Black nor White the Saga

¶ … Black nor White the Saga Bk rpt. Neither Black nor White: The Saga of an American Family, the Complete Story written by Joseph E. Holloway is a historical novel tracing the lineage of a black immigrant slaveholding family. The work is clearly a documented case of the extreme situation of colorism in American culture, where the wavering ideas of clor and how it is defined dictate the validity of your life, and the lives of others.

It is an intensly charged document, retelling the life story of the Hadnot family, immigrants from Gloucester, England in 1585 who settled in New Orleans. In New Orleans the matriarch of Lucile Catherine (Celia) Hughes Hadnot was born and proceeded to build a family within the scripts of the colorism that dominated many generations to follow. As a group the family were never slaves, though they immigrated as indentured servants, and in fact were prominent slave owners at one time.

(2) "A tale about a people from indentured servitude, slavery, the Colfax riots, segregation and Jim Crow to Civil Rights. It is the story of a people who did not regard themselves as "neither black nor white." It is a story of a family -one black and the other white. Both related sharing a common ancestor by the named John Hadnot.

This novel by Joseph Holloway is compelling reading that explores black culture, history, Jim Crow and issues of colorism." (backmatter) The time span in the novel is from the 17th to the 20th century so the experiences of the individuals within it traverse the whole era of slavery in America as well as the social, political, economic and human rights issues that were faced by black slaves during and after the long difficult reformation and Jim Crow, and the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 70s.

The people whose lives are intimately portrayed within the work lived through such extreme social conditions as the Colfax riots, and extreme segregation. Within the work the major themes of colorism, culture and the morality of the slave system dominate, the interwoven experiences of the participants in this dramatic story. www.newworldafricanpress.com/mailorder.htm" From the very first historical narrative in the work there is clear foreshadowing of the inherent colorism associated with the legacy of the family and the values of the cultures.

When called to account for a relationship that had developed between John Hadnot and an Indian woman who was serving a period of indenture with him his "employer" had this to say. John immediately thought he was being put on the spot and he responded with a lie. "We are just friends and nothing more" Ballwell responded with, "that's what I was thinking. You know white and red blood doesn't mix. We must keep the bloodline pure and by doing so we keep the race pure as well.

I just want to let you know that I have a policy, that there is to be no cohabitation of servents, especially of different races. Same race maybe, but not different races. I lose time nd work against a contract when females become pregnant. Besides, the House of Burgess is not sure if offspring of servents are free or servents for life. When a female becomes pregnant, she ows me more time and I have to extend more time on her contract.

If they are of different races, I usually extend the contracts of both -- the women for getting pregnant, the men for fornication." (7) Dispite this warning Hadnot did get his Indian lover pregnant and they both paid the consequences of their actions, though Hadnot begged Ballwell to punish only him, his partner was reluctant to leave when her term was up because she wanted to stay with Hadnot but he begged her to leave with their son and go back to her people, which she reluctantly did.

John remarried, had other children and died without ever seeing Mocha or their son again. His legacy will be followed through Indian and black ancestry. Within the work there are also many circumstances of colorism with regard to black and white, slave and free. The variation of taboos and social norms dictated, regionally, nationally and internationally, the lives of people based on their status, their color, based upon known ancestry and appearance.

There are many instances in the work when people within this family challenge colorism, especially through intermarriage, but they still must live to deal with the good and the bad of their decisions. The matriarch of the family even gave away a child, because he was to dark to pass as white, even though she was a lightly mixed blood and his father was white.

There rest of her children were her legacy, the only thing she had left of her fortune, squandered by marrying white men who chose to gamble away her father's fortune.

The author of the work had this to say about the act, "Shining bright as a beacon, the sinful act continued to warn future generations that they had to atone for their collective sin of colorism, the sins of the elders would have to be paid in full by the next generation." (52) The representation of race culture within the work is realistic, as it has been portrayed in so many other works, race culture was at once insular, and collective.

Race, though we think of it as black or white, Indian or white and on is a system of both spoken and unskpoken rules that eventually just about everyone breaks. The culture of the masses determined the real situations of every person but within the southern culture there were also subsets of racially driven situations that colored the features of the lifestyle.

Such as the fact that though Celia lived as a wealthy white woman, married several white men and bore several children to them she was never accepted as white by her community and her culture was therefore based upon exclusion.

The southern culture, did account for the situation of variance, and though the cast system did not allow her to be a full member of the system the manner in which her parent's met was a reflection of the variance that sprang up in the culture to account for the shifting sense of class, cast and race.

They met through an arranged social ball where upper class blacks and white men went to meet concubines, Cornelia Briggs being the great granddaughter of Arrester, the son of Mocha and John and her soon to be husband Eddie Turner being the only black plantation and slave owner in the county.

(59) the system was reflective of diversity and in some ways responded to it in a progressive manner, but only to a degree of acceptable taste and even though it was called a "social ball" giving it some semblance of decorum it was probably still a seedy affair, where secrets were supposed to be kept to the death.

The culture of the south demanded institutions of social and economic allowance for every different variety of race that existed and though colorism abounded and there was a clear sense of resentment by many involved, outwardly and inwardly there was also a clear cultural system in place to respond to the occurrences of love choices between the races. This story, has countless reminders of the varied degrees of morality that existed in the slave owning culture.

Though the white wealthy made everyone aware of their opinions about blacks, slaves and people of other races the morality that dictated did not succeed to wholly keep the races from falling in love with one another, as individuals, marrying outside their race, either legally or illegally or having children together. This is evident in the entire history of the family, from the very first interracial marriage between.