A Deck of Knaves

I never promised you a rose garden… 

I’m in full research mode these days, thoroughly enjoying digging into books on Bermuda, pirates, book publishing, and politics of the 1790s.  But in the process, I’m also uncovering the dirty underbelly of England that our frothy Regencies and Georgian romances tend to ignore.

Until 1807, England’s enormous shipping industry actively engaged in slave trading. And until 1834, they allowed their colonies to own slaves, even though they’d abolished slavery in England itself in 1772.  How considerate of parliament to ban slavery in England so they needn’t look upon the actual suffering, but allow it to continue out of their sight!

From early letters, it’s apparent that many white men originally believed Africans were some intermediate creature between man and monkey, and that they were doing their slaves a kindness by “taking care” of them.  In the 1600s, they must have thought the same of West Indian natives and Irishmen, as well, since they enslaved both. But if they were enlightened enough by 1772 to ban slavery in England, then they’d surely realized the error of their ways, just not enough to cut into sugar-plantation profits.  (link to image--a fascinating paper on slaves in Madeira)

  I’ve read a great deal of Irish/English history and the hostility between the two countries (think Israel and Palestine), but I hadn’t realized the English actually made slaves of Irish citizens until I started reading Bermuda history. And since I’m half Irish, I had to grin broadly when I read that Bermuda’s council furiously passed a law banning the buying and selling of Irish “under any pretence whatever” after their rebellious imports freely distributed rum to the blacks and started a rebellion.  I mean, what on earth did they expect? The God-given right to get drunk and shoot someone has followed the Irish through the centuries.

Ahem, back to the point. I think I had one somewhere.

Ah, yes, Bermuda!  I chose Bermuda for my setting because rather than clinging to their slaves, they were desperate to get rid of them. The first slaves arrived via a pirate who bribed the governor for the right to enter the harbor and pick up supplies. After disputing the ownership of the slaves for years, the colony should have known owning human beings would be more than trouble than it was worth.  The islands aren’t large enough for plantations.  The inhabitants had no interest in crops. The men of   Bermuda preferred salt mining, fishing, and privateering to digging in the dirt. They left farming to the old and feeble.  Which meant a good part of the time, the inhabitants of Bermuda were starving. And they either had to to take food from the mouths of their families to feed their slaves, or ship the Africans out. So ship them out they did. By the time I’m writing about--the 1790s--many Africans were employed by the privateers plundering the Caribbean.   

Now that I’ve unleashed my secret pedantry, let’s get back to the book business…  As romance readers, are you ready for a North American based historical?  Would you rather hear about pirates than slaves?     Or will a lack of ball gowns and London society cause you to wrinkle your nose and set the book aside?  Since I haven’t quite decided myself, I’m open to suggestion.  Fire away!

Comments

[Maggie Robinson]

First off, anything you write is bound to be great (so the Irish half of you does not have to shoot me). I cut my eyeteeth on American-set historical fiction, and am very open to new settings and time periods. Anything in the islands evokes mystery and romance, even if you throw in historical accuracy and inequality. I can't wait to read it!

[buggalugs]

Hi, your post sent me off to have a look into this...I thought William wilberforce had something to do with this, but that was about slave trading and not slave owning! and I wondered about your date 1772 and found a bbc link to explain more. It seems the the Quakers were great fighters in this battle.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2007/03/05/wiltshire_quakers_slavery_feature.shtml
Quote from the artical:
That same year a landmark court ruling, on the status of a slave brought to England from the colonies, effectively results in slavery being declared illegal in England. There are around 10,000 slaves in the country, at that time, mainly in domestic service where they are often treated as fashion accessories by the gentry. One such trend involves black page-boys being dressed in silk suits. But following the 1772 ruling, for instance, it becomes no longer possible to dispatch these boys to work on the plantations once they have outgrown their usefulness in England

I really love historical accuracy in a novel...if the premise of the story is interesting I go off and read more about it, and become more educated/knowledgable about the subject. It's great to a lovely romance, but when the setting and era is interesting and accurate...well these turn out to be my favourites.
Cheers to you all!

