Bitchin' Blog Posts
HaBO: All Around the World
by SB Sarah | by SB Sarah | January 22, 2011 | Saturday at 12:23 pm | 128 Comments
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?
Filed: General Bitching, Help a Bitch Out
Tagged: wtfery, romance, oregon, make the burning stop, help a bitch out, habo
AgTigress said on 01.22.11 at 01:50 PM • [link]
But WHY was she labelled an octoroon? The archaic American ‘mulatto / quadroon / octoroon’ terminology is really interesting, because it reveals the pervasive conviction that white and black humans were different species — at least as different as a horse and a donkey (I can’t write ‘ass’ there, because you all use ‘ass’ to mean ‘bum’): hence ‘mulatto’ for the ‘first cross’. Really weird.
I have no idea of identification of the book, but it certainly seems to have packed in a lot of action.
Ell said on 01.22.11 at 03:22 PM • [link]
Definitely Rosemary Rogers; a quick glance at Amazon has me thinking its’ Wicked Loving Lies.
Hey! I finally recognize one!
Ell said on 01.22.11 at 03:23 PM • [link]
‘Scuse me while I wish I could move that apostrophe.
Virginia E said on 01.22.11 at 03:44 PM • [link]
My suggestion is to check the Angelique series by Sergeann Golon. She went through a lot of very racy adventures in a lot of locations. I think there’s something like twenty books in the series, which is out of print these days. This may actually be a combination of more than one title.
AgTigress: Yes, the term is racist. Historically, a lot of cultures were ethnocentric and racists, and not all of them were caucasian. In this case, octoroon is an important distinction becuase this is someone that could pass for “white” if one didn’t look carefully. However, that small amount of “black” ancestry was enough to make her legally black. Octoroons were highly prized as mistresses. The more “white” they appeared, the higher their value. It’s an accurate historical detail that adds another cliffhanger to the plot as well as another excuse for wild and racy sex.
cate said on 01.22.11 at 04:10 PM • [link]
No, Virginia,definately not good old Sergeanne’s Angelique books - they’re set during the reign of Louis the Sun King.
BUT Juliette Benzoni’s Marianne series are set during Napoleon’s reign - & she has a flingette with him, lands up in Constantinople, has a child with an Arab prince, lands up in a harem, is at the seige of Moscow AND FINALLY ... hooks up with her One True ...the American privateer .. she’s been longing for since book 1 (or is it 2 ?) .... There’s lot’s more besides that quick overview…..The woman really got around !!!!
robinjn said on 01.22.11 at 04:32 PM • [link]
I’m pretty sure Rosemary Rogers as well. I have definitely read this book.
Hydecat said on 01.22.11 at 04:43 PM • [link]
I can’t identify the book, but now I really want to read it. My PhD research is on popular fiction in the 19th century and one of the most popular plot elements at that time was when either a white woman was mistaken for an octoroon and sold into slavery, or when a woman with African ancestry was brought up to believe that she was white and then suddenly discovered that she was an octoroon and was sold into slavery. The end result of both was either rescue by the hero or a melodramatic death scene—sometimes both at once! They’re really fascinating stories.
Also, I’m really happy that “octoroon” is marked as misspelled by this spell-checker. Thank god it isn’t a recognized common word anymore.
Nonny said on 01.22.11 at 04:50 PM • [link]
I must admit I’d never heard the term before this post.
DiscoDollyDeb said on 01.22.11 at 05:27 PM • [link]
I’m also betting on this being a Rosemary Rogers, but which one, I’m not sure.
As an aside, I’m so glad that terms like octoroon, quadroon, and mulatto have faded from our cultural consciousness—as evidenced by the comments above. But in literature until quite recently the “tragic mulatto” (a mixed-race woman, usually trying to pass for white, but tripped up by her own “passionate” nature) was a recognized trope—see the movies “Carmen Jones,” “Pinky,” or “Imitation of Life” for examples.
In pre-Civil War Louisiana, it was quite common for men from the planter class to have quadroon/octoroon mistresses. New Orleans hosted “quadroon balls,” where rich white men went to find light-skinned ‘black’ women. In fact, the system was so entrenched, it had a name, “Placage,” and the mistresses were referred to as “placees” (I can’t do accent marks or the curlicue tail under the “c,” but these were French terms, so pronounce them accordingly). These tended to be very stable unions, with the man making a financial settlement on the woman and any children they had. After several generations of this, there were blond-haired-blue-eyed people who were classified as ‘black.’ Which only goes to show what a complicated racial history we have in this country.
AgTigress said on 01.22.11 at 05:30 PM • [link]
Technically, one-eighth black, the equivalent of one black great-grandparent; this proportion of African heritage would be unlikely to be visually perceptible even if one looked very carefully indeed! (See DiscoDollyDeb’s post above, mentioning legally ‘black’ fair-skinned individuals). The whole elaborate classification system (and of course the equally complex legal classifications that were in use far more recently under apartheid in South Africa, with the three classes of ‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘coloured’) is extraordinary, based as it is on completely false beliefs and flawed understanding. But alas, you will still find a remarkably similar mind-set amongst some breeders of pedigree animals.
I suspect that my own familiarity with this now mercifully obsolete vocabulary may have been based on reading quite a lot of Victorian pornography in my misspent youth.
robinjn said on 01.22.11 at 05:46 PM • [link]
@Agtigress, I imagine it depends. I have a theory about my own ancestry that I have no way of following up on; I suspect my paternal Great Grandmother was at least part black; perhaps half, perhaps 1/4. My recordable ancestry is all Scotts-Irish, yet here we have this paternal line that suddenly has very dark hair and dark complexions (not at all like “black irish), dark eyes, sallow skins. My family is from Kentucky which of course was a slave state. My aunt Jane had black, distinctly rippled/fuzzy hair. My Dad’s was straight, mine is very curly and tends to frizz easily. I have sallow skin and I keloid scar, which is very common in African Americans and uncommon to unheard of in Scotts-Irish.
