A Backstory To Kindred

           In class, we've been reading Octavia Butler's Kindred. As we all already know, the book discusses post-modernist ideas such as time travel, which makes the plot compelling in its own right. However, it is even more interesting to see how Butler uses time travel and characters as a way of expressing her ideas about "modern" society at the time.

           But first, a little background information.  In the late 19^th and 20^th centuries, similar accounts of the slavery period to Kindred from slaves themselves began to arise. We specifically read different first-hand narratives about the antebellum south as part of a New Deal project during the Great Depression. However, the most interesting part of those accounts was how much the slaves would tailor their own personal narratives to the interviewer. It was almost as if they were intimidated from telling their true pasts due to fear of reprimand. These more gruesome narratives were gently swept under the rug as the more rose-colored views of slavery were made more prominent. It wasn’t really until after the Civil Rights era that these stories began to be widely accepted by the mainstream public. Now I don’t have any official sources, but I feel like it’s reasonable to assume the public reaction was very “handsoffish”. The “woke” people of the era who actually believed the narrative truths would have made an argument that if THEY would have been back in the antebellum south, they would have tried to change this horrible system. Enter Kindred. Octavia Butler’s background both as a historian and a writer heard these claims, and figured she needed to write a provocative piece of literature refuting these points, without making the work too standoffish, which would make it easily dismissible by critics. 

            This is where Kevin enters the picture. Octavia Butler created a character that is broadly symbolic of the “woke” white American. He marries a black woman, something very rare the 1970s. And yet, throughout the story thus far we see examples of Kevin making mistakes that are understandable, but also cringe-worthy. Take, for example, the scene where Kevin suggests they fake a master-slave relationship to stay together. It’s impossible to fault Kevin for this logic as it makes clear sense. However, it still gives the reader a sense of uneasiness. As a white reader, it would be a much easier and more pleasant read if Kevin was not in the story, which is the specific reason Butler decided to include him. By including a character with modern viewpoints and throwing them in the past, it causes the white reader to directly confront their roots in a much more meaningful way than being explicitly called out in an essay. By using Kevin in her story, Octavia Butler accomplished exactly the point she intended when she began writing Kindred. 

PS: If anybody is interested, I have attached the documents Mr. Leff gave us mentioned above on the bottom.

