Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century

Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century by Maria de los Reyes Castillo Bueno

How and Why Reyita's Story Was Written

• Reyita's narrative is told through conversation with her daughter Daisy, who recorded the conversation. This conversation is sometimes seen during the narrative but usually the narrative flows freely.

• "You wanted to be a pianist, remember? I know you haven't forgotten the wooden piano with the painted-on keys that your brother Monín made you" (pg 82)

• Daisy Rubiera Castillo is a founding member of the Fernando Ortiz African Cultural Center in Santiago de Cuba, which examines the influence of African culture on Cuba and other Latin American countries. Through this a project was set up to gather oral folk histories of those who came from Africa.

• Reyita was able to recount the stories that her Grandmother told her, and the healing traditions she learnt. The need for these stories to be told and shared are repeated throughout the narrative. For example, Reyita tells the stories of how her Grandmother was taken from Africa, but also Daisy's generation was already gorgetting the traditions of Reyita's generation.
• "I invented a malanga pudding, which you and your dad all liked very much. Remember how to make it? No? What a scandal!" (pg 114)
• The old traditions were being forgotten and so the story of Reyita and others like her, needed to be heard and preserved.

• In a documentary made after the book was released, members of Reyita's family say they didn't know many of the things about their mother's life until they read the book. If Reyita's story was not told and recorded it would have been lost.

 

 Video 1: Trailer for Reyita Documentary

• In her review of the book, K. Lynn Stoner, says that it is refreshing that there is not a overly political message. However, the reason for the narrative is not to tell a political history, but to tell Reyita's story of her life, and her family. 
• Reyita does inevitably come into contact with some of the political issues of the day, but when mentioned they are either fleeting mentions of people who were in her house, or events that related directly to her family. For example, there is no direct mention of triumph of the Revolution, but Reyita spends quite a bit of time talking about how Monín died in the La Coubre explosion (pg 138), as this directly affected her and her family.

Race and Poverty

•    In Reyita: The Life of a Black Woman in the Twentieth Century, the themes of racial discrimination and poverty are closely intertwined.
• She is aware of the impact of one on the other and regularly highlights the fact that “money and colour create enormous differences” (p.119) in the lives of Cubans.

•  The role of poverty in the narrative can be seen in instances such as her constant struggle to get by financially as well as the identification of the different impoverished social groups such as prostitutes. 
• She only discovers her own economic viability when she acquires commodities such as electricity and the fridge as well as running her own businesses.

• She also notes the complexity of race relations in Cuba and how different it was from, e.g. America.
• “Racial discrimination in Cuba was very intense and a complicated issue. Whites discriminated against blacks and those harboured resentment against whites”. (p.30)
• Elizabeth Dore agrees, stating how these differences occurred because of the participation of black Cubans in the anti-colonial movement and the interaction between class and race in the country.
• She also discusses how the differences were due to the tripartite colour code unlike the strict black-white one of the US

• Throughout her life, she refers to the ongoing confliction between staying true to her racial roots and achieving a better economic and social life for her and her family.
• We are first made aware of Reyita’s struggle with race when she describes her childhood as being marred by the internal racism of her mother who treated her differently from her lighter-skinned siblings.
  • “I was the victim of terrible discrimination on my mother’s part”. (p.21)

• As mentioned previously, Reyita struggled to find a balance in terms of race and poverty, which is seen when she decides it is necessary to marry a white man:

Image 1: Reyita and her "rainbow family"

• “I didn’t want to marry a black husband, not out of contempt for my race, but, because black men had almost no possibilities of getting ahead and the certainty of facing a lot of discrimination”. (p.166) 
• Due to her own childhood, she feared that her children would suffer the same fate and live a life full of discrimination and be held back in terms of education and job opportunities if she married a black man.
• She yearned for upward mobility and a way out of poverty.

However, Matt D. Childs discusses how Reyita “struggles with these contradictions as she realises that marrying a white man did not make her or her children “white” in the eyes of others”.

• Despite having problems with the notion of race at certain points during her life, it has to be said that she was proud of her heritage as seen at the beginning of the narrative when she discusses her ancestor’s plight as slaves brought over from Africa.

• “Her beloved, never forgotten Africa, which I learned to love too from all the stories she told us”. (p.26)
• “This love for her homeland that my grandma instilled in me had a big influence on my decision...to go back to Africa – tired of being discriminated against for being black”. (p.26)
• Moreover, she attended meetings at the local chapter of United Negro Improvement Association founded by Marcus Garvey.