At the very most I would be 1/16th African American. My two sisters and my brother look *nothing* like me and are fair skinned, brown to blond hair with no curl at all, etc.
I’m actually really interested in pursuing this avenue of my heritage, but I don’t know how; obviously this would have been a huge, horrible scandal at the time, and hidden. And all this is to say that I think it depends on how the genes are expressed. For whatever reason, the genes from my Dad’s side of the family expressed more dominantly in me than it did in my siblings.
darlynne said on 01.22.11 at 06:02 PM • [link]
Wait, this happened in a Rosemary Rogers book, according to those of you who attribute this story to her? I read them all, I thought, at a completely inappropriate age, and feel certain my eyes would have bugged out permanently in the circumstance. Unless the scene was written in such a way to throw not a veil, but a canvas over the whole thing. Really?
robinjn said on 01.22.11 at 06:11 PM • [link]
There was a lot of anal sex in RR books. It was a recurring theme.
darlynne said on 01.22.11 at 06:28 PM • [link]
Well, there you go. Clearly I had no idea what I was reading at the time. Mom never covered that in those little talks.
JoanneF said on 01.22.11 at 06:59 PM • [link]
I know I read this book, but I didn’t read much, if any, Rosemary Rogers IIRC. Bertrice Small perhaps?
Spamword hospital46. I know I’d have been in the hospital 46 times if I went through what that heroine did.
AgTigress said on 01.22.11 at 07:02 PM • [link]
Robinjn, of course that is true. Nobody ever said genetics was simple! The possibilities are endless, and there are many cases of an individual looking uncannily similar to a single, fairly distant ancestor. But in general, a person with only one black great-grandparent would be likely to look ‘white’, though there could easily be exceptions.
The complexities of biological inheritance, and the continual mixing of so-called races going back to antiquity makes the very idea of ‘black’ and ‘white’ humans, and the idea of ‘racial purity’ complete nonsense: not just morally offensive, but scientifically ridiculous.
Virginia Llorca said on 01.22.11 at 07:10 PM • [link]
Anne Rice’s work is full of those terms. One dealt with the handsome son they had to send to Paris for higher education which was common practice then . He wouldn’t be allowed in University here. There was a whole subculture, strictly defined, of these wealthy mixed race people, the result of the master-slave interaction. They had their own debutante balls and stuff.
robinjn said on 01.22.11 at 07:15 PM • [link]
Beatrice Small was the only other author I thought of. I do know, for absolute fact, that I have read this book. I remember the Napoleon, Josephine, Sultan, baby, pirate thing. But I read it when it was new and I’ve slept since then. :)
JennKinPA said on 01.22.11 at 07:27 PM • [link]
*claps hands* I know this one!! It’s definitely Rosemary Rogers’Wicked Loving Lies. My grandmother adored RR, and when I was 13, I stole this from the box of books she’d given my mother. Usually she read Harlequins or mystery novels, so this was…quite different from what I expected. And it took many more years before I understood more than a little bit of what was going on.
Via Amazon:
Here’s a link to a pic of the original cover.
Elise Logan said on 01.22.11 at 07:27 PM • [link]
I vote for Beatrice Small, as well. I KNOW I’ve read this, and I’ve only ever read two Rosemary Rogers, which I don’t think included this one. But I went on some kind of massive Small kick - don’t judge me. I was a teenager.
Now you have challenged me to find it. Will go hunting.
TaraL said on 01.22.11 at 07:29 PM • [link]
I definitely remember the Napolean, sultan, baby, octoroon bits in one by Rosemary Rogers. Sweet, Savage Love, I think. But I don’t remember the bit about the pirate. Is the memory a possible mash-up between SSL and the later books in the series? I read them also, but don’t remember much about them.
MariDonne said on 01.22.11 at 07:57 PM • [link]
The story about “miscegenation” in the South that I could never get out of my mind was “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin. Definitely not a romance of any kind, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiree’s_Baby
kkw said on 01.22.11 at 08:17 PM • [link]
I have definitely read this book, but it was so long ago…it might actually have been my first introduction to the word octoroon. I remember running across it in a romance novel as a teenager. Along with ton and lave, it’s one of those words I think I’ve only ever seen in romance novels. Both the Rosemary Rogers and the Juliette Benzoni sound familiar, though, which is no help at all I realize. And I want to hear more about the books you’re using for your thesis, Hydecat!
ashley said on 01.22.11 at 08:21 PM • [link]
Word’s like octoroon (one eighth black) and quadroon (one quarter black) are racist because they are meant to track “impure” blood through families lines. a white man wouldn’t want to marry a woman with ANY black blood, for fear of tainting his family. so these words reminded people that people of mixed race were not worthy.
Cindy said on 01.22.11 at 08:22 PM • [link]
http://www.likesbooks.com/pirates.html#pirates
I found this link to a list of Pirate/sheik/viking books. I think the questioner may have mixed a couple of books. But RR included o lot of anal and I think this may be one of hers too. Maybe it’s a mix of Lindsay, RR and Small?
Miranda said on 01.22.11 at 08:32 PM • [link]
A good mystery series that includes discussion of these various ‘castes’, is Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series. The first book is A Free Man of Colour. It’s set in 1840’s New Orleans and is excellent.
