Clotel by William Wells Brown

First published: 1853

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical melodrama

Time of work: 1817-1842

Locale: Richmond, Virginia; New Orleans, Louisiana; Natchez, Mississippi; Vicksburg, Mississippi; Dunkirk, France

Principal Characters:

• Clotel, an attractive biracial woman, who is sixteen years of age at the opening of the novel
• Currer, a forty-year-old mulatto woman, who is Clotel’s mother
• Althesa, the youngest biracial daughter of Currer
• Horatio Green, the white Virginian who purchases Clotel as his concubine
• The Reverend John Peck, the Methodist parson of Natchez, Mississippi, who purchases Currer
• Georgiana Peck, the daughter of Reverend Peck
• Mary, Clotel’s daughter
• George Green, a “passing” mulatto, who is the servant of Horatio Green

The Novel

Clotel: Or, The President’s Daughter, A Narrative of Slave Life in the United Statesis principally about the fate of an African American female slave, Clotel, who is described by William Wells Brown as the daughter of Thomas Jefferson. In her earlier years, Clotel’s mother, Currer, was a servant of Jefferson before his departure to Washington “to fill a government appointment,” at which time Currer was passed on to another master. In the context of the novel, Currer’s daughters are the offspring of Thomas Jefferson. As a quadroon, Clotel is much sought by the white males of Richmond, who viewed quadroon and mulatto females as a select choice for concubinage.

Brown’s book, however, does not begin with the story of Currer and her children, but rather with the “Narrative of the Life and Escape of William Wells Brown,” a biographical sketch of Brown’s own experiences of bondage and his eventual escape to the North. The novel itself begins with the dilemma faced by Currer, who along with her daughters is sold on the auction block in Richmond after the death of her master. Clotel is bought by Horatio Green; Currer and her younger daughter, Althesa, are purchased by a slave trader who transports them south. Currer is sold in Natchez, Mississippi, to the Reverend John Peck. Althesa continues to New Orleans, where she is auctioned and purchased by James Crawford as a house servant.

The separation of Currer and her daughters provides the basis for the development of the three primary story lines, Clotel’s, Currer’s, and Althesa’s. Clotel’s story involves her life as a concubine of Horatio Green in Richmond, where she has been provided with a house and eventually gives birth to a daughter, Mary. Clotel’s relationship with Horatio Green is characterized by the language of the sentimental novel, which includes descriptions of overpowering emotional attachment, especially of Clotel for Horatio.

Brown introduces the second story line when he traces the experiences of Currer in Natchez. Currer spends her remaining years as a servant of Reverend Peck, dying in Natchez without ever reuniting with her daughters. An extended section portrays Reverend Peck, who is used by Brown to present the religious issues surrounding slavery, the contradictions between Christian beliefs and bondage. The scenes at the Peck farm are used to develop the differing attitudes of Peck and his daughter, Georgiana, toward the institution of slavery.

Clotel’s life is radically changed when Horatio Green marries Gertrude, a white woman who insists on the sale of Clotel because she views Clotel as a rival. Clotel is sold to a slave trader and eventually is purchased by James French to labor as a servant for his wife in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Clotel’s daughter, Mary, remains in the Green household and is treated unkindly as a servant.

Clotel resists her bondage in Vicksburg and plots to escape, cleverly disguising herself as an ailing white male traveling with a servant, a fellow slave, William, who has decided to assist Clotel in her escape. Clotel’s escape is portrayed in detail as she travels by boat from Vicksburg to Louisville, Cincinnati, and then overland by stagecoach to Richmond. Although she arrives safely in Richmond, she is hunted by slave catchers and imprisoned in Washington, D.C. She escapes, but, pursued and facing capture on the Long Bridge, Clotel commits suicide by leaping into the Potomac River, within sight of the Capitol and the “President’s house.”

The third story line, the fate of Althesa, involves her purchase by Henry Morton, who marries her and fathers their two children, Ellen and Jane. Both Althesa and Morton perish in a yellow fever epidemic, leaving Ellen and Jane as property to be dispensed with by Morton’s brother. Both daughters are subjected to the auction block and the possible trials of forced concubinage. Jane dies of a broken heart after the death of her lover, and Ellen commits suicide, fearing a life of sexual abuse from her master.