Gender Issues

• Reyita had many obstacles to overcome which included not only poverty and racial stereotypes but her husband’s limited view of his children’s potential and his unwillingness to sacrifice for them 
• One of the main objectives of Reyita’s testimony is to portray the challenges facing Afro-Cuban women struggling to improve her socioeconomic situation.
• In Reyita’s married life she becomes increasingly frustrated with the limitations Rubiera places on her ambitions: 'Your dad didn't allow me to develop myself the way I wanted, to struggle to fulfil the ambitions you all had. I couldn't do it, Rubiera would wouldn't let me; [...] thinking a woman had to dedicate herself to running the household and nothing more’ (pp.141-142) 
• Reyita was determined to gain upward mobility and realised her own economic power and viability to this end before the 1959 revolution. 
•  She starts selling food from her kitchen and eventually sets up a dining room and also did laundry for others in her community
• With her money she installs electricity for the house and buys furniture and a radio
• She also finances her daughters’ weddings
• Reyita expresses that she believes independence is true freedom (p.142)
• Reyita’s financial independence broke "the tradition of submission to the man of the house" (p. 145)

• The introduction by Elizabeth Dore places Reyita’s testament in the context of Latin American gender issues 
• Dore suggests that Reyita’s actions are like that of an early feminist
• On the surface this statement is true
• Yet Reyita is gaining a higher socioeconomic position for herself, not for knowingly feminist ends.
• Reyita is furthering herself for her children. 
• The most important thing in Reyita’s life is her family and she often talks of the great pleasure their happiness brings her.
• Dore’s introduction helps us understand the strengths of Cuban women and the lengths they would go to in devoting their lives to their family’s welfare

• Reyita is thus a valuable text for consideration when studying the wider gender issues in contemporary and historical Cuba. 

Spirituality

Unlike many of the other slave narratives we have read, Reyita does not place such a heavy emphasis on religion. When talking of her religion she said that:

• “my religious beliefs which I could then develop in my own way, because I don’t like going to ceremonies” (p.108)

We can see that Reyita did not enjoy attending church ceremonies, she liked to take ideas and develop them in her own way. However, throughout the narrative Reyita refers a lot to spiritualism. When attending a spiritual session with her aunty she stated:

• “The grown-ups said I had “mediumship”, but I didn’t know what that was either. What I can tell you is that I “saw” many, many things.” (p.48)

Reyita gives various examples of her “mediumship”, she believed that she would have visions and then in a short period of time something would happen which included the person or object she has seen in the vision. In time, Reyita began to use her visions to help people.

• “Senora, I have a terrible problem. They told me you have very good vision and I’ve come so you can help me resolve it” (p.106)

Here we can see someone coming to Reyita for her help after hearing about her work. Reyita tells the reader about the story and that she was able to help the man who was seeking help. Reyita did not only use her visions to help people but also her herbal remedies.

• “You know I don’t believe in miracles, but in the curative properties of the herbs and roots I used for those remedies, plus the faith and good will with which I made them: they were what really did the healing” (p.110)

Reyita believed that her “faith and good will” were one of the main factors that her children did not get sick throughout their lives. Hence, we can see Reyita had a strong spiritual belief and believed that she had been blessed with a gift.

Bibliography

Picture 1: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/05/963021/-Black-Kos,-Tuesdays-Chile

Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoygU15ixRw

Childs, Matt D.; "Expanding Perspectives on Race, Nation and Culture in Cuban History"; Latin American Research Review; Vol. 39; No.1 (2004)

Stoner, K. Lynn; "Review"; The Americas; Vol.58; No.4; Field Science in Latin America (April 2002)

Walmsley, Emily; "Review"; Journal of Latin American Studies; Vol.34; No.1; (February 2002), Cambridge University Press

Fernando Ortiz Center Website: http://afrocubaweb.com/ortizafrican.htm 

"The Souls of White Folk", in 'Darkwater', W.E.B. Du Bois

Souls of White Folk

 

Why he Wrote it

·         There can be seen to be many reasons for why Du Bois wrote “Souls of White Folk”.

·         Published in 1920, Du Bois puts forward a stubborn opinion as to why World War One took place as well as a warning about the future of capitalism, trade and imperialism if left to continue along the same path. At the heart of his text, he sends a clear message that these problems had severe implications for the non-white world.

·         He matter-of-factly comments how “It is expansion overseas; it is colonial aggrandizement which explains, and alone adequately explains, the World War” (P.5)

ð  This view was definitely met with resistance by American and European historians at the time.

