Viola B.
Muse’s January 11, 1937 interview in Jacksonville, Florida entitled “An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” describes
Anna Scott’s experience as a former slave and the impact the Emancipation
Proclamation had on her family’s financial success after slavery. Viola B.
Muse’s role as a fieldworker for the Federal Writers Project: The American
Guide (Negro Writers Unit) granted her the opportunity—as a writer of color—to
utilize her own writing as a means to grant a voice to former slaves who were
once silenced by slavery’s forced illiteracy. Moreover, the fact that both the
interviewer and the interviewee are black women suggests that the black
vernacular is well maintained, within the text, and that the text acts as a
form of black female empowerment. While Muse’s role as a fieldworker produced
several transcriptions of slave narratives, Anna Scott’s story challenges
previous perceptions of the slave narrative as being a tale of generational
success rather than generational trauma. Anna Scott’s slave narrative is a
successful one; her mixed race permitted her to climb the socio-economic ranks
in the midst of slavery as a means to better her conditions during confinement.
Anna Scott’s story subverts the expectations of a slave narrative because of
her family’s rise to financial stability after their migration to West Africa. Viola
B. Muse’s 1937 interview of former slave Anna Scott should exist within the
cannon of Maritime Literature in North America due to its ability to challenge
the stereotypical portrayal of slaves as being chattel and portrays them as intelligent,
creative business investors.
Anna Scott’s experience as a slave
vastly differs from other narratives due to her ability to climb the
socio-economic ladder of slavery as a result of her mixed race. Muse states,
“The former slave was born…of a half-breed Cherokee-and-Negro mother and
Anglo-Saxon father. Her father owned the plantation adjoining that of her
master” (279). The fact that Scott was an offspring of a nearby plantation
master suggests that she was physically and socially separated from the field
slaves who historically had darker complexions. Although Muse does not
explicitly state it, Scott’s race is what ultimately allows for her to take on
the position of a house servant once she reached “adolescent age.”
Scott’s racial identification as an
Indian-African and Anglo-Saxon slave is what ultimately creates a power
differential between her and the other slaves. In her essay “Power, Perception,
and Interracial Sex: Former Slaves Recall a Multiracial South,” Fay A.
Yarbrough claims that “Power differentials between slaves and particularly
elite members of the planter class, constrained choice and consent by slaves in
[black and white] relationships” (587). Within the context of her essay,
Yarbrough examines the power-dynamics in sexual relationships between native
and black indentured servants and their ability to vastly defer from sexual
relationships between black slaves and their white masters. She suggests that
mixed race slaves grappled with their own form of identity due to the power
dynamics from which they were conceived.
In comparison to Yarbrough’s assessment of
mixed race slaves, Anna Scott’s own racial identity of being Indian-African and
Anglo-Saxon allows for her to build a relationship or “kindred love” with her
mistress that slaves of other races might not have been afforded the same privilege
(279). In addition to Scott’s privilege of living inside of the plantation,
Scott’s mistress, Abigail Dover, afforded her slaves the opportunity to take
part in silent religious worship. In sum, Scott’s life as a house servant,
along with her ability take part in religious practices, are examples of the
former slave’s inherent capability to climb the socio-economic ladder of
slavery. The Scott family’s state of privilege is what ultimately allows for
them to take the pilgrimage back to West Africa in “An Ex-Slave Who Went to
Africa.”
The colonization of West Africa movement
should be inserted within the canon of Maritime Literature in North America
because of the success and prosperity many black captives found once they
migrated to West African countries such as Liberia. The Back-to-West Africa
movement challenges the preconceived notions of what it meant to be black in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The migration of black slaves to West
Africa allowed for the slaves to reinvent their own identities and challenge
the constricted and inaccurate perceptions placed upon them by their white
masters. In its entirety, “An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” is a text that
showcases achieved success after a trying period of perseverance.
