You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This request comes from a gentleman whose wife is looking for the first romance she read. This one is a doozy:
“This would have been in the 1983-1987 timeframe. I think it had a purple
cover (but I don’t think Johanna Lindsey wrote it). I remember it being
quite racy for a girl my age…It may or may not have started off with a rich heiress trying to escape a
bad betrothal in the Caribbean to a much older man to pay off her father’s
debts. There was a pirate (with very green eyes) between the Carribbean and
France who took her virtue. Later, she was all the rage in Paris, and
Napolean’s attentions drove Josephine mad with jealousy. She left France
on a ship; other passengers included a Puritan couple from New England who
did not approve of her.The captain of the ship was the pirate. Or maybe the pirate captured her
ship? In either case, she wound up somewhere in Africa, traded as a white
slave into a harem. She was picked to be some sultan’s squeeze (he was
described as a Janissary), but our plucky heroine was with the pirate’s
child at this point. The fabulous Arab had his way (but only anally). She
gave birth, and was told the baby died during childbirth, but it was really
taken away & given to the Puritan couple. They were being held hostage by
the Janissary.Then, she wound up back in New Orleans, was called an octoroon and sold as a
slave. The green-eyed pirate rescued her and she was reunited with her son
(the missing baby). Then wound up in the Oregon territories. Or maybe not.
It’s all verrry fuzzy after all this time. “
Of course I Googled “octoroon” and am so pleased to make the acquaintance of one more piece of racist nomenclature. Good Lord. Anyone remember this book?
Yep. Wicked Loving Lies. I can’t, for the first time in my HaBo memory, believe that not only can I identify, but have also read the book in question.
captcha85 Because after 85 years of pledging, I finally feel like a member of the HaBo sorority.
It certainly sounds like the HaBO has been found…
I just wanted to chime in with a reading suggestion: Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral by Jessie Redmon Fauset is – IMHO – wonderful. Fauset was an author from the Harlem Renaissance, and Plum Bun deals with a young woman who chooses to pass as white and the ramifications of that decision for her and for her sister, who cannot. I first read it in a college class, and I dig it out to re-read periodically. One of the things I love about it is that it emphatically does not include the “tragic mulatto” (or “tragic octoroon” – this book is where I learned the term) trope.
I’m surprised so few here were exposed to the term octoroon in “New Orleans Wins the War” by Randy Newman, from his masterful autobiographical album Land of Dreams. And I’m more pleased and relieved than ever that I stopped reading romances in the ‘80s, when I was an adolescent, before I was exposed to Rosemary Rogers.
OK now I feel compelled to add that Land of Dreams does include one notable nonmasterful misfire, Masterman and Baby J. So skip that one. But overall it’s just a great album, led by the truly great song Dixie Flyer. Though it doesn’t include Louisiana 1927, a song that was enough to make you cry before Katrina and since then doesn’t leave you much choice at all.
@Tiblet—You beat me to it. It’s not the HaBO book, but Band of Angels by Robert Penn Warren is a good example of popular mid-20th c. novels using this theme. Raintree County (still a contender for my personal accolade as The Great American Novel) also fits in this category.
“High yellow” was a term in the South to describe a woman of mixed race who looked as white as the Irish girl next door. Some scholars say the song “Yellow Rose of Texas” refers to the singer’s “high yellow” girlfriend.
I think the HaBO book has to be either Rosemary Rogers or Bertrice Small. Sounds like their work.
Darlynne said:
Kind of makes me want to reread some of the romances I read when I was a teen, just to see what went over my head. Then again, I’d run the risk of ruining warm, fuzzy memories.
Darlene—have you read SHADE OF THE RAINTREE by Ross Lockridge’s son? It’s a very good book and made me go back and re-read RAINTREE COUNTY (which I’d always thought of as a pot-boiler—probably because of the Liz Taylor movie adaptation) with a different eye.
@ robinjn: if you know the names of your family members and where they lived, the way to find out is to go backwards through the US census. The race of the head of household is listed. The caveat is that the race listed in the census is usually based on the perception of the census taker.
When I was doing research on my family, I ran across the phrase “free-colored” in the census documentation. This had never come up in any discussion of genealogy with family members, who had meticulously recorded other branches of our ancestry going back to the American Revolution and Jamestown.