·         He may have also written the text as a way of demonstrating how the war was not simply the result of what was deemed as the result of the tyrannical behaviour of Germany and that “Germany, at last one and united and secure on land, looked across the seas and seeing England with sources of wealth insuring a luxury and power which Germany could not hope to rival...immediately built her navy and entered into a desperate competition for the possession of colonies of darker peoples...England and France crouched watchfully over their bones, growling and wary, but gnawing industriously, while the blood of the dark world whetted their greedy appetites” (p7)

ð  This view could be down to the fact that he spent some time writing his dissertation in Berlin and was able to make his own judgement on the nature of German politics and society.

·         Diorita C. Fletcher holds the view that Du Bois chose to write about the roots of World War One as a way of showing the contradictions of white American and European culture.

·         Moreover, the text shows a clear shift in tone and that Du Bois wished to take the road of pointing more towards the wrongdoing of white people in the creation of a global racial hierarchy rather than simply describing the terrible conditions that black people suffered in.

·         L’Heureux Lewis comments how “Du Bois seems to have used his writing as a means to connect oppressed people of colour throughout the world – and develop a subtle, yet meaningful, resistance movement to global European hegemony”. (p.8)

·         Cheryl Townsend shares a similar view that Du Bois was focused on highlighting the oppressive nature of Europe and America; “oppression was the central issue...Du Bois emphasises gender race and class...with sociology as a means to seek solutions to social problems” (p.734)

Imperialism

·         A key theme running through the text is Imperialism, specifically the effect it has had on the non-white world.

·         His debate goes hand in hand with his view on the causes of world war one and that the scramble for colonies in Africa as well as the Far East not only impacted on the lives of natives of those countries but effectively created tension amongst European powers; the notion of greed plays an important role in the text.

Picture 1

·         Du Bois also refers to the fact that the mistreatment and massacres in Congo during the 1880’s and 1890’s were overshadowed by events in Belgium, commenting how “behold little Belgium and her pitiable plight, but has the world forgotten Congo?” (p.4)

ð  The fact that such events were happening in a white country made it more  

·         It is important to note that Du Bois felt strongly that colonialism emerged due to the fact that the white working class could no longer be controlled due to the emergence of industrialisation and globalisation.

Capitalism and Trade

·         Running alongside the failures of imperialism can be seen to be Du Bois’s distain for capitalism and globalisation.

·         He makes several references to the fact that such globalisation of trade and industry was at the expense of black people as well as other non-white populations.

ð  That the world was becoming increasingly obsessed with financial gain and power maximisation

ð  “The world today is trade. The world has turned shopkeeper; history is economic history; living is earning a living”. (P.4)

·         Du Bois also makes the point that such gains were made not because of the superiority of the white population but because of the hard work by those countries colonised and forced into work; he comments how this was no better than slavery.

ð  “Rubber, ivory and palm-oil; tea, coffee, and cocoa; bananas, oranges, and other fruit; cotton, gold, and copper...a hundred other things which dark and sweating bodies hand up to the white world from pits of slime, pay and pay well”.(P.7)

Religion

Du Bois uses religion in a way, that shows the loss of religiosity that has happened in the white world,

• “Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!”
  • Du Bois refers to the idea that humans are stewards of the earth , but in this sense it is only the whites how have this dominion .
    • Genesis 1:28 “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
    
    
    
    
  Picture 2
  
  
  
  
  The use of religious phrasing is also used sarcastically, emphasising the loss of religiosity, and also his disregard for this idea that only whites should rule over the earth.
• “A nation’s religion is its life, and as such white Christianity is a miserable failure. Nor would we be unfair in this criticism: We know that we, too, have failed, as you have, and have rejected many a Buddha, even as you have denied Christ; but we acknowledge our human fraility, while you, claiming super-humanity, scoff endlessly at our shortcomings.”
  • A nation and its religion are closely linked, especially where a majority subscribe to a certain belief. However, since white America is failing that means that the moral backbone to it must also be failing. Du Bois points out that the whites are too proud to acknowledge this, the blacks have acknowleged that they have failed in the past, and recognise that they are not infallible, but the whites uses this recognition to put the blacks down. Du Bois is showing the extent that religion is used to oppress, even though the religion used is a broken one.

Race

The use of race as a theme is found throughout the piece, but there are some particular ideas that Du Bois uses that are important to point out.

• “Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in them and through them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. […] Rather I see these souls undressed and from back and side. I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious.”
  • Du Bois is emphasising the discomfort felt by whites, that he has been in their world, and he understands how they think and act. They cannot put him down in the same way that they wish they could, and this makes them even more frustrated. Du Bois revels in the fact that he can make them feel so uncomfortable by reversing the power control in the race relationship.
• “They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! “
  • Du Bois is showing that because he is an intelligent black man, whites see him as a “misbirth”, and that because of his intelligence he should have been born white. It is also showing the idea that the only true and perfect race is the white race, and that all others should be exterminated, or at least below the superior white race.

