Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King

Yustin Sartika

Fakultas Bahasa dan Sastra, Universitas AKI Semarang Jl. Imam Bonjol 15-17 Semarang Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT Writers, female and male, black and white all wrote about the hardship of being the culture that wasn’t liked. Regional writers emphasized characteristics of specific geographic settings—the culture, speech (dialect), customs, and landscape. As they recorded and commented on the distinctive culture, speech and customs that distinguished specific geographical areas, these authors also struggled with the role of class, race and gender in local life.

Keywords: regional writers, class, race, gender

1. Introduction aesthetic; in other words, if writers are to American literature is shaped to be accurate in representing their world, represent American life accurately with a they must include the peculiarities of their new ―realist‖ aesthetic during the second- world. For the past decade or so, half of nineteenth century. Realist regionalism has been making a triumphant literature differs from Romantic literature return in American literature, enabling because it attempts to depict life readers to get a sense of place as well as a accurately. Romantic literature is based on sense of time and humanity. the conviction that intuition, emotion and emerged in the second imagination are superior to reason. On the half of the nineteenth century as the most other hand, realism, as the name implies, is complex and vibrant geographic area in rooted in reality. the country. Louisiana authors played Realism is a manner and method of important roles for the development of composition by which the author describes regional or local literature. Regionalist normal, average life, in an accurate, authors portray the specific traits of truthful way‖ (Lars Ahnebrink, 1950:269). particular regions or areas. Grace King and Realism is related to regionalism. George Washington Cable are also defined Regionalism is an expression of the realist as ―local color‖ or ―regionalist fiction‖.

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George Washington Cable was born in portraits, scraps of silk and brocade‖ as in 1844 in . His mother was a historical archives and the like. puritan family from New England and his mother was a German from a Virginian 2. Underlying Theory slaveholding family. He started his carrier A commitment to capturing by writing columns for New Orleans accurately the realities and peculiarities of Picayune. Even he didn‘t go to school but regional culture distinguishes all of the he spent his time most for reading and regionalist writers by carefully embedding writing. He learnt much about the old New life narratives into the very plots and Orleans records; it supported his practices that their characters take up, knowledge for many of his writings that regionalist writers transform their would garner his national recognition then storytelling characters into producers and he crafted them into stories about the consumers of such life narratives. Those different regional culture. thrive across many media sources; the Grace King (1852-1932) was born term is especially adaptable to the visual in New Orleans, but her family fled to vocabularies of regionalism. ―Mother‖, their plantation after the outbreak of Civil ―Black‖ and ―White‖ are some words that War (1861) and the occupation of New can be used to represent regionalist works. Orleans. After they returned to New On meeting the needs in Orleans, King attended Catholic convent multicultural society, people sometimes school. King wrote a lot about women, need to face some cultural obstacles like both white and Creole, and their race, social class and gender. In experiences in impoverished Louisiana. multicultural society, race can be a sign She cited her mother‘s storytelling as an which has been labeled, racial prejudice. inspiration for her writing and often wrote Since it engages someone or a group‘s about how things like marriage, education, attitude to another then racial prejudice and motherhood affected women can be very sensitive. Physically race is specifically. In her nonfiction works King different to another, skin color; hair, focused on women in history and the dialect and behavior, and those can be feminine side in historical studies. In potential problems on communicating with Creole Families of New Orleans, she says others. history lays just as much ―bits of old The prejudice is strengthen furniture, jewelry, glass, old miniatures, socially, stereotype which is built time by time in which racial groups have their own 119

Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) interpretation based on racial and As a way of life, racism has a personality background than the cultural belief that some groups have higher framework. On the other words, racial position than others so those who are tendency emerges larger in someone‘s inferior are deserved to be slaved, be mind than the culture itself. Someone or destroyed and treated inhumanely (Darma, group‘s feeling of being superior is the 2009: 127). Belief about superiority and initial of discrimination. Discrimination inferiority has been used as social leads to racism, treating people differently justification for discrimination, based on race and social characteristics. segregation, and slavery. Racism become a problem since it doesn‘t Live of women have always been only treat people differently but also used interesting for regionalism‘s readers and to insist a group‘s superiority to others. writers. The phrase ―women‘s lives‖ has According to Jusuf and Srivanto appeared in and influenced nearly all the (2001: 13-15), there are two contradictive recent studies of women‘s regionalism. It perspective of racism. The first is scientific reminding us not to take for granted that perspective, it is used to identify and the lives featured in women‘s regionalism classify human based on physic had often gone overlooked in earlier ethnologically and anthropologically. traditions of American literary history, Racism is also understood unscientifically those provide a central and anchoring as prejudice. In this concept, racism is as a term. belief that human can be classified into Reaching its peak in popularity several races which the member of each between 1865 and 1914—in both race is inferior compared to another race. magazines and novels—American literary According to George M. regionalism has been both praised and Fredrickson (2005: 13), racism has two admonished for its attention to smaller components: difference and power. locations on maps and lives that we would Racism comes from the mental attitude not expect to read in memoirs, it is time to which looks at ―them‖ different to ―us‖ acknowledge just how invested this genre permanently. This different feeling has been in granting women writers a provides some reasons to use superiority place for interrogating and assembling and power for treating ―others‖ miserly women‘s lives: not just in featuring and unfairly compared to the member of women characters more prominently and our groups. consistently, but in plotting the lengthier processes through which other characters

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CULTURE Vol.2 No.1 Mei 2015 gather, report on and sometimes even approach regionalism as a genre for silence the lives of women. When thinking through life writing, without Elizabeth Hampsten studies the life writing turning only to their own lives as an of Midwest women, she acknowledges example. that, to her surprise, writing easily Regionalism defines the materials classified as regional does not read for creating life narratives collaboratively regionally: ―These women‘s writings do and discusses authorship collectively, as a not do that; their ‗place‘ is not where we cultural project of portraying life writing had expected to find them. In much of this in, rather than as a single, finished product. writing, for all its particularity, it is hard to At a moment when more women than ever tell (if the postmark is missing) where the were putting their lives in print, writers are, for they do not bother to tell us regionalism records an array of approaches in words we are used to.‖ Regionalism into a written tableau, archiving the visual does not always behave regionally; often, vocabularies that present lives to be seen, other things are taking place. As Cecelia as well as read. Acknowledging the ―we‖ Tichi has put it, ―They were regionalists— behind the ―I‖, as Larcom encourages, but not solely in the ways critics have means reading these portrayals of conventionally thought. The geography of authorship taking place among others, America formed an important part of their since one person‘s life must be told work, but essentially they charted the through many life narratives. While we regions of women‘s lives, regions both can turn to autobiographies and without and within the self.‖ biographies to study nineteenth-century Reading across regionalism lives, regionalism features the invaluable through its life narratives preserves the processes and discussions surrounding specificity of cultural differences and writers who seek to convey such lives: the challenges us to understand the genre as a conversations they have, the silences they location for writers to portray life encounter and strive to represent. By narratives as constructed, circulated and considering regionalism less as a fixed contested. Because critical conversations label—either a writer is or is not—and about regionalism are being had across more as an adaptive engagement with regions, as well as within them, comparing portraits of both lives and places, we can the formations and possibilities of life evaluate regionalism as a changing genre narratives offers an especially productive for writers, a landscape of visual method for considering how writers vocabularies. Though critics first turned to 121

Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) the language of sketches to name young, and the eighteenth century old, she had often repaired under guard of her mother nineteenth-century regionalism, twentieth- - dead now, alas! – and Monsieur John would century regional writers develop this genre slip away from the dull play and dry society of Théâtre d'Orléans, and come around with so that these later novels are brimming his crowd of elegant friends; and through the long sweet hours of the ball she had danced, with collected photographs, portraits and and laughed, and coquetted under her satin media that surround a more collective ―I‖ mask, even to the baffling and tormenting of that prince of gentlemen, dear Monsieur John crafted out of many sources for relating himself. No man of questionable blood dare set his foot within the door. Many noble that life. Regionalists may not be gentlemen were pleased to dance with her. publishing their own autobiographies, but In 1860 ―color was closely their fiction records an archive of correlated with status: 80 percent of all possibilities: the collective processes of blacks were slaves and 70 percent of all collecting life narratives, in uttering ―we‖ mulattos were freemen‖ (Blassingame, to surround an ―I.‖ 1860:21). These two factors in

Louisiana‘s demographics allowed for the 3. Discussion During the local color era Cable emergence of a distinct class of mixed race wrote of Creole New Orleans, and he has women who became known collectively as been called the most important southern quadroons. artist working in the late 19th century, as These free women of color, also well as the first modern southern writer. known as the femmes de couleur libre, Cable was not a Creole himself, but he had occupied a complicated space in the social deep roots in New Orleans since he was hierarchy of New Orleans. As part of the born and grew up there. population of free people of color, the The story Tite Poulitte also takes quadroons were in a class higher than place in New Orleans. There are three slaves but lower than poor whites. Within characters in this story, Zalli, Tite Poulitte this middle tier of society, there were and Kristian Koppig. Zalli is Tite‘s established racial classifications that mother. She is called as Madame John caused further division among the free since she inherited a house from Monsieur population. This division was based on John. Just if he had a wife, she would be racial composition and therefore, it further also called Madame John. separated these quadroon women into a To Zalli, of course, as to all "quadroon group of their own: Among themselves, ladies," the festivities of the Conde-street however, there were jealous and fiercely ball-room were familiar of old. There, in the happy days when dear Monsieur John was guarded distinctions: ‗griffes, briqués,

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CULTURE Vol.2 No.1 Mei 2015 mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons, each boundaries were ever present and could term meaning one degree‘s further not be easily overcome. However, there transfiguration toward the Caucasian were free women of color who were able standard of physical perfection‘ (Nelson, to earn their living independent from the 2000:3-4). Quadroon women were very sexual commodification of their bodies, aware of their beauty in the eyes of white through working as ―laundresses, society. Clearly, white women felt seamstresses, domestics, cooks‖ (Gould, threatened by them, and white men were 1568: 149). In addition, many free women attracted to them. of color worked as peddlers and merchants, selling goods in the port city of … a palish handsome woman, by the name - or going by the name - of Madame John. You New Orleans. These women ―owned more would hardly have thought of her being property than did either free men of color "colored". Though fading, she was still of very attractive countenance, fine, rather or white women.‖ severe features, nearly straight hair carefully kept, and that vivid black eye so peculiar to Zalli is described as a woman who her kind. Her smile, which came and went has to deal with troublesome life. Being with her talk, was sweet and exceedingly intelligent; and something told you, as you ―colored‖ isn‘t easy to live her life. looked at her, that she was one who had had to learn a great deal in this troublesome life. Superiority and inferiority feeling that lead racism make people only want to see that As quadroon, Cable describes Zalli their group is better that the other. People as a very attractive countenance, nearly only want to see her as color woman. straight hair carefully kept and her vivid New Orleans was the capital and black eye was so peculiar to her kind. epicenter of the entire Louisiana country From the quotation above, it can be seen that so much of the planned city, which that Zalli is an intelligent ―colored‖ was merely a glorified frontier outpost for woman. Her smile that come and goes decades, was below sea level posed with her talk shows that she is a black significant problems for human life. woman who has good manner. She is the Frequent hurricanes, seasonal rainstorms, ―colored‖ woman who has to learn a great and subtropical humidity year round deal in this trouble life. Even she is a free provided a fertile breeding ground for both woman, but since she belongs to ―colored‖ marine, land-based, and airborne pests. woman, she still has to learn a great deal The smallest of these, the mosquito, posed of troublesome life. the greatest threat to life, as its The lives of free women of color transmission of yellow fever and malaria were far from easy, since racial and gender to humans started dozens of epidemics 123

Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) during the eighteenth century. Little did quadroon. A Quadroon! Well, I‘ll know better next time. Are those quadroons on high there, the French know that the slow moving, in the balcony that projects from that Spanish pest-infested bayous— not to mention the looking house with ornamented cornice and window frames and flat roof. One of them has heavy, sticky, humidity-laden air— a veil, and all that I see are darker than she we have just passed. Heavens no, they are creoles surrounding New Orleans symbolized – natives, whites – Spaniards and French Louisiana‘s squalid society and mixed – born in the country – very good society. No indeed they are not quadroons. languishing economy during the You must make the distinction (1986:43). eighteenth century. However insignificant the slight changes in ―Why, you know! - she was" - said the skin tones might have been, they clearly had a wigmaker at the corner to Kristian Koppig - "I'll tell you. You know? - she was" - and the strong social relevance that made it necessary rest atomized off in a rasping whisper. She for Latrobe to make the comment ―don‘t let was the best yellow-fever nurse in a thousand yards round; but that is not what the wig- her hear you.‖ maker said. Even Zalli as a black woman but Tite,

Instead of telling her capability of her daughter, was born with white skin. People being the best yellow-fever nurse, people even thought her as white as magnolia flower. prefer remember her as a woman who sell Based on the quotation above, "So beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! White? - white like a her inherited house since she couldn‘t water lily! White - like a magnolia!" shows manage it. People thought that Zalli is only that beautiful belongs to white people. a color woman who doesn‘t deserve to get Comparing to Zalli who is seen as a black those all. woman who must deal with many problems, ―Many free women of color found people thought Tite would be easily pass her themselves internalizing these racial life since she was born in white. gradations and saw their relative whiteness as "But!" - the Creole lads in the street a possession which granted them higher would say - " - her daughter!" and there would be lifting of arms, wringing of fingers, rolling standing‖ (Harris, 1998:103-118). John H. of eyes, rounding of mouths, gaspings and B. Latrobe, a visitor to New Orleans in 1834, clasping of hands. "So beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! White? - white like a water lily! illustrated well the very significant, and yet White - like a magnolia!" very confusing, racial hierarchy that played How they did chatter over her. Quiet Kristian Koppig had never seen the like. He wrote to such an important role in the lives of his mother, and told her so. A pretty fellow at Louisiana‘s free women of color: the corner would suddenly double himself up with beckoning to a knot of chums; these ‗Hah – what‘s that. A fine figure, a beautiful would hasten up; recruits would come in from foot, an ankle like an angels – an air quite two or three other directions; as they reached distinqué, and then so strange, and the corner their countenances would quickly characteristic – so Spanish, with that long assume a genteel severity, and presently, with black veil over the head‘ – ‗Allons, we will her mother, Tite Poulette would pass - tall, pass her. Why she‘s a mulatto – Fie – not at straight, lithe, her great black eyes made all – don‘t let her hear you – that‘s a tender by their sweeping lashes, the faintest

