Cane River

CANE RIVER

by Lalita Tademy

 

Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2003, Oprah Book Club 2001

 

Date Read: August 13, 2023

 

Tademy began with her own family’s lore to create Cane River. She includes photos, deeds, letters, newspapers and oral history to support the structure of her family, both black and white. Beginning with Elizabeth, a slave on the Rosedew plantation, who was forced to have children by her slave holder, these illegitimate children set off a pattern that is so difficult for the women to break.

 

Not having any power, slave women were unable to say no when white masters called them to their beds. Birth control still being 100 years away, of course children were conceived from these unions. And as their mothers before them, these children became slaves. How a father regarded his mixed children ranged from denial and indifference to absolute devotion and longing.

 

Cane River follows Elizabeth’s matrilineal line from Elizabeth to Suzette to Philomene to Emily and the offspring of her children. Although most of these unions were coerced or borne from love, an added benefit was the children created by these women with white men were able to lighten the family line, allowing for more power and privileges.

 

While Elizabeth, Suzette and Philomene were effectively raped by their masters, Emily’s story is just as heartbreaking because her union with white Joseph was based on love and mutual regard. All of their children were wanted and loved and Joseph and Emily wanted nothing more than to live in peace. The locals, however, terrorized them relentlessly because they were not only living in sin but against “God’s natural order,” with a white man and black woman cohabiting. Due to threats of violence and ostracization, Joseph and Emily were driven apart so Joseph could regain some respectability by marrying a white woman, Lola.

 

The way Tademy fills in the gaps from the genealogical information she was able to glean about her family back through slavery, paints a vivid picture of what living in that time might have actually been like. The interactions and more subtle happenings are entirely believable. And following this family through the matrilineal line is possible because the husbands and fathers seemed to come and go, particularly since the white fathers were never able to legally marry the mothers of their children.

 

So much suffering, heartbreak and loss follows this family through the generations but as each child comes up in the world, society becomes a little more welcoming. Which still brings us to the present where one in three black men are incarcerated or somehow involved in the penal system. Black men and women are routinely shot by police for little provocation. The political power of the poor, particularly poor people of color, are continually being stripped. But yeah. Society has progressed right? Or has it just gone underground?