Chapter 1: Ab

The Greek word for builder is tekton. Joseph, the father of Jesus, was a tekton in the Greek New Testament. A master builder was an arch tekton, and that is the source of our English word, architect.

Jeffery Ralston is not an architect in the educational sense, but he is a master builder. He has had more influence on the architecture of Alabama than any other man.

Black Industry in Alabama 1913
W. E. B. Dubois

1830

Susan Bonner was thrilled. Richard had come back from Alabama to marry her. He had promised, and she had always known he would, but it was a relief that it was finally happening.

Mother took her aside the night before the wedding. She revealed to her the things she might not have known if she had not spent her first 16 years on an operating plantation. That ladies lay on their backs was – if she had suspected something like that – not to be learned by watching stallions servicing mares. The last part of the advice, though, came as a shock.

“And a lady never notices the light-skinned pickaninnies running around her husband’s slave quarters. Men have base needs, and they relieve them as they must.”

She thought, “Not Richard.” She didn’t contradict Mother, though. The next day, she was Mrs. Tyler. Soon, they were the Tyler couple traveling with only their servants on the lonely road from western Tennessee to Southern Alabama.

Having been told to not notice them, she could hardly avoid noticing, when she got to Alabama, the three children of different ages whose skin seemed much lighter than their mothers. The oldest was already walking.

But the trip down from Tennessee had taught her how insistent Richard’s needs were. She wasn’t sure she could expect him to suppress those needs for more than the two years he had been gone.

Then, too, he had an overseer. “How long has Mr. Felton worked for you?” she asked Richard.

“Nearly a year. I could not have come to you unless I could rely on him.”

Well, ‘nearly a year’ might cover the oldest girl if she were walking early. And then she remembered that a wench took time to grow a baby. Still the youngest might be the overseer’s child.

When her monthlies came and she had to refuse Richard, he did not come to bed at all. They had guest rooms, but he did not seem to sleep in any of them.

As time went on and she had children of her own, Richard did not come to her bed when she was sick in the mornings or for the periods in which she must abstain. The light-skinned babies grew up and were joined by others. Even though Richard repeatedly bought more slaves, extending the fields and the slave lines, the mothers of these light-skinned ones were often sold with their children.

She never mentioned them to a soul. With, by now, two overseers, it was not clear to her which ones were Richard’s.

She bore a child in the fall of ‘31. The pregnancy was difficult throughout the summer, and the girl did not live long enough to be given a name. Dickie in the spring of ‘33 was a great relief. Then Matilda came in ‘35 and John – rather a surprise – in ‘38.

She didn’t ever really refuse Richard unless she had a very good reason. She was certain that she needed more recovery time after Matilda was born, and Richard agreed.

She was ready to discourage him when the midwife told her that she could resume sexual activities after the birth of John, but Richard – not usually sensitive – was sensitive enough to not push her.

She had thought herself reconciled to Richard’s occasionally availing himself of the side benefits of owning slave women. Then, she noticed a new purchase. She knew the house slaves very well; a field slave could escape her notice, and she would not be certain whether the slave was new or simply one she had not noticed before.

The first time she saw this one, however, she knew it had not been on the plantation for long. Judith was light of skin, so light that her skin would burn if she were out in the field all day. She was slender, with high breasts clearly firm against the dress which was a slave’s one article of clothing. She was, to even Susan’s untrained eye, a fancy.

Richard, not content with the side benefits of slave women from the fields or kitchen, had bought a woman specially to replace her in his bed. It was one thing for Susan to banish him occasionally to the slave lines; it was another for him to displace her.

When a new cabin was built in the slave lines, she was shocked to learn that it was a two-room cabin, almost twice as large as the normal ones. She knew without asking that it was intended for Judith.

Richard now slept in her bed – officially his bed --- but a few days a month. Even so, he expected her to be available to him then. She suspected that it was the times his mistress was not available to him. Not only did he prefer the fancy for sex; he preferred her for a sleeping companion when they did not have sex.

She never actually talked to Judith, and -- aside from the acknowledgement of “Mistress” with a slight bow – Judith never dared speak to her. She was constantly conscious of her, though.

When the thickening of Judith’s waist told her that there would be one more light-skinned – very light skinned this time – pickaninny on the plantation, Susan rejoiced. The fancy was not so fancy anymore. Richard’s expensive infatuation would burn out soon enough. Then, she realized that Richard had not been coming to her bed even once for the last few months. While his slender mistress had lost her slenderness, she did not seem to have lost her attraction.

When the boy was born in 1843, Richard exercised a master’s right and named him Absalom. Susan pretended that this was not the act of a father. Richard did not return to her bed, and Susan did not know whether slave wenches did not need the recuperation period that white ladies did, or Richard was making do with another slave.

