: CapZeton\n\nDate: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 22:12:05 +0200\n\nTo: [name omitted]@arcno.org\n\nSubject: Looking for my brother \/ Abdulrahman Zeitoun\n\nDear sires,\n\nKindly, would you please if it's possible to know from you about the persons which they forced to leave houses from New Orleans last Tue. Sept 6th, where they are now?\n\nI would like to have any news about my brother, which we lost the contact with him from Tue. Sept. 6th after 14:30 hrs, while he was at (5010 S. Claiborne Ave. 70125-4941 New Orleans) using a small boat. Moving to 4649 Dart St. where he stay.\n\nMy brother's details:\n\nName: Abdulrahman Zeitoun\n\nAge: 47 years\n\nAddress: 4649 Dart St.-New Orleans, LA 70125-2716\n\nFrom that time till now we haven't any news about him,\n\nKindly please do your best to help us.\n\nThanking you indeed,\n\nAhmad Zeton\n\nMalaga-Spain\n\nWhen it was noon in New Orleans Kathy called the Claiborne house. She let the phone ring, willing it to stop, to be interrupted by her husband's voice. She called all day, but the ringing had no end.\n\nWalt and Rob called. Kathy told them she had not heard from Zeitoun, and asked if Walt knew anyone who could help. Walt knew everyone, it seemed, and always had a solution. He said he would call a friend, a U.S. marshal, who he knew was near the city. Maybe he could get inside and get to the house on Claiborne.\n\nAs Kathy put the kids to bed that night, she forced herself to present a face of confidence. They asked if their house was underwater, and Kathy admitted that yes, there was some damage, but that lucky them, their father was a contractor, and that any damage could be quickly fixed.\n\n\"And guess what?\" she told them. \"Now you'll all get new bedroom sets!\"\n\n# SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10\n\nWalt called. He had spoken to his friend, the U.S. marshal. The marshal had driven toward the house on Dart Street, but he couldn't get close. The water was still too high.\n\nWalt said he would call a friend he knew who had a helicopter. He hadn't thought it through beyond that\u2014where the helicopter would go or how they would scout for Zeitoun\u2014but he said he would make more calls and call Kathy back soon.\n\nJust as she had the day before, when it was noon in New Orleans she called the Claiborne house. Again the ringing had no end.\n\nZeitoun's family called.\n\n\"Kathy, where's Abdulrahman?\" they said. It was Lucy, one of his nieces. All of Zeitoun's nieces and nephews were fluent in English, and were translating for the rest of the family.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Kathy said.\n\nAnother cousin got on the phone.\n\n\"You need to go find him!\" she insisted.\n\nThroughout the morning Zeitoun's sisters and brothers called from Lattakia, from Saudi Arabia. Had Kathy heard from him yet? Why wasn't she in New Orleans looking for him? Hadn't she been watching the TV?\n\nShe told them she hadn't, that she couldn't bear it.\n\nThey filled her in. There had been looting, rapes, murders. It was chaos, anarchy. They repeated Mayor Nagin's assertion that the city had devolved into an \"animalistic state.\" And in this way she got the media's funhouse picture of the state of the city via her husband's relatives halfway around the world. God knows, she thought, what kind of spin the media was putting on things out there.\n\nTwenty-five thousand body bags have been brought to the area, they noted. How can you live in that country? they asked. You need to move back here. Syria is so much safer, they said.\n\nKathy couldn't deal with the questions and the pressure. She was overcome, helpless, trembling. She got off the phone as politely as she could.\n\nShe went to the bathroom and for the first time in days looked at her face. There were blue rings around her eyes. She removed her hijab and took in a quick breath. Her hair. She had had no more than ten grey hairs before all of this. Now there was a stripe of white hair rising from her forehead, as wide as her hand.\n\nYuko forbade Kathy to answer the phone when anyone called from Syria. Yuko fielded all the calls, telling them that Kathy was doing everything she could, everything humanly possible.\n\nYuko and her husband Ahmaad took Kathy and the kids to Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the Red Cross had set up a shelter and triage unit for New Orleanians. Various missing-persons agencies were collecting information and trying to connect those separated from their families. Kathy brought a photo of Zeitoun and every piece of information she could find.\n\nAt the gym, it was a grim scene. There were dozens of people from New Orleans there, looking like they had fled that very day. Injuries were being treated, families sleeping on cots, piles of clothing everywhere. Kathy's girls clung to her.\n\nThe Red Cross took down all of Zeitoun's information and scanned the photo Kathy had brought. They were efficient and kind, and told Kathy that thousands of people had been located, that they were scattered all over the country and every story was stranger than the last. They told Kathy not to worry, that each day brought more order to the world.\n\nKathy left with some renewed hope. Perhaps he had been injured. He could be in a hospital somewhere, heavily sedated. He could have been found somewhere, unconscious and without identification. Now it was just a matter of time before the doctors and nurses looked through the missing-persons database to find him.\n\nBut now the kids were confused. Was their father safe or not? The signals were mixed. Kathy had told them he was fine, he was safe, he was in his canoe. But then why report him to the Red Cross? Why the missing-persons files, why the mentions of police and Coast Guard? Kathy tried to shield them from all this but it was impossible. She wasn't strong enough. She felt weak, porous.\n\nWhen they got home again Kathy called the Claiborne house. The phone rang and rang. Until now she had been telling herself that the phone might have been out of service, but this day she checked with the phone company. If the phone was not working at all, they told her, she would have gotten something like a busy signal, a particular sound to indicate that the lines were down. But the ringing persisted, and the ringing meant that the phone worked, but no one was there to answer it.\n\n* * *\n\nAisha was taking it the hardest. She seemed to swing between worry and fatalistic resignation. She was irritable. She couldn't concentrate. She withdrew and wept alone.\n\nThat night, after the other kids had fallen asleep, Kathy sat behind Aisha on her bed. She took her daughter's thick black hair in her hands and kneaded it with one hand, brushing it with the other. It was something she had done with Nademah to calm her before bed, and Yuko's mom had done the same with Kathy after their baths. It was soothing, meditative for both mother and daughter. In this case Kathy was humming a tune she couldn't even remember the name of, and Aisha was sitting, tense but accepting. Kathy was confident that this would ease her worry, would end with Aisha dropping back into Kathy's lap, contented and sleepy.\n\n\"You hear from him?\" Aisha asked.\n\n\"No, baby, not yet.\"\n\n\"Is he dead?\"\n\n\"No, baby, he's not dead.\"\n\n\"Did he drown?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did they find his body?\"\n\n\"Honey, stop.\"\n\nBut after a half-dozen strokes of her brush, Kathy took in a quick breath. Aisha's hair was coming out in clumps. The brush was full of it.\n\nAisha's eyes welled. Kathy bawled.\n\n_There is nothing worse than this_ , Kathy thought. _There can be nothing worse than this_.\n\n# SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11\n\nIt had been six days since Kathy had spoken to Zeitoun. She could no longer explain his absence. It didn't make sense. The city was overrun with help. The National Guard was everywhere, and officials were insisting that the city was virtually empty.\n\nShe ran the possibilities through her mind again. If he was still there, canoeing around New Orleans, he would have called again from the Claiborne house. If the Claiborne phone no longer worked, by now he would have found another working phone. Or he would have encountered one of the soldiers and asked for help in contacting Kathy. There seemed to be no way that he was in the city and unable to call.\n\nWhich meant that he had left the city. He might have been running low on water or food. He might have accepted a ride out of the city from one of the helicopters or rescue boats. But if he had left, and had been brought to a shelter, he would have called immediately.\n\nShe knew that bodies had been found floating, unclaimed and uncovered in the water. _He could be dead_ , she told herself. _Your husband could be gone_. There had been murders, she knew. She did not truly believe the accounts of untethered mayhem, but she knew that some murders would have occurred. _It could have been a robbery_ , she thought. _Someone had come to steal from one of our properties, he had been there, he had fought back\u2014_\n\nHe could not have drowned. He could not have fallen victim to any other sort of calamity. She knew her husband too well. She could not picture any accident taking him. He was too smart, too wary, and even if he had had some kind of incident, he was indestructible. He would have survived, he would have gotten help.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen it was noon in New Orleans Kathy called the Claiborne house. She let it ring, needing to hear her husband's voice, but still the ringing had no end.\n\nShe had to think of life insurance. She had to think about how she would support her four children. Would she be able to run the business on her own? Of course not. But some semblance of it? She would have to sell the rental properties. Or maybe the rental properties would be something she could manage on her own. Too many questions. No, she would sell the painting and contracting business and hold on to the rentals. Or she could sell a few of the buildings, bring it down to a number she could manage on her own. Should she stay in New Orleans, or move the family to Baton Rouge? To Phoenix? It would have to be Phoenix.\n\nAnd how long would anyone wait before assuming the worst? One week? Two weeks, three?\n\nShe got online and found another email from Ahmad. This one was sent to the TV station that had broadcast the brief interview with Zeitoun. From his office in Spain, Ahmad had found out which station it had been, and had found the name of one of the producers.\n\nFrom: CapZeton\n\nDate: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 02:01:34 +0200\n\nTo: [name omitted]@wafb.com\n\nSubject: New Orleans Hurricane-impacted areas\n\nDear Sires,\n\nAs I informed from some friends in Baton Rouge, that you have on Sept. 5th a meeting with my brother:\n\nName Abdulrahman Zeitoun, 47 years old, at New Orleans effected zone 4649 Dart St. LA 70125-2716 where he stay, our friend saw him on your TV WAFB CH9 on Sept. 6th.\n\nFrom that time till this moment we lost the contact with him. Kindly would you please can you give me any information about the day and time when you met him? Or if you have any other information?\n\nThanking you indeed,\n\nAhmad Zeton\n\nMalaga-Spain\n\nKathy found a website with current photos of New Orleans from the air. She searched until she found Uptown, and zoomed in until she saw what was left of her home and neighborhood. The water was filthier than she could have imagined. It looked like the entire city was bathing in oil and tar.\n\nShe called every number of every person she knew who might still be in New Orleans. Nothing.\n\nYuko and Ahmaad consoled her.\n\n\"He's old school,\" Ahmaad said. It was normal for a man like Zeitoun, rugged and independent, to be out of contact for a few days. \"They don't make guys like that anymore.\"\n\nYuko kept Kathy away from the phones and the news. Still, Kathy caught snippets in the car. In the Odyssey, she heard President Bush's weekly radio address. The president compared the storm to 9\/11 and the War on Terror. \"America is confronting another disaster that has caused destruction and loss of life,\" he said. \"America will overcome this ordeal, and we will be stronger for it.\"\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 12\n\nIt was time for the girls to start school. They had been out for almost two weeks now, and no matter how awkward it might be to start classes in the middle of September, they needed some semblance of routine.\n\nKathy made the calls. The closest public school was Dr. Howard K. Conley Elementary School. \"Bring them right away,\" Kathy was told. Zach, as a high schooler, would have a more difficult entry.\n\nThe girls were nervous. They were not happy to be brought to a new school, where they knew no one and where they would be branded as refugees. Why couldn't they just wait until they returned to New Orleans? What would they study? The books and lesson plans would be different. What was the point? The point, Kathy said, was that their father wanted them in school, and that was enough.\n\nYuko and Ahmaad bought the girls a new set of school supplies, binders and notebooks and pens and pencils, and Pok\u00e9mon and Hello Kitty backpacks to carry all of it. This gave the girls some measure of comfort, but when Kathy dropped them off, leaving them all in the office of the Conley principal, she was devastated. She couldn't look at Aisha. Everything was in that girl's wet black eyes, every worry Kathy shared\u2014that these were the first days of their new life together, living in Phoenix, living without their father.\n\nDriving away from the school, Kathy caught the news on the radio. The official death toll in New Orleans was now 279. It seemed to be leaping by a hundred a day, and the search for bodies had only just begun.\n\nDid she have to prepare for a funeral? It had been seven days now. How long could she explain away his absence? President Bush had come to New Orleans two or three times at that point. If the president could make his way to Jackson Square for a press conference, her husband, if alive, could find a phone and call out.\n\n# TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13\n\nWith the kids at school during the day, Kathy spiraled downward. She had more time to herself and more time to worry, more time to plan a wretched new life.\n\nShe called the house on Claiborne every hour. She called Zeitoun's cell phone in case he had found some place to charge it.\n\nThe death toll jumped to 423.\n\nShe found Todd Gambino's girlfriend's number and called her. She was in Mississippi, and hadn't heard from Todd in a week. This meant something. Perhaps something had happened to both of them? This was good news. It had to be. The two women agreed to stay in touch.\n\nFrom Spain, Ahmad called Kathy every day. He called the Coast Guard and the Navy. He wrote to the Syrian Embassy in Washington. Nothing from anyone. He looked into flights to New Orleans. What could it hurt to have him searching for his brother on the ground? He worried that his siblings expected him to go, given that he was the only one who might have any chance at all of entering the United States; getting a visa from Syria was hopeless. His wife ruled out the notion, but still, the idea burrowed into him.\n\n# WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14\n\nThe death toll was at 648 and climbing.\n\nKathy checked in with the Red Cross every day. She soon had Zeitoun registered at half a dozen agencies dealing with missing persons. His photo was everywhere.\n\n* * *\n\nThe girls went to school, came home, watched TV. They found momentary distraction with Yuko and Ahmaad's kids, but their eyes were hollow. They too were planning lives without their father. Did they want to move to Phoenix? Would there be a funeral? When would they know what had happened?\n\nIn the countless hours of darkening thoughts, Kathy imagined again where she would live. Could she live in Arizona? She would have to find a house near Yuko's. Ahmaad would have to be a father figure. Kathy had already leaned so heavily on Yuko and Ahmaad, she couldn't imagine permanently thrusting her entire family onto them.\n\nShe thought of Zeitoun's family in Syria. There was such a support network there, a vast and tight fabric of family. She and Zeitoun had brought the kids there in 2003 for two weeks to visit, and it had been unlike anything she'd expected. First there was the snow. Snow in Damascus! They'd taken a bus north to Jableh, and all along she'd been shocked at what she saw. She'd had, she later admitted, an antique idea of Syria. She'd pictured deserts, donkeys, and carts\u2014not so many busy, cosmopolitan cities, not so many Mercedes and BMW dealerships lining the highway heading north, not so many women in tight clothes and uncovered hair. But there were vestiges of a less modern life, too\u2014merchants selling sardines and cabbage by the roadside, crude homes of brick and mud. As they drove north to Jableh, the road soon met the coastline, and they traveled along a beautiful seaside stretch, hills cascading to the sea, mosques perched above the road, side by side with churches, dozens of them. She'd assumed Syria was entirely Muslim, but she was wrong about this, and about so many things. She loved being surprised, coming to realize that in many ways Syria was a quintessentially Mediterranean country, connected to the sea and in love with food and new ideas and reflecting the influence of Greece, Italy, so many cultures. Kathy devoured it all\u2014the fresh vegetables and fish, the yogurts, the lamb! The lamb was the best she'd had anywhere, and she ate it whenever she had the opportunity. In beautiful seaside Jableh she'd seen the homes that Zeitoun's grandfather had built, saw the monument to his brother Mohammed. They stayed with Kousay, Abdulrahman's wonderfully life-loving and gregarious brother, who still lived in their childhood home. It was a gorgeous old place on the water, with high ceilings and windows always open to the sea breezes. There was family everywhere within walking distance, so many cousins, so much history. While Zeitoun darted around town, reconnecting with old friends, Kathy had spent an afternoon cooking with Zeitoun's sister Fahzia, and she'd done something wrong with the propane and almost burned down the kitchen. It was terrifying at the time but made for much hilarity in the coming days. They were such good people, her husband's family, everyone so well educated, so open and hospitable, each of their houses full of constant laughter. Would it be impossible to think that Kathy could take the kids and live there, in Jableh? It was a radical idea, but one that would put her in a place of such comfort, embraced by family; the girls would be surrounded by so many relatives that perhaps they wouldn't be quite so devastated at the loss of their dad.\n\nZeitoun's family in Syria became increasingly despondent and resigned to the loss of Abdulrahman. There were so many bodies being found. Almost seven hundred in New Orleans. Their brother was surely one of them; to believe otherwise was folly. Now they just wanted the peace of mind of knowing how he had died. They wanted his body. To cleanse it, to bury him.\n\n# SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17\n\nYuko had forbidden her to watch TV or get on the internet, but Kathy couldn't resist. She searched for her husband's name. She searched for their address, their company. She searched for any sign that her husband had been found.\n\nShe found nothing about him, but found other, terrible things. All over the web she found news of the violence and evidence of its overstatement. One page would report hundreds of murders, crocodiles in the water, gangs of men rampaging. Another page would report that no babies had been raped. That there had been no murders in the Superdome, no deaths in the Convention Center. There was no end to the fear and confusion, the racist assumptions and the rumor-mongering.\n\nNo one debated that the city was in chaos, but now there was debate over where that chaos had originated. Was it the residents or was it those sent to bring order? Kathy's mind spun as she read about the unprecedented concentration of armed men and women in the city.\n\nFirst she read about the mercenaries. Immediately after the storm, wealthy businesses and individuals had called in private-security firms from all over the world. At least five different organizations had sent soldiers-for-hire into the city, including Israeli mercenaries from a firm called Instinctive Shooting International. Kathy took in a quick breath. Israeli commandos in New Orleans? That was it, she realized. Her husband was an Arab, and there were Israeli paramilitaries on the ground in the city. She leapt to conclusions.\n\nAnd the Blackwater soldiers. Blackwater USA, a private-security firm that employed former soldiers from the U.S. and elsewhere, had sent hundreds of personnel to the region. They were there in an official capacity, hired by the Department of Homeland Security to help maintain order. They arrived in full battle dress. Some carried badges as deputies of the Louisiana State Police.\n\nKathy became obsessed with all the guns. Her brother had been in the National Guard, and she knew how they were armed. She started doing the math. If all the Blackwater mercenaries were carrying at least two guns each, that would mean hundreds of 9mm Heckler and Koch sidearms, hundreds of M-16 rifles and M-4 machine guns.\n\nShe felt as if she had stumbled upon the answer to her husband's disappearance. Nothing else made sense. This seemed the most logical thing. One of these mercenaries, responsible to no one, had shot Zeitoun. Now they were covering it up. This is why she had heard nothing. The whole thing would be covered up.\n\nBut there were also so many American troops. Surely they had things under control. As well as she could surmise, there were at least twenty thousand National Guard troops in New Orleans, with more arriving every day. But then she thought of the guns again. If each one of those soldiers had at least one M-16 assault rifle, there were about twenty thousand automatic rifles in the city. Too many. And if Governor Blanco was right, that these were vets coming straight from Afghanistan and Iraq, it could not bode well for her husband.\n\nShe searched more websites, went deeper. There were 5,750 Army soldiers in the New Orleans area. Almost a thousand state police officers, many of them there with SWAT teams, armed for urban combat. Four hundred Customs and Border Protection agents and officers deputized for local law enforcement. This included more than one hundred men from Border Patrol Tactical Units\u2014men usually armed with grenade launchers, shotguns, battering rams and assault rifles. There were four Maritime Security and Safety Teams, the new Coast Guard tactical units that Homeland Security had formed as part of the War on Terror. Each MSST carried M-16s, shotguns, and .45 caliber handguns. There were five hundred FBI special agents and a U.S. marshals special-ops team. And snipers. They were sending snipers into the city to shoot looters and gunmen. Kathy added it up. There were at least twenty-eight thousand guns in New Orleans. That would be the low number, counting rifles, handguns, shotguns.\n\nShe couldn't look anymore. She turned off the computer and paced. She lay in bed, staring at the wall. She got up, went to the bathroom, inspecting the new swath of white hair on her head.\n\nAgain she returned to the computer in search of her husband. She was furious with him, with his stubbornness. If he had just gotten in the Odyssey with them! Why could he not simply surrender to the same logic hundreds of thousands of people had recognized? He had to be apart from that. He had to do more. He had to do something else.\n\nShe found an email Ahmad had sent to one of the missing-persons agencies. The pictures he had attached were now the only ones she had of her husband\u2014the only ones she had in Phoenix, anyway. They had been taken a year before, in M\u00e1laga. They'd gone, the whole family, and the picture was taken on the beach near Ahmad's house. When Kathy saw that beach, she could only think of the hike, that insane hike her husband had insisted they take. If ever there was a totemic memory that encompassed the man, it was that day.\n\nThey had been in M\u00e1laga for a few days when the older kids felt comfortable enough in Ahmad and Antonia's house to be left for the morning. Zeitoun wanted to take Kathy and Safiya for a walk on the beach, to be alone for a bit. Zachary and Nademah and Aisha, entertained with Lutfi and Laila and the pool in the backyard, barely noticed when they left.\n\nKathy and Zeitoun walked down to the beach, Zeitoun carrying Safiya. They walked for a mile or so down the shore, the water cool and calm. Kathy was as content as she had been in years. It was almost like a real holiday, and her husband actually seemed relaxed, like a regular person on an actual vacation. To have him this way, just walking on a beach for no real reason, just to feel the water between his toes\u2014it was a side of him she rarely saw.\n\nBut it didn't last long. Almost as soon as she took notice of his sense of peace and leisure, his eyes focused on something in the distance.\n\n\"See that?\" he asked.\n\nShe shook her head. She didn't want to see what he saw.\n\n\"That rock. See it?\"\n\nHe had taken notice of a small rock formation in the distance, jutting into the sea a few miles down the shore. Kathy held her breath, afraid of whatever notion was brewing in his mind.\n\n\"Let's walk there,\" he said, his face bright, his eyes alive.\n\nKathy did not want to walk to a particular destination. She wanted to stroll. She wanted to stroll, then sit on the beach and play with their daughter, then go back to Ahmad's. She wanted a vacation\u2014idleness, frivolity even.\n\n\"C'mon,\" he said. \"Such a nice day. And it's not so far.\"\n\nThey walked toward the rock, and the water was pleasant, the sun gentle. But after another thirty minutes, they had not gotten noticeably closer. And they had come upon a low promontory that separated one part of the beach from the next. It seemed a perfect place to turn around. Kathy suggested this, but Zeitoun dismissed it out of hand.\n\n\"We're so close!\" he said.\n\nThey were not so close, but she followed her husband as he climbed over the rock, holding Safiya with one hand, over the jagged ridge and down again to the next stretch of beach.\n\n\"See?\" he said when they landed on the wet sand. \"So close.\"\n\nThey walked on, Zeitoun transferring Safiya to his shoulders. They continued another mile, and again the beach was interrupted by a ridge. They climbed over this one, too. When they were again on level ground, the rock in the distance seemed no closer than when they'd set out. Zeitoun wasn't fazed.\n\nThey had been walking two hours when the beach was interrupted by another, much larger promontory, this one big enough that homes and shops had been built atop it. They had to climb up a set of steps, through the roads of this small town. Kathy insisted they stop for water, for ice cream. She drank her fill, but they did not pause for long. Soon he was off again, and she had no choice but to follow. They jogged down the steps on the other side to continue on the beach. Zeitoun never broke pace. He was barely sweating.\n\n\"So close, Kathy!\" he said, pointing to the rock in the distance, which looked no closer than before.\n\n\"We should turn around,\" she said. \"What's the point?\"\n\n\"No, no, Kathy!\" he said. \"We can't turn around till we touch it.\" And she knew that he would insist she do it, too. He always wanted his family along for his quests.\n\nZeitoun showed no signs of fatigue. He switched Safiya, now sleeping, from one arm to the other, and kept going.\n\nThey walked for four hours in all, up and over three hillside towns, across fifteen miles of beach, before they were finally close enough to the rock to touch it.\n\nIt was nothing much to see. Just a boulder jutting out into the sea. When they were finally upon it, Kathy laughed, and Zeitoun laughed too. She rolled her eyes, and he smiled at her mischievously. He knew it was absurd.\n\n\"C'mon, Kathy, let's touch the rock,\" he said.\n\nThey walked out to it and quickly climbed to its peak. They sat there for a few minutes, resting, watching the waves crash against the rocks below. And as ridiculous as it had seemed en route, Kathy felt good. She had married a bullheaded man, a sometimes ridiculously stubborn man. He could be exasperating in his sense of destiny. Whatever he set his mind to, even a crackpot idea of touching some random rock miles in the distance, she knew he would not rest until he had done it. It was maddening. It was strange, even. But then again, she thought, it gave their marriage a certain epic scope. It was silly to think that way, she knew, but they were on a journey that did sometimes seem grand. She had grown up in a small Baton Rouge house with nine siblings, and now she and her husband had four thriving kids, had been to Spain, to Syria, could seemingly achieve any of the goals they conjured.\n\n\"C'mon, touch it,\" he said again.\n\nThey were sitting on it, but she hadn't yet officially touched it.\n\nNow she did. He smiled and held her hand.\n\n\"It's nice, right?\" he asked.\n\nAfter that, it became a joke between them. Any time something seemed difficult and Kathy was ready to give up, Zeitoun would say, \"Touch the rock, Kathy! Touch the rock!\"\n\nAnd they would laugh, and she would find the strength to continue, partly out of a strange sort of logic: wasn't it more absurd to give up? Wasn't it more absurd to fail, to turn back, than to continue?\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19\n\nKathy woke up having reached a new kind of peace. She felt strong, and was ready to start planning. She had been paralyzed for almost two weeks now, waiting for word about her husband, but this was folly. She needed to go home, to the house on Dart. She was suddenly sure that she would find her husband there. His family in Syria was right. The most dangerous thing was these roving gangs of men. That made the most sense. As the city emptied out, the looting likely grew more brazen and engulfed neighborhoods like Uptown. The thieves had come to the house on Dart, and, not expecting to find anyone there, had killed her husband.\n\nShe needed to get back to New Orleans, hire a boat of some kind, and return to the house on Dart. She needed to see him, wherever he was. She needed to find him and bury him. She needed all of this to end.\n\nAll morning she felt a new serenity. It was time to get serious, to stop hoping, and to start working toward whatever came next.\n\n* * *\n\nMidday, Kathy heard that another hurricane, this one called Rita, was bearing down on New Orleans. Mayor Nagin, who had planned to reopen the city, now canceled those plans. The storm, being tracked over the Gulf with winds above 150 miles per hour, was expected to hit September 21. Even if she could make it near New Orleans, the winds would again push her back.\n\nNademah came in the living room.\n\n\"Should we pray?\" she asked.\n\nKathy almost said no\u2014all she did was pray\u2014but she didn't want to disappoint her daughter.\n\n\"Sure. Let's.\"\n\nAnd they prayed on the living room floor. Afterward, she kissed Nademah's forehead and held her close. _I will rely on you so much_ , she thought. _Poor Demah_ , she thought, _you have no idea_.\n\nAnd then Kathy's cell phone rang. She picked it up. \"Hello?\"\n\n\"Is this Mrs. Zeitoun?\" a voice asked. The man seemed nervous. He pronounced _Zeitoun_ wrong. Kathy's stomach dropped. She managed to say yes.\n\n\"I saw your husband,\" the man said.\n\nKathy sat down. An image of his body floating in the filth\u2014\n\n\"He's okay,\" the voice said. \"He's in prison. I'm a missionary. I was at Hunt, the prison up in St. Gabriel. He's there. He gave me your number.\"\n\nKathy asked him a dozen questions in one breath.\n\n\"Sorry, that's all I know. I can't tell you anything else.\"\n\nShe asked him how she could get hold of Zeitoun, if he was being well cared for\u2014\n\n\"Look, I can't talk to you anymore. I could get in trouble. He's okay, he's in there. That's it, I've got to go.\"\n\nAnd he hung up.\n\n# IV\n# TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 6\n\nZeitoun was enjoying the cool water of his first shower in over a week. The water might shut off for good at any time, he knew, so he lingered for a few seconds longer than he should have.\n\nBut he was ready to go. The neighborhoods were emptying out, and it wouldn't be long before there was no one else to help and little left to see. He wondered when and how he might leave. Maybe in a few days. He could head up to Napoleon and St. Charles and ask the officers and aid workers there how he could get out. He would only need to get to the airport in New Orleans or Baton Rouge, and then fly to Phoenix. There wasn't much left to do here, he was running low on food, and he missed Kathy and the kids. It was time.\n\nHe walked downstairs.\n\n\"Shower's all yours,\" he told Nasser.\n\nZeitoun called his brother Ahmad in Spain.\n\n\"Do you realize the images we're seeing on TV?\" Ahmad asked.\n\nAs they were talking, he heard Nasser's voice from the porch. He was talking to someone outside.\n\n\"Zeitoun!\" Nasser called.\n\n\"What?\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"Come here,\" Nasser said. \"These guys want to know if we need water.\"\n\nZeitoun hung up the phone and walked toward the door.\n\nThe men met Zeitoun in the foyer. They were wearing mismatched police and military uniforms. Fatigues. Bulletproof vests. Most were wearing sunglasses. All had M-16s and pistols. They quickly filled the hallway. There were at least ten guns visible.\n\n\"Who are you?\" one of them asked.\n\n\"I'm the landlord. I own this house,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nNow he saw that there were six of them\u2014five white men and one African American woman. Under their vests it was hard to see their uniforms. Were they local cops? The woman, very tall, wore camouflage fatigues. She was probably National Guard. They were all looking around the house as if they were finally seeing the inside of a building they had long been watching from afar. They were tense, each of them with their fingers on their triggers. In the foyer, one officer was frisking Ronnie. Another officer had Nasser against the wall by the stairway.\n\n\"Give me your ID,\" one man said to Zeitoun.\n\nZeitoun complied. The man took the ID and gave it back to Zeitoun without looking at it.\n\n\"Get in the boat,\" he said.\n\n\"You didn't look at it,\" Zeitoun protested.\n\n\"Move!\" another man barked.\n\n* * *\n\nZeitoun was pushed toward the front door. The other officers had already gathered Ronnie and Nasser onto an enormous fan boat. It was a military craft, far bigger than any other boat Zeitoun had seen since the storm. There were at least two officers pointing automatic rifles at them.\n\nAt that moment, another boat arrived. It was Todd, coming home from his rescue rounds.\n\n\"What's happening here?\" he asked.\n\n\"Who are you?\" one of the officers demanded.\n\n\"I live here,\" Todd said. \"I have proof. It's inside the house.\"\n\n\"Get in the boat,\" the officer said.\n\nZeitoun was not panicking. He knew there had been a mandatory evacuation in effect, and he assumed this had something to do with that. He knew it would all get straightened out wherever they were being taken. All he needed was to call Kathy, who would call a lawyer.\n\nBut Yuko's number was in the house, by the phone, on the hall table. If he didn't get it now, he would have no way to reach Kathy. He hadn't memorized it.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" he said to one of the soldiers. \"I left a piece of paper on that table. It's my wife's phone number. She's in Arizona. It's the only way\u2014\" He moved toward the house, smiling politely. It was everything, that number. The piece of paper was fifteen feet away.\n\n\"No!\" the soldier yelled. He grabbed the back of Zeitoun's shirt, turned him around, and shoved him onto the boat.\n\nThe four captives rode standing, surrounded by the six military personnel. Zeitoun tried to figure out who they were, but there were few clues. Two or three of the men were dressed in black, with no visible patches or insignia.\n\nNo one spoke. Zeitoun knew not to exacerbate the situation, and assumed that when they were interviewed by a superior, everything would be explained. They would be scolded for staying in the city when there was a mandatory evacuation in effect, and they would be sent north on a bus or helicopter. Kathy would be relieved, he thought, when she heard he was finally on his way out.\n\nThey sped down Claiborne and then Napoleon, until the water grew shallow at the intersection of Napoleon and St. Charles.\n\nThe boat cut its engine and coasted toward the intersection. There were a dozen men in National Guard uniforms there, and they all took notice. A smattering of other men in bulletproof vests, sunglasses, and black caps all looked up. They were waiting for them.\n\nThe moment Zeitoun and the three other men were led off the boat, a dozen soldiers descended upon them. Two men in bulletproof vests leapt on Zeitoun, tackling him to the ground. His face was pushed into the wet grass. He spat out mud. There was a knee in his back, hands on his legs. It felt like there were at least three men keeping him down with all their force, though he had not moved or struggled. His arms were pulled behind his back and he was handcuffed with plastic ties. His legs were tied together. All the while the men were barking orders: \"Hold still!\" \"Stay there, motherfucker.\" \"Don't move, asshole.\" Out of the corner of his eye he could see the other three men, Nasser, Todd, and Ronnie, all on the ground, face down, with knees on their backs, hands on their necks. Photographers were taking pictures. Soldiers were watching, their fingers ready on the triggers of their guns.\n\n* * *\n\nStruggling to gain their balance with their legs tied, the four men were lifted up. They were shuffled into a large white van. They sat on two benches inside, opposite each other. No one spoke. A young soldier stepped into the driver's seat. His face seemed open; Zeitoun took a chance.\n\n\"What's happening here?\" Zeitoun asked him.\n\n\"I don't know,\" the soldier said. \"I'm from Indiana.\"\n\nThey waited for thirty minutes in the van. Zeitoun could see the activity outside\u2014soldiers talking urgently to each other and on radios. This was a busy intersection that he passed every day. He could see Copeland's restaurant, where he'd often eaten with his family, right there on the corner. Now it was a military post, and he was a captive. He and Todd exchanged looks. Todd was a joker, and he'd had a run-in or two with the law, so even in the back of a military van he seemed amused. He shook his head and rolled his eyes.\n\nZeitoun thought of the dogs he had been feeding. He caught the attention of one of the soldiers passing by the open back of the van.\n\n\"I've been feeding dogs,\" Zeitoun said. \"Can I give you the address, and you can take them out, bring them somewhere?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" the soldier said. \"We'll take care of them.\"\n\n\"You want the address?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"No, I know where they are,\" the soldier said, and walked away.\n\nThe van drove toward downtown.\n\n\"We're going to the Superdome?\" Todd wondered aloud.\n\nA few blocks from the stadium, they pulled into the crescent-shaped driveway of the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, where incoming and outgoing Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses docked. Zeitoun's earlier assumption\u2014that they were being evacuated by force\u2014seemed to be confirmed. He was relieved, and sat back on the bench. It was wrong that he hadn't been allowed to retrieve any possessions, and he felt that the treatment by the cops and soldiers had been rough. But the result was going to be simple and fair enough: they were being put on a bus or train and sent out of the city.\n\nZeitoun had picked up and dropped off friends and relatives at the station a handful of times over the years. Fronted by a lush lawn and palm trees, the Union Passenger Terminal had opened in 1954, an art deco\u2013style building once aspiring to grandness but since overtaken by a certain grey municipal malaise. There was a whimsical candy-colored sculpture on the lawn that looked like a bunch of child's toys glued together without reason or order. A few blocks beyond, the Superdome loomed.\n\nAs they pulled to the side of the building, Zeitoun saw police cars and military vehicles. National Guardsmen patrolled the grounds. The station had become a kind of military base. A few personnel were casual, talking idly against a Humvee, smoking. Others were on guard, as if expecting a siege at any moment.\n\nThe van stopped at the station's side door, and the captives were taken out of the van and led inside. When Zeitoun and the others entered the main room of the station, immediately fifty pairs of eyes, those of soldiers and police officers and military personnel, were upon them. There were no other civilians inside. It was as if the entire operation, this bus station-turned-military base, had been arranged for them.\n\nZeitoun's heart was thrumming. They saw no civilians, no hospital or humanitarian-aid workers, as had been common in areas like the Napoleon\u2013St. Charles staging ground. This was different. This was entirely martial, and the mood was tense.\n\n\"Are you kidding me?\" Todd said. \"What the hell is going on?\"\n\nThe four men were seated in folding chairs near the Greyhound ticket desk. With every passing minute, everyone in the bus station seemed to take more interest in Zeitoun, Nasser, Todd, and Ronnie.\n\nAll around there were men in uniform\u2014New Orleans police, National Guard soldiers, prison guards with the words LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS on their uniforms. Zeitoun counted about eighty personnel and at least a dozen assault rifles within a thirty-foot radius. Two officers with dogs kept watch, leashes wrapped tight around their fists.\n\nTodd was lifted from his chair and brought to the Amtrak ticket counter against the wall. As two officers flanked him, a third officer on the other side of the counter began to question him. The other three men remained seated. Zeitoun could not hear the interrogation.\n\nThe soldiers and guards nearby were on edge. When Nasser shifted in his seat, there were immediate rebukes.\n\n\"Sit still. Go back to your position.\"\n\nNasser at first resisted.\n\n\"Stop moving!\" they said. \"Hands where I can see them.\"\n\nZeitoun examined his surroundings. In essential ways, the station was still the same. There was a Subway franchise, various ticket counters, an information kiosk. But there were no travelers. There were only men and women with guns, hundreds of boxes of water and other supplies stacked in the hallways, and Zeitoun and his fellow prisoners.\n\nTodd was arguing with his interrogators. Zeitoun could hear occasional bursts as the questioning at the Amtrak desk continued. Todd was hotheaded on a normal day, so it didn't surprise Zeitoun that he was agitated during the processing.\n\n\"Are we going to get a phone call?\" Todd asked.\n\n\"No,\" the officer said.\n\n\"You have to give us a phone call.\"\n\nThere was no answer.\n\nTodd raised his voice, rolled his eyes. The soldiers around him stood closer, barking admonitions and threats back at him.\n\n\"Why are we here?\" he asked a passing soldier.\n\n\"You guys are al Qaeda,\" the soldier said.\n\nTodd laughed derisively, but Zeitoun was startled. He could not have heard right.\n\nZeitoun had long feared this day would come. Each of the few times he had been pulled over for a traffic violation, he knew the possibility existed that he would be harassed, misunderstood, suspected of shadowy dealings that might bloom in the imagination of any given police officer. After 9\/11, he and Kathy knew that many imaginations had run amok, that the introduction of the idea of \"sleeper cells\"\u2014groups of would-be terrorists living in the U.S. and waiting, for years or decades, to strike\u2014meant that everyone at their mosque, or the entire mosque itself, might be waiting for instructions from their presumed leaders in the hills of Afghanistan or Pakistan.\n\nHe and Kathy worried about the reach of the Department of Homeland Security, its willingness to contact anyone born in or with a connection to the Middle East. So many of their Muslim friends had been interviewed, forced to send in documents and hire lawyers. But until now Zeitoun had been fortunate. He had had no experience with profiling, hadn't been suspected of anything by anyone with real authority. There were the occasional looks askance, of course, sneers from people upon hearing his accent. Maybe, he thought, this was just one soldier, ignorant or cruel, wanting to stir things up. Zeitoun decided to ignore it.\n\nStill, Zeitoun's senses were awakened. He scanned the room for more signals. He and the three others were still being watched by dozens of soldiers and cops. He felt like an exotic beast, a hunter's prize.\n\nMoments later, another passing soldier looked at Zeitoun and muttered \"Taliban.\"\n\nAnd as much as he wanted to dismiss both comments, he couldn't. Now he was sure that there was a grave misunderstanding taking place, and that unraveling it, disproving it, was going to take days. Todd ranted, but Zeitoun knew it would do no good. The question of their innocence or guilt would not be answered in this room, not any time soon.\n\nHe sat back and waited.\n\nBefore them was an alcove housing a bank of vending machines and video games. Above the machines, wrapping around the interior of the entire station, was a vast mural that occupied, in four long segments, the upper half of the station's main walls.\n\nIn all, the mural was about 120 feet long, and it sought to depict the entire history of Louisiana in particular and the United States generally. Zeitoun looked up at it, and though he had been in the terminal before, he had never really seen this mural. Now that he did, it was a startling thing, a dark catalog of subjugation and struggle. The colors were nightmarish, the lines jagged, the images disturbing. He saw Ku Klux Klan hoods, skeletons, harlequins in garish colors, painted faces. Just above him there was a lion being attacked by a giant eagle made of gold. There were images of blue-clad soldiers marching off to war next to mass graves. There were many depictions of the suppression or elimination of peoples\u2014Native Americans, slaves, immigrants\u2014and always, nearby, was the artist's idea of the instigators: wealthy aristocrats in powdered wigs, generals in gleaming uniforms, businessmen with bags of money. In one segment, oil derricks stood below a flooded landscape, water engulfing a city.\n\nNasser was processed next. He was brought to the Amtrak ticket counter, and now Zeitoun saw that they were fingerprinting and photographing each of them.\n\nSoon after Nasser's interrogation began, his duffel bag created a stir. A female officer was removing stacks of American money from the bag.\n\n\"This isn't from here,\" she said.\n\nNasser argued with her, but this discovery only got the building more excited.\n\n\"That _ain't_ from here,\" she said, now more certain.\n\nThe money was laid out on a nearby table and soon there was a crowd around it. Someone counted it. Ten thousand dollars.\n\nThis was the first Zeitoun knew of the contents of Nasser's bag. When Nasser had brought it into the canoe, Zeitoun had assumed it contained clothes, a few valuables. He never would have guessed it contained $10,000 in cash.\n\n* * *\n\nSoon there were more discoveries. Todd had been carrying $2,400 of his own. The officers stacked it on the table in its own pile next to Nasser's. In Todd's pockets they found MapQuest printouts.\n\n\"I deliver lost luggage,\" Todd tried to explain.\n\nThis didn't satisfy the officers.\n\nIn one of Todd's pockets they discovered a small memory chip, the kind used for digital cameras. Todd laughed, explaining that on it were only photos he'd taken of the flood damage. But the authorities were seeing something more.\n\nWatching the evidence on the table mount, Zeitoun's shoulders slackened. Most municipal systems were not functioning. There were no lawyers in the station, no judges. They would not talk their way out of this. The police and soldiers in the room were too worked up, and the evidence was too intriguing. Zeitoun settled in for a long wait.\n\nTodd grew more exasperated. He would calm down for a time, then explode again. Finally one of the soldiers raised his arm, as if to strike him down with the back of his hand. Todd went quiet.\n\nThen it was Zeitoun's turn for processing. He was brought to the Amtrak counter and fingerprinted. He was pushed against a nearby wall on which height markers had been written by hand, from five to seven feet. Zeitoun had stood in this exact place before while waiting to buy train tickets for friends or employees. Now, while handcuffed and guarded by two soldiers with M-16s, his photograph was being taken.\n\nAt the ticket counter, he surrendered his wallet and was frisked for any other possessions. He was asked basic questions: name, address, occupation, country of origin. He was not told of the charges against him.\n\nEventually he was brought back to the row of chairs and was seated again with Todd and Nasser, while Ronnie was processed.\n\nMoments later, Zeitoun was grabbed roughly under the arm. \"Stand up,\" a soldier said.\n\nZeitoun stood and was led by three soldiers into a small room\u2014some kind of utility closet. Inside there were bare walls and a small folding table.\n\nThe door closed behind him. He was alone with two soldiers.\n\n\"Remove your clothes,\" one said.\n\n\"Here?\" he asked.\n\nThe soldier nodded.\n\nUntil this point, Zeitoun had not been charged with a crime. He had not been read his rights. He did not know why he was being held. Now he was in a small white room being asked by two soldiers, each of them in full camouflage and holding automatic rifles, to remove his clothes.\n\n\"Now!\" one of the soldiers barked.\n\nZeitoun took off his T-shirt and shorts and, after a pause, stepped out of his sandals.\n\n\"And the undershorts,\" the same soldier said.\n\nZeitoun paused. If he did this, he would live with it always. The shame would never leave him. But there was no alternative. He could refuse, but if he did, there would be a fight. More soldiers. Some sort of retribution.\n\n\"Do it!\" the soldier ordered.\n\nZeitoun removed his underwear.\n\nOne of the soldiers circled him, lifting Zeitoun's arms as he passed. The soldier held a baton, and when he reached Zeitoun's back, he tapped Zeitoun's inner thigh.\n\n\"Spread your legs,\" the soldier said.\n\nZeitoun did so.\n\n\"Elbows on the table.\"\n\nZeitoun couldn't understand the meaning of the words.\n\nThe soldier repeated the directive, his voice more agitated. \"Put your elbows on the table.\"\n\nHe had no options. Zeitoun knew that the soldiers would get what they wanted. They were likely looking for any contraband, but he also knew that anything was possible. Nothing on this day had conformed to any precedent.\n\nZeitoun bent over. He heard the sounds of the soldier pulling plastic gloves onto his hands. Zeitoun felt fingers quickly exploring his rectum. The pain was extreme but brief.\n\n\"Stand up,\" the soldier said, removing the glove with a snap. \"Get dressed.\"\n\nZeitoun put on his shorts and shirt. He was led out of the room, where he saw Todd. He was arguing already, threatening lawsuits, the loss of all their jobs. Soon Todd was pushed into the room, the door was closed, and his protestations were muffled behind the steel door.\n\nWhen Todd's search was complete, the two of them were led back through the bus station. Zeitoun was certain that he saw a handful of looks of recognition, soldiers and police officers who knew what had happened in the room.\n\nZeitoun and Todd were brought to the back of the station and toward the doors that led to the buses and trains. Zeitoun's thoughts were a jumble. Could it be that after all that, they _were_ being evacuated? Perhaps they had been stripped to ensure that they hadn't stolen anything, and now, deemed clean, they were being sent away on a bus? It was bizarre, but not out of the realm of possibility.\n\n* * *\n\nBut when the guards pushed open the doors, Zeitoun took a quick breath. The parking lot, where a dozen buses might normally be parked, had been transformed into a vast outdoor prison.\n\nChain-link fences, topped by razor wire, had been erected into a long, sixteen-foot-high cage extending about a hundred yards into the lot. Above the cage was a roof, a freestanding shelter like those at gas stations. The barbed wire extended to meet it.\n\nZeitoun and Todd were brought to the front of the cage, a few feet from the back of the bus station, and a different guard opened the door. They were pushed inside. The cage was closed, then locked with chain and a padlock. Down the way, there were two other prisoners, each alone in their own enclosure.\n\n\"Holy shit,\" Todd said.\n\nZeitoun was in disbelief. It had been a dizzying series of events\u2014arrested at gunpoint in a home he owned, brought to an impromptu military base built inside a bus station, accused of terrorism, and locked in an outdoor cage. It surpassed the most surreal accounts he'd heard of third-world law enforcement.\n\nInside the cage, Todd ranted and swore. He couldn't believe it. But then again, he noted, it was not unprecedented. During Mardi Gras, when the local jails were full, the New Orleans police often housed drunks and thieves in temporary jails set up in tents.\n\nThis one, though, was far more elaborate, and had been built since the storm. Looking at it, Zeitoun realized that it was not one long cage, but a series of smaller, divided cages. He had seen similar structures before, on the properties of his clients who kept dogs. This cage, like those, was a single-fenced enclosure divided into smaller ones. He counted sixteen. It looked like a giant kennel, and yet it looked even more familiar than that.\n\nIt looked precisely like the pictures he'd seen of Guant\u00e1namo Bay. Like that complex, it was a vast grid of chain-link fencing with few walls, so the prisoners were visible to the guards and each other. Like Guant\u00e1namo, it was outdoors, and there appeared to be nowhere to sit or sleep. There were simply cages and the pavement beneath them.\n\nThe space inside Zeitoun and Todd's cage was approximately fifteen by fifteen feet, and was empty but for a portable toilet without a door. The only other object in the cage was a steel bar in the shape of an upside-down U, cemented into the pavement like a bike rack. It normally served as a guide for the buses parking in the lot and for passengers forming lines. It was about thirty inches high, forty inches long.\n\nAcross from Zeitoun's cage was a two-story building, some kind of Amtrak office structure. It was now occupied by soldiers. Two soldiers stood on the roof, holding M-16s and staring down at Zeitoun and Todd.\n\nTodd raged, wild-eyed and protesting. But the guards could hear little of what he said. Even Zeitoun, standing near him, could hear only muffled fragments. It was then that Zeitoun realized that there was a sound, a heavy mechanical drone, cloaking the air around them. It was so steady and unchanging that he had failed to notice it.\n\nZeitoun turned around and realized the source of the noise. The back of their cage nearly abutted the train tracks, and on the tracks directly behind them stood an Amtrak train engine. The engine was operating at full power on diesel fuel, and, Zeitoun realized in an instant, was generating all the electricity used for the station and the makeshift jail. He looked up at the monstrous grey machine, easily a hundred tons, adorned with a small red, white, and blue logo, and knew that it would be with them, loud and unceasing, as long as they were held there.\n\nOne guard was assigned to them. He sat on a folding chair about ten feet in front of the cage. He stared at Zeitoun and Todd, his face curious and disdainful.\n\nZeitoun was determined to get a phone call. He reached for the chain-link fence in front of him, intending to get the attention of an officer of some kind he saw near the back door of the station. Todd did so, too, and was immediately set straight by the guard who had been assigned to watch them.\n\n\"Don't touch the fence!\" the guard snapped.\n\n\"Don't touch the fence? Are you kidding?\" Todd asked.\n\nBut the soldier was not joking. \"You touch the fence again I'll fuck you up.\"\n\nTodd asked where they were supposed to stand. He was told they could stand in the middle of the cage. They could sit on the steel rack. They could sit on the ground. But if they touched the fence again there would be consequences.\n\nThere were a dozen other guards roaming behind the terminal. One walked by, led by a German shepherd. He made sure to pause meaningfully at their cage, giving Zeitoun and Todd a look of warning before moving on.\n\nZeitoun could barely stand. There was a stabbing pain in his foot he had ignored until now. He took off his shoe to find his instep discolored. There was something wedged under his skin\u2014some kind of metal splinter, he thought, though he couldn't remember where or when he'd gotten it. The area was purple in the center, ringed by white. He needed to clear out the splinter or the foot would get worse, and quickly.\n\nZeitoun and Todd took turns sitting on the steel rack. It was only wide enough for one person, so they traded ten-minute shifts.\n\nAfter an hour, the doors to the station burst open. Nasser and Ronnie appeared, escorted by three officers. Zeitoun and Todd's cage was opened, and Nasser and Ronnie were pushed inside. The cage was locked again. The four men were reunited.\n\nUnder the rumble of the engine, the men compared their experiences thus far. All four had been strip-searched. Only Todd had been told why they were being held\u2014possession of stolen goods was the only charge mentioned\u2014and none had been read their rights. None had been allowed to make a phone call.\n\nNasser had tried to explain the cash he had in his knapsack. The police and soldiers were in the city to prevent the widespread looting everyone had heard about. Nasser, being equally concerned about the looting, had decided to keep his money, his life savings, with him.\n\nHis interrogators did not accept this. Nasser had had no luck explaining that legions of immigrants kept their money in cash, that trust in banks was tenuous. He explained that one reason a person in his position kept his money in cash was for the possibility, however remote, that he would be stopped, questioned, detained\u2014or deported. With cash he could hide it, keep it, direct its retrieval if he was sent away.\n\nThe four men didn't know what would happen to them, but they knew they would spend the night in the cage.\n\nThe Syrian names of Zeitoun and Dayoob, their Middle Eastern accents, the ten thousand dollars cash, Todd's cash and MapQuest printouts\u2014it all added up to enough evidence that the four of them knew that their predicament would not be straightened out anytime soon.\n\n\"We're screwed, friends,\" Todd said.\n\nIn the cage, the men had few options: they could stand in the center, they could sit on the cement, or they could lean against the steel rack. No one wanted to sit on the ground. The cement beneath them was filthy with dirt and grease. If they made a move toward the fence, the guards would yell obscenities and threaten retribution.\n\nFor the first hours in the cage, Zeitoun's overriding goal was to be granted a phone call. All the men had made the request repeatedly during processing, and had been told that there were no phones functioning.\n\nThis seemed to be fact. They saw no one talking on cell phones or landlines. There was a rumor that satellite phones were working and that there was one phone, connected to a fax line, in the upstairs office of the bus station.\n\nEvery time a guard passed, they begged for access to this or any phone. At best they got shrugs and glib answers.\n\n\"Phones don't work,\" a guard told them. \"You guys are terrorists. You're Taliban.\"\n\nThe day's light was dimming. Processing had taken three hours, and the four men had been in the cage for three more. They were each given small cardboard boxes with the words BARBECUE PORK RIB printed on the side. Inside was a set of plastic cutlery, a packet of cheese spread, two crackers, a packet of orange-drink crystals, and a bag of pork ribs. These were military-style meals, ready to eat.\n\nZeitoun told the guard that he and Nasser were Muslims and could not eat pork.\n\nThe guard shrugged. \"Then don't eat it.\"\n\nZeitoun and Nasser ate the crackers and cheese and gave the rest to Todd and Ronnie.\n\nWith the darkness coming, the sound behind them seemed to grow louder. Already he was tired, but Zeitoun knew that the engine would ensure that none of them slept. He had worked on ships before, in engine rooms, but this was louder than that, louder than anything he had ever known. In the glare of the floodlights, it resembled a great furnace, moaning and ravenous.\n\n\"We can pray,\" Zeitoun said to Nasser.\n\nHe had caught Nasser's eye, and he knew what he was thinking. They needed to pray, were urged to do so five times a day, but Nasser was nervous. Would this arouse more suspicion? Would they be mocked or even punished for worshiping?\n\nZeitoun saw no reason not to do so, even while being held in an outdoor cage. \"We must,\" he said. If anything, he thought, they needed to pray more often, and with great fervor.\n\n\"What about _wuduu?\"_ Nasser asked.\n\nThe Qur'an asked that Muslims wash themselves before their prayers, and there was no means of doing so here. But Zeitoun knew that the Qur'an allowed that if there was no water available, Muslims could use dust to cleanse themselves, even if only ceremoniously. And so they did so. They took gravel from the ground and rubbed it over their hands and arms, their heads and feet, and they knelt and performed _salaat_. Zeitoun knew their prayers were arousing interest from the guards, but he and Nasser did not pause.\n\nAs the night went black, the lights came on. Floodlights from above and from the building opposite. The night grew darker and cooler, but the lights stayed on, brighter than day. The men were not given sheets, blankets, or pillows. Soon there was a new guard on duty, sitting on the chair opposite them, and they asked him where they were supposed to sleep. He told them that he didn't care where they slept, as long as it was on the pavement, where he could see them.\n\nZeitoun didn't care about sleep this night. He wanted to stay awake in case a supervisor of some sort, a lawyer, any civilian at all, happened by. The other men tried to rest their heads on the pavement, in the crooks of their arms. No one slept. Even when someone would find themselves in a place where they might be able to rest, the sound of the engine, its vibrations in the ground, took over. There could be no sleep in this place.\n\nSomewhere in the small hours, Zeitoun tried to drape himself over the steel rack, stomach-down. He found a minute or so of rest this way, but it was a position he could not maintain. He tried to lean his back against it, arms crossed. It could not be done.\n\nOther guards occasionally walked by with their German shepherds, but the night was otherwise uneventful. There was only the face of the guard, his M-16 by his side, the floodlights coming from every angle, illuminating the faces of Zeitoun's fellow prisoners, all drawn, exhausted, half-mad with fatigue and confusion.\n\n# WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 7\n\nWhen the sky began to pale into dawn, Zeitoun realized he had not slept at all. He had closed his eyes for a few minutes at a time, but had not found sleep. He'd refused to lie on the pavement, but even if he could have brought himself to do so, even if he could quell the panic about his situation, his family, his home, the uninterrupted drone of the engine would have kept him awake.\n\nHe watched as the night guard left and was replaced by a new man. The new guard's expression was the same as his predecessor's, seeming to take for granted the guilt of the men in the cage.\n\nZeitoun and Nasser performed their _wuduu_ and their _salaat_ , and when they were done, they stared at the guard, who was staring at them.\n\nZeitoun became more alert, even optimistic, as the sky brightened. He assumed that with each day since the hurricane, the city would find its way toward some kind of stability, and that the government would soon send help. With that help, the chaos that had brought him to this cage would be reined in and the misunderstanding manifested here would be mitigated.\n\nZeitoun convinced himself that the previous day had been an aberration, that today would bring a return to reason and procedure. He would be allowed a phone call, would learn about the charges against him, might even see a public defender or a judge. He would call Kathy and she would hire the best lawyer she could find, and this would be over in hours.\n\n* * *\n\nThe other men in the cage, all of whom had finally found some rest during the night, woke one by one, and stood to stretch. Breakfast was brought. Again it was MREs, this time including ham slices. Zeitoun and Nasser ate what they could and gave the rest to Todd and Ronnie.\n\nAs the prison awoke, Zeitoun examined the chainlink structure closely. It was about 150 feet long. The razor wire was new, the portable toilets new. The fencing was new and of high quality. He knew that none of this had existed before the storm. New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal had never before been used as a prison. He did some rough calculations in his mind.\n\nIt would have taken maybe six flatbed trucks to get all the fencing to the station. He saw no forklifts or heavy machinery; the cages must have been assembled by hand. It was an impressive feat, to get such a construction project completed so soon after the storm. But when had they done it?\n\nZeitoun had been brought into the station on September 6, seven and a half days after the hurricane passed through the city. Even under the best of circumstances, building a prison like this would have taken four or five days. That meant that within a day of the storm's eye passing over the region, officials were making plans for the building of a makeshift outdoor prison. Fencing and razor wire would have had to be located or ordered. The toilets and floodlights and all other equipment would have had to be borrowed or requisitioned.\n\nIt was a vast amount of planning and execution. A regular contractor would have wanted weeks to complete the task, and would have used heavy machinery. Without machines, dozens of men would be needed. To do it as quickly as they had, fifty men would be needed. Maybe more. And who were these men? Who did this work? Were there contractors and laborers working around the clock on a prison days after the hurricane? It was mind-boggling. It was all the more remarkable given that while the construction was taking place, on September 2, 3, and 4, thousands of residents were being plucked from rooftops, were being discovered alive and dead in attics.\n\nAt midday, Zeitoun heard something strange: the sound of buses at the bus station. He looked up to see a school bus arriving at the far end of the lot. From it descended thirty or more prisoners, one woman among them, in orange jumpsuits.\n\nThey were the incarcerated from the Jefferson Parish and Kenner jails\u2014those who had been in jail before the storm. Within the hour, the long row of cages began to fill. And again, just like Guant\u00e1namo, all prisoners could be seen by anyone, from any angle. Now, with the orange uniforms completing the picture, the similarities were too strong to ignore.\n\nQuickly after each group was locked into a cage, they were warned about touching the fence. Any touching of any fence would result in severe consequences. And so they came to know the strange rules of their incarceration. The pavement would be their bed, the open-door toilet would be their bathroom, and the steel rack would be the seat they could share. But for the first hour, while the new prisoners got acquainted with their new cells, there was much yelling from the guards about where and how to stand and sit, what not to touch.\n\nA man and a woman were housed one cage away from Zeitoun, and soon a rumor abounded that the man was a sniper, that it had been he who had been shooting at the helicopters that had tried to land on the roof of a hospital.\n\nLunch was different than previous meals. This time the guards brought ham sandwiches to the cages and then stuffed them through the holes in the wire.\n\nAgain Zeitoun and Nasser did not eat.\n\nThe presence of dogs was constant. There were at least two always visible, their handlers sure to parade them past the cages in close proximity. Occasionally one would explode into barking at some prisoner. Someone in Zeitoun's cage mentioned Abu Ghraib, wondering at what point they'd be asked to pose naked, in a vertical pyramid, and which guard would lean into the picture, grinning.\n\nBy two o'clock there were about fifty prisoners at the bus station, but Zeitoun's cage was still the only one with its own dedicated guard.\n\n\"You really think they consider us terrorists?\" Nasser asked.\n\nTodd rolled his eyes. \"Why else would we be alone in this cell while everyone else is crammed together? We're the big fish here. We're the big catch.\"\n\nThroughout the day, a half-dozen more prisoners came through the station and were brought to the cages. These men were dressed in their civilian clothes; they must have been picked up after the storm, as Zeitoun and his companions had been. The pattern was clear now: the prisoners who were being transferred from other prisons came by bus and weren't processed, while those arrested after the storm were processed inside and brought through the back door.\n\nBy overhearing the guards and prisoners talking, Zeitoun realized the prison had been given at least two nicknames by the guards and soldiers. A few referred to it as Angola South, but far more were calling it Camp Greyhound.\n\nIn the afternoon, one of the guards approached a man in the cage next to Zeitoun's. He talked to an orange-clad prisoner for a few moments, gave him a cigarette, and then returned to the bus station.\n\nMoments later, the guard reappeared, leading a small television crew. The guard led them straight to the man he'd given a cigarette to. The reporter\u2014Zeitoun could see now the crew was from Spain\u2014conducted an interview with the prisoner, and then, after a few minutes, he approached Zeitoun with the microphone and began to ask a question.\n\n\"No!\" the guard yelled. \"Not that one.\"\n\nThe crew was ushered back into the station.\n\n\"Holy shit,\" Todd said. \"They bribed that dude.\"\n\nAs they were leaving, the cameraman swept his lens over the whole outdoor jail, Zeitoun included. There was a bright light attached to the camera, and being viewed that way, in the glare of a floodlight and shown to the world as a criminal in a cage, made Zeitoun furious. It was a lie.\n\nBut Zeitoun had a sudden hope, given that the crew was Spanish, that the footage might be broadcast to his brother in M\u00e1laga. Ahmad would see it\u2014he saw everything\u2014and he would tell Kathy, and Kathy would know where he was.\n\nAt the same time, Zeitoun couldn't bear the thought of his family in Syria knowing he was being kept like this. No matter what happened, if and when he was released, he could not let them know that this had happened to him. He did not belong here. He was not this. He was in a cage, being viewed, gaped at, seen as visitors to the zoo see exotic animals\u2014kangaroos and baboons. The shame was greater than any his family had ever known.\n\nIn the late afternoon a new prisoner was brought through the bus-station doors. He was white, about fifty, thin and of average height, with dark hair and tanned skin. Zeitoun thought little of him until his own cage was opened and the man was pushed inside. There were now five prisoners in their cage. No one knew why.\n\nThe man was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, and seemed to have stayed clean during and after the storm. His hands, face, and clothing were all without dirt or stain. His attitude, too, bore no shadow of the suffering of the city at large.\n\nHe introduced himself to Zeitoun and the three others, shaking each of their hands like a conventioneer. He said his name was Jerry. He was gregarious, full of energy, and made jokes about his predicament. The four men had spent a sleepless night in an outdoor cage and did not have the energy to make much conversation, but this new prisoner more than filled the silence.\n\nHe laughed at his own jokes, and about the bizarre situation they found themselves in. Without prompting, Jerry told the story of how he had come to be arrested. He had stayed behind during the storm, just as he always did during hurricanes. He wanted to protect his house, and after Katrina passed, he realized he needed food, and couldn't walk to any stores nearby. His car was on high ground and was undamaged, but he was out of gas. So he found a length of tubing in his garage and was in the middle of siphoning gasoline from a neighbor's car\u2014he planned to tell his neighbor, who would have understood, he said\u2014when he was discovered by a National Guard flatboat. He was arrested for theft. It was an honest misunderstanding, he said, one that would be straightened out soon enough.\n\nZeitoun pondered the many puzzling aspects to Jerry's presence. First, he seemed to be the only prisoner in the complex entertained by the state of affairs\u2014being held at Camp Greyhound. Second, why had he been put in their cage? There were fifteen other cages, many of them empty. There didn't seem to be any logic to taking a man brought in for gasoline-siphoning and placing him with four men suspected of working together on crimes varying from looting to terrorism.\n\nJerry asked how the rest of them had come to be in Camp Greyhound. Todd told the story for the four of them. Jerry said something about how badly the four of them had gotten screwed. It was all common small talk, and Zeitoun was tuning out when Jerry changed his tone and line of questioning.\n\nHe began to direct his efforts toward Zeitoun and Nasser. He asked questions that didn't flow from the conversational strands he had begun. He made disparaging remarks about the United States. He joked about George W. Bush, about the administration's dismal response to the disaster so far. He questioned the competence of the U.S. military, the wisdom of U.S. foreign policy around the world and in the Middle East in particular.\n\nTodd engaged with him, but Zeitoun and Nasser chose to remain quiet. Zeitoun was deeply suspicious, still trying to parse how this man had ended up in their cage, and what his intentions might be.\n\n\"Be nice to your mom!\"\n\nWhile Jerry talked, Zeitoun turned to see a prisoner a few cages away from him. He was white, in his mid-twenties, thin, with long brown hair. He was sitting on the ground, his knees drawn up to his chest, and he was chanting the statement like a mantra, but loudly.\n\n\"Be nice to your mom! Treat her kind!\"\n\nThe other three detainees in the young man's cage were visibly annoyed by him. He had apparently been repeating these strange directives for some time, and Zeitoun had only begun to hear them.\n\n\"Don't play with matches! Fire is dangerous!\" he said, rocking back and forth.\n\nThe man was disabled in some way. Zeitoun watched him carefully. He was not right in the head. He seemed to have been stunted, mentally, at no more than five or six years of age. He recited basic rules and warnings that a very small child might be asked to memorize in kindergarten.\n\n\"Don't hurt your mom! Be nice to your mom!\"\n\nHe went on like this. His cage mates hushed him and even nudged him with their feet, but he took no notice. He was in something like a trance state.\n\nBecause the train engine was so loud, his chanting wasn't much of a nuisance for anyone else. But his child's mind could not seem to understand where he was or why.\n\nOne of the guards, sitting a few yards away from the man's cage, kept insisting that he stay in the middle of the enclosure, where he could be easily seen. Any movement left or right was forbidden. But the man in the cage didn't understand this. He would simply get up and move over to another side. What motivated the man to decide it was time to move from here to there was unclear. But the unprovoked and unsanctioned movement enraged the guard.\n\n\"Get back there! Where I can see you!\" he yelled.\n\nThe man didn't know he was being addressed. \"Brush your teeth before bed,\" he was saying. \"Wash your arms and hands. Go pee-pee now so you don't wet the bed.\"\n\nThe guard stood. \"Get back over there or I'm gonna come down on you, motherfucker!\"\n\nThe man remained where he was, in an unsanctioned part of the cage. There he continued to rock, squatting, focused on the space between his feet.\n\n\"I'm going to count to three,\" the guard yelled.\n\nThe man, in an almost deliberate provocation, reached out and touched the fence.\n\nThat was it. The guard got up and a few seconds later returned with another guard. The second guard was carrying something that looked like a fire extinguisher.\n\nThey opened the cage. As they did, the man looked up, suddenly afraid. His eyes were wide with wonder and surprise as they lifted him to his feet and dragged him out of the cage.\n\nA few feet away, they dropped him on the pavement, and with the help of two more guards, they tied his hands and feet with plastic handcuffs. He did not resist.\n\nThen they stepped away, and the first guard, the one who had warned him, aimed the hose and sprayed him, head to toe, with a substance Zeitoun could not immediately discern.\n\n\"Pepper spray,\" Todd said.\n\nThe man disappeared in the haze and screamed like a scalded child. When the smoke cleared, he was cowering in a fetal position, wailing like an animal, trying to reach his eyes with his hands.\n\n\"Get the bucket!\" the guard said.\n\nAnother guard came over and dumped a bucket of water on the screaming man. They didn't say another word. They left him screaming, and soon moaning, soaked and gassed, on the pavement behind the Greyhound station. After a few minutes, they dragged him to his feet and returned him to the cage.\n\n\"You have to wash the pepper spray off,\" Todd explained. \"Otherwise you get burned, blistered.\"\n\nThis night's MRE was beef stew. Zeitoun ate. The smell of pepper spray hung in the air.\n\nThe previous night had been calm compared to the day, but this night brought more fury, more violence. Other prisoners had been added to the cages throughout the evening, and now there were more than seventy at Camp Greyhound; they were angry. There was less space, more agitation. There were challenges issued by the prisoners to the guards, and soon more pepper-sprayings.\n\nAlways the procedure was the same: a prisoner would be removed from his cage and dragged to the ground nearby, in full view of the rest of the prisoners. His hands and feet would be tied, and then, sometimes with a guard's knee on his back, he would be sprayed directly in the face. If the prisoner protested, the knee would dig deeper into his back. The spraying would continue until his spirit was broken. Then he would be doused with the bucket and returned to his cage.\n\nZeitoun had watched elephants as a boy, when a Lebanese circus passed through Jableh. Their trainers used large steel hooks to pull the beasts one way or the other, to prod or punish them. The hooks looked like crowbars or ice picks, and the trainers would grab the elephants between the folds of their hide and then pull or twist. Zeitoun thought of the trainers now, how these guards too had been trained to deal with a certain kind of animal. They were accustomed to hardened maximum-security prisoners, and their tools were too severe to work with these men, so many of them guilty of the smallest of crimes\u2014curfew violations, trespassing, public drunkenness.\n\nThe night dragged on. There were bursts of screaming, wailing. Arguments broke out among prisoners. Guards would leap up, remove a man, put him in a new cage. But the fighting continued. The prisoners this night were wired, agitated.\n\nZeitoun and Nasser brushed whatever dust they could over their hands and arms and neck to cleanse themselves, and they prayed.\n\nThe guilt Zeitoun now felt was profound and growing. Kathy had been right. He should not have stayed in the city, and he certainly should not have stayed when she asked him, every day after the storm, to get out. _I'm so sorry, Kathy_ , he thought. He could not imagine the suffering Kathy was enduring now. She had said every day that something bad could happen, something unexpected, and now she had been proven right. She did not know if he was alive or dead, and every indication would point to the latter.\n\nAnything in this prison would be tolerable if he could only call her. He did not want to imagine what she was telling the kids, what kinds of questions they would be asking.\n\nBut why not allow the prisoners their phone call? Any way he approached the question, he couldn't see the logic in prohibiting calls. It was troublesome, maybe, to escort the prisoners into the station to make the calls, but wouldn't the calls end up relieving the prison of at least some of the jailed? Any municipal jail, he figured, expects many of their prisoners to leave within a day or two, through bonds or dropped charges or any number of outcomes for the small-time offender.\n\nThe ban on phone calls was, then, purely punitive, just as the pepper-spraying of the child-man had been born of a combination of opportunity, cruelty, ambivalence, and sport. There was no utility in that, just as there was no utility in barring all prisoners from contacting the outside world.\n\n_Oh Kathy_ , he thought. _Kathy, I am so sorry. Zachary, Nademah, Aisha, Safiya, I am so very sorry tonight that I was not and am not with you_.\n\nBy two or three in the morning, most of the prisoners were asleep, and those who remained awake with Zeitoun were quiet. Again Zeitoun refused to sleep on the pavement, and caught only occasional rest by draping himself over the steel rack.\n\nHe knew the conditions had begun to take a very real toll on his psyche. He had been angry until now, but he had been thinking clearly. Now the connections were more tenuous. He had wild thoughts of escape. He pondered whether something very bad might happen to him here. And throughout the night he thought of the child-man, and heard his screams. Under any normal circumstances he would have leapt to the defense of a man victimized as that man had been. But that he had to watch, helpless, knowing how depraved it was\u2014this was punishment for the other prisoners, too. It diminished the humanity of them all.\n\n# THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 8\n\nZeitoun woke to screams and curses. He had somehow managed to doze off in the early hours, while draped over the steel rack. He stood and saw that down the line of cages, more prisoners were being sprayed.\n\nNow the guards were shooting the pepper spray through the fencing. They didn't bother removing the prisoners from their cages. The tactic lessened the individual dosages, but spread the gas all over the complex. After Zeitoun and Nasser prayed, they and the rest of the prisoners spent the morning shielding their eyes and mouths with their shirts, coughing through the poison.\n\nThe splinter in Zeitoun's foot was now infected. It had darkened to a dull blue overnight, and he could no longer put any weight on it. He had seen his workers, most of whom were uninsured and afraid to register at a hospital, ignore their injuries. Broken fingers went unset, horrible cuts went untreated and led to all manner of sickness. Zeitoun had no idea what kind of object was lodged inside him, but knew he needed to take it out as soon as possible. All he needed was a moment of attention, a sterile needle, a knife even. Anything to carve into the foot and remove whatever was lodged inside.\n\nThe pain was intense, and Zeitoun's cage mates tried to help, to come up with a solution\u2014anything sharp to use on it. But none of them had even a set of keys.\n\nMinutes later, a man emerged from the station and came toward him. He was wearing green hospital scrubs and had a stethoscope around his neck. He was portly, with a kind face and a ducklike walk. The relief Zeitoun felt in the seconds he saw him approach was beyond measure.\n\n\"Doctor!\" Zeitoun called.\n\nThe man did not break stride. \"I'm not a doctor,\" he said, and continued on.\n\n* * *\n\nBreakfast again was MREs, an omelet filled with bacon, and again Zeitoun and Nasser gave their pork to Todd and Ronnie. But there was something new to the breakfast this day, Tabasco, and Zeitoun had an idea. He took the small bottle and slammed it on the cement, breaking it into shards and blades. He took the sharpest piece and cut into the swollen area of his foot, releasing far more fluid\u2014clear, then white, then red\u2014than he thought possible. Then he cut through to the dark object lodged inside, and after soaking his foot in blood, he pried it out. It was a metal sliver, the size of a toothpick.\n\nHe wrapped his foot in all the extra paper napkins in the cage, and the relief was immediate.\n\nThroughout the day there were more pepper sprayings, both individual treatments and more indiscriminate ones. In the late afternoon one of the guards brought out a thick-barreled gun and shot it into one of the cages. Zeitoun thought a man had been killed until he saw that the gun was shooting not bullets but beanbags. The victim writhed on the ground, holding his stomach. From then on, the beanbag gun became a favorite weapon for submission. The guards alternated between the pepper spray and the beanbag gun, shooting the men and women in the cages.\n\nJerry continued to engage Zeitoun and Nasser in conversation. He was pointedly uninterested in Todd and Ronnie. He asked Zeitoun more about his heritage, about Syria, about his career, about his visits back home. He churned through the same line of questioning with Nasser, always disguising it with good cheer and innocent curiosity. Nasser, reticent by nature, withdrew almost completely. Zeitoun tried to brush off the questions, feigning exhaustion. The presence of Jerry grew more unsettling by the day.\n\nWho was he? Why, when there were almost one hundred prisoners elsewhere in the complex, was he in their cage? Todd would later insist that he had been a spy, a plant\u2014meant to glean information from the Syrians in the cage. Of course he was undercover, Todd said. But if this were true, Zeitoun thought, he was a very dedicated public servant. He ate outside in the cage, and when night fell and the air cooled, he slept as Zeitoun's cage mates slept, without blankets or pillows, on the filthy ground.\n\nThat night, when it was his turn to lie over the guardrail in the cage, Zeitoun tried to do so comfortably but could not. There was a new pain in his side, coming from the area of his right kidney. The pain was sharp when he tried to drape himself over the steel rail, and when he stood in place it dulled but remained. It was yet another thing to think about, another reason he would not find rest this night.\n\n# FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 9\n\nAt midday, Zeitoun and the cage mates were told they would be moving out of Camp Greyhound. A series of school buses pulled into the far area of the lot.\n\nZeitoun was removed from his cage, handcuffed, and pushed toward one of the buses. He was lined up and then handcuffed to another prisoner, a man in his sixties. It was a simple school bus, decades old. Zeitoun and his companion were told to board. They shuffled up the steps, past the armed driver and a handful of armed guards, and sat down. Todd, Nasser, and Ronnie, all paired with new men, were brought onto the bus. None of the fifty prisoners onboard were told where they were going. Zeitoun looked for Jerry, but he was no longer with them. He was gone.\n\nThey drove out of the city, heading north. Zeitoun and the man to whom he was handcuffed did not talk. Few prisoners spoke. Some seemed to know where the bus was heading. Others could not imagine what was next. Still others seemed content that finally they were out of the bus station, that it could not possibly get worse.\n\nThey left the city and Zeitoun saw the first expanse of dry land he'd witnessed since the storm. It reminded him of reaching port after a long trip at sea; the temptation was to leap from the ship and dance and run on the solid and limitless earth.\n\nForty miles on, Zeitoun saw a sign on the highway indicating that they were approaching the town of St. Gabriel. He took this as a positive sign, or a darkly comic one. In Islam, the archangel Gabriel, the same Gabriel who in the Bible spoke to the Virgin Mary and foretold the birth of Jesus, is believed to be the messenger who revealed the Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad. In the Qur'an, Gabriel is described as having six hundred wings, and is assumed to have accompanied Muhammad when he ascended to the heavens.\n\nThe bus slowed at what at first looked like a country club. There was a vast green lawn enclosed by a white fence, the kind typically surrounding a horse ranch. The bus turned and passed through a gate of red brick. On the entranceway Zeitoun saw a sign confirming where they were: the ELAYN HUNT CORRECTIONAL CENTER. It was a maximum-security prison. Most of the men on the bus seemed unsurprised. The silence was absolute.\n\nThey made their way down a long driveway lined with tidy trees. White birds scattered as they approached another gate, this one resembling a highway tollbooth. A guard waved the bus through, and soon they arrived within the prison grounds.\n\nHunt Correctional Center was a complex of one-story red-brick buildings laid out across an immaculate green campus. Everything was arranged in orderly grids. The fences, and the barbed wire atop them, gleamed in the sun. The grass was bright and newly cut. Sprinklers ticked and spun in the distance.\n\nThe prisoners were processed one by one, at tables placed outside. Zeitoun's entrance interview was brief and his hosts were polite. Two women asked him about his health, any medications he was using, his food restrictions. He was struck by how professional and respectful they were. It occurred to him that this level of professionalism might mean that standard procedure\u2014a phone call for the accused\u2014would be observed, and he would be free within a day or two. At the very least, Kathy would know he was alive. That was all that mattered.\n\nThey were brought into a changing room and told to strip naked. Zeitoun did so, in the company of a dozen other men, and with such numbers he did not fear strip searches or violence. He removed his shirt, shorts, and underwear, and they were taken away by prison workers.\n\nHe and the other prisoners were given orange short-sleeved jumpsuits. They were not given underwear. Zeitoun stepped into the jumpsuit, zipped it up, and put his shoes back on.\n\n* * *\n\nThey were put back on a bus and driven through the prison complex\u2014an array of geometrically arranged buildings with blue roofs. The bus stopped at what seemed to be the last prison block, in what was evidently the highest-security section of the prison.\n\nZeitoun and the others on the bus were led into one of the long cellblocks. He was brought down a long concrete hallway and then directed into a cell. It was no more than six feet by eight feet, meant for one prisoner. Nasser was inside already. The door closed. The bars were baby blue.\n\nThe cell was constructed entirely from cement. The toilet was molded from cement and placed in the center of the cell. The bed, on the side of the room, was made of cement, with a rubber mattress atop it. On the back wall there was a small window covered in thick Plexiglas. A vague white square was visible, presumably the sky.\n\nZeitoun and Nasser barely spoke. There was nothing to say. They both knew their predicament had just taken a far more serious turn. The two Syrian Americans had been isolated. When they had been caged with Todd and Ronnie, it seemed possible that the charges against them\u2014whenever they were actually leveled\u2014might be limited to looting. But now the two Syrians had been separated from the Americans, and there was no predicting where this would go.\n\nZeitoun remained certain that one phone call would free him. He was a successful and well-known man. His name was known all over the city of New Orleans. He only needed to reach Kathy and she would knock down every wall to get to him.\n\nAll day Zeitoun made it his business to sit by the bars, waving a napkin, pleading with the guards to grant him a call. The guards seemed to relish concocting variations of their denials.\n\n\"Phone's broken,\" they would say.\n\n\"Not today.\"\n\n\"Lines are down.\"\n\n\"Maybe tomorrow.\"\n\n\"What'll you do for me?\"\n\n\"Not my problem. You're not our prisoner.\"\n\nThis was the first but not the last time Zeitoun would hear this. He had not been processed in a traditional way, and was not assigned to Hunt for the long term. Therefore he was not technically a Hunt prisoner, and so was not bound by the institution's standard operating procedure. This was what Zeitoun was told many times by the guards:\n\n\"You're FEMA's problem.\"\n\nFEMA was footing the bill for his incarceration, they said, and that of all the other prisoners from New Orleans. The Elayn Hunt Correctional Center was renting space to warehouse these men, but otherwise made no claims to their welfare or rights.\n\nThe night came but was barely distinguishable from the day. The lights were out by ten, but the prison was full of voices. Prisoners talked, laughed, screamed. There were various unidentifiable sounds coming from all corners. Smacking, grunting. The smoke seemed to increase as the night went on. The smells were rancid\u2014cigarettes, marijuana, old food, sweat, decay.\n\nThe pain in Zeitoun's side had gotten worse. It was a throbbing ache, as if his kidney were inflamed. He never overworried about any such problems, but what if Kathy had been right, that toxins in New Orleans had found their way into his body? Or perhaps it was the pepper spray at Greyhound\u2014he had surely inhaled enough of the gas to cause some internal reaction.\n\nBut he dismissed the pain. He could think only of Kathy. It had now been four days since she had heard from him. He could not imagine her suffering. Where would his mind be if she went missing for four days? He hoped she had not told the children. He hoped she had not told anyone. He hoped she had found comfort in God. God had a plan, he was certain.\n\nIn the early hours, Zeitoun, weakened by lack of sleep and food and the grim nothingness of his surroundings, recalled the passage of the Qur'an called _al-Takwir_ , or \"The Darkening\":\n\n_In the Name of God  \nThe Merciful, The Compassionate  \nWhen the sun is darkening,  \nwhen the stars plunge down,  \nwhen the mountains have been set in motion,  \nwhen the pregnant camels have been ignored,  \nwhen the savage beasts  \nhave been assembled together,  \nwhen the seas have been caused to overflow,  \nwhen the souls have been mated,  \nwhen the buried infant girl has been asked  \nfor what impiety she was slain,  \nwhen the scrolls have been unfolded,  \nwhen the heaven has been stripped off,  \nwhen hellfire has been caused to burn fiercely_,  \n _when the Garden has been brought close,  \nevery soul shall know to what it is prone.  \nSo no! I swear an oath by the stars that recede,  \nby the ones that run, the setting stars  \nby the night, when it swarms,  \nby the morning, when it sighs,  \ntruly that is the saying of a generous Messenger,  \npossessed of strength,  \nsecure with the Possessor of the Throne,  \none who is obeyed and trustworthy.  \nYour companion is not one who is possessed_.\n\n# SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10\n\nAgain Zeitoun had not slept. The night before, the fluorescent lights above had been turned off at ten p.m., and had come on at three in the morning. In this prison, three o'clock was considered the beginning of the day.\n\nAfter he and Nasser prayed, Zeitoun tried to exercise inside the cell. His foot was still raw, but he jogged in place. He did push-ups, jumping jacks. The pain in his side, though, only increased with the activity. He stopped.\n\nBreakfast was sausage, which he could not eat, and scrambled eggs, which were nearly inedible. He took a few bites and drank the juice provided. He and Nasser sat on the bed, side by side, barely talking. The only thing on Zeitoun's mind was making a phone call. There was nothing else in the world.\n\nHe heard the guard coming down the hallway, picking up the breakfast trays. As soon as the footsteps were close enough, Zeitoun leapt up to the front gate. The guard jumped back a step, startled by Zeitoun's sudden appearance.\n\n\"Please,\" he said, \"one phone call?\"\n\nThe guard ignored the question and instead looked around Zeitoun to Nasser, who was still sitting on the bed. The guard gave Zeitoun a quizzical eye and moved on to the next cell.\n\nAn hour later, Zeitoun heard the guard's footsteps again, and again Zeitoun rose up to meet him as he passed the gate. \"Please, can I make a call?\" he asked. \"Just to my wife.\"\n\nThis time the guard issued a cursory shake of the head before peering around Zeitoun to see Nasser, who again was sitting on the bed. Now the look the guard gave Zeitoun was suggestive, even lewd. He raised his eyebrows and nodded over to Nasser. He was implying that Zeitoun and Nasser were romantically engaged, and that Zeitoun, fearing detection, had leapt from the bed when he heard the guard approaching.\n\nBy the time Zeitoun realized what the guard was implying, it was too late to argue. The guard was gone, down the hall. But this implication, that Zeitoun was bisexual, that he would betray his wife, so enraged him that he could barely contain himself.\n\nAt midday, Zeitoun was taken out of his cell. He was brought to a small office, where a prison guard stood next to a digital camera. He instructed Zeitoun to sit down on a plastic chair. As Zeitoun waited for the next command, the photographer squinted at him and cocked his head.\n\n\"You eyeballing me?\" he yelled.\n\nZeitoun said nothing.\n\n\"Why the fuck you eyeballing me?\" the photographer yelled.\n\nHe went on about how difficult he could make Zeitoun's stay at Hunt, that a man with an attitude like that would not last long. Zeitoun had no idea what he had done to provoke the man. He was still cursing as Zeitoun was led out of the room and returned to his cell.\n\nIn the late afternoon, Zeitoun again heard footsteps coming down the hallway. He went to the front of the cell and there he saw the same guard.\n\n\"What are you two doing in there?\" the guard asked.\n\n\"What are you saying?\" Zeitoun hissed. He had never been so angry.\n\n\"You can't do that kind of thing in your cell, buddy,\" the guard said. \"I thought that was against your religion anyway.\"\n\nThat was it for Zeitoun. He let loose a barrage of expletives and threats to the guard. He didn't care what happened.\n\nThe guard seemed shocked. \"You really talking to me that way? You know what I can do to you?\"\n\nZeitoun was finished. He went to the back of the cell and folded his arms. If he were any closer, he would be too tempted to throw himself against the bars, grabbing for any part of the guard's flesh.\n\n# SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11\n\nIn the morning the door was opened and four men were added to their cell. All four were African American, between thirty and forty-five. Zeitoun and Nasser nodded to them in greeting, and with a quick choreography about who would sit where, the new residents found places in the tiny cell. Three men sat width-wise on the bed, and three on the floor, against the wall. Cramped and soaked in sweat, they rotated every hour.\n\n* * *\n\nZeitoun no longer harbored any expectations of being granted a phone call from any of the guards he had seen thus far. He pinned his hopes on seeing a new guard, a new employee of the prison, some visitor. He had no idea how the prison worked, how any prison worked. But he had seen movies where lawyers walked the cellblocks, where visitors passed through. He needed to find someone like that. Any one person from the world outside\u2014someone who might grant one small mercy.\n\nThe men in the cell told each other how they had ended up at Hunt. All had been picked up in New Orleans after the storm. This entire wing of the prison, they said, held Katrina prisoners. \"We're all FEMA,\" one said. Two of the men had been arrested for moving furniture, in situations not unlike Zeitoun's.\n\nOne man said he was a sanitation worker from Houston. His company had been contracted shortly after the storm to come in and begin the cleanup. One morning he was walking from the hotel to his truck when a National Guard truck pulled up. He was arrested on the spot, handcuffed, and brought to Camp Greyhound.\n\nIt was his first time behind bars, and of all the prisoners doing \"Katrina time,\" as they'd termed it, he was the most perplexed by it all. He had, after all, come to New Orleans at the behest of his company. He usually picked up garbage in Houston, but after the hurricane, his supervisor said they had taken a contract in New Orleans. This prisoner, thinking it would be interesting to see what had become of the city and wanting to help in its cleanup, went willingly. He was in uniform, and had identification, the keys to his truck, everything. But nothing worked. He was charged with looting and put in the cages behind the bus station.\n\nAnother of the cellmates said he was a fireman in New Orleans. He stayed after the storm, just as he had been asked to stay. He was in his yard when he was picked up by a passing Humvee. They charged him with looting, loaded him into the back, and brought him to Greyhound.\n\nZeitoun learned that most of those brought to Camp Greyhound had been arraigned in a more or less standard fashion. Most had been brought inside the bus station the morning after their arrest, and in an upstairs office, a makeshift court had been arranged. There had been a judge, and at least one lawyer. The arrestees were told their charges, and most of them were offered a deal: if they didn't contest the charges, they would be given a misdemeanor conviction and would be required to perform community-service hours, starting immediately. Some of those who took the bargain\u2014thus accepting the permanent strike on their record\u2014were promptly brought to the police station downtown, where they began repairing and repainting the damaged offices.\n\nThe stabbing pain in his side, which Zeitoun had first felt at Greyhound, had now amplified tenfold. It felt like a long screw was being twisted, slowly, into his kidney. It was difficult to sit, to stand, to lay down. Whenever he switched positions, he would find relief for five minutes before the pain returned. He was not one to worry about such things. He had had so many injuries over the years and rarely sought treatment. But this felt different. He thought of infections, the many diseases Kathy had mentioned when trying to get him to leave the city. He needed to find help.\n\n* * *\n\nThere was a nurse who came through the cellblock once a day, pushing a cart full of medicine, handing pills to the prisoners.\n\nZeitoun stopped her as she wheeled by. He told her about the pain.\n\n\"Do you have a prescription?\" she asked.\n\nHe told her no, that the pain was new.\n\n\"Then you need to see the doctor,\" she said.\n\nHe asked how he could see the doctor.\n\nShe told him to fill out a form describing his pain. The doctor would look at the form and then decide if Zeitoun needed attention. The nurse handed him the form and wheeled her cart down the hall.\n\nZeitoun filled out the form, and when she came back on her way out, he handed it to her.\n\nAfter dinner Zeitoun's cellmates shared the stories they had heard from the other prisoners they'd encountered. The prisoners who had arrived at Hunt during the first days after the storm had lived through conditions beyond comprehension.\n\nThe thousands from Orleans Parish Prison, including those who were in jail for public intoxication, shoplifting, and other misdemeanors, had been left on the city's Broad Street overpass for three days. They'd been on television, a sea of men in orange sitting on a roadway filthy with feces and garbage, surrounded by guards with automatic rifles.\n\nWhen buses finally arrived, the prisoners were taken to Hunt. Instead of being housed inside the prison, they were brought to the football stadium on the property. There they were held for days more, outside, without any kind of shelter. Thousands of prisoners, from murderers and rapists to DUIs and petty thieves, were thrown together on the stadium grass.\n\nThere were no bathrooms. The prisoners urinated and defecated wherever they could. There were no pillows, sheets, sleeping bags, or dry clothing. The men were given one thin blanket each. The area on which Hunt had been built was marshland, and the ground grew wet during the night. The men slept on the mud, with no protection against the elements, bugs, or each other. There were multiple stabbings. Men fought over blankets.\n\nWater was received through two small pipes extending from the grass. The men had to wait their turn and then drink from their hands. For sustenance, prison guards took sandwiches, fashioned them into balls, and threw them over the wall of the stadium and onto the field. Whoever caught one ate. Whoever could defend themselves ate. Many did not eat at all.\n\nNone of the men in Zeitoun's cell knew whether or not these prisoners were still on the football field, or what had become of them.\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 12\n\nIn the morning, the other four men were removed from the cell, and Zeitoun and Nasser were alone again. They had nothing to do but wait for any new face, anyone who might lead to recognition from the outside world that they existed here.\n\nThe boredom was profound. They had been given no books, no paper, no radio. The two men could only stare at the grey walls, the black floor, at the baby blue bars, or at each other. But they feared talking too much. They assumed they were being monitored in some way. If a spy, Jerry, could be planted with them in an outdoor cage, it would be unsurprising if their conversations were being monitored here, in a maximum security prison.\n\nZeitoun sat against the bed and closed his eyes. He wanted only to pass these days.\n\nHe recounted their arrest, and the hours and days before it, countless times, trying to figure out what had brought such attention to them. Was it simply that four men were occupying one house? Such a thing, after a hurricane, when most of the city had been evacuated, was worthy of investigation, he conceded. But there had been no investigation. There had been no questions, no evidence seized, no charges leveled.\n\nKathy often worried about the National Guard and other soldiers returning to the United States after time in Iraq and Afghanistan. She warned him about passing groups of soldiers in airports, about walking near National Guard offices. \"They're trained to kill people like you,\" she would say to Zeitoun, only half-joking. She had not wanted their family to become collateral damage in a war that had no discernible fronts, no real shape, and no rules.\n\nAlmost twenty years earlier, he had been working on a tanker called the _Andromeda_. They had just brought Kuwaiti oil to Japan, and were returning to Kuwait for more. This was 1987, and Iran and Iraq were in the midst of their long and crippling war. Most of their own refineries had been destroyed during the fighting, so both nations had come to rely on imported oil, and routinely tried to blockade or damage any ships bringing oil to their enemy via the Straight of Hormuz. Zeitoun and his shipmates knew that entering the Gulf of Oman, en route to the Persian Gulf, meant risking the wrath of Iraqi or Iranian submarines and warships. The seamen were paid extra for the risk.\n\nZeitoun's bunk was over the fuel tanks, and he was asleep one early morning when he was jolted by an explosion below. He didn't know if it was one of the tanks, or if the ship had struck something. He quickly realized that if the tank had exploded, he would be dead, so they must have hit something, or had something hit them. He was rushing to the bridge to find out when another explosion shook the ship.\n\nThey had been struck twice by Iranian torpedoes. Together they created a hole big enough to drive a small motorboat through. But it was clear the Iranians didn't mean to sink the tanker. If they had wanted to, that would have been quite easy. They wanted only to send a warning, and to cripple the ship.\n\nThey managed to make it to Addan, and there they spent a month repairing the hull. While waiting to ship out again, Zeitoun decided that perhaps his father Mahmoud had been right. It was time to settle somewhere, time to build a family, to remain safe and constant, on land. A few months later, he got off the _Andromeda_ in Houston and began searching for Kathy.\n\n# TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13\n\nZeitoun and Nasser did not discuss the possibility that they would not be released from this prison for many months, or even years. But they were both thinking it\u2014that no one knew where they were, which afforded the authorities, whoever it was who wanted them kept here, complete and unchecked power to keep them detained and hidden indefinitely.\n\nZeitoun could think of no indication so far that any measure could be taken to advance his case. He had not been allowed to make a phone call, and there was no hint that he would ever be allowed to do so. He'd had no contact with anyone from outside. There was the nurse, but she was a full-time employee of the prison. Professing his innocence to her was futile, as professions of innocence were likely all she heard all day. In fact, he knew that his very presence in a maximum-security prison likely proved his guilt in the minds of all who worked at the facility. The guards were used to overseeing men who had been convicted at trial.\n\nFurther, the prison was so isolated that there was no oversight whatsoever, no civilians who came to check on conditions. He had not been let out of the cellblock once, and had been let out of the cell only to shower; the shower itself had bars. If they had refused him a phone call for seven days now, why would they change their policy in the future?\n\nHe had one hope, which was to impart his name and innocence to every prisoner he might meet, so that in the event that one of them was someday released they might not only remember his name, but also bother to call Kathy or tell someone where he was. But again, who among them would believe he was one of the true innocents in the prison? How many other names and promises had they known and made?\n\nWhen he was originally arrested, Zeitoun had not been sure his country of origin had anything to do with his capture. After all, two of the four men in their group were white Americans born in New Orleans. But the arrest had taken on an entirely different cast by the time they were brought to Camp Greyhound. And though he was loath to make this leap, was it so improbable that he, like so many others, might be taken to an undisclosed location\u2014to one of the secret prisons abroad? To Guant\u00e1namo Bay?\n\nHe was not the sort to fear such things. He was not given to conspiracy theories or believing that the U.S. government willfully committed human rights violations. But it seemed every month another story appeared about a native of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, or any one of a number of other Muslim countries who was released after months or years from one of these detention centers. Usually the story was similar: a Muslim man came to be suspected by the U.S. government, and, under the president's current powers, U.S. agents were allowed to seize the man from anywhere in the world and bring him anywhere in the world, without ever having to charge him with a crime.\n\nHow different was Zeitoun's current situation? He was being held without contact, charges, bail, or trial. Would it not behoove the Department of Homeland Security to add a name to their roster of dangerous individuals? In the minds of some Americans, the very thought of two Syrians paddling through New Orleans together after a hurricane would seem suspicious enough. Even the most amateur propagandist could conjure sinister implications.\n\nZeitoun did not entertain such thoughts lightly. They went against everything he knew and believed about his adopted country. But then again, he knew the stories. Professors, doctors, and engineers had all been seized and disappeared for months and years in the interest of national security.\n\nWhy not a house painter?\n\n# WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14\n\nThe pain in Zeitoun's side was overtaking him. While standing or sitting in certain positions, he could barely breathe. He had to get help.\n\nWhen he heard the nurse's cart making its way down the cellblock, he jumped up to meet her at the bars.\n\n\"Did you give the doctor my form?\" he asked her.\n\nShe said she did, and that she would hear back soon.\n\n\"You look sick,\" Nasser said.\n\n\"I know,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"You've lost too much weight.\"\n\n\"The pain. It's so bad now.\"\n\nZeitoun had a sudden and strange thought, that the pain in his side could be caused not by infection or injury, but by sorrow. Maybe there wasn't a medical reason for it. Maybe it was just the manifestation of his anger and sadness and helplessness. He did not want any of this to be true. He did not want it to be true that his home and his city were underwater. He did not want it to be true that his wife and children were fifteen hundred miles away and might by now presume him to be dead. He did not want it to be true that he was now and might always be a man in a cage, hidden away, no longer part of the world.\n\n# THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 15\n\nNow Zeitoun knew the rhythmic ticking of the nurse's cart like his own heartbeat. He leapt to the bars again to meet her.\n\n\"What did the doctor say?\" he asked.\n\n\"About what?\" she said.\n\n\"About my condition,\" he said. \"You gave him the form.\"\n\n\"Oh, you know, I don't think he got it. You better fill it out again,\" she said, and handed him another form.\n\nHe did not see her again that day or the next.\n\n* * *\n\nZeitoun began to feel faint when he rose to his feet. He was not eating enough. It seemed that every meal had pork at its center. And even when he could eat what was offered, he was often too agitated or despondent to do so.\n\nAfter lunch three guards arrived. The gate to the cell opened, and they entered. Zeitoun was handcuffed and his legs were shackled, and he was led out from the cell. He was walked to another building, and was put into another, empty cell. Now he was alone.\n\nHe and Nasser had not spoken much, but the contrast in being alone was stark.\n\nZeitoun tried to remember how much his life insurance policy was worth. He should have bought a larger one. He had not thought hard enough about it. The woman at Allstate had tried to convince him to insure his life for more than a million dollars, given that he had four children, and how much the business relied on him. But he could not envision his death. He was only forty-seven. Too early to contemplate life insurance. But he knew that by now Kathy would have checked the value of the policy. She would have begun to imagine a life without him.\n\nWhen he pictured his wife having to make such plans, presuming him to be dead, his heart raged. He had wrathful thoughts about the police who had arrested him, the jailors who kept him here, the system that allowed this. He blamed Ronnie, the stranger who had come to the house on Claiborne, whom he didn't know and couldn't account for\u2014whose presence might very well have brought suspicion upon all of them. Maybe Ronnie _was_ guilty, maybe he _had_ done something wrong. He cursed Nasser's bag of cash. What a fool! He should never have been carrying around money like that.\n\nKathy. Zachary. The girls. The girls might grow up without a father. If Zeitoun was transferred to a secret prison, their lives would be reversed completely: they would go from the well-off children of a successful man to the disgraced children of a presumptive sleeper-cell mastermind.\n\nAnd even if he got out tomorrow or next week, their father had now been in prison. The scarring was inevitable\u2014to live in fear of their father's death, and then to find out he had been taken to prison at gunpoint, made a prisoner, made to live like a rat?\n\nHe clutched his side, pushing back at the pain, trying to contain it.\n\n# FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16\n\nThe news came down to the prisoners that after lunch they would be allowed to go outside. It had been a week since Zeitoun had seen the sun.\n\nDuring the hour they were allowed in the yard, Zeitoun tried to jog, but felt light-headed. He walked around the yard, overhearing one bewildered story after another.\n\nHe met a man who said he had been moving furniture in his house just after the storm hit. The police spotted him and broke in. When he protested his innocence, they beat him up and left. A few days later, he came to the Greyhound station to complain. They arrested him and sent him to Hunt.\n\nNo story was more absurd than the tale of Merlene Maten. One of the prisoners had just seen her story on TV. She had been held next door, at Hunt's sister prison for women.\n\nMaten was seventy-three years old, a diabetic, and a deaconess at the Resurrection Mission Baptist Church. Before the storm, she and her husband, who was eighty, had checked into a hotel downtown, knowing that there they would be among other residents and guests. They would have access to help if they needed it, and would be safer, given that the hotel was on high ground. They drove to the hotel in their car and paid for the room with their credit card.\n\nThey had been at the hotel for three days when Maten went downstairs to get some food from their car. Mayor Nagin had told everyone in the city to have three days' food on hand, and she had duly packed enough into the car to last. The car was parked in the lot next to the hotel, and Maten had left a cooler inside, full of the foods her husband liked. She retrieved a package of sausages and was walking back to the hotel when she heard yelling and footsteps. It was the police, and they accused her of looting a nearby store.\n\nThe nearby Check In Check Out deli had just been looted, and the police were looking for anyone who might have benefited. They found Maten. She was handcuffed and charged with stealing $63.50 worth of groceries. Her bail was set, by a judge calling by phone, at $50,000. The usual bail for such a misdemeanor would be $500.\n\nShe was brought to Camp Greyhound, where she slept on the concrete. Then she was brought to the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, Hunt's sister prison, for more than two weeks. She was finally freed with the help of the AARP, volunteer lawyers, a private attorney, and an article about her plight published by the Associated Press.\n\nThe lawyers finally convinced a judge that a septuagenarian staying at a hotel would not need to loot a store for sausages. They proved that the store did not even sell the sausages she was carrying. Maten had never been in the store. Furthermore, to even enter the damaged store, strewn everywhere with debris and broken glass, would have required an agility that she did not possess.\n\nIn the late afternoon Zeitoun heard a group of guards enter the cellblock. He couldn't see them, but it sounded like at least four or five men. A cell down the hall rattled open. The guards yelled and cursed, and there was some kind of scuffle. Then quiet for a few minutes, and then the cell closed shut again. The process repeated itself half a dozen times.\n\nThen it was his turn. First he saw their faces, five men on the other side of the blue bars. He had seen one of the guards before, but the other four were strangers. They were all wearing black riot gear, dressed like a SWAT team. They had shields, padding, batons, helmets. They waited at the ready for the door to open.\n\nZeitoun was determined not to struggle. He would not present any appearance of opposition. When the cell door slid open, he stood in the center of the floor, his hands in the air, his eyes level.\n\nBut still the men burst in as if he were in the process of committing a murder. Cursing at him, three men used their shields to push him to the wall. As they pressed his face against the cinderblock, they handcuffed his arms and shackled his legs.\n\nThey brought him into the hallway. Three guards held him while the other two ransacked the cell. They threw open the bedding, overturned the mattress, scoured the tiny room.\n\nTwo of the guards unlocked Zeitoun's handcuffs and shackles.\n\n\"Take off your clothes,\" one said.\n\nHe hesitated. He had not been given underwear when he arrived at Hunt, so if he took off his jumpsuit he would be naked.\n\n\"Now,\" the guard said.\n\nZeitoun unzipped the jumpsuit and pulled it off his shoulders. It dropped to his waist, and he pushed it to the floor. He was surrounded by three men fully dressed in black riot gear. He tried to cover himself.\n\n\"Bend over,\" the guard said.\n\nAgain he hesitated.\n\n\"Do it.\"\n\nZeitoun complied.\n\n\"Farther,\" the guard said. \"Grab ankles.\"\n\nZeitoun could not tell who was inspecting him or how. He expected something to enter his rectum at any moment.\n\n\"Okay, get up,\" the guard said.\n\nThey had spared him this one indignity.\n\nZeitoun stood. The guard used his foot to slide Zeitoun's jumpsuit back into the cell, and then pushed Zeitoun in, too. While Zeitoun was putting on his clothes, they backed away from him, shields up, and out of the cell.\n\nZeitoun's door closed, and the guards assembled themselves at the next cell, ready for the next prisoner.\n\nFrom the other prisoners Zeitoun learned that these searches were common. The guards were looking for drugs, weapons, any contraband. He should expect such a procedure every week.\n\n# SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17\n\nZeitoun lay in bed much of the day, wrecked by fatigue. He had not slept. He had run the strip-search through his mind most of the night, trying to erase all memory of it, but every time he closed his eyes he saw the men in their riot gear, at the other side of the cell door, waiting to flood in and take him.\n\nFor weeks, it seemed, he had been stealing hours of sleep during the day, a few at night. He could not remember the last time he had strung more than three hours of rest together.\n\nWhy had he done this to his family? There was something broken in the country, this was certain, but he had begun all this. He had refused to leave the city. He had stayed to guard his property, to watch over his business. But then something else had overtaken him, some sense of destiny. Some sense that God had put him there to do His work, to glorify Him with good deeds.\n\nIt seemed ridiculous now. How could he have been guilty of such hubris? He had put himself in harm's way, and by doing so had put his family in danger. How could he not have known that staying in New Orleans, a city under something like martial law, would endanger him? He knew better. He had been careful for so many years. He had kept his head low. He had been a model citizen. But in the wake of the storm, he'd come to believe he was meant to help the stranded. He believed that that damned canoe had given him the right to serve as shepherd and savior. He had lost perspective.\n\nHe had expected too much. He had hoped too much.\n\nThe country he had left thirty years ago had been a realistic place. There were political realities there, then and now, that precluded blind faith, that discouraged one from thinking that everything, always, would work out fairly and equitably. But he had come to believe such things in the United States. Things had worked out. Difficulties had been overcome. He had worked hard and achieved success. The machinery of government functioned. Even if in New Orleans this machinery was sometimes slow, or poorly engineered, generally it functioned.\n\nBut now nothing worked. Or rather, every piece of machinery\u2014the police, the military, the prisons\u2014that was meant to protect people like him was devouring anyone who got close. He had long believed that the police acted in the best interests of the citizens they served. That the military was accountable, reasonable, and was kept in check by concentric circles of regulations, laws, common sense, common decency.\n\nBut now those hopes could be put to rest.\n\nThis country was not unique. This country was fallible. Mistakes were being made. He was a mistake. In the grand scheme of the country's blind, grasping fight against threats seen and unseen, there would be mistakes made. Innocents would be suspected. Innocents would be imprisoned.\n\nHe thought of bycatch. It was a fishing term. They'd used it when he was a boy, fishing for sardines by the light of the moon they'd made. When they pulled in the net, there were thousands of sardines, of course, but there were other creatures too, life they had not intended to catch and for which they had no use.\n\nOften they would not know until too late. They would bring their catch back to shore, a mound of silver, the sardines dying slowly. Zeitoun, exhausted, would rest against the bow, watching the fish slowly cease their struggles. And once on shore, when the crew unloaded the nets, they would sometimes find something else. One time there was a dolphin. He always remembered this dolphin, a magnificent ivory-white animal shining on the dock like porcelain. The fishermen nudged it with their feet, but it was dead. It had gotten caught in the net and, unable to reach the surface to breathe, it had died underwater. If they had noticed it in time, they could have freed it, but now all they could do was throw it back into the Mediterranean. It would be a meal for the bottom-feeders.\n\nThe pain in Zeitoun's side was growing, rippling outward. He could not stay here another week. He would not survive the heartbreak, the wrongness of it.\n\nThere was no way to come out of this prison improved. Not the way he was being treated. He had seen parts of Hunt that seemed well-run, clean, efficient. When he first arrived and was being processed, he saw prisoners milling about freely in a grassy courtyard. But he had been confined twenty-three hours a day to his cell, with no distractions, no companionship or beauty. The environment would drive any sane man mad. The grey walls, the blue bars, the strip searches, the showers behind bars watched by guards and cameras. The lack of any mental stimuli. Unable to work, to read or build or improve himself, he would waste away here.\n\nHe had risked too much in the hopes that he might do something to match the deeds of his brother Mohammed. No, it had never been a conscious part of his motivation\u2014he had done what he could in the drowned city because he was there, it needed to be done, and he could do it. But somewhere in his gut, was there not some hope that he, too, could bring pride to the family, as Mohammed had so many years ago? Was there not some wish that he might honor his brother, his family, his God, by doing all he could, by circling the city looking for opportunities to do good? And was this imprisonment God's way of curbing his pride, tempering his vainglorious dreams?\n\n* * *\n\nAs the prisoners awoke, with their rantings and threats, Zeitoun prayed. He prayed for the health of his family. He prayed that they felt at peace. And he prayed for a messenger. All he needed was a messenger, someone to tell his wife that he was alive. Someone to connect him with the part of the world that still worked.\n\n# SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 18\n\nZeitoun had been napping through the morning, dazed and sluggish from the heat. His sweat had soaked through his orange jumpsuit. He heard notice that they would be allowed to walk outside again after lunch, and he wasn't sure he could stand to make it.\n\nHe was disappointed in himself. Part of him had given up, and the part that still believed stood apart from the broken half of his soul, incredulous.\n\nThe wheels of the nurse's cart echoed down the hallway. He had no reason to think she would help him, but he stood up and made ready to plead with her again. But when he looked down the hall, it was not the nurse, but a man he had never seen before.\n\nHe was pushing a cart of black books, and had stopped a few cells away from Zeitoun's. He was talking to whichever prisoners were there, and Zeitoun watched him, unable to hear the conversation. The man was black, in his sixties, and watching him interact with the prisoners down the row, it was clear he was a man of God. The books in his cart were Bibles.\n\nWhen he finished and passed by Zeitoun's cell, Zeitoun stopped him. \"Please, hello,\" he said.\n\n\"Hello,\" the missionary said. He had almond-shaped eyes, a wide smile. \"Would you like to hear about Jesus Christ?\"\n\nZeitoun declined. \"Please sir,\" he said. \"Please, I shouldn't be here. I committed no crime. But no one knows I'm here. I haven't gotten a phone call. My wife thinks I'm dead. Can you call her?\"\n\nThe missionary closed his eyes. It was obvious he often heard things like this.\n\n\"Please,\" Zeitoun said. \"I know it's hard to believe a man in a cage, but please. Can I just give you her number?\"\n\nZeitoun could only remember Kathy's cell phone number, and hoped it would work. The missionary looked up and down the cellblock and gave a nod. \"Be quick.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Zeitoun said. \"Her name is Kathy. My wife. We have four children.\"\n\nZeitoun had no pen or paper.\n\n\"This is against the rules,\" the missionary said, finding a pen in his cart. He had no paper. Now they were both nervous. The missionary had been too long at his cell. He opened a Bible and tore a page from the back. Zeitoun gave him the number. The missionary stuffed the page into his pocket and moved his cart quickly down the block.\n\nHope rose in Zeitoun's heart. He couldn't sit down for hours. He paced, hopped in place, elated. He pictured the missionary leaving the prison, getting to his car, retrieving the number, calling Kathy from the road. Or maybe he would wait till he got home. How long could it take? He counted the minutes until Kathy would know. She would know! He estimated the hours until Kathy would arrive here to free him. If she knew he was alive, he could wait. The process might take days, he knew. But he could wait if it meant seeing her. It would be no problem. He pictured it all. He would be free in a day.\n\nZeitoun struggled to sleep that night. There was a man in the world who knew he was alive. He had found his messenger.\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19\n\nAfter breakfast two guards came to Zeitoun's cell. They told Zeitoun that his presence was requested.\n\n\"Where? With who?\" Zeitoun asked. _Already it's begun_ , he thought.\n\nThe guards told him nothing. They opened his cell, handcuffed him, and shackled his legs together. He was led out of the cell and down the hall. A few minutes later they arrived at another cell, where Zeitoun was deposited. He waited there for five minutes until the door opened again.\n\n\"Van's here,\" the guard said. The guard handed him to another guard, who walked him down another hallway and to a final gate. The gate opened, and Zeitoun was led to a white van waiting outside. He squinted in the full light of day. He was inserted into the van, the guard riding with him. They drove through the complex until they arrived at the main offices at the front of the prison.\n\nZeitoun was led out of the van and handed over to another guard, who led him into the building. Inside, they walked through an immaculate hallway until they arrived at a spare cinderblock office.\n\nOutside the office were Nasser, Todd, and Ronnie, sitting on folding chairs in the hallway. Zeitoun was surprised to see them all assembled, and they gave each other looks of mutual bewilderment. Zeitoun was led past them and into a small room.\n\nIn the room there were two men wearing suits. They sat down and gestured to Zeitoun that he could take a seat. They were from the Department of Homeland Security, they said. They smiled warmly at Zeitoun and told him that they needed to ask him some simple questions. They asked him what he did for a living. He told them that he was a painter and contractor. They asked him why he hadn't left the city when everyone had evacuated. He told them that he never left New Orleans during storms, and that he had a number of properties he wanted to watch over. They asked about Todd, Nasser, and Ronnie\u2014how he knew them. He explained his relationship to each. They asked him why he didn't have any money on him.\n\n\"What am I going to do with money in a canoe during a flood?\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"But Nasser had money,\" one of the men said.\n\nZeitoun shrugged. He could not account for why Nasser had money with him.\n\nThe interview lasted less than thirty minutes. Zeitoun was struck by how friendly the men were, how easy the questions were. They did not ask about terrorism. They did not accuse him of plotting against the United States. At the end, they apologized for what Zeitoun had been through, and asked if there was anything they could do for him.\n\n\"Please call Kathy,\" he said.\n\nThey said they would.\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19\n\nKathy was in a state. She'd just gotten the call from the missionary a few hours before. And now the phone was ringing again. Yuko, who had been fielding calls for days, no longer knew what to do. Kathy picked it up.\n\nA man introduced himself as belonging to the Department of Homeland Security. He confirmed that Zeitoun was at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center.\n\n\"He's fine, ma'am. We have no more interest in him.\"\n\n\"You have no more interest in him? Is that good or bad?\"\n\n\"That's good.\"\n\n\"Well, what was he in there for?\"\n\n\"Well, they have 'looting' on his arrest sheet. But those charges will be dropped.\"\n\nThe call was brief and businesslike. When she hung up, Kathy praised and thanked God for his mercy. She shrieked and jumped around the house with Yuko.\n\n\"I knew he was alive,\" Yuko said. \"I knew it.\"\n\n\"God is good,\" they said. \"God is good.\"\n\nThey called Yuko's husband and made plans to get the kids out of school early. They had to celebrate. And plan. There were so many things to do.\n\nFirst of all, Kathy had to go. She knew she had to go. She had to leave that day for the prison. She didn't know where it was yet, but she had to go. Where was it? She looked it up online. St. Gabriel, less than an hour from Baton Rouge.\n\nShe called Hunt and was bounced around the various automated extensions until she reached a person. She could barely speak. She wanted to fly through the phone and be there with him.\n\n\"I'm trying to reach my husband. He's in there.\"\n\n\"The prisoner's name?\" the woman asked.\n\nKathy had to take a breath. She could not stomach the idea of her husband being called a prisoner. By naming him she was expanding this lie, the one being told by everyone involved in his incarceration thus far.\n\n\"Abdulrahman Zeitoun,\" she said, and spelled it.\n\nKathy heard the typing of computer keys.\n\n\"He's not here,\" the woman said.\n\nKathy spelled the name again.\n\nAgain the sound of typing.\n\n\"We have no one by that name,\" the woman reiterated.\n\nKathy tried to remain calm. She told the woman that she had just received a call from someone from Homeland Security, and that that man had told her that Abdulrahman Zeitoun was at that very prison.\n\n\"We have no record of him,\" the woman said. She went on to say that Hunt had no records for anyone who came via the hurricane. None of the prisoners from New Orleans were in their computer system. \"All of those records are on paper, and we don't have that paper. We have no actual records of any of those people. They're FEMA's.\"\n\nKathy almost collapsed. She was spinning, helpless. She didn't have a number for the Homeland Security man who had called; she cursed herself for not asking for a way to contact him. And now she was being told that her husband was not in the institution where the Homeland Security people and the missionary had seen him. Was this some kind of game? Had he been there at all? He might have been moved already. He had been a prisoner at Hunt but then some other agency wanted him. He had been spirited away to a secret prison somewhere\u2014\n\nShe had to go. She would go to Hunt Correctional Center and insist she see him. She had a right to see him. If he wasn't there she would demand they tell her where he'd been taken. It was the only way.\n\nShe told Yuko and Ahmaad she was going.\n\n\"Where?\" they asked.\n\n\"Hunt. The prison,\" she said.\n\nThey asked her if she was sure he was there. She was not. They asked if she was sure she would be allowed to visit. She was not. They asked where she would stay. Kathy didn't know. Already she was crying again. She didn't know what to do next.\n\nThey convinced her to stay in Phoenix for the time being, until she could be sure of Zeitoun's whereabouts and how she could actually help him. She needed to be smart, they said. They didn't want to worry about her, too.\n\nKathy called Raleigh Ohlmeyer, an attorney they had worked with before. Raleigh had helped a few of the Zeitouns' workers who had legal issues to straighten out. Raleigh's father was a well-known and powerful lawyer in New Orleans, and Raleigh, though in the family business, had chosen to break away, at least in his appearance. He wore his brown hair long, usually pulled back in a ponytail. He worked downtown and took on a wide variety of cases, from traffic tickets to criminal defense. Kathy was sure he would know how to straighten out this Hunt business.\n\nThere was no answer. She left a message.\n\nKathy called Ahmad in Spain and woke him up. She didn't care.\n\n\"He's alive!\" she said.\n\nHe yelled a string of Thank Gods and Praise Gods.\n\n\"Where is he?\" he asked. \"With you?\"\n\n\"No, he's in prison,\" Kathy said. \"But it's okay. I know where he is. We'll get him out.\"\n\nAhmad was silent. Kathy could hear him breathing.\n\n\"How? How will you get him out?\" he asked.\n\nKathy did not have a plan just yet, but she had a lawyer, had put in a call to him, and\u2014\n\n\"You need to go there,\" Ahmad said. \"You have to see him and get him out. You must.\"\n\nKathy was unsettled by Ahmad's tone. He seemed almost as worried by Zeitoun's incarceration as he had been by his disappearance.\n\nFahzia, Zeitoun's sister in Jableh, called soon after.\n\nKathy told her the good news. \"We know where he is. He's in prison. He's okay.\"\n\nAnother long silence.\n\n\"Have you seen him?\" she asked.\n\nKathy said she had not, but that she was sure she would soon.\n\n\"You need to see him,\" Fahzia said. \"You need to find him.\"\n\nIn the afternoon, Raleigh Ohlmeyer called Kathy back. He had fled the city just before the storm and had been staying in Baton Rouge. His house in New Orleans was under six feet of water.\n\nKathy told him what had happened to Zeitoun.\n\n\"What?\" Raleigh said. \"I just saw him on TV.\" He had seen the local news broadcast of Zeitoun in his canoe.\n\nKathy told him about the calls from the missionary and the Homeland Security officials, how they had seen him at Hunt.\n\nRaleigh was reassuring. He already knew all about Hunt. After the storm he had set up a makeshift office in Baton Rouge and was already working with prisoners brought to the prison.\n\nThe system's broken, he said. There was no means to post bail. It would take some time before it could be rectified. Raleigh promised that he would get Zeitoun released, but given the state of the courts\u2014there were none to speak of\u2014he could not predict or guarantee a timeline.\n\n# TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 20\n\nIn the morning Ahmad called Kathy, tense.\n\n\"Did you tell Fahzia that Abdulrahman was in prison?\"\n\nHis tone was severe.\n\n\"Yes, she asked and\u2014\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, and then softened. \"Let's not do that. Don't worry them. We cannot tell them he's in prison. We cannot do that.\"\n\n\"Okay, but I just thought\u2014\"\n\n\"We'll call them and tell them he's fine, he's home, it was a mistake. Okay? We need to tell them this. You don't understand the worry they'll have if they think he's in jail.\"\n\n\"Okay. Should I\u2014\"\n\n\"I'll call them and tell them he's fine. If they call you, tell them the same. He's at home, he's safe, all is fine. You made a mistake. Okay? This is what we tell them. Okay?\"\n\n\"Okay,\" she said.\n\nAhmad wanted to know which prison he was in. Kathy told him it was in St. Gabriel, and that because the legal system was in limbo, it would be some time before they could even hope to get Abdulrahman out. But she had spoken to a lawyer, and he was on the case. It was only a matter of time.\n\nBut Ahmad was thinking beyond simple cases of attorneys and bail. He did not want his brother in prison at all. A Syrian in an American prison in 2005\u2013this was not to be trifled with. Abdulrahman had to be seen. He had to be freed immediately.\n\nThe next time Kathy checked her email she saw a message from Ahmad; she had been cc'ed. He was trying to find Zeitoun, but he had gotten the city wrong. He had done an internet search for San Gabriel in the United States, had found a match, and had written this:\n\nFrom: CapZeton\n\nTo: ACOSTA, ALEX\n\nSubject: Urgent from Spain\n\nThe San Gabriel Police Department\n\nSan Gabriel, CA\n\nDear Sires,\n\nMy name is: Ahmad Zeton, from Spain\n\nReason: I'm looking for my brother (New Orleans Katrina evacuated). On Sept. 7th I missed the contact with my brother which we talked daily by phone after the Hurricane Katrina batch, I asked every place in order to have any news about him, lastly I learned that the Police Force him on Sept. 6th to evacuated his house in New Orleans and tacked him for San Gabriel, and he is actually still arrested at San Gabriel.\n\nKindly would you please if there is a possibility to learn if he is all right, and if it's possible to talk to him, or to call me by a collected call to my phone [number omitted].\n\nThe detail of my brother is:\n\nName: Abdulrahman Zeitoun.\n\nDate of berth: 24\/10\/1957\n\nAddress: 4649 Dart St., New Orleans, LA\n\nWell be very kind from you just to let me know if he's all right,\n\nThanking you indeed,\n\nAhmad Zeton\n\nMalaga-Spain\n\nKathy began to see the situation through Ahmad's eyes. What if the prosecutors, hoping to justify Zeitoun's incarceration, tried to make a case against him\u2014a connection, any distant connection, to some terrorist activity? Any connection, no matter how specious, might be used to justify his incarceration and extend it.\n\nKathy did not want to think this way.\n\n# THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 22\n\nShe called Raleigh Ohlmeyer again. He had just called Hunt, and they had confirmed that Zeitoun was there.\n\nKathy called Ahmad and told him the news.\n\n\"Yes, but has anyone seen him?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\n\"Then we can't be sure,\" he said.\n\n\"Ahmad, I'm sure that\u2014\"\n\n\"You have to go,\" he said. \"Kathy, please.\"\n\nHe apologized; he knew that he was pushing too hard, that he was calling Kathy too often, but his mind was filled with images of his brother on his knees, in an orange jumpsuit, in an outdoor cage. Every additional hour Zeitoun was in custody increased the chances of something taking a turn for the worse.\n\n\"I'll fly to New Orleans,\" he said.\n\n\"And do what?\" Kathy asked.\n\n\"I'll find him,\" he said.\n\n\"Don't. Don't,\" she said. \"They'll put you in jail, too.\"\n\n# FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 23\n\nBy now Raleigh was familiar with some of the judges and administrators working to process the post-storm prisoners being kept at Hunt. Hoping to get Zeitoun's case dismissed, Raleigh told Kathy it was time to come to Baton Rouge. She should fly out and be ready to come to the prison at a moment's notice; there was a chance she could visit him on Monday. Kathy booked a flight and called Adnan, Zeitoun's cousin.\n\n\"Abdulrahman?\" he asked, hesitant.\n\n\"He's okay,\" she said.\n\nHe exhaled. She told him the story of her husband's incarceration, and that she was coming to get him.\n\n\"You'll stay with us,\" Adnan said. After sleeping on the floor of a Baton Rouge mosque for that first week, he and his wife had rented an apartment for the month, and were living there.\n\nAdnan would pick her up and drive her to the prison.\n\n# SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 25\n\nThere was something wrong with the airplane. They were flying so low, descending too quickly. Kathy was certain the plane would crash. She no longer trusted anything about New Orleans, even the sky above the city. She gripped the armrest. She looked around to see if anyone else was alarmed. The pilot's voice came on the intercom. He announced that they were flying low over the city so the passengers could survey the damage. Kathy couldn't look.\n\nWhen they landed, the airport was desolate. There were airport security officers, New Orleans police, National Guardsmen, but few civilians. The passengers of Kathy's plane seemed to be the only people in the building. All the stores were closed. The lights were dim. There was detritus all over the floors\u2014garbage, papers, bandages and other medical supplies.\n\nAdnan picked her up and they drove to the apartment he and Abeer had rented in Baton Rouge. Kathy, exhausted and overwhelmed, fell asleep with her shoes on.\n\n# MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26\n\nZeitoun knew nothing about the work Kathy and Raleigh were doing. He still had not been allowed a phone call. All he knew was that he had been assured by both the missionary and the Homeland Security men that they would call his wife. But since then, he had no assurance that contact had been made.\n\nAfter lunch, Zeitoun was taken from his cell and again handcuffed and brought to the same building near the front gate of the prison. Inside he was brought to a small cinderblock room, where a table and a handful of chairs had been arranged. Sitting on one side of the table was a man in his late fifties, wearing a suit. On the other side were two men in coats and ties. Three other prisoners were seated in chairs at the back of the room. It was some kind of courtroom.\n\nA young man introduced himself to Zeitoun as the public defender. He would be representing Zeitoun that day. Zeitoun began to explain his case, the mistakes that had brought him to prison, and asked for an immediate phone call to his wife. The public defender closed his eyes to indicate that Zeitoun should stop talking.\n\n\"You're not here to be judged,\" he said. \"This is just a hearing to set bail.\"\n\n\"But don't you want\u2014\"\n\n\"Please,\" the young man said, \"just don't say anything. Let me speak for you. Just sit and be quiet if you can. Don't say a word.\"\n\nThe charges against Zeitoun were read: possession of stolen property valued at $500. The prosecutor suggested setting bail at $150,000.\n\nThe defender countered that Zeitoun had no prior record, and that the bail should be far lower. He suggested $35,000.\n\nThe judge set the bail at $75,000. That was the end of Zeitoun's hearing. The defender extended his hand to Zeitoun, and Zeitoun shook it. He was led out of the room as the defender opened the file for the next prisoner. On his way out, Zeitoun again asked for a phone call. The defender shrugged.\n\n\"But why set bail when I can't tell anyone I'm in prison?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nFrom the judge, the prosecutor, and the defender, there was no answer. Zeitoun was brought back to his cell.\n\n# TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 27\n\nRaleigh called Kathy.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said, \"they finally have a system arranged, and we've got a court date. They want to clear the docket as much as we want him out of there. So gather as many people as you can to come to court and testify on his behalf. Character witnesses.\"\n\nThis seemed sensible enough to Kathy. It was a clear-cut task, and she dug in. But while making a list of friends to call, she realized she had forgotten to ask Raleigh where the courthouse was. She called him back and got his voicemail.\n\nShe called the New Orleans District Attorney's office. A recording gave her a number in Baton Rouge. She called it, expecting to get a recording, but to her surprise a woman answered the phone on the second ring. Kathy asked for the address of the courthouse.\n\n\"We don't have one right now,\" the woman said.\n\n\"What?\" Kathy said. \"I just need the address of the courthouse where the hearings are, the hearings for prisoners at Hunt? I just need the court address.\"\n\n\"We don't have one of those,\" the woman said.\n\n\"A court?\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"Where are people going to pay tickets?\"\n\n\"No one's paying tickets right now,\" the woman said.\n\nKathy asked to speak to a supervisor.\n\nShe was transferred, and this time a man picked up the phone. Kathy explained that she had just gotten word that her husband had been arrested, and now there was a court date. She only wanted to know where court hearings were being held.\n\n\"Oh, we can't tell you that,\" the man said.\n\n\"What? You can't tell me?\"\n\n\"No, that's privileged information,\" he said.\n\n\"Privileged for who? I'm his wife!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, that's private information.\"\n\n\"It's not private! It's public!\" Kathy screamed. \"That's the point! It's a public court!\" She asked to speak to another, more knowledgeable person. The man sighed and put her on hold.\n\nFinally a third person, a woman, picked up the phone.\n\n\"What is it you want?\" she asked.\n\nKathy composed herself, hoping that perhaps the other two officials hadn't heard her clearly. She said, \"I want to know the location of the court. The court where sentencing and bail hearings are being held.\"\n\nThe woman's voice was even and firm: \"That is private information.\"\n\nKathy fell apart. She wailed and screamed. Somehow this, knowing that her husband was so close but that these layers of bureaucracy and incompetence were keeping her from him\u2014it was too much. She cried out of frustration and rage. She felt like she was watching a baby drown, unable to do anything to save it.\n\nWhen she'd gathered herself, she called CNN.\n\nShe reached a producer and told her the story: her husband's incarceration, the call from Homeland Security, the stonewalling, the courts that didn't even exist. The producer said she would investigate, and took Kathy's number.\n\nRaleigh called back. He apologized. Now he knew where the hearing would be held\u2014at Hunt itself. He told Kathy to call anyone she could and tell them to be at Hunt the next day, at nine a.m.\n\n\"I'm going to try to see Zeitoun today,\" he said.\n\nKathy prayed that he would.\n\nKathy began calling friends, neighbors, and clients. In two hours she managed to secure at least seven people who said they would come, including the principal of her daughters' school.\n\nZeitoun was again called out of his cell for a meeting. He was handcuffed, his legs were chained, and again he was led to the white van. He was driven to the front of the prison complex and was brought to another small cinderblock room, where he saw Raleigh, the first representative of the outside world he'd seen since his arrest.\n\nHe smiled, and they shook hands warmly.\n\n\"I want to get out,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"You have to pay to get out,\" Raleigh said. He sighed deeply. \"We've got a situation with this bail.\"\n\nZeitoun could either find and pay $75,000, and if he eventually won his case he would be refunded the full amount. Or he could pay thirteen percent of the bail to the courts and three percent to the bondsman\u2014about $10,000 total. And regardless of the outcome of his case, he would lose that amount.\n\n\"Isn't $75,000 a lot for petty theft?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nRaleigh agreed it was. It was about a hundred times what it should be. Zeitoun could find the $10,000, but it seemed silly to him to throw away that much money. It would be, in effect, paying the government for incarcerating him for a month.\n\n\"Can't you reduce it?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\n\"I'll have to fight for it,\" Raleigh said.\n\n\"Well, then fight for it,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"What if it doesn't work?\" Raleigh asked.\n\n\"Then check if we can use my property as bail,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"You don't want to pay the bond?\"\n\n\"No,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nIf he paid for his release, what would he do, after all? He couldn't work. There was nothing to do in New Orleans, not yet. And by now he knew that Kathy and his kids knew he was alive. He trusted that he would be released. So he would be paying $10,000 to be free for a few extra days\u2014and he would spend that time pacing around Yuko and Ahmaad's living room. He would see his daughters, yes, but they knew he was safe now, and that money would be better spent elsewhere\u2014in their college trusts, for example. He had already been kept two and a half weeks; he could wait a few more days.\n\n\"I'll check about using your property as collateral,\" Raleigh said.\n\n\"Call Kathy,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n# WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 28\n\nKathy drove into Hunt, holding her breath. It was a surreal sight\u2014the tidy white fencing, the bright green lawn. It looked like a golf course. White birds scattered as she made her way down the long driveway and up to the gate.\n\nIn the parking lot, she stood outside and waited. It was eight-thirty in the morning, and she needed all the friends they had. They began to arrive a few minutes later. Rob and Walt had driven from Lafayette. Jennifer Callender, who worked with Walt and whose house Zeitoun had renovated, arrived with her husband and father. Tom and Celeste Bitchatch, neighbors on Claiborne, had driven from Houston. Nabil Abukhader, the principal at the girls' school, had driven from the French Quarter.\n\nThey all embraced. No one had been sleeping. They all looked terrible, and were shocked that such a thing had brought them together. But they were heartened, somewhat, to know that they would be able to speak about the character of Abdulrahman Zeitoun. They were confident that when the judge heard from them all and realized that the police had imprisoned a well-known businessman, the judge might very well release him that day. Perhaps they could all celebrate together.\n\nKathy couldn't stop thanking them. She was a wreck of tears and gratitude and anticipation.\n\nWhen Raleigh arrived, he was impressed. He gathered everyone together and gave them a brief rundown of how the proceedings would go. He wasn't sure exactly where the hearing would take place, or even what time. But he was confident that between Zeitoun's reputation, lack of any prior infractions, and this showing of character witnesses\u2014a wide swath of upstanding New Orleanians\u2014the judge would release Abdulrahman Zeitoun with profuse apologies.\n\nThey waited through the morning. No word. Finally Raleigh went to see what was happening. He came back out, his face a cloud.\n\n\"They won't see any of you,\" he said.\n\nThe hearing had been canceled. There was no explanation why.\n\n* * *\n\nNow the only chance was to post bail. Kathy would have to go back into the city and find papers proving ownership of their office building. They would use the building as collateral against the bond.\n\nAdnan insisted he drive Kathy into the city.\n\nThey took I-10 and exited at Carrollton. Immediately they were struck by the smell. It was so many things\u2014acrid, rotten, and even, from the branches and trees lying in the sun, sweet. But most of all the smell was overpowering. It was loud. Kathy wrapped her scarf around her face to blunt its power.\n\nThe city looked like it had been abandoned for decades. The cars, their colors washed grey from the toxic water, were strewn about like playthings. They took Carrollton to Earhart, and at one point had to cross over to the opposite lane to avoid downed trees. The debris was everywhere and bizarre\u2014tires, refrigerators, tricycles, couches, a straw hat.\n\nThe streets were deserted. They saw no one\u2014no human or vehicle\u2014until a police cruiser pulled up behind them a few blocks from the office. Kathy told Adnan to let her do the talking. It was a long-held strategy she developed with Zeitoun. It was always easier and quicker when she did the talking; a Middle Eastern accent would only provoke more questions.\n\nTwo officers approached their car, both with their hands on their sidearms. The officer at the driver's side window asked Adnan what he was doing in the city. Kathy leaned over to explain and extended her driver's license through the window.\n\n\"I live in the house down the street,\" she said. \"Just coming back to assess the damage, pick up anything that survived.\"\n\nHe listened to Kathy but turned back to Adnan. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nKathy preempted him. \"We're contractors,\" she said. She gave the officer her business card.\n\nThe officer took it back to the squad car. He and his partner spent ten minutes there before returning to Adnan's window.\n\n\"Okay,\" the officer said, and let them go.\n\nThey decided to drive straight to the office, for fear that the next time they were stopped they would not be so fortunate.\n\nWhen they reached the building on Dublin, Kathy could see the remains of the homes that had burned to the ground. It seemed miraculous that the fire had stopped only a few yards away. The office appeared damaged from the outside, but not in a way that would hint at what they would find within. Kathy went to the door. Her key didn't work. The lock was rusted inside and out.\n\nAcross the street, Adnan spotted something. He jogged over to a neighbor's house and came back carrying an ancient, ruined ladder.\n\n\"I'm going up,\" he said. \"You stay here.\"\n\nHe set the ladder against the building and began to climb. The steps were crooked and some of them broken, but he went up carefully, and when he arrived at the second-floor window, he climbed through and quickly disappeared inside.\n\nKathy heard some thumps and scraping, and then it was quiet. Soon there was a voice from the other side of the door.\n\n\"Move away,\" he said. \"I'm kicking the door down.\"\n\nHe kicked it four times and the door gave way, falling flat.\n\n\"Be careful when you're going up the stairs,\" he said.\n\nInside, the building was ruined. It looked like it hadn't been inhabited in decades. The ceiling was half-destroyed, dotted with jagged holes. Exposed wiring and papers everywhere. A grey sludge covered the floor. The smell was strong. Mildew and rain and sewage.\n\nKathy and Adnan carefully climbed the stairs to the office. It was unrecognizable. The carpet squished with every step. She could smell the presence of animals, and there were scurrying sounds as they walked through the office. She opened a closet door and a dozen roaches fell onto her hands. She screamed. Adnan calmed her.\n\n\"Let's just get the papers and go,\" he said.\n\nBut nothing was where she remembered it. The file cabinets had shifted. The desk organizers were all over the floor. She searched through the cabinets and desk drawers, sweeping bugs off the few files left undamaged. Some of the files were so wet and soaked in mud that they were useless. She made a pile of the files that were unreadable, hoping that among the few that she could recognize was proof that they owned this building. It seemed so absurd, that she was searching through her own building, widely known as the headquarters of their well-known business, for a simple, filthy piece of paper that a makeshift court would accept in exchange for her husband. And what if she didn't find it? Her husband might fall deeper into the abyss of this broken judicial system for lack of this piece of paper?\n\n\"Please help,\" she asked Adnan, choking on the words.\n\nThey searched for an hour. They opened every drawer and every file, until she thought they were simply examining the same, few, undamaged files they'd already read repeatedly. But finally, in a drawer she was sure contained nothing of value, she found it, the act of sale for 3015 Dublin. She was on her knees, her abaya filthy, and she held it in her hands, and cried. She sat back and shook.\n\n\"This better work,\" she said.\n\n* * *\n\nWith the papers in hand, they returned to Raleigh's office in Baton Rouge. Raleigh prepared the paperwork and faxed it over to the bondsman. The bondsman confirmed that he had received it and that the bond had been paid. Raleigh called Hunt to confirm that all the paperwork had gone through for the surety bond. He was told that they had the paperwork, but that the office had closed early. It was three p.m.\n\nZeitoun would have to spend another night at Hunt.\n\n# THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 29\n\nIn the morning, Kathy and Adnan drove to the prison, arriving before eight. They went into the office and were told Zeitoun would be released that day. They waited in the same room where Zeitoun's friends had gathered two days earlier.\n\nThey waited until eleven. No word. Twelve. Nothing. It wasn't until one o'clock that they were given notice that he would be released any moment. Kathy was told to wait for him outside. A bus would be dropping him off at the gate.\n\nZeitoun was in his cell praying.\n\n_In the name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful:  \nPraise be to God, the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth.  \nThe Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.  \nMaster of the Day of Judgment_.\n\n\"Zeitoun!\"\n\nA guard was calling to him.\n\n_The guard can wait_ , Zeitoun thought. He had no idea that Kathy was at the prison and his release was imminent.\n\nHe continued his prayers.\n\n_You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help.  \nGuide us to the straight way;  \nThe way of those whom you have blessed,  \nnot of those who have deserved anger,  \nnor of those who are astray_.\n\n\"Zeitoun!\" Now the guard was at his cell, yelling through the bars. \"Get ready!\"\n\nZeitoun continued his prayers until he was finished. The guard waited silently. When Zeitoun stood, the guard nodded to him.\n\n\"Get your stuff. You're getting out today.\"\n\n\"What?\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"Hurry up.\"\n\nZeitoun fell against the wall. His legs had given way.\n\nKathy waited outside the prison with Adnan.\n\nA white bus arrived at the gate. A figure moved from within, from left to right, and then stepped down onto the pavement. It was Abdulrahman, her husband. He had lost twenty pounds. He looked like a different man, a smaller man, with longer hair, almost all of it white. Tears soaked her face. _He's so small_ , she thought. A flash of anger overtook her. _Goddamn those people. All of you people, everyone responsible for this_.\n\nZeitoun saw her. He smiled and she went to him. Tears all over her face, she could barely see. She ran to him. She wanted to protect him. She wanted to take him in the crescent of her arms and heal him.\n\n\"Get back!\"\n\nA heavy hand was on her shoulder. A guard had stopped her.\n\n\"Stay here!\" he yelled.\n\nKathy had crossed a barrier. It wasn't visible to her, but the guards had delineated an area within which the prisoners' relatives were not allowed.\n\nShe waited, standing a few yards away from her husband. They stared at each other, smiling grimly. He looked like a sad old man. He was wearing denim pants, a denim shirt, orange flip-flops. Prison clothes. They hung off him, two sizes too big.\n\nA few minutes later he was free. He walked to her and she ran to him. They held each other for a long moment. She could feel his shoulder blades, his ribs. His neck seemed so thin and fragile, his arms skeletal. She pulled back, and his eyes were the same\u2014green, long-lashed, touched with honey\u2014but they were tired, defeated. She had never seen this in him. He had been broken.\n\nZeitoun hugged Adnan, and then quickly pulled away.\n\n\"We should go,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nThe three of them quickly got in the car. They didn't want whoever was responsible for this to change their minds. It wouldn't have surprised them. Nothing at all would have surprised them.\n\nThey left the prison as fast as they could. They felt better after they passed through the main gate, and felt better still as they drove down the long white-fenced driveway and reached the road. Zeitoun turned around periodically, to be sure no one was following them. Adnan checked his rearview mirror as they sped down the rural route, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the prison. They passed through a long corridor of tall trees, and with each mile they felt more sure that Zeitoun was absolutely free.\n\nKathy sat in the back seat, reaching forward, stroking her husband's head. But she wanted to be closer. She wanted him in her arms, she wanted to hold him and restore him.\n\nThey were only ten minutes away from the prison when Ahmad called Kathy's cell phone.\n\n\"We've got him!\" she said.\n\n\"What? You do?\"\n\nShe handed the phone to Zeitoun.\n\n\"Hello brother!\" he said.\n\n\"Is it you?\" Ahmad asked.\n\n\"It's me,\" Zeitoun said.\n\n\"Praise God. Praise God. How are you?\"\n\nAhmad's voice was trembling.\n\n\"Okay,\" Zeitoun said, \"I'm okay. Were you worried?\" He tried to laugh.\n\nNow Ahmad was crying. \"Oh praise God. Praise God.\"\n\n# V\n# FALL 2008\n\nKathy has lost her memory. It's shredded, unreliable. The wiring in her mind has been snapped in vital places, she fears, and now the strangest things have been happening.\n\nShe was at the bank in November, just to deposit checks from clients and withdraw cash for the week. She comes to this bank, Capital One, so often that everyone there knows her. This morning, like any other, the employees greeted her when she entered.\n\n\"Hi, Mrs. Zeitoun!\" they sang, and she waved and smiled.\n\nShe walked to one of the tellers and removed her checkbook and picked up a pen. She needed to write two checks, one for cash and the other to move money into the company's payroll account.\n\nShe wrote the first check and gave it to the teller, and when she returned her attention to her checkbook, she paused. She didn't know what to do next. She couldn't remember what her hand was supposed to be doing. She didn't know how to write, or what to write, or where. She stared and stared at the checkbook; it became more foreign by the moment. She couldn't identify the purpose of the checkbook on the counter or of the pen in her hand.\n\nShe looked around, hoping to see someone with these tools in their hands, to see how they were using them. She saw people, but they provided no clues. She was lost.\n\nThe teller said something but Kathy couldn't understand the words. She looked at the young woman, but the sounds coming from her mouth were garbled, backward.\n\nKathy couldn't speak. She knew, inwardly, that she was beginning to worry the teller. _Focus_ , she told herself. _Focus, focus, focus, Kathy!_\n\nThe teller spoke again, but the sounds were more distant now, coming, it seemed, from underwater, or far away.\n\nKathy's eyes locked on to the sliding wooden partition that separated this teller from the others. She lost herself in the blond wood grain, slipping into the elliptical lines of age on the wood's surface. Then she realized what she was doing, staring at the grain on the wood, and urged herself to snap out of it.\n\n_Focus!_ she thought. _C'mon_.\n\nHer hands felt numb. Her vision was blurry.\n\n_Come back! Come back!_\n\nAnd slowly she returned. The teller was talking. Kathy made out a few words. Kathy felt herself re-enter her body, and suddenly everything clicked into place again.\n\n\"Are you okay, Mrs. Zeitoun?\" the teller asked again.\n\nKathy smiled and waved her hand dismissively.\n\n\"Just spacing out for a second,\" she said. \"Busy day.\"\n\nThe teller smiled, relieved.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Kathy said, and wrote the second check.\n\n* * *\n\nShe's been forgetting numbers, names, dates. She has trouble concentrating. She tells friends that she's going crazy, and laughs it off. She's not going crazy, she is sure and they are sure\u2014she's still the same Kathy almost all the time and certainly to most of the people she knows\u2014but episodes like the one at the bank are accumulating. She's not as sharp as she once was, and there are things she can't count on doing as she did before. One day she'll be unable to place the name of one of the workers she's known for ten years. Another day she'll find herself with the phone in her hand, the other end of the line ringing, and will have no idea who she is calling or why.\n\nIt is the fall of 2008 and the Zeitouns are in the process of moving into a new house. It's the same house, really\u2014the one on Dart\u2014but it's been gutted, expanded, tripled. Zeitoun designed an addition that will give all the children their own rooms, and will allow Kathy to work at home. There are balconies, gabled roofs, a large kitchen, four bathrooms, two sitting rooms. It is the closest thing to a dream house they will ever have.\n\nThe office on Dublin was a total loss. They went there a few days after Zeitoun's release from prison and found only mud and insects. The roof had given way, and everything inside was covered in the same grey mud. Kathy and Zeitoun took the few things they could salvage and eventually sold the building. They planned to move their office to their home. Now their house has an entrance on Dart, the residential address, and another one on Earhart Boulevard.\n\nThe Zeitouns have lived in seven apartments and houses since the storm. Their Dublin Street office was leveled and is now a parking lot. The house on Dart is still unfinished.\n\nThey are tired.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen they returned from Hunt, they stayed for two days on Adnan's floor in Baton Rouge, then moved into the studio apartment of their rental unit on Tita Street, on New Orleans' West Bank. There was no furniture, but it had been undamaged in the storm. Those first few nights, Kathy and Zeitoun lay on the floor, with borrowed blankets, talking very little. He did not want to talk about prison. He did not want to talk about Camp Greyhound. He was ashamed. Ashamed that his hubris, if that was what it was, had caused all this. Ashamed that he had been handcuffed, stripped, caged, treated like an animal. He wanted it all erased from their lives.\n\nOn that night and for many nights after, they lay on the floor and held each other, bitter and thankful and frustrated, and they said nothing.\n\nKathy fed him as much as she could each day. The day after his release, Kathy and Adnan took Zeitoun to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, where the doctors found no major injuries. They could find no reason for the stabbing pain in his side. But he had lost twenty-two pounds. It would be a year before he was back to his previous weight. He'd lost hair, and what was left had gone grey. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes had lost their spark. Slowly, he regained himself. He grew stronger. The pain in his side dissipated, and this convinced Zeitoun it had been caused not by anything visible on an X-ray, but by heartbreak, by sorrow.\n\nAfter Zeitoun's release, their friend Walt loaned them a car from his Lexus dealership, and Kathy and Zeitoun drove it back into the city and to the house on Dart.\n\nThe smell was overpowering, a mixture of mold, sewage, and dead animals. Kathy pulled part of her hijab to her mouth to mute the stench. Zeitoun tried to flush one of the toilets and sewage poured out. More water had made its way into the rooms on the second floor. A shelf of books was ruined, as well as most of the electronics.\n\nWithout Zeitoun there to plug holes as they arose, the house had been devastated. He looked at the gaps in the roof and sighed.\n\nKathy leaned against the wall in the hallway. She was overwhelmed. Everything they owned was filthy. To think she had cleaned this house a thousand times!\n\n\"You okay?\" he asked her.\n\nShe nodded. \"I want to leave. I've seen enough.\"\n\nThey took the computer and some of the kids' clothes and put them in the car. Zeitoun started the engine but then ran back inside, retrieved the box of photos, brought it down, and put it in the trunk. He backed out of the driveway, turned down Dart, and remembered something else.\n\n\"Wait!\" he said. \"Oh no...\" He jumped out of the car, leaving the door open. _The dogs_. How long had it been? He ran across the street and down the block, his stomach spinning. _The dogs, the dogs_.\n\nHe knocked on the front doors of the two houses where he had fed them. No answer. He looked in the first-floor windows. No one. The owners had not come back.\n\nZeitoun went back to the tree. His plank was still there, and he leaned it against the trunk. He climbed up to his usual perch and then pulled the plank up. He stretched the plank across to the house on the right and walked to the roof. Usually the dogs were barking for him by now, but today he heard nothing.\n\n_Please_ , he thought. _Please God_.\n\nHe lifted the window and slipped inside. The stench hit him immediately. He knew the dogs were dead before he saw them. He found them together in one of the bedrooms.\n\nHe left the roof, stepped back to the tree, and arranged the plank to reach the second house. The dogs were just under the windowsill, a tangle of limbs, heads to the heavens, as if they had been waiting, for weeks, for him.\n\nAfter two weeks, Kathy and Zeitoun were still in the studio apartment, and the kids were ready to return to New Orleans. Zeitoun was nervous. \"Do I look like me?\" he asked Kathy. He was afraid he would scare them, having lost so much weight and hair. Kathy didn't know what to say. He did not look like him, not yet, but the kids needed to see their father. So Kathy and Zeitoun flew to Phoenix, and amid much crying and hugging, the Zeitouns were reunited. They drove back to New Orleans and returned to the apartment on Tita. For a month they slept together on the floor.\n\nOne day Kathy opened a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They were offering the Zeitouns a free trailer, a two-bedroom portable unit that would be delivered to them at their request.\n\nKathy filled out the appropriate forms and sent them back. She didn't expect much from the process, so she was startled when, in December 2005, an eighteen-wheeler pulled up in front of their apartment with a gleaming white trailer in tow.\n\nZeitoun was on his rounds, so he didn't see them install it. When he returned, he was puzzled. They hadn't connected the trailer to water or electricity. And it had been installed on a rickety tower of cement blocks, easily four feet off the ground. There were no steps to reach the door. It was so high that there was no way to get inside without a stepladder. And even if one reached the door, you couldn't enter the trailer, because the delivery team had failed to leave a set of keys.\n\nKathy called FEMA and let them know about these issues. They said they were doing the best they could, and would get to it as soon as possible. Weeks passed. No key was delivered. The Zeitouns watched every day for signs of any FEMA personnel. The trailer stayed where it was, unused, unconnected, and locked.\n\nAfter a month, a FEMA pickup truck arrived and dropped off a set of steps, about four feet high. They left no equipment that might attach the steps to the trailer. There was a foot-wide gap between the steps and the door. To get inside, one would have to jump. But the door still couldn't be opened. They had yet to provide the key.\n\nAfter another six weeks or so, a FEMA inspector appeared and gave Kathy the key to the trailer. But when he saw the trailer, he noted that because it was leaning, it was unsafe to use. He left, telling Kathy that someone would come to fix it.\n\nZeitoun and Kathy began to buy houses in their neighborhood. Their next-door neighbor had fled the storm and hadn't returned. She put the house on the market and the Zeitouns made an offer. It was half the value of the house before the hurricane, but she accepted. This was the most satisfying of all the transactions they made. Before the storm, they'd also bought the house on the other side of their own. Soon they were living in this house, while renovating their original house on Dart, and renting out the other house next door.\n\nMeanwhile, the FEMA trailer was still parked in front of the house on Tita. It had been there eight months, and had never been connected to water or electricity. A practical way to enter the trailer had never been devised, and now the Zeitouns didn't need it. It was an eyesore. Zeitoun had repaired all the damage to the Tita house, and they were trying to sell it. But the trailer was blocking the view of the house, and no one would buy a house where an immovable leaning trailer was parked out front.\n\nBut FEMA wouldn't pick it up. Kathy called every week, telling FEMA officials that the trailer had never been used and now was decreasing the value of their property. She was told each time that it would be removed soon enough, and that, besides, thousands of people would love to have such a trailer; why was she trying to get rid of it?\n\nIn June 2006, a FEMA representative came to collect the keys. He said they would return to take away the trailer. Months went by. There was no sign of anyone from FEMA. Kathy called again, and FEMA had no record of anyone picking up the keys.\n\nFinally, in April of 2007, Kathy wrote a letter to the _Times-Picayune_ detailing the saga of the trailer. At that point, the trailer had sat, unused and unusable, for over fourteen months. On the morning the letter ran, a FEMA official called Kathy.\n\n\"What's your address?\" he asked.\n\nThey took it away that day.\n\nKathy's problems with memory gave way to other difficulties, equally difficult to explain. She began to have stomach problems. She would eat any small thing, a piece of pasta, and her stomach would swell to double its original size. Soon she was choking on anything she tried to eat. Food would not go down some days, and when it did, she would have to gag and fight it down.\n\nShe grew clumsier. She knocked over glasses and plates. She broke a lamp. She dropped her phone constantly. Some days, when she walked, she would feel tipsy, swaying side to side, needing to rest against walls as if struck by vertigo. Some days her hands or feet would grow numb while she was doing normal everyday things like driving or working with the kids on their homework.\n\n\"Honey, what's happening to me?\" she asked her husband.\n\nShe went in for tests. One doctor suggested she might have multiple sclerosis; so many of her symptoms seemed to indicate some kind of degenerative illness. She was given an endoscopy, an MRI, and a barium swallow to test her gastrointestinal tract. Doctors administered tests of her cognitive skills, and she did poorly on those that measure memory and recognition. Overall the tests pointed to post-traumatic stress syndrome, though she has yet to decide on the strategy to manage it.\n\nKathy and Zeitoun had no intention of suing anyone over his arrest. They wanted it in the past. But friends and relatives fanned their outrage, and convinced them that those responsible needed to be held accountable. So they hired a lawyer, Louis Koerner, to pursue a civil suit against the city, the state, the prisons, the police department, and a half-dozen other agencies and individuals. They named everyone they could think of\u2014the mayor, Eddie Jordan, and everyone in between. They were told by everyone who knew anything about the New Orleans courts to get in line. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cases against the city, the federal government, FEMA, police officers, the Army Corps of Engineers. Three years after the storm, few of the lawsuits had gone anywhere.\n\nA few months after Zeitoun's release, Louis Koerner found his arrest report. Kathy was shocked that it even existed, that any records had been made or kept. Finding the names of those who arrested her husband was satisfying at first, but then it only fueled her rage. She wanted justice. She wanted to see these men, confront them, punish them. The arresting officer was named Donald Lima, and this name, Donald Lima, seared itself into her mind. The other officer named on the report was Ralph Gonzales. Lima was identified as a police officer from New Orleans. Gonzales was a cop from Albuquerque, New Mexico.\n\nOut-of-state police could not make arrests, Kathy discovered, so on any arrest, a local officer had to be present along with any Guardsmen or contractors. Kathy and Zeitoun decided to name Donald Lima, the officer on the arrest report, in the lawsuit. The Zeitouns' lawyer contacted the New Orleans Police Department and found that Lima was no longer employed there. He had resigned in 2005, a few months after the storm. The department had no forwarding address.\n\nGonzales was easy to find. On the arrest report, he was identified as being an officer from Albuquerque, and he was still with that department in the fall of 2008. When he was reached by phone, he told his side of the story.\n\nGonzales had been a police officer for twenty-one years when, in August of 2005, his captain suggested that they send a team to New Orleans. The New Orleans Police Department had put out a nationwide request for law enforcement help, so Gonzales agreed to go, along with about thirty other officers from Albuquerque.\n\nThe New Mexico team arrived a few days after the storm, were sworn in as deputies, and began to assist with search and rescue operations. Before arriving in New Orleans, Gonzales and his fellow officers had heard a lot about the conditions in the city, and they were tense. They had heard about shootings, rapes, gangs of heavily armed and fearless men. They saw no such crime, but they saw plenty of death. They were one of the first units to investigate one of the hospitals. Gonzales didn't remember which one, but they found dozens of bodies. The smell was indescribable.\n\nConditions worsened every day. He and his fellow cops wouldn't go out at night. They could hear windows breaking and shots fired after dark. The entire city smelled of death and decay. \"Everyone was on guard,\" he said of his fellow cops. \"We thought we were in a third-world country.\"\n\nOn September 6, Gonzales was at the Napoleon\u2013St. Charles staging ground. Cops and soldiers and medical personnel gathered there every day to share information and receive assignments. Gonzales got word that there would be a search of a house down the road, occupied by at least four suspects presumed to have been looting and dealing drugs. It could be very dangerous, he was told, and they needed as many cops and soldiers as possible. It was the first law-and-order assignment he'd been part of since he had arrived.\n\nHe jumped on the boat wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a pistol and an M-16. He was one of six cops, National Guard soldiers, and soldiers-for-hire on the boat. When they arrived, Gonzales was one of the first to enter. He saw a pile of computer components and stereo equipment on the dining room table, and he saw the four men. There was something in their attitude, he thought, which signaled that \"they were up to no good.\"\n\nThey arrested the four men, brought them to the staging ground, handed them to the authorities there. They were finished with the assignment in fifteen minutes. That was the extent, Gonzales asserted, of their duties. He never went to Camp Greyhound and was only vaguely aware that a jail had been installed there. Neither he nor any part of the arresting party secured the house or collected any evidence. In fact, none of them returned even once to the house on Claiborne.\n\nThe arrest of Zeitoun and the other three men on Claiborne Avenue was one of two arrests Gonzales made while he was in New Orleans. Every other task he performed was related to search and rescue. Ten minutes after bringing the four men to the staging ground, he was on another boat, looking for people in need.\n\nGonzales was asked how he felt about the fact that Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a middle-aged businessman and father of four, had done a month in maximum-security prison.\n\nGonzales seemed regretful. \"If he was innocent, then I feel very bad,\" he said. \"Here's the bottom line: I wouldn't want something like that to happen to me personally.\"\n\nGonzales talked about how the system is supposed to work: police officers investigate, make arrests, and then hand the process over to the judicial system. Under normal circumstances, if the men were innocent, he maintained, they would have been given a phone call and the opportunity to post bail.\n\n\"They should have gotten a phone call,\" he said.\n\nLima was more difficult to track down, but he had not gone far. He had left the New Orleans Police Department in 2005 and was living in Shreveport, Louisiana.\n\nHe knew that Zeitoun and the others had spent time in jail. He knew about Zeitoun's case because he'd been served papers when the lawsuit was undertaken. He didn't know how long the other men had spent in prison. He was quick to note that their imprisonment wasn't his doing. He only made the arrest.\n\nAt the time of Katrina, he was living in a five-thousand-square-foot house on Napoleon. During and after the storm, he stayed in the city with members of his family, guarding his house. He had two generators and enough food and water for three weeks. He also had over forty pistols and automatic rifles. During the day he traveled the city with other police officers and National Guard troops, making rescues. Each day he met with other law-enforcement personnel, and they would map out a plan of action. They divided up tasks and territory.\n\nThe National Guardsmen in the city had plenty of gasoline but were low on other supplies. In exchange for gasoline, Lima and other New Orleans police officers broke into convenience stores and took cigarettes and chewing tobacco. A majority of the National Guardsmen, Lima said, chewed tobacco and smoked Marlboros, so this arrangement kept both sides well supplied. Lima considered the looting a necessary part of the mission. The gasoline, he said, helped them make the rescues they did. He also needed it to power his home generators. When he couldn't find Guardsmen who had gas, Lima siphoned fuel from cars and trucks. His throat was sore from all the gas-siphoning he did after the storm, he said.\n\n\"The whole place was anarchy,\" he said.\n\nWhile making his rounds on a motorboat one day, Lima observed four men leaving a Walgreens carrying stolen goods. They left the Walgreens and put the goods into a blue-and-white motorboat. Lima had two rescuees with him, so he couldn't pursue the thieves at the time, but he made a mental note. He continued to make rounds, seeing dead bodies and being confronted by angry residents, many of them armed.\n\n\"My state of mind was rattled,\" he said.\n\nTwo days later he passed a house on Claiborne and saw the same blue-and-white boat tethered to the porch. He raced to the Napoleon\u2013St. Charles staging ground and gathered a crew of police and military personnel. They were \"heavily armed\" with sidearms and M-16s. He didn't know the other four men or the one woman who joined in the mission. Together they took a flatboat to the house. Lima was the lead cop on the arrest.\n\nWhen they entered, they saw what they thought were stolen goods on the dining room table. They found four men inside, and something about them and the scene seemed amiss. Lima was sure that these were the same four men he had seen leaving the Walgreens, so they arrested them and brought them to the staging ground.\n\n\"It was a fairly routine arrest,\" he said. \"All four of the guys were very quiet.\"\n\nThey handed the men over to National Guardsmen, and the Guardsmen put them in the white van. Lima filled out paperwork about the arrest and gave it to the Guardsmen, and they drove the arrestees to Camp Greyhound. Later, Lima went to Greyhound, where he saw the men's property laid out on a table. He saw Todd's maps, Nasser's cash, and the memory chips. \"They'd been up to something,\" he said.\n\nLima was not sure what goods he had seen the four men stealing. And he did not see any goods customarily sold by Walgreens in the house on Claiborne. He did not secure the house on Claiborne as a crime scene. No stolen goods were recovered. But he was certain the men in the house were guilty of something, though the extraordinary circumstances of post-storm New Orleans did not allow for the same degree of thoroughness as he would have liked.\n\nNor was the post-arrest procedure standard or fair, he said. In a normal situation, Lima said, they would have been arraigned properly, given a phone call and an attorney, and would have been out on bail within days. When he was a cop, he was frustrated by the revolving-door nature of the justice system. He would arrest someone in the morning and they would be out on the street in the afternoon. It was maddening for a police officer, but he admitted that this element of checks and balances would have been useful in this case.\n\n\"They should have gotten a phone call,\" he said.\n\nLima quit the NOPD in November 2005, and moved with his wife and daughter to Shreveport. He was a police officer in Shreveport for a time, but was treated, he said, \"like a second-class citizen.\" The officers there assume that all cops from New Orleans are corrupt, he said. So he quit, and now he's looking for a new career. Before joining the force, he was a stockbroker, and he was considering going back to that.\n\nThe Zeitouns were conflicted about what they heard about Lima and Gonzales. On the one hand, knowing that these two police officers had not purposely hunted and arrested a man because he was Middle Eastern gave them some comfort. But knowing that Zeitoun's ordeal was caused instead by systemic ignorance and malfunction\u2014and perhaps long-festering paranoia on the part of the National Guard and whatever other agencies were involved\u2014was unsettling. It said, quite clearly, that this wasn't a case of a bad apple or two in the barrel. The barrel itself was rotten.\n\nSoon after, a friend emailed Kathy a document that seemed to shed light on the state of mind of the soldiers and law-enforcement agencies working in New Orleans at the time.\n\nThe Federal Emergency Management Agency had been its own freestanding agency for decades, but after 9\/11 had been folded into the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA had historically been granted broad powers in the wake of a federal emergency; they could take command of all police, fire, and rescue operations. This was the case after Katrina, where it was necessary for FEMA to assume the responsibility for all prisoners being evacuated from New Orleans. And thus the prisoners, including Zeitoun, were overseen by the Department of Homeland Security.\n\nWhile Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, a four-page document was apparently faxed and emailed to law-enforcement agencies in the region, and to National Guard units headed to the Gulf area. The document, issued in 2003 by the Department of Homeland Security, was written by a \"red cell\" group encompassing representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the Marines, corporate security firms, and Sandia National Laboratories.\n\nThe authoring committee had been asked to \"speculate on possible terrorist exploitation of a high category hurricane.\" And though the authors admitted that it was unlikely that terrorists would act during or after a hurricane, they nevertheless enumerated the many ways they might do so. \"Several types of exploitation or attacks may potentially be conducted throughout the hurricane cycle\u2014hostage situations or attacks on shelters, cyber attacks, or impersonation of emergency response officials and equipment to gain access.\" These terrorists \"might even hope that National Guard and other units are less able and well-equipped to respond... because of deployments overseas.\"\n\nThen they broke their findings into three categories: Pre-Event, During Event, and Post-Event. Before the storm, the committee wrote, the terrorists would be most likely to use the occasion \"to observe precautionary measures to gauge emergency response resources and continuity of operation plans at critical infrastructures.\" They also warned that terrorists might target evacuation routes, creating \"mass panic\" and \"loss of public confidence in the government.\" Terrorist activity during the storm, the committee felt, was \"less likely due to the severe weather, unpredictability of the storm path and the difficulty of mobilizing resources.\" After the storm, the options for terrorists were few but potent. They might \"build on public panic to further destabilize the system by disseminating rumors\" and therefore \"increase media coverage\" and \"stress the public health system.\"\n\nThe committee had several recommendations to reduce the threat posed by such terrorists. They included: \"Institute increased security procedures (e.g. identification checks) at evacuation centers and shelters\"; \"Advise the first responder community, telecommunications personnel, and power restoration personnel to increase identification procedures to prevent imposters from gaining unauthorized access to targets\"; and \"Increase patrols and vigilance of staff at key transportation and evacuation points (for instance, bridges and tunnels), including watching for unattended vehicles at these locations.\"\n\nThe \"red cell\" committee thought it unlikely that an established terrorist group would work in the United States during a hurricane. Instead, they felt that \"a splinter terrorist cell, or a lone actor... would be more likely to exploit a hurricane on site. This includes persons pursuing a political agenda, religious extremists, or other disgruntled individuals.\"\n\nKathy isn't sure whether hearing things like this is helpful or not. She has moved on from Katrina in many ways, and yet the residual effects arrive at unexpected times. There are plenty of normal days. She drives the kids to school and picks them up, and in between she manages the affairs of the painting and contracting company. When the kids get home she makes them a snack and they watch TV and do their homework.\n\nBut the other day Kathy had to ask for Nademah's help. She was trying to get onto the Internet but couldn't make it work. She looked behind the computer and the wires were a chaos she couldn't decipher. \"D, can you help me get connected?\"\n\nNademah came to help. It was Kathy who had set up all the computers in the house, Nademah reminded her, and Kathy who had taught Nademah how to use them. Kathy knew this, but at that moment she couldn't remember which wires went where, which buttons did what, how everything was connected.\n\nCamp Greyhound has been the subject of investigative reports and a source of fascination for the city at large. Even employees of Greyhound and Amtrak are amazed at what became of the station after the storm. Clerks at the Amtrak desk will happily show visitors the place where prisoners were fingerprinted, where their heights were determined. The height chart is still there. Under a poster next to the counter, the handwritten marks are still there. You just have to move the poster to see them, just as they were in the days of Camp Greyhound.\n\nAs Zeitoun had suspected, the jail was built largely by hand. When he was incarcerated there, he couldn't imagine what workers were available and ready to work long hours a day after the hurricane, but the answer makes a certain amount of sense. The work was completed by prisoners from Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, Louisiana, and from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.\n\nAngola, the country's largest prison, was built on an eighteen-thousand-acre former plantation once used for the breeding of slaves. Meant to hold those convicted of the most serious crimes, it has long been considered the most dangerous, most hopeless prison in the United States. Among the five thousand men held there, the average sentence is 89.9 years. Historically the inmates were required to do backbreaking labor, including picking cotton, for about four cents an hour. In a mass protest decades ago, thirty-one prisoners cut their Achilles tendons, lest they be sent again to work.\n\nAt the time of the hurricane, Marlin Gusman, sheriff of Orleans parish, knew that there was a chance that the Orleans Parish Prison, where most offenders were kept while awaiting trial, would flood. So he called Burl Cain, warden of Angola. An arrangement was made to build an impromptu prison on high ground in New Orleans. Warden Cain rounded up fences and portable toilets, all of which he had available at the Angola campus, and sent the materials on trucks to New Orleans. They arrived two days after the hurricane struck the city.\n\nCain also sent dozens of prisoners, many of them convicted of murder and rape, and tasked them with building cages for new prisoners and those forced out of Orleans Parish Prison. The Angola prisoners completed the network of outdoor jails in two days, sleeping at night next door to the Greyhound station. Cain also sent guards. When the cages were finished, the Angola prisoners were sent back north, and the guards remained. These were the men who guarded Zeitoun's cage.\n\nWhen the prison was completed, Cain said it was \"a real start to rebuilding\" New Orleans. In the weeks that followed, more than 1,200 men and women were incarcerated at Camp Greyhound.\n\nThis complex and exceedingly efficient government operation was completed while residents of New Orleans were trapped in attics and begging for rescue from rooftops and highway overpasses. The portable toilets were available and working at Camp Greyhound while there were no working bathrooms at the Convention Center and Superdome a few blocks away. Hundreds of cases of water and MREs were readily available for the guards and prisoners, while those stranded nearby were fighting for food and water.\n\nThere have been times when someone speaks to Kathy in English and she can't understand what the person is saying. It happened the other day with Ambata, a woman the Zeitouns recently hired to help with office work. The kids had just come home from school, the TV was on, a stereo was playing\u2014there was noise throughout the house. Kathy and Ambata were sending out invoices when Ambata said something Kathy couldn't understand. She saw Ambata's mouth moving, but the words conveyed no meaning.\n\n\"Can you repeat that?\" she asked.\n\nAmbata repeated herself.\n\nThe words made no sense.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Kathy said. \"I have no idea what you're saying.\" She grew scared. She jumped up and, frantic, she turned off the TV, the stereo, and the computer. She wanted to eliminate any variables. She sat down again with Ambata and asked her to repeat what she said.\n\nAmbata did, but Kathy still could not parse the words.\n\nOne day, in 2006, Zeitoun was visiting his cousin Adnan at his Subway franchise downtown. Zeitoun occasionally stopped there for lunch, and was eating there that day when he saw an exceptionally tall African American woman enter. She was in tan-and-green fatigues, evidently a National Guard soldier. She looked very familiar.\n\nZeitoun realized why he recognized her. She was, he was almost certain, one of the people who had arrested him. She had the same eyes, the same short hair. He stared for a few long moments and tried to muster the nerve to say something. He couldn't devise the right thing to say, and soon she was gone.\n\nAfterward he asked Adnan about her.\n\n\"Have you seen her before?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. I don't think so.\"\n\n\"If she comes in again, you have to ask her questions. Ask her if she was in New Orleans after the storm.\"\n\nZeitoun spent the day reliving his arrest and the weeks afterward. It wasn't every day that the arrest came to him, but late at night it was sometimes difficult to send away his anger.\n\nHe knew he couldn't live in the city if he felt he would continue to encounter people like this soldier. It was painful enough to pass by the Greyhound station. It was almost unavoidable, though, given how central it was\u2014within sight of the Home Depot. He had adjusted his habits in a dozen small ways. He was exceedingly careful not to commit any minor traffic infraction. He feared that because of the lawsuit he would be a target of local police, that they would manufacture charges against him, try to justify his arrest. But these were fleeting thoughts. He fought them off every day.\n\nOne confrontation was unavoidable.\n\nFour days after his release, Zeitoun had had time to sleep, and to eat a bit. He felt stronger. He didn't want to return to Camp Greyhound. But Kathy had insisted, and he knew she was right. They had to get his wallet back. It held his driver's license, and without it the only identification he had was the prison ID he had been given at Hunt. He and Kathy needed to fly to Phoenix to gather their children and drive home, and the only way he could do so was with his driver's license. They thought about it a dozen ways but couldn't find a better way. They had to return to the Greyhound station and retrieve the wallet.\n\nThey pulled into the crescent-shaped drive. All around were police cars, military Humvees, jeeps, and other military vehicles.\n\n\"How do you feel?\" Kathy asked.\n\n\"Not good,\" Zeitoun said.\n\nThey parked and stayed in the car for a minute.\n\n\"Ready?\" Kathy asked. She was primed for a fight.\n\nZeitoun opened his door. They walked toward the station. Outside the entrance, there were two soldiers.\n\n\"Please don't say anything,\" Zeitoun said to Kathy.\n\n\"I won't,\" she said, though she could barely contain her rage.\n\n\"Please don't,\" he repeated. He had warned her repeatedly that they could both be put in jail, or he could be returned to prison. Anything could happen. Anything _had_ happened.\n\nAs they approached the bus station, Zeitoun was trembling.\n\n\"Please be calm,\" he said. \"Don't make it worse.\"\n\n\"Okay, okay,\" Kathy said.\n\nThey walked past a dozen military personnel and into the building. It looked much like Zeitoun remembered. For the first time in his life, he tried to shrink. Trying to hide his face\u2014the very people who caged him might still be there\u2014he followed Kathy through the doors.\n\nThey were stopped by a pair of soldiers. They patted Zeitoun down and searched Kathy's purse. They directed them both through a metal detector. Zeitoun's eyes darted around the building, looking for anyone he recognized.\n\nThey were directed to a set of chairs, the same chairs Zeitoun had been questioned in, and were told to wait for a chance to meet with the assistant district attorney. Zeitoun wanted badly to get out as soon as possible. The situation was far too familiar. He had no faith that he would leave again.\n\nAs they waited, a man holding a tape recorder approached them. He told them that he was a reporter from the Netherlands, and that his friend had been held overnight at the station in one of the cages, and had just been released.\n\nHe began asking Zeitoun and Kathy why they were there. Kathy didn't hesitate, and began to tell him that her husband had been wrongfully arrested, sent to a maximum-security prison, held there for twenty-three days, and that now they were trying to retrieve his possessions.\n\n\"Get away from them!\"\n\nKathy looked up. A female officer in her fifties, wearing full camouflage, was glaring at them, and barking at the Dutch reporter. \"Get out of here,\" she said to him. \"Interview's over.\" Then she turned to a pair of National Guardsmen. \"If that man is seen in here again, arrest him and put him in a cage.\" The soldiers approached the reporter.\n\nKathy stood up and strode toward the woman.\n\n\"Now you take away my freedom of speech? Really? You took away my husband, you wouldn't let me speak to or see my husband, and now you take away my ability to speak freely? I don't think so! You know anything about freedom of speech?\"\n\nThe officer turned away from Kathy and ordered that the reporter be removed. Two soldiers guided him to the front door and led him outside.\n\nThe assistant district attorney, a heavyset white man, approached them and asked how he could help. Kathy reiterated that she needed her husband's wallet. The man led them to the gift shop, which had been converted into an office. It was a glass box in the middle of the station, full of Mardi Gras T-shirts and paperweights. Kathy and Zeitoun explained their situation.\n\nThe assistant DA said he was sorry, but the wallet was still being used as evidence. Kathy blew up. \"Evidence? How could his ID be used as evidence? You know his name. Why would you need his ID? He didn't commit a crime with his wallet.\"\n\nThe man sighed. \"I'm sympathetic, but you can't have it without permission of the district attorney,\" he said.\n\n\"You mean Eddie Jordan?\" Kathy asked. \"Where is he?\"\n\n\"He's not here,\" he said.\n\n\"When will he be here?\" Kathy asked.\n\nThe assistant DA didn't know.\n\nKathy and Zeitoun walked into the station lobby, not knowing what their next step was. But then, through the station's front window, she saw Eddie Jordan. He was standing out front, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters.\n\nKathy marched out the door to confront Jordan. He was dressed in a three-piece suit.\n\n\"Why can't we have his wallet?\" she asked.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" Jordan said.\n\nKathy told him a brief version of Zeitoun's situation, and reiterated her demand that the wallet be returned.\n\nJordan said that there was nothing he could do about it, and turned around, resuming his conversation.\n\nNow Kathy saw that the Dutch reporter was nearby. She wanted him and the other reporters to hear what was happening. She spoke as loudly as she could.\n\n\"You arrested my husband in his own house, and now you won't give him his wallet back? What's going on here? What is wrong with this city?\"\n\nJordan shrugged and turned away.\n\n\"We're going back inside,\" Kathy said to Zeitoun.\n\nZeitoun didn't see the point, but the fire in her eyes did not encourage debate. They went back in and walked directly up to the assistant DA. Kathy wouldn't allow that damned prison ID to define her husband, to be the only government-issued identification he owned.\n\n\"You have to do something,\" she said. She was near tears now, a mess of frustration and rage.\n\nThe assistant DA closed his eyes. \"Let me see what I can find,\" he said. He left the office. In ten minutes, he came back with the wallet and handed it to Zeitoun.\n\nZeitoun's driver's license and permanent-resident card were there, but all his cash, business cards, and credit cards were gone.\n\n\"Where are the other things?\" Zeitoun asked.\n\nThe man didn't know. \"That's all there was.\"\n\nKathy didn't care. All she wanted, for now, was proof that her country recognized her husband as a citizen.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" she said. \"Thank you.\" She wanted to hug him. He was the first person representing any part of the city or state government who had shown any humanity at all. Even this one easily executed task, retrieving the wallet of a man they'd held in a cage a few yards away, seemed, in the context, an act of great courage and empathy.\n\nThey left, satisfied that they had gotten the most crucial thing, the driver's license. Given the nature of the city's judicial system, it was miraculous that the wallet had been kept at all. Kathy had already canceled the credit cards. The rest they could replace.\n\nThat was the last time Kathy felt that focused, that angry. Now she is more diffuse. She gets angry, but not as often, and she can't focus her rage as she once could. Where she was once ready and willing to fight any battle, she prefers now to retreat, reinforce her defenses, double the locks on the doors. She finds herself fearful, always, that something will happen to her family. She doesn't like her kids playing in the neighborhood. She wants them where she can see them, even Nademah, who is thirteen now, and almost as tall as Kathy herself. She watches them sleep. She never did that before. She checks on them frequently during the night. She wakes up and has trouble getting back to sleep.\n\nNademah, always responsible, always whip-smart, is now sharing in the care of her sisters. Zachary is eighteen, lives with friends in New Orleans, and works at one of Adnan's Subway restaurants. Safiya and Aisha are the same as always: blithe, full of joy, given to bursts of song. All of the kids make life very easy for little Ahmad, born on November 10, 2006 at East Jefferson Hospital.\n\nAhmad is, by all accounts, a preternaturally content baby. He never wants for attention, with his sisters taking turns holding him, taking dangerous things out of his mouth, reading to him, dressing him in their old clothes.\n\nZeitoun was so thankful for a boy. And the name was never an issue. Ahmad was the first and only name.\n\nZeitoun's brother Ahmad, still living in Spain, now works as a ship inspector. He's waiting for his brother to bring the new baby to M\u00e1laga. It's time he saw his nephew, his namesake.\n\nKathy is working less these days. There's the baby to care for, and her mind is not sharp enough, not lately, to handle all the paperwork on her own. They have some help now, from Ambata and others, which gives Kathy some room to breathe, to be a mother, to try to make sense of the last three years.\n\nThere are appointments with doctors. Doctors to try to figure out why her hands go numb without warning. Doctors to investigate her digestive problems, memory problems.\n\nDoctors have asked Kathy what she thinks the most traumatic part of the Katrina experience was. She surprised herself and the doctors when she realized that it was after she knew Zeitoun was alive, and had been told he was at Hunt Correctional Center, but wasn't allowed to see him or even know where a court hearing might be held. It was that moment, being told by the woman on the phone that the hearing's location was \"private information,\" that did the most damage.\n\n\"I felt cracked open,\" she says.\n\nThat this woman, a stranger, could know her despair and desperation, and simply deny her. That there could be trials without witnesses, that her government could make people disappear.\n\n\"It broke me.\"\n\nShe finds herself wondering, early in the morning and late at night and sometimes just while sitting with little Ahmad sleeping on her lap: _Did all that really happen? Did it happen in the United States? To us?_ It could have been avoided, she thinks. So many little things could have been done. So many people let it happen. So many looked away. And it only takes one person, one small act of stepping from the dark to the light.\n\nShe wants to find out who that missionary was, the man who met her husband in prison and took her phone number\u2014the messenger. The man who risked something in the name of mercy.\n\nBut did he risk so much? Not really. Usually you needn't risk so much to right a wrong. It's not so complicated. It's the opposite of complicated. To dial a number given to you by a man in a cage, to tell the voice on the other end, \"I saw him.\" Is that complicated? Is that an act of great heroism in the United States of America?\n\nIt should not be so.\n\n* * *\n\nKathy worries that her husband is working too hard now. He works every day, even Sundays. He's home for meals, and bedtimes, but he works whenever he can. And how he does it while fasting on Mondays and Fridays\u2014he's become more religious\u2014is beyond her. He seems to eat even less than before, and works harder than ever.\n\nFriends who know what happened to Zeitoun after the storm ask why he hasn't left, why he hasn't gone to another city, another country\u2014even back to Syria\u2014anyplace removed from the memories embedded into New Orleans. He does have dark feelings when he passes by the Greyhound station, when he drives past the house on Claiborne where he and two friends and a stranger were carried off. When he drives by the home of Alvin and Beulah Williams, the pastor and his wife, he says a quick prayer for them. Beulah Williams died in 2007. Reverend Alvin Williams died in 2008.\n\nWhen he passes by the home of Charlie Ray, his neighbor on Claiborne, he waves if Charlie is on his porch, which he often is. One day after the storm, Charlie was visited by the National Guard. They told him that he should leave the city, and that they would help him. They waited for him to pack, and then carried his bags to their boat. They ferried him to an evacuation point, whereupon a helicopter flew him to the airport and he was given a free plane ticket to New York.\n\nHis rescue took place the same day Zeitoun was arrested. A few months after the storm, Charlie returned to New Orleans and still lives on Claiborne.\n\nTodd Gambino now lives in Mississippi. He spent over five months at Hunt Correctional Center. He was released on February 14, 2006. All charges against him were dropped. More than $2,400 had been confiscated from him when he was processed at Camp Greyhound, and when he was released, he attempted repeatedly to recover it. He was unsuccessful. He was not compensated in any way for the five months he spent at the maximum-security prison.\n\nAfter his release, he went to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico but was laid off in the fall of 2008.\n\nNasser Dayoob spent six months at Hunt. All charges against him were eventually dropped; when he was released, he tried to recover the $10,000 he'd had with him when he was arrested. No authorities had any record of it, and he never recovered the money, his life savings. In 2008 he moved back to Syria.\n\nRonnie spent eight months at Hunt. Since his release in the spring of 2006, the Zeitouns have not heard from him.\n\nFrank Noland and his wife have moved. Just about everyone in the Zeitouns' neighborhood has moved. Gone, too, is the woman Zeitoun found in her foyer\u2014the woman whose cries he heard because he paddled quietly. The new occupant of her house doesn't know where she went, but he has heard the story of Zeitoun's rescue.\n\nZeitoun thinks of the simple greatness of the canoe, of the advantages of moving quietly, of listening carefully. When he was released from prison, he and Kathy looked for the canoe where he'd last seen it, at the Claiborne house, but it was gone. The house had been robbed, too. Everything was stolen, because the soldiers and police who arrested Zeitoun had left the house unlocked and unguarded. Thieves walked in unimpeded and made off with all the tenants' belongings, everything Todd had gathered there in the front rooms to keep dry.\n\nAll those things were replaced, but he misses the canoe. He keeps his eye out for it, hoping he'll see it at a yard sale or in someone's sideyard. He'd pay for it again. Maybe he should get a new one, he thinks. Maybe his girls will like it more now. Maybe little Ahmad, like his uncle and father and grandfather and countless Zeitouns before them, will feel the lure of the sea.\n\nSome nights Zeitoun struggles to sleep. Some nights he thinks of the faces, the people who arrested him, who jailed him, who shuttled him between cages like an animal, who transported him like luggage. He thinks of the people who could not see him as a neighbor, as a countryman, as a human.\n\nEventually he finds his way to sleep, and in the morning he awakens to the sounds of his children\u2014four young ones in the house now, so many voices in this now-bigger house, the smell of fresh paint filling the home with possibility. The kids fear water, yes, and when a pipe burst last year there were screams and nightmares, but slowly they're growing stronger. For them he has to be strong, and he needs to look forward. He needs to feed them, to hold them close, and he needs to show them that God had a reason for their trials. He tells them that perhaps God, by allowing him to be jailed, saved him from something worse.\n\n\"Everything happens for a reason,\" he tells them. \"You do your duty, you do what's right, and the rest is in God's hands.\"\n\nHe has watched the progress of the rebuilding of the city. The first few years were frustrating, as legislators and planners bickered over money and protocols. New Orleans, his home, needs no speeches, no squabbling, and no politics. It needs new flooring, and new roofing, new windows and doors and stairs.\n\nFor many of his clients, it took time for the insurance money to come through, for the FEMA money to appear, for any number of complications to work themselves out. But now things are moving. The city is rising again. Since Hurricane Katrina, Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor LLC has restored 114 houses to their former states, or improved versions thereof.\n\nZeitoun bought a new van and drives through the city, through Uptown, the Garden District, the French Quarter, Lakeview, the West Bank, Broadmoor, Metairie, Gentilly, the Lower Ninth, Mirabeau Gardens\u2014and every time he sees a home under construction, no matter who's doing it, he smiles. _Build_ , he thinks. _Build, build, build_.\n\nAnd so he makes his rounds, checking in on his crews. They're working on some very good and important projects. Even with a slowing economy, there is much to do.\n\nThere's McDonogh #28, a three-story junior high school on Esplanade. It's been closed since the storm, but it can come back. Zeitoun is fixing the woodwork with caulk and putty, repainting the interiors with medium grey and sage-green and bone-white. That shouldn't take too long. It'll be good to see that school open again.\n\nIt would be easy, he knows, with that building and so many others, to simply tear them down and begin again. As a builder, it certainly is easier starting with a piece of flat, cleared land. But so much is lost that way, far too much is lost. And so for three years of rebuilding he has always asked, first, \"What can be saved?\"\n\nThere's the Leidenheimer Bakery on Simon Bolivar Avenue. The building is a wonderful brick structure, over a hundred years old, and the bakery is still run by the descendants of George Leidenheimer, an immigrant from Germany. Zeitoun was proud to get the job, as he always is with buildings of significance; he hates to see them torn down. The masonry weathered the storm just fine, but the windows and wood need refinishing or replacing. So he and his crew are doing that, and remodeling the inner office, installing some cabinets, painting the vents.\n\nAnd there's the St. Clement of Rome Parish Church on West Esplanade and Richland. The interior woodwork needs priming and refinishing. The exterior sustained some damage, so they'll pressure-wash it, sand and caulk it, and repaint every wall and window. He intends to oversee that project very carefully. He always does when hired to restore any house of worship. He is sure that God is watching the work he and Kathy and his men are doing, so it must be done with great care and even, he tells his crews, with soul.\n\nMore than anything else, Zeitoun is simply happy to be free and in his city. It's the place of his dreams, the place where he was married, where his children were born, where he was given the trust of his neighbors. So every day he gets in his white van, still with its rainbow logo, and makes his way through the city, watching it rise again.\n\nIt was a test, Zeitoun thinks. Who among us could deny that we were tested? But now look at us, he says. Every person is stronger now. Every person who was forgotten by God or country is now louder, more defiant, and more determined. They existed before, and they exist again, in the city of New Orleans and the United States of America. And Abdulrahman Zeitoun existed before, and exists again, in the city of New Orleans and the United States of America. He can only have faith that will never again be forgotten, denied, called by a name other than his own. He must trust, and he must have faith. And so he builds, because what is building, and rebuilding and rebuilding again, but an act of faith? There is no faith like the faith of a builder of homes in coastal Louisiana. And there is no better way to prove to God and neighbor that you were there, that you are there, that you are human, than to build. Who could ever again deny he belonged here? If he needs to restore every home in this city, he will, to prove he is part of this place.\n\nAs he drives through the city during the day and dreams of it at night, his mind vaults into glorious reveries\u2014he envisions this city and this country not just as it was, but better, far better. It can be. Yes, a dark time passed over this land, but now there is something like light. Progress is being made. It's so slow sometimes, so terribly so sometimes, but progress is being made. We have removed the rot, we are strengthening the foundations. There is much work to do, and we all know what needs to be done. We can only do the work, he tells Kathy, and his children, and his crew, his friends, anyone he sees. So let us get up early and stay late, and, brick by brick and block by block, let us get that work done. If he can picture it, it can be. This has been the pattern of his life: ludicrous dreams followed by hours and days and years of work and then a reality surpassing his wildest hopes and expectations.\n\nAnd so why should this be any different?\n\n# THE ZEITOUN FOUNDATION\n\nAll author proceeds from this book go to the Zeitoun Foundation, founded in 2009 by the Zeitoun family, the author, and McSweeney's. Its purpose is to aid in the rebuilding of New Orleans and to promote respect for human rights in the United States and around the world. The Zeitoun Foundation will serve as a grantor of funds generated from this book; the first group of recipients include the following nonprofit organizations.\n\n## REBUILDING TOGETHER\n\nRebuilding Together's Gulf Coast operations have focused on preserving and rehabilitating one thousand houses of low-income homeowners, which were damaged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Rita.\n\nwww.rebuildingtogether.org\n\n## THE GREEN PROJECT\n\nThe Green Project obtains and resells building materials salvaged in the New Orleans area. The purpose is to encourage recycling, thereby reducing waste; to enable residents of New Orleans to purchase low-cost materials; and to preserve the architectural history of the area.\n\nwww.thegreenproject.org\n\n## THE LOUISIANA CAPITAL ASSISTANCE CENTER\n\nAfter Hurricane Katrina, the LCAC was a leading force in locating the thousands of inmates who had been displaced, highlighting the plight of the prisoners who had been evacuated into terrible conditions, and securing the release of hundreds of inmates who were wrongfully imprisoned. The LCAC now aims to provide legal representation for defendants in Louisiana who are facing capital punishment, and seeks to address racism in the criminal justice system.\n\nwww.thejusticecenter.org\/lcac\n\n## INNOCENCE PROJECT OF NEW ORLEANS\n\nThis New Orleans\u2013based organization provides legal aid for people who have been wrongfully convicted, and helps them in their transition from incarceration to liberty. They focus on the states where incarceration rates (and rates of wrongful conviction) are highest\u2014Louisiana and Mississippi.\n\nwww.ip-no.org\n\n## MEENA MAGAZINE\n\n_Meena_ (\"port\" in Arabic) is a bilingual literary journal based in the port cities of New Orleans and Alexandria, Egypt. The journal publishes poetry, fiction, essays, travel writing, mixed-genre media, and art. _Meena_ hopes to exist as a port between the Western and Arab worlds by exchanging ideas about culture, language, conflict, and peace through writing and dialogue.\n\nwww.meenamag.com\n\n## THE PORCH SEVENTH WARD  \nCULTURAL ORGANIZATION\n\nAn organization committed to the Seventh Ward in New Orleans, The Porch is a place to come together and share culture and community. The Porch seeks to promote and sustain the cultures of the neighborhood, the city, and the region, and to foster exchange between cultural groups.\n\nwww.ny2no.net\/theporch\n\n## CATHOLIC CHARITIES, ARCHDIOCESE NEW ORLEANS\n\nCatholic Charities works with the entire community of New Orleans to respect the dignity of every human person. They are currently operating eleven community centers in the Greater New Orleans area to help with hurricane recovery. These centers provide case-management services, direct assistance, and other services as needed.\n\nwww.ccano.org\n\n## ISLAMIC RELIEF USA\n\nIslamic Relief strives to alleviate suffering, hunger, illiteracy, and diseases worldwide, without regard to color, race, or creed. In the event of man-made or natural disasters, it aims to provide rapid relief. Working with the United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) and the Department for International Development, Islamic Relief establishes development projects in needy areas to help tackle poverty at a local level.\n\nwww.irw.org\n\n## THE MUSLIM AMERICAN SOCIETY\n\nThe Muslim American Society (MAS) is a charitable, religious, social, cultural, and educational not-for-profit organization. Its mission is to build an integrated empowerment process for the American Muslim community through civic education, local leadership training, community outreach, and coalition building. MAS also strives to forge positive relationships with other institutions outside of its community, in order to facilitate the protection of civil rights and liberties for American Muslims and all Americans.\n\nwww.masnet.org\n\n## THE NEW ORLEANS INSTITUTE\n\nThe New Orleans Institute is dedicated to engaged citizenry and is determined to cultivate local solutions. This is a networking alliance with a shared interest and commitment to fostering the resilience of New Orleans through innovation.\n\nwww.theneworleansinstitute.org\n\n## THE NEIGHBORHOOD STORYTELLING PROJECT\n\nIn 2004, the Neighborhood Story Project was founded by Rachel Breunlin and Abram Himelstein as a book-making project based in New Orleans, for New Orleanians. The NSP conducts workshops and facilitates the publishing of books by first-time authors in New Orleans, in an effort to tell the story of the city and its citizens.\n\nwww.neighborhoodstoryproject.org\n\n## MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION\n\nThe MSA is dedicated to developing an understanding of Islam and the Islamic culture among the Tulane University community. We seek to create a sense of awareness of Islam among the Tulane community by increasing their basic knowledge of Islam. We aim to give the Tulane community a firsthand experience with Islam and the Islamic culture.\n\nwww.tulane.edu\/\u223cmsa\/\n\n## THE NEW ORLEANS LENS\n\nThe New Orleans Lens is a nonprofit news-reporting site, dedicated to journalism in New Orleans. The Lens' strength lies in a highly qualified editorial and research staff, as well as a collaborative network of affiliated organizations including the Center for Public Integrity, Project on Government Oversight, and the national Investigative News Network.\n\n<http:\/\/thelensnola.org\/>\n\n## NEW ORLEANS CENTER FOR CREATIVE ARTS\n\nThe New Orleans Center for Creative Arts is a regional, pre-professional arts training center that offers secondary school-age children intensive instruction in dance, media arts, music (classical, jazz, vocal), theatre arts (drama, musical theatre, theatre design), visual arts, and creative writing, while demanding simultaneous excellence.\n\nwww.nocca.com\n\n# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nTHE ZEITOUN FAMILY WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE:\n\nAhmad Zeton; Mrs. Trufant; Yuko and Ahmaad Alakoum for putting up with us in our darkest hours; Mary Amarouni; Crystal and Keene Kelly; Celeste and Tom Bitchatch; the Callender family; Tom and Luke; Nabil Abukhader; Mohammed Salaam; Rob Florence; and all of those who helped us.\n\nTHE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE WORK OF THE FOLLOWING JOURNALISTS AND RESEARCHERS:\n\nGwen Filosa, Rob Nelson, Bruce Nolan, Emmet Mayer III, Mark Schleifstein, John McCusker, _New Orleans Times-Picayune;_ Dr. Daniel L. Haulman, the Air Force Historical Research Agency; Tech. Sgt. Mark Diamond, the Air Force Medical Services Monthly Newswire; Jenny Carchman, Michelle Ferrari, Stephen Ives, Lindsey Megrue, Amanda Pollak, Mark Samels, _The American Experience;_ Donna Miles, Rudi Williams, the American Forces Press Service; Marina Sideris, Amnesty Working Group; Betty Reid, _Arizona Republic;_ Joseph R. Chenelly, _Army Times;_ Craig Alia, _Army Magazine;_ Lolita C. Baldor, Wendy Benjaminson, Rick Bowmer, Allen G. Breed, Melinda Deslatte, Linda Kleindienst, Marilynn Marchione, Brett Martel, Janet McConnaughey, Kevin McGill, Adam Nossiter, John Solomon, the Associated Press; Kelly Bradley, Lt. Col. Tim Donovan, Larry Sommers, _At Ease Magazine;_ Mickey Noah, _Baptist Press;_ Olenka Frenkiel, BBC; Amy Goodman, _Democracy Now!;_ Brandon L. Garrett, Tania Tetlow, _Duke Law Journal;_ Charlie Savage, _Boston Globe;_ Patrik Jonsson, the _Christian Science Monitor;_ Jamie Wilson, the _Guardian;_ Jason Carroll, Anderson Cooper, Jacqui Jeras, Chris Lawrence, Ed Lavandera, Rob Marciano, Ed Zarrella, Jeanne Meserve, Betty Nguyen, CNN; Tamara Audi, _Detroit Free Press;_ Neil deMause, Steve Rendall, _Extra!;_ Todd Stubing, _Fort Myers News-Press;_ Dave Reynolds, _Inclusion Daily Express;_ Adnan Bounni, Iran Chamber Society; Guy Siebold, _Journal of Political and Military Sociology;_ Stacy Parker Aab, The Katrina Experience Oral History Project; Alan Zarembo, _Los Angeles Times;_ Capt. David Nevers, _Marines Magazine;_ Jeremy Scahill, the _Nation;_ Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy, National Guard Bureau; Daniel P. Brown, Richard D. Knabb, Jamie R. Rhome, National Hurricane Center; John Burnett, Jeff Brady, National Public Radio; Ken Munson, _Nautical Notes;_ Diane E. Dees, _Mother Jones;_ Curtis A. Utz, Naval Historical Center; Ruth Berggren, _New England Journal of Medicine;_ Lou Dolinar, _New York Post;_ David Carr, Melissa Clark, N.R. Kleinfield, Merrill Perlman, Shadi Rahimi, Joseph B. Treaster, Richard W. Stevenson, Alex Berenson, Sewell Chan, Paul von Zielbauer, _New York Times;_ Sarita Sarvate, Pacific News Service; Kevin Callan, paddling.net; Yvonne Haddad, Fariborz Haghshenass, _PolicyWatch;_ Peter Henderson, Michael Christie, Jane Sutton, Reuters; Richard Burgess, _Sea Power Magazine;_ Jordan Flaherty, _Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South;_ Morris Merrill, _Southern Quarterly;_ Fred Kaplan, _Slate;_ Angie Welling, _Salt Lake City Deseret News;_ Ken Kaye, Robert Nolin, _South Florida Sun-Sentinel;_ Jeff Schogol, _Stars and Stripes;_ Harry Mount, the _Telegraph;_ Amber McIlwain, _Times of London;_ Matthew Van Dusen, _Times of Northwest Indiana;_ Joel Stein, _Time Magazine;_ Anna Mulrine, Dan Gilgoff, _US News and World Report;_ Douglas Brinkley, _Vanity Fair;_ Renae Merle, Guy Gugliotta, Peter Whoriskey, Eugene Robinson, the _Washington Post;_ Michael Pope, Christiana Halsey, _Customs and Border Protection Today;_ the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice; Charles Janda, Chucksphotospot.com; Jordan Flaherty, _ColorLines;_ Eugen Tarnow, PhD, Cogprints.org; Amy Belasco, Steve Bowman, Lawrence Kapp, Department of Defense; Maj. Mark Brady, Capt. Lisa Kopczynski, Sgt. Les Newport, First U.S. Army in the News; Gary Mason, the _Globe and Mail;_ Hugh Hewitt, _The Hugh Hewitt Show;_ The Indy Channel; Indiana University, Bloomington; The Innocence Project; staff, _Killeen Daily Herald;_ Jason Brown, _Lafayette Daily Advertiser;_ Jamie Doward, _London Observer;_ Rosa Brooks, _Los Angeles Times;_ Chris Kelly, _MichelleMalkin.com;_ Michael Robbins, _Military History;_ staff, _Naples Daily News;_ staff, _NGAUS Notes;_ Lt. Col. Deedra Thombleson, National Guard; Erick Studenicka, National Guard Bureau; Navy Office of Information; Carl Quintanilla, Tony Zumbado, NBC News; New Orleans Copwatch; Jayne Huckerby, New York University Center for Human Rights and Global Justice; Gregory Smith MD, Woodhall Stopford MD, _North Carolina Medical Journal;peopleshurricane.org;_ Keith Woods, Poynter Institute; Eric Barr, Taylor Rankin, John Baird, _ThinkQuest;_ David Crossland, _Times of London;_ United States Coast Guard; Marina Sideris, University of California Berkeley Law School; Jerry Seper, the _Washington Times;_ Wrongful-Convictions.blogspot.com; Kelly Leosis, Katherine Yurica, _yuricareport.com; Neworleans.indymedia.org_.\n\nTHE FOLLOWING BOOKS AND REPORTS WERE CRUCIAL TO THE WRITING OF _ZEITOUN:_\n\n_The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast_ by Douglas Brinkley (William Morrow, 2006); _Severe and Hazardous Weather_ by Bob Rauber, John Walsh, Donna Charlevoix (Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2005); _On Risk and Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina_ , edited by Ronald J. Daniels, Donald F. Kettl and Howard Kunreuther (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); _Hurricane Katrina: America's Unnatural Disaster_ , by Jeremy I. Levitt and Matthew C. Whitaker (University of Nebraska Press, 2009); _Come Hell or High Water_ by Michael Eric Dyson (Basic Civitas, 2006); _Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security_ by Robert Block and Christopher Cooper (Henry Holt Books, 2006); _Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City_ by Billy Sothern and Nikki Page (University of California Press, 2007); _The Essential Koran_ , translated and presented by Thomas Cleary (HarperCollins, 1993); _A Modern History of Syria_ by A.L. Tibawi (St. Martin's Press, 1969); _Fifty Years of Modern Syria and Lebanon_ , by George Haddad (Dar-al-Hayat, 1950); _Modern Syria, from Ottoman Rule to Pivotal Role in the Middle East_ , edited by Moshe Ma'oz, Joseph Ginat, and Onn Winckler, (Sussex Academic Press, 1999); _Supporting the Future Total Force_ , by John G. Drew, Kristin F. Lynch, James Masters, Sally Sleeper, and William Williams (RAND, 2007); _By the Numbers: Findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project_ by Human Rights Watch (Human Rights Watch, 2006); _Irreversible Consequences: Racial Profiling and Lethal Force in the War on Terror_ , by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (NYU School of Law, 2006); _Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America's Prison Population 2007\u20132011_ , by the JFA Institute, the Public Safety Performance Project, and the Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2007); _Abandoned and Abused: Orleans_ _Parish Prisoners in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina_ , by the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, the American Civil Liberties Union Racial Justice Program, Human Rights Watch, the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and Safe Street\/Strong Communities (American Civil Liberties Union and the National Prison Project, 2006); _Enabling Torture: International Law Applicable to State Participation in the Unlawful Activities of Other States_ , by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (NYU School of Law, 2006); _Beyond Guantanamo: Transfers to Torture One Year After Rasul v. Bush_ , by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (NYU School of Law, 2005); _Louisiana National Guard Timeline of Significant Events, Hurricane Katrina_ , by the Louisiana National Guard (Louisiana National Guard, 2005); _Torture by Proxy: International Law applicable to \"Extraordinary Renditions\"_ by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (ABCNY and the NYU School of Law, 2004); _Use of Force: ATF Policy, Training and Review Process Are Comparable to DEA's and FBI's_ , by USGAO (United States General Accounting Office, 1996).\n\nTHE FOLLOWING AGENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS PROVIDED ESSENTIAL INFORMATION:\n\n44th Medical Brigade Public Affairs; Air National Guard 920 Rescue Wing; American Civil Liberties Union; Blackwater USA; Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms; Camp Pendleton Public Affairs; Center for Disease Control; DynCorp International; Defense Logistics Agency Defense Supply Center; Federal Emergency Management Agency; First Army Public Affairs; Fort Hood Public Affairs; Fort Hood Media Relations; Fort Carson Public Affairs; Fourth Infantry Division Public Affairs; Immigration and Customs Enforcement Public Affairs; Louisiana National Guard Public Affairs; Louisiana State Police; NASA; National Guard Association of the United States; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; National Weather Service; National Hurricane Center; Office of the Attorney General; SOPAKCO; State of Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs; State of Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs; Texas National Guard Community Relations; U.S. Army Public Affairs; U.S. Capitol Police; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Department of Public Affairs; U.S. Marine Corps Public Affairs; U.S. Marshals.\n\nNOTES ABOUT THE QUR'AN QUOTED HEREIN\n\nMany translations of the Qur'an into English exist and many were consulted. The translation quoted in this book is by Laleh Bakhtiar, published in 2007 by Kazi Publications under the title _The Sublime Quran_. As is evidenced in the quotations included in this book, the Qur'an contains very powerful and surpassingly beautiful language, and this English edition reflects that beauty exceedingly well.\n\nAUTHOR NOTES ON PROCESS AND METHODOLOGY\n\nThe process behind this book started in 2005, when, shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, a team of volunteers from Voice of Witness, our series of books that use oral history to illuminate human rights crises, fanned out all over the Southeast to collect testimonies. From Houston to Florida, they interviewed residents and former residents of New Orleans about their lives before, during, and after the storm. The result was _Voices from the Storm_ , edited by Chris Ying and Lola Vollen and published by McSweeney's\/Voice of Witness in 2005. The book featured vivid narratives from dozens of New Orleanians, including Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun. His story stuck with me, and the next time I was in New Orleans, to speak to students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (a great high school arts program), I visited the Zeitouns. From our first talk, it was clear that there was more to their story than we were able to include in _Voices from the Storm_. And so began an almost-three-year process of interviews and research that went into _Zeitoun_. During that time, I was able to get to know Abdulrahman and Kathy, as well as their beautiful family here and in Syria.\n\nAdditional notes:\n\n  * All events are seen through the eyes of either Abdulrahman or Kathy Zeitoun, so the view of events reflects their recollections. Todd Gambino was also a participant in the writing and fact-checking of this book. All conversations are reconstructed from the memories of the participants.\n\n  * Interviews with Officers Donald Lima and Ralph Gonzales were conducted by the author in 2008.\n\n  * I visited the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in 2008. It seemed to be a very well-run prison, a progressive and rational place with a keen eye toward rehabilitation and re-entry, and toward giving prisoners the opportunity to advance their educations, whether academic or vocational. And yet Adbulrahman's experience there was not acceptable. I don't intend to denounce the operation of that prison; perhaps the institution was simply overwhelmed after Katrina and fell short of its higher standards.\n\nAUTHOR THANKS\n\nChris Ying and Lola Vollen laid the groundwork for this book and deserve vast thanks for encouraging me to pursue this story further. Billy Sothern, the New Orleans lawyer and author who conducted the initial interviews with Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun for _Voices from the Storm_ , deserves profound thanks. He was a constant guide and mentor during the writing of _Zeitoun_ , and his own book, _Down in New Orleans_ , was both inspiration and roadmap. As deputy director of the Capital Appeals Project, he continues to fight every day in the defense of those left vulnerable to the judicial system's frailties and oversights. Annie Preziosi of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center provided expert research at crucial junctures. Her colleague at LCAC, Julie Kilborn, was very helpful in providing context for the arrests and processing of prisoners after Katrina. Thanks also go to Pam Metzger at the Tulane University Law School and to Nikki Page, whose hospitality and warmth was appreciated always. Anne Gisleson, extraordinary New Orleans writer and teacher and activist, provided invaluable guidance and encouragement and was an expert reader of the manuscript. The courageous Todd Gambino provided fact-checking and context and important details. Elissa Bassist provided key and voluminous research early on. Yousef Munayyer and Mohammed Khalil provided gentle guidance in Arabic and Islamic matters. Naor Ben-Yehoyada provided expert counsel on the history and practice of _lampara_ fishing. Farah Aldabbagh translated a rare book about Mohammed Zeitoun from Arabic to English in a timely and expert manner. Peter Orner and Stephen Elliott provided surgical notes and deeply appreciated encouragement. Proofing and copyediting was provided by Lindsay Quella, Juliet Litman, Tess Thackara, Emily Stackhouse, and Henry Jones. Thanks to all at McSweeney's\u2014Jordan Bass, Heidi Meredith, Angela Petrella, Eli Horowitz, Mimi Lok, and especially to Andrew Leland, whose early read of the manuscript was crucial. Extraordinary and tenacious fact-checking was also performed by the indefatigable Chris Benz. Michelle Quint, associate editor at McSweeney's, was the day-to-day research director for this book. Her dedication, reliability, intelligence, and efficiency will never be forgotten, as this book would have been impossible without her. And of course life generally would not be possible without my wife Vendela, our children, and my brothers Bill and Toph.\n\nFinally, profound thanks go to the Zeitouns of America, Spain, and Syria. Captain Ahmad Zeton\u2014there are many ways to spell the name\u2014and his family in M\u00e1laga, Spain (Laila, Lutfi, and Antonia) were generous hosts and brought forth crucial memories. Ahmad was not only a champion of this project from the beginning, but also a meticulous record-keeper, and his photos, emails, and calls from before and after the storm were invaluable. Warm thanks and greetings go to the Zeitoun family in Syria, and to Qusay and young Mahmoud in Jableh in particular. The hospitality of all the Zeitouns knew no limits, and the beauty and laughter and warmth permeating every part of their extraordinary clan was inspiring and enriched this book and this author beyond measure. Most of all, thanks go to Abdulrahman and Kathy, and to their remarkable children, for their stunning personal generosity and for their unwavering commitment to the writing of this book. The process of bringing their story to print required a great deal of them, but they fought through unpleasant memories in the hopes that something constructive might come from their days of personal struggle. Their courage knows no bounds, and their faith in family and in this country renews the faith of us all.\nFIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2010\n\n_Copyright \u00a9 2009 by Dave Eggers_\n\nAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.  \nPublished in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by McSweeney's Books, San Francisco, in 2009.\n\nVintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data  \nEggers, Dave.  \nZeitoun \/ Dave Eggers.\u20141st Vintage Books ed.  \np. cm.  \nOriginally published: San Francisco : McSweeney's Books, c2009.  \neISBN: 978-0-307-73943-8  \n1. Zeitoun, Abdulrahman, 1957\u2013 2. Zeitoun, Kathy. 3. New Orleans (La.)\u2014Biography. 4. Disaster victims\u2014Louisiana\u2014New Orleans\u2014Biography. 5. Arab Americans\u2014Louisiana\u2014New Orleans\u2014Biography. 6. Hurricane Katrina, 2005\u2014Social aspects\u2014Louisiana\u2014New Orleans. 7. Arab Americans\u2014Social conditions\u2014Louisiana\u2014New Orleans. I. Title.  \nF379.N553Z454 2010  \n305.892\u20327076335\u2014dc22  \n2010000757\n\nwww.vintagebooks.com\n\nv3.0\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \nAdvance Praise for\n\n\"When we strive to be somebody, we are actually striving to be somebody else. This somebody else is the root of all our problems. The key to awakening is being who you already are. But as Lama Marut dares to tell us in this delightfully written and wise book, this authentic somebody is nobody at all. Reading this book is easy, and understanding it is liberating. I invite you to do both.\"\n\n\u2014Rabbi Rami Shapiro, author of Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent\n\n\"In his refreshing and compelling new book, Be Nobody, Lama Marut gives us a road map to living life in the realm of an Everyday Joe in order to accomplish great happiness and connectedness and to begin to offer the very best we can access. He gives us a truly clear and vivid understanding of the present-day dilemma of the drive toward 'I' and the fact that this drive is leading to depression, isolation, and diseased thinking. And then he outlines a way that leads to joy by showing us how to practice a new thought pattern that encourages focus on anything but self. This is an amazingly powerful piece of work from a truly unique and dynamic nobody.\"\n\n\u2014Mary McDonnell, actress\n\n\"In his trademark emphatic and no-nonsense style, Lama Marut provides a much-needed critique of modernity that cuts to the root of every problem we currently face on the planet. Be Nobody exposes our culture of narcissism that precludes personal happiness, social equality, and ecological balance. Rather than taking us from our deluded state of alienated self-absorption to some exalted state of equally misguided self-annihilation, Marut guides us through an inner transformation and re-emergence as awakened altruists contributing to a sustainable future for all.\"\n\n\u2014Dr. Miles Neale, Buddhist psychotherapist and assistant director of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science\n\n\"Here's some help in kicking your ego's butt so that you can create a genuine spiritual life. Instead of endless self-improvement, you're invited to let go of your self. This really is the only way to be happy. Lama Marut is brilliant, a Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa for new generations mixed with a little Louis C.K.\u2013style humor.\"\n\n\u2014Lisa Selow, life coach and author of A Rebel Chick Mystic's Guide\n\n\"Lama Marut's Be Nobody fiercely examines our preoccupation with the 'I,' revealing how living on the 'Me Plan' can never satisfy the hungry ego. The antidote he offers is truly liberating, not only for oneself but for all sentient beings.\"\n\n\u2014Michael Bernard Beckwith, author of Life Visioning\n\n\"Writing with great sensitivity to the stress we all feel, Lama Marut helps us see that we strive to be valued by trying endlessly to be more and more special. We aim to be somebody, but only find tension and loneliness as we never reach the bar. What good is getting star billing if you never feel like a star? Laying out a clear spiritual alternative, he dares us to become nobody: a state of complete authenticity, where we are present to our lives and joyfully connected to all. This is no mystical pipe dream; the ideas in this book point to something every one of us can do. All of us want to be happy. We owe it to ourselves to become nobody. Put this transformative book by your bed, and read it again and again.\"\n\n\u2014Lindsay Crouse, Academy Award\u2013nominated actress\n\n\"Be Nobody is a great spiritual guide for people of all faiths. Lama Marut's description of our bondage to our egos is both entertaining and sobering. After providing an incisive diagnosis of the human condition, he not only offers an understanding of how to leave suffering behind, but also provides practical and achievable steps for doing so. I am recommending this book to all my friends and parishioners.\"\n\n\u2014Rev. Dr. Brian Baker, dean of Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, CA\nThank you for downloading this Atria Books eBook.\n\n* * *\n\nJoin our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.\n\nCLICK HERE TO SIGN UP\n\nor visit us online to sign up at  \neBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com\n\nThe moment you want to be somebody, you are no longer free.\n\n\u2014Jiddu Krishnamurti\n\n## CONTENTS\n\nEpigraph\n\nPreface: Don't Give Me That Old-Time Religion!\n\nIntroduction: Living in the iEra\n\nPart I:\n\nDesperately Seeking Somebody\n\n1. Sticking Our Faces into Carnival Cutouts\n\n2. What Goes Up Must Come Down\n\nPart II:\n\nMaking a Better Somebody Out of Nobody\n\n3: Clutching at Straws and Chasing Shadows\n\n4: Nobody Makes a Better Somebody Possible\n\nPart III:\n\nLosing the \"Somebody Self\"\n\n5. Being Nobody for Others\n\n6. Going with the Flow\n\nPart IV:\n\nEverybody Is Nobody\n\n7. Living as an Ordinary Joe\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAppendix: Dropping into Your True Nature\n\nAbout Lama Marut\n\nEndnotes\n\nSelected Bibliography\nThis book is dedicated to Cindy Lee, true companion, partner, muse, and the best friend I could have ever hoped for.\n\n## Preface:  \nDon't Give Me That Old-Time Religion!\n\nTraditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening.\n\nBarbara Tober\n\nA gospel song I was taught in church as a kid advises us not to be all newfangled when it comes to our spiritual life. Instead of getting caught up in the modern world and its trappings, we should just stick with \"that old-time religion\":\n\nGive me that old-time religion\n\nGive me that old-time religion\n\nGive me that old-time religion\n\nIt's good enough for me\n\nWell, it wasn't good enough for me as an adolescent, and it's not good enough for me now either. A religion that isn't relevant to the current conditions under which we live is by definition irrelevant, isn't it?\n\nMy own spiritual life has been shaped by a variety of influences, and I suspect that this is the case for many of us. I was brought up a Christian (my father and grandfather were ordained Baptist ministers), was baptized and steeped in that tradition through many years of religious instruction (including formal graduate study in a divinity school), and to this day have a deep and abiding connection to the Christian faith.\n\nIn addition, for over thirty years of my life I was employed in the academic study of comparative religion with an emphasis on Hinduism, visiting India many times for my research. In the most extended of those sojourns, I made a deep connection to a learned and devout Hindu teacher who helped me not only with my Sanskrit but also with how to live a life guided by spiritual principles. My personal religious sensibilities have been profoundly enhanced by this teacher and by my acquaintance with Hindu Sanskrit classical texts that I have had the opportunity to teach to students in both academic and spiritual contexts over the past three decades. As will be evident to readers of this book, I have integrated the wisdom found in Hindu scriptures like the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutra, the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, and the Bhagavad Gita into my overall understanding of the spiritual life.\n\nAnd in 1998, I began an intensive study and serious practice of Tibetan Buddhism, eventually taking ordination as a Buddhist monk and teaching the philosophy and training offered in that tradition. I have had a lifelong attraction to the Buddhist tradition and its emphasis on compassionate and mindful living as well as its mind-expanding teachings on the true nature of reality. And upon deeper study I discovered to my delight that in Buddhist texts there are oft-repeated directives encouraging the student to think for him- or herself; to not blindly accept on faith anything that one hasn't tested in practice; and to remain intellectually and spiritually open to what is useful and beneficial no matter where one encounters it. It seems to me that it is a Buddhist dogma to not be overly attached to any particular dogma. If I have correctly understood what is meant by the term \"Buddhist,\" I am proud to identify myself as one.\n\nSo the question of what or who I am when it comes to religion is not entirely clear\u2014even, or especially, to me. Am I a Christian, a Hindu, or a Buddhist? Is it important or even necessary to pick just one? How could I just erase years of experience with any one of these three main influences on my personal spiritual life?\n\nMany readers are probably at least as religiously complicated as I am. So many of us nowadays are religious hybrids, blended composites and combinations of a number of religious and philosophical traditions\u2014spiritual mongrels, if you will. Even those of us who closely relate to one or another of the world's religions have been exposed to and influenced by other religions in ways that are unprecedented in world history.\n\nIn the days of yore, most people lived in closed societies and were more excusably parochial, provincial, and unaware of the whole range of religious and cultural alternatives. Our world is a much bigger and more diverse place. We live in a global community of instantaneous communication and the World Wide Web; we reside in nation-states that are increasingly multicultural and religiously heterogeneous. The containers in which we once kept ourselves are now leaking all over the place.\n\nWe know way more about each other than ever before, and none of us is left unaffected by the mutual influencing and syncretistic blending that's occurring on all kinds of levels. There are significant ramifications of such intermingling when it comes to a spiritual life that isn't futilely trying to stay cloaked in \"that old-time religion.\"\n\nThese days, claiming a religious identification (or refraining from doing so) is an option, not just an unalterable accident of birth. While we may have been born and brought up as one thing or another (or without any religious training at all), we now exercise more choice than ever before about our personal beliefs, identities, and spirituality.\n\nFully 44 percent of Americans currently say they have a religious affiliation different from the one they were born into. No matter which religion our parents or guardians identified with, we spiritual crossbreeds now easily slip out of one category and into another.\n\nAnd in addition to all of us spiritual mongrels, there are increasing numbers who disavow any religious affiliation whatsoever. This trend toward religious nonidentification is growing. One recent study has predicted that organized religion is an endangered species\u2014probably \"set for extinction\"\u2014in no less than nine of the world's developed nations: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Another poll indicates that nearly two-thirds of those living in Great Britain no longer regard themselves as religious.\n\nEven in the United States, a country that is statistically much less disenchanted with institutionalized religion than most of Europe and other parts of the developed world, thirty-three million Americans now claim no formal religious association. According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the \"nones\" (\"none of the above,\" the religiously nonaffiliated) are the fastest growing group in America\u2014increasing by 25 percent in just the past five years\u2014and they're the only demographic that is expanding in every state. And the numbers are largest among younger people. According to the poll, 30 percent of the \"older millennials,\" born between 1981 and 1989, are counted among the \"nones\"; among the \"younger millennials\"\u2014those born between 1990 and 1994\u201434 percent are religiously unaffiliated.\n\nNonaffiliation with any particular religion does not necessarily mean a disinterest in living a spiritually oriented life. Sixty-eight percent of the \"nones\" in the United States say they believe in God, while 37 percent describe themselves as \"spiritual\" but not \"religious.\" One in five said that they pray every day. In Canada, according to a Forum Research poll, two-thirds of the population claim to be \"spiritual\" while only one-half say they are \"religious.\" But a quarter of those who say they adhere to \"no religion\" still profess a belief in God.\n\nIn addition to the religiously affiliated, the spiritual mongrels who have been shaped by several traditions, and the \"nones\" who prefer to remain religiously unidentified but spiritually alive, there is another category of those trying to live the good life in today's changed world. We can call them the \"undos.\"I\n\n\"Undos\" are those of us who are trying to break free from the confines of religious labeling without jettisoning the helpful teachings and methods found in those traditions. Being an \"undo\" is not quite the same as being a \"none.\" Divesting oneself of a particular religious designation presumes that you have had one to begin with\u2014that one has been trained in one or another of the world's spiritual traditions. To be an \"undo,\" a person must first have been a Hindu (or a Buddhist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Sikh, or whatever). But having steeped him- or herself in this or that tradition, the \"undo\" chooses to drop the shell of religious identification in order to try just to be a good human being rather than an upstanding, card-carrying member of any one particular faith.\n\nWhatever the label\u2014affiliated, mongrel, none, or \"undo\"\u2014growing numbers of people are seeking a meaningful existence outside the confines of the traditional religious identities associated with \"that old-time religion.\" In light of such trends, the Dalai Lama recently declared (on his Twitter stream, no less!) that he is \"increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.\" In his recent book Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World, the Dalai Lama outlines a program for how to live the good life that presumes \"religion alone is no longer adequate\" for the task:\n\nOne reason for this is that many people in the world no longer follow any particular religion. Another reason is that, as the peoples of the world become ever more closely interconnected in an age of globalization and in multicultural societies, ethics based on any one religion would only appeal to some of us; it would not be meaningful for all. . . . What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.\n\nLiving an ethical life\u2014a life of selflessness rather than unbridled egoism, of integration and interconnection rather than alienation and myopic narcissism\u2014is not just for those who choose to follow one or another of the established religions. It is the key to true happiness for any individual, and the foundation for creating a better world. For \"when you have 'isms,' \" as Lama Surya Das once said to me, \"you have schisms.\"\n\nToo often, however, the identification with one or another of the institutionalized religions has become just another excuse to rehearse the need to be somebody in the ego's never-ending appetite for self-aggrandizement. When, in truth, the founders of the different religions of humankind become founders only retroactively. They weren't teaching \"isms,\" they were only conveying their understanding of life, of what is.\n\nAnd if there's one thing we know about the great spiritual exemplars of history, it's that they were humble. We don't admire and canonize people who pose as self-important and superior. There is no \"Saint Barry the Arrogant\" or \"Saint Tricia the Pompous.\" Our paragons of the past, as well as the present, are those who seem truly willing to be nobody, to be the servants, not the masters, of others.\n\nThe point is not to be a Buddhist but to learn how to become a Buddha; not just to identify with the label \"Christian\" but to live a Christlike life; not simply to join a religion as a way to strengthen one's sense of self but to actually live a good life, a life characterized by egoless concern for others.\n\n\"I am not a Hindu, nor a Muslim am I!\" declared the fifteenth-century Indian mystic Kabir. \"I am this body, a play of five elements; a drama of the spirit, dancing with joy and sorrow.\" Saint Paul similarly asserted in Galatians, \"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.\" The Buddha, it is said, \"did not teach any religion at all.\"II The practice of any spiritual path\u2014whether or not it is designated as such by one or another of the usual trademarks\u2014should lead not toward the elevation of the ego but rather to the self-negation and destruction of vanity that's entailed in being nobody.\n\nWhat? Be nobody? I've spent my whole life trying not to be just a nobody!\n\nBefore you throw this book off the nearest bridge, let's be clear about our terms. First off, there is a difference between the egoistic \"somebody self\" who regards itself as worthless\u2014a nothing, a complete zilch\u2014and being nobody. The latter does not refer to our sense of personal, individual identity that can and should be improved\u2014especially if it is insistent on its worthlessness. Somebody who thinks they're a nobody is self-consciously defining themselves as such, whereas somebody who has become nobody is unselfconsciously absorbed in something much greater.\n\n\"Nobody,\" as we use the term here, refers to our deepest nature, our \"true self,\" which is ever-present and in no need of improvement. It is our highest source of joy and strength, the eternal reservoir of peace and contentment to which we repair in order to silence the persistent demands and complaints of the insatiable ego.\n\nLetting go of our preoccupation with being important and significant will not be easy. Laboring at being somebody for so long digs deep ruts of habit, and some ingrained part of us will surely resist the required \"ego-ectomy.\" But there's a great relief in dropping the ego's restrictive inhibitions and demands for affirmation and magnification. We know this instinctually, and we crave such relief. Our deepest need is to identify not with something small and particular but with that which is greater, universal, and transcendent.\n\nWith the rise and vapidity of social networking and \"reality\" television, the veneration of the ego, celebrity, and instant fame, and the closed-minded arrogance of religious fundamentalism and fanaticism, the questions revolving around the nexus of spirituality and identity have never been more pressing, even as the quest for authenticity and genuine happiness remains perennial.\n\nWe all have the capability to be completely self-possessed and truly happy rather than neurotically self-obsessed and continuously discontented. We all have the potential to be the ocean and not just a wave, the clear blue sky and not merely a cloud passing through, the silence and not some particular name or label.\n\nSo before you burn this book or toss it in the can\u2014This is complete rubbish! Nonsense! I really am somebody, and the meaning of life is to be more of a somebody, not less!\u2014give that \"somebody self\" a bit of a rest and see if there isn't something to all this. If we lay aside our knee-jerk resistance, we'll soon realize that the happiness and self-satisfaction we all seek cannot be found through perpetually attempting to supersize our insatiable egos.\n\nThey say that nobody's perfect.\n\nSo why not be nobody?\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. My use of the term \"undo\" is inspired by Swami Satchidananda, who writes the following in his book Beyond Words: \"People often ask me, 'What religion are you? You talk about the Bible, Koran, Torah. Are you a Hindu?' I say, 'I am not a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Hindu, but an Undo. My religion is Undoism. We have done enough damage. We have to stop doing any more and simply undo the damage we have already done.' \" (Yogaville, CA: Integral Yoga Publications, 1977), 85.\n\nII. In chapter 13 of the world's oldest printed book, the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Buddha asks one of his disciples, Subhuti, this provocative question: \"What do you think, Subhuti? Has the Buddha taught any religion at all?\" We imagine that good old Subhuti might very well have suspected this was some sort of joke, maybe a trick question. (What the hell, man? Why are you asking me this? What else have you been doing for all these years here in northern India except for teaching us religion? You weren't instructing us in better agricultural methods or how to yodel, now were you?) Instead, Subhuti gives the right answer: \"No, Lord. The Buddha has not taught any religion at all.\" In the passage cited here, the word I've rendered as \"religion\" is dharma\u2014admittedly not exact, but probably as close to our concept of \"religion\" as one gets in the Sanskrit texts. A very similar assertion is found in Nagarjuna's Root Verses on the Middle Way: \"Peace is the pacification of all perception and all conceptualization. No religion (dharma) whatsoever was ever taught by the Buddha.\" (24\u201325).\n\n## Introduction: Living in the iEra\n\nHumility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.\n\n\u2014\u2014William Temple\n\nWe're all desperately trying to be somebody. No one wants to be a loser, a small fry, a big zero, a washout, a nonentity. Nobody, it seems, wants to be just a nobody.\n\nWe're all en masse, and in pretty much the same ways, struggling to be unique individuals. This obsessive quest for distinctive identity drives us all equally, for we all believe that happiness and fulfillment will come through distinguishing ourselves, through being \"special.\" Our contemporary culture of consumerism, materialism, narcissism, and the worship of fame encourages the idea that we will be happy only when we become exceptional.\n\nBut maybe we've got it wrong\u2014exactly wrong.\n\nMaybe our deepest and most authentic happiness will be found only when we finally lay down this heavy burden of trying to be a somebody, of perpetual ego-enhancement and compulsive self-consciousness. Perhaps it is precisely in a state of egolessness, in an utter lack of self-preoccupation, that we will actually become nobody and thereby access something much larger, much more amorphous and less exclusive.\n\nMaybe true fulfillment in life requires an emptying, not a filling.\n\n### FROM THE \"ME DECADE\" TO THE \"IERA\"\n\nSelfishness and self-indulgence have always been with us. For thousands of years, the sacred texts of the world's great religious traditions have warned us of the danger of inordinate preoccupation with ourselves, just as they have also provided the most potent tools we have for overcoming it.\n\nBut arguably, over the past few decades, at least in the so-called developed nations, we've seen a dramatic rise in\u2014and a cultural validation of\u2014an all-too-human tendency toward self-indulgence. Now more than ever before, we seem to be increasingly preoccupied with \"me\"\u2014so much so that it seems no exaggeration to describe the whole zeitgeist as an obsession with the self. This excessive self-concern, now pervading virtually every aspect of our lives, is an example\u2014perhaps even the most salient example\u2014of a real \"First World problem.\"\n\nMore than thirty-five years ago, journalist Tom Wolfe dubbed the seventies the \"Me Decade.\" The social and political concerns and upheaval of the sixties had given way to a culture of individual self-centeredness. And in 1979\u2014at the tail end of this decade of self-preoccupation\u2014Christopher Lasch published The Culture of Narcissism, a scathing critique of \"the culture of competitive individualism, which in its decadence has carried the logic of individualism to the extreme of a war of all against all, the pursuit of happiness to the dead end of a narcissistic preoccupation with the self.\" Lasch's book remains one of the most accurate portraits of the world we still inhabit.\n\nLasch argues that every age produces a typical personality structure that accords with that particular society's characteristic patterns. \"Every society reproduces its culture\u2014its norms, its underlying assumptions, its modes of organizing experience\u2014in the form of personality.\" And the personality definitive of our time and culture, Lasch identified as \"narcissistic\":\n\nNarcissism appears realistically to represent the best way of coping with the tensions and anxieties of modern life, and the prevailing social conditions therefore tend to bring out narcissistic traits that are present, in varying degrees, in everyone.\n\nSuch traits revolve around an all-encompassing fixation on the self:\n\n  The insatiable greed, extravagance, sense of entitlement, and demand for immediate gratification that are the hallmarks of rampant consumerism\n\n  The end of the work ethic and its transformation into an ethic of leisure and hedonismI\n\n  The short-sighted exploitation of resources, personal and shared, without regard for future consequences or posterity\n\n  The total dependence on others for validation of one's self-esteem\n\n  The cult of celebrity and our vicarious fascination with the glamorous \"lives of the rich and famous\"\n\n  The \"culture of spectacle\" and entertainment that has infected just about everything, from politics to sports to religion\n\nThese defining trends, already recognizable in the late 1970s, have been magnified and multiplied in the years since. The culture of narcissism has mutated and grown in all kinds of ways. Among its many other expressions, it now saturates every aspect of popular culture.\n\nWe watch television shows and YouTube videos that revolve around the ennoblement of ordinary people into the suddenly famous: American Idol, The Voice, and the whole array of so-called reality shows on television; or viral YouTube footage that places a previously unknown talent into instant stardom (think Justin Bieber). We bob our heads to the lyrics of popular songs, many of which revolve around how totally awesome the surrogate singer is, not to mention the products he or she wears, drives, and consumes. We read magazines endowed with such revealing titles as Self (as if we need to be coaxed into thinking about ourselves even more than we already do!).\n\nThe narcissistic worldview informs the way we view politics as a popularity contest or \"race.\" It transforms news into another \"show\" to entertain us. Journalism today often centers far more on the journalist than it does on the subject matter of the report.\n\nAnd, of course, many advertisers shamelessly exploit our narcissism when creating our desire for cool new products: iPhones, iPads, iPods\u2014all the \"i\" gadgets pitched to the \"I\" and its insatiable hunger for attention.\n\nIt is also predominantly the neediness of the self, and not really an interest in others, that is reflected in our present addiction to nonstop communication. There are now 3.14 billion email accounts worldwide, from which we transmit millions of emails each day. We call each other all the time; we send each other nearly 200,000 text messages every second from the over six billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide; and half a billion of us worldwide have Twitter accounts.\n\nAll of this emailing, calling, messaging, and tweeting is not so much to \"reach out and touch somebody,\" as a phone company slogan once had it. It is mostly about reaching out so that others will acknowledge and affirm us.\n\nAnd then there's the exponential increase in usage of the social networks, Facebook being the behemoth of them all, with well over one billion participants, or nearly 20 percent of all the earth's inhabitants. With Facebook, it's all about the thumbs-up \"likes,\" isn't it?\n\nDo you like what I just said? Do you like this photo of my cat?\n\nAnd beneath it all, the real question:\n\nDo you like me?\n\nSocial networks are amazing communication tools that can be (and occasionally are) employed for very beneficial purposes. Unfortunately, most often the postings are of the narcissistic order, some more blatant than others. It's sad, but it's also typical of our self-possessed times, staring at our monitors, that we peg our self-worth on how many Facebook friends give us a thumbs-up, with our Instagram hearts throbbing for more notches on the proverbial post. Like Narcissus, we are enamored of our own reflections in the (now digitized) mirror. When will we realize that we'll never get enough thumbs-up to satisfy the ego, no matter how many photos we share, no matter how many witticisms and observations on life we contribute to the Web's global conversation?\n\nFacebook doesn't have a \"don't like\" option, and that's definitely not an oversight. It's only the \"likes\" that any of us is really interested in. But it's disingenuous to think that the \"somebody self\" will ever feel like \"somebody enough\" by resorting to methods like this.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nYes, the \"Me Decade\" has stretched out into what I call the \"iEra,\" an epoch not just dominated by the glut of information but also by the magnification of the \"I\" who is situated at the nexus of this flurry of communication. But while we have been encouraged to maintain perpetual self-absorption and are inundated with \"iProducts\" and \"iMedia,\" the \"iEra\" can never wholly satisfy the \"I\" it ceaselessly entices. We remain unhappy and dissatisfied, now more than ever before.\n\nIn light of this unprecedented exaltation of the ego and its insatiable need to be acknowledged, fulfilled, pampered, and \"liked,\" it's worth reminding ourselves: There is not a single authentic spiritual tradition that enjoins us to be more self-preoccupied, more full of ourselves, or more narcissistic than we already are. When it comes to achieving happiness in life, obsession with the self has traditionally been identified as the problem, not the solution.\n\nAs C. S. Lewis wrote way back in 1952, \"Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to\u2014whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or every one. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired.\"\n\nUntil now, perhaps\u2014and much to our detriment.\n\n### PROSPERITY, NARCISSISM, AND PANDEMIC DEPRESSION\n\nIs it just coincidental that, with the narcissism and self-obsession so enshrined in our society, we're simultaneously witnessing an equally breathtaking increase in the rate of mental illness?\n\nTake depression as just one example. Depression is a debilitating disease\u2014I know! I was hospitalized with a clinical case of depression when I was in my early thirties. I was a complete mess, incapacitated by the inner voice that repeatedly told me I was worthless and that there was nothing I could do to change that. And even run-of-the-mill self-esteem problems, as most everyone can attest, are no picnic in the park.\n\nThe statistics tracking our current condition are alarming: The US Department of Health estimates that over twenty million Americans currently suffer from depression. Another source claims that 15.7 percent of the population is depressed. Prescriptions for antidepressants have skyrocketed, rising 400 percent over the past twenty years, with more than one out of ten Americans over the age of twelve now taking these medications. In many places, depression has now become one of the leading causes of absenteeism from work.\n\nIt is not an exaggeration to say that depression has become pandemic. The World Health Organization has predicted that by 2020 it will be the second most fatal illness, trumped only by heart disease. Perhaps most shockingly, depression is increasing at astounding rates among young people. In the last thirty years, the United States has seen a 1,000 percent increase in the disease among adolescents.\n\nAnd it's not accidental that the precipitous rise in depression has occurred concurrently with two other modern trends, which themselves are interrelated: the dramatic increase in material prosperity in the developed nations, and the parallel obsession with the self, which consumerism encourages, aggravates, and excites.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe rates of depression\u2014as well as associated ailments like anxiety and stress, and mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder\u2014have risen precisely in those places where material prosperity has also substantially increased. In little more than a generation, we have gone from a society in which expensive consumer goods, once only available to the elite, are now readily purchasable by the masses: cars (now regularly equipped with cameras, computers, and talking GPS), televisions (now, like the movies, in realistic high-definition or 3-D), telephones (they've gotten so \"smart\"!), and computers (formerly only possessions of the government and large research universities, now standard issue, in constantly updated better, faster, and more compact versions). And leisure activities formerly reserved for the mega-rich\u2014including exotic holidays now made possible by nearly universal access to air travel\u2014are currently enjoyed by most of us commoners.\n\nYou can't afford to be depressed if you're just trying to stay alive. Depression is itself a kind of luxury good, available only to those for whom the material necessities of life are a given. It may not only be one of the entitlements of the economically privileged but also one of the entailments.\n\nIn the post\u2013World War II era, we were promised happiness through acquiring and consuming, and for sixty-plus years now we've dutifully been acquiring and consuming. We all got cashed up and started amassing all kinds of stuff. We began buying ovens and refrigerators even before they became self-cleaning and self-defrosting. We've obediently purchased pretty much everything they've brought into the marketplace, from transistor radios (remember those?) to iPods; from clunky black-and-white televisions to the sleek fifty-two-inch plasma flat-screens; from pocket calculators to handheld supercomputers.\n\nMaybe by now it has dawned on us that we've gotten everything they promised us and much, much more. And isn't it just as obvious that desires are being created and implanted in order to get us to buy more?\n\nYeah, so you already have the big black iPod, but now we've come up with this white itsy-bitsy model! Last year's car? It may still run fine, but it's so outdated!\n\nEither we got everything and are still not satisfied, or we had our expectations raised so high that we feel it's our right to have everything and then, when we don't get something, we feel cheated. In either case, since we've placed all our hopes for happiness on self-fulfillment through consumerism, when it doesn't bring us what we expected, well, then there's a big crash.\n\nOnce we have staked our claim on owning everything, we are left with not much of anything when it comes to inner peace and contentment.\n\n### IT'S NOT SELF-HELP IF IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU\n\nIt seems quite likely that many of us feel so bad not only because we are encouraged, at every turn, to remain dissatisfied (so we will buy more) but also because of an insistence that we continually brood about how we're feeling. We're all constantly keeping our fingers on our own pulse:\n\nAm I OK? Are my needs being met? Am I recognized and appreciated enough? Am I somebody enough yet?\n\nThis obsession with the self emanates not only from egocentrism but also from deep insecurity. There's a dark side to the culture of narcissism\u2014in fact, maybe there's only a dark side. According to the ancient texts, as we shall see in chapter 2, one of the karmic causes of depression is an overweening interest in oneself at the expense of thinking of others. In a time and place where \"it's all about me\"\u2014where the promotion of the first-person pronoun demands a \"me first\" attitude\u2014it's no wonder that we're plunging into depression in unparalleled numbers.\n\nThe self, as we'll see below, is both our best friend and our worst enemy. And it's only the \"best friend self\" that can save us from our own self-destructive tendencies; it's only by improving ourselves that we'll feel better about ourselves.\n\nTrivializing the pain and suffering that is associated with the mental afflictions brought on by the \"somebody-self\" mentality is neither compassionate nor fair. But neither is offering panaceas that don't get at the real root of the problem or, worse, aggravate it by promoting as the cure that which is in fact the cause. After all, there are effective and ineffective methods of self-improvement and self-help.\n\nIt's not self-help if it's all about you. It's not genuinely self-serving to live only in the service of the ego instead of in the service of others. It's only through cultivating real humility and an unselfish spirit, and not through indulging in yet more self-absorption, that a healthy and deeply felt self-esteem can emerge.\n\nIt's important that we not mistake humility for self-abasement or confuse depression with self-forgetfulness. An individual with low self-esteem who feels like a \"real nobody\" is not actually being nobody as we'll be using the phrase in this book. Rather he or she is somebody posing as a nobody\u2014and that's a very different thing.\n\nThere's a kind of perverse pride in the \"somebody self\" who feels special and exceptional in feeling so bad. And if we imagine that we can help ourselves through more, and not less, self-centeredness\u2014and that includes obsessing about how lousy we feel all the time\u2014our efforts to improve our self-image will inevitably backfire.\n\nAs stated in the preface, there is a difference between the egoistic \"somebody self\" who regards itself as worthless\u2014a nothing, a complete zilch\u2014and being nobody. Our limited, personalized, and individual self\u2014which may regard itself with healthy self-esteem or unhealthy self-debasement\u2014is distinct from the unlimited, shared, and universal \"nobody self.\" Identifying with the latter is quite different from identifying with something contemptible. \"Nobody\" refers to our ever-present \"true self,\" our greatest source of joy and strength, the eternal reservoir of peace and contentment to which we repair in order to silence the persistent demands and complaints of the insatiable ego.\n\nConsider this: We all know that it is in those moments when we completely lose ourselves\u2014engrossed in a good book or movie, engaged in an all-consuming task or hobby, or immersed in our child's or lover's gaze\u2014that we are truly happy. These experiences point to something extremely important: Our greatest joy comes when we vacate ourselves and give ourselves over to something or someone else. It is when we manage to \"stand outside of ourselves\" (exstasis) that we experience ecstasy.\n\nTrue and deeply felt self-esteem comes not through the exhausting quest for more and more ego inflation. It comes only when the ego and its endless demands are quieted and quenched, when the lower self is emptied and the fullness and plentitude of the Higher Self arise.\n\nIt is only when we stop narrating the play-by-play of our lives and actually start living in an unmediated and direct way that we become really present and fully engaged. It is only when that little voice inside our head finally shuts up that we become wholly assimilated with what's actually happening, and become truly happy.\n\nIt is important to have a good, healthy sense of self-worth, and the point of being nobody is certainly not to become servile, a doormat on which others can trample. But thinking that we will feel fulfilled only if we become more special than others leads to an increase, not a diminishing, of anxiety and dissatisfaction.\n\nWanting to be somebody unique\u2014or somehow \"more unique than others\"\u2014is actually quite common: there's nothing special about wanting to be special. But it is this very drive for radical individuality and superiority that keeps us feeling isolated and alone. In the end, the willingness to let go and be nobody is what's really extraordinary, and it is the only means for real connection with others and communion with what is real.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAs the successor to A Spiritual Renegade's Guide to the Good Life (Beyond Words, 2012), Be Nobody takes the quest for real happiness into new territory. As with its predecessor, this book draws upon the universal truths of the world's venerable religious and philosophical traditions and distills them into an accessible, practical handbook for finding happiness and fulfillment in our modern, everyday lives. The principles may be ancient, but the presentation is up-to-the-minute.\n\nIt is a spiritual truism that only by loosening our grip on the lower, egoistic self will we discover our real potential. Be Nobody maps out this journey from egoism, selfishness, and the obsession with individual identity to the spaciousness and freedom of abiding in one's true and authentic nature. Such a goal\u2014living one's life fully and happily in the here and now\u2014is not just for the spiritual elite or the mystic but is achievable by anyone (\"religious,\" \"spiritual,\" \"secular humanist,\" or \"none of the above\") who understands and implements the right ideas and practices.\n\nThe desirability of such self-transcendence has been recognized for millennia by the world's spiritual traditions. The mystics have all encountered this blessed state, and acquiring a deep familiarity with it on a permanent basis seems to be what is meant by the Eastern terms satori, samadhi, nirvana, moksha, mukti, and so on.\n\nIn Christianity, too, one finds the concept of kenosis (from the Greek word for emptiness)\u2014the \"self-emptying\" of one's own ego in order to become entirely receptive to the divine will. As the great theologian of the last century, C. S. Lewis, writes in Mere Christianity,\n\nThe terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self\u2014all your wishes and precautions\u2014to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call \"ourselves\" . . .\n\nThe goal of a spiritual life is to bring true happiness to the practitioner. To that end, the purpose of spiritual cultivation is not to learn to become better than others, but rather to become better for them. The religious traditions, as opposed to the modern secular sensibility of narcissism, consumerism, and greed, have always recognized that the inflation of the egoistic self is not the solution; rather, it is the problem.\n\nBe Nobody unfolds in four sections:\n\nIn part 1, \"Desperately Seeking Somebody,\" we review one of the main sources of stress and anxiety in our lives: the interminable search for personal identity in what are only temporary and ever-shifting roles. We are forever trying to find some stable self in the guises we assume: \"I am a father\/mother\/son\/daughter\/friend\/lawyer\/doctor\/teacher\/surfer\/blogger\/Christian\/Buddhist\/secular humanist,\" and so on. Whether these roles are chosen by us or given to us to play, when we wholly identify with one or another of this cast of characters, we lose touch with our deeper, changeless nature. And when we take excessive pride in one or another of these individual or group identities, we not only separate ourselves from those who are not like us, we also imagine we're superior to them\u2014and by doing so, set ourselves up for a big fall.\n\nPart 2, \"Making a Better Somebody Out of Nobody,\" begins with a \"Where's Waldo?\" search for the self we are so sure we have\u2014a quest that leaves us clutching at straws and chasing shadows. We are not who we think we are, but by the same token we are nothing other than who we think we are. And this realization is the key to true self-improvement: the development of a better self-conception. Here we learn how karma really works to upgrade the \"somebody self\" into a happier, more self-satisfied model. And we also learn that it is by changing our sense of who we are that we change the world around us.\n\nPart 3 is entitled \"Losing the 'Somebody Self,' \" and in this section we explore the joy we feel when we drop our inner narratives and self-conscious facades and truly experience life as it is. We are happiest when we lose ourselves\u2014in empathetic love and compassion for others and in really \"getting into the zone\" when we are fully engaged in an activity with mindful unselfconsciousness. It is in these moments of self-transcendence that we find the real heart and soul of what it means to be alive.\n\nWe conclude with a return to the pressing question of self-identity in part 4, \"Everybody Is Nobody.\" Who or what is this \"nobody self\" that lies at the base of our being and that all of us somebodies universally share? And how can we live in a way that integrates more of our true nature into our daily lives? Posing less as a \"special somebody\" and being more of just an \"Ordinary Joe\" infuses our individual existence with more humility, more of a sense of connection to the world and the people in it, and much more true and abiding contentment and joy.\n\nEach chapter ends with an \"Action Plan\" exercise to help put this all into practice and further incorporate what we've talked about into our daily lives. It's one thing to read about how to live a happier, more fulfilling, more satisfying life. It's another to actually start doing it. It doesn't take much to make a significant change. But it does require at least some modification of our old patterns of thought and action\u2014old habits that, if we're honest with ourselves, have not really worked out the way we'd hoped.\n\nCollected at the end of the book in a section called \"Dropping into Your True Nature,\" you'll find very simple and brief meditations you can do whenever you have a free minute or two in the day. They are samplings from 112 such meditations found in a rather astonishing eighth- or ninth-century ad Indian text called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, \"Methods for Attaining the Consciousness of the Divine.\" The really remarkable thing about the techniques prescribed in this text is how mundane they seem. According to this ancient scripture, dropping into our true nature and communing with our Higher Self is way easier than we might think!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nLiberation from the anxiety of always feeling that you have to be \"somebody\" is found only in true selflessness and freedom from the ego's restrictions, where solace is found in relaxing into life rather than trying endlessly to micromanage it for one's own selfish ends. The following pages offer instruction for attaining such liberation from the lower self without having to seclude oneself in a monastery or retire to a cave in the Himalayas. This book is meant to challenge you to incite the biggest revolution of all: the overthrow of the self-centeredness and self-consciousness that are the root causes of our dissatisfaction, and the embrace of our true potential and source of our real happiness.\n\nHappiness is ours for the taking, but it cannot be achieved without doing the hard work of letting go of old habits of thinking and acting and plunging into the new and untried.\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. This trait of the \"culture of narcissism\" has been coupled with, rather than superseded by, a \"cult of busyness\" that we'll discuss in chapter 7.\nI'm nobody! Who are you?\n\nAre you nobody, too?\n\nThen there's a pair of us\u2014don't tell!\n\nThey'd banish us\u2014you know!\n\nHow dreary to be somebody!\n\nHow public like a frog\n\nTo tell one's name the livelong day\n\nTo an admiring bog!\n\n\u2014\u2014Emily Dickinson\n\n## 1\n\n## Sticking Our Faces into Carnival Cutouts\n\nIt is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem for us.\n\n\u2014\u2014Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n\n\nIt's a funny thing how we adults so rarely stop to ponder the big questions in life: What's the meaning of it all? Is there a God? Why do bad things happen to good people, and vice versa? And just where did I put my car keys?\n\nYoung people in their teens and early twenties, as they are entering into adulthood, tend to pose and chew on these queries quite a bit. But apart from professional philosophers and those in the throes of a midlife crisis, we grown-ups get too busy with our families, professions, and ongoing responsibilities to stop and reflect much on these really important puzzles (except maybe for the location of the car keys).\n\nAnd of all the great mysteries, there's one that surely must count as the most pressing, persistent, and perplexing:\n\nWho am I?\n\n\"Know thyself,\" said Socrates, succinctly summing up the biggest of all life's challenges. Sounds good . . . and sounds a lot easier than it turns out to be.\n\nAlthough we spend the preponderance of each day, every day, preoccupied with and enamored of the self, we nevertheless are perpetually confused and uncertain as to who we are so fascinated by. \"What we are looking for,\" observed Saint Francis, \"is what is looking.\" But when we try to catch hold of this elusive self, it seems to evaporate into thin air.\n\nKnowing oneself seems to be an itch we can't quite scratch. And just like any unreachable itch, it's really driving us crazy.\n\nWhile there are lots of conundrums in life, genuine and deep self-knowledge is perhaps the biggest mystery of all\u2014as well as our biggest obsession. We instinctually feel that we must be somebody, but we can't quite put our finger on who that somebody might be. We are aware that we are aware, but we're a bit clueless as to exactly who it is that is aware.\n\nOr, as Alan Watts has cleverly put it in limerick form,\n\nThere once was a man who said, though\n\nIt seems that I know that I know,\n\nWhat I'd like to see,\n\nIs the I that knows me,\n\nWhen I know that I know that I know.\n\nPerhaps because locating the true self\u2014here depicted as the self that \"knows that I know that I know\"\u2014has proven to be so difficult, we gravitate to forged imitations of the real article in the hope that they might suffice. Because self-discovery turns out to be so perplexing, we attempt instead a self-fabrication. We create a character for ourselves and then elevate it\u2014temporarily, at least\u2014to the status of genuine identity.\n\nLike boardwalk tourists poking our faces in the two-dimensional carnival cutouts depicting the muscle man and bathing beauty, we are forever trying to find some authentic self in the multitudinous, temporary, and ever-changing roles we assume in life. We clutch at straws, claiming to actually be somebody to avoid the free fall that we fear is entailed in being nobody.\n\nWe find ourselves in relationships with others and then glom on to such guises as our true identity (\"I am a father\/mother\/son\/daughter\/friend\/lover\/husband\/wife,\" and so on). Or we identify with our jobs and professions (\"I am a carpenter\/lawyer\/doctor\/teacher,\" and so on). Or we earn degrees, certificates, and titles, and present them as our true identity (\"I am a licensed mechanic\/certified yoga instructor\/PhD\").\n\nWe have our hobbies and leisure pursuits (\"I am a surfer\/camper\/blogger\/roller blader\/stamp collector\") and our racial, religious, economic, and national personae (\"I am white\/middle class\/Christian\/American\"). We create online avatars or Facebook identities in the hope that a virtual persona will suffice for our self-image. We even, in a true act of desperation, identify ourselves with our past traumas (\"I am a recovering survivor of alcoholism\/drug addiction\/childhood abuse\/divorce\") or current feelings (\"I am angry\/happy\/jealous\/depressed\").\n\nWe try to find ourselves through these identifications, a word that derives from the Latin term \"to make the same.\" We make a role \"the same\" as the player of the role, or constitute the experiencer as \"the same\" as the experience the experiencer experiences.I\n\nBut who is the \"I\" that we at different times assert is one or another (or the sum total of all) of these guises? Who's the person that takes on all these personae? Who is it that's sticking his or her head into each of these two-dimensional cutouts?\n\n\"All the world's a stage,\" Shakespeare said, \"and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.\" These various roles are sometimes chosen and sometimes given to us to enact, but when we wholly identify with one player or another in this revolving cast of characters\u2014doing our best to keep up with the necessarily frequent costume changes\u2014we set ourselves up for confusion, dissatisfaction, and frustration. We are confused about which one of the multiple roles truly identifies us; we are dissatisfied by the attempt to make any one of these parts truly fulfill us; and we are frustrated by the limitations inherent in each and every one of these personae.\n\nBewildering when you actually think about it, right? All these different versions of \"me\"!\n\nA character played by Lily Tomlin in her one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, voices what may be a common sentiment: \"All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.\"\n\nMistaking the authentic self for what are just multiple, transient, and conditional guises\u2014creating at best a fractured and confused sense of identity\u2014we are diverted from the quest to uncover our deeper, changeless nature. We identify with what has been called the \"lower self\"\u2014the ego, persona, personality, or \"self-image\"\u2014instead of communing with the real McCoy, what has been variously termed the higher or authentic self, the soul, the spirit, our true nature or being. \"We have a hunger for something like authenticity, but are easily satisfied by an ersatz facsimile,\" as Miles Orvell puts it.\n\nThe self, it seems, is in an ongoing identity crisis. We're spending our lives in a series of caricatures, impersonating somebody or another, substituting one persona after another for a real person.\n\nWhen it comes to self-realization, we've been settling for a bunch of wooden nickels. And trying to find our authentic self in such a weak currency has not, and will not, pay off.\n\n### THE COMMON WISH TO BE SPECIAL\n\nIf there's one thing we're pretty sure of when it comes to our perception of ourselves, it's that we are unique. We all, each and every one of us, want to think of ourselves as truly individual, as one of a kind. Most of us, and in much the same kind of way, think of ourselves as special\u2014and wish to be even more special, for it is in our hoped-for extraordinariness that we believe we will find true fulfillment and happiness.\n\nIn an age when depression has reached epidemic proportions in our so-called developed nations, it is important to foster a healthy sense of self-esteem in order to combat the spiraling trend toward self-abasement. We need to find ways to help reverse this trend\u2014for our own good and for the good of others who are also susceptible to this tendency, for the true causes and cures of this modern ailment are not the ones usually on offer in many therapeutic and \"self-help\" circles.\n\nNow, lest you think I'm telling you that you're not special, please know that I'm not saying that at all. You are indeed special, distinct, and one of a kind, and you should honor that. Fostering a good, healthy sense of self-acceptance is an essential basis for a happy life. And this process must begin early. Parents need to instill in their children a sense of self-worth. You've probably seen the meme\u2014a picture of a small child with the caption \"God made me, and God doesn't make junk!\" Every child deserves to believe that they are not \"junk.\"\n\nMr. Rogers\u2014surely one of our modern saints, who positively influenced a whole generation in America\u2014repeatedly told young viewers of his television show that they were his friends and he liked them just the way they are. The whole salubrious message was encapsulated in a song entitled \"You Are Special.\"\n\nYou're special to me . . .\n\nYou are the only one like you.\n\nThis beneficial promotion of self-affirmation, \"You are special,\" is also crucially important to convey to those who are, for one reason or another, cut off from some or all the ways a person's worth is measured in our society\u2014those without much money, whose profession (or lack thereof) is not afforded much status, or who are otherwise unable to draw upon the usual social props for their sense of self-worth.\n\nWhen I was a boy, my father occasionally took me on weekend trips from our home in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Chicago\u2014the big, big city for all us Midwesterners. We'd go to the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Science and Industry, Maxwell Street Market, and other places of urban wonder. And my dad, being a second-generation Baptist minister, would also bring me on Saturday mornings to a large auditorium for the weekly service conducted by a young and exceptionally dynamic pastor, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.\n\nThe organization was called Operation Breadbasket, an offshoot of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, formed to help foster economic development among disadvantaged people like those living on the South Side of Chicago. And the highlight of the weekly service was when the charismatic Reverend Jackson would get behind the pulpit and do his thing, call-and-response style:\n\nRev. Jackson: Say, I am!\n\nCrowd: I am!\n\nRev. Jackson: Somebody!\n\nCrowd: Somebody!\n\nRev. Jackson: I may be poor.\n\nCrowd: I may be poor.\n\nRev. Jackson: But I am . . .\n\nCrowd: But I am . . . .\n\nRev. Jackson: Somebody!\n\nCrowd: Somebody!\n\nRev. Jackson: I may be young.\n\nCrowd: I may be young.\n\nRev. Jackson: But I am . . .\n\nCrowd: But I am . . .\n\nRev. Jackson: Somebody!\n\nCrowd: Somebody!\n\nRev. Jackson: I may be on welfare.\n\nCrowd: I may be on welfare.\n\nRev. Jackson: But I am . . .\n\nCrowd: But I am . . .\n\nRev. Jackson: Somebody!\n\nCrowd: Somebody!\n\nAnd on the chant went, reaching greater and greater pitches of enthusiasm:\n\nI may be small, but I am somebody!\n\nI may make a mistake, but I am somebody!\n\nMy clothes are different, my face is different, my hair is different, but I am somebody!\n\nI am black, brown, white. I speak a different language.\n\nBut I must be respected, protected, never rejected!\n\nI am God's child!\n\nI am somebody!\n\nI AM SOMEBODY\n\nAnd, of course, we all are indeed somebody, and we should all be a self-respecting somebody. Each of us has our own personality, shaped by our distinctive genetic makeup, personal history, life choices, and so on\u2014what the Eastern traditions would regard as the fruition of our individual karma. Accepting the cards you've been dealt is the condition of possibility for playing them well in the game of life.\n\nWe truly are, each and every one of us, special and unique like a snowflake, and we all should accept who we are with dignity and a certain sense of self-assurance and pride.\n\n### YOU: YOUR BEST FRIEND AND WORST ENEMY\n\nThe kind of healthy self-respect Mr. Rogers and Jesse Jackson encourage is unquestionably a positive thing. But feeling comfortable with one's individuality is really just the starting point for more advanced forms of self-discovery. Like possessing enough food, proper shelter, and leisure time, having a strong positive sense about one's distinctive individuality is a prerequisite for deeper spiritual pursuits.\n\nThe spiritual quest begins, one might say, where many of the traditional therapeutic processes leave off. Mental health therapy in its myriad forms\u2014from the rigors of psychoanalysis to the most user-friendly self-help book\u2014has, at bottom, the same function. The fundamental purpose of the therapeutic approach is to make us feel better about ourselves\u2014to make us feel that we're all somebody special.\n\nAnd that's great . . . as far as it goes.\n\nBut the spiritual approach, as opposed to the merely therapeutic, should regard a strong, positive sense of one's distinctive individual identity as the starting point, not the end result. \"One should raise up the self by oneself, and not degrade oneself,\" as it says in the great Hindu classic, the Bhagavad Gita. But the text goes on to note, \"For the self is its own best friend and its own worst enemy.\"\n\nBuilding a good, healthy ego is a necessary step in the task of true self-realization, but it is not sufficient in and of itself. The affirmation of the lower, personalized, and individual self is not, according to the religious traditions, true self-knowledge. In the deeper search for one's irreducible core, identifying with and clinging to the ego is in fact the obstacle. The best friend turns into the worst enemy.\n\nWe must, as the saying goes, lose the self to find it. We must get beyond the ego\u2014the \"special somebody\" self\u2014if we are to discover our deeper, more genuine, and more universal identity. In such a quest, feeling special and unique repositions itself as the problem, not the solution.\n\nThe journey to true self-knowledge is like climbing a ladder. One must start on the lower, foundational rungs. But to move higher, we must also be willing to ascend, leaving the lower rungs behind. Once we've established a proper sense of self-worth, individuality, and specialness, we are ready to take the next steps.\n\nWe must, in a word, have a good, healthy ego in order to proceed with the ego-ectomy necessary to discover our real nature.\n\n\"When there is no 'I,' there is liberation,\" as it says in another ancient Sanskrit text of the Hindu tradition. \"And when there is an 'I,' there is bondage.\" And this truth is repeated in countless ways in the scriptures and classics of other world religions:\n\n  \"Since all the disasters, sufferings, and fears in the world come about from the grasping to a self, then how is this grasping beneficial to me? Without abandoning the self, suffering cannot be abandoned, just as without avoiding fire one cannot avoid being burned\" (Shantideva, Buddhism).\n\n  \"Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self\" (Francis of Assisi, Christianity).\n\n  \"He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man\" (Mencius, Confucianism).\n\n  \"There is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation and the superficial, external self that we commonly identify with the first person singular. We must remember that this superficial 'I' is not our real self. It is our 'individuality' and our 'empirical self,' but it is not truly the hidden and mysterious person in whom we subsist before the eyes of God. The 'I' that works in the world, thinks about itself, observes its own reactions, and talks about itself is not the true 'I' that has been united to God in Christ\" (Thomas Merton, Christianity).\n\n  \"Owing to ignorance of the rope, the rope appears to be a snake; owing to ignorance of the Self, the transient state arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of the Self\" (Shankara, Hinduism).\n\nWhile our unique individuality serves as a starting point, it cannot function as the end-all of the quest to \"know thyself.\" To move beyond our fascination and attachment to our particularity, we must gain an appreciation for what we share with all the other somebodies out there.\n\n### NEVER SOMEBODY ENOUGH\n\nThe need to feel special is not in and of itself special. We all want to portray ourselves\u2014to ourselves and to others\u2014as being in one way or another extraordinary. If we don't feel this foundational sense of specialness at all, it is indeed important to find ways to increase our sense of self-worth\u2014and there are plenty of resources available in the therapeutic establishment to facilitate that. And throughout this book, we'll be discussing some surefire methods for increasing self-esteem.\n\nBut what we also may start to suspect is that, at a certain point\u2014after shoring up the foundation of a necessary and beneficial sense of self-worth\u2014the interminable pursuit of being somebody can become a heavy load to carry.\n\nIf, for example, we believe that our \"specialness\" derives from what we have achieved rather than from who we really are, we will be forever striving to be important enough, famous enough, rich enough, loved enough, accomplished enough.\n\nThe eminent psychiatrist Thomas Szasz noted, \"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self,\" Szasz argued, \"is not something one finds, it is something one creates.\" And it is true that most of us peg some important part of our identity to our accomplishments in whatever arenas of life we deem important. But if we overvalue the idea that self-worth is tied to a created specialness, most of us will never feel we have produced a special enough self.\n\nIf we fully buy into an accomplishment-based understanding of selfhood, we'll be perpetually trying, and endlessly failing, to be somebody enough.\n\nWhen we wholly identify with one or another of the roles we play in the ongoing drama that is life, we may begin to suspect that no matter how successful we are\u2014no matter how many promotions we win, how much money we accumulate, how much praise we receive\u2014it will never be sufficient. If this is the gauge of self-approval, the bar will always be moving higher; there will always be more hoops to jump through and more rivers to cross, with no end in sight.\n\nWe often glorify and idealize those who seem to really be somebody: the rock star, the Olympic athlete, the A-list actor, the mega-rich or supremely famous. But even off-the-charts superstars like Madonna can never quite measure up when it comes to this kind of achievement-based understanding of the self. As she candidly confessed in an interview, no matter how successful she became, she never quite felt that she was \"somebody enough\":\n\nMy drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. That is always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then I feel I am still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I have become Somebody, I still have to prove that Somebody. My struggle has never ended and I guess it never will.\n\nMadonna fears \"being mediocre\"\u2014that is, not being \"Madonna enough.\" Similarly, the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky has complained that \"The hardest part of being Wayne Gretzky is that I get compared to Wayne Gretzky.\" Cary Grant also reportedly once declared, \"Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I wish to be Cary Grant.\"II\n\nThese testimonials should give us a clue about pinning our hopes for identity and self-satisfaction on achievement alone. If Madonna can't be Madonna enough; if Wayne Gretzky can never quite live up to being Wayne Gretzky; and if even (the real) Cary Grant wanted someday to be (the ideal) Cary Grant, well, what hope is there for us less-than-superstars?\n\nThe ideal of a \"special self\" one wishes to construct through accomplishment tends always to outstrip the reality, leaving one feeling incomplete, inadequate, and continually running to try to catch up. The fear of not being so special after all\u2014the anxiety of being ordinary\u2014haunts and follows even those among us who seem to have reached the very apex of our chosen endeavors, and it is endemic among those of us who, by and large, are actually pretty ordinary when it comes to our abilities and our achievements.\n\nWhile Socrates encouraged us to \"know thyself,\" others have pointed out that self-knowledge is sometimes bad news! If the worth of the self we're trying to know and identify with is judged by performance-based criteria, we will usually find ourselves perpetually coming up short. We will encounter a self that is forever not special enough, a somebody who is not big enough.\n\nAlthough even the most ordinary of us apparently would rather not think of ourselves as such, the burden of being special is perhaps a much heavier weight to bear.\n\n### TOO SPECIAL FOR OUR OWN GOOD\n\nAnd then there's the other side of the coin. If we're not suffering from neurotic apprehension that we're not special enough, we're puffed up with the narcissistic arrogance of thinking we're somehow more special than others. The desperate need to be special easily morphs into a competitive quest to feel superior in one way or another. Fearing that we'll be seen as nobody and urgently trying to be somebody, we get too big for our britches. We become too special for our own good.\n\nAs Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n notes in the epigraph to this chapter, it's a mistake to overestimate the role and ignore who is really playing that role. It is a given that we are all unique individuals, but attaching to and elevating our uniqueness is not the recipe either for true happiness or for more comprehensive self-knowledge.\n\nIt's somewhat ironic that, driven by the belief that we'll be happy only by being distinctive, separate, and unique, we end up collectively pursuing this Holy Grail of redemptive individuality in very similar ways. The reader might recall a scene in that Monty Python movie, Life of Brian, in which a mob pursues Brian, the supposed messiah, and surrounds his home. The reluctant savior appears at the window and implores the assembled masses to stop being sheep and to think for themselves. Brian shouts to them, \"You're all individuals,\" and the crowd, en masse, answers, \"We're all individuals.\"\n\nBut then one lonely little voice at the back says, \"I'm not.\"\n\nAnd he's the one who got it right. It is truly an act of independence and freedom to recognize that we're all alike and that nobody is really more somebody than anyone else. The one who realizes he's no more special than others is the truly special one.\n\n### WE'RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT: THE GREAT EQUALITY\n\nThe emphasis on being special\u2014embracing our uniqueness and individuality as if true self-fulfillment were to be found in being somebody or, even worse, being more of a somebody than others\u2014can blind us to the essential ways that we are fundamentally alike, and can serve to divide rather than bring us together in our shared humanity.\n\nClinging to the particular and the individual precludes opening ourselves up to the general and universal. It is only by laying down the burden of individuality that we can begin to embrace our larger Self, the true core of our being that we share with all others. It is getting in touch with this universal part of ourselves that brings us joy, in large part because it relieves us of the strain of having to be somebody in particular by plugging us into what we have in common with others.\n\nAs opposed to the modern, secular emphasis on individuality (which can so easily turn into narcissistic self-absorption and prideful superciliousness), the world's spiritual traditions emphasize our commonalities and kinship. Rather than focusing on what sets us apart, the spiritual traditions highlight what binds us together.\n\nWe can begin to receive intimations of a deeper sense of who we are\u2014an identity that transcends the anxiety of being somebody\u2014by recognizing that underlying our superficial differences is a great equality that links us with all others.\n\nThe Dalai Lama likes to emphasize that although we are indeed unique individuals, there are two basic desires we all share as living beings:\n\nIn our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. . . . Despite all our individual characteristics, no matter what education we may have or what social rank we may have inherited, and irrespective of what we may have achieved in our lives, we all seek to find happiness and to avoid suffering during this short life of ours.\n\nPut simply, we all want to be happy and avoid pain, and we are all exactly alike in that we have these two fundamental wishes. And this, by the way, we share with all sentient life. It matters not if you're a squirrel or a CEO, an insect or the president of the United States. Every living being just wants to attain happiness and evade suffering.\n\nBut we are also equal in that we are not very savvy about how to obtain these goals. While we all want to avoid it, suffering is endemic to life. And while we all desire true happiness, few of us are very good at actually achieving it.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAll religions are premised on the recognition that, in the absence of spiritual training, life will just repeatedly kick our helpless asses. Acknowledging this fact of life is the sine qua non for getting serious about finding an alternative to perpetual victimhood.\n\nIf life just flowed merrily on for us, there would be no need for self-cultivation. We could just relax and enjoy ourselves, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But, as the myth in Genesis tells us, we are not in a paradisiacal garden anymore (in case you hadn't noticed). We're in a deep, dark, dangerous forest and need guidance to find our way out.\n\nThis acknowledgment of our collective predicament was emphatically encapsulated in the first words that came out of the mouth of the Buddha after he achieved his Awakening: \"Y'all are suffering,\" he declared (loosely translated). From the point of view of a truly self-realized being, all of us, equally, are in deep doo-doo.\n\nThis is the first of the four so-called Worthy Truths in Buddhism, and the starting point for any serious attempt at a spiritual life designed to bring an alternative.III \"Houston, we have a problem,\" as the astronauts said when they realized their spaceship wasn't working anymore. Our spaceships aren't working. We all have a problem. Our lives are shot through with difficulties, stress, dissatisfaction, and the like.\n\nSuffering, in a word.\n\nOh, Buddhists, they're so negative! What do you mean \"Life is suffering\"? Cheer up, already! Maybe you guys should get out more\u2014enjoy a movie or a nice dinner, or go dancing or something!\n\nOf course, the Buddha didn't mean that life for everyone is an unremitting series of tragedies\u2014although, for some of our fellow human beings living on this very same planet, daily life is indeed a relentless set of challenges. Billions go hungry every day; billions do not have proper shelter, clothing, water, and medical care, while nearly equal numbers do not have basic political freedoms, educational opportunities, or even the ability to read. Billions also suffer from deep-seated psychological and emotional problems that make their daily life a living hell.\n\nAnd all of us, no matter how privileged and sheltered we are from the more extreme forms of misery, are subject to misfortune. The things and people in our lives, even our own health and welfare\u2014all of it is precarious.\n\nIn fact, we can accurately consider ourselves to be perpetually in one of two possible situations: we are either in the midst of a disaster or between them. These are, for all of us equally, the only two options in this life.\n\nWhen we're in the middle of a disaster, the truth that life involves suffering is not debatable. We've all been there, and many of us are there right now. It's when tragedy hits that the scales of denial fall from our eyes.\n\nWhen it comes to traumatic experiences, everyone has their own tales to tell. One of mine occurred early on in my adult life. My first marriage, to my high school girlfriend, took place at the tender age of eighteen. Within a year it was over. These were the days before \"no fault\" divorces, so, in addition to the pain of having my wife leave me, I had to endure the further torment of having my friends testify in court about what a bad husband I had been. (This was not untrue, but nevertheless it hurt to hear it publicly declared by my own friends.) By age nineteen, the hopes and expectations I had had about what an adult life would look like had been cruelly crushed. I was completely devastated and spun into a deep depression.\n\nWhen we're in the middle of a disaster, the fact of suffering is viscerally felt and intellectually obvious. It is, at such times, painfully indisputable, and we don't need to be convinced then that life is suffering. But there are two things we do need to try to remember in those difficult but potentially eye-opening circumstances.\n\nThe first is that suffering isn't just random bad luck; rather, encountering misfortune is inevitably part of living life. We all lose loved ones. We all get sick, get old, and die. Or, as the Buddha summed it up, we don't get what we want, we do get what we don't want, and we don't get to keep forever the things and people we love.\n\nIt's not some strange anomaly when tragedy befalls us. Suffering is in the very nature of our lives. We are slapped in the face with this truth when we're in the middle of the disaster, but when we're in between disasters it's important to remember that the next one (when it comes, not if ) will greet us in the same manner as the last one.\n\nThe second thing to remember\u2014and this one is even harder than the first\u2014is that, when the suffering nature of life whacks you upside the head, it's not just you. As we have seen, we all want to feel special, and when we experience catastrophes we embrace those negative experiences also as something that distinguishes, or even defines, us. This is so unfair\u2014we often think at such times\u2014I have been singled out for this misfortune.\n\nWhen it comes our time to undergo difficulties, we all feel like poor Job in the Bible, who, shaking his fist toward the sky, demands to plead his case to the one who has unjustly rained such torment down on him.\n\nWhy me? Why me?\n\nThere's a story told in the Buddhist scriptures about a woman who has just lost her only child. She goes to the Buddha and pleads with him to restore her son to her. Surprisingly, the Buddha agrees\u2014but under one condition. \"Go to every home in the village,\" he instructs the grieving mother, \"and bring me a mustard seed from the household that hasn't had a tragedy like yours.\" The poor woman starts knocking on doors and, well, you can guess the outcome. Let's just say she didn't bring back any mustard seeds to the Buddha.\n\nSuffering doesn't make you special any more than the need to feel special makes you special. We have all been there, and we'll all be there again. Anyone who has been alive more than a few years has already taken huge hits, as any therapist, counselor, or clergyman who regularly listens to people's stories can attest. Everyone has tales of woe; we are all the walking wounded. When I hear about what people\u2014ordinary people, everyday people, just like you and me\u2014have gone through, I'm often amazed that any of us can even get out of bed and carry on.\n\nNo one is getting through life unscathed. We're all in the same boat, and when it comes to our susceptibility to suffering, that boat is the Titanic. And while the experience of disaster is ubiquitous, there are no objective criteria for measuring whose suffering is worse. There's no scale of suffering, such that yours is a 6.8 while someone else only scores 4.2.\n\nWhile we might feel our own trials to be greater than others, it is necessary to realize that suffering is subjective. What one person finds unbearable another might skate through, and what someone might find trivial is another's unmitigated nightmare.\n\nThere's a story about a young girl who had just begun college. She had been admitted to the same school both her mother and grandmother had attended. Both mom and grandma had also been active members in one of the school's most popular sororities; indeed, membership in that sorority had sort of defined their whole lives. Even as alumnae, this girl's maternal kinfolk continued to financially support the sorority, regularly attend the annual reunions, and so on. Most importantly for the story, they instilled in the young lady how crucially important it would be for her to also be inducted into the society of Alpha Delta Awesome, or whatever it was.\n\nGuess what happened? She didn't get in. Having heard about how great Alpha Delta Awesome was her whole life, and knowing full well the expectations her mother and grandmother had of her carrying on this family tradition, she was utterly devastated by the rejection.\n\nSo a bit of a thought experiment here: Was the suffering that this young lady experienced as a result of being rebuffed by some damned sorority comparable to what many of us would regard as a much more serious disappointment? Is it possible, or could it even be likely, that from her point of view the trauma was felt as deeply as, say, another might feel having a career tank, or having something precious get stolen or lost, or even having a major health problem or being in the midst of a divorce?\n\nRealizing that suffering is both subjectively experienced and universally encountered\u2014no one is having an easy life here!\u2014is a crucial step toward breaking out of the loneliness of individuality and recognizing what we share with all others. Personal suffering need not simply further and solidify our sense of distinctiveness, but can open us up to a compassionate empathy that enlarges our sense of self.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nNo one wants to suffer. All of us try to avoid it the best we can. And conversely, we all want to be happy and enjoy life, and this is the second way in which we are all exactly alike.\n\nThe desire for happiness (and for avoidance of pain) is fundamental to our nature as living beings. It drives us all day long, and it lies behind all of our life choices. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it, \"While happiness itself is sought for its own sake, every other goal\u2014health, beauty, money, or power\u2014is valued only because we expect that it will make us happy.\"\n\nAlthough everything we do throughout the day\u2014throughout our whole lives\u2014is done with the hope that it will bring us more happiness (and less pain), many of us may perceive happiness as something that occurs accidentally, once in a while, through causes unknown and unknowable.\n\nThe very etymology of the word happiness contains within it the idea that it is, so to speak, haphazard. We feel hapless when it comes to obtaining real happiness; we have a sense that, when it seems that things are going right, it's all just a matter of happenstance. It might appear that happiness, like its opposite (a four-letter word for excrement, as one sees on bumper stickers), just happens.\n\nHappiness doesn't just happen; it is caused, like everything else. And there is a universally affirmed method taught in the spiritual traditions to achieve true and lasting happiness. That method involves less, not more, self-centeredness; it entails relinquishing the individual's insatiable demands and losing oneself in something larger.\n\nWhile we sometimes think of happiness as a randomly occurring phenomenon, we even more often associate true happiness with the pleasuring of the ego\u2014\"making myself happy\" through trying to find joy in what we label \"self-fulfillment,\" \"self-satisfaction,\" or any other of the myriad concepts that have \"self\" as the first component (\"self-respect,\" \"self-indulgence,\" \"self-importance,\" and so on). Although, as we've seen, it is essential to have self-esteem to be strong enough to move things to the next level, we must transcend egoism if we are to find both our true identity\u2014what unites us with all others\u2014and the real and authentic source of joy.\n\nCompulsively trying to be somebody, we keep ourselves imprisoned by our own egotistical addiction to being more, better, and higher.\n\nTrue happiness doesn't involve fulfilling the ego's needs for high status, the love and admiration of others, a beautiful body, or a trophy wife or arm-candy husband. True happiness, in other words, will not be an attribute of the lower, smaller, individual self. It is only when we access our higher, universal, true identity that we experience the profound and unshakeable euphoria we all seek.\n\nThe purpose of life is to find an alternative to ubiquitous suffering; the whole point is to find the lifeboat and get off the freakin' Titanic. And that's another way in which we are all the same: we all have the capability of discovering the lifeboat that's been there all along.\n\nWe all, equally, have this capacity for deep-rooted happiness, because we all, equally, have a spirit, universal in nature, at our core. This is the great and fundamental equality, assumed in all the world's spiritual traditions. In Christianity, we are taught that we all\u2014sinner and saint alike\u2014are capable of redemption and salvation. And similarly in Judaism, we are all regarded as equal before God. In Islam, the Qur'an declares that \"All peoples are a single nation,\" while in the Hindu tradition it is presupposed that we all have the potential to break through the illusion of individuality and realize the true nature we share in common.\n\nAnd in Buddhism, each and every living being is said to have what is called \"Buddha nature,\" the inborn potential to realize one's Higher Self.\n\nEveryone has this Buddha nature, and nobody has more of it than anyone else. When it comes to our true identity\u2014our deepest and happiest sense of self\u2014we are not hierarchically ordered individuals with different types and degrees of specialness. Rather, we're perfectly, 100 percent equal and alike.\n\nAccording to the Buddhist texts, recognizing this capability to achieve our highest destiny\u2014a potential we all have, each and every one of us\u2014is the true remedy for the depression and low self-esteem that many of us suffer as a result of our identification with a lower, individual self:\n\nNever be discouraged and think,\n\n\"How could someone like me become Awakened?\"\n\nThe Buddha, who speaks the truth,\n\nHas said these true words about this:\n\n\"Even those who were flies, gnats, bees, and worms\n\nObtained the highest enlightenment, so hard to obtain,\n\nBecause of their perseverance.\"\n\nBecause we are not really just the \"somebody\"\u2014the particular, discrete, and separate individual\u2014that we believe ourselves to be, we can reach the highest happiness. But it will require effort and perseverance to discover who we really are. It will especially demand a willingness to undergo the kind of de- and re-identification entailed in the ego-ectomy we spoke of earlier.\n\nWe must die to be born again. We must be prepared to let go of the caterpillar to which we are so attached if we are to soar free as the butterfly we are truly meant to be.\n\n### TWO BIRDS SITTING ON THE SAME TREE\n\nOur capital \"S\" Self, our Buddha nature, our soul\u2014whatever name one wishes to give it\u2014is definitely not the individual ego. There is a part of each and every one of us that has never been born and will never die\u2014an eternal, uncreated, and universal Self that is not \"somebody\" and has never been \"anybody,\" but is both \"nobody\" and \"everybody.\" And it is this part of us, labeled the \"wise one\" in the following verse from the ancient Indian Upanishads, that is truly extraordinary.\n\nThe wise one has never been born and never dies. It has not come from anywhere, nor has it become anyone. It is unborn, unchanging, eternal, and primordial. It is not killed when the body is killed.\n\nOur real specialness lies not in our uniqueness but in what we share with all others. It is who we really are, and it is who we really want to be. It is what makes it possible to overcome our sense of separation and aloneness and feel a part of a larger whole.\n\nWe long for it and take our greatest joy when we reconnect with it. According to Hindu scriptures, the little voice inside\u2014the mouthpiece of the ego\u2014quiets down, and the atomistic, unhappy self is enveloped into something much greater: \"Conceits such as 'This is who I am' or 'I am not this' are destroyed for the practitioner who has become silent, knowing that everything is encompassed within the true Self.\"\n\nReal self-knowledge requires us to drop the identification with the changing cast of personae that prevent us from knowing the real nature of the face that's peeking from behind those assorted carnival cutouts.\n\nThere is, in each one of us, a tension between our identification with a lower, individual self (we all want to be \"somebody\") and the yearning for union with the true Self. We are at war with ourselves; we are a house divided; we are existentially schizophrenic.\n\nAnd what is at stake in this internal struggle is our true happiness, our sense of fulfillment, and the end to the feelings of desperation, inadequacy, and victimization. One of the older Upanishads provides this metaphor:\n\nTwo birds, inseparable friends, perch on the same tree. One of them eats a tasty fig while the other looks on without eating. Sitting on that same tree, the lower, deluded self is overwhelmed by the belief that he is a powerless victim and he despairs. When he sees the other, the beloved Master, and realizes that all greatness is his, then his despair vanishes.\n\nIt is our own embrace of the personal, smaller, individual self\u2014the bird that always needs another tasty fig to feel like a better somebody\u2014that perpetuates our suffering and discontentment. And it is by knowing our true and universal self\u2014the bird that is always satisfied and never feels the compulsion to be more or better\u2014that we can end it.\n\nAnd we will know this true self not as ourselves but in the blissful relief of not having to be ourselves, of finding the peaceful and ever-satisfied \"beloved Master\" within.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIn the following pages of this book, we will survey the different battlegrounds where war is being waged between the \"two birds perched on the same tree\"\u2014the ego or \"somebody self\" and the authentic \"nobody self.\" It is an inner conflict between our anxious striving to be somebody and our deepest feelings of contentment or \"at-onement\" that occur when we get back in touch with the stillness and the feeling of interconnectivity made possible only by being nobody.\n\nAction Plan: Generating Compassion for the Suffering of Others\n\nTake five or ten minutes each day to stop and reflect on the problems others are currently facing. Begin by thinking about your relatives and friends and the difficulties they are wrestling with in their lives. Generate what should be a natural sense of compassion for their suffering and make a plan for something you could do to help relieve at least some of their pain.\n\nThen have a look at the news of the day and reflect on what it must be like to be one of the millions of people who are currently in the midst of a major disaster. Try to overcome the tendency to let such news reports pass through the consciousness without touching the heart. These are people just like you, with the same desire to be happy and avoid pain, and they are currently experiencing a terrible catastrophe.\n\nResolve not to use current events as just another form of entertainment; rather, use them as a daily opportunity to generate empathy and a sense of connection to the suffering of others.\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. Cf. Eckhart Tolle's observation in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose: \"One of the most basic mind structures through which the ego comes into existence is identification. The word 'identification' is derived from the Latin word idem, meaning 'same,' and facere, which means 'to make.' So when I identify with something, I 'make it the same.' The same as what? The same as I. I endow it with a sense of self, and so it becomes part of my 'identity' \" (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 35.\n\nII. For these and other such examples\u2014including the groupie who said of every rock star she'd slept with, \"He's great, but he's no Mick Jagger,\" until she finally did bed Mick Jagger. She then reported, \"Great, but no Mick Jagger\"\u2014see Wendy Doniger's The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).\n\nIII. The other three \"truths\" are (1) that suffering is caused (and not by anyone or anything other than ourselves), (2) that there is an alternative to suffering, and (3) that there is a method for attaining the true happiness that is our birthright.\n\n## 2\n\n## What Goes Up Must Come Down\n\nProud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.\n\n\u2014Emily Bronte\n\n### PRIDE AND PREJUDICE\n\nA healthy sense of self is the necessary foundation for further spiritual progress. We're all unique individuals\u2014everyone truly is a special snowflake\u2014and we should all honor our own singular gifts and achievements.\n\nBut when self-affirmation tips over into self-importance and vanity\u2014when that little \"somebody self\" birdie starts chirping a bit too loudly and arrogantly\u2014it becomes another part of the problem rather than a step on the way to the solution.\n\nPride is a major weapon in the ego's arsenal; it is closely associated with the compulsion to be somebody. Taking overweening pride in some particular and temporary personal characteristic or adventitious circumstance in order to feel superior to other people\u2014to be more special than others\u2014is a fool's game. It seizes on something we think makes us truly special (one personal trait among many\u2014beauty, youth, strength, intelligence, talent, or how much money one has, what one owns, or one's professional status or religious affiliation) and absurdly elevates it above all other possibilities in order to make ourselves supremely special.\n\nAnd if we set too much store by such fleeting and ephemeral phenomena, when they change or we lose them, we become devastated. Instead of taking pride in being somebody oh-so-exceptional, we crash hard, as this inflated sense of the special self is punctured and contracts.\n\nPride is universally identified in the world's religions as one of the biggest dangers for a spiritual practitioner; it often makes it onto the short list of vices. And what's most relevant at this juncture is that pride is the lifeblood of the \"somebody self's\" interest in feeling superior to others. As C. S. Lewis notes,\n\nNow what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive\u2014is competitive by its very nature\u2014while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.\n\nExcessively impressed with and attached to our sense of uniqueness and individuality, we distinguish ourselves from those over whom we tower. And with pride inevitably comes its twin sister: envy. We become jealous of and estranged from those who are even more special than we are (richer, smarter, better looking, more gifted or accomplished).\n\nFeeling too special alienates us from others\u2014from both those we suspect are above us and those we place below us. Our yearning to be somebody not only implicates us in the fear that we'll never be somebody enough; it also requires others to be less of a somebody than we are. With pride comes not only envy but prejudice.\n\nIt is not by further isolating and separating ourselves from others that we will find the genuine happiness we seek. True happiness will not come from feeling better than others any more than it will spring forth from envy and resentment toward those we feel are our betters. True happiness comes only through realizing what connects us to one another\u2014the unity that lies beneath superficial differences.\n\nTaking disproportionate pride in our individuality, we become enmeshed in judgment over those we deem inferior, thus further detaching ourselves from our fellow human beings. And most ironically, this attempt to feel better by ranking ourselves above others backfires and produces the exact opposite effect. For as we shall see in this chapter, it is pride that the spiritual traditions have identified as the main cause of low self-esteem.\n\nWhat goes up must come down. When we take pride in whatever we latch onto in order to pose as someone superior to others, the result is that we become somebody who thinks of themselves as just a worthless nobody.\n\n### TRYING TO BE SOMEBODY BY ASSOCIATION\n\nOne of the many ways we attempt to define and distinguish ourselves\u2014while also paradoxically trying to overcome the isolation and disconnection we abhor\u2014is through identification with a group. We fabricate at least a part of our personal sense of identity by subsuming ourselves within a collectivity.\n\nWe describe and designate ourselves, at least to some degree, by hitching our personal wagons to some communal star:\n\n\"I am an American, Australian, Japanese, German\"\u2014identifying ourselves with our native or adopted nation.\n\n\"I am white, black, Asian, indigenous\"\u2014identifying ourselves with one of the (remarkably few, given human diversity and millennia of interbreeding) racial groupings.\n\n\"I am poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, or (more rarely and immodestly) stinking rich\"\u2014identifying ourselves with our economic status.\n\n\"I am a Democrat, Republican, progressive, democratic socialist, Green Party member\"\u2014identifying ourselves with our chosen political party.\n\nWe all have a strong desire to belong to something greater, to meld our unique little individual snowflake into a larger snowball.\n\nWhen it comes to the dynamics behind group affiliation, we once more butt up against the internal civil war between the compulsive drive to be somebody and the craving for the release and freedom that comes from being nobody.\n\nOn the one hand, it seems that our desire to join a community is inspired by an innate drive to transcend the loneliness and isolation of singularity. And as such, it is certainly a positive thing. The impulse to connect with others, to identify with a group, seems to be a variant of the urge we all have to drop the obsession with individualism and lose ourselves in something greater. Our interest in associating our discrete, isolated lower selves with a nation, a race, an economic class, or a political party is, from this point of view, motivated by a kind of secular expression of our spiritual longing to drop being ourselves and be nobody through connection to a larger whole.\n\nAs we know from personal experience, it is exactly in those times when we discard the burden of self-consciousness and the striving to be somebody that we feel a sense of relief, spaciousness, and fulfillment. And so it is that we can lose ourselves in a group, gaining a sense of belonging and camaraderie, which is all well and good . . . up to a point.\n\nIf we exaggerate the defining importance of any one of these group identities and take pride in our communal sense of self, we're asking for trouble. For each of them is a mere role we play (or have been given to play) in the game of life, and each is quite different from our essential and higher Self. If we focus monomaniacally on any one of these social personalities\u2014elevating it to a supreme position, and then submerging the lower individual self into this collective identity\u2014we have the complete formula for fanaticism and for a new kind of alienation from others.\n\nIndividual identification through the collecting and blending of various communal identities can at best only partly, and never essentially, define any of us. For an individual's connections with a set of groups is only a small component of what comprises that person. Each of us is much more (or, you might say, ultimately much less!) than the groups with which we are associated.\n\nWe are not wholly defined by being card-carrying members of one club or another, and when it comes to our true nature, our wallets are altogether empty of such nonessential credentials.\n\nOur attempts to forge some kind of special individual identity through our memberships in larger social groupings are all just more carnival cutouts into which we stick our particular faces. In the great internal war that we discussed at the end of the last chapter, it seems as though identification through association is most often aligned with the \"be somebody\" side of things rather than the \"be nobody\" faction.\n\nWhat over-identifying with one or another of our collective guises inevitably entails is not only being included in some group but also not being included in others. Groups are defined negatively as well as positively: If I'm an Australian, it means I'm not a New Zealander; if I'm a Democrat, I'm certainly not a Republican.\n\nFor while the ego is immersed in and defined by the group, the group is in turn usually defined by who is excluded. And when we constitute membership in one or another of these collectivities as exclusive, separating out an \"us\" from a \"them,\" we obscure or even deny the deep commonalities we share with all other living beings.\n\nWe seek to overcome the pangs of loneliness and isolation and gain a sense of community in such group identifications. But if we overestimate them and give them overweening dominance in how we think of ourselves, we re-create the conditions for estrangement from and animosity toward others. Submersion of one's distinct individuality into a group identity can end up being just a repositioning of the will to be somebody.\n\nAnd too often, being somebody requires that we not be somebody else, and once again we find ourselves alienated from others.\n\n### TOO HEAVENLY MINDED AND NO EARTHLY GOOD\n\nIt is especially ironic that religious identities have so often functioned to separate human beings into oppositional factions. As with our association with other groupings, identifying with and taking pride in one or another of the religious traditions\u2014\"I am a Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim,\" or whatever\u2014endows us with a sense both of belonging and of distinctiveness. But insofar as our connection to one or another of the organized and institutionalized religious \"isms\" is understood to preclude rather than enable our sense of a shared humanity, it has at least the same divisive, if not lethal, potential as national or political identities.\n\nLiving in an age when boundaries of all sorts are breaking down, traditional markers of religious identity are increasingly anachronistic. What really matters is not the particular group one adheres to, but rather the universally promoted spiritual message, which is one of tolerance, love, and respect for others, no matter what tribe they are a part of.\n\nThere was once a group of young Westerners who were visiting India back in the sixties, in the early days of the Tibetan exodus from Chinese persecution and the establishment of refugee communities in places like Dharamsala. The Dalai Lama at that time was not the famous international figure and Nobel Prize recipient he is today, and according to this anecdote the motley crew of European and American hippies walked right up to His Holiness's house and banged on his door.\n\nAnd the Dalai Lama, as the story goes, came to the door and said, \"Hello. What can I do for you?\" and joined the Westerners on the verandah for a bit of a chat.\n\nThe discussion, as one might guess, turned to the topic of religion. One of the Westerners was quite adamantly antireligious and got into his host's face about it: \"How can you in good conscience act as leader of a world religion? Religion has caused nothing but trouble throughout human history\u2014it's been nothing but a source of violence, dissention, and animosity! How can you justify yourself?\"\n\nThe Dalai Lama purportedly said this: \"Religion is really not about vertically dividing ourselves into separate compartments like Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Taoist, and the rest. Rather, it's better to draw the line horizontally. Those who practice religion, regardless of label, are pretty much all alike. And those who don't practice religion, whether formally affiliated or not, are also pretty much alike.