[buggalugs]

It's great to a lovely romance,

sorry typo...
It's great to READ a lovely romance,...

[Elaine McCarthy]

What startles me about today's topic is the fact that there were slaves in England up to 1772. I had of course encountered mention of this but I can't recall it being *depicted* in any fiction I ever read, whether historical or written during the period. The fact that people once took ownership of human beings for granted simply boggles the mind.

I am personally not at all interested in a historical set in North America, and both pirates and slaves, as significant elements of romantic fiction (or in any other context, actually), leave me cold. I get all the grimness I can stand in real life; when I pick up a romance novel, *romance* is what I want! I want to read about passion, a blossoming relationship, and the fascinating historical tidbits that make the past seem more real--without emphasizing its downsides, about which I have heard more than enough already. In fact, I think the reason I'm not interested in a historical romance set in North America is that I learned too much about its troubles in high school. I don't insist on ball gowns and London society, however; I'm sure there's some unexplored territory between that arena and the pirates and slaves. I will be interested to see what you choose!

[liz]

Well, without slavery there's not a lot to piracy for me. But slavery in romance is tricky and I think it's a big part of why American fiction hasn't caught up to Regencyland. There was a Colonial push that ignored the complicity & profiteering of the North in the slave economies (while purporting to be slave free). a problem I often have with slave era books is the secondary characters being slaves, they get written more as 'slave concept' than real characters. It's a bit of a no-win for the author isn't it? Make the character real and the power of their situation is likely to take over.

I'm no help. Allow me to plug an EXCELLENT book about an Irish slave experience and I'll move along. Des Ekin's The Stolen Village is a must read.

[shscott21]

Pat,
I love American settings. I love to read them, and I love to write them, and I always have. To fixate on slavery as a reason to toss out a whole continent's history seems grossly unfair -- there's a lot not to like in every country's history, but too many readers seem to point to slavery alone, and refuse to go any further in American history.

I'd love to go back to American settings, esp. New England, but every time I suggest it, my agent tells me I might as well drive a stake through my career right now, and my editor just looks the other way. Oh, well.....

OTOH, all it often takes is one huge-o book to make an era fashionable again. No one wanted Scottish historicals until Diana Galbadon came along (let alone time-travels), and we'd still be in a Tudor-limited world if Philippa Gregory hadn't written about that other Boleyn girl.

May your book be the bestseller that makes the publishing world safe for Bermuda and pirates!

Susan/Miranda

[Patricia Rice]

Great discussion, keep it up!

Buggalugs, I'm thrilled that my little post sent you to check further. I have written books set in England in the 1750s and never mentioned slaves, because my people were more interested in magic and science. "G" But I HAVE read books where black pages were portrayed, so I know they're out there.

Liz, thank you for the reference! I've noted it on my must-read list, although I'm half terrified to do so. I may go hunting my own shotgun.

Elaine, I totally understand your desire for escapism because it drives me as well. I read history for knowledge but write romance for pleasure. Combining the two is tricky, which is why I wander on for long periods of time, deciding the path I want to take. I deliberately chose Bermuda so I can show a setting where Africans were essentially, and sometimes completely, free. At this juncture, I have no clue if a single slave or African will show up in the story, but I'm covering my bases!

There are no guarantees in this business, but I like lots of ideas to play with. And Susan, I've seen a number of American historicals showing up lately, so the tide could be turning!

Maggie, as always, bless you for your kindness!

[jrox]

Pat, thanks for a great post. Now you have me thinking about all those people who would have been slaves in England at the time the law was passed in 1772. What were they doing thirty years later? Where did they go? I've come across one or two books in my research about the black population of Bristol, but haven't stumbled on much else.

