Authors: Marlen Suyapa Bodden
“It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll live here with you and Papa and write my novel, which I shall send to publishers in New York and London.”
Mum lost her color, and Papa counseled me against teasing her.
“Theodora, mind that your mother does not literally push you to the altar.”
“It was in jest, Mum. I will get a bow and arrow and hunt for a husband with your degree of earnestness.”
Papa wrote to acquaintances in Alabama and received a response from Mr. Cornelius Allen, well known for being the eldest son of an established family. My parents were joyous when he demonstrated an interest in me. Papa said that Mr. Allen must have heard about my legendary blue eyes and porcelain skin. Mr. Allen began courting me the evening of my presentation. He was elegant and, more importantly, engaging because he told me about his travels to the Northern states, the European continent, and the Western Territories.
Mum prepared me for what to expect on my wedding night. She said that Mr. Allen would visit me in my bedchamber until I was with child, and thereafter only to conceive more children. Mum said that a true gentleman used servants to satisfy his vulgar needs. Based upon Eliza’s description of her first night with her husband, I was glad when Mum told me that intimacy with Mr. Allen would be minimal.
Our wedding was glorious. Papa gave me Dottie, my seamstress, and he told me that Bessie would now be mine as well. They were not substitutes for my parents, but I knew that their familiar faces would comfort me in my marital home. We spent our honey-month at the Allen home in Orange Beach. The eagerness that I felt when we consummated our marriage surprised me. I believed that I would not be able to endure a man’s hardness, but his fiery play was sublime, and my longing for our coupling did not abate when he took me to my new home.
I met Emmeline the day I arrived at Allen Hall, when the overseers gathered the household servants in the parlor to present them to me. The servants curtsied and bowed. My husband later said that Emmeline had become the chief housekeeper when his parents left the plantation to live in Montgomery and he remained as master of the estate. During my first week, my husband explained my duties as mistress of the house. He reviewed the Hall’s accounts and record books with me in his office, and he showed me how to order goods and pay merchants’ bills of expenditures.
“You do not have to teach Emmeline anything because she is a superb housekeeper and cook. You are to meet with the Hall overseers and Emmeline at least once a day to give them orders and to hear their reports on all household matters.
“The tasks of disciplining servants and preventing them from stealing fall to the overseers, who are responsible for regularly counting the silverware and other valuable items, and for keeping food and liquors locked away. You will have to watch the overseers to ensure that they are doing their work,” he said.
“I am thankful that I will not have to discipline servants, Mr. Allen. In fact, may I request that the overseers do not mete out punishment in or near our home? It seems altogether disagreeable.”
“If any of the household servants need correction, they are taken to the whipping post near the fields. If they do not improve their conduct after the first time they are whipped, they are sent to work as field hands. If they commit further infractions, they are sold. You will find that our servants are well behaved and rarely need chastisement.”
In my second week at Allen Estates, my husband took me on a tour of his domain, the plantation. It took us over an hour to reach the outpost of the fields from our home. From the carriage, one could see continuous furrows of cotton plants with space for a field hand between each furrow. There were roads wide enough for carts between every fifty furrows. Overseers holding rifles sat in their towers, and others were on horseback with guns and whips at their sides. There was a jail and an infirmary for the slaves in this area.
We went to the slave quarters, which were arranged in a grid pattern of one-room log cabins, about forty rows deep and twenty rows wide. The carriage stopped in front of an old woman and six small children dressed in long shirts or dresses made from Negro cloth. They were sitting on the steps outside a cabin. When we got out of the carriage, the old woman greeted us and told the children to bow and curtsy.
“Children, Auntie Cissy, this is my bride and your mistress. I am certain that you will obey her as you do me. Well, what do you think of her? Is she not a beauty?”
The children giggled.
“Yes, Master Allen. She real pretty,” Auntie Cissy said.
A boy asked my husband if he had sweets. My husband patted his head. “Sam, is that all you think about? Have you behaved well?”
“Yes, sir, master.”
“Auntie Cissy, has Sam been a good boy?”
“Yes, sir, Master Allen.”
The other young ones were quiet.
“Auntie Cissy, what about the other children, have they been obedient?”
“Yes, sir, Master Allen. All them been good.”
“Well, then they all deserve treats.”
He took candies from his pocket and distributed them.
“Auntie Cissy, are you feeling better?”
“Yes, sir, Master Allen. Thank you kindly, sir.”
“How is your daughter? She is due to give birth soon, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. She feeling good and she ready to have them babies next month. Thank you, sir.”
I asked my husband if we could look inside a cabin. He and the overseer directed me to one nearby that was about sixteen by eighteen feet with a fireplace down the middle for cooking. The overseer opened two wooden shutters so that I could see that it was clean and that the slaves had cooking wares and proper furniture. A cabinet held clothing that the family had for special occasions and to attend church on Sundays. In the carriage on the way back to Allen Hall, I thanked my husband for the tour.
“What you saw were the results of my father’s many years of labor. I learned from him and from trade journals on plantation management that slaves are more likely to be productive and not try to escape if one treats them well.
“I do not rely on overseers’ reports about the well-being of my people. I visit cabins randomly to see for myself that they are clean. Filthy cabins incubate disease that can lead to prolonged illness or death. While we still get a few imports through Mobile, because of the 1808 international ban on importing slaves, we must rely on raising our own. That is why I encourage my people to marry and have children, as it is the best way to cheaply increase the number of field hands.
“I provide them with everything they need: physicians, preachers, clothing, shoes, and sufficient food. They rest from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning. My father taught me to involve myself in every aspect of my slaves’ lives. I pay for their weddings and funerals and build cabins for the newly married. I maintain records of all births and deaths, and only I name newborns.
