The Garies and Their Friends

Content Warning: This section refers to enslavement, racism, racist violence, discrimination, offensive terms for Black people, murder and death, suicide, and alcohol addiction. The n-word is quoted and obscured.

“The introductions with which Mr. Garie had kindly favoured him, had enabled him to see enough of Northern society to convince him, that, amongst the whites, he could not form either social or business connections, should his identity with the African race be discovered; and whilst, on the other hand, he would have found sufficiently refined associations amongst the people of colour to satisfy his social wants, he felt that he could not bear the isolation and contumely to which they were subjected. He, therefore, decided on leaving the United States, and on going to some country where, if he must struggle for success in life, he might do it without the additional embarrassments that would be thrown in his way in his native land, solely because he belonged to an oppressed race.”

This passage describes Mr. Winston’s perspective on Racism and Discrimination in the Antebellum North. Mr. Winston is a freed, formerly enslaved person who can pass as white and has traveled in the North under a presumed white identity. This experience has shown him the pitfalls of choosing such a path; the situation is so difficult for people like him that he has decided to go abroad instead.

“It isn’t as though he was a white child. What use can Latin or Greek be to a coloured boy? None in the world—he’ll have to be a common mechanic, or, perhaps, a servant, or barber, or something of that kind, and then what use would all his fine education be to him?”

This quote from Mrs. Thomas expresses the prevailing view of wealthy white people in the antebellum North: that an education, though legal, is wasted on Black children who are destined for a life of servitude or labor. This quote highlights The Impact of Race and Racism on Personal Identity, as the Black children of the novel are defined by their race and ridiculed for stepping outside of the societal norm.

“‘One thing I must tell you,’ rejoined Mr. Ellis; ‘if you should settle down here, you'll have to be either one thing or other—white or coloured. Either you must live exclusively amongst coloured people, or go to the whites and remain with them. But to do the latter, you must bear in mind that it must never be known that you have a drop of African blood in your veins, or you would be shunned as if you were a pestilence; no matter how fair in complexion or how white you may be.’”

Mr. Ellis has no illusions about the segregation that results from the Racism and Discrimination in the Antebellum North. In this quote, he warns Mr. Winston about the reality that he will have choose to either live as a Black man, and face the same discrimination other Black people face, or live as a white man and hide his Black ancestry.