\"\n\nSo what unites all the real practitioners of religion, regardless of which (if any) of the world's faiths they adhere to? Surely the core message of any authentic spiritual path is the cultivation of a universal love, leading to a sense of unity among all people, irrespective of differences in culture, race, economic standing, political belief . . . or formal religious affiliation (or the lack thereof). Those who are practicing religion (and this includes those who disavow formal association with any particular religion) are practicing being more expansive and inclusive in their love, compassion, empathy, and sense of interconnectedness with others. And those who aren't practicing the true intent of religion are in the business of creating more, not less, divisiveness and ill will among people\u2014often very loudly!\n\nReligion, it has been said, is like a swimming pool. All the noise is coming from the shallow end.\n\nBack in my academic days, I once had the opportunity to join a group of students who were having lunch with one of the eminent scholars of comparative religion at the time, Wilfred Cantwell Smith. At some point in the conversation, Professor Smith was asked whether he was a Christian. The answer was quite memorable: \"I can't really say. You'll have to ask those who know me\u2014my family and friends.\"\n\nTo be a real Christian (or Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, Taoist, and so on) means that you try to live like one. And surely that must include living a life guided by the universally extolled religious principles of kindness and love (not animosity and hatred) for others, and the cultivation of harmony and fraternity with (and not estrangement from and enmity toward) others.\n\nIf we want to claim to be a Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Taoist, and so on, we should try to act like one. And this will not involve trying to be somebody by means of exclusive religious branding, but rather will necessitate cultivating the willingness to be nobody through the practice of humility, universal brother- and sisterhood, and the abandonment of egoistical self-regard\u2014even, or especially, when enveloped in a religious guise.\n\nIf we're too obsessed with our religious identity, we can lose sight of our responsibilities to our fellow human beings. We become so \"heavenly minded\" that we're \"no earthly good,\" as the Johnny Cash song would have it:\n\nYou're shinin' your light, and shine it you should\n\nBut you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good.\n\nOverweening pride of all sorts has disastrous consequences. If someone brags about standing, they surely will fall, as the Man in Black so aptly notes in the song. But there's no pride like spiritual pride. Taking undue self-satisfaction in our religious affiliation or, even worse, in our supposedly exceptional spiritual realizations, blinds us to the very thing a genuine path is supposed to lead to\u2014the end of the clinging to the little, egoistic self, and the realization of our true universal nature and interconnection with all others. If we're too heavenly minded and proud, we're no earthly good at all.\n\n### JUDGE NOT, LEST YE BECOME A JUDGMENTAL PRIG\n\nIt is easy to forget that learning to be nobody is both the ultimate goal of any authentic spiritual path and the royal road to true happiness. The very institution that throughout history has been responsible for transmitting this redemptive message has also repeatedly been usurped in order to subvert and invert the good news. Pride in one's religion has too often been used to shun those with beliefs that differ from one's own\u2014to judge and condemn outsiders in order to extol and congratulate the insiders.\n\nIt is, of course, not just religious people who are proud and judgmental. This is yet another way in which we are alike\u2014we all have the tendency to be forever placing ourselves above and judging others. But it's sad to say that, when it comes to being judgmental and feeling superior, so-called religious people often seem to excel.\n\nWe do not become better and happier people by elevating ourselves over others or through judging. Au contraire. Judging destroys our wisdom, our forbearance, and our love and compassion, and leaves us just feeling smug and isolated.\n\nHere's how it goes, if you're like me: We encounter a complex, constantly changing person or transitory situation, and then we freeze-frame the picture and impose some immutable characteristic on our snapshot: \"He is a bad person; she is a liar.\" Passing judgments like this\u2014and we all tend to do it, don't we?\u2014denies a basic fact of life: everything and everybody is impermanent and in a perpetual state of flux and change.\n\nWe know how complex we are\u2014each one of us is an incredibly intricate mass of experiences, proclivities, memories, opinions, influences, and feelings. We're so complex, it's hard to know who we really are! But when we encounter one another, we seem to forget that others are at least as complicated. When such meetings occur, it's like one tiny edge of the huge balloon that is \"me\" touches a minute portion of the massive balloon that is \"you.\" And on such paltry, fragmentary evidence, I make my determination: \"He is such an irritating person! She is so conceited!\"\n\n\"Judging,\" observes author William Young, always \"requires that you think yourself superior over the one you judge.\" And it is always in the service of ego-enhancement, for as Eckhart Tolle points out,\n\nThere is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position\u2014a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right.\n\nJudging is, therefore, both deeply implicated in ignorance and precludes any sort of deep sense of kinship between ourselves and others. Instead of bringing us closer, the tendency to judge tears us apart. Rather than helping us appreciate our commonalities (including our common tendency to be judgmental!), judging imposes a rank order where (in our imaginations, at least) we're on top and others cower guiltily below.\n\nAs Mother Teresa said, \"If you judge people, you have no time to love them.\" And as Jesus advised long before, \"Judge not, that you be not judged.\" What goes around will come around: \"For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.\" We know how unfair and hurtful it feels to have others judge us to be essentially this or that\u2014wrong, bad, ugly, stupid, and so on. And yet, as usual, we create the causes for more of this by doing it to others.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nNow, let's be clear. To refrain from judging does not mean that we no longer are allowed to make distinctions among things. In Buddhism, the ability to discriminate is counted as one of the five physical and mental parts, or \"aggregates\" (samskaras), that make up our very being.I We cannot help but discriminate; it is innate to our nature, and without it everything would be one big indistinguishable blob.\n\nBut there is a difference between judgment and what we might call \"discernment.\" To discern means simply to recognize things as distinct from one another (from the Latin discernere, dis\\- meaning \"apart\" and cernere meaning \"to separate\"). And with its connotations of being able to recognize or comprehend something (\"He discerned a pattern in his behavior\"), it is not bound up in ignorance (as with judgment) but rather it is the essence of wisdom.\n\nWhile judgment inhibits learning, discernment is the very soul of it. It functions to distinguish, among other things, what works to bring happiness and what doesn't. Discernment involves identifying what is good for ourselves and others and what is not; what will be useful in our quest to live the good life, alone and in company, and what will only bring more pain.\n\nDiscernment is discrimination minus the self-righteousness and egoism that accompany judgment. It is fundamentally egalitarian rather than hierarchical\u2014what I correctly discern to be beneficial for myself will also be good for you. Hurting others, selfishness, self-cherishing, and, yes, judging are not conducive to happiness, either for me or for anyone else. Loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and wise discernment bring happiness to anyone who cultivates them.\n\nDiscernment helps us honor Jesus's advice to take care that there be no hypocrisy fouling our evaluations:\n\nAnd why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, \"Let me remove the speck from your eye\"; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.\n\nThere's a difference between different modes of differentiating. It's not discrimination that's the problem here. But we often exercise the discriminating capacity in a judgmental modality, a way of differentiating that is conducive neither to our own happiness nor to the betterment of our relations with others. This very same ability to discriminate can be used to appreciate the distinctive and unique beauty and goodness in every particular thing and being. We all are indeed special somebodies . . . equally special in our own way.\n\nOne way to foster a healthy exercise of discrimination is to note that in every person there are good attributes as well as bad; in every situation, no matter how difficult and challenging, there are positive aspects and things to learn. Every cloud has a silver lining; every \"problem\" can also be seen as an opportunity; every person possesses at least some admirable and loveable traits if we look for them.\n\nWe perversely are so drawn to the negative side of things that we systematically ignore the positives that are always present\u2014in ourselves, in another person, in a situation, and in groups (national, ethnic, social, economic, or religious) other than our own.\n\nIt's like when we get a small sore, cut, or scratch. The whole rest of the body is fine, but instead of thinking about all the bits that are OK, all the parts that are working well, we become obsessed with this one little scab and we keep picking at it. We fixate on the dark cloud instead of the silver lining.\n\nSince we all innately have the ability to differentiate, why not exercise that power to choose that which will bring more happiness to ourselves and others instead of less, and that which will bring us together rather than separate us?\n\n### BIG FISH IN A SMALL POND\n\nWhether we pride ourselves on our individual status, possessions, or accomplishments, or on our association with a national, ethnic, or religious group, when such vanity serves to prop up our sense of importance, it sets us up to fall.\n\nEgotistical pride is universally regarded as an obstacle to true spiritual progress, and therefore to true happiness. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, pride made it onto the list of the top five or six of the \"mental afflictions\" that militate against our sense of well-being and contentment. The whole of the religion known as Islam takes its name from the Arabic term for overcoming one's pride and practicing submission (islam) to God's will. And in Catholicism, pride is listed among the \"seven deadly sins\"\u2014and, indeed, is often regarded as the worst of them. C. S. Lewis calls it \"the essential vice, the utmost evil\":\n\nAccording to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice; it is the complete anti-God state of mind.\n\nPride is a vice not so much because it is \"bad\" but because it is self-destructive. From a karmic point of view, as we shall see below, pride is one of the principal causes of depression and low self-esteem. What is elevated too high will fall very low; what rises up into the stratosphere comes crashing down into the depths.\n\nPride sets itself up to lose, in both the short run and the long run. In the short run, pride can only sustain its illusion of superiority by remaining a big fish in a small pond.\n\nIn my own case, I have taken pride in my intelligence since I was in elementary school. I remember feeling quite pleased back then to think that I was the smartest kid in my class. This may or may not have been true\u2014relative \"smartness\" is slippery to measure, and memory definitely plays its tricks\u2014but in any case there were only twenty or thirty others to whom I could compare myself.\n\nConvincing myself that I was \"the smartest\" was less sustainable in high school\u2014especially since I nearly flunked eleventh grade due to truancy!\u2014and even harder to maintain in college (there was that course in logic that I just barely passed, and plenty of other ego deflators and reality checks along the way). But it really wasn't until I got to graduate school that this particular illusion was completely blown out of the water. The truth finally penetrated through all the levels of self-deception that sustained my pride. It became indubitable that there were plenty of people way smarter than me\u2014for there they were, lots of them, teeming around me at the university every single day.\n\nAnd then, of course, a new mental affliction arose: envy. But that's a different story.\n\nThe point is just that pride in anything (intelligence, wealth, technical skill, physical beauty or strength or flexibility, or even in one's supposed spiritual attainments) can only be maintained in willful isolation from those who would challenge it.\n\nWhile depression and problems associated with low self-esteem are on the rise, it is not contradictory to observe that it is actually the narcissistic overestimation of the self that lies at the heart of this beast. One modern expert has baldly stated, \"There doesn't seem to be a great deal of really low self-esteem. The average person already thinks that he or she is above average.\" This double-faced Janus\u2014simultaneously insecure and arrogant, self-abasing and self-absorbed\u2014is consistent with the neurosis that arises with the self-preoccupation definitive of our culture.\n\nSo here's one helpful hint for solving the problem of pride: If you're liable to take inordinate self-regard due to your intellect, go to Harvard or the University of Chicago and hobnob with some hardcore eggheads. If you are vain about your good looks, stop hanging around with people you feel are obviously uglier and enter a beauty contest! If you think you're so amazing because of your money, quit socializing with those who have less and chill with really rich people! If you think you're cool because of the flexibility you demonstrate when at your local yoga studio, go to an international yoga conference and check out the real competition.\n\nGet the fish out of the small pond and into the ocean!\n\nPride takes a lot of work to maintain and prolong\u2014not only in light of the constant real-life challenges to its inflated sensibility but also because of the impermanent and changing nature of the things we take pride in. The financial position or professional status, the popularity and fame, the cleverness or brainpower, and (especially!) the appearance and abilities of the physical body are unreliable. That's why pride and insecurity are actually two peas in a pod.\n\n### THE KARMIC CAUSES OF DEPRESSION\n\nBut it's the long run\u2014the karmic consequences of pride\u2014that we're especially concerned with here. So let's cut to the chase, shall we?\n\nLed by pride into the lower realms, they are even in this human life deprived of joy. They will be servants who feed on others' leftovers\u2014stupid, ugly, and weak. Stuck up with pride and miserable, they will be despised by everyone.\n\nAs we unpack this verse from the Buddhist classic Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, we see that, first of all, the karmic principle of \"What goes around comes around\" is here reformulated as \"What goes up must come down.\" The high shall be made low; the first shall be last. The proud will sink in the afterlife into \"lower realms,\" and even in this life will feel inferior, like \"servants\" of others. Those who take pride in their intellect will see themselves as stupid; those whose arrogance centers on their good looks will regard themselves as ugly; and those vain about their strength will feel weak. Having been too proud, one perceives oneself as inadequate intellectually and physically and, in general, will feel unloved by others (\"despised by everyone\").\n\nThe proud, according to the laws of karma, will become the depressed.\n\nBut what's really interesting and insightful about this passage is that it also states that the proud will remain proud, even after they have been brought low: \"Stuck up with pride and miserable,\" the text says, pointing not only to the idea that karma tends to replicate itself (one of the effects of pride being a future propensity to continue to feel pride), but also to the fact that one can be proud even while simultaneously feeling miserable, inadequate, and unloved.\n\nOr perhaps it's like this: it is possible to be proud of feeling miserable, inadequate, and unloved.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMedical science has not identified any single cause of depression. A whole array of factors, external and internal, is said to be capable of triggering it in any given individual. External causes might include family conflict, interpersonal conflict, bereavement, job loss, major life changes, and drug or alcohol abuse. (Sounds like a description of life itself, doesn't it?) Internal causes seem a bit more vague: previous negative experiences (e.g., a history of depression), \"personality\" (e.g., a tendency toward perfectionism), medical illness, and \"family disposition\" (i.e., bad genes).\n\nAs one expert summarizes the situation, \"The precise causes of these [depressive] illnesses continue to be a matter of intense research.\" Decoded, that means, \"We really don't know exactly what causes depression.\"\n\nAncient Indian logic texts distinguish between a \"cause\" (hetu) and a \"condition\" (pratyaya). A \"cause\" is what's absolutely necessary if there is to be the effect. The cause must be there before the effect will be produced, and if the cause is not there, the effect can never come about. An oak tree cannot grow without an acorn to function as its seed.\n\nBut a cause isn't a cause until it's activated by the right circumstances. A \"condition\" acts as a sort of midwife to help the cause give birth to its result. The acorn is the cause of the oak tree, for without it you'll never get an oak tree. But the acorn needs certain conditions to occur for it to operate as the cause of the oak tree. It has to be planted in the right kind of soil and given water and sunlight. Without the proper conditions, the cause can't perform its function.\n\nWhen it comes to the origins and treatment of depression and low self-esteem, we should be careful not to mistake what are just conditions for real causes. The so-called external causes for depression listed above\u2014family or interpersonal conflict, loss of a loved one or job, and so on\u2014can't really properly be regarded as such. They certainly can act as conditions for enkindling the true cause. But there are plenty of people who suffer through such experiences in life without getting depressed, and depression can arise apart from undergoing such experiences.\n\nAnd the same is true with respect to the supposedly \"internal causes.\" It's not necessary to have had previous negative experiences or some personality defect or a medical illness or a particular genetic disposition in order to succumb to depression.\n\nHere, as in so many other areas of modern, secular life, is where we must push what I call the \"Why, Daddy?\" question. You know, like that little kid who won't quit asking Daddy or Mommy \"Why? . . . Why? . . . Yeah, but why?\" As adults, we should ask similar questions of our secular experts:\n\nWhy am I so depressed, Doctor?\n\nWell, you just lost your job.\n\nBut my friends at work were also laid off, and they didn't get depressed like me. Why am I depressed?\n\nYou lost your job, plus you have a genetic predisposition to depression.\n\nYeah, that's true, but my brother's been through all kinds of terrible experiences in life, and he's never been depressed! And anyway, how come my family has depression genes when other families don't? Why me, Doctor? Why?\n\nAnd just like the little kid who keeps asking \"Why, Daddy?\" eventually we get the same answer from the doctor that we give to our inquisitive four-year-old children:\n\nJust because. No reason. It's random. Bad luck.\n\nIn my case, it wasn't that I lost a job, but rather that I got one that seemed to set off my own depression. For twelve years, throughout college and graduate school, I had been told over and over by my professors that I probably wouldn't get a teaching position in my unmarketable, specialized field. Comparative religion with an emphasis on the religions of ancient India wasn't exactly a lucrative field of study with a huge demand that needed filling.\n\nAnd sure enough, when I finished my studies and went looking for a job in my field, there weren't many openings. And there were lots and lots of brilliant, well-trained applicants for each one of the very few available positions.\n\nIn the year when I was up for employment, I not only landed one of the few jobs advertised, I got the very best of them\u2014a plum position in the Ivy League. And within four months, I was checked into a local psychiatric ward and put on twenty-four-hour suicide watch.\n\nGetting the great job obviously was not what caused my depression, but none of the other possibilities I explored with my therapist seemed to sufficiently explain things, either: the difficult relationship with my father, past traumas that had been left unexamined, an \"imposter syndrome\" that made me afraid I'd be found out to be a sham. No one of these, nor any of the other possibilities that modern therapy could come up with, rose to \"acorn\" status; they were all just conditions (\"soil,\" \"sunlight,\" \"water\") that inexplicably came together to precipitate a cause that was yet to be identified.\n\nA depressed person feels like a \"real nobody,\" but, if there is to be a surefire cure for the malady, we should first identify the true source of the ailment.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt is within the spiritual traditions that we must look for the real causes of our experiences. Religions offer answers to the \"Why, Daddy?\" questions of life. But if we are to be empowered to really help ourselves, we cannot even here remain satisfied with answers that render us impotent victims. Agreeing to religious explanations like \"God's inscrutable will\" doesn't get us any further than secular, scientific answers like \"genetic predisposition.\" Both of them end up sounding like \"Too bad! Just your tough luck!\" and leave us in the same powerless and helpless place.\n\nFortunately, there are other explanations for what causes depression and low self-esteem. And knowing them gives us power: if we no longer create the cause, the effect will arise no more. But in order to gain the power, we have to accept the responsibility.\n\nThe truth of the matter is that we experience depression and low self-esteem because of specific kinds of actions we've done in the past. What goes around really does come around. We do in fact reap what we sow, and this is an absolute truism in every authentic spiritual path: good acts bring pleasant experiences; bad acts bring undesirable consequences.\n\nWhile the ancient texts offer several candidates for the karmic cause of depression\u2014including anger (animosity toward others boomerangs into hatred of the self) and \"idle speech\" (talking trash comes back at us as the feeling that we are trash)\u2014there's one that's by far the most glaring: pride. It serves as the cause and then repositions itself as the self-centered perpetuator of our self-esteem problems.\n\nIt seems paradoxical only because of our fundamental confusion and ignorance: low self-esteem is the consequence of high self-regard. And what's even less apparent is the fact that identifying oneself as a \"depressed person\" is just another way, albeit a sad and twisted one, to take pride in being somebody special.\n\n### BEING SOMEBODY SPECIAL AS NOBODY SPECIAL\n\nAmong the many nasty aspects of pride is the fact that it is good at concealing itself from those of us who have it (and, let's be honest, we all have some version of it). \"There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular,\" observes C. S. Lewis, \"and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.\" Pride can pretend it's not there, when really it has just relocated itself.\n\nAnd so it is that pride and overweening self-regard can even express themselves through self-deprecation. The individual self, in its desperate attempt to be somebody, can stake its claim to be somebody special because it feels so worthless\u2014and so it asserts its special status in just that way, as a \"depressed person.\"\n\nAs Eckhart Tolle has written, \"If you take away one kind of identification, the ego will quickly find another. It ultimately doesn't mind what it identifies with as long as it has an identity.\" The \"somebody self,\" if unable or unwilling to find confirmation in anything else, will go looking for validation in its own suffering. Physical and psychological disabilities can, as easily as anything else, become the individual's defining quality:\n\nYou can just as easily identify with a \"problematic\" body and make the body's imperfection, illness, or disability into your identity. You may then think and speak of yourself as a \"sufferer\" of this or that chronic illness or disability. . . . You then unconsciously cling to the illness because it has become the most important part of who you perceive yourself to be. . . . Once the ego has found an identity, it does not want to let go.\n\nIt may seem surprising to those who have never suffered from depression to learn that nobody thinks of themselves more than somebody who is depressed. But even those who have only experienced \"a bad day\" or just \"a little case of the blues\" will recognize the phenomenon: when you're feeling down, you aren't interested in much else besides how down you feel.\n\nDepression is a caricature of the main cause of depression. Depression is ultimately caused by thinking about oneself all the time, and is experienced as the inability to think about anyone other than oneself.\n\nMr. Karma (who is no one other than your own conscience and consciousness) has a sort of sick sense of humor. He notices when we're constantly preoccupied with ourselves\u2014What about me? What about me?\u2014and says, \"OK. You want to focus on yourself all the time? Try this!\" We get depressed, unable to get out of our own heads and stop the repetitive, broken record of how bad we feel.\n\nAnd then, performing another trick from its vast repertoire, the \"somebody self\" identifies with this \"depressed person\" it has fabricated. We are so desperate to be somebody that we're willing to stick our heads into even this kind of carnival cutout: If I can't be a good enough anybody else, at least I can be somebody as a nobody. The ego tries to solve the problem of low self-esteem by assuming the role of \"somebody with low self-esteem.\"\n\nAnd tragically, this designation of the self as \"a depressed self\"\u2014now more self-centered than ever and taking perverse pride in its self-defining misery\u2014re-creates the very cause that brought about this dismal state of affairs in the first place.\n\nDepression is a downward cycle, in more ways than one.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe culture of narcissism that encourages rampant self-obsession and self-congratulatory pride has had unfavorable ramifications when it comes to the pursuit of true happiness. The precipitous rise in depression and the steep plunge in self-esteem can be directly correlated to living in a society where the unconstrained preoccupation with the self has taken on pathological dimensions.\n\nWhile we've drawn the karmic correlations between, on one hand, egotism and pride, and on the other hand the calamitous fall into the bleakness of depressed self-absorption, you don't really even have to accept karma to perceive the relationship between the two. Selfishness doesn't make us feel better about ourselves, which we know if we check in on our own experience. And in fact it makes us feel much worse, depressingly so.\n\nThe karmic causes of depression\u2014anger; idle speech, either in the form of self-righteous gossiping about others or making promises that aren't kept; and the pride, arrogance, and judgmental mindset that cause us to place ourselves above others\u2014these are all expressions of a more fundamental root problem: self-centeredness. And correspondingly, the real causes of happiness (and the cures for depression) will all orbit around the same foundational source: selflessness and altruistic concern for our fellow human beings.\n\nIn the next chapter, we'll see that the usual forms of self-absorption are in fact based on a grand illusion. While in our culture of narcissism we invest so much time and effort in appeasing the needs of a divinized, egoistic self, the status of that deity is insecure\u2014and for very good reason. The \"somebody self,\" one might say, is in a perpetual identity crisis because it suspects (while at the same time it denies) that it isn't really real.\n\nWhen we actually go looking for the self we feel so intuitively is there\u2014it makes such constant demands, after all!\u2014a sneaking suspicion starts to grow that there's really nobody home. For the self we are so obsessed with and take such pride in has only an apparitional existence, and our obsession turns out to be no more than chasing a shadow.\n\nThis is not, however, the nihilistic tragedy we might fear. When we give up looking for the somebody who's not really there\u2014when we come up empty-handed in our futile search for some unchanging and all-controlling entity amidst our many and variegated personae and appearances\u2014we begin to realize that the nobody we're left with isn't just a big nothing.\n\nWising up about the real nature of the \"somebody self\" makes it possible for us to become a happier somebody. It's through accessing the infinite potentiality of being nobody that we can really begin to help and improve ourselves.\n\nAction Plan: Managing Pride\n\nMake a list of personal traits that you are proud of\u2014your looks or physical abilities, acquired skills, natural gifts, accomplishments, whatever. This is not the time to be falsely humble. We're all proud of something about ourselves.\n\nFirst off, consider whether these traits are permanent and will always be with you. Do you really suppose that you will always be beautiful, strong, clever, adept, successful, or famous? How will you feel when what you are proud of is diminished or lost altogether due to the ravages of time and changing circumstances?\n\nSecond, check to see whether the pride you take in these characteristics is only in relation to others who don't have them or who have only lesser versions of them. Isn't it always the case that what you're proud of depends on feelings of superiority to others?\n\nFinally, reflect on the fact that there are others who definitely have more or better versions of these traits. Be more realistic about your place in life: are you really the most talented, beautiful, rich, skilled, accomplished, or intelligent? Get the fish out of the small pond, at least theoretically, and realize your true place in whatever hierarchy you've bought into!\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. The five aggregates that comprise the basis for our sense of self are the physical body, the ability to discriminate, consciousness, feelings, and mental imprints.\n\n## 3\n\n## Clutching at Straws and Chasing Shadows\n\nKnock, knock.\n\nWho's there?\n\nExactly.\n\n\u2014\u2014Author unknown\n\n### FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE (OR GAIN)\n\nBeneath it all, it is only true contentment\u2014the glorious sensation of being utterly free, unencumbered, and relaxed\u2014that we all desire. The goals depicted in many religions reflect this understanding of what we are shooting for: moksha or mukti (both meaning \"liberation\") in Hinduism; nirvana (the great \"extinguishing\" or \"sigh of relief\" as one becomes free of all troubling thoughts and feelings) in Buddhism; the dropping of the old self and being \"born again\" into Christ; the release that comes from following God's will and law in Judaism and Islam.\n\nWe all want to be free. So what, exactly, are the chains that bind us? What is the nature of the prison that we feel encloses us?\n\nBeing free isn't just a matter of doing, saying, or thinking anything that comes into your head. That much should be obvious to anyone who has lived more than a few years in the company of other humans. We've tried that version of \"freedom\" over and over and over again, to no avail. Whenever some strong impulse arises, unless thwarted by fear of reprisal (or jail!), we usually just give in to it, consequences be damned! We yell back at those who yell at us, try to hurt those who hurt us, plot our revenge when we feel betrayed . . . just because we \"feel like it.\"\n\nUntil we have thoroughly trained ourselves, we are enslaved by our negative emotions, our mental afflictions. When anger, jealousy, pride, or lust raise their nasty little heads, we are usually rendered helpless in their thrall. Worse yet, we stick our head into the carnival cutouts of these irrational feelings and say, \"I am angry! I am depressed! I am jealous!\"\n\nAmong the large array of mental afflictions that plague and tyrannize us (the Buddha said we have 84,000 of them!), two lie at the root of our unhappiness and imprisonment.\n\nThey are desire and ignorance.\n\n\"Desire\" here really means perpetual dissatisfaction\u2014with what we have, with the life we are leading, and with who we are. It's like when we have an itchy mosquito bite. We scratch the itch, hoping that by doing so it won't itch anymore.\n\nWe're slaves to our itches, and that's one very important way in which we are not free. We get a hankering for a new iPhone and the itch begins: If only I had the new iPhone! You know, the one with that little computer voice named Siri that talks to you? Then I'd be happy. Or one or another of the myriad versions of the itch: If only that girl would pay attention to me. If only I had a better job. If only I were rich, famous, popular.\n\nI, I, I and if only, if only\u2014the repetitive call of incessant yearning and discontent, the \"somebody self\" always wanting more.\n\nAnd so we try scratching. We save our money for the iPhone, or try to get the phone number from the beautiful babe or stud-muffin dude, or apply for a different job, or try to be more (more wealthy, more famous, more popular, more attractive) of a somebody.\n\nAnd every time we scratch, it's in the hope that there won't be any more itches.\n\nWe all know what happens next. It's just like those pesky mosquito bites\u2014the more you scratch them, the more irresistibly the itch returns. The relief is at best temporary, and then after a brief respite the desire comes roaring back, more demanding than ever.\n\nAnd so freedom, we could say, is nothing more than the exalted state of itchlessness\u2014being satisfied with everything we have, with \"nothing left to lose,\" as Janis Joplin says in her famous song, and nothing more to gain.\n\nThe liberation we seek with all our scratching consists of simply not being beset with new and improved itches all the time. This is called by another name: \"contentment,\" and it is what we hope to attain with every attempt to satisfy our desires. We hope that, by fulfilling this particular craving, we won't want anything more. We hope that each scratch will be the last one; that finally, with this one last scrape, we'll be satisfied.\n\nMaybe there's more than just contentment at the end of our spiritual journey. Maybe there's heaven or a Pure Land with all kinds of rainbows in the sky and unicorns bounding about. And maybe we'll all be angels, blissfully flapping around with supernatural abilities and X-Men superpowers. I can't, in all honesty, say with any certainty that there won't be.\n\nBut I do know this: If we shoot for contentment\u2014the Great Itchlessness\u2014it won't matter one way or the other. Once we become content, it will be impossible to be discontented with our lives and ourselves\u2014with or without streets paved with gold and divine bodies made of beautiful light. It's win-win when it comes to contentment! If there's more in addition to that, great; and if there's not, well, that will be OK too, because we'll be content!\n\nAnd, of course, all this itching and scratching is in the service of being somebody. We believe that status and personal fulfillment will come through scratching, through obtaining something we don't already have or more (or less) of what we already possess.\n\nThis would be far more understandable if we were lacking the necessities of life. But for readers of this book, I'll wager, it's not for want of proper food or shelter or clothing, nor for lack of education or opportunities to make a decent living, nor due to the absence of friends and loved ones that we remain discontented with our lives.\n\nWe aren't among the three billion people living on two dollars and fifty cents a day or less, nor are we among the 80 percent of the earth's population subsisting on less than ten dollars a day, nor among the one billion fellow human beings dwelling in slums, nor among a similar number who remain illiterate.\n\nWhat we really desire is the freedom from endless desires, especially when we already have so much. It's liberation from our incessant whining about how we don't have enough or aren't somebody enough. As for the first, when it comes to wealth, consumer goods, leisure time, access to education and information\u2014the nuts and bolts of the good life\u2014there's really no excuse for folks like us. We're just forgetting the basic facts of our lives; we're just spacing out. Say the mantra:\n\nOm, I have enough, ah hum!\n\nOur problems\u2014our itches\u2014are \"First World problems,\" which hardly deserve the name \"problems\" at all. Since our \"problems,\" when it comes to what we own and the material lives we lead, are of such an entirely different order than what others face, we do have a real shot at being content with the material circumstances of our lives.\n\nBut when it comes to what is termed \"self-fulfillment,\" well, that, you might say, is a different kettle of fish.\n\nSo now let us turn to the second of our two great mental afflictions: ignorance. As we shall see, there is a fundamental misunderstanding when it comes to who we think we are, and it lies at the heart of our problems.\n\n### THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL\n\nIn the Eastern spiritual traditions, ignorance performs the same quintessential role, when it comes to our unhappiness, that disobedience plays in the West. Readers brought up in Western societies all know the story: In the beginning, everything was jake. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden and swung in hammocks all day long. When they got hungry, they would leisurely pick fruit from the trees that God had generously provided for them. But there was one tree whose fruit God commanded them not to eat. And we know how the story goes from there: of course, they perversely did the one thing they were told not to do, and the rest is history. Adam and Eve were cursed, and they were thrown out of the Garden to fend for themselves. And so, according to the myth, our tale of woe begins.I\n\nIn the religious traditions stemming from India, it is ignorance, not insubordination to God's will, that's at the root of our problems. And in these Eastern traditions, there's usually no myth of origins offered to show how ignorance came into our lives.II Ignorance has been with us since time with no beginning, and each of us is simply born with it. It's a standard-issue part of the makeup for us as human beings (not to mention other life-forms).\n\nBecause of this ignorance, we make fundamental mistakes about who we are and how to live a good life. We really don't get it when it comes to what's what. And because we don't get it, we're really in for it!\n\nIgnorance (avidya in Sanskrit) is not so much not knowing as it is mis-knowing. Our minds invert things; we mistakenly think things are one way when actually they are another. In the ancient Yoga Sutra, ignorance is (and this is the norm in South Asian scriptures) said to be the \"field\" or \"breeding ground\" in which all the other mental afflictions grow. As long as the \"root\" of these negative emotions remains uncut, we will continue to suffer through life instead of finding true happiness.\n\nThe Yoga Sutra's definition of this Mother of All Mental Afflictions is interesting and comprehensive:\n\nIgnorance is the belief that what is impermanent is permanent, what is impure is pure, what will bring suffering will bring happiness, and what is without an essence has an essence.\n\nThis is, I know, quite a mouthful. But it does, I promise you, have direct bearing on both the real cause of our unhappiness and the disastrously wrong view we have about our individual identity.\n\nSo let's look carefully at what is meant by each of these four ways in which ignorance works to turn things upside down in our lives:\n\n1. We believe what is impermanent to be permanent.\n\nDoes this ever happen to us, do you think? All the time! We are perpetually thrown for a loop when impermanent things, things we thought wouldn't change, actually do change\u2014or else don't change precisely the way we wanted them to.\n\nOur relationships, our financial situation, our jobs, our possessions, our very bodies and thoughts and feelings\u2014everything in our lives is transitory and fleeting. When our partners change (\"Don't go changing,\" sings Billy Joel\u2014but how can any of us not?); when our once-operative computer freezes up; when the boss suddenly alters our job description; when we get depressed, sick, old, or die\u2014what is it but impermanence smacking us upside the head? Wake up! Did you think this would last forever?\n\nNo, you might protest, I know that things and people change. But I wanted them to go this way and instead they changed that way! Well, welcome to reality. We can't govern the specifics of how external things and other people will change any more than we can magically stop change from occurring at all.\n\nWe'll return below to the fantasy of the \"controlling self,\" that ignorant sense that we can, in the moment, micromanage our lives and the events and people in them to suit our own whims. But here's the point: change is, and the exact direction of how things change is not within our control. Thinking that changing things won't change, or believing that we can decree the precise direction in which change will occur, sets us up for a big fall when reality makes its presence known.\n\n2. We believe what is impure to be pure.\n\nThe classic example of this misunderstanding involves the way we normally think about the human body. We sometimes, in our vanity, admire our own body for its good looks; even more often, we lust after the attractive, \"pure\" bodies of others.\n\nBut beauty, as they say, is only skin-deep, and really it's not even that. Even at skin level, up close and personal, we're all pretty much the same, and it's not that fetching. The epidermis of you, me, Angelina Jolie, and Johnny Depp is equally hairy, pocked, flaky, and mole-, pimple-, and freckle-marked.\n\nAnd when we go subterranean, deeper than skin-deep, well, it's sort of a horror show, isn't it? One Buddhist text describes this \"pure\" body we're so enamored of as a bundle of \"hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidney, heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, stomach, bowels, intestines, excrement, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, serum, saliva, mucus, synovial fluid [whatever that is\u2014we probably don't want to know!], and urine.\"\n\nNot a pretty picture, when we actually think about it\u2014which we definitely don't like to do, especially in the throes of either narcissistic self-admiration or sexual longing for another.\n\nOne of my teachers used to argue that supermodels, as they promenade down the runways exhibiting their external exquisiteness (here's me on the outside!) should also be mandated to carry and display a colostomy bag (and here's me on the inside!). But that would sort of spoil the show, wouldn't it? Our attraction to the physical body as something \"pure\" and desirable requires a dose of fantasy and a dollop of willful overlooking of the disagreeable details.\n\nWhile it's important to maintain a certain level of self-acceptance when it comes to our own bodies, and while there's nothing intrinsically wrong in being appreciative of or attracted to the physical beauty of another man or woman, our ignorance comes in being unrealistic about what the human body really is. We suffer because of our illusions about our physicality. And these illusions include thinking that beauty, youthful appearance, strength, and flexibility are inherent and unchanging in ourselves and in others. (See above for mistaking impermanent things for permanent ones.)\n\n3. We believe what will bring suffering will bring happiness.\n\nThis one is sort of a catchall category that describes our ignorance when it comes to what we think will really pay off for us. Throughout our lives, we scurry about pursuing money, things, experiences, and other people, in the hopes that somehow they will make us happy. But instead, we are repeatedly let down and perpetually left dissatisfied. What we thought would bring happiness ends up leaving us feeling unfulfilled and discontent.\n\nWe've set things (and people) up to fail. External things and beings don't have it in their power to make us happy; at best, they can only bring a temporary spike in pleasure. Only we have the power to create real, deep, and lasting satisfaction within ourselves and our lives.\n\nTrue happiness can only come from within. It's not \"out there\" somewhere, oozing out from something or someone else. And when we go looking for it in other people or external things, instead of discovering happiness we find ourselves disappointed, disheartened, and sometimes infuriated.\n\n4. We believe what is without an essence has an essence.\n\nWhen it comes to ignorance, this one's sort of the \"root of the root\" and will lead us directly to our mistaken view of ourselves: We think that things that have no \"essences\" (the word in Sanskrit is anatman, often translated as \"no self\") do have some kind of enduring and definitive quality or characteristic (an essential \"self\" or atman).\n\nHere's an example of this kind of mistake. Just imagine that you have an annoying person in your life\u2014an angry boss, an exasperating ex, or a troublesome relative. When we encounter (or even think about) such challenging people, we feel strongly that it's obvious to us that they are defined by the traits we ascribe to them: they are irritating, exasperating, or troublesome (or provocative, mean, hurtful\u2014pick the adjective that is apropos of your own annoying person). Any fool could see it! That's the way they really are\u2014essentially.\n\nThe proof that there actually are no essentially angry, exasperating, or troublesome people in the world is rather obvious, although we choose to ignore it all the time: These people have friends. They have loved ones. They have loads of people in their lives who do not find them angry, exasperating, or troublesome.III\n\nThis some find perplexing\u2014so much so that they go to the bother of trying to convince this annoying person's friends, family, and acquaintances how wrong they are. How can you be friends with her? Let me tell you the real deal about him! But alas, the annoying person's friends, family, and acquaintances often persevere in their error, don't they?\n\nI once had a student raise his hand in class and say what we all think before the filter goes up that prevents really stupid things from coming out of our mouths: \"I know someone who everyone would find annoying.\" Like we should all get on a bus and go on a field trip to visit the one essentially annoying person in the world. We'd all file by that innately objectionable person and go, \"Ooh, yeah, that's right . . . so annoying!\" Like a lighthouse casting its beam, this annoying being would just exude annoyance, and whenever we entered the purview of The Essentially Annoying Person, we could not help but be annoyed.\n\nThis is a self-justifying fantasy, and one that's often fortified when we find a few other people who agree with our evaluation of the person in question. See, we say to ourselves, she really is annoying. It's a groundswell, a veritable movement, a bandwagon of right-thinking folks, all of whom agree with me!\n\nWell, in fact, no. It's not that you and your fellow travelers correctly see some definitive unsavory essence that eludes the perception of others. It's that you (and, OK, perhaps some others) respond in a certain disagreeable way to some aspect of the personality of another. It's not that someone is annoying; it's that you are annoyed.\n\nWe don't see the world and the people in it as they are; we see them as we are. There are no difficult people in the world until and unless you find them to be so.\n\nAnd as a result of not comprehending this fundamental fact of life, we suffer. Instead of working on what it is in us that is aroused by the annoying person, instead of locating and then fixing the button inside of ourselves that gets pushed, we just complacently assume that the difficulties we experience with our annoying person are the annoying person's fault\u2014because \"annoying\" is what they are, not just what they seem to us to be.\n\nThe same error can be made in reverse. Let's say you enjoy Ben & Jerry's ice cream, as I do. Chunky Monkey flavor, let's suppose. Mmmm. Tastes so good! It is good-tasting ice cream, and anyone in their right mind would agree!\n\nAnd then we encounter someone who doesn't like Chunky Monkey! Maybe they don't even like the Ben & Jerry's brand. Possibly, they don't care for ice cream at all!\n\nIf Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream had the essence of being tasty, everyone with working taste buds, and who was not insane, would find it so. But (amazingly to those of us who like B&J's CM), there are people of apparently sound mind and taste buds who don't take a shine to it.\n\nThe qualities that we assume are in the people, objects, and experiences in life are not really there. These qualities are coming from us, not at us. We're projecting them, not perceiving them. Sure, we have our reasons. They say this or do that, and this pisses us off. But others hear or see the same things and don't get pissed off. We find a person \"difficult\" only because we have difficulties with him or her. They are not intrinsically, inherently, or essentially \"difficult\"\u2014in spite of the way they may appear to us.\n\nThinking otherwise is a serious blunder, and one that we make all the time, much to our detriment. This kind of error is the condition of possibility for the kind of judgmental attitude we talked about in chapter 2, and for all the nastiness that comes in its wake.\n\nThis is, bottom line, raw and unadulterated ignorance. Wisdom 101 is the dawning of the realization that we got it all wrong, all back-ass-wards.\n\n### THE \"WHERE'S WALDO?\" SEARCH FROM HELL\n\nThere's an even more fundamental application of our tendency to err in our perception of how things and people really are, one that lies even deeper than the mistake of thinking that our \"annoying person\" is annoying, or that Ben & Jerry's ice cream is delicious.\n\nIf the Mother of All Mental Afflictions is ignorance, the Mother of All Ignorance is the belief in a kind of a \"self\" that has never existed. What we have called the \"root of the root\" when it comes to ignorance\u2014thinking things have an inherent essence when they do not\u2014has a root of its own: the \"root of the root of the root\" is ignorance about the nature of the self.\n\nWe believe that we ourselves have a fixed, inherently existing, definitive essence, a self (atman)IV, when there actually is no such thing (anatman). And it is really this foundational error that not only undergirds all our misperceptions but also undermines any chance we have for finding true happiness and real self-knowledge.\n\nThe \"self\" here is not what we've been referring to as the true or higher self (the Self, Buddha nature, or soul) that we can and do access when we cease thinking we're somebody and relax into being nobody. What is meant here is an individual, particularistic lower sense of identity\u2014the egoistic self, the being somebody self, the little-voice-inside-your-head self.\n\nIt's \"you\" (say your name to yourself) that we're talking about here. It's the self that rises up in defense of itself when falsely accused\u2014\"You stole my car!\" \"No, no, I didn't!\"\u2014it's that \"I\" we're now focused on. It's the self that has a birthday, and so will have a death day. It's the \"itchy self\" that's unhappy, discontented, and dissatisfied, and that, fortunately, has no essential existence as such.\n\nAnd until we see this caterpillar for the chimera it really is, we'll only have a passing acquaintance with our true butterfly nature, that part of us that is free, spacious, and unbounded, that real Self who has never been born and so will never die.\n\nTrying to locate the individual \"somebody self\" that we're so sure, in our ignorance, is really there is like trying to find that bespectacled little guy with the red-and-white striped shirt and beanie known as Waldo (aka \"Wally\" in some markets), hidden inconspicuously within a vast crowd of people.\n\nOnly it's worse, because in this case \"Waldo\" isn't there at all. No needle to find in the haystack. Attempting to locate the self that we are so convinced really exists but can't be found is like playing the \"Where's Waldo?\" from hell!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen we think of ourselves, who is it that we are thinking about?\n\nWho is it that we think sticks his or her head inside those carnival cutouts: the groups we identify with, the jobs that help define us, the roles we assume in our skein of relationships (father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, friend, enemy)? Who is it that we think is angry, jealous, proud, envious, or depressed?\n\nBeneath all the superstructure of personality makeup, memories, emotions, conditioning, and role-playing, who is the \"I\" that has a personality, a past, mental afflictions, an occupation, a set of relationships, and all these various roles to play?\n\nIn the Buddhist scriptures, it is said that the self we think exists but doesn't exist is one that (if it truly existed) would have three essential traits: it would be unitary, independent, and unchanging. But a particular, individual self\u2014the \"you\" that your name refers to\u2014with any of these three qualities is totally unfindable.V\n\nNow, dear reader, be forewarned: you might not appreciate how the proof for this unfolds. Your egoistic, self-infatuated but ultimately imaginary self will try to protect itself from being exposed for what it is. It will protest; it will feign boredom; it will say,\n\nOh, whatever. Let's take a break from reading this bit and get something to eat!\n\nHowever, ignorance is not bliss. The truth is what will set you free. But first, as Gloria Steinem once observed, it will piss you off.\n\nSo here we go . . .\n\nUnitary means we believe there's only one of us. Unless you have a serious case of multiple personality disorder, you think of yourself in the singular, not the plural. When we think or speak of ourselves, we say \"I,\" not \"we\" (monarchs using the royal \"we\" excepted).\n\nThe classical analysis when it comes to trying to find this particular Waldo is called \"The One or the Many.\" Is the self one thing, or is it many things? If the self were to exist in the way we think it does\u2014as a real thing, something perceptible\u2014it would have to be either one or the other.\n\nAlthough we normally assume that the egoistic, personalized self is unitary, we should ask ourselves, \"Does this supposed singular thing have parts?\" And yes, we could say we are indeed made up of two main components: physical and mental, the body and the mind.VI And we do, at different times, identify with one or another or both of these parts.\n\nIf I were to ask you, \"How old are you?\" and you gave me a number in response, you would have just identified with your body. And if in reply to the question \"How are you?\" you said \"I am upset, aggravated, pleased, OK,\" or whatever, you would have identified with your feelings, with your present state of mind.\n\nSo already there is a problem here. How can the one self be both the body (\"I am six feet tall\") and the mind (\"I am stressed out\")? That's two things, not one\u2014two kinds of selves, one physical and one mental, but not a unitary \"I.\"\n\nAnd when we look at either one of these two great portions of the supposed individual and indivisible self, we find that they themselves are not really single things either. What we call \"the body,\" as if it were one organism, is itself composed of many constituents\u2014the torso, the limbs, and then all those yucky things inside the body that we talked about earlier in this chapter. And each of these separate parts is infinitely divisible into its own constituent parts. Even a single finger can, upon investigation, be dissected into the part above the knuckle and the part below, the fingernail part and the part beneath the fingernail, the left side of the fingernail and the right side\u2014and on and on, ad infinitum.\n\nThere's no part of us that isn't further divisible into its own parts. That's what's entailed in saying \"a part\"; it's something that has a right side, a left side, a top, and a bottom (the parts of a physical object), which makes it different from other parts. And the same is true with a moment in time: a thought arises, lasts for a while, and then ends, and each of those three parts of the moment itself has a beginning, a middle, and an end.\n\nWhen we say something like \"right side\" or \"beginning,\" these parts of a part can always be further partitioned: \"right side of the right side, left side of the right side, top and bottom of the right side;\" or \"beginning of the beginning, middle of the beginning, end of the beginning.\"\n\nAnd so it is that if we think we are the body and\/or the mind, that self cannot be unitary, but in fact would be endlessly multiplied and fragmented.\n\nOh, come on! I didn't really think I actually was my parts. I'm not my body and mind; I have a body and mind. Now can we please stop thinking about this and get something to eat?\n\nOK then. So while we might sometimes carelessly identify with one or another of the various constituents of the self, maybe the \"I\" we think we are is separable from those parts. And this would be the second of the three qualities that we attribute to the personal self: independence.\n\nThe investigation applied to this second kind of misconception about the self is called \"The Same As or Different From?\" It goes like this: Is the self the same as the parts that comprise the self, or is it different from (i.e., independent of) those parts? And like \"the One and the Many,\" if the self really and truly exists the way we think it does, it can't logically be both. It's an either\/or proposition.\n\nSo let's check. If the self were the same as its parts, it couldn't be a unitary self, for as we've seen there are lots and lots of parts, physical and mental, that would comprise a self that was the same as its parts. If I were identical to the parts of me, there would be as many me's as there are parts to me.\n\nThat leaves the other option, that there's a self that is different from the parts. This would be a self that is independent of the parts, a self that has a body and mind. And \"independent\" means \"doesn't need them.\" The body and mind could then be heaped together in London while the self could somehow separately be in New York City.\n\nBut that's impossible, isn't it? For one thing, whose mind is it that's thinking about a self that exists apart from the mind that's thinking about such a self? And in any case, that's not the you-say-your-name-to-yourself self we are so sure must be somewhere floating around inside the mind-body complex.\n\nA room has four walls, but where is the room that has four walls? The self that we imagine has a body and mind is as unfindable as a unitary self that's the same as the body and mind. \"The self,\" like \"the room,\" cannot really exist independent of the parts that make its shadowy semblance possible.\n\nNow this is really enough! Why can't he just leave us alone? What about that snack?\n\nFinally, we turn to the third impossible thing that we believe when it comes to ourselves: the idea that there is an unchanging personal self. This is sometimes called the \"witness self\"\u2014an invariable \"I\" that has observed \"me\" growing up as a child, graduating from school, getting married, having a family, moving from one house to another, and is presently watching \"me\" get old and moving nearer and nearer to death.VII\n\nWe all have this sense that there is an unchanging witness self that carries on continuously as everything else\u2014life as a whole, one's thoughts and feelings, and every individual part of the body\u2014is perpetually and ceaselessly changing. So where's that Waldo? Can we really believe that there's a tangible, perceptible present self that is in any real way whatsoever the same as the self we were when we were three years old?\n\nYes, we can believe that, as long as we don't have to think about it, so just quit it already! Like Popeye said, \"I y'am what I y'am and that's all that I y'am!\" Why bother with all this! Let's just stop this thinking about things, OK? I'm hungry . . .\n\nTo \"The One or the Many\" and \"The Same As or Different From,\" we can now add a third kind of analysis to our \"Where's Waldo?\" search from hell: \"Changing or Unchanging?\" Where is the individual, particularistic self that remains unchanging as everything else in us and around us changes? Or more subtly, where's the self that undergoes change? If there's only a constantly fluctuating self, there's not also an unchanging witness self, let alone an unchanging self that also undergoes change.\n\nSo the exercise is now complete. Disoriented? Confused? Filled with objections? Well, it's no wonder. As I warned you above, the ego doesn't like this \"Where's Waldo?\" game one bit! All kinds of resistance arises in ourselves when we try to find the \"somebody self\" we think is ourselves!\n\nBut I just know I'm somebody! There's probably some trick here. How could it be that I'm really nobody when it feels so obvious that I am somebody? And I still didn't get my snack!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAnd there is a trick here, actually. The self can be thought of as both unitary and plural, as both the same as and different from its parts, as both changing and continuous\u2014because the self is just an idea, not a thing. From one perspective, the self can be conceptualized as singular, independent, and unchanging; and from another perspective it can be thought of as plural, contingent, and fluctuating. It depends how you look at it\u2014because the \"somebody self\" is not really there at all apart from our thinking it's there.\n\nWhen it comes to the little, individual, particularistic, snowflake, caterpillar self, there is not a findable unitary, independent, unchanging entity either inside or apart from the body and mind. The \"somebody self\" is not a discrete, discernable object; it is only a conceptualized image.\n\nWhen we say we have a \"self-image\" or a \"self-conception,\" we're way more accurate than when we say we have a self or when we claim to be somebody.\n\nThe \"Waldo\" we try to find when we go looking for it turns out to be only imaginary. Remember the movie Harvey, with Jimmy Stewart? The one whose lead character was always accompanied by an invisible six-foot rabbit? Well, the self we think we are is just as imaginary as Jimmy Stewart's friend Harvey the rabbit.\n\nBut imaginary things can feel quite real and can function quite well to bring us a lot of difficulty in life. The Mother of the Mother of All Mental Afflictions\u2014ignorance about what kind of self we think we have\u2014leads to all kinds of problems.\n\nOur belief in the \"self-existence\" of the personal self\u2014the feeling that Waldo (or Harvey) is really there apart from our merely thinking he's there\u2014inevitably engenders what is called in the Buddhist texts \"self-cherishing.\" We become enchanted with and seduced by an illusory impression of the individualized self, and then we grasp and cling to it for dear life.\n\nAll the other mental afflictions\u2014desire, anger, lust, pride, jealousy, envy, greed\u2014arise either to defend or to promote what is, after all is said and done, just a misconception. Ultimately, we are imprisoned not by these negative emotions, but by the imaginary self who is adversely affected by them.\n\n### THE CAPTAIN KIRK SELF\n\nThere's another false notion we have about ourselves that we haven't examined yet. It's the sense we have that there's a self who's in control of the present, a \"master self\" that rules over the current state of the body, the mind, and, indeed, all aspects of our life.\n\nI like to think of this version of \"me\" as the \"Captain Kirk self.\"\n\nIn the original Star Trek television series, the spaceship Enterprise was overseen by Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner. He was often depicted sitting in his commander chair\u2014a replica of which I've seen for sale, priced at over two thousand dollars!\u2014on the upper deck of the starship, gazing out at the cosmos through that cool wraparound windshield. And Captain Kirk would bark out orders to his crew: \"Scotty, raise deflector shields!\" And Scotty would dutifully obey: \"Aye, aye, sir! Deflectors raised.\"\n\nSomewhere ensconced inside the head, just behind the eyes (our own personal windshield of our own personal Spaceship Me) is where we usually locate the Captain Kirk self. And just like the dear captain, that commander self barks out orders: \"Legs, prepare to walk!\" \"Mouth, commence talking!\" \"Mind, remember to pick up some milk!\"\n\nAnd often enough, our lackey crew obeys. The legs move when ordered to walk, the mouth flaps when instructed to speak (sometimes even before the mind is commanded to think!), and frequently we do remember to get the milk when Captain Kirk enjoins us to.\n\nThese kinds of experiences give us a strong conviction that this master self is in charge not only of what the body does and the mind thinks but also of everything else in our lives. And when confronted with incontrovertible evidence that contradicts our conviction, it's usually quite upsetting. When we don't get our own way, the old Captain tends to pitch a fit!\n\nIf there really were such an all-controlling self, why would that ruler ever decree that we have a bad day, or get upset at an annoying person, or have a headache, or get sick or old, or choose to be anything other than happy and content all the time? If our own personal Captain Kirk truly existed, wouldn't some of his commands seem sort of wacky? \"Scotty, let's get really gloomy today. Raise depressors!\" Wouldn't Scotty's clear retort be, \"Captain, are ye mad? Have ye gone insane?\"\n\nIn fact, there is no real Captain Kirk self, just as there's no unitary, independent, or unchanging personal self. And here's the real proof of that: we can't change the present in the present. If there were a Captain Kirk self, we would command everything in life to be just as we wished. And that's obviously not happening\u2014have you noticed?\n\nAs you can probably tell from all my references, I watched a lot of television as a kid. Readers of a certain age might actually remember viewing two shows I used to like from the 1960s\u2014Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. In the first, Elizabeth Montgomery played Samantha, a full-blown witch with all kinds of supernatural powers, married to a pretty hapless ordinary mortal named Darrin. When Samantha wanted to effect some change in a situation (often to fix something poor Darrin had messed up), she would simply wiggle her nose and\u2014shazam!\u2014the world would bend to her witchy will.\n\nBewitched met with some success\u2014it was the second most watched program on television in 1964, and nearly forty years later TV Guide magazine included it in a list of \"The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time\"\u2014so it wasn't long before a similar program, I Dream of Jeannie, went on the air. The premise again involved a match-up between a magic-making woman (a genie this time) and a normal guy (who was, however, an astronaut, whom his devoted wife called \"master\"\u2014a patriarchal fantasy, simultaneously subverted by the mismatch when it came to actual power).\n\nIn addition to offering a genie instead of a witch in the lead role, the other major difference in the two programs (product differentiation!) was that Jeannie didn't wiggle her nose to magically transform reality whenever she wished. Her modus operandi was to fold her arms and forcefully nod her head such that her long ponytail would flop around a bit. And that was enough to change anything she wanted, right there and then, in the moment.\n\nMost of us go through life wiggling our noses and shaking our ponytails, trying to miraculously transform the present in the present. But things don't work like that; we're not witches and genies, and the confirmation of this is all too apparent. The traffic doesn't unsnarl just because we wish it would; the headache doesn't disappear simply because we don't like having it; and the annoying person doesn't magically stop being annoying when we, metaphorically speaking, twitch our nose or bounce our ponytail. We can't wriggle our way out of tight spots just by wiggling our appendages!\n\nThe desire to change the present in the present is perhaps the biggest and most recurring itch of all, but it's the one we clearly can't alleviate by sorcery scratching. That mojo ain't working. The Captain Kirk\/Samantha\/Jeannie self is really (to switch the pop-cultural reference yet again) the Wizard of Oz, just a humbug behind the curtain, ineffectually moving nonfunctional levers and pulleys.\n\n### YOU ARE WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE\n\nThe realization that the \"somebody self\" is just an idea should come as really good news. If there were essentially a unitary, independent, and unchanging individual self, it would be, well, unchangeable. But luckily, as we've seen, there is no such self. And so it's a good thing that we are not really the somebody we think we are.\n\nBut, then again, you could equally say that we are just the somebody we think we are, and that's all the \"somebody\" any of us is. It's the conceptualization of somebody that makes us that somebody\u2014and really nothing more than that. As one ancient Indian text puts it, \"The one who thinks he is free is free; the one who thinks he is bound is bound. It is true what they say: You become what you think.\"\n\nTo say that the \"somebody self\" we usually desperately clutch to is illusory is not the same as saying it doesn't exist at all. The individual self does, of course, exist . . . but only as an idea, a concept, a label. As philosopher Julian Baggini puts it, \"The idea of the self as a construction is one that many want to resist, because it seems to imply that it is not real. But of course constructions can be perfectly real.\"VIII\n\nAnd there are different kinds of constructions or conceptualizations of the self, some more beneficial than others. The belief in a unitary, independent, and unchanging self; or the conviction that there really is an all-powerful Captain Kirk self\u2014these are not helpful concepts. Besides the fact that there's no findable \"Waldo,\" the very idea of a self like this leaves us feeling either paralyzed (how could we change such an unchangeable self?) or frustrated (Captain Kirk's commands so often go unheeded!).\n\nThe \"somebody self\" is just like the room we talked about above. The room has four walls, and there's no room without the four walls, but \"room\" is just a name and a concept that arises due to the empty space enclosed by the walls. And it's just the same with the individual self: it's nobody that makes somebody possible.\n\nWe're nobody apart from thinking that we're somebody, and when we stop thinking we're somebody, we're left with really nobody. This observation points us to the true methods for \"self-improvement,\" which we'll investigate at length in the next chapter.\n\nThe question is not whether our individual sense of identity exists. It obviously does; we hear that little voice inside our heads pretty much constantly. The crux of the matter is how such a self exists\u2014and how we could improve it.\n\nBy recognizing that we're nobody (that is, that we're not a hard-wired somebody who exists essentially and unchangingly), we have the possibility of conceptualizing ourselves as a better somebody\u2014a more contented, happy, and fulfilled person.\n\nAnd by doing so, we will have moved closer and closer to the Great Itchlessness we all desire.\n\nAction Plan: Scratching the Itch\n\nStop for five or ten minutes each day and pinpoint your biggest desires, your most persistent itches. First identify what it is that you want. Is it more money, a better house or car, or a new iPhone? Or is it an improved relationship with your partner, your family members, or with someone at work? Maybe it's more recognition and popularity, or a holiday in Bermuda. Or perhaps it's losing a few pounds or feeling healthier.\n\nOnce you've identified the itch, focus on what you hope will be the outcome if the itch gets scratched\u2014on what you think would happen if you actually obtained what you desire. See if you can't get to the realization that what, in fact, you wish for is actually just contentment\u2014the end of the itchiness itself.\n\nThen revisit the particular desire you've identified. Would getting what you want really bring about the hoped-for satisfaction, or would it just provide some partial and temporary relief from the wanting? While we may not be able to achieve contentment immediately, this action plan helps us train ourselves to be more aware of what it is we really desire.\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. Overachieving, type-A personalities who are obsessed with their careers might recall that God's curse for humanity as he kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden was to cause man and woman thereafter to work for a living and look after their children, instead of granting us a permanent holiday.\n\nII. There are some exceptions. For stories of how ignorance originated in the Hindu and Buddhist texts, consult Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).\n\nIII. Another indication that people are not essentially the way they sometimes appear to be is that they don't always seem to be that way. Sometimes angry people appear angrier than at other times, and sometimes they don't appear angry at all. If the angry person were essentially an angry person, he or she would always be an angry person, to exactly the same degree. For an \"angry person\" would always be that and couldn't essentially be that and something other than that at the same time. Isn't that what \"essentially\" means, after all?\n\nIV. In some Indian texts, the Sanskrit word atman is used differently than it is here in the Yoga Sutra and in many Buddhist scriptures. Elsewhere it is synonymous with the \"true self\" as opposed to an individual, egoistic self (which is sometimes designated as the jiva to contrast it with the atman).\n\nV. The latest research in the neurosciences is validating the ancient Buddhist observations. As one recent summary puts it, an unchanging and continuous self, a \"unifer\" self, and an \"agent\" self (similar to the \"Captain Kirk self\" talked about later in the book) are all \"mistaken beliefs\" or \"illusions\" that \"do not withstand scrutiny.\" See the special issue of New Scientist magazine, \"The Self: The Greatest Trick Your Mind Ever Played\" (February 2013). See also Julian Baggini, The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean to Be You? (London: Granta Books, 2011).\n\nVI. There are neuroscientists nowadays who believe that the mind's activities\u2014consciousness, thought, emotions, and so forth\u2014can be reduced to the brain and its firing of neurons. While only a few researchers would be so reductive as to say there is absolutely no difference between the mind and the brain (most still acknowledging some sort of \"ghost in the machine\"), there does seem to be a trend toward the position that ultimately there are only physical parts to our being. While such a reductive view of the self does not accord with the assumptions of any of the world's spiritual traditions\u2014indeed, it is the opposite of a belief in anything spiritual\u2014it has no bearing on our argument here: Are we one thing (even if it's just a purely physical thing, just the body) or many?\n\nVII. The \"witness self\" spoken of here can be distinguished from one of the two \"birds\" we encountered in the passage from the Upanishads quoted toward the end of chapter 1. The \"bird\" who looks on impassively as the other \"bird\" (the individual self) eats and engages with the world, is the true Self\u2014the ocean as opposed to the individual wave; our nameless true nature, not you say your name-to-yourself.\n\nVIII. Baggini has coined this term \"ego trick\" to describe the play between the self we think exists and the conceptualization of the self that does exist: \"The Ego Trick is not to persuade us that we exist when we do not, but to make us believe we are more substantial and enduring than we really are. There may be an illusion as to what we really are, but not that we really are.\" Julian Baggini, The Ego Trick, 41, 152.\n\n## 4\n\n## Nobody Makes a Better Somebody Possible\n\nThere is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.\n\n\u2014\u2014Aldous Huxley\n\n### BECOMING A BETTER SOMEBODY\n\nIf the individual self is, at bottom, nothing but a conceptualization of the self, then one important part of the spiritual quest will be to improve that self-conception. While there may not be a findable essential \"somebody self\" to ameliorate\u2014and, remember, the real, oceanic \"nobody\/everybody\" butterfly self is in no need of improvement at all\u2014the personal self that does exist can and should be developed into a better edition.\n\nAs we noted toward the end of the last chapter, it is precisely because we are not stuck with the somebody we think we are now that we can upgrade ourselves into a more self-satisfied model.\n\nAnd there's nothing wrong with wanting to become a better somebody. Indeed, without a desire like this, we'll never get to the point where the Great Itchless State becomes possible, and where the peace and tranquility of being nobody can be fully experienced and appreciated.\n\nBecause it's possible, we should definitely strive for self-improvement. Because we're all really, deep down, nobody, everyone has the potential to become a different somebody. We can choose to continue to embrace a depressed, discontented, and perpetually itchy sense of self, or we can work toward creating a joyful and fulfilled personal identity that is nourished by the deep reservoirs of our true identity.\n\nWe can change. We can better ourselves. We can create a happier iteration of the self to replace the needy, greedy, twisted version that's driving us crazy. But self-improvement will be achieved not through trying to be more special than others, either through foolish pride or through laying claim to an exceptional status due to our suffering.\n\nIt's worth repeating: There's nothing inherently wrong with being \"self-interested.\" It's crucial to build a good, healthy sense of the individual self\u2014not as the final goal but as a necessary platform for the higher work of joyful self-transcendence and integration with the world around us. Enlightened self-interest entails wising up to what will really work to bring about an untroubled and contented personality, somebody who's ready, willing, and able to be less self-obsessed and self-centered.\n\nRemember, it's not really \"self-improvement\" if it's all about you.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe \"somebody self\" is an artifact of how we presently regard ourselves. And this, in turn, depends on the kind of past we think we had (for we are who we think we once were) and our expectations, hopes, and fears about the future (we are who we think we will become). The conceptualized \"somebody self\" is found at the nexus of two times\u2014the past and the future\u2014that themselves only exist as ideas within the present mind.\n\nThis \"somebody self\" is the product of moral training and positive self-development\u2014or the lack thereof. There's a huge difference in the self-perception of someone who has cultivated humility, modesty, and an unselfish and charitable attitude toward others and that of someone who is driven by inborn (and reinforced) selfishness, vanity, pride, and aggressive competition with others.\n\nWe've seen in the last chapter that we can't change the present in the present. Captain Kirk can't just dictate that things change at will in the moment, nor can any inner witch or genie work this kind of magic. This means that somebody can't just in the moment choose to be anybody; the \"somebody self\" can't immediately transform into somebody different. We can't go from zero (selfish, egotistical, and dissatisfied) to one hundred (humble, altruistic, and untroubled) in just a few seconds, or even a few days or weeks or months.\n\nThe lower, individual self is an idea of the self, but our self-conception is constantly in flux. This self, we could say, is a process, not a thing. To invoke a very common and ancient simile, the self is like a river\u2014let's say the Mississippi. What we call \"the Mississippi River\" is not an entity or a thing; it is only a name we give to a particular flow of water\u2014to a process. As Paul Robeson famously sings, \"Ol' Man River just keeps rolling along.\"\n\nWe mistake changing things for unchanging things. We assume that, because we have a name or a concept for \"the Mississippi River,\" the word and the idea must refer to some thing, when all it really designates is a flowing current, a movement, an activity.\n\nWell, our sense of personal identity is just like a river. Every part of what we include in our idea of \"me\"\u2014every physical and mental component of the self\u2014is changing, moment by moment. The kind of idea I have about \"me\" deceives me. I think my concept of \"me\" refers to a unitary, independent, and unchanging entity, when all it denominates is a flow.\n\nAnd so even what we mean by \"me\" changes over time, doesn't it? What Julian Baggini calls the \"autobiographical self\" provides a sense of continuity to the self: \"The unity and permanence we feel over time depends on our ability to construct an autobiographical narrative that links our experiences over time.\" \"But,\" Baggini goes on to observe, \"individual experiences and sense of self at any particular time can vary enormously. What is more, the autobiographical self is very good at self-revision. In effect, we are constantly rewriting our histories to keep our inner autobiographies coherent.\"\n\nThe self is mutating and therefore mutable. Otherwise what would be the point of a spiritual practice? If we weren't changing, we couldn't change! Every authentic spiritual tradition has always assumed that, because the \"somebody self\" is just a process and not a thing, the process we call \"me\" can be redirected and differently channeled.\n\nWe can transform our understanding and evaluations\u2014not only of ourselves, but also of other people and of everything about our lives. We can train ourselves to change our minds\u2014not in the blink of an eye, of course, but over time. We can gift ourselves with a different set of ideas about both our inner and outer worlds.\n\nAnd, as we shall see toward the end of this chapter, these two different conceptualizations of our reality\u2014inner and outer\u2014are in a symbiotic relationship.\n\nBy cultivating wisdom, we can learn to think differently about both ourselves and the people and things in our outer world (remember, no annoying people or intrinsically tasty ice cream out there). With more awareness of the changing nature of the \"autobiographical self,\" we learn to direct that change in a more positive way. Wisdom about the externals will help us act, speak, and think in such a way that we'll improve our sense of self\u2014and this, in turn, will transform our view of the world and the other people in it.\n\n### HOW KARMA REALLY WORKS\n\nAs we saw in the last chapter, we all have a bad case of the \"if only\" syndrome. We are convinced that if only we could adjust the external events in our lives to our satisfaction:\n\nIf only I had a better job, more money, a nicer home, a new iPhone, a holiday in Bermuda . . .\n\nAnd if only we could figure out how to make other people in our lives change to our liking:\n\nIf only my husband or wife were nicer to me . . . if only my boss weren't so demanding . . . if only I could make that annoying person stop being so annoying . . .\n\nThen, finally, we'd be happy. We're all pretty itchy, pretty much all the time.\n\nIn our ignorant and self-centered desire to work our will on the world, we usually just send Captain Kirk out on the case. We hope that the good old Cap'n will micromanage the external world and the people in it so that all will become pleasing instead of so problematic.\n\nBut as we've seen, the Captain Kirk self is an ineffectual humbug. It is therefore unsurprising that he is impotent to effect the changes we demand. Events in the outer world aren't modified at our command, and other people don't automatically adjust themselves and their actions in accordance with our mandates.\n\nWe are perpetually thwarted in our attempts to work the magic that would change the present in the present.\n\nThere is, however, a more efficacious method at hand for transforming our lives for the better. We can still hope for a happier future, but we must also accept that there will be a gap between the time of the cause and that of the effect. This gradual method for transformation is what the Eastern traditions would call \"changing your karma,\" or what Jesus spoke about in terms of \"sowing what you will reap,\" or what we colloquially mean when we say \"what goes around, comes around.\"\n\nThe basic \"laws of karma\" can be succinctly stated: \"No action in this world goes for naught or brings about a contrary result,\" as one ancient Indian text crisply puts it.\n\nThe first principle\u2014\"no action goes for naught\"\u2014proclaims that every action will have a reaction; everything we do, say, or even think will have future consequences. And the second rule\u2014\"no action brings about a contrary result\"\u2014asserts that the kind of outcome one will experience depends on the kind of action that produced it. No cause brings about a \"contrary result\": nothing bad can come from something good, and nothing good can come from something bad.\n\nThese principles are not the creation of any one religious tradition. They are found, in one form or another, in many and various places. In the Yoga Sutra we read, \"There is a causal connection between meritorious and blameworthy acts and their respectively cool and pleasurable or scorching and unpleasurable effects.\" Jesus put forward the same karmic law in more metaphorical terms by noting that you don't get grapes from thorns or figs from thistles:\n\nYou shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.\n\nWhat makes an action \"good\" or \"bad\"? An act (inclusive not just of physical acts but also those of speech and even thought) done with a good intention\u2014that is, with a selfless, kind, altruistic, compassionate motivation\u2014will bring about a good (that is, pleasant) result. Conversely, a bad act is \"bad\" because it is inspired by an intention fueled by one or another of the mental afflictions, all of which are instigated by selfishness. Such a negative action\u2014motivated by ignorance, self-aggrandizement, or the wish to harm others\u2014will bring an unpleasant consequence in the future.\n\nAll authentic spiritual traditions teach some form or another of \"karma.\" The fundamental principles we've just discussed form the very heart and soul of every moral system. There's no \"system\"\u2014and therefore no hope for willed self-improvement\u2014if there's not the assumption that:\n\n1. Every action has a consequence, and\n\n2. The type of result (pleasant or unpleasant) invariably correlates to the nature of the cause (kind or unkind, selfish or selfless).\n\nThe first principle denies randomness and therefore empowers us, while the second provides the basic method for governing the direction of one's karma in cultivating a better life.\n\nSo far, so good. But while the fundamental rules of karma are both easy to grasp and universally advocated in every ethical system, the actual operation of karma works at a level different from the one we usually think. The project of knowing how to improve the \"somebody self\" depends upon a belief in moral causality (which gives us confidence that improvement is possible), but also on an understanding of how such beneficial transformation can really occur.\n\nKarmic management\u2014creating the causes for a more agreeable life in the future\u2014can easily be misconstrued as just another attempt to magically bend the world and other people to one's self-centered will. When there's only a superficial grasp of karma, the Captain Kirk self is resurrected, albeit in a slightly different guise:\n\nOK, I get it now! I can still have my way with the world and with other people . . . I just have to be a little more patient! If I don't hurt others, in the future no one will hurt me. If I am generous, then the boss will someday give me a raise. If I'm patient with my annoying brother-in-law, he'll eventually change into a friendlier person.\n\nThis simplistic, mechanistic, and ultimately narrow-minded and self-seeking understanding of karma is really just the ego grabbing onto a new-and-improved technique in order to once again try to achieve its narcissistic ends. It's the \"if only\" syndrome at work all over again: If only others would behave themselves; if only I had more money; if only my brother-in-law were a nice guy.\n\nThe sole difference between this view and the usual version of such wishful thinking is that now we have come into possession of this cool spiritual tool called \"karma\" in order to realize our longings.\n\nNo matter what guise the Captain Kirk self assumes, the egomaniacal assumption persists: We will be able to get whatever we want from the world, and we can make other people behave exactly as we wish, if we can just somehow find and pull the right strings.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThere are some presentations of karma that lend themselves to the mechanistic theory discussed above. But even in those versions of karmic causation, bets are very much hedged. For one thing, according to the texts of Tibetan Buddhism, the precise workings of karma are classified at the level of \"very subtle\" (as opposed to \"obvious\" or just plain \"subtle\") and they're knowable only to enlightened beings, who, unlike us, are supposedly omniscient.\n\nFuthermore, karmic results\u2014becoming famous through practicing humility, or getting money by being generous\u2014are said to ripen in one of three possible times: in this very life (could be tomorrow, could be seventy years from now), in the very next lifetime (when you'll be a dramatically transfigured version of \"you\"), or (wait for it . . .) in any lifetime after that.\n\nThe exact time when one will reap what one has sown is as unknowable as the exact form the reapage might take.\n\nThere's a joke that underlines this point. George is magically transported to heaven and meets with God. The visitor is astounded by how dissimilar God's paradise seems from life on earth.\n\n\"Wow, it sure is impressive here! So different from where I come from! Say, God,\" George asks, \"how much is a million dollars on earth worth in heavenly currency?\"\n\nAnd God answers, \"One penny.\"\n\nGeorge is, needless to say, quite impressed. Just one of God's pennies is the equivalent of a million dollars!\n\nSo he persists in his questioning: \"And how long is a hundred years in divine time?\"\n\nGod replies, \"One minute. One minute up here is equal to a hundred human years.\"\n\nGeorge, suitably dazzled but with his wits still about him, makes a request: \"Before I go back to earth, could I get one of your God pennies to take home with me?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" God answers. \"Just wait a minute.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt's best not to regard self-improvement through karmic management as a matter of manipulating and upgrading outer events and other people. Positive actions of body, speech, and mind will indeed have positive results. But it's more realistic to think about the fruit of good karma ripening internally, not externally.\n\nAs Tolstoy once observed, \"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.\"\n\nKarma is not some kind of magical, mystical technique for genetically modifying difficult people or for physically re-engineering events in the material world. Karmic management is primarily a method for systematically changing one's self-perception. What we can most effectively, efficiently, and reliably transform is ourselves\u2014and not the world, let alone other people who have their own karma to work out.\n\nIn Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, we are given direction as to where to concentrate our efforts when it comes to changing our karma:\n\nAnd so, although I am unable to exercise control over external phenomena, I will restrain my own mind. What else is there that I can really control?\n\nThis verse points us to a more commonsensical understanding of causation and self-improvement. Karma isn't about creating the causes for altering the behavior of other people (I'm being nice so my husband will change and stop being mean to me) or directing the processes of the external world (I'm being generous so more money will come my way). It isn't about changing the data. The data will change all right, but always in unanticipated, unpredictable, and, as the text says, uncontrollable ways.\n\nIn any event, whether other people appear to us as \"nice,\" or whether a particular amount of money is \"enough\" are subjective interpretations and not objective, measurable phenomena. If one's subjective perspective changes, one's perspective on how much money makes you rich or how nice other people are will change as well.\n\nKarma is not like gravity; it is not some kind of invisible external \"law of nature.\" It is first and foremost an internal law governing our own state of mind. And so, karmic management is really about changing our own frame of reference\u2014\"restraining my own mind\" from creating negative karma\u2014so that our outlook on others and on life itself is not so distorted by our own mental afflictions. It's about transforming our perception such that it is conditioned not by our worst tendencies but rather by virtues like forgiveness, compassion, love, wisdom, and a magnanimous spirit.\n\nWhen we see ourselves struggling to overcome our own negative proclivities and replace them with goodness, we plant \"karmic seeds\"\u2014a metaphor for what we nowadays would call \"memories\" (conscious, subconscious, or even unconscious). And as we know, memory does not simply replay what really happened but what we think happened, which can and does change over time.\n\nIt is what we think we have done, said, or thought in the past\u2014in a word, our karma\u2014that defines us in the present. Our concept of our personal identity\u2014who we think we are\u2014is a function of who we think we used to be. And both our present sense of self and the memories that constitute it are perpetually changing and therefore changeable.\n\nIn the Buddhist texts, a big debate rages over where, exactly, the karmic \"seeds\" we planted in the past were \"stored\" until they were ready to ripen. Given that we always come up empty-handed in any \"Where's Waldo?\" search for an immutable and enduring individual self, how does karma persist from the time of its creation to the time of its fruition?\n\nThe answer is that karma is conserved in the \"simple me\"\u2014our basic sense of who we are at any given moment. Karma is memory\u2014again, conscious, subconscious, or unconscious\u2014and it is memory that comprises our current identity. If you don't believe me, try to imagine who you would be if you had no past! As filmmaker Luis Bu\u00f1uel has said, \"Life without memory is no life at all. . . . Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.\"\n\nThe \"me\" who created my past karma is long gone, but the \"me\" I presently conceptualize is an idea based on my memories of who I once was and the kinds of things I think I once did, said, or thought.\n\nThere's no enduring, abiding self that has karma. The conceptualization we have of ourselves is karma.\n\nThe memories that shape our self-image are called vasanas in Sanskrit. They pervade our consciousness in the same way that the fragrance of perfume lingers in a room even after the person wearing it has departed. The \"room\" that is our present identity is saturated with, and defined by, the aroma of our past karma.\n\nSo one way to improve the conception of the self is to rehabilitate the memories we are carrying around. The past is never like it used to be. It is forever undergoing reinterpretation. For individuals as for groups, there's no history except for revisionist history. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written, \"The past can never be literally true in memory: it must be continuously edited, and the question is only whether we take creative control of the editing or not.\"\n\nSince what we call our \"past\" is really only some part of our present mind, and since our present is constantly changing, our idea of the past is in flux too. Instead of carrying around\u2014and defining ourselves by\u2014a past replete with bitterness, recrimination, and disappointment, we can work at revising our personal histories in such a way that forgiveness replaces anger, gratitude takes the place of resentment, and acceptance supersedes thoughts of sadness and regret.\n\nPeople who have made peace with their past will have gone a long way toward improving their present sense of self-esteem. Not only will their memories have been altered and improved, but the very acts of forgiveness, gratitude, and acceptance will have modified their sense of self. Rather than thinking of oneself as an embittered, traumatized victim, one can begin to conceptualize the self in terms of the virtues one has practiced in relation to the people and events of the past.\n\nKarma can, in this way, work both retroactively and proactively. By practicing forgiveness, gratitude, and acceptance vis-\u00e0-vis our past, we create the causes that will result, over time, in a better self-image. And in the future, we will remember ourselves as someone who was trying to forgive, to be grateful, and to be accepting of all that has happened.\n\nIf karma is memory, and memory is what composes our self-image, then improving our sense of self is a matter of acting, speaking, and thinking such that we will look back at our lives with dignity instead of embarassment: I was the kind of person who tried to live a good life, a life guided by nonviolence, honesty, integrity, charity, and the other virtues. We practice being a better person today (not just in terms of our past, but in an ongoing way as we interact with the world and other people) so that we will think about ourselves in a better way tomorrow.\n\nFurthermore, by paying more attention to our ethical life, we will have also transformed even our present conception of ourselves. If we can generate conviction in the laws of karma, and if we start living our lives in accordance with what will bring us more happiness and less suffering, we will begin to see ourselves differently in the present. We will regard ourselves as a person who is guided by the karmic laws instead of someone who is just unthinkingly going through life on automatic pilot. Our current level of self-esteem will instantly rise when we become more cognizant of the consequences of the actions we take to enhance our future level of self-esteem.\n\nKarma shapes our perspective of ourselves\u2014and the idea of the self is the only self we have ever had. Trying to manipulate and master other people or external phenomena in order to feel better about one's own life is usually a pretty ineffectual gambit (have you noticed?).\n\nWhat I can change is myself. And, as the verse says, \"What else is there that I can really control?\"\n\n### \"IT'S LIKE THIS NOW\"\n\nSo now that we're acquainted with the theoretical blueprint of how self-improvement really occurs, it's time to put theory into practice. The secret to feeling better about ourselves and our lives, as we've seen, is not to expect the world and others to be different than what they are. It is rather to accept the hand we're dealt at any given moment, and then learn to play our cards in such a way as to improve our estimation of ourselves as a player.\n\nHere's a little mantra\u2014words of power\u2014that I've found to be extremely helpful for staying focused on the task at hand. It's a kind of acceptance mantra\u2014an embrace of reality as it is, not as we wish it would be. So let's call it \"the reality mantra,\" since it's meant to keep us concentrated on what is actually happening in reality:\n\nOm, it's like this now, ah hum.I\n\nOm traditionally marks the start of a mantra. It means, \"Here comes a mantra.\" And ah hum signifies the end of the incantation. \"It's like this now\" are words of absolute truth, and this is one aspect of their power.\n\nBecause it is always the case, right? It's always \"like this now,\" isn't it? The hand we've been dealt at any given moment is the only one we have to play.\n\nPlease note that the mantra is not \"It's like this now, and I wish it weren't.\" That's the usual spurious mantra of discontentment and non-acceptance. Nor is the mantra, \"It's like this now, and I wish it would stay like this forever.\" That's the fanciful mantra we recite to ourselves in those (relatively rare) times when things are going just the way we want them to.\n\nSo the mantra has to be continually repeated, because the \"now\" in \"It's like this now\" is perpetually on the move. If we are to stay in reality rather than drift off into fantasy, we have to keep up with the ever-changing present.\n\nThe first element of the actual practice of self-improvement is accepting what is rather than either wishing that it were different or that it would freeze-frame and stay the same.\n\nNow for the next step: Since it's like this now, what would be my most intelligent response? How to best play these cards I've been dealt? Instead of just unthinkingly reacting to situations, we try to stay mindful and rational and think:\n\nWhat can I do, say, and think in this situation that would enrich rather than diminish my self-image? Will what I do now be something I will regret in the future, or something I can look back on with satisfaction that I did my best?\n\nBecause we misunderstand the nature of our \"somebody self,\" we habitually respond to difficult situations and people with our untrained feelings rather than with an educated view of how the personal, individual self exists\u2014as a constantly changing and evolving idea or conception based upon karma.\n\nWe think of the self in an erroneous way, and therefore want always to preserve and enhance the identity we think truly does exist as a unitary, unchanging, independent, and Captain Kirk self. So when faced with difficult situations or people, we respond defensively or aggressively. Instead of using the rationality of our heads and the compassion and love in our hearts, we acquiesce to our selfish instincts and untrained habits.\n\nWhen someone is angry with us, we respond with anger; when someone hurts us, we feel we must strike back. When we are faced with an unwanted event, we flail about, trying to avoid or change it in the moment instead of thinking about how we could best preserve our present peace of mind and create better memories with which to define our future.\n\nBut in order to make the smart choice in any given situation, we have to fight our tendencies to succumb to our selfish negative feelings, our mental afflictions. The guidelines for an intelligent and compassionate response to any situation can be set out as simply as the laws of karma themselves:\n\n  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.\n\n  Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.\n\nJust as you don't want to suffer, others don't want you to return anger with anger, hurt with hurt, lies with more lies, untrustworthiness with some version of the same. Changing our habitual responses to the events and challenging people in our lives involves shifting the focus from what seems to be \"good for me\" (and harmful to others) at any given moment and concentrating instead on what will really be the best way to improve my sense of self\u2014here and now and also in the future.\n\nAnd from the karmic point of view, what's actually best for us will also be what's best for the others around us. Om, it's like this now, ah hum. So how, in every moment, can we act, speak, and think in such a way that we'll be happier and make the lives of those around us better, not worse?\n\nThe way to improve our self-image, the truly efficacious method for upgrading the \"somebody self,\" is to train ourselves to stop reacting negatively\u2014defensively or aggressively, protecting or promoting the self-centered ego\u2014and instead respond in such a way as to increase our sense of self-worth.\n\nWe must use our \"best friend\" self to overcome our \"worst enemy\" self. If we really want to improve and help ourselves, we must side with the angel inside of us, not with our demons.\n\nWho else will overcome your unhappy, depressed, discontented self if not you? Who else besides you will make you a better \"somebody self\"?\n\n### THE BIG SMACKDOWN, RAGE IN THE CAGE\n\nBecause self-improvement really is possible, it's our responsibility to make efforts to accomplish it. And it will take effort. It's na\u00efve to assume that responding wisely and kindly to difficult events or annoying people will be easy. Our contrary habits are deeply engrained. Our habitual responses are like knee-jerk reactions.\n\nWhen the mental afflictions arise\u2014rage, vanity, lust, jealousy, resentment, annoyance, self-deprecation, and so on\u2014there's a strong air of inevitability about them. We feel, in the moment, compelled to do, say, or think things we soon regret (or at least should regret). We excuse ourselves or apologize to others by saying, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help it!\n\nWe all know how it goes. Someone says or does something that we don't like\u2014something that insults or injures or provokes our \"somebody self.\" A force is awakened, an energy that seems to have a life of its own. Like in the Alien movies, the affliction feels like an aroused monster that just pops out of our gut.\n\nAnd then the alien power starts to surge through our being. The negative feeling seems to rise up in us (one old expression for getting angry is that \"the ire rises\"). Left unchecked, the mental afflictions move from the solar plexus area and make their way up through our tightening chest and throat and quickly hijack our heads.\n\nThe negative emotion takes possession of us. We \"lose it,\" meaning we \"lose our temper\" or basically go temporarily insane. We become the puppet of the affliction and do, say, and think unpleasant, hurtful, and damaging things.\n\nIf we wish to free ourselves from the negative emotions\u2014if we are to change these foolish and self-destructive responses\u2014we must prepare ourselves for battle. Old habits are hard to break. We must gird our loins and train for the Big Smackdown, the Rage in the Cage, with our mental afflictions.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nI was a big wrestling fan when I was a kid (professional wrestling, not the more staid and rule-governed collegiate or Olympic version), and so was my grandfather. We'd watch televised matches between characters called \"Gorilla Monsoon\" and \"Dick the Bruiser\" and marvel at the feats of violence: one combatant would jump off the top rope in the ring and smash his elbow into the throat of his opponent lying prone on the mat\u2014stuff like that.\n\nBoth my grandfather and I were totally convinced that this kind of wrestling was real. It drove my dad bonkers! We would watch eye gouges, \"sleeper holds\" (pinching some \"nerve\" in the shoulder that would render the opponent instantly unconscious), death grips, and elbows to windpipes\u2014not to mention the fully illegal bashing with chairs and attacks with smuggled blackjacks, brass knuckles, and razor blades. All this, my dad adamantly maintained, had to be fake.\n\nYou know the adage? Grandparents and grandchildren generally get along so well because they share a common enemy. My granddad and I derived a certain perverse pleasure in the apoplectic response we got from my father as we held firmly to our faith that wrestling was a real \"sport\" and not just athletic \"theater.\"\n\nIf we are to defeat our mental afflictions, we have to be like the professional wrestlers. We need to get ready for the Big Smackdown. We have to be ruthless and brutal with our negative emotions, for they are our true foes. While our human \"enemies\" have lots of other things to do when they're not harassing us\u2014sleep, eat, carry on relationships, tend to business, pursue hobbies\u2014our mental afflictions have nothing else to do but destroy our happiness.\n\nThere's a big misconception about the spiritual life. There is a widespread assumption that the spiritual practitioner should always remain in a sort of otherworldly and catatonic state\u2014tranquilized, muted, and peacefully inert.\n\nBut the true spiritual renegade is not some namby-pamby navel-gazer, looking vague and flashing the peace sign at his or her negative emotions. It may come as a surprise to some that many spiritual texts use the language of violence and war in relation to the project of self-control.\n\nThe Buddhist classic Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life by Shantideva, for example, urges us to be \"fierce warriors\" when it comes to overcoming what the text refers to as our \"congenital enemies.\" Just like soldiers on the battlefield, we should be brave when it comes to our own personal Rage in the Cage. Knowing that the struggle will not be easy, we should steel ourselves and resolve to persevere no matter how difficult it may be:\n\nIn the heat of battle, fierce warriors are able to swiftly kill those who, ignorant and unhappy, will die anyway. Although tormented by countless wounds from arrows and spears, they do not turn away until they've accomplished their goal.\n\nWhen I am intent on slaying my congenital enemies, the causes of all my continuous suffering, why am I now depressed and dejected, even if I must put up with hundreds of difficulties?\n\nWarriors on the battlefield, boxers in the ring, and, yes, professional wrestlers in their smackdowns get even more psyched when injured. And we too should become even more maniacal when the opposition puts up resistance in our personal struggle with our own worst inclinations.\n\nThe Guide also urges us to be not only strong-willed but also merciless when it comes to the Big Smackdown. We all have the tendency to make excuses for our thoughtless reactions. Even worse, we defend, justify, and rationalize our afflictions:\n\nSo what if I got angry and yelled? She deserved it! I just had to set her straight!\n\nAnd worst of all, we go so far as to identify with our negative emotions\u2014and thus define ourselves through them:\n\nI am jealous; I am proud.\n\nIn order to live happier lives, we must stop pampering, excusing, rationalizing, and identifying with the enemies of our peace of mind. If we leave the door open even a crack, they will surely rush in. If we continue to mollycoddle these nasty demons, they'll beat us every time.\n\nThat's why Shantideva exhorts us to get medieval on the little buggers!\n\nLet my guts ooze out and my head fall off\u2014whatever! But I will never, no matter what, bow before my enemy, the mental afflictions.\n\nNothing namby-pamby about that, right?\n\nLet the Rage in the Cage begin!\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhat are the weapons we'll need to fight the mental afflictions? What kind of wrestling holds can we apply the next time one of them raises its ugly head? And what sort of \"illegal\" implements can we smuggle into the Rage in the Cage that might give us a fighting chance in our efforts to defeat our worst enemies?\n\nRecognition\n\nJust acknowledging the mental afflictions as harmful, rather than as necessary or even desirable constituents of our being, will go a long way toward helping us beat them.\n\nA smoker friend of mine refers to cigarettes as his \"little friends.\" They're always there for you, he explains. First thing in the morning with your coffee, all day long as you work, with a drink at the end of the day, after meals or sex\u2014you can always count on your \"little friends\" to help you get through life.\n\nMany of us regard our mental afflictions as our \"little friends\" instead of our worst enemies. Labeling them more accurately will help get us psyched for the Big Smackdown.\n\nUnderstanding\n\nMental afflictions always justify themselves. It is, in fact, part of the negative emotion's modus operandi to appear to be a reasonable response to a difficult situation. But this is a serious mistake. The mental afflictions are not rational at all; they are harmful emotional outbursts that reduce us rather than lead us to a better self-perception.\n\nI had a student who once told me that she was having a hard time breaking her habit of getting angry. \"I get such clarity when I'm mad,\" she reported. \"With anger, things really come into focus and I feel such certainty.\"\n\nAnd yes, as we all know, there is the sense of great lucidity that comes with a strong emotion like anger. Everything is indeed quite starkly black and white: I'm right; they're wrong.\n\nBut when the spell of the affliction is broken, we often realize that the seeming clarity that came with the negative emotion was actually a distorted, skewed view of the actual situation. A powerful feeling, wholly in service to the ego, was masquerading as a hyper-rational, objective evaluation.\n\nThe mental afflictions do not actually bring us real lucidity, and they do not arise out of rational, objective calculation. No one in the cold light of day chooses to have a mental affliction attack. No one, when faced with a problematic person or situation, judiciously, cogently, and reasonably considers their options and then elects to have a big meltdown.\n\nThis person just said something I didn't like. Hmm. I wonder what would be the best thing to do here, for my own present and future happiness and peace of mind? Oh, I know! I'll increase my blood pressure and heart rate, get all knotted up and tense inside, go red in the face, and say things\u2014maybe really loudly with lots of four-letter words\u2014that I'll probably regret a few hours from now!\n\nSo another major weapon we can develop and then bring into the Big Smackdown is wisdom and understanding. Remembering how karma works to create our sense of self, we remind ourselves that if we want to have a better self-conception we'll need to avoid the temptation to give in to the siren song of the afflictions. And so we dispel the affliction's spell of pseudo-rationality.\n\nWith wisdom we understand that it is never in our self-interest to be anything other than cool, calm, and collected. It's never intelligent to capitulate to a mental affliction. Giving rein to our worst inclinations is neither rational nor advantageous.\n\nSelf-improvement derives from self-control, not from self-indulgence.\n\nDe-identification\n\nDisassociating from the negative emotions gives us more power over them. We are not our jealousy, pride, envy, anger, or depression. A mental affliction may have arisen, but regarding it as an alien power will reposition it as something other than \"you.\" You will be fighting them, not integrating and identifying with them.\n\nDetermination . . . by any means necessary\n\nWe've already seen how important unwavering resolution is in our battle with our negative emotions:\n\nLet my guts ooze out and my head fall off\u2014whatever! But I will never, no matter what, bow before my enemy, the mental afflictions.\n\nAny other attitude we take with our afflictions will only sustain and invigorate them. The \"by any means necessary\" determination is perhaps the most powerful arrow in our quiver as we wage war against our inner enemies.\n\nAnd like the professional wrestlers I used to watch on television, we can't be too scrupulous about what methods we use to try to win the match. Full nelsons, scissor holds, kicks to the head, but also blackjacks, folding chairs, and razor blades\u2014we have to resort to whatever weaponry will help us emerge victorious from the Big Smackdown.\n\nOnce more, we let the Guide be our guide. In order to aid our good intentions, resolution, and determination to become a better, more self-controlled person, the text recommends a truly radical method, one that bends the usual rules. We are told how to smuggle the blackjacks and brass knuckles into the ring.\n\nWe are charged to use and direct the mental afflictions against themselves. As in some of the martial arts, we take the energy of our opponent\u2014and make no mistake about it: anger, jealousy, pride, and strong desire have great energy\u2014and we turn it to our own advantage.\n\nAnd so Shantideva draws a distinction between the mental afflictions that function as our enemies and the very same energies when utilized as our allies. The Guide recommends, for example, that we abandon patience (the usual antidote to anger) and get angry at our anger!\n\nStationed within my own mind, they are perfectly situated to destroy me. And yet I do not get angry. To hell with this inappropriate patience!\n\nI will be tenacious and intent on revenge! I will wage war against my mental afflictions\u2014except for the kind that are designed to obliterate mental afflictions.\n\nGet angry . . . about being a slave to anger  Be proud . . . of efforts to overcome pride. Be envious . . . of those without envy!\n\nAnd be strongly desirous. Desire the defeat of the opponent in the Big Smackdown, the Rage in the Cage. Desire self-improvement. Desire a better self-image, the reward of self-development through self-discipline and karmic management.\n\nAnd finally, desire with all your heart the end of desire, the Great Itchlessness that is the end of desire, contentment itself.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"I count him braver who overcomes his [negative, selfish] desires than he who conquers his [external] enemies,\" said Aristotle, \"for the hardest victory is over self.\"\n\nIt has been recognized since at least the ancient Greeks that it is hard to change self-destructive habits and replace them with beneficial ones. It's difficult for the self to overcome the self. It's totally worth doing\u2014and we should fervently desire it\u2014for it's the only way to really improve our self-esteem. But no one is saying it will be easy.\n\nAnd so, as we engage in our regimen of self-improvement through karmic management, we have to expect setbacks.\n\nWe won't always emerge from the Big Smackdown victorious. There will be plenty of times when the mental affliction du jour will defeat us, even when we put up our best fight. We may offer resistance, but there is a point of no return where we just capitulate:\n\nOh, the hell with this! I don't care if this affliction is bad for me! I don't care who I hurt\u2014myself or others!\n\nAnd we give in to the urgent demands of the affliction, and the negative emotion wins that round of the wrestling match.\n\nWhen we are temporarily vanquished by our own worst inclinations\u2014when we submit to the powerful wrestling holds of anger, desire, jealousy, resentment, and prideful arrogance\u2014it feels like we're a character in a cartoon. The affliction grabs us by the throat, and we become a rag doll as we are bounced against the wall and swung up and down and right and left for a while. We are in the throes of a force that is currently greater than the potency of the weaponry we are using to combat it.\n\nWe then must switch into a defensive rather than aggressive strategy. We cover up and try to protect ourselves the best we can in order to minimize the damage.\n\nThe first line of defense is to break our opponent's hold as soon as possible. Many of us are accustomed to letting our mental afflictions have their way with us for hours, days, weeks, or even months and years. A spiritual warrior will wait until the overwhelming force of the affliction lessens its death grip a bit. But when it does, he or she will immediately shake it off:\n\nOK, that's enough now. I gave in to my resentment, my arrogance, my anger, or my jealousy, but I will not let it ruin another minute of my life! I may have lost this round, but I will not concede the match!\n\nFreeing ourselves from its hold, we get back on our feet and ready ourselves for the next encounter with the enemy. We go back to the spiritual gym and work out some more. We fortify our weaponry in preparation for the next bout. We recognize that the afflictions are the real and only enemy to our happiness; we understand that self-improvement is a matter of fighting old habits and replacing them with new ones; we de-identify with these nasty tendencies; and we determine to be victorious in the next round of the Big Smackdown.\n\nA second defensive strategy to employ when we lose the Big Smackdown is to not use the setback as just another way to feel bad about ourselves. Regret, yes; but guilt, no\u2014and there's a difference. Feeling guilty about our failures, like the depression that often feeds on such guilt, is really just another form of narcissistic self-absorption. It doesn't help, and in fact it saps the energy we need to feel better about ourselves.\n\nRegret, on the other hand, is the acknowledgment that giving in to the mental afflictions hurts oneself and others. Regret always entails the resolve to try harder not to do that kind of thing again in the future. While guilt debilitates, regret inspires us to strengthen our willpower to become stronger and better prepared for the next confrontation.\n\nAnd a third defensive tack: we (once again) de-identify with whatever mental affliction has temporarily defeated us. We don't join enemy forces; we don't surrender to the provisionally victorious affliction and become its prisoner of war.\n\nEven Shantideva, Mr. \"Be a Spiritual Warrior,\" knows we won't always win the battle with our bad habits. And so we read,\n\nWhenever you fail, your cheeks should burn in humiliation and you should think: \"What can I do so that this doesn't happen to me again?\"\n\nWhen you fall off the horse, you dust yourself off and get back up on it for the next ride. This is called \"practice.\" We renew our efforts and strengthen our will. And this is the only road, rocky as it may sometimes be, to real self-improvement.\n\nRemember the \"reality mantra\":\n\nOm, it's like this now, ah hum.\n\nGiven that this mantra is perpetually relevant, we can deploy it also in those times of failure:\n\nIt's like this now. So what can I do now to avoid future defeat at the hands of my mental afflictions?\n\n### PLAYING FOR BIG STAKES\n\nThere is a very helpful spiritual maxim\u2014perhaps the most effective of all the tools we can employ in our laborious undertaking of self-improvement:\n\nIf you can't do it for yourself, then do it for others.\n\nThere's a tremendous power in altruism. I'm reminded here of news stories that tell of a small child pinned under a car. The child's mother, filled with adrenaline due to her panic and desperate wish to rescue her beloved offspring, just lifts up the car by the bumper, snatches the kid out of harm's way, and then drops the two tons of steel back on the ground.\n\nIn the next section of this book, we'll learn more about both the power and joy of self-forgetfulness. But even in our quest for self-improvement, thinking about others and not just ourselves is ultimately our greatest resource.\n\nCreating a better \"somebody self\" involves understanding how karma really works in order to gradually give one's self-image a makeover. And our self-conception begins to change immediately upon making the shift from ignorant self-indulgence to informed self-rehabilitation. We start to think of ourselves as someone trying to be a better somebody rather than as someone addicted to becoming more of a somebody. We begin turning our attention to others and how we can help rather than hurt them.\n\nWe focus on our ethical behavior and wage war against our mental afflictions, our true enemies who both destroy our current happiness and plant the seeds for an unhappy \"somebody self\" in the future. We hone and deploy the weapons of recognition, understanding, de-identification, and determination in our internal battle with our demons, and we do not get discouraged with the setbacks and failures that will inevitably be part of our path. We remember our mantra\u2014it's like this now\u2014and we play the hand we've been dealt with wisdom and skill, remembering that self-improvement is possible and knowing how it will be effectuated.\n\nWe try to play our cards smartly, but we should also recognize that the stakes are high. We are in every moment creating the causes for who we will be in the future. For our future happiness, or its opposite, depends on what we do, say, or think in the ongoing present.\n\nBut here's the real rub. Here's how high the stakes really are. Your world, and all the people in it, will change when you change.\n\nChange you, change the world.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThis, I fully acknowledge, is extremely hard for any of us to believe. It is virtually inconceivable to think that we as individuals have this kind of power, as it is sort of overwhelming to be laden with this kind of heavy responsibility.\n\nIt's one thing to think that we can change and improve ourselves. While most of us assume this is possible, it seems far-fetched indeed that there's any correlation between an inner transformation and a change in the outer world.\n\nBut what we make of our lives has repercussions far beyond what we ordinarily believe. What we do, say, and think defines not only who we are but also what kind of world we live in and what sort of people we encounter. If we truly wish to help others and create a better world, helping ourselves turns out to be the best way to do that.\n\nAnd if we are to come to actually believe this, we'll have to very carefully go through the logic for why this is so, and we'll have to repeatedly rehearse the syllogism.\n\nReady?\n\nNone of us has an objective view of our external world.\n\nWhen we aren't actually thinking about it, we all feel that we see things, events, and people as they really are. But this is an illusion, another trick of the egoistic self. Nobody has a \"God's eye\" view on reality.\n\nIf we're honest with ourselves, we can't help but admit that we are human beings and not digital cameras or recorders. And as humans, we're not like detective Joe Friday in Dragnet, who gathers \"just the facts, ma'am.\" None of us is privy to \"just the facts\"; we're only privy to what we think \"the facts\" are.\n\nAnd as psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes, \"How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences.\"\n\nSince none of us has an objective take on things, each of us necessarily has only a subjective view of the external world.\n\nBecause we're not machines but living organisms called \"people,\" our respective perceptions of the world, events, and other people come from a subjective, and not an objective, perspective.\n\nPut otherwise, all the data received by our senses is strained through our subjective filter. We don't see, hear, feel, taste, or touch the outside world in an unmediated fashion. We interpret what we experience in order to experience it.\n\nAnd the way we interpret things, events, and people is determined by our conditioning, by our karma. There are a multitude of factors that constitute the subjective filter through which all the external data must pass in order to be comprehended. The language we speak and the linguistic categories with which we think, the cultural and historical conditioning and assumptions of our place and time\u2014these form one part of the subjective filter. But additionally there are even more individual factors, such as our personal history, the ideology or belief system we adhere to, our psychological make-up, even how we are feeling on any particular day, and the prejudices and biases that derive from and are shaped by all of these conditions.\n\nThe \"subjective filter\" is really just another name for what we've been calling the \"somebody self.\" And so it is that we see the world not as it is but as we are.\n\nIf you change your subjective perspective, you change your experience of the external world.\n\nIf you accept the above two premises, then here is the first of the necessary logical conclusions: when you change your interpretive lens, you change your perceptions. Change you, and you'll change your viewpoint on external events and other people.\n\nWe all have experience of this. One day you wake up on the \"right side of the bed\" and the world looks pretty good\u2014you're relatively happy with your life and the people in it. But the next day, when you wake up on the \"wrong side of the bed,\" that same world takes on a different hue.\n\nGeorge Eliot wrote, \"Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.\" Our \"somebody self\" blocks out much of the range of possibility and permits us to see only a fragment of potential reality. But when we alter the \"troublesome speck of the self,\" we gain a different perspective on the world around us.\n\nSo self-improvement improves not only your sense of who you are, but it also cleans the filter through which you process what's outside of you. When you feel better about yourself, the world and other people seem more approachable and less problematic.\n\nAs we've seen, the individual self is nothing other than the sum total of our karma. When we change our karma, we change our sense of self, and thereby also change the subjective filter through which we apprehend the world.\n\nOK so far?\n\nIf you have followed me through these first three steps of the reasoning, then here comes the real kicker.\n\nIf you change your subjective perspective, you change the world.\n\nWait a minute! What happened? That couldn't be. I've been tricked!\n\nNo, you've just followed the logic of the syllogism. Since none of us has an objective view of the external world, and since all of us only experience the world from our subjective perspective, if we change our subjective perspective, we change our perspective on the world.\n\nAnd the world seen from the subjective perspective is the only knowable world there ever has been, is, or will be for any of us. So we might as well just call it \"the world.\"\n\nChange you, change the world.\n\nGet it? No? Review the steps. We all need to work through it over and over again. Because if we have even an inkling of how self-improvement goes hand in hand with the amelioration of the world we live in, it will supercharge our efforts to better ourselves.\n\nThe stakes are high when it comes to self-improvement. And so, once again, when the going gets tough\u2014when the Big Smackdown with the mental afflictions seems too daunting\u2014remember the maxim:\n\nIf you can't do it for yourself, do it for others.\n\nAction Plan: The Daily Rage in the Cage\n\nSingle out your worst negative emotion, your number-one mental affliction. (If you need some help, ask someone who knows you well; they'll tell you!) Begin your own daily Rage in the Cage with the affliction, employing the techniques we've discussed in this chapter\u2014recognition, understanding, de-identification, and determination. Don't be discouraged when the negative emotion wins the Smackdown. Review the defensive strategies above, and get back into the ring for the next round!\n\nAnd remember, your indulgence of the mental affliction is not making the lives of those around you more pleasant. Take strength in your consideration for their well-being. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for others.\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. I believe this mantra\u2014at least the \"it's like this now\" part\u2014originates with Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield, although he may have gotten it from someone else too.\n\n## 5\n\n## Being Nobody for Others\n\nWhatever suffering there is in the world comes from the selfish desire for happiness.\n\nWhatever happiness there is in the world comes from the desire for the happiness of others.\n\n\u2014\u2014Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life\n\n### WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?\n\nAny task is easier if it's done selflessly rather than egotistically, and that very much includes the big life project of improving the \"somebody self\"\u2014and thereby improving the world we live in.\n\nThe means to real self-improvement is, paradoxical as it might seem to the controlling, Captain Kirk self, a function of self-forgetting. We are happiest when we leave off assessing and evaluating our own relative happiness and become absorbed in something or someone other than ourselves.\n\nIn this section, we will examine two interrelated techniques for discovering more of the joy and fulfillment that being nobody can bring to our lives. Both methods involve losing the \"somebody self\"\u2014either by fully engaging in unselfconscious action (that's in the next chapter) or, as we'll see here, by freeing the ego from its endless itching through empathetically thinking about someone else and their wants and needs.\n\nIt is not through incessant self-consciousness but rather through dissolving ourselves in something or someone other than ourselves that we access the greatest source of transformational power we have available. It is when we can drop the demands of the \"somebody self\" and be available for others that we create the karma for improving our self-conception and the quality of life we lead.\n\nKarmic regulation, far from being just another method for ego-enhancement, is the only effective method of self-help. And at the very heart and soul of self-improvement through karmic management is the ability to put others and their interests first. Contrary to our usual unenlightened beliefs, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to consider how we can help others.\n\nAt first, it might seem a bit like driving a car with the accelerator floored while simultaneously stomping on the brake. Two apparently opposite operations occur simultaneously: we forget ourselves and turn our attention to others, all the time knowing that thinking about others and their needs is the best and only way to our own personal fulfillment.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"The most satisfying thing in life,\" writes Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, \"is to have been able to give a large part of one's self to others.\" We all know that some of our deepest and most rewarding experiences in life come when we can forget ourselves in service to another. We derive much of our joy in life from caring about and for other beings: our children, parents, lovers, friends, and even our pets.\n\nAs we witnessed in the last chapter, we usually can't trust either our untrained instincts or the mental afflictions they inspire. Or, it could also be said, we can trust them\u2014to be 180 degrees wrong. Just check for yourself: What responses do your instincts immediately advocate when someone hurts, offends, insults, or betrays you? These habitual reactions are in need of retraining, and this is the first task of self-improvement.\n\nFortunately we have certain instincts that we can trust, and those are the ones we should nurture and strengthen. Our deep-seated need to connect with others, to love and empathize with fellow human beings, is surely one urge we should cherish and nourish. The affection and concern a parent has for a child; the gratitude, respect, and responsibility a child feels for his or her parents; the heart-felt and intimate sense of union between lovers; the bonds of loyalty and camaraderie we share with close friends\u2014these are inborn positive emotions that our relationships with others inspire and call forth.\n\nThe inner angel strongly desires the self-forgetfulness\u2014or perhaps we should say, self-expansion\u2014that can accompany these kinds of links with other people. But the inner demon\u2014concerned only with the lower, egoistic, caterpillar self\u2014misconstrues and, often enough, subverts this aspect of our lives.\n\nAs we know all too well, the relationships we maintain with our significant others not only deliver the joys of interconnection and freedom from alienation; they can also inflict on us our greatest disappointments, aggravation, and animosity. That which is potentially one of the sources of our highest happiness can be (and, sad to say, often is) the cause of considerable frustration.\n\nThe spiritual project\u2014and the path to true contentment\u2014require that we tutor our self-destructive inclinations such that they can align with our deepest desire and purpose in life: to achieve the \"Great Itchless State\" so that we can help others achieve it too.\n\nWe ally ourselves with the inner angel\u2014that part of us that longs for the freedom that comes from relinquishing the purely egoistic orientation\u2014and we disavow the self-preoccupied \"me-first\" demon that keeps us tethered to our lower, individual self.\n\nGrasping to our individuality, to the little self we're so attached to, we invite unpleasant feelings of separation and isolation. Good relationships hinge on our ability to set aside the individual self's insatiable need to be venerated. The tiresome chant\u2014What about me?\u2014is replaced with a different incantation\u2014What can I do for you?\n\n### RELATIVITY THEORY\n\nNone of us is an autonomous, disconnected little island. We are inevitably and perpetually engaged in interactions with the other people in our world\u2014physical or mental, and for better or worse. These relationships not only affect our sense of self, they constitute it. Just as we don't have karma but are our karma, we also don't have relationships but are defined by them.\n\nThe personal self does not exist independently, only dependently. It is dependent on the body and mind that acts as the basis for the idea of the self (as we have seen in chapter 3), and on the karma or memories that fashion our self-conception (as we noted in chapter 4).\n\nBut we also exist in relation to our relationships. Every role we inhabit is made possible only in relation to somebody else. What Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh calls \"interbeing\" (as opposed to the \"illusion of our separateness\") describes not just our interpersonal relationships but our reality as a whole.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWe have already encountered a negative description of how the world really exists: Things and people are not perceived by any of us objectively. Just as we ourselves do not have a hardwired \"self\" in the way we think we do (recall the \"Where's Waldo?\" search), it is also not possible to identify some kind of unchanging and definitive essence for anyone or anything. Remember our examples from chapter 3? There are no essentially aggravating people in the world, and there is no essentially tasty flavor of ice cream.\n\nBut this negative assertion must be carefully distinguished from the nihilistic idea that what's external to us doesn't exist at all, that it is some kind of fantasy conjured up by \"me\" (whoever that is!). The external world and other people in it do exist\u2014and here's the positive articulation\u2014dependently. There are aggravating persons, but this depends upon others being aggravated by them. Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream is delicious, but only to someone (like me!) who judges it so.\n\nAnd it's like that with everything. Everything, without exception, depends on something else, and that something else depends in turn on something else! And so this positively stated depiction of reality is more accurately put like this: everything and everyone exists interdependently, not independently.\n\nYou know that old puzzle? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer is of course not! And here's why:\n\nThere is nothing perceivable in the world until and unless it is perceived. There can be, for example, no audible sound like that of a tree falling in the forest until and unless it is heard by someone. And while we may have all kinds of objections to such an apparently audacious statement, what would it really mean to assert that a sound occurs when no one hears it? Wouldn't such a position have to posit an inaudible (that is, not heard by anyone) audible sound?\n\nWe're not talking here about a sound's potential to be heard. Potentially, all kinds of things are possible. What we're discussing here is how things really are. Something is audible only when it is heard by a hearer, and not until. Right?\n\nSimilarly, there is no visible object until and unless it is seen by someone\u2014for if there were, there could be an invisible visible object! There's no odor until and unless it's smelt, there's nothing tangible that isn't felt, there's no tasty thing (like ice cream!) without a taster. And there's no thought that exists independently of a thinker who thinks the thought.\n\nAn unthought thought, an invisible visible object, an inaudible sound, an unsmelled smell, an intangible tangible thing, an untasted taste\u2014these are impossible things, totally inconceivable!\n\nToo theoretical? Here's the cash-out.\n\nThis truth of interdependence buttresses the startling conclusion of the last chapter: Change you, change the world. Because the external, perceivable world exists (for any of us) only in relation to being perceived (by any of us), the way it exists (for any of us) depends upon us, on the perceiver. If you want to perceive the external world\u2014things, events, and other people\u2014in a better way, adjust the perceiver, the lens through which the world comes into existence. Change you, and you will change the world.\n\nBut here the other shoe drops: in accordance with the interdependence of things, it's not just that perceptible objects depend upon a perceiver in order to be perceptible; because things exist interdependently, it is also the case that perceivers become perceivers only when they perceive something.\n\nFor a seer to be a seer, he or she must see a visible object, right? Can't be a \"seer\" if you aren't seeing something! And you can't be a \"listener\" until and unless you hear some sound. In what sense are you a \"seer\" or \"hearer\" (actually, not potentially) until and unless you see or hear something? And the same is true with the smeller, feeler, taster, and thinker; they exist dependently on what they sense\u2014a smell, a tangible thing, or a thought\u2014just as what they sense depends on being sensed in order to exist as such.\n\nAnd here's the relevant consequence of that dropped shoe. It's the inverse of our previous formula: Change the world, change you. If our sense of self\u2014the perceiver\u2014depends upon what is perceived, then if we learn to perceive things, events, and people differently we will change as well.\n\nWe see things and people not as they are but as we are. But because of interdependence, it is also the case that we are what we see (and hear, smell, feel, taste, and think). The perceiver is defined by what is perceived, and vice versa, and that's another reason why \"it's all relative\"\u2014everything and everybody exists within the matrix of interdependence.\n\nIf, for example, we see \"problems\" as \"opportunities,\" we will feel less embattled and thwarted, and will instead view ourselves as more engaged and empowered. If we focus on the good qualities of our aggravating person, we will be less aggravated. And if we engage with others with love and compassion, we will experience those relationships, and ourselves, in a much more positive way.\n\n### \"I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE\"\n\nBecause everything exists interdependently and not independently, our sense of self is inextricably entwined in and constituted by our relationships with others. We depend upon other people to be who we are.\n\nThere's an African concept called ubuntu, which is summarized in the proverb \"I am because you are\" and explained by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in this way:\n\nMy humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in theirs. We belong in a bundle of life. We say, \"A person is a person through other people.\" It is not \"I think, therefore I am.\" It says rather: \"I am human because I belong. I participate, I share.\"\n\nNone of us is somebody without other somebodies. All the roles we play\u2014every one of the carnival cutouts we stick our faces in\u2014are made possible by our relationships with others. We are fathers or mothers dependent upon having children; we're children only because we have parents. We're \"a friend\" because there is someone we're friends with, and we're \"a lover\" because there's someone (other than ourselves!) to love.\n\nOur professional identities are likewise always relational. A \"doctor\" can only be so because of patients, a \"teacher\" because of students, and a \"car mechanic\" because there are car owners whose vehicles need servicing. And as we observed in chapter 2, we also define our individual selves in relation to the communities we identify with\u2014our nationality, race, religion, or whatever.\n\nGroup identities, no less than individual ones, exist only in relation to others; they are forged in opposition to those who belong to different communities. As we've seen, we conceptualize ourselves as \"American\" because we're not \"Canadian\"; if we're \"Buddhist,\" it's dependent on us not being \"Christian.\" And so it is that we are also defined even by relationships with those we don't consciously identify with. We are annoyed because there are people who annoy us; angry and upset because others seem provocative; resentful or envious because of another's actions or status.\n\nWe are tied to those we dislike just as we are to those we more willingly associate with. Relationships fueled by negative emotion keep us chained to a self-conception marred by disaffection and unhappiness. As writer Ursula K. Le Guin observes, \"To oppose something is to maintain it.\" We can only think of ourselves as victims because we think of others as oppressors.\n\nWe can't be somebody all by ourselves, and the kind of \"somebody self\" we think we are exists dependently on the quality of our relationships. If we establish and maintain pleasant, loving, supportive relationships, we feel one way about ourselves. But if we are continually hassling with others, our self-image will suffer and our lives will continue to be troubled by these interpersonal difficulties.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe mental afflictions we spoke of in the last chapter almost always arise in relation to someone else. While we sometimes get angry, greedy, or prideful in relation to inanimate objects or events, it's when there are other people involved that we really get our backs behind the negative emotion.\n\nWe've talked about some of the tools available to us to combat those disturbing feelings as they rear their ugly heads:\n\n  Recognition: \"This mental affliction is not my 'little friend.' \"\n\n  Understanding: \"It's never in my self-interest to give in to such destructive emotions.\"\n\n  De-identification: \"This affliction is not me.\"\n\n  Determination: \"I will combat this feeling with all my might!\"\n\nAll of these methods involve turning inward. We introspectively identify and combat the negative feelings within ourselves as part of the project of self-improvement. The Rage in the Cage occurs within ourselves. But we also realize that, by changing ourselves through this kind of self-mastery, we will alter our perceptions of the people and situations that once evoked such destructive sentiments in us. We purify the subjective filter through which we perceive external things and beings and thereby clean our karma:\n\nChange you, change the world.\n\nBut as we've seen, there is a second method for transformation that stems from the theory of relativity and interdependence. Instead of focusing within, we turn our attention outward. If we can learn to perceive the things, events, and especially the other people in our world as beneficial instead of problematic, as targets of our positive feelings rather than our negative ones, we'll automatically gain a happier sense of self:\n\nChange the world, change you.\n\nAnd there is one powerful emotion, one virtuous state of mind, that we can direct outwardly in order to transform our perception of other people and thus our relationships with them.\n\n### FIND SOMEBODY TO LOVE\n\nThere's an old song made famous by Dean Martin, \"You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You\":\n\nYou're nobody 'til somebody loves you\n\nYou're nobody 'til somebody cares.\n\nDino croons on about how you might \"be king\" or possess all the riches of the world, maybe even the world itself, but no amount of riches can bring you true, lasting happiness. These lyrics convey a certain truth about the most important source of our self-esteem and self-worth. It's not our wealth, possessions, or professional achievements that now or in the end, when you're growing old, are of the greatest importance. We are indeed nothing without the meaningful, loving relationships we establish and maintain with others.\n\nWhen my dad was a resident in an assisted-living facility (what used to be known as the \"old folks' home\"), I would travel to visit him once or twice a year. It was not much of a sacrifice for me\u2014a couple days out of my life\u2014but it was a big deal for him. He would parade me around, introducing me to his friends at the facility, showing me off\u2014not so much for how special I supposedly was, but for the very fact that I was there at all, that I had come to visit him.\n\nIn conversations with my father and other elderly people at the old folks' home, I learned that what really mattered to them was not their former professions (no one spoke much about what or who they \"used to be\") or the possessions they had once acquired (now, for the most part, gone) or the exotic holidays they once enjoyed (just fading memories and tattered photographs).\n\nNone of this was that important to them anymore\u2014and none of it will be important to any of us if we're lucky enough to grow old before we die.\n\nWhat mattered to the elderly was who loved them. What was of greatest import was who cared about them enough to come visit, to spend a few hours of their lives with those who had been stripped of the more tenuous ego props we often rely on to feel like we're really somebody.\n\nAnd, of course, the old folks also talked a great deal not only about who loved them, but about those they loved. When the \"somebody self\" has been reduced to being just another inhabitant in a retirement facility, much of life is lived vicariously. The activities of the children and grandchildren, the nieces and nephews, take on greater significance. The focus in such a situation, almost by necessity, tends to turn away from the self and toward others.\n\nIt's like that, too, in times of crisis. When the chips are really down, we humans often rise to the occasion, break out of our self-imposed egoistic confines and instead think about how we can help those in need. There are, unfortunately, countless examples of such terrible times. The great tragedy of 9\/11 brought out the best in many New Yorkers, who selflessly aided and supported each other in the darkest of times. And there have regrettably been more recent and continuing incidents where a disaster elicits heroic responses of self-sacrifice and concern for others.\n\nBut it's not necessary to wait until old age or a crisis situation to exercise our greatest instinctual drive\u2014to love and care for someone other than ourselves.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"You're nobody 'til somebody loves you,\" as the song title states, but the lyrics continue to take things in a different direction:\n\nYou're nobody 'til somebody loves you,\n\nSo find yourself somebody to love.\n\nThe orientation shifts here. Instead of focusing on receiving love, we are advised to give it. \"Find somebody to love\"\u2014a recommendation put into our pop-cultural consciousness not just by Dean Martin, but also in tunes by Jefferson Airplane (\"Wouldn't you love somebody to love? You better find somebody to love\") and Queen (\"Can anybody find me somebody to love?\"), among many, many others.\n\nInstead of dwelling on ourselves and our own need for love, we think of others and how we can love them. Change the world\u2014through the power of love for someone else\u2014and you will change you.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe centrality of love is reflected in the fact that our popular culture continually shapes and gives expression to our deep need for it. From television shows and movies to Hallmark greeting cards, from the novels we read to the music we listen to, the theme of love recurs over and over again.\n\nBut the message we receive\u2014and often resonate with\u2014is not always helpful for a proper understanding of this all-important human emotion.\n\nIn preparation for remarks I was to give as the officiant at a wedding, I did some research and found a database that had compiled a comprehensive list of popular song titles. When I searched for those whose messages might be relevant for a couple that was getting married, I found that many of our so-called love songs conveyed a rather screwy idea of what love is.\n\nI found out that 191 songs have in their title the phrase \"you belong to me,\" and lots of others have variants on this theme:\n\n\"You Belong Here\"\n\n\"You Belong Here with Me\"\n\n\"You Belong in My Arms\"\n\n\"You Belong inside My Heart\"\n\n\"You Belong to Only Me\"\n\nThere is one song with the title that really cuts to the chase: \"I Own You.\" There are two, according to the database, with the title \"You Own Me.\"\n\nTwo songs are entitled \"I'm Your Woman.\"\n\nFive claim \"You're My Woman.\"\n\nSix are called \"You're My Man,\" while forty-five say \"I'm Your Man.\"\n\nAnd no less than 137 songs have titles that begin with the words \"you're mine\":\n\n\"You're Mine, I'm Yours\"\n\n\"You're Mine, Heart and Soul\"\n\n\"You're Mine Alone\"\n\n\"You're Mine Tonight\"\n\n\"You're Mine Forever\"\n\n\"You're Mine Only\"\n\n\"You're Still Mine\"\n\nAnd on it goes, the epitome of the genre being \"You're Mine, Mine, Mine.\"\n\nReal love is not about owning or possessing another. And love is also not about coercion, about \"making\" someone love you. Again, our popular so-called love songs reinforce this mistaken idea. Tunes with titles like \"I'm Gonna Make You Love Me\" or \"What Do I Have to Do to Make You Love Me?\" create the idea that we can somehow compel another's love for us.\n\nOr, much more often, we believe that the other can or should \"make us\" something or another, that our emotional life is putty in the hands of others. Sixty-seven songs begin with the phrase \"you make me\":\n\n\"You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman\"\n\n\"You Make Me Feel Like a Man\"\n\n\"You Make Me Want to Be a Mother\"\n\n\"You Make Me Feel Like Dancing\"\n\n\"You Make Me Feel So Young\"\n\n\"You Make Me Feel Brand New\"\n\nAnd, interestingly, \"You Make Me Real.\"\n\nConsider this title, a combination of both of the erroneous ideas about love\u2014as ownership and as compulsion: \"You Make Me Want to Make You Mine.\"\n\nWe are especially encouraged to think that a loved one has the power, and therefore also the obligation, to \"make us happy\"\u2014a message famously conveyed in the Blood, Sweat & Tears song \"You've Made Me So Very Happy.\"\n\nIf we believe that others have it within their power to \"make us happy,\" then soon enough we will also believe that they are capable of \"making us unhappy.\" Instead of taking responsibility for our own happiness and unhappiness, we cede it to others. We saddle them with a task they cannot perform (\"you make me so very happy\") and blame them for what they do not in fact have the ability to do (\"you make me so very unhappy\").\n\nTrue love\u2014whether it is romantic, fraternal, parental, filial, or whatever\u2014is neither about \"owning\" another person nor about what the other can or should do for you. Rather, it is about what you can or should do for another.\n\nReal love is about giving, not taking. It is the cessation of the \"me\" orientation and the generation of a selfless concern for another's happiness and well-being.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe mental afflictions we've been discussing can all be viewed as self-centered perversions of love. Anger (\"You're not loveable at all!\"), lust (\"I love you so much, I must have you to love me!\"), jealousy (\"You love somebody else and not me!\"), envy (\"You have something I don't that makes others love you more than me!\"), pride (\"I am so very, very loveable, don't you think?\")\u2014we can view the whole list of negative emotions in terms of our egotistical demands that others should love us.\n\nWhile we all want to be loved in order to feel like a real somebody, we also need to love in order to be loved\u2014and to do the latter, we must exercise self-forgetting. For it is when we suspend our self-centeredness and give ourselves over to others that we tap into the real power of love, the Higher Power, the god (or God) that is love.\n\nThe love of another is gratifying and helps us feel like a better somebody; but it is the love for another, premised on self-abnegation, that gives us a glimpse of our true nature and the real strength and bliss that come from being nobody.\n\nYou're nobody 'til somebody loves you, so you'd better find somebody to love. And when you do, you will truly love not as a somebody but as a nobody. As Bhagwan Rajneesh (aka Osho) remarked, \"When you love a person, you have to become a no-self.\"\n\n### EMPATHY, OR THE ART OF PUTTING YOURSELF IN ANOTHER'S SHOES\n\nTrue love\u2014again, not just romantic love but love in all its forms\u2014is an exercise in selflessness, the leap out of the stifling confines of our own individuality and into another's life and their desires, their cares, their difficulties.\n\nThe world's spiritual traditions have, in one voice, extolled such altruistic substitution for myopic self-absorption. This is not only because it's \"nice\" or \"good\" to be concerned with the well-being of others. It's also because, when we are able to think about somebody other than ourselves, we by necessity must drop the egoistic demands of the \"somebody self.\" The little voice inside stops its me, me, me refrain and a different mantra is heard: What about you? What can I do for you?\n\nThe essence of, and precondition for, selfless love is empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's position, to feel what they must be feeling and to relate to what they must be thinking. While the degree to which we are able to do this varies, the more we empathize with another, the less we are preoccupied with ourselves\u2014and therefore, the more relief we get from the isolation and burden of our disconnected individuality.\n\nEmpathy, the prerequisite of altruistic love and compassion, itself depends upon the assumption that others are essentially no different than us. This is why this kind of self-sacrificial emotion is relatively easy (although by no means always practiced) with our families, lovers, and friends. Because we identify with them, we can relatively easily love them \"as ourselves\"\u2014to \"love your neighbor as yourself,\" as Jesus put it.I\n\nBut it's not just those close to us who are like us. We saw way back in chapter 1 that \"we're all in the same boat\": we all equally are suffering, and we all equally have the desire, innate capability, and right to be happy.\n\nThis recognition of the fundamental equality of all human beings (or maybe it would be better to say of all living beings, for animals also share in these two big facts of life) lies behind the invariable principles that should guide all of our responses to others and their actions. We've mentioned them before; they are universally extolled and sometimes referred to as the Golden and Silver Rules:\n\n  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.\n\n  Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.\n\nBecause we know how we feel when others treat us either kindly or poorly, we know how we should treat them. It is the assumption of our basic equality that makes empathy possible, and, in turn, informs us about how to interact with others with love and respect\u2014friends as well as enemies.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIt is also our ability to empathize\u2014to put ourselves in another's shoes\u2014that provides another clue as to why and how karma really works when it comes to our actions vis-\u00e0-vis others. Why is it a karmic \"law\" that what goes around unfailingly comes around? Why couldn't something bad come from something good, and vice versa?\n\nKarma, as we argued in the last chapter, is not operating \"out there\" as a \"law of nature,\" but rather works to determine our perception of ourselves and of the external world.II Karma as an explanatory system is not about why and how other people are the way they are, or about why and how events occur the way they do. It explains how and why we experience people and events (and also, of course, ourselves) the way we do.\n\nKarma in its causal dimension depends on intention. Because we know how it feels to be hurt, for example, we can formulate the intention to hurt others. Similarly, we know how to show compassion, goodwill, and respect because we have been on the receiving end of others' positive actions toward us. We know how it feels to be loved, and because of that we know how to love.\n\nBut, as in our previous discussion concerning interdependence, we have to again drop the other shoe: because we know what it feels like to intend to hurt others, we know what it feels like to be hurt.\n\nSuffering and pain don't come so much from the words of another\u2014they're just syllables and decibels until they are interpreted as words meant to be hurtful. Even when it comes to harmful physical actions done to us, although the body itself may be injured, we are nevertheless much more liable to excuse and forgive if we believe the damage has been done accidentally or unwillingly. It is, again, the cruel motivation that makes the deed most upsetting and least pardonable. The deeper pain is not in the words spoken or even in the physical abuse, but in the belief that it was the other's intention to hurt us.\n\nAnd on the positive side, we know what it feels like to be loved by another because we have loved others. The warmhearted intention we project onto the other is what makes us feel loved, and we can project that intention onto the other because we've already had that same wish ourselves.\n\nThis is interdependence when it comes to karma and our relationships with others: (1) Because we know how it feels to be hurt or loved ourselves, we can formulate the intention to love or hurt others; and (2) because we know what it feels like to intend to hurt or love others, we also know what it feels like to be loved or hurt, as we presume the same intention on the part of another.\n\nKarmic management therefore entails another principle: Think the best of others\u2014allow for the possibility that they are basically well-intentioned. Because of this assumption\u2014because of interdependence\u2014you'll think better about yourself, and you'll be more likely to formulate better intentions in your interactions with others. This, in turn, will promote the habit of assuming that others' intentions are fundamentally good, like yours are, and on it goes . . . in an upward spiral.\n\nThe usual proverb can be inverted: It is the road to heaven, and not to hell, that is paved with good intentions.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWe should pause here to emphasize something about empathy. Empathy infused with love is not some chuckleheaded, na\u00efve, Pollyanna-ish attitude. Our capacity to put ourselves in another's position allows us to think well of others\u2014repeat this mantra: we're all just doing our best\u2014but it also recognizes that others are just like us in another way.\n\nWe're all equally fallible; we all make mistakes; we all are liable to succumb to our worst tendencies and to do and say things that we know, when the mental afflictions don't have their death grip on us, are wrong and hurtful.\n\n\"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,\" wrote the playwright Terence nearly two thousand years ago. \"I'm a human being. Nothing human is foreign to me.\" And that refers both to our human capacity for virtue and to our common inability to always exhibit it.\n\nAnd so empathy also inspires us to consideration, tolerance, and forgiveness when it comes to the other people in our lives. Just as we hope others will cut us a break when we fail, similarly we can use empathy to give others the benefit of the doubt. This too is a form of seeing the best in others, for, as we all know, \"doing our best\" does not always mean we win the Big Smackdown with our own negative emotions. Sometimes our best when it comes to a particularly challenging situation does not reflect our idealistic best.\n\nThe smartest response to others' mistakes and shortcomings is guided not by self-righteousness rooted in pride and egoism; rather, it is guided by the exercise of our wisdom and compassion, both of which are grounded in a recognition of our common humanity.\n\nWe can both appreciate the goodness in others as well as acknowledge our shared failings if we exercise empathetic love. Such a perspective brings us closer to one another rather than keeping us apart. Such a point of view is essential for overcoming the separation we feel when we over-identify with the \"somebody self\" as if it were somehow cordoned off from other beings who are essentially just like us.\n\nReflection on the nature of our relationships with others helps us understand the artificial, and therefore porous and expandable, boundaries of our own selfhood. We all have the capacity to stretch the borderlines of our identity such that the small individual self encompasses others. And in the process, the ego is subsumed within a larger whole.\n\nWhen we lose ourselves in empathetic identification with others\u2014with our children or parents, our lovers or friends, but also with those we find difficult (and these are not mutually exclusive categories!)\u2014we get an inkling of the joys and benefits of dropping the \"somebody self\" and being nobody.\n\n### THE DOORMAT SYNDROME AND THE MYTH OF \"COMPASSION FATIGUE\"\n\nThere are two objections I often hear when it comes to the spiritual teachings on selflessness in relation to others.\n\nThe first objection concerns dysfunctional relationships involving repeated incidents of abuse. Our closest relationships can, unfortunately, be our most traumatic when they've gone seriously awry. Should I stay or should I leave is a question I'm often asked. And the inevitable answer is, \"It depends.\"\n\nIt is not a compassionate act to allow yourself to be a doormat. Obviously it's not good for you. Being the repeated object of another's aggression places you in the role of \"helpless victim\"\u2014and this is neither a pleasant nor beneficial carnival cutout to stick your face in. We are all equally entitled to respect from others\u2014and that includes you!\n\nBut a relationship characterized by such abuse is also not good for the one who's using you as the doormat. Entering into and perpetuating an association where we allow another person to hurt us over and over again is not good for that other person. Hurting others is wrong, and those who hurt others are creating some very nasty karma for themselves. Out of love and compassion for both yourself and your partner, you must put a stop to it.\n\nEmpathy can once again guide us. People who hurt other people are not happy people. We know this from our own experience. When we are deeply troubled inside, we often seek relief by taking it out on others. Misery, as they say, loves company. The proper response to the suffering of others\u2014even or especially the suffering that causes people to lash out in violent speech or actions\u2014is compassion.\n\nCompassion: to suffer together. And with such empathy for the other's pain, we can determine the best course of action should we find ourselves in an abusive relationship.\n\nStay or leave? It may be possible to stay and try to work things out, perhaps with the help of a good therapist, such that the cycle of mistreatment is broken. But it might also be necessary to leave in order to end an unhealthy codependency where negative karma for all concerned continues to be reproduced.\n\nIn either case, empathetic love will help point us in the right direction. Instead of basing our decision on what we think will be most advantageous for ourselves, we turn our attention to the other:\n\nWhat's best for him or her? Can I really help this person end the abusive behavior by staying, or do I need to vacate the relationship in order to stop perpetuating this unhealthy codependency?\n\nDon't forget: being nobody does not mean being a worthless nothing; being nobody is not the same as being a victimized, traumatized, doormat somebody. What is called for is the willingness to drop our inveterate self-centeredness. And also remember, if it doesn't bring the release that comes from laying down the burden of selfishness, it ain't really being nobody.\n\nThe other objection many of us have when it comes to losing the \"somebody self\" in our love for others is what has been labeled \"compassion fatigue.\" People in the helping professions, or just overtaxed parents and caregivers, sometimes claim to be burned out or drained from \"too much compassion.\" I give and I give and I give, and now I'm exhausted. I need a little \"me time\"!\n\nBut if we examine the notion of \"compassion fatigue\" from the karmic point of view, it turns out to be an oxymoron. One of the invariable principles of karma is that nothing bad can come from something good. Assuming that \"fatigue\" is not a welcome feeling, and that \"compassion\" is indeed a virtuous state of mind, the former cannot actually derive from the latter.\n\nAny \"fatigue\" we experience when engaged in helping others comes from self-concern, not from self-forgetfulness. Once we have truly lost ourselves in service to others, we tap into a source of energy and strength far beyond what the \"somebody self\" is capable of. Like the mother who lifts the car under which her child is trapped, when we give ourselves over completely to others we gain access to a tremendous reservoir of power\u2014the power that comes from being nobody.\n\nIt is not often, however, that we are able to be so completely self-effacing in our relationships. The demands of the hungry ego are very, very compelling. It is an extremely self-assured, self-confident person who can summon the courage and daring to willfully and completely set aside the imperatives of the \"somebody self.\"\n\nIn the next chapter we'll discuss the nature of selfless action\u2014activity that encompasses a kind of relaxed presence and playfulness quite different from what we think of as \"work.\" If we experience \"fatigue\" or \"burnout\" from our compassionate actions toward others, it ceases to be truly compassionate and truly selfless. It's no longer a choice but a chore.\n\nAnd so, with the understanding that it's not the compassion that fatigues you, when you feel the need, you must rest. When your charitable service to others threatens to subvert the virtuous inclination that led to it, it's time to take a break . . . before you break! Go ahead and grab some \"me time\" so that you can return later, refreshed, to the aid of those who need you.\n\nMany of the world's religions share the tradition of regularly observing holidays (\"holy days\") in order to rest and revitalize. In the Western religions, this is the purpose of the \"Sabbath,\" one day of vacation every week. And in the Eastern traditions, we find similar injunctions to nurture and protect our altruistic inclinations from burnout. Here's one such admonition:\n\nThe forces for helping us accomplish the goals of other living beings are willpower, steadfastness, joy, and taking a break when needed.\n\nThe text lays out the \"forces\" that keep us going even when the temptations to quit are great. Willpower\u2014the determination to overcome the stifling limitations of selfish egoism by \"finding someone to love.\" Steadfastness\u2014sticking with our resolution to pursue our enlightened self-interest through cultivating empathetic love and altruistic behavior. Joy\u2014being happy to have the opportunity to create the causes for our own true happiness by promoting the welfare of others.\n\nFinally, \"taking a break.\" The word I've translated as \"taking a break\" is mukti, which means \"freedom, release, deliverance from\"\u2014here in the sense of \"leaving off\" or \"releasing\" oneself from the task. This means taking a holiday\u2014or at least some \"down time\"\u2014in order to safeguard our charitable, altruistic inclinations from the self-preoccupation that can undermine them, and to restore ourselves such that we can think more clearly about the value of service to others.\n\n### WHAT IF GOD WERE ONE (OR ALL) OF US?\n\nLosing the self in service to others is a time-honored spiritual method for overcoming our innate egoism. An opposing inborn predisposition is called up: the desire to connect and identify with other people and rise above and beyond the arbitrary limitations through which we imprison ourselves.\n\nIt is because of the fact of interdependence, the truth that we are inextricably bound to others, that we can acknowledge and make use of interdependence to improve the quality of the relationships that, in their turn, define us. One of the two formulas of transformation is employed\u2014change the world, change you, the twin of the equally potent recipe: change you, change the world\u2014and we work the magic.\n\nWe think about others with the empathy that evolves from an assumption of basic equality. We wish that others be free from suffering and that they find happiness, just as we wish it for ourselves; and we interact with others with that kind of intention rather than with the more egoistic and injurious desires our mental afflictions motivate. And we also recognize that others, like us, are fallible and don't always live up to their highest ideals\u2014an exercise in empathy that invokes in us compassion rather than anger or judgment, forgiveness rather than resentment and a thirst for revenge.\n\nOvercoming our preoccupation with the self and its perverse misunderstanding of \"love,\" we realize that our love for another is the karmic cause of feeling loved by another\u2014for what goes around will come around. And we are wise enough to understand that empathy sometimes requires tough love and tough choices toward others (to avoid the \"doormat syndrome\") and the careful preservation and maintenance of our own efforts (to avoid associating \"compassion\" with \"fatigue\").\n\nIn the next chapter, we will see how our activities in general can be pursued more selflessly\u2014and joyously! Losing the self in the ongoing flow of life itself\u2014in our solitude as well as in our interactions with others\u2014provides us with another opportunity to be nobody in our everyday lives.\n\nBut let's conclude here with what has been called the greatest secret, the most esoteric and powerful practice, when it comes to our relationships with others:\n\nHear once more My highest words, the most secret of all, for you are surely dear to Me so I will tell you for your own good. Keep your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, prostrate to Me. I promise that you will come to Me, for you are dear to Me.\n\nThese verses are from one of the world's religious classics, the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna is speaking to his friend and student Arjuna at the very end of the long dialogue that comprises the text. At one level, the \"highest words, the most secret of all,\" that Krishna communicates relate to the transcendence of the lower self and the realization of the Divine, the Great Unity that lies beneath all diversity that is the ultimate experience of being nobody.\n\nBut another dimension of Krishna's supreme teaching offers us a formidable strategy when dealing with others. It is one that we all can utilize in order to improve\u2014radically improve\u2014our relationships. In the Eastern traditions, this practice is called \"guru yoga\"\u2014seeing another person as a divine manifestation in your life, an emissary sent from HQ and assigned specifically to your case.\n\nThere's a lot of misunderstanding about the nature and function of the \"guru\"\u2014the Sanskrit term for the spiritual teacher\u2014so it is important to be clear about what this practice really entails before we can benefit from it.\n\nFirst of all, a guru is not essentially or objectively a guru, any more than the aggravating person is. A guru becomes a guru when a student voluntarily enters into this special relationship with him or her\u2014and not until. The guru-disciple bond, like all other relationships, functions interdependently: for the guru to act as a guru, he or she must have a student; and for a student to be a student, he or she must have a teacher.\n\nA second important point about the guru follows from the first. Your guru could literally be anyone. There's no factory that produces gurus, and there's no \"Gurus R Us\" website from which you could order yours. The guru comes into being when we designate someone to act in that capacity for us. And in a sense, that choice is arbitrary. Your guru could be a minister, rabbi, priest, imam, monk, or nun; but he or she could also be your wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, son or daughter, father or mother, friend or relative\u2014or even (maybe especially!) whoever that aggravating person is in your life.\n\nAnd so it is that we can put into practice this most esoteric, secret technique for making our relationships extraordinary. We begin with the admission that we really don't know who other people are. We know how they appear to us, but we also acknowledge that we don't see others as they are, but rather as we are.\n\nAnd who we are is a complex bundle of possibilities. We alternate, even moment to moment, among a vast array of potential identities. We stick our faces into all kinds of carnival cutouts, and as we've observed in this chapter, we also define ourselves through our relationships with others.\n\nThe core of guru yoga involves intentionally deciding to see another as the reflection of our Highest Self. \"I am seated in the hearts of everyone,\" says Krishna. God is within us as well as without, a notion that is common to many of the world's spiritual traditions, especially in their more mystical strands.\n\nAnd so guru yoga can be understood as a mechanism for using another person as a mirror for catching a glimpse of what is best in us. By tapping into the truth of interdependence, we connect with our innate divinity by working to see the divine in another. Perceive it without, and you will recognize it within.\n\nBut now for a third crucial observation about guru yoga: Constituting someone as your guru does not mean that everything they say or do will automatically be \"good\" or \"right,\" and that the student's job is just to agree and obey. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of the practice and has gotten a lot of people into a lot of trouble!\n\nThe essence of guru yoga is to be constantly learning; the guru is the teacher and teachings can come in many forms. Sometimes teachings are easy, but sometimes they're hard. Sometimes teachings make us feel better about ourselves, but perhaps the most beneficial lessons are those that challenge us to look at what we need to change. Sometimes teachings make it easy for us to like the teacher, but sometimes they are presented in the form of a negative exposure\u2014cautionary examples about what we need to avoid in our own lives. There are even instances when the teaching the guru gives is that it's time to find someone else to fulfill that function\u2014a lesson in detachment that can be particularly hard.\n\nBut in every case, a teacher can only teach if a student learns. The proper practice of guru yoga always requires the student to take personal responsibility for the relationship and to think for him- or herself. One reflects on whatever the guru says or does and struggles to come to his or her own determination:\n\nWhat am I to learn from this?\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSome of us may choose to formally enter into a relationship with an \"official\" guru\u2014someone who represents a spiritual lineage and teaches us what has been handed down in a particular tradition. But all of us have the opportunity to avail ourselves of the power inherent in the practice of guru yoga. Whether one works with an \"authorized\" spiritual teacher or chooses to remain a \"none,\" guru yoga is the most efficacious way to transform our relationships and make quick progress in our spiritual journey.\n\nWe often have this somewhat na\u00efve notion that a real spiritual teacher should look and act in a particular way. They should, perhaps, wear certain clothing, adorn themselves with religious artifacts, or have a distinctive hairstyle (or lack thereof). They should, we might think, be capable of miracles, or at least have all kinds of charisma and charm. They should, we may assume, have some sort of signature \"spiritual\" demeanor, only speak softly and significantly, and (here's what we really hope!) always be nice to us.\n\nBut with the understanding that the guru could be anyone, what if we decided to bring the personage who occupies that special role for us a little closer to home? What if we took the guru off the pedestal and put him or her inside our living room? What if we tried to imagine that a divine being had moved in with us in order to help us improve ourselves?\n\nWhat if God were one of us, trying to help us see the divine that is in all of us?\n\nHere's the way it works\u2014and kids, do try this at home! Just make a decision that from now on someone in your life will serve as your guru. Just decide that your husband or wife, your flatmate, your son or daughter, your best friend, or even a very difficult person with whom you have a close relationship will function in this special way for you. From now on, you assume that this person is a divine being, working undercover (sometimes it will seem that they are deeply undercover!), trying to help you.\n\nFrom now on, everything this newly appointed guru says or does will be interpreted as a teaching meant especially for you.\n\nAnd then let the games begin! Occasionally things will indeed seem magical. Words and actions that you once paid little or no attention to will take on deep meaning. The relationship will assume the enchanted quality of our dreams:\n\nWow! I can't believe what she just said to me! Amazing!\n\nBut far more often, the practice will be a lot more challenging:\n\nWhy did he leave his dirty underwear on the floor?\n\nWhy did she forget my birthday?\n\nAnd why oh why did my guru just insult me?\n\nIn fact, it probably won't be but a few minutes into this practice that your newly appointed guru will do and say what will seem to be very \"un-guru-like\" things!\n\nThen it's up to you to think, \"What's the lesson here? What is this divine being trying to teach me?\" Maybe it's to be more like him or her, to imitate the positive qualities you have become keenly aware of while engaging in this practice of seeing the other as divine. But maybe it's to learn patience from a teacher posing as an irritating person; to learn to be more thoughtful of others as the teacher displays what it looks like to be selfish; to be careful that you're not doing to others what the teacher is now doing to you.\n\nNo matter whether the lesson is presented positively or negatively, the relationship becomes an ongoing opportunity to learn and grow. And that's the real magic inherent in the practice of guru yoga.\n\nWhile it's probably easiest to begin with one person you already see as sort of special, someone you love and who loves you, guru yoga has the capability of revolutionizing any relationship. It can be employed with equal benefit with loved ones and difficult people alike. It is the ultimate extension of thinking the best of others, of giving others the benefit of the doubt; of seeing the transformative possibilities inherent in any relationship; and of exploiting to the fullest the fact that if we alter our perception of others we will change our understanding of ourselves.\n\nAction Plan: Working with a Guru\n\nPick one person in your life to function as your \"guru.\" As we've said above, it could theoretically be anyone, but it might be best to start with someone close to you who you love\u2014a wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter, or a very close friend.\n\nThe practice is simple to describe, but difficult indeed to stick with. Just decide that from now you'll regard this person as a kind of divine being\u2014an angel who is only trying to help you\u2014and everything, without exception, that this special person says or does is meant to be a teaching for you. What is it you need to learn about yourself from what the \"guru\" just said or did?\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. When asked which of the commandments were most important, Jesus said: \"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.\" Matthew 22:37\u201339.\n\nII. In philosophical terms, we might say that karma isn't a metaphysical system but rather an epistemological one.\n\n## 6\n\n## Going with the Flow\n\nTo be too conscious is an illness\u2014a real thoroughgoing illness.\n\n\u2014\u2014Fyodor Dostoyevsky\n\n### GETTING INTO THE ZONE\n\nYou must lose the self, as Jesus said, to find it.I Or, to put it in the terminology we've used here, you must rise above the \"somebody self\" in order to gain some kind of access to the joyful unselfconsciousness of being nobody.\n\nThe empathetic expansion of identity to encompass others in our lives is one of the principal methods provided by our spiritual traditions to overcome the confines of mere individuality. But there is another spiritual technique designed to help us drop the self-consciousness and self-centeredness that are the ultimate sources of our unhappiness.\n\nThe method we'll explore in this chapter is designed to help us lose the self in action of all sorts\u2014not only in our relationships with others, but in each and every one of our everyday activities, alone or in company.\n\nWe use various colloquialisms to speak of being engrossed in action. When we're \"really into it,\" or when we're in \"the zone\" or \"the pocket\" or \"the groove,\" or when we're \"going with the flow,\" we're describing what it's like to be nobody because the \"somebody self\" has been wholly absorbed in an endeavor.\n\nWe all know what it feels like to be really consumed in an activity. When we say a book was a \"real page-turner\" or a movie was \"riveting,\" we are referring to this experience. When the concert was \"mind-blowing\" or the football match kept us on the \"edge of our seat,\" it's this sensation we're pointing to.\n\nWe are attracted to our hobbies, recreational activities, and games because they tend to launch us into this special state of mind. We're captivated by puzzles, and we love challenges at work for their capacity to bring us there. The rush we get while engaged in stimulating activities, especially those with a hint of danger (for me, it's riding my motorcycle), or when we're in the midst of an emergency\u2014these too can evoke this feeling. And, of course, it is this state of self-forgetfulness and ecstasy (derived from the word exstasis, \"standing outside of the self\") that lies behind the powerful attraction of heightened sexual experiences.\n\nIt's the feeling of not being there, or, we could also say, of totally being there\u2014of dropping the mental narrative and fully integrating with the experience itself. The inner play-by-play commentary on life ceases. Instead of the usual voice-over we superimpose on unfolding events, we are fully engrossed in the activity itself. The mind's monologue is silenced as unmediated awareness takes over.\n\nWe're all familiar with this unselfconscious state of consciousness that arises when we fully inhabit the here and now. It's the joy of being fully integrated into life itself. It's the exhilaration and elation we feel when we are deeply engaged in what we're doing. And it's another way we gain access in our everyday lives to the rapture of being nobody.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMihaly Csikszentmihalyi has observed that we're happiest when we're in this condition of pure awareness. He has famously labeled it \"flow,\" defining it as the state \"in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.\"\n\n\"Really getting into it\" is the opposite of being \"out of it,\" of just spacing out and living life on cruise control. The flow state is characterized by extraordinary concentration on a task one finds captivating. \"Concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems,\" writes Csikszentmihalyi. When we are fully in the moment, completely occupied with the task at hand, we are unable to be simultaneously preoccupied with what comes next or \"post-occupied\" with what has already happened.\n\nThe flow state is the thorough engagement with the present, the utter embrace of reality as it's happening. It's like this now\u2014entirely accepted and embodied.\n\nMost importantly for our theme, this state of heightened awareness\u2014full absorption in what one is doing\u2014is also characterized by the loss of a sense of self-consciousness. \"Happiness,\" notes spiritual teacher Krishnamurti, \"is not something that you can seek; it is a result, a by-product,\" of self-abandonment:\n\nIf you pursue happiness for itself, it will have no meaning. Happiness comes uninvited; and the moment you are conscious that you are happy, you are no longer happy. . . . Being self-consciously happy, or pursuing happiness, is the very ending of happiness. There is happiness only when the self and its demands are put aside.\n\nThe \"somebody self\" disappears when we are truly happy; the inner voice shuts up. In fact, it is precisely the degree to which one loses the self in the activity that defines how deep the flow really goes.II Such \"peak experiences,\" as Abraham Maslow designated them, are moments of self-transcendence and contentment: \"Perception in the peak-experience can be relatively ego-transcending, self-forgetful, egoless, unselfish. It can come closer to being unmotivated, impersonal, desireless, detached, not needing or wishing.\"\n\nThese optimal, self-transcending states of mind are the bread and butter of religious mysticism. The \"oceanic feeling\" occurs when the individual feels herself or himself subsumed within some greater whole: \"God,\" \"ultimate reality,\" \"the Ground of All Being,\" one's \"Buddha nature,\" or whatever one wishes to call the nameless.\n\nIn the Eastern religious traditions, we are given a method designed to bring some version of this exalted state of mind into all our actions. In Taoism and Confucianism, the practice is called wu wei, or \"effortless action,\" and in Buddhism it's spoken of in terms of \"awareness\" and \"mindfulness\" in each and every one of our pursuits. In the Hindu tradition the phrase describing this spiritual technique for getting into the zone is particularly apt: karma yoga, or \"disciplined action.\"\n\nThese spiritual traditions posit that even in the ordinary activities of our daily lives we can enter the flow state. We don't need to wait for some extraordinary gift of grace to get a taste of the bliss, or sequester ourselves in a cave somewhere in order to bring about a mystical trip. And we don't have to continually and desperately search for exceptionally titillating \"peak experiences\" before we can get into the groove.\n\nEvery experience in life has the potential to be \"peak\"; every moment and every activity has the latent capacity to be \"optimal\" if we learn to let go of the \"somebody self\" and live in a more integrated and less self-conscious way.\n\nThere is, however, a difference between being mindlessly absorbed in an activity\u2014passively watching television or a movie or staring at the computer, for example\u2014and what we might call mindful unselfconsciousness in our actions. Karma yoga assumes both the disciplined \"mindfulness\" and the joyful \"unselfconsciousness\" that comprise \"being in the zone\" as opposed to just \"zoning out.\"\n\nThere's also a difference between hoping that some activity or another will seem captivating enough to push us into the flow, and the learned ability to put ourselves there. We all know and desire the joy of being completely engaged in what we're doing. But in between such \"optimal experiences,\" few of us stop to reflect on why and how they happen, and how we could potentially enter into any activity with this same intensity and attention.\n\nWashing the dishes offers the same potential for getting into the zone as motorcycling or rock climbing do. There's nothing in any Himalayan cave that's missing from the office when it comes to getting into the flow. Any action done with mindful unselfconsciousness can take us there.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe unexamined life, it has been said, is not worth living\u2014and that's true enough. It's important to be self-aware, in part because it is through self-awareness that one can come to realize that it is too much self-awareness that blocks us from the source of our greatest happiness. For the over-examined life can perpetually defer the actual living of it. \"Ask yourself whether you are happy,\" wrote J. S. Mill, echoing the Krishnamurti quotation cited above, \"and you cease to be so.\"\n\nOur deepest joy arises only when we cease taking our own temperature and, like the old Nike slogan says, just do it. Life does not run best when it's in neutral\u2014stalled out in continual self-analysis\u2014but when it's fully engaged.\n\n### GETTING UNBUSY\n\nYeah, but I'm already \"fully engaged,\" and it's totally stressing me out! I've got a million things to do\u2014so many responsibilities! I'm just so busy!\n\nNowadays most of us do indeed often feel the tension that accompanies having a lot to do. We have homework to complete, exams to pass, diplomas to acquire, and paying jobs to land. There are tasks at the office to accomplish, business problems to solve, and professional promotions to earn. The bills must be paid, forms must be filled out, and taxes must be filed.\n\nThe housework needs attention, the kids have to be driven to their soccer game, and there are birthday parties to be organized. There are home repairs that await us, meals to be prepared, and dishes, clothes, cars, and bodies to be washed. And there are, for some of us, book manuscripts to complete in order to meet the publisher's deadline.\n\nOur social lives can also sometimes seem a bit overwhelming, what with all the appointments, meetings, engagements, rendezvous, dinner parties, and lunch dates there are to juggle. We even fill our leisure time with plans, projects, schedules, and itineraries so as to not run the risk of\u2014gasp!\u2014boredom, the characteristically modern abhorrence of not having enough things to do.\n\nAnd the younger you are, the more likely that you're freaking out about all of this. A survey done on behalf of the American Psychological Association found that half of all \"millennials\" say their angst keeps them awake at night, and 39 percent of them said that their stress levels had increased in the past year.\n\nWe've done a good job of passing on this kind of anxiousness about life's tasks to our kids. When I was a teenager, I looked forward to sleeping in on Saturday morning (and we all know the amazing talent most teenagers have for sleeping in\u2014especially, I guess, if they've been kept awake the night before by stress!). But invariably my dreams were literally shattered as my father woke me at some ungodly hour (like maybe around 10:00 am) with the \"to do list\"\u2014the chores I was expected to get through that day.\n\nIdleness, I was told, was the devil's playground, and there would be no such demonic tomfoolery in this house! Let's get to work, son!\n\nAnd so most of us have internalized the idea that our self-worth consists at least in part in how busy we keep ourselves, with all the pressures and strains that come from such an attitude. Now more than ever before, we feel it's crucial to keep ourselves constantly occupied\u2014or at least thinking about all the things we have to do\u2014in order to be a real somebody.\n\nEven though such perpetual worry and frenetic activity is wearing us out and down, we nevertheless revel in what has become a cult of busyness.\n\nOur communications these days are often just to let each other know how much we've all got going on. Have you ever phoned up a friend and asked them how they're doing, only to sit there on the other end of the line, listening to them talk for fifteen minutes about how busy they are? Maybe you've found yourself doing the same when someone else asks after you. Our catch-up conversations turn into contests to see who's busier.\n\nAnd what's the unspoken message behind such tedious sharing and cataloging of our many activities?\n\nI'm really, really busy\u2014so see how important and valuable my life is?\n\nIn an article published in the New Statesman, Ed Smith writes that busy people \"are not rushing to arrive somewhere, still less to achieve anything. They are rushing because rushing is how they display how hard they work.\" The cult of busyness has become \"a cultural malaise.\" We're all trying to convince ourselves and others that our lives are significant because we are so busy working:\n\nIn every area of public life, we demand not only that people work harder, but, crucially, that they be seen to work ever harder. This is the age of professional martyrdom.\n\nOne of my spiritual teachers once pointed out that super-busy people are actually the very ones\u2014talented, energetic, and intelligent people\u2014who, if they paused their nonstop spinning long enough, would realize how relatively insignificant much of what they're busy doing actually is.\n\nBusyness for its own sake can keep us unaware of and unfocused on the more consequential things we have to do in life. And the busyness stresses us out, which often enough triggers major mental-affliction attacks. Anxiety about how many things there are to do does not help us do them better or more efficiently, let alone more wisely and calmly.\n\nInstead of putting us in the flow, busyness just sweeps us away in the current. Instead of the mindful unselfconsciousness that characterizes being in the zone, the cult of busyness instills a self-conscious mindlessness that keeps us stewing about how much we have to do instead of concentrating on what we are actually doing.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nStaying busy for the sake of busyness is not a spiritual technique for self-transcendence, happiness, or contentment. It is, rather, a recipe for agitation and turmoil, in addition to often being just another ploy to accentuate one's self-importance.\n\nThe spiritual methods for self-forgetfulness in action are quite different than this kind of hectic, chicken-with-its-head-cut-off urge to just keep busy all the time. And it's not mere inactivity that serves as the real antidote. Another cause of stress derives from worrying about all the things we should be doing that for one reason or another we are unable or unwilling to do.\n\nThe opposite of busyness is not paralysis. It's remaining active and engaged in life, but in a calm and relaxed manner. We must do what there is to do, but most of us need to get way more unbusy as we're doing it.\n\nGetting unbusy can mean cutting back on nonessential or meaningless activity in order to create a more uncluttered schedule. Reprioritizing what is really important puts what is not so essential in its proper place.\n\nIt can also mean taking more time off or simply enjoying the free time we already have without diluting it with obsessive worry, nonstop checking of email and text messages, and treating our days off and holidays as if they were just another opportunity to stay busy. We don't need to bring our work into our leisure time, and we don't need to turn our leisure time into work.\n\nGetting unbusy can also include introducing a relaxation or meditation practice into the daily schedule\u2014a time where you just sit and do nothing (except grabbing some peace of mind!), which is perhaps one reason why so many of us resist it. To the busyness fanatic, meditating seems so . . . unproductive.\n\nBut the main thing about getting unbusy is a change in one's attitude. Our duties in life, no matter how many or even how onerous, will not seem so overwhelming if we are not overwhelmed.\n\nStress does not arise in reaction to some quantifiable number of things one has to do. There are plenty of people\u2014I've personally known several\u2014who remain constantly occupied all day long without evincing much or any anxiety. And then there are folks who have, like, two things to do in the day and get themselves all balled up:\n\nOh, I'm so busy! I have a doctor's appointment at 9:30, and then this afternoon, I have this other thing to do!\n\nThere's a difference between staying active\u2014physically doing what needs to be done in the here and now\u2014and the mental feeling of being too busy. It's not that there aren't things in our lives that need attending to. There certainly are. What's being suggested here is definitely not that we ignore our jobs, our family obligations, or any of our other responsibilities. But these duties need not be a perpetual source of unhappiness by being regarded as drudgery instead of as opportunities for getting into the flow.\n\nAssuming an unbusy mindset allows for relaxed action instead of frenzied movement. Bhagwan Rajneesh (\"Osho\") has drawn a distinction between \"activity\" and \"action.\" \"Action is not activity,\" Rajneesh argues, and \"activity is not action.\"\n\nAction is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response; you are so restless within that the situation is just an excuse to be active. Action comes out of a silent mind\u2014it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Activity comes out of a restless mind\u2014it is the ugliest.\n\nWhen the situation demands it, we act\u2014it's like this now, so we do what needs to be done. The opposite of busyness is not simple indolence or immobility, and it is certainly not shirking our obligations. But the agitation and restlessness\u2014the chronic impulse to just do something, anything!\u2014that accompanies what Rajneesh labels \"activity\" is the source of tension and anxiety.\n\nIndian deities and Tibetan Buddhist enlightened beings are often depicted with multiple arms to indicate the many beneficial ways they act in the world. They are portrayed as industrious\u2014it's a big job keeping the universe going and all! But none of them is pictured with brows all furrowed in angst. They're all totally Botoxed!\n\nActively and skillfully engaged, but not crazy busy\u2014this is the model for action in our own lives. Getting unbusy entails doing what there is to do efficiently and happily but without the incessant demands for frenetic activity associated with a stressed-out lifestyle that accompanies the cult of busyness.\n\n### FREEDOM FROM COMPULSIVE ACTIVITY\n\nTrue freedom, as we've been emphasizing, does not consist of just doing anything our untrained impulses suggest. Such an understanding of \"freedom\" keeps us locked in a prison of our own making. The happiness associated with spiritual goals depicted as \"liberation,\" \"deliverance,\" or \"release,\" requires first and foremost the end of this sort of bondage to our unrestrained mental afflictions, not the unconstrained expression of them.\n\nSo if you really must be busy, maybe it's best to get busy subduing these negative emotions that are the source of all our unhappiness. We feel more or less constantly a compelling need to change the way things presently are.\n\nBut living freely also mandates that we shake ourselves loose from the obsessive need to constantly accomplish, fix, or improve things through manic activity. We are enslaved not only by our mental afflictions but by our continuous attempts to direct future outcomes instead of fully concentrating on what we are doing in the here and now.\n\nAnd so the controlling, Captain Kirk self makes yet another appearance! Reinforced by the misguided idea that we need to keep busy in order to be of value, we feel compelled to be perpetually working to alter and change things. Motivated by stressful discontentment, the good old Captain turns out to be a full-blown neurotic!\n\nThis obsession with work and achievement is another way we try to scratch the perpetual itch of dissatisfaction\u2014in this case, the itch of always feeling like we have to do something in order to be somebody. It is the antithesis of the Great Itchless State.\n\nThe opposite of freedom, contentment, and perfect happiness is what the Eastern religions call samsara, the cyclical reproduction of suffering in our lives. And while there are many dimensions to what constitutes and causes this recurrent unhappiness, one definition of samsara found in the ancient texts is particularly striking for our present subject.\n\n\"Samsara,\" it is said in the Ashtavakra Gita, \"is nothing other than having something that needs to be done.\"\n\nThe crucial Sanskrit word in the verse, kartavya (\"having something that needs to be done\") refers to the compulsion to act, the niggling dissatisfaction that instigates panicky activity. The statement is rather radical and adamant, that this feeling of being compelled to act, and nothing other, keeps us from contentment.\n\nAt first blush, such an assertion might seem rather extreme\u2014But there are things I need to do! If I don't feed the kids, who will? If I don't go to work, how will I pay the bills? There are, of course, responsibilities that we all have to fulfill. But we'll complete them a lot more efficiently and happily if we lose the feeling that we are doing so under duress. It's not the obligation to act that's the problem. It's the neediness that spurs activity that causes us stress.\n\nThe idea that we are unhappy owing to a compulsion to act actually does pretty accurately sum up our unrest. We more or less constantly feel a compelling need to change the way things presently are. We are kept dissatisfied by our perpetual itchiness\u2014the desire for what we don't already possess and the yearning to rid ourselves of something we do have in our lives. These are the two forms of discontentment, and it is the cessation of both that brings us tranquility and peace.\n\nIt is the wish that things were not like this now that defines our unhappy state\u2014what we've called the \"if only\" syndrome. And in response to this discontentment, we feel the compulsion to get busy and start scratching all those nagging itches in the hopes of getting what we want and getting rid of what we don't.\n\nJesus, among many other great spiritual teachers, advised us long ago to just relax already. \"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.\" Constant fretting and stressing out about the future just ruins the present and, in general, spoils the limited time we have here on earth:\n\nIs not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you\u2014you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, \"What will we eat?\" or \"What will we drink?\" or \"What will we wear?\"\n\nThis famous passage from the Bible\u2014its message can be put succinctly: Don't worry, be happy!\u2014concludes with the following useful summary: \"So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.\"\n\nWe've got enough to take care of in the here and now without polluting our lives with anxiety and fear about future difficulties. There will be \"worries\" and \"troubles\" tomorrow\u2014let's rename them \"challenges,\" shall we?\u2014and when they arrive we'll need to deal with them. But the best way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate on today, for it is in the present that we are creating the causes that will govern our relative ability to deal with the events of the future.\n\nThere's another potential teaching on this subject that may be floating, so to speak, in your head somewhere.\n\nRow, row, row your boat, goes the song. We have things to do and responsibilities to fulfill, so keep rowing! The converse of keeping busy in compulsive activity is not slothful inactivity. But row your boat gently down the stream (and also merrily, merrily, merrily!) for life is but a dream\u2014and one day it will end.\n\nFlailing about with the oars in a frenzy of compulsive activity, worrying about what might be around the next bend, we forego the opportunity to leisurely enjoy the boat ride and do what we need to do in the present\u2014gently, merrily, and in a way that doesn't take the \"dream\" so very, very seriously.\n\n### KARMA AND ACTION FOR ITS OWN SAKE\n\nIt is important to do what we can to ensure a pleasant future. But such preparations are best accomplished through mindful attention to the present. The future will fall into place if we create the appropriate karmic causes in the here and now. And the most effective means for doing so is neither through harried busyness nor the compulsion to fix and change things that distracts us from what there is to do right now.\n\nThe compulsion to act is motivated by a perceived need to effect an \"improved\" situation in the future. It's just another instance of the \"if only\" syndrome. We ignore the present and the opportunities it affords when we obsess too much about the future. We feel compelled to get busy and start scratching in the hopes that we'll later obtain something better than what's going on now.\n\nIt was John Lennon who famously said, \"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.\" We become oblivious to the possibilities inherent in each moment of our lives when we're preoccupied with what will happen instead of centering on what is actually happening.\n\nThere is a spiritual technique to help us concentrate mindfully on what we're doing now. It is to act, not to gain some future reward, but simply because the task is there to do. This is the essence of what in the Bhagavad Gita is called karma yoga, the \"discipline\" (for this is what \"yoga\" really means) of action.\n\nTo do this sort of yoga there's no need to get a high-performance mat or buy expensive attire made of free-range organic cotton. A practitioner of karma yoga is defined as \"one who does what needs to be done while remaining unattached to the results of this action.\"\n\nMost of our actions, most of the time, are carried out as a means to achieve a desired end, expedients for reaching a desired goal. To be sure, every action will achieve some result\u2014there's a beginning, middle, and end to everything. But being \"in the flow\" puts our full attention on the action as it's happening\u2014on the middle bit, in \"real time\"\u2014and not on trying to arrive at an outcome as quickly as possible.\n\nLosing oneself in the activity at hand is by definition not \"goal-oriented.\" This is not to suggest that there isn't an end to be reached or a result to be eventuated. But in karma yoga, the means and the ends collapse so that the focus is on the action in and of itself.\n\nThis attention on the task at hand rather than on some projected result we hope to bring about is what we might call action done for its own sake.\n\n\"Action done for its own sake\"\u2014it's the very definition of being \"in the flow.\"III And while we are all happiest when we're mindfully unselfconscious and in the zone, the compulsion to act in order to attain a future objective tends to rule nearly every aspect of our everyday lives.\n\nIt's the inner angel and devil locking horns once again. We long to submerge ourselves in an activity and go with the flow, but at the same time we tell ourselves that such action for its own sake is somehow irresponsible. Given our desire to improve our own lives and the lives of those we love, we may think that losing ourselves in our present is somehow reneging on our obligation to try to create a better future.\n\nHere's another way to put this apparent quandary: There may seem to be a contradiction between action for its own sake and what we've talked about above in terms of \"karmic management.\" Can we simultaneously be fully and unselfconsciously absorbed in an activity while at the same time be working to create a better life for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the world as a whole?\n\nWe observed in chapter 5 that according to the laws of karma every action will definitely have a corresponding reaction\u2014good acts bring pleasant consequences for our sense of self and happiness, while bad acts bring unpleasant results. The self-improvement enterprise\u2014which we've also argued is the best and really the only method for helping others (summed up in the formula change you, change the world)\u2014depends on wisely manipulating the karmic system.\n\nBut laboring to create the karmic causes for a better future might seem to be inherently goal-oriented; indeed, the whole concept of \"self-improvement\" might seem so. And neither would appear to mesh very well with a vision of \"action for its own sake.\"\n\nTo resolve this apparent contradiction, we'll need to review a few things about karma and then introduce some new observations pertaining to how the system really operates. And perhaps we will see that effective karmic management and action for its own sake turn out to be two sides of the very same coin.\n\nWe've already encountered one reason why there is actually no real conflict between creating new good karma\u2014acting in the present in order to create a better future\u2014and karma yoga, acting without attention to the fruits. The \"good\" acts we do are \"good\" to the degree that they are motivated by a selfless intention. The more we are motivated by self-interest, the less \"good\" that act is, and therefore the less pleasant will be the result.\n\nTo really work the karmic system, we must silence the demonic inner voice that always asks, What's in it for me? It is only a seeming paradox that the more selfless the intention behind any particular action the more beneficial that action will be to oneself. It's actually the very principle for generating good karma. It is intrinsic to the most effective management of karma that one loses oneself in action.\n\nPerhaps the easiest way to take the selfishness out of any activity is, as we've seen, to do it for someone else. Compassionate and empathetically inspired action\u2014What can I do for you?\u2014is a very effective surgical instrument for performing the ego-ectomy, extracting the self-interest out of the act.\n\nWhen we take our self-centered motivations out of the equation, we are able to concentrate more fully on the action itself instead of diluting it with futuristic projections of what we hope to personally gain from it. So from this angle we can see that karmic management\u2014directed by altruism and empathy\u2014entails the self-forgetting necessary for action done for its own sake. We can act unselfconsciously because our attention is focused on another.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBut there's another dimension of why action for its own sake is built into the very system of karma. It is not the perpetual dissatisfaction with the present\u2014\"I'll do x so that I'll later obtain y\"\u2014that lies at the heart of the karmic enterprise. Creating the karma for a better future actually necessitates an opposite assumption.\n\nThe most effective karmic management assumes some version of contentment, and with contentment we have the possibility for pure action\u2014action done truly for its own sake.\n\nWhat goes around, comes around\u2014this is Karma 101. But for \"it\" to come around, \"it\" must go around first\u2014and herein lies an important secret when it comes to karma. We have to have some kind of sense that we already have \"it\" sufficiently before we become comfortable enough to give \"it\" away.\n\nLet's take one example. The feeling of prosperity or abundance\u2014for it is indeed a \"feeling\" and not a quantifiable commodity\u2014is the karmic result of generosity. Give and you shall receive, right? We may not always believe it, but we've heard the maxim plenty of times, from plenty of sources.\n\nThe example is a salient one, for generosity is one way of describing the whole karmic program. It is the willingness to give to others\u2014not just money and things, but also time and energy, love and compassion, respect and protection\u2014that lies at the very core of the care and maintenance of one's karma.\n\nKarmic management assumes some awareness of present fulfillment. Before we can even think about giving to others, we must believe we have enough to give\u2014enough material things, enough time, enough emotional gratification. We know that there will be future rewards\u2014that it will \"come around\"\u2014but even in the present there must be a certain sense of sufficiency, even excess, for us to first let it \"go around.\"\n\nEven the most self-interested, na\u00efve, and mechanistic understanding of karma has some degree of this sensibility that I have enough already. Even karma simplistically regarded as a kind of investment scheme\u2014\"I'll give this so that I'll get that in the future\"\u2014has some element of the notion that I have something I can afford to give right now.\n\nAnd a more informed understanding of how karma really works will bear an even deeper appreciation of this underlying secret: It is the feeling of plenitude and abundance, not the constant craving for more, that makes for truly efficacious karmic management.\n\nDo unto others as you would have them do unto you. Because I believe I have adequate material prosperity, I feel free to donate my money or things. Because I think I have enough time, I share my surfeit with others. If I feel a basic contentment within myself, I then feel able to give others the love and compassion that might help them feel more contentment too.\n\nSuch a recognition of self-sufficiency also helps us restrain ourselves from generating bad karma\u2014do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. If I feel safe and secure, I have no interest in harming others. When I am content with what I possess, I do not think of stealing. Because I feel enough love within, I am not tempted to infringe on others' relationships. And when I am satisfied with my own life I am not inclined to be envious or resentful of what others have.\n\nKarma yoga, in one sense, simply means disciplining one's actions in order to do good instead of bad, to be kind instead of cruel, to be other-oriented instead of egotistical. But we've also noticed that this method presupposes the latent assumption behind all karmically beneficial and unselfish activity. It is encapsulated in our contentment mantra:\n\nOm, I have enough, ah hum.\n\nAction done without expectation of personal reward presumes the recognition that one has been rewarded enough already. According to the Bhagavad Gita, \"No one becomes a yogi\" or true practitioner of karma yoga \"who has not renounced expectation of selfish advantage.\"\n\nBecause we don't need or expect recompense, we complete the action with the purest intention and the fullest attention on the act itself\u2014which, as we've repeatedly underscored, is the most powerful way to ensure that the act will have a positive karmic result.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThere is no contradiction between karmic management and action done for its own sake. In fact, we do the former best when we are doing the latter. But, needless to say, we have a resistance to engaging in either.\n\nThe mental afflictions\u2014all of them revolving around egoistical self-cherishing\u2014militate against relying on the self-sacrificing principles of karma in our actions. The Big Smackdown, the Rage in the Cage, recurs over and over again as we fight our selfish inclinations in our attempts to live more wisely and joyously.\n\nAnd because of this same clinging to the self we resist, even while we yearn for, the experience of losing ourselves in an activity. Who would I be if I weren't somebody?\u2014a question we'll actually attempt to answer in chapter 7. But some part of us fears the very unselfconsciousness that brings us the euphoria of being in the flow\u2014of doing what needs to be done selflessly, efficiently, and with attention to the act itself and not to the fruits.\n\nKarma yoga as a discipline requires repeated practice. Our battles with the inner demon of egoistic self-centeredness are ongoing and arduous. And so in our quest to lose the self-consciousness and get into the flow of things when it comes to our everyday actions, we'll need to recall, over and over again, the benefits of doing so in order to strengthen the inner angel.\n\nTo reinforce our desire to act without selfish intention, we must remind ourselves how much pleasure there is in being in the zone, in the bliss of mindful unselfconsciousness, the exuberance of acting as nobody.\n\n### LIFE AS ART, WORK AS PLAY\n\nKarma yoga, or action done for its own sake, is a revolutionary method for living one's life. It is a radical procedure for removing the self-interest from our daily activities and becoming more attentive to what we're doing while we're doing it.\n\nOne of the principal ways of practicing karma is to replace the drone of What's in for me? with What can I do for you? Already this inverts our usual self-centered motivation and begins the revolution in our thinking about our everyday acts.\n\nUnderstanding the deeper principles of karma, we tune in to our own sense of self-sufficiency in order to give to others. Willfully suspending and foregoing any future personal rewards of action, we do what there is to do to the best of our ability, but for its own sake\u2014just because it's given to us to do.\n\nAnd there is another way of describing karma yoga that further highlights its revolutionary implications: Action done for its own sake is purposeless action.\n\nEvery action comes to an end and serves as the cause for a future effect. But action done for its own sake is focused not on the result but on the action itself. When the means and ends collapse, there is no particular purpose for doing something, other than that's what there is to do. The activity is enough in and of itself, not for what it achieves or brings about.\n\nPurposeless action does not imply that the activity is meaningless, and it certainly does not suggest that it need not be done at all or without giving it our full attention. If you're like me, you're accustomed to associate \"purposelessness\" with indifference and apathy. If you say there's no purpose, well, I guess there's no point.\n\nAction done for its own sake is purposeless but not pointless. To better understand this aspect of karma yoga, let's turn to two familiar examples of purposeless action: play and artistic expression.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n\"This is the real secret of life,\" declares Alan Watts\u2014\"to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.\"\n\nWatts is by no means the first or only person to recommend that we concentrate fully on the task at hand; and he's also not alone in advising us to conceptualize all our activities in life as \"play\" rather than \"work.\" We naturally and easily do the first\u2014engage thoroughly with what we're doing in the here and now\u2014when we do the second, dropping the stress and compulsion to act and adopting instead a relaxed, playful attitude toward our daily tasks.\n\nWhen we are at play, it is not because we need to do something, but because we really want to do it. As opposed to the onerous demands associated with the idea of \"work,\" we play simply because it's fun. In play, we continue to row our boats\u2014and we do so quite assiduously and even strenuously\u2014but we also row merrily, because it's fun to play.\n\nOne of the reasons so many spiritual teachers, theologians, and secular scholars have taken play quite seriously is that when we are at play we don't take things so seriously. We relax (without losing focus) and shed the stressful anxiety that comes when we obsess about the outcome rather than really getting into the process.\n\nIt's been said that we should lighten up on our way to enlightenment, and thinking about all our activities in terms of \"play\" rather than \"work\" can help us to do this.\n\nJohan Huizinga, the author of the classic scholarly study on this subject, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, refers to the irreducible \"fun element\" lying at the heart of play: \"Now this element, the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation. As a concept, it cannot be reduced to any other mental category.\" The essential purpose of play is that it has no purpose, which makes it both \"fun\" and quite different from our usual compulsive need to act. Play, Huizinga writes, \"stands outside the immediate satisfaction of wants and appetites.\"\n\nThe importance of the concept of play has been recognized for millennia in the world's spiritual traditions. In one branch of the religions of India, the concept of \"play,\" or \"sport,\" is known by the Sanskrit term lila, and it was originally introduced as a stratagem for solving a perennial theological question: Why did God create the universe? Did God\u2014who lacks for nothing and is complete in Him- or Herself\u2014nevertheless have some need to create, some purpose behind bringing the world into existence?\n\nIn response to the accusation that God can't be the creator of the world, since God, being God and all, has no motive or reason to act, it was countered that God did create the world\u2014but \"merely in play.\"IV As William Sax writes in his aptly titled The Gods at Play, \"The idea is that God's creation of the world is motivated not by any desire or lack, since these would be incompatible with his or her self-fulfilled and complete nature, but rather by a free and spontaneous creativity.\"\n\nIn the Bhagavad Gita, we are explicitly advised to imitate the divine in our own actions, in the ongoing creation of our own lives. Krishna tells Arjuna, his student and friend, to act\u2014to do what needs to be done\u2014but to act like God does, not out of a compulsive need for self-aggrandizement, but totally and selflessly unattached to the results:\n\nArjuna, throughout the three worlds there is nothing whatsoever that I need to do. There is nothing unattained that I need to attain, and yet I still engage in action. . . . While those who are ignorant perform actions out of attachment, the wise one, unattached, acts in order to maintain the world.\n\nLila describes action done out of freedom rather than necessity, out of a sense of prior and ongoing contentment rather than the neediness of the \"if only\" syndrome. It is the paradigm for action done for its own sake, the blueprint for karma yoga.\n\nThe purity of play has been seriously diluted in our modern, grown-up versions of \"games\" and \"sports\" and must be distinguished from them. The overweening emphasis on winning as the purpose, especially in professional sports, where fame and fortune depend on victory, have compromised the \"action for its own sake\" nature of play in its essential form.\n\nThe quaint old aphorism \"It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game\" has largely been forgotten and replaced by football coach Vince Lombardi's famous dictum: \"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.\"\n\nThis preoccupation with victory is thoroughly tied up in the culture of narcissism we spoke of in the introduction. We're encouraged to think we're not \"somebody enough\" unless we're a real \"winner.\" And winners require losers. We often believe that we'll be a real somebody only if somebody else is less of one.\n\nI once met a professional speed skater who was very, very good at what he did\u2014so good, in fact, that he was sent to the Olympics, where he did very, very well. He came home with a silver medal. He was the second best skater in the world in his event.\n\nAnd guess what? He was disappointed, because he was only second best.\n\nPlay in its uncorrupted sense isn't about trying to be better than others. But it also does not preclude healthy competition. Action done for its own sake, whether done alone (competing against ourselves) or in the company of others (competing against competitors), can bring out the best in all of us.\n\nWhat the Tao Te Ching calls the \"virtue of non-competition\" is not about no competition, as the text makes clear. It is rather doing one's best\u2014and wanting others to do their best too\u2014all in the \"spirit of play\":\n\nThe best athlete\n\nwants his opponent at his best . . .\n\nAll of them embody\n\nthe virtue of non-competition.\n\nNot that they don't love to compete,\n\nbut they do it in the spirit of play.\n\nIn this they are like children\n\nand in harmony with the Tao.\n\nAnd so it is that to act in the \"spirit of play\" we are pointed to the example of children. Children, before they are taught that the point is to \"win,\" exemplify the pure version of playful activity. If you've been around small children (or if you remember being one), you know that kids get totally and tirelessly absorbed in what is, after all, purposeless action.\n\nImagine going to a playground and asking kids why they're doing what they're doing\u2014that is, asking what the purpose of the activity is. \"Why are you sliding down the slide, little girl? What is the purpose of all this swinging back and forth? Why the teetering, then the tottering? What is your objective in going around and around in circles on the merry-go-round? And what exactly is the reason for climbing up and down that jungle gym?\"\n\nThe kid would probably run away screaming to her mom or dad, terrorized and confused by such stupid questions coming from such a crazy grown-up!\n\nThe point of play is found not in the completion but in the process. As always, there's a beginning, middle, and end to the activity. You climb up the stairs of the slide and slide down, thus getting to the ground. Sliding ends when one reaches the bottom, but it's not in order to reach the bottom that one slides. In play, it's all about the sliding, not the having slid.\n\nThe kids got it right when it comes to action for its own sake. Play is not puerile or childish in the sense of being fatuous or foolish. But it is childlike to the degree that it embodies the simple, unencumbered sense of wonderment and joy involved in acting mindfully and unselfconsciously in purposeless action.\n\nIt is this simplicity in behavior, purity in action, and humility rather than self-promotion\u2014not believing that \"winning is the only thing\"\u2014that led Jesus to answer the way he did when asked by his disciples, \"Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?\"\n\nHe called a child, whom he put among them, and said, \"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\nAs an Indian text asserts, the wise spiritual practitioner \"does whatever comes to him to do, no matter if it's pleasant or unpleasant.\" The adult version of childlike simplicity entails facing every responsibility\u2014\"pleasant\" or \"unpleasant\"\u2014with the same playful and lighthearted attitude. And so, the text continues, she \"who is without desire in all undertakings behaves in a childlike fashion. Acts done by a pure one like this are without stain.\"\n\nOne final note about play. A serious person might, once again, object that using this analogy of \"life as play\" is immature and irresponsible. But as the ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus observed, \"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.\"\n\nFor all those good-hearted but perhaps overly earnest people out there, remember what's been said above about the relationship between karmic management and action for its own sake: There's no contradiction between working to improve oneself and the world, on the one hand, and selflessly losing oneself in action\u2014making work into play\u2014on the other. As we've seen, the former is actually done best when the latter occurs.\n\nActing as if it were all \"just a game\" (\"life is but a dream\") is neither irresponsible nor uncompassionate, and we can once again return to the theology of lila to understand why. The \"sportive\" activity of God's play does not preclude the \"supportive\" or compassionate element of God's grace, as Norvin Hein has cleverly put it. They are reconciled in that they both are defined by the same absence of \"calculation of any selfish gain\":\n\nGod's sportive acts and his supportive acts are one because both are done without calculation of any selfish gain that might be made through them. Both are therefore desireless . . . and between God's lila and his grace there is no inconsistency.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nMany forms of artistic expression also exemplify the purposelessness of action done for its own sake. It's not usually to fulfill some practical function that one paints, dances, sings, writes poetry, plays an instrument, or sculpts\u2014although professional artists need to make a living too!\n\nWhile the artistic endeavor often results in a product\u2014a picture is painted, a form is sculpted, a dance has been danced\u2014even the finished \"work of art\" is aesthetic, not utilitarian. Andy Warhol once remarked, \"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.\"\n\nAnd the process of artistic creation is arguably more important than the product. \"The object isn't to make art,\" observed painter Robert Henri. \"It's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.\" The purpose of artistic creation is to get into the flow of artistic creation. Like play, artistic activity in its pure form has no purpose other than itself.\n\nIn some instances, art is clearly created as ephemeral and transitory in order to highlight the importance of the creative process over the created product. Tibetan Buddhist monks labor for days, even weeks, painstakingly pouring colored sand to construct a mandala, an elaborate geometrical representation of the cosmos\u2014and then completely destroy it upon its completion. In a similar fashion, Andy Goldsworthy assembles equally intricate designs over the course of many hours, with icicles that melt in the sun, twigs that are blown away by a gust of wind, or rock structures that are swallowed by the sea when the tide comes in.\n\nGraffiti art (aka \"street art\") is also often quite detailed and time-consuming to create, but usually with the expectation that sooner or later the civic authorities will scrub it off or paint over it. And performance art of all sorts is by definition, well, performed\u2014it's the activity itself that's essential; not something else that is brought about by the activity.\n\nMusic and dance are particularly salient examples of artistic expression done purely for its own sake. There's no real purpose to either playing or listening to a piece of music other than the pleasure of aesthetic expression and appreciation. And we dance or watch others dance not because doing so produces some result or attains some goal, but simply because it's enjoyable to do or watch.\n\nThe meaning and purpose are in the music and the dance themselves. As Isadora Duncan memorably quipped, \"If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.\"\n\n\"A strong relaxation and calm comes over me,\" reports another dancer. \"I have no worries of failure.\" Like with pure play, there's no winning or losing, success or failure, involved in pure artistic expression. While others might judge the dance or the poem to be \"good\" or \"bad\" according to some criterion or another, the creative experience of dancing or writing poetry is rewarding in and of itself.\n\nAs one nonprofessional dancer elegantly observed, when we give ourselves over to the dance, our mental afflictions temporarily evaporate, our sense of individual isolation dissolves, and we feel fully integrated with our surroundings:\n\nWhile I dance, I cannot judge. I cannot hate. I cannot separate myself from life. I can only be joyful and whole. That is why I dance.\n\nArt imitates life, it is said; and it's also said that life imitates art. From the point of view of karma yoga, we might also put forward the idea that life should imitate art, just as \"work\" should best be regarded as \"play.\"\n\n\"Art,\" declared philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, \"is the proper task of life.\" And to fully engage in life as art, the artist loses him- or herself in the ongoing process of creation.\n\n### VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD\n\nAny activity can be made much more enjoyable and rewarding if it's done for its own sake. Any act undertaken calmly and unbusily, free from the compulsion to act; any chore that's reconceptualized as play; any pursuit that's reconstituted as a kind of performance art\u2014in sum, any endeavor we do with mindful unselfconsciousness, can get us into the flow.\n\nI wish I could tell you that I knew of some quick and easy tricks for getting into the zone\u2014especially when the activity does not seem that intrinsically magnetizing. It's relatively easy for me to get into the flow when riding my motorcycle or playing in the waves at a beautiful beach. I too would be stoked to learn of some magic that would effortlessly launch me into action when it came to taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, or doing my taxes.\n\nBut karma yoga, as we've mentioned before, is a form of \"yoga\" or \"discipline,\" and the main feature of this yoga is not physical. Karma yoga is a method that depends on mindfulness and awareness. The essence of this technique is continuously remembering our simple but always relevant formula:\n\nOm. It's like this now. Ah hum.\n\nThe only \"trick\" to karma yoga is to constantly recall this mantra. \"This is what's happening now; this is the task I have to do at present.\" There's no point in starting up the \"if only\" whine again. It's like this now, so let's just do it!\n\nIt is the complete acceptance of whatever the next scene is in the ever-changing drama of life that serves as the precondition for losing oneself in the play. Karma yoga is the discipline of integrating the \"somebody self\" into what we are doing in the here and now, and thereby assuming the guise of the \"nobody self\" when acting.\n\nSo among the other descriptors that characterize action for its own sake, the most important of them is egolessness:\n\nWhether he is seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, or breathing, the disciplined one, who knows how things really are, would think, \"I'm not doing anything at all.\"\n\nIt's just the \"seeing, hearing, touching, and so forth\" that's happening. The \"I\" that's doing the \"seeing, hearing, touching\" is subsumed in the activity itself. \"I'm not doing anything at all\" because the self-consciousness required for awareness of the conceptualized \"I\" has been lost in complete engagement with what one is actually doing. The separation between the self and the world evaporates, and we become one with the life we are living.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nBefore concluding this discussion on \"losing oneself in action,\" it's important to emphasize that the kind of \"action for its own sake\" we're speaking of here is not a morally neutral exercise. There are better and worse ways to be \"in the zone.\" It's totally conceivable, to take one grisly example, that an ax murderer could really get into the activity of chopping up his victims.\n\nWhile our secular psychologists have extolled the \"flow state\" for the pleasant and rewarding feelings that naturally attend it, our spiritual teachers have always emphasized that it matters not only how we do what we do, but also what we do and why we do it.\n\nThe discipline of karma yoga assumes that we understand the \"karma\" part. It presupposes wisdom about how karma really works and the direction such wisdom moves us when determining what we will do with our lives. Most importantly, karma yoga assumes that we are clear about the why\u2014the intention or motivation behind any activity. The more aware we are that it is the selfless motivation that creates a happier life, the happier our lives will be\u2014in both the present and the future.\n\nThe ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca remarked, \"The real compensation of a right action is inherent in having performed it.\" Virtue, in other words, is its own reward.\n\nBut virtue is virtue only if it is its own reward. Virtuous actions pay off only to the extent that we forego the explicit and conscious expectation of future personal benefit and concentrate on doing what needs to be done\u2014to the best of our ability and out of the best of intentions.\n\nThere is pleasure to be found in any activity that puts us in the flow. But the rewards of virtuous action done for its own sake are doubled. Selfless action creates the karmic causes for future happiness: what goes around will come around. But action guided by karma yoga also entails contentment with our present situation and the opportunities it provides for acting wisely and happily in the here and now.\n\n\"The one who abandons attachment to the results of action,\" it says in the Bhagavad Gita, and \"who is always satisfied and independent, does nothing at all, even when he is engaged in action.\" Once again, with the loss of the \"I,\" it's nobody who's doing anything when action is done for its own sake.\n\nWhen we practice going with the flow, guided by karma yoga, we obtain relief from incessant self-consciousness, the inner chatter of the \"somebody self.\" We are also at least temporarily liberated from the itchiness of the \"if only\" syndrome. And we are propelled for the length of our mindful unselfconsciousness into an experience of the Great Itchless State, the place where the \"somebody self\" stops cogitating and scheming (\"I'm not doing anything at all\") and allows the \"nobody self\" to take over and play.\n\nAction Plan: Who's There When You're in the Flow?\n\nMake a list of the activities you engage in that bring you the most pleasure\u2014gardening, going to the beach, playing with your children, dancing at the club, getting absorbed in a challenging and enjoyable task at work, or whatever yours might be. When you are fully engaged in these happiness-producing activities, are you self-consciously monitoring yourself, or are \"you\" not really there at all?\n\nThen pay attention to the experience of doing what you truly enjoy next time you have the opportunity to do it. Check to see whether it is precisely the degree to which you can \"lose yourself\" in the activity that produces the joy and satisfaction you attribute to it.\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. \"If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.\" Matthew 10:39.\n\nII. \"In flow, a person is challenged to do her best and must constantly improve her skills. At the time, she doesn't have the opportunity to reflect on what this means in terms of the self\u2014if she did allow herself to become self-conscious, the experience could not have been very deep.\" Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 65\u201366.\n\nIII. Compare Csikszentmihalyi's fancier label for this same idea: \"The term 'autotelic' derives from two Greek words, auto meaning 'self' and telos meaning 'goal.' It refers to a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward.\" Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 67.\n\nIV. The earliest example of this argument in Sanskrit literature is found in Badarayana's Vedantasutras, 2.1.32\u201333. The author answers the objection that God can't be the creator of the world since God has no motive or reason to act (na prayojanavattvat, 2.13.2) by saying God does so \"merely in play\" (lokavattu lilakaivalyam).\n\n## 7\n\n## Living as an Ordinary Joe\n\nWe have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real, and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists.\n\n\u2014\u2014Thomas Merton\n\n### WHO DA HELL AM I?\n\nIn the futuristic movie Total Recall, the protagonist, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, purchases a brain implant designed to endow him temporarily with a completely new persona. The procedure goes haywire and Arnie becomes seriously confused, wandering through the movie trying to remember his former, and real, identity.\n\nAt one point, the frustrated, amnesiac Teutonic hero cries out in anguish, \"If I'm not me, who da hell am I?!\"\n\nThis is the million-dollar question for all of us: \"Who da hell am I?\" And there's one thing that the world's spiritual traditions and modern science and philosophy agree upon when it comes to the self: We are not who we think we are. We are all amnesiacs like the Schwarzenegger character, wandering through life, trying to find ourselves.\n\nJulian Baggini has summarized the state-of-the-art findings in psychology, neuroscience, and modern philosophy in The Ego Trick, noting first that we're all pretty damned sure that there must be a real \"me\" in there somewhere: \"People almost invariably believe that there is such an essence, a core of self that holds steady through life,\" he writes. \"This is sometimes called the 'pearl' view.\" But the pearl inside the oyster is impossible to find: \"The problem is that no one seems to be quite sure where to locate this precious gem.\"\n\nDespite our certainty that there must be \"a core of self,\" we've seen that the \"Where's Waldo?\" search from hell for a unitary, unchanging, independent, Captain Kirk, essential pearl of a self inevitably leaves us empty-handed.\n\nThe Buddhist tradition has coined the term \"no-self\" (anatman) to describe this absence of the kind of \"me\" I think I am. But the recognition of the illusive nature of the personal, individual self is neither the sole discovery of any one religion nor nowadays even of religion itself.\n\nIt's become common knowledge that our commonsensical ideas about the self are in no way obviously or self-evidently true.\n\nThe self we think we have turns out to be just a kind of imaginary friend\u2014or, perhaps even more often, an imaginary enemy. So we can all join our voices with Arnie's and cry out in unison: \"If I'm not me\"\u2014if I'm not the \"me\" I think am\u2014then \"who da hell am I?\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nHere's what we've discovered so far:\n\nEach of us is, in fact, a unique individual; we're all equally \"special,\" worthy of healthy self-respect and deserving of basic human rights. These are the givens when it comes to the question of personal identity\u2014I am somebody!\n\nYes, each of us is somebody, and we're all fundamentally equal as somebodies. We're all the same in that we suffer and have problems in life, and we're all equally entitled to and have the capacity for attaining true happiness. And we all, equally, make mistakes\u2014the worst of them stemming from our ignorance about who da hell the somebody we are really is.\n\nBut we delimit ourselves when we overidentify with the temporary and changing roles we play\u2014when we mistake the revolving series of carnival cutouts, which we employ to constitute either our individual or group identities, as being fully and essentially definitive of who we actually are. And we especially suffer when one or another of these cutouts pits us against the cutouts into which other people are sticking their faces. This desperate, if futile, quest to be a real somebody quickly devolves into the divisive competitiveness of trying to be more of a somebody than somebody else.\n\nOur ongoing culture of narcissism\u2014stretching from the \"Me Decade\" right through to the present \"iEra\"\u2014has magnified our attachment to the ego and its insatiable need to be admired and inflated. The elevation of self-centeredness as a culturally acceptable obsession has had obvious consequences, for what goes up must come down. The rampant pandemic of depression (and its less virulent but nevertheless serious twin, low self-esteem) can be directly linked to the excessive self-preoccupation that is both the real cause and the tragic expression of this debilitating disease.\n\nReal self-improvement is founded upon first wising up about the question of \"Who da hell am I?\" I'm not the \"me\" I think I am\u2014unified, changeless, independent, and a Master Controller of the present in the present. Who I am\u2014as somebody\u2014is an idea of me based on my parts: my body (can't be me without it!) and my mind (I'd really be in trouble without a mind!). \"We are nothing but our parts,\" writes Julian Baggini, \"but we are more than just our parts.\"\n\nThis \"more\" that makes us who we are is simply a label, a name, an idea. I am, in sum, a conceptualization made possible by the conglomeration of multiple physical and mental parts that are forever changing.\n\nI myself (!) have been many different me's (both internally and externally) over the course of lo these sixty years\u2014child me, rebellious youth me, family man me, academic me, surfer bum\/biker me, monk me, spiritual teacher me, and retired man-of-leisure me. In some of my interactions, I'm \"Dr. Smith, PhD,\" and in others, \"Brian K. Smith.\" In yet other circumstances I'm \"Lama Marut,\" but to friends and family, I'm just plain \"Brian.\" Each me is a different persona, each a different conceptualization of the self and role, which I (whoever that is!) assume depending on the context and type of relationship I have with others.\n\nAnd because who I am is merely a conceptualization on the basis of constantly evolving mental and physical parts, I can learn to re-conceptualize myself so as to become a happier me, no matter what role \"I\" am playing.\n\nWe've spoken in this book of many methods that function to help us improve our sense of self. Since who we think we are at any given moment is dependent on who we think we once were\u2014on our memories or past karma\u2014if we practice forgiveness, gratitude, and acceptance vis-\u00e0-vis our past, we will think of ourselves differently now. As we battle our selfish, destructive, and irrational mental afflictions in our own inner Rage in the Cage, we begin to think of ourselves as someone who is at least trying to be a good person, someone who is working to tame the worst of our habits.\n\nWhen we drop the egotistical me, me, me chant and substitute the What can I do for you? mantra, we advance the process of self-improvement ever further, knowing that the best thing we can do for ourselves is to think about how we can help others. Lovingly and empathetically putting ourselves in other people's places, we gain freedom from the artificial limitations we place on our self-identity. And when we lose ourselves in action and concentrate on joyfully doing what needs to be done rather than calculating what we personally will get from doing it, we practice mindfully unselfconscious living all day long, in each and every situation.\n\nIf we wish to think of ourselves as a better somebody, we must act, speak, and think in more selfless and less selfish ways\u2014in our relationships with others and in our everyday activities. We gain a better sense of self when we're not thinking about ourselves\u2014and this is the seemingly paradoxical key to true \"self-improvement.\"\n\nSo who da hell are you? And if you don't like the answer, make the necessary changes! \"Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts,\" asserts the Dhammapada. \"But once mastered, no one can help you as much, not even your father or your mother.\"\n\nThere's no one who makes you \"you\" other than you, and you now have the necessary tools for the creative process of self-reinvention.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe question for us at this point is not \"If I'm not me, who da hell am I?\" I may not be the \"me\" I ordinarily think I am. But I am also no other than the \"me\" that I think I am. That's all the self there is when it comes to the particular, individual \"me\"\u2014the \"somebody self\" is a self-conception.\n\nThe really pertinent question at this concluding stage of our inquiry is \"When I'm not me, who da hell am I?\" We're nobody apart from thinking that we're somebody. And when we stop thinking we're somebody, we're really left with nobody.\n\nWe've said it before, and it's worth repeating: It's nobody that makes any and all somebodies possible. If we were really somebody\u2014if there were a hardwired, permanent, essential \"somebody self\"\u2014we'd be forever saddled with a static, unchanging, unimprovable, and very bored \"me.\"\n\nSo let's put it positively: because we really are, have always been, and will always be nobody, we can be the ever-changing somebody we are now, have been in the past, and will be in the future.\n\nIt's getting in touch with the nobody that we really are that helps us improve the somebody we think we are. Thomas Mann once said, \"No one remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself\"\u2014and this is especially true if we know which self is changed when which self is recognized.\n\nIt is in the close encounters of the third kind with our \"nobody self\"\u2014when we drop the self-consciousness, the self-grasping, and the self-centeredness\u2014that we plug into our true being and the real power that transforms us. It is by losing the little self that we discover the Higher Power that is our Higher Self. And it is those moments when we commune with our true nature that function to make us a better and happier somebody.\n\nSo in this concluding chapter, we'll be exploring the final frontiers of the question of self-identity:\n\nWho are we when we're not somebody?\n\nWe'll first look a bit more closely at who this \"nobody self\" we've been talking about really is. We'll then investigate the relationship between our personal identity and our universally shared true nature. Finally, we'll conclude with some tips on how the \"somebody self\" can further integrate with its real nobody-ness as it learns to live, not as someone desperately striving to be somebody special, but rather contentedly, as just an Ordinary Joe.\n\n### THE SELF THAT HAS NO NAME\n\nWhat we've called the \"nobody self\" has various names in different traditions: it is our \"true self\" or \"Buddha nature,\" the immortal soul, the Ground of Being, the atman, or the Tao. And the different traditions describe it in comparable ways, albeit with somewhat different vocabulary\u2014that is, when they are willing to describe it at all.\n\nThe \"true self,\" says one Hindu text, is \"pure, awake, dear, complete, unmanifest, and faultless.\" It \"has never been born and never dies,\" says another ancient Indian scripture. \"It has not come from anywhere, nor has it become anyone. It is unborn, unchanging, eternal, and primordial. It is not killed when the body is killed.\"\n\nAll of these descriptors point to the fact that the \"nobody self\" is the exact opposite of the \"somebody self.\" When our true nature is depicted, it is as a kind of reverse image of the limited, flawed, mortal, and basically disgruntled self we are so attached to.\n\nAnd in many of the world's religions, there is also the recognition that the \"nobody self\" can't really be depicted or characterized at all. It is the unspeakable, the inconceivable. The \"nobody self\" is, by definition, nameless:\n\nThe tao that can be told\n\nis not the eternal Tao\n\nThe name that can be named\n\nis not the eternal Name.\n\nThe unnamable is the eternally real.\n\nNaming is the origin\n\nof all particular things.\n\nWhereas the particular, individualized, lower self is really nothing other than a \"name\"\u2014an idea or concept\u2014the \"nobody self\" is the self that has no name . . . and is eternally unnamable.\n\nIn the ancient Indian traditions, this ultimate state is sometimes said to be nirguna, \"without qualities or characteristics,\" and from this point of view the only way to refer to it is negatively. It is neti, neti, \"not this, not that.\" \"Ultimate reality is indescribable and cannot be signified,\" as one text puts it. \"The blissful experience of one's own innermost self is accessible only when conceptual thought ceases.\"\n\nOr as another text declares, \"It is unseen, unattainable, ungraspable, and without distinguishing marks. It is unthinkable, indefinable, and its essence is the perception of only itself. It is the pacification of all projections\u2014peaceful, auspicious, non-dual. This is the true self; this is to be known.\"\n\nWhat is labeled our \"Buddha nature\" in the Buddhist tradition is similarly depicted as \"beyond conceptualization\" and description:\n\nBecause of its inexhaustible qualities, in nature it's like nothing else. Limitless, it acts as the only real refuge for living beings. It is always non-dual, beyond conceptualization. It has an indestructible quality since its true nature is uncreated. It is not born because it is permanent. It does not die because it is immovable. It is not harassed because it is in a state of peace. It does not decay because it is eternal.\n\nTurning to the Western traditions, in Islam there are said to be ninety-nine names for Allah (\"The Merciful,\" \"The Creator,\" \"The Bestower,\" and so on), but the hundredth name is the \"name that cannot be uttered.\" Jewish theologian Lawrence Kushner also declares that \"there is yet a higher Name for the One of Being,\" and this name is \"Nothing\":\n\nBeyond One there is only Nothing, for only Nothing can comprehend both good and evil, being and becoming, unity and duality, sea and dry land. Already hinted at in Kabbalistic tradition by the ultimate Name, Ayn Sof: literally, without end or utter Nothingness. It is here that our consciousness and the Name of God while still discrete, are no longer separate.\n\nAnd in the Christian tradition, this negatively enunciated depiction of what cannot be accurately or fully depicted is called the via negativa, \"apophasis\" (from a Greek word meaning \"to say 'no' \"), or \"negative theology\" (describing God or ultimate reality only by saying what it is not). Such an approach to the truly real can be found in many other ancient traditions as well\u2014including certain strands of modern Western philosophy.\n\n\"When you come to the ultimate,\" writes Rajneesh, \"when you come to your deepest core, you suddenly know that you are neither this nor that, you are no one. You are not an ego. You are just a vast emptiness.\"\n\nSo there's not much to be said about that of which we cannot speak. We, as particular somebodies, can really only point to the universal nobody we all really are, like so many fingers pointing to an indescribable moon. The great mystics have often said\u2014when they're talking about what can't be talked about at all\u2014that silence is probably the best strategy when it comes to our attempts to describe the \"nobody self.\"\n\nBut we can definitely say this: Being nobody is not being nothing. It is an absence (no-body) and not a presence (some-body), but it is the emptiness that makes the plenitude possible. It is the hole in the middle that makes a donut what it is; it is the empty glass that can hold whatever is poured into it; it is the undifferentiated ocean from which all particular waves arise, last for a while, and then return to their source.\n\nThis absence is the space in which all manifestation and life forms take place. It is nobody from which any and all somebodies arise and into which we are all reabsorbed. Nameless but not a nonentity, the ultimately real is the silence from which all sounds, words, names, and concepts emerge and back into which they dissolve.\n\nAnd there's another thing we should say about the inexpressible: in its presence, we stand in reverential wonderment. It is the ultimate Great Itchless State of pure bliss. If we space out on those times when we commune with the infinite spaciousness of our true being\u2014the self that cannot be named, conceptualized, or described\u2014we miss out on the possibility of being awestruck . . . and therefore dumbstruck.\n\nIt's like the difference between appreciating the awe-inspiring beauty of a gorgeous sunset and coldly calculating the angle of the light rays as they filter through the atmosphere. The latter is driven by curiosity and utilizes words and concepts; the former captures the wonder of open-mouthed astonishment and wordless stupefaction.\n\nAs Rajneesh says, if you haven't experienced that which is beyond words, you haven't really lived at all:\n\nEven in ordinary life you feel the futility of words. And if you don't feel the futility of words, that shows that you have not been alive at all; that shows that you have lived very superficially. . . . When for the first time something starts happening which is beyond words, then life has happened to you, life has knocked on your door.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThroughout this book, we've talked about the opposition between the \"somebody\" and \"nobody\" selves as a tension between our sense of individuality and our longing for absorption into the universal. We've reviewed some of the various battlegrounds on which this inner war is waged, and we've spoken of the debate between the \"devil\" and the \"angel\" within. While we cling to our unique snowflake self, at some level we also long to merge into the cosmic avalanche\u2014or to melt away altogether, vaporized into what is truly real.\n\nBut these two fundamental aspects of our being\u2014the nameable \"somebody self\" and the unnamable \"nobody self\"\u2014need not be at war with each other, and we needn't feel torn between them. The inner house need not be divided, but can live in harmony.\n\nAnd to achieve this d\u00e9tente between our two selves, it's helpful to recognize that one does not exist without the other.\n\n### THE IN-BETWEEN STATE\n\nIn the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the concept of the bardo is meant to explain where we go in between lives. In a system that presupposes rebirth, the bardo is thought of as a sort of a purgatory, betwixt and between the end of one life and the beginning of another.\n\nBut there is also a larger and more inclusive understanding of the term bardo. While living, we are in between birth and death; when we're middle-aged, we're in between youth and old age; when we're asleep, we're in between the end of last night's waking consciousness and the beginning of tomorrow morning's. And in this very moment, we're in between the past and the future.\n\nSo, from this point of view, we are always in some bardo or another. We're always \"in between.\"\n\nThe \"somebody self\" is who we are in between experiences of being nobody, and the \"nobody self\" is who we are when we are in between being somebody. That's the simplest way to answer the question \"Who da hell am I when I'm not somebody?\" You're nobody when you're in between being somebody.\n\nThe remarkable ancient Indian scripture that we'll use for the meditational exercises at the end of the book points to any number of these in-between states where we drop into our true nature of being nobody. What the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra calls \"the omnipresent state of ultimate reality\" is continuously available: it is \"on the radar even of ordinary people.\" Between the polarities and dualities\u2014between \"this\" and \"that\"\u2014is the potential for the \"highest realization\":\n\nOne should meditate on the perception of two things, and then place oneself in the middle between them. Dropping the two of them simultaneously, reality appears.\n\nOr:\n\nWhen the mind leaves one object and then is restrained from wandering to another object, being in the middle between two objects the highest realization then unfolds.\n\nAll day long, every minute, we have the opportunity to revisit and commune with our nobody self. It is who we are in between being aware of ourselves as somebody. This state is even findable in the gap between every breath we take in and let out.\n\nIt is in those in-between moments, in the gaps between being somebody self-consciously doing something, that our ever-present true nature shines through.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe two kinds of self, somebody and nobody, are mutually exclusive when it comes to our awareness of them. We can't be conscious of being nobody when we're thinking we're somebody, and we aren't consciously somebody when we've dropped the self-awareness and become nobody.\n\nAnd although we really are nobody all the time, we can't be nobody all the time. Our somebody and nobody selves exist, like everything else, interdependently\u2014you can't have one without the other.\n\nWe're the kind of somebody we are\u2014a changing, conceptualized self\u2014because we really are nobody. But it's also true that we can only be nobody when we stop being somebody.\n\nAnd we have to be somebody in order to stop being somebody!\n\nThe point is not to attempt to be nobody all the time. That's impossible. We'll always be somebody in between being nobody, because we're always in between. We alternate between our two selves, and each serves an essential purpose. We self-consciously plan our schedule and, if we're practicing karma yoga, unselfconsciously but mindfully carry out each task with our full attention, wholly integrated into the activity, like a child at play. We might make a decision to read a book, but, if we are self-consciously reading each word instead of getting into the flow of the story line, we're not really enjoying what we're doing.\n\nAlternating between the somebody and nobody selves is just in the nature of change, and our lives are in constant flux. Things arise, last for a while, and then end. And then there is the gap\u2014the in-between state\u2014before a new cycle begins.\n\nPeople who completely lose touch with their individual sense of self over a long period of time are, to put it bluntly, crazy. Clinical psychology calls such an unfortunate malady \"depersonalization,\" and this condition is \"associated with such unpleasant states of mind as fatigue, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, anxiety, depression, temporal lobe migraine, temporal lobe epilepsy, and so on.\"\n\nIt is healthy and normal to identify, at least to some degree, with the somebody self, and to rotate between it and the always present, unchanging, and eternal nobody self. As enjoyable as it is to be \"in the flow,\" if we were always in the flow there would be no one to emerge from the experience refreshed, revitalized, and energized. If we were in a state of self-forgetfulness all the time, the experience of self-loss would not result in any kind of self-transformation, for there would be no return to the self that could be transformed.\n\nNeuroscientist Susan Greenfield remarked in an interview, \"There are moments in most of our lives when we want to 'let ourselves go,' 'blow our minds.' \" But such Dionysian experiences of self-transcendence, enjoyable and rejuvenating as they are, cannot realistically be extended indefinitely, any more than it is healthy to only remain in the Apollonian state of uptight self-control:\n\nIf someone said to you, \"I want to do that all the time, I want to go to the rave every single moment I'm alive,\" on the whole, we'd feel rather sorry for someone like that, just as we'd feel sorry for someone that proudly declared they'd never let their hair down, they'd never let themselves go, they'd never had a sensational time in their whole lives.\n\nNo one really knows what happens to us after we die. Perhaps then we permanently merge into the nobody state forever and ever. But in this life\u2014and in future rebirths, if there are any in store for us\u2014we will always be somebody when we're not being nobody.\n\nSo the spiritual goal is not to somehow disappear the \"somebody self\" but rather to know it for what it is and detach from the belief that it's the only self that there is. Depictions of the enlightened state\u2014the person who is \"liberated in this very lifetime\" (jivanmukta) or one who has gone into \"nirvana with something left over\" (i.e., one who still has a body and continues to appear in this world)\u2014do not suggest that somebody who is free ceases to be somebody entirely.\n\nBut such a person is not only free from the illusions the rest of us carry around, he or she is also free from the grasping onto and full identification with those illusions. The liberated person has realized the true nature of both the individual self (transient, changing, finite, and restricted) and the universal self (eternal, unchanging, infinite, and universal).\n\nThe free man or woman lives \"like an ordinary person\" but also \"is completely different.\" And the difference lies in how they think of themselves\u2014or, we might say, how they don't think of themselves. The liberated person has emancipated herself or himself from the prison of a restricted self-conception that completely identifies with one's own individuality, distinctiveness, and separation from others\u2014and also from all the unhappiness that attends such a delimited understanding of the self.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nThe spiritual quest is ultimately not the freedom of the individual; it is the freedom from the individual. And one of the main reasons we are not free is that the \"somebody self\" resists its own dethronement as the sole monarch ruling the Kingdom of Me.\n\n\"You\" (say your name to yourself) will not somehow gain liberation as \"you.\" The \"somebody self\" will not become some supersized version of itself in nirvana or heaven; such a fantasy is just spiritual megalomania.\n\nAs the great modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche famously observed, enlightenment will be the ego's \"ultimate and final disappointment.\"\n\nActually we cannot attain enlightenment until we give up the notion of me personally attaining it. As long as the enlightenment drama has a central character known as me, who has certain attributes, there is no hope of attaining enlightenment, because it's nobody's project.\n\nAwakening is not somebody's project but nobody's. Salvation or liberation is freedom from both the complete association with the \"somebody self\" and the alienation from the \"nobody self.\" \"He who knows the true self is blessed,\" says one Indian text, and \"because of who he is\"\u2014because of this radical de- and re-identification\u2014\"when acting in everyday life he does not suffer like ordinary people.\" He or she has discovered and abides in the Great State of Itchlessness.\n\nSuch a person continues to \"act in everyday life\"; he or she remains \"a somebody\" in the world\u2014going to work, interacting with others, leading a life. But the liberated man or woman is a completely happy somebody, knowing he or she is just in between being nobody, and not grasping onto an illusory version of his or her identity:\n\nOne whose mind is completely at peace stays happy in his everyday life. He sleeps happily, he comes and goes happily, he speaks happily, and he eats happily.\n\n### THE TWO SELVES IN HARMONY\n\nWe are all split personalities when it comes to our identity. There are two of us within each of us\u2014the ever-changing \"somebody self\" that exists only conceptually, and the \"nobody self\" that truly exists but cannot be named.\n\nRemember the two birds sitting on the same tree we encountered back in chapter 1? They are described, you may recall, as \"inseparable friends,\" not as irreconcilable antagonists. One of them is actively engaged in the world (that's the lower, individual self) while the other only passively \"looks on\" (that would be the Higher Self). When the \"somebody self\" birdie perceives the \"nobody self\" birdie and \"realizes that all greatness is his, then his despair vanishes.\"\n\nThe personal self, being changing and therefore changeable, is improvable. But as we have seen, improving the \"somebody self\" is not accomplished through further inflating the ego in the attempt to become more of a somebody. Rather, it is by systematically deflating the self-centered self, and accessing the ever-present reality of being nobody, that we move forward in the reconceptualization of who we think we are.\n\nIt's when our two selves are reconciled and coordinated that we truly become complete. The two birds then sing in harmony; somebody and nobody peacefully coexist as inseparable friends.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nOur dual selves are spoken of in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition as two versions of our \"Buddha nature,\" that \"element\" (dhatu) or \"propensity\" (gotra) within every living being that serves as the \"womb\" for birthing an Awakened Buddha (tathagata-garbha). As it says in the Uttara Tantra,\n\nIt should be understood that the propensity comes in two types. . . . There is the propensity that is naturally present from time with no beginning, and that which has been perfected through cultivation.\n\nThe \"somebody self\" possesses the \"developable\" Buddha nature\u2014\"perfected through cultivation\"\u2014which is said to be like a seed. When watered and given sunlight\u2014when we cultivate the virtue that pivots on the development of humility, kindness, empathy, selfless action, and compassion and love for others\u2014this sort of Buddha nature is nurtured and propagated. We improve ourselves by learning to let go of our selfish needs and wants and the mental afflictions inevitably associated with them. The inner potential is activated little by little as we drop the ego's What about me? imperative and turn our attention to the What can I do for you? directive.\n\nThe second sort of Buddha nature is said to be \"innate\" and is in no need of improvement or development whatsoever. It is always and unchangingly present, eternally perfect, but also usually unrecognized. It's said to be like an undiscovered treasure trove of riches buried under a poor man's home.\n\nAlthough we may be unaware of its existence, we all have within us this precious treasure, which is our true nature, our \"nobody self.\" It is always with us, right under our house; it is always available and accessible. But we need to notice, embrace, and identify with it if we are to partake of this inner abundance.\n\n\"There is nothing whatsoever that needs to be removed from this, and nothing whatsoever that needs to be added,\" the text says. The innate Buddha nature within us\u2014our \"nobody self\"\u2014is always and already perfected. Simply by fully realizing who we truly are, we are freed from the monopolizing tyranny of who we think we are: \"It is from seeing reality that the seer of reality is really and completely liberated.\"\n\nThe integrated self is less fully identified with somebody and more with nobody. It is only our desperate clinging to the ego, and its insatiable desire to be a \"real someone,\" that keeps us from realizing our deeper identity and the balance that comes when the two selves are in harmony.\n\n### EMPTYING AND FILLING\n\nWhen we commune with the \"self with no name,\" we immediately gain what Jesus called the \"peace that surpasses understanding.\" Realizing who we are when we're not being ourselves, experiencing the great relief and itchlessness of being nobody, is thus more a matter of emptying than filling.\n\nWhen it comes to the deeper answer to the \"Who da hell am I?\" question, less is in fact more.\n\nIt is important to honor the personal self and its \"developable\" Buddha nature, and to continuously cultivate its transformation. But the less we grasp onto our particularity and individuality, the more we make ourselves available to our universal, eternal, blissful, and perfect \"nobody self.\"\n\nIn the Christian tradition, the relinquishing of the exclusive identification with the individual self is called kenosis (from the Greek word for emptiness)\u2014the \"self-emptying\" of one's own ego in order to become entirely receptive to the divine. In a passage from the New Testament, we are admonished to renounce the ego's \"selfish ambition\" and \"in humility\" lose ourselves in service to others:\n\nBe of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.\n\nThe more we are able to let go of thinking about \"me,\" the more we are able to think of ourselves as \"we.\" Self-emptying allows for the recognition not only of our true self but also of our commonality, of the bonds we share with all other somebodies. When somebody is emptied out and nobody remains, the space is created to refill and be everybody.\n\nThis passage from the Bible goes on to say that the self-emptying process also entails a kind of \"mind meld\" with Christ\u2014not with the Jesus Christ Superstar version but rather with the one who truly voided himself of all conceit and pride:\n\nLet the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself . . .\n\nThe \"somebody self\" becomes more like nobody when it practices humility rather than pride, modesty rather than arrogance, connection rather than haughty (and unhappy) isolation. It is when we empty ourselves that we are filled with plentitude and realize the Great Commonality we share with all others.\n\nThe more we can put the \"somebody self\" aside, the more affinity we feel for all others and for life itself. We become more like Jesus\u2014humbled by his humanness rather than prideful about his divine origins\u2014and by doing so become more attuned to both the common humanity and universal divinity each of us shares with all others. As we are told in the Biblical passage cited above, it is through practicing \"looking not to your own interests, but to the interests of others\" that we train ourselves for increasingly melding our minds to that of the divine.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nWhen we empty ourselves completely, we automatically slip into our \"nobody self.\" As we've seen, we are nobody when we are in between being somebody. But even as a self-conscious somebody, we can practice taking on both the identitylessness and the sense of interrelationship with others that is entailed in being nobody. When a \"somebody self\" learns to be more of a nobody, they increasingly actualize their capacity to identify more with everybody.\n\nAs we have noted, selflessness and empathy lie at the very heart of what it means to create good karma rather than bad. The practice of karma yoga, you will remember, is action done without self-regard or personal reward\u2014action done for its own sake, knowing that virtue is its own reward. If our intention is motivated by selflessness and altruism, our activities will have a beneficial result on our self-image and on our outlook on the world.\n\nWe've discussed several methods for improving our self-image, all of which revolve around the premise that it is nobody that makes a better somebody possible. When we drop into our true nature and in one way or another turn off the self-centered inner narration\u2014through love and compassion for others, mindful unselfconsciousness in our actions, or virtuous action done for its own sake\u2014we experience the power and joy of being nobody.\n\nThe self-emptying project can be thought of not only as a hollowing out but also as an infusion of our true selfless nature into our \"somebody self\" identity. The latter gets itself out of the way and, in thought and action, becomes more nobody-like.\n\nThere are relatively simple ways in which we can start practicing being more of a nobody as we live in our daily lives as a somebody. On our way to final liberation, we can increasingly become more like our spiritual heroes and religious archetypes: more Christ-like, more Buddha-like, more nobody-like.\n\nInstead of reveling in and glorifying our individuality and uniqueness, we can practice living more as just a regular guy or gal, just an Ordinary Joe.\n\n### BE ANONYMOUS\u2014OR AT LEAST UNFABULOUS\n\nWe've seen that the \"nobody self\" is nameless and unnamable. By becoming more anonymous\u2014a word that derives from the Greek phrase \"no name\"\u2014we mirror and imitate our true nature.\n\nMy birth name is \"Brian Smith.\" The \"Brian\" part is the name my parents gave me, but the surname is a total invention. I might just as well be called \"Brian X\" or \"Brian Doe.\"\n\nHere's the story: My paternal grandfather (the professional wrestling fan) was left as an infant on the doorstep of some orphanage in late-nineteenth-century England. His parentage was unknown\u2014there was no note or anything pinned on the swaddling clothes. And so the staff gave him the most generic last name possible for that time and place: Smith.\n\nI know that there are some people who can trace their family lineage back to the Mayflower or whatever, but I personally am only a couple of generations removed from complete obscurity when it comes to my genetic origins. My bloodline disappears into namelessness and anonymity pretty quickly.\n\nAnd truth be told, no matter how far back your family genealogy can be traced, eventually we all discover that we end up as . . . well, no one in particular. We all, if we look into the matter, are of indeterminate origin. Despite the different names that distinguish us, at bottom we are really all just generic human beings.\n\nPracticing being more anonymous, and posing less as the amazing, special somebody we all think we are, is an acknowledgment of our basic commonality. It's not only our true nature, the \"nobody self,\" that we share with all others. Even as individual somebodies, we're all really \"just folks,\" and embracing our generic ordinariness leads to a closer affinity with our fellow human beings (themselves all \"just folks\" too).\n\nLittle acts done incognito teach us to be less and less identified with our sense of particularity, our ego, our \"somebody self.\" Acting as anonymous agents of good in the world, we train ourselves to be more of a hybrid, more of somebody who is practicing to be more nobody-like.\n\nThere are many, many ways in which we can think and act more anonymously in our lives. Here are just a few tips to get you started in your new career as Secret Agent 000:\n\n  If you live in a city that still has them, plug someone else's depleted parking meter and save them a ticket! And don't stand around waiting for the owner to come back so you can be thanked.(Putting money into someone else's parking meter is, by the way, illegal in many municipalities, so, by doing this little act of civil disobedience, you can also get in touch with your inner Che Guevara.)\n\n  Take a \"first-person-pronoun-free day\" where you avoid using the terms \"I,\" \"me,\" or \"mine\" for twenty-four hours. Trying to keep up this practice over an extended period of time will make you more aware of how often we think of (and talk about!) ourselves, and only ourselves.\n\n  Give presents to people without them knowing it was you who was the donor. You might want to stick on one of those little tags, filling out the \"To\" part but leaving the \"From\" line blank.\n\n  Do somebody else's job for them\u2014a task at work that your office mate is responsible for, or a chore at home that your partner usually takes care of\u2014and do it secretly and transparently.\n\n  Slip some money into the purse or wallet of someone that you know is having financial challenges. This reverse pick-pocketing will require the same sort of cleverness and stealth that criminals employ. And you will experience the same thrill that the successful thief enjoys, while simultaneously doing something nice for someone else!\n\n  It used to be a tradition on May Day to place a basket of food, flowers, or presents on a neighbor's doorstep, ring the doorbell, and then run away. Becoming Secret Agent 000 could singlehandedly revive this tradition, and not just on May 1.\n\n  Next time you're at a restaurant, pay for some stranger's dinner. Just randomly select someone, call the waiter or waitress over, and secretly pick up that person's tab. You can sneak a peek at the person's reaction when they are told that an anonymous benefactor has paid their bill, and surreptitiously share in the little unexpected spike of happiness you brought to someone else's life.\n\n  There's a similar practice that's currently gaining traction in some cities. Next time you go to Starbucks for your grande soy decaf nonfat sugar-free latte, lean in and quietly whisper to the barista that you will be paying for two coffees\u2014one for you and one for the next person in line. And be sure to tell the server not to mention who paid it forward.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIf you can't be anonymous, at least work at being unfabulous. The individual self strives to be remarkable, cool, clever, important, and distinctive. Somebody who is trying to be more like nobody reverses this impulse and endeavors to be ordinary, common, simple, nondescript, and undistinguished.\n\nIn this day and age of reality television, of Facebook and Twitter self-promotion, of the endless quest to be more of a real somebody, it's really fighting the power to be content with being average and unfabulous.\n\nOne simple way to do this is to reduce one's preferences in life\u2014what one prefers to wear and to eat, which people we prefer to be around\u2014and learn to be more equanimous. Our preferences help to define us as unique individuals, and so being a little more non-preferential and impartial is another way to train somebody to be more nobody-like.\n\nI had a habit for several years of never buying new clothes. When I needed something to wear, instead of going to Macy's, I went to the Salvation Army. There's nice stuff at Sal's, especially at outlets located in affluent neighborhoods\u2014a dirty little secret for minimizing the austerity of this practice!\u2014and I saved a lot of money by shopping exclusively at such places.\n\nBut all the clothing at secondhand stores is, of course, used; it has been previously selected, bought, worn, and then discarded by someone you don't know. And there's something about wearing other people's clothes that makes an impression on one's psyche. You usually feel a little less fabulous, and a lot more like an Ordinary Joe, when you pull on a five-dollar secondhand shirt that you are aware used to belong to some stranger.\n\nLooking totally unfabulous was, of course, the original intent behind the robes worn by monks, nuns, priests, imams, and other clergy. These are uniforms, designed to make every individual look alike. Nowadays such a presentation often conveys the exact opposite impression\u2014\"Here's somebody dressed differently who must be special!\"\u2014and when I was wearing the robes it made me very uncomfortable to imagine people thinking this. The real purpose of such a uniform was to iron out particularities (and to make one's sartorial choices every morning much easier), not to confer some exceptional status.\n\nEven while I was still an ordained monk, I eventually made the decision to appear in public as an ordinary layman. Dropping the unusual veneer provided by the flowing red robes took down a barrier between me and the people around me. It was hard at first\u2014the costume does provide a kind of protective shield\u2014but the advantages of appearing \"normal\" outweighed the vulnerability that accompanied looking like an ordinary Clark Kent instead of giving the impression of being some kind of spiritual Superman.\n\nThere's a great virtue in appearing as an Ordinary Joe. Instead of setting ourselves apart by what we wear, we can send a different message when we don clothing more typical and common to whatever context we find ourselves in. For some this will mean an off-the-rack business suit rather than a tailored Brooks Brothers ensemble, while for others it will entail unbranded and inexpensive jeans and T-shirts rather than whatever new and cool garb is currently in fashion.\n\nAnother way to feel less distinctive is to minimize one's food preferences. I know there are plenty of people who really like those fungi known as mushrooms, and there are others who enjoy that fruit with the suitably unappetizing name \"eggplant.\" But I don't particularly care for either\u2014I am somebody, defined in part as a person who doesn't prefer such supposed edibles.\n\nAnd I avoid them if possible. But when someone has gone to the trouble of cooking a meal that includes such items, I eat them. It's not a big deal, but this act, in its small way, diminishes the ego's need to be a special somebody, distinguished by what one will and will not eat.\n\nThis practice may be a lot more challenging for self-defined vegans or vegetarians. But there's an ancient instruction for monks and nuns\u2014those who are professionally committed to humility and self-effacement\u2014to uncomplainingly accept and eat whatever is put before them, without making a fuss about \"being\" one thing or another when it comes to food.\n\nIt is a time-honored religious practice to be less picky and just eat what has been offered. One of my students spent several years living as a Buddhist nun in England, where they maintained this tradition. Every day, she told me, the monastics would go to the local village, begging bowls in hand, and stand and wait for edible donations. The villagers would come along and put whatever they could give into the bowls\u2014and in whatever order: carrots on top of ice cream, cheeseburgers piled onto lentils. And that was dinner; that's what the ordained would eat.\n\nOne need not go to such extremes to benefit from a practice of not being so particular about what one consumes. While there are undoubtedly many benefits to a vegetarian or vegan diet, being overly attached to what one prefers to eat strengthens rather than weakens the individual's sense of distinctiveness.\n\nBeing less preferential about what one wears and eats is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being unfabulous. There are countless ways in which we can train ourselves to be less demanding and more accepting, less exclusive and more inclusive, less of a special somebody and more of an Ordinary Joe.\n\nIt's like this now\u2014now there's only this one shirt that fits me on the rack; now there are mushrooms on my plate; now someone has prepared and served me a cheeseburger.\n\nAnd now I find myself with this kind of person. We all have preferences when it comes to the people we choose to be with. And we all tend to hang out with pretty much the same kinds of people\u2014people who are more or less like ourselves. Getting along with others who are not in our social clique is yet another way to be more nobody-like in our daily lives.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nIn the 1983 mockumentary Zelig, Woody Allen portrays a character who so badly wants to fit into his social surroundings that he literally takes on the physical characteristics of those around him. This \"human chameleon\" transforms into a rich patrician when around the Great Gatsby set, and then into a plain-speaking regular guy when he's with the servants. He becomes a Native American, an African American, and a Hasidic Jew when around such kinds of people.\n\nThis spoof displays, by means of an extreme caricature, the perils of conformity. But read in a different way, it also can be viewed as a comic version of the serious spiritual practice of living like an Ordinary Joe.\n\nAs we've argued in this book, the need to be unique and special is itself unexceptional and general to us all. It is not a sign of our distinctiveness to want to be distinctive. The deeper conformity we are all susceptible to is our common and quite ordinary desire to be extraordinary and set apart\u2014to be a real somebody.\n\nWhen with others, somebody who is trying to be more nobody-like tries to fit into the situation and to make others feel more at ease. Instead of clinging to our uniqueness and specialness, when we're with other people, especially those who appear different from ourselves, we remember the more fundamental ways in which we are all alike. The \"somebody self\" who is working at being more nobody-like feels more affinity to the others who come within his or her purview.\n\nWe are all human, and nothing human can be completely foreign to any of us. So when you encounter the checkout girl at the supermarket or the driver of your taxi or the fellow behind the counter at the dry cleaners, just ask about their day, tell a little joke, and treat them with respect. It doesn't take much to make another person's life a little better, but it does require acknowledging them as human beings fundamentally no different from oneself.\n\nWhen you're with people who are different from you\u2014whether they're a plumber from New York or a cowboy from Tucson\u2014take an interest in what that kind of life must be like, learn a little bit about what's entailed in doing that for a living. When you're around rich people, stop with the class struggle already and recall that they're essentially as ordinary as you are. When you're with people of different ethnic or racial backgrounds, remember that they're basically just like you\u2014burdened with the same kinds of problems, harboring the same desires for happiness, and endowed with the same fundamental true nature.\n\nIt was in part out of such considerations that, in October of 2013, I made the difficult decision to give back my monk's vows after living for eight years as an ordained monastic. While I have only admiration and respect for those who commit to this kind of life, for me personally being a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition no longer seemed to accord with my developing nondenominational spiritual orientation, nor with the desideratum to try to live more as a nobody instead of a special somebody. The very terms \"monk\" and \"monastic\" are derived from the Greek word for \"alone\" (monos), and can be interpreted to refer to someone who has set themselves apart from others.\n\nAs the scripture says, \"Give up such distinctions as, 'I am so-and-so, but not such-and-such.' \" Working to be more of an Ordinary Joe in our interactions with others helps us to recognize the real bonds that we share with every other person.\n\nThis is not a matter of being inauthentic or pretending to be someone you're not\u2014you don't have to turn into Zelig, the \"human chameleon.\" But we can authentically think and act less like the special somebody we might believe we are, because we are all authentically and really nobody.\n\nAnd when we're in between being nobody, we're all authentically just \"everyday people,\" trying our best to get through life. So if you need some help as you interact as Ordinary Joe with others who seem quite different from yourself, you can hum the old Sly and the Family Stone song and remember the refrain:\n\nI'm everyday people, yeah yeah . . .\n\nOh sha sha\u2014we got to live together.\n\n### NOBODY IS EVERYBODY (AND VICE VERSA)\n\nYes (oh sha sha), we really do have to live together. None of us is an island; our human archipelago is actually one big land mass under the surface. As Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has declared, the whole purpose of our lives is to overcome our sense that we are isolated, discrete individuals: \"We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.\"\n\nGrasping onto our individuality and uniqueness\u2014to the \"somebody self\" we've talked about so much in this book\u2014is premised upon and further propagates this \"illusion of separateness.\" Some of our strongest inborn instincts\u2014this is the \"devil\" part of us\u2014encourage the selfishness that detaches us from others. And our modern culture of narcissism and self-promotion ratifies and exacerbates our innate egoism.\n\nBut all this self-centeredness is based on illusion, not reality, and the inner \"angel\" who suspects this needs to have her voice amplified. The self we are so centered on\u2014independent, disconnected, and alone\u2014doesn't really exist at all, and the idea that we pursue our own happiness by feeding this phantom is wholly misguided.\n\nOur spiritual traditions have for millennia been telling us that our selfishness and egoism must be put aside if we are ever to find true happiness. And our scientists are now joining their voices in the chorus, pointing out that there is no findable \"pearl self\" at all; that what we call the self is just a bundle of functions wrapped together by our self-conception; and that the age-old religious virtues revolving around selflessness\u2014altruism, empathy, compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness\u2014will inevitably bring more happiness to one's life.\n\nAnd at least some of our scientists now agree with the long-standing spiritual claim that our sense of separation from others and the world around us is a misconception. \"A human being,\" observed Albert Einstein, \"is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe.' \"\n\nHe experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest\u2014a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nSo we end by restating the million-dollar question, adding a million-dollar adverb:\n\nWho da hell am I . . . really?\n\nReally, beneath all our differences and distinctions, we are all equally nobody. And being really nobody is the condition of possibility for becoming a better somebody\u2014somebody who increasingly realizes that he or she is part of a much larger whole.\n\nWe'll always be somebody, so when we're in between being nobody we can live happier, more fulfilling lives by being more nobody-like, more of an Ordinary Joe and less of a special, distinctive little snowflake, set apart from others. Since we're all really nobody, everybody is really just like everybody else.\n\nRemembering that we all live in \"interbeing,\" we can think and act more in accordance with the interdependence that defines our existence in the world. Dispelling the illusion of our separateness, we can find solace in the reality of our interconnectedness, in being everybody.\n\nDetaching from the monopolizing claims of the atomistic \"somebody self,\" we can integrate more with the world around us and identify more with the fount of our very being, the ultimate reality that is our true self.\n\nThis is the path to real happiness, for happiness can only be founded in truth, not in illusion.\n\nRemember, they say nobody's perfect.\n\nSo why not be nobody?\n\nAction Plan: Secret Agent 000\n\nYour mission, should you choose to accept it, is to commit to one act of kindness for someone else every day\u2014anonymously. Spend a few moments at the beginning of the day making a plan for how you will pull this off. And keep your eye out during the course of the day to see if unexpected opportunities arise to help others incognito. Practice being Secret Agent 000 in all the little ways you can.\nKnock,\n\nAnd He'll open the door.\n\nVanish,\n\nAnd He'll make you shine like the sun.\n\nFall,\n\nAnd He'll raise you to the heavens.\n\nBecome nothing,\n\nAnd He'll turn you into everything.\n\n\u2014\u2014Rumi\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nI am inexpressibly grateful to the phenomenal mother-daughter team Wendy and Cindy Lee for the time they took to read the earliest drafts of each chapter and for their invaluable advice and perspectives.\n\nDavid B. Fishman painstakingly went through the manuscript word by word and vastly improved the quality of my prose. It is a great mitzvah to have a full-fledged genius take the time to carefully review what an ordinary man has written.\n\nI have also been blessed to have superb editors at Beyond Words. Many thanks to Emily Han and Henry Covey for their help in making a much better book out of the original manuscript, as well as to my literary agent, Joelle Delbourgo, for her unflagging advocacy and support.\n\nI am very grateful to those who assisted me in my research\u2014Chantal Carleton, June Maker, Darin McFadyn, Claire Thompson, the Rev. Anne Deneen, Karl Whiting, and my daughter, Sophia Fleming-Benite\u2014and to the many volunteers who have transcribed oral teachings under the efficient management of Catherine Eaton.\n\nTo all whose generosity and hospitality make my life on the road so trouble-free, I cannot begin to thank you enough. And to my benefactors and patrons, I remain in your debt. I hope this book will be of some benefit to others and thus justify, at least to some extent, your support.\n\nThere is no way to repay what I owe to my teachers\u2014my spiritual mentors, academic guides, close friends, fellow travelers on the path, and those who pose as my students.\n\nFinally, although it may sound stupid, I'm really grateful to my computer and all it makes possible. I simply could not have written this book without the magic that has become available to us. We live in amazing times.\n\n## Appendix:  \nDropping into Your True Nature\n\nOur true nature is always with us. It has never been born and so can never die; it is eternally unchanging and ever-present; it is the \"nobody self\" that lies behind and beneath all iterations of every \"somebody self.\"\n\nAnd so it is always accessible. It is perpetually there whenever we quiet the ego's chattering, mute the ongoing inner narrative, and relax into the silence, spaciousness, and serenity of being nobody.\n\nIn what follows below, you'll find a set of simple meditative exercises, correlating to each of the seven chapters in this book, for dropping into that supreme state of bliss anytime you wish. They can be used as full-fledged meditations or merely as ways to catch a few moments of peace at any time during your day.\n\nThe exercises are drawn from 112 such meditations, or dharanas, that comprise the bulk of an ancient Sanskrit text from the Hindu tradition of northern India called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (VBT).I The VBT purports to be a conversation between two deities, Shiva (aka Bhairava, representing ultimate reality) and his beloved and inseparable partner Shakti (symbolizing the world of appearances and form). When Shakti asks Shiva to teach her how to discover the highest nature of things, the latter replies, \"Shakti is the very face of Shiva.\" That is to say, the deepest aspect of reality is found nowhere other than within the day-to-day world we live in.\n\nThe extraordinary is discoverable within the ordinary; the ultimate within the relative; the transcendent within the immanent. This same truth is summarized within the classical Buddhist scripture the Heart Sutra: \"Emptiness is not different from that which takes form, and that which takes form is not different from emptiness.\" The void and the plentitude are two sides of the same coin.\n\nIn the VBT, Shiva proceeds to teach Shakti an array of straightforward techniques for recognizing her true nature in the midst of everyday life. The methods are simple\u2014deceptively so. They aren't hard to do, but they do require paying close attention to what's happening to your consciousness when you're engaged in them. They are, after all, meditations.\n\nI hope you'll give these exercises a try. If you do, you'll find them to be relatively easy ways to get a little taste of what it feels like to be nobody. You'll be able to drop into your true nature whenever you want.\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 1\n\nLook at the clear blue sky with an unwavering gaze, keeping the body still. Immediately you will reach your true essence. . . . When one places the mind on outer space\u2014which is unchanging, without support, empty, all-pervasive, and free from limitation\u2014one enters the realm of spacelessness.II\n\nRemember how nice it was, when you were a kid, to just lie down on the grass and look up at the sky? Here's a quick, easy, and enjoyable way to break out of your limitations and get out of your own head, anytime during the day or night. Just take a moment to stop and go outside (or at least look through the window) and lose yourself in the unlimited expanse of the atmosphere or in the inconceivable vastness of outer space.\n\nThe mind takes the form of what it perceives. If what you perceive is the limitless, well, you've just dropped into your true nature.\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 2\n\nBecause of placing the mind at the meeting place of the two breaths, either inside (i.e., where the inhalation ends and the exhalation begins) or at the outer limit (i.e., where the exhalation ends and the inhalation begins), the yogi attains equanimity and becomes a proper vessel for knowledge.III\n\nEver heard the expression \"Just take a deep breath?\" We're breathing all day, every day, so here's a way to gain a little peace whenever you need it. Take a deep breath, but do so mindfully. Notice that at the end of each inhalation and exhalation there is a gap, a pause, before the next exhalation or inhalation, respectively. Gently, without holding the breath or interrupting the natural respiratory flow, place your mind fully on that pause and rest in the respite between breathing in or out.\n\nFall into the gap! And when done without self-consciousness of being in the gap, you've just found your true nature. There's no need to go to church or temple to find the sacred; it's there with every breath we take.\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 3\n\nOne who meditates nonconceptually on the emptiness of the body, even for just a moment, loses all conceptions and comes to possess the self-nature of what is beyond conceptual thought. . . . One should concentrate on just the skin encasing the body like a wall [while thinking], \"There is nothing inside.\" Meditating on that, one becomes joined with the imponderable. . . . [Then] meditate on the self taking the form of empty space, stretching out endlessly in all directions . . . [and] being freed from any resting place, then one sees his own true nature.IV\n\nWe're all pretty attached to the idea that we are our physical bodies, and so this brief meditation helps us to break out of our identification with our corporality at the same time it puts the mind on the infinite.\n\nFirst, imagine that inside the body there is nothing but empty space, like clear blue sky. Mentally empty out all the guts and bones until it is completely void, right up to the ends of the fingers and toes, encased only by the thinnest layer of skin.\n\nThen erase even the outline of the body and open up into the infinite empty space outside. Nothing to the left as far as you can imagine, or to the right, or up, or down, or in front, or in back.\n\nRelax and reside in complete spaciousness, and enjoy your true nature.\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 4\n\nWhen one experiences desire, anger, greed, delusion, intoxication, or jealousy, one should place the mind on it unwaveringly until only the bare essence of it remains.V\n\nWhen you're on the verge of losing the Big Smackdown with an incipient mental affliction, stop and do this meditation. Close your eyes and go deep within. Locate the feeling you're struggling with and then analyze it. Is it really one, complete, seamless, full-blown \"feeling\"?\n\nOr is it, upon investigation, separable into moments? Before it's designated \"anger\" or \"jealousy,\" isn't it just a series of momentary instances of consciousness over which the mind superimposes a label?\n\nIf you can get this far, then have a look at what makes up each of these little moments. Doesn't each instant of what we call \"anger\" or \"jealousy\" have its own beginning, middle, and end? And what about the beginning of each momentary fragment of what we name \"a feeling?\" Mustn't it also have its own beginning, middle, and end?\n\nAnd down you go. There are no partless parts, no moments of the so-called mental affliction that aren't further divisible. When you get tired of analyzing your feeling into parts of the parts of the parts of the parts, ad infinitum, you'll get to its \"bare essence,\" as the text says\u2014its emptiness, its true nature\u2014which is the same as yours!\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 5\n\nWhen one experiences great bliss, or when one sees a long-lost relative, one should meditate on the arising of the bliss and thoroughly dissolve the mind in it. . . . One should let the mind rest on things remembered or places one has seen. One's body will lose its support (i.e., one will forget one is embodied) and the Lord will arise.VI\n\nWe all spend at least some time every day daydreaming, so this little meditation should be easy. Take a moment to immerse yourself in a pleasant memory. Lose yourself completely in the reverie; stop thinking you're stuck inside your physical body. Fully relive being in some beautiful place, or the wonderful times you've had with a loved one, or any other memory of when you were perfectly happy. Focus on the feeling of bliss that arises, and completely merge your consciousness with it.\n\nThis simple exercise also has the potential to evoke a sense of gratitude in us for the good times we've had and the great people we've known in our lives. And gratitude, as it happens, is another very potent antidote and cure for depression and low self-esteem.\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 6\n\nOne should meditate on the pleasure that arises from eating and drinking\u2014the bliss of that tasty flavor\u2014and then the state of plenitude and great bliss arise. Through the unequalled joy of becoming absorbed completely in the sound of beautiful music and such, the yogi's mind is elevated and becomes one with that.VII\n\nOur true nature is accessible in even the most commonplace of activities, like eating and drinking. But we need that mindful unselfconsciousness in order to be fully absorbed in what we're doing when we taste the food or beverage. Try it. Use your daily meals and morning coffee or tea as a chance to encounter the \"nobody self.\"\n\nAnd the text gives us another method for relaxing into our true nature. Turn on one of your favorite pieces of instrumental music (no distracting lyrics). And then really get into it! Don't focus on individual notes or even the musical phrases, but lose yourself in the melody as a whole. When you're not there listening\u2014that is, when you've been wholly engrossed in the music\u2014there it is again! You've dropped back into your true nature.\n\n### MEDITATION FOR CHAPTER 7\n\nOne should realize that the consciousness in others' bodies is the same as in one's own. Having abandoned concern for one's own body, one soon becomes all-pervasive.VIII\n\nWe believe that we are really separate from others, not only because we have separate physical bodies but also because we have our own peculiar thoughts (some more peculiar than others!). And other beings have their own separate bodies and, we presume, their own particular thoughts too.\n\nThis meditation requires us to concentrate neither on the thinker inside the body nor on the particular thoughts the thinker thinks, but rather on the field of consciousness itself. What is the sphere or arena in which all thinking, in any body, occurs? The focus here is on what makes awareness of anything possible; it is on pure consciousness, not self-consciousness or any other consciousness of something.\n\nThis ability to be conscious\u2014regardless of what specific thoughts are being thought by which individual thinker\u2014is exactly the same in all living beings. Focus on that and the mind becomes \"all-pervasive,\" and we are drawn into the universal true nature we all share.\n\n#### Notes:\n\nI. For those interested in reading the full text, my complete translation is online at <http:\/\/lamamarut.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/VijnaBhairavaTantraHandout.pdf>.\n\nII. VBT, verses 84 (with minor changes from the original) and 120.\n\nIII. VBT, verse 64.\n\nIV. VBT, verses 23, 48, and 92.\n\nV. VBT, verse 101.\n\nVI. VBT, verses 71 and 119.\n\nVII. VBT, verses 72 and 73.\n\nVIII. VBT, verse 93.\n\nCINDY LEE\n\nLama Marut (aka Brian K. Smith) holds a PhD in comparative religion and taught for more than two decades in the academic world, first at Columbia University and later at the University of California. He lived as a Buddhist monk for eight years and has served for the past fifteen years as a spiritual teacher to students around the world. Lama Marut is currently the spiritual director of eight Middle Way Centers located in North America, Australia, and Singapore.\n\nMEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT\n\nSimonandSchuster.com\n\nauthors.simonandschuster.com\/Lama-Marut\n\n  BeyondWordsPublishing  \n  BeyondWordsPub\nWe hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Books eBook.\n\n* * *\n\nJoin our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.\n\nCLICK HERE TO SIGN UP\n\nor visit us online to sign up at  \neBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com\n\n## Endnotes\n\nPreface\n\n. Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project, \"Religious Landscape Survey, Report 1: Religious Affiliation,\" <http:\/\/religions.pewforum.org\/reports>.\n\n. Jason Palmer, \"Religion May Become Extinct in Nine Nations, Study Says,\" BBC News, March 22, 2011, <http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-12811197>.\n\n. John McManus, \"Two-Thirds of Britons Not Religious, Suggests Survey,\" BBC News, March 20, 2011, <http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-12799801>.\n\n. Dan Merica, \"Survey: One in Five Americans Has No Religion,\" CNN Belief Blog, October 9, 2012, <http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2012\/10\/09\/survey-one-in-five-americans-is-religiously-unaffiliated\/?hpt=hp_c2>.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Kathryn Blaze Carlson, \"Organized Religion on the Decline? Growing Number of Canadians 'Spiritual but Not Religious, ' \" National Post, December 21, 2012, <http:\/\/life.nationalpost.com\/2012\/12\/21\/organized-religion-on-the-decline-growing-number-of-canadians-spiritual-but-not-religious\/>.\n\n. Dominique Mosbergen, \"Dalai Lama Tells His Facebook Friends That 'Religion Is No Longer Adequate,' \" Huffington Post Religion, September 13, 2012, <http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/09\/13\/dalai-lama-facebook-religion-is-no-longer-adequate-science_n_1880805.html>.\n\n. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (Toronto: Signal Books, 2011), xii, xiv.\n\n. Cited in Acharya Peter Wilberg, Tantric Wisdom for Today's World: The New Yoga of Awareness (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009), 112.\n\n. Galatians 3:28. All Biblical citations in this book are from the New Revised Standard Version, found online at the Oremus Bible Browser, <http:\/\/bible.oremus.org>.\n\nIntroduction\n\n. Tom Wolfe, \"The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening,\" New York magazine, August 23, 1976, <http:\/\/nymag.com\/news\/features\/45938\/>.\n\n. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979). Some of Lasch's observations were foreshadowed not only by Tom Wolfe but also in Peter Marin's \"The New Narcissism,\" Harper's, October 1975. The \"world view emerging among us,\" wrote Marin, centers \"solely on the self\" and has \"individual survival as its sole good.\"\n\n. Lasch, ibid., 34.\n\n. Ibid., 50. Narcissism is elsewhere described as the \"distinctive personality type suited to the requirements of [our] culture,\" 238.\n\n. The continuing relevance of Lasch's portrait of our society is readily apparent. \"The personality of his time, it seems, is even more the personality of ours,\" writes Lee Siegel in his New York Times essay, \"The Book of Self-Love,\" February 5, 2010, http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/07\/books\/review\/Siegel-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.\n\n. Justin Bieber, of course, became a superstar on the basis of a YouTube video posted by his mom, and later paid it forward by promoting on YouTube what would become, thanks to Bieber's home movie, an international hit song by Carly Rae Jepsen, \"Call Me Maybe.\" A YouTube-engendered star gives birth, via YouTube, to another instant celebrity.\n\n. There were 3.14 billion email accounts worldwide in 2011, according to Royal Pingdom, <http:\/\/royal.pingdom.com\/2012\/01\/17\/internet-2011-in-numbers\/>. An estimated 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions, from which 200,000 text messages are sent every second, according to World Mobile Media, <http:\/\/worldmobilemedia.com\/sponsor\/>. Twitter reaches half a billion accounts in 2012, according to a Semiocast study, <http:\/\/semiocast.com\/en\/publications\/2012_7_30_Twitter_reaches_half_a_billion_accounts_140m_in_the_US>.\n\n. Emil Protalinski, \"Facebook Passes 1.11 Billion Monthly Active Users,\" The Next Web, May 1, 2013, <http:\/\/thenextweb.com\/facebook\/2013\/05\/01\/facebook-passes-1-11-billion-monthly-active-users-751-million-mobile-users-and-665-million-daily-users\/>.\n\n. In fact, the addiction to Facebook seems to be having the opposite effect. Check out Stephen Marche, \"Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?\" The Atlantic, May 2012, <http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2012\/05\/is-facebook-making-us-lonely\/308930\/>. Marche not only links the addiction to Facebook to an increase in feelings of loneliness among some of its users but also cites research that has found \"a significant correlation between Facebook use and narcissism.\" \"In fact, it could be argued that Facebook specifically gratifies the narcissistic individual's need to engage in self-promoting and superficial behavior.\" Cf. Geoffrey Mohan's \"Facebook Is a Bummer, Study Says,\" Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2013, <http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2013\/aug\/14\/science\/la-sci-sn-facebook-bummer-20130814>.\n\n. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1952), 6. See also Timothy Keller's observation in The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy (Chorley, England: 10Publishing, 2012): \"Up until the twentieth century, traditional cultures (and this is still true of most cultures in the world) always believed that too high a view of yourself was the root cause of all the evil in the world. . . . Traditionally, that was the reason given for why people misbehave. But, in our modern western culture, we have developed an utterly opposite cultural consensus. Our belief today\u2014and it is deeply rooted in everything\u2014is that people misbehave for lack of self-esteem and because they have too low a view of themselves.\"\n\n. Patrice Lescoe, \"How Much Have Depression Rates Increased?\" eHow, <http:\/\/www.ehow.com\/way_5627919_much-depression-rates-increased_.html#ixzz2Le3SK2UA>.\n\n. Maia Szalavitz, \"What Does a 400% Increase in Antidepressant Use Really Mean?\" Time, October 20, 2011, <http:\/\/healthland.time.com\/2011\/10\/20\/what-does-a-400-increase-in-antidepressant-prescribing-really-mean\/#ixx2LS6bouMr>.\n\n. See Mental Health: A Call for Action by World Health Ministers (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2001), <http:\/\/www.who.int\/mental_health\/advocacy\/en\/Call_for_Action_MoH_Intro.pdf>.\n\n. This according to an article entitled \"In Defense of Self-Esteem,\" written by Senator John Vasconcellos, Robert Reasoner, Michele Borba, Len Duhl, and Jack Canfield: <http:\/\/www.self-esteem-nase.org\/amember\/newsarticles\/InDefenseofSelf-Esteem.pdf>. The article was published in response to a critique of the self-esteem movement written by Lauren Slater, \"The Trouble with Self-Esteem,\" New York Times Magazine, February 3, 2002, <http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2002\/02\/03\/magazine\/03ESTEEM.html>? . . .all.\n\n. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 197.\n\nChapter 1\n\n. Cited in John Broomfield, Other Ways of Knowing: Recharting Our Future with Ageless Wisdom (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1997), 73.\n\n. Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 55. For a more weighty enunciation of the same problem, here's eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume's frustrated cri de coeur: \"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure, colour or sound, etc. I never catch myself, distinct from such perceptions.\" David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), book 1, part 4, section 6.\n\n. William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 7.\n\n. Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.\n\n. Miles Orvell, The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880\u20131940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), xxiii.\n\n. Fred Rogers, \"You Are Special,\" 1967. The complete lyrics to the song can be found online at <http:\/\/pbskids.org\/rogers\/songLyricsYouAreSpecial.html>.\n\n. For a rendition of the speech the Reverend Jackson did with a multicultural audience of small children on the television show Sesame Street, see <http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iTB1h18bHlY>.\n\n. The Bhagavad Gita 6.5. All translations from Sanskrit and Pali texts cited in this book are my own unless otherwise noted.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 8.4.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 8.134\u2013135.\n\n. Quoted in John Michael Talbot and Steve Rabey, The Lessons of Saint Francis: How to Bring Simplicity and Spirituality into Your Daily Life (New York: Plume, 1998), 49.\n\n. Quoted in Robert Wingate, Pocket Wisdom: Inspirational Quotations from East and West for Daily Living (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011), 65.\n\n. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1961), 8.\n\n. Quoted in Heinrich Robert Zimmer, Philosophies of India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 462.\n\n. Quoted in Kathlin Austin, Wise People Quotes (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013), 15.\n\n. Lynn Hirschberg, \"The Misfit,\" Vanity Fair, April 1991. Reprinted in All about Madonna, <http:\/\/allaboutmadonna.com\/madonna-interviews-articles\/vanity-fair-april-1991>.\n\n. For one indication of the negative effects of the cultural emphasis on being \"special,\" see \"Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy,\" Huffington Post, September 15, 2013, <http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/wait-but-why\/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html>.\n\n. Dalai Lama, Beyond Religion, 28, 29.\n\n. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 1.\n\n. Qur'an 2:213. From the online translation found at <http:\/\/quod.lib.umich.edu\/k\/koran\/>.\n\n. See Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 7.2, where \"depression\" (vishada) and \"low self-esteem\" (atmavamanya) are listed among the obstacles to the cultivation of \"joyful effort,\" the enthusiastic energy needed to overcome unhappiness and suffering.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 7.17\u201318.\n\n. Katha Upanishad 1.2.18.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.9.\n\n. Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.6\u20137.\n\nChapter 2\n\n. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 122.\n\n. Johnny Cash, \"No Earthly Good,\" The Rambler (Columbia Records, 1977). The complete lyrics can be found at www.lyricsondemand.com\/j\/johnnycashlyrics\/noearthlygoodlyrics.html.\n\n. William Paul Young, The Shack (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, reissue edition, 2011), 159.\n\n. Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 67.\n\n. Quoted in Lama Surya Das, The Big Questions: How to Find Your Own Answers to Life's Essential Mysteries (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books, 2007), 215.\n\n. Matthew 7:2\u20133.\n\n. Matthew 7:4\u20135.\n\n. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121\u201322.\n\n. Professor Roy Baumeister, interview by Neal Conan, Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio, February 4, 2002, <http:\/\/donpugh.dyndns.org\/Psych%20Interests\/Self-esteem\/Questioning%20the%20conventional%20wisdom%20of%20self-esteem.htm>. Baumeister also makes reference to a study that found that 90 percent of us think we're above average drivers. Another research project discovered that none of the high school students surveyed thought they were below average in the ability to get along with others. Like Garrison Keillor's fabled \"Lake Wobegon,\" where \"all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average,\" we often seem reluctant to say we're just average, even when we are. See <http:\/\/prairiehome.publicradio.org\/about\/podcast\/>.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 7.57\u201358.\n\n. Cf. ibid., 8.127: \"Because of my wish to be elevated in importance, I will find myself in unpleasant realms, ugly, and stupid.\"\n\n. Jack D. Maser, \"About Anxiety and Depression,\" Freedom from Fear, accessed November 29, 2013, <http:\/\/www.freedomfromfear.org\/AboutAnxietyandDepression.en.html>.\n\n. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 121.\n\n. Tolle, A New Earth, 44.\n\n. Ibid., 51.\n\nChapter 3\n\n. Anup Shaw, \"Poverty Facts and Stats,\" Global Issues, January 7, 2013, <http:\/\/www.globalissues.org\/article\/26\/poverty-facts-and-stats>.\n\n. Yoga Sutra 2.4; 2.13.\n\n. Yoga Sutra 2.5.\n\n. Maha Satipatthana Suttanta, verse 5. From Dialogues of the Buddha, trans. T. W. Rhys Davids and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (1910; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000), and cited in Edwin F. Bryant's The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (New York: North Point Press, 2009), 180.\n\n. Jone Johnson Lewis, \"Gloria Steinem Quotes,\" About.com, \"Women's History,\" <http:\/\/womenshistory.about.com\/cs\/quotes\/a\/qu_g_steinem.htm>.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 1.11 (emphasis added).\n\nChapter 4\n\n. Julian Baggini, The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean to You? (London: Granta Books, 2011), 40.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 2.40.\n\n. Yoga Sutra 2.4.\n\n. Matthew 7:16\u201318.\n\n. The Tolstoy quote is cited in a recent edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self Reliance (The Domino Project, 2011), 50.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 5.14 (emphasis added).\n\n. Cited in Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 121. Modern films like Memento and Total Recall (for the latter, see chapter 7) turn on the question of what becomes of self-identity when memory is erased.\n\n. Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 133.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 4.37\u201338.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 4.44.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 4.29, 43.\n\n. See also the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 6.41, where Shantideva says that it is better to get angry at anger itself than at a person who provokes anger in you.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 7.55\u201356: \"Everything should be conquered by me; I should be defeated by nothing! I should carry myself with pride, for I am the child of the Conquering Lions. Those pitiable beings who are defeated by pride are not those who possess pride. Those possessed of pride never become slaves of the enemy which is pride; others have turned into slaves.\" Compare this to French author Georges Bernanos's dictum: \"It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride to do so.\" The Diary of a Country Priest: A Novel (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), 224.\n\n. Quoted in Daniel Akst, We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 2.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 7.72.\n\n. Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 9.\n\n. Josie Billington, Eliot's Middlemarch, Reader's Guide (New York: Continuum, 2008), 89.\n\nChapter 5\n\n. Quoted in John Cook, comp., and Steve Deger and Leslie Ann Gibson, eds., The Book of Positive Quotations (Minneapolis: Fairview Press, 2007), 27.\n\n. Thich Nhat Hanh, Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, ed. Fred Eppsteiner, 3rd ed. (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1988).\n\n. Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (Colorado Springs, CO: Image, 2000), 31.\n\n. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (New York: Ace Trade, 2000), 151.\n\n. Dean Martin, \"You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You,\" The Door Is Still Open to My Heart (Capitol Records, 1960). The complete lyrics can be found at www.metrolyrics.com\/youre-nobody-till-somebody-loves-you-lyrics-dean-martin.html.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding (Poona, India: Rajneesh Foundation, 1975), 17.\n\n. Quoted in Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy (New York: Vintage, 2001), 146.\n\n. Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life 7.31.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 18.64\u201365.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 15.15.\n\nChapter 6\n\n. Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 4.\n\n. Ibid., 71.\n\n. Jiddu Krishnamurti, Think on These Things (Ojai, CA: Krishnamurti Foundation of America, 1964), 65.\n\n. Abraham Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences (New York: Penguin, 1970), 62.\n\n. John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, in Harvard Classics, vol. 25, ed. Charles W. Eliot (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909), 94. Or as Csikszentmihalyi puts it, \"It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly\" (Flow, 2).\n\n. Tyler Kingkade, \"Millennials Are More Stressed Out than Older Generations,\" Huffington Post, February 8, 2013, <http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/02\/08\/millennials-stress_n_2646947.html>.\n\n. Ed Smith, \"What Some People Call Idleness Is Sometimes the Best Investment,\" New Statesman, July 19, 2012, <http:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/business\/business\/2012\/07\/what-some-people-call-idleness-often-best-investment>.\n\n. For one analysis of how we are keeping ourselves constantly available for work even when we're supposedly on vacation, see Bob Sullivan's \"How the Smartphone Killed the Three-Day Weekend,\" CNBC, May 24, 2013, <http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/id\/100765600>.\n\n. Rajneesh, Tantra, 73.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.57.\n\n. Matthew 6:25\u201334.\n\n. Quoted in Joe Tichio, Greatest Inspirational Quotes: 365 Days to More Happiness, Success, and Motivation (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013), 46.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 6.1.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 6.2.\n\n. Quoted in Suhail Murtaza, Reflections: A Collection of Essays on Life, Happiness, Roots, and Responsibility (New York: Perseus Press, 2007), 79.\n\n. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1938; repr., London: Routledge, 2008), 3.\n\n. Ibid., 9.\n\n. 18 William Sax, ed., The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 4.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 3.22, 25.\n\n. Quoted in Packers: Green, Gold and Glory (New York: Sports Illustrated, 2013), 53.\n\n. Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Steven Mitchell (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009), chapter 68, <http:\/\/acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu\/~phalsall\/texts\/taote-v3.html#75>.\n\n. Matthew 18:1\u20134.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.49.\n\n. Ibid., 18.64.\n\n. Quoted in Wayne W. Dyer, Wisdom of the Ages: 60 Days to Enlightenment (1998; repr., New York: William Morrow, 2002), 29.\n\n. Norvin Hein, \"Lila,\" in The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia, ed. William Sax (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 15.\n\n. Quoted in Neal Ranzoni, The Book on \"Art Quotes\" (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012), 45.\n\n. Quoted in Cay Lang, Taking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006), x.\n\n. Quoted in Ellen J. Langer, Mindfulness (1989; repr., Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1990), 117.\n\n. Cited in Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 59.\n\n. This quote, which circulates around the internet, is attributed to one Hans Bos, who apparently lives in Terre Haute, Indiana, and is neither a professional dancer nor writer. See <http:\/\/www.bdancer.com\/HansBos.html>.\n\n. Quoted in Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, 2nd ed. (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002), 92.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 5.8.\n\n. Quoted in Meredith Gould, Deliberate Acts of Kindness: Service as a Spiritual Practice (Colorado Springs, CO: Image, 2002), 70.\n\n. Bhagavad Gita 4.20.\n\nChapter 7\n\n. Baggini, The Ego Trick, 7. A little later in his book, Baggini says, \"The most important finding, which seems to be universally accepted by all researchers into the self and the brain, is that brain research has given up on the search for the pearl of the self\" (28).\n\n. Ibid., 69.\n\n. Dhammapada 3.42\u201343. The translation is Thomas Byrom's The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha (New York: Random House, 2010).\n\n. Quoted in James R. Miller, Voices from Earth: A Book of Gentle Wisdom (Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2006), 22.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.35.\n\n. Katha Upanishad 1.2.18.\n\n. Tao Te Ching, chapter 1, trans. Mitchell.\n\n. Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, verses 14\u201315.\n\n. Mandukya Upanishad 7.\n\n. Uttara Tantra 1.79\u201380.\n\n. Lawrence Kushner, The River of Light: Jewish Mystical Awareness (1981; repr., Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1991), 122.\n\n. For a comprehensive survey of ancient and modern \"apophatic discourses\" in the West, see William Franke, ed., On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).\n\n. Rajneesh, Tantra, 12.\n\n. Ibid, 5.\n\n. Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, verse 124.\n\n. Ibid., verse 61.\n\n. Ibid., verse 62.\n\n. Roy J. Matthew, \"Psychoactive Agents and the Self,\" in The Lost Self: Pathologies of Brain and Identity, eds. Todd E. Feinberg and Julian Paul Keenan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).\n\n. Quoted in Baggini, The Ego Trick, 202\u2013203.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.18.\n\n. Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa, The Myth of Freedom: and the Way of Meditation (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), 6.\n\n. Ibid., 104\u2013105 (emphasis added).\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.65, 60.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 18.59.\n\n. Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.6\u20137.\n\n. Uttara Tantra 1.149.\n\n. Uttara Tantra 1.154.\n\n. Philippians 4:7.\n\n. Philippians 2:2\u20134.\n\n. Philippians 2:5\u20138.\n\n. Ashtavakra Gita 15.15.\n\n. Sly and the Family Stone, \"Everyday People,\" Stand! (Epic, 1968). The complete lyrics can be found at www.lyricsmode.com\/lyrics\/s\/sly_and_the_family_stone\/everyday_people.html.\n\n. Quoted in Eleanor \"Ndidi\" Hooks, Finding Joy\u2014Finding Yourself (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013), 57.\n\n. Quoted in Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (New York: Delta, 1990), 165.\n\n## Selected Bibliography\n\nBaggini, Julian. The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean to Be You? London: Granta Books, 2011.\n\nByrom, Thomas. The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha. New York: Random House, 2010.\n\nCsikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.\n\nDalai Lama, H. H. Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. Toronto: Signal Books, 2011.\n\nDoniger, Wendy. The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.\n\nHanh, Thich Nhat. Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism. Edited by Fred Eppsteiner. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1988.\n\nHuizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. 1938. Reprint, London: Routledge, 2008.\n\nKeller, Timothy. The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy. Chorley, England: 10Publishing, 2012.\n\nKrishnamurti, Jiddu. Think on These Things. Ojai, CA: Krishnamurti Foundation of America, 1964.\n\nLao-Tzu. Tao te Ching. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009.\n\nLasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.\n\nLewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1952.\n\nMaslow, Abraham. Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. New York: Penguin, 1970.\n\nMerton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions, 1961.\n\nNew Revised Standard Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.\n\nO'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980.\n\nRhys Davids, T. W., and C. A. F. Rhys Davids, trans. Dialogues of the Buddha. 1910. Reprint, Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000.\n\nSatchidananda, Swami. Beyond Words. Yogaville, CA: Integral Yoga Publications, 1977.\n\nTolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. New York: Penguin Books, 2005.\n\nRajneesh, Bhagwan Shree. Tantra: The Supreme Understanding. Poona, India: Rajneesh Foundation, 1975.\n\nTutu, Desmond. No Future without Forgiveness. Colorado Springs, CO: Image, 2000.\n\nWatts, Alan. The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 55.\n\nWolfe, Tom. \"The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening.\" New York, August 23, 1976.\n\nZimmer, Heinrich Robert. Philosophies of India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\nAll translations from Sanskrit and Pali texts cited in this book are my own unless otherwise noted:\n\nAshtavakra Gita\n\nBadarayana's Vedantasutras\n\nBhagavad Gita\n\nBodhicaryavatara (Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life)\n\nKatha Upanishad\n\nMaha Satipatthana Suttanta\n\nMandukya Upanishad\n\nNagarjuna's Mulamadhyamaka Karika (Root Verses on the Middle Way)\n\nShvetashvatara Upanishad\n\nVajracchedika Sutra (Diamond Cutter Sutra)\n\nVijnana Bhairava Tantra\n\nYoga Sutra\n\nA Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.\n\n1230 Avenue of the Americas\n\nNew York, NY 10020\n\nwww.SimonandSchuster.com\n\n20827 N.W. 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Brunson Typography Services\n\nFirst Atria Paperback\/Beyond Words trade paperback edition June 2014\n\n  and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.\n\nBeyond Words Publishing is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. and the Beyond Words logo is a registered trademark of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.\n\nThe Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nSmith, Brian K.\n\nBe nobody \/ by Lama Marut.\u2014First Atria Paperback\/Beyond Words trade paperback edition.\n\npages cm\n\nIncludes bibliographical references.\n\n1. Self. 2. Spiritual life\u2014Religious aspects. I. Title.\n\nBL65.S38M35 2014\n\n204 '.4\u2014dc23\n\n2013048132\n\nISBN 978-1-58270-454-8\n\nISBN 978-1-4767-3804-8 (ebook)\n\nThe corporate mission of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.: Inspire to Integrity\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"**_THE AMERICAN SLAVE COAST_** offers a provocative vision of US history from earliest colonial times through emancipation that presents even the most familiar events and figures in a revealing new light.\n\nAuthors Ned and Constance Sublette tell the brutal story of how the slavery industry made the reproductive labor of the people it referred to as \"breeding women\" essential to the young country's expansion. Captive African Americans in the slave nation were not only laborers, but merchandise and collateral all at once. in a land without silver, gold, or trustworthy paper money, their children and their children's children into perpetuity were used as human savings accounts that functioned as the basis of money and credit in a market premised on the continual expansion of slavery. Slaveowners collected interest in the form of newborns, who had a cash value at birth and whose mothers had no legal right to say no to forced mating.\n\nThis gripping narrative is driven by the power struggle between the elites of Virginia, the slave-raising \"mother of slavery,\" and South Carolina, the massive importer of Africans\u2014a conflict that was central to American politics from the making of the Constitution through the debacle of the Confederacy.\n\nVirginia slaveowners won a major victory when Thomas Jefferson's 1808 prohibition of the African slave trade protected the domestic slave markets for slave-breeding. The interstate slave trade exploded in mississippi during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, drove the US expansion into Texas, and powered attempts to take over Cuba and other parts of Latin America, until a disaffected South Carolina spearheaded the drive to secession and war, pushing the Virginians to secede or lose their slave-breeding industry.\n\nFilled with surprising facts, fascinating incidents, and startling portraits of the people who made, endured, and resisted the slave-breeding industry, _The American Slave Coast_ culminates in the revolutionary Emancipation Proclamation, which at last decommissioned the capitalized womb and armed the African Americans to fight for their freedom.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2016 by Ned Sublette and Constance Sublette\n\nAll rights reserved\n\nFirst edition\n\nPublished by Lawrence Hill Books\n\nAn imprint of Chicago Review Press Incorporated\n\n814 North Franklin Street\n\nChicago, Illinois 60610\n\nISBN 978-1-61374-820-6\n\n**Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**\n\nSublette, Ned, 1951-\n\nThe American slave coast : a history of the slave-breeding industry \/ Ned Sublette, Constance Sublette. \u2014 First edition.\n\npages cm\n\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.\n\nISBN 978-1-61374-820-6 (hardback)\n\n1. Slave-trade\u2014United States\u2014History. 2. Slave traders\u2014United States\u2014History. 3. Slavery\u2014Economic aspects\u2014United States. 4. Slaves\u2014United States\u2014Social conditions. 5. Slaves\u2014United States\u2014Sexual behavior\u2014History. 6. Slaveholders\u2014Southern States\u2014History. 7. Southern States\u2014History\u20141775-1865. 8. Slave-trade\u2014Southern States\u2014History. 9. Slave traders\u2014Southern States\u2014History. I. Sublette, Constance. II. Title.\n\nE442.S82 2015\n\n331.11'7340973\u2014dc23\n\n2015002493\n\nInterior design: PerfecType, Nashville, TN\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n5 4 3 2 1\n_Although it is a record of horror it has an odd, matter-of-fact air about it simply because the infamies that are described were so completely taken for granted._\n\n\u2014Bruce Catton, reviewing the 1965 edition of  \n _Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to the Americas_\n\n# **Contents**\n\nIntroduction\n\nPart One: The Capitalized Womb\n\n1 The Mother of Slavery\n\n2 Protectionism, or, The Importance of 1808\n\n3 A Literature of Terror\n\n4 Natural Increase\n\n5 Little Shadows\n\n6 Species of Property\n\nPart Two: The Chesapeake and the Lowcountry\n\n7 Rawrenock\n\n8 A Cargo of Shining Dirt\n\n9 Our Principall Wealth\n\n10 Maria's Land\n\n11 Barbados\n\n12 The Anglo-Saxon Model\n\n13 Carolina\n\n14 The Separate Traders\n\n15 Charles Town\n\n16 Savannah and Stono\n\n17 A Rough Set of People, but Somewhat Caressed\n\n18 Ballast\n\nPart Three: Silent Profit\n\n19 Newspapers as Money as People\n\n20 Lord Dunmore's Blackbirds\n\n21 The General Inconvenience\n\n22 The Fugue of Silences\n\n23 Ten Thousand Powers\n\n24 The French Revolution in America\n\nPart Four: The Star-Spangled Slave Trade\n\n25 The Cotton Club\n\n26 The Terrible Republic\n\n27 I Do Not Threaten the Government with Civil War\n\n28 These Infernal Principles\n\n29 The Hireling and Slave\n\n30 A Jog of the Elbow\n\nPart Five: The Slaveocracy\n\n31 Swallowed by Millions\n\n32 Democratizing Capital\n\n33 Old Robbers\n\n34 Wake Up Rich\n\n35 The Slave Trade to Cuba and Brazil\n\n36 Heaps and Piles of Money\n\n37 The Slave Power\n\n38 Manifest Destiny's Child\n\n39 A Letter from Virginia\n\n40 Communists in Blackface\n\n41 Hiring Day\n\nPart Six: The Revolution\n\n42 Vanish Like a Dream\n\n43 A Snake Biting Its Tail\n\n44 Assignment in Paraguay\n\n45 The Decommissioning of Human Capital\n\n46 A Weird, Plaintive Wail\n\nCoda\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nPicture Credits\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nIndex\n\nKent News, _Chestertown, Maryland._\n\n# **Introduction**\n\nTHIS IS A HISTORY of the slave-breeding industry, which we define as the complex of businesses and individuals in the United States who profited from the enslavement of African American children at birth.\n\nAt the heart of our account is the intricate connection between the legal fact of people as property\u2014the \"chattel principle\"\u2014and national expansion. Our narrative doubles, then, as a history of the making of the United States as seen from the point of view of the slave trade.\n\nIt also traces the history of money in America. In the Southern United States, the \"peculiar institution\" of slavery was inextricably associated with its own peculiar economy, interconnected with that of the North.\n\nOne of the two principal products of the antebellum slave economy was staple crops, which provided the cash flow\u2014primarily cotton, which was the United States' major export. The other was enslaved people, who counted as capital and functioned as the stable wealth of the South. African American bodies and childbearing potential collateralized massive amounts of credit, the use of which made slaveowners the wealthiest people in the country. When the Southern states seceded to form the Confederacy they partitioned off, and declared independence for, their economic system in which people were money.\n\nOur chronology reaches from earliest colonial times through emancipation, following the two main phases of the slave trade. The first phase, _importation_ , began with the first known sale of kidnapped Africans in Virginia in 1619 and took place largely, though not entirely, during the colonial years. The second phase, _breeding_ , was the era of the domestic, or interstate, slave trade in African Americans. The key date here\u2014from our perspective, one of the most important dates in American history\u2014was the federal prohibition of the \"importation of persons\" as of January 1, 1808. After that, the interstate trade was, with minor exceptions, the only slave trade in the United States, and it became massified on a previously impossible scale.\n\nThe conflict between North and South is a fundamental trope of American history, but in our narrative, the major conflict is intra-Southern: the commercial antagonism between Virginia, the great slave breeder, and South Carolina, the great slave importer, for control of the market that supplied slave labor to an expanding slavery nation. The dramatic power struggle between the two was central to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and to secession in 1860\u201361.