Nevertheless, my gggg-grandfather was listed as a free-colored a slave owner in the census. The family then moved from SC to GA, where his son, my ggg-grandfather, was listed as white. During the last push end of the Civil War when all of the able-bodied older men and boys enlisted, he did too, and served as a sergeant, as did his brother and his brother’s sons. The Confederate muster role lists him as having a dark complexion (physical descriptions were included to help in capture in case soldiers deserted). My g-grandmother and my grandmother were very fair and had blonde hair. I look the same way.
Free-colored is a category that provokes mixed emotions in a lot of people, some of whom have the belief that people were either slaves or not. My gggg-grandfather most likely earned his status by having a black ancestor who prior to slavery worked as an indentured servant. Once slavery was adopted, the family was forced to move from VA to NC to SC and then GA as they were driven out of the area by their neighbors. Some of the vitriol about my ancestors in the Anson/Bladen NC records is truly incredible and mulatto is the least of what they were called. The final move to GA was because of a land lottery in which Cree/Cherokee lands were confiscated and given away to “white” settlers.
So if you have colonial-era ancestors, until you do some family history research to prove otherwise, it is entirely possible that you have a least one black (or American Indian) ancestor. We could have a whole new conversation about people claiming the latter to explain dark complexions when the reality is probably the former.
The main thing to know before starting any genealogy research is not to do it unless you’re prepared to embrace whatever you find; an ancestor of a different race, a gg-grandfather who was a wife-beater or one who ran off with the loose woman down the road!
Cat’s comments about being prepared for what you find when you do family research puts me in mind of something I read in Shirlee Taylor Haizlip’s book THE SWEETER THE JUICE (an exploration of her family—some of whom on her light-skinned mother’s side “passed”). Haizlip was doing some genealogical research using census records in an archive and there was a white couple next to her doing the same thing. The man said to the woman (paraphrase), “I don’t understand this—the census has the right name and the right address for my great-grandfather, but he’s listed as ‘Colored.’ That can’t be right. I guess I’ll have to start my research all over again.”
I second Miranda’s recommendation of the excellent Benjamin January mystery series by Barbara Hambly. Not romances, but he does develop a love interest 2 or 3 books in. Also, there’s this recent book, a true story, about a white man passing as black so he could live with his black wife.
“Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line”
“Noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the uniquely American story of Clarence King, a man who hid from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family the fact that he lived a double life—-as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer King and as a black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.”
Can’t help with the HABO, but I must say it makes me glad my romance reading was on hiatus during the 80s. Just can’t deal with all that rapey stuff.
I did want to second Miranda’s recommendation of Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series. Wonderful mysteries, full of moody evocative descriptions and intricate, angsty relationships. January is a dark-skinned free black (not African American, as New Orleans did not consider itself an American city at this point), a skilled musician and a physician trained in Paris who must navigate the stratified racial culture of mid-19th century Louisiana. If you start with Free Man of Color and read the series in order there is also a nice romantic plot line running through the books.
I, like Jami, learned mulatto/quadroon/octaroon in history class. In grade school, in fact. (And though Ken makes a fair point about age, I’m 31.) I suppose it’s something that depends on your specific school—I attended two different schools in the same town and had “mulatto”, etc., in one school but not the other.
Re the genealogy conversation, particularly this bit:
[quote=“Cat S”]So if you have colonial-era ancestors, until you do some family history research to prove otherwise, it is entirely possible that you have a least one black (or American Indian) ancestor. We could have a whole new conversation about people claiming the latter to explain dark complexions when the reality is probably the former.
My family tree has a pretty fair infusion of American Indian blood (and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find African American in there too, but I don’t actually know of any). It’s interesting and kind of horrible to note, though, that American Indian ancestry was, till quite recently, regarded as shameful as well. My grandmother and her sisters, who were only fractionally Indian, only avoided being forcibly removed to a reservation as children by packing up and leaving town with their mother. (This would’ve been in the late ‘20s or early ‘30s.) There’s a whole group of elderly people in my family who, to this day, deny vociferously that their great-(great?)-grandmother was Indian; she was, and had black hair and dark skin, but they insist that she had pale skin and red hair and was German.
Whoops, I screwed up my quote. It was meant to be like so:
@DiscoDollyDeb—no, I haven’t read that biography but I’ll look for it. I read Raintree County before I saw the movie. The book, as is usually the case in these situations, is far richer and deeper than the movie.
Thanks for the tip.