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CULTURE Vol.2 No.1 Mei 2015 tint of color in her Southern cheek, her form hair in a tignon–a kerchief used as a all grace, her carriage a wonder of simple dignity. headdress–as a symbol of their lower status‖ (Haskins, 1986:25). The quadroon Typically, quadroon women took women‘s response to this law, however, pride in the white portion of their racial clearly indicates that they were unwilling composition and identity, and therefore, it to accept being a part of this imposed would have been an insult to call them lower class. mulattoes ―as the quadroons on their part According to scholar Carolyn regard the negroes and mulattoes with Long, ―Instead of being considered a contempt…[they would]…not mix with badge of dishonor, the tignon…became a them‖ (Bernhard, 1828:61). As important fashion statement. The bright reds, blues, as it was to not call a quadroon a mulatto, and yellows of the scarves, and the it was more important to distinguish imaginative wrapping techniques between a quadroon and a Creole – a employed by their wearers, are said to member of ―very good society.‖ As have enhanced the beauty of the women of Latrobe stated, ―You must make the color‖ (Long, 2006: 21). While some distinction.‖ Louisiana‘s white society was chose to not wear the scarves at all, others well aware of the possibility for quadroon fabricated scarves out of the best material women to be mistaken for Creoles and and adorned them with jewels, to further Americans. accentuate their beauty. The beauty of the Most travelers of the time made quadroon was celebrated by many writers. note of the immaculately fair skin of many As previously mentioned, Latrobe of the quadroon women as Latrobe stated described the quadroon on the street as ―all I see are darker than she we have just possessing a ―fine figure, a beautiful foot, passed.‖ In response to the implied threat an ankle like an angels–an air quite of the quadroon, white women of New distinqué.‖ Harriet Martineau, another Orleans pushed for legislation that would traveler of the time, commented that ―the mark mixed raced women as part of the girls are highly educated, externally, and second tier of society. In 1786, Spanish are, probably, as beautiful and Governor Esténban Miro passed a law that accomplished a set of women as can be required free women of color to ―no found‖ (Martineau, 1837: 117). It is longer…wear too many jewels or to deck important to note that this perception of their hair with plumes, and that from then beauty was based on European tastes on they would be required to tie up their

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Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) which held the white, ―pure‖ woman as the It is only Zalli who knows that epitome of perfection. Tite isn‘t her daughter. Tite is the Spaniard Tite was born in completely white daughter. Zalli takes care of their when skin. People don‘t know the truth about her. they got yellow fever. When they died That make Zalli thought that her daughter has because of the disease, Zalli takes care of no future. Tite is already seventeen years old the infant, Tite Poulitte. It is only but no man wants to take her out. Monsieur John who had already died who " 'Tite Poulette," said Madame John, "you are seventeen." knew about it. According to Zalli being a "True, Maman." black was a sin. There is no pleasure and "Ah! my child, I see not how you are to meet the future." The voice trembled plaintively. fortune for being born as black. On a side, "But how, Maman?" "Ah! you are not like others; no fortune, no she feels guilty for taking care Tite as a pleasure, no friend." black. She knnows that being black will "Maman!" "No, no; - I thank God for it; I am glad you never be easy. But, on the other side she are not; but you will be lonely, lonely, all your poor life long. There is not place in this would feel guiltier if she don‘t take care of world for us poor women. I wish that we were her. The distinction life between black and either white or black!" - and the tears, two "shining ones," stood in the poor quadroon's white made her thought that it would be eyes. The daughter stood up, her eyes better just if they weren‘t born as either flashing. "God made us, Maman," she said with a black or white. gentle, but stately smile. "Ha!" said the mother, her keen glance darting Tite tries to make her mother happier through her tears, "Sin made me, yes." by telling her that being black or white "No," said 'Tite Poulette, "God made us. He made us just as we are; not more white, not isfaith. Saying it make her looked wiser more black." "He made you, truly!" said Zalli. "You are so than her mother. But when she says ―And beautiful; I believe it well." She reached and could I be whiter than I am?‖ Tite looked more drew the fair form to a kneeling posture. "My sweet, white daughter!" desperate that her mother. Now the tears were in the girl's eyes. "And " 'Tite Poulette, I want you to promise me one could I be whiter than I am?" she asked. thing." "Oh, no, no! 'Tite Poulette," cried the other; "Well, Maman?" "but if we were only real white! - both of us; "If any gentleman should ever love you and so that some might come to see me and say ask you to marry, - not knowing, you know, - 'Madame John, I want your pretty little chick. promise me you will not tell him you are not She is so beautiful. I want to take her home. white." She is so good - I want her to be my wife.' Oh, "It can never be," said 'Tite Poulette. my child, my child, to see that I would give "But if it should," said Madame John my life – I would give my soul! Only you pleadingly. should take me along to be your servant. I "And break the law?" asked 'Tite Poulette, walked behind two young men to-night; they impatiently. were coming home from their office; presently "But the law is unjust," said the mother. they began to talk about you." 'Tite Poulette's "But it is the law!" eyes flashed fire. "But you will not, dear, will you?"