\n\n**Part One** is an overview, intended as an extended introduction to the subject.\n\n**Part Two** , which begins the main chronological body of the text, describes the creation of a slave economy during the colonial years.\n\n**Part Three** centers on the US Constitution's role as hinge between the two phases of slave importation and slave breeding.\n\n**Parts Four through Six** cover the years of the slave-breeding industry, from the end of the War of 1812 through emancipation: the rise, peak, and fall of the cotton kingdom.\n\nNote: This book describes an economy in which people were capital, children were interest, and women were routinely violated. We have tried to avoid gratuitously subjecting the reader to offensive language and images, but we are describing a horrifying reality.\n\n#   Part One\n\n# **The Capitalized Womb**\n\n#   1\n\n# **The Mother of Slavery**\n\n\"VIRGINIA WAS THE MOTHER of slavery,\" wrote Louis Hughes.\n\nIt wasn't just a figure of speech.\n\nDuring the fifty-three years from the prohibition of the African slave trade by federal law in 1808 to the debacle of the Confederate States of America in 1861, the Southern economy depended on the functioning of a slave-breeding industry, of which Virginia was the number-one supplier. When Hughes was born in 1832, the market was expanding sharply.\n\n\"My father was a white man and my mother a negress,\" Hughes wrote. That meant he was classified as merchandise at birth, because children inherited the free or enslaved status of the mother, not the father. It had been that way in Virginia for 170 years already when Hughes was born.\n\n_Partus sequitur ventrem_ was the legal term: the status of the newborn follows the status of the womb. Fathers passed inheritances down, mothers passed slavery down. It ensured a steady flow of salable human product from the wombs of women who had no legal right to say no.\n\nMost enslaved African Americans lived and died without writing so much as their names. The Virginia legal code of 1849 provided for \"stripes\"\u2014flogging\u2014for those who tried to acquire literacy skills. A free person who dared \"assemble with negroes for the purpose of instructing them to read or write\" could receive a jail sentence of up to six months and a fine of up to a hundred dollars, plus costs. An enslaved person who tried to teach others to read might have part of a finger chopped off by the slaveowner, with the full blessing of law.\n\nSo it was an especially distinguished achievement when in 1897 the sixty-four-year-old Louis Hughes published his memoir, titled _Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom: The Institution of Slavery as Seen on the Plantation and in the Home of the Planter._ Like the other volumes collectively referred to as slave narratives, it bears witness to a history slaveowners did not want to exist: the firsthand testimony of the enslaved.\n\nBy the time Hughes was twelve, he had been sold five times. The third time, he was sold away from his mother to a trader. \"It was sad to her to part with me,\" he recalled, \"though she did not know that she was never to see me again, for my master had said nothing to her regarding his purpose and she only thought, as I did, that I was hired to work on the canal-boat, and that she should see me occasionally. But alas! We never met again.\"\n\n_Louis Hughes's author photograph._\n\nThe trader carried the boy away from the Charlottesville area that had been his home, down the James River to Richmond. There he was sold a fourth time, to a local man, but Hughes \"suffered with chills and fever,\" so the dissatisfied purchaser had him resold. This time he went on the auction block, where he was bought by a cotton planter setting up in Pontotoc, Mississippi\u2014a booming region that had recently become available for plantations in the wake of the delivery of large areas of expropriated Chickasaw land into the hands of speculators.\n\nSlaves were designated by geographical origin in the market, with Virginia-and Maryland-born slaves commanding a premium. \"It was held by many that [Virginia] had the best slaves,\" Hughes wrote. \"So when Mr. McGee found I was born and bred in that state he seemed satisfied. The bidding commenced, and I remember well when the auctioneer said: 'Three hundred eighty dollars\u2014once, twice and sold to Mr. Edward McGee.'\"\n\nMcGee had plenty of financing, and he was in a hurry; he bought sixty other people that day. A prime field hand would have commanded double or more, but even so, the $380 that bought the sickly twelve-year-old would be more than $10,000 in 2014 money.\n\nLike the largest number of those forcibly emigrated to the Deep South, McGee's captives were all made to walk from Virginia to Mississippi, in a coffle.\n\nSouthern children grew up seeing coffles approach in a cloud of dust.\n\nA coffle is \"a train of men or beasts fastened together,\" says the Oxford English Dictionary, and indeed Louis Hughes referred to the coffle he marched in as \"a herd.\" The word comes from the Arabic _qafilah_ , meaning \"caravan,\" recalling the overland slave trade that existed across the desert from sub-Saharan Africa to the greater Islamic world centuries before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. With the development in the late fifteenth century of the maritime trade that shifted the commercial gravity of Africa southward from the desert to the Atlantic coast, coffles were used to traffic Africans from point of capture in their homeland to point of sale in one of Africa's many slave ports.\n\nBut the people trudging to Mississippi along with Louis Hughes were not Africans. They were African Americans, born into slavery and raised with their eventual sale in mind. Force-marched through wilderness at a pace of twenty or twenty-five miles a day, for five weeks or more, from can't-see to can't-see, in blazing sun or cold rain, crossing unbridged rivers, occasionally dropping dead in their tracks, hundreds of thousands of laborers transported themselves down south at gunpoint, where they and all their descendants could expect to be prisoners for life.\n\nPerhaps 80 percent of enslaved children were born to two-parent families\u2014though the mother and father might live on different plantations\u2014but in extant slave-traders' records of those sold, according to Michael Tadman's analysis, \"complete nuclear families were almost totally absent.\" About a quarter of those trafficked southward were children between eight and fifteen, purchased away from their families. The majority of coffle prisoners were male: boys who would never again see their mothers, men who would never again see wives and children. But there were women and girls in the coffles, too\u2014exposed, as were enslaved women everywhere, to the possibility of sexual violation from their captors. The only age bracket in which females outnumbered males in the trade was twelve to fifteen, when they were as able as the boys to do field labor, and could also bear children. Charles Ball, forcibly taken from Maryland to South Carolina in 1805, recalled that\n\nThe women were merely tied together with a rope, about the size of a bed cord, which was tied like a halter round the neck of each; but the men... were very differently caparisoned. A strong iron collar was closely fitted by means of a padlock round each of our necks. A chain of iron, about a hundred feet in length, was passed through the hasp of each padlock, except at the two ends, where the hasps of the padlocks passed through a link of the chain. In addition to this, we were handcuffed in pairs, with iron staples and bolts, with a short chain, about a foot long, uniting the handcuffs and their wearers in pairs.\n\nAs they tramped along, coffles were typically watched over by whip- and gun-wielding men on horseback and a few dogs, with supply wagons bringing up the rear. In the country coffles slept outdoors on the ground, perhaps in tents; in town they slept in the local jail or in a slave trader's private jail. Farmers along the route did business with the drivers, selling them quantities of the undernourishing, monotonous fare that enslaved people ate day in and day out.\n\nSometimes the manacles were taken off as the coffle penetrated farther South, where escape was nearly impossible. But since the customary way of disposing of a troublesome slave\u2014whether criminally insane, indomitably rebellious, or merely a repeated runaway\u2014was to sell him or her down South, drivers assumed that the captives could be dangerous. Coffles were doubly vulnerable, for robbery and for revolt, so security was high.\n\nThe captives were not generally allowed to talk among themselves as they tramped along, but sometimes, in the midst of their suffering, they were made to sing. The English geologist G. W. Featherstonhaugh, who in 1834 happened upon the huge annual Natchez-bound chain gang led by trader John Armfield, noted that \"the slave-drivers... endeavour to mitigate their discontent by feeding them well on the march, and by encouraging them\"\u2014 _encouraging_ them?\u2014\"to sing 'Old Virginia never tire,' to the banjo.\" Thomas William Humes, who saw coffles of Virginia-born people passing through Tennessee in shackles on the way to market, wrote: \"It was pathetic to see them march, thus bound, through the towns, and to hear their melodious voices in plaintive singing as they went.\"\n\nSometimes coffles marched with fiddlers at the head. North Carolina clergyman Jethro Rumple recalled them stepping off with a huzzah: \"On the day of departure for the West the trader would have a grand jollification. A band, or at least a drum and fife, would be called into requisition, and perhaps a little rum be judiciously distributed to heighten the spirits of his sable property, and the neighbors would gather in to see the departure.\" Rumple was speaking, needless to say, of \"heightening the spirits\" of young people who had just been ripped away from their parents and were being taken to a fate many equated, not incorrectly, with death.\n\nA coffle might leave a slave jail with more people than it arrived with. The formerly enslaved Sis Shackleford described the process at Virginia's Five Forks Depot (as transcribed by the interviewer):\n\nHad a slave-jail built at de cross roads wid iron bars 'cross de winders. Soon's de coffle git dere, dey bring all de slaves from de jail two at a time an' string 'em 'long de chain back of de other po' slaves. Ev'ybody in de village come out\u2014'specially de wives an' sweethearts and mothers\u2014to see dey solt-off chillun fo' de las' time. An' when dey start de chain a-clankin' an' step off down de line, dey all jus' sing an' shout an' make all de noise dey can tryin' to hide de sorrer in dey hearts an' cover up de cries an' moanin's of dem dey's leavin' behin'.\n\nAn enslaved person could always be sold to another owner, at any time. When Louis Hughes's coffle reached Edenton, Georgia, McGee sold twenty-one of his newly purchased captives, taking advantage of the price differential in the Lower South to post an immediate profit on a third of his Virginia transaction and thereby hedge his debt to his financier.\n\nCharles Ball described a deal that took place on the road in South Carolina:\n\nThe stranger, who was a thin, weather-beaten, sunburned figure, then said, he wanted a couple of breeding wenches, and would give as much for them as they would bring in Georgia.... He then walked along our line, as we stood chained together, and looked at the whole of us\u2014then turning to the women; asked the prices of the two pregnant ones.\n\nOur master replied, that these were two of the best breeding-wenches in all Maryland\u2014that one was twenty-two, and the other only nineteen\u2014that the first was already the mother of seven children, and the other of four\u2014that he had himself seen the children at the time he bought their mothers\u2014and that such wenches would be cheap at a thousand dollars each; but as they were not able to keep up with the gang, he would take twelve hundred dollars for the two. The purchaser said this was too much, but that he would give nine hundred dollars for the pair.\n\nThis price was promptly refused; but our master, after some consideration, said he was willing to sell a bargain in these wenches, and would take eleven hundred dollars for them, which was objected to on the other side; and many faults and failings were pointed out in the merchandise. After much bargaining, and many gross jests on the part of the stranger, he offered a thousand dollars for the two, and said he would give no more. He then mounted his horse, and moved off; but after he had gone about one hundred yards, he was called back; and our master said, if he would go with him to the next blacksmith's shop on the road to Columbia, and pay for taking the irons off the rest of us, he might have the two women. (paragraphing added)\n\nWomen with babies in hand were in a particularly cruel situation. Babies weren't worth much money, and they slowed down coffles. William Wells Brown, hired out to a slave trader named Walker, recalled seeing a baby given away on the road:\n\nSoon after we left St. Charles, the young child grew very cross, and kept up a noise during the greater part of the day. Mr. Walker complained of its crying several times, and told the mother to stop the child's d\u2014\u2014d noise, or he would. The woman tried to keep the child from crying, but could not. We put up at night with an acquaintance of Mr. Walker, and in the morning, just as we were about to start, the child again commenced crying. Walker stepped up to her, and told her to give the child to him. The mother tremblingly obeyed. He took the child by one arm, as you would a cat by the leg, walked into the house, and said to the lady,\n\n\"Madam, I will make you a present of this little nigger; it keeps such a noise that I can't bear it.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said the lady.\n\nFrom the first American coffles on rough wilderness treks along trails established by the indigenous people, they were the cheapest and most common way to transport captives from one region to another.\n\nThe federally built National (or Cumberland) Road, which by 1818 reached the Ohio River port of Wheeling, Virginia (subsequently West Virginia), was ideal for coffles. It was the nation's first paved highway, with bridges across every creek. Laying out approximately the route of the future US 40, its broken-stone surface provided a westward overland transportation link that began at the Potomac River port of Cumberland, Maryland. From Wheeling, the captives could be shipped by riverboat down to the Mississippi River and on to the Deep South's second-largest slave market at Natchez, or further on to the nation's largest slave market, New Orleans.\n\nBeginning after the War of 1812 and continuing up through secession, captive African Americans were trafficked south and west by every possible method, in an enormous forced migration. \"A drove of slaves on a southern steamboat, bound for the cotton or sugar regions,\" wrote William Wells Brown in his 1849 autobiography, \"is an occurrence so common, that no one, not even the passengers, appear to notice it, though they clank their chains at every step.\"\n\nAs railroads extended their reach, captives were packed like cattle into freight cars, shortening the time and expense to market considerably. Some passenger trains had \"servant cars,\" though a cruder term was more commonly used. On his first trip to the South, in January 1859, the twenty-one-year-old New Englander J. Pierpont Morgan noted: \"1000 slaves on train.\"\n\nThey were trafficked by sea in oceangoing vessels that sailed the hard passage from the Chesapeake around the Florida peninsula to New Orleans, as well as in shorter voyages within that route. Ocean shipment was more expensive than a coffle, but it was quicker, so it turned the capital-intensive human cargo over more efficiently. Though exact figures do not exist, it is safe to say that tens of thousands of African Americans made the coastwise voyage from the Chesapeake and from Charleston to New Orleans and up the Mississippi to Natchez, as well as to Pensacola, Mobile, Galveston, and other ports. Maryland ports alone (principally Baltimore) shipped out 11,966 people for whom records exist between 1818 and 1853, and an unknown number of others before, during, and after that time.\n\nMore slave ships came to New Orleans from the East Coast of the United States than from Africa. In a shorter recapitulation of the Middle Passage of a century before, the captives were packed into the hold with ventilation slats along the side to keep them from suffocating. Upon arrival, they were discharged into one or another of New Orleans's many slave pens, where they were washed, groomed, and fed, their skin was oiled, and their gray hairs, if they had any, were dyed or plucked out. On sale day, they were put into suits of the finest clothes many of them would ever wear, with perhaps even top hats for the men. Most would be sent to the cotton fields, where inhuman levels of work would be extracted from them through torture, or to Louisiana's death camps of sugar.\n\nFollowing the precedent set by the Europeans, who referred to the coastal regions of Africa by their exports\u2014the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast\u2014some writers have referred to the Chesapeake region as the Tobacco Coast.\n\nBut it would also be appropriate to call it the American Slave Coast.\n\n#   2\n\n# **Protectionism, or, The Importance of 1808**\n\n_Industry: A particular form or branch of productive labour._\n\n\u2014Oxford English Dictionary\n\nBY HEMISPHERIC STANDARDS, THE African slave trade to English-speaking North America was petty.\n\nAccording to database-backed estimates by David Eltis and David Richardson, only about 389,000 kidnapped Africans were disembarked in the ports of the present-day United States, the majority of them before independence. We say \"only\": that's an enormous number of captives to be dragged across the ocean, but Africans trafficked to the United States territory account for less than 4 percent of the estimated hemispheric total. An estimated 10.7 million Africans arrived alive to the Americas\u2014out of an estimated 12.5 million embarked, leaving 1.8 million dead at sea.\n\nThere is no way to figure the collateral damage to African populations from slave-raiding with even a rough level of accuracy. Slave-raiding, which was typically conducted by Africans, was notoriously wasteful of life, since only the young were taken and often the rest were killed. If one died for every one taken captive in slave raids\u2014a speculative and possibly conservative number\u2014that would mean the transatlantic slave trade killed or enslaved some twenty-five million Africans. It may have been double that; there's no way to know.\n\nBarbados, an island about the size of the New York City borough of Queens, appears to have taken in more Africans than the entire territory of the present-day United States\u2014493,000, according to Eltis and Richardson.\n\n**Region** | **Estimated number of African captives**  \n---|---  \nChesapeake (Virginia and Maryland) | 129,000  \nLowcountry (South Carolina and Georgia) | 211,000  \nNew England and Mid-Atlantic | 27,000  \nGulf Coast | 22,000  \n**Total present-day US** | **389,000**  \n**Barbados** | **493,000**\n\nEstimates vary, of course; historian James McMillin believes that the number for the United States and its colonial predecessors exceeded 500,000. But that difference is not an order of magnitude. Some captives were brought to North America from Barbados and other places in the West Indies, especially in the seventeenth century; while documentation is scarce, the numbers were small by comparison.\n\nAfricans were only the seed. By 1860, those few hundred thousand Africans had given way to four million African Americans. Each birth was, as Thomas Jefferson described it, \"an addition to the capital.\" The South did not only produce tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton as commodities for sale; it produced people.\n\nVirginia had been slave breeding since the seventeenth century. It had the oldest, most deeply rooted African American population, and the largest. With far more slaves than any other state, and with much of the land already burned out for tobacco farming by the time of the Declaration of Independence, the agricultural productivity per laborer in Virginia was low. The most profitable thing for Virginia planters to do with their growing slave population was to sell young people to traders for shipment down South.\n\nThe existence of slavery in the United States was taken for granted by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787; there was little or no discussion of abolishing it. The African slave trade, however, was very much in contention.\n\nNone of the delegates assembled at the Constitutional Convention could know that there would soon be a revolution in Saint-Domingue (the future Haiti), much less that as a consequence Napoleon Bonaparte would make a snap decision to sign his claim to Louisiana over to the United States in 1803. But it was commonly understood that territorial expansion was coming. Everyone knew that the upriver hinterlands of New Orleans were being invaded by Anglo-American settlers who would eventually take the territory over through force of numbers. Charleston merchants had a long-established web of overland trade that spread a thousand miles, across Georgia and what we now call Alabama and Mississippi into Louisiana. The frontiersmen of Kentucky and Tennessee were itching to drive the Native Americans out of Alabama and take their rich, black land. Spanish Florida had from the beginning been a security threat to South Carolina and Georgia; it, too, would come under US control. The market for slaves was about to explode in volume, and everyone knew it.\n\nThe question of who would have the concession to supply slave labor to this plantation-empire-to-come was an obstacle to unity at the Constitutional Convention. Slaveowners in Virginia, and in smaller numbers Maryland, were uniquely positioned to sell slaves into the emerging markets. Unlike the sugar slaves in the rest of the Americas or the rice slaves of South Carolina, the tobacco slaves of the Chesapeake didn't die off. It was an unprecedented phenomenon in the hemisphere: their numbers increased every year.\n\nProhibiting the African trade, as the New England delegates wanted to do, would create a grand bonanza for Virginia slaveholders\u2014at the expense of South Carolina. But the delegates from Virginia had to compromise if they wanted South Carolina and Georgia to be part of the nation instead of an independent, belligerent, slave-importing competitor for power next door\u2014one, moreover, whose territory was the overland gateway to territorial expansion into the Deep South.\n\nCharleston, meanwhile, was the major receiving port in North America for kidnapped Africans, and South Carolina's delegates wanted no federal interference in their market-driven opening and closing of the trade. Chesapeake slaveowners, who were the only ones with sufficient surplus labor to sell off, wanted the African trade permanently closed. They compromised on a twenty-year guarantee that the foreign slave trade could exist on a state-by-state basis.\n\nAccordingly, Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution reads:\n\n_This 1762 map portrays Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia as extending all the way out to Louisiana, across densely forested territories held by different Native American confederations._\n\nThe Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.\n\n\"Importation of persons\" was a euphemism; the framers were not so indelicate as to use the word _slave._ It was an anomalous provision, containing as it did the only date in the Constitution, and moreover the only price\u2014the ten-dollar duty limit, which guaranteed that the African slave trade could not be taxed out of existence but implied that the slave trade might contribute revenue to the federal budget.*\n\nThat constitutionally stipulated deadline of January 1, 1808, is, from our perspective, one of the most important dates in American history, signaling as it does the transformation of the United States slavery industry.\n\nFor this reason, 1808 is also an essential date for understanding the making of African American culture. Kidnapped Africans had been arriving for almost two hundred years, repeatedly re-Africanizing American culture. No longer. The child was separated from the ancestors. With the changeover to a domestic slave trade, the long-established Afro-Chesapeake culture of Virginia and Maryland was diffused southward over several decades. Meanwhile, there was an overland march westward of the more recently Africanized Lowcountry of Carolina and Georgia across Alabama and into Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as vessels sailing around Florida to New Orleans. The two collided with each other in the presence of the smaller but potent creolized culture of Catholic Afro-Louisiana.\n\nWhile the forces involved were greater than any single historical figure, individuals do make a difference in history. We will interpret key events and figures of American history in the light of their relationship to the profit-seeking machine African Americans were caught in. In particular, three slaveowning politicians loom large in our narrative as principal enablers of the territorial expansion of slavery and, consequently, of the slave-breeding industry: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and James K. Polk\u2014a Virginian and two Tennesseans. All three were slaveholders, and like all slaveholders, their wealth was primarily stored in the form of captive human beings, so their entire financial base\u2014personal, familial, social, and political\u2014depended on high prices for slaves. To that end, they restricted the supply of captives by keeping the African trade closed; by opening new territory for US slavery to expand into, they expanded the demand for that restricted supply, greatly increasing as they did so the wealth and political power of the slaveowning class.\n\nFourteen years after the Constitution went into effect, on December 20, 1803, the territorial area of the new nation approximately doubled when French governor Pierre Cl\u00e9ment de Laussat handed New Orleans over to President Jefferson's men, the Virginia-born W. C. C. Claiborne and the Maryland-born James Wilkinson. From that date until Louisiana became a state in 1812, the territory was effectively a colony of Virginia.\n\nJefferson's pointedly undemocratic rule of the Louisiana Territory assured favorable regulatory treatment for Virginia slaveowners. He asked Congress for, and got, monopolistic commercial restrictions on the slave trade into Louisiana: importation into Louisiana of slaves from outside the United States was prohibited, but importation into Louisiana of slaves from within the United States was allowed.\n\nWith the Constitution having set the rules of the match, Virginia and South Carolina were in direct competition to supply the growing Louisiana slave market. It was an enormous business opportunity for Charleston's slave dealers, but time was running out. The twenty-year constitutional guarantee of protection for the African slave trade that South Carolina had insisted on had only four years to run. While Jefferson proactively worked to be sure that window was closed at the first possible moment, the Carolina merchants scurried to take maximum advantage of it.\n\nSouth Carolina legislators knew full well that the prohibition of the African slave trade by federal law was on President Jefferson's action list; accustomed to turning the trade on or off as economic conditions dictated, they rescinded their previous ban against the African trade as soon as the news of the acquisition of Louisiana arrived at the end of 1803. Disregarding the anger the move provoked elsewhere, they opened the port of Charleston to cargoes of kidnapped Africans. Louisiana couldn't legally import Africans but South Carolina could, and could then resell the Africans to Louisiana via the domestic trade. Even with a substantial markup, they could still undercut the price Virginia farmers charged for African Americans.\n\nThe Constitution did not require the federal prohibition of importation of persons as of 1808; it merely stipulated that federal law could not prohibit it before that date. But Jefferson, who legally owned more than six hundred people during his lifetime, proactively made sure that importation of persons would indeed be prohibited as of the earliest constitutionally permissible date. So as not to have slave importation one day more than necessary, on December 2, 1806, he gave his Sixth Annual Message and asked Congress for a measure to end the African trade\u2014more than a year before it could become effective. It was a move that was to his personal financial advantage as a Virginia slaveowner and to the disadvantage of South Carolina's wholesale slave importers.\n\nTo be sure, Jefferson framed ending importation of persons as a humanitarian act, and many historians have treated it that way, but it was not. Ending the African slave trade was protectionism on behalf of Virginia. It kept out the cheaper African imports so as to keep the price of domestically raised people high. Nobody in Chesapeake politics wanted more Africans coming in and devaluing their most significant assets. Over the long term, ending the African trade was a business coup on behalf of the slaveowners of Virginia, who were Jefferson's most loyal constituents throughout his increasingly disastrous second term as president (1805\u20131809).\n\nMoreover, ending the foreign slave trade to the United States was popular among other groups as well. Few white people wanted more black people in the country. Antislavery people wanted the African trade suppressed. The Southern public approved of ending the foreign slave trade as an antiterrorism measure: they were alarmed by the discovery of Gabriel's planned uprising in 1800, terrified by the bloody chain of events that had produced the newly declared nation of Haiti, and always frightened of the ever-present possibility of slave rebellion at their door.\n\nBut not everyone was happy about the prohibition of the African trade. Louisiana and Mississippi's burgeoning planter population wanted all the slave labor it could get, but once foreign sources were shut off pursuant to Jefferson's signature, no states besides Virginia and Maryland had quantities of laborers ready to sell. The French Creoles of Louisiana were particularly angry at having to pay high prices to the Virginians for English-speaking slaves when they could have gotten Africans much cheaper via Havana. But the United States shifted over to an entirely domestic slave trade in African Americans as of 1808\u2014albeit with some ill-documented smuggling of captives from outside for ten more years or so, particularly by the Lafitte brothers' operations in Louisiana and Spanish Texas.\n\nIn a frenzy of last-minute stocking-up during the last legal year, in 1807 South Carolina merchants imported the highest one-year volume of Africans in the history of the North American trade, with the result that the market became glutted and captives from diverse parts of Africa died on Gadsden's Wharf awaiting sale.\n\nThough the end of the African slave trade was a major commercial shift, its immediate impact was eclipsed by a mercantile catastrophe. Only a few days before the African trade ban went into effect, in one of the most radical economic actions ever taken by a president, Jefferson put an embargo on _all_ foreign commerce rather than respond militarily to naval aggression by the British and the French. From then until 1815, American business was paralyzed\u2014first by embargo, then by war\u2014during which time the large-scale domestic slave trade could not develop. But it grew spectacularly after that.\n\nWith the African trade halted, those slaves that continued to be bought and sold brought profit to US slaveowners, speculators, and slave trading firms instead of to British syndicates and African royals.\n\nSlavery required a slave trade, and with the trade in kidnapped Africans shut off, there was no slave trade without slave breeding. By deliberately creating a scarcity of slave labor from which profit could derive for those who could supply it, the 1808 cutoff of the African trade created an economic incentive for farmers to deliver as many homegrown laborers to market as possible, as fast as possible.\n\nThe Maine-born Episcopal clergyman Joseph Holt Ingraham, writing under deep cross-gendered cover as Kate Conyngham, reported from Virginia in the 1850s that:\n\nSo necessary is the annual decimation of slaves by sale to support these old decayed families, that it has become a settled trade for men whose occupation is to buy slaves, to travel through the \"Old Dominion\", from estate to estate.... Here he gets one, there another, and in a few weeks he enters Lynchburg, Alexandria or Richmond with a hundred or more.... As it is, slaves are raised here more as a _marketable_ and money-returning commodity than for their productive labor.\n\nFor Virginia's African Americans, Jefferson's legacy was unspeakably cruel. When the prohibition of importation of Africans made a massive business out of the already existing interstate slave trade in African Americans, black Virginians and Marylanders were trafficked in mass quantities to the newly opened territories, destroying family ties with every sale. The human cargoes that were driven in coffles and loaded onto ships were assembled by a network of traders' agents who fanned out through the farming territories of the Chesapeake, combing the slave-producing region to buy\u2014one could say harvest\u2014young people from farmers, often one at a time.\n\nWith the acreage under cultivation vastly expanding, the slave-selling industry touched the lives of everyone in the slave-trade zone, free or enslaved. It put a price on everyone\u2014including on slaveowners, whose wealth was stored in the bodies of their always-liquidatable slaves and whose available credit was a function of the size of their slaveholdings. In the absence of a domestic supply of coin, slaves collateralized the credit that created new money.\n\nThe growing nation of fortune hunters exerted a popular pressure to wrest more cotton-growing land from the Native Americans, a mission notably carried out by General Andrew Jackson under cover of the War of 1812, creating the land-and-slaves boom remembered as \"Alabama Fever.\" Jackson's subsequent taking of Florida by military conquest and removing the South's remaining Native Americans from their ancestral lands\u2014we now call it \"ethnic cleansing\"\u2014made the entire Deep South safe for plantation slavery and further increased the demand for slave labor.\n\nPresident James Monroe\u2014a Virginian, as were all his predecessors in the office except John Adams\u2014cracked down on what remained of the clandestine African trade, signing into law in 1820 a bill that declared participation in the foreign slave trade to be piracy and, as such, punishable by death. For the next forty-five years, the enslaved population of the United States was a closed system that expanded its numbers through sexual reproduction, more politely referred to as \"natural increase.\" As W. E. B. DuBois described it, \"slaves without [the African] slave trade became more valuable; with cotton culture their value rose still further, so that they were fed adequately and their breeding systematically encouraged.\" Over time, more states, including South Carolina, got into the business of exporting African Americans to new territories.\n\nWhile the North developed cities and industry, the South failed to build an infrastructure through which consumer goods could be distributed, and thus furnished no domestic market; instead, its profitable system of plantation-prisons expanded to new lands through imperial and military effort. After the worst depression the nation had yet suffered, President James K. Polk prosecuted the Mexican War to annex Texas for the Southern cotton kingdom, an action hotly contested by John Quincy Adams in the House and generally unpopular in the North. Once Texas was in the Union, Southern slave prices continued to climb, with only brief dips, until secession.\n\nPolk's success in extending the Southern slave regime to Texas instantly\u2014and predictably\u2014revalued slaveowners' human portfolios upward. Including his own: Polk bought slaves in secret from his office in the White House on an ongoing basis during his presidency in the hope of building up his nest egg while he worked to extend the reach of American slavery.\n\nA century and a half later, what vocabulary to use in talking about this is still something of a work in progress.\n\nIt's hard to describe business without employing a business vocabulary. That said, economists who have written on the subject have sometimes used the antebellum business vocabulary too readily, as in the 1958 study that made the hypothetical assumption that \"each prime field wench produced five to ten marketable children during her lifetime.\" The history of slavery is a study in euphemisms, beginning with the near-universal use by refined whites of the polite term \"servant\" to refer to the individuals they legally owned. The colloquial term of choice used by slave traders, more often spoken than written, was, of course, \"nigger,\" or, more politely, \"Negro,\" which was considered synonymous with \"slave\"; judging from available evidence, the n-word was used by the enslaved themselves as freely as it is on playgrounds today, even as the vocabulary of slavery times echoes in colloquial black speech: _bitch, buck_ , and the ultimate curse, _motherfucker_.*\n\nA number of people presently prefer to say \"enslaved person\" or some similar construction instead of \"slave,\" arguing that Africans and African Americans never accepted their enslaved condition. This phrasing can become cumbersome in an extended discussion, and in talking about our subject, it can lead to a paradox of parallel constructions. If one was not a slave, then one had no owner, and one could not be sold. True enough on a moral level, but unfortunately, what we are describing is precisely the legal ownership and sale of slaves. We have chosen generally, and perhaps not entirely consistently, to use the words \"enslaved\" or \"captive\" to refer to people in their human aspect and \"slave\" to refer to their economic function and social position, and we hope the reader will cut us some slack.\n\nThe term \"slave breeding\" was much in use when it was happening\u2014hurled as a charge on the floor of Congress and denounced as a damned lie by slaveowners.* But it wasn't merely an allegation: \"slave breeding\" was an ugly term that described a horrific reality.\n\nOur ambivalence about terminology extends to the naming of wars, which is a highly political pursuit. Slavery ended as a consequence of what American history generally chooses to remember by the name of the Civil War, and which in official US documents was called the War of the Rebellion. But revolutions generally are civil wars, and vice versa; we argue that, depending on one's perspective, the most common names for the two great national conflicts\u2014the Revolutionary War and the Civil War\u2014could be flipped.\n\nIn recent years, it has become more common for scholars to speak of the War of Independence from Britain (commonly memorialized as the Revolutionary War) as a civil war, as indeed it was frequently described during the independence struggle. We will argue that the War of Independence not only did not intend to end slavery, but was fought in part to protect slavery from the growing power of British abolitionism. From the perspective of the enslaved, meanwhile, the war usually called the Civil War was the revolutionary war, because it ended chattel slavery and, in removing the appraised resale value of human beings from the balance sheets, remade the basis of American money.\n\n*The ten-dollar duty was never imposed; South Carolina congressmen reacted with such fury when a Northern legislator proposed it that the measure was killed, and slave importation remained tax exempt.\n\n*Unlike the words _funk, the blues_ , or, for that matter, _nigger_ (in its one-g form, _Niger_ ), the formerly unprintable _motherfucker_ doesn't seem to have come from Britain. It's not clear how far back it goes, but it probably reaches back to slavery days as part of a vocabulary that ultimately became hipster lingo and emerged into print and recordings only slowly. The earliest written forms cited by the Oxford English Dictionary are two court cases from the South: in 1889 in Texas, \"that God damned mother-fucking, bastardly son-of-a-bitch!\" and, even more provocatively, in 1918, when the twenty-two-year-old African American soldier Sidney Wilson of Tennessee was court-martialed and sentenced to ten years at hard labor for having written a letter to the Memphis _Commercial Appeal_ that said, \"You is a line Mother Fucker, an' don't think the boys from Memphis is the onlyest one said that. We is goin' to straiten up this country, just as soon as we get some amonation,\" and another letter to his draft board that said, \"you low-down Mother Fuckers can put a gun in our hands but who is able to take it out?\" See Ellis, 89\u201390.\n\n*The general usage of the word \"breeding\" in reference to people was more common than it is today, as per the still occasionally heard phrase \"well-bred.\"\n\n#   3\n\n# **A Literature of Terror**\n\n_Were I about to tell you the evils of Slavery... I should wish to take you, one at a time, and whisper it to you. Slavery has never been represented; Slavery never can be represented. 1_\n\n\u2014William Wells Brown, address to the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem, Massachusetts, 1847\n\n\"SLAVERY IS TERRIBLE FOR men; but it is far more terrible for women,\" wrote Harriet Jacobs, under the pseudonym Linda Brent. \"Slaveholders have been cunning enough to enact that 'the child shall follow the condition of the _mother_ ,' not of the _father_ ; thus taking care that licentiousness shall not interfere with avarice.\"\n\nJacobs's memoir, _Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself_ , describes her abuse by \"Mr. Flint,\" whose real name was James Norcom of Edenton, North Carolina. One of only a few nineteenth-century slave narratives written by a woman, it is perhaps the frankest in its treatment of sexual exploitation:\n\nThe slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear. The lash and the foul talk of her master and his sons are her teachers. When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission to their will.... Resistance is hopeless.\n\nLike Louis Hughes's memoir, Jacobs's was one of more than a hundred slave narratives published in book form in the nineteenth-century United States. All but forgotten until the 1960s, these testimonies have now become more familiar outside specialist circles and are understood not only as an essential body of historical witness, but also a fundamental corpus of American literature. Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown, foundational figures of African American letters, both wrote autobiographies detailing their experiences in slavery. Solomon Northup's _Twelve Years a Slave_ (1853)\u2014one of the best-written of the slave narratives, specific in its details, well-authenticated by scholars, and forgotten until the 1960s\u2014is now well known because of the 2013 movie version, but there are many others. The narratives participate in literary tropes and publishing conventions of the day, and many bear the influence of editors and cowriters. But even discounting for occasional possibly exaggerated or invented scenes in some of them, their composite picture of the workings of the regime of slavery is remarkably consistent, mutually corroborating, and credible. They speak up for one another.\n\n_A runaway ad for Harriet Jacobs placed by James Norcom in the_ Norfolk Daily Beacon _of July 4, 1835. This description of an abused slave makes clear the abuser's close familiarity, and stalker's fascination, with her, while affirming that the enslaved girl \"absconded\" without \"any known cause or provocation.\"_\n\nBethany Veney, from Paige County, Virginia, reinforced the testimony of Jacobs when she wrote in her 1889 memoir:\n\nMy dear white lady, in your pleasant home made joyous by the tender love of husband and children all your own, you can never understand the slave mother's emotions as she clasps her new-born child, and knows that a master's word can at any moment take it from her embrace; and when, as was mine, that child is a girl, and from her own experience she sees its almost certain doom is to minister to the unbridled lust of the slave-owner, and feels that the law holds over her no protecting arm, it is not strange that, rude and uncultured as I was, I felt all this, and would have been glad if we could have died together there and then.\n\nAlso essential to our understanding is the collection of more than twenty-three hundred oral histories of formerly enslaved elders taken under the general direction of folklorist John A. Lomax by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration between 1936 and 1938, and by earlier researchers from Fisk and Southern University in 1929 and 1930. These twentieth-century narratives are of variable quality and reliability. There are some issues of mistrust of white interviewers by black subjects (though some interviewers were black); questions of reliability without recording (though a few were recorded); questions of memory (interviewees were recalling seventy years previously, and some were too young to remember their lives in slavery, though older respondents could recall events as early as the 1840s); and a heavily dialectized transcription style (though the emphasis on phonetic precision is not without value). But even so, this collection provides the most extensive description extant of slavery from the inside, and, as with the nineteenth-century slave narratives, the many voices corroborate each other over and over again. It has served as a significant source for many books about slavery published since the 1970s and has a major advantage over the nineteenth-century narratives in the much higher percentage of women represented. Unfortunately, about half the Virginia interviews were lost or destroyed, and there are no interviews from Louisiana at all.\n\nThe silence from the eighteenth century is deafening. There were no slave narratives published in North America during the colonial era; there is only one known diary by a white indentured servant. With only a few exceptions, the essential witness of the enslaved is largely missing from the historical record for the colonial years, which is why there will be few black voices in that section of our book.\n\nNo less than any other form of capitalism, American slavery capitalism was premised on continual expansion. The growth of the Southern economy was tied directly to the productivity of the capitalized womb, a term we use to refer to the way enslaved women's bodies functioned as the essential production engine of the slave-breeding economy, which in turn fueled a global economy that processed slave-grown cotton into mass-produced cloth.\n\nThat individual plantation owners practiced slave-breeding through the rape of enslaved women is attested to repeatedly in the testimony of the formerly enslaved and elsewhere. But beyond that, we argue, with the importation of African captives shut off, antebellum slavery was in the aggregate a slave-breeding system.\n\nOne of the functions of this slave-breeding machine was to chew up the black family, systematically, in every generation. Why might elite whites want a machine with which to destroy the black family? Most immediately, because the family was the strongest unit of social cohesion and resistance to slavery. But longer term, because destroying family webs systematically in every generation was the best way to guarantee the perpetual existence of an abject underclass whose labor and upkeep would remain as cheap as possible.\n\nWith every generation, the American elite became collectively more entrenched as its family structures expanded while the enslaved became collectively more entrenched as an underclass as its family ties were systematically, recursively cut.\n\nFor enslaved women, who could be freely violated in the cellar, the barn, the field, or anywhere else a captor chose, it was a system of terror. Beyond the purely venal incentive of unrestrained sexual activity, the existence of a market in young people created a financial incentive for slaveowners to intrude into the reproductive lives of enslaved women, leading to what Richard Follett calls an \"intrusive policy of demographic engineering.\" A blunter way of saying it is forced mating: enslaved women could be assigned to enslaved men by slaveowners, or impregnated by white men who had access to them.\n\nForced mating was sufficiently widespread to be documented in a surfeit of examples, from the presidential-slaveholder level on down. During James K. Polk's presidency, his brother-in-law Robert W. Campbell, who was watching the plantation for him, promised the president in a letter to purchase \"young girls\" for him with the purpose of force-mating them with Polk's \"young men\":\n\nwhen I go down [to the plantation] I [will] act according to my best Judgment about the husbands & wives of your people[.] I want to take down likely young girls for wives for your young men as there are to[o] gr[e]at a proportion of men on your farm for the women.\n\nThe formerly enslaved Lueatha Mansfield of Bastrop, Louisiana, recalled that if a slaveowner \"saw a fine woman or man on another plantation, he would buy him or her for breeding purposes in order to continue to have good able workers. If he didn't bring them on the same farm, he would arrange for them to breed from each other.\"\n\nCharles Grandy, enslaved in Virginia, recalled that \"Marsa would stop de ole nigger-trader and buy you a woman. Wasn't no use tryin' to pick one, cause Marsa wasn't gonna pay but so much for her. All he wanted was a young healthy one who looked like she could have children, whether she was purty or ugly as sin.\"\n\nJames Green, half Native American and half African American, sold away from his mother at the age of twelve for $800, recalled at the age of ninety-seven in 1938 in San Antonio, Texas, that \"no one had no say as to who he was goin' to get for a wife. All de weddin' ceremony we had was with Pinchback's [the slaveowner's] finger pointin' out who was whose wife.\" Much less did the \"wife\" have any say.\n\nBefore abolitionists made the term too notorious to use beginning in the 1830s, slave-sale advertisements might bluntly extol one or another woman as a \"breeder,\" meaning that she had proven her ability to give birth to healthy children and recover to reproduce again at a time when many women died from childbirth. \"If a woman wern't a good breeder she had to do work with de men,\" said Green, \"but Pinchback tried to get rid of women who didn't have chillen.\"\n\nFannie Moore, interviewed in North Carolina in 1937, recalled that (as transcribed): \"De 'breed woman' always bring mo' money den de res', [even the] men. When dey put her on de block dey put all her chillun aroun her to show folks how fas she can hab chillun.\" Mary L. Swearingen of Bastrop, Louisiana, paraphrasing her enslaved grandmother, said, \"Whenever a woman was an extraordinary breeder, she was mated by the master to his own accord. Only sometimes the couples were happily married, and occasionally when a couple was happy, the master separated them by selling one or the other.\"\n\nResistance to forced breeding was described by Mary Gaffney, enslaved in Texas, who described chewing cotton root as a contraceptive (as transcribed):\n\nFact is, I just hated the man I married but it was what Maser said do. When he came to Texas he took up big lots of land and he was going to get rich. He put another negro man with my mother, then he put one with me. I would not let that negro touch me and he told Maser and Maser gave me a real good whipping, so that night I let that negro have his way. Maser was going to raise him a lot more slaves, but still I cheated Maser, I never did have any slaves to grow and Maser he wondered what was the matter. I tell you son, I kept cotton roots and chewed them all the time but I was careful not to let Maser know or catch me, so I never did have any children while I was a slave.\n\nWe can't quantify forced mating; Eugene Genovese, who tried, estimated that \"forced marriages affected perhaps one out of ten.\" Every slaveowner was free to set his own rules; just as some provided better material conditions for their captives than others, some allowed them leeway in choosing partners, and some did not. According to quantitative historian Daniel Scott Smith, the \"average slave\" lived on a plantation with forty-one slaves; on larger plantations, there would presumably have been somewhat more choice of mates while on smaller ones there were fewer options. But by virtue of being enslaved, no slave had fully free choice.\n\nMost Americans' familiarity with the notion of slave breeding comes from popular fiction\u2014in particular, from the 1957 Southern gothic novel _Mandingo_ , set on an imaginary slave-breeding plantation.\n\nThe general reputation of _Mandingo_ among critics is as a benchmark for bad writing. The first novel by the Illinois-born Kyle Onstott (1887\u20131966), previously the author of _The New Art of Breeding Better Dogs_ , it was published by Denlinger's, an independent publisher of dog books in\u2014where else?\u2014Richmond, Virginia. Though it has been out of print for years as of this writing, _Mandingo_ sold more than five million copies, mostly in mass-market paperbacks that sold for under a dollar at a time when strict controls on movie and television content made books the place to go for explicit material. It generated a franchise of fourteen novel-length sequels by various writers over thirty years; a Broadway play with Adolphe Menjou and Dennis Hopper that opened in May 1961 for eight performances; and, in the heyday of blaxploitation pictures, two big-budget movies with remarkably hateful dialogue.*\n\nWith its fictional stud-farm plantation\u2014Falconhurst, it was called\u2014that bred and raised people for market, _Mandingo_ disseminated an inaccurate and exaggerated vision, to say nothing of the stereotypes it promoted.\n\nNot that _Mandingo_ got it all wrong. As antebellum historical fantasy goes, its brutal, lascivious dystopia was closer to the truth of slavery than the nostalgic _Gone With the Wind_ of a generation earlier, in which slaves were never sold and captive women loved their masters' children more than their own. But much is missing from _Mandingo's_ fetishistic gaze.\n\nA generation of scholarly search has turned up no confirmed documentation of plantations devoted exclusively to breeding slaves, and some scholars have concluded they did not exist as such.\n\nThere is a compelling reason why such a plantation wouldn't make economic sense: human beings grow too slowly to raise them as a cash-producing monocrop. The overwhelming majority of the enslaved on such a plantation would be children, but children brought very little money on the market, so they would have to be raised to maturity. Meanwhile, most of the adults would have been women weakened from pregnancy, so the farm would not be able to produce income from the sale of staple commercial crops. It would take seventeen to twenty years of raising the farm's children until they reached peak sale age, adding up to a huge barrier to entry for all but the very well capitalized.\n\nSome farmers seem to have tried it. Drawing on a data sample from 1860 on farms in the Deep South\u2014not even including the major slave-selling states of Virginia and Maryland\u2014of 9,185 enslaved women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four and of 9,098 men, the economist Richard Sutch in 1972 identified forty-seven \"suspected breeding farms\" on which enslaved women and children substantially outnumbered enslaved men. A farm in Drew County, Arkansas, had only two men but twenty-two women and twenty-seven children. Another in Wake County, North Carolina, counted 28 men, 38 women, and 120 children. Michael Tadman, whose _Speculators and Slaves_ is the landmark study of the demographics of the interstate slave trade, suggests that there might be other explanations for the gender imbalance of Sutch's data; \"abroad marriages\" to another plantation, for example, were common, though it seems unlikely that that could explain away the Drew County farm. The meaning of Sutch's data, suggestive as it is, remains within the realm of speculation. But perhaps the most plausible explanation for the Drew County farm is that it _was_ a slave-raising plantation, possibly relying on what several Federal Writers' Project interviewees called \"stock\" men\u2014\"portly\" men who were used as studs for large numbers of women, as dramatized in _Mandingo_ , and who did not have to do as much fieldwork.\n\nThere is some testimony\u2014although not a lot\u2014from diverse parts of the South that at least a few such \"breeding men\" existed. Jeptha Choice, born in 1835 in Texas, noted that (as transcribed) his \"master was mighty careful about raisin' healthy nigger families and used us strong, healthy young bucks to stand the healthy nigger gals. When I was young they took care not to strain me and I was as handsome as a speckled pup and was in demand for breedin'. Later on we niggers was 'lowed to marry.\" West Turner of Whaleyville, Virginia, told of a \"stud man\": \"Joe was 'bout seven feet tall an' was de breedinges' nigger in Virginia. Didn't have no work to do, jus' stay 'round de quarters sunnin' hisself 'till a call come fo' him.\" Ida Blackshear Hutchinson, born enslaved in Alabama in 1865 and interviewed in Arkansas in 1937, recalled family lore:\n\nMy grandfather on my father's side, Luke Blackshear, was a \"stock\" Negro... six feet four inches tall and near two hundred fifty pounds in weight.... Luke was the father of fifty-six children and was known as the GIANT BREEDER. He was bought and given to his young mistress in the same way you would give a mule or colt to a child. Although he was a stock Negro, he was whipped and drove just like the other Negroes.\n\nThere was one particularly horrible kind of operation in which this kind of slave breeding would have been profitable, and it appears to have been an inspiration to Onstott, who as a teenager met \"Uncle Bob\"\u2014Robert Wilson, the direct inspiration for his character of Mede the Mandingo.\n\nAccording to Wilson's April 12, 1948, obituary in the _Elgin (IL) Daily Courier-News_ , the accuracy of which we could not independently verify, he was 112 years old when he died in the Elgin State Hospital for Veterans and was a black veteran who had served in the Virginia Infantry\u2014which was to say, the Confederate army\u2014in 1862 and 1863. (There are already two unusual, perhaps suspect, features to this story: Wilson's extreme longevity, and the very rare situation of a black soldier in the Confederate army.) The obituary did not mention Wilson's local-legend status for allegedly having fathered hundreds of children at different plantations, but Wilson himself talked about it freely. While it's not possible to confirm or deny Wilson's tales of being used vocationally as a rapist of enslaved women, it's clear that: 1) Onstott did not make Wilson or his story up; 2) Wilson told his story to a number of people; and 3) there are mentions, albeit not very many, in oral histories from diverse locations in the South of such stock men. Certainly there was no reason that such an arrangement could not be put into practice, and it is consistent with the dehumanizing logic of the slave market.\n\nIllinois journalist-historian Jon Musgrave fills in some details: though it was not legal to own slaves in Illinois, people did. Moreover, slaves were rented (or \"hired\") from Kentucky, sometimes more than a thousand of them, to work in the saltworks near Shawneetown. The Carolina-born John Hart Crenshaw, who began working as a young man in the violent, lawless environment of the saltworks, apparently raised his capital to get into business by kidnapping free people of color and illegally selling them away. He subsequently leased saltworks from the US government and became a very wealthy man, renting large numbers of slaves to do the brutal work of saltmaking.\n\nOver a criminal career that lasted from the mid-1820s (when he was indicted for kidnapping) until secession, Crenshaw appears to have kidnapped hundreds of free black people, including in 1842 his cook Maria Adams and seven or eight of her children, whom he sold for $2,000 to John G. Kuykendall, a slave trader based in the then-independent Republic of Texas, and his father, Lewis. He was said to have kept his victims in holding-pen cubicles on the upper floor of his mansion called Hickory Hill\u2014still standing today and known as the Old Slave House\u2014outside the ironically named town of Equality, Illinois.*\n\nAccording to Musgrave (and Onstott, who wrote an article about it in the October 1959 issue of _True: the Men's Magazine_ ), that's where Robert Wilson came in. Crenshaw purchased Wilson, apparently in Virginia at the age of twenty in 1856. He put him to work, so goes the story, to impregnate the women held captive at Hickory Hill\u2014a vocation Wilson claimed to have performed previously on other plantations\u2014either to sell the children into a record-high market or because pregnant women and mothers brought a higher price than women whose reproductive abilities had not been proven. That Crenshaw was a kidnapper-trader and that Wilson was Crenshaw's captive between 1856 and 1859 seems to be well established. Was the third floor of Hickory Hill a rape room, or was that a lurid tall tale?\n\nPerhaps this problematic, unverifiable, but possibly true story became the basis of a mega-bestseller in segregated 1957 because its narrative lent itself so conveniently to stereotypical libels of the black male and the black family. Although women, who had to do both field work and bear children, were doubly enslaved, it bears emphasizing that forced mating was a violation of enslaved men as well. The evidence\u2014and common sense\u2014suggests that enslaved men and women overwhelmingly worked as partners when they could and were emotionally devastated when their marriages were broken by sale.\n\nThat is not the story _Mandingo_ tells. Nor the corollary: forced mating was a violation of the most basic notions of genealogy, which is a basic element of much African religion, and of economic legacy, which is the accumulated consequence of family.\n\nFor all the anecdotal testimony, circumstantial evidence, and creepy local lore, no one has proved with documents the existence of a single full-time specialized slave-breeding farm with a monocrop of fatherless children, much less a network of such farms constituting a supply chain. The best argument, pretty much a clincher, against the existence of such businesses on any significant scale is that there seems to be no mention of them in existing slave traders' letters. If such farms existed, they would have existed to supply traders, and mentions of them would presumably have turned up in traders' records\u2014which, so far, they have not.\n\nSo, to be clear about the subject of our book: we do not contend that slave breeding was conducted by means of businesses specializing solely in human reproduction, though such operations may have occasionally existed. But that doesn't mean slave breeding didn't take place on a broad scale, only that it wasn't practiced as an isolated profession.\n\nSlaves weren't the same kind of cash crop as tobacco or cotton; domestically raised slaves and staple crops functioned together, complementing each other's economic function to bring financial stability to a farm operation. For a farmer, slave breeding commonly functioned as a long-term play to stabilize his finances, while adult slaves' labor produced the price-volatile monocrops that provided cash flow. The proportion of revenue deriving from the sale of crops versus the sale of young people varied from farm to farm. In Virginia and Maryland, where tobacco crops were increasingly poor and wheat needed fewer hands, it appears that many farms needed to raise tobacco in order to grow slaves, rather than the other way around.\n\n_Every_ farm where the enslaved had children was a slave-breeding farm, if only because every newborn slave child increased an estate's net worth. But some farms were net consumers of slaves, as was the case in the rest of the hemisphere, where the enslaved died more often than they were born: in the United States, the rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia and the sugar plantations of Louisiana were slave-consuming areas. And there was a conversion cycle: as new land was cleared and farms established, territories that formerly bought slaves from settled areas joined the growing ranks of sellers of slaves to the frontier, becoming slave breeders instead of slave consumers. Slave breeding was premised on continual expansion.\n\nIt is unsurprising that a planter who denied the humanity of the people he held captive for life would have thought of his laborers as breeding stock. Farms were, and are, all about increase: the creation and sale of a surplus. A handful of seeds brought bushels, out of which a farmer fed his family and sold or bartered the surplus for things he could not produce. Animals were expected to perform reproductively: mares, heifers, sows, nanny goats, or ewes that did not breed were sold off or were eaten by the family as a matter of basic farm management. The stallion, bull, boar, billy goat, or ram that didn't do its job would suffer the same fate. Runts were killed without a second thought so that the mother's nourishment could go to the stronger offspring. Slaves, whose legal status was comparable to that of livestock, were expected to provide a farm owner with marketable children.\n\nThere are occasional mentions of inducements for women who hit a procreation target: a frock, a piglet, a few weeks off from field labor. Before laws prohibiting manumission were passed, the grand prize was emancipation, as in John Guthrie's 1761 will in Virginia, which stipulated that \"if Jeany brings ten live children\" she would be freed.* Slave breeding was premised on continual expansion.\n\nBut the real incentives were negative. \"I have known a great many negro girls to be sold off, because they did not have children,\" wrote an unnamed slave owner to Frederick Law Olmsted. The girl who tried to refuse being bred might be beaten, and, in the end, the girl who wasn't a \"good breeder\" could expect to be sold south, which was commonly understood to be the worst thing that could happen. There she would work among strangers under an overseer's lash in the cotton fields, or finish out her life after a few years on one of Louisiana's sugar plantations.\n\nIf, however, she was a good breeder, her children would suffer that fate instead.\n\nBreeding seems to have been something of an obsession for men of property, who wanted to create the fastest horses, the best dogs, the cotton bolls that most perfectly fit the human hand, and the strongest slaves. From African slave raids forward, marketing people was a process of selection for desirable traits as well as survival of the fittest, with clear eugenic implications.\n\nSome oral histories recall eugenic practices by slaveowners. Eighty-two-year-old Charlotte Martin, interviewed in Live Oak, Florida, recalled, as summarized by the interviewer, that her captor, Judge Wilkerson, \"selected the strongest and best male and female slaves and mated them exclusively for breeding. The huskiest babies were given the best of attention in order that they might grow into sturdy youths, for it was those who brought the highest prices at the slave markets. Sometimes the master himself had sexual relations with his female slaves, for the products of miscegenation were very remunerative. These offsprings were in demand as house servants.\"\n\nHenry H. Buttler\u2014born in Virginia, transported in a group to Arkansas in 1863 to escape Union forces, subsequently educated, and interviewed in Fort Worth, Texas, at the approximate age of eighty-seven\u2014recalled that \"the slaves were allowed to marry but were compelled to first obtain permission from the master. The main factor involved in securing the master's consent was his desire to rear negroes with perfect physiques.\"\n\nAbove all, masters wanted bigger, stronger laborers. The Alabama-born Thomas Johns, interviewed in Cleburne, Texas, at the age of ninety, recalled that\n\nIf a owner had a big woman slave and she had a little man for her husban' and de owner had a big man slave, or another owner had a big man slave, den dey would make the woman's little husban' leave, and dey would make de woman let de big man be with her so's dere would be big children, which dey could sell well. If de man and de woman refuse to be together dey would get whipped hard and maybe whipped to death.... Course even if it did damage de sale of a slave to whip him, dey done it, 'cause dey figured kill a nigger, breed another\u2014kill a mule, buy another.\n\nThe formerly enslaved Cornelia Andrews, interviewed in North Carolina at the age of eighty-seven, recalled a castration policy for eugenic purposes: \"Yo' knows dey ain't let no little runty nigger have no chilluns. Naw sir, dey ain't, dey operate on dem lak dey does de male hog so's dat dey can't have no little runty chilluns.\"\n\nAfrican Americans have been uncomfortably aware of the issue of eugenics all along, as when _Saturday Night Live_ comedian Leslie Jones, responding to _People's_ designation of _Twelve Years a Slave_ star Lupita Nyong'o as the world's \"most beautiful person,\" stirred up a tweetstorm during the May 2, 2014, broadcast with what was surely one of the few mentions of forced mating on network television, let alone in the context of comedy. Nyong'o, born in Mexico City to Kenyan parents\u2014in other words, not descended from American slavery\u2014had recently won the Academy Award for her role in _Twelve Years a Slave_ , in which she was stripped naked and whipped on camera. Jones, from Memphis and descended from slavery, contrasted her large physique with Nyong'o's petite one, drawing on the enduring power of the _Mandingo_ franchise to make her point:\n\nSee, I'm single right now, but back in the slave days? I would have _never_ been single. I'm six feet tall and I'm _strong_! I mean, look at me, I'm a _Mandingo_!... I'm just saying that back in the slave days, my love life would have been way better. Master would have hooked me up with the best brother on the plantation, and every nine months I'd be in the corner havin' a superbaby!\n\nIt was an attempt at transgressive humor: presenting herself as a product of a eugenic process achieved through recursive rape and euphemized as \"love life,\" she hurled the image of the blatantly exploitative _Mandingo_ at the studiedly artistic _Twelve Years a Slave._ After ebony.com senior editor Jamilah Lemieux (among others) took offense at what she saw as Jones's minstrelsy, Jones tweeted back, \"I would have been used for breeding straight up. That's my reality.\"\n\nWhen Sherry George of Birmingham, Alabama, was discovered in 2012 to be a distant white cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama, she responded to the news by saying, \"I'm appalled at slavery.... I know that times were different then. But the idea that one of our ancestors raped a slave... I would not like to know that my great-grandfather was a rapist. I would like to know in my brain that they were nice to her and her children. It would be easier to live with that.\"\n\nHer tormented words express the difficulty of coming to terms with the reality of antebellum American slavery. The idea that one's ancestor was \"nice\" to the people he kept imprisoned has comforted many slaveowner-descended families\u2014and, indeed, some were less cruel than others. But in the days when First Lady Michelle Obama's great-great-grandmother had a child fathered by the slaveowner's son, it was legal nonsense to speak of raping a slave.\n\nTo own a slave was to have a license for libertine behavior, because sexual violation was intrinsic to slavery. The slaveowner had the full legal right to do with his property as he saw fit, and sexual use was part of the portfolio of privileges. The oral-history interviewees described forced mating between the enslaved less frequently than they did sex forced on enslaved women by white men. Perhaps a rough index for quantifying sex between enslaver and enslaved is the census, which in 1860 counted 588,352 \"mulattoes,\" rating them as \"13.25 per cent. of the whole colored class.\" The census also attempted to explain why there were more mulattoes in the free states even though they were increasing faster in the slave states. It concluded that they were more likely to be manumitted (a phenomenon observable in the rest of the enslaved Americas as well): \"the greater number of mulattoes in the condition of freedom has arisen chiefly from the preference they have enjoyed in liberation from slavery.\" The census's summary further noted \"that of every 100 births of colored about 17 are mulattoes, and 83 are blacks,\" then went on to deplore the morals not of the white men who were impregnating captive black women, but of the free colored class.\n\nWith new additions to the gene pool entering via intercourse with white men, an increasing portion of the enslaved population became lighter-skinned with every passing generation. \"The time has passed by when African blood alone is enslaved,\" wrote the formerly enslaved Austin Steward in his 1857 memoir. \"In Virginia as well as in some other slave States, there is as much European blood in the veins of the enslaved as there is African; and the increase is constantly in favor of the white population.\"\n\nNor did enslaved women have legal protection against sexual abuse from enslaved men. In the 1859 case of _George v. the State of Mississippi_ , in which an enslaved man was accused of raping an enslaved female child, the Mississippi supreme court noted that \"a slave can only commit rape upon a white woman\" and held that \"the regulations of law, as to the white race, on the subject of sexual intercourse, do not and cannot, for obvious reasons, apply to slaves; their intercourse is promiscuous, and the violation of a female slave by a male slave would be a mere assault and battery.\"\n\nThere was, then, legally no such thing as the rape of an enslaved woman. A Missouri court effectively affirmed that rape was legally what Saidiya Hartman calls the \"normative condition\" for enslaved women in that state when it sentenced the slave Celia to death in 1855. Celia, who had no last name, was hung for having at the age of nineteen killed the man who had been raping her repeatedly since the day he purchased her at the age of fourteen.\n\nSlaveowners in the antebellum United States enjoyed full legal impunity for any sexual aggression they might commit against their human property. Concubinage with the master, the most privileged form of sexual servitude, tantalized enslaved women with the possibility of better living conditions and perhaps even the prospect of freedom, but it rested on the routine perpetration of atrocities, which often included selling the concubines, along with their children, after a few years. Enslaved concubines bedded down by the master watched their bastard daughters, lighter-skinned by half, grow up to do the same\u2014raised to the office, as it were. The stories mostly went untold. Thomas Jefferson's second-generation family concubine Sally Hemings must have strongly resembled his deceased wife, Martha, since, according to Madison Hemings (Jefferson's son by Sally Hemings), the two women had the same father (the slave trader John Wayles), but there is no portrait extant of either woman, nor did either one leave a record of her thoughts.\n\nIf a slaveowner wanted to enjoy the adolescent daughters of his work force, he had absolute authority over them. No one would say no\u2014not even his wife, who had few legal rights and who had perhaps grown up ignoring her own resemblance to the enslaved half sister who served her.\n\nSlavery was rape. A person who has no right to refuse has no consent to give, so even absent the use of physical force at the moment of the sex act, an enslaved woman could not have consensual sex with a white man. The lack of consent was explained away by what has become known as the Jezebel libel, which characterized black women as incorrigibly licentious, always willing, and irredeemably dishonored from birth.\n\nThe logic of capital required safeguarding the slaveowners' human assets by dividing society into two rigidly defined, inescapable, color-coded castes\u2014one of which was expected to reproduce according to moral protocols, and the other promiscuously. It was a common social understanding that did not need to be explained out loud, though visiting Northerners noticed and commented on it. The intermediate caste of free people of color, so prominent in other slave societies of the hemisphere, was very small in the slave societies of the United States, though in Louisiana and in the small Southern cities in general, their presence was acutely felt.\n\nBut whether a woman was white and respectably married, or black and laboring in the field, she was expected to reproduce as much as possible. Neither woman had the right to say no; Virginia law didn't even recognize spousal rape as a crime until 1986.\n\nJefferson, who by all accounts loved his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, dearly, nevertheless bred her to death with repeated pregnancies that killed her. John Quincy Adams nearly did the same: Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, his cosmopolitan British-born wife, suffered depression and was in chronic poor health from her reproductive regime of fourteen pregnancies (Adams referred to them as \"illnesses\"), in which she miscarried nine times (five of them within the three and a half years before her first live birth). She had one stillborn child and four live children, one of whom died at the age of two.\n\nBut those women at least got to choose their husbands, and their children were not sold. If that was the fate of the wives of the great men of the land, imagine how the lowest of the low fared. The slave narratives give us a glimmering of an idea, but they have to stand in as paradigms for the unheard testimonies of millions.\n\n* _Mandingo_ (1975), starring James Mason; and _Drum_ (1976), starring Warren Oates. Boxer Ken Norton played the title roles of each. Reviewer Vincent Canby described _Drum_ as \"nasty, lascivious, sadistic, mean, rude, evil, and supposedly erotic\" (Talbot, 97, 207).\n\n*Hickory Hill subsequently became a popular tourist stop as a haunted house and has been designated by the National Park Service as part of its Underground Railroad Network to acknowledge the existence of a \"Reverse Underground Railroad\" of kidnappers' networks that funneled people from free territories into slavery.\n\n*Manumission: the voluntary freeing of an enslaved person by his or her captor.\n\n#   4\n\n# **Natural Increase**\n\n_One of slave trader Austin Woolfolk's early advertisements._ Baltimore Patriot and Mercantile Advertiser, _June 27, 1817._\n\nCASH FOR NEGROES, shouted the advertisements that ran in the newspapers of Virginia and Maryland.\n\nThe ads were running as early as 1810, but the War of 1812 brought them to a temporary halt. After the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 put a final victorious stamp on the war that had ended before the battle was fought, they proliferated as the economy began a ferocious expansion. An 1818 item in the New York\u2014published _National Advocate_ reports traders going around the streets of the Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester, Virginia, with labels reading CASH FOR NEGROES displayed on their hats.\n\nThere was always a market for \"Negroes\" in an expanding country of uncleared agricultural land. The key word was \"cash.\" Slave traders dealt in cash, which could mean specie (silver or gold coins) but typically meant high-quality paper that could be readily exchanged for specie. That made their offers compelling in an environment where \"money\"\u2014almost always meaning not coins, but credit\u2014was otherwise hard to come by. In the antebellum plantation economy, slaves were far and away the easiest property to convert to cash that a farmer might have; when a crop failed or prices dived, slaveowners could cover their debts by selling some of their laborers. Land, by contrast, had little cash value. Traders often sold slaves on time-payment plans, but they paid cash when buying, so they were important financial intermediaries in the Southern agricultural economy, dispensing liquidity as they bought children and enlarging the overall supply of credit\u2014which was to say, of money\u2014through the terms they gave their customers. In other words, staple crops were a credit business, but slaves were a cash business; the Southern economy was the result of the way the two worked together.\n\nAs the United States threw itself into what has been retroactively called the \"market revolution,\" transitioning from commerce based on imports to an ever more broadly based domestic market of producers and consumers, the domestic slave trade was the expression of that movement in the South. Addressing the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, Connecticut abolitionist Henry Stanton used the common business-textbook metaphor of cash flow as blood circulation to describe the system that carried human chattels from the Upper South to the expanding Deep South: \"The internal slave trade is the great jugular vein of slavery; and if Congress [would]... cut this vein, slavery would die of starvation in the southern, and of apoplexy in the northern slave states.\"\n\nThe rest of the world was well aware of this commerce. Writing in _Die Presse_ of Vienna on October 25, 1861, the former _New York Daily Tribune_ columnist Karl Marx noted \"the transformation of states like Maryland and Virginia, which formerly employed slaves on the production of export articles, into states which raised slaves in order to export these slaves into the deep South.\"\n\nWe can't quantify the domestic slave trade with any certainty, but we have a rough idea. Local transactions, not interstate trades, were likely the majority of slave sales; Stephen Deyle believes that at least two million people were sold in all, two-thirds of them in local transactions. Tadman declines to put a total number on the interstate trade, but based on Tadman's work Deyle estimates that during the four decades or so prior to the end of slavery in the United States at least 875,000 enslaved people were taken southward, 60 to 70 percent of them trafficked in commercial transactions and the rest brought as a consequence of planter migration. More anecdotally, Illinois-born Frederic Bancroft, the path-breaking historian of the domestic slave trade, wrote in 1921 of trips he took to the \"Southwest\" in 1902 and 1907: \"I made it my business to inquire of every ex-slave I met as to how he or she came South, if not a native. In fully four cases out of five, they were brought literally by the traders.\"\n\nThe southward trafficking of domestically raised slaves from what we will call the Upper South (Chesapeake and inland) and the Lower South (Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia) down into the \"Southwest,\" or Deep South (western Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas), accompanied by a flow of money in the opposite direction, bound these distinct geographical regions together into a commercial circuit that made it possible to speak of \"the South\" as a single entity.\n\nThat in turn led members of the Southern elite to imagine themselves leaders of a nation built on the economic system of slavery, which thrived with a balance of cash crops and human property value. In the widely reproduced March 1861 words of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the exultant, newly named vice president of the Confederate States of America, slavery was \"the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice.\"\n\nAntebellum slavery was, in Gavin Wright's essential phrase, \"a set of property rights.\" In a collision of the ancient institution of slavery with free-market capitalism, the modern nineteenth-century American slavery industry made laborers into financial products: merchandise, cash, productive capital, collateral, and, even, at the end of the chain, bonds.\n\nBesides working for the people who legally owned them, the enslaved could be \"hired\"\u2014rented\u2014out, generating an income stream that could pay off a mortgage on them. \"Negroes are a kind of capital which is loaned out at a high rate, and one often meets with people who have no plantation, but who keep negroes to let and receive very handsome sums for them every month,\" wrote a German visitor to Savannah in 1860. Enslaved children were often rented out, among them Frederick Douglass.\n\nBut revenue from slave labor was only part of the profitability of slavery. Selling slaves was part of the commerce at every little Southern junction. Most farmers who had slaves bought or sold them at one time or another. \"In slavery, niggers and mules was white folk's living,\" recalled an unnamed formerly enslaved woman in Tennessee, who said that her former master \"would sell his own children by slave women just like he would any others. Just since he was making money.... My mother sold for $1,000.\"\n\nThe most obvious method of profit-taking in the slave market was by selling one or a few people at a time, as a plantation's younger captives came of age while working on the staple crop with which the farm was at least nominally identified. Typically that crop was tobacco, in the case of Virginia and Maryland; the twin industries of slave raising and tobacco raising went on as complements to each other, but slave raising was for many the more lucrative.\n\nThe sale of surplus laborers wasn't as explosive a cash-flow generator as a bumper crop, but it was more dependable, and the profits were significant. Financial and legal historian Richard Holcombe Kilbourne Jr. writes that \"slaves represented a huge store of highly liquid wealth that ensured the financial stability and viability of planting operations even after a succession of bad harvests, years of low prices, or both.\" Meanwhile, the seller had the important social distinction of being a planter instead of a slave breeder.\n\nBut neither were slaves merely labor to be jobbed out and merchandise to be sold for cash; they were also collateral with which to generate credit. Planters were chronically indebted, perpetually a year behind. They lived on credit, financing their operations with loans to be paid off by next year's crops. The security pledged for such arrangements was most commonly the planters' slaves, who were seen by lenders as largely risk-free collateral, even as they provided the labor that made the crop. If the crop failed, the laborers could be seized and sold on the open market. Meanwhile, the debt they collateralized added to the wealth of the slaveholding South; it was bundled into bonds that were sold to investors in New York, London, and beyond.\n\nThe financialization of enslaved people made them fundamental to the economy of the credit-driven slave society. The value of slaves, said James Gholson in the great Virginia slavery debate of 1832, \"regulate[s] the price of nearly all the property we possess.\" Children born into slavery, blandly referred to as \"increase,\" were capital assets at birth. They were the only way a planter's assets could grow as inexorably as his debts compounded.\n\nWith human capital shoring up balance sheets as collateral for mortgages in a heavily indebted society, reproductive potential was factored into the price of enslaved women as part of a farm's value as assessed by creditors. A slaveholder wrote to Frederick Law Olmsted that \"a breeding woman is worth from one-sixth to one-fourth more than one that does not breed\"; the ratio would presumably have been higher had women not died in childbirth so frequently.\n\n\"Planters mortgaged their plantations, livestock, and slaves,\" writes Russell R. Menard of the colonial Lowcountry, \"to expand their estates by purchasing additional land, livestock, and slaves.\" Most of this value was in the slaves, who as human collateral were constantly exposed to the risk of sale away from their families and community.\n\nThat's how Thomas Jefferson funded the renovation of Monticello, by mortgaging the labor force that did the work. After he died in debt, his laborers were sold at auction. Often the decision was out of the slaveowner's hands. In Jefferson's case, the bitter end took the form of an estate liquidation after his death, so he never saw the human consequences of his impractical showpiece mansion and his extravagantly acquisitive ways: families separated forever on the auction block.\n\nMuch like a house mortgaged to a bank today, mortgaged slaves were security for those who put up the money for the mortgage, to whom the slaves were \"conveyed.\" A mortgage financier might be a merchant, a church with an investment portfolio, a college, a bank, or, commonly, a wealthy individual with a large slavehold. A slave put up for sale had to be warranted not only of \"good character\" (not criminal-minded or rebellious) but \"free of all incumbrance\" (not already mortgaged). Slaveowners had physical possession of, and legal title to, the enslaved, but to speak only of the slaveowners is to underestimate how broad was the stakeholding.\n\nIt is common today to hear people protective of the antebellum legacy go on the defensive by pointing out that the North profited from slavery too.\n\nCertainly people and businesses in the North profited from slavery. Northern slaveowners sold off slaves to the West Indies and the South as slavery was ending in their territories, cashing in and diffusing their black population southward, though the numbers were tiny compared with those of the Chesapeake. New York monopolized the shipping of plantation products across the Atlantic. Northern banks captured the credit and foreign exchange generated by slave-driven agriculture, and bought and resold bonds collateralized by slaves. Hartford insurance companies, including the still-existing Aetna, sold policies to slave shippers and slaveowners, as Lloyd's of London had done before. After the African slave trade was declared piracy, Northern merchants illegally financed and equipped expeditions to supply industrial quantities of African captives to the plantations of Cuba and Brazil.\n\nBut the capital invested in the expansion of the agricultural South does not seem to have mostly come from the North. Slavery created its own distinct circuit in the American economy, since its most valuable commodity, slaves, had no value outside the slavery bloc. By the last three decades of slavery, the South was largely funding itself, or, as Kilbourne puts it, despite the \"despair-filled declarations of Southern commercial boosters and conventions... most of the internal investment in the region was funded with savings that had been accumulated over several generations in numerous wealthy households throughout the Cotton Belt.\" Those \"savings\" overwhelmingly took the form of slaves, who were the basis of this massive intra-Southern credit-circulation system.\n\nThe Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money but in 1804, when Jefferson annexed Louisiana, the only US coins in common circulation were copper pennies. There was a chronic shortage in the South of \"Spanish dollars\"\u2014the silver _pesos_ minted in Mexico, also known as \"pieces of eight,\" which were accepted as legal tender in the United States, because until the discovery of gold in California in 1848, there were no large money mines in the United States. What little specie there was in circulation before the Gold Rush was rapidly pulled to the centers of banking in the North and, especially in colonial days, was sucked across the ocean by the manufacturing and commercial heavyweight of the world, Britain. The workhorse of Southern commerce was bank-issued paper money, but it entailed the risk that the bank might fail and it lost its value with distance from the issuing bank.\n\nEnslaved people were the savings accounts. In lieu of coin or trustworthy paper, people were money in the slaveholding South. Most economists will tell you, with variations in the wording, that three conditions must be met for a commodity to be considered money:\n\n1) a means for conducting transactions (\"medium of exchange\");\n\n2) retention of its worth over time (\"store of value\"); and\n\n3) a way to keep accounts (\"unit of account\").\n\nSlaves easily fit the first two criteria. They were a unique kind of money\u2014a \"money thing,\" economists today might call it. They weren't a convenient medium of exchange the way coins were, but coin was rare and when no reliable bank paper was available for a transaction a store debt could be paid with a child, whether through transfer of ownership or hiring out. A slave might be handed over in lieu of a debt from a land purchase or lost to a cardshark as a thousand-dollar bet in a high-stakes game.\n\nSlaves satisfied the second condition of being money as well. As a store of value, they were the most trusted form in which a slaveowner might save his money. They not only retained their value over time by maintaining their value through reproduction, but they increased that value by reproducing frequently, which is why slaveowners insisted on owning the children: people paid flesh-and-blood interest when they reproduced. This was a modern adaptation of an ancient concept, as David Graeber notes: \"in many Mediterranean languages, Greek included, the word for 'interest' literally means 'offspring.'\" Frederic Bancroft wrote that:\n\nA stock-raiser indifferent to enlarging his herd was not so rare nor so absurd as a large planter that did not count the annual births and values that grew with the slave children. This increase alone was conservatively estimated to yield a net annual profit of from five to eight per cent after deducting all losses from age, illness or death. And even careless and spendthrift planters had such a passion to increase the number of their slaves that this human interest was regularly added to the principal, and thus compounded. A slaveholder twenty-five years old having 40 slaves might reasonably hope, without buying any, to become the owner of 150, or perhaps 200, slaves by the time he reached the age of sixty.\n\nIf people were money, children were interest. That's why the rigidly enforced color-coded caste system of slavery offered no path to freedom even over multiple generations: no escape from the asset column could be permitted.\n\nAt first glance, it might seem that slaves didn't satisfy the third condition of being money, a unit of account. They were not what economists call a \"sovereign currency.\" No government accepted them for taxes, duties, fines, licenses, or fees. That honor went to the dollar, a denomination that Thomas Jefferson had (in the absence of any domestic sources of silver) modeled on the Spanish dollar combined with a French-inspired decimal system of cents, all in pointed contradistinction to the British pounds-and-shillings system.\n\nBut in another way, slaves _were_ a unit of account. The white South kept score in slaves. A rule of thumb for estimating a Southerner's wealth was the number of slaves he had. And, as we will discuss, the Constitution's notorious three-fifths clause* was explicitly designed to allow the South to vote that kind of wealth, making slaves a unit of account for what was literally political capital.\n\nBut if slaves were a kind of money, they were a nonconvertible domestic money, usable only inside the slave-trade zone. New York merchants wouldn't accept slaves in payment for manufactured goods from Britain. They did frequently become slaveowners via control of slaves pledged as collateral, but if slaves had to be seized in satisfaction of a debt, they could only be sold in the regions that used slave labor. Since slaves couldn't be used in trade outside the area of their circulation, they defined the economy of the region where they were traded.\n\nFor a money to be continually valuable, it must at times be defended by the government, even if the government is not the issuer. That happened in the case of slavery; Southern politicians were obsessively dedicated to preserving the monetary value of slaves, culminating in the cataclysmic war that ended the slave economy.\n\nOwning people entailed risk: the person claimed as property might die, escape, or rebel. Those possibilities were best absorbed by large fortunes; slave-holding, the ultimate in inequality, was dominated by the wealthy. But taking on risk was essential for those who wanted to grow their fortunes fast. The Southwest was a magnet for high-spirited gamblers, especially in the Jacksonian era of wildcat banks. Young men in the South wanted to get rich _now_ , before they died of some fever or distemper, so they went into cotton, plunging into debt to buy as many slave laborers, plant as much acreage, and get as fast a return as possible, then plow the profits into more land and slaves. But cotton acreage could only expand as fast as labor could be acquired to clear and cultivate it.\n\nThe reason slaves could not legally be created equal was not merely that appropriating one hundred percent of their labor was wildly profitable. Nor was it the many forms of comfort and pleasure they afforded their owners, nor even the owners' routinely expressed fear that if freed, the blacks would do to the whites what the whites had done to them.\n\nIt was that attributing fully human characteristics to the enslaved would have debased the coin of the Southern realm.\n\nThe four million enslaved in 1860 were not merely a labor force; they were the South's capital stock. Fanny Kemble quoted the words of \"a very distinguished Carolinian\" in her 1838\u201339 journal: \"I'll tell you why abolition is impossible: because every healthy negro can fetch a thousand dollars in Charleston at this moment.\"\n\nWhether a slave child was ever sold in the market or not, his or her birth _created_ money, in the form of credit, so the growth to four million enslaved people was in itself an economic expansion. The bottleneck in the creation of this unique form of sentient money was the capitalized womb.\n\nLarge landowners often preferred a strategy of buying slaves whenever they could get a good deal but never selling, whereas smaller farmers were more likely to need to sell an enslaved adolescent for cash to a regional trader's representative. The kingpin of the Jackson-era slave trade, Tennessean Isaac Franklin, grew his fortune by accumulating people, and then put the money they collateralized to work in the credit market of his place and time by lending to smaller fry, whose slaves were in turn pledged to him as collateral. An 1847 accounting of the deceased Franklin's estate valued the infants Andrew, George, Eliza, Larienia, Little Ann, Cynderrilla, Betsy, Shadrach, Sylvia, Lewis Edward, Noah, Isaac, Randolph, Washington, William, another Isaac, Meshac, and Matilda, along with \"an infant child of Tracy Butler,\" at $75 each (more than $2,000 each in 2014 dollars). They were not being priced for immediate sale, but expertly appraised for estate valuation.\n\nOlder slaves were depreciated. Minerva Granger, who had produced nine children while enslaved by Thomas Jefferson, was at the age of fifty-five appraised as being worth nothing. Historian Caitlin Rosenthal explains that planters \"appraised their inventory [of slaves] at market value, compared that with its past market value to assess appreciation or depreciation, calculated an allowance for interest, and used this to determine their capital costs. In a sense they were marking slaves to market.\" The on-paper value of a child increased as he or she survived and grew, picking up around the age of eight, when he or she could begin to do a day's work. The price peaked in the late teens, when the full-grown laborer could do a long day's work and be advertised for sale as a \"likely young Negro.\"\n\nThat now-archaic word \"likely,\" ubiquitous in slave sale advertisements, had a cluster of converging meanings: vigorous, strong, capable, good-looking, attractive, promising\u2014in other words, likely to reproduce.\n\n*Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, subsequently invalidated by the Thirteenth Amendment, allows for the counting of three-fifths of \"persons bound to service,\" i.e. slaves, in determining a state's representation in the House of Representatives, and, by extension, in calculating representation in the electoral college.\n\n#   5\n\n# **Little Shadows**\n\n_Common sense will tell us, that the consumption of a slave must be less than that of a free workman. The master cares not if his slave enjoy life, provided he do but live... even the soft impulse of sexual attraction is subject to the avaricious calculations of the master. 1_\n\n\u2014Jean Baptiste Say, _A Treatise on Political Economy_ (1803; 1821 translation)\n\nCAPITAL IS USELESS IF it is not being put to work, and slaveholders in every era were diligent in extracting the maximum return from their human capital.\n\nSlaves were not allowed to be idle. Black men, women, and adolescents worked long days under the punishing sun doing hard labor that would have killed a white man, or so said the white men who expropriated their labor. In cold weather, they shivered in the rain and froze their fingers in the ice and snow.\n\nIn the early days of Chesapeake colonization, working alongside indentured English, Scotch, and Irish paupers and convicts, the enslaved cut down the hardwoods, pulled up the stumps, turfed the slopes of the plantations, and manicured the grounds of the master's estate. They plowed, planted, weeded, harvested, and cured tobacco, rolled it in hogsheads down to docks they had built, and loaded it onto boats that enslaved boatwrights had constructed, piloted by enslaved navigators.\n\nThey fired the bricks with which they built the great houses that they painted, maintained, and staffed. Enslaved laborers built the stone walls, the zigzagging \"worm\" fences, and the roads, barns, sheds, smokehouses, and cesspools, as well as the cabins where they lived, six or eight or ten to a room. They forged the decorative ironwork, made the furniture, and except for hoes, chains, and a few other items, they even made the tools they made everything else with. \"Almost all the implements used on the plantation were made by the slaves,\" recalled Louis Hughes. \"Very few things were bought.\"\n\nThey were most commonly employed in repetitive monocrop farming, the kind that is most destructive to the land. Every future Confederate state except Virginia raised quantities of cotton, and there were regional monocrops of tobacco in the Chesapeake, rice in the Sea Islands and Tidewater of South Carolina and Georgia, and sugar in south Louisiana. From London, Karl Marx succinctly described the practice in an October 25, 1861, newspaper column:\n\nThe cultivation of the Southern export articles, cotton, tobacco, sugar, etc., carried on by slaves, is only remunerative as long as it is conducted with large gangs of slaves, on a mass scale and on wide expanses of a naturally fertile soil, that requires only simple labor. Intensive cultivation, which depends less on fertility of the soil than on investment of capital, intelligence and energy of labor, is contrary to the nature of slavery.\n\nOn this matter, which was more or less conventional wisdom, Marx agreed with his ideological adversary the _Economist_ , which had printed in 1859:\n\nThe truth is, that Slavery _could_ only be profitable on rich, large, and sparsely populated soils. The profit it yields it can only yield while the first fertility of a soil is unexhausted, and, therefore, where land is unsettled, and the labour need not be of a very earnest or skilful kind.\n\nWhen utilized this way, slave laborers were known for being utterly unenthusiastic workers. In some plantation regimes, the work was deliberately kept heavy so as to leave the labor force too tired to revolt. A note accompanying a hoe on display at Edisto Island Museum explains: \"Until after the Civil War, even large tracts of land on Edisto were cultivated primarily by slaves using hoes, not animal-drawn plows. With the natural increase in the slave population, it was considered 'good management' to keep the work force as busy as possible.\"\n\nPerhaps neither Marx nor the _Economist_ realized that slaves' labor was not only crude. They brought a wide variety of expertise to skilled work. Enslaved craftsmen were the artisan class of both the colonial and the antebellum South. They helped build the White House and the US Capitol. Their knowledge, together with the forced labor of enslaved muscle, transformed forest, bramble, and swamp into the Anglo-American idea of civilization.\n\nPlanters and merchants arranged for their particularly talented artisans to be taught special skills by European craftsmen, which had the side effect of establishing a knowledge base among the community of the enslaved. It enhanced their monetary value: slaves deemed to be \"skilled\" brought more money in the market for both renting-out and sale. They worked as mechanics and tradesmen, discouraging white tradesmen from immigrating. Skilled slaves did cabinetry, woodworking, ironworking, tailoring, dressmaking, and jewelry-making; they were usually better than white craftsmen, if only because white craftsmen, if they were any good, often quit their trade as quickly as possible to go into planting rather than compete economically with slaves, or bought a slave to do the work for them.\n\nKnowledge from Africa was basic to planters' fortunes, nowhere more than in the cultivation of rice. In the unhealthy marshes of the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, teams of enslaved laborers with interconnecting jobs\u2014specialized task labor, not gang labor like cotton\u2014operated complex plantations they had built with skills that were unknown to Europeans. They did this mostly in the absence of the masters, who fled their plantations in mortal fear of disease during the hot months, leaving only an overseer to run an all-black plantation.\n\nThe great rice plantations of the Lowcountry could never have been built and staffed with free labor. No one would have done that work voluntarily. Attacked by clouds of stinging insects in rattlesnake-ridden swamps, the rice slaves built dams, dug miles of ditches, burned the ground cover in spectacular nocturnal conflagrations, pulverized the earth, spent their days standing barefoot and waist-high in foul-smelling stagnant water, hoed endless rows of rice, regulated how much of the heavier salt water versus how much of the lighter fresh water to allow into the sluice gates they had designed and built, chased away the thick flocks of migrating bobolinks that could devastate a crop, winnowed the rice in baskets they had woven according to African practice, pounded the husks off with African-style tall pestles in mortars, and cut and hauled wood to build the barrels with, while also raising or catching much of the food they ate.\n\nThe homes of the enslaved brought little comfort after the work day. Josiah Henson, who published several iterations of his autobiography\u2014the bestselling of the slave narratives, because Henson was said to be the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's character of Uncle Tom\u2014recalled in the earliest (1849) and possibly most accurate version that:\n\nOur lodging was in log huts, of a single small room, with no other floor than the trodden earth, in which ten or a dozen persons\u2014men, women, and children\u2014might sleep, but which could not protect them from dampness and cold, nor permit the existence of the common decencies of life. There were neither beds, nor furniture of any description\u2014a blanket being the only addition to the dress of the day for protection from the chillness of the air or the earth. In these hovels were we penned at night, and fed by day; here were the children born, and the sick\u2014neglected.\n\nOld age was especially miserable for the enslaved. When Jefferson's slaves got too old to work, he routinely cut their rations in half. Aged slaves were a drag on a planter's profits, at which point it was cheaper to turn them loose and let them die off premises. The Virginia code of 1849 provided a fine of fifty dollars for \"any person who shall permit an insane, aged or infirm slave... to go at large without adequate provision for his support,\" which perhaps attests to how common the practice was. Isaac Mason, born enslaved in 1822 in Kent County, Maryland, recalled in his memoir that\n\nMy grandfather, in consideration of his old age and the time being past for useful labor, was _handsomely_ rewarded with his freedom, an old horse called the \"old bay horse\"\u2014which was also past the stage of usefulness\u2014and an old cart; but, alas! no home to live in or a place to shelter his head from the storm. (emphasis in original)\n\nThey labored and reproduced and died and were replaced, without retaining the proceeds of their labor for their own needs, while the people who claimed to be their owners generally spent as little as possible on their maintenance. Field laborers, who had little or no direct contact with the master and his family, wore rough, cheaply manufactured \"negro shoes,\" and covered their bodies with osnaburg, or \"negro cloth,\" of jute or flax, a little softer than burlap. George White of Lynchburg, Virginia, recalled that \"Dat ole nigger-cloth was jus' like needles when it was new. Never did have to scratch our back. Jus' wiggle yo' shoulders an' yo' back was scratched.\" They perhaps, but not necessarily, got summer and winter varieties. \"Do you recollect that you have not given your Negroes Summer clothing but twice in fifteen years past[?]\" wrote Georgia Sea Island plantation manager Roswell King to his boss, Constitution framer and absentee gentleman farmer Pierce Butler, at Butler's mansion in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson's captives got one blanket per family every three years, but when Monticello was leased out during his presidency, an overseer failed to distribute blankets for five years.\n\n_Isaac Mason's author photograph._\n\nThey did hard labor in the same clothes all day, every day. When 225 enslaved people asserted their freedom by escaping into the custody of British rear admiral George Cockburn during his invasion of the Chesapeake in the War of 1812, Cockburn feared that the dirty rags they came clothed in might spread disease. He issued the men bright red jackets, which, said his commanding officer, Admiral Alexander Cochrane, might \"act as an inducement to others to come off,\" and he gave them military training, which they had previously been kept away from.\n\nSometimes they worked without clothes at all. Enslaved children and sometimes even post-pubescent adolescents commonly were naked or barely clothed. Charles Ball recalled his first workday in a South Carolina cotton field after being trafficked from Virginia:\n\nMore than half of the gang were entirely naked. Several young girls, who had arrived at puberty, wearing only the livery with which nature had ornamented them, and a great number of lads, of an equal or superior age, appeared in the same costume.... [O]wing to the severe treatment I had endured whilst traveling in chains, and being compelled to sleep on the naked floor, without undressing myself, my clothes were quite worn out, I did not make a much better figure than my companions; though still I preserved the semblance of clothing so far, that it could be seen that my shirt and trowsers had once been distinct and separate garments.\n\nDenied basic hygiene, the laborers' funk bothered masters enough to become a conversational commonplace among slaveholders, who typically attributed it to a racial characteristic, referring if necessary to Thomas Jefferson's racist pseudo-factbook _Notes on the State of Virginia:_ \"they secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.\"\n\nEnslaved women made the soap the slaveowner washed with. They carded, combed, spun, weaved, knitted, cut out, sewed, mended, washed, starched, and ironed the fine clothes the master's family wore, and they worked into the night after a long day's labor to dress their own families a little better, though at times there were difficult to enforce laws that forbade slaves from dressing above their station. Domestics, who were on display to guests, typically dressed much better than field laborers, often in hand-me-downs of the master or mistress.\n\nIn eighteenth-century Maryland, liveried coachmen drove the imported \"chariots\" in which the masters rode. In wealthy antebellum Mississippi, they wore velvet topcoats in the heat as they drove the masters' barouches. Enslaved blacksmiths forged iron shoes for the horses that enslaved grooms put up at night. Enslaved fiddlers played at the Saturday night dances, and when the masters hunted foxes, enslaved houndsmen blew the hunting horns.\n\nThe enslaved brought to the masters' table the food they supplied and prepared, and they kept everything the guests saw spotless, all on an unforgiving schedule. Urban slaves generally had a better diet than those on the plantations, and African Americans seem to have generally eaten better than slaves did on Antillean sugar plantations. But the quality and availability of food varied sharply from plantation to plantation, and most had an insufficient diet by modern standards.\n\nThe enslaved laborers who built the University of Virginia were fed the basic slave diet: greasy fat bacon and cornmeal, purchased in industrial quantities. A hogshead of bacon could weigh 900 pounds or more, and plantations bought commensurate quantities of molasses. \"Some slaves enjoyed a wide variety of foods,\" write Kenneth Kiple and Virginia King, \"[but] others suffered from a seldom if ever supplemented hog-and-corn routine, while most existed on a basic meat-and-meal core with some supplementation.\" That monotonous diet of \"hominy and hog\" was the mainstay for the enslaved, as well as for poor whites, in much of the South, though the enslaved of the Chesapeake and Lowcountry generally ate better than those in the Deep South. Unfortunately, the Southern-raised white corn, the most commonly eaten variety, contained no vitamin A. Milk was in short supply in the South, so the enslaved often got little or no calcium. They shocked doctors with their high rate of geophagy\u2014eating clay or dirt, a malnutrition-related behavior especially associated with pregnant women\u2014which caused a range of health problems. Arguing in favor of feeding the enslaved in a way he considered adequate, the overseer Roswell King Jr. of Butler Island, Georgia, wrote of the plantation's 114 enslaved children in an 1828 letter published in the _Southern Agriculturalist_ that \"it cost less than two cents each per week, in giving them a feed of Ocra soup, with Pork, or a little Molasses or Hommony, or Small Rice. The great advantage is, that there is not a _dirt-eater_ among them.\"\n\nBlack cooks knew how to work with the animal parts the master's family didn't want\u2014the offal\u2014and they also knew how to prepare grand Christmas feasts. It was common for the enslaved to tend a garden patch after a long day of work, and Sundays, usually a day off, could be spent hunting or fishing if owners allowed it. But even so, slaves were often malnourished and therefore sickly; the typical food expenditure for an enslaved laborer in Virginia was about a quarter that of a free laborer. Henry Watson, born in 1813 near Fredericksburg, Virginia, who was sold six times and whose experience was especially harsh, recalled the routine he knew in 1820s Mississippi:\n\nIn the morning, half an hour before daylight, the first horn was blown, at which the slaves arose and prepared themselves for work. At daylight another horn was blown, at which they all started in a run for the field, with the driver after them, carrying their provisions for the day in buckets.... [They] worked until such time as the driver thought proper, when he would crack his whip two or three times, and they would eat their breakfasts, which consisted of strong, rancid pork, coarse corn bread, and water, which was brought to them by small children, who were not able to handle the hoe.\n\nAs soon as Harry, the driver, has finished his breakfast, they finish likewise, and hang up their buckets on the fence or trees, and to work they go, without one moment's intermission until noon, when they take their dinner in the same manner as their breakfast; which done, they go again to work, continuing till dark. They then return to their cabins, and have a half hour to prepare their food for the next day, when the horn is again blown for bed. If any are found out of their cabins after this time, they are put in jail and kept till morning, when they generally receive twenty-five or thirty lashes for their misdemeanor. (paragraphing added)\n\nCharles Ball recalled a scene he witnessed while accompanying his master on travels in South Carolina:\n\nAfter it was quite dark, the slaves came in from the cotton-field, and taking little notice of us, went into the kitchen, and each taking thence a pint of corn, proceeded to a little mill, which was nailed to a post in the yard, and there commenced the operation of grinding meal for their suppers, which were afterwards to be prepared by baking the meal into cakes at the fire.\n\nThe woman who was the mother of the three small children, was permitted to grind her allowance of corn first, and after her came the old man, and the others in succession. After the corn was converted into meal, each one kneaded it up with cold water into a thick dough, and raking away the ashes from a small space on the kitchen hearth, placed the dough, rolled up in green leaves, in the hollow, and covering it with hot embers, left it to be baked into bread, which was done in about half an hour.\n\nThese loaves constituted the only supper of the slaves belonging to this family for I observed that the two women who had waited at the table, after the supper of the white people was disposed of, also came with their corn to the mill on the post and ground their allowance like the others. They had not been permitted to taste even the fragments of the meal that they had cooked for their masters and mistresses. (paragraphing added)\n\nSlave cabins did not have kitchens; cooking, if done indoors, was done in the fireplace. On some plantations children were fed out of troughs, eating with their hands or improvised spoons out of a communally served mush of corn-bread, molasses, or whatever else was customary.\n\nBeginning with maternal, fetal, and infant malnutrition, it's hardly surprising that the enslaved were more susceptible than free people to most infirmities, including crib death, infant mortality of all kinds (including infanticide), death in childbirth, and injuries and deterioration to the mother from repeated childbirth, along with typhoid, cholera, smallpox, tetanus, worms, pellagra, scurvy, beriberi, kwashiorkor, rickets, diphtheria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, dental-related ailments, dysentery, bloody flux, and other bowel complaints. The health conditions of the enslaved were aggravated by overwork, accidents, and work-related illnesses such as \"green tobacco sickness,\" today known as nicotine poisoning, which plagued tobacco workers. The heavy work regimes they endured wore down their bodies and aged them prematurely, with childbirth-related fatalities limiting women's life spans even more than the men's.\n\nThe enslaved had a greater immunity to some diseases than the whites, though: the sickle-cell trait is believed to have evolved as a defense against malaria, to which many of the enslaved were immune, though they might become ill from sickle-cell disease. Some Africans were also immune to the yellow fever that on occasion killed large numbers of whites in fierce epidemics.\n\nAfricans brought a vast lore of medicines (and poisons) from Africa, and on occasion learned the use of local herbs and roots from the Native Americans. Attentive slaveowners learned from the medical knowledge of the enslaved, as in the case of smallpox vaccination, which spead in the hemisphere through the knowledge of Africans. In colonial Boston, Cotton Mather heard of smallpox vaccination from the enslaved Onesimus, whom Mather's congregation had given him as a present: \"Enquiring of my Negro-man _Onesimus_ , who is a pretty Intelligent Fellow, Whether he had ever had ye _Small-Pox_ he answered, both, _Yes_ , and, No; and then told me, that he had undergone an Operation, which had given him something of ye _Small-Pox_ , & would forever preserve him from it.\" Onesimus had been vaccinated for the disease in Africa, and told Mather it was a common practice among the \"Gurumantese\" (Akan or Twi people of the Gold Coast, now called Ghana), \"& who ever had ye Courage to use it, was forever free from ye fear of the Contagion. He described ye Operation to me, and shew'd me in his Arm ye Scar, which it had left upon him.\"\n\nEspecially in colonial days, slaveowners sometimes doubled as doctors. William Byrd II, the founder of Richmond, had a large medical library and gave his enslaved frequent \"vomits\" and \"purges.\" The enslaved were used as guinea pigs for experimental treatments that advanced the practice of medicine in the United States. An aspiring doctor or dentist in the South might buy an old or infirm slave to practice on. The nation's first teaching hospital, at the Medical College in Charleston, used live enslaved people for demonstrations and dead ones for dissection. The \"father\" of modern gynecology, generally portrayed in medical historiography as an innovative figure, was the South Carolina surgeon J. Marion Sims, whom one historian refers to as \"the Architect of the Vagina.\" Sims refined his innovations by operating experimentally on the genitals of enslaved women he kept for that purpose. In this way, he developed a surgical repair for vesico-vaginal fistulas, using an infection-resistant silver suture, and more generally he popularized the use of surgery for gynecological problems, becoming quite wealthy in the process. In a \"hospital\" he built in his backyard in Montgomery, Alabama, he operated on a woman named Anarcha thirty times, sewing her insides without anesthesia and giving her opium afterward. He also kept women named Lucy and Betsy for this purpose, describing the expense of their maintenance as a research cost. After perfecting his treatment, he subsequently moved to New York, where he founded the Woman's Hospital and continued experimenting surgically; since there was no slavery in New York, he practiced on poor Irish women, performing thirty surgeries on one Mary Smith.\n\nLater, there was an entire lucrative branch of \"slave medicine\" dedicated to \"negro diseases,\" in which naming a disease could be the road to prestige and higher fees for a physician. The Virginia-born Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright described at a professional conference a medical condition he had discovered called _drapetomania_ , in a paper reprinted in _DeBow's Review_ in 1851. Drapetomania's victims were \"Negroes,\" and its chief symptom was an irresistible urge to run away. When milder therapy failed, Dr. Cartwright prescribed \"whipping the devil out of them.\" He also described another purported disease, _dys\u00e6sthesia \u00e6thiopica_ , or \"hebetude of mind,\" whose symptom was commonly described by overseers as \"rascality,\" and which was \"much more prevalent among free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc.\" Dr. Cartwright was serious; the Southern medical profession had taken up the call to demonstrate the purportedly separate and inferior physical and mental characteristics of what was considered to be the \"Negro race.\"\n\nSlaveowners had the power of life and death, and despite slaves' monetary value as human property, death came to some from \"punishments\"\u2014torture\u2014and other violence inflicted by the owner or his agents, as Fannie Berry recalled in Petersburg, Virginia: \"sometimes if [you rebelled], de overseer would kill yo'.\" Others committed suicide.\n\nIt was much preferable to be enslaved in town. The urban enslaved generally enjoyed better material conditions than those on the plantation, as well as more independence of movement and association, more chances to make money, and, especially in port towns, a better chance to escape to free territory. Most of the work in Southern towns was done by \"hired\" slaves; the urban South developed in direct proportion to the amount of slave-rental that went on. Such Southern industrial work as there existed was mostly done by the enslaved, who sometimes managed to collect a bit of incentive pay.\n\nRobert S. Starobin estimates that there were between 160,000 and 200,000 industrially employed slaves by the 1850s, 80 percent of them owned by the businesses' owners and the rest rented. Ironworking was heavily dependent on enslaved labor. Slaves mined lead, salt, and coal. Turpentine production, a large industry, was almost entirely done by enslaved laborers. They manufactured rope, tanned leather, baked bread, cut lumber out of the Dismal Swamp till all the trees were gone, and operated gristmills and printing presses. In shipyards and textile mills, they worked side by side with poor whites in a sometimes violently uneasy coexistence that worked to the disadvantage of the enslaved.\n\nEnslaved workers cleaned and repaired Southern streets, laid down turnpikes, and dredged canals. They marked twain, shoveled coal, and sometimes were scalded to death or blown up in boiler explosions on the riverboats, with the more dangerous jobs going to older, less salable men. They built almost all the railroads in the South, as a March 30, 1852, advertisement in the _Southern Recorder_ of Milledgeville, Georgia, illustrates:\n\nIMPORTANT SALE OF NEGROES, MULES, &C. ON THE 27TH DAY OF APRIL NEXT.\n\nThe undersigned having nearly completed their contract on the South Carolina Railroad, will positively sell, without reserve, on TUESDAY, the 27th day of April next, at Aiken, South Carolina to the highest bidder \u2013\n\n130 | NEGROES  \n---|---  \n85 | MULES,  \n3 | HORSES,  \n90 | CARTS and HARNESS,  \n25 | WHEELBARROWS  \n190 | SHOVELS,\n\nRailroad PLOWS, PICKS, Blacksmith's, Carpenter's and Wheel-right's Tools, &c.\n\nThese Negroes are beyond doubt the likeliest gang, for their number, ever offered in any market, consisting almost entirely of young fellows from the age of twenty-one to thirty years, some few boys, from twelve to sixteen years of age, and four women.\n\nAmong the fellows are first rate Blacksmiths, Carpenters, Coopers, Brick-moulders, Wheel-rights and Wagoners.\n\nAmong the women, one excellent Weaver and Seamstress, another one, a good Cook. All well trained and disciplined for Rail and Plank-road working....\n\nTerms Cash. J.C.SPROULL & CO., Aiken, S.C., immediately on the Railroad, 16 miles from Hamburg.\n\nIn the towns and cities no less than on the plantations, virtually all domestic servants were enslaved; a white Southern woman who hired out as a maid had fallen on hard times indeed. In some cities, notably New Orleans and Charleston, enslaved women were major vendors of foodstuffs, whose customers were typically enslaved domestics doing the mistress's shopping.\n\nSlaves learned the hard way to anticipate the master and mistress's slightest wishes. Having their ears boxed would be the least of it; they could be exposed naked to be brutally whipped with a knotted cowhide, leaving their backs and buttocks bloody raw. Slave narratives commonly contain accounts of severe punishment resulting in horrible scarring, maiming, or even death, for minor or even imagined infractions, for domestics no less than for field hands. A single example, selected almost at random from the literature, is J. D. Green's testimony: \"When I was fourteen years old my master gave me a flogging, the marks of which will go with me to my grave, and this was for a crime of which I was completely innocent.\"\n\nWhether the victims were female or male, the torture of the enslaved also had a sexual component. There is little or no documentation of male-on-male intercourse, something unspeakable in that era, but there is much testimony about slaves being stripped naked and flogged, which today we would call sexual abuse. There are many stories of deliberate sadism in the slave narratives. After Henry Watson was trafficked to Natchez, he was sold to a man who beat him daily:\n\nThe first morning I was severely flogged for not placing his clothes in the proper position on the chair. The second morning I received another severe flogging for not giving his boots as good a polish as he thought they had been accustomed to. Thus he went on in cruelty, and met every new effort of mine to please him with fresh blows from his cowhide, which he kept hung up in his room for that purpose.\n\nIsaac Mason recalled that\n\nwhenever I did anything that was considered wrong... I had to go to the cellar, where I was stripped naked, my hands tied to a beam over head, and my feet to a post, and then I was whipped by master till the blood ran down to my heels. This he continued to do every week, for my mistress would always find something to complain of, and he had to be the servant of her will and passion for human blood. At last he became disgusted with himself and ceased the cruel treatment. I heard him tell her one day\u2014after he had got through inflicting the corporal punishment\u2014that he would not do it any more to gratify her.\n\nThe enormous rawhide bullwhips were designed to lacerate; accounts mention whips cutting flesh to bone. Solomon Northup used the word \"flaying.\" \"Many a time I've heard the bull-whips a-flying,\" recalled Lizzie Barnett, a centenarian interviewed in the 1930s, \"and heard the awful cries of the slaves. The flesh would be cut in great gaps and the maggots would get in them and they would squirm in misery.\" These beatings\u2014and other tortures too numerous to mention\u2014could, and occasionally did, kill.\n\nThe enslaved had no right to refuse intimate services to the people who could order them beaten. Harriet Jacobs writes of her great-aunt Nancy, who \"slept on the floor in the entry, near [the mistress's] chamber door, that she might be within call\" through six of Nancy's pregnancies, all resulting in premature births.\n\nSometimes enslaved concubines got special treatment, but sometimes not. Henry Watson's owner had taken an enslaved woman \"to wife\" and had two children by her; she was \"out in the field all the day, and in his room at night.\" James Green recalled that \"de nigger husbands weren't the only ones dat keeps up havin' chillen. De mosters and the drivers takes all de nigger girls day want. One slave had four chillen right after the other with a white moster. Their chillen was brown, but one of 'em was white as you is. But dey was all slaves just de same, and de niggers dat had chillen with de white men didn't get treated no better.\"\n\nThe brutality of forced concubinage took place within the more fundamental brutality of being property: even the nicest master might be forced to pay his debts by selling his favorite slave, along with his children by her.\n\nIt mattered not whether white women disliked this state of affairs, since they had little or no legal standing themselves. The South Carolina plantation mistress Mary Boykin Chesnutt, author of a widely read diary and a good friend of Confederate First Lady Varina Davis, wrote angrily in 1861,\n\n[O]urs is a _monstrous_ system and [full of] wrong and iniquity... Like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives & their concubines, & the Mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children\u2014& every lady tells you who is the father of all the Mulatto children in every body's household, but those in her own, she seems to think drop from the clouds or pretends so to think.\n\nHarriet Jacobs said it even more bluntly:\n\nSouthern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the slave-trader's hands as soon as possible, and thus getting them out of their sight. I am glad to say there are some honorable exceptions.\n\nThere is much testimony like that of Savilla Burrell, interviewed at the age of eighty-three in Winnsboro, South Carolina, who recalled (as transcribed) that \"Old Marse wus de daddy of some mulatto chillun. De 'lations wid de mothers of dese chillun is what give so much grief to Mistress. De neighbors would talk 'bout it and he would sell all dem chillun away from dey mothers to a trader. My Mistress would cry 'bout dat.\"\n\nEnslaved women were used for milk extraction, in the common case of wet nurses, or \"sucklers\"\u2014women whose own babies had died or were pushed aside. Isabella Van Wagenen, better known as Sojourner Truth, born enslaved in New York in 1797, was said to have exposed her breasts to a proslavery crowd in Indiana that had questioned her gender while shouting that \"her breasts had suckled many a white babe, to the exclusion of her own offspring.\" Since enslaved women were pregnant so often, there was little need for a slaveowning white woman to feed her own baby, with the result that baby cotton planters grew up sucking from black women's breasts. Nursing women might be lent out to a family member, or rented out to a stranger. In the latter case, the slaveowner was selling the protein and calcium out of the woman's body.\n\nWhile a \"prime field hand\"\u2014young, healthy, strong, and male\u2014was the benchmark of the slave market, the premium-priced captives were young female sex slaves, or \"fancy girls,\" who were light skinned or even passable as white. A teenaged \"fancy girl\" purchasable either for private sexual use or pressed into commercial service by a pimp could bring a multiple of what even a \"prime field hand\" might command.\n\nA number of reports from the later days of slavery mention blond-haired, blue-eyed slaves on sale\u2014the children of enslaved women, despite their phenotype. Fredrika Bremer, the Swedish novelist who visited Richmond in 1851 as part of an extended journey, wrote in her widely read _Homes of the New World_ of visiting \"some of the negro jails, that is, those places of imprisonment in which negroes are in part punished, and in part confined for sale.\" She visited one \"where were kept the so-called 'fancy girls,' for fancy purchasers,\" and yet another where \"we saw a pretty little white boy of about seven years of age, sitting among some tall negro-girls. The child had light hair, the most lovely light-brown eyes, and cheeks as red as roses; he was nevertheless the child of a slave mother, and was to be sold as a slave. His price was three hundred and fifty dollars.\"\n\nThe enslaved caste grew with every generation. Escape, whether by flight or by manumission, was difficult to achieve; the census counted 1,011 escaped slaves in 1850, \"about 1\/30 of one percent\" of the enslaved. People in the Chesapeake might escape to free territory in the North, but in the Deep South, that was practically impossible. The lighter-skinned an enslaved person was, the greater the possibility that he or she might be able to steal away, escape the dragnet that routinely captured unaccompanied black people, and pass for white under a new identity; Thomas Jefferson allowed two of his four children by Sally Hemings to do so, under which cover they disappeared from the historical record.\n\nNotwithstanding the severity of the whippings that occupy such a prominent role in slave narratives, the threat of sale was the most powerful coercive weapon in the slavemaster's arsenal. As Isaiah Butler of Hampton County, South Carolina, put it: \"Dey didn't have a jail in dem times. Dey'd whip 'em, and dey'd sell 'em. Every slave know what 'I'll put you in my pocket, sir!' mean.\" No aspect of slavery was more emblematic of its horror than forced separation of families, which took place regularly and publicly in the theater of the slave auction.\n\nSlave marriages were not binding on the slaveowner, and forced mating was always possible, sanctioned by law and by custom. Even those whose families remained together knew that the fortunes of a slave could change in a heartbeat. The enslaved lived with the knowledge that they or a loved one\u2014a mate, a sibling, a child\u2014might at any moment be removed without warning from their familiar world and taken away from their family without so much as a fare-thee-well.\n\nThe slave trade routinely destroyed marital relationships, along with all other family ties, by selling one or the other partner away. Robert H. Gudmestad estimates that \"forced separation... destroyed approximately one-third of all slave marriages in the Upper South.\" Marriage between slaves was sometimes solemnized and celebrated on the plantation (\"jumping the broomstick\"), but it was a charade: there was no such thing as legal marriage for slaves. As Matthew Jarrett, born in 1848 and interviewed in Petersburg, Virginia, put it, \"don't mean nothin' lessen you say 'What God done jined, cain't no man pull asunder.' But dey never would say dat. Jus' say, \"Now you married.\"\n\nAn individual slaveowner might respect slave marriages, but when he died, the heirs would have to divide up the estate at auction.\n\nMasters often tried not to let slaves know in advance they were going to be sold, since they tended to run away if they knew. They ran away in any case, everywhere there was slavery. Among the many fragmentary song lyrics collected as part of the Federal Writers' Project oral histories, none appears more frequently than _Run, nigger, run \/ Patter-roller* catch you_, a song sung by both white and black in the South. The surveillance society was a reality to African Americans in slavery\u2014not that people didn't run away anyway. Maroons often hid out in their home region, sometimes hiding for years in underground dugouts or hard-to-access places, sometimes returning to the plantation surreptitiously at night for food and on occasion returning to the workforce after negotiating conditions for their return.\n\nMen ran away more than women, who might be gang-raped if caught, as described by the fugitive Lewis Clarke in 1842: \"They know they must submit to their masters; besides, their masters, maybe, dress 'em up, and make 'em little presents, and give 'em more privileges, while the whim lasts; but that ain't like having a parcel of low, dirty, swearing, drunk, patter-rollers let loose among 'em, like so many hogs.\"\n\nMasters grew up with \"little shadows,\" personal child servants who did everything for them, were not allowed to fight back when they were abused, and were in deep trouble if anything happened to their young master. The three-quarters white William Wells Brown was an enslaved \"playmate\" at the age of nine for a five-year-old master to whom he was related. The position carried the privilege of wearing a white linen suit; he had to audition for it against \"some fifteen\" others by doing gymnastics. After the family moved to Missouri, Brown recalled that\n\nWilliam had become impudent, petulant, peevish, and cruel. Sitting at the tea table, he would often desire to make his entire meal out of the sweetmeats, the sugarbowl, or the cake; and when mistress would not allow him to have them, he, in a fit of anger, would throw any thing within his reach at me; spoons, knives, forks, and dishes would be hurled at my head, accompanied with language such as would astonish any one not well versed in the injurious effects of slavery upon the rising generation.\n\nWhen masters became older, they sometimes bet and lost their childhood companions to strangers in card games, or they might be sold to pay an extraordinary expense. In Roswell, Georgia, a town founded by Pierce Butler's former manager Roswell King as a summer refuge for the wealthy, James Stephens Bulloch sold off four enslaved people to pay for his younger daughter Mittie's grand wedding at Bulloch Hall on December 22, 1853. Bulloch did not sell Mittie's personal slave, whose too-appropriate name was Toy. Nor could the \"shadow\" of Mittie's troubled half brother Daniel Stuart Elliott be sold, because Daniel had previously shot and killed him in a fit of temper. But Bess, the attendant of Bulloch's older daughter Anna, was sold together with her son John for $800. Anna, who had no husband and was therefore of no economic importance, subsequently became governess to Mittie's children, one of whom was the future president Theodore Roosevelt Jr.\n\n\"When your marster had a baby born in his family,\" recalled an unnamed formerly enslaved woman in Tennessee, \"they would call all the niggers and tell them to come in and 'see yur new marster.' We had to call them babies 'Mr.' and 'Miss' too.\" If a little white boy with a Roman-numeraled name said up was down, his captive black playmate had better agree. Once the boy was grown into a planter, if he said up was down, who dared correct a man who was accustomed to punishing disagreement with torture? Virtually all of the members of the Southern aristocracy that seceded from the United States grew up with such a regime, going back ten generations for the oldest families among them.\n\nUp became more down with every passing decade, and more incompatible with the outside world. The build out of the slavery ideology became more elaborate, more radical, and more delusional as each generation began from a more doctrinally inbred point of departure. Meanwhile, it became more belligerent, accompanied by a vigilant suppression of dissent.\n\nAntislavery opinions were not to be expressed publicly in the slave states. That was considered traitorous and was repressed with violence that was sometimes spontaneous and sometimes organized. Any perceived slight to the system of slavery could provoke a hair-trigger response. There was not even a pretense of free speech on the subject of slavery in the South, nor did slavery's defenders want anyone in the North to criticize, or even mention, slavery. The enslaved were, needless to say, not to speak against their captivity. They were to be happy, or else. They loved their master, or else.\n\nUnlike Africans\u2014or, more horrifying to slaveowners, the \"French Negroes\" of Haiti\u2014African Americans were believed to be docile, since scrupulous attention was paid to keeping them ignorant of military technique. That was one of the attractions of \"Virginia and Maryland Negroes\" in the market\u2014they had been raised to an unquestioning submission to the work regime, or so it was believed.\n\nThat belief was disproved daily. For all their powerlessness and the almost unimaginable degree of their exploitation, the enslaved were social actors\u2014of course they were\u2014who, despite their great disadvantages, had some ability to negotiate their conditions. They also had the dangerous power that stemmed from slaveholders' fear of them.\n\nRebellions existed wherever there was slavery, in every era, because everywhere, always, the enslaved were at war with their condition. Rebellions happened on the slave ships, on the plantations, and in the towns. Herbert Aptheker, writing in 1943, found \"records of approximately two hundred and fifty revolts and conspiracies in the history of American Negro slavery,\" defining such incidents as involving ten slaves or more and with the intention of obtaining freedom.\n\nSmaller rebellions were ubiquitous. Every runaway was a rebel, and there were runaways at almost every plantation. Often escape attempts were unsuccessful and violently repressed, while others were temporary with a negotiated end, and some were successful and permanent. Twenty-two-year-old Ona Judge, who was Martha Washington's personal servant, escaped from the President and First Lady of the United States in Philadelphia in 1796 after learning she was to be given away as a wedding gift. She married a free black man in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and managed to avoid falling prey to the attempts at recapture that George Washington attempted against her until he died in 1799.\n\nEvery slave who got into a suicidal, or perhaps murderous, fight with an intolerable overseer was a rebel. Every slave who took something from the master (called \"stealing,\" as if the master were not the one stealing from his captives) was a rebel. Every enslaved person who learned to read was a danger. The now-common term \"day-to-day resistance,\" proposed by Raymond A. and Alice H. Bauer in 1942, expresses the ongoing inconformity of the enslaved with their status.\n\nThe larger rebellions, small though they were in military terms, were extraordinarily effective at bringing the war on slavery forward: the Stono rebellion (1739), the alleged New York conspiracy (1741), Gabriel's conspiracy (1800), the German Coast rebellion (1811), Denmark Vesey's alleged conspiracy (1822), Nat Turner's rebellion (1831), and others were sensational news when they happened. To slaveowners, they were a portent of apocalypse.\n\nMajor foreign wars were also occasions of slave rebellion, though it was folded into the larger context. Collectively the enslaved formed a Fifth Column in every war, siding with those who promised to deliver them from the death-in-life of slavery. In Saint-Domingue, black generals fought with the Spanish against the French, with Toussaint Louverture crossing over to the French once France had declared emancipation in North America. The enslaved of Virginia and points south defected to the British during the War of Independence and again during the War of 1812. Then in 1860 they supported the Union against the Confederacy, first as \"contrabands\" who decamped en masse, and then as soldiers. After they were allowed to fight against the Confederacy pursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation, the war was won.\n\nAbolitionist books and publications by David Walker, Benjamin Lundy, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and others cast a long shadow. In the eyes of slaveowners, they were multiplied manyfold into a giant \"San Domingo,\" with the aid of demonized figures like John Quincy Adams, William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Charles Sumner. This was the much-decried \"Northern aggression,\" whose forces were, in the minds of the South's political class, gathering to swoop down on the defenseless South, when purportedly savage \"Negroes,\" would, it was believed, be let loose to rape, pillage, and kill, with nothing less than the destruction by murder and amalgamation of the white race as their object.\n\nA letter to a Fredericksburg, Virginia, paper in 1800 declared that \"if we will keep a ferocious monster in our country, we must keep him in chains.\" In other words, the omnipresent, entirely legal violence of slavery was an ongoing state of war.\n\n*patteroller = patroller\n\n#   6\n\n# **Species of Property**\n\n_Slavery was not the beautiful state of love and confidence between masters and slaves that we often see pictured in books. 1_\n\n\u2014Judge O. P. Temple, Knoxville, Tennessee, letter to Frederic Bancroft, 1904\n\nSLAVERY WAS THE CENTRAL fact of Southern life.\n\nSlaveowners formed the whole of the Southern political class and controlled Southern governments from top to bottom, with South Carolina the most proudly antidemocratic of all. The pro-slavery plutocracy of 1860\u2014the Slave Power, abolitionists not incorrectly called it\u2014had the full weight of American legal history behind it in claiming as its property 38.9 percent of the people of the slaveholding states (57 percent in South Carolina).\n\nThe legal systems of the Southern states were organized around maximizing slaveholder profit. In the towns, repressing the enslaved population was the principal goal of the policing system, which was not one of beat cops on patrol but of military-style squads that made street sweeps. In Charleston, these sweeps were done nightly by twenty to thirty officers at a time, which required much higher levels of manpower than Northern police forces.\n\nWith their enslaved assets fully capitalized, slaveowners were not merely wealthy; they were spectacularly wealthy. At the time of secession, two-thirds of the millionaires in the country lived in the slave states, with most of their wealth in the form of slaves. The Slave Power became wealthier with every territorial annexation for slavery: new territories meant new slave markets, which jacked up the resale value of existing slaveholdings.4\n\nProtecting and developing enslaved assets\u2014most definitely including reproductive value\u2014was slaveowners' first, second, and third political order of business. With the leisure provided by living on the proceeds of slave labor and in the absence of other profitable ventures in the largely nonindustrial South, they had plenty of time to pursue politics, in which they competed to be the most faithful to the ideal of slavery and its concomitant philosophy of states' rights.* Thanks to the compromises brokered at the Constitutional Convention and to the slaveowners' bloc-voting fraternity, they exercised disproportionate political power at the national level, right up through the collapse of their system.\n\nSlaveowners were an elite within their own geographically and ideologically isolated societies, with those who owned the most slaves at the apex of the social and political order. According to the detailed US census of 1860, which enumerated slaves and slaveholders in its \"Agriculture\" supplement, the 347,525 owners of one or more slaves constituted only 4.3 percent of the 8,039,000 \"whites\" in the fifteen slaveholding states (eleven of which would shortly secede) and 2.86 percent of the population of those states as a whole. If, as Frederic Bancroft did, we count the population of slaveholding families as five times the number of slaveowners, some 14 percent of the population of the slave states were of the slaveholding class. Perhaps one-half of 1 percent of the population of the slaveholding states owned a hundred slaves or more, and a few owned a thousand or more. It has been suggested that the 1860 census numbers might have underreported large slaveowners, but it's unlikely that large slaveholders\u2014again, almost the entire political class of the South\u2014amounted to even 1 percent of the population of their states.\n\nThe South's 1860 population of 3,953,742 enslaved people comprised or made viable an estimated four billion dollars' worth of private property, as per Mississippi's declaration of secession: \"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.... We must either submit to degradation and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union.\"\n\nThis figure, which turns up in other contemporary writings, was an estimate of the South's capitalization. It apparently valued slaves at a blunt average of $1,000 per human being, or maybe something like $800 per human being and $200 for the land he or she worked on. Slaves were not all the property involved in that quick-and-dirty computation, but they were most of it, the rest being land and equipment that Southerners insisted would be valueless without slave labor. Some estimates said three billion dollars, and some said two billion; sporadic sales reports in Southern newspapers during the final years before the war, at the dizziest peak of the market, suggest that a thousand a head for a total of four billion dollars might not have been too high a figure to put on it. At the beginning of 1860, the _Albany (GA) Patriot_ reported an estate liquidation of 536 people\u2014one of the largest slave sales ever\u2014that brought an average price of $1,025 per person sold, making the total sale worth more than $15 million in 2014 dollars. Another estate sale from Columbus brought an average of $1,084. The _Mobile Daily Advertiser_ of January 18, 1860, reported a Mississippi sale with an average price of $1,145.\n\nFour billion dollars in 1860 was equivalent to about a hundred billion in 2010. It was more than 20 times the value of the entire cotton crop that year and 17.5 times all the gold and silver money in circulation in the United States ($228.3 million, most of it in the North). It was more than nine times the $435.4 million of currency in circulation\u2014which, pursuant to the dismantling of the national banking system by President Andrew Jackson, was issued by local banks whose notes depreciated over distance.\n\nFour billion dollars was more than double the $1.92 billion value of farmland in the eleven states that seceded.* Without labor Southern land lost what value it had, but even with labor Southern land in 1860 still was worth much less than land in the free states. In the census of that year, farmland in the mid-Atlantic states was valued at $28.08 an acre, and in New England at $20.27 an acre, but in the Southern states it was only worth $5.34\u2014even though the South was producing the big export crops. Farms in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Illinois were more improved, more diversified, better tended, more mechanized, better connected to market by infrastructure, and were worked by family or wage labor instead of by capital-intensive slaveholdings.\n\nIt was almost a laboratory experiment: two mutually exclusive economic systems competing for territorial expansion and financial supremacy, each one having at the start about the same number of inhabitants\u2014but one allowing enslaved human property and the other not. Slave societies were caught in a downward spiral. Slavery brooked no competition from free labor, and without a broad consuming class of wage laborers, the slavery bloc furnished no domestic market for the products of industry. Moreover, industrial working conditions involving complicated machinery proved a more problematic situation than field labor for workforce discipline, which often had to be resolved with some kind of incentive pay for the enslaved, something the politics of plantation slavery was resolutely opposed to. Without industry, the South slid further and further behind while the North modernized and grew in population.\n\nMeanwhile, the South had no foreign outlet for its other main product besides cotton: slaves. With slaveowners' encouragement, and sometimes their participation, the enslaved population was increasing by 25 percent or more every decade, even in the face of high mortality among the generally unhealthy enslaved.\n\nWith domestic labor needs being met, the South looked to territorial expansion for the growth of its slavery business. By 1860 North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri\u2014and even Alabama and Mississippi\u2014were no longer importing enslaved laborers from their neighbors to the north but were exporting coffles as far west as they could go. As more states became slave sellers, having new territories to sell slaves into became a matter of ever greater urgency.\n\nFrom President Jefferson's time forward, the grand prize of territorial expansion was Cuba. In his first year of retirement from political office, ex-president Jefferson rhapsodized in a letter to his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, President James Madison, about his imperial dream that the United States would acquire Cuba with Napoleon Bonaparte's blessing, and would conquer Canada in war: \"We should have such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation: & I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire & self government.\" Then he described the weather and the condition of his gardens, and thanked Madison for the squashes he had sent.\n\nWhen a \"founding father's\" remarks about \"liberty\" don't seem to make sense, substitute the word \"property\" and they do. Taking over Havana would have created an empire of liberty, all right\u2014for slaveowners. Jefferson wasn't fantasizing about freeing the two hundred thousand or so slaves who were being systematically worked to death on Cuba's sugar plantations and replaced by new arrivals from Africa. Cuba was at that time a fantastically productive sugar machine that was still in the early phase of its multi-decade peak of importation of kidnapped Africans. Acquiring Cuba would have been a windfall for Virginia slave breeders and would have added two reliably pro-slavery senators.\n\nIn 1861, slaveowners went to war with the North over slavery, as South Carolina's planter class had been inciting them to do for decades. The idea that the South fought a war so that it could be left in peace to have slavery merely within its settled boundaries is sometimes voiced as a cherished myth today, but it does not fit the facts on the ground, nor did anyone think so at the time. Quite the contrary: the war was fought over the expansion of slavery. Southern rulers feared being restricted to the boundaries they then occupied. The dysfunctional-from-the-beginning Confederate States of America was set to have an aggressively annexationist foreign policy.\n\nPremised on infinite reproduction into an ever-expanding market, the slave-breeding economy was like a chain letter or a Ponzi scheme: sooner or later someone would be left holding the bag. Expansion into other territories was thus presented as a demographic imperative; in the last days of 1860, two Alabama \"secession commissioners\" sent to pitch secession to the North Carolina legislature announced that:\n\n[Alabama's black] population outstrips any race on the globe in the rate of its increase, and if the slaves now in Alabama are now to be restricted within the present limits, doubling as they do once in less than thirty years, the [white] children are now born who will be compelled to flee from the land of their birth, and from the slaves their parents have toiled to acquire as an inheritance for them, or to submit to the degradation of being reduced to an equality with them, and all its attendant horrors.\n\nThough the Jeffersonian \"empire for liberty\"\u2014which, like we said, meant slavery\u2014never managed to annex Cuba, it confiscated vast amounts of Native American territory as it pushed into western Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and, after an international war of territorial conquest, Texas. Slaveowners fought bitterly but unsuccessfully to have slavery in New Mexico, California, and, in an 1854 armed confrontation of national dimensions, Kansas and Nebraska. Until Lincoln, they were used to having the president on their side.\n\nThe clash between slave labor and free-soil\u2014the \"irrepressible conflict,\" to use William Seward's phrase of 1858\u2014resulted in the overthrow of slavery. But it was not merely a clash between labor systems; it was a clash between monetary systems.\n\nWhen slavery was abolished and the on-paper value of flesh-and-blood capital disappeared from the balance sheet, the wealth of the South evaporated. Since the South's economy had been built entirely on a foundation of slavery, there was nothing to substitute for it. There were as many laborers as before, but they could no longer be coerced. There was nothing to pay labor with, because the labor had been the money. The security for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt walked away, leaving the obligations valueless, the credit structure imploded, the hundred-dollar Confederate notes trampled in the mud, and the planters owning worthless land.\n\nEmancipation destroyed an entirely legal form of property, which is why it was a revolution.\n\nBefore achieving independence, the thirteen quarrelsome colonies were already well along with the process of cleaving into two interdependent but hostile economies. As each new territory came into the Anglo-American system, its policies regarding slavery and slave trading occasioned a shifting of the balance of power in the economy. The tension was there all along, and it formed arguably the greatest obstacle to union at the Constitutional Convention. The difference was not merely one of large states versus small states, or protective tariffs versus free trade, or even wage labor versus enslaved labor; it went directly to the issue of property rights in people. Within that framework, however, there was a sharp competition between the two major centers of power in the slave societies: Virginia and South Carolina. The commercial and political antagonism between the two went back to colonial days.\n\nWe're going to turn back to the sixteenth century now, in order to describe the formation of the states of the Chesapeake and the Lowcountry, each in their differing social and political particulars. We begin just before the establishment of an English colony in North America, when the first known group of enslaved Africans brought to live in the present-day territory of the United States rebelled and escaped.\n\n*\"States' rights\" was not implicitly a slaveholders' project at first; Massachusetts nearly seceded during the War of 1812. But a states' rights slaveholders' doctrine can be traced from Patrick Henry to John Randolph to John C. Calhoun, who more than anyone made it the boilerplate of slavery.\n\n*Notwithstanding the thirteen stars on the Confederate battle flag, there were only eleven Confederate states (in order of secession: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee). The other two stars represented Kentucky and Missouri, slave states that did not secede, though a Confederate government proclaimed itself in Missouri in addition to the Union government.\n\n_John Smith's map of Virginia, showing the \"Virginian Sea,\" dated 1606 on the legend. North is to the right; the four major rivers on the western shore of the Chesapeake can be seen clearly._\n\n#   Part Two\n\n# **The Chesapeake and the Lowcountry**\n\n#   7\n\n# **Rawrenock**\n\n_It will rather hasten ye Spaniards rage, then retard yt; because he will see it, to grow every day harder for him to defeat us. 1_\n\n_\u2014A Justification for Planting in Virginia Before 1609_ , Records of the Virginia Company\n\n_Those who are now boastfully called popes, bishops, and lords have issued from] such a pompous display of power and such a terrible tyranny that no earthly government can be compared to it... we have become the slaves of the vilest men on earth.[ 2_\n\n\u2014Martin Luther, _Concerning Christian liberty_ (1520), trans. R.S. Grignon\n\nTODAY THE LAND AROUND Sapelo Sound is part of Georgia, but in 1526 the Spanish considered it part of the vaguely bounded territory Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n had named in 1513: Florida.\n\nIt was probably somewhere near Sapelo Sound that the conquistador Lucas V\u00e1zquez de Ayll\u00f3n established a Spanish colony in 1526, bringing some six hundred people from Santo Domingo in six vessels\u2014including an unknown number of enslaved Africans, whose precise point of origin is also unknown, along with eighty or perhaps a hundred horses.\n\nIt was a mighty undertaking, the first since Ponce de Le\u00f3n had left the region, and Ayll\u00f3n carried a commission from Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Carlos V. Unfortunately, Ayll\u00f3n's short-lived town of San Miguel de Guadalpe became that archetypal horror of colonial history: a failed settlement in the wilderness. Ayll\u00f3n died of disease; the Africans rebelled, burning down the colonial prison; and one hundred fifty or so surviving Spanish colonists made their way back to the island of La Espa\u00f1ola (or Hispaniola).\n\nThe Africans appear to have been left behind to live or die among the Guale Indians, beginning Florida's tradition of marronage, a state of outlaw freedom for a self-emancipated slave.* Their ultimate fate is unknown.\n\nIn his explorations, Ayll\u00f3n had discovered the major watercourses of North America's east coast, including the Chesapeake Bay, which first appears on a map with the name Bah\u00eda de Santa Mar\u00eda. After various failed ventures, including a brief reign of slaughter and enslavement of Native Americans under Hernando de Soto in 1539, Spain gave up trying to colonize Florida. But the Spanish king's hand was forced by the appearance of a colony of heretics.\n\nMartin Luther's revolution (October 31, 1517) never took hold in militantly Catholic Spain. But in northern Europe, where dissident mobs attacked churches and monasteries, destroying statues and images in iconoclastic riots, what came to be called Protestantism was an active political project. It was a new kind of movement, disseminated by the booming technology of moveable-type printing, which thrived in northern Europe on Bible sales, creating as it did so a new political medium\u2014the printed tract\u2014that gloried in a rhetoric of freedom versus slavery that would carry forward into the coming centuries.\n\nAfrican slavery, introduced into Iberia by Portugal in 1441 or so, had not yet developed on a large scale in the Americas, nor did it exist in most of Europe, where slavery was associated with Spain and Portugal\u2014as were black people, who in England were called _blackamoors_ , reflecting their Iberian provenance. But though Martin Luther had no personal contact with slavery, he used the term frequently, describing conditions of the soul and of the church in terms of liberty versus slavery. In his theology, freedom was associated with reading the Bible in one's own language, and slavery was associated with Catholic ritual.\n\nAs Europe divided into Catholic and Protestant camps, a series of civil wars paralyzed France for four decades. Huguenots, followers of Jean Calvin who numbered at their peak a little more than a tenth of the French population, were mostly urban people, many of them tradesmen, at odds with a mostly rural, agricultural country. When they declared their church an established institution with a national synod in 1559, a crisis began.\n\nThen, the following year, a ten-year-old was crowned king of France\u2014Charles IX, whose affairs were guided by his Italian mother, Catherine de Medici, acting as regent. Catherine saw the growth of Protestantism as a threat to the state, and allied the French throne with Spain against it, while the Huguenots sought English and German support.\n\nOn February 18, 1562, the Huguenot sea captain Jean Ribaut embarked on a French colonizing mission across the Atlantic, which meant creeping into territory claimed by Spain. Flying the banner of his Catholic child-king, he founded the settlement of Charlesfort, at present-day Parris Island, in what later came to be called South Carolina.\n\nRibaut found the indigenous people* to be friendly, and when one of them showed the French the best place to land their vessel, Ribaut had him \"rewarded with some looking glases and other prety thinges of smale value\"\u2014the beginning of a long cycle of trade between Native Americans and Europeans in the area. As the richness of the unplowed land became apparent, and after Ribaut presented more gifts, he asked the question most on Europeans' minds:\n\nwe demaunded of them for a certen towne called Sevola [Cibola], wherof some have written not to be farr from thence.... Those that have written of this kingdom and towne of Sevolla... say that ther is great abound-aunce of gould and silver, precious stons and other great riches, and that the people hedd ther arrowes, instedd of iron, with poynted turqueses.\n\nRibaut kidnapped two of the natives but, to his apparent surprise, they did not want to be captives, and they escaped: \"We carried two goodly and strong abourd our shippes, clothing and using [treating] them as gentlly and lovingly as yt was possible; but they never ceassed day nor nyght to lament and at length they scaped away.\"\n\nLeaving twenty-eight men behind at Charlesfort, Ribaut returned home to raise money, but he found France's ports closed. Two weeks after he had embarked from France, the Duc de Guise had massacred a group of Huguenots at worship, and in Ribaut's absence, a religious civil war had begun. He went instead to London, a city he knew well and whose language he spoke, where in May 1563 he published a forty-four-page pamphlet whose short title is _The whole and true discouery of Terra Florida._ In it, he noted that the natives would trade for \"littell beades of glasse, which they love and esteme above gould and pearles for to hang them at there eares and necke.\"\n\nThe pamphlet brought Ribaut to a meeting with England's Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to mount an English expedition to Florida. She briefly gave Ribaut \"a salary of three hundred ducats and a house,\" as the Spanish ambassador duly reported to the Hapsburg monarch Felipe (Philip) II, but then she had him imprisoned in the Tower of London after he tried to escape with four French hostages Elizabeth was holding.\n\nBy then, the desperate, quarreling men Ribaut had left behind at Charlesfort had resolved to sail home. Running out of food and water on the voyage, they drank their own urine and turned to cannibalism, killing and eating an unfortunate outcast of their number before they were picked up by a British ship.\n\nA second, much larger, colonizing voyage from France brought both women and men to Florida when Ren\u00e9 Goulaine de Laudonni\u00e8re, Ribaut's former second-in-command, established the Huguenot colony of Fort Caroline (also named for Charles IX) on June 22, 1564, near the site of present-day Jacksonville, Florida. Laudonni\u00e8re brought an official expedition painter along, who depicted the sixteenth-century aristocrat dressed in \"a crimson, yellow, and blue costume,\" in yellow boots with red linings, and three colors of plumes in his hat. His colonists recorded eight births during the short life of their community. Unfortunately, they neglected to plant sufficient crops in the fall, so when famine struck they took an Indian chief hostage for a food ransom.\n\nEven more unfortunately, they were in the high-security Gulf Stream corridor.\n\nPonce de Le\u00f3n noted in his journal of 1513 that his three ships encountered a current they could not go against, despite favorable winds. He had discovered the strongest current in all the world's oceans\u2014a one-way express lane in the sea, where the water was warm even when the air was cold. More than two centuries later, Benjamin Franklin named it the \"Gulf Stream.\"\n\nDriven in a west-to-east direction by the Earth's rotation and intensified by the temperature differential between equatorial and polar latitudes, the Gulf Stream is stronger in the summer than in the winter. It originates after the waters of the Caribbean pass northward through the Straits of Yucat\u00e1n, pouring into the Gulf of Mexico and making the clockwise circuit in the Gulf now known as the \"loop current.\" The current is amplified again, and the waters become more turbulent, when it shoots eastward through the constricted passage of the Straits of Florida. Following along the eastern coast of the United States, it reaches its closest point to land near present-day Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, before gradually veering away from the coastline and out into the Atlantic. There it divides into two main branches, with one continuing up the North Atlantic along the \"great circle\" route to Europe, while another branch curves off eastward, leading to Spain.\n\n_Detail of the 1768 Franklin-Folger map showing the Gulf Stream, which diverges from the mainland off the coast of North Carolina._\n\nEvery year, a Spanish fleet bound for Sevilla sailed up the Gulf Stream out of the port of Havana, packed full of silver and gold ripped out of the bowels of Mexico and Per\u00fa. The volume of silver sharply increased as of 1557, when the Spanish mines began using an amalgamation refining process that involved indigenous slaves tromping in a toxic slurry of mercury, a labor force that was soon to be augmented with Africans.\n\nWhen the Spanish king Felipe II learned that French Protestants had established a colony on the mainland at a potential choke point for the route his treasure ships took, he commissioned the militantly Catholic Don Pedro Men\u00e9ndez de Avil\u00e9s as _adelantado_ (governor) of Florida, instructing him to establish a Spanish presence on the North American mainland that would remove the interlopers.\n\nWilliam Hawkins made what was probably the first African trading voyage\u2014but not a slave-trading one\u2014from England in 1536, traveling from England to \"Guinea\" (Africa) and then to Brazil. The first English company to finance commercial ventures to Africa seems to have been a London syndicate founded in 1540, but there was little further action until a highly lucrative voyage brought back gold, ivory, and hot peppers in 1553. It was followed by more expeditions, and Queen Elizabeth became an African-venture partner in 1561. These voyages, which did not entail carrying off kidnapped people, created good relations with the African traders, but Hawkins's son John changed that.\n\nThere are two previous documented incidents of Englishmen engaging in commerce of small numbers of slaves, but John Hawkins was the first to make a profitable \"triangular,\" or clockwise, slave trade. Moreover, he not only traded in slaves but participated in raiding for them, burning a town on the Gold Coast during his first voyage. He also seized them from other slave traders through piracy\u2014or rather, as a privateer.\n\nPrivateering\u2014the state endorsement of commercial piracy against vessels of other flags in furtherance of military and political objectives\u2014was an early form of capitalism as war. \"The setting forth of a privateer required considerable capital,\" writes Kenneth R. Andrews. \"Even in ventures consisting of one small ship, the joint-stock system of investment was used more often than not.\" In England, the partners were _adventurers_ , a word implying joint-investor commercial enterprise, as in the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London, apparently already in existence when it was chartered by Henry VII in 1407. Freelance piracy by English captains flourished during Queen Mary's reign (1551\u201358), but Queen Elizabeth, Mary's half sister and successor, gave the former pirates letters of marque to become privateers and used them as a tool of policy\u2014\"a privileged criminal class,\" in the words of Hugh F. Rankin.\n\nInvestment in privateering ventures was facilitated by the improved quality of English money during Elizabeth's long reign (1558\u20131603). Henry VIII had imposed what is remembered as the Great Debasement on his coinage as a money-making trick, sabotaging the value of the monarch's money. But Elizabeth's financial advisor Thomas Gresham accomplished the considerable feat of calling in the debased coinage and replacing it with newly minted gold sovereigns within a year (1560\u201361). Restoring value to the money created the conditions for a credit market to thrive, without which no long-distance trade could function. Gresham also impressed on Elizabeth the wisdom of raising money domestically from England's own internal commerce instead of from foreign bankers as the Spanish crown did. From Elizabeth's time forward, England was a financial center.\n\nBacked by a syndicate of investors, Hawkins took three ships to Sierra Leone in 1562 with the intention of capturing Africans to sell in La Espa\u00f1ola and thereby to violate the Spanish trade monopoly. Once arrived on the African coastline, he plundered Portuguese traders and made a slave-raiding alliance with an unnamed African king. He had some three hundred captives to sell by the time he arrived at La Ysabela, Columbus's now-vanished first settlement near present-day Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Arriving with more soldiers than the Spanish had, he said he'd behave if he got to do business. After selling the Africans to eager customers, he acquired two more ships and loaded all five up with sugar, hides, ginger, and pearls for the return voyage to Europe, ultimately turning a profit for his investors.\n\nHawkins's second triangular voyage, heavily subscribed by merchant adventurers in 1564, brought back gold, silver, and pearls. On his return in August, he stopped at Fort Caroline in need of fresh water. There, in a gesture of Protestant solidarity against the Spanish, he saved the remaining Huguenot colonists by trading them food and a ship he didn't need in exchange for a Spanish brass cannon they had captured. During the months Hawkins remained there, Jean Ribaut arrived; released from the Tower of London, he had brought a fresh colonizing expedition of five hundred men and two hundred women.\n\n_Design for Sir John Hawkins's crest, depicting an African woman, bare-breasted and bound, 1568._\n\nIn Spain, Men\u00e9ndez's huge expedition to Florida was already in preparation when the news of Hawkins's arrival at Fort Caroline arrived. To the Spanish king, it seemed proof of an international alliance to break his control of the Americas, and he ordered Men\u00e9ndez to speed up his departure.\n\nMen\u00e9ndez had Felipe's trust. He had fought against the forces of the French Valois king Fran\u00e7ois I under Felipe's father, Carlos V, and he had successfully escorted Felipe to London in 1554 for Felipe's short-lived royal marriage to his Catholic second cousin, the English Queen Mary Tudor.* He was captain general of the Carrera de Las Indias, the transatlantic treasure route, during what is remembered as Spain's _Siglo de Oro_ , its Golden Age. With the security for Spain's entire money supply and commerce on his shoulders, as well as a fantastically lucrative upside should his franchise thrive, he took his responsibilities to God, king, and silver seriously. At enormous personal expense, he brought to Florida an armada of ten ships carrying 995 people, 300 of whom were veteran soldiers, along with 200 horses. They landed on the day of San Agust\u00edn (August 28, 1565), founding the town that today is still called St. Augustine\u2014the oldest continually occupied European-style city in the United States, though there are older Native American communities.\n\nShortly after Hawkins departed Fort Caroline, Men\u00e9ndez captured it in a surprise attack. As the massacre began, he gave an order to spare women and children under fifteen (though some were apparently dispatched before the order to spare them was communicated). One hundred forty-three men were killed, according to one source, although Laudonni\u00e8re escaped. Others were slaughtered in the countryside as they fled. The Spanish caught some two hundred of them, who had to be confirmed as members of the _nueva religi\u00f3n_ before being executed, because they could escape death if they declared themselves Catholics. When they refused, they were taken behind a sand hill in groups of ten with their hands bound, and their throats were cut.\n\nThe Spanish found six cases of the Huguenots' gilt-edged Bibles, which they burned. Ribaut got away with some 350 of his people, but their boat was shipwrecked near St. Augustine and Men\u00e9ndez caught them. Gonzalo Sol\u00eds de Mer\u00e1s, Men\u00e9ndez's official chronicler and brother-in-law, noted that Ribaut offered a ransom to spare their lives, but Men\u00e9ndez spared only \"the fifers, drummers, trumpeters, and four more who said that they were Catholics, in all sixteen persons: all the others had their throats cut,\" including Ribaut. One town had exterminated another town thirty miles away. The site is still known today as Matanzas (Massacre) Inlet. It was a small massacre, however, compared to the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August 1572, when the gates of Catholic Paris were closed and three days of killing of Huguenots began, followed by similar massacres in twelve other French cities that claimed an unknown number of thousands of victims.\n\nWith the Huguenots of Florida annihilated, the Spanish Fleet of the Indies continued its annual treasure runs from Havana through the Straits of Florida. To Christianize the natives, Men\u00e9ndez established a mission system that was the first interconnected circuit of European settlements in North America. He established firm military control over the region, sending a detachment up north to build a fort where the Charlesfort community had been, calling it Santa Elena (St. Helena in English). One of his captains, Juan Pardo, built Fort San Juan in western North Carolina, near present-day Morganton, the ruins of which were unearthed by archaeologists in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The area north of St. Augustine would remain a zone of conflict between Protestant and Catholic states for almost two centuries more.\n\nHawkins made his third and final slave-trading voyage in 1567, taking between four and five hundred captives, but Spain mounted effective resistance, and his expedition lost money. The English did not immediately continue the slave trade, but John Hawkins had started them in it.\n\nBy this time, Spain had purchased tens of thousands of Africans from Portuguese slavers to work in its silver and gold mines in Mexico and Per\u00fa. It was becoming clear how vulnerable the Spanish American possessions were to slave rebellion, given how badly outnumbered the whites were, and how vulnerable they were to attack from free black people whose arrival in the hemisphere predated that of the English. With the help of numerous maroons, as well as Huguenot privateers, Hawkins's nephew Francis Drake captured a fortune in gold\u2014he had to leave the silver behind for lack of vessels to carry it\u2014when he attacked one leg of the Spanish treasure fleet at Nombre de Dios, Panam\u00e1, in 1573.\n\nEngland's Queen Elizabeth knew well the traps that awaited women in royal marriage. She was the ex-sister-in-law of Spain's Felipe II, from his marriage to her half sister Mary Tudor. Her father, Henry VIII, had beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn. For her refusal to subordinate herself, she became known as the Virgin (meaning unmarried) Queen.\n\nAccording to the writer remembered as John Taylor the Water-Poet, John Hawkins was the first person to bring tobacco to England, but it was popularized by Elizabeth's favorite, Sir Walter Raleigh. An Englishman who owned extensive tracts of land in Ireland, Raleigh was the fashionable figure who popularized \"tobacco-drinking,\" as it was called at first, puffing away on his long-stemmed silver pipe even in the presence of the snuff-dipping queen. When the Virgin Queen awarded Raleigh a charter in 1584 to a broadly defined area of North America, he named it Virginia in her honor.\n\nUnlike the Spanish colonies, which were developed as state projects and were often named for saints, Virginia was a commercial enterprise from the start, and its first colony, Roanoke, was named for money. _Rawrenock_ , as Captain John Smith spelled it, was the medium of exchange used by the Pamunkey people who lived there: \"white beads that occasion as much dissention among the salvages, as gold and silver amongst Christians,\" Captain Smith wrote. The settlement was founded in 1585 on an uninhabited island off the coast of present-day North Carolina that gave signs of having previously been the site of a massacre.\n\nVirginia was a challenge to Spain's hegemony in the Americas. Pushed by a \"war party\" among her advisers\u2014advocates of North American colonization who were locked out of commerce in the Americas by the Spanish monopoly\u2014Elizabeth authorized Francis Drake to conduct a 1585\u201386 raiding expedition to the West Indies. To accomplish his mission, Drake outfitted a large fleet of some twenty-five sailing ships and at least eight pinnaces (smaller oar-and-sail combos, used for boarding and reconnaissance). He press-ganged some of his crew, but captains were eager to serve under England's great sailor, warrior, profiteer, and anti-papist.\n\nShortly after setting out, a fever killed hundreds of Drake's men, but his surviving force sacked towns on the Cape Verde islands. Then, according to one sailor's account, on New Year's Day 1586 he landed a thousand men some \"9 or 10 miles distant from the Towne of Saint Domingo, the same day our men (by Gods helpe) tooke and spoyled the Towne.\" To dramatize their ransom demand, the English burned between half and two-thirds of Santo Domingo, starting with the poorest parts of town. They hanged two friars, took everything of value, and remained there a month before pushing on to Cartagena de las Indias in Nueva Granada (today Colombia), which they likewise \"spoyled,\" tormenting the Cartagenans for six weeks before moving on.\n\nIn both Santo Domingo and Cartagena, they burned Spanish galleys; a Mediterranean naval artifact out of place in the Caribbean, the ships were slower-moving and clumsier than Drake's vessels. They freed hundreds of galley slaves, some of whom joined Drake's forces\u2014a motley crew that included Africans, Turks, Frenchmen, and Greeks. Coming up the Gulf Stream along the coast of Florida, Drake spotted the watchtower of San Agust\u00edn, established twenty-one years before, and paused to allow his two thousand or so men to sack and burn the town.\n\nProceeding north, Drake's final stop on his American tour was the queen's colony of Roanoke. But when he arrived there, the colony was failing. He carried 105 dejected colonists home to England, so when Admiral Richard Grenville arrived with a supply ship shortly after, he found the colony abandoned. Leaving behind fifteen men, Grenville returned to England. When a second attempt at colonization with 150 colonists arrived in 1587, they found the colony abandoned yet again.\n\nDrake's campaign was not a profitable expedition for its joint-stock investors but it was costlier still for Spain, systematically dismantling as it did Spain's defenses and ports. After his assault, \"every sail upon the horizon conjured up the memory of Drake\" for the Spanish in their system of fortresses that they called _llaves_ (keys). It was the beginning of eighteen years of war between the two countries, during which England was allied with the Dutch.\n\nBent on retaliation for Drake's depredations, the Invincible Armada of Spain sailed for England in 1588, but it went down to humiliating defeat. First there was a devastating storm that was widely seen in England as God's intervention against popery and the Irish, then a battle in which England's use of signaling beacons, constructed at strategic points along the coast, revolutionized naval communications. The defeat of the armada marked the ascension of England to the status of world power and brought a knighthood for John Hawkins. An innovative shipwright, he was effectively the founder of the English navy, which grew out of picking at Spain piecemeal.\n\nOne casualty of the Anglo-Spanish war was the Roanoke settlement: no supplies could be shipped to the colonists. By the time a ship arrived in 1590, three years after the previous supplies had landed, they had disappeared once again. There has been much speculation over the centuries about the fate of the mysterious \"lost colony,\" but the simplest explanation is that they were killed by the Pamunkeys under Chief Powhatan, whose territory they were invading; according to Samuel Purchas, Powhatan \"confessed\" to Captain John Smith \"that he had bin at the murther of that Colonie.\"\n\nVirginia had failed on its first try.\n\nIn the wake of Drake, Spain began building up its American fortifications to withstand future assaults. But in defending its positions on the mainland and the \"vital artery of the treasure route,\" writes Kenneth R. Andrews, most significantly meaning Havana as well as Lima, Portobelo, Cartagena, and Veracruz, \"this inevitably meant that eastern Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles, though by no means abandoned, were more and more exposed to all forms of infiltration and attack.\" Men\u00e9ndez launched a newly formalized Spanish treasure fleet in 1566; that same year the Protestant Dutch, who had been under occupation by the Hapsburgs since 1482, launched a war for independence from Spain that dragged on in one form or another for some eighty years.\n\nSpain claimed a monopoly on commerce and shipping in the Americas, but its fortress colonies were increasingly being visited by freelance merchant-warriors from other nations, who often acquired their goods by piracy and wanted in on the mercantile action, drilling into the Spanish monopoly like so many termites. The Dutch, who with their shipping industry were creating the world's most dynamic economy in the Netherlands, made a grand business of attacking Spanish shipping. As the Anglo-Spanish war heated up, English privateers hammered at Spanish merchants and treasure ships, with profits accruing to the underwriters, who were often London merchants.\n\nDrake and Hawkins made the mistake in 1595 of attacking the early version of San Juan's formidable, well-defended Morro Castle, whose gunners and cannoneers had every possible angle of fire. The two despoilers of cities died in the aftermath of the assault, apparently of dysentery.\n\nElizabeth unified church and state under her sovereignty, formalizing the existence of the Church of England (or Anglican, or Episcopal church), which Henry VIII had broken out from the Catholic Church in 1534. The Anglican church retained much from Catholicism, but without the pope, without saints, and without the veneration of the Virgin Mary. The Lutherans and Calvinists thought the Anglicans corrupt, and the Catholics thought them heretical. While Elizabeth prioritized the avoidance of religious civil war in England, she brutally completed the conquest of Catholic Ireland that Henry had left unfinished, in a campaign that saw Spain side with its Irish co-religionists against England.\n\nElizabeth became alarmed by a small but increasing number of black people visible on London streets, and she ordered them deported in 1601, decrying the \"great numbers of Negars and Blackamoors\" in her kingdom and characterizing them as \"Infidels.\" She did not succeed in removing them, but she did establish a precedent in England for separating black people from others.\n\nElizabeth died\u2014unmarried, as per her vow, and without issue\u2014in 1603 after a forty-four-year reign. She took no part in choosing her successor, but advisor Sir Robert Cecil had negotiated a succession pact in favor of her second cousin, James Stuart, who had been crowned James VI, King of Scotland at the age of thirteen months. James had been raised as an Anglican; his Catholic mother, the conspiratorial Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, had been beheaded on Elizabeth's reluctant orders in 1567 after eighteen years of imprisonment, in a botched execution that required three ax strokes to completely sever her head. James was considered a foreigner by the English, but no matter: at the age of thirty-seven he succeeded Elizabeth as King James I of England.\n\nElizabeth bequeathed James a much more powerful country than the one Henry VIII had left her. Elizabethan England had beaten Spain, finished the subjugation of Ireland, and\u2014not the least of its achievements\u2014stabilized the pound sterling. The House of Stuart, however, proved to be, as one historian succinctly put it, \"Europe's most hapless dynasty.\" Unifying the English and Scottish crowns, James was the first of a line of Stuart monarchs who would enrage Parliament.\n\nDespite the black people of London having been singled out as a distinct and undesirable class by Elizabeth, their presence was changing notions of style in the city. A fashionable white fascination for blackness was particularly visible in the worlds of art and music, as on Twelfth Night, January 6, 1605, when James's court attended _The Masque of Blackness_ , written by Ben Jonson at the request of James's wife, Queen Consort Anne of Denmark. \"It was her majesty's will to have them blackmoors at first,\" wrote Jonson by way of introduction; the ladies of the court who performed in the cast were dressed in high style\u2014which was the point of the exercise\u2014as Africans, with their faces blacked.\n\n*In Spanish the self-emancipated were called _cimarrones_ , a word deriving from the Ta\u00edno language that became _marron_ in French and _maroon_ in English.\n\n*Which group Ribaut encountered is unknown.\n\n*The daughter of Henry VIII, she acquired the nickname \"Bloody Mary\" by burning 283 Protestants at the stake in 1555 during the revolt that followed her marriage to Felipe; Felipe effectively left the marriage in 1556 when he assumed the throne of Spain, leaving Mary without an heir and thus halting her project of re-Catholicizing England.\n\n#   8\n\n# **A Cargo of Shining Dirt**\n\nSeagull, a sea captain. _Come, boys, Virginia longs till we share the rest of her maidenhead._\n\nSpendall, adventurer bound for Virginia. _Why, is she inhabited already with any English?_\n\nSea. _A whole country of English is there, man... the Indians are so in love with 'em that all the treasure they have they lay at their feet._\n\nScape. _But is there such treasure there, Captain, as I have heard?_\n\nSea. _I tell thee, gold is more plentiful there than copper is with us; and for as much red copper as I can bring, I'll have thrice the weight in gold. Why, man, all their dripping-pans and their chamber pots are pure gold; and all their chains with which they chain up their streets are massy gold; all the prisoners they take are fetter'd in gold; and, for rubies and diamonds, they go forth on holidays and gather 'em by the seashore, to hang on their children's coats, and stick in their caps, as commonly as our children wear saffron gilt brooches and groats with holes in 'em._\n\nScape. _And is it a pleasant country withal?_\n\nSea. _As ever the sun shin'd on; temperate, and full of all sorts of excellent viands: wild boar is as common there as our tamest bacon is here; venison, as mutton. And then you shall live freely there, without sergeants, or courtiers, or lawyers, or intelligencers.... You may be an alderman there, and never be a scavenger; you may be a nobleman, and_ never be a slave.\n\n\u2014from _Eastward Hoe_ (1605), a comedy by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, who were briefly imprisoned for their impudence (emphasis added)\n\nANYONE WHO GREW up in the southern United States knows that Jesus spoke seventeenth-century English.\n\nThat's because the King James Bible is the Word of God, at least as far as the English language goes. More or less concurrently with William Shakespeare, and together with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, it effectively codified written English.*\n\nHaving a vernacular Bible was a matter of some urgency to King James. A connoisseur of theological argument and a self-proclaimed expert on witches, he believed that by the divine right of kings he was sitting on Jesus's throne on earth. He was, in short, blessed with no less beatific a vision of his own grandeur than the Spanish monarchs he hated. The English-language Bible he commissioned on behalf of the Church of England was begun in 1604, the first year of his reign as king of England, and was completed in 1611.\n\nReligion was politics in the post-Lutheran world, and commissioning this new Anglican Bible was a political act. An extremist group that enjoyed increasing power in Parliament, called \"Puritans\" by their enemies, aggressively opposed the monarch. In _Basilikon Doron_ , a how-to-be-a-king book that James wrote for his toddler son, Henry, subsequently published in Edinburgh (1599) and then in London, we read: \"as to the name of Puritanes,... they thinke themselves onely pure, and in a maner without sinne, the onely true Church, and onely worthy to be participant of the Sacraments, and all the rest of the world to be but abomination in the sight of God.\"\n\nAs the Bible was being translated, James chartered the joint-stock Virginia Company, whose first corporate settlement was, predictably, to be named Jamestown. No Puritans would be welcome there. Jamestown signified the exportation to America of the Church of England. Clergymen who wanted to come to Virginia had to audition, giving a trial sermon for the Virginia Company. If successful, their reward would be a terrifying weeks- or months-long voyage that might carry them to death from some combination of massacre, starvation, or any of a number of diseases.\n\nAs land-granted through latitude descriptions by King James to the venture capitalists of the Virginia Company on April 10, 1606, the Virginia territory comprised about 80 percent of the present continental United States. It extended all the way west across the unexplored continent, a distance seventeenth-century Englishmen did not comprehend. The directors of the company thought Virginia was an island and that on the other side of the mountains would be the ocean, which would provide the fabled passage to the riches of the Orient.\n\nBy the time the English in Virginia began privatizing land previously used as a commons, or \"enclosing\" it, they had had plenty of experience doing it at home. The planting of the Jamestown colony took place as political radicalism was growing in England in response to the mass dispossession of the people of the commons\u2014the \"commoners\"\u2014by enclosure.\n\nThe year Jamestown was founded, 1607, was the year of anti-enclosure riots in the English Midlands, erupting out of Northamptonshire. The rioters erased the boundaries of enclosure, filling in ditches and tearing down hedges, for which action they began to be called \"levellers.\" The social implication of the name was obvious; though they were not a forward-looking movement, the tendency the levellers represented, toward erasing social and financial distinctions in society, using violence if necessary, anticipated Marx's idea of communism by over two hundred years. The rioters were repressed on James's orders; dozens were killed, some by slow-death torture.\n\nAs the dispossessed, masterless people arrived in the cities, that liveliest and most squalid of slums was created: greater London. A huge city of two hundred thousand in 1600, when England's population was four million, it teemed with idle poor, far more than were needed as weavers by England's woolens industry, for whom the prospect of seven years' servitude in the New World could seem a rescue from freezing and starving.\n\nFor the English capital class, the colonies were a handy way to deal with a social problem by shipping it elsewhere. Besides finding gold and producing luxury goods, another of the intended functions of the foreign plantations was to draw down the excess laboring population that had become a drag on English society. Class tension, occasionally flaring into armed conflict, was a permanent fixture of English political life and was exported to Virginia with the first generation, along with a tradition of taverns.\n\nMeanwhile, another colonization scheme was occupying King James: the Ulster plantations in Northern Ireland. These were not \"plantations\" in the later sense of large staple-producing farms; this prior sense of the word meant (quoting the Oxford English Dictionary): \"the settling of people, usually in a conquered or dominated country; _esp._ the planting or establishing of a colony.\" Before colonies could be planted with crops, they had to be planted with people, who were called \"planters\" simply for being there.\n\nFor feudal Scotland, where land ownership was even more concentrated than that of England, northern Ireland was an escape valve. With the aim of securing the sparsely populated northern part of Ireland as a zone of British loyalty, it was Protestantized with planters. Vast tracts of confiscated land in the Ulster region were given to English (mostly Anglicans) and to Scots (mostly Presbyterian) who were being rewarded en masse by their countryman King James for their loyalty, or at least for their general political affiliation with him.\n\nThe thick woods of Ulster had to be cleared. Land was given to those bringing English and Scotch laborers, who had to be certified as Protestant. There was a racial mythology to go with this, one that cast the Scots as superior to the Celtic Irish.\n\nBy the time the English arrived in what they called Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay watershed had been populated for some eleven thousand years. An enormous estuary that connects North America's most complex river system to the Atlantic Ocean, it was created by global warming some twelve thousand years ago, when rising temperatures melted the last ice sheet and flooded the meteoric basin that had been an ancient riverbed.\n\nAbout 180 entirely navigable miles long from south to north, and about 30 miles across at its widest point, the Chesapeake is fed by nineteen principal rivers, all of them navigable, and by four hundred or so lesser creeks and streams, many of them navigable. The big rivers are on its western shore, carrying the force of continental drainage. Though the English didn't know it yet, this huge riverine system offered unrivaled possibilities as a transportation\u2014which meant, a communications\u2014network. The superstructure erected atop it became a global capital of power and influence: in the twentieth century, the world's most powerful military command center, the Pentagon, was built on a lagoon of the Potomac River, seventeen miles below the fall line, using sand dredged from the river.\n\nThe Spanish never occupied the Chesapeake. Since it was north of the Gulf Stream's bend away from the continent, it was safely out of the range of Spanish security concerns. But they went there as explorers, spreading diseases that killed natives who had never had face-to-face contact with Europeans.\n\nFrom that contact with the Spanish, the Pamunkey knew something of European culture, religion, and politics years before the English began referring to Pamunkey territory as Virginia. The seven-year-old son of a Pamunkey _werowance_ , or chieftain, had traveled with Spanish explorers to Mexico and on to Madrid, where he received a Jesuit education. Baptized as Don Lu\u00eds de Velasco, the young man returned in 1571 after ten years away, arriving via Havana with nine Spanish Jesuits who hoped to plant a colony. The Indians killed the Jesuits, apparently with Velasco's help.\n\nThe Pamunkey had long been at war with other natives of the region, and they may well have seen the English newcomers as one more variable in a complex scenario\u2014one more ally or one more enemy, and not necessarily always one or the other. But neither the Pamunkey nor the Virginia Company could have foreseen that they were the first point of encounter in a continent-wide war of enclosure.\n\nCaptain John Smith\u2014the rank referred to his onetime position in the Transylvanian army\u2014was the best negotiator with the indigenous people that Virginia ever had, and as such he was a key figure in the survival of the Jamestown colony. A bona fide war hero, he had fought against the Spanish both for the French and the Dutch, continued on to the Mediterranean, then went to the Balkans where he fought the Ottoman Turks. His coat of arms had three turbaned heads on it, representing the Turkish champions he had slain and ritually decapitated in three tournaments of mortal combat fought in lieu of confrontation between armies.\n\nSmith was an escaped former slave\u2014a white man who had worn an iron collar around his neck. Captured and enslaved by the Tatars, he ultimately escaped and was decorated, commissioned, and given a sinecure by Transylvanian prince Sigismund B\u00e1thory. Leaving his comfortable position at B\u00e1thory's court he returned to England, and then, at the age of twenty-seven, arrived at Jamestown with the first colonists on board the _Susan Constant._ He thereafter not only devoted himself to the mission of colonization but also became an outspoken advocate of the laboring colonist, to the point of being accused of being a leveller.\n\nThe colonists needed an advocate. From the beginning of the Virginia colony through the Boston Tea Party 166 years later, English policy-makers demonstrated over and over again an utter incomprehension of American realities. The tension between colony and metropolis that was to characterize Anglo-American relations was present from the first generation in Virginia, in the form of resistance to corporate governance. Not following foolish instructions was essential for survival, such as when the company sent to Virginia a disassembled ship. The colonists were to carry the five ship parts over the Blue Ridge Mountains, assemble them, and sail on into the ocean.\n\nReturning to England in October 1609 following a gunpowder explosion that apparently damaged his manly organs, Smith became a writer, and a good one at that. It was Smith who named New England and first described it, in 1610. His various books and pamphlets are full of firsthand historical information; he was one of the first autobiographers in England. In his masterwork, a classic of early hemispheric literature titled _Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles_ (1624), Smith described the Chesapeake region as \"a country that may have the prerogative over the most places knowne for large and pleasant navigable rivers, heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation.... Here are mountaines, hils, plaines, valleyes, rivers, and brookes, all running more pleasantly into a faire bay, compassed but for the mouth, with fruitful and delightsome land.\"\n\nSmith was an autodidact cartographer. His maps did much to get Englishmen interested in North America; the _Mayflower_ Pilgrims who established the Plymouth colony relied on Smith's map when they crossed the Atlantic in 1620. An early example of Virginia branding, his map of the area labeled the region of the Atlantic Ocean outside the Chesapeake as the \"Virginian Sea.\" The colonists briefly tried calling their grand estuary Virginia Bay, but the name Chesapeake was already established, deriving from the Algonquian _chesapioc_ , \"village at big river,\" which implies the rivers' communicative function.\n\nAs with the Cuban hardwoods that built ships in Havana for the royal silver fleet of timberless Spain, the availability of Chesapeake lumber facilitated shipbuilding. Not only were there extensive stands of timber, they were located next to water\u2014which was necessary to make the lumber useful, since there was no practical way to haul it over land. The first members of the Shipwright's Guild arrived in Virginia in 1610, three years after the establishment of Jamestown. Over the next two centuries, the region became known for its innovative vessel design. A number of specialized craft were designed for the conditions of the shallow Chesapeake, which has an average depth of twenty-one feet but can be six feet or less. The number of vessels documented as sunk there over time exceeds three thousand, an indication of how much activity there was constantly on this vast aquatic highway system.\n\nWith so many rivers and streams, the Chesapeake abounded in rich alluvial deposits that were ideal for farming. Food could be fished, trapped, hunted, foraged, cultivated, or traded along the river system. The region was hospitable to horses and dairy animals. The Chesapeake ranges between freshwater and salty, so it supports both kinds of marine life in complex interlocking lifecycles. Crabs and oysters, the latter growing on giant underwater \"bars,\" could be harvested in quantities. There were terrapins, which in the nineteenth century would supply the kitchens of grand hotels in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities. There were so many waterfowl that in the early twentieth century commercial hunters illegally mass-harvested them using Gatling guns, bringing down dozens with a single volley.\n\nJamestown, however, was terribly situated. Colonist Thomas Gates described it as being\n\nin somewhat an unwholesome and sickly air, by reason it is in a marish ground, low, flat to the river, and hath no fresh-water springs serving the town but what we drew from a well six or seven fathom deep fed by the brackish river oozing into it; from whence I verily believe the chief causes have proceeded of many diseases and sicknesses which have happened to our people, who are indeed strangely afflicted with fluxes and agues.\n\nNo one knew what crops might grow or how to grow them. The colony was expected to provide England not only with gold and silver, but also with wine, olives, oranges, and almonds. These fancy foods grew in the Mediterranean on the same latitudes as Virginia, so the plan was to supply England with them from America. Unfortunately, the planners neglected to factor in America's colder climate. Moreover, since England wanted agricultural products that did not grow at home, the English had no knowledge of how to cultivate them. A period of desperate experimentation began to find a staple crop for the colony, involving repeated experiments with King James's personal hobbyhorse, silkworms. While Virginia did ultimately produce some silk, in the main the colony seemed destined to produce nothing finer than masts, pitch, tar, turpentine, hemp, flax, woad (a blue dye, later replaced by indigo), and madder (a red dye).\n\nThe Indians fed themselves easily, but the Jamestown colonists were frequently at the brink, and sometimes over the line, of starvation. Once they were disembarked into the deadly wilderness, the Virginia Company's \"planters\" attempted to replicate the bureaucratic and social structure of England. Idle, wealthy aristocrats kept tables for the colony's too-numerous gentlemen of fashion, attended by footmen who were themselves strangers to labor; meanwhile, others starved. There was a jeweler and a perfumer, but only one competent carpenter. During an investigation in 1623, Smith recalled that the company was at fault for \"maintaining one hundred men [servants and guards] for Governour, one hundred for two Deputies, fifty for the Treasurer, five and twenty for the Secretary, and more for the Marshall and other Officers who were never there nor adventured any thing, but onely preferred by favour to be Lords over them that broke the ice and beat the path, and must teach them what to doe.\"\n\nAfter Smith left Virginia, Jamestown hit its low point: the \"starving time\" of the winter of 1609\u201310 under the fatally inept administration of Smith's enemy, John Ratcliffe. Smith had managed to trade with the Indians, but after he left, Powhatan seems to have deliberately starved the colony, and settlers resorted to cannibalism as the population dwindled to sixty. Refugees who returned to England on board the _Swallow_ in 1610 brought tales that all London heard, though the Virginia Company denied them. The horrific stories were substantially true; a recent archaeological discovery indicates that a fourteen-year-old girl who died was subsequently butchered and eaten by other colonists.\n\nThe capitalistically named _Sea Venture_ , a vessel bringing colonists to Jamestown, was shipwrecked on the Bermuda archipelago, off the Florida coast, in 1609. The misadventure occasioned a ten-month island interlude for the colonists; some found it pleasant, spurning rescue to remain there. A publication about the experience, titled _A True Reportory of the Wracke, and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon, and from the Islands of the Bermudas_ , which begins with the words \"A most dreadful tempest,\" appears to have been one of the inspirations for Shakespeare's _The Tempest_ , performed in the presence of King James on November 1, 1611, and repeated the following winter.\n\nAmong the castaways rescued from Bermuda who went on to Virginia, arriving in the aftermath of the starving winter, was the young farmer John Rolfe, born in Norfolk, England, in 1585. Rolfe's experience on Bermuda had been cruel; he left buried there an infant daughter named Bermuda; his wife also apparently died, though her death is not noted in the historical record.\n\nRolfe was an \"ardent\" smoker who seems to have come to Virginia with the intention of trying tobacco cultivation. That wasn't in the Virginia Company's playbook. It certainly wasn't what King James wanted.\n\n*The King James Bible drew heavily on the vocabulary of William Tyndale's translation, which was published in the early days of Lutheranism, the 1520s and '30s. Tyndale was burned as a heretic in 1536. See Tombs, 196\u20139.\n\n#   9\n\n# **Our Principall Wealth**\n\n_A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse._\n\n\u2014King James I on smoking, _A Counterblaste to Tobacco_ (1604)\n\nCHEW IT, SNORT IT, smoke it\u2014any way you use it, tobacco gets you high.\n\nNative Americans used it for ceremonial and medicinal purposes, but now an increasing number of Englishmen and women wanted regular doses of this addictive drug, imported or smuggled in from Spanish territories and sold in small quantities for a high price.\n\nLondoners began getting hooked on what they called sot-weed, for the way it intoxicated the smoker. So much money was spent on it that the balance of trade between Spain and England was affected. Spain guarded its tobacco monopoly jealously, but John Rolfe obtained the seed of a strain that grew in the Spanish colonies of Venezuela and Trinidad. It was industrial theft: Rolfe convinced a sea captain, who would have been hung by the Spanish had he been discovered, to smuggle the tiny seeds to him from Trinidad. Once Rolfe was himself planted in Virginia, he began raising his crop, naming his plantation Varina after the tobacco strain; it is still a working farm in Virginia today.\n\n_Indian tobacco pipe from Virginia. From Fairholt._\n\nWith Rolfe's first successful crop of tobacco in 1612, Virginia found its staple. Instead of providing delicacies for England's wealthy with olive groves and vineyards, the Virginians began supplying cheap, strong-smelling, habit-forming weed to the plebes. The tobacco the Virginians grew was universally accounted inferior to the leaf of Hispaniola, Cuba, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, or Venezuela, but it cost less.\n\nColonists quickly went over to cultivating the leaf. Tobacco required land and labor but not a fortune to get started, and it remained the most important American cash crop throughout the colonial years. The market was at first modest, but it swelled. Virginia's production reached thirty million pounds by the end of the seventeenth century, and one hundred million pounds fifty years later.\n\nIts widespread availability created a mass consumer culture in England. People were willing to work to have the money to buy tobacco, although, as the anti-tobacco King James ruefully (and correctly) noted, many a man had been known to \"smoke himselfe to death with it.\" James hated tobacco no less than he hated Raleigh, whom he ordered beheaded in 1618. Meanwhile, the English consumers' new nicotine habit sustained the colonial economy that brought it to them.\n\n_Rotterdam 1623: expelling smoke through the nose was the fashionable way to smoke. From Fairholt._\n\nWhen the new \"partners\" of the Virginia Company arrived in America, they found to their dismay that they were conscripts, coerced into gang labor under martial law. Everything they produced was to belong to the company, so they had no incentive to work.\n\nHalf or more of them died shortly after arrival. As word got out that Virginia was a death trap, agents, popularly known as \"spirits,\" went combing the streets for potential indentured servants for the colony\u2014a process that included abducting children, bringing the phrase _spirited away_ into popular usage, as well as the word _kidnap_. Some two hundred boys were taken from London in 1618, while groups of young women were dispatched in 1619 to provide wives for colonists; company officials were instructed to see that the women were not married against their will.\n\nMany of the desperately poor who went to Virginia were urbanites from London or Bristol, England's second city. There were indentured servants in England, but their term was a year and they received a wage. In Virginia, the term was between four and seven years, and the wages were paid up front in the form of a ticket for a transatlantic crossing.\n\nThe conditions of those crossings were described in a 1623 letter from Virginia that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, provides the first known instance of the much older word _funke_ as meaning \"a strong smell or stink\": \"Betwixt decks there can hardlie a man fetch his breath by reason there ariseth such a funke in the night that it causes putrefaction of bloud.\" This was not a description of a slave ship; they smelled even worse.\n\nRealizing that there was little reason to come to Virginia and little incentive beyond mere survival to work hard once arrived, Virginia governor Thomas Dale threw open the door to private land acquisition in 1616, hoping to stimulate growth. He offered a good deal: the \"old planters\" who were already there got a hundred acres each, along with another hundred acres if they were company shareholders. Newcomers got fifty acres.\n\nThe colony had begun as a commons under military discipline, but by changing its regime to one in which individual colonists could become landowners, Dale created a real estate market, which in turn quickly became a land grab. But the land was worthless without labor. It now fell to individual entrepreneurs, not the Virginia Company, to address the labor problem in Virginia, and by 1617 the company was allowing semi-independent plantations, called \"hundreds,\" which transported their own labor.\n\nIndentures were probably under way in Virginia by 1617, but the first extant contract of indenture that has come down to us, issued by the Virginia partnership called the Berkeley Hundred, is dated September 17, 1619. That year, the colony's secretary John Pory wrote to London: \"All our riches for the present doe consiste in Tobacco, wherein one man by his owne labour hath in one yeare raised to himselfe to the value of 200\u00a3 sterling; and another by the meanes of sixe servants hath cleared at one crop a thousand pounds English.\"\n\nThen, as if thinking it through as he was writing, Pory corrected himself in the same paragraph:\n\n\"Our principall wealth (I should have said) consisteth in servants.\"\n\nWorkers were already capital assets.\n\nPlanters rarely imported specific indentured servants. Upon arrival, the survivors of the voyage were displayed in a market and\u2014they used the word\u2014\"sold.\" John Harrower, the Scottish indentured servant who left a journal of his tragically short life in Virginia, recalled the scene on May 16, 1774, still aboard the ship that brought him to Fredericksburg, Virginia; interestingly, he used the term \"soul driver,\" more commonly associated with the slave trade:\n\nThis day severalls came on board to purchase servts. Indentures and among them there was two Soul drivers. They are men who make it their bussines to go on board all ships who have in either Servants or Convicts and buy sometimes the whole and sometimes a parcell of them as they can agree, and then they drive them through the Country like a parcell of Sheep untill they can sell them to advantage.\n\nThis manner of labor distribution uncomfortably reminded some of the slave markets of the Muslim world, which those with military backgrounds might possibly have encountered (or, as in the case of Captain John Smith, been sold in).\n\nPlanters had a sweet deal, known as the \"headright\" system: they were given fifty acres of land for every indentured servant whose passage they paid\u2014so they not only got the benefit of several years of wageless labor, but also received the land to do it on. This facilitated the acquisition of large tracts of land by those with even modest amounts of capital. Headrights could be sold; by the 1650s, they were being traded for as little as forty or fifty pounds of tobacco. A real estate market had been created out of enclosed Virginia land, with any claims of sovereignty by Native Americans instantly discarded.\n\nThe urban poor who came as laborers were unskilled and unaccustomed to agricultural work. The descendants of multiple malnourished generations, they were not physically strong enough for the backbreaking task of clearing what George Washington would call \"this wooden Country,\" and their mortality rates after arrival were dreadful. They were, however, sufficient to amass large landholdings from headrights for those with the capital to sponsor them as land speculation began.\n\nJohn Rolfe is most remembered in popular history not for his pioneering of Virginia's great staple crop but for having married Pocahontas, a daughter of the Pamunkey chief Powhatan.\n\nPocahontas had learned English after being kidnapped by the Jamestown settlers in 1613, during which time she was Christianized and renamed Rebecca. As a prosperous tobacco farmer, Rolfe traveled to London in 1618 together with Rebecca\/Pocahontas and their infant son, Thomas, but she fell ill and died while preparing to return to Virginia. Fearing his son would not survive the voyage, Rolfe reluctantly left him in England and returned to America.\n\nBack in Virginia, Rolfe documented, rather off-handedly, the first known sale of African slaves in Anglo-America, from a passing Dutch vessel. One day \"about the latter end of August\" in 1619, as Rolfe described it in his historic letter of January 1620 (modern calendar) to Sir Edwin Sandys of the Virginia Company:\n\na Dutch man of Warr of the burden of a 160 tunnes arriued at Point-Comfort.... He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes, wch the Governor and Cape Marchant bought for victualls (whereof he was in greate need as he pretended) at the best and easyest rates they could.\n\nIt was a good deal for the purchasers, and, since the seller got some much-needed food, perhaps a good deal for the seller as well. But if it was a win-win for buyer and seller alike, it was at the expense of those who were bought and sold.\n\nHistorians ever since have wished Rolfe had provided more detail. These were not, as has sometimes been claimed, the first black people to come to Virginia; a census five months earlier counted thirty-two. Nor were they the first slaves whose sale was documented. Already in _The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles_ , John Smith had noted an inter-Indian slave trade of sorts, though it overlapped with the concept of marriage. Powhatan, Pocahontas's father, had sold a daughter of his, and Smith chided him for underpricing:\n\n[Powhatan said,] \"I have sold [my daughter] within this few days to a great Werowance, for two bushels of rawrenoke, three days journey from me.\"\n\nI replied... she was but twelve years old... he should have for her three times the worth of the rawrenoke in beads, copper, hatchets, &c.\n\nThe supremacy of Dutch maritime commerce was a mark of shame for the English. In a report submitted to King James, Sir Walter Raleigh had noted that the Dutch \"have a continual trade into this kingdom with five hundred or six hundred ships yearly with merchandize of other countries... and we trade not with fifty ships into their country in a year.\"\n\n\"The establishment of the American settlements,\" writes Philip A. Bruce, \"was the first step on the part of the English people towards a successful competition with the Dutch merchant marine.\" England was a heavy importer of raw materials from other European nations, for which it had to pay in scarce specie. Opening up North American colonies would make a whole array of products cheaply available to them: tar and pitch, salt and potash, iron and timber, hides and pelts.\n\nIt was not unusual for the Dutch to be nosing around the Chesapeake. In flagrant violation of England's rules, they carried Virginia and Maryland tobacco to their market in Amsterdam and gave better prices for peltry. The Dutch merchant fleet and credit services were far and away the world's most advanced. But as their commercial power grew globally, carrying goods was no longer enough for them, and they moved toward vertical integration.\n\nThe Dutch, who were not yet trading in slaves on an industrial scale, could not attack the Portuguese under the terms of their Twelve Years' Truce with Spain (1609\u20131621), because Portugal was under the Spanish crown between 1581 and 1640. But they occasionally sold slaves who had been taken as prizes from Portuguese slavers by English privateers. John Thornton argues that the \"20. and Odd Negroes\" were Kimbundu-speaking soldiers from Angola, captured during the large, formalized military campaigns of a war waged by the Portuguese against the kingdom of Ndongo. Historian Engel Sluiter provides evidence that they were nabbed by an English corsair in a raid on a Portuguese ship on its way to Veracruz. The raided cargo was then presumably swapped over for commercial liquidation to that \"Dutch man of warr\" (with an English \"Pilott\") that visited Jamestown in August 1619.\n\nIf so, the \"20. and Odd\" would have been Catholic, at least nominally. Some of them probably spoke some Portuguese.\n\n_Ruin of the Catholic church of S\u00e3o Salvador do Congo, known in Kikongo as_ kulu mbimbi, _\"strong place,\" built in 1491 at the royal seat of Mbanza-Kongo, in present-day northern Angola. July 2012._\n\nCentral Africa was Catholicized in 1491\u2014before Columbus crossed the Atlantic \u2014when the _manikongo_ (Kongo king) Nzinga a Nkuwu at his hilltop capital of Mbanza-Kongo converted\u2014not at sword's point, but enthusiastically and immediately upon the arrival of two missionaries. The _manikongo_ , who ruled the largest empire in Africa at the time,* accepted baptism and became King Jo\u00e3o I.\n\nJo\u00e3o seems to have grasped immediately the political uses of Catholicism. Converting his territory gave him a powerful new set of tools to establish his hegemony over the freelance priesthood of traditional Kongo religion, as well as allying him with powerful European patrons and giving him access to previously unknown manufactured goods, most especially including guns. Building churches throughout his vast kingdom, he established diplomatic relations with the Vatican.\n\nThe symbols and beliefs of Catholicism merged well with the symbols of traditional Bakongo religion, creating a syncretized version of Catholicism that was compatible with existing Kongo cosmology and continued ancient practices, which were arguably no more superstitious or magical than fifteenth-century Catholicism. The Bakongo already had a cross\u2014the _dikenga_ \u2014a cosmogram that signified the meeting in time of the land of the living with the land of the dead on the other side of the water. It was a midpoint cross, not a chest-high crucifix, but it was recognizable. The Bible that the priest revered was, to the Bakongo, clearly an _nkisi_ \u2014a power object.\n\nAs Central Africans became the most numerously slaved people of the African trade, the Kongo-Catholic syncretization\u2014a \"fully Africanized\" Christianity, in Thornton's words, which came into existence _before_ the Middle Passage\u2014was transported to all points of the Americas, serving as a fundamental backbone of African culture in the Americas. It took root easily in the Catholic territories established by Spain and Portugal, which would lead to enslaved Bakongo being suspected in the English colonies as potential allies of the Spanish.\n\nRolfe went on in his \"20. and odd\" letter to describe the colonists' fear of Spanish attack in the coming spring:\n\nwee have no place of strength to retreate unto, no shipping of certeynty (wch would be to us as the wodden walles of England) no sound and experienced souldyers to undertake, no Engineers and arthmen to erect works, few Ordenance, not a serviceable carriadge to mount them on; not Ammunycon of powlder, shott and leade, to fight 2. wholl dayes, no not one gunner belonging to the Plantaccon.\n\nBy that time, the Anglo-American tobacco economy in Virginia was well into a debt-driven boom, with interest typically at 6 percent per annum. With credit, people drank up the profits, then ordered another round. \"The first legislative assembly in Virginia in 1619 felt obliged to pass acts against excess in apparel and also against drunkenness,\" writes Edmund S. Morgan. \"The thirst of Virginians became notorious in England.... The ships that anchored in Virginia's great rivers every summer were, as one settler observed, moving taverns, whose masters, usually private traders, got the greater part of the tobacco that should have been enriching the colonists and the shareholders of the company.... There were sometimes as many as seventeen sail of ships to be seen at one time in the James River.\"\n\nThe colonists on occasion starved. Maybe it was self-destructive depression under the harsh conditions, or maybe the sheer ineptitude of their gentry-heavy colonial population. But you could also blame it on the weed: they were so determined to grow tobacco that they neglected to grow food. Colonists were officially required to cultivate a plot of corn, but many ignored the law and relied instead on the Native Americans to do the base labor of raising corn while they chased tobacco riches, but the natives didn't always want to sell their corn to the colonists, so sometimes the Virginians went and took it.\n\nThe income that in theory accrued to the Virginia Company was being systematically drained away by its shamelessly corrupt officials, who repressed dissent brutally as its investors lost money and colonists died of diseases, mysterious distempers, and violence. A massacre commanded by Pocahontas's uncle Opechancanough killed about a third of the colonists and kidnapped twenty women in more than thirty separate surprise attacks on March 22, 1622, with the aim of driving the English out. The ailing John Rolfe was a victim of the campaign: one of the raids destroyed his plantation, after which he died, though whether from violence or from illness is unknown.\n\nThat massacre, along with the concomitant destruction of productive facilities, was followed by yet another starving time. With fewer than a thousand colonists still alive, King James rescinded the Virginia Company's charter, reverting the colony to royal status\u2014a decision that earned James the vituperation of future Virginia historians. Edmund S. Morgan, in his landmark history of slavery in Virginia, responded: \"Because the Stuart kings became symbols of arbitrary government and because Sir Edwin Sandys [one of the proprietors of the Virginia company] was a champion of Parliamentary power and was even accused at the time of being a republican, historians for long interpreted the dissolution of the Virginia Company as a blow dealt to democracy by tyranny. Modern scholarship has altered the verdict and shown that any responsible monarch would have been obliged to stop the reckless shipment of his subjects to their deaths.\"\n\nColonial development in Virginia was going to be a long-term investment, far longer than the timetables of profit could hold out for. By the time the rescission of the Virginia Company's charter became final in 1624, investors in the company had lost \u00a3200,000 and more than three-fourths of the six thousand or so people who had emigrated since 1607 were dead.\n\nAnd by the following year, so was King James. But not before he empowered an enemy of Virginia.\n\nIn his capacity as King James's secretary, George Calvert was the monarch's man in Parliament to defend the proposed \"Spanish match,\" the never-achieved royal marriage of James's second son, Charles, to Hapsburg princess Maria Ana, daughter of Felipe III. The idea that Charles might take a Spanish-Austrian Catholic bride horrified the Puritans in Parliament. King James's older son, Henry, known for his upright Protestant morality, had been the great popular hope of the Puritans, but he died in 1612 at the age of eighteen, leaving younger brother Charles in line for the throne.\n\nIn the end the Spanish princess would not marry a Protestant, and though Charles traveled to Spain to court her, he would not convert to Catholicism, so the marriage never came to pass. But the fallout from the affair led to a deterioration of relations between England and Spain, followed by war. It also left Calvert on the outs politically. He resigned his position and came out of the closet as a Catholic. James rewarded Calvert for his services, and got him out of the way, by awarding him a barony in northern Ireland and a title in the Irish peerage: Lord Baron of Baltimore.\n\nThen Charles, the future king of England, scandalized the Puritans by marrying a French Catholic Bourbon princess, Henrietta Maria de Medici. That's Maria as in the Virgin Mary, and also as in the territory that was named for the new queen consort: Maryland.\n\n*Reaching from present-day Gabon to present-day Zambia.\n\n#   10\n\n# **Maria's Land**\n\n_Does my hair trouble you? 1_\n\n\u2014King Charles I to his executioner, January 30, 1649\n\nIN HER MARRIAGE CONTRACT, the fifteen-year-old Queen Consort Henrietta Maria was guaranteed the full practice of her Roman Catholic religion, which enraged the Puritans.\n\nBorn in 1609, nine years after her father King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes provided civil guarantees for French Protestants, Henrietta Maria came from France to England with a mission of spearheading Catholic power by means of strategic marriage. She had learned the art of queening at the knee of her mother, Marie de Medici, who commissioned a series of twenty-six allegorical paintings depicting her life from the prolific Peter Paul Rubens.\n\nShe brought with her from France eleven liveried musicians and three singing boys, who performed sacred music composed for her. The English crown was considerably less affluent than the French, and Henrietta Maria's retinue was smaller than the Bourbons were accustomed to in France, but it was large enough that her household staff included a \"keeper of the parrots\" and two dwarves, Jeffrey and Sarah, both of whom had servants. \"Pet\" dwarves were common figures in royal courts, but in the case of Charles and Henrietta Maria, they had the function of making the monarchs look bigger: Charles was five foot four, and Henrietta Maria was so short she only came up to his shoulder.\n\nEngland began its slide to civil war in 1629 when Parliament, with strong Puritan representation, refused to convene. For the Puritans, having a Catholic queen was a dreadful infamy; they saw Charles as soft on popish Spain. By that time, England's monarch had deferred to Parliament for over three hundred years, but now Charles attempted to run England without Parliament, a standoff that lasted eleven years. During that period the royals also had a tense relationship with William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who persecuted both Puritans and Catholics while discharging his responsibilities as head of the twelve-member Lords Commissioners for Foreign Plantations.\n\nThe ensuing migration of Puritans to America defined one of the principal power blocs of future American politics, as approximately twenty thousand dissenters came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s. Unlike most other immigrants to the Americas, these were not single young men, but families. Many were relatively prosperous, and the community they built was stable, productive, and repressive.\n\nPuritan New England, a culture of literate, industrious, small farmers, was on guard against tyranny and against witchcraft\u2014which, for them, included Catholicism. There was no doubt: the Antichrist was the pope, and the Spanish were his henchmen. Immigrants had to be formally admitted to New England: the Puritans required letters of recommendation for potential colonists, who could only be part of the Calvinist New England Congregationalist Church. They were anti-episcopal (didn't have bishops), and they were intolerant of the episcopal Anglicans, as well as of the Quakers, to say nothing of Catholics.\n\nIn 1629, the same year that Puritans began fleeing to New England, George Calvert, now titled Lord Baron of Baltimore, asked Charles I for a land grant. His short-lived Avalon colony in Newfoundland had been defeated by a harsh winter. Now he wanted the territory belonging to Virginia on both the western and eastern banks of the upper Chesapeake, as mapped out by Captain John Smith. He pitched the charter as providing a buffer zone to protect His Majesty's grand Chesapeake Bay from encroachment by the Dutch and Swedish. The former had founded Nieuw Amsterdam in 1625, while the latter, colonizing parts of what later became Delaware and Pennsylvania, named a river and a settlement after the Swedish Queen Christina.\n\nIf the Swedish queen had a settlement named in her honor, what homage befit the queen of England?\n\nCalvert died only weeks before his land grant was finalized, but it was bestowed on his son Cecil Calvert, who inherited his title. Writing in Latin, a priest gave an account of the colony in 1633, before the first colonists had sailed: \"The Most Serene King of England desired that it should be called the land of Maria or Maryland, in honor of Maria, his wife. The same Most Serene King, out of his noble disposition, recently, in the month of June, 1632, gave this Province to the Lord Baron of Baltamore and his heirs forever.\"\n\nPraying to the Virgin Mary was a razor-sharp dividing line between Catholics and Protestants, the former of whom saw it as a mystical experience and the latter of whom saw it as idolatry. Virginia had been named for the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, whose Church of England had removed the worship of the Virgin Mary from its liturgical calendar. Now there would be another Virgin-inspired queen-named colony in the typhoidal swampland\u2014this one appropriate for Catholic pioneers, for whom Marianism was at once a religious and political imperative.\n\nMary's Land was to be tolerant, but Maryland would not be Catholic turf the way the Spanish domains were. Quite the contrary: Maryland was officially Anglican, the majority of its colonists were Anglican or Protestant, and no Catholic church was actually established there, though Jesuits manned missions.\n\nNever again would the Chesapeake be under the control of a single entity. Its division into upper (Maryland) and lower (Virginia) affected everything from the cultivation of tobacco\u2014the two colonies could never coordinate how much they would produce or even what the standard measure was\u2014to the two territories' opposing status in 1861, when Virginia went Confederate while Maryland remained in the Union.\n\nThe first Maryland colonists arrived in 1634 on the _Ark_ , traveling via the Antilles. The priest Andrew White, who crossed the Atlantic with them, wrote in his journal that \"we came before [the island of] Monserat, where is a noble plantation of Irish Catholiques whome the virginians would not suffer to live with them because of their religion.\" This first known written instance of the word \"virginian\" was, significantly, used in connection with Virginia's intolerance. Virginia was officially Anglican and remained intolerant until independence, although Virginia was not settled by religious dissenters and was not particularly pious. \"With no resident bishop and only a handful of ministers to watch over its rowdy, scattered populace,\" writes Paul Lucas, \"seventeenth-century Virginia became noted for its lack of religiosity.\"\n\n\"As for Virginia, we expected little from them but blows,\" wrote Father White. When they arrived, he was impressed by the \"Patomecke\" (Potomac) River, which the new colonists attempted to rename St. Gregory's; it was, he wrote, \"the sweetest and greatest river I have seene, so that the Thames is but a little finger to it.\"\n\nFather White brought with him a Portuguese-surnamed indentured servant of African descent, Mathias de Sousa, described as a \"molato,\" along with another \"molato\" named Francisco, so free men of color\u2014albeit indentured\u2014were among the founders of the colony. Father White assigned his headrights to one Ferdinando Pulton, who claimed land grants based on the importation of twenty-one people.\n\nThe Virginia colonists were already insolent. In a 1634 letter written from Jamestown, Captain Thomas Yong of the Maryland expedition wrote, \"I have bene informed that some of the [Virginia] Councellors have bene bold enough in a presumptuous manner to say, to such as told them that perhaps their disobedience might cause them to be sent for into England, That if the King would have them he must come himself and fetch them.\"\n\nVirginia was by that time relatively stable. Its food problem had largely been solved by the successful establishment of large herds of cattle and especially hogs, which can have two or more litters a year of up to a dozen piglets at a time. With so much land available for pasturage, raising meat animals was practical, and the easy availability of high-quality protein from meat and dairy products may have been the salvation of the Virginia colony.\n\nVirginia was impresarial, its founding the work of a corporation with investors, but Maryland was a proprietorship. Lord Baltimore _owned_ it. A number of counties in Maryland are named for his family members: Calvert (the family name), Cecil (for Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore), Charles (for Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore), Anne Arundel (Cecil Calvert's wife, Charles Calvert's mother), and Talbot (Lady Grace Talbot, Cecil Calvert's sister).\n\nWritten in Latin, King James's charter granted to Lord Baltimore the _hactenus inculta_ , or uncultivated lands, \"partly occupied by Savages, having no knowledge of the Divine Being.\" As compensation, the king and his heirs and successors were to receive (according to contemporary translation) \"TWO INDIAN ARROWS of those Parts, to be delivered to the said Castle of _Windsor_ , every Year, on Tuesday in Easter-week; and also the fifth Part of all Gold and Silver Ore, which shall happen from Time to Time, to be found within the aforesaid Limits.\"\n\nThe Maryland charter covered both shores of the upper Chesapeake, creating a territory divided into two parts by water. The \"western shore\" and the \"Eastern Shore\" of Maryland do not meet, but must connect across water.* The Virginians had the Chesapeake's four great rivers in their territory, though they were not yet fully navigable\u2014from south to north, the James, the York, the Rappahannock, and the Potomac. Maryland occupied the northern bank of the Potomac, but never attempted to navigate it commercially.\n\nCalvert's territory did, however, have a grand harbor on its western shore. It would not be of much use for transatlantic traffic, but would later be the commercial powerhouse of the Chesapeake's communication with the westwardly expanding domestic market: Baltimore.\n\nThe Virginians were too few in number to have occupied the Maryland territory, but William Claiborne (or Clayborne, or Clairborne), a Virginian from Kent, England, was already invested in the territory and opposed Baltimore's plan. Claiborne, a member of the Virginia Council, had named and claimed proprietorship of Kent's (or Kent) Island, which sits in the middle of the Chesapeake adjacent to the Eastern Shore. He focused not on planting tobacco but on fur trading, which obliged him to have good relations with the Native Americans. Claiborne insisted that the charter's language could not apply to Kent Island, to which he asserted ownership rights. Planning for the island to be the hub of a mercantile empire he would build, he had convinced settlers to move there and plant it with orchards and vines. He set up a shipyard, where he had the pinnace _Long Tayle_ built in 1631, three years before the arrival of Lord Baltimore's colony\u2014\"the first boat built solely on the bay,\" writes Frederick Tilp.\n\nThe first naval battle in the Anglo-American colonies took place in 1635 between Maryland and Virginia, when Lord Baltimore's pinnaces defeated Claiborne's vessels at the entrance to the Pocomoke River. Claiborne attempted various times to get back what he considered his land, through military conflict and diplomatic wrangling, but he ultimately relinquished the struggle in 1657 after an intra-Chesapeake hostility that lasted more than twenty years. Remembered as the champion of Virginia's former grandeur, he was the founder of a still-prominent family line of politically connected American bluebloods that includes his great-great-grandson W. C. C. Claiborne (the Virginian who was the first American governor of Mississippi and Louisiana).\n\nPerhaps it was Calvert's experience with the failed colony at Newfoundland that led him to issue and enforce instructions to his colonists to grow food crops for themselves: \"that they cause all the planters to imploy their servants in planting of sufficient quantity of corne and other profision of victuall and that they do not suffer them to plant any other comodity whatsoever before that be done in a sufficient proportion wch they are to observe yearely.\"\n\nPlantations were anything but self-sufficient in food. As John Smith explained to a royal commission, \"Corne was stinted [valued] at two shillings six pence the bushell, and Tobacco at three shillings the pound; and they value a mans labour [in tobacco] a yeere worth fifty or threescore pound, but in Corne not worth ten pound.\" The capital-intensive nature of a plantation required the dedication of all land to maximum financial return, with supplies imported and paid for on credit. But Lord Baltimore's insistence that \"Mary's Land\" raise its own \"victuall\" implanted from the beginning a culture of expert and varied cultivation in the colony, with long-range consequences for the state's high-quality food supply.\n\nMaryland put itself to the cultivation of tobacco from early days, with the result that Virginia planters had competitors who could be expected to increase production if they held back.\n\nNew England (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and, later, Vermont and Maine) never developed a staple crop, or a plantation system. New England had slavery in the colonial years, but unlike Virginia, it never became a slave society, in which all social and economic relations revolve around slavery. One of the first slaveowners in Massachusetts, Samuel Maverick, was the object of a complaint from a captive African woman whom he had force-mated with an African man; but without plantations, and cooped up in the limited space of houses in town, New Englanders did not engage much in slave breeding. New Englanders bought slaves, but mostly in small numbers: Africans (or creoles) from the Antilles and, later, Native Americans from Carolina, who were generally destined to be household, urban, or small-farm workers. Nor was New England a heavy consumer of indentured labor.\n\n_The Eastern Shore is prominent in this depiction of Lord Baltimore's Maryland in 1732._\n\nNew England survived in its early days the way the French did in Canada: on the fur trade. Beaver pelts were a principal export, and King Charles provided a market for them all by himself. He particularly liked silk-lined beaver hats, worn with brightly colored hatbands, and bought them not only for himself but for his retinue. According to Nick Bunker, he bought \"sixty-four beaver hats in 1618, fifty-seven in 1619, forty-six in 1623, and forty-three in 1624.\" Bunker estimates that as the beaver hat became popularized as \"an emblem of status\" for the peerage and the landed gentry, a minimum of twenty-three thousand of them a year were needed to accommodate the demand.\n\nThe small farmers of New England exported a variety of food and commodities, especially corn, and they diversified into becoming fishermen, lumberjacks, and shipbuilders, then developed into shippers, merchants, bankers, and insurers.\n\nDavid Hackett Fischer's tracing of four English folkways in America provides a model for appreciating the cultural contrast: 1) the Puritans of southeast and northeast of London, who moved to New England; 2) the Royalists of the south and west, who moved to Virginia; 3) the up-country Quakers, to Pennsylvania; and 4) the \"Scotch-Irish,\" to the Appalachians. Fischer surveys the demographics of England from which each migration came and demonstrates strong cultural continuity between locales on either side of the Atlantic, each of which would develop into a distinct political tendency in the independent American republic.\n\nSlavery was not a new idea in English culture, particularly in the area from which the largest number of Virginia's early populators came. \"Virginia's recruiting ground,\" writes Fischer, \"was a broad region in the south and west of England\" of scarce urban development and large rural manors\u2014an area where slavery had earlier (though no longer) existed for centuries, going back to the Roman era. \"During the eighth and ninth centuries,\" writes Fischer, \"the size of major slaveholdings in the south of England reached levels comparable to large plantations in the American South. When Bishop Wilfred acquired Selsey in Sussex [in the late seventh century], he emancipated 250 slaves on a single estate. Few plantations in the American South were so large even at their peak in the nineteenth century.\"\n\nThe Puritans of New England and the Royalist Virginians, opposed to each other from the start, struggled to establish their respective colonies in America as the hatred between \"Roundheads\" (Puritans, so called because they cut their hair short, who in popular telling were commoners descended from Saxons) and \"Cavaliers\" (Anglicans, who wore their hair long and were said to be aristocrats descended from French Normans, who were in turn the descendants of Norsemen, or Vikings) erupted in 1642 into what has been remembered in England as the Civil War, which had a strong echo in America.\n\n_In this woodcut tobacconist's card from ca. 1700, Virginia cavaliers drink and smoke while black slaves labor behind them. Images of Africans at work appeared in a variety of English tobacco advertising materials in the late seventeenth century, along with (not depicted here) Indians depicted with black skin, in tobacco-leaf skirts and headdress, overtly promoting as part of the product's public image its origin as an \"Indian weed\" cultivated by slave labor in Virginia. From Fairholt._\n\nThe Puritans versus the Cavaliers: not coincidentally, in North America these words connoted the two power bases of New England and Virginia. The Royalist Virginia gentry, who were largely descendants of English family webs transferred to America, believed in aristocracy, hierarchical society, luxury, idleness, and servants. Their identification as \"Cavaliers\"\u2014a word meaning \"horsemen,\" or, more broadly, \"knights\"\u2014links them with the Spanish _caballeros_ and the French _chevaliers._ Like them, the Cavaliers had the opposite of the Puritans' work ethic. \"Many Virginians of upper and middle ranks aspired to behave like gentlemen,\" writes Fischer. \"The words 'gentleman' and 'independent' were used synonymously, and 'independence' in this context means freedom from the necessity of labor.\"\n\nThe stringently religious Puritans did not gamble, but Virginia planters gambled compulsively. The Puritans suspected them of being Catholic sympathizers. By the 1630s, the more affluent Virginians were buying African slaves from Dutch traders on an ongoing basis, while Virginia frontier traders, who were something of a renegade element in the colony, enslaved and sold Native Americans.\n\nHenrietta Maria opened her chapel at Somerset House in 1636, after seven years of work. It was a safe place to attend Mass, and thousands did. It was also the height of fashion. The chapel hummed with motets commissioned from the queen consort's preferred composers. Marian imagery was everywhere. \"Visitors thronged to see the mesmerizing decorative scheme,\" writes Erin Griffey, \"replete with paintings and a special sacristy. Conversions of prominent courtiers and aristocrats, ladies in particular, were not uncommon in 1637. [Archbishop] Laud was incensed by the public scandal.\" But pursuant to an anti-superstition act of the Puritan Parliament, Henrietta Maria's chapel was destroyed by a mob of iconoclasts in 1643. They tore its crowning work, Rubens's _Crucifixion_ , into bits and threw the pieces into the Thames, along with the rest of the painting and sculpture the chapel contained.\n\nBy then, the English Civil War was under way. The Puritans, whose New Model Army was the first modern army in England, beat the forces of King Charles in 1645 and established the Commonwealth of England in 1649. Parliament carried out one of the most radical acts in all of European history when it tried, convicted, and, on January 30, 1649, killed the king. Remembering the botched execution of his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles Stuart put his long Cavalier hair away from his neck into a cap to allow his executioner (a professional, brought from France for the occasion) a clean shot at his neck, and was successfully beheaded with a single stroke.\n\nOnce Puritans no longer feared persecution in England, out-migration to New England stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The region would not receive another mass migration for nearly two centuries. There was even a reverse migration back to England, since previously closed doors were now open to well-connected Puritan businessmen.\n\nThe Puritan regicide further poisoned the relations between Catholic and Protestant Europe. The designation of the ambitious New Model Army leader and king-killer Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in 1653 began an era of intolerance, during which the execution of heretics increased and theaters remained shut down.\n\nIn Maryland, the colonial assembly passed the Act of Toleration in 1649 at the Calverts' urging. The first law in the colonies concerning religious tolerance, it reiterated the tolerant policy that had been part of Lord Baltimore's instruction from the beginning. But after a ten-man Puritan council headed by Maryland's old nemesis William Claiborne took charge of Maryland in post-Cromwell 1654, a new law prohibited open practice of the Catholic faith. In 1658, Calvert managed to get the Act of Toleration reinstated. Still, on July 23, 1659, the council issued a directive to \"Justices of the Peace to seize any Quakers that might come into their districts and to whip them from Constable to Constable until they should reach the bounds of the Province.\"\n\nQuakers, who were antislavery and were therefore unwelcome, presented a new social and political problem for the nominally Anglican Cavaliers. The first seed of Quakerism was planted in Virginia in 1656 by the Londoner Elizabeth Harris, who remained in Virginia for a year or so and proselytized. Quaker George Wilson, who had been whipped from constable to constable through three different towns and banished from Massachusetts, arrived in Virginia in 1661 and was imprisoned until \"his flesh actually rotted away from his bones,\" in the words of a chronicler.\n\nUnder the Puritans, Royalists fled England for Virginia and Maryland, an exodus that continued even after the Restoration of 1660. \"From 1645 to 1665,\" writes Fischer, \"Virginians multiplied more than threefold and Marylanders increased elevenfold, while New Englanders merely doubled.\"\n\nOther Cavaliers fled hostile Puritan England for the island of Barbados, where a different kind of revolution was in progress: sugar.\n\n*By custom \"Eastern Shore\" is capitalized, but \"western shore\" is not.\n\n#   11\n\n# **Barbados**\n\n_The genterey here doth live far better then ours doue in England; thay have most of them 100 or 2 or 3 of slaves apes apiece] whou they command as they pleas: hear they may say what they have is thayer oune; and they have that Libertie of contienc [conscience] which wee soe long in England have fought for: But they doue abus it.[ 1_\n\n\u2014Henry Whistler, Barbados, 1655\n\nTHE ATLANTIC SUGAR PLANTATION system took shape in the late fifteenth century on the previously uninhabited island that the Portuguese called S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9, off the coast of Calabar, in the crook of Africa.\n\nSettled by explorer \u00c1lvaro Caminha in 1493\u2014the same year Columbus brought experimental sugar seedlings to the present-day Dominican Republic\u2014S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 built on the previous model of Mediterranean sugar plantations but employed previously unthinkable quantities of labor to produce sugar on a new, large scale. The labor was available via S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9's ready access to slave markets; it was a transshipment point for slaves headed to the Americas. By the 1550s, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 had sixty sugar mills grinding, with individual plantations boasting workforces of as many as three hundred slaves.\n\nThe Portuguese applied the S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 model to create the first great sugar industry of the Americas in northeastern Brazil, where a full-scale planters' aristocracy had entrenched itself by the mid-sixteenth century. There was one major difference, however: the labor force in Brazil was mostly made up of enslaved indigenous Brazilians, who quickly proved to be unsatisfactory laborers. In a pattern later replicated throughout the hemisphere, a transition began in Brazil to African slave labor.\n\nWanting in on the sugar plantation action, the Dutch captured S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 in 1598\u201399. While paused from attacking Spanish and Portuguese merchant vessels during the Twelve Years' Truce (1609\u20131621), they built up their navy. They established Dutch outposts in North America, beginning in 1615 with Fort Nassau on the Hudson River and including, as of 1625, Fort Amsterdam\u2014the future New York City\u2014at the tip of Manhattan Island. With its defensive battery positioned on the site of present-day Battery Park, Fort Amsterdam provided protection for Dutch families who had been consolidated there from around the region.\n\n_The relative closeness of Africa and Brazil is depicted in this detail from the first map of the hemisphere, a 1562 collaboration between Spanish cartographer Diego Guti\u00e9rrez and Dutch engraver Hieronymous Cock. In the ocean between the two, the Portuguese fleet is depicted on its way to \"Calicute\" (India). In the lower portion of the image, a naval battle is depicted._\n\nNieuw Amsterdam was from the beginning dense, secular, tolerant (with Jews both Sephardic and Ashkenazi), and multilingual. The colony's first shipment of slaves, eleven in all, came in the colony's second year, making it the second colony (after Virginia) in the present-day United States to import African slaves.\n\nSlaves in Nieuw Amsterdam were corporately owned by the Dutch West India corporation. With time, they were manumitted and given land of their own, though they had to give a portion of their proceeds back to the company. On July 14, 1645, the free African Paulo d'Angola was granted a parcel of land on present-day Washington Square Park. Antony Congo was granted a parcel on the east side of the Bouwerie (from a point between present-day Houston and Stanton Streets to Rivington) on March 25, 1647. Francisco and Simon Congo were given nearby plots. They were exposed pioneers in a bad neighborhood, forming the buffer zone between the Dutch at the lower tip of Manhattan and the Native Americans to the north who might decide to raid.\n\nAs Dutch commercial policy became more aggressive, the Dutch fleet assaulted Portugal's markets in Asia, then in the 1620s began a war for the European sugar market, which was principally supplied at that time by the two Brazilian centers of Salvador da Bahia and Recife in Pernambuco. They took Recife in 1641, though they could not hold Salvador.\n\nFrom their vantage point in Brazil, the Dutch saw a double commercial opportunity nearby, on the English-controlled island of Barbados. In taking advantage of it, they created the Antillean sugar industry.\n\nBarbados was easy for a seventeenth-century navigator to miss. Located in the Atlantic a hundred or so miles to the east of the arc of the rest of the Lesser Antilles, it's a patch of land comprising only some 166 square miles. Off the main sea road, it was the farthest from the major Spanish bases in the Americas, and it offered a relatively easy sail to Europe.\n\n_Barbados_ means \"bearded ones\" in Spanish, though why the island was called that is a mystery. The Spanish had claimed the unoccupied island in 1511, but it was abandoned by the time the English occupied it in 1627, just as the Dutch were making their move into Brazil. Sent by a commercial syndicate in London, the English expedition to settle Barbados paused on the way to \"capture a prize\"\u2014i.e., plunder another country's vessel. They stole ten \"negro slaves,\" who were taken to Barbados along with the eighty settlers that disembarked on February 17, 1627.\n\n_In this detail from a 1639 Dutch map by Joan Vinckeboons, Barbados is the island sticking out to the east of the arc of the Lower Antilles._\n\nThe island had no native population, but Captain Henry Powell induced thirty-two agriculturally knowledgeable native people from Dutch-held Guyana to come to Barbados, then enslaved them once they were there. Starvation would not be an immediate problem: the island teemed with wild hogs, the legacy of a long-gone Spanish presence. The colonists killed them off in three years flat.\n\nThe Barbadian colonists tried raising tobacco at the same time it was being developed in Virginia and Maryland. But their product was of even poorer quality than the Chesapeake's, and they had problems getting labor because Barbados's checkered reputation in England made recruiting difficult. As happened over and over in the Americas, crooks and whores were sent as colonists, but they were far from satisfactory as plantation workers.\n\nThe trade balance between England and its colonies was projected to be even, via barter, without a need for settling accounts by a transatlantic flow of silver and gold that was wanted elsewhere. Since London made the rules and set the prices, London could tinker with the numbers as it liked. But just as the London planners were caught by surprise when Virginia became a tobacco exporter, they didn't count on the Dutch setting up English colonists in Barbados in the sugar business, from a base in Brazil.\n\nIt happened in the 1640s, while England was embroiled in the civil war between Roundheads and Cavaliers. Barbados had both political tendencies present but neither controlled the society definitively, and the island was practically independent during those years, enjoying what was effectively free trade with vessels of various flags.\n\nThe Dutch, not the English, made the Barbadians rich. Fueled by a substantial injection of Dutch capital\u2014something strictly forbidden by London\u2014the Barbadians learned how to make sugar, via Dutch intermediaries and also by firsthand observation from traveling to Brazil. The Dutch had a lot to offer the Barbadians, and they could take a profit at every step of the process. They provided the Barbadians with Europe's cheapest credit to get started making a fortune in sugar and waited until the sugar was on the market to collect and refinance. They sold them the machinery and technology. They refined the molasses into sugar in Europe, and sold the sugar in the lucrative Dutch markets.\n\nThe Dutch could also provide the crucial and most expensive element: the labor. As a complement to taking Brazil, in 1637 they took the Portuguese slave castle of Elmina, offshore from the Gold Coast. They established posts on the Slave Coast (present-day Benin) that were controlled from Allada (or Ardra). For a time the Dutch controlled Luanda and Benguela in Angola as well. The strategic reason to occupy the slave ports was to support the Dutch sugar venture in Brazil, where the labor force died or escaped to the wilderness in large numbers even as acreage under cultivation was increasing. As a consequence of their move into Africa, the Dutch had plenty of slave-trading capacity with which to service the English, who were not yet engaged in the commercial African slave trade.\n\nThe Dutch didn't rule the Brazilian northeast for long. The Brazilian planters rebelled against them in 1645, but by the time they drove the Dutch out definitively in 1654, the Barbadians had copied their techniques for making sugar and were making fortunes.\n\nThe sugar revolution transformed Barbados. Among the skills the Barbadians learned from the Dutch and the Brazilians was the management of hundreds of slaves on a single plantation. When they converted Barbados to slave labor, they did it massively and quickly. Barbados, then, became the first place where Englishmen surrounded themselves with large numbers of enslaved Africans. The Barbadian planters had been purchasing indentures of white servants, but they made an abrupt transition to purchasing the legal rights to the bodies and the future \"increase\" of black laborers. They imported large numbers of kidnapped Africans, because, as with later sugar regimes, their labor force was not self-reproducing: \"though we breed both Negroes, Horses, and Cattle,\" wrote Richard Ligon in Barbados, \"yet that increase, will not supply the moderate decays which we find in all those.\"\n\nAlong with the changeover to a slave society came accumulation by dispossession, with the mortgage as a primary tool.* The Dutch were conservative about whom they extended credit to, making for a concentration of large planters. The wealthy then extended credit to the less wealthy by means of a mortgage, and foreclosed when they could not pay, as land ownership consolidated. Many former indentured servants had been given small patches of ground at the end of their tenure; now the small farmholds of forty different farmers became the eight hundred acre property of a single sugar baron, one Captain Waterman.\n\nThe new Barbadian sugar planters quickly developed, in Richard S. Dunn's words, \"a code of conduct that would never be tolerated at home.... In the islands there were no elders, the young were in control, and many a planter made his fortune and died by age thirty. In short, Caribbean and New England planters were polar opposites; they represented the outer limits of English social expression in the seventeenth century.\" But these two outer limits did business with each other, as Barbados was dependent on New England for much of its food.\n\nBarbados's sugar revolution was well under way in 1645, when the island's black population was 5,680. Guadeloupe and Martinique, belonging to the enemy commercial system of France, quickly followed in the conversion to sugar with the help of Dutch exiles from Brazil. On the other side of the Atlantic, some of Glasgow's first factories were rum distilleries, which added value to the molasses Glaswegian merchants were importing from the Antilles already in the 1640s.\n\nAs Barbados was experiencing its first rush of sugar prosperity, the execution of King Charles in 1649 sent Cavaliers fleeing to the island. They seized control of its government following a pamphlet war and armed action, making the island into a Royalist stronghold. By the following year, Barbados had declared itself for Charles II, who was in French exile. Austere, regicidal, militarized, religious extremists: the Puritan government was unpopular at home, but Barbados was in open rebellion.\n\nMore consequentially, Barbados's practice of free trade with the Dutch antagonized the politically powerful London merchants and shippers, who were not happy about losing their captive market to foreign competition. An embargo, the Act of 1650, froze all English trade with Barbados as well as with the other Royalist colonies, including Virginia, and authorized the confiscation of all merchandise headed there. That became a hot issue in New England, whose trade with Barbados was its most profitable commercial activity.\n\nBarbados issued what was essentially a declaration of independence on February 18, 1651, charging Parliament with placing it in a state of \"slavery\"\u2014a word that would resound through pro-independence polemics on the North American mainland in the eighteenth century. Barbadian Cavaliers confiscated the lands of Barbadian Roundheads; according to an anguished letter written from Barbados, they had \"Sequestred 52 Gallandt plantations, who are Werth as all ye island besydes.\" Meanwhile, Barbadian royalists' lands in England, Scotland, and Ireland were confiscated by Parliament.\n\nThe Puritan Parliament passed a Navigation Act in 1651 that forbade trading with foreigners, requiring the use of English ships and captains for all commerce. That quickly led to war between England and the Netherlands, leaving Barbadian planters' Dutch business contacts on the wrong side of hostilities. Believing, perhaps not incorrectly, that Cromwell was out to destroy them, the Barbadian planters openly favored their Dutch commercial partners over their English colonial masters, effectively committing treason during wartime.\n\nWith instructions to seize Dutch merchantmen, Cromwell's admiral Sir George Ayscue blockaded the island in 1652. Then, despite having only a small force, he attacked with the support of scurvy-ridden troops who had detoured from their mission of subduing Virginia. He bluffed the Barbadian royalists into surrendering and established a government loyal to Parliament. But the damage was done to the British colonial system: Barbados had experienced independence and free trade.\n\nAyscue's victory was only the beginning of Cromwell's military designs. After making peace with the Dutch in 1654, he began a project\u2014the Western Design, it was called\u2014to drive the Spanish out of the Americas. Unfortunately, Cromwell sent an untrained, incoherent expedition of conquest to base itself in Barbados in 1655\u2014there to provision itself, on an island dependent on importation for its food. Depleting the island's scant resources, the English fleet funded itself by laying high duties on the island's imports.\n\nThat there was already a nascent slave-breeding business of sorts in Barbados is suggested by the journal of a member of the Western Design expedition, a Puritan named Henry Whistler, who noted in 1655 that children had a cash value at birth and that there was a market in them:\n\nThis Island is inhabited with all sortes: with English, french, Duch, Scotes, Irish, Spaniards thay being Iues Jews]; with Ingones [Indians] and miserabell Negors borne to perpetuall slavery thay and thayer seed: these Negors they doue alow as many wifes as thay will have, some will have 3 or 4, according as they find thayer bodie abell; our English heare doth think a negor child the first day it is born to be worth 511 [five pounds eleven shillings], they cost them nothing the bringing up, they goe all ways naked: some planters will have 30 more or les about 4 or 5 years ould: _they sele them from one to the other as we doue shepe._[ 17 (emphasis added)\n\nThe principle of _partus sequitur ventrem_ was already in place. \"By 1650 certainly, and probably a good bit earlier,\" writes Dunn, \"slavery in Barbados had become more than a lifetime condition. It extended through the slave's children to posterity.\" The idea that one caste of people, visibly different, could be born into bondage conflated the condition of slavery with the concept of \"race.\"\n\nBefore leaving Barbados on its mission of conquest, the English fleet recruited the island's dispossessed whites to join its soldiery, a job that entailed risking one's life but also brought the possibility of plunder, or even land. When the expedition sailed away on March 31, 1655, it took away some four thousand white Barbadians, mostly formerly indentured servants, who were never to return. In their wake were sent a rougher class: defeated Scotch and Irish soldiers captured in battle, sent as laboring prisoners, along with troublemakers, Catholics, and former landowners.\n\nThe Western Design expedition's attack on Santo Domingo was a murderous failure, repulsed definitively by the Spanish. But then the expedition turned its sights more successfully on Jamaica. Cromwell's navy invited pirates into Jamaica's gaudy, raunchy, now-disappeared capital of Port Royal, beginning a golden age of piracy in the Caribbean.* While England launched attacks against Spanish coastal towns, the pirates (most infamously Henry Morgan) attacked Spanish shipping, provoking a two-fronted war that expelled the Spanish from Jamaica in 1655, though it took another five years for the English to subdue the insurgency.\n\nThis first dislodging by force of Spain from an established colony sparked a new rush for riches as politically connected merchants jockeyed for position in Jamaica. Few if any of the former Barbadian yeomen who had come to Jamaica with the fleet benefited, however; most died of disease. Some surviving soldiers received land grants and became planters, amassing large fortunes through the use of slave labor and achieving that rare, coveted condition: class mobility.\n\nAfter Cromwell died in 1658, probably of a bacterial infection, the Roundheads in England deteriorated into bickering factions and the Cavaliers retook power. The extravagant, lecherous, French-raised Charles II, son of the beheaded Charles I, ascended to the English throne in 1660. Amid widespread rejoicing at the departure of the unpopular regime, the theaters of England, shuttered by the Puritans, reopened. In what has been remembered as the Restoration, London once more began to have a public life after more than a decade of Puritan sobriety, as an age of coffeehouses began.\n\nWith the Restoration came an aggressive new commercial policy designed to project an image of grandeur by maximizing the royal share of the world. Charles II was not much interested in governing, but he was attuned to the importance of the colonies; many places in the New World had been named for his father, and Maryland bore the name of his mother. In appreciation of Virginia's loyalty, he bestowed on the colony the title of Dominion, a name that persists as Virginia's nickname of \"Old Dominion.\"\n\nOwnership of Barbadian land was quite concentrated by this time, and sugar production increased precipitously. There were twenty thousand black captives on Barbados by 1660, twenty times as many as in Virginia. By 1676, the number had grown through importation to 32,473, and 46,602 in 1684. The island became one of the most densely populated areas in the world.\n\nNow that the labor force was mostly black, the situation required legal clarification. Barbados had a comprehensive slave code by 1661 that differentiated indentured servants from slaves, with provisions that were highly disadvantageous to the enslaved: killing an enslaved person was punishable only by a fine. The code came just in time to be useful to Jamaican lawmakers; Charles II formally annexed Jamaica for England in 1661.\n\nParliament passed another Navigation Act in 1660, requiring exclusivity of trade by the colonies, who could conduct commerce only with English ships that were captained by Englishmen and three-fourths of whose sailors were English. Subsequent Navigation Acts were passed in 1662 and 1663 and were followed up in 1673 and 1696, defining a policy that would in one form or another endure through the Napoleonic era. The Navigation Acts were highly consequential; by denying the Dutch access to American markets controlled by England, they consolidated England's position as the number-one commercial power.\n\nThey also empowered the New England colonists, though that was an unintended consequence. New England had been conducting some hemispheric trade since the 1630s. Now, since colonial ships counted as English, the Navigation Acts stimulated the New England shipping industry, turning the New Englanders into \"the Dutch of England's empire.\" New England's territorial advancement to the north was blocked by French Canada. Especially in the case of the Rhode Island colony, founded in 1636 by Massachusetts dissident Roger Williams, New England had little in the way of a hinterland. Rhode Island was like Portugal in that both places consisted mostly of coastline; like the Portuguese, Rhode Islanders turned to the sea to make money.\n\nThe colonists weren't allowed to manufacture, but New England ships could run down to the West Indies and exchange their farm and fishing products for molasses, which they brought home and distilled into great quantities of rum. The New Englanders also sold the Barbadians kidnapped Native Americans as slaves, but since New England was hemmed in by French Canada, their supply was limited.\n\nCharles II was more interested in trying to find gold than slaves when he chartered the Governor and Company of the Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa on January 10, 1662. Most of Africa had no gold, but the Gold Coast had for centuries provided a money supply to the Muslim world. Its gold, traded overland up through the Maghreb and into Europe, had been turning up in English commerce since at least the thirteenth century, when the Royal Mint was established. Though the Gold Coast's resources were partly depleted by the time of the Restoration, it was still a gold producer.\n\nAt that time, the Gold Coast was not an exporter of African slaves, but an importer: an intra-African coastal slave trade conducted by Portuguese captains brought laborers kidnapped from Calabar to labor in the Akans' gold works. Under pressure from the colonies to supply labor, English traders began to insist on taking slaves from the Gold Coast as well as gold and ivory. The company instructed its traders not to pay for slaves with gold but with barter, because the idea was to bring gold home. But African traders quickly began demanding gold for at least part of the price of slaves, the rest being made up of manufactured goods.\n\nThe Royal Mint began striking a new gold piece in 1663, the first machine-minted English coin, intended to be worth twenty shillings (actual exchange rates were different). A tiny elephant embossed on each one\u2014sometimes an elephant and castle\u2014let the world know that England's money was made with Africa's gold. The coins became known almost immediately as \"guineas,\" from the name of the long coastal stretch of West Africa between the mountain ranges of Sierra Leone and the Bight of Biafra. Elephant and elephant-and-castle guineas were minted until 1726, though later non-African-themed guineas were minted until 1813, the monarch pictured on the \"heads\" side changing with the throne.\n\n_Detail of a guinea._\n\nThe castle was a direct image of England's growing importance in the slave trade, while the coin's elephant image depicted another of the sources of wealth of the African trade: ivory, used in all manner of fine manufactures, notably including musical instruments. Ivory comes from killing a male animal (only the males have big tusks) of five tons or so in order to harvest the approximately 1 percent of its body weight that is dentine mass, while leaving the carcass for carrion eaters. As keyboards appeared all over Europe and America, the intelligent animals were slaughtered in large numbers so their teeth could produce ivory for the fingers of well-bred young ladies to caress, the market picking up when the piano began to be mass-produced in the nineteenth century. Ivory toothpicks became a necessary gentleman's item in Europe. In Africa, where hunting elephants was basic to survival and hunting lore was remembered in the form of song, the animal was consumed after slaughter and the tusks used as ceremonial trumpets across a wide range of the continent.\n\nEngland's creation of the guinea spearheaded an offensive in which it squared off against the Netherlands. Charles II's brother James (the future King James II), who bore the king's brother's traditional title of Duke of York, prosecuted a second Anglo-Dutch war, fought on multiple fronts in different parts of the world. The English attacked Dutch slave-trading positions on the African coast, and in 1664, they took control of Nieuw Amsterdam, renaming it New York in honor of the city's new royal master. But they were otherwise badly beaten in the war, which ended in 1667 with England's humiliating defeat. In the treaty negotiations, the English offered to trade New York back to the Dutch in exchange for the sugar-producing, moneymaking South American colony of Surinam, but the Dutch refused the offer. The English kept Manhattan, locking in their control of the Atlantic seaboard from New England down to Virginia.\n\nThat stretch of the North American Atlantic coast formerly claimed by the Dutch became property of the Duke of York, James Stuart; Charles II gave him all the land between New England and Maryland. James in turn dealt out the territory between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers to John Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, never mind that people already lived there. It was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey, with the whole collectively known as, according to the document signed by James, \"New Caeserea or New Jersey,\" whose birth was thus pure cronyism. Up the Hudson, the Dutch Fort Nassau was renamed Albany, for James's Scottish title. Located on the Mohawk River, in the gap between the Catskills and the Adirondack Mountains, Albany was perfectly positioned for commerce with the West.\n\nThe Anglo-Dutch war badly damaged the ineffective Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa, which was reorganized and renamed the Royal African Company in 1672. But the new company was also badly managed, and it made no attempt to get North American slaveowners the labor they wanted. The gap was filled by independent entrepreneurs.\n\nAs soon as there were slaves, there were conspiracies to rebel\u2014sometimes involving indentured whites as well, sometimes together with Native Americans. Herbert Aptheker lists the first \"serious conspiracy involving Negro slaves\" in English North America as occurring in Virginia in 1663, when there were still relatively few black people in Virginia and they had only just been declared to be slaves. The Virginia Assembly, in passing a 1672 act that authorized the killing of maroons, with reparations made at public expense to the individual slaveowners thus deprived of property, noted, \"it hath beene manifested to this grand assembly that many negroes have lately beene, and now are out in rebellion in sundry parts of this country and that noe meanes have yet beene found for the apprehension and suppression of them from whome many mischeifes of very dangerous consequence may arise to the country if either other negroes, Indians or servants should happen to fly forth and joyne with them.\" A similar authorization was passed in 1680, suggesting that the problem continued to vex the Virginians.\n\nA plot to murder the masters, neither the first nor the last, was discovered on Barbados in 1674. Whether it existed in reality or not is hard to say, since slave societies were particularly alert to potential uprisings, to the point of sometimes executing people for imagined crimes. According to a pamphlet published in London in 1676, the conspiracy was led by the \"Cormantee\"\u2014Akan people from the Gold Coast. The pamphlet's text is notable for its description\u2014complete with, supposedly, elephant-tusk trumpets\u2014of the artistry and artisanship attendant to Gold Coast royal pageantry, of which some seventeenth-century Barbadians would have had firsthand knowledge from slaving voyages. It also includes an early occurrence of the word _Baccararoe_ , i.e., _buckra_ , which would become a black term for whites throughout the English-speaking Americas:\n\nThis Conspiracy first broke out and was hatched by the Cormantee or Gold-Cost Negro's about Three years since, and afterwards Cuningly and Clandestinely carried, and kept secret, even from the knowledge of their own Wifes.\n\nTheir grand design was to choose them a King, one Coffee an Ancient Gold-Cost Negro, who should have been Crowned the 12th of June last past in a Chair of State exquisitely wrought and Carved after their Mode; with Bowes and Arrowes to be likewise carried in State before his Majesty their intended King: Trumpets to be made of Elephants Teeth and Gourdes to be sounded on several Hills, to give Notice of their general Rising, with a full intention to fire the Sugar-Canes, and so run in and Cut their Masters the Planters Throats in their respective Plantations where-unto they did belong.\n\nSome affirm, they intended to spare the lives of the Fairest and Handsomest Women (their Mistresses and their Daughters) to be Converted to their own use. But some others affirm the contrary; and I am induced to believe they intended to Murther all the White People there, as well Men as Women: for Anna a house Negro Woman belonging to Justice Hall, overhearing a Young Cormantee Negro about 18 years of age, and also belonging to Justice Hall, as he was working near the Garden, and discoursing with another Cormantee Negro working with him, told him boldly and plainly, He would have no hand in killing the Baccaroroes or White Folks; And that he would tell his Master.\n\nAll which the aforesaid Negro Woman (being then accidentally in the garden) over-heard, and called to him the aforesaid Young Negro Man over the Pales, and enquired and asked of him What it was they so earnestly were talking about? He answered and told her freely, That it was a general Design amongst them the Cormantee Negro's, to kill all the Baccararoes or White People in the Island within a fortnight. Which she no sooner understood, but went immediately to her Master and Mistris, and discovered the whole truth of what she heard, saying withal, That it was great Pity so good people as her Master and Mistriss were, should be destroyed.\n\nThis account exemplifies what was already a well-worn conspiracy theory, combining as it does three major tropes of white narratives of slave rebellion:\n\n1) decisions taken by a council of slaves from various plantations to stage an organized rebellion (as would in fact happen more than a century later in Saint-Domingue\/Haiti);\n\n2) the assertion by the chronicler of the intention of the black rebels to kill white men and take white women for sexual use; and\n\n3) the salvation of the whites by the intercession of a faithful domestic slave who betrays the conspiracy of the black rank-and-file out of love for her master's family.\n\nThese elements recur in masters' accounts of conspiracies throughout the hemispheric history of slavery, both black and indigenous. The following excerpt from the same pamphlet concludes with the characteristic final trope of the slave rebellion narrative, portrayed as a happy ending: the torture and massacre by the masters of a number of the enslaved. It also reports a common belief of Africans, reported in various parts of the Americas, that the enslaved would return to Africa upon death.\n\nSix burnt alive, and Eleven beheaded, their dead bodies being dragged through the Streets, at _Spikes_ a pleasant Port-Town in that Island, and were afterwards burnt with those that were burned alive...\n\nThe spectators... cryed out to _Tony, Sirrah, we shall see you fry bravely by and by._ Who answered undauntedly, _If you Roast me to day, you cannot Roast me tomorrow:_ (all those _Negro's_ having an opinion that after their death they go into their own Countrey). Five and Twenty more have been since Executed.\n\nIn this telling from a colonist, the death of Africans was only of importance as the cost of doing business.\n\n*The term \"accumulation by dispossession\" was suggested by David Harvey, who proposes it as an update to Marx's \"primitive accumulation.\" Harvey, 137.\n\n*Port Royal was permanently submerged by earthquake and tsunami in 1692.\n\n#   12\n\n# **The Anglo-Saxon Model**\n\n_It was not necessary to pretend or to prove that the enslaved were a different race... Anyone could tell black from white, even if black was actually brown or red. And as the number of poor white Virginians diminished, the vicious traits of character attributed by Englishmen to their poor could in Virginia increasingly appear to be the exclusive heritage of blacks. 1_\n\n\u2014Edmund S. Morgan\n\nTHE FIRST LARGE LAND distribution in Virginia was overseen by William Berkeley, royal governor as of 1642. A wit and playwright from the court of Charles I, he \"encouraged the cavaliers to come over in large numbers,\" wrote Philip A. Bruce, and made his cronies into large landholders. Berkeley remained as governor over a thirty-five year period, although he was out during the years of the Civil War and the Puritan reign. His years in power were on the whole prosperous ones, but his governorship ended badly with the suppression in 1676 of Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion, the largest colonial-era uprising in the territory of the future United States.\n\nBacon's Rebellion was a class war, in which \"the ambitions and fears of frontier planters clashed with the desire of the royal governor to maintain a monopoly of trade with the Indians.\" A tiny number of families\u2014the gentry\u2014had quickly come to control the affairs of each county, and they had the good coastal land locked up. The leading edge of the economy was on the west, pushing out into the wilderness. In a pattern that would be repeated in various forms during the long westward expansion across the continent, the pioneers made war on the Native Americans in order to enclose the land the \"salvages\" lived on. To that end, they wanted to get rid of the Indians as fast as possible\u2014abduct them and sell them to Barbados, thereby profiting, or simply kill them and consider the expropriated land adequate profit.\n\nBacon, recently arrived in Virginia, led a group that attacked the Pamunkey and then led an uprising against Berkeley in which he promised slaves their freedom if they would fight with him. Bacon was put down by Berkeley after a battle involving a thousand Redcoats sent from London; a battalion of eighty slaves and twenty indentured servants was one of the last to surrender. In the course of suppressing the rebellion, Berkeley heavy-handedly massacred a number of the rebels, and hung some as well, confiscating the property of anyone he deemed an enemy. Ebenezer Cook, the London-born Maryland poet remembered for his satirical poem \"The Sot-Weed Factor,\" composed his longest poem about Bacon's Rebellion. He described the rebels as \"Bullies, Ruffians, Debauchees, Cheats, Gamesters, Pimps, and Raparees,\" and characterized Berkeley's force as a mercenary one:\n\n_Berkley, whom the Mob detested,_\n\n_In Bacon's Absence had invested;_\n\n_Transporting from the Eastern Shore_\n\n_(T'augment the Force he had before)_\n\n_Of Arms and Ammunition Store,_\n\n_And Men, who fought for ready Pay,_\n\n_Twelve Pence a Head, for ev'ry Day;_\n\n_With Plunder of all that had taken_\n\n_Rebellious Oath to Col'nel Bacon._\n\nThere had been uprisings of the poor in England, but Bacon's Rebellion brought a new element into the mix that would become a permanent feature of American clashes: guns. Unlike England, Virginia was a gun culture. \"Whereas in England, only men with estates valued at above one hundred pounds sterling were allowed to own guns,\" writes Kathleen M. Brown, \"English men in Virginia at all levels of property ownership were _expected_ to own them, especially after the succession of Dutch threats to the colony during the late 1660s and early 1670s.\" Guns and slavery were intimately associated with each other; all slave-raiding relied on guns, and all slaveholding relied on armed repression.\n\nOne of the messages of Bacon's Rebellion as received by the Virginia gentry was that new poor freedmen emerging from indenture every year created a social problem. Enslaving them was not possible: Englishmen would not countenance enslaving other Englishmen. The solution was to shift over to African laborers. By replacing English laborers with African ones, they could, in Edmund S. Morgan's memorable phrase, \"enslave the poor,\" transforming the underclass from a political threat to a security issue with a color-coded caste system.\n\nLocked up and dispersed across isolated tobacco plantations, enslaved Africans were easier to control than indentured English, Scottish, and Irish freemen. Slavery was for life: manumission, common in Spanish territories, would not become so in Virginia. It was widely assumed that if slaves were freed, they would be a danger to the public at large, an assumption that drew on (and fed) a common belief that Africans were naturally more violent than Europeans and would become vicious if not repressed.\n\nThough tobacco required much less startup capital than sugar, Virginia nonetheless became a magnet for capital, much of which went into acquiring slaves. With slave labor, Virginia produced more tobacco than ever before. \"In the three generations that followed Bacon's Rebellion,\" writes Bernard Bailyn, \"a hierarchy of the plantation gentry emerged in stable form, dominated by a social and economic leadership whose roots can be traced back to the 1650s and whose dominance in politics was largely uncontested.\" The fact that this politicized gentry was principally invested in slaves would determine the course of policy for subsequent generations.\n\nLeaving future generations to deal with the consequences of a society divided into white masters and black slaves, the great planters of late seventeenth-century Virginia established dynasties of wealth in English North America, some of which continue into the present day. They locked the need for slavery into place by making it such a central part of the economy that, once implemented, it could not be eradicated\u2014at least, not without the destruction of the economic structures they had put in place and the erasure of their accumulated wealth. Future generations were born into a system they felt powerless to dismantle.\n\nThe move to a slave society in Virginia bound rich and poor whites together through the privilege of skin color. Landowning Virginians would be free to experiment with democracy, since their enslaved working class had no rights or vote. Lesser whites would identify with the masters, whose caste they were privileged to belong to, and not with the slaves. This implied a considerable commitment to the policing of caste boundaries, since this category of the poor would have to remain repressed and enslaved in perpetuity.\n\nBy the time of independence, some two-thirds of freemen were landowners. Their society was necessarily organized along different lines than that of England, nurturing the republican tendencies already present in English society and fostering an ideology of liberty that was taken to extremes, with guns aplenty. It was a frontier society, in which the most brazen won out.\n\nA Virginia slave regime was implemented by 1640, the earliest date at which \"surviving Virginia county records began to mention Negroes,\" writes Winthrop Jordan, who adds, \"sales for life, often including any future progeny, were recorded in unmistakable language.\" There was now a clear distinction between slave and indentured servant\u2014necessary not only in terms of civil and criminal law, but in terms of the market for their services: a transfer of indenture was considerably less valuable than a slave sale. While the changeover from indentured to chattel labor offered political and labor advantages, the greatest benefit for slaveowners was the property rights it conferred. It was the profitability of owning slaves as capital, added to their capacity for labor, that made slavery foundational to Virginia's economy.\n\nThere was \"no body of English law to invoke,\" writes James A. Rawley. \"Slavery may be considered a colonial invention, abetted by the English traders in slaves.\" A legal framework appeared in Virginia for dealing with slavery, one law and ordinance at a time, beginning in the 1650s. In 1662 the _partus sequitur ventrem_ passed to Virginia children the free or enslaved legal status of the mother, thus extending slavery to all future matrilineal generations, in perpetuity. Another law seven years later, headed _An Act about the Casuall Killing of Slaves_ , exempted slaveowners from being charged with felony murder if one of their slaves should die during \"correction,\" noting the difference in types of punishment dealt to indentured servants and slaves: \"The only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their master, mistris or overseer cannot be inflicted upon Negroes.\" In other words, since indentured servants could have their term extended as a punishment but slaves in perpetuity could not, it was necessary to use violence on slaves. The law even provided a philosophical justification that noted the value of slaves as multigenerational property: \"it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice (which alone makes murther ffelony [ _sic_ ]) should induce any man to destroy his owne estate.\"\n\nManagement of slave labor in the Americas generally took one of two forms. One, which Jacob M. Price calls the Latin model, protected the integrity of the plantation by treating slaves as immovable assets, or real estate, which could not be separated from the plantation as a whole. This model, employed in the Spanish, Portuguese, and French territories, tended toward maintaining family ties among the enslaved and may well have contributed to the rootedness of the Afro-Louisianan population that is notable into the present day.\n\nThe other, the Anglo-Saxon model, protected the creditor by treating slaves as chattel, or disposable personal property, like furniture, and allowed the dismantling of a plantation for the instant conversion of its labor force into cash, breaking family relations among the enslaved whenever it was financially expedient.\n\nThe Barbadian code at first considered slaves to be real estate but was amended in 1668 to reclassify them as chattel alienable from the land, conforming with facts on the ground. That quickly became part of Virginia law as well, where the forward-looking knew that massive importation of Africans would come soon. The logical consequence of capitalizing slaves as chattel was that creditors felt more secure investing in slaves. As the international slave market became stronger, the chattel principle also supported the creation of a locally traded market in slaves, who were a self-increasing source of riches\u2014an important domestic business during those days of restricted foreign trade.\n\nBy the time slave ships began to disgorge hundreds weekly into Virginia, a legal framework for slavery was already in place. This legal infrastructure would be subject to constant revision, but the basic questions were settled by the time of the great wave of African arrivals in the last days of the seventeenth century. By 1690 or so, perhaps a little earlier, Virginia's labor force was majority enslaved, not indentured. The society became even more unequal as large landowning slaveholders became very wealthy men and the formerly indentured were shut out of participation in the economy and from landowning.\n\nDespite the glamour of the Royalist Cavalier image, most British emigrants to Virginia were indentured servants, most of them young men. In marked contrast to Puritan New England, which was more middle-class and more egalitarian, Virginia received rich and poor, exalting the former and exploiting the latter.\n\nMany of the Virginia colonists confronting the daunting physical problems of clearing and planting wilderness land never bothered to establish formal title, and did not necessarily know how. Many would move on; their relentless, unrotated farming of tobacco exhausted the soil of the necessary nutrients after a few years, and the West was always beckoning with the promise of more land. Old Dominion became concentrated in large holdings, which ultimately facilitated the cultivation of tobacco and the importation of slaves.\n\nThe consequences for American society were permanent. \"During a brief period in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century,\" writes Anthony S. Parent in his study of the creation of Virginia's slave society between 1660 and 1740, \"a small but powerful planter class, acting in their short-term interest, gave America its racial dilemma.\" A miserably fed, clothed, and housed force of enslaved black laborers was what planters wanted, and that's what they bequeathed.\n\nOnly the wealthy could afford to own an enslaved work force, so the influx of slaves created an additional competitive advantage for the larger planters, even as the enslaved people themselves counted as wealth for them. \"The workers who produced the crops,\" writes Lorena S. Walsh, sounding a note repeatedly expressed by writers on the subject, \"were almost invariably the most valuable asset that planters possessed.\" The rich of Virginia became richer, and the super-rich, or \"great planters holding thousands of acres and exceptionally large labor forces\" probably \"increased from fewer than a dozen in 1640 to around eighty at the close of the Seven Years' War [1763].\"\n\nWhile generally the colonial wealthy had unimpressive fortunes compared with the income English lords had, the Virginians had them beat in terms of luxurious living: they had slaves, who made the planters' lives comfortable in every detail.\n\nThe planters had to superintend their affairs closely, though; unlike the island confines of sugar-producing Barbados and Jamaica, the extensive tobacco lands of Virginia were not conducive to absentee ownership. Planter William Fitzhugh wrote about a proposed land deal in 1689: \"it is not worth two pence to anyone that is not actually upon the Spot.\"\n\nNot all farmers understood the importance of legal documentation, but it made a fortune for those with English legal training and connections. Holding public office in early Virginia was a direct path to personal enrichment on a drastic scale. Members of the oligarchy who knew best how to appropriate land helped themselves to large tracts. Claimed and commodified by England, this newly fenced land was given to individuals who were in a position to use it to create wealth. The laws were crafted so as to make rights of property\u2014both the enclosed land and the human labor\u2014sacrosanct at a foundational level to the society built atop the Chesapeake, creating a network of property owners whose descendants have traditionally been of high social importance in the region.\n\nWriting of the nineteenth century, Steven Deyle notes that white births were recorded in a Bible, black ones in a ledger. It was that way already when the big ships began sailing from Africa to Virginia. Black servitude was to be perpetual, including all future children of the enslaved person, and their children, and their children's children, founding a fortune of human property within a few generations through the power of what came to be called \"natural increase.\"\n\nConsider a hypothetical example of the economic power of the capitalized womb: if an enslaved girl brought from Africa in 1695 survived long enough to give birth to four children who survived long enough to be of reproductive age (which typically entailed giving birth to a number of other children who died), and if two of those four surviving children were girls and each similarly produced four surviving children, recursively over 165 years (twelve generations, supposing fifteen years to be a generation), a first-generation enslaved woman's womb would thus engender a population of 2,048 people by 1860, all of them legally considered property, each with a cash value.\n\nThe only thing hypothetical about that scenario is the numbers. Apart from that, it in fact happened: enslaved women began having children as soon as their bodies were able, and their children were handed down as inherited property from generation to generation. There was a white family's fortune to be accumulated from the \"increase\" of a single African kidnap victim. That Virginia planters understood this is clear from the records of one of the first planters for whom we have much documentation, who was also a lawyer.\n\nOn the strength of his correspondence, the English-born William Fitzhugh was a pioneer not only in the use of an enslaved labor force in Virginia, but also in comprehending the value of owning the laborers' children and descendants in perpetuity. Anthony S. Parent writes:\n\nHe did not have to purchase laborers; he could grow his own. He thought of his blacks as stock, not unlike cattle, that could be bred indefinitely. He boasted in 1686 that most of his twenty-nine enslaved workers were Virginia-born, and the Africa-born were as \"likely as most in Virginia.\"\n\nIn a 1681 letter about a slave cargo (the place of origin is not noted) expected to arrive into York, Virginia, Fitzhugh requested a colleague there \"to buy me five or six, whereof three or four to be boys, a man and woman or men and women, the boys from eight to seventeen or eighteen, the rest as young as you can procure them, for price I cannot direct therein because boys according to there age and growth are valued in price.\"\n\nHe used the word _breeders_. Writing of his holdings, Fitzhugh anticipated cheerfully that \"the Negroes increase being all young, & a considerable parcel of breeders, will keep that Stock good for ever.\" He does not appear ever to have purchased any more Africans. Were more documentation extant of the thoughts and actions of seventeenth-century colonists, one would presumably find more examples of this line of thinking, as per the 1696 deed in Hampton, Virginia, turning over \"one negro Lad nam'd Will and one Gray Mare & their Increse to him & his heirs for ever.\"\n\nEducated in England as a lawyer and elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1676, Fitzhugh used his office to acquire vast parcels of land through abuse of the headright system. He had labor to work it, his workforce increasing as the long-range value of owning people's perpetual descendants worked its actuarial magic. When Fitzhugh died in 1701 at the age of fifty\u2014not an uncommonly early age to die in colonial Virginia\u2014he was a very wealthy man. He had not only been a highly successful accumulator of land, but had also watched his holdings of human beings increase on their own, or perhaps with his or his sons' help, as household sexual abuse of servants by gentlemen was common.\n\nFitzhugh's informative will makes clear the ideal of legacy in Virginia. Dividing out his possessions among his widow and five sons (his married daughter Rosamond was not included), it begins with bequests of land, awarding five parcels containing a total of 30,918 acres to his eldest son, also named William Fitzhugh, \"to have and to hold the said Tracts and parcels of Land to him & the heirs of his Body Lawfully begotten for ever.\" Dividing among his remaining sons and his widow a total of twenty-seven parcels comprising 49,500 acres, he described precisely from whom each parcel had been acquired and any details and conditions attaching to it, e.g., \"all that Tract or parcel that I bought to Mr. Waugh conta. 400 acres lying upon Rappahannock one half thereof being now Leased [to] William Yates.\"\n\nOnce the lands were bequeathed, Fitzhugh divided up his slaves. His style of disposition made clear that he saw them as the most valuable of his family's heirlooms, parceling out to different households in the region his fifty-one \"Negroes and Mulattoes,\" providing inadvertent witness that the multigenerational skin-lightening process had already begun in Virginia.\n\n_AND_ as for what Personal Estate God Almighty hath been graciously pleased to Endow me with I Give and bequeath as followeth[:] _Item_ I Give to my Dear and well beloved wife seven Negroes \u2013 (to say) Harry & his wife Katherine Kate Will and his wife Peggy, Hanna & her youngest child to her & her dispose forever... I Give to my said beloved Wife one silver Bason three silver Plates one of the Lesser silver Candlesticks a silver Salt half my silver Spoons in the house the second Best silver Tankard a silver Porringer & a large silver Ladle the Great silver Tumbler to her & her heirs forever [etc.]...\n\nThe enslaved Hanna left no record of her thoughts, so we do not know how she responded to the news that she was being bequeathed to Mrs. Fitzhugh along with her youngest child only, while her children Clory, Rose, and Robin went to one of Fitzhugh's sons, her family divided up like so many silver spoons. Still, there was some consolation: Hanna would be in the same county as her children, and perhaps they would see each other from time to time or could at least hear news of each other.\n\nVirginia's enslaved population grew its own extended communities through fragile webs of kinship that paralleled those of the masters, with the grapevine as a means of communication. Despite the regime of dehumanization that confronted the enslaved, a multigenerational African American community was forming in Virginia, which was as much home to Hanna's children as it was to Fitzhugh's heirs.\n\nSugar in Barbados, tobacco in the Chesapeake: following the whirl of the ocean gyre, a global production cycle, still in its early stages, took slave labor from Africa to raise crops in the Americas that were consumed in Europe.\n\nBut Barbados was full. Population pressures were already palpable there in the 1640s. After the Restoration, the Barbadian Royalists who had been loyal to Charles II during his years of exile, and who were now influential in his court, successfully petitioned the king to be allowed to create a colony in southern Virginia that would be christened with the Latin version of his name.\n\nCarolina wouldn't cost the king anything. It would be a buffer between Virginia and the Spanish territories, and it was the perfect expansion slot for Barbados.\n\n#   13\n\n# **Carolina**\n\n_Formerly when beavor was a comodity they sold about 1200 skins a year but no imployment pleases the Chicasaws so well as slave Catching. A lucky hitt at that besides the Honor procures them a whole Estate at once, one slave brings a Gun, ammunition, horse, hatchet, and a suit of Cloathes, which would not be procured without much tedious toil a hunting. 1_\n\n\u2014Thomas Nairne, _Journalls to the Chicasaws and Talapoosies_ , 1708\n\nTHE PRIME MOVER OF the idea to seek an American concession from Charles II for a proprietary colony was John Colleton, a Cavalier who had fled to Barbados after Charles I's execution. Returning to England after the Restoration, Colleton was knighted in return for the loyalty that had cost him the confiscation of his property by the Roundheads. He got a plum position: named to the Council for Foreign Plantations, he came into contact there with the heavy players of economic expansion for the revitalized monarchy, all of them happily and openly using their positions to enrich themselves.\n\nColleton joined with seven other power brokers, five of whom were members of the Council for Foreign Plantations. Together the eight asked His Highness for a royal charter, which was granted in 1663, of the territory to be owned by the eight True and Absolute Lords Proprietors.\n\nCarolina's north-to-south reach was described as being from 31\u00b0 to 36\u00b0 latitude, blithely ignoring Spanish or Native American claims to the territory. Its boundaries were expanded both northward and southward by a second charter two years later, including areas that were already colonized\u2014to the north, the Albemarle colony that had been settled by Virginians; to the south, the Spanish fortification of St. Augustine, even though that was unoccupiable by the English. To the west, the Carolina territory was defined as stretching all the way across the unexplored continent, and the Carolinians took that seriously; Carolina as natural master of the continent became part of an enduring ideology.\n\nA colony attempted by Barbadian adventurers at Cape Fear failed in 1667. It took until 1669 for the Carolina project to begin to take off, which it did after one of the lords proprietors, Baron Anthony Ashley-Cooper, took active charge, persuading the others to put up \u00a3500 sterling each in seed money for a settlement at Carolina's Port Royal.\n\nIn support of his utopian project of proprietary colonialism, Ashley-Cooper created an ambitious document, the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669). Though unsigned, it was largely drafted by John Locke, who was secretary to the lords proprietors and an investor in the Royal Adventurers and the Royal African Company, and who lived in Ashley-Cooper's house and tutored his children. Locke's _Two Treatises of Government_ , which popularized the notion of a social contract between governed and governors and established him as a founding philosopher of modern liberalism, was still twenty years away.\n\nAfter the trauma of a king beheaded, a Puritan interregnum, and a new king reseated on the throne, Carolina would exemplify royal grandeur amid separation of powers. Though the Fundamental Constitutions were never formally ratified and were roundly ignored by the colonists, they served as a kind of mission statement, sketching out in some detail how a system of nobility could function in Carolina and how a freeman might join that nobility. It proposed an elaborate structure, heavy on theory: though it hoped to \"avoid a numerous democracy,\" there would be a sort of system of checks and balances between the power of the nobles in the metropolis and the new nobility in the colony. Carolina would have representative government, elected by an oligarchy, with a parliament, a council, and a complicated court system to settle the many disputes that occur when an entire society is simultaneously engaged in land-grabbing.\n\nAt the head of it would be a hereditary aristocracy. Carolina would be a \"palatinate\": the eldest lord proprietor was designated the palatine, the direct representative of the king whose functions might be exercised by a local deputy called a landgrave or a lesser figure called a cazique.* Locke was named a landgrave in 1671, though he never traveled to America.\n\nThe colonists, the theory went, would pay the costs of establishing themselves in exchange for generous land grants\u2014though there were Native Americans living on the granted land\u2014and policies facilitating slaveowning, which was to be the economic backbone of the new colony. The proprietors, who in theory owned a fifth of the unsurveyed land, were assigned \"baronies\" of twelve thousand acres, and nobles received another fifth, but any intrepid colonist with even a little capital could acquire land, thanks to a generous headrights system that awarded 150 acres per servant imported\u2014triple what Virginia had offered. It must be a large territory indeed to be able to give away so much land, and indeed, they claimed all the land to the west.\n\nIn response to a request for clarification, the lords proprietors agreed that the headright for importation of servants would apply to slaves as well. They had a motive: with four of the eight lords proprietors having also been founders of the Royal African Company, Carolina was founded by slave traders. It was created to be slaveowners' heaven. Bring in a slave, get a hundred fifty acres free. Bring twenty, fifty, a hundred! Colonists could own their slaves securely, because, as in Barbados, these slaves would have _no rights at all._ Ashley-Cooper, writes M. Eugene Sirmans, \"inserted in all drafts of the Fundamental Constitutions a provision which became of crucial importance in shaping the development of Carolina. 'Every Freeman of Carolina,' it was stipulated, 'shall have absolute power and authority over his Negro Slaves, of what opinion or Religion soever.'\"\n\nConversion to Christianity would not free them. Carolina was not a religiously motivated colony, nor was it founded by refugees from persecution. Needing to attract settlers, it was relatively tolerant of religion; the Fundamental Constitutions included a limited guarantee of religious freedom, though Catholics were not welcome. The utopian vision of Carolina was the pursuit of individual profit by any means necessary.\n\nFor an aggressive young man starting out, it was as good a deal as could be, if he didn't die of the numerous diseases. The lords proprietors published pamphlets \"praising [South Carolina] as a healthy and temperate location, indeed a paradise for English bodies,\" writes Peter McCandless, but in reality, Carolina was even more unhealthy than Barbados. Malaria was not common in Barbados, but the Lowcountry had it, and yellow fever too, as well as parasitic worms and diarrheal diseases.\n\nBuffeted and blown off course by storms, the first South Carolina colonists spent seven grueling months at sea before arriving in March 1670. The travel experience was sufficiently horrible from the beginning that four colonists deserted when the ship stopped in Ireland. Stopping at Barbados on the way, they picked up the Royalist landowner John Yeamans, who brought his slaves with him, with the result that black people participated in the founding of Carolina, as they previously had in Barbados. Once landed, they planted their settlement, naming it after their king and patron: Charles Town. Yeamans, who had been instructed to choose a governor for the territory, chose himself and was proclaimed governor in 1672.\n\nVirginia received some Barbadian immigrant planters, but South Carolina was defined by them. It was, in Peter H. Wood's phrase, \"the colony of a colony.\" \"By the second summer of settlement,\" Wood writes, \"almost half of the whites and considerably more than half of the blacks in the colony had come from Barbados.\" It was even less polite than Virginia, as the colonists jockeyed to game the system and take profit at gunpoint. It was combative; with Florida to its south, it was the most exposed of any of England's territories to Spanish attack.\n\nThe largest immigration to South Carolina in the 1670s was a movement of Barbadian planters to a community near Goose Creek, off the Cooper River, which became a power base that dominated South Carolina politics throughout the proprietorship. Practiced hands at colonial survival, the \"Goose Creek men\" had no intention of being subject to the lords proprietors, and they quickly acted to take control of the fledgling colony's elaborate governing structure of council and parliament. There was a religious schism as well: the Goose Creek men were part of Carolina's Anglican contingent, which wanted the Church of England to be an official religion, with favoritism for its members and themselves running it.\n\nCarolina's business policies were from the beginning hostile toward Virginia, some of whose colonists had to a degree been trading with the Native Americans and in native slaves. As soon as the Carolinians arrived, they went directly to work at cutting the Virginians out of the Indian trade, and they were favorably located to do so. Virginia's natural connection was not to the southern part of the eastern seaboard but to the line of colonies to its north. By land, Virginia was hemmed in by the Appalachians on the west and the Dismal Swamp to the south. By sea, a vessel going south from Virginia would have to cross the rough Cape Fear barrier and go against the Gulf Stream. So Virginia's easiest commerce was to the north and with Europe; it had little maritime contact with Charles Town and points south.\n\nThe northern part of Carolina was hemmed in worse than Virginia\u2014blocked by barrier islands along the coastline, the Dismal Swamp on the north, and the Appalachians to the west. Forming a large buffer zone between Charles Town and Virginia, it would be formally partitioned as North Carolina in 1712. It was physically impossible to govern both Carolinas from a single seat; sea travel was the only practical access between them. But Charles Town was in charge commercially: North Carolina had no major seaport, and never developed a colonial aristocracy.\n\nThe two Carolinas were quite different from each other. Whereas North Carolina was settled principally from the north by frontiersmen and became mainly a domain of small farms, South Carolina was settled principally by sea, via immigration from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Barbados, and became a regime of large plantations. Its west and southwest were located below the Appalachians, leaving the way clear for overland travel on trails through thick forests to the vast region that we now call the Deep South\u2014the home of a complex, interlocking network of related native cultures that anthropologists call the Mississippian, which dated back to the innovation of maize cultivation and storage in the region around 1000 BC.\n\nNot only was North Carolina where the South began; South Carolina was where the Southwest began. South Carolinians fought the Native Americans and drove westward expansion. From South Carolina's earliest days, it saw itself as extending all the way out to New Mexico, where the first Spanish settlement had been established in 1598.\n\nThe indigenous peoples had long fought internecine wars among each other. The arrival of the Europeans increased the pressure of war that was already forcing the Native Americans into confederations, including:\n\n  * the Choctaw, who inhabited the Mississippi River region;\n  * the Chickasaw in present-day northern Mississippi and western Tennessee;\n  * the powerful Creek confederation, loosely divided into Upper Creeks (present-day Georgia) and Lower Creeks (Alabama);\n  * the mountain-dwelling Cherokee in eastern Tennessee and parts of South Carolina; and\n  * others: the Natchez of Mississippi, the Catawba of the Carolinas, the Tuscarora of North Carolina; as well as\n  * two that would play important roles in the South Carolina native slave trade: the Yamasee of South Carolina and the Shawnee (or Savannah) of the Savannah River area, where the town of Savannah was later founded.\n\nMeanwhile, the picture was complicated considerably by the entry into Louisiana of the French, who were strategically focused on the Mississippi River. The French, the Spanish, the English: three contenders for the same large Native American territory that later became the cotton kingdom, all enslaving the natives. But it was Carolina traders\u2014many of them Scots\u2014who massified the Native American slave trade.\n\nComing from Barbados, the Carolinians had ample knowledge of the workings of the global slave trade, and they also had business contacts on the island. They knew that there were no indigenous people on Barbados, but Carolina abounded with Native Americans, and the settlers immediately began trafficking in them to supply Barbados's, and the other English colonies', slave markets. They also exported kidnapped natives to England's enemy colonies of Saint-Domingue, Martinique, and Guadeloupe.\n\nFormerly, when Native Americans defeated rival tribes they tortured the men to death over a period of days and took the wives and children. Now, the losers could instead be sold to South Carolina traders. The Carolinians, in other words, paid Native American warriors with consumer goods to annihilate each other, escalating an already existing circle of recriminative violence whose origin predated the arrival of the Europeans. Carolina, then, took its first steps toward having an economy by building a Native American slave trade that would then fund the growth of a plantation system using black labor.\n\nThe lords proprietors had not contemplated this; like the Virginia Company previously, they wanted to reserve the trade in hides for themselves, for which reason they wanted good relations with the natives. Though African slavery was central to the proprietors' design, they were furious when Carolina's first industry became a trade in enslaved Native Americans. For one thing, they didn't get a cut from that business since the colonies, not the Royal African Company, supplied the market.\n\nThe merchants of Britain, the slaveowners of Barbados, and the traders of Carolina worked together through commerce to create a revolution against the lords proprietors. New England and Virginia had previously sold some native slaves, but the Carolinians had access to a much larger supply, and they set about it with a will. This Native American slave trade was completely illegal under the laws of the colony, in which free people were not to be enslaved except in \"just war.\" (Africans, however, were deemed to have been already enslaved at the time of purchase in Africa.) A set of additional rules for Carolina, written in Locke's hand in December 1671, specifically prohibited enslaving the natives. Too late. Traders in the two-year-old colony were already fomenting war among the local tribes for the purpose of slave-raiding, accumulating wealth by dispossession.\n\nThe Native Americans needed little encouragement from the English and Scottish to kill and enslave each other, and the Carolinians were eager to help them do it. The methodology had already been worked out by African slave traders. To create slave exports, the entrepreneurs producing slave-raiding wars had to create an arms race among the native people, whether they were the indigenous peoples of Mississippi or of Ouidah. As in Africa, slave-raiding in greater Carolina was done by the natives: the traders armed their Indian allies and bought the slaves they captured.\n\nFrom its earliest years, Carolina sought to extend its control over the entire region by means of its superior trading goods, which most especially meant guns and ammunition. In the last two decades of the seventeenth century, Carolina traders built a network that extended through the territories later known as Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It was all South Carolina, at least in the minds of the Carolinians.\n\nThere were two main export products from this commercial wilderness trading circuit. One was deerskins, which were exported by the tens of thousands annually to European markets. Fashions in London changed with the availability of the new commodity, which was cheaper than New England beaver: stylish Englishmen began wearing breeches made of the comfortable, soft leather, and women wore deerskin gloves. But the more lucrative, and primary, commodity that Carolina traders sold was native slaves, who were exported to the Antilles as well as to New England. The farther west the traders penetrated\u2014by the 1690s they were operating in present-day Mississippi and Louisiana\u2014the less likely they were to be handling deerskins. The Native Americans preferred slaves as their long-distance export; they were more valuable and, unlike deerskins, which were a burden to be carried, captives could walk themselves to market.\n\nGenerally the Carolinians preferred to sell the Native Americans away rather than keep them as slaves locally; for one thing, the natives knew the territory better than the Carolinians did, and they had allies outside, so the potential for escape was high. But also, Africans were much preferred as workers.\n\n\"That slavery would be the accepted labor system of South Carolina was unquestioned from its earliest settlement,\" writes Elizabeth Donnan. \"Coming from Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, and St. Kitts, slavery was the accustomed order, the bringing of slaves into the province the natural and desirable practice.\" Even before South Carolina was able to establish a major staple crop, it quickly developed a two-way slave trade: first, exporting Native Americans, then plowing the profits into importing Africans.\n\nThe flow of captives among the Anglo-American markets was a complex circuit in the years after South Carolina became a power in Native American slave trading.\n\nIn the late seventeenth century, there was a market for slaves at every port in the English colonies. Every colony wanted labor, and if it didn't come from the Royal African Company, so much the better. Boston, New York, Philadelphia\u2014they all bought slaves when they could get them, though the market was smaller in the North. The plantations of Virginia were an especially good market for any trader with laborers to sell, because the territory received few Africans. Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua\u2014the first stops after Africa on the trade routes of the clockwise loop\u2014were almost always ready to buy Africans, so there was no need for a slaver who could sell his cargo there to continue for weeks more to Virginia with prisoners who could erupt into violence or die in an epidemic. (Much the same thing would happen later with French slavers, who could always sell their cargo in Saint-Domingue and had no need to continue on the perilous way to Louisiana.)\n\nSo vessels packed with enslaved Africans came into the sugar islands in the 1660s, albeit in insufficient quantities to please the planters, but only rarely to North America, where slaves accordingly sold for high prices. The scarcity created business opportunities: needing desperately to diversify from the monocrop of sugar, Barbadians developed a minor trade in exporting small quantities of slaves to the mainland. Right up until the War of Independence, vessels coming to North America from the West Indies might carry a few slaves along as part of the cargo, generally new arrivals from Africa. A captain could buy them on his own account, paying with the gold coins the Barbadians otherwise had such a hard time getting. He would sell them for deerskins\u2014or, later, rice\u2014in Carolina or to Virginians for tobacco, then take that commodity to London, sell it for paper exchangeable for gold, and continue on another round with a new supply of coins. Alternatively, black slaves from the Antilles were exchanged for native slaves from Carolina, sometimes at a two-for-one exchange rate that reflected both the Carolinians' desire to rid their territory of Native Americans and their eagerness to acquire black slaves.\n\nThe sugar boom on Barbados thus indirectly provided a labor supply for the Chesapeake, even as the Barbadians bought Carolina natives. While presumably most of the black slaves trafficked to the Chesapeake were African-born, others were born in Barbados, or were what historians have begun to call \"Atlantic creoles\"\u2014a new cosmopolitan people who, writes Ira Berlin, \"might bear the features of Africa, Europe, or the Americas.\"\n\nThe native slave trade was not a small business; Alan Gallay, whose scholarship has informed our treatment of this topic, estimates that the Carolinians trafficked between thirty and fifty thousand Native Americans off to slavery. Perhaps ten to twenty thousand of them came from the Florida peninsula, which was largely depopulated as a result. There is little documentation of the traffic of either native slaves out of Carolina or of black slaves from the Indies up to the mainland. Gallay concludes that during the years of the Native American slave trade (until the Yamasee War put an abrupt stop to it in 1715), more native slaves were exported from Charles Town than African slaves were imported.\n\nWhatever the precise numbers, the direction was clear: over a period of more than 150 years, culminating in the Native American removals of the 1830s, the free, sovereign, native population of the entire Deep South was hollowed out and gradually replaced by an imprisoned African, then African American, population.\n\nThe creation of a voracious external market in abducted Native Americans was a much different proposition than pre-Columbian indigenous enslavement of natives by natives had been. It altered forever the political and social relations among indigenous people, none of whom could remain unaffected as Indian slave trade routes emerged across the densely forested Deep South. Tribal groups became well-armed colonial clients, racing toward each other's destruction.\n\nThis Charles Town trade web reached as far as Louisiana. Even before the Canadian Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, brought his force to the Gulf Coast to establish the Louisiana colony in 1699, South Carolinian traders had already begun depopulating the region, removing enslaved indigenous people through their already well established frontier posts. On February 28, Iberville wrote that two Englishmen were leading Chickasaw war parties \"among all the other nations to make war on them and to carry off as many slaves as they could.\"\n\nThese Carolina traders, with their organized circuits, were the first Europeans to learn, however crudely, something of the political complexity of the indigenous Mississippian culture. They were also the first English to comprehend the plan of \"encirclement,\" by which the French hoped to control the entire circuit from the St. Lawrence in Canada down the continental backbone of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, with the ultimate aim of driving the English out of the coastal Atlantic areas.\n\nThe Mississippi River did not figure much in the Native Americans' strategy; they dominated the land. Presumably they could have exterminated the European settlements had they not been so at odds with each other. Instead, they made alliances with the Europeans for protection against other tribes and for the guns and other consumer goods that the Europeans brought. Rarely did Europeans fight Native Americans directly, and though the European forces on occasion attacked each other's strongholds, in general they fought their wars through native clients, who attacked each other.\n\nThe French made allies of the Choctaw, whose enemies, the English-allied Chickasaw, were by then completely given over to a slaving economy. When the Chickasaw attacked the Choctaw, it was England attacking France. The large Creek confederation managed the feat of never allying with any of the three European powers in the vicinity, and thus became power brokers.\n\nThis early Carolina trading economy was the work of perhaps two or three hundred traders, some of whom were cattlemen as well. Trade was war: like the privateers of Elizabeth's time, these were merchant-warriors, known for their brutality.\n\nThe traders established \"factories\" in the wilderness and in the Native American towns. A word with roots in slavery, _factory_ derives from _factor_ , referring to the financial agents who, in the absence of banks in America, settled colonial accounts on behalf of the London syndicates. That's what they called the trading posts in Native American territories, as well as the hellish installations that similarly swapped merchandise for people along the West African coast: factories.*\n\nIn Africa, slave-ship captains assembled a live cargo over a period of weeks as local traders came downriver, sometimes waiting for a nearby battle to end so that war captives would be available for purchase. The captives' heads were shaved before they were packed belowdecks, a precaution against lice that also de-individualized them, along with stripping them of their names, identities, and culture. Likewise their clothes went: most were shipped naked, in violation of the traditional modesty of many African societies.\n\nThe modern sense of a _factory_ was already implicit, then, in what the slave trade did. Through a series of dehumanizing procedures, it processed the raw material of people into a value-added industrial product: slaves. As the American plantation system emerged, planters did not have to capture and enslave people; they bought African slaves, offered to them as a product by a slave factory.\n\nThe systematic crushing of the black family by the later antebellum slave-breeding industry began with the severance of African family ties. The elite of the Americas, whose successive generations tended to remain elite, and who had in many cases come from Europe with the advantage of family connections, did everything possible to make sure that the family structures of Africa, which in some cases included royalty, high priests, and military heroes, did not transfer their webs to the Americas.\n\nRipped from the families that had always been their strength, the captives were intended to be as close to human blanks as the slave traders could deliver\u2014though, as scholars have detailed in recent decades, there is abundant evidence to confirm what common sense suggests: that the enslaved struggled against their condition all along, and never accepted their captivity. Slave traders couldn't remove the Africans' heads, and in those heads the captives brought culture and knowledge, which in turn became their defense after they were sold\u2014captured, bound, imported, naked, packaged in chains, nameless, and, in the Duke of York's heyday, complete with corporate logo.\n\nWhen we speak of \"branding\" today, we should remember that it was at one time literal: with a hot iron pressed against human flesh. York literally put his name on his merchandise: many thousands of people were branded RAC, for Royal African Company, while thousands more were branded DY, for Duke of York. The brand functioned as a tax stamp, signifying that the person was to be considered a legally imported factory product.\n\nIn modern commentary, one sometimes hears the term \"feudal\" applied to the slaveholding South. That is incorrect;* instead of following a feudal model as prescribed by the Fundamental Constitutions, South Carolina agricultural slavery was capitalism in action. Enslaved black people in English North America did not have the advantages of serfs, who were attached to specific pieces of land and could at least remain with their families and communities.* Carolina slaves were, like Barbadians, chattel\u2014a different category of property, which allowed them to be separated from their family members and redistributed as necessary for financial advantage to the master or his creditors.\n\nA color-caste system of forced laborers to produce export crops for sale on the global market was as modern a notion as a new sugar factory, a more efficient sailing vessel, an insurance policy, or a London bill of exchange. It was based not on tradition\u2014English involvement in African slavery was still a recent phenomenon\u2014but on empirical, market-driven experience: African slaves had been proven in both Barbados and Virginia to be more profitable than indentured Englishmen.\n\nNot only through custom, but also as stipulated by law, the enslaved were routinely treated as if they were less than fully human. As such, they could be fed inhumanely: a low grade of Indian corn, imported from New England, would suffice, so that the maximum amount of land and agricultural labor could be devoted to cash crops.\n\nIncome from plantation produce arrived not in the form of coins but as credit, always leading production by a year, giving the perennially indebted planter an urgent incentive to produce, which was transmitted to his overseer, who in turn used his whip to communicate the economic imperative to the people in the field.\n\nIntroducing firearms, ammunition, and consumer goods, conspicuously including rum, into native societies had the effect of making the natives dependent on their Carolina allies. Meanwhile, the slave trade in indigenous people increased the collective temperature of rage among the tribes, who in the aggregate greatly outnumbered the Carolinians. The Europeans' dealings with the natives were thus highly political: these were not unions of tribes but confederations whose ancestrally distinct factions could turn hostile against each other and whose antagonisms could be stoked and played off against each other. Some tribes were eradicated entirely, as in the case of the small but violent Westo.\n\nThe Westo, who acquired that name only when they got to Carolina, had endured two forced migrations in fifteen years. First displaced from New York and Pennsylvania by the Iroquois Confederation\u2014the most highly organized of the native governments\u2014they went to Virginia, where they slave-raided on behalf of Virginia traders until the Pamunkey, who were themselves being displaced by the Virginia colonists, pushed them out. The Westo migrated down to Carolina, where they terrorized other tribes and sold the captives to traders, doing much business between 1675 and 1680. But they too were killed and enslaved when the Carolinians found a stronger trading partner, the Savannah, who would in turn be replaced by a confederation called the Yamasee, whose fighting men numbered perhaps twelve hundred and whose origins are unclear.\n\nIt was a deliberately genocidal business model. In Louisiana, Iberville told a Choctaw council in 1702 that, as summarized by Vernor W. Crane, \"within the last decade the Chickasaw had taken five hundred Choctaw prisoners at English instigation and had killed more than three times that many.\" By giving Native Americans a mercantile incentive to assassinate and capture one another, the English facilitated the murderous process of depopulation. So killing was the traders' business, and business was good, especially because credit could now be had. British business took enormous steps toward modernization during the period of the native slave trade out of Carolina, and the Carolina economy took full advantage of the financial innovations.\n\nThe Royal African Company was founded in 1672, a disastrous year for British business. The finances of the extravagant Charles II, who was supported by Louis XIV, were in such disarray that England defaulted on its debts. Carolina's earliest days, therefore, coincided with the rise of private banking in the face of Charles's default.\n\nPrivate banks issued readily transferable debt in the form of bills of exchange. These were something like checks that could be traded; their expansion came along just in time to play a key role in fueling South Carolina's economic growth. Bills of exchange had been used in England as early as the fourteenth century, arriving there as part of the credit footprint of Italian bankers. In the intervening centuries, they had played a key role in the humbling of monarchs by empowering the bourgeoisie. They allowed for the production of money without the intervention of the king, although\u2014and here's the catch\u2014the system required a stable sovereign currency to function well.\n\nAn individual bill of exchange might be passed around from hand to hand many times before being redeemed at the office of the original issuer. It was a lot easier than passing around pieces of gold, especially since there was rarely gold to be had in the colonies. In writing up a bill of exchange, the merchant in effect created money in the form of new debt. This system, as elaborated in late seventeenth-century England, created the conditions necessary for capitalism to thrive; it was copied throughout Europe.\n\nCharles Town, which was in close contact with London over the years, developed a powerful mercantile economy based on bills of credit. The increased availability of credit from London merchants facilitated Carolina's import\/export slave trade that in effect exchanged Native Americans for Africans, who then served as collateral for the creation of more credit.\n\nThe position of bills of exchange in commerce was illustrated by a report made to Thomas Starke, one of the first importers of African slaves direct to the Chesapeake (as of 1692) and one of London's largest tobacco importers. When in 1697 he sent an apprentice to Maryland to collect a large sum owed him by indebted tobacco planters and to sell dry goods, Barbadian rum, and slaves, the apprentice reported back that indentured servants were being paid for with tobacco (meaning tradable paper notes redeemable in tobacco), whereas slaves were being paid for with bills of exchange\u2014meaning that slaves were more valuable than indentured servants and had to be purchased with a higher-quality money.\n\nWhen Charles II died in 1685 without an heir, his younger brother James, the Duke of York and of Albany, became King James II. Though it was an orderly succession, it alarmed Protestant politicians. James, who like Charles had spent his formative years in exile in France, had converted to Catholicism in 1669\u2014more or less in secret at first, while continuing to attend Anglican services. A believer in a strong monarchy, James dissolved Parliament twice during the three years he was in power. When his Italian wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a Catholic heir in 1688, tensions grew until James was deposed by his own Protestant daughter Mary, who had married the Dutch prince Willem van Oranj (William of Orange).\n\nWilliam and Mary took power in 1688 at the invitation of the Protestants and in collusion with the Dutch, who had ample reason to hate James. Their anti-Catholic coup d'etat has been remembered as the \"Glorious Revolution,\" a term that put a halo and a political spin around the word \"revolution,\" which also described the movement of the heavens.\n\nVirginia and Massachusetts both exulted at the Glorious Revolution, though otherwise they rarely agreed on anything. The days of absolute monarchy\u2014and, they hoped, of rule by Catholics\u2014were definitively over. And so were the days of Catholics being able to hold office, or even vote, in Maryland, a situation that would not change again until independence.\n\nThe discontent that led to the Glorious Revolution stemmed in part from Charles's fiscal profligacy. Now there would be no more Stuart spendthrifts. King William III was placed on an allowance and had to go to Parliament for money. Meanwhile, under its Dutch king, English finance was penetrated by Dutch systems, the most modern of the day. The Bank of England was created in 1694, and a stock exchange came into being in London. Making use of Dutch innovations that were not available to or, apparently, understood by the French, English commerce flourished, with merchant-created \"credit-money\" (Geoffrey Ingham's term) becoming \"the most common means of transacting business,\" even as England created \"the strongest metallic currency in history.\" The merchants' bills of exchange were pegged to that now-solid currency.\n\nAll of this augured a more dramatic projection of England as a world power. After the accession to the throne of Mary's Protestant sister (and Charles II's niece) Queen Anne in 1702, the Union of Crowns in 1707 brought England and Scotland together into the new nation of Great Britain\u2014a powerful free-trade zone that did not include Ireland, which would remain an exploited colony.\n\nNeither Catholics nor Quakers were welcome in Virginia, but both thrived in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, not all the white settlers in Virginia were English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish. There were Palatines, as German immigrants were called.\n\nAnd there were French Huguenots. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, after Louis XIV removed civil guarantees for Protestants in 1685 and began torturing them and confiscating their wealth following eighty-five years of tranquility, a migration was under way that made the Huguenots the largest continental group in the English colonies at that time. Iberville's strong military presence in Louis XIV's Catholic Louisiana foreclosed on the possibility of the hundreds of Huguenot refugees going to the Gulf Coast in 1700, and instead they established the colony of Manakin Town, some twenty miles north of Richmond, on the James River fall line.* Others went to South Carolina.\n\nBy this time the commercial struggle between South Carolina and Virginia for control of the Native American trade was well under way. South Carolina harassed the Virginians with duties on skins and on occasion seized traders' inventories. But South Carolina had much hotter conflicts on its hands; its founding inaugurated a border war with Spanish Florida that lasted more than a century. For the first decades, it looked as though one colony might annihilate the other, the way the Spanish had exterminated the French Fort Caroline. The Carolinians carried out an effective campaign of burning Spanish missions in the area.\n\nIn San Agust\u00edn, chronically underfunded by the Spanish, shortages were a way of life. But thinking there was a hoard of silver bars there, the English pirate Robert Searles attacked the town in 1668, burning it and killing some sixty people. The Spanish responded by fortifying their defenses, breaking ground on a fourteen-year construction project that began in 1672. Built by native and black slaves, convicts, and Spanish soldiers, the Castillo de San Marcos is today under the management of the United States National Park Service. Like similar, larger structures that can be seen in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, San Juan, Cartagena, Luanda, and other places around the former Iberian empire, it's still impressive. During multiple attacks on the city, its formidable walls were never breached. When a 1702 attack by the South Carolina governor (and Goose Creek Indian slave trader) James Moore razed the town of San Agust\u00edn and besieged the castle for two months, the population retreated to safety within its walls.