The Known World

Anderson Frazier, the historian writing about the antebellum South, is surprised to discover that African American slaveowners existed. Indeed, Henry’s role as slaveowner creates deep divisions in his family. His father, Augustus, is shocked and enraged that his son would own slaves when he himself worked so hard to buy his family out of slavery. Augustus can’t understand why Henry would actively participate in the chattel system that they all escaped from. In fact, Henry himself doesn’t seem to understand the consequences of his decision. When he first buys Moses, he treats him more like a friend than a slave. But when William Robbins discovers this, he counsels Henry to change his ways: He must fully inhabit his role as a master to successfully run his plantation. Henry has always been ambitious, seeking opportunity when he can, and he realizes that he must follow William’s advice if he is to succeed, even if his father and mother fiercely disapprove. 

So, while Augustus hoped to free Henry from the entanglements of slavery, Henry rejects his father’s wishes, instead heeding William Robbins’s, who serves as a different type of father figure for Henry. Henry has spent more time with William, having been William’s slave, and he absorbs his white father’s legacy of slavery, since that is his “known world.