She saw Judith nursing the boy from time to time. When that ended, Judith’s teats definitely sagged inside the dress. The dress was too loose to tell of a thickening of the waist, but Susan could imagine it.

Susan vacillated in her plans of what to do when the outworn mistress was assigned to kitchen duty. She could immediately upbraid Richard for going too far. She could reject her as too clumsy and send her out to the fields to burn and be available to the overseers – Richard now had three – and the more enterprising bucks. She could keep her around and give her more and more difficult tasks, then have her flogged for performing them ill.

She never got the opportunity to choose. When Susan rose from her afternoon nap, she made it a habit to go out to the slave lines while the slaves were still in the fields. There were always a few old slaves watching the too-young ones. And Judith was always there.

When Judith was obviously carrying her second child, Susan was furious. Richard had not only abandoned her for a fancy wench; he had not abandoned the fancy wench when her figure went.

Richard was her husband. Her identity was as Mrs. Richard Tyler and mother to Richard Tyler Jr., John Tyler, and Matilda Tyler. She could not reject Richard without rejecting herself. The wench, on the other hand, had earned her undying hatred.

The wench and the boy treated her as the mistress of the plantation, when the girl was old enough to wander around, however, she seemed to regard Susan with deep fear.

The first thing Ab could remember as an adult was Tammie being moved into the front room with him. He must have had previous experience because he knew that when Massa was there, he had to keep Tammie happy, or – at least – quiet. She would wake up wet, and he’d wipe her off, put her in something dry, and take her into his own blanket to rock and croon her to sleep.

Then, he’d have to wake up soon enough to put her on her own blanket in her own bed before she wet his.

The cabin could be unbearable in the heat. Those days, he’d go out to the garden and pick bugs off the plants and squeeze them. Later mama would have him pulling weeds and later still hoeing them.

Everyone was friendly. He got new clothes in the winter, but the other children were not mean about it. Then came the summer when Mama told him that he had to wear something all day, even when it was hot.

One night, he woke to a woman’s shriek from somewhere in the lines. He listened, but nobody seemed to be running around outside.

“What was that?” asked Tammie.

“Go back to sleep, little Tamara. Somebody had a bad dream.” He remembered then that he had heard something like it before, and that was what Mama had told him when he had asked the next morning.

The next year, he spent the summer in the fields with a hoe like everybody else.

He was not treated quite like everybody else was, though.

The formal floggings at Tyler plantation were public events which all the slaves were expected to watch. They drew a good deal of blood, were seldom given to women, and were never – despite frequent threats – given to youths. On the other hand, overseers carried “riding crops,” short whips that they used as the mood took them.

The mood never took them to use one on Ab, though. Even girls took an occasional blow for slowness which would draw only a warning for Ab.

The three overseers, or “drivers,” Massa Felton, Massa Dawes, and Massa Wallace, each had a crew. Many of the older men were always in one crew, but the boys like Ab rotated among them.

As he grew older, Ab started to notice things he had not. There were always children younger than he who spent the summer naked. He had always known what boys looked like and what girls looked like. If he looked a little different now, so – he occasionally saw – did other boys.

Girls his age started to fill out the tops of their dresses, and he suddenly grew interested in the sight of women nursing their babies though he had seen that since he was one of those being nursed. At the oddest times, his cock stuck out and pressed against the front of his pants.

When stallions serviced mares or bulls freshened cows, the insistence of the slaves in charge that the younger slaves be kept away was no longer a safety precaution; it was an imposition depriving him of some marvelous information. Then, one night, he had the strangest dream. He woke the next morning with his sheet and his groin soaked.

Some nights, when Massa came to visit Mama, he heard strange rustlings from the other room. Mama was always silent, but Massa often swore just before the rustling stopped. He realized that he had heard sounds like that before, but they had never aroused his curiosity.

Tammie and he had been warned for years that they should not see each other naked. It was a little hard with them sleeping in the same room. Now, Tammie started to get modest around him. He also didn’t want her to see him with his cock sticking out, and that happened frequently and unexpectedly. He took care of the problem by keeping it covered at all times.

You couldn’t work the fields after dark, and the older youths sometimes got together after supper. Mama tried to keep Tammie from wandering, but she didn’t much restrict Ab. Then, too, Ab found that he would rather not be there when Massa came.

He was assigned to old Jair, who ran the stables, took him on as a helper. He started by shoveling out horse shit, but Jair taught him other things as time went on.

Once, he wandered back to the stables after dark. He fell asleep there and didn’t wake up until dawn. Mama fed him breakfast without scolding him.

While the youths generally got together, he noticed some pairs went off apart from them. Those definitely did not want the company of any others.

Brina had been a girl who gathered with the youths when he started staying out at night. Now she was a woman who was always on Massa Dawes’ crew and took care of his cabin. She was with the youths tonight, though.

