"The Known World" by Edward P. Jones

We like to think of ourselves as incapable to adopting behaviors now considered appalling. Self-appraisal minimizes often the inherent weaknesses we keep hidden.

By reading Thirteen Moons, I learned that there were black slave owners who easily adopted the behaviors and attitudes of the white population.

Edward Jones adds more complexity to the world of slave ownership. The Known World (388 pages) focuses on a county in southern Virginia during the period before and after the Civil War. While the depravity of slave ownership is crystallized dollar values assigned to the slaves, there was a process of buying oneself out of slavery. Buying one’s own freedom was not uncommon. What was striking is that some of these former slaves readily transitioned into the mores of independence by their becoming masters of other black persons. These new slave owners readily supported the system of local “patrollers” employed by the Sheriff to monitor the roads to ensure that anyone who attempted to escape was caught. And, they also saw bodily discipline now as an inevitable necessity to ensure compliance with the business at hand, i.e., maintaining the local farm.

The author weaves together various segments of the lives of the multiple characters into a coherent community of blacks and whites. Underneath it all is the shared fear of the slave owners, both black and white, of the possibility of the freedom for all blacks.

Would I be any different if I lived there and then?

It points out the dimension of luck associated with what any of us perceive as positive in our relative success stories. But for where we live, with what set of parents, with what genes, with what community resources, we could be so different with needs that would make more clearly dependent on the compassion of others.