“The discovery of personal whiteness among the world’s peoples is a very modern thing”

• The idea of race and whiteness, Du Bois argues, is a relatively new concept. Using this, Du Bois then asks why it should be that white it the ultimate goal to achieve? As it is so modern there is no historical backing to it, and whites have no right to claim dominance. By using the phrase “personal”, it is also insinuated that by feeling and acting white, a person who is not white might also progress in the world.

DuBois Attitude to White People

Throughout the text we can see that DuBois refers to white people with much negativity.

• “But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?”

From this we get the sense as though DuBois looks at his race higher than white people. He looks at the way they act and treat other human beings and believe that his race is better than that. Not only this but when talking of white people he states that:

• “I see in and through them”

This gives the impression that DuBois thinks that he is more intelligent than white people. When talking of the world war DuBois states:

• “this seeming terrible is the real soul of white culture”

Here we can see how although there were black soldiers in the war DuBois, looks at the atrocities of the war mainly associated to white people. In addition, when referring to the segregation between the races, he refers to white people as

• “they are cowards in the face of mausers and maxims; they have no feelings, aspirations, and loves; they are fools, illogical idiots”

This quote accurately describes and sums up DuBois’ attitude towards white people and how he saw his race as being more superior.

Whites versus the Rest of the World

·         Du Bois makes the point of contrasting whites against the rest of the world either to show the amount of damage it has done to countries as far as China and Mexico or to prove that the white world, most specifically Europe, was soon to be overtaken by countries such as Japan.

ð  “Today Japan is hammering on the door of justice, China is raising her half-manacled hands to knock next, India is writhing for freedom to knock”. (p.9)

ð  Prophesying the demise of countries such as the “sick man of Europe”, the Ottoman Empire.

·         He also attempts to prove that the success of the white population was because of the superiority of non-whites;

ð  “Why, then, is Europe great? Because...the iron trade of ancient, black Africa, the religion and empire-building of yellow Asia, the art and science of the “dago” Mediterranean shore, east, south and west as well as north” – (p.5)

·         It can be argued that Du Bois was somewhat successful in his forecast of the rise in economic and political influence in countries such as China and Japan.

Citizenship

Picture 3: 14th Amendment

Section one of the 14^th Amendment, which was adopted in July 1868, stated that:

• “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

However, when Darkwater was published in 1920 it seemed as though this was still not the case. Although the 14^th Amendment had given everyone the right to citizenship, black people were still being treated as second class citizens.

• “I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever”

Here we can see that white people are seen as higher than black people. Not only this but black people were still being deprived of their liberty.

• “a White Man is always right and a Black Man has no rights which a White Man is bound to respect”

Therefore, despite the 14^th Amendment stated that the state was not allowed to deprive anyone of liberty, this was not entirely the case.

• “Where sections could not be owned by one dominant nation there came a policy of “open door”, but the door was open to “white people only””

In the courts cases such as Plessy v Ferguson made sure that America was living under the term “separate but equal”. Nevertheless, they may have been separate but white people and coloured people were never considered equal.

Historical and Classical Imagery

·         Du Bois makes several references to historical or classical imagery throughout “Souls of White Folk”; it can be seen to be maybe due to his classical education he received over the years and the fact that he wanted to prove himself as an elitist or educationist. However, it is at times unclear as to why some of these are relevant to his account.

·         There are many links to classical imagery throughout the text such as on page four with “Peace to the Augurs of Rome!” An Augur in the classical world was a priest or official whose main role was to interpret the will of gods by studying the flight of birds.

·         Moreover, Du Bois, with his roots in philosophy, scatters his text with links to historical tenets of philosophy such as how “This sudden descent of Europe into hell brought unbounded surprise; to others, over wide area, it brought the Schaden Freude of the bitterly hurt” (p.3).

ð  Schaden Freude has many interpretations, with the Book of Proverbs mentioning it as well as Aristotle in “Nicomachean Ethics” describing the term as a person that takes pleasure in another’s ill fortune.

ð  It is also referred to in Robert Burtons 17^th century “The Anatomy of Melancholy” as well as by Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer as it being the most evil sin of human feeling

ð  Such references show Du Bois’s need to prove himself intellectually in a world where there were not many opportunities for African Americans to gain higher education.

·         There are many historical references in “Souls of White Folk”;

ð  “The middle age regarded skin colour with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, Universal Man....” (p. 1)

Picture 4

ð  This can be seen as a reference to the ideals that emerged after the French Revolution by philosophers and reactionaries such as Thomas Paine and the “Rights of Man”.