\n\nBy contrast, a Scottish settlement in South Carolina, at present-day Beaufort, was annihilated. Stuart's Town (or Stuart Town), established in 1684, competed with Charles Town for the Native Americans' alliances. But after the Yamasee attacked a Spanish mission, Santa Catalina de \u00c1frica, killing some fifty people and taking away indigenous and African people to sell to Stuart Town traders, the Spanish attacked and burned Stuart Town in retaliation, destroying it in 1686.\n\nBesides direct assault, the Spanish had a powerful ultimate weapon to use against Charles Town: the lure of freedom for those who wanted to accept Catholicism or who, like the Bakongo, had been baptized Catholic in Africa. This allowed manumission to be part of what Gerald Horne calls \"leverage\" for the enslaved that resulted from the Catholic-Protestant enmity. The Spanish were not, of course, motivated by kindness; offering freedom to those who would defect was a tactic.\n\n_The Castillo de San Marcos as seen from the town of St. Augustine, Florida. June 2013._\n\nThe first recorded instance of defection was in 1687 when, writes Jane Landers, \"Florida's governor, Diego de Quiroga, reported to Spain that eight men, two women, and a nursing child had escaped from Carolina to San Agust\u00edn and were requesting baptism into the 'True Faith.'\" In the succeeding years, more groups of escapees arrived, occasioning a complaint to San Agust\u00edn's governor by John Colleton.\n\nSpanish Florida made use of slave labor, but it was a military outpost, not a plantation empire. The territory's de facto status as a haven for enslaved people wishing to be baptized Catholic was formalized by a November 7, 1693, edict from the feeble Spanish king Carlos II. The last Hapsburg king of Spain, he was believed to be bewitched but was actually the product of generations of royal inbreeding; his decisions, presumably including this one, were largely made by his regent mother, the Austrian queen Mariana.\n\nOffering freedom was an effective measure: the promise of a safe haven for slaves within marching distance kept South Carolinians afraid of domestic revolt, to say nothing of their fear of nearby Spanish armies, which commonly had black soldiers.\n\nWith the death of Carlos in 1700, the Bourbons took the Spanish throne, with Louis XIV's grandson Philippe d'Anjou becoming Felipe V. This union of French and Spanish crowns alarmed the rest of Europe. The War of Spanish Succession, known in America as Queen Anne's War, began in 1701 with England, the Netherlands, and the Austrian-centered Hapsburg Empire as allies against France and Spain. In local terms, that meant intensifying the conflict between South Carolina and Florida, between South Carolina and Louisiana, and between the English-allied Chickasaws and the French-allied Choctaw.\n\nIberville formulated a plan for a joint French-Spanish expedition against Charles Town, which would in theory continue on to Virginia and New York. He was perhaps the most able military man in the Americas at the time, and it is possible he could have taken Charles Town, but he died before he could carry out the assault, apparently of yellow fever, in Havana in July 1706. It went on without him in September, launched from Havana, with both black and indigenous troops joining the combined French and Spanish forces. But the invaders were defeated with the substantial participation of citizen militia, and the assault failed miserably.\n\n*The word \"landgrave,\" previously associated with the Holy Roman Empire, referred to an officer of the border guard, which was indeed Carolina's strategic buffer-zone function; \"cazique\" was a Ta\u00edno word for chieftain that apparently crept into the vocabulary via Spanish.\n\n*Muscle Shoals, Alabama, famous in the annals of recorded music, was at one time the site of such a Native American\u2013trading factory.\n\n*Though there was later an idealized affinity in the antebellum South for the fantasy medieval life depicted by Walter Scott in his 1820 novel _Ivanhoe._\n\n*Disclosure: the Sublette (or Soblet) family arrived in America as part of this migration.\n\n#   14\n\n# **The Separate Traders**\n\n_Most of the wealth consists in slaves or negroes.... These negroes are brought annually in large numbers from Guine and Jamaica (the latter of which belongs to England) on English ships. They can be selected according to pleasure, young and old men and women. They are entirely naked when they arrive, having only corals of different colors around their necks and arms. They usually cost from 18 to 30 pounds between about $3,900 and $6,500 in 2014 dollars]. They are life-long slaves and good workmen after they have become acclimated. Many die on the journey or in the beginning of their stay here, because they receive meagre food and are kept very strictly. Both sexes are usually bought, which increase afterwards.[ 1_\n\n\u2014A Swiss visitor to Virginia, 1702\n\nIn the face of the Royal African Company's continued inability to provide planters with all the slave labor they wanted, independent entrepreneurs ignored the royal monopoly, rushing contraband slave ships to Africa in numbers.\n\nThe West Indian planters, who were influential in Parliament, wanted the Royal African Company's monopoly broken. After experimentation with individual licenses, the African trade was deregulated in 1698. Independent merchant syndicates (called \"separate traders\") could now trade, provided they paid a 10 percent duty to the company on merchandise they exported or brought back, except for \"red-wood\" (a dyestuff, with a duty of 5 percent) and for the significant exception of \"Negroes,\" on whom no duty was charged.\n\nThe separate traders were also allowed to maintain their own factories in Africa, where they spread rumors that the RAC was bankrupt and lured factors away from the company into their service. Many were based in Bristol, which began its ascent as a major slaving port after the deregulation. The RAC had established itself at some thirty to forty factories along the African coast, from Elmina to Luanda, and many of these were taken over by separate traders, whose competition drove up prices at the African source.\n\nAnother financial innovation of the time was an insurance sector. The investors of Lloyd's coffeehouse in London began insuring in 1688, and, since the transatlantic slave trade was a high-risk enterprise, the rise of separate trading grew Lloyd's business considerably.\n\nDeregulation was effective at stimulating the traffic in kidnapped Africans. The black population of Virginia approximately tripled over the twelve years after the opening of separate trading, and only with separate trading did large-scale trafficking of Africans to South Carolina begin. By the end of that period, the arrival of large numbers of African laborers had, predictably enough, raised Virginia and Maryland's production levels dramatically, causing a glut of tobacco on the market. The price plunged to crisis levels, causing numerous defaults on payments for slaves bought on credit from the RAC. Cutting its losses, the company stopped voyages to Virginia in 1706, but the separate traders continued pouring in Africans, as this comparison for the years between 1698 and 1707 shows:\n\n| **Jamaica** | **Virginia** | **Maryland**  \n---|---|---|---  \nSeparate traders |\n\n35,718 | 5,692 | 2,938\n\nRoyal African Company |\n\n6,854 | 679 | 0\n\nThe separate traders' aggressive importation consolidated the power of the slave plantation in the Chesapeake, making Virginia into a full-blown slave society. As planters reinvested their profits in more slaves, they ran up a trade deficit sufficiently alarming to cause the Virginia assembly in 1710 to levy a five-pound duty on each imported captive\u2014Virginia's first domestically generated tariff\u2014with the result that for five years only a few slaves entered the territory, until the balance of payments problem eased.\n\nThe large slaveowners who made up the Virginia assembly were in favor of restricting the entry of new slaves. Not only did they have all the captive laborers they needed to run their plantations at peak efficiency, but the laborers were surviving and reproducing instead of dying off, creating capital gains for them. A slaveholder's on-paper worth, and therefore his credit, was based on the price he could command if he sold his surplus labor; as the century rolled on, Virginians complained frequently of the English slave trade, which drove down the value of their enslaved assets. The simple device of keeping the price of domestically born enslaved human property artificially high through import restriction was to be fundamental to the economy of Virginia, right up through emancipation.\n\nVirginia and Maryland charged duties to each other's vessels. Scofflaws could find their slaves confiscated and sold for the commodity money of tobacco to the colonial government's benefit. After Maryland relocated its capital away from the upper bank of the Potomac and needed a statehouse at its new site of Annapolis,* the Maryland Assembly in 1695 imposed a per-slave import duty of ten shillings to pay for it, and doubled the duty the following year.\n\nAcross the Chesapeake from Annapolis, slavery was the first order of business for the new port of Chestertown. It was right up top, in the language the Maryland Assembly used when it created the little town on April 19, 1706, designating a plantation waterfront on the Chester River as one of a number of official customs posts where \"all Ships and Vessells trading into this Province shall unlade and put on shoare all Negroes Wares goods merchandizes and Comodities.\"\n\nThat the first dutiable item mentioned in the creation of the new town was \"Negroes\" reflected the growing importance of the slave trade as a source of revenue for colonial government. That the law specified \"Negroes\" rather than \"servants,\" \"slaves,\" or even \"Africans\" reflected that the criterion for enslavement was a two-tone caste system, because \"Negroes\" was a color word, from the Spanish and Portuguese _negro_ , meaning black. That \"Negroes\" were separately broken out on the list implied that although the enslaved were being sold along with \"Wares goods merchandizes and Comodities,\" there was something different about selling human beings.\n\nThe importation of indentured English, Scotch, and Irish paupers, who had previously constituted the Chesapeake labor force, had slowed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. A large-scale importation of convict laborers was still in the future. The trade was in Africans.\n\nA \"servant\" could be any of several different classes of people; one writer has discerned \"nine or ten varieties of servitor,\" with indentured whites at the top of the hierarchy and \"negro slaves\" at the bottom. The term applied equally to indentured Irish, Scottish, or English paupers and to African slaves, to people doing brutally hard field labor and to artisans, valets, cooks, or tutors. What they all had in common was that they did not generally receive wages. The trade that shuttled them to their destinations was as bare-knuckles a business as could be, and constantly provided a fat target for taxation.\n\nThe new separate-trading legislation empowered Bristol, whose captains made fortunes in pauper, convict, and African labor; and the new high-volume capital of the African trade, Liverpool, whose captains would trade as many slaves as Bristol and London together.\n\nThe business transformed with the arrival of the biggest commercial contract of the day: the _asiento_ , a word literally meaning \"seat\" that refers to a contract between the government and a private concern. Spain had been purchasing slaves by means of the _asiento_ since the sixteenth century, mostly from the Portuguese, without developing a major slaving industry of its own. As the long War for the Spanish Succession was ending, Spain in 1713 sold the _asiento_ to Britain to supply 4,800 African slaves a year to its colonies, and it was then awarded in turn to the recently created South Sea Company by Queen Anne Stuart, James II's younger daughter.*\n\nAnne died the following year at the age of forty-nine. Gout was the stated cause of her death, but she had been weakened by the eighteen pregnancies she experienced before becoming queen; eleven were miscarriages and none of them resulted in a surviving heir to the throne. She was succeeded by her second cousin, King George I, a Protestant descendant of the Stuarts from the house of Hanover, whose first language was German.\n\nHugh Thomas calls the _asiento_ the \"El Dorado of commerce.\" Not only was it a thirty-year monopoly to sell slaves, but since it allowed British ships into Spanish ports, it gave British merchants practical, though not legal, access to all sorts of other commerce.\n\nThe resulting investor hysteria in London culminated in the South Sea bubble, infamous in business history, when a mania for shares in the company drove prices sky-high, with the inevitable crash. Many of London's best-known figures\u2014Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Sir Isaac Newton, among thousands of others\u2014were burned when their investments in the slave trade went sour.\n\nBut the slave trade itself continued being profitable as the age of large-scale British slaving got under way. About 4,000 Africans arrived in Virginia between 1715 and 1718, and then 5,170 came on thirty-five ships between 1719 and 1721. The problem of tobacco overproduction predictably returned, and prices for the commodity were depressed throughout the 1720s. Complicating the market further was that the wide-open competition of freelance traders to supply slaves bid the price up in Africa even as it fueled intra-African wars that fed the trade in captives, depopulating some areas (especially in Central Africa), and creating ever wealthier, ever more rapacious African elites\u2014and, as economist Warren Whatley argues, promoting polygyny in Africa and the development of small, fragmented African states over large ones.\n\nWith the advent of high-volume freelance slave trading, colonial assemblies levied duty after duty on what the US Constitution would later politely call \"importation of persons.\" Not that cash actually changed hands at the customs post: as the colonists had no gold or silver, tobacco was used as money\u2014\"commodity money\" is the economist's term. But passing around hogsheads of tobacco was impractical; paper notes backed by tobacco were issued as early as 1727, and perhaps earlier, in Virginia. Around the Chesapeake, duties, fines, commissions, and prices of all sorts were quoted in pounds of tobacco and paid by tobacco notes. When the Kent County courthouse in Chestertown was torched by an arsonist in 1719, a new one was built at the cost of fifty-five thousand pounds of tobacco and was renovated in 1750 at the cost of fifty thousand pounds more.\n\nOnce planters had enough slaves for themselves, they were happier if no one else did, especially not their emerging competitors to the west. The colonies were political battlefields of conflicting interests with constant tension between settled areas and the newer communities on the western frontier. The planters and merchants of the former tended to have control of colonial assemblies, while the farmers of the latter constituted a market to exploit. Meanwhile, the African slave trade\u2014not to be confused with slavery itself\u2014made many in the colonies uneasy, because it was seen as introducing a dangerous population into the colonies. It also had another deleterious effect: it sucked specie out of the colonies and put colonists in debt to British merchants, who for their part were very pro\u2013slave trade.\n\nLondon's policy was to encourage importation of enslaved and indentured labor whether the colonists liked it or not. The more labor, the more profit: there was profit in the agricultural commodities that were produced, but also in shipping them; in financing, selling, and shipping the labor; and in taxing the sales.\n\nProhibitively high duties on slave importation were laid at times by colonial assemblies, but the laws they made could always be overridden by London, where slave-trade interests, sometimes including the king, prevailed time and again to roll the duties back. A group of Liverpool merchants successfully lobbied for a rollback of a 1728 Virginia duty, while a similar effort resulted in the denial of South Carolina's attempt to impose a duty of \u00a310 per head in 1731.\n\nSlaves were frequently purchased on credit, typically twelve months or less but sometimes as long as three years, by means of the planter's giving a postdated bond with one or two cosigners. As the colonial legislatures began erecting a fence of measures to protect planters against debt collection by British merchants, the traders of Liverpool, Bristol, and London brought pressure to bear on Parliament to pass the Colonial Debts Act of 1732, which allowed creditors to seize \"lands, houses, chattels, and slaves\" in satisfaction of debts. This new law, abhorred by the colonial planters, strengthened the merchants' hand: their factors working in the colonies could collect on a planter's bond if he could not pay it when due.\n\nBy clarifying that slaves could be seized and sold in satisfaction of obligations, the Colonial Debts Act expanded significantly the available credit for slave purchasers, and made the use of planters' bonds the most common credit instrument in the Virginia slave trade. It also provided for the legal, forcible separation of the enslaved from their families by a debt collector. The logical consequence was that creditors felt more secure investing in slaves.\n\nSugar\u2014the crop for which most of the 12.5 or so million Africans were embarked in chains to the Americas\u2014systematically brought death to its laborers. Cutting cane is backbreaking labor, but that was not the worst of it. Cane had to be boiled and reduced to molasses on the spot, as it was too bulky and perishable to transport, so sugar plantations were full-scale factories. They were hot, smoky, and physically dangerous, but even so, the deadliest factor was the unbearably long hours the laborers were forced to work.\n\nSugar-making was both labor intensive and seasonal. Rather than work a full complement of laborers ten hours a day and have to maintain them during the \"dead time\" when there was nothing for them to do, it was cheaper to make half as many workers go for as many as twenty hours a day in the peak periods, replacing them with newly arrived Africans when they finally expired.\n\nThe system of sugar plantation management that the English sugar planters learned from the Dutch and the Brazilians followed the logic of free-market capitalism: _x_ pounds for equipment, _y_ number of African laborers who cost _z_ pieces of gold and live _m_ years, to get _n_ amount of molasses that brought _p_ amount of money in _q_ time. The result of these multivariable calculations, which pushed the limits of eighteenth-century accountancy, was that self-interested rationally acting plantation owners with no moral scruples could make the most money by working laborers to death.\n\nCompared with sugar, cultivating and packing tobacco was milder work. Tobacco was a less intensely seasonal crop; it did not require as many hands, and its planters had no financial incentive to work their slaves to death. In the off time, when hands were not needed for tobacco, they were put to work raising food crops and doing artisanal and construction work. \"Planters placed few demands on the outside world, in these respects, and supplied little to the outside world,\" write Anderson and Gallman.\n\nFernando Ortiz, who wrote what was perhaps the first work of structural anthropology, _Cuban Counterpoint of Tobacco and Sugar_ , described the distinct lifestyles associated with those two crops as constituting the poles of the Cuban personality. About sugar, he wrote, \"capital was needed to buy slaves, to bring in experts and administrators and all the machinery for milling, boiling, evaporating, and decanting. Even aside from the land required, sugar production was necessarily a capitalist enterprise.\"\n\nAbove all, sugar required access to slave labor. To facilitate the capitalist enterprise of sugar, there was another capitalist enterprise at work: procuring and selling the laborers that produced the sugar. That required financing, credit, international contacts, political contacts, market information, insurance, ships, shore facilities, and crews.\n\nSugar plantation populations typically had fewer women than men. Wherever in the hemisphere enslaved laborers were applied to sugar, they had negative reproduction rates. But in the milder climate of Virginia, with the relatively milder work of tobacco, with more women among the enslaved population and more adequate food, the numbers increased. By the 1710s, Virginia's enslaved population was growing by reproduction\u2014an \"unprecedented event for any New World slave population,\" writes Philip D. Morgan. Despite the arrival of so many Africans, \"natural increase\" was such that by 1720 Virginia-born slaves accounted for about half the colony's total. (It would take about another thirty years for gender balance of the enslaved to even out.) This was something that did not happen elsewhere in the Americas, and it was the key to Virginia's developing a slave-breeding industry.\n\nIn South Carolina, it was very different.\n\n*Named in 1694 for Princess Anne, who became Queen Anne in 1702.\n\n*\"South Sea\" referred to the South Atlantic.\n\n#   15\n\n# **Charles Town**\n\n_You ain't got no supper in Beaufort unless you got some rice. You ain't finished cookin' yet, until you've cooked a pot of rice. 1_\n\n\u2014Sea Island folklorist Anita Singleton-Prather in her performance persona as Aunt Pearlie Sue\n\n**Question.** _I see it hazardous for a man to give so much Money for a Slave, and that Slave may soon die, then all his Money is lost...._\n\n**__ Answer _]._** _Is it not so here If a Man purchase Cattle or Horses, how can he be assur'd of their Lives? Yet we have a greater Encouragement to buy Slaves, for with good Management and Success, a Man's Slave will, by his Labour, pay for his first Cost in about four Years at most, besides his Maintenance, so, the Remainder of his Life, you have his Labour as free Gain, we esteem their Eating and Wearing as little, for that rises on the Plantation, and is little cost out of Pocket.[ 2_\n\n\u2014John Norris, _Profitable Advice for Rich and Poor_ , promotional London pamphlet pitching emigration to South Carolina, 1712\n\nTHE GROWING CONDITIONS OF Virginia and Carolina were as different as their topographies, necessitating different crops.\n\nIt took Virginia between sixty and a hundred years to become a slave society, but South Carolina began as one. \"By the late seventeenth century,\" writes Philip D. Morgan, \"Virginia had a plantation economy in search of a labor force, whereas South Carolina had a labor force in search of a plantation economy.\" Virginia had defined its staple crop for decades before massive importation of Africans began, staffing the fields mostly with indentured servants, whereas South Carolina, founded by slave traders, began as a slave society that had not yet found its staple crop.\n\nA 1708 census of the Carolina colony, which did not count free Native Americans, gave the population as 9,580\u2014with a distribution of 42.5 percent white, 42.5 percent black, and 15 percent enslaved Native Americans. Most of the captives brought to the colony in the late seventeenth century were \"seasoned\" slaves, brought up from the West Indies. But Carolina colonization began as England was beginning to get involved in the African trade on an industrial scale. The first known slave ship to travel from Africa to South Carolina arrived in 1696, about the same time quantities of African captives were beginning to come to Virginia and Maryland.\n\nAfter that, the floodgates opened. \"The first quarter of the eighteenth century saw the enactment of numerous laws laying import duties on the incoming slaves,\" Elizabeth Donnan writes, \"the reason offered being sometimes 'the great importation of negroes,' which threatened the safety of the province, and sometimes the need for a revenue, easily provided by a duty on slave importations.... Despite occasional outbursts of anxiety over the menace of a [']barbarous['] population greatly outnumbering the planters themselves, the lure of profit which slave labor held out prevented the success of any consistent policy of limitation.\"\n\nSugar, chocolate, and coffee came from the warmer latitudes. Virginia and Maryland were growing tobacco. But what would Carolina produce? So far, it was an exporter of Native American slaves and deerskins. It took some decades of experimentation, but by the beginning of the eighteenth century Carolina had found its principal staple crop: rice. Tradition has it that the first crop was made with seed from Madagascar, brought in by a privateer.\n\nInvesting in the Madagascar trade from East Africa\u2014a striking exception to the flow of slaves from West and Central Africa\u2014was a New York specialty, though others were in it too. During the Royal African Company's monopoly (through 1698), wealthy New Yorkers made fortunes doing an end run around it, trading illegally in slaves and other African merchandise by opening a commercial corridor to Madagascar, where the RAC's vessels did not go.\n\n_Scottish trader and Indian agent Thomas Nairne's 1711 map, made for the lords proprietors, shows South Carolina's territory as including present-day Georgia, Alabama, much of Florida, and part of Mississippi. The only named towns are Charles Town, Port Royal, and Augustine; the \"South Bounds of Carolina\" is shown as well south of Augustine. Native American locations are precisely described, with a count of the warriors: \"Chicasa 600 Men,\" etc._\n\nThe Scottish-born merchant Robert Livingston was one of a number of New York merchants who became rich investing in African trading expeditions. The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who had fled Charles II's compulsory Anglicanism in 1663 for Rotterdam, he ultimately emigrated to America. After marrying the wealthy Albany Dutch widow Alida Schuyler Van Rensselaer in 1679, Livingston became the head of a family that came to own about a million acres of land. With the disappearance of Dutch commerce from New York after the definitive English takeover in 1674, the established merchant families of the former Nieuw Amsterdam took greater control, consolidating commercial dynasties headed by the city's old money, and by 1690, Livingston was a halfpartner in the _Margriet_ , a ship that traded slaves, sugar, and tobacco on an illegal trading voyage to Madagascar, Barbados, and Virginia.\n\nThe first rice seed may have come to Carolina from Madagascar, but the cereal grain was grown across a wide area of Africa. Rice was indigenous to Africa as well as to other places, and an African strain was domesticated there; Mande people had built the Malian empire in part on the technical achievement of cultivating it. The Europeans did not know how to produce rice, but West Africans were familiar with its complicated cultivation, and they brought their knowledge to Carolina. Virginia had unsuccessfully attempted to grow rice during Berkeley's governorship, but its climate was not hot enough. Planters competed to buy slaves from a vaguely defined part of West Africa referred to in slave-sale advertisements as the Rice Coast\u2014a name it received not because Africa exported rice, but because it exported kidnapped farmers who knew how to grow it.\n\nThe \"Rice Coast\" often meant the Windward Coast, but could mean anywhere from Senegal down to present-day Ghana. A slave-sale advertisement from the _South Carolina Gazette_ of March 18, 1769, makes clear the involvement of Africans in rice culture:\n\nTO BE SOLD\n\nOn Wednesday the 29th Instant\n\nA CARGO of Two Hundred and Ninety\n\nSLAVES\n\nREMARKABLY HEALTHY\n\nJust arrived in the Ship Sally, Capt. George Evans, from CAPE MOUNT A RICE COUNTRY on the WINDWARD COAST, after a SHORT Passage of Five Weeks.\n\nThat these captives were from \"a rice country\" (in present-day Liberia) was an incentive for rice farmers to purchase them.\n\nCarolina quickly became the largest supplier of rice in the world. In his landmark study _Black Majority_ , which called attention to the African genesis of the Carolina rice industry, Peter H. Wood observes that \"during precisely those two decades after 1695 when rice production took permanent hold in South Carolina, the African portion of the population drew equal to, and then surpassed, the European portion.\" As South Carolina out-imported Africans over any other territory, becoming a black majority society, the Sea Islands off its coast became not only black but diversely so, with people from disparate regions of Africa.\n\nBoth South Carolina rice and, a little later, indigo relied on African agricultural and processing knowledge. That was also the case in Louisiana, where the first slave ships brought rice seedlings and Senegambians who knew how to grow it, and where indigo was also grown and processed into dye.\n\nImports of Africans increased dramatically as diversified farming gave way to a plantation society in South Carolina. Big operators gobbled up freeholds; as planters became wealthy, small farmers became impoverished, and the population became blacker. \"Put simply,\" write McCusker and Menard, \"rice brought the demographic regime of the sugar islands to South Carolina.... In long-settled plantation districts spread along the tidewater in both directions from Charleston, the black share of the population approached 90 percent by 1740, roughly the proportion in the sugar islands.\"\n\nRice was a miserable crop to tend. It had to be weeded constantly, which meant bending over all day long while standing in mud. Disease thinned the laborers' numbers constantly. The standing water of the rice plantations incubated mosquitos that bore maladies usually associated with more tropical climates, while the density of workers rendered rice plantation slaves especially vulnerable to epidemics.\n\nRice wasn't for small family farms; it required an operation of at least thirty workers to be profitable. The fatality of the environment was a disincentive to voluntary immigration. Rice could only be produced on a commercial scale in the Lowcountry with slaves, who lived unspeakably miserable lives.\n\nThe enslaved population of the rice plantations exhibited characteristics seen in the sugar islands with mortality exceeding births as laborers were worked to death. Africans in South Carolina had a negative growth rate, and the burned-out laborers would have to be replenished by new arrivals. It took until the 1770s for African Americans to become the majority of the black enslaved in South Carolina, fifty years after it happened in Virginia and more than a century after black slaves had first been brought there.\n\nA boosterish book by John Norris, published in London in 1712 to stimulate emigration, contrasted the two ethnic slaveries that coexisted in South Carolina. Norris mentioned perpetual enslavement of Native American slaves' descendants while pointing out their provenance from \"French\" (Louisiana) or \"Spanish\" (Florida) territories:\n\nThose we call Slaves are a sort of Black People, here commonly call'd Blackmoors, some few kept here in England by Gentry for their Pleasure... but their proper Names are Negroes.... When these People are thus bought, their Masters or Owners, have then as good a Right and Title to them during their Lives as a Man has here to a Horse or Ox after he has bought them....\n\nThere is also another sort of People we buy for Slaves, call'd Indians, bred on the Continent, but far distant from us, belonging to the French and Spanish Territories in America. They are a sort of Red Dun, or Tan'd Skin'd People, who are also Sold us by Merchants or Traders that deal with several Nations of our Native Indians, from whom they first buy these People, whom we then make Slaves of, as of the Negroes... they are never Free-Men or Women during their Life, nor their Children after them, who are under the same Circumstances of Servitude as their Parents are, during their Lives also.\n\nNorris described how a hypothetical \u00a31,500 investment should be spent to yield a plantation producing \u00a3400 annually. His first item of expense was \"Fifteen good Negro Men at \u00a345 each,\" followed by \"Fifteen Indian Women to work in the Field at \u00a318 each,\" \"Three Indian Women as Cooks for the Slaves, and other Household-Business,\" and \"Three Negro Women at \u00a337 each, to be employ'd either for the Dairy, to attend the Hogs, Washing, or any other Employment.\"\n\nThe many twists and turns of the conflict between slave-raiding South Carolina and the shifting alliances of Native Americans with the French and Spanish are beyond the scope of this volume. Suffice it to say that Carolina's slave trade in Native Americans was ended by a full-scale war between the Carolinians and an alliance of native tribes that lasted for two years, an enormously long campaign in the context of indigenous struggles against the Europeans.\n\nOn the morning of April 15, 1715, the Yamasee, in alliance with the Creeks, struck in a coordinated attack and massacred the frontier traders. Thomas Nairne, the Scottish trader who had led an expedition to the Mississippi and was the most capable frontiersman in South Carolina, was captured and slowly roasted to death by means of burning splinters stuck into his body over a period of days. The Indians did not attack Charles Town, which became a citadel for frightened people from the countryside.\n\nRemembered by the Carolinians as the Yamasee War, the uprising changed direction with the entry of the Cherokees as South Carolina's allies against the Creeks, and it was over by 1717. The remaining Yamasee fled to Florida; the Creeks, the most powerful of the confederations, migrated west and retained their status as a crucial regional power while nursing a special hatred of the Cherokees.\n\n\"This war,\" writes Alan Gallay, \"marked the birth of the Old South, just as Appomattox later marked its death.\" The turning point in the consolidation of the rice-plantation economy, it led to the end of the proprietorship and the reversion of Carolina to royal colony status.\n\nIt is worth underscoring that the end of trading in native slaves came about as the direct result of a focused attack by Native American alliances, and also that this native rebellion was a black rebellion as well. Black soldiers fought together with Native Americans in the Yamasee War; the Carolinians, meanwhile, were so desperate that they armed some of their slaves.\n\nSouth Carolina's war with Native Americans underscored how exposed the English were on their southern flank. With the flight of the remaining Yamasee to Florida and the Creeks' move west, the southern frontier was depopulated, even of Native Americans, which represented a grave security issue. And the land that the Yamasee had abandoned was prime rice-growing land.\n\nThe lords proprietors' claims to own the land to the southwest had foreclosed on the possibility of settlers there, but now, under the pressure of the Spanish threat from Florida, a convention of colonists (with the militia's support, expressed by flying colors) rose against the lords proprietors. After fifty years of proprietary government, what South Carolina remembered as the Revolution of 1719 led ten years later to the final return of the colony to crown status. After the Carolinians successfully petitioned to change the colony's status in 1729, the lords proprietors took a lowball buyout.\n\nThe Yamasee War made the Native Americans more powerful relative to the South Carolina colonists than they had previously been and diminished England's influence against the Spanish and French in the region. But the French colony had arrived at its own crisis with the Native Americans. On November 28, 1729, Natchez Indians attacked Fort Rosalie, the nucleus of the later town of Natchez and the hub of the fledgling French agricultural effort, worked by enslaved natives and Africans. They killed much of the town's population\u2014between 230 and 240 settlers, mostly men\u2014and kidnapped 62 more, mostly women and children, and 106 slaves, and they destroyed all the crops. On April 10, according to Marc-Antoine Caillot, a clerk for the Company of the Indies, \"a Natchez Indian woman whom the Tunicas had captured\" was slow-tortured, dismembered, and burned to death by the Tunicas in New Orleans, Indian-style, with the permission of the French, in reprisal for the Natchez torture of their captives. The destruction of the colony's agriculture signaled the end of the active French colonization effort in Louisiana, as that colony reverted to crown status in 1731, two years after South Carolina had done so.\n\nThe Carolina economy had to be rebuilt after the Yamasee War, something that took most of the 1720s to accomplish, during which time the transition to a rice-plantation economy based on African labor was consolidated. Once again, the importation of Africans increased the threat of slave rebellion, both real and imagined. An \"anonymous letter addressed to a Mr. Boone in London, and dated 'Carolina June 24, 1720'\" mentions a purported slave conspiracy:\n\nI am now to acquaint you that very lately we have had a very wicked and barbarous plott of the designe of the negroes rising with a designe to destroy all the white people in the country and then to take the town [Charles Town] in full body but it pleased God it was discovered and many of them taken prisoners and some burnt some hang'd and some banish'd.\n\nRecords from the period are scanty, but there is reason to believe that this slaughter of \"negroes\" was far from the only one in South Carolina. A letter from Charles Town dated August 20, 1730, describes a purported plan for an uprising much like the purported 1674 Barbados conspiracy and not unlike the one successfully executed sixty-one years later in Saint-Domingue, the future Haiti. This one was organized around a dance:\n\na bloody Tragedy which was to have been executed here last Saturday night (the 15th Inst.) by the Negroes... some of them propos'd that the Negroes of every Plantation should destroy their own Masters; but others were for Rising in a Body, and giving the blow at once on surprise; and thus they differ'd. They soon made a great Body at the back of the Town, and had a great Dance, and expected the Country Negroes to come & join them; and had not an overruling Providence discovered their Intrigues, we had been all in blood.\n\nBy this time, more than two thousand Africans a year were coming into Charles Town. Samuel Wragg testified before the board of trade in 1726 that he\n\nhad been a Trader to Carolina Seventeen or Eighteen years. That that Country formerly had but very few Negroes, but that now they employd near 40,000. That they now usually import 1,000 per Ann: whereas they formerly imported none, and sometimes 2 or 300. At the same time Mr. Platt, also of Carolina, reported that the colony imported about 1000 negroes per annum, at prices ranging from \u00a330 to \u00a335 sterling.\n\n\"Even though Wragg were greatly exaggerating both the yearly importation and the number of slaves in Carolina,\" writes Elizabeth Donnan, \"it is evident that by this decade the trade had become of sufficient importance to merit the fostering care of the home government and the constant solicitude of British and Carolina merchants, foremost among whom were the Wraggs, Joseph and Samuel.\"*\n\nThe frontier between Carolina and Florida had never been agreed on, much less defined. Carolina's colonists, who were influential in London, pressed for a new boundary colony that would buffer them against the Spanish, the French, and the Native Americans. Promotional literature began circulating in London in favor of a new colony below South Carolina. The first one to circulate, in 1717, continued the feudal fantasy of the still extant proprietorship, proposing a colony that would be headed by a hereditary official called a margrave. The name of the new colony was to be the Margravate of Azilia.\n\nIt took fifteen more years for a colony to be planted there. When it was, it was named for King George II: Georgia.\n\nThere was to be no slavery in Georgia.\n\n*When Joseph Wragg died in 1751, the obituary in the _South Carolina Gazette_ called him \"an eminent Merchant of this Town, who formerly dealt pretty largely in the Slave Trade.\"\n\n#   16\n\n# **Savannah and Stono**\n\n_As the staples of Carolina were valuable, and in much demand, credit was extended to that province almost without limitation, and vast multitudes of negroes, and goods of all kinds, were yearly sent to it. In proportion as the merchants of Charlestown received credit from England, they were enabled to extend it to the planters in the country, who purchased slaves with great eagerness, and enlarged their culture. 1_\n\n\u2014Alexander Hewatt, 1779\n\n_If We allow Slaves we act against the very Principles by which we associated together, which was to relieve the distressed. Whereas, Now we Should occasion the misery of thousands in Africa, by Setting Men upon using Arts to buy and bring into perpetual Slavery the poor people who now live free there. 2_\n\n\u2014James Oglethorpe to the Trustees, January 17, 1738\/9\n\nLONDON NEWSPAPERS HAILED THE initiative to found Georgia. It was the product of humanistic and philanthropic movements in London, and also of public relations. The colony's visionary founder, James Oglethorpe, spent two years directing the colony's promotional campaign before sailing for America.\n\nOglethorpe was an aristocrat formerly allied with the Stuarts. He had studied classical antiquity at Oxford's Corpus Christi College, then went to military school in Paris and fought against the Turks in the 1717 siege of Belgrade. Becoming radicalized after his scholar friend Robert Castell died in debtor's prison, Oglethorpe wanted to help the poor better themselves in the autocratic, militarized utopia he would build. Georgia was intended to be a site of relief where debtors could have a fresh start\u2014though in practice, no debtors were among the colonists\u2014while functioning as the avant-garde of England's North American empire, protecting South Carolina from Florida.\n\nDrawing on his studies of Greece and Rome, Oglethorpe devised a unique plan for a city: a matrix of connected rectangular plazas\u2014twenty-four were built\u2014each one serving as a commons around which were to be housed ten families, with garden plots for subsistence located within walking distance. Because of that plan, and with help from the lush vegetation, historic Savannah today is one of the most beautiful urban environments in the United States.\n\nThe colonists carved out their plots from a densely wooded area on a bluff overlooking the Savannah River, beginning the construction of Oglethorpe's meticulously planned community of 240 freeholders. He also founded several other communities in Georgia: Darien; Frederica; James Brown's future home town of Augusta, on the South Carolina border; and Ebenezer, a community of persecuted Protestants from Salzburg who were dead set against slavery. A group of forty-one Jews, all but seven of them Sephardic Portuguese, arrived on July 11, 1733, and founded a short-lived congregation in 1735. After checking with lawyers in Charles Town as to whether Jews could be admitted to Georgia, Oglethorpe was advised that they could be, since they weren't papists. Their arrival upset the trustees in London, but they were powerless to do anything about it.\n\nOglethorpe, who had been deputy-governor of the Royal African Company, saw slavery as a bad system that would lead to problems in Georgia\u2014and not only because the ever-present potential for rebellion was aggravated by San Agust\u00edn's offer of freedom directly to the south. He also saw it as a corrupting influence on white colonists. Oglethorpe felt the same way about rum, prohibiting its sale, though wine and beer were permitted. Nor did he want a real estate market; in Oglethorpe's Georgia, land given to colonists was passed on by entail: it could not be sold, only inherited, and only by men.\n\nAs the first houses of Savannah were being built and moved into, Oglethorpe lived in a tent to set an example of self-sacrifice for the others. But there was trouble from the beginning, and in an isolated community riven by vicious personal rivalries and much disagreement, slavery was a divisive issue.\n\nCharles Town did more to destroy Oglethorpe's utopia than Florida. Carolina merchants ran trade routes all through the area, and Savannah was dependent on them for many kinds of supplies. But Oglethorpe didn't want his colony buying the supplies the Carolinians most wanted to sell: slaves. Moreover, Georgia's resistance to rum impeded the Carolinians' business of selling it to the Native Americans along with the guns and ammunition they were selling them, which created friction.\n\nAs slaveowners would do more than a century later in Missouri and Kansas\u2014and would even attempt to do in Southern California\u2014the South Carolinians infiltrated pro-slavery colonists into Georgia. The Carolinians who moved down into Georgia had no more respect for Oglethorpe's restrictions than they previously had for the lords proprietors'. From South Carolina, Eliza Lucas Pinckney complained in a September 1741 letter of Oglethorpe's \"Tyrannical Government in Georgia,\" presumably because its residents were denied the freedom to own slaves, plant large plantations with staple monocrops, deal in rum, or buy and sell land. Noting ill treatment of indentured servants in Savannah that had caused some to desert, colonist Thomas Jones wrote: \"The Carolina Temper, of procuring Slaves, and treating them with Barbarity, seems to be very prevalent among us.\"\n\nCharles Town merchants thus began making money importing Africans from British slave traders for re-export into Georgia, a market that would keep them rich for generations. Prosperity reigned; in 1732, the year Georgia was planted, Benjamin Franklin's ex-apprentice Lewis Timothy founded the _South Carolina Gazette_ , with Franklin as a silent partner. The South's second newspaper to appear, it was as strategic a media rollout as the times afforded: South Carolina's economy, heavily centralized in Charles Town, was booming. By 1735 Charles Town was sufficiently wealthy and cultured to found the St. Cecilia concert society. Its fast-growing wealthy elite consumed luxury goods. It was _the_ prime underserved advertising market.\n\nMeanwhile, another migration to North America was picking up: the so-called Scotch-Irish, whose Presbyterianism made them a dissenting sect in Anglican Ulster. They had to settle to the west, because the good coastal land was taken. After the first such colony moved to South Carolina to receive land grants near the Santee River, establishing Williamsburg in 1732, they were in \"low and miserable circumstances,\" wrote Alexander Hewatt, until they too bought slaves from the Charles Town merchants and their lands \"in process of time became moderate and fruitful estates.\"\n\n_A view of Charles Town, as depicted in 1739 by artist Bishop Roberts and etcher W. H. Toms, emphasizes the constant activity in its port._\n\nThe border was still dangerous. Having Georgia as a buffer between South Carolina and Florida made Carolina that much more secure. But England and Spain were still facing off in the region; the Spanish responded by inducing more of the English colonists' slaves to escape.\n\nThere were already small communities of free blacks around San Agust\u00edn, but in October 1733 a Spanish edict reiterated that people reaching Florida and accepting the Catholic faith would be free, increasing the flow of runaways. To further bedevil the Carolinians, a free black garrison town, called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, was established in 1738 about two miles north of San Agust\u00edn, providing a first line of defense for the Spanish.* Its governor was Francisco Men\u00e9ndez, the leader of Florida's black militia. A Mandinga who was born a Muslim, Men\u00e9ndez had been kidnapped to Barbados as a boy and then taken to South Carolina. He defected to the Yamasee Indians at the time of the Yamasee War in 1715 and ultimately escaped to Florida, where he accepted Catholicism and was baptized with his Spanish name. There was a price on his head in South Carolina, but no matter: he was fighting for the Spanish, and he had weapons. The news traveled: a free black town on the side of the Spanish, with Bakongo soldiers among its residents, within marching distance.\n\nIn 1738, the Spanish at San Agust\u00edn announced that runaways would be given freedom and land, sweetening the attraction the Florida territory already had for Carolina slaves. Benjamin Franklin's _Pennsylvania Gazette_ , with its good contacts in South Carolina, ran the following item on October 8, 1739:\n\nExtract of a Letter from Charlestown in South Carolina.\n\nThe Spaniards of St. Augustine near Georgia, have issued a Proclamation, giving Freedom to all white Servants and Negro or Indian Slaves, belonging to Carolina, Parrisburg or Georgia, that will go over to them, and have allotted them Land near St. Augustine, where upwards of 700 have been receiv'd to the great Loss of the Planters of those Parts, which will prove their Ruin if a Stop is not put to such a villanous Proceeding. This is a certain Proof of their Intent to attack Georgia, in which Case these Servants and Slaves are to be their Pilots and our worst Enemies.\n\nThe feared uprising had already happened but word of it hadn't reached Philadelphia yet. Remembered as the Stono Rebellion, it erupted about twenty miles from Charles Town on September 9, 1739. The anonymous sole firsthand description of the event is not too long to reproduce in its entirety.\n\nAN ACCOUNT OF THE NEGROE INSURRECTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA\n\nSometime since there was a Proclamation published at Augustine, in which the King of Spain (then at Peace with Great Britain) promised Protection and Freedom to all Negroes Slaves that would resort thither. Certain Negroes belonging to Captain Davis escaped to Augustine, and were received there. They were demanded by General Oglethorpe who sent Lieutenant Demere to Augustine and the Governour assured the General of his sincere Friendship, but at the same time showed his Orders from the Court of Spain, by which he was to receive all Run away Negroes.\n\nOf this other Negroes having notice, as it is believed, from the Spanish Emissaries, four or five who were Cattle-Hunters, and knew the Woods, some of whom belonged to Captain Macpherson, ran away with His Horses, wounded his Son and killed another Man. These marched f [ _sic_ ] for Georgia and were pursued, but the Rangers being then newly reduced [ _sic_ ] the Countrey people could not overtake them, though they were discovered by the Saltzburghers, as they passed by Ebenezer. They reached Augustine, one only being killed and another wounded by the Indians in their flight. They were received there with great honours, one of them had a Commission given to him, and a Coat faced with Velvet.\n\nAmongst the Negroe Slaves there are a people brought from the Kingdom of Angola in Africa, many of these speak Portugueze [which Language is as near Spanish as Scotch is to English,] by reason that the Portugueze have considerable Settlement, and the Jesuits have a Mission and School in that Kingdom and many Thousands of the Negroes there profess the Roman Catholic Religion. Several Spaniards upon diverse Pretences have for some time past been strolling about Carolina, two of them, who will give no account of themselves have been taken up and committed to Jayl in Georgia.\n\nThe good reception of the Negroes at Augustine was spread about, Several attempted to escape to the Spaniards, & were taken, one of them was hanged at Charles Town. In the later end of July last Don Pedro, Colonel of the Spanish Horse, went in a Launch to Charles Town under pretence of [taking] a message to General Oglethorpe and the Lieutenant Governour.\n\nOn the 9th day of September last being Sunday which is the day the Planters allow them to work for themselves, Some Angola Negroes assembled, to the number of Twenty; and one who was called Jemmy was their Captain, they suprized a Warehouse belonging to Mr. Hutchenson at a place called Stonehow [Stono]; they there killed Mr. Robert Bathurst, and Mr. Gibbs, plundered the House and took a pretty many small Arms and Powder, which were there for Sale. Next they plundered and burnt Mr. Godfrey's house, and killed him, his Daughter and Son. They then turned back and marched Southward along Pons Pons, which is the Road through Georgia to Augustine, they passed Mr. Wallace's Ta[v]ern towards day break, and said they would not hurt him for he was a good Man and kind to his slaves, but they broke open and plundered Mr. Lemy's House, and killed him, his wife and Child. They marched on towards Mr. Rose's resolving to kill him; but he was saved by a Negroe, who having hid him went out and pacified the others.\n\nSeveral Negroes joined them, they calling out Liberty, marched on with Colours displayed, and two Drums beating, pursuing all the white people they met with, and killing Man Woman and Child when they could come up to them. Collonel Bull Lieutenant Governour of South Carolina, who was then riding along the Road, discovered them, was pursued, and with much difficulty escaped & raised the Countrey. They burnt Colonel Hext's house and killed his Overseer and his Wife. They then burnt Mr. Sprye's house, then Mr. Sacheverell's, and then Mr. Nash's house, all lying upon the Pons Pons Road, and killed all the white People they found in them. Mr. Bullock got off, but they burnt his House, by this time many of them were drunk with the Rum they had taken in the Houses.\n\nThey increased every minute by new Negroes coming to them, so that they were above Sixty, some say a hundred, on which they halted in a field, and set to dancing, Singing and beating Drums, to draw more Negroes to them, thinking they were now victorious over the whole Province, having marched ten miles & burnt all before them without Opposition, but the Militia being raised, the Planters with great briskness pursued them and when they came up, dismounting; charged them on foot. The Negroes were soon routed, though they behaved boldly several being killed on the Spot, many ran back to their Plantations thinking they had not been missed, but they were there then taken and Shot, Such as were taken in the field also, were after being examined, shot on the Spot, And this is to be said to honour of the Carolina Planters, that notwithstanding the Provocation they had received from so many Murders, they did not torture one Negroe, but only put them to an easy death.\n\nAll that proved to be forced & were not concerned in the Murders & Burnings were pardoned, And this sudden Courage in the field, & the Humanity afterwards hath had so good an Effect that there hath been no farther Attempt, and the very Spirit of Revolt seems over. About 30 escaped from the fight, of which ten marched about 30 miles Southward, and being overtaken by the Planters on horseback, fought stoutly for some time and were all killed on the Spot. The rest are yet untaken. In the whole action about 40 negroes and 20 whites were killed.\n\nThe Lieutenant Governour sent an account of this to General Oglethorpe, who met the advices on his return from the Indian Nation[.] He immediately ordered a Troop of Rangers to be ranged, to patrole though Georgia, placed some Men in the Garrison at Palichocolas, which was before abandoned, and near which the Negroes formerly passed, being the only place where Horses can come to swim over the River Savannah for near 100 miles, ordered out the Indians in pursuit and a Detachment of the Garrison at Port Royal to assist the Planters on any Occasion, and published a Proclamation ordering all the Constables &c. of Georgia to pursue and seize all Negroes, with a Reward for any that could be taken. It is hoped these measures will prevent any Negroes from getting down to the Spaniards.\n\nA brief account of this uprising in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ on November 8 read:\n\nWe hear from _Charlestown_ in _South-Carolina_ , that a Body of Angola Negroes rose upon the Country lately, plunder'd a Store at _Stono_ of a Quantity of Arms and Ammunition, and murder'd 21 white People, Men, Women and Children before they were suppress'd: That 47 of the Rebels were executed, some gibbeted and the Heads of others fix'd on Poles in different Parts, for a Terror to the rest.\n\nJohn Thornton underscores the probable military background of the \"Angola Negroes.\" They were likely not Kimbundu-speaking Angolans, relatively few of whom came to North America, but their immediate neighbors to the north, who were Bakongo. The term \"Angola,\" Thornton writes, \"surely meant the general stretch of Africa known to English shippers as the Angola coast,\" though the possibility exists that some people from various central African origins were mixed in. In a world divided by religion, that these Africans were Catholic made them instant allies of the Spanish.\n\nAs the slave trade created business opportunities in Africa, African despots formed regularly organized armies and battled each other, the losers being sold into slavery. The result was that the ranks of the enslaved in the Americas included increasing numbers of combat-seasoned veterans of gun-toting African armies. In her history of Kongo Catholicism, C\u00e9cile Fromont identifies the ceremony that preceded the Stono uprising as \"a typical central African _sangamento_ , a martial performance in preparation for battle, in a manner similar to that used by contemporary Kongo armies.\" The mention of drums and singing ties the Stono rebellion in with later rebellions as well as with Kongo military and spiritual influence, in Saint-Domingue and Cuba. African drums were a means of military communication, as the British well understood. Since 1699 the law in Barbados had stipulated that\n\nWhatsoever Master, &c., shall suffer his Negro or Slave at any time to beat Drums, blow Horns, or use any other loud instruments, or shall not cause his _Negro-Houses_ once a week to be search'd, and if any such things be there found, to be burnt... he shall forfeit 40 s. Sterling.\n\nThe _South Carolina Gazette_ ran no articles about the Stono uprising, apparently fearing even to mention the subject where the black majority might learn of it. But a Charles Town merchant wrote in a letter of December 27 of that year, \"We shall Live very Uneasie with our Negroes, while the Spaniards continue to keep Possession of St. Augustine.\" \"For several years after [Stono],\" writes Peter H. Wood, \"the safety of the white minority, and the viability of their entire plantation system, hung in serious doubt.\"\n\nBelieving foreign slaves to be the most dangerous, South Carolina raised the duty on slave importation from \u00a310 to a prohibitive \u00a350. But that made for considerable lost income for local government in a territory where slaves had accounted for two-thirds of customs revenues in 1731, so in 1744 the duty was lowered back to its previous level. Previously, South Carolina had imposed double duties on slaves _not_ coming from Africa, apparently in order to discourage the unloading of incorrigible West Indian slaves into their territory.\n\nThe author of an 1825 pro-slavery pamphlet in Charles Town noted that the Stono rebellion was also remembered as the Gullah War.* In recent years, Y. N. Kly has been arguing for the use of the term \"Gullah War\" as a blanket name for the ongoing black resistance struggle in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida that lasted from Stono until 1858, with the end of what is usually called the Third Seminole War. This Gullah War can be seen as part of the larger war against slavery, fought in ways large and small by the enslaved. From this perspective, slave rebellions reveal themselves not to be isolated struggles, as they have been frequently characterized, but rather as eruptions of a widespread, ongoing state of resistance. Their tactics ranged from day-to-day resistance, to absconding, to full-out uprising, to actions taken by the enslaved in major wars.\n\nIn the wake of Stono, the South Carolina legislature on May 10, 1740, passed a detailed new slave code. \"An act for the better ordering and governing Negroes and other slaves in this province,\" or, more simply, the Negro Act, had long been in preparation but some had thought it severe; its passage was catalyzed by the crisis atmosphere. Under its regulations, teaching a slave to write\u2020 became punishable by a fine of one hundred pounds; masters had to apply to the legislature for permission to manumit; and it even forbade slaveowners to allow their slaves to dress in \"clothes much above the condition of slaves.\"\n\nAimed at making impossible the kinds of public assemblies that could turn into mobs or hatch conspiracies, Article 36 (out of 58) paraphrased the existing Barbadian regulation to stipulate that \"whatsoever master, owner or overseer shall permit or suffer his or their Negro or other slave or slaves, at any time hereafter, to beat drums, blow horns, or use any other loud instruments or whosoever shall suffer and countenance any public meeting or feastings of strange Negroes or slaves in their plantations, shall forfeit ten pounds, current money, for every such offence.\" One long-term consequence of this and similar legislation was that African hand drums, so rigorously prohibited by the British colonists, do not turn up in popular African American music until they came into the United States via the Cubans in the mid-twentieth century. That African drums were played on some Southern plantations is documented, but they do not seem to have flourished outside their immediate context.\n\nAnother clause of the Negro Act forbade slaves from engaging in sales, and yet another restricted gatherings of \"great Numbers of Negroes, both in Town and Country, at their Burials and on the Sabbath Day.\" All this was in marked contradistinction to New Orleans, where Sunday gatherings were already taking place at the commons later known as Congo Square.\n\nThe Negro Act was not discussed in the _South Carolina Gazette._ Days after the legislature adjourned, a slave conspiracy was uncovered (or perhaps imagined) in June 1740 among plantation slaves planning to strike in some numbers against Charles Town. The undoing of that conspiracy\u2014also unreported in the _Gazette_ , though other colonial newspapers took up the slack\u2014resulted in the hanging of fifty people, in daily batches of ten. The following year, after a purportedly murderous slave conspiracy was uncovered in New York, the second largest black city after Charles Town, magistrate Daniel Horsmanden executed or exiled over one hundred people. Horsmanden, who may have dramatically exaggerated an existing plot or may have even imagined it all, linked the never-realized black insurrection to an alleged Catholic plot involving the Spanish. Between 1730 and 1760 there were twenty-nine slave revolts reported in North America, about one a year, with an unknown number of others of smaller dimensions going unreported.\n\nWhen a calamitous fire in Charles Town on November 18, 1740, \"in a very short time laid the fairest and richest part of the town in ashes, and consum'd the most valuable effects of the merchants and inhabitants,\" it was said at first that the fire had been set by slaves, though this apparently was not true. The clergyman Josiah Smith preached a sermon, subsequently published with the title \"The Burning of Sodom,\" that spoke of the fire as God's punishment for wickedness. Smith excoriated the whites of the town for defiling themselves by having sex with their slaves\u2014not because they were taking unfair advantage of their captives but because they were cohabiting with inferiors. Reverend Smith insisted there was a great deal of fornication going on:\n\nthere has been too much _Affinity_ in _our Sins_ and those of _Sodom_ , as there has been in _our Punishment._ \u2014Whether we have any _Sodomites_ in our Town strictly so, I can't say.\u2014Such abandon'd Wretches generally curse the Sun, and hate the _Light_ , lest their Deeds should be reproved.\u2014But in some Respects and Instances we declare our Sin as _Sodom;_ we hide it not\u2014We have proclaim'd on the _House-Top_ what we should be asham'd of in _Secret..._ Let us enquire seriously, Whether our Filthiness be not found in our Skirts?\u2014Whether our _Streets, Lanes_ and _Houses_ , did not burn with _Lust_ , before they were consumed with _Fire?_... That unnatural Practice of some _Debauchees_ , that Mixture and Production, _doubly spurious_ , of WHITE AND BLACK; and taking those to our _Bed_ and _Arms_ , whom at another Time we set with _the Dogs of our Flock_ , ought to stand in _red Capitals_ , among our _crying_ Abominations! I know not, if _Sodom_ had done this\n\nThe news of Stono arrived in Georgia concurrently with the confirmation that, as rumored, England and Spain were at war yet again. It was especially unhappy news because tensions along the disputed Georgia-Florida border had been the catalyst for the hostilities.\n\nBritain's enduring, disingenuous name for the resulting war was applied to it much after the fact, in 1858, by Thomas Carlyle: the War of Jenkins' Ear. This referred to an incident that occurred off the coast of Florida in 1731, eight years before the war began. A Spanish coast guard patrol boat from San Agust\u00edn boarded a British brig, during which action the Spanish officer Juan de Le\u00f3n Fandi\u00f1o cut off the ear of the British captain Thomas Jenkins, taking in vain the name of the British king as he did so; the pickled ear was subsequently exhibited on the floor of Parliament.\n\nRemembering the conflict as the War of Jenkins' Ear might suggest that the war was somehow trivial or silly. In Spain, however, the war was remembered not by that anecdotal incident but by its underlying financial cause: the _Guerra del Asiento._ British merchants commonly used their slave shipments to the Spanish colonies as trojan horses to smuggle in all sorts of other prohibited goods. Worse, the British government had stopped making its payments for the _asiento_ to Spain as called for.\n\nWith England and Spain at war, Oglethorpe led a monthlong siege of San Agust\u00edn in 1740 but failed to take it; its defenders included about a hundred black militiamen from Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, led by Yamasee War veteran Francisco Men\u00e9ndez. Meanwhile, a dissident faction in Georgia, dubbed the Malcontents, were uninterested in small, self-sufficient, inalienable farms. They wanted to get rich via large, debt-driven, plantation slavery, and they wanted a functioning real-estate market so that they could buy out or seize the farms of others. Oglethorpe thought them in league both with the Charles Town merchants (which they were) and the enemy in San Agust\u00edn (perhaps not). Oglethorpe wrote the trustees on May 28, 1742:\n\nThe Mutinous Temper at Savannah now shows it self to be fomented by the Spaniards, & that the Distruction of that Place was but part of their Scheme for raising a general Disturbance through all North America.... They found three Insuperable obstacles in their way in driving out the English from this Colony. 1st. The People being white & Protestants & no Negroes were naturally attached to the Government. 2dly. The Lands being of Inheritance, as Men could not Sell, they would not leave the Country so easily, as new commers would do, who could Sell their Emprovements. 3d. Distilled Liquors were prohibited which made the Place Healthy.\n\nTheir Partizans laboured to get those who Perhaps intended no ill to bring about what they Desired. 1st. To Obtain Negroes being secure that Slaves would be either Recruits to an Enemy or Plunder for them. 2dly. Land Alianable which would bring in the Stock Jobbing Temper, the Devill take the Hindmost. 3d. Free Importation of Rum & Spirits which would Destroy the Troops & Laboring People here. (paragraphing added)\n\nThe war with Spain made Savannah's Jewish community particularly nervous, since they had fled the Inquisition. The community collapsed in 1741, and some of its members relocated to Charles Town where a congregation was organized in 1749, with the community divided between \"Portuguese\" (Sephardic) and \"German\" (Ashkenazi).\n\nOglethorpe defeated a Spanish invasion of St. Simons Island in the descriptively named Battle of Bloody Marsh on July 6, 1742, effectively consolidating Britain's ownership of the Spanish-claimed territory of Georgia. The force that attacked St. Simons Island was a large one: about a thousand Spanish regulars and five hundred or so black militiamen from Cuba, where a quarter or more of the soldiery was _pardo_ (mulatto) or _moreno_ (black). Alexander Hewatt, a Scottish Presbyterian minister who wrote the first history of South Carolina and Georgia (after being expelled from Charles Town as a Loyalist in 1777), recalled the frightening impression made by the presence of uniformed black soldiers:\n\nAmong their land forces they had a fine company of artillery, under the command of Don Antonio de Rodondo, and a regiment of negroes. The negro commanders were clothed in lace, bore the same rank with white officers, and with equal freedom and familiarity walked and conversed with their commander and chief. Such an example might justly have alarmed Carolina. For should the enemy penetrate into that province, where there were such numbers of negroes, they would soon have acquired such a force, as must have rendered all opposition fruitless and ineffectual.\n\nThe war was mostly over by 1742, after an attempted occupation of Cartagena by some thirty thousand British troops was repulsed, though hostilities continued through 1748. During the war, Spanish ships (joined in 1741 by French ones) preyed on shipments bringing American tobacco to London, denying the Chesapeake's tobacco farmers access to their market in Britain. This further encouraged the farmers in their ongoing switch to wheat, which had a domestic market, took fewer weeks of labor than tobacco, and needed less tending as it grew.\n\nMeanwhile, the British were cut off from their supply of indigo in the French West Indies, spurring the development of indigo production in South Carolina.\n\nThe first crop of indigo was brought in 1744 about five miles from the site of the Stono Rebellion by the twenty-one-year-old Eliza Lucas. A true godmother of American slavery, Lucas had lived most of her life in Antigua, where her father was the lieutenant governor. After trying her hand at raising ginger, alfalfa, cotton, and cassava at her father's South Carolina plantations, which she managed in his absence, she found she could grow indigo with seeds of the West Indian variety that her father sent her\u2014but she could not process the plant into dye until her father sent her a \"negro man\" who knew how. After the success of her crop, she distributed seed to her neighbors and married Charles Pinckney of Charles Town, becoming Eliza Lucas Pinckney.\n\nBritain paid a bounty for indigo cultivation in order to have a supply of dye for its growing textile manufactures, though the South Carolina product was inferior in quality to the indigo they had been receiving from India. Indigo was the perfect complement to rice. Both called for large amounts of labor and, most importantly, they grew in different seasons, allowing for one overworked labor force to produce two different staple crops in a year. Both crops required disagreeable, unhealthy work.\n\nAccounts of indigo production describe the terrible stench it gave off as the plants decomposed after infusion. It attracted grasshoppers and clouds of flies, was toxic to the workers, depleted the soil, and ruined the surrounding land for cattle, which were needed to provid basic nourishment for the region. But once processed, it was a perfect long-distance export: a small amount of the concentrated, solid dyestuff had a high value. It was even more profitable than rice. The success of indigo made South Carolina much more profitable, further stimulating British trade, most especially the slave trade, to the colony.\n\n_Charles Town, at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, at the end of a defensible channel behind barrier islands, as depicted in a 1780 map by William Faden. Sullivan's Island, to the right, was the entry and quarantine point for upwards of a hundred thousand Africans._\n\nOglethorpe returned to England for good in 1743, leaving behind William Stephens as governor. Stephens followed Oglethorpe's principles\u2014at tremendous personal cost, since his son Thomas had become a leader of the Malcontents\u2014but in 1749 he admitted defeat, advising the trustees that the prohibition against slavery was no longer enforceable. Slavery was legalized in Georgia as of January 1, 1751, and by 1752 the trustees had washed their hands of the place as the territory reverted to crown colony status. The itinerant traders who brought slaves in from South Carolina became known by a name that would outlive them: Georgiamen.\n\nTwenty years after its founding as the first free-soil territory in the nascent British Empire, Georgia was firmly established as a satellite of South Carolina's world of plantation slavery. Though slaveowners frequently accused Britain of having forced the system of slavery on them, the case of Georgia offered an unambiguous model to the contrary: the British who established the colony wanted no slavery, but some of the colonists\u2014and the South Carolina merchants\u2014did.\n\n*The site of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose was found in a 1986 architectural dig and is now a Florida state park.\n\n*The name of the creolized African American people called \"Gullah\" in South Carolina likely derives from \"Ngola,\" or Angola, though there are other theories; in Georgia, the population is known as \"Geechee,\" the name presumably deriving from the indigenous-named Ogeechee River.\n\n\u2020Writing was taught separately from reading in those days. Slaveowners feared that slaves who could write would forge the passes that every slave traveling alone was required to carry and thus escape.\n\n_The coast of Georgia as depicted in a British map of 1780, showing the Sea Islands down to Amelia Island, claimed by Florida. Savannah is in the upper right._\n\n#   17\n\n# **A Rough Set of People, but Somewhat Caressed**\n\n_... that Cargo Sold at pretty good prices tho they were a month about it... it was a most butifull Cargo of the Sort chiefly young People from 15 to 20 which are not accustom'd to destroy themselves like those who are older. 1_\n\n\u2014Henry Laurens, letter to Liverpool slave trader John Knight, May 28, 1756\n\nTHROUGHOUT GEORGE WASHINGTON'S CAREER, it would never be forgotten by the British, the French, or the Spanish that when the young land speculator was a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant colonel in the British army, he played a key role in starting the war that deprived France of its North American real estate.\n\nAs French troops from Louisiana made incursions into the unexplored Ohio Valley, trying to connect France's Canada positions with Louisiana and thus box the British in on the Atlantic coast, they were ambushed on July 3, 1754, in what is now southwestern Pennsylvania, by a detachment led by Washington, with one column of British troops and one column of Native Americans. The British troops had been sent there by Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie, in part to protect the land claims of the Ohio Company of Virginia, of which Washington's half brother Lawrence was a cofounder.\n\nAfter a skirmish that led to the death in captivity of the French commander Jumonville at the hands of Washington's indigenous ally Tanacharison, Washington was captured and released after signing a confession in French, which he could not read. The Ohio Valley conflict escalated into a global war, with London and Paris as the principal belligerents. In America it became known as the French and Indian War, and in Europe as the Seven Years' War. Its outcome drastically altered the course of hemispheric history, driving the French out of North America and giving control to Britain of New France, or Canada.\n\nIn the final phase of that war, after Spain's Bourbon king Carlos III foolishly entered the conflict on the side of his cousin, Louis XV of France, Britain occupied the great harbor of Havana, the hub of Spain's gold- and silver-shipping empire, for about ten months. At war's end, victorious Britain, in another net territorial gain, returned Havana to Spain in exchange for Florida.*\n\nAfter 198 years as a Spanish Catholic town, San Agust\u00edn was now to become St. Augustine, a British Protestant town. Britain promptly divided Florida into West and East, with the Apalachicola River as the eastern boundary between the two. Pensacola, founded as a fort in 1698, was the capital of West Florida, which had the Mississippi as its western boundary abutting French Louisiana and controlled the access to the sea for the Gulf Coast hinterland. St. Augustine was the capital of East Florida, which included the entire peninsula.\n\nLondon began giving away\u2014mostly to politically connected Scots\u2014massive amounts of the depopulated Florida land it now claimed, as well as large tracts in Georgia. It was the first, but not the last, boom in Florida real estate: \"during the great speculation in American lands that preceded the American Revolution,\" writes George C. Rogers Jr., \"there was more interest in the real estate of East Florida than in the property of any other region of British America.\" In the years from 1764 to 1770, 2,856,000 acres of East Florida were distributed.\n\nVirginia's tobacco was the largest American export, but the Lowcountry's rice and indigo was the second largest. Moreover, Virginia's exports were declining, while shipments from Charles Town's harbor, one of the colonies' busiest, were increasing. As plantations proliferated in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, Charles Town was the great mercantile supplier to all of them, with slaves far and away the highest-value merchandise supplied. Debts incurred purchasing slaves mounted up so fast that importation of Africans was suspended from 1766 to 1769, and disputes over taxation with England depressed importation in 1770\u20131, but in 1772 and especially 1773, importation was enormous. These slaves were often sold in gangs, with the result that, as in the sugar territories, people from a single African point of origin wound up on the same plantation, a consciousness that has remained in black Sea Island folkways, where different islands are understood to have different African cultural influences.\n\nFlorida was to embody, once again, the British dream of enormous landholdings. One of the first in the door was a leading British capitalist: the Scottish slave trader, commodity trader, shipping magnate, army contractor, planter, and stock market investor Richard Oswald, who was one of six owners who built Bance (or Bunce) Island in the Sierra Leone River into a major slave-trading factory. Oswald received twenty thousand acres in 1764, almost as soon as Florida was open for business. African slaves were brought directly to Florida for the first time, and Oswald soon had a hundred of them on his plantation.\n\nA dinner at a meeting of the East Florida Society of London, founded in 1766, brought together a group of men that included Richard Oswald and Benjamin Franklin, who thought Oswald an \"honest\" man. Oswald's firm was at the time on the first year of its unprecedented five-year contract with a French society to bring regular shipments of slaves to the war-damaged plantations of Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe from their Sierra Leone River base at Bance Island\u2014a job only achievable by a modern factory, requiring as it did the coordination of regular supplies of people captured in slave raiding and war, with shipping schedules and cash flow, year in and year out. This type of venture marked a new level of professionalization in a business that had largely been the province of individual merchants working with captains who assembled cargoes as best they could. By the time Grant, Oswald & Co.'s French contract expired in 1770, they had delivered 4,847 people. Oswald had a remarkable record of picking winners, but his venture in Florida was a bust, as were most of the others: the land was unsuited for rice or for sugar.\n\nWith the handover of Florida to Britain, more than three thousand of the Spanish colony's people evacuated, most of them fleeing to Cuba, where many established themselves in the communities of Guanabacoa and Regla, now part of metropolitan Havana. Residents of the free black town of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose founded the community of San Agust\u00edn de la Florida in Matanzas province. The western part of Cuba, meanwhile, was being reconfigured by sugar. Control of the sugar market had been a major object of contention during the Seven Years' War, and after the abrupt British withdrawal from Cuba the island entered into its era of sugar prosperity. During its ten months as an occupier in Havana, Britain had begun aggressive slave importation there, giving new life to Cuba's moribund sugar industry. Cuba had been home to Africans for almost two and a half centuries at that point but had not had massive plantation slavery; now that began to change. Liverpool slave captains serviced much of this new Cuban market, bringing large numbers of captives supplied by their African trading partners in the Bight of Biafra, the region known as Calabar. The African traders of Bonny and Old Calabar were particularly powerful and did not allow the establishment of factories by Europeans, giving them a trade advantage.\n\nRemoving the Spanish antagonist from St. Augustine was a godsend for Carolina and Georgia slaveowners. Meanwhile, in compensation for the loss of Florida, the French Louis XV gave Louisiana (in secret, at first) to the Spanish Carlos III. Spain was occupied with reasserting Spanish authority in Cuba, where planters had tasted British commerce and weren't going back, so no Spanish governor was sent to Louisiana until 1768, during which time the French and Creole elite of New Orleans further developed its already pronounced independent streak.\n\nSpain had no choice but to take Louisiana when the French king handed it over. Though Louisiana produced little of value, it was an essential buffer zone for protecting Spain's Mexican silver mines from the English. So, for approximately the last third of the eighteenth century, the governor of Louisiana reported to the captain general in Havana, with enormous cultural consequences for the town of New Orleans, which under the Spanish took on the structure of a city and started to be a port of importance.\n\nThe London economy suffered a panic in 1772, which, coupled with a quickly withdrawn incentive plan to encourage poor Protestant immigrants, brought in thousands of desperate Scots, Irish, and especially Scotch-Irish to South Carolina. In the four days between December 19 and 22, 1772, four ships from Northern Ireland disgorged more than a thousand people into Charles Town. These were poor and uneducated Ulsterpeople, nominally Presbyterians but in fact barely churched. Henry Laurens, who dealt in indentured servants as well as slaves, wrote of a group of them:\n\nI have been largely concerned in the African trade... yet I never saw an instance of Cruelty in ten or twelve Years experience in that branch equal to the Cruelty exercised upon those poor Irish... Self Interest prompted the Baptized Heathen in the first case to take care of the wretched Slaves for a Market, but no other care was taken of those poor Protestant Christians from Ireland but to deliver as many as possible alive on Shoar upon the cheapest terms, no matter how they fared upon their Voyage or in what condition they were landed.\n\nThe coastal land was taken, so most of the new arrivals went upcountry.\n\nThe little more than a decade between the end of the Seven Years' War and the Declaration of Independence was a time of great political transformation and opportunity for enterprise. With peace and stability, the Lowcountry plantation economy boomed. The growth of rice cultivation expanded enormously owing to the adoption of a new method of irrigation that used sluices to bring in sea water mixed with fresh to make aquaculture possible in the Tidewater, instead of merely in the inland swamps.\n\nSouth Carolina was the opposite of the decentralized Chesapeake: it was highly centralized in Charles Town, an empire whose commercial relations extended for hundreds of miles. The only place in South Carolina that could be described as a city, it traded via small oceangoing vessels with coastal North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and by land, selling the native confederations and the new arrivals upcountry guns to kill each other with, as well as having its own prosperous residents to import goods for. Leila Sellers described it as \"a sort of city-state, drawing to itself all the wealth of the surrounding country, which gave it a prestige the memory of which has never faded.\"\n\nThe easy upward social mobility the slave society offered white men was described by Alexander Hewatt in 1779, in the course of explaining why he thought (correctly) that industry would not develop in South Carolina:\n\nNor is there the smallest reason to expect that manufactures will be encouraged in Carolina, while landed property can be obtained on such easy terms. The cooper, the carpenter, the brick-layer, the shipbuilder, and every other artificer and tradesman, after having laboured for a few years at their respective employments, and purchased a few negroes, commonly retreat to the country, and settle tracts of uncultivated land.... Though the wages allowed them are high, yet the means of subsistence in towns are also dear, and therefore they long to be in the same situation with their neighbours, who derive an easy subsistence from a plantation, which they cultivate at pleasure, and are answerable to no master for their conduct.\n\nEven the merchant becomes weary of attending the store, and risking his stock on the stormy seas, or in the hands of men where it is often exposed to equal hazards, and therefore collects it as soon as possible, and settles a plantation. Upon this plantation he sets himself down, and being both landlord and farmer, immediately finds himself an independent man. Having his capital in lands and negroes around him, and his affairs collected within a narrow circle, he can manage and improve them as he thinks fit.\n\nHe soon obtains plenty of the necessaries of life from his plantation; nor need he want any of its conveniences and luxuries. The greatest difficulties he has to surmount arise from the marshy soil, and unhealthy climate, which often cut men off in the midst of their days. Indeed in this respect Carolina is the reverse of most countries in Europe, where the rural life, when compared with that of the town, is commonly healthy and delightful.\n\nHewatt wrote that Charles Town \"may be ranked with the first cities of British America.\" He estimated its 1765 population to be between five and six thousand white inhabitants and between seven and eight thousand \"negroes,\" while his estimate for South Carolina as a whole was forty thousand whites and eighty to ninety thousand blacks. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, Charles Town was the fourth largest city in the colonies, far behind Philadelphia and New York in population and somewhat behind Boston. It was a town of young people, as Hewatt noted: \"There are few old men or women to be found in the province, which is a sure sign of the unhealthiness of the climate. We cannot say that there are many in the country that arrive at their sixtieth year.\"\n\nIn Charles Town, slaves were crucial to a merchant's offerings, since they drew customers who might then purchase their dry goods from him. \"Before the Revolution,\" writes Elizabeth Donnan, \"at least one hundred [Charles Town] firms had offered [slave] cargoes for sale, some advertising but one, others one a year for a number of years, while Brailsford and Chapman, in the year 1765, handled nine cargoes, two of which numbered four hundred slaves each.\" That was exceptional: a big cargo was a lot to handle, and even a large merchant would normally not handle more than two or three in a year. But there were a lot of merchants.\n\nHenry Laurens was the number-one dealer in Africans. During 1760, his firm Austin, Laurens, and Appleby advertised 1,010 slaves for sale; for purposes of comparison, 3,573 slaves were sold in all of Charles Town for the year beginning November 1, 1759. In surveying accounts of duties paid, Daniel J. McDonough identifies Laurens as involved in the importation of some 6,900 people. That was synonymous with being well capitalized; Charles Town's slave distribution network reached North Carolina, upcountry South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and beyond, but only very wealthy merchants could lay out the sums necessary for such operations. Since the trade was highly seasonal (April to November, primarily because the cold months killed too many of the captives), capital drain was concentrated in time. On the sale end, the trader had to extend credit and collect, a process that sometimes took years; Laurens estimated that he often had more than \u00a310,000 sterling out. Advising a pair of young brothers who were hoping to get started as slave traders, Laurens wrote, \"We experimentally know that a large Capital is requisite to negotiate a Trade in this Country for 7 or 800 Negroes a Year in the way we take them.\" He took his profits in slaves; by 1776 he owned 797 of them, and plantations for them to work on.\n\nBut smaller, less-capitalized merchants could also participate in this chain of value creation. The 1,108 slave cargoes known to have been brought to colonial Charles Town (almost no place else in South Carolina received Africans) were received by 405 different merchants and factors. There was no business easier to make a profit in. Slaves were sold everywhere commerce was conducted in Charles Town, from Gadsden's Wharf, large merchants' warehouses, auction houses, plantation grounds, and the \"Negro yard,\" to small dry goods stores and on many public occasions that included, in Leila Sellers's description, \"at the race course between the heats of the races.\" Slaves were still coming in from Barbados and Antigua, and occasionally Jamaica, in one- and two-digit quantities, but most of the vessels by now were from Africa, perhaps making a stop in the West Indies first, and bringing hundreds at a time.\n\nThe traders had a paper money supply that facilitated their commerce. There was little specie in South Carolina for cash purchases, but bills of exchange from reputable London merchants were circulating in some numbers, though the supply was subject to sharp fluctuation. Carolina's paper money, first issued in 1703 when North and South Carolina were still one polity, \"established a security and stability rare in the colonies,\" writes John J. McCusker; the seven-to-one rate of exchange between South Carolina currency and London pounds sterling remained in effect from the 1730s until shortly before South Carolina's declaration of independence from the British Empire.\n\nHenry Laurens's letter to a London trading firm on August 25, 1763 noted a spectacular ninefold markup realized in a slave sale that mixed people from two disparate regions of Africa: \"Negroes have yielded great prices hitherto & will continue do so thro the Year unless the Importations should be excessive. A Cargo of Angola's lately averaged \u00a332 Sterling round & 50 prime Gold Coast Negroes bought in Antigua at \u00a334 per head sold in one lot at \u00a3300 round.\"\n\nThough we have no specific details of the settlement of that sale, it's close to impossible that a horse-cart loaded with tons of silver trudged through the streets of Charles Town. Sales were accomplished with transferable credit of one type or another, and could not have been effected at all unless London merchants were willing to extend credit to the purchasers. In effect, the profit reported by Laurens that day was money that had not previously existed, but had been written into being at the moment of sale, in the form of bills of exchange. These sales actively turned people into money. Laurens's firm may have been Charles Town's biggest factorage, but the factors' profits were small compared to those realized by the British merchant houses they were affiliated with. Laurens was proud of his association with his \"worthy Friend\" Richard Oswald, whose firm of Grant, Oswald, and Co. shipped 12,742 Africans across the Atlantic that are documented, and an unknown number of others, between 1748 and 1770.\n\nArriving in Charles Town to sell a quantity of flour in 1765, the Connecticut merchant Pelatiah Webster found a town of \"about 1000 houses, with inhabitants, 5000 whites and 20000 blacks\"\u2014a considerable exaggeration in the latter case, but one based on appearances. Webster wrote an enthusiastic account of his \"sauntering about town as much as the great heats will permit\" and dining as the guest at the magnificent tables of a succession of Charles Town merchants, all of whom sold slaves as a significant part of their business. In the course of making the social business circuit, he \"passed some hours... with some Guinea captains, who are a rough set of people, but somewhat caressed by the merchants on account of the great profits of their commissions.\"\n\nThe slave ship captains may have been coarse, but according to Webster, the merchants who sold human beings by the boatload were anything but. Thomas Smith, of Brewton and Smith, was \"a reputable merchant in this town & in very fine business: is an agreeable sensible kind man.\" His brother, Benjamin, one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina, had made a great fortune in the slave trade; by then retired from active trading, he was \"a Gent about 50\" who was \"cheerful, easy & generous.\" Thomas Shirley, of Shirley and Martin, was \"a very polite English Gent. residing here in very genteel fashion: is an ingenious ready man: was bread a merchant, has traveled much, understands several modern languages.\" Thomas Liston was \"a man of great openness and politeness, of generous sentiments and very genteel behavior\"; Webster traveled with him to Sullivan's Island, the entry point for slave cargoes, where there \"were 2 or 300 negro's performing quarantine with the small pox\" in the local pest house. After hearing some \"very fine airs on the harpsichord by Mr. ____, an English organist,\" he found Charles Town an \"agreeable and polite place,\" noting that \"the laborious business is here chiefly done by black slaves of which there are great multitudes.\"\n\nGeorgia received its first cargo direct from Africa in 1766, when a Liverpool captain brought in a vessel coming from Senegal with seventy-eight kidnapped people in the hold. The following year, Savannah built a pest house to quarantine new arrivals, like the one at Sullivan's Island for Charles Town, where incoming slaves were expected to remain for a minimum of ten days. But in the absence of capital to handle a sizable African cargo, a larger percentage of Georgia's imports came in smaller shipments from the Antilles\u2014especially Jamaica, but also Antigua, Barbados, St. Christopher, St. Kitts, Grenada, Cura\u00e7ao, and others. Even today, you can hear in the Gullah and Geechee way of talking a marked resemblance to black speech of the British West Indies.\n\nSouth Carolina was already at least occasionally exporting enslaved African Americans to neighboring regions by sea, as when Laurens shipped a \"parcel\" of \"country Negroes\" to British-controlled St. Augustine in 1768.\n\nWith Jamaica and Saint-Domingue both taking large numbers of Africans, the African slave trade was reaching its hemispheric peak. Liverpool, London, Bristol, and Lancashire captains competed to open up new sources of supply in Africa.\n\nBoth forced African immigration and voluntary European immigration to the colonies reached new levels after the Seven Years' War, increasing the colonial population by 10 percent or so. There were newcomers in every town. Many were getting ready to push west, out where one could own land, albeit at the price of defending one's claim from the Indians. The moving frontier of westward expansion, still in its early stages, kept the market for slaves strong.\n\n*Britain wanted the island of Guadeloupe, but had to keep Canada\u2014which was producing much less revenue\u2014instead.\n\n#   18\n\n# **Ballast**\n\n_She [Phillis Wheatley] does not seem to have preserved any remembrance of the place of her nativity [Senegal], or of her parents, excepting the simple circumstance that her mother poured out water before the sun at his rising._\n\n\u2014\"written by a collateral descendant of Mrs. Wheatley\" for the 1834 edition of _Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave_\n\nIRON WAS FUNDAMENTAL TO any kind of industrial development. England had been making iron since the Roman era, but by the beginning of the eighteenth century, British furnaces had slowed down\u2014not for lack of iron ore, but for lack of fuel, the forests having been consumed. Britain had been importing iron from Sweden but the coronation of King George I in 1714 put an end to that because George was at war with Sweden.\n\nWith commerce between Britain and Sweden frozen, Britain was eager to get iron from its colonies. Maryland made it governmental policy to encourage iron furnaces as of 1719, and the Chesapeake became a leader in colonial iron production. These ironworks produced only bars, or \"pigs,\" because as codified in the Iron Act of 1750 the colonists were not to have rolling, plating, or slitting mills, much less to make steel of their own. The colonials were to be consumers, not manufacturers, so they weren't allowed even to work iron into the rods used in the manufacture of nails, because supplying nails to plantations was a British business. Americans were expected to buy their iron back in the form of finished nails from the West Midlands naileries, with the cost of two ocean voyages factored into the price.\n\nBy the early 1720s, the Principio Company was already up and running in Maryland from a base in Cecil County and with holdings throughout Maryland. Owned by English investors, it employed English ironmasters as well as enslaved workers. Using slaves in an industrial setting was something of an experiment, but black men producing iron was not: iron was a longtime African specialty.\n\nA list of Principio's laborers enumerates twenty-six paid laborers, ten wageless indentured laborers who had last names, and thirteen enslaved laborers who did not have last names: Ben, Cuzo, Quash, Quamini, Tantaro, Tom, Prince, Joe, James, and Pohick.  The enslaved laborers seem to have started at the bottom of the Principio labor chain, as woodcutters feeding the endlessly hungry furnaces, but by 1750 several of them were listed as skilled laborers and they received incentive pay of a shilling per ton of iron blooms produced. Prince was still working at Principio in 1781 at the age of sixty-five, and was classed as a skilled forgeman, along with fifty-five-year-old Harry, sixty-five-year-old Dancer, and thirty-seven-year-old Ellick and Will.\n\nEven the highest-ranking white wage laborers at Principio did not necessarily receive their pay on time. Much of their salary was taken in the form of credit at that notorious institution, the company store, \"which seems to have been the first part of the enterprise... to go into operation,\" writes Michael W. Robbins in his history of the company. Needless to say, the black laborers were treated worse than white employees. A 1781 inventory of the facilities of one iron company, the Kingsbury Furnace, includes both a kitchen and a \"Negro kitchen,\" suggesting that the enslaved ate separately, and, to be sure, more poorly. Caloric requirements for the hard labor were high, and though they ate a monotonous diet based on corn, they had to have enough to keep moving. On their feet they wore what were listed in budget lines as \"negro shoes,\" bought in large quantities. They lived crowded into shanties and crude cabins where privacy was unknown. They were corporately owned, in what could amount to as many as 150 enslaved laborers on an iron plantation. Large numbers of support personnel were needed to sustain the ironworkers; a few of the enslaved in the ironworks were women, who cooked and sewed\u2014and occasionally were ironworkers as well.\n\nCharles Carroll the Settler arrived from Ireland to Lord Baltimore's colony in 1688. Determined to become wealthy in spite of the discrimination against Catholics in the wake of the Protestant coup of the Glorious Revolution, he became the largest landowner and the largest lender in Maryland. He began a family line that included a number of people named Charles Carroll, who then needed another name to differentiate them, so that Charles Carroll the Settler's son was Charles Carroll of Annapolis, whose only child and heir was Charles Carroll of Carrollton.\n\nCharles Carroll of Annapolis also had a distant relative in the area, known as Dr. Charles Carroll, who was the father of Charles Carroll the Barrister. But unlike the previously named Charles Carrolls, Dr. Charles Carroll's branch of the family was not Catholic but Anglican, so in Annapolis they spoke of the Catholic Carrolls and the Anglican Carrolls.\n\nHoping to diversify their holdings, Dr. Carroll and four partners\u2014including Charles Carroll of Annapolis\u2014were eagerly looking for alternatives to tobacco as a way to put their capital to work. They started the Baltimore Iron Works (or the Baltimore Company), in 1731 on a choice plot of about thirteen hundred acres north of the Patapsco River that Dr. Carroll had purchased. The second ironworks in Maryland, it was well situated: the little village of Baltimore was next to a thick vein of iron ore and had a deep-water harbor.\n\nBefore committing to founding the company, Dr. Carroll even drew up a business plan of sorts, which concluded that profitability could be reached in a mere two years. In his operating budget, the largest single expense was the purchase of laborers, who were capital acquisitions and were resalable. This earliest of Baltimore industries used a combination of free, indentured, and slave labor, beginning the diverse mix of workers that would later characterize the city. By 1734, the Baltimore Iron Works had forty-three enslaved black laborers, eight of them cooks.\n\nThirty years later, when Charles Carroll of Annapolis was the richest man in Maryland, he listed his holdings for his son and heir's benefit. Valuing at \u00a310,000 his one-fifth interest in the company's holdings of thirty thousand acres and \"150 slaves young and old,\" he listed as part of his estimated \u00a388,380.97 personal wealth \"20 Lots in Annapolis with the houses thereon,\" valued at \u00a34,000, and \"285 Slaves on my different Plantations at \u00a330 Ster,\" valued at \u00a38,550.\n\nTwenty built-up lots in Annapolis was a substantial holding, but 285 human beings were worth more than twice as much. That letter's addressee, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, became the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the wealthiest. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was already price-conscious at the age of twenty-nine when he wrote his father's partner Walter Dulany on August 29, 1767, that \"I am informed that negroes sell cheap in Virginia: as they are much wanted at the works would it not be pro[per] to direct Clt. Brooke to attend the Sales? Next Octbr. I am told will be the best time to purchase when it is probable the gentleman says from whom I had my information, young likely country born negroes may be bought at \u00a325 or 30 Sterling.\"\n\nDulany wrote back: \"I shou'd be for purchasing Negroes in Virginia, since they are to be had so cheap there as Mr. carroll mentions\u2014I know of but one Reason against doing it of this Side of Winter, which is that we shall probably have them all to cloath with Goods bought here, for it is very uncertain whether our Goods will come in in time from England; however I am willing to run the Risque.\"\n\nApparently the purchasing did not go forward as Charles Carroll of Carrollton wished. He wrote a circular letter to the other four partners in 1773 complaining that, \"In 1769 I procured from our Clerks a list of hirelings wages at the furnace, and at the three forges, which I have often mentioned in my Letters to the Company, to induce them to purchase Slaves to save that enormous expence, but hitherto without success.\" He then computed in detail the costs of purchasing slaves, concluding that an\n\nannual saving of 901.5.0 would not be the only Advantage the Company would reap from the purchase of 40 Slaves: the business would be carried on with more Alacrity, and fewer disappointments; we should encrease our Stock of negroes, and be greatly benefited by that encrease, in case the company should hereafter come to the resolution of selling their Lands, or leasing them, selling their Stock, and breaking up the Iron works.\n\nIt was good business to own slaves instead of rent them, and the richer one became, the easier it was to do. By purchasing slaves, not only did the partners save on labor costs in day-to-day operations, they acquired human capital that could then be sold or rented out. A few years later, on December 3, 1773, the seventy-one-year-old Charles Carroll of Annapolis wrote a good-news letter to his only son and heir, Charles Carroll of Carrollton:\n\nI have taken a very Exact Acct of all the Negroes Here, I was Closely employed 5 Mornings from Breakfast to Dinner & two long Evenings in Comparing the last with my present List, they Amou[nt] to 330 including the 3 Jobbers with You. My Love & Blessing to You...\n\nNegroes as pr List taken Decr:1st: 1773 | 330  \n---|---  \nDo: as pr List taken Decr:1st: 1767 | 273  \nIncrease in 6 years |\n\n57\n\nCarroll's return on investment in \"Negroes\" was almost 21 percent in six years. Those extra fifty-seven people also increased Carroll's liquidity, since slaves could be disposed of more readily than any other holdings.\n\nAs the South developed what little industry it would have, slave labor was omnipresent, positing a model of industrial slavery in which either the workers and their children were corporate assets, or the workers were hired from local owners via employment agents specializing in slave labor. But slave labor was problematic in an industrial setting. Gang labor in the field was a blunt instrument, and agricultural slaves were notoriously recalcitrant. That spirit couldn't be set loose on expensive factory machinery. Enslaved factory laborers had to be paid incentives to work properly, but paying wages to slaves was seen by slaveowners as a hazardous practice. Indeed, many slaveowners believed that paying wages to _anyone_ set a dangerous precedent.\n\nThe legacy of the old days is visible all over the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In Crumpton, the effects of a fine old house were auctioned one day in January 2011. Among the items the auctioneer turned over was a two-piece ring of iron, just big enough to fit around someone's neck. It was a slave collar, found in the basement of the house. When it was knocked down for ninety dollars, the ghost of slavery threw off yet another commission for an auctioneer.\n\nChestertown's population was 5,252 in the 2010 census, not much more than in the late eighteenth century. Like many English colonial towns, Chestertown has, besides a Queen Street, a High Street, and, adjacent to the harbor, a Water Street (also known as Front Street), where the building known as the Custom House dates to 1746 or so. Located as it is on the waterfront of the Chester River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Custom House was at one time the home of a wealthy merchant who traded in slaves and convicts: Thomas Ringgold IV.*\n\nIn America as in England, much of the business of African slavery belonged to Roman-numeraled generations of wealth. With a surname that spoke directly to money, Thomas Ringgold I was one of many Anglicans who left England during the Puritan regime (1647\u20131660). Only sixteen years after the _Ark_ and the _Dove_ brought the first Maryland colonists, he arrived in Maryland with his two sons in 1650. He acquired an Eastern Shore estate in 1657 by marrying a widow, a common means of enrichment for men in a land of high mortality and few rights for women.\n\nBy great-great-grandson Thomas Ringgold IV's time in the mid-eighteenth century, Chestertown was the most important port on Maryland's Eastern Shore, second only to Annapolis in all of Maryland, and the Ringgolds were its leading family. Together with his son, Thomas Ringgold V, and his brother, William Ringgold, the energetic Thomas Ringgold IV imported a variety of goods besides British manufactures: the strong, sweet, fortified wine the colonists drank (from Portugal, England's oldest trading partner); West Indian molasses; and indentured servants, convict labor, and African slaves. It was his good fortune to be at his peak during the boom years for colonial merchants after the French and Indian War, when explosive, immigrant-driven population growth made for an active commercial world throughout the bustling colonies. As merchants profited from supplying the new arrivals, the newly wealthy were furnishing exquisite new mansions. Ringgold IV bought the almost-new Custom House from its tavern-keeper builder in 1749, and it became both his residence and his place of business. He appears to have been the wealthiest man in Kent County, though he had competition from his next-lot neighbor Thomas Smyth, whose magnificent Georgian mansion Widehall, built in 1769, still stands on the former Water Lot #16, across High Street from the Custom House.\n\nEighteenth-century businessmen were necessarily diversified, and Ringgold IV was an attorney, planter, import\/export merchant, and retailer. He shipped out tobacco and iron\u2014the two went together, with the iron serving as ballast\u2014and by the 1760s, with the Chesapeake already making a transition out of tobacco, he was loading wheat onto an increasing number of ships.\n\nFueled by the growth in mercantile revenues, building after solid building went up in Annapolis, the small, wealthy colonial capital that had been designed in the European style. Its peculiar baroque pattern of streets radiating outward from two circular plazas (called Church and State, they were joined by a road to symbolize the Anglican union of the two) was unlike the square grid pattern already in effect in Philadelphia and in Burlington, New Jersey. With overhead cabling and signage having been removed in the mid-twentieth century to enhance the time-capsule effect, Annapolis is today a living reminder of the Enlightenment's rational organization of space: a logical order imposed on a small, urban area.\n\nAt the peak of Annapolis's influence, about a third of its population was enslaved, mostly in domestic service. With a population of only a thousand or so, Annapolis was the most stylish town of its size in the North American colonies, the social leader of the Chesapeake. A theater opened in 1771, where Annapolitans saw what had decades before been the most popular works of the London stage: Joseph Addison's _Cato_ , John Gay's _The Beggar's Opera_ , and Isaac Bickerstaffe's afterpiece _The Padlock_ , with its comic, Spanish-derived, black-faced character Mungo, the precursor of black minstrelsy. Annapolis even had a colonial version of \"macaronis,\" the young, effeminate, Italianate dandies with comically big hair who burst on the London scene in 1772, as lampooned in \"Yankee Doodle.\"\n\n_Fast-changing Macaroni fashions in London, from Thomas Wright_ , Caricature History of the Georges, _1904._\n\nMany of the wealthy men who founded the American nation passed through Annapolis and Chestertown, which were cheerful stops on the dreary overland route between Virginia and Philadelphia. The only road that ran south from Philadelphia divided in Delaware, one branch going to the Eastern Shore and the other to the western. The Eastern Shore branch, the quicker of the two, ran through Chestertown, from where it continued on to connect to the ferry that as of 1762 ran between the Eastern Shore's Rock Hall (later a small town, but then a terminal) across the Chesapeake to Annapolis.\n\nPublishing magnate Benjamin Franklin, traveling home to Pennsylvania from Virginia on official business after having been appointed deputy postmaster general of the colonies, attended a January 1754 meeting of Annapolis's celebrated Tuesday Club. This was a social club in the London style where participants took on funny names (Franklin, internationally famous as a scientist, was dubbed \"Electro-Vitrifrice,\" or electric glass-stroker), made ribald jokes (\"longstanding members,\" that sort of thing), and sang drinking songs. In Chestertown, Franklin, whose postmaster position paid little but was of great benefit to his newspaper business, handed over his Eastern Shore accounts receivable for the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ to Ringgold IV for collection.\n\nAcross the bay from Chestertown, Ringgold IV's partner Samuel Galloway III (1720\u20131785), was one of the most important merchants of Annapolis. Galloway was a Quaker and thus a second-class citizen; there were even whispers among Anglicans that the Quaker ranks concealed Catholics in disguise. Spanning both sides (\"shores\") of the Chesapeake, the Galloway-Ringgold partnership was a commercial force linking Annapolis and Chestertown, locked down with strategic weddings: Thomas Ringgold V (1744\u20131776) married Galloway's daughter Mary, while Galloway's other daughter, Anne, in turn married into another merchant family, the Chestons.\n\nWhen the Mount Vernon planter George Washington ordered from a merchant \"a Pipe [about 126 gallons] of your best Lisbon Wine,\" the price to be drawn against an account in London, he asked that it \"receive a Freight in any of Mr Galloway's, or Mr Ringold's vessels.\" That Washington should be on friendly terms with Galloway and Ringgold was hardly surprising: the wealthy of Virginia and Maryland formed a tight society, with interlocking kinship by marriage at the heart of the business network. By marrying the widow Martha Custis, Washington had become a large slaveowner and a rich man\u2014rich enough, in the long run, that he could wear his own custom-designed uniform when he served eight years at the head of the Continental Army without pay, and rich enough that he could be a racing enthusiast.\n\nThoroughbred racing, an amusement for the truly wealthy, had become popular in England after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. It came to Virginia quickly, where it became a central social activity of the ruling class, and arrived in Annapolis in 1745. Washington's wealth wasn't sufficient to put him in the league of racehorse owners, but he traveled hundreds of miles to hobnob at Annapolis, noting in his ledger on October 10, 1772, \"Cash lost on the Races 1.6 pounds.\" On occasion he enjoyed the hospitality of Tulip Hill, Galloway's country estate, which still exists.\n\nGalloway was the owner of Selim, \"the most famous native colonial Chesapeake racer,\" whose heyday was at the height of the town-house era, between 1766 and 1772. Wealthy slaveowners were investing in the expensive hobby of horse breeding that attends a racing culture: twenty-seven stud farms have been identified in colonial Virginia. Selim had cost Galloway \u00a3178 on three years' credit, a heavy outlay at a time when an enslaved male laborer might be had for \u00a335. Even so, Selim was profitable. Besides winning races, he earned stud fees by covering the mares of Maryland's wealthiest. As did those sired from him: in 1793, it was advertised in Chestertown that one of Selim's grandsons\u2014named Liberty, of course\u2014\"will cover at SIX DOLLARS each mare, the season,\" noting that \"Country produce, at market price, will be received\" to pay for the stud service. Galloway kept a detailed Stud Book, now in the possession of the Maryland State Archives.\n\nGalloway was diversified. He planted tobacco and wheat, invested in ironworks, and owned a stand of oak trees that \"was the envy of all ship builders along the eastern seaboard,\" writes J. Reaney Kelly. In 1757, during the French and Indian War, he built and outfitted an eighteen-gun privateer and advertised for a crew. He tried and failed at launching a distillery, which was an essential asset for going into the African slave trade from North America.\n\nColonial documents contain pages-long lists of the fine things and basic necessities merchants imported: horses, cheese, candles, glass, paper, carpets, overcoats, hats, shoes, and on and on, in many varieties. Merchants also imported money, in many different forms, functioning in essence as mini-banks. They had to be agile mental calculators, since the currency they handled\u2014in a non-decimal-denominated system of twenty shillings to a pound and twelve pence to a shilling\u2014was issued by myriad sources, each with its own exchange rate or discount reflecting varying degrees of confidence in the solidity of the issuer. Frequently, debts were collected in merchandise, which meant keeping track of commodity price trends. The merchandise then had to be resold or traded for something else; that could be done at the Ringgolds' store on the ground floor of the Front Street building.\n\nRinggold IV traded in real estate as well, of course, but the way to make real estate valuable was to apply labor to it. No merchandise was more urgent, or potentially more lucrative, than laborers.\n\nIn front of a house on Queen Street in twenty-first-century Chestertown, the trees are set off from the sidewalk by a perimeter of \"rounded, water-worn stones,\" that, as Peregrine Wroth described them in 1871,\n\nare not natives of our alluvial district, being entirely different from any that I have ever seen in Kent [County]... Traditionally we are informed that they were brought to this country in ships from England which traded for Tobacco, as ballast; in the early times of the colony, tobacco being our staple crop for exportation. The stones being thrown out to take in the cargo, were afterwards used to pave the approach to the wharves.\n\n\"If I can procure him iron,\" wrote Ringgold of an arriving sea captain, \"I shall get his ballast wch I want to compleat my wharf.\" Pigs of iron made for a profitable cargo going back to London. The commerce in question was not the notorious clockwise, or \"triangular,\" trade, but a less efficient, colonially disadvantageous, back-and-forth monopoly circuit between North America and England. Ballast was necessary in both directions, but more of it was needed on the long westbound trip to America, because there was less cargo in the hold on the outbound voyage. Tobacco, the Chesapeake colonies' principal export, was a bulky commodity; the goods a ship would bring from London in exchange took up much less room. Freight was expensive, and shipping stones from England to Maryland was unprofitable. But the slack in a lopsided balance of trade is taken up by cheap labor, and an unprofitable cargo of ballast stones could share the hull with a profitable cargo of unfortunate people.*\n\nThat's where Ringgold and Galloway came in. They imported British convicts\u2014a product line with a dependable supply, as there were always plenty of prisoners on hand in Britain, already processed into the penal system. A steady flow of convicts in irons was a colonial merchant's dream, and was a specialty of the English port of Bristol. Ringgold was a factor, or agent, for the Bristol firm of Sedgely, Hilhouse, and Randolph, whose deported convicts received pardons for their crimes in exchange for indentures to labor in America. Some were felons, pirates, rogues, or dissenters, but others were merely indebted; and to judge from a number of advertisements in the _Maryland Gazette_ for the return of various runaways described as a \"Convict Servant Lad,\" a number of them were boys between sixteen and nineteen years of age. Convicts and paupers were in any case bundled together in the servant business, mixing the truly dangerous with the merely malnourished. While the number of convicts who were brought to America is difficult to state with any precision, the high-quality records of Annapolis indicate that by 1776, that port had handled 8,846 convicts, making the merchants who sold them rich.\n\nThe difference between indentured and enslaved labor was often negligible in terms of the actual work performed by the laborer. From the beginning of indentured servitude in America, tales circulated in England about how the indentured were made to work alongside the enslaved. It was common to refer to the \"purchase\" of indentured laborers, as per the 1774 letter from Charles Carroll of Carrollton authorizing a Baltimore Iron Works representative \"to Purchase 5 Negroes & 5 white Servants\" for industrial labor. But there was a significant difference between the two: the convict laborer was not bound for life, but the black slave was. Nor was the indentured servant's potential for \"natural increase\" part of the deal, as it was with the enslaved.\n\nIn the television miniseries _Roots_ , as in Alex Haley's novel on which it was based, the fictional protagonist Kunta Kinte was brought from the Gambia and sold at Annapolis in 1767. That was when Samuel Galloway was conducting slave sales at Middleton's Tavern, like the one he advertised in 1761, presumably of captives brought up from the West Indies, since they were \"seasoned\":\n\nTO BE SOLD\n\n_At the House of Mr._ Samuel Middleton, in Annapolis, _on Saturday next, being the 22d Instant,_\n\nA CHOICE PARCEL of Healthy Seasoned\n\nNEGRO MEN.\n\n... S GALLOWAY, and Company.\n\nA \"parcel\" might be two to four dozen people, less than a \"cargo,\" which could be hundreds. Ringgold and Galloway sold at least one cargo in 1761, but it was not a good sale.\n\nJuly 29, 1761.\n\nJ U S T I M P O R T E D\n\n_In the Snow_ Alexander, _Captain_ Neilson, _from the Coast of_ AFRICA,\n\nA CARGO of Choice Healthy SLAVES, and to be Sold on Tuesday next, being the 4th of _August_ , at _Annapolis_ , for Bills of Exchange or Cash, by THOMAS AND WM. RINGGOLD,\n\nSAMUEL GALLOWAY\n\nThe promise of \"Choice Healthy SLAVES\" was a barefaced lie. They were the wretched captives who arrived on the _Alexander_ , a vessel that had been outfitted to carry 320 humans as if they were sardines. The _Alexander_ had met with \"misfortune,\" Ringgold and Galloway wrote the ship's owners in Bristol afterward, resulting \"in the Loss of so great a part of her Slaves. We had but 105 left alive to sell, 11 of them so bad we were glad to get \u00a311 Ster. P Head for them, 6 of the 11 since dead and many of the others in very bad Condition.\" It is unknown whether the \"misfortune\" was smallpox, typhoid, measles, or any of a number of other diseases that could carry away shiploads of people.\n\nIt took a while to work through the undesirable inventory, but slaves rarely went unsold. Ringgold wrote Galloway on August 15 of the liquidation: \"We sold 14 of the Negroes yesterday very well considering the Cond'n they were in. The wenches and 1 man at 60 each, 1 man \u00a368, 1 Boy \u00a360, Girls at \u00a356, 2 sickly Girls cheap, the Maits [mate's] Boy for \u00a370, the small poor Boy died coming up. We have only The 2d Maits Fellow and 2 Girls hope they go today.\"\n\nThis was business correspondence\u2014formal and decorous, in the manner of colonial merchants, and devoid of remorse for over two hundred deaths, let alone the partners' responsibility in them. Then Ringgold delivered what he saw as the really bad news: \"But the worst of it twas chiefly on some Credit.\"\n\nNo Chesapeake merchants were exclusively slave traders in those days, but the converse of that was that many merchants might handle some slave trade, and every merchant was aware that the slave trade was murderous. But then, life was precarious in the colonies, where children routinely died, childbirth was every woman's hazard, and the wealthiest citizen might take sick and be gone within hours. The crews on occasion had higher mortality rates than the people who made up the cargo; slave ships were death ships, the bottom of the employment ladder for sailors. Stephen D. Behrendt, analyzing the mortality of 58,778 crewmen on 1,709 slave voyages out of Liverpool from 1780 forward, found 10,439 deaths, or 17.8 percent, about half of them killed by the captives. The \"seasoning\" process for newly arrived Africans was often more deadly than the crossing. Some emaciated arrivals expired dockside. Others died unattended in the pest house, where the healthy were locked up together with the dying in quarantine. Still others took mortally ill within months after sale.\n\nSlave buyers and merchants had a definite hierarchy of desirable African ethnicities. Gambians were at the top of the list, both in the Chesapeake and in South Carolina. One reason was that the voyage from that northernmost part of the West African slaving territory was significantly shorter than from farther south, and there was less time for the captives to sicken and die. As Ringgold IV put it in a letter: \"Gambia the best and generally comes in best helth as the Passage is quick from thence to this place,\" though the passage surely seemed to last an eternity for those chained in the hold.\n\nThe cultivation of tobacco was well suited to Senegambians' existing agricultural skills. Conveniently, they were at the time easy to get, an availability that peaked in the first three decades of the eighteenth century, as intra-African conflicts in that region threw war captives onto the market. The Bambara, the Wolof, the Mandinka, the Fulani: they brought with them not only agricultural skills, but all kinds of cultural skills, including music. They brought the banjo and a bowed fiddle (the latter a specialty of the nomadic Fulani), which they used to play a highly ornamented dance music. They brought a sense of swing, in which pairs of notes were not of equal length, but were long\/short. They brought a bardic poetic tradition that informed their way of singing, and, not least, they brought a centuries-old history of contact with Islam. The musical styles of the Muslim world affected their way of playing music greatly, and aspects of it\u2014melisma, pitch-bending, and heterophony (a loose sense of unison)\u2014would surface in a new African American music. Senegambians were early populators of all three major African American cultural areas: the Chesapeake, the Lowcountry, and Louisiana. But there were people from all seven of the major slaving regions of West and Central Africa (and perhaps a few from the eighth, Southeast Africa) in Chesapeake society.\n\nEven the biggest tobacco planters didn't purchase labor in the quantities Antillean sugar planters did. Most slaves in the Chesapeake were bought in small numbers, many in ones and twos; even large plantation workforces were assembled piecemeal out of hetergeneous sources. Annapolis was a breakup point, where cargoes were separated into smaller \"parcels\" for local distribution.\n\nOnce the captives had been sold, they were plantation bound, so their next journey was to be shipped along the watercourse of the Chesapeake river system and possibly marched over land. In their traumatized condition, often half-dead from their ordeal, they were traded and re-traded around the waterways, along with other merchandise, traversing a web of traders and planters. They were all connected by water along the decentralized Chesapeake system's thousands of miles of fractal coastline and riverbank.\n\nAfricans had long worked as sailors in European navies. Now Africans' descendants, raised in the intricate world of Chesapeake creeks and marshes, would become its boatmen, pilots, and navigators.\n\nBy contrast with the convict trade, the African slave trade was unpredictable. It was a high-stakes venture, with a remunerative upside but facing hazards unlike those of any other business. Given the dangers of the trade, a slave ship might never return. Even on a successful run, it could be incommunicado for a year or more, collecting one or a few captives at a time on the African coast, bargaining anew for each one, on occasion waiting for slave raids or nearby battles to end so that fresh victims could be procured.\n\nThough the upside was high, outfitting African slave-trade expeditions was a nerve-wracking business. \"There are more disasters in these Voyages than any others whatever,\" Ringgold wrote Galloway. The return on investment was at best excruciatingly slow, and, as with the other risks of slavery, it was best absorbed by large fortunes.\n\nColonial merchants sent their own expeditions to Africa as early as 1643, when a ship from Boston brought African captives to Barbados. But even for men of Galloway and Ringgold's wealth, it was hard to outfit an expedition to Africa from America. For one thing, the African traders who sold captives to the Guineamen wanted specific merchandise for their domestic markets in exchange, and most of it wasn't available in the colonies.\n\nThe African market was known for its \"fastidiousness,\" both in terms of the goods it would accept and the variety of them it demanded. Willem Bosman, the Dutch West India Company's factor at Elmina, wrote in 1703 that \"to trade on this Coast, about a hundred and fifty several sorts of Commodities are necessary,\" though he pleaded that the specific list was a trade secret. African merchants' conditions had many regional variations, but generally they wanted gold and silver, guns and gunpowder, textiles, hardware, brass basins and pans, luxury goods (principally rum and tobacco), and vast quantities of copper, which was a common material for adornment and, in the form of rods or bracelets called manillas, was Africa's most common currency.\n\nExcept for the rum and tobacco, none of this came from the colonies. Accordingly, rum was of central importance to the portion of the African slave trade outfitted from America. Beginning in Newport in the 1720s, Rhode Island's slaving activities grew out of its rum manufacturing; that in turn depended on molasses illegally imported from Saint-Domingue, whose syrup was cheaper than the Jamaican variety. The unusually well-documented voyage of the Providence slaver _Sally_ was probably typical; it went loaded with more than seventeen thousand gallons of rum, along with tobacco and onions, to be introduced into the African market in exchange for people. With its many distilleries, Rhode Island was the only North American colony to specialize in outfitting African slavers\u2014approximately a thousand voyages, accounting for an estimated 111,000 captives over its trading life.\n\nRhode Island ran a clockwise loop trade that carried New England rum to Africa in exchange for Africans, who were in turn taken to the West Indies (or sometimes North America) and exchanged for molasses, which was then brought to Rhode Island for distilling into rum, and so on recursively, in theory with a profit taken at every stop. In this way, Rhode Island in the eighteenth century became the largest outfitter of slaving voyages in North America, with Newport sometimes referred to as the \"American Liverpool.\"\n\nConspicuously, this commercial triangle did not include England. Nor did it necessarily include much hard currency, if the African slave traders could be persuaded to accept rum and tobacco, though they usually wanted manufactured goods or money too.\n\nSouth Carolina did little smuggling; its commerce largely followed British rules. But New England was a hotbed of contraband. According to Britain's routinely ignored 1733 Molasses Act, importation from the French colonies was to be prohibitively taxed. In the face of the need to raise revenue against Britain's debts from the French and Indian War, the Sugar Act of 1764 halved the molasses tax but included measures to enforce it, causing widespread alarm throughout New England, where distilling was a major business. The merchants of Providence responded by sending London a ringing defense of their right to smuggle molasses, pointing out that the rum thus produced gave them the revenues with which to pay for the British manufactures they consumed. Recalling the era, John Adams wrote in an 1818 letter, \"I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence... these articles of molasses and sugar, especially the former, entered into all and every branch of our commerce, fisheries, even manufactures and agriculture.\" The antislavery Adams discreetly neglected to mention the vital role molasses had played in the slave trade.\n\nTo give the devil his due, Rhode Island's slave trade was an extraordinary achievement given the obstacles to it, a feat Maryland did not replicate. The only known African slave voyage outfitted from Maryland was sent by Ringgold and Galloway in 1762, together with two other partners, though Galloway may have invested in others of which there is no record. It was a fiasco.\n\nIn an effort to stock their Africa-bound ship with commodities for trade, Ringgold traveled to Philadelphia. The decentralization of the Chesapeake had worked against the creation of urban centers in favor of widely scattered individual wharves, a situation pleasing to price-gouging English merchants. In doing so, it created a commercial vacuum for Philadelphia to exploit. Philadelphia, which had surpassed Boston as the largest city in the colonies in the 1750s, was the commercial capital, with the best-supplied marketplace. But even there, as Ringgold wrote Galloway:\n\nI found a great deal of Trouble and Diligence required to get anything and severel Things I did not get... so I was obliged to supply the Defects by Manchester Goods in Immitation as well as I coud.... I was put to great Difficulty ab't Gunns could not find any of the Trading Gunns but 21 in Town... Getting so few Gunns in Philada. I wrote to Mr. Freman to try to pick me up 100 or Less at York of the Cheap sort and send with the Rum.\n\nThe Scottish slave trader Richard Oswald, by contrast, in 1754 notified the British government of his intention to ship \"one hundred and twenty barrels of gunpowder, one hundred & twenty chests containing three thousand trading guns & thirty cases containing three thousand cutlasses\" to Africa. But even British slave traders had difficulties coming up with enough trade goods. \"Assembling an export cargo normally took several months,\" writes Kenneth Morgan, who argues that one of the advantages Liverpool traders had over those of Bristol and London was their proximity to the Isle of Man, a duty-free zone where until 1765 Dutch shippers could transship cheap products from Asia that included cowry shells (used as money in many parts of Africa) as well as those perennial trade offerings to Africa, textiles and lethal weaponry.\n\nCoin was equally difficult for even an affluent American to obtain; merchants rarely received it. \"I wrote him also as to Dollars,\" Ringgold's letter continued, referring to silver pesos, \"not one of them to be got in Philad[elphi]a.\"\n\nThe partners' slave ship made it to Africa and back, but the kidnapped Gambians never reached Maryland; to their consternation, the captain stopped off in Antigua and sold them there. \"If he was to go to the nearest place,\" fulminated Ringgold, \"why did not he take Barbados? Where slaves are wanted and would have sold well.\" Though the captain's side of the story appears to be lost to history, it might have been that much of his cargo had died and he feared losing it all if he continued any farther. At any rate, that's why Eseck Hopkins, captain of the previously mentioned _Sally_ , dumped onto the Antiguan market in 1765 the 87 naked, emaciated captives who remained alive out of the 196 he had embarked from Africa with instead of bringing them father north.\n\nThese were complicated deals. \"Dear Sir,\" Ringgold wrote Galloway in 1764, \"I have been looking over our Guinee Accts since I came home, and They really are almost got out of my Hand. I wish we could get them settled whilst we can understand them.\"\n\nLike other merchants' letters, Ringgold's correspondence is full of complaints about business, but he was making money. In 1767, he added to his portfolio the property with enclosed grounds at Water and Cannon Streets, a block upriver from the Custom House, commissioning Virginia architect William Buckland to tie together two existing structures to create a grand new mansion with a double staircase, a style that was becoming popular among the wealthy. Today it is known as the Hynson-Ringgold house, and is the presidential residence of Washington College.\n\n_Charles Willson Peale's portraits of Thomas Ringgold IV, who is depicted writing, and Anna Maria Ringgold._\n\nThe Baltimore Museum of Art has portraits of the Ringgolds by American master Charles Willson Peale, but there are no portraits extant of \"Sue, Fender, Milford, Betty, Sukey, Sarah, Cinthia, Darkey, and Will Harding,\" whom Ringgold bequeathed to his wife, Anna Maria, when he died in 1772 at the age of fifty-seven. Born into a fortune, he left a greater one to his only son.\n\nIn the tradition of the time and place, the Ringgolds were hospitable. When George Washington passed through one night in 1773, he \"lodgd at Ringgolds,\" referring to the Hynson-Ringgold house, home of Thomas Ringgold V, who went into the family business of buying and selling, and continued the family tradition of politics. Along with his uncle William Ringgold and neighbor Thomas Smyth, Ringgold V was one of seven Kent County signers of the Maryland Declaration of Independence in Annapolis on July 26, 1775, and he was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention, which met on May 8, 1776, to draft a constitution for the state. But he died unexpectedly on October 26 of that year, at the age of thirty-two. The short-lived Ringgold V left behind a will, in which he bequeathed the Chestertown mansion to his mother. He also left her his car\u2014not a motorcar, of course, but \"my imported chariot,\" the three-seat coach with a perch for an enslaved driver and a roost for an enslaved footman, in which she rolled up and down High Street.\n\nBecause Annapolis is so well documented and preserved, and because so much archaeology has been done there, we know that under the steps leading down into a basement room in Charles Carroll of Carrollton's mansion, Nanny the cook placed a spirit bundle. Known throughout a wide area of Africa in different forms, these bundles in their North American manifestation include such specific items as bent nails (Zarabanda, they call him in Cuba, the Kongo blacksmith spirit with the power secret of iron) and four-hole buttons, as well as organic ingredients that did not survive the centuries. It seems likely that more spirit materials will turn up, especially now that there is a greater awareness of their existence. They're not that easy to identify, though, because they're mostly mundane objects. It's the combination of them that gives them away as spirit materials. None have been identified from the seventeenth century in the Chesapeake; the earliest known is from Virginia in 1702, while the earliest in Maryland dates from 1790.\n\nChristianity was a religion of the book, and slaves were not supposed to know how to read. Even as slaveowners prohibited the use of African drums on their plantations, they often preferred that the enslaved not be Christianized, and many of them never were, especially in the colonial era. But there was never a moment when the enslaved were not spiritually conscious. In the new land the Africans had been dragged to\u2014across the ocean to the land of the dead, according to Kongo cosmology\u2014they fashioned a set of religious practices that developed, with significant regional variations and with Native American influence, into a broadly generalized African American religion that was also a social mediator and a medicinal practice. Katrina Hazzard-Donald calls this set of practices \"the old Hoodoo religion,\" arguing that it developed in available \"safe spaces,\" and proposing that the mid-eighteenth century must have been a crucial time in the crystallization of this wide-reaching system.\n\nIn different regional forms, this old hoodoo religion radiated outward from the three great fountainheads of African American culture\u2014the Chesapeake, the Lowcountry, and the Gulf South. Its persistence was described by Louis Hughes in his 1897 autobiography:\n\nIt was the custom in those days for slaves to carry voo-doo bags. It was handed down from generation to generation; and, though it was one of the superstitions of a barbarous ancestry, it was still very generally and tenaciously held to by all classes. I carried a little bag, which I got from an old slave who claimed that it had power to prevent any one who carried it from being whipped. It was made of leather, and contained roots, nuts, pins and some other things. The claim that it would prevent the folks from whipping me so much, I found, was not sustained by my experience\u2014my whippings came just the same. Many of the servants were thorough believers in it though, and carried these bags all the time.\n\n\"Because it concerned the transformation of a variety of traditional African religions into one spiritual tradition,\" Hazzard-Donald writes, \"Hoodoo must have involved a major confrontation of spiritual forces.\" Mande speakers from the Islamized Sahel; Akan from the Gold Coast, Fon from the Slave Coast, Igbo from the Calabar, and many other peoples from the zone of West African traditional practice; Bakongo from Catholicized Central Africa\u2014their cosmologies all had elements in common, and all played a part in the composite religious understanding of the enslaved.\n\nBecause Monticello has been so thoroughly scrutinized by archaeologists, we know that Thomas Jefferson's enslaved kept pits under their floors, a common practice among the enslaved of Virginia at the time. What did they keep in those pits? Anything valuable. Anything they didn't want Master Tom, or the other members of their community, to see. Goods that could be considered stolen\u2014which, since they could have no legal property of their own, might mean anything of value. Spirit materials.\n\nThe tour guide to Monticello's Mulberry Row, an entire street of slave cabins and workhouses that in Jefferson's day was hidden from the big house's view by mulberry trees, will tell you that cowrie shells\u2014historically used as money in many parts of Africa\u2014were \"passed to later generations\" by Monticello's laborers and were worn as jewelry or attached to clothing. Some of the people at Monticello wore pierced silver Spanish coins around their necks or ankles. They were not mere adornment; the formerly enslaved Silvia Witherspoon recalled in 1937, in Alabama, that (as transcribed) \"sometimes I wears dis dime wid de hole in it aroun' my ankle to keep off de conjure.\"\n\nPortable spirit bundles were carried by nomadic and migrating Africans, in societies that counted the departed as living presences. Called by various names in different territories of Africa and the New World, a portable spirit bundle\u2014though not containing ancestors' remains as in the motherland\u2014was known in the southern United States as a _mojo_ ( _moyo_ , a Kikongo word meaning something like \"soul force\"). Mentions of a \"mojo hand\" are familiar from blues lyrics, and mojo hands of one kind or another continue being made and used today.\n\nAnother version of the mojo hand was called by an English name: a _toby._ As per the first line in Charles Burnett's film _To Sleep With Anger_ , about spirit combat in South Central Los Angeles: \"I was looking through my trunk and I can't find my toby\"\u2014a foreshadowing that bad things are about to happen.\n\nHow did it come to be called a toby? We can't prove this, but there is some intriguing circumstantial evidence:\n\nIt was in the 1760s, the heyday of Annapolis and Chestertown, and of Galloway and Ringgold, that a modern kind of consumer item became ubiquitous: industrially produced, gaily painted, lead-glazed beer vessels from the child-labor pottery workshops of Staffordshire. Shaped in the form of a comically figured man (who was sometimes styled as a king), they were called _filpots_ , but more commonly were referred to as _toby jugs._ Their popularization as household objects was preceded for several decades by what J. A. Leo Lemay characterizes as \"a minor subgenre of poetry concerning drunks who were transformed into liquor containers,\" as per \"Dear Sir, this Brown Jug that now foams with raild Ale \/ Was once Toby Filpot a thirsty old soul.\" Such works as the witty Boston clergyman Mather Byles's \"The Transformation of Bug-Barret into a Brandy Bottle\" inspired the twenty-seven-year-old _Pennsylvania Gazette_ printer Benjamin Franklin to publish his mock \"Meditation on a Quart Jugg\" (1733)\u2014in which he compared the soul in the jug to an abused slave:\n\nAlas! what Power, or Place, is provided, where this poor Mug, this unpitied Slave, can have Redress of his Wrongs and Sufferings? Or where shall he have a Word of Praise bestow'd on him for his Well-doings, and faithful Services?... Poor Mug, unfortunate is thy Condition! Of thy self thou wouldst do no Harm, but much Harm is done with thee! Thou art accused of many Mischiefs; thou art said to administer Drunkenness, Poison, and broken Heads: But none praise thee for the good Things thou yieldest\n\nIn the Catholic territories, iconic statues of saints abounded, and were syncretized by Africans for their own religious purposes. The _santo_ that the priest called Santa B\u00e1rbara, for example, who holds a hatchet in her hand, became for the enslaved the image of Chang\u00f3, the womanizing, ax-wielding warrior, apotheosis of masculinity, the greatest dancer, the owner of thunder and drums whose colors are red and white and who is called by specific rhythms that are known to millions of Cubans. This kind of syncretization is often said not to have existed in the Protestant Anglo-American territories, where saints did not exist, to say nothing of sacred statues. But the figurative power of the toby jug seems to have spoken to the African-born and to the not-yet-Christianized African Americans, who carried bound-up spirits with them.\n\nThe toby jug, it would appear, lent its name to a syncretized African practice in the eighteenth-century Chesapeake that was unseen and uncomprehended by the merchants who sold both the jugs and the people. A container that holds a soul: that needed no explanation to Africans. It fit right into the needs of the old hoodoo religion. In their captivity, the enslaved could bring nothing with them but their souls, their minds, and the bodies that contained them. While the slaveowners repurposed the ballast stones from England for wharfing, the enslaved repurposed what they found in their hostile new world, trying to protect themselves however they could\u2014with nails, spirit bundles, cowries, coins, resistance, readiness to take flight, and rebellion.\n\n*Disclosure: today the Custom House is the home of Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, where the first half of this volume was drafted.\n\n*Ballast was needed with human cargoes, because people move around.\n\n_One of thirty-nine human prizes at a raffle, co-organized by twenty creditors including George Washington. Rind's_ Virginia Gazette, _November 23, 1769._\n\n#   Part Three\n\n# **Silent Profit**\n\n#   19\n\n# **Newspapers as Money as People**\n\n_There is to be sold a very likely Negro Woman aged about Thirty Years who has lived in this City, from her Childhood, and can wash and iron very well, cook Victuals, sew, spin on the Linen Wheel, milk Cows, and do all Sorts of House-work very well. She has a Boy of about Two Years old, which is to go with her. The Price as reasonable as you can agree._\n\n_And also another very likely Boy aged about Six Years, who is Son of the above said Woman. He will be sold with his Mother, or by himself, as the Buyer pleases. Inquire of the Printer._\n\n\u2014Advertisement, Benjamin Franklin's _Pennsylvania Gazette_ , May 3, 1733\n\nFROM THE BEGINNING OF newspapers in America, the forced-servitude business was a steady part of their revenue stream.\n\nAmerican newspapers and slavery helped grow each other. The first regularly published American newspaper\u2014issue number one of the _Boston News-Letter_ in 1704\u2014contained an \"advertisement\" that read:\n\nThis News Letter is to be continued Weekly; and all Persons who have any Houses, Lands, Tenements, Farmes, Ships Vessels, Goods, Wares or Merchadizes, &c to be Sold or Lett; _or Servants Run away;_ or Goods Stoll or Lost, may have the same Inserted at a Reasonable Rate.  (emphasis added)\n\nThe _Boston News-Letter_ was distributed at the Boston post office and printed by the colonial postmaster, a linkage that would continue into the age of postmaster-printer Benjamin Franklin. Advertisers were slow in coming to the publication, but among the earliest, in issue number seven, was a slave-sale ad:\n\nTens of thousands more would appear over the next 154 years. Maryland had a newspaper as of 1727, the _Maryland Gazette._ Published in Annapolis, it ceased publication in 1734; the printer, William Parks, moved to Williamsburg, the bustling port on the James River, where in 1736 he started the _Virginia Gazette._ (A second _Maryland Gazette_ appeared in 1747, from a different printer.)\n\nThen as now, the unique economics of newspapers necessarily relied on income from diverse sources. The popularity of the word _Gazette_ in so many colonial newspapers' names derived from its then-current connotation of \"official record,\" which allowed the paper to get government business printing public notices. But newspapers also derived a steady, dependable income from slavery-related advertisements.\n\nNewspapers ran two main kinds of slavery-related advertisements: for apprehension of runaways, and for sale or hiring. In the former case, the existence of this new advertising medium strengthened slavery by creating a system of vigilance that made long-term escape less of a possibility. In the latter, newspapers not only ran advertisements for slave sales but also facilitated them through brokerage, by furnishing venues for a sale to take place, and even by consignment of slaves to the paper's printer.\n\nIn turn, the soul-driving business grew and prospered with the marketing power afforded by this up-to-date medium, as per the advertisement in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of November 18, 1731:\n\nTo be Sold, A Likely Negro Wench, about Fifteen Years old, has had the Small-pox, been in the Country above a Year, and talks English. Enquire of the Printer hereof.\n\nThe \"Printer\" was twenty-five-year-old Benjamin Franklin, who bought the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ in 1730 after its founder, Samuel Keimer, went to debtor's prison. Keimer, though English, was a follower of the \"French prophets,\" a millennial sect of Huguenots in London; in an account of his sufferings he referred to himself as a \"white Negro,\" predating Norman Mailer's use of the term by more than two hundred years. He relocated to Barbados, where he began the _Barbados Gazette_ , which ran many slavery-related advertisements.\n\nWith Franklin's newspaper and his retail location in Philadelphia, he brokered slave sales like the one at the beginning of this chapter for a girl at the beginning of her childbearing years. Franklin, the only one of the \"founding fathers\" to have been an indentured servant,* owned slaves for thirty years or so.\n\nA concerned student of the problems of creating and retaining wealth, Franklin fused what we now call \"the media\" with political power in America via networking and new technology. A vegetarian in his youth (the \"Pythagorean regimen,\" as it was called), he was also an amateur avant-garde composer who invented musical instruments and, while living in France, wrote in the then-new string quartet idiom a striking, unique-sounding three-movement work played entirely on open strings.\u2020\n\nFranklin franchised his newspaper operation, partnering with printers in other towns. We have previously noted his silent partnership in the _South Carolina Gazette._ When William Parks was preparing to start the _Virginia Gazette_ , Franklin advised him to build his own papermill\u2014the first in the Southern colonies\u2014and sold him the rags he needed to make the paper from. \"By the mid-1740s,\" writes David Waldstreicher, whose _Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution_ has informed this section of our narrative, \"Franklin was the largest paper dealer in the colonies.\" He controlled paper itself and saw its uses as medium and as money.\n\nFranklin's influence as an economic theorist was all the more significant because his ideas were grounded in real-world practice. He made his _Pennsylvania Gazette_ into a new kind of newspaper. \"As no one quite had before,\" writes Waldstreicher, \"he learned to make his printed manufactures\u2014the newspaper and the annual almanacs\u2014essential goods in the booming economy.\" As part of that process, Franklin got himself named postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737\u2014a significant and profitable office for a newspaperman, since newspapers constituted the bulk of what the postal system carried. He subsequently became deputy postmaster general for British North America, and ultimately postmaster of the United States, creating the US Postal System. For much of his adult life he used the post office as a base from which to dispense patronage and build his personal network as the North American economy grew.\n\nFranklin was an anti-monetarist: in an economy where he might have to accept (and store, and sell) a quantity of tobacco as payment in lieu of silver, he was a strong proponent of paper currency. From his perspective in America, where land was cheap but labor was dear, Franklin saw wealth in terms of labor, not silver.\n\n\"Franklin's writings of the 1730s and 1740s pivot repeatedly around... notions of money as akin to people, and people as capital,\" writes Waldstreicher. Karl Marx, who quoted Franklin approvingly in _Das Kapital_ , described him in 1859 as the man \"who formulated the basic law of modern political economy.\" Marx was referring to Franklin's anonymously published pamphlet (in 1729, when Franklin was twenty-three) titled \"A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency\":\n\nTrade in general being nothing else but the Exchange of Labour for Labour, the Value of all Things is... most justly measured by Labour....\n\nBy Labour may the Value of Silver be measured as well as other Things... Thus the riches of a country are to be valued by the _quantity of labour_ its inhabitants are able to purchase.\n\nSomewhere between 6 and 10 percent of the population of Philadelphia at the time was enslaved and was therefore purchasable labor. The Pennsylvania legislature dropped the duty on slaves from ten pounds to twenty shillings in the 1720s, and throughout the 1730s an ever-increasing number of kidnapped Africans were arriving. Franklin owned at least two slaves, though he found them troublesome; in a 1748 letter to his elderly mother about domestic matters, he wrote of an enslaved couple that \"we conclude to sell them both the first good opportunity, for we do not like Negro servants.\"\n\nFranklin lived to be eighty-four, and in his late years, he became a vocal abolitionist. But that was after he made his fortune with newspapers that acted as clearing houses for slave sales and runaway advertisements. Using the unpaid labor of black slaves, indentured servants, and his wife, Deborah, Franklin operated a book and stationery shop on the street level of his printing house. In a cash-poor society, Franklin frequently had to take payment in the form of South Carolina rice or West Indian sugar, selling it at his store, and on at least one occasion accepted a slave as partial payment for a debt.\n\nNot for nothing did 1990s rappers speak of $100 bills as \"the Benjamins.\" Franklin saw paper money as a democratization of capital, and thereby as a broader franchise for the wider civic participation he favored\u2014though that did not include the participation of \"Negroes,\" to whom a cash value was assigned. In the wake of the smallpox epidemic of 1731, Franklin published a calculation in his newspaper: \"The Number of those who died here of that Distemper, is exactly 288.... 64 of the Number were Negroes; if these be valued one with another at 30 pounds per Head, the Loss to the City in that Article is near 2000 p o und s.\"\n\nIn a sense, Franklin's newspaper and his almanac were his money, since they were paper he could exchange for commodities. But Franklin also literally printed money\u2014more than \u00a3770,000 worth of notes for Pennsylvania between 1731 and 1764, as well as notes for Delaware and New Jersey. As a newspaper publisher, he had a bird's-eye view of the variety of contemporary commerce. He routinely had to handle complex transactions entailing a mix of barter, credit, and occasionally cash, with heightened insight into the workings of the colonial credit economy. He understood clearly how \"money\" could take on various forms.\n\nFrance had tried a disastrous experiment with paper money in 1717, urged on the Regent Duke of Orleans by John Law, the gambler son of an Edinburgh goldsmith. Law created a paper money for France, backing it with future revenues from the infant colony of Louisiana, which had neither a staple crop nor a labor force. To that end, a cedar swamp was cleared in 1718 and New Orleans was built. As he privatized France's foreign debt into a single, paper-issuing, monster corporation, there followed a speculative bubble in which Law's notes traded at ten times their face value in Paris, with the inevitable crash coming in 1721. After that, France was soured on paper money until the nineteenth century. The crash was more or less concurrent with the London South Sea bubble, but Britain bounced back much better.\n\nAs Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware bulked up with slaves, South Sea Company ships from Africa pulled up into the ports of the Chesapeake. Discharged from widely disparate West and Central African slaving territories, the cargoes were sometimes very large, as per this advertisement from Williamsburg's _Virginia Gazette_ on April 8, 1737, the second year of the paper's existence:\n\nAlexander Hewatt in 1779 described the situation of South Carolina forty years previously:\n\nAdventurous planters in Carolina, eager to obtain a number of negroes, always stretched their credit with the traders to its utmost pitch; for as negroes on good lands cleared themselves in a few years, they by this means made an annual addition to their capital stock. After obtaining this credit, it then became their interest to maintain their superiority in assembly, and discharge their debt to the merchants in the easiest manner they could. The increase of paper-money always proved to them a considerable assistance, as it advanced the price of those commodities they brought to the market, by which they cancelled their debts with the merchants; so that however much this currency might depreciate, the loss occasioned by it from time to time fell not on the adventurous planters, but on the merchants and moneymen who were obliged to take it.\n\nIn other words, slaves were safer money than paper currency. This would continue to be true in the slave territories of the United States until the end of slavery.\n\nThe newspaper runaway ads of Virginia and Maryland in the 1730s were more often for indentured servants than for black slaves. The descriptions of the absconded, often quite detailed, provide the closest we have to thumbnail sketches of the white servant population. But by the 1750s, black slaves, many of them described as \"Virginia born,\" dominated the runaway ads.\n\nSlave-sale advertisements appeared in the _Virginia Gazette_ from its earliest numbers in 1736. They were numerous by the 1760s, by which time they stressed the \"Virginia-born\" provenance of the human merchandise. Four advertisements that appeared on page four of the January 8, 1767, issue of the _Virginia Gazette_ offered \"Sixty odd exceeding fine Negroes, all, except two, _Virginia_ born\"; \"Sundry Valuable Virginia Born Slaves\"; \"About 100 choice Negroes, most of them _Virginia_ born\"; and \"Sixty choice Virginia born Slaves.\"\n\nThe opposite of \"Virginia-born\" was \"outlandish,\" a word that subsequently came into common use in a more general sense. \"Virginia born\" laborers had a number of advantages in the market over the \"outlandish.\" They were English-speaking, were trained in plantation work, were \"seasoned,\" i.e., had immunities to American diseases\u2014and, importantly, they were considered to be more docile and were carefully kept away from military training. Outlandish Negroes might have military experience. The destabilization of Africa occasioned by the slave trade created a legacy of war, as well as a means of funding those wars. They provided captives for slave traders: African soldiers, captured in battle, were sold in American markets. In Virginia, a preference for slaves with no military knowledge was reflected in higher prices.\n\nRaised from birth to a slave work regime, the Virginia-born had never known freedom. They did not file their teeth sharp, an African tradition that in the Americas became a means of defense for people who were not allowed to carry weapons. Those scary-looking filed teeth turned up in an August 20, 1761, advertisement placed in the _Maryland Gazette_ by the twenty-seven-year-old George Washington, who, ever the alert commander, was prepared with precise descriptions of his servants and slaves in case any of them decamped. When he advertised for the return of four \"Negroes\" named Peros (perhaps P\u00e9rez?), Jack, Neptune, and Cupid, he advised that Jack had \"Cuts down his Cheek, being his Country Marks,\" and Neptune, his teeth \"fil'd sharp,\" and his \"Back, if rightly remember'd, has many small Marks or Dots running from both his Shoulders down to his Waistband, and his Head was close shav'd.\" This was the British military method of identifying black soldiers, of whom there were many. Washington, an acute observer, differentiated the runaways' language skills, though he couldn't pinpoint their origins within Africa. Neptune and Cupid, he wrote, \"were brought in an African ship in August 1759, and talk very broken and unintelligible English; the second one, Jack, is Countryman to those, and speaks pretty good English, having been several Years in the Country. The other, Peros, speaks much better than either, indeed has little of his country Dialect left, and is esteemed a sensible judicious Negro.\"\n\nQuite possibly, though we do not know, an enslaved fiddler played for the dancing at the splendid ball of April 26, 1738, in Williamsburg. Surely Mrs. Degrassenreidts' guests that night were waited on by liveried black servants, even as her soir\u00e9e was enlivened by a show of cruelty, a slave sale in the form of a raffle, as advertised in the _Virginia Gazette:_\n\nFor more than a century, slaves were occasionally sold by raffle in Virginia, where gambling was a mania. The seller hoped to realize more money from a raffle than from an auction, and the ticket buyers got the entertainment value of seeing who won the human prizes. What will you draw? The carriage? A garden tool? A couple of children? The only losers were the people being raffled for fun and profit\u2014but then, it was a common (and convenient) belief among slaveowners that \"negroes,\" being a lesser kind of being, did not feel the sorrows of parting from kin as deeply.\n\nDirectly below that advertisement was another one, for the following night, which combined a raffle of a young man with \"Grotesque Dances\":\n\nSometimes the raffle method was even used to liquidate a large estate. Henry Wiencek calls attention to an advertisement (in one of two concurrent, competing _Virginia Gazette_ s) for an estate liquidation to take place in Williamsburg, in which fifty-five slaves were announced to be raffled off in thirty-nine lots.\n\nThis form of dispersing an estate at random guaranteed the maximum degree of dismemberment of the family and community structures that had existed on the plantation prior to being liquidated. There was little chance, for example, that \"A Negro Woman named _Kate_ , and a young Child, _Judy\"_ would be won by the same person who won \"A Negro Girl, _Aggy_ , and Boy, _Nat;_ Children of _Kate._ \"\n\nGeorge Washington was the third of twenty co-organizers listed for that raffle. The advertisement is too long to reprint in full, but suffice it to say that one of the lots offered as a raffle prize was \"a fine breeding Woman named _Pat_ , lame of one Side, with Child, and her three Children, _L\u00e6t, Milley_ , and _Charlotte.\"_ The advertisement ran in the April 14, 1768, issue of Rind's _Virginia Gazette_ , with no date for the sale specified.\n\nThe sale apparently took more than a year and a half to pull off, being advertised once again in the issue of November 23, 1769, with a date of December 13 set for the drawing. The \"fine breeding Woman\" Pat was once again represented as being \"with Child\" a year and a half later.\n\nIt was done at a tavern, with all the conviviality that implies, and animated by the thrill\u2014not of buying, but of _winning_ Pat and her children, or maybe children who were being separated from their mother.\n\nWashington seems to have taken part in drawing the lottery winners, to judge from his journal entry: \"went to Southalls in the Evening to draw Colo. Moores Lottery,\" a process that took three nights. As Wiencek puts it, \"Washington himself was raffling off slaves.\" Before Wiencek's book was published in 2003, no previous biographer of George Washington had called attention to his participation in this utterly depraved practice. Wiencek then attempts to account for the transformation of Washington into the man who in his last will took the then-unusual step of freeing his (though not Martha's) slaves. Washington, it should be noted, was free to liberate his slaves: he was not under crushing debt when he died, so they were not seized and sold. He had no natural heir, having not sired any children with Martha. If he had had a son to inherit his property, it would have been seen as a betrayal to devalue his estate like that.\n\n\"I think God has a Quarrel with you for your Abuse of and Cruelty to the poor Negroes,\" wrote English preacher George Whitefield in _A Letter to the Inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Concerning their Negroes._\n\nThe cross-eyed Whitefield had a mighty voice, and he was the first big-hit performative evangelist to travel throughout the colonies.* He was one of the founders of Methodism, along with the brothers John and Charles Wesley, in approximately 1729 while they were all students at Oxford; his version was Methodist Episcopalism, a Calvinist offshoot of Anglicanism. His speaking had intrigued, though not converted, Benjamin Franklin, who after hearing him speak and making some calculations concluded that his reputation for addressing tens of thousands at a time in England was probably not exaggerated.\n\nThat was the sort of thing that caught Franklin's attention. Though he had no interest in the new sect of Methodism Whitefield intended to implant in North America, he was a media man, and he was clearly fascinated by the sense of communication this phenomenal figure created. His _Pennsylvania Gazette_ published the schedule of Whitefield's high-profile journey through the colonies during the second of his seven American tours. On April 17, 1740, he devoted his front page to Whitefield's sensational open letter that said bluntly, \"considering what Usage they commonly meet with, I have wondered, that we have not more Instances of Self-Murder among the Negroes, or that they have not more frequently rose up in Arms against their Owners.\" It was the first antislavery tract in any colonial newspaper, and the only one that would run for another thirty years.\n\nAnglican clergymen read droning word-for-word sermons that they might not even have written themselves, but Whitefield was dynamic. He had a theatrical\u2014which was to say, a disreputable\u2014background, and his revivals were a kind of popular theater. In South Carolina, he was denounced by Anglican pastor and naturalist Alexander Garden. Alexander Hewatt wrote that he was\n\nnot unlike one of those strange and erratic meteors which appear now and then in the system of nature. In his youth, as he often confessed and lamented, he was gay, giddy, and profligate; so fondly attached to the stage, that he joined a company of strolling actors and vagabonds, and spent a part of his life in that capacity. At this period it is probable he learned that grimace, buffoonery and gesticulation which he afterwards displayed from the pulpit.\n\nWith theater still in its early days in the colonies as of 1740, this evangelical \"Great Awakening\" (a cynic might call it the Great Wave of Superstition) was the first cultural phenomenon to tie together Northern and Southern colonies.\n\nMethodism already had a base in Georgia. The brothers Wesley had been there since 1736, when Oglethorpe invited them to minister to his colony. The Wesleys in turn invited Whitefield to come to Savannah, where he started the Bethesda Orphanage, raising a sizable amount of funds to do so. But they differed on doctrinal issues: Whitefield's Calvinist Methodism held that God's elect would be the only ones go to heaven no matter what, but John Wesley, in what was called the Arminian heresy by its enemies, democratized salvation by insisting that anyone could attain it\u2014a free-will doctrine that would be fundamental to African American Christian belief as well.\n\nAfter Whitefield's celebrity arrival in the colony, the trustee's secretary William Stephens wrote that he hoped the clergyman would focus slaveowners' minds away from rape and incest, though he didn't use those words: \"It may be hoped That Good Work is lately begun from Mr. Whitfields so daily gaining on the affections of the people: but [there remains] the practice of open Lewdness, in first making Whores of their Female Servants; then cohabiting with them and their Bastards, from whence a continuation of the same Course may be presumed.\" Whitefield's followers had a tendency, distressing to slaveowners, to go out and convert the enslaved, who on one occasion chose the occasion of being converted to go \"raving in the Woods for some time till their Masters were oblig'd to take them under Discipline.\"\n\nWhile Alexander Hewatt acknowledged grudgingly that \"religion in America owed not a little to the zeal, diligence, and oratory, of this extraordinary man,\" he was troubled by Whitefield's converts in South Carolina who became abolitionist preachers for a time, before they were repressed: \"After him a servile race of ignorant and despicable imitators sprung up, and wandered from place to place, spreading doctrines subversive of all public order and peace.\"\n\nThe \"subversive\" Whitefield preached the gospel to white and black both. Methodism in its early days was doctrinally antislavery, and some black South Carolinians converted. But South Carolina had a miniscule population of free blacks, and enslaved blacks on the plantations were kept far away from evangelists. The big wave of conversion would have to wait until after independence, when religious intolerance became constitutionally prohibited and itinerant evangelists had a freer hand.\n\nDespite his early abolitionist posture, however, Whitefield came to feel that Georgia could never be profitable without slave labor. He bought slaves to work at his orphanage, spoke up in favor of legalizing slavery in Georgia, and ultimately became a plantation owner in South Carolina. He was said to treat his slaves kindly, which is to say that he was a founding father of the school of Christian slaveowning that would later dominate Southern ideology, which historians generally refer to as paternalism.\n\nShockingly to many, Whitefield preached to the enslaved; in the eighteenth century, almost no effort was made to Protestantize them. Slaveowners were by and large not eager for their captive labor force to be Christianized. Kongos arrived pre-Catholicized, though their version of Catholicism was Kongo all the way down. Other captives, from Senegambia and elsewhere, practiced a sub-Saharan form of Islam. Various belief systems of West Africa were active, and the old hoodoo religion was everywhere. Hewatt wrote of South Carolina in 1779 that \"the negroes of that country, a few only excepted, are to this day as great strangers to Christianity, and as much under the influence of Pagan darkness, idolatry and superstition, as they were at their first arrival from Africa.\"\n\nBut Christianization of the enslaved was moving forward. When Whitefield died in 1770, a poem was published eulogizing him that caused a sensation. \"An elegiac poem, on the death of that celebrated divine, and eminent servant of Jesus Christ, the late reverend, and pious George Whitefield,\" by \"PHILLIS, a Servant Girl of 17 Years of Age, Belonging to Mr. J. WHEATLEY, of Boston: \u2013 And has been but 9 Years in this Country from Africa\" was the poem that made Phillis Wheatley famous.\n\nBorn in Senegal, Wheatley gained a first-rate command of English in only a few years. Her spiritual poetry had an edge to it that might not be easily apparent to a modern reader. Her best-known poem, \"On Being Brought from Africa to America,\" was practically a civil-rights demand to be allowed to participate in the evangelical movement:\n\nRemember, _Christians, Negros_ , black as _Cain,_\n\nMay be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.\n\nHer ardor for Africans to achieve spiritual greatness was fully present at her debut, in her eulogy to Whitefield:\n\nTake HIM ye Africans, he longs for you;\n\nImpartial SAVIOUR, is his title due;\n\nIf you will chuse to walk in grace's road,\n\nYou shall be sons, and kings, and priests to GOD.\n\nSlaveowners took pains to disabuse the notion, popular among the enslaved, that Christianity was a path to freedom. There was to be no path to freedom, not for the enslaved and not for their descendants. The South was from the beginning dependent on the economic magic of slave reproduction, deeply integrated as it was into the very basis of credit. There could be no climb-down position. \"The permanent riches of the country,\" wrote Hewatt of South Carolina in 1779, \"consisted in lands, houses, and negroes; and the produce of the lands, improved by negroes, raw materials, provisions, and naval stores, were exchanged for what the province wanted from other countries.\"\n\nFrom very early on, there were only two choices for the South. Ending slavery would have meant watching the vast on-paper wealth of its oligarchy disappear; that wasn't going to happen. The other course was to commit fully to a two-caste system: the perpetually free and the perpetually enslaved.\n\n*Franklin was indentured to his older brother, a newspaper printer in Boston, from whom he ran away to the forty-one-year-old town of Philadelphia in 1723.\n\n\u2020There has been a question of attribution of authorship about this singular work, but there is no strong evidence in favor of any other composer. Besides the traditional attribution to him, our ultimate reason for believing it to be Franklin's is subjective: its wit, style, and above all its sense of invention.\n\n*Jonathan Edwards began holding revivals in the early 1730s that on one occasion paralyzed an entire Massachusetts town as it got the religious fever and on another occasion led to a wave of religiously motivated suicides, but he never left New England.\n\n#   20\n\n# **Lord Dunmore's Blackbirds**\n\n_Your petitioners apprehend we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without being depriv'd of them by our fellow men as we are a freeborn people and have never forfeited this blessing by any compact or agreement whatever._\n\n\u2014\"Petition of a grate number of blackes\" to General Thomas Gage, the recently inaugurated royal governor of Massachusetts, May 25, 1774\n\n_The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their negro slaves may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to. 1_\n\n\u2014Adam Smith, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ , 1776\n\nWITH THE END OF the French and Indian (or Seven Years') War, Prime Minister John Stuart, the Scottish Third Earl of Bute, decided not to demobilize the army but to station ten thousand troops in America. Previously British troops had appeared in the colonies to fight the colonists' enemies, but now they were going to be a police force.\n\nWorse, the colonists were told to pay for it. The colonies had long endured trade regulations that gave them access to British ports but cut them off from competing markets and otherwise imposed intolerable conditions on the merchants, but they had never been \"internally\" taxed (as opposed to \"external\" taxes, such as duties). Now Parliament laid a tax on them.\n\nBoston merchant banker John Hancock denounced the Stamp Act as \"slavery.\" Hancock, who never bought or sold slaves but grew up served by slaves in the house of his wealthy merchant uncle, was exaggerating. In reality, the 1765 Stamp Act was a tax\u2014not, thought the British, a terrible one, given what had been expended to protect the colonists from the French and Indians, but a maddening one to colonists who had to pay with hard coin for the new stamped paper that would be used in any officially recorded transaction.\n\nContrived to make all levels of society pay, the Stamp Act was a serious miscalculation on the part of the clueless British officialdom. Nothing was more calculated to infuriate the legal class than the Stamp Act, since it mandated use of stamped paper for legal documents. It angered the poor: it required a one-shilling stamp on a deck of playing cards\u2014a particular annoyance, since gambling required frequent replacement of the deck\u2014and a whopping ten shillings on a pair of dice. And it was a call to arms as well for newspaper printers, who were expected to print on officially stamped and purchased paper, and who retaliated with all the ink at their disposal.\n\nIn Boston, where the first insurrections of colonists against Britain exploded, two distinct social levels were active, each of which had their own motives: the merchants, and the motley crew that made up the mob. We speak today of \"the mob\" most commonly with reference to the Sicilian-style Mafia, as transplanted to America via New Orleans in the late nineteenth century. But in the 1760s another kind of mob was already well established in Boston, though it was more loosely structured. The mob culture of Boston was a principal actor in the early days of the American Revolution.\n\nPuritan Boston didn't have any Catholic churches, nor did it celebrate Christmas or Easter, nor did it have a theater. As in Connecticut and Rhode Island, \"stage-plays\" were prohibited in Massachusetts and were not part of the public consciousness, so Bostonians had not seen Addison's influential _Cato_ , nor did Boston have that part of social life that centered around the theater. Boston's theatrical urges played out differently: in the form of participatory mass actions in the street, as happened every year on November 5, or \"Pope's Day.\" Known in England as Guy Fawkes Day for the radical Catholic who had tried to blow up Parliament with gunpowder in 1605, the holiday had replaced the pagan All Hallows' Eve. In Boston, some people observed it by dressing as devils and popes for a carnival of misrule that might include attacking Catholics\u2014a practice imported from London\u2014should any be detected.\n\n\"Rioting in Boston was almost a ritual,\" writes Hiller B. Zobel. Boston's street culture meshed with its heritage of Protestant dissent, which had long expressed itself in resistance to the colonial government. An anti-impressment riot in 1747 lasted three days, during which a multiethnic, mutinous mob of sailors that grew to some three thousand participants battled press gangs, took hostages, burned boats, and physically confronted the governor\u2014\"literally a case,\" write Linebaugh and Rediker, \"of the people's fighting for its liberty, for throughout the eighteenth century the crew of a ship was known as 'the people,' who once ashore were on their 'liberty.'\"\n\nBy the time of the Stamp Act, the Mob\u2014they wrote it with capitals\u2014was a focused force that took direction and had been repurposed as a political weapon. The leader of the Mob in Boston (which divided into antagonistic North and South Boston factions) was a twenty-eight-year-old shoemaker named Ebenezer Mackintosh. Zobel writes:\n\nDuring the years from 1765 to 1770... although the rioters seemed uncontrolled and uncontrollable, they were in fact under an almost military discipline. On one notable occasion, according to the Tory Peter Oliver, Mackintosh \"paraded the Town with a Mob of 2,000 Men in two Files, & passed by the Stadthouse, when the general Assembly were sitting, to display his Power: if a Whisper was heard among his Followers, the holding up of his Finger hushed it in a Moment: & when he had fully displayed his Authority, he marched his Men to the first Rendezvouz, & Order'd them to retire peacably to their several Homes; & was punctually obeyed.\"\n\nPerhaps the figure of two thousand is an exaggeration; that number represented well over half of the town's adult male population. But there is no doubting that in Boston more than anywhere else, the hatred of the British and of those thought to collaborate with them generalized and transcended social class. And Boston had no police force to speak of.\n\nMackintosh's Mob, performing some of the functions of a militia, wound up being the street enforcers of a group called the Loyal Nine, a club of mid-level merchants and businesspeople that included Benjamin Edes, printer of the _Boston Gazette_ , as well as a ship's captain, a jeweller, and two distillers who bought much forbidden molasses from Saint-Domingue.\n\nFrequently present at Loyal Nine meetings, though not a member, was Harvard graduate and failed businessman Samuel Adams Jr. Possibly the most fully committed revolutionary to appear during the entire independence process, he was thirteen years older than his second cousin John Adams. When the Stamp Act crisis came to a head, Adams seems to have been one of the principal ligatures between merchants and Mob, a connection that was a significant tactical achievement of the urban American insurgents. At the height of the action, he was perhaps the most powerful man in Boston.\n\nAdams had been affected by the experience of Boston's 1747 impressment riots, and subsequently began a radical newspaper, the _Independent Advertiser._ He had come to consciousness in the midst of the fierce political struggle between the \"popular\" party (which dominated the Massachusetts House of Representatives) and the \"court\" (pro-British, aristocratic) party.\n\nMany Americans today have the impression that the uprisings in Boston were directed solely against British occupiers, but despite his close collaboration with the crown, the Massachusetts merchant Thomas Hutchinson was as much an American as Samuel Adams. The Hutchinsons were the ruling class; they had a reputation for tight, strategic intermarriage among three clans that had literally come to be Boston's ruling family. They dedicated themselves exclusively to commerce and officeholding. After a prolonged \"bank war\" between a crown-associated \"silver bank\" and a populist-associated \"land bank\" went badly for the latter, Samuel Adams's family hated the Hutchinson clan obsessively\u2014especially Thomas Hutchinson, who simultaneously served as governor, legislator, and supreme court justice.\n\nThe Loyal Nine were at the center of the first provocative actions of what came to be called the American Revolution, dispatching physical intimidation as a primary tactic. The presence of printer Benjamin Edes was critical: the first confrontations exploded amid a torrent of radical pamphleteering, which, amid the proliferation of printers and newspapers, was the new-media component of the American Revolution. The message Edes never stopped printing was that a standing military force was tyranny, and the very presence of troops an affront.\n\nThe Loyal Nine were absorbed into the Sons of Liberty, a self-appointed action group with chapters in all the colonies. The many merchants in their ranks intended to be on the winning side when their wealthy loyalist competitors had been hounded out of town, a process they eagerly threw themselves into. They hanged in effigy the wealthy merchant Andrew Oliver on the hot night of August 14, 1765, for collaborating with the Stamp Act. While that might seem relatively mild as compared with, say, breaking on the wheel, as was done to rebellious slaves in Louisiana, it was a terrifying experience for the victim.\n\nOn August 26, violence erupted as the Mob stormed Thomas Hutchinson's house, using axes to break their way into the fine house, built seventy-five years previously by Hutchinson's grandfather. Hutchinson's family, who had been having supper, fled as the Mob destroyed the furniture, took everything of value\u2014clothes, rings, cash\u2014and, in Bernard Bailyn's words, \"destroyed or scattered in the mud all of Hutchinson's books and papers, including the manuscript of volume I of his _History_ and the collection of historical papers that he had been gathering for years as the basis for a public archive.\" They did their best to pull the building down: \"only the heavy brickwork construction of the walls prevented their razing the building completely, though they worked at it till daylight.\"\n\nThe violence of the Boston Mob, whom the aristocrats saw as \"levellers,\" astounded their bourgeois sponsors. They got away with it\u2014not only with impunity, but with glory. In a systematic campaign of intimidation directed largely at merchants, the Mob enforced a nonimportation edict. To anyone suspected of not supporting nonimportation, they made life unbearable. The violence was strategic, implying both a command structure and a financed campaign.\n\nThey showed up at targets' homes en masse, carrying clubs. They beat people up, and they inflicted the signature torture of the American Revolution: tarring and feathering. They stripped their victims naked in front of a crowd, covered them first with scalding hot tar (making them black) and then with goose feathers (making them Indians), and paraded them in that condition about town for perhaps three hours to be the object of ridicule and beatings before being left half dead. As a public humiliation and street theater, tarring and feathering dates back at least to the twelfth century in England, but it seems to have made its first appearance in the colonies in the hands of the self-proclaimed Patriots.\n\nThe Mob hounded Thomas Hutchinson's nephew, the merchant Nathaniel Rogers, with more than a year's worth of attacks on his house, physical threats, and intimidation of his family, until he left Boston. Then they had their Sons of Liberty soldiers in New York hound him out of that city. But New York did not mobilize like Boston had.\n\nWith its relatively homogenous population, accustomed as it was to the focus and discipline of Puritan society, Boston was unique. In New York, heterogenous and multilingual from the moment of its founding by the Dutch, coordinated movement was less likely. The Sons of Liberty tried the same tactics there, but the mobs lacked organization and merely went trashing, vandalizing the rich and on one occasion destroying a newly built theater.\n\nThe colonists' violent reaction to the Stamp Act caught the British\u2014and some of their factors\u2014by surprise. In South Carolina, the radical who stirred up mob action was Christopher Gadsden, a temperamental merchant who was the most aggressive local figure in defying colonial governors. Writing under the pseudonym of Homespun Freeman, Gadsden denounced the Stamp Act as a Scottish plot. He went to New York in 1765 as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, which asserted that only colonial assemblies had the right to tax the colonies, and he returned to Charleston an ardent member of the Sons of Liberty. He was a kindred spirit and warm correspondent with Samuel Adams; their friendship was emblematic of the close ties of insurgency between New England and South Carolina. It was Gadsden who designed the \"Don't Tread On Me\" rattlesnake flag for John Paul Jones to hoist over the _Alfred_ , the first ship of the American navy, as the \"special standard\" of the US Navy's first commander in chief, the former Rhode Island slave-ship captain Eseck Hopkins.\n\nGadsden in 1767 invested his fortune in the seven-year project of building his 840-foot wharf, the largest in the colonies, which shipped out enormous amounts of rice. It is notorious in American memory as the site where Africans were taken for sale after their period of quarantine at Sullivan's Island; perhaps more than one hundred thousand Africans were sold from Gadsden's Wharf before the African trade was prohibited.\n\nThe anti\u2013Stamp Act mob in Charles Town rioted for nine days. Henry Laurens, a conservative businessman who prided himself on doing things legally, was in favor of complying with the Stamp Act, and so was targeted by the mob, which came to Laurens's house bent for, as he put it years later while confined in the Tower of London, \"seizing the Stamp'd Paper just arrived in Charles Town & for awing the Officers appointed to distribute it.\" But Laurens successfully talked the mob down, demonstrating the crowd-handling skill he subsequently deployed as president of the First Continental Congress.\n\nRadicalism was a double-edged sword for the merchants. Many were invested in commercial alliances in England, and destabilization was not good for business. War would disrupt shipping. But being constantly at the mercy of British trade regulations seemed to them to be \"slavery,\" the word they invariably used. Independence would give merchants ownership of their commerce\u2014which in some cases, needless to say, included slave trading\u2014and would put them in charge of regulation. The Loyalists weren't going to be the winning side, and knocking them out would remove competition.\n\nAs the \"Patriots\" seized power in all thirteen colonies, merchants who didn't dance to the broadly popular tune of revolution might be labeled Tories and find themselves the object of mob action. As Henry Laurens discovered, it was a better bet to be the one leading the mob. In Chestertown, Maryland, Thomas Ringgold IV cast his lot with change. Besides being a member of the Maryland assembly, Ringgold was a founder of the local chapter of Sons of Liberty and a member of the Stamp Act Congress. He became a slave-trading revolutionary, and not the only one.\n\nWhile the repeal of the Stamp Act on March 17, 1766, temporarily averted a crisis, it was accompanied by the Declaratory Act, which held\n\nthat the said colonies and plantations in _America_ have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and Parliament of _Great Britain;_ and that the king's Majesty... had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of _America_ , subjects of the crown of _Great Britain_ , in all cases whatsoever.\n\nWith the Declaratory Act, London reaffirmed its right to strike down colonial law at will. \"Every colony had been established by a document from the king that authorized a colonial legislature to enact laws for the colony so long as they were 'not repugnant to the laws of England,'\" write Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen. \"Thus the British government retained a kind of superintending power over the colony's behavior. This was well known in the colonies.\" That was a problem: while the Declaratory Act aroused no popular protest in the colonies, its implications were clear to the colonial ruling class. Meanwhile, Southern slaveholders were become increasingly alarmed by the abolitionist movement that had been growing in Britain since the 1760s, fed by the increasing popularity of Methodism and Quakerism, both antislavery.\n\nNowhere did British and colonial law differ more sharply than on slavery. William Blackstone, the ranking British jurist of his day in 1765, praised liberty in terms that infuriated the Virginians: \"[the] spirit of liberty is so deeply implanted in our constitution, and rooted even in our very soil, that a slave or a Negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws and so far becomes a freeman.\"\n\nSlaveowning colonists were particularly alarmed by the 1772 _Somerset_ decision. James Somerset was the slave name of a man who had been kidnapped from Africa at the age of nine. After landing in Virginia in 1749, he caught the eye of the young Scottish-born tobacco merchant Charles Stewart of Norfolk, whom he served for more than two decades as his \"body servant,\" performing whatever personal services Stewart required.\n\nWhen Stewart took Somerset along to London in 1771, Somerset escaped. Stewart recaptured him with the aid of professional slave catchers, who existed in London because there were enough enslaved people there, belonging to colonists both visiting and resident, that this kind of thing happened on an ongoing basis. The displeased Stewart avenged his humiliation by having Somerset bound and put on a ship to be sold in Jamaica\u2014a reminder that a slave could easily be removed from the most relatively privileged urban echelons to a tropical death camp.\n\nBefore the vessel could sail, however, Somerset was dramatically rescued by the abolitionist Granville Sharp, who paid for Somerset's defense in court. The unprecedented case was a striking example of using litigation to steer social policy and was reflective of the maturity of the British justice system at the time. It put slavery on a show trial, occasioning widespread debate in the press, and it thrust the eminent, conservative jurist Lord Mansfield into the hot seat.\n\nTo the objection by Stewart's lawyer that freeing the estimated fourteen thousand slaves held in Britain would cost their owners a catastrophic \u00a3700,000, figured at \u00a350 a head, Mansfield replied, \"\u00a350 a head may not be a high price.\" But he judged the case narrowly. He felt the issue was one for Parliament to take up, urging them to do so in his decision freeing Somerset: \"The state of slavery is... so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.\"\n\nThe decision, widely reported in colonial American newspapers, effectively prohibited chattel slavery in England (Scotland had a separate body of law), and unquestionably was a great victory for the antislavery movement. At bottom, it established that Somerset had the rights of a person, which went directly contrary to the current of colonial law. Somerset was feted at a party in London attended by two hundred free people of color, an event also reported in colonial papers, including the _South Carolina Gazette._ Benjamin Franklin, who was in London in 1772 when the _Somerset_ decision came down, wrote in full cry:\n\n_Pharisaical Britain!_ to pride thyself in setting free _a single Slave_ that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many _hundreds of thousands_ are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity\n\nThe passage above has sometimes been cited as a proof of the non-plantation-owning Franklin's humanitarian bent. But if we read this with a pragmatic politician's understanding, we see less a simple cry against the immorality of slavery than that favorite trick of the political debater: changing the subject. And it was disingenuous: as Franklin well knew, Rhode Island captains had carried tens of thousands of Africans, and he himself made money from advertisements for slave sales in his newspapers, especially in South Carolina.\n\nThe British Parliament never picked up the gauntlet Lord Mansfield had thrown down. Slavery in Britain would never be made legal by affirmative law. It had been implemented in the colonies by English merchants, officials, captains, and by the colonists who had written laws to support it there, but there was never any groundswell of public opinion in its favor at home.\n\nStamped paper and tea are iconic in American popular history, but only recently have historians begun to consider the _Somerset_ case much in the narrative of American independence. _Somerset_ posed a more basic kind of threat to a slaveowner than stamped paper. It jeopardized the basis of Southerners' wealth: property consisting of human beings.\n\nHenry Laurens was in London when _Somerset_ was being argued. Before the verdict was delivered, he took a sarcastic tone in a letter of May 29, 1772: \"They say that supper is ready, otherwise I was going to tell a long and comical Story, of a Trial between a Mr. Stuart and his Black Man James Somerset, at King's Bench, for Liberty.\" Thirteen years later, he argued in a letter that \"nor is it quite a decided fact that the moment a Negro sets his foot on British Ground he becomes a freeman. Lord Mansfield left this a moot point.\" But Laurens was arguing against the tide: Mansfield's shocking decision was strongly felt, as evidenced by the 1774 newspaper advertisement in Virginia for return of a runaway that said, \"He will probably endeavor to pass for a Freeman by the name of John Christian, and attempt to get on Board some Vessel bound for Great Britain, from the Knowledge he has of the late Determination of Somerset's Case.\"\n\nA British crackdown on smuggled molasses and tea inevitably led to confrontation. In Providence, the wealthy slave trader and rum distiller John Brown was one of the (at the time) unidentified leaders of a group of sixty or so who on the night of June 9, 1772, with their faces blacked, boarded and blew up the British blockade ship _Gasp\u00e9e_ , wounding the vessel's master in the struggle.* The assault on the _Gasp\u00e9e_ was tremendously popular among the people of Providence; no one would identify Brown or the other combatants, let alone testify.\n\nIn response to the Tea Act of 1773, which laid a threepenny duty on a vast surplus of tea that was otherwise being dumped on the American market, militants disguised with soot-blacked faces and Indian feathers on December 16 staged what later became known as the Boston Tea Party, arguably the detonating act of the American Revolution. Other anti-tea events followed in every colony, with a general boycott of tea that created a sense of revolutionary unity in the face of collective caffeine deprivation. In Annapolis, the ship _Peggy Stewart_ was burned; the vessel's owner, Anthony Stewart, was compelled to torch it himself, with its load of tea. Samuel Galloway, perhaps with a there-but-for-the-grace shudder at the loss to his colleague and competitor, noted in a letter of October 24, 1774, that Stewart was not allowed even to place a handbill in the newspaper. \"This is Liberty with a Vengence,\" Galloway wrote to Thomas Ringgold V. For his part, Ringgold insisted the whole incident was cooked up by Stewart to curry favor with London and wrote his father-in-law and merchant partner that he was \"glad the people have shewn so much spirit.\"\n\nPhiladelphia, meanwhile, was riled up by the _Centinel_ , written in various issues of the _Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser_ beginning March 24, 1768, by Francis Alison, John Dickinson, and George Bryan, which warned of a plan to install an Anglican bishopric in the colonies, something that, despite the colonies' official status as Anglican, had never been done. Evangelicals and other religious dissenters, a major force in the independence struggle, feared that an \"American Episcopate\" would bring religious oppression to tolerant, multi-sected Pennsylvania. _Centinel_ #1, which warned of the danger to religious dissenters, charged that \"Enemies of America,... are exerting their utmost Endeavours to strip us of our most sacred, invaluable and inherent Rights; to reduce us to the State of Slaves; and to tax us.\" Needless to say, this came from people who knew full well that the \"State of Slaves\" involved far more than taxation.\n\nThere was plenty to enrage the colonists, including the Quebec Act of 1774, which would have extended the province of Quebec down to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. But all of that aside, and allowing for the argument that the colonies had in fact largely been independent since their foundation, the slave-society colonies of the South had their own compelling reason to secede from Britain: only independence could protect slavery from the growing power of British abolitionism.\n\nThe British army came with a display of intimidating grandeur. Malcolm Bell Jr. describes the arrival in 1765 of the mostly Irish Twenty-Ninth Regiment of Foot in Halifax on the ship _Thunderer:_ \"Ten black drummers, all former slaves captured from the French on the island of Guadeloupe, gave the band a special air. In their brilliant uniforms of scarlet pantaloons, silver-buttoned yellow jackets, Hessian boots, feathered turbans, and Persian scimitars, they won the admiration of all who saw them perform.\"\n\nTraveling with that regiment was Major Pierce Butler. An Irish Anglican, proud and even defensive throughout his life of his (somewhat questionable) aristocratic lineage, he was a third son and as such not in line to receive an inheritance in the age of primogeniture. The Americas were a fortune-hunting ground for younger sons; when Butler was eleven years old, his family purchased him a commission in the king's army. He came to North America at the age of fourteen during the French and Indian War, then subsequently returned to service in Ireland, and was sent again to Canada in 1765 with the rank of major.\n\nButler traveled to Philadelphia in 1767 with other officers to determine where best to post the regiment, then traveled alone down to Charles Town, arriving December 11, 1767, and remaining there through April 1769. During that time, in September 1768, his regiment was posted to insurgent Boston, which, with about sixteen thousand residents, was far and away the most rebellious of American towns and was the only site of resistance that British politicians were concerned about. There were no barracks in Boston to quarter the troops, who were hated as occupiers by the townspeople. Minor street beefs became confrontations between civilians and military, who otherwise mingled in various ways. Some soldiers deserted; others supplemented their regimental pay by doing casual day labor in Boston's ropeworks.\n\nThe twenty-one-year-old Major Butler (as he would be referred to throughout his life) had wider latitude. While in Charles Town, he caused a scandal by eloping with a fifteen-year-old heiress, but her stepfather intervened and thwarted the marriage, to the amusement of local society. When she married the following year, her fortune was quantified in the newspaper as \"Thirty Thousand Pounds Sterling,\" with an implicit mockery of Butler, who was reported in the same issue to be leaving town and who never quite lived down his reputation as a fortune hunter.\n\nBroke and experiencing problems with receiving his pay, Butler returned to his regiment in Boston, at a time when the town was at a peak pitch of anticolonial furor. He was apparently present, though not in uniform, on March 5, 1770, when members of his regiment killed five people after provocation, committing what was immediately trumpeted by propagandists as the Boston Massacre, and, reported Thomas Hutchinson, brought Massachusetts to the brink of\u2014a commonly used term at the time\u2014\"civil war.\"\n\nReturning to Charles Town in January 1771 with only his military commission to his name\u2014not an insubstantial holding\u2014Butler quickly married Mary Middleton, whose deceased father, Thomas, had in the 1750s been one of the largest slave traders in Charles Town. The young heiress had received not only Middleton's legacy, but an even larger fortune from her maternal grandmother.\n\nIt was a prosperous time for South Carolina's businessmen, but Thomas Middleton left a legal mess behind, with much property and much debt. Butler became property manager for his wife's portfolio, which catapulted him into the ranks of the large planters. He now owned hundreds of slaves, many of them originally kept back from general sale by Middleton, who as a slave trader had first pick and a practiced eye.\n\nIt appears that one of the first things Butler did was to put hot-iron brands on their skins. There is nothing to suggest that Butler subsequently continued this practice, but the year after his marital windfall, he advertised in the _South Carolina Gazette_ for two runaway slaves, thanks to which advertisement we know that they wore his initials for life:\n\nRUN AWAY\n\n_From the Subscriber's Plantation in_ Prince William's _Parish,_\n\nT W O N E G R O F E L L O W S\n\n_Named_ MINOS, and CUDJOE; \u2014 they are both strong-made Fellows.\n\nMinos appears to be near 40 Years old. Cudjoe about 26: \u2014 They are marked a little above the right Breast with the Letters PB...\n\nPIERCE BUTLER.\n\nDespite having married into the Charles Town gentry, Butler was still an officer in His Majesty's Army. The Crown was still giving away land to settlers counted loyal to the king, and Butler managed a substantial land grab as a Loyalist. \"In the years immediately following his marriage,\" writes Bell, \"Pierce Butler made numerous requests for property and was awarded in excess of ten thousand acres, of which more than eight thousand was in the Carolina back country.\" Butler, who ultimately made a considerable fortune in real-estate deals, was described approvingly in 1785 by no less a profiteer than Henry Laurens as a \"great Speculator\" who \"loves to make money.\" There was no question that all this land would be cleared and planted by newly arrived Africans.\n\nButler maintained the fiction of loyalty as long as he could, but as his regiment was preparing to ship back out to Britain, he resigned from the British army in 1773. Selling his military commission, he plowed the receipts from cashiering himself into purchasing a seventeen-hundred-acre plantation on St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia. With his hundreds of slaves and the excellent land he had acquired, Butler began producing rice and premium-priced long-staple cotton. His fortune was made.\n\nHe was collaborating actively with the independentists by 1775, and with the coming of the war, he became South Carolina's adjutant general against his former army, charged with whipping a backwoods militia into shape as a military force. Keenly aware that South Carolina's defense was obstructed by the reluctance of men to leave their homes and families unguarded against Native American attack or slave insurrection, he requested a force of five thousand troops from the North to protect the Lowcountry\u2014from the British, officially, but also from domestic enemies.\n\nThe Scottish naturalist Alexander Garden, who arrived in Charles Town in 1752, \"had not been in South Carolina very long before he was told by both doctors and laymen of their concern that people were being poisoned by their slaves,\" write Edmund and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. \"It was widely believed that plant poisons were being administered in food or drink, especially in tea. When he inquired concerning what plants were suspected of being used, he found that no one had a very clear idea.\" Dr. Garden came to the conclusion that many of the local cases of \"poisoning\" were actually other maladies.\n\nIt was not, however, an unfounded fear. Knowledge of poisons was the same as knowledge of medicines; both were African specialties, and there were many cases of terror by poison in the slave societies of the hemisphere, perhaps most notably the sorcerer-poisoner Makandal, counted as a foundational figure in Haitian political iconography. Regardless of whether the poisonings in Charles Town were real or imagined, they were vivid in white Charles Townians' imaginations, as was another perceived danger: the free black and enslaved tradesmen who formed Charles Town's artisan class had access to all sorts of potentially lethal objects. Alexander Hewatt wrote in 1779, and note the use of the word _breed:_\n\nFrom [enslaved] labourers in the field the colonies have perhaps less danger to dread, than from the number of tradesmen and mechanics in towns, and domestic slaves. Many negroes discover great capacities, and an amazing aptness for learning trades, where dangerous tools are used, and many owners, from motives of profit and advantage, breed them to be coopers, carpenters, bricklayers, smiths, and other trades.\n\nOut of mere ostentation the colonists also keep a number of them about their families, who attend their tables, and hear their conversation, which very often turns upon their own various arts, plots, and assassinations. From such open and imprudent conversation those domestics may no doubt take dangerous hints, which, on a fair opportunity, may be applied to their owners hurt.\n\nThey have also easy access to fire arms, which gives them a double advantage for mischief. When they are of a passionate and revengeful disposition, such domestic slaves seldom want an opportunity of striking a sudden blow and avenging themselves, in case of ill usage, by killing or poisoning their owners. Such crimes have often been committed in the colonies, and punished; and there is reason to believe they have also frequently happened, when they have passed undiscovered. Prudence and self-preservation strongly dictate to the Carolineans the necessity of guarding against those dangers which arise from domestic slaves, many of whom are idle, cunning and deceitful. (paragraphing added)\n\nOut on the western edge of Anglo-American expansion, concerns were different. A 1772 panic in London's financial markets caused widespread hunger among the poor, triggering a translatlantic exodus of Scots, Irish, and so-called \"Ulster Irish\" or \"Scotch-Irish,\" who, though often referred to simply as \"Irish,\" were Scots from Northern Ireland. In South Carolina, the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and the German immigrants of the rugged upcountry would have loved to have had the luxury of worrying about stamps and tea, let alone plantations full of slaves. Pillaging by bandits and annihilation by the natives were daily threats to them. They had no representation in the colonial legislature, nor were they under the protection of any state. Any policing they had, they did themselves by means of regulators, practicing vigilante justice.\n\nSouth Carolina's Congress was in session in June 1775 when news of the first blood of Lexington arrived. The assembled oligarchs responded immediately; from the steps of the majestic building now known as the Old Exchange, they declared South Carolina to be the first independent provisional government. Henceforth Her Majesty's government was disregarded by Charles Town's political class, who considered this independence from Britain to be their second revolution, the first having been against the lords proprietors in 1719. Henry Laurens signed the document that created a thirteen-man Council of Safety and three committees: a General Committee; a Secret Committee of five persons with broad, vaguely defined powers; and a Special Committee, which was an extension of the Secret Committee and which had the repression of black people as its primary mission.\n\nAccording to nineteenth-century South Carolina historian Edward McCrady, the rationale for the latter appears to have come from a private letter received from London, \"intimating that a plan had been laid before the Royal government for instigating the negroes to insurrection, which seems to have been believed, and to have been regarded as more alarming because it was known that some of the negroes entertained the idea that the contest was for their emancipation. To meet, therefore, whatever might arise, a _Special Committee_ was appointed to form such plans as they should think immediately necessary to be carried into execution 'for the security of the good people of the colony.'\" The Secret Committee also managed to tar and feather a couple of Roman Catholics, who, it was feared, might be in league with the \"Negroes.\"\n\nThen came the edict that shocked the slaveowners, and made clear what was at stake for them.\n\n\"Hell itself could not have vomitted anything more black,\" wrote a Philadelphian in a letter published in the _Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser_. The proclamation by Lord Dunmore, the Scottish governor of Virginia, on November 5, 1775, read in pertinent part:\n\nI do hereby... declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY'S Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty.\n\n_I... declare all... Negroes... free._ These were the words of slaveowners' nightmares. It did not apply to those enslaved by Loyalists. At least in theory, slaveholding colonists who were not taking up arms against the king had nothing to fear, because they could stay home and keep their slaves on lockdown. But those rebels who left their plantations to fight might first find their capital running away and then find themselves facing off against the very people they had brutalized, now with guns in their hands. The insurgents responded by raiding the plantations of those they demonized as \"Tories,\" or Loyalists, and confiscating their slaves, who were put to military support work.\n\nDunmore had been thinking about this for a few years. In 1772, he had written:\n\nAt present the Negroes are double the Number of white people in this Colony, which by the natural increase, and the great addition of new imported ones every year, is Sufficient to allarm not only this Colony, but all the Colonies of America... in case of War (which may probably often happen) with Spain, or indeed any other power... the people, with great reason tremble at the facility that an enemy would find in procuring such a body of men; attached by no tye to their Masters or to the Country... by which means a Conquest of this Country would inevitably be effected in a very Short time.\n\nBy threatening to take away the Southerners' principal source of wealth, Dunmore's proclamation galvanized wavering elements of the white population of Virginia and South Carolina into supporting the \"patriots,\" or, as the British called them, the \"rebels,\" who defended the idea of enslaved property. The struggle against the British in the Southern colonies became profoundly identified with the struggle of the white population against emancipation of the black population. The newspapers printed rumors that Dunmore was paying the \"savages\" (Native Americans) in specie to attack. \"We have a right to take up arms in self-defense,\" read a letter to the _Virginia Gazette's_ printer \"Mr. Purdie\" in the December 8 edition, \"since we have been threatened with an _invasion_ of _savages_ , and an _insurrection_ of _slaves_ , and have had our _negroes_ and _stocks_ piratically taken from us.\"\n\nDunmore was obliged to flee, retreating offshore to a flotilla of more than a hundred vessels, where he remained while the enslaved flocked by the hundreds to seek the protection of the Union Jack. Dunmore needed them; reinforcements from Britain were not forthcoming, since for reasons inexplicable to him they were sent to North Carolina instead. Almost immediately, he formed what became known derisively as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment. Their first skirmish was the Battle of Kemp's Landing, ten days after Dunmore's Proclamation, in which, as a correspondent for Purdie's _Virginia Gazette_ wrote, \"23 members of the _Scabby race_ went as volunteers, with 200 regulars.\" The British won the battle, with the result that Colonel Joseph Hutchings of the colonial militia was taken prisoner by one of his former slaves.\n\nOn December 14, the _Pennsylvania Evening Post_ reported that: \"Late last night, a gentlewoman, going along Second street, was insulted by a negro, near Christ church; and upon her reprimanding him for his rude behaviour, the fellow replied, \"Stay you d----d white bitch, till lord Dunmore and his black regiment come, and then we will see who is to take the wall.\"\n\nSo it was that the rebels, patriots, insurgents, continentals, call them what you will, were at war with the British and those suspected of being loyal to them, most especially the \"Negroes.\" An article in the March 22, 1776, issue of Purdie's _Virginia Gazette_ demonstrates Dunmore's effectiveness at getting under the colonists' skins. Laden with racist scorn, the article not only notes the presence in Virginia of the balafon (a marimba-type mallet instrument known across a wide region of Africa), called in Virginia _barrafoo_ , but implies that it was something familiar to the readership:*\n\nWe hear that lord Dunmore's _Royal Regiment of Black Fusileers_ is already recruited, with runaway and stolen negroes, to the formidable number of 80 effective men, who, after doing the drudgery of the day (such as acting as scullions, &C. on board the fleet) are ordered upon deck to perform the military exercise; and, to comply with their _native_ warlike genius, instead of the drowsy drum and fife, will be gratified with the use of the sprightly and enlivening _barrafoo_ , an instrument peculiarly adapted to the martial tune of _\"Hungry Niger, parch'd Corn!\"_ and which from henceforward is to be styled, by way of eminence, the BLACKBIRD MARCH.\n\nThe British used armed, emancipated former slaves who knew the terrain. The most prized defectors were pilots and navigators, masters of the marshy nooks and crannies in which they had been born and raised. Others were former African soldiers. In all cases, they were highly motivated in going to war against the masters they had escaped, who might kill them, torture them, or sell them away if they were recaptured. On the other side, in South Carolina and Georgia the independentists confiscated slaves from Loyalists and put them to work as military laborers. Patriot soldiers in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia were paid with slaves; according to Malcolm Bell Jr., in Georgia slaves were given \"to public officials as salary, and were exchanged for provisions for use by military units.\"\n\nAfter a battle on December 29, 1778, the British took Savannah and held it until 1782, despite a thirty-two-day siege of the city that ended with a failed assault by French and American forces on October 18, 1779. Men of color had been serving as French soldiers on foreign missions since the beginning of French Antillean slavery, and the bloody siege of Savannah is rembered for the participation of the 750-man Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint-Domingue, a free-black volunteer corps that provided about a third of the expedition's manpower, and in which, it is popularly believed (it may be true), future Haitian leader Henri Christophe served as a drummer boy.\n\nOne sometimes reads that black soldiers fought on both sides in the War of Independence. That's technically correct, but misleading. Some did fight in Northern pro-independence regiments, but in the South, where most black people were, they ran away and joined the British if they could. Both sides used mercenaries and foreign troops: in 1780, there were more Americans fighting for the British than for the Continental Army, including a number of formerly enslaved African Americans.\n\nIn the War of Independence, as in every other conflict involving slave societies, the constant potential for slave insurrection was taken into account in every military calculation. In the plantation societies, more than anywhere else, the war between Britain and the colonists was a revolutionary war\u2014at least on the part of the formerly enslaved black soldiers, who were fighting with the British against the slaveowning Patriots for their liberty.\n\n*Brown, along with his abolitionist brother Moses, was later a cofounder of Brown University. See Rappleye.\n\n*The indentured servant John Harrower described a \"barrafou\" in 1775: \"The body of it is an oblong box with the mouth up & stands on four sticks put in bottom & cross the [top?] is laid 11 lose sticks upon [which?] [the player] beats.\" Harrower, 89.\n\n#   21\n\n# **The General Inconvenience**\n\n_sold Sandy to Col. Chas Lewis for \u00a3100. paiable in June. from which deduct \u00a39.4.8 my present debt with him; leaves \u00a390.15.4. to be received. 1_\n\n\u2014Thomas Jefferson, Memorandum Book, January 29, 1773\n\nPATRICK HENRY WAS BY accounts a good fiddler, a singer of tavern-ballads, and an engaging character. Jefferson, who first encountered him in 1760 when Henry's store had failed, recalled that \"his manners had something of coarseness in them; his passion was music, dancing, and pleasantry. He excelled in the latter, and it attached everyone to him.\" A slaveowning tobacco planter and a seditious orator, Henry strikingly personifies the fundamental paradox of the early American experience: how liberty could be intimately bound up with slavery.\n\n\"Give me liberty, or give me death!\" Henry's hyperdramatic, rhetorical ultimatum, the most popular and durable slogan of the independence movement, subsequently venerated as patriotic scripture, was in support of what was basically his own declaration of war against Britain, arguing in favor of placing the entire state on an emergency mobilization. Henry's speech has been widely credited with moving Virginia to declare independence from Britain. It took place, so we are told (though there is no contemporary record of it), on March 20, 1775, from the third pew of the left central section of St. John's Church in Richmond.\n\nHoping to avoid escalation of hostilities, the pro-American Irish statesman Edmund Burke warned in a speech given in London two days after Henry's peroration that \"in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves... these people of the southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty, than those to the northward... such will be all masters of slaves, who are not slaves themselves. In such a people, the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.\"\n\n_Interior of St. John's Church, Richmond, June 2013._\n\nIt required five weeks minimum, and often much longer, for a message to travel from America to England, so Burke's speech was not a direct response to Henry, but his words described Henry perfectly. Henry's polemical evocations of liberty and slavery were framed by his concrete, daily experience of denying the most basic freedoms to an entire community of people over whom his word was law, and who lived in misery at his grudging expense.\n\nHenry's famous line was reworked from Joseph Addison's _Cato_ , a play the founders of the American republic knew well. Written in 1712 and published the following year, _Cato_ might be understood as a parable: Britain, once a vassal of the Roman Empire, was now the center of an empire modeled on Rome. Addison's sober neoclassical tragedy of liberty versus tyranny was set in Mediterranean North Africa, with Roman exiles as the heroes. The word \"Africa\" is heard frequently in the mouths of the actors in _Cato_ , perhaps for its resonant value, though the play is ambiguous about it. By Addison's time, London coffeehouses were getting coffee from Martinique; the transformation that African labor in the colonies had wrought in the metropolitan economy lurked offstage as well as on. The African character, Juba, is a figure out of history: the king of Numidia (Algeria), then under the control of the Carthaginians. When Juba wants the hand of Cato's daughter, Marcia, Cato responds with a nonanswer to his request: \"It is not now time to talk of aught \/ But chains or conquest, liberty or death.\"\n\nArguably the most politically consequential play in the history of British theater, _Cato_ was carefully bipartisan and scrupulously inoffensive. At its premiere, Whigs and Tories competed to applaud the loudest at the mention of the word \"liberty.\" To be a patriot, a son of liberty, a free man and not a slave\u2014that was a British oratorical legacy, imperial in scope and carried over to the colonies. In England, writes Bernard Bailyn, \"a flood of what has been called 'Whig panegyric verse'... poured from the presses from 1700 to 1760 and... echoed from the stage in play after play... No writer, however famous or obscure, could afford to neglect the theme of British liberty and power.\"\n\nThe Americans saw themselves as Cato's conspirators, called to sacrifice against a British Caesar. The first professional theater companies in the colonies performed _Cato._ Excerpts of its soliloquies were printed in colonial newspapers. It was staged by students at William and Mary College. Benjamin Franklin could recite chunks of it from memory. Its line \"What a pity it is \/ That we can die but once to serve our country\" proved inspirational for the martyred Nathan Hale. George Washington, who saw _Cato_ various times, referred to it in letters and had it performed near the front lines at Valley Forge on May 11, 1778, within earshot of the British troops.\n\nThere's a good reason modern audiences have not seen _Cato:_ it's not Shakespeare. Today it would seem stiff, stilted, and interminable. A celebration of stoicism in the face of tyranny, it lacks complex characters. Cato is noble and good; Caesar, the villain, is an unseen oppressor who has no part in the drama. Amateur theatrics were popular in the isolation of plantation Virginia, and _Cato_ was, writes Jane Carson, \"a favorite vehicle for amateurs because it requires little acting ability; the characters simply strike an attitude and declaim noble sentiments in high-flowing oratory.\"\n\nPatrick Henry was something of a \"ham actor,\" notes biographer George F. Willison, and as he gave his riveting oration in Richmond, he dramatized it. Not that we know exactly what he said: unlike Jefferson, who even as president declined to speak in public but left us a massive record of his thought in written form, Henry's most famous words live today only as hand-me-downs. There is no contemporaneous transcription of the full text; what follows, likely assembled from the recollection of jurist St. George Tucker, was published seventeen years after Henry's death:\n\nIt is vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace; but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!...\n\nIs life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?\n\nForbid it, Almighty God!\n\nI know not what course others may take. But as for me\u2014give me liberty, or give me death!\n\nWhen Henry shouted \"Give me liberty!\" he paused for effect, and poised a letter opener in his right hand, pointed at his chest\u2014an ivory letter opener, a product of Africa. When he said \"or give me death!\" he thumped his right hand containing the letter opener of death against his breast, as if stabbing himself. John Roane, who was present, recalled that \"When he said, 'Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?' he stood in the attitude of a condemned galley slave, loaded with fetters, awaiting his doom. His form was bowed, his wrists were crossed, his manacles almost visible.\"\n\nPatrick Henry knew what a manacled slave looked like. He had received six people as a wedding present from his father-in-law, and later sold them to raise money to set himself up in an ill-fated storekeeping venture. For that matter, slaves were routinely sold in front of the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg, where a fair-weather auction outside would have been audible through the open windows of the building.\n\nHenry's bound-slave gesture can be read as an example of how the struggle for independence from Britain branded itself as a \"revolution\" against \"tyranny.\" To judge from the writings and recorded speeches of the self-proclaimed Patriots, they were obsessed with slavery, as per a New York protest of 1770, typical of the genre: \"The Right of a People to tax themselves is essential to their Liberty; and the Power of imposing Taxes on them, when exercised by others, subjects that People to the most abject Slavery.\" The word \"slave\" turns up repeatedly in their discourse, as the essence of what they would never allow themselves to become. This was nothing new: describing those in opposition to oneself in terms of slavery and freedom was an ingrained English trope of at least two centuries by then, heard routinely from the pulpit in the sermons of every denomination.\n\nHenry's liberty-or-death message carried the clear blame-the-victim implication that those who submitted to slavery were unworthy of liberty. The protest against Britain thus doubled as a taunt at the colonists' enslaved laborers. It was a libel routinely asserted against African Americans: that they were complicit in their degradation.\n\nMeanwhile, the use of _slavery_ as a political fighting word continued in use in England as well. \"Shall our fate be national bankruptcy, poverty, oppression and slavery?\" asked a 1772 London pamphlet castigating the East India Company. Looking at a dismal future as a colony, in which their sole purpose would be to enrich Britain, the wealthy North American colonial elite saw an analogy with the way the slave only existed for the benefit of the master. But the word \"slavery\" did not only compel colonials as an abstract metaphor; the Americans brought something different to the use of the term. For those who were born into full-fledged slave society as masters, some of their most profound, complex, and unrestrained relationships were with their slaves.\n\nPatrick Henry owned slaves when he was a sermonizing radical, and he owned them when he was the first governor of independent Virginia, where he was second in popularity only to George Washington. Like other liberty-loving Virginians, he bewailed the necessity of having slaves. Henry acknowledged the contradiction in a 1773 letter to his Virginia planter friend Robert Pleasants. A devout Quaker, Pleasants had educated and freed his slaves at an enormous personal cost of \u00a35,000 (more than $700,000 in 2014 dollars) and had sent Henry an antislavery book. \"Would anyone believe,\" asked Henry rhetorically, \"I am master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot, justify it.\" This was, it should be emphasized, in a private letter; there is no record of his expressing such sentiments publicly. \"I believe a time will come,\" the letter continued, \"when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil... I could say many things on this subject, a serious view of which gives a gloomy perspective to future times.\"\n\nHis gloomy perspective was well-founded. The general inconvenience of living without slaves would have meant not merely having to empty one's own slop jar. It would have meant not living on the capital they embodied. Ending slavery would have required a different kind of revolution than the one Henry championed.\n\nThe liberty Patrick Henry was willing to trade for death (not his own martyrdom, as it turned out; others did the dying) was, as his other discourses and letters bear out, the freedom to own\u2014which inescapably meant the freedom to breed and sell\u2014slaves. Henry's revolution did nothing to change slaves' status as chattel or creditors' valuation of them as collateral. Whether or not Henry believed, as he wrote to Pleasants, that the time for abolition would someday come, he clearly believed it had not come yet, and he worked to delay it until long after his generation had departed.\n\nHenry argued against freeing slaves even as he dramatized the evil of slavery. \"Slavery is detested,\" he wrote in a letter. \"We feel its fatal effects, \u2014 we deplore it with all the pity of humanity... we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-men in bondage. But is it practicable, by any human means, to liberate them without producing the most dreadful and ruinous consequences?\"\n\nWas it practicable? It would indeed have been possible to free the slaves voluntarily. Thousands of slaveowners did, including Robert Pleasants, in some cases because they got religion and in others simply because they despised the slave system they had been born into as hereditary slaveowners. But it was not \"practicable\"\u2014not because, as Henry, Jefferson, and most other slaveowners assumed, freeing the slaves would unleash the criminality they believed was inherent in the enslaved, but because to do so would have made their former owners poor.\n\nTo manumit one's slaves was to make a ruinous financial sacrifice. Without slaves, Virginia would be destitute; with them, she was the wealthiest of the states. With slavery having been built into the deepest levels of the colonial Virginia economy during the seventeenth century, there was no way to get rid of it by Patrick Henry's time, short of all of the slaveowners voluntarily impoverishing themselves. The historical record amply demonstrates that most slaveowners were not only not willing to do this, but would hurl the poorer class of their society against cannonballs first.\n\nThat the War of Independence resulted in the strengthening, not the termination, of slavery was not an unexpected outcome for Southerners: protecting slavery had been the point of the war for them. It was the principal Southern political goal at every moment until slavery was destroyed.\n\n\"Here's to the next insurrection of negroes in the West Indies,\" said the proudly anti-American Dr. Samuel Johnson as he offered a toast at Oxford. In a thirteen-thousand-word pamphlet called _Taxation No Tyranny_ that mocked the inflated rhetoric of the colonists in the last days before war, he wrote in the spring of 1775, \"How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?\"\n\nPatrick Henry, the loudest of all the voices for liberty, was the perfect example of the colonists being caricatured by Johnson, though no one who heard Henry orate ever described his voice as a \"yelp.\" Dr. Johnson continued his essay by proposing to arm the colonists' slaves:\n\nIt has been proposed, that the slaves should be set free, an act, which, surely, the lovers of liberty cannot but commend. If they are furnished with firearms for defence, and utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their masters.\n\nAs Dr. Johnson knew full well, though the colonial tax protestors might feel emboldened to stand up to London, their more serious threat came from closer to home. After Dunmore's proclamation, which put the idea espoused by Dr. Johnson into practice, enslaved people in Virginia began voting with their feet.\n\nBy December 23, 1775, Henry was writing Edmund Pendleton, who as president of the Virginia Committee of Safety was Virginia's highest-ranking official, from Williamsburg: \"SIR: I have the pleasure to inform you... that we have taken a Vessel of the Govt. bound to the Eastern shore for provisions, commanded by Capt. Collett & manned with 16 Negroes.\" Not only the \"Govt.,\" but \"Negroes,\" were Henry's enemies in war. The enslaved overwhelmingly sided not with Henry's vision of liberty, which was their slavery, but with the British who offered them freedom.\n\nThe paradox of liberty versus slavery at the nation's birth is no paradox at all. Liberty was the right to property. Slaves were property. Liberty for slaveowners meant slavery for slaves.\n\nViewed from the slaveowners' perspective, liberty _was_ slavery. It was made much easier by\u2014indeed, almost required\u2014believing something that resonated with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination: those who were enslaved were those who were naturally inferior. God had made them that way for a reason, and they were easy to visually identify.\n\nIn Thomas Jefferson's celebrated reworking of George Mason's \"all men are by nature equally free and independent\" into the catchier, more deistic \"all men are created equal,\" the thirty-three-year-old Virginian was not envisioning a republic in which Barack Obama would be president. In Jefferson's society, black people did not have the legal status as people\u2014\"personhood,\" we call it now\u2014that Lord Mansfield had acknowledged in the _Somerset_ case.\n\nThe later pro-slavery propagandists of the Confederacy were right in insisting that, like them, Jefferson did not intend those words to mean \"all men.\" This is not merely a statement about Jefferson's psychology; there was an existing framework for interpretation of the phrase. When George Mason wrote his version of the phrase as part of the preamble to a new Virginia constitution, it met with objections from planters, who saw it as an incitation to slave rebellion. Donald L. Robinson writes: \"Defenders of Mason's language replied that the clause could not have this effect because it did not apply to Negroes, since Negroes were not 'constituent members' of the society being formed.\" Nor did anyone think it applied to Native Americans. \"All men\" did not mean _all_ men, any more than it meant women, but it was a politically useful phrase, since those opposed to slavery could read into it what they wanted.\n\nIn drafting the document (his authorship of it was generally not known at the time), Jefferson needed to please the French, who wanted a political commitment on the Americans' part before they in turn would commit to an overt war against Britain in America yet again, after having gotten kicked off the continent not twenty years before. Though Britain's naval power was supreme, its army boasted nowhere near the manpower of France's, which was the largest in Europe.\n\nNor, despite the citation of it fourscore and seven years later in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, was Jefferson declaring the existence of a new nation. The Declaration announced the birth of, in Garry Wills's words, \"not one country, but thirteen separate ones\" that were forced to form a \"league\" in order to attract foreign aid for the war they were fighting together.\n\nJefferson's document was not the legal declaration of independence; that had been made by the Continental Congress on July 2, with the passage of the Virginian Richard Henry Lee's resolution that \"these United Colonies\" were \"free and independent states,\" and note the plural. Jefferson's Declaration, which took on a mythical glow with the passage of years, announced the passage of Lee's resolution. The French participation in the American uprising took two more years to codify, in the commercial treaty of February 6, 1778.\n\nDespite Jefferson's expressed misgivings about slavery during his early years and his frequently quoted bits of antislavery-sounding rhetoric and philosophical reflection, his actions make it clear where he stood on the subject in practical terms: African Americans in republican Virginia were property, period. He did his best to sound like a French _philosophe_ when he inserted that word: life, liberty and the pursuit of... _happiness._ But whether Jefferson's captives, whom he described as laboring for his \"Happiness,\" lived at his mountaintop prison of Monticello or on one of his other parcels of land, they had no right even to keep their own children, though they were mostly allowed to. Nor did Jefferson at any time express any intention of ultimately extending the franchise to them, ever.\n\nIn his draft of the Declaration, Jefferson included a complaint against the king for the slave trade:\n\nhe has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...\n\nThen he evoked the terrorism of Lord Dunmore:\n\nand that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.\n\nIt was slickly done. The slaveowner denied all American agency in slavery. He threw all the blame for the slave trade on Britain, thereby exonerating the slave-ship captains of Rhode Island, the many slave dealers throughout the colonies, and the eager buyers who patronized slave sales. The slave trade was an easy target: it was genuinely unpopular, and not only for its sheer ugliness. The traffic to North America was mostly conducted by British ships, with a corresponding loss of profit to Americans. It was out of the control of colonial legislatures, which at times wanted to regulate the supply of Africans on the market by shutting it off. Every slave ship lowered the resale value of slaves already in the colonies, and Virginia already had an oversupply. The arrival of so many Africans was terrifying to the nonslaveowning majority of whites, who tended to see them the way they were generally portrayed in the political discourse of the day, as a socially destabilizing and potentially violent element.\n\nThough Jefferson cloaked his complaint in \"moral dress\" (Robinson's term), it was a complaint against the African slave trade, not against slavery itself; but the section was struck out at the insistence of the congressmen from South Carolina and Georgia, who were not against the slave trade at all.\n\nWhile Jefferson was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates between 1776 and 1779, he obtained a prohibition of the slave trade into the state\u2014but, tellingly, not out of it. One of his best-known achievements of those years was his successful campaign to end the aristocratic institutions of primogeniture (the first son received the entire inheritance) and entail (landholdings could not be broken up) in Virginia. Georgia was the first state to ban primogeniture and entail entirely, in its constitution of 1777; all the other states prohibited them as well. Though these institutions were not vigorously in force in Virginia at the time of their prohibition, abolishing primogeniture and entail was unquestionably a democratizing move\u2014for whites. But the resulting distribution of land among more men of the family (and thus the franchise, for only men of property could vote) meant breaking up more black families, who were divided up along with the estate.\n\nJefferson biographer Dumas Malone recalled in 1967 his conversation with \"a traditional Virginia lady more than forty years ago. This _grande dame_ began by asserting that 'Mr. Jefferson undermined the family.' Her reference was to the abolition of entails and primogeniture, which were supposed to safeguard family estates and family lines. Continuing, she said, 'he wrecked the church,' the reference being to the disestablishment in Virginia shortly after the American Revolution. 'In fact,' she triumphantly concluded, 'the only decent institution he left us was slavery.'\"\n\nThis flurry of lawmaking could have proceeded along a different line than it did. The Virginia delegates did not throw out the established body of law and create a new one from scratch; instead, they retained and modified the existing law regarding slavery. John Quincy Adams commented retrospectively on the process in 1831:\n\nThe principle of setting aside the whole code of their legislation would of itself have emancipated all their slaves. In renovating their code, they must have restored slavery after having abolished it; they must have assumed to themselves all the odium of establishing it as a positive institution, directly in the face of all the principles they had proclaimed....\n\nIt was easier to abolish the law of primogeniture... the bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation.... Mr. Jefferson contents himself with a posthumous prophecy that [emancipation] must soon come, or that worse will follow.\n\n_Partus sequitur ventrem_ came through the Revolution intact, as did the rest of Virginia law regarding slaves, all of which had been made by the Virginia House of Burgesses and none of which was British law.\n\nWhen Patrick Henry was governor of Virginia, at war in 1777, he signed a bill written by Jefferson to regulate and discipline the militia. Every free man in Virginia was expected to join it, including indentured servants and free men of color, with a list of exceptions (professors at William and Mary, for example). Jefferson stipulated that \"the free mulattoes in the said companies or battalions shall be employed as drummers, fifers, or pioneers,\" which meant that men of color were to be required to participate in combat, but were not to have guns.\n\nLord Dunmore had offered freedom to the enslaved, and military commissions, but the best Jefferson could do was to put free people of color on a battlefield as \"pioneers.\" That word may evoke covered wagons to some, but its prior military use meant those who went out in front of the army to dig trenches, one of the most dangerous of positions. _Pioneer_ is etymologically related to _pawn_ and to _peon_ , and roughly synonymous with the French military term _avant-garde._ Virginia's militia, according to Jefferson, was to be an all-white force except for the musicians and the free black avant-garde, who would not have weapons to defend themselves with.\n\nWriting from Charlottesville on January 20, 1779, Thomas Anburey, a lieutenant in the British army who kept an extensive journal and who was clearly not a sympathetic observer, described in detail the typical Virginia planter as an idle character, then went on to outline the work day:\n\nIt is the poor negroes who alone work hard, and I am sorry to say, fare hard. Incredible is the fatigue which the poor wretches undergo, and that nature should be able to support it; there certainly must be something in their constitutions, as well as their color, different from us, that enables them to endure it.\n\nThey are called up at day break, and seldom allowed to swallow a mouthful of homminy, or hoe cake, but are drawn out into the field immediately, where they continue at hard labour, without intermission, till noon, when they go to their dinners, and are seldom allowed an hour for that purpose; their meals consist of homminy and salt, and if their master is a man of humanity, touched by the finer feelings of love and sensibility, he allows them twice a week a little fat skimmed milk, rusty bacon, or salt herring, to relish this miserable and scanty fare. The man at this plantation, in lieu of these, grants his negroes an acre of ground, and all Saturday afternoon to raise grain and poultry for themselves. After they have dined, they return to labor in the field, until dusk in the evening; here one naturally imagines the daily labor of these poor creatures was over, not so, they repair to the tobacco houses, where each has a task of stripping allotted which takes them up some hours, or else they have such a quantity of Indian corn to husk, and if they neglect it, are tied up in the morning, and receive a number of lashes from those unfeeling monsters, the overseers, whose masters suffer them to exercise their brutal authority without constraint. Thus by their night task, it is late in the evening before these poor creatures return to their second scanty meal, and the time taken up at it encroaches upon their hours of sleep, which for refreshment of food and sleep together can never be reckoned to exceed eight.\n\nWhen they lay themselves down to rest, their comforts are equally miserable and limited, for they sleep on a bench, or on the ground, with an old scanty blanket, which serves them at once for bed and covering, their cloathing is not less wretched, consisting of a shirt and trowsers of coarse, thin, hard, hempen stuff, in the Summer, with an addition of a very coarse woollen jacket, breeches and shoes in Winter. But since the war, their masters, for they cannot get the cloathing as usual, suffer them to go in rags, and many in a state of nudity.\n\nThe female slaves share labor and repose just in the same manner, except a few who are term'd house negroes, and are employed in household drudgery.\n\nThese poor creatures are all submission to injuries and insults, and are obliged to be passive, nor dare they resist or defend themselves if attacked, without the smallest provocation, by a white person.\n\nIn 1779 at the urging of Jefferson, who had at this time been elected governor of Virginia, the state's capital was moved inland from Williamsburg to Richmond\u2014farther away from Washington's home turf and closer to Jefferson's. In the first days of 1780, Jefferson and his family fled Richmond for Monticello\u2014his wife Martha Wayles Jefferson had an infant in her arms\u2014to escape Benedict Arnold's troops as they entered the new capital.\n\nThe British began a victorious forty-day siege of Charles Town on March 5, 1780, and after the city surrendered en masse, they occupied the city until the end of 1782, almost three years, with an army whose ranks included\u2014to the white population's great discomfort\u2014armed black men. Escaped slaves came to occupied Charles Town to seek refuge.\n\nLord Charles Cornwallis invaded Virginia in 1781, plundering and bringing liberated slaves along in an entourage that was larger than any town in Virginia, but from there, he went directly on to defeat at Yorktown. During that invasion, shortly after Jefferson's term as governor expired, the Jeffersons\u2014Martha was pregnant\u2014fled the British again, this time from their home in Monticello, to escape a troop led by Cornwallis's Lieutenant Colonel Banastre \"Bloody\" Tarleton. Adding to the insult, Cornwallis used Monticello as a base for a few days while the Jeffersons hid.\n\nIt was as close to being in combat as Jefferson ever came, unless you count peering through the Venetian blinds of his carriage in the streets of Paris in 1789. He was subsequently called on to defend his alleged cowardice as governor in a formal proceeding, which Jefferson believed to have been instigated by Patrick Henry. Sixteen years later, when Jefferson was running for president against John Adams, his nemesis Alexander Hamilton wrote mockingly (and pseudonymously) of the occasion that the \"governor of the ancient dominion dwindled into the poor, timid philosopher and, instead of rallying his brave countrymen, he fled for safety from a few light-horsemen and shamefully abandoned his trust.\"\n\nBut then, Hamilton was a bona fide war hero. Born illegitimate in Charlestown, the capital of the tiny Antillean island of Nevis, he had distinguished himself in active military service during the long War of Independence, serving as Washington's aide-de-camp during the horrendous winter at Valley Forge. Rising through war, in 1780 he married one of the most eligible rich young women in New York\u2014Elizabeth Schuyler, a slaveowner.\n\nIn April 1780, George Washington received word that Louis XVI was sending six thousand troops in ten ships of the line* and thirty transports, with one of France's most distinguished generals, Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, at the head, all to be placed under Washington's command. Financed via Havana, the white-uniformed French troops, who tripled the size of the US army, paid for their purchases in gold and silver, endearing them to local merchants. Virginia was grateful to Louis XVI, and on May 1, Governor Jefferson signed the Virginia General Assembly's charter for a new port town: Louisville, on the Ohio River in the part of Virginia that would become Kentucky.*\n\n_French cannon, dated 1761, on the grounds of Yorktown battlefield, June 2013._\n\nIn the late days of the war, there were various plans and proposals to arm black regiments, as in Maryland in 1781, when Charles Carroll of Carrollton wrote his father indicating he would not oppose such a measure: \"nothing but the exigency of the occasion, & the total want of money can excuse such hars[h] & violent measures.\" Henry Laurens tried to act as though he were taking seriously his son John's proposal for a black regiment in South Carolina, but no such plan came to fruition.\n\nOne of the decisive battles of the War of Independence was not fought by Americans at all. The Battle of the Capes was a days-long encounter at sea between Fran\u00e7ois Joseph Paul de Grasse's French fleet\u2014whose expedition was financed by a substantial loan from Havana, because Spain also had an interest in defeating the British\u2014and Sir Thomas Graves's smaller British fleet. Beginning September 5, 1781, the French blockade at the mouth of the Chesapeake resulted in the British Navy's withdrawal to New York, cutting off Cornwallis and his army from escape by sea.\n\nThe decisive assault of the Siege of Yorktown, the storming of the redoubts with bayonets on October 19, was accomplished by two stealth groups of four hundred handpicked troops that included black troops from the Rhode Island Regiment on one side, commanded by Alexander Hamilton, and a French team on the other. Once the redoubts had been attacked, two columns attacked the British: George Washington led the left column, and Rochambeau the right. In that decisive campaign against the British, French soldiers formed the majority of those on the battlefield.\n\nAbout half of the British forces were sick with malaria. Cornwallis abandoned the escaped slaves in his train, many of whom were dying. Jefferson noted that besides destroying his crops and livestock, Cornwallis \"carried off also about 30. Slaves,\" 27 of whom he believed had died \"from the small pox & putrid fever then raging in his camp.\" He and his compatriots expected idemnification from the British for their property.\n\nThe Americans' southern flank in the war was covered by Louisiana's Spanish governor, the general Bernardo de G\u00e1lvez, who led a group that took back West Florida (Mobile), though not East Florida (Pensacola), for Spain. A number of G\u00e1lvez's troops were black\u2014battalions of _pardos_ and _morenos_ constituted about a third of Spain's fighting force in the Americas generally\u2014and a number of them were what might fairly be called Cubans, though a distinct Cuban national identity did not yet exist.\n\nNegotiations for war's end began in April 1782, culminating in the signing in November 1783 of the Treaty of Paris. The British side of the negotiations was led by the man George III believed the \"fittest Instrument for the renewal of... friendly intercourse\": the slave trader Richard Oswald, who had lived in Virginia and unlike most other Britons had a realistic notion of what America and the Americans were like. Oswald seems to have been chosen in part because of his acceptability to American negotiator Benjamin Franklin, to say nothing of another American negotiator, Oswald's former factor Henry Laurens, who arrived late in the process. Oswald allowed his old friend to insert at the last moment a clause prohibiting the \"carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American Inhabitants.\" When the treaty was ratified by the Confederation Congress in Annapolis in 1784, Laurens was its president.\n\nAmong its other accomplishments, the Treaty of Paris retroceded East Florida from Britain to Spain; Oswald knew from experience that Florida was, in Laurens's words, \"a Paradise from whose Bourn no Money e'er returns.\" Africans had been imported to Florida as plantation slaves during twenty years of British rule, and during the War of Independence the territory had been a haven for Loyalist planters fleeing the war with their slaves. Now it would be Spanish again, and again San Agust\u00edn could be a haven for the escaped enslaved of Georgia and Carolina.\n\nThough the Treaty forebade the carrying away of human property, Sir Guy Carleton, the Irish commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, considered that those who had crossed behind British lines were free, and as soon as the spring weather of 1783 permitted, he began a flotilla that between April and November took some three thousand of Britain's black allies to Nova Scotia, beyond the reach of re-enslavement. Their names were recorded in a document called _The Book of Negroes;_ descendants still live in Canada, mostly in Halifax. But life was difficult in Nova Scotia, and more than twelve hundred of them went on to Sierra Leone in 1792.\n\nOther black soldiers opted for military careers in the Black Carolina Corps, formally organized in 1779. A career outfit, it was evacuated to Jamaica following the defeat at Yorktown in 1781. Its success spurred the further Africanization of Britain's army in the Caribbean, leading in 1795 to the creation of the West India Regiment\u2014a standing infantry of free black and enslaved soldiers. In order to fill out its ranks, the British army on occasion resorted to buying African captives off the slave ships and putting them to work as soldiers. Buying some 13,400 slaves for this purpose between 1795 and 1808, at the considerable cost of about \u00a3925,000, the British government became one of the largest customers of the same African trade that many in Parliament were working to abolish.\n\nAs peace negotiations got under way, some French aristocrats remained in North America, where they were the toast of society. The Marquis de Chastellux, a major general at Yorktown under Rochambeau, took Jefferson up on his invitation to visit him at Monticello in April 1782, where Jefferson was living in what he said was retirement from public affairs. Chastellux remained at Monticello for four days with his entourage of ten, six of whom were servants.\n\nMartha Wayles Jefferson had to provide hospitality for them. She had been pregnant almost constantly for ten years, throughout the war, and though she was, in Chastellux's description, \"amiable,\" she was in the habit of retiring early and seems to have been depressed, as she was, in Chastellux's words, \"expecting her confinement at any moment\" in the pregnancy that would finally kill her. Chastellux and Jefferson stayed up after Mrs. Jefferson had gone to bed, talking about, among other topics, their mutual enthusiasm for the poems of Ossian\u2014about which, more later.\n\nMartha gave birth in May for the last time, and died in September. Jefferson, who attended her for four months continually as she declined, was prostrate with grief on his wife's death. This has provided a dramatic scene in many Jefferson biographies, though his obvious agency in her repeated pregnancies has often gone circumspectly unmentioned.\n\nThere is no clue in Jefferson's papers that he saw himself as playing any part in his wife's death through continual impregnation in the face of her continually weakening condition, despite Jefferson's clear awareness of the mechanics of sexual reproduction. Nor was Jefferson unaware of what we now call family planning, as per his description of Native American women in _Notes on the State of Virginia:_ \"The women very frequently attending the men in their parties of war and of hunting, child-bearing becomes extremely inconvenient to them. It is said, therefore, that they have learnt the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable; and that it even extends to prevent conception for a considerable time after.\"\n\nLet us be clear that we are not guilty of the present-day bugaboo of \"presentism\" by noting that women in Jefferson's day were expected to be pregnant constantly. Our point is to call attention to the difference between the mindset of Jefferson's world and that of ours: it was commonly considered women's duty to produce babies nonstop, whether it killed them or not. We differ, however, with the interpretation offered by Jon Meacham, who suggests that Martha Wayles Jefferson's fatal continuum of pregnancy (Meacham suggests she may also have had tuberculosis) was evidence of \"no shortage of physical passion between them.\" We propose an alternate interpretation: that her repeated, debilitating pregnancies might be evidence that a dutiful wife had no right to say no.\n\nOn her deathbed, according to the later recollections of the enslaved women who attended her while dying, she exacted an oath from Jefferson never to remarry, which would have compromised their daughters' inheritance. But we don't know what Martha Wayles Jefferson thought, confined to die in her bed on that isolated mountaintop. Jefferson, so conscious of his own immortality through writing, burned her letters, thus erasing her voice from historical memory. We have not even a picture of her.\n\nThe forlorn widower returned to public life, accepting the appointment to serve the presidentless, moneyless American Confederation as US Minister Plenipotentiary\u2014basically, the trade representative\u2014to France in 1784, where he remained until 1789. John Adams, who unlike Jefferson was an experienced diplomat, performed the same function in London.\n\nChastellux, who helped get Jefferson's daughter Patsy into a good school in Paris, published in 1786 an account of his travels that helped promote the Jefferson mystique in France\u2014an early flash of the enduring legend of the mountaintop sage of Monticello. In it, he noted the abject condition of Virginia's poor whites and connected it to the Virginia slaveowners' desire for \"increase\":\n\nHumanity [suffers] from the state of poverty in which a great number of white people live in Virginia. It is in this state, for the first time since I crossed the sea, that I have seen poor people. For, among these rich plantations where the Negro alone is wretched, one often finds miserable huts inhabited by whites, whose wane looks and ragged garments bespeak poverty.... I have since learned that all these useless lands and those immense estates, with which Virginia is still covered, have their proprietors. Nothing is more common than to see them possessing five or six thousand acres of land, but exploiting only as much of it as their Negroes can cultivate. Yet they will not give away or even sell the smallest portion of it, because they are attached to their possessions and always hope to eventually increase the numbers of their Negroes.\n\nIn Paris, where printing was much cheaper than in America, Jefferson in 1785 privately published _Notes on the State of Virginia_ , first drafted in 1781 as an answer on the part of Virginia to a questionnaire put to the various states by Fran\u00e7ois de Barb\u00e9-Marbois, the secretary of the French legation to the United States. The only book Jefferson ever published, it was intended to pitch the wonders of his state to the wealthy French. Jefferson printed two hundred copies privately and semi-anonymously (the author was \"M. [Monsieur] J***\") for individual distribution in elite circles only. When he sent one to James Madison, he wrote, perhaps disingenuously, \"I shall only send over a very few copies to particular friends in confidence and burn the rest... in no case do I propose to admit them to go to the public at large.\" But they did.\n\nA French bookseller who acquired a copy after its owner unexpectedly died jobbed it out to a \"hireling translator\" and published it in French in 1786. The book was favorably reviewed in the _Mercure de France_ , who proclaimed the barely anonymous author a _philosophe._ Jefferson, who disliked the translation, then allowed his English version to be published in London the following year.\n\nIn composing what amounted to an intellectual investment prospectus for the state he represented, Jefferson faced the problem of having to explain to the French why the enslaved of his country would never be freed. Most of his friends in France were abolitionists who expected the postrevolutionary United States to bring slavery to an end. But Jefferson's Virginia countrymen overwhelmingly had no intention of ever freeing their slaves and thus losing their property, and were touchy about the issue.\n\nJefferson did not make the true argument, which would have been that he and all his relatives, friends, and constituents would be paupers without slaves. Rather, his justification was that the \"negro\" was inferior\u2014something he seems to have truly believed\u2014and moreover dangerous, and therefore had to be kept in a state of slavery for everybody's good. This problem, as Jefferson insisted throughout his career, was due not to the greed of the colonists themselves, but to British insistence on imposing slavery on the colonies in the first place, leaving the wealthy of Virginia no choice, so went the story, but to soldier on with their white man's burden of ever-increasing human property.\n\nIt's not an oversimplification to say that Jefferson despised blackness. The most inflammatory quote from _Notes_ has been frequently reprinted in recent years after being largely overlooked, and we too will include it for purposes of clarity, with apologies to the reader:\n\n[T]he difference [of \"the negro\"] is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the one preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black woman over those of his own species.\n\nWith his evocation of \"the Oranootan\" copulating with black women, Jefferson provides an early instance of the fundamental racist trope that Felipe Smith calls the ape libel. Because \"negroes\" were an inferior \"race,\" Jefferson argued, they could not be freed. To do so would require their immediate deportation, he insisted, in order to avoid the amalgamation that would stain the purity he detected in the white \"race\":\n\nThis unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people... The [Roman] slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us [in America] a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.\n\nThe notion of \"racism\" did not yet exist; the French term _racisme_ was coined in the late nineteenth century. But if this call to maintain purity of blood is not racism, the word has no meaning. James Madison, who never freed any of his slaves in life or death, was a racist of the same stripe, who believed abolition impossible because of \"the physical peculiarities of those held in bondage, which preclude their incorporation with the white population.\"\n\nWith _Notes of the State of Virginia_ , Jefferson definitively established himself as a founding theorist of white supremacy in America, laying out in condensed form key points of racialized thought that pro-slavery writers would consistently reaffirm and that would echo in the cant of modern day white supremacists. He linked his ideas to a deportation scheme that was, in effect, a foolproof way to avoid ending slavery, though he didn't package it like that. Quite the contrary: he pitched his impossible project as the only way slavery could be ended.\n\nJefferson insisted that manumission required the immediate deportation of the emancipated. This would be necessary, Jefferson explained, in order to avoid \"convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.\" To avoid this conjectured race war of annihilation, emancipation required what is now called ethnic cleansing: Jefferson stamped that demand with a founder's seal and a philosopher's sigh.\n\nThe reviewer for the _Mercure_ waxed enthusiastic about Jefferson's solution for the problem of slavery. That Jefferson would consider emancipation under _any_ circumstances and would speak badly of slavery, even in abstract terms, was enough to trip the hair-trigger anger of many American slaveowners, which is perhaps why he had wanted to keep the book off the general market. It cost him some political support, especially in South Carolina.\n\nJefferson's plan was to deport flotillas of black youth, in wave after wave, year after year. He would \"by degrees, send the whole of that population from among us,\" until the \"race\" itself was gone, and simultaneously replace them with white immigrant laborers\u2014a plan for total removal that did not acknowledge the presence in the United States of free people of color. In _Notes on the State of Virginia_ , he proposed:\n\nthat they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independant people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed.\n\nTo better understand what Jefferson had in mind, we flash forward to a February 4, 1824, letter he wrote to Jared Sparks, the Unitarian minister who published the _North American Review._ In it, the eighty-year-old Jefferson outlined a scheme for accomplishing the \"colonization\" that would rid the United States of its proliferating African Americans once and for all, before they got any more numerous, and proposed a timetable for accomplishing the expulsion of about a sixth of the nation's population:\n\nthere are in the US. a million and a half of people of colour in slavery. to send off the whole of these at once nobody conceives to be practicable for us, or expedient for them. let us take 25. years for it's accomplishment, within which time they will be doubled. their estimated value as property, in the first place, (for actual property has been lawfully vested in that form, and who can lawfully take it from the possessors?) at an average of 200.D. each, young and old, would amount to 600. millions of Dollars, which must be paid or lost by somebody.\n\nJefferson went on to propose the creation of a fund, financed by the sale of western lands, for purchasing infants on the cheap, raising them as wards of the state, and deporting them\u2014to \"St. Domingo\" (he did not ever use the name \"Haiti\"). But, he suggested:\n\nthe estimated value of the new-born infant is so low, (say 12 \u00bd Dollars) that it would probably be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce the 600,000,000 millions [ _sic_ ] of Dollars, the first head of expence, to 37 millions & a half. leaving only the expense of nourishment while with the mother, and of transportation.\n\nJefferson calculated that though it would take twenty-five years to accomplish the entire project, by the last nine years, the number of \"breeders\" (he used the word) would have diminished considerably. He imagined a fleet of fifty vessels recursively sailing away full of black youth and coming back empty for more until every last one of _them_ was gone:\n\nsuppose the whole annual increase to be of 60 thousand effective births, 50 vessels of 400 tons burthen each, constantly employed in that short run, would carry off the increase of every year, & the old stock would die off in the ordinary course of nature, lessening from the commencement until it's final disappearance. in this way no violation of private right is proposed.\n\nThe \"private right\" Jefferson was talking about was, of course, that of all those men who were created equal. Black people did not have \"private right.\" But separating them from their children was not all that bad, thought Jefferson, because, as he explained in _Notes,_\n\nTheir griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.\n\nThis was the classic rationalization for minimizing the damage caused by systematically destroying African American families, and it was a libel: being simple creatures, they'd get over it. Accordingly, Jefferson concluded his letter to Sparks: \"The separation of infants from their mothers... would produce some scruples of humanity. But this would be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.\"\n\nWere the United States not purged of its black people soon, Jefferson warned Sparks, the demographics guaranteed armed slave resistance: \"A million and a half are within [slaveowners'] control; but six millions, (which a majority of those now living will see them attain,) and one million of these fighting men, will say, 'we will not go.'\" This did in fact happen, though the numbers were different: there were four million enslaved African Americans in 1860, not six million; and there were officially 186,097 soldiers and sailors who fought in the US Army and Navy against the Confederacy, in effect saying, \"we will not go.\"\n\nConfiscate all African American children from their mothers and ship them off to thrive or die: _that_ was Jefferson's vision of a final solution for the Negro problem. Presumably such a massive expulsion as Jefferson contemplated would have required a fully totalitarian state apparatus to implement, and would have resulted in the death of many of the deported; mortality rates were high in the few miserable \"colonization\" attempts that were made.\n\nJefferson had not suddenly gone mad in his dotage. This had been his idea all along, as he explained to Sparks: \"This was the result of my reflections on the subject five and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able to conceive any other practicable plan. It was sketched in the Notes on Virginia, under the fourteenth query.\" If this kind of massive deportation couldn't be achieved, he insisted throughout his career, emancipation could not take place. This conviction would be strengthened by the Haitian Revolution that erupted in 1791 and by Gabriel's unenacted rebellion of 1800, and would be taken as gospel by pro-slavery Southerners. It would spur the founding of the American Colonization Society, whose ostensible mission was to deport all free people of color.\n\nHaving outlined the \"physical\" reason for exile in _Notes_ , Jefferson proceeded to the \"moral\" reason, pursuant to which he described a long list of inferiorities attributed to \"them,\" which we will not quote here. This was perfectly in line with the thinking of many European intellectuals. Citing David Hume, the leading light of the Scottish Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant had written in _Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime_ (1764) that \"The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that arises above the trifling. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a single example in which a Negro has shown talents and asserts that among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who are transported elsewhere from their countries [etc]...\" But the point was less urgent to Kant, whose wealth did not consist of black people, than to Jefferson and Madison.\n\nA mere seventy-five years later, as Southern states left the Union, prosecessionist radicals argued to their unconvinced countrymen some of the same points as Jefferson's: the \"negro\" was inferior and not the equal of whites; emancipation would result in a race war to the death, or in the purity of the white race being sullied by the horror of mongrelization; and slaveowners' property rights must be respected.\n\nThere was, however, a solution of sorts to the perceived problem of black overpopulation, and it was highly profitable: if Virginia's black people could not be emancipated and deported, they could be sold away into the new territories.\n\nAll the states had prohibited the African slave trade by the time non-importation cut off exterior commerce during the independence struggle, so Africans had not been entering the colonies for years. With independence achieved, South Carolina and Georgia, whose labor forces had massively taken flight or died, reopened their slave trades. As Charles Town's slave market boomed, it changed its name in 1783 to the less regal Charleston. According to James McMillin, \"between 1783 and 1787 nearly one hundred Charleston merchants handled slave sales ranging from one person to cargoes of more than four hundred Africans.\" But there was soon a glut on the market as slavers from multiple territories, most numerously British but also from Rhode Island, tried to get in on the action, depressing point-of-sale prices in America and raising point-of-supply prices in Africa.\n\nThe slave trade continued being a cash business for the captains who brought in the cargoes, so an intermediate class of British factors\u2014still very much active in the independent republic\u2014brokered the sales to the planters on easy terms, with up to two years to pay. Though some of the factors became wealthy, there wasn't much money coming into the territory. The large market for American indigo died with independence, never to return, because Britain ended the subsidy that had made it profitable. The rice economy recovered only slowly.\n\nA boom in slave sales meant a debt problem as well. The eagerness of planters to buy slaves drained the supply of specie from the economy, and many individuals were carrying excessive debt burdens. \"The great quantity of negroes now pouring in upon us, occasions every planter to wish an increase of his stock,\" said Thomas Bee before the South Carolina Enquiry into the State of the Republic in 1785. \"The sight of a negroe yard was to[o] great a temptation for a planter to withstand, he could not leave it without purchasing; in short, there seemed to be a rage for negroes, without any consideration how they were to be paid for.\" Then Charleston's economy crashed, and in 1787, drowning in debt, the South Carolina legislature prohibited slave importation after a spirited debate.\n\nSouth Carolina's closure of the foreign slave trade increased the traffic to Georgia, where the trade remained open until 1798, with an illicit trade continuing afterward. More Africans entered Georgia after independence than before, but not so many as the planters would have liked: less credit was available to Georgia planters from merchants, so the state's economy incurred less of a debt burden than it might have, but since less labor was imported, production came back only slowly. During Georgia's period of importation, two revolutionary developments charted the nation's course:\n\nIn Philadelphia, the Constitution. In Savannah, the sawtooth cotton gin.\n\n*Ships of the line were large, heavily armed vessels that, in battle, formed a line.\n\n*Kentucky was entirely occupied by Native Americans until the first settlement at Harrod's Town, later Harrodsburg, on a surveying expedition ordered by Lord Dunmore in 1774.\n\n#   22\n\n# **The Fugue of Silences**\n\n_Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men. 1_\n\n\u2014from James Madison's notes, August 22, 1787\n\n_The bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States is morally and politically vicious... The consequence has been that this slave representation has governed the Union. 2_\n\n\u2014John Quincy Adams, 1820\n\nLIKE THE FUGUES OF J. S. Bach (1685\u20131750), the United States Constitution is an exemplary eighteenth-century machine. Like the Bible, it has been taken as scripture by those who imbue it with mystical authority.\n\nNegotiated and agreed on in 1787 at Philadelphia, ratified the following year, and effective as of March 4, 1789, with a ten-amendment Bill of Rights that became effective December 15, 1791, the Constitution is synonymous with the American republic. It prescribes a carefully contrived system of representation that regulates our national life to this day.\n\nIt's the oldest constitution in effect among the world's nations today, and the hardest to amend. It's remarkably terse, which has contributed to its enduring quality. The later constitutions of some other nations go on for dozens or even hundreds of articles, making promises that cannot be achieved and specifying points of law rather than general principles, with the result that they have to be rewritten at intervals.\n\nAnecdotal evidence would suggest that many twenty-first-century Americans confuse the Constitution, which is the source of US law and was largely drafted by James Madison, with the more poetic Declaration of Independence, which has no legal force and was drafted by Thomas Jefferson. The president swears to uphold the former, but not the latter.\n\nThere is much that the Constitution does not do. It does not state that all men are created equal, nor does it guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It does not create a democracy; _democracy_ was a dirty word, synonymous with mob rule, when the Constitution was written. With seven articles and ten amendments that have grown to twenty-seven, the US Constitution is a carefully composed fugue of silences that stipulates and limits government's powers.\n\nUntil the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865, the Constitution did not prevent individuals from enslaving or trading in the enslavement of other individuals. Its rhetorical discretion was noted at the time by the Philadelphia physician and Declaration of Independence signer Dr. Benjamin Rush, a cofounder of the first American abolitionist society, who sarcastically wrote, \"No mention was made of _negroes_ or _slaves_ in this constitution, only because it was thought the very words would contaminate the glorious fabric of American liberty and government.\"\n\nThe silences went beyond euphemism. As ratified in 1788, the Constitution neither explicitly prohibited nor permitted slavery, but merely acknowledged its existence as a fact, without even naming it or defining it. But by means of that acknowledgment and its otherwise careful limitation of powers, it gave tacit permission to the long-established practice of enslavement.\n\nThe Constitution implied that there was a class of people\u2014persons \"held to service\"\u2014for whom rights might not apply. It nowhere suggested that enslaved people had any rights at all. It left the way clear for state and local government, and, in practice, for individual slaveowners and slave traders, to construct the world enslaved people would live in.\n\n_We are slaves to Britain!_ the rebels had shouted. It had been absurd for slaveowners to complain they were being subjected to \"slavery,\" but it was the strongest, loudest thing they could say, the most potent word in their political lexicon, the most extreme rhetoric they could deploy. When it came time to write their Constitution, however, the word _slavery_ vanished from the vocabulary, as had the word _negro_ , though there was a considerable body of states' law dealing with \"negroes,\" which the Constitution left untouched.\n\nIn its strategic silence, the Constitution perhaps resembled that genre of painting so popular in the parlors of the eighteenth-century plantocracy, as described in John Michael Vlach's _The Planter's Prospect._ These canvases, which provided bread and butter for skilled American painters, typically depict a static scene organized around an accurately rendered vision of the grand mansion. A pink, chubby, perfectly dressed family poses in front, on their expansive grounds, perhaps with topiary hedges.\n\nNo one is seen working in the idealized plantations of these paintings, though in reality these places were never still but were run by squadrons of slaves. There is nothing in the images to indicate how such a complex system might actually run, or who actually did the work, or what the work was\u2014not so much as a child with a watering can\u2014let alone who did the hard offstage agricultural labor that paid for it all.\n\nWe see no one singing in these paintings, nor are there fiddles, banjos, or bones players. These paintings are lattices of silence. Black people are entirely absent from this visual representation of a life that depended at every moment not merely on their labor, but also on their skills.\n\nThe enslaved workers who made it all run were as absent from the Constitution as they were from the paintings.\n\nAs we have emphasized, slavery is a central fact of American history, not a sidebar. Nor, despite the textual silence, was it a sidebar issue to the Constitution. In devising a national government and a system of representation, the Constitution created lasting political institutions. But the major sticking point was cutting a deal over slavery. How to compromise on an issue about which there could be no compromise? How to speak of a human right to own other people as property? How to stipulate the freedom to enslave?\n\nAnd there was a problem that would only get worse: how to work constructively with violence-prone countrymen who became instantly belligerent the moment slavery was criticized, or even mentioned?\n\nAs early as 1775, John Adams had argued the need for the North American colonies to \"set up a Republican government, something like that of Holland.\"\n\nUpon independence, the former colonists did not form a new nation called America, though that subsequently became its de facto common name, as if the rest of the Americas did not exist. Borrowing a nomenclatural model from the Dutch United Provinces\u2014whose emblem, a lion with nine arrows representing nine provinces in his paw, is echoed in the thirteen arrows in the talons of the eagle in the great seal\u2014they were the United States. They were a crazy-quilt confederation with distinct histories of governance and political identities, and nowhere more so than in the states' differing approaches to slavery.\n\nA collection of individual, independently functioning states would inevitably work at competitive cross-purposes with each other, and would lead to currency wars, tariff wars, even shooting wars. The Articles of Confederation governing the thirteen ex-colonies' alliance had failed. State banks each issued their own money, which complicated interstate commerce considerably. There was no provision to raise funds to run a national government. Against the background of a sharp credit squeeze, Shays' Rebellion\u2014an armed antitax and anti-debt revolt by disaffected elements in rural Massachusetts, including many unpaid war veterans from mid-1786 to mid-1787\u2014pointed up the need for a stronger government to repress insurrections, as well as to find a mechanism for settling the war debts. Jefferson, who was in Paris and thus in no danger from Shays' Rebellion, applauded it from afar, prompting his remark so beloved of the twenty-first-century far right: \"What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.\"\n\nMeanwhile, a continuing external military threat imperiled American shipping and provided ample potential for conflict\u2014especially with Britain, which did not in practice recognize American sovereignty on the high seas. Spain was in control of the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas, and of all of Mexico and Cuba. With Indian attacks and slave rebellion as constant worries, a common defense was necessary. Or, to look at it from another perspective: a substantial military force would be needed if the United States was to seize neighboring territory, as South Carolina's elite hoped to do in expanding their empire of slavery, and as some acquisitive New Englanders hoped to do with Canada, which had declined to declare independence as the fourteenth colony.\n\nThe most memorable achievement of the Congress of the Confederation was the poorly drafted Northwest Ordinance, which formally annexed the territory northwest of the Ohio River. It allowed for the settling of present-day Ohio (which became the seventeenth state in 1803), Indiana (the nineteenth, in 1816), Illinois (twenty-first, 1818), Michigan (twenty-sixth, 1837), Wisconsin (thirtieth, 1848), and part of Minnesota (thirty-second, 1858). Britain had restricted immigration to these territories in 1763, following the end of the Seven Years' War, to the frustration of would-be settlers, especially those who had participated in military action against the French and Indians to keep the territory in British hands.\n\nArticle VI of the Ordinance provided that \"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted\"\u2014a phrase that would echo in the Thirteenth Amendment of 1865. This was notwithstanding the fact that there were already slaveholders in the territory, but it provided for no enforcement, and there was in any case no federal government to speak of under the Articles of Confederation. The ordinance seemed to confirm the admissibility of slavery south of the Ohio, and it even contained a fugitive slave clause, the first appearance of that explosive notion in American law.\n\nArticle VI was inserted at the last minute in the proceedings by Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, with no prior discussion of slavery and no debate. It's something of a mystery exactly why and how this happened. The immediate model for Article VI was the Land Ordinance of 1784, which provided a mechanism for new states in the Western territories previously claimed by New York and Virginia to enter the United States upon attaining a population of twenty thousand free inhabitants.* The Land Ordinance was largely drafted by Jefferson, who wanted to name the new states Cherronesus, Metropotamia, Saratoga, Polypotamia, Illinoia, Assenisippia, Michigania, and Sylvania, and who, four years before the publication of _Notes_ , already had his eye on possible territories where emancipated black people could be deported. His draft contained a clause prohibiting all slavery in the new territories after 1800, and though that clause was removed at the behest of delegates from farther south, it included a significant exception that echoes down to the twenty-first century: convict labor would be permitted. The Land Ordinance has been pointed to as Jefferson's principal attempt at taking any kind of antislavery action (as opposed to rhetoric); if so, it was also his last. It can also be seen as establishing the template for the ruinous competition for territorial expansion between free-soil North and slavery South. With its language regarding convicts, it might also be interpreted as the first faint stroke of a uniquely American regime of carceral labor.\n\nNo slaves were freed as a result of the Northwest Ordinance, and once the Constitution was adopted, it no longer had legal force. Its major long-range impact seems to have been discouraging the immigration of slaveholders to the Northwest as a new, non-slave system began to assert itself there. The free Northwest of Ohio and beyond became a magnet for European immigration and a bulwark of antislavery politics; it was the region from which Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman emerged.\n\nThe die was cast, then, for a larger country divided into free and slave states. The ordinance was approved on Friday, July 13, 1787, which was also the day that at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia enslaved people were transformed into political capital.\n\nThe story of the Constitution's making in 1787 has been told any number of ways, typically suffused with a cue-the-kettledrums aura of religiosity and an assumption of American triumphalism. Constitutional historians have tended to portray their subject as the most important political document in world history, in the greatest nation in history. In extreme cases this has involved elevating the framers to a sort of secular sainthood, as in the post-Reagan years, when a school of constitutional interpretation called \"originalism\" emerged in American jurisprudence. Most prominently associated with archconservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, originalism is a fundamentalist movement that seeks in effect to construe the Constitution as static and unchanging by mind-reading the intentions of the presumably divinely inspired Framers\u2014a word Scalia writes with a capital F, the way they did it in the eighteenth century. His opinions are shot through with variations on phrases like: \"The Framers recognized...,\" \"The Framers contemplated...,\" \"The Framers viewed...,\" and \"The Framers' experience...\" This is a peculiarly subjective lens through which to view a document created by so many people, at such sharp cross-purposes with each other.\n\n\"Aware that the South would not join a Union that prohibited slavery,\" writes Scalia's generally dissenting colleague, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who does not capitalize \"framers,\" \"the framers in effect postponed the question of slavery's continued existence by writing into the Constitution a series of compromises.\" But if we were to follow the notion of original intent from the point of view of the South Carolina Framers, we would see the Constitution as protecting the right to own and trade in slaves.\n\nThe deliberations for the Constitution began on May 14, 1787, before most of the delegates had arrived. They were done in secret, behind closed doors, with the press excluded. The official minutes were poor, so historians have to rely largely on the nightly recaps written by policy wonk and principal drafter James Madison while many of the other framers were busy drinking.\n\nSlaveowners were on the defensive. When Vermont broke away from New York during the War of Independence to become an independent republic from 1777 to 1791, its constitution abolished slavery outright\u2014the first such constitutional prohibition in the Americas. In 1783, a judicial decision interpreted the 1780 constitution of Massachusetts as abolishing slavery. Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Hampshire had all introduced phase-outs. Even Jefferson, in drafting a radical new constitution for Virginia in 1783\u2014it was not even considered, much less adopted\u2014had proposed: \"The General assembly shall not have the power to... permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this state, or the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which shall be living on the 31st day of December 1800; all persons born after that day being hereby declared free.\"\n\nEven so, white supremacy was assumed. Washington, who chaired the Convention, brought his lifelong personal manservant Billy Lee. Madison, perhaps fearing a runaway, did not bring any of his slaves to attend him in Philadelphia, but his fellow Virginian George Mason brought at least two of his more than three hundred slaves.\n\nTo achieve the truce that the Constitution represented, it had to be, and was, a pro-slavery document. It was made such largely at the insistence of South Carolina but done with the acquiescence of all. South Carolina's delegates to the Constitutional Convention supported a strong national government as long as they entered it on the most advantageous terms possible. The Lower South had suffered from foreign occupation during the War of Independence more than anywhere else. South Carolina and Georgia were militarily the weakest of the colonies, in no small part because so much of their population, being enslaved, was motivated to fight for the slaveowner's enemy; slaveowners remained at home to suppress slave rebellion and defection rather than fight.\n\nExposed on its southern flank to Spanish Florida, vulnerable to Indian attack and to slave uprisings, South Carolina needed the protection of a larger entity that could provide its defense. But even so, South Carolina's delegates were determined to protect slavery and the African slave trade, and they arrived ready to walk if they didn't get what they wanted.\n\nVirginia\u2014the largest, most populous, and wealthiest state\u2014took the lead at the Convention. Delegate James Madison had seized the advantage in the constitutional negotiations by arriving first with a draft all prepared. His \"Virginia Plan\" was put forth on May 29 by Virginia governor Edmund Randolph, the American-born son of an English aristocrat and an aide to Washington during the War of Independence.\n\n\"Many of the delegates were stunned,\" writes Richard Beeman, \"by the revolutionary character of the proposal so boldly laid before them.\" Madison's plan radically reshaped the structure of what until then had been a weak confederacy into a national government that would be superior to the states. With Beeman's choice of the word \"revolutionary,\" he places the accent of revolution where John Adams would have placed it\u2014not on the military act of separating from a colonial master, but squarely on the civilian idea of making thirteen competing states into one self-governing republic.\n\nThis had not been the grand design everyone was working toward in the long, grinding civil war by which the colonies obtained independence from Britain. The wealthy rebels in each colony had seen themselves as leaders of sovereign states, not provincial officials of a larger entity. Subordination to a federal republic would take power away from them personally, and from their\u2014note the word again\u2014states.\n\nImmediately the question arose of how states would be represented in this supra-state government. The Virginia Plan proposed two ways the \"rights of suffrage\" could be calculated: they would be \"proportioned to the Quotas of contribution\"\u2014that is, they would get votes based on how much in taxes each state put into the kitty\u2014\"or to the number of free inhabitants, as the one or the other rule may seem best in different cases.\"\n\nPopulation or wealth\u2014whichever way it went, Virginia was on top. South Carolina definitively favored voting based on wealth. Max Farrand's compilation of the existing deliberation records reads:\n\nGov. Rutledge [John Rutledge, of South Carolina] moved... that the proportion of representation ought to be according to and in proportion to the contribution of each state.\n\nMr. Butler [Pierce Butler, of South Carolina] supported the motion, by observing that money is strength; and every state ought to have its weight in the national council in proportion to the quantity it possesses.\n\nWealth as the direct basis for apportioning political representation: now _that's_ original intent. As incorporated via the three-fifths clause, it sought to make the new nation into a plutocracy. The Constitution, in somewhat veiled form, made the idea of voting wealth structural to the new nation, capitalizing the enslaved as a way to do so, even as the colonies' transformation into a constitutional republic enhanced the resale value of the Chesapeake's enslaved population.\n\nAccording to James Madison's notes:\n\nOn the motion of Mr. [Edmund] Randolph, the vote of saturday last authorizing the Legislre. to adjust from time to time, the representation upon the principles of _wealth_ & numbers of inhabitants was reconsidered by common consent in order to strike out \"Wealth\" and adjust the resolution to that requiring periodical revisions according to the number of whites & three fifths of the blacks.\n\nMadison also noted the response by Gouverneur Morris of New York:\n\nA distinction had been set up & urged, between the Nn. & Southn. States.... Southern gentlemen will not be satisfied unless they see the way open to their gaining a majority in the public Councils.... If the Southn. States get the power into their hands, and be joined as they will be with the interior Country they will inevitably bring on a war with Spain for the Mississippi. This language is already held. The interior Country having no property nor interest exposed on the sea, will be little affected by such a war. He wished to know what security the Northn. & middle States will have agst. this danger.\n\nPierce Butler retorted, \"The security the Southn. States want is that their negroes may not be taken from them which some gentlemen within or without doors, have a very good mind to do.\"\n\nWhen we speak of the Framers, we do not often speak of Founding Father Pierce Butler, who in a show of unconvincing modesty in a letter to a friend wrote that he had \"some small part in frameing\" the document. Though he was a South Carolina delegate, the very wealthy absentee plantation owner lived, attended by his slaves, in his Philadelphia mansion. In the four-man South Carolina delegation, he was the number-two eminence behind the state's governor, John Rutledge, whose nickname was \"Dictator John.\" One of the eight foreign-born of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and one of the Constitution's thirty-nine signers, Butler pushed the limit in the negotiations to safeguard slavery.\n\nButler took a few pages of notes at the Convention, on the final page of which he\u2014surely reflecting the tedium of the proceedings\u2014doodled and drew cartoons, preserved today as part of the documentation of the framing of the Constitution. An opinionated, theatrical debater, Butler wore a powdered wig, a velvet neckcloth with a silver buckle, and a gold-laced coat as he delivered outspoken orations calculated to provoke. He was a proponent of a strong national government, an electoral college system, and slavery.\n\nTo placate the Carolinians, the Scottish-born Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson proposed a compromise of sorts, one that took advantage of the prestidigitation of turning people into property. His proposal substituted for the phrase \"quotas of contribution\" the language that became known as the \"three-fifths\" clause, allowing slaveholding states to be represented based on three-fifths of their enslaved inhabitants. The measure was immediately seconded by South Carolina's Charles Pinckney, who in a previous plan had been the first to suggest a three-fifths figure.\n\nThe only compromise South Carolina made was that they didn't get to vote on behalf of 100 percent of their enslaved inhabitants, only 60 percent of them. Butler wanted to hold out for 100 percent representation. But neither was three-fifths an arbitrary formula; Pinckney knew it was the maximum the South could get away with. The three-fifths clause did not mean, as some have complained, that the enslaved were considered only three-fifths human. Politically, the enslaved were zero-fifths human. The three-fifths clause was a politically acceptable accounting gimmick for figuring out how much to rig the national vote on behalf of slaveholders, and it distorted political realities in the United States for as long as slavery lasted.\n\n_Pierce Butler: Notebook from the Constitutional Convention, last page. Philadelphia, 30 May 1787\u201316 July 1787._\n\nEarlier in this volume we have spoken of slaves as money. With the three-fifths clause, we might consider that, at least in one sense, the transformation of slaves into money was complete. To recapitulate:\n\nCondition One, _medium of exchange:_ from their first appearance in the colonies, slaves had been exchanged for anything money could buy, and moreover were a fundamental part of the collateral that numerous distinct credit systems were based on.\n\nCondition Two, _retains its value:_ by virtue of owning descendants in perpetuity, slave property did not die, but had eternal life the way real estate or gold does, and even provided an annual increase to counter interest and inflation (though the inclusion of slaves in the monetary system contributed to inflation). More simply: if people are money, children are interest.\n\nAnd Condition Three: slaves were now _units of account_ for what was literally political capital. At the level of national politics, the South voted its wealth, and that wealth was slaves, quantified and multiplied by three-fifths. Thanks to the demands of the South Carolinians, the slaveowners' privilege of voting their collective human wealth was enshrined into the Constitution. Though based on population, the three-fifths clause was explicitly understood to be a way of basing voting power on wealth\u2014but only one kind of wealth: slaves.\n\nNo other region's principal form of wealth was taken as a basis for representation. Massachusetts delegate Elbridge Gerry bristled that \"The idea of property ought not to be the rule of representation. Blacks are property, and are used to the southward as horses and cattle are to the northward; and why should their representation be increased to the southward on account of the number of slaves, than horses or oxen to the north?\"\n\nWilson's pragmatic purpose in proposing the three-fifths clause was to enlist the large slaveholding states in resolving the large state \/ small state debate and thereby break up the logjam that had divided the convention along the lines of those two blocs. Rhode Island, the smallest state, had boycotted the convention. The holdout was Connecticut, whose delegates ultimately proposed the formula that gave the United States its Senate\u2014the American analog of the House of Lords, with two votes per state\u2014and, corresponding to the House of Commons, a lower House of Representatives, based on population and, unlike senators, directly elected. The result of this compromise is that today a vote in Wyoming (pop. 563,626 in the 2010 census) has more national influence than one in, say, New York (pop. 19,378,102).\n\nThe balance of free versus slave states would prove an even thornier issue than the size of the states. There were seven mostly free states, assuming Rhode Island was in (slavery still existed in some Northern states, but not in large numbers), and there were six slave states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia). They would each get two senators, tilting the balance toward the free states.\n\nBut the South would get extra weighting in the House of Representatives and a guarantee that they could import more, and since the House of Representatives was the only body authorized to initiate budget legislation, the South had disproportionate power in that as well. South Carolina's three-fifths weighting also gave it disproportionate clout in the presidential selection process, via the electoral college's arbitrary formula of adding the number of senators and representatives to make the number of presidential electors. It was an enduring compromise: the Confederate Constitution retained the three-fifths clause in 1861.\n\nIn looking at the Constitution from the point of view of South Carolina, we are not attempting to reduce the many varied interests and motives of the new nation to those of the most politically extreme state, nor to deny the crosscurrents of opinion in every territory. But in order to understand what subsequently happened, it is necessary to understand the Constitution according to South Carolina's original intent: all slavery, all the time, and if you don't like it, you are the enemy.\n\nA national government, announced Pierce Butler to the Constitutional Convention, \"was instituted principally for the protection of property.\"\n\nIt was Butler who proposed the fugitive slave clause to the Constitution (and took credit for writing it, though he probably did not), something that had not existed in the Articles of Confederation. The immediate background for it was a 1783 Massachusetts court case that freed ten slaves out of thirty-four abducted four years previously from South Carolina plantations by an invading British privateer. The privateer had in turn been captured by a Spanish vessel (at the time allied with American independence), then recaptured by the British, and finally taken over by American warships and brought into Boston. When the Massachusetts court freed the ten enslaved men who had not yet been returned to South Carolina four years later, there was a hue and cry from down south.\n\nFull protection of fugitive property, in Massachusetts or anywhere in the nation, was on the list of South Carolina's nonnegotiable demands at the Constitutional Convention. All the delegates knew that full well, which is perhaps why no one opposed Butler's fugitive slave clause. There is no record of any delegate\u2014not Franklin, Madison, Mason, nobody\u2014objecting to it. Reworded by the committee chaired by the antislavery Gouverneur Morris before being incorporated, it read in the evasive language characteristic of the Constitution regarding slavery:\n\nNo Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.\n\nThe fact of acknowledging the existence of a \"person held to service\" gave constitutional permission for the existence of slavery. Of the various clauses protecting slavery in the Constitution, the fugitive slave clause was the only one that required non-slave states to be proactive in enforcing it, and it implied that no state could prohibit slavery entirely on its terrain. It gave rise to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, and then to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the subsequent _Dred Scott_ decision (1857) that accelerated the nation's downward spiral to war. By then, posses of people-snatchers were abducting free blacks from the North to sell them down South.\n\nThe fugitive slave clause meant that no state could become a haven for marronage. There was, however, still such a haven to South Carolina's southern flank in Spanish-controlled East Florida. To take that out would require a strong national government; South Carolina was incapable of doing it alone. So much manpower was needed to repress the black majority of South Carolina that little was available for external military ventures.\n\nThe most important non-mention of slavery in the Constitution from our point of view is one of the least-known by the general public, the first paragraph of Article One, Section Nine, which we take the liberty of reproducing for a second time:\n\nThe Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.\n\nThough vaguely enough worded that \"importation of persons\" could apply to indentured servants, it was a twenty-year guarantee that the African slave trade could not be banned or prohibitively dutied. (No one ever figured out what the framers meant by \"Migration.\") It did not mean that the slave trade would have to be prohibited as of 1808; it meant that the slave trade could not be prohibited by the federal government before then.\n\nThe \"importation of persons\" clause is singularly out of place in the Constitution. It's the sort of thing that would normally be the subject of legislation, concerned as it was with then-current conditions. But its presence in the Constitution made the twenty-year guarantee of being able to reopen the slave trade in some sense structural to the new nation.\n\nIn practice, South Carolina merchants didn't want importation to be open at that time. The same South Carolina legislature that sent four delegates to the Constitutional Convention to argue for the protection of the slave trade in 1787 also voted to suspend South Carolina's slave trades, both foreign and interstate, for three years, though they subsequently changed their mind about the interstate trade the following year.\n\nSouth Carolina's legislature, home to the most practiced slave-dealers in the thirteen colonies, turned the spigot of the foreign and domestic slave trades on and off as market conditions dictated, though not without tremendous clashes of internal interests in the process. Seesawing between prohibiting and facilitating the foreign trade was partly due to the fluctuations of intrastate labor politics. Charleston and the Lowcountry coastal gentry, who controlled the South Carolina legislature, had plenty of slaves. It was the new settlers out west who wanted more of them. The black-to-white ratio in the Lowcountry was 3:1, but upcountry it was 1:4; the Lowcountry was twelve times as black as upcountry. If an African trade were to dump vast numbers of new Africans onto the market, the cash value of Lowcountry planters' human capital would drop. It would only make sense for them to allow the African trade if there was a vast new market opening up that South Carolina could not supply with its own slaves, but could service via importation and re-exportation.\n\nThe question was taken up at the Constitutional Convention on August 21, 1787. Such records as we have of the debate over this measure, as summarized by James Madison and more vaguely by the Constitutional Convention's bad note-taker James McHenry, make clear that everyone understood the stakes of prohibiting or permitting the foreign slave trade. According to Madison's summary, Rutledge of South Carolina put it bluntly: \"Religion & humanity had nothing to do with this question\u2014Interest alone is the governing principle with Nations\u2014The true question at present is whether the Southn. States shall or shall not be parties to the Union.\"\n\nBy this point, the three-fifths clause had been approved. With that in hand, the four South Carolina delegates drove home their right to expand their disproportionate franchise with all the Africans they could import. They backed their demand with the ever-present threat to walk, insisting that, as South Carolina's Charles Pinckney put it, \"South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that State has expressly & watchfully excepted that of meddling with the importation of negroes.\"\n\nGeorgia was South Carolina's ally in this; Virginia, on the other hand, was an adversary to South Carolina in this showdown, with Maryland as Virginia's ally. Continuing importation of Africans would do nothing to profit Virginia slaveowners; quite the contrary. George Mason made a speech whose fire burns through Madison's paraphrase, beginning with the standard disclaimer that \"this infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it.\" That said, he went on to point out that \"the evil of having slaves was experienced during the late war. Had slaves been treated as they might have been by the Enemy, they would have proved dangerous instruments in their hands,\" meaning that had Britain been more adept at exploiting the enslaved population, much more damage could have been done.\n\nMason argued for uniform conditions: \"Maryland & Virginia he said had already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. N. Carolina had done the same in substance. All this would be in vain if S. Carolina & Georgia be at liberty to import.\" What Mason described did in fact subsequently happen: \"The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands; and will fill that Country with slaves if they can be got thro' S. Carolina & Georgia.\" Mason went on to catalog the ills of slavery for a society: \"Slavery discourages arts & manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the immigration of Whites, who really enrich & strengthen a Country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country...\"\n\nThe key point was expressed by South Carolina's Charles Cotesworth Pinckney on August 22. The son of Charles Pinckney and indigo doyenne Eliza Lucas Pinckney, he was referred to as \"General Pinckney\" to differentiate him from his cousin Charles Pinckney, who was another of South Carolina's four delegates to the convention. General Pinckney described correctly what would happen in the future. In Madison's paraphrase: \"S. Carolina & Georgia cannot do without slaves. As to Virginia she will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, & she has more than she wants. It would be unequal to require S.C. & Georgia to confederate on such unequal terms.\"\n\n_Virginia's slaves will rise in value. She has more than she wants._ That was the economic argument, in a nutshell. Ending the African trade would be a bonanza for Virginia, which stood to dominate the domestic slave trade. Mason noted that the Carolinians were poised to profit if allowed to import; Pinckney countered by pointing out that if importation were not allowed, Virginia would have that lucrative market cornered.\n\nVirginia's interstate slave trade was already going on. A few months after Pinckney's words, the Richmond _Virginia Independent Chronicle_ carried an advertisement by Moses Austin & Co. If the name seems familiar, that's because he was the father of Stephen F. Austin, who later brought Southern slavery to Texas and for whom the Texas capital was named. The senior Austin, who began the American lead industry, was at the time a dry goods merchant, and though he was not a full time slave trader, on December 26, 1787, he was offering to dispose of troublesome slaves by selling them South, probably to Georgia:\n\n_W A N T E D_ , ONE HUNDRED NEGROES, From 12 to 30 years old, for which a good price will be given. They are to be sent out of the state, therefore we shall not be particular respecting the character of any of them\u2014Hearty and well made is all that is necessary.\n\nThe question of slave breeding (Virginia) versus slave importation (Carolina) to supply the demand for labor in whatever new territories might be annexed in the next twenty years was so financially momentous that it almost derailed the Constitution. McHenry's notes from the Constitutional Convention summarized the situation:\n\n[The three-fifths clause] gave the slave States an advantage in representation over the others.\n\nThe slaves were moreover exempt from duty on importation.\n\nThey served to render the representation from such States aristocratical.\n\nIt was replied\u2014That the population or increase of slaves in Virginia exceeded their calls for their services\u2014That a prohibition of Slaves into S. Carolina Georgia etc\u2014would be a monopoly in their favor. These States could not do without Slaves\u2014Virginia etc would make their own terms for such as they might sell.\n\nSuch was the situation of the country that it could not exist without slaves\u2014That they could confederate on no other condition.\n\nThey had enjoyed the right of importing slaves when colonies.\n\nThey enjoyed as States [ _sic_ ] under the confederation\u2014And if they could not enjoy it under the proposed government, they could not associate or make a part of it.\n\nThen, on Saturday, August 25, in Madison's words, \"Genl Pinkney moved to strike out the words 'the year eighteen hundred' (as the year limiting the importation of slaves), and to insert the words 'the year eighteen hundred and eight.'\" Pinckney was prescient, as South Carolina's slave-importation bonanza would not begin until after the acquisition of Louisiana at the end of 1803, something no one could have predicted.\n\nCharleston had built great fortunes by re-exporting Africans to the neighboring territories. Now it was poised to service the future market when the nation grew to the South and the West. No one knew exactly when, or under what conditions, that might happen.\n\n*Raised to sixty thousand in the Northwest Ordinance.\n\n#   23\n\n# **Ten Thousand Powers**\n\n_It appears that Mr. Henry is not at bottom a friend._\n\n\u2014James Madison to George Washington, October 28, 1787\n\nWHEN THE SOUTH CAROLINA House of Representatives met to ratify the successfully negotiated Constitution in January 1788, former South Carolina governor Rawlins Lowndes congratulated Charles Cotesworth Pinckney by unleashing a blast of anti-Northern bitterness.\n\n\"Negroes were our wealth, our only natural resource,\" Lowndes said, \"yet behold how our kind friends in the North were determined soon to tie up our hands, and drain us of what we had,\" with palpable sarcasm on the word \"friends.\"\n\n\"We are at a loss, for some time,\" Pinckney responded, \"for a rule to ascertain the proportionate wealth of the states. At last we thought that the productive labor of the inhabitants was the best rule for ascertaining their wealth.\" Pinckney struck the already familiar tone of intra-sectional rivalry as he continued:\n\nyour delegates had to contend with the religious and political prejudices of the Eastern and Middle States, and with the interested and inconsistent opinion of _Virginia, who was warmly opposed to our importing more slaves._\n\nI am of the same opinion now as I was two years ago... that, while there remained one acre of swampland uncleared of South Carolina, I would raise my voice against restricting the importation of negroes. I am... thoroughly convinced... that the nature of our climate, and the flat, swampy situation of our country, obliges us to cultivate our lands with negroes, and that without them South Carolina would soon be a desert waste. (emphasis added)\n\nYet, Pinckney insisted, there was a reason for South Carolina to have negotiated over this issue and to have joined the newly constituted republic: facing potential or actual threats from the English, the Spanish, the Native Americans, the free blacks of Florida, and its own captive labor force, South Carolina needed the other states to defend it.\n\nWe are so weak that by ourselves we could not form an union strong enough for the purpose of effectually protecting each other. Without union with the other States, South Carolina must soon fall. Is there any one among us so much a Quixotte as to suppose that this State could long maintain her independence if she stood alone, or was only connected with the Southern States? I scarcely believe there is... By this settlement we have secured an unlimited importation of negroes for twenty years. Nor is it declared that the importation shall be then stopped; it may be continued. We have a security that the general government can never emancipate them, for no such authority is granted; and it is admitted, on all hands, that the general government has no powers but what are expressly granted by the Constitution, and that all rights not expressed were reserved by the several states. We have obtained a right to recover our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short, considering all circumstances, we have made the best terms for the security of this species of property it was in our power to make. We would have made better if we could; but, on the whole, I do not think them bad.\n\nThe two points had been made, yet again: one, without enslaved black labor, South Carolina would be desperately poor; two, without a defensive alliance, South Carolina could not survive. It was equally true in Georgia; as George Washington wrote in a letter of January 17, 1788: \"if a weak state [Georgia], with powerful tribes of Indians in its rear and the Spaniards on its flank, do not incline to embrace a strong _general_ government, there must, I should think, be either wickedness or insanity in their conduct.\"\n\nThe word \"slave\" may have been silent in the Constitution, but not in the nationwide ratification debate. It required considerable persuasion to sell the ratification of the Constitution up North in the face of increasing antislavery sentiment. The provision for possibly ending the African slave trade after twenty years had to be touted as a step toward ending slavery, which it was not.\n\nThere was no debate in South Carolina as to whether the Constitution gave sufficient protection to slavery: it did. South Carolina had gotten what it wanted, and ratified the Constitution easily, despite protests from upcountry farmers who saw themselves as self-sufficient. David Waldstreicher writes that \"strikingly few people\" in the Lowcountry \"criticized the Constitution for being insufficiently pro-slavery.... The relative absence of debate on the topic in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia speaks volumes.... The only reason North Carolina did not ratify was because slavery-dominated districts did not outnumber those where small farmers predominated.\"\n\nThe South Carolina Assembly voted in 1786 to move the capital to an upcountry site and to name it Columbia. It ratified a carefully drafted state constitution in 1790 that, like Britain, required property-holding and tax-paying in order to be able to exercise the voting franchise, with higher property-holding requirements for important officeholders. In effect, this excluded non-slaveholders from government. These requirements were partly expressed as a number of \"negroes,\" so that a state representative was expected to \"be legally seized and possessed in his own right of a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of land and ten negroes, or of a real estate of the value of one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, clear of debt.\" The governor was required to have an estate of fifteen hundred pounds sterling. From then until after the end of slavery, South Carolina's governor, US senators, and congressmen would not be chosen by popular vote but by the assembly, which was utterly dominated by planters; nor did the people at large have a vote in the presidential election.\n\nThe Constitution owed its existence to two Virginians: Washington, who chaired the convention and lent his prestige to it, and Madison, the principal drafter. But even so, Virginia, less in need of defense from invasion than South Carolina, was less eager to ratify. There was extensive sentiment in Virginia that the proposed Constitution gave too much power to a federal government. With eight states having ratified the Constitution out of nine needed, Virginia was widely seen as the swing state for ratification (though as it played out, New Hampshire became the ninth to ratify), and it was sharply divided.\n\nThe opposition was led by Patrick Henry and George Mason. Henry had declined appointment to the Constitutional Convention, worrying James Madison, who with characteristic precision correctly predicted what Henry would do: \"Besides the loss of his services on that theater [of the Constitutional Convention], there is a danger I fear that this step has proceeded from a wish to leave his conduct unfettered on another theatre where the result of the Convention will receive its destiny from his omnipotence.\" Mason, however, had participated in the Constitutional Convention but did not like the result.\n\nHenry saw Virginia as a \"country\" that would lose her sovereignty by demotion to membership in a \"general\" government. \"What is become of your country?\" he asked rhetorically. \"The Virginian government is but a name.\" He warned that if you \"give up your rights to the general government,\" then that government would have the terrible power to end slavery. Sounding the tocsin of sectional antagonism, he warned that the Constitution would put slaveowners at risk for losing their property. \"Among ten thousand powers which they may assume,\" thundered Henry (imagine exclamation points), \"they [the general government] may, if we be engaged in war, liberate every one of your slaves if they please. And this must and will be done by men, a majority of whom have not a common interest with you. They will therefore have no feeling for your interests.\"\n\nPatrick Henry believed that the Articles of Confederation were adequate. An isolated provincial by then at the age of fifty-one, he was out of touch with the world beyond Richmond. James Madison, whom Henry directly confronted in the ratification debate, knew the complexities of American politics at that moment as well as anyone alive, and he knew the Articles of Confederation weren't working. Much of the country was in a state of near anarchy, with no visible control at any higher level than the local. A pro-Constitution essay in the Winchester, Virginia, _Gazette_ of January 18, 1788, said plainly, \"At the American Revolution there was not only an end to the power of the crown, but a total dissolution of government.\" The South Carolinians, who were in favor of a national government that would defend them from external attack even as they demanded protection for slavery, were in much better contact with the real world of commerce than Patrick Henry. In a sense, Henry was arguing for imposing the decentralization of Chesapeake society on the nation.\n\nThe Constitution and Patrick Henry were on a collision course as regards rhetoric as well. The Constitution was everything Henry wasn't: concise and restrained. Henry's style was to sweep the listener away with cathartic discourse, the opposite of Madison's neoclassical rationality. The clash between Henry and Madison in the Virginia House of Delegates wasn't a fair fight, oratorically speaking. Madison was small, analytical, and a mumbler\u2014\"Mr. _Madison_ added other remarks which could not be heard\" is one of many such notations in the debate minutes\u2014while Henry was an expansive, emotional orator who filled in the silences about slavery in Madison's document.\n\nHenry, who literally talked for days, warned on June 17, 1788, in the Virginia Convention that had been called to debate ratification, that a national Congress could do the most horrifying thing possible: free Virginia's slaves. The Constitution did not give Congress the power of emancipation, but Congress could, in the reporter's paraphrase of Henry, \"lay such heavy taxes on slaves, as would amount to emancipation; and then the Southern States would be the only sufferers.... He considered the clause which had been adduced by the Gentleman as a security for this property, as no security at all. It was no more than this\u2014That a run-away negro could be taken up in Maryland or New-York. This could not prevent Congress from interfering with that property by laying a grievous and enormous tax on it, so as to compel owners to emancipate their slaves rather than pay the tax.\"\n\nIn case of war, Henry warned on June 24, \"may Congress not say, that every black man must fight?\u2014Did we not see a little of this last war?... acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who would go to the army should be free.\" Then he looked into the abyss. \"May they [Congress] not pronounce all slaves free?\" He continued: \"The majority of Congress is to the north, and the slaves are to the south. In this situation, I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone away.\" That the \"property of the people of Virginia\" consisted of other people of Virginia does not seem to have bothered Henry.\n\nThe old rhetorician knew when to deflate himself and jab his audience with something more vernacular. Though it does not appear in the official account of his speech, there is this tidbit in an 1850 account by Hugh Blair Grigsby, the nineteenth-century historian of the Virginia Convention and an influential thinker in secessionist circles:\n\nOn one of the occasions which the reporter passes over with some such remark as, \"Here Mr. Henry declaimed with great pathos on the loss of our liberties,\" I was told by a person on the floor of the Convention at the time, that... he suddenly broke out with the homely exclamation: _\"They'll free your niggers!\"_ The audience passed instantly from fear to wayward laughter; and my informant said that it was most ludicrous to see men who a moment before were half frightened to death, with a broad grin on their faces.\n\nWhatever the truth of this secondhand account, \"They'll free your niggers!\" is indeed a homely summary of what Patrick Henry was saying, and at the very least, Grigsby's quoting of it suggests the continuity that later slaveowners saw with Henry.\n\nUltimately, the opposition of Henry and Mason (along with Jefferson's influence over Madison, exercised from Paris by letter) helped prompt the insertion of the Bill of Rights in 1789. It is in no small part to Henry's resistance that the Constitution owes the Second Amendment in particular\u2014the one that promises \"the right to keep and bear arms\" in order to have \"a wellregulated militia\"\u2014and it too was, in part, about slavery, because in the South, the militia was understood to be identical with the slave patrols that were constantly on guard.\n\nThe Constitution gave Congress a measure of control over the militia, which Henry virulently opposed. He wanted assurances that Congress would not use that control to disarm the militia. The Constitution empowered Congress \"to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.\" This mention of insurrections, while broadly phrased, was made at a time when slave rebellion and Native American uprising were an ever-present threat. Nor was the repelling of invasions by foreign armies something the undisciplined American militias were capable of doing, as would be demonstrated in the War of 1812.\n\nThe Second Amendment was intended in part to insure that Northerners could not interrupt or halt Southern repression of black people and Native Americans\u2014though many, notably including Jefferson, incorrectly thought militias adequate for defending the country, too. The goal of slaveowners was to make the entire South a prison from which no enslaved person could escape; militias were the police force. What was intended by a militia, at least from the point of view of South Carolina, was expressed by Alexander Hewatt in 1779 and agrees with the functions enumerated in the Constitution:\n\nAs all white men in the province, of the military age, were soldiers as well as citizens, and trained in some measure to the use of arms, it was no difficult matter to complete the provincial regiment. Their names being registered in the list of militia on every emergency they were obliged to be ready for defence, not only against the incursions of Indians, but also against the insurrection of negroes.\n\nWhen the Bill of Rights was ratified two years later, it did not lay a hand on slavery, nor did it extend a hand to Americans enslaved at the time the United States was born. The Fifth Amendment provided that \"no person\" could be \"deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.\" At that time, there were 694,280 legally enslaved people, who lived in a far more abject relationship to the people who were legally their owners than the colonists had to their king, and to whom the Fifth Amendment would not apply.\n\nSouthern slavery democratized the divine right of kings. No matter how poor a plantation owner might seem to a London merchant, on the grounds of his plantation he was the head of a royal family where his word was law. Every man of property was a little king, with the power to order sexual reproduction or summary execution. With their labor to provide his income and the collateral of their bodies to secure his credit, he could be free to ponder great things and spend his days in politics. The South's down-home kings had the Constitution at their back, with a Bill of Rights that safeguarded their slave-patrolling militias from being disarmed by abolitionists up North who might at some future point take charge of the federal government, even though the South was disproportionately over-represented in Congress and in presidential elections.\n\nThe South got yet another benefit from the Constitution: Article 1, Section 8 contemplated (but did not mandate) the creation of a \"District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States\"\u2014a neutral ground that would not be part of any state to house the federal capital. With so many Quakers in Pennsylvania, to say nothing of so many free people of color, and with Pennsylvania having passed the Gradual Abolition Act in 1780 (which granted birthright freedom to children born in Pennsylvania but did not affect those already enslaved), slaveholders did not consider Philadelphia a comfortable seat for a government that they expected to safeguard slavery. The Virginians knew where they wanted that federal district to be\u2014right by where George Washington lived.\n\nDuring the First Congress, Second Session, of 1790, Pennsylvania Quakers presented petitions calling for the abolition of slavery, triggering a strongly worded rebuttal. Offended by the Quakers' imputations, South Carolina representative William Smith responded to the petitions with an extended defense of his state. He asked rhetorically of the Quakers, \"had any of them ever married a negro, or would any of them suffer their children to mix their blood with that of a black?\" He then\n\nread some extracts from Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, proving that negroes were by nature an inferior race of beings; and that the whites would always feel a repugnance at mixing their blood with that of the blacks. Thus, he proceeded, that respectable author, who was desirous of countenancing emancipation, was, on consideration of the subject, induced candidly to allow that the difficulties appeared insurmountable.\n\nJefferson in 1790 brokered a deal over dinner with Hamilton: Jefferson would get a Southern capital if Hamilton could begin his financial plan. As a result of the deal, Hamilton created the national debt and the Bank of the United States that issued bonds to back it, paid the veterans of the independence struggle what they were owed, and restored the United States' international credit, while Jefferson set out to create the federal city.\n\nThe one-hundred-square-mile District of Columbia was created out of sixty-one square miles of Maryland land on the north side of the Potomac, where the capital was sited, together with thirty-nine square miles of Virginia land south of the Potomac, including the town of Alexandria, whose harbor was designated by Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe as the Potomac's official port of entry in 1784. Building the new capital city of Washington out of swampland was good for business; it employed lots of slave labor, rented from Virginia and Maryland slaveowners. As construction began, the slave-selling business in Alexandria picked up from the federal stimulus.\n\nSixty years later, the Beaufort, South Carolina, arch-secessionist Robert Barnwell Rhett would call the Jefferson-Hamilton deal a \"corrupt bargain\" in which Jefferson sold out the South. For the political class of South Carolina, who saw themselves as rulers of a sovereign state, the creation of Washington City centralized power in the Chesapeake and legitimized a system of national debt, the payment of which, they believed, would be extorted from them in the form of tariffs. Indeed, the First Congress in 1789 passed a tariff that South Carolina and Georgia saw as a transfer of wealth from South to North, prompting Pierce Butler in 1790 to warn that, in William C. Davis's paraphrase, \"the doctrine of protective tariffs, if pursued, might one day destroy the Union.\"\n\nDuring the thirty-one-month interval between the Constitution taking effect and the Bill of Rights taking effect, the French and Haitian Revolutions erupted. It was one long upheaval: American independence was a French-supported project that occurred in parallel with France's revolution, though the American side erupted first. The two movements were inextricably tied together, with communication between the two and an overlapping cast of characters that included Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette.\n\nIn Europe, where American independence was seen primarily as a victory for France against England, the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, was a far greater shock. Not only had the French monarch been powerful, but France was wealthy: the island colony of Saint-Domingue was the most profitable piece of ground on earth, contributing perhaps as much as 40 percent of France's annual income with its products. In 1789 it supplied \"about 60 percent of the coffee sold in the western world\"; only Jamaica could compete with it as a producer of sugar; and it produced indigo, cotton, and tobacco. It was a high-volume consumer of kidnapped Africans; forty thousand arrived in 1789 alone, after a six-year period that had seen Saint-Domingue's agricultural production double. As such, it generated a vast cash flow for the trans-African slave trade at its height. This capital \"fertilized\" the crops, as C. L. R. James put it: \"though the bourgeoisie traded in other things than slaves, upon the success or failure of the traffic everything else depended.\" The great revenues from Saint-Domingue created the prosperity that was the source of the power France projected internationally. But it was not royal power; the fortunes of the slave trade were made by the bourgeoisie.\n\nSome of the bourgeoisie of Saint-Domingue were free people of color, though they were discriminated against. Stewart King, who analyzed Domingan notarial records, estimates that as many as 30 percent of the slaves in Saint-Domingue were owned by free people of color, who were approximately half the free population. There were about thirty thousand whites and about thirty thousand free people of color in Saint-Domingue, and approximately half a million slaves, about two thirds of them African-born. No comparable-sized piece of ground in Africa had ever sustained such a population. They were angry, and among them they had a considerable body of military knowledge to draw on.\n\nIn the hodgepodge of African nations compacted together under the harsh discipline of the plantation, the Senegambians of Saint-Domingue, from an Islamized region, brought a concept of _jihad._ From farther south in Africa, the Fon-speakers from Ardra (in present-day Benin) followed traditional African practices and called their spirits _foddun_ (from which, _vodou)_ , alongside representatives of other traditional African practices. From farther south yet, in West Central Africa, the most numerous group, the Bakongo, whose military techniques seem to have predominated, had been Catholicized, while continuing their traditional practices. The body of spiritual practices called _vodou_ , which developed along with the Haitian nation, became an umbrella concept, an _e pluribus unum_ of African religion that allowed for different traditions to continue within an overall framework of _nanchons_ , or nations. Under this umbrella, the spirits multiplied.\n\n#   24\n\n# **The French Revolution in America**\n\n_Suppose a negro man of 25. years of age costs \u00a375. sterling: he has an equal chance to live 30. years according to Buffon's tables; so that you lose your principal in 30 years. 1_\n\n\u2014Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, June 18, 1792\n\nBEING ANTI-MONARCHIC AND PRO-REPUBLICAN to the bone, Thomas Jefferson was sympathetic to the French revolutionaries, who in turn idolized him as a hero of the American revolution.\n\nThey misunderstood Jefferson so badly that in 1788, while Jefferson was United States Minister Plenipotentiary in Paris, Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville invited him to become a member of the organization he had founded. Inspired by Thomas Clarkson's Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain, the _Societ\u00e9 des Amis des Noirs_ (Society of the Friends of the Blacks) was the first French antislavery society.\n\nWith the insincerity that was Jefferson's political hallmark, he declined Brissot's invitation, using what the editors of Jefferson's papers, speaking of another occasion, refer to as a \"polite diplomatic fiction.\" In it, he distinguished abolition of slavery from abolition of the slave trade:\n\nI am very sensible of the honour you propose to me of becoming a member of the society for the abolition of the slave trade. You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery: and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object. But the influence & information of the friends to this proposition in France will be far above the need of my association. I am here as a public servant; and those whom I serve having never yet been able to give their voice against this practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public a demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished.\n\nWhen the Bastille fell, Jefferson was in Paris, preparing to leave for home. He'd been packed since April, and he decamped in September 1789 for his mountaintop in Virginia with his daughter Patsy, and\u2014though he had told Brissot that \"nobody would be more willing\" than he to \"encounter every sacrifice\" to end slavery\u2014he brought home as well Patsy's enslaved attendant, the pregnant fifteen- or sixteen-year-old Sally Hemings, who was the deceased Martha Wayles Jefferson's half sister (one of six half siblings Martha had owned) and thus Patsy's illegitimate aunt.\n\nMuch has been written about Hemings in recent years, and we will not summarize her story once again here. It is ironic that she has come to define Jefferson in the modern popular image, with her captivity cast as a love story in some narratives. The fact that she was, as was typical of enslaved concubines, only one-quarter black made her acceptable to Jefferson for cohabiting. As he explained in _Notes_ , elaborating on his pseudoscientific notion of black inferiority: \"The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life.\"\n\nThere was in the last third of the twentieth century a long historiographic scandal over Jefferson's parentage of Sally's children Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston\u2014who, far from being \"removed beyond the reach of mixture,\" were seven-eighths white. We consider the issue of Jefferson's paternity of them to have been resolved and will forbear discussing the literature on the subject here. For us, the key point is not whether Jefferson fathered Hemings's children, but that he _owned_ the children, and could sell them if he wanted.\n\nReturning home from France to what was now a constitutional American republic, Jefferson brought an extraordinarily large cargo of goods he had purchased. The list has delighted Jefferson biographers ever since, with its furniture, cheeses, musical instruments, gadgets like the portable copying machine he had commissioned in London, and 680 bottles of wine. All of it would ultimately be paid for by his slaves, who produced all his revenue.\n\nJefferson answered Washington's call to join his administration and became the first secretary of state, a position that brought him into frequent conflict with his great enemy, Alexander Hamilton, whom Washington named secretary of the treasury.\n\nThe Antillean colony of Saint-Domingue stopped being profitable for France in August 1791, when, in the instability after the French Revolution, with radicals on the ascendant and talk of liberty in the air, another revolution began. A little more than two years after the fall of the Bastille, the enslaved Boukman Dutty\u2014a visionary troublemaker who had been traded into the colony illegally from British Jamaica\u2014led a brilliantly organized, intensely violent August 1791 rebellion on the northern plains of Saint-Domingue. It was the beginning of a complicated struggle, in two main phases with a tense interregnum, that continued until January 1, 1804, when Jean-Jacques Dessalines issued the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Haiti, taking the new country's name from the indigenous Ta\u00edno language.*\n\nThe military aspect of Boukman's experience was informed by both African and European techniques of war, and by the body of African spiritual practices that in Haiti came to be collectively known as vodou.\n\nBy the time the US Bill of Rights went into effect on December 15, 1791, the sugar plantations of the northern plain of Saint-Domingue lay in ash heaps. The consequences were immediate: Europe's sugar and slavery industries were remade overnight. The principal supplier of sugar abruptly disappeared from the world market, though it would re-emerge to a lesser degree under Toussaint Louverture, who reinstated the plantation system with conscripted labor.\n\nCuba stepped in to fill the breach in sugar supply. The island had received its first shipment of African slaves in the 1520s, but for most of that time it had principally been a transshipping center for silver and gold from Mexico and Peru; without a plantation system, it had not been a major importer of slaves. Though Africans had been in Cuba for almost three centuries by then, the first four decades of the nineteenth century would be Cuba's peak period of importation of kidnapped Africans\u2014a tremendous source of revenue for those who supplied the captives\u2014as well as Havana's peak of prosperity, as sugar plantations proliferated.\n\nThe Domingan slaveowners were internationally notorious for sadism toward the enslaved. The uprising was everything they had feared, and the convulsive violence of it was made even worse in the telling of it by slaveowners, who were the sources of much of the printed discourse around it. \"Their standard was the body of a white infant impaled upon a stake,\" read a pamphlet widely read in France and in England, though there is no corroborating evidence that such a baby on a pike existed. The message hardly needed reinforcing: the natural state of the \"Negro\" was to be a baby-murdering, devil-worshipping savage. Accounts circulated in the slaveholding South of the spectacular violence directed against the bodies and plantation properties of the whites in the northern agricultural plain of Saint-Domingue. Word spread through the black Americas what had happened: the enslaved heard it through the inter-plantation grapevine, and they heard their aghast masters talking about it.\n\nThe United States' 1778 treaties with Louis XVI, which created the framework pursuant to which France substantially helped the United States win the War of Independence, committed the American republic to recognize France's claim on Saint-Domingue. No one in Washington's administration\u2014not Hamilton, and certainly not Jefferson\u2014wanted to see slave revolt there. The United States weighed in, and by 1792 had proactively spent some $726,000 in \"supplies, arms, and equipment\" to support the Domingan planters against the black rebels.\n\nIn a letter to President Washington, Secretary of State Jefferson attempted in 1792 to answer some questions about American agriculture posed by the English agricultural expert Arthur Young, whom Jefferson knew from Paris. In calculating the relative value of hired versus owned laborers, he observed that \"our families of negroes double in about 25. years, which is an increase of the capital, invested in them, of 4. per cent over & above keeping up the original number.\"\n\nThis is unambiguous: Jefferson was describing African Americans as self-reproducing merchandise that could meet a capital returns target. The consequences for Jefferson's personal economy of this calculation were that, in Henry Wiencek's words, \"he had realized that he was making 4 percent profit every year on the birth of black children.