Jubilee

Margaret Walker’s 1966 novel, Jubilee, is based on the story of Walker’s maternal great-grandmother, Margaret Duggans Ware Brown. The historical fiction novel is sometimes described as a corollary to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind—the epic story of a strong Southern woman who lives during the antebellum period, the Civil War, and Reconstruction; though, the Southern woman in this story is black, and her strength comes from having endured the withering degradation of slavery.

Plot Summary

Jubilee opens with the scene of the slave woman, Sis Hetta, lying on her death bed. Hetta is a slave on the Dutton family’s Shady Oaks Plantation, which sits in a secluded hamlet near Dawson, Georgia. Hetta is the mother of Vyry, the novel’s protagonist, who is only a toddler at the time of her mother’s death. Vyry is the product of the plantation master, John Morris Dutton’s, incessant rapes of Hetta. She is one of Hetta’s 15 children with Marse John. After Hetta dies, Mammy Sukey cares for Vyry. After Mammy Sukey dies, Aunt Sally, the cook in the Big House, looks after Vyry. Vyry moves into the Big House to work as the maid to John’s daughter, Lillian. However, Vyry quickly becomes the object of contempt for Marse John’s wife, Salina Dutton, due to Vyry’s strong resemblance to Marse John. To protect Vyry from Salina’s rage, the master has her move into Aunt Sally’s cabin. Vyry also assists Aunt Sally in the kitchen. From Aunt Sally, Vyry learns how to become one of the best cooks in Lee County, Georgia and, after Sally is sold away from Shady Oaks Plantation, she usurps her role and becomes the main cook.

While she’s still a teenager, Vyry catches the eye of a blacksmith hired to work at the Dutton’s plantation. Randall Ware is a free black man with his own shop. He tells Vyry that, if she agrees to marry him, he will free her from her master. However, Vyry gets pregnant and ends up having two children with Ware, Jim and Minna, before he can ensure her freedom. Ware leaves and goes up North to escape increasing hostility toward free blacks in Georgia. He arranges for Vyry to escape with him on the Underground Railroad, but she is unable to leave their children behind. Vyry is caught by the cruel overseer, Ed Grimes, and given 75 lashes for her transgression.

Vyry remains at Shady Oaks Plantation during the build-up to the Civil War, when her father, Marse John, dies as a result of gangrene after a carriage accident. She also endures the Civil War and witnesses the death of the master’s son, John Jr., or “Johnny,” who is shot through the lung during a battle and later dies of hemorrhaging. The grief from this loss, as well as that from losing her beloved Confederacy, is too much for Salina Dutton, who dies just before the Union Army enters Georgia. After the war ends, Vyry is left nearly alone on the plantation. Many of the male slaves, particularly field hands, have run away. Unprotected, Vyry nearly experiences a sexual assault, but a contraband runaway staying nearby with Union soldiers rescues her. His name is Innis Brown. Unfortunately, Miss Lillian is raped and beaten and never recovers from the experience. Having lost her husband, Kevin MacDougall, to the war, she and her children, Bob and Susan, are eventually taken from the house by her aunt, Lucy, who is one of Marse John’s poorer relations. They move to Alabama.

Vyry stays at Shady Oaks with her children, having promised Randall Ware that she would wait for him. However, the other slaves are leaving and Innis Brown, who has fallen in love with Vyry, asks her to move west to Alabama with him. Vyry finally agrees. She and Brown set up their first home in Alabama in an area that is vulnerable to flooding, and their house washes away. The Ku Klux Klan burns down their second home, which leaves Vyry shaken and reluctant to build again. The Browns build their final home in a town in which the local white people have been ensured the family’s protection due to the town’s need for Vyry’s skills as a midwife. With Brown, Vyry has another son, Harry. Jim is growing up, and his relationship with his stepfather becomes tenser, as Ware insists that Jim dedicate himself to farm work, which the boy detests.

As though sensing the necessity of his presence, Randall Ware one day shows up at the Brown home and announces that he has come to take Jim with him to Selma, Alabama, where the teenager will train to become a teacher. Randall also asks Vyry if she would like to be his wife again. She gently refuses, saying that she and Ware never had the chance to develop a proper marriage, while she and Brown have been through a great deal together. Furthermore, she’s pregnant with another child. She wishes her first love well, and he does the same, while also offering financial support and a promise to pay for Minna’s schooling. Ware and Jim depart by train, and Vyry returns to her farm. At the end of the novel, Vyry stands on a hill and looks out over the horizon, repeating a habit from childhood, back when she wondered what the world offered beyond the Shady Oaks Plantation. She then starts back in the direction of her farm and calls her chickens home to roost.