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A Ghost's Perspective: Introducing the Narrative A GHOST’S PERSPECTIVE: INTRODUCING THE NARRATIVE Seth Clarke ISTORIANS of the Antebellum Era agree the r83os witnessed a H change in the nation’s fight over slavery. The abolition movement under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison adopted the doctrine of immediate emancipation, and launched a massive outreach campaign aimed at the hearts and minds of white Northerners. Anti-slavery agents, petitioners, and lecturers took advantage of the transportation revolution and fanned out across the North. New anti-slavery organiza tions sprouted into existence, and publications like Garrison’s Liberator rolled off the presses. Moral suasion, “a belief that moral example and rational argument would persuade the public to abandon vice and corruption and create a more virtuous society” became the preferred tactic in the fight against entrenched pro-slavery interests.1 Blacks, especially ex-slaves, helped fuel this moral argument. fugitives used narratives, pamphlets, and lectures to tell their personal stories. These testimonials directly contradicted pro-slavery propaganda that portrayed slaves as “contented, well cared for, kindly treated, and best left to southern control.z White abolitionists believed full-length narratives, with their ability to describe in vivid and excruciating detail scenes from Southern slavery, provided an “infallible means ofabolition izing the free states.”3 These important narratives are the subjects ofthis paper, however, the slaves’ individual accounts contained within the texts are not the focus of the analysis. This paper is concerned with the auxiliary materials bracketing the slave’s actual narrative. In other words, the prefaces, introductions, conclusions, newspaper articles, letters, and other types of documents Peter Ripley, ed., Witnessfor Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery And Emancipation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 6. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 68. 154 Seth Clarke generally written by white abolitionist that accompanied Antebellum narratives. In this paper, I refer to these writers as ghostwriters, though that is not the general use of this term.4 Ghostwriters believed they represented a bridge from the slave to the reader. Their role was to explain to the reading public how to view and, more importantly, react to the revolting portrait ofthe hideous slave system.”5 A white colleague of fredrick Douglass told him, “Give us the facts, we will take care of the philosophy.”6 Ghostwriters used introductions to express their own beliefs about slavery, slave owners, and apathetic Northerners. Though these Antebellum narratives provide the reader a view of nineteenth century slave life, it is the auxiliary materials that illuminate the aboli tionists’ evolving philosophy within the anti-slavery fight. Ghostwriters’ introductions underwent a radical change between 1830 and i86o. Introductions written in the 183os displayed a willingness to work with and forgive slave owners in an effort to end slavery and improve society. In the wake of the Mexican War (1846-1848) and the national controversy over the expansion of slavery, the auxiliary materi als assumed a decidedly angry tone and promoted decisive action. In the 185os ghostwriters themselves changed. Signifying their growing influence in the movement, blacks and women wrote introductions framing new philosophies, while other narratives jettisoned the tradi tional introduction all together. Theodore Dwight Weld provided a helpful framework within which to understand the relationship between auxiliary materials and slaves’ eyewitness testimony. In his written preface to American SlaveryAs ft Is: Testimony ofa Thousand Witnesses, published in 1839 by the American Anti-Slavery Society, Weld constructed a theoretical courtroom where the reader represented the jury. The 224 pages of compiled eyewitness accounts represented the evidence, the 2,700,000 slaves represented the clients, and, of course, Weld himselfrepresented the plaintiffs attorney. “Reader, you are empanelled as a juror to try a plain case and bring in an honest verdict. The question at issue is not one of law, but of fact. What is the actual condition ofthe slaves in the United States?”7 Weld viewed Generally ghost writer indicates the person who actually wrote the text for the slave. Though I do include this meaning in the term, I expand its definition. 