\"\n\nIn reply, Young disputed Jefferson's figures for wheat\u2014because, he said, it was impossible to raise as much wheat as Jefferson projected without proper land management (not something Virginia was known for), which meant letting land lie fallow, which in turn would call for more cows and sheep to graze it than Jefferson projected. He scoffed at Jefferson's projection of \u00a360 profit annually from slave-breeding, noting that \"to have a considerable value in slaves, is a hazardous capital; and there is no man in the world who would not give 60 _l._ a year on six thousand acres, to be able to change slaves to cows and sheep: he cannot otherwise command labour, and therefore must keep them; but the profit in any other light than labourers, is inadmissible.\"\n\nYoung may have understood the economics of wheat-raising better than Jefferson, but as he acknowledged in his letter, he was not on the ground in Virginia. The English economist does not seem to have fully understood how Virginians were wringing multidimensional profits from their labourers over and above their capacity to labor. Which is to say, he did not comprehend the nascent slave-breeding industry. In the process of explaining it to him, Jefferson seems to have improved his own comprehension of it.\n\nIn a response to Washington about Young's reply, Jefferson pleaded inexperience with macroeconomics, as he had not already had these figures on the ready but had to create them from scratch. He wrote, \"I had never before thought of calculating what were the profits of a capital invested in Virginia agriculture\"\u2014an extraordinary admission, it might seem, for a debt-burdened owner of a large slave plantation. But then, Hamilton, not Jefferson, was the money man in the Washington administration; though Jefferson was a compulsive record-keeper who kept minutely detailed lists of expenditures, he \"abandoned any effort to balance credits and debits in 1770,\" writes Alan Pell Crawford. Other large slaveowners who were more adept financial managers than Jefferson, like Charles Carroll of Annapolis, had been calculating their profits on \"natural increase\" all along.\n\nSlaveowners knew that their wealth increased with every enslaved birth, of course. The revelation for Jefferson was to think of it in terms of capitalism. It was a subtle perceptual shift that seems obvious to us now: translate that knowledge into a dollar figure that could be compared with other investments as an abstract rate of return. In comparing those figures, Wiencek suggests, Jefferson had realized that raising slaves was his best business. Wiencek's interpretation of this correspondence as a pivotal moment in Jefferson's thinking was attacked vociferously, and, in our opinion, incorrectly, by Hemings family biographer Annette Gordon-Reed, who legalistically argued that Jefferson \"was not speaking about his slaves at Monticello\u2014he was speaking about farms in Virginia generally.\" But that seems a false distinction: Jefferson's phrase was _\"our_ families of negroes,\" emphasis added. He identified personally with what he was describing.\n\nMore to our point, however, is that, as Gordon-Reed indicated, Jefferson was telling Young (and Washington) that slave reproduction was increasing Virginia's capital stock by 4 percent every year, whether there was a good crop or a bad one. That had obvious implications for him, both as a Virginia politician and as a large slaveowner. Laden with debt and entirely invested in the human capital of slaves, Jefferson was representative of the slaveowning class.\n\nAlexander Hamilton was not interested in monetizing slaves. Along with Aaron Burr, he was a member of the New York Manumission Society, which kept lists of slave traders and urged they be boycotted and which played a role in urging the end of slavery in New York.\n\nHamilton and Jefferson were the public faces of the England-France split of the country, which meant something close to civil war. Neither were pro-democracy ideologues. Hamilton loathed the idea of democracy, which he referred to as \"poison\" in a letter written the last night of his life, while, as Lucia Stanton notes, \"democracy\" was \"a word Jefferson rarely used and never in the way we do today.\"\n\nThe Federalist money of New England and New York was pro-British, while Republican Virginia was mostly pro-French. The Jeffersonians painted President Washington as an aristocrat and monarchist mouthing pro-British words supplied to him by the manipulator Hamilton, who was understood to be a threat to slavery.\n\nWashington, the father of the Constitution, didn't want political parties. All the specifications in the Constitution about representatives and senators didn't contemplate that they would be members of one of two political parties. More than any other individual, Jefferson was responsible for creating a party system in the United States, and he did so in direct opposition to Washington, while he was Washington's secretary of state. Washington, perhaps understandably, took it as a personal betrayal.\n\nJefferson had watched the workings of parties in revolutionary France. He created his own propaganda organ out of patronage by giving printer Philip Freneau a job in the Department of State, thereby supporting the publication of Freneau's highly partisan _National Gazette._ As of October 31, 1791, it published unsigned attacks by Jefferson and Madison, among others, against Hamilton, Washington, and the policies of the very administration from which Jefferson was a political renegade.\n\nWhen the French Republic was declared to exist in 1792, the radical Girondins were in power, though they were soon to be displaced (and many of them executed) by the more radical Jacobins. Believing in the radicalism of the American revolution, the more idealistic of the Girondins dreamed of a political union between the American and French republics, a free trade zone where _citoyens_ of one country would be citizens of the other. The Girondins had no strong hierarchy, but their de facto leader was the writer Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, he who had previously invited Jefferson to join his abolition society; they were sometimes known as Brissotins.\n\nBrissot had traveled in the mid-Atlantic and Upper South of the United States, where he attempted to help organize antislavery societies, and published a narrative of his observations in 1791. A significant chunk of his book is about his contacts with slavery in America. He wrote of Jefferson's home state: \"Every thing in Maryland and Virginia wears the print of slavery; a starved soil. Bad cultivation, houses falling to ruin, cattle small and few, and black walking skeletons; in a word, you see real misery and apparent luxury, insulting each other.\" Still, Brissot idealized America and he admired Jefferson, who had advised Lafayette during the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man\u2014betraying, as some saw it, America's independence ally Louis XVI.\n\nBrissot, momentarily in a position of power in 1793, dispatched the loose cannon Citizen Edmund-Charles Gen\u00eat as the Minister Plenipotentiary to America, advising him to trust Jefferson over all other Americans. Gen\u00eat's father had been a courtier to Louis XV, and he had grown up at Versailles, so he had the necessary skills and contacts for the mission Brissot entrusted him with: to escort the royal family\u2014Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the young Dauphin\u2014out of France to a safe exile in America. But before Gen\u00eat could depart, the Jacobin faction pressed the momentous vote on death for the monarch, with Brissot as one of 387 convention members voting for regicide. Eleven days after guillotining King Louis XVI on January 21, 1793, the Girondins declared war on Britain and the Netherlands.\n\nGen\u00eat went on to the United States alone, with a diplomatic brief, basically, to be a saboteur\u2014to export the French revolution, consolidate the alliance with the United States, and, in the words of Gen\u00eat's biographer Meade Minnigerode, \"to do all the harm he could to England and Spain in America.\" He was also supposed to collect Louis XVI's $2 million war debt from the Americans so they could use it in the war in Saint-Domingue. (Hamilton had been making timely payments, but the French wanted the principal.) The charming, thirty-year-old Gen\u00eat's instructions gave him a budget of sixty thousand _livres_ , with the laughable instruction to draw it from the United States Treasury\u2014meaning, he was supposed to get it from Alexander Hamilton\u2014to be deducted from the American war debt to France.\n\nOn his way to America, Gen\u00eat paused his voyage so that his vessel, the _Embuscade_ (Ambush), could engage in privateering against British merchants. He took several prizes before being blown off-course and landing on April 8, 1793, in Charleston rather than the intended destination of Philadelphia. Despite the urgency of his diplomatic mission, the delighted Gen\u00eat determined to travel up the coast from Charleston by land.\n\nThe day after Gen\u00eat arrived in Charleston, the April 9, 1793, issue of _The Apollo; or Chestertown Spy_ (Maryland), was headlined by the shocking, just-arrived news of the execution of Louis XVI eleven weeks earlier. A smaller, more locally oriented, article was also significant:\n\nOn Tuesday last the _Corner Stone_ of the AFRICAN CHURCH, was laid in Fifth Street, between Walnut and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, by four of the members of the Church. One of them afterwards kneeled down upon the stone and prayed in a fervent manner, for the success and usefulness of the undertaking.\n\nThis church will be forty-six feet in front, and sixty feet in depth.\n\nThe Bill of Rights' guarantee of freedom of religion gave protection to the movement of free black people toward becoming churched. The Free African Society, founded in Philadelphia in April 1787, was a mutual aid organization that aimed to create a nondenominational black church.\n\nWith the disestablishment of the Anglican church, or any other, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the murderous religious divisions that had long plagued Europe and carried over to the colonies\u2014between Catholic and Protestant, between Anglican and evangelical\u2014were moderated. Instead, there was a division between white and black that extended into the spiritual sphere. The church whose construction was announced in the _Spy_ was the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, founded by the Free African Society's Absalom Jones. After a split along Anglican\/Methodist lines, the society's Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Both churches taught reading to children.\n\n\"Mother Bethel,\" the A.M.E. church, which began as the Blacksmith Shop Meeting-House, was consecrated on July 29, 1794, as a great wave of evangelization was sweeping over First Amendment America, with numbers of African Americans taking to Jesus as their liberator. Methodism was still associated with antislavery, and abolition societies already existed in the 1790s, as per the notice in the _Chestertown Spy_ , enlarged and reproduced here.\n\nThere were no such societies in the Lowcountry, where such a thing would not have been tolerated. Nor were the enslaved there allowed to preach, as Frederick Law Olmsted quoted a slaveowner in 1853, \"unless a white man hears what they say.\"\n\nCharlestonians were known for extending a generous, courteous welcome to foreigners of a certain social rank, with which they hoped to win over ambassadors for the goodness of slavery. Gen\u00eat was given a superstar's welcome in South Carolina, where he met leading men of the state\u2014\"Dictator\" Rutledge, Senator Ralph Izard, Thomas Pinckney. While not many of the Federalists in Charleston turned out to greet him, most of the Southern elite supported the republicans in France. It comported flatteringly with the Charlestonians' view of their own importance that the emissary of the greatest nation in the world had come to see them first.\n\nWith South Carolina governor William Moultrie's full permission, Gen\u00eat commissioned four privateers (one of them named the _Citizen Gen\u00eat)_ , which began attacking English shipping and bringing the prizes into Charleston harbor.\n\nThat activity, which Jefferson ultimately made him stop, carried the possibility of bringing down retribution or even a declaration of war against the United States by the British navy, the world's most powerful. It provided the direct motivation for the passage by the next Congress of the Neutrality Act of 1794, which prohibited freelance warmongering.\n\nGen\u00eat wrote that Izard told him\u2014though he disregarded the advice\u2014that Jefferson and Madison \"pretend to be great republicans... They will do everything in their power to secure you on their side and will be friendly to you as long as your country or yourself may be serviceable to their ambitious views. Place no confidence in them.\" When Gen\u00eat answered that \"I shall have no other friends in America but those who will be friendly to France and to the cause of liberty,\" Izard replied, according to Gen\u00eat, \"oh[,] then[,] I see that you are going to fall into the snares of Mr. Jefferson and his party, and very probably will become their victim.\"\n\nJefferson indeed befriended young Gen\u00eat. The Virginia trio of Jefferson, Madison, and James Monroe saw American support for republican France as essential. In a letter to James Monroe of June 4, 1793, Jefferson, looking forward to dual citizenship for all, wrote: \"France has explained herself generously.... she wishes to promote [our prosperity] by giving us in all her possessions all the rights of her native citizens, and to receive our vessels as her vessels. This is the language of her new minister. Gr. Britain holds back with the most sullen silence and reserve.\"\n\nWashington took Jefferson's advice to receive Gen\u00eat, but did it standing in front of portraits of the murdered Louis, who had supported him in the War of Independence, and Marie Antoinette, who had not yet gone to the guillotine. By recognizing Gen\u00eat, the pro-British Washington was not merely recognizing the French Revolution, but actively harboring a hostile agent against Britain. Gen\u00eat proposed a commercial treaty\u2014a family compact, he called it\u2014that Jefferson was in favor of but Washington shot down, which would have ultimately had the effect of making the United States France's ally against Britain in war.\n\nThe radical Montagnard faction of the Jacobin Club came to power in France, on June 2, 1793. The execution of King Louis XVI was the beginning of the ascent to power of the _terroristes_ \u2014Danton, Marat, Robespierre\u2014as the Montagnards began liquidating all opposition, with the Girondins as their main political targets. Gen\u00eat, who like all transatlantic diplomats had to contend with a lag of five weeks minimum, and often months, to receive word from home, continued prosecuting his agenda. Meanwhile, Brissot and twenty-one other Girondins went to the guillotine on October 31, 1793; one of the charges against Brissot was his responsibility for Gen\u00eat's mission.\n\nAccording to Gen\u00eat's account, the popularity of the French Revolution in the United States brought a group of Philadelphians to ask him for advice on what to name their Jacobin club, the constitution of which had been drawn up by Pennsylvania secretary of state Alexander Dallas. Gen\u00eat diplomatically suggested they call it the Democratic Club. Soon every American city had a club with a variety of names, collectively remembered as the Democratic-Republican societies, which were in favor of the French Revolution and which began the formalization of the opposition into a Democratic-Republican party, with Jefferson as its leader.\n\nIn Saint-Domingue, the Jacobin revolutionary civilian commissioners L\u00e9ger-F\u00e9licit\u00e9 Sonthonax and \u00c9tienne Polverel came into open confrontation with General Fran\u00e7ois-Thomas Galbaud du Fort, the Royalist head of the French fleet and an absentee landowner in Saint-Domingue, who had assumed authority. After Galbaud attacked Cap Fran\u00e7ais, sending two thousand or so sailors and newly unchained political prisoners to run riot in that city on June 20, 1793, they were driven away by an army of black freedmen fighting on the side of Sonthonax and Polverel. In a battle that lasted several days, the city of Cap Fran\u00e7ais\u2014Saint-Domingue's largest port, and a center of arts and culture\u2014burned to the ground. Galbaud evacuated with about ten thousand people, whom he brought to Baltimore first; by August, his fleet had dropped anchor in New York, from which base his ships began cruising up and down the coast. Gen\u00eat tried to have Galbaud arrested, but he had broken no US law.\n\nRefugees had fled Saint-Domingue with the first insurrection in 1791; now, in a new wave, more refugees traveled down the Antilles\u2014Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Trinidad\u2014or to next-door, British-controlled Jamaica, while the largest number sailed up the Gulf Stream to the East Coast of the United States.\n\nOnly a few went to New Orleans at the time, though later the US-controlled New Orleans would become a magnet for what Nathalie Dessens describes as the ultimate \"convergence zone\" of a \"real Saint-Domingan diaspora\" that kept in touch with family, friends, and business connections, both by correspondence and by travel. But New Orleans was not an immediate destination in 1793: it was not as accessible by sail as Atlantic North America because of the loop current in the Gulf. Moreover, the Spanish government of Louisiana was not welcoming to French refugees, some of whom were evangelists for revolution.\n\nA convoy of 137 ships carrying Domingan refugees arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, in July 1793; from there, they went to cities up and down the coastline. Many went to Charleston, where there was already a community of French-speaking Huguenots. Bringing a new wave of Catholicism to the city, they effectively took over an Irish church there. John E. Baur notes that \"St. Domingue's creoles, many of them republican, tended to go to the Southern states, while French-born Royalists generally settled in New England and the Middle Atlantic states.\" About four thousand Domingans went to New York.\n\nIn Philadelphia, the nation's capital and largest city, refugees who began arriving from Saint-Domingue in the spring were widely believed to have brought the city's first yellow fever epidemic in 1793, which killed over 10 percent of the town's population, causing many residents to flee, while the Free African Society cared for the sick and dying. Erupting out of the dockside area, it paralyzed the city and the US government. Dr. Benjamin Rush identified the disease on August 19, and it abated in mid-October, when the weather cooled and mosquitoes stopped biting (though their agency as disease vectors was not yet realized), and it did not spread anywhere else.\n\nDuring this crisis and in the months before, French privateers had been openly using the United States as a base. Their vessels, fitted out in the United States, had been taking British prizes\u2014and Spanish, and even American\u2014and bringing them into American harbors\u2014Charleston, New York, Wilmington, Boston. This was inviting war with Britain, but, as Jefferson insisted in a cabinet meeting, \"the French have by treaty a right to come into our ports with prizes.\" Finally, realizing that Gen\u00eat's attacks on British shipping from a US base could put them at war with England, Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson concurred that he had to stop passing out letters of marque to privateers.\n\nThe summer of 1793 stands out for the electric political turmoil in Philadelphia. The mounting death toll from the epidemic, combined with the convulsive energy emanating from the Terror in Paris and from Saint-Domingue, kept the town agitated, as political clubs increased in number and in aggression. Washington's government was nearly overthrown, as Adams angrily reminded Jefferson in an exchange of letters twenty years later:\n\nYou certainly never felt the Terrorism, excited by Genet, in 1793, when ten thousand People in the Streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag Washington out of his House, and effect a Revolution in the Government, or compell it to declare War in favour of the French Revolution, and against England. The coolest and the firmest Minds, even among the Quakers in Philadelphia, have given their Opinions to me, that nothing but the Yellow Fever... could have saved the United States from a total Revolution of Government. I have no doubt You was fast asleep in philosophical Tranquility, when ten thousand People, and perhaps many more, were parading the streets of Philadelphia.... What think you of Terrorism, Mr. Jefferson?\n\nJefferson rationalized the mass guillotinings in Paris, even though some of his friends had fallen victim. But then the Jacobins brought terror to Jefferson, in the form of an emancipation proclamation.\n\nThe black army was the strongest force in Saint-Domingue, and it was better to be with it than against it; the French navy was an enemy; and Britain and Spain were both trying to take the colony over. Needing allies, Sonthonax and Polverel offered freedom to slaves who would join them\u2014at first within a limited geographic range, then widening its scope. Justified by strategic considerations, and consistent with their own revolutionary principles, they unilaterally abolished slavery by proclamation in the northern province of Saint-Domingue on August 29, 1793. Over the next two months the decree was at least theoretically extended to the rest of the island, though the commissioners did not control all the territory. They needed as unified a force as possible: in September, the British invaded Saint-Domingue from their base in Jamaica, attracting the support of pro-British planters.\n\nThough Jefferson was alarmed by Gen\u00eat's reckless actions, he was the administration member identified with the French. He had tried to resign before; now, in the wake of the turbulence that trailed Gen\u00eat, his opposition to the Washington administration made his position untenable. Jefferson left the post of secretary of state on December 31, 1793, announcing his return to Monticello. Vice President John Adams's comment in a letter to his son John Quincy Adams attributed Jefferson's resignation to his not making enough money as vice president to support his \"habit\" of expensive living, adding:\n\nJefferson thinks by this step to get a reputation of an humble, modest, meek man, wholly without ambition or vanity. He may even have deceived himself into this belief. But if a prospect opens, the world will see and he will feel that he is as ambitious as Oliver Cromwell, though no soldier.\n\nIt was time to make some money. As Jefferson prepared to leave public life, he wrote the iron merchant Caleb Lownes, asking for sixty to ninety days' credit on an order for iron rod, to be made into nails: \"I suppose one ton will serve me the first quarter of the year by the end of which I shall be ready to work up two or three times as much every quarter.\" He was going to go into business for himself, installing a cottage-industry nail factory with a workforce that Jefferson described as \"a dozen little boys from 10. to 16. years of age.\" They were given extra rations of meat and fish, and a suit \"of red or blue\" for the best workers. Needless to say, they were kept away from reading and writing, and spent their formative years in captivity, living together and making nails together all day until they were sixteen, when they were transferred to field labor. From 1794 to 1797, while Jefferson was at Monticello and supervising it daily, his slave-labor nail factory was a profitable operation.\n\nSonthonax and Polverel's declaration of emancipation was ratified and extended to all those enslaved in French territories on February 4, 1794, by the National Convention in Paris. It was the most radical achievement of the French Revolution: the immediate emancipation of all slaves, with no period of transition. When the ratification was confirmed, the general Toussaint Louverture stopped fighting under the Spanish flag in Saint-Domingue and came over to fight under the French.\n\nSlaves in Saint-Domingue had risen up and killed not only their masters, but slavery itself. Speaking of a hypothetical war that might pit the United States allied with France against Britain, Ralph Izard, who had lived in both London and Paris, and who had welcomed _citoyen_ Gen\u00eat to Charleston with open arms, wrote:\n\nBy a decree of the Convention of France, all the Slaves in their Colonies are emancipated. A joint war with France, under the present circumstances, would occasion a prodigious number of the lower order of Frenchmen to come to this Country, who would fraternise with our Democratical Clubs, & introduce the same horrid tragedies among our Negroes, which have been so fatally exhibited in the French Islands. Are the inhabitants of South Carolina ignorant of these things; or is it the will of God that the Proprietors of Negroes should themselves be the Instruments of destroying that species of property?\n\nFrom Georgia up to Virginia, slaveowning whites entered a new era of panic that at times crossed over into mass hysteria over the prospect of black revolutionary infiltration from the island. \"Our town swarms with strange Negroes,\" wrote the Norfolk County commandant Colonel Willis Wilson from Portsmouth, Virginia, to Governor Henry Lee in August 1793. In a panic, Wilson demanded that Lee send troops to defend against the \"many hundreds [of] French Negroes\" in the Portsmouth streets.\n\nThe looming post-Sonthonax fear in the slaveowners' collective imagination of infiltration by black warriors augured rising prices for suppliers of domestically born people. No one wanted a foreign slave trade now, not even South Carolina.\n\nBy this time, Jefferson was positively bullish on the profits to be made from reproduction of the enslaved. In April 1794, he wrote to Madame Plumard de Bellanger, a friend from Paris whose relative, J. P. P. Derieux, was living in Charlottesville and doing poorly. Blaming Derieux's bankruptcy on the Haitian Revolution, Jefferson politely asked Madame Plumard to send her relative money. He promised to see to it that her money would be put in the most conservative investment possible, the capitalized womb: \"I think I may pledge myself that it shall be every farthing of it laid out in lands and negroes, which besides a present support bring a silent profit of from 5. to 10. per cent in this country by the increase in their value.\"\n\nExiled Domingan planters, many of whom clung to the belief that they would return to claim their rightful real and human property, told terrifying tales that became further elaborated in the telling, further radicalizing US slaveowners.\n\nBut the exodus from Saint-Domingue to North America did not only bring paranoia. The Domingans were the world leaders in plantation technology. They brought skills, techniques, and knowledge everywhere they went, to say nothing of arts and culture. In eastern Cuba and Puerto Rico, they introduced the cultivation of coffee, subsequently a mainstay for those mountainous territories, along with a creolized music and other cultural paradigms that still resonate in those islands today. In South Carolina, they showed the few farmers who were still growing indigo new chemical reagents they could use in the process.\n\nIn Baltimore, which conducted much maritime trade with Saint-Domingue under Toussaint's leadership, the Domingans' influence was profound. Their boatwrights, both enslaved and free, knew French boatbuilding techniques, plus they knew all about building pirate ships, and Baltimore was heavily invested in the pirate-ship business. We can read \"French\" as meaning \"Domingan\" in the advertisement in the June 17, 1795, issue of the _Maryland Journal and Baltimore Universal Daily Advertiser_ that offered a \"New Vessel for Sale[:]... built at Baltimore and launched the latter part of last month. She is built with live-oak and cedar, nailed and finished _after the French manner_ (emphasis added), being calculated for extraordinary sailing.\" The Domingans brought new ideas of construction and finish to what was becoming a uniquely Baltimorean style of boat: the steeply raked, low-draft, fastest-thing-on-the-water vessel that would later become known as the Baltimore clipper.\n\nWith virtually all of Antillean trade being illegal according to the laws of one or another European country, vessels had to be fast and light, so everything was sacrificed to speed in this new model, which carried less freight than state-sanctioned merchant marines. These vessels were narrow and shallow, so they could go places large ocean-going vessels couldn't. The crew slept on deck. Many were fitted with \"sweeps\" (oars), so they could drop their sails and creep unseen when they set sail at night, in the dark of the moon. With their strongly raked masts, they could outfly any ship if they were to its windward. They looked dashing; the Baltimore boatwrights prided themselves in the quality of their construction.\n\nThough the major influx of Domingans did not come to Louisiana until 1809, the professions of journalism and law there were begun by Domingans; they founded newspapers and participated in the writing of the state's constitution of 1812, which was debated and written in French, then sent to Washington in translation. Stars of Saint-Domingue's theater scene took refuge in New Orleans, where their language was understood. The first great US piano virtuoso and arguably the greatest nineteenth-century US composer was the Domingan-descended New Orleanian Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Naturalist and artist John James Audubon was Domingan-born.\n\nOne celebrated refugee of the Haitian Revolution went to Spanish-controlled Florida. The black, Domingan-born general Georges Biassou was an early leader of the slave uprising\u2014he had received a blessing from Boukman himself\u2014and was subsequently Toussaint Louverture's superior officer in the Spanish army. Toussaint went over to the French army after the National Convention ratified Sonthonax's emancipation proclamation, but Biassou remained with the Spanish. The two wound up fighting each other before Biassou ultimately evacuated.\n\nBiassou was a fully commissioned general of the Spanish army in good standing when he arrived in Florida in early 1796 with an entourage of twenty-three, including five family members and one slave. \"The black general strolled through the streets of St. Augustine in fine clothes trimmed in gold,\" writes Jane Landers, \"wearing the gold medal of [Spanish King] Charles IV, a silver-trimmed saber, and a fancy ivory and silver dagger.\" As slaveowning planters in Florida\u2014many of them English speakers who had come in from the north\u2014watched in horror, Biassou and his men received land grants and began clearing the ground for plantations. They spoke of more of their black countrymen being on the way, though Spain wasn't about to let that happen.\n\nA black man who had killed slaveowners was living in comfort, with full military authority, in Florida. Nothing could have been more calculated to disturb the Georgians and Carolinians, who for their part were experiencing an agricultural revolution that would create a vast new market for slaves.\n\n*Since the nation of Haiti did not exist until January 1, 1804, we use \"Saint-Domingue\" to refer to the territory prior to that date; contemporary reports often refer to \"St. Domingo,\" not to be confused with the city of Santo Domingo on the Spanish-speaking side of the island. We call the people \"Domingans,\" reserving the word \"Haitian\" for those in or coming from Haiti after the existence of that republic. We refer to the entire conflict as the Haitian Revolution, while acknowledging that the name obfuscates the multi-threaded nature of the conflict.\n\n_The_ Lynx, _a replica of a privateer from the War of 1812, flying the fifteen-star flag (1795\u20131818)._\n\n#   Part Four\n\n# **The Star-Spangled Slave Trade**\n\n#   25\n\n# **The Cotton Club**\n\n_The experiments made in planting Annual Cotton has generally prov'd successful in respect to quantity and quality. But unless some engine be found as will take out the Seed agreeably to that Sort which is rais'd in the West Indias, no great quantity can be obtain'd. That of the West Indias will not produce Cotton here and is easily divested of its' Seed; But the Sort which grows here is far more difficult, and at present is no otherwise cleans'd than by a tedius picking. 1_\n\n\u2014Thomas Causton, letter to the Trustees of Georgia, 1741\n\nCOTTON CROPS HAD BEEN grown in the North American colonies every year from 1607 forward, but American cotton was not wanted by the English during colonial days, nor was mass production of cotton textiles yet possible.\n\nBritish policy was protective of its woolens industry. But Britain was running out of land on which to raise sheep for wool, and a series of industrial inventions caused the manufacture of cotton textiles to overwhelm the older woolens manufacture. Machines could card the cotton (untangle its fibers) and comb it (align the fibers, making a more compact, tightly weavable yarn). Hargreaves's spinning jenny (1764) spun the yarn into thread multiple strands at a time. All the different machines were combined under one roof into a single, integrated textile factory, and then there were a thousand such factories. Remembered as the Industrial Revolution, its input was cotton, and cotton's input was enslaved children.\n\nCotton's desirability for manufacturers rested on its unique strength: each cotton fiber (the \"lint\") is a single cell. First the fibers grow long, then, after seventeen days, the cellulose walls begin to thicken. There are only four species of domesticated cotton, which emerged independently in isolated parts of the world. Of the two that would grow in the Americas, one, _Gossypium barbadense_ , became known as long-staple, or \"Sea Island,\" or \"black-seed\" cotton, while the other, _Gossypium hirsutum_ , was short-staple, or \"upland,\" or \"green-seed\" cotton. The two were genetically isolated from each other and did not easily interbreed.\n\nThe fibers of _G. barbadense_ were longer and stronger, and it was easier to separate the fibers from the seeds and the lint; but in North America, it would only grow on the Sea Islands and inland for thirty miles or so. This was the crop that Thomas Causton was lamenting would not grow in Savannah, but in 1786 it was successfully raised for the first time in Georgia with seed brought from the Bahamas. The fibers could be removed from the seed mechanically by means of a roller gin\u2014a machine with rollers that plucked the fiber off, preserving its length and orientation.\n\nThe other variety of cotton, _G. hirsutum_ , which today accounts for more than 90 percent of the world cotton crop, could be cultivated across a much broader area, and it had a higher yield than long-staple; unfortunately, as Causton noted, it was too labor-intensive to clean by hand. Planters were growing it in areas where Sea Island cotton would not grow, using several types of cumbersome, labor-intensive foot- or hand-and-foot-operated gins to pull the fibers from the seed.\n\nA mechanical solution to that problem could open up vast new possibilities for cotton, and Thomas Jefferson wanted to find it. The US Patent Office, established in 1790, was his responsibility as secretary of state. He wrote in 1792 to William Pierce of New Jersey, who was advertising a machine that would mechanically tear the fibers from the boll and sweep the seeds away, but Pierce failed to answer the letter. The following year, however, Jefferson received a drawing of such a machine from Eli Whitney, a newly minted Yale graduate and mechanical prodigy from Massachusetts. While staying as a guest on the Mulberry Grove plantation near Port Wentworth, Georgia, Whitney built a prototype cotton gin. Jefferson expedited the patent, writing Whitney on November 16, 1793:\n\nThe only requisite of the law now uncomplied with is the forwarding a model, which being received your patent may be made out & delivered to your order immediately.\n\nAs the state of Virginia, of which I am, carries on household manufactures of cotton to a great extent, as I also do myself, and one of our great embarrassments is the cleaning the cotton of the seed, I feel a considerable interest in the success of your invention for family use.\n\nJefferson's term \"family use\" referred, as was customary, to his extended \"family\" of captives, as per Whitney's sales-talk answer to Jefferson: \"It is the stated task of one negro to clean fifty [pounds]... of the green-seed cotton Per Day. This task he usually completes by one oClock in the afternoon.\" Whitney's machine, a sawtooth, or \"saw,\" gin, solved the problem of cleaning cotton by redefining it. The twenty-six-inch-long tabletop machine didn't pull the fibers off, leaving them intact and combable, like the roller gin; it used teeth to chomp them off, so it could not be used on long-staple cotton without destroying its value. It produced an inferior fiber, a third the length of roller-ginned Sea Island cotton, that was not what textile manufacturers wanted to use for high-value goods.\n\nBut massification was happening. While the _hirsutum_ cotton processed by Whitney's gin was of lower quality, the South could turn out a tremendous amount of it. Having transitioned to highly productive steam-powered Watts-engine mills, Lancashire's textile businesses had the capacity to handle all the cotton the South could produce. The immediate consequence of Whitney's saw gin was to give upcountry South Carolina and Georgia their new staple crop\u2014the two states produced the majority of United States cotton until 1821\u2014but its long-term consequence was to create the cotton kingdom of the South.\n\nIt was not simply a switch that was flipped on in 1793: improvements and accommodations had to be made, including to the machines of Britain, which had to be refitted for the shorter-staple cotton. The power loom, first used in 1785, took until about 1820 to become reliable, but once it was, it gave Britain's textile industry capacity far in excess of the available supply of cotton thread. At first the gins were powered by horses, then by steam. Another invention, the screw press, compacted cotton into bales, which were then compressed into place in the holds of vessels by \"screwmen\"\u2014highly paid, muscular artisans who used specialized equipment to apply enormous screw-pressure to the already compressed bales.\n\nThe success of the saw gin sparked new enthusiasm for premium long-staple Sea Island cotton as well, which, processed by the roller gin, sold for three times as much per pound as _hirsutum_ , in much smaller quantities.\n\nMore or less concurrently with the rise of cotton, Spanish Louisiana became a late arrival to the longtime major staple crop of the hemisphere: sugar. Amid the market scramble caused by the Saint-Domingue rebellion, sugar was fetching high prices that caused explosive growth of canefields in Cuba to the south and east of Havana. The port of Matanzas, which the British had not even bothered with when they occupied Havana in 1762, would soon begin its career as the cultured, affluent \"Athens of Cuba.\" Cuba was in constant communication with Spanish Louisiana, whose governor reported from New Orleans to the Spanish captain general in the strategic hub city of Havana.\n\nUnlike Cuba, Louisiana could not make sugar. Louisiana freezes in the winter, and its nine months' growing season was thought to make sugar production unfeasible, since a crop of sugarcane was considered to require some thirteen to fifteen months of growth and several months of harvest. But in 1795, working with a Domingan sugar chemist, the planter \u00c9tienne de Bor\u00e9 found a way to produce a light, sweet syrup from the sucrose in Louisiana cane; the method required the labor force to work long hours in damp cold. There had been other such initiatives, but Bor\u00e9's sugar crop, produced by forty enslaved laborers, was the famous one: after it brought him $12,000, sugar plantations sprang up along both sides of the Mississippi. By the following year there were ten sugar refineries in operation.\n\nSugar operations were large and capital-intensive: those with fortunes could make their fortunes larger, but it was much easier to get started in cotton. The sugar plantations of south Louisiana became the highest-priced farmland in the South as the area around the lower Mississippi filled up with slave labor camps and the mansions they supported.\n\nThe sugar regime had come to North America, creating a voracious new demand for labor. But there was a complication: the Pointe Coup\u00e9e slave rebellion conspiracy was uncovered in the spring of 1795. The testimony from the promptly held trials made it clear that radical ideas from the French and Haitian Revolutions had reached Louisiana. According to the testimony, conspiracy leader Jean Baptiste said, \"we could do the same here as at Le Cap [Cap Fran\u00e7ais in Saint-Domingue].\" Twenty-three people were promptly tried and executed, and Spanish authorities, already nervous about infiltration of Jacobin radicals into the French-speaking population they uneasily governed, banned slave importation, even as labor-hungry plantations were springing up along the banks of the river, where the conspirators' heads were placed at intervals, impaled on pikes.\n\nBut the planters were determined to acquire slaves, and their regime had only begun.\n\nThe pro-French turmoil in Philadelphia pushed the Federalists closer to Britain.\n\nThe 1794 treaty that John Jay negotiated with Britain at President Washington and Treasury Secretary Hamilton's behest resolved a number of issues stemming from the War of Independence and laid the groundwork for ten years or so of relative peace between Britain and the United States, which was a boon for American shippers. However, Jay, a pro-British Federalist who had been against American independence and who detested slavery, dropped a major sticking point from the negotiations: the issue of compensation for slaveowners for the loss of their slaves during the war. The treaty was then more easily resolved, but at the domestic political price of cutting the Southern claimants loose. Moreover, the treaty appeared to be an alliance with Britain, which in those tense times meant against France.\n\nBeginning with Jefferson, who had filed a claim for compensation, Southern slaveowners were furious about Jay's dropping their demands, and they made their displeasure felt. Henceforth, US diplomats in negotiations with foreign powers, whatever their domestic position on slavery\u2014even John Quincy Adams\u2014maintained \"a unanimity in favor of guarding slavery from foreign harm,\" in Ward M. McAfee's words, \"even to the extent of claiming it as a constitutionally recognized national institution.\"\n\nIn Nashville, the twenty-eight-year-old Andrew Jackson thought Jay's treaty had created an \"alarming situation\" and wondered, \"will it End in a Civil warr[?]\" In Paris, Jay's treaty was seen as aggression. As the pro-French Democratic-Republican societies in the United States protested, the partisan breach in American politics widened. English and French alike identified the party of Hamilton as pro-English and that of Jefferson as pro-France.\n\nJay's Treaty seems to have been a spur for Manuel Godoy, the \"Prince of Peace\" in charge of Spanish affairs for King Carlos IV, to cut a deal with the Americans. On October 27, 1795, negotiations with Spain by Thomas Pinckney (Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's younger brother) yielded the Treaty of San Lorenzo, by which Spain acknowledged the United States' \"right of deposit\"\u2014i.e., to place goods for transshipment\u2014at the port of New Orleans, which meant that the cotton and sugar that was beginning to be cultivated in large quantities could find an outlet, along with all the other products that came from the growing upriver population.\n\nThe Treaty of San Lorenzo temporarily resolved a part of the Florida controversy by ceding to the United States a portion of the territory that comprised about the lower third of present-day Mississippi and Alabama. This Mississippi Territory did not extend down to the Gulf Coast, but it included the Mississippi River port of Natchez. It was a tremendously useful acquisition for the businesses of cotton and slaves, but the all-important coastal zone, including the port of Mobile, remained part of Spanish-controlled West Florida.\n\nAs part of organizing the Mississippi Territory, the Anglo-Americans marked an international boundary in 1798 by hacking out a neutral ground between their territory and that of the Spanish: a sixty-foot gash in the forest growth from the Mississippi River eastward all the way to Georgia\u2014cut by slave labor, needless to say. Foreign slave importation into the new territory was strictly forbidden; the labor would have to be purchased from domestic sources.\n\nIn Paris, the five-man Directory, three of them Jacobins, brought a more conservative government to power on November 2, 1795. The Royalist Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-P\u00e9rigord, who had lived unhappily in Philadelphia after fleeing the Terror (unlike Gen\u00eat, he was never officially received by President Washington), returned home on September 25, 1796, and became foreign minister for the Directory in July 1797, just before the Coup of 18 Fructidor (September 4) brought a disastrous group to power within the Directory. Authoritarian and incompetent, this new Directory repressed journalists and declared the state bankrupt, stiffing France's creditors, even as the Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte was conquering Italy in the name of France.\n\nAt a time when candidates did not campaign for office in the public way we have since become used to, John Adams beat Thomas Jefferson in the 1796 presidential election, one that entailed a Virginia-South Carolina split: Adams's running mate was South Carolina Federalist Charles Pinckney, and South Carolina failed to support Jefferson. But Jefferson got the second highest vote total, so under the laws then in force, he, not Pinckney, became vice president, though he was Adams's political enemy. (Adams may have had occasion to recall the words of diplomat Arthur Lee, who in 1788 when sending a copy of the draft Constitution to Adams in England, complained about the creation of the office of vice president, \"whose sole business seems to intrigue.\")\n\nBy then, the diplomatic break between France and the United States was complete. With Talleyrand as its would-be head, the Directory looked to restore the colonial project that the Seven Years' War had arrested thirty years previously: to control the North American continent, even as France expanded its empire to control the rest of the world. By 1796, six hundred US merchant ships were doing business in Saint-Domingue. But when French privateers started attacking, hundreds were lost. When three American diplomats (John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney) tried to resolve the issue, Talleyrand sent go-betweens to solicit an enormous bribe\u2014$250,000\u2014before he would allow them to be received as diplomats. This was the \"XYZ Affair,\" so called because French diplomats' names were redacted from documents that, to Talleyrand's surprise, the Adams administration released to the public.*\n\nAmerican indignation over XYZ was the spark, though not the reason, for the Quasi-War with France, an undeclared war during the second half of the John Adams administration, from 1798 to 1800. The affair cost Talleyrand his post with the Directory, though he soon worked his way back into power via his alliance with the ascendant Napoleon.\n\nThe number-one reason for the Quasi-War, as enumerated by the Federalist Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (leader of a disunionist movement for New England to secede and establish a Northern confederacy), was \"spoliations and maltreatment of [US] vessels at sea by French ships of war and privateers.\" The pro-British Federalists began what has been remembered as \"black cockade fever,\" wearing long trailing black ribbons from the back of their hats. As Republicans countered with red\u2014or red, white, and blue\u2014ribbons, Philadelphia divided into two color-coded camps.\n\nSome Federalists believed that the democratic frenzy was the result of a conspiracy of a secret society of Illuminati, with French and Domingan membership. The Republican position was expressed by Virginia senator Henry Tazewell in a letter to Andrew Jackson: \"The Contest between them [England and France] is a Contest of political principles. One or the other must be annihilated... Either monarchey or Republicanism must be rooted out of Europe, or the War will not cease. If England succeeds, Monarchy will become more formidable then ever to the liberties of mankind... If France succeeds liberty will at least for a time be emancipated from the despotism of Kings.\"\n\nAttempting to combat a prolonged period of domestic political unrest following the French Revolution and war with France, and pushed by Pickering, the Adams administration passed the Alien Act, with which they hoped to deport French people\u2014they were never used for prosecution, but they motivated some French-speakers to leave the United States\u2014and the Sedition Act, which they used against the highly partisan press.\n\nIn response, Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, in which he argued that states could find federal laws unconstitutional and oppose them. He did this anonymously, while he was Adams's vice president and as such was in theory part of the administration that had promulgated the Alien and the Sedition Acts. His stalking horse was Kentucky state representative John Breckinridge, who introduced the resolutions in the Kentucky House as his own, keeping Jefferson's involvement secret.\n\nThough the Kentucky Resolutions are largely forgotten today, they became a touchstone for antebellum separatists because in them Jefferson put the soon-to-be-a-buzzword \"nullification\" into the American political vocabulary: \"[T]he several states who formed [the Constitution], being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those [states], of all unauthorized acts... is the rightful remedy.\" Madison in 1799 drafted a similarly anonymous, somewhat milder, document, the Virginia Resolutions, which did not use the word \"nullification.\"\n\nBy the time Toussaint negotiated a British withdrawal in 1798, some fifteen thousand British soldiers had died during Britain's ill-advised campaign to take Saint-Domingue. One of the great military debacles of British history, it marked in blood the point at which Britain turned away from its sponsorship of plantation slavery. By this time, Toussaint was firmly in control in Saint-Domingue, and, as life became more orderly there, some planters even began returning.\n\nIn France, the Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799, definitively put an end to dreams of democracy and republicanism, deposing the Directory in favor of the French Consulate government. This left only one republic in the world: the United States. Talleyrand was the coup's chief political strategist and, as of February 7, 1800, its head was First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who had returned from a failed two-year mission in Egypt days before.\n\n\"The recovery of colonial power was the first of all Bonaparte's objects,\" wrote Henry Adams, and every \"decisive event in the next three years of his career was subordinated to it.\" Bonaparte's Consulate intended to re-establish France's lost colonial plantation empire in the Americas, but, in the words of biographer Steven Englund, \"the measures proved to be such a failure that posterity has stopped seeing the policy as foundational.\"\n\nNapoleon's ascendancy was the definitive end of the abolition movement in France. A new French Constitution specifically exempted the colonies from metropolitan law, which was tantamount to re-legalizing slavery. Saint-Domingue was still theoretically under the French flag, but Toussaint was in charge and had restored some of the colony's sugar production using conscripted labor. In order to re-establish French control of Saint-Domingue, it was necessary to pacify the high seas so as to have clear sailing for the fleet, which Talleyrand and Napoleon did by making peace with the United States\u2014easily accomplished\u2014and with Britain, which took longer.\n\nRelations between Toussaint Louverture's government in Saint-Domingue and the United States were not bad under President Adams. Saint-Domingue, still in theory a colony of France, was exporting coffee and sugar again under Toussaint, and US merchants, especially those from Baltimore, were doing business in its port cities despite the problems. During the Quasi-War, Toussaint had taken the extraordinary step\u2014for which, along with related offenses, he paid with his life\u2014of brokering a separate peace with Adams, because supplies from North America were essential to Saint-Domingue's survival. An arrangement between the United States and Britain brought the British navy to patrol Saint-Domingue, allowing for commerce to continue, though the conservative British prime minister William Pitt the Younger was horrified by the idea of a black government.\n\nThe Adams administration went so far as to support Toussaint with the US Navy (the first intervention by the US military in another country's war) in a decisive 1800 battle in the south of Saint-Domingue between forces commanded by Toussaint's general Jean-Jacques Dessalines and those of Andr\u00e9 Rigaud.\n\nAs the United States entered into war with France, there was renewed fear in the South that slaves would once again become weapons of war in the hands of the enemy. Henry Knox, the former secretary of war, in the words of Alexander DeConde,\n\nurged Adams to raise an army for protection against a possible attack by \"ten thousand blacks\" recruited by the French. He feared that the invaders would land at \"the defenceless ports of the Carolinas and Virginia,\" where slaves would join them in a march of conquest.\n\nRumors spread saying that special Negro agents were distributing arms among the slaves in preparation for the French attack. These rumors were repeated in a Federalist pamphlet published in April. \"Take care, take care, you sleepy southern fools,\" a Federalist gazetteer warned. \"Your negroes will probably be your masters this day twelve month.\"\n\nThough Spain was the pre-eminent colonial power of the Americas, it was increasingly subordinate to France. Louisiana had been founded by France, but had been given over to Spain in 1762 as part of France's disgrace at the close of the Seven Years' War. Now Napoleon made a secret pact with Carlos IV, the Italian-born Bourbon king of Spain to recover Louisiana. Carlos, who flattered himself Napoleon's ally but was more like his stooge, was known as El Cazador (The Hunter), for the avidity with which he hunted game on his private preserve, to the neglect of affairs of state. In exchange for Louisiana, Napoleon swapped Carlos the Italian Duchy of Parma as a kingdom for his son-in-law. Key to this retrocession of Louisiana from Spain to France was Napoleon's promise not to alienate\u2014not to give away or to sell\u2014Louisiana.\n\nNapoleon's intention in retaking control of Louisiana was to use it as a supply base for the plantation empire he was planning to re-establish on Saint-Domingue, where every bit of ground was to be used to produce cash crops. The English sugar islands were being provisioned from the United States, and in the absence of a French supply base, so would a French island colony have to be.\n\nHostilities between France and the United States ended on September 30, 1800, when Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, signed with the Adams administration the Convention of Mortefontaine, named for the lesser Bonaparte's country estate. But, writes Henry Adams:\n\nThe next day, October 1, [Louis Alexandre] Berthier [Napoleon's chief of staff] signed at San Ildefonso the treaty of retrocession [of Louisiana to France], which was equivalent to a rupture of the relations established four-and-twenty hours earlier. Talleyrand was aware that one of these treaties undid the work of the other. The secrecy in which he enveloped the treaty of retrocession, and the pertinacity with which he denied its existence, showed his belief that Bonaparte had won a double diplomatic triumph over the United States.\n\nNapoleon's plan to establish an empire in the Americas was moving forward. Meanwhile, Saint-Domingue's legacy of emancipation via violent rebellion was percolating throughout the slave societies of the hemisphere.\n\nIn Cuba, practitioners of the Kongo religion speak of Zarabanda, \"Nsalabanda,\" the blacksmith god of iron and war. In Haiti, there is Ogou Feray, the creolized Yoruba blacksmith liberation-fighter _lwa._ In Richmond, in 1800, a well-planned conspiracy was discovered, led by one Gabriel, a literate, enslaved blacksmith who could split a grain scythe down the middle to make a pair of fearsome swords and had stockpiled a number of them. Gabriel had been sentenced to hang the year before, when he bit off the ear of a white overseer who had whipped him, but he was too valuable for his captor, Thomas Prosser, to lose, so Gabriel was allowed to take advantage of an archaic law that commuted his sentence to being publicly branded if he could quote a Bible verse. Let off on the condition of good behavior, with a brand burned into his skin, he was soon jailed again, forcing Prosser to post a thousand dollars to get him back, an indication of how lucrative the rented-out services of a blacksmith could be.\n\nVirginia had modernized its penal code as of 1796, reclassifying twenty-seven different kinds of offenses as punishable by prison time instead of corporal abuse and restricting capital punishment to murderers. To deal with the new prison population this change would generate, Jefferson's friend, the English-born architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the first professional architect working in the United States, received his first major American commission in 1797, to build the Virginia State Penitentiary in 1797. The first penitentiary to be built as such in the United States, it was an Enlightenment-era prison, part of an agenda that emphasized a notion, advanced by Jefferson, of reform over punishment, with the architectural innovation of individual cells that facilitated the carceral innovation of solitary confinement. It quickly became a hellhole, was rebuilt in 1905, and was closed in 1992.\n\nGabriel's conspirators planned a surprise attack on that partly finished penitentiary, where the militia's weapons were stored but were only lightly guarded. After that, it was said, they would burn the city and hold Governor James Monroe hostage. Gabriel's plot was quite real, and could well have achieved those tactical objectives. Terrifyingly for the slaveowners, it was, like Boukman's uprising, widely networked among agents on different plantations. It grew out of routine socializing among the enslaved of the region, who might see each other in a number of ways, ranging from clandestine nighttime visits to church socials on Sunday.\n\nGabriel and his network of conspirators were animated by an ideology that resonated fearfully in the post-Saint-Domingue world: with the bold paralysis of the apparatus of state and the violent chaos they intended to cause as leverage, they planned to demand freedom for the slaves of Virginia. For the terrified slaveowners of Richmond, \"the most commonly repeated notion of how far the slaughter of whites would go simply held that all whites would be killed,\" writes Lacy K. Ford, \"except Quakers, Methodists, and Frenchmen, whom Gabriel planned to spare because they had tried to help the slaves win freedom.\"\n\nMuch the same way that the Stono Rebellion was a clear demonstration of the threat posed by Spain, Gabriel's plan was understood to be a signal of the perceived vulnerability of the slave regime to the revolutionary abolitionism of the French, even though in fact the viciously anti-abolitionist Napoleon was now in charge there. As with the later scapegoating of \"outside agitators\" in the civil rights era, saboteurs were thought necessary to catalyze uprisings among enslaved laborers, who were believed to be otherwise inert. Quite possibly there had been a \"Frenchman\" or two trying to foment slave uprising, or perhaps it was a figment of the paranoia of the times; the implication of two unnamed Frenchmen by witnesses at the trial cast a pall of suspicion over all the \"French\" people in Richmond, whether French-born or merely Huguenot-descended. The press denounced \"the French principle of liberty and equality,\" an idea that was self-evidently un-Virginian, because it was incompatible with slavery.\n\nGabriel's rebellion was foiled by a spectacular storm\u2014in Monroe's words, \"checked by the extraordinary torrent of rain which fell\"\u2014on the night the assault had been planned for, which was interpreted by both conspirators and townspeople as divine intervention. The plot was then betrayed by Pharoah and Tom, two enslaved informers fearful of the rebellion's consequences, who were subsequently purchased from their owners by the State of Virginia for five hundred dollars each and were not only emancipated as a reward, but also ultimately received an annuity of fifty dollars each a year. Amid fears that the conspiracy might still be active and moving forward, Monroe initiated a manhunt for Gabriel, who was described by Prosser as \"twenty four years of age, six feet two or three inches high, darkish complexion, long visage, with a gloomy insidious brow, short black knotty hair, some scars on his head.\"\n\nMonroe informed Jefferson on September 9 that \"about\" thirty prisoners were being held. There was considerable concern that the new, untested penitentiary would not be able to hold them; adding to the tension, it also turned out that four thousand muskets delivered to the militia and stored in the penitentiary were shoddy goods that were \"improperly constructed\" and \"badly executed.\"\n\nThough the conspiracy had not resulted in any bloodshed, trials began on September 11 and hangings began the following day. On September 18, thirteen men from Richmond petitioned the Henrico County court to move the executions somewhere out of sight, \"as the frequent Executions that have lately taken place, has been extremely distressing to the view of our families\u2014especially the female members.\" In response, three of the condemned were halted \"in the cart\" on their journey to the gallows for a reprieve until the place of execution could be moved.\n\nWith a price of three hundred dollars on his head, the \"Black General\" Gabriel escaped Richmond by boat, but ran aground four miles below Richmond. Taken up by a schooner that was going to Norfolk, he was brought back to Richmond under heavy guard on September 28, a few hours before Monroe's youngest child died after a few days' illness, overwhelming him \"with grief,\" as he wrote to Madison the next day.\n\nMonroe and Gabriel\u2014whom Monroe referred to not by his name, but as \"this slave\"\u2014had what must have been a dramatic face-to-face: \"From what he said to me,\" wrote Monroe, \"he seemed to have made up his mind to die, and to have resolved to say but little on the subject of the conspiracy.\" Gabriel attempted no defense at his trial but requested that his execution be postponed so that he could be hanged together with the others who would also be convicted. The request was granted, and Gabriel was hanged on October 10 together with George Smith, Gilbert, Tom, William, and Sam Graham. By October 24, twenty-six people had been executed.\n\nWith presidential voting about to begin October 31, it was a time of great political tension between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson was running for president again, and this time he was the leading candidate.\n\nThe poison-pen propagandist James Callender wrote to his employer, Thomas Jefferson, on September 13 from the Richmond jail, where he was serving his six-month sentence, that \"nothing is talked of here but the recent conspiracy of the negroes.\" Callender, who had fled Scotland one step ahead of the law in 1793, was one of only ten people convicted under President Adams's Sedition Act, for his book _The Prospect Before Us._ Funded by Jefferson, it was a sleazy work of character assassination that attacked Hamilton and Adams as monarchists while praising Jefferson in immodest terms.\n\nTwo days later, Monroe informed Jefferson that \"the plan of an insurrection has been clearly proved, & appears to have been of considerable extent. 10. have been condemned & executed, and there are at least twenty perhaps 40. more to be tried, of whose guilt no doubt is entertained.\" Twenty-six conspirators were hanged. Jefferson, whose preferred method of dealing with troublemakers on his plantations was to sell them to Southbound traders, wanted them disposed of by sale instead of hanging, and nine conspirators were, thereby realizing some income.\n\nIn the Richmond _Virginia Argus_ of October 3, 1800, Callender\u2014still loyal to Jefferson\u2014responded to charges that had been levelled against him of having somehow been involved in Gabriel's rebellion by changing the subject back to vilifying Alexander Hamilton:\n\nIf an idea so monstrous as that of promoting an African conspiracy can have entered into the head of any white man, he must have been a _Federalist;_ for this plain reason. An insurrection, at the present critical moment, by the negroes of the southern States, would have thrown every thing into confusion, and consequently, it was to have prevented the choice of electors in the whole, or the greater part of the States to the south of the Potomac. Such a disaster must have tended directly to injure the interest of Mr. Jefferson, and to promote the slender _possibility_ of a second election of Mr. Adams.\n\nI do not, for my part, believe that any white person whatever was concerned in the business. But if the country contains one man capable of conceiving such a project, it corresponds, in preference to the character of any other person, with that of Alexander Hamilton, the theoretical incendiary of Pittsburg,* and the grand Patriarch of American calamities.\n\n\u2014 JAMES T. CALLENDER.\n\nRichmond Jail.\n\nCallender subsequently wrote a second volume of _The Prospect Before Us_ , also funded by Jefferson.\n\nGabriel's plot sensitized electorate and politicians alike to the dangers of slave rebellion, with obsessive focus on the possibility of ideological contamination from Saint-Domingue. Virginia had a far greater slave population than anywhere else in the United States. Its 345,796 enslaved were overwhelmingly (322,199) in the eastern district, with only 23,597 of them in the non-plantation west of the state. Virginia slaveowners had been terrorized by the nightmare that \"the horrors of St. Domingo\" could happen to them; now, they thought, it was coming closer. The popular panic facilitated the adoption of the \"Negro Acts,\" which had been previously been considered too harsh to pass. These were new state laws directed at slaves, and partly also at pro-emancipation evangelicals, particularly Methodists and Baptists. A suite of laws forbade masters from manumitting, removed rights of assembly for blacks and all assembly by them at night, and forbade religious instruction of slaves\u2014though after pressure from evangelicals, the law was amended to allow religious gatherings if a majority of white people were present. A new military-style police organization, the Public Guard, was created as part of the militia in Richmond in 1801.\n\nPresident Jefferson wrote his minister to Britain, Rufus King, in 1802 that \"the course of things in the neighboring islands of the West Indies appears to have given a considerable impulse to the minds of the slaves in different parts of the US. A great disposition to insurgency has manifested itself among them, which, in one instance, in the state of Virginia, broke out into actual insurrection,\" though of course Gabriel's conspiracy did not break out into actual insurrection but was merely planned. Jefferson, who thought the many hangings resulting from Gabriel's conspiracy\u2014\"between 20. and 30. I believe\"\u2014too severe, affirmed that they had caused public revulsion: \"so extensive an execution could not but excite sensibility in the public mind.\" In other words, as terrified as the Virginians were, the repression was too grisly. The purpose of Jefferson's letter to King\u2014at the request of the Virginia legislature, he noted\u2014was to ask him to make inquiries in London into the possibility of using the English Sierra Leone colony not only as a \"receptacle\" for \"insurgents\" but also for future \"emancipated negroes.\"\n\nRichmond's African American burial ground was rediscovered in the 1990s, and there is now a state historical marker for this potter's field at Fifteenth and Broad. The wide expanse is partly covered over by I-95 and was for years partly buried under a Virginia Commonwealth University parking lot. Before that, it had been the dog pound, and, before that, the site of the Richmond City Jail. The lot was transferred to the city in response to community initiatives, resodded, and rededicated. It is now a flat, grassy memorial space framed by the interstate high overhead on one side and rail cars on the other.\n\n_A circle marks the approximate site of the execution of Gabriel. Richmond, June 2013._\n\nTo mark the gallows where Gabriel and five coconspirators were hanged in 1800\u2014not that the exact spot is known\u2014there is nothing more than a yellow cord strung around ground-level wickets, making a barely perceptible circle of power in the immensity of the field. To one side are two large trees with sashes tied around them, and, when we visited, small altars in the African manner. No one is allowed to play sports or picnic on the large field, respecting the space's memorial status as the trucks and train cars roll by above. It's walking distance from where Patrick Henry made his \"Liberty or Death\" speech, a quarter-century before Gabriel.\n\n*It was first referred to as the WXYZ affair, in which \"W\" was Caron Beaumarchais, who had acted as a go-between; Beaumarchais is also remembered as the librettist of Mozart's class-conflict opera farce _Le Nozze di Figaro._\n\n*Referring to the recent Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania, which had erupted in response to a tax Hamilton had tried to impose.\n\n#   26\n\n# **The Terrible Republic**\n\n_Slaves!... Let us leave that qualifying epithet to the French themselves: they have conquered to the point of ceasing to be free. 1_\n\n\u2014Haitian Declaration of Independence\n\nGEORGE WASHINGTON DID NOT live to see Thomas Jefferson become president, nor were the two men on speaking terms when Washington expired, along with the eighteenth century, on December 14, 1799. Washington's widow, Martha Custis Washington, is said to have thought Jefferson \"one of the most detestable of mankind.\"\n\nLacking South Carolina's support, Jefferson had lost the 1796 election to John Adams. Open campaigning was at the time thought to be beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate, but as 1800 came around, lest anyone in South Carolina think the emancipation\/deportation proposal of _Notes on the State of Virginia_ meant that he was soft on slavery, Jefferson let it be known via Charles Pinckney that he \"authorized his friends to declare as his assertion\" that the Constitution did not give Congress the right to \"touch in the remotest degree the question respecting the condition or property of slaves in any of the states.\"\n\nAfter a complicated election, culminating in a protracted standoff over a tie vote with Aaron Burr in the House of Representatives, Jefferson prevailed over the incumbent Adams, becoming president on March 4, 1801, with Burr as vice president. For the next twenty-four years, the presidency would be occupied by a \"Virginia dynasty\" of Jefferson and his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s\u2014actually, a Piedmont dynasty, from the Shenandoah Valley above the fall line of the James River, where Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were relative neighbors. During those years (and subsequently, for that matter) foreign and domestic policy alike would reflect the concerns of the Southern states, and specifically Virginia: protecting slavery (which meant expanding it); preventing slave rebellion (which meant isolating Haiti); free trade (with the significant exception, in Virginia's case, of protectionism for the domestic slave trade); hard money (though an all-metal currency regime was utterly unworkable); a weak federal government (though once the Republicans took power, they came to like wielding it); and a budgetary conservatism that excluded projects for the public good.\n\nJefferson's ascent to the presidency was the first peaceful transfer of political power to another party in recorded history. He seems to have truly believed, as he expressed in an 1819 letter, that his election was a \"Revolution of 1800\" that was as significant a revolution as the one his younger self had personified with the Declaration of Independence. The new Democratic-Republican party, usually just known as Republicans but sometimes as Democrats, attempted to implement Jefferson's philosophy of governance, which proved to be impractical.\n\nJefferson wanted an agrarian republic, where the \"chosen people of God\" would \"labor in the earth.\" For the general operations of manufacture, \"let our workshops remain in Europe,\" he wrote in _Notes_ , though he subsequently founded a nail factory. He didn't want there to be _cities_ , which he compared to \"sores\" on a body, and to that end he starved Washington City of infrastructural funds during his presidency, so that the capital consisted of two magnificent buildings in a malarial, muddy swamp.\n\nJeffersonian democracy, as it came to be called, held that states' rights were paramount, and central government was at best a necessary evil. Debt was an evil to Jefferson, something to be cancelled as quickly as possible. Banks were an evil. Slavery was a great evil, but we have no alternative to the riches it brings.\n\nKeeping a standing army was, as Madison expressed it during the Virginia ratification debate, \"one of the greatest mischiefs that can possibly happen.\" Jefferson attempted to defend the country from foreign aggression entirely by commercial sanction, a method he called \"peaceable coercion.\" There would be nothing peaceful, however, about the coercion employed domestically to repress slave escape or rebellion. The constitutionally sanctioned \"well-regulated militia\" could put down rebellions and apprehend black people traveling without a pass, selling them to a trader if no one claimed them.\n\nAs president, Jefferson committed to his theory of governance by paying down the debt quickly rather than investing in defense. Moreover, in spite of having a long coastline to defend, he dismantled what military readiness the nation had, reducing the army from five thousand to three thousand, and, in a backhand blow to New England, mothballing the successful United States Navy that Adams had built.\n\nA compulsive tinkerer, Jefferson couldn't resist refitting the navy, though he had no firsthand knowledge of naval affairs. He was taken with the idea of light, portable gunboats carrying a crew of twenty or so. These were heavily used in the Barbary War that the US Navy fought from 1801 to 1805 in Mediterranean North Africa, although the navy also relied on frigates and brigs in that war. Jefferson's remarkably bad idea was to make the entire navy into a fleet of the theoretically cheaper gunboats, relying on them as a domestic defense force.\n\nUnfortunately, in that capacity the gunboats were almost useless; vessels that plied the relatively placid Mediterranean couldn't go to war in the stormy Atlantic, and they were dangerous and demoralizing for the sailors who manned them. They also turned out to be unexpectedly expensive. Some of them, however, were built in Virginia.\n\nPresident Jefferson pardoned James Callender from his Sedition Act conviction and gave him fifty dollars, one-quarter of his fine, but Callender interpreted the gesture, wrote Jefferson, \"not as a charity but a due, in fact as hushmoney.\" Believing himself entitled to the postmastership of Richmond, Callender turned viciously on Jefferson, publishing their correspondence. In an article published in the Richmond _Recorder_ on September 1, 1802, he broke the story that Jefferson \"keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is SALLY... There is not an individual in the neighbourhood of Charlottesville who does not believe the story; and not a few who know it.... The _African venus_ is said to officiate, as housekeeper at Monticello.\" Callender's role in American history ended the following year, when he drowned while drunk in three feet of James River water on July 17, 1803.\n\nThe years of Jefferson's and, subsequently, Madison's administrations were years of war between England and France, a war in which the United States was in many ways a participant, even as it declared its neutrality.\n\nIn this chaotic maritime war, American merchant vessels fell victim to seizures by predators of both countries. Jefferson had no effective response, and piracy became more common, a situation Jefferson's gunboats did nothing to abate.\n\nThe federal government had for years been trying to stop piracy, which overlapped with the slave trade. Responding to antislavery petitions, Congress passed the Act of 1794, subtitled \"An Act to Prohibit the Carrying on the Slave Trade from the United States to any Foreign Place or Country,\" which went so far as to provide for money penalties, though not imprisonment, for outfitting vessels for the foreign slave trade. A subsequent congressional measure in 1800 authorized the taking of slavers as prizes, and in the last days of the Adams administration, the US Navy began capturing slavers in the West Indies. In the days of the gunboats, however, enforcement dropped off. During Jefferson's first term, by one estimate, US slavers carried 16 percent of the African slave trade, up from 9 percent the previous decade.\n\nJefferson's policy toward Toussaint Louverture was markedly different from that of the non-slaveowner John Adams. He refused even to write a personal letter for his new consul to Saint-Domingue to carry to Louverture, as was diplomatic custom, nor would he direct the credentials to Louverture's attention, sending them merely to \"Cap Fran\u00e7ais,\" an insult that Toussaint was quick to perceive.\n\nSaint-Domingue had never declared independence from France, though Toussaint had infuriated Napoleon by sending him a new constitution for Saint-Domingue and declaring himself Governor for Life. As Jefferson described it in a November 24, 1801, letter to James Monroe, in Saint-Domingue \"the blacks are established into a sovereignty de facto, and have organized themselves under regular law and government.\" Jefferson wrote in the context of wondering whether Saint-Domingue might be a possible colony on which to offload black people \"exiled for acts deemed criminal by us, but meritorious perhaps by him.\" By \"him,\" Jefferson meant Toussaint Louverture, but apparently could not bring himself to write the name, referring to him merely as \"their present ruler.\"\n\nOn this issue, at least, Jefferson and the First Consul coincided. Jefferson's explicitly racialized hatred of Toussaint was shared by Napoleon, who referred to Toussaint as the \"gilded African,\" while Jefferson, in a letter to Burr, referred to Toussaint's men as \"the Cannibals of the terrible republic.\" But Jefferson still didn't know about Napoleon's secret plan to occupy Spanish Louisiana when, four months into his presidency, Louis-Andr\u00e9 Pichon, the French minister to Washington, broached the possibility of an armed French intervention in Saint-Domingue to prevent Toussaint's declaring independence. Jefferson replied that, given the hostility between Britain and France, Britain had to sign on first. Pichon reported Jefferson's words back to Paris: \"in order that this concert may be complete and effective, you must make peace with England, then nothing will be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything and to reduce Toussaint to starvation.\"\n\nTo Pichon's delight, the new President Jefferson, a veteran political intriguer with no military experience, had just conditionally greenlighted a hypothetical invasion of the Americas by Napoleon Bonaparte. But once Jefferson realized the implications for Louisiana, he withdrew his support.\n\nNapoleon instructed Talleyrand in a letter of November 13, 1801, how to spin for British consumption his forthcoming invasion of Saint-Domingue: with racism. A black republic, it was assumed, would be a pirate state and a center of terrorism. Napoleon matter-of-factly wrote of \"the course which I have taken of annihilating the government of the blacks in Saint-Domingue.\" Without his intervention, he warned, \"the scepter of the New World would sooner or later fall into the hands of the blacks... the shock that would result for England [would be] incalculable, even as the shock of the blacks' empire, as relates to France, has been confused with that of revolution.\"\n\nThe British saw Napoleon's plan for what it was. \"The acquisition [of Louisiana],\" reported Rufus King, Jefferson's envoy to Britain, paraphrasing British foreign secretary Lord Hawkesbury, \"might enable France to extend her influence and perhaps her dominion up the Mississippi; and through the Lakes even to Canada. This would be realizing the plan, to prevent the accomplishment of which, the Seven Years' War took place.\"\n\nWith the Treaty of Amiens on March 25, 1802, Britain and France made a peace that was more or less a capitulation on Britain's part. Though Prime Minister Henry Addington would declare war on France less than a year later, for the time being, the peace cleared the way at sea for French intervention in the Americas. While negotiations with Britain were in progress, Napoleon wasted no time in preparing his trusted brother-in-law, General Charles-Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, to lead an expedition of some thirty thousand men, the largest fleet that had crossed the Atlantic to that date. \"Troops were directed to ports, and shipyards in France, Holland and Spain intensified their activity in armaments,\" wrote Lieutenant General Baron Pamphile de Lacroix, who served in Leclerc's campaign. \"The purpose of these armaments could not be doubted; they were self-evident... the most superficial observer could conclude, without mental effort, that immediate action was being taken to put Saint-Domingue back under the power of the metropolis.\"\n\nCap Fran\u00e7ais in Saint-Domingue was only to be the first landing. While Leclerc's fleet was crossing the ocean during the brief window of peace between France and England, Jefferson's minister to France, Robert Livingston, correctly reported to Rufus King on December 30, 1801, that: \"I know... that the armament, destined in the first instance for Hispaniola, is to proceed to Louisiana provided Toussaint makes no opposition.\"\n\nBonaparte's intention was to invade the hemisphere under cover of subduing a slave rebellion, portraying his move internationally as a preemptive expedition against black terrorists, confining the English-speaking population along the East Coast and eventually driving them out, while controlling the rest of the hemisphere through puppet Spanish and Portuguese kings. Accordingly, Leclerc's brief was to subdue the _noirs_ of Saint-Domingue, ship their leaders back to France in irons, and then proceed immediately on to Louisiana. Needless to say, Leclerc never complied with the latter instruction, because the black army of Saint-Domingue, together with the _Aedes aegypti_ mosquito, beat the French. Leclerc's men died of yellow fever even more often than they died in combat with an organized if ill-equipped black military whose soldiers were, terrifyingly, not afraid to die.\n\nWhen Leclerc's fleet appeared in Cap Fran\u00e7ais, Domingan general Henri Christophe burned the newly rebuilt town on February 4, 1802, torching his own house first and repositioning his forces in the mountains. After Leclerc betrayed Toussaint on June 7, kidnapping him to France to die in a freezing mountain prison cell after inviting him to a meeting, the command passed to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who had formerly served as a general for the French.\n\nAt the time Dessalines took charge, Bonaparte still believed he was winning. He wrote to his minister of the marine, Denis Decr\u00e8s, on June 19, 1802: \"My intention is to take possession of Louisiana with the shortest delay, and that this expedition be made in the utmost secrecy, under the appearance of being directed on St. Domingo.\" In July, the news arrived in Saint-Domingue that Napoleon had signed a decree reinstating slavery in Guadeloupe, and the resistance against France intensified. Dessalines gave an order that he is remembered for: _koupe t\u00e8t, boule kay_ \u2014cut off heads, burn houses.\n\nThe South was terrified.\n\n_Articles warning of an imaginary invasion of \"French Negroes\" in the_ Courier of New Hampshire, _November 11, 1802._\n\nFear of \"French negroes\" was general, not just in the slaveholding South but in Cuba as well, where slaveowners were prohibited from importing slaves who had lived in foreign colonies, and in Spanish Louisiana. A 1797 insurrection plot in South Carolina that may or may not have been real was attributed to \"French negroes.\" Five years later, as the carnage in Saint-Domingue mounted, a more serious eruption of popular fear had its origin in New York, where, writes Lacy K. Ford, the rumor began that \"the French planned to release incendiary black 'brigands' up and down the Atlantic coast.\" An unidentified ship in the waters near Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1802 set that heavily black area \"on the razor's edge of alarm,\" so that \"the sighting of a single black man, allegedly of French background, traveling without a pass on a Saturday evening prompted the rapid spread of reports that an armed brigade of French-speaking Caribbean insurrectionists had finally come ashore at Georgetown.\" In a fit of panic, the state militia was mobilized to resist a phantom invasion. The panic was transmitted in the popular press, as newspapers published accounts describing the imaginary landing of \"French negroes.\"\n\nWhile this panic was occurring, the French invaders were dying by the thousands in Saint-Domingue. With Leclerc's forces dwindling, he embarked on a campaign of genocide, reporting to Napoleon on October 7 that \"we must destroy all the mountain negroes, sparing only children under twelve years of age. We must destroy half the negroes of the plains, and not allow in the colony a single man who has worn an epaulette.\" There were no further communications from Leclerc, who died on November 2 of yellow fever. His successor, General Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, the vicomte de Rochambeau, was the son of the French general who had saved the United States at Yorktown and had served his father as an aide-de-camp during the American war. He attempted to continue Leclerc's genocide, importing some five hundred bloodhounds from Cuba trained to rip their victims apart, though most of the dogs were apparently eaten by starving French troops.\n\nNapoleon, who never hesitated to make a far-reaching decision fast and act on it at once, effectively gave up on his American plan when he learned of Leclerc's death; though he retained Martinique and Guadeloupe, he was determined to spend no more money on Saint-Domingue, where some fifty thousand French soldiers had perished. Already assembling the resources for his coming campaign to conquer Europe, he cut off support for the American venture, leaving his soldiers to twist in the wind without reinforcements. Rochambeau was captured by the British while ingloriously fleeing the island and remained imprisoned for more than eight years.\n\nIn Paris, the US ambassador Robert Livingston had been instructed by Jefferson to try to purchase New Orleans and the Floridas. West Florida, with Mobile and Pensacola, was already interdependent with New Orleans for trade, and controlled the access to the sea of the rivers that emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. Without that access, frontiersmen had no outlet for their products. Then a crisis erupted: on October 18, 1802, the Spanish intendant at New Orleans, Juan Ventura Morales, suspended the \"right of deposit\" that allowed citizens of the United States to transship goods via that port.\n\nNeeding to look like he was doing something, Jefferson dispatched Monroe on an \"extraordinary mission\" to Paris in January 1803, though Livingston was already on the case. \"The fever into which the Western mind is thrown by the affair at N. Orleans,\" wrote Jefferson in a hasty letter to Monroe, \"stimulated by the mercantile, & generally the federal interest, threatens to overbear our peace.\" Three days later, he wrote Monroe again: \"The agitation of the public mind on occasion of the late suspension of our right of deposit at N. Orleans, is extreme.\"\n\nLivingston was no stranger to land deals; as the great-grandson of the landowner and slave trader Robert Livingston, he had inherited the town of Clermont, New York, where the British had burned his mansion during the War of Independence. But he was astounded when Talleyrand offered him not only New Orleans, but the whole vast Mississippi watershed west and north of Louisiana, albeit with little geographical precision\u2014or, more accurately, offered him France's claim to the territory. By the time James Monroe arrived to join him as a special envoy, sick from his ocean journey, Livingston had already made the deal, though Monroe received the credit for it in America. The price they agreed on for the territory was sixty million francs (approximately $15 million)\u2014a bargain, but enough money that it could fund Napoleon's war in Europe.\n\nWas it Napoleon's to sell? The North American purchase in effect legitimated Napoleon's claim to Louisiana. But it was exactly what Napoleon had promised Carlos IV he would never do. The furious Spanish king took the position that by alienating Louisiana, France had lost its claim and that therefore Louisiana was rightfully Spain's.\n\nIn Charleston, where newspapers had been chiding Jefferson for not acquiring New Orleans, the Louisiana Purchase was seen as a \"greater treasure to the western part of the US than a mountain of gold.\"\n\nBut it wasn't Florida.\n\nAcquiring Louisiana was a coup, but Livingston and Monroe had failed to accomplish their mission. They were supposed to get the Floridas along with New Orleans, to lock in the whole Gulf Coast. Instead, they got the west bank of the Mississippi and the uncharted, undeveloped territory upriver.\n\nFlorida was an obsession, and a permanent security threat. Controlling the Floridas would secure the entire southeast of the continent from European invasion. It would allow full-scale removal of Native Americans to begin, so that slave-driven plantation agriculture could flourish outward from the slave-supply center of Charleston down into Florida, and through Georgia and Alabama, into Mississippi.\n\nAs President Jefferson explained to Congress, the Americans didn't even have a map of Louisiana. No sooner was the Louisiana deal done than Livingston and Monroe\u2014and President Jefferson, and Secretary of State Madison\u2014began claiming that Florida was part of the deal, though they all knew it was not. Florida was still a Spanish possession and had never been ceded to Napoleon. The United States' baldfaced attempt to claim rights to Florida became the subject of considerable diplomatic wrangling and was a major international issue through the War of 1812 and beyond. Jefferson's minister to Spain was his South Carolina campaign supporter Charles Pinckney, the Constitution framer from South Carolina, who\u2014unfortunately but typically for an American diplomat\u2014did not speak Spanish.\n\nHistorians have argued about exactly why Napoleon made the sudden strategic decision to make Louisiana available to the United States at a fire-sale price, but two motives are clear: one, he wanted money right then for his European war; and, two, he didn't want the British to have it. Empowering America would provide a check on British expansionism.\n\nThat's certainly what the British thought. They saw Jefferson, as they had since his days in Paris, as a French lapdog, and understandably resented his funding of Napoleon's war against them. The American Federalists, who sided with Britain against France, were furious.\n\nPresident Jefferson wanted to get rid of the Indians by the old traders' device of predatory lending\u2014ensnaring the chiefs in personal debt, then foreclosing on the commons of the tribes they represented. He advocated this method to General William Henry Harrison on February 27, 1803:\n\nto promote this disposition [on the part of the Native Americans] to exchange lands, which they have to spare & we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare & they want, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good & influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop th[em off] by a cession of lands.\n\nHe continued in a tone that perhaps illustrated how the doctrine of \"peaceable coercion\" applied at home:\n\nit is essential to cultivate their love. as to their fear, we presume that our strength & their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them.\n\nThe annexation of Louisiana was a political blockbuster. New England was cold to the acquisition, pointing out correctly that Jefferson had exceeded his constitutional limits in making it. But though it was opposed by New Englanders in both houses of Congress\u2014with the significant exception of John Quincy Adams, a pro-expansionist who crossed regional and party lines to side with Jefferson\u2014it approximately doubled the size of US territory overnight. It changed the national balance of power even as the innovations of the cotton gin and a method for making sugar from Louisiana cane made practical the cultivation of these two highly profitable slave-labor crops. Virginia was set to be the primary vendor for the large numbers of slaves that Louisiana planters would want. Jefferson was well aware that a commercial network already existed in which itinerant traders and small-time merchants bought Virginia slaves for trafficking down South, and he knew it was a handy way to get rid of troublemakers, because he took advantage of it repeatedly.\n\nAfter Cary, one of the imprisoned teenage boys who worked in his slave-labor nail factory at Monticello, attacked another one, Brown Colbert, with a hammer, he was sent away under Jefferson's orders. \"It will be necessary for me to make an example of him in terrorem to the others,\" he wrote to his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., from the White House on June 8, 1803. \"There are generally negro purchasers from Georgia passing about the state, to one of whom I would rather he should be sold than to any other person. [I]f none such offers, if he could be sold in any other quarter so distant as never more to be heard of among us, it would to the others be as if he were put out of the way by death.\"\n\nJefferson, then, was not only well aware of the Georgiamen and their southbound interstate slave trade, but also understood their process as a tool with which to terrorize\u2014\"in terrorem to the others\"\u2014his factory's workers, who were imprisoned children, and who had a cash value even as felons.\n\nLouisiana's Anglo-American settlers were primarily from Kentucky, a territory that had been carved out of Virginia and settled by Virginians. While the Louisiana Territory was being organized, President Jefferson sent his proven ally John Breckinridge\u2014now a senator from Kentucky\u2014a top-secret letter on November 24, 1803, enclosing two cramped double-column pages of proposals for a markedly undemocratic rule of Louisiana by a pro-American oligarchy that he referred to as an \"Assembly of Notables.\" As with the previous Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson cautioned Breckinridge to pass the work off in the Senate as his own and not reveal his hand in it:\n\nIn communicating it to you I must do it in confidence that you will never let any person know that I have put pen to paper on the subject and that if you think the inclosed can be of any aid to you will take the trouble to copy it & return me the original. I am this particular, because you know with what bloody teeth & fangs the federalists will attack any sentiment or principle known to come from me, & what blackguardisms & personalities they make it the occasion of vomiting forth.\n\nIt was the first time that Congress had dared contemplate making any determination as to whether slavery should be allowed somewhere, but there was no alternative if the territory was to be organized. Breckinridge put forth Jefferson's proposals as his own, perhaps with some modification (no copy survives of his bill as introduced). Having amply demonstrated his loyalty, he became Jefferson's attorney general in 1805.\n\nFor our purposes, the most interesting feature of Jefferson's plan for Louisiana as contained in the Breckinridge-tendered proposal was that he wanted to prohibit the foreign slave trade but allow the domestic. There was no question that Louisiana would continue to buy imported slaves. The payday for Virginia slaveholders was that slaves could not be brought to Louisiana from Africa or Havana, but would have to be imported from the United States\u2014a move that substantially revalued every Chesapeake slaveowner's holdings upward and substantially increased Virginia's share of the nation's capital stock.\n\nBut on the same day Jefferson wrote Breckinridge, South Carolina's governor James Richardson sent a message to his state's General Assembly calling for the reopening of the foreign slave trade to South Carolina. The following day, Jefferson wrote Breckinridge again, adding text to his previous letter: \"Insert in some part of the paper of yesterday 'Slaves shall be admitted into the territory of Orleans from such of the United States or of their territories as prohibit their importation from abroad, but from no other state, territory or country.' salutations. Nov. 25. 1803.\"\n\nJefferson's added clause was specifically aimed at denying South Carolina the right to import slaves for reshipment to New Orleans. Though Jefferson's general plan became law, the prohibition of importation from South Carolina did not survive; when the Louisiana bill came before the Senate, James Hillhouse, a Connecticut Federalist, attached an amendment that prohibited slaves from \"without the limits of the United States,\" but made no other distinction. With legal obstacles removed, South Carolina unilaterally and legally reopened the African slave trade in order to service Louisiana with freshly imported Africans rebranded as domestic product, undercutting the Virginia slaveowners substantially.\n\nThe United States formally took possession of Louisiana from France on December 20, 1803, twelve days before Commander in Chief Jean-Jacques Dessalines issued the Haitian Declaration of Independence that proclaimed the existence of the Republic of Haiti on January 1, 1804. It largely consisted of an extended and strongly worded cry of hatred for France, but nevertheless offered an olive branch to the rest of the hemisphere that acknowledged the fear that Haitians would become exporters of terrorism:\n\nLet us ensure, however, that a missionary spirit does not destroy our work; let us allow our neighbors to breathe in peace; may they live quietly under the laws that they have made for themselves, and let us not, as revolutionary firebrands, declare ourselves the lawgivers of the Caribbean, nor let our glory consist in troubling the peace of the neighboring islands.\n\nBut then Dessalines went from town to town, personally supervising the execution of the French remaining in the territory\u2014while exempting the Polish soldiers who had fought on the side of the Haitians, who were made honored members of the new society, and the many US captains who were happily doing business in the ports of the new republic. Dessalines served as Haiti's first president for less than three years before being murdered by other Haitians, and ultimately (unlike the Catholic Toussaint) became a _lwa_ of Haitian vodou.\n\nJames Wilkinson was upset to see the black militiamen of New Orleans in uniform and carrying weapons. A traitor who acted as a Spanish secret agent while commanding the US Army, Wilkinson had previously proposed that Kentucky declare independence from Virginia and become allied with Spain instead. But he nevertheless was tolerated by Jefferson, who made Wilkinson the head of the US Army in Louisiana.\n\nJefferson's Virginian-via-Tennessee prot\u00e9g\u00e9, W. C. C. Claiborne, a blue-blood descendant of Kent Island's William Claiborne, became the territorial governor of Louisiana. Claiborne, who spoke neither French nor Spanish, had since 1801 been governor of Mississippi, a position awarded him by Jefferson. As the Americans took charge in Louisiana, Claiborne's agent Dr. John Watkins, who had reconnoitered the country, pointed out in a report of February 2, 1804, the most important political issue:\n\nNo Subject seems to be so interesting to the minds of the inhabitants of all that part of the Country, which I have visited as that of the importation of brute Negroes from Africa. This permission would go farther with them, and better reconcile them to the Government of the United States, than any other privilege that could be extended to the Country. They appear only to claim it for a few years, and without it, they pretend that they must abandon the culture both of Sugar and Cotton. White laborers they say, cannot be had in this unhealthy climate.\n\nThe \"Kaintucks\"\u2014a minority in Louisiana\u2014had a marked preference for American-born slaves. But the Creoles of Louisiana wanted slaves from Africa. They didn't want English-speaking slaves, they didn't want Protestant slaves, and they didn't want to pay the much higher prices charged by the speculators who brought slaves from Virginia and Maryland.\n\nClaiborne wrote to Madison on March 10, 1804, of unrest on the part of both planters and slave traders:\n\nIn a Paper which was received by the last Mail from the Seat of Government, it was stated that a Law had passed the Senate prohibiting the foreign importation of Slaves into this Province. This intelligence has occasioned great agitation in this City and in the adjacent Settlements.\n\nThe African Trade has hitherto been lucrative, and the farmers are desirous of increasing the number of their Slaves. The prohibiting the incorporation of Negroes therefore, is viewed here as a serious blow at the Commercial and agricultural interest of the Province. The admission of Negroes into the state of South Carolina has served to increase the discontent here. The Citizens generally can not be made to understand the present power of the State Authorities with regard to the _importation of persons:_ \u2014they suppose that Congress must connive at the importation into South Carolina, and many will be made to believe, that it is done with a view to make South Carolina the Sole importer for Louisiana.\n\nAnd, indeed, that is what happened. Louisiana was a colonized territory, and as such, it was subject to trade restrictions that benefitted the metropolis\u2014principally Virginia, but Carolina had found a way to horn in.\n\nClaiborne's power during the territorial era was frequently and not inaccurately described as dictatorial, though the picture that emerges from his letters is that of a man who has a French-speaking tiger by the tail.* Contemplating the impending prohibition of both the African slave trade and the interstate trade to Louisiana as of October 1, he wrote Secretary of State Madison on May 8:\n\nI am inclined to think that previous to the 1st of October thousands of African Negroes will be imported into this Province; for the Citizens seem impressed with an opinion, that a great, very great supply of Slaves is essential to the prosperity of Louisiana: Hence Sir you may conclude that the prohibition as to the importation Subsequent to the 1st of October, is a source of some discontent; Nay Sir, it is at present a cause of much clamour.\n\nAnd on July 12:\n\nAt some future period, this quarter of the Union must (I fear) experience in some degree, the Misfortunes of St. Domingo, and that _period_ will be hastened if the people should be indulged by congress with a continuance of the African Trade.\n\nAfrican Negroes are thought here not to be dangerous; but it ought to be recollected that those of St. Domingo were originally from Africa and that Slavery Where ever it exists is a galling yoke. I find however that an almost universal sentiment exist in Louisiana in favour of the African traffic.... Slaves are daily introduced from Africa, many _direct_ from _this_ unhappy Country and others by way of the west India Islands. All vessels with slaves on bord [ _sic_ ] are stopped at Plaquemine, and are not permitted to pass without my consent. This is done to prevent the bringing in of Slaves that have been concerned in the insurrection of St. Domingo.\n\nThe foreign slave trade into Louisiana was never again legalized. But under pressure from Jefferson to respond to Claiborne's urgent drumbeat that the citizens of Louisiana wanted more slaves, Congress legalized the domestic slave trade to Louisiana in March 1805, to be fully effective October 1.\n\nThat the black territory freed from France should call itself a republic was seen by whites as a grotesquerie.\n\nFor the slaveowners in the United States government to have diplomatic relations with slaves who had killed their masters was unthinkable; it would, they thought, amount to rewarding their actions. Although Haiti was the second republic in the hemisphere, the United States didn't extend diplomatic recognition to it until 1862, and then only because President Abraham Lincoln saw it as a potential site for \"colonization,\" or deportation, of emancipated slaves.\n\nYet the Southerners owed the Haitians a lot. At a time when Washington, DC, was a squalid, barely built village and the US Army had only about three thousand troops, Haiti stopped the French troops' forward march into the Americas. To put it another way: though it was not their objective, Dessalines and his troops prevented Bonaparte's forces from invading Louisiana and controlling commerce on the Mississippi. Historians don't deal in counterfactuals\u2014what might have happened\u2014but it is tempting to imagine scenarios: if Leclerc had been able to comply with his orders to continue on from Saint-Domingue and occupy Louisiana with ten thousand men or more, controlling the great New Orleans gateway to the sea? Could the French have managed a permanent occupation that would have been hard to dislodge? Certainly the United States governing class had not expected to be able to expand across the continent so quickly and easily.\n\nSpain's military involvement in Saint-Domingue was its last gasp as a world power, the prelude to losing its colonies one by one, and Saint-Domingue was the graveyard of British colonial expansion in the Americas as well. The expense and horrendous loss of life were a spur to the British in stopping the African slave trade\u2014though not British colonial slavery, yet\u2014via an act approved in Parliament on March 25, 1807, a mere three years after the establishment of the Republic of Haiti.\n\nBritain could afford to get out of the slave trade. As profitable as slaving could be, British commerce was so large, and so diverse, that losing the slave trade didn't make a dent it. Trinidad, Britain's last-acquired Caribbean colony, was ceded to Britain by France in 1802. It had been Spanish, French, and now English in succession. The Africans who were subsequently brought to Trinidad were not brought as chattel slaves but as indentured workers from the British empire in Africa.*\n\nNew England merchants did a brisk business in Haiti, to the disgust and alarm of Southerners, trading arms along with other commodities and consumer goods. Napoleon, who refused to recognize Haitian independence, was furious about American commerce with Haiti; Jefferson, who hoped to have Napoleon's cooperation in taking over Florida, wanted to keep him happy. Congress passed sanctions against commerce with Haiti in 1806, amid arguments that to trade with Haiti against France's wishes was to recognize Haitian independence. That would be, Jefferson's son-in-law John Wayles Eppes shouted in the House, \"a system that would bring immediate and horrible destruction on the fairest portion of America.\"\n\nSoutherners were on permanent high alert for terrorism, and never backed down. The specter of Haiti informed all future discourse\u2014every dinner-table conversation, every political calculation, every speech\u2014about slavery in the Southern United States. The \"French Negroes\" were thought to carry the contagion of insurrection, and prophylactic measures were thought necessary to keep them from infiltrating; there was even concern, utterly unwarranted, that Haiti might attack the United States.\n\nHere as on other occasions, Southern slaveowners revealed how terrified they were by the ferocity of black fighters. Haiti had a significant population of black men who had served in European and\/or African armies or in colonial militias, and their military knowledge embraced both European and African military tactics and systems of organization.\n\nThe clock was ticking. The Constitution allowed the federal government to stop the foreign slave trade as of January 1, 1808, and President Jefferson wanted that trade shut down for good. Prohibiting the slave trade was easily represented to a panicked public as antiterrorism.\n\nBut it also partook of that other great issue: prohibiting the African slave trade protected the market so that a new class of American traders could come forward, supplied with homegrown captives born into slavery on Virginia and Maryland farms. The conditions were right for a massive forced migration of enslaved Chesapeake laborers down South, and it did not have to be a one-time drain: a continuing domestic slave-breeding industry was now possible.\n\nThis was something new. Taking the long historical view, African American historian William T. Alexander wrote in 1887:\n\nSlave breeding for gain, deliberately purposed and systematically pursued, appears to be among the latest devices and illustrations of human depravity.... That it was cheaper to buy slaves than to rear them, [had been] quite generally regarded as self-evident. But the suppression of the African slave trade, coinciding with the rapid settlement of the Louisiana purchase and the triumph of the Cotton Gin, wrought here an entire transformation. When field hands brought from ten to fifteen hundred dollars, and young slaves were held at from ten to fifteen dollars per pound, the newly born infant, if well formed, healthy, and likely to live, was deemed an addition to his master's stock of not less than one hundred dollars, even in Virginia and Maryland. It had now become the interest of the master to increase the number of births, in his slave cabins, and few evinced scruples as to the means whereby this result was obtained.\n\nThe Spanish had had the most permissive slave regime ever to exist in the territories that now make up the United States. Under Spanish law, the enslaved had a right to have a hearing to establish a price by which they could purchase their freedom. This practice, called _coartaci\u00f3n_ , was hated by the planters, and it ended in 1807.\n\nIn Louisiana, both free people of color and the enslaved found themselves in transition to the hemisphere's psychologically harshest racial regime: the Anglo-American mode of slavery, which provided no path to freedom even for future generations of descendants. The Virginians brought them a kind of slavery that was not only lifelong, but perpetual.\n\n*When in 1807 Jefferson tried to prevail on James Monroe to take the Louisiana governorship, he pitched it as the \"2d office in the US. in importance.\" _PJMon_ , 5:288.\n\n*The old ways persisted, however; Trinidad's carnival was a Mardi Gras, and when its characteristic musical form of calypso later appeared, it was in the French Creole tongue, as were many of the old _bombas_ of western Puerto Rico, where Domingans also went.\n\n#   27\n\n# **I Do Not Threaten the Government with Civil War**\n\n_The] facility with which the sugar Planters amass wealth is almost incredible. It is not uncommon with 20 working hands to make from 10 to 14 thousand Dollars and there are several planters whose field Negroes do not exceed forty who make more than 20,000 Dollars each year.[ 1_\n\n\u2014Louisiana governor W. C. C. Claiborne, letter to President Thomas Jefferson, July 10, 1806\n\nGEORGIA, THE ONLY STATE to have legally imported slaves from Africa since the Constitution took effect, finally banned both African and interstate slave trade in 1798, at a time when maritime commerce was disturbed by war. During the years the trade was open, Charleston merchants and factors had sold large cargoes of slaves in Savannah, and a class of Georgia traders had grown up as well. Slave trading continued after the ban, but illicitly, not subject to legal regulation or protection.\n\nIn 1802 the South Carolina legislature renewed the prohibition against both the foreign and interstate slave trades. As had previously been the case in both Chesapeake and Carolina, it was a regional issue. About half the population of Charleston at this time was enslaved; upcountry, the enslaved population comprised only about one-fifth of the total. Not only did the Lowcountry's large slaveholders, who were firmly in control, want to disempower their upcountry competition by denying them labor, they wanted to control the labor market so that upcountry would have to buy its labor from the Lowcountry, without having access to competitors from Virginia and Maryland.\n\nCharleston newspapers published excited reports of the productivity of the new Louisiana Territory, with the clear implication being that Louisiana had insufficient slave labor. South Carolina could easily supply it, since Charleston had since the 1790s carried slaves to New Orleans via its commercial, albeit treacherous and irregular, coastwise shipping route around the Spanish-held Floridas to New Orleans.\n\nFor South Carolina legislators, long attuned to fast-changing market conditions, it was time to act. \"To the surprise of many political observers,\" writes Lacy K. Ford, \"in late November 1803, just one year after its desultory rejection of inland cotton growers' pleas for a reopened slave trade, the South Carolina legislature suddenly began a serious reconsideration of the issue, undoubtedly prompted by both persistent backcountry pressure and the prospect of supplying legions of slaves to the lower Louisiana Territory for handsome profits.\" The two interests cut a deal: the merchants of Charleston got the African slave trade, whose victims they could resell to Louisiana and Mississippi, and the upcountry planters got the interstate trade, which would allow them to buy enslaved laborers from the Chesapeake.\n\n\"The news had not been five hours in the city,\" wrote Charleston bookseller E. S. Thomas, \"before two large British Guineamen, that had been lying on and off the port for several days expecting it, came up to town; and from that day my business began to decline.\" For the next four years, available resources went to investing in slaves.\n\nIt was not yet clear what the laws of an American-controlled Louisiana would be, but in adjacent Mississippi, under Claiborne's governorship, Congress had since 1798 allowed the interstate but not the foreign trade, requiring planters to buy from American slave vendors. With the cotton boom underway, Natchez was already a developed slave market, and Louisiana could\u2014and, as it happened, did\u2014radically widen that opportunity. It was clear that though the interstate trade to Louisiana was at that moment prohibited, the territory was being set up as a market for Virginia slaves, and South Carolina wanted in on the action.\n\nBeyond the simple lure of making sales, there was an additional, compelling reason for South Carolina to sell slaves to Louisiana: Louisiana had a hard-money supply, courtesy of the Spanish. Spain did its business the old-fashioned way, paying bills with silver mined out of the ground in Mexico. Claiborne reported from New Orleans to Secretary of State James Madison on June 16, 1805, that \"Two Spanish Schooners from Vera Cruz, have arrived at this Port, and are consigned to the Marquis of Casa Calvo. They brought with them a large Sum in Silver, report says One Hundred thousand Dollars, but it is believed the real Amount is much greater. This money is said to be destined for the payment of the Pensions allowed to persons residing in Louisiana, and to meet the expences which the Marquis has or may incur as Commissioner of Limits.\"\n\nSouth Carolina had no such shipments coming in. Louisiana offered a chance for Carolina merchants to get silver, instead of paper that might depreciate or become worthless. The Creoles had silver Spanish dollars, and they were eager to buy slaves.\n\nThe previous peak of South Carolina importation of Africans was 1773, when an estimated eight-thousand-plus slaves were brought in. This time, when South Carolina reopened the African trade, they brought in far and away the largest single concentration of victims that came to North America in any comparable period, as this table of estimated embarkations (using the Eltis and Richardson numbers) shows:\n\n1804 |  7,643  \n---|---  \n1805 |  8,592  \n1806 | 15,551  \n1807 | 23,174  \n1808 |  498  \n**total** | **55,458**\n\nEltis and Richardson show an estimated 12.7 percent death rate, with 47,281 arriving alive. Some estimates of the traffic are higher; James McMillin believes that more than seventy thousand Africans\u2014a phenomenal number\u2014arrived into the Lowcountry during the four years from 1804 to 1807.\n\nSome of these newly arrived Africans were sent on to Jamaica, Barbados, or other Antillean territories, and it's unclear how many of them were re-exported to Louisiana. At least five thousand, believes Lacy K. Ford\u2014more than 10 percent of the Eltis and Richardson estimate of Africans trafficked to South Carolina\u2014but the number could be larger. There was definitely a commercial corridor in slaves: Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's Afro-Louisiana database shows that between 1806 and 1810, 76 percent of captives that she was able to obtain documentation for who came into the port of New Orleans arrived from South Carolina, versus only 3 percent for other US ports of origin (a sample that does not include the migration of some ten thousand people, about a third of them enslaved, to New Orleans from eastern Cuba in 1809\u201310). Her statistics for 1811 and 1812 show 67 percent from South Carolina. A committee report to Congress on February 17, 1806, stated flatly, \"African slaves, lately imported into Charleston, have been thence conveyed into the Territory of Orleans; and, in their opinion, this practice will be continued to a very great extent, while there is no law to prevent it.\"\n\nSome of the Africans were taken past New Orleans to Natchez, though in the pre-steam days it was hard work getting a boat up the Mississippi River. The _Lucy_ left Charleston on July 4, 1806, \"carrying 50 negroes insured from Charleston to Natchez, the premium 7\u00bd per cent.\" During the Missouri Compromise debate of 1820, South Carolina senator William Smith, arguing in favor of unlimited slavery, entered into the congressional record the following passage about the importations of 1803\u201307, which shows how little the Carolinians were involved in the actual business of importation (as opposed to selling the captives):\n\nThe whole number imported by the merchants and planters of Charleston and its vicinity were only two thousand and six. Nor were the slaves imported by the foreigners, and other American vessels and owners, sold to the Carolinians, only in a small part. They were sold to the people of the Western States, Georgia, New Orleans, and a considerable quantity were sent to the West Indies, especially when the market became dull in Carolina.\n\nSo a number of the slaves brought into Louisiana through 1810 came from Africa through South Carolina via the coastwise trade. The manifests before 1818 were lost, but the one stray surviving manifest from 1807 is for a \"new negro man\"\u2014i.e., African-born\u2014coming to New Orleans from Charleston.\n\nProbably Charleston was the source from which George W. Morgan received the cargo of thirty people\u2014twenty adults, ten children\u2014from two widely separated regions of Africa that he advertised in the _Orleans Gazette and Commercial Advertiser_ of August 13, 1806, though they could also have been plucked by pirates off a ship headed for Cuba:\n\nBut there was also competition from the Chesapeake, as per this February 5, 1807, advertisement from the same paper:\n\nAnother advertisement in the same issue, reproduced here, shows the participation of Charlestonians in the business, offering \"140 NEGRES BRUTS, DE NATION CONGO\" to francophone buyers:\n\nRe-exporting Africans was not a business that benefited most South Carolinians, nor did most of the money stay in Charleston. The Carolinians were middlemen, not suppliers. They had a harbor, but not a transatlantic shipping industry of their own, so the profits from carrying went elsewhere. As a \"Planter from Pedee\" wrote during the non-importation movement of 1769\u201370, \"purchasing Negroes is in fact purchasing British manufactures.\"\n\nCharleston customs entries for 1806 show thirty-three slave ships from Africa as being owned by British proprietors, followed by thirteen from Rhode Island, then three from New Jersey, three from Charleston, and two from Ireland. Breaking down a customs count of 39,075 slaves declared as entering into Charleston between 1804 and 1807, Elizabeth Donnan found 19,949 of them entering on British ships, 7,958 on Rhode Island vessels, and only 2,006 imported by \"merchants and planters of Charleston and vicinity,\" presumably the same 2,006 cited by Smith.\n\nThe Carolinians tried to make their money on volume, in an unprecedented mass retailing experiment. Their greed was matched by that of the shippers, the largest number of whom were in Liverpool; they knew the market would be closing soon.\n\nThe Liverpool slavers' heaviest shipping period was the last ten years of the trade. During that time, they also sold slaves to the British Army, who purchased them for conscription into the West India Regiment, an arrangement that only ended with the end of the African slave trade. From January 1, 1806, through the prohibition of the trade on May 1, 1807\u2014the height of the South Carolina importation\u2014185 ships from Liverpool carried 49,213 Africans.\n\nIn this free-for-all slave importation scene, people from widely different parts of Africa turned up in Charleston\u2014from Kongo, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and other regions. Omar ibn Said, an Islamic scholar from Senegal, a Fula, who arrived in Charleston in 1807, described his experience in a fifteen-page 1831 autobiography, one of fourteen manuscripts that he wrote in Arabic while enslaved:\n\n... there came to our place a large army, who killed many men, and took me, and brought me to the great sea, and sold me into the hands of the Christians, who bound me and sent me on board a great ship and we sailed upon the great sea a month and a half, when we came to a place called Charleston in the Christian language. There they sold me to a small, weak, and wicked man called Johnson, a complete infidel, who had no fear of God at all. Now I am a small man, and unable to do hard work so I fled from the hand of Johnson and after a month came to a place called Fayd-il. [Fayetteville, North Carolina.]\n\nThe unilateral reopening of the slave trade by South Carolina caused much anger in the rest of the country, both in the Upper South and in the abolitionist strongholds. Newspapers in North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia all strongly criticized South Carolina's decision, but the Carolina press became especially defensive when the criticism came from the North, as in this piece from the _Charleston Courier_ of July 10, 1806, which takes on a mocking tone not unfamiliar in other eras of American politics:\n\nAs to the epithet of thieves, which [an unnamed Philadelphia editor] applies to those who bring Slaves from Africa, we shall presently see whether we cannot apply it to the pure, the immaculate, and demure Philadelphian, and some other of the Northern cities, where they are bellowing out, humanity! humanity! humanity! Oh! the rights of dear insulted human nature!\n\nAs captives died awaiting sale, Charlestonians were irritated by the captains' practice of disposing of the corpses on the cheap by throwing them overboard, \"in consequence of which,\" reported traveler John Lambert, \"no body would eat any fish.\" A city ordinance of 1805, printed in the _Charleston Courier_ , noted that \"since the importation of Slaves from Africa, several incidents have occurred of dead human bodies having been thrown into the waters of the Harbour of Charleston\" and provided that not only should a fine of one hundred dollars be imposed, but that the offender's name should be published in \"the several gazettes of Charleston, to hold up every such offender to public detestation.\" Still, the numerous advertisements for luxury goods in the four pages of the previously mentioned issue leave no doubt that, bodies floating in the harbor or not, the Charlestonians were prosperous. But since all those goods had to be imported, either from the North or from Europe, their money quickly left the city again on northbound boats.\n\nLooking forward to the January 1, 1808, expiration of the constitutionally specified guarantee that the African slave trade could exist, President Jefferson's Message to Congress of December 2, 1806, proactively called for its prohibition as of the first constitutionally permissible day. In defending the urgency of his proposal as necessary to forestall a final cycle of African expeditions, Jefferson also presented it as a moral issue:\n\nI congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best of our country have long been eager to proscribe. Although no law you may pass can take prohibitory effect until the first day of the year 1808, yet the intervening period is not too long to prevent by timely notice expeditions which can not be completed before that day.\n\nA bill was duly proposed the following day.\n\nHowever moral it may have seemed to Jefferson to lament \"violations of human rights,\" ending the transatlantic slave trade did nothing to end slavery itself. Instead, it replaced one inhumane slave trade with another. This action of Jefferson's has been praised as, in one historian's words, \"his greatest act of humane egalitarianism.\" Perhaps in his layers of intellectual complexity, Jefferson thought so himself; we will resist the temptation to psychoanalyze. But in practice, it was no such thing. It was an act to transform American slavery into a purely domestic industry, reducing the nation's dependence on foreign sources of supply for slaves and bringing the entire slave trade under Virginia's control. Nor was this an unforeseen consequence; it was the predictable, desired outcome, which is why South Carolina and Georgia opposed the bill, albeit unsuccessfully.\n\nThe bill was referred to a House committee of four Southerners (from Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina) and three Northerners, with Peter Early of Georgia as chair. In debate, Early answered John Smilie of Pennsylvania, who wanted capital punishment for slave importers, with words that put Jefferson's high-flown appeal in perspective:\n\n[Mr. Smilie] has said that, in the Southern States, slavery is felt and acknowledged to be a great evil, and that therefore we will execute a severe law to prevent an increase of this evil. Permit me to tell the gentleman of a small distinction in this case. A large majority of the people in the Southern States do not consider slavery as a crime. They do not believe it immoral to hold human flesh in bondage. Many deprecate slavery as an evil; as a political evil; but not as a crime. Reflecting men apprehend, at some future day, evils, incalculable evils, from it; but it is a fact that few, very few, consider it as a crime.\n\nIt is best to be candid on this subject. If they considered the holding of men in slavery as a crime, they would necessarily accuse themselves, a thing which human nature revolts at. I will tell the truth. A large majority of people in the Southern States do not consider slavery as even an evil.\n\nThis was a long way from Mason, Jefferson, Henry, and even Pierce Butler and Henry Laurens's protestations that slavery was an evil forced upon North America by Britain, one to which there was unfortunately no effective end in sight because free blacks could supposedly not live together with whites. South Carolina was the center of an expanding commercial empire, with slavery at the heart of that vision. To hear Carolina slaveowners tell it, slavery was a positive good for mankind. This sentiment, soon to be institutionalized by South Carolina's John C. Calhoun, had already become common.\n\nWhat to do with enslaved people rescued from slave ships was a problem as well; should the federal government sell them at auction? When it was proposed that they be indentured for a term in a free state, Early responded by threatening civil war (while claiming the contrary), according to the minutes in the _Annals of Congress:_\n\nMr. Early said the inhabitants of the Southern States would resist this provision with their lives. We want no civil wars, no rebellions, no insurrections, no resistance to the authority of the Government. Give effect then to this wish, and do not pass this bill as it now stands.\n\nMr. Smilie. \u2014 This opens such a scene as I never expected to witness in this House. If it were not owing to the impulse of the moment, and the influence of passion, I should think it extremely reprehensible. Are we to be threatened with civil war? that our laws will be resisted at the peril of life? Sir, this is new doctrine. The gentleman must know that we are not to be terrified by a threat of civil war.\n\nMr. Early said the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smilie) had made a palpable misrepresentation of his sentiments. I do not threaten the Government with civil war. I only communicated the idea that military force would be necessary to carry the law into execution.\n\nThe Senate added to the bill a prohibition against the coastwise slave trade for ships of less than forty tons burden, which made it impossible for small vessels intercepted at sea bearing slaves from the Antilles to claim that they were engaging in domestic coastwise trade. This infuriated the Southerners; Virginia's senior senator, the voluble, unhinged, but not unperceptive John Randolph, who owned some four hundred slaves, argued that (as summarized by the congressional reporter):\n\nThe provision of the bill touched the right of private property. He feared lest, at a future period, it might be made the pretext of universal emancipation, he had rather lose the bill, he had rather lose all the bills of the session, he had rather lose every bill passed since the establishment of the Government, than agree to the provision contained in this slave bill. It went to blow up the Constitution in ruins. Mr. R[andolph] said, if ever the time of disunion between the States should arrive, the line of severance would be between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding states.\n\nOver Randolph's objections, the forty-tons clause remained, setting in place a mechanism that favored larger operators in the coastwise slave trade.\n\nThe Senate version also included a requirement that the ship's captain submit a manifest naming each enslaved passenger to the customs collector or surveyor both at the port of departure and at the port of arrival, with the customs officer performing a roll call at either end. New Orleans was the principal port of arrival, but far from the only one; the trade stretched to Galveston. The result of this requirement is that both inward and outward manifests exist. Many have been lost, but even so, these filled-in, commercially preprinted forms constitute the best record of the trade.\n\nJefferson signed the act prohibiting the African trade on March 2, 1807, to take effect the first day of 1808. Britain, meanwhile, having lost tens of thousands of men in its attempt to take Saint-Domingue, and under strong domestic pressure from abolitionists who had organized themselves into an effective political movement, put an end to its lucrative involvement in the slave trade by a measure that received royal assent on March 25, 1807. The British law did not have to wait until the first of the year to be effective so it took effect before the already passed American prohibition did. Though a British abolition law would have to wait until 1833, ending the transatlantic slave trade was a major turning point. Over the next decades, the British Navy enforced it at sea not only with respect to British ships, but stopping slave ships from other nations as well.\n\nAs the shutoff approached, South Carolina traders turned the spigot as wide as it would open. By the final year, the market was glutted, with fatal consequences for the Africans who piled up in holding pens. John Lambert reported that in 1807:\n\nthe sales for slaves was extremely dull, owing to the high price which the merchants demanded for them. The planters, who were pretty well stocked, were not very eager to purchase, and the merchants knowing that a market would ultimately be found for them, were determined not to lower their demands; in consequence of which, hundreds of these poor beings were obliged to be kept on board the ships, or in large buildings at Gadsden's wharf for months together.\n\nExhausted and sick, many of the captives died; McMillin believes that \"as many as sixteen hundred newly arrived Africans may have perished on the Charleston wharf over four months.\" By November, the major traders seem to have agreed to hold captives back from the market. With Jefferson having shut the African trade off, Virginia and Maryland traders settled into their newly protected domestic slave trade.\n\nWilliam Dusinberre's comment about another president, James K. Polk, is equally applicable in the case of Jefferson: \"His political conviction was congruent with what appeared to be his own financial interest.\" For Jefferson as for other large slaveholders, the end of African importation was a crucial step in protecting and growing their net worth, which perhaps explains the support Jefferson received from Virginia and the South in general during his subsequent measure, unique in the annals of American history: a complete embargo of all overseas trade.\n\n#   28\n\n# **These Infernal Principles**\n\n_From the best information I could obtain, this city contains nearly three hundred houses, and about three thousand inhabitants, including all colours. There are several extensive mercantile houses established here, and one at least which imports goods directly from England. There are two printing-offices, and consequently two newspapers, which are published weekly... The gentlemen pass their time in the pursuit of three things: all make love; most of them play gamble]; and a few make money. With Religion they have nothing to do; having formed a treaty with her, the principal article of which is, \"Trouble not us, nor will we trouble you.\"[ 1_\n\n\u2014The traveler Christian Schultz, describing Natchez in 1808\n\nUS MERCHANT SHIPPERS WERE caught in the crossfire between implacable opposed forces that would not allow them to act without subterfuge. Both the belligerent conservative government in Britain and Napoleon's government in France were increasingly taking a policy that there were no neutrals, pursuant to which they claimed the right to seize American vessels.\n\nNapoleon's Berlin Decree of November 21, 1806, prohibited trade with Britain and its allies, and allowed the capture of ships and the blockading of ports in service of that goal. However, it was not put into force against the United States for almost a year, so that in British eyes, the Jefferson administration was getting special treatment from Napoleon and was therefore not neutral but pro-French, as Jefferson had been deemed to be by the British all along. Indeed, Jefferson acquiesced to the Berlin Decree \"without effectual protest,\" as Henry Adams put it. Britain responded with the draconian Orders in Council of November 11, 1807, an opaquely worded declaration of commercial war against neutrals that was squarely aimed at the United States, even as Bonaparte began applying the Berlin Decree to American ships.\n\nJefferson's \"peaceable coercion\" theory of defense was about to be sorely tested. Henry Adams, whose nine-volume history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations examines the matter in detail, wrote bluntly, \"Jefferson and his government had shown over and over again that no provocation would make them fight; and from the moment that this attitude was understood, America became fair prey.\" Both France and Britain were seizing American merchant ships, but Britain's bullying was more aggressive, leading to the galvanizing seizure of one of the few ships of the American navy, the _Chesapeake_ , by the British ship _Leopard_ off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, on June 22, 1807.\n\nDramatizing the stakes was the fate of Denmark. In Europe, both powers pressured the Danish king to support them, the endgame of which was that Britain bombarded Copenhagen from September 2 through 5, 1807, destroying about half the city, killing some two thousand people, and confiscating some $10 million worth of merchandise in Danish vessels. Adams wrote that \"the annihilation of Denmark left America almost the only neutral, as she had long been the only Republican State.\" (Not counting Haiti, that is, but the United States, England, and France alike refused to recognize Haiti's claim to be a republic and considered it an outlaw that still rightfully belonged to France.) According to Adams, the undefended United States' \"offences... had been more serious than those of Denmark, and had roused to exasperation the temper of England. A single ship of the line, supported by one or two frigates, could without a moment's notice repeat at New York the tragedy which had required a vast armament at Copenhagen.\"\n\nDuring the seven years of his presidency, Jefferson had discarded his previously declared Republican ideals of limited government one by one. Now, in the commercial emergency posed by Britain's Orders in Council, Jefferson imposed the Embargo Act, signed on December 22, 1807. His secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, described it as \"an act prohibiting the sailing of ships or vessels from the ports and harbors of the U. States to any foreign port or harbor\"\u2014in other words, nothing less than a self-imposed embargo on all US maritime commerce and travel. This unparalleled real-world economic experiment was a hopeless attempt to resolve British and French incursions on US sovereignty at sea. It badly depressed the US economy, made Jefferson widely hated during his last year in office, and did nothing to dispel the tensions that ultimately erupted in the War of 1812.\n\nWhen the prohibition against the slave trade kicked in on January 1, 1808, then, it happened against the backdrop of the general embargo, which had unleashed a panic in American (and European) commerce that made even the African trade seem a minor issue. Even had the slave trade not been specifically prohibited, there would have been no one to ship slaves from Africa to South Carolina. The merchants of Liverpool, who provided the bulk of the slave shipments, had been shut down from London, because Britain now prohibited their trade and would soon be sending its imperial navy to chase down slavers. Nor would Rhode Island's slave-trade specialists have been able to take up the slack, because even had their slave ships somehow not been prohibited along with all other foreign commerce by Jefferson's embargo, they would have been subject to confiscation at sea by the British navy, or possibly by French ships taking prizes for Napoleon.\n\nWhile the embargo did stimulate American manufactures, it was received in New England as a plot by the French agent Jefferson to destroy American commerce. In New York, wrote the traveler John Lambert, \"the grass had begun to grow upon the wharves.\" But the full brunt of the embargo fell on the South, where two consecutive crops could not get to market. \"Virginia society could neither economize nor liquidate,\" wrote Henry Adams. \"Tobacco was worthless; but four hundred thousand negro slaves must be clothed and fed... with astonishing rapidity Virginia succumbed to ruin, while continuing to support the system that was draining her strength.\" With more than a little sarcasm, he added, \"No episode in American history was more touching than the generous devotion with which Virginia clung to the embargo, and drained the poison which her own President held obstinately to her lips.... the old society of Virginia could never be restored... President Jefferson himself woke from his long dream of power only to find his own fortunes buried in the ruin he had made.\"\n\nThe indecisiveness of Jefferson's solution prolonged the agony, as the external threat to commerce did not let up. Jefferson had begun his second term riding the popularity in the South of his greatest achievement as president: the annexation of Louisiana, to which New England's legislators had been opposed. Now, even in the wake of the unpopular embargo, he still had support in Virginia. He was, in the final analysis, the slavery president, and he had given his home-state constituents the means of monetizing their inert labor force.\n\nNot for another eight years, until the resolution of the War of 1812 finally ended the crisis of seizure at sea, would the coast be clear for something like normal commerce to resume\u2014and for Virginia planters to take advantage of the great gift Jefferson had given them by selling large quantities of black Virginians down South.\n\nJefferson was humiliatingly forced to sign the removal of the embargo on March 1, 1809, days before a new president was inaugurated\u2014another Virginian, Jefferson's prot\u00e9g\u00e9 James Madison.\n\nThe election had not been an inspiring one from the point of view of New England. It was a Virginia versus South Carolina election, pitting the Republican James Madison of Virginia, principal author of the Constitution, against Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, he who at the Constitutional Convention had insisted on a full twenty years' protection for the African slave trade. In his first term, President Madison more or less continued the policies he had pursued as Jefferson's secretary of state\u2014which had left a sectionally divided country, a damaged economy, a restless Louisiana that chafed under Anglo-American rule from the Chesapeake, an unresolved stalemate with an angry Britain, and an unbridled Napoleon\u2014who, despite having dumped Louisiana, was still intent on controlling the Americas.\n\nOn the pretext of subduing Portugal for having engaged in commerce with its centuries-long trading partner England, Napoleon introduced his forces into Spain in 1807 with the intention of taking control of the ports of Lisbon and C\u00e1diz, key bases for reaching across the Atlantic. With his troops installed in Iberia, he humiliated Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII before the world by installing his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne as King Jos\u00e9 I.\n\nNapoleon's defenestration of the Spanish government was a green light for independence movements in Spain's American territories. But Cuba remained loyal to the Spanish crown, and in eastern Cuba (known as Oriente), the French speakers who had relocated as refugees from the Haitian Revolution came under suspicion.\n\nAlready there had been justified concern that the _franceses_ might secede from the island and take over Oriente for themselves as per the model of the neighboring island Hispaniola, permanently divided between contentious French and Spanish speakers. Now the thirty thousand (a best-guess number) who had escaped the unraveling of Leclerc's genocide by fleeing as immigrants to eastern Cuba from Saint-Domingue were seen as potentially subversive by the loyalist Spanish government of Cuba. Those who did not take a loyalty oath to Spain or marry Spanish citizens found it expedient to leave for New Orleans, taking their slaves with them.\n\nIn the course of this flotilla, a report published by New Orleans mayor James Mather counted 9,059 people as entering New Orleans on some sixty ships, many of them privateers, mostly during the last three months of 1809. In this number, 3,225 of them (36 percent) were slaves, and only 962 of those were men over fifteen. Since this took place after the January 1, 1808, cutoff, \"importation of persons\" was by then prohibited by federal law, so it took an act of Congress to disembark the enslaved passengers, who were impounded for months in the harbor of what was then called the Territory of Orleans. They were thus the last slaves to be legally imported into the United States.\n\nAs they had previously done in Santiago de Cuba, the newly arrived Domingans transformed the French part of New Orleans\u2014the old part, which came to be known as the French Quarter for the language spoken there. New Orleans by then was well along in becoming two adjacent towns: a fast-growing English-speaking one and a much larger French- (and Spanish-) speaking one, separated by the no-man's-land (\"neutral ground\") of Canal Street (named for a canal that was never dug). While the Domingans' arrival helped push Louisiana's population a little farther toward the minimum of sixty thousand free inhabitants required for statehood, it also slowed the pace of Americanization of New Orleans for the next thirty years and brought a new layer of culture and skills to an already complex Afro-Louisianan population. Despite the peculiarity and isolation of Louisiana, it had been a colonial cousin of Saint-Domingue, Martinique, and Guadaloupe. Six of the twenty-three French slave ships that came to Louisiana were from Ouidah in present-day Benin, from whence the word _vodou._ Domingan vodou found fertile ground in Louisiana, since it was kin to practices that had been going on in Louisiana since the first contact with Africa.\n\nEnding the African trade signaled a major cultural shift in black America. Africans had been entering the colonies on an ongoing, though not continual, basis for almost two centuries.\n\nThere were 1,191,364 slaves in the United States according to the 1810 census, an increase of 33.4 percent over 1800. It seems reasonable to assume that fewer than one hundred thousand were African-born, with most of those in the Lowcountry. The next five decades would each show a growth of the enslaved population of never less than 24 percent\u2014a tremendous level of growth for a population not being supplemented by imports and routinely devastated by high child mortality\u2014but never again would the 1800 to 1810 rate of growth in the slave population be reached, combining as it did massive importation in combination with reproduction of the domestic population.\n\nDuring that decade, the population of the southwestern corner of Mississippi quadrupled. Most of the new nation's frontiers pushed westward, but the expansion of plantations into Mississippi unrolled in a northeasterly direction. Natchez, in the southwest of the territory, was at the edge of a vast forest of uncleared land. The nearest Anglo-American towns to the east were hundreds of miles away. Nor was it easy to get to Natchez from New Orleans; as Christian Schultz was leaving Natchez downriver in April 1808, his boat passed one going the other way whose cargo of enslaved laborers were doing the hard upriver slog that required physically pulling the boat forward: \"we met a brig at the Fausse Rivi\u00e8re, one hundred and sixty-five miles above New-Orleans, which was then forty-two days from that city. This vessel had part of her cargo of slaves on board, and was bound to Natchez; and though she had the advantage of extraordinary assistance from her slaves, she had performed only one half of her voyage. I have no doubt that her whole voyage from city to city took up more than eighty days.\"\n\nNatchez was already the second biggest slave market of the Deep South. Sitting at the end of the distribution line, it paid the highest prices. As had happened in the Chesapeake and Carolina, there was a political cleavage between the planters already established around Natchez, who had plenty of slaves and wanted to see the value of their holdings appreciate, and those on the frontier, who wanted to buy more slaves, cheap.\n\nWhen Jefferson left office at the beginning of 1809, the US economy was in tatters from his embargo, with New England's shipping industry having suffered especially badly. As shipping resumed, Britain and France returned to impounding American vessels, and the new president, James Madison, continued to swallow the insults.\n\nAs when Madison had been Jefferson's secretary of state, the acquisition of Florida continued to be a strategic obsession. A new Native American group had formed there: the Seminoles were a composite people, most numerously a breakaway group of Creeks who had incorporated a number of black escapees into their ranks. These \"Black Seminoles,\" as they were called, were largely Gullah people making use of Native American social identity while living in marronage.\n\nAll over the Southeast, settlers pushed onto Native American land, and they wanted more of it. In Congress, the perhaps twenty-one representatives and senators who clamored for war with Britain were overwhelmingly Southern and Western. Their Federalist enemies dubbed them the \"War Hawks.\" Kentucky's thirty-four-year-old Henry Clay made his debut on the national stage when, after two weeks as a senator, on February 22, 1810, he announced, \"The conquest of Canada is in your power... I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.\"\n\nClay was trying to appeal to annexationists in New England, but he also wanted the Native Americans, Spanish, and British cleared out of the way of the Southern river arteries that could carry Kentucky's products to the Gulf of Mexico via the West Florida ports of Mobile and Pensacola. When Madison invaded the short-lived, self-proclaimed independent Republic of West Florida, which the United States had no claim to other than conquest, Clay defended the action on Christmas Day, 1810, with these words:\n\nI am not, sir, in favor of cherishing the passion of conquest, but I must be permitted, in conclusion, to indulge the hope of seeing, ere long, the new United States, (if you will allow me the expression,) embracing, not only the old thirteen States, but the entire country east of the Mississippi, including East Florida, and some of the territories to the north of us also.\n\nExposed to attack from without and within, the Chesapeake was leery of war. Virginia congressman John Randolph argued restraint because of \"the danger arising from the black population,\" as the congressional recorder summarized it during a December 1811 oration. \"The French Revolution had polluted\" them, declaimed Randolph with his characteristic rhetorical extravagance, and was teaching them\n\nthat they are equal to their masters; in other words, advising them to cut their throats... What was the consequence? Within the last ten years, repeated alarms of insurrection among the slaves, some of them awful indeed. From the spreading of this infernal doctrine, the whole Southern country had been thrown into a state of insecurity.... God forbid, sir, that the Southern States should ever see an enemy on their shores, with these infernal principles of French fraternity in the van! While talking of taking Canada, some of us were shuddering for our own safety at home.\n\nHe then evoked the fearful specter of Gabriel's rebellion, reminding everyone to be afraid of the slaves' potential for violence: \"The night-bell never tolled for fire in Richmond that the mother did not hug her infant more closely to her bosom.\"\n\nSouth Carolina's twenty-nine-year-old John C. Calhoun, as new in Congress as Clay, was at the beginning of a career that would see him become the embodiment of pro-slavery doctrine. Calhoun was the first upcountry South Carolina politician to make a name on the national stage; if he was representative, upcountry was an angry place.\n\nCalhoun was a brilliant writer and debater, and to judge from the extensive documentation that exists, he was an unhappy, strict man whose single goal in life was to become president. Harriet Martineau wrote in 1838 of Calhoun that \"I know of no man who lives in such utter intellectual solitude. He meets men and harangues them by the fire-side as in the Senate. He is wrought like a piece of machinery, set going vehemently by a weight, and stops while you answer. He either passes by what you say, or twists it into suitability with what is in his own head, and begins to lecture again.\"\n\nGeorge C. Rogers Jr. writes that \"Calhoun considered diplomacy too slow\u2014the tool of the effete coastal aristocrat.\" Slavery was Calhoun's irreducible demand, and he treated it as synonymous with the human dignity of his people; an affront to slavery was an affront to a Southerner. He replied to Randolph by bragging about how much better South Carolinans were than Virginians at keeping their enslaved ignorant:\n\nOf the Southern section, I, too, have some personal knowledge; and can say, that in South Carolina no such fears in any part are felt... however the gentleman may alarm himself with the disorganizing effects of French principles, I cannot think our ignorant blacks have felt much of their baneful influence. I dare say more than one half of them never heard of the French Revolution.\n\nThe awareness of what had happened in Haiti may well have reached more enslaved ears in Carolina than Calhoun imagined; but in Louisiana, the enslaved had definitely heard of the French Revolution. Up the Mississippi from New Orleans, on the riverbank that had since 1795 become a home to the death camps of sugarland, the mulatto Charles Deslondes\u2014not a Domingan, but fully aware of what had happened there\u2014led the largest peacetime slave revolt in US history: the \"German Coast rebellion\" that began on January 8, 1811. The uprising was ruthlessly suppressed by South Carolina's Wade Hampton, who would later become a Louisiana planter.\n\nClay, who urged armed confrontation with Britain, was also one of the Southern and Western legislators who pushed to allow the twenty-year charter of the First Bank of the United States to expire in 1811, with unfortunate consequences when the war began.\n\nIt requires an effort for a modern person, accustomed to a national currency, to imagine the monetary situation of the early United States.\n\nThe Constitution gave the federal government monetary authority, reserving for it the exclusive right \"to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin.\" No state could \"enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; [or] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.\"\n\n\"Bills of Credit\" meant paper money. The Constitution explicitly prohibited the printing of money by the states, so there couldn't be, say, Massachusetts dollars and Virginia dollars. But, perhaps because the debate would have been endless, the Constitution was silent on the issuance of paper money by the federal government, and silent on its issuance by banks. The most desirable money\u2014many would tell you, the only real money\u2014was specie, minted gold or silver coins that were usable around the world as money, most commonly in the form of Spanish coins. President Washington signed the Coinage Act in 1792, which adopted the dollar as the monetary unit, \"each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar,\" and allowed for the coining of money, expressed in dollars and bearing an image \"emblematic of liberty.\" Foreign gold and silver coins continued in circulation and were legal tender until 1857.\n\nBut there weren't enough silver dollars to conduct daily commerce with, nor was moving all the available precious metal around in daily circulation the best way to use it. Paper money was a practical necessity. A bank would own a given amount of specie and would issue notes \"backed\" by it. The notes could be redeemed in person at the bank for their face value in silver, but for most transactions this was an unnecessary step. The system worked because at any given time, much paper would circulate, serving the needs of commerce, while only a relatively small amount of paper would actually be exchanged for specie. In order to be assured of being able to cover their obligations, banks were expected to maintain \"fractional reserve\" requirements at a reasonable level, though that requirement was frequently ignored.\n\nThe First Bank of the United States, the only federally chartered bank, was a creation of Alexander Hamilton, modelled in part on the Bank of England. It was not under the control of the Department of the Treasury, though the government owned 20 percent of it and Treasury had access to its books, and it had a monopoly on receiving deposits of the government's revenues, some 90 percent of which were tariffs collected at seaport customs houses. It was well-run and profitable, and by 1811 its high-quality notes constituted about 20 percent of the nation's money supply.\n\nThe state banks, most of which were chartered after the First Bank of the United States was chartered in 1791, disliked the competition from a national bank that acted to some degree as a regulator on the amount of paper money they could issue, and they wanted the deposits of specie that were going to the national bank. Jefferson in particular had been vehemently opposed to Hamilton's bank, as he was to banks in general. The hard Jeffersonians were united in their ideologically based opposition to the bank; meanwhile, the state banks leaned on senators and congressmen to take their competition out. In a political triumph for South Carolina's Langdon Cheves, who was Speaker of the House, Congress refused to renew the bank's charter, overriding the objections of the only competent member of Madison's undistinguished cabinet, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.\n\nWithout a national bank, then, the War of 1812 was fought without financing by a government whose principal source of revenue\u2014customs duties\u2014had been devastated by wartime conditions since the embargo of 1807. Nor was there much of an army. The military structure was plagued by a surfeit of officers, many of them incompetent, and a deficit of troops, who suffered unspeakable hardships. The militias were undisciplined, as they would demonstrate when they turned and ran by the thousands at the Battle of Bladensburg (August 24, 1814), opening the door for the burning of the federal city. The navy, the most competent branch of the military, had been crippled by Jefferson's gunboat debacle.\n\nNapoleon's towering influence on the course of American history extended to causing the breach in which the Spanish colonies could move toward independence. In forcing Carlos IV's abdication in 1808, he put a definitive end to Spain's status as a world power. As Spain's empire disintegrated, the fortress-city of Cartagena declared independence on November 11, 1811, beginning a series of bloody South American independence wars.\n\nThe Lafitte brothers\u2014French-born pirates who had relocated from Saint-Domingue to Cuba and then to Louisiana\u2014received letters of marque from Cartagena giving them legal cover as privateers to do what they were already doing: preying on Spanish slave ships bound for Cuba. They sold the human merchandise by the pound, cheap, from their well-guarded grey-market base at Barataria, west of New Orleans. Mostly they sold to the French-speaking creoles of southern Louisiana, who preferred to get their slaves from pirates than from the Georgiamen.\n\nLouisiana's colonial status ended on April 30, 1812, when it was admitted to the Union. It was the best way to secure the largely French-speaking state's dubious loyalty to the United States before going to war against Great Britain on June 18, four days before Napoleon declared war on Russia. By going to war against Britain, the United States effectively became an ally of Napoleon, who was quite popular in New Orleans.\n\nJefferson's presidency, which began with his great popularity, had ended in disaster; now Madison's was failing. \"Successive generations of scholars have never ceased to wonder,\" writes J. C. A. Stagg, who edited Madison's presidential papers, \"how the creative statesman who 'fathered' both the Federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to say nothing of the Republican Party of the 1790s, could be as incompetent and as unsuccessful as he seemed to be as a chief executive.\" Stagg describes an enduring image of Madison as \"the weak and indecisive statesman who handled the disputes with Great Britain over maritime rights so badly that he lost control of his policies to a congressional faction of 'War Hawks,' whose members, after November 1811, stampeded him into a conflict which he did not want and which he then mismanaged to the extent that he remains to this day the only president ever to have been driven from the nation's capital by an invading army.\" Stagg supplied this description in an attempt to dispel it as a stereotype, but while it is admittedly incomplete as a summary of Madison's presidential career, it is not incorrect.\n\nRemembered by the ideologically neutral name of the War of 1812, this conflict was crucial to the development of the republic. It was effectively the United States' participation in the final stage of the Napoleonic Wars, and it can be seen as a second War of Independence, since one of its most important outcomes was the definitive acknowledgment by Britain of American sovereignty. In New England, where many were antiwar, it was a failed war to annex Canada. In the South, where it was a war against Native Americans and free blacks, it was an essential step in the expansion of slavery that would fill in the territory from Louisiana to Florida with plantations.\n\nThere were four main fronts to the thirty-two-month war with Britain:\n\n1) Canada, which the United States repeatedly attempted to assault, without success;\n\n2) the Chesapeake, whose commerce was blockaded by the British from the start of the war and which was invaded by an army that burned the White House and the Capitol. The blockade was not impermeable, however, as the British admiral John B. Warren wrote to headquarters: \"Several large Clipper Schooners of from two to three hundred Tons, strongly manned and armed have run thro' the Blockade in the Chesapeak, in spite of every endeavour and of the most vigilant attention of our Ships to prevent their getting out, nor can any thing stop these Vessels escaping to Sea in dark Nights and Strong Winds.\"\n\n3) Alabama, a front not generally mentioned as such in summaries of the war, because it did not directly entail fighting with Britain but with Native Americans, who were massacred. In Alabama, the United States achieved its military goals with what has been remembered as the Creek War, undertaken as part of the War of 1812. It's something of a commonplace that no territory changed hands as a result of the War of 1812, but that's not so. Under cover of war with Britain, the United States\u2014in the person of the most effective general in the US Army, Andrew Jackson\u2014grabbed a vast area of Native American land in Georgia and Alabama; and\n\n4) the Gulf South, whose seaports of New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola were essential for control of trade with the interior. There the British were vanquished under the iron command of Andrew Jackson, in a tremendous victory for Southern slaveowners against the power that had dared offer freedom to their property.\n\n#   29\n\n# **The Hireling and Slave**\n\n_No refuge could save the hireling and slave_\n\n_From the terror of night or the gloom of the grave_\n\n_Oh, say, does that star spangled banner yet wave [etc.]..._\n\n\u2014Francis Scott Key, \"Defense of Fort McHenry,\" third verse\n\nTO DESCRIBE MORE FULLY the Jacksonian context, we will briefly backtrack our chronology to quote a journal entry by a clergyman from the year Andrew Jackson was born\u20141767\u2014and the place: Waxhaw, deep in the wooded, swampy hinterlands on the North Carolina side of the border between the Carolinas.\n\nThe most detailed account we have of this frontier life, albeit a biased one, is that of Anglican pastor Charles Woodmason, who was appalled. Woodmason had been shunned by Charleston society for having accepted a commission as a Stamp Act collector in 1765. He changed his life after that; apparently motivated by spiritual concerns, he was ordained so that he could become a circuit-riding Anglican (or Episcopal) priest on the frontier, where the Church of England had no institutional presence but where there were New Light Baptists, Presbyterians, Dunkards, Quakers, and more. (He ultimately returned to Britain after being stigmatized as a Tory.)\n\n[I went to] the Settlement of Irish Presbyterians called the Waxaws, among whom were several Church People.... This is a very fruitful fine Spot, thro' which the dividing Line between North and South Carolina runs... a finer Body of Land is no where to be seen\u2014But it is occupied by a Sett of the most lowest vilest Crew breathing\u2014Scotch Irish Presbyterians from the North of Ireland\u2014They have built a Meeting House and have a Pastor, a Scots Man among them\u2014A good sort of Man\u2014He once was of the Church of England... His Congregation is very large\u2014This Tract of Land being most surprisingly thick settled beyond any Spot in England of its Extent\u2014seldom less than 9, 10, 1200 People assemble of a Sunday\u2014They never heard an Episcopal Minister, or the Common Prayer, and were very curious.\n\nWoodmason's memoir leaves no doubt that if politics was the popular entertainment of the cities, religion was the great organized participatory experience for the unlettered people of the frontier, as per his outraged description of a New Light Baptist service:\n\nThere are so many Absurdities committed by them [New Light Baptists], as wou'd shock one of our _Cherokee_ Savages; And was a Sensible Turk or Indian to view some of their Extravagancies it would quickly determine them against Christianity. Had any such been in their Assembly as last Sunday when they communicated, the Honest Heathens would have imagin'd themselves rather amidst a Gang of frantic Lunatics broke out of Bedlam, rather than among a Society of religious Christians, met to celebrate the most sacred and Solemn Ordnance of their Religion. Here, one Fellow mounted on a Bench with the Bread, and bawling, _See the Body of Christ_ , Another with the Cup running around, and bellowing\u2014 _Who cleanses his Soul with the Blood of Christ_ , and a thousand other Extravagancies\u2014One on his knees in a Posture of Prayer\u2014Others singing\u2014some howling\u2014These Ranting\u2014Those Crying\u2014Others dancing, Skipping, Laughing and rejoycing. Here two or 3 Women falling on their Backs, kicking up their Heels, exposing their Nakedness to all Bystanders and others sitting Pensive, in deep Melancholy lost in Abstraction, like Statues, quite insensible\u2014and when rous'd by the Spectators from their pretended Reveries Transports, and indecent Postures and Actions declaring they knew nought of the Matter. That their Souls had taken flight to Heav'n, and they knew nothing of what they said or did. Spect[at]ors were highly shocked at such vile Abuse of sacred Ordinances\n\nWhile Dr. Woodmason never adapted to such a performative religious experience, he did become a voice for the settlers, helping them draft a remonstrance when they organized as \"regulators\"\u2014vigilantes\u2014in their own defense against roving gangs of bandits. Plantation slavery had not been developed upcountry yet; according to Woodmason, that was because the hazards of warlordism made it hard for white settlers to bring in slaves:\n\n... the people wearied out with being expos'd to the Depredations of Robbers\u2014Set down here just as a Barrier between the Rich Planters and the Indians, to secure the former against the Latter\u2014Without Laws or Government Schools or Ministers\u2014No Police established\u2014and all Property quite insecure\u2014Merchants as fearful to venture their Goods as Ministers their Persons\u2014The Lands, tho' the finest in the Province unoccupied, and _rich Men afraid to set Slaves to work to clear them, lest they should become a Prey to the Banditti_ \u2014No Regard had to the numberless petitions and Complaints of the people\u2014Thus neglected and slighted by those in Authority, they rose in Arms\u2014pursued the Rogues, broke up their Gangs\u2014burnt the dwellings of all their Harbourers and Abettors\u2014Whipp'd and drove the Idle, Vicious and Profligate out of the Province, Men and Women without Distinction and would have proceeded to Charleston in a Regular Corps of 5000 Men, and hung up the Rogues before the State House in Presence of Governor and Council.\n\nFor the Mildness of Legislation here is so great and the Clemency of the Cheif [ _sic_ ] in Authority has been carried to such Excess that when a notorious Robber was with Great Pains catch'd and sent to Town, and there try'd and Condemn'd he always got pardon'd by Dint of Money, and came back 50 times worse than before. The fellows thus pardon'd form'd themselves into a large Gang, ranging the province with Impunity. (emphasis added)\n\nThat was the world Andrew Jackson grew up in: militantly defensive, self-reliant, and deeply distrustful of government. As a young man, Jackson relocated to the western part of North Carolina, which was now being called Tennessee and was where many veterans of the war with the British were settling. Jackson set up shop as a lawyer in the frontier town of Nashville, which was becoming a business center for the settlers who were pouring into the area. By 1789, he was traveling down the hazardous Wilderness Road\u2014a 450-mile forest path through Native American territory plagued by \"land pirates\"\u2014to do business in Natchez.\n\nNatchez was already functioning as a slave market in the late 1780s, when the region's agricultural output was still relatively minor, consisting mostly of tobacco and indigo. It had the distinction of having been a French town, a Spanish town, a British town, and a Spanish town again, with elements of all those populations. It was the site of the Indian uprising that ended French colonial plans for Louisiana. A 1790 report called it \"an English [meaning, English-speaking] settlement, subject to the Spaniards,\" and by then it had \"many negroes,\" in the words of Mississippi historian Charles S. Sydnor.\n\nJackson was a product of the militia system, in which he was a leading officer. Like other merchants, he bought and sold slaves as part of his commercial activity. He was also a horse breeder and a racing enthusiast; a lawyer, land speculator, and plantation owner; a pathological hater of English, Spanish, Creek Indians, and anyone who crossed him; and a master of intimidation\u2014all of which was consonant with being a slave trader.\n\n\"Between court terms in Tennessee,\" writes Jackson's biographer Robert V. Remini, \"Jackson frequently dropped down to Natchez, where he brought [to Natchez traders] such items as cotton, furs, swan skins and feathers for bedding, lime, pork, beef, boats, and\"\u2014the final word in the list seems discreetly tucked in\u2014\"slaves.\" In Remini's delicate words, Jackson carried slaves \"frequently\" from Nashville to Natchez as a \"courtesy\" to \"his friends,\" though that belies the physical effort necessary to transport a prisoner through 450 or so miles of wilderness in the late eighteenth century.\n\nA young white man's first significant investment on the road to wealth acquisition might well be a young black woman, rather than what the slave trade called a \"prime hand.\" Such seems to have been the case with Jackson when he was twenty, as per a November 17, 1788, \"Bill of Sale from Micajah Crews to Andrew Jackson Esquire for a Negro Woman named Nancy about Eighteen or Twenty Years of Age.\" Nancy was the first slave that we have any record of Jackson having purchased, and her purchase was one of his first transactions of any sort of which we have a record. He may have purchased her with the intention of reselling her; we know nothing about what kind of use he put her to, nor do we know anything else about her. The bill of sale is the only indication that Nancy existed. Between 1790 and 1794, writes Remini, Jackson purchased \"at least sixteen slaves... They measured his steady progress toward economic security\" while he pursued a career as a merchant and a real estate speculator.\n\nIn July 1794, Jackson made a great real estate deal when he became co-owner of some five thousand acres of the lower Chickasaw Bluff, marvelously situated on the Tennessee side overlooking the Mississippi River, where the Wolf River empties into it. The land's previous owner, the trader John Rice, had bought it in 1783, while it was still part of North Carolina\u2014though under then-current law North Carolina had no right to sell it, as it was Chickasaw land. Rice was killed by Native Americans on his way back from a Nashville-Natchez run in 1791, throwing the property onto the market. The lawyer and slave trader John Overton, a Virginia-born Nashville transplant, purchased it in partnership with Jackson, his lifelong close ally.\n\nThough the area was as yet unpopulated by whites, it was the best site for a town along a far stretch of the Mississippi. Four decades later, in 1830, when steamboats ruled the transportation economy, Overton retroactively credited himself with foresight: \"I always... considered that at some day, the water privilege attached to the banks would be worth more than all the lots and lands about the place.\" Jackson had little to do with the property, other than making a profit on his share when he sold it; a third partner, General James Winchester, gave the settlement its fanciful Nile-istic name: Memphis.\n\nThe Mississippi Territory was organized in 1798, and the United States took over administration of it in 1801. The United States Army went to work building the Natchez Trace\u2014a road of sorts, along the route of the Wilderness Road, to connect the town with Nashville. Fortunately for Jackson, his friend from Tennessee and former colleague in Congress, President Jefferson's prot\u00e9g\u00e9 William Charles Cole Claiborne, was now the Mississippi Territory's first US governor. Claiborne, who addressed Jackson effusively in his letters, made Jackson's family emissary John Hutchings welcome, helped him find buyers for slaves and horses he had brought, and helpfully advised Jackson of the progress by mail. Claiborne wrote him on December 9, 1801:\n\nThe Races in this District, commenced yesterday, and will hold for three days; Mr. Hutchings has attended the _Race_ today, and will proceed from _thence_ , to Mr. Green's, where he has left the Negroes & Horses. Mr. H. will be at my House, next Week; in the mean time, I will try to find a purchaser for your Horses, as for Negroes, they are in great demand, and will sell well.\n\nClaiborne wrote Jackson again on December 23, informing him of young Hutchings's accomplishment as a slave trader: \"The Negro Woman he has sold for 500 dolls. in Cash, and I belive he has, or will in a few days sell the Boy, for his own price, to Colo. West.\"\n\nJackson must have been an effective frontier businessman. A violent man and an eager duelist, he once challenged another lawyer for mocking his knowledge of the law. Whether dealing with slaves, soldiers, or politicians, he was an authoritarian leader who, in Remini's words, \"could hate with a Biblical fury and would resort to petty and vindictive acts to nurture his hatred and keep it bright and strong and ferocious.\" When in 1804 he advertised in the _Tennessee Gazette_ for the return of a runaway slave, he made the extraordinarily vicious offer of \"ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.\"\n\nJackson got a bad reputation when he killed Charles Dickinson in a May 30, 1806, duel. After Jackson's pistol jammed and did not fire during the first exchange, he was allowed to recock his pistol and fire a second shot. With a disadvantaged opponent, the gallant move would have been to fire the pistol into the air, shake hands, and considered honor avenged. But there was no doubt that Dickinson had intended to kill Jackson. Dickinson, who made his money on the interregional slave trade by, as Jackson later described, \"purchasing Negroes in Maryland and carrying them to Natchez & Louis[ian]a,\" had put a bullet into Jackson that fractured a rib or two and, in Remini's words, \"lodged in the chest cavity close to his heart and impinged on his left lung.\" Streaming blood from his chest wound, Jackson took aim and shot Charles Dickinson in cold blood from a distance of twenty-four feet. The bullet entered Dickinson's intestines, and he lived with no hope of recovery, in mortal pain, until he expired about ten o'clock that night. The bullet in Jackson's body remained there the rest of his life, one of a number of excruciating pains he lived with. The duel had been over a quarrel stemming from a horse race with a $3,000 purse.\n\nLike many other merchants, Jackson traded in slaves along with everything else\u2014horses, cattle, dry goods, and especially land speculation, which was the foundation of a great many fortunes in Jackson's day. Jackson made much money selling Tennessee plots to land speculators in Philadelphia, for which he typically got paid in paper, which he traded for goods, which he then had to sell at his own stores. Slaves, however, were cash transactions, as we see in a letter from Jackson's nephew Donelson Caffery, who was attempting to get started as a merchant, apparently in partnership with Jackson. Caffery wrote him from Bayou Sarah in West Feliciana Parish on May 20, 1810, which was at the time part of the nominally Spanish-controlled area that was about to briefly declare itself the independent Republic of West Florida and would come under Claiborne's control by year's end:\n\nI am sorry to inform you that I fear from the situation of this Country business cannot be done to advantage[.] It is true Goods may be sold on credit, but contrary to the opinion I had form'd from the accounts of people; There is no such thing as making collections... As soon as I can make sale of some Negroes, I will go to New Orleans to buy Groceries[.] it's the only business that can be done here for Cash.\n\nThere are various instances of Jackson's using \"negroes\" in settlement of accounts. A 1795 letter to him requesting him to purchase land for one Joseph Anderson notes that \"it would suit me to pay for it, either in a negro and Horses, or in Horses and some Money.\" Jackson's slave-trading past became a political hot potato when he later ran for president. During the election of 1828, a pamphlet authored by a man with whom Jackson had been in litigation over land deals, Andrew Erwin, bore the memorable title of _Gen. Jackson's Negro Speculations, and his Traffic in Human Flesh, Examined and Established by Positive Proof._ It brought up a story about which Jackson had to issue a clarification: in a not unusual transaction for the time and place, the mercantile firm of Jackson & Hutchings in 1806 accepted a thirteen-year-old \"negro boy\" as partial payment to close out a three-year-old debt. In Jackson's words, \"The negro boy was recd. & the account with Rawlings & Bradford closed.\" As was all too common in such stories, it had a sad ending: the boy, whose name was Charles, was kept at the Clover Bottom racetrack, run by Jackson's friends. One of them, William Preston Anderson, bet him in a race and lost him, and Charles subsequently died from an unspecified disease.\n\nJackson was the partner with capital and credit in Coleman, Green, and Jackson, founded in 1810 to sell cotton and tobacco from Nashville to Natchez. After losing money on a cotton deal, the partners attempted to recoup the expenses by going into slaves, buying a group of them from a tavern dealer in Virginia. The men, as Jackson later noted, were received naked; it was not uncommon for a seller to palm off the expense of clothing them on the buyer. The junior partner, Horace Green of Natchez, took the slaves down to Natchez by boat in the summer of 1811, but no one was buying. Business was terrible. Britain was hammering at American shipping pursuant to its Orders in Council, and commerce was dead. It was clear that war was coming with Britain, and there would likely be a naval blockade that would prevent taking the cotton crop out of New Orleans.\n\nFinding a weak market, Green traded a few of the unfortunate people for horses before Jackson arranged for John Hutchings to take them over and house them at his nearby plantation until he could come down personally to salvage what he could of the fiasco. Failing to sell the slaves himself, Jackson drove the unsold slaves back to Nashville, taking the unheard-of step of driving a coffle of slaves from the destination back to the point of origin, through Choctaw and Chickasaw territory. From Natchez he wrote his wife, Rachel, on December 17, 1811:\n\non tomorrow I shall set out from here homewards, on the Biopierre [Bayou Pierre][.] I expect to be detained Some days preparing the negroes for the wilderness[.]... I shall bring home with me from twelve to Twenty\u2014I hope to be able to sell some of them on the way at good prices\u2014but many of them I Shall be obliged to bring home and as most of that number will be females I leave you to point out to Mr. Fields [the overseer] where to have the house built for them.\n\nMeanwhile, an apocalyptic fear ran through the region. The New Madrid earthquake, with its epicenter in Arkansas, still believed to be the strongest earthquake ever to hit that part of the country, had struck on December 16, and the aftershocks were continuing. Navigating the Mississippi had become impossible, creating economic havoc in New Orleans. On the way back to Nashville with his coffle, Jackson, already in a bad mood, ran afoul of the federal Choctaw Indian agent, Silas Dinsmore, whose post on the road between Nashville and Natchez, as mandated by law, required passports for slaves being transported. Dinsmore was in the habit of confiscating undocumented slaves, thus creating a barrier for slave traders along the main trading artery. Jackson, who saw Dinsmore as a \"highway robber,\" defied him, bringing his train through with a conspicuous show of arms. He subsequently began a campaign to have Dinsmore removed from his post, writing to Tennessee governor Willie Blount a letter that bluntly threatened arson and murder: \"from the conduct of Silas in this as well as in other cases he must be removed, or our citizens will rise and burn his Tavern and Store with Silas in the middle of them.\"\n\nJackson subsequently refused to pay his partner Green's invoiced expenses, charging that Green was padding the bill to pay his gambling debts, that his transportation and provisions expenses were too high, and that he had hired the \"negroes\" out in Natchez and pocketed the proceeds. Like a number of items of Jackson's correspondence, his letter to the arbitrator appears to have been composed in a fit of passionate anger, but from it we can learn something about the deal. Needless to say, it shows not a bit of concern for the victims of his business, who had been trafficked from Virginia to Natchez, then made to trek through the wilderness back up to Nashville. Jackson's concern was that he was being cheated on the money:\n\nI also found from examining the ac[coun]ts of Negroes sent to Markett that the expence never averaged more from here than fifteen dollars a head except one wench and three children, who had been subject to the fits remained better than six months in the Natchez, she cost with her children twenty five dollars...\n\n[F]rom every inquiry I have made on the subject, [I find] that fifteen dollars pr head is about the usual expence, and finding this to amount including the amount of the price of the Boat, and not taking into view the children at the breast, it makes the cost on each negro $44.66 2\/3\u2014this as I am advised is more than double what is usual...\n\nThree months of provisions was talked of as necessary to be laid in as an outfit... let us take the soldiers ration for the Basis\u2014there was 25 grown negroes with two sucking children they always count with the mother\u2014then say 25 for three months will take 1125 lb. Beacon [bacon]... let us give $60 for cloathing (there was 13 wenches one habit each[,] the fellows recd naked)...\n\nIt was agreed on all hand that the Natchez was glutted with negroes... a sacrafice will be upon the negroes of at least $1500 if not $2000.\n\nThe trip was, unsurprisingly, hard on the captives. Jackson wrote his sister-in-law, Mary Caffery, who was eager to purchase a laborer: \"The negro fellows that I brought through with me owing to their exposure in the wilderness have all been sick and were the[y] _well_ neither* of them is such that I could recommend to you.\" Jackson never described the condition of the women and children, torn away from their families, who endured the round-trip forced march.\n\nGiven the documentation of this episode that exists, it appears safe to say that Andrew Jackson is the only US president that we know of who personally drove a slave coffle. But then, Jackson was also the first president to have been a merchant.\n\nNew England did not want the War of 1812; the Southerners did. They got what they wanted: under cover of war with Britain, a substantial chunk of the Deep South was made safe for plantation slavery when Andrew Jackson vanquished the Creek Nation and took its land.\n\nJackson was at home at the estate outside Nashville that he called the Hermitage when word arrived: a thousand or so Creek Indians had on August 30, 1813, committed a massacre of some 250 men, women, and children at Fort Mims in Alabama, in retaliation for a murderous attack on them by two settlers who had taken refuge there. They dashed out the brains of children, it was said, swinging them by their legs to bash their heads against the walls, and they slit open the bellies of live pregnant women. They carried off the slaves to be their servants\u2014meaning, they stole the most valuable property there. Among the dead at Fort Mims were 160 unfortunate soldiers under the command of W. C. C. Claiborne's brother, Ferdinand L. Claiborne, who escaped harm.\n\nCreek Indians were the very devil to white Tennesseans. South Carolina had fought the two-year Yamassee War against them almost a century before. Georgians had been fighting them since their colony was established. The people of Jackson's society considered it their duty to kill them as a matter of their own survival. For Jackson, the Indians were the flunkeys of the British, as were the Spanish; Britain and Spain were at this point allies, after the humiliation Napoleon had wreaked on Spain. With the United States at war with Britain at last, he sought to neutralize the British in the South by repressing their indigenous allies.\n\nWhen word of Fort Mims arrived, the forty-eight-year-old Jackson was nursing a broken arm with a slug newly embedded in his shoulder, ten days after a seven-man gun battle in the town's streets against future senator Thomas Hart Benton and his brother. With a seemingly limitless tolerance for pain, he set out on horseback with his swollen arm in a sling to command a militia that would accomplish the white settlers' agenda: the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the entire South east of the Mississippi. It took Jackson multiple campaigns over many years to finish the job, which required his attainment of the presidency to complete. Remini describes Jackson's intention:\n\nCertainly by 1813, if not earlier, Jackson's course of action was fixed. He intended to eliminate all foreigners along the southern frontier as a necessary prelude to the systematic destruction of the Indian menace and the territorial expansion of the American nation.\n\nJackson described his immediate mission unequivocally: \"to _carry_ a _campaign into_ the _heart_ of the _Creek nation_ and _exterminate them.\"_ 25 Though the Creeks were feared for their ambushes, they were unsuccessful at defending themselves against pursuit by organized armies hell-bent on killing them. The conflict had begun as a civil war among the Creeks, pitting the traditionalist Red Sticks, allied with Britain, against the more accommodationist Lower Creeks. Exploiting the division, Jackson ended by wiping out the Creek Nation, burning Native American towns wherever he found them and defeating a force he estimated at four thousand warriors; the Creeks had black slaves, who also participated in combat against US forces and were killed. As the defeated Red Sticks retreated to Spanish Florida, Jackson treated his allies among the Creeks as harshly as if they had been the losers, forcing hard terms on them and expropriating some twenty-two million acres of their land in what is now Alabama and southern Georgia.\n\nJackson did it without much in the way of resources with which to arm, feed, clothe, and pay his troops, who were frequently in a state of near or actual mutiny. Without a national bank, the federal government had to borrow from state banks, but the largest amount of specie was unavailable for Southern use, because it was in Massachusetts and Connecticut banks, who lent it to Britain instead. During the War of 1812, \"New England banks were financial agents of the enemy,\" writes Henry Adams. \"Boston bought freely British treasury notes at liberal discount, and sent coin to Canada in payment of them.\" Another embargo, from December 1813 to April 1814, cut off Southern exports, resulting in a net outflow of what specie there was from that region to New England.\n\nAt the end of the Creek War, Jackson returned eighteen \"negroes\" who had been captured by the Creeks at Fort Mims to their lawful owners. In three Native American camps, his men found \"one hundred and fifty scalps the greater part of which were females supposed to be taken at Fort Mimms.\"\n\nThe enslaved of the Chesapeake began slipping away to the British invaders as soon as they arrived. They were particularly valuable defectors, because they could serve as guides to the area. This ongoing drain became formalized as a military strategy on April 2, 1814, when, much as Lord Dunmore had previously done, Admiral Alexander Cochrane, the new British commander, issued a proclamation from Bermuda \"that all those disposed to emigrate... will have their choice of either entering into his Majesty's sea or land forces, or of being sent as FREE settlers to the British positions in north America or the West Indies.\"\n\nCochrane was attempting to incite slave revolt. Knowing the white Southerners' fear of black violence\u2014especially in Louisiana, which had so many white survivors of Saint-Domingue\u2014he imagined thousands of runaway slaves joining his troops. A diversionary force sent to harass coastal South Carolina and Georgia under Rear Admiral George Cockburn included black West Indian troops, with the explicit intention of instilling the fear that a British-supported slave insurrection was under way. One hundred thirty-eight of Pierce Butler's slaves ran away, a loss for him calculated by Roswell King Jr. at $61,450.\n\nUnfortunately for the Americans, the British invasion came at a time when Britain had a surplus capacity of well-trained, victorious soldiers. A beaten Napoleon had abdicated on April 11, 1814, and in August, Cockburn's troops landed in Maryland and marched toward Washington. After the Baltimore militia turned tail and fled at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, the British entered the capital city. President James Madison left the debacle at Bladensburg, and returned to Washington to find the White House in the process of evacuating. He fled to the countryside, humiliated.\n\nBritish forces under Admiral Cockburn entered Washington, burning the White House, the Treasury, part of the Capitol, and whatever was in the Library of Congress up to that point, while sparing civilian property. Their targeted arson in the capital city was widely believed to have been undertaken in reprisal for the inexcusable American plundering and partial burning of York (Toronto) in April 1813. A providentially violent thunderstorm blunted the British invasion of Washington, and they quickly retreated, having made their point.\n\nThe British offensive into the Chesapeake was stopped at Baltimore.\n\nThe War of 1812 is not well remembered today\u2014except for its two most heroic tableaux, both of which inspired familiar songs.\n\nWhen the British forces continued on from Washington to Baltimore on the night of September 13, 1814, they failed to get past Fort McHenry, which controlled the access to the town at the mouth of the Patapsco River. The Americans had plenty of gunpowder\u2014the factory of E. I. du Pont de Nemours was in nearby Wilmington, Delaware\u2014and there was a prolonged cannonade that stopped the British advance. \"For two hours,\" writes Harold R. Manakee, \"houses in Baltimore, four miles distant, trembled on their foundations.\"\n\nOne week after the battle, Francis Scott Key's lyric \"Defense of Fort McHenry\" was published in full on page two of the two-page _Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser_ of September 21, 1814, though it subsequently became better known as \"The Star-Spangled Banner.\" To indicate how it should be sung, it was sufficient to place at the head of Key's lyric the name of the risqu\u00e9 and ubiquitous English glee club drinking song his words had been composed to fit: \" _Tune_ \u2014 Anacreon in Heaven,\" the final two lines of which read in the original:\n\n_And besides, I'll instruct you like me to entwine_\n\n_The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine._\n\nFrank Key, a twenty-five-year-old lawyer from Georgetown,* was a slaveowner and, as he would demonstrate in his later career, a thoroughgoing white supremacist. As of 1806, he was the brother-in-law of Roger B. Taney, another politically savvy slaveowning Maryland lawyer. Out of the successful defense of Baltimore, as witnessed by Key from aboard a British ship, he spun a disastrous war into something victorious.\n\nThe third, or \"vengeful,\" verse of Key's poem (quoted in this chapter's epigraph), which is _never_ sung today, brags of terrorizing and killing \"the hireling and slave,\" implying that the British soldiers were mercenaries and explicitly condemning the renegade ex-property who fought as enemies of the star-spangled banner.\u2020\n\nThe tune was already being sung with a patriotic lyric, \"Adams and Liberty,\" in praise of John Adams, but Key repurposed it\u2014a political act, right there, which he had already attempted with an earlier lyric (in praise of Jefferson's actions against the Barbary Pirates) that had included the phrase \"the star-spangled banner.\"\n\nThe other great heroic-tableau moment of the War of 1812 was, of course, kept alive in popular memory through Johnny Horton's 1959 recording of \"The Battle of New Orleans,\" composed by songwriting Arkansas schoolteacher Jimmie Driftwood (\"We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'...\") The war had been ended by the Treaty of Ghent before the battle took place, but no one in America knew that yet. For Andrew Jackson, the war against Britain was never over.\n\nNew Orleans, which Jackson was tasked with saving, was well on its way to becoming one of the world's great ports. The first steamboat arrived in New Orleans from Pittsburgh in 1811. The patrician Livingston brothers, early American practitioners of the political revolving door, were in the steamboat business with Robert Fulton (whose first steamboat was named the _Clermont_ , the name of the Livingston estate). Robert Livingston, negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase and Fulton's principal backer, died in February 1813, but his brother Edward, in disgrace over missing funds during his tenure as New York district attorney, had relocated to yellow-feverish New Orleans in 1804\u2014with, wrote John Quincy Adams in his diary, \"one hundred thousand dollars of the public money.\" After his first wife died, he married a nineteen-year-old aristocratic Domingan beauty and became the attorney for slave trader and pirate Jean Lafitte. As of 1814, Livingston and Fulton were offering infrequent but regularly scheduled steamboat runs up the Mississippi from New Orleans to Natchez and back, despite the tendency of the boilers to explode, scalding workers and passengers to death, and despite the many lethal obstacles that were so many wooden land mines in the still-uncleared river.\n\nSugar and cotton went downstream, and now slaves could be shipped upstream: New Orleans and Natchez were already the major slave distribution hubs of the emergent Deep South. With Alabama pacified by Jackson and Louisiana a newly minted state, an economic boom was already under way, especially in New Orleans, even under wartime conditions. New Orleans was going to get the benefit of joining the United States: military aid.\n\nThe Creek War had transformed Jackson's image from that of disreputable brawler to one of savior. He repeatedly asked James Monroe, who was doubling as secretary of state and secretary of war, for permission to seize Spanish-governed Pensacola, with the self-assigned task of driving the British and Indians away. Monroe responded \"that you should at present take no measures, which would involve this Government in a contest with Spain.\" Jackson did it anyway. \"This will put an end to the Indian war in the South,\" he wrote when he informed James Monroe what he was about to do, \"as it will cut off all foreign influence.\" After leaving Pensacola, he wrote Monroe, \"I flatter myself that I have left such an impression on the mind of the [Spanish] Governor of Pensacola, that he will respect the American character.\"\n\nJackson had popular-hero status by the time he arrived in New Orleans to supervise its defense against the British, hatred and fear of whom united the town's Anglos and French in one of the few known cases of their agreeing on anything. After the shame of Jefferson's pacifism, when it seemed that the United States would rather swallow any insult from Britain or France than fight, and after more than two years of war in which the United States had fought and lost miserably, with the government's headquarters in the nation's capital a smoking ruin, here at last was a general who could not merely defend a town, but slaughter the enemy. While in New Orleans, Jackson censored the local press and became the first US general to impose martial law.\n\nThe British had been so sure of their victory that some of the officers had brought their wives, ready to assume their colonial posts after the locals were subdued. But the British troops were caught in a crossfire between massive volleys from behind earthworks and bombardment from the ship _Louisiana._ The one-sided killing of so many British was unprecedented in the history of two wars fought between the United States and Britain.\n\nThe Kentucky militia that came down to fight as part of Old Hickory's motley crew didn't even have flints for their guns. As had previously happened with Washington at Yorktown, a combination of black soldiers and Frenchmen\u2014in this case, the Lafitte brothers' well-trained, experienced pirate force\u2014played key roles in carrying the day.\n\nJackson emerged from the slaughter covered in glory. The burning of the capital city was avenged. America would defend itself. The Mississippi River would remain open to commerce. Almost immediately the price of cotton went up sharply, giving an enormous shot in the arm to the nascent cotton kingdom and its associated slave trade.\n\nThe slaveholders of the South paid a price for the war in lost slaves, because, as in the War of Independence, once again slaves had accepted the British offer of freedom. But after mediation by the czar of Russia, the British paid $1.2 million in compensation to the slaveowners, which they could use to restock their fields with young people. The slaveowners were the ones who had wanted to go to war in the first place, and as a class, they were the solid victors of the War of 1812. Jackson's land grab from the Creeks had made vast new acreage available for plantation slavery.\n\nMany of the black soldiers who fought on the British side retreated to East Florida, which was still in Spanish hands and was only weakly guarded. Secretary of War William Crawford wrote Jackson on March 15, 1816, instructing him to remove a maroon community that occupied a fort built by the British in 1814 in West Florida: \"It appears... that the negroe fort, erected during the war, at the junction of the Chathouchie and Flint rivers, has been strengthened since that period, and is now occupied by between two hundred and fifty and three hundred blacks, who are well armed, clothed and disciplined. Secret practices to inveigle negroes from the frontiers of Georgia, as well as from the Cherokee and Creek nations, are still continued by the negroes, and hostile Creeks.\" Jackson's subordinate Edmund P. Gaines reported to him that \"the Negroes are attempting to raise Corn... They have red Coats and are supplied with a large quantity of British muskets, Powder and other supplies.\"\n\nFree blacks wearing British redcoats, carrying guns, and teamed up with Indians: nothing could have provoked Jackson more violently. When gunboats from the US Navy attacked the \"Negro Fort,\" a lucky shot from their first volley hit the fort's powder magazine. The spectacular explosion killed 270 of the 334 people in the fort\u2014men, women, and children\u2014and wounded all but three of the rest.\n\nMeanwhile, the number of cotton plantations was exploding. As large amounts of cotton shipped out of the port of New Orleans bound for Lancashire, tens of thousands of African Americans were forcibly relocated into the area\u2014by oceangoing vessel, by flatboat, and in coffles.\n\n*i.e., none.\n\n*Part of Maryland at the time Key was born, Georgetown was redistricted as the third town in the District of Columbia, along with Washington and Alexandria.\n\n\u2020 _Hireling and the Slave_ was subsequently the name of a lengthy 1855 pro-slavery poem that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, furnishes the first known occurrence of the term \"master race.\" Written by William J. Grayson of Beaufort, South Carolina, it was prominently serialized in _DeBow's Review._\n\n#   30\n\n# **A Jog of the Elbow**\n\n_While the Bank is my goddess, its desks are my altars, And all my \"fine phrenzy\" is spent on defaulters. 1_\n\n\u2014Nicholas Biddle, 1823\n\nTHE WAR WAS OVER, and at last Britain was respecting the American flag at sea. Money was flowing, albeit along unpredictable courses.\n\nNo energy was being consumed in partisan warfare; the Federalists had all but disappeared as a political force. Jackson didn't only crush the Creeks; his victory at New Orleans gave the coup de grace to the disgraced Federalist Party, members of which had been threatening New England's secession since 1793 and had openly sided with Britain during the conflict.\n\nFor the first time since the early days of the Washington administration, there was only one functional political party in the United States. At its head was Jefferson's former law student James Monroe, who as a teenager had crossed the Delaware with Washington and as an adult had taken credit for the Louisiana Purchase. It was Monroe who dispatched Jackson to New Orleans, and he came into peacetime a national hero. Facing no serious opposition in the presidential election of 1816, he became the third consecutive president from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.\n\nAfter the extreme partisan battles during what some historians describe as the First Party System, the relative political tranquility of a one-party nation led a derri\u00e8re-garde New England Federalist newspaper editor in 1817 to coin the sarcastic phrase \"the era of good feelings,\" a term that passed into general retrospective use to identify Monroe's first (but not the second) presidential term. It was an era of especially good feelings for all those connected to the fast-growing commercial web spun out of cotton.\n\nMonroe is the only US president to have an African capital city named after him: Monrovia, in Liberia, a country whose name betrays its intention as a destination of exile for manumitted ex-slaves. The American Colonization Society, which proposed to implement the self-deportation of free African Americans, was cofounded by Francis Scott Key, two years after he published \"Defense of Fort McHenry.\" Over the years, a plethora of famous political names attached themselves to the society, including James Madison, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Randolph, Andrew Jackson, and even Abraham Lincoln. The chimera of \"colonization\"\u2014the white dream of mass black deportation that would comply with the vision Jefferson had projected in _Notes on the State of Virginia\u2014_ lasted until secession. Disclaiming any connection with abolitionism, it was a way of doing nothing about slavery. John Quincy Adams flatly called the Society a \"fraudulent charitable institution.\"\n\nThe word \"colonization\" implied that African Americans would somehow establish American colonies, which would have meant freeing slaves to go establish foreign beachheads for the slavemasters. The idea was widely hated by free black people, who were subject to various odious restrictions but for the most part had no intention of leaving their homes, and some three thousand people of color assembled at Mother Bethel in 1817 to protest the formation of the society. Harriet Martineau, who in 1834 visited James Madison in retirement at his Montpelier plantation a week after he had sold \"a dozen of his slaves,\" wrote that \"he accounted for his selling his slaves by mentioning their horror of going to Liberia, a horror which he admitted to be prevalent among the blacks.\"\n\nThe idea of colonization was hated just as much by hard-slavery Southerners, who saw it as soft on abolitionism and tending toward keeping a smaller portion of the population enslaved, when what they wanted was to see as much of the population enslaved as possible.\n\nThe party of Jefferson and Madison had discovered the uses of executive power, shifting considerably from its radical anti-federal stance of the first years of the republic. As they began rebuilding the White House and the Capitol, the Republicans now saw the federal government as a functional entity able to make the \"internal improvements\" that the fast-growing nation needed. A reliable paper money was needed, and the government needed a fiscal agent to support its wartime debt, much of it owed to foreign financiers. To that end, the Second Bank of the United States was chartered, for twenty years as the first had been, in 1817. Much of its capital stock was drawn not from its shareholders' gold and silver, but from their holdings of public debt. The bank was also heavily invested in British bills of exchange.\n\nWith the War of 1812 over, shipowners had surplus privateering boats to sell. But besides privateering, these fast, maneuverable vessels were also in use by slave traders, who bought used privateers and commissioned new vessels as well. Baltimore-style \"clippers,\" made in Baltimore and many other places as well, would be the vessel of choice for an African slave trade that no longer came to the United States but would still carry perhaps more than a million kidnapped Africans to Cuba and Brazil. The misery of the experience would have been heightened by the boats' characteristics: being light and fast made for even worse seasickness. This era of the slave trade was notorious for its tight-packing: the tiny below-decks compartments were typically only three feet or so high, so when the captives were put away at night, they rode lying down, packed tightly together; and since clippers \"rode wet,\" taking on large quantities of sea water, they were damp and cold.\n\nWith the Chesapeake unblockaded, coastwise vessels could freely ply the route from Baltimore to New Orleans; those CASH FOR NEGROES advertisements began appearing in newspapers around the Chesapeake as of 1815. But it was a slow expansion at first, because the Second Bank of the United States tightened credit in 1818.\n\nSouth Carolina's Langdon Cheves, who had been a War Hawk and who had killed the First Bank in Congress, was named the Second Bank's director in March 1819. On the question of the balance of credit versus metal, Cheves was all the way at the hard-money end of the scale. He was in favor of lavish personal spending coupled with extreme governmental restraint, and he was against the very concept of fractional reserves, the basis of modern banking. He continued tightening credit, accumulating governmental income in the form of inert specie while refusing to extend loans against it. That drove the Panic of 1819 into a depression the following year, during which he continued his extremely conservative management while many were ruined. Under his stewardship, the bank required each of its branches to make their own decisions with the capital they were allotted; by the time he resigned, Cheves had, in Howard Bodenhorn's words, \"effectively taken a national organization and transformed it into a network of independent banks operating under the loose direction of the parent institution in Philadelphia.\" The result was an uncoordinated interregional cash flow, and a differential of exchange rates from region to region\u2014not a good basis for a national commerce.\n\nCheves resigned in 1822, proud of the soundness of his overcapitalized bank, and was replaced by board member Nicholas Biddle in January 1823. Biddle\u2014who, in a poem he wrote at a lady's request shortly after he was named director, sang the praises of \"that simplest, sublimest of truths \u2014 six per cent\"\u2014began letting credit out again, and organized specie shipments. Precious metal could be purchased like any other commodity, and Biddle brought in shiploads of silver from Mexico\u2014now independent from Spain, and more tractable. The silver entered the bank's system at its New Orleans branch, as New Orleans entered into its peak era of national influence. Biddle created a domestic exchange operation that could make capital easily mobile throughout the country, with a national currency supplied by him that was worth the same amount at any of the bank's national branches.\n\nThe appropriation of the Creek lands was a textbook case of accumulation by dispossession. Now the formation of a new capital class could begin, with confiscated lands as the basis of new wealth\u2014if enough slave labor was available to clear it and make it produce.\n\nAlabama's liberation-for-slavery set off the great land rush remembered as \"Alabama fever.\" The US land office did land-office business, privatizing the newly available territory taken from the Native Americans and handing out the land in vast quantities on liberal credit terms. For slave traders, the takeover of Alabama by the cotton kingdom was the beginning of a long boom.\n\nCotton was a different kind of crop from tobacco or rice, and its cultivation imposed a different kind of brutality on its laborers. The whip-driven regime of cotton was like nothing known in Virginia. Tobacco cultivation was artisanship by comparison; rice cultivation was task labor, in which individual workers had specific, differentiated tasks to attend to. But cotton was based on the uniform, infinite repetition of the same tasks, requiring much in the way of manual dexterity and endurance.\n\nThe society of the enslaved of the cotton kingdom was a far cry from the family structures that still existed in Virginia and Maryland; the plantation populations that worked the cotton fields were the isolated remnants of destroyed families, jumbled together like the prison population they were. In the first years of the boom, about a third of them came from Virginia or Maryland, but they also came from Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and, increasingly, points south. The arrival of so many occasioned a new cultural collision among the enslaved, as black, English-speaking former Marylanders found themselves having to converse with Gullah speakers from the Lowcountry or French-speaking Louisianans\u2014and, of course, until 1820 or so there were still some Africans coming in via piracy.\n\nSome farmers left their played-out farms and set out for Alabama with their slaves; others went to market to buy as many slaves as they could get. Some planters traveled north to the Chesapeake, hoping to get better prices by buying slaves directly from planters who were selling; others formed small partnerships to travel around on buying trips\u2014placing newspaper ads, visiting planters, attending auctions. They found eager vendors on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where Easton began an annual slave auction in 1818, selling off its surplus young farmhands away from their families for the convenience of the Alabama-fevered.\n\nStates farther North got in on the action. New York and New Jersey both still had slavery in 1819, and slaveowners in both states took advantage of the opportunity to sell slaves off to Alabama. The numbers were nothing like Southern numbers, of course; the 1820 census showed 7,557 slaves in New Jersey out of a population of 277,575, and by 1830 the slave count was down to 2,254. Most of the diminution was from manumission, but some hundreds of enslaved people in eastern New Jersey were trafficked down South. By that state's Act of Gradual Abolition in effect since 1804, they were supposed to give their consent to leave the state, but that consent was easily forged.\n\nThe message was heard all through those states that still permitted slavery: raising slaves was a good business.\n\nFlorida\u2014the prize that had eluded Monroe at the time of the Louisiana Purchase\u2014was at last within reach. Spanish forces were stretched thin, engaged as they were in failing to suppress the independence wars being led in South America by Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar and Jos\u00e9 de San Mart\u00edn.\n\nMonroe sent an eager Jackson to march some five thousand men into Spanish East Florida in 1818, in a de facto declaration of war on Spain without congressional consent. The expressed aim of Jackson's invasion was to stop Native American terrorists from making raids into US territory, though the skirmishes had been bidirectional, with Georgians also raiding into Florida for livestock and slaves. Jackson's Florida campaign was overtly a war on free black and indigenous people; his report of it made repeated reference to the enemy as \"Indians and negroes\":\n\nTo chastise a savage foe, who, combined with a lawless band of negro brigands, have for some time past been carrying on a cruel and unprovoked war against the citizens of the United States, has compelled the president to direct me to march my army into Florida. I have penetrated to the Mickasuky towns and reduced them to ashes.\n\nEarlier we have spoken of the concept of an ongoing Gullah War; this was one of the major hostilities of its long course. Jackson's marauders burned hundreds of houses, destroyed forts, killed an unknown number of Native Americans, and hung two native leaders in front of their people.\n\nJackson almost started another war with Britain by executing two British subjects in front of the black and native populations, impressing on them that they could not look to Britain for an alliance. The Englishman Alexander Arbuthnot, who had accurately warned the Seminole chief Billy Bowlegs that \"the main drift of the Americans is to destroy the black population of Suwannee,\" was hanged from the yardarm of his own schooner, while the Scotsman Robert C. Ambrister was shot by a firing squad. They were, Jackson wrote, \"exciters of this savage [i.e., Native American] and negro war; legally condemned, and most justly punished.\"\n\nJackson was burning to go on to Cuba, where there were no Indians but many Africans. Security of maritime commerce was not fully assured, he insisted, until Cuba also was under US control. \"I will insure you cuba in a few days,\" he promised Monroe, if given the necessary support.\n\nMonroe was alarmed by the international implications of Jackson's aggression in Florida, though he wanted the territory. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun liked the idea of taking Cuba, but not of the war with Spain that it would entail, and denied Jackson the forces to continue. (Calhoun was apparently also afraid that Jackson's military ambitions might be Napoleonic and that he would take over civilian government.) He attacked Jackson in the closed meetings of the cabinet, demanding Monroe censure him\u2014though Jackson only learned about that years later, when Calhoun was his vice president. The only member of the cabinet to defend Jackson's action was Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who no less than Monroe saw Florida as essential to national security. Adams, who was far and away the most experienced diplomat of the time, proceeded to negotiate Jackson's win against Spain to an annexationist conclusion that resulted in major territorial gains for the United States.\n\nThe Adams-On\u00eds treaty of 1819 ceded East Florida to the United States and ended lingering controversies about West Florida. It also promised that the United States would not try to annex Texas; Adams perhaps believed that to be a keepable promise, but Jackson certainly did not. The treaty also ceded Spain's claim on Oregon to the United States, extending the border to the West Coast, in a \"joint occupation\" with Great Britain, whose Hudson Bay Company competed with John Jacob Astor's company for the fur trade there.\n\nMississippi, as yet sparsely populated and with Natchez its largest city, became a state in 1819. Most of it was still Choctaw or Chickasaw land, and there was popular discontent from Georgia westward about the slowness of the process of Indian removal. In 1820, Calhoun called in Andrew Jackson, a firm believer in deportation of Native Americans, together with Thomas Hinds, a Mississippi veteran of the Creek War, to negotiate\u2014more like, arm-twist\u2014the Treaty of Doak's Stand with Jackson's former ally, the Choctaw chief Pushmataha, which conveyed Choctaw land to the United States with a chunk of land beyond the Mississippi River ceded to them in return. (In practice, the Choctaw were unwilling to remove themselves, and it took until the 1830s, with Jackson as president, for their forced exile from the state of Mississippi to be accomplished.)\n\nMemphis was developed into a town in 1819 by former Tennessee superior court judge John Overton, who would become for a time the richest man in Tennessee. Incorporated in 1826, it quickly became the regional distribution hub for large areas of Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. As a slave-trade center that serviced the new plantations of the large, fertile region, it boasted Mississippi River connections to Natchez and New Orleans.\n\nGrateful to Andrew Jackson, the politicians of Mississippi in 1821 named their newly created capital city for him. Located on the bluffs overlooking the Pearl River, at the site of a trading-post stop on the Natchez Trace, the town of Jackson connected by water to New Orleans via Lake Ponchartrain. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to get to and from Jackson. The governing elite of Natchez, which was the only important commercial center in Mississippi at the time, blocked internal improvements that would have removed the sunken logs that booby-trapped the Pearl River, which was, said Senator Thomas Buck Reed in 1826, \"useless to the inhabitants, or nearly so, from the want of resources in the State to adapt it for the purposes of commerce.\" Roads were rudimentary.\n\nSpain's empire continued to deteriorate; Mexico became independent in 1821, the same year the Spanish evacuated San Agust\u00edn for the second and last time pursuant to the Adams-On\u00eds Treaty. The combat-averse Thomas Jefferson could not have imagined a less likely figure than Andrew Jackson to realize his dream of snatching the Floridas. Jackson had done it not by ensnaring the Indians in debt as Jefferson had imagined but by forcibly evicting them, even as he fought a war of repression against the free black people who lived among them. With the same stroke, he accomplished the Carolinian dream: now there was no free territory to the south that the enslaved of South Carolina and Georgia could escape to, or organize insurrections from.\n\nThe South had been made safe for plantation slavery. There was no more Native American threat, no more maroon havens, no more Spanish, no more British. It no longer needed the protection of the United States from enemies south and west. South Carolina could now afford to become even more uncooperative with the federal government.\n\nMonroe sent Jackson to install the Florida state government, but he resigned after only nine and a half months in St. Augustine, amid complaints of dictatorial behavior, and went back to Tennessee to become a senator. The Americans built a new town near the site of the long-disappeared Huguenot community of Fort Caroline, called\u2014what else?\u2014Jacksonville.\n\nSectional politics resulted in one of the nation's historic political struggles, fought in 1819\u201320, over whether the sparsely populated territory of Missouri, acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase and previously a slave territory under the French and Spanish, would be admitted to the Union as a free or slave state. The prize at stake was control of the Senate, which was crucial for the slaveholders. The House was coming under control of the North, because in terms of population the North was handily outpopulating the South through immigration. It had already outstripped the three-fifths constitutional advantage, and the gap was widening.\n\nAnother prize was the concession to sell slaves to Missouri pioneers; needless to say, Virginia was enthusiastically in favor of Missouri's annexation as a slave state. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky began earning his nickname of \"the Great Compromiser\"\u2014which was not a compliment in South Carolina\u2014by leading through Congress the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri with slavery to the Union as the twenty-fourth state in 1821. In exchange, Maine was detached from Massachusetts and admitted as the twenty-third state, thus maintaining the Senate in a stalemate.\n\nBut as part of the compromise, slavery was outlawed west of the Mississippi and north of a line at 36\u00b030\u2033 latitude. The planter class of South Carolina, who could not expand their system into the West without slaves, was outraged; this, they shouted, was federal overreach. Frederic Bancroft wrote that slaveowners\n\nhad not previously believed that their chief interest was in danger. The far-seeing were now convinced of this. The whole South was sure to be permanently sectionalized if the politico-antislavery North ever became thoroughly organized. The political strength of the North depended on the development of interests and the extent to which prejudices and fears could be excited. Formerly sectionalism had usually been mild and courteous. Henceforth it was rarely to be either mild or courteous.\n\nMissouri had been acquired as part of the Louisiana Territory by Jefferson, who in his retirement saw what would happen. His remark in a letter of April 22, 1820, to John Holmes of Maine, is well known: \"A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.\" But Jefferson was unambiguously on the slavery side of the question, agreeing with the Southerners that Congress had no right to legislate such matters for the states. Jefferson, ever the champion of exile for free black people, convinced himself that slaves trafficked to Missouri would be... _happier:_\n\nThe cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and _expatriation_ could be effected... But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier.\n\nHe finished the letter by absolving himself and his generation and dismissing his juniors: \"I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons.\"\n\nDuring all this time, kidnapped Africans had been smuggled into American seaports, especially via Jean Lafitte's pirate\/privateer operation in the Gulf of Mexico. With Napoleon gone and the British once again allies, the US Navy concentrated on eradicating piracy. The milestone in the closing of the African slave trade was the 1819 Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States and Punish the Crime of Piracy, which was amended in 1820 to include the foreign slave trade as piracy, a crime carrying the death penalty. The ruling families of South Carolina saw that as an insult, but the slaveowners of Virginia liked it, and they were in charge in Washington.\n\nThe domestic slave trade was going full tilt. Finally, the competition from African importations was completely gone. With the British navy no longer harassing American ships, there was now a safe, legal ocean corridor for shipping slaves South in the domestic slave trade.\n\nThe legally mandated domestication of the slave trade put a sharp cap on how fast plantations could expand; they could only grow as fast as the enslaved women of the South could turn out babies.\n\nThe demand was intense. Over the next twenty years, as the power looms of Lancashire sucked up all the cotton the South could grow, enslaved wombs were not merely sources of local enrichment but were also suppliers in a global system of agricultural input, industrial output, and financial expansion.\n\nHow well or how harshly to treat an enslaved mother was a principal issue in plantation management, affecting as it did the survivability of children. Those farmers more inclined to long-term profit from \"increase\" than to shorter-term profit from labor were obliged to \"promote their health and render them prolific,\" as one writer put it.\n\nIn a now-notorious letter of January 17, 1819, that was in another era routinely ignored by Jefferson biographers, the seventy-six-year-old ex-president, plagued by debt and frustrated by the death in infancy of some of his human capital, emphasized urgently that producing children was a specialized occupation, on a par with other skills enslaved laborers might have:\n\nThe loss of 5. little ones in 4 years induces me to fear that the overseers do not permit the women to devote as much time as is necessary to the care of their children: that they view their labor as the 1st object and the raising their child but as secondary.\n\nI consider the labor of a breeding woman as no object, and that a child raised every 2. years is of more profit than the crop of the best laboring man.... I must pray you to inculcate upon the overseers that it is not their labor, but their increase which is the first consideration with us.\n\nBy this time, the interstate slave trade that Jefferson had done so much to facilitate was taking off, and the market it created for his slaves' \"increase\" offered the only hope for escaping his crushing burden of debt. In telling the overseer to ease off on hard labor for \"breeding\" women, Jefferson laid out the financial tradeoff that careful farm managers had to consider in deciding how to apply their female labor: how much time women should spend working the land versus how much to spend reproducing. This could involve calculations against market prices for crops\u2014high prices meant more field labor, low prices more birth labor. Or, since poor land required more labor to be applied to it, it could mean balancing the fertility of a patch of land against the fertility of an enslaved woman.\n\nJefferson's one-child-every-two-years quota was, it should be noted, not the worst: an even more rapacious owner could insist on faster breeding. Martha Jackson, born in 1850 and interviewed in Livingston, Alabama, recalled that her \"Antie\" was a \"breeder 'oman [who] brought in chillun ev'y twelve month jes' lack a cow bringin' in a calf.\" Indeed, Jefferson had established the two-year limit experientially, because, as previously noted, his own frail wife had died at the age of thirty-three from six pregnancies in less than ten years, her health growing visibly worse with each confinement.\n\nNot that that was unusual: white or black, women commonly were pregnant that often, and they not infrequently died during and especially after childbirth. One might wonder: if the reproductive ability of enslaved women was so valuable, why did they consistently sell for lower prices than men? Perhaps because women weakened from repeated pregnancy were less productive in the field, but also because women were a riskier purchase, often dying in their twenties because the prevailing unsanitary methods of childbirth were so deadly.*\n\nIn testimony during an 1839 court case in Warren County, Mississippi, about a farm at which \"the policy is not to make large crops but to raise young negroes,\" Tobius Stephens \"suggested rating 'breeding women' at half a hand,\" writes Christopher Morris: \"[Stephens wrote] 'If breeding women are worked hard on the hills, it is likely to produce abortion & sickness.' A witness for the plaintiff thought the current administrator had not managed the plantation very well, and offered as evidence his observation of women working in fields.'\" Concern for the women's well-being was not the issue in the court case, needless to say; what was being decided was the financial acumen of the manager. Jefferson was nothing if not consistent in his promotion of a two-year cycle of commercial human reproduction. In a letter of June 30, 1820, to John Wayles Eppes, in the course of justifying a plan to sell off twenty enslaved people in families rather than only laboring men, he discussed his captives in terms otherwise applicable to livestock management, as per the use of the verb _stocking:_ \"I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively,\" Jefferson wrote. \"I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption.\"\n\nAn addition to the capital! The variant word _capitalism_ had not yet been coined, but the term _capital_ had remained in Jefferson's lexicon twenty-eight years after his \"4 percent\" letter to Washington, and it still applied to slaves. Jefferson understood clearly how the concept of capital applied to his society. Capital is money that makes more money, and slaves were property who made more property\u2014including more slaves, who could be used as money when the need arose. It was therefore advisable to \"stock\" a farm with enslaved women, who would \"breed\" every two years, and in doing so would make a per annum capital growth target, as Jefferson had identified in his 1792 letter to Washington.\n\nEppes, the recipient of Jefferson's letter, was the recently retired US senator from Virginia and was Jefferson's son-in-law, having been married to Jefferson's daughter Maria (or Mary, or Patsy), who was his first cousin. Maria had died in childbirth-related complications sixteen years before, in 1804, as her mother Martha (or Patty) Wayles Jefferson had died from childbirth before her, and as her grandmother had died after giving birth to her mother. As Maria's confinement approached, Jefferson perhaps failed to reassure the frightened twenty-four-year-old when he wrote her from the White House: \"You are prepared to meet it [childbirth] with courage, I hope. Some female friend of your mamma's (I forget whom) used to say it was no more than a jog of the elbow.\"\n\nMaria knew better, having watched her mother die and having given birth twice already. She gave birth in February and died in April. The bereaved Eppes took up with a woman who may also have been Jefferson's daughter, at least according to present-day Hemings family oral tradition and local belief. By the time Jefferson wrote his \"addition to the capital\" letter, Eppes was cohabiting with Betsy Hemings, whom Jefferson had given to Eppes and Maria as a wedding present. If she was indeed Jefferson's daughter, she would thus have been the deceased Maria's half sister, making a creepy parallel with the way her aunt Sally had been the deceased Martha Wayles Jefferson's half sister. All the above-named (except for Jefferson himself) were descended from John Wayles. After Eppes died, Betsy Hemings was never sold, and she is buried alongside him. Whoever Betsy Hemings's father was, the Hemingses had provided the Wayles-Jefferson family with three generations of what Madison Hemings, Sally's son, referred to as \"concubine\" in a March 13, 1873, interview in the _Pike County_ (Ohio) Republican, in which he declared Jefferson to have been his father and which is our only record of his thoughts.\n\nJefferson died on the same day as John Adams, on the mystically suggestive date of July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the date of the Declaration. His unpopularity as president had begun to fade with the growth of a patriotic cult around the Founding Fathers, fueled by Henry Clay's popular mythologizing discourse.\n\nJefferson had desperately hoped to grow his way out of the debt that tormented him in his final years. Like many Southern planters, he failed. When he died, the boom in Virginia-born slaves was only starting to get under way.\n\nWilliam Barry, who visited Monticello in 1832, wrote, \"All is dilapidation and ruin.\" Most of the gadgetry, maps, and fixtures in the interior of the present-day Monticello that is so impressively maintained by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation is a loving work of collection, restoration, and re-imagination. Jefferson's things were sold off, as were all his slaves but the ones descended from Betty Hemings. Among the other things that it is, the shrine that is present-day Monticello is a well-kept window into the practice of slavery, complete with (as of 2015) rebuilt slave cabins.\n\nLucy Cottrell, the woman in this picture, was fifteen on January 15, 1827, when she was put on the auction block\u2014one of 140 people sold, along with the farm implements, crops, and livestock of Monticello. She was bought, together with her mother, Dolly, by the Germanborn University of Virginia modern languages professor George Blaetterman, who had been vetted by Jefferson before being hired. Blaetterman was booted from the faculty in 1840 for horsewhipping his wife\u2014twice in a single week, \"once on the public road.\" It was around 1845 that the family had a daguerreotype made of Blaetterman's granddaughter Charlotte in the arms of the woman who attended her, making Cottrell one of the first African Americans to have been the subject of a portrait photograph. After Blaetterman died, his widow took Lucy and Dolly Cottrell to Maysville, Kentucky, around 1850, where she freed them five years later.\n\n_The woman holding the child in this picture, made from a daguerreotype taken ca. 1845, is Lucy Cottrell, formerly enslaved by Thomas Jefferson._\n\nBy the time Monticello was liquidated, the self-reproducing capital represented by slaves was about to be subjected to a new kind of profit-extracting process unknown in Jefferson's generation. Louisiana, the commercial giant of the South, created a new way of financing plantation agriculture: the property bank. After the Louisiana legislature chartered a bank called the Consolidated Association of the Planters of Louisiana in 1827, capitalized at two million dollars, that bank began to bundle mortgages\u2014largely collateralized, as were most Southern mortgages, by slaves, who thus made up a large part of the \"property\" of the \"property bank.\" Shored up by a guarantee from the State of Louisiana, the bank began to sell bonds in the financial capitals of the North, and in England and Europe. Edward E. Baptist, who calls attention to this securitization process, writes that \"a British bank could now sell a completely commodified slave: not a particular individual who could die or run away, but a bond that was the right to a one-slave-sized slice of a pie made from the income of thousands of slaves.\" Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi followed suit.\n\nWhen Jefferson took office in 1801, the African slave trade was still open. When Monroe left office in 1825, that trade was a distant memory, and the domestic slave trade in African Americans was on the verge of its great boom era. Managing that transition was one of the achievements, if one wishes to regard it as such, of the Virginia Dynasty.\n\nThe liquidation of Monticello in which Lucy and the others were sold was supervised by Jefferson's eldest grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, with the help of his brother-in-law Nicholas P. Trist, a young Virginia-born Louisiana sugar planter who had married Jefferson's granddaughter Virginia Jefferson Randolph. We will meet Mr. Trist again.\n\nAs the center of population gravity shifted westward, the stage was set for the change from a political machine based in Virginia to one with roots in Tennessee. Intending to follow James Monroe as the fourth consecutive Jeffersonian president, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and a plurality of the electoral vote in the 1824 presidential election. But it was taken from him by John Quincy Adams in what Jacksonians branded as the \"corrupt bargain,\"* for the backroom agreement Adams was alleged to have made to appoint the ambitious Henry Clay to the post of secretary of state in exchange for his electors.\n\nAppointing Clay doomed Adams's presidency from the start. Enraged at the outcome of the election, Jackson declined Adams's invitation to serve as secretary of war. Instead, with a group of advisors that included the New York professional politician Martin Van Buren and communications-magnate-in-the-making Amos Kendall, he built a powerful political machine that reshaped the nation and trained its political firepower on Adams, whose every initiative was blocked in Congress. The next four years was a full-time campaign for a Jackson presidency.\n\nAdams's career had been marked by his distaste for political parties, and he did not have a political organization. The Jacksonians had a populist platform: land and gold. Adams, a cosmopolitan, Puritan-descended intellectual who spoke the language of diplomacy in erudite phrases laden with classical references and did not have the popular touch, wanted a federal government that would make infrastructural improvements and improve education. But Jackson, a ruffian who spoke the plain language of a warrior, wanted a weak federal government that would distribute as much former Indian land and as much specie as possible to individuals in an expanding slave society. Adams thought Jackson \"a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name,\" but he learned a rough lesson at Jackson's hands about communicating with the public. At a time when newcomers with no inherited wealth were increasing the free population faster than established families could hand wealth down, Jackson's party harnessed the political power of this new force.\n\nPresidential candidates still were expected to remain somewhat aloof from campaigning, though candidates for lower offices showed no such restraint and traveled a lively circuit of political barbecues. Jackson spent the next four years running for president while pretending not to, burnishing his heroic aura. The Port Gibson, Mississippi, _Correspondent_ of November 3, 1827, reported his words as:\n\nI have saved your women and children from the tomahawk and scalping knife. I have protected your great emporium from flames, and from British myrmidons, and when all other resources failed, have obtained and annexed to your State, an extensive domain, adding wealth and numbers to your restricted limits.\n\nThe Jacksonians assembled what became the Democratic Party, with institutional continuity to the one we have today, whose bases were Nashville in the South and New York in the North. John C. Calhoun, who had been vice president under Adams, switched sides and ran with Jackson, who was elected president by a landslide in 1828. As Jackson had done in the 1824 election and would do again in 1832, he carried every county in Mississippi.\n\n*Despite black women's lower level of nutrition and generally poorer conditions, they may have been less at risk in childbirth than white women in one respect. Black women, who sometimes gave birth in the field and who followed African birthing practices that required them to squat, were likely more frequently successful at expelling the placenta; the mistresses, who gave birth lying on their backs according to then-current medical protocol, may have been less successful in expelling the placenta, with a correspondingly greater danger of infection or hemorrhage.\n\n*\"Corrupt bargain\" was already a well-worn phrase in Anglo-American political discourse by the time the Jacksonians hung it on Adams and Clay.\n\n_Three advertisements from the Natchez_ Mississippi Free Trader, _December 22, 1852._\n\n#   Part Five\n\n# **The Slaveocracy**\n\n#   31\n\n# **Swallowed by Millions**\n\n_I do believe that Virginia is become another Guinea, and the Eastern Shore an African coast._\n\n\u2014William Lloyd Garrison, _The Liberator_ , October 5, 1833\n\n_I have known what it is to be dragged fifteen miles to the human flesh market and be sold like a brute beast. I am from a slave-breeding state\u2014where slaves are reared for the market as horses, sheep, and swine are. 1_\n\n\u2014Frederick Douglass, 1846\n\nALREADY THE DOMINANT COMMERCIAL American city, New York took a major step toward consolidating its supremacy at the beginning of 1818, when \"packet\" boats began running monthly between New York and Liverpool.\n\nPackets left at a scheduled departure time whether they were full of cargo or not, making shipping more predictable, and they had to do it in all kinds of weather, fighting their way across from Liverpool to New York even if it was stormy and icy. Especially in winter, the westbound, or \"uphill,\" trip from England to America, going against the Gulf Stream, was the most dangerous passage a sailor could make, anywhere in the world. Because vessels couldn't sail directly against the prevailing westerly winds, they had to \"tack\": set their sails at a forty-five-degree angle to the wind in a series of successive adjustments that allow the craft to make an arc in the windward direction. Accordingly, they traveled farther than they would have, and much slower, than if the winds had been in their favor. Ships sailing from England to America typically could expect to travel anywhere from four to seven hundred miles more than when they were going the other way.\n\nThe Gulf Stream was also an obstacle for the American coasting trade southward down around Florida to New Orleans. North Carolina was a navigational menace, with sandbars outlining its shores; Capes Hatteras, Lookout, and Fear all posed dangers for passing vessels. But it was also where vessels began to have to go against the Gulf Stream. Then, going around Florida, there were coral reefs, shoals, keys, sandbars, eddy currents, and shallow water, to say nothing of the difficulty of passing through the Straits of Florida against the force of the current. Maritime insurers rated the accident rate from New York to New Orleans at 1\u00bc to 1\u00bd percent, more dangerous than the trip from New York to Liverpool though not more dangerous than the trip from Liverpool to New York.\n\nNew York's monopolization of the carrying trade was bitterly resented by the cotton growers of the South, but there was nothing they could do. Even from Charleston, the \"great circle\" northern route was the shortest way from America to England. Though wealthy planters were beyond-conspicuous consumers, there were so few of them that the South didn't buy enough imports to make regular direct round-trip transatlantic shipping from Liverpool to Charleston worthwhile\u2014ships would have arrived in America with their holds full of ballast. The shipping profit from sending cotton out and receiving imported goods in return went to New York, where the products were handled.\n\nCoasting packets took Carolina and Georgia cotton to New York, where it was loaded onto transatlantic packets. When ships arrived at New York carrying merchandise from Britain, the part of it that was destined for the Lowcountry traveled on a coasting packet, so British goods cost more in South Carolina than they did in New York. And needless to say, when specie was shipped from Britain to pay for purchases, it came to New York.\n\nBaltimore had the best harbor in the Chesapeake, and some of the best shipping facilities in the country, but it had no chance of competing with New York for European commerce. Instead, it was perfectly positioned to specialize in servicing the expanding domestic market, and it grew with the republic. Its shipyards built the lightweight, high-speed schooners that began darting back and forth along the coast as packets, bringing regular news from one place to another. The run was especially profitable between Baltimore and New Orleans: since both cities were rich emporia, ships could go full in both directions.\n\nMaryland, a border state with diversified agriculture that counted a number of Quakers in its population, was increasingly divided over slavery. On the Eastern Shore, there was much slave agriculture but also antislavery sentiment. In the northern part of the state especially, slavery was on the decline after 1820, as it was in Delaware. Limited terms of service were becoming increasingly common for Maryland slaves, raising them almost to the category of indentured servants. Slave-sale advertisements naming individuals generally specified whether they had a term of service or were \"slaves for life.\"\n\nFast-rising Baltimore had slave labor, but it was not a slave society the way Richmond or Charleston was. Seth Rockman describes the diverse mix of the early nineteenth-century Baltimore workforce as \"a continuum of slaves-for-life to transient day laborers\u2014with term slaves, rented slaves, self-hiring slaves, indentured servants, redemptioners, apprentices, prisoners, children, and paupers occupying the space in between.\" He argues that the reason slavery remained viable in the dynamic Baltimore labor market at all was the enslaved laborer's capitalized value: \"the perpetuation of slavery in a place like Baltimore owed less to the actual labor compelled from enslaved workers and more to the fact that plantation purchasers in Charleston, Augusta, New Orleans, and throughout the South were willing to pay hundreds of dollars for Baltimore slaves.\"\n\nOne of those enslaved laborers in Baltimore was Frederick Douglass, who ultimately escaped on a boat leaving the port. Though he remembered that \"going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity,\" while working as a hired slave at the Fell's Point shipyard he was beaten by \"four of the white apprentices\" in a fight \"in which my left eye was nearly knocked out, and I was horribly mangled in other respects.\" He described the relations between classes of laborers there:\n\nThe white laboring man was robbed by the slave system of the just results of his labor, because he was flung into competition with a class of laborers who worked without wages. The slaveholders blinded them to this competition by keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves as men\u2014not against them as slaves. They appealed to their pride, often denouncing emancipation as tending to place the white working man on an equality with negroes, and by this means they succeeded in drawing off the minds of the poor whites from the real fact, that by the rich slave master they were already regarded as but a single remove from equality with the slave. The impression was cunningly made that slavery was the only power that could prevent the laboring white man from falling to the level of the slave's poverty and degradation.\n\nTo make this enmity deep and broad between the slave and the poor white man, the latter was allowed to abuse and whip the former without hindrance.... these poor white mechanics in Mr. Gardiner's ship-yard, instead of applying the natural, honest remedy for the apprehended evil, and objecting at once to work there by the side of slaves, made a cowardly attack upon the free colored mechanics... The feeling was, about this time, very bitter toward all colored people in Baltimore, and they\u2014free and slave\u2014suffered all manner of insult and wrong. (paragraphing added)\n\nThe Baltimore waterfront was a key site for slave trading. There were twenty-four wharves along the harbor, to any one of which Maryland captains of local packet-boats coming from Easton, Chestertown, Kent Island, or other Eastern Shore points of origin might bring along a slave or two to sell. Most were sold without newspaper ads, but some surviving examples testify to the practice.\n\n_Baltimore_ American and Commercial Daily Advertiser _of December 21, 1818. This nameless \"mulatto,\" sold in payment of a debt, might have remained in Baltimore, perhaps hired out at the shipyard by his new owner, or perhaps ultimately taken down South. In the latter case, it is doubtful that his freedom date seventeen years hence would have meant much._\n\nIt is clear that there was already an export market for slaves out of Maryland by this time, though not much direct documentation of it survives. An 1816 grand jury report in Baltimore stated:\n\nThere are, in this city, houses appropriated to this trade, as prisons for the reception of the Negroes intended to be carried to other states. Slaves are crowded together, male and female, in one common dungeon. They are loaded with irons, confined in their filth, and subjected to various species of cruelty and tyranny from their keepers.\n\nThe earliest shipment of slaves by water from Baltimore to New Orleans of which we have a record\u2014though clearly not the first to take place\u2014was in December 1818, when, in Ralph Clayton's description, \"twenty-four slaves, boarded by six different shippers, were brought to the dock over a four day period\" to be put on the brig _Temperance_. In addition to slaves consigned from traders on the hard sail South, the packets might take migrating farmers transporting their labor forces, or passengers accompanied by enslaved personal servants.\n\nAustin Woolfolk Jr. was only nineteen when he began running his CASH FOR NEGROES advertisements in the Baltimore press in 1816, almost as soon as the coast was clear of the British. Working with his father, he had built up a stake in his hometown of Augusta, Georgia, by supplying slaves to planters relocating to newly available Alabama land. There were no quantities of slaves available in cotton-mad Georgia, so he went northward in search of supply\u2014to the farmers of Maryland's Eastern Shore, whose eagerness to sell slaves had already been amply demonstrated.\n\nWoolfolk was not the first slave trader to offer cash in newspaper advertisements, but he became emblematic of the practice. Spending liberally on advertising, traders helped anchor the Upper South's newspaper industry, running ads in every issue, all season long, of every small-town paper in their regions of coverage. Most merchants handled a variety of merchandise, but Woolfolk, who embraced as part of his pitch the term \"Georgiaman,\" dealt only in slaves, and unlike other slave traders, he did not run coffles, but only shipped captives by water.\n\nTo maximize profits, a slave trader had to cover both ends of the transaction: buy young people cheaply from farmers in Virginia and Maryland, transport them to the Deep South, and sell them there at premium prices. Woolfolk could bypass intermediaries by canvassing farms directly, offering farmers more for young African Americans than the Richmond-bound traders could. That meant having operations at both ends, with all the complexities of interstate law, taxation, and banking, all the complications of transport, and a large network of contacts. It meant a cash-flow-intensive business that had to respond quickly to changing political, economic, or weather conditions, and it entailed having offices and slave-processing facilities in different cities, with partners or agents in those cities. In Woolfolk's case, as with many merchants, his family provided them.\n\nThe Woolfolks developed the most effective network for canvassing the farms of the Eastern Shore for slaves to buy, establishing a base of operations headed by Woolfolk's brother Joseph at Easton. Once the harvest was in and farmers were ready to sell, Woolfolk's agents scoured the area, visiting every farm they could. Throughout the region they established temporary headquarters at one or another inn, distributed handbills, and took out CASH FOR NEGROES newspaper ads. They sailed the captives downriver to the Chesapeake Bay and on to Baltimore, where they were held in Woolfolk's jail until he had a full gang for shipment.\n\nWoolfolk \"generally consummated just a few sales at a time\" when buying in Maryland, writes William Calderhead, \"and from one to four slaves per purchase. Most chattels were in their teens and males outnumbered females by a ratio of 8 to 5. Slaves were not purchased in families, but on occasion a mother and child would be acquired as a unit.\" But only \"on occasion.\"\n\nLike everyone else in his trade, Woolfolk routinely separated families. John Thompson, born in Maryland in 1812 on a plantation with about two hundred slaves, had as one of his earliest childhood memories a visit to the jail where his sister was about to be sold, as his mother wept:\n\nthe first thing that saluted my ears, was the rattling of the chains upon the limbs of the poor victims. It seemed to me to be a hell upon earth, emblematical of that dreadful dungeon where the wicked are kept, until the day of God's retribution, and where their torment ascends up forever and ever.\n\nAs soon as my sister saw our mother, she ran to her and fell upon her neck, but was unable to speak a word. There was a scene which angels witnessed; there were tears which, I believe, were bottled and placed in God's depository, there to be reserved until the day when He shall pour His wrath upon this guilty nation.\n\nThe slave-buyers chatted up the locals to find out who might be going out of business, who needed cash, who might have an extra laborer to sell. It was much like what horse traders did, and not a few people who wound up doing this kind of work were former horse-traders who had moved over into trading in slaves; their successors would move back to selling horses again after emancipation. The working vocabulary of the slave trade overlapped that of the livestock business, as per the use of a term like \"stock\"\u2014specificially a breeding term\u2014to describe a labor force.\n\nA few slave dealers advertised themselves as \"negro traders,\" but most were identified more generically as brokers, commission merchants, auctioneers, et cetera. The network of the slave trade was not limited to the trader's own agents. The commerce spread its largesse around Maryland, and especially around Baltimore, through an informally organized network whose meeting-places were inns and taverns, some of which were especially known for their involvement in the business. \"Bartenders were often used as agents,\" writes Ralph Clayton. \"Their exposure to numerous travelers... placed them in an ideal position to act as go-betweens. A number of ads often reflected the seller or buyer's desire to have information left ' _at the bar_.'\" Clayton has compiled a list of Baltimore spots where traders did business: Mr. Lilly's Tavern, Fowler's Tavern, Fountain Inn, Sinner's Tavern, Mrs. Kirk's, the General Wayne Inn, William Fowler's, John Cugle's, the Columbian Hotel, the Globe Hotel, et cetera. This pattern was consistent throughout the South, where hotels commonly had secure lockup rooms that ranged from individual cells to full-fledged jails.\n\nSlave jailing was an informally organized, widely distributed system of forprofit prisons. Traders in many towns maintained their own jails, which passing coffle-drivers could use, with the advantage of possibly being able to sell or buy through contacts there. In other towns, the local lawman might be happy to rent space in the town jail for a night. Speaking of the 1850s, Bancroft wrote:\n\nEvery Southern city, and some mere villages, had slave-jails, slave-pens, or slave-yards, as they were variously called. They differed much in size and character. Some were carefully built, while others were old buildings, houses, sheds or stables, slightly altered. They usually had some of the characteristics of a poor barrack, a boarding stable and a prison.... At the best of the public ones, where slaves were fed and watched for any stranger, the usual charge was twenty-five or thirty cents a day\u2014hardly as much as the feeding and care of a horse at any public stable. Their food was almost as plain as a horse's and they often had less that could be called a bed. They slept on the hard floor, and considered themselves fortunate if, in addition to their bundle of clothes, which they used for a pillow, they could get an old blanket.\n\n_One of nine such advertisements in an issue of the Easton, Maryland_ , Gazette, _October 18, 1828._\n\nLocal sheriffs were good contacts for Woolfolk's agents, because they were in a position to flip runaways, whose disgusted owners might authorize handing them over to Woolfolk in exchange for a cash settlement, or who might be sold unclaimed. Surviving records from Baltimore show fifteen handovers of runaways to him between 1829 and 1836: Liz, on August 10, 1835; Kitty, on November 5, 1835; Henry Hazelton, December 3, 1835, et cetera.\n\nSome \"runaways\" might be free people kidnapped off the street, as in the case of Fortune Lewis, who was abducted in 1822, taken to Woolfolk's jail, and sent to Washington, where he was able to prove his freedom and was released. But such a happy resolution for the victim was unusual. The free black people of Baltimore\u2014and, indeed, free black people throughout the North\u2014lived with the knowledge that they could be kidnapped and sold.\n\nAustin Woolfolk's early growth was slowed by national economic difficulties. Much as the First Bank of the United States had previously done in 1792, the Second Bank of the United States caused a panic soon after it was chartered.*\n\nThe depression remembered as the Panic of 1819 took two years to bottom out and two more to come back, though its effects were lighter in the newly wealthy Deep South. \"Not till 1821 did [Woolfolk] ship more than one hundred slaves south annually,\" writes Calderhead. That was the year he moved into his Pratt Street quarters, complete with his own slave jail. \"In the following year his scale of operations doubled, and for the next six years he shipped from 230 to 460 slaves south on an annual basis.\"\n\nWoolfolk's main source of supply was the farms of Maryland's Eastern Shore; like those of Virginia, their well-fed, hard-working young farmhands were established as a premium brand. Calderhead notes that \"as for sellers, many who dealt with the traders once were inclined to do so again.\" For those repeat vendors, selling slaves had become a regular part of their economic cycle\u2014which is to say, they had become slave-farmers who sold perhaps one or two teenagers a year.\n\nLike many traders, Woolfolk lived on his jail site, in a house that was part of a complex where dozens of people might be chained up at a time. The size of Woolfolk's operation made him the public face of the \"negro-trader\" and his name the terror of the enslaved. He had a kind of bogeyman status for enslaved children\u2014except, unlike the bogeyman, he was real.\n\nFrederick Douglass grew up in fear of Woolfolk. Like many who were born enslaved, Douglass had been separated from his mother at an early age and did not know the exact date of his birth, which he reckoned to have been in 1818. Before he was hired and sold away, Douglass was one of about a thousand people Edward Lloyd owned on Maryland's Eastern Shore, near Easton. That kind of estate took generations to accumulate; Lloyd was descended from seventeenth-century Maryland old money, and the core of his property is still in the hands of his descendants today. Lloyd was at various times a congressman, senator, and the governor of Maryland; it is ironic that he is most remembered for owning the plantation where Frederick Douglass was born and lived as a child.\n\nLloyd's captives labored on a network of neighboring agricultural prisons administered from a central location. Douglass, who described the brutalities of Lloyd's regime, recalled of the central plantation that \"if a slave was convicted of any high misdemeanor, became unmanageable, or evinced a determination to run away, he was brought immediately here, severely whipped, put on board the sloop, carried to Baltimore, and sold to Austin Woolfolk, or some other slave-trader, as a warning to the slaves remaining.\"\n\nWoolfolk accounted for 53 percent of the 4,304 people documented as sent by the oceangoing trade from Baltimore to New Orleans between 1819 and 1831, but despite his outsized historical footprint, there were many other traders. A person with \"Negroes of either sex to dispose of\" might, for example, stop by the New Bridge Hotel and leave word for the Kentucky trader David Anderson, who accounted for 223 of the 1,400-plus people known to have been shipped by water from Baltimore to New Orleans between 1818 and 1822.\n\nWoolfolk knew better than to parade the grim spectacle of loading his ships before the eyes of the town. When it was time to sail, the captives were marched under cover of predawn darkness out of his complex, located near present-day Oriole Park, down seven or so blocks to Fell's Point. From there, they sailed around the peninsula of Florida, and many were ultimately sold out of the Woolfolk firm's New Orleans office at 122 Chartres Street. Others were taken to Natchez, where Woolfolk also sold slaves, as an advertisement in the Woodville, Mississippi, _Republican_ that ran for three months in late 1826 \/ early 1827 announced:\n\nNEGROES FOR SALE. The subscriber has on hand _seventy-five_ likely young Virginia born Negroes, of various descriptions, which he offers to sell low for cash, or good acceptance; any person wishing to purchase would do well to call and suit themselves. \u2014 I will have a constant supply through the season. \u2014 I can be found at Purnell's Tavern.\n\nNatchez, December 1st, 1826. \"Austin Woolfolk.\"\n\nFrederick Douglass recalled:\n\nWhen a child... I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk [ _sic_ ]. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming \"hand-bills,\" headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.\n\nThe flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.\n\nIn the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathised with me in my horror.\n\nA coastwise trip took three weeks or so, depending on the weather, versus seven or eight weeks to make the grueling walk from Maryland to New Orleans. Economic historians Herman Freudenberger and Jonathan B. Pritchett found that eight passages\u2014\"shipments\" was the term\u2014from Norfolk to New Orleans took an average of nineteen days in transit, at a cost of seventeen dollars per slave. But the transit time, they found, was only 18 percent of the time elapsed between receiving a certificate of good conduct (affirming that the enslaved person in question was not dangerous) and sale. The time of actual transport was sandwiched between weeks of being held in pens at either end. Though an individual interstate trade could be a process of between two and three months, there were cases that took a year\u2014a process of mental agony for the captive. Enslaved women were frequently pregnant, and on occasion women gave birth while in a holding pen or at sea.\n\nThe advantages of coastal speed over the overland trade were obvious. Coastal trade turned capital around quicker, essential in a cash-intensive business; market conditions could be responded to more quickly; a minimum of two weeks' expenses of provisions was saved; and, most important, the enslaved arrived in better condition\u2014especially children, who had a hard time keeping up with a coffle's pace\u2014which meant a higher price. There were relatively few onboard fatalities among these young people, who had, after all, been selected for their relative health and appeal. Long months of confinement in pens, followed by weeks at sea, facilitated the spread of diseases, but these were not the Middle Passage crossings that averaged something like a 15 percent mortality en route.\n\nThe inward shipping manifests show a disturbing phenomenon one digit at a time: the number of children under ten sold away from their mothers and sent for sale alone. Louisiana put a stop to that in 1829 with a unique law that harmonized with the rules of the old Code Noir, prohibiting the sale of children under ten without their mother unless documented proof of orphanhood was furnished. \"This statute markedly lowered the number of sales in Louisiana of out-of-state, unaccompanied young slave children,\" writes Judith K. Schafer. \"Immediately before passage of this law, 13.5 percent of the slaves sent from Virginia to New Orleans were under the age of ten years. Immediately following passage of the act, shipments from Virginia of slave children under ten declined to 3.7 percent, and none of these were unaccompanied by their mothers.\" Which is to say that, in Austin Woolfolk's heyday, until a regulation to control it was implemented, 9.8 percent of the involuntary passengers shipped south were motherless children under ten. For that matter, most of the rest of the passengers were little more than children, in the early years of their reproductive lives. Ninety-three percent of the enslaved people whose passage Freudenberger and Prichett could document were between the ages of eleven and thirty. But then, it was a young country. Black or white, people didn't live all that long. Over 40 percent of Baltimore was fifteen or younger in 1820.\n\nThere were dangers connected with oceangoing ships: piracy and mutiny. Both happened to ships carrying slaves for Woolfolk. The mutiny happened on April 20, 1826, when the schooner _Decatur_ left for New Orleans with thirty-one enslaved people on board. When the veteran captain made the mistake of allowing small groups of them on deck unchained, two men took him by surprise and threw him overboard. The mate, attempting to come to his aid, was also thrown overboard. The mutineers had hoped to escape to \"San Domingo\" (Haiti, which since 1822 had taken over the entire island of La Espa\u00f1ola), but lacking navigation skills, they instead floated aimlessly and were overtaken.\n\nUltimately fourteen men from the _Decatur_ were brought into New York, where, incredibly, they escaped into the city. Only one man, William Bowser, was apprehended, and he alone was tried for the murders of the captain and the mate.\n\nCoffles came via the National Road to Wheeling, Virginia, all the time during coffle season, there to be sent down the Ohio River, which empties into the Mississippi. Recalling his days as a nineteen-year-old saddler in Wheeling, Benjamin Lundy wrote, \"My heart was deeply grieved at the gross abomination. I heard the wail of the captive; I felt his pang of distress; and the iron entered my soul.\"\n\nAfter resettling a few miles away to raise his family on the other side of the borderline of emancipated Ohio, Lundy began an antislavery society and, in 1821, moved it to eastern Tennessee, where a manumission society existed. He took over a faltering antislavery publication, renamed it _Genius of Universal Emancipation_ , and made it the first substantial antislavery publication in the United States. By 1824 he was publishing in Baltimore and traveling extensively. He wasn't only a propagandist, but also an organizer, helping found other antislavery societies. He traveled to Haiti in 1825\u2014still thirty-seven years away from being recognized by the United States\u2014to make an arrangement with the Haitian government to take emancipated people. When in 1826 he arranged for the American Convention for the Abolition of Slavery to be held in Baltimore, there were \"directly or indirectly, eighty-one societies\" represented, \"seventy-three being located in slaveholding States.\"\n\nLundy began hammering at Woolfolk in print. He reprinted the _New York Christian Inquirer_ 's account of William Bowser's trial and execution:\n\nOne woman, [Bowser] said, who was confined in Woolfolk's prison, first cut the throat of her child, and then her own, rather than be carried away!... he was carried to the place of execution, when a few minutes before his exit he addressed the spectators in a few words, stating his willingness to die, and exhorting them to take warning by him to prepare to meet their God. As _Woolfolk_ was present, he particularly addressed his discourse to him, saying he could forgive him all the injuries he had done him, and hoped they might meet in Heaven; but this unfeeling \"soulseller,\" with a brutality which becomes his business, told him with an oath, (not to be named,) \"that he was now going to have, what he deserved, and he was glad of it,\" or words to this effect! He would have probably continued his abusive language to this unfortunate man, had he not been stopped by some of the spectators who were shocked at his unfeeling, profane and brutal conduct. In a few moments after this, the unfortunate man was launched into eternity.\n\nLundy ended his peroration with the words, \"Hereafter let no man speak of the humanity of Woolfolk.\"\n\nIn the South, such an insult against a gentleman would demand satisfaction in a duel, but Woolfolk did not pretend to be a gentleman, nor did he consider Lundy to be one. A few days after the article ran, Lundy was, as he put it in his memoir, \"assaulted and nearly killed\" when Woolfolk caught up with him on the street in Baltimore on January 9, 1827. Woolfolk beat Lundy severely, stomping on his head and leaving his face \"in a gore of blood\" that left him with a long recuperation and permanent damage. According to the coverage in _Niles' Weekly Register,_* when Woolfolk was tried for the assault on Lundy, he denied having been in New York during the execution, but admitted\n\nthat he was guilty of a breach of the law, but in mitigation of the penalty they read several articles in the Genius of Universal Emancipation, which Lundy acknowledged he had written and published, in which the domestic slave trade from Maryland to the southern states was spoken of in the heaviest and bitterest terms of denunciation, as barbarous, inhuman and unchristian; and Woolfolk was called a \"slave trader,\" \"a soul seller,\" &c., and equally guilty in the sight of God with the man who was engaged in the African slave trade....\n\nChief justice Brice, in pronouncing sentence, took occasion to observe, that he had never seen a case in which the provocation for a battery was greater than the present\u2014that if abusive language could ever be a justification for a battery, this was that case\u2014that the traverser was engaged in a trade sanctioned by the laws of Maryland, and that Lundy had no right to reproach him in such abusive language for carrying on a lawful trade\u2014that the trade itself was beneficial to the state, as it removed a great many rogues and vagabonds who were a nuisance in the state\u2014that Lundy had received no more than a merited chastisement for his abuse of the traverser, and but for the strict letter of the law, the court would not fine Woolfolk any thing. The court however was obliged to fine him something, and they therefore fined him _one dollar_ and costs.\n\nWoolfolk won the battle but lost the war; this violent clash of slave trader versus abolitionist was a propaganda victory for the burgeoning antislavery campaign, which in its early stages tactically consisted largely of attempts to prohibit the interstate slave trade.\n\nIt was not surprising that Lundy should receive street justice at the hands of a crude man like Woolfolk; physical threats and intimidation were a regular part of the arsenal of defending slavery. But Lundy's prot\u00e9g\u00e9, William Lloyd Garrison, had the effrontery to call out the respectable merchant Francis Todd\u2014from Garrison's hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts\u2014in the _Genius of Universal Emancipation_ issue of November 13, 1829. Todd had allowed his vessel to be used to take eighty or so enslaved people from Herring Bay in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, down to New Orleans at the behest of a Louisiana planter who had purchased an entire plantation's worth of labor.\n\nGarrison, who was only beginning his career, was not impressed that, according to Todd's testimony, the whole gang boarded cheerfully at the thought of being transported South to work together rather than to be broken up and sold separately; he wrote that Todd should be \"SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR LIFE.\" Todd sued him for libel, and Garrison was jailed for inability to pay approximately one hundred dollars in fine and costs after his conviction; ultimately, he was ransomed by a wealthy abolitionist. From his incarceration (which he was allowed to pass under conditions more like house arrest), he wrote a letter to Todd, printed in the Boston _Courier:_\n\nHow could you suffer your noble ship to be freighted with the wretched victims of slavery?... Suppose you and your family were seized on execution, and sold at public auction: a New-Orleans planter buys your children\u2014a Georgian, your wife\u2014a South Carolinian, yourself: would one of your townsmen (believing the job to be a profitable one) be blameless for transporting you all thither, though familiar with all these afflicting circumstances?\n\nGarrison went on to publish _The Liberator_ , which began on January 1, 1831, and he formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society one year later to the day. The most consistently outspoken voice of the movement, _The Liberator_ continued for thirty-five years, during which it focused on the slave trade as emblematic of the evils of slavery, and as slavery's most vulnerable point. Local and state antislavery societies appeared, with the National Antislavery Society being formed in Philadelphia in late 1833.\n\nAbolitionism already had a decades-long history in Britain, going back to the days of the _Somerset_ decision. Nicholas Biddle derided its presence in America as part of \"the latest English fashions of philanthropy and dress.\" Abolitionism was a much more radical position than merely being antislavery. One could be antislavery without actually intending to do anything about it, while barring free blacks from one's state and letting the South continue having slaves. Abolitionists, who were both black and white, and both male and female, wanted slavery extinguished, immediately, where it existed\u2014converted to free labor, without compensation for the slaveowners. As such, abolitionism was a revolutionary ideology. If implemented, it would have had the effect of impoverishing many of the richest men in the United States, devaluing their capital suddenly to zero. It would destroy the basis of Southern credit.\n\nEven John Quincy Adams, who as a congressman delivered up sheaves of abolition petitions to the House of Representatives, wrote in his diary after spending an afternoon with Lundy:\n\nLundy... and the abolitionists generally are constantly urging me to indiscreet movements, which would ruin me and weaken and not strengthen their cause. My own family, on the other hand\u2014that is, my wife and son and Mary\u2014exercise all the influence they possess to restrain and divert me from all connection with the abolitionists and with their cause. Between these adverse impulses my mind is agitated almost to distraction. The public mind in my own district and State is convulsed between the slavery and abolition questions, and I walk on the edge of a precipice in every step that I take.\n\nBona fide abolitionists were relatively few among the white population in the early days of the movement, though their numbers grew in the 1850s. The hard core of abolitionists, of course, were the enslaved themselves, along with free people of color, who constituted most of the first five hundred subscribers to _The Liberator._ 37\n\nDuring the summer of 1822, the city of Charleston was convulsed by the investigation of an alleged conspiracy headed by Denmark Vesey, an ex-sailor and free man of color who had cofounded Charleston's African Methodist Episcopal church, where he was known as a radical abolitionist preacher.\n\nVesey, whose first name came from his origin (if not his birthplace, which is unknown) on the Danish Caribbean island of St. Thomas, came with a suspect background: he had been enslaved in Saint-Domingue for a time as a boy. In South Carolina, he purchased his freedom from the sea captain Joseph Vesey with lottery winnings in 1799. Vesey was alleged to have organized a plot, said to be French-influenced, to kill white people, supposedly on Bastille Day, and flee for Haiti. Scholars have argued as to whether the conspiracy actually existed\u2014many now believe it did not\u2014or whether it was only in the imagination of Charleston mayor James Hamilton Jr., who made political hay out of it along with Robert J. Turnbull and Robert Y. Hayne, all of whom would in a few years become known as Nullifiers. But whether there was a conspiracy or not, the repression of a known revolutionary and the destruction of the \"African Church\"\u2014the AME, affiliated with Philadelphia's Mother Bethel\u2014was real. One hundred thirty-five men were tried, and Vesey, sentenced to death on June 29, was one of thirty-five who were hanged, becoming a martyr. The AME church was burned by a mob, and its ministry exiled.*\n\nAmong the condemned was the African-born Jack Pritchard, or \"Gullah Jack,\" a conjurer who was part of the AME congregation and who was alleged to have been Vesey's recruiter. African power objects were seen as part of the alleged plot's military process, as expressed by South Carolina magistrate L. H. Kennedy's reference to \"powers of darkness\" in pronouncing sentence on Pritchard on July 9:\n\nIn the prosecution of your wicked designs, you were not satisfied with resorting to natural and ordinary means, but endeavoured to enlist on your behalf, all the powers of darkness, and employed for that purpose, the most disgusting mummery and superstition. You represented yourself as invulnerable; that you could neither be taken nor destroyed, and all who fought under your banners would be invincible.\n\n_Advertisement in the_ Augusta _(Georgia)_ Chronicle, _October 22, 1822._\n\nWhen the brig _Sally_ carried twenty-five slaves from Charleston to Mobile on February 12, 1823, the manifest noted that they \"were cleared of [involvement in] the recently attempted insurrection in Charleston.\" The Vesey conspiracy provoked a series of retaliatory measures that included the formation of a new repressive organization, the South Carolina Association. The Negro Seamen's Act provided for imprisoning free black sailors while their ships were docked in Charleston; in open defiance of federal law, it put South Carolina in the provocative position of detaining black British sailors. All emancipation petitions were to be denied; the entry of free people of color into the state was prohibited, as was all education for free or enslaved blacks. A kind of security fence bearing a medieval name became popular in Charleston: the chevaux-de-frise.\n\nDavid Walker was probably in Charleston when the post-Vesey repression began. If Vesey had a plot, he might have been part of it. Walker, the first militant African American writer, was born with free status (free mother, enslaved father), probably in Wilmington, North Carolina (though there is no documentation), probably in 1796 or '97, and he became literate, probably through Biblical education in the African Methodist Episcopal church in Wilmington. When he was grown, he moved to Charleston, where a small community of free blacks worked as craftsmen and entrepreneurs. An evangelical Christian, he probably attended the same AME church as Vesey and Gullah Jack. He moved on to less repressive Boston, probably in 1825 or '26, where he married. He kept a used-clothes store in Beacon Hill, where he sold second-hand sailors' uniforms. He was a subscription agent for the short-lived _Freedom's Journal_ , the first African American newspaper; edited by Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, it was outspokenly abolitionist and anticolonization.\n\n_A chevaux-de-frise at the Miles Brewton House on King Street, Charleston, June 2013._\n\nIn the tradition of that foundational genre of American literature, the insurrectionary pamphlet, Walker published _Walker's Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular and Very Expressly to Those of the United States of America_ in September 1830. It demanded the immediate overthrow of slavery.\n\n_Walker's Appeal_ explicitly talked back to Jefferson. As the idea of \"colonization\" for free people of color\u2014which meant, deporting people like David Walker\u2014grew, the legacy of Jefferson's philosophical racism in _Notes on the State of Virginia_ was being, in Walker's words, \"swallowed by millions of whites,\" adding that \"unless we try to refute Mr. Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them.\" But beyond calling for black responses to Jefferson, Walker's treatise was a call to action for immediate self-emancipation:\n\nin the two States of Georgia, and South Carolina, there are, perhaps, not much short of six or seven hundred thousand persons of colour; and if I was a gambling character, I would not be afraid to stake down upon the board FIVE CENTS against TEN, that there are in the single State of Virginia, five or six hundred thousand Coloured persons. Four hundred and fifty thousand of whom (let them be well equipt for war) I would put against every white person on the whole continent of America. (Why? why because I know that the Blacks, once they get involved in a war, had rather die than to live, they either kill or be killed.) The whites know this too, which make them quake and tremble.\n\nWalker smuggled quantities of his _Appeal_ into the South, where anyone remotely connected with its circulation would be considered guilty of sedition. The first place the _Appeal_ turned up was Walker's old home town of Wilmington, where the North Carolina legislature responded by meeting in a secret session to enact a slew of repressive measures against slaves but especially against free people of color. By the time Walker was mysteriously found dead on his own doorstep on June 28, 1830, the state of Georgia had a price on his head: $10,000 alive, $1,000 dead. The rumor spread that he had been poisoned, but no autopsy was done and no one stepped forward to claim the reward.\n\n_Walker's Appeal_ was blamed by nervous Southerners for the bloody revolt in Virginia on August 21, 1831, when at least fifty-seven people were killed in an uprising at Southampton, a few miles inland from Norfolk. Led by the mystical evangelical preacher Nat Turner and four other enslaved men, the conspiracy had at least seventy followers. Turner was hanged on November 11, following which his dead body was skinned.\n\nReaction to Turner's rebellion was swift. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama all banned out-of-state traders for a time, though state residents could still bring slaves in, and could still sell them. The fear that Turner's collaborators might show up in their territory corresponded to a frequently expressed belief in the Deep South, not entirely unfounded but certainly exaggerated, that the interstate slave trade was bringing in \"the dregs of the colored population of the states north of us,\" in the words of a correspondent to a Georgia newspaper. Louisiana's prohibition lasted until 1834, when the immediate terror had passed and planters would wait no longer. Mississippi's new constitution, to take effect in 1833, included a ban on slaves introduced \"as merchandize.\" There was an immediate outcry in Mississippi to lift the ban, and though it remained on the books, it was unenforced. The Mississippi legislature imposed a 2\u00bd percent tax on slave sales, subsequently reduced to 1 percent. Mississippi's flourishing slave trade was thus unconstitutional but not illegal, and it continued in a gray era until the state again prohibited importations in 1837.*\n\n_Excerpt from a broadside headlined_ Horrid Massacre in Virginia, _1831._\n\nIn Maryland, where much of the state no longer used slave labor, the reaction to the Turner uprising was to prohibit almost entirely the growing trend of manumission in 1832. At the same time, Maryland's traffic to Louisiana, which had been drawing down the numbers of enslaved people in the state, stopped. These two reactions, writes Calderhead, \"practically ended Maryland's chances of eventually becoming a free state.\"\n\nNat Turner's vision was apocalyptic, but most of the enslaved were more pragmatic. Africans had believed they would return home after death; African Americans _were_ home, in a high-security prison on perpetual lockdown. There was no place for most of the enslaved to escape to\u2014no occupying armies to defect to as in 1775 and 1814, no foreign-held territory in Florida, no Indians left to hide out with.\n\nIn Virginia, where many whites were already alarmed by having so many black people in their midst, the result of Turner's rebellion was the debate of 1831\u201332 on the abolition of slavery, the only such debate in a Southern legislature ever. Among the many quotable statements of the session was the disapproving declaration by Charlottesville's representative Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson of the recently deceased ex-president: \"It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market.\"\n\nSome individual slaveowners voluntarily impoverished themselves by freeing their slaves in the wake of the Turner rebellion. But after considering the matter, Virginia legislators unsurprisingly declined abolition, passing instead a repressive new slave code.\n\nThomas Dew, a respected academic who subsequently became the president of William and Mary College, published his much-read _A Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832_ in Richmond. In it, he argued that ending slavery would reward Turner's violence and legitimize the massacre. John Quincy Adams called Dew's 140-page landmark pro-slavery work \"a monument of the intellectual perversion produced by the existence of slavery in a free community.\" A full discussion of Dew's argument, which cites classical, Biblical, and European authors, is beyond the scope of our work, but we note two points:\n\n1) Estimating the annual outflow of slaves into the Deep South market, Dew approvingly spoke of the fecundity of the capitalized womb as an economic engine for the state, affirming that \"Virginia is in fact a _negro_ raising state for other states; she produces enough for her own supply and six thousand for sale.\" (emphasis in original) He was if anything conservative in his figure of six thousand annually exported; Frederic Bancroft believed the number might be double that, and some estimates are higher.\n\n2) He reported that the post-Turner legislation was actually _good_ for business, with more Louisiana and Mississippi planters journeying up to buy slaves in Virginia in the absence of a mechanism for importing:\n\nThe Southampton massacre produced great excitement and apprehension throughout the slave-holding states, and two of them, hitherto the largest purchasers of Virginia slaves, have interdicted their introduction under severe penalties. Many in our state looked forward to an immediate fall in the price of slaves from this cause\u2014and what has been the result? Why, wonderful to relate, Virginia slaves are now higher than they have been for many years past\u2014and this rise in price has no doubt been occasioned by the number of southern purchasers who have visited our state, under the belief that Virginians had been frightened into a determination to get clear of their slaves at all events; \"and from an artificial demand in the slave purchasing states, caused by an apprehension on the part of the farmers in those states, that the regular supply of slaves would speedily be discontinued by the operation of their non-importation regulations;\" and we are, consequently, at this moment exporting slaves more rapidly, through the operation of the internal slave trade, than for many years past. (quotations in original, unsourced)\n\n_An inward manifest documenting the passage of six enslaved people from Charleston to New Orleans in 1832._\n\nEven with Louisiana having closed its markets to outside traders from 1832 to 1834, there were still slaves coming into Louisiana, because New Orleans\u2013based traders were still free to import, as per a manifest from September 24, 1832 (pictured), which shows the New Orleans trading firm Amid\u00e9e Gardun et fils as \"owners or shippers\" of six people sent on the schooner _Wild Cat_ from Charleston to New Orleans. One tries to imagine the stories behind the names and the descriptions by sex, age, height, and skin tone: Willis, Jack, Hector, Adam, Maria, and seven-year-old, three-foot-six Mary.\n\nThe business that Dew had enthusiastically described as \"negro raising\" was too important to stop. Meanwhile, Louisiana's cutoff of importation, combined with the wild Jacksonian credit boom and the new availability of Mississippi land, stimulated the slave market at Natchez beyond anything previously experienced.\n\n*Cycles of capitalism in the United States have been remarkably consistent: too much easy credit, followed by strain to the system resulting in the failure of key financial institutions, after which credit vanishes and the economy goes into a long tailspin.\n\n*A widely read Baltimore magazine, edited by the antislavery Quaker Hezekiah Niles.\n\n*The 1891 building of the Charleston A.M.E., \"Mother Emanuel,\" was the site of the 2015 Charleston Massacre of nine African Americans, including pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney.\n\n* The _Groves v. Slaughter_ case, which went to the US Supreme Court in 1841, turned on the repudiation by a slave purchaser in Mississippi of a promissory note he had given a slave trader in payment by claiming that the state Constitution prohibited the sale. The Court ruled in favor of the trader.\n\n#   32\n\n# **Democratizing Capital**\n\n_I leave this great people prosperous and happy. 1_\n\n\u2014Andrew Jackson, presidential farewell address, 1837\n\nTHE UPWARD TREND OF the American economy accelerated further, and again New York was in the lead, when governor DeWitt Clinton's great public works project, the Erie Canal, opened on October 26, 1825. Consolidating the power of New York City as a trade center, it was an audacious engineering feat that connected the Hudson River with the far western reaches of the country and tied New York State together by means of a commercial waterway.\n\nThe Erie Canal project needed as many people as it could hire. It was an economic stimulus even while it was being built, lifting all boats, so to speak, before the locks were even in operation. Whatever skills or labor a worker could offer was useful in such a massive undertaking: calculating, carpentry, cooking, driving mules, ditch-digging. The people who lived in the area prospered by selling the laborers food, liquor, clothes, lodging, and services.\n\nIt was one of the young country's proudest can-do moments. In the eight years it took to build, the canal employed some nine thousand wage laborers, many of them Irish, but also including free black laborers, including, from Saratoga, New York, the young Solomon Northup, later the author of _Twelve Years a Slave._ The Erie Canal was not built by slave labor. This was what a non-slave economy could do, and indeed by 1827 slavery ended in New York, following a period of gradual emancipation, providing the culmination of what some historians call \"the first emancipation,\" that of the North.*\n\nThe 360-mile Erie Canal supplied an unprecedented level of infrastructural improvement, connecting the vast land beyond the Great Lakes via the Lake Erie port of Buffalo to the state capital of Albany on the Hudson River, which ran 150 miles or so down to New York City.\n\nBy making it practical to get wheat from the western part of the state to New York's harbor for export, the canal caused the value of New York State's agricultural land to appreciate sharply, even as it created a path for distribution of finished goods from New York far into the interior\u2014and it was a toll road, on which New York got paid coming and going. Because it was the only northern channel that crossed the Appalachians, it instantly became the major route to market for farmers and home manufactures across a large territory.\n\nFast-growing New York City had overtaken Havana in population sometime in the 1810s; now the Erie Canal, together with New York's control of the Liverpool route and its Wall Street stock market, made the city definitively the number-one commercial center in the United States. It caused a massive appreciation of property values to the west as far as Chicago, which in the early 1830s was the subject of a tremendous real estate boom based on its position as a hub for water transportation. Goods from St. Louis and the \"northwest\" could now be brought to market via Chicago and New York instead of New Orleans. By 1836, the State of Illinois was digging a canal to connect Chicago directly to the Mississippi River, though it did not open until 1848.\n\nPrivate capital had been insufficient to build the Erie Canal. It was a project of New York State, financed without levying taxes. The state bank sold bonds, and happily for the investors, they were easily paid back by the toll receipts the state collected. Every state wanted that kind of success. In Maryland, the ninety-one-year-old Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence and the wealthiest man in Maryland, whose family's industrial arc had gone in two generations from colonial pig iron to republican railroads, turned over the first spade of earth on the Baltimore and Ohio, the nation's first \"common carrier\" railroad, in 1828.\n\nA mania for infrastructural improvement seized the nation, but the political class of the South was dead set against this kind of project. It would be a bad precedent for the labor regime of slavery if the federal government paid large numbers of free people to work. They were rentiers, living off their capital, and their capital was also their labor. If anything was to be built in their territory, they wanted it built by slaves rented from them, and they certainly didn't want improvements elsewhere to be paid for by taxes or tariffs on them. Henry Clay's \"American System\" of federally sponsored improvements, which counted among its successes the Second Bank of the United States and the National Road, was hated by Southern politicians and had been definitively stopped. With Andrew Jackson in the White House as of March 4, 1829, everyone knew that an extreme shift to limited federal government was about to begin.\n\nJacksonian rhetoric had freely levelled the charge of corruption against Adams, Clay, and the Bank of the United States. But Jackson's party was utterly corrupt. His campaign had freely promised governmental positions in exchange for support, and once in office, his administration began purging public employees, especially postmasters, in order to replace them with political hacks in what became known as the \"spoils system.\"\n\nJackson continued the job of exiling Native Americans, conducted with the accustomed attitude of patronizing benevolence in the native negotiators were expected to, and some did, address him as \"Father\" and refer to themselves as \"your children,\" as he took their homeland away. The urgency of the process was accelerated by a minor discovery of gold in Georgia in 1829.\n\nAlong with a number of other Native American groups, the so-called Five Civilized Nations (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, Seminole) still inhabited the region; Jackson in 1830 signed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized him to \"negotiate\" for them to leave. A series of treaties were signed, and the first deportations began in 1831. During the decade, perhaps as many as a hundred thousand Native Americans were \"removed\" westward in the Trail of Tears. Evicting them was a money-maker: politically connected businessmen could receive a $10,000 contract for \"Indian removal,\" which gave them an incentive to do it cheaply. The forced migration had perhaps a 15 percent mortality rate, which was about the same as the transatlantic slave ships\u2014and indeed, much of the travel was by water, along river routes. More than three hundred Creeks died on the night of October 31, 1837, when the steamboat _Monmouth_ , which was carrying them, collided with another vessel and sank.\n\nThe Seminoles, some of whom were black, would not leave and in 1835, a war began that lasted seven years. After capture, the Seminole chief Osceola, whose heritage was part Creek and part English and Scotch-Irish, was imprisoned in the old Spanish citadel at St. Augustine (by then called Fort Marion) and then moved to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.\n\nNo sooner had Native Americans withdrawn from a spot than a town sprang up; expansion onto the formerly occupied lands that Jackson had taken went as fast as the credit system would allow. Some 80 percent of the Chickasaw cession of the 1830s, sold cheap at the public land office, passed through the hands of speculators.\n\nThe economic storm that raged during the eight years of Jackson's presidency and for another decade or so afterward drew its energy from a variety of sources. At the eye of it was Jackson, who opened up credit as wide as it would go and threw away the controls. The economy had been subject to the characteristic cycles of capitalism all along, of course, but the bubble of the 1830s was spectacular. Fueled by a conjuncture of forces international and domestic, it took the slave trade to new heights.\n\nThe boom-and-bust of the 1830s took place in the context of a radical economic experiment in decentralization and deregulation in which President Jackson took a wrecking ball to the country's financial structure, restructured it to operate without oversight, definitively abrogated a national role in the issuance of paper money, and shocked the system with abrupt rule changes. This is not to say that other crises would not have occurred had he not done that; but what _did_ happen was the Panic of 1837, which led to the most severe depression in American history until the Panic of 1929.\n\nIt is ironic that the name of a man as autocratic as Andrew Jackson is associated with the word _democracy._\n\n\"Jacksonian democracy,\" that great trope of American history, grew out of, and expanded the reach of, that other great trope, \"Jeffersonian democracy.\" Jacksonians were loudly faithful to many of the ideals of the Jeffersonians. But whereas Jefferson imagined an agrarian rural republic of franchised property owners, Jacksonian democracy incorporated poor white men\u2014the yeomanry of the Western frontier and the towns, the kind of person Jackson himself had been\u2014into the franchise, thus promoting caste solidarity among white men of all classes at the expense of blacks. Indeed, it implicitly promised to poor whites that, being unenslaveable, they might someday become slaveowners, especially with so much land and credit available cheap. Enfranchising them invested them in white supremacy; Jacksonian democracy promoted white caste solidarity at the expense of black personhood.\n\nRiches had never flown around so fast. Slavery could be incredibly profitable, especially when there was plenty of virgin Western land available and an unquenchable market for cotton that yielded cash returns as soon as slave labor could be applied to formerly native land. But even as a project for a racist democracy, or, as Sean Wilentz called it, \"Master Race democracy,\" Jacksonian democracy had little appeal to the patricians of South Carolina; uninterested in democracy of any sort, they formed a separate power bloc from Jackson, who in many ways represented political continuity with the old Virginia dynasty.\n\nIt is also ironic that Jackson's picture is on the twenty-dollar bill, because Jackson hated \"ragg money\" and wanted to get rid of it. Unfortunately, as his administration set out to, as the humorist Joseph Glover Baldwin satirically put it in a memoir of the era, \"democratize capital,\" Jackson's actions made paper money less reliable than it had ever been, made government more economically inefficient, and drove the South to rely more on its human savings accounts.\n\nJackson was a hard hard-money man. John Quincy Adams described Jackson's final presidential message as containing an \"abundance of verbiage about gold and silver and the injustice of bank paper to the laboring poor.\" Jackson would have liked silver coins to have been physically exchanged for every transaction, like when he sold slaves for silver in Spanish Natchez. There wasn't enough coin for the transactions of an expanding nation, but never mind, Jackson hated paper money, banks, and debt\u2014a point of view that was understandable from a small-town merchant, but disastrous when applied to the nation's economic system.\n\nJackson especially hated Henry Clay, whose party was for a time called the Anti-Jackson party; in a coalition with the Adams followers, they became the Whigs, with Clay as their losing presidential candidate in 1832. In what has been remembered as the Second Party System, these two main parties and a welter of smaller ones attempted to be national parties, connecting North and South. That was an attempt to straddle the fundamental dividing line of American politics, which was overwhelmingly slavery versus free soil. In both cases, making a national party required accommodating the slavery interest. Antislavery people in the North were growing in number, while Southern delegates grew steadily less interested in compromise.\n\nWhigs, who came in slaveowning and antislavery varieties, were modernizers. Most merchants were Whigs, in favor of banks and corporations, federally sponsored internal improvements, protective tariffs, and national currency regulation\u2014what we now call \"big government.\" Democrats, who saw all this as tyranny, were in favor of states' rights, limited federal government, an agrarian republic, hard money, and were for the most part aggressively or reluctantly pro-slavery, though there were antislavery Jacksonian Democrats as well.\n\nModern Americans are accustomed to thinking of Mississippi as the poorest of fifty states, but in 1831, when it was growing explosively with new plantations amid a landgrab and a slave boom, it had, in Biddle's words, \"more rich proprietors than... any where else assembled.\" Mississippi was the hottest lending location in the country, so in the spring of 1831, the Second Bank of the United States opened a branch\u2014its last one, as it turned out\u2014in Natchez. The Bank was not merely a presence in Natchez; it was aggressive, at one point concentrating 10 percent of its resources there.\n\nThe Bank's arrival transformed the state's credit-hungry business environment. It was the legally mandated depository of federal funds, receiving federal income as it came in. By marketing federal debt to state and private banks, it controlled the money supply. It was far bigger than any state-chartered bank, and it kept something of a lid on the state banks by accepting their notes (\"discounting,\" it was called, reflecting the percentage adjustments that had to be made when using paper obligations), and immediately redeeming them for specie. It thus acted as a kind of regulator on how much paper the state banks could issue; its national reach allowed it to move liquidity around and help keep the entire system flowing smoothly. Biddle called it a \"commercial railroad\"; it was the main channel of exchange at the national level. The Bank was not unpopular, and it was powerful politically, being at the center of multiple webs of patronage\u2014something Jacksonians wanted to monopolize. The paper money it issued could be exchanged for specie at any one of the Bank's national branches, but in fact it was not necessary to do so, because its paper was known to be high-quality and was easily accepted by everyone, including slave traders.\n\nAs competition from the Bank's new Mississippi branch forced the already existing State Bank of Mississippi (later called the Agricultural Bank) toward what would ultimately be liquidation, another bank appeared in the state: the Planters Bank. The Mississippi state legislature had chartered it in 1830, disregarding a state pledge made at the time of the first bank's charter not to charter another bank. It was theoretically capitalized at $4 million dollars, half of it subscribed to by the state and paid for with 6 percent state bonds. Its charter promised to \"by a creation of revenue relieve the citizens of the State from an oppressive burden of taxes, and enable them to realize the blessings of a correct system of internal improvement.\"\n\n_This lost-purse advertisement from the_ Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser _of April 1, 1819, gives a sense of what managing cash was like, listing money from different banks separately; the Second Bank of the United States's note, the safest, most usable currency available, is listed up top as the largest denomination._\n\nExcept for the national bank's notes, all paper money was local money, and negotiating it anywhere but its place of issuance was much like doing a foreign-exchange transaction today. As hundreds of banks appeared with licenses to print money, they all wanted to get as much of the money they printed into the public's hands as possible, crowding the other banks' paper out.\n\nAs the two state banks of Mississippi competed with the national bank to write mortgages, it was never easier to buy slaves on terms. The Natchez slave market soared; with Louisiana closed to out-of-state dealers in the wake of Nat Turner, the competition in Mississippi heated up. The banks' bulging loan portfolios were capitalized largely by slaves, who trudged down into Mississippi in coffle after coffle.\n\nBoth sides in the presidential election of 1832 made the bank their major campaign issue. The Bank's twenty-year charter was set to expire in 1836, but in the face of Jackson's harassment of it, and at the urging of Clay and Daniel Webster, Biddle, the Bank's president, proposed a recharter in 1832, gambling that Jackson would not dare kill it with the presidential election coming up, sneering at one point that \"this worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned Judges, he may have his way with the Bank. He is mistaken...\" (ellipsis in original)\n\nIt was a bad idea to call Andrew Jackson's bluff.\n\nWe have previously noted Jackson's capacity for hatred. When Jackson hated, it was not only he who hated. It was a popular movement of hate, sanctioned by God, and it was a political mechanism of hate. To hate the Whigs was to hate the Second Bank of the United States, which was aligned with them to the point of having financially supported Henry Clay, who for his part had the bad idea of making the Bank recharter an election issue. Moreover, Jackson's first falling-out with the now-enemy Calhounites had been over the issue of the Bank, which they supported.\n\nDestroying was what Jackson did best, and destroying the Second Bank of the United States was his obsession. Jackson saw the Bank as a federally sanctioned private monopoly, but whatever his ideological reasons for hating it, there was perhaps a more basic reason: it was the most powerful institution in the United States not under his control, and that alone was enough to seal its doom. The Bank's recharter passed Congress, but was boldly vetoed by Jackson a week later, who issued an economically incoherent veto message authored by his bank-hating advisor and political fixer Amos Kendall that stoked sectional rivalries\u2014not simply South against North, but positioning Jackson on the side of the good West versus the bad East, understood to be associated with the South and the North, respectively that \"it is obvious that the debt of the people in that section to the bank is principally a debt to the Eastern and foreign stockholders; that the interest they pay upon it is carried into the Eastern States and into Europe, and that it is a burden upon their industry and a drain of their currency.\"\n\nWhile Jackson was staring down the Bank, he also went up against the political chiefs of South Carolina. Four days after the veto, he signed the Tariff of 1832, or, as South Carolina politicians called it, the Tariff of Abominations. It was a laundry list of protectionisms with something for New England and something for the mid-Atlantic states; it had proved a vote-getter for Jackson nationally, who needed to shore up his political base in the North.\n\nThe slaveholding region saw it as a tax on them. Many in the South were not opposed merely to this specific tariff, but to tariffs in general, seeing them as tribute extorted by the North in a situation where the South produced the wealth but the North took the profits. In Mississippi, where nothing was manufactured and everything had to be imported, a writer to the Woodville _Mississippi Democrat_ lamented that \"there are ten spinning wheels and two looms in the county\u2014such a thing as a slay, harness, shuttle or spindle is unknown, and if we want one of either we must send to yankee town for them.\"\n\nFor South Carolina's politicians, Jackson's signing of the tariff was a blunt dismissal of their political importance. They resisted with a level of virulence and extreme rhetoric that astonished other congressmen. Indeed, the vehemence of their \"discontent\" was not entirely rational, unless it was understood that the point of it was polarization: the tariff was a smokescreen issue with which ambitious politicians hoped to focus Southerners' anger in order to drive a wedge against the North, with the ultimate end of fomenting disunion and provoking confrontation.\n\nFor two years or so, Calhoun had been promoting the doctrine of \"nullification\" that he had formalized, taking the name from Jefferson's 1798 Kentucky Resolutions. In Calhoun's vision, a state had the right to \"nullify\" a federal law within its borders, which also meant that the federal government had no right to impose tariffs. Never mind that federal revenue depended on tariffs, that was the idea: big slaveowners wanted a powerless federal government.\n\nGeorge McDuffie, from near the Georgia border, who had been \"taken from labor in a blacksmith's shop by Mr. Calhoun\" to become a landed cotton planter and Calhoun's loyal political lieutenant, was the grim-faced oratorical star of the 1832 South Carolina Nullification Convention. McDuffie, who was known to be irritable because of the painful wounds dueling had left him, had come up with something retroactively called the Forty Bale Theory, which held that a 40 percent tariff equaled taking away forty bales of cotton for every hundred a planter produced. That was utter nonsense, but it had the advantage of simplicity, and the Calhounites used the aggressive messaging technique that in more recent times has become known as \"repeat until true.\" Secession was threatened in congressional debates. Reprints of apocalyptically worded speeches, charged Representative John Reed of Massachusetts,\n\nwere dispersed, thick as autumnal leaves, through the whole region of the South, with other incendiary tracts, all calculated, if not intended, to rouse the whole South to madness... We were told in this hall that the protective system [of tariffs] was a vampyre, by which the North was sucking the warm blood of the South; that the free States were prairie wolves, gorging their jaws by instinct in the blood of the South, whilst oppression, robbery, and plunder were sounded to every note of the gamut. Is the result surprising?\n\nThe argument over the tariff was in part a clash of factions in Jackson's government. Van Buren, who was Jackson's favored successor, had devised the tariff; Vice President John C. Calhoun made killing it his mission. As vice president under Adams, Calhoun had in 1827 cast the deciding Senate vote to kill a tariff, condemning it \"as a sectional measure designed to impoverish the slave South,\" in Manisha Sinha's words. But it was hard for Calhoun to stay ahead of the pack of radicals at home who were pushing him to the right. William C. Davis describes their objectives as to \"defeat protectionism and contain the growth of central power in Washington,\" which was pretty much the same thing as maintaining the political power of slavery. As always, the dynamics in South Carolina were different: in much of the rest of the country, the voting franchise had been expanding, but not in South Carolina, where a two-party system barely took root, and where, as Sean Wilentz put it, \"they had no use for the democratic dogma that appeared to be sweeping the rest of the nation.\"\n\nCalhoun, Jackson's backstabbing former ally, had become his open enemy\u2014both socially (after Calhoun's wife, Floride, ostracized Peggy Eaton, the wife of another cabinet member) and politically (after President Jackson belatedly learned that Calhoun had worked against him in the cabinet during his Florida conquest). Like Clay, Webster, and Benton, Calhoun had seen himself as a contender for the presidency. By now, it was clear that would never happen. But he could be president of an independent Southern nation, if one were to exist.\n\nAs a senator, Calhoun could more effectively promote nullification. He was appointed to the Senate by the South Carolina legislature\u2014the state didn't have the bother of a popular vote\u2014on December 12. He resigned the almost powerless office of vice president on December 28, 1832, finalizing his break with Jackson. The South Carolina legislature, meanwhile, passed a bill that committed South Carolina to raising a military force to resist the tariff. Calhoun insisted that nullification did not necessarily mean secession, but then again, it might. As he started a short-lived Nullifier Party, the thrilling idea of secession\u2014which would make the most belligerent politicians of South Carolina into the rulers of a sovereign state, as they insisted they already were\u2014was in the air. Not all of South Carolina was in favor of nullification, but Unionists were derided and intimidated. Sinha writes that \"the election campaign of 1832 was the bloodiest in the state's history. Duels, which were usually personal affairs of honor, became the stuff of politics.\" South Carolina went it alone; even in Mississippi the nullifiers lost.\n\nMany years later, after Martin Van Buren had pivoted around to an anti-slavery stance, he wrote of the nullification standoff that \"a more alarming crisis in the affairs of this country had never existed since the establishment of her independence.\" But the nullifiers overplayed their hand when they went up against Jackson. He was pro-states' rights, but as the last president to have personally suffered the violence of the War of Independence, he was a Union man until death. He denounced nullification in a ringing proclamation in December 1832, written by Secretary of State Edward Livingston. Capitalizing on his immense personal popularity and vowing to use fifty thousand troops if necessary to enforce the law, Jackson rallied the country to his side state by state, leaving South Carolina isolated.\n\nIt almost came to the point of an armed intra-Southern clash. According to Van Buren, Jackson was ready to get on a horse and personally direct an invasion of South Carolina, using Upper South troops to take out the Calhounites:\n\nHe had at this time... an inclination to go himself with a sufficient force, which he felt assured he could raise in Virginia and Tennessee, as ' _a posse comitatus_ ' of the Marshal and arrest Messrs. Calhoun, [Robert] Hayne, [James] Hamilton and [George] McDuffie in the midst of the force of 12,000 men which the Legislature of South Carolina had authorized to be raised and deliver them to the Judicial power of the United States to be dealt with according to law.\n\nSouth Carolina backed down. Jackson, who later expressed regret that he had not hung Calhoun when he had the chance, was re-elected president in 1832 by a landslide. In the wake of the nullification of nullification, a compromise tariff bill passed that would give South Carolina a climbdown from the failure of its insurrectionist posture by reducing tariff rates slowly. In the congressional debate over that bill, Representative Nathan Appleton, who as one of the founders of the New England textile industry and of the manufacturing center of Lowell, Massachusetts, was one of America's heaviest domestic cotton customers and one of Boston's richest men, asked point-blank:\n\nDoes the South really wish the continuance of the Union? I have no doubt of the attachment of the mass of the people of the South to the Union, as well as of every other section of the country; but it may well be doubted whether certain leading politicians have not formed bright visions of a Southern confederacy. This would seem to be the only rational ground for accounting for the movements in South Carolina. A Southern confederacy, of which South Carolina should be the central State, and Charleston the commercial emporium, may present some temptations for individual ambition.\n\nTwo days before the beginning of his second term, on March 2, 1833, Jackson signed the compromise tariff that Southern legislators had voted for. But he also signed the revenue collection act that Northern legislators had voted for; known in South Carolina as the \"Force Act,\" it allowed him to use the military to collect tariffs and to close any port he desired.\n\nThough the South Carolina legislature passed an act nullifying the Force Act in South Carolina, there was no armed insurrection against the federal government\u2014this time. The experience left South Carolina more isolated, and its politics even more extreme than before.\n\n\"I have had a laborious task here, but nullification is dead;\" wrote President Jackson in a letter on May 1, 1833, \"and its actors and exciters will only be remembered by the people to be execrated for their wicked designs to sever and destroy the only good government on the globe.\" The nullification struggle had been over the \"Tariff of Abominations,\" not slavery; but nullification was thoroughly identified with slavery and secession, and the crisis had been a rehearsal for leaving the Union, as Jackson saw clearly. The letter continued with his much-quoted observation that \"the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.\"\n\nFor Jackson, as for Nathan Appleton and many other contemporary observers, the issue was the personal ambition of Calhoun and his argumentative countrymen.\n\nMartin Van Buren's autobiography describes Jackson\n\nstretched on a sick-bed a spectre in physical appearance... Holding my hand in one of his own and passing the other thro' his long white locks he said, with the clearest indications of a mind composed, and in a tone entirely devoid of passion or bluster\u2014\"The bank, Mr. Van Buren is trying to kill me but _I will kill it!_ \" [punctuation _sic_ ].\n\nStopping the Bank's recharter wasn't enough for Jackson. \"The hydra of corruption is only _scotched, not dead,_ \" he wrote James K. Polk on December 16, 1832, after learning of Biddle's plans to reintroduce a recharter. In response, Jackson drove a stake through the Bank's heart to make sure the \"Money Power,\" as he called it in his 1837 farewell address, was dead. The Bank's charter would be in force until 1836, but in September 1833, after two consecutive secretaries of the treasury had resigned rather than announce that the federal government would no longer deposit its funds in the Bank, Jackson's new secretary of the treasury, Roger B. Taney, did it. At the time Jackson killed the Bank, it was operating twenty-five branches throughout the nation, though its operations in New England were much less significant because New England had a powerful banking system already in place. Jackson was the first president of whom we can speak as having \"managers,\" and there was a political payoff in destroying the Bank for one of them, New York's Martin Van Buren. Wall Street was happy; the Bank had been the last remaining power base of Philadelphia in US finance. Jackson and Van Buren's successful building of a national Democratic party was thus accomplished as a business alliance between slavery capitalism in the South and finance capitalism in the North.\n\nIn vetoing the Bank's recharter, Jackson abrogated the federal government's authority over paper money. He had hoped to do away with state banks next, but with the national bank gone, there was no alternative to state banks. But since the Constitution specifically denied to states the right to issue bills of credit, that left only private banks to print money. For the next thirty years, the United States had no uniform currency, as commercial institutions printed a massive uncontrolled emission of paper monies. This privatization of the money supply determined the commercial contours of the following decades, until the secession of the South provoked a new assertion of federal power by the Lincoln administration.\n\nJohn Quincy Adams, whom Jackson defeated in the 1828 presidential election, was elected to Congress in 1830\u2014the only ex-president to take such a step\u2014and began a remarkable second career. His diary, which he began keeping at the age of twelve in 1779 and maintained for sixty-nine years until his death in 1849, is the most extensive by any American historical figure, and is a gripping record of the times and of a conscience. As it makes clear, he had always been antislavery; but as one of the major figures in increasing the territorial reach of the United States, he had been known as a pro-expansion president rather than an antislavery one. On his first day in Congress, however\u2014December 12, 1831, only months after Nat Turner's rebellion\u2014he took advantage of his appointment as committee chair to present \"fifteen petitions, signed numerously by citizens of Pennsylvania, praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia,\" and had one of them read out loud.\n\nIt drove the Southerners in Congress mad. From then on, Adams delighted in presenting all the antislavery petitions he received. From the time he entered the House until he collapsed at his desk there in 1848 (remaining in the Capitol until he died three days later), no one in the US government opposed slavery more consistently or effectively.\n\nAdams saw Jackson's shuttering of the Bank as a baby-with-a-loaded-gun scenario, writing in dismay, \"His experiment is to stake the revenue, the credit, and the currency of the country upon the State banks.\" Petitions and even deputations came in from around the country: no, _don't do this._ \"They have all had interviews with the President,\" wrote Adams, \"who treated them all politely, but declared his irrevocable determination never to consent to the restoration of the deposits, and never to assent to the chartering of a Bank of the United States.\" Slave trader Jourdan M. Saunders approved of Jackson's action, writing his business partner David Burford on September 28, 1833: \"We are looking out for hard times in the money market on account of the anticipated removal of the government diposits[.] The small [unclear: fry] are quaking[.] For my part I Glory in the Old Cocks [Jackson's] inflexible determination to rid the country of a growing evil[.]\"\n\nThe Bank's charter was to extend until 1836, but Jackson didn't wait until then to stop the flow of federal deposits to it. The federal government began depositing its tariff revenues into twenty-three non-networked state banks, a number later expanded to sixty, and then to ninety-three, and then to fewer, and to fewer, as so many of them failed. Referred to by Jackson's numerous enemies as \"pet\" banks, they were tools of the Jacksonian Democratic Party's immense patronage machine, with which Jackson put the financial power of the federal government at the service of his political party.\n\nBiddle had maintained a conservative 2:1 paper-to-specie ratio in the bank, but these new banks\u2014\"wildcat banks,\" they were called\u2014issued four, five, ten times as much paper money as they had specie to back it with. Sometimes they didn't have specie at all, just other banks' paper.\n\nBiddle responded to Jackson's choke order by pursuing policies consistent with liquidation, contracting credit sharply at all the bank's branches, calling in loans and redeeming notes from state banks around the country, leading, predictably enough, to a panic in early 1834. Many criticized Biddle as trying to make the economy scream in a contest of wills, but his actions were consistent with Jackson's order.\n\nIn Mississippi, the Bank of the United States strained the Planters Bank's resources locally by taking away a major local source of credit and calling in its notes at the same time. The Planters Bank became one of the new depositories for federal funds, but unfortunately, when it finally received the first federal deposits, which came later than expected, \"only a small percentage of the funds was in United States Bank notes or specie; a vast amount was in the paper of banks in Tennessee and Alabama, while the largest portion consisted of notes issued by the Planters Bank itself.\" The government receipts that were being deposited were mostly revenues from the sale of public lands, which were being paid for in increasingly worthless paper.\n\nAlong with this, as a government depository, the Planters Bank also had the responsibility of paying out governmental obligations. If a government employee got paid with paper in Natchez, he no longer received paper money from the national bank, redeemable for silver coins at any bank branch in the United States. Instead, he got Planters Bank money, which, if he tried to use it in, say, New Orleans, would only be accepted at a discount from its face value.\n\nMoney, which had been moving in the direction of becoming a national commodity, became newly provincialized. Now that there was no national bank, and with lots of \"virgin\" land on the market whose new owners were in the market for slaves, the newly flush pet banks began competing aggressively to write mortgages. Meanwhile, state legislatures began granting bank charters freely as new operators got into the business. Against a backdrop of general inflation that was acutely felt by the increasing numbers of urban poor in the North, demand in Mississippi for slaves spiked, while supply remained constant.\n\nSeveral bumper crops of cotton in a row had been sold into a growing industrial market in Britain. The British textile industry was continuing to expand, and there had been bumper crops of wheat in Britain, so British domestic consumers (who provided about half the market for British textiles), were relatively flush. Industrial capacity was growing: power looms in Britain grew from 14,500 in 1820 to about 100,000 in 1833, even as they were growing in size and becoming more efficient. This full-bore Industrial Revolution, which was creating wealth on a previously unknown scale, had enormous capacity to consume cotton. The French also bought American cotton, as did Lowell, Massachusetts, though its textile industry was tiny compared to the British juggernaut. Writing in humorist's hyperbole, Joseph G. Baldwin later recalled Mississippi during these \"flush times\":\n\nEmigrants came flocking in from all quarters of the Union, especially from the slaveholding States... Money, or what passed for money, was the only cheap thing to be had.... The State banks were issuing their bills by the sheet, like a patent steam printing-press its issues; and no other showing was asked of the applicant for the loan than an authentication of his great distress for money... Under this stimulating process prices rose like smoke.\n\nIn these times, there was a double incentive to buy large numbers of slaves: 1) those in possession of cotton-growing lands could make big money fast, if only they could get enough labor; and 2) the most obvious way to capture and store the value of the easy money flying by was to lock it down in the form of slaves before it devalued.\n\nIn Britain, a frantic dance of the millions took place in the great ballrooms of the economy: London, with its huge financial centers; Liverpool, the shipping emporium; and Lancashire, the industrial capital\u2014all dancing as fast as they could, taking in cotton and turning out cloth for the world. As Peter Temin has pointed out, there was a surfeit of silver on the British market, partly because the Chinese were accepting opium instead of silver in trade from Britain. In another global trade first, Britain had addicted large numbers of Chinese to the product, flooding the market with opium cheaply grown in British-controlled India, sometimes shipped in Baltimore clippers built specially for the opium trade, in shipments sometimes financed by New England merchants, and licensed by the East India Company. Eighteen thirty-four, wrote Karl Marx in an 1858 article in the _New York Daily Tribune_ , \"marks an epoch in the history of the opium trade\": Britain's East India Company was prohibited from trading in China, and opium was thrown open to separate traders, who began smuggling it into China aggressively, increasing the volume of the trade dramatically and demanding silver in return, depleting the Celestial Empire of the metal as the opium-seller's customers multiplied.\n\nThe growth of New England manufactures, together with the strong exports of cotton, shifted the balance of trade between Britain and the United States somewhat. As silver became cheaper on the British market, more of the silver Britain paid for cotton and other staple crops remained in America instead of being sent back out. That east-to-west trade winds influenced the economic collapse does not, however, make Jackson's ideologically driven recklessness fade to insignificance. The global interconnection went both ways: the revenue derived from American cotton provided conditions for the storm to intensify.\n\nBetween 1830 and 1836, the number of state-chartered banks went from 329 to 730; they issued circulating banknotes and long-term bonds.  State governments borrowed heavily to finance internal improvements, most of which were never built. \"From 1834 to 1836 the money supply grew at an average annual rate of 30 percent,\" writes Jane Knodell, \"compared to 2.7 percent between 1831 and 1834.\" Canal, railroad, and bank projects all moved forward, with the Deep South states investing especially heavily in banks. During that time American indebtedness to foreign creditors doubled, from $110 million to $220 million. The state governments were on the hook for much of it. Intended to finance internal improvements, the money flowed through the American economic system; when it got to the South, it stimulated the market in slaves.\n\nNicholas Biddle rechartered his bank under Pennsylvania state law as the United States Bank of Pennsylvania. Though it was still a giant in terms of capitalization, it was no longer the federal government's agent and no longer had the advantages of national branches. But once again, its most extensive operations outside of Pennsylvania were in Mississippi.\n\nJackson, meanwhile, achieved the conservative dream of paying off the national debt in January 1835. Unfortunately, that left the Treasury empty. Treasury coffers relied on income from tariffs, and now that the Nullifiers had succeeded in getting the tariffs down though not removed, there was a sharp drop in federal income. But with the switch to what in theory was a debt-free federal government, it was time for some other source of revenue, and the only contender was land sales.\n\nThere were vast quantities of newly available, unplowed land to privatize. It couldn't go on indefinitely, but the federal government could make lots of money right now by selling the Native Americans' land cheap, as fast as the natives could be evicted. Having an inside track on this market was valuable; as always with the Jacksonians, patronage was crucial to political power.\n\nThe Jacksonians opened up the floodgates of massive land speculation and currency at about the same time. Between January 1835 and December 1836, some fifty thousand square miles were sold at a fixed price of $1.25 an acre. Much of it was snapped up by speculators who flipped it, creating a real estate bubble, while banks issued paper money feverishly. Banks that were politically allied with the administration to be under the control of Secretary of the Treasury Levi Woodbury had the free use of millions of dollars of public money, on which they were utterly dependent, as few of them had much in the way of assets otherwise.\n\nThe Whigs, wrote a nineteenth-century financial historian, \"perceived that the system was exciting wild speculation, and that by it money was drawn from the great commercial centres and stored in remote banks to be loaned to the profit of those who had proved their loyalty to the administration and its 'revered chief.'\" One writer estimated in March 1837 that banknotes in circulation had been increased by $80 million since the veto of the bank charter in 1832.\n\nField hands, meanwhile, might sell for $1,000 or more, so it was clear where economic power resided: in owning slaves. That was where the profit was taken, as gains made in dubious paper were converted into the safer instrument of laboring bodies.\n\nSlave mortgaging was essential to the functioning of the Southern credit system, but the practice has not been much discussed by historians, and we do not have a good overview of the numbers. No one at the time seems to have compiled statistics about how much mortgaging was being done, whether of land or of slaves. Looking at South Carolina, Bonnie Martin found that \"year in and year out... private mortgage contracts were quietly filed across the South, but no published tallies exposed the number of mortgages made or the amount of capital raised.\"\n\nThe function of banks in the antebellum mortgage market was different than the way we think of it now. Most antebellum mortgages were funded not by bank capital but by private individuals in local networks. The credit networks of the time were informal, and often banks were not the lenders but merely the places of payment, where loans were facilitated by the issuing of paper. Martin writes that of the publicly recorded mortgages that she was able to analyze, \"banks, churches, merchants, and building societies were only 19 percent of the lenders who accepted human collateral in South Carolina. Interpersonal lending accounted for 81 percent.\" The financiers and banks made money, of course, and so did states and municipalities that collected taxes and fees and, through the court system, did buying and selling of their own.\n\nIt's clear that enslaved collateral was a significant part of the mortgage action: in the more than eight thousand mortgages she analyzed from Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana, Martin found that \"the 41 percent of them that included slaves as all or a portion [of] the collateral raised 63 percent of the capital.\"\n\nThe price of slaves fluctuated with the rise and fall of cotton, but over the long term, those fluctuations were superficial disturbances of steadily increasing prices.\n\nThe era between the War of 1812 and secession can be thought of as divided into two periods of bumpy boom followed by devastating busts. The first of these booms ended in the complicated series of events remembered as the Panic of 1837, the exact dynamics of which historians have argued about ever since.*\n\nAfter what we now call a \"dead cat bounce\" in 1838, the economy in 1839 crashed a second time, harder, landing in a depression that bottomed out in 1842 and did not immediately recover. By then, more than two hundred banks had failed. But for the strongest, most disciplined traders, there was still business to be done. In a letter of November 16, 1839, that somehow wound up in print in an abolitionist tract of 1846, the small-scale slave trader G. W. Barnes, of Halifax, North Carolina, informed the big trader Theophilus Freeman of New Orleans of the names of and prices at which he had shipped six \"girls\" to him, then wrote: \"I have a great many negroes offered to me, but I will not pay the prices they ask, for I know they will come down. I have no opposition in market. I will wait until I hear from you before I buy, and then I can judge what I must pay.... Write often, as the times are critical, and it depends on the prices you get to govern me in buying.\"\n\nThe stimulus that got the economy pumping again was provided by the annexation of Texas in 1845, which stimulated the slave trade. It accelerated further with the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and the increasing penetration of railroads, and rose along with cotton to new heights. It dipped briefly with a Panic of 1857 that was caused in part, thought Natchez planter Benjamin Wailes, by \"River lands at most unwarrantable prices & negroes at $1,500,\" though the South was actually the least affected by the downturn. Then the slave trade went higher than ever, reaching unheard-of levels by 1860. That boom ended with secession, though the trade continued and even accelerated during the first three years of the war. But by then there was no longer any reliable money with which to compare prices, because the Confederacy was not part of the US financial system.\n\nNot without a sense of irony, we will use white supremacist and onetime dominant-in-the-field-of-slavery historian Ulrich B. Phillips's data showing prices in four major slave markets, not including Natchez, the highest-priced large market. While Phillips's racist conclusions are thoroughly discredited, his numbers, in this case based on examining three-thousand-plus bills of sale, have been more or less generally accepted. As visually estimated by Robert Evans Jr. from Phillips's graphs, the curve of five-year average slave prices (for \"prime male field hands\") looks like this:\n\nThe effect of the post-1837 depression is clearly visible here, as is the economic tonic effect of annexing Texas in 1845. We see an impressive price rise over the fifteen years from 1845 to 1860, especially in Georgia. But a deeper wave was building that only broke with the ruin of war:\n\n_Slave prices inflated continuously as compared with the price of the cotton the slaves produced._\n\nHere are Phillips's figures for the Georgia cotton belt, which incidentally give a sense of how profitable slave trading was. With the importation of Africans no longer possible, the supply of African Americans onto the market could not keep pace with the amount of new cotton acreage continually being brought under cultivation, so the demand for labor always exceeded the supply. The degree of inflation slowed in hard times, but even then, the trend was upward.\n\n**Year** | **Price of a prime field hand expressed in pounds of ginned cotton**  \n---|---  \n1800 |  1,500  \n1809 |  3,000  \n1818 |  3,500  \n1826 |  5,400  \n1837 |  10,000  \n1845 |  12,000  \n1860 | 15,000\u201318,000\n\nAt these intervals, we see no depression, only slowed growth. The price of a field hand in Georgia fell from $1,300 to $650 between 1837 and 1845, but measured against the price of cotton, over the course of those years, the field hand appreciated in value from ten thousand pounds of cotton to twelve thousand. Over the six decades of antebellum slavery, even as agricultural innovations gradually increased per-hand productivity, slave labor was steadily becoming a more valuable property than the staple crops the labor produced.\n\nThe mere fact of holding slaves, then, brought substantial capital gains. The pressure of this curve, as we need not remind readers, was felt in unsubtle ways by enslaved women, who were pressured to bear children. Newborn black babies were worth more on paper all the time, their poor life expectancy actuarialized through traders' firsthand experience of discounting the substantial death rates. William Dusinberre believes that \"about 46 per cent of slave children died before reaching the age of fifteen,\" compared with a 28 percent mortality rate for free children. The higher mortality rate is no mystery, and it was needlessly high, as it turned on planters' reluctance to spend on the health and welfare of the enslaved.\n\nEven clean drinking water was sometimes seen as an unnecessary expense, which might explain the higher death rates of the enslaved from cholera. \"Good water is far more essential than many suppose,\" wrote a planter signing himself \"A Citizen of Mississippi\" in an article about plantation management titled \"The Negroes\" in _DeBow's Review_ of March 1847, \"or than I could be persuaded myself until within a few years.... Cistern water not too cold will on any plantation save enough in doctor's fees to refund the extra expense.\"\n\nBut money spent on slaves' welfare came right out of the plantation's immediate profits. Some planters who could take the longer view\u2014those who were not being ground down by debt\u2014could see that any money that was spent on the health and welfare of the enslaved was of direct economic benefit to the slaveowner, and could also be cited as proof of the slaveowner's purported kindness to his captives. \"The great object,\" continued the Mississippi planter, \"is to prevent disease and prolong the useful laboring period of the negro's life. Thus does interest point out the humane course.\"\n\nThe word _humane_ was frequent in slaveowner vocabulary. On some large estates, children were taken off the various different parcels of land, away from their parents, and raised together in a collective nursery that made easily visible the slave-breeding nature of the Southern slavery project. A planter in North Carolina told the British geologist Charles Lyell in 1842 that, given the frequent necessity of breaking up families by sale, that \"he defended the custom of bringing up the children of the same estate in common, as it was far more humane not to cherish domestic ties among slaves.\" That is, since domestic ties were only going to be broken anyway, it was better not to create them in the first place. Labor that was capital had no family.\n\nDespite its shorter average life span, the enslaved black population of the South grew faster than the white population, and faster than the small population of free people of color. The capitalized wombs of the South supplied boys, who were sold to traders, who sold them to planters so they could produce the cotton that would feed the steam-driven mills of Britain, France, and even New England. And they supplied girls, who could pick as much cotton as the boys, and who would themselves become captive baby makers. The slave-breeding industry was going full tilt.\n\n*Until 1840, out-of-state visitors could bring slaves to New York with them for a period of nine months.\n\n*The title of Jessica Lepler's book _The Many Panics of 1837_ conveys something of the fragmented, unsynchronized quality of the multisited crisis.\n\n#   33\n\n# **Old Robbers**\n\n_The Slaver led her from the door,_\n\n_He led her by the hand,_\n\n_To be his slave and paramour_\n\n_In a strange and distant land!_\n\n\u2014Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, \"The Quadroon Girl,\" 1842\n\nTHE STURDY BRICK DWELLING-HOUSE at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia, was built in the 1810s, when Alexandria was part of the District of Columbia. From 1828 to 1837, it was the home office and shipping entrep\u00f4t of Franklin and Armfield, the largest slave-trading company in American history, whose existence almost exactly coincided with the two terms of Andrew Jackson's presidency. Inscribed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, it now houses the Urban League of Northern Virginia and their Freedom House Museum.\n\nThe house was the master structure for a complex with three now-vanished courtyards. Enclosing the courtyards was a two-story multi-structure jail, \"neatly whitewashed,\" in the words of Ethan Allen Andrews, an antislavery Bostonian who paid a surprise visit there in July 1835, and was readily admitted and given a tour by John Armfield. It had separate facilities for men (the west yard) and women (the east), a kitchen, a tailor's workshop, and a stable. Andrews allowed that the facility was clean and that the inmates \"were well dressed, and everything about them had a neat and comfortable appearance, _for a prison.\" 1_ (italics in original)\n\nThe 1830 census enumerated 145 people being held there, though the evenness of the numbers suggests that the census-taker might have accepted Armfield's word rather than count heads:\n\n**Age** | **Male** | **Female**  \n---|---|---  \nUnder 10 |  1 |  4  \n10\u201324 | 50 | 50  \n24\u201336 | 20 | 20\n\nThe captives were mostly strangers to each other, freshly and forcibly removed from their families and their familiar worlds. They were being held until the next ship sailed or until the annual coffle began marching. If they had been purchased during the off season, they might remain there for months. Andrews noted \"that they are often chained at night, while at the depot at Alexandria, lest they should overpower their masters.\"\n\nAlexandria had formerly been a thriving port, but it was losing out to Baltimore. Federal law stipulated that public buildings could only be erected on the other, northern, side of the Potomac\u2014that is, on the Maryland side\u2014so Alexandria, on the Virginia side, got no federal offices. Instead, the slave trade was a key business for the town.\n\nAcross the Potomac, six miles away, the slave trade was disturbingly visible in Washington City. Coffles tramped through the streets of the nation's capital daily. Everyone knew where the slave jails were, and everyone walked past the open-air auctions.\n\nForeign diplomats were astounded to see such a thing in the country that propagandized so heavily its commitment to liberty. There was no comparable spectacle in Europe, where chattel slavery did not exist. Antislavery people saw it, not incorrectly, as a shameful proof that slaveowners ran their government. Many townspeople heartily disliked it, especially the women.\n\nBut slavery was fundamental to Washington City. Slaves built it, and slaves ran it on a daily basis. Starved of infrastructural resources by conservative politicians from Jefferson on, legally unable to govern itself, boasting a grand Capitol and the White House but lacking gaslight in its dark streets until 1848, Washington City was a dirty, disease-ridden fen that abounded with crooks, prostitutes, slaves, slave traders, and congressmen, the latter of whom typically lived in boardinghouses. About 6 percent of the city's residents were free black people in 1800, a percentage that grew after 1806, when Virginia began requiring manumitted slaves to leave the state.