For something a little more modern movie-wise, there is always the Lifetime movie “The Courage to Love” with Vanessa Williams. I think she is cast as straight mulatto, but couldn’t swear to that.
On a side note, I also loved Raintree County.
I am 1/16th native american with an ancestress on both sides. My great aunts on each side traced the family tree back to the crossing. Getting the native american information was hell because the family had attempted to hide the “disgrace” behind a rechristening of the wives in question. They were apparently half native and half white, so they were fairly light in color from the family papers that still exist.
I learned the terms in 4th grade history when we did the slave versus indentured servant versus “a free person of color” lessons. I got it again in 11th grade u.s. history when we learned about quadroon mistresses because our teacher said we needed to see the good and the bad of the “good old days.” I am now 28. I believe, however, that it was removed from the curriculum in the year after mine, for the fourth grade intro, as the term was too derogatory and some of the students in my year picked on the two kids in our class who had a visible mix of blood (their description of themselves, not mine).
Having grown up in Southern LA these are terms that just sort of seeped into my brain somehow, though I don’t recall in what context – I don’t *think* it was in school however. I was reminded of the term “mulatto” a couple of summers ago when Dairy Queen introduced an ice cream coffee drink called the Moo-Latte and there was some flack about them making a poor choice in naming it.
Personally, I’m glad that times and perceptions have (mostly) changed. Some of the most beautiful people I’ve seen have been of mixed heritage.
You know, I think this has been one of my favorite HaBo discussions ever. I picked up the names of a ton of books I want to read and I have to say I love the intellectual aspect of this discussion mixed in with the RR rapey, anal, Napoleon nonsense.
Bwahahahaha, yes, it has to be Rosemary Rogers’ Wicked Loving Lies. Geez, I remember reading all hers and hiding them from my mom who would have had a heart attack if she knew what I was reading. And of course they were way past believable, but whoa, good racy reading. This book came out in 1976 and I was 16, and still believed in fairy tales, and heroines that always looked gorgeous and never got dirty or had a period, lol!
The discussion about racial classifications and terminologies has been fascinating, and conducted with a calm and dignity that is impressive for such a sensitive subject. I have learned a lot.
I just want to make one point, though I think it has already been touched upon somewhere in this long thread, about the way in which colour prejudice is, or has been, found within some broadly ‘black’ societies as well as white.
I have encountered this mainly in reading about Jamaica, where (in the past at least), having light or ‘yellow’ skin was considered better than being very dark. The issue comes up in some biographies of Bob Marley, who was a ‘mulatto’ in the American terminology discussed above — white father, black mother — though his self-identification was wholly African. The presence of large Asian (Indian subcontinent) and Chinese communities in Jamaica, as well as those of European and African heritage, leads to a variety of physical type that makes any racial stereotyping or classification completely absurd.
Most of us, Europeans as well as Americans, are mongrels, and that’s a very good thing for the human species, for its genetic diversity and its physical and mental health.
I agree with Cat S about being prepared for whatever you find when you do genealogical research.
My mother did tons of it when I was a child. We spent all of our vacations tromping through nearly abandoned graveyards—fortunately before the advent of Lyme disease. She found out her first ancestor to arrive in the states in 1805 was a Presbyterian minister from Scotland. I forget how many g’s great-grandfather he was to her.
His son was, alas, a bit less respectable. We discovered he was hung as a horse thief. Our first clue was the phrase, “Hung as a horse thief,” which was engraved on his tombstone. Hours of searching old microfiches—dating myself I know—later, we found an article in the newspaper discussing his trial and summary execution.
I remember thinking it was funny. PKs—preachers’ kids, who have the reputation for being wild—were wild way back then.
However, none of my sainted aunties saw any humor in the discovery at all. My mother was instructed not to reveal any other unsavory discoveries to anyone, ever again.
It made my mother afraid to start looking at my dad’s side of the family.
Oh, by the way, definitely RR. I recognized the cover. Squick.
Considering that severe punishment, including execution, was often imposed in the past for crimes that we would regard as relatively minor, I am surprised that any descendants found this deeply shameful, even though horses were high-value chattels. One thinks of the 19thC British convicts transported to Australia, many of whom were guilty of committing only what we would call petty theft.
Intriguing linguistic point: I hadn’t realised that in American English, ‘hung’ is the past participle of all senses of ‘hang’. In British English, we say, ‘I have hung that picture in the only space left on the wall’, but where the verb refers to death by hanging, the p.p. is hanged, e.g. ‘He was hanged as a horse-thief’.