ð  Moreover, he touches on the history of collective security and changes that happened through enlightenment in terms of a change in the philosophy of war; “The Middle Ages built its rules of fairness – equal armament, equal notice, equal conditions. What do we see today? Machine-guns against assegais; conquest sugared with religion” (p.4)

Animal Imagery

• “like a swarm of hungry locusts “
• Du Bois uses animal imagery in a reverse of the typical derogatory animal imagery that was used to describe black people. In this case he describes the white colonialists as insects that strip a land clean of harvest able crops, much like the whites taking the natural resources of the blacks. Again, Du Bois has reversed the norms, taking what was traditionally used against blacks by whites, and flipping it against the whites.

Picture 5

'The Riddle of the Sphinx'


Du Bois's poem, The Riddle of the Sphinx appears under three titles during his lifetime and we encounter it under this title in chapter two of Darkwater

• For those who do not know, the riddle of the sphinx is as follows: Which creature in the morning goes on four legs, at midday on 2, and in the evening upon three, and the more legs it has, the weaker it be?
• it would appear that Du Bois is more interested in the answer: man, and more specifically: what is man?
• From the Riddle of the Sphinx, we can assess Du Bois's view towards Black Nationalism
• his attitude can be described as ambivalent, reflecting his double-consciousness as both a black man and an American
• Du Bois describes this on p.3 of The Souls of Black Folk: he has "two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body"
• Du Bois attempts to understand this through Ethiopianism, a theme we find in The Riddle of the Sphinx
• The Ethiopian tradition arose from certain shared political and religious experiences of English-speaking Africans during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
• Ethiopianism found expression in slave narratives and the songs and folklore of the slaves of the Old and peasants of the New South.
• We encounter this in the poem as follows:

          Dark Daughter of the lotus leaves that watch the Southern Sea!

          Wan spirit of a prisoned soul a-panting to be free!

                    The muttered music of thy streams, the whisper of the deep,

                    Have kissed each other in God's name and kissed a world to sleep.

• The woman described here is a personification of Africa.  "The burden of white men bore her back and the white world stifled her sighs"
• Du Bois is commenting on the ascendancy of the West based upon Mediterranean culture
• Yet he is quick to say that it will go under:
• downdowndeep down,Till the devil's strength be shorn,Till some dim, darker David, a-hoeing of his corn,And married maiden, mother of God,Bid the black Christ be born!
  
• We can clearly see an example of Ethiopianism in the poem which can be defined as the effort of the English-speaking African person to view his past enslavement and present cultural dependency in terms of the broader history of civilisation.  It reminds his that his present scientific technological civilisation, dominated by Western Europe for 400 years, will go under like all Empires of the past.
• Do Bois' poetry is thus a product of his own tradition
• Yet how can we reconcile the Du Bois the social scientist and Du Bois the poet?
• Du Bois, after 1910 began to move away from his belief that social sciences might provide a science of racial advancement and put his faith more in the power of the imagination as the chief instrument for changing public morality.
• The Riddle of the Sphinx is thus an extremely important part of Du Bois's literature, his way of attempting to further the black racial cause.

Bibliography

            Picture 1
http://www.princeton.edu/~bsimpson/2007fallhist200/week%203.htm

            Picture 2
http://journal.earthwitness.org/storage/creation/raffaello%20creation%20of%20animals%20detail.jpg

           Picture 3
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhch94o0Tyd45aFyagW5KaSC1qR_uRrOaxapXruW-jF9wAM0k4F3kxD3shS9nRg0lSf0fwFQSODK_ol0GyFuej0nuS1f9trhIP5uBoPM2cZ0syIsu6Rqq2TilxOAehuGfX0dzEyzQM61ZY/s320/14th%2520amendment%5B1%5D.jpg

           Picture 4
http://www.moonstoneartscenter.org/thomas-paine/paine-biography/
           Picture 5

  http://magazine3.com/newspapertimes/demo/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Swarms-of-Locusts-Use-Social-Networking-to-Communicate.jpg

Moses, Wilson J, 'The Poetics of Ethiopianism: W.E.B. Du Bois and Literary Black Nationalism, American Literature Vol 47, 1975

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv

Rabaka, Reiland; "The Souls of Black Radical Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois, Critical Social Theory, and the State of Africana Studies"; Journal of Black Studies; Volume 36; No.5; The State of Black Studies in the Academy (May 2006)

Fletcher, C. Diorita; "W.E.B. Du Bois' Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilisation - His Essays Analysed" - www.nathanielturner.com/duboisindicttmentofwhitecivilization.htm

Lewis, L'Heureux; "Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, Annotated Edition" - http://www.supremedesignonline.com/content/DWexcerpt.pdf

 

A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince

A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince

Why She Wrote It

·         The second edition of the narrative was written with the help of her friends.