\n\nThe District of Columbia was the perfect site from which to command the slave trade from the Upper to the Lower South, with Alexandria as the port. Its water communication via the Potomac to the Atlantic made it practical to sail captives down to the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi to New Orleans, and on to Natchez, leaving South Carolina out of the loop entirely. Financial and legal expertise was easily at hand in the nation's capital. It was adjacent to the largest, most prestigious, slave-selling territories\u2014those of Virginia and Maryland. Alexandria rose as a slave-trade center with the building of Washington City. By 1802, an Alexandria grand jury grievance decried\n\nthe practice of persons coming from distant parts of the United States into this District, for the purpose of purchasing slaves, where they exhibit, to our view a scene of wretchedness and human degradation, disgraceful to our characters as citizens of a free government. True it is that these dealers, in the persons of our fellow men, collect within this District from various parts, numbers of those victims of slavery, and lodge them in some place of confinement until they have completed their numbers. They are then turned out in our streets and exposed to view, loaded with chains as though they had committed some heinous offence against our laws.\n\nThis was the world of small-time tavern traders. By 1806, if not earlier, slaves were being sold in Alexandria at the Indian Queen at King and Water Streets, which was licensed to sell horses and carriages. The Indian Queen then came under the management of Elias P. Legg, who had previously traded in slaves while he was tavernkeeper at the Bell Tavern, where he had done well enough to open his own operation. As Legg worked his way up to buying a plantation, his tavern became for a time the main slave market of Alexandria. An advertisement in the _Alexandria Gazette_ of February 15, 1825, gives Tennessee\u2014still a slave-importing state\u2014as a destination:\n\nAlexandria Gazette, _March 22, 1817._\n\nSLAVES WANTED: The subscriber will at all times, pay the highest price in cash for slaves, either single or in families. Letters addressed to me in Alexandria, will be promptly attended to. Sixty or seventy slaves at this time, expressly to go to Tennessee. E.P. Legg.\n\nPrior to 1812, a slave taken from Alexandria County to Washington County for the purpose of sale became free. Then Congress passed an act on June 24, 1812, that allowed slaveowners from one of the counties to remove slaves to the other, but did not allow a person from Alexandria to purchase a slave in Washington (or vice versa) for removal to Alexandria (or vice versa). The exact legal situation of slave commerce between the two counties thus had a somewhat unsettled status under the law, but generally, the presumption was that while slaves could be sold in the District, they could not be brought into the District for the purpose of sale. The District of Columbia, then, major communications hub that it was, functioned mainly as a transshipment point for slaves bought in Maryland and Virginia (or kidnapped from the North), and destined for the South.\n\nAs the interstate slave trade became big business, its largest player was Isaac Franklin (1789\u20131846), whose astute business sense allowed him repeatedly to time the market right. Born in territorial Tennessee, the grandson of a Huguenot, Franklin had two brothers who were already in the slave trade, with an office in New Orleans. They brought him in at the age of eighteen to make runs down the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, thus familiarizing him with the territory.\n\nFranklin had the good fortune to be from Nashville, which served as a base for both Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk. He built up his stake plying the same course Jackson had a generation earlier: trafficking slaves from Nashville to Natchez, which Franklin was doing by 1819, if not earlier. In 1824, during a Virginia slave-purchasing trip, he struck up a friendship with North Carolina slave trader John Armfield, a stagecoach driver who was doing the same. The two became partners, and, in the classic merchant-family manner, Armfield married Franklin's niece Martha Franklin and moved to Alexandria.\n\nWith good relationships at multiple banks, Franklin was the best networked and best capitalized slave trader. He understood clearly the implications of the country's demographic shift to the Southwest, and the advantages for a slave-trading firm of having a presence over the entire geographical footprint of the slave-labor system. By establishing a headquarters in Alexandria and sealing the partnership with a strategic marriage, Franklin connected his Nashville base to the nation's capital. From there, he connected by water with the nation's great internal port, Baltimore; the great exporting port, New Orleans, which was approaching the peak of its national influence; and on to Natchez.\n\nUnder the antiregulatory climate of the Jackson administration, Franklin brought a new level of professionalism to the interstate slave trade. Franklin and Armfield's business co-partnership was founded on February 29, 1828, and their first newspaper advertisement offering to buy slaves ran in May:\n\nCASH IN MARKET.\n\nThe subscribers having leased for a term of years the large three story brick house on Duke street, in the town of Alexandria, D.C., formerly occupied by Gen. Young, we wish to purchase one hundred and fifty likely young negroes of both sexes between the ages of 8 and 25 years. Persons who wish to sell will do well to give us a call, as we are determined to give more than any other purchasers that are in market, or that may hereafter come into market.\n\nAny letters addressed to the subscribers through the Post Office at Alexandria, will be promptly attended to. For information, enquire at the above described house, as we can at all times be found there. FRANKLIN & ARMFIELD\n\nThere was, needless to say, no federal opposition to this perfectly legal trade, especially during the Jackson years (1829\u20131837). But because Congress made the laws for the District of Columbia, the slave trade in the District was a focal point of antislavery activism. Congressman Charles Miner of Pennsylvania, in his final days as a lame duck before vacating his seat, bravely introduced in 1829 a resolution into the House of Representatives\u2014one that he knew would not pass\u2014for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District. His speech in support of the measure, reproduced in the emerging abolitionist press, began:\n\nSlave dealers, gaining confidence from impunity, have made the seat of the federal government their head quarters for carrying on the domestic slave trade.\n\nThe public prisons have been extensively used (perverted from the purposes for which they were erected) for carrying on the domestic slave trade.\n\nOfficers of the federal government have been employed, and derived emoluments from carrying on the domestic slave trade.\n\nPrivate and secret prisons exist in the District for carrying on this traffic in human beings.\n\nThe trade is not confined to those who are slaves for life, but persons having a limited time to serve are bought by the slave dealers, and sent where redress is hopeless.\n\nOthers are kidnapped, and hurried away before they can be rescued.\n\nInstances of death, from the anguish of despair, exhibited in the District, mark the cruelty of this traffic.\n\nInstances of maiming and suicide, executed or attempted, have been exhibited, growing out of this traffic within the District.\n\nFree persons of colour, coming into the District, are liable to arrest, imprisonment, and sale into slavery, for jail fees, if unable, from ignorance, misfortune, or fraud, to preserve their freedom.\n\nThere was slave trading in all three towns of the District of Columbia. John Beattie's business at what became the 3200 block of O Street in Georgetown was established in 1760; in the nineteenth century, McCandless's tavern at M Street and Washington Avenue was a notorious slave-trade spot. Particularly visible in Washington, because of their location, were Robey's Tavern, at Seventh and Maryland, and, one block over and two blocks down, Williams's slave jail at Eighth and B Street (now Constitution Avenue). Williams's was where the kidnapped Solomon Northup regained consciousness after being kidnapped, and where he was beaten by trader James Birch (Burch, in Northup's spelling) before becoming one of the captives Birch regularly shipped to Theophilus Freeman, his partner in New Orleans.\n\nThe US jail in Washington made money by housing captives in transit. Representative Miner noted that 742 people being trafficked by traders had been housed there during the previous five years, and told Congress of how, when visiting the jail, he saw a female prisoner with \"three or four children with her\u2014one at the breast,\" and asked her story:\n\nShe was a slave, but had married a man who was free. By him she had eight or nine children. Moved by natural affection, the father labored to support the children; but as they attained an age to be valuable in the market, perhaps ten or twelve, the master sold them. One after another was taken away and sold to the slave dealers. She had now come to an age to be no longer profitable as a breeder, and her master had separated her from her husband, and all the associations of life, and sent her and her children to your prison for sale. She was waiting for a purchaser, and seemed to me to be more heart-broken than any creature I had ever seen.\n\n_The house on Duke Street, as depicted in an 1836 abolitionist engraving. Armfield is characterized by his accessories: a broad-brimmed hat and a whip._\n\nThough many slave traders were operating, Franklin and Armfield's operation quickly dominated the market. Armfield held down the Alexandria office on Duke Street, supervised the buying, and ran the shipping.\n\nArmfield also drove a large annual coffle southward in the summer. Since the firm had its own jail, Armfield could afford to buy one or a few slaves at a time and pen them up at Duke Street until he had accumulated a coffle-full, then drive the coffle down to get a jump on the fall slave-selling season in Natchez. Most coffles contained fifty, sixty, or at most a hundred captives, but G. W. Featherstonhaugh estimated the coffle of Armfield's that he encountered as having three hundred, which, if not an exaggeration, is as large as coffles ever got, and represented a major logistical and security effort.\n\nBy chance, Featherstonhaugh encountered Armfield a second time on a stagecoach. He described him as \"a queer tall animal about forty years old, with dark black hair cut round as if he were a Methodist preacher, immense black whiskers, a physiognomy not without one or two tolerable features, but singularly sharp, and not a little piratical and repulsive.\" Armfield was dressed entirely in black except for \"a huge broad-brimmed white hat, adorned with a black crepe,\" the latter perhaps worn in homage to Andrew Jackson, who perpetually wore mourning crepe for his deceased wife, Rachel. Featherstonhaugh quoted Armfield as saying of Jackson, \"The old Gineral is the most greatest and most completest idear of a man what had ever lived.\" Armfield's enslaved valet, Pompey, explained to Featherstonhaugh that the trader was overfond of onions and brandy, which kept him feeling ill.\n\nExcept for the summer coffle, Franklin and Armfield did all their trafficking by sea, connecting the Chesapeake, the source of wholesale supply, with the retail markets of New Orleans and Natchez. Franklin's first recorded slave sale in New Orleans took place in 1828, and the following year he took a two-year lease on a house with adjoining vacant lots at Esplanade and Casa Calvo (now the continuation of Royal Street) just below the French Quarter in the Faubourg Marigny, renewing it two years later. He seems to have kept his inventory of slaves for sale in a prison on the premises. A curiously ambiguous clause in his 1831 lease renewal stipulated that the lease was \"as a dwelling house and not for the business which the said Isaac Franklin now carries on that is to say that of selling negroes, although it is not the intention... to deprive the said lessee of the privilege to Keep His slaves in the said house and therein to carry on his aforesaid business.\"\n\nThough the District of Columbia was an important slave-exporting outlet, it was quickly overtaken by Richmond. Virginia's capital city was the great intake center for the slave trade, where traders could buy locally raised people for trafficking down South. Because Richmond traders sold fast, in quantities, to busy, professional resellers in a high-volume, competitive market, they conducted a high proportion of their sales by open-outcry auction, the kind at which the people being sold were routinely and ritualistically stripped naked and examined, typically in another room or area off to the side. Richmond's power was supplemented by a big local market for rented slaves, since the town's tobacco factories always needed labor.\n\nHaving a partner in Richmond was the key to a successful national slave-trade operation, and Franklin's man was Rice C. Ballard, whom he and Armfield had encountered at Eli Legg's tavern in Alexandria. Ballard too had his eye on the long-distance interstate market; he was already selling slaves into New Orleans and Natchez by 1828, if not earlier.\n\nBallard's friends addressed him as \"colonel,\" which was (and still is) the honorific of an auctioneer. Though Ballard was based in Richmond, he shipped slaves out of Norfolk, which was Virginia's major seaport, and where Franklin and Armfield's oceangoing brigs could make a stop. Franklin formed a second high-volume partnership with him that worked in parallel with his Armfield partnership.\n\nFranklin was the business visionary, the senior partner, the big-picture guy, the strategist who directed the other partners by mail and made the far-flung parts of his organization work together. He handled the point of sale, where the money was made, and he handled the banking. He created a slave-trade operation that was national in scope in a way that no one had done before, or would do after him, from a base in Tennessee that was very near the president's.\n\nRetail slave prices could vary by the day, and Franklin called the shots for when to buy and when to hold off. Besides watching market conditions carefully, he also paid close attention to crop forecasts, credit conditions, and political threats to the slave trade\u2014and, most important, to keeping the firm's cash flow moving and maintaining its credit in A-1 condition.\n\nEvery year Franklin passed tens of thousands of dollars to Ballard and Armfield, in the form of drafts on any of eight or so northern banks. In return, they sent him young African Americans. He successfully addressed the problem of a decentralized slave supply network in the Chesapeake by building a region-wide web of slave-harvesting associates who combed the plantations of Virginia and Maryland, as per the firm's advertisement that ran in every issue of the _Daily National Intelligencer_ and other papers during large parts of 1833 and '34. Their 1828 advertisement had solicited purchase of people between the ages of eight and twenty-five, but now the lower age limit had moved upward to twelve, presumably reflecting Louisiana's 1829 prohibition of children under ten:\n\nCASH IN MARKET\n\nWE will pay Cash for any number of likely Negroes, of both sexes, from 12 to 25 years of age, Field Hands. Also, Mechanics of every description. Apply to\n\nR.C. Ballard & Co. Richmond, Va.\n\nJ.M. Saunders & Co. Warrenton, Va.\n\nGeorge Kepheart & Co. Fredericktown, Md.\n\nJames F. Purvis & Co. Baltimore.\n\nThomas M. Jones, Easton, Eastern Shore of Md.\n\nOr, to the subscriber, at their residence in Alexandria.\n\nPersons having likely servants to dispose of, will do well to give us a call, as we at all times will pay higher prices in cash than any other purchaser who is now or may hereafter come into market.\n\nAll communications promptly attended to.\n\nFRANKLIN & ARMFIELD\n\nIn shipping by water, Franklin and Armfield at first followed the prevailing practice of consigning slave cargoes to captains as necessary. But then, marking a new level of national reach and vertical integration for a domestic slave trading company, they went into the carrying trade, establishing their own packet lines. The firm may have purchased the brig _United States_ as early as 1828. Three other brigs were subsequently added to the fleet: the _Tribune_ , the _Uncas_ , and, custom-built specifically for the needs of the domestic slave trade, the modern, copper-bolted _Isaac Franklin._\n\nBy establishing a packet line, Franklin and Armfield brought the slave trade into the modern world, where time is money. At first, they announced they would sail every two months from Alexandria to New Orleans, but by 1835 they were sailing the first and fifteenth of every month, shipping over a thousand slaves that year. Other traders could board their captives at Duke Street for as long as necessary at twenty-five cents per head, per night. By consigning them to Franklin and Armfield for handling during shipment, the other traders in effect subsidized the firm's shipping costs. Franklin and Armfield's size and greater capitalization in turn gave them more clout for purchasing young people in the countryside, as they began to enjoy advantages of scale.\n\nFranklin's firm, then, was a modern business that, as Bray Hammond described antebellum enterprise generally, was \"served by waterpower, steam, and credit.\" Franklin and Armfield proudly advertised that their vessels were fitted out as sail-steam hybrids in order to \"steam up the Mississippi.\" Steam power was not usable on the open Atlantic until 1838, so the brigs had to unfurl their sails down the Atlantic and into the Gulf. It was not an easy sail down the coast, going against the Gulf Stream from North Carolina forward, but the last crawl was the worst. The sixty miles or so up the river from the alluvial \"bird-foot\" of lower Louisiana to New Orleans was a longtime shipping bottleneck that could take a month without steam. By steaming up the Mississippi as far as New Orleans, and then on to Natchez, the traders could save precious time, turn their money around faster, and have fewer of the people who constituted their cargo arrive dead. This faster, safer delivery gave them a previously impossible competitive advantage in that highest-priced of slave markets.\n\nThe Reverend Joshua Leavitt, a cofounder of the New York City Anti-Slavery Society, who was allowed to go on board the _Tribune_ in 1834, reported that\n\nThe hold is appropriated to the slaves, and is divided into two apartments. The after-hold will carry about eighty women, and the other about one hundred men. On either side were two platforms running the whole length; one raised a few inches, and the other half way up to the deck. They were about five or six feet deep. On these the slaves lie, as close as they can stow away.\n\nThere does not seem to have been a standard security protocol for carrying slaves on the coastwise route. When Frederic Bancroft interviewed two people who had been carried south by sea, one of them, Nathan Ross, interviewed in Donaldsville, Louisiana, in 1902, recalled having been taken down to the James River to Portsmouth, Virginia, circa 1846, then put on a ship with thirty or forty others. He remembered that they were allowed to walk on deck and were only put into the hold at night and when it stormed. By contrast, seventy-two-year-old Washington Taylor, who had been taken to Richmond and put on a ship for New Orleans with some eighty others, recalled being kept in the hold all the time except when there was a storm; then, in Bancroft's summary, \"they were let out, lest all should be lost if the ship sank.\"\n\nDuring the off season, Franklin and Armfield's brigs carried commodities and occasionally ballast. They offered passenger fares on their line, but it's not clear how successful they were, as slave ships carried a stigma. These runs were dangerous; the potential hazards included not only epidemic and rebellion, but shipwreck. The brig _Comet_ , which probably belonged to Franklin and Armfield, left Alexandria in December 1830 with 164 captives on board, but went off course and broke up on the coast of Bermuda. The British governor of Bermuda set the captives free, but Franklin had insured seventy-six of them, and he collected $37,555, about a million 2014 dollars. That sum was left to the insurance companies to collect from the government of Great Britain, which in 1840 settled the claim.\n\nThe _Comet_ was followed two years later by the _Encomium_ whose forty-six captives were set free; by the brig _Enterprise_ , which while taking seventy-eight African Americans from Alexandria to Charleston in 1835 was forced by bad weather to put in at Bermuda; by the _Hermosa_ in 1840; and by the _Creole_ \u2014the most sensitive of the cases, since it put in at the Bahamas as the result of onboard slave rebellion, exactly what the slaveowners feared would happen if the enslaved had the incentive of being freed by the British. A diplomatic standoff ensued that lasted for years, as US diplomats to Britain defended slaveowners' rights and pressed for compensation for what was considered stolen property.\n\nWith Franklin's nephew James Purvis as their agent in Baltimore, Franklin and Armfield poached Austin Woolfolk's business and even his agents, outcompeting him in every way. It didn't help Woolfolk that he had a reputation for dishonesty. His business fell off quickly, and by October 1832 he was reduced to running a strange newspaper ad that ran for weeks in the Baltimore _Republican & Commercial Advertiser._ It read:\n\nA. WOOLFOLK wishes to inform the owners of Negroes in Maryland, Virginia, and N. Carolina, that he _is not dead_ , as has been artfully represented by his opponents, but that he still lives, to give them CASH and the HIGHEST PRICES for their NEGROES.\n\nHope Hull Slatter, the major Baltimore trader after A. Woolfolk, began operating in 1835 out of Owing's Globe Inn, at the corner of Howard and Market. He opened his jail on Pratt Street in 1838, digging a two-block tunnel beneath the city's streets to hide his coffles as they went from headquarters to wharf, and he continued selling slaves out of Baltimore until 1847, when he retired to Mobile.\n\nCASH FOR NEGROES.\n\nI WISH to purchase from 75 to 100 Negroes, of both sexes, from the age of 8 to 25 years, for which I will pay liberal prices. I can always be found at Owing's Globe Inn, corner of Howard and Market streets, Baltimore; and in my absence at any time, a lien left at the bar will be attended to, immediately on my return.\n\nHOPE H. SLATTER\n\nN.B. I wish particularly to purchase several seamstresses and likely small fancy girls for nurses. I will also purchase several families. \u2014Baltimore _Republican_ & _Commercial Advertiser_ , Feb. 2, 1835.\n\n\"Small fancy girls\" meant light-skinned female children, salable as sex slaves. It was a discreet phrase, but not a mysterious one: everyone understood it.\n\nThe New Orleans market specialized both in selling difficult-to-dispose-of \"vicious slaves\" to sugar plantations and in supplying high-priced craftsmen, skilled domestics, \"body servants,\" and sex slaves (the light-skinned \"fancy girls\") for urban use. New Orleans was notorious for its slave auctions, but auctions seem to have constituted only about half of the sales; traders did much of their business by private sale out of their own retail showrooms, clusters of which were located in both the French- and English-speaking parts of town.\n\nThe Natchez market, by contrast, did not have regular auctions, but mostly sold retail, directly to cotton planters, out of a compound that housed several hundred captives at any one time. \"From early in the century to 1860,\" wrote Frederic Bancroft, \"the Natchez market, apart from its actual location, changed perhaps less than any other large market in the South, for its patrons were mainly of the planter class.\" Natchez purchasers were mostly end-users, as opposed to the resellers who dominated the market in Richmond and were also well represented in Charleston and New Orleans.\n\nNatchez was a split-level pair of towns. The city proper, high atop the bluff two hundred feet above the Mississippi River, was where the old Natchez aristocracy lived and where Isaac Franklin did his business; it connected socially and commercially with the rural planters. Down below, at the foot of the bluff, was Natchez-under-the-Hill, a sleazy row of taverns, gambling halls, brothels, and merchants who dealt with the river traffic. A traveler from Kentucky wrote of Natchez in an 1803 journal that \"there are about 500 dwellings in this place. They are mostly Americans from South Carolina and Georgia... I suppose from what I have seen that Natchez is, or the inhabitants of the town are, as much given to luxury & dissipation as any place in America.\" Natchez was the crossroads where the major water route, the Mississippi River, met the major land route, the Natchez Trace. As such, it was the principal destination for coffles as well as boats coming up from New Orleans. At the end of the slave-selling chain, Natchez consistently paid the highest prices. Natchez was Franklin and Armfield's cash cow.\n\nLouisiana's post\u2013Nat Turner prohibition on slave importation caused inventory problems. In a letter from New Orleans of February 28, 1831, Franklin wrote to Ballard in Richmond: \"I will have a petition tomorrow before the house for our relief\u2014should that fail god knows what will be the consequence. I will do the best I can for all concerned & if nothing better can be done I will declare myself a citizen of the state. I am much depressed & if we have to rely entirely on the Mississippi market we have more in this shipment than can be sold to advantage.\" In November, facing a wipeout with the closing to out-of-state traders of the Louisiana market, Franklin conveyed \"his entire lot of slaves\" to his brother and agent James R. Franklin in Natchez, who sold them all by December. After that, Franklin didn't sell into New Orleans again until 1834.\n\nMeanwhile, Natchez was heating up as a spot for sales. But epidemics were a constant problem, especially after a global pandemic of Asiatic cholera reached the United States in 1832. Symptoms \"appeared almost simultaneously in Montreal, Philadelphia, and New York,\" write Kiple and King. For reasons that are still unclear, but quite possibly related to the lower levels of sanitation available to the enslaved, the ravages of cholera were more severe among the black population; many physicians in the hemisphere thought of it as a \"negro disease.\"\n\nAt first Franklin was afraid that the inmates of Ballard's slave jail in Richmond might die, but then he advised him to hold back from selling and wait for prices to climb as the epidemic did its work: \"... best hold on. The more negroes lost in that country the more will be wanting if they have the means of procuring them.\"\n\nOn December 8, 1832, he wrote Ballard of casualties from cholera: \"the last two weeks we have Buried... 9 Negroes and 6 or 7 children and we have 7 or 8 Negroes sick... the way we send out dead Negroes at night and keep Dark is a sin.\" \"Buried\" was a euphemism, because he hadn't buried them; to the great disgust of the polite citizens of Natchez, he opted to dump their bodies in a swamp, hoping not to be detected as he created a health hazard for the terrified town.\n\nThat a slave trader could easily bring an epidemic of deadly diseases into town was part of the social stigma attached to the profession. Africans brought in on the earlier transatlantic slave ships had passed through a period of quarantine in a \"pest house,\" but there were no quarantines in interstate commerce. Yellow fever, malaria, typhoid, smallpox, cholera: slave pens were a notorious breeding ground for epidemics.\n\nFrightened by the possibility of contagion in their midst, the citizens of Natchez kicked the slave traders out of the city proper in 1833. They were banished only a mile out of town, to a site where slaves were already being sold: the Forks of the Road, a crossroads where the ironically named Liberty Road, which led east to Georgia, crossed Washington Road, which led to the Natchez Trace and on to Tennessee. If Natchez was a crossroads, the Forks of the Road was the crossroads of the crossroads.\n\nCue Robert Johnson: slave jails were often at the crossroads. However you care to read the image of the crossroads in the blues, remember that in Mississippi, the most notorious crossroads was the state's largest slave market, where Robert Johnson's great-grandfather's generation was sold.\n\n_A display of manacles embedded in concrete on the ground, part of a memorial at the site of Natchez's Forks of the Road, March 2014._\n\nMany locals referred to the Forks of the Road as Niggerville, as in an advertisement that ran in the Natchez _Free Trader_ of February 26, 1835:\n\nNEGROES FOR SALE.\n\nTHE subscribers offer for sale at Niggerville, one mile from Natchez, six carpenters and three blacksmiths. They will be first tried as to their capacity, in their different branches of business, with a full guaranty as to title and soundness of the same. To be disposed of either for cash, or on time, for good acceptances. All persons that may be in want of such mechanics, would do well to call and look at them before they are purchased elsewhere.\n\nEATON FREEMAN.\n\nNiggerville, Feb. 26-30-3t.\n\nIn a letter to Ballard of April 24, James R. Franklin wrote from Natchez, \"our negroes are getting much better but they have been very sickly. So much so the City Council Compells us all to leave the limits of the Corporation in two days. We shall have to take to the woods.\" By May 7, in the dreary woods amid sick and dying captives and sick himself, James R. Franklin's tone sounded desperate: \"I do assure you it is dreadful I have 4 or 5 down at present,\" but he held out hope that he could still sell his diseased cargo: \"I am in hopes all the fools are not yet dead and some one eyed man will buy us out yet.\" The term \"one eyed man,\" which turns up at various places in the firm's correspondence, seems to have been a private but easily understandable joke: maybe some dickhead will buy our inventory of slaves before they all die.\n\nIn a letter of February 2, 1834, James R. Franklin warned Rice C. Ballard not to ship any more \"Negroes,\" giving him the bad news that smallpox had broken out on two or three plantations, and that slaves imported by their firm were suspected of having brought it. Then, amid a litany of complaints about uncooperative banks and piratical customs agents, he wrote: \"I never wanted to leave any place so bad as I do want to leave this damn hole.\"\n\n\"I have commenced upon a new years work, and am purchasing negroes much faster than usual at fair prices,\" wrote Franklin's associate Jourdan M. Saunders from the buying territory in Virginia to his partner David Burford in Nashville in April 1832.\n\nThe boom was underway. Franklin wrote Ballard from Natchez that \"the US Bank and the Planters Bank at this place has thrown a large amt of cash into circulation.\" Franklin was positioned to scoop up that cash. In a letter of November 1, 1833, he urged Ballard to buy heavy, reminding him that \"as to the money we can raise in a short Time any Amt that may be wanting.\" He went on to advise him that \"we have sold all of our negroes for Good prices & Good profits accept [except] some old negroes say 18 in number... [they] will keep house until next Spring if they do not Die before that time[.] [We] could have sold as many more if we had of had the right kind.... [We sold] men from $8 to 900 Dollars[,] field women large & likely from 6 to 650 Dollars.\"\n\nBut then he complained, \"We have no young Girl on hand... There are Great Demand for fancy maid[.] I do believe that a likely Girl and Good seamstress could be sold for $1000[.]\" That complaint was also personal: \"I was disappointed in not finding your Charlottsvill maid that you promised me[.] you must ship all the first rate house servants by the first shipment after you Receive this.\"\n\n\"First-rate house servants\" was, of course, a euphemism. The \"fancy maid\" was named Martha; according to a letter from James R. Franklin, she also answered to \"Big Cuff.\" Apropos the term _fancy_ , Walter Johnson suggests that \"the word 'fancy'... refers to appearances perhaps or manners or dress. But the word has another meaning; it designates a desire: he fancies.... The slave market usage embarked from this second meaning: 'fancy' was a transitive verb made noun, a slaveholder's desire made material in the shape of a woman.\"\n\nNew Orleans was the capital for selling fancy girls, whose earnings could keep a riverboat gambler doubling as a pimp\u2014not necessarily selling their services by the hour, but perhaps receiving regular rent on long-term concubinage contracts, beginning at as young an age as twelve. An anonymous 1850 booklet called _New Orleans As It Is_ quotes a price of twelve to twenty dollars a month for a girl to pay her \"owner\"\u2014until, it goes on to say, \"she is cast off as a useless and worthless thing.\"\n\nThe wealthy planters of Natchez could easily afford to purchase personal sex slaves as luxury goods. Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard certainly dealt in them, and, as slave traders commonly did, they raped them in the process. This was facilitated by the fact that traders generally owned the captives in their custody. Planters often retained ownership of their cotton until it was sold in Liverpool, moving it along through a series of consignments and commissions, by means of \"huge\" syndicates they formed for the purpose of marketing their cotton. Not so slaves; they were generally sold outright as they moved through each stage of the distribution chain. Slave narratives commonly mention having been sold four or five times, and ten times over a lifetime was not unheard of.\n\nSince traders were the legal owners of the slaves they were selling, they could mistreat them any way they wanted. The law was quite clear that slaveowners' power was absolute. The 1830 opinion of North Carolina Supreme Court judge Thomas Ruffin in the _North Carolina v. Mann_ case that \"the power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect\" echoed through the South with its sexual subtext intact.\n\nA trader was assumed to enjoy a surfeit of sex slaves; it was part of the culture of the slave trade, a notoriety that contributed greatly to the general disrepute traders were held in. A number of traders remained unmarried, preferring to enjoy the sexual benefits of being in the slave trade, cohabitating with enslaved women, who were frequently \"mighty near white,\" until they perhaps left the trade for a more respectable life.\n\nOn the evidence of their correspondence, sexual exploitation was part of the corporate culture of Franklin and Armfield. These \"fancy girls\" were the highest-priced slaves, the premium class of the market, consistently outpricing even prime field hands. While Franklin waited to get the best prices possible for them they belonged to the firm. Wendell Holmes Stephenson, Franklin's admiring 1939 biographer, obtusely notes that Franklin was party to a sale in Natchez in which \"Chloe Ann, yellow, aged sixteen, was sold on June 30, 1821, for $700, an unusual price for that period unless the slave were a skilled laborer.\" It was not, however, an unusual price for a light-skinned sex slave.\n\nThe archetypal fancy girl was a \"quadroon\"\u2014one-quarter black, three-quarters white\u2014or lighter. Not that black women didn't have to do sex work, but their owners commanded a lower price for it. While awaiting sale in New Orleans, they might be sent from a slave jail for a night's work in the lower class of brothel to earn the trader some money. They didn't have to travel far for that; it was no coincidence that New Orleans had both the nation's largest slave market and was the leading city for prostitution\u2014which also meant it was pimp city,* a profession that overlapped with gambling. New Orleans may have even outsyphilized her big sister city Havana. In some areas of the town, the brothels occupied \"the windows and doors of every house as far as the eyes can recognize them,\" according to one writer. The heavier the slave trade got, the lewder New Orleans grew.\n\nFranklin seems to have raped a number of young women who were in his power. From this we can infer that the sexual use of young women did not harm the prices paid for them, or he probably wouldn't have done it. Quite the contrary: it might have been seen as adding value as part of the enslaving process, so that the girls, officially sold as seamstresses or maids, would arrive having been broken in and be more \"compliant,\" a word that turns up in one letter of the Ballard correspondence collection, referring to a female sex slave. Franklin had the Charlottesville \"fair maid Martha... and our white Caroline\" on sale in 1832.\n\nFranklin and his associates used their own peculiar lingo in intra-firm correspondence. Besides the previously noted \"one eyed man,\" they referred generically to black people by the stereotypical name of \"Cuffy\" (Kofi, an Akan name). Franklin jokingly referred to Rice Ballard as well as to himself as an \"old robber.\" The firm's extant correspondence contains barely coded references to the sexual use of captive women, as per Franklin's notorious letter to Ballard of January 11, 1834. Written from New Orleans as the Bank of the United States was contracting credit, Franklin began with the gloomy news that retail prices for slaves had not gone up there even though the Nat Turner\u2013inspired importation ban that had closed the New Orleans slave market to him for more than two years was on its way to being lifted. He continued with an account of his depression in the face of low prices, continual rain and snow, the bad conditions of the coming sugar crop, and his fear of a concomitant downward pressure on the next year's market as surplus sugar hands would be sold rather than new ones bought.\n\nThen Franklin transitioned into complaining that Ballard had not sent him \"the Fancy Girl from Charlottesville,\" whom he had previously requested but whom Ballard had detained, asking \"will you send her out or shall I charge you $1100 for her[?]\" His spirits seemed to perk up as he began talking about the fancy girls they were passing between themselves. \"I thought that an old robber [i.e. Ballard] might be satisfyed with two or three maids.\" In a postscript, he began fantasizing about another kind of business operation: \"The old Lady and Susan could soon pay for themselves by keeping a whore house... let it be kept for the benefit of the consern... it might be... established at your place Alexandria or Baltimore for the exclusive use of the cosern [sic] and... [its] agents.\"\n\nFranklin's notoriety for his sexual use of \"likely\" girls was such that at a hearing over his estate after his death, attorneys for the plaintiff (Franklin's brother) against the defendant (Franklin's widow) tauntingly submitted as a cross-interrogatory for two witnesses the question: \"in describing the domestic comforts [of Franklin's Fairvue plantation],... was there, at that place, several very likely mulatto girls [?]\" One witness responded, \"There were at the place several likely mulatto girls; the servants that he kept about the house were all of the likeliest description, both male and female,\" though he hastened to add that all was above board.\n\nAndrew Jackson owned about 160 slaves by the time he was elected president\u2014which is to say, he was wealthy, but not super-wealthy. There's no question that Jackson had been a slave trader, but, like most of the domestic slave traders of his generation, he was a relative amateur at that business. Isaac Franklin was not. Even though Jackson was president, Franklin in some ways had better market information than his fellow Tennessean.\n\nWe do not know how Franklin arrived at his decision to quit while he was ahead. Perhaps he was merely reacting fast to the increasing financial disarray that he had a close-up view of, or perhaps he was activating a long-term plan, or perhaps both. But only seven years after starting Franklin and Armfield, Franklin announced his departure from the retail slave trade, and took quick, decisive steps to exit the business. Designating a New Orleans factorage firm to handle his affairs, he unloaded parts of the business onto his partners while retaining an ownership stake. His last known slave sale in New Orleans was on April 17, 1835. An advertisement of March 6, 1836, in the _Daily National Intelligencer_ for the firm's packet boat line the following year lists only Armfield's name, and at the close of the slave-selling season the firm's name listed Armfield first, as per the advertisement of April 5, 1836:\n\nFOR NEW ORLEANS. \u2014 The last Packet this season. \u2014 The Brig UNCAS, Captain BOUSH, will sail as above about the 20th instant. Persons wishing to ship will please to make early application to ARMFIELD, FRANKLIN, & CO. Alexandria\n\nAn advertisement in the same paper of November 7 shows that the partners had found a one-eyed man to take the brigs off their hands:\n\nWASHINGTON CITY AND NEW ORLEANS PACKETS. \u2014 The subscribers having purchased of Messrs. Armfield, Franklin, & Co. two of their splendid New Orleans packets, intend running them regularly between the two ports, leaving each place on the 1st of each month.\n\nThe brig Tribune, Captain Boush, master, will leave this place on the 1st of next month, (December.) The brig Uncas, Nathaniel Boush, master, on the 1st January.\n\nThose wishing to ship had better have their servants at this place a day or two previous to the vessels sailing. Servants can be kept at 25 cents per day.\n\nFreight and passage as heretofore.\n\nWM. H. WILLIAMS & CO.\n\nIt wasn't easy turning off the largest slave-trading firm in the United States. But while Franklin didn't manage to extricate himself completely from long-running business issues, he was way ahead of everybody else. With perfect timing, he cashed out just before the Panic of 1837. Franklin exited the retail slave trade at the peak of the boom and managed a substantial, though not total, escape before the crash. He had moved many of his obligations onto other shoulders by the time Jackson's Specie Circular shook American finance, and did well when others were vulnerable.\n\nFranklin was \"a man of gentlemanly address, as are many of these merchants, and not the ferocious, Captain Kidd looking fellows, we Yankees have been apt to imagine them,\" as Joseph Holt Ingraham described him, without being so indelicate as to mention him by name. Ingraham, then a young clergyman with literary ambitions, went on to explain that slave traders' \"admission into society, however, is not recognised. Planters associate with them freely enough, in the way of business, but notice them no farther.\" Franklin was, however, a determined social climber, and after he became very wealthy, he changed direction dramatically at the age of forty-six, transforming himself from a despised slave trader to a respectable planter with an increasing fortune. Though he had created the basics of a functional corporate structure with interregional reach that had made him very wealthy, he seems to have been thinking not in terms of building a permanent, expandable company, but of enriching himself enough to jump to the next social station. From his new platform, Franklin worked nonstop to further develop the ample resources he had acquired during his career in the slave trade.\n\nIn 1830, Franklin acquired a prime tract of land about four miles from Gallatin, Tennessee\u2014up the Cumberland River from Nashville, in a beautiful bluegrass region where buffalo had once run. First he put up an overseer's house, then slave quarters, then a mill and gin. After that, he built the mansion of Fairvue, which he filled with perhaps ten thousand dollars' worth of furniture; then a garden, a yard, an ice-house, and a stable where he kept blooded horses. He put his slaves to work raising cotton and food crops that he could sell downriver to Nashville.\n\nFairvue was the grandest house in Tennessee. After Franklin's untimely death, a neighbor testified:\n\n[The] house and everything about it is finished in most splendid and costly style; the mantle pieces are made of the finest Irish Kilkenny marble, which cost, as I understood from Mr. Franklin himself, $500 a mantle piece. The house, in part, is covered with fine cedar shingles, which were painted before they were nailed on; the other and flat part of the roof is covered with copper sheeting. This house has attached to it a beautiful yard, finely ornamented with a variety of shrubbery and a splendid garden, that is decidedly superior to any garden I have ever seen in Tennessee; the yard, garden and horse stables are beautifully enclosed with fine brick walls; there are two large brick barns or stables, and a great many brick negro houses, and very splendid family vault, enclosed by a superior stone wall. I am well acquainted with the improvements of the hermitage, the house of Gen. Andrew Jackson, and consider those belonging to the Fairvue estate as decidedly superior to them.\n\n\"Brick negro houses\" were anything but common, but Fairvue was a grand showpiece. Those houses were the public face of Isaac Franklin. He had made the transition: he was no longer a slave trader\u2014a man who raped light-skinned teenagers for amusement and dumped corpses in the swamp\u2014but a reputable planter and a gentleman horse breeder.\n\nSuch a fine house would surely find a mistress. According to an unsourced but not implausible story in the privately printed _The Saga of Fairvue_ , when Adelicia Hayes was brought by friends to see Fairvue, she wrote in the guest book with a fortune-hunter's frankness: \"I like this house and set my cap for its master.\" She had something to offer that he badly needed: respectability. He had something she wanted: that house. She was a twenty-two-year-old Presbyterian minister's daughter, which put her almost past marriageable age, and he was a fifty-year-Old Robber who had remade himself.\n\nIt was the first marriage for both of them. The evidence of Franklin's prior career was discarded: one of Franklin's associates, William Cotton, with Ballard's help, whisked Franklin's enslaved mistress Lucinda and their child away to be sold in Louisville. In their six years of marriage, Adelicia Hayes Franklin gave birth to a son who died in infancy and three daughters, none of whom lived to adulthood.\n\nIn his new career, Franklin continued to do business in slaves, because that was what planters did. But now his commerce was on a higher level than merely retailing flesh in a stinking slave mart; he was a financier, accumulating human capital through dispossession of smaller slaveowners.\n\nThere weren't a lot of different investment opportunities available in the all-slavery South. Savings most commonly took the form of slaves, which in turn were viewed by lenders as almost risk-free collateral. Large slaveowners therefore had lots of credit, collateralized by their slaveholdings, which they resold piecemeal to smaller fry. These well-capitalized individuals, whom Kilbourne calls \"accommodation endorsers,\" thus lent out their credit. Writing mortgages heavily collateralized by the debtor's slaves, they foreclosed on the weaker members of planter society as they went down, appropriating the bankrupt estates in the process. A neighbor recalled that \"I have seen [Franklin], with his family, boarding at the St. Charles [Hotel], in New Orleans; he had a very large debt uncollected, both in Mississippi and Louisiana, and was in the habit of renewing notes from year to year, and taking mortgages, &c., which required his attention a great deal in the winter season.\"\n\nMost mortgage lending was done privately, using banks as \"amplifiers,\" as Kilbourne put it. At deal's end, the lenders either collected their interest or took over the collateral. In the latter case, they either sold the slaves and the land, taking a profit, or kept them, realizing a capital gain and commanding still more credit.\n\nThat's how Franklin came into possession of his other signature property besides Fairvue: some forty-eight hundred acres of prime land in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, that had formerly belonged to an unlucky man named Francis Routh. Franklin began acquiring the property, which Routh had acquired from different owners, by purchasing a one-half interest on May 29, 1835, when Routh's finances were faltering and Franklin was transitioning out of the slave trade. The property already had three developed plantations on it, with the French, Irish, and Scottish-nostalgic names of Bellevue, Killarney, and Lock Lomond (or Lochlomond). After Routh was ruined in the Panic of 1837, Franklin purchased the other half of the estate at two sheriff's sales on December 22, 1837, and January 7, 1838.\n\nAn appraisal of February 26 valued the entire property at $159,507. Almost 60 percent of that value, $94,950, resided in the 224 individually named and expertly appraised slaves of the three working plantations. An enslaved man named Thomas Jefferson was worth $350; Plato Goodwin was appraised at $600; Nelly at $400, and her child French at $150; Catherine, one year old, at $100. Only two of them\u2014fewer than 1 percent\u2014were worth four figures, and unlike any of the others their professions were listed alongside their names: a blacksmith named Claiborne was worth $1,000. John Theodore, a carpenter, $1,500.\n\nThere were 134 slaves at Bellevue, the best-developed of the plantations. But there were only 47 at Lock Lomond and 43 at Killarney. This density of slave labor, low for a plantation, was because much of Franklin's Louisiana land was still undeveloped. He set to work building it up.\n\nBellevue became Franklin's residence when he was on the plantations, which was as little as possible. Although the main dwelling-house wasn't up to the luxurious standards of Fairvue, it did have the basic comforts, including a piano. He migrated north to Fairvue annually when the \"sickly season\" of summer settled into Louisiana and people began to die of yellow fever and other diseases, then returned south in mid-October to develop his Louisiana properties, which entailed putting up buildings and acquiring slaves and machinery.\n\nAfter giving Routh and his family some \"compassion money\" and evicting them from the property, Franklin began developing a fourth plantation to be \"sufficient for sixty hands\" on some of the estate's uncleared land. He set it up as a sawmill and gristmill, feeding it the timber that grew in profusion on his plantations-to-be, and tried selling Spanish moss harvested from the trees. He gave his newly developed Louisiana plantation a curious name:\n\nAngola.\n\n*Pimp = _mec_ in French, anglicized to _mack._\n\n#   34\n\n# **Wake Up Rich**\n\n_INCENDIARY TRACTS AND PAPERS._ \u2014 _The Mail brought by the Steam Packet Columbia, arrived this morning, has come not merely laden, but literally overburthened, with the Newspaper called \"The Emancipator\" and two Tracts entitled \"The Anti-Slavery Record,\" and \"The Slave's Friend,\" destined for circulation all over the Southern and Western Country.... If the General Post Office is not at liberty to act in this matter, it is impossible to answer for the security of the Mail in this part of the country, which contains such poisonous and inflammatory matter._\n\n_\u2014Southern Patriot_ , Charleston, July 29, 1835\n\nEVEN TO SPEAK OF slavery, much less to criticize it, was likely to \"excite the affections\" of Southern congressmen.\n\nThe South erected an informational firewall so that its alternate reality could not be disturbed. The censorship of mail in the South was general; ideologically suspect literature was routinely confiscated. People in the South could rely only on Southern sources to tell them of the supposed horrors that the abolitionists were planning for them.\n\nDistrict attorney Francis Scott Key ran Benjamin Lundy out of Washington City in 1833 for having printed an article in the _Genius of Universal Emancipation_ that said, \"There is neither mercy nor justice for colored people in this district [of Columbia].\" More than half the black people in Washington were free, and Key, one of the most prominent deportationists, was still district attorney in Washington two years later, in August 1835, when a white mob ran riot for two nights and destroyed black schools, churches, and homes.\n\nA sensational pamphlet that described a plan for a Christmas Day slave uprising throughout the South created a panic in central Mississippi during the hot summer of 1835. It was widely believed that a criminal named John Murrell had a huge gang and planned to incite a massive slave rebellion to facilitate plundering the towns. Murrell, a murderous highwayman and notorious kidnapper of slaves, was serving ten years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary at the time for \"negro-stealing,\" but that didn't stop the rumors. \"Many Mississippians were led to believe that the state was indeed threatened with the fate of Santo Domingo,\" writes Edwin Arthur Miles. In fact, there was no uprising, and no white people were killed by black people, but respected citizens formed extralegal vigilante groups that extracted confessions and lynched a dozen white men, five of them gamblers, and an unknown number of black people. Similar groups hunted gamblers and other transients in towns and settlements up the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.\n\nEighteen thirty-five was the summer of abolition propaganda, when a mail campaign by the American Anti-Slavery Society sent tens of thousands of Garrison-published pamphlets down south via the postal system. \"They have raised funds to support and circulate inflammatory newspapers and pamphlets gratuitously,\" wrote John Quincy Adams, \"and they send multitudes of them into the southern country in the midst of swarms of slaves, which is causing great excitement and fermentation in all parts of the Union.\"\n\nMany Southern newspapers carried alarmed reports of the arrival of sheaves of abolitionist literature at the local post office. Charleston postmaster Alfred Huger wrote to his counterpart in the New York post office that\n\nthe most respectable men of all parties gather'd about our doors and windows, and in a little time I was formally summoned to give up the \"incendiary publications\" which were known to be in my possession, and at the same [time] told with very little ceremony, that they would be taken from me, if I did not... I could only resolve that when the mail became the object of attack, I would make it the object of defence; but seeing plainly the excitement and exasperation which were every Moment increasing, I came to the determination to Separate the obnoxious papers, from the rest of the Mail, not doubting that otherwise, the whole might be destroy'd between the Office and the Rail-Road.\n\nPostmaster and key Jackson adviser Amos Kendall approved. In a letter to Huger that was published in various newspapers, he wrote, \"We owe an obligation to the laws, but a higher one to the communities in which we live, and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to disregard them.\"\n\nFrancis Scott Key would not be outdone in rooting out terrorism. \"Are you willing, gentlemen, to abandon your country; to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the Abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the Negro?\" he shouted in 1836. It was part of his sensational prosecution of the young doctor Reuben Crandall for having possessed a trunkful of copies of _The Liberator_ and _The Anti-Slavery Reporter_ in his home in Georgetown. Key kept Crandall in jail for months, and though Crandall was found not guilty, he contracted tuberculosis in prison and died two years later. Key remained district attorney until the Whigs moved into the White House in 1841, using his position to suppress abolitionism wherever he found it.\n\nNor was the hostility only in slavery territory. In Boston, William Lloyd Garrison was nearly lynched after being captured by a mob that came to attack a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Abolitionist meetings were broken up by mobs in New York, where there was much Southern sympathy.\n\nMeanwhile, traders continued trafficking young African Americans southward. On his first trip South in 1835, William Henry Seward saw a disturbing sight in Virginia, as summarized by his brother and biographer, Fredrick W. Seward:\n\nA cloud of dust was seen slowly coming down the road, from which proceeded a confused noise of moaning, weeping, and shouting. Presently reaching the gate of the stable-yard, it disclosed itself. Ten naked little boys, between six and twelve years old, tied together, two and two, by their wrists, were all fastened to a long rope, and followed by a tall, gaunt white man, who, with his long lash, whipped up the sad and weary little procession, drove it to the horse-trough to drink, and thence to a shed, where they lay down on the ground and sobbed and moaned themselves to sleep. These were children gathered up at different plantations by the \"trader,\" and were to be driven down to Richmond to be sold at auction, and taken South.\n\nIn New Hampshire, the young Jacksonian Franklin Pierce, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Levi Woodbury, was appalled at the formation of an Anti-Slavery Society in his home state in 1835. He wrote to a friend, \"One thing must be perfectly apparent to every intelligent man. This abolition movement must be crushed or there is an end to the Union.\"\n\nJames Madison died in 1835, leaving the legal ownership of his slaves to his wife Dolley. His writings bear witness that he had repeatedly agonized about the wrongness of slavery, though not as much as his slaves must have agonized about it. Madison did not leave Dolley in good financial condition, and the Panic of 1837 exacerbated her problems. It was a typical Southern widow's situation: Dolley Madison's slaves were her nest egg, and despite language in Madison's will forbidding her to sell them without their consent, she sold them off to pay her ne'er-do-well son's debts. Montpelier itself was sold to a Richmond merchant in 1844.\n\nAlong with the explosion of abolitionist propaganda in the 1830s came a new kind of argument, one championed by an emerging generation of free black abolitionists, that focused on the degradation forced on the enslaved. Frederick Douglass expressed it in his Fourth of July speech of 1852 in Rochester, New York: \"The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.\"\n\nDouglass was so radical that he called for full political rights for women. A nascent American women's-rights movement drew energy from women's activity in the antislavery movement, their largest participation in American politics up to that time. Often denied membership in men's political organizations, and without the right to vote, they formed \"ladies'\" political clubs, collecting signatures for the petitions that John Quincy Adams lay on the table by the hundreds in the House of Representatives.\n\nThe coffles marching through the nation's capital became the number-one target of the antislavery movement. The District of Columbia was Congress's responsibility, so grassroots organizations\u2014local clubs\u2014flooded both houses of Congress with petitions to close the slave trade in the federal capital. The term \"slave-breeding\" became a part of the antislavery polemic, the interstate slave trade the visible symbol of slavery.\n\nIn response to John Quincy Adams's continued presentation of abolition petitions, Speaker of the House James K. Polk in 1836 cut him off with the \"gag rule\" requiring that nothing relating to the subject of slavery could be introduced or discussed. The gag rule, which was reinstated every year with ever more restrictive language until 1844, became a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre for the anti-slavery movement. Adams, outraged, focused on breaking it, exposing himself to censure for receiving and submitting petitions. The more petitions he laid on the table, the more came in. By the 1837\u201338 term, there were 130,200 petitions calling for the end of slavery in the District of Columbia. Others called for abolition nationally, for abolishing the interstate slave trade, for lifting the gag rule, against the annexation of Texas, against dueling, and, during the winter of 1838\u201339, more than two hundred petitions for the recognition of Haiti, which was a busy trading partner of US merchants while officially remaining a pariah country.\n\nThe arrival of master-race Jacksonian Democracy, the eruption of abolitionism as a movement, and the radicalization of the nullification movement combined to make a new, unapologetic attitude toward slavery that was felt especially along the southwestern frontier. In Mississippi, which had grown from twenty-six counties in 1832 to fifty-five in 1836 as former Choctaw and Chickasaw lands became occupied, Seargent S. Prentiss, newly elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1836, introduced a resolution that the people of the state \"look upon the institution of slavery, as it exists among them, not as a curse, but as a blessing, as the legitimate condition of the African race... and that they hope to transmit this institution to their posterity, as the best part of their inheritance... we will allow no present change, or hope of future alteration in this matter.\"\n\nIn the decade between 1830 and 1840, as the plantation system exploded into the newly available lands, Mississippi's free population increased by a factor of 2.54 to 180,440 (free people of color were only 1,366 of them), but the enslaved population almost tripled, to 195,211. Mississippi now had a black majority.\n\nIn Mississippi, as in Carolina, there was no doubt, at least among the slaveholders: God himself was pro-slavery.\n\n\"I am a nullifier!\" shouted South Carolina's Robert Barnwell Rhett in 1837, in his first major speech as a congressman.\n\nHaving unsurprisingly outed himself as a Calhounian with that declaration, Rhett's speech pivoted into another kind of discourse as he unwound into over-the-top hyperbole. Rhett, who had no military experience, romanticized war and even annihilation in the service of the glorious cause of state sovereignty over the federal government, which in the case of South Carolina was to say, in the service of slavery. As he extolled martyrdom, which he had no intention of personally experiencing, he gave the House its sharpest taste yet of the belligerent, self-apotheosizing oratory of the new generation.\n\nAfter shouting chains of rhetorical questions, Rhett spoke defiantly of the resistance that, he insisted, would have met Jackson had Jackson invaded South Carolina during the nullification crisis:\n\nHad South Carolina been invaded, upon the first gleam of the bayonet along our mountain passes, he would have seen and known what the chivalry of the South really was, not in bloodless tropes and metaphors, but in the stern realities of the tented field. Not only Carolinians, but thousands of volunteers from the whole South, whose names are upon the file, would have met you in that fierce contest [etc. etc.]... We knew the mighty inheritance for which we were to contend\u2014that soil over which, for two centuries, we had been the lords; and those altars at which our fathers knelt and we had received our brides. We won it by the sword, and we were prepared to keep it by the sword.\n\nRhett had taken his political stage name just before running for office. Following a fashion in South Carolina to rename one's self after one's most illustrious ancestors, Robert Barnwell Smith and all his brothers changed their common laborer's last name to the more romantic-sounding Rhett. It was a Gaelic-style spelling of the name of a matrilineal ancestor, a Dutchman named Raedt, whose claim to fame was having captured Stede Bonnet, Charleston's only pirate of note.\n\nMargaret Mitchell took two of the Lowcountry's best-known pro-slavery political names for her fictional character of Rhett Butler in _Gone With the Wind_ , but Robert Barnwell Rhett was no Clark Gable. Balding on top by his thirties, he tried to disguise it with a comb-over, his red face framed by a hightop starched collar. There is little favorable commentary about him. He was ambitious, arrogant, belligerent, and an implacable foe with a martyr complex who attacked no one as ferociously as those who almost agreed with him. His biographer William C. Davis speculates that there might have been favorable commentary about him in documents that were destroyed when Charleston fell, and concedes that \"it is something of a struggle to present a balanced portrait of the man, especially since out of his own mouth he so often offends.\" Rhett was self-righteous, utterly convinced of the rightness of slavery, and careless with the truth. To that we could add, again quoting Davis, \"the inability to follow others and compulsion to enforce his own will, his unwillingness or inability to countenance any ideas but his own, and his constant scheming.\" He was aggressively religious, having had a kind of born-again experience, while remaining within the Episcopal fold.\n\nRhett's view of history was decidedly odd and self-serving, believing as he did that Charles Pinckney, and not Madison, was the real father of the Constitution. One might be forgiven for thinking Rhett barking mad, but that is an insufficient explanation for the phenomenon he presented. He was arguably the single most influential individual in pushing the South to secession; he referred to himself as a \"lucifer,\" a matchstick that lit the blaze. Rhett had been a force in the nullification movement, and played an active if complicated role in Calhoun's increasing radicalization. Under his former name of Robert Barnwell Smith, he had for years been pushing Calhoun to the right from his position in the South Carolina General Assembly, a powerful body that chose the state's governor, senators, and representatives.\n\nRhett was from Beaufort, the wealthy town by the site of the former Huguenot settlement of Charlesfort and the Spanish Santa Elena, in the heart of the region that produced long-staple, or Sea Island, cotton. At Beaufort College in South Carolina the aristocratic young planters flatly rejected the notion of the Age of Reason, and believed fully in the natural right of the oligarchy. Beaufort was Ground Zero of secessionism; the \"secession house\" in that town, owned in the 1850s by brother Edmund Rhett, was a central meeting place for the secession apostles who became known as the Fire-Eaters.\n\nBy the time Rhett arrived in Congress, he had not merely declared (in 1829), that \"I am a Disunionist! I am a Traitor!\" In the wake of the Force Act, he proposed what might lie beyond secession: a confederacy. He was the prophet of an independent slave nation, commanded from South Carolina. In what was perhaps a veiled dig at the most famous Jacksonian poet, Rhett declaimed at the States Rights and Free Trade Party convention of 1833 that \"The star-spangled banner no longer waves in triumph and glory for me. Sir, if a Confederacy of the Southern States could now be obtained, should we not deem it a happy termination\u2014happy beyond expectation, of our long struggle for our rights against oppression?\"\n\nRhett and his clan built the most powerful political clique in Charleston. Any serious politician needed a newspaper, and Rhett's brother-in-law John A. Stuart owned the _Charleston Mercury_ , the most radical paper in the South. The family also came to control the _Columbia South Carolinian_ in the state's capital. There were Rhett brothers in the state legislature, and they had control of the Bank of South Carolina.\n\nIronically, Rhett was a distant cousin of John Quincy Adams. When they were much younger, the two had met in private life. Describing Rhett's congressional speech, Adams drily noted his recent name change: \"Robert Barnwell Rhett (Smith heretofore) moved a long amendment, and literally howled a nullification speech. I say howled, for his enunciation was so rapid, inarticulate, and vociferous that his head hung back as he spoke, with his face upward, like that of a howling dog.\"\n\nIn an 1838 speech before Congress, Rhett explained his economic theory of the superiority of slavery: according to him, slaves were better off than free laborers, because they were both capital and labor, and self-interest would mandate their better treatment. In the midst of his lengthy lecture in political economy, he said, \"there is but one state of society in the world, where labor and capital are identical in interest; and that is where domestic slavery exists... Labor, there, is capital, and capital is labor.\"\n\nAccording to Rhett, that was what South Carolina was fighting for, with God's full approval: for labor to be capital.\n\nOf course, that meant there had to be a capital market. Rhett owned over a hundred slaves, whom he had bought pursuant to a promise not to sell them off. But his obsession was political power, and like many other slaveowning politicians, he was inattentive to his business as a planter, so he sold thirty-six people away to traders to cover his losses.\n\nSALE OF SLAVES. \u2014 I will sell at public auction, on Monday, the 23d October, at 4 o'clock P.M. at the auction room of Edward Dyer, in Washington City, D.C. the following slaves, purchased by me upon the 22d of August last, from Rezin Orme, and who were warranted sound in bodies and in mind, to wit, Dorcas Allen, and her two surviving children, aged about seven and nine years, (the other two having been killed by said Dorcas in a fit of insanity, as found by the jury who lately acquitted her.)\n\nTerms of sale cash, as said slaves will be sold on account of said Rezin Orme, who refuses to retake the same and repay the purchase money, and who is notified to attend said sale, and if he thinks proper to bid for them, or retake them, as he prefers, upon refunding the money paid, and all expenses incurred under the warranty given by him.\n\nJAMES BIRCH\n\nEDWARD DYER,\n\nAuctioneer.\n\nFour years before John Quincy Adams delivered the winning argument in the well-known _Amistad_ case, he went up against District of Columbia slave trader James Birch, with less successful results. A diary entry of October 23, 1837, notes that:\n\nThere was in the National Intelligencer this morning an advertisement signed James H. Birch, and Edward Dyer, auctioneer, headed \"Sale of Slaves\"\u2014a sale at public auction, at four o'clock this afternoon, of Dorcas Allen and her two surviving children, aged about seven and nine years (the other two having been killed by said Dorcas in a fit of insanity, as found by the jury who lately acquitted her). The advertisement further says that the said slaves were purchased by Birch, on the 22d of August last...\n\nI asked Mr. Frye what this advertisement meant. He seemed not to like to speak of it, but said the woman had been sold with her children, to be sent to the South and separated from her husband; that she had killed two of her children, by cutting their throats, and cut her own to kill herself, but in that had failed; that she had been tried at Alexandria for the murder of her children, and acquitted on the ground of insanity; and that this sale now was by the purchaser at the expense of the seller, upon the warranty that she was sound in body and mind.\n\nAdams visited the slave jail and spoke to Dyer, letting the traders know someone in Congress was watching:\n\nI learnt from Dyer that the woman had been the slave of a white woman who had married a man named Davis, who lived at Georgetown and was a clerk in the War Department; that this white woman had died, and had before her death promised Dorcas her freedom; that on her death-bed she had made her husband (Davis) promise her that he would emancipate Dorcas; that he did actually liberate her, but gave her no papers; that she lived twelve or fifteen years at large, married, and had four children; that in the mean time Davis married a second wife [Maria], and afterwards died, without granting to Dorcas her papers of freedom; that Davis's widow [Maria] married a man by the name of Rezin Orme, and that he sold Dorcas and her four children, on the 22d of August last, for seven hundred dollars, to Birch, who is an agent for the negro slave-traders at Alexandria; that Dorcas and her four children were on the same day removed to one of the slave-prisons in Alexandria; that in the night of that day she killed the two youngest of her children\u2014one, a boy four years of age, and the other, a girl under twelve months; that she attempted to kill the other two, but was prevented\u2014their screaming having roused some person in the house, who went into the cell where she was confined and took her surviving children from her; that she was tried at Alexandria for the murder of her two children, and was acquitted by the jury on the ground of insanity.\n\nAdams discussed the case with district attorney Francis Scott Key, who \"appeared to interest himself,\" Adams thought, in the plight of Allen's desperate free black husband, and proposed a fund to purchase her freedom, to which Adams contributed fifty dollars. But, Adams wrote dejectedly on November 2, \"if their freedom from Birch's sale should be purchased, they might still be reclaimed by Davis's creditors.\" Eight days later, he wrote: \"Upon conversing with [Mr. Key], I found he would give no assurance that Dorcas Allen and her children will be free if they should be purchased from Birch. By the law of the place, they are assets of the estate of Gideon Davis, upon which there never has been any administration; neither his widow nor her second husband... had any right to sell them.\"\n\nWhat ultimately happened is left a cliff-hanger in Adams's diary, but Key doesn't seem to have come through for Dorcas Allen. By November 13, she was with her husband, and her two children were back in Birch's jail. \"Mr. Key told me,\" Adams wrote, \"that if upon a writ of habeas corpus Birch's title should be disproved, still they were slaves; they could not be discharged.\"\n\nIn his diary, Adams routinely referred to his Southern congressional opponents as \"the slavers\" and to their Northern supporters as \"the serviles.\" On December 22, 1837, he recounted \"banter\" with Ratliff Boon of Indiana, who, recounts Adams, \"said that if the question ever came to the issue of war, the Southern people would march into New England and conquer it. I said I had no doubt they would if they could, and that it was what they were now struggling for with all their might.\"\n\nThe land-value bubble burst, but it was worse than that.\n\nIn a feat of election-year politicking, Congress passed, and Jackson signed, the Whig-sponsored Deposit Act, which directed that most of the federal government's surplus achieved from approximately $35 million in land sales be distributed beginning in January 1837 to the states in proportion to their number of electoral votes, a formula proposed by Calhoun.\n\nUnfortunately for Mississippi, the state was only entitled to receive about a half million dollars in the distribution, but its deposit banks had ten million dollars' worth of revenues from land sales in the region and therefore were going to have to send away 95 percent of their capital.\n\nMeanwhile, there was an explosion of commercial banking in which new institutions were chartered as if broadcasting seed, with no oversight. Florida banking operations of that time were satirized years later by Ellen Call Long, the daughter of Florida's governor during that era (former Jackson aide Richard K. Call, who had prosecuted the Seminole War):\n\nYou want to know how it operates? Well, you see a man can mortgage his land or negroes; draw from the bank two-thirds (in money) of their value, which will be re-invested in more land and more negroes. One or two crops of cotton will redeem all obligation to the bank; so you see that it is the best thing afloat; a man can just go to sleep, and wake up rich.\n\nThe riches obtained from this kind of maneuver, needless to say, were not in the form of gold pieces, but \"negroes,\" who remained as capital in the planter's possession when the cotton was sold and who could always be used to collateralize a loan.\n\nAfter Jackson promoted the obliging Roger B. Taney to chief justice of the Supreme Court, he named Secretary of the Navy Levi Woodbury to be his fourth secretary of the treasury. As speculators bought public land with increasingly questionable paper, Woodbury on July 11, 1836, issued the document that snapped the overextended banking system: the Specie Circular. Taking effect August 15, it announced an abrupt shift to hard money on the part of the government, which would henceforth require payment for public lands in specie. The plan, apparently, was to remove all notes from circulation under $20 (a little more than $500 in 2014 dollars) and replace them with coins, with paper money being reserved for larger transactions. To make these coins a series of new mints was built, including the US Mint in New Orleans, one of the city's enduring landmarks.\n\nThis move created a demand for coin that sucked specie reserves out of eastern banks. As paper money spiraled toward worthless and banks suspended specie payments, silver and gold pieces were physically repositioned among the states. Biddle wrote in an unsigned piece in 1839 that \"the monetary affairs of the whole country were convulsed\u2014millions upon millions of coin were _in transitu_ in every direction, and consequently withdrawn from useful employment. Specie was going up and down the same river, to and from the South and North and the East and West at the same time; millions were withdrawn from their usual and natural channels, and forced against the current of trade.\"\n\nThe term that was used to describe the westward movement of specie was the same used for the westward movement of Native Americans: removal. The Specie Circular was not the only thing that brought down the American economy, but it was Jackson's crowning achievement to that end.\n\nAs Jackson was preparing to leave office, still riding a national wave of adulation, he warned, according to his biographer Parton, that a \"paper money system and its natural associates, monopoly and exclusive privileges, have already struck their roots deep in the soil, and it will require all your efforts to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil.\"\n\nPaper money was... _evil._ No moral relativism: evil. Only gold and silver were good.\n\nFast-growing New Orleans had broken into three pieces. The French speakers (in the downtown \"French Quarter\") and the uptown Anglophone businessmen had long been at loggerheads, physically separated by Canal Street, which was a filthy, muddy, no-man's-land, or, as they say in New Orleans, \"neutral ground.\"\n\nThough immigrants generally did not come to the South, they did come to New Orleans, the second largest destination for them after New York. They encountered a vicious nativist movement; one New Orleans newspaper was called the _True American._\n\nThe uptown Anglo-Americans in fast-growing New Orleans in effect seceded from the city (though historians have generally refrained from using that term in speaking about it) on March 8, 1836, separating themselves off from their French-speaking counterparts, whom they saw as receiving an excessive share of the public purse. The city split into three municipalities, each in charge of its own revenues.\n\nThe First Municipality, French-speaking and Catholic, was the old town below Canal Street (the French Quarter). The Second, English-speaking and Protestant, was the Faubourg St. Mary, uptown above Canal Street (today's Central Business District). The Third, French-speaking and Catholic (and unpaved and unlighted), was the Faubourg Marigny, downriver from the First below Esplanade. These municipalities, which were more or less antagonistic, each had their own police force, complete with hostilities between the respective departments, whose primary duty was slave patrol. Each municipality built its own levees and administered its own infrastructure.\n\nThe Anglo-Americans of the Second Municipality intended to corner railroad commerce. A proposed railroad, the New Orleans and Nashville, planned to link the major trade terminus of Tennessee with Carrollton, a suburb of New Orleans named for railroad hero Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who had died in 1832 at the age of ninety-five. \"There is very little doubt,\" hummed an 1835 editorial in the _New Orleans Bee_ , \"of the New Orleans and Nashville railroad being completed in 3 or 4 years.\"\n\nThe local spur line to Carrollton was built entirely within the Anglo-controlled part of town. In seceding from New Orleans, the Anglo-American Second Municipality made off with that new railroad link, which began operations on September 22, 1835. But the Nashville railroad was never built; the only part ever completed was the local link, from present-day Lee Circle to Carrollton. Though it never became a freight corridor connected to a mighty railroad, the link became instead the anchor of uptown New Orleans development. Carrying passengers (it even had a ladies' car), it made the far-flung Carrollton Hotel a chic place for downtowners to repair to for supper and encouraged the development of the territory in between. The space between New Orleans and Carrollton filled in alongside the train, whose track became the extension of the former stub street of St. Charles. The rail line became public transport through what became known as the Garden District, and is today the main streetcar line that connects downtown with uptown. The New Orleans streetcar line was thus approximately tied with New York (the Long Island Rail Road) as the first in the US to connect city with suburb by rail.\n\nBut the failure to connect to the national rail network betokened the beginning of New Orleans's long decline. Meanwhile, the breakup of the city left the English speakers without the year's biggest fun. Mardi Gras was a French thing, done at that time in New Orleans more or less on the Parisian model. The pre-Lenten carnival season was celebrated with masked balls galore in the French Quarter, the masks being the main difference between carnival balls and the year-round schedule of dances.\n\nThe first organized Mardi Gras parade that we know of in New Orleans took place in 1837, less than a month before the inauguration in Washington of President Martin Van Buren, which was only six weeks before the New Orleans _True American_ published its sensational reportage on the failure of Hermann, Briggs, and Co.\n\nHeaded by America's most famous war hero, with Martin Van Buren, Amos Kendall, James K. Polk, Sam Houston, John Tyler, James Buchanan, and the young Franklin Pierce; Taney and Woodward on the Supreme Court; and Francis Scott Key as the capital's district attorney, the Jackson dynasty was the most powerful political force the United States had seen.\n\nVan Buren's election was to be its consolidation. Matty Van, or the \"little magician\" (for his short stature and political cunning), the \"red fox\" (for his hair), \"O.K.\" (Old Kinderhook, for his New York home town), or the \"wily Dutchman\" of the \"Albany Regency,\" as one of Polk's correspondents unflatteringly put it, was the first president born after independence, the first presidential candidate to campaign openly, and the first professional politician to become president.\n\nBut the chickens came home to roost on his head. Six weeks after Van Buren was inaugurated on March 4, 1837, his one-term presidency was wracked by economic convulsions as banks began suspending specie payments.\n\nThe winds of global trade had shifted again. The British financiers most heavily exposed to American debtors were insolvent; the Bank of England, which had its own problems, constricted credit. The invention of the telegraph was still seven years away, and steamships did not yet ply the Atlantic: the Panic of 1837 was in part a crisis of slow-moving financial information.\n\nThe panic seems to have begun in New Orleans when the cotton factorage firm Hermann, Briggs, & Co. failed. Perhaps because its proprietor Louis Florian Hermann was a German Jew, the New Orleans _True American_ printed a sensational story about it that traveled far and wide, spreading the worry. Then J. L. & S. Joseph & Co., a New York firm that was Hermann, Briggs's creditor, failed too. Meanwhile, the price of cotton plunged in Liverpool to \"a staggering fifty percent of what the cotton brokers had extended to the planters,\" writes Jessica M. Lepler. There was not yet class solidarity among bankers, so the directors of New Orleans's sixteen (!) banks did not take concerted action or even, apparently, talk to each other as the crisis accelerated. They all suspended specie payments in April, then the failure spread to New York on May 8.\n\nThe 1840 census showed New Orleans as the nation's third largest city, with 102,193 residents, effectively tied with Baltimore's 102,313 for second place. New Orleans, the number-one port in the United States, was unlike the rest of the South in many ways. It was urban. It had a substantial business community and a local economy dominated by factors; a waterfront that shipped the world's greatest quantities of cotton and much sugar; and, since the plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi required enormous amounts of credit, it had a large banking sector, heavily capitalized by captive human beings.\n\nBut though the port's overall receipts continued to grow, the panic was the end of New Orleans's peak period of national influence, and its share of the nation's expanding commerce grew progressively smaller. In particular, New Orleans failed to get in on rail transport, the competition from which was cutting into the river trade more every year. The Mississippi River had formerly been the only way for a wide swath of the United States to get its goods to market. But as railroads slowly extended their reach\u2014slowly, because laying a railroad was a big operation that required solid financing\u2014the rivers would matter less. New Orleans continued growing, but it would never again be tied for second largest city in the nation.\n\nNew Orleans was, however, the largest slave market in the United States. At least half if not more of its sales, and probably most of its high-value deals, were conducted by private sale out of dealer showrooms. Some of the buildings are still there, though the spectacular main auction venues are long gone. Some dealers made slaves stand out on the sidewalk from nine to four, trying to entice buyers. The horrors of slave auctioning have been amply detailed elsewhere, and we will not describe these wrenching scenes here, citing as merely one example the testimony of the formerly enslaved Stephen Jordon, many years after he was sold in New Orleans:\n\nI tell you, people were miserable in that old slave-pen. They used to make them open their mouths so that they could examine their teeth; and they used to strip them naked, from head to foot, to see whether they were perfectly sound. And this they did to women as well as men. I tell you, my dear child, it used to seem to me so brutal to see poor women treated in that way by brutal and heartless men. I declare, child, I can't understand it, although I've been right in it. When they would put them naked that way they used to switch them on the legs to make them jump around so that buyers could see how supple they were.\n\nDealers generally got better prices at private sale than at auction, but not necessarily. Auctions in New Orleans, typically conducted bilingually in French and English, were conducted to turn over large numbers of people as quickly as possible. It was a fast way to get rid of less desirable slaves or, on the other end of the profit scale, to maximize the value of a white-looking beauty or a first-rate cabinetmaker.\n\nThe New Orleans market sent large numbers of young men to the sugar plantations, which always wanted fresh victims, so the gender ratio of people sold in New Orleans skewed disproportionately toward males. But with so many wealthy people in the city, New Orleans also served the nation's largest market for domestic servants and skilled artisans, and it was the number-one retail market for fancy girls, with either Natchez or the horse-racing and gambling center of Lexington, Kentucky, perhaps a distant second in that category.\n\nWith so much money flowing through town, it was a great moment for architecture, not all of which survives. The St. Louis Hotel, which ran the length of the block from Royal to Chartres on St. Louis Street, is long gone. Frederic Bancroft visited its abandoned shell in 1902 and wrote of the \"blaze of light\" from the dome that illuminated the floor where slaves were sold daily. With its front entrance on St. Louis Street, the British visitor J. S. Buckingham described it in 1839:\n\nThe entrance into the Exchange at the St. Louis, is through a handsome vestibule, or hall, of 127 feet by 40, which leads to the Rotunda. This is crowned by a beautiful and lofty dome, with a finely ornamented ceiling in the interior, and a variegated marble pavement.... in the Rotunda, pictures are exhibited, and auctions are held for every description of good. At the time of our visit, there were half a dozen auctioneers, each endeavouring to drown every voice but his own, and all straining their lungs and distorting their countenances in a hideous manner. One was selling pictures, and dwelling on their merits; another was disposing of ground-lots in embryo cities, and expatiating on their capacities; and another was disposing of some slaves.\n\nThese consisted of an unhappy negro family, who were all exposed to the hammer at the same time. Their good qualities were enumerated in English and in French, and their persons were carefully examined by intending purchasers, among whom they were ultimately disposed of, chiefly to Cr\u00e9ole buyers; the husband at 750 dollars, the wife at 550, and the children at 220 each.\n\nThe middle of the Rotunda was filled with casks, boxes, bales, and crates; and the negroes exposed for sale were put to stand on these, to be the better seen by persons attending the sale. Often as I had witnessed this painful scene in the old times of the West Indies, and in several of the countries of the East, it had lost none of its pain by repetition; it appeared, indeed, more revolting here, in contrast with the republican institutions of America.\n\nThe St. Louis was far from the only auction venue. Banks' Arcade, an enormous building that ran from Gravier to Natchez Street on Magazine, hosted them. (A small part of Bank's Arcade still stands, as do a number of now repurposed former slave dealer showrooms in New Orleans.) It was at Banks' on October 15, 1835, that a meeting of the \"friends of Texas\" promised financial and military support to the Anglo-American provisional \"government\" in Texas, in blatant violation of US neutrality laws.\n\nMexico after its independence in 1821 prohibited slavery, but the territory was only sparsely settled; hoping to populate it, the Mexican government invited in settlers from the United States, giving them land. But once the settlers moved in, they declared it theirs. Moses Austin, who had become one of the country's major producers of lead, was a major promoter of the Texas colonization movement. With his eyes on Mexico's lead mines, Austin had sworn allegiance to the Spanish crown in 1798. His son, the Virginia-born, Missouri-raised land speculator Stephen F. Austin, brought slavery to Texas and fought to keep it.\n\nIt was an article of faith throughout the South that American slavery must expand into Texas and beyond. There was no question that Texas would be an ultimate destination for young African Americans who were being born and raised all over the cotton kingdom. Stephen Austin wrote his sister Emily from New Orleans in August 1835, the summer of the Southern abolition panic: \"It is very evident that Texas should be effectually, and fully, Americanized... Texas must be a slave country. It is no longer a matter of doubt. The interest of Louisiana requires that it should be. A population of fanatical abolitionists in Texas would have a very dangerous and pernicious influence on the overgrown slave population of [Louisiana].\"\n\nAndrew Jackson had mentored Sam Houston, the Scotch-Irish-descended, Virginia-born, Tennessee-raised land speculator, politician, and military leader. Houston had served under Jackson in the Creek War, and had been the Jacksonian governor of Tennessee, before fleeing to Texas to escape a disastrous marriage. He was one of fifty-nine signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, four days before the massacre at the Alamo. As a general in the Texas army, he was the hero of the decisive Battle of San Jacinto that took Mexican general Antonio L\u00f3pez de Santa Anna prisoner. On October 22, Jackson's prot\u00e9g\u00e9 became the first president of the Republic of Texas.\n\nThere was much opposition in the North to annexing Texas, because it meant the expansion of US slavery. With Jackson's anointed successor Van Buren fighting hard to be elected president, annexation was too politically controversial and would provoke a sectional controversy instead of strengthening the national party the Democrats had built. James Hamilton of South Carolina printed a report in the _Telegraph_ , a Jacksonian organ that presented \"the Texans as a people struggling for their liberty, and therefore entitled to our sympathy,\" as John Quincy Adams disgustedly wrote in his diary. He continued: \"The fact is directly the reverse\u2014they are fighting for the establishment and perpetuation of slavery, and that is the cause of the South Carolinian sympathy with them.\"\n\nBut for all his involvement in the Texas project, Jackson didn't annex the territory. Instead, one of his last acts as president was to recognize the independent Republic of Texas. Houston tendered an annexation offer, but John Quincy Adams stalled the annexation of Texas in Congress. Houston took it off the table in 1839, with the result that Texas and the United States dealt with each other for about ten years as independent nations.\n\nMeanwhile, two real estate speculators from New York who intended to develop a town obtained permission to use Sam Houston's name. Incorporated on June 5, 1837, the town of Houston\u2014a city named for the sitting president\u2014served as the capital of the Republic of Texas until the capital was moved to Austin in 1839. That year, the Texas Congress adopted the Lone Star banner, representing the territory's readiness to go it alone, as the national flag. It subsequently became, and remains, the state flag of Texas.\n\nIt sounds impressive: the Mississippi and Alabama Railroad Company. More familiarly known as the Brandon Bank, it was chartered in Brandon, Mississippi, in 1836\u2014supposedly to build a railroad, but it never even tried. In 1837, with most of the state's plantation land already mortgaged, the Brandon Bank began making cash advances on cotton crops, paying $0.12 per expected pound. Unfortunately, by July 1838, the price for cotton was down to $0.083 a pound, and moreover, many farmers delivered no cotton to the bank at all. By the fall of that year, the bank's money was circulating in Jackson at 30 to 40 percent off face value.\n\nThe sell-off of the public lands continued; John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary in June 1838 that \"the thirst of a tiger for blood is the fittest emblem of the rapacity with which the members [of Congress] of all the new States fly at the public lands. The constituents upon whom they depend are all settlers, or tame and careless spectators of the pillage. They are themselves enormous speculators and land-jobbers.\" The nation's economy seemed to recover in 1838, as banks warily resumed specie payments, but it didn't last. The US government was broke, and couldn't make the final payment on the redistribution of the long-gone surplus.\n\nThree Mississippi bank commissioners traveled to Philadelphia, where they sold Nicholas Biddle $5 million in Mississippi bonds. Biddle sent the bonds on to London, where \"the United States Banks' London agency sold $2 million of them to European investors and transferred the remaining $3 million to London and Amsterdam bankers as collateral security.\" They wound up in the hands of the Rothschilds, the Baring Brothers, and others who knew quite well that they were purchasing shares in slaves. James T. MacIntosh writes that \"when the specie resulting from the sale of the bonds finally reached Mississippi, people celebrated in the belief that their financial woes were at an end.\" Edwin Arthur Miles writes that the entire population \"regarded those five millions as an especial Godsend... Wagon after wagon was seen conveying a portion of those five million in hard dollars to the vaults of the bank.\" With that money in hand, loans were made supporting cotton production\u2014which was to say, purchasing the bodies of young African Americans, trafficked from more settled regions of the country.\n\nSeveral other states also indebted themselves wildly in the British and other capital markets. \"In a very short period,\" writes Alasdair Roberts, \"American states had accumulated obligations roughly equal to the combined national debt of Russia, Prussia, and the Netherlands.\" Then, prompted by a bad wheat harvest in England that made Britain a food importer, the price of cotton in Liverpool crashed again in April 1839. Prices of slaves, so fundamental to the Southern economy, took a precipitous tumble\u2014the only major slide in the dollar value of slaves during the antebellum decades. As mortgages crashed and liquidation sales put thousands of enslaved laborers for sale in a depressed market, the interstate slave trade slowed down. In Mississippi, the Union Bank lasted less than two years from its creation before its charter was withdrawn by Governor Alexander G. McNutt on July 10, 1840. By 1841, both of the Mississippi state banks had suspended interest payments on their $7 million worth of bonds. Eight states defaulted on their bonds, plus the Territory of Florida. All but Mississippi and Florida eventually resumed payment on at least some of them, though Louisiana, Arkansas, and Michigan repudiated part of them.\n\nThe Republic of Texas, which had no extradition treaty with the United States, quickly became notorious as a haven for busted farmers escaping their debts\u2014G.T.T., gone to Texas\u2014and for deadbeats and crooks of all sorts. Texas had no money to speak of, but when Texans did have money\u2014often meaning, when they could borrow it\u2014they tended to spend it on slaves. Sam Houston wrote General William G. Harding of Nashville on July 17, 1841, trying to explain why he hadn't paid back a $500 loan yet:\n\nI have offered every sacrifice in property, but there _is no money in Texas_ , but our depreciated notes. I have upward of twenty five thousand dollars due me, and some of it for years, and I cannot collect as much as will pay one fourth of my land Tax! In addition, two valuable negro boys for which I had paid in cash $2100 previous to my visit to Nashville, ran away last spring to Mexico. Thus you see I am in bad luck\n\nThe State of Mississippi's answer was simple: rather than impose a tax to pay its obligations, it flat-out stiffed its creditors. Alleging legal technicalities, Governor McNutt proposed debt repudiation to the legislature on January 5, 1841. It was blatant theft, based on a bogus legalistic argument, and it became a divisive campaign issue in the subsequent state election. The pro-repudiation forces won, and passed a constitutional amendment that forbade repaying the bonds. Occasioning litigation that dragged on into the twentieth century, the default ruined the name of Mississippi in Europe, and even affected the ability of the US government to borrow there, although the federal government had a clean credit record.\n\nBill collectors prowled Mississippi. When England threatened to invade the state on behalf of its burned creditors, John Quincy Adams moved on March 2, 1843, that any state that found itself at war as a result of repudiating its debts \"will cease thereby to be a State of this Union, and will have no right to aid in her defense from the United States, or any one of them.\"\n\nWhen the Southern states seceded not twenty years later\u2014repudiating debts in the process\u2014British financiers were not eager to lend money.\n\n#   35\n\n# **The Slave Trade to Cuba and Brazil**\n\n_The fruit, thus far, of the measures against the slave-trade, has been the substitution of small, sharp, wet clippers, for the large, clump, dry vessels, of double and treble the tonnage which would now be employed to transport the same number of persons; and there is no telling how far this process of reduction may be carried. 1_\n\n\u2014Nicholas B. Trist, 1839\n\nAT SUNDOWN ON JULY 31, 1834, some 775,000 enslaved people (sources vary as to the exact number) in the British West Indies became free\u2014technically, at least, though most remained as \"apprentices\" until 1838. Twenty million pounds was allocated to compensate slaveowners for their lost property, but the newly freed Afro-Antilleans were not paid compensation for their stolen labor or their stolen persons. Some forty-seven thousand claimants filed for compensation as ex-slaveowners; the 6 percent of them who were absentees received 8.2 million pounds, or 41 percent of the money. Britain's economy was large enough and diverse enough to be able to easily buy out the slaveowners, something that would have been impossible in the American South.\n\nThe end of slavery in Jamaica was followed by a sharp drop in sugar production there, subsequently cited by Southerners as a boilerplate cautionary tale: there was no production without the whip. Meanwhile, Cuban sugar planters, who continued using the whip, had their greatest opportunity since Saint-Domingue disappeared from the market forty years before.\n\nCuba didn't have a domestic slave trade. Like every place else that raised sugar, the growth rate of its enslaved population was negative. Cuba's slave market clamored for more Africans. Now that Britain was no longer trying to stop American commerce and was, pursuant to treaty, respecting American vessels at sea, blockade runners and privateers were no longer called for. But the Baltimore shipyards still did business building their fast-sailing boats, which could elude capture by the British Navy better than any other vessel. Even as Baltimore traders were shipping African Americans down South, the city's maritime industry was doing a big business illegally servicing the African slave trades to Cuba and Brazil with impunity, in the absence of any will to prosecute. Its prolific shipyards turned out schooners with special-shaped hulls for the thoroughly prohibited African slave trade, which was operating massively to Cuba and Brazil.\n\nFernando VII of Spain\u2014remembered as the \"Felon King,\" he dispensed with Spain's short-lived constitutional government to restore absolute monarchical power\u2014accepted a payment of \u00a3400,000 from Britain in return for criminalizing the African slave trade to his domains as of May 30, 1820. After he signed the compact, Spain and Britain set up a Mixed Court in Havana with officials from both countries to emancipate Africans from captured ships. In Brazil, the world record-holder for numbers of African slaves by far, a similar Mixed Court of Portuguese and British was established.\n\nFernando all but laughed in Britain's face. Cuba's prosperity\u2014 _his_ prosperity\u2014depended on a constant flow of slaves, with the creole and Spanish planters of Cuba for a market. The global cholera epidemic had reached the sugar plantations of Cuba, where by 1833 thousands of slaves had died and \"nearly depopulated... several estates,\" intensifying the demand for labor, even as new lands continued to be converted to sugar.\n\nParticipation in this trade by US citizens was defined by US law as piracy and punishable by hanging. But President Jackson didn't care, and he wasn't in an enforcing mood. His consul in Havana was Nicholas Philip Trist, whose credentials, both as a Jacksonian and as a staunch pro-slavery man, were impeccable for this important patronage position.\n\nWell-educated and suavely mannered, Trist was a link between the worlds of Jefferson and Jackson. He had been tutored in law personally by his wife's grandfather Thomas Jefferson in their hometown of Charlottesville. He had been Jackson's private secretary in 1831 and was a lesser member of Jackson's unofficial circle of advisors that the Calhounites dubbed the Kitchen Cabinet.\n\nHe arrived in Havana in 1833, the year before General Miguel Tac\u00f3n became the Spanish captain general of Cuba, and remained there until 1841, bringing Virginia Jefferson Randolph Trist there to live with him. Trist, who gave slave captains of various countries permission to fly the star-spangled banner, seems to have come to an understanding with Tac\u00f3n.\n\nAs the British captured slave ships, they sent most of the slaves thus emancipated to Sierra Leone, but some thousands were also brought to Havana, where they were supposed to be set free. Unfortunately for them, Tac\u00f3n and his colleagues, principally including monopolist fishmonger Francisco Mart\u00ed (\"Pancho Marty\"), had a business reselling the _emancipados_ back into slavery, until the British in 1835 realized what was happening and stopped handing them over. One formerly emancipated African woman wound up being the property of Trist, who hired her out, collecting $2.50 a week for her services.\n\nNow that slave ships were illegal pursuant to Fernando's deal with Britain, they had to make payoffs, which, it was charged, made their way up the Spanish political channels. A slaver who played the game got preferential treatment, including a privilege no one else had: to enter the harbor after dark. Tac\u00f3n took a cut from the traders, reportedly a half-ounce of gold per captive. Slavers could well afford the payoffs; by 1840, Cuba was producing 21 percent of the world's cane sugar. Trist estimated in an 1839 letter that Tac\u00f3n was making more than $200,000 a year from the slave trade, \"a sum which, however respectable in itself, does not appear of very startling magnitude when compared with the value of twenty thousand slaves, which is about the number landed within the region.\"\n\nWe don't have a number for what Trist made. It seems unlikely that he turned the US consul's office into a slave-trading clearing house as a purely charitable act. But though his household finances had been damaged by Jefferson's impoverishment, he did not leverage his activities into permanent wealth: he constantly complained about his debts, he continued as a government functionary, and he was poor later in life. Working for perhaps the most anti-British president ever, he seems to have seen his enabling activity as a patriotic, pro-slavery act, designed to give the British navy as much trouble as possible.\n\nAccording to the British commissioner J. Kennedy in Havana, Trist in 1836 \"declared he would not even open a letter from us in future.\" The British commissioners repeatedly complained to the US government about Trist, and he was finally recalled to Washington. Horace Greeley's antislavery the _New-Yorker_ reported in October of that year that _\"Mr. N.P. Trist_ , Consul at Havana, has been ordered home by the President, to make answer to the serious accusations against him. The charge of fitting out _slavers_ from Havana with American papers is the most formidable.\"\n\nAfter John Quincy Adams interceded, Alexander Hill Everett was sent to Havana to investigate Trist's dealings with the slave traders. What he found was shocking: Trist had been registering slavers as US ships and allowing them the use of the American flag, along with false bills of sale and blank registries with his signature that could be filled out to show Spanish or Portuguese ownership. John Quincy Adams thought it \"perfectly conclusive of the guilt of Trist in conniving at, aiding and abetting, by all means in his power, the African slave-trade by Americans, Portuguese, and Spaniards.\" The British commissioner J. Kennedy told Everett that \"prior to 1836 we have no account of any vessel sailing hence under the United States flag to Africa, to be employed in Slave Trade,\" but in October 1836 five American vessels left Havana for Africa, a month after arriving from the United States\u2014apparently from Baltimore\u2014\"equipped for the slave trade,\" carrying lumber with which the crew would construct a belowdecks level once the vessel reached Africa. Eleven American-flagged vessels sailed from Cuba for Africa in 1837. As it became clear that the traffic could be conducted with impunity, it picked up: in 1838, there were nineteen American-flagged slave ships; and in 1839, twenty-three. The post of Portuguese consul in Havana was vacant for almost two years, and Trist filled in, authorizing Brazilian slave deals as well, thus servicing the two major African-buying territories.\n\nNewly built boats sailed from Baltimore to Havana, then on to Africa with an American captain, or an American pretending to be the captain, or sometimes a foreign captain pretending to be an American, with an all-Spanish or Portuguese crew or even with an American crew, often switching flags once they arrived in Africa and took on captives. Without the American flag on the way back, the ships were susceptible to boarding and confiscation by the British navy, but the danger of being captured before the return voyage had been eliminated, and if caught, the crews were not criminally chargeable: only the ship and the human cargo were subject to confiscation. Many traders thought the rewards great enough to justify the risk.\n\nTrist brokered one deal in 1838 for a Spanish slave trader in Cuba to buy a Baltimore schooner that sailed for Africa with a Spanish crew, under an American captain and flag, with the name _Ontario of Baltimore_ painted on her stern. The British captain's report read, \"Her sale was, no doubt, effected at Havana, although the bill of sale mentioned it to have taken place in Brass [present-day Nigeria]. In this instance the American flag gave unqualified protection to the slave trade.\" At some point, the flag was taken down; the captain apprehended the _Ontario_ \"with 220 slaves on board. She was under Spanish colors, but had no papers whatever.\"\n\nGeneral Tac\u00f3n remained at his post for fifteen years; the money from his wide-open clandestine slave trade paid for a building spree of historic dimensions in Havana, adjacent to the old city in what is now called Centro Habana. Pancho Marty built one of the largest and finest theaters in the world, Havana's Gran Teatro Tac\u00f3n, which opened during Carnaval on February 18, 1838, with five floors corresponding to social classes. According to a British Commissioners' report to Parliament in 1839:\n\nan astonishing number of new estates have been opened throughout the island within the last two years. In the district of Cienfuegos, of 40 estates now working there, 27 have been of recent formation... many [new plantations] have been commenced by American and some even by British subjects, who will thus, of course, give considerable impetus to the Slave Trade by means of their capital, industry, and skill.\n\nThe British rear admiral George Elliot, tasked with enforcing the ban on the slave trade, asked for clarification of his orders on February 6, 1839:\n\nThe probable object of using the American flag will be to protect the vessels up to the time of the cargo being ready for shipment; then to go through the farce of selling the vessel to a Portuguese or Spaniard.\n\nBut, in case of the capture of vessels with _slaves on board, under the American flag_ , I should beg to know what is to be done with the man passing for the American captain?\n\nA week later, he wrote: \"the use of the American flag is becoming rapidly more general in the protection of the Spanish slave-vessels.\" Elliot began capturing ships whose captains claimed to be naturalized US citizens. \"Several of the slave-dealers,\" he wrote, \"have declared their intention to have an American sailing-master in each vessel, and American colors.\"\n\nThe traders sold slaves into the Republic of Texas, which was a haven for illegal slave trading. Hugh Thomas writes that Charles David Tolm\u00e9, the British consul in Havana, \"in 1837 thought that 1,500 slaves might have been secretly carried to Texas in the previous few years.\" The Virginia-born Sam Houston put a stop to that, when on December 19, 1836, he signed a \"Proclamation Against the Slave Trade,\" which declared that \"the importation or admission of Africans or negroes into this Republic\" was \"forever prohibited and declared to be piracy,\" with one significant exception: if they came from the United States of America. In other words, he locked down Texas as a market for the US domestic slave trade.\n\nThe _Baltimore American_ of July 4, 1838, reported that \"A noble corvette ship, the Venus, Captain Wallace, pierced for 18 guns, built in this city on foreign account, is also ready for sea. She is, we learn, the sharpest clipper-built vessel ever constructed here, and according to the opinion of nautical men, must outsail any thing that floats.\" Her Majesty's judge in Havana saw this item reprinted in the _Diario de la Marina_ , when the ship arrived in ballast with a cargo of bricks after making the twenty-four-day sail from Baltimore to Havana, quoting it in a report that continued:\n\nThe Venus is destined for Mozambique, and is arranged to bring as many even as 1,000 negroes; in which case, it is said, she would clear to the speculators from $100,000 to $200,000 in her first voyage\u2014her cash price being estimated at $50,000, and the expenses of cargo and slaves at another $50,000.\n\nOn the subject of vessels going equipped under the American flag to the coast of Africa, there to be pretended to be transferred for the first time to some Portuguese or Spanish owner, I have had several conversations with the American consul at this place [Trist], a gentleman of high character and of considerable reading and observation. I regret, however, to say that I have received only the most discouraging replies on every point relating to the prohibited traffic; and to add, that this seems the general feeling here of the American community. They all seem to declare that... England may as well think of closing up the work-shops of Birmingham, where they say the bolts and shackles are manufactured, as call on America to forbid the sailing of vessels equipped with them. In answer, I have not hesitated to express my disbelief of the shackles coming from Birmingham, and to declare my full conviction that at no port whatever, in England, would they allow any such articles to be shipped, had they any idea of their being intended for such a purpose.\n\nI regret to have also to inform your lordship that, during the suspension of the Portuguese consul, as I have previously stated, the American consul has been acting _pro tempore_ in that character.\n\nThe cargoes\u2014the masses of imprisoned humans down in the hold\u2014were getting larger; the _Venus_ arrived back from Africa in Havana's harbor with 860 captives on board. Out of Havana, then, slave vessels carrying large numbers of Africans were being run by Spanish, Cuban creole, Portuguese, Brazilian, and United Statesian operators under the protection of the US flag. Some returned from Africa to Cuba, others to Brazil. The British captain Brunswick Popham wrote to Admiral Elliot that he did not want to exceed his instructions by arresting an American, \"feeling that I should not be borne out, in interfering with a citizen of the United States; of which, it appeared to me, the American Government evinced no disposition to tolerate, _even in very extreme cases.\"_ 23 (emphasis in original) Popham closed his letter with:\n\nIt has been mentioned by Spaniards and Portuguese slaving on this coast, that, were it not for the very active co-operation of the Americans, the slave-trade would very materially decline\u2014in fact, be but feebly carried on. I do not doubt, from all that I hear, that the citizens of the United States (generally of Baltimore) are more deeply interested in the slave-trade to Havana and Brazil than is generally supposed.\n\nAmong the papers dealing with the affair that were published as part of Van Buren's annual message at the end of 1840 was Trist's rambling defense, in which he professed indignation at the slave trade while demonstrating a close knowledge of it, and resorted to a change of subject to the classic y'all-do-it-too pro-slavery trope: insulting the British for profiting off the labor of a hypothetical girl working in the Lancashire textile mills.\n\nTrist (for whom a middle school in Meraux, Louisiana, is named) figures in the best-known case of American slavery law from the period. He authorized the voyage of the _Tecora_ , whose captives from Sierra Leone were transferred in Havana to the schooner _Amistad_ , which coasted along toward Puerto Pr\u00edncipe (Camag\u00fcey). The captives on the _Amistad_ overpowered the ship and tried to sail back to Africa. But they didn't know how; the mates, hoping to have the mutineers all captured, brought the ship on a northwest course instead. They were ultimately captured by the US Navy floating off Long Island, New York.\n\nThe Cuban slaveowners sued to have their property returned. John Quincy Adams argued the case for two days in 1841 before the Taney Supreme Court and won the Africans' freedom, based on the notions that the United States had no jurisdiction and that they could not have been legally enslaved. He asked the court: \"my clients are claimed under the treaty [of 1795, between the US and Spain] as merchandise, rescued from pirates and robbers. Who were the merchandise, and who were the robbers? According to the construction of the Spanish minister, the merchandise were the robbers, and the robbers were the merchandise. The merchandise was rescued out of its own hands, and the robbers were rescued out of the hands of the robbers. Is this the meaning of the treaty?\"\n\nTrist lost his post in 1841, with the coming of the Whigs. He faced no criminal charges for dozens of cases of using the American flag to cover blatant felonious activity, which would have made him an accessory to the slave trade that was defined as piracy by US law. As Adams remarked in the _Amistad_ argument: \"Say it was a Baltimore clipper, fitted for the African slave trade, and having performed a voyage, had come back to our shores, directly or indirectly, with fifty-four African victims on board, and was thus brought into port\u2014what would be the assistance guarantied by our laws to American citizens, in such circumstances? The captain would be seized, tried as a pirate, and hung!\" Trist's guilt was never proved in a court, nor was he censured by Congress.\n\nSuccessive administrations of the United States government turned a blind eye to American involvement in the African slave trade that had reopened following the Napoleonic Wars, and did little to enforce the law against it as US shipbuilders, captains, financiers, and officials facilitated the trade to Cuba and Brazil. But these African slave ships did not come to the United States. The government _did_ effectively police the importation of Africans to the United States, because that was a protected market.\n\nWithout that protection, Virginia's economy would probably have collapsed. James Henry Hammond of Columbia, South Carolina, noted in his diary after dining with \"Dr. Carter of Virginia\" on February 12, 1841, that \"he told me that in Virginia now planters realized nothing except from raising slaves and the increase in the value of their lands in consequence of improvements from marling [spreading quicklime].\" Then, with a bit of snark, he added, \"I suspect the rise in lands is rather imaginary.\"\n\n_Butler Island, Georgia, May 2013._\n\n#   36\n\n# **Heaps and Piles of Money**\n\n_You cannot think (to return to the songs of my boatmen) how strange some of their words are: in one, they repeatedly chanted the \"sentiment\" that \"God made man, and man makes\"\u2014what do you think?\u2014\"money!\" Is not that a peculiar poetical proposition? 1_\n\n\u2014Fanny Kemble\n\nPIERCE MEASE BUTLER HADN'T wanted his impulsive, high-spirited, strong-willed, self-absorbed, talkative wife, Frances \"Fanny\" Kemble Butler, to come South, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. In late 1838, she traveled to the Sea Islands of Georgia to spend fifteen disturbing weeks as plantation mistress of Butler Island. Her husband had inherited the property from his grandfather the framer: Major Pierce Butler, the father of the fugitive slave clause to the Constitution, who in his day had been the second largest slaveowner\u2014which is to say, the second richest man\u2014in Georgia.\n\nKemble was the superstar young actress who revitalized British theater, then came to America for a year of performances in 1833\u201334 that inspired American girls to wear their hair in \"Fanny Kemble curls.\" Butler assiduously devoted more than a year to courting the famous young woman nearly full-time, which he could do because he did not work, or even have an identifiable profession other than spending money.\n\nIn spite of the sums she was earning from her performances, Kemble's finances were spread thin by her family's expenses, and the handsome, self-assured Butler seemed to offer, among other things, financial stability. But then she found out what being married to a slaveowner meant, in the context of a nineteenth-century marriage. Living with her husband in Philadelphia, she found that Mrs. Pierce Butler was expected not to have a stage career, publish her writing, associate with her former friends, or disagree with her husband in any way. Kemble had not declared herself to be an abolitionist before her marriage, but her diaries suggest that she made a personal connection between her condition as a married woman and that of the enslaved. She lived out her contradictions in public, via her twin careers as writer and actress, in one of the high-profile marriage disasters of the century.\n\nKemble had apparently believed Butler's assurances that he was one of the \"good\" slaveowners. But after he became the full owner of his grandfather's Sea Island estate following the death of his brother in 1836, she saw the reality. Kemble is most remembered today for _Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838\u20131839_ , her account of the months she passed there. A collection of privately circulated letters, harshly critical of slavery, she ultimately allowed it to be published in 1863 in London in the hope it might help keep Britain from siding with the Confederacy.\n\nIn it, to Butler's everlasting humiliation that his wife had gone so far out of his control, she matter-of-factly blew the whistle on slavery as a system of concubinage and breeding. She wrote of rewards and privileges for childbearing women that were \"indirect inducements to reckless propagation... a woman thinks, and not much amiss, that the more frequently she adds to the number of her master's live-stock by bringing new slaves into the world, the more claims she will have upon his consideration and good-will.\"\n\nKemble shared in the racism of the times, as in her ape-libel description of one of the enslaved who was possessed of a beautiful singing voice (in which, incidentally, she references the African American use of the word \"brother\"):\n\nBy-the-by, this individual _does_ speak, and therefore I presume he is not an ape, ourang-outang, chimpanzee, or gorilla; but I could not, I confess, have conceived it possible that the presence of articulate sounds, and the absence of an articulate tail, should make, externally at least, so completely the only appreciable difference between a man and a monkey, as they appear to do in this individual 'black brother.' Such stupendous long thin hands, and long flat feet, I did never see off a large quadruped of the ape species. But, as I said before, Isaac _speaks_ , and I am much comforted thereby.\n\nAt the same time, she saw the mote when it was not in her own eye:\n\nOne of their songs displeased me not a little, for it embodied the opinion that 'twenty-six black girls not make mulatto yellow girl'; and as I told them I did not like it, they have omitted it since. This desperate tendency to despise and undervalue their own race and colour, which is one of the very worst results of their abject condition, is intolerable to me.\n\nKemble was appalled by \"the meritorious air with which the women always made haste to inform me of the number of children they had borne, and the frequent occasions on which the older slaves would direct my attention to their children, exclaiming, 'Look, missis! little niggers for you and massa, plenty little niggers for you and little missis!'\" After Butler forbade her to continue carrying him requests for better treatment from the enslaved, she received a visit from the pregnant women whose owner she did not want to be, but whose labor supported her and provided a legacy for their two daughters:\n\nThe women who visited me yesterday were all in the family-way, and came to entreat of me to have the sentence (what else can I call it?) modified which condemns them to resume their labor of hoeing in the fields three weeks after their confinement . . Their principal spokeswoman... implored me to have a kind of labor given to them less exhausting during the month after their confinement, I held the table before me so hard in order not to cry that I think my fingers ought to have left a mark on it.\n\nOnce Kemble saw what Butler's fortune really depended on\u2014and realized that he too had been fornicating with enslaved women\u2014the marriage was over, though ending it took years, created a public spectacle, and set in motion a lifelong battle for the affections of the couple's two daughters. Divorce was uncommon in those days, and the law was not friendly to it. South Carolina did not allow divorce at all (until 1949). The suit was filed in Philadelphia, where state laws were relatively liberal on divorce; but the presumption was that children belonged to the father, and Butler kept the daughters. In a legal narrative drawn up for Butler by his attorneys in the course of divorce proceedings, which Butler published and circulated privately, he expressed his view of marriage as a contract between unequal partners:\n\nOne reason, and perhaps the fundamental one, for the ill success which attended my marriage, will readily be found in the peculiar views which were entertained by Mrs. Butler on the subject of marriage... She held that marriage should be companionship on equal terms\u2014partnership in which, if both partners agree, it is well; but if they do not, neither is bound to yield\u2014and that at no time has one partner a right to control the other.\n\nHe recalled that \"although we resided in Pennsylvania, where slavery does not exist, the greater part of my property lies in the State of Georgia, and consists of plantations and negroes. Mrs. Butler, after our marriage, not before, declared herself to be in principle an abolitionist...\"\n\nBut that was before Kemble met Die, who\n\nhad had sixteen children, fourteen of whom were dead; she had had four miscarriages, one had been caused by falling down with a very heavy burthen on her head, and one from having her arms strained up to be lashed. I asked her what she meant by having her arms tied up; she said their hands were first tied together, sometimes by the wrists, and sometimes, which was worse, by the thumbs, and they were then drawn up to a tree or post, so as almost to swing them off the ground, and then their clothes rolled round their waist, and a man with a cow-hide stands and stripes them. I give you the woman's words; she did not speak of this as of anything strange, unusual or especially horrid and abominable; and when I said, \"Did they do that to you when you were with child?\" she simply replied, \"Yes, missis.\" And to all this I listen\u2014I, an English woman, the wife of the man who owns these wretches, and I cannot say, \"That thing shall not be done again[.\"]\n\nOnce independent, she went back to work, paying her family's expenses by giving one-woman readings of Shakespeare plays.\n\nPrices for slaves might go down, but there was always a market for them. After all the banks had suspended specie payments, and planters by the thousands had sworn never to deal with banks and paper money again, there were still hundreds of thousands of enslaved people, whose bodies were the most reliable store of value.\n\nNo free black youth in the North was entirely safe from the \"negro stealers.\" One of the best-known slave narratives, meticulously adapted into an Oscar-winning movie in 2013, has as its full title _Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River in Louisiana._ It describes how Northup was lured in 1841 from Saratoga, New York, to Washington, DC, with the promise of work. He was kidnapped and sold, becoming a captive of two slave traders infamous for their brutality. At the shipping end was James Birch of the District of Columbia, the same trader who had put Dorcas Allen and her children up for sale. After protesting that he was a free man from New York, Northup received a severe beating from Birch, described in detail, with the threat never again to say such a thing or he'd be killed. \"I doubt not he understood then better than I did,\" Northup wrote, \"the danger and the penalty of selling a free man into slavery.\"\n\nWhile imprisoned in Washington, a woman named Eliza arrived, with a son Randall and a daughter named Emily, who, recalled Northup,\n\nwas seven or eight years old, of light complexion, and with a face of admirable beauty. Her hair fell in curls around her neck, while the style and richness of her dress, and the neatness of her whole appearance indicated she had been brought up in the midst of wealth. She was a sweet child indeed. The woman also was arrayed in silk, with rings upon her fingers, and golden ornaments suspended from her ears. Her air and manners, the correctness and propriety of her language\u2014all showed evidently, that she had sometime stood above the common level of a slave. She seemed to be amazed at finding herself in such a place as that.\n\nAfter two weeks imprisoned in Washington, Northup and the pen's other captives were marched to a steamboat in the dead of night and taken down the Potomac, then transferred to stagecoaches and finally taken by rail to Richmond, where they were examined and where Northup was chained together in the pen with Robert, a kidnapped free-born black man from Cincinnati. They were put on an oceangoing brig that took on four more slaves at a stop in Norfolk; as they were sailing to New Orleans, Robert died of smallpox. Arriving there, they were taken charge of by Theophilus Freeman, one of New Orleans's largest slave dealers; Northup, who had contracted smallpox, was taken to Charity Hospital and managed to recuperate.\n\nNorthup watched as Freeman sold Eliza's son Randall away, then sold Eliza, refusing the buyer's offer, urged by Eliza's desperate pleading, to sell her daughter Emily to him as well:\n\nHe would not sell her then on any account whatever. There were heaps and piles of money to be made of her, he said, when she was a few years older. There were men enough in New-Orleans who would give five thousand dollars for such an extra, handsome, fancy piece as Emily would be, rather than not get her. No, no, he would not sell her then. She was a beauty\u2014a picture\u2014a doll\u2014one of the regular bloods\u2014none of your thick-lipped, bullet-headed, cotton-picking niggers\u2014if she was might he be d--d.\n\nWhen Eliza heard Freeman's determination not to part with Emily, she became absolutely frantic.\n\n\"I will _not_ go without her. They shall _not_ take her from me,\" she fairly shrieked, her shrieks commingling with the loud and angry voice of Freeman, commanding her to be silent.\n\nAs an unidentified formerly enslaved man, born circa 1845, recalled: \"I've seen them sell women away from little children, and women would be cryin' and they'd slap 'em about cryin'.\"\n\nBiddle's United States Bank of Pennsylvania failed in February 1841. The settlement of its outstanding liabilities on behalf of creditors took years. To try to collect on its debts, the British trustees created the Bacon Trust, headed by John Bacon, which was assigned $12.5 million in assets to recover; 41 percent of them were in Mississippi and another 30 percent were in New Orleans and Mobile.\n\nLouisiana passed a measure allowing debtors to settle at twenty-five cents on the dollar, and in Louisiana, since slaves were considered \"immovables,\" they could not be seized and separately sold. Neither of those conditions held in Mississippi, where the Bacon Trust became the biggest financier and \"probably ranked among the largest slaveholders\" in the state, says Richard Holcombe Kilbourne, who assembled its history out of a mass of archival documents.\n\nThe Bacon Trust's man on the ground, Joseph L. Roberts, actively managed as many as four plantations at a time. The value of mortgage debt, he found, was often compromised by the prior removal of \"the slaves which ma[de] mortgaged debts most safe.\" Once again, coined labor beat coined land: Roberts could not accept land in satisfaction of debts, because it was not salable; slaves, however were: \"Negroes,\" he wrote, \"c[ould] be sold & attain th[e] object but land not.\" The Bacon Trust thus involved itself repeatedly in the person-selling business. Prices were still \"dull,\" but, as Roberts wrote, \"good Negroes I am told will sell readily altho they will not bring high prices.\" Accordingly, Roberts accepted slaves as security, sometimes large numbers of them, and sold them, sometimes at sheriff's sales, sometimes buying them back on his own account.\n\nIn 1846, after Roberts had taken over a Louisiana plantation from a scam artist who had run the place down, his agent \"reported a wretched state of things\u2014Only 53 Negroes large & small; they received 60 Negroes with the place & their natural increase, inclusive of deaths, ought now to have made on the place at least 75 in number\u2014several of the Negroes now there are sickly & inefficient from overwork & exposure\u2014some frost bitten, some ruptured, some branded on their hips as runaways\u2014all without shoes & most of them without winter clothing or blankets.\"\n\nThe frost-bitten people who were property had to be discounted by the British banks' representative. Perhaps their fate was that nightmare of the enslaved: being sold at auction as \"refuse slaves.\"\n\n#   37\n\n# **The Slave Power**\n\n_A slave dreads the punishment of stripes more than he does imprisonment, and that description of punishment has, besides, a beneficial effect upon his fellow-slaves._\n\n\u2014Representative James K. Polk on the floor of the House, April 27, 1830\n\nTHERE NEVER WAS A president of the United States from Mississippi. But Tennessean James K. Polk was the absentee owner of a plantation in Mississippi, for which he bought slaves on an ongoing basis while he was a congressman, and then while he was president.\n\nPolk's father, Sam Polk, was a land speculator in Tennessee, of the same generation as land speculator Andrew Jackson, who was an occasional visitor to the household when Jimmy Polk was growing up. Though Polk was as frail as Jackson was tough, the diminutive, sickly Scotch-Irish-descended lawyer was Jackson's loyal follower. Polk, who suffered all his life from bowel disorders, was apparently sterile and perhaps impotent as the result of an unfortunate operation to remove a urinary stone, performed without anesthetic when he was sixteen. His devoted and religious wife, Sarah Childress Polk, who had no children to occupy her, was instead an active participant in Polk's political career. She allowed no work or amusements on Sunday, would not serve spirits stronger than wine with dinner at White House functions, and would not sponsor balls with dancing. In order to cut down on the expenses of running the White House, which had to be borne by the president, she discharged its ten-member staff and replaced them with slaves who lived in the White House basement, which had drainage problems and frequently flooded.\n\nFirst elected to Congress in 1825, Polk carried Jackson's water in the House, and with his backing became Speaker for two terms. Hoping in vain to live to an old age in which his plantation income would support him while he lived in a big house in Nashville, he bought young people, typically one at a time, as the opportunity came along or as his farming needs seemed to require.\n\nPolk kept a diary, intended for posterity, that does not mention slaves. But perhaps because he died suddenly, his correspondence was never sanitized, and it contains an extensive paper trail, including a number of letters that document the amount of time and money he spent buying slaves while in office as well as his injunctions to keep it secret. The title of William Dusinberre's book on the subject expresses it: _Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk._ In his spare time, while directing a war of conquest that would expand slavery and thus sharply increase the valuation of existing slaveholdings, Polk also directed from the White House, via an overseer, a slave-labor plantation of which he was an inept absentee landlord.\n\nIn keeping with the common capital accumulation scenario of the South, Polk rarely sold slaves; he bought them in order to grow his value through their appreciation in price and increase in number. People frequently came offering deals on slaves to his brother-in-law, who bought for him. His collected correspondence contains frequent reference to the business of \"negroes\" until late in his life, as well as frequent references to their illness.\n\nPolk's slaves were a miserable, unhealthy lot who couldn't even sustain \"natural increase\" over the years. Instead, Polk tried to increase his wealth by buying more slaves\u2014which meant people twenty-one or younger. Every one of them would have been torn away from a family before being sold, so that the social composition of his plantation labor force followed the Deep South cotton-plantation model: a collection of young people bought like mules and cut off from their familiar lives, with few natural or local connections among them, in an atmosphere of violent, daily repression.\n\nLike any absentee plantation owner, Polk had to rely on his overseer, who whipped the workers unmercifully. An overseer's worth was measured in short-term results\u2014making the best crop possible _this_ year\u2014so his interest was at cross-purposes with the owner's stake in the workers' longevity. In 1832, during the cholera epidemic, Polk, then a congressman, received a letter from overseer Herbert Biles, revealing that in spite of the entire work force being sick, Biles had made them produce twenty-five thousand pounds of cotton:\n\nI hav bad news to writ to you. Lucys youngist Child died on the 16th of the instant and the little orphin Child died yester Day and the other little girl I am afraid will go the same way.... Seasor has bean under the Doctr ever senc you ware hear with the Liver Complaint but is likley to recover. The rest of the niggars the most of them has bean sick.... I hav got out About twenty five thousand lb of Cotton and hav got on[e] lo[a]d Reddy to send down but the Colry [cholera] got to Memphis and Alarmed the people so that thay ware Afraid to gone thair.\n\nPolk's farm must have been a true horror. His slaves ran away much more than was usual on a well-run plantation. One of them, Gilbert, did it _ten_ times. After Chunky Jack and Ben had absconded and been apprehended, Polk's brother-in-law and business advisor Silas M. Caldwell wrote him on January 4, 1834: \"Your negroes here are very much dissatisfied. I believe I have got them quieted. Some others spoke of running away...\" Caldwell's letter continued, reporting a crib death (which at then-current market rates meant a loss of perhaps $75 to Polk's net worth), and note the reference to the deceased child as \"it,\" and apparently to the labor force as \"stock\":\n\nElizabeths child died last night; she smothered it somehow. No person knew it was dead until this morning. It was a very fine child... I had it Buried to day. Maria has a fine boy about one Month old. I Bot you a very fine mule and Brot down with me. I gave $100 for it out of a drove. Your stock looks very well here, your negroes have plenty of Milk.\n\nAnother brother-in-law and business adviser, James Walker, wrote Polk that \"I am not sure that to sell some of your most refractory negroes to _real negro traders_ would not be the best thing you could do to reduce the balance to subjection, and if _Chunky_ Jack, could with propriety be sold it ought to be done.\" (emphasis in original)\n\nBy September 1834, Polk had sold his Tennessee plantation and was already on the trail of acquiring more labor in expectation of getting some of that unplowed Mississippi farmland that Jackson had \"negotiated\" away from the Indians. Hours after having closed the deal, he wrote to Sarah, telling her to keep \"the negroes\" ignorant of it, and bragged about having gotten a new slave and hoping to acquire another, all without spending any cash:\n\nI am resolved to send my hands to the South, have given money to _James Brown_ to buy a place & have employed _Beanland_ as an overseer.... I bought Mariah's husband a very likely boy\u2014about 22 years old for $600. And paid for him with the notes I held on his master for land which I sold him several years ago....\n\nP.S.... The negroes have no idea that they are going to be sent to the South and I do not wish them to know it, and therefore it would be best to say nothing about it at home, for it might be conveyed back to them....\n\nN.B. Since writing it occurs to me, that I will have to go a day or two out of my way, with the hope of getting a negro in payment of a debt due me by Silliman to whom I sold land.\n\nPolk's whip-happy overseer Ephraim Beanland wrote him on October 4 that Chunky Jack had disappeared into Shawnee Town, opposite Memphis across the Mississippi River, a hidey-hole that would have been a terrifying place to a white farmer: \"On last nite I got home from the Arkensis and I hearde of Jack but never co[u]ld get Site of him and it Is supposed that he is in Shauney villige which I was advised not to go theire for they is A den of thieves and to tell you the fact I donte [think] that you will ever git him.\"\n\nWalker, who together with partners ran a stagecoach line from Nashville to Natchez that relied on post office contracts and kept the family connection hidden through the use of a front man's name, advised Polk on October 15, 1839, of strategies for creating an annuity for the family of Polk's deceased brother:\n\nThe question... would be, in what kind of stocks the money could be invested with perfect safety. I should say not Bank Stock, for experience has proved that not a perfect safe investment. State Bonds bearing an interest of 6 pr. Cent would do and I think would certainly be safe. This investment could now you know be readily made. It is however probable, that a still better & more secure investment could be made, and the money and interest undoubtedly secured, by being upon land and negroes to double the amount.\n\nIn order to keep Tennessee from falling to the Whigs, Democratic party enforcer Polk left the House to run for governor in 1839 for a two-year term; he was elected, but then was subsequently turned down by voters for a second term, then lost the next election two years later.\n\nIsaac Franklin, who according to testimony \"was warm and decided in his politics,\" was a \"strong Polk man.\" We have found no documentation of Polk and Franklin having met, done business, or corresponded, but there is no way Polk didn't know Isaac Franklin, who had the finest house in his state, was one of his wealthiest supporters, was a kingpin of the trade of which Polk was such an eager customer, and moreover was a man who knew the value of connections.\n\nPolk was the slave traders' candidate. Indeed, he was the embodiment of what the one-term antislavery Ohio senator Thomas Morris, in a speech of February 9, 1839, accompanying his presentation to the Senate of abolition petitions with \"thousands of signatures,\" called the \"slave power of the south.\" Morris juxtaposed this image with what he saw as the other great evil, the \"banking power of the north.\" \"The cotton bale and the bank note,\" he declaimed, \"have formed an alliance; the credit system with slave labor.\" Morris noted the outsized capitalization of the South in slaves, noting Henry Clay's valuation of it at $1.2 billion and declaring that sum larger than the world's money (i.e., precious metal) supply, which was an exaggeration but not an unthinkable one:\n\nPermit me to tell the country now what this power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself, is. It is the power of SLAVERY. It is a power, according to the calculation of the Senator from Kentucky, which owns $1,200,000,000 in human beings as property; and if money is power, this power is not to be conceived or calculated; a power which claims human property more than double the amount which the whole money of the world could purchase.\n\nMeanwhile, the experience of slavery was getting worse as plantation management became more efficient. The antebellum cotton plantation of the Deep South was a much harsher regime than that of the Upper South; life as a worker there was hell on earth. Cotton planters extracted continually increasing amounts of labor through torture via a system not unlike modern time-metric monitoring of workers that Edward E. Baptist memorably calls \"the whipping machine.\" Under this regime, failure to meet production targets was punished by vicious, lacerative whippings at the end of the long work day. And the production targets were continually increased, pushing the worker ever harder. With this abusive, efficiency-conscious system in place, cotton production reached levels not seen again until mechanization.\n\nMartin Van Buren's entire presidency was spent combating the post-panic economic depression, and he was beaten by a Whig in the 1840 election. The Whigs had decided that if the American people wanted a warrior president, they'd run one. Their candidate, Virginia's William Henry Harrison, hadn't beaten the English like Jackson had, but he'd massacred Native Americans in the battle of Tippecanoe twenty-nine years earlier and had cheated them out of some three million acres of land in what we now call the Midwest. This land was above the Missouri Compromise line and as such would be free soil, but Harrison had hoped to make it slave territory the way he'd tried to make free-soil Indiana into a slave state when he was its territorial governor in 1804. The ticket's rhyming, alliterative slogan, permanently engraved in American memory, was \"Tippecanoe and Tyler too\"; Harrison's running mate, John Tyler, was an erstwhile Jacksonian and a very conservative states'-rights man\u2014a slaveowner whose family went back to the seventeenth century in Virginia, and whose father had participated in the ratification of the Constitution.\n\nLooking back at Van Buren's term, Adams wrote in his diary:\n\n[Jackson's] personal popularity, founded exclusively upon the battle of New Orleans, drove him through his double term, and enabled him to palm upon this nation the sycophant who declared it glory enough to have served under such a chief for his successor. Both the men have been for twelve years the tool of Amos Kendall, the ruling mind of their dominion.\n\nHarrison was president for only thirty-two days before he caught a cold and died, occasioning the first vice presidential succession: Tyler took office on April 4, 1841. Adams and Clay were outraged that Tyler did not meekly assume the post of \"acting president\" but, with all but a month of a four-year term to serve, declared himself a full president, which has been the model for vice presidential succession ever since.\n\nIn later life, Tyler's states'-rights enthusiasm was directed toward the cause of secession, and in his final days he was elected a member of the Confederate House of Representatives. As president, not surprisingly, Tyler was an aggressive booster of Texas annexation. Adams referred to him in his diary as \"the slave-breeder.\"\n\n\"This was a memorable day in the annals of the world,\" Adams wrote on April 22, 1844. \"The treaty for the annexation of Texas to this Union was this day sent in to the Senate; and with it went the freedom of the human race.\" Adams had been a pro-expansionist, but not any more. For both abolitionists and slaveowners, Texas was about nothing but expanding slavery. That was the year the gag rule in the House of Representatives was finally overturned, and John C. Calhoun threatened that \"if the annexation of Texas is to be defeated by the same sperit [ _sic_ ] which has induced the reception of abolition petitions, it is difficult to say, what may be the consequence.\"\n\nThen a freak accident brought John C. Calhoun into the position of secretary of state as an emergency replacement for Tyler's secretary of state, Virginian Abel Upshur, who was killed, along with seven others, when an enormous wrought-iron gun on board a new steam-powered iron warship he had commissioned exploded at its public demonstration. (Tyler was on board but survived.) As secretary of state, Calhoun's support for Texas annexation merged entirely with his impassioned defense of slavery. In a classic case of diplomatic overreach, Calhoun portrayed the annexation of Texas as an act of self-defense for the Southern states against the possibility\u2014for which there was no credible evidence\u2014of the infiltration by Britain of abolitionists into Texas. He did this in a calculatedly offensive letter to British ambassador Richard Pakenham, which, when leaked by Senator Benjamin Tappan of Ohio and published on April 27, 1844, made explicit to the whole country in ringing, paranoid tones the notion that annexing Texas was essential to preserving slavery. Attempting to show that \"in all instances in which the States have changed the former relation between the two races, the condition of the African, instead of being improved, has become worse,\" Calhoun reached for the census of 1840, citing figures from its demographic category of \"deaf and dumb, blind, idiots, and insane Negroes.\"\n\nFormer president Martin Van Buren seemed like a favorite to be nominated in 1844, but he was against the annexation of Texas. Jackson, seventy-six and dying, took that as a betrayal. Had Van Buren been the one to run against Clay, Texas would not have been an issue in the election, because neither were annexationists. But Jackson wasn't about to let that happen, and instead he threw his support to James K. Polk.\n\nAfter twenty-five years as a professional politician, Polk appeared to be a has-been. But he was pro-slavery, pro-expansion, and anti-tariff, and was thus the perfect presidential candidate for Southerners. For sectional balance, his running mate was George M. Dallas, former mayor of Philadelphia and James Buchanan's great rival in Pennsylvania.\n\nThe election turned on the issue of bringing Texas into the Union. William Seward described in a letter to Thurlow Weed a Whig rally at which \"one of the banners, and the most popular one, was a white sheet, on which was Polk dragging a negro in chains after him.\"\n\nLouis Hughes recalled in his memoir that when he was being taken by coffle down South at the age of twelve,\n\nas we passed along, every white man we met was yelling, \"Hurrah for Polk and Dallas!\" They were feeling good, for election had given them the men that they wanted. The man who had us in charge joined with those we met in the hurrahing. We were afraid to ask them the reason for their yelling, as that would have been regarded as an impertinence, and probably would have caused us all to be whipped.\n\nThe term Thomas Morris had popularized\u2014the Slave Power\u2014became a commonplace of abolitionist political discourse. A transform on Jackson's demonized \"Money Power\" of financial capitalism, it was a useful phrase with which to describe something that really did exist. Eric Foner writes, citing Marvin Meyers: \"If... the Money Power was the 'master symbol' for the Age of Jackson, the Slave Power was equally effective as a symbol for all the fears and hostilities harbored by northerners toward slavery and the South.\"\n\nOnly the abolitionists wanted to end slavery in the Southern states immediately; no ranking governmental official proposed such a thing, certainly not Adams. Despite the spectacularly belligerent reaction by the Slave Power to abolitionist literature, white abolitionists were few in number in the 1830s and '40s. But many non-abolitionist white northerners were antislavery, less because of compassion for black people than because they saw slavery as setting an unacceptably low floor for working conditions.\n\nThe sectional controversy over slavery was about its expansion to the new territories. Free labor did not want to go where there was slavery, and slaveowners felt locked out of any place where they couldn't sell slaves. Would the nation be a slave-labor nation with a free-labor section confined to the northeast, or a free-labor nation with a slave-labor section confined to the southeast? Or would it be all one way or the other: all-slavery or all-free? In 1844, Texas was the battleground.\n\nOf the ten United States presidents up to that point, only two had been antislavery, both of them named Adams. Martin Van Buren, who grew up in a household that owned slaves who worked at the family tavern in Kinderhook, New York, had been \"servile\" to the Slave Power, in John Quincy Adams's words, while riding Jackson's power train.\n\nAs president, Van Buren had resisted the clamor for prohibition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but now he had been purged by his own party, from Jackson on down, over the annexation of Texas as a slave state.\n\nFor many observers, Polk's nomination represented the final takeover of the Democratic Party by the Slave Power, even though South Carolina, responding to John C. Calhoun's wishes, did not participate in the nominating convention and remained standoffish.\n\nBoth major parties held their 1844 conventions in Baltimore, an indication of how central the city had become to the country's communications. Polk's nomination was announced by the newly patented electrical telegraph, a machine that would make Samuel F. B. Morse's well-connected business partner Amos Kendall very wealthy. Committing from the outset to be a one-term president, Polk won the election, barely. He was what in another era was called a wonk\u2014focused on his agenda, which was to take as much of Mexico's territory as he could, all the way out to California, and to settle the Oregon question with Britain.\n\nThe lame duck Tyler signed the Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas on March 1, 1845. It contemplated dividing Texas up into five states, each of which, needless to say, would get two senators. After becoming president, Polk signed the Joint Resolution for the Admission of the State of Texas into the Union, which did not contain the five-state clause, on December 29.\n\nMexico's government had long since announced that it would consider the annexation of Texas by the United States to be an act of war.\n\nPolk was eager to have a Mexican War.\n\nThe Mexican conquest was a warmup for the war that would be fought fifteen years later between Richmond and Washington. Many of the generals who fought in the later war, both Union and Confederate, knew each other from serving together in the Mexican War. Ulysses S. Grant, a junior officer in that war, later wrote in his memoir that \"I was bitterly opposed to the measure [of annexing Texas], and to this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.\" Grant's quick summary of it will do for our purposes:\n\nAmericans who had received authority from Mexico to colonize... paid very little attention to the supreme government, and introduced slavery into the state almost from the start, though the constitution of Mexico did not, nor does it now, sanction that institution. Soon they set up an independent government of their own, and war existed, between Texas and Mexico, in name from that time until 1836, when active hostilities very nearly ceased upon the capture of Santa Anna, the Mexican President. Before long, however, the same people\u2014who with permission of Mexico had colonized Texas, and afterwards set up slavery there, and then seceded as soon as they felt strong enough to do so\u2014offered themselves and the State to the United States, and in 1845 their offer was accepted. The occupation, separation and annexation were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American Union... the Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war.\n\nFlorida, the obsession of presidents from Jefferson to Jackson, finally became a state on March 3, 1845. Its first senator was a secessionist who would ultimately join the Confederate Congress: the sugar planter David Levy, who was already serving as Florida's territorial representative to Congress. Levy, who owned some thirty thousand acres in the Jacksonville area, and whose Sephardic Moroccan-born father Moses Levy had been a weapons dealer in Puerto Rico and made a fortune in shipping in Cuba, became the first Jewish US senator. The following year he married a politically connected Christian woman, changed his name to David Yulee, and raised his children as Christians.\n\nThe South's black-or-white two-caste system worked to the advantage of Jews. In the North, where anti-Jewish sentiment could be intense, they were Jews; in the South, they were white people. \"For Southern Jews, loyalty to the Confederacy was often a matter of intense personal gratitude,\" writes Howard M. Sachar. In Richmond, New Yorker Frederick Law Olmsted noted their presence with racialized distaste: \"very dirty German Jews... abound, and their characteristic shops (with their characteristic smells, quite as bad as in Cologne), are thickly set in the narrowest and meanest streets, which seem to be otherwise inhabited mainly by negroes.\"\n\nThough more Jews went to the urban areas of the North than to the South\u2014Robert N. Rosen estimates 120,000 in the North versus 25,000 in the South\u2014Southern Jews played an important role as commercial intermediaries in the emerging slavery nation. The Jewish peddler, a fixture in many places of the world during the nineteenth century, and seen in every part of the United States, found a special niche among the plantations of the South. Charleston, home of the first Reform congregation in the United States, had the nation's largest Jewish community in 1820\u2014about seven hundred\u2014until New York surpassed it. Until about 1830, Jews were part of Charleston's elite, and, like most of Charleston's white population, most of them were slaveowners.\n\nPerhaps no story better illustrates how the explosive profits to be made in the cotton kingdom were foundational to American business than that of Chaim (or Heyum) Lehman, a twenty-two-year-old cattle dealer and wine merchant who arrived into New York's harbor on September 11, 1844. He was one of perhaps one hundred thousand Ashkenazi immigrants who came from Central Europe and the German states in the years between 1800 and 1860, transforming the American Jewish community, which had previously been dominated by Sephardim. Lehman had been forced to leave his Bavarian hometown of Rimpar, where the law required the departure of second and subsequent sons of a Jewish family. Changing his name to Henry, he sailed down to Mobile and traveled upriver, where he began a career as an itinerant peddler, one of many who sold dry goods and supplies to plantations and also served as conduits for news. The workaholic, well-informed merchant quickly built up enough of a stake to open a general store in Montgomery a few months before it became the state capital in 1846.\n\nWith the banking system still in post-Jackson disarray and hard currency nowhere to be had, farmers paid for goods at Lehman's store in cotton, which he happily accepted. His brother Emanuel came over to join him; then in 1850 came another brother, Mayer. Though the Lehmans did not convert to Christianity as some did, they assimilated; they ate pork, did business on Saturday, spoke English with Southern accents, and were pro-slavery.\n\nWe do not know whether Lehman ever sold slaves, but it would not be surprising if he did. It was certainly not illegal, it could be profitable, and few merchants did not at one time or another, in one way or another, become involved in a slave sale. Jacob Barrett, a Jewish merchant in partnership with his brother Judah in Columbia, South Carolina, and another brother, Isaac, in Charleston, sold:\n\ndry goods, groceries, provisions, liquors, (both at wholesale and retail,) hardware, crockery, shoes, hats and saddles. Besides all this, he sometimes bought a drove of hogs and made bacon for sale. He also speculated in negroes, horses and real estate.... a cargo of government soldiers' condemned coats or jackets, bought at a great sacrifice, were readily taken by the planters for their negroes at an advance of one or two hundred per cent. over cost. A gang of some twenty negroes from Charleston he soon disposed of at very large profits, keeping for his own use Armstead Booker, a good-looking, active carriage driver and barber, who attended to his horses and in the store, and Aunt Nancy, a first-rate cook, with her children.\n\nBarrett subsequently \"married the daughter of his cousin, Jacob Ottolengui of Charleston, another speculator in Negroes, and claimed before the Civil War to have around a thousand slaves working his rice plantations near the Savannah River,\" in the words of Bertram Wallace Korn.\n\nAll Southern towns of any size had Jewish residents in their business community. Some of them were, like other Southern merchants, slave traders, but the domestic slave trade was in no way a specialty of Jewish merchants. Jews were a tiny minority and were not disproportionately represented in the ranks of slave traders, nor were any of the biggest slave traders Jewish. Bancroft's list of seventy slave traders in Richmond lists only three Jews. The most important Jewish slave-trade firm was probably the Davis family of four brothers in Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, who were named in Harriet Beecher Stowe's _The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , quoting a letter from abolitionist Gamaliel Bailey: \"The Davises, in Petersburg, are the great slave-dealers. They are Jews, came to that place many years ago as poor pedlers; and, I am informed, are members of a family which has its representatives in Philadelphia, New York, &c! These men are always in the market, giving the highest price for slaves. During the summer and fall they buy them up at low prices, trim, shave, wash them, fatten them so that they may look sleek, and sell them to great profit. It might not be unprofitable to inquire how much Northern capital, and what firms in some of the Northern cities, are connected with this detestable business.\"\n\nBut a regionally bounded business like slaves wasn't Henry Lehman's interest, nor was tying up cash in long-term physical assets. He was into cotton and credit\u2014which was inseparably bound up with the slavery industry, of course, but which was not the same thing. Slave property may have anchored Southern plantation mortgages, but it was the marketing of the cotton that consumed the credit from New York, which in turn consumed credit from London. It was the cotton, and not the slaves, that was shipped to Lancashire and sold by the pound, and in doing so, produced a hot cash flow. Handling that cash flow put Lehman in the fastest-rushing part of the global marketplace.\n\n\"In the years before 1845,\" writes Richard Holcombe Kilbourne, \"the credit market was in many respects localized.\" But with the regrouping of the economy after the prolonged post-Jackson depression and the annexation of Texas, the old institution of factorage became a principal provider of credit, and H. Lehman & Brother, as it was called at first, became a cotton factorage. Providing credit to cotton planters put the Lehmans in constant contact with New York banks\u2014and, presumably, meant accepting slaves as collateral from planters. The firm in 1854 purchased a fourteen-year-old girl named Martha for $900, and Mayer Lehman ultimately owned seven slaves. But he did not invest his profits in growing large holdings of enslaved people, the way planters did; he was a more modern kind of businessman. After Henry died of yellow fever in 1855, Emanuel moved to New York and established an office at 119 Liberty Street, while Mayer remained in Montgomery. The two became major financiers of the cotton trade in time for the boom years before secession. The Lehman brothers connected the slave-labor agriculture of the South with the financial world of New York in a direct way.\n\nLazarus Straus, a friend of the Lehmans from Bavaria, came over in 1848. Beginning as a peddler based out of Oglethorpe, Georgia, he moved to the small town of Talbotton, where he opened a store stocked with goods he managed to get on credit in Philadelphia, then in 1854 sent for his family.\n\nSam Houston arrived at the Hermitage a few hours too late on June 8, 1845: Andrew Jackson had died. As Houston's son watched, he lay his head on the dead Jackson's chest and mourned.\n\nJackson left his thousand-acre plantation and the approximately 150 slaves who worked it to his wastrel adopted son. As an anecdotal account of how he was remembered by one local African American, we turn to the memory of an elderly, formerly enslaved woman from the Nashville area, a former washerwoman whose name apparently went unrecorded when she was interviewed in 1929 or 1930 by a team from Fisk University:\n\nDid anybody ever tell you about old General Jackson? He was mean... In General Jackson's old place they had a whipping room, and they say now you can hear strange noises out there in that old house. I used to wash out there, after the War, but I never would go to the room to try to hear anything.\n\n#   38\n\n# **Manifest Destiny's Child**\n\n_We have bought at this place, a very likely girl, 13 years old well grown & smart, active &c. for $405.00, and Col. Campbell has just left with her for home. I consider it a fine bargain._\n\n\u2014Letter from John W. Childress in Nashville to President Polk in Washington, July 22, 1846\n\nAS THE PROSPECT OF annexing Texas for the cotton kingdom created a speculative boom in young African Americans, the price of slaves shot up by about 30 percent. Anticipating the sustained bull market that did in fact set in, President Polk bought a total of nineteen people, quietly, from his perch at the White House between 1845 and 1848. Except for a dip occasioned by the Panic of 1857, slave prices never went down again, but surged higher than ever.\n\nIn an article supporting the annexation of Texas, the Democratic Party propagandist John L. O'Sullivan coined the term _Manifest Destiny_ , a phrase that has never gone away. O'Sullivan's article is notable for its fusion of antiblack and anti-Mexican racism in a way that would become a permanent part of the social landscape of the American Southwest. In attempting to deny that annexing Texas was about slavery, O'Sullivan asserted in wordy prose typical of the era the principle that became known as \"diffusionism\": that the Upper South would become free of its slaves by selling them to Texas. Expecting, as many did, that Texas would be carved up into several states, he used the metaphor of waste water to describe the enslaved population, as he anticipated the day when slavery would no longer be necessary and black people could be flushed into Mexican society:\n\nThat [annexation] will tend to facilitate and hasten the disappearance of Slavery from all the northern tier of the present Slave States, cannot surely admit of serious question.\n\nThe greater value in Texas of the slave labor now employed in those States, must soon produce the effect of draining off that labor southwardly, by the same unvarying law that bids water descend the slope that invites it. Every new Slave State in Texas will make at least one Free State from among those in which that institution now exists... it is undeniably much gained for the cause of the eventual voluntary abolition of slavery, that it should have been thus drained off towards the only outlet which appeared to furnish much probability of the ultimate disappearance of the negro race from our borders.\n\nThe Spanish-Indian-American populations of Mexico, Central America and South America, afford the only receptacle capable of absorbing that race whenever we shall be prepared to slough it off\u2014emancipate it from slavery, and (simultaneously necessary) to remove it from the midst of our own. Themselves already of mixed and confused blood, and free from the \"prejudices\" which among us so insuperably forbid the social amalgamation which can alone elevate the Negro race out of a virtually servile degradation even though legally free, the regions occupied by those populations must strongly attract the black race in that direction. (paragraphing added)\n\nThe project branded as Manifest Destiny was thus based in an utterly racist vision of ethnic cleansing\u2014not only of Native Americans, but of African Americans.\n\nThe boundaries of Texas were not yet defined. The Republic of Texas's claims extended south to the Nueces River, but Polk went farther south and west, to the Rio Bravo del Norte (or R\u00edo Grande). Insisting on having the wide strip between the two rivers that was still populated mostly by wild horses (grassland then, barren and dusty now), he sent troops under the command of General Zachary Taylor, a wealthy Virginia-born Louisiana sugar planter who owned 147 slaves\u2014even though Polk distrusted Taylor because he was a Whig. Taylor positioned his men on the banks of the Rio Grande and provoked an incident, creating the pretext to invade Mexican territory and take as much of it as possible, all the way out to California.\n\nPolk asserted a new level of executive power, daring Mexico to fight and daring Congress to stop him. He signed the congressional act declaring war on Mexico on May 13, 1846. Almost at once, he advised his cabinet that he intended to acquire not only Texas, but California and New Mexico (the latter territory included the present states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada) as well.\n\nThere was also a legacy of conflicting claims to Oregon, but the South did not want a war with cotton-consuming Britain over it, so there wasn't one. Occupied with the fighting in Mexico, Polk compromised with Great Britain to divide up the Oregon territory, the lower part of which was already receiving American settlers in covered wagons. Ratified on June 18, 1846, the Oregon Treaty gave up American claims to \"54\u00b040\u2032 or fight\" that would have extended American ownership up to Alaska, accepting instead the forty-ninth parallel (the present US-Canada border) that definitively brought present-day Oregon and Washington, including the highly desirable Puget Sound harbor, under US control. Oregon would not be a slave territory, but when it applied for admission to the Union as a state in 1858, its constitution forbade free black people from entering the state, as well as denying the ones who were already there the rights to testify in court, make contracts, and own property. Similar prohibitions would forbid the entry of free blacks into the free-soil states of Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa.\n\nIn August 1846 Polk asked Congress for an appropriation of two million dollars to support negotiations with Mexico in anticipation of victory, but antislavery members of the House on August 8 tacked onto the appropriations bill the proviso that would make Pennsylvania representative David Wilmot's name execrated throughout the South. The Wilmot Proviso prohibited slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico, following the theory that Wilmot explained in 1847: \"Keep [slavery] within given limits... and in time it will wear itself out. Its existence can only be perpetuated by constant expansion.\" When the Wilmot Proviso passed the House, eighty-five to seventy-nine, it wasn't on a party-line vote, but a sectional vote, North versus South, a harbinger of things to come. It failed in the sectionally balanced Senate. The South was furious that it had been proposed at all.\n\nAntislavery politicians had no influence in the Senate, the Supreme Court, and certainly not in the executive branch. But free states dominated the House of Representatives. As the slave states slipped farther and farther behind in population, they became more insistent on keeping their balance of senators, which meant: add more slave states. As Wilmot had argued, slavery could only be perpetuated by constant expansion.\n\nThough pressed by his duties as commander in chief of a war of conquest, Polk found the time to advise his recently widowed sister Eliza that she should invest what little money she had in buying people. In a letter of August 16, 1846, he suggested she move in with their mother and \"apply [the money she had saved] to an increase of your [slave] force on your plantation, so as to enlarge your yearly income.\"\n\n\"The Mexican War occupies much of my time at present,\" Polk wrote, in a classic understatement, to a correspondent on October 7. A letter written to him two days later documents how his farm made twenty-five dollars, less commission, on a deal to acquire a girl who could be put to childbearing. With his hands full, Polk was more reliant than ever on his brothers-in-law, and one of them, Robert Campbell Jr., wrote him about some recent and planned purchases, including one in which he posted a small profit at a widow's expense through flipping the ownership of an enslaved boy in exchange for a \"likely\" girl at the beginning of her reproductive years. Bragging on his deal, Campbell discussed the children like they were mules:\n\nI have Sold the boy Jim that I bought for you [that] I gave $392 for to the Widow Colbern for $450 & bought a girl (Jane) 20 lb heavier for $425 and likely[,] 12 or 13 years old[.] it is one of the best trades I have made[.] I would have given the boy for the girl even[.]\n\nGeneral Winfield Scott, who like Taylor was distrusted by Polk as a Whig, bombarded the historic city of Veracruz for eighteen days in March 1847. When the troops entered the city to occupy it, they found starving people and rotting corpses. As Mexico capitulated, Polk didn't have the ideal negotiator at hand. But Secretary of State James Buchanan recommended his clerk, the number-two man at the State Department, who ran the department during Buchanan's extended absences: Nicholas P. Trist.\n\nTrist's political credentials were impeccable, and after his years in Cuba he spoke Spanish. As negotiations dragged on, Polk fired him, but he remained on the job, negotiating the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with no official status whatever. Moreover, he didn't comply with his instructions, which had been to secure Alta and Baja California both: Mexico retained Baja California, which the United States had, after all, not conquered. Trist did manage, however, to secure the grand harbor at San Diego as the southernmost border of the territory to be acquired.\n\nPolk was angry at losing Baja California, but he had a treaty, public support was waning, and the 1848 elections were looming. He made the deal, paying about $15 million for California and the New Mexico territory\u2014about a third of Mexico, including its best farmland and the Northern California goldfields that would be discovered mere months after the purchase. Polk vindictively made sure that Trist did not receive his back salary for the time spent in the negotiations. It was the end of Trist's governmental career, and for the rest of their lives, he and Virginia Randolph Jefferson Trist lived in poverty.\n\nThe United States hoped to annex Cuba as well, and a suitor came calling to broker the deal. There were no tickets available for the sold-out performances in New York by Havana's opera company, the grandest in the hemisphere, of Giuseppe Verdi's new smash hit _Ernani_ , but as noted in the _New York Herald_ of June 28, 1847, they gave a special performance in honor of President Polk, while he was visiting New York. If Polk attended\u2014there is no mention of it in his diary or letters\u2014it is difficult to imagine that, with his chronic bowel complaints, he enjoyed the four-act Italian opera much, nor is it likely that such a spectacle was Sarah Polk's cup of tea. The company's impresario was none other than slave trader and fish dealer Pancho Marty, who had imported the best Italian talent to staff his troupe. The performance in honor of Polk was a demonstration not only of the riches and high level of imported culture in Cuba, but of who the right man was to make a deal with for Cuba\u2014Pancho Marty.\n\nThe following year, John L. O'Sullivan began having meetings with Polk to urge him to acquire Cuba. In June 1848, Polk offered Spain $100 million for the island. Declined, thank you.\n\nO'Sullivan, and a host of adventurers, made plans to take Cuba by conquest.\n\nNew Orleans could be a hellhole of disease in the warm months, and Isaac Franklin took ill there. After traveling back to his Bellevue plantation, he died suddenly, on May 4, 1846, at the age of fifty-six from what the doctor called \"congestion of the stomach,\" which was likely cholera. A month later, after his distraught wife, Adelicia, had returned to Tennessee, she helplessly watched as two of their three daughters died two days apart from sudden cases of \"croup and bronchitis.\"\n\nAt the time of Franklin's death, he was possibly the richest man in President Polk's home state of Tennessee. He owned ten thousand acres of land in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi, plus claims in Texas, railroad bonds, and a large, continually increasing number of slaves. His estate was managed by his father-in-law and John Armfield as trustees, each receiving a 2\u00bd percent commission, so that Armfield was still working for Franklin. By 1851, when the trustees got rid of the responsibility and turned his estate over to the widow, it was worth almost $710,000 (perhaps $21.5 million in 2014). Sixty-nine percent of the value of Franklin's six Louisiana plantations was in its more than six hundred slaves, who were worth $363,927.80 out of the estate's total value of $525,674.85.\n\nDuring the five years of Armfield and Hayes's trusteeship, the slaves registered thirty deaths and eighty births, realizing a profit from \"natural increase.\" The deaths and births were broken out and inventoried in separate schedules in the estate proceedings, in which one can see that the average age at death was twenty-nine, all but four of the deceased having died before the age of fifty. The births\u2014eighty children of four or younger\u2014were listed by name, mother, age, and color: \"Madison, child of Caroline, 3, black; Bradley, child of Martha Winchester, an infant, black; Milly, child of Matilda Trottman, 4, griff; Len, ditto, 1...\"\n\nWhat would they be worth in a few years? An April 1857 article in _DeBow's Review_ cheered the high prices fetched at a sale of children in Texas, with terms of one and two years, and 10 percent interest. DeBow printed the names, ages, and prices fetched: \"Caroline, 11 years old, $1,100; Frank, 9, $805; Little Allick, 7, $810; Catharine, 10, $700; Flora, 6, $695; Sarah, 9, $890; Dick. 7, $650; Sam, 3, $450; Phoebe, 10, $655; Ben, 6, $405.\"\n\nIn his will, made in 1841, Franklin directed how many more hands were to be purchased for each of the plantations, and specified how the executors were to improve his holdings with two more plantations, called Panola and Loango, to be developed alongside the four already existing on the land. It's not clear why Franklin wanted to have two plantations (Loango and Angola) named after Central African slave markets on opposite sides of the Kongo River, since he didn't do business in Africans. But Angola is what the biggest antebellum slave trader called his plantation. The prison by that name today on those same grounds in East Feliciana Parish is Franklin's infamous bequest to Louisiana's cultural life.\n\nSo New Orleans saxophonist Charles Neville was right when he said that the land occupied by the Louisiana State Penitentiary was formerly a \"slave-breeding plantation.\" Neville spent three and a half years there for having had two reefers. Any Louisiana musician can sing you:\n\n_Now six months ain't no sentence_\n\n_One year ain't no time_\n\n_They got boys in Angola_\n\n_Doin' nine to ninety-nine._\n\nIsaac Franklin left a large footprint. His idyllically situated Fairvue mansion today anchors a beautiful, upscale residential development, with more than eight hundred large homes, a golf course, a country club, and Franklin's mansion and tomb.\n\n_Isaac Franklin's former mansion of Fairvue, now a private residence, March 2014._\n\nA tale of two plantations: at the other end of the desirability scale from Fairvue, Isaac Franklin's Louisiana land ultimately passed to the State of Louisiana, retaining the name Angola to cover all five previously distinct plantation tracts. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, it was run as a plantation using convict labor. Since 1901 it has been home to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known internationally as Angola\u2014a singular institution even in the harsh annals of American penology. The former agricultural prison has remained an agricultural prison: a self-sustaining plantation that forces its inmates to get their hands cut up, because at Angola they still pick cotton by hand instead of using machinery. Angola houses sixty-three hundred inmates\u201476 percent of them black and 71 percent serving life sentences\u2014and it employs eighteen hundred people to keep them incarcerated. The continuity of Angola prison ties the historical slave trade to a living modern legacy of unequal treatment, income disparity, social pathology, and mass incarceration. The penal regime it imposes on convicts bears a chilling resemblance to the antebellum slave experience.\n\nAdelicia Franklin married twice more after Issac Franklin died. Her first remarriage, at Fairvue on May 8, 1849, was a major social event, as per ex-president Polk's diary entry:\n\nThis evening Mrs. Polk and myself attended the marriage of Mrs. Franklin, a wealthy widow of this City. She was married at her own house to Mr. Acklin of Huntsville, Alabama. The supper and whole entertainment was upon a magnificent scale. I met at the wedding many leading Whigs & democrats, and was courteously and kindly treated by all.\n\nIt was one of Polk's last social events. He had just returned to Nashville after leaving the presidency. On his trip home from Washington, worn out from prosecuting the war with Mexico, he noted in his diary the presence of cholera on the boat. At every stop he was given balls, public dinners, and received enormous numbers of visitors, despite suffering from \"a derangement of stomach & bowels\" and feeling \"greatly wearied and worn down.\" In New Orleans, Mayor Abdiel Crossman denied there was a cholera epidemic (there was) and insisted the fatigued ex-president come to a public dinner with 250 guests. As Polk continued on by riverboat, there was cholera on board again; various passengers died. Once in Nashville, he noted in his diary various people in the town being taken ill with cholera. His penultimate entry, on June 1, ends, \"During the prevalence of cholera I deem it prudent to remain as much as possible at my own house.\" But he too died of it, on June 15, a little more than ten weeks after leaving the presidency.\n\nIn his one term, Polk had reshaped the nation. In the process, he had reached the westward limits of slavery expansion. Slavery was exploding in eastern Texas, but it would grow no more to the West beyond that, though the Slave Power would fight hard in a losing battle for California.\n\nWhile most of the value of Polk's estate consisted of slaves, he wasn't worth a tenth of what Isaac Franklin was worth. In his will, Polk, ever the politician, wrote that \"Should I survive her [Sarah], unless influenced by circumstances which I do not now foresee, it is my intention to emancipate all my slaves, and I have full confidence, that if at her death she shall deem it proper, she shall emancipate them.\" But, as in the cases of Martha Washington and Dolley Madison, who like Sarah Polk were survivors of slaveholding presidential husbands, she didn't \"deem it proper\" to emancipate them. Wearing black for the rest of her life, she lived to be eighty-eight at Polk Place, the mansion they had occupied together for only three months, with her husband's tomb in the front yard. She had not been weakened by multiple childbirths and miscarriages like so many women of her era, and she was wealthy and savvy. In 1860, she cashed out, selling a one-half interest in her plantation, including all but six of her fifty-six slaves, to a relative for $28,500\u2014over $800,000 in 2014 dollars.\n\nIt was a fraction of what Adelicia Franklin got.\n\nIn terms of territorial gains, Polk's Manifest Destiny war with Mexico did very well, bringing under US control more than half a million square miles, sparsely populated even by Native Americans. As the Texans began slowly learning the Mexican ways of handling horses and cattle that became known as cowboying, and learned a new way of cooking, they called themselves \"white people\" in opposition to the Mexicans, whom they typically treated as an inferior \"race.\"\n\nThe \"white people\" began expelling the Mexicans from their towns. For one thing, in a frontier society that was chronically short of women, Mexican men were taking enslaved women away, thereby robbing the slaveholders of the future increase that they saw as their due. A newspaper reported:\n\nMATAGORDA. \u2014 The people of Matagorda county have held a meeting and ordered every Mexican to leave the country.... [They] have no fixed domicile, but hang around the plantations, taking the likeliest negro girls for wives; and... they often steal horses, and these girls, too, and endeaver to run them to Mexico.\n\nThe annexation of Texas kicked the Southern slave market into gear. But as the market for slaves heated up, no single firm dominated the trade the way Franklin and Armfield previously had. No slave-trading firm grew like Lehman and Brother did dealing cotton, and there was no major slave-retailing corporation that survived the war to trade in something else. Instead of the market consolidating after Franklin, it fragmented. Slave traders were mostly small shops, including many part-timers who left no records and a much less coherent paper trail than Franklin's company. Perhaps no one else had the ability to focus so many partners on a common set of business goals across the full geographic area, much less accomplish the complex task of keeping the money flowing smoothly at all times.\n\nThe 1840 census showed 2,487,355 slaves, and the 1850 census registered a 28.8 percent increase, for a total of 3,204,313. American slavery had never stopped growing since its beginnings in seventeenth-century Virginia. It could never stop growing, or the whole system would collapse of its own weight. More and more slave states were looking to export their young. People from every slave state could be found on sale in the market at New Orleans, where many were bought for Texas. But even so, the value of \"Virginia and Maryland negroes\" held as a premium brand, and shipments continued from Baltimore, Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, and lesser ports.\n\nAustin Woolfolk's operation had been profitable; Freudenberger and Pritchett calculate that after the expenses of maintaining slave jails at both ends, feeding the captives for weeks, buying all the newspaper advertisements, chartering a vessel, et cetera, Woolfolk's firm had a 14 percent rate of return. Woolfolk married, had five children, and was substantially out of the business by 1842, though he continued shipping slaves until 1846. He too moved to plantation land he had bought in Louisiana. He died of tuberculosis in 1847, \"reduced to a mere skeleton,\" as his uncle described it in a letter, in a tavern in Auburn, Alabama, leaving behind property in Louisiana, Alabama, and Maryland. More than thirty years later, his son, Austin Jr., sued his own mother, Emily Woolfolk, over the partitioning of the estate, which even with slavery no longer in existence was still worth a six-figure sum.\n\nBaltimore's outbound slave shipments in the 1840s exceeded those of the previous decade, as more major traders got into the act. In Alexandria, the Franklin and Armfield headquarters on Duke Street were taken over by their former associate George Kephart, who was for a time the biggest dealer in Alexandria, then by \"Price, Birch, dealers in slaves,\" James Birch's firm. Kephart's business declined by 1843, and from then until secession the biggest Alexandria slave trader was the firm of Bruin & Hill (Joseph Bruin and Henry Hill), whose slave jail at 1707 Duke Street is now on the National Register of Historic Places, though it's not open to the public. Bruin seems to have sent most of his victims South in coffles\u2014for which, unlike oceangoing vessels, there were no manifests to survive for the historical record.\n\nAs abolitionists continued to bombard Congress with petitions to end slavery and the slave trade in the capital city, Alexandria in 1847 requested, and was allowed, to leave the District of Columbia and rejoin Virginia, so that the present-day District of Columbia is entirely on land ceded by Maryland.\n\nThree years later, as part of a series of compromises that occupied the nation's political class for an entire year\u2014the Compromise of 1850\u2014slave trading, though not slavery itself, was at last prohibited in Washington.\n\n#   39\n\n# **A Letter from Virginia**\n\n_The little Boy has one of his toes cut off. I don't think that will lessen his value... Doct Ingram has Known the Boy for a length of time and Says he never Gives him medicine but once for Belly Ache.] he is Smaller than I like but it is hard to Buy at any price up here.[ 1_\n\n\u2014Sumterville, SC, purchasing agent A. J. McElveen to Charleston dealer Ziba B. Oakes, November 7, 1853\n\nIN HIS WILL, ISAAC Franklin directed that the income from his plantations support a school to be named the Isaac Franklin Institute, but his widow Adelicia got the court to void the provision, on the grounds that it would create a \"perpetuity,\" which in this case would have rested on the perpetual reproduction of the estate's enslaved. Instead, she got the assets, including Fairvue.\n\nThe trustees' management of Franklin's estate terminated with the resolution of the widow's court proceeding. During the five years or so of their management, seemingly every receipt submitted for every expense was collected and printed as part of the 918-page legal document titled _Succession of Isaac Franklin_ , which thus provides an unusually detailed snapshot of the mercantile realities of the time. The trustees bought laudanum, morphine, calomel (mercury chloride, a toxic compound then believed to have medicinal value and often used as a laxative), and a host of other preparations for when the \"negroes\" were sick. They bought \"negro shoes\" from the Tennessee State Prison, which used convict labor to make salable products. They sold cotton and lumber.\n\nAdelicia was presented to Queen Victoria when she visited London and was complimented on her riding skills by the horsewoman Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenburg. It was Adelicia who brought Spanish palominos to breed in Tennessee. With her new husband, Joseph Acklen, she became a leading light of the Nashville social scene at her new thirty-six-room mansion on her estate called Belmont, which besides ten thousand square feet of living space had a bear house and a zoo, and where her daughter Emma died of diphtheria.\n\nJohn Armfield too became a respectable planter, and was a principal benefactor at the founding of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. Franklin's former Richmond partner Rice C. Ballard became a planter as well, though he continued to be involved in the slave trade. He married and moved to Louisville, though he seems to have spent a great deal of time in Natchez, to judge from the letters he received there from his wife begging him for money.\n\nBallard became friends, and then a business partner with, a Natchez judge named Samuel S. Boyd, with whom he co-owned a string of cotton plantations worked by perhaps five hundred slaves in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Boyd and Ballard's man in New Orleans was a Louisville-based slave trader named C. M. Rutherford, whose office in New Orleans was at 159 Gravier Street, between Baronne and Carondelet, and who also sold slaves in Natchez.\n\nIt was advantageous for Ballard to keep a hand in slave retailing. He and Boyd at one point closed down a plantation and sold the entire labor force South, a few at a time. Ballard provided working cash for Rutherford to buy with, and Rutherford knew what Ballard liked, as when he offered him a woman \"19 years old black likely and all rite as tall and likely as the one you wanted of white, price $700.\"\n\nBoyd was cruel to women. The Natchez attorney J. M. Duffield had owned a woman named Maria, and though he was fond of her and had a sexual relationship with her, he wound up through financial pressures losing her to Boyd's ownership. On May 29, 1848, Duffield wrote Ballard about Maria and her daughter (who may have been his daughter), asking him to intervene after she had been whipped \"like an ox, until the blood gushes from her.\" Another letter from Duffield reported on August 5 that \"Mr. Boyd will part with her now as her health is such that she must be a charge on any owner,\" as she suffered from \"womb complaint dreadfully brought on by unkindness and injuries, bodily injuries, and... [now that she can leave Boyd,] she can now recover though she will probably linger out to several years.\" Unfortunately, Duffield didn't have any cash right then. He offered another slave as security, promising to pay \"any price you might think she ought to bring, and perhaps prolong her life, which will soon be shortened where she is [now].\"\n\nSouthern Business Directory, _1854._ 3\n\nOn February 27, 1853, Rutherford wrote Ballard from New Orleans about a troublesome slave named Virginia, which may have been the name her mother gave her or may have simply been where she was purchased. Virginia was being sent as far away as Rutherford could manage, along with her swelling belly and her two children, who, though he didn't need to mention it, looked like Judge Boyd. While Rutherford was trying to decide whether to \"send her to Texas... or send her to Mobile,\" she kept trying to run away.\n\nMeanwhile, it was good to know a judge. On April 2, 1853, Boyd came to Ballard with a dirty deal\u2014the lucrative prospect of selling a whole plantation full of freed slaves back into slavery:\n\nHave lately learned of an opportunity to buy a lot of negroes at a very reasonable rate, next January.\n\nOld man Baldwin, of Jefferson County, directed his slaves to be sent to Liberia. This will be declared void at the present term of the High Court, and as nearly all the heirs reside in New Jersey, they do not want the slaves, & are willing they should be all sold together, to a good master, at a reasonable rate, according to the will, if it cannot be carried out. {Name indecipherable}, one of the Executors, has informed me he thinks they can be had at... $27000 for fifty two. He is to furnish me with a list soon, and will endeavour to obtain authority to close the trade.\n\nThe same day, Rutherford wrote Ballard that he'd decided to send Virginia to Texas, but it was going to cost: he had \"a friend there I can send her to but the vessels will not take any negro unless under the charge of some white person.\" So eager were the partners to get rid of Virginia that Rutherford hired an escort to deliver her personally to Texas. From New Orleans, Rutherford handled her case to the point of final sale, offering easy terms, as Rutherford reported on April 19:\n\nI have this morning shiped Virginia & children to S.B. Ewing Houston Texas with special instructions to sell her not to return to this place or Miss[issippi.] I gave her character and did not limit the sale when sold to permit account sales & nett proceeds to [factors] Nalle Cox & Co of this place for your benefit[.] I will give Nalle Cox & Co a copy of my letter of instructions[.] I had to hire a young man to go with her to Galveston.\n\nA letter from Boyd three days later that refers to Virginia only as \"the woman\" makes clear that she didn't go quietly: \"Rutherford was to ship the woman & her children to Texas on Tuesday last, by the steamer Mexico. She gave him a load of trouble.\"\n\nThere exists a letter from the heavily pregnant Virginia to Ballard, written in the desperation of the moment. The dimensions of her story are apparent, even though much is unknowable about the events referred to. A facsimile is available online; we will present it here as we have transcribed it, adding full-stop periods, capital letters, and paragraphing for readability, with question marks indicating transcription queries, brackets around reasonable guesses, and Xs signifying missing bits of text.\n\nHouston May 6th 1853\n\nDear Sir permit me to address you a few lines which I hope you will receive soon. I am at present in the city of Houston in a Negro traders yard for sale by your orders. I was present at the Post Office when Doctor Ewing took your letter out through mistake and red it a loud, not knowing I was the person the letter alluded to.\n\nI hope that if I have ever done or said any thing that has offended you that you will for give me for I have suffered enough cince in mind to repay all that I have ever done to anyone[.]\n\nYou wrote for them to sell me in thirty days. Do you think after all that has transpired between me & the old Man )I don't call names( that its treating me well to send me off a mong strangers in my situation to besold without even my having an opportunity of choosing for my self. Its hard in deed and what is still harder\u2014for the father of my children to sell his own offspring yes his own flesh & blood. My god is it possible that any free born American would brand his charites with such a stigma as that, but I hope before this he will relent & see his error for I still beleave that he is possesst of more honer than that.\n\nI no too that you have influence and can assist me in some measure from out of this dilema and if you will god will be sure to reward you, you have a family of children & no how to simpathize with others in distress.\n\nall I require or ask [is] for an agent to be appointed hear to see to me, XXXXX to Earn the money, honestly, to buy my XXXXX I have to work my finger ends off I will earn XXXXXay evry dime I do think in justice [the] children should be set free XXXX[As] for my self altho my youthfull days [were worn] out in [t]he service and grattification of the [person that] now wants me & his children sold is it posible that such a change could ever come over the spirit of any living man as to sell his child that is his image[?] I don't wish to return to harras or molest his peace of mind & shall never try get back if I am steall with family.\n\n_The first page of Virginia Boyd's letter._\n\nI no that you have been prejudist a gainst me, by what {name unclear} told you one day you will find who is the rascal & who has injured you most I have no motive in saying to you any thing but the pure truth, when you come to know all that she has said relative to you & matters concerning your family you will prehaps not have so great a confidence in all the tales she fabricates[.] I wish you to reflect over the subject and see if some little could be shown me for that mercy & pity you show to me god certainly will show you[.]\n\nWhat can I say more if I ever have spoken hastly that which I should not I hope you will for give me for I hope god has, I am humbled enough all reddy, hear a mong strangers without one living being to whom I have the least shadow of claim upon, my heart feels like it would burst a sunder[.] It will not be long ere I am confined, & the author of my suffering to be the means of my being thrown upon the charity to strangers in XXXX when I most need a simpathizing friend is XXXXX that XXX to receive for making so mXXXX for his sattisfaction.\n\nWill y[ou le]t me hear from you & say what yo[ur feelings] are relative to the proposition I make[?] [I know you are an] honerable high minded man and in your XXXX moments you would wish justice to be done to all, & if I am a servent there is some thing due me better than my present situation.\n\nI have writen to the Old Man in such a way that the letter cant faile to fall in his hans & none others. I use any precaution to prevent others from knowing or suspecting any thing. I have my letters writen & folded put into envelope & get it directed by those that dont know the contents of it for I shall not seek ever to let any thing be exposed, unless I am forced from bad treatement.\n\nVirginia Boyd\n\nSome of the elisions in Virginia Boyd's letter are accidental, some strategic. We can imagine the story; indeed, we have to in order to parse what we read. But there's much we don't know. Who is the \"Old Man,\" the father of her children she's referring to? Presumably Boyd. She's signing Boyd's name as hers, with the clear indication that her children are to carry that name too. But Ballard was the one giving the sale order\u2014apparently because Virginia was owned by the partnership, and Ballard handled slave sales.\n\nUnlike Maria, Virginia at least got away from Boyd without being maimed. All three of the traders in the loop knew her; she indicates a personal familiarity with Ballard, who was a frequent visitor to Natchez, and to her co-owner\u2014and who, she believes, has been turned against her by lies told by another enslaved female. We can make up stories about what _that_ was about, but we don't know.\n\nWhat else might we know about Virginia? According to Rutherford's earlier letter, she already had two children. She felt that her \"youthfull days\" were behind her. She might have been twenty-five, ready to be discarded as too old. What did she look like? She'd been the mistress of a slave trader, so she was presumably light-skinned. She wasn't a field hand; she had been accustomed to privileges, and perhaps had imagined the goal of freedom for herself and her children to be getting closer. She expected to be able to \"choose for myself,\" suggesting perhaps that even her enslaved status had been in question at some point, but she has now been \"humbled.\"\n\nThe level of literacy in her letter is at least as good as the traders'. There is no reason to assume that it was written by a scribe; its twists and turns seem the product of a coordinated mind, voice, and hand. Somehow, we don't know how, she had the ability to get letters sent by private channels out of the trader's yard\u2014one to Boyd, apparently, and this one to Ballard. And, she warns, if \"forced from bad treatment\" she could write another one that would tell what somebody doesn't want known.\n\nThe blackmail threat did her no good. She was sold into the hard conditions of the Texas frontier. There's no known record of her further existence. Her plea to free her children was ignored; slave traders didn't set children free, they sold them, and they were inured to\u2014perhaps even enjoyed\u2014desperate pleas. Virginia was sold together with her younger child, whose gender we don't know, for a thousand dollars. If that child was Boyd's daughter, by light-skinned Virginia, she would have been \"mighty near white\"\u2014a fancy girl, the slave trader's premium prize. In a typical slave-trader move, Virginia's older child, a girl, was kept back.\n\nA letter of August 8 from Rutherford to Ballard said: \"I recd a letter this morning informing me of the sale of Virginia & her Child reserving the eldest Child for $1000[.] I wrote Mr. Ewing not to sell the oldest child untill he heard from me... I recollect you wanted to reserve her before she went away which can be done now if you wish let me hear from you on the subject.\"\n\nFive months after Virginia was disposed of, Rutherford wrote Ballard from Natchez:\n\nSince writing I have seen Judge Boyd[.] he tells me that he thinks you will want 10 to 15 more females[.] I have on hand I think 12 more but they are the kind you would not buy[.] I know they are such as I would not buy for you although they are large... you cannot buy anything like a fair woman here for less than $1000 any that you would have[.] I know a lot of Georgia negroes at Memphis that I think you could buy the women for $900... I told the judge if you wished me I would go up there and buy you ten or fifteen & and charge you nothing but my expenses... Judge is in favor of my going if you say so.\n\nIt may be that Isaac Franklin's fantasy of a company \"whore house\" was not such an exaggeration.\n\nIn 1856, the year the secessionist leader and former governor James Henry Hammond was elected senator from South Carolina, he wrote his twenty-two-year-old son Harry a remarkably candid letter regarding the disposition of two sex slaves in the latest version of his will.\n\nHammond was something of an outlier in sexual behavior, as his confessional diary reveals. He wrote some of the only antebellum letters that survive documenting a sexual relationship between two men (with Thomas Jefferson Withers), and confessed in his diary to molesting all four of his teenage nieces from the marriage of Wade Hampton II to his wife's sister. Hammond had purchased Sally Johnson, a \"mulatto\" seamstress, when she was eighteen, along with her (presumably lighter-skinned) one-year-old daughter Louisa, who became his concubine when she was twelve. He had children by both women\u2014which is to say that, besides those children's complicated relationship to each other, they were his son's half siblings, as he explained in the letter to his son:\n\nIn the last will I made I left to you, over and above my other children Sally Johnson the mother of Louisa and all the children of both. Sally says Henderson is my child. It is possible, but I do not believe it. Yet act on her's rather than my opinion.\n\nLouisa's first child may be mine. I think not. Her second I believe is mine. Take care of her and her children who are both of your blood if not of mine and of Henderson. The services of the rest will I think compensate for an indulgence to these. I cannot free these people and send them North. It would be cruelty to them. Nor would I like that any but my own blood should own as Slaves my own blood or Louisa.\n\nI leave them to your charge, believing that you will best appreciate and most independently carry out my wishes in regard to them. Do not let Louisa or any of my children or possible children be slaves of Strangers. Slavery in the family will be their happiest earthly condition. (paragraphing added)\n\nAmong the greatest misfortunes Hammond considered himself to have suffered was that his captives died so frequently\u2014\"I have lost 89 negroes and at least 50 mules and horses in 11 years,\" he lamented in his diary. Perhaps, he wrote, he should move their quarters to a less unhealthy spot.\n\n_The Maxcy-Rhett house, informally known as \"secession house,\" in Beaufort, South Carolina. By 1850, the political class of Beaufort was already determined to secede. June 2013._\n\n#   40\n\n# **Communists in Blackface**\n\n_Give us SLAVERY or give us death _\n\n\u2014Edward Bryan, South Carolina, 1850\n\nTHE DISCOVERY OF GOLD in California was a turning point on the way to Southern secession.\n\nPresident Polk announced the find to the nation in his year-end message of 1848. Some ninety thousand gold-seekers arrived in northern California in 1849, staking their claims and displacing and murdering Native Americans en masse: the native population of the region dwindled in short order from about 150,000 to about 30,000.\n\nLured by the boom, immigrants came from Latin America and Europe to California and to the United States in general, and this on top of the massive Irish potato-famine migration that began arriving in numbers in 1847. Asian trade developed, Hawaii's economy thrived, and Chinese workers, principally Cantonese, came to both Hawaii and California. As gold fever spread, men (who were perhaps as much as 95 percent of the early migrants) left home and family to go West; Nantucket found itself \"drained\" of \"one-quarter of its voting population\" in nine months. A song from the period described the mania:\n\n_The people all went crazy then, they didn't know what to do_\n\n_They sold their farms for just enough to pay their passage through_\n\n_They bid their friends a long farewell, said \"Dear wife, don't you cry,_\n\n_I'll send you home the yellow lumps a piano for to buy.\"_ 3\n\nWith the discovery of other mines in the West, billions of dollars' worth of new money was extracted over the ensuing decades. It was an immediate game-changer, with global implications. So much gold was sucked to Britain, the United States' creditor and the world's economic powerhouse, that it was easily able to consolidate its already in-progress shift to the gold standard.\n\nEurope was troubled by a wave of revolutions. Beginning with a revolt in Sicily in January 1848 and a much bigger one in France the following month, insurrection spread to most of the continent. But it was put down within a year, and economic problems faded as the new money supply worked its way into the continent.\n\nA mint was established at San Francisco as the United States issued unprecedented amounts of its own gold coinage:\n\n**Year** | **Amount of gold minted into coins** 4  \n---|---  \n1848 |  $3,775,000  \n1850 | $31,981,000  \n1851 | $62,614,000  \n1852 | $56,846,000\n\nThe flood of coins brought down the price of gold and drove silver out of circulation. With a domestic supply of gold, the United States could at last ban foreign money\u2014most especially, the \"Spanish dollar\"\u2014from circulation in 1857. The total amount of paper money issued by banks, in circulation and on deposit, went from $231 million in 1848 to $392 million in 1854, and $445 million in 1857\u2014and the paper was of higher quality for having so much more gold in the system. Bankers and businessmen had a newfound sense of confidence and optimism, which made them more eager to speculate. The British were investing.\n\nCalifornia was an immigration magnet. But it was as hard to get to San Francisco from New York as from Chile, and Chilean gold-seekers were indeed arriving. The Eastern US wanted a transcontinental railroad, and the United States government wanted control of the Central American portage crossing\u2014whether in Honduras, Nicaragua, or, the ultimate choice, Panam\u00e1, the latter of which was then part of Colombia but would be pried away to become a zone of US influence.\n\nIt was the richest injection of precious metal into the global economy since the Hapsburgs had capitalized the world with gold and silver from Mexico and Per\u00fa. As the dimensions of the gold find became clear in 1849, the statehood of California was suddenly an urgent matter, before some other country tried to move in or before the miners decided to declare themselves an independent republic.\n\nUnlike Louisiana, which had been slave territory before Washington took it over, California had been free territory under Mexico, and even slaveowner President Zachary Taylor was against establishing slavery there. But there was a powerful economic interest in favor of it: slavery in California would, it was widely believed, make the value of existing slaveholdings appreciate sharply.\n\nA few slaveowners moved with their slaves to southern California, hoping to establish it as slave territory and take over the government, as had happened in Texas. But moving a plantation's worth of captive laborers even a few hundred miles was a big undertaking, let alone the near-impossibility of taking coffles the fourteen hundred parched miles from Houston to Los Angeles.\n\nSoutherners saw gold mining as something that should be done by slave labor, purchased from them. But up in the north, the forty-niner gold miners, who drafted their own legal codes requiring small, continuously worked claims, weren't about to have slaves working on massive gold plantations. They didn't want slave labor or free black people, either one; for them, California was white man's country. When a group of Texans headed by Thomas Jefferson Green tried establishing claims on the Yuba River in the names of their sixteen slaves in July 1849, miners informed them that \"no slave or negro should own claims or even work in the mines,\" and physically expelled them all.*\n\nThe large state of California, extending all the way down to San Diego, requested annexation with a free-soil constitution in 1849, putting checkmate as they did so on the westward expansion of slavery. One delegate at the California constitutional convention, Henry Tefft, matter-of-factly referred to the slaveowners as \"capitalists\" when he warned the assembly that the young white male miner population \"would be unable, even if willing, to compete with the bands of negroes who would be set to work under the direction of the capitalists. It would become a monopoly of the worst character. The profits of the mines would go into the pockets of single individuals.\" A clause that would have barred free blacks from entering the territory was voted down.\n\nIn South Carolina, Robert Barnwell Rhett, outraged that a group of gold-digging migrants could declare themselves to define California and thus exclude slavery, derided the California constitution as \"squatter sovereignty,\" _squatter_ being the preferred aristocratic epithet for poor rural whites, who often lacked legal title to the land they lived on. The states were the owners of the territories, argued the Fire-Eaters, and the slave states must be allowed to bring their property to their property.\n\nHenry Clay, together with Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, attempted to placate the Slave Power with a grand compromise in January 1850 that was packaged by Mississippi unionist Henry Foote into a single \"Omnibus\" bill, which was then disassembled and recast into a series of laws known as the Compromise of 1850. It proposed admitting California as a free state and giving territorial status to Utah (later divided into Utah and Nevada) and New Mexico (later divided into New Mexico and Arizona), while disregarding Texas's claims to New Mexican territory.\n\nIn Clay's final grand speech after decades of fame as an orator, he attacked Massachusetts senator John Davis's charge that Texans were trying to establish the \"breeding\" of slaves in New Mexico, a territory that was useless for plantation agriculture but which Texas was intent on annexing as slave territory. Davis, perhaps intimidated, denied having used the term, but Clay wouldn't let him off the hook. He rhapsodized about how kind slaveowners were to their slaves and how sale into the market only was a painful last resort. Then he demonized abolitionists. He thus discredited himself in the eyes of posterity as a pandering apologist for slavery, while failing to please the Fire-Eaters, who wanted much more than Clay was prepared to give. Clay was a Unionist, and for him the Union meant the compromises that only he was adroit enough to manage.\n\nThe Compromise of 1850 included prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Since Alexandria had left the District and returned to Virginia precisely over this issue, the interstate trade was not seriously disrupted, and in any case, slavery was not abolished in the District. But the secessionist project that was already well under way considered compromise to be treason, and the Fire-Eaters screamed bloody murder anyway.\n\nFor the North, the most offensive compromise was a new Fugitive Slave Act. Aimed at shutting down the Underground Railroad that emboldened the enslaved to escape, and building on the constitutional requirement to hand over fugitive \"persons held to service,\" it required lawmen to capture and deliver anyone in any state accused of being a fugitive slave, with no right of denial on the part of the accused. It gave kidnappers a legal apparatus.\n\nOutraged by the \"aggression\" of ending the slave trade in the District of Columbia, Southern members of both houses of Congress met in a caucus and produced _The Address of the Southern Delegates of Congress to their Constituents._ Mostly written by the aged, embittered John C. Calhoun, it warned of emancipation's awful consequences, expanding out into rings of ever more apocalyptic fantasy clad in the robes of prophecy. We offer one of its key passages as a glimpse into the routinely voiced Southern fear that white people would be on the receiving end of the violence of slavery:\n\n_The Fugitive Slave Act stimulated Southern slave-catchers to expand their operations into the free-state North, as per this September 1850 mailing piece by Maryland firm Kinsel & Doyle, which boasts of its network in Pennsylvania. The legal occupation of fugitive-catcher easily served as a cover for illegal kidnapping operations targeting free people._\n\nIf [emancipation ] ever should be effected, it will be through the agency of the Federal Government, controlled by the dominant power of the Northern States of the Confederacy, against the resistance and struggle of the Southern. It can then only be effected by the prostration of the white race; and that would necessarily engender the bitterest feelings of hostility between them and the North.\n\nBut the reverse would be the case between the blacks of the South and the people of the North. Owing their emancipation to them, they would regard them as friends, guardians, and patrons, and centre, accordingly, all their sympathy in them. The people of the North would not fail to reciprocate and to favor them, instead of the whites. Under the influence of such feelings, and impelled by fanaticism and love of power, they would not stop at emancipation.\n\nAnother step would be taken\u2014to raise them to a political and social equality with their former owners, by giving them the right of voting and holding public offices under the Federal Government. We see the first step toward it in the bill already alluded to\u2014to vest the free blacks and slaves with the right to vote on the question of emancipation in this District. But when once raised to an equality, they would become the fast political associates of the North, acting and voting with them on all questions, and by this political union between them, holding the white race at the South in complete subjection.\n\nThe blacks, and the profligate whites that might unite with them, would become the principal recipients of federal offices and patronage, and would, in consequence, be raised above the whites of the South in the political and social scale. We would, in a word, change conditions with them\u2014a degradation greater than has ever yet fallen to the lot of a free and enlightened people, and one from which we could not escape, should emancipation take place (which it certainly will if not prevented), but by fleeing the homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning our country to our former slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness. (paragraphing added)\n\n_John C. Calhoun._\n\nFrederick Douglass answered Calhoun's negrophobic blast, referencing the Fugitive Slave Act:\n\nWe say to the slaveholder, Insist upon your right to make Northern men your bloodhounds, to hunt down your slaves, and return them to bondage. We say, let this be insisted upon, the more strenuously the better, as it will the sooner awaken the North to a sense of their responsibility for slavery, not only in the District of Columbia, and in forts, arsenals, and navy-yards, but in the States themselves; and will the sooner see their duty to labor for the removal of slavery from every part of this most unhallowed Union. In any case, nought but slaveholders have anything to fear.\n\nJohn C. Calhoun died of tuberculosis in March 1850, \"with treason in his heart and on his lips,\" in the words of his Senate adversary Thomas Hart Benton, who, like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, was by that time largely a spent force. When Calhoun began fomenting pro-slavery disunion, he was the only such figure on the national stage. His followers competed to be the most radical. In his final years, Calhoun had pushed aside Robert Barnwell Rhett, his longtime lieutenant, and had visibly passed his mantle to the man Rhett would come to hate most, Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis, who had war-hero status from the Mexican War.\n\nOne of the first two senators from California was William Gwin, Andrew Jackson's old crony from Isaac Franklin's hometown of Gallatin, Tennessee. Gwin, who owned two hundred or so slaves, was an embodiment of the Slave Power. After becoming a congressman from Mississippi, he wrote Jackson on March 14, 1842: \"I want a slaveholder for President next time regardless of the man believing as I solemnly do that in the next Presidential term the Abolitionists must be put down or blood will be spilt.\" Relocated to San Francisco, he participated in California's 1849 constitutional convention, where, presumably understanding that the free-soil measure would pass, he acceded to it graciously. Though he failed in his quest to bring slavery to the state, he was a happy man: he was the first slave baron to become a gold baron, having bought a mine that struck it rich. He organized the pro-slavery Democratic political faction in the California legislature\u2014the so-called Chivalry wing, informally known as the Chivs.\n\nGwin's case was not typical. Slavery wasn't in control of the gold mines, and as the world's economy was transformed by the new money, the specie failed to go South. Ultimately, the California gold strike was the death knell for an archaic modality of agrarian capitalism. But the South had no way out; it was locked into holding its wealth in the form of slaves, with human fecundity still the road to monetary increase, while slavery was locked out of the Gold Rush.\n\nEnormous tracts of land were coming on the market as East Texas cotton fields bloomed under the hands of trafficked-in slave laborers. Amid a generally inflationary environment, the price of slaves went up, up, up. But the largest movement of slaves South and West had already been completed; Texas and Arkansas were viable new markets, but Mississippi was already reaching its saturation point.\n\nSouth Carolina's overfarmed cotton land was playing out. Planters migrated westward, a little at a time, drawn by the lure of cheap land and a better deal. \"By 1850 more than 50,000 South Carolina natives lived in Georgia,\" writes Lacy K. Ford, \"more than 45,000 lived in Alabama, and some 26,000 lived in Mississippi.\" The cultural swath they cut as they brought laborers from the most Africanized population of North America remains a permanent part of American culture.*\n\nSouth Carolinian politicians had been actively constructing an ideology for secession since the 1820s, if not all along, one that cast the Constitution as an instrument of oppression now that its original meaning had been perverted by abolitionists. By 1850, they were working to export the secession project to the rest of the South.\n\nThe more of a state's land was under cultivation by slave labor, the more its politicians were apt to favor secession. Most of South Carolina was covered by plantations, with only a few counties in the north of the state not primarily slave-driven. In the plantation counties, nearly all the white population's prosperity depended, one way or another, on the continuance\u2014which meant, the exportation\u2014of slavery. South Carolina, so heavily dependent on slave property, had the most concentrated core of support for secession, arguably followed in zeal by Mississippi.\n\nIn Maryland, only a minority were in favor of secession, though they were vocal. But slavery in Maryland was on the decline. Much of Maryland did not rely on slave labor; between manumission and sale of slaves down South, its enslaved population was actually decreasing. As Bancroft put it, \"counting slave property as so much interest-producing capital, Maryland's course, viewed superficially, was spendthrift, for it was steadily eating into the principal.\"\n\nThe enslaved of Maryland had the most chance to escape via the Underground Railroad; all they had to do was get across the border to Pennsylvania, then push on to Canada. From Baltimore, they might have a chance of slipping away on a boat, the way Frederick Douglass did. While the number of escapees via the Underground Railroad may have been statistically small, the existence of a path to freedom was psychologically significant. The South was a prison, but the enslaved knew there was an escape to the North.\n\nWith the West Coast becoming all free-soil, Southerners were desperate for an outlet to the Pacific. As the \"Great Debate\" over the new western territories continued, Congress mulled the possibility of admitting a state of Deseret (ultimately admitted as Utah), and there was talk of war as slave-soil Texas attempted to annex free-soil New Mexico.\n\nThe march of slavery had been halted at Texas. California was a free state. Now the South's great obsession was its old dream of taking Cuba. A Cuban state in the Union would have two reliably pro-slavery senators. There was no way to make Cuba a free state; its slaves were creating too much wealth. Annexing Cuba would have dramatically boosted the values of extant North American slaveholdings\u2014which is to say, the slave-breeding industry. The United States would not only annex Cuba, but also its enormous slave trade, which as part of the United States would no longer be supplied with Africans, but would have to buy slaves entirely from US sources. Virginia alone would not be able to supply such a demand.\n\nNarciso L\u00f3pez, a Venezuelan adventurer, briefly invaded Cuba in 1848, hoping to annex it to the United States as a slave state. With the backing of secessionist Mississippi governor John Quitman, who hoped to make Mississippi into a slave-breeding state for Cuba's market, right across the Gulf, and with a cheering section that included John L. O'Sullivan, the _New Orleans Delta_ , and the New York _Sun_ , L\u00f3pez invaded Cuba a second time. He organized his venture at the same jumping-off point as Austin's Texas invasion: Banks' Arcade in New Orleans. The one-star flag he flew, based on the Lone Star flag of Texas, first flew on Fulton and Nassau Streets in New York above the offices of the Sun; it was later adapted to become the flag of Cuba, and, with the colors reversed, Puerto Rico.\n\nLanding at the northern Cuban port of C\u00e1rdenas with some six hundred men in May 1850, L\u00f3pez found taking Cuba more difficult than he had imagined. Nor did he learn until he had safely escaped back to New Orleans that a number of Cuban slaves had stowed away in his boats, hoping to escape the plantation; they were returned to Cuba. L\u00f3pez faced indictment for violation of the Neutrality Act, and Quitman was ultimately forced to resign his post as governor.\n\nL\u00f3pez invaded Cuba a third time, in 1851. He was captured and publicly garroted in Havana, using a screw-turn device that crushed his windpipe as he sat in a chair. In the wake of L\u00f3pez's failure, a secret society of Cuban exiles and Southern-rights supporters was formed in the United States to further the work of annexing Cuba and of the expansion of slave territory in general: the Order of the Lone Star, or OLS. Founded in Lafayette, Louisiana, with Pierre Soul\u00e9 as its first president, the organization came to claim\u2014almost certainly hyperbolically\u2014some fifteen thousand members in ten states, with its greatest strength in the Alabama-Texas corridor.\n\nIn response to the controversy over the Compromise of 1850, and growing out of a previous call by the late John C. Calhoun, Mississippi politicians announced a convention to be held at Nashville beginning June 1, 1850.\n\nSouth Carolina was the only state to send a full delegation of four to the Southern Convention, also known as the Nashville Convention. Ostensibly held to discuss ways to preserve the Union, it was promoted by the South Carolinians to legitimize the idea of secession and, not incidentally, to position themselves as the leaders of the movement. Only nine of the fifteen slaveholding states sent delegates; most of those who attended were Tennessee locals.\n\nWe know what the room smelled like. The church where the convention was held had to replace its carpet afterward because of all the tobacco juice and cigar ash. We know that the delegates were entertained by a troupe of Swiss bell ringers. The _Nashville True Whig and Weekly Commercial Register_ noted that, in St. George L. Sioussat's paraphrase, \"there was a noticeable identity in personnel between the southern advocates of the Nashville convention and the promoters of the expedition of General Lopez for the conquest of Cuba\"\u2014most notably Governor Quitman. \"The refusal to admit Cuba as an independent Southern state into the Union,\" said the newspaper, \"is another 'alternative,' vaguely hinted at by Mr. Calhoun... to which 'disunion' would be preferred by the extreme Southern factionists.\"\n\nHeld in the city that was the heart of Jacksonism, the Nashville Convention drove another wedge into the crevasse between secessionists and Jacksonian unionists. In a letter to James Buchanan, the late President Polk's close Tennessee ally Cave Johnson wrote: \"Be not surprised if you should hear even me with my fifty or sixty negroes denounced for favoring the abolitionists because I will not yield to the mad projects of disunion that are now so freely talked of.\"\n\nRhett's aggressive political strategy was much like South Carolina's: take the most extreme position and fight from there. He was disappointed by the lack of secession fever from the other states, whose more moderate members, including unionist Sam Houston, carried the day. Only the South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia delegates\u2014the states with the highest concentrations of slave labor\u2014had been strongly in favor of secession. But more significant than the results was that delegates from Southern states had convened to talk about remaining in the Union\u2014which was to say, to talk about secession.\n\nLouisiana did not send delegates to the Nashville Convention, but the excitable French-born Louisiana senator Pierre Soul\u00e9 proposed to the Senate on June 24 the extension of the Missouri Compromise line out to the West Coast, as the convention had recommended. Soul\u00e9 wanted to divide California into two states, with the southern, slaveholding one to be called \"South California.\" Brandishing the by-now standard threat of disunion, he warned that not to leave South California open to slavery would be\u2014he must have shouted it, because it was printed in all caps in the _Congressional Globe_ \u2014\"TO EXCLUDE THE SOUTH FOREVER FROM ALL SHARE IN THE TERRITORIES, THROUGH SPOLIATIONS OF HER RIGHTS AND A DEGRADATION OF HER SOVEREIGNTY, WITHOUT AN ALTERNATIVE THAT DOES NOT END IN AN INGLORIOUS SUBMISSION, OR A RUPTURE OF THE UNION!\"\n\nAs the California debate dragged on, President Zachary Taylor became the second Whig war-hero president to die in office, succumbing suddenly from cholera on July 9, 1850, leaving behind an estate of 131 slaves to be divided among his three children by his lawyer, Judah P. Benjamin. As the nation lauded him, the _Charleston Mercury_ was spiteful.\n\nTaylor was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore, who cleaned house and brought in his own cabinet. Fillmore, from Buffalo, New York, had been a moderately antislavery congressman who voted against the annexation of Texas. But President Fillmore refused to submit the New Mexico constitution to Congress, because it would have brought in another free-soil state and thus would have disturbed the balance in the Senate. \"What is there in New Mexico that could by any possibility induce anybody to go there with slaves?\" asked Daniel Webster in Congress. \"Who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or anything else on lands in New Mexico, made fertile only by irrigation?\"\n\nTexas's motive for trying to take a big chunk of New Mexico may have been hostage-taking. The Republic of Texas had run up a heavy debt selling bonds that the State of Texas could not pay. Though Fillmore stood up to Texas's attempted annexation of New Mexico, threatening to send troops, Texas got a bailout from its debts as ransom.\n\nFillmore signed the compromise into law, and California became a state on September 9, 1850, which is why Fillmore's name survived in San Francisco to become the name of a rock-concert palace in the 1960s; another of the city's main thoroughfares is named Polk. But signing the compromise into law meant signing the Fugitive Slave Act, which cost Fillmore much support in the North and likely the election of 1852, which he lost.\n\nSlavery had lost the contest for western expansion. But if the intense polemic from Calhoun and his successors had done nothing else, it had made leaving the Union thinkable in the South, and whatever the specific political issue being fought over, it was all about slavery. Increasing numbers of people in the slave states had severed the emotional attachment with a country that could harbor unprosecuted abolitionists. The nation's churches had largely split into Northern and Southern over slavery. Slaveowners wanted Cuba badly, and the secessionists imagined that they were sure to have Mexico, Central America, all the way down.\n\nWhen a second session of the Nashville Convention was called for November, the moderates stayed home. On November 14, 1850, the delegates heard the seventy-three-year-old veteran South Carolina politician Langdon Cheves deliver an oration that presented the case for immediate secession in fiery terms\u2014 _if_ four states would do it. Since three were already in the bag, he was trying to convert just one of the attending delegations.\n\nThe South was not a particularly hospitable place for any Yankee, but for a Northern reporter deep cover was especially necessary. Joseph Holt Ingraham, a Maine-born Episcopal clergyman who discreetly published his letters under the name Kate Conyngham, saw Cheves as a \"hale, white-headed old gentleman, with a fine port-wine tint to his florid cheek.\" Cheves denounced abolitionists as communists, a term recently current from its use during the European-revolutionary year of 1848 in Marx's _Communist Manifesto_ and which would carry racialized connotations in Southern rhetoric into the Jim Crow era, when the Communist Party was the only one to call for full racial equality. Cheves conflated communism with democracy, as well as with jacobinism and anarchy. He denounced them all as equivalent to abolitionism, which he then dismissed with a minstrelic metaphor that referenced the old practice of blacking up one's face before engaging in group attacks:\n\nWhat we call the rights of man, or the admission of great masses to the power of self-government, has brought into action the minds of persons utterly unqualified to judge of the subject practically, who have generated the wildest theories.... This agitation has recently reached the United States. It has been introduced by European agents, and has brought under its delusions the subject of African slavery in the Southern States. It is of the family of communism, it is the doctrine of the anarchist] Proudhon, that property is a crime. It is the same doctrine; they have only _blacked its face to disguise it._[ 27 (emphasis added)\n\nSliding into his big finish, Cheves called for southern unity by evoking a master-race utopia:\n\nUnite, and your slave property shall be protected to the very border of Mason and Dixon's line. Unite, and the freesoilers shall, at their peril, be your police to prevent the escape of your slaves; California shall be a slave State; the dismembered territory of Texas shall be restored, and you shall enjoy a full participation in all the territory which was conquered by your blood and treasure. Unite, and you shall form one of the most splendid empires on which the sun ever shone, of the most homogeneous population, all of the same blood and lineage.\n\nCheves's speech was no fluke: proslavery writers formulated the first generation of American anticommunist rhetoric. Southern ideology had coalesced into a vision of a worthy elite who governs while the unworthy multitude suffer, with South Carolina taking the philosophical lead.\n\nThough the turnout at the Second Nashville Convention was disappointing, Rhett followed up by developing a plan with Quitman to call a secession congress in 1852. On May 7 of that year, Rhett abruptly resigned the Senate seat he had been recently returned to. Taking full control of the _Charleston Mercury_ , the Fire-Eatingest newspaper in the entire South, he installed his son, Robert Barnwell Rhett Jr., as editor.\n\nPeople were being convicted of abolitionism in South Carolina courts, though it was early yet in the building curve of hysteria that took nine more years to become cannonfire. It was not safe to voice even moderate antislavery views. The pro-secession British consul Robert Bunch wrote:\n\nPersons are torn away from their residences and pursuits; sometimes 'tarred and feathered'; 'ridden upon rails,' or cruelly whipped; letters are opened at the Post Offices; discussion upon slavery is entirely prohibited under penalty of expulsion, with or without violence, from the country.\n\nThe Whig party barely outlived Henry Clay. It had divided into sectional wings, and by 1852 it was disintegrating. Former Whigs and antislavery Jacksonians met in the new Republican Party, which did not exist in the South.\n\nThe South Carolinian writer, editor, and statistician James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow began publishing his _DeBow's Review_ in New Orleans in 1846. A deluxe business-news publication, with articles on scientific agricultural management and new developments in technology, it was a voice of the modernizing wing of the pro-slavery movement. Perpetually in financial straits, because its subscribers tended not to pay up, the composition and printing of the magazine was done in the North, where the cost was a third what it would have been in the South, and the quality better. During the Pierce presidency, De Bow was placed in charge of the Seventh Census of 1850, the most detailed US census up to that time. As the 1850s passed, the _Review_ 's pro-slavery, pro-secession positions became more extreme, as it looked toward a more industrial, technocratic, slave-driven South.\n\nBy the 1850s, in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act, the antislavery movement was making itself felt in the popular arts. Harriet Beecher Stowe published _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ in 1852\u2014a bestselling book that reached even more people in its numerous unauthorized stage adaptations.\n\nWilliam Wells Brown, previously the author of _Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave_ (1847), became the first African American to publish a novel, though it could not be published in the United States at the time. _Clotel, or the President's Daughter_ (1853), was about fictional slave children descended from Thomas Jefferson, who was named in the book. Brown, at the time a fugitive from slavery\u2014or, rather, from the Fugitive Slave Act\u2014fled the United States for London, where the novel was published. He published other versions of it later, including an 1864 American edition that changed the fictional protagonist's parentage from Jefferson to being \"the granddaughter of an American Senator.\"\n\nSlave narratives became an established publishing genre. Solomon Northup, one of the few kidnapped free people to have descended into slavery and then been rescued, returned to his life in Saratoga, New York, and told his story in _Twelve Years a Slave_ (1853), dedicated to Harriet Beecher Stowe. John Thompson, a literate slave who escaped Maryland via the Underground Railroad and became a whaler in New England and a stern Methodist preacher, self-published his autobiography in Massachusetts in 1856: _The Life of John Thompson, a Fugitive Slave; Containing His History of 25 Years in Bondage, and His Providential Escape. Written by Himself._ To out himself as a fugitive slave was a provocation in 1856, when lawmen anywhere in the United States were obligated to hand accused fugitives over without further proceedings. It was a public dare: here I am, come and get me.\n\nSentimental popular songs referred to the interstate slave trade: in response to Stowe's book, Stephen Foster's \"My Old Kentucky Home,\" premiered in 1853 by Christie's Minstrels, was at first titled \"Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night,\" before Foster rewrote it. It's now the state song of Kentucky, but they don't sing the third verse any more:\n\n_The head must bow and the back will have to bend,_\n\n_Wherever the darkey may go:_\n\n_A few more days, and the trouble all will end_\n\n_In the field where the sugar canes grow._\n\n_A few more days for to tote the weary load,_\n\n_No matter, 'twill never be light,_\n\n_A few more days till we totter on the road,_\n\n_Then my old Kentucky Home, good night _\n\nThat's a song about a black man from Kentucky being worked to death in a sugar prison camp in Louisiana. Benjamin Hanby's tearjerking \"My Darling Nelly Gray\" (1856), which Hanby based on a story told him as a child by a black man named Joseph Selby, sang of an enslaved couple broken apart by a sale of the woman to Georgia:\n\n_O my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away,_\n\n_And I'll never see my darling anymore;_\n\n_I'm sitting by the river and I'm weeping all the day,_\n\n_For you're gone from the old Kentucky shore. 32_\n\nThis genre of songs continued after the Civil War (James Bland's \"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny\"), when they were bowdlerized and, bizarrely, repurposed into a nostalgia for the Old South.\n\nAnthony Burns, a self-emancipated twenty-year-old man who had escaped from Virginia via the Underground Railroad, was apprehended in Boston on May 24, 1854, by a US commissioner acting on the behest of a slave-catcher hired by Burns's former master. His case became a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre; one man was killed when a mob unsuccessfully tried to storm the courthouse to free him. But he was extradited to Richmond, where he was put into isolation at Lumpkin's Slave Jail. The Boston journalist Charles Emery Stevens published a book about the case, which described the conditions under which Burns was held for four months:\n\nThe place of his confinement was a room only six or eight feet square, in the upper story of the jail, which was accessible only through a trap-door. He was allowed neither bed nor air; a rude bench fastened against the wall and a single, coarse blanket were the only means of repose. After entering his cell, the handcuffs were not removed, but, in addition, fetters were placed upon his feet. In this manacled condition he was kept during the greater part of his confinement.\n\nThe torture which he suffered, in consequence, was excruciating. The gripe of the irons impeded the circulation of his blood, made hot and rapid by the stifling atmosphere, and caused his feet to swell enormously. The flesh was worn from his wrists, and when the wounds had healed, there remained broad scars as perpetual witnesses against his owner. The fetters also prevented him from removing his clothing by day or night, and no one came to help him; the indecency resulting from such a condition is too revolting for description, or even thought. His room became more foul and noisome than the hovel of a brute; loathsome creeping things multiplied and rioted in the filth. His food consisted of a piece of coarse corn-bread and the parings of bacon or putrid meat. This fare, supplied to him once a day, he was compelled to devour without Plate, knife, or fork.\n\nImmured, as he was, in a narrow, unventilated room, beneath the heated roof of the jail, a constant supply of fresh water would have been a heavenly boon; but the only means of quenching his thirst was the nauseating contents of a pail that was replenished only once or twice a week. Living under such an accumulation of atrocities, he at length fell seriously ill. This brought about some mitigation of his treatment; his fetters were removed for a time, and he was supplied with broth, which, compared with his previous food, was luxury itself....\n\nOne day his attention was attracted by a noise in the room beneath him. There was a sound as of a woman entreating and sobbing, and of a man addressing to her commands mingled with oaths. Looking down through a crevice in the floor, Burns beheld a slave woman stark naked in the presence of two men.\n\nOne of them was an overseer, and the other a person who had come to purchase a slave. The overseer had compelled the woman to disrobe in order that the purchaser might see for himself whether she was well formed and sound in body. Burns was horror-stricken; all his previous experience had not made him aware of such an outrage. This, however, was not an exceptional case; he found it was the ordinary custom in Lumpkin's jail thus to expose the naked person of the slave, both male and female, to the inspection of the purchaser. A wider range of observation would have enabled him to see that it was the universal custom in the slave states....\n\nAfter a while, he found a friend in the family of Lumpkin. The wife of this man was a \"yellow woman\" whom he had married as much from necessity as from choice, the white women of the South refusing to connect themselves with professed slave traders. This woman manifested her compassion for Burns by giving him a testament and a hymn-book. Upon most slaves these gifts would have been thrown away; fortunately for Burns, he had learned to read, and the books proved a very treasure. Besides the yellow wife, Lumpkin had a black concubine, and she also manifested a friendly spirit toward the prisoner.\n\nThe house of Lumpkin was separated from the jail only by the yard, and from one of the upper windows the girl contrived to hold conversations with Anthony, whose apartment was directly opposite. Her compassion, it is not unlikely, changed into a warmer feeling; she was discovered one day by her lord and master; what he overheard roused his jealousy, and he took effectual means to break off the intercourse. (paragraphing added)\n\nBurns was sold at auction after four months to a planter, but his freedom was subsequently purchased by L. M. Grimes, a minister who had established a church for runaway slaves in Boston. Fugitive slaves had become pop culture by this point; according to Stevens, P. T. Barnum offered the newly freed Burns $500 to be an exhibit in his museum in New York, which Burns indignantly turned down, reportedly saying, \"He wants to show me like a monkey!\"\n\nN.B. FORREST, Dealer in Slaves, No. 87 ADAMS STREET.\n\nHAS just received, from South Carolina, twenty-five likely young Negroes, to which he desires to call the attention of purchasers. He will be in the regular receipt of Negroes from North and South Carolina every month.\n\nHis Negro Depot is one of the most complete and commodious establishments of the kind in the Southern country, and regulations, exact and systematic cleanliness, neatness and comfort being strictly observed and enforced, and his aim is to furnish to customers No. 1 servants and field hands, sound and perfect in body and mind.\n\nNegroes taken on Commission. \u2014 Memphis _Eagle and Enquirer_ , June 2, 1857.\n\nThe western Tennessee river port of Memphis was a jumpoff point for selling slaves into the new territories of Arkansas and Texas. Memphis was a mature slave market by 1852, when the thirty-year-old slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest begins to appear in the city's records. The hotheaded Forrest was at least as rash a man as Jackson, but had even less education. He instilled fear in those around him, and he didn't stay business partners with anyone very long; for a year he worked in a partnership called Forrest & Jones; then, with the more established Byrd Hill, he cofounded Hill & Forrest; and by 1855 was partners with Josiah Maples in Forrest & Maples. He bought a double lot on Adams Street\u2014named for John Adams, between Washington and Jefferson Streets\u2014using 85 Adams for his house and 87 Adams for his jail, and soon he began to run the customary 500 NEGROES WANTED advertisements in the paper, while opening depots in other towns. He seems to have procured his merchandise in what had become the standard way: canvassing planters personally and via agents, buying people one at a time. It was no longer necessary to go to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to find farmers willing to sell slaves. These were the high-priced years of the slave trade, and profits came fast.\n\nIn a mythologizing account written at the time of Forrest's funeral in 1877, Lafcadio Hearn, who was passing through Memphis at the time, wrote that Forrest was \"reported to have been 'kind' to his slaves, yet to have 'taught them to fear him exceedingly.'\" White people were afraid of him, too. He did not hesitate to escalate to lethal action, as when he put a gun up to a tailor's head for having delivered a bad suit. He made a lot of money in the slave business, some of which he invested in land, before winding it down in 1860 and getting out of it by 1861. Other traders continued in the business after the South seceded, but Forrest went to war, which allowed him to further develop the talent for blunt violence that had served him so well in slave trading.\n\n_A broadside advertisement for Nathan Bedford Forrest's slave dealership in Memphis._\n\n*The _Oxford English Dictionary_ notes the emergence in 1856, in the United States, of a new word: _vigilante._\n\n*From its platform in Mississippi, the \"Delta blues\" reaches back across the southeast to South Carolina and Georgia. Georgia was the birthplace of the three singers who did the most to bring the vocal dynamics of the black church into the mainstream popular repertoire: Ray Charles, Little Richard, and James Brown.\n\n#   41\n\n# **Hiring Day**\n\n_INSURE YOUR NEGROES IN THE AETNA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, OF HARTFORD, CONN. RATES REDUCED. Z. GIBBONS, Gen'l Ins. Agt., No. 3 Upper Street Lexington, KY_\n\n\u2014Lexington (KY) Semi-Weekly _Statesman_ , Feb. 21, 1860\n\n\"SEPARATION OF FAMILIES? YES, indeed,\" said the fugitive Lewis Clarke at an antislavery meeting in Brooklyn in 1842.\n\nIf the gentleman had been in Kentucky at New Year's time, he wouldn't need to ask that question. Of all the days in the year, the slaves dread New-Year's day the worst [of] any. For folks come for their debts then; and if anybody is going to sell a slave, that's the time they do it; and if anybody's going to give away a slave, that's the time they do it; and the slave never knows where he'll be sent to. Oh, New-Year's a heart-breaking time in Kentucky\n\nNew Year's Day, a day for settling debts, was also the occasion of a great annual party thrown by white people throughout the antebellum South: slave-hiring day. (\"Hiring\" is the customary term, though \"rental\" might be more appropriate.) A single tavern might be the stage for renting hundreds of legal nonpeople. They stood in the seasonal bitter cold for as long as it took, while drink flowed freely from the bar for prospective purchasers. Those too poor to own slaves could come and gaze at the possibilities. For the enslaved, it was the day when they learned where they would be sent next, whether back to the same place as last year or to a new and dangerous job far away.\n\n\"To the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows,\" wrote Harriet Jacobs. \"She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns.\" For some, this system made the traumatic experience of being auctioned off into an annual event. \"Them ole red headed yaps would bid us off to the highest bidder and we couldn't do nothin' but pray,\" recalled a formerly enslaved Tennessean. \"Yes, fine times for them, but awful for us po' niggers. Yes'm, they would cry you off to the highest bidder for the next year. One by one, we had to get up on that block, and he bid us off.\"\n\nAll sorts of service occupations throughout the South were done by rented-out slaves, who on a year's contract typically earned their owners between 10 and 20 percent of their sale value besides relieving him or her of the necessity of housing, clothing, and feeding them. \"Those wages must represent exactly the cost of slave labor,\" noted Frederick Law Olmsted; they were typically paid to the slaveowner at year's end though sometimes monthly or quarterly, with a security deposit and a bond required. For an enslaved person, this could be a relatively advantageous situation, as it was much preferable to be enslaved in town than on a plantation, and it was way better than being sold down South. Or it could be atrocious.\n\n_Hiring contract in Petersburg, Virginia, dated January 2, 1865, for \"negro slave\" Cely and her children Rosie and Mary._\n\nSlave hiring was particularly common in Virginia, where there was less plantation work to do and where there was a variety of other kinds of work suited for slave labor. By the 1850s, Virginia's economy had diversified. After lying fallow, some of its worn-out tobacco land had been restored to productivity for other kinds of uses, though none had the income-generating power of tobacco.\n\nFrederic Bancroft described \"hiring\" as \"a restricted kind of slave trade,\" and emphasized the importance of prestige to both slaveowner and slave-hirer: \"the hirer as well as the owner was popularly considered as belonging to the slaveholding class.\"\n\nIt boosted the hirer's prestige to have a slave working for him. At the same time, it provided the owner a lucrative alternative to selling slaves, which would have indicated a drop in his or her social standing. If that had to happen, it was best to keep it on the down low. \"Richmond was the best place in the State to sell nearly all kinds of slaves at good prices without publicity as to ownership,\" wrote Bancroft.\n\nRichmond might not have looked like much of an industrial city to a Northerner, but it was the most developed in the South. Meanwhile, the sale of so many young people to traders over the decades had brought in plenty of capitalized labor to work with. Virginia had the most railroad mileage of any Southern state\u20141,771.16 miles in 1860, more than four times that of Maryland. \"The completion of several rail lines in Virginia coincided with a dramatic surge in the prices of tobacco, wheat, and corn,\" writes John J. Zaborney. \"The railroads so reduced transport costs that Virginia farmers shipped more of their products, more cheaply, to Virginia's growing urban centers.\"\n\nRailroads made possible the cultivation of new lands, increasing the state's development. They also made it easier to ship slaves; as a visitor can still perceive today despite the subsequent destruction of the town's core, Richmond's teeming slave-mart district of the 1850s was located by the town's railroad center. A traveler in 1856 wrote:\n\nYou notice... that every train going south has just such a crowd of slaves on board, twenty or more, and a \"nigger car,\" which is very generally also the smoking-car and sometimes the baggage-car. You notice also that these slaves whom you constantly meet going south in the trader's hands are not old men and women or by any means malicious-looking ones.... but are for the most part apparently picked slaves, boys and girls or young men and women, eighteen-twenty, twenty-five...\n\nThe trade in Richmond was located in an approximately thirty-block area between Fifteenth and Nineteenth Streets in the low-lying part of town called Shockoe Bottom, for which the large, comfortable Odd Fellows Hall between Fourteenth and Fifteenth on Franklin served as an auction site. The extension of Fifteenth Street, between Broad and Franklin, was called Wall Street, and was also known as Lumpkin's Alley for its tenant Robert Lumpkin, who operated the best known of the city's many slave-trading posts, and was more informally known as the Devil's Half Acre. Lumpkin's Slave Jail has become emblematic of Richmond's slave trade, but Lumpkin was only one of dozens of traders, and his jail was one of several.\n\nRecords show that as of 1840 Lumpkin owned an eight-year-old girl named Mary, by whom he subsequently had five children. As the pending acquisition of Texas stimulated the Virginia trade, he bought three lots on Wall Street in 1844, which were assessed at $6,000 in 1848. Lumpkin was not the first trader to operate on that site; the Richmond trader Bacon Tait was operating there in the early 1830s, and he built the brick jail Lumpkin later used. Tait sold it to the trader Lewis A. Collier, who made further improvements but was ruined in the post-Jackson depression; the Bank of Virginia took possession of the property in 1844, and sold it to Lumpkin.\n\nAs was typical of the larger slave jails, there were four buildings to the compound. One was a boardinghouse for visiting traders; another was a kitchen\/canteen. The filthy Shockoe Creek ran through the property, and the slave jail itself was down at the bottom of the embankment, on the lowest, muddiest, least desirable piece of ground.\n\nLike other such jails, it had a whipping room; the Reverend A.M. Newman of Opelousas, Louisiana, who as a boy was sent to be whipped there in 1862, recalled that \"on the floor of that room were rings. The individual would be laid down, his hands and feet stretched out and fastened in the rings, and a great big man would stand over him and flog him.\"\n\nLumpkin lived in the main building, together with Mary, now his concubine\u2014the \"yellow woman\" who had given Anthony Burns a hymnal\u2014and their five white-looking children, Martha, Annie, Robert, Richard, and John. Martha and Annie were sent to be educated at Mrs. John C. Cowles's Female Seminary in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where they ran no risk of being sold as fancy girls if their father should fall into debt; ultimately, all five were sent to live in Pennsylvania, where Lumpkin owned property. He had freed Mary by 1857, when she appears as a free woman of color in Richmond court records. However, while Mary may have been referred to in daily parlance as his \"wife,\" the state of Virginia prohibited \"interracial\" marriages until the United States Supreme Court's _Loving v. Virginia_ decision of 1967.\n\nThe prices in Richmond were the lowest of any of the major slave markets because it was primarily a wholesale mart for export, so some enterprising Virginians found it an attractive business proposition to buy slaves there specifically in order to rent them out locally, doubling their money in a few years.\n\nMany small slaveholders lived on the income that one or a few enslaved laborers earned by working for others; this was an especially important nest egg for slaveholding widows, and even for mentally incompetent persons who had inherited slaves. Churches received income by renting out the services of captives. To transact all this business, there were specialized employment agents dedicated to renting out slave labor; every Southern town had them. Southern municipalities made money from taxes and fees on slave-rental, sometimes requiring the purchase of a numbered badge that had to be worn by a rented slave.\n\nEven those people who were too old to be sold to a trader for export as cotton-field labor might still bring in a comfortable income locally as domestic servants or other types of workers. Hotel and boardinghouse guests were commonly attended to by rented slaves; Frederick Law Olmsted marveled at the quality of service he received in his hotel at Richmond, where a middle-aged enslaved man named Henry, who, according to the hotel owner, would have been worth $2,000 if he had been a little younger, \"becomes your servant while you are in your room; he asks, at night, when he comes to request your boots, at what time he shall come in the morning, and then, without being very exactly punctual, he comes quietly in, makes your fire, sets the boots before it, brushes and arranges your clothes, lays out your linen, arranges your dressing gear, asks if you want anything else of him before breakfast, opens the shutters, and goes off to the next room.\"\n\nEvery kind of work could be contracted for, from wet nursing to piloting a boat. \"Fieldhands, washers and ironers, cooks, porters, waiters, house-maids, plain mechanics of various kinds and half-grown boys and girls were numerous in nearly all hiring markets,\" writes Frederic Bancroft. For the enslaved, a job in even a small city was much preferable to field labor; besides making it easier to abscond, it allowed access to merchandise and opportunities to do business, which many did with great eagerness when they had the opportunity.\n\nWhile visiting Macon, Georgia, in April 1907, Bancroft interviewed a formerly enslaved man named Henry G. Griffin, who was, he said, bought twice via mortgage, once at the age of eleven months and again at the age of sixteen years. At first he \"worked in a store nearly like a clerk,\" as Bancroft put it; then, in Griffin's words, \"I sampled cotton for E.A. Wilcox, who paid [to Griffin's \"owner\"] at the rate of $30 a month for me. All the sample cotton was given to the samplers. Sometimes there was 40 or 50 pounds a day.\" That gave him a steady stream of something saleable. Griffin was treated rather well, he recalled, meaning that he was not separated from his family and could make some money at his job.\n\nGriffin took Bancroft sightseeing Southern style, to the barred windows of the brick city guardhouse on the east side of Fourth Street between Cherry and Poplar where, as was the norm in Southern jails, slaves could be sent for whipping. Speaking as an eyewitness, Griffin recalled that they were beaten in the most common slave-whipping position: stretched out face down with their hands and feet tied. Women, said Griffin, were stretched on the ground with a hole beneath their bellies, \"so that there was no chance of striking their stomachs,\" wrote Bancroft. Or, though Bancroft didn't put it this way, if they were pregnant, the valuable fetus would be protected while the mother was being\u2014the customary term was \"corrected.\"\n\nThe great peril of being hired out was that the hirer, who had no long-term stake in the laborer's well-being, might work him or her abusively hard, assign a dangerous job, or simply beat the daylights out of him or her. Accidents of all types were common, nowhere more than in the industrial jobs given to slaves. Underground mining was particularly dangerous, but many types of occupational accidents were common. Slaveholders typically required the hirer to take out insurance, so slave-hiring was a boon to insurance companies.\n\nBy custom, slave-hiring contracts were for one year, commencing on January 2 and ending on Christmas Eve, when the contract became payable. Then the hired-out people would return home for a brief, heartbreaking reunion with their families, perhaps learning that loved ones had died or been sold away during the year.\n\nSome enslaved people, typically the highest skilled workers such as carpenters, were sometimes allowed to hire themselves out. The repeated laws against the practice make it clear how common it was for them to handle the transaction themselves and live in their own quarters in town, paying their \"owner\" his or her fee and keeping any surplus for themselves.\n\nBut many were merely transferred from abusive master to abusive master. John J. Zaborney cites the case of a slaveholder who wrote a letter to a man who had rented a woman named Delphia from him, which perhaps provides one demonstration of the workings of pro-slavery theology:\n\nI am sorry to hear that Delphia is so impudent but glad to be able to recommend a cure which I have often tried with certain success. Let the overseer take Delphia and give her fifty lashes, on her bare and repeat the dose morning after morning...\n\n... Delphia is... no inconsiderable part of your household and I humbly suggest that it is your duty to command her that she may keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgments (see Genesis 18 chap.) What is due from Delphia to you? Service, labour\u2014ready, willing faithful service unquestioned obedience. If she fails in this she keeps no[t] the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment. (paragraphing added)\n\nIn 1850s Richmond, the larger hirers of young enslaved males were the tobacco factories, which prepared raw tobacco for chewing or smoking. Zaborney estimates that about half the tobacco factories' labor force consisted of hired slaves in 1850, and two-thirds in 1860, by which time there were forty-nine tobacco factories in the town hiring about thirty-four hundred laborers. The tobacco factories did not house workers, but gave them an allowance to rent lodgings in town, creating an entire class of enslaved urban consumers with a little pocket money.\n\nMusicians at a Saturday night dance were commonly enslaved workers, whose musical skills sometimes allowed them an opportunity to make a few coins for themselves. But in one case the scale was much larger. The South's best-known concert attraction was a slave: Blind Tom (Thomas Wiggins). With a mental age of six or so, Wiggins was what was then called an idiot savant and might today be called severely autistic. Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1849, he had an eidetic memory for sound. He could do little else but play piano, which he did all day, every day. He could reproduce verbatim an entire political speech in all its sonic detail without understanding any of it; he could simulate convincingly the sounds of a rainstorm on the piano, or a battle; he could play music after hearing it once, and was said to know some seven thousand pieces; and he composed music, of which we have no recording or piano roll, though some sheet music was published, presumably bearing a dubious relationship to what he actually played.\n\nTom's curious, extreme talent probably saved him from the common fate of handicapped slave children, an early death. His master, the Columbus lawyer known as \"General\" James Neil Bethune, made a fortune touring Wiggins, taking in over $100,000 a year from London concerts alone in 1866, with a guardian agreement negotiated in 1864 that allowed Bethune to retain 90 percent of his no-longer-enslaved client's earnings. Until the end of slavery, Blind Tom did not play in the free-soil states, where he might have been subject to confiscation from Bethune. But he was a familiar figure on the concert circuit in the South. What a model for musical labor relations: the manager owned not merely the artist's contract but also the artist, and could sell him if he chose. Louis Hughes noted the impact of Blind Tom's concert in Memphis:\n\n_The \"Oliver Gallop,\" a piece of sheet music published ca. 1860, composed by the autistic, enslaved piano virtuoso Thomas Wiggins, or \"Blind Tom.\"_\n\nPeople came from far and near to hear him. Those coming from the villages and small towns, who could not get passage on the regular trains, came in freight or on flat bottom cars. The tickets were $5.00 each, as I remember, Boss said it was expensive, but all must hear this boy pianist. Many were the comments on this boy of such wonderful talents. As I drove our people Home they seemed to talk of nothing else. They declared that he was indeed a wonder.\n\nAfter secession, fearing the worst should he be removed from Bethune, the frightened, mentally impaired, blind teenager declared himself in favor of the Confederacy, making him its best-known black supporter.\n\n_There are not many slavery-era paintings depicting slave auctions. The people conducting them did not want them portrayed, and an artist caught sketching might find himself in trouble. This 1862 painting by Lefevre Cranstone, titled_ Slave Auction, Virginia, _depicts eight women being sold, three of them with children, as men leeringly assess them. The painting was first exhibited in London in 1863._\n\n#   Part Six\n\n# **The Revolution**\n\n#   42\n\n# **Vanish Like a Dream**\n\n_My soul is tormented with fears! Ah! they are dead! Their swords are red from the fight. O my brother! my brother! why hast thou slain my Salgar? why, O Salgar! hast thou slain my brother? Dear were ye both to me! what shalt I say in your praise? Thou wert fair on the hill among thousands! he was terrible in fight. Speak to me; hear my voice; hear me, song of my love! They are silent; silent for ever! Cold, cold, are their breasts of clay! Oh! from the rock on the hill, from the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead! speak, I will not be afraid! Whither are ye gone to rest? In what cave of the hill shall I find the departed? No feeble voice is on the gale: no answer half-drowned in the storm!_\n\n\u2014Ossian [James Macpherson], _Songs of Selma_\n\nUPRIVER FROM THE GULF of Mexico port of Mobile, William Rufus DeVane King cofounded the town of Selma, naming it for the city in _Songs of Selma_ , an over-the-top, internationally popular literary fraud.\n\nPurportedly a collection of Celtic texts by an ancient Gaelic bard named Ossian, _Songs of Selma_ was accepted by the reading public as genuine, but it was the fabrication of one James Macpherson, who seems to have dressed folktales up in ludicrously overwrought language. Marking a worldwide literary trend toward kitschy hyperromanticism, the _Songs of Selma_ became a staple of a strain of pseudo-Celtic-nationalist mythology in spite of their bogosity.\n\nKing's family had done so well in the land scramble that they were the largest slaveholding family in the state, and King became Alabama's first senator in 1819. He was, according to an anonymous campaign biography, \"about six feet high, remarkably erect in figure, and is well proportioned.\" Some in Washington called him \"Aunt Fancy\" behind his back, while Andrew Jackson is known to have referred to King's good friend James Buchanan as \"Miss Nancy.\" Tennessee congressman Aaron Brown, in a letter to Sarah Childress Polk, referred to King as Buchanan's \"wife.\" Buchanan and King were a pair of lifelong bachelors who were not attracted to women, and it was \"somewhat common,\" writes Robert P. Watson, for Washingtonians and others to refer to them mockingly as women. Perhaps they were just good friends, but from our contemporary perspective, they look like a gay couple. And, yes, queerness\u2014or gayness, or call it what you will\u2014existed then, though it was less well understood in James Buchanan's rural southern Pennsylvania birthplace than in the big cities.\n\nBuchanan and King met in 1834 and moved in together in 1836, maintaining a stable household in Washington. Both had nieces who posthumously burned a number of their uncles' letters to each other. They domiciled together until 1844, when King left the country to be Polk's minister to France.\n\nIf there had been same-sex marriage with community property, Buchanan could have been a large slaveholder, because King owned over a hundred slaves. Though Buchanan lived in the free state of Pennsylvania, he was from the state's south, the borderland with slave territory, and he was ardently pro-slavery, to say nothing of duplicitous. \"I cannot rely upon his honest and disinterested advice,\" Polk wrote in his diary about Buchanan when he was Polk's secretary of state. Polk's admiring biographer Robert W. Merry calls Buchanan \"self-centered, devious, dishonest, and cowardly.\"\n\nThe power couple's plan was for Buchanan to be president and King to be vice president. It went awry: Buchanan didn't get the nomination in 1852, losing on the forty-ninth ballot to the former Mexican War general Franklin Pierce, with Buchanan thus being edged out by the most pro-slavery New Englander. But King got the vice presidential nomination, apparently in the hope that Buchanan would help out in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. After the nominating convention in Baltimore, New Hampshire congressman Edmund Burke wrote to Pierce, addressing him as \"General\": \"I think we did right in putting King on the ticket. You know he is Buchanan's bosom friend and thus a great and powerful interest is conciliated.... The slave states will fall into our laps like ripe apples.\"\n\nThe Democrats won, but King was ill with tuberculosis, and he took the oath of office for vice president of the United States from his convalescence in Cuba, a political feat that has not been repeated since. Wasting away, he barely made it home to Selma in time to die, forty-five days after the beginning of his term, on April 18, 1853.\n\nFor the rest of Pierce's term, the office of vice president was vacant.\n\nEven Franklin Pierce's biographers can't find much good to say about him. A Jacksonian in politics and a romantic in literary taste, Pierce was the only president from New Hampshire. Once in office, he named his close friend and campaign biographer, the perpetually broke writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, to the plum post of US consul in Liverpool. In the biography he wrote of Pierce, the New Englander Hawthorne had eagerly stoked sectional tension, disparaging \"those northern men... who deem the great cause of human welfare as represented and involved in this present hostility against southern institutions.\" (At the risk of redundancy, we will remind our reader that \"southern institutions\" centrally included the legal right to force-mate adolescent girls and sell the resulting children.)\n\nHawthorne went on to explain Pierce's position on slavery: it was God's problem, not the president's. He characterized slavery as \"one of those evils which divine Providence does not leave to be remedied by human contrivances, but which, in its own good time, by some means impossible to be anticipated, but of the simplest and easiest operation, when all its uses shall have been fulfilled, it causes to vanish like a dream.\"\n\nThe country was torn in half over slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act was in effect, the Whig party was crumbling, Southern radicals were organizing to secede, and Hawthorne promised that one day slavery wouldn't be a problem.\n\nElected on a strongly pro-Southern platform that included the annexation of Cuba, Pierce named the Mexican War veteran and already-declared secessionist Jefferson Davis as his secretary of war, giving him on-the-job training in the management of armies. For his part, Davis was urgently interested in a southern route for the proposed transcontinental railroad, though it was a disadvantageous route from an engineering standpoint, and he enthusiastically promoted what became known as the Gadsden Purchase, negotiated in 1854 by James Gadsden, the Jacksonian US ambassador to Mexico.\n\nGadsden was a Charleston aristocrat. His grandfather, Christopher Gadsden, had built Gadsden's Wharf; a second cousin, Thomas Gadsden, was one of Charleston's most prominent slave dealers of the 1850s, though there was quite some competition for that title. Gadsden was an old-line Jacksonian who had served in the Seminole campaign. At a time when the secession project was already well under way, the $10 million Gadsden Purchase was the last major acquisition of territory by the continental United States, giving Washington control of what is now the southerly strip of Arizona and New Mexico. The reason for the Gadsden purchase, with its farthest-South-possible location, was the same reason a wealthy South Carolinian's name was on it: rail shipment would be the only practical way to export slaves from the South to southern California, as well as the best way to bring California gold back. A railroad was needed; the South wanted it.\n\nThe Compromise of 1850 that admitted California as a free-soil state had not removed the South's dream of slavery in a separate Southern California. Far from it: speaking of an elderly slaveowner in 1855 who wished to sell out, Frederick Law Olmsted noted that \"he thought of taking them to Louisiana and Texas, for sale; but, if he should learn that there was much probability that Lower California would be made a slave State, he supposed it would pay him to wait, as probably, if that should occur, he could take them there and sell them for twice as much as they would now bring in New Orleans.\" Olmsted also quotes a politician whose campaign in 1855 argued that \"if slavery were permitted in California, negroes would sell for $5,000 apiece.\" That was, of course, pure conjecture; but it was what slaveowners wanted to hear. With even Mississippi approaching saturation point for enslaved labor, population pressures militated for new territory to sell the ever-increasing human capital into. In other words, the slave-breeding industry was reaching critical mass for unraveling\u2014unless the expansion of slavery territory could postpone the collapse. From California, it would have to expand outward into Asia, and this was discussed on occasion.\n\nDescribing the slave-labor \"Colony under my lead\" he would build in California, Gadsden wrote in an 1851 letter to General Thomas Jefferson Green in San Francisco:\n\nNegro Slavery, under Educated & Intelligent Masters can alone accomplish this:\u2014They have been the Pioneers & basis of the civilization of Savage Countries... Let us feed our own People & add Cotton Corn & Rice to the Gold export... and No power can vie with that which is washed by the Pacific... Our Men could thus at the season for mining be employed in extracting the Gold, while the Women & Boys could raise their food & raiment... [I will] Make our Road as we go by an organised Corps of Pioneers & Axe men & reach California with both Negroes & animals in full vigor to go to work.\n\nMeanwhile, schemes for expanding the empire of slavery into Latin America proliferated. As president, Pierce managed to remove Buchanan from his immediate sphere of intrigue by sending him to England in 1853 as ambassador to the Court of St. James, where he worked toward the longtime dream of the annexation of Cuba. He traveled to Ostend, Belgium, where he met with Pierre Soul\u00e9 and Virginia's John Mason, the former of whom was then Pierce's minister to Spain and the latter minister to France, to formulate an aggressive document, largely written by Soul\u00e9. Published in October 1854, the Ostend Manifesto announced US plans to acquire Cuba\u2014by purchase if possible, but if not, it warned, in a classic piece of Southern hyperbole, \"by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power.\"\n\nThe manifesto also made a different case for the annexation of Cuba, that of self-defense against slave rebellion, invoking the possibility that an \"Africanized\" Cuba might become \"a second St. Domingo,\" and arguing that taking Cuba would be justified \"upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home.\"\n\nBankrolled by Cuban exiles, John Quitman, who by 1853 was the leader of the secret Order of the Lone Star, tried to organize an invasion of Cuba that never sailed. But another filibuster, the Nashvillean William Walker, a great admirer of Napoleon, invaded and took over Nicaragua in 1855. Walker had previously been acquitted by a sympathetic jury of violating the Neutrality Act for taking over Baja California and declaring it the Republic of Southern California. An anonymous correspondent to _DeBow's Review_ called on Virginians to relocate with their slaves to Walker's Nicaragua, pooh-poohing the problem of yellow fever and exulting:\n\nHere is a new State soon to be added to the South, in or out of the Union\u2014here is the first piece of Mexico in fact, the whole of which, in a short lifetime, will fall into the hands of the white men of North America, and it behooves you to begin in time to secure your portion of the prize, for you are going to find it no easy task. I speak of Mexico (including of course, Central America in the same destiny) with absolute confidence. The expulsion of the Spanish masters has left that country to the red man\u2014the Spanish Indian\u2014an inferior and incompetent race, and the result is altogether analogous to the result of emancipation in the West Indies, just as the cause is similar. In both instances, the support of the strong will and high intelligence of the white man has been withdrawn, and, forthwith the red man and the black man, liberated but incapable and helpless, have sunk down from the position in which they had been held up and sustained, and lapsed rapidly towards their original and natural barbarism.\n\nThe boosterism reflected the fact that every newly acquired slave territory revalued a slaveowner's human holdings upward drastically. President Pierce obligingly recognized Walker's Nicaraguan government in 1856, but Walker was driven out in 1857. He was captured and turned over to Honduras in 1860, where he was promptly executed by the Honduran government.\n\nThe great issue of Franklin Pierce's presidency was his signing of Stephen Douglas's disastrous Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854, as pro-slavery bandits attempted to implement slavery in Kansas through murderous intimidation, with two rival state constitutions, one slave and one free, vying for recognition. The clashes were a precursor of the violence of the coming war over slavery, right down to the lethal participation of the abolitionist terrorist John Brown, who in 1856 was a commander in two battles in Kansas. It was after expressing his outrage in the Senate over a massacre in Lawrence that abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was viciously beaten while seated at his desk on the Senate floor by South Carolina representative Preston Brooks.\n\nDouglas's Kansas-Nebraska act sent shock waves through the North, because in declaring that Kansas and Nebraska could be slave territory, it effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had been the basis of the entire deal between North and South since 1821. In doing so, it cut the fragile tethers of a frayed peace treaty loose.\n\nPierce left office unpopular, after one term, in 1857.\n\nThe oldest living Jacksonian still in a major position of power, the eighty-year-old Roger B. Taney, had been chief justice of the Supreme Court for twenty-four years when he handed down one of the most notorious decisions in the history of American jurisprudence: _Dred Scott v. Sandford._ The court had been deliberating the case for two years, but it held the decision until a slightly less old Jacksonian, sixty-five-year-old James Buchanan, was inaugurated as president in 1857. It was Buchanan's fourth try to reach the presidency by appealing as cravenly as possible to the slaveowners' wish list; this time, it worked.\n\nThe annexation of Cuba\u2014which would have been an enormous windfall for slave breeders\u2014was Buchanan's major campaign issue. Had he been able to do it, he would have joined Jefferson, Jackson, and Polk in the pantheon of territorial expanders. Spain wasn't about to let it happen. Meanwhile, Cuban agriculture was changing, and a few planters were looking to emulate the US slave-breeding model for sale to their own voracious domestic slave market. A boosterish 1859 article in _Harper's_ extolled the practice of one:\n\nIn former times, before the introduction of machinery, the number of negroes employed was greater, and, in consequence of the short space of time allowed for the manufacture of sugar, the mortality among the laborers was excessive. Ten per cent. per annum used to be a common average of deaths on plantations managed by reckless and unwise agents; in such cases the negroes worked twenty hours out of the twenty-four during the season. Since the introduction of steam the negro mortality has been much less, and the number of hands employed has been largely diminished. A force of a hundred field hands will now suffice to work a very large plantation.\n\nExperience has also shown the mischief of overworking the men. Mr. Drake, of Havana, long since proved that by allowing his negroes a fair amount of sleep and nutritious food, they could not only perform far more work than the hands of his neighbors, _but could add yearly, by natural increase, a large sum to his estate._ On many estates in Cuba, it is known, though the female slaves are quite numerous, the natural increase is comparatively nothing. (paragraphing and emphasis added)\n\nPresident Buchanan did not acquire Cuba, but he began one of the most remorselessly pro-slavery administrations ever. Buchanan not only knew in advance from Taney what the _Dred Scott_ decision would be; he improperly and without precedent interfered with the decision-making process, pressuring judges. Two days before the decision was announced, Buchanan lied in his inaugural address about not knowing what the result would be. He promised disingenuously that \"to their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be,\" though he already knew the outcome. That was what we now call a \"dog whistle\"\u2014a message to those who could hear it.\n\nThe ruling caused much anger in the free-soil states. Among other improper actions Buchanan took regarding the decision, he lobbied one court member from the North to support the majority ruling so as to make it look like less of a coup d'etat by the South. The _Dred Scott_ decision was political hardball; a blatant attempt to remodel American law to conform with the pro-slavery agenda, it far overreached the limits of the case. It was the first overturning of a federal law by the court, the previous _Marbury v. Madison_ having struck down only a single clause. _Dred Scott_ declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.\n\nThe case had been making its way up the judicial pipeline since 1842. First it had turned on the enslaved plaintiff Dred Scott, who had been taken by his captor into the free states of Illinois and Wisconsin, and thus, Scott's lawyers argued, had become free. As the case progressed, it turned on a widow who wanted to keep Scott and his family enslaved; it became more complicated when the widow assigned the supposed ownership of Dred Scott to John F. A. Sanford,* a New York lawyer. Now, before the Supreme Court, Sanford was arguing that never mind that as Scott's owner he lived in the free state of New York, Scott as a slave was not a US citizen and therefore had no standing to sue. Taney agreed with him, delivering his rambling, expansive opinion on March 5, 1857. In what Frederick Douglass called a \"hell-black judgment,\" Taney held that slavery was a constitutionally protected form of property, as he affirmed the constitutionality of the hereditary perpetuity of slavery unto the nth generation throughout the United States. In his opinion, charged with key points of pro-slavery ideology, he specifically addressed the Declaration of Independence's assertion that \"all men are created equal\":\n\nIt is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration, for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted, and instead of the sympathy of mankind to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.\n\nYet the men who framed this declaration were great men\u2014high in literary acquirements, high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others, and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.\n\nJefferson's famous phrase was not law. But in drawing on it, Taney explained the common Southern understanding of it, and he did so while ruling for the United States that \"negroes\" could not be citizens, whether enslaved or free. They had, he approvingly noted, for\n\nmore than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had _no rights which the white man was bound to respect_ , and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. (emphasis added)\n\n_Dred Scott_ declared that there was no safe haven in the United States where slavery could not exist; if slaves remained slaves when their masters took them into free-soil states, then all states were slave states. It also meant that free people of color had no access in any state to the courts, to contracts, or to owning property, since they could not be citizens and thus had no legal basis to exist as free people, anywhere in the country.\n\nAs the implications of _Dred Scott_ sank in, the question emerged: why not just... enslave them all? After all, women were already slaves, noted Richmond's George Fitzhugh, a descendant of William Fitzhugh. In the _Dred Scott_ year of 1857, Fitzhugh published _Cannibals All! Or, Slaves without Masters:_\n\nThe husband has a legally recognized property in his wife's services, and may legally control, in some measure, her personal liberty. She is his property and his slave.\n\nThe wife has also a legally recognized property in the husband's services. He is her property, but not her slave.\n\nThe father has property in the services and persons of his children till they are twenty-one years of age. They are his property and his slaves.\n\nAfter deciding who was and wasn't a slave, Fitzhugh warned the North that abolitionists were really Communists who were using the slavery issue as a Trojan horse:\n\nEvery one of the leading Abolitionists is agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain ulterior ends, and those ends nearer home. They would not spend so much time and money for the mere sake of the negro or his master, about whom they care little. But they know that men once fairly committed to negro slavery agitation... are, in effect, committed to Socialism and Communism... to no private property, no church, no law, no government, \u2014to free love, free lands, free women and free churches....\n\nSocialism, not Abolition, is the real object of Black Republicanism. The North, not the South, the true battle-ground.... The agitators of the North look upon free society as a mere transition state to a better, but untried, form of society.\n\nThat was the kind of thing Southern men said to each other as their butlers brought them brandy, but Fitzhugh went further than most. It was not necessary, he explained, to have a racial boundary. Prefiguring the radical capitalism of Ayn Rand, he saw the \"strong\" as natural masters of the \"weak.\" \"It is the duty of society,\" he asserted, \"to enslave the weak.\" In the _Richmond Enquirer_ of December 15, 1855, he wrote that anyone could be a slave if they were inferior: \"Nature has made the weak in mind or body slaves... The wise and virtuous, the strong in body and mind, are born to command.\" Dispensing as it did with the Jacksonian notion of white caste solidarity, _that_ was an extreme position, even in the South, and it was not a widely popular one: the color line was too useful, and too sacred, to be discarded.\n\nBut if Fitzhugh was a fringe theorist, he was widely read, and, writes Eugene Genovese, \"the Southern intelligentsia certainly appreciated him.... The notion that slavery was a proper social system for all labor, not merely for black labor, did not arise as a last-minute rationalization; it grew steadily as part of the growing self-awareness of the planter class.\"\n\nAs the genetic distinction between European and African continued to erode, the skin-lightening process was well underway in the upper echelons of enslaved society. Frederick Law Olmsted had noted in his much-read travel account that in Virginia, \"I am surprised at the number of fine-looking mulattoes, or nearly white-coloured persons, that I see. The majority of those with whom I have come personally in contact are such.\" Travelers' accounts of Southern slave auctions commonly mentioned seeing one or another \"white\"-looking person being sold as a \"negro.\"\n\nAs slavecatchers kidnapped free people for sale down South, even white people began to feel personally threatened: if, for example, a white man's daughter were to be denounced as a fugitive slave, the local lawmen would be required to deliver her to the marshal without so much as a hearing. With the Fugitive Slave Act compelling the deliverance of an accused slave to a slavecatcher without due process, it seemed that there might be no place where free labor didn't have to compete with slave labor. It seemed that if the Southerners got their way, all labor would be slave labor, whether black, white, or, to use the then-current term, amalgamated.\n\nSlaveowners incorrectly thought that the North would enslave them by making their black slaves into their masters. Increasingly, the laborers of the North correctly thought that the South wanted slavery everywhere.\n\n*The court documents referenced him as \"Sandford,\" but that was an error.\n\n#   43\n\n# **A Snake Biting Its Tail**\n\n_Labor to supply the demands of the South can be obtained only from Africa; and the laws of this country prevent the Southern people from obtaining this labor, branding those engaged in furnishing it with the opprobrious epithet of \"pirates,\" and inflicting on them the punishment due to those guilty of the crime of piracy!_\n\n\u2014Mobile _Daily Register_ , January 1, 1858\n\nTHE COMING OF RAILROADS ushered in a new era of capitalism on a scale impossible in the days when markets were linked only by water. Railroads required enormous sums of money to create, with a national organization that functioned simultaneously everywhere. But _Dred Scott_ threw western expansion plans into chaos, railroad bonds dropped in price, and there was a Panic.\n\nThe Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company failed in August 1857, raising fears of a bank run. Then the SS _Central America_ , which sailed from Panam\u00e1 via Havana for New York, sank on September 12 in a hurricane 160 miles off the coast of Charleston. Down with the ship went 425 people (153 more were saved) and a double-digit number, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, tons of gold from California that was headed for the New York banks.* Paper money could be replaced in the system, but not metal money; the loss was by one estimate equivalent to about 20 percent of the nation's gold reserves. In what has been remembered as the Panic of 1857, credit contracted sharply, and the banks stopped specie payments for three months or so.\n\nThe panic originated in New York in part as a consequence of the local shortage of coin and in part as a consequence of excessive speculation, with the buying of stocks to sell rather than hold having become a common financial activity. It was worsened by the credit contraction that banks imposed in response. The commercial crisis was strongly felt in the North, while the South to some degree escaped it. Unfortunately, this led some to believe that the South could go it alone. Certainly, some Southerners were ruined when cotton prices dipped that year, and the disruption of commerce from New York occasioned the loss of money by many planters. A German observer wrote:\n\nIn 1857, the year of the commercial crisis in America, many planters were compelled to sell a portion of their slaves in order to raise ready money, which at that time was not to be had on the best security even at 50 per cent. interest; and I saw a planter bring a hundred slaves to market at one time, who certainly after that sale must have been obliged to leave half his plantation uncultivated.\n\nWhen a planter had a debt crisis, his captives were dispersed. As failures became larger, hundreds of people were occasionally sold at once, fragmenting an entire community each time. James Gadsden, of Gadsden Purchase fame, bought the Cooper River plantation of Pimlico in 1852; after his death six years later, his 235 slaves \"accustomed to the culture of Rice and Provisions\" were sold to thirty different buyers in a sale advertised throughout the South, all the way to Texas.\n\nThe Panic of 1857 was strongly felt in the West, leading New York businessmen to focus their commerce even more closely on the cotton-producing South, offering long credit terms, even as leading Southerners focused on finding ways to become economically independent from New York. Slave prices dipped in 1857, but slaves held their value better than cotton, and prices quickly recovered and climbed with yet another bumper crop. As the economy rebounded, slave prices reached new highs, raising the entry barrier to planter status yet further.\n\nThere could be no quicker way to get the price of slaves down than to reopen the African slave trade, which would create enormous profits for Charleston slave merchants while investing a new generation of purchasers in the slavery system. An article in _DeBow's Review_ pitched the idea as a solution to the problem of white social inequality in the South:\n\nAt present prices, it is almost impossible that the mere laborer can ever [own slaves].... However much he may wish a share in that desirable commodity of slave labor, it is done up in packages too large for common use... The foreign slave trade will bring slaves enough for all, and at prices which poorer men may purchase.... it will thus bring all the ruling race to the same social stand point; it will thus reintegrate and erect our social system; it will abolish the odious distinctions between slave owners and non-slave owners; it will increase the laboring element of our population; it will thus extend our capacity for production, and, in doing all this, will give the promise of a more abundant wealth, and open the prospect to a broader and a brighter future than was ever yet expanded to the eye of man.\n\nThough Virginians, needless to say, opposed reopening the African trade, it was an editorial priority of the Charleston papers, beginning about 1853. As South Carolina systematically attempted to expand its influence, measures promoting the importation of African labor appeared in the legislatures of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas\u2014none of which succeeded, perhaps because they would have been in overt defiance of federal law. It was not a popular notion among the mass of Southern whites, who did not want new Africans complicating their society, nor even for all slaveowners, but for some, it would have been a bonanza, and it was a useful political cudgel. Though the trade was not reopened, the initiative was not without effect, as W. E. B. DuBois pointed out: \"The agitation did succeed in sweeping away nearly all theoretical opposition to the trade, and left the majority of Southern people in an attitude which regarded the reopening of the African slave-trade as merely a question of expediency.\"\n\nIn South Carolina, where reopening the African slave trade at critical moments was a political and commercial tradition dating back to colonial days, agitating to reopen the foreign trade was a way of putting pressure on Virginia. There was a tactical problem that went back to the negotiations over the Constitution: an independent Southern confederacy would need Virginia's heft, strategic location, and money, but reopening the foreign slave trade was a deal-breaker that would have devalued the Virginians' slave property.\n\nOutside the cotton belt, there was always substantial political will to keep the African trade closed. The specter of a reopened African slave trade appeared in the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, when the two men were contending for the position of senator from Illinois. Though neither of the two men was in favor of reopening the African trade, Lincoln went on the offensive. Stephen Douglas advocated \"popular sovereignty\" regarding slavery, which meant that each state was free to make its own determination about the institution. In what became known as the \"house divided\" speech, Lincoln argued that the logical consequence of this would be the reopening of the trade: \"For years he [Douglas] has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And, unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia.\"\n\nIn spite of bumper crops, the overheating slave market was threatening agricultural prosperity. The Mobile _Daily Register_ warned of dangerous levels of credit exposure:\n\n[January 19, 1859.] _High Prices for Negroes._ \u2014 Our exchanges from all parts of the South and West, are teeming with notices of the extraordinary high prices at which negroes are now selling, either on the block or at private sale, and the question naturally presents itself, what is the cause of it? Can the present high price of cotton be the cause?\n\nIf so, a return in the value of the product of the negro, sufficient to justify a purchase, at the prices now ruling cannot be the case, and all reasoning based on the proposition, proves ephemeral, for the influx of slaves this season into the cotton and sugar growing States is enormous. It is supposed that from Augusta, Ga., alone, for the last three months, that the shipments South and West, by the trains, average 200, daily, while the tide of emigration by way of other points is proportionately as great. Some estimate the import of negroes into the cotton growing States alone, will increase the next crop 200,000 bales.\n\nThe present amount of home slave labor should be sufficient to till the lands now open and under cultivation, but with this large increase of laborers, new lands must be opened and cultivated, and their yield [must be on sale] in the market next season. Now will the demand for cotton be equal to the supply?...\n\nIf the negroes have been purchased on time, and we are satisfied that such is the case with a large portion of them, a decline of a few cents in cotton would produce a reaction that must, necessarily seriously embarrass the planting interest, that have purchased on these terms. It is too much the custom for planters to anticipate their crops in dollars and cents, and shape their liabilities accordingly.\n\nThe demand for laborers is good, but we do not think that it justifies the exorbitant and high rates which prevail, although the South was never more solvent than now. (paragraphing added)\n\nCapital for a new African slave trade would have been easily available in New York, where businessmen were still financing an African trade to Cuba. At least 350,000 Africans were carried to Brazil in the 1840s, and, writes Don E. Fehrenbacher, \"at least half of those importations were achieved with American help of some kind.\" But the British navy, which had been actively pursuing slave traders for thirty years, cut off the Brazilian trade sharply in 1850, finishing it entirely by 1852. Besides British coercion, there was a familiar economic logic to the shutdown: the established Brazilian planters had imported so many that they had more than enough for their needs. Now, as new plantations were carved out of the forest in southern Brazil, a domestic slave trade began from the old slave area to the new one, as a forced north-to-south migration began in Brazil.* Similar to the United States's interstate trade, this interprovincial trade was the only other sizable such trade in the hemisphere.\n\nAfter 1850, only Cuba was left importing Africans. It was done with extensive connivance from within the United States, whose ships were by treaty immune from belowdecks search by British cruisers. Slaving above the Bight of Benin had largely been stopped, but whole villages were still being ripped out of Yorubaland by Dahomeyan slave raiders and carried off to sugar mills in the area of Matanzas, Havana, and elsewhere, and the Central African ports continued selling slaves.\n\n\"We don't care for the English squadron,\" boasted an imprisoned slave ship captain in New York in an 1855 interview published in the antislavery _New York Evangelist_ and reprinted in the pro-slavery _DeBow's Review._ \"We run up the American flag, and if they come on board all we have to do is show our American papers, and they have no right to search us.\" The captain estimated that his brig had cost $13,000 to outfit and brought in $220,000 on one run to Cuba\u2014a rate of return from which one successful venture could absorb the costs of several failed ones. Affirming that New York was the king of the trade, the captain was asked how he outfitted his ships:\n\nI can go down to South street, and go into a number of houses that help to fit out ships for the business. I don't know how far they own the vessels or receive the profits of the cargoes. I had rather not have American owners; I prefer Spaniards or Portuguese. But these houses know all about it. They know me. They see me sail out of port with a ship, and come back a passenger... They know [that]... when a cargo of slaves is landed, the vessel is often destroyed, not to be a witness against her officers and crew.\n\nThe colonial-era delay of months on the African coast while assembling a cargo piecemeal was a thing of the past. The African side of the business had gotten steadily more industrial, so slavers in the 1850s were frequently able to pull up to their African destination port and choose a cargo of as many as twelve hundred people from among those held captive in what amounted to a wholesale warehouse maintained by factors. The captain continued:\n\nThe boys and women we kept on the upper deck. But all the strong men\u2014those giant Africans that might make us trouble\u2014we put below on the slave deck.\n\n_Did you chain them or put on handcuffs?_\n\nNo, never; they would die. We let them move about.\n\n_Are you very severe with them?_\n\nWe have to be pretty strict at first\u2014for a week or so\u2014to make them feel that we are masters. Then we lighten up for the rest of the voyage.\n\n_How do you pack them at night?_\n\nThey lay down upon the deck, on their sides, body to body. There would not be room enough for all to lie on their backs.\n\n_Did many die on the passage?_\n\nYes, I lost a good many the last cruise\u2014more than ever before. Sometimes we find them dead when we go below in the morning. Then we throw them overboard.\n\nMortality was decreasing on the voyages, because steam vessels now made the cruise from Africa to Cuba in as little as eighteen days. The year-end 1859 British report from Havana to Her Majesty's commissioners on the slave trade noted that Madagascar had become a new staging ground for East African Arab traders selling people principally from Mozambique (referring to Mozambique Island, off the coast of the present-day country of Mozambique), to slavers bound for Cuba:\n\nSuch expeditions not unfrequently originate in the United States of America, from whence they take their departure; and there are at present here, we understand, agents from Boston and from New Orleans, who are engaged in completing the subscriptions for shares, which have been already in part filled up by American capitalists. One of these schemes is, for a ship of 900 tons to bring 2,000 slaves, under charge of an experienced slaver, who has made no less than thirteen successful voyages.\n\nIt seems that negroes are to be had on the East Coast of Africa for about 28 dollars each; and even so, they are paid for in goods, upon which there is at the least 100 per cent. of profit.\n\nWe learn that the ships to be employed in this unholy Traffic, with their goods for barter on board, and prepared with sufficient iron-fitting tanks for a supply of water, proceed from the United States, under American colours, to a port in Madagascar; there the slave-deck is laid in safety and without hindrance, and there they take in their cargoes of human misery, the victims being brought over from the opposite Coast of Africa in Arab vessels: and we have been told that such are the facilities and arrangements that a very large cargo of slaves can be completed in two or three days.\n\nThe commissioners accounted for 12,744 Africans introduced illegally into Cuba in 1858; of the twenty voyages that brought them, eleven were in American vessels. Certain that there was more traffic than they knew about, the commissioners rounded their estimate up by a third, to almost seventeen thousand.\n\nWith Africans selling in Havana at $1,000 or more, the profits on such voyages were immense; a merchant could afford to pay out bribes, and even burn the ship if necessary. New York merchants especially were involved in the financing, but a wide variety of US maritime centers participated in the trade, including Baltimore and New Orleans. W. E. B. Dubois's list, compiled from congressional documents, shows vessels from Portland, Maine; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Boston; Rhode Island; Mystic, Connecticut; and Philadelphia.\n\nThe _Echo_ , a brig carrying 475 slaves (out of about 625 it had started with), was captured by the US Navy off the coast of Cuba in August 1858, and though the captain and crew were found not guilty at their trials, the captives were sent to Africa\u2014not back to their homes, but to Monrovia, Liberia, where, inevitably, a new composite culture was developing among people from various parts of Africa who had been left there.\n\nThe American ship _Haidee_ , which had left Kilongo on the Angolan coast with 1,145 captives, brought the 903 of them who were still alive into the Cuban port of C\u00e1rdenas on September 8, 1859. Juli\u00e1n Zulueta, the enormously wealthy Basque trader who had commissioned the voyage together with partners, took them to an \"estate\" with \"an escort of about 200 armed men. The bribes on this scandalous occasion are said to have amounted to about 200,000 dollars.\" By the end of 1859, reported the British judge in Havana: \"We have had information of the introduction of no less than thirty-nine cargoes, with 22,855 negroes; add to which one-third, as usual, and we have the enormous number of 30,473 landed here in this year.\" Reporting from Luanda, where more than three centuries of the slave trade had depopulated the countryside, Her Majesty's acting commissioner wrote: \"It is obvious that the only flag which the guilty adventurers in the Slave Trade now assume to cover their crime is the American.\"\n\nThe slaveowners of the Lowcountry saw all this as another instance of Northern hypocrisy: Americans in free-soil states were building fortunes illegally in the foreign slave trade. But since none of the slaves came to the United States, Carolina planters were denied the use of cheap African labor, while they continued paying a protectionist markup on slaves to Virginia's benefit, and Carolina merchants were denied the use of their harbor as a slave depot.\n\nDespite all the illegal African slave trading, with the exception of the well-known cases of the _Wanderer_ in 1858 and the _Clotilda_ in 1860, and perhaps a few others that left little trace, Africans were not imported directly into the American South. When in late 1859 President Buchanan sent a secret agent, Benjamin F. Slocumb, to travel from North Carolina to Texas as a potential slave buyer with a mission of looking for evidence of African slave vessels arriving, Slocumb found that \"reports concerning the landing of Africans, except in the case of the yacht 'Wanderer,' were unreliable, in fact mere fabrications.\" Joseph Bruin, the large New Orleans slave trader, told Slocumb there were none in town, as it was not a \"Safe business,\" but that \"about 100 [Africans] had been sold in and about New Orleans last Spring, and hurried away.\" Some historians believe that some or many clandestine shipments of Africans came to the Gulf Coast from Havana, while others say that cargoes were smuggled along the Georgia coastline. It is certainly possible, but there is no direct documentation\u2014there wouldn't be\u2014and, moreover, there is no trace of them in documentation about the markets, where Africans did not, as far as we know, turn up. If such shipments did come, they presumably went directly to large plantations under high secrecy, but high secrecy was not all that easy in polemical, newspaper-heavy, nineteenth-century America. Africans for sale in the open market would have been news, and would certainly have been mentioned in slaveowners' and traders' letters. For the labor networks of the South to have been supplied with African bodies in any more substantial way would have had to have left traces that do not exist. Whether some Africans came in clandestinely via Havana or not, the slave-breeding industry remained well-protected.\n\nThe two African slave ships that we do know of were highly conspicuous. The _Wanderer_ was outfitted by Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar, a loose-cannon financier and speedboater from Savannah. Lamar was the son of New York bank president G. B. Lamar, who would shortly be part of a cockamamie plan, supported by pro-Confederate New York City mayor Fernando Wood, to have the city secede in sympathy with the South. His voyage was an open secret, intended in rebuke and defiance of the federal ban. Lamar's investors included several major slave traders, who were all taking a considerable risk since they were committing a capital crime. One was Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose business by this time reached from Texas to Georgia, and who bragged about his \"interest\" in the _Wanderer_ expedition to a newspaper reporter in 1869. Savannah historians Sheehy et al. write that Lamar \"calculated that if he could maneuver this confrontation into his own back yard of Savannah, he could win. This victory would in turn undermine the federal law banning the importation of African slaves.\" Win or lose, \"he hoped the importation of Africans would drive a wedge between the North and South and elect a Republican Party president\u2014something he was sure would trigger secession.\"\n\nAt the Angolan slave port of Benguela, 487 people were densely packed onto Lamar's _Wanderer_ , a small, fast-sailing vessel built as a pleasure craft that flew the flag of the New York Yacht Club. They were young, in keeping with market requirements, and many were children. About 409 of them were still alive when the _Wanderer_ came ashore on Jekyll Island, a little south of Savannah, on November 28, 1858. The crew was arrested immediately, but Lamar got the ship back and quickly disposed of the slaves. One African boy, the only remaining witness, was abducted at gunpoint from jail and never seen again. The crew members were put on trial and acquitted. Secret agent Slocumb's previously mentioned report to President Buchanan contains some information about what happened to the _Wanderer's_ captives: none of them went to Charleston, he reported from that city; some had passed through Mobile on the way to Louisiana; thirty were sold in Vicksburg by Nathan Bedford Forrest; and seven in Memphis, also by Forrest. Some wound up in Texas.\n\nLamar, also a horse racer, owned the Ten Broeck Race Course in Savannah, where on March 2 and 3, 1859\u2014a little more than three months after the _Wanderer_ arrived\u2014Georgia's all-time biggest slave auction was held to pay down the debts Pierce Mease Butler had incurred speculating in the stock market. The broker conducting the sale, Joseph Bryan, owned the largest slave jail in town, on Bryan Street facing Johnson Square, but even so, he couldn't manage an inhouse sale of that size, so he moved it to Ten Broeck. The people to be sold were housed in the stables.\n\nA Northern newspaper reporter attempting to take notes at the sale would have been ejected if not violently abused, so Mortimer Thomson, writing for Horace Greeley's _New York Tribune_ , went incognito, posing as a buyer. When his article, \"Great Auction Sale of Slaves at Savannah, Georgia, March 2d and 3d, 1859,\" was published on March 9, it caused an international sensation and was a public relations disaster for Savannah. Writing under the name Q. K. Philander Doesticks, Thomson reported hearing at the auction strong sentiments in favor of reopening the African slave trade, and described the scene:\n\nFor several days before the sale every hotel in Savannah was crowded with negro speculators from North and South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, who had been attracted hither by the prospects of making good bargains. Nothing was heard for days, in the bar-rooms and public rooms, but talk of the great sale.\n\nThe community on Butler's Sea Island plantations numbered about nine hundred. Half of them were owned by the estate of Butler's deceased brother John, but Butler's 436 went to the auction block, there to be sold by what Southerners reckoned a \"humane\" method, in families, though of course such sales still broke family ties. So half the community would remain, and half would disappear. The auction realized $303,850 (about $8.7 million in 2014 dollars). The sale was particularly painful, since this community was so deeply rooted. \"None of the Butler slaves have ever been sold before, but have been on these two plantations since they were born,\" wrote Thomson. \"Who can tell how closely intertwined are the affections of a little band of four hundred persons, living isolated from all the world beside, from birth to middle age? Do they not naturally become one great family, each man a brother unto each?\"\n\nThomson reported as a conversation whose \"sentiment\" was \"more than once repeated\" a negative response by a prospective purchaser when asked if he would be buying a woman named Sally: \"Well, Major, I think not. Sally's a good, big, strapping gal, and can do a heap o' work; but it's five years since she had any children. _She's done breeding, I reckon.\" 26_ (emphasis in original)\n\nThe Ten Broeck sale is popularly remembered by the phrase \"the weeping time,\" which also refers to the weather; four straight days of rain stopped when the sale ended. The auction was up in the grandstand, a room about a hundred feet long, where they lined up and waited their turn to go on the block. Thomson tells us that as \"the wind howled outside, and through the open side of the building the driving rain came pouring in,\" auctioneer Thomas J. Walsh announced the terms: \"one-third cash, the remainder payable in two equal annual instalments, bearing interest from the day of sale, to be secured by approved mortgage and personal security, or approved acceptances in Savannah, Ga., or Charleston, S.C. Purchasers to pay for papers.\"\n\nAs the sale wound down, Pierce Butler moved among his former slaves carrying canvas bags from which he sorrowfully handed to each one of them four gleaming new twenty-five cent pieces, fresh from the mint, a dollar apiece, as if to say, it wasn't my fault. But when the sale was concluded, Butler's debts were paid, and he was a rich man again. He celebrated by going on an extended trip to the Mediterranean.\n\nThough Butler experienced the auction as a terrible humiliation, it turned out in the long run to have been a good business move: he cashed out his slave-holdings while they were still worth something. While it was not hard to tell in 1859 that war was coming, there was no reason for planters to believe the end of chattel slavery was around corner. Quite the contrary; it was a time-honored institution that had never been stronger. There were more slaves than ever; the cash value of the approximately four million people then enslaved in the United States embodied a phenomenal sum of money.\n\nThough the Ten Broeck race course no longer exists as such, a historical marker was placed in a small commemorative area on the former site on March 2, 2008\u2014another spot of sacred ground marked and acknowledged.\n\nIt was about the same time as the Ten Broeck sale\u2014sometime in early 1859\u2014that a \"castle\" of the Knights of the Golden Circle opened in Baltimore. Founded in 1854, and based in the free territory of Cincinatti, Ohio, the KGC was a pro-slavery secret society that had consolidated with the Order of the Lone Star, which had been somewhat directionless after the death of John Quitman in July 1858.* The KGC wanted to secede from the United States and take over Mexico.\n\nIn Virginia, the cherished diffusionist notion that the slave population would be eliminated by selloff had not become reality. Four and a half decades after the Battle of New Orleans, Virginia was still exporting slaves to the Deep South. Although planters had been living for generations off the earnings of slave-breeding, exactly as abolitionists charged, Virginia's slave population had increased by 1860 to 490,865, even though Maryland's and Delaware's had diminished.\n\nAn editorial in the Richmond _Enquirer_ of May 25, 1858, made clear the extent to which the Virginia economy still depended on the export to the South and West of domestically raised African Americans, as well as how alarming the loss of its protected status to a reopened trade would be:\n\n\"If a dissolution of the Union is to be followed by the revival of the [African] slave trade, Virginia had better consider whether the South of the Northern Confederacy would not be far more preferable for her than the North of a Southern Confederacy. In the Northern Confederacy Virginia would derive a large amount from the sale of her slaves to the South, and gain the increased value of her lands from Northern emigration \u2013 while in the Southern Confederacy, with the African slave trade revived, she would lose two-thirds of the value of her slave property, and derive no additional increase to the value of her lands.\n\nThe South Carolinians would make sure that the Virginia slave-breeders would not be able to sit their war out.\n\nJohn Brown's attempt to ignite a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, began on October 16, 1859, and was suppressed two days later by Lt. J. E. B. Stuart under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee.\n\nFrederick Douglass was one of perhaps eighty people who knew about John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in advance. Though he tried to talk Brown out of the suicidal act that lit the match for war, he didn't inform on him, which was enough to make him a conspirator. Douglass fled the country to Canada and on to London, returning home the following year.\n\nRobert E. Lee's report, filed on October 19, described Brown's action not as Northern aggression, but as \"the attempt of a fanatic or madman, who could only end in failure.\" But Brown's attempt to start a slave rebellion galvanized the South, where it was seen by the political and intellectual class as proof of what the \"Black Republicans\"\u2014a contemptuous name for the party of Chase and Seward\u2014had in store for them. The _Charleston Mercury_ noted on October 20 that three New York newspapers with different political affiliations\n\nall concur in opinion as to the desperate condition of the democratic party throughout the North, and the imminent prospect of a Black Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the United States being lifted to power. Let none, however, expect Seward to be the candidate of that party. We, at least, have never thought so; but we are confident some one less committed, yet equally Black Republican\u2014such as [Salmon P.] Chase or [Supreme Court] Judge [John] McLean\u2014would be put forward.... But whether Seward, or Chase, or McLean, to the South the difference is small. It is the candidate of a hostile sectional party, whose success must put the South, as unprotected tributaries, at the feet of inimical rulers.\n\nIt wasn't just about Lincoln. In the eyes of the _Mercury_ , any \"Black Republican\" president would have been cause for war. The number of Southern vigilance committees grew.\n\nJohn Brown wasn't hanged until December 2, and that wasn't soon enough for slaveholders, because he didn't stop talking until he was hanged, and never strayed from his calm, righteous tone. Brown's execution (witnessed by the wealthy, successful, well-connected, radical young actor John Wilkes Booth, a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle) elevated him to the status of martyr. In his memory, new lyrics were put to an old campfire meeting song with the stirring chorus of \"Glory, Hallejulah\" to make the great song of the military campaign that ended slavery: _John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave..._\n\nAfter the _Wanderer_ , only one more slave ship containing Africans is known to have arrived in the United States. On an unknown date in the summer of 1860, the _Clotilda_ brought to Magazine Point on Mobile Bay 110 captives from Ouidah, in the Fon-speaking state of Dahomey. \"Ouidah was a more cosmopolitan city than Mobile,\" notes Sylviane Diouf in her study of the _Clotilda_ shipmates, which tells us that most of the captives were the people now called Yoruba (though that ethnonym was not yet in general use), practitioners of the orisha religion. The _Clotilda_ 's captives had been taken by the Dahomeyan king Gl\u00e8l\u00e8; some were from Atakora, in what is now northwest Benin; others were Fon speakers from Dahomey; still others were Muslim. One, Gumpa, who became known as Peter Lee, was a Dahomeyan nobleman who practiced vodun. This ship, which could as easily have gone to Havana or Matanzas, was more or less representative of the dramatic, high-volume African cultural transplantation to Cuba that was by then in its final days and would prove highly consequential for twentieth-century Afro-Cuban culture.\n\nOne survivor of the _Clotilda_ , Cudjoe Lewis, lived until 1935. One of the relatively few Yoruba to be brought to United States territory,* he described the slave raid in which he was captured, recalling that the warriors who killed the unsalable people and kidnapped the remainder were women\u2014the Dahomeyan kings favored the use of female soldiers\u2014and that as they took him to Abomey, they wore hanging from their belts the severed heads of the captives' unfortunate family members who had been slaughtered in the raid. After three days, the heads were decomposing, so the coffle stopped along the way for nine days as the soldiers smoked the heads over a fire to preserve them. The heads, along with the live slaves, were to be ceremonially sold to the king of Dahomey, a state organized for the purpose of slave-raiding.\n\nMost of the _Clotilda_ captives remained enslaved in the Mobile area. With the end of slavery, many of them reassembled; in 1866, they established their community under Gumpa's leadership as African Town, which he led for thirty years or so. After Gumpa's son with his shipmate Josephina was born, writes Diouf, they had the baby tattooed on the chest with the image of a snake biting its own tail. Ultimately, as many vodouisants in Haiti have subsequently done, Gumpa became a Baptist. Descendants still live in the area.\n\nBy the time the _Clotilda_ sailed, the African trade was already feeling the heat of President Buchanan's program of stepped-up American anti-slave-trade enforcement off the African coast. But as we have previously emphasized, suppressing the slave trade was a different issue than abolishing slavery, which President Buchanan had no intention of doing. Many secessionists approved of his stopping the illegal African slave trade. They weren't making any money from it, and harassing it kept the ships of the tiny US Navy busy\u2014far, far away.\n\n*There are different estimates of the amount of gold on board, but it was substantial. The wreck was found in 1988 and has not been completely excavated as we write. What has been brought to the surface so far includes 43 gold bars of up to 54 pounds, \"1,302 $20 double-eagle gold coins, 37 $10 eagle gold coins, and 9,053 10-cent silver coins,\" some of which dated back to 1823. Winter, Michael.\n\n*Brazil was the last country in the hemisphere to end slavery, in 1888, developing a mass abolition movement in the final years; Cuba, still a colony of Spain, ended slavery in 1886 in the face of growing independentist sentiment.\n\n*Quitman died of something later called \"National Hotel Disease,\" which he along with several hundred other people contracted attending the inauguration of James Buchanan.\n\n*The bulk of Yoruba slaving happened after the fall of the Oy\u00f3 empire to an Islamic jihad that began in the 1820s and culminated with the empire's collapse in 1836. By this time, the United States no longer allowed the African slave trade, but Yoruba were taken in numbers to Cuba, Brazil, and, as indentured servants, to Trinidad.\n\n#   44\n\n# **Assignment in Paraguay**\n\n_Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids._\n\n_Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession._\n\n_And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour._\n\n\u2014Leviticus 25:44\u201346\n\nPRESIDENT BUCHANAN CONDUCTED HIS administration in such a way as to leave his successor crippled.\n\nSome of Buchanan's few biographers have defended him against the charge of being part of a Southern conspiracy. But however one cares to address the topic, the notion that Buchanan could have been unaware of having methodically put the Union in the most disadvantageous position possible does not pass the smell test. His contemporaries certainly thought that was what he was doing.\n\nBuchanan announced at the beginning of his term that he, like Polk, would be a one-term president, in effect setting the secession clock ticking. He sent the US Navy as far away as he could, where its personnel would not be easily available for duty in the event that, say, Carolinians or Mississippians should declare independence, as their leaders were constantly threatening to do. In 1858, he ordered \"a fleet of nineteen ships\"\u2014seven of them chartered merchant vessels\u2014\"of two hundred guns manned by twenty-five hundred sailors and marines\" on an unprecedented mission to Paraguay (!), where a US sailor had been killed in a river incident three years previously. Paraguay is a landlocked country, so the navy had to ascend three rivers. Most of the vessels stopped at Rosario, Argentina, and two continued on to the Paraguayan capital of Asunci\u00f3n, where they demanded an apology and extorted a new commercial treaty.\n\nFollowing the completion of that expensive, time-consuming errand, Buchanan sent the navy to the African coast to police the slave trade\u2014and indeed, for the first time, American enforcement did make a dent in it. The only captain ever hanged according to the legal penalty for engaging in the slave trade, one Nathaniel Gordon, was executed in 1862 under Lincoln, but he had been prosecuted and convicted during the Buchanan administration.\n\nRiddled with procurement scandals, bribery, and \"emergency loans,\" and spending extravagantly on military adventures, Buchanan's administration proved to be highly corrupt. Entering office with a $1.3 million surplus, Buchanan left behind a $25.2 million deficit, while government debt ballooned from $28.7 million to $76.4 million. Buchanan's secretary of the treasury was Howell Cobb, his old Jacksonian friend and Georgia cotton planter, and at one time owner of a thousand slaves. Ostensibly a Unionist and the ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, Cobb in 1856 had published _A Scriptural Examination of the Institution of Slavery_ , a Bible-thumping defense of divinely ordained property rights in slaves that execrated various individual abolitionists, in which he complained\u2014this is a mere sample\u2014that:\n\nAmongst the most successful schemes of mischief brought forth by abolitionists, may be reckoned what is familiarly called the Under-Ground Railroad: by this means, many owners have been deprived of their property by persons esteeming themselves, and being esteemed by their associates, pious.\n\nAsserting that enslaved women reproduced \"like rabbits,\" the slave-breeding Cobb in 1858 told the Georgia Cotton Planters Association (of which he was secretary) that \"the proprietor's largest source of prosperity is in the negroes he raises.\" He was one of the key people informally known as the \"Buchaneers\" who helped make the Buchanan presidency a fiscal scandal of historic proportions. With him at the helm of Treasury, Buchanan ran his _entire term_ on deficit financing, which Andrew Jackson would have regarded as a mortal sin if not treason. Such a thing might not seem so strange to modern readers, since the Federal Reserve can now print money to meet the government's obligations, but this was an era in which there was no national paper currency. After three decades of a Jacksonian fiscal regime, the federal government was required to shift the physical location of pieces of gold and silver in order for federal spending to occur.\n\nBesides the naval operations in Paraguay and Africa, Buchanan sent the US Army to Utah in 1857, to confront the theocratic Mormon state of Deseret. That was before there was a railroad to get the troops out there; they had to go on horseback, far from telegraph lines. Though hostilities ended in 1858, the army remained in Utah through the remainder of Buchanan's presidency.\n\nBuchanan's vice president was Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge, the grandson of the man who had introduced Jefferson's anonymous Kentucky Resolutions that first branded the doctrine of nullification. As the Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, Vice President Breckinridge ran for president in 1860 on the Southern Democratic ticket, with a platform that was essentially a threat that if he lost, the South would secede. He did, and it did. When Lincoln won the election, it was with a plurality of votes on a four-way split; his name had not even been on the ballot in the Southern states.\n\nIn his final, lame-duck State of the Union Address on December 3, 1860, Buchanan explained the problem to the nation\u2014the abolitionists made them do it: \"The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects.\"\n\nBy this point Northern bankers were refusing to buy Treasury notes for fear the money would go South; nor were they likely to invest in a situation in which the South was poised to repudiate its debts. Rhett's _Charleston Mercury_ wanted a new government, now. There was no time to lose: strike while the South has the momentum and the North is in transition.\n\nMany in the North had thought the Southern hotspurs wouldn't really secede. The plan to defeat the unprepared\u2014and, the South thought, irresolute\u2014North hinged on the idea of a quick mobilization. Howell Cobb had advised the secessionists to wait until the day of Lincoln's inauguration, which would have saved their old friend Buchanan considerable embarrassment, but they ignored his advice, so Cobb resigned as secretary of the treasury on December 8 to get in on the ground floor of the new country.\n\nIt was clear what Cobb had done, wrote Henry Adams in the _Boston Daily Advertiser_ of December 13: \"Everyone knows that [Buchanan] has neglected to garrison Fort Moultrie; that Secretary Cobb has so managed the Treasury as to weaken the new administration as far as possible; and that Mr. Floyd [John Floyd of Virginia, secretary of war] has as good as placed large amounts of national arms in the hands of the South Carolinians.\"\n\nAs secession was declared in one state after another, Buchanan did nothing to stop it. Instead, he let them go to form a slaveholders' confederacy that would attack and invade the United States\u2014once he was gone, and a less compliant president inaugurated.\n\nBefore Lincoln took office in March, unidentified thieves removed all the remaining specie from the federal treasury in Washington. In William P. MacKinnon's words, \"By the time Abraham Lincoln took office in March 1861 the country's largest military garrison was in the desert forty miles southwest of Salt Lake City, and the new administration could neither buy stationery nor meet the federal payroll. The two circumstances were not unrelated.\" What little money the United States government had was in the form of pieces of metal scattered around the far-flung country. That was how the South wanted it. Moreover, the secession of seven states from the Union meant that many Northern creditors would be burned if not ruined, seizing up the nation's commercial cash flow. Many of the merchants had been in favor of appeasing the South; but once they were stiffed by their Southern debtors, they became staunch Unionists.\n\nThe secession campaign was planned and executed by a wealthy group of men who had been at war with the government years before they equipped an army against it. Their propaganda machine ran full blast: disunion was the only permissible stance. With the _Charleston Mercury_ leading the charge, newspapers throughout the South hammered it home every day. When word of Lincoln's election came, the Fire-Eaters were already mobilizing; Robert Barnwell Rhett and others founded the Minute Men for the Defence of Southern Rights, an action group, in October 1860, while the Knights of the Golden Circle were establishing paramilitary forces elsewhere.\n\n_This Currier and Ives print in response to Florida's secession on January 10, 1861, depicts South Carolina leading Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana off a cliff. South Carolina is shown as riding a pig in pursuit of a butterfly labeled \"secession humbug,\" and saying, \"We go the whole hog... Old Hickory is dead, and now we'll have it.\" Georgia is depicted as deviating from the path, though in fact it seceded on January 19, before Louisiana did (January 26). The rider personifying Mississippi is saying, \"Down with the Union! Mississippi repudiates her bonds!\"\u2014referring to the self-ruination of Mississippi's credit on global markets almost twenty years before._\n\nSouth Carolina had been the state most likely to secede since the beginnings of the nation\u2014indeed, had barely joined the United States except for reasons of defense, which had been moribund since the removal of the Spanish, the British, and the local Native Americans following the War of 1812.\n\n\"All the slaves in Maryland might be bought out now at half-price with a liberal discount for cash,\" wrote Henry Adams the week before South Carolina seceded. Not all the slave states were determined to secede, however, and in order to evangelize on behalf of disunion, the governors of Mississippi and Alabama sent \"secession commissioners\" to the various slave states.\n\nAlabama's commissioner to South Carolina, John Archer Elmore, arrived in time to address the first evening session of the South Carolina Secession Convention on December 17, 1860, warning them of what they already believed: that Lincoln's election was \"an avowed declaration of war upon the institutions, the rights, and the interests of the South.\" The directorates that sent out secession commissioners tried to send natives of the states they were sent to, so Mississippi's commissioner to North Carolina was North Carolina\u2014born Jacob Thompson, President Buchanan's secretary of the interior. It was straight-up treason: Thompson was still a cabinet officer when he arrived in Raleigh on December 18 to deliver a barnburner of a speech characterized by the \"message of emancipation, humiliation, subjugation, and ruin\" that ran \"through the commissioners' messages like a scarlet thread,\" writes Charles B. Dew in his history of the secession commissions.\n\nThe South Carolina convention voted unanimously on December 20 to secede from the Union. Anyone who might have dissented had long since been weeded out. When it was Robert Barnwell Rhett's turn to ascend to the stage and take his turn signing the secession papers in the presence of three thousand cheering Carolinians, the most tireless and pugnacious disunionist of all \"fell to his knees, lifted his hands upward toward the heavens, and bowed his head in prayer,\" writes his biographer.\n\nSouth Carolina sent out well-coached secession commissioners, focusing them on the idea of a constitutional convention at Montgomery. Their commissioner to Alabama was John C. Calhoun's son Andrew. Raised from birth at a high pitch of pro-slavery hysteria, the younger Calhoun had in November recalled that the Haitians had risen up \"with all the fury of a beast, and scenes were then enacted over a comparatively few planters, that the white fiends [of the North] would delight to see re-enacted now with us.\"\n\nAs the appeals to secede became more intense, they became less economic and more emotional: if you don't support the slaveowners, you will be the victim of the slaves. After winding himself up for several pages, Alabama secession commissioner Stephen F. Hale reached the boiling point of negrophobia that Haiti represented in this by now ritualized discourse, augmented as usual by the image of the violation of white women:\n\nThe election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than... an open declaration of war, for the triumph of this new theory of government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations and her wives and daughters to pollution and violation to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans. Especially is this true in the cotton-growing States, where, in many localities, the slave outnumbers the white population ten to one.\n\nBut the economic argument predominated. In a December 27, 1860, letter to Kentucky governor Beriah Magoffin, Hale put it down squarely to property rights in human beings: \"African slavery has become not only one of the fixed domestic institutions of the Southern States, but forms an important element of their political power, and constitutes the most valuable species of their property, worth, according to recent estimates, not less than $4,000,000,000; forming, in fact, the basis on which rests the prosperity and wealth of most of these States.\"\n\nHowell Cobb supervised the hasty, secretive drafting of the Confederate Constitution at Montgomery, Alabama, with a team that included his brother Thomas, Robert Toombs, Robert Barnwell Rhett, and Alexander Stephens. This constitution explicitly mentioned slavery\u2014ten times. Cobb served as temporary head of the six-state Confederate States of America for two weeks, until Jefferson Davis was selected president of the self-declared new nation and was inaugurated on February 18, 1861.\n\nAlexander Stephens of Georgia was declared vice president of the Confederacy. President-elect Lincoln had written Stephens on December 22 that, as the Republicans had insisted throughout the campaign, he had no intention of abolishing slavery where it existed, only of prohibiting its spread to other territories.\n\nBut of course, to stop slavery's expansion would have been to end it.\n\nSo effective was the sermon _Mutual Relation of Masters and Slaves as Taught in the Bible_ at the First Presbyterian Church of Augusta, Georgia, on January 6, 1861, that the congregation quickly raised the money to publish it.\n\nIts author, the twenty-five-year-old clergyman Joseph Ruggles Wilson, based his text on Ephesians 6:5-9; the passage begins, \"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.\" Affirming that the Greek word translated as \"servants\" \"distinctly and unequivocally signified 'slaves,'\" Wilson saw slavery as a permanent Christian institution. Expounding the Southern churches' doctrine, which had occasioned a break with their Northern denominations' counterparts, he proposed that as servants of Christ, masters should treat their slaves with love and slaves should work hard. This was the doctrine known as \"paternalism,\" in which slaves and master were portrayed as forming a big family\u2014until it was time to sell some of the family.\n\nOnly fifteen days before Georgia seceded, Wilson told his parishioners to prepare for the upcoming victorious struggle, speaking of slavery as something to \"cherish\":\n\nWe should begin to meet the infidel fanaticism of our infatuated enemies upon the elevated ground of a divine warrant for the institution we are resolved to cherish....\n\n[The Apostle Paul] as much as says, that it is unnecessary to fear that this long-cherished institution will first give way before the enemies who press upon it from without. If slaveholders preserve it as an element of social welfare, in the spirit of the christian religion, throwing into it the full measure of gospel-salt allotted to it, and casting around it the same guardianship with which they would protect their family peace, if threatened on some other ground\u2014they need apprehend nothing but their own dereliction in duty to themselves and their dependent servants.\n\nHe closed by anticipating prosperity for slaveowners and holiness for the enslaved:\n\nOh, when that welcome day shall dawn, whose light will reveal a world covered with righteousness, not the least pleasing sight will be the institution of domestic slavery... which, by saving a lower race from the destruction of heathenism, has, under divine management, contributed to refine, exalt, and _enrich_ its superior race  (emphasis added)\n\nWe do not know whether Wilson's son, Woodrow, attended his father's sermon that Sunday during secession winter, because he had just turned four. But his subsequent writings as a historian and his adult actions suggest that he absorbed the racist message of his father, with whom he had a lifelong loving relationship.*\n\nRather than \"submit\" to the \"Black Republicans\"\u2014so went the rhetoric\u2014Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861, followed by Florida (which had only been a state for fifteen years) on January 10, Alabama on the eleventh, and Georgia on the nineteenth.\n\nOn January 21, five Southern Senators withdrew from Congress. In his brief valedictory speech, Jefferson Davis, owner of 113 slaves, said:\n\nIt has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi to her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory \"that all men are created free and equal,\" and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.\n\nDavis went on to explain, as slaveowners frequently did and as the US Supreme Court had affirmed, that \"all men were created equal\" had not been intended to mean all men. Jefferson's youngest grandson, George Wythe Randolph, who as a boy stood by Jefferson's deathbed, apparently agreed: he was the Confederate secretary of war for eight months in 1862.\n\nNeither Virginia nor Maryland had seceded when, with Louisiana's P. G. T. Beauregard giving the orders, slavery \"fired on the flag,\" in Ulysses Grant's words, on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter.\n\nVirginia did much business with the North and was decidedly ambivalent about seceding. The Confederate Constitution, signed as of March 11, offered Virginia both a carrot and a stick. The document was modeled on the US Constitution, complete with a three-fifths clause, but with explicit protections for slavery written into it. However, even despite the latter-day clamor to reopen the African slave trade, the Confederate Constitution prohibited the foreign slave trade into the Confederate States with what might as well have been called the Virginia clause.\n\nThe carrot, then, was that a Confederate Virginia could continue to slave breed and thus retain a market capitalization of its enslaved population. With importation prohibited and conquest continuing, Virginia slaveowners could sell black people into new domains for the foreseeable future. But the stick was that since no foreign slaves could be traded into the Confederate States, if Virginia did not secede she would have no Southern market in which to sell African American youth.\n\nVirginia gave in and joined the Confederacy. Facing the loss of the state's slave-breeding industry, a Virginia secession commission voted provisionally to secede on April 17\u2014five days after South Carolina fired the first shot at Ft. Sumter, and after Lincoln had called for seventy-five thousand troops from all the states remaining in the Union. After Virginia ratified secession on May 23, West Virginia, where slave labor had never been much in use, seceded from Virginia, voting itself a Union state on October 24.