What she said. When my brother was researching our paternal line, he found that the first of our ancestors on American shores was a boy of about 10 who came over from England in the 1600s as an indentured servant (who knows why he sold himself, probably to keep from starvation). His master was very cruel so he ran away to the Indians and lived with them for over two years before being found by a ship’s crew and returned, after a flogging.
In the late 1800s there was a sex and murder scandal including the town doctor (my ancestor) his wife and her sister that resulted in the murder of the doctor by the sister. Now that baby, that’s scandal!
Wow am I glad I never read this or I would have never picked up a romance novel ever again. I looked up a prior article. from 1977 mind you, on Rosemary Rogers in Time magazine and let me say I do not agree with this statement from an Avon Books executive.
“They identify with Rosemary’s heroines because the heroines do everything the average housewife longs to do — they travel to exotic places, meet famous people, have passionate affairs with fascinating men, and in the end fall madly in love and live happily ever after.”
Holy Wow.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918604-1,00.html
AGTigress—
In many places in the states, crimes against property are punished more harshly than crimes against people. Even today.
Years ago in Colorado, the fine for killing another hunter—but it had to occur during hunting season, I presume—was 300 dollars. If the victim survived your murderous assault, there was no punishment on the books. True story. I think they’ve modified the laws a bit since then, after a couple of children in orange vests were shot down out of a tree and killed.
Right now in Colorado, we have a “Make My Day” law that allows a homeowner to use deadly force against a burglar without having to prove that the burglar was even armed.
@Kate Vinee. Interesting they made the ancestor a redhead. Kinda by default. I read a book where the maiden sister was lovely, but cursed by red hair. Kinda considered almost unmarriagable. Of course she got to have a passionate affair and a baby girl that she got to take care of by running an orphans’ school, etc. Some people did know what side their bread is buttered on. Now I’m wondering when that tide turned. Yeah, I know, mixed metaphors like crazy. . .
I can believe that. Laws are made by people, and people are imperfect. Morals and customs change and evolve, so some laws will inevitably reflect attitudes that no longer prevail.
But on the issue of past scandals, there is also the more subtle matter of responsibility; we are not responsible for the misdemeanours of our ancestors, whether they were trivial or serious, and we therefore need feel no shame about them. Regret and sorrow, yes, but not shame or responsibility.
This matter is a burning one in the many situations, today, when peoples or individuals whose ancestors were deeply wronged in the past demand apologies (and sometimes other reparations) from the descendants of those who committed the wrongs, from a generation that had not even been born when the evil was done. We cannot apologise on behalf of others, nor expiate crimes that we have not committed; the concept is meaningless. We can, and should, publically acknowledge that an injustice was done, and that we wish it had not been so. It is the idea of ‘apology’ that seems to me out of place. After all, those who were culpable might strongly object to making an apology themselves, considering everything they had done, within the customs and morals of their own society, to be wholly acceptable.
I cannot apologise, personally or collectively, for the fact that Britain was once heavily involved in the African slave-trade, any more than I can take personal or collective credit for the fact that Britain was also the first country to ban it. I can only say that it was a disgraceful episode in our history, that I grieve for those who were so vilely mistreated, and that I hope that humanity has learned lessons from it. The current fashion for demanding apologies from countries or governments whose predecessors, beyond living memory, did things that we now regard as wicked, seems to me to undermine the whole concept of apology, which should be personal, a recanting of a person’s own conscious and deliberate words or actions, a true change of heart.
Generally speaking, considering the light hearted tone of this website’s name, I would think people would not be expounding here, at such great length, about serious matters, especially when they kinda go off topic. Not that I am not prone to going off topic, cuz I am. I mean, have I managed to get anything in here lately about my obsession with the war in Afghanistan? Maybe I should check. Seriously, you guys, lighten up. I don’t get how you can even read books with guaranteed happy endings if you are unable to lighten up just a little. Gosh. Myself—I go for a slightly ambiguous ending. Like to let the mind wander a little.
Ah, yes. I now remember making a resolution not to post on teh internets way back last July. Thank you, Virginia, for reminding that my opinions aren’t needed. I will resume lurking, which is actually better for me, as well.
My hat, AgTigress, is off re: your last post. A sense of entitlement and self-righteousness can indeed be the basis by which intolerance is propagated.
