Jubilee

At Christmas time both the slaves and slave masters prepare to enjoy all the treats prepared and stored away earlier in the year. Despite Missy Salina’s due diligence, some of the slaves still managed to get some of her preserves out of the pantry and into the quarters. They pick other delicacies, such as berries, from the nearby woods. When the frost comes, they pick various nuts. For their feast, they hunt and then boil a possum or a raccoon. They eat the meat with roasted sweet potatoes. If slaves want fresh meat, they kill it themselves. Otherwise, “at hog-killing time they [are] given tubs of chitterlings, the liver […] and sometimes even the feet” (165). Sometimes, Marse John offers a young suckling pig to barbecue. Missy Salina likes the wild game from the Dutton family’s nearby woods and forbids the slaves from eating the quail, pheasant, wild turkey, ducks, and deer that she insists are hers.

On Christmas morning, every slave child gets “an orange, hard Christmas candy, and sometimes ginger cake” (166). The women receive chewing tobacco and snuff, and the men get whisky and rum. Sometimes, the slaves get new clothes, but Marse John always ensures that Grimes buys and hands out their new shoes before Thanksgiving.

On Christmas, relations between slaves and their masters in the Big House are always warmer. Marse John even invites and welcomes his poor white relatives into his house on Christmas. Everyone gathers around to hear his yearly speech in which he thanks his slaves for providing such “a good crop and working so hard and faithfully” (167). He then asks them to sing a song for his family and the guests. They sing “There’s a star in the East on Christmas morn,” which always makes the white people weep. The white people then go back into the house and enjoy a “Christmas breakfast of fried chicken and waffles and steaming black coffee with fresh clotted cream” (167). The slaves return to their cabins, thankful to have at least enough to eat on this one day of year. At night, they have banjo parties.

Vyry, however, is in a less festive mood. By getting her pregnant, Randall Ware has made her his without ensuring her freedom. He tries to placate her by having Brother Ezekiel marry them in a “jump the broom” ceremony, but this isn’t enough for Vyry. She’s also indifferent to Ware’s gifts of food. He reminds her that he can only buy her through another white man because it’s nearly impossible in Lee County for slaves to marry free blacks. Vyry takes matters into her own hands by asking Marse John’s permission to marry Ware. She first ensures that Missy Salina isn’t around. She goes into his study on the night of the banjo party. Marse John is startled to see her. The sight of the girl, who looks so much like him, always makes him feel uneasy. He masks his insecurity by speaking to her in a condescending manner.

Vyry tells Marse John that she’s pregnant and wants to get married. He asks her whom she wants to marry and she tells him that the man is a free black. Angrily, Marse John accuses Vyry of asking for her freedom. He assures her that he owns Vyry and will next own her unborn child. Vyry cries and asks if Marse John thinks it would be “a sin” (172) for her to be free. He reminds her that, if she were free, she would no longer be cared for and would be subjected to conditions very similar to those of the poor whites who live nearby. He then says that he’s often thought of freeing her, but Georgia laws make that difficult, unless a slave does something extraordinary for a white person. Vyry gazes at Marse John in a way that tells him that she doesn’t believe him. He hangs his head in shame, then excuses himself to finish working on his accounts. Vyry returns to her cabin.

Vyry gives birth to a son. The child is “a creamy brown” (177) with dark brown, soft curly hair. She and Randall Ware name the boy James Ware, but call him Jim. Jim stays with Vyry in the kitchen. Missy Salina leaves him alone and Marse John avoids him. He is a quick-witted and inquisitive child.

Summer arrives. Vyry is now 17 years old. She feels hopeless and, like Aunt Sally before her, begins singing to lift her spirits and help the days pass more quickly. She has two more children before the age of 20, though one is stillborn. The other is a girl she names Minna. She has “the same high brown skin” (179) as Jim, but lacks his spunk. Jim becomes Ware’s favorite.

In the Big House, there’s much talk about politics, which Vyry barely understands. There’s controversy over whether the western territories, newly acquired from the Mexican-American War, will be slave or free. Missy Salina expresses her hatred for abolitionists. Vyry asks Ware what an abolitionist is and he explains, but Vyry hardly listens or understands. She insists that talk over freedom doesn’t amount to much. Ware, meanwhile, is dealing with more threats over his being a free black man. He tells Vyry that he may soon have to leave. May Liza and Caline overhear Missy Salina talk to Marse John about the trouble “that free-issue nigger” (181) may bring. 

One morning, a stranger appears to do business with Marse John. Caline senses that the man is a trader. The man stays at the Big House for several days. Vyry one day catches him staring at her son, Jim. Then, the man disappears. Randall Ware is doing well, busy at his shop and contemplating the purchase of more land. The stranger then reappears to announce a private auction. Vyry goes to Brother Ezekiel and expresses her fear that Marse John will sell her, particularly if Missy Salina insists upon it. He asks Brother Ezekiel to write a letter to Ware, asking him to find a man to buy her before the auction. Vyry sends the dull-witted boy, Willie, to Ware’s shop with the letter. She also gives him a pass that Brother Ezekiel has written.

Willie encounters a white man on the way who asks where he’s going. Willie, unable to read, hands the man what he thinks is a pass. The white man reads it, smiles, and sends Willie on his way. Willie arrives at Ware’s shop late in the afternoon, sees Ware, and gives him the pass, not the letter. Ware wonders if anyone else saw the letter, given that the boy cannot read or know the difference between the notes. Willie lies and says that no one did. Ware designates which paper is the pass, and sends the boy back to the plantation.

Saturday comes. It’s the day of the auction. Vyry hears nothing from Ware. Missy Salina enters the kitchen and orders her to take Jim and Minna to one of the barns where she ordered the other house servants to go. When Vyry goes into the barn, she sees May Liza, Caline, and the other house slaves. Each female slave is soon put up on the auction block, “either stripped to the waist or wholly naked while the auctioneer [recites] her worth” (190). The prospective buyers perk up only when they see Vyry. She is put on the auction block alone. Her children cry at the sight of her, stripped down, while an old, white-haired man outbids everyone for her, then changes his mind. Willie is the only slave that the Duttons manage to sell, and for “less than a hundred dollars” (190). Vyry briefly forgets her own predicament to feel pity for the boy, who seems to feel nothing. He simply “[gathers] his few rags” and “[goes] along amiably enough, whistling a broken tune” (190).