Tiblet said on 01.22.11 at 08:39 PM • [link]
Don’t have any clue on the HaBO, sorry. But, this thread makes me want to watch “Band of Angels” with Clark Gable again.
Spamword: modern94. Yep, I might have been modern if I had been born in 1894. Definitely like the Victorian age.
Abbie said on 01.22.11 at 08:40 PM • [link]
I lived in Alabama for a while as a kid, and some of the older people still used terms like “octoroon”. They would also say someone was “passin’”. Which meant they passed the paper bag test. If you were lighter than a paper bag, you could pass as a white. It amazes me how racism is alive and well still in a lot of the Deep South.
JamiSings said on 01.22.11 at 08:43 PM • [link]
I haven’t read the book - and I wouldn’t if I had it as I prefer to pretend anal sex does not exist. *shudders* However I am surprised a lot of you don’t know these racist terms. When I was in school they were taught as part of history class to show how bad “the good old days” were.
Of course, I think it was mostly stressed by a history teacher who revealed one day his father was a major racist and he always tried to take that as an example on how NOT to be.
Plus of course Anne Rice’s book - I forgot the name, something about Saints, I think. Not Cry To Heaven, that’s about the kid who’s jealous family member has him castrated.
Ken Houghton said on 01.22.11 at 08:48 PM • [link]
I keep forgetting how young most of you are.
As long as you’re doing the research on the word, one of it’s best uses was by Wynton Marsalis. (I believe the original commission was from the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, but I can’t sort through my CDs right now.)
DiscoDollyDeb said on 01.22.11 at 08:55 PM • [link]
@Tiblet said:
Don’t have any clue on the HaBO, sorry. But, this thread makes me want to watch “Band of Angels” with Clark Gable again.
Tiblet—The novel upon which the movie is based is by Robert Penn Warren (most famous for writing ALL THE KING’S MEN). The novel is somewhat rougher than the movie, but a good read.
Liz said on 01.22.11 at 09:08 PM • [link]
While octoroon and quadroon have faded, mulatto is still used quite often. During the 2008 presidential election, i heard it all the time by the racists in my neighborhood (as in…that mulatto can’t be elected president). I have also heard it said by actual mixed race individuals to describe themselves. One of my aunts used it to explain why my brother, my cousin, and i were forbidden to date/marry black people…God forbid our children be mixed race…it would be so hard for them (seriously?!).
Cheryl said on 01.22.11 at 09:31 PM • [link]
The Feast of All Saints is the title of Anne Rice’s book about “the Free People of Color” in pre-Civil War Louisiana.
Suze said on 01.22.11 at 09:39 PM • [link]
This is ONE book? o_O
Yeah, it’s definitely not the Angelique series, which I had memorized by the time I was 13. Wrong time period.
I always liked the word mulatto. I didn’t realize it was a racist term until well into my 20’s. I’m kinda slow that way. I also like the word silhouette, for much the same reason. They feel mellifluous to me. (I also like the word mellifluous.)
The epilogue of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers goes into the hierarchy of whiteness and blackness in Jamaica, and is absolutely fascinating.
Susan said on 01.22.11 at 09:50 PM • [link]
Kind of related to the subject, Passing by Nella Larsen is an excellent book about mixed race women who can “pass” as white. I’m not sure if she uses octoroon and other terms, but a great book anyway.
mim said on 01.22.11 at 10:03 PM • [link]
Its without a doubt “Wicked Loving Lies” Lots of anal sex/greasing up of assholes in a harem, tons of rape ( so much rape), octoroons, Napoleon. i mean this book had so many different stories. And so much rape. She was raped by this guy, then married him, then had like a sorta happy week, then he may have raped her again, and she got with this other guy, but then her husband posed as a highwayman and raped her, and then this other guy got turned on by that and raped her, and then she somehow got taken away on a ship, and sold to a harem, and anally done, and yeah. It was such a mess hahah At some point she went back home, but someone thought that she was an octoroon, and yeah, somehow she and her husband came back together.
Mary said on 01.22.11 at 11:20 PM • [link]
I’m pretty positive it’s “A Love for All Time” by Bertrice Small, which I also read when I was far too young…or at least the plot is really similar!
DM said on 01.22.11 at 11:35 PM • [link]
This is Wicked Loving Lies by RR. There is a Small title with the same anal harem business, but it lacks Napoleon and the heroine’s stint as a slave. I believe this is the RR title in which, near the end, the heroine utters something along the lines of, “I’m tired of being raped!” inviting the reader to say, “Amen.”
teshara said on 01.23.11 at 12:01 AM • [link]
erm… that term goes both ways and is still used today. Usually by ‘full-blooded’ african-americans (at least here). I’ve been called a quadroon or mulatto my whole life, it’s never bothered me, and honestly, I’d rather tick it off on paperwork than have to choose the background of one parent over the other.
Sometimes if you check ‘mixed’ on paperwork they want to write out everything in your background in detail and how much of each thing you are. I had to fill out a whole page on my race once for a fast food place, in detail, because they were being questioned and needed it for Affirmative Action. >:P
phyllis said on 01.23.11 at 01:35 AM • [link]
I think I first came across ‘octoroon’ in Sinclair Lewis’ Kingsblood Royal, where a Minnesota family who thought they were white turn out to have the ‘taint’ of African blood. The couple in the book lose almost everything, but just barely manage to keep from being forced out of their home somehow. Seriously undervalued Sinclair Lewis, outing racism in the Midwest.
