Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [198]
Alone at home with Kunta and Kizzy for the next several nights in search of the latest news, Bell spelled her way through several newspapers the massa thought he had discarded. It took her the better part of an hour on one big story before she could tell him that “some kin’ o’ Bill o’ Rights done got . . .” Bell hesitated and drew a deep breath, “well, it done got rat-ti-fied, or somethin’ ’nother.” But there were far more reports about recent events in Haiti—most of which they’d already heard through the slave grapevine. The gist of most of them, she said, was that the Haitian slave revolt could easily spread foolhardy notions among black malcontents in this country, that extreme restrictions and harsh punishments should be imposed. As she folded up the papers and put them away, Bell said, “Look like to me ain’t much more dey can do ’gainst us, less’n it’s jes’ chain us all up, I reckon.”
Over the next month or two, however, news of further developments in Haiti slowly ebbed, and with it came a gradual easing of tensions—and a lightening of restrictions—throughout the South. The harvest season had begun, and whites were congratulating one another on the bumper cotton crop—and the record prices they were getting for it. The fiddler was being sent for to play at so many big-house balls and parties that during the daytime when he was back home, he did little more than sleep. “Look like dem massas makin’ so much cotton money dey jes’ gwine dance deyselves to death!” he told Kunta.
It wasn’t long, however until the white folks had something to be unhappy about again. On his visits to the county seat with the massa, Kunta began to hear angry talk of increasing numbers of “antislavery societies” organized by “traitors to the white race” not only in the North but also in the South. Highly dubious, he told Bell what he had heard, and she said she’d been reading the same thing in the massa’s newspapers, which attributed their recent and rapid growth to Haiti’s black revolt.
“Keeps tryin’ tell you it’s some good white folks!” she exclaimed. “Fact of de matter, I’se heared a whole heap of ’em was ’gainst de firs’ ships ever bringin’ any y’all African niggers here!” Kunta wondered where on earth Bell thought her own grandparents had come from, but she was so wound up that he let it pass. “’Cose, anytime somethin’ like dat be’s in de paper,” she went on, “de massas gits riled up, rantin’ an’ hollerin’ ’bout enemies of de country an’ sich as dat, but what’s ’portant is de mo’ white folks ’gainst slavery says what dey thinks, den de mo’ of dem massas git to wonderin’ in dey secret heart is dey right or not.” She stared at Kunta. “’Specially dem callin’ deyselves Christians.”
She looked at him again, a slyness in her eyes. “What you think me an’ Aunt Sukey an’ Sister Mandy be’s talkin’ ’bout dese Sundays massa think we jes’ singin’ an’ prayin’? I follows white folks close. Take dem Quakers. Dey was ’gainst slavin’ even fo’ dat Rebolution, I means right here in Virginia,” she went on. “An’ plenty o’ dem was massas ownin’ a heap o’ niggers. But den preachers commence to sayin’ niggers was human bein’s, wid rights to be free like anybody else, an’ you ’members some Quaker massas started to lettin’ dey niggers loose, an’ even helpin’ ’em git up Nawth. By now it done got to where de Quakers dat’s still keepin’ dey niggers is bein’ talked ’bout by de res’, an’ I’se heared if dey still don’t let dem niggers go, dey gwine git disowned by dey church. Gwine on right today, sho’ is!” Bell exclaimed.
“An’ dem Methodists is de nex’ bes’. I ’members readin’ ten, leben years back, Methodists called a great big meetin’ in Baltimore, an’ finally dey ’greed slavin’ was ’gainst Gawd’s laws an’ dat anybody callin’ hisself Christian