\n\nThe day after Virginia seceded, Union troops moved into Alexandria, beginning the longest occupation of a long war. They surprised the Confederate cavalry eating breakfast at the Duke Street slave-shipping compound that had formerly been Franklin and Armfield's, and at that time was on its fifth owner, Charles M. Price, who had been a partner with James Birch in Price, Birch. \"The firm had fled,\" wrote Virginian M. D. Conway, \"and taken its saleable articles with it; but a single one remained\u2014an old man, chained to the middle of the floor by the leg. He was released, and the ring and chain which bound him sent to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.\" The \"Slave Pen,\" as it was known, was repurposed as a prison for captured Confederates.\n\nA divided Maryland did not secede, but continued to have slavery and was heavily occupied by the military. It was a fundamental priority for the United States to keep Maryland, because if Maryland went, Washington would be surrounded.\n\nKentucky did not secede. John C. Breckinridge was seated as a senator from Kentucky, subsequently enlisted in the Confederate army, and was formally expelled from the Senate as a traitor on December 2, 1861. Missouri, the most bitterly divided state, did not secede, but a faction announced a provisional Confederate government in the town of Neosho.\n\n_The captured Price, Birch & Co., \"Dealers in Slaves.\" Photograph: Andrew J. Russell, sometime between 1861 and 1865._\n\nThe capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery to Richmond by a May 20, 1861, vote of the Confederate Congress. In eighty-two years, Richmond had gone from being the capital of Virginia's secession from Britain, to being the great wholesale center of the domestic slave trade, to being the Confederate capital. Prices for slaves remained strong, and slave sales continued until the city fell to the Union in 1865. Richmond versus Washington: the capitals of North and South were only a hundred miles apart.\n\nAmong the defects of Steven Spielberg's 2012 film _Lincoln_ was the short shrift it gave Elizabeth Keckley.\n\nThough depicted in the movie as a servant, she was the first African American couturier of note. Born enslaved in Virginia, and badly abused during slavery, after manumission Mrs. Keckley (as she was addressed) married and divorced, then opened her own dressmaker's shop as a modiste in Washington, DC. At one point she had simultaneously as clients both Varina Davis (the wife of Jefferson Davis, at the time a Mississippi senator) and Mary Todd Lincoln.\n\nShe became the confidante of the unpopular Mrs. Lincoln and was frequently present in the White House. Her 1868 memoir, _Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House_ , was written with the abolitionist journalist James Redpath, who probably transcribed and tweaked her speech to create an \"as told to\" text. It would make a fine movie, complete with a unique, close-up view of Lincoln and his short-lived son Tad watching their pet goats play on the White House grounds. In it, Mrs. Keckley reported a conversation with Varina Davis:\n\nWhile dressing her one day, she said to me:\n\n\"Lizzie, you are so very handy that I should like to take you South with me.\"\n\n\"When do you go South, Mrs. Davis?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Oh, I cannot tell just now, but it will be soon. You know there is going to be war, Lizzie?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"But I tell you yes.\"\n\n\"Who will go to war?\" I asked.\n\n\"The North and South,\" was her ready reply. \"The Southern people will not submit to the humiliating demands of the Abolition party; they will fight first.\"\n\n\"And which do you think will whip?\"\n\n\"The South, of course. The South is impulsive, is in earnest, and Southern soldiers will fight to conquer. The North will yield, when it sees the South is in earnest, rather than engage in a long and bloody war.\"\n\n\"But, Mrs. Davis, are you certain that there will be war?\"\n\n\"Certain!\u2014I know it. You had better go South with me; I will take good care of you.... Then, I may come back to Washington in a few months, and live in the White House. The Southern people talk of choosing Mr. Davis for their President. In fact, it may be considered settled that he will be their President. As soon as we go South and secede from the other States, we will raise an army and march on Washington, and then I shall live in the White House.\"\n\nThe Yankees wouldn't fight. Varina Davis would live in the White House. New York would collapse without the money it stole from Southern cotton producers, and the poor would riot and burn down the mansions on Fifth Avenue. It was a common belief. Lazarus Straus's son Oscar, who would have been nine or ten years old at the time, vividly recalled hearing Georgia senator Robert Toombs speaking at Columbus's Masonic Temple: \"He drew a large, white handkerchief from his pocket with a flourish, and pausing before mopping his perspiring forehead, he exclaimed: 'The Yankees will not and can not fight! I will guarantee to wipe up with this handkerchief every drop of blood that is spilt!'\"\n\nToombs's ghost must be mopping up the blood still. At the time he made that extravagant remark, he hoped to become the Confederate president, as did Howell Cobb. But Jefferson Davis had the most military credentials, and running a war was going to be pretty much the Confederate president's only job. Davis's older brother Joseph had for years been promoting him as the obvious chief executive of an inevitable Southern republic. In order to keep his talented sibling free of financial worries, Joseph had given him the plantation called Brierfield, twenty miles south of Vicksburg, whose captives were capably overseen during Jefferson Davis's extended absences by an enslaved man, Davis's longtime \"body servant\" James Pemberton.\n\nMany in North and South alike believed that Lincoln would be no match as a warrior for Davis, who was unanimously named president of the Confederate States of America by the hastily convened Confederate Congress, which met in secret during its entire existence.\n\n*When he was president of Princeton, Wilson kept out black students; as president of the United States, he implemented Jim Crow in the federal government, requiring job applications to include photos.\n\n#   45\n\n# **The Decommissioning of Human Capital**\n\n_Every intelligent man knows that coined money is not the currency of the country. 1_\n\n\u2014Rep. Samuel Hooper (Massachusetts), arguing in favor of the Legal Tender Act, February 3, 1862\n\n_After the Civil War was over, ole Marsa brought some money in a bag and says to his wife that it wasn't no count. What was it they called it? Confederate money? You know when the War ceased money changed\u2014greenbacks, yes'm. 2_\n\n\u2014Unidentified informant, Fisk University, 1929\u201330\n\nTHE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COST a million dollars a day, maybe more, to run. There was nothing to run it with.\n\nLincoln did not merely inherit a ransacked treasury and a government in debt from James Buchanan and Howell Cobb. He inherited more than thirty years of Jacksonian hobbles on the financial powers of federal government. In the years since Jackson had first become president, the United States had become an industrial and financial power fueled by earnings from the massive export of cotton, but its enormous economic growth had not been matched by an increase in federal resources, which were limited by a welter of archaic constraints. Bray Hammond writes:\n\nTo keep relations between the government and the economy \"pure\" and wholesome, tons of gold had to be hauled to and fro in dray-loads, with horses and heavers doing by the hour what bookkeepers could do in a moment. This, moreover, was not the procedure of a backward people who knew nothing better; it was an obvious anachronism to which, in keeping it tied around the federal government's neck, a mystical virtue was imputed. Actually its only beneficiaries were handlers of gold and speculators in it.\n\nThere had been no national currency since before the Panic of 1837. The nation's finances had taken the Jeffersonian small-government path instead of the Hamiltonian strong-government system of managed debt, and had ended up plucked clean. State power had been exalted and federal power demeaned, and the federal government had come apart. Cobb and Buchanan's systematic wasting of the Treasury had left the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian tradition bankrupted. The way was clear for the remaking of government along a Hamiltonian path\u2014or possibly even Franklinian, since it necessarily entailed paper money, and lots of it.\n\nWith the slavery interest, which had been the hard core of resistance to a strong federal government, having decamped, Lincoln now asserted federal powers in a way that had never been politically possible.\n\nIn a desperate effort to fund the government's short-term obligations as it went to war, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, a lawyer who was not a banker and was a hard-money man, reluctantly issued US Treasury notes. These quickly became known as \"greenbacks\": the first federally issued paper money.\n\nGreenbacks were not redeemable for gold or silver. They were what some economists call \"fiat money\"\u2014money that is worth something because the government says it is. Conceived by Elbridge G. Spaulding, the congressman from Buffalo, New York, who introduced the Legal Tender Act, greenbacks were a radical experiment born of the desperation Buchanan had left behind. Bray Hammond suggests that they were in effect a bankruptcy settlement. Though not convertible to specie, they were legal tender, meaning that their acceptance was mandatory for all obligations of the federal government.\n\nGold was coming in from California, where it was being found in creeks and rocks. Gold was coming in from England, which had become dependent on US wheat after its own crops failed, again. The federal government took in the gold and paid out greenbacks, which carried no interest and bore no date of maturity. They were simply intended to pass from one hand to another, and never be redeemed, only replaced.\n\nThere was a model for the Legal Tender Act: New York's free banking act of 1838, which dealt out money to the state's banks based on the amount of state bonds the bank had purchased and placed on deposit with the state. It was a hard fight to approve the act in Congress, after years of hard-money fiscal orthodoxy had taught that paper money was a diabolical swindle. Many believed that, as Jackson had insisted, the Constitution forbade such a thing. Lincoln signed the Legal Tender Act on February 25, 1862, and the first notes went into circulation on April 5, after the government had gone a long three months without money; $150 million were printed, though $60 million replaced demand notes being withdrawn from circulation, leaving a net $90 million of new money. Two months later, Chase asked for, and received, another $150 million.\n\n_A greenback: the silver front and green back of an 1862 US dollar, with Salmon P. Chase's picture._\n\nThe obverse was a silvery gray, and the reverse was all green, giving the new paper dollar its nickname. Chase put his picture on the one-dollar bill, and Lincoln's on the ten.\n\nThere was, however, still a gold dollar in existence, so there were effectively two standards; the value of gold went up compared to the value of paper when the South won a victory, and down when the North won. The notes began depreciating, and after another $150 million were printed in the aftermath of Lincoln's call for three hundred thousand more troops, they depreciated more.\n\nThe banks had wanted the Legal Tender Act, and it was followed by the National Bank Act of 1863, which created a national banking system. That year Chase's supporter John Thompson founded First National, the bank that subsequently became Citibank.* The banks took the greenbacks in from the government and they paid them out to customers; at least they had something to use for money.\n\nGreenbacks were popular. People wanted paper money; everyone was heartily sick of the patchwork system of privatized money issued by local banks, which was increasingly becoming irredeemable as the crisis of war deepened. Many newspapers wanted paper money and evangelized on its behalf. Now, for the first time since Jackson killed the Second Bank of the United States, there was a paper money that had the same value everywhere in the country. The new federal notes had the effect of knitting together the roughly two-thirds of the country's population* who were still flying the United States flag, because everyone had a stake in the survival of the currency, which meant, in the survival of the Union.\n\nThe bills depreciated substantially but did not become valueless. By 1863, they were trading at 61 percent of their face value, not bad considering the convulsions that the economy had undergone in wartime and the unresolved problems of a dual gold\/greenback system. There were only three issues of greenbacks, which were withdrawn from circulation at war's end, but the changeover had happened: though the course was not smooth, from then on the United States was committed to having a national paper currency.\u2020\n\nGreenbacks were as much an assertion of federal power as they were an economic innovation. Unlike the Confederate States of America, the United States had a functional government. As the Union created itself as a war machine, more initiatives issued from the federal government. Congress authorized, and Lincoln signed, an income tax. The Treasury sold the banks large amounts of long-term bonds. The Homestead Act was put into place\u2014something that the South had been strenuously opposed to but that now could pass in the absence of their obstruction of it, though free black people were excluded. The Land Grant Act apportioned land to public colleges across the country. The National Bankruptcy Act was implemented. The Yosemite wilderness was set aside as a national park. And spectacular new possibilities were opened up for corruption as vast amounts of Western land were granted to railroads, ushering in the age of the tycoons.\n\nWe will not attempt to replay the great conflict in these pages. For our purposes, we think of it as two successive, overlapping wars.\n\nThe first we could call the War of Southern Conquest, which was started in the expectation of a quick takeover of the US government by force. Its advance was quickly stopped, and it was definitively over by the time of the double Confederate losses at Gettysburg (July 3, 1863, which ended the South's invasion of the North), and Vicksburg (the next day, which ended the South's control of the Mississippi River). The Southern leadership\u2014Jefferson Davis in particular\u2014had no plan B, and it seems as though they wanted to prolong the misery as long as possible. Having committed to the total war that treason against the republic signified, expecting to pay the maximum penalty in the case of a Northern victory without a negotiated settlement, they dug in and continued fighting against a much larger, better equipped enemy, as the corpses mounted.\n\nBut they still had their slaves. And property rights in human beings still had multiple benefits, one of which was allowing the owners to avoid combat. After the Confederate Congress passed the first conscription act in April 1862, providing for three years of compulsory service (though one could hire a substitute), it passed on October 11 the so-called \"Twenty Nigger Law,\" which exempted from the draft one white man per plantation with twenty or more slaves\u2014in order to guard against rebellion. Overseers were also granted exemption. It stimulated a wave of desertions, already ongoing, by the poor whites of the South, who were overwhelmingly the ones dying on the battlefields in support of slavery. A catchphrase was popularized that has persisted in subsequent conflicts: rich man's war, poor man's fight.\n\nThe Confederate regime acted very much like an occupier on its own territory, especially in those rugged pockets with fewer slaves and consequently less interest in defending slavery. To fund its military operations, it imposed \"tax-in-kind,\" giving army officers the authority to take anything they wanted in a government-sanctioned banditry\u2014everything from the horse that pulled the wagon, to the ham in the smokehouse and the corn in the garden plot, to the cloth women had woven to make clothes for their children. By 1862 already in Davis's Mississippi, crops were not being planted for lack of manpower and supplies. Young men were conscripted on pain of death into the Confederate Army where they were miserably treated; unlike their officer class, Confederate troops frequently went without uniforms, tents, shoes, or food, even in the war's early days, though they were well-supplied with ammunition. Nor did it escape their notice that many planters were occupying themselves not with fighting so much as with blockade-running their cotton to market. What, then, united the South's poor yeomanry with its wealthy elite? Why did perhaps as many as a million Confederate soldiers experience untold misery and mass death to fight for the rights of 347,525 slaveowners?\n\nOne dependable, long-term force that held the white classes together was a culture of negrophobia: the visceral fear of annihilation in the race war they were certain would follow emancipation. This deeply embedded, centuries-old belief was unsubtly stoked at every turn. The War of Southern Conquest was from the beginning portrayed as the defense of white women and children against conjectured mass violence by black marauders, stoked against whites by monstrous abolitionists. But there were also poor yeoman farmers who regarded the Confederacy as a plague on them. There were Union volunteers from every slave state, and even in hardcore Mississippi, Jones County announced its independence from the Confederacy.\n\nAfrican Americans were entirely on one side in this war. But at the outset of hostilities, they weren't allowed to fight. US law prohibited black soldiers from enlisting in the army (though there were already black sailors in the navy), and Lincoln did not at first attempt to change it, so African American volunteers were turned down. The war went badly for the North during this time.\n\nDespite the South's insistence that the \"Black Republicans\" would force abolition on them, Lincoln had never proposed to end slavery in the Southern states. He had begun by insisting that it was not a war about slavery, but to preserve the Union. But on September 22, 1862, prodded by Seward and Chase as the carnage dragged on, and as Frederick Douglass had been urging all along, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, followed by the definitive proclamation on January 1, 1863. It only applied to those enslaved in the seceded territories; Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District of Columbia, as well as some occupied territories, continued to have slavery while remaining in the Union, with New Jersey using the euphemism of \"apprentices.\" But the Emancipation Proclamation transformed the meaning of the war.\n\nOnly after the North committed unambiguously to emancipation could the war be decisively won. Lincoln had not previously claimed to be prosecuting a war on slavery, but now that was unquestionably what it had become. This, then, was the second phase of the war, which we will call the War on Slavery.\n\nArtist Francis Bicknell Carpenter, who painted an imagined scene of Lincoln reading the proclamation to his cabinet, wrote that Lincoln told him, \"I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game.\" Why had Lincoln not started that way? According to Carpenter, Lincoln told him that \"it is my conviction that had the proclamation been issued even six months earlier than it was, public sentiment would not have sustained it. Just so, as to the subsequent action in reference to enlisting blacks in the Border States. The step, taken sooner, could not, in my judgment, have been carried out.\" In short, political will.\n\nEffective January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation's effect was somewhat symbolic, since it did not apply to those still held enslaved in Union territory and mostly applied to areas the Union did not control, but it nonetheless marked a change in the purpose of the war. The Fire-Eaters had long charged that the North was planning to impose abolition on them. Now, for the first time, it was a policy goal. And in allowing for the enlistment and arming of black soldiers, the Emancipation Proclamation was not symbolic at all. \"I further declare and make known,\" it read, \"that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.\"\n\nLincoln's game-changer came as a shock to the Confederates. What Patrick Henry warned against had finally happened: enslaved assets\u2014the property whose value had governed every Southern political initiative since colonial days\u2014were no longer legally recognizable as such. In a long message to the Confederate Congress on January 12, Confederate president Jefferson Davis\u2014who was never president of a functional government, but was commander in chief of a losing war\u2014denounced the \"execrable measure\" by which \"several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere, are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters.\" Up till that point, the Confederate hierarchy had considered the possibility that a negotiated outcome to the war might yet result in a reunited nation on their terms. No more.\n\nSlaveowners' wealth had crumbled to dust. There would be no more securitizing Southern banks' collateralized slaveholdings by Northern banks, nor would European lenders buy into enslaved assets that Washington had pronounced worthless. Lincoln had been the wheat candidate; Britain, which had suffered bad harvests and needed Northern wheat, was siding with the North despite considerable Confederate sympathy in Lancashire. Nor did France save the day for Jefferson Davis, as it had for George Washington; instead, with the United States otherwise occupied, France invaded Mexico in 1861.\n\nThe Emancipation Proclamation decommissioned the capitalized womb. Labor was no longer capital. African American children were no longer born to be collateral. Their bodies were no longer a better monetary value than paper. The US economy was no longer on the negro standard. Not only were the slaves emancipated; so was American money.\n\nThe Emancipation Proclamation and the coming of the greenback were concurrent and were intimately related. Once the enormous appraised value of the bodies and reproductive potential of four million people was no longer carried on the books as assets, dwarfing other sectors of the economy on paper and generally distorting the economy, the financial revolution of a national paper money was able to happen. The end of the slave-breeding industry was crucial to the remaking of American money.\n\n_This engraving depicting three enslaved laborers was used on several different Confederate notes._\n\nThe Confederacy, meanwhile, was not receiving gold from California or from wheat sales to Britain. Instead, it took in its supporters' accumulated savings in gold and silver and in return, it gave them some seventy varieties of engraved notes, many of them bearing pictures of slaves working. Some had a written promise on the notes to pay them back with interest once the war was over. These notes were not usable to pay import duties; only specie and bond coupons were allowed for that. Among the many notes featuring the picture on this page was a one-hundred-dollar Confederate note issued at Richmond on December 11, 1862, whose hopeful legend promised an excellent rate of return: \"Six Months after the Ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States of America, the Confederate States of America will pay to the bearer on demand One Hundred Dollars with interest at two cents per day.\" The back side of the bill was blank.\n\nThe South's banks were forced to buy worthless Confederate bonds on pain of being labeled treasonous to the Southern cause, so they effectively had their assets confiscated by the Confederacy. Unsurprisingly, the Southern banking system did not survive the war. With it went the commercial network that had connected the South's slave-driven finance with that of the rest of the country.\n\nThere was still money to be made by the intrepid. Cotton had become a cash market, attracting middlemen willing to take personal risk in pursuit of high profit. Despite the difficulty of shipping, the sky-high prices that cotton fetched encouraged farmers to keep planting it instead of food. After Joseph Acklen died on the Angola plantation in 1863, his widow, Adelicia (previously Isaac Franklin's widow), is said to have slipped into Louisiana from Tennessee to negotiate the illegal sale of twenty-eight hundred bales of cotton to an English merchant for an exorbitant sum of gold, said to be $750,000 or more, which she subsequently collected in person in London.\n\nDespite the worthlessness of Confederate money, some people made a profit with it. When New Orleans was occupied by the Union in 1862, Julius Weis, a merchant in Natchez, managed to sell his firm's inventory of ready-made clothing to Confederate soldiers for Confederate money, \"which was then nearly at par,\" he recalled. \"I took $15,000 of this money and bought a piece of property in Memphis, which I sold after the war for a like amount of greenbacks.\" Still having \"faith in the ultimate success of the Confederacy,\" he spent another $18,000 in Confederate money for \"a fine-looking mulatto, to whom I took a fancy.\"\n\nAfter the Southern rebellion began, the Lehman Brothers were well-positioned, having a New York office, and after the Union occupied the factorage capital of New Orleans in 1862, they established an office there. They became blockade runners, exporting such cotton as they could sneak out of the South.\n\n_\"Six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the Confederate States and the United States, the Confederate States of America will pay two dollars to bearer.\" Judah P. Benjamin on an 1864 two-dollar Confederate bill, one of at least seventy issues of paper money during the Confederacy. Poorly printed, this note was cut out with scissors. The back is blank._\n\nBlockade runners have been much romanticized, with tales of how they brought in British-made guns to the Confederates; but much of what the blockade runners brought back was luxury goods, because some of the wealthy continued to make money. After the war began, Charley Lamar became a blockade runner, slipping in and out of Charleston harbor on moonless nights in unlighted ships painted the color of water, past what Isidor Straus counted one night as twenty-one blockading steamers. The Strauses too went into blockade running. After a local grand jury excoriated what it called the \"evil and unpatriotic conduct of the representatives of Jewish houses,\" Lazarus Straus moved his family from Talbotton to Columbus, Georgia, the Confederacy's second most important industrial center after Richmond, in 1863, when Confederate money was trading five cents to the dollar in gold.\n\nNew Orleans's Jewish community, tightly connected with that of Charleston, had perhaps doubled in size in the years preceding secession, and numbered about four thousand in 1861. Its merchants were clustered in the area of Canal Street, the dividing line between the town's Anglo and Creole populations. It contributed the Confederacy's most brilliant legal mind: Judah P. Benjamin, a St. Croix\u2013born former sugar planter, former slaveowner, and a cosmopolitan attorney. He had been the second Jewish US senator (in 1852) and was a second cousin of the first Jewish senator, David Levy\/Yulee, though neither he nor Yulee were practicing Jews. A key advisor of Jefferson Davis, he became the attorney general of the Confederacy, then its secretary of war, then its secretary of the treasury.\n\nThe role of Jewish merchants as financial intermediaries irritated General Ulysses S. Grant. \"The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere,\" he wrote to Assistant Secretary of War C. P. Wolcott in 1862. Then and today, this complaint of \"privilege\" was a central tenet of anti-immigrant rhetoric, with which Grant was unfortunately familiar, as his political background included a strong nativist streak and he had in the winter of 1854\u201355 briefly joined a lodge of the xenophobic \"Know-Nothing\" movement in Missouri.\n\nGrant's General Order No. 11 of December 17, 1862, ordered the expulsion within twenty-four hours of all Jews \"as a class\" from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. It was an attempt to stop cotton smuggling, but what it meant was that Jews who lived in those states were expected to pick up and leave their homes overnight. Grant's order all too easily fell into a pattern of anti-Jewish language\u2014some of it casual, some of it deeply believed\u2014that fell on occasion from the lips and pens of antislavery figures that included William Tecumseh Sherman, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Wilson, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Adams. It was the culmination of a series of measures that on November 10 had included an instruction to railroad conductors not to accept Jewish passengers. General Order No. 11 had a predictably demoralizing effect on the seven thousand or so Jewish soldiers in the Union army, subjecting them to taunts from other soldiers and causing one Jewish officer, Captain Philip Trounstine of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry, to resign in protest. A Jewish protest to Lincoln quickly resulted in the rescission of the order on January 6, 1863, and Grant subsequently apologized for having issued it.\n\nThere were about three thousand Jewish soldiers in the Confederate army, most of whom were poor immigrants. Jewish merchants in the South, meanwhile, found themselves denounced in the Confederate Congress and on the receiving end of accusations from townspeople of disloyalty and extortion. The worse the war went for the South, the more vulnerable to scapegoating they were.\n\nIt is instructive to unpack the first words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address again:\n\n_Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation..._\n\nLincoln thus dated the republic as beginning eighty-seven years previously\u2014not from the 1789 Constitution, but from 1776, though the Declaration of Independence does not mention a new \"nation.\" In affirming that the thirteen colonies were a nation in 1776 rather than a confederation of thirteen states, Lincoln was providing a revisionist take on the Declaration. He then attempted to reclaim the words of the Southern hero Thomas Jefferson:\n\n_... conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal._\n\nWith abolition now at last the official post-Emancipation Proclamation US policy, Lincoln was repudiating _Dred Scott_ 's interpretation of Jefferson's \"all men,\" declaring that the inspirational words might at last include those who had not been conceived in \"Liberty.\" At last, liberty no longer meant liberty for slavery.\n\nEverybody knows what happened to Lincoln.\n\n*In 1877, Thompson founded the bank whose successor still bears his friend's name: Chase.\n\n*Union population: ~23 million; Confederate: ~9.1 million (~5.1 million free, ~4 million enslaved).\n\n\u2020Convertibility to gold was restored in 1879, and ended under President Nixon in 1971.\n\n#   46\n\n# **A Weird, Plaintive Wail**\n\n_Savannah, Ga., Dec. 22 [1864]._\n\nTo His Excellency, President Lincoln:\n\n_I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton. 1_\n\n(Signed.) W. T. Sherman, Major-General\n\n_When de war ended, I goes back to my mastah and he treated me like his brother. Guess he wuz scared of me 'cause I had so much ammunition on me. 2_\n\n\u2014Formerly enslaved Civil War veteran Albert Jones, Portsmouth, Virginia, January 8, 1937\n\nNOW THE WAR COULD be won: as with previous proclamations by Dunmore and by Sonthonax and Polverel, emancipation meant black soldiers in combat, even as it emboldened the many enslaved who heard about it throughout the South.\n\nPursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation, 166 black regiments were created. The number of African Americans who fought is officially around 180,000, but it seems likely there were more than that. By war's end, about 10 percent of the US Army was black. Though they were not commanded by black officers, they were known as dedicated fighters. For them, the war was even more dangerous than it was for white soldiers.\n\nIn his previously quoted message, Jefferson Davis announced his post\u2013Emancipation Proclamation intention to treat all captured Union officers as guilty of \"exciting servile insurrection,\" which was to say, to execute them. The Confederate hierarchy construed all black soldiers to be guilty of that crime and deserving of death.\n\nFrom the first encounters between black soldiers and Confederates in battle pursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Confederates waged \"black flag\" or \"no quarter\" war. Atrocities were routine; taking no prisoners, they slaughtered wounded black soldiers, on occasion bayoneting them repeatedly or beating their brains out with clubs. Confederate soldiers frequently made every effort to kill black soldiers on the battlefield, murdering them in cold blood if they were captured, including, writes Gregory J. W. Unwin, \"those who attempted to surrender and wounded men too weak to offer resistance.\" Captured black soldiers who were not killed were frequently enslaved. Confederates also typically targeted for murder the white commanders of the black regiments; the knowledge that any whites associated with black troops would be flat-out killed was intended to drive a wedge between white and black Union soldiers.\n\nAfraid of the consequences, the Union refrained from calling for no-quarter war in reprisal, thereby leaving their black troops to be sacrificed. There were thus two different war regimes operating, one for white prisoners and the other, even more horrible, for black prisoners. \"Confederate war crimes far exceeded those of the Federals by every measure,\" writes George S. Burkhardt, who called attention to it in _Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath._ 4\n\nConfederate violence in battle was genocidal toward black people, reaching a pitch comparable to the final moments of that other major bloody American war of abolition, the Haitian Revolution. The mere fact of a black man in a military uniform with a weapon was cognitive dissonance: in the Confederate worldview, this was not possible. As they saw it, the enemy was less than human, and was their own escaped property. In the words of a South Carolina woman: \"Just think how infamous it is that our _gentlemen_ should have to go out and fight niggers, and that every nigger they shoot is a thousand dollars out of their own pockets!\" The most notorious massacre, though not the largest, was committed by the troops of Nathan Bedford Forrest at Fort Pillow, an army post of no great strategic importance on a Tennessee bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, on April 12\u201313, 1864. Forrest had enlisted in the Confederate army as a private, but quickly became a lieutenant colonel, then one of the most celebrated Confederate generals. He was a cavalryman, said to be one of the best horsemen in the army, whose principal military technique was the aggressive assault.\n\nAfter charging into Fort Pillow, the troops under Forrest's command killed in cold blood perhaps as many as five hundred Union soldiers who had surrendered (there is no definitive count) over a period of two days. Most of them were black. The _New York Tribune_ reported that five soldiers were buried alive. Forrest's _New York Times_ obituary in 1877 recalled the massacre:\n\nWithout discrimination of age or sex, men, women, and children, the sick and wounded in the hospitals, were butchered without mercy. The bloody work went on until night put a temporary stop to it; but it was renewed at early dawn, when the inhuman captors searched the vicinity of the fort, dragging out wounded fugitives and killing them where they lay. The whole history of the affair was brought out by a Congressional inquiry, and the testimony presents a long series of sickening, cold-blooded atrocities... The news of the massacre aroused the whole country to a paroxysm of horror and fury.\n\nAn 1865 interview with Forrest, conducted by a reporter for the New Orleans _True Delta_ and reprinted in other newspapers, asked him if the investigators' (the \"Yankees'\") report of Fort Pillow was accurate. He answered, \"Yes, if we are to believe anything a nigger says.\" Then he added, \"When I went into the war I meant to fight. Fighting means killing. I have lost twenty-nine horses in the war, and have killed a man each time.\"\n\nThere were many witnesses to the Fort Pillow massacre, which contributed to its visibility as a media event, but Fort Pillow was not an anomaly; the level of hatred displayed toward black soldiers was consistent wherever Confederates fought. A Virginia colonel described the wholesale slaughter of prisoners at the disastrous Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg, Virginia, in July 1864: \"Our men, who were always made wild by having negroes sent against them... were utterly frenzied with rage. Nothing in the war could have exceeded the horrors that followed. No quarter was given, and for what seemed a long time, fearful butchery was carried on.\"\n\nBlack troops made \"Remember Fort Pillow!\" into a battle cry and became increasingly disposed to give no quarter. Burkhardt quotes a New Jersey officer: \"The Rebel prisoners are very fearful of being left to... colored troops as they fear their own acts of inhumanity will be repaid.\" Forrest's troops continued their homicidal career in June, a little north of Tupelo, Mississippi, at Brice's Cross Roads, where Forrest scored his greatest victory of the war against an enemy superior in numbers. After routing a Union force of eight thousand under the incompetent direction of Brigadier General Samuel Sturgis, Forrest's men hunted down and killed members of Colonel Edward Bouton's Colored Brigade who had survived the battle. In April 1865, Forrest directed a massacre of Union troops near Selma while they were sleeping.\n\nThe month after the Fort Pillow massacre, General William Tecumseh Sherman, who liked neither black people nor abolitionists, began his Atlanta campaign. Entering Georgia from Chattanooga on the north, he burned the strategic rail depot in Atlanta, a small town whose population had multiplied under the pressure of war. Some of Atlanta was torched by Sherman's troops, and some by the Confederate general John Bell Hood; about half the city went up in flames. It was tremendous news in the North.\n\nSherman followed up Atlanta on November 15 with his sixty-mile-wide, three-hundred-mile long March to the Sea without supply lines, forcing his sixty-two thousand troops to eat their way through the country as they tore up railroad tracks and burned industrial, governmental, and military facilities and cotton crops along the way. Sherman's march, tactically aimed at destroying what remained of the Southern railroad system and strategically aimed at stopping the war once and for all, has been traditionally portrayed in the South as an orgy of cruelty, acquiring a mythical reputation as Exhibit A of Northern aggression. Sherman's troops certainly caused suffering, in part because they destroyed food supplies as well as cotton, but they concentrated primarily on strategic targets rather than residences. Some homes were burned, especially those of the planters; Sherman took special care to make sure that Howell Cobb's plantation was burned to the ground.\n\nBut the property that Sherman's troops fired was the least of the wealth they destroyed.\n\nThey burned slavery to the ground.\n\nWhatever else Sherman's march symbolized, for the enslaved it was a march of liberation, as one of the war's best-known songs, composed by Henry Clay Work, recalls:\n\n_Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee!_\n\n_Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes us free!_\n\n_And so we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea_\n\n_While we were marching through Georgia._\n\n\"Marching Through Georgia\" took its place alongside the most popular anthem played by Northern military bands: the stirring \"John Brown's Body,\" for which Julia Ward Howe had written new lyrics, still familiar today, as \"The Battle Hymn of the Republic.\" Noah Andre Trudeau quotes a letter written during the campaign by General William P. Carlin of the First Division that described what happened on one occasion when the band played that song:\n\nAbout a dozen young African-American girls came out of nearby houses, \"formed into a ring around the band at the head of the column, and with a weird, plaintive wail, danced in a circle in a most solemn, dignified, and impressive manner,\" wrote Carlin years afterward. \"What their meaning was I did not know then, nor do I now, but I, of course, interpreted it as expressive of goodwill to our cause.\"\n\nCarlin was hearing a ring shout, a collective song of spiritual power sung and danced in a moving counterclockwise circle. One of the oldest known forms of African American music, heavily Kongo in influence, the ring shout is known in the Sea Islands and points west, all the way to the Louisiana \/ Mississippi delta region, where it became part of the Baptist tradition of \"rocks.\"*\n\nMeanwhile, Jacob Thompson was plotting the mass murder of Northern civilians on behalf of the Confederacy. Funded with a million dollars in gold and sent by Judah P. Benjamin to be head of Confederate Secret Service operations in Canada, Thompson dispatched incendiary attacks on New York and Chicago. These terrorist attacks were to be coordinated with occupation by the former Knights of the Golden Circle, as of 1864 called the Sons of Liberty, whose membership was said, perhaps hyperbolically, to number in the hundreds of thousands. That never happened; but had Confederate colonel Robert Martin been less inept in scouting locations and in using his \"Greek fire\" phosphorus firebombs, the plot for eight infiltrated Confederate officers to burn down New York City in a massive conflagration on November 25, 1864, might well have succeeded, in which case the Confederacy would have exacted a civilian death toll of possibly historic proportions. The fires were set, but in closed spaces, where they burned out for lack of oxygen.\n\nThe Confederate commander General William D. Hardee fled Savannah with ten thousand troops rather than confront Sherman, and he did not burn the town on leaving, nor did Savannahans put up resistance, so the fine houses of Oglethorpe's jewel of a city were spared the torch. Instead, Sherman established his headquarters there. A train of thousands of former slaves followed Sherman's troops into Savannah, creating a refugee problem.\n\nNot until Sherman's arrival in Savannah did the town's slave trade stop. Some traders escaped the city with captives, while others were less successful, and at least two traders, E. M. Blount and W. C. Dawson, fell victim to revolt, as the horrified trader Henry Bogardus wrote his sister: \"Blount's Negroes killed him and Dawson is not much better.\"\n\nFor the whites of Savannah, Sherman's occupation was defeat. But among black Savannahans, as the Reverend James Simms recalled, \"The cry went around the city from house to house among our race of people, 'Glory be to God, we are free!'\" Almost immediately, the black community of Savannah organized the Savannah Education Association. The Montmollin building, previously a Savannah slave trader's headquarters, was occupied by a school. It still had bars on the windows, and all they had to use for paper was the blank back sides of a stack of bills of sale for slaves, which were thus lost to history, but at least some children learned how to read and write.\n\nSherman continued on to Charleston, which fell in February 1865 after a siege of 545 days. Charleston had already suffered a devastating fire in December 1861; now, as most of the city's white population fled, Confederate troops set fire to the cotton in the warehouses and the ships in the harbor, and blew up their explosives, generating a great blaze that killed at least 150 civilians before Union troops put it out. In the chaos, two Northern journalists broke into the hastily abandoned slave mart on Chalmers Street. Charles Carleton Coffin, who reported for the _Boston Journal_ , took the gilt letters that read MART as a souvenir. James Redpath of the _New York Tribune_ , who had previously announced that he was not only an abolitionist but a reparationist, scooped up 652 letters to slave trader Ziba B. Oakes from his regional purchasing agents, which he donated to William Lloyd Garrison and which since 1891 have been in the Boston Public Library.\n\nThe people of Richmond had become accustomed to the sound of artillery fire, but now they too had to flee Grant's army. \"My line is broken in three places and Richmond must be evacuated,\" wrote Robert E. Lee to Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who ordered the evacuation of the Confederate capital on April 2, 1865. As Davis ran with the members of his government to board the Danville train, Robert Lumpkin hurried amid the chaos to evacuate the captives from his slave jail, setting out with one final coffle.\n\nThe classic account of the fall of Richmond is Coffin's report:\n\nMrs. Davis had left the city several days previous.... There was no evening service. Ministers and congregations were otherwise employed. Rev. Mr. Hoge, a fierce advocate for slavery as a beneficent institution, packed his carpet-bag. Rev. Mr. Duncan was moved to do likewise. Mr. Lumpkin, who for many years had kept a slave-trader's jail had a work of necessity on this Lord's day,\u2014the temporal salvation of fifty men, women, and children! He made up his coffle in the jail-yard, within pistol-shot of Jeff Davis's parlor window, and a stone's throw from the Monumental Church. The poor creatures were hurried to the Danville depot. This sad and weeping fifty, in handcuffs and chains, was the last coffle that shall tread the soil of America.*\n\nSlavery being the corner-stone of the Confederacy, it was fitting that this gang, keeping step to the music of their clanking chains, should accompany Jeff Davis, his secretaries Benjamin and Trenhold, and the Reverend Messrs. Hoge and Duncan, in their flight. The whole Rebel government was on the move, and all Richmond desired to be. No thoughts now of taking Washington, or of the flag of the Confederacy flaunting in the breeze from the dome of the national Capitol!\n\nHundreds of officials were at the depot, waiting to get away from the doomed city. Public documents, the archives of the Confederacy, were hastily gathered up, tumbled into boxes and barrels, and taken to the trains, or carried into the streets and set on fire. Coaches, carriages, wagons, carts, wheelbarrows, everything in the shape of a vehicle, was pressed into use. There was a jumble of boxes, chests, trunks, valises, carpetbags,\u2014a crowd of excited men sweating as never before: women with dishevelled hair, unmindful of their wardrobes, wringing their hands, children crying in the crowd, sentinels guarding each entrance to the train, pushing back at the point of the bayonet the panic-stricken multitude, giving precedence to Davis and the high officials, and informing Mr. Lumpkin that his niggers could not be taken.\n\nO, what a loss was there! It would have been fifty thousand dollars out of somebody's pocket in 1861, and millions now of Confederate promises to pay, which the hurrying multitude and that chained slave gang were treading under foot,\u2014trampling the bonds of the Confederate States of the America in the mire, as they marched to the station; for the oozy streets were as thickly strewn with four per cents, six per cents, eight per cents, as forest streams with autumn leaves.\n\n\"The faith of the Confederate States is pledged to provide and establish sufficient revenues for the regular payment of the interest, and for the redemption of the principal,\" read the bonds; but there was a sudden eclipse of faith; a collapse of confidence, a shrivelling up like a parched scroll of the entire Confederacy, which was a base counterfeit of the American Union it sought to overturn and supplant, now an exploded concern, and wound up by Grant's orders, its bonds, notes, and certificates of indebtedness worth less than the paper on which they were printed.\n\nJefferson Davis was trying to get to Texas, to continue the war from there. Did Lumpkin think he was taking his coffle to Texas too? There was nowhere to take a coffle. Those fifty people weren't going to be anyone's property now.\n\nIn a dramatic show of defiance, the Confederate general Richard S. Ewell torched a large area of Richmond, definitively ruining many of the city's businessmen. It was done with the acquiescence of his superior, Confederate secretary of war John C. Breckinridge, who was present in the city. The Richmond _Whig's_ report of April 4, 1865 seemed to suggest that the city had been ridded of an occupier with the departure of the Confederate government of which it had been the capital\u2014an occupier that destroyed much of Richmond as it fled:\n\nBy noon the flames had transformed into a desert waste that portion of the city bounded between 7th and 15th streets, from Main street to the river, comprising the main business portion. We can form no estimate at this moment of the number of houses destroyed, but public and private they will certainly number 600 to 800.\n\nAt present we cannot do more than enumerate some of the most prominent buildings destroyed.\u2014These include the Bank of Richmond; Traders Bank; Bank of the Commonwealth; Bank of Virginia; Farmers' Bank, all the banking houses, the American Hotel, the Columbian Hotel, the _Enquirer_ Building on 12th street, the _Dispatch_ office and job rooms, corner of 13th and Main streets; all that block of buildings known as Belvin's Block, the _Examiner_ office, engine and machinery rooms; the Confederate Post Office department building, the State Court House, a fine old building situated on Capitol Square, at its Franklin street entrance; the Mechanic's Institute, vacated by the Confederate States War Department, and all the buildings on that Square up to 8th street, and back to Main street; the Confederate Arsenal and Laboratory, 7th street.\n\nAt sunrise on Monday morning, Richmond presented a spectacle that we hope never to witness again. The last of the Confederate officials had gone; the air was lurid with the smoke and flame of hundreds of houses sweltering in a sea of fire.\n\nCoffin reported that:\n\nTo prevent the United States from obtaining possession of a few thousand hogsheads of tobacco, a thousand houses were destroyed by fire, the heart of the city burnt out, \u2014all of the business portion, all the banks and insurance-offices, half of the newspapers, with mills, depots, bridges, foundries, workshops, dwellings, churches,\u2014thirty squares in all, swept clean by the devouring flames. It was the final work of the Confederate government.\n\nRichmond's slave trade had continued full tilt, with a large population in the traders' jails when the Union entered the city. Chaplain Garland White, an African American soldier who entered Richmond with Indiana's Twenty-Eighth Regiment, described his experience in a letter written shortly after leaving the city: \"a vast multitude assembled on Broad Street, and I was aroused amid the shouts of ten thousand voices, and proclaimed for the first time in that city freedom to all mankind. After which the doors of all the slave pens were thrown open, and thousands came out shouting and praising God, and Father, or Master Abe, as they termed him.\"\n\nOn April 4, Elizabeth Keckley visited Richmond, as she accompanied Mary Todd Lincoln on the steamer _River Queen_ up the James, \"the river that so long had been impassable, even to our gunboats,\" to join the presidential party, with Lincoln at the head, to examine the city's condition.\n\nThe Presidential party were all curiosity on entering Richmond. They drove about the streets of the city, and examined every object of interest. The Capitol presented a desolate appearance\u2014desks broken, and papers scattered promiscuously in the hurried flight of the Confederate Congress.\n\nI picked up a number of papers, and, by curious coincidence, the resolution prohibiting all free colored people from entering the State of Virginia. In the Senate chamber I sat in the chair that Jefferson Davis sometimes occupied; also in the chair of the Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens. We paid a visit to the mansion occupied by Mr. Davis and family during the war, and the ladies who were in charge of it scowled darkly upon our party as we passed through and inspected the different rooms.\n\nAfter a delightful visit we returned to City Point. (paragraphing added)\n\nFive days after Lee's surrender to Grant, on Good Friday, April 14, Lincoln became the first president in US history to be assassinated. John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy also gravely wounded Secretary of State William Seward and members of his family, and unsuccessfully targeted Vice President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, who had been drunk at his swearing-in as vice president not six weeks previously on March 4, 1865.\n\nBooth was killed during capture, before he could be questioned. Eight people were convicted and executed for participating in his conspiracy; Jacob Thompson spent the rest of his life trying to clear his name of a rumored involvement in it. Was there a conspiracy involving Thompson's terrorist organization or other elements in the Confederate hierarchy? None has been proved, and Booth has often been portrayed as a fanatic in popular historiography, but that's too simple. Writing of the monk who assassinated the French king Henri III, the historian Geoffrey Treasure called him \"not mad, but _exalt\u00e9_ [exalted]: a recognisable type, not an isolated individual but representative, doing what many wished to see done.\"\n\nIf Calhoun, Rhett, Davis, Stephens, Cobb, Forrest, and their many colleagues were not \"madmen,\" neither was Booth. If they were madmen, at what point did madness set in? At Forrest's wholesale butchery? At Rhett's bizarre paean to martyrdom? At Calhoun's insistence that slavery was a positive good for humanity? At Jackson's genocide and ethnic cleansing? At Jefferson's scheme to deport all black people?\n\nThe madness was there all along. It was the madness of slavery.\n\nIn the Civil War's final battle east of the Mississippi, for Columbus, Georgia, on April 16, 1865, the forces of Union general James H. Wilson, who had not received word of Lincoln's assassination two nights before, defeated those of former US secretary of the treasury, now Confederate major general, Howell Cobb.\n\nOn May 2, President Johnson signed a proclamation offering $100,000 for Jefferson Davis's arrest in connection with Lincoln's assassination, and a manhunt for Davis ensued. Whatever the conspiratorial mechanism, Lincoln's assassination was a coup d'etat that carried a number of benefits for former Confederates who might reasonably have expected to hang for treason. Johnson was a pro-Union white supremacist who was uninterested in prosecuting Confederate leaders or in helping freedmen. He issued presidential amnesties and pardons for former Confederates, and restored confiscated lands\u2014thus ensuring that there would be no \"forty acres,\" as Rufus Saxton of the Freedmen's Bureau had promised, to compensate the destitute, largely illiterate mass of formerly enslaved for their multigenerational legacy of confiscated labor. There were no war crimes trials for the mass murder of black troops under cover of battle.\n\nBut the fundamental change had been made. The Southern economy had suffered its final, fatal collapse, the one long feared by slaveowners: their property had ceased to be their property. They were not compensated by the taxpayers for its loss, as the Jamaican slaveowners had been.\n\nNo more counting children as interest. No more multigenerational wealth accumulating from reproduction of enslaved humans to be passed on as legacies to slaveowners' children. No more paying debts in a bad year by cashing out and selling adolescents: the liquidity of the financial system vanished when ownership of the human capital was transferred from landowners to the laborers themselves.\n\nNo more forced mating. No more fancy girls. No more sex slaves.\n\nThe Ponzi scheme of the slave-breeding industry had crashed. Since laborers were no longer property, they were no longer mortgageable. Without enslaved women producing ever-increasing numbers of slave children to borrow against, the South suffered a massive credit implosion, whiplashing from a credit economy to a cash-poor cash economy, floating on a sea of bad debt.\n\nMany proud families never forgot the humiliation of losing their slaves, and some were downright hateful about it. Some former masters found it demeaning to have to share a sidewalk with black people who did not jump out of the way. Others were surprised to find that they could no longer slap black workers with impunity. There were still black laborers, of course, but they would no longer work sunup to sundown to make an ever-increasing, whip-enforced quota for bacon and corn mush in return. Some planters decamped for Brazil, which had slavery and plenty of land, and others for Mexico; a Confederate diaspora fanned northward up to Canada and out to the far West.\n\nThe poor whites of the South had a miserable time of it in the economically devastated postwar years. As the Southern states rejoined the country they had repudiated, many formerly wealthy Southerners occupied themselves by suing each other over old debts for which the collateral had vanished. But others had found ways to keep their money, or even made money during the war. They could no longer live off human capital as rentiers, but the elite were still the elite, and elite families have remarkable staying power over multiple generations, in every society. Since the planters' estates weren't broken up and distributed to the freedmen, they still had their land, which would be the basis of new fortunes. They still had their education, their family webs, their control of local institutions, their business and political contacts\u2014and they still had cheap black labor, which they kept as abject as possible by terrorizing them with a new racist regime that would come to be known as Jim Crow, enforced all over the former slave nation.\n\nMany of the formerly enslaved, whose dispossession was so complete that they had not even family names, got little more out of Reconstruction than an assigned surname, which was the bare minimum necessary for the creation a civil identity. Their new Anglo-Saxon names were in many cases assigned to them: Williams, Johnson, Smith, Jones, Brown, Jackson, Jefferson, Washington.\n\nSome of the elite who had the resources relocated with style\u2014the so-called \"Confederate carpetbaggers\"\u2014to New York, Chicago, and other urban centers. Some renewed Northern commercial contacts or business partnerships that had been active before or even during the war and found that little stigma was attached to their former treasonous activities, which were now recast as Southern patriotism.\n\nSouthern gynecologist Marion Sims, who had developed his surgical innovations by practicing on enslaved women, went to Europe during the war, where he operated on women of social importance for high fees. Returning to America, he established a private practice on Fifth Avenue and presented himself as a popular vision of a fabulously wealthy doctor-celebrity. He was \"instrumental\" in founding the nation's first cancer hospital, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, though he died the year before the project came to fruition in 1884.\n\nIsidor Straus spent much of the war in Europe, returning to America at war's end with about $10,000 in gold he had made in London trading Confederate bonds. His father Lazarus Straus relocated the family's retailing firm from Columbus, Georgia, to New York, where they became the owners of R. H. Macy's department store, then bought an interest in the store that became Abraham & Straus. Isidor Straus died in the 1912 sinking of the _Titanic_ , together with his wife Ida.\n\nEmanuel Lehman, already based in New York, also made money during the war selling Confederate bonds in England, at one point uncomfortably encountering his New York neighbor Joseph Seligman, who was selling Union bonds. After the war, Lehman Brothers put up $100,000 for Alabama's constitutional convention. Mayer Lehman moved up to New York, where he organized the first futures market in cotton; two of his former slaves came to New York to work for him as servants. The brothers parlayed their warehouses full of cotton into a business that continued through many transformations until the Panic of 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in American history, intensifying a worldwide economic crisis.\n\nWidely suspected of being a planner of the Lincoln assassination, Judah P. Benjamin fled to London and became a barrister there. He wrote the standard legal work* on the sale of personal property, became legal counsel to Queen Victoria, and died, quite wealthy, in Paris in 1884.\n\nAdelicia Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham, one of the wealthiest women in the United States, died at the age of seventy, in 1887, in New York's Fifth Avenue Hotel, of pneumonia contracted while on a shopping trip.\n\nJ. D. B. De Bow, who in the South had been the most influential proslavery business publisher, started his _DeBow's Review_ right back up in New York in 1866, but died the following year.\n\nHowell Cobb's plantation was up and running again soon after the war. According to Cobb, the problem was that the formerly enslaved laborers were ungrateful, as per a December 1866 letter: \"The truth is I am thoroughly disgusted with free negro labor, and am determined that the next year shall close my planting operations with them. There is no feeling of gratitude in their nature.\" Cobb, who was as guilty of treason as anyone in the Confederate project, received a presidential pardon and died of a heart attack in New York City in 1868; his son continued the plantation.\n\nPierce Mease Butler's Georgia plantation survived the war intact. The places that had been occupied by the Union earliest\u2014Louisiana, the Sea Islands, Alexandria, etc.\u2014suffered less destruction, and the Union had occupied Butler's land from early in 1862, which likely saved it. Since the plantation was not broken up and distributed to the former slaves, Butler remained the owner. Though there was no longer slave labor, many of his former slaves returned to the plantation\u2014presumably less because they loved the Butlers than because the plantation was their home, and was the ancestral home of their close-knit community, or perhaps, as in other cases involving slaves who returned to the plantations they knew, because they were starving. Without a doubt, they would have preferred a small plot of land of their own in what sociologist Jean Casimir, speaking of Haiti, has called a \"counter-plantation\" system: \"a refusal... of the plantation system itself, [involving] the creation of a very different way of living, one focused on production for oneself and for surplus within a local market.\" But that was not on offer.\n\nFrances Kemble finally published her _Journal_ of life on Butler's plantation as a book in 1863, in post\u2013Emancipation Proclamation wartime. It became popular reading for abolitionists and caused a sharp rift with her pro-Confederate younger daughter Fan. After Pierce Mease Butler died of the archetypal Low-country disease, malaria, in 1867, Fan took the plantation over and tried to make it produce. But she couldn't make a go of it, blaming the labor force's disinclination to work as hard as necessary.\n\nJefferson Davis never surrendered. As long as Robert E. Lee continued, the war went on, but even after Lee surrendered on April 9, Davis did not; he was captured on May 10 in Virginia while trying to escape to Texas and was imprisoned for two years. He never asked for a pardon, never apologized, never swore allegiance, failed at his business initiatives, and spent much time being a traveling guest of honor until he died in a mansion in New Orleans's Garden District in 1889. In 1881 he published the stultifying 1,515-page _The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_ , in which he insisted that \"to whatever extent the question of _slavery_ may have served as an _occasion_ , it was far from being the _cause_ of the conflict.\" The cause, he explained, was \"sectional rivalry\" and \"political ambition\" that \"happened\" to have \"coincided\" along the \"line of demarkation\" of slavery versus free labor. He also maintained that \"African servitude among us [was]... the mildest and most humane of all institutions to which the name 'slavery' has ever been applied.\"\n\nRobert Lumpkin barely outlived the war. He died in 1866 at the age of sixty, his livelihood of slave trading destroyed. Shortly before he died, he named his former slave Mary executor of his estate and granted her the right to use the name \"Lumpkin.\" Provided she did not remarry, she became the sole proprietor of his properties in Richmond and Philadelphia.\n\nMary Lumpkin thus became the owner of the property she had lived on since she was twelve. Formerly known as Lumpkin's Slave Jail, it had been famous to every trader in Virginia, and notorious to the thousands of African Americans who had passed through it. It was nearly worthless. Desperate like everyone else for income in the charred ruin of Richmond, she rented it for $1,000 a year to the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, a Boston minister, to be used as the School for Former Slaves, subsequently Virginia Union University. White landlords wouldn't rent their property for such a purpose, so the newly freed students had to go down the muddy embankment at Shockoe Bottom. Unfortunately, Mary also inherited Lumpkin's debts, and she died poor.\n\nLumpkin's competitor, Silas Omohundro, whose slave jail adjoined his, had done something very similar before he died in 1864, leaving the use of his properties in Richmond and Pennsylvania to his formerly enslaved common-law wife, Corinna, with whom he had six children. Corinna fared better than Mary Lumpkin; she came to own her own confectionery.\n\nLouis Hughes did not escape from slavery in Mississippi until 1865; he went behind Union lines, and from there managed to rescue his wife and children. After moving around, the family settled in Milwaukee, where he worked as a nurse, and where, in 1897, he published his autobiography, _Thirty Years a Slave._\n\nFrederick Douglass's house in Rochester, New York, was burned down in 1872, apparently an arson. From late 1889 to mid-1891 he served as the US minister to Haiti; he died of heart failure in 1895, at the approximate age of eighty-seven. Though he was the leading African American literary and political figure of the nineteenth century, his writing was largely forgotten until a rediscovery that began in 1945, when historian Philip Foner edited a multivolume anthology of his work.\n\nWilliam Wells Brown largely devoted his post-emancipation years to activism on behalf of the temperance cause, and practiced medicine in Boston, specializing in homeopathy. On the occasion of his return to his birth state of Kentucky, he was kidnapped by the Ku Klux Klan, but escaped. He died at the age of seventy in Massachusetts.\n\nAfter Harriet Jacobs escaped from Edenton, North Carolina, to Philadelphia with the help of a boat captain in 1842, she lived in fear of being captured, especially after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. She became well known in abolitionist circles with her self-publication in 1861 of _Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl_ , which came back from the printer shortly after the first wave of Southern states seceded. A vocal advocate of an emancipation proclamation, with great dignity she organized relief for the \"contrabands\"\u2014the homeless, impoverished refugees from slavery who poured into Washington and other cities in the early days of the war. With the post\u2013Emancipation Proclamation entry of black soldiers into the war, Jacobs was active in aiding convalescent soldiers in Washington, and together with her daughter founded a free school after the war. She was largely forgotten after her death, and had to be rediscovered; Jean Fagan Yellin's biography of her, from which we extract the above information, was published in 2004. Indeed, Jacob's memoir was considered by many critics to be fiction until Yellin authenticated it in 1987.\n\nElizabeth Keckley founded the Contraband Relief Organization in 1862, attempted to raise money for Mary Todd Lincoln, and published her book in 1868. She died in poverty in 1907, a resident of the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children in Washington, for which she had helped raise founding funds.\n\nGeneral Sherman went on to supervise the building of the transcontinental railroad during the Grant administration, which meant completing the killing of the buffalo herds and what Sherman referred to in an 1872 letter as \"the final solution to the Indian problem,\" in which the West's Native Americans were slaughtered or moved onto \"reservations.\"\n\nIf anyone in the Confederate ranks might have seemed a candidate for hanging, it would have been Nathan Bedford Forrest. By the time he was pardoned by Andrew Johnson instead of being tried as a war criminal, he had already returned to violence. Not two years after the Fort Pillow Massacre, in the fall of 1866, he was sworn in at Maxwell House in Nashville as the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan. Beginning as a posse of malicious night-riding pranksters, complete with a fanciful, carnivalesque pedigree that cast them as Scottish knights, the Klan quickly expanded into other states to become the nation's most notorious, though not the only, white supremacist paramilitary organization as Forrest prosecuted a race war. In what was arguably the largest terrorist campaign in US history, the Klan and similar organizations murdered thousands of people, black and white, as part of a successful effort to suppress Reconstruction and black self-determination.\n\nPresident Ulysses S. Grant, inaugurated in 1869, believed that the sacrifice of so much blood in the war had to be redeemed by fully enfranchising the formerly enslaved. That was precisely the proposition the Ku Klux Klan was determined to reverse, but after Grant made clear his determination to prosecute the Klan, Forrest officially disbanded it in February 1869. By then much of their work had already been done. In subsequent testimony before Congress, Forrest added perjury to his list of crimes by denying his involvement with the Klan.\n\nWith no more slave trading business to do, Forrest ventured his net worth on a proposed Memphis & Selma Railroad, which was never built. As his railroad plan deflated, Forrest, thinking there might be war with Spain and that it might take place in Cuba (where slavery still existed, though it was fading), offered his services to\u2014of all people\u2014General Sherman, as reported in the _New York Times_ of December 3, 1873: \"I hereby tender you my services as a volunteer. I think I could enlist from 1,000 to 5,000 men who served in the Southern army during the late war, and at short notice, and who could rendezvous at New-Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, and Key West, either as cavalry or infantry.\" Sherman politely explained that he did not believe there would be a war with Spain in Cuba; ultimately, there was one, but it happened twenty-five years later.\n\nForrest spent the rest of his life trying to live down Fort Pillow, for which his name was popularly held in contempt, though in the South there was no lack of apologists for him. In the perhaps sarcastic words of his _New York Times_ obituary on October 30, 1877:\n\nHis last notable public appearance was on the Fourth of July in Memphis, when he appeared before the colored people at their celebration, was publicly presented with a bouquet by them as a mark of peace and reconciliation, and made a friendly speech in reply. In this he once more took occasion to defend himself and his war record, and to declare that he was a hearty friend of the colored race.\n\nSlave trader, war criminal, the KKK's top terrorist: if Nathan Bedford Forrest's reputation could be sanitized, anyone's could be. A high school named for Forrest exists in his hometown of Chapel Hill, Tennessee; another, in Jacksonville, changed its name in 2014.\n\nForrest's final business venture was a plantation that used captive labor, under the postbellum name of \"convict leasing.\" He contracted in 1875 with the Shelby County jail to put 117 prisoners (39 of them white) to work for a term of five years (though he died in 1877), paying the jail ten cents a day for their otherwise uncompensated labor, employing seven guards to watch over them.\n\nThe slaves of the South had been emancipated by then, of course. But the Thirteenth Amendment, adopted on December 18, 1865, to prohibit slavery, left a loophole: prisons. It reads in its entirety:\n\nNeither slavery nor involuntary servitude, _except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted_ , shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. (emphasis added)\n\nIt has been argued that the framers of the Thirteenth Amendment did not intend to tolerate slavery, and that the phrase \"except as a punishment for a crime\" should be parsed as only modifying \"involuntary servitude\" and not \"slavery.\" A clearer version had been proposed: \"Slavery being incompatible with a free government is forever prohibited in the United States, and involuntary servitude shall be permitted only as a punishment for a crime.\" But it was Thomas Jefferson's phrasing and vision that prevailed: the amendment's framers copied the more ambiguous language of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which in turn had taken it from Jefferson's draft of the Land Ordinance of 1784: \"after the year 1800 of the christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been duly personally guilty.\"\n\nFrom Jefferson's ambiguity forward, convict labor has been part of American commerce, and, as twenty-first-century readers are well aware, it continues.\n\n*We don't know exactly what Carlin heard, but we can get an idea from hearing latter-day ring shout groups, which were recorded as early as 1934 by Alan Lomax. An annual ring shout, known as Easter Rock, is still performed in Winnsboro, Louisiana. See Jackson.\n\n*It was not; there were still coffles wherever the Union had not entered, notably Texas.\n\n*Still being updated today, it's known as _Benjamin's Sale of Goods._\n\n_The entrance to Angola, the former Louisiana plantation of the nation's largest slave trader, Isaac Franklin. Located at the dead end of a twenty-two-mile road that goes only there, it is now the penitentiary of the number-one incarcerator state of the number-one incarcerator nation of the world, with Death Row situated on the part of the property adjoining the Mississippi border. On its grounds, imprisoned people are forced to perform unmechanized field labor; it is understood by many, including the prisoners, as a re-creation of the slavery experience. March 2014._\n\n# **Coda**\n\n_Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor\u2014both black and white, both here and abroad. 1_\n\n\u2014Martin Luther King Jr., \"Three Evils of Society\" speech, August 31, 1967\n\nIF ANYONE READING THIS book in the future wants to know the American historical context in which it was composed, the drafting was finished in August 2014, while the national trauma of Ferguson was going on, and the finishing touches were made during the aftermath of the Charleston Massacre of June 2015.\n\nToday, people are no longer sold like livestock in the public market, but the racism slavery engendered has been resilient, having become a seemingly systematic disfigurement of American society.\n\nThe post-emancipation history is a gloomy one. The only group that was brought to America against their will is still on the bottom. After the brief period of Reconstruction that saw much progress, including the establishment of black colleges, the freedmen were abandoned by the North to the mercy of Southern sheriffs by the time of the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877. Their rights and possibilities were severely limited by ever more discriminatory \"black codes\" that locked white supremacy into place. While they were no longer legally treated as chattel, African Americans were systematically excluded from educational, professional, and housing opportunities, were frequently denied the possibility of relocating, were sometimes forced to labor, and were generally the victims of a nearly century-long postwar campaign of domestic terrorism. They suffered through peonage, debt servitude, sharecropping, and a sustained campaign of lynching.\n\nThe golden age of the American economy following the Second World War\u2014in which the working class did better relative to the wealthy than at any other time in American history\u2014pointedly excluded black people. African Americans' collective struggle took until the 1960s to result in full legal rights: enforcement of _Brown v. Board of Education_ , the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Housing Act of 1968.\n\nThe counter-revolution to this \"Second Reconstruction\" was immediate. African Americans were further ghettoized: black neighborhoods around the country were lacerated and even destroyed by the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, whose construction began in 1956. The interstate rammed elevated highways through the poorer parts of many cities,* demolishing black business districts and isolating existing housing projects in cul-de-sacs, while black applicants were denied mortgages in the suburbs that the new highways facilitated. African Americans ended up clustered in the old city cores that the whites abandoned, with their children attending dilapidated, underfunded, black-only schools.\n\nBeginning in 1971 with President Richard Nixon's \"war on drugs,\" along with \"three strikes\" laws and other mandatory sentencing guidelines, and a plea-bargaining system that made jury trials practically a thing of the past, the US prison population exploded in size, including millions of nonviolent drug offenders. As we write, the United States has for some years been the world's number-one incarcerator by far, holding at present (according to the most commonly cited figure) around 25 percent of the world's prisoners. In what has come to be known as the \"cradle-to-prison pipeline,\" black men are incarcerated at about six times the rate relative to population of white men, and black women at about double the rate of white women. The prison population is heavily skewed toward the South: ten of the top eleven American incarcerators are former slave states, with Louisiana number one and Mississippi number two. Private, for-profit prisons began in 1984, with their growth stimulated by a 1995 model \"Prison Industries Act\" introduced into state legislatures around the country in an organized campaign by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Convicted felons have a hard time getting a job, and since felons are disfranchised in many states, black people have been disproportionately removed from the voting rolls.\n\nLast hired, first fired: increased post-civil rights economic and professional opportunities were countered by a redistribution to the wealthy that picked up steam in the post-Reagan years. Education and medical care have been repriced out of the reach of the poor, and increasingly require legal sophistication to navigate. The new inequality hit the long-term disadvantaged the hardest, a tendency that accelerated dramatically in the _post-Bush v. Gore_ years. The financial crisis that began in late 2007 wiped out gains that had been made by many African Americans, especially those targeted by predatory lending. \"Plunder in the past made plunder in the present efficient,\" writes Ta-Nehisi Coates, referring to the twenty-first-century subprime mortgage crisis that disproportionately affected black homeowners. Meanwhile, police brutality and murder, a longstanding problem, has emerged as a national issue in the age of video documentation, when it is no longer possible to pretend it doesn't happen, while open-carry and other firearm laws favor increased aggression by white supremacist hate groups, whose numbers \"skyrocketed\" during the Obama presidency.\n\nTo be sure, society does not look like it did when the Civil War Centennial began in 1961. Some African Americans occupy high professional and political positions. But the economic gap between black and white has not been bridged. Black unemployment remained more than double that of whites in the fifty years from 1963 to 2013, with African Americans earning on the average two-thirds as much; 27.6 percent of African American households were in poverty in 2013, compared with 9.8 percent for whites. Multigenerational wealth and multigenerational poverty seem to be nearly intractable forces, especially under the protection of a government by the wealthy, for the wealthy.\n\nIn talking about this book-in-progress with friends and strangers, we have frequently heard people say: but slavery is still going on today.\n\nThe highly charged S-word\u2014sometimes used metaphorically, sometimes not\u2014is a broad term that can take in many different kinds of inhumane practices; scholars today speak of \"slaveries.\" Our brief in writing this book has not extended to covering the postbellum forms of unfree labor, some legal and some not, which have been amply documented elsewhere: the postbellum neoslavery of convict leasing that made Birmingham, Alabama, a steel capital and continued in the South until the Second World War; the prison-industrial complex of the modern mass incarceration state; contemporary migrant exploitation, sex trafficking, and other forms of coerced labor; sweatshop and agricultural labor; and present-day work of all kinds performed in an environment of social brutality and under surveillance.\n\nThat people persist in describing these as \"slavery\" is perhaps a measure of the continuing weight of antebellum slavery and its burdensome shaping influence on our consciousness and our society, for which there have never been adequate reparations.\n\nOver the years we have been researching our nation's history, we have seen repeatedly that no matter how bad we thought slavery was, it was even worse. There's no end to it.\n\nNo one living today can fully understand what the enslaved endured in the total-slavery world of the Old South, where the economy was dependent on the production of chattel laborers by female reproduction workers who could be forcibly impregnated for that purpose, with their sexual violation approved by law.\n\nUnfortunately, the agenda of the slave society seems all too familiar to us in the twenty-first-century world.\n\nAntebellum slavery required a complex of social, legal, financial, and political institutions structured to maximize profits that flowed only to a small elite, while leaving the rest of the population poor. It wanted no legal oversight beyond the local, no public education, and no dissent. For laborers, it wanted no person-hood: no wages, education, privacy, clothing, human rights, civic identity, civil rights, reproductive rights, or even the right to keep a stable family. It existed at the cost of everything else in the society, including the most basic notions of humanity.\n\nThe history of the slave-breeding industry demonstrates how far the unrestrained pursuit of profit can go.\n\n*Four examples: the Bronx, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.\n\n# **Acknowledgments**\n\nIn visiting as many of the sites mentioned in this book as possible during the writing process, we were impressed over and over again by initiatives, many of them local, to make history known. From Gabriel's gallows circle in Richmond, to the manacles in the concrete in Natchez, to the museum at Charleston's Old Slave Mart and the Freedom Museum in Alexandria, to performative and ceremonial events like the Gullah-Geechee festival in Beaufort, Juneteenth in Galveston, and every Sunday in New Orleans, we salute those people in every community who are fighting to commemorate their local sacred places. We would also like to thank the workers of the National Park Service, who are tasked with managing heritage sites all across the country while being crippled by constant budget cuts.\n\nWe are indebted to the brave and singular work of Frederic Bancroft (1860\u20131945), who turned over the rock other historians would not look under. His _Slave Trading in the Old South_ (1931) employed the then-novel device, learned from German anthropology, of field interviews. Besides collecting documentation, he spoke in 1902 with formerly enslaved people, former slave traders, and other firsthand witnesses to the slave trade, and demonstrated that the commercial exploitation of human reproduction was indeed central to the antebellum system of slavery. _Slave Trading in the Old South_ has been largely vindicated and appears a more important work with every passing decade. Though scholars commonly cite Bancroft today, the disturbing implications of his privately published book were not incorporated into the mainstream narrative of American history until fairly recently. In composing our narrative, we have been informed by a critical reading of Bancroft, including some of his notes, sources, and the typescript of never-completed work by him in the Rare Book department of Bancroft's alma mater, Columbia University.\n\nThis book would not have existed without our nine months' residency in Chestertown, Maryland, at the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College, where Ned was a Patrick Henry Writing Fellow in 2010\u201311 and where Parts One through Three were drafted. In the years since the fellowship ended, Chestertown has continued to be a part of our lives. We are profoundly grateful to Washington College and to Starr Center director Adam Goodheart, and to Jill Ogline Titus, Michael Buckley, Lois Kitz, Jenifer Emley, Mitchell Reiss, the staff of Miller Library, and Kevin Hemstock of the _Kent County News._ To other friends and colleagues in Chestertown, more than we can name here: Peter Heck and Jane Jewell; Craig and Katie O'Donnell; Kenneth Schweitzer; Diane Daniels at the Historical Society of Kent County; the staff of the Kent County Public Library; Leslie Prince Raimond at the Kent County Arts Council, as well as to Vincent Raimond, whose spirit has now joined the great Spirit of the Place. Very particular thanks are extended to Ellen and Frank Hurst of next door, Cynthia Saunders from across the street, and Carol Mylander, just up the way\u2014the best neighbors and friends newcomers could ever have. We would also like to thank posthumously someone we never met: J. A. Leo LeMay, whose former personal library is in the Fellows' residence. We failed in our attempt to read it all, but we tried.\n\nMuch of Parts Four through Six was drafted at Bobst Library at New York University, with thanks to Franses Angelica Rodriguez and to the Circulation Department, and at the Mina Rees Library of the CUNY Graduate Center. Our ongoing research overlaps from project to project, so we would like to acknowledge fellowships that Ned held before this book project began as such. Studies undertaken while Ned was a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library, a Tulane Rockefeller Humanities Fellow at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow all contributed significantly to our understanding of the subject as reflected in this volume. A Knight-Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion allowed Ned to make research trips to Mbanza-Kongo in 2012 and Port-au-Prince in 2013, and the final stages of work on this volume were done while he was a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Nonfiction Literature.\n\nWe must thank more people for their help, support, and conversation than we can possibly list, so if your name is not here, please accept our thanks anyway. First, very special thanks to Julie Skurski and to Jason King. Thanks to Donald Harrison, David Rubinson, Michael Zilkha, Kip and Nancy Hanrahan, Howard Hunter and Metairie (Louisiana) Country Day School, Sarah Hill, Madison Smartt Bell, Ted Widmer, Roger Trilling, Lambert Strether, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Eric Weisbard, John Cummings, Ibrahima Seck, Ina Fandrich, Joyce Jackson, Robert Farris Thompson, C. Daniel Dawson, B\u00e1rbaro Mart\u00ednez Ruiz, Nzinga Paiva, Henry Wiencek, Laurent Dubois, Peter H. Wood, Warren Whatley, James Shinn, Freddi Evans, T. R. Johnson, Joel Dinerstein, Felipe Smith, Christopher Dunn, Beverly Trask, Shawn Hall, Mark Bingham, Susanne Hackett, Garnette Cadogan, Scott Aiges, Pat Cruz, Michael Zwack, Louis Head, Colin Dayan, Jerry Carlson, Sybil Cooksey, Dylon Robbins, Nadia Ellis, Kandia Crazy Horse, Linda Goldstein, Karen Goldfeder, Ken McCarthy, Blanca Lasalle, Ben Socolov, Peter Gordon, and Ronald Robboy, as well as Ned's colleagues at _Afropop Worldwide:_ Sean Barlow, Georges Collinet, Banning Eyre, Michael Jones, and Sam Backer.\n\nThanks go to our agent, Sarah Lazin, who helped us craft our ideas into a coherent proposal, and especially to our publisher, Chicago Review Press, which has published Ned's previous three books over the last ten years, and whose faith in us we have noted and appreciated. Our singular editor, Yuval Taylor, who developed Ned's previous books, is a valued and principled collaborator who has given us advice and editorial direction. Our gratitude goes to publisher Cynthia Sherry and to Michelle Williams, Mary Kravenas, Caitlin Eck, and Meaghan Miller.\n\nWe view this work as the continuation of a forty-year process of collaboration between the two of us that began long before either of us had published a book, and we are grateful to everyone who has helped us over the years. Thanks to the readers of our work, whose dialogue with us has been important to our understanding, and to the independent booksellers who have been a vital part of the process.\n\n# **Picture Credits**\n\n **** Map Division New York Public Library   **** Map Division New York Public Library   **** Library of Congress   **** College of Arms London   **** Arents Tobacco Collection New York Public Library   **** Arents Tobacco Collection New York Public Library   **** Photo by Ned Sublette   **** Map Division New York Public Library   **** Arents Tobacco Collection New York Public Library   **** Library of Congress   **** Library of Congress   **** British Museum   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** Huntington Library   **** New York Public Library   **** Library of Congress   **** Library of Congress   **** Maryland Historical Society   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** New York Public Library   **** Kentucky Gateway Museum Center Maysville   **** Special Collections University of Virginia Library   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** Rice C. Ballard Collection Wilson Library University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublette   **** David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library Duke University   **** New York Public Library   **** Columbus State University Archives   **** Virginia Historical Society   **** Library of Congress   **** Library of Congress   **** Photo by Ned and Constance Sublettet\n\n_Note:_ We have not hesitated to retouch newspaper advertisements in the interest of readability.\n\n# **Notes**\n\nChapter 1: The Mother of Slavery\n\n. Hughes, 5.\n\n. Virginia Code of 1849, 747.\n\n. In his history of Shelby County, Mississippi, John E. Harkins says that the planter's name was Edmund (not Edward). Harkins, 53.\n\n. Harkins, 53.\n\n. Historical dollar conversion figures are intended only as rough approximations. This and subsequent conversions are queried from Sahr.\n\n. Hughes, 12.\n\n. Tadman, 141, 147\u201351.\n\n. Ball, 37.\n\n. Featherstonhaugh, 1:122\u201323.\n\n. Humes, 33.\n\n. Rumple, 254.\n\n. _The Negro in Virginia_ , 173.\n\n. Ball, 72\u201373.\n\n. Brown, William Wells 1849, 49.\n\n. Brown, William Wells 1849, 32.\n\n. Strouse, 88.\n\n. Clayton 2002, 133.\n\nChapter 2: Protectionism, or, The Importance of 1808\n\n. Eltis and Richardson, 4, 17.\n\n. Eltis and Richardson, 18.\n\n. McMillin, 118.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, June 30, 1820. http:\/\/founders.archives.gov\/documents\/Jefferson\/98-01-02-1352.\n\n. US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9.\n\n. For a detailed account of Jefferson's second term, see Adams 1889\/1986.\n\n. Ingraham 1860, 523.\n\n. For a discussion of credit in the creation of money, see Ingham, 107\u2013133.\n\n. DuBois, W. E. B. 1933, 44.\n\n. There are numerous references to slave purchases in Polk's letters _(CJKP);_ William Dusinberre's _Slavemaster President_ covers the subject in detail.\n\n. Conrad and Meyer, 105\u201306.\n\n**Chapter 3: A Literature of Terror**\n\n. Brown, William Wells 1847, 4.\n\n. Jacobs, 79\u201380, 117\u201318. See also _HJFP_ , 1:lxxvi.\n\n. Veney, 26.\n\n. Perdue _et al_ , 11.\n\n. Harrower.\n\n. Follett, 48.\n\n. _CJKP_ , 11:346.\n\n. Cade, 307.\n\n. _The Negro in Virginia_ , 83\u201384.\n\n. _TAS_ , supp. 2:5:1580.\n\n. _TAS_ , supp. 2:5:1580.\n\n. _FWP_ , North Carolina narratives, 11:2, 131.\n\n. Quoted in Cade, 306.\n\n. _TAS_ , supp. 2:5:1453.\n\n. Genovese 1974, 464.\n\n. Smith, Daniel Scott, 86.\n\n. Talbot gives a thorough accounting of the _Mandingo_ product line.\n\n. See, for example, Tadman, 121\u201325.\n\n. Sutch, 38\u201339.\n\n. Tadman, 124.\n\n. _FWP_ , Texas narratives, 16:1, 218..\n\n. _The Negro in Virginia_ , 171.\n\n. _FWP_ , Arkansas narratives, 2:3, 369.\n\n. Talbot, 11.\n\n. Musgrave, 264\u201367.\n\n. Catterall, 1:75.\n\n. Olmsted 1861, 55n.\n\n. _FWP_ , Florida narratives, 3:166.\n\n. _FWP_ , Texas narratives, 16:1, 180.\n\n. _FWP_ , Texas narratives, 16:2, 203\u201304.\n\n. _FWP_ , North Carolina narratives, 11:1, 31.\n\n. Lemieux; Jones.\n\n. Swarns, 2012a.\n\n. Escott, 44.\n\n. US Census (1860), x.\n\n. US Census (1860), x.\n\n. Steward, 151.\n\n. George, 317.\n\n. Hartman, 85.\n\n. <http:\/\/law2.umkc.edu\/faculty\/projects\/ftrials\/celia\/celiahome.html>\n\n. Purcell, 338.\n\n**Chapter 4: Natural Increase**\n\n. Bancroft 1931\/1996, 24.\n\n. Quoted in Lightner, 5.\n\n. Marx 1937, 67.\n\n. Deyle 2005b, 296.\n\n. Deyle 2005b, 289.\n\n. Frederic Bancroft, Letter to Winfield Hazlitt Collins, Dec. 13, 1921. _FBC_ , Box 89.\n\n. _TWOTR_ , ser. 3, 4:355.\n\n. Wright, Gavin, 2.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, 109D.\n\n. _TAS_ , 19:298\n\n. Kilbourne 1995, 5.\n\n. Olmsted 1861, 55n.\n\n. Menard, 18.\n\n. Stephenson, 227.\n\n. Kilbourne 1995, 4.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1883, 59.\n\n. See, e.g., Rutherford, 371.\n\n. Graeber, 192.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 84, 2:5, 3.\n\n. See Jefferson, \"Notes on Coinage,\" in _PTJ_ 7:175\u201385.\n\n. Kemble, 78.\n\n. _SIF_ , 559\u201360.\n\n. Stanton, 127.\n\n. Berinato.\n\n**Chapter 5: Little Shadows**\n\n. Say, 1:318.\n\n. Hughes, 34.\n\n. Marx 1937, 67.\n\n. \"The Impending Crisis in the Southern States of America\" (1859), _The Economist_ , Dec. 24, p. 1429.\n\n. Henson, 7.\n\n. Wiencek, 156\u201357.\n\n. Virginia Code of 1849, 458.\n\n. Mason, 13.\n\n. Quoted in _The Negro in Virginia_ , 71\u201372.\n\n. Quoted in Camp, 559.\n\n. Stanton, 23.\n\n. Smith, Gene Allen, 103\u201304.\n\n. Ball, 47.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 148.\n\n. Kiple and King, 88.\n\n. Kiple and King, 89.\n\n. See Kiple and King, 74\u201378.\n\n. King, Roswell, Jr., 1:527.\n\n. Watson, 16\u201317.\n\n. Ball, 63\u201364.\n\n. See Cade, 300. There is a child-feeding trough in the collection of artifacts at Whitney Plantation in Louisiana.\n\n. www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/preview\/mmwrhtml\/00020119.htm.\n\n. See Grandin, 40\u201341n.\n\n. Mather, 422.\n\n. Barker-Benfield, 85\u2013112.\n\n. _DeBow's Review_ (1851). 11:3, 332\u201333.\n\n. _FWP_ , Virginia narratives, 17:2.\n\n. Starobin, 11\u201312.\n\n. Zaborney, 121.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, 70.\n\n. Green, J. D. 10.\n\n. Watson, Henry, 13.\n\n. Mason, 20\u201321.\n\n. Northup, 250.\n\n. _FWP_ , Arkansas Narratives, 2:1, 113.\n\n. Jacobs, 217.\n\n. Watson, Henry, 16.\n\n. _TAS_ , supp. 2:5:1580.\n\n. Chesnut, 29.\n\n. Jacobs, 57.\n\n. _FWP_ , South Carolina narratives, 14:1, 150.\n\n. In a letter by William Hayward. Truth, 139.\n\n. Bremer, 3:340.\n\n. US Census (1860), xvi.\n\n. _FWP_ , South Carolina narratives, 14:1, 158.\n\n. Gudmestad, 42.\n\n. Perdue et al., 158.\n\n. Clarke.\n\n. Brown, William Wells 1863, 17.\n\n. McCullough, 55.\n\n. McCullough, 47.\n\n. _TAS_ , 18:300.\n\n. Aptheker, 162.\n\n. Dunbar.\n\n. Bauer and Bauer, 338\u2013419.\n\n. Quoted in Aptheker, 235.\n\n**Chapter 6: Species of Property**\n\n. Letter, O.P. Temple to Frederic Bancroft, February 8, 1904, _FBC_ , Box 88.\n\n. Rousey, 19\u201324.\n\n. Kilbourne 1995, 6.\n\n. See Adams, Henry 1883, 36\u201337, 269\u201371.\n\n. _A declaration of the immediate causes_... See also, for example, Townsend, 19; Davis, Jefferson, 107.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88.\n\n. US Census (1860), \"Agriculture,\" vii.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, April 27, 1809, _PTJRS_ , 1:169.\n\n. Quoted in Dew, Charles B., 35.\n\n. Kilbourne 1995, 7.\n\n**Chapter 7: Rawrenock**\n\n. Kingsbury, 1.\n\n. Luther, 357\u201358.\n\n. See Landers, 13; Pickett and Pickett, 22\u201327; Milanich, 62.\n\n. Treasure, 3ff.\n\n. Ribaut, 67.\n\n. Ribaut, 75.\n\n. Ribaut, 93.\n\n. Ribaut, 93.\n\n. Lowery, 37.\n\n. Mercado, 16.\n\n. Thurber, 106\u201307.\n\n. Bennett 2001, 21.\n\n. Laudonni\u00e8re, 103\u2013122.\n\n. Scott, William Robert, 2:3\u20138.\n\n. Andrews, 20.\n\n. Rankin, 3.\n\n. Scott, William Robert, 2:8, 60\u201365.\n\n. Mercado, 9\u201310.\n\n. Mercado, 92; Bennett 2001, 37.\n\n. Laudonni\u00e8re, 138n; Bennett 2001, 38.\n\n. Bennett 2001, 38.\n\n. Sol\u00eds de Mer\u00e1s, 122.\n\n. Wilford.\n\n. Scott, William Robert, 89.\n\n. Taylor, 278.\n\n. Smith, John 1624, 58.\n\n. Keller, 66.\n\n. For a discussion of the term \"motley crew,\" see Linebaugh and Rediker, 27\u201328 and _passim_.\n\n. Andrews, 36.\n\n. Purchas, 4:1728.\n\n. Andrews, Kenneth R. 37.\n\n. See Bartels, 305\u2013322.\n\n. Tombs, 204.\n\n**Chapter 8: A Cargo of Shining Dirt**\n\n. Lemay 1991, 210.\n\n. Smith, John 1624, 21\u201322.\n\n. Tilp, 100.\n\n. Purchas, 4:1753.\n\n. Quoted in Lemay 1991, 184.\n\n. O'Brien.\n\n. See Linebaugh and Rediker's chapter on this interlude, 8\u201335.\n\n**Chapter 9: Our Principall Wealth**\n\n. Lemay 1991, 24\n\n. Smith, Abbot Emerson, 12.\n\n. Fischer, 227; McCusker and Menard, 242.\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 126.\n\n. Bruce 1895, 1:186.\n\n. See Parent's chapter, \"The Landgrab,\" 9\u201354.\n\n. Quoted in Tyler, Lyon Gardiner, 284.\n\n. Harrower, 39.\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 171.\n\n. Letter, George Washington to Robert Cary, February 13, 1764. _PGW_ , A:7:286.\n\n. Kingsbury, 243; see also www.encyclopediavirginia.org\/_20_and_odd_Negroes_an_excerpt_from_a_letter_from_John_Rolfe_to_Sir_Edwin_Sandys_1619_1620.\n\n. Sluiter 1997, 376n.\n\n. Smith, John 1624, 117.\n\n. Quoted in Anderson, Adam, 2:217.\n\n. Bruce 1895, 1:58.\n\n. Thornton 1998, 421.\n\n. Sluiter 1997.\n\n. Thornton 1983, 63.\n\n. Thornton 1983, 63.\n\n. Quoted in Kingsbury, 243.\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 111, 113.\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 101\u201302.\n\n. Lucas, 73; Mann, Charles C.\n\n**Chapter 10: Maria's Land**\n\n. Heath and Philips, 220.\n\n. Hibbard, 119.\n\n. Hall, Clayton Colman, 5.\n\n. Hall, Clayton Colman, 33, 40.\n\n. Lucas, 114.\n\n. Hall, Clayton Colman, 38.\n\n. Allan.\n\n. Hall, Clayton Colman, 61.\n\n. Tilp, 78.\n\n. Tilp, 12.\n\n. \"Lord Baltimore's instructions to his colonists.\" In _The Calvert Papers_ , 1:131.\n\n. Smith, John 1884, 615.\n\n. Adams and Pleck, 37\u201338.\n\n. Bunker 2010, 242.\n\n. Fischer, 240, 243.\n\n. Fischer, 366.\n\n. Walsh 2010, 10.\n\n. Griffey, 182.\n\n. For an account of the iconoclastic riots, see Eire.\n\n. Brugger, 21.\n\n. Harrison, 104.\n\n. Weeks, 13.\n\n. Weeks, 20.\n\n. Fischer, 226.\n\n**Chapter 11: Barbados**\n\n. Quoted in Firth, 146.\n\n. Schwartz, 13.\n\n. _The Bowery Historic District_ , Sec. 8, p. 9.\n\n. Fisher, 102\u201303.\n\n. Harlow, 5.\n\n. Harlow, 82, 86.\n\n. Price 1991, 297; Dunn, 61.\n\n. Price 1991, 299.\n\n. Price 1991, 297; Dunn, 61.\n\n. Ligon 2011, 188.\n\n. Harlow, 162\u201368.\n\n. Dunn, 10, 337\u201338.\n\n. Nisbet, 116.\n\n. Quoted in Harlow, 59.\n\n. Harlow, 84.\n\n. Bunker 2014, 412\u201313.\n\n. Quoted in Firth, 146.\n\n. Dunn, 288.\n\n. Dunn, 266; Harlow, 44.\n\n. Dunn, 245.\n\n. McCusker and Menard, 92.\n\n. Scott, William Robert, 17.\n\n. Garrard, 71.\n\n. _The Duke of York's Release_.\n\n. Aptheker, 165.\n\n. Hening 2:299\u2013300.\n\n. \"Great news from the Barbadoes,\" 339\u2013341.\n\n. \"Great news from the Barbadoes,\" 342.\n\nChapter 12: The Anglo-Saxon Model\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 386\n\n. Quoted in Fischer, 212.\n\n. Slotkin and Folsom, 17.\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 327.\n\n. Brown, Kathleen M., 177.\n\n. Morgan, Edmund S. 1975, 383.\n\n. Breen, 241.\n\n. Bailyn, 97.\n\n. Jordan, 75.\n\n. For an extended discussion, see Wright 2006, 14\u201347.\n\n. Rawley, 84.\n\n. Hening, 2:270.\n\n. Price 1991, 296.\n\n. Morgan, Kenneth, 719\u2013720.\n\n. Price 1991, 10.\n\n. Parent, 2.\n\n. Walsh 2010, 17, 233.\n\n. Davis, Richard Beale, 253.\n\n. Deyle 2004, 215.\n\n. Parent, 72.\n\n. Fitzhugh, William, 44.\n\n. Davis, Richard Beale, 175.\n\n. Goodheart 2011a, 304.\n\n. Davis, Richard Beale, 54.\n\n. Davis, Richard Beale, 373\u201377.\n\nChapter 13: Carolina\n\n. Nairne, 47\u201348.\n\n. This summary of South Carolina's political backstory substantially follows the contours of Eugene Sirman's.\n\n. Armitage, 607.\n\n. Armitage, 608.\n\n. Sirmans, 14.\n\n. McCandless, 10.\n\n. McCandless, 7.\n\n. Sirmans, 16.\n\n. Wood, Peter H., 24.\n\n. Gallay, 225.\n\n. Gallay, 23\u201331.\n\n. Our account of this indigenous political geography is indebted to Gallay, 1\u201339.\n\n. Armitage, 610.\n\n. Donnan, 804.\n\n. Berlin, 17.\n\n. Gallay, 299.\n\n. Gallay, 6\u20137.\n\n. Crane, 45.\n\n. Le Moyne d'Iberville, 119.\n\n. Crane, 19.\n\n. See Gallay, 40\u201369, and Crane, 6\u201321.\n\n. Gallay, 56\u201357.\n\n. Crane, 112.\n\n. See Ingham, 107\u201333.\n\n. Ingham, 127\u2013131.\n\n. Price 1984, 26\u201331.\n\n. Ingham, 129.\n\n. Gallay, 212.\n\n. De Quesada, 6.\n\n. Horne, 3.\n\n. Landers 1999, 24.\n\nChapter 14: The Separate Traders\n\n. Quoted in _DIST_ , 4:68.\n\n. Scott, William Robert, 23.\n\n. Behrendt 2007, 68.\n\n. Parent, 79; Rawley, 86.\n\n. figures from Price 1991, 305.\n\n. Catterall, 1:53\u201354.\n\n. Thomas, Hugh, 236.\n\n. Furdell, 245.\n\n. Thomas, Hugh, 235.\n\n. Parent, 93.\n\n. Whatley.\n\n. Bourne, Michael, 46.\n\n. Rawley and Behrendt, 182; Ridley, 27.\n\n. Morgan, Kenneth, 719\u2013720.\n\n. Anderson and Gallman, 32.\n\n. Ortiz 1947, 268; Ortiz 1978, 358.\n\n. Morgan, Philip D. 1998, 81.\n\n**Chapter 15: Charles Town**\n\n. At the Gullah Geechee Festival, Beaufort, South Carolina, May 26, 2013.\n\n. Norris, 58\u201359.\n\n. Morgan, Philip D. 1998, 1.\n\n. Gallay, 200.\n\n. Donnan, 804\u201305.\n\n. Wood, Peter H., 57n.\n\n. Wilder, 50; Leder and Carroso, 20\u201330.\n\n. See Carney, 32ff. for an extended discussion.\n\n. Bruce 1895, 1:331.\n\n. Wood, Peter H., 36.\n\n. See author's interview with Gwendolyn Midlo Hall for _Afropop Worldwide Hip Deep_ , <http:\/\/www.afropop.org\/11166\/gwendolyn-midlo-hall>.\n\n. McCusker and Menard, 181\u201382.\n\n. Mancall et al, 630.\n\n. McCusker and Menard, 235.\n\n. Norris, 17\u201318.\n\n. Norris, 93.\n\n. Quoted in Gallay, 328.\n\n. Gallay, 338.\n\n. Caillot, 125n, 146\u201368.\n\n. Quoted in Aptheker, 175.\n\n. Quoted in Aptheker, 181.\n\n. Quoted in Donnan, 805.\n\n. Donnan, 806.\n\n**Chapter 16: Savannah and Stono**\n\n. Hewatt, 2:300.\n\n. Egmont Papers, http:\/\/fax.libs.uga.edu\/egmont\/14203\/index.djvu?djvuopts&zoom=100&page=ep142030229.djvu.\n\n. Baine, 101.\n\n. Wilson, Thomas D., 12.\n\n. Wilson, Thomas D., 38\u201340.\n\n. Greenberg, 28.\n\n. See Wilson, Thomas D., 107.\n\n. Pinckney.\n\n. _CRG_ , 23:57.\n\n. Hewatt, 63\u201364.\n\n. Landers 2010, 1\u20133.\n\n. _CRG_ , 22:2:232\u201336.\n\n. Thornton 1991.\n\n. Fromont, 11.\n\n. Epstein, 39, 59.\n\n. Quoted in Wood, Peter H., 321.\n\n. Wood, Peter H., 320.\n\n. Hill, William, 93.\n\n. Seabrook, 13.\n\n. Kly, 18ff.\n\n. Wood, Peter H., 322.\n\n. See Lepore for an account.\n\n. Aptheker, 190.\n\n. Smith, Josiah, ii; Aptheker, 190.\n\n. Smith, Josiah, 10\u201311.\n\n. Landers 1999, 35\u201345.\n\n. _CRG_ , 23:332\u20133.\n\n. Greenberg, 35.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:114.\n\n. Zaborney, 10.\n\n. Pinckney, Eliza Lucas, memorandum of January 1742.\n\n**Chapter 17: A Rough Set of People, but Somewhat Caressed**\n\n. Letter, Henry Laurens to John Knight, May 28, 1756. _PHL_ , 2:204.\n\n. Rogers 1976, 479.\n\n. Melvin Gibbs, private communication.\n\n. Hancock, 205\u2013208; Rogers 1976, 488.\n\n. Behrendt 2007, 68.\n\n. Sellers, Leila, 112.\n\n. Letter, Henry Laurens to William Fisher, Nov. 9, 1768. _PHL_ , 6:149\u201350.\n\n. Sellers, Leila, 25.\n\n. Hewatt, 129\u2013130.\n\n. Hewatt, 291\u2013292.\n\n. Hewatt, 294.\n\n. Donnan, 810\u201311.\n\n. _DIST_ , 4:375.\n\n. McDonough, 21.\n\n. Sellers, Leila, 97.\n\n. Letter, Henry Laurens to Samuel and William Vernon, June 15, 1756, _PHL_ 2:219.\n\n. Rawley, 82.\n\n. Higgins, 206\u2013217.\n\n. Sellers, Leila, 97\u201398.\n\n. McCusker, 220.\n\n. Letter, Henry Laurens to Smith and Baillies, August 25, 1763, _PHL_ , 3:539.\n\n. \"worthy Friend\": see., e.g., Letter, Henry Laurens to Gabriel Manigault, March 2, 1772, _PHL_ 8:202; Oswald: Hancock, 205, 213.\n\n. Webster, 4\u201316.\n\n. _New Georgia Encyclopedia_ , www.georgiaencyclopedia.org\/nge\/Article.jsp?id=h-686.\n\n. Morgan, Philip D. 2010, 27.\n\n. Sellers, Leila, 97\u201398.\n\n**Chapter 18: Ballast**\n\n. Chance, 54.\n\n. Robbins, 2.\n\n. See Sublette 2004, 45.\n\n. Robbins, 100\u201301.\n\n. Robbins, 110.\n\n. Robbins, 120.\n\n. Robbins, 108.\n\n. Robbins, 256.\n\n. Carroll and Carroll, 1:438\n\n. Carroll and Carroll, 1:438\n\n. Carroll and Carroll, 2:707\u201308.\n\n. Carroll and Carroll, 2:706.\n\n. For a genealogy see Reamy and Reamy, 28.\n\n. Lemay 2009, 342.\n\n. _PGW_ , A:7:146.\n\n. _PGW_ , A:9:111.\n\n. Cohen, Richard, 374.\n\n. Carson, 114.\n\n. _The Apollo; or, the Chestertown Spy_ , April 9, 1793.\n\n. Cohen, Richard, 374\u201376.\n\n. Kelly, 360.\n\n. Wroth, 274.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, July 10, 1763, _TRP_.\n\n. Beirne, 79.\n\n. Robbins, 98.\n\n. Carroll and Carroll, 2:710.\n\n. See Minchinton for more about the forms slaving vessels took; Wax 1978.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Fowler, Easton and Comp., September 17, 1761, _TRP_.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, August 14, 1761, _TRP_.\n\n. Behrendt 1997, 55.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, September 17, 1761, _TRP_.\n\n. Parent, 62\u201364.\n\n. See Sublette 2004, Ch. 12. __.\n\n. See Walsh 1999.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, November 21, 1762, _TRP_.\n\n. Bosman, 91.\n\n. Herbert, 124, 200\u2013205; Metcalf, 380.\n\n. Rappleye, 58\u201359.\n\n. Eltis and Richardson, 71.\n\n. Letter, John Adams to William Tudor, August 11, 1818. _WJA_ , 10:345.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, December 15, 1760, _TRP_.\n\n. www.abdn.ac.uk\/slavery\/resource1b.htm\n\n. Morgan, Kenneth 2007, 67.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, November 1, 1762, _TRP_.\n\n. See _Voyage of the slave ship Sally_ , http:\/\/cds.library.brown.edu\/projects\/sally.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Ringgold to Samuel Galloway, May 6, 1764, _TRP_.\n\n. Beirne, 79.\n\n. www.thevalleyfamily.org\/getperson.php?personID=I1167639417&tree=fitzvalley.\n\n. Conger, 63.\n\n. Hazzard-Donald 2011, 195, 200; Hazzard-Donald 2012, 40.\n\n. Hughes, 108.\n\n. Hazzard-Donald 2012, 35.\n\n. See Samford.\n\n. Alabama narratives, 1:341.\n\n. Lemay 2006, 73.\n\n. Lemay 2006, 74.\n\n**Chapter 19: Newspapers as Money as People**\n\n. April 17\u201324, 1704; see also Thomas, Isaiah, 13.\n\n. www.vagazette.com\/our_newspaper\/about_us.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2004, 76. This chapter draws on Waldstreicher's analysis of Franklin's economic ideas.\n\n. Brissot de Warville, 1:182.\n\n. www.vagazette.com\/our_newspaper\/about_us.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2004, 121.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2004, 88.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2004, 88.\n\n. Marx 1970, 55.\n\n. _PBF_ , 1:149.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2004, 21.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2004, 79.\n\n. Quoted in Hawke, 82.\n\n. _Pennsylvania Gazette_ , July 8, 1731.\n\n. Grubb 2006, 7.\n\n. See the discussion of the Law company in Sublette 2008, 45\u201355.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:57.\n\n. Wiencek 2003, 178\u201379.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:169.\n\n. _CRG_ , 22:1: 203.\n\n. _CRG_ , 23:245\u201346.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:171\u201372.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:100.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:54.\n\n**Chapter 20: Lord Dunmore's Blackbirds**\n\n. Smith, Adam, 2:89.\n\n. For an extended discussion of the term \"motley crew\" and its application to this era, see Linebaugh and Rediker, 211\u2013247.\n\n. Zobel, 26.\n\n. Linebaugh and Rediker, 216\u201317.\n\n. Zobel, 28\u201329.\n\n. Bailyn 1974, 35.\n\n. Bailyn 1974, 135.\n\n. Rogers, 493.\n\n. Gadsden, 111, 316.\n\n. Gadsden, 92, 95.\n\n. _PHL_ , 5:24n.\n\n. Quoted in Morgan, Edmund S. 1959, 155.\n\n. Blumrosen and Blumrosen, 17.\n\n. Blackstone _et al_., 1:123.\n\n. Blumrosen and Blumrosen, 9\u201311.\n\n. Blumrosen and Blumrosen, 15.\n\n. \"The Somersett Case and the Slave Trade.\" _London Chronicle_ , June 18\u201320, 1772.\n\n. _PHL_ , 8:353.\n\n. _PHL_ , 16:533.\n\n. Quoted in Blumrosen and Blumrosen, 24\u201325.\n\n. Quoted in Kelly, 376.\n\n. Nybakken, 13, 85, 114.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 1.\n\n. Quoted in Bailyn 1974, 157.\n\n. Quoted in Bell, Malcolm, 22.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 22\u201323.\n\n. _PHL_ , 16:557.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 26.\n\n. Berkeley and Berkeley, 31.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:97\u201398.\n\n. McCrady, 3\u20134.\n\n. McCrady, 24.\n\n. Quoted in Willard, 233.\n\n. _DIST_ , 153\u201354.\n\n. Purdie's _Virginia Gazette_ , Dec. 29, 1775.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 33.\n\n. For a discussion of the conditions within Domingan society for men of color participating in the Chasseurs-Volontaires, see King, Stewart, 65\u201377.\n\n**Chapter 21: The General Inconvenience**\n\n. Jefferson 1997, 1:334\u201335.\n\n. Quoted in Unger, 13.\n\n. Burke, 51\u201352.\n\n. Bailyn, 18.\n\n. e.g., _Virginia Gazette_ , November 19, 1736.\n\n. Fuller, 132; Carson, 43.\n\n. Carson, 43.\n\n. Willison, 268.\n\n. See Cohen, Charles.\n\n. Willison, 267\u201368.\n\n. _Maryland Gazette_ , Aug. 16, 1770.\n\n. Quoted in Bunker 2014, 148.\n\n. Quoted in Willison, 485\u201386.\n\n. Tyler, Moses Coit, 389.\n\n. Boswell, 1:154.\n\n. Henry, William Wirt. 3:4.\n\n. Robinson, 84.\n\n. Wills, 332.\n\n. _Journals of the Continental Congress_ , 5:429.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Angelica Schuyler Church, Nov. 27, 1793. _PTJ_ , 27:449.\n\n. _PTJ_ 1: 243\u2013247.\n\n. Robinson, 80\u201383.\n\n. Malone, 131.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 8:284\u201385.\n\n. _PTJ_ , 2:350.\n\n. Anburey, 2:192\u20133.\n\n. Adams, William Howard, 279.\n\n. _Phocion_ 9 (1796). _Gazette of the United States_ , October 21. See also Chernow, 313.\n\n. Idzerda, 170.\n\n. Carroll and Carroll, 1443.\n\n. See Lewis, 83\u201399.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Dr. William Gordon, July 16, 1788, _PTJ_ , 13:362\u201364.\n\n. Quoted in Hancock, 391.\n\n. Quoted in Hancock, 160.\n\n. Buckley, 4, 22, 35\u201336, 55.\n\n. Parton, 262.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 186.\n\n. Meacham, 58, 144.\n\n. Chastellux, 2:438\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, May 11, 1785, _PTJ_ , 8:147.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 147.\n\n. Smith, Felipe, 24.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 154.\n\n. Letter, James Madison to Frances Wright, September 1, 1825.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 147.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 147.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks, February 4, 1824. _LOC_ American Memory.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks, February 4, 1824. _LOC_ American Memory.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks, February 4, 1824. _LOC_ , American Memory\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 148\u201349\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks, _LOC_ American Memory\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks, _LOC_ American Memory\n\n. Kant, 110\u201311.\n\n. McMillin, 76.\n\n. McMillin, 76\u201380.\n\n. _DIST_ , 4:482.\n\n. McMillin, 84\u201385.\n\n**Chapter 22: The Fugue of Silences**\n\n. Farrand, 2:417.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 5:11.\n\n. Letter, Benjamin Rush to John Coakley Lettsom, September 28, 1787, _DHRC_ 13:262.\n\n. _PJA_ , 2:178\u201379.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Nov. 13, 1787, 12:356.\n\n. Finkelman 1986, 346.\n\n. Finkelman 1986, 349.\n\n. See Freytag v. Commissioner (90\u2013762), 501 U.S. 868 (1991).\n\n. Breyer, 33.\n\n. Beeman, 309, 320.\n\n. David Waldstreicher's _Slavery's Constitution_ develops this theme at length, using the term \"proslavery,\" as well as tracing the history of this interpretation of the Constitution.\n\n. Beeman, 91.\n\n. Farrand, 1:204.\n\n. Farrand, 1:603\u2013605.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 231.\n\n. Lipscomb, xxiii\u2013iv.\n\n. Farrand, 1:205\u201306.\n\n. Farrand, 1:580\u201381.\n\n. Hutson, 68.\n\n. See Ford, Lacy K. 2009, 82\u201383.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 88.\n\n. Farrand, 2:364.\n\n. Farrand, 2:364.\n\n. Farrand, 2:370.\n\n. Farrand, 2:370\n\n. Farrand, 2:371.26.\n\n. Reproduced in Deyle 2005, 37.\n\n. Farrand, 2:378.\n\n. Farrand, 2:415.\n\n**Chapter 23: Ten Thousand Powers**\n\n. Farrand, 3:253.\n\n. Farrand, 3:253\u201355.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 3:263.\n\n. Waldstreicher 2009, 119.\n\n. South Carolina State Constitution (1790), Art. II, Sec. 2.\n\n. Letter, James Madison to George Washington, March 18, 1787. Quoted in _LDC_ , 24:149\u2013150.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 10:1284, 1486.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 10:1473.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 8:311.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 10:1341.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 10:1476.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 10:1477.\n\n. Grigsby, 157n.\n\n. Hewatt, 2:245.\n\n. _AC_ , House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 2d Session, 1505.\n\n. Davis, William C., 17\u201319.\n\n. Trouillot 1990, 37.\n\n. See James, 45\u201355.\n\n. King, Stewart, 84.\n\n. James, 35, 56, 64.\n\n**Chapter 24: The French Revolution in America**\n\n. \"Notes on Arthur Young's letter to George Washington,\" _PTJ_ , 24:95.\n\n. _PTJ_ , 26:xli.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, February 11, 1788. _PTJ_ , 12:577\u201378.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 151.\n\n. See Foster et al; see also Stanton, 93\u2013104.\n\n. See Dubois 2004, 99\u2013101.\n\n. Mathewson, 321.\n\n. \"Notes on Arthur Young's letter to George Washington,\" _PTJ_ , 24:98.\n\n. Wiencek 2012, 8.\n\n. _WTJ_ , 7:114n.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, June 28, 1793. _PTJ_ , 26:396.\n\n. Crawford, 121.\n\n. Gordon-Reed.\n\n. Letter, Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, July 10, 1804. _PAH_ , 26:309; Stanton, 87.\n\n. Brissot de Warville, 244.\n\n. Minnigerode, 146.\n\n. Olmsted 1861, 107.\n\n. Ammon, 44.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Edmond Charles Genet, June 5, 1793. _PTJ_ , 26:195.\n\n. Minnigerode, 188.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, _PTJ_ , 26:190.\n\n. Minnigerode, 146.\n\n. Minnigerode, 220.\n\n. Dessens, 20.\n\n. Dessens, 67; Baur, 398.\n\n. Baur, 395.\n\n. _PGW_ , C:14:55n.\n\n. \"Cabinet opinions on relations with France and Great Britain,\" September 7, 1793, _PTJ_ , 27:49\u201350.\n\n. Letter, John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1813, _AJL_ , 347\u201348.\n\n. Letter, John Adams to John Quincy Adams, _AFC_ , 10:4.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Caleb Lownes, Dec. 18, 1793. _PTJ_ , 27:586.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Jean Nicolas Demeunier, _PTJ_ , 38:341.\n\n. \"red or blue\": the recollection of former nailery slave Isaac Granger, quoted in Stanton, 7.\n\n. Stanton, 81\u201385.\n\n. Quoted in Brady, 609.\n\n. Sidbury 1997, 539.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Madame Plumard de Bellanger, April 25, 1794, _PTJ_ , 28:59\u201360.\n\n. Quoted in Chapelle, 5.\n\n. Chapelle, 13.\n\n. Bruchey, 106.\n\n. Ward, 1292.\n\n. Landers 2010, 82.\n\n**Chapter 25: The Cotton Club**\n\n. _CRG_ , 23:158.\n\n. Hills, 41.\n\n. Lakwete, 47\u201348.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Eli Whitney, _PTJ_ , 27:392\u201333.\n\n. Letter, Eli Whitney to Thomas Jefferson, _PTJ_ , 27:433.\n\n. Quoted in Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo, 351.\n\n. McAfee, xi.\n\n. Andrew Jackson letter to Nathaniel Macon, October 4, 1795, _CAJ_ , 1:17.\n\n. Sydnor 1938, 18\u201319.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 8:34.\n\n. _Naval documents related to the Quasi-War..._. 1:1.\n\n. Letter, Henry Tazewell to AJ, July 20, 1798, _CAJ_ , 1:53.\n\n. Geggus, 285.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 248.\n\n. Englund, 178.\n\n. Popkin, 214.\n\n. DeConde, 84.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 250.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:398n; Egerton, 33\u201334.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:345n.\n\n. Sidbury 2002, 210.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:398n.\n\n. Ford, Lacy K. 2009, 51.\n\n. Schwarz, 87.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:410.\n\n. Schwarz, 63, 10, 215, xxxiii.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:412.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:404.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:421.\n\n. Schwarz, 81.\n\n. \"Account of Richmond trials,\" September 18, 1800, <http:\/\/founders.archives.gov\/documents\/Jefferson\/01-32-02-0109>.\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:420\n\n. _PJMon_ , 4:423.\n\n. Egerton, 108\u201311.\n\n. Schwarz, xxx\u2013xxxii.\n\n. Schwarz, 54.\n\n. Schwarz, 64\u201365.\n\n. US census figures for 1800.\n\n. See Schwarz, 97, for one of many examples of the use of this phrase.\n\n. Rousey, 21.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Rufus King, July 13, 1802, _PTJ_ , 38:54.\n\n**Chapter 26: The Terrible Republic**\n\n. Jenson, 89.\n\n. Quoted in Henriques, 122.\n\n. Quoted in Beard, 375.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819, <http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/exhibits\/jefferson\/137.html>.\n\n. Jefferson 1788, 175.\n\n. _DHRC_ , 10:1272.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, May 29, 1801. _PJMon_ 4:516.\n\n. Drescher, 31.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, _PTJ_ , 35:720.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Aaron Burr, 31:22.\n\n. Quoted in DeConde, 323.\n\n. Letter, Bonaparte to Talleyrand, November 13, 1801, _CN_ , 7:320.\n\n. Letter, Rufus King to James Madison, June 1, 1801, _State papers and correspondence bearing upon the purchase of the territory of Louisiana_.\n\n. Lacroix, 2:59\u201360.\n\n. Letter, Robert Livingston to Rufus King, _State papers and correspondence bearing upon the purchase of the territory of Louisiana_ , 10.\n\n. Letter, Bonaparte to Denis Decr\u00e8s, June 4, 1802, _CN_ , 7:485.\n\n. Ferrer, 60\u201372.\n\n. Ford, Lacy K. 2009, 85\u201391.\n\n. Quoted in Stoddard, 342.\n\n. See \"Canine Warfare in the Circum-Caribbean\" in Johnson, Sara E., 21\u201348; also Ferrer, 159.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, January 10, 1803, _PTJ_ , 39:306.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, January 13, 1803, _PTJ_ , 39:328.\n\n. Quoted in Ford, Lacy K. 2009, 97.\n\n. _AC_ , November 14, 1803.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, February 27, 1803, _PTJ_ , 39:590\u201391.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, June 8, 1803, _PTJ_ , 40:505.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to John Breckinridge, November 24, 1803, _WTJ_ , 10:52.\n\n. Shugerman, 274.\n\n. Quoted in Scanlon, 152\u201353.\n\n. Scanlon, 153.\n\n. See Dayan, 30ff.\n\n. Claiborne, 2:10.\n\n. Claiborne, 2:25.\n\n. Claiborne, 2:184.\n\n. Claiborne, 2:245\n\n. _AC_ , 9th Cong., 1st Sess., 515.\n\n. Alexander, William T., 180\u201381.\n\n**Chapter 27: I Do Not Threaten the Government with Civil War**\n\n. Claiborne, 3:363.\n\n. Shugerman, 8.\n\n. Shugerman, 15.\n\n. Ford, Lacy K. 2009, 97.\n\n. Thomas, E.S., 35\u201336.\n\n. Claiborne, 3:96.\n\n. Queried from _The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database_ , www.slavevoyages.org\/tast\/database\/search.faces.\n\n. McMillin, 48.\n\n. Ford, Lacy K. 2009, 121.\n\n. Shugerman, 282.\n\n. _AC_ , H of R, 9th, 1st, 472.\n\n. _DIST_ , 4:513.\n\n. Shugerman, 19.\n\n. Quoted in Sellers, 219.\n\n. _DIST_ , 4:516.\n\n. _DIST_ , 4:525.\n\n. Table appears in Brooke, 234.\n\n. Said, 793.\n\n. Lambert, 2:406.\n\n. _Charleston Courier_ , Nov. 22, 1805.\n\n. Wilentz 2004.\n\n. _AC_ , H of R, 9th, 2d, , 238\u20139.\n\n. _AC_ , H of R, 9th, 2d, 477\u2013478.\n\n. _AC_ , H of R, 9th, 2d, 626.\n\n. The surviving inward bound manifests from the Port of New Orleans are in record group 36 of the National Archives in Washington, and they have also been digitized by ancestry.com.\n\n. Lambert, 2:406.\n\n. McMillin, 114.\n\n. McMillin, 113.\n\n. Dusinberre, 124.\n\n**Chapter 28: These Infernal Principles**\n\n. Schultz, 2:133\u20134.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 984.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 978\u20139.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 973.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 973.\n\n. Quoted in _Richmond Courier_ , December 29, 1807.\n\n. Lambert, 2:158\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986, 1:1121.\n\n. _Moniteur de la Louisiane_ , January 18, 1810.\n\n. Schultz, 2:137\u201338.\n\n. _AC_ , Senate, 11th, 2d, 579\u201380.\n\n. _AC_ , Senate, 11th, 3d, 63\u201364.\n\n. _AC_ , 12th, H of R, 1st, 450\u201351.\n\n. Martineau, 1:244.\n\n. Rogers 1962, 394.\n\n. Calhoun, 2:8.\n\n. Article I, Sections 8, 10.\n\n. Temin, 29.\n\n. Stagg, 2.\n\n. Dudley, 2:308.\n\n**Chapter 29: The Hireling and Slave**\n\n. Woodmason, 14.\n\n. Woodmason, 101\u201302.\n\n. Woodmason, 27.\n\n. Quoted in Sydnor 1938, 15.\n\n. Remini 1977, 55.\n\n. _PAJ_ 1:15.\n\n. Remini 1977, 56.\n\n. Capers, 26\u201328.\n\n. Quoted in Keating, 173.\n\n. Capers, 31.\n\n. Letter, W.C.C. Claiborne to Andrew Jackson,, Dec. 9, 1801. _PAJ_ , 1:261.\n\n. Letter, W.C.C. Claiborne to Andrew Jackson, Dec. 23, 1801. _PAJ_ , 1:265.\n\n. Remini 1977:378.\n\n. _PAJ_ , 2:41.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to Thomas Eastin, c. June 1806. _PAJ_ , 2:106; Remini 1981, 1.\n\n. Letter, Donelson Caffery to Andrew Jackson, May 20, 1810, _PAJ_ , 2:246.\n\n. Letter, Joseph Anderson to Andrew Jackson, December 3, 1795. _CAJ_ , 1:18\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to William Berkeley Lewis, August 5, 1828. _PAJ_ , 6:486\u201387.\n\n. _PAJ_ , 2:261\u201362, 286\u2013290.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to Rachel Jackson, December 17, 1811. _PAJ_ , 2:273.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to Willie Blount, Jan. 25, 1812, _PAJ_ , 2:277\u201379.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to \"an Arbitrator,\" Feb. 29, 1812, _PAJ_ , 2:286\u201389.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to Mary Caffery, February 8, 1812, _PAJ_ 2:281\u201382.\n\n. Remini 1977, 191\u201392.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to Willie Blount, _CAJ_ , 1:416.\n\n. Adams, Henry 1889\/1986a, 886\u201387.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to David Holmes, April 18, 1814, _CAJ_ , 1:504\u201305.\n\n. _Niles' Weekly Register_ , June 11, 1814.\n\n. Owsley, 130.\n\n. Bell, Malcolm, 182.\n\n. Manakee, 35.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 8:188.\n\n. Letter, James Monroe to Andrew Jackson, October 21, 1814, _PAJ_ , 3:171.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to James Monroe, October 26, 1814, _PAJ_ , 3:173.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to James Monroe, November 20, 1814, _PAJ_ 3:191.\n\n. Warshauer, 2.\n\n. Haynes, 234.\n\n. Letter, William Crawford to AJ, March 15, 1816. _PAJ_ , 4:15\u201316.\n\n. Letter, Edmund P. Gaines to AJ, May 14, 1816. _PAJ_ , 4:31.\n\n. _PAJ_ , 4:15.\n\n**Chapter 30: A Jog of the Elbow**\n\n. Quoted in Simpson, 65.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:41.\n\n. Martineau, 1:192.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 12.\n\n. Chapelle, 108.\n\n. Chapelle, 111.\n\n. For a discussion of this balance in the Jacksonian era, see Green, George D.\n\n. Bodenhorn, 169.\n\n. Quoted in Simpson, 65.\n\n. See Bodenhorn, 169\u2013177.\n\n. Calderhead, 198.\n\n. Gigantino, 281\u2013296.\n\n. _Niles' Weekly Register_ , Dec. 26, 1818, 313.\n\n. _Niles' Weekly Register_ , Dec. 19, 1818, 311.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to James Monroe, June 2, 1818. _PAJ_ 4:215.\n\n. Fortune, 260\u201366.\n\n. _Gales & Seaton's Register of Debates in Congress_ (1829), 3:12.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 85, IV:i, 44.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820. _MCMTJ_ , 4:324.\n\n. _American Cotton Planter_ , 1:10, 295, October 1857.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Joel Yancey, January 17, 1819. Jefferson 1953, 43.\n\n. FWP, Alabama narratives, 1:222.\n\n. Morris, 70.\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, Jne 30, 1820. http:\/\/founders.archives.gov\/documents\/Jefferson\/98-01-02-1352\n\n. Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Mary Jefferson Eppes, December 26, 1803. Rayner, 295.\n\n. Jacques.\n\n. Rasmussen and Tilton, 70.\n\n. Rudolph, 157.\n\n. \"Family histories: a beginning\" www.monticello.org\/site\/plantation-and-slavery\/family-histories-beginning.\n\n. Lislet, 2:394\u2013406.\n\n. Baptist 2014, 248.\n\n. Neu, 550.\n\n. An account from the Jacksonian perspective is Remini 1981, 94\u201399.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 8:546.\n\n. Miles 1960, 17.\n\n**Chapter 31: Swallowed by Millions**\n\n. Sheffield _Mercury_ , Sept. 12, 1846.http:\/\/docsouth.unc.edu\/neh\/douglass\/support5.html.\n\n. Albion, 9.\n\n. Albion, 11.\n\n. Rockman, 7.\n\n. Douglass 1855, 310\u201311.\n\n. Quoted in Clayton 2002, 44.\n\n. Clayton 2002, 45.\n\n. Clayton 2002, 59.\n\n. Calderhead, 197.\n\n. Calderhead, 198.\n\n. Thompson, John, 14.\n\n. Clayton 2002, 29.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 85, I:iv, 10.\n\n. \"Flight to Freedom.\"\n\n. Clayton, 62.\n\n. Calderhead, 200.\n\n. Calderhead, 198.\n\n. Douglass 1845, 10.\n\n. Clayton 2002, 44.\n\n. Quoted in Sydnor 1966, 151.\n\n. Douglass 2000, 198.\n\n. _cf_. Freudenberger and Pritchett, 470\u201373.\n\n. Komlos and Alecke, 449.\n\n. Schafer 1997, 165\u201366.\n\n. Rockman, 39.\n\n. Clayton 1998.\n\n. Lundy, 15.\n\n. Wilson, Henry, 1:170.\n\n. _Genius of Universal Emancipation_ , Jan. 2, 1827.\n\n. Lundy, 29; _Genius of Universal Emancipation_ , Jan. 20, 1827.\n\n. \"Law case.\" (1827.) _Niles' Register_ , 32:206. May 19.\n\n. _LWLG_ , 1:92.\n\n. _LWLG_ , 1:93\u201394.\n\n. Bancroft 1900, 1:68.\n\n. Quoted in Kilbourne 2006, vi.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 8:365.\n\n. Lightner, 90.\n\n. The article disputing the conspiracy's existence of the conspiracy is Johnson, Michael P.; for a rebuttal, see Paquette and Egerton.\n\n. Egerton 1999, 16\u201320.\n\n. Egerton 1999, 73\u201374.\n\n. Egerton 1999, 118\u201320.\n\n. _City Gazette and Daily Commercial Advertiser_ , Charleston, August 21, 1822.\n\n. Quoted in Wesley, 163.\n\n. For a biography of Walker, see Hinks.\n\n. Walker, 18\u201319.\n\n. Walker, 71.\n\n. Quoted in Deyle 2005, 54.\n\n. Calderhead, 207n.\n\n. Quoted in Stowe 1853, 363.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:23.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 85, I:iv, 2.\n\n. Dew, 50\u201351.\n\n**Chapter 32: Democratizing Capital**\n\n. Currier, 311.\n\n. Miles 1960, 118.\n\n. Wilentz 2005, 198 _et passim_.\n\n. Baldwin, 82.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 6:317.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 109.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 28.\n\n. Quoted in Kilbourne 2006, 47.\n\n. Quoted in _Sound Currency_ , 232.\n\n. Letter, Nicholas Biddle to Joseph Hopkinson, February 21, 1834. McGrane, 222.\n\n. President Jackson's veto message. (1832). <http:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/19th_century\/ajveto01.asp>.\n\n. Quoted in Miles 1960, 61.\n\n. Poore, 81.\n\n. January 22, 1833. _Gales & Seaton's register of debates in Congress_, 1205.\n\n. Sinha, 19.\n\n. Davis, William C., 17.\n\n. Wilentz 2005, 375.\n\n. Sinha, 44.\n\n. Van Buren, 542.\n\n. Van Buren, 544.\n\n. January 22, 1833. _Gales & Seaton's register of debates in Congress_, 1194.\n\n. Letter, Andrew Jackson to Rev. Andrew J. Crawford, _CAJ_ , 5:72.\n\n. Van Buren, 625.\n\n. _CJKP_ , 1:575.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 8:434.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:93.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:93.\n\n. Letter, Jourdan M. Sanders to David Burford, September 28, 1833, _DBP_.\n\n. Miles 1960, 74.\n\n. _CSS_ 1536; Hills, 117.\n\n. Roberts, 27.\n\n. Baldwin, 82\u201389.\n\n. Temin, 22, 80\u201388.\n\n. Marx, Karl. \"Free trade and monopoly,\" _New York Daily Tribune_ , September 25, 1858.\n\n. Marx, Karl. \"Trade or opium?\" _New York Daily Tribune_ , September 20, 1858.\n\n. Roberts, Alasdair, 31.\n\n. Knodell, 542.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 59.\n\n. Roberts, Alasdair, 36.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 109.\n\n. Roberts, Alasdair, 10\u201311.\n\n. Bourne, Edward G., 17.\n\n. Bourne, Edward G., 14n.\n\n. Martin, Bonnie, 819.\n\n. Martin, Bonnie, 846.\n\n. Martin, Bonnie, 821\u2013822.\n\n. Wilberforce, 22.\n\n. Sydnor 1938, 95.\n\n. Evans, 199; Phillips, 266.\n\n. Dusinberre, 6\n\n. _DeBow's Review_ , 3:5, May 1847.\n\n. Lyell, 1:147.\n\n**Chapter 33: Old Robbers**\n\n. Andrews, E.A., 135\u2013138.\n\n. Andrews, E.A., 142\u201343.\n\n. Quoted in _The Friend_ 2:164.\n\n. Yagyu, 131\u201335.\n\n. 2 Stat. 755. See also, _Fenwick v. Tooker_ , Circuit Court, District of Columbia, 4 Cranch, O. C. 641, Nov. term 1835.\n\n. Laprade, 31.\n\n. Stephenson, 15, 22.\n\n. Stephenson, 23; Yagyu, 141.\n\n. Stephenson, 23.\n\n. _The Friend_ , 2:162.\n\n. Northup, 41\u201347, 75\u201378.\n\n. _The Friend_ , 2:163.\n\n. Featherstonhaugh, 1:120.\n\n. Featherstonhaugh, 1:166\u201370.\n\n. Quoted in Stephenson, 70.\n\n. Hammond, 15.\n\n. Quoted in Jay, 157\u201358.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, 179A.\n\n. Stephenson, 40\u201342.\n\n. Gudmestad, 32.\n\n. Clayton, 83, 87, 98.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, XIV, B6.\n\n. Rothert, 433.\n\n. Stephenson, 76.\n\n. Kiple and King, 148.\n\n. Quoted in Yagyu, 105.\n\n. Letter, Isaac Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, December 8, 1832, _RCBP_.\n\n. Letters, James R. Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, April 24, May 7, 1833, _RCBP_.\n\n. Letter, James R. Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, Feb. 2, 1834, _RCBP_.\n\n. Letter, Jourdan M. Saunders to David Burford, April 3, 1832, _DBP_.\n\n. Letter, Isaac Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, Jan. 9, 1832, _RCBP_.\n\n. Letter, Isaac Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, Nov. 21, 1833, _RCBP_.\n\n. Letter, James R. Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, April 16, 1834, _RCBP_.\n\n. Johnson 2000, 17.\n\n. _New Orleans As It Is_ , 43\u201344.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 17, 30.\n\n. _North Carolina v. Mann_ , 13 N.C. 263\n\n. Stephenson, 65.\n\n. See _New Orleans As It Is_ , 44; Schafer 2009 3.\n\n. For an extended treatment of these letters, see Baptist 2005.\n\n. Letter, Isaac Franklin to Rice C. Ballard, January 11, 1834.\n\n. _SIF_ , 272, 282.\n\n. Stephenson, 92.\n\n. Ingraham 1835,\n\n. _SIF_ , 299.\n\n. Warden. There are various versions, more or less similar, of this story and quote.\n\n. See Kilbourne 1995, 18\u201325.\n\n. _SIF_ , 280.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 1.\n\n. Stephenson, 131\u2013146.\n\n. Quoted in Stephenson, 152.\n\n**Chapter 34: Wake Up Rich**\n\n. Miles 1960, 124.\n\n. Miles 1957, 48\u201358.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:257.\n\n. Quoted in Gatell, 194.\n\n. Quoted in Miles 1957, 57.\n\n. Quoted in Finkelman 2007, 46.\n\n. Seward, 271.\n\n. Wallner, 28.\n\n. Douglass 1855, 445.\n\n. Fehrenbacher, 116.\n\n. Quoted in Miles 1960, 123.\n\n. comparison of US Census figures, 1830 and 1840.\n\n. Davis, William C., 4.\n\n. Davis, William C., 88, 671.\n\n. Davis, William C., 189.\n\n. Davis, William C., 165.\n\n. Davis, William C., 20.\n\n. Davis, William C., 75.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:386.\n\n. _Appendix to the Congressional Globe_ , 25th Cong., 2d Sess., 507.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:417\u201318.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:425.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:427\u201328.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:429.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:455.\n\n. Long, 84.\n\n. \"Suspension of specie payments.\" (1839). _The New-Yorker_ , 8:5, 76, October 19. The attribution to Biddle is by publisher Horace Greeley.\n\n. Parton, 3:626.\n\n. Quoted in Miller, Edward L., 6.\n\n. _CJKP_ , 1:472.\n\n. Lepler, 108ff.\n\n. Quoted in Albert, 105.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 85, I:iv.\n\n. Buckingham, 1:334\u201335.\n\n. Miller, Edward L., 72.\n\n. Quoted in Miller, Edward L., 32.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 9:332.\n\n. Miles 1960, 140.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 10:19.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 109.\n\n. _PJD_ , 2:46n.\n\n. _PJD_ , 2:42n.\n\n. Miles 1960, 149.\n\n. Roberts, Alasdair, 51.\n\n. _WSH_ , 3:10.\n\n. Adams, Henry Carter, 395.\n\n**Chapter 35: The Slave Trade to Cuba and Brazil**\n\n. _Public documents_ 1841, 135. (26th Cong., 2d sess.)\n\n. Morgan, Kenneth 2007, 191\u201392\n\n. _The Legacies of British Slave-ownership_ website databases information given in slaveowners' claims for compensation. www.ucl.ac.uk\/lbs.\n\n. British Parliamentary Papers, _Correspondence relative to the slave trade_ , 28:4.\n\n. _CBC_ 1834, 2.\n\n. _CBC_ 1839, 276.\n\n. Thomas, Hugh, 642.\n\n. Klein and Vinson, 87.\n\n. Letter, N.P. Trist to John Forsyth, 23 May 1839, Despatches from US Consuls in Havana, Cuba, 1783\u20131906, Record Group 59, National Archives, College Park, MD. Thanks to James Shinn.\n\n. _CBC_ 1839, 275.\n\n. _The New-Yorker_ , 8:5, 75, October 19, 1839.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 10:440.\n\n. _CBC_ 1839, 272\u201373.\n\n. _Message from the President of the United States_ , 193.\n\n. _Public documents Printed by Order of the Senate_ (1841), 171.\n\n. See Sublette 2004, 129.\n\n. _AP_ 1839, 20:103.\n\n. _Message from the President of the United States_ , 189.\n\n. _Message from the President of the United States_ , 188\u201389.\n\n. Thomas, Hugh, 642.\n\n. _WSH_ , 1:510\u2013511.\n\n. _Message from the President of the United States_ , 185\u201386.\n\n. _Message from the President of the United States_ , 133.\n\n. _Message from the President of the United States_ , 133\u201334.\n\n. Adams, John Quincy 1841.\n\n. Bleser, 32.\n\n**Chapter 36: Heaps and Piles of Money**\n\n. Kemble, 219.\n\n. For an extended account, see Clinton.\n\n. Kemble, 122, 60.\n\n. Kemble, 218.\n\n. Kemble, 219.\n\n. Kemble, 183.\n\n. For more on antebellum divorce, see Goodheart 2011.\n\n. Butler, 9.\n\n. Butler, 13.\n\n. Kemble, 200.\n\n. Northup, 61, 85\u201388.\n\n. _TAS_ , 18:253.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 108\u201309.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 127.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 137.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 138\u201339.\n\n. Kilbourne 2006, 134.\n\n**Chapter 37: The Slave Power**\n\n. For more on Polk as slaveowner, see Dusinberre.\n\n. Bordewich, 281.\n\n. Letter, Herbert Biles to James K. Polk, November 23, 1832, _CJKP_ , 1:529\u201330.\n\n. Letter, Silas M. Caldwell to James K. Polk, Jan. 4, 1834, _CJKP_ , 2:219.\n\n. Letter, James Walker to James K. Polk, February 14, 1834, _CJKP_ , 2:315.\n\n. Letter, James K. Polk to Sarah Childress Polk, Sep. 26\u201327, 1834, _CJKP_ , 2:508\u201309.\n\n. Letter, Ephraim Beanland to James K. Polk, Oct. 4, 1834, _CJKP_ , 2:514.\n\n. Letter, James Walker to James K. Polk, Oct. 15, 1839, _CJKP_ , 5:261\u201362.\n\n. _SIF_ , 296, 359, 360.\n\n. _Congressional Globe_ , 25th Cong., 3d. sess., 167\u201368.\n\n. Baptist 2014, 135n _et passim_.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 10:556.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 11:382.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 12:13\u201314.\n\n. Quoted in Sinha, 65.\n\n. Quoted in Stahr, 96.\n\n. Hughes, 13.\n\n. Foner, Eric, 91.\n\n. www.tsl.texas.gov\/ref\/abouttx\/annexation\/march1845.html.\n\n. Grant, 40\u201341.\n\n. Sachar, 72.\n\n. Olmsted 1861, 51.\n\n. Rosen, 34.\n\n. See Diner, 86\u2013108.\n\n. Rosen, 17.\n\n. Chapman, 1, 5\u201312.\n\n. Scott, Edwin J., 82.\n\n. Korn, 41.\n\n. Stowe 1853, 151.\n\n. Kilbourne 1995, 3.\n\n. Chapman, 23.\n\n. _TAS_ , 18:301.\n\n**Chapter 38: Manifest Destiny's Child**\n\n. Letter, John W. Childress to James K. Polk, July 22, 1846, _CJKP_ , 11:251.\n\n. Dusinberre, 53.\n\n. In the July\u2013August 1845 issue of the _United States Democratic Journal_.\n\n. Quoted in Foner, Eric, 116.\n\n. Quoted in Dusinberre, 17; not included in _CJKP_.\n\n. Letter, James K. Polk to John Catron, Oct. 7, 1846. _CJKP_ , 11:345.\n\n. Letter, Robert Campbell, Jr. to James K. Polk, Oct. 9, 1846. _CJKP_ , 11:345\n\n. Stephenson, 116.\n\n. _SIF_ , 482, 549.\n\n. _DeBow's Review_ (1857), 22:4, 439.\n\n. In the film _Bayou Maharajah_ , dir. Lily Keber.\n\n. For more about Fairvue, there is a \"Historical Fireside Chat\" video with area historians at www.fairvueplantation.com\/history.php.\n\n. Polk, 4:429.\n\n. Polk, 4:408, 393.\n\n. Polk, 4:439.\n\n. Dusinberre, 79.\n\n. Quoted in Montejano, 28.\n\n. Freudenberger and Pritchett, 476.\n\n. Clayton 2002, 77.\n\n. Quoted in Clayton 2002, 77; _Reports and cases argued and determined..._ , 140.\n\n. _Reports and cases argued and determined..._ , 140\u201347.\n\n**Chapter 39: A Letter from Virginia**\n\n. Drago, 61.\n\n. Warden, 8.\n\n. _Southern Business Directory_ (1854), 163.\n\n. Yagyu, 334\u201335.\n\n. Yagyu, 343.\n\n. Letter, C.M. Rutherford to Rice C. Ballard, April 19, 1853, _RCBP_.\n\n. Letter, Virginia Boyd to Rice C. Ballard, May 6, 1853, _RCBP_.\n\n. http:\/\/www2.lib.unc.edu\/mss\/inv\/b\/Ballard,Rice_C.html#folder_191#1.\n\n. Letter, C.M. Rutherford to Rice C. Ballard, Dec. 14, 1853, _RCBP_.\n\n. Bleser, 19.\n\n. Bleser, 101.\n\n**Chapter 40: Communists in Blackface**\n\n. Quoted in Sinha, 102.\n\n. Roske 1968, 243\u201345.\n\n. _Put's Original California Songster_ , 7\u20138.\n\n. Based on Roske 1963, 211.\n\n. Roske 1963, 210.\n\n. Richards, 67\u201368.\n\n. Quoted in Richards, 76.\n\n. _Appendix to the Congressional Globe_ , 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1409.\n\n. _The Address of the Southern Delegates_ , 13\u201314.\n\n. _North Star_ , February 9, 1849.\n\n. Quoted in Bordewich, 203.\n\n. Davis, William C., 308\n\n. Quoted in Sellers, Charles G., 2:24.\n\n. See Richards, 72\u201376.\n\n. Ford, Lacy K. 1988, 38\u201339.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, p. 11.\n\n. Keehn, 10\u201312.\n\n. Davis, William C., 273.\n\n. Sioussat, 329n.\n\n. Sioussat, 330.\n\n. Quoted in Sioussat, 321.\n\n. _Appendix to the Congressional Globe_ , 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 1067.\n\n. Bauer, K. Jack, 314\u201315, 319\u201320; Zachary Taylor Partition of Heirs. Historic New Orleans Collection, MSS 137.\n\n. Webster, 43.\n\n. Bordewich, 309.\n\n. Sioussat, 302.\n\n. Cheves, 26.\n\n. Cheves, 30.\n\n. Quoted in Sinha, 211.\n\n. Skipper, 24\u201325.\n\n. Foster, Stephen.\n\n. Hanby, B.R.\n\n. Stevens, 44.\n\n. Stevens, 188\u201393.\n\n. Stevens, 216n.\n\n. Hurst, 36.\n\n. Quoted in Hurst, 38.\n\n. Ashdown and Caudill, 65.\n\n**Chapter 41: Hiring Day**\n\n. Clarke.\n\n. Jacobs, 26.\n\n. _TAS_ , 18:162.\n\n. Olmsted 1861a, 1:117.\n\n. Bancroft 1931\/1996, 145\u201346.\n\n. Bancroft 1931\/1996, 95.\n\n. Zaborney, 145.\n\n. Abbott, 100ff.\n\n. Laird, 5.\n\n. Corey, 47\u201348.\n\n. Corey, 48\u201350.\n\n. Craddock, 23\u201324.\n\n. Olmsted 1861a, 1:51\u201352.\n\n. Bancroft 1931\/1996, 153.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, A183.\n\n. Quoted in Zaborney, 94.\n\n. Zaborney, 123.\n\n. Southall, 167.\n\n. Hughes, 78.\n\n. O'Connell, 113.\n\n**Chapter 42: Vanish Like a Dream**\n\n. _Sketches of the lives..._ , 36.\n\n. _MJQA_ , 12:25.\n\n. Baker, 25.\n\n. Watson, Robert P., 248.\n\n. Polk, 1:297.\n\n. Merry, 100\u201301.\n\n. Letter, Edmund Burke to Franklin Pierce, June 6, 1852, quoted in Pierce, 114.\n\n. Hawthorne, 416\u201317.\n\n. Olmsted 1861, 58.\n\n. Olmsted 1861, 58.\n\n. Letter, James Gadsden to Thomas Jefferson Green, quoted in Parish and Gadsden, 174\u201375.\n\n. \"Nicaragua.\" (1857). _DeBow's review, agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources_ , 22:1, January, 105\u201309.\n\n. \"Notes on Cuba.\" (1859). _Harper's Weekly_ , Jan. 29, 72\u201373.\n\n. Buchanan.\n\n. See Finkelman 2013 for a narrative of the events surrounding Buchanan and _Dred Scott_.\n\n. Douglass 1857, 32.\n\n. Fitzhugh, George, 341\u201342, 368.\n\n. Fitzhugh, George, 278.\n\n. Genovese 1969\/88, 129\u201330.\n\n. Olmsted 1861a, 1:140.\n\n**Chapter 43: A Snake Biting Its Tail**\n\n. Quoted in _FBC_ , Box 88, 109D.\n\n. Foner, Philip, 146.\n\n. Spratt, 487\u201388.\n\n. DuBois, W.E.B. 1904, 174.\n\n. See Satz, 270.\n\n. Lincoln, 132.\n\n. Quoted in _FBC_ , Box 88, 26.\n\n. Fehrenbacher, 179.\n\n. See Graham, 291\u2013324, Slenes, 325\u201370.\n\n. \"Slave Trade in New York.\" (1855). _Debow's Review_. (1855). 18:2, 225\u20136.\n\n. _CBC_ 1860, 11\u201312.\n\n. _CBC_ 1860, 8.\n\n. Dubois, W.E.B. 1904, 308\u2013316.\n\n. _CBC_ 1860, 8.\n\n. _CBC_ 1860, 13.\n\n. _CBC_ 1860, 45.\n\n. Davis, Robert Ralph 1971, 273.\n\n. Davis, Robert Ralph 1971, 276.\n\n. Foner, Philip, 293\u201394.\n\n. Hurst, 330.\n\n. Sheehy et al., 144\u201346.\n\n. Sheehy et al., 146\u201347.\n\n. Quoted in Davis, Robert Ralph 1971, 275\u20137.\n\n. Sheehy et al., 164; DeGraft-Hansen.\n\n. Thomson, 5.\n\n. Thomson, 9.\n\n. Thomson, 11.\n\n. Clinton, 160\u201362.\n\n. Keehn is the source for all material in this volume about the KGC. Keehn, 32\u201345.\n\n. Zaborney, 7.\n\n. _FBC_ , Box 88, p. 24.\n\n. Lee.\n\n. See Keehn, 1\u20132.\n\n. Diouf, 55. For more about the orisha religion in Cuba, see Sublette 2004, 206\u2013234.\n\n. Diouf, 6, 55, 30\u201339.\n\n. Diouf, 151\u201352.\n\n. Diouf, 14.\n\n. Diouf, 48\u201349; Hurston, 655.\n\n**Chapter 44: Assignment in Paraguay**\n\n. Behlolavek, 114.\n\n. Flaherty, 252.\n\n. Baker, 79.\n\n. Cobb, 15.\n\n. \"Cotton Planters' Convention,\" _American Cotton Planter II_ , 11:330, 1858.\n\n. Adams, Henry 2012, 15.\n\n. Flaherty, 268.\n\n. MacKinnon, 73.\n\n. See Foner, Philip, 306\u201311.\n\n. Sinha, 234\u201335; Keehn, 77\u201388.\n\n. Adams, Henry 2012, 16.\n\n. Quoted in Dew, Charles B., 27.\n\n. Dew, Charles B., 32.\n\n. Davis, William C., xiv.\n\n. Quoted in Dew, Charles B., 41.\n\n. Quoted in Dew, Charles B., 98.\n\n. Quoted in Dew, Charles B., 92.\n\n. Wilson, Joseph Ruggles, 3.\n\n. Wilson, Joseph Ruggles, 4, 5, 16, 21.\n\n. McPherson, 29.\n\n. _PJD_ , 7:21.\n\n. Shackleford, 3.\n\n. _PUSG_ 2:194\u201395.\n\n. Conway, 22.\n\n. Keckley, 70\u201372.\n\n. Quoted in Marcus 1955, 2:300.\n\n**Chapter 45: The Decommissioning of Human Capital**\n\n. Quoted in Hammond, 188.\n\n. _TAS_ , 18:208.\n\n. Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 82n.\n\n. Hammond, 23.\n\n. Hammond, 250\u201352.\n\n. Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 100\u2013118.\n\n. Hammond, 170, 244ff, 355.\n\n. Hammond, 1970, 307.\n\n. Hammond, 360.\n\n. Matthews, 77\u201379.\n\n. For more about the Republic of Jones, see Bynum.\n\n. Carpenter, 20, 77; see also Masur.\n\n. _JDC_ , 5:409.\n\n. See Bodenhorn, 231\u201333.\n\n. Cf. http:\/\/belmontmansion.com\/mansionhistory; Lessing, 29\u201335.\n\n. Marcus 1955, 2:55.\n\n. Marcus 1955, 2:56.\n\n. Marcus 1955, 2:305.\n\n. Rosen, 270; Marcus 1955, 2:299.\n\n. Anbinder, 121.\n\n. Rosen, 431\u201332n.\n\n**Chapter 46: A Weird, Plaintive Wail**\n\n. _New York Times_ , December 26, 1864.\n\n. _FWP_ , Virginia narratives, 17:42.\n\n. Unwin.\n\n. Burkhardt, 8.\n\n. Quoted in Burkhardt, 39.\n\n. Some pro-Confederate historians subsequently denied that a massacre happened at Fort Pillow. For a discussion by a historian who reluctantly concluded that there was a racially motivated massacre, see Castel, 89\u2013103.\n\n. _New York Tribune_ , April 18, 1864.\n\n. _New York Times_ , October 30, 1877.\n\n. Reprinted in _Sacramento Daily Union_ , 10 July 1865.\n\n. Slotkin.\n\n. Burkhardt, 147.\n\n. Burkhardt, 148, 231.\n\n. See Trudeau; see also Groce.\n\n. Trudeau, 162.\n\n. Foreman, 706.\n\n. Foreman, 724.\n\n. Sheehy et al., 128, 131.\n\n. Byrne, 91.\n\n. Sheehy et al., 130; Byrne, 99\u2013100.\n\n. Roberts and Kytle.\n\n. Foreman, 753.\n\n. Coffin, 501\u201302.\n\n. This account comes from Coffin, 499ff.\n\n. www.in.ng.mil\/AboutUs\/History\/HoosierCivilWarStoriesMajGarlandWhite\/tabid\/1514\/Default.aspx.\n\n. Keckley, 164\u201366.\n\n. See Stewart, 8\u201312.\n\n. Treasure, 97.\n\n. _PJD_ , 11:581n.\n\n. See Sutherland.\n\n. For an extended treatment of Sims's bizarre career, see Barker-Benfield, 85\u2013111; see also Goodson, 229\u2013231; \"Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.\"\n\n. Marcus 1955 2:301.\n\n32. Rosen, 371.\n\n. Chapman, 29, 23\u201324, 33\u201334.\n\n. Warden, 9\u201310.\n\n. Toombs et al, 684.\n\n. Casimir, 110\u201320; Casimir and Dubois.\n\n. Davis, Jefferson, 78\u20139.\n\n. Craddock, 26.\n\n. Craddock, 27.\n\n. Craddock, 41.\n\n. Craddock, 1.\n\n. Yellin, 63\u201364, 143\u201344, 162, 176\u201380, 245\u201347.\n\n. Fleischner, 323.\n\n. Quoted in Fellman, 452n.\n\n. Simkins, 607.\n\n. Hurst, 360.\n\n. Hurst, 370\u20131.\n\n. Armstrong, 875.\n\n. \"Revised Report, Plan for Government of the Western Territory.\" _PTJ_ , 6:607\u201309.\n\n**Coda**\n\n. www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j8d-IYSM-08.\n\n2. Elk and Sloan.\n\n. Coates.\n\n. \"Hate and Extremism.\"\n\n. Fletcher.\n\n. The term \"neoslavery\" was suggested by Douglas Blackmon, in _Slavery By Another Name_.\n\n# **References**\n\nPre-twentieth-century newspaper and magazine articles are cited in the relevant footnotes. Long titles of pre-twentieth-century books have been truncated. All internet links were current as of August 2015.\n\n**ABBREVIATIONS**\n\n_AC_ | _Annals of Congress_ , Washington.  \n---|---  \n_AFL_ | _Adams Family Correspondence_ , Belknap Press.  \n_AJL_ | _The Adams-Jefferson letters_ , UNC Press, Chapel Hill.  \n_AP_ | _Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons_ , London.  \n_CAJ_ | _Correspondence of Andrew Jackson_ , Carnegie Institution of Washington.  \n_CBC_ | _Correspondence with the British Commissioners_ , Harrison and Sons, London.  \n_CJKP_ | _Correspondence of James K. Polk_ , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.  \n_CN_ | _Correspondance de Napol\u00e9on Ier._ Plon and Dumaine, Paris.  \n_CRG_ | _Colonial Records of Georgia_ , Chas. P. Byrd, Atlanta.  \n_CSS_ | _Congressional Serial Set_ (1911), US Govt. Printing Office, Washington DC.  \n_DHRC_ | _Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution_ , State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.  \n_DIST_ | Donnan, Elizabeth. _Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America_ , v. 1\u20134. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington DC.  \n_DPB_ | _David Burford Papers_ , University of Tennessee.  \n_FBC_ | Frederic Bancroft papers, Columbia University Library, New York.  \n_FWP_ | Federal Writers Project Slave Narratives, Library of Congress _American Memory._ http:\/\/memory.loc.gov\/ammem\/snhtml.  \n_HJFP_ | _Harriet Jacobs Family Papers_ , ed. Jean Yellin, University of North Carolina Press.  \n_JDC_ | _Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, His Letters, Papers, and Speeches._ Mississippi Department of Archives and History.  \n_LDC_ | _Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774\u20131789._ ed. Paul H. Smith, Library of Congress  \n_LOC_ | _Library of Congress._  \n_LWLG_ | _Letters of William Lloyd Garrison_ , Belknap Press.  \n_MCMTJ_ | _Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson_ (1830). Gray and Brown, Boston.  \n_MJQA_ | _Memoirs of John Quincy Adams_ , ed. Charles Francis Adams. J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia.  \n_NPTP_ | Nicholas Philip Trist papers, University of North Carolina Libraries.  \n_PAH_ | _The Papers of Alexander Hamilton_ , Columbia University Press, New York.  \n_PAJ_ | _The Papers of Andrew Jackson_ , University of Tennessee Press.  \n_PBF_ | _The Papers of Benjamin Franklin._ Yale University Press, New Haven.  \n_PGW_ | _The Papers of George Washington_ , University Press of Virginia.  \n_PHL_ | _The Papers of Henry Laurens_ , University of South Carolina Press.  \n_PJA_ | _The Papers of John Adams_ , Belknap Press.  \n_PJD_ | _The Papers of Jefferson Davis_ , Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.  \n_PJMad_ | _The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series_ , University Press of Virginia.  \n_PJMon_ | _The Papers of James Monroe_ , Greenwood Press.  \n_PTJ_ | _The Papers of Thomas Jefferson_ , Princeton University Press, Princeton.  \n_PTJRS_ | _The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: retirement series_ , Princeton University Press, Princeton.  \n_PUSG_ | _The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant_ , Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.  \n_RCBP_ | Rice C. Ballard papers, University of North Carolina libraries.  \n_SAL_ | _United States Statutes at Large._  \n_SIF_ | _Succession of Isaac Franklin._ Louisiana Supreme Court, ca. 1851.  \n_TAS_ | _The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography_ , ed. George P. Rawick. Greenwood Publishing Company, Westport CT.  \n_TRP_ | Thomas Ringgold papers, New York Public Library.  \n_TWOTR_ | _The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies._ Government Printing Office, Washington.  \n_WJA_ | _Works of John Adams_ , Little, Brown, Boston.  \n_WJM_ | _The Writings of James Madison_ , Putnam's, New York, 1910.  \n_WSH_ | _The Writings of Sam Houston_ , University of Texas Press, Austin.  \n_WTJ_ | _The Works of Thomas Jefferson_ , Knickerbocker Press, New York.\n\nItems marked with an asterisk (*) can be accessed via the _North American Slave Narratives_ collection of the University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: http:\/\/docsouth.unc.edu\/neh\n\nAbbott, Lyman. (1915). _Reminiscences._ Houghton Mifflin, New York.\n\nAdams, Catherine and Elizabeth H. Pleck. (2009). _Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England._ Oxford University Press, Oxford.\n\nAdams, Henry. (1889\/1986). _History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson._ Library of America, New York.\n\n__________. (1889\/1986a). _History of the United States of America during the Administrations of James Madison._ Library of America, New York.\n\n__________. (1883). _John Randolph._ Houghton, Mifflin, Boston.\n\n__________. (2012). _Henry Adams in the Secession Crisis._ Ed. Mark J. Stegmaier. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.\n\nAdams, Henry Carter. (1887). _Public Debts: An Essay in the Science of Finance._ D. Appleton, New York.\n\nAdams, John Quincy. (1841). _Argument of John Quincy Adams, Before the Supreme Court of the United States : in the Case of the United States, Appellants, vs. Cinque, and Others, Africans, Captured in the schooner Amistad, by Lieut. Gedney_. S.W. Benedict, New York. http:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/19th_century\/amistad_002.asp\n\nAdams, William Howard. (1997). _The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson_. Yale University Press, New Haven.\n\n_The Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress, to Their Constituents._ (1849). Tower, Washington.\n\nAkam, Simon. (2013). \"George W. Bush's great-great-great-great-grandfather was a slave trader.\" _Slate_ , June 20. www.slate.com\/articles\/life\/history_lesson\/2013\/06\/george_w_bush_and_slavery_the_president_and_his_father_are_descendants_of.single.html.\n\nAlbert, Octavia V. Rogers. (1988). _The House of Bondage: or, Charlotte Brooks and other slaves_. Oxford University Press, New York.\n\nAlbion, Robert Greenhalgh. (1938). _Square-riggers on Schedule: The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports_. Princeton University Press, Princeton.\n\nAlexander, Adele Logan. (2010). _Parallel Worlds: The Remarkable Gibbs-Hunts and the Enduring (In)significance of Melanin._ University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville.\n\nAlexander, Michelle. (2010). _The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness._ The New Press, New York.\n\nAlexander, William T. (1887). _History of the Colored Race in America._ Palmetto Publishing Company, Kansas City.\n\nAllan, Christopher N. (1998). \"Foreword to 'Supplement to early settlers.'\" http:\/\/msa.maryland.gov\/msa\/speccol\/sc4300\/sc4341\/html\/foreword.html.\n\nAltman, Ida. (1991). \"Spanish society in Mexico after the conquest.\" _The Hispanic American Historical Review_ , 71:3.\n\nAmmon, Harry. (1973). _The Genet Mission._ W. W. Norton, New York.\n\nAnbinder, Tyler. (1997). \"Ulysses S. Grant, nativist.\" _Civil War History_ , 43:2.\n\nAnburey, Thomas. (1776\u20131783 \/ 1923). _Travels through the Interior Parts of America_. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.\n\nAnderson, Adam. (1787). _An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origins of Commerce_... Logographic Press, London.\n\nAnderson, Ralph V., and Robert E. Gallman. (1977). \"Slaves as fixed capital: Slave labor and southern economic development.\" _Journal of American History_ , 64:1.\n\nAnderson, Richard G. (2003). \"Some tables of historical U.S. currency and monetary aggregates data.\" The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. http:\/\/research.stlouisfed.org\/wp\/2003\/2003-006.pdf.\n\nAnderson, Thornton. (1993). _Creating the Constitution: The Convention of 1787 and the First Congress_. Penn State Press, University Park, PA.\n\nAndrews, E. A. (1836). _Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States._ Boston, Light and Stearns.\n\nAndrews, Kenneth R., ed. _English Privateering Voyages to the West Indies, 1588\u20131595._ University Press, Cambridge.\n\nAptheker, Herbert. (1943). _American Negro Slave Revolts._ Columbia University Press, New York.\n\nArmitage, David. (2004). \"John Locke, Carolina, and the 'Two Treatises of Government.'\" _Political Theory_ , 32:5.\n\nArmstrong, Andrea C. (2012). \"Slavery revisited in penal plantation labor.\" Seattle University Law Review, 35:3.\n\nArtemel, Janice G., Elizabeth A. Crowell, and Jeff Parker. (1987). _The Alexandria Slave Pen: The Archeology of Urban Capitivity._ Engineering-Science Inc., Washington. http:\/\/alexandriava.gov\/uploadedFiles\/historic\/info\/archaeology\/ARSiteReportAlexandriaSlavePenAX75.pdf.\n\nAshdown, Paul, and Edward Caudill. (2005). _The Myth of Nathan Bedford Forrest._ Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.\n\nAshworth, John. (1995). _Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic; Vol. 1: Commerce and Compromise, 1820\u20131850._ Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.\n\nBailyn, Bernard. (1968). _The Origins of American Politics._ Alfred A. Knopf, New York.\n\n__________. (1986). _Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution._ Vintage Books, New York.\n\nBaine, Rodney M. (1988). \"James Oglethorpe and the early promotional literature for Georgia.\" _William and Mary Quarterly_ , Third Series, 45:1.\n\nBaker, Jean H. (2004). _James Buchanan._ Henry Holt and Company, New York.\n\nBaldwin, Joseph G. (1854). _The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi: A Series of Sketches_. D. Appleton, New York.\n\n*Ball, Charles. (1859). _Fifty Years in Chains: Or, the Life of an American Slave._ H. Dayton, New York.\n\nBancroft, Frederic. (1900). _The Life of William Henry Seward._ Harper and Brothers, New York.\n\n__________. (1931\/1996). _Slave Trading in the Old South._ University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.\n\n\"Banking on bondage: private prisons and mass incarceration.\" (2011). American Civil Liberties Union. www.aclu.org\/files\/assets\/bankingonbondage_20111102.pdf.\n\nBaptist, Edward E. (2014). _The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism._ Basic Books, New York.\n\n__________. (2004). \"'Cuffy,' 'fancy maids,' and 'one-eyed men': Rape, commodification, and the domestic slave trade in the United States.\" In Walter Johnson, ed., _The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas_ , Yale University Press, New Haven.\n\n*Baquaqua, Mohammed Gardo. (1854). _Biography of Mahomma G. Baquaqua_. Geo. E. Pomeroy and Co., Detroit.\n\nBarker, Gordon S. (2004). \"Unraveling the strange history of Jefferson's 'Observations sur la Virginie.'\" _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_ , 112:2.\n\nBarker-Benfield, G. J. (2000). _The Horrors of the Half-Known Life: Male Attitudes Toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America._ Second edition. Routledge, New York.\n\nBarnett, Jim, and H. Clark Burkett. (2003). \"The Forks of the Road slave market at Natchez.\" _Mississippi History Now_. http:\/\/mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us\/articles\/47\/the-forks-of-the-road-slave-market-at-natchez.\n\nBartels, Emily C. (2006). \"Too many blackamoors: Deportation, discrimination, and Elizabeth I.\" _Studies in English literature 1500\u20131900_ , 46:2.\n\nBassett, John Spencer. (1926). _Correspondence of Andrew Jackson_. Vol. 1. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.\n\nBauer, K. Jack. (1993). _Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest_. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.\n\nBauer, Raymond A., and Alice H. Bauer (1942). \"Day to day resistance to slavery,\" _The Journal of Negro History_ , October.\n\nBaur, John E. (1970). \"International repercussions of the Haitian Revolution.\" _The Americas_ , 26:4.\n\nBeard, Charles Austin. (1915). _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy._ Macmillan, New York.\n\nBeck, Carolyn S. (1988). \"Our own vine and fig tree: The authority of history and kinship in Mother Bethel.\" _Review of Religious Research_ , 29:4.\n\nBeeman, Richard. (2009). _Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution._ Random House, New York.\n\nBehlolavek, John M. (2013). \"In Defense of Doughface Diplomacy.\" In Quist, John W., and Michael J. Birkner, _James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War._ University Press of Florida, Gainesville.\n\nBehrendt, Stephen D. (2007). \"Human capital in the British slave trade.\" In Richardson, David, Suzanne Schwarz, and Anthony Tibbles, ed., _Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery._ Liverpool University Press, Liverpool.\n\n__________. (1997). \"Crew mortality in the transatlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century.\" _Slavery and Abolition_ , 18:1.\n\nBeirne, Rosamond Randall. _William Buckland 1734\u20131774: Architect of Virginia and Maryland._\n\nBell, Jessica. \"The three Marys: The Virgin; Marie de M\u00e9decis; and Henrietta Maria.\" In Griffey, Erin. (2008). _Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics and Patronage._ Ashgate, Aldershot UK.\n\nBell, Malcolm Jr. (1987.) _Major Butler's Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family._ University of Georgia Press, Athens.\n\nBennett, Charles E. (2001). _Laudonni\u00e8re & Fort Caroline: History and Documents._ University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.\n\n__________. (1982). _Florida's 'French' revolution, 1793\u20131795._ University Press of Florida, Gainesville.\n\nBerinato, Scott. (2013). \"Plantations practiced modern management.\" _Harvard Business Review_ , 91:9.\n\nBerkeley, Edmund, and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. (1969). _Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town._ University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.\n\nBerlin, Ira. (1998). _Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America._ Harvard University Press, Cambridge.\n\nBiggar, H. P. (1917). \"Jean Ribaut's Discoverye of Terra Florida.\" _English Historical Review_ , 32:126.\n\nBlackmon, Douglas. (2008). _Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II._ Doubleday, New York.\n\nBlackstone, Sir William, _et al._ (1765). _Commentaries on the Laws of England._ Clarendon Press, Oxford.\n\nBlake, John B. (1952). \"The inoculation controversy in Boston: 1721\u20131722.\" _The New England Quarterly_ 25:4.\n\nBleser, Carol. (1988). _Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder._ Oxford University Press, New York.\n\nBlumrosen, Alfred W., and Ruth G. Blumrosen. (2006). _Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution._ Sourcebooks, Naperville, IL.\n\nBodenhorn, Howard. (2000). _A History of Banking in Antebellum America : Financial Markets and Economic Development in an Era of Nation-Building._ Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.\n\nBogus, Carl T. (1998). \"The Hidden History of the Second Amendment.\" _UC Davis Law Review_ , 31.\n\nBordewich, Fergus M. (2012). _America's Great Debate : Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union._ Simon & Schuster, New York.\n\nBosman, Willem (1705). _A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, Divided Into the Gold, the Slave, and the Ivory Coasts._ J. Knapton, London.\n\nBoswell, Samuel. (1904). _Life of Samuel Johnson._ Henry Frowde, London.\n\nBourne, Edward G. (1885). _The History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837._ G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.\n\nBourne, Michael Owen. (1998). _Historic Houses of Kent County: An Architectural History: 1642\u20131860._ Historical Society of Kent County, Chestertown MD.\n\n_The Bowery Historic District._ (2011). National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. www.nps.gov\/history\/nr\/feature\/places\/pdfs\/13000027.pdf.\n\nBrady, Patrick S. (1972). \"The slave trade and sectionalism in South Carolina, 1787\u20131808.\" _The Journal of Southern History_ , 38:4.\n\nBreen, T. H. (1977). \"Horses and gentlemen: The cultural significance of gambling among the gentry of Virginia.\" _The William and Mary Quarterly_ , Third Series, 34:2.\n\nBremer, Fredrika. (1853). _The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America._ Trans. Mary Howitt. Harper & Brothers, New York.\n\nBreyer, Stephen. (2010). _Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View._ Alfred A. Knopf, New York.\n\nBrissot de Warville, J.P. (1794). _New Travels in the United States of America, Performed in M.DCC.LXXXVIII._ 2d edition, corrected. J.S. Jordan, London.\n\nBrooke, Richard. (1853). _Liverpool As It Was During the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century, 1775 to 1800_. J. Mawdsley and son, Liverpool.\n\nBrown, Kathleen M. (1996). _Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia._ University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.\n\nBrown, Vaughan W. (1965). _Shipping in the Port of Annapolis._ United States Naval Institute, Annapolis.\n\nBrown, William Wells. (1847). _Lecture Delivered Before the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Salem._ Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Boston.\n\n*__________. (1849). _Narrative of William W. Brown, an American Slave._ Charles Gilpin, London.\n\n*__________. (1853). _Clotel._ Partridge & Oakey, London.\n\n*__________. (1863). _The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements._ James Redpath, Boston.\n\nBrowne, Gary Lawson. (1980). _Baltimore in the Nation, 1789\u20131861._ University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.\n\n*Browne, Martha Griffith. (1857). _Autobiography of a Female Slave._ Redfield, New York. http:\/\/docsouth.unc.edu\/neh\/browne\/browne.html.\n\nBruce, Philip Alexander. (1895). _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry into the Material Condition of the People, Based upon Original and Contemporaneous Records._ Macmillan, New York.\n\n__________. (1920). _History of the University of Virginia 1819\u20131919: The Lengthened Shadow of One Man._ Macmillan, New York.\n\nBruchey, Stuart Weems. (1956). _Robert Oliver, Merchant of Baltimore:1783\u20131819._ Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.\n\nBrugger, Robert J. (1988). _Maryland: A Middle Temperament: 1634\u20131980._ Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.\n\nBuchanan, James. (1857). Inaugural address. www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/ws\/?pid=25817.\n\nBuckingham, James Silk. (1842). _The Slave States of America._ Fisher, Son & Co, London.\n\nBuckley, Roger Norman. (1979). _Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795\u20131815._ Yale University Press, New Haven.\n\nBunker, Nick. (2010). _Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World._ Alfred A. Knopf, New York.\n\n__________. (2014). _An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America._ Alfred A. Knopf, New York.\n\nBurke, Edmund. (1775\/1898). _Speech on Conciliation with America._ Scott Foresman and Company, Chicago.\n\nBurkhardt, George S. (2007). _Confederate Rage, Yankee Wrath: No Quarter in the Civil War._ Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.\n\nButler, Pierce. (1850). _Mr. Butler's Statement._ J.C. Clark, Philadelphia.\n\nBynum, Victoria. (2003). _The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War._ University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.\n\nByrne, William A. 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(1999). \"New findings about the Virginia slave trade _._ \" _Colonial Williamsburg Interpreter_ , 20:2.\n\nWard, Roger K. (1997). \"The French language in Louisiana law and legal education: A requiem.\" _Louisiana Law Review_ , 57:4.\n\nWarden, Margaret Lindsley. (1977). _The Saga of Fairvue, 1832\u20131977._ Margaret Lindsley Warden, Nashville.\n\nWarshauer, Matthew. (2006). _Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law: Nationalism, Civil Liberties, and Partisanship._ University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.\n\n*Watson, Henry. (1848). _Narrative of Henry Watson, a Fugitive Slave._ Bela Marsh, Boston.\n\nWatson, Robert P. (2012). _Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Love, Sex, and Scandal, 1789_ \u2013 _1900._ Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MA.\n\nWax, Darold D. (1965). \"Negro imports into Pennsylvania, 1720\u20131766.\" _Pennsylvania History_ , 32:3.\n\n__________. 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(1969). _The Creation of the American Republic, 1776\u20131787_. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.\n\n__________. (1992). _The Radicalism of the American Revolution_. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.\n\nWood, Peter H. (1975). _Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion_. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.\n\nWoodmason, Charles. (1766\u20138\/1953). _The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant._ University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.\n\nWright, Gavin. (1991). \"What was slavery?\" _Social Concept_ 6:1.\n\n__________. (2006). _Slavery and American Economic Development._ Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.\n\nWright, Irene A. (2010). _Spanish Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Caribbean, 1527\u20131568_. Ashgate, Farnham, UK.\n\nWroth, Peregrine. (1908). \"New Yarmouth.\" _Maryland Historical Magazine_ , 3:3.\n\nWyatt, David R. (2009). _Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland: 800\u20131200._ Brill, Boston.\n\nYagyu, Tomoko. (2006). _Slave Traders and Planters in the Expanding South: Entrepreneurial Strategies, Business Networks, and Western Migration in the Atlantic World, 1787_ \u2013 _1859._ PhD diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.\n\nYarema, Allan. (2006). _The American Colonization Society: An Avenue to Freedom?_ University Press of America, Lanham, MD.\n\nYellin, Jean Fagan. (2004). _Harriet Jacobs: A Life._ Basic Books, New York.\n\nZaborney, John J. (2012). _Slaves for Hire: Renting Enslaved Laborers in Antebellum Virginia._ Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.\n\nZobel, Hiller B. (1970). _The Boston Massacre._ Norton, New York.\n\nNED SUBLETTE is the author of _The World That Made New Orleans_ , _Cuba and Its Music_ , and _The Year Before the Flood_.\n\nCONSTANCE SUBLETTE has published, as Constance Ash, three novels and edited the anthology _Not of Woman Born_.\n\nJacket design and cover image: Natalya Balnova\n\nAuthor photo: \u00a9 Ebet Roberts\n\nPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Sankar Viswanathan, David Edwards, and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http:\/\/www.pgdp.net\n(This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive\/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                             THE O'RUDDY\n\n                             _A ROMANCE_\n\n\n                                  BY\n\n                            STEPHEN CRANE\n\n            _Author of \"The Red Badge of Courage,\" \"Active\n                Service,\" \"Wounds in the Rain,\" etc._\n\n                                 AND\n\n                             ROBERT BARR\n\n            _Author of \"Tekla,\" \"In the Midst of Alarms,\"\n               \"Over the Border,\" \"The Victors,\" etc._\n\n\n\n                        _With frontispiece by_\n\n                            C. D. WILLIAMS\n\n\n\n\n\n                               NEW YORK\n\n                     FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY\n\n                              PUBLISHERS\n\n\n\n\n\n                          _Copyright, 1903,_\n\n                    BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE O'RUDDY\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nMy chieftain ancestors had lived at Glandore for many centuries and\nwere very well known. Hardly a ship could pass the Old Head of Kinsale\nwithout some boats putting off to exchange the time of day with her,\nand our family name was on men's tongues in half the seaports of\nEurope, I dare say. My ancestors lived in castles which were like\nchurches stuck on end, and they drank the best of everything amid the\njoyous cries of a devoted peasantry. But the good time passed away\nsoon enough, and when I had reached the age of eighteen we had nobody\non the land but a few fisher-folk and small farmers, people who were\nalmost law-abiding, and my father came to die more from disappointment\nthan from any other cause. Before the end he sent for me to come to\nhis bedside.\n\n\"Tom,\" he said, \"I brought you into existence, and God help you safe\nout of it; for you are not the kind of man ever to turn your hand to\nwork, and there is only enough money to last a gentleman five more\nyears.\n\n\"The 'Martha Bixby,' she was, out of Bristol for the West Indies, and\nif it hadn't been for her we would never have got along this far with\nplenty to eat and drink. However, I leave you, besides the money, the\ntwo swords,--the grand one that King Louis, God bless him, gave me,\nand the plain one that will really be of use to you if you get into a\ndisturbance. Then here is the most important matter of all. Here are\nsome papers which young Lord Strepp gave me to hold for him when we\nwere comrades in France. I don't know what they are, having had very\nlittle time for reading during my life, but do you return them to him.\nHe is now the great Earl of Westport, and he lives in London in a\ngrand house, I hear. In the last campaign in France I had to lend him\na pair of breeches or he would have gone bare. These papers are\nimportant to him, and he may reward you, but do not you depend on it,\nfor you may get the back of his hand. I have not seen him for years. I\nam glad I had you taught to read. They read considerably in England, I\nhear. There is one more cask of the best brandy remaining, and I\nrecommend you to leave for England as soon as it is finished. And now,\none more thing, my lad, never be civil to a king's officer. Wherever\nyou see a red coat, depend there is a rogue between the front and the\nback of it. I have said everything. Push the bottle near me.\"\n\nThree weeks after my father's burial I resolved to set out, with no\nmore words, to deliver the papers to the Earl of Westport. I was\nresolved to be prompt in obeying my father's command, for I was\nextremely anxious to see the world, and my feet would hardly wait for\nme. I put my estate into the hands of old Mickey Clancy, and told him\nnot to trouble the tenants too much over the rent, or they probably\nwould split his skull for him. And I bid Father Donovan look out for\nold Mickey Clancy, that he stole from me only what was reasonable.\n\nI went to the Cove of Cork and took ship there for Bristol, and\narrived safely after a passage amid great storms which blew us so near\nGlandore that I feared the enterprise of my own peasantry. Bristol, I\nconfess, frightened me greatly. I had not imagined such a huge and\nteeming place. All the ships in the world seemed to lie there, and the\nquays were thick with sailor-men. The streets rang with noise. I\nsuddenly found that I was a young gentleman from the country.\n\nI followed my luggage to the best inn, and it was very splendid, fit\nto be a bishop's palace. It was filled with handsomely dressed people\nwho all seemed to be yelling, \"Landlord! landlord!\" And there was a\nlittle fat man in a white apron who flew about as if he were being\nstung by bees, and he was crying, \"Coming, sir! Yes, madam! At once,\nyour ludship!\" They heeded me no more than if I had been an empty\nglass. I stood on one leg, waiting until the little fat man should\neither wear himself out or attend all the people. But it was to no\npurpose. He did not wear out, nor did his business finish, so finally\nI was obliged to plant myself in his way, but my speech was decent\nenough as I asked him for a chamber. Would you believe it, he stopped\nabruptly and stared at me with sudden suspicion. My speech had been so\ncivil that he had thought perhaps I was a rogue. I only give you this\nincident to show that if later I came to bellow like a bull with the\nbest of them, it was only through the necessity of proving to\nstrangers that I was a gentleman. I soon learned to enter an inn as a\ndrunken soldier goes through the breach into a surrendering city.\n\nHaving made myself as presentable as possible, I came down from my\nchamber to seek some supper. The supper-room was ablaze with light and\nwell filled with persons of quality, to judge from the noise that they\nwere making. My seat was next to a garrulous man in plum-colour, who\nseemed to know the affairs of the entire world. As I dropped into my\nchair he was saying--\n\n\"--the heir to the title, of course. Young Lord Strepp. That is\nhe--the slim youth with light hair. Oh, of course, all in shipping.\nThe Earl must own twenty sail that trade from Bristol. He is posting\ndown from London, by the way, to-night.\"\n\nYou can well imagine how these words excited me. I half arose from my\nchair with the idea of going at once to the young man who had been\nindicated as Lord Strepp, and informing him of my errand, but I had a\nsudden feeling of timidity, a feeling that it was necessary to be\nproper with these people of high degree. I kept my seat, resolving to\naccost him directly after supper. I studied him with interest. He was\na young man of about twenty years, with fair unpowdered hair and a\nface ruddy from a life in the open air. He looked generous and kindly,\nbut just at the moment he was damning a waiter in language that would\nhave set fire to a stone bridge. Opposite him was a clear-eyed\nsoldierly man of about forty, whom I had heard called \"Colonel,\" and\nat the Colonel's right was a proud, dark-skinned man who kept looking\nin all directions to make sure that people regarded him, seated thus\nwith a lord.\n\nThey had drunk eight bottles of port, and in those days eight bottles\ncould just put three gentlemen in pleasant humour. As the ninth bottle\ncame on the table the Colonel cried--\n\n\"Come, Strepp, tell us that story of how your father lost his papers.\nGad, that's a good story.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said the young lord. \"It isn't a good story, and besides my\nfather never tells it at all. I misdoubt it's truth.\"\n\nThe Colonel pounded the table. \"'Tis true. 'Tis too good a story to be\nfalse. You know the story, Forister?\" said he, turning to the\ndark-skinned man. The latter shook his head.\n\n\"Well, when the Earl was a young man serving with the French he rather\nrecklessly carried with him some valuable papers relating to some\nestates in the North, and once the noble Earl--or Lord Strepp as he\nwas then--found it necessary, after fording a stream, to hang his\nbreeches on a bush to dry, and then a certain blackguard of a wild\nIrishman in the corps came along and stole--\"\n\nBut I had arisen and called loudly but with dignity up the long table,\n\"That, sir, is a lie.\" The room came still with a bang, if I may be\nallowed that expression. Every one gaped at me, and the Colonel's face\nslowly went the colour of a tiled roof.\n\n\"My father never stole his lordship's breeches, for the good reason\nthat at the time his lordship had no breeches. 'Twas the other way. My\nfather--\"\n\nHere the two long rows of faces lining the room crackled for a moment,\nand then every man burst into a thunderous laugh. But I had flung to\nthe winds my timidity of a new country, and I was not to be put down\nby these clowns.\n\n\"'Tis a lie against an honourable man and my father,\" I shouted. \"And\nif my father hadn't provided his lordship with breeches, he would have\ngone bare, and there's the truth. And,\" said I, staring at the\nColonel, \"I give the lie again. We are never obliged to give it twice\nin my country.\"\n\nThe Colonel had been grinning a little, no doubt thinking, along with\neverybody else in the room, that I was drunk or crazy; but this last\ntwist took the smile off his face clean enough, and he came to his\nfeet with a bound. I awaited him. But young Lord Strepp and Forister\ngrabbed him and began to argue. At the same time there came down upon\nme such a deluge of waiters and pot-boys, and, may be, hostlers, that\nI couldn't have done anything if I had been an elephant. They were\nfrightened out of their wits and painfully respectful, but all the\nsame and all the time they were bundling me toward the door. \"Sir!\nSir! Sir! I beg you, sir! Think of the 'ouse, sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!\" And\nI found myself out in the hall.\n\nHere I addressed them calmly. \"Loose me and takes yourselves off\nquickly, lest I grow angry and break some dozen of these wooden\nheads.\" They took me at my word and vanished like ghosts. Then the\nlandlord came bleating, but I merely told him that I wanted to go to\nmy chamber, and if anybody inquired for me I wished him conducted up\nat once.\n\nIn my chamber I had not long to wait. Presently there were steps in\nthe corridor and a knock at my door. At my bidding the door opened and\nLord Strepp entered. I arose and we bowed. He was embarrassed and\nrather dubious.\n\n\"Aw,\" he began, \"I come, sir, from Colonel Royale, who begs to be\ninformed who he has had the honour of offending, sir?\"\n\n\"'Tis not a question for your father's son, my lord,\" I answered\nbluntly at last.\n\n\"You are, then, the son of The O'Ruddy?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I. \"I am The O'Ruddy. My father died a month gone and\nmore.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said he. And I now saw why he was embarrassed. He had feared\nfrom the beginning that I was altogether too much in the right. \"Oh!\"\nsaid he again. I made up my mind that he was a good lad. \"That is\ndif--\" he began awkwardly. \"I mean, Mr. O'Ruddy--oh, damn it all, you\nknow what I mean, Mr. O'Ruddy!\"\n\nI bowed. \"Perfectly, my lord!\" I did not understand him, of course.\n\n\"I shall have the honour to inform Colonel Royale that Mr. O'Ruddy is\nentitled to every consideration,\" he said more collectedly. \"If Mr.\nO'Ruddy will have the goodness to await me here?\"\n\n\"Yes, my lord.\" He was going in order to tell the Colonel that I was a\ngentleman. And of course he returned quickly with the news. But he did\nnot look as if the message was one which he could deliver with a glib\ntongue. \"Sir,\" he began, and then halted. I could but courteously\nwait. \"Sir, Colonel Royale bids me say that he is shocked to find that\nhe has carelessly and publicly inflicted an insult upon an unknown\ngentleman through the memory of the gentleman's dead father. Colonel\nRoyale bids me to say, sir, that he is overwhelmed with regret, and\nthat far from taking an initial step himself it is his duty to express\nto you his feeling that his movements should coincide with any\narrangements you may choose to make.\"\n\nI was obliged to be silent for a considerable period in order to\ngather head and tail of this marvellous sentence. At last I caught it.\n\"At daybreak I shall walk abroad,\" I replied, \"and I have no doubt\nthat Colonel Royale will be good enough to accompany me. I know\nnothing of Bristol. Any cleared space will serve.\"\n\nMy Lord Strepp bowed until he almost knocked his forehead on the\nfloor. \"You are most amiable, Mr. O'Ruddy. You of course will give me\nthe name of some friend to whom I can refer minor matters?\"\n\nI found that I could lie in England as readily as ever I did in\nIreland. \"My friend will be on the ground with me, my lord; and as he\nalso is a very amiable man it will not take two minutes to make\neverything clear and fair.\" Me, with not a friend in the world but\nFather O'Donovan and Mickey Clancy at Glandore!\n\nLord Strepp bowed again, the same as before. \"Until the morning then,\nMr. O'Ruddy,\" he said, and left me.\n\nI sat me down on my bed to think. In truth I was much puzzled and\namazed. These gentlemen were actually reasonable and were behaving\nlike men of heart. Neither my books nor my father's stories--great\nlies, many of them, God rest him!--had taught me that the duelling\ngentry could think at all, and I was quite certain that they never\ntried. \"You were looking at me, sir?\" \"Was I, 'faith? Well, if I care\nto look at you I shall look at you.\" And then away they would go at\nit, prodding at each other's bellies until somebody's flesh swallowed\na foot of steel. \"Sir, I do not like the colour of your coat!\" Clash!\n\"Sir, red hair always offends me.\" Cling! \"Sir, your fondness for\nrabbit-pie is not polite.\" Clang!\n\nHowever, the minds of young Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale seemed to\nbe capable of a process which may be termed human reflection. It was\nplain that the Colonel did not like the situation at all, and perhaps\nconsidered himself the victim of a peculiarly exasperating combination\nof circumstances. That an Irishman should turn up in Bristol and give\nhim the lie over a French pair of breeches must have seemed\nastonishing to him, notably when he learned that the Irishman was\nquite correct, having in fact a clear title to speak authoritatively\nupon the matter of the breeches. And when Lord Strepp learned that I\nwas The O'Ruddy he saw clearly that the Colonel was in the wrong, and\nthat I had a perfect right to resent the insult to my father's memory.\nAnd so the Colonel probably said: \"Look you, Strepp. I have no desire\nto kill this young gentleman, because I insulted his father's name. It\nis out of all decency. And do you go to him this second time and see\nwhat may be done in the matter of avoidance. But, mark you, if he\nexpresses any wishes, you of course offer immediate accommodation. I\nwill not wrong him twice.\" And so up came my Lord Strepp and hemmed\nand hawed in that way which puzzled me. A pair of thoughtful,\nhonourable fellows, these, and I admired them greatly.\n\nThere was now no reason why I should keep my chamber, since if I now\nmet even the Colonel himself there would be no brawling; only bows. I\nwas not, indeed, fond of these latter,--replying to Lord Strepp had\nalmost broken my back; but, any how, more bows were better than more\nloud words and another downpour of waiters and pot-boys.\n\nBut I had reckoned without the dark-skinned man, Forister. When I\narrived in the lower corridor and was passing through it on my way to\ntake the air, I found a large group of excited people talking of the\nquarrel and the duel that was to be fought at daybreak. I thought it\nwas a great hubbub over a very small thing, but it seems that the\nmainspring of the excitement was the tongue of this black Forister.\n\"Why, the Irish run naked through their native forests,\" he was\ncrying. \"Their sole weapon is the great knotted club, with which,\nhowever, they do not hesitate, when in great numbers, to attack lions\nand tigers. But how can this barbarian face the sword of an officer of\nHis Majesty's army?\"\n\nSome in the group espied my approach, and there was a nudging of\nelbows. There was a general display of agitation, and I marvelled at\nthe way in which many made it to appear that they had not formed part\nof the group at all. Only Forister was cool and insolent. He stared\nfull at me and grinned, showing very white teeth. \"Swords are very\ndifferent from clubs, great knotted clubs,\" he said with admirable\ndeliberation.\n\n\"Even so,\" rejoined I gravely. \"Swords are for gentlemen, while clubs\nare to clout the heads of rogues--thus.\" I boxed his ear with my open\nhand, so that he fell against the wall. \"I will now picture also the\nuse of boots by kicking you into the inn yard which is adjacent.\" So\nsaying I hurled him to the great front door which stood open, and\nthen, taking a sort of hop and skip, I kicked for glory and the\nSaints.\n\nI do not know that I ever kicked a man with more success. He shot out\nas if he had been heaved by a catapult. There was a dreadful uproar\nbehind me, and I expected every moment to be stormed by the\nwaiter-and-pot-boy regiment. However I could hear some of the\ngentlemen bystanding cry:\n\n\"Well done! Well kicked! A record! A miracle!\"\n\nBut my first hours on English soil contained still other festivities.\nBright light streamed out from the great door, and I could plainly\nnote what I shall call the arc or arcs described by Forister. He\nstruck the railing once, but spun off it, and to my great astonishment\nwent headlong and slap-crash into some sort of an upper servant who\nhad been approaching the door with both arms loaded with cloaks,\ncushions, and rugs.\n\nI suppose the poor man thought that black doom had fallen upon him\nfrom the sky. He gave a great howl as he, Forister, the cloaks,\ncushions, and rugs spread out grandly in one sublime confusion.\n\nSome ladies screamed, and a bold commanding voice said: \"In the\ndevil's name what have we here?\" Behind the unhappy servant had been\ncoming two ladies and a very tall gentleman in a black cloak that\nreached to his heels. \"What have we here?\" again cried this tall man,\nwho looked like an old eagle. He stepped up to me haughtily. I knew\nthat I was face to face with the Earl of Westport.\n\nBut was I a man for ever in the wrong that I should always be giving\ndown and walking away with my tail between my legs? Not I; I stood\nbravely to the Earl:\n\n\"If your lordship pleases, 'tis The O'Ruddy kicking a blackguard into\nthe yard,\" I made answer coolly.\n\nI could see that he had been about to shout for the landlord and more\nwaiters and pot-boys, but at my naming myself he gave a quick stare.\n\n\"The O'Ruddy?\" he repeated. \"Rubbish!\"\n\nHe was startled, bewildered; but I could not tell if he were glad or\ngrieved.\n\n\"'Tis all the name I own,\" I said placidly. \"My father left it me\nclear, it being something that he could not mortgage. 'Twas on his\ndeath-bed he told me of lending you the breeches, and that is why I\nkicked the man into the yard; and if your lordship had arrived sooner\nI could have avoided this duel at daybreak, and, any how, I wonder at\nhis breeches fitting you. He was a small man.\"\n\nSuddenly the Earl raised his hand. \"Enough,\" he said sternly. \"You are\nyour father's son. Come to my chamber in the morning, O'Ruddy.\"\n\nThere had been little chance to see what was inside the cloaks of the\nladies, but at the words of the Earl there peeped from one hood a pair\nof bright liquid eyes--God save us all! In a flash I was no longer a\nfree man; I was a dazed slave; the Saints be good to us!\n\nThe contents of the other hood could not have been so interesting, for\nfrom it came the raucous voice of a bargeman with a cold:\n\n\"Why did he kick him? Whom did he kick? Had he cheated at play? Where\nhas he gone?\"\n\nThe upper servant appeared, much battered and holding his encrimsoned\nnose.\n\n\"My lord--\" he began.\n\nBut the Earl roared at him,--\n\n\"Hold your tongue, rascal, and in future look where you are going and\ndon't get in a gentleman's way.\"\n\nThe landlord, in a perfect anguish, was hovering with his squadrons on\nthe flanks. They could not think of pouncing upon me if I was noticed\nat all by the great Earl; but, somewhat as a precaution perhaps, they\nremained in form for attack. I had no wish that the pair of bright\neyes should see me buried under a heap of these wretches, so I bowed\nlow to the ladies and to the Earl and passed out of doors. As I left,\nthe Earl moved his hand to signify that he was now willing to endure\nthe attendance of the landlord and his people, and in a moment the inn\nrang with hurried cries and rushing feet.\n\nAs I passed near the taproom window the light fell full upon a\nrailing; just beneath and over this railing hung two men. At first I\nthought they were ill, but upon passing near I learned that they were\nsimply limp and helpless with laughter, the sound of which they\ncontrived to keep muffled. To my surprise I recognized the persons of\nyoung Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nThe night was growing, and as I was to fight at daybreak I needed a\ngood rest; but I could not forget that in my pride I had told Lord\nStrepp that I was provided with a friend to attend me at the duel. It\nwas on my mind. I must achieve a friend, or Colonel Royale might quite\nproperly refuse to fight me on the usual grounds that if he killed me\nthere would be present no adherent of my cause to declare that the\nfight was fair. And any how I had lied so thoroughly to Lord Strepp. I\nmust have a friend.\n\nBut how was I to carve a friend out of this black Bristol at such\nshort notice? My sense told me that friends could not be found in the\nroad like pebbles, but some curious feeling kept me abroad, scanning\nby the light of the lanterns or the torches each face that passed me.\nA low dull roar came from the direction of the quay, and this was the\nnoise of the sailor-men, being drunk. I knew that there would be none\nfound there to suit my purpose, but my spirit led me to wander so that\nI could not have told why I went this way or that way.\n\nOf a sudden I heard from a grassy bank beside me the sound of low and\nstrenuous sobbing. I stopped dead short to listen, moved by\ninstinctive recognition. Aye, I was right. It was Irish keening. Some\nson of Erin was spelling out his sorrow to the darkness with that\nprofound and garrulous eloquence which is in the character of my\npeople.\n\n\"Wirra, wirra! Sorrow the day I would be leaving Ireland against my\nown will and intention, and may the rocks go out to meet the lugger\nthat brought me here! It's beginning to rain, too! Sure it never rains\nlike this in Ireland! And me without a brass penny to buy a bed! If\nthe Saints save me from England, 'tis al--\"\n\n\"Come out of that, now!\" said I.\n\nThe monologue ceased; there was a quick silence. Then the voice, much\naltered, said: \"Who calls? 'Tis may be an Irish voice!\"\n\n\"It is,\" said I. \"I've swallowed as much peat smoke as any man of my\nyears. Come out of that now, and let me have a look at you.\"\n\nHe came trustfully enough, knowing me to be Irish, and I examined him\nas well as I was able in the darkness. He was what I expected, a\nbedraggled vagabond with tear-stains on his dirty cheeks and a vast\nshock of hair which I well knew would look, in daylight, like a\nburning haycock. And as I examined him he just as carefully examined\nme. I could see his shrewd blue eyes twinkling.\n\n\"You are a red man,\" said I. \"I know the strain; 'tis better than\nsome. Your family must have been very inhospitable people.\" And then,\nthinking that I had spent enough time, I was about to give the fellow\nsome coin and send him away. But here a mad project came into my empty\nhead. I had ever been the victim of my powerful impulses, which surge\nup within me and sway me until I can only gasp at my own conduct. The\nsight of this red-headed scoundrel had thrust an idea into my head,\nand I was a lost man.\n\n\"Mark you!\" said I to him. \"You know what I am?\"\n\n\"'Tis hard to see in the dark,\" he answered; \"but I mistrust you are a\ngentleman, sir. McDermott of the Three Trees had a voice and a way\nwith him like you, and Father Burk too, and he was a gentleman born if\nhe could only remain sober.\"\n\n\"Well, you've hit it, in the dark or whatever,\" said I. \"I am a\ngentleman. Indeed I am an O'Ruddy. Have you ever been hearing of my\nfamily?\"\n\n\"Not of your honour's branch of it, sure,\" he made answer confidently.\n\"But I have often been hearing of the O'Ruddys of Glandore, who are\nwell known to be such great robbers and blackguards that their match\nis not to be found in all the south of Ireland. Nor in the west,\nneither, for that matter.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said I, \"I have heard that that branch of the family was much\nadmired by the peasantry for their qualities. But let us have done\nwith it and speak of other matters. I want a service of you.\"\n\n\"Yes, your honour,\" said he, dropping his voice. \"May be 'twill not be\nthe first time I've been behind a ditch; but the light to-night is\nvery bad unless I am knowing him well, and I would never be forgetting\nhow Tim Malone let fly in the dark of a night like this, thinking it\nwas a bailiff, until she screamed out with the pain in her leg, the\npoor creature, and her beyond seventy and a good Catholic.\"\n\n\"Come out of it now!\" said I impatiently. \"You will be behind no\nditch.\" And as we walked back to the inn I explained to my new man the\npart I wished him to play. He was amazed at it, and I had to explain\nfifty times; but when it once was established in his red head Paddy\nwas wild with enthusiasm, and I had to forbid him telling me how well\nhe would do it.\n\nI had them give him some straw in the stable, and then retired to my\nchamber for needed rest. Before dawn I had them send Paddy to me, and\nby the light of a new fire I looked at him. Ye Saints! What hair! It\nmust have been more than a foot in length, and the flaming strands\nradiated in all directions from an isolated and central spire which\nshot out straight toward the sky. I knew what to do with his tatters,\nbut that crimson thatch dumfounded me. However there was no going back\nnow, so I set to work upon him. Luckily my wardrobe represented three\ngenerations of O'Ruddy clothes, and there was a great plenty. I put my\nimpostor in a suit of blue velvet with a flowered waistcoat and\nstockings of pink. I gave him a cocked hat and a fine cloak. I worked\nwith success up to the sword-belt, and there I was checked. I had two\nswords, but only one belt. However, I slung the sword which King Louis\nhad given my father on a long string from Paddy's neck and sternly bid\nhim keep his cloak tight about him. We were ready.\n\n\"Now, Paddy,\" said I, \"do you bow in this manner.\" I bowed as a\ngentleman should. But I will not say how I strove with him. I could do\nlittle in that brief space. If he remained motionless and kept his\ntongue still he was somewhat near his part, but the moment he moved he\nwas astonishing. I depended on keeping him under my eye, and I told\nhim to watch me like a cat. \"Don't go thinking how grand you are, that\nway,\" I cried to him angrily. \"If you make a blunder of it, the\ngentlemen will cudgel you, mark you that. Do you as I direct you. And\nthe string, curse you. Mind your cloak!\" The villain had bethought him\nof his flowered waistcoat, and with a comic air flung back his coat to\ndisplay it. \"Take your fingers out of your mouth. Stop scratching your\nshin with your foot. Leave your hair alone. 'Tis as good and as bad as\nyou can make it. Come along now, and hold your tongue like a graven\nimage if you would not be having me stop the duel to lather you.\"\n\nWe marched in good order out of the inn. We saw our two gentlemen\nawaiting us, wrapped in their cloaks, for the dawn was cold. They\nbowed politely, and as I returned their salute I said in a low, quick\naside to Paddy:\n\n\"Now, for the love of God, bow for your life!\"\n\nMy intense manner must have frightened the poor thing, for he ducked\nas swiftly as if he had been at a fair in Ireland and somebody had\nhove a cobble at his head.\n\n\"Come up!\" I whispered, choking with rage. \"Come up! You'll be\nbreaking your nose on the road.\"\n\nHe straightened himself, looking somewhat bewildered, and said:\n\n\"What was it? Was I too slow? Did I do it well?\"\n\n\"Oh, fine,\" said I. \"Fine. You do it as well as that once more, and\nyou will probably break your own neck, and 'tis not me will be buying\nmasses for your soul, you thief. Now don't drop as if a gamekeeper had\nshot at you. There is no hurry in life. Be quiet and easy.\"\n\n\"I mistrusted I was going too fast,\" said he; \"but for the life of me\nI couldn't pull up. If I had been the Dublin mail, and the road thick\nas fleas with highwaymen, I should have gone through them grand.\"\n\nMy Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale had not betrayed the slightest\nsurprise at the appearance of my extraordinary companion. Their\nsmooth, regular faces remained absolutely imperturbable. This I took\nto be very considerate of them, but I gave them just a little more\nthan their due, as I afterward perceived when I came to understand the\nEnglish character somewhat. The great reason was that Paddy and I were\nforeigners. It is not to be thought that gentlemen of their position\nwould have walked out for a duel with an Englishman in the party of so\nfantastic an appearance. They would have placed him at once as a\nperson impossible and altogether out of their class. They would have\ntold a lackey to kick this preposterous creation into the horse-pond.\nBut since Paddy was a foreigner he was possessed of some curious\nlicense, and his grotesque ways could be explained fully in the simple\nphrase, \"'Tis a foreigner.\"\n\nSo, then, we preceded my Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale through a\nnumber of narrow streets and out into some clear country. I chose a\nfine open bit of green turf as a goodly place for us to meet, and I\nwarped Paddy through the gate and moved to the middle of the field. I\ndrew my sword and saluted, and then turned away. I had told Paddy\neverything which a heaven-sent sense of instruction could suggest, and\nif he failed I could do no more than kill him.\n\nAfter I had kicked him sharply he went aside with Lord Strepp, and\nthey indulged in what sounded like a very animated discussion.\nFinally I was surprised to see Lord Strepp approaching me. He said:\n\n\"It is very irregular, but I seem unable to understand your friend. He\nhas proposed to me that the man whose head is broken first--I do not\nperfectly understand what he could mean by that; it does not enter our\nanticipations that a man could possibly have his head broken--he has\nproposed that the man whose head may be broken first should provide\n'lashings'--I feel sure that is the word--lashings of meat and drink\nat some good inn for the others. Lashings is a word which I do not\nknow. We do not know how to understand you gentlemen when you speak of\nlashings. I am instructed to meet any terms which you may suggest, but\nI find that I cannot make myself clear to your friend who speaks of\nnothing but lashings.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said I, as I threw coat and waistcoat on the grass, \"my friend\nrefers to a custom of his own country. You will, I feel sure, pardon\nhis misconception of the circumstances. Pray accept my regrets, and,\nif you please, I am ready.\"\n\nHe immediately signified that his mind was now clear, and that the\nincident of Paddy's lashings he regarded as closed. As for that\nflame-headed imp of crime, if I could have got my hands upon him he\nwould have taken a short road to his fathers. Him and his lashings! As\nI stood there with a black glare at him, the impudent scoundrel\nrepeatedly winked at me with the readable information that if I only\nwould be patient and bide a moment he would compass something very\nclever. As I faced Colonel Royale I was so wild with thinking of what\nI would do to Paddy, that, for all I knew, I might have been crossing\nswords with my mother.\n\nAnd now as to this duel. I will not conceal that I was a very fine\nfencer in both the French and Italian manners. My father was in his\nday one of the finest blades in Paris, and had fought with some of the\nmost skillful and impertinent gentlemen in all France. He had done his\nbest to give me his eye and his wrist, and sometimes he would say that\nI was qualified to meet all but the best in the world. He commonly\nmade fun of the gentlemen of England, saying that a dragoon was their\nideal of a man with a sword; and he would add that the rapier was a\nweapon which did not lend itself readily to the wood-chopper's art. He\nwas all for the French and Italian schools.\n\nI had always thought that my father's judgment was very good, but I\ncould not help reflecting that if it turned out to be bad I would have\na grievance as well as a sword-thrust in the body. Colonel Royale came\nat me in a somewhat leisurely manner, and, as I said, my mind was so\nfull of rage at Paddy that I met the first of my opponent's thrusts\nthrough sheer force of habit. But my head was clear a moment later,\nand I knew that I was fighting my first duel in England and for my\nfather's honour. It was no time to think of Paddy.\n\nAnother moment later I knew that I was the Colonel's master. I could\nreach him where I chose. But he did not know it. He went on prodding\naway with a serious countenance, evidently under the impression that\nhe had me hard put to it. He was as grave as an owl-faced parson. And\nnow here I did a sorry thing. I became the victim of another of my mad\nimpulses. I was seized with an ungovernable desire to laugh. It was\nhideous. But laugh I did, and, of necessity, square in the Colonel's\nface. And to this day I regret it.\n\nThen the real duel began. At my laugh the Colonel instantly lost his\ngrave air, and his countenance flushed with high, angry surprise. He\nbeset me in a perfect fury, caring no more for his guard than if he\nhad been made of iron. Never have I seen such quick and tremendous\nchange in a man. I had laughed at him under peculiar conditions: very\nwell, then; he was a demon. Thrice my point pricked him to keep him\noff, and thrice my heart was in my mouth that he would come on\nregardless. The blood oozed out on his white ruffled shirt; he was\npanting heavily, and his eyes rolled. He was a terrible sight to face.\nAt last I again touched him, and this time sharply and in the sword\narm, and upon the instant my Lord Strepp knocked our blades apart.\n\n\"Enough,\" he cried sternly. \"Back, Colonel! Back!\"\n\nThe Colonel flung himself sobbing into his friend's arms, choking out,\n\"O God, Strepp! I couldn't reach him. I couldn't reach him, Strepp!\nOh, my God!\"\n\nAt the same time I disappeared, so to speak, in the embrace of my\nred-headed villain, who let out an Irish howl of victory that should\nhave been heard at Glandore. \"Be quiet, rascal,\" I cried, flinging him\noff. But he went on with his howling until I was obliged forcibly to\nlead him to a corner of the field, where he exclaimed:\n\n\"Oh, your honour, when I seen the other gentleman, all blazing with\nrage, rush at you that way, and me with not so much as a tuppence for\nall my service to you excepting these fine clothes and the sword,\nalthough I am thinking I shall have little to do with swords if this\nis the way they do it, I said, 'Sorrow the day England saw me!'\"\n\nIf I had a fool for a second, Colonel Royale had a fine, wise young\nman. Lord Strepp was dealing firmly and coolly with his maddened\nprincipal.\n\n\"I can fight with my left hand,\" the Colonel was screaming. \"I tell\nyou, Strepp, I am resolved! Don't bar my way! I will kill him! I will\nkill him!\"\n\n\"You are not in condition to fight,\" said the undisturbed young man.\n\"You are wounded in four places already. You are in my hands. You will\nfight no more to-day.\"\n\n\"But, Strepp!\" wailed the Colonel. \"Oh, my God, Strepp!\"\n\n\"You fight no more to-day,\" said the young lord.\n\nThen happened unexpected interruptions. Paddy told me afterward that\nduring the duel a maid had looked over a wall and yelled, and dropped\na great brown bowl at sight of our occupation. She must have been the\ninstrument that aroused the entire county, for suddenly men came\nrunning from everywhere. And the little boys! There must have been\nlittle boys from all over England.\n\n\"What is it? What is it?\"\n\n\"Two gentlemen have been fighting!\"\n\n\"Oh, aye, look at him with the blood on him!\"\n\n\"Well, and there is young my Lord Strepp. He'd be deep in the matter,\nI warrant you!\"\n\n\"Look yon, Bill! Mark the gentleman with the red hair. He's not from\nthese parts, truly. Where, think you, he comes from?\"\n\n\"'Tis a great marvel to see such hair, and I doubt not he comes from\nAfrica.\"\n\nThey did not come very near, for in those days there was little the\npeople feared but a gentleman, and small wonder. However, when the\nlittle boys judged that the delay in a resumption of the fight was too\nprolonged, they did not hesitate to express certain unconventional\nopinions and commands.\n\n\"Hurry up, now!\"\n\n\"Go on!\"\n\n\"You're both afeared!\"\n\n\"Begin! Begin!\"\n\n\"Are the gentlemen in earnest?\"\n\n\"Sirs, do you mean ever to fight again? Begin, begin.\"\n\nBut their enthusiasm waxed high after they had thoroughly comprehended\nPaddy and his hair.\n\n\"You're alight, sir; you're alight!\"\n\n\"Water! Water!\"\n\n\"Farmer Pelton will have the officers at you an you go near his hay.\nWater!\"\n\nPaddy understood that they were paying tribute to his importance, and\nhe again went suddenly out of my control. He began to strut and caper\nand pose with the air of knowing that he was the finest gentleman in\nEngland.\n\n\"Paddy, you baboon,\" said I, \"be quiet and don't be making yourself a\nlaughing-stock for the whole of them.\"\n\nBut I could give small heed to him, for I was greatly occupied in\nwatching Lord Strepp and the Colonel. The Colonel was listening now\nto his friend for the simple reason that the loss of blood had made\nhim too weak to fight again. Of a sudden he slumped gently down\nthrough Lord Strepp's arms to the ground, and, as the young man knelt,\nhe cast his eyes about him until they rested upon me in what I took to\nbe mute appeal. I ran forward, and we quickly tore his fine ruffles to\npieces and succeeded in quite stanching his wounds, none of which were\nserious. \"'Tis only a little blood-letting,\" said my Lord Strepp with\nsomething of a smile. \"'Twill cool him, perchance.\"\n\n\"None of them are deep,\" I cried hastily. \"I--\"\n\nBut Lord Strepp stopped me with a swift gesture. \"Yes,\" he said, \"I\nknew. I could see. But--\" He looked at me with troubled eyes. \"It is\nan extraordinary situation. You have spared him, and--he will not wish\nto be spared, I feel sure. Most remarkable case.\"\n\n\"Well, I won't kill him,\" said I bluntly, having tired of this\nrubbish. \"Damme if I will!\"\n\nLord Strepp laughed outright. \"It is ridiculous,\" he said. \"Do you\nreturn, O'Ruddy, and leave me the care of this business. And,\" added\nhe, with embarrassed manner, \"this mixture is full strange; but--I\nfeel sure--any how, I salute you, sir.\" And in his bow he paid a\nsensible tribute to my conduct.\n\nAfterward there was nought to do but gather in Paddy and return to the\ninn. I found my countryman swaggering to and fro before the crowd.\nSome ignoramus, or some wit, had dubbed him the King of Ireland, and\nhe was playing to the part.\n\n\"Paddy, you red-headed scandal,\" said I, \"come along now!\"\n\nWhen he heard me, he came well enough; but I could not help but feel\nfrom his manner that he had made a great concession.\n\n\"And so they would be taking me for the King of Ireland, and, sure,\n'tis an advantage to be thought a king whatever, and if your honour\nwould be easy 'tis you and me that would sleep in the finest beds in\nBristol the night, and nothing to do but take the drink as it was\nhanded and--I'll say no more.\"\n\nA rabble followed us on our way to the inn, but I turned on them so\nfiercely from time to time that ultimately they ran off. We made\ndirect for my chamber, where I ordered food and drink immediately to\nbe served. Once alone there with Paddy I allowed my joy to take hold\non me. \"Eh, Paddy, my boy,\" said I, walking before him, \"I have done\ngrand. I am, indeed, one of the finest gentlemen in the world.\"\n\n\"Aye, that's true,\" he answered, \"but there was a man at your back\nthroughout who--\"\n\nTo his extreme astonishment I buffeted him heavily upon the cheek.\n\"And we'll have no more of that talk,\" said I.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\n\"Aye!\" said Paddy, holding his jowl; \"'tis what one gets for serving a\ngentleman. 'Tis the service of a good truthful blackguard I'd be\nlooking for, and that's true for me.\"\n\n\"Be quiet and mind what I tell you,\" I cried to him. \"I'm uplifted\nwith my success in England, and I won't be hearing anything from you\nwhile I am saying that I am one of the grandest gentlemen in all the\nworld. I came over here with papers--papers!\" said I; and then I\nbethought me that I would take the papers and wave them in my hand. I\ndon't know why people wish to wave important documents in their hands,\nbut the impulse came to me. Above all things I wished to take these\npapers and wave them defiantly, exultantly, in the air. They were my\ninheritance and my land of promise; they were everything. I must wave\nthem even to the chamber, empty save for Paddy.\n\nWhen I reached for them in the proper place in my luggage they were\ngone. I wheeled like a tiger upon Paddy.\n\n\"Villain,\" I roared, grasping him at the throat, \"you have them!\"\n\nHe sank in full surrender to his knees.\n\n\"I have, your honour,\" he wailed; \"but, sure, I never thought your\nhonour would care, since one of them is badly worn at the heel, and\nthe other is no better than no boot at all.\"\n\nI was cooled by the incontestable verity of this man. I sat heavily\ndown in a chair by the fire.\n\n\"Aye,\" said I stupidly, \"the boots! I did not mean the boots, although\nwhen you took them passes my sense of time. I mean some papers.\"\n\n\"Some papers!\" cried he excitedly. \"Your honour never thought it would\nbe me that would steal papers? Nothing less than good cows would do my\npeople, and a bit of turf now and then, but papers--\"\n\n\"Peace!\" said I sombrely, and began to search my luggage thoroughly\nfor my missing inheritance. But it was all to no purpose. The papers\nwere not there. I could not have lost them. They had been stolen. I\nsaw my always-flimsy inheritance melt away. I had been, I thought, on\nthe edge of success, but I now had nothing but my name, a successful\nduel, and a few pieces of gold. I was buried in defeat.\n\nOf a sudden a name shot through my mind. The name of this black\nForister was upon me violently and yet with perfect sureness. It was\nhe who had stolen the papers. I knew it. I felt it in every bone. He\nhad taken the papers.\n\nI have since been told that it is very common for people to be moved\nby these feelings of omen, which are invariably correct in their\nparticulars; but at the time I thought it odd that I should be so\ncertain that Forister had my papers. However, I had no time to waste\nin thinking. I grasped my pistols. \"A black man--black as the devil,\"\ncried I to Paddy. \"Help me catch a little black man.\"\n\n\"Sure!\" said Paddy, and we sallied forth.\n\nIn a moment I was below and crying to the landlord in as fine a fury\nas any noble:\n\n\"This villain Forister! And where be he?\"\n\nThe landlord looked at me with bulging eyes. \"Master Forister,\" he\nstammered. \"Aye--aye--he's been agone these many hours since your\nlordship kicked him. He took horse, he did, for Bath, he did.\"\n\n\"Horses!\" I roared. \"Horses for two gentlemen!\" And the stableyard,\nvery respectful since my duel, began to ring with cries. The landlord\npleaded something about his bill, and in my impatience I hurled to him\nall of my gold save one piece. The horses came soon enough, and I\nleaped into the saddle and was away to Bath after Forister. As I\ngalloped out of the inn yard I heard a tumult behind me, and, looking\nback, I saw three hostlers lifting hard at Paddy to raise him into the\nsaddle. He gave a despairing cry when he perceived me leaving him at\nsuch speed, but my heart was hardened to my work. I must catch\nForister.\n\nIt was a dark and angry morning. The rain swept across my face, and\nthe wind flourished my cloak. The road, glistening steel and brown,\nwas no better than an Irish bog for hard riding. Once I passed a\nchaise with a flogging post-boy and steaming nags. Once I overtook a\nfarmer jogging somewhere on a fat mare. Otherwise I saw no travellers.\n\nI was near my journey's end when I came to a portion of the road which\ndipped down a steep hill. At the foot of this hill was an oak-tree,\nand under this tree was a man masked and mounted, and in his hand was\na levelled pistol.\n\n\"Stand!\" he said. \"Stand!\"\n\nI knew his meaning, but when a man has lost a documentary fortune and\ngiven an innkeeper all but his last guinea, he is sure to be filled\nwith fury at the appearance of a third and completing misfortune. With\na loud shout I drew my pistol and rode like a demon at the highwayman.\nHe fired, but his bullet struck nothing but the flying tails of my\ncloak. As my horse crashed into him I struck at his pate with my\npistol. An instant later we both came a mighty downfall, and when I\ncould get my eyes free of stars I arose and drew my sword. The\nhighwayman sat before me on the ground, ruefully handling his skull.\nOur two horses were scampering away into the mist.\n\nI placed my point at the highwayman's throat.\n\n\"So, my fine fellow,\" cried I grandly, \"you rob well. You are the\nprincipal knight of the road of all England, I would dare say, by the\nway in which an empty pistol overcomes you.\"\n\nHe was still ruefully handling his skull.\n\n\"Aye,\" he muttered sadly, more to himself than to me, \"a true knight\nof the road with seven ballads written of me in Bristol and three in\nBath. Ill betide me for not minding my mother's word and staying at\nhome this day. 'Tis all the unhappy luck of Jem Bottles. I should have\nremained an honest sheep-stealer and never engaged in this dangerous\nand nefarious game of lifting purses.\"\n\nThe man's genuine sorrow touched me. \"Cheer up, Jem Bottles,\" said I.\n\"All may yet be well. 'Tis not one little bang on the crown that so\ndisturbs you?\"\n\n\"'Tis not one--no,\" he answered gloomily; \"'tis two. The traveller\nriding to the east before you dealt me a similar blow--may hell catch\nthe little black devil.\"\n\n\"Black!\" cried I. \"Forister, for my life!\"\n\n\"He took no moment to tell me his name,\" responded the sullen and\nwounded highwayman. \"He beat me out of the saddle and rode away as\nbrisk as a bird. I know not what my mother will say. She be for ever\ntelling me of the danger in this trade, and here come two gentlemen in\none day and unhorse me without the profit of a sixpence to my store.\nWhen I became a highwayman I thought me I had profited me from the low\nestate of a sheep-stealer, but now I see that happiness in this life\ndoes not altogether depend upon--\"\n\n\"Enough,\" I shouted in my impatience. \"Tell me of the black man! The\nblack man, worm!\" I pricked his throat with my sword very carefully.\n\n\"He was black, and he rode like a demon, and he handled his weapons\nfinely,\" said Jem Bottles. \"And since I have told you all I know,\nplease, good sir, move the point from my throat. This will be ill news\nfor my mother.\"\n\nI took thought with myself. I must on to Bath; but the two horses had\nlong since scampered out of sight, and my pursuit of the papers would\nmake small way afoot.\n\n\"Come, Jem Bottles,\" I cried, \"help me to a horse in a comrade's way\nand for the sake of your mother. In another case I will leave you here\na bloody corse. Come; there's a good fellow!\"\n\nHe seemed moved to help me. \"Now, if there comes a well-mounted\ntraveller,\" he said, brightening, \"I will gain his horse for you if I\ndie for it.\"\n\n\"And if there comes no well-mounted traveller?\"\n\n\"I know not, sir. But--perhaps he will come.\"\n\n\"'Tis a cheap rogue who has but one horse,\" I observed contemptuously.\n\"You are only a footpad, a simple-minded marquis of the bludgeon.\"\n\nNow, as I had hoped, this deeply cut his pride.\n\n\"Did I not speak of the ballads, sir?\" he demanded with considerable\nspirit. \"Horses? Aye, and have I not three good nags hid behind my\nmother's cottage, which is less than a mile from this spot?\"\n\n\"Monsieur Jem Bottles,\" said I, not forgetting the French manners\nwhich my father had taught me, \"unless you instantly show me the way\nto these horses I shall cut off your hands, your feet, and your head;\nand, ripping out your bowels, shall sprinkle them on the road for the\nfirst post-horses to mash and trample. Do you understand my intention,\nMonsieur Jem Bottles?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" he begged, \"think of my mother!\"\n\n\"I think of the horses,\" I answered grimly. \"'Tis for you to think of\nyour mother. How could I think of your mother when I wouldn't know her\nfrom the Head of Kinsale, if it didn't happen that I know the Head of\nKinsale too well to mistake it for anybody's mother?\"\n\n\"You speak like a man from foreign parts, sir,\" he rejoined in a meek\nvoice; \"but I am able to see that your meaning is serious.\"\n\n\"'Tis so serious,\" said I, rapping him gently on the head with the\nbutt of my pistol, \"that if you don't instantly display a greedy\nactivity you will display a perfect inability to move.\"\n\n\"The speeching is obscure,\" said he, \"but the rap on the head is\nclear to me. Still, it was not kind of you to hit me on the same spot\ntwice.\"\n\nHe now arose from his mournful seat on the ground, and, still rubbing\nhis pate, he asked me to follow him. We moved from the highway into a\nvery narrow lane, and for some time proceeded in silence.\n\n\"'Tis a regular dog's life,\" spoke Jem Bottles after a period of\nreflection.\n\nBy this time I had grown a strong sympathy for my scoundrel.\n\n\"Come, cheer yourself, Jem Bottles,\" said I. \"I have known a lesser\nruffian who was hanged until he was dry, whereas you march along the\nlane with nought to your discouragement but three cracks in your\ncrown.\"\n\n\"'Tis not the cracks in the crown,\" he answered moodily. \"'Tis what my\nmother will say.\"\n\n\"I had no thought that highwaymen had mothers,\" said I. I had resolved\nnow to take care of his pride, for I saw that he was bound to be\nconsidered a great highwayman, and I did not wish to disturb his\nfeelings until I gained possession of one of the horses. But now he\ngrew as indignant as he dared.\n\n\"Mother? Mother, sir? Do you think me an illegitimate child? I say to\nyou flat in your face, even if you kill me the next instant, that I\nhave a mother. Perchance I am not of the lofty gentry who go about\nbeating honest highwaymen to the earth, but I repulse with scorn any\nman's suggestion that I am illegitimate. In a quarter of an hour you\nshall see my mother for yourself.\"\n\n\"Peace, Jem Bottles,\" said I soothingly. \"I took no thought of such a\nthing. I would be thinking only of the ballads, and how honourable it\nis that a gallant and dashing life should be celebrated in song. I,\nfor certain, have never done anything to make a pothouse ring with my\nname, and I liken you to the knights of olden days who tilted in all\nsimple fair bravery without being able to wager a brass farthing as to\nwho was right and who was wrong. Admirable Jem Bottles,\" I cried\nenthusiastically, \"tell me, if you will, of your glories; tell me with\nyour own tongue, so that when I hear the ballads waxing furious with\npraise of you, I shall recall the time I marched with your historic\nperson.\"\n\n\"My beginning was without pretence,\" said the highwayman. \"Little\nSusan, daughter of Farmer Hants, was crossing the fields with a basket\nof eggs. I, a masked figure, sprang out at her from a thicket. I\nseized the basket. She screamed. There was a frightful tumult. But in\nthe end I bore away this basket of eight eggs, creeping stealthily\nthrough the wood. The next day Farmer Hants met me. He had a long\nwhip. There was a frightful tumult. But he little knew that he was\nlaying with his whip the foundation of a career so illustrious. For a\ntime I stole his sheep, but soon grew weary of this business. Once,\nafter they had chased me almost to Bristol, I was so weary that I\nresolved to forego the thing entirely. Then I became a highwayman,\nwhom you see before you. One of the ballads begins thus:\n\n    \"What ho! the merry Jem!\n    Not a pint he gives for them.\n    All his--\"\n\n\"Stop,\" said I, \"we'll have it at Dame Bottles's fireside. Hearing\nsongs in the night air always makes me hoarse the next morning.\"\n\n\"As you will,\" he answered without heat. \"We're a'most there.\"\n\nSoon a lighted window of the highwayman's humble home shone out in the\ndarkness, and a moment later Jem Bottles was knocking at the door. It\nwas immediately opened, and he stalked in with his blood-marks still\nupon his face. There was a great outcry in a feminine voice, and a\nlarge woman rushed forward and flung her arms about the highwayman.\n\n\"Oh, Jemmie, my son, my son!\" she screamed, \"whatever have they done\nto ye this time?\"\n\n\"Silence, mother dear,\" said Bottles. \"'Tis nought but a wind-broken\nbough fallen on my head. Have you no manners? Do you not see the\ngentleman waiting to enter and warm himself?\"\n\nThe woman turned upon me, alarmed, but fiery and defiant. After a\nmoment's scrutiny she demanded:\n\n\"Oh, ho, and the gentleman had nought to do of course with my Jem's\nbroken head?\"\n\n\"'Tis a priest but newly arrived from his native island of Asia,\" said\nBottles piously; \"and it ill beseems you, mother dear, to be haggling\nwhen you might be getting the holy man and I some supper.\"\n\n\"True, Jemmie, my own,\" responded Dame Bottles. \"But there are so many\nrogues abroad that you must forgive your old mother if she grow often\naffrighted that her good Jemmie has been misled.\" She turned to me.\n\"Pardon, my good gentleman,\" she said almost in tears. \"Ye little know\nwhat it is to be the mother of a high-spirited boy.\"\n\n\"I can truthfully say that I do not, Dame Bottles,\" said I, with one\nof my father's French bows. She was immensely pleased. Any woman may\nfall a victim to a limber, manly, and courteous bow.\n\nPresently we sat down to a supper of plum-stew and bread. Bottles had\nwashed the blood from his face and now resembled an honest man.\n\n\"You may think it strange, sir,\" said Dame Bottles with some\nhousewifely embarrassment, \"that a highwayman of such distinction that\nhe has had written of him in Bristol six ballads--\"\n\n\"Seven,\" said the highwayman.\n\n\"Seven in Bristol and in Bath two.\"\n\n\"Three,\" said the highwayman.\n\n\"And three in Bath,\" continued the old woman. \"You may think it\nstrange, sir, that a highwayman of such distinction that he has had\nwritten of him in Bristol seven ballads, and in Bath three, is yet\nobliged to sit down to a supper of plum-stew and bread.\"\n\n\"Where is the rest of that cheese I took on last Michaelmas?\" demanded\nBottles suddenly.\n\n\"Jemmie,\" answered his mother with reproach, \"you know you gave the\nlast of it to the crippled shepherd over on the big hill.\"\n\n\"So I did, mother dear,\" assented the highwayman, \"and I regret now\nthat I let no less than three cheeses pass me on the highway because I\nthought we had plenty at home.\"\n\n\"If you let anything pass on the road because you do not lack it at\nthe moment, you will ultimately die of starvation, Jemmie dear,\" quoth\nthe mother. \"How often have I told you?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" he answered somewhat irritably, \"you also often have told me to\ntake snuff-boxes.\"\n\n\"And was I at fault,\" she retorted, \"because the cheating avarice of\nthe merchants led them to make sinful, paltry snuff-boxes that were\nmere pictures of the good old gold and silver? Was it my mischief? Or\nwas it the mischief of the plotting swineherds who now find it to\ntheir interest to deal in base and imitative metals?\"\n\n\"Peace, my mother,\" said the highwayman. \"The gentleman here has not\nthe same interest in snuff-boxes which moves us to loud speech.\"\n\n\"True,\" said Dame Bottles, \"and I readily wish that my Jemmie had no\nreason to care if snuff-boxes were made from cabbage-leaves.\"\n\nI had been turning a scheme in my mind, and here I thought I saw my\nopportunity to introduce it. \"Dame Bottles,\" said I, \"your words fit\nwell with the plan which has brought me here to your house. Know you,\nthen, that I am a nobleman--\"\n\n\"Alack, poor Jemmie!\" cried the woman, raising her hands.\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"I am not a nobleman rampant. I am a nobleman in\ntrouble, and I need the services of your son, for which I will reward\nhim with such richness that he will not care if they make snuff-boxes\nout of water or wind. I am in pursuit of a man--\"\n\n\"The little black man,\" cried the alert Bottles.\n\n\"And I want your son to ride with me to catch this thief. He need\nnever pass through the shadow of the creeping, clanking tree. He will\nbe on an honest hunt to recover a great property. Give him to me. Give\nhim fourteen guineas from his store, and bid us mount his horses and\naway. Save your son!\"\n\nThe old woman burst into tears. \"Sir,\" she answered, \"I know little of\nyou, but, as near as I can see in the light of this one candle, you\nare a hangel. Take my boy! Treat him as you would your own stepson,\nand if snuff-boxes ever get better I will let you both hear of it.\"\n\nLess than an hour later Jem Bottles and I were off for Bath, riding\ntwo very good horses.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nNow my whole mind was really bent on finding my black Forister, but\nyet, as Jem Bottles and I rode toward Bath, I thought of a cloaked\nfigure and a pair of shining eyes, and it seemed to me that I recalled\nthe curve of sweet, proud lips. I knew that I should be thinking of my\npapers, my future; but a quick perversity made me dwell for a long\ntrotting time in a dream of feminine excellence, in a dream of\nfeminine beauty which was both ascetic and deeply sensuous. I know\nhardly how to say that two eyes, a vision of lips, a conception of a\nfigure, should properly move me as I bounced along the road with Jem\nBottles. But it is certain that it came upon me. The eyes of the\ndaughter of the great Earl of Westport had put in chains the\nredoubtable O'Ruddy. It was true. It was clear. I admitted it to\nmyself. The admission caused a number of reflections to occur in my\nmind, and the chief of these was that I was a misfortunate wretch.\n\nJem Bottles recalled me to the immediate business.\n\n\"'Tis the lights of Bath, sir,\" he said, \"and if it please you, sir, I\nshall await you under yonder tree, since the wretched balladists have\nrendered me so well known in the town that I dare not venture in it\nfor fear of a popular welcome from the people who have no snuff-boxes\nwhatever.\"\n\n\"I will go and listen to the ballads,\" I replied, \"and in the mean\ntime do you await me here under that tree.\"\n\nSo saying I galloped into Bath, my soul sharp to find Forister and to\ntake him by the neck and strangle out of him those papers which were\nmy sole reasons for living. But the landlord of the best inn met me\nwith an unmistakable frankness.\n\n\"Mr. Forister?\" said he. \"Yes, your lordship, but Mr. Forister is gone\nback to Bristol.\"\n\nI was so pleased with his calling me \"your lordship\" that I hesitated\na moment. But I was recalled to sense by the thought that although Jem\nBottles and I had fifteen guineas between us, he had fourteen and I\nhad the one. Thanking the landlord I galloped out of Bath.\n\nBottles was awaiting me under the tree. \"To Bristol,\" I cried. \"Our\nchase lies toward Bristol. He has doubled back.\"\n\n\"'Twas while we were at supper,\" said Bottles, as he cantered up to my\nshoulder. \"I might have had two trials at him if I had not had the\nhonour of meeting your worship. I warrant you, sir, he would not have\nescaped me twice.\"\n\n\"Think of his crack in your skull, and be content,\" I replied. \"And in\nthe mean time ride for Bristol.\"\n\nWithin five miles of Bristol we came upon a wayside inn in which there\nwas progressing a great commotion. Lights flashed from window to\nwindow, and we could hear women howling. To my great surprise Bottles\nat once became hugely excited.\n\n\"Damme, sir,\" he shouted, \"my sweetheart is a chambermaid here, and if\nshe be hurted I will know it.\"\n\nHe spurred valiantly forward, and, after futilely calling to him to\ncheck his career, I followed. He leaped from his horse at the door of\nthe inn and bounced into the place, pistol in hand. I was too confused\nto understand much, but it seemed to my ears that his entrance was\nhailed with a roar of relief and joy. A stable-boy, fearfully anxious,\ngrasped my bridle, crying, \"Go in, sir, in God's name. They will be\nkilling each other.\" Thinking that, whatever betide, it was proper to\nbe at the back of my friend Bottles, I too sprang from my horse and\npopped into the inn.\n\nA more unexpected sight never met my experienced gaze. A fat landlady,\nmark you, was sobbing in the arms of my villainous friend, and a\npretty maid was clinging to his arm and screaming. At the same time\nthere were about him a dozen people of both sexes who were yelling,--\n\n\"Oh, pray, Master Bottles! Good Master Bottles, do stop them. One is a\ngreat Afric chief, red as a fire, and the other is Satan, Satan\nhimself! Oh, pray, good Master Bottles, stop them!\"\n\nMy fine highwayman was puffed out like a poisoned frog. I had no\nthought that he could be so grand.\n\n\"What is this disturbance?\" he demanded in a bass voice.\n\n\"O good Master Bottles,\" clamoured the people. \"Satan wishes to kill\nthe Red Giant, who has Satan barred in the best room in the inn. And\nthey make frightful destruction of chairs and tables. Bid them cease,\nO good Master Bottles!\"\n\nFrom overhead we could hear the sound of blows upon wood mingled with\nthreatening talk.\n\n\"Stand aside,\" said the highwayman in a great gruff voice which made\nme marvel at him. He unhesitatingly dumped the swooning form of the\nlandlady into another pair of arms, shook off the pretty maid, and\nmoved sublimely upon the foot of the stairs amid exclamations of joy,\nwonder, admiration, even reverence.\n\nBut the voice of an unseen person hailed suddenly from the head of the\nstairs.\n\n\"And if ye have not said enough masses for your heathen soul,\"\nremarked the voice, \"you would be better mustering the neighbours this\ninstant to go to church for you and bid them do the best they can in a\nshort time. You will never be coming downstairs if you once come up.\"\n\nBottles hesitated; the company shuddered out: \"'Tis the Red Giant.\"\n\n\"And I would be having one more word with you,\" continued the unseen\nperson. \"I have him here, and here I keep him. 'Tis not me that wants\nthe little black rogue, what with his hammering on the door and his\ncalling me out of my name. 'Tis no work that I like, and I would lever\ngo in and put my heel in his face. But I was told to catch a little\nblack man, and I have him, and him I will keep. 'Tis not me that\nwished to come here and catch little black men for anybody; but here I\nam in this foreign country, catching little black men, and I will have\nno interference.\"\n\nBut here I gave a great call of recognition.\n\n\"Paddy!\"\n\nI saw the whole thing. This wild-headed Paddy, whom I had told to\ncatch me a little black man, had followed after me toward Bath and\nsomehow managed to barricade in a room the very first man he saw who\nwas small and black. At first I wished to laugh; an instant later I\nwas furious.\n\n\"Paddy,\" I thundered; \"come down out of that now! What would you be\ndoing? Come down out of that now!\"\n\nThe reply was sulky, but unmistakably from Paddy. Most of it was\nmumbled.\n\n\"Sure I've gone and caught as little and as black a man as is in the\nwhole world, and was keeping the scoundrel here safe, and along he\ncomes and tells me to come down out of that now with no more gratitude\nthan if he had given me a gold goose. And yet I fought a duel for him\nand managed everything so finely that he came away well enough to box\nme on the ear, which was mere hilarity and means nothing between\nfriends.\"\n\nJem Bottles was still halted on the stair. He and all the others had\nlistened to Paddy's speeches in a blank amazement which had much\nsuperstition in it.\n\n\"Shall I go up, sir?\" he asked, not eagerly.\n\n\"No,\" said I. \"Leave me to deal with it. I fear a great mistake. Give\nme ten minutes, and I promise to empty the inn of all uproar.\"\n\nA murmur of admiration arose, and as the sound leaped about my ears I\nmoved casually and indifferently up against Paddy. It was a grand\nscene.\n\n\"Paddy,\" I whispered as soon as I had reached a place on the stairs\nsafe from the ears of the people below. \"Paddy, you have made a great\nblunder. You have the wrong man.\"\n\n\"'Tis unlikely,\" replied Paddy with scorn. \"You wait until you see\nhim, and if he is not little and black, then--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said I hastily, \"but it was not any little black man at\nall which I wanted. It was a particular little black man.\"\n\n\"But,\" said the ruffian brightly, \"it would be possible this one will\nserve your end. He's little and he's black.\"\n\nAt this moment the voice of the captive came intoning through the door\nof a chamber.\n\n\"When I am free I will first cut out your liver and have it grilled,\nand feed it to you as you are dying.\"\n\nPaddy had stepped forward and placed his lips within about six inches\nof one of the panels.\n\n\"Come now, be easy!\" he said. \"You know well that if you should do as\nyou say, I would beat your head that it would have the looks of a\npudding fallen from a high window, and that's the truth.\"\n\n\"Open the door, rascal,\" called the captive, \"and we shall see.\"\n\n\"I will be opening no doors,\" retorted Paddy indignantly. \"Remain\nquiet, you little black devil, or, by the mass, I'll--\"\n\n\"I'll slice your heart into pieces of paper,\" thundered Paddy's\nprisoner, kicking and pounding.\n\nBy this time I was ready to interfere. \"Paddy,\" said I, catching him\nby the shoulder, \"you have the wrong man. Leave it to me; mind you,\nleave it to me.\"\n\n\"He's that small and black you'd think--\" he began dejectedly, but I\ncut him short.\n\nJem Bottles, unable to endure the suspense, had come up from below.\nHe was still bristling and blustering, as if all the maids were\nremarking him.\n\n\"And why does this fine gentleman kick and pound on the door?\" he\ndemanded in a gruff voice loud enough to be heard in all appreciative\nparts of the inn. \"I'll have him out and slit his nose.\"\n\nThe thunder on the door ceased, and the captive observed:\n\n\"Ha! another scoundrel! If my ears do not play me false, there are now\nthree waiting for me to kick them to the hangman.\"\n\nRestraining Paddy and Bottles, who each wished to reply in heroic\nverse to this sally, I stepped to the door.\n\n\"Sir,\" said I civilly, \"I fear a great blunder has been done. I--\"\n\n\"Why,\" said the captive with a sneer, \"'tis the Irishman! 'Tis the\nking of the Irelands. Open the door, pig.\"\n\nMy elation knew no bounds.\n\n\"Paddy,\" cried I, \"you have the right little black man.\" But there was\nno time for celebration. I must first answer my enemy. \"You will\nremember that I kicked you once,\" said I, \"and if you have a memory as\nlong as my finger be careful I do not kick you again, else even people\nas far away as the French will think you are a meteor. But I would not\nbe bandying words at long range. Paddy, unbar the door.\"\n\n\"If I can,\" muttered Paddy, fumbling with a lot of machinery so\ningenious that it would require a great lack of knowledge to\nthoroughly understand it. In the mean time we could hear Forister move\naway from the door, and by the sound of a leisurely scrape of a chair\non the floor I judge he had taken his seat somewhere near the centre\nof the room. Bottles was handling his pistol and regarding me.\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, \"if he fires, do you pepper him fairly. Otherwise await\nmy orders. Paddy, you slug, unbar the door.\"\n\n\"If I am able,\" said Paddy, still muttering and fumbling with his\ncontrivances. He had no sooner mouthed the words than the door flew\nopen as if by magic, and we discovered a room bright with the light of\na fire and candles. Forister was seated negligently at a table in the\ncentre of the room. His legs were crossed, but his naked sword lay on\nthe table at his hand. He had the first word, because I was amazed,\nalmost stunned, by the precipitous opening of the door.\n\n\"Ho! ho!\" he observed frigidly, \"'tis indeed the king of the Irelands,\naccompanied by the red-headed duke who has entertained me for some\ntime, and a third party with a thief's face who handles a loaded\npistol with such abandon as leads me to suppose that he once may have\nbeen a highwayman. A very pretty band.\"\n\n\"Use your tongue for a garter, Forister,\" said I. \"I want my papers.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\n\"Your 'papers'?\" said Forister. \"Damn you and your papers. What would\nI know of your papers?\"\n\n\"I mean,\" said I fiercely, \"the papers that you stole out of my\nchamber in the inn at Bristol.\"\n\nThe man actually sank back in his chair and laughed me up to the roof.\n\n\"'Papers'!\" he shouted. \"Here's the king of the Irelands thinking that\nI have made off with his papers!\"\n\n\"You choose a good time for laughing,\" said I, with more sobriety. \"In\na short time you will be laughing with the back of your head.\"\n\nHe sat up and looked at me with quick decision.\n\n\"Now, what is all this rubbish about papers?\" he said sharply. \"What\nhave I to do with your filthy papers? I had one intention regarding\nyou,--of that I am certain. I was resolved to kill you on the first\noccasion when we could cross swords, but--'papers'--faugh! What do you\nmean?\"\n\nThe hoarse voice of Jem Bottles broke in from somewhere behind me. \"We\nmight easily throw him to the earth and tie him, sir, and then make\nsearch of him.\"\n\n\"And you would know how to go about the business, I warrant me,\"\nlaughed Forister. \"You muzzle-faced rogue, you!\"\n\nTo my astonishment the redoubtable highwayman gave back before the\neasy disdain of this superior scoundrel.\n\n\"My ways may not always have been straight and narrow, master,\" he\nrejoined, almost in a whine, \"but you have no call to name me\nmuzzle-faced.\"\n\nForister turned from him contemptuously and fixed his regard with much\nenthusiasm upon Paddy.\n\n\"Very red,\" said he. \"Very red, indeed. And thick as fagots, too. A\nvery delectable head of hair, fit to be spun into a thousand blankets\nfor the naked savages in heathen parts. The wild forests in Ireland\nmust indeed be dark when it requires a lantern of this measure to\nlight the lonely traveller on his way.\"\n\nBut Paddy was an honest man even if he did not know it, and he at once\nwalked to Forister and held against his ear a fist the size of a pig's\nhind-leg.\n\n\"I cannot throw the talk back to you,\" he said. \"You are too fast for\nme, but I tell you to your face that you had better change your tongue\nfor a lock of an old witch's hair unless you intend to be battered\nthis moment.\"\n\n\"Peace,\" said Forister calmly. \"I am a man of natural wit, and I would\nentertain myself. Now, there is your excellent chieftain the king of\nthe Irelands. Him I regard as a very good specimen, whose ancestors\nwere not very long ago swinging by their tails from the lofty palms of\nIreland and playing with cocoanuts to and fro.\" He smiled and leaned\nback, well satisfied with himself.\n\nAll this time I had been silent, because I had been deep in reflection\nupon Forister. Now I said:\n\n\"Forister, you are a great rogue. I know you. One thing is certain.\nYou have not my papers and never did you have them.\"\n\nHe looked upon me with some admiration and cried:\n\n\"Aye, the cannibal shows a glimmer of reason. No, I have not your\nfoolish papers, and I only wish I had them in order to hurl the bundle\nat your damned stupid head.\"\n\n\"For a kicked man you have a gay spirit,\" I replied. \"But at any rate\nI have no time for you now. I am off to Bristol after my papers, and I\nonly wish for the sake of ease that I had to go no farther than this\nchamber. Come, Paddy! Come, Jem!\"\n\nMy two henchmen were manifestly disappointed; they turned reluctantly\nat my word.\n\n\"Have I the leave of one crack at him, your honour?\" whispered Paddy\nearnestly. \"He said my head was a lantern.\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"leave him to his meditations.\"\n\nAs we passed down the corridor we heard him laugh loudly, and he\ncalled out to me,--\n\n\"When I come to Bristol I will kill you.\"\n\nI had more than a mind to go back and stuff this threat into his\nthroat, but I better knew my business, which was to recover the\npapers.\n\n\"Come,\" said I, and we passed down stairs.\n\nThe people of the inn made way for Paddy as if he had been a falling\ntree, and at the same time they worshipped Jem Bottles for having\nperformed everything. I had some wonder as to which would be able to\nout-strut the other. I think Jem Bottles won the match, for he had the\nadvantage of being known as one of the most dangerous men in\nsouthwestern England, whereas Paddy had only his vanity to help him.\n\n\"'Tis all arranged,\" said Bottles pompously. \"Your devil will come\nforth as quiet as a rabbit.\"\n\nWe ordered our horses, and a small crowd of obsequious stable-boys\nrushed to fetch them. I marvelled when I saw them lead out Paddy's\nhorse. I had thought from what I perceived over my shoulder when I\nleft Bristol that he would never be able to make half a league in the\nsaddle. Amid the flicker of lanterns, Bottles and I mounted and then I\nheard Paddy calling to him all the stable-boys:\n\n\"Now, when I give the word, you heave for your lives. Stand, you\nbeast! Cannot four of you hold him by the legs? I will be giving the\nword in a moment. Are you all ready? Well, now, ready again--heave!\"\n\nThere was a short scuffle in the darkness, and presently Paddy\nappeared above the heads of the others in the _melee_.\n\n\"There, now,\" said he to them, \"that was well done. One would easily\nbe telling that I was an ex-trooper of the king.\" He rode out to us\ncomplacently. \"'Tis a good horse, if only he steered with a tiller\ninstead of these straps,\" he remarked, \"and he goes well before the\nwind.\"\n\n\"To Bristol,\" said I. \"Paddy, you must follow as best you may. I have\nno time to be watching you, although you are interesting.\"\n\nAn unhappy cry came from behind Bottles, and I spurred on, but again I\ncould not wait for my faithful countryman. My papers were still the\nstake for which I played. However I hoped that Paddy would now give\nover his ideas about catching little black men.\n\nAs we neared Bristol Jem Bottles once more became backward. He\nreferred to the seven ballads, and feared that the unexpected presence\nof such a well-known character would create an excitement which would\nnot be easy to cool. So we made a rendezvous under another tree, and I\nrode on alone. Thus I was separated from both my good companions.\nHowever, before parting, I took occasion to borrow five guineas from\nJem's store.\n\nI was as weary as a dog, although I had never been told that gentlemen\nriding amid such adventures were ever aweary. At the inn in Bristol a\nsleepy boy took my horse, and a sleepy landlord aroused himself as he\nrecognized me.\n\n\"My poor inn is at your disposal, sir,\" he cried as he bowed. \"The\nEarl has inquired for you to-day, or yesterday, as well as my young\nLord Strepp and Colonel Royale.\"\n\n\"Aye?\" said I carelessly. \"Did they so? Show me to a chamber. I am\nmuch enwearied. I would seek a good bed and a sound sleep, for I have\nridden far and done much since last I had repose.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the landlord deferentially.\n\nAfter a long hard sleep I was aroused by a constant pounding on my\ndoor. At my cry a servant entered. He was very abject. \"His lordship's\nvalet has been waiting to give you a message from his lordship, sir.\"\nI bid him let the valet enter. The man whose heroic nose had borne the\nbrunt of Forister's swift departure from the inn when I kicked him\ncame into my chamber with distinguished grace and dignity and informed\nme that his noble master cared to see me in his chamber when it would\nsuit my convenience.\n\nOf course the old Earl was after his papers. And what was I to tell\nhim,--that I was all befooled and befuddled?--that after my father had\nkept these papers for so many years in faithful trust I had lost them\non the very brink of deliverance of them to their rightful owner? What\nwas I to speak?\n\nI did not wish to see the Earl of Westport, but some sudden and\ncurious courage forced me into my clothes and out to the corridor. The\nEarl's valet was waiting there. \"I pray you, sir, follow me,\" he said.\nI followed him to an expensive part of the inn, where he knocked upon\na door. It was opened by a bending serving-man. The room was a kind of\nparlour, and in it, to my surprise, were Lord Strepp and Colonel\nRoyale. They gazed at me with a surprise equivalent to mine own.\n\nYoung Lord Strepp was the first one thoroughly to collect himself.\nThen he advanced upon me with outstretched hand.\n\n\"Mr. O'Ruddy,\" he cried, \"believe me, we are glad to see you. We\nthought you had gone for all time.\"\n\nColonel Royale was only a moment behind his friend, but as he extended\nhis hand his face flushed painfully.\n\n\"Sir,\" he said somewhat formally, \"not long ago I lost my temper, I\nfear. I know I have to thank you for great consideration and\ngenerosity. I--I--you--\"\n\nWhereupon we both began to stammer and grimace. All the time I was\nchocking out:\n\n\"Pray--pray--, don't speak of it--a--nothing--in truth, you kindly\nexaggerate--I--\"\n\nIt was young Lord Strepp who brought us out of our embarrassment.\n\"Here, you two good fellows,\" he cried heartily, \"a glass of wine with\nyou.\"\n\nWe looked gratefully at him, and in the business of filling our\nglasses we lost our awkwardness. \"To you,\" said Lord Strepp; and as we\ndrained our wine I knew that I had two more friends in England.\n\nDuring the drinking the Earl's valet had been hovering near my\ncoat-tails. Afterward he took occasion to make gentle suggestion to\nme:\n\n\"His lordship awaits your presence in his chamber, sir, when it\npleases you.\"\n\nThe other gentlemen immediately deferred to my obligation, and I\nfollowed the valet into a large darkened chamber. It was some moments\nbefore my eyes could discover that the Earl was abed. Indeed, a\nrasping voice from beneath the canopies called to me before I knew\nthat anybody was in the chamber but myself and the valet.\n\n\"Come hither, O'Ruddy,\" called the Earl. \"Tompkins, get out! Is it\nyour duty to stand there mummified? Get out!\"\n\nThe servant hastily withdrew, and I walked slowly to the great man's\nbedside. Two shining shrewd eyes looked at me from a mass of pillows,\nand I had a knowledge of an aged face, half smiling and yet satirical,\neven malignant.\n\n\"And so this is the young fortune-hunter from Ireland,\" he said in a\nhoarse sick-man's voice. \"The young fortune-hunter! Ha! With his\nworthless papers! Ha!\"\n\n\"Worthless?\" cried I, starting.\n\n\"Worthless!\" cried the Earl vehemently. He tried to lift himself in\nhis bed, in order to make more emphasis. \"Worthless! Nothing but\nstraw--straw--straw!\" Then he cackled out a laugh.\n\nAnd this was my inheritance! I could have sobbed my grief and anger,\nbut I took firm hold on myself and resolved upon another way of\ndealing with the nobleman.\n\n\"My lord,\" said I coolly, \"My father is dead. When he was dying he\ngave certain papers into my hands,--papers which he had guarded for\nmany years,--and bade me, as his son, to deliver them into the hands\nof an old friend and comrade; and I come to this old friend and\ncomrade of my father, and he lies back in his bed and cackles at me\nlike a hen. 'Tis a small foot I would have set upon England if I had\nknown more of you, you old skate!\"\n\nBut still he laughed and cried: \"Straw! Straw! Nothing but straw!\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" said I with icy dignity, \"I may be a fool of an Irishman\nwith no title save an older one than yours; but I would be deeply\nsorry if there came a day when I should throw a trust back in the\nteeth of a dead comrade's son.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the bright-eyed old man, comforting himself amid his\npillows. \"Look you, O'Ruddy! You are a rascal! You came over in an\nattempt to ruin me! I know it!\"\n\nI was awed by this accusation. It seemed to me to be too grand, too\ngorgeous for my personal consumption. I knew not what to do with this\ncolossus. It towered above me in splendour and gilt. I had never\nexpected to be challenged with attempting to ruin earls. My father had\noften ruined sea-captains, but he never in his life ruined so much as\na baronet. It seemed altogether too fine for my family, but I could\nonly blurt weakly, \"Yessir.\" I was much like a lackey.\n\n\"Aye,\" said the old man, suddenly feeble from the excitement, \"I see\nyou admit it, you black Irish rogue.\" He sank back and applied a\nnapkin to his mouth. It seemed to come away stained with blood. \"You\nscoundrel!\"\n\nI had a strange cowardly inclination to fling myself upon this ancient\nsurvival and squeeze his throat until it closed like a pursel. And my\ninclination was so strong that I stood like a stone.\n\nThe valet opened the door. \"If it please your Lordship--Lady Mary,\" he\nannounced, and stood aside to let a lady pass. The Earl seemed\nimmediately to forget my presence. He began at once to make himself\nuncomfortable in his bed. Then he cried fretfully: \"Come, Mary, what\ncaused you to be so long? Make me easy! Ruffle my pillows! Come,\ndaughter.\"\n\n\"Yes, father,\" answered a soothing and sweet voice. A gracious figure\npassed before me and bended over the bed of the Earl. I was near\nblinded. It was not a natural blindness. It was an artificial\nblindness which came from my emotion. Was she tall? I don't know. Was\nshe short? I don't know. But I am certain that she was exactly of the\nright size. She was, in all ways, perfection. She was of such glory,\nshe was so splendid, that my heart ceased to beat. I remained standing\nlike a stone, but my sword scabbard, reminiscent of some movement,\nflapped gently against my leg. I thought it was a horrible sound. I\nsought to stay it, but it continued to tinkle, and I remember that,\nstanding there in the room with the old Earl and my love-'til-death, I\nthought most of my scabbard and its inability to lay quiet at my\nthigh.\n\nShe smoothed his bed and coaxed him and comforted him. Never had I\nseen such tenderness. It was like a vision of a classic hereafter. In\na second I would have exchanged my youth for the position of this\ndoddering old nobleman who spat blood into a napkin.\n\nSuddenly the Earl wheeled his eyes and saw me.\n\n\"Ha, Mary!\" he cried feebly, \"I wish to point out a rogue. There he\nstands! The O'Ruddy! An Irishman and a fine robber! Mark him well, and\nkeep stern watch of your jewels.\"\n\nThe beautiful young lady turned upon me an affrighted glance. And I\nstood like a stone.\n\n\"Aye,\" said the old wretch, \"keep stern watch of your jewels. He is a\nvery demon for skill. He could take a ring from your finger while you\nwere thinking he was fluttering his hands in the air.\"\n\nI bowed gallantly to the young lady. \"Your rings are safe, my lady. I\nwould ill requite the kindness shown by your father to the son of an\nold friend if I deprived your white fingers of a single ornament.\"\n\n\"Clever as ever, clever as ever,\" chuckled the wicked old man.\n\nThe young lady flushed and looked first at me and then at her father.\nI thought her eye, as it rested upon me, was not without some\nsympathetic feeling. I adored her. All the same I wished to kill her\nfather. It is very curious when one wishes to kill the father of the\nwoman one adores. But I suppose the situation was made more possible\nfor me by the fact that it would have been extremely inexpedient to\nhave killed the Earl in his sick bed. I even grinned at him.\n\n\"If you remember my father, your lordship,\" said I amiably, \"despite\nyour trying hard to forget him, you will remember that he had a\ncertain native wit which on occasion led him to be able to frustrate\nhis enemies. It must have been a family trait, for I seem to have it.\nYou are an evil old man! You yourself stole my papers!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nAt first I thought that my speech had given the aged Earl a stroke. He\nwrithed on his bed, and something appeared at his lips which was like\nfroth. His lovely daughter sprang to him with a cry of fear and woe.\nBut he was not dying; he was only mad with rage.\n\n\"How dare you? How dare you?\" he gasped. \"You whelp of Satan!\"\n\n\"'Tis me that would not be fearing to dare anything,\" I rejoined\ncalmly. \"I would not so. I came here with a mind for fair words, but\nyou have met me with insult and something worse. We cannot talk the\nthing. We must act it. The papers are yours, but you took them from me\nunfairly. You may destroy them. Otherwise I will have them back and\ndiscover what turned you into a great rogue near the end of your\ndays.\"\n\n\"Hearken!\" screamed the Earl. \"Hearken! He threatens.\" The door into\nthe parlour flew open, and Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale appeared on\nthe threshold, their faces blank with wonder.\n\n\"Father,\" cried the young lord, stepping hastily forward, \"whatever is\nwrong?\"\n\n\"That!\" screamed the Earl, pointing a palsied finger at me. \"That! He\ncomes here and threatens _me_,--a peer of England.\"\n\nThe Lady Mary spoke swiftly to her brother and the Colonel.\n\n\"'Tis a sick man's fancy,\" she said. \"There have been no threats.\nFather has had a bad day. He is not himself. He talks wildly. He--\"\n\n\"Mary!\" yelled the Earl as well as he was able. \"Do you betray me? Do\nyou betray your own father? Oh, a woman Judas and my daughter!\"\n\nLord Strepp and Colonel Royale looked as if their minds were coming\napart. They stared at Lady Mary, at the Earl, at me. For my part I\nremained silent and stiff in a corner, keeping my eye upon the swords\nof the other gentlemen. I had no doubt but that presently I would be\nengaged in a desperate attempt to preserve my life. Lady Mary was\nweeping. She had never once glanced in my direction. But I was\nthrilling with happiness. She had flung me her feeble intercession\neven as a lady may fling a bun to a bear in a pit, but I had the\nremembrance to prize, to treasure, and if both gentlemen had set upon\nme and the sick Earl had advanced with the warming-pan I believe my\nnew strength would have been able to beat them off.\n\nIn the meantime the Earl was screeching meaningless rubbish in which\nmy name, with epithets, occurred constantly. Lady Mary, still weeping,\nwas trying to calm him.\n\nYoung Lord Strepp at last seemed to make up his mind. He approached me\nand remarked:\n\n\"An inexplicable situation, Mr. O'Ruddy.\"\n\n\"More to me than to you,\" I repeated suavely.\n\n\"How?\" he asked, with less consideration in his manner. \"I know nought\nof this mummery.\"\n\n\"At least I know no more,\" I replied, still suave.\n\n\"How, Mr. O'Ruddy?\" he asked, frowning. \"I enter and find you\nwrangling with my father in his sick chamber. Is there to be no word\nfor this?\"\n\n\"I dare say you will get forty from your father; a hundred, it may\nbe,\" said I, always pleasant. \"But from me you will get none.\"\n\nHe reflected for a moment. \"I dare say you understand I will brook no\nhigh-handed silence in a matter of this kind. I am accustomed to ask\nfor the reasons for certain kinds of conduct, and of course I am\nsomewhat prepared to see that the reasons are forthcoming.\"\n\n\"Well, in this case, my lord,\" said I with a smile, \"you can accustom\nyourself to not getting a reason for a certain kind of conduct,\nbecause I do not intend to explain myself.\"\n\nBut at this moment our agreeable conversation was interrupted by the\nold Earl who began to bay at his son. \"Arthur, Arthur, fling the\nrascal out; fling the rascal out! He is an impostor, a thief!\" He\nbegan to fume and sputter, and threw his arms wildly; he was in some\nkind of convulsion; his pillows tossed, and suddenly a packet fell\nfrom under them to the floor. As all eyes wheeled toward it, I stooped\nswiftly and picked it up.\n\n\"My papers!\" said I.\n\nOn their part there was a breathless moment of indecision. Then the\nswords of Lord Strepp and the Colonel came wildly from their\nscabbards. Mine was whipped out no less speedily, but I took it and\nflung it on the floor at their feet, the hilt toward them. \"No,\" said\nI, my hands empty save for the papers, \"'tis only that I would be\nmaking a present to the fair Lady Mary, which I pray her to receive.\"\nWith my best Irish bow I extended to the young lady the papers, my\ninheritance, which had caused her father so much foaming at the mouth.\n\nShe looked at me scornfully, she looked at her father, she looked at\nme pathetically, she looked at her father, she looked at me piteously;\nshe took the papers.\n\nI walked to the lowering and abashed points of the other men's swords,\nand picked my blade from the floor. I paid no heed to the glittering\npoints which flashed near my eyes. I strode to the door; I turned and\nbowed; as I did so, I believe I saw something in Lady Mary's eyes\nwhich I wished to see there. I closed the door behind me.\n\nBut immediately there was a great clamour in the room I had left, and\nthe door was thrown violently open again. Colonel Royale appeared in a\nhigh passion:\n\n\"No, no, O'Ruddy,\" he shouted, \"you are a gallant gentleman. I would\nstake my life that you are in the right. Say the word, and I will back\nyou to the end against ten thousand fiends.\"\n\nAnd after him came tempestuously young Lord Strepp, white on the lips\nwith pure rage. But he spoke with a sudden steadiness.\n\n\"Colonel Royale, it appears,\" he said, \"thinks he has to protect my\nfriend The O'Ruddy from some wrong of my family or of mine?\"\n\nThe Colonel drew in his breath for a dangerous reply, but I quickly\nbroke in:\n\n\"Come, come, gentlemen,\" said I sharply. \"Are swords to flash between\nfriends when there are so many damned scoundrels in the world to parry\nand pink? 'Tis wrong; 'tis very wrong. Now, mark you, let us be men of\npeace at least until to-morrow morning, when, by the way, I have to\nfight your friend Forister.\"\n\n\"Forister!\" they cried together. Their jaws fell; their eyes bulged;\nthey forgot everything; there was a silence.\n\n\"Well,\" said I, wishing to reassure them, \"it may not be to-morrow\nmorning. He only told me that he would kill me as soon as he came to\nBristol, and I expect him to-night or in the morning. I would of\ncourse be expecting him to show here as quickly as possible after his\ngrand speech; but he would not be entirely unwelcome, I am thinking,\nfor I have a mind to see if the sword of an honest man, but no\nfighter, would be able to put this rogue to shame, and him with all\nhis high talk about killing people who have never done a thing in life\nto him but kick him some number of feet out into the inn yard, and\nthis need never to have happened if he had known enough to have kept\nhis sense of humour to himself, which often happens in this world.\"\n\nReflectively, Colonel Royale murmured:\n\n\"One of the finest swordsmen in England.\"\n\nFor this I cared nothing.\n\nReflectively, Lord Strepp murmured: \"My father's partner in the\nshipping trade.\"\n\nThis last made me open my eyes. \"Your father's partner in the shipping\ntrade, Lord Strepp? That little black rascal?\"\n\nThe young nobleman looked sheepish.\n\n\"Aye, I doubt not he may well be called a little black rascal,\nO'Ruddy,\" he answered; \"but in fact he is my father's partner in\ncertain large--fairly large, you know--shipping interests. Of course\nthat is a matter of no consequence to me personally--but--I believe my\nfather likes him, and my mother and my sister are quite fond of him, I\nthink. I, myself, have never been able to quite--quite understand him\nin certain ways. He seems a trifle odd at moments. But he certainly is\na friend of the family.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said I, \"you will not be able to have the felicity of seeing\nhim kill me, Lord Strepp.\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" he rejoined considerately, \"I would regard it as\nusual if he asked me to accompany him to the scene of the fight.\"\n\nHis remark, incidentally, that his sister was fond of Forister, filled\nme with a sudden insolent madness.\n\n\"I would hesitate to disturb any shipping trade,\" I said with dignity.\n\"It is far from me to wish that the commerce of Great Britain should\nbe hampered by sword-thrust of mine. If it would please young Lord\nStrepp, I could hand my apologies to Forister all tied up in blue-silk\nribbon.\"\n\nBut the youthful nobleman only looked at me long with a sad and\nreproachful gaze.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he said mournfully, \"I have seen you do two fine things.\nYou have never seen me do anything. But, know you now, once and for\nall, that you may not quarrel with me.\"\n\nThis was too much for an Irish heart. I was moved to throw myself on\nthis lad's neck. I wished to swear to him that I was a brother in\nblood, I wished to cut a vein to give him everlasting strength--but\nperhaps his sister Mary had something to do with this feeling.\n\nColonel Royale had been fidgeting. Now he said suddenly:\n\n\"Strepp, I wronged you. Your pardon, Mr. O'Ruddy; but, damme, Strepp,\nif I didn't think you had gone wrong for the moment.\"\n\nLord Strepp took the offered hand. \"You are a stupid old firebrain,\"\nhe said affectionately to the Colonel.\n\n\"Well,\" said the Colonel jubilantly, \"now everything is clear. If Mr.\nO'Ruddy will have me, I will go with him to meet this Forister; and\nyou, Strepp, will accompany Forister; and we all will meet in a\nfriendly way--ahem!\"\n\n\"The situation is intimately involved,\" said Lord Strepp dejectedly.\n\"It will be a ridiculous business--watching each blade lunge toward\nthe breast of a friend. I don't know that it is proper. Royale, let us\nset ourselves to part these duellists. It is indecent.\"\n\n\"Did you note the manner in which he kicked him out of the inn?\" asked\nthe Colonel. \"Do you think a few soothing words would calm the mind of\none of the finest swordsmen in England?\"\n\nI began to do some profound thinking.\n\n\"Look you, Colonel,\" said I. \"Do you mean that this wretched little\nliar and coward is a fine swordsman?\"\n\n\"I haven't heard what you call him,\" said the Colonel, \"but his\nsword-play is regular firelight on the wall. However,\" he added\nhopefully, \"we may find some way to keep him from killing you. I have\nseen some of the greatest swordsmen lose by chance to a novice. It is\nsomething like cards. And yet you are not an ignorant player. That, I,\nClarence Royale, know full well. Let us try to beat him.\"\n\nI remembered Forister's parting sentence. Could it be true that a man\nI had kicked with such enthusiasm and success was now about to take\nrevenge by killing me? I was really disturbed. I was a very brave\nyouth, but I had the most advanced ideas about being killed. On\noccasion of great danger I could easily and tranquilly develop a\nphilosophy of avoidance and retirement. I had no antiquated notions\nabout going out and getting myself killed through sheer bull-headed\nscorn of the other fellow's hurting me. My father had taught me this\ndiscretion. As a soldier he claimed that he had run away from nine\nbattles, and he would have run away from more, he said, only that all\nthe others had turned out to be victories for his side. He was\nadmittedly a brave man, but, more than this, he had a great deal of\nsense. I was the child of my father. It did not seem to me profitable\nto be killed for the sake of a sentiment which seemed weak and\ndispensable. This little villain! Should I allow him to gratify a\nfurious revenge because I was afraid to take to my heels? I resolved\nto have the courage of my emotions. I would run away.\n\nBut of all this I said nothing. It passed through my mind like light\nand left me still smiling gayly at Colonel Royale's observations upon\nthe situation.\n\n\"Wounds in the body from Forister,\" quoth he academically, \"are almost\ncertain to be fatal, for his wrist has a magnificent twist which\nreminds one of a top. I do not know where he learned this wrist\nmovement, but almost invariably it leads him to kill his man. Last\nyear I saw him--I digress. I must look to it that O'Ruddy has quiet,\nrest, and peace of mind until the morning.\"\n\nYes; I would have great peace of mind until the morning! I saw that\nclearly.\n\n\"Well,\" said I, \"at any rate we will know more to-morrow. A good day\nto you, Lord Strepp, and I hope your principal has no more harm come\nto him than I care to have come to me, which is precious little, and\nin which case the two of us will be little hurted.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, O'Ruddy,\" said the young man.\n\nIn the corridor the Colonel slapped my shoulder in a sudden exuberant\noutburst.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he cried, \"the chance of your life! Probably the best-known\nswordsman in all England! 'Pon my word, if you should even graze him,\nit would almost make you a peer. If you truly pinked him, you could\nmarry a duchess. My eye, what an opportunity for a young and ambitious\nman.\"\n\n\"And what right has he to be such a fine swordsman?\" I demanded\nfretfully. \"Damn him! 'Tis no right of a little tadpole like him to be\na great cut-throat. One could never have told from the look of him,\nand yet it simply teaches one to be always cautious with men.\"\n\nThe Colonel was bubbling over with good nature, his mind full of the\nprospective event.\n\n\"I saw Ponsonby kill Stewart in their great fight several years\nagone,\" he cried, rubbing his hands, \"but Ponsonby was no such\nswordsman as Forister, and I misdoubt me that Stewart was much better\nthan you yourself.\"\n\nHere was a cheerful butcher. I eyed him coldly.\n\n\"And out of this,\" said I slowly, \"comes a vast deal of entertainment\nfor you, and a hole between two ribs for me. I think I need a drink.\"\n\n\"By all means, my boy,\" he answered, heartily. \"Come to my chamber. A\nquart of port under your waistcoat will cure a certain bilious desire\nin you to see the worst of things, which I have detected lately in\nyour manner. With grand sport before us, how could you be otherwise\nthan jolly? Ha, Ha!\"\n\nSo saying, he affectionately took my arm and led me along the\ncorridor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nWhen I reached my own chamber I sank heavily into a chair. My brain\nwas in a tumult. I had fallen in love and arranged to be killed in one\nshort day's work. I stared at my image in a mirror. Could I be The\nO'Ruddy? Perhaps my name was Paddy or Jem Bottles? Could I pick myself\nout in a crowd? Could I establish my identification? I little knew.\n\nAt first I thought of my calm friend who apparently drank blood for\nhis breakfast. Colonel Royale to me was somewhat of a stranger, but\nhis charming willingness to grind the bones of his friends in his\nteeth was now quite clear. I fight the best swordsman in England as an\namusement, a show? I began to see reasons for returning to Ireland. It\nwas doubtful if old Mickey Clancy would be able to take full care of\nmy estate even with the assistance and prevention of Father Donovan.\nAll properties looked better while the real owner had his eye on them.\nIt would be a shame to waste the place at Glandore all for a bit of\npride of staying in England. Never a man neglected his patrimony but\nthat it didn't melt down to a kick in the breeches and much trouble in\nthe courts. I perceived, in short, that my Irish lands were in danger.\nWhat could endanger them was not quite clear to my eye, but at any\nrate they must be saved. Moreover it was necessary to take quick\nmeasures. I started up from my chair, hastily recounting Jem Bottles's\nfive guineas.\n\nBut I bethought me of Lady Mary. She could hardly be my good fairy.\nShe was rather too plump to be a fairy. She was not extremely plump,\nbut when she walked something moved within her skirts. For my part I\nthink little of fairies, who remind me of roasted fowl's wing. Give me\nthe less brittle beauty which is not likely to break in a man's arms.\n\nAfter all, I reflected, Mickey Clancy could take care quite well of\nthat estate at Glandore; and, if he didn't, Father Donovan would soon\nbring him to trouble; and, if Father Donovan couldn't, why, the place\nwas worth very little any how. Besides, 'tis a very weak man who\ncannot throw an estate into the air for a pair of bright eyes.\n\nAye, and Lady Mary's bright eyes! That was one matter. And there was\nForister's bright sword. That was another matter. But to my\ndescendants I declare that my hesitation did not endure an instant.\nForister might have an arm so supple and a sword so long that he might\nbe able to touch the nape of his neck with his own point, but I was\nfirm on English soil. I would meet him even if he were a _chevaux de\nfrise_. Little it mattered to me. He might swing the ten arms of an\nIndian god; he might yell like a gale at sea; he might be more\nterrible in appearance than a volcano in its passions; still I would\nmeet him.\n\nThere was a knock, and at my bidding a servant approached and said: \"A\ngentleman, Mr. Forister, wishes to see you, sir.\"\n\nFor a moment I was privately in a panic. Should I say that I was ill,\nand then send for a doctor to prove that I was not ill? Should I run\nstraightway and hide under the bed? No!\n\n\"Bid the gentleman enter,\" said I to the servant.\n\nForister came in smiling, cool and deadly. \"Good day to you, Mr.\nO'Ruddy,\" he said, showing me his little teeth. \"I am glad to see that\nyou are not for the moment consorting with highwaymen and other\nabandoned characters who might succeed in corrupting your morals, Mr.\nO'Ruddy. I have decided to kill you, Mr. O'Ruddy. You may have heard\nthat I am the finest swordsman in England, Mr. O'Ruddy?\"\n\nI replied calmly: \"I have heard that you are the finest swordsman in\nEngland, Mr. Forister, whenever better swordsmen have been traveling\nin foreign parts, Mr. Forister, and when no visitors of fencing\ndistinction have taken occasion to journey here, Mr. Forister.\"\n\nThis talk did not give him pleasure, evidently. He had entered with\nbrave composure, but now he bit his lip and shot me a glance of\nhatred. \"I only wished to announce,\" he said savagely, \"that I would\nprefer to kill you in the morning as early as possible.\"\n\n\"And how may I render my small assistance to you, Mr. Forister? Have\nyou come to request me to arise at an untimely hour?\"\n\nI was very placid; but it was not for him to be coming to my chamber\nwith talk of killing me. Still, I thought that, inasmuch as he was\nthere, I might do some good to myself by irritating him slightly. I\ncontinued:\n\n\"I to-day informed my friends--\"\n\n\"Your friends!\" said he.\n\n\"My friends,\" said I. \"Colonel Royale in this matter.\"\n\n\"Colonel Royale!\" said he.\n\n\"Colonel Royale,\" said I. \"And if you are bound to talk more you had\nbest thrust your head from the window and talk to those chimneys\nthere, which will take far more interest in your speech than I can\nwork up. I was telling you that to-day I informed my friends--then you\ninterrupted me. Well, I informed them--but what the devil I informed\nthem of you will not know very soon. I can promise you, however, it\nwas not a thing you would care to hear with your hands tied behind\nyou.\"\n\n\"Here's a cold man with a belly full of ice,\" said he musingly. \"I\nhave wronged him. He has a tongue on him, he has that. And here I have\nbeen judging from his appearance that he was a mere common dolt. And,\nwhat, Mr. O'Ruddy,\" he added, \"were you pleased to say to the\ngentlemen which I would not care to hear with my hands tied behind\nme?\"\n\n\"I told them why you took that sudden trip to Bristol,\" I answered\nsoftly.\n\nHe fairly leaped in a sudden wild rage. \"You--told them?\" he\nstuttered. \"You poltroon! 'Twas a coward's work!\"\n\n\"Be easy,\" said I, to soothe him. \"'Tis no more cowardly than it is\nfor the best swordsman in England to be fighting the worst swordsman\nin Ireland over a matter in which he is entirely in the wrong,\nalthough 'tis not me that cares one way or another way. Indeed, I\nprefer you to be in the wrong, you little black pig.\"\n\n\"Stop,\" said he, with a face as white as milk. \"You told them--you\ntold them about--about the girl at Bristol?\"\n\n\"What girl at Bristol?\" said I innocently. \"'Tis not me to be knowing\nyour wenches in Bristol or otherwheres.\"\n\nA red flush came into the side of his neck and swelled slowly across\nhis cheeks. \"If you've told them about Nell!\"\n\n\"Nell?\" said I. \"Nell? Yes, that's the name. Nell. Yes, Nell. And if I\ntold them about Nell?\"\n\n\"Then,\" he rejoined solemnly, \"I shall kill you ten times if I lose my\nsoul in everlasting hell for it.\"\n\n\"But after I have killed you eleven times I shall go to Bristol and\nhave some sweet interviews with fair Nell,\" said I. This sting I\nexpected to call forth a terrific outburst, but he remained scowling\nin dark thought. Then I saw where I had been wrong. This Nell was now\nmore a shame than a sweetheart, and he was afraid that word had been\npassed by me to the brother of--Here was a chance to disturb him.\n\"When I was making my little joke of you and your flame at Bristol,\"\nsaid I thoughtfully, \"I believe there were no ladies present. I don't\nremember quite. Any how we will let that pass. 'Tis of no\nconsequence.\"\n\nAnd here I got him in full cry. \"_God rot you!_\" he shrieked. His\nsword sprang and whistled in the air.\n\n\"Hold,\" said I, as a man of peace. \"'Twould be murder. My weapon is on\nthe bed, and I am too lazy to go and fetch it. And in the mean time\nlet me assure you that no word has crossed my lips in regard to Nell,\nyour Bristol sweetheart, for the very excellent reason that I never\nknew of her existence until you yourself told me some moments ago.\"\n\nNever before had he met a man like me. I thought his under-jaw would\ndrop on the floor.\n\n\"Up to a short time ago,\" said I candidly, \"your indecent amours were\nsafe from my knowledge. I can be in the way of putting myself as\nsilent as a turtle when it comes to protecting a man from his folly\nwith a woman. In fact, I am a gentleman. But,\" I added sternly, \"what\nof the child?\"\n\n\"The child?\" he cried jumping. \"May hell swallow you! And what may you\nknow of the child?\"\n\nI waved my hand in gentle deprecation of his excitement as I said:\n\n\"Peace, Forister; I know nothing of any child. It was only an\nobservation by a man of natural wit who desired to entertain himself.\nAnd, pray, how old is the infant?\"\n\nHe breathed heavily. \"You are a fiend,\" he answered. Keeping his eyes\non the floor, he deliberated upon his choice of conduct. Presently he\nsheathed his sword and turned with some of his old jauntiness toward\nthe door. \"Very good,\" said he. \"To-morrow we shall know more of our\nown affairs.\"\n\n\"True,\" I replied.\n\n\"We shall learn if slyness and treachery are to be defeated by\nfair-going and honour.\"\n\n\"True,\" said I.\n\n\"We shall learn if a snake in the grass can with freedom bite the foot\nof a lion.\"\n\n\"True,\" said I.\n\nThere was a loud jovial clamour at the door, and at my cry it flew\nopen. Colonel Royale entered precipitately, beaming with good humour.\n\n\"O'Ruddy, you rascal,\" he shouted, \"I commanded you to take much rest,\nand here I find--\" He halted abruptly as he perceived my other\nvisitor. \"And here I find,\" he repeated coldly, \"here I find Mr.\nForister.\"\n\nForister saluted with finished politeness. \"My friend and I,\" he said,\n\"were discussing the probabilities of my killing him in the morning.\nHe seems to think that he has some small chance for his life, but I\nhave assured him that any real betting man would not wager a grain of\nsand that he would see the sun go down to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Even so,\" rejoined the Colonel imperturbably.\n\n\"And I also suggested to my friend,\" pursued Forister, \"that to-morrow\nI would sacrifice my ruffles for him, although I always abominate\nhaving a man's life-blood about my wrists.\"\n\n\"Even so,\" quoth the undisturbed Colonel.\n\n\"And further I suggested to my friend that if he came to the ground\nwith a coffin on his back, it might promote expedition after the\naffair was over.\"\n\nColonel Royale turned away with a gesture of disgust.\n\nI thought it was high time to play an ace at Forister and stop his\nbabble, so I said:\n\n\"And when Mr. Forister had finished his graceful remarks we had some\ntalk regarding Mr. Forister's affairs in Bristol, and I confess I was\nmuch interested in hearing about the little--\"\n\nHere I stopped abruptly, as if I had been interrupted by Forister;\nbut he had given me no sign but a sickly grin.\n\n\"Eh, Forister?\" said I. \"What's that?\"\n\n\"I was remarking that I had nothing further to say for the present,\"\nhe replied, with superb insolence. \"For the time I am quite willing to\nbe silent. I bid you a good day, sirs.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nAs the door closed upon Forister, Colonel Royale beat his hand\npassionately against the wall. \"O'Ruddy,\" he cried, \"if you could\nseverely maim that cold-blooded bully, I would be willing to adopt you\nas my legitimate grandfather. I would indeed.\"\n\n\"Never fear me,\" said I. \"I shall pink him well.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said my friend, looking at me mournfully, \"I ever feared your\nIrish light-heartedness. 'Twill not do to be confident. He is an evil\nman, but a great swordsman. Now I never liked Ponsonby, and Stewart\nwas the most lovable of men; but in the great duel Ponsonby killed--\"\n\n\"No,\" I interrupted, \"damn the duel between Ponsonby and Stewart. I'm\nsick of it. This is to be the duel between The O'Ruddy and Forister,\nand it won't be like the other.\"\n\n\"Eh, well,\" said the Colonel good-naturedly; \"make your mind easy. But\nI hope to God you lay him flat.\"\n\n\"After I have finished with him,\" said I in measured tones, \"he will\nbe willing to sell himself as a sailor to go to the Indies; only, poor\ndevil, he won't be able to walk, which is always a drawback after a\nhard fight, since it leaves one man incapable on the ground and thus\ndiscloses strong evidence of a struggle.\"\n\nI could see that Colonel Royale had no admiration for my bragging air,\nbut how otherwise was I to keep up my spirits? With all my\ndiscouragements it seemed to me that I was privileged to do a little\nfine lying. Had my father been in my place, he would have lied\nForister into such a corner that the man would be thinking that he had\nthe devil for an opponent. My father knew more about such matters.\n\nStill I could not help but be thinking how misfortunate it was that I\nhad kicked a great swordsman out of this inn at Bristol when he might\nhave been a harmless shoemaker if I had only decent luck. I must make\nthe best of it, and for this my only method was to talk loudly,--to\nmyself, if need be; to others if I could. I was not the kind that is\nquite unable to say a good word for itself even if I was not able to\nlie as well as my father in his prime. In his day he could lie the\ncoat off a man's back, or the patches off a lady's cheek, and he could\nlie a good dog into howling ominously. Still it was my duty to lie as\nwell as I was able.\n\nAfter a time Lord Strepp was announced and entered. Both he and\nColonel Royale immediately stiffened and decided not to perceive each\nother. \"Sir,\" said Lord Strepp to me, \"I have the honour to present my\ncompliments to you, and to request that you join a friend of mine, Mr.\nForister, at dawn to-morrow, in the settlement of a certain small\nmisunderstanding.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said I, in the same manner, \"I am only too happy to have this\nlittle matter adjusted.\"\n\n\"And of course the arrangements, sir?\"\n\n\"For them I may refer you to my friend Colonel Royale.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the young Lord, as if he had never before seen the Colonel.\n\n\"I am at your service, sir,\" said Colonel Royale as if he never in his\nwhole life had heard of Lord Strepp.\n\nThen these two began to salaam one another, and mouth out fool\nphrases, and cavort and prance and caracole, until I thought them mad.\nWhen they departed there was a dreadful scene. Each refused to go\nthrough the door before the other. There was a frightful deadlock.\nThey each bowed and scraped and waved their hands, and surrendered the\ndoorway back and forth, until I thought they were to be in my chamber\neternally. Lord Strepp gorgeously presented the right of way to\nColonel Royale, and the Colonel gorgeously presented the right of way\nto Lord Strepp. All this time they were bending their backs at each\nother.\n\nFinally I could stand it no longer. \"In God's name,\" I shouted, \"the\ndoor is wide enough for the two of you. Take it together. You will go\nthrough like grease. Never fear the door. 'Tis a good wide door.\"\n\nTo my surprise, they turned to glance at me and burst into great\nlaughter. Then they passed out amiably enough together. I was alone.\n\nWell, the first thing I did was to think. I thought with all my force.\nI fancied the top of my skull was coming off. I thought myself into\nten thousand intricacies. I thought myself into doom and out of it,\nand behind it and below it, but I could not think of anything which\nwas of service to me. It seemed that I had come among a lot of\nmummers, and one of these mummers was resolved to kill me, although I\nhad never even so much as broken his leg. But I remembered my father's\nword, who had told me that gentlemen should properly kill each other\nover a matter of one liking oranges and the other not liking oranges.\nIt was the custom among men of position, he had said, and of course a\nway was not clear to changing this custom at the time. However, I\ndetermined that if I lived I would insist upon all these customs being\nmoderated and re-directed. For my part I was willing that any man\nshould like oranges.\n\nI decided that I must go for a walk. To sit and gloom in my room until\nthe time of the great affair would do me no good in any case. In fact\nit was likely to do me much harm. I went forth to the garden in the\nrear of the inn. Here spread a lawn more level than a ballroom floor.\nThere was a summer-house and many beds of flowers. On this day there\nwas nobody abroad in the garden but an atrocious parrot, which,\nbalancing on its stick, called out continually raucous cries in a\nforeign tongue.\n\nI paced the lawn for a time, and then took a seat in the summer-house.\nI had been there but a moment when I perceived Lady Mary and the\nCountess come into the garden. Through the leafy walls of the\nsummer-house I watched them as they walked slowly to and fro on the\ngrass. The mother had evidently a great deal to say to the daughter.\nShe waved her arms and spoke with a keen excitement.\n\nBut did I overhear anything? I overheard nothing! From what I knew of\nthe proper conduct of the really thrilling episodes of life I judged\nthat I should have been able to overhear almost every word of this\nconversation. Instead, I could only see the Countess making irritated\nspeech to Lady Mary.\n\nMoreover it was legitimate that I should have been undetected in the\nsummer-house. On the contrary, they were perfectly aware that there\nwas somebody there, and so in their promenade they presented it with a\ndistinguished isolation.\n\nNo old maid ever held her ears so wide open. But I could hear nothing\nbut a murmur of angry argument from the Countess and a murmur of\ngentle objection from Lady Mary. I was in possession of an ideal place\nfrom which to overhear conversation. Almost every important\nconversation ever held had been overheard from a position of this\nkind. It seemed unfair that I, of all men in literature, should be\ndenied this casual and usual privilege.\n\nThe Countess harangued in a low voice at great length; Lady Mary\nanswered from time to time, admitting this and admitting that,\nprotesting against the other. It seemed certain to me that talk\nrelated to Forister, although I had no real reason for thinking it.\nAnd I was extremely angry that the Countess of Westport and her\ndaughter, Lady Mary Strepp, should talk of Forister.\n\nUpon my indignant meditations the parrot interpolated:\n\n\"Ho, ho!\" it cried hoarsely. \"A pretty lady! A pretty lady! A pretty\nlady! A pretty lady!--\"\n\nLady Mary smiled at this vacuous repetition, but her mother went into\na great rage, opening her old jaws like a maddened horse. \"Here,\nlandlord! Here, waiter! Here, anybody!\"\n\nSo people came running from the inn, and at their head was, truly\nenough, the landlord. \"My lady,\" he cried panting.\n\nShe pointed an angry and terrible finger at the parrot. \"When I walk\nin this garden, am I to be troubled with this wretched bird?\"\n\nThe landlord almost bit the turf while the servants from the inn\ngrovelled near him. \"My lady,\" he cried, \"the bird shall be removed at\nonce.\" He ran forward. The parrot was chained by its leg to a tall\nperch. As the innkeeper came away with the entire business, the parrot\nbegan to shout: \"Old harridan! Old harridan! Old harridan!\" The\ninnkeeper seemed to me to be about to die of wild terror. It was a\ndreadful moment. One could not help but feel sorry for this poor\nwretch, whose sole offence was that he kept an inn and also chose to\nkeep a parrot in his garden.\n\nThe Countess sailed grandly toward the door of the hotel. To the\nsolemn protestations of six or seven servants she paid no heed. At the\ndoor she paused and turned for the intimate remark. \"I cannot endure\nparrots,\" she said impressively. To this dictum the menials crouched.\n\nThe servants departed: the garden was now empty save for Lady Mary and\nme. She continued a pensive strolling. Now, I could see plainly that\nhere fate had arranged for some kind of interview. The whole thing was\nset like a scene in a theatre. I was undoubtedly to emerge suddenly\nfrom the summer-house; the lovely maid would startle, blush, cast down\nher eyes, turn away. Then, when it came my turn, I would doff my hat\nto the earth and beg pardon for continuing a comparatively futile\nexistence. Then she would slyly murmur a disclaimer of any ability to\ncriticise my continuation of a comparatively futile existence, adding\nthat she was but an inexperienced girl. The ice thus being broken, we\nwould travel by easy stages into more intimate talk.\n\nI looked down carefully at my apparel and flecked a handkerchief over\nit. I tilted my hat; I set my hip against my harbour. A moment of\nindecision, of weakness, and I was out of the summer-house. God knows\nhow I hoped that Lady Mary would not run away.\n\nBut the moment she saw me she came swiftly to me. I almost lost my\nwits.\n\n\"'Tis the very gentleman I wished to see,\" she cried. She was\nblushing, it is true, but it was evident she intended to say nothing\nabout inexperience or mere weak girls. \"I wished to see you because--\"\nshe hesitated and then rapidly said: \"It was about the papers. I\nwanted to thank you--I--you have no notion how happy the possession of\nthe papers has made my father. It seemed to have given him new life.\nI--I saw you throw your sword on the floor with the hilt away from\nyou. And--and then you gave me the papers. I knew you were a gallant\ngentleman.\"\n\nAll this time, I, in my confusion, was bobbing and murmuring pledges\nof service. But if I was confused, Lady Mary was soon cool enough in\nthe presence of a simple bog-trotter like me. Her beautiful eyes\nlooked at me reflectively.\n\n\"There is only one service I can render you, sir,\" said she softly.\n\"'Tis advice which would have been useful in saving some men's lives\nif only they had received it. I mean--don't fight with Forister in the\nmorning. 'Tis certain death.\"\n\nIt was now my turn once more. I drew myself up, and for the first time\nI looked squarely into her bright eyes.\n\n\"My lady,\" said I, with mournful dignity, \"I was filled with pride\nwhen you said the good word to me. But what am I to think now? Am I,\nafter all, such a poor stick that, to your mind, I could be advised to\nsell my honour for a mere fear of being killed?\"\n\nEven then I remembered my one-time decision to run away from the duel\nwith Forister; but we will not be thinking of that now.\n\nTears came into Lady Mary's eyes. \"Ah, now, I have blundered,\" she\nsaid. \"'Tis what you would say, sir. 'Tis what you would do. I have\nonly made matters worse. A woman's meddling often results in the\ndestruction of those she--those she don't care to have killed.\"\n\nOne would think from the look of this last sentence, that with certain\nreason I could have felt somewhat elated without being altogether a\nfool. Lady Mary meant nothing of importance by her speech, but it was\na little bit for a man who was hungry to have her think of him. But\nhere I was assailed by a very demon of jealousy and distrust. This\nbeautiful witch had some plan in her head which did not concern my\nwelfare at all. Why should she, a great lady, take any trouble for a\npoor devil who was living at an inn on money borrowed from a\nhighwayman. I had been highly honoured by an indifferent\nconsideration born of a wish to be polite to a man who had eased the\nmind of her father. No; I would not deceive myself.\n\nBut her tears! Were they marking indifferent consideration? For a\nsecond I lost myself in a roseate impossible dream. I dreamed that she\nhad spoken to me because she--\n\nOh, what folly! Even as I dreamed, she turned to me with splendid\ncarriage, and remarked coldly:\n\n\"I did not wish you to suppose that I ever failed to pay a debt. I\nhave paid this one. Proceed now, sir, in your glowing stupidity. I\nhave done.\"\n\nWhen I recovered myself she was placidly moving away from me toward\nthe door of the inn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nI had better be getting to the story of the duel. I have been hanging\nback with it long enough, and I shall tell it at once. I remember my\nfather saying that the most aggravating creature in life was one who\nwould be keeping back the best part of a story through mere reasons of\ntrickery, although I have seen himself dawdle over a tale until his\nfriends wished to hurl the decanters at him. However, there can be no\ndoubting of the wisdom of my father's remark. Indeed there can be\nlittle doubting of the wisdom of anything that my father said in life,\nfor he was a very learned man. The fact that my father did not\ninvariably defer to his own opinions does not alter the truth of those\nopinions in my judgment, since even the greatest of philosophers is\nmore likely to be living a life based on the temper of his wife and\nthe advice of his physician than on the rules laid down in his books.\nNor am I certain that my father was in a regular habit of delaying a\nstory. I only remember this one incident, wherein he was recounting a\nstirring tale of a fight with a lancer, and just as the lance was\nwithin an inch of the paternal breast my father was reminded, by a\nsight of the walnuts, that Mickey Clancy was not serving the port with\nhis usual rapidity, and so he addressed him. I remember the words\nwell.\n\n\"Mickey, you spalpeen,\" said my father, \"would you be leaving the\ngentlemen as dry as the bottom of Moses' feet when he crossed the Red\nSea? Look at O'Mahoney there! He is as thirsty as a fish in the top of\na tree. And Father Donovan has had but two small quarts, and he never\ntakes less than five. Bad luck to you, Mickey, if it was a drink for\nyour own stomach, you would be moving faster. Are you wishing to ruin\nmy reputation for hospitality, you rogue you?\"\n\nAnd my father was going on with Mickey, only that he looked about him\nat this time and discovered his guests all upon their feet, one with\nthe tongs and one with the poker, others with decanters ready to\nthrow.\n\n\"What's this?\" said he.\n\n\"The lance,\" said they.\n\n\"What lance?\" said he.\n\n\"The lance of the lancer,\" said they.\n\n\"And why shouldn't he have a lance?\" said my father. \"'Faith, 'twould\nbe an odd lancer without a lance!\"\n\nBy this time they were so angry that Mickey, seeing how things were\ngoing, and I being a mere lad, took me from the room. I never heard\nprecisely what happened to the lancer, but he must have had the worst\nof it, for wasn't my father, seated there at the table, telling the\nstory long years after?\n\nWell, as to my duel with Forister: Colonel Royale was an extremely\nbusy man, and almost tired my life out with a quantity of needless\nattentions. For my part, I thought more of Lady Mary and the fact that\nshe considered me no more than if I had been a spud. Colonel Royale\nfluttered about me. I would have gruffly sent him away if it were not\nthat everything he did was meant in kindliness and generous feeling. I\nwas already believing that he did not have more than one brain in his\nhead, but I could not be ungrateful for his interest and enthusiasm in\ngetting me out to be hurt correctly. I understood, long years\nafterward, that he and Lord Strepp were each so particular in the\nnegotiations that no less than eighteen bottles of wine were consumed.\n\nThe morning for the duel dawned softly warm, softly wet, softly foggy.\nThe Colonel popped into my room the moment I was dressed. To my\nsurprise, he was now quite mournful. It was I, now, who had to do the\ncheering.\n\n\"Your spirits are low, Colonel?\" said I banteringly.\n\n\"Aye, O'Ruddy,\" he answered with an effort, \"I had a bad night, with\nthe gout. Heaven help this devil from getting his sword into your\nbowels.\"\n\nHe had made the appointment with Strepp, of course, and as we walked\ntoward the ground he looked at me very curiously out of the ends of\nhis eyes. \"You know--ah, you have the honour of the acquaintance of\nLady Mary Strepp, O'Ruddy?\" said he suddenly and nervously.\n\n\"I have,\" I answered, stiffening. Then I said: \"And you?\"\n\n\"Her father and I were friends before either of you were born,\" he\nsaid simply. \"I was a cornet in his old regiment. Little Lady Mary\nplayed at the knee of the poor young subaltern.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said I meanly, \"you are, then, a kind of uncle.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said he, \"a kind of uncle. So much of an uncle,\" he added with\nmore energy, \"that when she gave me this note I thought much of acting\nlike a real uncle. From what I have unfortunately overheard, I suspect\nthat the Earl--aw--disagrees with you on certain points.\"\n\nHe averted his face as he handed me the note, and eagerly I tore it\nopen. It was unsigned. It contained but three words: \"God spare you!\"\nAnd so I marched in a tumult of joy to a duel wherein I was expected\nto be killed.\n\nI glanced at the Colonel. His countenance was deeply mournful. \"'Tis\nfor few girls I would become a dove to carry notes between lovers,\" he\nsaid gloomily. \"Damn you for it, O'Ruddy!\"\n\n\"Nay, Colonel,\" said I. \"'Tis no missive of love. Look you!\"\n\nBut still he kept his eyes averted. \"I judge it was not meant for my\neyes,\" he said, still very gloomy.\n\nBut here I flamed up in wrath:\n\n\"And would the eye of an angel be allowed to rest upon this paper if\nit were not fit that it should be so?\" I demanded in my anger.\n\"Colonel, am I to hear you bleat about doves and lovers when a glance\nof your eye will disabuse you? Read!\"\n\nHe read. \"'God spare you!'\" he repeated tenderly. Then he addressed me\nwith fine candor. \"Aye, I have watched her these many years, O'Ruddy.\nWhen she was a babe I have seen her in her little bath. When she was a\nsmall girl I have seen her asleep with some trinket clasped in her\nrosy hand on the coverlet. Since she has been a beautiful young lady I\nhave--but no matter. You come along, named nobody, hailing from\nnowhere; and she--she sends me out to deliver her prayer that God may\nspare you!\"\n\nI was awed by this middle-aged sorrow. But, curse him! when she was a\nbabe he had seen her in her little bath, had he? Damn his eyes! He had\nseen the baby naked in her tiny tub? Damn his eyes again! I was in\nsuch a fury that I longed to fight Royale on the spot and kill him,\nrunning my sword through his memory so that it would be blotted out\nforever, and never, never again, even in Paradise, could he recall the\nimage in the little tub.\n\nBut the Colonel's next words took the rage out of me.\n\n\"Go in, O'Ruddy,\" he cried heartily. \"There is no truer man could win\nher. As my lady says, 'God spare you!'\"\n\n\"And if Forister's blade be not too brisk, I will manage to be\nspared,\" I rejoined.\n\n\"Oh, there is another thing touching the matter,\" said the Colonel\nsuddenly. \"Forister is your chief rival, although I little know what\nhas passed between them. Nothing important, I think, although I am\nsure Forister is resolved to have her for a bride. Of that I am\ncertain. He is resolved.\"\n\n\"Is he so?\" said I.\n\nI was numb and cold for a moment. Then I slowly began to boil, like a\nkettle freshly placed on the fire. So I was facing a rival? Well, and\nhe would get such a facing as few men had received. And he was my\nrival and in the breast of my coat I wore a note--\"God spare you!\" Ha,\nha! He little knew the advantages under which he was to play. Could I\nlose with \"God spare you!\" against my heart? Not against three\nForisters!\n\nBut hold! might it not be that the gentle Lady Mary, deprecating this\nduel and filled with feelings of humanity, had sent us each a note\nwith this fervid cry for God to spare us? I was forced to concede it\npossible. After all, I perfectly well knew that to Lady Mary I was a\nmere nothing. Royale's words had been so many plumes in my life's\nhelmet, but at bottom I knew better than to set great store by them.\nThe whole thing was now to hurry to the duelling-ground and see if I\ncould discover from this black Forister's face if he had received a\n\"God spare you!\" I took the Colonel's arm and fairly dragged him.\n\n\"Damme, O'Ruddy!\" said he, puffing; \"this can be nought but genuine\neagerness.\"\n\nWhen we came to the duelling-place we found Lord Strepp and Forister\npacing to and fro, while the top of a near-by wall was crowded with\npleasant-minded spectators. \"Aye, you've come, have ye, sirs?\" called\nout the rabble. Lord Strepp seemed rather annoyed, and Colonel Royale\ngrew red and stepped peremptorily toward the wall, but Forister and I\nhad eyes only for each other. His eye for me was a glad, cruel eye. I\nhave a dim remembrance of seeing the Colonel take his scabbard and\nincontinently beat many worthy citizens of Bristol; indeed, he seemed\nto beat every worthy citizen of Bristol who had not legs enough to get\naway. I could hear them squeaking out protests while I keenly studied\nthe jubilant Forister.\n\nAye, it was true. He too had a \"God spare you!\" I felt my blood begin\nto run hot. My eyes suddenly cleared as if I had been empowered with\nmiraculous vision. My arm became supple as a whip. I decided upon one\nthing. I would kill Forister.\n\nI thought the Colonel never would give over chasing citizens, but at\nlast he returned breathless, having scattered the populace over a wide\nstretch of country. The preliminaries were very simple. In a\nhalf-minute Forister and I, in our shirts, faced each other.\n\nAnd now I passed into such a state of fury that I cannot find words to\ndescribe it; but, as I have said, I was possessed with a remarkable\nclearness of vision and strength of arm. These phenomena amaze me even\nat this day. I was so airy upon my feet that I might have been a\nspirit. I think great rages work thus upon some natures. Their\ncompetence is suddenly made manifold. They live, for a brief space,\nthe life of giants. Rage is destruction active. Whenever anything in\nthis world needs to be destroyed, nature makes somebody wrathful.\nAnother thing that I recall is that I had not the slightest doubt of\nmy ability to kill Forister. There were no more misgivings: no\nquakings. I thought of the impending duel with delight.\n\nIn all my midnight meditations upon the fight I had pictured myself as\nlying strictly upon the defensive and seeking a chance opportunity to\ndamage my redoubtable opponent. But the moment after our swords had\ncrossed I was an absolute demon of attack. My very first lunge made\nhim give back a long pace. I saw his confident face change to a look\nof fierce excitement.\n\nThere is little to say of the flying, spinning blades. It is only\nnecessary to remark that Forister dropped almost immediately to\ndefensive tactics before an assault which was not only impetuous but\nexceedingly brilliant, if I may be allowed to say so. And I know that\non my left a certain Colonel Royale was steadily growing happier.\n\nThe end came with an almost ridiculous swiftness. The feeling of an\nugly quivering wrench communicated itself from the point of my sword\nto my mind; I heard Strepp and Royale cry \"Hold!\" I saw Forister fall;\nI lowered my point and stood dizzily thinking. My sight was now\nblurred; my arm was weak.\n\nMy sword had gone deep into Forister's left shoulder, and the bones\nthere had given that hideous feeling of a quivering wrench. He was not\ninjured beyond repair, but he was in exquisite agony. Before they\ncould reach him he turned over on his elbows and managed in some way\nto fling his sword at me. \"Damn your soul!\" he cried, and he gave a\nsort of howl as Lord Strepp, grim and unceremonious, bounced him over\nagain upon his back. In the mean time Colonel Royale was helping me on\nwith my coat and waistcoat, although I hardly knew that either he or\nthe coat or waistcoat were in existence.\n\nI had my usual inclination to go forward and explain to everybody how\nit all had happened. But Royale took me forcibly by the arm, and we\nturned our backs on Strepp and Forister and walked toward the inn.\n\nAs soon as we were out of their sight, Colonel Royale clasped my hands\nwith rapture. \"My boy,\" he cried, \"you are great! You are renowned!\nYou are illustrious! What a game you could give Ponsonby! You would\ngive him such a stir!\"\n\n\"Never doubt me,\" said I. \"But I am now your legitimate grandfather,\nand I should be treated with great respect.\"\n\nWhen we came near the inn I began to glance up at the windows. I\nsurely expected to see a face at one of them. Certainly she would care\nto know who was slain or who was hurt. She would be watching, I fondly\nhoped, to see who returned on his legs. But the front of the inn\nstared at us, chilly and vacant, like a prison wall.\n\nWhen we entered, the Colonel bawled lustily for an immediate bottle of\nwine, and I joined him in its drinking, for I knew that it would be a\nbellows to my flagging spirits. I had set my heart upon seeing a face\nat the window of the inn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nAnd now I found out what it was to be a famous swordsman. All that day\nthe inn seemed to hum with my name. I could not step down a corridor\nwithout seeing flocks of servants taking wing. They fled tumultuously.\nA silly maid coming from a chamber with a bucket saw me and shrieked.\nShe dropped her bucket and fled back into the chamber. A man-servant\nsaw me, gave a low moan of terror, and leaped down a convenient\nstairway. All attendants scuttled aside.\n\nWhat was the matter with me? Had I grown in stature or developed a\nferocious ugliness? No; I now was a famous swordsman. That was all. I\nnow was expected to try to grab the maids and kiss them wantonly. I\nnow was expected to clout the grooms on their ears if they so much as\nshowed themselves in my sight. In fact, I was now a great blustering,\noverpowering, preposterous ass.\n\nThere was a crowd of people in the coffee-room, but the buzz of talk\nsuddenly ceased as I entered.\n\n\"Is this your chair, sir?\" said I civilly to a gentleman.\n\nHe stepped away from the chair as if it had tried to bite him.\n\n\"'Tis at your service, sir!\" he cried hastily.\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"I would not be taking it if it be yours, for there are\njust as good chairs in the sea as ever were caught, and it would ill\nbecome me to deprive a gentleman of his chair when by exercising a\nlittle energy I can gain one for myself, although I am willing to\nadmit that I have a slight hunger upon me. 'Tis a fine morning, sir.\"\n\nHe had turned pale and was edging toward the door. \"'Tis at your\nservice, sir,\" he repeated in a low and frightened voice. All the\npeople were staring at us.\n\n\"No, good sir,\" I remonstrated, stepping forward to explain. \"I would\nnot be having you think that I am unable to get a chair for myself,\nsince I am above everything able and swift with my hands, and it is a\nsmall thing to get a chair for one's self and not deprive a worthy\ngentleman of his own.\"\n\n\"I did not think to deprive you, sir,\" he ejaculated desperately. \"The\nchair is at your service, sir!\"\n\n\"Plague the man!\" I cried, stamping my foot impatiently; and at the\nstamping of my foot a waiter let fall a dish, some women screamed,\nthree or four people disappeared through the door, and a venerable\ngentleman arose from his seat in a corner and in a tremulous voice\nsaid:\n\n\"Sir, let us pray you that there be no bloodshed.\"\n\n\"You are an old fool,\" said I to him. \"How could there be bloodshed\nwith me here merely despising you all for not knowing what I mean when\nI say it.\"\n\n\"We know you mean what you say, sir,\" responded the old gentleman.\n\"Pray God you mean peaceably!\"\n\n\"Hoity-toity!\" shouted a loud voice, and I saw a great, tall, ugly\nwoman bearing down upon me from the doorway. \"Out of my way,\" she\nthundered at a waiter. The man gasped out: \"Yes, your ladyship!\"\n\nI was face to face with the mother of my lovely Mary.\n\n\"Hoity-toity!\" she shouted at me again. \"A brawler, eh? A lively\nswordster, hey? A real damn-my-eyes swaggering bully!\"\n\nThen she charged upon me. \"How dare you brawl with these inoffensive\npeople under the same roof which shelters me, fellow? By my word, I\nwould have pleasure to give you a box on the ear!\"\n\n\"Madam,\" I protested hurriedly. But I saw the futility of it. Without\ndevoting further time to an appeal, I turned and fled. I dodged behind\nthree chairs and moved them hastily into a rampart.\n\n\"Madam,\" I cried, feeling that I could parley from my new position,\n\"you labour under a misapprehension.\"\n\n\"Misapprehend me no misapprehensions,\" she retorted hotly. \"How dare\nyou say that I can misapprehend anything, wretch?\"\n\nShe attacked each flank in turn, but so agile was I that I escaped\ncapture, although my position in regard to the chairs was twice\nreversed. We performed a series of nimble manoeuvres which were\ncharacterized on my part by a high degree of strategy. But I found the\nrampart of chairs an untenable place. I was again obliged hurriedly to\nretreat, this time taking up a position behind a large table.\n\n\"Madam,\" I said desperately, \"believe me, you are suffering under a\ngrave misapprehension.\"\n\n\"Again he talks of misapprehension!\"\n\nWe revolved once swiftly around the table; she stopped, panting.\n\n\"And this is the blusterer! And why do you not stand your ground,\ncoward?\"\n\n\"Madam,\" said I with more coolness now that I saw she would soon be\nlosing her wind, \"I would esteem it very ungallant behaviour if I\nendured your attack for even a brief moment. My forefathers form a\nbrave race which always runs away from the ladies.\"\n\nAfter this speech we revolved twice around the table. I must in all\ncandour say that the Countess used language which would not at all\nsuit the pages of my true and virtuous chronicle; but indeed it was no\nworse than I often heard afterward from the great ladies of the time.\nHowever, the talk was not always addressed to me, thank the Saints!\n\nAfter we had made the two revolutions, I spoke reasonably. \"Madam,\"\nsaid I, \"if we go spinning about the table in this fashion for any\nlength of time, these gawking spectators will think we are a pair of\nwheels.\"\n\n\"Spectators!\" she cried, lifting her old head high. She beheld about\nseventy-five interested people. She called out loudly to them:\n\n\"And is there no gentleman among you all to draw his sword and beat me\nthis rascal from the inn?\"\n\nNobody moved.\n\n\"Madam,\" said I, still reasonable, \"would it not be better to avoid a\npossible scandal by discontinuing these movements, as the tongues of\nmen are not always fair, and it might be said by some--\"\n\nWhereupon we revolved twice more around the table.\n\nWhen the old pelican stopped, she had only enough breath left to\nimpartially abuse all the sight-seers. As her eye fixed upon them,\nThe O'Ruddy, illustrious fighting-man, saw his chance and bolted like\na hare. The escape must have formed a great spectacle, but I had no\ntime for appearances. As I was passing out of the door, the Countess,\nin her disappointed rage, threw a heavy ivory fan after me, which\nstruck an innocent bystander in the eye, for which he apologized.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nI wasted no time in the vicinity of the inn. I decided that an\ninterval spent in some remote place would be consistent with the\nbehaviour of a gentleman.\n\nBut the agitations of the day were not yet closed for me. Suddenly I\ncame upon a small, slow-moving, and solemn company of men, who carried\namong them some kind of a pallet, and on this pallet was the body of\nForister. I gazed upon his ghastly face; I saw the large blood\nblotches on his shirt; as they drew nearer I saw him roll his eyes and\nheard him groan. Some of the men recognized me, and I saw black looks\nand straight-pointing fingers. At the rear walked Lord Strepp with\nForister's sword under his arm. I turned away with a new impression of\nthe pastime of duelling. Forister's pallor, the show of bloody cloth,\nhis groan, the dark stares of men, made me see my victory in a\ndifferent way, and I even wondered if it had been absolutely necessary\nto work this mischief upon a fellow-being.\n\nI spent most of the day down among the low taverns of the sailors,\nstriving to interest myself in a thousand new sights brought by the\nships from foreign parts.\n\nBut ever my mind returned to Lady Mary, and to my misfortune in being\npursued around chairs and tables by my angel's mother. I had also\nmanaged to have a bitter quarrel with the noble father of this lovely\ncreature. It was hardly possible that I could be joyous over my\nprospects.\n\nAt noon I returned to the inn, approaching with some display of\ncaution. As I neared it, a carriage followed by some horsemen whirled\nspeedily from the door. I knew at once that Lady Mary had been taken\nfrom me. She was gone with her father and mother back to London. I\nrecognized Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale among the horsemen.\n\nI walked through the inn to the garden, and looked at the parrot. My\nsenses were all numb. I stared at the bird as it rolled its wicked eye\nat me.\n\n\"Pretty lady! Pretty lady!\" it called in coarse mockery.\n\n\"Plague the bird!\" I muttered, as I turned upon my heel and entered\nthe inn.\n\n\"My bill,\" said I. \"A horse for Bath!\" said I.\n\nAgain I rode forth on a quest. The first had been after my papers. The\nsecond was after my love. The second was the hopeless one, and,\novercome by melancholy, I did not even spur my horse swiftly on my\nmission. There was upon me the deep-rooted sadness which balances the\nmirth of my people,--the Celtic aptitude for discouragement; and even\nthe keening of old women in the red glow of the peat fire could never\nhave deepened my mood.\n\nAnd if I should succeed in reaching London, what then? Would the wild\nsavage from the rocky shore of Ireland be a pleasing sight to my Lady\nMary when once more amid the glamour and whirl of the fashionable\ntown? Besides, I could no longer travel on the guineas of Jem Bottles.\nHe had engaged himself and his purse in my service because I had told\nhim of a fortune involved in the regaining of certain papers. I had\nregained those papers, and then coolly placed them as a gift in a\ncertain lovely white hand. I had had no more thought of Jem Bottles\nand his five guineas than if I had never seen them. But this was no\nexcuse for a gentleman. When I was arrived at the rendezvous I must\nimmediately confess to Jem Bottles, the highwayman, that I had wronged\nhim. I did not expect him to demand satisfaction, but I thought he\nmight shoot me in the back as I was riding away.\n\nBut Jem was not at the appointed place under the tree. Not puzzled at\nthis behaviour, I rode on. I saw I could not expect the man to stay\nfor ever under a tree while I was away in Bristol fighting a duel and\nmaking eyes at a lady. Still, I had heard that it was always done.\n\nAt the inn where Paddy holed Forister, I did not dismount, although a\nhostler ran out busily. \"No,\" said I. \"I ride on.\" I looked at the\nman. Small, sharp-eyed, weazened, he was as likely a rascal of a\nhostler as ever helped a highwayman to know a filled purse from a man\nwho was riding to make arrangements with his creditors.\n\n\"Do you remember me?\" said I.\n\n\"No, sir,\" he said with great promptitude.\n\n\"Very good,\" said I. \"I knew you did. Now I want to know if Master Jem\nBottles has passed this way to-day. A shilling for the truth and a\nthrashing for a lie.\"\n\nThe man came close to my stirrup. \"Master,\" he said, \"I know you to be\na friend of him. Well, in day-time he don't ride past our door. There\nbe lanes. And so he ain't passed here, and that's the truth.\"\n\nI flung him a shilling. \"Now,\" I said, \"what of the red giant?\"\n\nThe man opened his little eyes in surprise. \"He took horse with you\ngentlemen and rode on to Bristol, or I don't know.\"\n\n\"Very good; now I see two very fine horses champing in the yard. And\nwho owns them?\"\n\nIf I had expected to catch him in treachery I was wrong.\n\n\"Them?\" said he, jerking his thumb. He still kept his voice lowered.\n\"They belong to two gentlemen who rode out some hours agone along with\nsome great man's carriage. The officer said some pin-pricks he had\ngotten in a duel had stiffened him, and made the saddle ill of ease\nwith him, and the young lord said that he would stay behind as a\ncompanion. They be up in the Colonel's chamber, drinking vastly. But\nmind your life, sir, if you would halt them on the road. They be men\nof great spirit. This inn seldom sees such drinkers.\"\n\nAnd so Lord Strepp and Colonel Royale were resting at this inn while\nthe carriage of the Earl had gone on toward Bath? I had a mind to\ndismount and join the two in their roystering, but my eyes turned\nwistfully toward Bath.\n\nAs I rode away I began to wonder what had become of Jem Bottles and\nPaddy. Here was a fine pair to be abroad in the land. Here were two\njewels to be rampaging across the country. Separately, they were\nvillains enough, but together they would overturn England and get\nthemselves hung for it on twin gibbets. I tried to imagine the\nparticular roguery to which they would first give their attention.\n\nBut then all thought of the rascals faded from me as my mind received\na vision of Lady Mary's fair face, her figure, her foot. It would not\nbe me to be thinking of two such thieves when I could be dreaming of\nLady Mary with her soft voice and the clear depth of her eyes. My\nhorse seemed to have a sympathy with my feeling and he leaped bravely\nalong the road. The Celtic melancholy of the first part of the journey\nhad blown away like a sea-mist. I sped on gallantly toward Bath and\nLady Mary.\n\nBut almost at the end of the day, when I was within a few miles of\nBath, my horse suddenly pitched forward onto his knees and nose. There\nwas a flying spray of muddy water. I was flung out of the saddle, but\nI fell without any serious hurt whatever. We had been ambushed by some\nkind of deep-sided puddle. My poor horse scrambled out and stood with\nlowered head, heaving and trembling. His soft nose had been cut\nbetween his teeth and the far edge of the puddle. I led him forward,\nwatching his legs. He was lamed. I looked in wrath and despair back at\nthe puddle, which was as plain as a golden guinea on a platter. I do\nnot see how I could have blundered into it, for the daylight was still\nclear and strong. I had been gazing like a fool in the direction of\nBath. And my Celtic melancholy swept down upon me again, and even my\nfather's bier appeared before me with the pale candle-flames swaying\nin the gusty room, and now indeed my ears heard the loud wailing keen\nof the old women.\n\n\"Rubbish,\" said I suddenly and aloud, \"and is it one of the best\nswordsmen in England that is to be beaten by a lame horse?\" My spirit\nrevived. I resolved to leave my horse in the care of the people of\nthe nearest house and proceed at once on foot to Bath. The people of\nthe inn could be sent out after the poor animal. Wheeling my eyes, I\nsaw a house not more than two fields away, with honest hospitable\nsmoke curling from the chimneys. I led my beast through a hole in the\nhedge, and I slowly made my way toward it.\n\nNow it happened that my way led me near a haycock, and as I neared\nthis haycock I heard voices from the other side of it. I hastened\nforward, thinking to find some yokels. But as I drew very close I\nsuddenly halted and silently listened to the voices on the other side.\n\n\"Sure, I can read,\" Paddy was saying. \"And why wouldn't I be able? If\nwe couldn't read in Ireland, we would be after being cheated in our\nrents, but we never pay them any how, so that's no matter. I would be\nhaving you to know we are a highly educated people. And perhaps you\nwould be reading it yourself, my man?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Jem Bottles, \"I be not a great scholar and it has a look of\namazing hardness. And I misdoubt me,\" he added in a morose and envious\nvoice, \"that your head be too full of learning.\"\n\n\"Learning!\" cried Paddy. \"Why wouldn't I be learned, since my uncle\nwas a sexton and had to know one grave from another by looking at the\nstones so as never to mix up the people? Learning! says you? And\nwasn't there a convent at Ballygowagglycuddi, and wasn't\nBallygowagglycuddi only ten miles from my father's house, and haven't\nI seen it many a time?\"\n\n\"Aye, well, good Master Paddy,\" replied Jem Bottles, oppressed and\nsullen, but still in a voice ironic from suspicion, \"I never doubt me\nbut what you are a regular clerk for deep learning, but you have not\nyet read a line from the paper, and I have been waiting this\nhalf-hour.\"\n\n\"And how could I be reading?\" cried Paddy in tones of indignation.\n\"How could I be reading with you there croaking of this and that and\nspeaking hard of my learning? Bad cess to the paper, I will be after\nreading it to myself if you are never to stop your clatter, Jem\nBottles.\"\n\n\"I be still as a dead rat,\" exclaimed the astonished highwayman.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Paddy. \"Listen hard, and you will hear such\nlearning as would be making your eyes jump from your head. And 'tis\nnot me either that cares to show my learning before people who are\nunable to tell a mile-post from a church-tower.\"\n\n\"I be awaiting,\" said Jem Bottles with a new meekness apparently born\nof respect for Paddy's eloquence.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Paddy, pained at these interruptions. \"Listen well,\nand maybe you will gain some learning which may serve you all your\nlife in reading chalk-marks in taprooms; for I see that they have that\ncustom in this country, and 'tis very bad for hard-drinking men who\nhave no learning.\"\n\n\"If you would read from the paper--\" began Jem Bottles.\n\n\"Now, will you be still?\" cried Paddy in vast exasperation.\n\nBut here Jem Bottles spoke with angry resolution. \"Come, now! Read!\n'Tis not me that talks too much, and the day wanes.\"\n\n\"Well, well, I would not be hurried, and that's the truth,\" said Paddy\nsoothingly. \"Listen now.\" I heard a rustling of paper. \"Ahem!\" said\nPaddy, \"Ahem! Are ye listening, Jem Bottles?\"\n\n\"I be,\" replied the highwayman.\n\n\"Ahem!\" said Paddy. \"Ahem! Are ye listening, Jem Bottles?\"\n\n\"I be,\" replied the highwayman.\n\n\"Then here's for it,\" said Paddy in a formidable voice. There was\nanother rustling of paper. Then to my surprise I heard Paddy intone,\nwithout punctuation, the following words:\n\n     \"Dear Sister Mary I am asking the good father to write this\n     because my hand is lame from milking the cows although we\n     only have one and we sold her in the autumn the four\n     shillings you owe on the pig we would like if convenient to\n     pay now owing to the landlord may the plague take him how\n     did your Mickey find the fishing when you see Peggy tell\n     her--\"\n\nHere Jem Bottles's voice arose in tones of incredulity.\n\n\"And these be the papers of the great Earl!\" he cried.\n\nThen the truth flashed across my vision like the lightning. My two\nmadmen had robbed the carriage of the Earl of Westport, and had taken,\namong other things, the Earl's papers--my papers--Lady Mary's papers.\nI strode around the haycock.\n\n\"Wretches!\" I shouted. \"Miserable wretches!\"\n\nFor a time they were speechless. Paddy found his tongue first.\n\n\"Aye, 'tis him! 'Tis nothing but little black men and papers with him,\nand when we get them for him he calls us out of our names in a foreign\ntongue. 'Tis no service for a bright man,\" he concluded mournfully.\n\n\"Give me the papers,\" said I.\n\nPaddy obediently handed them. I knew them. They were my papers--Lady\nMary's papers.\n\n\"And now,\" said I, eyeing the pair, \"what mischief have you two been\ncompassing?\"\n\nPaddy only mumbled sulkily. It was something on the difficulties of\nsatisfying me on the subjects of little black men and papers. Jem\nBottles was also sulky, but he grumbled out the beginning of an\nexplanation.\n\n\"Well, master, I bided under the tree till him here came, and then we\ntogether bided. And at last we thought, with the time so heavy, we\nmight better work to handle a purse or two. Thinking,\" he said\ndelicately, \"our gentleman might have need of a little gold. Well, and\nas we were riding, a good lad from the--your worship knows\nwhere--tells us the Earl's carriage is halting there for a time, but\nwill go on later without its escort of two gentlemen; only with\nservants. And, thinking to do our gentleman a good deed, I brought\nthem to stand on the highway, and then he--\"\n\n\"And then I,\" broke in Paddy proudly, \"walks up to the carriage-door\nlooking like a king's cruiser, and says I, 'Pray excuse the manners of\na self-opinionated man, but I consider your purses would look better\nin my pocket.' And then there was a great trouble. An old owl of a\nwoman screeched, and was for killing me with a bottle which she had\nbeen holding against her nose. But she never dared. And with that an\nold sick man lifted himself from hundreds of cushions and says he,\n'What do you want? You can't have them,' says he, and he keeps\nclasping his breast. 'First of all,' says I, 'I want what you have\nthere. What I want else I'll tell you at my leisure.' And he was all\nfor mouthing and fuming, but he was that scared he gave me these\npapers--bad luck to them.\" Paddy cast an evil eye upon the papers in\nmy hand.\n\n\"And then?\" said I.\n\n\"The driver he tried for to whip up,\" interpolated Jem Bottles. \"He\nwas a game one, but the others were like wet cats.\"\n\n\"And says I,\" continued Paddy, \"'now we will have the gold, if it\nplease you.' And out it came. 'I bid ye a good journey,' says I, and I\nthought it was over, and how easy it was highwaying, and I liked it\nwell, until the lady on the front seat opens her hood and shows me a\nprettier face than we have in all Ireland. She clasps two white hands.\n'Oh, please Mister Highwayman, my father's papers--' And with that I\nbacks away. 'Let them go,' says I to Jem Bottles, and sick I was of\nit, and I would be buying masses to-night if I might find a Christian\nchurch. The poor lady!\"\n\nI was no longer angry with Paddy.\n\n\"Aye,\" said Jem Bottles, \"the poor lady was that forlorn!\"\n\nI was no longer angry with Jem Bottles.\n\nBut I now had to do a deal of thinking. It was plain that the papers\nwere of supreme importance to the Earl. Although I had given them to\nLady Mary, they had returned to me. It was fate. My father had taught\nme to respect these papers, but I now saw them as a sign in the sky.\n\nHowever, it was hard to decide what to do. I had given the papers to\nLady Mary, and they had fled back to me swifter than cormorants.\nPerhaps it was willed that I should keep them. And then there would be\ntears in the eyes of Lady Mary, who suffered through the suffering of\nher father. No; come good, come bad for me, for Jem Bottles, for\nPaddy, I would stake our fortunes on the act of returning the papers\nto Lady Mary.\n\nIt is the way of Irishmen. We are all of us true philanthropists. That\nis why we have nothing, although in other countries I have seen\nphilanthropists who had a great deal. My own interest in the papers I\nstaked, mentally, with a glad mind; the minor interests of Jem Bottles\nand Paddy I staked, mentally, without thinking of them at all. But\nsurely it would be a tribute to fate to give anything to Lady Mary.\n\nI resolved on a course of action. When I aroused to look at my\ncompanions I found them seated face to face on the ground like players\nof draughts. Between them was spread a handkerchief, and on that\nhandkerchief was a heap of guineas. Jem Bottles was saying, \"Here be\nmy fingers five times over again.\" He separated a smaller heap. \"Here\nbe my fingers five times over again.\" He separated another little\nstack. \"And here be my fingers five times over again and two more yet.\nNow can ye understand?\"\n\n\"By dad,\" said Paddy admiringly, \"you have the learning this time,\nMaster Bottles. My uncle the sexton could not have done it better.\"\n\n\"What is all this?\" said I.\n\nThey both looked at me deprecatingly. \"'Tis, your honour,\" began\nPaddy; \"'tis only some little small sum--nothing to be talked\nof--belonging to the old sick man in the carriage.\"\n\n\"Paddy and Jem Bottles,\" said I, \"I forgive you the taking of the\npapers. Ye are good men and true. Now we will do great deeds.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n\nMy plans were formed quickly. \"We now have a treasure chest of no\nsmall dimensions,\" said I, very complacent, naturally. \"We can conquer\nLondon with this. Everything is before us. I have already established\nmyself as the grandest swordsman in the whole continent of England.\nLately we have gained much treasure. And also I have the papers.\nPaddy, do you take care of this poor horse. Then follow me into Bath.\nJem Bottles, do you mount and ride around the town, for I fear your\nballadists. Meet me on the London road. Ride slowly on the highway to\nLondon, and in due time I will overtake you. I shall pocket a few of\nthose guineas, but you yourself shall be the main treasury. Hold! what\nof Paddy's hair? Did he rob the Earl with that great flame showing? He\ndare not appear in Bath.\"\n\n\"'Tis small tribute to my wit, sir,\" answered Jem Bottles. \"I would as\nsoon go poaching in company with a lighthouse as to call a stand on\nthe road with him uncovered. I tied him in cloth until he looked no\nmore like himself than he now does look like a parson.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Paddy in some bad humour, \"my head was tied in a bag. My\nmother would not have known me from a pig going to market. And I would\nnot be for liking it every day. My hair is what the blessed Saints\nsent me, and I see no such fine hair around me that people are free to\nthrow the laugh at me.\"\n\n\"Peace!\" said I.\n\nTheir horses were tied in an adjacent thicket. I sent Paddy off with\nmy lame mount, giving him full instructions as to his lies. I and Jem\nBottles took the other horses and rode toward Bath.\n\nWhere a certain lane turned off from the highway I parted with Jem\nBottles, and he rode away between the hedges. I cantered into Bath.\n\nThe best-known inn was ablaze with fleeting lights, and people were\nshouting within. It was some time before I could gain a man to look\nafter my horse. Of him I demanded the reason of the disturbance. \"The\nEarl of Westport's carriage has been robbed on the Bristol road, sir,\"\nhe cried excitedly. \"There be parties starting out. I pray they catch\nhim.\"\n\n\"And who would they be catching, my lad,\" said I.\n\n\"Jem Bottles, damn him, sir,\" answered the man. \"But 'tis a fierce\ntime they will have, for he stands no less than eight feet in his\nboots, and his eyes are no human eyes, but burn blood-red always. His\nhands are adrip with blood, and 'tis said that he eats human flesh,\nsir. He surely is a devil, sir.\"\n\n\"From the description I would be willing to believe it,\" said I.\n\"However, he will be easy to mark. Such a monster can hardly be\nmistaken for an honest man.\"\n\nI entered the inn, while a boy staggered under my valises. I had\ndifficulty in finding the landlord. But in the corridor were a number\nof travellers, and evidently one had come that day from Bristol, for\nhe suddenly nudged another and hurriedly whispered:\n\n\"'Tis him! The great Irish swordsman!\"\n\nThen the news spread like the wind, apparently, that the man who had\nbeaten the great Forister was arrived in good health at the inn. There\nwere murmurs, and a great deal of attention, and many eyes. I suddenly\ncaught myself swaggering somewhat. It is hard to be a famous person\nand not show a great swollen chicken-breast to the people. They are\ndisappointed if you do not strut and step high. \"Show me to a\nchamber,\" said I splendidly. The servants bowed their foreheads to the\nfloor.\n\nBut the great hubbub over the Earl's loss continued without abatement.\nGentlemen clanked down in their spurs; there was much talk of\ndragoons; the tumult was extraordinary. Upstairs the landlord led me\npast the door of a kind of drawing-room. I glanced within and saw the\nEarl of Westport gesturing and declaiming to a company of gentlemen.\nHe was propped up in a great arm-chair.\n\n\"And why would he be waving his hands that way?\" said I to two\nservants who stood without.\n\n\"His lordship has lost many valuable papers at the hands of a\nmiscreant, sir,\" answered one.\n\n\"Is it so?\" said I. \"Well, then, I would see his lordship.\"\n\nBut here this valet stiffened. \"No doubt but what his lordship would\nbe happy to see you, sir,\" he answered slowly. \"Unfortunately,\nhowever, he has forbidden me to present strangers to his presence.\"\n\n\"I have very important news. Do not be an idiot,\" said I. \"Announce\nme. The O'Ruddy.\"\n\n\"The O'Ruggy?\" said he.\n\n\"The O'Ruddy,\" said I.\n\n\"The O'Rudgy?\" said he.\n\n\"No,\" said I, and I told him again. Finally he took two paces within\nthe room and sung out in a loud voice:\n\n\"The O'Rubby.\"\n\nI heard the voice of the sick old Earl calling out from his great\nchair. \"Why, 'tis the Irishman. Bid him enter. I am glad--I am always\nvery glad--ahem!--\"\n\nAs I strode into the room I was aware of another buzz of talk.\nApparently here, too, were plenty of people who knew me as the famous\nswordsman. The Earl moved his jaw and mumbled.\n\n\"Aye,\" said he at last, \"here is The O'Ruddy. And, do you know, Mr.\nO'Ruddy, I have been foully robbed, and, among other things, have lost\nyour worthless papers?\"\n\n\"I heard that you had lost them,\" I answered composedly. \"But I refuse\nto take your word that they are worthless.\"\n\nMany people stared, and the Earl gave me a firm scowl. But after\nconsideration he spoke as if he thought it well to dissemble a great\ndislike of me. The many candles burned very brightly, and we could all\nsee each other. I thought it better to back casually toward the wall.\n\n\"You never accomplish anything,\" coughed the sick Earl. \"Yet you are\nfor ever prating of yourself. I wish my son were here. My papers are\ngone. I shall never recover them.\"\n\n\"The papers are in the breast of my coat at this moment,\" said I\ncoolly.\n\nThere was a great tumult. The Earl lost his head and cried:\n\n\"Seize him!\" Two or three young men took steps toward me. I was back\nto the wall, and in a leisurely and contemptuous way I drew my sword.\n\n\"The first gentleman who advances is a dead man,\" said I pleasantly.\n\nSome drew away quickly; some hesitated, and then withdrew subtilely.\nIn the mean time the screeches of the Earl mocked them all.\n\n\"Aye, the wild Irishman brings you up to a stand, he does! Now who\nwill have at him? In all Bath I have no friend with a stout heart?\"\n\nAfter looking them over I said:\n\n\"No, my Lord, you have none.\"\n\nAt this insult the aged peer arose from his chair. \"Bring me my\nsword,\" he cried to his valet. A hush fell upon us all. We were\nrendered immovable by the solemn dignity of this proceeding.\n\nIt was some time before I could find my tongue.\n\n\"And if you design to cross blades with me, you will find me a sad\nrenegade,\" said I. \"I am holding the papers for the hands of their\ntrue owner.\"\n\n\"And their true owner?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Lady Mary Strepp,\" said I.\n\nHe sank back into his seat. \"This Irishman's impudence is beyond\nmeasuring,\" he exclaimed. The hurrying valet arrived at that moment\nwith a sword. \"Take it away! Take it away!\" he cried. \"Do I wish\nvalets to be handing swords to me at any time of the day or night?\"\n\nHere a belligerent red-faced man disengaged himself abruptly from the\ngroup of gentlemen and addressed the Earl. \"Westport,\" said he flatly,\n\"I can ill bear your taunt concerning your Bath friends, and this is\nnot to speak of the insolence of the person yonder.\"\n\n\"Oh, ho!\" said I. \"Well, and the person yonder remains serene in his\ninsolence.\"\n\nThe Earl, smiling slightly, regarded the new speaker.\n\n\"Sir Edmund Flixton was ever a dainty swordsman, picking and choosing\nlike a lady in a flower-bed. Perchance he is anxious to fight the\ngentleman who has just given Reginald Forister something he will not\nforget?\"\n\nAt this Flixton actually turned pale and drew back. Evidently he had\nnot yet heard the news. And, mind you, I could see that he would fight\nme the next moment. He would come up and be killed like a gentleman.\nBut the name of a great conqueror had simply appalled him and smitten\nhim back.\n\nThe Earl was gazing at me with an entirely new expression. He had\ncleverly eliminated all dislike from his eyes. He covered me with a\nfriendly regard.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he said softly, \"I would have some private speech with you.\nCome into my chamber.\"\n\nThe Earl leaned on the shoulder of his valet and a little fat doctor,\nand walked painfully into another room. I followed, knowing that I was\nnow to withstand a subtle, wheedling, gentle attempt to gain the\npapers without the name of Lady Mary being mentioned.\n\nThe Earl was slowly lowered into a great chair. After a gasp of relief\nhe devoted a brightening attention to me. \"You are not a bad fellow,\nO'Ruddy,\" he observed. \"You remind me greatly of your father. Aye, he\nwas a rare dog, a rare dog!\"\n\n\"I've heard him say so, many is the day, sir,\" I answered.\n\n\"Aye, a rare dog!\" chuckled the old man. \"I have in my memory some\nbrisk pictures of your father with his ready tongue, his\nwhat-the-devil-does-it-matter-sir, and that extraordinary\nswordsmanship which you seem to have inherited.\"\n\n\"My father told me you were great friends in France,\" I answered\ncivilly, \"but from some words you let drop in Bristol I judged that he\nwas mistaken.\"\n\n\"Tut,\" said the Earl. \"You are not out of temper with me, are you,\nO'Ruddy?\"\n\n\"With me happily in possession of the papers,\" I rejoined, \"I am in\ngood temper with everybody. 'Tis not for me to lose my good nature\nwhen I hold all the cards.\"\n\nThe Earl's mouth quickly dropped to a sour expression, but almost as\nquickly he put on a pleasant smile. \"Aye,\" he said, nodding his sick\nhead. \"Always jovial, always jovial. Precisely like his father. In\nfact it brings back an old affection.\"\n\n\"If the old affection had been brought back a little earlier, sir,\"\nsaid I, \"we all would have had less bother. 'Twas you who in the\nbeginning drew a long face and set a square chin over the business. I\nam now in the mood to be rather airy.\"\n\nOur glances blazed across each other.\n\n\"But,\" said the Earl in the gentlest of voices, \"you have my papers,\nO'Ruddy, papers entrusted to you by your dying father to give into the\nhands of his old comrade. Would you betray such a sacred trust? Could\nyou wanton yourself to the base practices of mere thievery?\"\n\n\"'Tis not I who has betrayed any trust,\" I cried boldly. \"I brought\nthe papers and wished to offer them. They arrived in your possession,\nand you cried 'Straw, straw!' Did you not?\"\n\n\"'Twas an expedient, O'Ruddy,\" said the Earl.\n\n\"There is more than one expedient in the world,\" said I. \"I am now\nusing the expedient of keeping the papers.\"\n\nAnd in the glance which he gave me I saw that I had been admitted\nbehind a certain barrier. He was angry, but he would never more\nattempt to overbear me with grand threats. And he would never more\nattempt to undermine me with cheap flattery. We had measured one\nagainst the other, and he had not come away thinking out of his\nproportion. After a time he said:\n\n\"What do you propose to do, Mr. O'Ruddy?\"\n\nI could not help but grin at him. \"I propose nothing,\" said I. \"I am\nnot a man for meaning two things when I say one.\"\n\n\"You've said one thing, I suppose?\" he said slowly.\n\n\"I have,\" said I.\n\n\"And the one thing?\" said he.\n\n\"Your memory is as good as mine,\" said I.\n\nHe mused deeply and at great length. \"You have the papers?\" he asked\nfinally.\n\n\"I still have them,\" said I.\n\n\"Then,\" he cried with sudden vehemence, \"why didn't you read the\npapers and find out the truth?\"\n\nI almost ran away.\n\n\"Your--your lordship,\" I stammered, \"I thought perhaps in London--in\nLondon perhaps--I might get a--I would try to get a tutor.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\n\"So that is the way of it, is it?\" said the Earl, grinning. \"And why\ndid you not take it to some clerk?\"\n\n\"My lord,\" said I with dignity, \"the papers were with me in trust for\nyou. A man may be a gentleman and yet not know how to read and write.\"\n\n\"'Tis quite true,\" answered he.\n\n\"And when I spoke of the tutor in London I did not mean to say that I\nwould use what knowledge he imparted to read your papers. I was merely\nblushing for the defects in my education, although Father Donovan\noften said that I knew half as much as he did, poor man, and him a\nholy father. If you care to so direct me, I can go even now to my\nchamber and make shift to read the papers.\"\n\n\"The Irish possess a keen sense of honour,\" said he admiringly.\n\n\"We do,\" said I. \"We possess more integrity and perfect sense of\nhonour than any other country in the world, although they all say the\nsame of themselves, and it was my own father who often said that he\nwould trust an Irishman as far as he could see him and no more, but\nfor a foreigner he had only the length of an eyelash.\"\n\n\"And what do you intend with the papers now, O'Ruddy?\" said he.\n\n\"I intend as I intended,\" I replied. \"There is no change in me.\"\n\n\"And your intentions?\" said he.\n\n\"To give them into the hands of Lady Mary Strepp and no other,\" said I\nboldly.\n\nI looked at him. He looked at me.\n\n\"Lady Mary Strepp, my daughter,\" he said in ironic musing. \"Would not\nher mother do, O'Ruddy?\" he asked softly.\n\nI gave a start.\n\n\"She is not near?\" I demanded, looking from here to there.\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"Aye, she is. I can have her here to take the papers in one short\nmoment.\"\n\nI held up my hands.\n\n\"No--no--\"\n\n\"Peace,\" said he with a satanic chuckle. \"I was only testing your\ncourage.\"\n\n\"My lord,\" said I gravely, \"seeing a bare blade come at your breast is\none thing, and running around a table is another, and besides you have\nno suitable table in this chamber.\"\n\nThe old villain laughed again.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he cried, \"I would be a well man if you were always near\nme. Will I have a table fetched up from below?--'twould be easy.\"\n\nHere I stiffened.\n\n\"My lord, this is frivolity,\" I declared. \"I came here to give the\npapers. If you do not care to take them in the only way in which I\nwill give them, let us have it said quickly.\"\n\n\"They seem to be safe in your hands at present,\" he remarked. \"Of\ncourse after you go to London and get a tutor--ahem!--\"\n\n\"I will be starting at once,\" said I, \"although Father Donovan always\ntold me that he was a good tutor as tutors went at the time in\nIreland. And I want to be saying now, my lord, that I cannot\nunderstand you. At one moment you are crying one thing of the papers;\nat the next moment you are crying another. At this time you are having\na laugh with me over them. What do you mean? I'll not stand this\nshiver-shavering any longer, I'll have you to know. What do you mean?\"\n\nHe raised himself among his cushions and fixed me with a bony finger.\n\n\"What do I mean? I'll tell you, O'Ruddy,\" said he, while his eyes\nshone brightly. \"I mean that I can be contemptuous of your plot. You\nwill not show these papers to any breathing creature because you are\nin love with my daughter. Fool, to match your lies against an\nex-minister of the King.\"\n\nMy eyes must have almost dropped from my head, but as soon as I\nrecovered from my dumfounderment I grew amazed at the great intellect\nof this man. I had told nobody, and yet he knew all about it. Yes, I\nwas in love with Lady Mary, and he was as well informed of it as if he\nhad had spies to watch my dreams. And I saw that in many cases a lover\nwas a kind of an ostrich, the bird which buries its head in the sands\nand thinks it is secure from detection. I wished that my father had\ntold me more about love, for I have no doubt he knew everything of it,\nhe had lived so many years in Paris. Father Donovan, of course, could\nnot have helped me in such instruction. I resolved, any how, to be\nmore cautious in the future, although I did not exactly see how I\ncould improve myself. The Earl's insight was pure mystery to me. I\nwould not be for saying that he practised black magic, but any how, if\nhe had been at Glandore, I would have had him chased through three\nparishes.\n\nHowever, the Earl was grinning victoriously, and I saw that I must\nharden my face to a brave exterior.\n\n\"And is it so?\" said I. \"Is it so?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, with his grin.\n\n\"And what then?\" said I bluntly.\n\nIn his enjoyment he had been back again among his cushions.\n\n\"'What then? What then?'\" he snarled, rearing up swiftly. \"Why, then\nyou are an insolent fool: Begone from me! begone! be--\" Here some\nspasm overtook him, a spasm more from rage than from the sickness. He\nfell back breathless, although his eyes continued to burn at me.\n\n\"My lord,\" said I, bowing, \"I will go no poorer than when I came, save\nthat I have lost part of the respect I once had for you.\"\n\nI turned and left his chamber. Some few gentlemen yet remained in the\ndrawing-room as I passed out into the public part of the inn. I went\nquietly to a chamber and sat down to think. I was for ever going to\nchambers and sitting down to think after these talks with the Earl,\nduring which he was for ever rearing up in his chair and then falling\nback among the cushions.\n\nBut here was another tumble over the cliffs, if you like! Here was\ngenuine disaster. I laid my head in my hands and mused before my\nlonely fire, drinking much and visioning my ruin. What the Earl said\nwas true. There was trouble in the papers for the old nobleman. That\nhe knew. That I knew. And he knew with his devilish wisdom that I\nwould lose my head rather than see her in sorrow. Well, I could bide a\ntime. I would go to London in company with Paddy and Jem Bottles,\nsince they owned all the money, and if three such rogues could not\ndevise something, then I would go away and bury myself in a war in\nforeign parts, occupying myself in scaling fortresses and capturing\nguns. These things I know I could have performed magnificently, but\nfrom the Earl I had learned that I was an ill man to conduct an affair\nof the heart.\n\nI do not know how long I meditated, but suddenly there was a great\ntumult on the stairs near my door. There were the shouts and heavy\nbreathings of men, struggling, and over all rang a screech as from\nsome wild bird. I ran to the door and poked my head discreetly out;\nfor my coat and waistcoat were off as well as my sword, and I wished\nto see the manner of tumult at a distance before I saw it close. As I\nthrust forth my head I heard a familiar voice:\n\n\"And if ye come closer, ye old hell-cat, 'tis me will be forgetting\nrespect to my four great-grandmothers and braining you. Keep off! Am I\nnot giving ye the word? Keep off!