5Henry Bibb, Narrative ofthe Life andAdventures ofHenry Bibb, and American Slave, Written by Himself (New York: Henry Bibb, i849),.i. 6 c Peter Ripley,ed., Witnessfor Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery And Emancipation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993),72. Theodore Dwight Weld, American Slavery As it Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), ii. Ex PosT FACTO 155 his preface as an opening statement. He wanted the reader/juror to be emotionally prepared to allow the book’s testimony to sway the reader towards the anti-slavery camp, “Suppose I should seize you, rob you of your liberty, drive you into the field, and make you work without pay as long as you live, would that be justice and kindness, or monstrous injustice and cruelty?”8 As he continued, he walked the readers/ jurors through the evidence he planned to present and laid out the objectives of his case: As slaveholders and their apologists are volunteer witnesses... we propose —first, to disprove their assertions by the testimony of a multitude of impartial witnesses, and then to put slaveholders... through a course of cross-questioning which shall draw their con demnation out of their own mouths.9 Though American Slavery As It Is was not a slave narrative, Weld’s preface demonstrated how ghostwriters viewed themselves and their literary additions. Auxiliary materials played the role of a lead attorney, introducing and summing up arguments; bolstering the star witnesses’ credibility; and generally disseminating anti-slavery philosophy. The ghostwriters’ auxiliary materials served to formally introduce an ex-slave to the reader. Despite the early transformative affects of the market and transportation revolutions, Antebellum Americans still lived in a predominately rural and disconnected society. This meant the majority ofAmericans rarely came into contact with others from outside their immediate geographic area. Often a stranger who wanted to ease his transition into a new town carried a letter of reference from some well-known person vouching for his character. Ghostwriters’ auxiliary materials ensured slave narratives came with the letter attached. William Lloyd Garrison introduced a young and virtually unknown, Fredrick Douglass, to the reading public in 1845. In the preface to Douglass’ Narrative OfThe Lfe OfFredrick Douglass, an American Slave, Garrison began, “In the month ofAugust, 1841, I attended an antislavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with fredrick Douglass, the writer of the following narra tive.”t0 Garrison went on to explain that not only did he endorsed 8 Ibid. iii. Ibid., iii. ‘° fredrick Douglass, Narrative Of the Lfe of Fredrick Douglas, an American Slave, (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845) iii. VOLUME XX 2011 156 Seth Clarke Douglass, but “a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose sympa thy and affection he [DouglassJ has strongly secured likewise supported him.”1’ After establishing that Douglass had personal connections with many white abolitionists, Garrison preceded to note some of Douglass’ positive characteristics, “the many sufferings he has endured... his virtuous traits of character... his ever-abiding remembrance ofthose who are in bonds. Ghostwriters wanted to assure white readers that whites who knew the fugitive trusted them to tell the truth. In that way they hoped to lessen the natural suspicion and skepticism that was surely present in white Northerners’ minds. The ghostwriter for Charles Ball’s narrative, Slavery in the United States:A Narrative ofthe Lfe andAdventures ofCharles Ball, took on the authenticity question directly: In giving a place in the Cabinet offreedom to the ensuing narrative, it is deemed proper to accompany it with some remarks. The reader will be desirous to know how far it is entitled to his belief, and the editors of the Cabinet are equally desirous that he should not be misled. ‘3 The ghostwriter then inserted a certificate signed by a former justice ofthe peace and a lawyer who had previously served in the Pennsylvania legislature: We, the undersigned, certify that we have read the book called ‘CHAR LES BALL’—that we know the black man whose narrative is given in this book, and have heard him relate the principal matters contained in the book.., long before the book was published.’4 The ghostwriter made it clear that he, not Ball, controlled the tone of the narrative and therefore the reader could trust in its objectivity. “Many of his [Ball’s] opinions have been cautiously omitted, or carefully suppressed, as being of no value to the reader; and his sentiments upon the subject of slavery, have not been embodied in this work.”5 He then added perhaps the most ironic statement in the history of activist ° Ibid., iii. ‘ Ibid.,‘ iii. Ball, Slavery in the United States:A Narrative ofthe Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, a Black Man, Who lived Forty Years in Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia, as a Slave Under Various Masters, and was One Year In the Navy with Commodore Barney, During the Late War (New York: John S.Taylor, 1837), i. ‘‘4Ibid., i-u. Ibid., xi. Ex POST FACTO 157 literature, “The design ofthe writer, who is no more than the recorder of the facts detailed to him by another, has been to render the narrative as simple, and the style of the story as plain, as the laws of the language would permit.”6 In 1838, a controversy arose following The American Anti-Slavery Society’s publication of James Williams’ narrative, An American Slave, Who Was for Several Years a Driver on a Cotton Plantation in Alabama. White Virginia and Alabama slave owners leveled the charge that Williams’ narrative was false.
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