“Ab,” she said taking his hand and pulling him aside, “you real light. Pretty, too.”

“Oh, Brina, you the pretty one.” She was near his height with firm teats pushing the front of her dress way out. The moon was nearly half, and he could see; he could have closed his eyes and remembered even more vividly. Just from his hand’s touching hers, his cock got hard.

“You want to come along?” He would follow her anywhere, but she led him only to the cow barn. It was much dimmer inside, and she led him to the ladder going up to the dark hay loft.

“Where you?” she called out at the top of the ladder.

“We here,” another voice answered. “More folk more fun.”

“We wants to be alone.” She went away from the voice, and he followed the dim shape and the sound of bare feet shuffling through the hay.

When she stopped, he could see the dress lifted off her head and set down. He could not really see her bare body, and he suddenly desperately wanted to.

He could hear her sink down onto the rustling hay, and when she grasped his hand and tugged, he joined her eagerly. The hay was soft. He was half on her dress, and where he was on bare hay, it tickled.

She moved his hand to her teat, though, and then he could feel nothing else. It was the softest flesh he had ever touched, but somehow firm.

“Touch it soft,” she whispered. “I ain’t a mule.”

He brushed his hand over her, and it was the most exciting thing he had ever touched. Then he reached her nipple, sticking out like she was nursing a child, and it was more exciting yet.

“Kiss it.” She said, and he did. “Softly. Do everything softly.”

As he was licking and sucking her nipple as softly as he could, she pulled his hand between her legs. She had hair there; of course, he did, too. The parts covered by hair felt entirely different, and very exciting.

She kept telling him to move softly and to be gentle, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, she wriggled and panted.

Suddenly, there was a blood-curdling scream from the slave lines. He froze.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

“Massa Dawes just broke Mellie open.”

Mellie was a heavy girl, younger than he was, but strong. He couldn’t imagine anything hurting her enough to make her scream like that.

“Does it hurt that much?”

“It always hurts – never that much. Massa Dawes, he’s a might puny down there.” She reached down to cover his shorts, and he almost went off at the feel of her hand on his cock. “He likes to hear that a gal suffered when he beaks her, and the gals give him what he wants. Then, they’ll tell him how much they enjoyed it at the end. The first time, we never do, but everybody tells the Massa how much pleasure he brought.

“Now, Massa,” she had pride in her voice. “He broke me open, and he oiled me up with a bit of bacon first. He didn’t need to be told that it hurt. He is built bigger – you take after him – and he knows it hurts a gal. He came back a few days later, too. Yo Mama was still bleeding. Felt better that time. Gal has to be fair ugly for Massa or his sons not to want to bust her. Then Massa Felton, Massa Wallace, and Massa Dawes take turns.

“I’m Massa Dawes’ gal, but I knew he was busy tonight. Yo right pale, and I take from yo, he’ll think it’s his. Yo want to shuck down?”

He pushed his shorts off and rolled over her. She spread her legs, grasped his cock, and guided him in.

The feeling was heaven, much better than when he did himself. He pulled out a bit, was driven hard into her and against her, and exploded out into her. He lay gasping on her.

“Yo first time?” she asked.

He finally caught his breath to say, “First time with a girl.”

“I could tell. Now get beside me and catch your breath. We got more time, and yo got more to do.”

He recovered his energy. He was young and vastly pleased with himself. She led him to kiss her mouth and neck as well as her teats. She taught him how to stroke her. She responded to his strokes, and she told him how to behave when she was writhing too hard to give instructions at the time.

When he was ready again, she let him on top of her. He grasped her teats and kissed their peaks. Then he was driving in and out. She thrust up against him and clasped him by the ass.

This time, it seemed to last for hours. This time, the sensations on his cock were even better. This time, she gasped and gripped his cock within her.

He came and came. Then he dropped onto her again.

A little later, he rolled off. After a bit, she pushed him further and gathered up her dress. Enough light was coming through the cracks in the walls to see her walk towards the ladder carrying her dress.

After his first time, other girls allowed him to lead them off to the cow barn or other dark corners. They wanted to be pleased before he got his, and he started to be proud of how much he could please them.

The next summer, two light-skinned babies were born to wenches who hadn’t been claimed by an overseer as his exclusive property. Any overseer could have almost any wench when he wanted her, and Massa Dick and Massa John were fairly randy. So, nobody asked any questions, and Ab was far from sure.

Tammie went to work in the kitchen, though she told him that she only washed dishes and never saw Mistress.

Jair trained him on branding the new colts, and then on gelding the older ones. He was going to know everything. He only handled the gate when the mares were bred, but that was because both mares and stallions tried to drag their handlers, and he was yet too light.