The story of Clotel’s daughter, Mary, is told in the closing episodes of the novel. Mary is eventually sold because she assists a fellow slave, George, in escaping. She is purchased in New Orleans but is rescued by a Frenchman, Devenant, who assists her in escaping to Europe and marries her. George and Mary meet accidentally in Dunkirk, France, after the death of Devenant. The novel closes with the marriage of George and Mary.

The Characters

Brown’s characters show the dynamics of antebellum Southern society. He portrays African American women of biracial ancestry, the Southern slave-owning class, Northern white liberals, and the community of black bond servants.

Clotel’s characterization reflects the numerous conditions of bondage for biracial females in the nineteenth century. Her portrayal is used to suggest the ironies and contradictions of American democracy, in that she is presented as the daughter of Thomas Jefferson. Sixteen years old at the opening of the novel, Clotel is described by Brown as an attractive “quadroon” much sought after at “Negro balls” by white male gentry. The tragic course of her life begins with the breakup of her family, dramatizing the dehumanization of chattel slavery and the auction block. Clotel is also portrayed in a love relationship with Horatio Green, who purchases her as his concubine. Green’s rejection of Clotel in order to marry a white woman produces a deep emotional reaction in Clotel.

A concern for familial connections is a major part of Clotel’s characterization. Her longing to be reunited with her daughter Mary motivates Clotel’s escape, which ends in Clotel’s suicide when she is tracked down by slave catchers.

Currer, Clotel’s mother, also reflects a concern for family stability. Forty years of age when the novel begins, she is described by Brown as a mother whose principal concern is the advancement of her daughters. Currer realizes that advancement is based on physical appearance. Currer symbolizes the vicissitudes of bondage for aging African American mothers; she never loses sight of her mission to free her daughters and reunite her family.

Currer’s younger daughter, Althesa, who is fourteen when the novel opens, ends up in New Orleans, where she is sold in the slave market. Althesa is purchased by a Northerner, Henry Morton, who marries her after being captivated by her “fair” beauty. Brown uses Althesa to show the tenuous nature of mixed marriages during slavery, for, after the death of Morton and Althesa, the couple’s daughters, Ellen and Jane, become “property” destined for tragic outcomes.

Mary, Clotel’s daughter, is used to show the cruelty of the white mistress Gertrude, who resents both Clotel and Mary. Mary’s unshakable love for George, a fellow servant, reveals the curious workings of destiny as well as allegiances among bond servants. After assisting George in his escape from prison, Mary is sold to a slave trader in New Orleans, who in turn sells her to a Mobile resident. She is assisted in her escape by a Frenchman, Devenant, with whom she flees to Europe. They reside in Europe at the close of the novel, when Mary is reunited with George, whom she marries after the death of Devenant.

Brown’s portrayal of white male and female characters shows the variety of relationships between masters, mistresses, and bond servants. Horatio Green lacks the courage to choose Clotel above Gertrude. Green’s rejection of Gertrude and his condoning of the treatment of Mary show his moral weakness. Another of the white male characters, Reverend John Peck, to whom Currer is bound, is used by Brown to dramatize the contradictions between Christian beliefs and slavery. Conversations between Peck and his daughter Georgiana, who sees the pernicious nature of slavery, are used to present liberal antislavery views. These ideas inform the behavior of Miles Carlton, who marries Georgiana. Georgiana manumits her African bond servants on her deathbed.

Brown also portrays the slave community, but at times in a somewhat humorous fashion, as in the characterization of Sam, a servant of Peck. Sam’s brief role shows the pretensions of some Africans and their adaptation to slave status. Sam is described in a humorous manner in terms of his grooming habits and his use of language. In contrast, George, a fair-complexioned “passing” mulatto and servant of Horatio Green, is used to show solidarity within the slave community.

George and Mary become romantically attached, and Mary assists him in his escape. George eventually finds his way to Canada and concerns himself with purchasing Mary’s freedom. Unable to secure her freedom, he migrates to Europe, where, ironically, he meets Mary. The marriage of Mary and George symbolizes the strength of African American love relationships despite the rigors of bondage.

The theme of allegiances between bond servants is also revealed in Brown’s portrayal of William, a slave of Cooper in Vicksburg. Green assists Clotel in her escape by posing as her servant. He separates from Clotel in Cincinnati and travels to freedom in Canada.

Critical Context

The 1853 publication of Clotel in England represented another verbal attack on the system of slavery in America by Brown, who had arrived in England in 1849. Because the novel was published in England, it cannot be considered the first novel published in the United States by an African American, but it does represent the first novel written by an African American. (Harriet E. Wilson, who published Our Nig in 1859, is credited as the first African American novelist published in the United States.)