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Sexual purity of white women has According to status exchange theory, been a focus of the policing of the color women‘s economic potential is less valued line in. It has been less attentive to the role on the marriage market, and therefore of white men in perpetrating high-status black men have a more miscegenation. The regional difference in exchangeable commodity than black the early period and during the civil rights women. period is likely explained by the greater "Thou wilt not have my love, 'Tite Poulette?" No answer. suppression of black male/white female "Thou wilt not, beautiful?" unions in the South. These results are "Cannot!" was all that she could utter, and upon their clasped hands the tears consistent with ethnographic accounts ran down. "Thou wrong'st me, 'Tite Poulette. Thou dost from the 1930s that found black males in not trust me; thou fearest the kiss may loosen the South and black females in the non- the hands. But I tell thee nay. I have struggled hard, even to this hour, against Love, but I South were the most likely members of yield me now; I yield; I am his unconditioned prisoner forever. God forbid that I ask aught their respective black communities to but that you will be my wife." Still the maiden voice competition-based opposition to moved not, looked not up, only rained down tears. draw her. interracial marriage. " 'Tite Poulette?" So tenderly he called! And If suppression was the only method then she spoke. "It is against the law." of achieving gender balance in the South, "It is not!" cried Zalli, seizing her round the waist and dragging her forward. "Take her! then these results suggest an underlying she is thine. I have robbed God long enough. greater affinity between black men and Here are the sworn papers - here! Take her; she is as white as snow - so! Take her, kiss white women than between black women her; Mary be praised! I never had a child - she is the Spaniard's daughter!" and white men across time and space. Numerous theories explaining this affinity New Orleans appealed to all posit a relationship to traditional gender entrenched conceptions of white male roles and gender power. It is argued, for dominance. Placage was an example of example, that white men may face less how racism can be perpetuated under false pressure to legitimate non marital sexual claims to altruism. Placage was a practice unions because they are at the apex of the that existed in French and Spanish gender-race hierarchy. White men may slaveholding territories, but that became also pay a higher labor market penalty for particularly prevalent in New Orleans, in interracial marriage than black men. Some which free women of color entered into scholars have also argued that the disparity common-law marriages with white Creole may be related to the traditional role of the men. While this system can be regarded as man in initiating courtship rituals. a path to opportunity for free women of 127

Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) color, it also helps reinforce white system to save herself and her progeny supremacy by perpetuating the was not only pragmatic, but, in a sense, marginalization of mixed race individuals. ingenious‖ (Martin, 2000: 64). In many ways, placage opened up new While there were a number of opportunities to free people of color that reasons for racial mixing in the early significantly improved their qualities of colony, the major cause of interracial living. Martin points out that ―on the relationships between white men and black positive side, placage created a class of women was the substantial racial and free people of color which was well- gender imbalance. White men were faced educated, cultured, wealthy, and powerful‖ with a shortage of white women but an (Martin, 2000: 69). abundance of black women to choose "Mother," he said to Madame John, quite a master of French in his delirium, "dear from, and black women similarly mother, fear not; trust your boy; fear nothing. outnumbered black men. Furthermore, I will not marry 'Tite Poulette; I cannot. She is fair, dear mother, but ah! she is not - don't you there were marriage laws in place that know, mother? don't you know? The race! the race! Don't you know that she is jet black. limited, and practically eliminated, Isn't it?" marriage prospects for free women of Such a positive interpretation of color. Marriage was outlawed between any plaçage, however, ignores its blatant slave and free person and between any inadequacies. Because plaçage was not a white person and black. This meant that legal marriage, the placée ―lacked the free women of color could not legally social and legal protection inherent in marry slaves or white men, but only free marriage‖ (Martin, 2000: 69). The men men of color. At the time, ―free men of could leave their mistresses at any time, color of marriageable age were virtually though they were obligated to financially unavailable‖ (Martin, 2000: 64). Thus, free support them and any children they had women of color had no choice but to make together if they did so. The fickle nature of the best they could out of their situation in plaçage relationships drastically finding a mate. Historian Joan Martin undermined their substantiality and explains the inevitable turn to placage: emphasized how vulnerable its women ―The free woman had to accept the fact were. The placée lived a life of servitude, that with her choice of a mate taken out of totally confined by her financial and social her hands, she was at the mercy of any dependency on a white man. In this way man, white or black who chose to do her plaçage ―mimics the exploitative power harm. Her decision to use the placage 128

