Student Question
Compare Ness's life as an antebellum slave to H's life as a former slave in the 1870s.
Quick answer:
At the time of slavery, there was no being a "good master" for African-Americans who were enslaved. Thomas Stockham is described as an exception to this rule because he treats his slaves humanely and does not abuse them, but Ness knows that he can be cruel to the slaves living in his other plantations. The law allowed slave catchers to accuse any black person of being a runaway slave. This leads to Anna's capture by a bounty hunter and her eventual enslavement. The combination of brutal conditions in the fields, the fear of being accused of being a runaway slave, and the lack of options available makes it seem impossible for a slave to have a good life on an American plantation.
In Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, we are introduced to a character in each generation of a family that begins with two estranged sisters on the Gold Coast of Africa in the 1700s. Ness and H are two of these characters, and H is the grandson of Ness.
Ness's mother, Esi, is taken as a slave from Africa to the American South and passes on memories of the Middle Passage to her daughter (70). At the start of Ness's chapter, she is working on an Alabama plantation owned by Thomas Allan Stockham. The narrator describes Stockham as "a good master, if such a thing existed" (71). Previously, Ness experienced brutal treatment on a plantation in Mississippi she calls Hell. Over the course of the chapter, we learn what happened in "Hell" that molded Ness into her current character. Ness is rather distant and keeps to herself, which is something she seems...
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to get from her mother. We also learn that she was married to a slave named Sam. After she and Sam have a child named Kojo, they try to run away with a fellow slave and the baby. They are chased and caught, but Aku is able to get away with Kojo. After Sam and Ness are returned to the plantation, "the Devil" kills Sam in front of Ness and then gives her a severe beating. This beating leaves scars on Ness that prevent her from working in the house at Stockham's plantation, even though he thinks she is "too pretty" to work the fields (72). Ness's backstory from "Hell" explains why she is so withdrawn and why she bonds so naturally with the young Pinky on Stockham's plantation. At the end of Ness's story, we learn that she simply wants her son to be protected and hopes the best for him "wherever he may be" (87).
Her son, Kojo, does get away and lives the life of a free man in Baltimore in the mid-1800s. He has a very happy life with a wife he loves and seven children—with another on the way. Kojo is a skilled laborer, and his wife works as a maid; she was born free, whereas he escaped slavery as a young child. During Kojo's chapter, we hear about the law that returns runaway slaves to the South; because there is a monetary reward, "slave catchers" can accuse any black man or woman of being a slave, which can lead to their arrest and enslavement. Black individuals needed legitimate free papers to avoid capture, and sometimes that did not even guarantee safety. Anna goes missing and is presumably captured. We find out later that she was indeed enslaved, and she gives birth to H on the plantation. She commits suicide after that.
H is eventually freed, through abolition, and we find him imprisoned (for a rather minor crime). He is basically sold as a coal miner, which constitues another form of slavery. H's chapter highlights the ways black men could still be virtually enslaved even though true plantation slavery had been abolished. He works extremely hard and witnesses a lot of violence and death in the mines. Eventually, after many years, he is freed and is able to obtain work with a former friend from the mines. Then, he is able to build a house and win back his former partner, Ethe. The end of his chapter promises the hope of a better life, but we cannot forget how he has suffered. H's story emphasizes the injustice he uncovers as a result of his time in prison and in the mines. He joins a union to fight for fair working conditions and hours for miners. H is part of social change in a time that is still very much marred by the racism that motivated slavery.