·         There may be many reasons for why she felt it was necessary for her to share her story, with some motivations being more questionable than others.

·         Firstly, she may have written it for purely selfless reasons:

ð  “My object is not a vain desire to appear before the public; but by the sale, I hope to obtain the means to supply my necessities”.

-          P.8

·         She may have written it as a way of promoting a certain set of beliefs such as improving the welfare of ex-slave women and children; she was also active in abolitionist circles and appeared at the fifth national women’s rights convention in 1854 so this could also have been a motivation for her. Moreover she dipped in and out of the concept of the ideal of true womanhood so it could be construed that this narrative acted as a propaganda tool to promote such morals.

               Picture 1: Fifth National Women's Rights Convention, Philadelphia, 1854

·         Nancy Prince could have written the narrative as a way of putting across her religious beliefs in order to not only promote such tenets but as a way of racial uplifting.

ð  There are definitely tones of preaching that run throughout the narrative:

ð  “He made man in his own image in the image of God, created he him, male and female, that they should have dominion over the fish of the seas, the foul of the air and the beast of the field”.

-          P.48

ð  Narrative as a model of how to act appropriately

·         Another motivation could have been that it was purely a memoir in order to immortalise her turbulent life that she led and to show that despite her social standing in America, she was able to travel to places as obscure as Russia and Jamaica.

ð  When she travels to Russia, there is a definite shift in tone from autobiography to a travel diary.

ð  She manages to recount tales that seem poignant in terms of the issue of slavery and how in Russia, she noticed a lack of colour prejudice by being allowed entry into the Queen’s court.

ð  She compares the plight of African slaves with Russian serfs and how there was not a lot of difference between their struggles.

·         However it can be said that there could have been more to why Nancy Prince felt she need to print her story.

·         After returning from Jamaica, she fell ill and became financially unstable despite her many ventures.

ð  “thrown upon her own resources to make a living”

·         It can be argued that the reason for publishing the book was as a means of making money for herself and not just for the sake of the schools she was setting up.

·         Sadly, Sandra Gunning discusses how despite this, Nancy Prince “never seemed able to rise above her poverty”.

·         Moreover, Joycelyn Moody further emphasises such view by commenting that “perhaps the strongest motivation after religious proselytizing itself...was to earn money for survival”. – p. X (preface)

·         Whatever motivation for writing the narrative, it is fair to say that Nancy Prince was able to manipulate and create a certain image for herself that went beyond the boundaries of just preaching for a moral cause.

Where Nancy Prince Got Her Information

Nancy Prince's narrative is scattered with little back stories of events, or information about events that occurred while she was not here. However, for some of these accounts it must be asked where she got her information, as she may have got a skewed account of what had happened. Also, she was writing the narrative sometimes many years after the event, and so it should also be asked whether she is accurately remembering what happened, or even if they are her own memories.

• First Hand Accounts
  • For example: Flood in St Petersburg, dated 9/10/1824 (pg 26)
    • But no records of flood of this magnitude in St Petersburg on this date. There is however, records of a flood that had the same number of casualties and the same high tide, but this flood was in November 1824. However, aside from the date the description of the flood matches other contemporary accounts. It is most likely that these are the same floods, but Price got the date wrong.
    • This would suggest that this is Price's own first hand account, as she separately recalled the event, but got the date wrong, rather than recalling somebody else's account with the right date.
  • It allows the reader to be more confident about her other first hand accounts, and their accuracy.

Picture 2. November 7, 1824 on the square at the Bolshoi Theatre, FY Alekseev

• Second Hand Accounts
  • For example: Russian Interregnum of 1825
    • As the wife of a member of court, it is very likely that Price's account of what happened is slightly biased.
    • What Prince writes can not be taken at face value for what happened, as she has no personal first hand account of what happened, apart from the aftermath of the massacre (pg 31-33), so she is relating second hand what she has been told by other people.
  • Similarly, other events, such as the unrest she discovered had happened in Kingston while she had returned to America, the reasons for which she did not experience first hand (pg 57), that are related second hand must be read in the mind set that they might be biased.

• Interview accounts
  • While not always there for the events she writes about, Prince does include some interviews from those who were.
  • For example: Prince writes about an old woman who described previous storms
    • “Not so bad now as in the time of the slavery; then God spoke very loud to Bucker, (the white people,) to let us go. Thank God, ever since that they give us up, we go pray, and we have it not so bad like as before” (pg 66-67).
    • Prince uses direct quotes like these to show that she is not just writing from her mind, but also using the voices of others.
  • These interviews must be read with the same consideration as above, because they are memories, but also second hand accounts by the time Prince relates them.