Source 2a: Interview With Ex-Slave

On July 6th, I interviewed Susan Hamlin, ex-slave, at 17 Henrietta street, Charleston... She was sitting just inside of the front door, on a step leading up to the porch, and upon hearing me inquire for her she assumed that I was from the Welfare office, from which she had received aid prior to its closing. I did not correct this impression, and at no time did she suspect that the object of my visit was to get the story of her experience as a slave. During our conversation she mentioned her age. "Why that's very interesting, Susan," I told her, "If you are that old you probably remember the Civil War and slavery days." "Yes, Ma'am, I been a slave myself," she said, and told me the following story: "I can remember some things like it was yesterday, but I is 104 years old now, and age is starting to get me, I can't remember everything like I use to. I getting old, old. You know I is old when I been a grown woman when the Civil War broke out. I was hired out then, to a Mr. McDonald, who lived on Atlantic Street, and I remembers when the first shot was fired, and the shells went right over the city. I got seven dollars a month for looking after children, not taking them out, you understand, just minding them. I did not got the money, Mausa got it." "Don't you think that was fair?" I asked. "If you were fed and clothed by him, shouldn't he be paid for your work?" "Course it been fair," she answered, "I belong to him and he got to be get something to take care of me." "My name before I was married was Susan Calder, but I married a man name Hamlin. I belonged to Mr. Edward Fuller, he was president of the First National Bank. He was a good man to his people till the Lord took him. Mr. Fuller got his slaves by marriage. He married Miss Mikell, a lady what lived on Edisto Island, who was a slave owner, and we lived on Edisto on a plantation. I don't remember the name cause when Mr. Fuller got to be president of the bank we come to Charleston to live. He sell out the plantation and say them (the slaves) that want to come to Charleston with him could come and them what wants to stay can stay on the island with his wife's people. We had our choice. Some is come and some is stay, but my ma and us children come with Mr. Fuller. We lived on St. Philip street. The house still there, good as ever. I go around there to see it all the time the cistern still there too, where we used to sit around and drink the cold water, and eat, and talk and laugh. Mr. Fuller have lots of servants and the ones he didn't need hisself he hired out. The slaves had rooms in the back, the ones with children had two rooms and them that didn't have any children had one room, not to cook in but to sleep in. They all cooked and ate downstairs in the hall that they had for the colored people. I don't know about slavery but I know all the slavery I know about, and the people was good to me. Mr. Fuller was a good man and his wife's people been grand people, all good to their slaves. Seem like Mr. Fuller just get his slaves so he could be good to them. He made all the little colored children love him. If you don't believe they loved him what they all cry, and scream, and holler for when they hear he dead? 'Oh, Mausa dead my Mausa dead, what I going to do, my Mausa dead.' They tell them there ain’t no use to cry, that can't bring him back, but the children keep on crying. We used to call him Mausa Eddie but he named Mr. Edward Fuller, and he sure was a good man. "A man come here about a month ago, say he from the Government, and they send him to find out about slavery. I give him most a book, and what he give me? A dime. He ask me all kind of questions. He ask me this and he ask me that, didn't the white people do this and did they do that but Mr. Fuller was a good man, he was sure good to me and all his people, they all like him, God bless him, he in the ground now but I ain't going to let nobody lie on him. You know he good when even the little chillen cry and holler when he dead...They couldn't send you out in the cold barefoot neither. I remember one day my ma want to send me with some milk for her sister-in-law what live around the corner. I fuss cause it cold and say 'how you going to send me out with no shoe, and it cold?' Mausa hear how I talking and turn he back and laugh, then he call to my ma to gone in the house and find shoe to put on my feet and don't let him see me barefoot again in cold weather."… When the war start going good and the shell fly over Charleston he take all us up to Aiken for protection. Talk about marching through Georgia, they sure march through Aiken, soldiers was everywhere… "Were most of the masters kind?" I asked. "Well you know," she answered, "times then was just like they is now, some was kind and some was mean; heaps of wickedness went on just the same as now. All my people was good people. I see some wickedness and I hear about all kinds of things but you don't know whether it was lie or not. Mr. Fuller been a Christian man. "Do you think it would have been better if the negroes had never left Africa?" Was the next question I asked. "No Ma'am," (emphatically) them heathen didn't have no religion. I tell you how I think it is. The Lord made three nations, the white, the red and the black, and put them in different places on the earth where they was to stay. Those black ignoramuses in Africa forgot God, and didn't have no religion and God blessed and prospered the white people that did remember Him and sent them to teach the black people even if they have to grab them and bring them into bondage till they learned some sense. The Indians forgot God and they had to be taught better so they land was taken away from them. God sure bless and prosper the white people and He put the red and the black people under them so they could teach them and bring them into sense with God. They had to get their brains right, and honor God, and learn uprightness with God cause ain't He make you, and ain't His Son redeem you and save you with His precious blood..." “Did they take good care of the slaves when their babies were born?" she was asked. "If you want chickens for fat (to fatten) you got to feed them," she said with a smile, "and if you want people to work they got to be strong, you got to feed them and take care of them too. If they can't work it come out of your pocket. Lots of wickedness gone on in them days, just as it do now, some good, some mean, black and white, it just their nature, if they good they going to be kind to everybody, if they mean they going to be mean to everybody. Sometimes children was sold away from they parents. The Mausa would come and say "Where Jennie," tell them to put clothes on that baby, I want him. He sell the baby and the ma scream and holler, you know how they carry on. Geneally (generally) they sold it when the ma wasn't there. Mr. Fuller didn't sell none of us, we stay with our ma's till we grown. I stay with my ma till she dead. "You know I is mix blood, my grandfather been a white man and my grandmother a mulatto. She been marry to a black so that how I get fix like I is. I got both blood, so how I going to quarrel with either side?" NOTE * Susan lives with a mulatto family of the better type. The name is Hamlin not Hamilton, and her name prior to her marriage was Calder not Collins. I paid particular attention to this and had them spell the names for me. I would judge Susan to be in the late nineties but she is wonderfully well preserved. She now claims to be 104 years old. Interviewee: Susan Hamlin.  Interviewer: Jessie Butler