I have several adopted siblings, one of whom is bi-racial. Her mom was light-skinned African-American and my sister has auburn hair and freckles. Her kids have dark hair, but look mostly like her husband who is blond. Further confused by her having been raised in our family, which is Germanic.
Barbara W. said on 01.23.11 at 01:56 AM • [link]
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.
Sybylla said on 01.23.11 at 03:09 AM • [link]
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.
Nan said on 01.23.11 at 03:10 AM • [link]
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.
Nan said on 01.23.11 at 03:12 AM • [link]
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.
Darlene Marshall said on 01.23.11 at 03:19 AM • [link]
@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.
LG said on 01.23.11 at 03:26 AM • [link]
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.
DiscoDollyDeb said on 01.23.11 at 03:34 AM • [link]
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.
Cat S said on 01.23.11 at 04:03 AM • [link]
@ 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!
DiscoDollyDeb said on 01.23.11 at 04:33 AM • [link]
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.”
Karin said on 01.23.11 at 05:10 AM • [link]
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.”
Pam said on 01.23.11 at 05:51 AM • [link]
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.
Kate Vinée said on 01.23.11 at 06:12 AM • [link]
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.
Kate Vinée said on 01.23.11 at 06:13 AM • [link]
Whoops, I screwed up my quote. It was meant to be like so:
Darlene Marshall said on 01.23.11 at 06:31 AM • [link]
@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.
Tiblet said on 01.23.11 at 07:51 AM • [link]
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).
Jenyfer Matthews said on 01.23.11 at 09:09 AM • [link]
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.
Kristin said on 01.23.11 at 09:49 AM • [link]
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.
Lisa Richardson said on 01.23.11 at 12:33 PM • [link]
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!
AgTigress said on 01.23.11 at 01:56 PM • [link]
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.
Throwmearope said on 01.23.11 at 06:07 PM • [link]
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.
Throwmearope said on 01.23.11 at 06:10 PM • [link]
Oh, by the way, definitely RR. I recognized the cover. Squick.
AgTigress said on 01.23.11 at 06:40 PM • [link]
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’.
robinjn said on 01.23.11 at 06:55 PM • [link]
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!
MissFifi said on 01.23.11 at 07:03 PM • [link]
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
Throwmearope said on 01.23.11 at 07:17 PM • [link]
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.
Virginia Llorca said on 01.23.11 at 07:40 PM • [link]
@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. . .
AgTigress said on 01.23.11 at 07:43 PM • [link]
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.
Virginia Llorca said on 01.23.11 at 08:19 PM • [link]
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.
Throwmearope said on 01.23.11 at 08:40 PM • [link]
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.
MarketingLackey said on 01.23.11 at 09:05 PM • [link]
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*
MarketingLackey said on 01.23.11 at 09:14 PM • [link]
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.
Diva said on 01.23.11 at 09:55 PM • [link]
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.
ms bookjunkie said on 01.23.11 at 10:16 PM • [link]
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.
Virginia Llorca said on 01.23.11 at 10:44 PM • [link]
@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.
meoskop said on 01.23.11 at 10:57 PM • [link]
@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)
Cathy B said on 01.23.11 at 11:21 PM • [link]
I know nothing about this book.
But I really, really want RedHeadedGirl to review it. Hands up if you’re with me.
LizW65 said on 01.23.11 at 11:40 PM • [link]
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.
Liz said on 01.23.11 at 11:58 PM • [link]
ooh…gotta love fellow descendants of bootleggers. my great grandparents made bath tub wine during the Depression.
AgTigress said on 01.24.11 at 12:35 AM • [link]
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.
:)
Karen H said on 01.24.11 at 12:55 AM • [link]
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).
JamiSings said on 01.24.11 at 01:47 AM • [link]
As long as we’re on the subject of geneology - I’d just like to say I’m looking forward to the day mom finally gets around to telling my very racist aunt that we’re actually Jewish, not “pure blooded Catholics” like she seems to think. (I know, we’re not really a “race” - and yet it’s the only religion where if your mother was Jewish you’re Jewish even if you don’t believe in God.)
Once she finds out, she’ll understand why her grandparents used to sneek down the basement on Friday nights to light candles.
It’s actually weird that this paticular aunt turned out to be racist. I guess because of the fact my great-grandparents on both the Pavlick & Vojtko sides (mom’s paternal & maternal sides) had to hide the fact they were Jewish and practice in secret grandma and grandpa Pavlick taught their kids that hating people based on color, ethnic group, religion, etc is all wrong in God’s eyes. All my other aunts and uncles are accepting of everyone. Just this one aunt is racist. (And didn’t really reveal it until Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson started dating.)
As for my dad’s side - well, my great-aunts were very, very proud of the fact that some of our ancestors back in the day married Native American women when their wives died and had children with them. They were ashamed so many of their nieces and nephews were smokers, however. And I know my great-uncle cut a few of his nieces out of his will because they had children out of wedlock.
Just shows you though that not everyone from way back when was a closed minded putz. And sometimes open minded people have close minded children.
(Oh, that racist aunt is also a democrat, whereas I’m a republican before anyone cracks any political jokes. LOL)
DiscoDollyDeb said on 01.24.11 at 02:18 AM • [link]
I love, love, love these conversations that go off-topic—proving once more that the bitchery isn’t just interested in sexy books and mantitty (not that there’s anything wrong with that); and, since we’re off-topic, I’m going to continue on that path: I’m sure I’m not the first to notice or comment on this, but I’ve always thought it was interesting from a social/cultural perspective that while there is a entire sub-genre of historical romance novels where a white heroine falls in love with a Native American (or part-Native American) hero, as far as I’m aware, there have been no historical romances where a white heroine falls in love with an African-American hero. I’m not referring to “miscegenation” novels from the 1960s like MANDINGO or FALCONHURST’S FANCY here, but historical romances written in the past three decades. Does anyone know of any historical romances where a white heroine and black hero achieve a HEA? How about the reverse—does anyone know of any historicals where an African-American heroine achieves an HEA with a white hero? I know Kathleen Eagle wrote at least one historical romance with a white hero and a Native American heroine.