Does anyone know or have any good books on the subject of freed slaves in England in the extended Regency period?

jrox

[liz]

Susan/Miranda - well, the problem isn't that I'm fixated on slavery (speaking only for me) as i find it impossible to ignore. If I was reading about Boston in 1670, I'd expect interaction with the aboriginals - if I'm reading about colonial - pre civil war America, I expect some mention of slavery - and then it gets mucked up because 99.9% of the time the way it's written is objectionable. No one wants to write stories set in Paris during the Revolution that pretends it's not happening, right?

It's not so much junking the entire history as it is the fact that these things are hard to overlook in the very white world of romance-land. In Regencyland I get frustrated with the oh so loyal you saved my life and / or freed me people of color and am delighted when a POC is just a person, not an example of the hero/heroine's goodness and progressive outlook.

Except for the Beckets series my last American set romance involved (name withheld to protect the author) a heroine who went on and on about her slave being her best friend and when push came to shove and both their men were missing, the slave was expected to help search for the heroine's man (not her own) and protect the heroine. No sense of how whack that was - just a quick trip back to 'grateful poc' fallbacks.

I don't want to read that anymore. I don't want noble savages or grateful muslims or poc's putting white folks interest ahead of their own. And I don't trust romance to give me books that don't do that. So yea, it doesn't sell to me.

Ok, this is way too long - but I think it's wrong to say 'why won't the reader look past that' when there used to be any number of american titles. And there are plenty of American contemporaries. Spencer, Morsi etc did well with Americana.

[liz]

Let me hog the page yet more -

Pat - the premise sounds interesting - I would look at a book set in Bermuda but I'm not a huge pirate fan.

[Rosely]

I am tired of ball gowns and London society. Let us have some North American historical.

[Patricia Rice]

okay, jrox, now you've got me wondering as well. I know there aren't any on my shelves, although I'm fairly certain I've read of some of the things those ex-slaves accomplished. Mary Jo did something with the subject. Maybe she'll drop in this evening once her eyes are back in focus from her eye exam. "G"

And Liz, you can hog the page as much as you like. The internet is infinite, and you make some interesting points. I'm not a huge Blackbeard type fan, but privateers post an interesting moral dilemma in that respectable citizens bought "shares" in their ventures to finance their expeditions, and murder on the high seas was considered honorable as long as one killed enemy sailors. Not that entrepreneurs are likely to ignore the profit of a fat neutral ship after a long drought. I know, my CPA hat is showing.

[talpianna]

I don't care for non-Regency historicals in general, or books dealing with piracy or slavery in fiction. Like Elaine, I prefer more escape in my escapism.

In QUEEN OF HEARTS by Megan Daniel (excellent Signet Regency), the heroine was married off at 16, without any say in it, to an earl's ne'er-do-well younger son and both were shipped off to Jamaica. The little churchmouse bride wound up running the plantation, then returned to England when her son inherited the title. She has two freed slaves who are very protective; one has taught her to read Tarot. She treats them more as family members than as servants (to the dismay and horror of her pompous clergyman elder brother).

In Sally Watson's YA novel JADE, a rebellious teenaged girl winds up becoming the captain of a pirate ship and specializes in raiding slave ships and freeing the cargo.

I can't remember title or author, but I recall one Regency in which the heroine's aunt keeps another woman's black page and frees him--gets sued and is threatened with prison.

Bruce Alexander has a series of mystery novels featuring Sir John Fielding, the "Blind Beak" of Bow Street, who with his brother the novelist Henry founded the Bow Street Runners. One of the characters is a former slave from the West Indies. These are good books, mostly based on real cases (not necessarily of the period--one is a variant of Jack the Ripper).

An excellent contemporary suspense novel dealing with the hunt for buried pirate treasure (with any number of built-in traps) is RIPTIDE by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

[Angela]

Rumor is that Beverly Jenkins has a pirate book in the works--there goes an author of color writing a pirate romance.

I do share Liz' frustrations. Non-Anglo characters tend to serve as foils for our Anglo heroes and heroines and it's patronizing. tbh, if a person wants to present a "white" world--which is most white Americans' reality--go ahead and do it. It just feels unrealistic most of the time, for white authors to inert them into their books because it comes across as a novelty instead of a person--and black history is not slavery!!