Elias Mumford’s (Scott’s step-father) ability
to build a “lucrative” business within Harper Cape, West Africa is a form of
perseverance. Mumford’s business ventures challenge America’s former
preconceived notion that blacks were three-fifths of a human being rather than
intelligent, creative business investors. Muse states, “In addition to brick
making Mumford cut trees for lumber, and with his own brick and lumber would
construct houses and structures. One such structure brought him $1,100.00”
(282). Mumford’s investments within “An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” are what
ultimately provide the family with stability and independence from the white
privilege that had formerly enslaved them. The Scott family’s migration to
Harper Cape, West Africa allowed the family to deter away from the slave status
that was placed upon them by their white masters, including Scott’s own
mistress Abigail Dover. In her essay, “Migration and Emancipation in West
Africa’s Labour History: The Missing Links,” Benedetta Rossi states, “Through
travels arranged on their own account, former slaves distanced themselves from
slave status both physically and ideologically. Their migrations reveal
projects aimed at moving away from sites where they had been enslaved and at
reaching places where it would be possible to reap the benefits of their own
labour” (24). As Rossi claims, the distancing of the Scott family from the
family’s initial migration to Charleston (282) is what ultimately motives the
family to travel to West Africa. The Scott family’s migration to Harper Cape,
West Africa is what motivates them to transcend the slave status and allows for
them to reap the financial benefits of their brick, construction, and check business
ventures. Muse writes, “After spending a year [in Charleston] with [Mumford]
the entire family joined a colonizing expedition to West Africa. There were 650
in the expedition, and it left in 1867. Transportation was free” (282). The
Scott Family travelled to West Africa in hopes of achieving a sustainable
income to support themselves without the aid of white settlers. While
life-altering issues such as “death, sickness, and pestilence” (283) did occur
within the first colonization group’s migration to West Africa, the communal
perseverance within the black community required its members (including The
Scott Family) to labor through another bout of trauma to ensure its lineage a
state of success throughout the remainder of their lives. Much like the Driver
ant mentioned within “An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” as being “so large,
powerful and stubborn that even bodies of water did not stop them” (283), the
black community is able to transcend the societal and physical confines placed
upon them. The ancestral generations of blacks suffered so that the younger
generations can reap the benefits that their ancestors strove for. Anna Scott’s
life and interview act as an example of a black communal commitment to excel
beyond the iron shackles that once confined them.
Muse’s “An Ex-Slave Who Went to
Africa” is an example of the sublime in Maritime Literature. Muse’s interview
of Anna Scott inspires its audience into believing that former slaves possess
the ability to distance themselves away from the trauma of enslavement. “An
Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” ’s ending exists within the sublime because it
paints a picture of a ninety-one year old former slave who utilizes her
acquired inheritance to live out the remainder of her life in tranquility
(284). “An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” is an interview that inspires its
audience to believe that indentured servants are able to move on from the
brutality of their confinement and to live out their lives in a state of bliss
that all humans should reside in.
Because of her family’s sacrifices both during
and after slavery, Anna Scott is able to live out her elder years in a state of
subliminal bliss which is often not depicted within the confines of more
notable slave narratives. Other slave narratives within the canon of Maritime
Literature in North America provide its audiences with the failed assumption
that life does not exist after slavery. Other slave narratives, within the
canon, force their audiences to believe that traumatic events like slavery
cannot exist within the sublime. Muse’s interview allows for its audience to
understand that while the sea played a rather malevolent role in the Colonial
and Sectional Crisis Eras in America, the sea can also be viewed as a gateway
that allowed for slaves to migrate, invest in their lineage’s future, and
live-out the remainder of their elder years in a state of subliminal bliss. Muse’s
“An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” does not suggest that all former slaves lives’
were as successful as that of Anna Scott’s; however, it provides an alternative
depiction of a former slaves’ life after emancipation. Therefore, “An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa” should be inserted into the canon of
Maritime Literature in North America due to its ability to challenge its
audience’s preconceived notions of what it means to be a slave and how the
repercussions of emancipation altered former slaves’ lives and their
self-identities.
Works Cited
Rossi, Benedetta.
"Migration And Emancipation In West Africa's Labour History: The Missing
Links."Slavery
& Abolition 35.1 (2014): 23-46. Humanities International
Complete. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Scott, Anna. "An
Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa." Interview by Viola B. Muse.Born in
Slavery:
Slave
Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938: 279-284. The Library of Congress, 11 Jan. 1937. Web.
25 Oct. 2015.
Yarbrough, Fay A.
"Power, Perception, And Interracial Sex: Former Slaves Recall A
Multiracial
South." Journal
Of Southern History71.3 (2005): 559-588. America: History &
Life. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Viola B. Muse's "An Ex-Slave Who Went to Africa" can be found here.
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