CULTURE Vol.2 No.1 Mei 2015 dynamics and inequalities of slavery‖ (Li silver medal of the Virgin hung over the 88). Plaçage was in no way an ideal, but place where a breastpin should have been. merely a preferable alternative to the The way how she never raised her destitution and physical abuse that could eyes except when spoken to and how she walked with such soft, easy, carefully potentially befall an unmarried, free calculated steps showed that she was a woman of color. little girl with good manner. Another story The Little Convent Every five miles, and sometimes oftener, the boat would stop to put off or take on freight, Girl also took place in New Orleans. The if not both. The little convent girl, sitting in girl isn‘t mentioned the name, they just the cabin, had her terrible frights at first from the hideous noises attendant on these landings call them as the little convent girl since she - the whistles, the ringings of the bells, the is little and lives at convent. She has been running to and fro, the shouting. Every time lived there since she was an infant. Her she thought it was shipwreck, death, judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her sins! father don‘t let her to see her mother. After She would drop her crochet, and clutch her her father died, she is curious to see her prayer-beads from her pocket, and relax the constraint over her lips, which would go to mother and wants to see the outside world. rattling off prayers with the velocity of a She is described to have the ideal relaxed windlass. beauty of little convent girl. Her hair had a Being a child of interracial marriage was as strong inclination to curl that had been difficult as the black race itself. Every time she taken out of it as austerely as the noise out thought it was shipwreck, death, judgment, of her footfalls. It was as black as her purgatory; and her sins! her sins! It shows dress; her eyes seemed blacker than either, how hard her life was. Her personality and on account of the bluishness of the white identity (as her race) have been oppressed by surrounding the pupil. Her eye-lashes were almost as thick as the black veil which the people and their judgments. sisters had fastened around her hat with an Interracial sexual contact likely extra pin the very last thing before leaving. peaked sometime during the early colonial She had a round little face, and a tiny period, when white indentured servants pointed chin; her mouth was slightly and black slaves were in close contact in protuberant from the teeth, over which she large numbers. The practice of keeping tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort white indentured servants was on the giving them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was sallow, a decline and African slavery was on the pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette rise, leading to a transitional period in bleached in darkened rooms. King which the two groups often lived and described the only color about the girl was worked in close quarters. This interracial a blue taffeta ribbon from which a large exposure at a time when folk ideologies of racial difference were still in their infancy

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Region Complex Distinctions of Class, Gender and Race in Tite Poulitte by George Washington Cable and The Convent Girl by Grace King (Yustin Sartika) probably produced the highest level of 4. Conclusion interracial sexual contact ever observed in New Orleans provided a historically this country. As Edmund S. Morgan notes, unique setting that allowed for the ―It was common, for example, for servants emergence of a distinct caste of free women and slaves to run away together, steal hogs of color. These free women of color, together, get drunk together. It was not working within the constraints of a racist uncommon for them to make love society, determined their own destinies and together.‖ that of their progeny. Cable and King The first time she heard the mate - it must vividly describe women of color that have have been like the first time woman ever been categorized as victims, New Orleans‘ heard man - curse and swear, she turned pale, and rang quickly, quickly into the saloon, and unique social institution of Quadroon Balls - came out again? No, indeed! not with all the soul she had to save, and all the other sins on and the related concept of plaçage. her conscience. ―Quadroons,‖ as free women of color,