(I’m sure there’s a dissertation for a Ph.D. in contemporary studies here. Feel free to use it!)
ijinx said on 01.24.11 at 02:51 AM • [link]
I learned the word “octroon” (which is an odd word to know if you’re in Europe and English is your fourth language…) from some Barbara Cartland novel, about a girl somewhere in the West Indies who always thought she were “octroon”, but, luckily for her, it turned out she was pure-white, so the hero could wed her instead of just keeping her as his (dearly beloved, of course) mistress. Horrible book.
My family tree goes back to 1300-ish AD, and we’re officially still wondering where the family picked up the curly hair. I sincerely hope (at least) one of my fair ancestors married a dark african princess, but I can’t prove anything.
Sandra said on 01.24.11 at 02:59 AM • [link]
Other than the last book in Zoe Archer’s Blades of the Rose series? Stranger has a black hero in Catullus Graves and a white heroine. My hat’s off to Zoe for having the guts to make Catullus the hero of his own book, and not leaving him relegated to second banana status.
And I’m the proud descendant of a man who ran rum from Cuba to Florida during prohibition. And now that enough time has passed, we’re also “proud” of the fact that his brother-in-law was hanged for killing a Coast Guardsman when they tried to board him during a run. Fortunately, my grandfather wasn’t along for that trip. It’s the rascals that make a family history interesting, just like it’s the black sheep that make for great reading.
Throwmearope said on 01.24.11 at 03:14 AM • [link]
@DiscoDollyDeb
Geez, I stuck to my resolution for 6 months, and now look at me.
Suzanne Brockmann. Her early Navy Seals full length books, as opposed to her short Navy Seals, feature one of the best couples around—Sam and Alyssa. Sam is white and Alyssa is African American. These characters are too well drawn to have a full blown HEA, but they do marry. The settle down part, not so much.
There is an historical subplot in the book where Sam’s aunt marries an African American pilot from WWII.
Pubbed in 02, 03 around there, so I think these count.
Throwmearope said on 01.24.11 at 03:16 AM • [link]
Oops, I think that one’s Over the Edge. Her titles all kinda run together after a decade or so.
kkw said on 01.24.11 at 06:53 AM • [link]
Hanged is correct, even in American English. People use it incorrectly all the time, and eventually it will likely go the way of the subjunctive, but as it stands you’re not supposed to use hung for people. Unless you’re talking about a guy who is, you know, hung. Thank you Mel Brooks.
Kate Vinée said on 01.24.11 at 07:20 AM • [link]
I’m guessing they picked redhead because it was so distinctively non-Indian. Like, oh, well, if she’s a redhead then of course she couldn’t be Native American, never mind! Why, specifically, they settled on calling her German, I’m not sure.
Yep! I tend to think of my grandmother and her sisters as being “from the Oklahoma area” rather than just “from Oklahoma” because their dad was a bootlegger and ran moonshine under a load of old firewood in his wagon. They lived in that little spot where Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas all come together, so when things would get too hot to hold him in one state, he’d just load everyone up and they’d hop over the border to one of the other two. He kept the same load of firewood in that wagon until it rotted.
Suze said on 01.24.11 at 08:20 AM • [link]
Things are hung, people are hanged. Every time I come across the inappropriate word, it trips me up and takes me out of the story, or news article, or whatever it is.
Also making me crazy lately: hate as a noun. Hate is a verb, hatred is the noun. Yes, some dictionaries allow for both, but they’re wrong.
sandra said on 01.24.11 at 09:58 AM • [link]
The suthor of that 19th Century melodrama THE OCTOROON actually wrote two endings: in one, the heroine committs suicide; in the other the white man who loves her gets her to run away with him to England , where there are no laws against mixed marriages. I don’t know how they would determine which ending to use. Perhaps they used both and let the audience decide which one it preferred.
ms bookjunkie said on 01.24.11 at 04:32 PM • [link]
Capital punishment doesn’t exist here either, but I have a nagging feeling that our society has gone too far the other way. Here, if you kill someone and are given “life” in prison, (from what I understand from the news) you can get out of prison in about twelve years. Life in prison equals twelve years? I don’t get that! Then again, most of the perps in our prisons did the deed while drunk. Usually in a fight over the bottle.
And yeah, we do have harsher punishments for property crimes than we do for violence. It’s shameful.
Hydecat said on 01.24.11 at 06:12 PM • [link]
Boucicault wrote two endings to his play because in New York he was afraid the audiences wouldn’t accept a HEA for a white man and a woman of mixed race, but in London they would. Basically, he was catering to the racist elements of the American audience.
J said on 01.24.11 at 07:06 PM • [link]
I learned the about quadroons and octoroons watching the miniseries North and South (Patrick Swazey one, not the BBC one). I’ve come across it as well in a few romance novels. I had no idea that mulatto was considered a racist or inappropriate phrase - I realize “mixed race” or “bi-racial” is more common, but I always thought mulatto was just another way of describing someone who was of mixed heritage - but it sounds here as though using that word is akin to using the “n” word. I love my mother, but she is definitely an old-school racist when it comes to miscegenation - and any children of said unions, and while she’s certainly not overly vocal about it to anyone, I grew up hearing her views.
