Clotel

In Mr. Peck’s kitchen, the slaves discuss how a beautiful slave named Dorcas Simpson is engaged to a slave on a neighboring plantation. Though he works in the fields, he is ultimately seen as an acceptable choice for Dorcas because “[h]e’s nearly white” (107). Sam, described by Brown as “one of the blackest men living” (107), states that the man’s whiteness is an “exchuse for her” (107) and that he disapproves of “dis malgemation of blacks and mulattoes” (107). Brown writes that even among the slaves, “[t]here is […] a great amount of prejudice against colour” (105). Sam, to compensate for the darkness of his skin, insists his mother was white and that his hair’s ability to grow long is evidence “that he was part an Anglo-Saxon” (107).

Biracial slaves are seen as untrustworthy by slaves and slave owners alike. Brown notes that slaveholders’ wives often see a biracial slave as “a rival” for their husbands’ attention (121). For this reason, Clotel is forced to cut off her long hair so she will look more like “any of the full-blooded Negroes in the dwelling” (121). Darker-skinned slaves also reject her, saying “[s]he tinks she white, when she come here did that long har of hers” (121).