Feeling sin of her race made her were active agents who made conscious didn‘t have enough courage to have a mate. and calculated choices to utilize interracial The rise of interracial sex led white elites sexual relationships to their financial and to create anti-miscegenation statutes in an social advantage. While working within effort to define boundaries between white the constraints of a racist society, free servants and black slaves, whom slave- women of color determined their own owners feared might band together in identities and destinies for themselves and open rebellion. The children from such their families. unions also posed a potential problem for the emerging racial system as elites 5. References grappled with a classification of people Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar that would reinforce the institution of Eisenach. 1828. Travels through slavery. Efforts to reduce the level of North America during the years 1825 and 1826, Vol. 2. interracial sex were assisted by a decline Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey in the practice of white indentured servant Blassingame, John W. 1973. Black New hood which increased the segregation of Orleans, 1860-1880. Chicago: The black slaves from white laborers. Her University of Chicago Press quietly desperate suicide and the fact that her Cheryl Harris. 1998. ―Whiteness as body was never even found epitomize the Property‖ in Black on White: Black ultimate oppression. Writers on What It Means to be White, ed. David R. Roedige. New York: Schocken Books

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Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moore. 2000. Li, Stephanie. ―Resistance, Silence, and ―People of Color in Louisiana‖ in Placées: Charles Bon‘s Octoroon Creole: The History and Legacy of Mistress and Louisa Louisiana’s Free People of Color, ed. Sybil Kein Baton Rouge: Long, Carolyn Morrow. 2006. A New Louisiana State University Press Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Ester I. Yusuf; Ferdi R. Srivanto. 2001. Laveau. Gainesville: University Rasisme : dokumentasi dokumen- Press of Florida dokumen internasional tentang rasisme. Martin, Joan M. 2000. ―Plaçage and the Gould, Lois Virginia Meacham. 1991. ―In Louisiana Gens de Couleur Full Enjoyment of their Liberty: Libre.‖ Creole: The History and The Free Women of Color of the Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People Gulf Ports of New Orleans, of Color, Ed. Sybil Klein. Baton Mobile, and Pensacola, 1769- Rouge: Louisiana State University 1860.‖ Ph.D. diss., Emory Press University. Picquet. 2007. ‖ American Literature 79.1: ------. 1997. ―A Chaos of Iniquity and 85-112. EBSCO Host. Web. 14 Discord: Slave and Free Women of March 2013. Color in the Spanish Ports of New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola.‖ Robertson, Claire. 1996. ―Africa into the In The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race Americas? Slavery and Women, the in the Early South, edited by Family, and the Gender Division of Catherine Clinton and Michele Labor.‖ In More Than Chattel: Gillespie, 232-246. New York: Black Women and Slavery in the Oxford University Press. Americas, edited by David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, 3------. 2004. ―Henriette Delille, Free 40. Bloomington: Indiana University Women of Color, and Catholicism in Press Antebellum New Orleans, 1727- 1852.‖ In Beyond Bondage: Free Samuel Wilson, ed. 1986. Southern Women of Color in the Americas, Travels: Journal of John H. B. edited by David Barry Gaspar and Latrobe (The Historic New Orleans Darlene Clark Hine, 271-285. Collection Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Sterkx, H. E. 1972. The Free Negro in Harriet Martineau. 1837. Society in Ante-Bellum Louisiana. America, Vol. II. New York: Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickenson Saunders and Otley University Press

Harris, Cheryl.1998. ―Whiteness as Virginia R. Dominguez. 1986. White by Property‖ In Black on White: Black Definition: Social Classification Writers on What it Means to Be White, edited by David R. Roediger.. in Creole Louisiana (New New York: Schocken Books. Brunswick: Rutgers University Press James Haskins. 1975. The Creoles of Color of New Orleans. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company

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