Religion in the Narrative

Nancy Prince, like Henson frequently refers to her religious beliefs and alludes to the Bible in her narrative.  Whilst Henson used biblical allusions to increase his image, Prince uses them to critique the moral short-comings of white Christians and offers sharp insight into the religious differences between black women in different parts of the African diaspora.

Prince’s Christian Faith

• Prince’s narrative suggests that she conquers her worldly worries by the grace of the Holy Spirit and describes the aftermath of every trouble she encounters with some reference to the goodness of God. See pages 12, 21, 22, 28, 45, 56 and 83.
• On p.83 Prince quotes the first two verses of William Cowper’s hymn God Moves in a Mysterious Way 

 Video 1. God Moves in a Mysterious Way

• Nancy, in her religious faith, seems to regard herself as superior to black persons from outside of the US. Even  in her lowly status as a poor black woman Nancy represented American Protestantism which, as De Jong states, had by “the late eighteenth century entered an aggressively evangelical phase [such that] it became a Christian imperative to include, not exclude “heathen”
• In taking this attitude, Prince’s narrative employs the same tone of colonial arrogance similar to her contemporary Anglo-American missionaries.
• Prince even states that it is God that broke the chains of slavery which was aided by Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce.

Prince’s Missionary Work

• Prince keenly anticipates her missionary work in Jamacia and on p.43 paraphrases John 4:35 and writes: “a field of usefulness [is] spread out before me” which appears in full as “Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields; for they are white already to harvest”
• In alluding to this verse, Prince excludes the reference to the whiteness of the gospel’s visual image.
• Paraphrasing a recognisable Biblical verse in this way allows Prince to alter the perception of her religious mission, removing it from the one of her racist white Christian colleagues, and ‘transforming it into an affirmation of African selfhood and salvation’ (Paul Simpson-Housely, Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Post Colonial Literatures)
• During Nancy Prince’s time in The West Indies her embittered attitude towards Christianity becomes evident as she condemns her missionary colleagues.
• Nancy appears to reject other white Christians for the values they create when mixing with the African diaspora
• When Nancy arrives in The West Indies she lodges with the "class-leader" until she is offended by her teaching methods.  When Nancy is threatened with the loss of pay should she not comply she states: "I spoke to her of the necessity of being born of the spirit of God before we become members of the church of Christ, and I told her I was sorry to see the people blinded in such a way" (p.46)
• Nancy then goes to the minister and tells him she will no longer "be guided by poor foolish women" and that the moral conduct of the church members had been neglected (p.46)
• Prince’s narrative seems to renounce false piety and uses church leaders to illustrate the of the Anglo-American Christian sinfulness
• It is interesting to note that from this point Prince’s narrative seems to turn more into travel literature and less like a spiritual biography
• This choice possibly shows that Nancy prefers the secular form over the sacred.  In this vein, Prince could divorce herself from the white clergymen of the period and the American Missionary Association which she believed had issues of sexism, classism, colonialism and racism.
• Yet Prince returns to the Bible in the final pages of her narrative and reinstates her faith in Christ. Prince shows that although she has issue with the way white Christians teach their religion, she does not doubt the grace of God.

Gender in the Narrative

·         The narrative of Nancy Prince offers an insight into her struggle with the concept of gender differentiation and notion of the true tenets of womanhood

·         The key tenets of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity are denounced but at times upheld by her due to her desire to come across as a respectable woman but also one that is strong and independent.

·         Nancy Prince seems determined to eliminate the notion of sentimentalism from her writing and that she “declares her determination to establish a unique discursive otherness, a rhetorical condition of African-American womanness without pathos or lamentation”.p.174 (Paul Simpson-Hausley)

·         It can be said that although she wants to encourage the role of women in society at that time, she seems to show distain and almost dislike towards their behaviour.

·         In terms of women’s rights groups, she was largely frustrated by their inefficiency and lack of committal to the cause.

·         There is also an attempt to discourage contemporary views at that time of African American women being highly sexually charged and sinful. Seen with figures such as the Hottentot Venus, Prince made a conscious attempt to oppose “the multiplicity of negative stereotypes and myths circulating about African American women, particularly freeborn”. – p.77 (Joycelyn Moody)

 Picture 3. Example of staged photograph of C19th African American Women

·         It could be argued that she feels a sense of superiority towards other African American women who she deems as foolish or not conducting themselves properly

ð  This can be seen with her relationships with her mother and sister, with the pivotal moment being when she rescued her sister from a brothel in Boston in 1816.

