Tag Archives: slaves and slavery

Slavery in Murder, Sweet Murder

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In Murder, Sweet Murder, I continued looking at slavery in the United States, following Death in the Great Dismal and Murder on Principle. Since the importation of slaves was not forbidden until1808 (but there was plenty of smuggling through Spanish Florida as well as other slave ships that ignored the law. The Clotilda brought 110 children from Africa in 1859.), Rees’s father-in-law was still bringing in enslaved people during the Rees family’s visit to Boston.

Lydia had already fled the family home, joining the Shakers in Maine as a young woman. This is where she met Will Rees. Now her brother James, a sea captain, is estranged from their father. James refuses to engage in ‘that filthy trade’, his words. Conditions on the ships were horrific.

It is commonly assumed that slavery was wholly a Southern institution. Nothing could be further than the truth. During the Colonial period and through the Revolution, slavery was widespread. However, after the War for Independence, states such as New York and New Jersey began passing laws to abolish slavery gradually. By 1804, all the Northern states had passed laws outlawing slavery, either immediately or incrementally.

No Southern states abolished slavery although individual owners freed their slaves.

The demand for slaves increased dramatically with the invention of the cotton gin and cotton became ‘King Cotton’. The rising demand for sugar also increased the amount of land on the plantations in Jamaica and the other islands devoted to sugar. Plantations that once grew indigo and cacao switched to sugar, as I describe in the mystery. 

Both sugar and cotton exhaust the soil, so plantation owners looked west for fresh land. That, of course, amplified the conflict between the free states and the slave states and set the stage for the Missouri Compromise where Missouri entered the union as a slave state and Maine, formerly part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as a free state. 

The Fugitive Slave Law – 1793

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I associated the Fugitive Slave Law with the Civil War. The truth is, however, the first iteration of the law was signed into effect in 1793, long before I would have guessed. It is important to remember that many of the founding fathers, including George Washington, were slave owners.

In Death in the Great Dismal,

when Rees and Lydia rescue their friends Tobias and Ruth, they were breaking the law. Although both Tobias and Ruth had both been born free in Maine, they were abducted and sold into slavery. (The slave takers frequently took any person of color, born free or not, for sale in the South. Occasionally, white children were stolen as well.)

Not only were escaped people subject to recapture, anyone who obstructed the slave takers were considered in violation of the law. Moreover, any child born to an enslaved mother was also considered to be enslaved. The prevailing custom was one drop of black blood meant that person was considered black, no matter how light-skinned. Rees and Lydia, therefore, could have been in serious trouble if they had been caught.

The full text of the Act is available from the Library of Congress (and online) in the Annals of Congress of the 2ndCongress, 2nd Session, during which the proceedings and debates took place from November 5, 1792 to March 2, 1793. 

The appropriate sections are 3 and 4.

By the end of the American Revolution all of the Northern states had abolished slavery or made provision to do so. (The United States abolished the slave trade in 1808.) However, fugitives could and were returned to the Southern states per the Fugitive Slave Act by men whose profession, if you will, was capturing escapees.

 This law was further strengthened in 1850 at the request of the slave states. One of the elements most annoying to Northerners was the three-fifths rule that counted every five slaves as three people and therefore gave the slave states much more representation in Congress. Although there were abolitionists prior to 1850, the revised law caused a tremendous increase in people who identified as anti-slavery.

The term Underground Railroad did not come into common use until the construction of actual railroads became widespread. An abolitionist newspaper published a cartoon in 1844 that pictured a rail car packed with fugitives heading for Canada. Use of ‘conductor’ and other railroad terms came into broader use after the 1850 law. 

Banjos in the Great Dismal Swamp

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In Death in the Great Dismal, one of my primary characters (Cinte) makes and plays and early form of the banjo. (The modern name; it had many others.)

The banjo came to America with the enslaved peoples, some scholars think by way of the Caribbean and the slaves imported by the Portuguese. In any event, there are over 60 similar plucked instruments, including the akonting, the ngoni, and the xalam, played in West Africa that bear some resemblance to the banjo. Early, African- influenced banjos, had a calabash or gourd body covered with hide and a long wooden stick neck, Usually the banjos had three strings with a shorter, drone string.

