Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black

Taking place in the antebellum period, Our Nig: Stories from the Life of a Free Black portrays the story of hardship befalling free black people in the US North as the system of slavery persists in other parts of the country. While the horrors of black enslavement proceed in the US South, free black people also experience the extensions of structural racism through their social marginalization in the North. Frado’s story is one such example of how racial prejudice against black people and interracial relationships forge the difficulties through which the mixed-race child has to navigate the world. Not only does racial oppression force her white mother into deeper poverty following her union with a black man, but the circumstances of her abandonment are also the result of the racism that still persists in the North. Understanding that mixed-race people with light-skinned complexions are more socially amenable to white society, Mag and Seth decide that Frado is the child they must leave behind as her complexion, in addition to pluckiness of spirit, may give her a better chance of being accepted and surviving. This becomes true when the Bellmonts discuss what to do with Frado. Jack argues that the family should house her, as she is “not very black” (16).