The Known World

“In 1855 in Manchester County, Virginia, there were thirty-four free black families, with a mother and father and one child or more, and eight of those free families owned slaves, and all eight knew one another’s business. When the War between the States came, the number of slave-owning blacks in Manchester would be down to five, and one of those included an extremely morose man, who according to the U.S. census of 1860, legally owned his own wife and five children and three grandchildren. The census of 1860 said there were 2,670 slaves in Manchester County, but the census taker, a U.S. marshal who feared God, had argued with his wife the day he sent his report to Washington, D.C. and all his arithmetic was wrong because he had failed to carry a one.”

The definition of slave-owning for African Americans is complex since some “slaves” are actually family members who were purchased but never legally made free. Henry himself remained a slave all his life since he was legally owned by his father, but Augustus of course never considered Henry a slave. After emphasizing the numbers of free blacks and slaveholding blacks, Jones then destabilizes such numbers in the final sentence when he shows how they can be incorrect, raising the theme of the validity and truth of history.

“Robbins came to depend on seeing the boy waving from his place in front of the mansion, came to know that the sight of Henry meant the storm was over and that he was safe from bad men disguised as angels, came to develop a kind of love for the boy, and that love, built up morning after morning, was another reason to up the selling price Mildred and Augustus Townsend would have to pay for their boy.”

William grows to love Henry, a hard worker whom William can trust, especially when William has seizures. Ironically, William’s fatherly love will keep Henry away from his own father and mother, as William’s affection for Henry increases Henry’s monetary value. Jones heightens that irony by mentioning the cost at the very end of this extended sentence, which is built on parallel phrases describing William’s loving appreciation (“came to depend,” “came to know,” “came to develop a kind of love”), culminating in a financial appreciation. Slavery’s insidious power comes not only in the ability for a person to own another human being, but in a person’s inability to love another human being without thinking about the cost of flesh.