The Social and Cultural Context of Clotel

Clotel, Or The President's Daughter by William Wells Brown is the author's fictionalized account of Sally Hemings, the woman alleged to have borne children to President Thomas Jefferson. The novel imagines the plight of Hemings whose fictional counterpart is Currer and her daughter Clotel. While the novel exposes many of the systemic hypocrisies and injustices of slavery, as well as the plague of prejudice that infested the northern, free states at the time, Clotel examines many of the social conventions and practices that attended the Peculiar Institution.

Among these and most apparent is the dramatic scene of the Slave Auction, where many a family was torn apart. Older slaves were transformed in appearance to give the impression of youth and vitality to a potential buyer; mothers were separated from children; and young "Quadroon" women were in high demand by white males to become 'seamstresses,' 'laundresses,' and 'governesses,' while suffering the added indignity of becoming concubines to their white masters. The rendering below allows us a glimpse at a slave auction situated in grand ballroom of a southern hotel.

At the same time in major cities such as Natchez, New Orleans, and St. Louis, a custom known alternately as "fancy balls," "Mulatto Balls," and "Negro Balls" became common, along with a practice known as placage, in which young Mulatto, Quadroon, and Creole women became involved in 'extralegal' arrangements with white men of wealth and stature. The tradition of placage began in the eighteenth century because there was deemed to be a shortage of white women for European colonial males. In the interest of maintaining territorial holdings, arrangements of this sort were made between single white males and enslaved women of color. According to the Encyclopedia of Louisiana, "Since marriage between free persons and slaves was legally prohibited during this period (as a means to conserve expansive territorial holdings), couples evaded the law by setting up households beyond the bonds of matrimony. Further, the conservation of territorial holdings was crucial at this time, because the distribution of land among heirs could undercut family prosperity and create competition among brothers"(1). By the nineteenth century, however, many of the "Octoroon Balls" as they were called, were patronized by white married men.

In William Wells Brown's Clotel we see a literary dramatization of these arrangements which were, according to sources, observed with 'uneasy acceptance.'

Below is a rendering by artist Edouard Marquis (1867) that gives us insight into the opulence with which many kept Creole women were treated at this time.




*Wikipedia Commons