“I permit the slaves who are obedient to keep gardens, where they grow vegetables, and to raise chickens and hogs. I even trade with them, the goods that they raise for whatever they might need beyond those supplies.”
Allen Estates was an isolated and rural area, and I realized that I had to find ways to keep myself, and later my children, entertained. Three weeks after my arrival, we had a supper for the planters and their wives who lived in and near Benton County. My husband invited only those who owned a minimum of fifty slaves, but at that, our neighbors were an uneducated and provincial lot. The women spoke only about domestic matters, and some were illiterate and had never been beyond the county line. When I told my husband that I would have nothing to do when he was away, he said that, if I wanted to, I could travel with him.
One of the neighbors, Mrs. Faith Tutwiler, was unlike the other planters’ wives. She had attended a young ladies’ academy in Montgomery, where she was raised. It was Mrs. Tutwiler, whose husband owned one hundred slaves, who taught me how to thrive as the mistress of a plantation. I learned from her that certain chores, such as giving slaves their Christmas presents, should not be entrusted to overseers and that the mistress’s main duty with regard to the household servants was to be their advocate with the master.
As Mrs. Tutwiler said, all the household servants, except for Emmeline, soon learned that they could lodge complaints or make requests of Mr. Allen by asking to speak with me. Most complaints concerned the overseers. The servants protested disciplinary measures and, as they saw it, excessive labor. I investigated all charges and sometimes agreed with the servants.
In my first month at Allen Estates, I performed an inventory of the 1,500-square-foot library and dedicated myself to converting it into a respectable collection. My husband purchased mahogany from Honduras, and I had the carpenters, all expert furniture-makers, build shelves and reading tables. I ordered books and subscriptions to magazines and newspapers, including the
Daily National Intelligencer
, from J.S. Kellogg & Co., booksellers in Mobile.
In September, I suspected that I was with child, three months after my marriage. My husband summoned a physician recommended by Mrs. Tutwiler. Dr. Robert Atlas arrived that evening and examined me in the presence of Bessie.
“When you are dressed, Mrs. Allen, I will speak with you and Mr. Allen to tell you my conclusion.”
When he was gone, Bessie helped me to dress and I went to the parlor. My husband and Dr. Atlas were laughing and drinking brandy.
“Darling, Dr. Atlas has informed me that you are with child. Why are you crying? I thought you would be happy.”
“Mr. Allen, I assure you that this is normal for a gentlewoman in her condition. There will be many moments like this, when Mrs. Allen will cry for no apparent reason. Everyone must be patient and do nothing to agitate her.”
My husband asked Dr. Atlas what else needed to be done for me during my pregnancy.
“Because ladies are delicate, they must abandon all outdoor activities, including gardening. Mrs. Allen may ride in the carriage, but she must take afternoon naps. I will examine her once a month until her sixth month, when I will see her once a week. If you desire, I am available to be in residence in the final month of pregnancy.”
“Yes, those arrangements are suitable.”
When Dr. Atlas departed, my husband consented to my request to invite my parents to Allen Estates. I told Bessie and Dottie that they were going to be aunties. They were thrilled and, being mothers, had many words of advice. That month, I did not feel at all ill. My parents wrote that they would arrive in early November. From the day that Dr. Atlas confirmed my pregnancy, I saw my husband only at supper because he stopped visiting me at night. At the end of September, I asked him when we were alone why he no longer came to our bedroom.
“Dr. Atlas told me that it would be dangerous and that we cannot be together until you have recovered from the baby’s birth.”
“But I am not ill. I feel wonderful, in fact.”
“Theodora, I will not jeopardize our child. We must respect Dr. Atlas’s knowledge and experience.”
“But…it will be a long time until we can….”
“I said no. This is my decision. There is nothing more to discuss.”
I did not tell him that I wanted to be with him even more than before my pregnancy. I spent my nights alone with my books and my journal, and my days were monotonous. I told an overseer to find two boys to help me in the garden.
One afternoon shortly thereafter, as I was sitting on a bench instructing the boys, a servant gave me a letter from Papa. I read it again and again, not believing what it said. How could Mum be dead? She was in excellent health when I was married. I sent for my husband, who was in the fields, and when he arrived, I showed him the letter.
“Darling, I am very sorry. This is shocking.”
I did not reply.
“Dear, you must accept that your mother has passed on. Why don’t I take you upstairs so that you can rest?”
“No, I have things to finish in the garden.”
“No, you will not work in the garden. Theodora, you must believe what happened.”
“Dottie and I still have so much sewing to do.”
“Theodora…stop it. Come with me or I will have to carry you. You know that this is harvest and I have to return to the fields. I cannot stay with you all afternoon.”
“No, please, do not leave me alone. Please stay with me. I cannot be alone right now.”
“I will stay with you for awhile, but I have to make sure that the cotton harvesting remains on schedule to meet shipment dates.”
We went to the bedroom and he stayed with me for about an hour, and then he left me in the care of Bessie and Dottie. I felt unsettled at not having seen Mum buried. That night, I awoke with abdominal pain and I was perspiring heavily. My forehead and throat were hot. I rang the bell for Bessie. I told her to go to the overseer’s house and to tell him to send for Dr. Atlas, who arrived in the early morning.
“Mrs. Allen, you have a high fever.”
“What can be done?”
“Now, now, do not trouble yourself. I have attended hundreds of gentlewomen in your condition, and my practices always resolve the matter. Please stand. Your maid should stand next to you in the event that you feel weak during the procedure.”