AgTigress said on 01.24.11 at 08:06 PM • [link]
:) Thank you, kkw and Suze, for the additional information re: hung and hanged. I think the distinction is still pretty generally observed in British English, so that there is no immediate prospect of ‘hanged’ disappearing here.
On the other hand, kkw, the subjunctive remains in much better shape in American English than in British English. It is now rarely seen in BE except in stock collocations.
Abbie said on 01.24.11 at 08:16 PM • [link]
I just remembered another old mixed-race story. The old movie musical “Show Boat”. I haven’t seen it in years, but I’m pretty sure one of the female leads was mixed race, but passed herself off as a white woman, married to a white man. Somehow the police find out she’s not “pure white” and come to arrest her. Her husband cuts the palms of their hands and mixes their blood, so he has “black blood” in him too. At least, I think that’s how it went. I haven’t seen it since Jr. High, but that scene made a big impression on me.
AgTigress said on 01.24.11 at 08:16 PM • [link]
I wonder if a person with one black great-great-grandparent is a ‘sedecroon’. I don’t know the Latin for ‘one thirty-second’ offhand, so I can’t take it back another generation. How silly it all is!
J said on 01.24.11 at 08:35 PM • [link]
Abbie - yes, in Showboat Julie is “passing” as white - later on her white hubby cuts her hand and sucks on the wound - he now has black blood in him and while he is no longer in legal trouble for being w/a black woman, he and she must leave the showboat. (sadly, later on you find he’s left her and she’s a boozy singer in a dance hall)
Nicola O. said on 01.25.11 at 01:23 AM • [link]
I remember the book! Though I doubt if I could have dredged up the title.
On the topic of the familiarity of quadroon/octoroon, etc, perhaps some of you will recognize “mulatto” from this:
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us
A mulatto—an albino
A mosquito—my libido
Joanna S. said on 01.25.11 at 04:07 AM • [link]
@Nicola O. - Yay!! Nirvana reference **claps hands**
Being from the South, I also have heard all of these terms in conversation, mainly from older members of society. But, then again, I’ve also heard these terms in places other than the South as well. Indeed, there are many racist people all over the U.S.- the South just gets the worst of the blame because the racism tends to be more overt and have violent consequences.
I, too, am glad these words are fading from the common vernacular, but it is really important that we do not forget them, particularly with the current push to “edit” classics, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and remove the N-Word from it. Yes, the use of this word is wrong, but rewriting history in this way smacks of a level of hubris I don’t even want to contemplate. Pretty soon the Holocaust won’t get anymore than the paragraph it has already been whittled down to in history text books now, simply because it was horrific and it makes people just too “uncomfortable”. I am seriously contemplating homeschooling my children in history and literature because this trend disturbs me to say the least!
Dishonor said on 01.25.11 at 06:52 AM • [link]
I’m shocked that this was anybody’s introduction to the word “octoroon.” I’m a Jersey gal, and I was introduced to the word in fourth grade as part of a Supreme Court Cases unit.
Plessy vs. Fergusen, anyone? Plessy was 1/8th African American, and he’s often referred to as an “octoroon” in the history books.
Also, I totally agree with whoever pointed out Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby. That’s probably one of the best/worst examples of fear of miscegenation in literature.
Rebecca said on 01.25.11 at 08:15 AM • [link]
Not strictly speaking a romance novel, but the Puerto Rican folk tales and legends collected by Cayetano Coll y Toste in the late nineteenth century, and retold for children in the late twentieth, include a story about a mixed-race couple filled with such epic WTF-ery that I always thought of it as a proto-telenovela instead of oral tradition.
As best as I remember it: The story starts with the oldest son of a (sugar cane) plantation owner returning to his childhood home after spending years in Spain completing his education. The boy promptly meets and falls in love with a green eyed girl who is the granddaughter (I think?) of his old nurse…who is a slave, and thus the girl is also a slave, although light skinned. Boy and girl shyly court, and boy goes to the old nurse and tells her he is in love. Nurse becomes tearful and hysterical. The boy thinks she is worried about her granddaughter’s virtue, and to reassure her goes to his father and says he wants to get married. Father also becomes tearful and hysterical, and after some “you can’t forbid our love” dialogue breaks down and says that his old sins are being punished by being visited on his children….that is, he was in love/lust with one of his slaves, the mother of the green eyed girl, so the hero/heroine are actually brother and sister.
Boy is appropriately shocked and squicked out by this and vows to keep away from the girl, but goes into a green and yellow melancholy so much that his mother asks him what the matter is. Boy reveals the problem, and the mother laughs and says that sometimes telling the truth about old sins sets people free. The mother (the plantation owner’s wife) explains that as a young bride she was extremely jealous of her husband’s attentions to a slave girl, and determined to avenge herself, not on the innocent slave who (she admits with considerable intellectual honesty) didn’t have much choice in the matter, but on the husband who betrayed her. She gets her revenge by spending a protracted visit at a neighboring plantation, owned by a friend, having an affair with him, and making sure that she is pregnant before returning to her husband. Thus (she explains to her son) she tries to ensure that her husband’s lands will secretly pass to another man’s child. So in fact the boy and girl are NOT brother and sister, and therefore all she has to do is admit the truth and everything will be rosy.
Boy objects (reasonably) that his mother’s husband will kill her if he finds out that she deliberately cuckolded him, but she insists that her love for her son (and his beloved) is greater than her fear. Finally boy goes to the man who he was raised thinking of as his father, and makes him promise not to hurt the mother before hearing any revelations, and tells the plantation owner the whole story.