The earliest mention in the American Colonies occurred in the 17th century. The first known picture of a man playing a banjo-like instrument (The Old Plantation, circa 1785-1795) shows a four stringed instrument as described above. Banjo-playing was perpetuated in the plantations and the slave-labor camps as I describe in my mystery.

The banjo in its modern form is a melding of the old form with European influences, a flat fingerboard and tuning pegs. The pictures show both fretted and unfretted varieties. During the 1830 and 1840s, playing the banjo spread beyond the enslaved to the enslavers, Minstrels shows featuring the banjos became popular. After the Civil War, the banjos spread to drawing rooms and other venues.

The banjo was re-popularized once again during the folk revival by such performers as Pete Seeger.

American Music owes a huge debt to the men and women brought here so unwillingly and would be a lot less rich without these influences.

Death in the Great Dismal -Goodreads Giveaway

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I am so excited to announce a giveaway for my new book: Death in the Great Dismal. Will and Lydia travel south, to the Great Dismal swamp, They have been asked to rescue Ruth, a woman taken from Maine and sold down south. She has escaped to a village in the heart of the swamp and is living there with other fugitives.

Of course, Will and Lydia are in the village no more than a few days when the first murder occurs.

The Giveaway ends the first week of January.

Death in the Great Dismal

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After being delayed for several months because of COVID, the new Will Rees will be released in the United States on January 5.

The Great Dismal Swamp, the setting for the ninth Will Rees, is my favorite so far. Will and Lydia are asked by a friend, born free but sold down south and now escaped, to accompany him to the swamp to rescue his wife. Of course they agree, and several murders occur.

Yes, the swamp still exists. It is much smaller, though, than it was when George Washington first explored it (and first saw the potential for development.) But it still feels like a trackless wilderness. Bears and bobcats still live within the swamp as well as many species of birds and aquatic life. And insects, lots and lots of insects.

This is a peat bog and in some places the peat is fourteen feet deep. A man could be swallowed up with no one the wiser.

Many slaves escaped to the swamp. Estimates range from a few thousand to one hundred thousand. Many were caught but quite a few managed to make a life for themselves inside the swamp. These fugitives were called maroons.

When the escaped slaves fled to the swamp, they bedded down first under the pines. They grow only on the drier islands. Daniel Sayers, an archaeologist has been excavating these drier patches and has found evidence of small communities.

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Most of the swamp resembles an impassible green curtain.

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Now the swamp is passable via boardwalks. This one leads to a memorial honoring the maroons.

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Death in the Great Dismal

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Very excited to reveal the cover for my next Will Rees mystery: Death in the Great Dismal. It will be released early fall. In this book, Will and Lydia travel to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia to rescue a free black woman, taken from Maine and enslaved, who has fled to the swamp. One of the other maroons is murdered – but Will and Lydia are on the case.

I have had many wonderful covers but this one is exceptional.

The Great Dismal Swamp, Again

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Next March, A Circle of Dead Girls will be released. It has already been released in the UK.

The Will Rees Mystery that will come out after, probably next summer, is titled Death in the Great Dismal. As one may guess, this mystery takes Will and Lydia to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia.

Since I always find it easier to imagine my characters in the location in which the mystery takes place, I have visited the swamp again. What an amazing place!

Loblolly pines. Even in the winter, when the leaves have dropped, it is difficult to see through the vegetation. The pines grow on drier islands in the swamp. This is where the maroons, the escaped slaves, would have set up camps.
One of the many streams in the swamp. The water is black. Tannin leaches from the roots of the cypress. Although the water is safe to drink, any fabric or lighter surface will be dyed brown by the water. Look closely. All the water ways are edges with the stubs of trees where the beavers have gnawed them down.
Downed trees are everywhere. I describe this scene in my book, although Rees finds a clue at the water’s edge.