Elsie
Still reading Elsie Dinsmore. The racial aspects of these books are ... interesting, to say the least.
Elsie is largely raised by her mammy, called Aunt Chloe. Aunt Chloe teaches Elsie about Jesus and heaven, and how to behave and stuff like that, but it's still clear that Chloe is Elsie's servant. When Chloe needs to go into town to get something, she needs to ask Elsie's permission to leave the house. Elsie is about eight years old at that point.
Later on -- Elsie about age 20 by this point -- Elsie and her father and Chloe are going down to a plantation that Elsie owns in Louisiana. (Elsie inherited it from her mother, who died shortly after Elsie was born, and her father has been managing it, mostly by hiring an overseer and visiting himself every few years or so.) On the riverboat, Chloe sees a man working and nearly faints -- it's her husband! Who was sold away from her decades ago! So Elsie decides that she has to buy him. Chloe and her husband, Jim, had several children, though most of them died, but Chloe finds out from Jim that one of them survived and they have a granddaughter, Dinah, who Elsie also decides to buy.
Then, once they get to the plantation, come some of the most disturbing scenes in this series. When they get there, a female slave is tied to a whipping post, shirtless, and the overseer is whipping her. This is described in gory detail. Earlier in the series, Herbert (a white boy) was sick, and his illness was described in such vague terms that I have no idea what it was, and throughout these books, babies appear out of absolutely nowhere, but this woman was specifically mentioned as shirtless, and her injuries are described, blood and all.
Elsie is horrified and tells the overseer to stop. (And at this point, most of the other slaves, who've been watching this, jump up in awe because they think that "their old missus" has come back from the dead.) Elsie's father tells the overseer that he'd told him that slaves on this plantation were not to be whipped. The overseer apologizes. Elsie wants to fire the overseer, but her father says that isn't a good idea, because they need somebody to supervise the harvest, and besides (and I had to read this sentence about five times before I actually believed that it was written there), the overseer is from New England, so he's used to people working hard, and so the laziness of the blacks, which southerners like them are used to, seems particularly frustrating.
Elsie realizes that most of the slaves don't know about Jesus. So, she starts telling some of the kids about him. One of the kids asks if even black people can get to heaven. Elsie says yes, and that in heaven, they'll all be white. Elsie decides to hire a chaplain for the plantation, to teach the slaves about Jesus (since they belong to her, she's responsible for their souls) and to keep an eye on the overseer.
And... OK, there's a lot more, but the next book gets into Emancipation and then the one after that deals with the Klan, and that really needs a post of its own.
Elsie is largely raised by her mammy, called Aunt Chloe. Aunt Chloe teaches Elsie about Jesus and heaven, and how to behave and stuff like that, but it's still clear that Chloe is Elsie's servant. When Chloe needs to go into town to get something, she needs to ask Elsie's permission to leave the house. Elsie is about eight years old at that point.
Later on -- Elsie about age 20 by this point -- Elsie and her father and Chloe are going down to a plantation that Elsie owns in Louisiana. (Elsie inherited it from her mother, who died shortly after Elsie was born, and her father has been managing it, mostly by hiring an overseer and visiting himself every few years or so.) On the riverboat, Chloe sees a man working and nearly faints -- it's her husband! Who was sold away from her decades ago! So Elsie decides that she has to buy him. Chloe and her husband, Jim, had several children, though most of them died, but Chloe finds out from Jim that one of them survived and they have a granddaughter, Dinah, who Elsie also decides to buy.
Then, once they get to the plantation, come some of the most disturbing scenes in this series. When they get there, a female slave is tied to a whipping post, shirtless, and the overseer is whipping her. This is described in gory detail. Earlier in the series, Herbert (a white boy) was sick, and his illness was described in such vague terms that I have no idea what it was, and throughout these books, babies appear out of absolutely nowhere, but this woman was specifically mentioned as shirtless, and her injuries are described, blood and all.
Elsie is horrified and tells the overseer to stop. (And at this point, most of the other slaves, who've been watching this, jump up in awe because they think that "their old missus" has come back from the dead.) Elsie's father tells the overseer that he'd told him that slaves on this plantation were not to be whipped. The overseer apologizes. Elsie wants to fire the overseer, but her father says that isn't a good idea, because they need somebody to supervise the harvest, and besides (and I had to read this sentence about five times before I actually believed that it was written there), the overseer is from New England, so he's used to people working hard, and so the laziness of the blacks, which southerners like them are used to, seems particularly frustrating.
Elsie realizes that most of the slaves don't know about Jesus. So, she starts telling some of the kids about him. One of the kids asks if even black people can get to heaven. Elsie says yes, and that in heaven, they'll all be white. Elsie decides to hire a chaplain for the plantation, to teach the slaves about Jesus (since they belong to her, she's responsible for their souls) and to keep an eye on the overseer.
And... OK, there's a lot more, but the next book gets into Emancipation and then the one after that deals with the Klan, and that really needs a post of its own.