Another peeve of mine. If all history was taught correctly and fairly, everyone would see how varied the black experience was in America. Is it common knowledge that free blacks lived in the South in the very prime of slavery? Or that there were educated blacks. Wealthy blacks. And so on. We weren't all slaves. And on that note, if one does write historicals and include black people, don't gloss over racism, but don't make it the sum of the black person's character--it certainly isn't the sum of the character of black people today, no matter what the media tries to say.

[Patricia Rice]

Angela, you are right on in so many ways! Yes, I'm totally aware of the educated free blacks throughout the south. The story of black history is deep and fascinating and I wish I could do it justice. I'm thrilled that Beverly will be doing pirates! But I'd love to see the lawyers and teachers and all the rest.

But your message also shows why white authors don't attempt to realize black secondary characters better. We not only don't feel qualified to write the characters, we feel as if audiences won't accept our version in a kind of reverse prejudice. I'm a white woman, and if I can write a man's POV, I assume that I can write a decent, if not perfect, black woman's POV. But for whatever reason, a romance audience is more willing to accept my male POV. Reader expectation is always tricky, which is why I write these posts to see just what's going through reader heads.

I wonder if it isn't time for a break out of black historicals? And okay, my naughty Irish side wants to know how black authors would portray white secondary characters. "G"

[liz]

Pat - I was excited when Beverly Jenkins started writing, and disappointed when she wasn't my type of read (whatever that type may be). I think that there is a huge market for black historicals. The thing would be getting them out there in marketing. The default historical marketing is very white - the default marketing of black romance is 'street'. There's such a world of history, the black towns, the early businessmen, the interfamily conflicts, passing - plenty of material.

I was talking a few months ago about all the 'street' fiction and how I didn't understand it - until I read an article about the formation of Jazz and blues - Leadbelly recorded standards and pop hits, but that wasn't 'black' to the white recorders and they neither wanted it nor paid for it. It was an eye opener - Newsweek, maybe? - about how 'authentic' black roots and blues was largely a white creation made by the filtering of their art into what the money men wanted to market.

Then I was like, duh - no black historicals, lots of thug books. But I'd so try them.

[maryjoputney]

Mary Jo, here, and what a nice segue Pat's post makes into what I'll be posting Friday about the paperback of my abolition books, A DISTANT MAGIC, on Friday. :)

jrox, the best book I found on blacks in Britain is STAYING POWER: The History of Black People in Britain. It covers a pretty wide range--starting with the fact that the Romans had "Moorish" troops fighting at Hadrian's wall in the 3rd century AD. The book is by Peter Fryer and I think I ordered it from Amazon UK.

Angela, I can understand your frustration with the imperfect depictions of blacks in history. I've cautiously tried to be somewhat broader in view, though like Pat, I'm aware that it can make me a target for criticism.

I was pleased when a black reader (a trauma surgeon in Washington, DC) told me that she liked the depiction of people on color in my Indian set book, Veils of Silk. There are several Indian characters who have their own goals, romances, and agendas.

In The Bartered Bride, the white heroine was enslaved in Indonesia and later takes in a black servant after she told the girl that she was free in England. That girl also has her own story and motivations.

In in A Distant Magic (paperback release today), one of the three point of view characters is an African sorceress. She has her own storyline, too--being captured and sold into slavery, freeing herself, and committing herself to working for abolition to free all her people. She has a love story, too, and gets the last word in the book.

THe hero in that book is a quarter African as well--a fact that is not unimportant to the plot.

Do I get it right? Darned if I know. But I do try.

Mary Jo

[Patricia Rice]

Thanks, Mary Jo, I knew you'd taken this much further than I've tried.

Liz, I need to look into "street" fiction. I'm not at all certain I know what you're talking about. But I do know marketing--as both a positive and a negative. Taking something original and pure that appeals to only a few and making it into something mixed breed that appeals to the mass market is way too familiar a topic. "WG"

[liz]

Pat -

I google, therefore I am. These two links are pretty good descriptions, you'll see a lot of mainstream publisher street books at the walmart romance sections - or advertised in Vibe, etc.