The plantation owner (who has apparently become less of a cheating rapey asshat over the years) is thrilled that his past affairs haven’‘t accidentally ignited an incestuous passion, and rather amused and touched at his wife being so jealous. He says that since he loves the boy as his son he will be happy to have him marry the girl who is actually his daughter, but that the young couple will have to go off to Spain “where people care less about African blood.” (And the whole, you know, possible incest thing which would be a big question mark in the neighborhood, unless the mother is prepared to brand herself as an adulteress and her son as a bastard.)
So the former slave and the son of the adulterous affair between the plantation owner and his best friend get married and move to Spain where they live happily ever after (presumably still supported by the girl’s slave relatives who are cutting sugar cane in the Caribbean).
I ran across this story sometime late in high school or early in college (I was already reading in Spanish) and what struck me most was not just how noble everybody gets in the end to satisfy the demands of a HEA, but how on earth anyone thought this was a nice little bedtime story for kiddies. Sounds like it has all the elements of a great novel though. Anyone want to take up the challenge and write it?
Cakes said on 01.25.11 at 09:00 AM • [link]
Sorry, but I had to go back to this! Yikes! and ARGH!
AgTigress said on 01.25.11 at 12:30 PM • [link]
Hear, hear! Deliberate, retrospective revision of the past is a crime against scholarship, and in cases like this, a crime against society, too, because it invents a history that never was. It is hard enough to get history ‘right’ to start with, because there are so many angles, many of them hard for us to understand or even to perceive, but the first rule is not to add, subtract or change to try to ‘improve’ the story. We should always try to be as truthful and honest as we can possibly be in such matters.
George Orwell’s 1984 deals in part with the issue of the redaction of history as a tool of political manipulation, but maybe it isn’t read much any more.
DiscoDollyDeb said on 01.25.11 at 03:00 PM • [link]
@Rebecca—there’s an old Irish folk song with a similar theme. The daughter of the town philanderer is lamenting the fact that every boy who comes to court her is sent away because he is, in fact, her father’s child and thus her half-sibling. Her mother smiles and tells her to marry whom she pleases because the philanderer is not her father.
AgTigress said on 01.25.11 at 03:56 PM • [link]
LOL! There is also a Caribbean version (or maybe more than one). This one was recorded, fairly early in his career, by Peter Tosh, in a ska / early reggae / rock-steady rhythm (or riddim):
SHAME AND SCANDAL IN THE FAMILY
In Trinidad there was a family
And much confusion, as you will see
It was a mama and a papa and a boy who was grown
And he wanted to marry, have a wife of his own.
He found a young girl who suited him nice
And went to his papa to ask his advice
His papa said, “Son, I have to say no.
The girl is your sister, but your mama don’t know.”
He weep and he cry and the summer came down
And soon the best cook in the islands he found
He went to his papa to name the day
His papa shook his head and to him he did say,
“You can’t marry that girl. I have to say no
That girl is your sister, but your mama don’t know.”
He went to his mama, these thoughts in his head
And told his mama what his papa had said.
His mama, she laughed, she said, “Go, man, go!
Your daddy ain’t your daddy, but your daddy don’t know!”
Hydecat said on 01.25.11 at 04:20 PM • [link]
Ha! I like those incest-but-not tales you all just posted. Up ‘til now I’ve been more familiar with the tragic thanks-to-slavery-and-parental-confusion-you-just-accidentally-married-one-of-your-brothers-and-were-raped-by-another tales (see Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins).
chrissy said on 01.25.11 at 07:07 PM • [link]
o my. this is my first time to the site and happened to read this post. though i couldn’t tell you the name of it, i also have had this book emblazoned on my brain since i was very young.
Carrie S said on 01.25.11 at 08:11 PM • [link]
@Virginia Llorca, Just curious - what do you think we should be talking about?
Whether44: Whether to ask 44 questions or just one - that’s always my dillemma :)
Virginia Llorca said on 01.25.11 at 08:21 PM • [link]
@Carrie S. Nice to know y’all are waiting on my next word.
Maybe we could discuss how absolutely heroic a male can appear to be without being considered a doormat, or how many different ways you can describe male ejaculation in a romantic and/or cute way, instead of whether or not Americans should or should not pay reparations to descendants of former slaves.
Yeah, I know. Here we go again. . .
Damn, I love a good ellipsis.
Virginia Llorca said on 01.25.11 at 08:23 PM • [link]
I just finished reading “The White Bone” by Barbara Gowdy. Brought me to tears several times. Wonderful, beautiful book.
Carrie S said on 01.25.11 at 08:35 PM • [link]
@Virginia Llorca, re what to talk about: I think the name of the website, “Smart Bitches, Trashy Novels”, suggests that we can do both. That’s the great thing about this site, to me, anyway.
DM said on 01.25.11 at 08:43 PM • [link]
@Carrie, you have hit the nail on the head:
I love that a discussion of race and reparations can grow out of a HABO for Wicked Loving Lies!
Virginia Llorca said on 01.25.11 at 08:49 PM • [link]
What fun would any discussion be if no one ever rang in for the other viewpoint? Gosh, you guys. You are always striving to put me back in my place. It hurts so bad. Please try to forgive my waywardness and let me have one more chance to follow your guidelines.
Tiblet said on 01.25.11 at 10:16 PM • [link]
Score! I went to my local goodwill today, and what would be there for $.72 with tax? Wicked Loving Lies.
Spamword: must82
Must admit 82 is my birth year!
Kristi said on 01.25.11 at 10:46 PM • [link]
I totally read this too. I think there was plenty of “forced seduction” between the pirate and the heroine in the beginning, and I remember the Napoleon thing and the back-door-with-baby part (that was an eye opener at age 15…) What a memory trip!