Source 2b

I'm a hundred and one years old now, son. The only one living in my crowd from the days I was a slave. Mr. Fuller, my master, who was president of the First National Bank, owned the family of us except my father. There were eight men an' women with five girls an' six boys working for him. Most of them was hired out. The house in which we stayed is still there with the cisterns and slave quarters. I always go to see the old home which is on St. Phillip Street. My ma had three boys and three girls who did well at their work. Hope Mikell, my eldest brother, and James was the shoemaker. William Fuller, son of our Master, was the bricklayer. Margurite and Catharine was the maids and look as the children. My pa belong to a man on Edisto Island. From what he said, his master was very mean. Pa real name was Adam Collins but he took his master' name; he was the coachman. Pa did something one day and his master whipped him. The next day which was Monday, Pa carry him about four miles from home in the woods and gave him the same amount of lickin' he was given on Sunday. He tied him to a tree and unhitched the horse so it couldn't get tied up an' kill itself. Pa then gone to the landing and catch a boat that was coming to Charleston with farm products. He (was) permitted by his master to go to town on errands, which helped him to go on the boat without being question’. When he got here he went on the water-front and asked for a job on a ship so he could get to the North. He got the job and sail with the ship. They searched the island up and down for him with hound dogs and…thought he was drowned, cause they track him to the river, and they gave up… People didn’t used to do the same things they do now. Some married and some live together just like now. One thing, no minister never say in reading the matrimony "let no man put asunder" cause a couple would be married tonight and tomorrow one would be taken away and be sold. All slaves was married in their master’s house, in the living room where slaves and their missus and master as to witness the ceremony… I'll al/ways 'member Clory, the washer. She was very high-tempered. She was a mulatto with beautiful hair she could sit on; Clory didn't take foolishness from anybody. One day our missus gone in the laundry and found fault with the clothes. Clory didn't do a thing but pick her up bodily and throw her out the door. They had to send for a doctor cause she (the missus) pregnant and less than two hours [later] the baby was born. After that she (Clory) begged to be sold [and said that] she didn't [want] to kill missus, but our master ain't never want to sell his slaves. But that didn't keep Clory from getting a brutal whipping. They whipped her until there wasn't a white spot on her body. That was the worst I ever see a human being get such a beating. I thought she was going to die, but she got well and didn't get any better but meaner until our master decide it was best to rent her out. She willingly agreed since she wasn't around missus. She hated and detested both of them and all the family. When any slave was whipped all the other slaves was made to watch. I see women hung from the ceiling of buildings and whipped with only something tied around her lower part of the body, until when they was taken down, there wasn't breath in the body. I had some terribly bad experiences… The white race is so brazen. They come here and run the Indians from their own land, but they couldn't make them slaves cause they wouldn't stand for it. Indians use to get up in trees and shoot them with poison arrow.  When they couldn't make them slaves then they gone to Africa and bring their black brother and sister. They say among themselves, "we gwine [going to] mix them up and make ourselves king. That’s the only way we'd get even with the Indians.” All time, night an' day, you could hear men and women screaming to the tip of their voices as either ma, pa, sister, or brother was take(n) without any warning and (sold). Some time mother, who had only one child, was separated for life. People was always dying from a broken heart. One night a couple married and the next morning the boss sell the wife. The gal ma got in in the street and cursed the white woman for all she could find. She said: "that damn white, pale-face bastard sell my daughter who just married last night," and other things. The white man (told her he would call the) police if she didn't stop, but the colored woman said: "hit me or call the police. I rather die than stand this any longer." The police took her to the Work House by the white woman orders and what became of her, I never hear. When the war began we was taken to Aiken, South Carolina where we stay until the Yankees come through. We could see balls sailing through the air when Sherman was coming. Bombs hit trees in our yard. When the freedom gun was fired, I was on my knees scrubbing. They tell me I was free but I didn't believe it. In the days of slavery woman was just given time enough to deliver their babies. They deliver the baby about eight in the morning and twelve had to be back to work. Since Lincoln shook hands with his assassin who at the same time shoot him, from that day I stop shaking hands, even in the church, and you know how long that was. I don't believe in kissing neither fur all carry their meannesses. The Master was betrayed by one of his bosom friend with a kiss. (note: consider who the Master is in this last sentence)

Interviewee: Susan Hamilton.  Interviewer: Augustus Ladson