I would like to bring up a discrepancy I have found regarding the race of Frado’s mother in Our Nig. In the novel, Frado laments on white Mag Smith’s (her mother’s) fall from white society. She not only had and lost a child out of wedlock, but married a black man named Jim with whom she bore Frado. “She was now expelled from companionship with white people; this last step−her union with a black−was the climax of repulsion” (11). Mag struggled with her biracial marriage and acceptance; she was ignored by the whites but not accepted by blacks either. Mag’s struggle with finding her identity between the two cultures reminds me of Mary Jemison’s similar struggle between acceptance in white and Indian society. Like Mag, Jemison was white, but lived in Indian society where she had a biracial marriage and mixed heritage children. Neither Mag nor Mary ever fully belonged in or completely identified with either of their two conflicting societies.
The cruelties of white society also plague her mulatto daughter Frado in the novel. Frado knows her mother was white and was herself light mulatto colored as a child, but seems to identify herself with black society. Mrs. B furthers this societal subversion with Frado’s slave-like role and physically tries to make Frado appear darker. “She was not many shades darker than Mary now; what a calamity it would be ever to hear the contrast spoken of. Mrs. Bellmont was determined the sun should have full power to darken the shade which nature had first bestowed upon her as best fitting” (22). Frado laments to James, “Because [God] made her white, and me black. Why didn’t he make us both white?” (29). Frado struggles with the idea of race and her place in society as a free, yet still enslaved, black woman.
However, fact and fiction meet in the Introduction to the story. From historical evidence, the Introduction asserts that Mag Smith (short for Margaret Smith) was believed to be the real name of Hattie Wilson’s mother. Historical records found in the newspaper the Boston Patriot report on the death of Margaret Ann Smith. The report starts, “Margaret Ann Smith, black, late of Portsmouth N.H....” (xxvIII). The historical record states that Wilson’s mother was black, as opposed to white in the story. This would change Wilson's race, and if the character Frado mirrors her life, would change Frado’s race from mulatto to black in the novel. Would this change how Frado would have seen herself and her struggle with white society in the novel? Also, the extent to which Wilson’s actual life is mirrored in her fictional novel is raised. Was Wilson’s mother historically black, or were historians wrong in identifying Margaret Ann Smith as her mother? If Wilson’s mother was really black, why is Frado’s mother white in the novel? To what extent then, could this fictional story be considered Wilson’s autobiography?
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3 comments:
I think the questions you pose are not necessarily ones that can be answered. Even if historical records states that her mother is black, who is to say that the record was correct? There is some chance the record may be wrong or the people analyzing the records misinterpreted. It is something we cannot be sure about. Nonetheless, I do not think her mother's races changes much about the story--at least its overall message. Either way, Frado is still free yet living the life of a slave.
I think that presenting Mag Smith as a white character, regardless of whether it is true or not, makes Frado's story all the more compelling. Think about the elements it allows Wilson to introduce: the concept of a white woman supposedly descending to the point of marrying and relying on a black man, the observation later in the novel that Frado's skin was only slightly darker that Mary's, the general ridiculousness of trying to definitively separate black from white. I think that the complexities introduced by presenting Mag Smith as white do a lot to enhance the story, especially when we consider the story as a sort of moral call-to-arms advocating equality.
To echo Ross' point, I think the inclusion of Mag Smith as a white satisfies not an end where Wilson seeks to record her life with the utmost accuracy but an end where Wilson seeks to portray as clearly as possible the themes of her life. With the inclusion of Mag Smith's marriage to Jim, Wilson is able to portray the sad and internalized connotations associated with being "black" or "white".
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