Its a bit like three or four bad books smashed together isn’t it? Gotta love the Old Skool. I would have sworn it was Beatrice Small (sounds so very similar to some of her sagas), but the Amazon description for Wicked Loving Lies is right-on. I guess I have read Rosemary Rogers after all :)
Carrie S said on 01.25.11 at 11:19 PM • [link]
@Virginia Llorca: far from trying to put you in your place, I’m suggesting that there’s a place for everything here - hot heroes, gross/cute/sexy terms for bodily fluids, crazy captions for guys farting blue flames, and historical analysis of race relation in the Old South. That’s quite a combo to treasure! Just because there’s a conversation re. race doesn’t mean we can’t also discuss the other stuff, and vice versa.
Karin said on 01.25.11 at 11:48 PM • [link]
@Rebecca-great story! C.S. Harris is working a similar plot line in her Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries.
Karin said on 01.25.11 at 11:51 PM • [link]
@Rebecca-great story! C.S. Harris is working a similar plot line in her Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series.
Virginia Llorca said on 01.26.11 at 01:25 AM • [link]
@Carrie S. Nice to read a calmly worded reply with which I am unable to argue or snidely comment on a single point. I totally agree that the parts where we wander off topic can be the most interesting sometimes, and I guess it is my “delivery” or style that has caused me to recieve so much negative feedback. Also, some topics sometimes hit sensitive spots, I guess. But, thanks, Carrie.
MissMariah said on 01.26.11 at 02:17 AM • [link]
There is also Katie MacAlister’s Silver Dragon Series. Granted, Gabriel is half Australian Aborigine rather than African American, but still… Definitely a sexy black (or should I say silver) dragon hero.
MissMariah said on 01.26.11 at 02:29 AM • [link]
*Insert proper quoting subset above*
Anon76 said on 01.26.11 at 09:22 AM • [link]
Loved the tangents on this topic. Learned a lot.
On family history, my mom, well…le sigh.
My brother (half brother) became obsessed a few years ago about tracing our family tree. Well, his dad’s and our mom’s. All I could really tell him was that I knew we had some Native American ancestor on our mother’s side because I’d met another descendant when I was a child. My eight-year-old self was “helping” to dig a hole for my grandma’s first septic system ever. (Yes, before that she had an outhouse.) This man called me “little sister”, told me I was his relation, and imparted some family stuff and nature things that are totally lost to me now.
Many years later, my brother binged me to say, “I think we may have had a black ancestor, too. That might be why mom won’t talk about our family.” Might be? Um, hello, to her both of those heritages were unbearable. Which really makes no sense because she lived for many years with, and nearly married a full blooded Cherokee, and her best friend on the planet was a black man.
Such an enigma.
And as to family secrets…Mom finally told me when I was twenty-one that I had six brothers and sisters. They lived just down the road from my grandma. When one girl called me her little sister when I was about six, my mother AND grandmother said not to pay any attention…that was just the crazy girl down the “holler”.
Yes folks, this was West Virginia in the late 60’s.
And as a footnote, my Grandpa died in a fire his shed. It was his bootleg shed. First story, his still blew. Second story, rival bootleggers took him out. Third story, and probably closer to the truth, he was prone to placing his boots under another married woman’s bed.
Gads, I have a ton more of these, but isn’t it all fascinating when you dig into history? Even your own.
Helen W said on 01.26.11 at 11:32 PM • [link]
@AgTigress
Madness also recorded a great version of it ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlqbt1PQ1ek ). And I swear it started to play in my head the second before I scrolled down and saw your reply to the comment about the Irish folk song! Great minds think alike, it seems.
cate said on 01.27.11 at 12:31 AM • [link]
@ Helen W…..Thanks for that, you just brought back my semi- mispent youth with the proverbial bang !
AgTigress said on 01.27.11 at 01:08 AM • [link]
Helen W: thank you for that link! I enjoyed the ‘Madness’ version, which I didn’t know. It’s a very engaging song.
But take a listen to this as well, the Peter Tosh version (with a sort of mixed Wailers/Skatalites backing. Bob is in there somewhere…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOaeCG4CIwU&feature=related
I love the strong, basic ska beat.
:-)
Trish Olsen said on 02.02.11 at 07:15 AM • [link]
francis Parkinson Keyes, whose most famous work is Dinner at Antoine’s had other novels in which New Orleans social and racial attitudes such as those discussed above were shown to exist in the 20th century. They were also very good books in picturing a society very alien to most of us, but very interesting about Carnival (Mardi Gras) and high New Orleans society.
Virginia Llorca said on 02.02.11 at 07:35 AM • [link]
New Orleans speaks to the soul more than any other city I have been in. But I haven’t been in that many. You walk through St. Louis cemetary and fully expect to see a familiar name on a stone.
rigmarole said on 03.17.11 at 06:08 PM • [link]
I was going to respond to this when it was posted, but totally forgot until the latest batch of HaBO posts showed up. Strangely, my first introduction to the term “octoroon” was from a historical romance, too, and Oregon actually was involved, but other than that, I doubt it’s the same book. Mine was part of the sprawling Wagons West series by Dana Fuller Ross. The character showed up several books in, but it probably would have been published in the right timeframe, or a little earlier. There were several storylines in every book, so it could have been confusing to younger readers. Still, probably it’s coincidental.
I really wish I could find good descriptions of the books online. I hate to think this is going to end up with me hunting down more than twenty used books just to satisfy my curiosity.
Care to comment?
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