ð  “Silvia...figures as a damsel in distress, the seduction novel’s deluded maiden, and the narrator herself at seventeen, as a valiant and virtuous rescuer”. – p.87 (Joycelyn Moody)

·         Francis Smith Foster makes an important reference to the fact that Prince doesn’t just alienate herself from “sentimental” women but seems to prefer taking the masculine role and that “the most admirable quality in a woman is not frailty but fearlessness”. – p.87 (Joycelyn Moody)

·         Nancy Prince’s narrative also demonstrates an explosion of gender dynamics taking place in different parts of society such as in the church. This is demonstrated when she visits Jamaica and gets into an argument with a female class-leader from the local church. She responds to being reproached for her outspokenness with “I told the minister that I did not come there to be guided by a poor foolish woman”. – p.51

Nancy’s Attitude Throughout her Narrative

Helping Others


Throughout her narrative Nancy focussed mainly on helping others. Right at the start of her narrative we can see her helping her family:


“With the sale of these fruits, my brother and myself nearly supported my mother and her children, that summer.” (p. 8)

• After the death of her step-father, Nancy and her brother worked all they could to support their family. Not only this but Nancy went onto help other people throughout her life. When she moved back to America, Nancy became determined to help people.

“I am indebted to God for his great goodness in guiding my youthful steps; my mind was directed to my fellow brethren whose circumstances were similar to my own.” (p. 41)

• From this we can see that Nancy wanted to help women who were in similar situations to herself. In addition, Nancy not only wanted to help women but she also wanted to help the younger generation.

“I hoped that I might aid, in some small degree, to raise up and encourage the emancipated inhabitants, and teach the young children to read and work” (p. 45)

• Therefore, these extracts from the narrative show how much Nancy devoted her life to help others around her.

Picture 4. Map of Jamaica

Changes in Intelligence


At the start of the narrative, Nancy did not hide the fact that she was “young and inexperienced” (p. 13). Even when she moved to St Petersburg with her husband, she talks of not being able to speak to language.


“My situation was the more painful, being alone, and not being able to speak” (p. 27)

• It seems as though Nancy was intimidated by foreign country. Although, not long after she began to adapt to life in St Petersburg.

“The common language is a mixture of Sclavonian and Polish. The nobility make use of the modern Greek, French and English. I learned the languages in six months” (p. 38)

• We can see how quickly Nancy learned a number of languages in a short period of time. Nancy wants the reader to see that she was intelligent.

Changes in Attitude


When Nancy went to Jamaica, we saw a different side to her as she was not afraid to hide her opinion.


“I spoke to her of the necessity of being born of the spirit of God before we become members of the church of Christ, and told her I was sorry to see the people blinded in such a way.” (p. 46)


“I soon found I was to be dismissed, unless I would yield obedience to this class-leader.” (p. 46)

• After Nancy spoke her mind, we can see it had consequences for her as she was to be dismissed. This outspoken Nancy was something that we had not seen in the narrative before.
• Whilst in Jamaica, Nancy began to see how untruthful the people were and she decided she did not want to help them any longer. When talking of the people she stated:

"It is not surprising that this people are full of deceit and lies, this is the fruits of slavery, it makes master and slaves knaves.” (p. 62)

• Although, Nancy was determined to help people when she returned to Jamaica after raising the money she did not want to help them as she saw how untruthful they were.

• At the start of the narrative we can see Nancy as a kind girl who was determined to help everyone. However, as the narrative progresses we can see that Nancy becomes more intelligent and aware of the world around her. In addition, she becomes more outspoken and is not afraid to speak her mind.

Bibliography

Picture 1:  http://txcdk1.unt.edu/TCRR/bitstream/handle/2188/716/11_african_am_women_and_wom_rights.htm?sequence=4

Picture 2: http://www.hist-sights.ru/gallery/art/album-17860/piter-16.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0AgENR1FhM&feature=player_embedded

Picture 3: http://b-womeninamericanhistory19.blogspot.com/2009/05/19th-century-photo-archives-african.html

Picture 4: http://mapoftheunitedstates.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/jamaica-map.jpg

Simpson-Housely, Paul Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography and Post Colonial Literatures (Editions Rodopi B V: Amsterdam, 2001)

Gunning, Sarah; “Nancy Prince and the Politics of Mobility, Home and Diasporic (Mis) Identification”; American Quarterly 53.1; (2001); 32-69 

Moody, Joycelyn; Sentimental Confessions: Spiritual Narratives of Nineteenth Century African American Women; University of Georgia Press; 2003