Clotel did not receive a great deal of critical attention. Some critics have attributed this to its having been published shortly after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), which, as an antislavery novel, had captured the attention of the British and American reading public. Another probable reason for Clotel’s neglect was the novel’s obvious attack on Jeffersonian democracy. Clotel was, however, reviewed in a number of British and American newspapers and antislavery publications, receiving mixed but generally favorable reviews. The Literary Gazette noted, “This tale of American slavery is one of deep interest. The writer has not the literary art . . . but he writes with the force and earnestness of one who has himself been a slave, and who keenly feels the wrongs of the coloured race.” Twentieth century critics have noted that Clotel contains material that could be treated in more than one novel, that there are certain historical anachronisms in the book, and that the character Clotel is an archetype of the tragic mulatto.

Clotel fits within the body of Brown’s antislavery writings and grows out of his earlier work. Brown’s first published work was Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1847); he later published The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection of Songs for Anti-Slavery Meetings (1848), and a travelogue, Three Years in Europe: Or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met (1852). The original Clotel was revised for an American edition, Clotelle: A Tale of the Southern States (1864). In this edition, Brown eliminated the references to Jefferson. The next version, Clotelle: Or, The Colored Heroine, A Tale of the Southern States was published in 1867. Brown also published a play and two historical works.

Brown’s Clotel is significant to the African American experience because it suggests the relationship between American democratic ideals and slavery, an issue that has been central to the legacy of unequal status of African Americans in American society. Furthermore, Brown evoked the conditions of the African American female slave, the plight of the mulatto, and the potential for sexual abuse and exploitation. His portrayal of the fragmentation of the African American family during the nineteenth century, moreover, finds parallels in contemporary dilemmas in black American family life. Just as important, Clotel foretells the revelation in the twentieth century that Jefferson did indeed have a slave as a lover, Sally Heming, whose story is the focus of a novel by Barbara Riboud-Chase.

Bibliography

Bell, Bernard W. The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. Analyzes Clotel in terms of Brown’s depiction of antislavery themes as well as Brown’s romanticized presentation of Clotel as an archetype of the tragic mulatto. Argues that Brown’s work is noteworthy because he gives a view of the folkloric elements in American slave culture.

Brown, William Wells. Clotel: Or, The President’s Daughter—A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States. Edited by Robert S. Levine. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. This critical edition includes excerpts from contemporary historical sources that serve to contextualize and comment upon Brown’s novel.

Davis, Charles T., and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. The Slave’s Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Contains narratives and critical commentaries by a variety of authors. “I Rose and Found My Voice” points out the significance of Brown’s Narrative as authenticating Brown’s authorial voice and the novel Clotel.

Farrison, William Edward. William Wells Brown: Author and Reformer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Provides a comprehensive critical biography of Brown. Clotel is viewed in terms of its antislavery message as well as its historical anachronisms.

Gloster, Hugh. Negro Voices in American Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948. Notes the importance of Clotel in its depiction of the plight of biracial African Americans. The novel, based on the rumors of Jefferson’s having fathered mulatto children, provides a major irony in Clotel’s suicide within sight of the White House.

Heermance, J. Noel. William Wells Brown and Clotelle: A Portrait of the Artist in the First Negro Novel. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1969. Heermance focuses on the development of Brown from abolitionist to artist. The 1864 American edition is included rather than the original 1853 British edition.

Heglar, Charles J. “William Wells Brown and Clotel: Or, The President’s Daughter—A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States.” In Rethinking the Slave Narrative: Slave Marriage and the Narratives of Henry Bibb and William and Ellen Craft. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Comparison of Clotel to two other seminal slave narratives, providing insights into the representation of marriage in each.

Mulvey, Christopher. “Liberating an African American Text: Editing Clotel for an Electronic Century.” In Critical Voicings of Black Liberation: Resistance and Representations in the Americas, edited by Kimberley L. Phillips et al. Münster, Germany: Lit, 2003. Details the process of reexamination and reinterpretation that went into preparing Clotel for electronic publication.

Oates, Joyce Carol. “’Tragic Mulatta’: Clotel, or, the President’s Daughter.” In Uncensored: Views and (Re)views. New York: Ecco, 2005. Review essay on Clotel by one of the foremost women in American letters.