Although regrettable and shameful in many instances I hope that history will be valuable as a lesson learned for future generations.
That said, Romance novels (or fiction of any kind) are a perfect escape for me personally which is why I read them. But I also enjoy intelligent and insightful conversation in relation to such escapes. 🙂
@throwmearope: *fist bump*
PS: thanks to all for some excellent reading suggestions. For the record, Feast of All Saints was a hugely compelling read for me. I’m intrigued by the other titles mentioned.
I’m very impressed by the comments on this post. Usually I read the comments here because they’re so sharply observed and witty. In this case I learned a great deal and can’t express how much I adore the informed and level-headed approach taken by the commenters. Rather than argue points rudely or make intolerant remarks, the HaBo crew proves themselves again to be fine, inclusive, and hella smart ladies.
let it never be said that the Bitches lack gentility!
PS I had to do a geneology in college and I am the proud descendant of bigamists and bootleggers.
I learned from Louis L’Amour westerns that out west, stealing a man’s horse was considered akin to murdering him. So it didn’t matter whether it happened out in the desert or in town, it was a hanging offense. And really, taking a man’s horse and leaving him to walk out of the desert—couldn’t that be considered attempted murder (or something similar judicially) even today?
So not petty theft, that. (But yes, I agree that a lot of convicts were transported for offenses that in today’s society might get a slap on the wrist at the most. And a social worker to look into your home situation.)
And one of the many reasons I love SBTB is because I get snark, man-titty and ridiculousness, but I also get intelligent comments and conversations that make me think. And some of the most interesting threads have been when the conversation goes off topic.
@Throwmearope. Aww, Geez. Here we go again.
Y’know, when I was trying to raise my three grandkids and the one kept climbing out the window after he figured out how to dismantle the alarms and kept running away and the cop reported me to DCFS for inadequate supervision, I got really upset and my sister in law told me to lighten up, and my feelings were really hurt since I figured she had no clue what it was like cuz she didn’t even have kids. So I guess I know how upset you must be and I offer you my humble apologies cuz my gggranpa was a horse thief for the Confederate Army and I really should know better. And WTF does teh mean anyway? Toldja, I’m a newbie. GO BEARS. You guys.
@throwmearope – here in Florida we call it Castle Doctrine, and a number of children have been killed under it.
I was going to name the Rosemary Rogers, but everyone beat me to it – that is absolutely it. If you had to google Octroon you’ve missed out on an entire section of 80’s romance – the New Orleans & Plantation novels. Scarred me for life, they did.
(I should do a bit on 80’s romance, Enid and the Non-Whites)
I know nothing about this book.
But I really, really want RedHeadedGirl to review it. Hands up if you’re with me.
I first encountered the term “Octoroon” in college while reading a play titled, yes, “The Octoroon”; my Theatre History class was studying Victorian melodrama at the time. I recall very little about it except that I was surprised to discover that an Octoroon referred to a woman of mixed heritage and not something like a dragoon guard. The play was remarkably silly and a prime example of the “tragic” trope mentioned above—I think the girl died of a broken heart after falling tragically in love with a white man, or some such.
ooh…gotta love fellow descendants of bootleggers. my great grandparents made bath tub wine during the Depression.
Ms Bookjunkie: yes, of course I concede that it was a very serious offence, and certainly not petty theft. I was thinking only of the financial value of a horse (which was high), rather than the possible ramifications of leaving a person without means of transport in dangerous territory.
At the same time, I write from within a society in which capital punishment no longer exists at all, even for the murder of another person, so hanging for stealing anything, even something very valuable, still strikes me, at this moment, as unduly severe.
As I said, customs and opinions are in a constant state of change.
🙂
1) The main reason I read this blog (besides the barechested-man covers I love to see even if they get picked on) is the intelligent discussion on a myriad of topics. I am appalled that someone thinks we need to “lighten up.” What, just because we read romance novels we can’t think and talk about important subjects? I love romance novels and the HEA but that doesn’t mean I don’t know about the horrible things that were really going on back then. In fact, since I grew up largely in the South and am old enough, I actually have seen some of them (I’m white so I cannot say I experienced them). I grew up knowing about mulattos, quadroons, octoroons, high yellow, and “passing.” I choose to be hopefully happy that some of you have no knowledge of these terms.
2) “teh” can be “the” when your fingers slip (as mine do frequently, especially in winter when it’s so cold).