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2005/08/15/street_fiction/

diaryofananxiousblackwoman.blogspot.com/ 2007/07/book-smarts-street-smarts-my-day-at.html

[theo]

Stepping in a moment to say...I love the different settings, whether they be regency, other continent, the colonies, what have you, as long as the historical information in them is well researched and documentable (is that a word?) but the thing that ultimately drives me to read the book is the story itself. Do I get caught up in the characters? Whether they be slave or free, is there something about them that touches me enough to keep me reading, regardless if they're on a ship, in Egypt or in the Bermuda Triangle....

And that's my two cents, FWIW :D

[talpianna]

I can think of several settings for books with strong black characters--the Underground Railroad, the Harlem Renaissance, and Motown for starters.

[Patricia Rice]

Thanks, Liz, that's handy info. I need to get out more. "G"

Utterly agree, Theo. The characters make the book. Unfortunately, to get people to pick up the book in the first place... That's the difficulty.

Exactly, Tal. I'm in MO, sitting on top of the Dred Scott case... that was a real earth shaker. But will romance readers read real history? We do seem to like our fluff. The balance is delicate.

[Geri]

Back in the 1990s, when I first started to read romance novels, I found this wonderful novel entitled:
SHELTER FROM THE STORM by
Patrica Rice.
To this day it remains in my top ten all time favorites. And, you have been on my automatic buy list. Back then, you, Karen Robarts, Patrica Potter and others were writing the type of material that is in difficult to find today.

[Patricia Rice]

Geri, I'm glad SHELTER caught your eye. That came out right about the time romances started getting "fluffier." I thought I'd written a breakout book. Instead, it got shuffled to the back to make room for the Topaz Man. "G" The writing was on the wall right there...

[Virginia]

"Does anyone know or have any good books on the subject of freed slaves in England in the extended Regency period?

jrox"

I don't have anything on England, but as an outgrowth of the work I did on Canadian participants in the American Revolution back in the 1970s, I do have data on the free settlements in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (set up by the British for the slaves who left pro-US masters and enlisted in the British army, and their families). If you are interested, I can provide you with some bibliography.

[Virginia]

"Another peeve of mine. If all history was taught correctly and fairly, everyone would see how varied the black experience was in America. Is it common knowledge that free blacks lived in the South in the very prime of slavery? Or that there were educated blacks. Wealthy blacks. And so on. We weren't all slaves.

Angela"

For those interested in an introduction to the situation in the upper south, I recommend Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of Virginia and North Carolina. It's now in its third edition, I believe. You can find some introduction to its content on the web, and there's a good bibliography.

[talpianna]

There's also the fact that one of the most famous African-American heroines, Sojourner Truth, was born into and spent her early life in slavery in the state of New York--where slavery was still legal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth

[buggalugs]

Hi I recall listening on the radio about slavery and piracy, a really interesting interview, the man wrote this book abut it.

Title: If A Pirate I Must Be: The True Story of Bartholomew Roberts, King of the Caribbean
Author: Richard Sanders
Publisher: ABC Books & Audio
ISBN-13 9780733321184

The transcript can be found here.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2007/1967340.htm
Cheers to all

[Jennifer Kelly]

I have to say that although the gowns, and ballroom of historical London society tend to lure me in, a great historical love on the high seas is just as enthralling. Because London society has so many more years of history and the intricate way their society lived is incredibly fascinating (weather you agree with the life styles or not), a story set in early North america CAN BE JUST AS FASCINATING. I personally feel that the slave era is not romantic, however it is an intricate part of American history and must be used in order to provide a true sense of the particualr era. Not to say that the story cannot be made romantic, but the author has to be able to weave the history (the good and bad) into the story without changing the overall feeling, effect, and sense of the story shift to more of a history lesson than love story. I would love to see you write a stories about both pirates and romance in early North America. After all, almost any pirate, captive, stow away or early North American immigrant is running from something in the London society...aren't they?