All the horses knew him, and he could get most of the geldings to step to the side so he could get one of the wenches into his stall. Once there, they couldn’t lie down, but there was lots he could do with the wench bent over a rail or holding on to one. You would think that the geldings would get jealous, but all they did was look curious.

Missy Matilda got married. It was a big event for the house slaves, and even the field hands got a pig to divide among them.

Ab grew larger over the next few years. He learned more, and even the overseers sometimes asked him about horses. Some nights he spent in one of the wenches’ cabins and Mama never asked where he had been.

He was sleeping in the front room of Mama’s cabin, though, on the night Tammie woke up bleeding.

“Hush,” he said. “Massa’s here. You cut yourself?”

“No. Mama said I would, but it hurts.”

Ab knew where women bled, and he knew why Tammie didn’t want to talk about it. What surprised him was that little Tamar would be a woman. She was taller than some, but she didn’t look like a woman. He hugged her, and she got some rags. After Massa left in the morning, Tammie talked with Mama. Ab got his own breakfast and went early to the stable.

Not long after, the white folks got all excited. Mostly, they got visits from the neighbors or went visiting them. Once, Ab drove the carriage. Massa told him when to turn and in which direction. Sometimes, though, it got so that they told some of it to the slaves. Somebody named Lincoln was the devil himself, and they should never believe any of his promises. Nobody Ab knew had ever seen him, let alone had a promise from him.

Then Alabama was free. Alabama wasn’t a slave they had known; it was the entire place where they lived. Then, Massa Dick got dressed in pretty clothes and rode away. Massa John, and finally Old Massa, followed him.

Mama missed Massa, though Ab and Tammie couldn’t see why. Times got harder, though. Tammie was sent into the fields almost immediately, and he went soon after. Old Jair complained, but Massa Wallace told him to shut up.

At picking time, even Mama was sent into the fields. That was an exhausting period for all of them. After that, Ab was sent back to the stable and Jair taught him more. He realized, though, that he was going to do hard work all year around.

True to that realization, he, Mama, and Tammie worked in the fields in planting time and kept there for hoeing later. He was in Massa Wallace’s crew, Mama in Massa Felton’s, and Tammie in Massa Dawes’.

After the weather grew hot, they learned that Massa had been captured by the Yankees at some place called Shiloh. Everybody was supposed to think that this was a great tragedy, and Mama actually cried. Ab, however, couldn’t think what Massa had ever done for him.

After picking, he found out. Massa Dawes took Mama and Tammie out in chains. Ab didn’t hear about his family for years. Ab was put with the boys of Massa Wallace’s crew. They slept on hay in a shed and were locked in at night.

The older boys of the crew were sent to a wench for breeding, but Ab never was. After a couple of years, he became the oldest boy sleeping in the shed many nights.

There were rumors of something going wrong in some place called Richmond. Then the government was moved back to Montgomery. Montgomery wasn’t too far away. Jair had driven there often; it was too far to go and come back in a day, but it was an easy day’s drive from the plantation.

Massa Dick was in Montgomery, and he rode home one night. The next day, Ab was in the fields hoeing. The cook house sent dinner out to them in the fields, and they ate in the shade of some trees. Ab had to take a shit, so he went into the trees to get a little privacy. They had a long break for dinner, and Massa Wallace never cared where you were until it was time to start work again.

Then he heard some voices, including Massa Wallace’s. They had apparently ridden into the trees to get away from slave ears. Well, Ab had an excuse. One slave’s ears would be close innocently. He took his shit within hearing distance, but he would tell them, if they saw him, that he had started before they got there.

“She ain’t my sister,” Massa Dick said, “she’s a slave.”

“Well, she’s your daddy’s get, and she was his slave. ‘T’ain’t my fault. Your Mammy told Dawes to sell them, and it ain’t his fault, either. What was he supposed to have said, that you had other plans for the wench?”

“I always wanted to be the one to bust her.”

“Did you tell your mammy that?” Massa Wallace asked. “That’s not the sort of thing a boy tells his mammy, is it? Anyway, Miz Tyler might have had some thoughts of her own. Fairly soon, she sent Dawes away with them. That Judy wench was to be sold to a house in Montgomery, and that Tammie girl was to be taken to Mobile by railroad. She was special, and those blockade runners there could pay top dollar. Still, Dawes thought the railroad fare cost most of the extra he got. Man told Dawes that after he auctioned off the first time in her cunt, he’d auction off the first time in her ass.”

“That’s dirty.”

“Well, sailors are like that. Asked me, I’d of told you that Miz Tyler didn’t know what a house was. Well, she knew well enough to tell Dawes to sell the mother in a house in Montgomery and the girl in a house in Mobile. Must have known the house in Mobile could get more for the daughter. Anyway, the girl is gone, and you sure as Hell are too late to bust her. That Judy wench is in Montgomery, though, if she’s still alive. Ask Dawes, and he can tell you the location.”