\"\n\nThen another familiar voice answered him in a fine high fury. \"And you\ngallows-bird, you gallows-bird, you gallows-bird! You answer me, do\nyou! They're coming, all, even to the hangman! You'll soon know how to\ndance without a fiddler! Ah, would you? Would you?\"\n\nIf I had been afflicted with that strange malady of the body which\nsometimes causes men to fall to the ground and die in a moment without\na word, my doom would have been sealed. It was Paddy and Hoity-Toity\nengaged in animated discussion.\n\n\"And if ye don't mind your eye, ye old cormorant--\" began Paddy.\n\n\"And you would be a highwayman, would you, gallows-bird--\" began the\nCountess.\n\n\"Cow--\" began Paddy.\n\nHere for many reasons I thought it time to interfere. \"Paddy!\" I\ncried. He gave a glance at my door, recognized my face, and, turning\nquickly, ran through into my chamber. I barred the door even as\nHoity-Toity's fist thundered on the oak.\n\n\"It's a she-wolf,\" gasped Paddy, his chest pressing in and out.\n\n\"And what did you do to her?\" I demanded.\n\n\"Nothing but try to run away, sure,\" said Paddy.\n\n\"And why would she be scratching you?\"\n\n\"She saw me for one of the highwaymen robbing the coach, and there was\nI, devil knowing what to do, and all the people of the inn trying to\nput peace upon her, and me dodging, and then--\"\n\n\"Man,\" said I, grabbing his arm, \"'tis a game that ends on the--\"\n\n\"Never a bit,\" he interrupted composedly. \"Wasn't the old witch drunk,\nclaws and all, and didn't even the great English lord, or whatever,\nsend his servant to bring her in, and didn't he, the big man, stand in\nthe door and spit on the floor and go in when he saw she was for\nbattering all the servants and using worse talk than the sailors I\nheard in Bristol? It would not be me they were after, those men\nrunning. It would be her. And small power to them, but they were no\ngood at it. I am for taking a stool in my hand--\"\n\n\"Whist!\" said I. \"In England they would not be hitting great ladies\nwith stools. Let us hearken to the brawl. She is fighting them\nfinely.\"\n\nFor I had seen that Paddy spoke truth. The noble lady was engaged in\nbattling with servants who had been in pursuit of her when she was in\npursuit of Paddy. Never had I seen even my own father so drunk as she\nwas then. But the heart-rending thing was the humble protests of the\nservants. \"Your ladyship! Oh, your ladyship!\"--as they came up one by\none, or two by two, obeying orders of the Earl, to be incontinently\nboxed on the ears by a member of a profligate aristocracy. Probably\nany one of them was strong enough to throw the beldame out at a\nwindow. But such was not the manner of the time. One would think they\nwould retreat upon the Earl and ask to be dismissed from his service.\nBut this also was not the manner of the time. No; they marched up\nheroically and took their cuffs on the head and cried: \"Oh, your\nladyship! Please, your ladyship!\" They were only pretenders in their\nattacks; all they could do was to wait until she was tired, and then\nhumbly escort her to where she belonged, meanwhile pulling gently at\nher arms.\n\n\"She was after recognizing you then?\" said I to Paddy.\n\n\"Indeed and she was,\" said he. He had dropped into a chair and was\nlooking as if he needed a doctor to cure him of exhaustion. \"She would\nbe after having eyes like a sea-gull. And Jem Bottles was all for\ndeclaring that my disguise was complete, bad luck to the little man.\"\n\n\"Your disguise complete?\" said I. \"You couldn't disguise yourself\nunless you stood your head in a barrel. What talk is this?\"\n\n\"Sure an' I looked no more like myself than I looked like a wild man\nwith eight rows of teeth in his head,\" said Paddy mournfully. \"My own\nmother would have been after taking me for a horse. 'Tis that old\ncreature with her evil eye who would be seeing me when all the others\nwere blind as bats. I could have walked down the big street in Cork\nwithout a man knowing me.\"\n\n\"That you could at any time,\" said I. The Countess had for some\nmoments ceased to hammer on my door. \"Hearken! I think they are\nmanaging her.\"\n\nEither Hoity-Toity had lost heart, or the servants had gained some\ncourage, for we heard them dragging her delicately down the staircase.\nPresently there was a silence.\n\nAfter I had waited until this silence grew into the higher silence\nwhich seems like perfect safety, I rang the bell and ordered food and\ndrink. Paddy had a royal meal, sitting on the floor by the fireplace\nand holding a platter on his knee. From time to time I tossed him\nsomething for which I did not care. He was very grateful for my\ngenerosity. He ate in a barbaric fashion, crunching bones of fowls\nbetween his great white teeth and swallowing everything.\n\nI had a mind to discourse upon manners in order that Paddy might not\nshame me when we came to London; for a gentleman is known by the ways\nof his servants. If people of quality should see me attended by such\na savage they would put me down small. \"Paddy,\" said I, \"mend your\nways of eating.\"\n\n\"'My ways of eating,' your honour?\" said he. \"And am I not eating all\nthat I can hold? I was known to be a good man at platter always. Sure\nI've seen no man in England eat more than me. But thank you kindly,\nsir.\"\n\n\"You misunderstand me,\" said I. \"I wish to improve your manner of\neating. It would not be fine enough for the sight of great people. You\neat, without taking breath, pieces as big as a block of turf.\"\n\n\"'Tis the custom in my part of Ireland,\" answered Paddy.\n\n\"I understand,\" said I. \"But over here 'tis only very low people who\nfall upon their meat from a window above.\"\n\n\"I am not in the way of understanding your honour,\" said he. \"But any\nhow a man may be respectable and yet have a good hunger on him.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\nIt had been said that the unexpected often happens, although I do not\nknow what learned man of the time succeeded in thus succinctly\nexpressing a great law and any how it matters little, for I have since\ndiscovered that these learned men make one headful of brains go a long\nway by dint of poaching on each other's knowledge. But the unexpected\nhappened in this case, all true enough whatever.\n\nI was giving my man a bit of a warning.\n\n\"Paddy,\" said I, \"you are big, and you are red, and you are Irish; but\nby the same token you are not the great Fingal, son of lightning. I\nwould strongly give you the word. When you see that old woman you\nstart for the open moors.\"\n\n\"Devil fear me, sir,\" answered Paddy promptly. \"I'll not be stopping.\nI would be swimming to Ireland before she lays a claw on me.\"\n\n\"And mind you exchange no words with her,\" said I, \"for 'tis that\nwhich seems to work most wrongfully upon her.\"\n\n\"Never a word out of me,\" said he. \"I'll be that busy getting up the\nroad.\"\n\nThere was another tumult in the corridor, with the same screeches by\none and the same humble protests by a multitude. The disturbance\nneared us with surprising speed. Suddenly I recalled that when the\nservant had retired after bringing food and drink I had neglected to\nagain bar the door. I rushed for it, but I was all too late. I saw the\nlatch raise. \"Paddy!\" I shouted wildly. \"Mind yourself!\" And with that\nI dropped to the floor and slid under the bed.\n\nPaddy howled, and I lifted a corner of the valance to see what was\ntranspiring. The door had been opened, and the Countess stood looking\ninto the room. She was no longer in a fiery rage; she was cool, deadly\ndetermined, her glittering eye fixed on Paddy. She took a step\nforward.\n\nPaddy, in his anguish, chanted to himself an Irish wail in which he\ndescribed his unhappiness. \"Oh, mother of me, and here I am caught\nagain by the old hell-cat, and sure the way she creeps toward me is\nenough to put the fear of God in the heart of a hedge-robber, the\nmurdering old witch. And it was me was living so fine and grand in\nEngland and greatly pleased with myself. Sorrow the day I left\nIreland; it is, indeed.\"\n\nShe was now close to him, and she seemed to be preparing for one\nstupendous pounce which would mean annihilation to Paddy. Her lean\nhands were thrust out, with the fingers crooked, and it seemed to me\nthat her fingers were very long. In despair Paddy changed his tune and\naddressed her.\n\n\"Ah, now, alanna. Sure the kind lady would be for doing no harm? Be\neasy, now, acushla.\"\n\nBut these tender appeals had no effect. Suddenly she pounced. Paddy\nroared, and sprang backward with splendid agility. He seized a chair.\n\nNow I am quite sure that before he came to England Paddy had never\nseen a chair, although it is true that at some time in his life he may\nhave had a peep through a window into an Irish gentleman's house,\nwhere there might be a chair if the King's officers in the\nneighbourhood were not very ambitious and powerful. But Paddy handled\nthis chair as if he had seen many of them. He grasped it by the back\nand thrust it out, aiming all four legs at the Countess. It was a fine\nmove. I have seen a moderately good swordsman fairly put to it by a\npack of scoundrelly drawers who assailed him at all points in this\nmanner.\n\n\"An you come on too fast,\" quavered Paddy, \"ye can grab two legs, but\nthere will be one left for your eye and another for your brisket.\"\n\nHowever she came on, sure enough, and there was a moment of scuffling\nnear the end of the bed out of my sight. I wriggled down to gain\nanother view, and when I cautiously lifted an edge of the valance my\neyes met the strangest sight ever seen in all England. Paddy, much\ndishevelled and panting like a hunt-dog, had wedged the Countess\nagainst the wall. She was pinioned by the four legs of the chair, and\nPaddy, by dint of sturdily pushing at the chair-back, was keeping her\nin a fixed position.\n\nIn a flash my mind was made up. Here was the time to escape. I\nscrambled quickly from under the bed. \"Bravo, Paddy!\" I cried, dashing\nabout the room after my sword, coat, waistcoat, and hat. \"Devil a fear\nbut you'll hold her, my bucko! Push hard, my brave lad, and mind your\nfeet don't slip!\"\n\n\"If your honour pleases,\" said Paddy, without turning his eyes from\nhis conquest, \"'tis a little help I would be wishing here. She would\nbe as strong in the shoulder as a good plough-horse and I am not for\nstaying here for ever.\"\n\n\"Bravo, my grand lad!\" I cried, at last finding my hat, which had\nsomehow gotten into a corner. From the door I again addressed Paddy in\nencouraging speech. \"There's a stout-hearted boy for you! Hold hard,\nand mind your feet don't slip!\"\n\nHe cast a quick agonized look in my direction, and, seeing that I was\nabout basely to desert him, he gave a cry, dropped the chair, and\nbolted after me. As we ran down the corridor I kept well in advance,\nthinking it the best place in case the pursuit should be energetic.\nBut there was no pursuit. When Paddy was holding the Countess prisoner\nshe could only choke and stammer, and I had no doubt that she now was\nwell mastered by exhaustion.\n\nCuriously there was little hubbub in the inn. The fact that the\nCountess was the rioter had worked in a way to cause people to seek\nsecluded and darkened nooks. However, the landlord raised his bleat at\nme. \"Oh, sir, such a misfortune to befall my house just when so many\ngrand ladies and gentlemen are here.\"\n\nI took him quietly by the throat and beat his head against the wall,\nonce, twice, thrice.\n\n\"And you allow mad ladies to molest your guests, do you?\" said I.\n\n\"Sir,\" he stuttered, \"could I have caused her to cease?\n\n\"True,\" I said, releasing him. \"But now do as I bid you and quickly. I\nam away to London. I have had my plenty of you and your mad ladies.\"\n\nWe started bravely to London, but we only went to another and quieter\ninn, seeking peace and the absence of fear. I may say we found it,\nand, in a chair before a good fire, I again took my comfort. Paddy sat\non the floor, toasting his shins. The warmth passed him into a\nreflective mood.\n\n\"And I know all I need of grand ladies,\" he muttered, staring into the\nfire. \"I thought they were all for riding in gold coaches and smelling\nof beautiful flowers, and here they are mad to be chasing Irishmen in\ninns. I remember old Mag Cooligan fought with a whole regiment of\nKing's troops in Bantry, and even the drums stopped beating, the\nsoldiers were that much interested. But, sure, everybody would be\nknowing that Mag was no grand lady, although Pat Cooligan, her\nbrother, was pig-killer to half the country-side. I am thinking we\nwere knowing little about grand ladies. One of the soldiers had his\nhead broke by a musket because the others were so ambitious to destroy\nthe old lady, and she scratching them all. 'Twas long remembered in\nBantry.\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue about your betters,\" said I sharply. \"Don't be\ncomparing this Mag Cooligan with a real Countess.\"\n\n\"There would be a strange similarity any how,\" said he. \"But, sure,\nMag never fought in inns, for the reason that they would not be\nletting her inside.\"\n\n\"Remember how little you are knowing of them, Paddy,\" said I. \"'Tis\nnot for you to be talking of the grand ladies when you have seen only\none, and you would not be knowing another from a fish. Grand ladies\nare eccentric, I would have you to know. They have their ways with\nthem which are not for omadhauns like you to understand.\"\n\n\"Eccentric, is it?\" said he. \"I thought it would be some such\ndevilment.\"\n\n\"And I am knowing,\" said I with dignity, \"of one lady so fine that if\nyou don't stop talking that way of ladies I will break your thick\nskull for you, and it would matter to nobody.\"\n\n\"'Tis an ill subject for discussion, I am seeing that,\" said Paddy.\n\"But, faith, I could free Ireland with an army of ladies like one I've\nseen.\"\n\n\"Will you be holding your tongue?\" I cried wrathfully.\n\nPaddy began to mumble to himself,--\"Bedad, he was under the bed fast\nenough without offering her a stool by the fire and a small drop of\ndrink which would be no more than decent with him so fond of her. I am\nnot knowing the ways of these people.\"\n\nIn despair of his long tongue I made try to change the talking.\n\n\"We are off for London, Paddy. How are you for it?\"\n\n\"London, is it?\" said he warily. \"I was hearing there are many fine\nladies there.\"\n\nFor the second time in his life I cuffed him soundly on the ear.\n\n\"Now,\" said I, \"be ringing the bell. I am for buying you a bit of\ndrink; but if you mention the gentry to me once more in that\nblackguard way I'll lather you into a resemblance to your\ngrandfather's bones.\"\n\nAfter a pleasant evening I retired to bed leaving Paddy snug asleep by\nthe fire. I thought much of my Lady Mary, but with her mother stalking\nthe corridors and her knowing father with his eye wide open, I knew\nthere was no purpose in hanging about a Bath inn. I would go to\nLondon, where there were gardens, and walks in the park, and parties,\nand other useful customs. There I would win my love.\n\nThe following morning I started with Paddy to meet Jem Bottles and\ntravel to London. Many surprising adventures were in store for us, but\nan account of these I shall leave until another time, since one would\nnot be worrying people with too many words, which is a great fault in\na man who is recounting his own affairs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n\nAs we ambled our way agreeably out of Bath, Paddy and I employed\nourselves in worthy speech. He was not yet a notable horseman, but his\nIrish adaptability was so great that he was already able to think he\nwould not fall off so long as the horse was old and tired.\n\n\"Paddy,\" said I, \"how would you like to be an Englishman? Look at\ntheir cities. Sure, Skibbereen is a mud-pond to them. It might be fine\nto be an Englishman.\"\n\n\"I would not, your honour,\" said Paddy. \"I would not be an Englishman\nwhile these grand--But never mind; 'tis many proud things I will say\nabout the English considering they are our neighbours in one way; I\nmean they are near enough to come over and harm us when they wish. But\nany how they are a remarkable hard-headed lot, and in time they may\ncome to something good.\"\n\n\"And is a hard head such a qualification?\" said I.\n\nPaddy became academic. \"I have been knowing two kinds of hard heads,\"\nhe said. \"Mickey McGovern had such a hard skull on him no stick in the\nsouth of Ireland could crack it, though many were tried. And what\nhappened to him? He died poor as a rat. 'Tis not the kind of hard head\nI am meaning. I am meaning the kind of hard head which believes it\ncontains all the wisdom and honour in the world. 'Tis what I mean. If\nyou have a head like that, you can go along blundering into ditches\nand tumbling over your own shins, and still hold confidence in\nyourself. 'Tis not very handsome for other men to see; but devil a bit\ncare you, for you are warm inside with complacence.\"\n\n\"Here is a philosopher, in God's truth,\" I cried. \"And where were you\nlearning all this? In Ireland?\"\n\n\"Your honour,\" said Paddy firmly, \"you yourself are an Irishman. You\nare not for saying there is no education in Ireland, for it educates a\nman to see burning thatches and such like. One of them was my aunt's,\nHeaven rest her!\"\n\n\"Your aunt?\" said I. \"And what of your aunt? What have the English to\ndo with your aunt?\"\n\n\"That's what she was asking them,\" said Paddy; \"but they burned her\nhouse down over a little matter of seventeen years' rent she owed to a\nfull-blooded Irishman, may the devil find him!\"\n\n\"But I am for going on without an account of your burnt-thatch\neducation,\" said I. \"You are having more than two opinions about the\nEnglish, and I would be hearing them. Seldom have I seen a man who\ncould gain so much knowledge in so short a space. You are interesting\nme.\"\n\nPaddy seemed pleased. \"Well, your honour,\" said he confidentially,\n\"'tis true for you. I am knowing the English down to their toes.\"\n\n\"And if you were an Englishman, what kind of an Englishman would you\nlike to be?\" said I.\n\n\"A gentleman,\" he answered swiftly. \"A big gentleman!\" Then he began\nto mimic and make gestures in a way that told me he had made good use\nof his eyes and of the society of underlings in the various inns.\n\"Where's me man? Send me man! Oh, here you are! And why didn't you\nknow I wanted you? What right have you to think I don't want you?\nWhat? A servant dead? Pah! Send it down the back staircase at once and\nget rid of it. Bedad!\" said Paddy enthusiastically, \"I could do that\nfine!\" And to prove what he said was true, he cried \"Pah!\" several\ntimes in a lusty voice.\n\n\"I see you have quickly understood many customs of the time,\" said I.\n\"But 'tis not all of it. There are many quite decent people alive\nnow.\"\n\n\"'Tis strange we have never heard tell of them,\" said Paddy musingly.\n\"I have only heard of great fighters, blackguards, and beautiful\nladies, but sure, as your honour says, there must be plenty of quiet\ndecent people somewhere.\"\n\n\"There is,\" said I. \"I am feeling certain of it, although I am not\nknowing exactly where to lay my hand upon them.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they would be always at mass,\" said Paddy, \"and in that case\nyour honour would not be likely to see them.\"\n\n\"Masses!\" said I. \"There are more masses said in Ireland in one hour\nthan here in two years.\"\n\n\"The people would be heathens, then?\" said Paddy, aghast.\n\n\"Not precisely,\" said I. \"But they have reformed themselves several\ntimes, and a number of adequate reformations is a fine thing to\nconfuse the Church. In Ireland we are all for being true to the\nancient faith; here they are always for improving matters, and their\nlearned men study the Sacred Book solely with a view to making needed\nchanges.\"\n\n\"'Tis heathen they are,\" said Paddy with conviction. \"I was knowing\nit. Sure, I will be telling Father Corrigan the minute I put a foot on\nIreland, for nothing pleases him so much as a good obstinate heathen,\nand he very near discourses the hair off their heads.\"\n\n\"I would not be talking about such matters,\" said I. \"It merely makes\nmy head grow an ache. My father was knowing all about it; but he was\nalways claiming that if a heathen did his duty by the poor he was as\ngood as anybody, and that view I could never understand.\"\n\n\"Sure, if a heathen gives to the poor, 'tis poison to them,\" said\nPaddy. \"If it is food and they eat it, they turn black all over and\ndie the day after. If it is money, it turns red-hot and burns a hole\nin their hand, and the devil puts a chain through it and drags them\ndown to hell, screeching.\"\n\n\"Say no more,\" said I. \"I am seeing you are a true theologian of the\ntime. I would be talking on some more agreeable topic, something about\nwhich you know less.\"\n\n\"I can talk of fishing,\" he answered diffidently. \"For I am a great\nfisherman, sure. And then there would be turf-cutting, and the deadly\nstings given to men by eels. All these things I am knowing well.\"\n\n\"'Tis a grand lot to know,\" said I, \"but let us be talking of London.\nHave you been hearing of London?\"\n\n\"I have been hearing much about the town,\" said Paddy. \"Father\nCorrigan was often talking of it. He was claiming it to be full of\nloose women, and sin, and fighting in the streets during mass.\"\n\n\"I am understanding something of the same,\" I replied. \"It must be an\nevil city. I am fearing something may happen to you, Paddy,--you with\nyour red head as conspicuous as a clock in a tower. The gay people\nwill be setting upon you and carrying you off. Sure there has never\nbeen anything like you in London.\"\n\n\"I am knowing how to be dealing with them. It will be all a matter of\nreligious up-bringing, as Father Corrigan was saying. I have but to go\nto my devotions, and the devil will fly away with them.\"\n\n\"And supposing they have your purse?\" said I. \"The devil might fly\naway with them to an ill tune for you.\"\n\n\"When they are flying away with my purse,\" he replied suggestively,\n\"they will be flying away with little of what could be called my\nancestral wealth.\"\n\n\"You are natural rogues,\" said I, \"you and Jem Bottles. And you had\nbest not be talking of religion.\"\n\n\"Sure a man may take the purse of an ugly old sick monkey like him,\nand still go with an open face to confession,\" rejoined Paddy, \"and I\nwould not be backward if Father Corrigan's church was a mile beyond.\"\n\n\"And are you meaning that Father Corrigan would approve you in this\nrobbery?\" I cried.\n\n\"Devil a bit he would, your honour,\" answered Paddy indignantly. \"He\nwould be saying to me: 'Paddy, you limb of Satan, and how much did you\nget?' I would be telling him. 'Give fifteen guineas to the Church, you\nmortal sinner, and I will be trying my best for you,' he would be\nsaying. And I would be giving them.\"\n\n\"You are saved fifteen guineas by being in England, then,\" said I,\n\"for they don't do that here. And I am thinking you are traducing your\nclergy, you vagabond.\"\n\n\"Traducing?\" said he. \"That would mean giving them money. Aye, I was\ndoing it often. One year I gave three silver shillings.\"\n\n\"You're wrong,\" said I. \"By 'traducing' I mean speaking ill of your\npriest.\"\n\n\"'Speaking ill of my priest'?\" cried Paddy, gasping with amazement.\n\"Sure, my own mother never heard a word out of me!\"\n\n\"However,\" said I, \"we will be talking of other things. The English\nland seems good.\"\n\nPaddy cast his eye over the rainy landscape. \"I am seeing no turf for\ncutting,\" he remarked disapprovingly, \"and the potatoes would not be\ngrowing well here. 'Tis a barren country.\"\n\nAt nightfall we came to a little inn which was ablaze with light and\nringing with exuberant cries. We gave up our horses and entered. To\nthe left was the closed door of the taproom, which now seemed to\nfurnish all the noise. I asked the landlord to tell me the cause of\nthe excitement.\n\n\"Sir,\" he answered, \"I am greatly honoured to-night. Mr. O'Ruddy, the\ncelebrated Irish swordsman, is within, recounting a history of his\nmarvellous exploits.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" said I.\n\n\"Bedad!\" said Paddy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\n\nPaddy was for opening his mouth wide immediately, but I checked him.\n\"I would see this great man,\" said I to the landlord, \"but I am so\ntimid by nature I fear to meet his eagle eye. Is there no way by which\nwe could observe him in secret at our leisure?\"\n\n\"There be one way,\" remarked the landlord after deliberation. I had\npassed him a silver coin. He led us to a little parlour back of the\ntaproom. Here a door opened into the tap itself, and in this door was\ncut a large square window so that the good man of the inn could\nsometimes sit at his ease in his great chair in the snug parlour and\nobserve that his customers had only that for which they were paying.\nIt is a very good plan, for I have seen many a worthy man become a\nrogue merely because nobody was watching him. My father often was\nsaying that if he had not been narrowly eyed all his young life, first\nby his mother and then by his wife, he had little doubt but what he\nmight have been engaged in dishonest practices sooner or later.\n\nA confident voice was doing some high talking in the taproom. I peered\nthrough the window, but at first I saw only a collection of gaping\nyokels, poor bent men with faces framed in straggly whiskers. Each had\na pint pot clutched with a certain air of determination in his right\nhand.\n\nSuddenly upon our line of vision strode the superb form of Jem\nBottles. A short pipe was in his mouth, and he gestured splendidly\nwith a pint pot. \"More of the beer, my dear,\" said he to a buxom maid.\n\"We be all rich in Ireland. And four of them set upon me,\" he cried\nagain to the yokels. \"All noblemen, in fine clothes and with\nsword-hilts so flaming with jewels an ordinary man might have been\nblinded. 'Stop!' said I. 'There be more of your friends somewhere.\nCall them.' And with that--\"\n\n\"'And with that'?\" said I myself, opening the door and stepping in\nupon him. \"'And with that'?\" said I again. Whereupon I smote him a\nblow which staggered him against the wall, holding his crown with both\nhands while his broken beer-pot rolled on the floor. Paddy was dancing\nwith delight at seeing some other man cuffed, but the landlord and the\nyokels were nearly dead of terror. But they made no sound; only the\nbuxom girl whimpered.\n\n\"There is no cause for alarm,\" said I amiably. \"I was only greeting an\nold friend. 'Tis a way I have. And how wags the world with you,\nO'Ruddy?\"\n\n\"I am not sure for the moment,\" replied Jem Bottles ruefully. \"I must\nbide till it stops spinning.\"\n\n\"Truth,\" cried I. \"That would be a light blow to trouble the great\nO'Ruddy. Come now; let us have the pots filled again, and O'Ruddy\nshall tell us more of his adventures. What say you, lads?\"\n\nThe yokels had now recovered some of their senses, and they greeted my\nplan with hoarse mutterings of hasty and submissive assent.\n\n\"Begin,\" said I sternly to the highwayman. He stood miserably on one\nfoot. He looked at the floor; he looked at the wall; from time to\ntime he gave me a sheep's glance. \"Begin,\" said I again. Paddy was\nwild with glee. \"Begin,\" said I for the third time and very harshly.\n\n\"I--\" gulped out the wretched man, but he could get no further.\n\n\"I am seeing I must help you,\" said I. \"Come now, when did you learn\nthe art of sticadoro proderodo sliceriscum fencing?\"\n\nBottles rolled the eyes of despair at me, but I took him angrily by\nthe shoulder. \"Come now; when did you learn the art of sticadoro\nproderodo sliceriscum fencing?\"\n\nJem Bottles staggered, but at last he choked out: \"My mother taught\nme.\" Here Paddy retired from the room, doubled in a strong but\nsoundless convulsion.\n\n\"Good,\" said I. \"Your mother taught you. We are making progress any\nhow. Your mother taught you. And now tell me this: When you slew\nCormac of the Cliffs, what passado did you use? Don't be stuttering.\nCome now; quick with you; what passado did you use? What passado?\"\n\nWith a heroism born of a conviction that in any event he was a lost\nman, Jem Bottles answered: \"A blue one.\"\n\n\"Good,\" I cried cheerfully. \"'A blue one'! We are coming on fine. He\nkilled Cormac with a blue passado. And now I would be asking you--\"\n\n\"Master,\" interrupted the highwayman with sudden resolution. \"I will\nsay no more. I have done. You may kill me an it pleases you.\"\n\nNow I saw that enough was enough. I burst into laughter and clapped\nhim merrily on the shoulder. \"Be cheery, O'Ruddy,\" I cried. \"Sure an\nIrishman like you ought to be able to look a joke in the face.\" He\ngave over his sulks directly, and I made him buy another pint each for\nthe yokels. \"'Twas dry work listening to you and your exploits,\nO'Ruddy,\" said I.\n\nLater I went to my chamber, attended by my followers, having ordered\nroast fowls and wine to be served as soon as possible. Paddy and Jem\nBottles sat on stools one at each side of the fireplace, and I\noccupied a chair between them.\n\nLooking at my two faithful henchmen, I was suddenly struck by the\nthought that they were not very brisk servants for a gentleman to take\nto fashionable London. I had taken Paddy out of his finery and dressed\nhim in a suit of decent brown; but his hair was still unbarbered, and\nI saw that unless I had a care his appearance would greatly surprise\nand please London. I resolved to have him shorn at the first large\ntown.\n\nAs for Jem Bottles, his clothes were well enough, and indeed he was\npassable in most ways unless it was his habit, when hearing a sudden\nnoise, to take a swift dark look to the right and to the left. Then,\nfurther, people might shrewdly note his way of always sitting with his\nback to the wall and his face to the door. However, I had no doubt of\nmy ability to cure him of these tricks as soon as he was far enough\njourneyed from the scenes of his earlier activity.\n\nBut the idea I entertained at this moment was more to train them to be\nfine grand servants, such as I had seen waiting on big people in Bath.\nThey were both willing enough, but they had no style to them. I\ndecided to begin at once and see what I could teach them.\n\n\"Paddy,\" said I, taking off my sword and holding it out to him. \"My\nsword!\"\n\nPaddy looked at it. \"It is, sir,\" he answered respectfully.\n\n\"Bad scran to you, Paddy!\" I cried angrily. \"I am teaching you your\nduties. Take the sword! In both hands, mind you! Now march over and\nlay it very tenderly on the stand at the head of the bed. There now!\"\n\nI now turned my attention to Jem Bottles.\n\n\"Bottles,\" said I peremptorily, \"my coat and waistcoat.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" replied Bottles quickly, profiting by Paddy's lesson.\n\n\"There now,\" said I, as Bottles laid the coat and waistcoat on a\ndresser. \"'Tis a good beginning. When supper comes I shall teach you\nother duties.\"\n\nThe supper came in due course, and after the inn's man had gone I bid\nJem and Paddy stand one on either side of my chair and a little way\nback. \"Now,\" said I, \"stand square on your feet, and hold your heads\naway high, and stick your elbows out a little, and try to look as if\nyou don't know enough to tell fire from water. Jem Bottles has it.\nThat's it! Bedad! look at the ignorance on him! He's the man for you,\nPaddy! Wake up now, and look stupid. Am I not telling you?\"\n\n\"Begor!\" said Paddy dejectedly, \"I feel like the greatest omadhaun in\nall the west country, and if that is not being stupid enough for your\nhonour I can do no better.\"\n\n\"Shame to you, Paddy, to let an Englishman beat you so easily,\" said\nI. \"Take that grin off your face, you scoundrel! Now,\" I added, \"we\nare ready to begin. Wait, now. You must each have something to hold in\nyour fist. Let me be thinking. There's only one plate and little of\nanything else. Ah, I have it! A bottle! Paddy, you shall hold one of\nthe bottles. Put your right hand underneath it, and with your left\nhand hold it by the neck. But keep your elbows out. Jem, what the\ndevil am I to give you to hold? Ah, I have it! Another bottle! Hold it\nthe same as Paddy. Now! Stand square on your feet, and hold your heads\naway high, and stick your elbows out a little, and look stupid. I am\ngoing to eat my supper.\"\n\nI finished my first and second bottles with the silence only broken by\nthe sound of my knife-play and an occasional restless creaking of\nboots as one of my men slyly shifted his position. Wishing to call for\nmy third bottle, I turned and caught them exchanging a glance of\nsympathetic bewilderment. As my eye flashed upon them, they stiffened\nup like grenadier recruits.\n\nBut I was not for being too hard on them at first. \"'Tis enough for\none lesson,\" said I. \"Put the bottles by me and take your ease.\"\n\nWith evident feelings of relief they slunk back to the stools by the\nfire, where they sat recovering their spirits.\n\nAfter my supper I sat in the chair toasting my shins and lazily\nlistening to my lads finishing the fowls. They seemed much more like\nthemselves, sitting there grinding away at the bones and puffing with\njoy. In the red firelight it was such a scene of happiness that I\nmisdoubted for a moment the wisdom of my plan to make them into fine\ngrand numskulls.\n\nI could see that all men were not fitted for the work. It needed a\nbeefy person with fat legs and a large amount of inexplicable dignity,\na regular God-knows-why loftiness. Truth, in those days, real talent\nwas usually engaged in some form of rascality, barring the making of\nbooks and sermons. When one remembers the impenetrable dulness of the\ngreat mass of the people, the frivolity of the gentry, the arrogance\nand wickedness of the court, one ceases to wonder that many men of\ntaste took to the highway as a means of recreation and livelihood. And\nthere I had been attempting to turn my two frank rascals into the kind\nof sheep-headed rubbish whom you could knock down a great staircase,\nand for a guinea they would say no more. Unless I was the kicker, I\nthink Paddy would have returned up the staircase after his assailant.\nJem Bottles probably would have gone away nursing his wrath and his\ninjury, and planning to waylay the kicker on a convenient night. But\nneither would have taken a guinea and said no more. Each of these\nsimple-hearted reprobates was too spirited to take a guinea for a kick\ndown a staircase.\n\nAny how I had a mind that I could be a gentleman true enough without\nthe help of Jem and Paddy making fools of themselves. I would worry\nthem no more.\n\nAs I was musing thus my eyes closed from a sense of contented\nweariness, but I was aroused a moment later by hearing Paddy address\nJem Bottles in a low voice. \"'Tis you who are the cool one, Jem!\"\nsaid he with admiration, \"trying to make them think you were _him_!\"\nHere I was evidently indicated by a sideways bob of the head. \"Have\nyou not been seeing the fine ways of him? Sure, be looking at his\nstride and his habit of slatting people over the head, and his grand\nmanners with his food. You are looking more like a candlestick than\nyou are looking like him. I wonder at you.\"\n\n\"But I befooled them,\" said Bottles proudly. \"I befooled them well. It\nwas Mr. O'Ruddy here, and Mr. O'Ruddy there, and the handsome wench\nshe gave me many a glance of her eye, she did.\"\n\n\"Sorrow the day for her, then,\" responded Paddy, \"and if you would be\ncozening the girls in the name of _him_ there, he will be cozening\nyou, and I never doubt it.\"\n\n\"'Twas only a trick to make the time go easy, it was,\" said Bottles\ngloomily. \"If you remember, Master Paddy, I have spent the most of my\nnew service waiting under oak-trees; and I will not be saying that it\nrained always, but oft-times it did rain most accursedly.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\n\nWe rode on at daybreak. At the first large village I bid a little man\ncut Paddy's hair, and although Paddy was all for killing the little\nman, and the little man twice ran away, the work was eventually done,\nfor I stood over Paddy and threatened him. Afterward the little boys\nwere not so anxious to hoot us through the streets, calling us\nAfricans. For it must be recalled that at this time there was great\ncuriosity in the provinces over the Africans, because it was known\nthat in London people of fashion often had African servants; and\nalthough London cared nothing for the provinces, and the provinces\ncared nothing for London, still the rumour of the strange man\ninterested the country clodhopper so greatly that he called Paddy an\nAfrican on principle, in order that he might blow to his neighbours\nthat he had seen the fascinating biped. There was no general\nunderstanding that the African was a man of black skin; it was only\nunderstood that he was a great marvel. Hence the urchins in these\nfar-away villages often ran at the heels of Paddy's horse, yelling.\n\nIn time the traffic on the highway became greatly thickened, and\nseveral times we thought we were entering London because of the large\nsize and splendour of the towns to which we came. Paddy began to fear\nthe people had been deceiving us as to the road, and that we had\nmissed London entirely. But finally we came to a river with hundreds\nof boats upon it, and there was a magnificent bridge, and on the other\nbank was a roaring city, and through the fog the rain came down thick\nas the tears of the angels. \"That's London,\" said I.\n\nWe rode out upon the bridge, all much interested, but somewhat\nfearful, for the noise of the city was terrible. But if it was\nterrible as we approached it, I hesitate to say what it was to us when\nwe were once fairly in it. \"Keep close to me,\" I yelled to Paddy and\nJem, and they were not unwilling. And so we rode into this\npandemonium, not having the least idea where we were going.\n\nAs we progressed I soon saw what occasioned the major part of the\nnoise. Many heavy carts thundered slowly through the narrow, echoing\nstreets, bumping their way uproariously over a miserable pavement.\nAdded to this, of course, were the shrill or hoarse shouts of the\nstreet vendors and the apprentices at the shop-doors. To the sky arose\nan odour almost insupportable, for it was new to us all.\n\nThe eaves of the houses streamed with so much water that the sidewalks\nwere practically untenable, although here and there a hardy wayfarer\nstrode on regardless of a drenched cloak, probably being too proud to\ntake to the street. Once our travel was entirely blocked by a fight. A\nbutcher in a bloody apron had dashed out of his shop and attacked the\ndriver of a brewer's sledge. A crowd gathered miraculously and cheered\non this spectacle; women appeared at all the windows; urchins hooted;\nmongrel dogs barked. When the butcher had been worsted and chased\nback into his shop by the maddened brewer we were allowed to pursue\nour journey.\n\nI must remark that neither of these men used aught but his hands.\nMostly their fists were doubled, and they dealt each other sounding,\nswinging blows; but there was some hair-pulling, and when the brewer\nhad the butcher down I believe the butcher tried to bite his\nopponent's ear. However they were rather high-class for their\ncondition. I found out later that at this time in the darker parts of\nLondon the knife was a favourite weapon of the English and was as\nrampant as ever it is in the black alleys of an Italian city. It was\nno good news for me, for the Irish had long been devoted to the\ncudgel.\n\nWhen I wish for information I always prefer making the request to a\ngentleman. To have speech of a boor is well enough if he would not\nfirst study you over to find, if he can, why you want the information,\nand, after a prolonged pause, tell you wrong entirely. I perceived a\nyoung gentleman standing in under a porch and ogling a window on the\nopposite side of the way. \"Sir,\" said I, halting my horse close to\nhim, \"would you be so kind as to point to a stranger the way to a good\ninn?\" He looked me full in the face, spat meaningly in the gutter,\nand, turning on his heel, walked away. And I will give oath he was not\nmore than sixteen years old.\n\nI sat stiff in the saddle; I felt my face going hot and cold. This\nnew-feathered bird with a toy sword! But to save me, as it happened,\nfrom a preposterous quarrel with this infant, another man came along\nthe sidewalk. He was an older man, with a grave mouth and a clean-cut\njowl. I resolved to hail him. \"And now my man,\" said I under my\nbreath, \"if you are as bad as the other, by the mass, I'll have a\nturnover here with you, London or no London.\"\n\nThen I addressed him. \"Sir--\" I began. But here a cart roared on my\nother side, and I sat with my mouth open, looking at him. He smiled a\nlittle, but waited courteously for the hideous din to cease. \"Sir,\" I\nwas enabled to say at last, \"would you be so kind as to point to a\nstranger the way to a good inn?\" He scanned me quietly, in order, no\ndoubt, to gain an idea what kind of inn would suit my condition.\n\"Sir,\" he answered, coming into the gutter and pointing, \"'tis this\nway to Bishopsgate Street, and there you will see the sign of the 'Pig\nand Turnip,' where there is most pleasurable accommodation for man and\nbeast, and an agreeable host.\" He was a shop-keeper of the city of\nLondon, of the calm, steady breed that has made successive kings\neither love them or fearingly hate them,--the bone and the sinew of\nthe great town.\n\nI thanked him heartily, and we went on to the \"Pig and Turnip.\" As we\nclattered into the inn yard it was full of people mounting and\ndismounting, but there seemed a thousand stable-boys. A dozen flung\nthemselves at my horse's head. They quite lifted me out of the saddle\nin their great care that I should be put to no trouble. At the door of\nthe inn a smirking landlord met me, bowing his head on the floor at\nevery backward pace, and humbly beseeching me to tell how he could\nbest serve me. I told him, and at once there was a most pretentious\nhubbub. Six or eight servants began to run hither and yon. I was\ndelighted with my reception, but several days later I discovered they\nhad mistaken me for a nobleman of Italy or France, and I was expected\nto pay extravagantly for graceful empty attentions rather than for\nsound food and warm beds.\n\nThis inn was so grand that I saw it would no longer do for Paddy and\nJem to be sleeping in front of my fire like big dogs, so I nodded\nassent when the landlord asked if he should provide lodgings for my\ntwo servants. He packed them off somewhere, and I was left lonely in a\ngreat chamber. I had some fears having Paddy long out of my sight, but\nI assured myself that London had such terrors for him he would not\ndare any Irish mischief. I could trust Jem Bottles to be discreet, for\nhe had learned discretion in a notable school.\n\nToward the close of the afternoon, the rain ceased, and, attiring\nmyself for the street and going to the landlord, I desired him to tell\nme what interesting or amusing walk could now conveniently be taken by\na gentleman who was a stranger to the sights of London. The man wagged\nhis head in disapproval.\n\n\"'Twill be dark presently, sir,\" he answered, \"and I would be an ill\nhost if I did not dissuade a perfect stranger from venturing abroad in\nthe streets of London of a night-time.\"\n\n\"And is it as bad as that?\" I cried, surprised.\n\n\"For strangers, yes,\" said he. \"For they be for ever wandering, and\nwill not keep to the three or four streets which be as safe as the\nKing's palace. But if you wish, sir, I will provide one man with a\nlantern and staff to go before you, and another man with lantern and\nstaff to follow. Then, with two more stout lads and your own servants,\nI would venture--\"\n\n\"No, no!\" I cried, \"I will not head an army on a night march when I\nintended merely an evening stroll. But how, pray you, am I to be\nentertained otherwise than by going forth?\"\n\nThe innkeeper smiled with something like pity.\n\n\"Sir, every night there meets here such a company of gay gentlemen,\nwits and poets, as would dazzle the world did it but hear one half of\nwhat they say over their pipes and their punch. I serve the\ndistinguished company myself, for I dare trust nobody's care in a\nmatter so important to my house; and I assure you, sir, I have at\ntimes been so doubled with mirth there was no life in me. Why, sir,\nMr. Fullbil himself comes here at times!\"\n\n\"Does he, indeed?\" I cried, although I never had heard of the\nillustrious man.\n\n\"Indeed and he does, sir,\" answered the innkeeper, pleased at my quick\nappreciation of this matter. \"And then there is goings on, I warrant\nme. Mr. Bobbs and the other gentlemen will be in spirits.\"\n\n\"I never doubt you,\" said I. \"But is it possible for a private\ngentleman of no wit to gain admittance to this distinguished company?\"\n\n\"Doth require a little managing, sir,\" said he, full of meaning.\n\n\"Pray you manage it then,\" said I, \"for I have nought to do in London\nfor at least two days, and I would be seeing these famous men with\nwhose names my country rings.\"\n\nEarly in the evening the innkeeper came to me, much pleased. \"Sir, the\ngentlemen bid me bring you their compliments, and I am to say they\nwould be happy to have a pleasure in the honour of your presence. Mr.\nFullbil himself is in the chair to-night. You are very fortunate,\nsir.\"\n\n\"I am,\" said I. \"Lead away, and let us hope to find the great Fullbil\nin high feather.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\n\nThe innkeeper led me down to a large room the door of which he had\nflung open with a flourish. \"The furrin' gentleman, may it please you,\nsirs,\" he announced, and then retired.\n\nThe room was so full of smoke that at first I could see little, but\nsoon enough I made out a long table bordered with smoking and drinking\ngentlemen. A hoarse voice, away at the head of the board, was growling\nsome words which convulsed most of the gentlemen with laughter. Many\ncandles burned dimly in the haze.\n\nI stood for a moment, doubtful as to procedure, but a gentleman near\nthe foot of the table suddenly arose and came toward me with great\nfrankness and good nature. \"Sir,\" he whispered, so that he would not\ninterrupt the growls at the farther end of the room, \"it would give me\npleasure if you would accept a chair near me.\"\n\nI could see that this good gentleman was moved solely by a desire to\nbe kind to a stranger, and I, in another whisper, gave my thanks and\nassent to his plan. He placed me in a chair next his own. The voice\nwas still growling from the head of the table.\n\nVery quickly my eyes became accustomed to the smoke, especially after\nI was handed a filled clay pipe by my new and excellent friend. I\nbegan to study the room and the people in it. The room was panelled\nin new oak, and the chairs and table were all of new oak, well carved.\nIt was the handsomest room I had ever been in.\n\nAfterward I looked toward the growl. I saw a little old man in a chair\nmuch too big for him, and in a wig much too big for him. His head was\nbent forward until his sharp chin touched his breast, and out from\nunder his darkling brows a pair of little eyes flashed angrily and\narrogantly. All faces were turned toward him, and all ears were open\nto his growls. He was the king; it was Fullbil.\n\nHis speech was all addressed to one man, and I looked at the latter.\nHe was a young man with a face both Roman and feminine; with that type\nof profile which is possessed by most of the popular actors in the\nreign of His Majesty of to-day. He had luxuriant hair, and, stung by\nthe taunts of Fullbil, he constantly brushed it nervously from his\nbrow while his sensitive mouth quivered with held-in retorts. He was\nBobbs, the great dramatist.\n\nAnd as Fullbil growled, it was a curiously mixed crowd which applauded\nand laughed. There were handsome lordlings from the very top of London\ncheek by cheek with sober men who seemed to have some intellectual\noccupation in life. The lordlings did the greater part of the\nsniggering. In the meantime everybody smoked hard and drank punch\nharder. During occasional short pauses in Fullbil's remarks, gentlemen\npassed ecstatic comments one to another.--\"Ah, this is indeed a mental\nfeast!\"--\"Did ye ever hear him talk more wittily?\"--\"Not I, faith; he\nsurpasses even himself!\"--\"Is it not a blessing to sit at table with\nsuch a master of learning and wit?\"--\"Ah, these are the times to live\nin!\"\n\nI thought it was now opportune to say something of the same kind to my\namiable friend, and so I did it. \"The old corpse seems to be saying a\nprayer,\" I remarked. \"Why don't he sing it?\"\n\nMy new friend looked at me, all agape, like a fish just over the side\nof the boat. \"'Tis Fullbil, the great literary master--\" he began; but\nat this moment Fullbil, having recovered from a slight fit of\ncoughing, resumed his growls, and my friend subsided again into a\nworshipping listener.\n\nFor my part I could not follow completely the words of the great\nliterary master, but I construed that he had pounced upon the drama of\nthe time and was tearing its ears and eyes off.\n\nAt that time I knew little of the drama, having never read or seen a\nplay in my life; but I was all for the drama on account of poor Bobbs,\nwho kept chewing his lip and making nervous movements until Fullbil\nfinished, a thing which I thought was not likely to happen before an\nearly hour of the morning. But finish he did, and immediately Bobbs,\nmuch impassioned, brought his glass heavily down on the table in a\ndemand for silence. I thought he would get little hearing, but, much\nto my surprise, I heard again the ecstatic murmur: \"Ah, now, we shall\nhear Bobbs reply to Fullbil!\"--\"Are we not fortunate?\"--\"Faith, this\nwill be over half London to-morrow!\"\n\nBobbs waited until this murmur had passed away. Then he began, nailing\nan impressive forefinger to the table:\n\n\"Sir, you have been contending at some length that the puzzling\nsituations which form the basis of our dramas of the day could not\npossibly occur in real life because five minutes of intelligent\nexplanation between the persons concerned would destroy the silly\nmystery before anything at all could happen. Your originality, sir, is\nfamous--need I say it?--and when I hear you champion this opinion in\nall its majesty of venerable age and general acceptance I feel stunned\nby the colossal imbecile strength of the whole proposition. Why, sir,\nyou may recall all the mysterious murders which occurred in England\nsince England had a name. The truth of them remains in unfathomable\nshadow. But, sir, any one of them could be cleared up in five minutes'\nintelligent explanation. Pontius Pilate could have been saved his\nblunder by far, far, far less than five minutes of intelligent\nexplanation. But--mark ye!--but who has ever heard five minutes of\nintelligent explanation? The complex interwoven mesh of life\nconstantly, eternally, prevents people from giving intelligent\nexplanations. You sit in the theatre, and you say to yourself: 'Well,\nI could mount the stage, and in a short talk to these people I could\nanticipate a further continuation of the drama.' Yes, you could; but\nyou are an outsider. You have no relations with these characters. You\narise like an angel. Nobody has been your enemy; nobody has been your\nmistress. You arise and give the five minutes' intelligent\nexplanation; bah! There is not a situation in life which does not need\nfive minutes' intelligent explanation; but it does not get it.\"\n\nIt could now be seen that the old man Fullbil was simply aflame with a\ndestructive reply, and even Bobbs paused under the spell of this\nanticipation of a gigantic answering. The literary master began very\ndeliberately.\n\n\"My good friend Bobbs,\" said he, \"I see your nose gradually is turning\nred.\"\n\nThe drama immediately pitched into oblivion. The room thundered with a\ngreat shout of laughter that went to the ceiling. I could see Bobbs\nmaking angry shouts against an invulnerable bank of uncontrolled\nmerriment. And amid his victory old Fullbil sat with a vain smile on\nhis cracked lips.\n\nMy excellent and adjacent friend turned to me in a burst of\nenthusiasm.\n\n\"And did you ever hear a thing so well turned? Ha, ha! 'My good friend\nBobbs,' quoth he, 'I see your nose gradually is turning red.' Ha, ha,\nha! By my King, I have seldom heard a wittier answer.\"\n\n\"Bedad!\" said I, somewhat bewildered, but resolved to appreciate the\nnoted master of wit, \"it stamped the drama down into the ground. Sure,\nnever another play will be delivered in England after that tremendous\noverthrow.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" he rejoined, still shuddering with mirth, \"I fail to see how\nthe dramatists can survive it. It was like the wit of a new\nShakespeare. It subsided Bobbs to nothing. I would not be surprised at\nall if Bobbs now entirely quit the writing of plays, since Fullbil's\nwords so closely hit his condition in the dramatic world. A dangerous\ndog is this Fullbil.\"\n\n\"It reminds me of a story my father used to tell--\" I began.\n\n\"Sir,\" cried my new friend hastily, \"I beg of you! May I, indeed,\ninsist? Here we talk only of the very deepest matters.\"\n\n\"Very good, sir,\" I replied amiably. \"I will appear better, no doubt,\nas a listener; but if my father was alive--\"\n\n\"Sir,\" beseeched my friend, \"the great Fancher, the immortal critic,\nis about to speak.\"\n\n\"Let him,\" said I, still amiable.\n\nA portly gentleman of middle age now addressed Bobbs amid a general\nand respectful silence.\n\n\"Sir,\" he remarked, \"your words concerning the great age of what I\nshall call the five-minutes-intelligent-explanation theory was first\ndeveloped by the Chinese, and is contemporaneous, I believe, with\ntheir adoption of the custom of roasting their meat instead of eating\nit raw.\"\n\n\"Sir, I am interested and instructed,\" rejoined Bobbs.\n\nHere old Fullbil let go two or three growls of scornful disapproval.\n\n\"Fancher,\" said he, \"my delight in your company is sometimes dimmed by\nmy appreciation of your facilities for being entirely wrong. The great\ntheory of which you speak so confidently, sir, was born no earlier\nthan seven o'clock on the morning of this day. I was in my bed, sir;\nthe maid had come in with my tea and toast. 'Stop,' said I, sternly.\nShe stopped. And in those few moments of undisturbed reflection, sir,\nthe thought came to life, the thought which you so falsely attribute\nto the Chinese, a savage tribe whose sole distinction is its ability\nto fly kites.\"\n\nAfter the murmurs of glee had died away, Fancher answered with spirit:\n\n\"Sir, that you are subject to periods of reflection I will not deny, I\ncannot deny. Nor can I say honourably that I give my support to our\ndramatic friend's defence of his idea. But, sir, when you refer to the\nChinese in terms which I cannot but regard as insulting, I am\nprepared, sir, to--\"\n\nThere were loud cries of \"Order! Order! Order!\" The wrathful Fancher\nwas pulled down into his chair by soothful friends and neighbours, to\nwhom he gesticulated and cried out during the uproar.\n\nI looked toward old Fullbil, expecting to see him disturbed, or\nannoyed, or angry. On the contrary he seemed pleased, as a little boy\nwho had somehow created a row.\n\n\"The excellent Fancher,\" said he, \"the excellent Fancher is wroth. Let\nus proceed, gentlemen, to more friendly topics. You, now, Doctor\nChord, with what new thing in chemics are you ready to astound us?\"\n\nThe speech was addressed to a little man near me, who instantly\nblushed crimson, mopping his brow in much agitation, and looked at the\ntable, unable for the moment to raise his eyes or speak a word.\n\n\"One of the greatest scientists of the time,\" said my friend in my\near.\n\n\"Sir,\" faltered the little man in his bashfulness, \"that part of the\ndiscourse which related to the flying of kites has interested me\ngreatly, and I am ready to contend that kites fly, not, as many say,\nthrough the influence of a demon or spirit which inhabits the\nmaterials, but through the pressure of the wind itself.\"\n\nFancher, now himself again, said:\n\n\"I wish to ask the learned doctor whether he refers to Chinese kites?\"\n\nThe little man hurriedly replied that he had not Chinese kites in his\nmind at all.\n\n\"Very good, then,\" said the great critic. \"Very good.\"\n\n\"But, sir,\" said Fullbil to little Chord, \"how is it that kites may\nfly without the aid of demons or spirits, if they are made by man? For\nit is known, sir, that man may not move in the air without the aid of\nsome devilish agency, and it is also known that he may not send aloft\nthings formed of the gross materials of the earth. How, then, can\nthese kites fly virtuously?\"\n\nThere was a general murmur of approbation of Fullbil's speech, and the\nlittle doctor cast down his eyes and blushed again, speechless.\n\nIt was a triumph for Fullbil, and he received the congratulations of\nhis friends with his faint vain smile implying that it was really\nnothing, you know, and that he could have done it much better if he\nhad thought that anybody was likely to heed it.\n\nThe little Doctor Chord was so downtrodden that for the remainder of\nthe evening he hardly dared to raise his eyes from the table, but I\nwas glad to see him apply himself industriously to the punch.\n\nTo my great alarm Fullbil now said: \"Sirs, I fear we have suffered\nourselves to forget we have with us to-night a strange gentleman from\nforeign parts. Your good fortune, sir,\" he added, bowing to me over\nhis glass. I bowed likewise, but I saw his little piggish eyes looking\nwickedly at me. There went a titter around the board, and I understood\nfrom it that I was the next victim of the celebrated Fullbil.\n\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"may I ask from what part of Italy do you come?\"\n\n\"I come from Ireland, sir,\" I answered decently.\n\nHe frowned. \"Ireland is not in Italy, sir,\" said he. \"Are you so good\nas to trifle with me, sir?\"\n\n\"I am not, sir,\" said I.\n\nAll the gentlemen murmured; some looked at me with pity, some with\ncontempt. I began to be frightened until I remembered that if I once\ndrew my sword I could chase the whole roomful of philosophy into the\nnext parish. I resolved to put on a bold front.\n\n\"Probably, sir,\" observed Fullbil, \"the people of Ireland have heard\nso much of me that I may expect many visits from Irish gentlemen who\nwish to hear what my poor mind may develop in regard to the only true\nphilosophy of life?\"\n\n\"Not in the least, sir,\" I rejoined. \"Over there they don't know you\nare alive, and they are not caring.\"\n\nConsternation fell upon that assembly like snow from a roof. The\ngentlemen stared at me. Old Fullbil turned purple at first, but his\ngrandeur could not be made to suffer long or seriously from my\nimpudence. Presently he smiled at me,--a smile confident, cruel,\ndeadly.\n\n\"Ireland is a great country, sir,\" he observed.\n\n\"'Tis not so great as many people's ignorance of it,\" I replied\nbluntly, for I was being stirred somewhat.\n\n\"Indeed!\" cried Fullbil. Then he triumphantly added: \"Then, sir, we\nare proud to have among us one so manifestly capable of giving us\ninstruction.\"\n\nThere was a loud shout of laughter at this sally, and I was very\nuncomfortable down to my toes; but I resolved to hold a brave face,\nand pretended that I was not minding their sneers. However, it was\nplain enough that old Fullbil had made me the butt of the evening.\n\n\"Sir,\" said the dramatist Bobbs, looking at me, \"I understand that in\nIreland pigs sit at table with even the best families.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said the critic, Fancher, looking at me, \"I understand that in\nIreland the chastity of the women is so great that no child is born\nwithout a birthmark in the shape of the initials of the legal husband\nand father.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said old Fullbil, \"I understand that in Ireland people go naked\nwhen it rains, for fear of wetting their clothes.\"\n\nAmid the uproarious merriment provoked by their speeches I sat in\nsilence. Suddenly the embarrassed little scientist, Doctor Chord,\nlooked up at me with a fine friendly sympathy. \"A glass with you,\nsir,\" he said, and as we nodded our heads solemnly over the rims I\nfelt that there had come to my help one poor little frightened friend.\nAs for my first acquaintance, he, seeing me attacked not only by the\nredoubtable Fullbil, but also by the formidable Bobbs and the\ndangerous Fancher, had immediately begun to pretend that never in his\nlife had he spoken to me.\n\nHaving a great knowledge of Irish character I could see that trouble\nwas brewing for somebody, but I resolved to be very backward, for I\nhesitated to create a genuine disturbance in these philosophical\ncircles. However, I was saved this annoyance in a strange manner. The\ndoor opened, and a newcomer came in, bowing right and left to his\nacquaintances, and finally taking a seat near Fullbil. I recognized\nhim instantly; he was Sir Edmund Flixton, the gentleman who had had\nsome thought of fighting me in Bath, but who had refrained from it\nupon hearing that I had worsted Forister.\n\nHowever, he did not perceive me at that time. He chattered with\nFullbil, telling him evidently some very exciting news, for I heard\nthe old man ejaculate. \"By my soul, can it be possible?\" Later Fullbil\nrelated some amusing things to Flixton, and, upon an inquiry from\nFlixton, I was pointed out to him. I saw Flixton's face change; he\nspoke hastily to old Fullbil, who turned pale as death. Swiftly some\nbit of information flashed around the board, and I saw men's eyes open\nwide and white as they looked at me.\n\nI have said it was the age of bullies. It was the age when men of\nphysical prowess walked down the street shouldering lesser men into\nthe gutter, and the lesser men had never a word to say for themselves.\nIt was the age when if you expressed opinions contrary to those of a\nbully he was confidently expected to kill you or somehow maltreat you.\n\nOf all that company of genius there now seemed to be only one\ngentleman who was not a-tremble. It was the little scientist Doctor\nChord. He looked at me with a bright and twinkling eye; suddenly he\ngrinned broadly. I could not but burst into laughter when I noted the\nappetite with which he enjoyed the confusion and alarm of his friends.\n\n\"Come, Fullbil! Come, Bobbs! Come, Fancher! Where are all your pretty\nwits?\" he cried; for this timid little man's impudence increased\nmightily amid all this helpless distress. \"Here's the dignity and\npower of learning of you, in God's truth. Here's knowledge enthroned,\nfearless, great! Have ye all lost your tongues?\"\n\nAnd he was for going on to worry them, but that I called out to him,--\n\n\"Sir,\" said I mildly, \"if it please you, I would not have the\ngentlemen disturbed over any little misunderstanding of a pleasant\nevening. As regards quarrelling, I am all milk and water myself. It\nreminds me of an occasion in Ireland once when--\" Here I recounted a\nstory which Father Donovan always began on after more than three\nbottles, and to my knowledge he had never succeeded in finishing it.\nBut this time I finished it. \"And,\" said I, \"the fellow was sitting\nthere drinking with them, and they had had good fun with him, when of\na sudden he up and spoke. Says he: ''Tis God's truth I never expected\nin all my life to be an evening in the company of such a lot of scurvy\nrat-eaters,' he says to them. 'And,' says he, 'I have only one word\nfor that squawking old masquerading peacock that sits at the head of\nthe table,' says he. 'What little he has of learning I could put in my\neye without going blind,' says he. 'The old curmudgeon!' says he. And\nwith that he arose and left the room, afterward becoming the King of\nGalway and living to a great age.\"\n\nThis amusing tale created a sickly burst of applause, in the midst of\nwhich I bowed myself from the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\n\nOn my way to my chamber I met the innkeeper and casually asked him\nafter Paddy and Jem. He said that he would send to have word of them\nand inform me as soon as possible. Later a drawer came to my door and\ntold me that Paddy and Jem, with three men-servants of gentlemen\nsleeping at the inn, had sallied out to a mug-house.\n\n\"Mug-house?\" said I. \"What in the devil's name is a mug-house?\"\n\n\"Mug-house, sir?\" said the man, staring. \"Mug-house? Why, sir,\n'tis--'tis a form of amusement, sir.\"\n\n\"It is, is it?\" said I. \"Very good. And does any one here know to what\nmug-house they went?\"\n\n\"The 'Red Slipper,' I think, sir,\" said the man.\n\n\"And how do I get to it?\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, sir,\" he cried, \"'tis impossible!\"\n\n\"Is it?\" said I. \"And why is it? The innkeeper said the same to me,\nand I would like to hear all the reasons.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said the man, \"when it becometh dark in London there walk\nabroad many men of evil minds who are no respecters of persons, but\nfall upon whomsoever they, may, beating them sorely, having no regard\nfor that part of the Holy Book in which it is written--\"\n\n\"Let go,\" said I. \"I see what you mean.\" I then bade him get for me a\nstout lad with a cudgel and a lantern and a knowledge of the\nwhereabouts of the \"Red Slipper.\"\n\nI, with the stout lad, had not been long in the street before I\nunderstood what the landlord and the waiter had meant. In fact we were\nscarce out of the door before the man was menacing with his cudgel two\nhuman vultures who slunk upon us out of the shadow. I saw their pale,\nwicked, snarling faces in the glow of the lantern.\n\nA little later a great shindy broke out in the darkness, and I heard\nvoices calling loudly for a rally in the name of some guild or\nsociety. I moved closer, but I could make out little save that it was\na very pretty fight in which a company of good citizens were trying to\nput to flight a band of roughs and law-breakers. There was a merry\nrattling of sticks. Soon enough, answering shouts could be heard from\nsome of the houses, and with a great slamming of doors men rushed out\nto do battle for the peace of the great city. Meanwhile all the high\nwindows had been filled with night-capped heads, and some of these\npeople even went so far as to pour water down upon the combatants.\nThey also sent down cat-calls and phrases of witty advice. The sticks\nclattered together furiously; once a man with a bloody face staggered\npast us; he seemed to have been whacked directly on the ear by some\nuneducated person. It was as fine a shindy as one could hope to\nwitness, and I was deeply interested.\n\nThen suddenly a man called out hoarsely that he had been\nstabbed--murdered. There were yells from the street and screams from\nthe windows. My lantern-bearer plucked me madly by the sleeve. I\nunderstood him, and we hastily left the neighbourhood.\n\nI may tell now what had happened and what followed this affair of the\nnight. A worthy citizen had been stabbed to death indeed. After\nfurther skirmishes his comrade citizens had taken several wretches\ninto custody. They were tried for the murder and all acquitted save\none. Of this latter it was proven that the brawl had started through\nhis attempt to gain the purse of a passing citizen, and forthwith he\nwas sentenced to be hanged for murder. His companion rascals were sent\nto prison for long terms on the expectation that one of them really\nmight have been the murderer.\n\nWe passed into another street, where each well-lighted window framed\none or more painted hussies who called out in jocular obscenity, but\nwhen we marched stiffly on without replying their manner changed, and\nthey delivered at us volley after volley of language incredibly foul.\nThere were only two of these creatures who paid no heed, and their\nindifference to us was due to the fact that they were deeply engaged\nin a duel of words, exchanging the most frightful, blood-curdling\nepithets. Confident drunken men jostled us from time to time, and\nfrequently I could see small, ashy-faced, ancient-eyed youths dodging\nhere and there with food and wine. My lantern-bearer told me that the\nstreet was not quite awake; it was waiting for the outpourings from\nthe taverns and mug-houses. I bade him hurry me to the \"Red Slipper\"\nas soon as possible, for never have I had any stomach for these tawdry\nevils, fit as they are only for clerks and sailors.\n\nWe came at length to the creaking sign of the \"Red Slipper.\" A great\nnoise came from the place. A large company was roaring out a chorus.\nWithout many words I was introduced into the room in which the\ndisturbance was proceeding. It was blue with smoke, and the thundering\nchorus was still unfinished. I sank unnoticed into a quiet corner.\n\nI was astonished at the appearance of the company. There were many men\nwho looked like venerable prelates, and many men who looked like the\nheads of old and noble houses. I laughed in my sleeve when I\nremembered I had thought to find Paddy and Jem here. And at the same\ntime I saw them up near the head of the table, if it please you. Paddy\nhad his hand on the shoulder of a bishop, and Jem was telling some\ntale into the sympathetic ear of a marquis. At least this is the way\nmatters appeared to my stupefied sense.\n\nThe singing ceased, and a distinguished peer at my elbow resumed a\ntalk which evidently had been broken by the chorus:\n\n\"And so the Duke spoke with somewhat more than his accustomed vigour,\"\nsaid the distinguished peer.\n\nMy worst suspicions were confirmed. Here was a man talking of what had\nbeen said by a duke. I cast my eye toward my happy pair of rogues and\nwondered how I could ever extricate them from their position.\n\nSuddenly there was a loud pounding upon the table, and in the ensuing\nquiet the grave and dignified voice of the chairman could be heard:\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said, \"we crave your attention to a song by Mr. John\nSnowden.\"\n\nWhereupon my very own Jem Bottles arose amid a burst of applause, and\nbegan to sing a ballad which had been written in Bristol or Bath in\ncelebration of the notorious scoundrel Jem Bottles.\n\nHere I could see that if impudence could serve us we would not lack\nsuccess in England. The ballad was answered with wild cheers of\nappreciation. It was the great thing of the evening. Jem was\nstrenuously pressed to sing again, but he buried his face in his mug\nand modestly refused. However, they devoted themselves to his chorus\nand sang it over and over with immense delight. I had never imagined\nthat the nobility were so free and easy.\n\nDuring the excitement over Jem's ballad I stole forward to Paddy.\n\"Paddy,\" I whispered, \"come out of this now. 'Tis no place for you\nhere among all these reverend fathers and gentlemen of title. Shame on\nyou!\"\n\nHe saw my idea in a flash.\n\n\"Whist, sir,\" he answered. \"There are being no reverend fathers or\ngentlemen of title here. They are all after being footmen and valets.\"\n\nI was extremely vexed with myself. I had been in London only a brief\nspace; and Paddy had been in the city no longer. However, he had\nalready managed his instruction so well that he could at once tell a\nmember of the gentry from a servant. I admired Paddy's cleverness, but\nat the same time I felt a certain resentment against the prelates and\nnobles who had so imposed upon me.\n\nBut, to be truthful, I have never seen a finer display of manners.\nThese menials could have put courtiers to the blush. And from time to\ntime somebody spoke out loud and clear an opinion pilfered verbatim\nfrom his master. They seldom spoke their own thoughts in their own\nway; they sent forth as their own whatever they could remember from\nthe talk of their masters and other gentlemen. There was one man who\nseemed to be the servant of some noted scholar, and when he spoke the\nothers were dumfounded into quiet.\n\n\"The loriot,\" said he with a learned frown, \"is a bird. If it is\nlooked upon by one who has the yellow jaundice, the bird straightway\ndies, but the sick person becomes well instantly. 'Tis said that\nlovage is used, but I would be luctuous to hear of anybody using this\nlothir weed, for 'tis no pentepharmacon, but a mere simple and not\nworth a caspatory.\"\n\nThis utterance fairly made their eyes bulge, and they sat in stunned\nsilence. But I must say that there was one man who did not fear.\n\n\"Sir,\" said Paddy respectfully, but still with his own dignity, \"I\nwould be hearing more of this bird, and we all would be feeling\nhonoured for a short description.\"\n\n\"In color he is ningid,\" said the learned valet.\n\n\"Bedad!\" cried Paddy. \"That's strange!\"\n\n\"'Tis a question full of tenebrosity,\" remarked the other leaning back\nin his chair. \"We poor scholars grow madarosis reflecting upon it.\nHowever, I may tell you that the bird is simous; yblent in the\nsunlight, but withal strenuous-eyed; its blood inclined to\nintumescence. However, I must be breviloquent, for I require an\nenneadecaterides to enumerate the true qualities of the loriot.\"\n\n\"By gor!\" said Paddy, \"I'll know that bird if I see him ten years from\nnow. Thank you kindly, sir. But we would be late for breakfast if you\ntook the required time; and that's true for me.\"\n\nAfterward I reflected that I had attended the meetings of two\nscholarly bodies in this one evening, but for the life of me I\ncouldn't decide which knew the least.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\n\nBy the following Sunday I judged that the Earl of Westport and his\nfamily had returned to London, and so I walked abroad in the hopes of\ncatching a glimpse of some of them among the brilliant gentry who on\nthis day thronged the public gardens. I had both Jem Bottles and Paddy\naccompany me, for I feared that they would get into mischief if I left\nthem to themselves. The innkeeper had told me that Kensington Gardens\nwas the place where the grand people mostly chose to walk and flirt\nand show their clothes on a clear Sunday. It was a long way to these\nGardens, but we footed out bravely, although we stopped once to see a\nfight between five drunken apprentices, as well as several times for\nmuch-needed refreshment.\n\nI had no idea that the scene at the Gardens would be so splendid.\nOutside, the road was a block of gleaming chariots and coaches with\nservants ablaze in their liveries. Here I left Paddy and Jem to amuse\nthemselves as suited them.\n\nBut the array of carriages had been only a forecast of what my eyes\nwould encounter in the Garden itself. I was involved at once in a\nswarm of fashionable people. My eyes were dazzled with myriad colours,\nand my nostrils, trained as they were to peat smoke, were saluted by a\nhundred delicious perfumes. Priceless silks and satins swept against\nmy modest stockings.\n\nI suffered from my usual inclination to run away, but I put it down\nwith an iron will. I soon found a more retired spot from which I could\nreview the assemblage at something like my leisure. All the highly\nfashionable flock knew each other intimately, it appeared, and they\nkept off with figurative pikes attempts of a certain class not quite\nso high and mighty, who seemed for ever trying to edge into situations\nwhich would benefit them on the social ladder. Their failures were\ndismal, but not so dismal as the heroic smiles with which they covered\ntheir little noiseless defeats.\n\nI saw a lady, sumptuously arrayed, sweep slowly along with her\ndaughter, a beautiful girl who greatly wished to keep her eyes fixed\non the ground. The mother glanced everywhere with half-concealed\neagerness and anxiety. Once she bowed impressively to a dame with a\ncold, pale aristocratic face, around whom were gathered several\nofficers in the uniform of His Majesty's Guards. The grand dame lifted\nher lorgnette and stared coolly at that impressive bow; then she\nturned and said something amusing to one of the officers, who\nsmilingly answered. The mother, with her beautiful daughter, passed\non, both pairs of eyes now on the ground.\n\nI had thought the rebuff would settle this poor misguided creature,\nbut in the course of an hour I saw three more of her impressive bows\nthrown away against the icy faces of other women. But as they were\nleaving the Gardens they received attention from members of the very\nbest society. One lordling nudged another lordling, and they stared\ninto the face of the girl as if she had been a creature of the street.\nThen they leisurely looked her up and down from head to toe. No\ntailor could have taken her measurements so completely. Afterward they\ngrinned at each other, and one spoke behind his hand, his insolent\nspeculative eyes fixed on the retiring form of the girl. This was the\nsocial reward of the ambitious mother.\n\nIt has always been clear to me why the women turn out in such cohorts\nto any sort of a function. They wish to see the frocks, and they are\ninsistent that their own frocks shall be seen. Moreover they take\ngreat enjoyment in hating such of their enemies as may come under\ntheir notice. They never have a really good time; but of this fact\nthey are not aware, since women are so constituted that they are able\nto misinterpret almost every one of their emotions.\n\nThe men, knowing something of their own minds at times, stealthily\navoid such things unless there are very special reasons. In my own\nmodest experience I have seen many a popular hostess hunting men with\na net. However it was plain why so many men came to Kensington Gardens\non a Sunday afternoon. It was the display of feminine beauty. And when\nI say \"display\" I mean it. In my old age the fashion balloons a lady\nwith such a sweep of wires and trellises that no Irishman could marry\nher because there is never a door in all Ireland through which his\nwife could pass. In my youth, however, the fashion required all\ndresses to be cut very low, and all skirts to cling so that if a\nfour-legged woman entered a drawing-room everybody would know it. It\nwould be so easy to count them. At present a woman could have eight\nlegs and nobody be the wiser.\n\nIt was small wonder that the men came to ogle at Kensington Gardens\non a fine Sunday afternoon. Upon my word, it was worth any young\ngentleman's time. Nor did the beauties blush under the gaze of banks\nof fastidious beaus who surveyed them like men about to bid at a\nhorse-fair. I thought of my father and how he would have enjoyed the\nscene. I wager he would have been a gallant with the best of them,\nbowing and scraping, and dodging ladies' skirts. He would have been in\nhis very element.\n\nBut as for me I had come to gain a possible glimpse of Lady Mary.\nBeyond that I had no warm interest in Kensington Gardens. The crowd\nwas too high and fine; many of the people were altogether too well\nbred. They frightened me.\n\nHowever, I turned my head by chance to the left, and saw near me a\nsmall plain man who did not frighten me at all. It was Doctor Chord,\nthe little scientist. He was alone and seemed to be occupied in\nstudying the crowd. I moved over to him.\n\n\"A good day to you, sir,\" I said, extending my hand.\n\nWhen he recognized me, his face broke into a beaming smile.\n\n\"Why, sir,\" he cried, \"I am very glad to see you, sir. Perchance, like\nme, you have come here for an hour's quiet musing on fashionable\nfolly.\"\n\n\"That's it, sir,\" said I. \"You've hit it exactly.\"\n\nI have said that he was a bashful man, but it seemed that his timidity\nwas likely to show itself only in the presence of other great\nphilosophers and scientists. At any rate, he now rattled on like a\nlittle engine, surveying the people keenly and discoursing upon their\nfaults.\n\n\"There's the old Marquis of Stubblington,\" observed my friend. \"He\nbeats his wife with an ebony stick. 'Tis said she always carries a\nlittle bottle of liniment in the pocket of her skirt. Poor thing, her\nonly pleasure in life is to talk scandal; but this she does on such a\nheroic scale that it occupies her time completely. There is young Lord\nGram walking again with that soap-boiler and candle-maker. 'Tis\ndisgraceful! The poor devil lends Gram money, and Gram repays him by\nallowing him to be seen in his company. Gram gambles away the money,\nbut I don't know what the soap-boiler does with his distinguished\nhonours. However, you can see that the poor wretch is delighted with\nhis bargain. There are the three Banellic girls, the most\nill-tempered, ugly cats in England. But each will have a large\nmarriage portion, so they have no fears, I warrant me. I wonder the\nelder has the effrontery to show her face here so soon if it is true\nthat the waiting-woman died of her injuries. Little Wax is talking to\nthem. He needs one of those marriage portions. Aye, he needs all\nthree, what with his very boot-maker almost inclined to be insolent to\nhim. I see that foreign count is talking to the Honourable Mrs.\nTrasky. He is no more nor less than a gambler by trade, and they say\nhe came here from Paris because he was caught cheating there, and was\nkicked and caned with such intense publicity that he was forced to\nleave in the dead of night. However, he found many young birds here\neager to be plucked and devoured. 'Tis little they care, so long as\nthey may play till dawn. Did you hear about Lady Prefent? She went\nafter her son to the Count's rooms at night. In her younger days she\nlived rather a gay life herself, 'tis rumoured, and so she was not to\nbe taken by her son's lies as to where he spent his evenings and his\nmoney. Ha, I see the Countess Cheer. There is a citadel of virtue! It\nhas been stormed and taken so many times that I wonder it is not in\nruins, and yet here it is defiant, with banners flying. Wonderful.\nShe--\"\n\n\"Hold!\" I cried. \"I have enough. I would have leave to try and collect\nmy wits. But one thing I would know at once. I thought you were a shy\nscholar, and here you clatter away with the tongue of an old rake. You\namaze me. Tell me why you do this? Why do you use your brain to\nexamine this muck?\"\n\n\"'Tis my recreation,\" he answered simply. \"In my boyhood I was allowed\nno games, and in the greater part of my manhood I have been too busy.\nOf late years I have more leisure, and I often have sought here a\nlittle innocent amusement, something to take one's mind off one's own\naffairs, and yet not of such an arduous nature as would make one's\nhead tired.\"\n\n\"By my faith, it would make my head tired,\" I said. \"What with\nremembering the names of the people and all the different crimes, I\nshould go raving mad.\" But what still amazed me was the fact that this\nlittle man, habitually meek, frightened and easily trodden down in\nmost ordinary matters, should be able to turn himself upon occasion\ninto a fierce and howling wolf of scandal, baying his betters, waiting\nfor the time when an exhausted one fell in the snow, and then burying\nhis remorseless teeth in him. What a quaint little Doctor Chord.\n\n\"But tell me truly,\" said I. \"Is there no virtuous lady or honest\ngentleman in all this great crowd?\"\n\nHe stared, his jaw dropping. \"Strap me, the place is full of them,\" he\nejaculated. \"They are as thick as flies in a fish-market.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said I, \"let us talk of them. 'Tis well to furbish and\nburnish our minds with tales of rectitude and honour.\"\n\nBut the little Doctor was no longer happy. \"There is nought to say,\"\nhe answered gloomily. \"They are as quiet as Bibles. They make no\nrecreation for me. I have scant interest in them.\"\n\n\"Oh, you little rogue, you!\" I cried. \"What a precious little bunch of\nevil it is! 'They make no recreation for me,' quoth he. Here's a\ngreat, bold, outspoken monster. But, mark you, sir, I am a younger\nman, but I too have a bold tongue in my head, and I am saying that I\nhave friends among ladies in London, and if I catch you so much as\nwhispering their names in your sleep, I'll cut off your ears and eat\nthem. I speak few words, as you may have noted, but I keep my\nengagements, you little brew of trouble, you!\"\n\n\"Strap me,\" whimpered the little Doctor, plucking feverishly at the\nbuttons of his coat, rolling his eyes wildly, not knowing at all what\nhe did. \"The man's mad! The man's mad!\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"my blood is cold, very cold.\"\n\nThe little Doctor looked at me with the light of a desperate\ninspiration in his eye. \"If your blood is cold, sir,\" said he, \"I can\nrecommend a gill of port wine.\"\n\nI needs must laugh. \"Good,\" I cried, \"and you will join me.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\n\nI don't know if it was the gill of comforting port, but at any rate I\nwas soon enough convinced that there was no reason for speaking\nharshly to Doctor Chord. It served no purpose; it accomplished\nnothing. The little old villain was really as innocent as a lamb. He\nhad no dream of wronging people. His prattle was the prattle of an\nunsophisticated maiden lady. He did not know what he was talking.\nThese direful intelligences ran as easily off his tongue as water runs\noff the falling wheel. When I had indirectly informed him that he was\nmore or less of a dangerous scandal-monger, he had cried: \"The man is\nmad!\" Yes; he was an innocent old thing.\n\nBut then it is the innocent old scandal-mongers, poor placid-minded\nwell-protected hens, who are often the most harmful. The vicious\ngabblers defeat themselves very often. I remember my father once going\nto a fair and kissing some girls there. He kissed them all turn by\nturn, as was his right and his duty, and then he returned to a girl\nnear the head of the list and kissed her five times more because she\nwas the prettiest girl in all Ireland, and there is no shame to him\nthere. However, there was a great hullabaloo. The girls who had been\nkissed only once led a regular crusade against the character of this\nother girl, and before long she had a bad name, and the odious sly\nlads with no hair on their throats winked as she passed them, and\nnumerous mothers thanked God that their daughters were not fancied by\nthe lord of that region. In time these tales came to the ears of my\nfather, and he called some of his head men to meet him in the\ndining-room.\n\n\"I'll have no trifling,\" said he. \"The girl is a good girl for all I\nknow, and I have never seen her before or since. If I can trace a bad\nword to any man's mouth, I'll flog him till he can't move. 'Tis a\nshame taking away the girl's name for a few kisses by the squire at a\nfair with everybody looking on and laughing. What do you blackguards\nmean?\"\n\nEvery man in the dining-room took oath he had never said a word, and\nthey all spoke truth. But the women clamoured on without pausing for\nwind, and refused to take word of the men-folk, who were gifted with\nthe power of reason. However, the vicious people defeated themselves\nin time. People began to say to a lass who had been kissed only once:\n\"Ah, now, you would be angry because you were not getting the other\nfive.\" Everything seemed to grow quiet, and my father thought no more\nabout it, having thought very little about it in the first place save\nenough to speak a few sharp words. But, would you believe it, there\nwas an old woman living in a hovel not a mile from the castle, who\nkept up the scandal for twelve more months. She had never been\nmarried, and, as far as any one knew, she had never wished to be. She\nhad never moved beyond Father Donovan's church in one direction and a\nlittle peat-heap in the other direction. All her days she had seen\nnothing but the wind-swept moors, and heard nothing but the sea\nlashing the black rocks. I am mistaken; once she came to the castle,\nhearing that my mother was ill. She had a remedy with her, poor soul,\nand they poured it in the ashes when her back was turned. My mother\nbade them give her some hot porridge and an old cloth gown of her own\nto take home. I remember the time distinctly. Well, this poor thing\ncouldn't tell between a real sin and an alligator. Bony, withered,\naged, this crone might have been one of the highest types of human\nperfection. She wronged nobody; she had no power to wrong. Nobody\nwronged her; it was never worth it. She really was at peace with all\nthe world. This obeys the most exalted injunctions. Every precept is\nkept here. But this tale of the Squire and the girl took root in her\nhead. She must have been dazzled by the immensity of the event. It\nprobably appealed to her as would a grand picture of the burning of\nRome or a vivid statue of Lot's wife turning to look back. It reached\nthe dimensions of great history. And so this old woman, who had always\nlived the life of a nun, dreamed of nothing but the colossal wrong\nwhich had come within her stunted range of vision. Before and after\nchurch she talked of no other thing for almost eighteen months.\nFinally my father in despair rode down to her little cottage.\n\n\"Mollie,\" said he, calling from the road, \"Mollie, come out.\" She came\nout.\n\n\"Mollie,\" said my father, \"you know me?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said she, \"you are The O'Ruddy, and you are a rogue.\"\n\n\"True for you, Mollie,\" said my father pleasantly. \"You know it and I\nknow it. I am indeed a grand rogue. But why would you be tearing to\ntatters the name of that poor girl in Ballygoway?\"\n\n\"'Tis not me that has said more than three words,\" she cried,\nastonished, \"and before I speak ill of anybody I hope the devil flies\naway with me.\"\n\nWell, my father palavered on for a long time, telling her that he\nwould take away the pension of twenty-five shillings a year which he\nhad given her because he by accident had shot her second cousin in the\nleg twelve years before that time. She steadfastly answered that she\nwould never speak ill of anybody; but the girl was a brazen-faced\nwench, and he was no better. My father came away, and I have no doubt\nthe scandal would still be alive if the old woman had not died, may\nthe saints rest her!\n\nAnd so I was no longer angry with Doctor Chord, but spoke to him\npleasantly.\n\n\"Come,\" said I, \"I would have you point me out the great swordsmen, if\nit pleases you. I am eager to see them, and the talk will be cleanly,\nalso.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said my friend. \"Nothing could give me more pleasure. And now,\nlook you! The tall, straight, grave young man there is Ponsonby, who\nflashes the wisest blade in England unless Reginald Forister is\nbetter. Any how, Forister is not here to-day. At least I don't see\nhim. Ponsonby fought his last duel with a gentleman named Vellum\nbecause Vellum said flatly that Mrs. Catherine Wainescorte was a--\"\n\n\"Stop there,\" said I, \"and get to the tale of the fighting.\"\n\n\"Well, Ponsonby won without difficulty,\" said the Doctor; \"but it is\nsaid that he took an unfair advantage--\"\n\n\"Stop again!\" I cried. \"Stop again! We will talk no more of swordsmen.\nSomehow I have lost my interest. I am put to it to think of a subject\nfor talk, and we may have to do with a period of silence, but that\nwill do your jaw no injury at any rate.\"\n\nBut I was mistaken in thinking that the little man could forego his\nrecreation for more than a moment. Suddenly he burst out with a great\nspleen:\n\n\"Titles!\" he cried. \"Empty titles! husks, husks, husks! 'Tis all they\ncare for, this mob! Honourable manhood goes a-begging while the world\nworships at the feet of pimply lords! Pah! Lovely girls, the making of\nfine wives and mothers, grow old while the world worships at the feet\nof some old horse-headed duchess! Pah! Look at those pick-thanks and\nflatterers, cringing at the boots of the people of fashion. Upon my\nlife, before I would so demean myself, I--\" he ceased suddenly, his\neye having caught sight of some people in the crowd. \"Ah,\" said he,\nwhile a singularly vain and fatuous smile settled upon his\ncountenance. \"Ah, the Countess of Westport and her charming daughter,\nthe Lady Mary, have arrived. I must go and speak to them.\" My eye had\nfollowed his glance quickly enough you may be sure. There, true\nenough, was the formidable figure of the old Countess, and at her side\nwas the beautiful Lady Mary.\n\nWith an absent-minded murmur of apology, Doctor Chord went mincing\ntoward them, his face still spread with its idiotic smile.\n\nHe cantered up to them with the grace of a hobbled cow. I expected him\nto get a rebuff that would stun him into the need of a surgeon, but to\nmy surprise the Countess received him affably, bending her head to say\nsome gracious words. However, I had more eyes for Lady Mary than for\nthe capers of little Chord.\n\nIt was a great joy to be able to look at her. I suffered from a\ndelicious trembling, and frequently my vision became dim purely from\nthe excitement. But later I was moved by another profound emotion. I\nwas looking at her; I must have her look at me. I must learn if her\neye would light, if her expression would change, when she saw me. All\nthis sounds very boyish, but it is not necessary to leave it out for\nthat reason, because, as my father often said, every Irishman is a boy\nuntil he has grandchildren. I do not know if he was perfectly right in\nthis matter, but it is a certain advantage in a love affair to have\nthe true boyish ardour which is able to enshrine a woman in one's\nheart to the exclusion of everything, believing her to be perfection\nand believing life without her a hell of suffering and woe. No man of\nmiddle-aged experience can ever be in love. He may have his illusions.\nHe may think he is in love. A woman may gain the power to bind him\nhand and foot and drag him wherever she listeth, but he is not in\nlove. That is his mistaken idea. He is only misinterpreting his\nfeelings. But, as my father said, it is very different with Irishmen,\nwho are able to remain in love to a very great age. If you will note,\ntoo, climatic conditions and other unpleasant matters have practically\nno effect upon them; so little, indeed, that you may find streets\nnamed after the main Italian cities, and many little German children\nspeak with a slight brogue. My father often said that one great reason\nfor an Irishman's successes with the ladies was his perfect\nwillingness to get married. He was seldom to be seen scouting for\nadvantages in intrigue. If the girl be willing, be she brown, yellow,\nor white, he was always for the priest and the solemn words. My father\nalso contended that in every marriage contracted on the face of the\nearth in which neither maid nor man could understand the other's\nnational speech, the bridegroom was an Irishman. He was the only man\nwho was able to make delightful love with the aid of mere signals.\n\nHowever I must be going on with my story, although it is a great\npleasure to talk of my country-men. They possess a singular\nfascination for me. I cannot forget that I too am an Irishman.\n\nThe little Doctor was still saying agreeable things; Lady Mary was\nsmiling in gentle amusement. As I moved out to catch Lady Mary's eye,\nI did not at all lose sight of the fact that if the pugnacious mother\nof my _innamorata_ took one glimpse of me there might result a scene\nwhich could end in nothing but my ignominious flight. I edged toward\nthe group, advancing on the Countess's port quarter as she was talking\nanimately over her starboard bow at the entranced little Doctor. At\ntimes Lady Mary looked about her, still smiling her smile, which no\ndoubt was born of the ridiculous performances of Chord. Once I thought\nshe looked squarely at me, and my heart beat like a drum so loudly\nthat I thought people must hear. But her glance wandered on casually\nover the throng, and then I felt truly insignificant, like a man who\ncould hide behind the nail of his own thumb.\n\nPerceiving that I was so insignificant, I judged it prudent as well as\nadvantageous to advance much closer. Suddenly Lady Mary's clear\nvirgin eye met mine,--met it fully.\n\nNow, I don't know what was in this glance we exchanged. I have stopped\nmyself just on the verge of a full explanation of the thrills,\nquivers, hopes, fears, and dreams which assailed me as I looked back\ninto the beautiful face of Lady Mary. I was also going to explain how\nthe whole scene appeared. But I can see soon enough that my language\nwould not be appropriate to the occasion. But any how we looked each\nother point-blank in the eye. It was a moment in which that very\ncircling of the earth halted, and all the suns of the universe poised,\nready to tumble or to rise. Then Lady Mary lowered her glance, and a\npink blush suffused her neck and cheek.\n\nThe Countess, Lady Mary, and Doctor Chord moved slowly on through the\nthrong, and I followed. The great question now was whether Lady Mary\nwould look back. If she looked back, I would feel that I was making\ngrand way with her. If she did not look back, I would know myself as a\nlost man. One can imagine how eagerly I watched her. For a long time\nit was plain that she had no intention whatever of looking back. I\nlugubriously arranged my complete downfall. Then, at the very moment\nof my despair, she gazed studiously off to her extreme left for a\ncertain time, and then suddenly cast one short glance behind her. Only\nheaven knows what value I placed upon this brief look. It appeared for\nthe moment to me that I had won her, won everything. I bravely forged\nahead until I was quite insistently under the eye of Lady Mary, and\nthen she again looked toward me, but it was a look so repelling and\nfrigid that it went through me as if I had been a paper ring in the\ncircus. I slunk away through the crowd, my thoughts busy with trying\nto find out what had happened to me.\n\nFor three minutes I was a miserable human being. At the end of that\ntime I took heart again. I decided that Lady Mary had frowned at me\nbecause she was afraid that she had been too good to me with her look\nand smile. You know what I mean. I have seen a young girl give a young\nman a flower, and at the very next moment be seemingly willing to give\nher heart's blood to get that flower back, overcome with panic terror\nthat she had passed--in his opinion, mind you--beyond the lines of\nbest behaviour. Well I said to myself that Lady Mary had given me the\nhard look for similar reasons. It was rational to make this judgment,\nfor certainly she had no cause for an active dislike. I had never been\neven so much as a nuisance to her.\n\nFortified with these philosophic decisions, I again followed the trio,\nand I was just in time to find Chord handing them into a splendid\nchariot. I stood out boldly, for I knew if I could not get one more\nlook from Lady Mary I would die.\n\nSeated beside her mother, her eye wandered eagerly over the crowd. I\nwas right, by the saints! She was looking for me.\n\nAnd now here come the stupid laws of convention. Could I yell? Could I\neven throw my hat in the air to guide her eye aright? No! I was doomed\nto stand there as still as a bottle on a shelf.\n\nBut she saw me! It was at the very last moment. There was no time for\ncoquetry. She allowed her glance to linger, and God knows what we\nsaid to each other in this subtle communication through all the noise\nand hubbub of the entrance place. Then suddenly the coachman's reins\ntightened; there were some last bows; the chariot whirled away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\n\nChord ambled back, very proud indeed, and still wearing his fatuous\nsmile. He was bursting with a sense of social value, and to everybody\nhe seemed to be saying, \"Did you see me?\" He was overjoyed to find me\nwaiting for him. He needed a good listener at once. Otherwise he would\nsurely fly to pieces.\n\n\"I have been talking to the Countess of Westport and her daughter,\nLady Mary Strepp,\" he said pompously. \"The Countess tells that the\nEarl has been extremely indisposed during their late journey in the\nWest.\"\n\nHe spoke of the Earl's illness with an air of great concern, as if the\nnews had much upset him. He pretended that the day was quite\nover-gloomed for him. Dear, dear! I doubted if he would be able to eat\nany supper.\n\n\"Have a drop of something, old friend,\" said I sympathetically. \"You\ncan't really go on this way. 'Twill ruin your nerves. I am surprised\nthat the Countess did not break the news to you more gently. She was\nvery inconsiderate, I am sure.\"\n\n\"No, no, don't blame the poor lady,\" cried Chord. \"She herself was\nquite distracted. The moment she saw me she ran to me--did you see her\nrun to me?\"\n\n\"I did that,\" said I with emphasis.\n\n\"Aye, she ran to me,\" said the little fool, \"and says she, 'Oh, my\ndear Doctor, I must tell you at once the condition of the Earl.' And\nwhen I heard everything I was naturally cut up, as you remarked, being\nan old friend of the family, ahem!--yes, an old friend of the family.\"\n\nHe rattled on with his nonsensical lies, and in the mean time I made\nup my mind to speak plainly to him, as I intended to make him of great\nservice to me.\n\n\"Stop a moment,\" said I good-naturedly. \"I will hear no more of this\nrubbish from you, you impudent little impostor. You care no more for\nthe Earl of Westport's illness than you do for telling the truth, and\nI know how much you care for that. Listen to me, and I'll see if I\ncan't knock some sense into your little addled head. In the first\nplace the Earl of Westport and my father were old friends and\ncompanions-in-arms in the service of the French king, and I came over\nfrom Ireland especially to take a dying message and a token from my\nfather to the Earl. That is all you need know about that; but I would\nhave you leave off your prate of your friend the Earl of Westport, for\nI understand full well you couldn't distinguish between him and a\nchurch door, although 'tis scandalously little you know of church\ndoors. So we will stop there on that point. Then I will go on to the\nnext point. The next point is that I am going to marry Lady Mary\nStrepp.\"\n\nThe little Doctor had been choking and stuttering in a great spasm,\nbut my last point bid fair to flatten him out on the floor. I took the\noverpowered philosopher and led or carried him to another drink.\n\n\"Stap me!\" he cried again and again. \"The man is mad!\"\n\nI surveyed him with a bland smile.\n\n\"Let it sink into you,\" said I soothingly. \"Don't snarl and wrangle at\nit. It is all heaven's truth, and in time you will come to your senses\nand see what I am telling you.\"\n\nWell, as soon as he had fully recovered his wind, he fell upon me with\nthousands of questions; for one may see that he would have plenty of\ninterest in the matter as soon as he was assured that there was much\nveracity involved in one way or another in my early statement. His\nquestions I answered as it pleased me, but I made clear enough to him\nthat, although Lady Mary was well disposed toward me, neither her\nfather nor her mother would even so much as look at me if I applied\nfor a position as under-footman, I was that low in their estimate.\n\n\"However,\" said I, \"I can rearrange all that very easily. And now, my\nbucko, here is where your fortune meets mine. You are fitted by nature\nmore to attend other people's affairs than to take a strict interest\nin your own. All kinds of meddling and interference come easily to\nyou. Well, then, here is a chance to exercise your gifts\ninoffensively, and yet in a way which may make two people happy for\nlife. I will tell you now that I don't even know where is the Earl's\ntown house. There is where your importance appears at once. You must\nshow me the house. That is the first thing. After that we will arrange\nall the details about ladders and garden walls, and, mayhap, carrier\ndoves. As for your reward, it will appear finally in the shape of a\nbowing recognition by people of fashion, which is what you most\ndesire in the world, you funny little man.\"\n\nAgain I had stunned him. For a time I could see his brain swimming in\na perfect sea of bewilderment. But, as before, sense gradually came to\nhim, and he again volleyed questions at me. But what stuck in his crop\nwas the thought that Lady Mary could prefer me. He tried his best to\nbelieve it, but he would always end up by saying: \"Well, _if_ Lady\nMary cares for you, the affair is not too difficult.\" Or, \"Well, if\nyou are _sure_ Lady Mary loves you--\" I could have broken his head a\nthousand times.\n\n\"Bad luck to you, Doctor,\" I cried. \"Don't you know such croaking\nwould spoil the peace of any true lover? Is ever any worthy man able\nnot to be anxious in such matters? 'Tis only foppery coxcombs who have\ngreat confidence, and they are usually misled, thank the Lord! Be\nquiet, now, and try to take everything for granted.\"\n\nThen the spirit of the adventure came upon him, and he was all for it,\nheels over head. As I told him, this sort of meddling was his proper\nvocation. He who as a recreation revelled in the mere shadows of the\nintrigues of people of quality was now really part of one, an actor in\nit, the repository of its deep secret. I had to curb his enthusiasm.\nHe had such a sense of the importance of my news, and of his\ndistinction in having heard it, that I think he wanted to tell the\nsecret to the entire world.\n\nAs soon as the afternoon grew late I suggested a walk to that part of\nLondon in which was situated the Earl's town house. I did not see why\nwe should not be moving at once on the campaign. The Doctor assented,\nand we went forth to look for Paddy and Jem Bottles. We found them at\nan ale-house which was the resort of the chairmen, footmen, and\ncoachmen of the grand people. The two rogues had evidently passed a\npleasant afternoon. Jem Bottles was still making love to a very pretty\ngirl, some part of whose easy affection or interest he had won; and\nPaddy, it seems, had had a rip-roaring fight with two lackeys, worsted\nthem with despatch, and even pursued them some distance. To my stern\ninterrogation in regard to the pretty girl, Jem Bottles stoutly\nrejoined that she was his second cousin whom he had not seen for many\nyears. To this I made no reply, for it does no good to disturb the\nbalance of a good liar. If at times he is led to tell the truth, he\nbecomes very puzzling. In all the years Jem Bottles has been in my\nservice I have never reprimanded him for lying. I would confuse\nmatters to no purpose, inasmuch as I understand him perfectly.\n\n\"And how,\" said I to Paddy, \"did you come to engage in this\ndisgraceful brawl of a Sunday?\"\n\n\"Your honour,\" answered Paddy, \"there was two of these men with fat\nlegs came here, and says one, looking hard at me, 'Here's a furriner,'\nhe says. 'Furriner yourself, you fish-faced ditch-lurker,' says I, and\nwith that he takes up his fists and hits me a knock. There was a\nlittle shindy, and afterward they ran away bawling, and I was pursuing\nthem, only I feared to lose my way in these strange parts.\"\n\nThe walk to Lord Westport's house was a long one. It seemed that he\nhad built a great new mansion at a place outside of the old city\ngates, where other nobles and great brewers had built fine houses,\nsurrounding them all with splendid gardens.\n\nOne must not suppose that I had any idea of taking the mansion by\nstorm. My first idea was to dream a lover's dream as I gazed upon the\nabode of my treasure. This, I believe, is a legitimate proceeding in\nall careers. Every lover worthy of the name is certain to pilgrimage,\nmuffled in his cloak, to moon over the home of his adored one.\nOtherwise there can be no real attachment.\n\nIn the second place I wished to develop certain plans for gaining\nspeech of Lady Mary. I will not deny that I purposed on a near day to\nscale the garden wall and hold speech of my sweetheart as she walked\nalone among the flowers. For my success I depended upon the absolute\nconventionality of the idea. In all history no lover has even been\nchased out of a garden by an under-gardener with a hoe.\n\nWhen we arrived at the house I found that it was indeed a gorgeous\nmansion. It was surrounded on all sides by high brick walls, but\nthrough the elaborate tracery of one of the iron-work gates I saw Lady\nMary's home standing among sweeping green lawns.\n\nWe reconnoitred all sides, and at the back I found a lonely avenue\nlined with oaks. Here a small door pierced the wall for the use\napparently of the gardeners or grooms. I resolved that here I would\nmake my attack.\n\nAs we passed the iron gates on our way back to town, we saw window\nafter window light up with a golden radiance. I wondered which part of\nthat vast edifice hid the form of my Mary.\n\nI had asked Doctor Chord to sup with me at the inn, and on the way\nthither he proved somewhat loquacious.\n\n\"I see in you, sir,\" said he, \"a certain instinct of true romance\nwhich is infrequently encountered in this humdrum commercial age.\nAllow me to express to you, sir, my warm admiration. I did not think\nthat a gallant of this humdrum commercial age could prove such a free\nspirit. In this humdrum commercial age--\"\n\n\"I am an Irishman,\" said I, \"and in Ireland we are always humdrum, but\nwe are never commercial, for the reason that we have not the tools.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said he, \"you must be a great people. Strangely enough, you are\nthe first Irishman I have ever seen, although I have seen many\nblackamoors. However, I am edified to find you a gentleman of great\nlearning and experience. In this humdrum commercial age--\"\n\n\"Let go,\" said I. \"I can do very well without your opinion as to my\nlearning and experience. In regard to this being a humdrum commercial\nage you will find that all ages say the same thing of themselves. I am\nmore interested in the winning of Lady Mary.\"\n\n\"'Twas to that subject I was just about to turn the talk,\" said the\nDoctor. \"I need not express again to you the interest I feel; and if\nit is true, as you say, that Lady Mary really loves you--\"\n\n\"May the devil fly away with you,\" I cried in a great rage. \"Are you\nnever to have done? You are an old frog. I asked you to help me, and\nyou do nothing but dispirit me with these doubts. I'll not put up with\nit.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry to displease you, sir,\" answered my friend. \"If you\nexamine my intentions with a dispassionate eye, sir, I am convinced\nyou will have found nothing in me which should properly cause these\noutbursts of disapprobation. When I say, 'If Lady Mary really loves\nyou,' I am referring to the strange mishaps and misconstructions which\nattend human thought at all times, and when I say--\"\n\n\"Let go again,\" I cried. \"When I misunderstand you, don't enlighten\nme; for I find these explanations very hard to bear.\"\n\nTo my surprise the little man answered with great spirit: \"I am unable\nto gain any approval for my deep interest in your affairs, sir,\" he\ncried. \"Perchance, it would be better if I could affect a profound\nindifference. I am certainly at a loss for words when each sentence of\nmine is made the subject of wrathful objection.\"\n\n\"You are right,\" said I. \"But you will understand how ten thousand\nemotions beset and haggle a lover, and I believe he always revenges\nhimself upon his dearest friends. Forgive me!\"\n\n\"With all my heart!\" answered the little Doctor. \"I am aware, sir,\nthat at the present time you are in many ways like a highly-tightened\nfiddle, which any breeze frets into murmurings. Now, being absolutely\ncertain of the devotion of your beloved, you naturally--\"\n\n\"By the ten lame pipers of Ballydehob,\" I shouted, \"let go of that\ntalk. I can't be having it. I warn ye. 'Tis either a grave for me, or\nquiet for you, and I am thinking it is quiet for you.\"\n\n\"Inasmuch,\" said the Doctor, \"as my most judicious speeches seem to\ninflame your passions, sir, I am of the opinion that a perfect silence\non my part becomes almost necessary, and, to further this end, I would\nrecommend that you refrain from making interrogations, or otherwise\npromulgating opportunities, when an expression of candid opinion seems\nexpected and desired.\"\n\n\"You've hit it,\" said I. \"We will have no more interrogations.\nHowever, I would much like to know how you became so intimate with\nLord Westport's family.\"\n\nDoctor Chord blushed with something of his earlier manner. \"'Tis a\nmatter which I did not expect to have leap at me out of the darkness\nin this fashion,\" he said bashfully. \"However, I am convinced of how\nwell you know these people, and I will traffic no more with hollow\npretence. As you know, I deal much in chemical knowledge, which I am\nable to spread to almost every branch of human use and need.\"\n\n\"'Tis an ill work,\" said I slowly. \"I doubt if Father Donovan would\ncare to hear you be speaking in this way. He always objected to\nscientific improvements as things which do harm to the Church.\"\n\n\"In regard to the estimable friend you mention,\" said the Doctor, \"I\nunhesitatingly state my profound assurances of respect.\"\n\n\"Quite so,\" I answered. \"He will be pleased to hear of it. And now we\nwill return to the other matter.\"\n\n\"I will obediently proceed,\" said he. \"Five years back the Countess of\nWestport was thrown from her carriage. Physicians rushed to her\nrescue. I too appeared, being for the time out for a walk. They\nwished to immediately bleed her, but I waved them aside and,\nrecognizing me as a figure in the street world of science, they fell\nback abashed. I prescribed a small drink of hot rum. The lady took it.\nAlmost immediately she recovered. She offered me a guinea. I refused\ncurtly. She inquired here and there for my condition. Afterward she\napologized to me for not offering me more than a guinea. Since that\ntime we have been warm friends. She knows me as a great scientist who\ncame to her assistance in time of trouble when numerous quacks wished\nto bleed her, and I overpowered them and gave her a drink of rum. 'Tis\ntrue that after she reached her own bed the Earl's physician bled her,\nbut she did not seem to appreciate it although he drew twenty-five\nounces, I think. But she has remained always grateful for the hot\nrum.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\n\nAt supper that evening Doctor Chord amplified some of his views \"A few\nstaunch retainers could quickly aid you to scale the walls of the\ncastle,\" said he. \"But I have forgotten,\" he added blankly. \"'Tis not\na castle. 'Tis a house.\"\n\n\"If you would take some of these ancient ideas and bury them in the\ngarden,\" said I, \"they might grow in time to be some kind of turnip or\nother valuable food. But at the present moment they do not seem to me\nto serve much purpose. Supposing that the house is not a castle? What\nof that?\"\n\n\"Castles--\" said he. \"Castles lend themselves--\"\n\n\"Castles!\" I cried. \"Have done with castles! All castles may be Jews,\nas you say. But this is a house.\"\n\n\"I remarked that it was a house,\" he answered gently. \"It was that\npoint that I was making.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said I. \"We will now proceed to define matters. Do you\nknow if Lady Mary walks in the garden? It is absolutely necessary that\nLady Mary should walk in the garden.\"\n\n\"She does,\" he replied at once. \"At this season of the year Lady Mary\nwalks in the garden on every fine day at ten of the clock.\"\n\n\"Then,\" I cried, smiting the table, \"our course is clear; I feel\nelate. My only regret is that my father is not here to give me a word\nnow and then, for 'tis a game he would know down to the ground.\"\n\n\"Although I am not your father,\" said Doctor Chord modestly, \"I may be\nable to suggest some expedient way of gaining entrance to the castle.\"\n\n\"House,\" said I.\n\n\"House,\" said he.\n\n\"However,\" said I, \"we must lower ourselves to extremely practical\nmatters. Can you climb a tree?\"\n\n\"A tree?\" said he. \"Climb a tree? Strap me!\"\n\n\"'Tis all very well to strap yourself in this fashion,\" said I rather\nwarmly; \"but the climbing of trees appears here as an important\nmatter. In my part of Ireland there are few trees, and so climbing\ntrees did not enter into my education. However, I am willing to\nattempt the climbing of a tree for the sake of my true love, and if I\nfall--how high is this wall? Do you remember?\"\n\n\"'Twas at least ten feet,\" answered the Doctor. \"And there is a\nmurderous row of spikes at the top. But,\" he added, \"the more spikes\nand all that make them the more convinced that the garden is perfectly\nsafe from intrusion.\"\n\n\"That's a world of sense out of you,\" I cried. \"The spikes convince\nthem the garden is safe from intrusion, and so they give over their\nwatchfulness. So now in the morning we will go there, and I will climb\none of the oak-trees bordering the wall--may the saints aid me!\"\n\n\"You were asking if I could climb a tree,\" remarked the Doctor. \"I\nwill point out to you that it is a question of no importance. It is\nyou yourself who must climb the tree; for even if I succeeded in the\narduous and painful task I could not pay your vows to Lady Mary, and\nfor such purpose primarily the tree is to be climbed.\"\n\n\"True for you, Doctor,\" I answered with a sigh. \"True for you. I must\nclimb the tree. I can see that. I had some thought of making Paddy\nclimb it, but, as you say, a man must do his own love-making, and by\nthe same token I would break the head of any one who tried to do it\nfor me. I would that! In this world people must climb their own trees.\nNow that I think of it seriously, it was ridiculous in me to plan that\nPaddy should climb the tree.\"\n\n\"'Second thoughts are always best,'\" said the little Doctor piously.\n\"'Tis a phrase from one of the greatest writers of the day. And at any\nrate I myself, because of age and debility, would not be able to climb\na tree.\"\n\n\"Let us say no more of it,\" said I. \"I see my mistake. But tell me one\nthing. I know you are a man with a great deal on your mind. Can you\nspare the time for this adventure?\"\n\nBut on this point the Doctor was very clear and emphatic. I think if I\nhad said he could not have a place in the plot he would have died\nimmediately of a broken heart.\n\n\"'Tis true I have not yet finished my treatise proving that the\ntouchstone is fallible,\" he cried eagerly; \"but it would give me\npleasure to delay the work indefinitely if in the meantime I can be of\nassistance.\"\n\n\"That is a man's talk,\" I said. \"Well, then, in the morning we will go\nforth to do or die. And now a glass to success.\"\n\nThat night I slept very heartily, for some of my father's soldier\ntraining is in my veins, and on the eve of a hard or precarious work I\nam always able to get sound rest. My father often said that on the\nnight before a battle in which he would stand seventy-seven chances of\nbeing killed he always slept like a dog in front of the fire.\n\nAt dawn I was up and ready. My first move was to have Paddy and Jem\nsent to me, and to give them such information as would lead them to an\nintelligent performance of their duties during the day. \"Mind ye now,\"\nsaid I, \"here's where the whole thing may be won or lost. There is a\nlovely lady inside the walls of that garden which I was showing you\nyesterday. She lives in the big house. She is the lady who made you\nfeel ashamed when you took the old Earl's--well, never mind! I hope we\nare all properly repentant over it. However, I had better be getting\non with the matter in hand. She lives there, and if I can find no way\nto gain speech of her we all three of us will have to take to the\nthickets, and that's the truth.\"\n\n\"If I could but lay my fingers on her throttle,\" said Jem Bottles in a\nblood-curdling voice, \"she soon enough would--\"\n\n\"Stop!\" I cried. \"You misunderstood me!\"\n\n\"Aye, he does,\" spoke in Paddy. \"But I know what your honour is\nmeaning. You are meaning that the young lady--aye, didn't I see her,\nand didn't she give me a look of her eye? Aye, I know what your honour\nis meaning.\"\n\n\"You are knowing it precisely,\" said I. \"The young lady is more to me\nthan three Irelands. You understand? Well, then, in the first place I\nmust gain speech of her. To-day we march out and see what I can\naccomplish by climbing trees. In the meantime you two are to lay in\nwaiting and assist me when necessary.\"\n\n\"I am foreseeing that everything will be easy,\" cried Paddy\njubilantly.\n\n\"You are an Irishman,\" I responded in anger.\n\n\"Aye,\" he replied bitterly, \"and another is within reach of my stick\nif it weren't for my respect for my betters, although such a thing\nnever could happen, please God!\"\n\n\"No bold talk,\" said I. \"You may do that after.\" I bade Jem Bottles\nload his pistols and carry them handy, but to keep them well\nconcealed. Paddy preferred to campaign with only a stout stick. I took\none pistol, and of course my sword.\n\nThese preparations deeply stirred Jem Bottles and Paddy.\n\n\"Your honour,\" said Paddy, \"if I see a man pulling you by the leg when\nyou would be climbing the tree, may I hit him one lick?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" growled Jem Bottles, \"and if I get a pistol against his head,\nhe'll find out the difference between gunpowder and sand.\"\n\n\"Stop,\" I cried. \"You have the wrong idea entirely. This talk of\ncarnage startles me and alarms me. Remember we are in London. In\nLondon even the smallest massacre arouses great excitement. There are\nto be no killings, and even no sound thrashings. It is all to be done\nwith dainty gloves. Neither one of the pair of you looks fitted for\nthe work, but I am obliged to make you serve by hook or crook. 'Tis\ntoo late to scour the country looking for good comrades. I must put\nup with you, since I can get no better.\"\n\nThey were well pleased at the prospect of spirited adventures,\nalthough Paddy made some complaints because there was no chance of a\ngreat ogre whom he could assail. He wished to destroy a few giants in\norder to prove his loyalty to the cause. However, I soothed him out of\nthis mood, showing him where he was mistaken, and presently we were\nall prepared and only waited for the coming of Doctor Chord.\n\nWhen the little philosopher appeared, however, I must truly say that I\nfell back a-gasping. He had tied some sort of a red turban about his\nhead, and pulled a black cocked hat down over it until his left eye\nwas wickedly shaded. From beneath his sombre cloak a heavy scabbard\nprotruded. \"I have come; I am ready,\" said he in a deep voice.\n\n\"Bedad, you have!\" cried I, sinking into a chair. \"And why didn't a mob\nhang you on the road, little man? How did you reach here safely? London\nsurely never could stand two glimpses of such a dangerous-looking\npirate. You would give a sedan-chair the vapours.\"\n\nHe looked himself over ruefully. \"'Tis a garb befitting the dangerous\nadventure upon which I engaged,\" said he, somewhat stiff in the lip.\n\n\"But let me make known to you,\" I cried, \"that when a man wears a garb\nbefitting his adventure he fails surely. He should wear something\nextraneous. When you wish to do something evil, you put on the coat of\na parson. That is the clever way. But here you are looking like a\ngallows-bird of the greatest claim for the rope. Stop it; take off\nthe red thing, tilt your hat until you look like a gentleman, and let\nus go to our adventure respectably.\"\n\n\"I was never more surprised in my life,\" said he sincerely. \"I thought\nI was doing a right thing in thus arraying myself for an experience\nwhich cannot fail to be thrilling and mayhap deadly. However, I see\nyou in your accustomed attire, and in the apparel of your men-servants\nI see no great change from yesterday. May I again suggest to you that\nthe adventure upon which we proceed may be fraught with much danger?\"\n\n\"A red rag around your temples marks no improvement in our risks,\" said\nI. \"We will sally out as if we were off to a tea-party. When my father\nled the forlorn hope at the storming of Wuerstenhausenstaffenberg, he\nwore a lace collar, and he was a man who understood these matters. And I\nmay say that I wish he was here. He would be a great help.\"\n\nIn time the Doctor removed his red turban and gradually and sadly\nemerged from the more sanguine part of his paraphernalia and appeared\nas a simple little philosopher. Personally I have no objection to a\nman looking like a brigand, but my father always contended that\nclothes serve no purpose in real warfare. Thus I felt I had committed\nno great injustice in depriving Chord of his red turban.\n\nWe set out. I put much faith in the fact that we had no definite\nplans, but to my great consternation Doctor Chord almost at once began\nto develop well-laid schemes. As we moved toward the scene of our\nadventure he remarked them to me.\n\n\"First of all,\" said he, \"a strong party should be stationed at the\niron gates, not only to prevent a sally of the garrison, but to\nprevent an intrepid retainer from escaping and alarming the city.\nFurthermore--\"\n\n\"My gallant warrior,\" said I, interrupting him, \"we will drop this\nquestion to the level of a humdrum commercial age. I will try to\ncompass my purpose by the simple climbing of a tree, and to that end\nall I could need from you is a stout lift and a good word. Then we\nproceed in the established way of making signs over a wall. All this I\nexplained to you fully. I would not have you think I am about to\nbombard my lady-love's house.\"\n\nWith a countenance of great mournfulness he grumbled: \"No fascines\nhave been prepared.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said I. \"I will climb the tree without the aid of\nfascines.\"\n\nAs luck would have it, there was a little inn not very far from the\nEarl's house and on the lonely avenue lined with oaks. Here I\ntemporarily left Jem Bottles and Paddy, for I feared their\nearnestness, which was becoming more terrible every minute. In order\nto keep them pacified I gave instructions that they should keep a\nstrict watch up the avenue, and if they saw any signs of trouble they\nwere to come a-running and do whatever I told them. These orders\nsuggested serious business to their minds, and so they were quite\ncontent. Their great point was that if a shindy was coming they had a\nmoral right to be mixed up in it.\n\nDoctor Chord and I strolled carelessly under the oaks. It was still\ntoo early for Lady Mary's walk in the garden, and there was an hour's\nwaiting to be worn out. In the mean time I was moved to express some\nof my reflections.\n\n\"'Tis possible--nay, probable--that this is a bootless quest,\" said I\ndejectedly. \"What shadow of an assurance have I that Lady Mary will\nwalk in the garden on this particular morning? This whole thing is\nabsolute folly.\"\n\n\"At any rate,\" said the Doctor, \"now that you already have walked this\ngreat distance, it will be little additional trouble to climb a tree.\"\n\nHe had encouraged me to my work at exactly the proper moment.\n\n\"You are right,\" said I, taking him warmly by the hand, \"I will climb\nthe tree in any case.\"\n\nAs the hour approached we began to cast about for the proper oak. I am\nsure they were all the same to me, but Doctor Chord was very\nparticular.\n\n\"'Tis logical to contend,\" said he, \"that the question of the girth of\nthe tree will enter importantly into our devices. For example, if a\ntree be so huge that your hands may not meet on the far side of it, a\nsuccessful ascension will be impossible. On the other hand, a very\nslim tree is like to bend beneath your weight, and even precipitate\nyou heavily to the ground, which disaster might <DW44> events for an\nindefinite period.\"\n\n\"Science your science, then,\" said I. \"And tell me what manner of tree\nbest suits the purpose of a true lover.\"\n\n\"A tree,\" said the Doctor, \"is a large vegetable arising with one\nwoody stem to a considerable height. As to the appearance and quality\nof a tree, there are many diversifications, and this fact in itself\nconstitutes the chief reason for this vegetable being of such great\nuse to the human family. Ships are made of nought but trees, and if it\nwere not for ships we would know but little of the great world of\nwhich these English islands form less than a half. Asia itself is\nslightly larger than all Scotland, and if it were not for the ships we\nwould be like to delude ourselves with the idea that we and our\nneighbours formed the major part of the world.\"\n\nWith such wise harangues the Doctor entertained my impatience until it\nwas time for me to climb a tree. And when this time came I went at my\nwork without discussion or delay.\n\n\"There,\" said I resolutely, \"I will climb this one if it kills me.\"\n\nI seized the tree; I climbed. I will not say there was no groaning and\npuffing, but any how I at last found myself astride of a branch and\nlooking over the wall into the Earl of Westport's garden.\n\nBut I might have made myself less labour and care by having somebody\npaint me a large landscape of this garden and surveyed it at my\nleisure. There I was high in a tree, dangling my legs, and staring at\nsmooth lawns, ornamental copses, and brilliant flower-beds without\neven so much as a dog to enliven the scene. \"O'Ruddy,\" said I to\nmyself after a long time, \"you've hung yourself here in mid-air like a\nbacon to a rafter, and I'll not say much to you now. But if you ever\nreach the ground without breaking your neck, I'll have a word with\nyou, for my feelings are sorely stirred.\"\n\nI do not know how long I sat in the tree engaged in my bitter\nmeditation. But finally I heard a great scudding of feet near the\nfoot of the tree, and I then saw the little Doctor bolting down the\nroad like a madman, his hat gone, his hair flying, while his two\ncoat-tails stuck out behind him straight as boards.\n\nMy excitement and interest in my ally's flight was so great that I\nnear fell from my perch. It was incomprehensible that my little friend\ncould dust the road at such speed. He seemed only to touch the ground\nfrom time to time. In a moment or two he was literally gone, like an\narrow shot from the bow.\n\nBut upon casting my bewildered glance downward I found myself staring\nsquarely into the mouth of a blunderbuss. The mouth of this\nblunderbuss, I may say, was of about the width of a fair-sized\nwater-pitcher; in colour it was bright and steely. Its appearance\nattracted me to such an extent that I lost all idea of the man behind\nthe gun. But presently I heard a grim, slow voice say,--\n\n\"Climb down, ye thief.\"\n\nThe reason for little Doctor Chord's hasty self-removal from the\nvicinity was now quite clear, and my interest in his departure was no\nlonger speculative.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\n\n\"Climb down, ye thief,\" said the grim, slow voice again. I looked once\nmore into the mouth of the blunderbuss. I decided to climb. If I had\nhad my two feet square on the ground, I would have taken a turn with\nthis man, artillery or no artillery, to see if I could get the upper\nhand of him. But neither I nor any of my ancestors could ever fight\nwell in trees. Foliage incommodes us. We like a clear sweep for the\narm, and everything on a level space, and neither man in a tree.\nHowever, a sensible man holds no long discussions with a blunderbuss.\nI slid to the ground, arriving in a somewhat lacerated state. I\nthereupon found that the man behind the gun was evidently some kind of\nkeeper or gardener. He had a sour face deeply chiselled with mean\nlines, but his eyes were very bright, the lighter parts of them being\nsteely blue, and he rolled the pair of them from behind his awful\nweapon.\n\n\"And for whom have you mistaken me, rascal?\" I cried as soon as I had\ncome ungracefully to the ground and found with whom I had to deal.\n\n\"Have mistaken ye for naught,\" replied the man proudly. \"Ye be the\nthief of the French pears, ye be.\"\n\n\"French pears--French--French what?\" I cried.\n\n\"Ay, ye know full well,\" said he, \"and now ye'll just march.\"\n\nSeeing now plainly that I was in the hands of one of Lord Westport's\ngardeners, who had mistaken me for some garden-thief for whom he had\nbeen on the look-out, I began to expostulate very pointedly. But\nalways this man stolidly faced me with the yawning mouth of the\nblunderbuss.\n\n\"And now ye'll march,\" said he, and despite everything I marched. I\nmarched myself through the little door in the wall, and into the\ngardens of the Earl of Westport. And the infernal weapon was clamped\nagainst the small of my back.\n\nBut still my luck came to me even then, like basket falling out of a\nblue sky. As, in obedience to my captor's orders, I rounded a bit of\nshrubbery, I came face to face with Lady Mary. I stopped so abruptly\nthat the rim of the on-coming blunderbuss must have printed a fine\npink ring on my back. I lost all intelligence. I could not speak. I\nonly knew that I stood before the woman I loved, while a man firmly\npressed the muzzle of a deadly firearm between my shoulder-blades. I\nflushed with shame, as if I really had been guilty of stealing the\nFrench pears.\n\nLady Mary's first look upon me was one of pure astonishment. Then she\nquickly recognized the quaint threat expressed in the attitude of the\nblunderbuss.\n\n\"Strammers,\" she cried, rushing forward, \"what would you be doing to\nthe gentleman?\"\n\n\"'Tis no gentleman, your la'ship,\" answered the man confidently. \"He\nbe a low-born thief o' pears, he be.\"\n\n\"Strammers!\" she cried again, and wrested the blunderbuss from his\nhands. I will confess that my back immediately felt easier.\n\n\"And now, sir,\" she said, turning to me haughtily, \"you will please\ngrant me an explanation of to what my father is indebted for this\nvisit to his private grounds?\"\n\nBut she knew; no fool of a gardener and a floundering Irishman could\nkeep pace with the nimble wits of a real woman. I saw the pink steal\nover her face, and she plainly appeared not to care for an answer to\nher peremptory question. However, I made a grave reply which did not\ninvolve the main situation.\n\n\"Madam may have noticed a certain deluded man with a bell-mouthed\nhowitzer,\" said I. \"His persuasions were so pointed and emphatic that\nI was induced to invade these gardens, wherein I have been so\nunfortunate as to disturb a lady's privacy,--a thing which only causes\nme the deepest regret.\"\n\n\"He be a pear-thief,\" grumbled Strammers from a distance. \"Don't ye\ntake no word o' his, your la'ship, after me bringing 'im down from out\na tree.\"\n\n\"From out a tree?\" said Lady Mary, and she looked at me, and I looked\nat her.\n\n\"The man is right, Lady Mary,\" said I significantly. \"I was in a tree\nlooking over the garden wall.\"\n\n\"Strammers,\" said she with decision, \"wait for me in the rose-garden,\nand speak no single word to anybody until I see you again. You have\nmade a great mistake.\"\n\nThe man obediently retired, after saluting me with an air of slightly\ndubious apology. He was not yet convinced that I had not been after\nhis wretched French pears.\n\nBut with the withdrawal of this Strammers Lady Mary's manner changed.\nShe became frightened and backed away from me, still holding the\ngardener's blunderbuss.\n\n\"O sir,\" she cried in a beautiful agitation, \"I beg of you to leave at\nonce. Oh, please!\"\n\nBut here I saw it was necessary to treat the subject in a bold Irish\nway.\n\n\"I'll not leave, Lady Mary,\" I answered. \"I was brought here by force,\nand only force can make me withdraw.\"\n\nA glimmer of a smile came to her face, and she raised the blunderbuss,\npointing it full at my breast. The mouth was still the width of a\nwater-jug, and in the fair inexperienced hands of Lady Mary it was\nlike to go off at any moment and blow a hole in me as big as a\nplatter.\n\n\"Charming mistress,\" said I, \"shoot!\"\n\nFor answer she suddenly flung the weapon to the grass, and, burying\nher face in her hands, began to weep. \"I'm afraid it's l-l-loaded,\"\nshe sobbed out.\n\nIn an instant I was upon my knees at her side and had taken her hand.\nHer fingers resisted little, but she turned away her head.\n\n\"Lady Mary,\" said I softly, \"I'm a poor devil of an Irish adventurer,\nbut--I love you! I love you so that if I was dead you could bid me\nrise! I am a worthless fellow; I have no money, and my estate you can\nhardly see for the mortgages and trouble upon it; I am no fine suitor,\nbut I love you more than them all; I do, upon my life!\"\n\n\"Here approaches Strammers in quest of his blunderbuss,\" she answered\ncalmly. \"Perhaps we had better give it to him.\"\n\nI sprang to my feet, and, sure enough, the thick-headed ninepin of a\ngardener was nearing us.\n\n\"Don't ye trust 'im, your la'ship!\" he cried. \"I caught 'im in a tree,\nI did, and he be a bad lot!\"\n\nLady Mary quelled him, and he at once went away with his blunderbuss,\nstill muttering his many doubts. But still one cannot drop a love\ndeclaration and pick it up again with the facility of a tailor\nresuming his work on a waistcoat. One can't say: \"Where was I? How far\nhad I gone before this miserable interruption came?\" In a word I found\nmysef stammering and stuttering and wasting moments too precious for\nwords.\n\n\"Lady Mary--\" I began. \"Lady Mary--I love you, Lady Mary! Lady Mary--\"\n\nIt was impossible for me to depart from this rigmarole and express the\nmany things with which my heart was full. It was a maddening\ntongue-tie. The moments seemed for me the crisis of my existence, and\nyet I could only say, \"Lady Mary, I love you!\" I know that in many\ncases this statement has seemed to be sufficient, but as a matter of\nfact I was full of things to say, and it was plain to me that I was\nlosing everything through the fact that my silly tongue clung to the\nroof of my mouth.\n\nI do not know how long the agony endured, but at any rate it was ended\nby a thunderous hammering upon the little door in the garden-wall. A\nhigh Irish voice could be heard:\n\n\"And if ye be not leaving him out immediately, we will be coming over\nthe wall if it is ten thousand feet high, ye murdering rogues.\"\n\nLady Mary turned deadly pale. \"Oh, we are lost,\" she cried.\n\nI saw at once that the interview was ended. If I remained doughtily I\nremained stupidly. I could come back some other day. I clutched Lady\nMary's hand and kissed it. Then I ran for the door in the garden wall.\nIn a moment I was out, and I heard her frantically bolting the door\nbehind me.\n\nI confronted Paddy and Jem. Jem had in his hands a brace of pistols\nwhich he was waving determinedly. Paddy was wetting his palms and\nresolutely swinging a club. But when they saw me their ferocity gave\nway to an outburst of affectionate emotion. I had to assert all my\nmastership to keep Paddy from singing. He would sing. Sure, if they\nhad never heard an Irish song it was time they did.\n\n\"Paddy,\" said I, \"my troubles are on me. I wish to be thinking. Remain\nquiet.\"\n\nPresently we reached the little inn, and from there the little Doctor\nChord flew out like a hawk at a sparrow.\n\n\"I thought you were dead,\" he shouted wildly. \"I thought you were\ndead.\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"I am not dead, but I am very thirsty.\" And, although\nthey were murmuring this thing and that thing, I would have no word\nwith them until I was led to the parlour of the inn and given a glass.\n\n\"Now,\" said I, \"I penetrated to the garden and afterwards I came away\nand I can say no more.\"\n\nThe little Doctor was very happy and proud.\n\n\"When I saw the man with the blunderbuss,\" he recounted, \"I said\nboldly: 'Sirrah, remove that weapon! Exclude it from the scene!\nEliminate it from the situation!' But his behaviour was extraordinary.\nHe trained the weapon in such a manner that I myself was in danger of\nbeing eliminated from the situation. I instantly concluded that I\nwould be of more benefit to the cause if I temporarily abandoned the\nvicinity and withdrew to a place where the climatic conditions were\nmore favourable to prolonged terms of human existence.\"\n\n\"I saw you abandoning the vicinity,\" said I, \"and I am free to declare\nthat I never saw a vicinity abandoned with more spirit and finish.\"\n\n\"I thank you for your appreciation,\" said the Doctor simply. Then he\nleaned to my ear and whispered, barring his words from Jem and Paddy,\nwho stood respectfully near our chairs. \"And the main object of the\nexpedition?\" he asked. \"Was there heavy firing and the beating down of\ndoors? And I hope you took occasion to slay the hideous monster who\nflourished the blunderbuss? Imagine my excitement after I had\nsuccessfully abandoned the vicinity! I was trembling with anxiety for\nyou. Still, I could adopt no steps which would not involve such\nopportunities for instant destruction that the thought of them brought\nto mind the most horrible ideas. I pictured myself lying butchered,\nblown to atoms by a gardener's blunderbuss. Then the spirit of\nself-sacrifice arose in me, and, as you know, I sent your two servants\nto your rescue.\"\n\nThe little man was looking through the window at this moment. Suddenly\nhe started back, flinging up his hands.\n\n\"My soul, he is again upon us,\" he cried.\n\nI hastily followed his glance, and saw the man Strammers making\npeaceful way toward the inn. Apparently he was going to the taproom\nfor an early pint. The Doctor flurried and dove until I checked him in\nfear that he would stand on his head in the fireplace.\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"calm yourself. There will be no blunderbusses. On the\nother hand, I see here a great chance for a master-stroke. Be quiet\nnow, and try to hold yourself in a chair and see me deal with the\nsituation. When it comes to a thing like this, it is all child's play\nfor me. Paddy,\" said I. \"Jem,\" said I, \"there is a gardener in the\ntaproom. Go and become his warm friends. You know what I mean. A\ntuppence here and there won't matter. But, of course, always treat him\nwith the profound consideration which is due to so distinguished a\ngardener.\"\n\nThey understood me at once and grinned. But even then I was struck\nwith their peculiar reasons for understanding at once. Jem Bottles\nunderstood at once because he had been a highwayman; Paddy understood\nat once because he was an Irishman. One had been all his life a rogue;\nthe other had been born on an intelligent island. And so they\ncomprehended me with equal facility.\n\nThey departed on their errand, and when I turned I found myself in the\nclutches of a maddened Doctor Chord.\n\n\"Monster,\" he screamed, \"you have ordered him to be killed!\"\n\n\"Whist,\" said I, \"it would never do to order him to be killed. He is\ntoo valuable.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\n\n\"You appear more at your ease when you are calm,\" said I to the Doctor\nas I squashed him into a chair. \"Your ideas of murder are juvenile.\nGardeners are murdered only by other gardeners, over some question of\na magnolia-tree. Gentlemen of position never murder gardeners.\"\n\n\"You are right, sir,\" he responded frankly. \"I see my mistake. But\nreally, I was convinced that something dreadful was about to happen. I\nam not familiar with the ways of your nationality, sir, and when you\ngave the resolute directions to your men it was according to my\neducation to believe that something sinister was at hand, although no\none could regret more than I that I have made this foolish mistake.\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"you are not familiar with the ways of my nationality,\nand it will require an indefinite number of centuries to make your\ncountry-men understand the ways of my nationality; and when they do\nthey will only pretend that after great research they have discovered\nsomething very evil indeed. However, in this detail, I am able to\ninstruct you fully. The gardener will not be murdered. His fluency\nwith a blunderbuss was very annoying, but in my opinion it was not so\nfluent as to merit death.\"\n\n\"I confess,\" said Doctor Chord, \"that all peoples save my own are\ngreat rascals and natural seducers. I cannot change this national\nconviction, for I have studied politics as they are known in the\nKing's Parliament, and it has been thus proved to me.\"\n\n\"However, the gardener is not to be murdered,\" said I, \"and although I\nam willing to cure you in that particular ignorance I am not willing\nto take up your general cure as a life work. A glass of wine with\nyou.\"\n\nAfter we had adjusted this slight misunderstanding we occupied our\nseats comfortably before the fire. I wished to give Paddy and Jem\nplenty of time to conciliate Strammers, but I must say that the wait\ngrew irksome. Finally I arose and went into the corridor and peered\ninto the taproom. There were Paddy and Jem with their victim, the\nthree of them seated affectionately in a row on a bench, drinking from\nquart pots of ale. Paddy was clapping the gardener on the shoulder.\n\n\"Strammers,\" he cried, \"I am thinking more of you than of my cousin\nMickey, who was that gay and that gallant it would make you wonder,\nalthough I am truthful in saying they killed him for the peace of the\nparish. But he had the same bold air with him, and devil the girl in\nthe country-side but didn't know who was the lad for her.\"\n\nStrammers seemed greatly pleased, but Jem Bottles evinced deep\ndisapproval of Paddy's Celtic methods.\n\n\"Let Master Strammers be,\" said he. \"He be a-wanting a quiet draught.\nLet him have his ale with no talking here and there.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said Strammers, now convinced that he was a great man and a\nphilosopher, \"a quiet draught o' old ale be a good thing.\"\n\n\"True for you, Master Strammers,\" cried Paddy enthusiastically. \"It is\nin the way of being a good thing. There you are now. Ay, that's it. A\ngood thing! Sure.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said Strammers, deeply moved by this appreciation, which he had\nbelieved should always have existed. \"Ay, I spoke well.\"\n\n\"Well would be no name for it,\" responded Paddy fervidly. \"By gor, and\nI wish you were knowing Father Corrigan. He would be the only man to\nnear match you. 'A quiet draught o' old ale is a good thing,' says\nyou, and by the piper 'tis hard to say Father Corrigan could have done\nit that handily. 'Tis you that are a wonderful man.\"\n\n\"I have a small way o' my own,\" said Strammers, \"which even some of\nthe best gardeners has accounted most wise and humorous. The power o'\ngood speech be a great gift.\" Whereupon the complacent Strammers\nlifted his arm and buried more than half his face in his quart pot.\n\n\"It is,\" said Paddy earnestly. \"And I'm doubting if even the best\ngardeners would be able to improve it. And says you: 'A quiet draught\no' old ale is a good thing,' 'Twould take a grand gardener to beat\nthat word.\"\n\n\"And besides the brisk way of giving a word now and then,\" continued\nthe deluded Strammers, \"I am a great man with flowers. Some of the\nfinest beds in London are there in my master's park.\"\n\n\"Are they so?\" said Paddy. \"I would be liking to see them.\"\n\n\"And ye shall,\" cried the gardener with an outburst of generous\nfeeling. \"So ye shall. On a Sunday we may stroll quietly and decently\nin the gardens, and ye shall see.\"\n\nSeeing that Paddy and Jem were getting on well with the man, I\nreturned to Doctor Chord.\n\n\"'Tis all right,\" said I. \"They have him in hand. We have only to sit\nstill, and the whole thing is managed.\"\n\nLater I saw the three men in the road, Paddy and Jem embracing the\nalmost tearful Strammers. These farewells were touching. Afterward my\nrogues appeared before me, each with a wide grin.\n\n\"We have him,\" said Paddy, \"and 'tis us that has an invitation to come\ninside the wall next Sunday. 'I have some fine flowers in the\ngardens,' said he. 'Have you so?' said I. 'Well, then, 'tis myself\nwill be breaking your head if you don't leave us inside to see them.'\n'Master Paddy,' said he, 'you are a gentleman, or if not you are very\nlike one, and you and your handsome friend, Master Jem, as well as\nanother friend or two, is welcome to see the gardens whenever I can\nmake certain the master and mistress is out.' And with that I told him\nhe could go home.\"\n\n\"You are doing well,\" I said, letting the scoundrel see in my face\nthat I believed his pleasant tale, and he was so pleased that he was\nfor going on and making a regular book out of it. But I checked him.\n\"No,\" said I. \"I am fearing that I would become too much interested\nand excited. I am satisfied with what you've been telling me. 'Twas\nmore to my mind to have beaten that glass-eyed man, but we have taken\nthe right course. And now we will be returning to where we lodge.\"\n\nDuring the walk back to the \"Pig and Turnip\" Doctor Chord took it\nupon himself to discourse in his usual style upon the recent events.\n\"Of course, sir, I would care to hear of the tragic scenes which must\nhave transpired soon after I--I--\"\n\n\"Abandoned the vicinity?\" said I.\n\n\"Precisely,\" he responded. \"Although I was not in the exact\nneighbourhood during what must have been a most tempestuous part of\nyour adventure, I can assure you I had lost none of my former interest\nin the affair.\"\n\n\"I am believing you,\" said I; \"but let us talk now more of the future.\nI am much absorbed in the future. It appears to me that it will move\nat a rapid pace.\"\n\nI did not tell him about my meeting with Lady Mary, because I knew, if\noccasion arose, he would spread the news over half London. No\nconsideration would have been great enough to bridle the tongue of the\nlittle gossip from use of the first bit of news which he had ever\nreceived warm from the fire. Besides, after his behaviour in front of\nthe enemy, I was quite certain that an imparting of my news could do\nnothing in the way of impairing his inefficiency. Consequently it was\nnot necessary to trouble him with dramatic details.\n\n\"As to the part of the adventure which took place in the garden, you\nare consistently silent, I observe, sir,\" said the Doctor.\n\n\"I am,\" said I. \"I come of a long line of silent ancestors. My father\nwas particularly notable in this respect.\"\n\n\"And yet, sir,\" rejoined the Doctor, \"I had gained an impression that\nyour father was quite willing to express himself in a lofty and noble\nmanner on such affairs as attracted his especial notice.\"\n\n\"He was that,\" said I, pleased. \"He was indeed. I am only wishing I\nhad his talent for saying all that was in his mind so fast that even\nthe priest could not keep up with him, and goodness knows Father\nDonovan was no small talker.\"\n\n\"You prove to me the limitations of science, sir,\" said he. \"Although\nI think I may boast of some small education of a scientific nature, I\nthink I will require some time for meditation and study before I will\nbe able to reconcile your last two statements.\"\n\n\"'Tis no matter,\" I cried amiably. \"Let it pass.\"\n\nFor the rest of that week there was conference following conference at\nthe \"Pig and Turnip\" and elsewhere. My three companions were now as\neager as myself for the advent of the critical Sunday when I, with\nPaddy and Jem, were to attempt our visit to Strammers's\nflower-gardens. I had no difficulty in persuading the Doctor that his\nservices would be invaluable at another place; for the memory of the\nblunderbuss seemed to linger with him. I had resolved to disguise\nmyself slightly, for I had no mind to have complications arising from\nthis gardener's eyes. I think a little disguise is plenty unless one\nstalks mysteriously and stops and peers here and there. A little\nunostentatious minding of one's own affairs is a good way to remain\nundiscovered. Then nobody looks at you and demands: \"Who is this\nfellow?\" My father always said that when he wished to disguise himself\nhe dressed as a common man, and although this gained him many a hard\nknock of the fist and blow of the stick from people who were really\nhis inferiors, he found his disguise was perfection. However, my\nfather only disguised when on some secret mission from King Louis, for\nit does not become a gentleman to accept a box on the ears from\nanybody unless it is in the service of his sovereign.\n\nI remember my father saying also these tours as a common man taught\nhim he must ever afterward ride carefully through the streets of\nvillages and towns. He was deeply impressed by the way in which men,\nwomen, and children had to scud for their lives to keep from under the\nhoofs of the chargers of these devil-may-care gentlemen who came like\nwhirlwinds through narrow crowded streets. He himself often had to\nscramble for his life, he said.\n\nHowever, that was many years back, and I did not fear any such\nadventures in my prospective expedition. In such a case I would have\ntrembled for what might happen. I have no such philosophy of temper as\nhad my father. I might take the heel of a gay cavalier and throw him\nout of the saddle, and then there would be a fine uproar. However, I\nam quite convinced that it is always best to dodge. A good dodger\nseldom gets into trouble in this world, and lives to a green old age,\nwhile the noble patriot and others of his kind die in dungeons. I\nremember an honest man who set out to reform the parish in the matter\nof drink. They took him and--but, no matter; I must be getting on with\nthe main tale.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\n\nOn Saturday night I called the lads to my room and gave them their\nfinal instructions.\n\n\"Now, you rogues,\" said I to them, \"let there be no drinking this\nnight, and no trapesing of the streets, getting your heads broke just\nat the critical moment; for, as my father used to say, although a\nbroken head is merrily come by, a clear head's worth two of it when\nbusiness is to be transacted. So go to your beds at once, the two of\nyou, if there's any drinking to be done, troth it's myself that'll\nattend to it.\"\n\nWith that I drove them out and sat down to an exhilarating bottle,\nwithout ever a thought of where the money was to come from to pay for\nit. It is one of the advantages of a public house frequented by the\nnobility that if you come to it with a bold front, and one or two\nservants behind your back, you have at least a clear week ahead before\nthey flutter the show of a bill at you and ask to see the colour of\nyour gold in exchange for their ink and paper.\n\nMy father used to say that a gentleman with money in his pocket might\neconomize and no disgrace to him; but when stomach and purse are both\nempty, go to the best house in the town, where they will feed you, and\nlodge you, and drink you, before asking questions. Indeed I never shed\nmany salt tears over the losses of a publican, for he shears so\nclosely those sheep that have plenty of wool that he may well take\ncare of an innocent lamb like myself, on which the crop is not yet\ngrown.\n\nI was drinking quietly and thinking deeply on the wisdom of my father,\nwho knew the world better than ever his son will know it, when there\nwas an unexpected knock at the door, and in walked Doctor Chord. I was\nnot too pleased to see the little man, for I had feared he had changed\nhis mind and wanted to come with us in the morning, and his company\nwas something I had no desire for. He was a coward in a pinch, and a\ndistrustful man in peace, ever casting doubt on the affection I was\nsure sometimes that Lady Mary held for me; and if he wasn't talking\nabout that, sure he went rambling on,--great discourses on science\nwhich held little interest for a young man so deeply in love as I was.\nThe proper study of mankind is womankind, said a philosopher that my\nfather used to quote with approval, but whose name I'm forgetting at\nthis moment. Nevertheless I welcomed the little Doctor and said to\nhim:\n\n\"Draw you up a chair, and I'll draw out a cork.\"\n\nThe little man sat him down, and I placed an open bottle nice and\nconvenient to his elbow.\n\nWhether it was the prospect of good wine, or the delight of better\ncompany, or the thought of what was going to happen on the morrow, I\ncould not tell; but it seemed to me the little Doctor laboured under a\ngreat deal of excitement, and I became more and more afraid that he\nwould insist on bearing us company while the Earl and the Countess\nwere away at church. Now it was enough to have on my hands two such\nmodels of stupidity as Paddy and Jem without having to look after\nDoctor Chord as well, and him glancing his eyes this way and that in\napprehension of a blunderbuss.\n\n\"Have you made all your plans, O'Ruddy?\" he inquired, setting down his\ncup a good deal emptier than when he lifted it.\n\n\"I have,\" said I.\n\n\"Are you entirely satisfied with them?\" he continued.\n\n\"My plans are always perfect plans,\" I replied to him, \"and trouble\nonly comes in the working of them. When you have to work with such raw\nmaterial as I have to put up with, the best of plans have the unlucky\nhabit of turning round and hitting you in the eye.\"\n\n\"Do you expect to be hit in the eye to-morrow?\" asked the Doctor, very\nexcited, which was shown by the rattle of the bottle against the lip\nof his cup.\n\n\"I'm only sure of one thing for to-morrow,\" said I, \"and that is the\ncertainty that if there's blunder to be made one or other of my\nfollowing will make it. Still, I'm not complaining, for it's good to\nbe certain of something.\"\n\n\"What's to be your mode of procedure?\" said the Doctor, giving me a\ntouch of his fine language.\n\n\"We wait in the lane till the church bells have stopped ringing, then\nPaddy and Jem go up to the little door in the wall, and Paddy knocks\nnice and quietly, in the expectation that the door will be opened as\nquietly by Strammers, and thereupon Jem and Paddy will be let in.\"\n\n\"But won't ye go in with them?\" inquired the little Doctor very\nhurriedly.\n\n\"Doctor Chord,\" said I, lifting up my cup, \"I have the honour to drink\nwine with you, and to inform you that it's myself that's outlining the\nplan.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon for interrupting,\" said the Doctor; then he nodded\nto me as he drank.\n\n\"My two villains will go in alone with Strammers, and when the door is\nbolted, and they have passed the time of day with each other, Paddy\nwill look around the garden and exclaim how it excels all the gardens\nthat ever was, including that of Eden; and then Jem will say what a\npity it was they couldn't have their young friend outside to see the\nbeauty of it. It is my expectation that Strammers will rise to this,\nand request the pleasure of their young friend's company; but if he\nhesitates Paddy will say that the young friend outside is a\nfree-handed Irishman who would no more mind a shilling going from his\npocket into that of another man than he would the crooking of an elbow\nwhen a good drink is to be had. But be that as it may, they're to work\nme in through the little door by the united diplomacy of England and\nIreland, and, once inside of the walls, it is my hope that I can slip\naway from them and see something of the inside of the house as well.\"\n\n\"And you have the hope that you'll find Lady Mary in the\nwithdrawing-room,\" said the Doctor.\n\n\"I'll find her,\" says I, \"if she's in the house; for I'm going from\nroom to room on a tour of inspection to see whether I'll buy the\nmansion or not.\"\n\n\"It's a very good plan,\" said the Doctor, drawing the back of his hand\nacross his lips. \"It's a very good plan,\" he repeated, nodding his\nhead several times.\n\n\"Now, by the Old Head of Kinsale, little man,\" said I, \"what do you\nmean by that remark and that motion of the head? What's wrong with the\nplan?\"\n\n\"The plan's a good one, as I have said,\" reiterated the Doctor. But I\nsaw there was something on his mind, and told him so, urging him to be\nout with it.\n\n\"Do you think,\" said I, \"that Lady Mary will be in church with her\nfather and mother?\"\n\n\"I do not,\" muttered the Doctor, cautiously bringing his voice down to\na whisper; \"but I want to warn you that there's danger here in this\nroom while you're lurking around my Earl's palace.\"\n\n\"How can danger harm me here when I am somewhere else?\" I asked.\n\nA very mysterious manner fell upon the little man, and he glanced, one\nafter the other, at the four corners of the room, as if he heard a\nmouse moving and wanted to detect it. Then he looked sternly at the\ndoor, and I thought he was going to peer up the chimney, but instead\nhe leaned across the table and said huskily,--\n\n\"The papers!\"\n\n\"What papers?\" I asked, astonished.\n\n\"Your thoughts are so intent on the young lady that you forget\neverything else. Have you no recollection of the papers the Earl of\nWestport is so anxious to put himself in possession of?\"\n\nI leaned back in my chair and gazed steadily at Chord; but his eyes\nwould not bring themselves to meet mine, and so he made some pother\nabout filling up his cup again, with the neck of the bottle trembling\non the edge, as if its teeth were chattering.\n\nNow my father used to say when a man is afraid to meet your eye, be\nprepared to have him meet your fist. I disremembered saying anything\nto the Doctor about these same papers, which, truth to tell, I had\ngiven but little thought to recently, with other things of more\nimportance to crowd them out of mind.\n\n\"How come you to know anything about the papers?\" I said at last.\n\n\"Oh, your memory is clean leaving you!\" cried the little Doctor, as if\nthe cup of wine he drank had brought back his courage to him. \"You\ntold me all about the papers when we were in Kensington Gardens.\"\n\n\"If I did,\" says I, \"then I must have further informed you that I gave\nthem as a present to Lady Mary herself. Surely I told you that?\"\n\n\"You told me that, of course; but I thought you said they had come\nback into your possession again. If I'm wrong, it's no matter at all,\nand there's nothing to be said about them. I'm merely speaking to you\nby way of a friend, and I thought if you had the papers here in your\nroom it was very unsafe to leave them unprotected by yourself or some\none you can trust. I was just speaking as your well-wisher, for I\ndon't want to hear you crying you are robbed, and us at our wit's end\nnot getting either the thief or the booty.\"\n\nHe spoke with great candour and good humour, and the only thing that\nmade me suspicious at first was that for the life of me I could not\never remember mentioning the papers to him, yet it was very likely\nthat I did; for, as my father used to say, an Irishman talks more than\nthe recording angel can set down in his busiest day, and therefore it\nis lucky that everything he says is not held against him. It seemed to\nme that we talked more of scandal than of papers in the park, but\nstill I might be mistaken.\n\n\"Very good, Doctor,\" I cried, genially. \"The papers it is, and, true\nfor you, the Earl would like to get his old claws on them. Have you\nany suggestions to make?\"\n\n\"Well, it seems to me, O'Ruddy, that if the Earl got wind of them it\nwould be the easiest thing in the world to have your apartment rifled\nduring your absence.\"\n\n\"That is true enough,\" I agreed, \"so what would you do about the\npapers if you were in my boots?\"\n\n\"If I had a friend I could trust,\" said Doctor Chord slowly, \"I would\ngive the papers to him and tell him to take good care of them.\"\n\n\"But why not carry them about in my own pocket?\" I asked.\n\n\"It seemed to me they were not any too safe last time they were\nthere,\" said the Doctor, pleasantly enough. \"You see, O'Ruddy, you're\na marked man if once the Earl gets wind of your being in town. To\ncarry the papers about on your own person would be the unsafest thing\nyou could do, ensuring you a stab in the back, so that little use\nyou'd have for the papers ever after. I have no desire to be mixed\nfurther in your affairs than I am at the present moment, but\nnevertheless I could easily take charge of the packet for you; then\nyou would know where it was.\"\n\n\"But would I be sure to know where _you_ were?\" said I, my first\nsuspicion of him returning to me.\n\nThe little Doctor laughed.\n\n\"I am always very easily found,\" he said; \"but when I offered to take\nthe papers it was merely in case a stranger like yourself should not\nhave a faster friend beside him than I am. If you have any such, then\nI advise you to give custody of the papers to him.\"\n\n\"I have no real friend in London that I know of,\" said I, \"but Paddy.\"\n\n\"The very thing,\" cried the Doctor, joyously, at once putting to rest\nall my doubts concerning him. \"The very thing. I would give the papers\nto Paddy and tell him to protect them with his life. I'm sure he'll do\nit, and you'll know where to find both them and him when you want\nthem. But to go away from the 'Pig and Turnip' right across to the\nother end of the town, taking your two servants with you, leaving\nnobody to guard papers that are of importance to you, strikes me as\nthe height of folly. I'll just fill up another cup, and so bid you\ngood-night, and good luck for the morrow.\"\n\nAnd with that the little man drained the bottle, taking his leave with\ngreat effusion, and begging my pardon for even so much as mentioning\nthe papers, saying they had been on his mind for the last day or two,\nand, feeling friendly toward me, he wished to warn me not to leave\nthem carelessly about.\n\nAfter he left I thought a good deal about what the Doctor had said,\nand I wondered at myself that I had ever misdoubted him; for, although\nhe was a man given greatly to talk, yet he had been exceedingly\nfriendly with me from the very first night I had met him, and I\nthought shame of myself that I was losing trust in my fellow man here\nin this great city of London, because in Ireland we trust each other\nentirely; and indeed we are under some compulsion in that same matter,\nfor there is so little money about that if you do not take a man's\nword now and then there's nothing else for you to take.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\n\nI slept well that night, and it was broad daylight when I awoke. A\nmost beautiful morning it seemed to me, and just the time for a lonely\nstroll in the beautiful gardens, so long as there was some one with\nyou that you thought a great deal of. I made a good breakfast, and\nthen took out the papers and placed them on the table before me. They\nwere all safe so far. I could not comprehend how the Earl would know\nanything of my being in London, unless, indeed, he caught sight of me\nwalking in his own gardens with his own daughter, and then, belike, he\nwas so jealous a man that he would maybe come to the conclusion I was\nin London as well as himself.\n\nAfter breakfast Paddy and Jem came in, looking as bold as Blarney\nCastle; and when I eyed them both I saw that neither one nor the other\nwas a fit custodian for papers that might make the proudest Earl in\nEngland a poor man or a rich man, depending which way they went. So I\nput the documents in my own pocket without more ado, and gave up my\nthoughts to a pleasanter subject. I changed my mind about a disguise,\nand put on my back the best clothes that I had to wear. I wished I had\nthe new suits I had been measured for, but the spalpeen of a tailor\nwould not let me have them unless I paid him some of the money they\ncost. When I came to think over it I saw that Strammers would surely\nnever recognize me as a gay spark of fashion when he had merely seen\nme once before, torn and ragged, coming down from a tree on top of his\nblunderbuss. So I instructed Paddy to say that he and Jem were\nservants of the best master in the world, who was a great lover of\ngardens; that he was of immense generosity, and if Strammers allowed\nhim to come into the gardens by the little door he would be a richer\nman when the door was opened than he would be if he kept it shut. I\nhad been long enough in London to learn the golden method of\npersuasion; any how I could not bring myself to the chance of meeting\nwith my lady, and me dressed worse than one of her own servants.\n\nWe were all in the lane when the church bells ceased to ring, and if\nany one had seen us he would simply have met a comely young Irish\ngentleman taking the air of a Sunday morning with two faithful\nservants at his heels. I allowed something like ten impatient minutes\nto crawl past me, and then, as the lane was clear and every one for\nthe church within its walls, I tipped a nod to Paddy, and he, with Jem\nby his side, tapped lightly at the door, while I stood behind the\ntrunk of the tree up which I had climbed before. There was no sign of\nDoctor Chord in the vicinity, and for that I was thankful, because up\nto the last moment I feared the little man could not help intruding\nhimself on what was somebody else's business.\n\nThe door was opened with some caution, letting Paddy and Jem enter;\nthen it was closed, and I heard the bolts shot into their places. But\nI was speedily to hear more than bolts that Sunday morning. There was\na sound of thumping sticks, and I heard a yell that might well have\npenetrated to the \"Pig and Turnip\" itself, although it was miles away.\nI knew Paddy's cry, and next there came some good English cursing from\nJem Bottles, while a shrill voice called out:--\n\n\"Catch the red-haired one; he's the villain we want!\"\n\nIn the midst of various exclamations, maledictions, and other\nconstructions of speech, mingled, I thought, with laughter, I flung my\nshoulder against the door, but I might as well have tried to batter\ndown the wall itself. The door was as firm as Macgillicuddy Reeks. I\nknow when I am beat as well as the next man, and, losing no more time\nthere, I ran as fast as I could along the wall, out of the lane, and\nso to the front of the house. The main entrance was protected by great\ngates of wrought iron, which were opened on occasion by a man in a\nlittle cubby of a cabin that stood for a porter's lodge. The man\nwasn't there, and the gates were locked; but part of one of the huge\nwings of wrought iron was a little gate that stood ajar. This I pushed\nopen, and, unmolested, stepped inside.\n\nThe trees and shrubbery hid from me the scene that was taking place\ninside the little wooden door. I dashed through the underbrush and\ncame to the edge of a broad lawn, and there was going on as fine a\nscrimmage as any man could wish to see. Jem Bottles had his back\nagainst the wooden door, and was laying about him with a stout stick;\nhalf a dozen tall fellows in livery making a great show of attack,\nbut keeping well out of range of his weapon. Poor Paddy had the broad\nof his back on the turf, and it looked like they were trying to tear\nthe clothes off him, for another half-dozen were on top of him; but I\ncan say this in his favour, Paddy was using his big feet and doing\ngreat execution with them. Every now and then he planted a boot in the\nwell-fed front of a footman or under-gardener, and sent him flying.\nThe whole household seemed to be present, and one could hardly believe\nthere was such a mob in a single mansion. The Earl of Westport was\nthere, and who stood beside him but that little villain, Doctor Chord.\n\nBut it was the Countess herself that was directing operations. She had\nan ebony stick in her hands, and when Paddy kicked one of her\nunderlings the vigorous old lady smote the overturned servant to make\nhim to the fray again. It was an exciting scene, and Donnybrook was\nnothing to it. Their backs were all toward me, and I was just bubbling\nwith joy to think what a surprise I was about to give them,--for I\ndrew my sword and had a yell of defiance on my lips,--when a cry that\nnobody paid the least attention to turned my mind in another direction\nentirely.\n\nOne of the first-floor windows was open, and over the sill leaned Lady\nMary herself, her face aflush with anger.\n\n\"Father! Mother!\" she cried. \"Are not you ashamed of yourselves,\nmaking this commotion on a Sunday morning? Call the servants away from\nthere! Let the two poor men go! Oh, shame, shame upon you.\"\n\nShe wrung her hands, but, as I was saying, nobody paid the slightest\nheed to her, and I doubt if any of them heard her, for Paddy was not\nkeeping silence by any manner of means. He was taking the worst of all\nthe blows that fell on him in a vigorous outcry.\n\n\"Murther! murther!\" he shouted. \"Let me on me feet, an' I'll knock yez\nall into the middle of county Clare.\"\n\nNo one, however, took advantage of this generous offer, but they kept\nas clear as they could of his miscellaneous feet, and the Countess\npoked him in the ribs with the point of her ebony stick whenever she\nwasn't laying it over the backs of her servants.\n\nNow, no man can ever say that I was a laggard when a good\nold-fashioned contest was going on, and the less indolence was\nobservable on my own part when friends of mine were engaged in the\nfray. Sure I was always eager enough, even when it was a stranger's\ndebate, and I wonder what my father would think of me now, to see me\nveer from the straight course of battle and thrust my unstruck sword\nonce more into its scabbard. It was the face in the window that made\nme forget friend and foe alike. Lady Mary was the only member of the\nhousehold that was not on the lawn, and was protesting unheard against\nthe violence to two poor men who were there because they had been\ninvited to come by the under-gardener.\n\nI saw in the twinkling of an eye that the house had been deserted on\nthe first outcry. Doors were left wide open for the whole world to\nenter. I dodged behind the trees, scuttled up the gravelled driveway,\nleaped the stone steps three at a time, and before you could say\n\"Ballymuggins\" I was in the most superb hall in which I ever set my\nfoot. It was a square house with the stairway in the middle. I kept\nin my mind's eye the direction of the window in which Lady Mary had\nappeared. Quick as a bog-trotter responds to an invitation to drink, I\nmounted that grand stairway, turned to my right, and came to a door\nopposite which I surmised was the window through which Lady Mary was\nleaning. Against this door I rapped my knuckles, and speedily I heard\nthe sweet voice of the most charming girl in all the world demand with\nsomething like consternation in its tones,--\n\n\"Who is there?\"\n\n\"It's me, Lady Mary!\" said I. \"The O'Ruddy, who begs the privilege of\na word with you.\"\n\nI heard the slam of a window being shut, then the sound of a light\nstep across the floor, and after that she said with a catch in her\nvoice,--\n\n\"I'll be pleased you should come in, Mr. O'Ruddy.\"\n\nI tried the door, but found it locked.\n\n\"How can I come in, Lady Mary,\" says I, \"if you've got bolts held\nagainst me?\"\n\n\"There are no bolts,\" said Lady Mary; \"the key should be on the\noutside. I am locked in. Look for the key and open the door.\"\n\nWas ever a more delightful sentence spoken to a man? My heart was in\nmy throat with joy. I glanced down, and there, sure enough, stuck the\nkey. I turned it at once, then pulled it out of the lock and opened\nthe door.\n\n\"Lady Mary,\" says I, \"with your permission, it seems to me a door\nshould be locked from the inside.\"\n\nWith that I thrust the key through the far side of the door, closed\nit, and locked it. Then I turned round to face her.\n\nThe room, it was plain to be seen, was the parlour of a lady,--a\nboudoir, as they call it in France, a word that my father was very\nfond of using, having caught it when he was on the campaign in that\ndelightful country. The boudoir was full of confections and charming\nlittle dainties in the way of lace, and easy chairs, and bookcases,\nand little writing-desks, and a work-basket here and there; but the\nfinest ornament it possessed was the girl who now stood in the middle\nof the floor with a frown on her brow that was most becoming. Yes,\nthere was a frown on her brow, although I expected a smile on her lips\nbecause of the cordial invitation she had given me to come in.\n\nIt would seem to either you or me that if a lady suffered the\nindignity of being locked in her room, just as if she was a child of\nsix years old, she would welcome with joy the person who came and\nreleased her. Now, my father, who was the wisest man since\nSolomon,--and indeed, as I listened to him, I've often thought that\nSolomon was overpraised,--my father used to say there was no mystery\nat all about women. \"You just think,\" he would say, \"of what a\nsensible man would do on a certain occasion; then configure out in\nyour mind the very opposite, and that's what a woman will do.\" A man\nwho had been imprisoned would have held out his hand and have said,\n\"God bless you, O'Ruddy; but I'm glad to see you.\" And here stood this\nfine lady in the middle of her room, looking at me as if I were the\ndirt beneath her feet, and had forced my way into her presence,\ninstead of being invited like a man of honour to enter.\n\n\"Well, Mr. O'Ruddy,\" she said, throwing back her head, haughty-like,\n\"Why do you stand dallying in a lady's bower when your followers are\nbeing beaten on the lawn outside?\"\n\nI cannot give you Lady Mary's exact words, for I was so astonished at\ntheir utterance; but I give you a very good purport of them.\n\n\"Is it the beating of my men?\" I said. \"Troth, that's what I pay them\nfor. And whoever gives them a good drubbing saves me the trouble. I\nsaw they had Paddy down on the turf, but he's a son of the ould sod,\nand little he'll mind being thrown on his mother. But if it's Jem\nBottles you're anxious about, truth to tell I'm more sorry for those\nthat come within range of his stick than for Jem with his back to the\nwall. Bottles can take care of himself in any company, for he's a\nhighwayman in an excellent way of business.\"\n\nI always like to mention anything that's in favour of a man, and so I\ntold her what profession Bottles followed. She gave a toss of her\nhead, and gave me a look that had something like contempt in it, which\nwas far from being pleasant to endure. Then she began walking up and\ndown the room, and it was plain to see that my Lady was far from being\npleased with me.\n\n\"Poor fellows! Poor faithful fellows! That's what comes of having a\nfool for a master.\"\n\n\"Indeed, your ladyship,\" said I, drawing myself up to my full height,\nwhich wasn't so very much short of the door itself, \"there are worse\nthings than blows from a good honest cudgel. You might better say,\n'This is what comes to a master with two fools for servants.'\"\n\n\"And what comes to a master?\" she demanded. \"Sure no one asks you to\nbe here.\"\n\n\"That shows how short your ladyship's memory is,\" said I with some\nirritation. \"Father Donovan used to tell me that the shortest thing in\nthe world was the interval between an insult and a blow in Ireland,\nbut I think a lady's memory is shorter still. 'Turn the key and come\nin,' says you. What is that, I would like to know, but an invitation.\"\n\nIt appeared to me that she softened a bit, but she continued her walk\nup and down the room and was seemingly in great agitation. The cries\noutside had stopped, but whether they had murdered both Jem Bottles\nand Paddy I had no means at that moment of knowing, and I hope the two\nwill forgive me when I say that my thoughts were far from them.\n\n\"You will understand,\" said Lady Mary, speaking still with resentment\nin her voice, \"that the papers you held are the key to the situation.\nHave you no more sense than to trust them to the care of a red-headed\nclown from whom they can be taken as easy as if they were picked up\noff the street?\"\n\n\"Indeed, believe me, Lady Mary, that no red-headed clown has any\npapers of mine.\"\n\n\"Indeed, and I think you speak the true word there. The papers are now\nin my father's possession, and he will know how to take care of them.\"\n\n\"Well, he didn't know that the last time he had them,\" I cried,\nfeeling angry at these unjust accusations, and not being able to bear\nthe compliment to the old man, even if he was an Earl. \"The papers,\"\nsaid I, \"are as easily picked from me as from the street, like you\nwere saying just now; but it isn't a pack of overfed flunkeys that\nwill lift them from me. Lady Mary, on a previous occasion I placed the\npapers in your hands; now, with your kind permission, I lay them at\nyour feet,\"--and, saying this with the most courteous obeisance, I\nknelt with one knee on the floor and placed the packet of papers where\nI said I would place them.\n\nNow, ever since that, the Lady Mary denies that she kicked them to the\nother end of the room. She says that as she was walking to and fro the\ntoe of her foot touched the packet and sent it spinning; and, as no\nreal Irishman ever yet contradicted a lady, all I will say is that the\nprecious bundle went hurtling to the other end of the room, and it is\nvery likely that Lady Mary thought the gesture of her foot a trifle\ntoo much resembled an action of her mother, the Countess, for her\nmanner changed in the twinkling of an eye, and she laughed like her\nold self again.\n\n\"Mr. O'Ruddy,\" she said, \"you put me out of all patience. You're as\nsimple as if you came out of Ireland yesterday.\"\n\n\"It's tolerably well known,\" said I, \"by some of your expert\nswordsmen, that I came out the day before.\"\n\nAgain Lady Mary laughed.\n\n\"You're not very wise in the choice of your friends,\" she said.\n\n\"I am, if I can count you as one of them,\" I returned.\n\nShe made no direct reply to this, but continued:\n\n\"Can't you see that that little Doctor Chord is a traitor? He has been\ntelling my father all you have been doing and all you have been\nplanning, and he says you are almost simple enough to have given the\npapers into his own keeping no longer ago than last night.\"\n\n\"Now, look you, Lady Mary, how much you misjudged me. The little\nvillain asked for the papers, but he didn't get them; then he advised\nme to give them to a man I could trust, and when I said the only man I\ncould trust was red-headed Paddy out yonder, he was delighted to think\nI was to leave them in his custody. But you can see for yourself I did\nnothing of the kind, and if your people thought they could get\nanything out of Paddy by bad language and heroic kicks they were\nmistaken.\"\n\nAt that moment we had an interruption that brought our conversation to\na standstill and Lady Mary to the door, outside which her mother was\ncrying,--\n\n\"Mary, Mary! where's the key?\"\n\n\"Where should it be?\" said Lady Mary, \"but in the door.\"\n\n\"It is not in the door,\" said the Countess wrathfully, shaking it as\nif she would tear it down.\n\n\"It is in the door,\" said Lady Mary positively; and quite right she\nwas, for both of us were looking at it.\n\n\"It is not in the door,\" shouted her mother. \"Some of the servants\nhave taken it away.\"\n\nThen we heard her calling over the banisters to find out who had taken\naway the key of Lady Mary's room. There was a twinkle in Mary's eye,\nand a quiver in the corners of her pretty mouth that made me feel she\nwould burst out laughing, and indeed I had some ado to keep silence\nmyself.\n\n\"What have you done with those two poor wretches you were maltreating\nout in the garden?\" asked Lady Mary.\n\n\"Oh, don't speak of them,\" cried the Countess, evidently in no good\nhumour. \"It was all a scandal for nothing. The red-headed beast did\nnot have the papers. That little fool, Chord, has misled both your\nfather and me. I could wring his neck for him, and now he is\npalavering your father in the library and saying he will get the\npapers himself or die in the attempt. It serves us right for paying\nattention to a babbling idiot like him. I said in the first place that\nthat Irish baboon of an O'Ruddy was not likely to give them to the ape\nthat follows him.\"\n\n\"Tare-an-ounds!\" I cried, clenching my fists and making for the door;\nbut Lady Mary rattled it so I could not be heard, and the next instant\nshe placed her snow-flake hand across my mouth, which was as pleasant\na way of stopping an injudicious utterance as ever I had been\nacquainted with.\n\n\"Mary,\" said the Countess, \"your father is very much agitated and\ndisappointed, so I'm taking him out for a drive. I have told the\nbutler to look out for the key, and when he finds it he will let you\nout. You've only yourself to blame for being locked in, because we\nexpected the baboon himself and couldn't trust you in his presence.\"\n\nIt was now Lady Mary's turn to show confusion at the old termagant's\ntalk, and she  as red as a sunset on the coast of Kerry. I\nforgave the old hag her discourteous appellation of \"baboon\" because\nof the joyful intimation she gave me through the door that Lady Mary\nwas not to be trusted when I was near by. My father used to say that\nif you are present when an embarrassment comes to a lady it is well\nnot to notice it, else the embarrassment will be transferred to\nyourself. Remembering this, I pretended not to see Lady Mary's flaming\ncheeks, and, begging her pardon, walked up the room and picked from\nthe corner the bundle of papers which had, somehow or other come\nthere, whether kicked or not. I came back to where she was standing\nand offered them to her most respectfully, as if they, and not\nherself, were the subject of discussion.\n\n\"Hush,\" said Lady Mary in a whisper; \"sit down yonder and see how long\nyou can keep quiet.\"\n\nShe pointed to a chair that stood beside a beautifully polished table\nof foreign wood, the like of which I had never seen before, and I,\nwishing very much to please her, sat down where she told me and placed\nthe bundle of papers on the table. Lady Mary tiptoed over, as\nlight-footed as a canary-bird, and sat down on the opposite side of\nthe table, resting her elbows on the polished wood, and, with her chin\nin her hands, gazed across at me, and a most bewildering scrutiny I\nfound it, rendering it difficult for me to keep quiet and seated, as\nshe had requested. In a minute or two we heard the crunch of wheels on\nthe gravel in front, then the carriage drove off, and the big gates\nclanked together.\n\nStill Lady Mary poured the sunshine of her eyes upon me, and I hope\nand trust she found me a presentable young man, for under the warmth\nof her look my heart began to bubble up like a pot of potatoes on a\nstrong fire.\n\n\"You make me a present of the papers, then?\" said Lady Mary at last.\n\n\"Indeed and I do, and of myself as well, if you'll have me. And this\nlatter is a thing I've been trying to say to you every time I met you,\nMary acushla, and no sooner do the words come to my lips than some\ndoddering fool interrupts us; but now, my darling, we are alone\ntogether, in that lover's paradise which is always typified by a\nlocked door, and at last I can say the things--\"\n\nJust here, as I mentioned the word \"door,\" there came a rap at it, and\nLady Mary started as if some one had fired a gun.\n\n\"Your ladyship,\" said the butler, \"I cannot find the key. Shall I send\nfor a locksmith?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Lady Mary, \"do not take the trouble. I have letters to\nwrite, and do not wish to be disturbed until my mother returns.\"\n\n\"Very good, your ladyship,\" returned the butler, and he walked away.\n\n\"A locksmith!\" said Lady Mary, looking across the table at me.\n\n\"Love laughs at them,\" said I.\n\nLady Mary smiled very sweetly, but shook her head.\n\n\"This is not a time for laughter,\" she said, \"but for seriousness.\nNow, I cannot risk your staying here longer, so will tell you what I\nhave to say as quickly as possible. Your repeatedly interrupted\ndeclaration I take for truth, because the course of true love never\ndid run smooth. Therefore, if you want me, you must keep the papers.\"\n\nAt this I hastily took the bundle from the table and thrust it in my\npocket, which action made Lady Mary smile again.\n\n\"Have you read them?\" she asked.\n\n\"I have not.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to say you have carried these papers about for so long\nand have not read them?\"\n\n\"I had no curiosity concerning them,\" I replied. \"I have something\nbetter to look at,\" I went on, gazing across at her; \"and when that is\nnot with me the memory of it is, and it's little I care for a pack of\nmusty papers and what's in them.\"\n\n\"Then I will tell you what they are,\" said Lady Mary. \"There are in\nthat packet the title-deeds to great estates, the fairest length of\nland that lies under the sun in Sussex. There is also a letter written\nby my father's own hand, giving the property to your father.\"\n\n\"But he did not mean my father to keep it,\" said I.\n\n\"No, he did not. He feared capture, and knew the ransom would be heavy\nif they found evidence of property upon him. Now all these years he\nhas been saying nothing, but collecting the revenues of this estate\nand using them, while another man had the legal right to it.\"\n\n\"Still he has but taken what was his own,\" said I, \"and my father\nnever disputed that, always intending to come over to England and\nreturn the papers to the Earl; but he got lazy-like, by sitting at his\nown fireside, and seldom went farther abroad than to the house of the\npriest; but his last injunctions to me were to see that the Earl got\nhis papers, and indeed he would have had them long since if he had but\ntreated me like the son of an old friend.\"\n\n\"Did your father mention that the Earl would give you any reward for\nreturning his property to him?\"\n\n\"He did not,\" I replied with indignation. \"In Ireland, when a friend\ndoes a friend's part, he doesn't expect to be paid for it.\"\n\n\"But don't you expect a reward for returning them?\"\n\n\"Lady Mary,\" said I, \"do you mean to be after insulting me? These\npapers are not mine, but the Earl of Westport's, and he can have them\nwithout saying as much as 'Thank you kindly' for them.\"\n\nLady Mary leaned back in her chair and looked at me with half-closed\neyes, then she stretched forth her hand and said:\n\n\"Give me the papers.\"\n\n\"But it's only a minute since,\" I cried, perplexed, \"that you held\nthem to be the key of the situation, and said if I didn't keep them I\nwould never get you.\"\n\n\"Did I say that?\" asked Lady Mary with the innocence of a\nthree-year-old child. \"I had no idea we had come to such a conclusion.\nNow do you want a little advice about those same papers?\"\n\n\"As long as the advice comes from you, Mary darling, I want it on any\nsubject.\"\n\n\"You have come into England brawling, sword-playing, cudgel-flinging,\nand never till this moment have you given a thought to what the papers\nare for. These papers represent the law.\"\n\n\"Bad cess to it,\" said I. \"My father used to say, have as little to do\nwith the law as possible, for what's the use of bringing your man into\nthe courts when a good shillelah is speedier and more satisfactory to\nall concerned.\"\n\n\"That may be true in Ireland, but it is not true in England. Now, here\nis my advice. You know my father and mother, and if you'll just quit\nstaring your eyes out at me, and think for a minute, you may be able\nto tell when you will get their consent to pay your addresses to me\nwithout interruption.\" Here she blushed and looked down.\n\n\"Indeed,\" said I, \"I don't need to take my eyes from you to answer\n_that_ question. It'll be the afternoon following the Day of\nJudgment.\"\n\n\"Very well. You must then stand on your rights. I will give you a\nletter to a man in the Temple, learned in the law. He was legal\nadviser to my aunt, who left me all her property, and she told me that\nif I ever was in trouble I was to go to him; but instead of that I'll\nsend my trouble to him with a letter of introduction. I advise you to\ntake possession of the estate at Brede, and think no more of giving up\nthe papers to my father until he is willing to give you something in\nreturn. You may then ask what you like of him; money, goods, or a\nfarm,\"--and again a bright red colour flooded her cheeks. With that\nshe drew toward her pen and paper and dashed off a letter which she\ngave to me.\n\n\"I think,\" she said, \"it would be well if you left the papers with the\nman in the Temple; he will keep them safely, and no one will suspect\nwhere they are; while, if you need money, which is likely, he will be\nable to advance you what you want on the security of the documents you\nleave with him.\"\n\n\"Is it money?\" said I, \"sure I couldn't think of drawing money on\nproperty that belongs to your good father, the Earl.\"\n\n\"As I read the papers,\" replied Lady Mary, very demurely, casting down\nher eyes once more, \"the property does not belong to my good father,\nthe Earl, but to the good-for-nothing young man named O'Ruddy. I think\nthat my father, the Earl, will find that he needs your signature\nbefore he can call the estate his own once more. It may be I am wrong,\nand that your father, by leaving possession so long in the hands of\nthe Earl, may have forfeited his claim. Mr. Josiah Brooks will tell\nyou all about that when you meet him in the Temple. You may depend\nupon it that if he advances you money your claim is good, and, your\nclaim being good, you may make terms with even so obstreperous a man\nas my father.\"\n\n\"And if I make terms with the father,\" I cried, \"do you think his\ncomely daughter will ratify the bargain?\"\n\nLady Mary smiled very sweetly, and gave me the swiftest and shyest of\nglances across the table from her speaking eyes, which next instant\nwere hidden from me.\n\n\"May be,\" she said, \"the lawyer could answer that question.\"\n\n\"Troth,\" I said, springing to my feet, \"I know a better one to ask it\nof than any old curmudgeon poring over dry law-books, and the answer\nI'm going to have from your own lips.\"\n\nThen, with a boldness that has ever characterized the O'Ruddys, I\nswung out my arms and had her inside o' them before you could say\nBallymoyle. She made a bit of a struggle and cried breathlessly:\n\n\"I'll answer, if you'll sit in that chair again.\"\n\n\"It's not words,\" says I, \"I want from your lips, but this,\"--and I\nsmothered a little shriek with one of the heartiest kisses that ever\ntook place out of Ireland itself, and it seemed to me that her\nstruggle ceased, or, as one might say, faded away, as my lips came in\ncontact with hers; for she suddenly weakened in my arms so that I had\nto hold her close to me, for I thought she would sink to the floor if\nI did but leave go, and in the excitement of the moment my own head\nwas swimming in a way that the richest of wine had never made it swim\nbefore. Then Lady Mary buried her face in my shoulder with a little\nsigh of content, and I knew she was mine in spite of all the Earls and\nCountesses in the kingdom, or estates either, so far as that went. At\nlast she straightened up and made as though she would push me from\nher, but held me thus at arms' length, while her limpid eyes looked\nlike twin lakes of Killarney on a dreamy misty morning when there's no\nwind blowing.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" she said, solemnly, with a little catch in her voice,\n\"you're a bold man, and I think you've no doubt of your answer; but\nwhat has happened makes me the more anxious for your success in\ndealing with those who will oppose both your wishes and mine. My dear\nlover, is what I call you now; you have come over in tempestuous\nfashion, with a sword in your hand, striving against every one who\nwould stand up before you. After this morning, all that should be\nchanged, for life seems to have become serious and momentous. O'Ruddy,\nI want your actions to be guided, not by a drawn sword, but by\nreligion and by law.\"\n\n\"Troth, Mary acushla, an Irishman takes to religion of his own nature,\nbut I much misdoubt me if it comes natural to take to the law.\"\n\n\"How often have you been to mass since you came to England, O'Ruddy?\"\n\n\"How often?\" says I, wrinkling my brow, \"indeed you mean, how many\ntimes?\"\n\n\"Yes; how many times?\"\n\n\"Now, Mary, how could you expect me to be keeping count of them?\"\n\n\"Has your attendance, then, been so regular?\"\n\n\"Ah, Mary, darling; it's not me that has the face to tell you a lie,\nand yet I'm ashamed to say that I've never set foot in a church since\nI crossed the channel, and the best of luck it is for me that good old\nFather Donovan doesn't hear these same words.\"\n\n\"Then you will go to church this very day and pray for heaven's\nblessing on both of us.\"\n\n\"It's too late for the mass this Sunday, Mary, but the churches are\nopen, and the first one I come to will have me inside of it.\"\n\nWith that she drew me gently to her, and herself kissed me, meeting\nnone of that resistance which I had encountered but a short time\nbefore; and then, as bitter ill luck would have it, at this delicious\nmoment we were startled by the sound of carriage-wheels on the gravel\noutside.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Lady Mary in a panic; \"how time has flown!\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said I, \"I never knew it so fast before.\"\n\nAnd she, without wasting further time in talking, unlocked the door,\nwhipped out the key, and placed it where I had found it in the\nbeginning. She seemed to think of everything in a moment, and I would\nhave left her letter and the papers on the table if it hadn't been for\nthat cleverest of all girls, who, besides her lips of honey, had an\nalert mind, which is one of the things appreciated in Ireland. I then\nfollowed her quickly down a narrow back stairway and out into a glass\nhouse, where a little door at the end led us into a deliciously\nshaded walk, free from all observation, with a thick screen of trees\non the right hand and the old stone wall on the left.\n\nHere I sprang quickly to overtake her, but she danced away like a\nfairy in the moonlight, throwing a glance of mischief over her\nshoulder at me, with her finger on her lips. It seemed to me a pity\nthat so sylvan a dell should merely be used for the purposes of speed,\nbut in a jiffy Mary was at the little door in the wall and had the\nbolts drawn back, and I was outside before I understood what had\nhappened, listening to bolts being thrust back again, and my only\nconsolation was the remembrance of a little dab at my lips as I passed\nthrough, as brief and unsatisfactory as the peck of a sparrow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\n\nIt was a beautiful day, as lovely as any an indulgent Providence had\never bestowed upon an unthankful generation.\n\nAlthough I wished I had had an hour or two to spend with Mary\nwandering up and down that green alley through which we had rushed\nwith such indecent haste, all because two aged and angry members of\nthe nobility might have come upon us, yet I walked through the streets\nof London as if I trod on the air, and not on the rough cobble-stones\nof the causeway. It seemed as if I had suddenly become a boy again,\nand yet with all the strength and vigour of a man, and I was hard put\nto it not to shout aloud in the sunlight, or to slap on the back the\nslow and solemn Englishmen I met, who looked as if they had never\nlaughed in their lives. Sure it's a very serious country, this same\nland of England, where their dignity is so oppressive that it bows\ndown head and shoulders with thinking how grand they are; and yet I'll\nsay nothing against them, for it was an Englishwoman that made me feel\nlike a balloon. Pondering over the sobriety of the nation, I found\nmyself in the shadow of a great church, and, remembering what my dear\nMary had said, I turned and went in through the open door, with my\nhat in my hand. It was a great contrast to the bright sunlight I had\nleft, and to the busy streets with their holiday-making people. There\nwere only a few scattered here and there in the dim silence of the\nchurch, some on their knees, some walking slowly about on tiptoe, and\nsome seated meditating in chairs. No service was going forward, so I\nknelt down in the chapel of Saint Patrick himself; I bowed my head and\nthanked God for the day and for the blessing that had come with it. As\nI said, I was like a boy again, and to my lips, too long held from\nthem, came the prayers that had been taught me. I was glad I had not\nforgotten them, and I said them over and over with joy in my heart. As\nI raised my head, I saw standing and looking at me a priest, and,\nrising to my feet, I made my bow to him, and he came forward,\nrecognizing me before I recognized him.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he said, \"if you knew the joy it gives to my old heart to\nmeet you in this sacred place and in that devout attitude, it would\nbring some corresponding happiness to yourself.\"\n\n\"Now by the piper that played before Moses, Father Donovan, and is\nthis yourself? Sure I disrecognized you, coming into the darkness, and\nme just out of the glare beyond,\"--and I took his hand in both of mine\nand shook it with a heartiness he had not met since he left the old\nturf. \"Sure and there's no one I'd rather meet this day than\nyourself,\"--and with that I dropped on one knee and asked for his\nblessing on me and mine.\n\nAs we walked out of the church together, his hand resting on my\nshoulder, I asked how such a marvel came to pass as Father Donovan,\nwho never thought to leave Ireland, being here in London. The old man\nsaid nothing till we were down the steps, and then he told me what had\nhappened.\n\n\"You remember Patsy O'Gorman,\" he said.\n\n\"I do that,\" I replied, \"and an old thief of the world and a\ntight-fisted miser he is.\"\n\n\"Whist,\" said Father Donovan, quietly crossing himself. \"O'Gorman is\ndead and buried.\"\n\n\"Do you tell me that!\" said I, \"then rest his soul. He would be a warm\nman and leave more money than my father did, I'm thinking.\"\n\n\"Yes, he left some money, and to me he left three hundred pounds, with\nthe request that I should accomplish the desire of my life and take\nthe pilgrimage to Rome.\"\n\n\"The crafty old chap, that same bit of bequestration will help him\nover many a rough mile in purgatory.\"\n\n\"Ah, O'Ruddy, it's not our place to judge. They gave a harder name to\nO'Gorman than he deserved. Just look at your own case. The stories\nthat have come back to Ireland, O'Ruddy, just made me shiver. I heard\nthat you were fighting and brawling through England, ready to run\nthrough any man that looked cross-eyed at you. They said that you had\ntaken up with a highwayman; that you spent your nights in drink and\nbreathing out smoke; and here I find you, a proper young man, doing\ncredit to your country, meeting you, not in a tavern, but on your\nknees with bowed head in the chapel of Saint Patrick, giving the lie\nto the slanderer's tongue.\"\n\nThe good old man stopped in our walk, and with tears in his eyes shook\nhands with me again, and I had not the heart to tell him the truth.\n\n\"Ah well,\" I said, \"Father Donovan, I suppose nobody, except yourself,\nis quite as good as he thinks, and nobody, including myself, is as bad\nas he appears to be. And now, Father Donovan, where are you stopping,\nand how long will you be in London?\"\n\n\"I am stopping with an old college friend, who is a priest in the\nchurch where I found you. I expect to leave in a few days' time and\njourney down to the seaport of Rye, where I am to take ship that will\nland me either in Dunkirk or in Calais. From there I am to make my way\nto Rome as best I can.\"\n\n\"And are you travelling alone?\"\n\n\"I am that, although, by the blessing of God, I have made many friends\non the journey, and every one I met has been good to me.\"\n\n\"Ah, Father Donovan, you couldn't meet a bad man if you travelled the\nworld over. Sure there's some that carry such an air of blessedness\nwith them that every one they meet must, for very shame, show the best\nof his character. With me it's different, for it seems that where\nthere's contention I am in the middle of it, though, God knows, I'm a\nman of peace, as my father was before me.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Father Donovan slowly, but with a sweet smile on his lip,\n\"I suppose the O'Ruddys were always men of peace, for I've known them\nbefore now to fight hard enough to get it.\"\n\nThe good father spoke a little doubtfully, as if he were not quite\napproving of our family methods, but he was a kindly man who always\ntook the most lenient view of things. He walked far with me, and then\nI turned and escorted him to the place where he resided, and, bidding\ngood-bye, got a promise from him that he would come to the \"Pig and\nTurnip\" a day later and have a bite and sup with me, for I thought\nwith the assistance of the landlord I could put a very creditable meal\nbefore him, and Father Donovan was always one that relished his meals,\nand he enjoyed his drink too, although he was set against too much of\nit. He used to say, \"It's a wise drinker that knows when geniality\nends and hostility begins, and it's just as well to stop before you\ncome to the line.\"\n\nWith this walking to and fro the day was near done with when I got\nback to the \"Pig and Turnip\" and remembered that neither a bit of pig\nnor a bit of turnip had I had all that long day, and now I was\nravenous. I never knew anything make me forget my appetite before; but\nhere had I missed my noonday meal, and not in all my life could I\novertake it again. Sure there was many an experience crowded together\nin that beautiful Sunday, so, as I passed through the entrance to the\ninn I said to the obsequious landlord:\n\n\"For the love of Heaven, get placed on my table all you have in the\nhouse that's fit to eat, and a trifle of a bottle or two, to wash it\ndown with.\"\n\nSo saying, I passed up the creaking old oaken stair and came to my\nroom, where I instantly remembered there was something else I had\nforgotten. As I opened the door there came a dismal groan from Paddy,\nand something that sounded like a wicked oath from Jem Bottles. Poor\nlads! that had taken such a beating that day, such a cudgelling for my\nsake; and here I stood at my own door in a wonder of amazement, and\nsomething of fright, thinking I had heard a banshee wail. The two\nmisused lads had slipped out of my memory as completely as the devil\nslipped off Macgillicuddy Reeks into the pond beneath when Saint\nPatrick had sent the holy words after him.\n\n\"Paddy,\" said I, \"are you hurted? Where is it you're sore?\"\n\n\"Is it sore?\" he groaned. \"Except the soles of my feet, which they\ncouldn't hit with me kickin' them, there isn't an inch of me that\ndoesn't think it's worse hurted than the rest.\"\n\n\"It's sorry I am to hear that,\" I replied, quite truthfully, \"and you,\nJem, how did you come off?\"\n\n\"Well, I gave a better account of myself than Paddy here, for I made\nmost of them keep their distance from me; but him they got on the turf\nbefore you could say Watch me eye, and the whole boiling of them was\non top of him in the twinkling of the same.\"\n\n\"The whole boiling of them?\" said I, as if I knew nothing of the\noccurrence, \"then there was more than Strammers to receive you?\"\n\n\"More!\" shouted Jem Bottles, \"there was forty if there was one.\"\n\nPaddy groaned again at the remembrance, and moaned out:\n\n\"The whole population of London was there, and half of it on top of me\nbefore I could wink. I thought they would strip the clothes off me,\nand they nearly did it.\"\n\n\"And have you been here alone ever since? Have you had nothing to eat\nor drink since you got back?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Jem, \"we had too much attention in the morning, and too\nlittle as the day went on. We were expecting you home, and so took the\nliberty of coming up here and waiting for you, thinking you might be\ngood enough to send out for some one who would dress our wounds; but\nluckily that's not needed now.\"\n\n\"Why is it not needed?\" I asked. \"I'll send at once.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" moaned Paddy, \"there was one good friend that did not forget\nus.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Jem, \"he seemed mighty afeerd of coming in. I suppose he\nthought it was on his advice that we went where we did, and he was\nafeerd we thought badly of him for it; but of course we had no blame\nto put on the poor little man.\"\n\n\"In Heaven's name, who are you talking of?\" said I.\n\n\"Doctor Chord,\" answered Jem. \"He put his head inside the door and\ninquired for us, and inquired specially where you were; but that, of\ncourse, we couldn't tell him. He was very much put out to find us\nmis-handled, and he sent us some tankards of beer, which are now\nempty, and we're waiting for him because he promised to come back and\nattend to our injuries.\"\n\n\"Then you didn't see Doctor Chord in the gardens?\"\n\n\"In what gardens?\" asked Bottles.\n\n\"You didn't see him among that mob that set on you?\"\n\n\"No fear,\" said Jem, \"wherever there is a scrimmage Doctor Chord will\nkeep away from it.\"\n\n\"Indeed and in that you're wrong,\" said I. \"Doctor Chord has been the\ninstigator of everything that has happened, and he stood in the\nbackground and helped to set them on.\"\n\nPaddy sat up with wild alarm in his eyes.\n\n\"Sure, master,\" says he, \"how could you see through so thick a wall as\nthat?\"\n\n\"I did not see through the wall at all; I was in the house. When you\nwent through the back door, I went through the front gate, and what I\nam telling you is true. Doctor Chord is the cause of the whole\ncommotion. That's why he was afraid to come in the room. He thought\nperhaps you had seen him, and, finding you had not, he'll be back here\nagain when everything is over. Doctor Chord is a traitor, and you may\ntake my word for that.\"\n\nPaddy rose slowly to his feet, every red hair in his head bristling\nwith scorn and indignation; but as he stood erect he put his hand to\nhis side and gave a howl as he limped a step or two over the floor.\n\n\"The black-hearted villain,\" he muttered through his teeth. \"I'll have\nhis life.\"\n\n\"You'll have nothing of the sort,\" said I, \"and we'll get some good\nattendance out of him, for he's a skillful man. When he has done his\nduty in repairing what he has inflicted upon you, then you can give\nhim a piece of your mind.\"\n\n\"I'll give him a piece of my boot; all that's left of it,\" growled Jem\nBottles, scowling.\n\n\"You may take your will of him after he has put some embrocation on\nyour bruises,\" said I; and as I was speaking there came a timorous\nlittle knock at the door.\n\n\"Come in,\" I cried, and after some hesitation the door opened, and\nthere stood little Doctor Chord with a big bottle under his arm. I was\nglad there was no supper yet on the table, for if there had been I\nmust have asked the little man to sit down with me, and that he would\ndo without a second's hesitation, so I could not rightly see him\nmaltreated who had broken a crust with me.\n\nHe paid no attention to Jem or Paddy at first, but kept his cunning\nlittle eye on me.\n\n\"And where have you been to-day, O'Ruddy?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh,\" said I, \"I accompanied these two to the door in the wall, and\nwhen they got through I heard yells fit to make a hero out of a\n<DW65>; but you know how stout the bolts are and I couldn't get to\nthem, so I had just to go out of hearing of their bellowings. On the\nway back I happened to meet an old friend of mine, Father Donovan,\nand--\"\n\nHere Paddy, forgetting his good manners, shouted out:\n\n\"Thank God there's a holy father in this hole of perdition; for I know\nI'm goin' t' die to-morrow at the latest.\"\n\n\"Stop your nonsense,\" said I. \"You'll have to hold on to life at least\na day longer; for the good father is not coming here until two days\nare past. You're more frightened than hurt, and the Doctor here has a\nlotion that will make you meet the priest as a friend and not as a\nlast counsellor.\"\n\n\"As I was saying, Doctor Chord, I met Father Donovan, and we strolled\nabout the town, so that I have only now just come in. The father is a\nstranger in London, on a pilgrimage to Rome. And sure I had to show\nhim the sights.\"\n\n\"It was a kindly action of you,\" said Doctor Chord, pulling the cork\nof the medicine-bottle. \"Get those rags off,\" he called to Paddy,\n\"and I'll rub you down as if you were the finest horse that ever\nfollowed the hounds.\"\n\nThere was a great smell of medicine in the air as he lubricated Paddy\nover the bruised places; then Jem Bottles came under his hands, and\neither he was not so much hurt as Paddy was, or he made less fuss\nabout it, for he glared at the Doctor all the time he was attending\nhim, and said nothing.\n\nIt seemed an inhospitable thing to misuse a man who had acted the good\nSamaritan so arduously as the little Doctor with three quarters of his\nbottle gone, but as he slapped the cork in it again I stepped to the\ndoor and turned the key. Paddy was scowling now and then, and groaning\nnow and again, when the cheerful Doctor said to him, as is the way\nwith physicians when they wish to encourage a patient:\n\n\"Oh, you're not hurt nearly as bad as you think you are. You'll be a\nlittle sore and stiff in the morning, that's all, and I'll leave the\nbottle with you.\"\n\n\"You've never rubbed me at all on the worst place,\" said Paddy\nangrily.\n\n\"Where was that?\" asked Doctor Chord,--and the words were hardly out\nof his mouth when Paddy hit him one in the right eye that sent him\nstaggering across the room.\n\n\"There's where I got the blow that knocked me down,\" cried Paddy.\n\nDoctor Chord threw a wild glance at the door, when Jem Bottles, with a\nlittle run and a lift of his foot, gave him one behind that caused the\nDoctor to turn a somersault.\n\n\"Take that, you thief,\" said Jem; \"and now you've something that\nneither of us got, because we kept our faces to the villains that set\non us.\"\n\nPaddy made a rush, but I cried:\n\n\"Don't touch the man when he's down.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" says Paddy, \"that's when they all fell on me.\"\n\n\"Never strike a man when he's down,\" I cried.\n\n\"Do ye mean to say we shouldn't hit a man when he's down?\" asked Jem\nBottles.\n\n\"You knew very well you shouldn't,\" I told him. \"Sure you've been in\nthe ring before now.\"\n\n\"That I have,\" shouted Bottles, pouncing on the unfortunate Doctor. He\ngrabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flung him to his feet, then\ngave him a bat on the side of the head that sent him reeling up toward\nthe ceiling again.\n\n\"That's enough, Jem,\" I cautioned him.\n\n\"I'm not only following the Doctor,\" said Jem, \"but I'm following the\nDoctor's advice. He told us to take a little gentle exercise and it\nwould allay the soreness.\"\n\n\"The exercise you're taking will not allay the soreness on the\nDoctor's part. Stop it, Jem! Now leave him alone, Paddy; he's had\nenough to remember you by, and to learn that the way of the traitor is\nthe rocky road to Dublin. Come now, Doctor, the door is open; get out\ninto the passage as quick as you can, and I hope you have another\nbottle of that excellent lotion at home.\"\n\nThe threatening attitude of both Jem and Paddy seemed to paralyse the\nlittle man with fear, and he lay on the boards glaring up at them with\nterror in his eyes.\n\n\"I'm holding the door open for you,\" said I, \"and remember I may not\nbe able to hold Paddy and Jem as easily as I hold the door; so make\nyour escape before they get into action again.\"\n\nDoctor Chord rolled himself over quickly, but, not daring to get on\nhis feet, trotted out into the passage like a big dog on his hands and\nknees; and just then a waiter, coming up with a tray and not counting\non this sudden apparition in the hallway, fell over him; and if it\nwere not for my customary agility and presence of mind in grasping the\nbroad metal server, a good part of my supper would have been on the\nfloor. The waiter luckily leaned forward when he found himself\nfalling, holding the tray high over his head, and so, seizing it, I\nsaved the situation and the supper.\n\n\"What are ye grovelling down there for, ye drunken beast?\" shouted the\nangry waiter, as he came down with a thud. \"Why don't you walk on your\ntwo feet like a Christian?\"\n\nDoctor Chord took the hint and his departure, running along the\npassage and stumbling down the stairway like a man demented. When he\ngot down into the courtyard he shook his fist at my window and swore\nhe would have the law of us; but I never saw the little man again,\nalthough Paddy and Jem were destined to meet him once more, as I shall\ntell later on.\n\nThe supper being now laid, I fell at it and I dis-remember having ever\nenjoyed a meal more in my life. I sent Paddy and Jem to their quarters\nwith food and a bottle of good wine to keep them company, and I think\nthey deserved it, for they said the lotion the Doctor had put on the\noutside of them was stinging, so they thought there should be\nsomething in the inside to counteract the inconvenience.\n\nI went to sleep the moment I touched the pillow, and dreamed I was in\nthe most umbrageous lover's walk that ever was, overhung with green\nbranches through which the sunlight flickered, and closed in with\nshrubbery. There I chased a flying nymph that always just eluded me,\nlaughing at me over her shoulder and putting her finger to her lips,\nand at last, when I caught her, it turned out to be Doctor Chord,\nwhereupon I threw him indignantly into the bushes, and then saw to my\ndismay it was the Countess. She began giving her opinion of me so\nvigorously that I awoke and found it broad daylight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\n\nAfter a comforting and sustaining breakfast I sent for Paddy and Jem,\nboth of whom came in limping.\n\n\"Are you no better this morning?\" I asked them.\n\n\"Troth, we're worse,\" said Paddy with a most dismal look on his face.\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear it,\" said I; \"but I think the trouble will wear off\nto-day if you lie snug and quiet in the inn. Here's this bottle of\nembrocation, or what is left of it, so you may take it with you and\ndivide it fairly between you, remembering that one good rub deserves\nanother, and that our chief duty on this earth is to help our fellow\nman; and as there's nothing like easy employment for making a man\nforget his tribulations, Jem will rub Paddy, and Paddy will rub Jem,\nand thus, God blessing you both, you will pass the time to your mutual\nbenefit.\"\n\n\"Yer honour,\" sniffed Jem Bottles, \"I like your own prescriptions\nbetter than Doctor Chord's. I have but small faith in the liniment;\nthe bottle of wine you gave us last night--and I wish it had been as\ndouble as it made us see--was far better for our trouble than this\nstuff.\"\n\n\"I doubt it, Jem,\" said I, \"for you're worse this morning than you\nwere last night; so I'll change the treatment and go back to Doctor\nChord's remedy, for sure the Doctor is a physician held in high esteem\nby the nobility of London. But you're welcome to a double mug of beer\nat my expense, only see that you don't take too much of that.\"\n\n\"Yer honour,\" said Jem, \"it's only when we're sober that we fall upon\naffliction. We had not a drop to drink yesterday morning, and see what\nhappened us.\"\n\n\"It would have made no differ,\" I said, \"if you had been as tipsy as\nthe Earl himself is when dinner's over. Trust in Providence, Jem, and\nrub hard with the liniment, and you'll be a new man by the morrow\nmorn.\"\n\nWith this I took my papers and the letter of introduction, and set out\nas brave as you please to find the Temple, which I thought would be a\nsort of a church, but which I found to be a most sober and respectable\nplace very difficult for a stranger to find his way about in. But at\nlast I came to the place where Mr. Josiah Brooks dispensed the law for\na consideration to ignorant spalpeens like myself, that was less\nfamiliar with the head that had a gray wig on than with cracking heads\nby help of a good shillelah that didn't know what a wig was. As it was\nearlier in the morning than Mr. Brooks's usual hour I had to sit\nkicking my heels in a dismal panelled anteroom till the great lawyer\ncame in. He was a smooth-faced serious-looking man, rather elderly,\nand he passed through the anteroom without so much as casting a look\nat me, and was followed by a melancholy man in rusty black who had\ntold me to take a chair, holding in his hand the letter Lady Mary had\nwritten. After a short time the man came out again, and, treating me\nwith more deference than when he bade me be seated, asked me kindly\nif I would step this way and Mr. Brooks would see me.\n\n\"You are Mr. O'Ruddy, I take it,\" he said in a tone which I think he\nthought was affable.\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Have you brought with you the papers referred to in this letter?\"\n\n\"I have.\"\n\nAnd with that I slammed them down on the table before him. He untied\nthe bundle and sorted out the different documents, apparently placing\nthem in their right order. After this he adjusted his glasses more to\nhis liking and glanced over the papers rapidly until he came to one\nthat was smaller than the rest, and this he read through twice very\ncarefully. Then he piled them up together at his right hand very\nneatly, for he seemed to have a habit of old maid's precision about\nhim. He removed his glasses and looked across the table at me.\n\n\"Are you the son of the O'Ruddy here mentioned?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"His eldest son?\"\n\n\"His only son.\"\n\n\"You can prove that, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Troth, it was never disputed.\"\n\n\"I mean there would be no difficulty in getting legal and documentary\nproof.\"\n\n\"I think not, for my father said after my first fight, that it might\nbe questioned whether I was my mother's son or no,--there was no doubt\nthat I was his.\"\n\nThe legal man drew down his brows at this, but made no comment as, in\ntones that betrayed little interest in the affair, he demanded:\n\n\"Why did your father not claim this property during his lifetime?\"\n\n\"Well, you see, Mr. Brooks, my father was an honest man, and he never\npretended the property was his. From what I remember of his\nconversation on the subject the Earl and him was in a tight place\nafter a battle in France, and it was thought they would both be made\nprisoners. The Earl had his deeds with him, and if he were caught the\nenemy would demand a large ransom for him, for these would show him to\nbe a man of property. So he made the estate over to my father, and my\nfather ran the risk of being captured and taken for the Earl of\nWestport. Now that I have been made happy by the acquaintance of his\nlordship, I'm thinking that if my father had fallen into the hands of\nthe enemy he might have remained there till this day without the Earl\nraising a hand to help him. Nobody in England would have disputed the\nEarl's ownership of his own place, which I understand has been in his\nfamily for hundreds of years, so they might very well have got on\nwithout the deeds, as in fact they have done. That's all I know about\nit.\"\n\n\"Then, sir,\" said Mr. Brooks, \"do you intend to contest the ownership\nof the property on the strength of these documents?\"\n\n\"I do,\" said I firmly.\n\n\"Very well. You must leave them with me for a few days until I get\nopinion upon them. I may say I have grave doubts of your succeeding in\nsuch litigation unless you can prove that your father gave reasonable\nconsideration for the property made over to him.\"\n\n\"Troth, he'd no consideration to give except his own freedom and the\nloan of a pair of breeches, and it seems that the Earl never troubled\nhis head whether he gave the first-named or not. He might have given\nhis life for all the thanks his son got from my Lord of Westport.\"\n\n\"From a rapid glance at these instruments I can see that they may be\nof great value to his lordship, but I doubt their being of any value\nat all to you; in fact you might find the tables turned upon you, and\nbe put in the position of a fraudulent claimant or a levier of\nblackmail.\"\n\n\"It's not blackmail I'm going to levy at all,\" cried I, \"but the\nwhitest of white mail. I have not the slightest intention of going\ninto the courts of law; but, to tell you the plain truth about it,\nLady Mary and me are going to get married in spite of all the Earls\nthat ever drank, or all the Countesses that ever scolded. Now this\ndear girl has a great confidence in you, and she has sent me to you to\nfind what's best to be done. I want nothing of this property at all.\nSure I've estates enough of my own in Ireland, and a good castle\nforby, save that the roof leaks a little in places; but a bundle of\nstraw will soon set that to rights, only old Patsy is so lazy through\nnot getting his money regular. Now it struck me that if I went boldly\nto Brede Castle, or whatever it is, and took possession of it, there\nwould first be the finest scrimmage any man ever saw outside of\nIreland, and after that his lordship the Earl would say to me,--\n\n\"'O'Ruddy, my boy, my limbs are sore; can't we crack a bottle instead\nof our heads over this, and make a compromise?'\n\n\"'Earl of Westport,' I'll say to him, 'a bottle will be but the\nbeginning of it. We'll sit down at a table and settle this debate in\nten minutes if you're reasonable.'\n\n\"He'll not be reasonable, of course, but you see what I have in my\nmind.\"\n\n\"Brede Place,\" said the lawyer slowly, \"is not exactly a castle, but\nit's a very strong house and might be held by a dozen determined men\nagainst an army.\"\n\n\"Then once let me get legally inside, and I'll hold it till the Earl\ngets more sense in his head than is there at the present moment.\"\n\n\"Possession,\" said Mr. Brooks, \"is nine points of the law.\"\n\n\"It is with a woman,\" said I, thinking of something else.\n\n\"It is with an estate,\" answered Josiah severely.\n\n\"True for you,\" I admitted, coming back to the point at issue, for it\nwas curious, in spite of the importance of the interview, how my mind\nkept wandering away to a locked room in the Earl of Westport's house,\nand to a shady path that ran around the edge of his garden.\n\n\"I intend to get possession of the Brede estate if I have to crack the\ncrown of every man at present upon it. But I am an Irishman, and\ntherefore a person of peace, and I wish to crack the crowns in\naccordance with the law of England, so I come to you for directions\nhow it should be done.\"\n\n\"It is not my place,\" said Brooks, looking very sour, \"to counsel a\nman to break either heads or the law. In fact it is altogether illegal\nto assault another unless you are in danger of your own life.\"\n\n\"The blessing of all the Saints be upon you,\" said I, \"yet, ever since\nI set foot in this land, coming across the boiling seas, entirely to\ndo a kindness to the Earl of Westport, I have gone about in fear of my\nlife.\"\n\n\"You have surely not been assaulted?\" demanded Mr. Brooks, raising his\neyebrows in surprise.\n\n\"Assaulted, is it? I have been set upon in every manner that is\npossible for a peace-lover to be interfered with. To tell you the\ntruth, no longer ago than yesterday morning, as quiet and decent a\nSunday as ever came down on London, my two innocent servants,\ngarrulous creatures that wouldn't hurt a fly, were lured into the high\nwalled garden of the Earl of Westport to see the flowers which both of\nthem love, and there they were pounced upon by the whole body-guard of\nmy lord the Earl, while himself and his quiet-mannered Countess were\nthere to urge them on. Doctor Chord, a little snobbish creature,\nbasking in the smiles of their noble countenances, stood by and gave\nmedical advice showing where best to hit the poor innocent\nunfortunates that had fallen into their hands.\"\n\n\"Tut, tut!\" said Josiah Brooks, his face frowning like a storm-cloud\nover the hills of Donegal. \"If such is indeed the case, an action\nwould lie--\"\n\n\"Oh, well and as far as that goes, so would Doctor Chord, and all the\nrest that was there. My poor lads lie now, bruised and sore, in the\nupper rooms of the stable at the 'Pig and Turnip.' They want no more\naction, I can tell you, nor lying either.\"\n\n\"You can prove, then,\" said the lawyer, \"that you have suffered\nviolence from the outset.\"\n\n\"Indeed and I could.\"\n\n\"Well, well, we must look into the matter. You recite a most curious\naccumulation of offences, each of which bears a serious penalty\naccording to the law of England. But there is another matter mentioned\nin Lady Mary's letter which is even more grave than any yet alluded\nto.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" I asked in surprise.\n\n\"She says that she wishes to have advanced to you, upon the security\nof these papers, five hundred golden guineas.\"\n\n\"Do you tell me that now?\" I cried with delight. \"Sure I have always\nsaid that Mary was the most sensible girl within the boundaries of\nthis realm.\"\n\n\"That may all be; but women, you see, know little of money or the\nmethods of obtaining it.\"\n\n\"You're right in that,\" I admitted. \"It's the other end of the stick\nthey hold; they know a good deal of the way of spending it.\"\n\n\"You will understand,\" went on Mr. Brooks, \"that if money is to be\nraised on the security of these documents, your rights in possessing\nthem must be severely scrutinized, while--you will pardon my saying\nso--the security of your estates in Ireland might be looked at askance\nby the money-lenders of London.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't let the estates in Ireland trouble you, for the\nmoney-lenders of Dublin have already mortgaged them a foot deep. You\ncan raise little on my estates in Ireland but the best turf you ever\nburned, and that's raised with a spade.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Josiah Brooks, gathering up the papers and tying\nthem together with a bit of red ribbon which he took out of his\ndrawer, ignoring the Irish cord that had held them through all their\nemergencies. \"Very well, I shall seek advice and let you know the\nresult.\"\n\n\"Seek advice,\" I cried. \"Sure a man of your attainments doesn't need\nto seek advice of any one. Aren't you learned in the law yourself?\"\n\n\"I must have counsel's opinion,\" said Josiah solemnly, as if he were\nspeaking of the decisions of Providence.\n\n\"Well, you astonish me, Mr. Brooks, for I thought you knew it all, and\nthat's why I came to you; but perhaps it's only your own modesty that\nmakes you reluctant to speak of your attainments, though I suppose\nwhat you really mean is that you want to take a pipe in your mouth and\na glass of good liquor at your elbow and read the papers at your\nleisure.\"\n\nMr. Josiah Brooks was a solemn man, and he did not appear to relish\nthe picture I so graphically drew of him, when in truth I was thinking\nonly of his own comfort; so I changed the subject with an alertness of\nmind which perhaps he was incapable of appreciating.\n\n\"How far from London is this estate of Brede?\" I asked, \"and how do\nyou get to it?\"\n\n\"It is fifty or sixty miles away,\" he said, \"and lies in the county of\nSussex, close to the sea, but not on it. If you wish to visit Brede\nestate,\" he went on, as if I had not been telling him I was going to\ndo that very thing in force, \"if you wish to visit Brede estate, the\nbest plan is to go to Rye and there engage a guide who will lead you\nto it.\"\n\n\"Rye,\" said I in astonishment, wondering where I had heard the name\nbefore; then, suddenly remembering, I said:\n\n\"Rye is a seaport town, is it not?\"\n\n\"It is,\" agreed Mr. Brooks.\n\n\"Rye is the spot,\" rejoined I, \"where Father Donovan will embark on\nhis pilgrimage to Rome. Sure, and I'm glad to hear that, for the good\nold man and I will travel there together, and the blessing of\nProvidence will surround me, which I hope will be helpful if the\nEarl's cut-throats bar the way, as is more than likely.\"\n\n\"Very well, Mr. O'Ruddy, as you are doubtless impatient to know the\nresult, you may call upon me to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock, and\nI may be in a position to give you more information than I can offer\nat present.\"\n\nI took that as a dismissal, and, getting up, shook him warmly by the\nhand, although his arm was as stiff as a pump handle, and he seemed to\ntake little pleasure in the farewell. And so I left the Temple, that\nwas as lonely as the road between Innishannon and the sea, and trudged\nout into Fleet Street, which was as lively as Skibbereen Fair. I was\nso overjoyed to find that my journey lay in the same direction as\nFather Donovan's that I tramped on westward till after some trouble I\nfound the priest's house in which he was stopping, to tell the good\nfather that I would go part of the way to Rome with him. He was indeed\ndelighted to see me, and introduced me to his host, Father Kilnane,\nnearly as fine a man and as good a priest as Father Donovan himself.\n\nWe had dinner there all together at mid-day, and I invited Father\nDonovan to come out and see the town with me, which he did. The\npeaceful father clung to my arm in a kind of terror at what he was\nwitnessing, for he was as innocent of the ways of a big town as if he\nhad been a gossoon from a hedge-school in Ireland. Yet he was mightily\ninterested in all he saw, and asked me many thousand questions that\nday, and if I did not know the correct answer to them, it made no\ndiffer to Father Donovan, for he did not know the answer himself and\ntook any explanation as if it was as true as the gospels he studied\nand preached.\n\nDaylight was gone before we got back to the house he lodged in, and\nnothing would do but I must come in and have a bit of supper, although\nI told him that supper would be waiting for me at the \"Pig and\nTurnip.\" It had been agreed between us that we would travel together\nas far as Rye, and that there I should see him off on his tempestuous\nvoyage to Dunkirk or Calais, as the case might be. The old man was\nmightily delighted to find that our ways lay together through the\nsouth of England. He was pleased to hear that I had determined on my\nrights through the courts of law, with no more sword-playing and\nviolence, which, to tell the truth, until it reached its height, the\nold man was always against; although, when a quarrel came to its\nutmost interesting point, I have seen Father Donovan fidget in his\ncassock, and his eyes sparkle with the glow of battle, although up\ntill then he had done his best to prevent the conflict.\n\nIt was getting late when I neared the \"Pig and Turnip,\" and there was\na good deal of turmoil in the streets. I saw one or two pretty\ndebates, but, remembering my new resolution to abide by law and order,\nI came safely past them and turned up the less-frequented street that\nheld my inn, when at the corner, under the big lamp, a young man with\nsomething of a swagger about him, in spite of the meanness of his\ndress, came out from the shadow of the wall and looked me hard in the\nface.\n\n\"Could you direct me, sir, to a hostelry they call the 'Pig and\nTurnip'?\" he asked with great civility.\n\n\"If you will come with me,\" said I, \"I'll bring you to the place\nitself, for that's where I'm stopping.\"\n\n\"Is it possible,\" he said, \"that I have the honour of addressing The\nO'Ruddy?\"\n\n\"That great privilege is yours,\" said I, coming to a standstill in the\nmiddle of the street, as I saw the young man had his sword drawn and\npressed close against his side to allay suspicion. I forgot all about\nlaw and order, and had my own blade free of the scabbard on the\ninstant; but the young man spoke smoothly and made no motion of\nattack, which was very wise of him.\n\n\"Mr. O'Ruddy,\" he says, \"we are both men of the world and sensible men\nand men of peace. Where two gentlemen, one down on his luck and the\nother in prosperity, have a private matter to discuss between them, I\nthink this discussion should take place quietly and in even tones of\nvoice.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said I, giving my sword-hand a little shake, so that the weapon\nsettled down into its place, \"Sir, you express my sentiments exactly,\nand as you are a stranger to me perhaps you will be good enough to\nannounce the subject that concerns us.\"\n\n\"I may say at the outset,\" he remarked almost in a whisper, so polite\nhe was, \"that I have eight good swordsmen at my back, who are not\nvisible until I give the signal; therefore you see, sir, that your\nchances are of the slightest if I should be compelled to call upon\nthem. I know the fame of The O'Ruddy as a swordsman, and you may take\nit as a compliment, sir, that I should hesitate to meet you alone. So\nmuch for saving my own skin, but I am a kindly man and would like to\nsave your skin as well. Therefore if you will be kind enough to hand\nto me the papers which you carry in your pocket, you will put me under\nstrong obligations, and at the same time sleep peaceably to-night at\nthe 'Pig and Turnip' instead of here in the gutter, to be picked up by\nthe watch, for I can assure you, sir, as a man that knows the town,\nthe watch will not be here to save you whatever outcry you may make.\"\n\n\"I am obliged to you, sir, for your discourse and your warning, to\nboth of which I have paid strict attention; and in the interests of\nthat peace which we are each of us so loath to break I may announce to\nyou that the papers you speak of are not in my possession.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, sir, but they must be; for we have searched your room\nthoroughly, and we have also searched your servants.\"\n\n\"A thief of the night,\" cried I with mighty indignation, \"may easily\nsearch an honest man's room; and his poor servants, beaten and bruised\nby your master's orders, would fall easy victims to the strength and\nnumbers of your ruffians; but you will find it a difficult matter to\nsearch me.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" he replied, bowing as polite as Palermo, \"I grieve to state\nthat you are in error. The searching of both your servants and your\nrooms was accomplished, not through the employment of force, but by\nthe power of money. Your servants insisted they had nothing on their\npersons but liniment, and they accepted one gold piece each to allow\nme to verify their statements. Another gold piece gave me, for a time,\nthe freedom of your room. If you have not the papers upon you, then\nthere is no harm in allowing me to run my hand over your clothes,\nbecause the package is a bulky one and I will speedily corroborate\nyour statement.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said I, not to be outdone in courtesy by this gentleman of the\ngutter, \"I will tell you truthfully that I have nothing on me but my\nsword, and to that you are quite welcome if you leave to me the choice\nof which end I hold and which I present to you,\"--and with that I\nsprang with my back to the wall, under the lamp, leaving myself\npartially in shadow, but having spread in front of me a semicircle of\nlight which any assailant attacking must cross, or indeed remain in\nits effulgence if he would keep free of the point of my blade.\n\n\"It grieves me to find that you are a man of violence,\" replied the\nscoundrel in the mildest of tones, \"and you will bear witness\nafterward that I did my best to keep you from harm.\"\n\n\"I freely acknowledge it now,\" said I. \"Bring on your men.\"\n\nTo tell the truth, I had no belief at all in the existence of his force,\nand thought he was playing a game on me, hoping to take me unawares; for\nif the man knew anything at all he must have known what a swordsman I\nwas, and it was no charge of cowardice against him that he was loath to\ncome to close quarters with me. I speedily discovered, however, that all\nhe said was true; for he gave a low whistle, and out of the darkness\ninstantly sprang seven or eight as malicious-looking villains as a man\nwould care to see, each one with a sword in his hand.\n\nAs many erroneous and exaggerated accounts of this encounter have been\ngiven in the coffee-houses, and even in the public prints, it is well\nthat I should now tell the truth about it. No man that has the hang of\nhis blade need fear the onset of a mob except in one case, and that is\nthis,--if the whole eight set upon me at once with every sword\nextended, there was a chance that though I might, by great expertness,\ndisable half of them, the other half would run me through. But it\nshould never be forgotten that these men were fighting for money, and\nI was fighting for my life, and that makes all the difference in the\nworld. Each man makes a show of attack, but he holds off, hoping that\none of the others will dare to thrust. This is fatal to success, but\nnot necessarily fatal to their intended victim. An active man with a\nwall at his back can generally account for all that comes in front of\nhim if he is deeply in earnest and has not too much liquor in him. It\nastonished London that I was able to defeat eight men, each one of\nwhom was armed as efficiently as myself; but, as my father used to\nsay, if you are not wholly taken up with the determination to have a\nman's life, you may pink him in what spot you choose if you give a\nlittle thought to the matter. The great object is the disarming of the\nenemy. Now, if you give a man a jab in the knuckles, or if you run\nyour blade delicately up his arm from the wrist to the elbow, this is\nwhat happens. The man involuntarily yells out, and as involuntarily\ndrops his sword on the flags. If you prick a man on the knuckle-bone,\nhe will leave go his sword before he has time to think, it being an\naction entirely unconscious on his part, just like winking your eye or\ndrawing your breath; yet I have seen men run through the body who kept\nsword in hand and made a beautiful lunge with it even as they\nstaggered across the threshold of death's door.\n\nNow I had no desire for any of these men's lives, but I determined to\nhave their swords. I glittered my own shining blade before their eyes,\nflourishing a semicircle with it, and making it dart here and there\nlike the tongue of an angry snake; and instantly every man in front of\nme felt uncomfortable, not knowing where the snake was going to sting,\nand then, as I said before, they were fighting for money and not for\nhonour. When I had dazzled their eyes for a moment with this\nsword-play and bewildered their dull brains, I suddenly changed my\ntactics and thrust forward quicker than you can count one, two, three,\nfour, five, six, seven, eight,--and each man was holding a bleeding\nfist to his mouth, while the swords clattered on the cobbles like hail\non the copper roof of a cathedral. It was the most beautiful and\ncomplete thing I ever saw. I then swept the unarmed men back a pace or\ntwo with a flirt of my weapon, and walked up the pavement, kicking the\nswords together till they lay in a heap at my feet. The chief ruffian\nstood there dazed, with his sword still in his hand, for he had\nstepped outside the circle, he acting as captain, and depending on the\nmen to do the work.\n\n\"Drop that,\" I shouted, turning on him, and he flung his sword in the\nstreet as if it was red hot.\n\n\"Sir,\" said I to him, \"a sword in your hand is merely an\ninconvenience to you; see if you don't look better with an armful of\nthem. Pick up these nine blades in a bundle and walk on before me to\nthe 'Pig and Turnip.' When we come into the courtyard of that tavern,\nyou are to turn round and make me the lowest bow you can without\nrubbing your nose against the pavement. Then you will say, as\ngracefully as the words can be uttered:\n\n\"'Mr. O'Ruddy,' you say, 'these swords are yours by right of conquest.\nYou have defeated nine armed men to-night in less than as many\nminutes, so I present you with the spoil.' Then you will bow to the\npeople assembled in the courtyard,--for there is aways a mob of them\nthere, late and early,--and you will make another low obeisance to me.\nIf you do all this acceptably to my sense of politeness, I will let\nyou go unmolested; but if you do otherwise, I will split your gullet\nfor you.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said the captain, \"I accept your terms.\"\n\nWith that he stooped and picked up the bundle of weapons, marching on\nstolidly before me till he came to the \"Pig and Turnip.\" All the rest\nhad disappeared in the darkness, and had gone to their dens, very\nlikely to nurse sore knuckles and regret the loss of good stout\nblades.\n\nOur coming to the tavern caused a commotion, as you may well imagine;\nand although I don't make too much of the encounter, yet it is my\nbelief that such an incident never happened in London before. The\ncaptain carried out his part of the presentation with an air of\ndeference and a choice of good language that charmed me; then he\nbacked out under the archway to the street, bowing six or seven times\nas he went. I had never any fault to find with the man's manner. Paddy\nand Jem, now seemingly quite recovered from their misusage of Sunday,\nstood back of the group with eyes and mouths open, gazing upon me with\nan admiration I could not but appreciate.\n\n\"Come out of that,\" said I, \"and take this cutlery up to my room,\" and\nthey did.\n\nI sat down at the table and wrote a letter to Mr. Brooks.\n\n\"Sir,\" said I in it, \"I don't know whether I am plaintiff or defendant\nin the suit that's coming on, but whichever it is here's a bundle of\nlegal evidence for your use. You mentioned the word 'violence' to me\nwhen I had the pleasure of calling on you. This night I was set upon\nby nine ruffians, who demanded from me the papers now in your\npossession. I took their knives from them, so they would not hurt\nthemselves or other people, and I send you these knives to be filed\nfor reference.\"\n\nI tied up the swords in two bundles, and in the morning sent Paddy and\nJem off with them and the letter to the Temple, which caused great\ncommotion in that peaceable quarter of the city, and sent forth the\nrumour that all the lawyers were to be at each other's throats next\nday.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\n\nIn the afternoon I went slowly to the Temple, thinking a good deal on\nthe way. It's truth I tell, that in spite of the victory of the night\nbefore I walked to the Temple rather downhearted. Whether Josiah\nBrooks was an attorney, or a barrister, or a solicitor, or a plain\nlawyer, I don't know to this day, and I never could get my mind to\ngrasp the distinction that lies between those names in that trade; but\nwhichever it was it seemed to me he was a cold, unenthusiastic man,\nand that he thought very little indeed of my game. There is small\npleasure in litigation in England as compared with the delight of the\nlaw in the old Ark. If I had gone to see a lawyer in Dublin or Cork he\nwould have been wild with excitement before I had got half through my\nstory. He would have slapped me on the back and shook me by the hand,\nand cried \"Whurroo\" at the prospect of a contest. My quarrel would\nhave been his before I had been ten minutes in his presence, and he\nwould have entered into the spirit of the fight as if he were the\nprincipal in it instead of merely acting for him; but in this gloomy\ncountry of England, where they engage upon a lawsuit, not with\ndelight, but as if they were preparing for a funeral; there is no\nenjoyment in the courts at all at all. I wished I could transfer the\ncase to the old turf, where there is more joy in being defeated than\nthere is in winning in England; for I have seen the opposing lawyers\nrise from the most gentlemanly and elegant language you ever heard to\na heated debate; then fling books at each other, and finally clench,\nwhile the judge stood up and saw fair play. But this man Brooks was so\ncalm and collected and uninterested that he fairly discouraged me, and\nI saw that I was going to get neither the money I needed nor the\nsupport I expected from him.\n\nAs I went up his dark stairway in the Temple and came to the passage\nthat led to the outer room, I saw standing in a corner the two bundles\nof swords I had sent him, as if he had cast them out, which indeed he\nhad done. After some delay in the outer room, the melancholy man in\nrusty black asked me, would I go in, and there sat Josiah Brooks at\nhis table as if he had never left it since I took my departure the day\nbefore. He looked across at me with a scrutiny which seemed to be\nmingled with dislike and disapproval.\n\n\"Mr. O'Ruddy,\" he said, quiet-like, \"it is not customary to send to a\nlaw office a number of swords, which are entirely out of place in such\nrooms. They have been counted and are found to number nine. I shall be\nobliged if you sign this receipt for them, accept delivery of the\nsame, and remove them from the premises at your earliest convenience.\"\n\nSo I signed the receipt without a word and handed it back to him. Then\nI said,--\n\n\"I will send my servant for the swords as soon as I return to the\ninn.\"\n\nHe inclined his head the merest trifle, drew some papers toward him,\nand adjusted his glasses.\n\n\"It is my duty to tell you, Mr. O'Ruddy, that if you go into the\ncourts with this case you will assuredly be defeated, and the costs\nwill follow. There is also a possibility that when the civil\nproceedings are determined a criminal action against yourself may\nensue.\"\n\n\"I told you, sir,\" said I, with my heart sinking, \"I had no intention\nof troubling the courts at all at all. In the land I come from we are\nmore inclined to settle a case with a good stout blackthorn than with\nthe aid of a lawyer's wig. These papers say in black and white that I\nam the owner of Brede estate, and I intend to take possession of it.\"\n\n\"It is only right to add,\" continued Brooks, with that great air of\ncalm I found so exasperating, \"it is only right to add that you are in\na position to cause great annoyance to the Earl of Westport. You can\nat least cast doubt on his title to the estate; and he stands this\njeopardy, that if contrary to opinion your cause should prove\nsuccessful,--and we must never forget that the law is very\nuncertain,--the Earl would have to account for the moneys he has drawn\nfrom the estate, which would run into many thousands of pounds, and,\ntogether with the loss of the property, would confront his lordship\nwith a most serious situation. Your case, therefore, though weak from\na strictly legal point of view, is exceptionally strong as a basis for\ncompromise.\"\n\nThese words cheered me more than I can say, and it is an extraordinary\nfact that his frozen, even tone, and his lack of all interest in the\nproceedings had an elevating effect upon my spirits which I could not\nhave believed possible.\n\n\"As it is a compromise that I'm after,\" said I, \"what better case can\nwe want?\"\n\n\"Quite so,\" he resumed; \"but as there is no encouragement in the\nstrictly legal aspect of the plea, you will understand that no\nmoney-lender in London will advance a farthing on such unstable\nsecurity. Even though I am acting in your interests, I could not take\nthe responsibility of advising any capitalist to advance money on such\nuncertain tenure.\"\n\nThis threw me into the depths again; for, although I never care to\nmeet trouble half way, I could not conceal from myself the fact that\nmy bill at the \"Pig and Turnip\" had already reached proportions which\nleft me no alternative but to slip quietly away in liquidation of the\naccount. This was a thing I never liked to do; and when I am compelled\nto make that settlement I always take note of the amount, so that I\nmay pay it if I am ever that way again and have more money than I need\nat the moment. Even if I succeeded in getting away from the inn, what\ncould I do at Brede with no money at all?--for in that part of the\ncountry they would certainly look upon the Earl of Westport as the\nreal owner of the property, and on me as a mere interloper; and if I\ncould not get money on the documents in London, there was little\nchance of getting credit even for food at Brede.\n\n\"It is rather a blue look-out then,\" said I as cheerfully as I could.\n\n\"From a legal standpoint it is,\" concurred Mr. Brooks, as unconcerned\nas if his own payment did not depend on my raising the wind with these\npapers. \"However, I have been instructed by a person who need not be\nnamed, who has indeed stipulated that no name shall be mentioned, to\nadvance you the sum of five hundred guineas, which I have here in my\ndrawer, and which I will now proceed to count out to you if you, in\nthe mean time, will sign this receipt, which acquits me of all\nresponsibility and certifies that I have handed the money over to you\nwithout rebate or reduction.\"\n\nAnd with that the man pulled open a drawer and began to count out the\nglittering gold.\n\nI sprang to my feet and brought my fist down on the table with a\nthump. \"Now, by the Great Book of Kells, what do you mean by chopping\nand changing like a rudderless lugger in a ten-knot breeze? If the\nexpedition is possible, and you had the money in your drawer all the\ntime, why couldn't you have spoken it out like a man, without raising\nme to the roof and dropping me into the cellar in the way you've\ndone?\"\n\nThe man looked unruffled across the table at me. He pushed a paper a\nlittle farther from him, and said without any trace of emotion:\n\n\"Will you sign that receipt at the bottom, if you please?\"\n\nI sat down and signed it, but I would rather have jabbed a pen between\nhis close-set lips to give him a taste of his own ink. Then I sat\nquiet and watched him count the gold, placing it all in neat little\npillars before him. When it was finished, he said:\n\n\"Will you check the amount?\"\n\n\"Is that gold mine?\" I asked him.\n\n\"It is,\" he replied.\n\nSo I rose up without more ado and shovelled it into my pockets, and\nhe put the receipt into the drawer after reading it over carefully,\nand arched his eyebrows without saying anything when he saw me pocket\nthe coins uncounted.\n\n\"I wish you good afternoon,\" said I.\n\n\"I have to detain you one moment longer,\" he replied. \"I have it on\nthe most trustworthy information that the Earl of Westport is already\naware of your intention to proceed to the country estate alleged to be\nowned by him. Your outgoings and incomings are watched, and I have to\ninform you that unless you proceed to Rye with extreme caution there\nis likelihood that you may be waylaid, and perchance violence offered\nto you.\"\n\n\"In that case I will reap a few more swords; but you need not fear, I\nshall not trouble you with them.\"\n\n\"They are out of place in a solicitor's chamber,\" he murmured gently.\n\"Is there anything further I can do for you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"there is one thing more. I would be obliged if you\ncould make me a bundle of legal-looking papers that are of no further\nuse to you: a sheet of that parchment, and some of the blue stuff like\nwhat I carried. The Earl seems determined to have a packet of papers\nfrom me, and I would like to oblige him, as he's going to be my\nfather-in-law, although he doesn't know it. I'd like some writing on\nthese papers,--Latin for preference.\"\n\nJosiah Brooks thought steadily for a few moments, then he called out\nand the melancholy rusty man came in. He took a few instructions and\nwent out again. After a long time he entered once more and placed on\nthe table a packet I would have sworn was my own. This the lawyer\nhanded to me without a word, and the rusty man held open the door for\nme. So, with the bogus papers in my pocket, not to mention the genuine\ngold, I took my leave of Josiah and the Temple.\n\nAs soon as I was outside I saw at once that there was no time to be\nlost. If the Earl had guessed my intention, as was hinted, what would\nhe do? Whenever I wish to answer a question like that to myself, I\nthink what would I do if I were in the position of the other man. Now\nwhat I would have done, was this, if I were the Earl of Westport. I\nwould send down to Brede all the ruffians at my disposal and garrison\nthe house with them; and if the Earl did this, I would be on the\noutside, and he on the inside with advantage over me accordingly. Most\nmen fight better behind stone walls than out in the open; and,\nbesides, a few men can garrison a barracks that five hundred cannot\ntake by assault. However, as it turned out, I was crediting the Earl\nwith brains equal to my own, which in truth neither he nor any of his\nfollowers had below their bonnets. He trusted to intercepting me on\nthe highway, just as if he hadn't already failed in that trick. But it\ntakes a score of failures to convince an Englishman that he is on the\nwrong track altogether, while an Irishman has so many plans in his\nhead that there's never time to try one of them twice in succession.\nBut if I was wrong about the Earl, I was right about his daughter,\nwhen I suspected that she gave the lawyer the information about the\nEarl's knowledge of my plans, and I was also right when I credited the\ndear girl with drawing on her own funds to give me the golden\nguineas,--\"and may each one of them,\" said I to myself, \"prove a\ngolden blessing on her head.\"\n\nAt any rate, there was no time to be lost, so I made straight to\nFather Donovan and asked him would he be ready to begin the journey to\nRye after an early breakfast with me at the \"Pig and Turnip.\"\n\nYou never saw a man in your life so delighted at the prospect of\nleaving London as was Father Donovan, and indeed I was glad to get\naway from the place myself. The good father said the big town confused\nhim; and, although he was glad to have seen it, he was more happy\nstill to get out of it and breathe a breath of fresh country air once\nmore. So it was arranged that he would come to the \"Pig and Turnip\"\nnext morning between six and seven o'clock. I then turned back to the\nshop of a tailor who for a long time had had two suits of clothing\nwaiting for me that were entirely elegant in their design. The tailor,\nhowever, would not take the word of a gentleman that payment would\nfollow the delivery of the costumes; for a little later would be more\nconvenient for me to give him the money, and this made me doubt, in\nspite of the buttons and gold lace, if the garments were quite the\nfashionable cut, because a tailor who demands money on the spot shows\nhe is entirely unaccustomed to deal with the upper classes; but I\nneeded these clothes, as the two suits I possessed were getting a\nlittle the worse for wear.\n\nWhen I went into his shop he was inclined to be haughty, thinking I\nhad come to ask credit again; but when he saw the glitter of the money\nthe man became obsequious to a degree that I never had witnessed\nbefore. I was affable to him, but distant; and when he offered me\neverything that was in his shop, I told him I would take time and\nconsider it. He sent a servant following behind me with the goods, and\nso I came once more to the \"Pig and Turnip,\" where I ordered Paddy and\nJem to go to the Temple and fetch away the swords.\n\nThere seemed to be a pleased surprise on the face of the landlord when\nI called for my bill and paid it without question, chiding him for his\ndelay in not sending it before. I engaged a horse for Father Donovan\nto ride on the following morning, and ordered breakfast ready at six\no'clock, although I gave my commands that I was to be wakened an hour\nbefore daylight.\n\nI spent the rest of the day in my room with Paddy and Jem, trying to\nknock into their heads some little notion of geography, wishing to\nmake certain that they would sooner or later arrive in Rye without\nstumbling in on Belfast while on the way. My own knowledge of the face\nof the country was but meagre, so the landlord brought in a rough map\nof the south of England, and I cautioned the lads to get across London\nBridge and make for the town of Maidstone, from where they could go\ndue south, and if they happened on the coast they were to inquire for\nRye and stay there until further orders. Jem Bottles, who thought he\nhad brains in his head, said he would not be so open in telling every\none we were going to Rye if he was me, because he was sure the Earl\nhad people on the look-out, and money was plenty with his lordship. If\nevery one knew when we were taking our departure, there would be no\ndifficulty in following us and overcoming us on some lonely part of\nthe road.\n\n\"Jem,\" said I, \"that's all very true; but when they attacked us before\nthey got very little change for their trouble; and if you are afraid\nof some slight commotion on the road, then you can stay back here in\nLondon.\"\n\n\"I am not afraid at all,\" said Jem, \"but if there's anything\nparticular you would like to see in Rye, there's no use in blocking\nthe road to it.\"\n\n\"Sure, Jem, then be quiet about it.\"\n\nTurning to the landlord, who was standing by, I said to him:\n\n\"My men fear we are going to be intercepted, so I think if I began the\njourney some time before daylight, and they followed me soon after, I\nmight slip away unnoticed.\"\n\nThe landlord scratched his head and crinkled up his brow, for to think\nwas unusual with him.\n\n\"I don't see,\" he said at last, \"what you have to gain by going\nseparately. It seems to me it would be better to go in a body, and\nthen, if you are set on, there are three instead of one.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said I, \"I'll take your caution into consideration, and\nact upon it or not as seems best when the time comes.\"\n\nI told Paddy and Jem to sleep that night on the floor of my own room,\nand cautioned them to wake me an hour before daylight at the latest.\nJem slept through until I had to kick him into consciousness; but poor\nPaddy, on the other hand, wakened me four times during the night,--the\nfirst time two hours after I had gone to sleep, and I could have\ncudgelled him for his pains, only I knew the lad's intentions were\ngood. The last time I could stand it no longer, although it was still\nearlier than the hour I had said, so I got up and dressed myself in\none of my new suits.\n\n\"And here, Paddy,\" said I, \"you will wear the costume I had on\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"I couldn't think of it,\" said Paddy, drawing back from the grandeur.\n\n\"You are not to think, you impudent gossoon, but to do as I tell you.\nPut them on, and be as quick as you can.\"\n\n\"Troth, yer honour,\" said Paddy, still shrinking from them, \"they're\ntoo grand for the likes o' me, an' few will be able to tell the differ\natween us.\"\n\n\"You conceited spalpeen, do ye think there's no difference between us\nbut what the clothes make? Get into them. I intend certain other\npeople to take you for me in the dark, and I can warrant you these\nclothes, grand as you think them, will be very soundly beaten before\nthis day is done with.\"\n\n\"Ochone, ochone,\" moaned Paddy, \"am I to get another beating already,\nand some of the bruises not yet off my flesh?\"\n\n\"Put on the coat now, and don't do so much talking. Sure it's all in\nthe day's work, and I promise you before long you'll have your revenge\non them.\"\n\n\"It's not revenge I'm after,\" wailed Paddy, \"but a whole skin.\"\n\n\"Now you're transformed into a gentleman,\" said I, \"and many a lad\nwould take a beating for the privilege of wearing such gorgeous\nraiment. Here is a packet of paper that you're to keep in your pocket\ntill it's taken away from you. And now I'll help you to saddle the\nhorse, and once you're across London Bridge you'll likely come upon\nMaidstone and Rye some time in your life, for you can't get back over\nthe river again except by the same bridge, so you'll know it when you\ncome to it.\"\n\nAnd so I mounted Paddy in the courtyard; the sleepy watchman undid the\nbolts in the big gate in the archway; and my man rode out into the\ndarkness in no very cheerful humour over his journey. I came back and\ntook forty winks more in the arm-chair, then, with much difficulty, I\nroused Jem Bottles. He also, without a murmur, but with much pride in\nhis dressing, put on the second of my discarded suits, and seemed to\nfancy himself mightily in his new gear. With plenty of cord I tied and\nretied the two bundles of swords and placed them across the horse in\nfront of his saddle, and it was not yet daylight when Jem jingled out\ninto the street like a moving armoury. Two huge pistols were in his\nholsters, loaded and ready to his hand.\n\n\"By the Saints,\" said Jem proudly, \"the man that meddles with me shall\nget hot lead or cold steel for his breakfast,\" and with that he went\noff at a canter, waking the echoes with the clash of his horse's shoes\non the cobble-stones.\n\nI went up stairs again and threw myself down on the bed and slept\npeacefully with no Paddy to rouse me until half-past-six, when a\ndrawer knocked at the door and said that a priest that was downstairs\nwould be glad to see me. I had him up in a jiffy, and a hot breakfast\nfollowing fast on his heels, which we both laid in in quantities, for\nneither of us knew where our next meal was to be. However, the good\nfather paid little thought to the future as long as the present meal\nwas well served and satisfactory. He had no more idea than a spring\nlamb how we were to get to Rye, but thought perhaps a coach set out\nat that hour in the morning. When I told him I had a horse saddled and\nwaiting for him, he was pleased, for Father Donovan could scamper\nacross the country in Ireland with the best of them. So far as I could\njudge, the coast was clear, for every one we met between the \"Pig and\nTurnip\" and the bridge seemed honest folk intent on getting early to\ntheir work. It was ten minutes past seven when we clattered across the\nbridge and set our faces toward Rye.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\n\nLooking back over my long life I scarcely remember any day more\npleasant than that I spent riding side by side with Father Donovan\nfrom London to Rye. The fine old man had a fund of entertaining\nstories, and although I had heard them over and over again there was\nalways something fresh in his way of telling them, and now and then I\nrecognized a narrative that had once made two separate stories, but\nwhich had now become welded into one in the old man's mind. There was\nnever anything gloomy in these anecdotes, for they always showed the\ncheerful side of life and gave courage to the man that wanted to do\nright; for in all of Father Donovan's stories the virtuous were always\nmade happy. We talked of our friends and acquaintances, and if he ever\nknew anything bad about a man he never told it; while if I mentioned\nit he could always say something good of him to balance it, or at\nleast to mitigate the opinion that might be formed of it. He was\nalways doing some man a good turn or speaking a comforting word for\nhim.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he said, \"I spent most of the day yesterday writing letters\nto those that could read them in our part of Ireland, setting right\nthe rumours that had come back to us, which said you were fighting\nduels and engaged in brawls, but the strangest story of all was the\none about your forming a friendship with a highwayman, who, they said,\ncommitted robberies on the road and divided the spoil with you, and\nhere I find you without a servant at all at all, leading a quiet,\nrespectable life at a quiet, respectable inn. It's not even in a\ntavern that I first come across you, but kneeling devoutly, saying a\nprayer in your mother church. I see you leaving your inn having paid\nyour bill like a gentleman, when they said you took night-leave of\nmost of the hostelries in England. Dear me, and there was the landlord\nbowing to you as if you were a prince, and all his servants in a row\nwith the utmost respect for you. Ah, O'Ruddy, it's men like you that\ngives the good name to Ireland, and causes her to be looked up to by\nall the people of the world.\"\n\nI gave Father Donovan heartfelt thanks for his kindness, and prayed to\nmyself that we would not come upon Jem Bottles on the road, and that\nwe would be left unmolested on our journey until we saw the sea-coast.\nOf course, if we were set upon, it would not be my fault, and it's not\nlikely he would blame me; but if we came on Bottles, he was inclined\nto be very easy in conversation, and, in spite of my warnings, would\nlet slip words that would shock the old priest. But when a day begins\ntoo auspiciously, its luck is apt to change before the sun sets, as it\nwas with me.\n\nIt was nearing mid-day, and we were beginning to feel a trifle hungry,\nyet were in a part of the country that gave little promise of an inn,\nfor it was a lonely place with heath on each side of the road, and,\nfurther on, a bit of forest. About half-way through this wooded plain\nan astonishing sight met my eyes. Two saddled horses were tied to a\ntree, and by the side of the road appeared to be a heap of nine or\nten saddles, on one of which a man was sitting, comfortably eating a\nbit of bread, while on another a second man, whose head was tied up in\na white cloth, lay back in a recumbent position, held upright by the\nsaddlery. Coming closer, I was disturbed to see that the man eating\nwas Jem Bottles, while the other was undoubtedly poor Paddy, although\nhis clothes were so badly torn that I had difficulty in recognizing\nthem as my own. As we drew up Jem stood and saluted with his mouth\nfull, while Paddy groaned deeply. I was off my horse at once and ran\nto Paddy.\n\n\"Where are ye hurted?\" said I.\n\n\"I'm killed,\" said Paddy.\n\n\"I've done the best I could for him,\" put in Jem Bottles. \"He'll be\nall right in a day or two.\"\n\n\"I'll not,\" said Paddy, with more strength than one would suspect;\n\"I'll not be all right in a day or two, nor in a week or two, nor in a\nmonth or two, nor in a year or two; I'm killed entirely.\"\n\n\"You're not,\" said Bottles. \"When I was on the highway I never minded\na little clip like that.\"\n\n\"Hush, Bottles,\" said I, \"you talk altogether too much. Paddy,\" cried\nI, \"get on your feet, and show yer manners here to Father Donovan.\"\n\nPaddy got on his feet with a celerity which his former attitude would\nnot have allowed one to believe possible.\n\n\"My poor boy!\" said the kindly priest; \"who has misused you?\" and he\nput his two hands on the sore head.\n\n\"About two miles from here,\" said Paddy, \"I was set on by a score of\nmen--\"\n\n\"There was only nine of them,\" interrupted Jem, \"count the saddles.\"\n\n\"They came on me so sudden and unexpected that I was off my horse\nbefore I knew there was a man within reach. They had me down before I\ncould say my prayers, and cudgelled me sorely, tearing my clothes, and\nthey took away the packet of papers you gave me, sir. Sure I tried to\nguard it with my life, an' they nearly took both.\"\n\n\"I am certain you did your best, Paddy,\" said I; \"and it's sorry I am\nto see you injured.\"\n\n\"Then they rode away, leaving me, sore wounded, sitting on the side of\nthe road,\" continued Paddy. \"After a while I come to myself, for I\nseemed dazed; and, my horse peacefully grazing beside me, I managed to\nget on its back, and turned toward London in the hope of meeting you;\nbut instead of meeting you, sir, I came upon Jem with his pile of\nsaddles, and he bound up my head and did what he could to save me,\nalthough I've a great thirst on me at this moment that's difficult to\ndeal with.\"\n\n\"There's a ditch by the side of the road,\" said the priest.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Paddy sadly; \"I tried some of that.\"\n\nI went to my pack on the horse and took out a bottle and a leather\ncup. Paddy drank and smacked his lips with an ecstasy that gave us\nhope for his ultimate recovery. Jem Bottles laughed, and to close his\nmouth I gave him also some of the wine.\n\n\"I hope,\" said Father Donovan with indignation, \"that the miscreant\nwho misused you will be caught and punished.\"\n\n\"I punished them,\" said Jem, drawing the back of his hand across his\nmouth.\n\n\"We'll hear about it another time,\" said I, having my suspicions.\n\n\"Let the good man go on,\" begged Father Donovan, who is not without\nhuman curiosity.\n\nJem needed no second bidding.\n\n\"Your Reverence,\" he said, \"I was jogging quietly on as a decent man\nshould, when, coming to the edge of this forest, I saw approach me a\nparty of horsemen, who were very hilarious and laughed loudly. If you\nlook up and down the road and see how lonely it is, and then look at\nthe wood, with no hedge between it and the highway, you'll notice the\nplace was designed by Providence for such a meeting.\"\n\n\"Sure the public road is designed as a place for travellers to meet,\"\nsaid the father, somewhat bewildered by the harangue.\n\n\"Your Reverence is right, but this place could not afford better\naccommodation if I had made it myself. I struck into the wood before\nthey saw me, tore the black lining from my hat, punched two holes in\nit for the eyes, and tied it around my forehead, letting it hang down\nover my face; then I primed my two pistols and waited for the\ngentlemen. When they were nearly opposite, a touch of the heels to my\nhorse's flank was enough, and out he sprang into the middle of the\nroad.\n\n\"'Stand and deliver!' I cried, pointing the pistols at them, the words\ncoming as glibly to my lips as if I had said them no later ago than\nyesterday. 'Stand and deliver, ye--'\" and here Jem glibly rattled out\na stream of profane appellatives which was disgraceful to listen to.\n\n\"Tut, tut, Jem,\" I said, \"you shouldn't speak like that. Any way we'll\nhear the rest another time.\"\n\n\"That's what I called them, sir,\" said Jem, turning to me with\nsurprise, \"you surely would not have me tell an untruth.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have you tell anything. Keep quiet. Father Donovan is not\ninterested in your recital.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, O'Ruddy,\" said Father Donovan, looking at me\nreproachfully; \"but I am very much interested in this man's\nnarrative.\"\n\n\"As any good man should be,\" continued Jem, \"for these were arrant\nscoundrels; one of them I knew, and his name is Doctor Chord. He fell\noff his horse on the roadway at once and pleaded for mercy. I ordered\nthe others instantly to hold their hands above their heads, and they\ndid so, except one man who began fumbling in his holster, and then, to\nshow him what I could do with a pistol, I broke his wrist. At the\nsound of the shot the horses began to plunge, nearly trampling Doctor\nChord into the dust.\n\n\"'Clasp your hands above your heads, ye--'\"\n\nHere went on another stream of terrible language again, and in despair\nI sat down on the pile of saddles, allowing things to take their\ncourse. Jem continued:\n\n\"The lesson of the pistol was not misread by my gentlemen, when they\nnoticed I had a second loaded one; so, going to them one after the\nother I took their weapons from them and flung them to the foot of\nthat tree, where, if you look, you may see them now. Then I took a\ncontribution from each one, just as you do in church, your Reverence.\nI'm sure you have a collection for the poor, and that was the one I\nwas taking up this day. I have not counted them yet,\" said the\nvillain turning to me, \"but I think I have between sixty and seventy\nguineas, which are all freely at your disposal, excepting a trifle for\nmyself and Paddy there. There's no plaster like gold for a sore head,\nyour Reverence. I made each one of them dismount and take off his\nsaddle and throw it in the pile; then I had them mount again and drove\nthem with curses toward London, and very glad they were to escape.\"\n\n\"He did not get the papers again,\" wailed Paddy, who was not taking as\njubilant a view of the world as was Jem at that moment.\n\n\"I knew nothing of the papers,\" protested Bottles. \"If you had told me\nabout the papers, I would have had them, and if I had been carrying\nthe papers these fellows would not have made away with them.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said the horrified priest, \"you did not commit this action in\npunishment for the injury done to your friend? You knew nothing of\nthat at the time. You set on these men thinking they were simple\ntravellers.\"\n\n\"O, I knew nothing of what happened to Paddy till later, but you see,\nyour Reverence, these men themselves were thieves and robbers. In\ntheir case it was nine men against one poor half-witted Irish lad--\"\n\n\"Half-witted yourself,\" cried Paddy angrily.\n\n\"But you, sir,\" continued his Reverence, \"were simply carrying out the\naction of a highwayman. Sir, you _are_ a highwayman.\"\n\n\"I was, your Reverence, but I have reformed.\"\n\n\"And this pile of saddles attests your reformation!\" said the old man,\nshaking his head.\n\n\"But you see, your Reverence, this is the way to look at it--\"\n\n\"Keep quiet, Jem!\" cried I in disgust.\n\n\"How can I keep quiet,\" urged Bottles, \"when I am unjustly accused? I\ndo not deny that I was once a highwayman, but Mr. O'Ruddy converted me\nto better ways--\"\n\n\"Highways,\" said Paddy, adding, with a sniff, \"Half-witted!\"\n\n\"Your Reverence, I had no more intention of robbing those men than you\nhave at this moment. I didn't know they were thieves themselves. Then\nwhat put it into my head to jump into the wood and on with a mask\nbefore you could say, Bristol town? It's the mysterious ways of\nProvidence, your Reverence. Even I didn't understand it at the time,\nbut the moment I heard Paddy's tale I knew at once I was but an\ninstrument in the hand of Providence, for I had not said, 'Stand and\ndeliver!' this many a day, nor thought of it.\"\n\n\"It may be so; it may be so,\" murmured the priest, more to himself\nthan to us; but I saw that he was much troubled, so, getting up, I\nsaid to Paddy:\n\n\"Are you able to ride farther on to-day?\"\n\n\"If I'd another sup from the cup, sir, I think I could,\" whereat Jem\nBottles laughed again, and I gave them both a drink of wine.\n\n\"What are you going to do with all this saddlery?\" said I to Bottles.\n\n\"I don't know anything better than to leave it here; but I think, your\nhonour, the pistols will come handy, for they're all very good ones,\nand Paddy and me can carry them between us, or I can make two bags\nfrom these leather packs, and Paddy could carry the lot in them, as I\ndo the swords.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" I said. \"Make your preparations as quickly as you can and\nlet us be off, for this latest incident, in spite of you, Jem, may\nlead to pursuit and get us into trouble before we are ready for it.\"\n\n\"No fear, sir,\" said Jem confidently. \"One thief does not lay\ninformation against another. If they had been peaceable travellers,\nthat would be another thing; but, as I said, Providence is protecting\nus, no doubt because of the presence of his Reverence here, and not\nfor our own merits.\"\n\n\"Be thankful it is the reward of some one else's merits you, reap,\nBottles, instead of your own. No more talk now, but to horse and\naway.\"\n\nFor some miles Father Donovan rode very silently. I told him something\nof my meeting with Jem Bottles and explained how I tried to make an\nhonest man of him, while this was the first lapse I had known since\nhis conversion. I even pretended that I had some belief in his own\ntheory of the interposition of Providence, and Father Donovan was\nevidently struggling to acquire a similar feeling, although he seemed\nto find some difficulty in the contest. He admitted that this robbery\nappeared but even justice; still he ventured to hope that Jem Bottles\nwould not take the coincidence as a precedent, and that he would never\nmistake the dictates of Providence for the desires of his own nature.\n\n\"I will speak with the man later,\" he said, \"and hope that my words\nwill make some impression upon him. There was a trace of exaltation in\nhis recital that showed no sign of a contrite spirit.\"\n\nOn account of the delay at the roadside it was well past twelve\no'clock before we reached Maidstone, and there we indulged in a good\ndinner that put heart into all of us, while the horses had time to\nrest and feed. The road to Rye presented no difficulties whatever, but\nunder ordinary conditions I would have rested a night before\ntravelling to the coast. There would be a little delay before the Earl\ndiscovered the useless nature of the papers which he had been at such\nexpense to acquire, but after the discovery there was no doubt in my\nmind that he would move upon Brede as quickly as horses could carry\nhis men, so I insisted upon pressing on to Rye that night, and we\nreached the town late with horses that were very tired. It was a long\ndistance for a man of the age of Father Donovan to travel in a day,\nbut he stood the journey well, and enjoyed his supper and his wine\nwith the best of us.\n\nWe learned that there was no boat leaving for France for several days,\nand this disquieted me, for I would have liked to see Father Donovan\noff early next morning, for I did not wish to disclose my project to\nthe peace-loving man. I must march on Brede next day if I was to get\nthere in time, and so there was no longer any possibility of\nconcealing my designs. However, there was no help for it, and I\nresolved to be up bright and early in the morning and engage a dozen\nmen whom I could trust to stand by me. I also intended to purchase\nseveral cartloads of provisions, so that if a siege was attempted we\ncould not be starved out. All this I would accomplish at as early an\nhour as possible, get the carts on their way to Brede, and march at\nthe head of the men myself; so I went to bed with a somewhat troubled\nmind, but fell speedily into a dreamless sleep nevertheless, and slept\ntill broad daylight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\n\nI found Rye a snug little town, and so entirely peaceable-looking that\nwhen I went out in the morning I was afraid there would be nobody\nthere who would join me in the hazardous task of taking possession of\nthe place of so well-known a man as the Earl of Westport. But I did\nnot know Rye then as well as I do now: it proved to be a great resort\nfor smugglers when they were off duty and wished to enjoy the innocent\nrelaxation of a town after the comparative loneliness of the\nsea-coast, although, if all the tales they tell me are true, the\nauthorities sometimes made the sea-shore a little too lively for their\ncomfort. Then there were a number of seafaring men looking for a job,\nand some of them had the appearance of being pirates in more\nprosperous days.\n\nAs I wandered about I saw a most gigantic ruffian, taking his ease\nwith his back against the wall, looking down on the shipping.\n\n\"If that man's as bold as he's strong,\" said I to myself, \"and I had\nhalf a dozen more like him, we'd hold Brede House till the day there's\nliberty in Ireland;\" so I accosted him.\n\n\"The top o' the morning to you,\" said I genially.\n\nHe eyed me up and down, especially glancing at the sword by my side,\nand then said civilly:\n\n\"The same to you, sir. You seem to be looking for some one?\"\n\n\"I am,\" said I, \"I'm looking for nine men.\"\n\n\"If you'll tell me their names I'll tell you where to find them, for I\nknow everybody in Rye.\"\n\n\"If that's the case you'll know their names, which is more than I do\nmyself.\"\n\n\"Then you're not acquainted with them?\"\n\n\"I am not; but if you'll tell me your name I think then I'll know one\nof them.\"\n\nThere was a twinkle in his eye as he said:\n\n\"They call me Tom Peel.\"\n\n\"Then Tom,\" said I, \"are there eight like you in the town of Rye?\"\n\n\"Not quite as big perhaps,\" said Tom, \"but there's plenty of good men\nhere, as the French have found out before now,--yes, and the\nconstables as well. What do you want nine men for?\"\n\n\"Because I have nine swords and nine pistols that will fit that number\nof courageous subjects.\"\n\n\"Then it's not for the occupation of agriculture you require them?\"\nsaid Peel with the hint of a laugh. \"There's a chance of a cut in the\nribs, I suppose, for swords generally meet other swords.\"\n\n\"You're right in that; but I don't think the chance is very strong.\"\n\n\"And perhaps a term in prison when the scrimmage is ended?\"\n\n\"No fear of that at all at all; for if any one was to go to prison it\nwould be me, who will be your leader, and not you, who will be my\ndupes, do you see?\"\n\nPeel shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"My experience of the world is that the man with gold lace on his\ncoat goes free, while they punish the poor devil in the leather\njacket. But, turn the scheme out bad or ill, how much money is at the\nend of it?\"\n\n\"There'll be ten guineas at the end of it for each man, win or lose.\"\n\n\"And when will the money be paid?\"\n\n\"Half before you leave Rye, the other half in a week's time, and\nperhaps before,--a week's time at the latest; but I want men who will\nnot turn white if a blunderbuss happens to go off.\"\n\nThe rascallion smiled and spat contemptuously in the dust before him.\n\n\"If you show me the guineas,\" said he, \"I'll show you the men.\"\n\n\"Here's five of them, to begin with, that won't be counted against\nyou. There'll be five more in your pocket when we leave Rye, and a\nthird five when the job's ended.\"\n\nHis big hand closed over the coins.\n\n\"I like your way of speaking,\" he said. \"Now where are we to go?\"\n\n\"To the strong house of Brede, some seven or eight miles from here. I\ndo not know how far exactly, nor in what direction.\"\n\n\"I am well acquainted with it,\" said Peel. \"It was a famous smuggler's\nplace in its time.\"\n\n\"I don't mean a smuggler's place,\" said I. \"I am talking of the\ncountry house of the Earl of Westport.\"\n\n\"Yes, curse him, that's the spot I mean. Many a nobleman's house is\nput to purposes he learns little of, although the Earl is such a\nscoundrel he may well have been in with the smugglers and sold them to\nthe government.\"\n\n\"Did he sell them?\"\n\n\"Somebody sold them.\"\n\nThere was a scowl on Peel's face that somehow encouraged me, although\nI liked the look of the ruffian from the first.\n\n\"You're an old friend of his lordship's, then?\" said I.\n\n\"He has few friends in Rye or about Rye. If you're going to do\nanything against Westport, I'll get you a hundred men for nothing if\nthere's a chance of escape after the fight.\"\n\n\"Nine men will do me, if they're the right stuff. You will have good\ncover to sleep under, plenty to eat and drink, and then I expect you\nto hold Brede House against all the men the Earl of Westport can bring\nforward.\"\n\n\"That's an easy thing,\" said Peel, his eye lighting up. \"And if worse\ncomes to the worst I know a way out of the house that's neither\nthrough door or window nor up a chimney. Where will I collect your\nmen?\"\n\n\"Assemble them on the road to Brede, quietly, about half a mile from\nRye. Which direction is Brede from here?\"\n\n\"It lies to the west, between six and seven miles away as the crow\nflies.\"\n\n\"Very well, collect your men as quickly as you can, and send word to\nme at the 'Anchor.' Tell your messenger to ask for The O'Ruddy.\"\n\nNow I turned back to the tavern sorely troubled what I would do with\nFather Donovan. He was such a kindly man that he would be loath to\nshake hands with me at the door of the inn, as he had still two or\nthree days to stop, so I felt sure he would insist on accompanying me\npart of the way. I wished I could stop and see him off on his ship;\nbut if we were to get inside of Brede's House unopposed, we had to act\nat once. I found Paddy almost recovered from the assault of the day\nbefore. He had a bandage around his forehead, which, with his red\nhair, gave him a hideous appearance, as if the whole top of his head\nhad been smashed. Poor Paddy was getting so used to a beating each day\nthat I wondered wouldn't he be lonesome when the beatings ceased and\nthere was no enemy to follow him.\n\nFather Donovan had not yet appeared, and the fire was just lit in the\nkitchen to prepare breakfast, so I took Jem and Paddy with me to the\neating shop of the town, and there a sleepy-looking shop-keeper let us\nin, mightily resenting this early intrusion, but changed his demeanour\nwhen he understood the size of the order I was giving him, and the\nfact that I was going to pay good gold; for it would be a fine joke on\nThe O'Ruddy if the Earl surrounded the house with his men and starved\nhim out. So it was no less than three cartloads of provisions I\nordered, though one of them was a cartload of drink, for I thought the\ncompany I had hired would have a continuous thirst on them, being\nseafaring men and smugglers, and I knew that strong, sound ale was\nbrewed in Rye.\n\nThe business being finished, we three went back to the \"Anchor,\" and\nfound an excellent breakfast and an excellent man waiting for me, the\nlatter being Father Donovan, although slightly impatient for closer\nacquaintance with the former.\n\nWhen breakfast was done with, I ordered the three horses saddled, and\npresently out in the courtyard Paddy was seated on his nag with the\ntwo sacks of pistols before him, and Jem in like manner with his two\nbundles of swords. The stableman held my horse, so I turned to Father\nDonovan and grasped him warmly by the hand.\n\n\"A safe journey across the Channel to you, Father Donovan, and a\npeaceful voyage from there to Rome, whichever road you take. If you\nwrite to me in the care of the landlord of this inn I'll be sending\nand sending till I get your letter, and when you return I'll be\nstanding and watching the sea, at whatever point you land in England,\nif you'll but let me know in time. And so good-bye to you, Father\nDonovan, and God bless you, and I humbly beseech your own blessing in\nreturn.\"\n\nThe old man's eyes grew wider and wider as I went on talking and\ntalking and shaking him by the hand.\n\n\"What's come over you, O'Ruddy?\" he said, \"and where are you going?\"\n\n\"I am taking a long journey to the west and must have an early start.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" cried Father Donovan, \"it's two or three days before I can\nleave this shore, so I'll accompany you a bit of the way.\"\n\n\"You mustn't think of it, Father, because you had a long day's ride\nyesterday, and I want you to take care of yourself and take thought on\nyour health.\"\n\n\"Tush, I'm as fresh as a boy this morning. Landlord, see that the\nsaddle is put on that horse I came into Rye with.\"\n\nThe landlord at once rushed off and gave the order, while I stood\nthere at my wit's end.\n\n\"Father Donovan,\" said I, \"I'm in great need of haste at this moment,\nand we must ride fast, so I'll just bid good-bye to you here at this\ncomfortable spot, and you'll sit down at your ease in that big\narm-chair.\"\n\n\"I'll do nothing of the kind, O'Ruddy. What's troubling you, man? and\nwhy are you in such a hurry this morning, when you said nothing of it\nyesterday?\"\n\n\"Father, I said nothing of it yesterday, but sure I acted it. See how\nwe rode on and on in spite of everything, and did the whole journey\nfrom London to Rye between breakfast and supper. Didn't that give you\na hint that I was in a hurry?\"\n\n\"Well, it should have done, it should have done, O'Ruddy; still, I'll\ngo a bit of the way with you and not delay you.\"\n\n\"But we intend to ride very fast, Father.\"\n\n\"Ah, it's an old man you're thinking I'm getting to be. Troth, I can\nride as fast as any one of the three of you, and a good deal faster\nthan Paddy.\"\n\nAt this moment the landlord came bustling in.\n\n\"Your Reverence's horse is ready,\" he said.\n\nAnd so there was nothing for it but to knock the old man down, which I\nhadn't the heart to do. It is curious how stubborn some people are;\nbut Father Donovan was always set in his ways, and so, as we rode out\nof Rye to the west, with Paddy and Jem following us, I had simply to\ntell his Reverence all about it, and you should have seen the\nconsternation on his countenance.\n\n\"Do you mean to tell me you propose to take possession of another\nman's house and fight him if he comes to claim his own?\"\n\n\"I intend that same thing, your Reverence;\" for now I was as stubborn\nas the old gentleman himself, and it was not likely I was going to be\nput off my course when I remembered the happiness that was ahead of\nme; but there's little use in trying to explain to an aged priest what\na young man is willing to do for the love of the sweetest girl in all\nthe land.\n\n\"O'Ruddy,\" he said, \"you'll be put in prison. It's the inside of a\ngaol, and not the inside of a castle, you'll see. It's not down the\naisle of a church you'll march with your bride on your arm, but its\nhobbling over the cobbles of a Newgate passage you'll go with manacles\non your legs. Take warning from me, my poor boy, who would be\nheart-broken to see harm come to you, and don't run your neck into the\nhangman's noose, thinking it the matrimonial halter. Turn back while\nthere's yet time, O'Ruddy.\"\n\n\"Believe me, Father Donovan, it grieves me to refuse you anything, but\nI cannot turn back.\"\n\n\"You'll be breaking the law of the land.\"\n\n\"But the law of the land is broken every day in our district of\nIreland, and not too many words said about it.\"\n\n\"Oh, O'Ruddy, that's a different thing. The law of the land in Ireland\nis the law of the alien.\"\n\n\"Father, you're not logical. It's the alien I'm going to fight\nhere,\"--but before the father could reply we saw ahead of us the bulky\nform of Tom Peel, and ranged alongside of the road, trying to look\nvery stiff and military-like, was the most awkward squad of men I had\never clapped eyes on; but determined fellows they were, as I could see\nat a glance when I came fornenst them, and each man pulled a lock of\nhis hair by way of a salute.\n\n\"Do you men understand the use of a sword and a pistol?\" said I.\n\nThe men smiled at each other as though I was trying some kind of a\njoke on them.\n\n\"They do, your honour,\" answered Tom Peel on their behalf. \"Each one\nof them can sling a cutlass to the king's taste, and fire a pistol\nwithout winking, and there are now concealed in the hedge half a dozen\nblunderbusses in case they should be needed. They make a loud report\nand have a good effect on the enemy, even when they do no harm.\"\n\n\"Yes, we'll have the blunderbusses,\" said I, and with that the men\nbroke rank, burst through the hedge, and came back with those\nformidable weapons. \"I have ammunition in the carts,\" I said, \"did you\nsee anything of them?\"\n\n\"The carts have gone on to the west, your honour; but we'll soon\novertake them,\" and the men smacked their lips when they thought of\nthe one that had the barrels in it. Now Paddy came forward with the\npistols, and Bottles followed and gave each man a blade, while I gave\neach his money.\n\n\"O dear! O dear!\" groaned Father Donovan.\n\n\"There's just a chance we may be attacked before we get to Brede, and,\nFather, though I am loath to say good-bye, still it must be said. It's\nrare glad I'll be when I grip your hand again.\"\n\n\"All in good time; all in good time,\" said Father Donovan; \"I'll go a\nbit farther along the road with you and see how your men march. They\nwould fight better and better behind a hedge than in the open, I'm\nthinking.\"\n\n\"They'll not have to fight in the open, Father,\" said I, \"but they'll\nbe comfortably housed if we get there in time. Now, Peel, I make you\ncaptain of the men, as you've got them together, and so, Forward, my\nlads.\"\n\nThey struck out along the road, walking a dozen different kinds of\nsteps, although there were only nine of them; some with the swords\nover their shoulders, some using them like walking-sticks, till I told\nthem to be more careful of the points; but they walked rapidly and got\nover the ground, for the clank of the five guineas that was in each\nman's pocket played the right kind of march for them.\n\n\"Listen to reason, O'Ruddy, and even now turn back,\" said Father\nDonovan.\n\n\"I'll not turn back now,\" said I, \"and, sure, you can't expect it of\nme. You're an obstinate man yourself, if I must say so, Father.\"\n\n\"It's a foolhardy exploit,\" he continued, frowning. \"There's prison at\nthe end of it for some one,\" he murmured.\n\n\"No, it's the House of Brede, Father, that's at the end of it.\"\n\n\"Supposing the Earl of Westport brings a thousand men against\nyou,--what are you going to do?\"\n\n\"Give them the finest fight they have ever seen in this part of\nEngland.\"\n\nIn spite of himself I saw a sparkle in Father Donovan's eye. The\nnationality of him was getting the better of his profession.\n\n\"If it were legitimate and lawful,\" at last he said, \"it would be a\nfine sight to see.\"\n\n\"It will be legitimate and lawful enough when the Earl and myself come\nto terms. You need have no fear that we're going to get into the\ncourts, Father.\"\n\n\"Do you think he'll fight?\" demanded the father suddenly, with a glint\nin his eyes that I have seen in my own father's when he was telling us\nof his battles in France.\n\n\"Fight? Why of course he'll fight, for he's as full of malice as an\negg's full of meat; but nevertheless he's a sensible old curmudgeon,\nwhen the last word's said, and before he'll have it noised over\nEngland that his title to the land is disputed he'll give me what I\nwant, although at first he'll try to master me.\"\n\n\"Can you depend on these men?\"\n\n\"I think I can. They're old smugglers and pirates, most of them.\"\n\n\"I wonder who the Earl will bring against you?\" said Father Donovan,\nspeaking more to himself than to me. \"Will it be farmers or regular\nsoldiers?\"\n\n\"I expect they will be from among his own tenantry; there's plenty of\nthem, and they'll all have to do his bidding.\"\n\n\"But that doesn't give a man courage in battle?\"\n\n\"No, but he'll have good men to lead them, even if he brings them from\nLondon.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't like to see you attacked by real soldiers; but I think\nthese men of yours will give a good account of themselves if there's\nonly peasantry brought up against them. Sure, the peasantry in this\ncountry is not so warlike as in our own,\"--and there was a touch of\npride in the father's remark that went to my very heart.\n\nAfter riding in silence for a while, meditating with head bowed, he\nlooked suddenly across at me, his whole face lighted up with delicious\nremembrance.\n\n\"Wouldn't you like to have Mike Sullivan with you this day,\" he cried,\nnaming the most famous fighter in all the land, noted from Belfast to\nour own Old Head of Kinsale.\n\n\"I'd give many a guinea,\" I said, \"to have Mike by my side when the\nEarl comes on.\"\n\nThe old father suddenly brought down his open hand with a slap on his\nthigh.\n\n\"I'm going to stand by you, O'Ruddy,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm glad to have your blessing on the job at last, Father,\" said I;\n\"for it was sore against me to go into this business when you were in\na contrary frame of mind.\"\n\n\"You'll not only have my blessing, O'Ruddy, but myself as well. How\ncould I sail across the ocean and never know which way the fight came\nout? and then, if it is to happen in spite of me, the Lord pity the\nfrailness of mankind, but I'd like to see it. I've not seen a debate\nsince the Black Fair of Bandon.\"\n\nBy this time we had overtaken the hirelings with their carts, and the\nmen were swinging past them at a good pace.\n\n\"Whip up your horses,\" said I to the drivers, \"and get over the ground\na little faster. It's not gunpowder that's in those barrels, and when\nwe reach the house there will be a drink for every one of you.\"\n\nThere was a cheer at this, and we all pushed on with good hearts. At\nlast we came to a lane turning out from the main road, and then to the\nprivate way through fields that led to Brede House. So far there had\nbeen no one to oppose us, and now, setting spurs to our horses, we\ngalloped over the private way, which ran along the side of a gentle\nhill until one end of the mansion came into view. It seemed likely\nthere was no suspicion who we were, for a man digging in the garden,\nstood up and took off his cap to us. The front door looked like the\nGothic entrance of a church, and I sprang from my horse and knocked\nloudly against the studded oak. An old man opened the door without any\nmeasure of caution, and I stepped inside. I asked him who he was, and\nhe said he was the caretaker.\n\n\"How many beside yourself are in this house?\"\n\nHe said there was only himself, his wife, and a kitchen wench, and two\nof the gardeners, while the family was in London.\n\n\"Well,\" said I, \"I'd have you know that I'm the family now, and that\nI'm at home. I am the owner of Brede estate.\"\n\n\"You're not the Earl of Westport!\" said the old man, his eyes opening\nwide.\n\n\"No, thank God, I'm not!\"\n\nHe now got frightened and would have shut the door, but I gently\npushed him aside. I heard the tramp of the men, and, what was more,\nthe singing of a sea song, for they were nearing the end of their walk\nand thinking that something else would soon pass their lips besides\nthe tune. The old man was somewhat reassured when he saw the priest\ncome in; but dismay and terror took hold of him when the nine men with\ntheir blunderbusses and their swords came singing around a corner of\nthe house and drew up in front of it. By and by the carts came\ncreaking along, and then every man turned to and brought the\nprovisions inside of the house and piled them up in the kitchen in an\norderly way, while the old man, his wife, the wench, and the two\ngardeners stood looking on with growing signs of panic upon them.\n\n\"Now, my ancient caretaker,\" said I to the old man, in the kindest\ntones I could bring to my lips, so as not to frighten him more than\nwas already the case, \"what is the name of that little village over\nyonder?\" and I pointed toward the west, where, on the top of a hill,\nappeared a church and a few houses.\n\n\"That, sir,\" he said, with his lips trembling, \"is the village of\nBrede.\"\n\n\"Is there any decent place there where you five people can get\nlodging; for you see that this house is now filled with men of war,\nand so men of peace should be elsewhere? Would they take you in over\nat the village?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, it is like they would.\"\n\n\"Very well. Here is three guineas to divide among you, and in a week\nor thereabouts you will be back in your own place, so don't think\ndisaster has fallen on you.\"\n\nThe old man took the money, but seemed in a strange state of hesitancy\nabout leaving.\n\n\"You will be unhappy here,\" I said, \"for there will be gun-firing and\nsword-playing. Although I may not look it, I am the most bloodthirsty\nswordsman in England, with a mighty uncertain temper on me at times.\nSo be off, the five of you!\"\n\n\"But who is to be here to receive the family?\" he asked.\n\n\"What family?\"\n\n\"Sir, we had word last night that the Earl of Westport and his\nfollowing would come to this house to-day at two of the clock, and we\nhave much ado preparing for them; for the messenger said that he was\nbringing many men with him. I thought at first that you were the men,\nor I would not have let you in.\"\n\n\"Now the Saints preserve us,\" cried I, \"they'll be on us before we get\nthe windows barricaded. Tom Peel,\" I shouted, \"set your men to prepare\nthe defence at once, and you'll have only a few hours to do it in.\nCome, old man, take your wife and your gardeners, and get away.\"\n\n\"But the family, sir, the family,\" cried the old man, unable to\nunderstand that they should not be treated with the utmost respect.\n\n\"I will receive the family. What is that big house over there in the\nvillage?\"\n\n\"The Manor House, sir.\"\n\n\"Very well, get you gone, and tell them to prepare the Manor House for\nthe Earl of Westport and his following; for he cannot lodge here\nto-night,\"--and with that I was compelled to drag them forth, the old\nwoman crying and the wench snivelling in company. I patted the ancient\nwife on the shoulder and told her there was nothing to be feared of;\nbut I saw my attempt at consolation had little effect.\n\nTom Peel understood his business; he had every door barred and\nstanchioned, and the windows protected, as well as the means to his\nhand would allow. Up stairs he knocked out some of the diamond panes\nso that the muzzle of a blunderbuss would go through. He seemed to\nknow the house as if it was his own; and in truth the timbers and\nmaterials for defence which he conjured up from the ample cellars or\npulled down from the garret seemed to show that he had prepared the\nplace for defence long since.\n\n\"Your honour,\" he said, \"two dangers threaten this house which you may\nnot be aware of.\"\n\n\"And what are those, Tom?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well, the least serious one is the tunnel. There is a secret passage\nfrom this house down under the valley and out and up near the church.\nIf it was not guarded they could fill this house unknown to you. I\nwill stop this end of it with timber if your honour gives the word.\nThere's not many knows of it, but the Earl of Westport is certain to\nhave the knowledge, and some of his servants as well.\"\n\n\"Lead me to this tunnel, Tom,\" said I, astonished at his information.\n\nWe came to a door in one of the lower rooms that opened on a little\ncircular stone stairway, something like a well, and, going down to the\nbottom, we found a tunnel in which a short man could stand upright.\n\n\"Thunder and turf, Tom!\" said I, \"what did they want this for?\"\n\n\"Well, some thought it was to reach the church, but no one ever lived\nin this house that was so anxious to get to church that he would go\nunderground to it. Faith, they've been a godless lot in Brede Place\nuntil your honour came, and we were glad to see you bring a priest\nwith you. It put new heart in the men; they think he'll keep off Sir\nGoddard Oxenbridge.\"\n\n\"Does he live near here? What has he to do with the place?\"\n\n\"He is dead long since, sir, and was owner of this house. Bullet\nwouldn't harm him, nor steel cut him, so they sawed him in two with a\nwooden saw down by the bridge in front. He was a witch of the very\nworst kind, your honour. You hear him groaning at the bridge every\nnight, and sometimes he walks through the house himself in two halves,\nand then every body leaves the place. And that is our most serious\ndanger, your honour. When Sir Goddard takes to groaning through these\nrooms at night, you'll not get a man to stay with you, sir; but as he\ncomes up from the pit by the will of the Devil we expect his Reverence\nto ward him off.\"\n\nNow this was most momentous news, for I would not stop in the place\nmyself if a ghost was in the habit of walking through it; but I\ncheered up Tom Peel by telling him that no imp of Satan could appear\nin the same county as Father Donovan, and he passed on the word to the\nmen, to their mighty easement.\n\nWe had a splendid dinner in the grand hall, and each of us was well\nprepared for it; Father Donovan himself, standing up at the head of\nthe table, said the holy words in good Latin, and I was so hungry that\nI was glad the Latins were in the habit of making short prayers.\n\nFather Donovan and I sat at table with a bottle for company, and now\nthat he knew all about the situation, I was overjoyed to find him an\ninhabitant of the same house; for there was no gentleman in all the\ncompany, except himself, for me to talk with.\n\nSuddenly there was a blast of a bugle, and a great fluttering outside.\nThe lower windows being barricaded, it was not possible to see out of\nthem, and I was up the stair as quick as legs could carry me; and\nthere in front were four horses harnessed to a great carriage, and in\nit sat the old Earl and the Countess, and opposite them who but Lady\nMary herself, and her brother, Lord Strepp. Postilions rode two of the\nhorses, and the carriage was surrounded by a dozen mounted men.\n\nEverybody was looking at the house and wondering why nobody was there\nto welcome them, and very forbidding this stronghold must have seemed\nto those who expected to find the doors wide open when they drove up.\nI undid the bolts of one of the diamond-paned windows, and, throwing\nit open, leaned with my arms on the sill, my head and shoulders\noutside.\n\n\"Good day to your ladyship and your lordship,\" I cried,--and then all\neyes were turned on me,--\"I have just this day come into my\ninheritance, and I fear the house is not in a state to receive\nvisitors. The rooms are all occupied by desperate men and armed; but I\nhave given orders to your servants to prepare the Manor House in the\nvillage for your accommodation; so, if you will be so good as to drive\nacross the valley, you will doubtless meet with a better reception\nthan I can give you at this moment. When you come again, if there are\nno ladies of the party, I can guarantee you will have no complaint to\nmake of the warmth of your reception.\"\n\nHis lordship sat dumb in his carriage, and for once her ladyship\nappeared to find difficulty in choosing words that would do justice to\nher anger. I could not catch a glimpse of Lady Mary's face at all at\nall, for she kept it turned toward the village; but young Lord Strepp\nrose in the carriage, and, shaking his fist at me, said:\n\n\"By God, O'Ruddy, you shall pay for this;\" but the effect of the words\nwas somewhat weakened by reason that his sister, Lady Mary, reached\nout and pulled him by the coat-tails, which caused him to be seated\nmore suddenly than he expected; then she gave me one rapid glance of\nher eye and turned away her face again.\n\nNow his lordship, the great Earl of Westport, spoke, but not to me.\n\n\"Drive to the village,\" he said to the postilions; then horsemen and\ncarriage clattered down the hill.\n\nWe kept watch all that night, but were not molested. In the southern\npart of the house Father Donovan found a well-furnished chapel, and\nnext morning held mass there, which had a very quieting effect on the\nmen, especially as Oxenbridge had not walked during the night. The\nonly one of them who did not attend mass was Jem Bottles, who said he\nwas not well enough and therefore would remain on watch. Just as mass\nwas finished Jem appeared in the gallery of the chapel and shouted\nexcitedly:\n\n\"They're coming, sir; they're coming!\"\n\nI never before saw a congregation dismiss themselves so speedily. They\nwere at their posts even before Tom Peel could give the order. The\nopposing party was leaving the village and coming down the hill when I\nfirst caught sight of them from an upper window. There seemed\nsomewhere between half a dozen and a dozen horsemen, and behind them a\ngreat mob of people on foot that fairly covered the hillside. As they\ncrossed the brook and began to come up, I saw that their leader was\nyoung Lord Strepp himself, and Jem whispered that the horsemen behind\nhim were the very men he had encountered on the road between London\nand Maidstone. The cavalry were well in advance, and it seemed that\nthe amateur infantry took less and less pleasure in their excursion\nthe nearer they drew to the gloomy old house, so much so that Lord\nStrepp turned back among them and appeared to be urging them to make\nhaste. However, their slow progress may be explained by the fact that\na certain number of them were carrying a huge piece of timber, so\nheavy that they had to stagger along cautiously.\n\n\"That,\" said Tom Peel, who stood at my elbow, \"is to batter in the\nfront door and take us by storm. If you give the word, your honour, we\ncan massacre the lot o' them before they get three blows struck.\"\n\n\"Give command to the men, Peel,\" said I, \"not to shoot any one if they\ncan help it. Let them hold their fire till they are within fifty yards\nor so of the front, then pass the word to fire into the gravel of the\nterrace; and when you shoot let every man yell as if he were a dozen,\nand keep dead silence till that moment. I'll hold up my hand when I\nwant you to fire.\"\n\nThere was a deep stillness over all the beautiful landscape. The\nbushes and the wood, however, were an exception to this, although the\nsongs of the birds among the trees and singing of the larks high in\nthe air seemed not to disturb the silence; but the whole air of the\ncountry-side was a suggestion of restful peace, at great variance with\nthe designs of the inhabitants, who were preparing to attack each\nother.\n\nFather Donovan stood beside me, and I saw his lips moving in prayer;\nbut his eyes were dancing with irredeemable delight, while his breath\ncame quick and expectant.\n\n\"I'm afraid those chaps will run at the first volley,\" he said,\nsmiling at me. \"They come on very slowly and must be a great trial to\nthe young lord that's leading them.\"\n\nIt was indeed a trial to the patience of all of us, for the time\nseemed incredibly long till they arrived at the spot where I had\ndetermined they should at least hear the report of the blunderbusses,\nalthough I hoped none of them would feel the effects of the firing.\nIndeed, the horsemen themselves, with the exception of Lord Strepp,\nappeared to take little comfort in their position, and were now more\nanxious to fall behind and urge on the others on foot than to lead the\nband with his lordship.\n\nI let them all get very close, then held up my hand, and you would\nthink pandemonium was let loose. I doubt if all the cannon in Cork\nwould have made such a noise, and the heathen Indians we read of in\nAmerica could not have given so terrifying a yell as came from my nine\nmen. The blunderbusses were more dangerous than I supposed, and they\ntore up the gravel into a shower of small stones that scattered far\nand wide, and made many a man fall down, thinking he was shot. Then\nthe mob ran away with a speed which made up for all lost time coming\nthe other direction. Cries of anguish were heard on every side, which\nmade us all laugh, for we knew none of them were hurted. The horses\nthemselves seemed seized with panic; they plunged and kicked like mad,\ntwo riders being thrown on the ground, while others galloped across\nthe valley as if they were running away; but I suspect that their\nowners were slyly spurring them on while pretending they had lost\ncontrol of them. Lord Strepp and one or two others, however, stood\ntheir ground, and indeed his lordship spurred his horse up opposite\nthe front door. One of my men drew a pistol, but I shouted at him:\n\n\"Don't shoot at that man, whatever he does,\" and the weapon was\nlowered.\n\nI opened the window and leaned out.\n\n\"Well, Lord Strepp,\" cried I, \"'tis a valiant crowd you have behind\nyou.\"\n\n\"You cursed highwayman,\" he cried, \"what do you expect to make by\nthis?\"\n\n\"I expect to see some good foot-racing; but you are under an error in\nyour appellation. I am not a highwayman; it is Jem Bottles here who\nstopped nine of your men on the Maidstone road and piled their saddles\nby the side of it. Is it new saddlery you have, or did you make a\nroadside collection?\"\n\n\"I'll have you out of that, if I have to burn the house over your\nhead.\"\n\n\"I'll wager you'll not get any man, unless it's yourself, to come near\nenough to carry a torch to it. You can easily have me out of this\nwithout burning the house. Tell your father I am ready to compromise\nwith him.\"\n\n\"Sir, you have no right in my father's house; and, to tell you the\ntruth, I did not expect such outlawry from a man who had shown himself\nto be a gentleman.\"\n\n\"Thank you for that, Lord Strepp; but, nevertheless, tell your father\nto try to cultivate a conciliatory frame of mind, and let us talk the\nmatter over as sensible men should.\"\n\n\"We cannot compromise with you, O'Ruddy,\" said Lord Strepp in a very\ndetermined tone, which for the first time made me doubt the wisdom of\nmy proceedings; for of course it was a compromise I had in mind all\nthe time, for I knew as well as Father Donovan that if he refused to\nsettle with me my position was entirely untenable.\n\n\"We cannot compromise with you,\" went on the young man. \"You have no\nright, legal or moral, to this place, and you know it. I have advised\nmy father to make no terms with you. Good day to you, sir.\"\n\nAnd with that he galloped off, while I drew a very long face as I\nturned away.\n\n\"Father Donovan,\" I said, when I had closed the window, \"I am not sure\nbut your advice to me on the way here was nearer right than I thought\nat the time.\"\n\n\"Oh, not a bit of it,\" cried Father Donovan cheerfully. \"You heard\nwhat the young man said, that he had advised his father not to make\nany terms with you. Very well, that means terms have been proposed\nalready; and this youth rejects the wisdom of age, which I have known\nto be done before.\"\n\n\"You think, then, they will accept a conference?\"\n\n\"I am sure of it. These men will not stand fire, and small blame to\nthem. What chance have they? As your captain says, he could annihilate\nthe lot of them before they crushed in the front door. The men who ran\naway have far more sense than that brainless spalpeen who led them on,\nalthough I can see he is brave enough. One or two more useless attacks\nwill lead him to a more conciliatory frame of mind, unless he appeals\nto the law, which is what I thought he would do; for I felt sure a\nsheriff would be in the van of attack. Just now you are opposed only\nto the Earl of Westport; but, when the sheriff comes on, you're\nfornenst the might of England.\"\n\nThis cheered me greatly, and after a while we had our dinner in peace.\nThe long afternoon passed slowly away, and there was no rally in the\nvillage, and no sign of a further advance; so night came on and\nnothing had been done. After supper I said good-night to Father\nDonovan, threw myself, dressed as I was, on the bed, and fell into a\ndoze. It was toward midnight when Tom Peel woke me up; that man seemed\nto sleep neither night nor day; and there he stood by my bed, looking\nlike a giant in the flicker of the candle-light.\n\n\"Your honour,\" he said, \"I think there's something going on at the\nmouth of the tunnel. Twice I've caught the glimpse of a light there,\nalthough they're evidently trying to conceal it.\"\n\nI sat up in bed and said:\n\n\"What do you propose to do?\"\n\n\"Well, there's a man inside here that knows the tunnel just as well as\nI do,--every inch of it,--and he's up near the other end now. If a\ncompany begins coming in, my man will run back without being seen and\nlet us know. Now, sir, shall I timber this end, or shall we deal with\nthem at the top of the stair one by one as they come up. One good\nswordsman at the top of the stair will prevent a thousand getting into\nthe house.\"\n\n\"Peel,\" said I, \"are there any stones outside, at the other end of the\ntunnel?\"\n\n\"Plenty. There's a <DW18> of loose stones fronting it.\"\n\n\"Very well; if your man reports that any have entered the tunnel,\nthey'll have left one or two at the other end on guard; take you five\nof your most trusted men, and go you cautiously a roundabout way\nuntil you are within striking distance of the men on guard. Watch the\nfront upper windows of this house; and if you see two lights\ndisplayed, you will know they are in the tunnel. If you waited here\ntill your man comes back, you would be too late; so go now, and, if\nyou see the two lights, overpower the men at the mouth of the tunnel\nunless they are too many for you. If they are, then there's nothing to\ndo but retreat. When you have captured the guard, make them go down\ninto the tunnel; then you and your men tear down the <DW18> and fill the\nhole full of stones; I will guard this end of the passage.\"\n\nTom Peel pulled his forelock and was gone at once, delighted with his\ntask. I knew that if I got them once in the tunnel there would no\nlonger be any question of a compromise, even if Lord Strepp himself\nwas leading them. I took two lighted candles with me and sat patiently\nat the head of the stone stairway that led, in circular fashion, down\ninto the depths. Half an hour passed, but nothing happened, and I\nbegan to wonder whether or not they had captured our man, when\nsuddenly his face appeared.\n\n\"They are coming, sir,\" he cried, \"by the dozen. Lord Strepp is\nleading them.\"\n\n\"Will they be here soon, do you think?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell. First I saw torches appear, then Lord Strepp came down\nand began giving instructions, and, after counting nearly a score of\nhis followers, I came back as quick as I could.\"\n\n\"You've done nobly,\" said I. \"Now stand here with this sword and\nprevent any man from coming up.\"\n\nI took one of the candles, leaving him another, and lighted a third. I\nwent up the stair and set them in the front window; then I opened\nanother window and listened. The night was exceedingly still,--not\neven the sound of a cricket to be heard. After a few minutes, however,\nthere came a cry, instantly smothered, from the other side of the\nvalley; another moment and I heard the stones a rolling, as if the\nside of a wall had tumbled over, which indeed was the case; then two\nlights were shown on the hill and were waved up and down; and although\nPeel and I had arranged no signal, yet this being the counterpart of\nmy own, I took to signify that they had been successful, so, leaving\nthe candles burning there, in case there might have been some mistake,\nI started down the stair to the man who was guarding the secret\npassage.\n\n\"Has anything happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir.\"\n\nI think the best part of an hour must have passed before there was\nsign or sound. Of course I knew if the guards were flung down the\nhole, they would at once run after their comrades and warn them that\nboth ends of the tunnel were in our possession. I was well aware that\nthe imprisoned men might drag away the stones and ultimately win a\npassage out for themselves; but I trusted that they would be\npanic-stricken when they found themselves caught like rats in a trap.\nIn any case it would be very difficult to remove stones from below in\nthe tunnel, because the space was narrow and few could labour at a\ntime; then there was every chance that the stones might jam, when\nnothing could be done. However, I told the man beside me to go across\nthe valley and ask Peel and his men to pile on rocks till he had a\ngreat heap above the entrance, and, if not disturbed, to work till\nnearly daylight, so I sat on the top of the circular stair step with\nmy rapier across my knees, waiting so long that I began to fear they\nall might be smothered, for I didn't know whether the stopping of air\nat one end would prevent it coming in at the other, for I never heard\nmy father say what took place in a case like that. Father Donovan was\nin bed and asleep, and I was afraid to leave the guarding of the stair\nto any one else. It seemed that hours and hours passed, and I began to\nwonder was daylight never going to come, when the most welcome sound I\never heard was the well-known tones of a voice which came up from the\nbottom of the well.\n\n\"Are you there, Mr. O'Ruddy?\"\n\nThere was a subdued and chastened cadence in the inquiry that pleased\nme.\n\n\"I am, and waiting for you.\"\n\n\"May I come up?\"\n\n\"Yes, and very welcome; but you'll remember, Lord Strepp, that you\ncome up as a prisoner.\"\n\n\"I quite understand that, Mr. O'Ruddy.\"\n\nSo, as I held the candle, I saw the top of his head coming round and\nround and round, and finally he stood before me stretching out his\nsword, hilt forward.\n\n\"Stick it in its scabbard,\" said I, \"and I'll do the same with mine.\"\nThen I put out my hand, \"Good morning to your lordship,\" I said. \"It\nseems to me I've been waiting here forty days and forty nights. Will\nyou have a sup of wine?\"\n\n\"I would be very much obliged to you for it, Mr. O'Ruddy.\"\n\nWith that I called the nearest guard and bade him let nobody up the\nstair without my knowing it.\n\n\"I suppose, my lord, you are better acquainted with this house than I\nam; but I know a spot where there's a drop of good drink.\"\n\n\"You have discovered the old gentleman's cellar, then?\"\n\n\"Indeed, Lord Strepp, I have not. I possess a cellar of my own. It's\nyou that's my guest, and not me that's yours on this occasion.\"\n\nI poured him out a flagon, and then one for myself, and as we stood by\nthe table I lifted it high and said:\n\n\"Here's to our better acquaintance.\"\n\nHis lordship drank, and said with a wry face, as he put down the mug:\n\n\"Our acquaintance seems to be a somewhat tempestuous one; but I\nconfess, Mr. O'Ruddy, that I have as great a respect for your\ngeneralship as I have for your swordsmanship. The wine is good and\nrevivifying. I've been in that accursed pit all night, and I came to\nthis end of it with greater reluctance than I expected to when I\nentered the other. We tried to clear away the stones; but they must\nhave piled all the rocks in Sussex on top of us. Are your men toiling\nthere yet?\"\n\n\"Yes, they're there, and I gave them instructions to work till\ndaylight.\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. O'Ruddy, my poor fellows are all half dead with fright, and\nthey fancy themselves choking; but although the place was foul enough\nwhen we entered it, I didn't see much difference at the end. However,\nI did see one thing, and that was that I had to come and make terms. I\nwant you to let the poor devils go, Mr. O'Ruddy, and I'll be parole\nthat they won't attack you again.\"\n\n\"And who will give his parole that Lord Strepp will not attack me\nagain?\"\n\n\"Well, O'Ruddy,\"--I took great comfort from the fact that he dropped\nthe Mr.,--\"Well, O'Ruddy, you see we cannot possibly give up this\nestate. You are not legally entitled to it. It is ours and always has\nbeen.\"\n\n\"I'm not fighting for any estate, Lord Strepp.\"\n\n\"Then, in Heaven's name, what are you fighting for?\"\n\n\"For the consent of the Earl and Countess of Westport to my marriage\nwith Lady Mary, your sister.\"\n\nLord Strepp gave a long whistle; then he laughed and sat down in the\nnearest chair.\n\n\"But what does Mary say about it?\" he asked at last.\n\n\"The conceit of an Irishman, my lord, leads me to suspect that I can\nultimately overcome any objections she may put forward.\"\n\n\"Oho! that is how the land lies, is it? I'm a thick-headed clod, or I\nwould have suspected something of that sort when Mary pulled me down\nso sharply as I was cursing you at the front door.\" Then, with a\nslight touch of patronage in his tone, he said:\n\n\"There is some difference in the relative positions of our families,\nMr. O'Ruddy.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm quite willing to waive that,\" said I. \"Of course it isn't\nusual for the descendant of kings, like myself, to marry a daughter of\nthe mere nobility; but Lady Mary is so very charming that she more\nthan makes up for any discrepancy, whatever may be said for the rest\nof the family.\"\n\nAt this Lord Strepp threw back his head and laughed again joyously,\ncrying,--\n\n\"King O'Ruddy, fill me another cup of your wine, and I'll drink to\nyour marriage.\"\n\nWe drank, and then he said:\n\n\"I'm a selfish beast, guzzling here when those poor devils think\nthey're smothering down below. Well, O'Ruddy, will you let my unlucky\nfellows go?\"\n\n\"I'll do that instantly,\" said I, and so we went to the head of the\ncircular stair and sent the guard down to shout to them to come on,\nand by this time the daylight was beginning to turn the upper windows\ngrey. A very bedraggled stream of badly frightened men began crawling\nup and up and up the stairway, and as Tom Peel had now returned I\nasked him to open the front door and let the yeomen out. Once on the\nterrace in front, the men seemed not to be able to move away, but\nstood there drawing in deep breaths of air as if they had never tasted\nit before. Lord Strepp, in the daylight, counted the mob, asking them\nif they were sure every one had come up, but they all seemed to be\nthere, though I sent Tom Peel down along the tunnel to find if any had\nbeen left behind.\n\nLord Strepp shook hands most cordially with me at the front door.\n\n\"Thank you for your hospitality, O'Ruddy,\" he said, \"although I came\nin by the lower entrance. I will send over a flag of truce when I've\nseen my father; then I hope you will trust yourself to come to the\nManor House and have a talk with him.\"\n\n\"I'll do it with pleasure,\" said I.\n\n\"Good morning to you,\" said Lord Strepp.\n\n\"And the top o' the morning to you, which is exactly what we are\ngetting at this moment, though in ten minutes I hope to be asleep.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" said Lord Strepp, setting off at a run down the <DW72>.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\n\nOnce more I went to my bed, but this time with my clothes off, for if\nthere was to be a conference with the Earl and the Countess at the\nManor House, not to speak of the chance of seeing Lady Mary herself, I\nwished to put on the new and gorgeous suit I had bought in London for\nthat occasion, and which had not yet been on my back. I was so excited\nand so delighted with the thought of seeing Lady Mary that I knew I\ncould not sleep a wink, especially as daylight was upon me, but I had\nscarcely put my head on the pillow when I was as sound asleep as any\nof my ancestors, the old Kings of Kinsale. The first thing I knew\nPaddy was shaking me by the shoulder just a little rougher than a\nwell-trained servant should.\n\n\"Beggin' your pardon,\" says he, \"his lordship, the great Earl of\nWestport, sends word by a messenger that he'll be pleased to have\naccount with ye, at your early convenience, over at the Manor House\nbeyond.\"\n\n\"Very well, Paddy,\" said I, \"ask the messenger to take my compliments\nto the Earl and say to him I will do myself the honour of calling on\nhim in an hour's time. Deliver that message to him; then come back and\nhelp me on with my new duds.\"\n\nWhen Paddy returned I was still yawning, but in the shake of a\nshillelah he had me inside the new costume, and he stood back against\nthe wall with his hand raised in amazement and admiration at the glory\nhe beheld. He said after that kings would be nothing to him, and\nindeed the tailor had done his best and had won his guineas with more\nhonesty than you'd expect from a London tradesman. I was quietly\npleased with the result myself.\n\nI noticed with astonishment that it was long after mid-day, so it\noccurred to me that Lord Strepp must have had a good sleep himself,\nand sure the poor boy needed it, for it's no pleasure to spend life\nunderground till after you're dead, and his evening in the tunnel must\nhave been very trying to him, as indeed he admitted to me afterward\nthat it was.\n\nI called on Father Donovan, and he looked me over from head to foot\nwith wonder and joy in his eye.\n\n\"My dear lad, you're a credit to the O'Ruddys,\" he said, \"and to\nIreland,\" he said, \"and to the Old Head of Kinsale,\" he said.\n\n\"And to that little tailor in London as well,\" I replied, turning\naround so that he might see me the better.\n\nIn spite of my chiding him Paddy could not contain his delight, and\ndanced about the room like an overgrown monkey.\n\n\"Paddy,\" said I, \"you're making a fool of yourself.\"\n\nThen I addressed his Reverence.\n\n\"Father Donovan,\" I began, \"this cruel war is over and done with, and\nno one hurt and no blood shed, so the Earl--\"\n\nAt this moment there was a crash and an unearthly scream, then a thud\nthat sounded as if it had happened in the middle of the earth. Father\nDonovan and I looked around in alarm, but Paddy was nowhere to be\nseen. Toward the wall there was a square black hole, and, rushing up\nto it, we knew at once what had happened. Paddy had danced a bit too\nheavy on an old trap-door, and the rusty bolts had broken. It had let\nhim down into a dungeon that had no other entrance; and indeed this\nwas a queer house entirely, with many odd nooks and corners about it,\nbesides the disadvantage of Sir Goddard Oxenbridge tramping through\nthe rooms in two sections.\n\n\"For the love of Heaven and all the Saints,\" I cried down this\ntrap-door, \"Paddy, what has happened to you?\"\n\n\"Sure, sir, the house has fallen on me.\"\n\n\"Nothing of the kind, Paddy. The house is where it always was. Are you\nhurted?\"\n\n\"I'm dead and done for completely this time, sir. Sure I feel I'm with\nthe angels at last.\"\n\n\"Tut, tut, Paddy, my lad; you've gone in the wrong direction\naltogether for them.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm dying, and I feel the flutter of their wings,\" and as he\nspoke two or three ugly blind bats fluttered up and butted their\nstupid heads against the wall.\n\n\"You've gone in the right direction for the wrong kind of angels,\nPaddy; but don't be feared, they're only bats, like them in my own\ntower at home, except they're larger.\"\n\nI called for Tom Peel, as he knew the place well.\n\n\"Many a good cask of brandy has gone down that trap-door,\" said he,\n\"and the people opposite have searched this house from cellar to\ngarret and never made the discovery Paddy did a moment since.\"\n\nHe got a stout rope and sent a man down, who found Paddy much more\nfrightened than hurt. We hoisted both of them up, and Paddy was a\nsight to behold.\n\n\"Bad luck to ye,\" says I; \"just at the moment I want a presentable lad\nbehind me when I'm paying my respects to the Earl of Westport, you\nmust go diving into the refuse heap of a house that doesn't belong to\nyou, and spoiling the clothes that does. Paddy, if you were in a seven\nyears' war, you would be the first man wounded and the last man\nkilled, with all the trouble for nothing in between. Is there anything\nbroken about ye?\"\n\n\"Every leg and arm I've got is broken,\" he whimpered, but Father\nDonovan, who was nearly as much of a surgeon as a priest, passed his\nhand over the trembling lad, then smote him on the back, and said the\nexercise of falling had done him good.\n\n\"Get on with you,\" said I, \"and get off with those clothes. Wash\nyourself, and put on the suit I was wearing yesterday, and see that\nyou don't fall in the water-jug and drown yourself.\"\n\nI gave the order for Tom Peel to saddle the four horses and get six of\nhis men with swords and pistols and blunderbusses to act as an escort\nfor me.\n\n\"Are you going back to Rye, your honour?\" asked Peel.\n\n\"I am not. I am going to the Manor House.\"\n\n\"That's but a step,\" he cried in surprise.\n\n\"It's a step,\" said I, \"that will be taken with dignity and\nconsequence.\"\n\nSo, with the afternoon sun shining in our faces, we set out from the\nhouse of Brede, leaving but few men to guard it. Of course I ran the\nrisk that it might be taken in our absence; but I trusted the word of\nLord Strepp as much as I distrusted the designs of his father and\nmother, and Strepp had been the captain of the expedition against us;\nbut if I had been sure the mansion was lost to me, I would have evaded\nnone of the pomp of my march to the Manor House in the face of such\npride as these upstarts of Westports exhibited toward a representative\nof a really ancient family like the O'Ruddy. So his Reverence and I\nrode slowly side by side, with Jem and Paddy, also on horseback, a\ndecent interval behind us, and tramping in their wake that giant, Tom\nPeel, with six men nearly as stalwart as himself, their blunderbusses\nover their shoulders, following him. It struck panic in the village\nwhen they saw this terrible array marching up the hill toward them,\nwith the sun glittering on us as if we were walking jewellery. The\nvillagers, expecting to be torn limb from limb, scuttled away into the\nforest, leaving the place as empty as a bottle of beer after a wake.\nEven the guards around the Manor House fled as we approached it, for\nthe fame of our turbulence had spread abroad in the land. Lord Strepp\ntried to persuade them that nothing would happen to them, for when he\nsaw the style in which we were coming he was anxious to make a show\nfrom the Westport side and had drawn up his men in line to receive us.\nBut we rode through a silent village that might have been just sacked\nby the French. I thought afterward that this desertion had a subduing\neffect on the old Earl's pride, and made him more easy to deal with.\nIn any case his manner was somewhat abated when he received me. Lord\nStrepp himself was there at the door, making excuses for the servants,\nwho he said had gone to the fields to pick berries for their supper.\nSo, leaving Paddy to hold one horse and Jem the other, with the seven\nmen drawn up fiercely in front of the Manor House, Father Donovan and\nmyself followed Lord Strepp into a large room, and there, buried in an\narm-chair, reclined the aged Earl of Westport, looking none too\npleased to meet his visitors. In cases like this it's as well to be\ngenial at the first, so that you may remove the tension in the\nbeginning.\n\n\"The top of the morning--I beg your pardon--the tail of the afternoon\nto you, sir, and I hope I see you well.\"\n\n\"I am very well,\" said his lordship, more gruffly than politely.\n\n\"Permit me to introduce to your lordship, his Reverence, Father\nDonovan, who has kindly consented to accompany me that he may yield\ntestimony to the long-standing respectability of the House of\nO'Ruddy.\"\n\n\"I am pleased to meet your Reverence,\" said the Earl, although his\nappearance belied his words. He wasn't pleased to meet either of us,\nif one might judge by his lowering countenance, in spite of my\ncordiality and my wish to make his surrender as easy for him as\npossible.\n\nI was disappointed not to see the Countess and Lady Mary in the room,\nfor it seemed a pity that such a costume as mine should be wasted on\nan old curmudgeon, sitting with his chin in his breast in the depths\nof an easy-chair, looking daggers though he spoke dumplings.\n\nI was just going to express my regret to Lord Strepp that no ladies\nwere to be present in our assemblage, when the door opened, and who\nshould sail in, like a full-rigged man-o'-war, but the Countess\nherself, and Lady Mary, like an elegant yacht floating in tow of her.\nI swept my bonnet to the boards of the floor with a gesture that would\nhave done honour to the Court of France; but her Ladyship tossed her\nnose higher in the air, as if the man-o'-war had encountered a huge\nwave. She seated herself with emphasis on a chair, and says I to\nmyself, \"It's lucky for you, you haven't Paddy's trap-door under you,\nor we'd see your heels disappear, coming down like that.\"\n\nLady Mary very modestly took up her position standing behind her\nmother's chair, and, after one timid glance at me, dropped her eyes on\nthe floor, and then there were some moments of silence, as if every\none was afraid to begin. I saw I was going to have trouble with the\nCountess, and although I think it will be admitted by my enemies that\nI'm as brave a man as ever faced a foe, I was reluctant to throw down\nthe gage of battle to the old lady.\n\nIt was young Lord Strepp that began, and he spoke most politely, as\nwas his custom.\n\n\"I took the liberty of sending for you, Mr. O'Ruddy, and I thank you\nfor responding so quickly to my invitation. The occurrences of the\npast day or two, it would be wiser perhaps to ignore--\"\n\nAt this there was an indignant sniff from the Countess, and I feared\nshe was going to open her batteries, but to my amazement she kept\nsilent, although the effort made her red in the face.\n\n\"I have told my father and mother,\" went on Lord Strepp, \"that I had\nsome conversation with you this morning, and that conditions might be\narrived at satisfactory to all parties concerned. I have said nothing\nto my parents regarding the nature of these conditions, but I gained\ntheir consent to give consideration to anything you might say, and to\nany proposal you are good enough to make.\"\n\nThe old gentleman mumbled something incomprehensible in his chair, but\nthe old lady could keep silence no longer.\n\n\"This is an outrage,\" she cried, \"the man's action has been scandalous\nand unlawful. If, instead of bringing those filthy scoundrels against\nour own house, those cowards that ran away as soon as they heard the\nsound of a blunderbuss, we had all stayed in London, and you had had\nthe law of him, he would have been in gaol by this time and not\nstanding brazenly there in the Manor House of Brede.\"\n\nAnd after saying this she sniffed again, having no appreciation of\ngood manners.\n\n\"Your ladyship has been misinformed,\" I said with extreme deference.\n\"The case is already in the hands of dignified men of law, who are\nmightily pleased with it.\"\n\n\"Pleased with it, you idiot,\" she cried. \"They are pleased with it\nsimply because they know somebody will pay them for their work, even\nit's a beggar from Ireland, who has nothing on him but rags.\"\n\n\"Your ladyship,\" said I, not loath to call attention to my costume,\n\"I assure you these rags cost golden guineas in London.\"\n\n\"Well, you will not get golden guineas from Brede estate,\" snapped her\nladyship.\n\n\"Again your ladyship is misinformed. The papers are so perfect, and so\nwell do they confirm my title to this beautiful domain, that the\nmoney-lenders of London simply bothered the life out of me trying to\nshovel gold on me, and both his lordship and your ladyship know that\nif a title is defective there is no money to be lent on it.\"\n\n\"You're a liar,\" said the Countess genially, although the Earl looked\nup in alarm when I mentioned that I could draw money on the papers.\nAgain I bowed deeply to her ladyship, and, putting my hands in my\npockets, I drew out two handfuls of gold, which I strewed up and down\nthe floor as if I were sowing corn, and each guinea was no more than a\ngrain of it.\n\n\"There is the answer to your ladyship's complimentary remark,\" said I\nwith a flourish of my empty hands; and, seeing Lady Mary's eyes\nanxiously fixed on me, I dropped her a wink with the side of my face\nfarthest from the Countess, at which Lady Mary's eyelids drooped\nagain. But I might have winked with both eyes for all the Countess,\nwho was staring like one in a dream at the glittering pieces that lay\nhere and there and gleamed all over the place like the little yellow\ndevils they were. She seemed struck dumb, and if anyone thinks gold\ncannot perform a miracle, there is the proof of it.\n\n\"Is it gold?\" cried I in a burst of eloquence that charmed even\nmyself, \"sure I could sow you acres with it by the crooking of my\nlittle finger from the revenues of my estate at the Old Head of\nKinsale.\"\n\n\"O'Ruddy, O'Ruddy,\" said Father Donovan very softly and reprovingly,\nfor no one knew better than him what my ancestral revenues were.\n\n\"Ah well, Father,\" said I, \"your reproof is well-timed. A man should\nnot boast, and I'll say no more of my castles and my acres, though the\nships on the sea pay tribute to them. But all good Saints preserve us,\nEarl of Westport, if you feel proud to own this poor estate of Brede,\nthink how little it weighed with my father, who all his life did not\ntake the trouble to come over and look at it. Need I say more about\nKinsale when you hear that? And as for myself, did I attempt to lay\nhands on this trivial bit of earth because I held the papers? You know\nI tossed them into your daughter's lap because she was the\nfinest-looking girl I have seen since I landed on these shores.\"\n\n\"Well, well, well, well,\" growled the Earl, \"I admit I have acted\nrashly and harshly in this matter, and it is likely I have done wrong\nto an honourable gentleman, therefore I apologize for it. Now, what\nhave you to propose?\"\n\n\"I have to propose myself as the husband of your daughter, Lady Mary,\nand as for our dowry, there it is on the floor for the picking up, and\nI'm content with that much if I get the lady herself.\"\n\nHis lordship slowly turned his head around and gazed at his daughter,\nwho now was looking full at me with a frown on her brow. Although I\nknew I had depressed the old people, I had an uneasy feeling that I\nhad displeased Lady Mary herself by my impulsive action and my\nbragging words. A curious mildness came into the harsh voice of the\nold Earl, and he said, still looking at his daughter:\n\n\"What does Mary say to this?\"\n\nThe old woman could not keep her eyes from the gold, which somehow\nheld her tongue still, yet I knew she was hearing every word that was\nsaid, although she made no comment. Lady Mary shook herself, as if to\narouse herself from a trance, then she said in a low voice:\n\n\"I can never marry a man I do not love.\"\n\n\"What's that? what's that?\" shrieked her mother, turning fiercely\nround upon her, whereat Lady Mary took a step back. \"Love, love? What\nnonsense is this I hear? You say you will not marry this man to save\nthe estate of Brede?\"\n\n\"I shall marry no man whom I do not love,\" repeated Lady Mary firmly.\n\nAs for me, I stood there, hat in hand, with my jaw dropped, as if\nSullivan had given me a stunning blow in the ear; then the old Earl\nsaid sternly:\n\n\"I cannot force my daughter: this conference is at an end. The law\nmust decide between us.\"\n\n\"The law, you old dotard,\" cried the Countess, rounding then on him\nwith a suddenness that made him seem to shrink into his shell. \"The\nlaw! Is a silly wench to run us into danger of losing what is ours? He\n_shall_ marry her. If you will not force her, then I'll coerce her;\"\nand with that she turned upon her daughter, grasped her by her two\nshoulders and shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. At this Lady Mary\nbegan to weep, and indeed she had good cause to do so.\n\n\"Hold, madam,\" shouted I, springing toward her. \"Leave the girl alone.\nI agree with his lordship, no woman shall be coerced on account of\nme.\"\n\nMy intervention turned the Countess from her victim upon me.\n\n\"You agree with his lordship, you Irish baboon? Don't think she'll\nmarry you because of any liking for you, you chattering ape, who\nresemble a monkey in a show with those trappings upon you. She'll\nmarry you because I say she'll marry you, and you'll give up those\npapers to me, who have sense enough to take care of them. If I have a\ndoddering husband, who at the same time lost his breeches and his\npapers, I shall make amends for his folly.\"\n\n\"Madam,\" said I, \"you shall have the papers; and as for the breeches,\nby the terror you spread around you, I learn they are already in your\npossession.\"\n\nI thought she would have torn my eyes out, but I stepped back and\nsaved myself.\n\n\"To your room, you huzzy,\" she cried to her daughter, and Mary fled\ntoward the door. I leaped forward and opened it for her. She paused on\nthe threshold, pretending again to cry, but instead whispered:\n\n\"My mother is the danger. Leave things alone,\" she said quickly. \"We\ncan easily get poor father's consent.\"\n\nWith that she was gone. I closed the door and returned to the centre\nof the room.\n\n\"Madam,\" said I, \"I will not have your daughter browbeaten. It is\nquite evident she refuses to marry me.\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue, and keep to your word, you idiot,\" she rejoined,\nhitting me a bewildering slap on the side of the face, after which\nshe flounced out by the way her daughter had departed.\n\nThe old Earl said nothing, but gazed gloomily into space from out the\ndepths of his chair. Father Donovan seemed inexpressibly shocked, but\nmy Lord Strepp, accustomed to his mother's tantrums, laughed outright\nas soon as the door was closed. All through he had not been in the\nleast deceived by his sister's pretended reluctance, and recognized\nthat the only way to get the mother's consent was through opposition.\nHe sprang up and grasped me by the hand and said:\n\n\"Well, O'Ruddy, I think your troubles are at an end, or,\" he cried,\nlaughing again, \"just beginning, but you'll be able to say more on\nthat subject this time next year. Never mind my mother; Mary is, and\nalways will be, the best girl in the world.\"\n\n\"I believe you,\" said I, returning his handshake as cordially as he\nhad bestowed it.\n\n\"Hush!\" he cried, jumping back into his seat again. \"Let us all look\ndejected. Hang your head, O'Ruddy!\" and again the door opened, this\ntime the Countess leading Lady Mary, her long fingers grasping that\nslim wrist.\n\n\"She gives her consent,\" snapped the Countess, as if she were\npronouncing sentence. I strode forward toward her, but Mary wrenched\nher wrist free, slipped past me, and dropped at the feet of Father\nDonovan, who had risen as she came in.\n\n\"Your blessing on me, dear Father,\" she cried, bowing her head, \"and\npray on my behalf that there may be no more turbulence in my life.\"\n\nThe old father crossed his hands on her shapely head, and for a moment\nor two it seemed as if he could not command his voice, and I saw the\ntears fill his eyes. At last he said simply and solemnly:--\n\n\"May God bless you and yours, my dear daughter.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe were married by Father Donovan with pomp and ceremony in the chapel\nof the old house, and in the same house I now pen the last words of\nthese memoirs, which I began at the request of Lady Mary herself, and\ncontinued for the pleasure she expressed as they went on. If this\nrecital is disjointed in parts, it must be remembered I was always\nmore used to the sword than to the pen, and that it is difficult to\nwrite with Patrick and little Mary and Terence and Kathleen and\nMichael and Bridget and Donovan playing about me and asking questions,\nbut I would not have the darlings sent from the room for all the\nwritings there is in the world.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of Project Gutenberg's The O'Ruddy, by Stephen Crane and Robert Barr\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}